Jesus, the Overseer of our Souls
Introduction
On Easter Sunday I kicked off a series entitled: “The Great and Awesome Glory of Jesus.”

On Easter Sunday we talked about Jesus the Resurrection. 

Because of the greatness and awesome glory of Jesus He rose from the dead  forcing open the door to a quality and duration of life, the Bible calls eternal life, that had never been opened before since the first man died.  
The second sermon in this series I preached a number of weeks ago I talked about Jesus, the Lamb of God. 
The  centerpiece of all heavenly worship Jesus, the Lamb that was slain. The culmination of all of history. The one act that will be worshipped through out eternity. 

It is the greatest demonstration of the glory of the grace of God in all creation.

This will and must never be forgotten. 
Today, the third sermon in this series, we want to talk about Jesus, the Overseer of our Souls.
This is taken from 1 Peter 2:25: Read this verse but also the verses that precede it. Read 1 Peter 2:22-25
Peter starts by saying: “For you were like sheep going astray,..”
Peter has in mind Isaiah 53:6 “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
Before returning to Jesus we were like sheep going astray and wandering off.
We were not driven away from God against our own free will. We preferred created things above our Creator. We found satisfaction in the many good gifts God gives us rather than being fully satisfied in Him.
Jeremiah 2:13 “My people have committed two sins:They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
We naturally commit two sins. 1. We reject God our source for life. 2. We work at finding life and soul satisfaction apart from God. 
Food, television, sex, hobbies, career accomplishments, clothing, material possessions, and the list goes on and on of the things that we look to bring life and satisfaction to our souls apart from God. 
John 3:19-20 “19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”
Before returning to Jesus we loved to be in the place, in our inner lives, where we were setting our affections on things other than God. We do not want to be brought into the light of truth and have our evil inclinations and deeds exposed. The condition of our inner life had us thrilled about finding satisfaction in created things rather than our Creator.
We were like: sheep going astray, disconnected and separated from the Giver of Life.
I pray that by the grace of God you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your soul  because only Jesus knows what is best for our souls and how to care for our inner lives.
Peter tells us that Jesus is the Overseer or Guardian of our souls. 
What does this mean? How should we understand this?
What exactly is Jesus guardian over when Peter says He is guardian over our souls?
Our soul is who we are. Your body is a vehicle for your soul. Who you are, your soul, finds expression through your body. Though your body would die you would not cease to live, and the “you” that would be alive is your soul.
Our soul is the summing up of our personality and our whole unique self. Our emotions are the expression of our soul.
Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart "Our soul is like an inner stream of water, which gives strength, direction, and harmony to every other element of our life. When that stream is as it should be, we are constantly refreshed and exuberant in all we do, …and all else within us is enlivened and directed by that stream." 
Our soul's health drives everything that matters to us. 
Dallas Willard continues, "Fundamental aspects of life such as art, sleep, sex, ritual, family ("roots"), parenting, community, health, and meaningful work are all in fact soul functions, and they fail and fall apart to the degree that soul diminishes." 
Now that Jesus is the Overseer or Guardian of our souls, the very essence of who we are, our inner life, needs to bring to our awareness at least 5 things.
1. This speaks to Jesus’ authority. All authority over our souls are His and this is a present reality. 
2. A great comfort: Jesus watches over our individual souls very carefully.
3. Jesus is zealous for the health and well-being of our inner life to the point of bearing our sins in His body on the tree that He might bring healing to our souls.
4. Jesus pays attention to and knows the condition of our inner life.
An illustration of this is found in Matthew 23:25 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.”
5. Jesus oversees our inner life to ensure we e become who we are. 
As Peter Scazzero shared at the M.B. pastor and spouse retreat at Harrison, in the end when we stand before God He will not ask us why we weren’t like Moses, but why were you not you.”
Jesus is the Overseer of our souls.
Now we have that truth established lets set it aside for a moment and lets talk about our souls, our inner lives.
How are we doing? How are you? I am not asking how was your week, how was you job? How is your soul? What is the state of your inner life?
Psalm 55:6-8  “I said, "Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest- I would flee far away and stay in the desert; I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm."
Have we not all felt like David? We are under enormous pressure and stress. Discouragement overwhelming us feeling like our lives are spinning hopelessly out of control, weighed down with concerns.
If only I could run away from it all.
Our souls are in turmoil, we are filled with anxiety, anger, apathy, chronic fatigue and we have lost our desire for God. And if our souls are like a stream that enlivens and directs the rest of our lives then our souls have all but dried up.
Listen to the words of Jesus, the Overseer of our souls, in Matthew 11:28-29 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
When we over-work, over commit and generally speed through life, hardly stopping to catch our breath, to rest, to be quiet and still before God, to mediate on His Word, to center our lives on Him through prayer, we do violence to our souls.
What does Jesus mean when He says that His yoke, His work for us is easy and His burden, the weight of responsibilities He wants us to carry, is light.
Does this mean that our work and the responsibilities we carry will not be challenging, difficult, or demanding? No, it means that they will not do violence to our souls.
Jesus says come to me, put everything else aside, seek me before anything or anyone else and I will guide you into the right balance in life where your schedule and the demands of you are not dying up your soul. 
We had a great time in New York. The course was excellent well worth the time, effort, and money.
We had the opportunity to see the sights.
New York is a huge city and driving in Vancouver really cannot prepare you to drive there. When we were needing to find a location in the city I did the bulk of the driving. 
For example I drove through New York in the middle of the night finding our Hotel in Nanuet New York an hours drive through a maze of turnpikes, interstates, and free ways. I drove from Nanuet New York to Nyack New York successfully finding the Alliance Theological Seminary Campus. I was quite amazed.
Actually in all our driving we did not get lost because Darren was navigating. He had studied the map and He was supervising. He was overseeing the whole thing. I was merely following His directions. 
Here is the key: I drove at a reasonable speed so that I could make my exits when he told me to turn because I trusted Darren to guide me to our destination.
We need to live our lives at the speed that allows us to hear God’s voice and respond to His guidance and His direction for us.
When we run at a speed that is faster than what is good for our souls as determined by Jesus, the Overseer of our souls, our inner lives will be marked by anxiety, hurry, anger, worry, and fatigue rather than delight, joy, peace, love, gentleness, patience, kindness.
And we will find that we cannot embrace life’s circumstances, events and people with the energy and exuberance we would like to when our souls are weak and unhealthy. 
In Matthew 16:26 Jesus describes the value we are to place on our souls: “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?”
Jesus is alive. Jesus is overseeing as we speak. Jesus has the wisdom and authority to oversee and care for our inner life.
Are we submitting to His oversight, His counsel, His guidance, His authority?
Are we slowing down to hear His voice so we know how to live?
Conclusion:
Our flight home was scheduled for 2:30 on Saturday afternoon out of Newark Airport. Darren loves to study maps and so the night before he studied the map to the airport. We spend approximately an hour navigating our way through traffic and the maze of  turnpikes, bridges, interstates. By the time we got to the airport all of my American change was gone and Darren was dipping into his trying to pay all the tolls. Every time you took an exit or crossed a bridge you were paying a toll.
We finally made it to the airport. We found our rental agency, dropped off our rental and found our way to the United terminal. We were so proud of ourselves. A number of times we commended ourselves for how seamless our travel had been on the trip. 
As we were approaching the United check-in counter Darren turns to me and says, “James, we forgot our passports in the hotel safe.”
We looked at our time. We had about an hour and a half before our flight was scheduled to leave not enough time to get to our Hotel grab the passports and get back to the airport. What are we going to do?
We told the United ticket agent our dilemma. He said well, there is not way you can get back into Canada without your passports. You are going to have to rebook your flights. He rebooked our flights for 5:00 at LeGuardia airport. 
We saw every airport in New York except the one on Statton Island. 
Now we had to re-rent our car and find our way back to the Hotel, grab our passports, and find our way to the LeGuardia airport.  
People will stand in line for hours to process a passport application. The papers themselves are of very little value apart from the access they provide into other countries and this purchased and processed access does absolutely no good locked up in a safe. We make use of them by displaying them.
In the same way we have gained access into the very presence of God through Jesus Christ, the Overseer of our souls, and this access to our Father is meaningless unless we are taking up the spiritual disciplines by which we come into His presence finding life for our souls.
We can go through life and overlook and neglect the most important, our inner life in God from which everything else flows.
Persevere in seeking Jesus. 
I Peter 2:25