The Good Shepherd

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

Well, as a lot of you know, I spent most of the day Friday in the waiting room at the hospital in Ada, because my nephew was, one of my nephews was born on Friday, the most recent one, Silas. And some of you have seen Cecil, his older brother. He’s come a few times and runs around with Charlie, and Silas looks just like Cecil, as far as I can tell.

But I spent the day up there waiting, and it was really frustrating because all of my children have been born C-section. Everything can be scheduled. You know when they’re coming.

And my sister did not have C-section children, and just sitting up there having to wait all day is for the birds. I mean, you can’t plan anything. You can’t get anything else done.

Anyway, and I went up there by myself, so I had to be there early in the morning anyway for some dental work and then just went to hang out in the waiting room after that. and so I had gone without Charla and the kids and at various times I was out there with different members of my family different members of my brother-in-law’s family and people would just cycle back between the waiting room and the the room where she was and if you’ve ever been in that waiting room excuse me if you’ve ever been in that waiting room it’s similar to the size and shape of this room. It’s a long, fairly narrow room that you come in, and there’s a big set of loud double doors at one end, and there’s a spot down at the other end where you buzz, and they let you in if you’re supposed to be in there.

And so everybody going back to the labor and delivery area had to come through this long waiting room, and nobody is quiet coming through there. I mean, I try to be, but nobody else seems to try to be. You would have groups traipsing through there all day that they would just punch those doors open.

You know, they’ve got those things where you push and it goes in and then you can open the door. They just hit those like they were mad at it coming in. And then you’d have groups of people and not using their inside voices, right?

Some of you teachers know what inside voices are and they were not using those. At one point, it was a group of employees that were just giggling and having a wonderful time as they walked through. And I asked Dad if they had a liquor license in the cafeteria.

I mean, they were just so loud. But people just traipsing through there all day being loud. You leave those doors open too long, and the alarm goes off.

And in all the times we’ve been up there, I’ve never heard the alarm go off, but it went off four times Friday because people weren’t, they were holding the door open. I don’t know what people were doing. It was irritating me because I was trying to get some work done.

And it just wasn’t happening. So I’m getting irritated at all these people. I never said anything.

I never gave them dirty looks, but I would look up at my dad, and I’m sure he knew what I was thinking. And maybe, maybe I didn’t want him to know what I was thinking, but I was just getting annoyed at all these people being so loud. And then around 3.

30, another herd of wild elephants came marching through the door. And I look up, and it’s my family. And I’m so excited.

There are my children. And they come running to me, and, you know, Charlie’s not quiet. You’re familiar with his work.

And, you know, Charlie’s trying to get them in the door. Strollers are hitting the door. They’ve got the door open long enough.

I’m afraid the alarm’s going to go off. But I don’t care. My family’s here, and I’m so excited.

Now, why was I not as irritated with them as I was every other loud group of people that came through the door that day? Because they were mine. Right.

Absolutely. They were mine. And I know that’s probably wrong.

That’s what we call a double standard. But they were mine. And, you know, it was because of that relationship.

I was way more excited to see them than I was anybody else that came through the door. It was because of that relationship. And Jesus told a story about, well, he told many stories along these lines, but he told one story in particular about how the relationship makes all the difference.

If you would, turn with me to John chapter 10. The relationship makes all the difference in the world in how we deal with somebody. John chapter 10, we’re going to finish up this section of John chapter 10 today.

We’re going to finish up this series as well on the sheep of his pasture. And we’re going to start at verse 14. No, I’m sorry, we’re going to start at verse 11.

We’re going to start at verse 11 today and read the rest of this passage down to verse 18, where Jesus finishes telling this story. He says, and remember, maybe I shouldn’t have said a story. He uses an illustration.

He gave an illustration that talked about this. Remember, as he tells all of these stories about the sheep here in John chapter 10, He’s dealing with trying to get the Pharisees to understand his relationship to Israel. Because if you read back to John chapter 9 that set the stage for this, it was a conversation about the Pharisees and their spiritual blindness.

You know, Jesus had healed a blind man. That led to a conversation about spiritual blindness. The Pharisees said, but we’re not blind, are we?

Jesus said, you’re so blind you don’t even know how blind you are. That’s a paraphrase. That’s not a direct quote.

But that was the gist of it. And so he begins to use these examples and illustrations of the sheep to try to get them to understand who he is to Israel. Because the main symptom of their spiritual blindness is that Israel’s shepherd has appeared right in front of them, and they don’t even see it.

So we get to verse 11, and he says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, since he is not the shepherd and doesn’t own the sheep, leaves them and runs away when he sees a wolf coming.

The wolf then snatches and scatters them. This happens because he is a hired hand and doesn’t care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd.

I know my own and my own know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, I lay down my life for the sheep. But I have other sheep that are not from this sheep pen.

I must bring them also and they will listen to my voice. Then there will be one flock, one shepherd. This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it up again.

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have the right to lay it down and I have the right to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.

So in his dealings with the Pharisees and their spiritual blindness, he’s used a few illustrations about sheep. And I told you, each of them, we have to take, they are connected, but we take them on their own. Otherwise, we get this really confusing, like he’s the gate and he’s the shepherd that goes through the gate.

And, you know, no, separate them out. It’s one theme, but he’s giving different illustrations here about different aspects of the relationship. Like when I’m trying to explain something to the children and one of them’s getting it and one of them’s not.

And I say, okay, that story didn’t work for you, so let me try a different tactic. I feel like that’s what he’s doing here with the Pharisees. So he begins to tell them he is the good shepherd.

He called himself the good shepherd. And the reason for that, the reason for calling himself the good shepherd in verse 11, you read down to verse 12, and you see that he cares about the sheep in a way that others don’t. As the shepherd, he cares about the sheep in a way that a hired hand never could and never would.

And he explains this in verses 12 and 13 that a hired hand may very well turn and run in the face of danger because those aren’t his sheep. The danger may get so critical that are facing the sheep that the hired hand says, this is just a paycheck and it’s not worth it. I’m out of here.

I don’t get paid enough for this. I don’t get paid enough to risk my life for a bunch of sheep. That’s sort of the attitude of the hired hand.

this is not my job or they don’t pay me enough. The hired hand says they’re not my sheep. I’ll go get another job taking care of some other sheep.

They’re not his sheep. And what I’m talking about is when there’s danger. When there’s danger, the hired hand says, I’m not risking my life for this.

You sheep are on your own. I’m not risking my life. A good hired hand, when there’s danger to the sheep, a good hired hand may stick around and fight a wolf, may try to scare a wolf away or a bear or anything else that enjoys sheep as a meal, he may try to scare it away.

And he may do that out of some loyalty to his employer, out of some care and consideration for the sheep, maybe just out of loyalty to his paycheck, he may do that. But he’s probably not going to risk his life for them. That’s what Jesus said.

You know, somebody gets hired to take care of the sheep. I’m not going to stick around and get eaten so they don’t. They’re not my sheep, right?

But Jesus said that if somebody considers those to be his sheep, if he considers those to be his own, he will protect them at all costs. If he owns them or if he has this connection, this loyalty to them, he’s going to protect them at all costs. And at this, Jesus is, what he’s doing, he’s comparing himself to the teachers that the Pharisees followed.

All these that we’ve been talking about for weeks now that offered other means and other ways to get to God. All these others that they held out as shepherds and gates. And he says, they’re nothing but hired hands.

Because the sheep belong to God. And they may get a paycheck out of this, but all these guys said, I can teach you the way. They don’t care about you the way the shepherd does.

Jesus said, the one who truly cares about the sheep is the one that the sheep belongs to. It’s the shepherd. It’s the one who owns the sheep.

And he’s already said, that’s me. Jesus owns the sheep, so he cares in a way that nobody else does. Jesus knows us, verse 14 tells us.

Jesus knows us, and because of that, he loves us. Can you really love somebody without knowing them? I don’t think you can.

I mean, you can have warm, fuzzy feelings towards somebody. You can love the idea of somebody, but to really love somebody, you’ve got to know them. And Jesus knows us, folks.

Hear me on this. Jesus knows you better than you know yourself. Jesus knows your heart inside and out.

That’s a sobering thought, isn’t it? Because I know myself, and because of that, I don’t always like myself. I don’t always, when I think about what’s in my heart and my thoughts, I don’t always like what I find there.

Jesus knows all of that, and he sees it more clearly than we do. And yet, because of that familiarity, he loves us, because he knows us and says, you’re mine. You’re mine.

Just like with my children. Do I always love the way they act? Absolutely not.

Madeline, do I always love the way you act? No. No, I know about your behavior, and what I don’t know about your behavior, mama tells me, right?

Just wait until your father gets home from the office. Oh, I hear all about it. But you know what?

She’s mine. And I love her. I love her.

Even when I don’t like the way she’s behaving that day, and I’m just picking on you as the example because you’re the one that’s in here today. Even when I don’t love the behavior she’s exhibited all day, even when I look at her behavior and her attitude, and I really don’t like what I find there, she’s still mine. And I know her.

And I love her. Because she’s mine. And he’s saying, that’s how I feel about the sheep.

I’m sure the shepherd gets frustrated with the behavior of the sheep, but he knows us and he loves us because we’re his. So he was telling us, he was saying, these sheep are mine. As he’s had this ongoing conversation with the Pharisees about the sheep of Israel, he’s saying, these sheep are mine.

They belong to me. Anybody else who comes and says they have leadership over the sheep, they’re nothing more than a hired hand. Those sheep are mine.

when you want to know who they belong to it’s me and he says that because of this we can know him and trust him as our shepherd he says in verse 15 just as the father knows me and I know the father back up to verse 14 I am the good shepherd I know my own and my own know me just as the father knows me and I know the father now I struggled with this a little bit because I thought two things I know to be true okay there’s more than that but in this case there are two things I know to be true one if Jesus said it and it’s recorded here in the letters in red and white it’s true. But I also know that the letters written in the Bible in black and white are true and they teach unmistakably that God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts and his ways are higher than our ways. There are things about God that we cannot understand.

I guess there’s a third thing I know. The Bible’s not going to contradict itself. I know people will tell you all the time there are contradictions in the Bible.

I haven’t found any. I have found some apparent contradictions in the Bible. There’s a difference between an apparent contradiction and a real contradiction, something that looks on the surface to be contradictory versus something that really is contradictory.

There are places in the Bible that on the surface look contradictory until you dig a little further into what they’re saying. You take it in context. Sometimes you look at the original languages and realize that, oh, what I thought that word meant in English is not the same.

So with those three things in mind, wait a minute here, Jesus said we can know him, he knows us and we can know him just as he and the father know each other. And yet I know there’s no way I can understand Jesus as well as the father does. Here’s what I believe this means.

Here’s what I believe this means. That he’s not talking about us being able to know him and the Father to the extent that they know one another, but as certainly as they know one another. In other words, I don’t believe he’s saying here that we can know just as much about the Father.

We can know all the ins and outs of the Father, of his power, of his thoughts, of his will, to the extent that Jesus does. I don’t think that’s what he’s saying. I think that he’s saying, as certainly as I and the Father know each other.

That’s how sure you can be that you can know me. Because again, there are some things about God. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, there are some things that are beyond our comprehension.

There are some things that He has chosen not to reveal to us. And we know that because even in His Word, even the book of John says just about Jesus, if all the things were written down that He had done and taught and said that the world itself could not contain all the books that would need to be written. And we have unanswered questions.

You know, what was Jesus doing during the years before, the years between 12 and 30? What was he doing? We have all sorts of unanswered questions.

It’s not, I really don’t believe it’s saying to the extent that you’re going to know everything about Jesus just like the Father does. But I think he’s saying, look at my relationship with the Father. You know that the Father and I are one.

You know that we know each other. You don’t have to doubt that we know each other. And in that same way, you don’t have to doubt that you know me and that we have a relationship.

So as certain as we can be that the Father and Son have this relationship, we can have that same kind of certainty that we know Him and we belong to Him. Does that make sense? Okay.

I just want to try to explain that because, like I said, I struggled with that a little bit this week. and I don’t want to leave you all lost on that either. So certainly as he and the Father know each other, we can be certain of a loving, trusting relationship with him.

So Jesus said that he alone, because of this relationship that he has with the sheep, where he’s the shepherd and they belong to him, Jesus said that he alone was willing to lay down his life for the sheep. He said he would lay his life down. He said all these others will not.

They’ll turn and run away. He said it in verse 11 that he lays down his life for the sheep. He said it in verses 14 and 15 that he lays down his life for the sheep.

And there’s no hired hand religious leader who can ever compare to the good shepherd. I’m here to tell you, whether it’s the Pharisees putting their trust in their teachers or you looking to some preacher, there’s no hired hand religious leader who compares to the good shepherd. If you’re putting your trust in some man and what he tells you and what he believes, as opposed to putting your trust in Jesus Christ and what he promised, you’re putting your trust in the wrong place.

Now, I’m not inviting you to tune me out because I’m not asking you to put your trust in me. I’m just telling you what Jesus said, what God’s word says. But if you’re looking to any human religious leader as the answer to your relationship with God, you’re looking in the wrong place.

The best we can do, the best we ought to do, is point you to Jesus, right? Because he’s the one that your relationship with God depends on. There’s no hired hand religious leader that could ever compare to the good shepherd.

The sheep belong to Jesus in a way that they never could belong to anybody else. Now, that doesn’t mean that those who’ve been called to shepherd the flock, it doesn’t mean that we don’t care about God’s people. doesn’t mean we, I think to do ministry, you ought to feel a certain connection and attachment to the people you serve, to the flock, to use Jesus’s analogy.

There should be a sense in which, you know, those people are mine. I remember, and because they’re mine, I’m going to defend them. I’m going to do what I can to take care of them.

The first story that comes to mind is a few years ago, there was an older lady in my congregation who was not here, but she was telling me, you know, there’s something wrong with my computer, and I keep taking it to the electronics store where I bought it, and I paid for this protection plan, and they just keep telling me it’s not covered under this because it’s got to be this, and they were trying to charge her thousands of dollars, and I’m not a tech genius, but I knew that what she described to me, she brought her computer in one day for me to look at. What she described to me was a problem that should have been covered under what she paid, but they were trying to give her the runaround and charge her a lot of money. And I said, nobody’s going to treat one of my church members like that.

I said, you make another appointment with them and I’m going with you. So we went up there and got them straightened out. I just, I don’t know, it’s kind of like when somebody, she’s three times my age, but it’s kind of like when somebody messes with one of your kids uh-uh we’re not doing that so she’s she’s one of mine so I was going with her to deal with this so you know I I feel a loyalty and a desire to to care for the the sheep of of god’s pasture but at the same time any one of you call me and say preacher there’s a snake on my porch I’m going to say god bless you’re on your own you know there’s There are limits.

There are limits, all right? But with Jesus, there are no limits. And that’s the difference.

That’s the difference. With Jesus, there is no limit. He went to the furthest possible extent.

He went to the greatest possible effort to care for God’s sheep when he laid down his life. I love you, but not enough to tangle with a snake. Jesus tangled with the serpent and crushed his head.

Jesus went to the cross to deal with our problem of sin. He laid down his life. He loves us and he cares for us in a greater way than any hired hand ever could.

He was willing to defend the sheep from danger at all costs. He was even willing to die to protect him. And he says in verse 12 that he talks about the wolves that are ready to snatch unprotected sheep and devour them.

Now, they’ll scatter the rest, but they’re going in and they’re looking for a sheep to snatch. And not just to snatch them. It’s not like that dog that chases the car and you think, what’s going through the dog’s mind?

What’s he going to do when he catches the car? No, the wolf knows what he’s going to do when he catches the sheep. He’s not just playing chase.

He’s out to devour it. They’re ready to snatch unprotected sheep. But if you look further down in John chapter 10 to verse 28, which is the part that we’re not really focusing on this morning, but if you look at that, he talks about this idea of snatching, and he says, no one will snatch them out of my hand.

He said the wolves are out there wanting to snatch and devour the sheep, but nobody, nobody is going to snatch my sheep. And Jesus was willing to die to ensure that that was the case. Now, the greatest threat to Israel was their sin.

And Jesus died. Jesus died on the cross, so that problem of sin didn’t snatch them and scatter them and separate them from God and drag them into hell. He saw that wolf ready to pounce, ready to devour them, and he laid down his life to protect the sheep.

And I think the most incredible thing of this, the most incredible aspect of all of this is that he did it willingly. I’ve heard people describe how mean they think the Father is that He forced the Son into doing this. Everything I know about the New Testament says He did it willingly.

Yes, there’s that moment in the garden where He prayed, if there’s any other way, let this cup pass from Me. But ultimately, He said, but your will, not mine, be done. So yeah, was He excited about crucifixion?

No, who would be? But in the end, He said, if that’s the way you want it to be, that’s what I’ll do. He went willingly.

And he couldn’t have made it any clearer here in verses 17 and 18. He said in verse 17 that he laid down his life. It wasn’t taken away from him.

He said, I lay it down. In verse 18, he says, no one takes it from me. You know, they didn’t have to twist Jesus’ arm to get him to go to the cross.

As a matter of fact, when they came to arrest him with swords, you don’t need the swords. I’ll come along. No one takes it from me.

Verse 18, I lay it down on my own. And he said it was his to lay down. He said it was his to take back up again.

He laid it down at the crucifixion willingly, and he had the power to take it back up again at the resurrection. At no point was Jesus an unwilling victim. At every stage of this, Jesus was deliberately going through these steps to lay down his life for the benefit of the sheep and then raise it up again so that we could have hope in him.

This was all the Father’s plan that he participated in willingly, and he did it willingly in obedience to the Father, he says in verse 18, because he loves the sheep. But we see in here too that it wasn’t just Israel. I mean, his focus in this whole conversation has been on Israel.

But we see in this passage that it wasn’t just Israel that he came to save. Jesus is able to bring anyone to the Father through his sacrifice. We see that in verse 16 where he starts to talk about other sheep that are not from this sheep pen.

You know, just because the conversation with the Pharisees who were part of Israel and very proud of it, just because that conversation was about Israel, don’t think that none of this applies to you. Don’t think that it excludes you. He said he had other sheep that were not from the same pen.

So he was talking about sheep that were not part of the fold of Israel. He’s talking about the Gentiles. He’s telling the Pharisees, this is my relationship with Israel, but I have other sheep too.

He’s talking about you. Bet you didn’t know you were mentioned in the Bible, did you? If you’re not part of Israel, you’re part of those other sheep that he’s talking about.

He has other sheep. He was looking ahead at these sheep who were not part of the fold of Israel, and he loved those sheep too. And he died for those sheep too.

He loved you enough to die for you. And he said, I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. Now, this whole thing was unimaginable to the Pharisees, that Jesus was talking about saving the Gentiles and bringing them into a relationship with the Father, just like the Jews, because the Pharisees in particular prided themselves on having this unique relationship with God that everybody else was second below.

They were closer to God because they were descendants of Abraham. The Israelites were. And then the Pharisees were sort of the cream of the religious crop in Israel.

So they thought they were the closest to God. And then Jesus said, I’ve got other sheep from another pen that I’m going to bring and put in the same fold and be part of the same flock. He said in verse 16, he was going to make them one flock.

Now, this would only be possible because they followed one shepherd. If you remember back to previous weeks, I’ve talked about the communal sheep pen that each village would have. And different shepherds would put their flocks all in these sheep pens.

And the way you’d sort them out was when it was time for them to come out of the sheep pen, the shepherd would stand outside and call out to his sheep. And only the ones that recognized that voice would go out and follow that shepherd. And that’s the only way really to sort them is by voice.

And so for Jesus to say, they’ll hear my voice and they’ll come out too, he’s talking about combining these flocks into the sheep pen. And yet he calls them out and the Jews who respond to his voice come out. And the Gentiles who were a different flock that respond to his voice come out.

And guess what? They’re all following the same shepherd. They’re now, for all intents and purposes, the same flock.

When they were mixed, the only way to sort them was according to the voice of the shepherd that they followed. And he said, I’m going to take them from this sheep pen over here, and I’m going to bring them over here into this fold, and they’re all going to be mixed up. And as far as they know, different flocks here, but as soon as I call them out, they’re going to follow that voice of the one shepherd.

They become one flock. So Jesus was saying that he could bring anybody. Jew, Gentile, it didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter where you’d come from. It didn’t matter what kind of past you came from, what kind of family, what kind of life you’ve lived. It didn’t matter.

When you respond to the call of Jesus, he was going to bring you all as one flock that belonged to God. Jesus was telling them he could bring anybody into a relationship with God. This morning, he can bring you into a relationship with God, regardless of your past, regardless of where you’ve come from or where you’ve been or what you’ve done, He can bring you into a relationship with God if we’ll hear His voice and follow that call.

Today, we have the opportunity to turn to the Good Shepherd for eternal life if we never have before. We go back to that passage later on that I told you toward the end of John chapter 10. And he says in verse 27 and verse 28, My sheep hear my voice.

I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life. And they will never perish.

No one will snatch them out of my hand. This morning, it doesn’t matter if you’ve come from a good sheep pen or a bad sheep pen. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been morally upstanding, somebody that people would say, well, he must be close to God, or whether you’ve done the total opposite.

This morning, if we recognize that our only hope for a relationship with God is that that good shepherd, Jesus Christ, laid down his life for the sheep, that he was crucified, he shed his blood, and he died on that cross taking responsibility for our sins so that we could be forgiven, so that we could be saved. If we recognize that that is the only way that we can have a relationship with the Father, if that’s the only way that we can be forgiven, if we understand that this morning, then the good shepherd calls out to us to come to him for that forgiveness. And again, it doesn’t matter what flock you were from previously.

If you follow the voice of the good shepherd, you’re one of God’s sheep this morning. If you’ve never trusted Christ as your savior, and I want to invite you to do it today. Recognize that you’ve sinned against God.

Recognize that your sin has already separated you from God in this life. It will destroy everything it touches, and it will leave you separated from him for eternity in hell and understand that your only hope of forgiveness is that Jesus Christ suffered, bled, and died on the cross for you and then he rose again to prove that he had the power to forgive sins. This morning if you understand all that, if you believe that that Jesus Christ is your only hope, then you can talk to him this morning.

You can tell him that you trust him as your only savior, that you know you can’t save yourself. You can trust him as your only Savior, you can ask God’s forgiveness, and you can be forgiven and saved because of what Jesus did on the cross.