Shepherd The Flock of God — Dan Young

God’s Mercy Reaches Hardened Men

There was a season when we first went to Joshua House, which was, before Joshua House there was a place called Vision Quest, and it was not a Christian center, it was run by First Nations, that's their land, that's where they were, and so we went there, and Vision Quest I think was either a place where out on bail bond, either they were going into prison or out of prison, they were coming out of it, and the Lord opened a door there for me and Randy and Sean and Josh to go up and lead Bible study there, and I remember going there with tremendous fear and not knowing what was going to happen, but every single time the Lord met us, I remember times where we would go in and there would only be one or two guys, but as we started singing, and as Brother Randy started preaching, the crowds would file in, and it got pretty exciting at times, and I remember guys would be cursing and swearing, and the demons were manifesting in a lot of these men, but by the end of it you would see these hard men, they would be broken, and they would experience the love of God, and that's why I think the message of the Gospel is to all men, God wishes that none would perish, and it shows the extensive mercy and kindness of the Lord that he would reach to our lowest place and pull us up and encourage us and give us an opportunity to be saved, and that's a wonderful thing, this is a testimony of God's goodness, and so we can rejoice in that, each and every one of us can think of a time when we were in a very low place and the Lord encouraged us when we called on his name, and you know I'm so thankful that we need to be willing to go and be the hands and feet of Jesus to be willing to share the message, you know he thanked the brothers for coming up, we need to thank our wives for allowing us to go, because we went every Wednesday and it wasn't easy, you know I left my wife and young kids, and Randy left his wife and many kids, and we would go and we would preach the Gospel, and I was so encouraged by it because the Lord would teach us wonderful things in that time, and a lot of the time I wasn't preaching to the people, I felt like the Lord was teaching me as I would share, and I felt the Lord was trying to cultivate a gift, so many of us have received a gift from the Holy Spirit and the Lord has to work in us and allow us to cultivate that gift as we practice and do his will, and so for that I'm grateful that the Lord would have use of us, that the Lord would have use of people like us when he has no need or no business, sometimes you think that the Lord needs to call the prim and the proper, the mighty and the noble, and forever those who are very established in this world, but the Lord doesn't do that, he uses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise, he says not many of you are mighty, not many of you are noble, not many of you are wealthy or rich, he says I call you to go and be my witnesses, so that he might confound the wisdom of this world, the wisdom of this world is to get in the rat race and to chase after all that's in the world, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the boastful pride of life, everything that seems that the world would offer a sense of satisfaction, and that's the wisdom of the world, and I have to be honest we all get caught in that rat race, but you know what, the wisdom of God is foolishness to this world, and it's Christ crucified, and it's Christ Jesus dying for our sins, but not only that, he rose again, and he's living and active, and he's living in us, and if he's not living in you, then you need to ask him to live in you, you need to give him full control of your life, you need to surrender your will to him and say Lord have full possession of my life, let me be the hands and feet of Jesus, let me do your will in my life, and a lot of the time that's where the battle begins with us, but there's one general rule that I want to remember here that I want to read it in 1st Peter 5, that there was a time when it was a vision quest, but after about two years the Lord closed the door, and we weren't there for a while until Joshua House took over this facility, so it was a period of about six to eight months, and so we would meet, me, Randy, and Sean, and Josh, we would meet at my house on Wednesday nights or another night, and we would pray, we would spend an hour in prayer, an hour and a half in prayer, and you know what, I would see the Lord answer those prayers, it was actually a great encouragement to me as well that the silent seasons when it seems like you're doing nothing, those are times where you can pray, and you can see the Lord's hand move in your life.

I do, I remember specific answers to prayer, we would get together one week, we would pray about stuff, and the next week we would get together and we could say that the Lord had answered that prayer, and so we must never lose heart in that situation, and you could be in any position, you can be at home with the children, you can be at work, you can always have the opportune time to pray and ask the Lord for help, he can, he can always help you.

Prayer as a Confession of Dependence

I remember once my son was on the basketball court and I heard him mumbling, and you know, he's younger than the other kids, so he has a bit of a challenge, but I heard him mumbling, I said, Isaac, what are you doing?

He says, I'm praying, and it was convicting for me, and I said, no, you don't have to pray out loud, but then I was convicted because I was like, I need to pray, I need the Lord's help at this time, and so the Lord is able to humble the proud with the weak things of the world, you know, and he's chosen the humble things to be mighty in faith, you have to remember that, and so God wants to answer our prayers more than we want to ask him, but he asks us to physically ask him, we have to physically ask him, we can't just expect God to know in our mind what to do and we just hope, no, it's a step of faith to humble yourself and actually confess it with your mouth, Lord, I need your help in this situation, I'm interceding, and you have to actually verbalize that to the Lord, and there's no greater time that when you have a great burden in your heart and you cry out to the Lord and you sense the peace of God and you know that he's answered that prayer, you know that he's heard what you've asked of him, he may not answer the prayer right away, but he's heard you, and that's a great sense of peace that you have and you know that this is what you long for, and we tend to forget this, that our God is a good father, he wants to help us, and we can ask him, my children ask me all the time for things, they never stop, sometimes I just stop, and they never do it, and it's a reminder to me, though, that I need to come to the Lord and ask him the same things, Lord, I need your help in this situation, I don't know how to do this, I need wisdom, Lord, I need grace, I need you to act on my behalf according to your will, some of us are praying for God's answer in our life, and his answer to us is no, I remember times where I've tried to kick the door down and say, Lord, I need you to do this, I need you to do this, help me, deliver me, and the Lord says no, no, the answer is no, it's not good for you at this time, you need to wait, you need to be patient, it says through faith and patience they inherit the promises, and Abraham, we know the story of him that he had to wait many years before those promises were delivered to him, and during that time he tried to make something happen, and we all know that he produced an Ishmael, and it was something that did not bring glory to God, because it was something that was done out of his own strength, and like I shared last week, we have to wait until the Lord starts to work in our life, but during that time we continue to beseech the Lord, we continue to pour out our heart to the Lord, we continue to lay our burdens and our cares at his feet, and we continue to praise his name, we can worship him, we can thank him, a true test of worship is not when things are going well, a true test of worship is when you're going through a tough time, and you still choose to give thanks and praise his name, because he is good, and his mercy endures forever, and so during that time we would meet on that Wednesday night, or those other nights, and God would answer prayer, and then slowly over a period of time through divine intervention the Lord opened the door for Joshua House, and that's where we met Brother Chad, and we met many other brothers, and the Lord gave opportunity to men, even at Joshua House, to get their lives right with the Lord, and the Lord gives us opportunity to continue to be led of his spirit, to be used of him every single day, and so we can't take those things lightly, but I wanted to share one rule here that I always shared with the guys there, it's in 1 Peter 5, chapter, verse 1, it says, Therefore I exhort the elders among you as your fellow elder and witnesses of the sufferings of Christ and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God, and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness.

Shepherding Families and the Straying Sheep

He's talking to people who are in leadership, and he's exhorting them that they need to shepherd the flock of God among them, to be there for people, to care for them, and not to do it because you have to, but we do it because you want to, and that's the type of example that Christ wants us to have even with our families, our families, we need to shepherd our families, not because we have to, but because we want to, and because it's God's will, and that's a challenge, we must remember that sometimes we think raising children or being there for our families is not very important, it is very important, some of you can't be around your family, maybe some of the situations that you're in has not enabled you to do that yet, but you know what, there will be a day when you are there, but you know what you can do now is you can pray for the Holy Spirit to work on their life, and you know what, as much good as I try to do my children, as much good as I try to help them, it will do them no good compared to what Jesus can do for them, and so my prayer should always be, Lord, they're your children, and I will do my best to raise it in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, but in regards to their lives, I need you to overstep, to overtake their lives, I need you to act on their behalf, and I need you to do something for them, and God will answer that prayer more than we can do anything, because he can change the heart, and so we must not forget to pray for our children, this is something I lack in consistency, and so when we lack in consistency in these things, we should remind ourselves to say, hey, I need to pray for them today, I need to ask the Lord to thank them for them, and not just a quick prayer, not just some motto, not just some mantra that you can say with them at night, but an actual heartfelt prayer for them, and I want that, I desire that, and he says that you need to do it according to the will of God, and so we need to pray and ask the Lord that his will for us is that we would shepherd the flock of God, maybe souls that have been entrusted to you, that you would care about them, that you would think about them, I know people who the Lord brought in my life who had a touch of God, but you know what, today they're not serving the Lord, and I need to pray for them, I need to labor for them, because the Lord cares about them, the Lord cares about even the littlest one, it says if you have 99 sheep that need no repentance, and you have one that is lost, does not the shepherd leave those 99 and go after the one?

He does, and so that should be our concern when we see attitudes or conditions of people that we know, people that we care about, people that we know that the Lord has called, and we can see that they're not walking with the Lord, we need to pray for them, we need to ask the Lord to give us a burden for them, to give us love in our hearts for them, to be patient with them, just like we need to be patient with our children.

Leading Without Lording It Over Others

It says right here, you're not supposed to lord it over those allotted to your church, but you need to be examples, and this is the greatest danger, the world produces leaders who lord it over the flock, you lord it over them, and there's nothing wrong with saying, hey, I need you to do this, I need you to do this, but you don't lord it over them, where you push them and you push them, we can't do that, and this is something that the Lord has said to work on in my life, and I know He will work on in your lives, He has to change that attitude in your life, you can't lord it over people, you can't demand things from them and burn them out, we can do that with our children, we can do that with people around us, I know that I've done that in the past, and the result of it is it's brought damage to that person, and so I've had to learn the hard way that there's a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things, and I ask the Lord to cleanse me of that, and you need to ask the Lord to cleanse you of that, especially as a father, especially as a husband, to not lord it over your wives, to not do that, to allow the wives to be themselves, allow the Lord to work in their life, sometimes it's a natural ability as a husband to want to do that, we want to control them, and we have to learn to let that go, we have to learn to give it to the Lord and say, Lord, I need you to work in their life, there is a time where you wash them with the word, there is a time where you correct them and you show them, we can't be afraid to do that, we have to be willing to speak the truth to our wives, to our children, we have to be able to do that, but at the same time, we can't lord it over them, otherwise they're going to grow discouraged, they're going to grow weary, and they won't be able to continue, and we have to be able to discern that in ourselves, and that's why he's talking to the elders here, he's talking to them first because he wants them to look inwardly and to see if they're doing it according to God's will, it says right here, and when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory, the chief shepherd, when he appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory, I look at the way the Lord has shepherded me, I'll tell you, there's times where I'm discouraged and the Lord encourages me, and then there's times where the Lord builds my faith, and then there's times where the Lord is strong against me because my attitude is not right or I'm not doing things according to his will, especially as somebody who's been given a place of a stewardship, and so I need to respond accordingly to how the Lord is doing it in my life, so he's the chief shepherd, and so I try to shepherd in the exact same way that he does, I try to parent my children the way that he does, but I fall short in many ways, but I ask the Lord to help me, I get back up and I say, Lord, help me to do it, it says right here, you younger men likewise be subject to your elders and all of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but he gives his grace to the humble, and this is a true statement for all of us, he's opposed to proud people, but he gives his grace to the humble, and so we need to humble ourselves when we sense the hand of the Lord is against us, there's a true statement from a preacher that I know, and he said, you know, it's one thing when the devil's against you, but the Lord's hand is behind you, and he's pushing you against the devil, you're gonna win, and that's a humble person, he's getting the grace, but when you get proud and strong, and you start to look down on others, it's soon enough that the Lord turns the position, and he's now pushing against you, and you ain't gonna win that battle, and many of us know that we're not gonna win that battle, so we need to humble ourselves, we need to subject ourselves to the leadership, to the people around us, we need to submit our will to them, even if we think that we know better, and the true test of that is sometimes in the workplace, you know, we have to learn to just submit ourselves, you know, and just yield our will, even though we may know better, it's something that the Lord is trying to teach us, it's not because he wants us to do some things a certain way, it's because he's trying to teach us a Christ-like character, we think of Jesus' example where he submitted to his parents for so many years, and he knew that he was the son of God, but yet he still yielded himself to imperfect parents, and that's a great testimony that he can give us the help in those situations, sometimes parents do lord it over their children, and my dad was very tough on me, and you know, the times though that it went well with me was when I humbled myself and I just submitted to him, and it went well, and the Lord was with me, and the times that I resisted, it didn't go as well for me.

Humbling Ourselves Under God’s Hand

It says, therefore, humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the proper time, so there is a proper time to be exalted, some of us, we get going, we want to be exalted right away, Lord, use me, I know for certain, when I first was born again, I was ready to go out and preach the gospel, I was ready to go out and share the gospel, I was an evangelist, I would be on the street, anybody I met, they would hear a mouthful of Jesus, you know, and I thought, man, I'm ready to preach the gospel, but I was so far from it, and even now, I'm still so far from it, and I say, Lord, help me to humble myself until the proper time, guys, there is a proper time, but during that time, there has to be a character development, and you know what, when we were at Vision Quest and we would preach the gospel, it was a time of training, but when we didn't go there, and we had a time of prayer, it was even better for us, it was even better for us, because now the Lord could establish us, we could find our strength in Him, so that when we went back to Joshua's, we could share in a better way, we could share in a way that is pleasing to the Lord, and it's more effective, and so the Lord has to prepare the ground, and He also has to prepare us to be useful in His service, and to do that, though, He has to humble us, to do that, though, He has to allow us to be broken, so that we don't think that we're ready to go, the person who's going to be used mightily by the Lord is not the person who's ready to take on the world, there were so many guys at Joshua House who were ready to leave, they were ready to go, and then they left, and they weren't ready to go, they were back there soon enough, or they were somewhere else, we can't hurry the process of God, we have to allow Him to teach us something, we have to allow Him to break that strong will of ours, and when He can do that, then we can be useful to the Master, we can be useful in His service, it says right here that you're supposed to cast all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you, He's talking to younger men here, and younger women, they have anxiety, they have anxiety, because they don't know what to do in their life, and they think that they need, you know what, we need to cast that onto the Lord, and say, Lord, I'm a young person, I'm entrusting my will to you, my whole life is in your hands, I'm casting it upon you, you want to know why, because He cares for you, you can be a young woman, a teenager, you can have anxiety about the future, you cast it on the Lord, you can struggle with an unruly boss, you can have that, you cast it on the Lord, you can have a tough dad, you cast it on the Lord, you need to do that, you need to humble yourself and just say, Lord, I'm entrusting this to you, it says here, you young men and women, be of sober spirit, be on the alert, so a sober spirit, when you think of a drunk person as a person who never stops talking and he's just out of control, a sober person is one who is watchful in their eyes, they're looking, they're aware of the dangers that are around them, they're sober, they're knowing what needs to be done, they're on the alert, that's a wonderful place when you meet a sober person, look at this, that they are watchful, they are the alert, they're watchful and they're sober, your adversary the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, who does the devil want to devour?

Resisting the Devil Through Faith

He wants to devour proud people, because he's the king of pride and so he wants to puff us up, he wants to get us in trouble, he wants us to have rebellion in our lives, he wants us to look down on people, he wants us to lord it over people, this is the devil, he's constantly doing these things, this is his nature, he's a strong man and he wants us to be the exact same person, a strong man and a strong woman, but we need to be weak, we need to be broken, we need to allow the Lord to humble us, so that we can get God's grace and it's God's mercy that he allows us to go through difficulties during those times, so we still get his grace.

And so your adversary the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, but resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world, and after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself perfect you, he will confirm you, he will strengthen and he will establish you.

Living Hope Through Christ’s Resurrection

And so this is during those times of suffering, we need to cast those cares on the Lord. I want to read in 1 Peter 2, that the Lord during those times of suffering, he will perfect us, but we have to allow it to work in our lives, the sufferings of Christ.

1 Peter 1 actually, sorry, verse 3 it says, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Our Jesus is risen from the dead. This is exciting and it's a living hope that we have you guys. He's living and he is going to come again. When we sang the verses today that said, he is coming again, I get excited about it.

I had joy in my heart. He is living, he's interceding for us and he is in control. He is allowing the world to be shaken because he's judging the world. He is judging the world and he's going to continue to judge the world.

Hope Instead of Fear of Death

And you know what? We can have refuge in him because we have hope. We have something that the world does not have. We have him working in our lives who's mighty to save us and he cares about each and every one of us.

He says this through the resurrection, the grave, we don't have to have a fear of death. The world right now is acting because everyone is terrified about dying. Did you know that? In every single country in the whole entire world, they're either in lockdown or they're doing some crazy thing to stop the spread of this thing because people are afraid of dying.

We don't have to be afraid of dying, even though we do need to be smart. We do need to be wise. We don't want to be stupid and go out and just try to expose ourselves to things and sicknesses. We don't want to do that.

You guys, that's foolishness. That's not, that's testing God. We don't want to do that. But at the same time, we don't want to be afraid of dying. We don't want to be afraid of the circumstances because Jesus conquered these things.

Faith Tested Through Trials

And so we can come to him and pour out our heart to him. It says right here that you are protected, verse five, that you are protected by the power of God through faith for our salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.

This is exciting that we are protected by the power of God through faith. So what is the one thing that we need to do when we're discouraged, guys, and we're fearful? We need to have faith, the power of God through faith.

We're protected by that. And so some of us are, are anxious. Some of us are worried about the future. Some of us are even planning our escape plan. We're thinking maybe I can go here. I can, I'll buy this property and we'll go here and we'll have this escape plan.

Seriously. I know lots of people want to do it. I've thought about it. You want to have this, some sort of refuge. What do we do in this situation? You know what you need to do? You need to have faith.

You need to trust the Lord. The Lord's going to deliver you. You can run to and fro and park yourself on a mountain somewhere and nobody knows that you're there. And I tell you, you will have no spiritual life if you're not in the will of God.

You will not be in the will of God. When Jesus was going to be crucified, he didn't run from Jerusalem until it was his time. And then he made his way to Jerusalem. He made his way to Jerusalem and he faced those things.

He was not afraid. So we know that in the situations that the Lord brings us into, he can encourage us and he can strengthen us. He can confirm us. He can establish us. He can give us that hope through faith.

It says right here in this, you greatly rejoice, even though for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials and that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Rosalind and Jonathan Goforth: Prayer Answered in Mission

You know, I read a book yesterday, a woman named Rosalind Goforth and her husband was Jonathan Goforth. And they were sent as missionaries to China in the 1800s, 1811. And this woman, her book is called Answers to Prayer.

And she lost a number of children to death and sickness. But the Lord sent her and her husband to, to a certain region. And as he went there with this other man, Jonathan Goforth prayed that he would be given this territory as a witness.

And so the Lord gave him a scripture that his word will go forth and it will not return to a void. And so he gets to this city and they end up living there. His wife, a year later with her three kids came to live with them.

So he was there one year. His wife was alone with the three kids. And, and, and this is why Jonathan Goforth is so honorable because his wife supported him in this sense. And then a year later, without having seen her husband for one year with the three kids came and stayed with him.

And while they were there, they had such a tremendous revival and a breakthrough in souls that every single day while they were eating meals, people would be at the windows staring in, trying to get ahold of these people like this, such disruption to their daily life.

And so this lady there, they were there. And one day they counted, they had 1 ,834 people come through their house that day in one day to hear the gospel. Can you imagine that? She says it was so difficult.

So the husband would be at the front of the house with all these people while her, the wife and the kids were in the back and the women would come to her with the three children in the back. And it was very difficult, but she learned to lay down her life for the gospel.

Fervent Prayer and a Good Confession

And so they prayed fervently that the Lord would send them helpers who could preach to these people because this is what happens. The Lord brings more brothers into our lives. And, and, and it can't just be one man who does the work.

There needs to be lots of people who do the work, men and women. And so the wife, she said, you know, my husband, he prayed, he had great faith. And you know what? Within two days, a brother came in and he was ready to preach the gospel.

He was a drunk. He, he, and so he had rags and tattered clothes. And so my husband put on him a nice gown and, and he, he would preach the gospel like never before. The man got radically bored again, and he would preach to these people like a dying man to dying men.

And that's how he would preach. And it was so encouraging. Listen to this. He says, but me, Rosalyn, I had no helper yet too. And I had all these women coming to me and I had to take care of my kids. I couldn't do it.

And so she would pray for somebody to come and the Lord hadn't answered that prayer. And then one day a lady came and this Chinese lady, and she had been a speaker in the Buddhist temple or something like that.

But she got born again through somebody spreading the gospel to somebody, to somebody else spreading the gospel. And she heard it from this person. And then she got saved. Nobody even preached to her.

She just heard that somebody shared this message about Jesus and she got saved. Like the Holy Spirit was so working in that area. And this was in the midst of much opposition. They didn't run to the mountains.

They ran right into the midst of the opposition. Jonathan go forth. And I think his wife were both killed in the Boxer Rebellion when the people came and killed the Christians. I believe they were killed in that situation, but they were there and she was there and she was praying.

And suddenly this lady came and she, she was a speaker and she knew the gospel and she would share with the people. And it was a tremendous answer to prayer. And this, she said, this woman had a good confession.

Her good confession was that when she became a Christian, they strung her up by her thumbs and they tortured her and she hung by her thumbs and she never renounced her faith. That was her good confession.

And we know the verse in the Bible that says Jesus who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate. You know what, we need to have a good confession in the midst of our trials and our temptations that we love Jesus, that we love him and that we are a witness for him, especially in this generation.

Because the Lord didn't give us our Holy Spirit right now, guys, that's subject to all the trials that are coming upon this world right now. No, the Holy Spirit conquered those things. He did. The spirit of Christ, he conquered those things.

And we can have courage because the spirit of Christ dwells in us. And if we don't have it, we need to start asking for the Lord to put his spirit in us so that we can be useful to him. Let us humble ourselves and rejoice.

And when I heard that testimony of her, I was very convicted. I was like, man, no wonder the Lord had use of her. She didn't renounce her faith in the midst of that torture. And now this lady was used, this lady became so useful to her in the later years and really effective in the ministry of God.

And so let's have a good confession. I'm not saying that we need to be hung up by our thumbs, guys, but at the same time, we need to be willing to suffer with Christ as he allows those things to work in our lives, more Christ-likeness and to make room for him so that we can be useful to him.