The Good Shepherd

Please turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of John chapter ten.

This is a very well known text on the subject of shepherding.

Jesus the speaker.

By the way, whenever we read these words truly, truly, or Amen, Amen, usually it's going back to the previous text.

And once again we see that to be the case here.

This text is really falling on the heels of John chapter 9.

John 9 · chapter mention

Remember the blind man that was healed by Jesus and the trouble it got him in with the false shepherds of Israel.

We pick up in chapter 10.

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.

But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

To him the gatekeeper opens.

The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

When he is brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.

A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.

This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

So Jesus again said to them, Truly, truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.

I am the door.

If any one enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find plot pasture.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.

He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for 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, and I lay down my life for the sheep.

And I have other sheep that are not of this fold.

I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.

So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it up again.

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.

This charge I have received from my Father.

This is the word of the living God, the living word.

Would you please join me in prayer?

Lord, we thank you that we can hear the shepherd's voice because your spirit indwells us.

So, Spirit of God, we pray that you would give us grace and open our hearts and our minds.

Lord, open our ears to hear the shepherd's voice this morning so that we will follow him.

We pray this in his name.

Amen.

This morning, as we think about the shepherding ministry in this church, where else would we look to than the shepherd himself to teach us about shepherding?

At APC, we often say that we desire to have a culture of shepherding.

We're not content with merely a program.

Churches are known to have many programs, and programs can serve a useful purpose, but really God's desire is that things not just be a program, a culture of shepherding.

That's our desire at this church.

That we will understand, that we will be swept up into the current Himself shepherds us.

And understanding the way He shepherds us, that we likewise will shepherd the flock in this church.

So this morning, let's learn from the Good Shepherd and what God's sheep do when they're led by the shepherd.

Really, two main points this morning.

The first one is that the good shepherd's life is given for the sheep.

The good shepherd's life is given for the sheep.

I am the good shepherd, he says, Jesus, who lays down his life for the sheep.

Now we saw in the scriptures in Ezekiel 34 that was read earlier this morning.

We see here in John 10 that it seems oftentimes when the Bible talks about shepherding, it's contrasting the good shepherds from the bad shepherds.

Needed to hear more about that.

Many of us have experienced bad shepherding.

Bad shepherding takes place in many different ways, from not preaching the word of God from the pulpit.

That's probably the biggest way that bad shepherding happens is when churches don't preach the Bible as God's word, when churches don't preach that Jesus Christ is the only way, the only truth, the only life.

When churches don't preach that, that's really bad shepherding.

But there's other ways.

Sometimes shepherds trample over the sheep.

Sometimes shepherds ignore the sheep.

And again, the scriptures remind us of these things.

And yet Jesus is the good shepherd because he laid down his life for the sheep.

First of all, his death was voluntary, verse 18.

No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

There was a conversation that took place in heaven long before any of you I was born.

And the conversation went something like this.

The Father and the Son have this conversation that in order to redeem a lost people because of their sin, the Son would need to leave heaven, would need to come to earth, would need to live the life, the perfect life that we could never live.

And he would one day march to a cross with a beam on his shoulder, that cross on which he would be crucified.

It was all planned.

It didn't happen by accident.

It wasn't random.

His death was voluntary.

Jesus said, No one took it from me.

No one takes Jesus' life.

He chose to give his life freely.

Shepherding is dangerous work.

Defending the flock from dangerous animals, defending the flock from robbers and thieves.

Sometimes shepherds did lose their lives trying to protect their sheep, but here's the point.

It was always an accident.

It was never planned.

No shepherd signed up and took that job of shepherding.

You know, I know I'm going to lose my life shepherding, or I want to lose my life shepherding.

If ever or whenever the shepherd lost his life trying to defend his flock, it was by accident.

Never planned.

The shepherd's death would then put the sheep in great danger.

Because if the shepherd was out of the way, who's going to protect the sheep?

Nobody.

By contrast, Jesus' death placed his sheep in a position of perfect safety and security.

How could that be?

When the Good Shepherd died, the sheep were safe, not vulnerable.

Jesus died for his sheep willingly because he knew that his death would lead the sheep home to God Himself, to an abundant life, to an eternal life.

And his father loves him because he did.

As we see in verse 17.

It wasn't a mistake, it was the Father's plan.

But secondly, his death was substitutionary.

We often say, you know, pay attention to the importance of prepositions.

He lays down, verse 11, he lays down his life for the sheep.

Verse 15, I lay down my life for the sheep.

This Greek preposition means instead of, not merely on behalf of.

And there is a difference between those two.

When the Bible talks about substitutionary atonement, it means that Jesus Christ gave his life for yours, sinner.

He gave his life for yours.

And he gave you his righteousness that you didn't have.

He took my sin.

Has he become your substitute?

Can you say that this morning with confidence?

That you know in your heart that Jesus Christ died your death so that he could raise you up from your death and bring you to God by his grace.

The Heidelberg Catechism, question 40.

Why did Christ have to go all the way to death?

Answer: Because God's justice and truth demand it.

Only the death of God's Son could pay for our sin.

Do you believe that?

D.A.

Carson, theologian, put it like this: Jesus didn't die for us merely to serve as an example, like throwing himself off of some cliff with the message, see how much I love you?

That would have been bizarre, right?

I mean, what would be the point of that?

Like someone who's spurned by a lover who takes their own life?

You know, we read about that sometimes.

You hear about that sometimes.

Somebody whose love is spurned and just full of self-remorse and jumps off a cliff.

See how much I loved you?

That doesn't prove how much you love them.

That's what Carson's saying.

Whose death serves no real purpose.

I'll show you.

Show them what?

Their death achieved nothing.

But not this death.

This death achieved everything.

Many see Jesus' death as unnecessary.

Others see it as a beautiful picture merely of a selfless love which we all should emulate.

You know that.

That's a very common view.

That's a very common perspective in our world today.

Most people really don't understand the nature and the power of Jesus' death.

They don't.

Again, they think that, well, it's some example of heroic selfless love.

And maybe we ought to just kind of likewise try to live a heroic, selfless life.

That's not it, is it?

I mean, that's a secondary, that's way down the line.

The primary meaning of this is he did it to save us.

Nothing less would have saved you than his death and his resurrection.

Isaiah put it so beautifully in the 53rd chapter.

He was wounded for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities.

All we like sheep have gone astray.

We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Friends, that ill suppose this book is the book of your life.

Everything you've ever done is written in this book, and I know it would have to be a much bigger book.

You know, the older we are, some of us, the bigger the book.

But every sin you've ever committed, and you know how the Bible defines a sin?

Everything you did that you should not have done, everything you said that you should not have said, everything you thought that you should not have thought.

And oh, by the way, that's just half of it.

And then there's the sins of omission.

Everything you should have thought that you didn't think, everything you should have said that you didn't say, everything you should have done that you didn't do.

You know, I I couldn't hold that book, that'd be so big.

What Isaiah is saying is that Jesus Christ laid on, the Father laid on him, Jesus, all of our iniquity.

Your iniquity, all of your sin.

He laid on Jesus, and Jesus laid all of his righteousness on us.

Is that a beautiful message?

Do you believe it?

Have you received that gift of his substitutionary atonement in your life?

Have you said, Jesus, please give me all of your righteousness.

Jesus, I give you all of my sin.

That's why he came to make us his sheep.

And that was what was required to do that.

We've looked at the shepherd's life given for us, but secondly, let's look at the shepherd's life in us.

In verses 14 to 16 in particular, he tells us, I'm the good shepherd, I know my own, and my own know me.

And then two amazing words, just as the father knows me, and I know the father, and I lay down my life for the sheep.

Now we're going to unpack that.

That's incredibly important.

The grace brings us to true intimacy with himself.

I know my sheep, and my sheep know me just as the father knows me.

And I know the father.

Does that blow your mind?

He knows you every bit as much as he knows the father, and the father knows him.

That means perfectly.

That means fully, exhaustively, intimately.

One of the most amazing statements in the Bible, I believe.

We all long to be known, truly known, and accepted at the same time.

If someone came up to you after church today and said to you, and looked you right in the eye, and I said, I know everything about you, would that freak you out?

Probably.

Particularly if it was kind of in an accusatory way.

All right?

They just came up to you, stood right in front of you, and said, I know everything about you.

Most of us would be a little anxious.

What does it mean when Jesus says that?

I think that it would be quite different, and it is quite different.

Jesus, what if Jesus came up to you and looked you right in the eye and said, I know everything about you?

And there wasn't a look of incrimination on his face?

What if there was just a warmth?

What if there was a serene look on his face?

What if there was love and tenderness in his eyes?

What if there was a smile on his face?

And he looked at you and he said, I know everything about you.

And you didn't just deteriorate, you didn't just blow up, but you melted.

You melted.

Wait a minute.

He's looking at me in a way that is not telling me to leave.

He's looking at me in a way not telling me I'm gonna get you.

He's looking at me in a way not, and boy, you have a lot of explaining to do.

Jesus not only knows you the best, he loves you the most.

When Jesus looks at you, yes, he sees everything within.

All of the anxiousness.

He knows exactly what you came into this sanctuary with this morning.

He knows every thought that kept you up at night this week.

He knows who you hate.

He knows who you don't get along with.

He knows why you don't get along with him.

He knows who your best friend is.

He knows why you guys are such close friends.

He knows your dreams, he knows your ambitions, he knows what scares you.

And he loves you.

That's what this is saying.

Just as I know my father, and my father knows me, just as that I know you.

And I'm not asking you to leave.

I'm asking you to stay.

Because I want to get to know you and me, go deeper in our relationship.

It mirrors the intimacy between the father and the son.

The intimacy between the shepherd and the sheep is grounded upon the intimacy between the father and the son.

And that should encourage us, friends.

That should encourage us this morning.

That should open up our prayer life in a new way.

We don't have to dance around what we're really thinking.

We don't have to sanitize our prayers.

You know you can't sanitize your prayers.

He sees it, he knows it.

He says, just be real with me.

Come to me as you are.

I can handle that.

I can do something with that.

He was willing to lose his intimacy with his father on the cross so that we might discover intimacy that we would never experience otherwise.

His cry, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Is your invitation to come nearer to him this morning.

He's never going to leave you.

He promised that, right?

We read that.

As we close this morning, I want to give some other applications really from the text.

When the Puritans talked about shepherding, they often spoke of the marks of Christ's sheep.

So how do we respond?

Christ's sheep are marked in their heart, they're marked in their ear, and they're marked in their feet.

Christ's sheep are marked in their heart.

He calls his sheep by name.

How many times do we see that throughout the Bible?

He looks at Zacchaeus and he calls him by name.

Zacchaeus, I see you up there in that tree.

Come down.

I'm going to your house.

We're going to have a meal together today.

And you're going to come to know me today.

Lazarus is dead and he's in the tomb.

He didn't just say, hey, you.

He said, Lazarus, come forth.

When he called Matthew the tax collector.

When he called Peter.

He called John.

When he called you.

He called you by name.

Years ago, one of our members was going through a really hard time.

And just feeling kind of lost, alone, abandoned maybe in life.

And this member was going to a small Christian college near here.

And And there were like 15 students in the class, and it was this time of the year, and this member lamented to me, you know, I still I don't think my professor still knows my name.

I said, Are you kidding me?

I mean, like it's all, you know, it's almost Thanksgiving.

How many people were in your class?

I don't know, 15.

And he doesn't know your name.

What kind of shepherding is that?

Names are important.

Names are important.

And he called you by your name.

And he said, I'm calling you into my kingdom, and I'm giving you faith to believe, I'm giving you grace to understand and to believe and to respond and to come into my kingdom.

Christ's sheep are marked in their heart.

Jacob could say at the end of his life in Genesis 48, the God who has been my shepherd all of my life to this day.

That's a beautiful thing.

A New Testament scholar, Gary Birch, tells about a recent incident, a Palestinian woman who he knows, or read of rather, who had lost her husband in a recent conflict with Israel, who was consequently in dire need, and was finally permitted by a very hesitant Israeli officer to call her sheep, literally to call her sheep out of a huge mass of sequestered and detained animals.

The officer at first pointed to the pen containing hundreds of animals and humorously equipped that it was impossible for her to call her own sheep from so many sheep.

She asked him if she could, in fact, separate them herself.

If she did that, would he be willing to let her take her sheep with him, with her rather?

He agreed.

A soldier opened the gate, and the woman's son produced a small reed flute.

He played a simple tune again and again, and soon sheepheads began popping up across the pen.

Only her sheep.

The young boy continued his music and he walked home, followed by his flock of twenty-five sheep.

Each flock of sheep is apparently attuned to a very particular voice or sound.

And so is your heart and mine.

And the one who plays that song is Jesus.

And when Jesus' voice calls, we answer.

Secondly, Christ's sheep are marked in their ear.

Yeah, we we do listen.

We follow because we know his voice.

We follow him, his voice.

Those Greek words are emphasized, they're placed forward for emphasis.

It's him, it's his voice.

It's him.

It's his voice.

Is his voice the dominant voice that you hear?

Or whose?

Whose voice has your ear?

I'm asking you this morning, because there's a lot of voices in this world.

Whose voice has your ear?

Which media outlet?

Which entertainer?

Philosopher?

Politician.

You name it.

Whose voice really has your ear so that when they speak, you listen.

And you know that that voice is the authoritative voice in your life.

This is all over this.

Verse 3, don't take the time to look at it, but you could mark it down if you want.

Verse 3, verse 4, verse 5, verse 8, verse 16, verse 27.

In all these verses, it's emphasizing his voice.

Your ear, his voice.

Remember when he was on the top of the mountain of Transfiguration?

Remember what the voice said?

This is my beloved son.

Listen to him.

Peter, James, and John.

Tom, you.

And lastly, Christ's sheep are marked in their feet by obedience.

They follow me, verse 27.

Are you following Jesus this morning?

That's really not some ambiguous thing, as much as sometimes we want to make it out to be.

It's not.

You know, if your ear is hearing his voice, you know when he's calling you to follow him.

I know you know.

I know.

Are you following him?

Or are you just, I'll take it into consideration, Lord.

I'll weigh the options.

Look, if you're weighing the options, you've got too many voices in your ear.

If you're weighing the options, you got somebody else's voice that's louder than his.

Because when you hear his voice, and I hear his voice, I follow him.

And so will you.

This is the shepherd who's beautiful.

This is the shepherd who's good.

This is the great shepherd.

And we are his sheep by his grace.

If that doesn't humble you, I don't know what will.

And so I say to the shepherds of this congregation, the elders, the elders of this church are called primarily to get to have the authority and the responsibility of overseeing this flock.

The Bible's very clear on that.

Anybody who's a member of this church, you've been taught that many times.

The elders are given that responsibility, but the Bible nowhere says that only the elders can be involved in the shepherding ministry.

That's why about 85 of you are part of this ministry.

And if you're not part of this ministry, isn't there still somebody that you can shepherd?

Isn't there still somebody that you can watch over, that you can pray for, that you can love?

Let me say to everybody here as we close, you love as you've been loved by him.

You love others as you've been loved by him.

You serve others as you've been served by him.

And you pursue others as you've been pursued by him.

That's what I want to do.

I want to do that for the rest of my life.

And I hope you do.

We can't do this without his grace.

Join me in prayer.

Heavenly Father, how can we thank you?

How will we ever thank you enough that you saw us in our plight?

You saw us as sheep who were straying, who were sick, who were injured.

Lord, you saw us as completely helpless and hopeless.

And yet you sent your son to die for us, to give his life for us.

And now to put his life in us.

You've given us a new nature, Lord.

You've given us a new heart to make us capable of being marked in our heart and being marked in our ear and being marked in our feet.

You gave us all of this.

Father, please give us grace to see how much we've been given and give us grace to be able to shepherd others even as we have been shepherded by you.

I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.