A. INTRODUCTION
In this world, different individuals stand as shepherds for us on different grounds. For young children their fathers or mothers are their shepherd. For students their teachers/counselors serve the purpose. To a church, the shepherd is the servant(s) of God puts to oversee the congregation. To a community the King, to a state or nation the governor/president as the case may be. Can you tell us other correlation in this perspective?
To our mind, the closest human shepherd to a wife is her husband and husband, wife and the children form intimate unit, although there are other persons who could also be regarded as our loved ones. Ordinarily, every human being wishes and desires that his shepherd or loved ones be with him or her forever. These desires have been seen not to hold in all cases. More often than not our loved ones, may not be able to be with us here in the world for as long as we desire. This has been the reason; we had witnessed the death of some of our loved ones in this life. And such occurrence have always been painful. Tell us briefly your experience when you lost a loved one.
Notwithstanding these general occurrences, we have a shepherd who promised to live with us forever. He said he will never leave us nor forsake us Hebrew 13:5.
We should not be afraid once we have this shepherd because, he can no longer die again.
B. THE DESCRIPTION OF THE SHEPHERD
I. Our Lord Jesus who is our shepherd has been variously described in the scripture
a. He is the shepherd of the sheep. John 10:2
b. He is the good shepherd. John 10:11,14
c. He is my shepherd. Psalm 23:1
d. He is the great shepherd. Hebrews 13:10
e. He is the shepherd and bishop of our souls. I Pet.2:25
f. He is the chief shepherd. I Pet. 5:4
g. He is the shepherd of God. Zechariah 13:7
II. Let us discuss some of the qualities and responsibilities of a shepherd from these passages. John 10:7,9:10,11,14, 15,I Pet.2:25 I Pet.5:4
III. Briefly highlight the usual functions of our shepherd and what should be our expected responses
(a) Responsibilities of shepherd
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(b) What our responses should be
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IV. Is Jesus Christ the shepherd of everybody on the earth?
Yet see John 10:16.Give reasons for your answer
V. Let us discuss how he can become our shepherd.
a. As we are in the world we have been subjects to different kinds of lusts and pleasures of the world. I Cor.12:2
b. The shepherd has an expectation and has made a call that we should come unto Him.Matt.11:28-29
c. In other words it is a call to repentance or salvation for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Rom 3:23,6:23. Matt 3:17
d. We need to respond through repentance and turning to Him from our sins. Acts 3:19
e. From these passages, mention some of the things that have hindered you from having this Shepherd as your own Shepherd. Romans 1:28, Gal. 5:19-21.
f. We must believe in his redemption work for our salvation and accept him as our Saviour or Shepherd
g. What are the outcomes of our repentance and accepting Him as our Saviour and Shepherd
i. Our sins are forgiven
ii. We enter into a time of refreshing Acts 3:19
iii. He restores our souls Ps. 23
iv. He becomes our shepherd and bishop of our souls
v. He lives with us, communicates with us and comforts us
vi. He gives eternal life to us. Will you allow Him to become your shepherd as from today and forever?
PART II
In the first part of this study, we examined the concept of various shepherds we encounter in this world and noted that they may not be able to live with us forever.
For us to continually enjoy the good shepherd, we must form certain relationship with Him. This will help us develop an intimate relationship that will cause Him to lead us not only in the world but forever.
A. Developing a personal relationship with Him
God created us for specific purposes. One of the general purposes is for us to be with the shepherd Luke 6:12 so that He will equip and empower us. The shepherd wants His sheep to always be with Him so that He can protect and guide them
i. How can we be close to our shepherd?
ii. Mention some of the things that can help us to be closer to Jesus and some of the things that can distance Him from us. Isaiah 55:5-6,II Cor.6:1-2.Rom.1:28-32
iii. What was the mistake of Peter at the trial of Jesus Christ Matt.27. We must learn not to follow Jesus at a distance
B. Fellowshipping with other believers
For us to continue an everlasting relationship with the shepherd, we must have fellowship with genuine sheep like us. I John 1:3.
There are so many Christian organizations today and one needs to be very careful before deciding on which church to attend. There are so many wolves in sheep skin. Matt 7: 15, Matt. 23:14
i. Tell us some of the churches you’ve attended and your experience
ii. How can we know a genuine church if you discover that you are going to a wrong church
iii. What steps do you need to take in this regard?
iv. In Matt.23:14 Jesus talked about wolves as shepherds who devour widows houses Matt.23:14
C. Developing daily devotional life
To have a continuous relationship with our shepherd, we must all develop a daily devotional life. See the example of our Lord Jesus Christ in Mark 1:35
i. He rises up early to meet His father at a special location
ii. He desires first to speak to His father before speaking to any other human being
iii. He knows that his heart would not have been bothered by the pressures of this world
iv. As widow we must create a particular time of the day or week to have a personal meeting with God
v. The following are necessary for our devotion; Bible, a devotional book, note and pen, list of prayer requests
vi. Considers the following examples. Ps. 5:3, Mark 1:35,Gen.19:27
vii. Discuss the following problems associated with quiet time and make effort to find solutions to them; sleepiness and tiredness (Luke 22:45-46) laziness, sin (Gen 3:8:11), unbelief (James 1:6-7) wrong motive (Jam 4:3) noise and disturbance and so on.
D. Learning to hear Him
In John 10:3 the Great Shepherd says his sheep must know his voice therefore as a sheep to a Great Shepherd, one of the basic things we must know is his voice. We must know how God speaks to us, so that we will not listen to the voice of strangers. God speaks to us in the following ways;
i. Through our heart/conscience-when we do something bad, our conscience will condemn us.
ii. God speaks to us through His word, therefore we need to read it always.
iii. God speaks to us through messages, through the spoken word-preaching word.
iv. He also speaks through the witness of the Holy Spirit.
v. God speaks through His genuine servants
vi. He also speaks through our environment or circumstances.
4. What are the ways in which God speaks to you?
5. You must need to develop a personal way of communicating with God
Conclusion
We have discovered, it is virtually impossible for whatever earthly shepherd we have to be with us for as long as we wish, but, we have our great shepherd who has promised never to leave us, nor forsake us. It is our responsibility to do those things and develop a personal relationship with him to make him our shepherd forever. Some of the things we have considered in this study that can help us to do so include developing a personal relationship with him, having a personal devotional life, as well as learning how to communicate with him. It is our prayer, that as we leave this conference our great shepherd shall make himself available to us daily and we shall develop the required intimate relationship with him. May the good Lord help us to do this. Amen.