The Heart Of A Shepherd - A Man After God's Own Heart Series

“‘Who are you, son? Whose boy are you?’

“I felt the old weight come upon me. It was like a big, black cloud. Even the preacher was putting me down, I thought.

“But as the preacher looked down at me, studying my face, he began a big smile of recognition. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said, ‘I know who you are. I see the family resemblance. You are a son of God!’

“With that, he slapped me across the back and said, ‘Boy, you’ve got a great inheritance. Go and claim it.’ “That,” Ben Hooper said, “was the most important single sentence anyone ever said to me.”

With Christ’s help, Ben Hooper had overcome his sense of rejection and inadequacy and claimed his inheritance as a child of God.

CLOSE: The Lord is MY Shepherd.

You know. There is a distinctive difference between the sheep of the field, and us. Those sheep do not get to CHOOSE their shepherd. The shepherd chooses them. In the days of the Bible, when a shepherd bought a sheep, he’d take a firm hold on the sheep, pull out a long, sharp knife and cut a distinctive earmark into one of the ears of the sheep. In that way, even from a distance, it would be easy to determine to whom the sheep belonged.

The difference for us, is that – unlike the sheep – we get to choose whether or not we will take the mark of Jesus into our lives. His mark is distinctive – but what does that “mark” look like? The Bible is very clear on what the mark looks like. The mark starts with

· Faith. We must believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God.

· We must Repent. Acknowledge that we have sinned and fallen short of being accepted by Him living our lives in our own way. And the turn around and turn our lives over to Him.

· We must Confess that Jesus is our Lord. We must give Him everything we have. Our possessions, our loved ones and our very lives. We must determine to make Him the Lord of our lives.

· And lastly, we must accept the distinctive mark of what He did to purchase us. He bought us by His death, His burial and His resurrection from the dead. Thus, His mark upon us is taken by us when we die to our sins, are buried in the waters of Christian baptism, and rise to walk in newness of life.

SERMONS IN THIS SERIES (A Man After God’s Own Heart)

Measuring Up - 1 Samuel 16:1-16:13

Be Prepared/ Scout Sunday - 1 Samuel 17:1-17:53

A Friend After Your Own Heart - 1 Samuel 18:1-18:5

A Heart To Honor Authority - 1 Samuel 24:1-24:22

An Obedient Heart - 2 Samuel 6:1-6:15

A Heart To Worship - 2 Samuel 6:12-6:23

The Heart Of A Shepherd - Psalms 23:1-23:6

The Over-exposed Heart - 2 Samuel 11:1-11:5

The Undeserving Heart - Psalms 51:1-51:1

The Weakened Heart - 2 Samuel 3:17-3:39

The Heart Of A Father - 2 Samuel 13:1-13:39

A Heart to Build - 2 Samuel 7:1-7:17

The Dead Dog Syndrome - 2 Samuel 16:5-16:14