Community: Sheep of His Pasture
Community: Sheep of His Pasture
“All this is on me.” “What if I fail? What if I can’t meet the expectations or what if I ruin the friendships?” “Am I going to end up divorced and alone?” Anxious, loud, powerful thoughts raced through my mind like a train without a conductor and a madman shoveling heaps of coal into the furnace laughing maniacally. It was 3am.
You know what the wild thing is? The day prior was a great day! It was a Sunday and although we had to maneuver like the matrix to cover the bases; we matrix’d ourselves and it was a good day. So what was with the anxiety attack? I pondered this as I got up from the bed only to lay back down a few moments later. I began to panic more and eventually, in desperation, I woke my beautiful sleeping wife. She groggily asked what was wrong and I broke into tears.
The World On My Shoulders
Later in the morning, my family had left the house and I laid in bed feeling like a husk of a human completely drained of all energy and emotions. Honestly, it was a pathetic sight in the mirror so I rolled on to my back then it hit me: I’m Elijah! Before you get all huffy, I didn’t mean the cool false prophet slaying, false god-mocking, stops the rain, starts the rain, known to have a habit of teleportation, Elijah. I mean the running through the desert to Mount Horeb Elijah; scared for his life because Jezebel said she would kill him, Elijah. I opened my phone and began listening to 1 Kings 18 because reading was too much for me.
I listened through chapter 18 then through chapter 19. The usual things stuck out and some not so usual things (18:46, I’m looking at you. Is Elijah the first speedster in history?) but two big things grabbed my attention. In chapter 18:3-4;13, Obadiah is a faithful man who hid a hundred prophets of the Lord and cared for them and he tells, or reminds, Elijah of this. Then in chapter 19:10;14 Elijah cries out to God that he is the only prophet left. I initially chuckled in a tired way and mumbled something about Elijah being a whiner. Then I regretted it because the Lord is faithful, merciful, and compassionate. Which is amazingly displayed in his ministering to Elijah. The Lord is so merciful and loving, so much so, that he wouldn’t let me be so arrogant and prideful in my anxiety and pain to think the world rests on my shoulders anymore than he let Elijah believe this. In 1 Kings 19:18 God tells Elijah that he will leave seven thousand who will not bend the knee to Baal.
Listen, we are not alone. Even when it feels like we are; we aren’t. Obadiah hid a hundred prophets and God has seven thousand who are faithful. Personally, I have my wife and I serve on the team of pastors and team of elders here at Centerpoint. That is clearly to state the fact that I am not alone. So why did Elijah think he was the only one? Why did I anxiously think it’s all on my shoulders? Because both of us forgot, for a variety of factors, the crucial reality of Psalm 23: “The Lord is my Shepherd; I have all I need.”
The Lord Is My Shepherd…
This crucial reality was forgotten by Elijah and I. Speaking for myself, and quoting Paul Tripp, I had gospel amnesia. See, the Lord, He, is our Shepherd and he leads us. I’m not the shepherd but the Lord is my shepherd. Pause for a second and drink that in: “The Lord is my Shepherd.” When I hear this I get a picture of a shepherd and a sheep. One Shepherd. One sheep. Me and God. And this is true but incomplete. God’s flock is not just me as an isolated sheep; Psalm 100 says, “we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.” So, Elijah and I both are sheep in God’s flock and God has a bunch more sheep in his flock.
For Elijah, there were the one hundred prophets that Obadiah hid on top of the seven thousand that God declared remained faithful and did not bend the knee to Baal. For me, my wife is right there and there are three other pastors on staff here at Centerpoint and five additional elders. God has not led me to isolation and given me tasks to complete by myself. No, the Lord is my Shepherd and he has brought me into his flock, to his pasture, to complete tasks in community with his people.
Spoiler alert, we are not the main character. We act like the hero of our own story, but Scripture keeps reminding us that Jesus is. The Bible points to him and shows how the Father uses broken humans to reflect the glory of God manifested in Jesus the Christ. Elijah is not the main character and God reminds him of this in 19:15-18. The Lord is our Shepherd; he leads us.
He Leads Me…
“Anxiety attack” was all I could say as my wife wrapped her arms around me that night. I sobbed and drifted to sleep. When I woke up the attack was still on but lessening. I remembered Pastor Steve talking about how Psalm 23 ministered to his soul in the hospital. So I opened to 1 Kings 18.
As chapter 18 challenged me in my thoughts of being all alone, chapter 19 concludes with Elisha becoming Elijah’s protege, which reinforced that Elijah is still a sheep whose Shepherd is the Lord. Then I turned to Psalm 23. “He leads me,” rang in my head and echoed around the exhausted chambers of my heart and mind. “He leads me.” I am a sheep. I am his sheep and he, only he, is my Shepherd. There is much for me to do in life. But, I am not to do what my Shepherd has not laid before me. I am to be led by my Shepherd. Truly, there is no other way to live than to be led by the Lord. My anxiety attack caused me to react to life like a sheep when startled. “I alone am left!” Elijah and I cried out. But where Elijah was told of the seven thousand, I was reminded of my wife, my fellow pastors, my wonderful brothers and sisters in Christ at Centerpoint.
The Way Together
Do not misunderstand, this story is not about me or Elijah. This story is about God invading the dark valleys of life and leading his people, the sheep of his pasture, through them as the Good Shepherd. This is a story that highlights how quickly we can preach a false gospel, to ourselves, with us at the center of it being the hero. And this is a story about how the Good Shepherd finds this scared selfish little sheep and leads it through the dark valley with his flock.
In the afternoon, I went to the church hoping to find one of the guys. Pastor Steve was there and we talked for an hour and half about everything. Not once was I chided, or rebuked, or judged harshly. I was loved. I was identified with. The valley I walk through has been travelled before by those before me and even those around me. Sheep have been led through dark valleys before and the Good Shepherd leads and loses not one of his sheep. My conversation with Pastor Steve should be understood as two sheep of the Shepherd’s pasture “Baa”ing back and forth about how the Shepherd is faithful even when the valley is fearfilled.
Brothers and sisters, we are not designed to be alone. Solitude, sure. But that is momentary and to be spent with God so technically, still not alone. We are to travel through life following the Good Shepherd, Jesus, as a flock together. Psalm 23 declares, we are but one of the sheep in his flock. We need the Shepherd to lead us along the way together.
“All this is on me.” “What if I fail? What if I can’t meet the expectations or what if I ruin the friendships?” “Am I going to end up divorced and alone?” Anxious, loud, powerful thoughts raced through my mind like a train without a conductor and a madman shoveling heaps of coal into the furnace laughing maniacally. It was 3am.
You know what the wild thing is? The day prior was a great day! It was a Sunday and although we had to maneuver like the matrix to cover the bases; we matrix’d ourselves and it was a good day. So what was with the anxiety attack? I pondered this as I got up from the bed only to lay back down a few moments later. I began to panic more and eventually, in desperation, I woke my beautiful sleeping wife. She groggily asked what was wrong and I broke into tears.
The World On My Shoulders
Later in the morning, my family had left the house and I laid in bed feeling like a husk of a human completely drained of all energy and emotions. Honestly, it was a pathetic sight in the mirror so I rolled on to my back then it hit me: I’m Elijah! Before you get all huffy, I didn’t mean the cool false prophet slaying, false god-mocking, stops the rain, starts the rain, known to have a habit of teleportation, Elijah. I mean the running through the desert to Mount Horeb Elijah; scared for his life because Jezebel said she would kill him, Elijah. I opened my phone and began listening to 1 Kings 18 because reading was too much for me.
I listened through chapter 18 then through chapter 19. The usual things stuck out and some not so usual things (18:46, I’m looking at you. Is Elijah the first speedster in history?) but two big things grabbed my attention. In chapter 18:3-4;13, Obadiah is a faithful man who hid a hundred prophets of the Lord and cared for them and he tells, or reminds, Elijah of this. Then in chapter 19:10;14 Elijah cries out to God that he is the only prophet left. I initially chuckled in a tired way and mumbled something about Elijah being a whiner. Then I regretted it because the Lord is faithful, merciful, and compassionate. Which is amazingly displayed in his ministering to Elijah. The Lord is so merciful and loving, so much so, that he wouldn’t let me be so arrogant and prideful in my anxiety and pain to think the world rests on my shoulders anymore than he let Elijah believe this. In 1 Kings 19:18 God tells Elijah that he will leave seven thousand who will not bend the knee to Baal.
Listen, we are not alone. Even when it feels like we are; we aren’t. Obadiah hid a hundred prophets and God has seven thousand who are faithful. Personally, I have my wife and I serve on the team of pastors and team of elders here at Centerpoint. That is clearly to state the fact that I am not alone. So why did Elijah think he was the only one? Why did I anxiously think it’s all on my shoulders? Because both of us forgot, for a variety of factors, the crucial reality of Psalm 23: “The Lord is my Shepherd; I have all I need.”
The Lord Is My Shepherd…
This crucial reality was forgotten by Elijah and I. Speaking for myself, and quoting Paul Tripp, I had gospel amnesia. See, the Lord, He, is our Shepherd and he leads us. I’m not the shepherd but the Lord is my shepherd. Pause for a second and drink that in: “The Lord is my Shepherd.” When I hear this I get a picture of a shepherd and a sheep. One Shepherd. One sheep. Me and God. And this is true but incomplete. God’s flock is not just me as an isolated sheep; Psalm 100 says, “we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.” So, Elijah and I both are sheep in God’s flock and God has a bunch more sheep in his flock.
For Elijah, there were the one hundred prophets that Obadiah hid on top of the seven thousand that God declared remained faithful and did not bend the knee to Baal. For me, my wife is right there and there are three other pastors on staff here at Centerpoint and five additional elders. God has not led me to isolation and given me tasks to complete by myself. No, the Lord is my Shepherd and he has brought me into his flock, to his pasture, to complete tasks in community with his people.
Spoiler alert, we are not the main character. We act like the hero of our own story, but Scripture keeps reminding us that Jesus is. The Bible points to him and shows how the Father uses broken humans to reflect the glory of God manifested in Jesus the Christ. Elijah is not the main character and God reminds him of this in 19:15-18. The Lord is our Shepherd; he leads us.
He Leads Me…
“Anxiety attack” was all I could say as my wife wrapped her arms around me that night. I sobbed and drifted to sleep. When I woke up the attack was still on but lessening. I remembered Pastor Steve talking about how Psalm 23 ministered to his soul in the hospital. So I opened to 1 Kings 18.
As chapter 18 challenged me in my thoughts of being all alone, chapter 19 concludes with Elisha becoming Elijah’s protege, which reinforced that Elijah is still a sheep whose Shepherd is the Lord. Then I turned to Psalm 23. “He leads me,” rang in my head and echoed around the exhausted chambers of my heart and mind. “He leads me.” I am a sheep. I am his sheep and he, only he, is my Shepherd. There is much for me to do in life. But, I am not to do what my Shepherd has not laid before me. I am to be led by my Shepherd. Truly, there is no other way to live than to be led by the Lord. My anxiety attack caused me to react to life like a sheep when startled. “I alone am left!” Elijah and I cried out. But where Elijah was told of the seven thousand, I was reminded of my wife, my fellow pastors, my wonderful brothers and sisters in Christ at Centerpoint.
The Way Together
Do not misunderstand, this story is not about me or Elijah. This story is about God invading the dark valleys of life and leading his people, the sheep of his pasture, through them as the Good Shepherd. This is a story that highlights how quickly we can preach a false gospel, to ourselves, with us at the center of it being the hero. And this is a story about how the Good Shepherd finds this scared selfish little sheep and leads it through the dark valley with his flock.
In the afternoon, I went to the church hoping to find one of the guys. Pastor Steve was there and we talked for an hour and half about everything. Not once was I chided, or rebuked, or judged harshly. I was loved. I was identified with. The valley I walk through has been travelled before by those before me and even those around me. Sheep have been led through dark valleys before and the Good Shepherd leads and loses not one of his sheep. My conversation with Pastor Steve should be understood as two sheep of the Shepherd’s pasture “Baa”ing back and forth about how the Shepherd is faithful even when the valley is fearfilled.
Brothers and sisters, we are not designed to be alone. Solitude, sure. But that is momentary and to be spent with God so technically, still not alone. We are to travel through life following the Good Shepherd, Jesus, as a flock together. Psalm 23 declares, we are but one of the sheep in his flock. We need the Shepherd to lead us along the way together.
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