Jump Start # 970

Ezekiel 34:4 “Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost; but with force and with severity you have dominated them.”

We continue our look at leadership, especially now focusing upon leadership in the church. The New Testament gives us a series of words that are descriptive of the nature of the work of God’s leaders among His people. These words include: elder, which signifies experience, especially spiritually; bishop or overseer, which carries the idea of watching and protecting; shepherd or pastor, which implies a feeder, caretaker or nourishment to the flock. It may be surprising to some of our readers to know this, but the word “pastor” is used only ONE time in the N.T. and it is used for the eldership and not the preacher. The preacher is not the pastor. If a person wants to be accurate with the way the Bible speaks, then he will recognize that.

Our verse today, from Ezekiel, reminds us that shepherding God’s people involves messy work and it requires patience. Notice the condition of the sheep found in this passage. They are diseased, broken, scattered and lost. Not good. They are a mess. They have issues and problems. Everything isn’t neat and tidy. Everyone is not in their place. These sheep need attention. They need a real shepherd. Unless the current situations changed, many of these sheep would not make it.

I’m not sure what exactly came to Ezekiel’s mind when he spoke those words, but they are all connected to sin. The consequences of sin will leave one sick, broken, scattered and lost. Sin cripples us. There are addictions. There are broken homes. There are those who quit and must be chased after. People problems are the worst problems of all. Sin problems make people problems very complicated. A pill won’t fix these problem, nor will simply giving a Bible verse. Lessons have to be taught. People have to learn the wrongness of their choices and the forgiving nature of God. They need to be strengthened so Satan won’t dominate them again. In our world, this requires phone calls and giving up a Saturday morning and meeting families at the church building on a Tuesday evening. The journey to recovery and fellowship with God takes time. It takes just a few moments to make a mess. A day of heavy rain can flood a basement and what a mess there is. It will take longer than a day to clean it up. A person can fall and just like that break a hip. The process to heal can take a long, long time. The leaders of God’s people must be patient. There is no quick and easy way to fix some problems. Those who are annoyed because they have to meet with someone and miss the ballgame on TV will not have the listening ear nor the compassionate heart that is necessary to begin the road to recovery.

Sheep, and that’s us, can really get in messes sometimes. It seems that we get sick, broken and lost fairly often. The shepherd’s work is two fold. First, help mend and heal those that are in a mess, and then try to prevent this from happening again. There are others who might be just a step away from being sick or broken. Preventative measures can ward off a bunch of problems. Instead of following messes with a broom to clean up, shepherds’ do well to anticipate coming problems and lead the flock away from those areas.

What we are seeing is that the work of God’s shepherds involves leading us and helping us stay healthy and on the journey to Heaven. That’s the attention that elders need to be focusing upon. Budgets and buying supplies and seeing after the care of the church building can take all the time and energy of elders but at the end of the day, the yard is cut, the lights turn on, the heat works, the roof keeps the water out and all the pencils are sharpened yet the sheep remain sick, broken and lost. A clean church building doesn’t produce clean sheep. God’s shepherds need to be about healing the sick and broken sheep. This is their work. This is the greatest thing that they can do. This changes lives and can change family destinies. Through their efforts a divorce can be headed off and a marriage turned around. Through their work a heart that is discouraged and ready to quit can be revived. Their influence can stop an addiction. There is so many wonderful and powerful things that they are capable of doing.

Shepherds must believe in the sheep. They must see the good that the sheep have a potential of becoming. Too often all we see is the mess. Dirty sheep. Sheep with tumors. Sheep that limp. Blind sheep. Deaf sheep. Old sheep. Slow sheep. Sheep with attitudes. With patience, teaching and examples, the shepherds can turn these sheep around into what pleases God.

To be a shepherd is to know sheep. To be a shepherd is to understand what affects sheep and what sheep need. To be a shepherd is to know what God wants from His sheep.

The work of shepherding is incredible. To see a healthy sheep that was once sickly and broken is amazing. The shepherd did not give up on the sheep. The shepherd did not shoot the wounded. There is such great satisfaction in seeing sheep turn around.

This is God’s work for the shepherd. God bless those who understand this and are trying.

Roger