Has anyone else here seen a coyote on your own street? Has anybody else had that experience? Like, when did that become normal? When did it become normal? Like, hey, how was your day? Did you see any coyotes? Like, the other night I was leaving here at the church. I was right out here on the front lawn where some of our friends are sitting right now. It was like 10 o'clock. So, it was late at night. And there is quite a coyote community over here in this navy base. And they were getting together. And they were howling, and they were doing that high pitched yippin’ and yappin’, and it sounded like there were a lot of them coyotes over there. And even though they were over in the Navy base, and there's a fence, and there's a street, and I'm a grown man with a beard, I felt very unsettled about what these coyotes were getting ready to do. It was just a few nights ago. Even my wife and I were awakened in the middle of the night because one of our neighbors is shouting at the top of their lungs, and they're shouting, and then what is going on? You open up the window, you look out, and there's coyotes on the street and the neighbor is shouting. How effective is shouting at the top of your lungs when it comes to coyotes. Based on my small sample size, zero percent effectiveness, okay. And they just, it's like they link up, they make a signal, boom, there goes some squirrel or bunny or somebody's pet. They're after it right?
It's become normal to have coyotes in the streets of our cities. And, unfortunately, it's become normal to have wolves sitting in the seats in our churches. And this is something we're supposed to be on the lookout for. This is something Jesus says, you’ve got to beware of. False prophets. Because they come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. And we're going to get a warning to beware of the wolves here today. So, I want to invite you to open the Bible with me and turn to Acts chapter 20, verses 28 to 31. And Paul is speaking. And we've looked at this a few times, but it's kind of been spread out over time. But here in Acts 20, Paul is speaking to the elders of the church in Ephesus. And specifically in verses 28 to 31, he's going to give them something they need to be aware of, something they need to watch out for. And this is something we want to be aware of right here at our church. And so, I'm really hoping you'll give this your full and undivided attention. And out of respect for God's word, I'm going to ask if we would all stand up for the public reading of Scripture. I want to invite everybody on the front lawn to stand up, even everybody watching at home. If you could open the Bible, put away any distractions, silence your phones, stop looking at the football game or whatever it is, because this is the word of God. And this is something that we need to hear. This is Acts 20:28-31.
“Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears.”
That's the reading of God's word. Please go ahead, have your seat. And you can see where it's translated there in verse 28. Pay careful attention. That same Greek word if we looked up other verses, it's translated, beware or watch out. There's something we're all supposed to be on the alert about. We're all supposed to be on the lookout about and, specifically, we are talking here to the elders of the church in Ephesus. Okay, so this message is directed to that group of men who would be the leaders of the church. If you look back at verse 17 with me. Go back to verse 17, and we'll see the context here from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. So, we've already identified that this isn't just the whole church. This specifically was to this group of men who are the elders of the church. Now in verse 28, he describes what elders do. He says, you guys got to watch out, you got to watch yourselves. And you got to watch the flock, the people the church, because the Holy Spirit has made you one, overseers and two, to care for the Church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. So, this is something we've already learned at our church. It's in our one-on-one discipleship Partners program that some of you maybe have gone through with somebody. And we talked about this when we were going through 1 Peter 5:1-4. We did a sermon Who Are Your Pastors. So, if you're taking notes, if you've got the handout you want to write down 1 Peter 5:1-4, which is a great cross reference to Acts 20:28. The church is supposed to be led by a group of men; they're referred to as elders, presbuterus would be the Greek word. And what this group of men do is they do, which is episcopus, which is the overseeing there, and then they do the caring, or the poimaino is the verb, it's to shepherd, to pastor, to care. So, we've got a group of elders who are overseeing and caring or shepherding, and all three of these different words or different ideas all apply to the same group of men. We have five of these elders here at our church. In fact, when we went through 1 Peter 5 together, that's when we laid hands on pastor Taylor Thompson to be one of the elders here at the church. And then, last year, we got another elder. Pastor Bruce Blakey became one of the pastors here. Who has just had the Bible class with Pastor Bruce last hour? Right? Everybody was at the Bible class with Pastor Bruce last week. Right? So, we've seen God has been faithful to raise up either men coming in or men arising among us, elders and these elders, they're supposed to watch themselves, they're supposed to watch the church. And what are they watching for? Well, if you get to verse 29, we are watching for wolves. Okay? Fierce wolves. Men are going to come in and they're not going to care. They're not going to spare the flock. The pastors are supposed to be shepherding. They're supposed to be caring for the people. They're supposed to be overseeing what's going on and showing care to all the people in the church. Well, there's going to come in, or look at this verse 30, there could even arise from among your own selves, men who speak twisted things, who draw away the disciples after them. So, we’ve got to watch out because, coming from the outside, or even rising up right here among us, could be wolves, and the wolves there, they might look like sheep, but they're not about Jesus and his name being glorified. And people being disciples of Jesus? No, they want their name to be exalted, and they want people to follow them. And so, we’ve got to watch out, we need to watch the five men that we already have as elders. We need to watch out for other people that we might partner with to come in, or people who might rise up here among us. If these guys start making it about themselves, and they start twisting things, and getting people to follow them, we can't have that; we’ve got to watch out. So, this is a strong warning that we're getting that he's giving to these elders. Now think about this. Because this is the church in Ephesus that was started by the apostle Paul. Look at verse 31. He says, you’ve got to “be alert,” be on the lookout, stay ready, watch out, the wolves are coming. Just like you might see a coyote on your street, or you might see a wolf in the church. Watch out, “remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears.” So, he's saying this to the guys that he has now put in charge of the church that he planted in Ephesus. So, this church had three years of the apostle Paul, that's the longest we know about Paul being in any one place in the entire book of Acts.
We studied it in Acts 19. We saw revival break out in the city of Ephesus, we saw that it said, in that city, the name of Jesus was exalted. In that city, the word continued to increase and prevail mightily. Do you remember how they had a riot, a protest against the church, all of the guys who worked at the temple came against the church and they started shouting, great is Artemis, their idol of the Ephesians, because they were so intimidated by how many people were worshipping Jesus in the city of Ephesus. We're talking about a church that got off to a rock-solid start with Paul preaching the gospel every day, revival breaking out in their city. And he's saying, yes, even Ephesus needs to watch out for the wolves. So, I want to make this very clear as we talk about the wolves here today, and how we need to be on the lookout. We're not talking about wolves out there in the world. We need to be concerned about wolves right here. Compass Bible Church, Huntington Beach. Okay? I know the coyotes are going to be over there in the Navy base. That doesn't really bother me. But it's when they come on my street that that's a problem. There are going to be wolves and false teachers all over the TV, all over the radio, all over the podcasts, and the YouTube, and many other places calling themselves churches. There are going to be people speaking twisted things to tell everybody what they want to hear and get them all following them. Our goal is to make sure that doesn't happen here. We’ve got to take this personally. Because, unfortunately, even though he gives this warning to the church in Ephesus turn with me to 1 Timothy, chapter 1, and let's see what happens, because later on, he writes this letter to Timothy, and I want you to see where Timothy is, and what he's telling Timothy to do.
This is 1 Timothy 1:3, and you'll see the warning he gave to the elders of the church. Well, apparently, they didn't all listen to that warning, because now look at 1 Timothy 1:3. This is usually when Paul is giving his thanksgiving and his greetings. He doesn't do that this time. He's got an urgent matter to discuss. He gets right to it. 1 Timothy 1:3-4: “As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at … Where's Timothy, everybody? The same place that we're talking about in Acts 20 is where he's writing to Timothy at now. And what is Timothy doing there? “So that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.” So, you're telling me that Paul starts a church, warns the elders in charge to watch out for wolves, and then later on, he has to send Timothy to that same church because certain persons are acting like wolves. That's what we're saying. It seems like Paul's warning was not heeded, it seems like many churches let wolves come in, and they get twisted in what they're all about. You can see how he describes it here. They're teaching different things. It says different doctrine. They're not teaching the sound doctrine that comes from Scripture. They're starting to teach something else. And they're devoting themselves to myths, to stories, to endless genealogies. And he says, look, speculations, things that could be true things that maybe are, they're not just given the, the firm truth of the Word of God. They're starting to speculate and come up with their own opinions and their own ideas. And then he says there at the end of verse 4 that this is not the stewardship from God that is by faith. They're not managing the house of God well. They're not leading the church well, Timothy. You’ve got to watch out because certain persons are not leading the church the way that I told them to. And so, then he says this, verse 5, “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” That's what we should be going for. We want people to love God to love one another. But verses 6-7, “Certain persons,” notice how he says that again, “Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.” We've got certain persons who are doing the swerve. They're not sticking with the word. They're swerving away from the word. In fact, they're teaching things that they don't even know about. And they're boldly teaching things they don't even understand themselves.
If you're taking notes, let's get this down for number one: You need to pray your pastors don't swerve. Pray your pastors don't swerve. This is a clear and present danger that we need to watch out for right here at our church. If the church that got started by the apostle Paul in Ephesus that saw a great revival in that city, if that church can have certain persons come in, or rise up and swerve, that could definitely happen to us. And so, we need to be praying that the elders we have are watching out for wolves, are not wolves. And as we continue to have other pastors come in, or as we have men arise up within us, we’ve got to make sure that none of them are going to twist it and make it about themselves and lead people anywhere else, but to Jesus Christ. So, I understand some people they don't like messages like this because it's warning about false teaching, and that feels harsh or negative. You're going to see clearly that's a theme in the Scripture. Jesus starts it in Matthew 7:15 in his sermon where he says, beware. He says, watch out. That's something we need to do but see other people here maybe you love sermons like this. Like you're a discerning watchdog. You know what I mean? And you love pointing out all the false teachers. You love ripping on this person on YouTube. You love calling out this person. Let me just tell you, a lot of the people that I've seen who make their ministry about calling out the false teachers, you look at their life, and you're like, what ministry are they really even doing? So, you don't want to become one of those people that are known for what you're against. You want to be known that you are for Jesus Christ. Can I get an Amen from anybody on that?
So, if you don't like a message like this, you need to see that this is in the Scripture. And if you really like a message like this, we're here to watch out for you. Honestly, we're not here to watch out for somebody else. It says, watch yourselves, and watch the flock. If you're concerned that somebody here is listening to a false teacher, then I would lovingly come alongside of them and say, hey, well, I don't know if you should be listening to that. But just going and starting to rip up wolves who are out there in the world, there are going to be many wolves out there in the world, we’ve got to make sure they don't come here to this church. And we’ve got to see that's a real threat, that a lot of churches start out wanting to preach the Bible and see revival and see souls get saved by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then, at some point, they swerve. It's a very common story. In fact, it's by being warned, and by guarding against wolves coming in, that we can be careful not to swerve. That's why we need to hear this word.
In fact, go to the end of 1 Timothy, chapter 6:20. This is how he started the letter. Now look at how he ends the letter. Clearly, this is a thought in the foremost part of Paul's mind. Paul is writing to Timothy, his true son in the faith, his disciple that he laid hands on and is now a pastor. They're one of the elders in Ephesus. And he says at the very end, 1 Timothy 6:20-21, “O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,” for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.” He says, Timothy, I mean, now he's not just saying certain persons there at Ephesus, you need to watch out for, now he's saying, Timothy, guard yourself, Timothy, watch out for yourself. Because some guys are trying to have knowledge. They're trying to say, hey, look what I know, I've got this better, deeper way. Hey, everybody, come and look at me. And that knowledge puffs them up. And he who thinks he stands needs to take heed lest he fall. That's what happens, Timothy; that could happen to you, he's saying at the end. Like guys think they know some great way to do church, better way than the Bible, and they swerve, and some of them have even lost their faith. This swerve is a real thing that we should all be concerned about, and we should all be praying will not happen here at this church. In fact, not only does he warn them in Acts 20, not only is he writing to Timothy about it in 1 Timothy, go over to 2 Timothy 2:16, just a page over maybe there in your Bible. But look, now he's not just saying certain persons, now he's naming names. This is 2 Timothy 2:16-17, he says, “But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, 17 and their talk will spread like gangrene,” like some kind of plague, like some kind of a virus or disease, hate this kind of talk that people get into, where they start making it about themselves. They start saying what people want to hear. They start taking what Scripture says and stretching it into speculation, and all of a sudden, they're not preaching from chapter and verse. They're coming from the book of second opinions. You know what I'm talking about? Sixty-seventh book in the Bible right there, one being written right now, and people are starting to come up with their … he says, that kind of talk, that kind of talk where you're scratching people's itching ears, where you're puffing up yourself, and making it about you, that kind of talk that's infectious, that's contagious. That kind of talk, once that gets going, it spreads around. You’ve got to avoid all of that, Timothy, and then this is what he says after the gangrene line there in the middle of verses 17-18. “Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some.” Now he's dropping the names, and I don't know when did these guys come to Ephesus, were these guys there in Acts 20? Did these guys come in later, that they arise up after Acts 20 where these guys, the certain persons in 1 Timothy because now we're just saying, I'll tell you who the wolves are that everybody needs to be on the lookout for Hymenaeus and Philetus. Don't listen to those guys. They're acting like this twisting, this teaching on the resurrection, acting like it already happened. And they're leading people astray. They're disturbing the faith of some people. Now he's mentioning wolves by name, he's calling them out. And so, we can see, unfortunately, the church in Ephesus had some kind of swerve that Timothy had to correct not just once, but twice. And this was a church that got started based on the teaching of the apostle Paul himself.
So, if the church in Ephesus can swerve then our little church here in Huntington Beach can swerve, and we should all be on the lookout. You should be making sure I'm not a wolf. I'm going to make sure I'm not a wolf. We should all be looking around and saying, hey, are we really preaching the scripture here? Are we really preaching Jesus here? Or does it start to become about us, and about following our own way? Is it getting twisted? We need to be careful about this. This is a warning. That's throughout the Scripture. Look back at verse 15. 2 Timothy 2:15, here's the opposite. Here's what we should be doing. Instead of letting the wolves come in, instead of twisting things to make it about us, 2 Timothy 2:15, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” This is what Timothy and all the other pastors who are preaching the word, this is what we should all be doing, we should be giving it our best, we should be working hard that God would approve of what we're saying, that we wouldn't need to be ashamed about what we're saying. And then here's a key line right here, “rightly handling the word of truth.” Another way you could say that is we need to cut it straight. Whatever the Scripture says, we need to get our message out of what the Scripture says. That's an exegetical message where it's coming out of a text. We are studying chapter and verse, because the Bible says this. Here's how we need to think about it. Here's how we should go and do it in our own lives.
So let's get that down for number two: Pray your pastors cut scripture straight. Pray that we don't get things twisted around here. We don't make it about us here, we give God's message according to God's Word to God's people. It's not my message, it's not anybody's message that we're coming up with. No, it's God speaking his message through us. We are just the messengers. It's his word, and it's coming straight to your heart. And the Holy Spirit is hopefully speaking straight to you. And he's convicting you of sin. He's encouraging you, and all the promises. He's exposing the thoughts and intents of your heart as the sword of the Word starts to pierce and stab into your very soul, and you walk out of here thinking you didn't hear some man speak, but you heard the very Word of God. That's what we're supposed to be doing. Cutting it straight in our goal. I'll just tell you my goal here at the church when I'm preaching is to preach good sermons that are cutting the Scriptures straight, because I want to ruin your ears for all the wolves that are out there talking. I want you to know what it sounds like to hear the Scripture. So then when you hear somebody else say it on the radio, giving their own thoughts, or somebody over here on this podcast, coming up with some new way to do Christianity, or you end up in some other church somewhere, some other ministry event, and you're hearing somebody preach, you're starting to think to yourself, hey, wait a minute, what chapter and verse are we getting this point from? Where did this come from? That's already happened here at the church, like some of you have shared with me. After maybe some people have been saved here, some people have been here for a while, and then you go somewhere else. And somebody's like, let me give you a message. And you're like, wait, aren't we going to open our Bibles? Oh, I mean, what's going on here? We're getting a message from God, but it's not from the Bible. How does that work? Some of you have been sketched out. I'm so glad to hear it, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. And I would hope that you would be sketched out here if it ever felt like we weren't standing up and reading the Scripture, if we weren't saying, hey, look at this point right here, go and look at how it says it over here. Write it down, just like it says it here. If we start preaching some other message, then stop listening. Because we want to hear from God. That's what we're here to do. And we’ve got to cut it straight.
Go back to 1 Timothy and look at what he said positively here. 1 Timothy 4:13 uses the same kind of “watch out” language that we have in our texts in Acts 20. And we have that strong warning against the wolves. But now here in 1 Timothy 4:13-16 This is like what we should be watching happen. This is the positive thing that we want to see, that we're looking for, “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you.” Timothy, you’ve got your hands laid on, I mean, they laid hands on you, they prayed for you, they made you one of the elders, you got to … don't neglect that gift. Use that gift. Here's what you should be doing verse 15, “Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself,” the way you're living, and on the teaching, what you're saying. “Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.” That's what we need to be seeing happen. We need to be devoted to the public reading of Scripture. If you're like, hey, what's going on at that Compass Church in 2022? Well, hopefully, when you come up in here, we're still reading the Bible, we're still encouraging you and exhorting you from the Bible. We're still teaching and explaining what the Bible says. In fact, hopefully, you can see that we're working harder at it than we ever have. And hopefully, we're going to have better Bible study in 2022 than we've ever had before. Because we're making progress, because we're like this right here. God's word, what he has to say to us, this is what's going to keep all of us in the right direction so that we don't get it twisted. We want to walk the straight and narrow path of Jesus Christ, we want to follow him. So, we’ve got to hear from the Word. So, if you're praying for the pastors, and I know so many of you are praying for us and our families, praying for our health when we're sick, that's awesome that you're praying, but we should be praying very clearly, that the elders here are not wolves who swerve away from the truth. We need to pray that all the pastors here are cutting Scripture straight, and saying what God says. Can I get an Amen from anybody on that?
And can you write down next to those points: future pastors. Can you put that somewhere on your handout? Not just the five men we've got right now, but we want more pastors. Over the last two years, we got a new pastor, maybe we'll get a new pastor in 2022. We want men to come in and partner with us. And we we're actively working to train up men here among us. And we want to make sure that the men that come in, and the men that arise up, that they are not in it for themselves. We want them to be all into care for the church, and to really want to see the name of Jesus be the name that everybody's excited about around here. And so, we're praying for the guys we have now, and we're praying for the future pastors, that they would be on the lookout for these wolves.
Now go back to Acts 20:28, because this is a great thing for us to talk about here at the church. And we're in our eighth year as a church, we're still a young church, we're still hoping the best days of our church are ahead of us. We want to see our church double up in maturity here in Huntington Beach, and we want to see our church double into a whole another church in Long Beach. That's why we're going to need some more pastors. We want to have pastors here, pastors there, we want pastors everywhere as well. Right? So, we're praying that God is going to do big things. So, this is exciting. And some of you got saved here at this church. This is the one and only church you've really ever been a part of in your life. Let's pray that we can keep going and cutting the Scripture straight together. And we don't ever get it twisted and swerve away. But actually, some of you you've already seen the swerve before that. I know there are people sitting in this service right now, and the reason you're sitting here with us, and you're a part of the church family here at Compass, HB, is because you're a part of another church family. And at one point, you thought that church was great, and you thought you were growing, and you thought you had pastors who were preaching it straight. And then you saw with your own eyes, at your own church, you saw the swerve, and all of a sudden, the sound doctrine, that good faithful teaching of the word, now we were doing this trendy cool program that all the other churches are doing, or now we're going to try something new. And all of a sudden, you could tell maybe I've been at a church before where it just started to feel like the pastor wasn't spending a lot of time preparing for the sermons anymore. And you could just see the quality of the preaching wasn't progressing in the right direction. Some of you have witnessed that. Some of this, this is coming too late. The wolves have already crept in. The wolves have already twisted things and you got hurt in the process.
I was talking with a guy who's been in our church for some time, and he's been coming here faithfully and hearing the Word, and he was in the parking lot with me just the other day. And he was telling me about how he was at this other church, and he saw that church swerve. And he was telling me if you would have thought it had happened yesterday, even though now I've known this guy for some time, like the hurt the pain that he had when he felt misled by pastors, and he felt like his own church swerved away from the Word of God, like when he started to describe that, it was like it had happened to him yesterday; that pain was so fresh. So, I know I'm speaking to some people, where you've already experienced the swerve, and there could be a sense of hurt. There could be a lingering effect from that. In fact, I've even known people, maybe you have too, where they were at a church and the church swerved. And they saw that the pastor there was not doing what they should be doing. And they stopped going to church, they stopped wanting to have a pastor, period. I don't want any man having authority over me in the house of God, look what that guy did. For some people, this can really jade them to the whole idea of church, or leadership in the church, and they can even leave the church because they've seen wolves right there in the seats in church.
And so, this is happening all over the place. I mean, there's a lot of churches that are swerving, and maybe you've been to some of them, and you are like, yeah, this really bothers me those wolves creeping in. I thought that guy was one of the good guys. And it turned out he was a wolf in sheep's clothing. Maybe you've seen it. I just want to draw your attention back to verse 28, because it is talking to the elders. And it says that they should watch out, these men who are overseers. But notice it says that these pastors should care for the church. Whose churches? God's Church. And how did any one of us become the church? Was there anything you did to become the church? Is there anything some church could do to make you the church? No, we became the church because Jesus shed his blood for us. Hey, I just want to make it very clear here today, if you've been burned by a bad pastor, if you are a part of a church that swerved, when we all get to heaven, nobody's going to be in heaven saying, I'm in heaven because so and so is my pastor, or I'm in heaven because I went to such and such a church. Everybody in heaven is going to have the same shepherd, the same pastor, and we're going to say, he's the one who led me beside the still waters. He's the one who gave me something to eat from those green pastures. He's the one who was with me when I went through that trial in the valley of the shadow of death, the Lord is my shepherd. And that's how I'm here. That's what we're all going to say, everybody. I don't care what church you've been to, or who your pastor was, we all have one good shepherd, and his name is Jesus Christ. And you will be disappointed by many people in church, but not one of them will be named Jesus.
So, don't let the people at church ruin the process. It's not about the people in church, it's about the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. God is the shepherd of your soul, and Jesus cares about you. And that's why you should be a part of the church. Okay? So we’ve got to make that very clear. Don't let it get twisted in your heart. When you get to Heaven, you will have had one shepherd, and his name will be Jesus Christ. And so, this is such an interesting phrase in verse 28, because it says, The Church of God, Theos, like we would think of God the Father, but then it's like, “which he obtained with his own blood,” which makes us think about Jesus dying on the cross. So, it's this really interesting phrase. In fact, some manuscripts have Theos for God. And then other manuscripts have Kyrios, which is translated Lord. And so, you could see maybe because it's such an interesting phrase, “the Church of God,” maybe somebody along the way, put in Kyrios, because that maybe made more sense to them. It's the church of the Lord Jesus, he's the one who shed his blood. But we could say it either way, God, the Father loved us so much that he gave his one and only son, and Jesus loves us so much that he laid down his life for us on the cross. So, either way, it is true for all of us to say that God, the Father and his son, Jesus, hold me in their hand and they will never let me go. No one can snatch me out of God's hand. I'm one of his people. I'm in the church. See? So, yes, the father cares about you. He cares for all of his flock. And, yes, Jesus is the good shepherd. It would be right to say it either way, all of us should know here today that we are well cared for in the church because we have a good shepherd. And God cares about every single one of his people. So, if you're upset, and you're like, well, there's bad pastors out there and there's churches swerving out there and it really hurt me and my family and I got caught up in it, let me just assure you right now, God is way more upset about it than you are.
Turn with me to Zechariah chapter 10, and let's hear from God speaking through one of his prophets about how he feels about these shepherds who actually end up being wolves. Zechariah, what an amazing book of prophecy that often is completely overlooked these days. I hope someday we get to get into Zechariah and cut it straight together, and really get into how awesome it is. But let's just look at two verses together here today. So, Zechariah 10:2 describes some of the bad spiritual leaders at this time here. And in Judah, it says, “For the household gods utter nonsense, and the diviners see lies; they tell false dreams and give empty consolation. Therefore the people wander like sheep; they are afflicted for lack of a shepherd.” So, we got idolatry creeping in with these household gods. And all that's been said about these idols is nonsense. We have these diviners that are sharing their visions or their dreams, and they're claiming, I got a vision from God or I had a dream from God, but really, these visions and dreams, they're from their own imagination; they're coming out of their own mind. And what these false teachers are offering, it says here is empty consolation. If you've ever read through the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, before then the twelve prophets, you know, that idea that there's people out there saying, peace, peace, when there really is no peace. See, the false prophets, they twisted that. It's about how you feel, or it's about your circumstances. And they're trying to give you some kind of assurance of peace here and now, and it's not a real and lasting peace with God. And so, there's a message going out of hope and peace and comfort and security, but it's empty consolation, it's a false peace. It's not a real message that they're giving. And so, because there's nobody really speaking the truth and cutting it straight, well, now the sheep are starting to wander, the sheep aren't cared for, the sheep aren't fed, the sheep aren't protected. Know the sheep, they're starting to become lost sheep, they're starting to scatter all over the place because they're suffering, because they don't have a good shepherd. Maybe you felt like that, maybe you've seen that happen at a church, where we started to say things that weren't what the Bible says. And the people started to scatter, and it was because we ended up with a wolf, instead of a shepherd. Well, look what it says here in verse 3. This is from the Word of the Lord: “ “My anger is hot against the shepherds, and I will punish the leaders.” You think you're angry about bad pastors? Where do you see what God does to those guys on judgment day? God says that he is hot against the shepherds and all of these bad leaders, they will be punished. In fact, it says in James 3:1 that “Not many of us should become teachers,” because teachers will incur a stricter judgment. So, one of the terrible trends that's happened in Southern California Christianity is when a young man gets saved, and he starts reading that Bible, and he starts praying for revival, and you see a young man who's a new Christian on fire, running around telling other people about Jesus, and he's got a couple of verses memorized, then what some well-meaning person in the church will walk up to that young man and they'll say, wow, you're so on fire. You should be a pastor. We’ve got to stop saying that stuff. You shouldn't be walking up to people willy nilly, like they should be a pastor, you might have just created a wolf right there. You don't want to send people. If you're going to be a pastor, you better do what the book says, or God's going to be hot in his anger against you. God's going to punish you. It's not like, well, that guy is not the best pastor if you're not doing it how God says, you're going to incur a stricter judgment. Don't go wishing that on the new on fire Christians around here. Just let them be pumped up about Jesus. Let them mature. Let God make it clear. Let the elders make it clear if they should rise up to that. Be very careful about telling somebody you should go be a leader in the church, because you just sign them up for harsher judgment. You’ve got to hear that. If you're like, hey, this happened at this church, and it wasn't right. Let me just tell you, God knows all about it. And he's hot about it. And he will make sure that all of those who came in as sheep but really were revealed to be wolves, all of them will be punished. And here's why. In the middle of Zechariah 10:3: “for the Lord of hosts,” the God of angel armies, it says “for the Lord of hosts cares for his flock, the house of Judah.” Okay, so even if there's all these false shepherds out there saying twisted things, leading people to follow them and not Jesus Christ, while you can know that God cares for his flock, okay, in fact, he is the God of angel armies, and it says he will make them his sheep like his majestic steed in battle” Talk about an animal analogy here. We go from sheep who are weak and wandering and need someone to protect us, to like the trusty steed, the horse that's riding into battle going right in the right direction, unafraid of anything. That's how God can care for us, and he will make his people strong. It almost makes you think of Jesus riding on a white horse out of the clouds with his army behind him on judgment day. That's the idea here, like God's going to care for every one of his people, and everybody who takes advantage of one of his sheep, they're going to get judged and all of God's sheep are going to heaven; not one of God's sheep will be lost because he cares for us each and every one. Okay, we got to believe this. And hopefully this is review for you. But you need to know that you could not be more loved by God than you are right now. Can I get an Amen from anybody on that?
Okay, there is nothing more that God could do to love you than he already has done. And he already offers you at this present moment, right here today, the Father in heaven, perfect fellowship with Jesus Christ for all of eternity past. Jesus says, I and the Father are one. Jesus prayed to the Father, restore unto me the glory I had with you before the foundation of the world, the father and the son have a perfect relationship. He loves his son completely. He is pleased with his son, and he said his one and only son down here to save you. What more could you ask of him? What more could he give of you than his one and only son, and then Jesus, the son, is willing to humble himself from eternal glory to be born as a baby and laid in a manger. For thirty-three years, he dwells among us, establishing the perfect track record of righteousness, and then Jesus willingly lays down his life. He gave his life. What more could he give you? He gave his very blood to purchase you out of your sin, to redeem you, and make you are one of his people. What more do you want than his life? What more do you want than his son? He has loved you. Jesus loved you to the bloody end. He cried out to tell us, it is finished, and he did it for you. And here you are thinking God doesn't care about you. See, we got to rethink that. God not only does care about you, he loves you as much as you could possibly be loved. He has now brought you into the eternal relationship he has with his son, and he is pleased with you just like he's pleased with his son, and he loves you perfectly just like he loves his son, because he sees you in Christ. He sees you as the church, he sees you as one of his sons and daughters. And you're loved like that every single day, whether you feel it or not. And so, we got to see we are cared for in the church of God because he cares for his flock.
Turn with me to Luke chapter 12. I want you to see this passage is not as famous as it needs to be. So hopefully we can bring it back here together today, Luke 12:32. The context here is very familiar, because it's Jesus saying, hey, you don't need to worry about your life. You don't need to be anxious. And people at this time he uses the examples of, hey, if you're worried about what you're going to eat, or you're worried about what you're going to wear, you don't need to be worried about the things of this life. Maybe at our time, people are worried about the government. People are worried about getting sick, there's just an aura of fear permeating everything. Hey, you don't need to worry about life. You don't need to be anxious. And why do you need to not be anxious? Because God cares about you. That's why you’ve got somebody watching over you, you’ve got a shepherd who's looking after you. You’ve got somebody who's got a staff and a rod, and he can protect you from the enemy, and he can lead you besides still waters and green pastures, even in the valley of the shadow of death. It's not up to you. You’ve got somebody watching over you. You’ve got to keeper. So don't be worried. Don't be anxious because God cares. And he uses those analogies there. He says, hey, do you see the birds? Did you see any birds coming in here today? Did you hear any of those crows out there cawing on your way? How do all those birds stay alive out there? Where are they getting all their food from? Anybody see a flower? See some plants? See something blooming, something growing? I mean, look at these flowers. Look how beautiful the flowers are that are here today and gone tomorrow. If God's feeding the birds of the air and God's clothing the lilies of the field, if he's going to make sure birds and plants get what they need, are you not of much more value than they? O, ye of little faith. He's got all the hairs on your head numbered right now. He knows everything that you need and he's ready to care for you right now. I get to see an example of this every day when I come out of my house. There's a flower that's right there in front of my house in the shape of a bird, bird of paradise right there. And I'm like, oh, perfect that’s the whole analogy right there in one. Right? Every day when I walk by the birds of paradise going into my car, it's just a reminder that God cares about me. I have somebody who has my back in this life. You do too. He cares for us and see, that's what Jesus is saying in Luke 12:22. “And he said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, don't be anxious about your life.’” And then he's going to get into it. We're familiar with it, what you're going to eat or what you're going to wear. No. At the end, we know the verse 31. We know he says, “Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.” Seek first his kingdom, his righteousness. We know it from Matthew 6, the sermon on the mount, and all these things will be added to you. But then it says this in Luke 12:32, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” There's a verse to memorize. There's a verse to put up somewhere that you're going to see it this week. Fear not little flock, little church there in Huntington Beach, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the … what is he giving us, everybody? You know, what's the kingdom is going to be. The kingdom is the kingdom of our Lord Jesus, when he comes and returns, and he establishes his reign, and he will rule over the nations. And when Jesus is King, everything will be right. we will experience justice, and everyone will be cared for. Can I get an Amen from it? There will be no more bad pastors when Jesus is king. No more churches will be on the swerve in the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. We've got great things to look forward to in the kingdom. And so, you don't need to be afraid, little flock, because your father is going to delight in you. He's going to enjoy bringing you into the kingdom. If you're one of God's people, I promise you, your shepherd, he will get you into the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. And you will experience life as it was intended to be, with a ruler that you can trust with all of your heart, who has never disappointed you, never failed you, and you will worship the name of Jesus for all of eternity. Fear not little flock, for it is our Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Here we are fretting our days away when we've got the Kingdom of the Lord coming. So, we don't need to be afraid because even if we're just a little flock, our father cares about us.
Let's get this down for number three: Praise your shepherd, who cares for you. Praise your Shepherd, who cares for you. We want to make sure that while there's a lot of churches swerving or bad pastor experiences that maybe some of us have had, and while we need to take very seriously being aware of wolves coming in here, or rising up here, we want to say very boldly and confidently here today, that we have a good shepherd who watches over his church. And then we can all praise him and thank him that he spent his blood so that we could be one of his sheep. In fact, I want to take you to John chapter 10, so you can hear Jesus talk about being the good shepherd because Jesus knows about some of the pain that people have from pastors, some of the disappointment that people have from churches. He knows all about it, and even talks about it here in John 10:11, where he says, “I am the good shepherd and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” I mean, and Jesus is going to go on here in John 10 to make this so clear, like no one forced Jesus to lay down his life. Okay? Jesus wasn't like some lamb or some animal that gets sacrifice, that’s just kind of happy go lucky, not knowing it's about to be killed. No, Jesus, from when he humbled himself to be born, all the years of living out perfect righteousness, when he took up his cross, he knew the end for which he had come; he knew that he was coming to willingly offer himself as a sacrifice to pay for your sins. And the way that he was going to pay for your sin was the cost of his blood. And he was willing to, he laid it down. Jesus wanted to save you,, so he gave his blood, his life for you. He's the good shepherd, willing to die, so that you could be his church, so that you could be one of his sheep. And then he says this in verse 12, “He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.” He flees because he has a hired hand that cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own knows me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. See, Jesus understands there's going to be hired hands, and there's going to be wolves coming in. And some of these that look like shepherds will actually end up being the wolves themselves, or some of these, when the wolves come in, they're not going to watch out for the wolves. They're not going to get these certain persons they're not going to go after Hymenaeus and Philetus. No. Sometimes when the wolves come in, some of the guys are just going to let the wolves take over. No, not every pastor on planet earth is going to care for God's people in the same way that Jesus cares for us, but you can know that Jesus does care for you, because he laid down his life for you, and Jesus knows you. Jesus knows what you're going through. Jesus cares about the challenges in your life at this present moment, and Jesus will shepherd your soul into his everlasting kingdom. Can I get an Amen from the congregation?
We have a good shepherd. And it's not about me, it's not about Compass Bible Church. No, we have a shepherd and the one we all want to be talking about the one we want to go let the world know about, the one name we want lifted high here among us is the name of Jesus Christ. So that's why right now, we're going to take communion together. And we're going to have a moment for all of us, to thank Jesus for obtaining us by his own blood and being the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. Let's just make it very clear that nobody here did anything to become the church. And no church can make you the church. No pastor can do something to make you the church. There is only one way to become the church, and that is faith in the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so, we're going to take communion to remember his body and his blood. Now the worship team is going to come up and they're going to lead us in a song and you can sing along, or you can take this time just to pray, just to remember to call to mind again how much does God love you. What did God give for you? How much does Jesus care about you? What did Jesus give for you? Maybe you want to get those elements out and just look at them and think about how Jesus offered his body as a sacrifice. He shed his blood as the payment to atone for your sins. Take a moment to thank Jesus, and then all come back out after the song, we’ll take communion together. So let me pray right now.
Father in heaven, we just want to confess to you that sometimes we do doubt your love for us. Sometimes we might even feel in our hearts like nobody really cares about what we're going through. And Father, I pray that you would help us change our mind about that here today, that we could see that we are your church, and that you care for your flock. That we don't need to fear because it is your good pleasure to give us the kingdom, and that we have such a good shepherd in your son Jesus, who was willing to lay his life down for us. I mean the nails pierced his hands and his feet, the blood flowed from the crown of thorns, there was a pool of blood at the foot of the cross, pure righteous blood that paid for my sin that paid for all of our sins, that purchased us to be the people of Jesus, to be the church. Father, you have loved us so much. In fact, you've given your son and your son gave his life. Father, please help us to be so convinced that we could not be more loved, not more cared for than we are by you. So let this be a moment of worship. Let this be a moment of pure thanksgiving where we thank Jesus, our shepherd, for his blood. Pray this in his name. Amen.