Before we read the lesson today, I have a question: What does God look like? Since we're at the end of another church year, maybe it would help to think back over the year at some of the Scriptures we've had. What does God look like?
Some artists were asked that question, so they each went to work to picture Him. One of them wanted to show God making the world. So he painted a big man with large cheeks, blowing some wind. That was supposed to portray God sending the wind to separate the water from the land.
Another artist who wanted to paint God made a lot of light come from some clouds. He didn't show God at all. The bright light was to give you the feeling that God was always near.
A third artist made God look like an old man with white hair who was kind and good. That was supposed to be a picture of our Father in heaven. How would you picture God?
How does one answer the question “ What does God look like ” because “God is a spirit” (Jn.4:24)? In some ways a spirit is like a voice out of the radio. You don't get a chair for that voice to sit on, do you? You don't give it something to eat, do you? You can't see it, can you? But the voice is very real and it is there just the same.
When Jesus said, “God is a spirit,” He meant that God has no human body like we do. Of course, people saw God when Jesus came to earth because He took on a human form; and Jesus is God. But that was different. Jesus had to be fully God and fully man to die on the cross and save us. Jesus is man; God isn't. No one on earth has ever seen Him. Yet, we can “see” Him in another sense by what He does and how He is.
That's the reason this text is important. It sums up all the things we've heard about Him and His relationship to us in the past year. So, as we read this text, this is What God Looks Like. It is a summary of what He does and what He is for us.
I. It depends on what we look like to Him.
Here is the classic picture of God as the Shepherd. It's one of the favorite “looks” of Him that we believers have, isn't it? Why is it such a favorite? In order to answer that question we have to first look at ourselves, because everything here that describes God is dependent upon what we look like to Him.
What do we look like to Him? We look like sheep. Okay, how do sheep look? Help me here; think about it. How do sheep look? First, give me some physical characteristics. (e.g., white, fluffy, cute, floppy ears)
Now, what's so bad about that? Not too much until you consider things like what happens when the sheep with its nice, white, fluffy wool falls into a mud puddle. Then it becomes ratty, stinky, and a total mess. And the sheep is not going to clean up itself. Someone else is going to have to get his hands dirty to get that sheep looking good again.
Okay, let's move on to a sheep's personality characteristics. What are they like outside of their physical appearance? Think of some examples of their character. (e.g., gentle, stubborn, oblivious).
Now, what's so bad about those? Some of them like “gentle” or “meek” aren't so bad, are they? In fact, didn't Jesus instruct his followers to be meek when He said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (Mt.5:5)? Certainly, Jesus Himself was meek. You see His meekness when He came to Jerusalem to die riding on a donkey, or when He handled the mockery of the soldiers who hit him with silent dignity. In God's eyes being meek in and of itself is not a bad quality. Yet, if you take that quality on for yourself as Jesus encourages you, what will happen to you in the world? What happened to Him? He was meek and they crucified Him. And He told us such things would also come to those who follow in His footsteps.
Now think of some of the other characteristics like “stubborn,” or “oblivious.”
Think of it. If an animal is stubborn to the point of insistence so that it won't back down, what happens to it when it gets itself into trouble? If an animal is oblivious of the trouble it is getting itself into, what happens when predators see that? They'll take advantage of it. And if such a stubborn and oblivious animal leads others with it, they're all going to get into trouble.
As an example the story is told of a farmer who had many sheep. When they were eating grass with him around, they behaved very well. But if one of them went wrong, they all wanted to go wrong.
One day one of the sheep found a hole in the fence. He went through the hole. So did the next sheep, and the next one, until all the sheep had gone through the hole. Finally, a frisky young lamb, called Fluffy, went through the hole, too. Then the neighbor's dog started barking. The sheep became afraid. They tried to find the hole in the fence, but they forgot where it was. They ran all over the field. One sheep broke a leg. One got caught in some bushes and couldn't come home. Fluffy jumped over some tall grass and landed in a mud puddle where she got stuck; she couldn't move. By the time the farmer got to her, she was a very scared little lamb, and a mess, oh, what a mess she was!
By now we've painted enough of the picture of what sheep are like. Link those pictures to us because that's what God is doing. He's comparing us to sheep. This is what we look like to Him.
So, what characteristic best describes you? What are you in God's eyes - stubborn? oblivious? meek? weak? How do you look to God? It's important because that dictates what He is and does for us.
II. It depends on what He does for us.
It dictates that because no matter how He sees each one of us, there is one overriding characteristic here that each of us owns that makes us like sheep. We are “helpless.”
A sheep is among the most helpless of creatures if left to itself. If it gets out of the hole in the fence, it will wander away until it is completely lost because sheep don't have a sense of direction to guide it home. It can't find good pasture on its own. It can't smell good water to drink. And it's not equipped to defend itself against predators that would attack it for food.
That's actually the point in Ezekiel's prophecy. The children of Israel were helpless in the face of their predators. And their predators were within. Oh, they had problems with the outside world. In fact, in Ezekiel's time the great army of Babylon had fought against them, leveled Jerusalem to the ground, and taken them captive far to the east. They were helpless before them.
But even more, they were helpless in the face of predators within. Their own leaders hurt the people for their own advantages. They stole from them; they were unjust in their judgments. We might say, they “fleeced the flock.” God's people were helpless. So He said in a verse just before our text, “My flock lacks a shepherd.”
It's also a picture of us by nature. The Psalmist described it when he confessed (119:176), “I have strayed like a lost sheep.” And Isaiah added (53:6), “like sheep we each have turned to our own ways.” Helpless in sin and weakness.
So what did God do? In His mercy and grace He went into action for us. Notice how He said it in our text, “I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a dark day. I will bring them out. I will pasture them. It will tend them. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. But the sleek and the strong (that would be the rulers who took advantage of the rest) I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice. I will save my flock and they will not longer be plundered. And I will place over them one shepherd.”
Did you hear His emphasis, “I will do this….I will do that….I myself will be….And then finally, I will place over them one shepherd – one shepherd related to King David of the past. Who else could that be except the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior?
Now, dear friends, think back over the church year. We started at Christmas with the birth of the Savior. We saw Him in Epiphany going into action for us with His preaching and teaching and healing. We saw Him suffer on the cross to pay for our sin; but then rise gloriously on Easter to give us the hope of life. Then He went back home to His heaven so that He could control all things for the welfare of His people. Then He sent the Holy Spirit to teach us and guide us in our lives of faith. He even instructed us how those lives of faith could be led to His glory and our good. And finally, during the last few weeks, He's told us about His return and the place He wants to take us He did it all. Why? Because we were helpless – helpless like sheep. What we looked like to Him dictated what He did for us.
What love the Good Shepherd, the Shepherd-King of heaven has for us! Few pictures in Scripture are as rich in comfort, joy and peace as this one. This is what God looks like. What a great way to end the church year and to approach another. May its rich pictures bless our lives in Him; for Jesus' sake. Amen.