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August 10, 2003
9th Sunday after Pentecost
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Pastor Joel Zank

The LORD Nurtures His Sheep!

(Jeremiah 23:1-6) "Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!" declares the LORD.2 Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: "Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done," declares the LORD.3 "I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number.4 I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing," declares the LORD.5 "The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land.6 In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.

In Christ Jesus, our good and loving Shepherd, dear fellow sheep of God's flock,

If you've been following the news, then you know by now that the Episcopal Church, meeting in convention this past week, elected an openly gay bishop to serve its New Hampshire diocese. I need not tell you that such an action was applauded by many as an important decision that, in their view, will help cause Christianity to become a more understanding and all-embracing religion. But you should also know that the election has left many others in tears for they recognize the action as a departure from God's Word and a clear defiance of his will, one that has them wondering what the future holds for Christianity in our country, and for that matter, in our world.

If any of us have been wondering that same thing, we need wonder no longer because our Lord Jesus, the Lord of the Church has something to say about these things. Listen and be assured of this most important truth: The LORD Nurtures His Sheep! He protects them; He prospers them; and He provides for them.

Throughout the Scriptures God calls his people his sheep; and so in keeping with that imagery, he refers to their spiritual leaders as shepherds. Through these agents God nurtures his people, that is, he raises them to know and believe the saving promises he has made to them. As long as the shepherds do God's work, they live under God's blessing. But if ever they should fail to teach or live God's truth, then the LORD himself must punish the shepherds in order to protect his sheep from eternal harm.

It was the work of the prophet Jeremiah to deliver this warning to the sinful shepherds of his day. Serving as the voice of God himself, Jeremiah told the leaders of God's church: "Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!" 2 Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: "Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done," declares the LORD" (Jeremiah 23:1-2).

What had those shepherds done to make God so angry? Again, speaking on God's behalf, Jeremiah tells us in the verses that follow our text: "...among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen something horrible: They commit adultery and live a lie. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his wickedness. They are all like Sodom to me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah." 17 They keep saying to those who despise me, 'The LORD says: You will have peace.' And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts they say, 'No harm will come to you'" (Jeremiah 23:14,17).

God became angry with shepherds who failed to call sin, sin whether it happened to be their own disobedience or that of the sheep they served. To make matters worse, those horrible shepherds promised God's blessings of peace and safety to those living in sin, telling them, "It doesn't matter how you live. God won't punish you."

Those shepherds were dead wrong. God will punish the impenitent. He punished those shepherds for destroying God's sheep with their lies. He punished them for scattering the sheep and driving them into the waiting arms of every kind of sinful pleasure. The LORD protected his sheep by punishing those loveless shepherds in such a way that they could do no more evil to the lambs of God's flock.

Because the Word of God is timeless and because his will in unchanging, God's threats spoken by Jeremiah are just as valid and certain today as they were 2600 years ago. I shudder to think how easy it is for me as a shepherd of God's flock to kindle his anger. If by my lifestyle I lead you, his sheep, to think that sin is permissible; or if by my lack of love and courage I fail to point out your sin and its eternal consequence, I become a threat to your salvation and therefore a target of God's wrath and punishment. In his desire to nurture you, to raise you as his children, he will protect you by destroying all that threatens your spiritual well-being. So great is his love for the sheep.

But understand that God's threats are meant not only for loveless shepherds, but also for rebellious sheep. St. Paul once warned young Pastor Timothy: "The time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths" (2 Timothy 4:3-4). The LORD nurtures his sheep always and only in the green pastures of his Word. When the sheep wander off into the desert of myths and false teachings, they will starve and die eternally.

You and I have journeyed into that desert every time we have decided to turn away from some teaching of God's Word. Maybe like spoiled children we have plugged our ears to avoid God's scolding voice of law; Or maybe we've dismissed some teaching of Scripture as out-dated or politically incorrect. (Isn't that the message coming out of the Episcopal convention?) Be warned, my friends, God won't tolerate such tampering with his Word. At the very end of the Bible's last chapter God says, "If anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city..." (Revelation 22:19). Any Christian who turns away from God's truth forfeits his place in heaven and has only hell ahead of him.

How can any of us, then, ever hoped to be saved? Only by the grace of our God. We have all turned away from his truth many, many times. His Word convicts all of us today. This, too, God does in love. In his desire to nurture us, he protects us even from our sinful self by pointing out the damning nature of our sin so that we might repent of it and look only to him for help. And help is exactly what God gives us.

God says in verses 3-4 of our text: "I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number.4 I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing," declares the LORD (Jeremiah 23:3-4).

During the latter part of the Old Testament period, God sent many of his sinful sheep into exile in foreign lands. It seemed to be the end of God's church. But in those foreign lands the people had time to think about their sin and its consequences. They brought their disobedience to God and prayed for his forgiveness-forgiveness that God gave them in abundance. God brought some of his repentant sheep back to Judah. Others remained in foreign lands. But God nurtured all of them in the pastures of his Word and by that Word he caused his flock to prosper both in size and in faith.

God still does the same thing today. His church is attacked by enemies from the outside and by traitors within. But still God prospers his church. You and I are living proof. By the power of his Gospel in Word and sacrament God has called you and me out of unbelief to faith. He has prospered his flock by adding you and me to the number of those being saved. And by his Word and sacrament God continues to prosper us. As often as our sin separates us from God and from each other, God uses his Word to turn our hearts from disobedience to repentance. Through the Word he forgives our sins and keeps us gathered together with all believers in the Holy Christian Church so that not one of us will be lost to hell.

To this end, God in his grace has not only made us a part of the church of all believers everywhere, but he has prospered you and me by gathering us around Word and sacrament here in this place that we call Mount Olive Lutheran Church. Our new mission statement recognizes this blessing and the responsibilities that go with it, for it reads: United by our faith in Jesus Christ and our confession of God's Word, the members of Mount Olive Evangelical Lutheran Church use the gospel in Word and sacrament to nurture one another in Christian love.

Together with our called pastors, the shepherds God has placed over us, each one of us has the privilege and the responsibility of using God's Word to raise and train up our fellow members as children of God. In love we want to spend time with each other, so we can speak God's truth to one another. When necessary we use that truth to point out each other's sin and call one another to repentance-not with a smug or self-righteous attitude, but out of loving concern for our fellow sheep, not wanting any of them to be missing from the number of those who will live in heaven. So we cry and laugh with each other. We console and encourage one another, using God's Word to drive away each other's fears and doubts.

And how can we weak sinners possibly do such great things for each other? By ourselves we can't. But God can and does work through us by the power of his gospel-the same gospel that Jeremiah speaks to us today: "The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land.6 In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness" (Jeremiah 23:5-6).

What God here promised through his prophet, he later fulfilled through the life, the death and the resurrection of his own Son-Jesus who is true man from the line of David and true God from all eternity. Through this God-man our Lord provides us sheep with the one thing we need most. Through Jesus God gives us the righteousness we need to be his people. Think of it! All our failure to do good, all the wrong we think and speak and do, God himself has made right in the person of Jesus. Even our sinful attitudes toward the teachings of Scripture are made right before God by our Savior. How? Jesus came to this world for no other purpose than to take our place before God. He came to be our substitute, doing at all times what was just and right. All his words were true, all his actions loving, even all his thoughts were pure; and all of this holiness that was his, he now credits to us. That's not all! The sin that is ours everyday, Jesus claimed as his own before God. He became the liar and the thief, the adulterer and the homosexual offender. He became every sinner and guilty of every sin in God's sight so that only he would have to suffer under God's punishment until every last sin was paid for. And so it was! So it is! Jesus has provided us with the righteousness that swings heaven's door wide open to each and to all of us. This is why Jesus is called the LORD Our Righteousness.

What a wondrous, life-giving, spirit-renewing truth! What an answer to our earlier question: What will become of Christianity in our country, in our world? It will thrive and flourish; for we will thrive and flourish by the power of God's promise. The LORD himself will nourish us sheep. He will protect us from the evil that threatens our souls. He will prosper us, causing his church to grow in size and his people to grow in faith; and he will provide for us, not just the righteousness we need to be his, but the strength that we need to cling to that righteousness through good times and bad. For the sake of Jesus Christ our Savior we his sheep will dwell in safety all our days on earth until finally we will live in heaven's safety forever. Amen.