Ephesians 4:7-16: Spiritual gifts –pastor teacher, part 4.
length: 82:05 - taught on Nov, 21 2021
Class Outline:
Sunday November 21, 2021
The great Shepherd is promised to Israel in the Messianic age.
And My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd; and they will walk in My ordinances, and keep My statutes, and observe them.
As the church begins to partly fulfill the New Covenant, we are the first to possess the Messiah as our Great Shepherd.
The shepherds of the church, the Great Shepherd’s under shepherds, must mimic Him in all they do.
After closing the section of his prophecy on the King, which contained many fierce judgments for Israel and the nations, Isaiah’s second section, the Book of the Servant, begins with a wonderful message of comfort to Israel.
Isaiah pronounces judgment on the nations (Isa 1-39) and then begins the wonderful message of comfort stemming from the sacrificial Servant.
Get yourself up on a high mountain,
O Zion, bearer of good news [evangelist],
Lift up your voice mightily,
O Jerusalem, bearer of good news;
Lift it up, do not fear.
Say to the cities of Judah,
"Here is your God!"
10 Behold, the Lord God will come with might,
With His arm ruling for Him.
Behold, His reward is with Him,
And His recompense before Him.
11 Like a shepherd He will tend His flock,
In His arm He will gather the lambs,
And carry them in His bosom;
He will gently lead the nursing ewes.
Just before this, God commands the prophet to call out that all flesh is like grass, which fades when the Lord blows upon it.
A voice says, "Call out."
Then he answered, "What shall I call out?"
All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower fades,
When the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
Surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever.
It is as if we are all just on the verge of judgment and death, and suddenly (vs. 9) the good news comes that the Lord God will come with His ruling arm, and He will use it like a shepherd to gather His lambs and carry them in His bosom.
This is the first use of God’s arm in Isaiah, and he will from here continue to use it. It speaks of God’s work and power.
Significantly, it is used of the suffering Lord, Servant of the Father, of whom the Father stated, Psa 42, directly after Jesus’ baptism by John, “Behold My Son in whom I am well pleased.”
The Shepherd of His people, who will save them and gather them with His arm - His arm is the Lamb of God slain.
Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
Then it is revealed how He will deliver us. He would be crushed for our iniquities, for all of us are sheep that strayed.
He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face,
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
6 All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all
To fall on Him.
We can therefore see and solemnly contemplate what a shepherd teacher should be, and for all of us, when we have the opportunity to shepherd anyone, as our children for instance, what we all should be.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber.”
Due to its significant nature as a beautiful teaching on the Lord as shepherd of His sheep, Joh 10 is often studied on its own, but it is significant that we don’t detach it from its context from the previous chapter dealing with the Lord’s healing of the man born blind.
Notice that in contrast to Jesus being the door, the Pharisees were threatening to excommunicate (throw out and lock the door) anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Christ. The so-called shepherds of Israel were removing from fellowship with the flock anyone who said that Jesus was the Great Shepherd.
"We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21 but how he now sees, we do not know; or who opened his eyes, we do not know. Ask him; he is of age, he shall speak for himself." 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed, that if anyone should confess Him to be Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.
They called their formally blind son in for a second interview. It shows us an amazing situation that has come upon the unbelieving world since Christ revealed Himself - they cannot just dismiss Him due to His obvious character, so they have to concoct great lies.
And they reviled him, and said, "You are His disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29 "We know that God has spoken to Moses; but as for this man, we do not know where He is from." 30 The man answered and said to them, "Well, here is an amazing thing, that you do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes.
Then this uneducated man presents them with an obvious truth.
"We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing, and does His will, He hears him. 32 "Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33 "If this man were not from God, He could do nothing." 34 They answered and said to him, "You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?" And they put him out.
John 10:1-18 continues the conversation which arose out of the healing of the man born blind. Jesus has pointed out to the Pharisees that they are affected with a more deplorable blindness than that of the born-blind beggar; He now proceeds to contrast their harsh treatment of the healed man with His own care of him.
After healing the blind beggar, Jesus then becomes his Shepherd, protecting him from the harsh jealousy of the Pharisees.
Jesus therefore said to them again, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 "All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9 "I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
The Pharisees were not the door, nor is any other man. The Lord is the door. He sets the conditions of entry, and His condition is faith in Him.
Jesus heard that they had put him out; and finding him, He said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" 36 He answered and said, "And who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?" 37 Jesus said to him, "You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you." 38 And he said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped Him. 39 And Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see; and that those who see may become blind."
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling
We will find in Eph 4 that spiritual maturity is the full knowledge of Christ. Through consistent study and reflection upon His Word and the diligent application of His word, we come to know Him more. Only the believer can know Him. This is a great blessing of eternal life.
“And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.”
“But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14 He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall disclose it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said, that He takes of Mine, and will disclose it to you.”
until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge [epignosis - full knowledge] of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ.
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