"Yahweh, the True Shepherd" John 10:11-18 Sunday Morning Worship Service

And I want to begin this morning by just asking you this basic question.

It is the most important question ever asked, which is, who is Jesus Christ?

That is the question that everybody is called to answer, that everybody is called to wrestle with.

Who exactly is Jesus Christ?

You know, the Jews called him a fraud.

They called him a false teacher and a fraud.

The Muslims to this day call him a prophet.

Intellectually dishonest people call him a good teacher.

The Roman centurion called him a righteous man, and so-called doubting Thomas called him my Lord and my God.

And Christians have always followed Thomas's lead and recognize that Jesus Christ is God.

He is the Lord of the universe, the creator of all things, and he is God in human flesh.

The question as you sort through those titles between fraud and prophet and good teacher and righteous man and my lord and my God is what did Jesus call himself?

And this is why John's Gospel is so critical.

John's Gospel, more than any other book in the Bible, is the really self-revelation of Jesus Christ.

Over and over again in John's Gospel, Jesus declares who he is.

He says, I am the bread of life, I am the light of the world, I am the door, I am the Son of God, he says.

I am the resurrection in the life, I am the way, the truth in the life, I am the true vine.

All of these theologians refer to as the I am statements, one after another in John's Gospel.

I am, I am, I am.

And they culminate at the arrest of Jesus on the Thursday before his crucifixion, when he was surrounded by soldiers, and he just declared in a loud voice, I am.

There was no finishing the sentence.

No longer was it, I am the bread of life, no longer was it I am the way, the truth, and the life, or I'm the resurrection, life.

He just, it all culminates with him declaring, I am, and the soldiers fall down in awe and power at his awe and wonder at his power.

Now clearly all of these I am statements are revelations of the deity of Jesus Christ.

Each one of those statements is his own way of declaring that he is, in fact, what Thomas would testify, Lord and God, that Jesus is the God of the universe.

And that might not seem obvious at just a glance, especially if you're not familiar with the with what the Bible teaches about Jesus.

For example, he says, I am the bread of life.

What he's referencing there is that he is the one who led Israel out of the out of captivity, out of slavery in Egypt.

He is the one who led them into the wilderness.

He's the one that fed them in the wilderness.

He declares that he is the light of the world.

That's his way of declaring that he is the creator.

He is the first cause.

He is the one who illumines all things.

He gives all things their meaning.

He says that he is the truth.

Because God, of course, is the author of truth.

All truth comes from him.

He declares to be the life, meaning that everything that has life in the universe has life from him.

He is the reservoir of life.

But an often overlooked example of his I Am statements to point to his deity is where he declares in John chapter 10 that he is the good shepherd.

John 10 · chapter mention

And that's what I want us to look at this morning.

He declares that he is the good shepherd.

Now, we looked last week at Psalm 23, where David writes the Lord, Yahweh is my shepherd.

Because Yahweh is my shepherd, David says, I will fear no evil, because his rod and his staff they comfort me.

David goes on to write how he has confidence in this world, confidence in death, confidence in life, confidence in prosperity and adversity, because Yahweh is leading him.

God himself is the one who is comforting and guiding and feeding David.

That shepherding motif is picked up in Ezekiel 34.

And that's why I wanted you to look there this morning.

This is Ezekiel's prophecy, it's really a prophecy against the religious leaders of Israel, against the Jewish leaders.

He says that in Ezekiel 34, verse 32.

Prophesy against the shepherds of Israel.

So this chapter is a prophecy against the religious leaders of Israel.

The religious leaders of Israel loved power, they loved religious ritual, they loved ceremony, they loved authority, they just did not love God.

And so God prophesies against them.

And this is what the crimes that the religious leaders committed.

The crimes they committed in verse 2, they were feeding themselves instead of feeding the sheep.

This is a basic function of the shepherd.

You need to feed the sheep.

In verse 3, they were eating the fat.

So whatever sheep were fat, the shepherds were eating them and clothing themselves with the wool.

They were slaughtering the fat ones, but they weren't feeding the weak ones in verse 4.

And so this is the nature, and listen, this is the nature of all man-made religion.

Man-made religion doesn't care for the weak, it doesn't care for the poor.

It does care for the rich and the wealthy because it fleeces them.

That's where that expression comes from.

It comes from this: that people who are in man-made religions or works righteousness religions, religions that teach you to work hard, to be pleasing to God, to earn your way to heaven.

Those kind of religions all have something in common, namely that their leaders are wealthy, their leaders are rich, and the leaders are taking money from the congregation to make themselves wealthy while ignoring and neglecting those who are in need.

That is a common theme in works righteousness religions.

And this is what God said Judaism had become, and so he's rebuking the Jewish leaders.

For people who are caught in those kind of religions, they in verse 5 are like sheep that are scattered because they don't have a shepherd.

Listen, sheep that don't have a shepherd get lost.

Sheep that don't have a shepherd don't know where to go.

They don't know where to eat, they don't know where to drink, they don't know how to live.

And so they are scattered without help.

In fact, they become prey, verse 8 says.

They become prey for any kind of false teaching that comes their way.

They become prey for, they get suckered in.

They become prey for the fears that roam through the world.

They become prey for false teachers that roam through the world.

They believe lies and they lose their money and ultimately they lose their souls.

And you need to understand, though that is the majority of religion in the world, and that is the majority of people in the world fall into some kind of religion like that.

God says in verse 10 that he is against that.

He is against those shepherds.

And he will judge the leaders of those religions.

Jesus makes it clear when he comes in Luke's gospel, he declares that the leaders of false religions will have a more severe punishment in hell than the followers of those religions.

God will oppose them.

But then Ezekiel 34 changes gears.

And in verse 11, thus says the Lord Yahweh, behold, I myself will search for the sheep.

God says, I've given up on the leaders of Judaism, I've given up on the Jewish teachers, I've given up on the Jewish priests, I've given up on all of the Jewish kings.

You know, at this point by Israel's history, their kings have been really one failure after another.

God says, I'm giving up on them.

From now going forward, I myself will be their shepherd.

This is one of the very few places in the Bible where you see God's own self-identity.

This is, you know, 400, 500 years before Jesus, you have God describing who he is.

This is God's I am statement.

I will be their shepherd, God says.

I will come find them.

And shepherds were not noble, they were dirty, they were, they were grungy, they did not have an esteemed occupation.

And so it's somewhat jarring to see God describe himself as a shepherd.

And he says, I will come.

Listen, the false shepherds, they didn't call the Israelites to repent.

They didn't call the Israelites to put their faith in God, they didn't feed the Israelites the word.

Those are the basic functions of a shepherd: protecting, guiding, feeding.

They weren't doing that.

They weren't calling people to repent.

They weren't giving them the word of God to eat.

And so God says, I will come.

And notice what he's gonna do.

God will come, God will feed his sheep his word, God will seek after the lost sheep, and he goes on to say that.

Look in the middle of verse 12.

I will seek out my sheep, God says.

I will rescue them from all the places where they've been scattered.

I will bring them out from the peoples, verse 13 says.

I will gather them from all the far countries.

God describes himself as having sheep all over the world, he says, in verse 13.

I mean, that sounds like a New Testament verse.

Here it is, tucked in the middle of Ezekiel, God says, I've got sheep all over the world, and I myself will go get them.

And the myself is redundant in Hebrew.

You don't need it.

But God is emphasizing that He will do this.

Yahweh will do this.

And then He says in verse 14, I will feed them.

God says, I'm gonna give them my word.

They won't need teachers, they'll just have me, and I will feed them.

And they will lie down, look at the middle of verse 14, in good land.

Doesn't that remind you of Psalm 23?

Yahweh is my shepherd, he makes me lie down in green pastures.

Here, Ezekiel says, God speaking through Ezekiel says, I will be their shepherd, I will make them lie down, I will feed them, and of course the sheep eat the word of God.

That's what he feeds us.

And then verse 15 is just the center of this prophecy.

I myself again, I myself will shepherd my sheep.

I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord Yahweh.

I will seek the lost, I will bring back the strayed, I will bind up the injured, I will strengthen the weak and the fat and the strong, I will destroy them.

I will feed them in justice.

And what a line.

God says, I'm gonna find the weak sheep that have been neglected by the false religions of the world.

People that are just hurting under this idea that they have to be good enough to earn a relationship with God, hurting under this, all the restrictions that false religions put on people.

And God says, I'm gonna go find them and I'm gonna show them mercy.

I'm going to rescue them.

I will be their shepherd.

I will cut off the false shepherds, and I will feed them.

Well, there that prophecy ends.

I mean, it goes to the rest of the chapter.

In verse 25, he says, I'll make a new covenant with them.

When God is their shepherd, he'll make a new covenant with their people.

But it doesn't get cleared up.

Chapter 35 just goes on to more rebukes of Israel.

Chapter 36 is a prophecy of the future of Israel, but you don't see the shepherd again.

And you can turn all the way back now to the New Testament to John chapter 10.

John 10 · chapter mention

You don't see the shepherd again until you get to the New Testament.

And that's what is so captivating about Jesus when he declares that he is the good shepherd.

This is what it is a reference to.

I mean, every Jew knows the prophecy from Ezekiel 34.

Every Jew knows the promise that God will be the shepherd of his own sheep, that God will come be their shepherd.

They just didn't know how.

They didn't know how.

And so the Jewish search for the Messiah, the Jewish search for the one who would be their deliverer, is wrapped up in this shepherding language.

It's wrapped up in this language of who is going to care for them.

There's no shortage 2,000 years ago or today of people that claim to care for others, that claim to want to shepherd your soul.

But how do you tell the difference between the true shepherd and the false shepherds?

How do you tell the difference between the true religion and all the wrong ones?

Because listen, they're mutually exclusive.

And this is what I want to look at this morning.

I want to give you an outline to help you navigate that.

Three unmistakable signs of the true shepherd.

In John chapter 10, we get three really unmistakable signs.

John 10 · chapter mention

And to understand what's going on in John chapter 10, you have to appreciate there's a lineup of people who want authority in Israel.

John 10 · chapter mention

There's a long line of people from the Romans to the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin, the priestly class, the rabbis, all the religious teachers.

There's a long line of people that want to have shepherding authority.

They want to have control over the lives of the Israelites.

And listen, the same is true today.

There is no shortage of people that want to tell you what to do and tell you how to live and tell you what God demands of you.

How can you tell the real shepherd?

This passage gives you three ways.

These are three signs that are not fakeable.

These are three signs that authenticate that when Jesus says he's the real shepherd, he's the good shepherd, it's not just talk.

Shepherds were known for boasting, they were known for their brash talk.

How do you know this is authentic?

Because if it is authentic, listen, if Jesus is the real shepherd, that means that he is the fulfillment of Ezekiel 34.

That means that he is God, that he is God incarnate.

Incarnate just means in human nature.

He is God in flesh.

He has taken on a human nature, he has taken on a human body.

If Jesus is the good shepherd, that means he is Yahweh, the creator God of the Old Testament.

That means he is God living a life on earth.

That God came to earth and told us what is required of us, told us what he wants of us, told us what we need to go to heaven.

So if Jesus is the good shepherd, do you see the implications of this?

They're massive.

That he has authority over your life.

Like a shepherd has authority over the lives of sheep.

Here's three ways in this passage.

First, the real shepherd dies for his sheep.

And we want to pick this up in verse 11.

This is a chapter, everything hinges on each other.

You could always start earlier, you could always start anywhere earlier, and there's things that you need to understand this, but we're just going to pick verse 11.

It's a declaration there where Jesus says, I am the good shepherd.

And this is how he authenticates that.

And this again isn't the first time he declares himself to be the shepherd.

That's been going on for a while now in his ministry, but we're just jumping in here.

I am the good shepherd.

The shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

So here Jesus says that you will know he's the real shepherd because he is willing to die for the sheep.

And here's where Americans need to upgrade their view of shepherds real quick, because we often have a romantic view of shepherds.

You know, shepherds are on nursery walls for little kids, and they're all they're oftentimes almost effeminate kind of kind of guys here.

They look dainty, I think.

And they have a picture of the shepherds holding like nice cuddly lambs, and they're pristine, and the robe is white, and you know, that's not what shepherds really were like.

Shepherds were rough, gruff, they were manly, their job was tiring, their job was dangerous.

To be a good shepherd, you had to work long hours under physical labor in extreme threat, threat from predators, wolves, of course, threat from robbers and thieves, threat from the heat and dehydration.

If a person didn't have integrity and a good work ethic, they they couldn't be a good shepherd.

And that doesn't mean there weren't bad shepherds.

I mean, you could argue that most of the shepherds were bad.

But to be a good shepherd, not the good shepherd, but to be a good shepherd, you had to be a hard worker.

You had to be sacrificial.

You had to be willing to lay your life on the line for the lives of your sheep.

It's so fascinating when you think of Ezekiel 34.

This was the difference that God called out between the good shepherds and the bad shepherds back in Ezekiel.

The difference was that the bad shepherds weren't willing to do that.

They were all talk and all cash, no action, no sacrifice.

We understand this basic principle that a leader would never ask his followers to do anything that he wasn't willing to do himself.

That is magnified exponentially here with Jesus, who says, I'm not even going to ask my sheep right now in John 10 to lay their lives down for me.

It will be the shepherd who lays his life down for the sheep, not the other way around.

Many religious leaders would expect our followers to die for them.

Jesus reverses that and says, I will lay my life down for the sheep.

False religions fleece the sheep, exploit the poor, professionalize religious leadership.

Jesus cuts through all of that and says, the real shepherd will die for his sheep.

The Jews didn't know any of that leadership.

None of that at all.

In fact, Jesus tells the Pharisees before this encounter, he tells the Pharisees that the worst thing that can happen to a Jew is that they would become a disciple of a Pharisee because then they'll be twice the son of hell they were before.

That's the kind of language Jesus had for the Pharisees and the religious leaders of his day.

It's so twisted in the American thinking, we often think that the best people or the godliest people are the most religious.

We uh associate religiosity with goodness, and we think, oh, that person's good because they're so religious.

Jesus comes and says that the religious leaders are twice the sons of hell as their followers.

In fact, early in John chapter 9, the Pharisees asked Jesus, Are you calling us blind?

John 9 · chapter mention

The Pharisees asked Jesus, and Jesus' response is classic.

He says, No, because you say you can see, that's exactly why you're guilty.

If you said you were ignorant about the things of God, you would have less guilt.

But once you start talking about the things of God, apart from Jesus Christ, your guilt only increases.

And the tell of a false religion, the sign of a false leader, is they are demanding but not sacrificial.

Wanting to have but not to give.

They're not loving, they're not protective, they're arrogant and exploitive.

And what a contrast Jesus is.

And it wasn't just talk.

Do you notice in verse 11, Jesus links his identity, he links who he is, he links his claim to be God in human flesh to his willingness to die.

And it's not even some kind of romantic willingness, like I would die for you.

It's not that.

It's that he will actually do it.

He'll actually do it.

What a contrast, verse 12.

The hired hand doesn't do it.

He's not even a shepherd.

The person who's, you know, getting a few bucks an hour and is just paid to keep watch over the sheep.

The wolf comes, that guy's out.

He's not paid for this.

He sees the wolf coming, he leaves the sheep.

He flees.

And the wolf snatches him and scatters the sheep.

He flees, Jesus says in verse 13, because he's a hired hand.

He doesn't care for the sheep.

He's the substitute teacher.

He doesn't learn the students' names.

Why bother?

New students come in next period.

He doesn't care for the sheep, but Jesus is not like that.

So that's the first reason Jesus says.

And the Jews pick up on this too.

In the next chapter of John, the Jewish leaders will actually decide this.

They'll say, you know what?

Fine.

Let's kill Jesus, because it's better to kill one person than to have all the nation believe his teaching.

They didn't even get the irony of what they were saying.

The high priest said that.

And John points out that by the high priest saying it became a prophecy.

The Jews said it's better to kill Jesus than to let a whole nation believe him without realizing that that's becoming a prophecy.

Because he will die for his sheep.

Now clearly, Jesus' ministry is about more than just his death, but his death flavors everything about his ministry.

His whole ministry is predicated upon his death.

He authenticates his ministry, he validates his teaching by saying he's willing to die for his people, something a false shepherd will never do.

He'll say in John 15, verse 13, greater love has no better model than this, a person who will sacrifice everything for the life of his friend.

John 15:13

That's John 15, verse 13.

John 15:13

And that's an actual beneficial death.

It's not just saying, oh, I would die for you, and your death doesn't do anything for the one you died for.

It's not saying that.

He's not saying to prove how much I love you, I'll die for you, as if that's the end.

He says, to prove how much I love you, I will die for you, and my death will accomplish your deliverance.

It's an efficacious death.

It actually works, it accomplishes something.

And it is entirely voluntary.

The language he uses here, he lays down his life for the sheep.

Look at that language in verse 11.

I lay my life down.

It's not taken from him.

We are not able to speak like that because our life will invariably be taken from us.

But Jesus' life was not taken from him.

It's not some kind of suicide we're talking about here.

His life, it comes to an end as he gives up his spirit.

This is what he declares in the cross.

John 18, verse 30, as he's suffering on the cross, he says, I give up my spirit.

John 18:30

The perfect life of Jesus, and he led a sinless life, was followed by his perfect death.

And when I say it was a perfect death, I don't mean it was perfect in every regard.

I mean he was an innocent victim of a twisted plot of politicians that wanted to put him to death for their own power and their own political gain.

He was really murdered in a violation of justice.

Israel's highest court, the Sanhedrin, violated every protocol to put this man to death.

Pilate was too much of a coward to stand up for what was right.

He made a political calculation.

So Jesus was really murdered with a miscarriage of justice, but at the divine level, it was a perfect death because he was sinless, and his death makes atonement, gives our sins forgiveness.

All sins require a payment.

Because God is holy, he demands that sin be punished by death.

This goes all the way back to Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Well, Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

When Adam and Eve sinned, God required a death to cover their sin.

He killed an animal, covered it in Adam and Eve in animal skin.

He tells Cain and Abel that he requires a blood sacrifice for sin.

Abel brings one, Cain doesn't.

From that point forward through history, if you want your sins forgiven, there has to be a death.

And your death doesn't help because you're the sinner.

You need somebody without sin to die for you.

And so when Jesus says that he's the good shepherd, he will give up his life for a sheep, that's what's at stake here.

Your own forgiveness of sins.

He dies in your place to bear the penalty for your sin, because without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness of sins.

So when he says he's the good shepherd, he means that he will die to make atonement for your sin.

That's the great mystery in the Bible, isn't it?

How can God be perfectly holy and require a holy sacrifice for sin?

If all people are sinners, how can we have someone die in our place?

And God solves that riddle, he solves that ministry by himself coming to earth and himself dying.

So first, you know, the true shepherd, because he'll die for his sheep.

Second, the second sign of the true shepherd is that he knows his sheep.

Jesus says this in verse 14.

Again, he repeats, I am the good shepherd, verse 14.

I know my own.

In other words, he knows his sheep.

He repeats this in verse 15.

Just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father.

How does the Father know the Son perfectly, completely, entirely?

And Jesus says, in that same way, He knows us.

Do you understand, brothers and sisters, that you don't have an existence apart from God?

God didn't meet you one day and learn about you.

He didn't meet you and study you and figure you out.

He designed you.

He knows you perfectly.

This is what the Bible means when it says that God foreknew us, that he knows us so perfectly and so intimately, because he knew us before he made us.

He everything about us.

And then we're marred by sin, but sin does not obscure God's knowledge of us.

He still knows us perfectly, even though we hide from him in our sin.

This is the mark of the true shepherd.

He knows his sheep.

An investor might invest money in a project.

A construction worker might invest sweat and labor into a project.

But a shepherd invests his life in a project.

A shepherd spends his life with the sheep.

A shepherd knows his sheep.

He knows his sheep's parents.

He knows his sheep's grandparents.

And if he's a shepherd a few more years, he'll know his sheep's children.

And good shepherds remember their sheep and know their family trees and their connection and their personality traits about all this.

That's a good shepherd.

That's the example that God uses for how Jesus Christ knows us.

A shepherd knows what a sheep like to eat.

A shepherd knows where they like to walk, where they like to go.

A shepherd knows what they like to do.

A shepherd knows everything about them.

This investment will require sacrifice from the shepherd.

It requires care from him.

It's done because he loves his sheep.

Why does a shepherd study a sheep?

Because he's just is it an academic exercise?

I mean, that would be a biologist, not a shepherd.

A shepherd studies his sheep because he loves them.

And this should make you ask yourself this question this morning.

Are you known by the good shepherd?

Are you one of his sheep?

Does he know you?

And by the way, this is reciprocal.

This is reciprocal because it's not just that he knows the sheep.

Notice what he says in verse 14, and my own know me.

It's reciprocal.

He knows us, and we in turn know him.

We love him because he first loved us, of course.

We don't learn about him, and so then he knows us.

You cannot reverse this, it won't make any sense.

He knows everything about us because he designed us, and because he knows us so well, we hear his voice, we respond to him and we learn about him.

He calls for his sheep and we respond.

I mean, literature about shepherds is just filled with stories about how sometimes they'll share pins.

You know, six or seven shepherds will put their sheep in a pen together, and the next morning comes, the shepherd will take turns at watch through the night, and the next morning comes, the shepherds will come and they will call for their sheep, and their sheep self-segregates.

Their sheep divide and go to the right shepherd based upon the voice.

Back in John 10, verse 5, Jesus says, A stranger they won't follow.

John 10:5

Some random dude shows up and calls for the sheep.

They're not going to come.

They don't know that guy.

They don't know anything about him.

It's not that they don't think he'll be a good shepherd, it's that they don't know him.

And Americans could relate to this with dogs probably very well.

You know, if you have a dog and you call your dog, your dog comes running.

In the dog park, you know, 20 dogs scampering around in there, you call yours, your dog comes running.

The other dogs don't.

And it's not because the other dogs don't trust you.

It's not because they look at you and say, they saw what kind of car you drive and think that guy's not going to provide a good life for me.

It's that they don't know you.

And this is the example Jesus gives.

He knows his sheep, so we know him, but then this example it stretches the limits of it here because look at what he says in verse 16.

I have other sheep that aren't of this fold.

And I'm going to go get them also, and they will listen to my voice.

What in the world does that mean?

How will they listen to his voice if they haven't heard it before?

So here's Jesus saying, I've got these sheep here, I mean, speaking of his disciples, but I've got other sheep in other places all around the world, and I'm going to go fetch them.

Now, you know the answer to that if you were paying attention earlier, because it's from Ezekiel 34, where there Jesus Yahweh says, I have sheep in other countries.

Jesus says, I'm going to go get people from everywhere.

He has his elect, he has his sheep in every tribe, in every nation.

And when he comes to them, he will come through the preaching of his word.

This is what the Bible says: that faith comes through hearing, and hearing comes through words about Christ.

It comes through sermons about Christ, it comes through speeches about Christ, it comes through the word, the Bible revealing Jesus Christ.

And this is what happens.

This is every every Christian's testimony is this they didn't know the voice of Jesus Christ, and then they heard it and they responded to it in faith.

That is your basic Christian testimony.

You are minding your own business, living your life of sin, and you heard the gospel preached.

You heard about who Jesus Christ was, you heard he was the true shepherd, you heard he was the savior, you heard he died on the cross and rose from the grave.

You heard all this and you believed it.

Why did you believe it?

Because you heard his voice and you are his sheep, and you respond.

Jesus says, they will listen, verse 16, the middle of verse 16, they will listen to my voice.

That's how you know he's the right shepherd.

Because he commands faith.

We can't command those kind of things.

We can try.

We can try, we can tell someone, be thankful.

It doesn't make them does not make them thankful.

Be happy does not make them happy.

And say it sternly, have a good attitude.

It does not help.

But Jesus can call you and can say, love me, worship me, and you respond in faith because you are sheep and you know his voice.

This reason the father loves me, he's hinging it on the love of the Father.

Verse 15, as the Father knows me and I know the Father.

I mean, how do they know each other?

Perfectly and infinitely.

And what's their response to knowledge of each other?

It's it's love and joy and fellowship and delight.

I mean, that's the that's the attitude of the Trinity.

It is pure light, pure love, pure, pure action, pure delight.

That's how they know each other.

And Jesus says, that's how he is going to relate to us.

He knows us, and we're filled with joy.

We hear his voice, and it's the voice of truth, and we respond.

Shepherds call their sheep by name, and Jesus calls us personally.

That's the nature of preaching God's word.

That you hear the words of Christ, the preaching of his word, and you respond in faith.

That's a sign of a real shepherd.

The shepherd is willing to die for a sheep, and not just willing, will die for a sheep.

The shepherd knows his sheep, and his sheep know him back.

And the third sign that we find here in John chapter 10 is that he rises for his sheep.

John 10 · chapter mention

He rises for his sheep.

Verse 17 for this reason the Father loves me.

Because I lay down my life, and we looked at that already, but then this, that I may take it up again.

I lay it down to take it up.

Speaking of unfakeable signs, by the way, this tops it.

There's no greater sign than this.

Jesus says, You want to know how I'm the good shepherd, I will die for you, I will call you, and you'll respond.

And the skeptic might be thinking, yeah, but there's, you know, you know, all kinds of martyrs in the world, and all kinds of people are deceived by someone's voice.

Okay, how about this one?

And I'll rise from the dead.

There's lots of people who say, I'll give you my life, I'll lay my life down for you.

There's nobody who says, and I'll take it back when I'm done with it.

Jesus is speaking of his life here, like we would use a coat check.

You go someplace and you check your coat.

You valet your car, and when you want it back, you call for it.

When you want it back, you tip the person and get your jacket back.

Jesus is speaking of his life like that.

I'm gonna set it down and I'm gonna take it back up again when I want it again.

Who speaks like that?

He says two times in here in verse 17 and then in verse 18.

Again, no one takes my life from me, but I lay it down on my own accord, my own initiative, my own will, my own desire.

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

I mean, I just want you to get your mind around what that Friday was like for Jesus.

He was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane in the middle of the night.

They came with torches.

This is a world without electrical lights, they came with torches into the garden to find him.

It was so dark they couldn't recognize who he was.

Judas had to kiss him so that everybody else would know who he was.

It was easier when he said, I am, and they all fell down.

They then seize him after the sword fight.

They arrest him, they take him to a trial in the middle of the night, probably midnight.

The trial begins, probably wrapped up around three in the morning, judging by the rooster crowing and Peter's denying.

They're waiting for Pilate outside his doors at six in the morning to have him handed over for death, because it had to happen that day, remember?

It had to happen that day before Saturday, before Sundown Friday is where the Jews start Saturday.

So they're waiting 6 a.m.

Pilate bounces him over to Herod.

Herod makes fun of him and crown on him and all that, and mocks him for being the king and sends him back to Pilate, which is a way of mocking Pilate, who is no king at all.

Pilate then hems and haws and finally decides he will crucify him, washes his hands publicly.

It's so obvious he's becoming, he's turning him over to mob justice here.

Probably nine in the morning or so now, three hours later, he's carrying his cross to be crucified through the streets.

He's probably on the cross sometime between, I don't know, 8.30 and 9:30 or 10.

He's probably on the cross at the latest.

The crowd is there heckling him.

He's speared through his side at 3 in the afternoon.

At that point, he's dead.

He's got a spear in him.

Blood and water flow out of him.

That's three in the afternoon.

They take his body down, negotiated over what grave he should be in, and put in the grave by 6 p.m.

Think of all the people that did this to him.

Think of all of the injustice along the way, from the soldiers in the night to the totally sham trial that violated every semblance of justice, to Pilate's absolute cowardice, to Herod's humiliation of him, to the mob's desire for justice, the centurion who crucified him, the soldier who speared him, the thieves who mocked him.

But before all of this, notice what he says: no one takes my life from me.

This is my own initiative, he says.

You think, how can that be?

How can it be his own initiative?

How can it be his own design?

The ESV, which I'm reading from in verse 18, says it's his own accord.

He's the one who designed this.

They thought they were playing him.

He was orchestrating the whole thing.

And he says, to prove this, to prove that I can lay my life down, I will take it back up when I want it again.

Nobody else has authority over their life like that.

Do you understand what this means?

For somebody to say they have authority over life, it means that they have authority that began before their life began.

Otherwise, life has authority over you.

You're subject to your own life.

That's why people are afraid of death.

Because we know that life has authority over us.

When our life ends, our life ends.

Not for Jesus.

Because his authority began before his life began.

His authority must transcend life, and that makes sense because he is the God of life.

So of course he has authority that exists before his human life started.

He existed before he was born.

Unlike us.

Jesus' life stretches into eternity past.

He takes on a human nature, so he has authority over human nature.

His human nature dies.

He's still a human, by the way, when he's buried, he descends to the grave.

He still has a human soul.

His human body is dead and in the tomb, wrapped in the cloth, wrapped in the spices.

His soul descends to the grave, descends to Sheol, where he preaches triumphantly over the souls that are dead.

Those that died in faith before rise with him.

He then comes back to the grave on Sunday morning.

And he resurrects from the dead.

Because he has authority over souls.

He has authority over bodies.

He has authority over life.

Because he preexists all of those things.

And then I want you to just let one other point about this hit you.

If Jesus has authority over one life, he must have authority over all of them.

This is not a jurisdictional thing.

You know, a magistrate might have authority over one county.

A sheriff has authority over one county.

A governor has authority over one state.

A president has authority over one country.

A life isn't like that.

If somebody has authority over life itself, if somebody has authority over the very concept of life, it must extend to all of life.

That's Jesus.

And clearly, if somebody has authority over life, murdering him doesn't help.

If you're angry at him, if you don't like his authority, and so you murder him, how would that possibly even dent him?

That's not even a speed bump.

Because his authority is over all of life.

So how do you know this is true?

Well, he says in verse 17, you'll know it's true because he'll take his life back up again.

Or in verse 18, I have authority to take it up again.

And then he says, This is the charge I received from my father.

This is the eternal plan between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

In eternity before time began, the Father and the Son and the Spirit, they had a plan.

They designed this.

They designed this covenant, this pact, this plan.

This charge is how the ESV says it.

That Jesus will come, not just that he will be born as a human, not just that he will be born as a human and lead a perfect life, not just that he will be born as a human and lead a perfect life, but that he will die a substitutionary death.

And not just that he will have a human nature and lead a sinless life and die a substitutionary death, but that he will also rise again.

That's the full package right there for Jesus.

It's not done until he rises from the grave.

So you murder Jesus the man and Jesus the man dies.

But this happens as part of the plan and sovereignty of Jesus, the God man, who is still the God man at this very moment.

He still has authority over the grave at this very moment.

Human authority ends at death.

Right?

The president dies, he's replaced immediately.

A Supreme Court justice dies, there's a new nomination.

A spouse dies, and you're freed from your wedding vows.

You say in your wedding vow, till death do us part, you say that.

Jesus' authority does not end at death.

And he proves that by taking his body back again.

He says this in Romans 1, verse 14.

Romans 1:14

Jesus was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead.

This is Jesus Christ our Lord.

His resurrection proves that he is the Son of God.

Notice that all three persons of the Trinity are involved in this.

He is sent by the Father.

He lives a totally obedient life as the Son, and the spirit of holiness, Romans 1, verse 4 says, declares that the resurrection of the dead makes him, identifies him, solidifies his power as the Son of God.

Romans 1:4

Please don't miss the irony.

That our good shepherd became our Passover Lamb.

He gave his life so that his blood was spread for our sin.

And then he capped it all off by rising from the grave to defeat death.

He is the shepherd who became the Lamb.

His blood passes over our sin by his sinless life.

He defeats death by dying.

He defeats the grave by rising.

His death and resurrection present the ultimate glorification, the ultimate fulfillment of Jesus' mission on earth.

To refuse to believe in Jesus Christ is like a sheep refusing to believe in a shepherd.

To refuse to believe in Jesus Christ is even crazier than that.

It's like a sheep refusing to believe in a shepherd, even after the shepherd has sacrificed his life for the sheep.

In fact, refusing to believe in Jesus Christ is even crazier than that.

It's like a sheep refusing to believe in his shepherd, even though he knows the shepherd and the shepherd knows him, because the shepherd dies for him, and then the shepherd resurrects from the grave again.

What kind of sheep would see that?

What kind of sheep would see a wolf attacking the flock, and the shepherd come and beating off the wolf, and the shepherd dying to save the sheep, and then rising from the grave.

And the sheep says, I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know if I believe in shepherds.

It's surreal.

If you're listening this morning, ask yourself, do you know the Good Shepherd?

He gave his life so that you would live.

Do you know the Good Shepherd?

He calls his sheep by name.

Do you know the Good Shepherd?

After dying on the cross, he rises from the grave.

Do you know the Good Shepherd?

He lives at this very moment to make provision for us, to forgive us of our sins.

Do you know the Good Shepherd?

Because he lives at this very moment, not only having forgiven you of your sins, but waiting to receive you in heaven.

Do you know the Good Shepherd?

Because he has authority over all of your life.

Do you know the Good Shepherd?

Because He loves his sheep.

If you're here this morning and you don't know the Good Shepherd, this is what it means to know him, to believe in what I just said, to believe that He came from God, that He died for your sins, to bear the penalty that you could never pay, and that He took His life back up again to show that He has authority over his own life and even over yours.

Lord, we're thankful that you are the Good Shepherd.

That you resurrected from the grave, that Mary found an empty tomb that morning, apart from angels who declared your resurrection.

That Mary found you resurrected in bodily form, waiting for her so tenderly.

That Thomas found you outside and looked at your scars and declared that you are the Son of God.

That Peter and John found you where they least expected you in the room they had locked up.

May we all find you here this morning.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for being with us today.

And now a parting word from Pastor Jesse.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, emmanuel Bible.church.

If you're not a member of the local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to have you worship with us here in the menu.

We hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you speak Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel vocally.