The Good Shepherd

Day. Like you said, we're going to be in John ten,

and for a lot of us, this is going to

be very familiar. Sorry, Jen, you can step a little

bit forward. This is going to be very familiar. And

yet I'm going to ask you to not check out there.

Listen with fresh ears. This is a powerful passage of

scripture where Jesus makes a lot of astounding claims about

himself and about his relationship with his people. So while

Jen's reading, which I want you to listen for these things.

Listen for what it means for Jesus to be the

good shepherd. Listen for what he does in relationship to

his sheep with laying down his life and how he

knows his sheep intimately, and then also for the authority

and the power that he has. And then lastly for everyone,

for every one of us, we have to reckon with him.

So Jen, would you read the passage.

John ten, Verses eleven through twenty one. 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. Sorry, we'll see. My good shepherd lives on

his life for his 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've received from

my father. There was again a division amongst the Jews

because of these words. Many of them said, he has

a demon and is insane, Why listen to him. Others said,

these are not the words of one who is oppressed

by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of

the blind? This is the word of the Lord.

I'm thank you, jen From our passage this morning, what

Jesus repeats over and over again is that he is

the good shepherd, and he lays down his life for

his sheep. There's a lot of personal interaction there. This

isn't someone who's aloof This is someone who is very

much engaged in care for others. So the question that

confronts us all this morning is is he is Jesus?

Is he my good Shepherd? Now that there can only

be two answers to that, right, there's only a yes

or a no. If the answer is yes, wonderful, beautiful,

praise God. And then I think the next question is

does my life reflect that I am one of his sheep?

Am I living in such a way that people wouldn't

be surprised to hear that I'm following Jesus? And if

the answer is no, well that I'm so glad that

you're here today, and I want you to as you're

listening to this passage, I want you to hear that

we are all following some shepherd. Right, whether it's Jesus

or someone else, we're following someone. And so what we

want is to be following the true shepherd who will

care for us, and so I love you to listen.

Is your shepherd better than the good shepherd that we

have here? We'll look at four different aspects of Jesus

being the good shepherd today. The good shepherd will look

that he lays down his life, will look that he

knows his own We'll see that his authority is from

the Father, and for all of us, we will see

that we have to reckon with Jesus. Now here's the

first point. The good shepherd lays down his life. This

is honestly, it comes up throughout the entire passage there,

but we're going to highlight it in verses eleven to thirteen. Now,

for much of Israel's history they had leaders, right, they

had kings, and they had lots of let's just say

they had lots of leaders. Unfortunately, with a few notable exceptions,

by and large, they were not actually very good leaders.

For them, they were good shepherds, which was an analogy

that God used regularly in his prophecies about these leaders.

They were self serving, right, they used the people instead

of caring for them and sacrificing for them. This was

abhorrent to God, so he said that he himself will

actually be the good shepherd. He will gather in his

sheep and he will care for them. Now, this was

prophesied in Isaiah and Ezekiel and Zechariah and Jeremiah. This

was not just mention one time. This is a big theme.

So then Jesus, when we get to this passage and

he is claiming to be the fulfillment of this prophecy,

this is an astounding claim. He says, I am the

good Shepherd. It's a very simple phrase, but it is

overflowing with meaning. And verse eleven he defines what he

means when he says that he's the good shepherd. He says,

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down

his life for his sheep. Now it is the job

of the shepherd to lead and guide and care for

his sheep. But it's not normal for a shepherd to

actually die for his sheep. I think, because this illustration,

this example of Jesus is so well known, we think

that shepherds are dying for their sheep left and right right.

We think this is just a normal thing. The shepherds

die whenever their sheep are in trouble. But as we'll

see that it's probably not the case. Now. What we

do see here in verses twelve and thirteen is actually

the contrast between the hired hand and the good shepherd. Right,

this hired hand understandably is willing to take care of

these sheep, someone else's sheep, as long as money's still

coming in and as long as he doesn't have to

die to care for the sheep. But the moment the

wolf comes, we see that he doesn't actually care for

the sheep. There's no personal investment there, there's no intimate care.

It's just a job. And even when compared to a

normal shepherd. Yes, the normal shepherd will protect his sheep

definitely more than the hired hand. They were his livelihood,

they were his source of income. But his life is

infinitely more valuable than some dumb sheep. So why did

the good shepherd have to die? Well, several reasons. One

reason comes just a few chapters after our passage. In

John fifteen, he says this. This is before he goes

to the cross. He tells his followers in verse twelve,

this is my commandment that you love one another as

I have loved you. Greater love has no one than

this that someone laid down his life for his friends,

love for his sheep, love for his friends. One of

the reasons that Jesus laid down his life for us

was out of love for us, but that wasn't the

only reason. He also laid down his life to help

restore our relationship to God. He came to live the

perfect life and to die substitutionalily in the place of

those who needed to have their relationship restored to God

in order to be in relationship with him. It was

not merely to be just a good moral teacher and

to restore sight to blind men. Right. He didn't just

come to be a good example of how we should

love others and give us good verse for coffee mugs

and pillows for every one of us. Our sin separates

us from God and condemns us. After Genesis three, Adam

disobeyed God. And it's not just that what he did

was wrong, but who he became and who we became

being in Adam that was also a problem. We became

rebels at our core foundation. We were sinners. We were

enemies of God. We were destined for hell and deserving

of his wrath. But even way back in Genesis even

way back then, there was a seed of hope that

one day someone would come who would make this all right. Then,

for generations there were sacrifices every day of bulls and

goats to help remind God's people that sinful man could

not just be in relationship with God. No, there needed

to be a substitutionary sacrifice. Then Isaiah wrote this in

Isaiah fifty three five and six, Prophesying about Jesus, he wrote,

he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for

our iniquities. Upon him was a chastisement that brought us peace.

And with his wounds we are healed. 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 our shepherd, our good shepherd, had to lay down

his life to become the sacrificial lamb in the place

for his sheep. Jesus bore on himself our sins and

our rebellion, and paid the price for them by his

death on the cross. In the place of his sheep.

He made the final, once for all time substitutionary sacrifice,

the last one that would ever need to be made

to restore the relationship with God and to rescue us

from impending condemnation. And we just sang this morning till

on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God

it's gone. It was satisfied by Jesus. Jesus came to

lay down his life, and here in our passage before

it happens, he's making it clear what he came to

do as the good shepherd. So, preacher boy, I agree

with you. Praise God. Yeah, I think the majority of

us here are in agreement that, Yeah, Jesus died in

our place. That's great. We'll sing about it, we'll celebrate it,

will affirm it. What am I supposed to do with

that today? Don't mess around with sin, don't give in

to sin a little bit. Jesus himself, the second member

of the Trinity, bore the punishment for our sin that

was supposed to be laid on us. And if it

could have been paid for any other way, it would

have been. On the night before Jesus died, he pleaded

three times that the cup of God's wrath would be

passed over, it would be taken some other way, would

be drained some other way, and yet he knew that

there was no other way, so he submitted to the

Father's will and died in our place. If your sin

was so bad that it would have damned you, if

not for Jesus making it, then don't mess around with it.

Cut it off, don't be okay with it, Confess it,

seek accountability with others, don't mess around with it. If

you do repent, we have on God's word the authority

to say first John one to nine, if we confess

our sins, he is faithful. God is faithful and just

to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from

all unrighteousness. Praise God. We needed the good Shepherd to

lay down his life for us, for our sin, for

our forgiveness, for our our intimacy to be restored with God,

our our friendship to be restored with God. And that's

actually what we're going to talk about next, is God

doesn't just offer us forgiveness. He also offers us an

intimate relationship with him. Now the second point, the good

Shepherd knows his own. The good Shepherd knows his own.

In verse fourteen, he repeats this claim, I am the

good Shepherd, and then delves deeper into what some of

those elements are. He says, I know my own and

my own know me. This shepherd isn't removed from his sheep. Now,

this shepherd knows them and they know him. There's a

deep intimacy. This invokes images of trusting and knowing and

being bonded together. The strongest bond that I have with

someone is Liz. It's my wife. We've been married thirteen years,

which is by far not the longest in this room,

some who are way longer, and yet it's a pretty

good chunk of my life. Not that old, guys, But

even after thirteen years, there are things that I can

kind of predict that she'll do before she does them. Right.

Right now, she's rolling her eyes so hard at this

whole conversation. But I only know that because whenever I

say something crazy to her or in front of her,

just a big eye roll. Right, That's all I get.

I also know now now when too and when to

not bring up difficult conversations.

Right.

That took a while, And if you want to learn more,

we're teaching on communication and what's another conflict. We're teaching

on communication and conflict here in the marriage class in

a couple of weeks, so you can sign up for that.

I also know how she'll respond to date Nights, right.

She does like a good movie. She but she will

go for an action movie, not a chick flick. Okay,

all right? And she will say yes to cheesecake Factory

or to Chewi's probably not going to say yes to

many authentic restaurants so much. There may be people that

we know very well, like a spouse or a sibling,

or your parents or your kids, or your best friend.

But even better than the way that we are known

by all of those people, as how we are intimately

known by the God of the universe. Look at verse fifteen.

This is not just an empty claim. He's actually connecting

it here when he says, just as the Father knows

me and I know the Father, there is perfect knowledge

between the Father and the Son within the trinity, and

Jesus wants for us to know that the same intimacy,

the same knowledge that he shares with the Father he

has with us. Well, how does he know us so well? Well?

We were created by God Psalm one thirty nine. David says,

for you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together

in my mother's womb. There's no more intimate knowledge than

the creator that he has with his creation. And what

about how well we're known by Jesus? Well, the most

common way to describe Christians in the New Testament is

not actually the phrase Christians. Over one hundred and sixty

times this phrase in Christ or in Him is used.

We are in Him. There is the unity we have

with Christ is dripping off every page of the New Testament.

And beyond these examples, just think about the illustrations that

we have of how Christ loves his church. Right, there

is the husband and his bride, there is the vine

and the branches, there is the head and the body. Right,

we are fully known and truly loved by Jesus. Now

that level is a level that we are told we're

known by Him. My question for you is how well

would you say you know your shepherd? How well do

you know his character? How well do you know the

things that he loves or the things that he hates?

Does my life reflect that he is my shepherd? I

think a lot of us, and I'll include myself here.

I have some wrong ideas about God and getting to

know him, and I want you to write these things down.

We don't have a spend we don't have a ton

of time to spend here. But I have three quick

espresso shots for truth for all of us. I say

this as someone who doesn't drink coffee, but I hear

this is how it works. Quick quick shot. There all right?

Espressure shot number one. Like anything worth doing, knowing your

shepherd requires discipline, Oh all right, practicing to get really

good at something that you want to learn, it takes time,

It takes energy, it takes effort, it takes intentionality. You

will have to prioritize this over other things. You can't

just lays into holiness in Christ likeness. No, invest your

time what will have an impact, not just for today

but for all of eternity. We all have five hundred

twenty five thousand, six hundred minutes in a year. There

we go. You got it. What changes can you make

to better invest that time to get to know your

shepherd better? Espresso shot number two. These are things we

have to believe. We have to tell ourselves, We have

to remind ourselves. Jesus has your good at heart, which

means say no to sin, say yes to refreshment in him.

Did you know that God has designed us. He's designed

you to find ultimate joy and fulfillment, not in created things,

but in Him. Did you know that when he tells

you to turn from the sins, it's because he doesn't

want you to go through the pain and suffering that

he knows that are associated with that disobedience. They're not

actually for your good. He's trying to help you to

avoid those things. So what is the sin that you're

holding on too so tightly when He has offered you

infinite joy and satisfaction? Ask yourself that do I trust

that the pleasures of sin? I know this to be true?

But do I trust that they're like a vapor? That

they'll be gone as soon as they're here? Do we

trust that there is true joy found in being united

to Him and being one with God? As dumb sheep?

And again I'm talking to myself here? Do we trust

that the good shepherd actually knows better than we do?

Last one Espresso shot number three. You can only grow

with Jesus, being connected to him through his word. Through

his word, you spend time with someone you like, Right,

how do you get to know someone? You hang out

with them, you talk to them, You have conversations. Right,

We're very intentional about who we hang out with. So

and our words match our actions most of the time. Right.

If I say this person is my best friend, that

means we talk all the times, means we're texting, It

means we're hanging out, we're laughing, always having a great

time together. Right. But what if I say this person

is my best friend and then just never talk to

this person, Well then my words would say one thing,

but my actions are actually saying that that's not true.

Same thing with our relationship with Jesus. So to know

Jesus more, to know our good Shepherd more, we need

to spend more time getting to know him. And John

fifteen to five Jesus says this. He says, I am

the vine, you are the branches. Right, there is the

intimate relationship. Whoever abides in me and I in him.

He is it that bears much fruit for Apart from me,

you can do nothing. Start with reading your Bible. Right,

I'll just I'll just let you know this is going

to be super helpful in getting to know your good Shepherd. Better.

Not don't look to just check off a task, but

look to grow in your love for God. Right. Look

for ways that we can see his character, ways that

we can see his promises to his faithfulness, Look for

ways that we see his patience right. Look for ways

that we can apply these truths to our heart. Look

look for sin that needs to be repented of. Don't

just read it for information, read it for transformation. Now,

if you've been here a long time, maybe not too long,

but whenever I preach, I love giving away books, right.

I think good Christian books are really good conversation partners.

And I think that if you give yourself to those conversations,

they're going to help you grow in Christ's likeness. But

today I don't just have a couple books that I

want to give. I want we want to make sure

that everyone here has a Bible. So if you are

if you are here and you don't have a Bibe,

don't like take the ones that we just passed out.

Those are been used by other people. But after the service,

go to the Step one table and we would love

to hand you a copy of God's Word in a

readable translation that you can have and you can grow

in your love for God through reading his word. And

maybe maybe you've already, maybe you do have a copy

of the Bible, but you're like, you know, I'm ready

to dive in deeper. We also bought a few copies

of this, which are this is the ESV Study Scripture Journal,

so you can write notes in alongside this. We've got

this beautiful I don't know what color that is, but

that beautiful one, and this beautiful black one. We have

a few copies of that. I spent last year, the

whole lot of the year just going through John and

just being blown away by Jesus over and over again.

So again, after the service, not right now, after the service,

you can go back to the step one table. They'll

give you a Bible, or they'll give you one of these.

And if you're not one of the first, you know,

five or six to get one of these, then just

invest the five dollars and think me later, because it

will be worth it. And then we will actually send

out tomorrow morning in the connection email, we will send

something out that will just be a helpful resource for

you as you try to get to know God better

through his word. All right, all right, getting back to

the text, all right? In verse sixteen, we see this, right,

Jesus says, I have other sheep that are not of

this fold. I must bring them also they will listen

to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

Whole sermons could be preached on this one verse, and

I hope to have that chance at some point, but

for right now, we don't have that time. But I

don't want us to miss the significance of this. Jesus

is speaking to a Jewish audience about his plan to

bring in the rest of the world. Right, all gentiles,

it's everyone who's not Jewish, that's the rest of the

world into his flock. It's not just limited to one

people group. This is now open to everyone. And again,

it's not that he wants to create two different flocks,

two different churches, two different classes of believer of Christian

of those who are united to him. No, he wants

there to be one flock under one shepherd, which is him.

He wants to be the shepherd. The unity of being

united to Christ and being united to each other in

Christ is our new identity. And this is something that's

not just for them then, but that's for us now.

When we look around at this church and we see

people who maybe look a little different than us, what

we're seeing is God's glorious plan to draw people from

different tribes and tongues and nations and neighborhoods and socioeconomic

statuses into one flock under his leadership. And unless there's

something that I don't know about, most of this church

we are those gentiles who were brought in to the flock.

So we need to be just as welcoming. We need

to be just as open handed with all the sheep

who Jesus has laid his life down for so so

far we've seen that this good shepherd lays down his

life and intimately knows his sheep. But as we'll see

in verses seventeen and eighteen, this was not just his

plan alone. Zero point three. The good Shepherd has authority

from the Father. We've already talked a little bit about

the depth of the relationship between the father and the son,

but there's going to be a whole new dimension brought

into this now. Two the big themes in the Book

of John, again, there are many, but one of them

is the love between the father and the son. And

then again another big theme is actually Jesus carrying out

this mission from the Father, and we get some of

that here in verse seventeen, the first part of verse seventeen.

We actually read this for this reason. The Father loves

me because I lay down my life. Now, Jesus is

not saying that the love from the Father is contingent

on his obedience. Actually, one commentator wrote, his point is

not to say that the Father's love for him is

conditional on laying down his life for his sheep. Rather,

Jesus's love for his sheep and his willingness to die

for them, is part and parcel of his very nature

as God's son, and therefore as the object of the

Father's love. There is complete unity between the Father and

the son on this matter. And as we read in

verse eighteen, what he has been given is actually this

is a charge from the Father. That's what he is doing.

He is doing what the Father, what the Father had

commanded him to do. This was a unified plan from

the Trinity, and the Sun is ready to execute this plan.

And then we get an aspect that we haven't seen

before in this passage. In verses seventeen and eighteen, Jesus says,

I lay it down that I may take it up again,

and then verse eighteen he says, I have authority to

lay it down, and I have authority to take it

up again. Jesus has been crystal clear about his sacrificial death,

but now we see his plan not just for his death,

but for his glorious resurrection. He did tank the punishment

for our sins, but in a unique way that no

one else has even ever claimed, he took his life

back up again. This was always going to be an

element of the rescue of his sheep, because without the resurrection,

there is no victory over sin and death. There is

no future hope for us. But as we will sing

before we take communion today, hallelujah, God be praised. He's

risen from the grave, one last element for us. In

verse eighteen, to see and to celebrate, he said, no

one takes it being my life, no one takes it

from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

Jesus didn't die because of their religious leaders who wanted

him dead. Jesus didn't die because a crowd yelled crucify him.

Jesus didn't die because Pilot said he will be executed.

Jesus didn't just die because of the Roman guards who

actually performed the execution. Jesus was in complete control. He

laid down his life of his own accord. No one

took it from him. He knew that this was the

only way for him to be the good Shepherd, to

lay down his life for his sheep. Now where does

this leave us. Jesus is done speaking at the end

of verse eighteen, but we have one more point left.

This will be verses nineteen to twenty one. See, we

have to do something with Jesus. We have seen the

good Shepherd from many angles. Right, We've seen that he

lays down his life. He knows his sheep, he has

authority from the Father. But now point four, the good

Shepherd has to be reckoned with. Good Shepherd has to

be reckoned with. Now this isn't a phrase that we

use a lot, because we don't live in old Western movies,

but I think it's appropriate here. It means that we

have to deal with a powerful person or idea. Let's

read these verses nineteen to twenty one. There was again

a division among the Jews because of these words. I

want to point out this is again there are normally

division because of Jesus's words verse twenty. Many of them

said he has a demon and is insane? Why listen

to him? Others said, these are not the words of

one who is oppressed by a demon. Can a demon

open the eyes of the blind? We see all throughout

the gospels that we all have to reckon with Jesus.

Everyone had to. Now. There were some who saw what

he did and heard what he taught, and they said,

I'm following that guy. Yes, he is my good shepherd.

Still others heard what he taught, they said, actually, this

man is very dangerous. They saw him as a false teacher.

They thought he was leading people astray from true worship

of God. And like here in our passage, there were

some people who thought he is insane, he has a demon.

Why listen to him? They hear everything he's saying, but

they just can't take it seriously. They think that the

ravings of a madman. We too must reckon with a

good shepherd. His claims these are too big to be ignored.

If they are false, well then he's definitely not a

good teacher. Right then he's either a con man or

a crazy person. But if everything he said is true,

then he truly is the Christ. He truly is our

good shepherd. Now, in just a minute. We're going to

sing about our good shepherd dying in our place before

we take communion. But I want us to finish where

we began this morning, after seeing who Jesus is, what

he did on our behalf, that he laid down his

life for his sheep. Now we have to deal with him.

So my question to you is, is he is Jesus

my good shepherd? And if so, does my life reflect

that I am one of his sheep. Let's pray. God,

we thank you so much for the clarity of your word,

for the clarity of your promises, of who you are

and what you have done on our behalf. God, I

thank you so much that you have not left us

alone in our sin, but that you have taken the

place so that we can have a restored relationship with you. God.

As we sing this next song, will you help us

to rejoice? Will you help us to worship you? Will

you help us to see you for who you truly

are and to respond in faith and in faithfulness? Amen?

Would you stand and sing with us