Pastoral Letter 212
Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,
Grace and peace to you all in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Since my last weeks’ Pastoral letter, two tragic events have happened in Sydney last weekend and Monday evening. The stabbings at the Bondi Junction Westfield shopping, where six innocent lives were taken, and several others injured including a young child and the stabbing of the Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in the Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley. A mad man taking lives of six people, causing pain to the families and the Bondi Junction community and a terrorist attack on a Bishop, causing uproar and riots. Local, State and Federal government, as well as community and religious leaders have expressed their heartfelt condolences for the victims and made calls to angry mobs to calm down and not to take matters in their own hands. We, as churches and the people of God, are asked to pray ardently for the victims and the families who were affected by the things that happened and are in pain and sorrow.
Also, we are still concerned about the Middle East situation, especially the tension between Israel and Iran and we hope and pray that the conflict do not further escalate and cause a major war. Meanwhile the conflict between Israel and Palestine continues and we are asked to pray for the situation in the Middle East and bring the suffering people to God seeking His help and protection. Also, I urge you to continue praying for the Artsakh Armenian refugees, who are struggling with their limited resource in Armenia.
Next week there will be two commemorations. On Wednesday, 24 April Armenians all over the world, including Australian Armenians, will commemorate the 109th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. And on Thursday, 25 April we, as Australians and New Zealanders, will commemorate Anzac Day and remember those who gave their lives for freedom during the war in 1915. We will do the commemoration next Sunday during our Sunday Church Service.
Please join us tomorrow to worship with us, but if you are not able to join, please light a candle and join us from home following the attached Order of Service.
Just few reminders.
– Molly McConville’s funeral service will be held here on Tuesday 23 April at 11:30 am followed by wake in the hall. It will be good if we come and pay our respects to a longstanding member of our congregation.
– On Friday 3 May at 1:30 pm, there will be Senior Lifesaving Skill Refresher followed by refreshments. If interested, please register with Penny.
– On Sunday 5 May at 12 noon we will have our traditional Mother’s Day fellowship meal. Please put your names down.
Please continue to pray for those who are going through difficult and tough times, seeking God’s presence, help and healing.
Please let me know if you or anyone else has prayer points.
Here are some prayer points for this week:
- Pray for the victims of both stabbing last week at the Bondi Junction Shopping and Wakely Church.
- Pray for peace, harmony and good to prevail in Australia and the whole world.
- Pray for the Middle East, and the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
- Pray for the people Artsakh who are refugees in different parts of Armenia facing many challenges.
- Pray for the poor, the sick, the struggling and the stressed.
- Pray for Molly’s loved ones as they mourn her loss.
Best Regards
In Christ
Krikor
MESSAGE
Hearing the Good Shepherd’s Voice
John 10:1-18
Last week, we spoke about how we should serve the Lord, who calls and invites us to feed His Lambs/Sheep. He asked three times the same question to Peter and when He got the answer that “indeed he loves Him”, He commanded him to feed, tend and take care of His lambs and sheep. I think this will be a good moment to ponder on that to point out why did Jesus asked Peter the same question three times. In one way He wanted Peter to confess Him as his Lord and Saviour three times as response to his denial three times earlier, before the crucifixion and then giving the same command three times. We wonder why Jesus did this and why He gave Peter such a command to take care and lead His flock? In what capacity did He as this to Peter and to us.
The answer is and should be simply because He was and is the Good Shepherd, loving and caring shepherd, who was even ready to lay down His life for His helpless, weak and estranged flock of sheep, His church. He, the Good Shepherd, not only cares for His sheep, but He calls them to follow Him. His call should be clearly heard by the sheep, because His real flock know His voice, as the sheep know the voice of their shepherd; they follow him, when he calls them.
Jesus makes clear that His sheep know Him, know His voice and hear Him when He calls.
But, before we delve into that, I want to start with a story to set the scene for today’s message.
In the days before they invented refrigerators, people used to preserve food in iceboxes. The ice was kept in a well-insulated area known as an icehouse and covered in sawdust so that the ice will last for a while.
There was a man that worked in one of those icehouses. In the summertime, while working in the icehouse, he lost a valuable pocket watch, a gold pocket watch that his father had given to him, and he was very upset about that. He began looking for it, got out a rack, and he started going through all the racks of sawdust trying to find this pocket watch. But no matter how hard he looked; he couldn’t find it. He called all the other employees, and all the other people together and they all started searching going through the sawdust with their hands trying to find this pocket watch, and nobody could find it. When it was lunchtime, the man was troubled and upset and didn’t know what to do. They then went out to have a break and lunch, and while they were eating, a little boy slipped into the icehouse closing the door behind him.
A couple of minutes later, this little boy came walking out with that gold pocket watch, and the man was very, very happy and asked the little boy: “Son, how could you find that so very quickly? How were you able to do what none of us was able to do?”
The young boy said “Well, I went in and closed the door behind me, and I just lay down in the sawdust, and I was very, very quiet and I heard the watch ticking”.
Sometimes in our lives, we don’t find things because we are too noisy, we are too busy, and especially when it comes to the things of God, sometimes we don’t hear God speak to us because we don’t position ourselves in the right place, we don’t go through the effort of getting quiet, getting into a place where we can hear that still small voice of God speaking to us.
Today, we are going to talk about hearing the Shepherd’s voice; the Good Shepherd’s voice and His Sheep, who hear His voice and recognise Him.
Here are three questions to think about:
1. What does it mean to hear the Shepherd’s voice, who is our Shepherd?
2. Why do the sheep need a shepherd?
3. How do we put ourselves in a position to hear the Shepherd’s voice?
1. Who is the True Shepherd?
The Scripture tells us in verse 1 that there were many sheep in the pen, which was most likely it was a larger, independent enclosure, where several families kept their sheep at night. They would have hired a ‘watchman’ to guard the gate and only allow those who were authorized to enter to come through the gate.
In contrast to the Pharisees, the true Shepherd is recognized by the watchman at the gate and by the sheep. He comes in the morning and leads them out to pasture for their good. He calls them out by name from the other sheep in the pen. Here we see Christ emphasize the voice of the Shepherd in verse 3: “The sheep listen (or hear) his voice“.
“My sheep listen My voice, I know them, and they follow Me (John 10. 27) . . . But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognise a stranger’s voice”” (John 10:5).
This passage tells us that only the sheep that know Him will respond to His voice when called. The word for “listen” means that they hear and respond in obedience to what the shepherd is calling them to do, and, in this case, it is to follow Him.
Jesus said the true shepherd goes before his sheep and leads them to green pastures, he does not drive them. He is willing to lay down his life for the sheep, He is willing to do everything necessary to nurture, provide and protect them from thieves and robbers and wolves. The image of the authentic shepherd is an extremely important biblical picture of a “leader” (Numbers 27:17) because it implies not only an intensely personal relationship between God’s people and their leaders, but a style or model of leadership exemplified by Jesus (Mark 6:34).
2. Why do the sheep need a shepherd?
We need a shepherd because, in today’s world, we have thousands of messages competing for our attention; some good, sound messages, some very reasonable messages and some that at first, seem spiritually sound but instead of leading people, it drives them. We must hear and go after the voice of the Shepherd. “God’s Voice”, because it will help our discernment and follow in the direction God is leading us.
Throughout this passage Jesus is referring to Himself as the Good Shepherd and as the door, which speaks about Jesus being the agent of wholeness, of eternal life, of secure pasture, and of release from the realm of darkness. The door speaks about His protection. Those who listen to the Shepherd’s voice will not only be saved from eternal Hell, but from so much heartache, deception and danger in time.
In verse 14 Jesus said: “I know my sheep and my sheep know me”. The word know is in the perfect active indicating that it is an ongoing intentional two-way relationship.
But to hear the Shepherd’s voice requires that we take time to stop what we are doing, watch, wait, withdraw, that we wait, and then we watch.
“I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint. Then the Lord replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it” (Habakkuk 2: 1-2).
3. Discerning the Shepherd’s Voice
How can we discern the difference between God’s voice and other voices? When we are talking about hearing God’s voice, we are not talking about having to ask God about what shoes I should wear or food should I eat, or when to rest, or other common-sense questions. We are talking about hearing from God about the key issues of life. God has given us so much practical wisdom; we only have to learn to listen. We get to know the Shepherd’s voice only by spending personal time with Him, in His word, with His people and in His house.
I believe this is more important than ever before to purposely know Him and to listen to His voice. If We know Him, if we really listen to Him then we will follow Him. Jesus said: “If you know the shepherd’s voice, you will not listen to a stranger’s voice in fact you will run the other way”. A stranger in this case is someone who causes confusion in the flock, they do not speak according to the word. They do not direct people to Christ, there are a lot of strangers in the theological world that cast more doubt than certainty about the truth and the authority of the scriptures.
We need to focus on hearing His voice and following Him. We want to seek the Lord’s direction as a church and as His children. We want to know Him even better. The word to know, means especially through personal experience or first-hand acquaintance. When we know Him, we can trust Him that wherever He is leading us is good and for our good. And so, we can put ourselves in the place of hearing His voice.
If we are the sheep of His pasture, then He is our shepherd, the Good Shepherd, who calls us to follow and trust Him for our own benefit.
He is the Good Shepherd; we are His sheep, and we need to hear His voice as He calls us.
Amen!