Transcript

Jesus, the Good Shepherd We Need

John 10:1–18

Amen, amen. You may be seated this morning. When Jesus compares us to sheep, it can feel a bit humiliating. After all, sheep are known for the three D’s. Dumb, directionless, and defenseless. Left to themselves, sheep wander into danger. And when they try to lead, they often lead wrongly. Take, for instance, the story that came out in news articles in 2005 when shepherds in the country of Turkey were shepherding their flock, and one of the sheep decided to throw itself off the cliff. A thousand plus followed. And of the sheep that followed, 400 died. Many others survived. But what you see is that when sheep decide to lead, they lead wrongly.

But when Jesus causes sheep, He is not mocking our intelligence. He is pointing to something deeper. He is pointing to our vulnerability. Of all animals, sheep are of the most defenseless animals. And in truth, we as humans are often defenseless. I mean, just think about it. You can’t stop a heart, a headache coming upon you. You can’t stop heartaches from overwhelming you. You can’t stop sickness or suffering from besieging you. The loss of a loved one or the uncertainty of tomorrow, you and I are defenseless against these things. We are defenseless against trials that batter us and powers that seek to control us. As one writer put it, the effort to conquer fear without removing the causes is altogether futile. As long as we are in the hands of chance, we have every reason to be afraid. That is why sheep need a shepherd. And that is why people like us need someone greater than ourselves to guide, protect, and keep us.

And this is exactly what Jesus declares to us in John chapter 10. He is saying, I am the good shepherd. Unlike the false shepherds of Israel that were described in Ezekiel 34, that were evidence in the previous chapter, chapter 9 of John, where the religious leaders were mad that Jesus healed the man born blind, and they could not fathom that this man was listening to Jesus and not to them. Unlike those false shepherds, those corrupt leaders who cared for themselves above the flock, Jesus came not to take from his sheep, but to give life to them and his life for them. So here’s the message of John 10, verses 1 to 18. Jesus is the good shepherd we need.

And this morning, I want us to see that truth by looking at two things, the sheep who need care and protection, and the shepherd who provides it in love.

1. The Sheep: Vulnerable and in Need

So look at me once again to the verses that we have read. If you see, the first thing you notice in verse 1 is that the sheep are under assault. Sheep are always in danger, always. In verse 1, you see that there are thieves that are wanting to do harm to the sheep. It says that because they can’t come in through the proper means, they come in another way. Why? Because they don’t care about the sheep, they only care about themselves. In the ancient world, sheep were valuable for food, clothing, and even the sacrifices of Israel. Families would keep their flocks together in an open pen with a gatekeeper, but thieves knew how to slip in, steal, and destroy. So the sheep were under constant danger, and against that danger, they were defenseless if there was no shepherd.

But there’s another danger that Jesus shows us in this figure of speech. If you look at verse 12, he speaks about a hired hand, and he says that the hired hand, because he doesn’t own the sheep, he sees the wolf coming and he leaves them abandoned. And so the hired hand isn’t outright evil, but he prefers his life over the life of the sheep. When trouble comes, he runs. He saves himself. So on the one side, you have the thieves and robbers, and on the other side, you have hired hands. Both are caring for themselves. Both are dangerous. One could say that the hired hand might be more dangerous because he has more access to the sheep. And that is what Ezekiel 34 condemned, this overemphasis on oneself above the sheep. Shepherds who find themselves looking after themselves instead of the flock.

It’s exactly what happened in chapter 9, as I alluded to earlier. People caring for themselves, having authority and power over God’s people, yet caring for themselves. They had failed the sheep. And what are the telltale signs of robbers and hired hands? They have little regard for the sheep, and through that, they have little regard for Jesus. And that leaves us with the question, if this is the danger, what kind of shepherd do we need? Do we need a self-serving shepherd? Do we need a thief shepherd? A hired hand shepherd? Or do we need a good shepherd? One who cares, one who protects, one who loves his sheep enough to lay down his life for them. One who is invested in the sheep.

And so the Word of God is here reminding us that it’s the good shepherd that we’ll see here in a brief moment. We’ll focus on that shepherd. But before we get that, we do see that God is caring for these sheep. He is caring for the sheep that he is committed to. And we see that in several ways:

• They Hear His Voice (v. 3). If you look again at verse 3, you’ll see there that Jesus says that the doorkeeper opens the door to the shepherd. And notice what it says, that he calls his own and they hear his voice. So the protection that God offers these sheep is that he gives them the ability to listen to the good shepherd. The true sheep hear the voice of the good shepherd. Of all the voices in this world, they recognize the voice of Christ. They are under the threat of false Christ, false hopes, and empty promises that are out there. But the sheep can tell the difference. And this is not because it’s mechanical hearing. It’s spiritual hearing. God protects his sheep by giving them a spirit-enabled ability to hear the voice of the good shepherd. That’s why Paul says faith comes by hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ. As an illustration about this, travelers to the Middle East have tried this. They have donned the vestments, the clothing of the shepherd and they have tried to imitate the shepherd of the sheep. They wear the exact clothing of the shepherd and they try to call the sheep, but the sheep know the difference. Just because you look like a shepherd, it doesn’t mean you are the shepherd. And that is a God-given ability that God gives his people to discern between truth and error, what is wise and what is wrong.
• They Are Known (vv. 3, 14–15). But so first, they’re protected by the ability to hear. But the second way that they’re protected is that they are known. Verse 3 again says that, it says that the sheep hear his voice and this shepherd, he calls his own sheep by name. He knows them. But more than that, in verse 14 and 15, it says that I know my own and my own know me. And then he qualifies that. He says just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. So the exact same relational intimacy that Christ has with his Father, he has with his sheep. Think about that. He doesn’t just know facts about you, he knows you. Your highs, your lows, when temptation wants to overwhelm you, when sin wants to overtake you, when despair wants to rule in your heart, he knows. He understands. His love is committed to you in an unbreakable covenantal love. That is amazing. In Palestine, it was known that shepherds would often name their sheep according to a specific characteristic. Some sheep had a long nose and so that’s how the shepherd referred to them. Long nose, black ear, fluffy. And just to think about that intimacy, that relational intimacy, even though sheep can’t respond to the shepherd, but here Jesus is showing us that he is intimately aware of all our circumstances, that there’s nothing hidden from his sight, that he is invested in their lives, not merely superficially but deeply, intimately. As the Father, as I know the Father, Jesus tells his sheep, I know you.
• They Belong (v. 12). And for that reason, verse 12 says that they belong. The sheep belong. They’re not outsiders, they’re not someone who has intruded in some way. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt that you just don’t belong. I remember a while, many years ago when I would visit my best friend’s house and I was trying to discern if I was interrupting something or not, I would hear, I would wait for his mom to say the key words. Her key words were take off your coat, stay a while. And I knew at that moment I belong. I knew at that moment I was intruding. And what Jesus is saying to his sheep, you belong. You’re not here as an outcast, you belong, is one of the deepest desires we have as humans. And Jesus, the good shepherd, tells his sheep and he protects them by saying, you belong. You belong to me. The hired hand, because the sheep don’t belong to him, he flees. He abandons them. He doesn’t care for them. But because the sheep belong to the good shepherd, he cares for them.

Dear brother and sister, you have place your hope in Jesus Christ, the good shepherd. He cares for you. You belong to him. So how do you know that you belong to Christ? That’s a good question to ask. Well, if you listen and if you follow, if you tune your heart not to robbers and not to hired hands, not to false shepherds, but if you tune your heart and your mind to the true shepherd and you follow after him by the power of the Spirit, that’s an indication you belong. That’s why we practice daily routines of listening to the voice of God through Scripture. And that’s why we gather with other believers in Bible study. Shameless plug for the Ezra Nehemiah class. If you want to hear the voice of the shepherd, behold the chance. But most importantly is what we do here Sunday after Sunday, beginning around 9 30, where we gather to hear, as we’re doing right now, the preached word.

So beware. If you’re going to hear Christ, you got to be careful not to drown him out with other noise. There’s a thousand competing voices. We got to be on guard not to allow the voice of our shepherd, the good shepherd, the one who lets us know that we belong. We drown it out with many other things that quench his voice. Because his voice is the voice of certainty. His voice is the voice of hope. His voice is the voice of promise. You can’t get, you, there’s a lot of good things you get on a TV show, but you don’t get the promise of the gospel. There’s a lot of good things you get in a sports game. I was watching the, my Indians beat the Tampa Bay Rays last night and I was delighted. And the Ohio State, I mean stomping, I don’t even know the name of the team they beat them that bad. I delight in watching it, but what I’m saying is that it’s in moderation. We can’t drown out the voice of the shepherd because he cares for you.

2. The Shepherd: Loving and Sacrificial

And at this time I want to turn our attention not from the sheep to this shepherd that we’ve been talking about. And in verse 6, it seems that John is alluding to this reality that when Jesus made this figure of speech about the sheep and the shepherd, people didn’t understand. So he goes on to explain starting in verse 7. Why are the sheep hearing the voice of the shepherd? Why are the sheep being protected? What’s the goodness of this shepherd? And so in verse 7, he begins to explain this. But instead of getting immediately to this idea of him being the shepherd, he throws in this surprising term, this surprising phrase. He says in verse 7, truly, truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

And he says this and it’s a bit surprising. You would expect him to follow through with this imagery of shepherd, but he throws in this idea of door. And the idea of God being shepherd is understood. I mean Psalm 23, we understand that God is shepherd. Ezekiel 34, we understand that God will shepherd his people. But why would Jesus call himself a door? And so here is what Jesus means in the Middle East. After a day of grazing, the shepherd would bring his flock into the pen. And then he himself would sit down at the entrance. And his body would be the door. And two things happen. The sheep can’t wander out and the wolf can’t enter in. The sheep can’t wander out and the wolf, even the thief, can’t enter in without passing through the shepherd. And Jesus has said, that’s me. I am the living door. I am the way to safety. I am the way to provision. I am the way to salvation.

That’s why Jesus will say in John chapter 14, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. So if you want safety, if you want salvation, it’s only found in Jesus. There is no other way to find everlasting happiness than Jesus Christ in himself. This is salvation language. Jesus saves us from wolves and he feeds us with abundance. Jesus saves us from the embers of hell and he saves us in a glorious and outstanding manner. There is no salvation outside of Jesus. Matter of fact, Jesus is probably alluding to Psalm 118, where the psalmist says, this is the gate of the righteous shall enter through it. Jesus is that gate. The psalmist will later on go on in that very psalm, identify that that gate is the cornerstone. And the apostles called Jesus Christ the cornerstone. He is the only way to God. So Jesus is the door who cares and protects. Jesus is the door who cares and protects. He comes to give life, life in abundantly, life everlasting. But he is also saying that there is no way to life except through him. Jesus, by saying he’s the door, he’s saying there is no way to life except through him. Do you want life? Do you want life in abundance? You must follow him. It’s only found in and through him.

And you might ask, well, how can I be assured that my life can be found in Jesus? Well, I want us to now look at the good shepherd, his love for his sheep. Observe the love that Jesus has for his sheep. In verse 11, he says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. And it’s important not to overlook that word good. That word means beautiful, gracious, beneficial, glorious. Jesus is not just a shepherd, he is the good shepherd. The shepherd that David sang about and the shepherd that Ezekiel 34 anticipated, this is the good shepherd. And why is he good? What sets him apart from other shepherds? What sets him apart from the thieves and the robbers and the false shepherds of Israel? Is that he lays down his life for his sheep. He does the opposite of the hired hand. He does the opposite of the thieves. The hired hand runs, the thieves seek to kill and destroy. Jesus runs towards danger for the sake of his sheep.

It’s interesting that out of all the translations that I looked at, verse 11 has no ambiguity. Every translation translates exactly the same. The underlying Greek is crystal clear. Jesus is the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. That means Jesus’ love is good. Jesus’ love is sacrificial. But also Jesus’ love is an expansive love. Notice what Jesus says in verse 16. He says, I have other sheep that are in another fold and I must bring them also that they would listen to my voice so that there would be one flock and one shepherd. That means his love is not narrow. Jesus means that his love is expansive. It’s not just for Israel, it’s also for the Gentile. Not just for one ethnicity, but for Jew and Gentile, slave and free, rich and poor, black and white, American, Nigerian, Republican, Democrat. All are included in Christ’s sheepfold. Christ loves his bride, the church, made up of every tribe, tongue, and nation. That’s the sheep. That’s the shepherd of the sheep. Loves expansively, not reductionistically, expansively. But he loves in such a way that he brings unity and so that there is one flock and one shepherd. So when I say, when we hear this word, Jesus loves you, we can’t reduce that to individualism. Yes, he loves us personally, but Jesus loves his people collectively. He loves the church, he loves his bride. One flock, one shepherd.

But it also shows us here in verses 17 to 18 that Jesus’ love is a committed love. And his love is not, in other words, it’s not only expansive, it’s committed. And he says, verse 17, for this reason the Father loves me because I lay down my life, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. Think about that. The sheep that God the Father gives to the Son. Just imagine if someone giving you a broken, torn gift that you deem worthless. You ask, why would you give me this? Yet that’s us. Broken sinners, ruined sinners, torn by sin, tattered by rebellion. But Jesus says, Father, I will die for them gladly. That’s amazing. That is glorious. No one takes his life from him. Jesus lays it down. That’s love. Beloved, you are no accident, you’re no afterthought, you’re no plan B, you are beloved. You have a shepherd who is willing to give his life for you.

Where the robbers and thieves kill, steal, and destroy, Jesus gives himself as both a ransom and a life for the sheep. Where the hired hand sacrifices the sheep for the sake of himself, Jesus sacrifices himself for the sake of the sheep. Jesus is saying, I’ll die for them. You get this allusion to death, to being in the place of the sheep four times in this figure of speech that Jesus wants to give to his people. And what he is emphasizing is what will be bared out through the rest of the gospel, that Jesus stands in the place of sinners. He stands in the place of his sheep to give them life everlasting. Jesus is describing here is what theologians call penal substitutionary atonement. Sounds like a mouthful, but that’s the heart of what we see here. Jesus is stressing that he is dying for his sheep and he is going to bring life to them.

Penal substitutionary atonement sounds heavy, but it’s simple in a sense. Penal means he bore the penalty of the law we broke. Substitutionary means he stood in our place. He’s our substitute condemned for us. And atonement means he satisfied God’s wrath and cleared us of all guilt. At the cross our sins were expunged, our enmity with God was removed, our record clear. Jesus became our legal substitute before the tribunal of God, and now we are reconciled with God forever. Now there’s peace. There’s peace between us and God. That’s what we’re going to celebrate next week in the Lord’s Supper. We’re going to feast together with our most heavenly Father.

Notice verse 18. This is not Jesus being coerced into this sacrifice. Jesus is not being obligated by the Father to do this. This is not divine child abuse. Jesus says, no one takes this life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. That’s why he’s the door. That’s why he’s the Savior. That’s why he’s the door. That’s why he’s the Good Shepherd. That’s why he is the Savior.

Conclusion: Our Hope in the Good Shepherd

Prominent atheist Bertrand Russell once said this. I want you to just listen to the despair. He also found the defenselessness of the human existence. He also understood that we as human have no ability to control circumstances that come our way, but this is what he said. A brilliant man said, man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving. His origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs are all but the outcome of accidental collocation of atoms. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation be safely built. It’s a lot of words, but what he is saying is that all he rests on is unyielding despair. That’s the foundation of his life is, I don’t know what’s going to happen, therefore despair is my only option.

How tragic that this brilliant man found solace, not in love, not in hope, not in meaning, but in despair. Against all the uncertainties of life, church, we have a certainty that we’re not the victims of fate. We’re not thrown back and forth through the winds of despair. We have an anchor for the soul and that is that we have a good shepherd who is keeping us, protecting us, who is rescuing us. Because in the end what we need against this, the trials and the despair that wants to hound our souls, we need to be rescued and that rescue is found in a good shepherd who rescues us from the wrath of God, who rescues us from the sin within, who rescues us from being overwhelmed by constant assault of doubt and grief.

And here is the good news for us, Christ is the foundation, not despair, not blind chance, Christ. Against all uncertainties, against all vulnerabilities, we have a shepherd, dear brothers and sisters, a shepherd who rescues, a shepherd who lays down his life, a shepherd who calls each of us by name, and that is hope. That is our foundation. So again, I repeat the main point of this sermon, Jesus is the good shepherd that we need.

So what must we do with this? We must place our trust in him. We must this morning renew our zeal to follow him. We must again this morning say, Jesus, I surrender all. Because left to our own devices, there would be unyielding despair, but glory to God in the highest that we have a good shepherd who’s interested not in his own self but in us, who laid down his life for us.