He Gathers His Flock
He Gathers His Flock
Jesus began His ministry going “to the lost sheep of Israel” (Matt. 10:5–6), but He made it clear that the Gentiles would be included in His church. “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd” (John 10:16). Note that He did not say “one fold,” for there are still a Jewish fold and a Gentile fold in our world; but He spoke of “one flock,” the church of Jesus Christ of which He is the one shepherd. Peter’s message at Pentecost (Acts 2) was directed to Jews and Gentile proselytes to Judaism. But later, Peter went with John to Samaria, and the Lord took believing Samaritans into the flock (8:14–17). By the time we get to Acts 10, Peter is sent to the home of the Roman centurion Cornelius, a Gentile, and he and his relatives and close friends are saved and brought into the flock.
There is one flock and Jesus is the one shepherd. There is one body and Jesus is the head (Eph. 2:16; 3:6; 4:4, 25). There is one building and Jesus is the foundation (2:11–22). The Father’s grand purpose is “to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ” (1:10). Jesus prayed that all believers might be one (John 17:20–23), not in an organizational sense but as He and the Father are one. Twice He included the reasons for this unity: that the world might believe that Jesus came from the Father and that the Father loves the lost world. After all, if the children don’t love one another, why should the world believe that the Father loves lost sinners?
The oneness of the flock is not something we must manufacture, because we are already one in Christ, whether we act like it or not. “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3). It takes effort on the part of God’s people to maintain the visibility of this unity before a watching world. It isn’t enough to sing, “We are not divided / All one body we”; we have to prove it by our words and actions. “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith … There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:26, 28).
Jesus will one day gather His flock together and take them to heaven to live with Him for eternity. It will be “a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:27). Then we will be able to sing honestly, “We are not divided / All one body we.” But until then, our task is to manifest God’s love for the world by loving one another and loving the lost and seeking to win them to the Savior.
It isn’t difficult for Christian believers to confess that Jesus is the Good Shepherd. We gladly claim Psalm 23 and rest our lives and future hopes on what it says. What is really difficult to confess is that we are sheep and desperately need a shepherd! We need to agree with Jeremiah’s confession: “LORD, I know that people’s lives are not their own; it is not for them to direct their steps” (Jer. 10:23). We also agree with Isaiah, who wrote, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6).
To claim to be one of His sheep and yet not follow Him is either to lie or to rebel, and both are terrible sins. Most of the trouble in our world is caused by people who ignore Christ and insist on having their own way, and this can and often does happen in our local churches. We deceive ourselves into thinking we know God’s will for ourselves and everybody else, but Jeremiah 17:9 warns us, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” When I hear a professed Christian say, “Well, if I know my own heart,” I want to quote that verse from Jeremiah.
It’s been my experience that the longer I follow the Lord, the more I see myself as a helpless sheep that needs Jesus the Shepherd in every decision of life. Sometimes when I forget this, He shows me a verse of Scripture to remind me, or perhaps a minor failure jolts me, or maybe a fellow believer says something that awakens me. On more than one occasion I’ve heard the rooster crow and my Shepherd has looked at me as He looked at Peter (Luke 22:61), and I’ve been humbled and broken.
When Jesus is your Shepherd and you follow Him, the future is your friend, and you don’t have to be afraid.