PRINCIPLE OF TAPPING INTO THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD – PART TWO

We are back to continue from where we stopped last time: Tapping into the All-Sufficiency of the Good Shepherd or Principles for Tapping into the All-Sufficiency of the Good Shepherd.

PRAYER:

We pray now, dear Lord, that Your Spirit will enable us as we come to this discussion, to understand this vital principles that You have given to us in Your Word, for overcoming want and lack in our lives. Open our eyes and our understanding now to get hold of them, in Jesus Name. Amen!

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not lack – I shall not want is not a magic wand. The observation we made last time was that there are principles behind tapping into the promises of God or the provisions of God. But we are concerned with the all-sufficiency of the Good Shepherd based on Psalms 23:1: The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. And we said last time that we will borrow from the experience of Peter in Luke 5, how he tapped into the all-sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Good shepherd.

Luke 5. We are not going to read the text as we did last time; but it is from verse 1-11. But I will read the relevant verses when we get to them. He had already started discussing the principles for tapping into the all-sufficiency of the Good Shepherd.

The first one was to get involved in the grand purpose or plan of the Good Shepherd. And the grand purpose or plan of the Good Shepherd was to win souls, to save the lost. And that was what He was doing with Peter’s boat. In that text, in Luke 5 we saw that Peter was involved; got involved in this grand purpose by allowing the Good Shepherd: the Master – the Lord Jesus to borrow his boat and his time. And secondly, he freed up something for the Good Shepherd. And that is: his time and his boat.

Principle Three

The third principle is to go where the Good Shepherd wants you to go and to do what He commands you to do. And that is in Luke 5:4

Luke 5:4

⁴ When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”

There are two commands there: launch out into the deep; the second command, let down your nets for a catch. No fisherman catches any reasonably sized fish (if any at all) in shallow waters. That is why the Good shepherd wanted Peter to launch out into the deeper part of the Sea of Galilee.

By the same token no believer in Christ can tap into the all-sufficiency of the Good Shepherd who will not go deeper in Him.

We used to sing this chorus:

I will dig a little deeper;

Jesus love must be sweeter;

I will dig a little deeper,

Deeper yet.

Staying at the periphery of the Christian experience, remaining at the shallow fringes of the Christian life will rob you of the all-sufficiency of the Good Shepherd. Christians who are at the periphery will always do the barest minimum in terms of their Christian responsibility. They resist going a mile with Jesus – let alone going extra mile. They read a few verses of scripture and pray five minutes daily; and wonder why they cannot tap into the all-sufficiency of the Good Shepherd. It was the willingness to go the extra mile that opened the abundant wealth of Abraham and Isaac to Rebecca. If you remember the account in Genesis 24 when the servant of Abraham went to seek a bride for Isaac; and what happened there is very interesting.

In Genesis 24:17-20

¹⁷ And the servant ran to meet her and said, “Please let me drink a little water from your pitcher.”

¹⁸ So she said, “Drink, my lord.” Then she quickly let her pitcher down to her hand, and gave him a drink. ¹⁹ And when she had finished giving him a drink, she said, “I will draw water for your camels also, until they have finished drinking.” ²⁰ Then she quickly emptied her pitcher into the trough, ran back to the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels.

How many camels? In that scripture, Genesis 24:10 tells us that Abraham’s servant went with ten camels. And a thirsty camel can drink as many as thirty gallons or a hundred and thirty-five liters of water in about thirteen minutes. So this girl fetched about three hundred gallons of water from the well, not from a tap – going the extra mile. And of course going the extra mile qualified her to receive the abundant wealth of Abraham and Isaac.

Principal Four

Permit the Word of God or the Word of the Good Shepherd to supersede your past experiences.

Luke 5:5

⁵ But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.”

Peter’s professional experience and his experience the previous night made it clear that it would be a fruitless exercise trying to catch fish at the lake in the broad day light. But he allowed the Word of the Good Shepherd to override his experiences. Right from the Garden of Eden God has shown that revealed knowledge is superior and more beneficial to experiential or experimental knowledge. But Adam and Eve would not take that – would not believe it. And you know what it cost them. When God reveals His knowledge, take it. Don’t try to use your own human experience to nullify what God has said. Some young people, even some adults, prefer to learn, not from God’s revealed Word but from their own experiences. And we pay a very high price when we do; because we cannot tap into His all-sufficiency.

Principal Five

Avoid giving the Good Shepherd partial obedience.

Avoid giving the Lord partial obedience.

Luke 5:5-6

⁵ But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.” ⁶ And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking.

But what did Jesus say to him? In verse 4, Launch out into the deep and let down your nets (Plural) for a catch. So what is going on? Peter nearly lost this abundant blessing because he gave the Lord Jesus partial obedience.

If we compare his experience here with his experience in John 21 where they had a similar experience (caught a number of fish miraculously because Jesus appeared to them by the Sea of Galilee after His resurrection) they had so much fish in the net – but the net did not break, according to the Word of God. Why? Because it was one net that Jesus commanded them to cast into the sea; and they obeyed. That was full obedience. And though they caught 153 big fish the net did not break. Peter must have reasoned: well, I will obey You, Master, but from my professional experience I don’t think if we catch anything it will be much. So instead of casting my nets I will cast just one. He nearly lost the abundant catch.

Well. Let me conclude by saying at the end of the day Peter tapped into quadruple blessings. Let me quickly go through those blessings.

1. First is the one that is obvious, the astonishing catch of fish;
2. The second is spiritual. There was a spiritual change. In verse 8 Peter, when he saw this wonderful blessing – miraculous blessing, he said: depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man. He came under conviction. And that is the first step we take into spiritual renewal, into spiritual blessing.

• Then thirdly, he had a spiritual promoting.

Verse 10

“Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men.”

From catching fish to catching men. That is spiritual promotion.

1. And then fourthly, the ability to give superlatively – the ability to give much more.

In verse 11

¹¹ So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed Him.

How blessed are you, friend? Are you tapping into the superabundance of the Good Shepherd? We will lack nothing just as the Lord said, if we are willing to get involved in His grand purpose or plan; and that is winning souls for Christ, turning people away from hell into heaven. We will. We are willing to free up something He demands or desires for His grand plan or purpose. We will tap into His all-sufficiency if we will obey Him implicitly. We will tap into His all-sufficiently if we permit His revealed Word to supersede our experiences. And then of course finally, if we resist giving Him partial obedience.

When we are willing to take these principles, not all of them all at once – as the circumstance would demand, if you will apply these principles where necessary you will see that indeed what the Lord said concerning you, if you are His sheep, is true; you will not lack any good thing.

PRAYER:

Thank You, Father, for today. Thank You for Your Word. Thank You for those who have listened. I commit them into Your hands, O God, and ask that as the voice of a man ceases may the voice of the Holy Spirit continue to Speak to them until they are able to put these principles into operation; and experience Your superabundance in the Name of Jesus. Amen!