Today we’re talking about how our Good Shepherd became a sheep… How He became one of us to save us, laying down His life for us. His is the greatest love of all time.
Show Notes:
- John 15:13 – There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
- Who Is Jesus? Let us introduce you!
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Transcription:
Did you ever see the TV show Undercover Boss, where these big CEOs would go undercover in their companies and do all of the jobs, no matter how dirty, no matter how small, and learn things about their company, learn things about their people, and so often it changed the way they led when they sat back down in their fancy CEO office. Hi, it’s Erica welcoming you to the Bible for Busy People. Today we’re going to talk about how our good shepherd became a sheep. Jesus took Undercover Boss and took it a million, billion, trillion… Put a zillion zeroes behind that number steps further. Jesus became one of us to save us.
There is no greater love than he who lays down his life for His friends.
Jesus said that somewhere in the gospel of John, I’m going to make a note. I’ll put it in the show notes for you. There is no greater or more selfless love in the universe than the kind that Jesus showed you and I on the cross, and he didn’t say on that cross, he rose again defeating death, hell and the grave. Well, today we’re going to learn a little bit more about our Good Shepherd. I want you to just be overflowing with God’s love for you. by the end of this episode, I want you to feel the kind of love that the apostle Paul writes about in Ephesians chapter three, verse 18,
And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.
Let’s swim in that love today in a spiritual sense. Let’s just keep swimming like Dory says in the Finding Nemo movie in his love every day. Okay, I want to invite you to join me now in the book of Isaiah. He was one of God’s prophets, chapter 53, beginning with verse one. he’s writing about our good shepherd.
To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm? 2 My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. 3 He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. 4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! 5 But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. 6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. 7 He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. 8 Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream. But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people. 9 He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave. 10 But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants.
That’s you and me, by the way.
He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands. 11 When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins.12 I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier, because he exposed himself to death. He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.
You and I are counted righteous because of what Jesus did on our behalf. It’s so hard to hear those words, isn’t it? It was the Lord’s good plan to crush him. I found a little bag of lavender, crushed lavender, in my nightstand table last night. I don’t think it was an accident now because I remember during a really challenging period in my life where I felt crushed, I walked into this gift shop and I saw these beautiful lavender sachets, and the aroma was just lovely, and I held a sachet in my hand and it was there that God spoke to me and said that though I was crushed, he would yet bring good out of it. There would be no delightful aroma of lavender if the plant was never crushed. That was a lesson I learned that God wastes absolutely nothing, that there is always more to the story because Jesus didn’t stay on that cross. He rose again, but he made it possible for us to have peace with God here, an eternal life in heaven forever. Listen to Hebrews chapter two beginning in verse 14.
Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. 15 Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.
Skipping down to verse 17 now.
therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful high priest before God. Then he could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people. Since he himself has gone through suffering and testing, he’s able to help us when we are being tested.
He is everything. He is the friend that sticks closer than a brother, the everlasting father, our savior, our rescuer, our very good shepherd who loved us enough to become a sheep, to become one of us, to save us. I mean, if that’s not love, I don’t know what is. He’s so good our good shepherd. Until next time, you are so loved.
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