Jesus Made One Flock From Different Folds

What Did Jesus Do?

“And I have other sheep that are not of this fold.
I must bring them also...So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”
John 10.16

Here in western North Carolina there is no shortage of churches. I rather imagine that McDowell County, with its population of just over 40,000, is a rather wide section of the “Bible Belt.” If you stopped by the County's Visitor Center and requested a listing of churches in the area you would find that there are between 160-170 (The number being uncertain, as a congregation here last month might well no longer exist, but two may have since popped up in its place.). The large majority of McDowell citizens who refrain from attendance at any one of these many and varied flocks, may conceivably be paralyzed by the surfeit of choices before them. How is a lost sheep to decide what fold to enter? The one thing necessary is the presence and lordship of the Good Shepherd.

Without the Good Shepherd the height of the steeple is of no consequence. The beauty of the stained glass is immaterial. The majesty of the organ indicates nothing. The energy and passion of the praise team counts for naught. The 500 pound King James Bible on the pulpit is of no use. Dozens, hundreds, even a thousand and more cheerful and friendly sheep mean nothing if the Good Shepherd is not present and in charge of the fold.

Opinions differ widely on how the presence and lordship of the Good Shepherd is to be discerned. Certainly, the reading and proclamation of the Gospel, the Word of God, is essential. The celebration of the sacraments of Baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and of the Lord's Supper, is indispensable. Discipline, which is to say orderliness, and submission to the authority of the Good Shepherd, should be present, or one might question just who is lord in that place.

I believe there is something else that is critical, something the Good Shepherd himself said about his flock. Unity—“one flock, one shepherd.” When a lost sheep looks at the many folds full of sheep apparently doing their own thing rather than His thing, and quite content to do it quite on their own without any real connection to any other sheep in any other folds, much less any evidence of an organic ans spiritual oneness with the sheep of other folds in the Good Shepherd, the lost can hardly be blamed for refraining from entering in.

The truth is, here in McDowell County, and in every place throughout the world, and at every time until the Lord himself returns, if there is not one Church, then there really aren't any churches. The true sheep of the Good Shepherd have an overriding desire to be both one with the Lord, and with all of his sheep. Strident parochialism, and rampant denominationalism are indications of anything but the unity of the Body of Christ in, through, and under the sole lordship of Jesus. This is not at all to suggest that essential doctrines of the faith which bind the Church as one be abandoned, but rather to caution against a proliferation of what is essentially me-ism or us-ism instead of Him-ism, if you will.

“Divide and conquer” is an age-old strategy, and one you can be certain the devil does not disdain to employ. On the other hand, “united we stand,” is an equally proven strategy for success. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, achieved victory on the cross for the one flock he fashioned from the sheep of many folds, who stand united in him.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4