Luke chapter 12 and verse 22. And he said unto his disciples,
this is the Lord Jesus Christ that is speaking, and he said
unto his disciples, therefore I say unto you, take no thought
for your life what ye shall eat, neither for the body what ye
shall put on. The life is more than meat, and
the body is more than raiment. Consider the ravens, for they
neither sow nor reap, which neither have storehouse nor barn, and
God feedeth them. How much more are ye better than
the fowls! And which of you, with taking
thought, can add to his stature one cubit? And if ye then be
not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought
for the rest? Consider the lilies how they
grow, they toil not, they spin not, and yet I say unto you that
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothe the grass
which is today in the field and tomorrow is cast into the oven,
how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? And seek not ye what ye shall
eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations
of the world seek after. And your Father knoweth that
ye have need of these things, but rather seek ye the kingdom
of God, and all these things shall be added unto you. Fear
not, little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to
give you the kingdom. Sell that ye have, and give alms. Provide yourselves bags which
wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not. Where
no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. For where your
treasure is, there will your heart be also. Amen, may the
Lord bless to us this reading from his word. My verse today, the verse that
I want to concentrate on with you for a little while is verse
32 of this chapter. Fear not, little flock, for it
is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Fear
not, little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to
give you the kingdom. And this has been a favourite
verse of mine for many years, and a verse to which I have returned
time and time again when I think how weak and frail and fragile,
the Church of Jesus Christ often appears in our experience. Because it does, and I am sure
that you will agree with me that certainly when we look at the
Church, the Church of Jesus Christ, and I'm not talking about the
formal religious activities which go on abounding in the world
around about us, but the true Church of Jesus Christ, that
spiritual people, certainly from a physical perspective, they
often seem few and weak. Numerically, they often seem
to be scattered and spread around. And these words, this verse,
fear not little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure
to give you the kingdom, were spoken particularly to the Lord's
disciples, but not restricted to them. They apply to all the
Lord's people of every age. And so we can take this verse
and we can apply it to ourselves today. And I want to draw your
attention to a few lessons that I think we can learn from this
passage and what the Lord has to say here. But before I get
into that, I want to just, by way of introduction, to take
a step back and remind ourselves that it is the Lord Jesus who
is speaking here. It's the Lord who is speaking
to his disciples. And we need to remember that
the Lord is intentionally conveying a message that is designed to
address the very real fears of men and women and boys and girls. The Lord is speaking to us where
he knows we have a need. People like you and people like
me. And I want us to think about
that because it matters that it was the Lord Jesus Christ
who was saying these things. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
who is God. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
with power. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
who, when it came to the miracles and he came to a man who was
lame, he said, rise, take up your bed. And that man got up
healed. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
who came and found a blind man and put a little bit of saliva
and grit together, rubbed it in his eyes and made him see.
This is the Lord Jesus Christ who came into the room of a little
girl who was lying dead on her bed and said to her, arise, maiden. And she got up from the dead.
This is the Lord Jesus Christ, the one of all power, the one
who can do anything he wants to do. And what does he do? He
says to these people, Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Why? Because he knew that they
were afraid. And the point is this, that he
didn't take away their fears. He did not remove the source
of their fears. He didn't deal with the problems
that they perceived that he had. He let those problems run on. He let the troubles and the trials
that they were experiencing continue. He didn't just take away their
troubles and say, there you are, you've not got any reason to
be afraid any longer. He rather encouraged them to
trust the Lord through their trials, through their problems. He doesn't remove the weakness. that we feel or dispel the anxiety
that we have. But what he does is he strengthens
us and he encourages us and he consoles us in our trials. So that these words are designed
to comfort and encourage the Lord's people in their troubles. And that's the point I want to
begin with. The words don't take the troubles
away. The Lord doesn't take the troubles
away. The Lord indeed in his sovereignty
brings the troubles and then he leads us and guides us through
those troubles by encouraging us and comforting us along the
way. And the words are a direct instruction,
not to be afraid. And yet they are expressed with
a gentleness and with an affection that should not be missed. The
Lord is speaking to his little flock. It is such a tender way
of speaking, such a sympathetic approach that the Lord has to
us. And it's not in any way demeaning.
It's not in any way demeaning for the Lord to speak to a little
congregation like this and call us a little flock because that's
what we are. We're not strong. We're not mighty. We don't have limitless resources
within ourselves. We are a weak people and a needy
people. And he knows the pressures that
we are under and he knows the worries that we endure. The New Testament tells us that
the Lord Jesus Christ is touched. The book of Hebrews, the Lord
Jesus Christ is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. What's our infirmities? It's
those weaknesses. It's those weaknesses of body.
It's those weaknesses of mind. It's those weaknesses of attitude.
It's the infirmities that we have in this life. And the Lord
is touched. He knows about those infirmities. He's sympathetic. He's compassionate
towards us in our need. And he speaks like this to his
disciples because he knows how fearful and how anxious we become
in this life. He knows how overwhelming this
world can be for his people. and he knows how contrary this
present evil age is for those who seek to follow him and to
serve him. The Christian life is not a ticket
to an easy passage through this world. On the contrary, it is
filled with pressures and opposition that in truth the men and women
of this world know nothing about. They don't know anything about
the internal warring that goes on between the flesh and the
spirit of a believer. They don't know anything about
the temptations of the devil that we have to deal with and
engage with. Scriptures tell us, Paul writes
to the Ephesians, we wrestle not against fresh and blood,
but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of
the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high
places. The people that you work with
don't know anything about that battle. They don't know anything
about that fight. Christians have a tougher passage
in this life, in many respects. because of the spiritual dimension
of the opposition that we face. So that verses like this serve
several purposes. They remind us that the Lord
is in control of all our circumstances, and they also reach out to us
where we hurt. Verses like this are meaningful
because afraid is what we often are. Troubled is what we often
are. Anxious, stressed is what we
often are. And the Lord doesn't command
us not to be afraid, like some unsympathetic tyrant. You know,
like you see the child that falls and, I don't know, cuts his knee
or whatever, and the mother says, stop crying, stop crying, stop
crying. You know that what the child needs is to be picked up
and hugged. And that's what the Lord does.
That's what the Lord is doing here. He's coming to us in our
moment of need. Not with an order, not with a
demand, but with a comfort and an encouragement. I've got four things that I'm
going to draw your attention to from what is said in this
little verse. And the first one is this. Believers
are the Lord's little flock. When the Lord speaks to us and
he says, fear not little flock, he is speaking to believers. And the Lord's people are a discrete,
distinguished, and separated people in this world. God has
a people in this world. And in fact, that people have
got a long, heritage and pedigree. They have been set apart in God's
eternal purpose from all other men and women. The Bible calls
this people the Lord's elect or his chosen out people. Paul says, ye hath he chosen. So that when we speak about the
little flock, we're speaking about a people, a discreet people,
a known people, a named people, a people that the Lord Jesus
Christ identifies as God's people because they were chosen by God. And actually, there are lots
of names given to these people in the Bible. For example, they're
called Christ's Church. Christ's Church. Now I know that
there are lots and lots of people go by the name of Christ's Church
and we see them all over the place and they're in every country,
they're in every land, they're in every city, they're in every
town and they all claim to be Christ's church or God's church.
We are Christ's church in this place. But I'm telling you that
God has a chosen people and that chosen people are the only people
who can legitimately call themselves God's church. They're called
Christ's brethren, such is the union that we have with them.
This little flock are the brethren, the brothers and sisters, the
family of the Lord Jesus Christ. They're even called Christ's
bride. to emphasise the union that we have. The fact that the
two have become one. That's the picture that we have
in scripture of marriage. The two individuals become one
flesh and they're bound together before God as one flesh. And that is a picture of the
union that we have with the Lord Jesus Christ. He calls us his
bride. They're the family of God, that's
another name. The treasure of God is another
name. The friends of God. And if we
wanted to continue this pastoral analogy, they're called the flock
of God. They're called the fold, the
sheepfold of Christ. And Psalm 100 says, we are his
people, the sheep of his pasture. So the point I'm making is this.
This little flock are a discreet people that the Lord Jesus Christ
identifies from out of this world. And you might be wondering, well,
what is it that makes these people special? Well, there isn't anything
special in themselves. What makes these people special?
They're just ordinary, they're just ordinary people. They're
not super good, they're not super spiritual, they're not super
anything. Sometimes they're super annoying,
I suppose, but they're not super anything. They're just ordinary sinful
people, except for one thing. Before the world was made, before
time began, God decided that he was going to choose them to
dwell with him in heaven forever. Certain people, to call his own
out of this fallen race of Adam and from amongst the men and
women of this world. And he also purposed in choosing
that people to do all that was necessary for the accomplishment
of that end. And this is what the Lord Jesus
Christ means when he says here, it is the Father's good pleasure. It is God's good pleasure. And
that simply is, it's what God has chosen to do. God has the
right to do with what he created as he will. God has the right
to choose whomsoever he will. And he, for his own good pleasure,
has chosen because it pleases him, because it pleases his all
holy good will to give this people his kingdom. That's his good
pleasure. And one of the things that God
has done to accomplish His good pleasure in this world is to
bring His chosen people into His kingdom, or to give them
the kingdom. That's how Jesus expresses it
here. And that means to take away their
sin and to make them holy in His presence. And he did that
by sending the Lord Jesus Christ into this world to be the substitute
for those people, to be the substitute for those sheep, and to pay the
ransom price for their lives. In the Bible, that gets called
redemption. It simply means that they were
made fit for the presence of God. The ransom price for their lives
was the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was his life for theirs. And the Lord expresses it like
this in another place in John's gospel. He says of this little
flock, he says, I am the good shepherd. I am the shepherd of
this little. He said, fear not little flock,
it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. I am
the good shepherd of that flock. They are the reason why I came
into this world. This is the purpose of my coming,
to be the shepherd of these people. I am the good shepherd. The good
shepherd, says the Lord, giveth his life for the sheep. I am
the good shepherd. I know my sheep. How does he
know them? He knows them because they were always the people that
he had been given. They were the chosen people from
the beginning. I am known of mine. So that our Savior came into
this world to redeem his people from their sin. And the Lord
Jesus Christ has both cleansed and obtained a perfect redemption
for all whom the Father elected and gave to Him to look after
and protect. John tells us that in heaven,
when the Father finally gives us the fullness of the kingdom
that is promised here in this verse, that chosen people, that
little flock will say, To Jesus, thou wast slain, thou hast redeemed
us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and
people and nation, so that this little flock are the redeemed
people of the Lord Jesus Christ, chosen by God. and brought into
the experience of God's presence by the death of their Saviour
from every kindred, tongue, people and nation. So yes, they're a
little flock, but they are numbered from amongst all the nations
of the world. Here's another thing that we
can tell from this verse. Christ had confidence in the
good pleasure of his father. Christ said, fear not little
flock, it is the father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. So Christ had confidence in that
which pleased the father. That's the reason why he was
able to comfort the little flock in the way that he does. The Lord is confident of the
Father's pleasure. If there was any doubt about
the good pleasure of God, if there was any doubt about whether
this pleasure would be achieved, then the Lord Jesus could not
truly tell the flock not to be afraid. Let me put it like this. Jesus is telling us, don't be
afraid, he's telling the disciples, but he's telling us all, he's
saying, don't be afraid, everything is under control. Don't be afraid,
everything is going to work out perfectly. Don't be afraid, this
is all in hand. And you might be facing uncertainty,
you might be facing anxiety, you might be facing ill health,
you might be facing financial ruin, you might be facing lots
of problems in your life as far as your own experiences are concerned
and you have doubts and you have worries and you come to the scripture
and this little verse says, fear not little flock, if you are
one of the Lord's people, if you know the Lord, if you trust
in him, you have nothing to worry about. because these things are
purposefully given to you in order to do the will of God in
your life. He is bringing good out of the
troubles that you face. This is for you and it is for
your good. It is the Father's good pleasure
to do you good. And how did Jesus know that? Why did Jesus have such confidence? How could he be so sure? Well, one answer is, of course,
that Jesus is God and God knows everything and therefore Jesus
knows everything too. And that's exactly right. He knows the end from the beginning. That's really a lovely thought,
that he knows the end from the beginning. But actually, although
that's one answer, I think there's a deeper and there's a more precious
answer even than that. The Lord Jesus Christ could speak
with such confidence. because Jesus was referring to
the covenant undertakings of the triune God with respect to
the salvation of His people. The Father had promised the Son
in the eternal covenant that He would save this people and
He would deliver this people to the Saviour. The Father's
divine promises to His Son were assured outcomes. When God the
Father chose His elect people, He promised them to His Son. He promised them to the Lord
Jesus Christ. That was part of the choosing
process. In eternity, God chose this people
from out of the fallen mass of Adam's race, and He said, He said to the Lord Jesus Christ,
you will have these people as your bride. And that was a promise that was
given to the Lord. And there's nothing. concerning
the giving or the obtaining of these covenant promises that
is dependent on us. There's nothing in them that
is conditional upon the people. So that if God makes a promise
to his son, That promise will be fulfilled and it's not that
we have to make up the end. It's not that we have to make
a contribution. It's not that anything is looked
for from us. The only condition is that if
the Lord Jesus Christ finished the work which his father gave
him to do, then he shall have all the promises of the covenant
of peace and the covenant of grace. It really is as simple
as that. The flock shall have the kingdom.
Christ, my beloved son, if you do the job within the covenant
that I give to you, if you go and die on the cross, I will
give you these people. We're a prize. It's not us that
make the choice. We're the prize that God the
Father gave to his son. If we are His, if Christ is ours,
we shall have the inheritance He was promised upon the completion
of His redeeming work. So really, the only question
is this, is Christ an able saviour? Well, I'm pleased to say that
the whole of the Bible, from the Old Testament to the New,
all agree that Christ is an able saviour. Psalm 89, verse 19 says,
I have laid help upon one that is mighty. I have exalted one
out of the dead. I have exalted one chosen out
of the people." And that was God referring to the Lord Jesus
Christ. One that was chosen out of the
people, that is, he was a man, he was one of us, and yet help
had been laid upon one that was mighty. He was God himself. In Proverbs 23, verse 1, for
their Redeemer is mighty. He shall plead their cause with
thee. Zephaniah 3, 17, the Lord thy
God in the midst of thee is mighty. He will save, he will rejoice
over thee with joy. he will rest in his love, he
will joy over thee with singing. And I want us to realise this.
These Old Testament passages were anticipating the coming
of Christ and the victory that he would secure. They knew that
a Messiah was coming. There was an expectancy, an anticipation
amongst these Old Testament people, the prophets and the remnant
believers. There was an anticipation and
an expectancy for when Christ would come and what he would
accomplish, so that they looked forward in faith of what Christ
would do, just as we look back in faith upon what Christ has
done. And this mighty one, the Lord
Jesus Christ, is indeed able, because he is both God and man. He was chosen out of the people,
and he was the Lord, our God, in our midst. And we know that
there's no doubt about the Lord Jesus Christ's success on the
cross because he declared in his great high priestly prayer
in John chapter 17, I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished
the work which thou gavest me to do. And he further confirmed
that on the cross when he said, it is finished. Our Lord Jesus
Christ has successfully fulfilled every covenant obligation that
was laid upon him. He has purchased his people from
their sins, and this is reinforced in the next comment that he gives
us in this verse. Fear not, little flock, it is
your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. And here
we see God's grace. This is God's grace. God chose
this people, the flock of God, his little flock in eternity. He chose us before ever we chose
him. And he gives his blessings upon
the condition of Christ's accomplishments. He doesn't require anything from
us. He gives us, he gives us the kingdom free of charge. He gives it free of obligation.
He gives it free of condition. He doesn't look for anything
from us. It's a gift. It's his grace. Out of his free
goodness, He gives us this gift. Everything contained in the kingdom
is a free gift of grace. Now somebody might say, well,
what if we don't want this gift? What if we don't want it? What
if we don't accept it? What if we refuse to accept it?
Well, that never happens. That just doesn't ever happen. Listen to what the Saviour says,
John chapter six. All that the Father giveth me,
okay? Remember where we are in our
thinking process here? All that the Father giveth me,
that is all that the Father chose in eternity, all that the Father
said, if you go and die on the cross for these people, I will
give them to you. Christ says, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me. shall come to me. And he that
cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from
heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent
me." Right? God's good pleasure. That's God's
good pleasure, the will of Him that sent me. And this is the
Father's will, which had sent me, that of all which He had
given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again
at the last day. It is the will of the Father
to save His people from their sins. It is the work of Jesus
Christ to secure that salvation on the cross. And it is the work
of God the Holy Spirit as the third person of that triune covenant
making God to quicken and to make alive, to convict and to
convert and to give a will to all of God's elect chosen people
so that when they hear the gospel, they believe it. They believe
it. They hear it and they believe
it and they say, I know that that's true. I believe in my
heart that that's true. So there is never one who rejects
it. All of the Lord's people will
come to him. Now they may not accept it the
first time they hear it. They may have heard the gospel
many times. Maybe you grew up in a Christian home. Maybe you
grew up hearing the gospel preached lots of times. and it never made any difference. But if you're one of the Lord's
elect, that time will come when you will say, you know what?
I believe that. I believe what I have just heard. And that is how the Lord brings
his people to himself. If it is God's good pleasure
to give, then the given to, will get it. If you don't believe, you only
have yourself to blame, for no one who comes to Christ will
ever be turned away. Nevertheless, you may be sure
of this, it was never God's will to give you his grace or to give
you his kingdom. because everyone he planned to
give that kingdom to will get it. And if you don't get it,
it's because you don't want it, and you won't ever enjoy that. So let's speak a little bit more
about the gift of this kingdom, and then I'm going to wrap up
our thoughts. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ
says to his needy people. Fear not, little flock, It is
your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. The Kingdom. The Kingdom which
we receive is all the blessings of Christ's Kingdom in which
He is King. The Lord Jesus Christ is Christ
the King. And that kingdom is a rich inheritance. It is a kingdom full of wealth
and resources and blessings and goodness. It is a kingdom of
love and faith and hope and liberty in this life as members of the
church and members of the body of Christ. and it is the sure
and certain promise of eternal glory to come in heaven. We were
remarking as we were just driving over here in the car how we're
growing old. We're growing old and we feel
the effects of our age. And we feel the limitations of
our bodies and our minds. We're becoming forgetful, we're
becoming less strong, we're becoming weaker. We know that that deterioration
is happening in this body. But listen, we have a glorious
looking forward to of eternal life in heaven because not only
is there grace given in this life, there is glory laid up
in store in heaven. We have grace to help us through,
we have glory at the end. And this is the promise of God
to us. The Old Testament believers,
again, they knew about these kingdom blessings. The psalmist
wrote in Psalm 84, the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord
will give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold
from them that walk uprightly. That is, that walk uprightly
in trusting Christ for all their righteousness. and just exactly
what the blessings of grace and glory are will differ in application
for each of us. Your experience of the Lord will
not be the same as mine, nor mine the same as yours. Your
life is different. Your trials are different. Your
walk, your way, your experience is going to be different. And
the Lord Jesus Christ will give you sufficient grace for the
needs of your peculiar and particular circumstances. And he will give
you that kingdom glory if you are one of his. This is the wonder
of this little verse. This is the comfort and the encouragement
that this little verse contains. He gives us faith to trust him
so that from out of the abundance of his goodness we shall not
be disappointed in this life or the life to come. So let me
just wrap up our thoughts on this little verse by returning
to the opening comments that we made about Christ's little
flock and the purpose of this verse when he spoke these words
to his disciples. He spoke to them like this because
he knew the scale of the challenges that we face in this life. And he would have us know that
despite our anxieties and notwithstanding our fears, everything is under
control and everything is going to work out perfectly. People speak about having faith. People speak about trusting the
Lord. There's lots of people say, oh, I trust the Lord, I
trust the Lord, I trust the Lord. I've got faith, my faith does
this, my faith does that. The trouble is we don't know
what's best for us. We don't know what good is. I could ask you to get a piece
of paper and write down the best 10 things that could happen to
you in your life for the rest of this year. And you would write
down the things that you think would make you happy. And you
don't know whether those things would make you happy or not.
You just don't know. You think they'll make you happy,
but they might well make you sad. It's like the people who
win the lottery. You think, oh, it's exactly what
I wanted. It's what I've always hoped for.
And the next thing you read in the newspaper, their marriage
is broken and their children are on drugs and their life has
fallen to bits. They thought they were going
to be happy with these things and they weren't. And the reality
is that's the same with everything. The new job, the new car, whatever
it might be. These are just physical things
that are the trappings of our life. True peace, true happiness
comes from an understanding of what we possess in the Lord Jesus
Christ and the good that He has for us. And that's what it is
to trust Him. That's what it is to have faith
in Him. is to trust that whatever he leads us through, even the
valleys, even the dark times, even the problems, are ultimately
to this end, that he is giving us the good things from his kingdom
promises. Trusting the Lord's not trusting
that he'll give us the things that we ask for, but trusting
that he'll give us the things that he knows we need. And such
help to deal with them as He knows is good for us. It is trusting
for the kingdom that He has promised to give us. And if the Lord were
to take us to heaven right now, if the Lord was to cause us to
die right now, and we are part of that flock, that little flock
of His, He would have fulfilled that promise entirely. Trusting the Lord is trusting
Him through the good times and the bad times, and both will
come to His people. And it's easier to handle the
good times, but we get closer to the Lord in the bad times. And faith is trusting the Master.
when he says, fear not, little flock, for it is your father's
good pleasure to give you the kingdom. May the Lord bless these
thoughts to us today. Amen.