Please stand as we recite the Shema together.
The Shema
Hear O Israel!
The Lord is our God – the Lord Alone.
Love the Lord your God
With all your heart,
With all your soul,
And with all your might,
And love your neighbor as yourself. Amen.
Thank You, Lord! You may be seated. We are continuing with that which was before us a number of weeks ago, before the holiday season. We return to 2 Samuel Chapter 5, verse 2.
2 Sam 5:2, Previously, when Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel out and in. And the Lord said to you, 'You will shepherd My people Israel, and you will be a ruler over Israel.'" 
	We are dealing with the fact that God, throughout the history of His Chosen people, has dealt with them through leaders who took upon themselves the care and provision of the people. This was with the sense of the responsibility as a shepherd, who tends for his flock. This was the way that the Lord brought forth the necessary heart of the one who would guide and direct and establish the fundamental provision of the nation as unto the Lord.
	We have seen that the great king of Israel, David, was such a man with a heart after God and after the care of the nation. He saw himself as the one who was responsible to Jehovah for the manner in which he dealt with God’s people. His training as a shepherd directed the means of showing the nation of Israel the loving kindness and tender mercy that would come forth from one whose being was the protection and the care of a flock that was precious and in need of constant attention.
	This was attested to by the Psalmist, as in Ps 78:70-72, where the Lord so chose such a one who was trained as a shepherd and would lead the nation in that manner. It was not in terms of, “I am your king and you must obey my every edict!” Rather, it was in the way a shepherd leads the sheep from the front and is willing to lay down his life for the flock. It required gentleness and soothing along with discretion and understanding in the manner in which the flock would be led to green pastures and water, all the while maintaining the safety and well-being of each one.
	Ps 78:70-72, He also chose David His servant, And took him from the sheepfolds; From the care of the ewes with suckling lambs He brought him, To shepherd Jacob His people, And Israel His inheritance. So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, And guided them with his skillful hands. 
	This was the same manner in which the Prophet Isaiah, in Isa 40:10-14, details Jehovah’s care for His people. It is with the heart of a shepherd who will put the welfare and the safety and the provision and heed of the flock above any personal interests. 
God deals with us, in our stubbornness and our self-centeredness as a shepherd looks after each of the willfully stupid and obstinate wandering lambs of the flock. God holds each one and carries those who need the security of the arms of God wrapped around them in every time of intense struggle and anguish.
	Isa 40:10-14, Behold, the Lord God will come with might, With His arm ruling for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him, And His recompense before Him. Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, In His arm He will gather the lambs, And carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, And marked off the heavens by the span, And calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, And weighed the mountains in a balance, And the hills in a pair of scales? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, Or as His counselor has informed Him? With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding? And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge, And informed Him of the way of understanding? 
	The Lord God Almighty, Yahweh, created the heavens and the earth. He set into place that heart of understanding within those who would be the shepherds of His flock. God did not need to learn this reality of the care of those who are in such need of protection and provision and guidance. That is an essential characteristic of Who He is and how He deals with those whom He has created and drawn unto Himself. 
However, that preparation to be a human shepherd of the people of God did and does require training and commitment and a heart that cherishes the people over whom the Lord has placed that man or woman. There are years of coaching and teaching and patient endurance that need to be established within the heart of the one so called by God, whom He puts into the care of those who are so very precious to the Lord, dealing with them just as God so deals with each of His own.
	Again, the Prophet Ezekiel describes this loving and patient and caring heart of God just as a shepherd, in Ezek 34:11-24. This describes how God seeks to place those with this heart of love for His people, in training up those who will deal thusly with each community of believers on this earth. 
This passage also details exactly how much God will execute His judgment on those who do not so care for His people. God does not abandon those beloved saints of His family in Christ Jesus. He does not look lightly on the care that we receive and the food that is put before those who are hungry for the good Word of God that will nourish and establish and encourage and maintain the growth into Christ Jesus of the redeemed of the Lord. 
	As God has so worked to bring His people unto Himself, gathering them from the far corners of this earth, so does He expect that they will be given nourishment and establishment in His Word by the expressed working of the Holy Spirit.  Those whom He has placed into that position as the shepherds of His people are expected to provide what He makes available in the teaching and the establishment of their responsibility to God, Alone, for the care of each community of believers.   
	Ezek 34:11-24, For thus says the Lord God, "Behold, I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. "As a shepherd cares for his herd in the day when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will care for My sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day. "And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them to their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the streams, and in all the inhabited places of the land. "I will feed them in a good pasture, and their grazing ground will be on the mountain heights of Israel. There they will lie down in good grazing ground, and they will feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. "I will feed My flock and I will lead them to rest," declares the Lord God. "I will seek the lost, bring back the scattered, bind up the broken, and strengthen the sick; but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with judgment. "And as for you, My flock, thus says the Lord God, 'Behold, I will judge between one sheep and another, between the rams and the male goats. 'Is it too slight a thing for you that you should feed in the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pastures? Or that you should drink of the clear waters, that you must foul the rest with your feet? 'And as for My flock, they must eat what you tread down with your feet, and they must drink what you foul with your feet!'" Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them, "Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. "Because you push with side and with shoulder, and thrust at all the weak with your horns, until you have scattered them abroad, therefore, I will deliver My flock, and they will no longer be a prey; and I will judge between one sheep and another. "Then I will set over them one shepherd, My servant David, and he will feed them; he will feed them himself and be their shepherd. "And I, the Lord, will be their God, and My servant David will be prince among them; I, the Lord, have spoken. 
	The Prophet also highlights the fact, in the passage that we just read, as well as in Ezek 37:24-28, that there will be the One King, from the lineage of David, Who will be the One Shepherd over the entire flock of God. Because God has invested Himself so fully into His people, keeping them unto Himself, working mightily to save and to comfort and to guide and to lead His chosen people to good pastures and abundant, living water, He will make the provision for their eternal care. As He brings forward the reality of the peace and spiritual prosperity that will result in the appropriate care and nurturing of His people by the everlasting kingship of the Christ, so do we share together in the promise of that great heritage in Jesus.
	Ezek 37:24-28, "And My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd; and they will walk in My ordinances, and keep My statutes, and observe them. "And they shall live on the land that I gave to Jacob My servant, in which your fathers lived; and they will live on it, they, and their sons, and their sons' sons, forever; and David My servant shall be their prince forever. "And I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will place them and multiply them, and will set My sanctuary in their midst forever. "My dwelling place also will be with them; and I will be their God, and they will be My people. "And the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forever."'" 
	This was such an important reality and promise of God that the Prophet Micah, in Micah 5:2-4, also was given the message to proclaim, with even greater detail as to the manner in which the true Shepherd of the people of God would be forthcoming. This is the passage which declared that the Christ would come from the city of David and would shepherd the flock of God in the perfection of the heart of God’s love and caring strength and majesty.
	Micah 5:2-4, "But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity." Therefore, He will give them up until the time When she who is in labor has borne a child. Then the remainder of His brethren Will return to the sons of Israel. And He will arise and shepherd His flock In the strength of the Lord, In the majesty of the name of the Lord His God. And they will remain, Because at that time He will be great To the ends of the earth. 
	This brings us into the New Testament with the birth of The Only Begotten Son of God, in the exact manner and place as was so prophesied. Please turn to Matt 2:1-6 as we read this account together. We are as well instructed that this eternal king of the Jews, Jesus, will guide the people as a shepherd with the care and provision for each one that is indicative of the heart of God Almighty.
	Matt 2:1-6, Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, "Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east, and have come to worship Him." And when Herod the king heard it, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he began to inquire of them where the Christ was to be born. And they said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet, 'And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, Are by no means least among the leaders of Judah; For out of you shall come forth a Ruler, Who will shepherd My people Israel.'" 
	We conclude this consideration of how God was so caring for the people of His choosing that He sets forth those leaders who will have hearts of shepherds, and not tyrants, over the people. He also keeps a close watch over His flock and will always do so to make sure that the people who are called by His name will be cared for, and provided for, and directed and maintained with all that is necessary for growth and maturity in Christ Jesus. 
That is why Jesus, Himself, is the Good Shepherd. He announced His care and keeping of those whom God has given Him for all of eternity. We are in the excellent hands of the Great and Glorious Lord God Almighty through the care and keeping of Jesus in the working power of the Holy Spirit.
	Please turn to the manifold declaration of this truth as detailed in the wondrous passage of John 10:1-16. Herein, Jesus Christ promises to provide and maintain the safety and well-being of each one of those who are now made to be part of His flock.
	John 10:1-16, "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. "But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. "To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out. "When he puts forth all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. "And a stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers."  This figure of speech Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were which He had been saying to them. Jesus therefore said to them again, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. "All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. "I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. "The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly. "I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. "He who is a hireling, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, beholds the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and flees, and the wolf snatches them, and scatters them. "He flees because he is a hireling, and is not concerned about the sheep. "I am the good shepherd; and I know My own, and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. "And I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they shall hear My voice; and they shall become one flock with one shepherd. 
Accordingly, in this promise, Jesus not only took upon Himself the proper placement as the Good Shepherd over those Jews who would believe in Him, but He announced that there were other sheep, in the nations of the Gentiles, who would be brought together into the one flock of His care and keeping. The tremendous heart of God for the sake of such as we are is fulfilled for all of eternity in the Great and Awesome Good Shepherd Who has so given His life for the sake of our redemption and inclusion into the one flock of the people of God. So be it.
Previously, when Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel out and in. And the Lord said to you, 'You will shepherd My people Israel, and you will be a ruler over Israel.'" Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Eph 4:32. And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Amen.