The Good Shepherd | What's in a Name?

We continue, as I said, in the book of John in this series,

What's in a Name, where we're looking at the different titles

and distinctions and distinctives of Jesus.

Today we're looking at one that a lot of us

have heard before, is the Good Shepherd.

And I want to start by asking a question.

Growing up, did your parents, either in their tone of voice

or things that they said, tipped you off

that you were in trouble?

How many parents would change their demeanor

or what they say, or how many of you knew

when you were middle named you were in trouble?

Raise it high, it's okay, raise it high, right?

It was, yeah, my mom has never really called me Jim,

it's always been Jimmy or James.

And it was, Jimmy, everything was fine.

James, there was a storm on the horizon.

James Christopher, I ran.

And then when it was James Christopher Holland owner,

I just went straight to my room.

Because I knew that's probably where I'd end up.

But it's funny how the tone of voice,

and my mom, God bless her, is a single mom,

for a while, it was all about tonality.

And I'm sure you could probably, if I asked you to,

you could go back to a time that you got in trouble

by your parents, and there's just a change in their tone,

and you knew something was wrong.

For a lot of us, maybe even in our marriages,

those of us that are married,

there's maybe a change in tone of our spouse.

Or if you're like Carrie, it's a look,

where she says a lot just in a look.

And so I know just to go to my room.

And so it's the same thing.

But understand that as a parent,

I'm sure if I asked my boys, I'm not,

but if I was, there's probably a different tone

in your parents' voice.

So kids, is there a different tone in your parents' voice

when you know you're in trouble?

For each, okay to raise your hand, right?

Joey, that was too fast for you to raise your hand.

But there's something about the tone of voice

of people kind of over you in your life.

Whether a parent or a coach or a teacher, professor,

all of those things.

All of that has to do with today's text.

That today's text is about the shepherd, which is Jesus,

but it's about the relationship between shepherd and sheep.

So I did a little bit of a deep dive on sheep.

And it's fascinating, the Bible,

what the Bible calls about sheep is so true,

but calls us sheep that sheep are not,

this might offend some of you

because of the way I just connected it,

but sheep are not very bright.

Okay, they're not the brightest animal on the food chain.

They're not the brightest animal,

but they are animals of habit.

They are animals of what we call in the psychology world,

classical conditioning.

And so that's one of the things you do to train your,

let's say your dog, right?

Classically conditioning a person or a animal

is that you're doing kind of the same things

for the same results,

and they end up doing that on repetition.

It's like life on repeat.

For a sheep's life, life was repetitive every day, right?

You went into the sheep pen,

you came out of the sheep pen,

you went and ate, you came back to the sheep pen,

and it was just kind of back and forth, back and forth

to different fields, obviously,

because you didn't want the sheep eating

from the same field every day, right?

Because then that field would be wiped out

and couldn't rebound.

And so it was interesting that all by the shepherd's voice,

because there were, the number of shepherd to sheep

were not the same.

If you had a flock of 1,000 sheep,

you may have only had one or two shepherds.

So it was all had to do with the shepherd's voice.

And though the shepherd had a, you know,

the shepherd's crook, right,

was the staff with the curved end,

and was there to defend and to guide

or to protect and save the sheep,

everything was done by the shepherd's voice.

That these sheep were classically conditioned,

in that sense, to understand and know the shepherd's voice.

So when Jesus is saying these words in John 10,

what he's doing and what he's saying

is known by everybody in the town, right?

Everybody where he's at would understand the sheep lingo,

because that was a major occupation

and a major source of income

and a major kind of commerce in biblical times were sheep.

Because you ate sheep, you used the wool to create things,

clothes and all of that,

yet shepherd was a lowly position.

Did not pay very well,

and you pretty much were living outside.

Now we learned last week that the shepherd

had an important job of being the gate for the sheep pen.

That they were there standing guard

or sleeping by that opening,

so nothing could get in and devour the sheep.

And now Jesus is gonna double down

on what it means to be a good shepherd.

The Old Testament often describes God

as a shepherd of his people.

We see that in Psalm 23, a well-known Psalm, Ezekiel 34.

And the leaders of Israel were meant

to shepherd the people faithfully.

That was the call of the leaders of the temple,

the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the teachers of the law,

the Lion of Aaron, the Levites.

They were called to shepherd the sheep.

It was a kind of an object lesson from the very beginning.

But as we see in that first century time,

in biblical times, that the church had failed

because they made it about something different.

They didn't make it about protection,

they made it about rules and money, power and authority.

Yet a shepherd understands, much like a pastor,

that I am called to shepherd sheep,

and if my church has no sheep, then I am not a shepherd.

And so understanding that and understanding that

and understanding the words of Jesus are very important

that God's promise to us, Old Testament to now new,

is the true shepherd.

Jesus, who will gather, who will protect,

and as we get through the weeks of Lent,

we will see he will offer his life

as a sacrifice for the sheep.

So let's identify first the good shepherd.

What is Jesus really doing in John 10,

starting with verse 11, where Jesus says,

I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

He who was 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.

Claire, if you wanna leave that one up.

I think it's interesting what John is telling us

that Jesus is saying is he snatches them and they scatter.

You see, Satan is not omnipotent.

Satan is not omnipresent.

A lot, it's not God v. Satan.

It's not Jesus v. Satan.

The Godhead is above all, and Satan submits to that.

And again, this is gonna turn into a spiritual warfare

sermon, though it could easily be pulled into one.

The thing I find fascinating here is that when a wolf

comes in to a pen, again, try to think like a wolf.

It's weird, but try to, right?

What is a wolf's job when it's attacking a herd of sheep?

Don't overthink it.

What?

Yeah, he wants to kill them.

Yeah, he wants to kill them.

But, and again, I've never been a wolf nor have I ever

been a sheep, but it's not like one bite

and the sheep's dead, right?

Because you gotta get through the wool, which is thick.

And learning this, and it's fascinating when you actually

apply it to a life of faith, what a wolf does,

he will go around and try to injure as many sheep

as he can and then come back to devour them.

You ever think about that?

Of course you didn't, because you're not insane, all right?

And we don't really think about these things,

but as I'm diving into the text, I'm trying to figure

this out, and this is bad in my mind, but welcome to it.

Be careful.

Is if a wolf went into a sheep pen and just spent all

of his time devouring one sheep, or not the pen,

because we learned last week he doesn't go into the pen,

but when they're out in the field and a wolf attacks,

if he just spent all his time on one sheep,

the rest get away.

But the fact that a wolf is gonna go around,

or the pack, or the herd of wolves are gonna go around

and try to injure as many as they can to make them lame,

and then they come back to devour, now translate that

to the church and allow it to blow your mind a little bit.

Is that not what Satan tries to do in the church?

Satan doesn't necessarily just go after one person,

go I'm just gonna try to take that one person out.

I'm not gonna use anybody here as an example,

because you won't sleep for the next week,

and that's on me.

When you think about that, how does Satan attack a church?

Things like abuse of power, things like manipulation,

things like gossip, the rumor mill,

and what happens to gossip?

It can hurt a lot of people along the way.

And it got me, I had to stop this week

and just really look at this text and go,

wow, what Satan can get sheep to do

is actually attack each other.

That is Satan at his worst,

is when he just comes in and allows one little thing

to just expand, expand, expand,

now the entire church is affected, or infected,

depending on what it is.

So it makes Jesus' words here just fascinating to me,

where Jesus declares, I am the good shepherd, right?

The Greek word for good here is callos,

which means not just morally good,

but noble, excellent, and beautiful.

Jesus is not just any shepherd,

he is the perfect true shepherd.

You try to compare him to just a regular shepherd,

and loss is just part of a shepherd's world.

You have 100, and after one day you have 98, fair enough.

You're still batting pretty good average.

But every other day, maybe every week,

all of a sudden a shepherd gets lost,

you have to buy more.

It's a transactional relationship, for Jesus it's not.

For Jesus it's an all in true shepherd understanding.

Why? Because he contrasts himself to the hired hand.

You caught that?

The hired hand who runs away when danger comes.

Because at the end of the day,

I'm sure owners of big fields and big flocks of sheep

kind of put in what their loss was gonna be.

They probably project and had averages of,

okay, I have a thousand sheep in six months,

I'm gonna have 950, we'll just put that in

to the cost of everything.

That the owners of those fields would understand that.

That's why Jesus is comparing himself to the hired hand.

Because the hired hand has no buy in.

The hired hand is gonna get paid regardless.

And so the hired hand flees when wolves come,

when bad things come.

They were there for personal gain,

but Jesus stays with his sheep,

even at the cost of his life.

Of his life.

The imagery that he uses here is also contrasting.

There's a deeper cut here that Jesus is doing.

Jesus is actually also calling to account

the false shepherds of Israel.

When God rebukes Ezekiel in 34 for feeding themselves

rather than the sheep,

Jesus is fulfilling God's promise in Ezekiel 34.

I will set up over them one shepherd.

My servant David, and he shall feed them.

So not only is he doing practical teaching

of what a shepherd and a sheep are doing

in an actual field, actual shepherd, actual sheep,

he's also calling out the church.

He's calling out pastors.

He's calling out elders and deacons

that are doing this in a transactional way.

That could make decisions that hurt the sheep,

that have sheep leave,

as long as other sheep are coming in, it's fine.

What a terrible way to run a church.

What a terrible way to organize an organization

that is called to care and love on sheep.

Oh, it's okay that that person left.

They didn't give that much anyway.

You think that I'm kidding, but I guarantee you

it's never happened in Munster's Council Room.

I've never heard that and I hope I never will.

I rue the day that ever happens.

There are organizations that look at all of us that way

as transactional pieces to a cog or a machine

or an organization.

Jesus is calling that out,

that we truly need to care one for another

the way Jesus, the true shepherd, cares.

So are you trusting in that shepherd?

Jesus warns against false leaders

who do not truly care for the sheep.

We must follow the voice of the good shepherd alone.

But some of you, maybe newer to the faith,

maybe you're here and you're not in faith right now.

You don't claim any kind of faith

or religious upbringing or identity.

The question here is do you understand

and know the voice of Jesus?

Do you understand that Jesus is the true shepherd

to care for you and he doubles down on it?

He doubles down on it because of the sacrifice

of the good shepherd.

Understanding in John 14 through 15

that there's a sacrifice that Jesus is gonna double down on

to say no, I am the good shepherd because of this.

He's already contrasted the church leaders

and the false shepherds, if you will,

but then he says in 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

and I lay down my life for the sheep.

All right, Claire, you can leave that one up.

You might look at that first section and go,

I am the good shepherd.

What in the world does that mean?

Understand that what Jesus puts the word good in there,

what he's actually saying is I am the perfect shepherd.

How?

Because of what he does later in this verse,

in this set of verses where he says,

and the father knows me.

He is claiming to be the son of God.

We've talked about this twice already

and we'll get to it again in Holy Week,

that one of the biggest issues that the church had on Jesus

is when he said that he was the son of God

or the son of man, fulfilling Daniel's prophecy

of the Messiah to come and speak as God himself,

though in bodily form.

That that was the biggest hit on Jesus

from the Pharisees point of view

because he overturned everything they were trying to do,

all the darkness they were trying to put in the pews.

He's saying, no, no, no, no, no, it is about me.

I and the father are one.

We see that.

Just as the father knows me and I know the father,

I lay down my life for the sheep.

So therefore, if Jesus knows the father

and the father knows Jesus, if we are in Christ,

then the father knows you.

The father has relationship with you

and because of the sacrifice of the shepherd,

we will be with him in glory.

There's so much going on in what Jesus is stating.

Jesus states, I know my own and my own know me.

This knowledge is not just intellectual, but it's intimate,

much like a relationship between a father and a son

and I wanna pause there for a minute.

For some of you, that might not be a healthy relationship.

When I talk about the relationship

between a father and a son,

that might not be a positive thing in your life

and for that, I wanna say I'm sorry

that that might be your road.

But understand that earthly fathers come and go,

God as father is one that you can trust in

and put your trust in that God loves you.

He loves you and wants that relationship with you.

He wants to know you.

I should say he knows you and he wants you to know him.

It's not just intellectual, it's intimate

and I think that that's a beautiful understanding

of kind of not only the Godhead, the Trinity,

and how that works, but what Jesus wants in your life.

Jesus wants you to have an intimate relationship with him

and intimacy, again, your mind may go

to all sorts of things,

but to me, there's a vulnerability in intimacy.

When I stood on the altar of Peace Memorial Church

on May 25th, 2008 and declared my love for Carrie

and she declared her love for me and we were married,

there was a vulnerability there.

There was an acknowledgement of I want Carrie

to know all of me and me to her.

That's the covenant of marriage.

It's even more so with our relationship with Jesus

and here's the rub, right?

Here's the tension.

We try to hide stuff from Jesus all the time.

If you're here and you're like, what?

I hide stuff from my spouse all the time.

I'm telling you, that's not okay

and that's something that probably needs to be brought up

and have a conversation and I have office hours open

this week and next week.

We could talk about that

because that's not a healthy marriage.

When we hide stuff from people that we love,

it means two things.

It means I don't trust you

and I don't think you will protect me

and that goes back to that trust.

This goes back to trusting the shepherd.

Go back to the beginning.

Did sheep, a fairly dumb animal, trust their shepherd?

Absolutely they did.

To the point where the inflection of a shepherd's voice

turned sheep right or left.

The way a shepherd said something

would bring them back to the pen,

would bring them back to the sheepfold

if they went too far astray

and we talk about that, right?

There's songs that are sung about that,

that the one leaves and God goes gets the one

and usually it's because the sheep's been tangled up

in something.

Sheep knew inherently, classical condition,

all of those things to go back to the shepherd

because they trust the shepherd.

They trust that the shepherd has their wellbeing in mind,

that the shepherd has their safety in mind,

that the shepherd loves the sheep.

Now that's a weird thing to say about shepherd to sheep.

I get it but let's transfer that to Jesus, to us.

Do you trust Jesus that he loves you?

Let that question hang there for a minute.

Do you trust that Jesus the shepherd loves you?

Because if you're here this morning

and you don't trust that,

then this road doesn't mean anything to you.

Because understanding this candle right here,

the death and resurrection of Jesus

that we will celebrate middle of April

is done out of love for you and me.

That Jesus doubles down his shepherdness

to lay his life down for the sheep.

There's a distinctive here.

I lay down my life for the sheep anticipates the cross.

Jesus' death is not accidental but intentional.

He willingly sacrifices himself for his people.

One of our confessions, the Canons of Dort,

which is a great understanding of grace

in head two, article eight,

says this about Jesus laying down his life for the sheep.

This death of the son of God is a single

and most perfect sacrifice and satisfaction for sins

of infinite value and worth,

abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins

of the whole world.

Even the ones you want to hide from him,

even from the ones you think nobody sees,

the most perfect sacrifice.

But you have to be the one to trust it.

You have to be the one that is gonna double down

your efforts to follow the shepherd

and not be lured away by another voice,

by another shepherd, the shepherd of money

or power or authority or adultery or whatever it is.

Friends, there are gonna be false shepherds

all over your life.

Who are you going to follow?

Pastors can be seen as false shepherds.

Churches can be seen as false sheep pens.

Our confessions remind us to keep it about God's word always,

as the perfect sacrifice for sin

was Jesus' atoning work on the cross.

He does not merely make salvation possible,

but actually secures salvation for the sheep.

For God so loved the world, he gave his one and only son

that whoever believes in him will have everlasting life.

Friend, you can take that to the bank if you want

because it will always hold true.

Do you believe that you are fully secured

by Christ's sacrifice?

The good shepherd has already paid that price.

He's already laid down his life.

So this should come as good news that we are safe

in the hands of the shepherd.

But Jim, my life is hard right now.

It's chaotic.

There are so many apple carts overturned in my life.

How can I trust the shepherd is at work?

Because he never has stopped working.

People always say I don't feel like God is near and dear

to me and they wanna blame it on God.

Friend, we know that that's not the case.

We know that we're the one that is doing the straying.

That the shepherd is always calling.

He is always calling you back into repentance.

Why we do it every Sunday.

That in that congregational prayer,

we wanna offer that we are sinners,

that we've messed up in this last week.

We have not loved him with our whole heart.

We have not loved our neighbor as ourselves.

For the sake of your son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.

Forgive us, renew us, lead us.

Like a shepherd leads us.

That's what it's about.

Who are you being led by?

And for some of us today, we're leading ourselves.

And we're leading ourselves straight

into the arms of the wolves.

Straight into the teeth of whatever those sins are

that we are procuring in our life.

That's why the mission of the good shepherd

is so important in verse 16 through 19.

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.

I have authority to take it up again.

This charge I received from my Father,

there was again a division amongst the Jews

because of these words.

That's the mission of the shepherd.

He lays down his life.

One of the things I love about the Gospel of John,

which is different than any other of the three Gospels,

everything in the Gospel of John,

if you wanna start studying it now, do it.

Make that a mission for yourself.

Everything done, every action done, Jesus allows.

What John wants to get across to us

is that Jesus willingly, knowingly laid down his life

for you and for me, for the sins of the world

because we know that we know that we know

that if it was us, we would not do it.

But he willingly lays it down.

He does it out of submission to the Father,

but out of the love, the Godhead's love

for you and for me.

I have other sheep that are not of this fold.

I must bring them also.

This refers to the Gentiles,

fulfilling God's promise that salvation

extends beyond Israel.

We see that in Isaiah 49.

That though I wanna make this personal for you this morning,

that Jesus loves you and died for you

to give you new life, Jesus' mission is global.

He gathers his flock from every nation,

every tribe, every tongue.

How do we know?

Because they will all be there in Revelation

chapter seven, verse nine.

The Belgian Confession helps us here in Article 27

where it says, we believe and profess

one Catholic and universal church,

a holy congregation and gathering

of true Christian believers.

Notice small c, not big C, not denomination Catholic,

not St. Thomas More Catholic.

This is little c, church universal.

The church is not defined by ethnicity

or nationality or background,

but it is one flock under the perfect shepherd.

So those of us that understand that,

those of us that have professed that,

that are still, again, we make a muck of it,

that's part of life, and there's grace.

But understand, for those of us that profess it,

do we understand the mission of the shepherd?

Because the mission of the shepherd in Matthew 28,

he then gives the sheep and says,

all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,

you go.

Holy Spirit's coming to help, but you go.

Do we have the heart for the mission of the shepherd?

The good shepherd is still gathering his sheep

through the preaching of the gospel,

through the ministering of the word and the sacrament,

through the church.

So something I want you to ponder this week,

what's the sheep pen like at 214 Ridge Road?

This has been a sheep pen for 154 years.

Burned down a couple times, but they built it back up.

Again, it's never been about the brick and mortar,

but it's been about the sheep pen.

When sheep come to the sheep pen,

are they receiving care and love?

Are they being guided and discipled?

Yeah, there are some areas that we can still grow in that.

Adult Sunday schools, Bible studies, teaching, right?

Catechism, all of the things.

We're doing that really well for our kids,

but our adults, it seems to fall off.

How are we doing with the adult sheeps of faith?

Where can you be a part of that vision and that mission?

Our missions committee giving us new opportunities

to serve a world around us.

And it's not so they can all become members here.

If that happens, fantastic.

But if not, the name of the good shepherd gets proclaimed

and sheep find a home.

Are we participating in the mission?

Or are we just being bad sheep?

Are we just being dumb, deaf sheep

that's willing to baa to whatever the world has to offer?

So where do we go from here?

First, for the head, know the shepherd.

Study Jesus' role as the good shepherd.

Read Ezekiel 34, Psalm 23, Hebrews 13.

And reflect this week, how does knowing Jesus' shepherd

deepen your understanding of his care

and his leadership in your life?

For the heart, trust the shepherd.

Rest in the assurance that Jesus laid down his life for you.

Find peace in his protection and his provision.

Reflect, are you trusting in Christ's sacrifice?

Are you still striving to earn God's favor?

And then for our hands, where do we take it today?

Follow the shepherd.

Join in the mission of the good shepherd.

Pray for the lost and share the gospel with those

who have not yet heard his voice.

So my challenge, identify this week.

Maybe make this your Lenten mission.

Identify one person in your life

who needs to hear about the good shepherd.

How can you reach out to them about this this week?

And over the next 36, 35 days of Lent.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you.