The Good Shepherd - John 10:1-21 - July 19, 2026

Blake Hickman: Good morning, everyone. hope everybody's doing great today. If you're new around here or visiting today, my name is Blake. it's an honor to be here with you today and to have the privilege of opening God's word with you. My wife Amber and I and our family were members here at Harvest for many years. It was a joy and a privilege to be able to do that. And I'm very grateful to both Matthew and Mike to be able to be invited back from time to time. See so many friendly faces. and also to see so many new ones as well. it's incredible what the Lord's doing here. If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn to John chapter 10. we're gonna look at more of the lengthy section than the verses that you just read for us this morning. And the entire chapter is a lengthy chapter that continues over from chapter nine last week with the blind man receiving his sight and the conversation that Jesus was having with the teachers of the law there. And we're only gonna cover half of the chapter. This morning, but it it's a beautiful passage. It's a beautiful passage where Jesus is going to make some things very plain and very clear to us. And I pray this morning, as I've been praying for myself and as I've been praying for all of you this week, that this morning that God will open our eyes to see these precious truths today, that he would open our ears to hear these precious truths today, that he would open our hearts to help us understand these precious truths today, that he would open our minds. And allow us to be able to comprehend them this morning. In Psalm 34, verses 8 through 10, King David says this He says, O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. O fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have. No lack. The young lions, they suffer, they want and they hunger. But those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. Those verses from David are such a comfort. They are such a grace. They are such simple commands and simple promises. They are easy to get into the brain and make their way down into our hearts. And depending on what is going on in your individual life today, they may be the hardest words to hear and the hardest words to receive. And they may be very difficult to believe. But my prayer, as I've prayed for you and as I've prayed for myself this week, is that we would believe them. And not just that we would believe them, but we would treasure them. That we would delight. In the one who delights in us, if we are his. Because our text today, Jesus is going to tell us that what David says in those verses from Psalm 34 is 100% true. It's 100% true. And I want you to know this morning that no matter how you found yourself here this morning, whatever it is that is going on in your life this morning. If you are near to God, if you are far from God, if you are searching for God, if you do not know God, this word, His word, it is for each and every one of you this morning. So I'm going to pray, and I'm going to ask God to bless His word, and then we're going to look together at our text this morning. Would you pray with me? Father, thank you so much. That you invite us, everyone here, to Try you by tasting and seeing that you are in fact good. And Father, when we do that, we find that you are. I pray this morning as we look into your word that that would be abundantly clear to everyone here today. That no matter what else we hear or see or think or imagine today, that we would leave here today knowing that you are good. And the greatest way that you have shown your goodness is as the good shepherd, you laid down your life to save sinners like all of us here today. Father, would your word come alive this morning? Would it resonate in our hearts? Would you draw people to yourself? Would you work through weakness in me? Would you work through weakness in everyone here this morning? And would Jesus be magnified? It's in his name we pray. Amen. I have a dear friend who's a farmer. And a few years ago, upon moving back to The state of North Carolina, and after living in Holly Springs for a little while, he decided that he was going to buy a 10-acre horse farm in Sanford, North Carolina. You may think, well, Blake, it's not uncommon here in the great state of North Carolina. We're known for our farming and our agriculture. And while that may be so, my dear friend knew nothing about farming when he bought this farm. It would be fair to say that he had a lot to learn and learn he has. If have grown up around farms, you know that in many ways your work is never finished. Converting a 10 acre horse farm and growing it to a 20 acre cattle farm takes a lot of work. It's not as simple as buying land and buying animals and buying a tractor and look, now I'm a farmer. No. There's constant care and work that has to go into every aspect of what you own and what you were there to steward and to care for. And thankfully, my friend raises cattle. They require a lot of work to be sure. But he can let them out to pasture and he can move them from one pen to another. He doesn't have to keep constant watch over them. When he isn't watching for them, he's still caring for them, no doubt. But there are other things around the farm that he needs to do. He needs to check on the land, he needs to check on the water, especially in the drought that we're in right now. He needs to make sure the fence is up. There's just A lot of work to do. And he's very thankful that he does not farm sheep. Because sheep are different. Sheep require constant watching and constant care. They need their shepherd near always. The shepherd cannot go off and check on other parts of the farm. He can't take time to repair his tractor. The shepherd goes off and checks on other parts. When he returns, the sheep most likely will be gone. In our text today, Jesus is going to let us know how he, in his love for us, is not just a shepherd to us as sheep, but he is the good shepherd, the best shepherd. And he is also going to show us that we need his shepherding every second of every minute of every hour of every day of our lives. Let's look together in John chapter 10, and I'm going to read this for us this morning. Know that this is God's word, beginning in verse one. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief, and he is a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens the sheep, hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name. He leads them out. When he has brought them out, All those that he owns, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Stranger they will not follow. They will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers. This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So Jesus again said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me, they are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came, that they may have life and have it abundantly. And the good shepherd is. Good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd. He doesn't own the sheep. He sees the wolf coming and he leaves the sheep and he flees. The wolf snatches them, scatters them. Hired hand, he he flees because he's a hired hand. He cares nothing for the sheep. I'm 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 fault. 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. 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 division among many of the Jews because of his words. Many of them said he's got a demon. He's 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 God's word. This text answers many questions for us as we seek to understand who Jesus is and how we enjoy life in him. But this text also tells us, each one of us, something about ourselves this morning. And that is our first point today, because we need to ask, who are we? Who are we? A simple question with a simple answer. We are sheep. If your only experience with sheep is having gone on your kindergarten field trip to a farm, you watched a farmer take the lamb and remove the soft and fluffy wool from a sheep, you might say, Well, Blake, that doesn't sound so bad. Well, you don't know sheep. Cannot tell you the number of videos I have watched this week about sheep jumping into ditches. You may have seen them. You see a shepherd and he pulls a sheep out of a ditch. Your heart is warmed by the care and the rescue. You're so happy. This sheep, he's happy, he's safe. He's not in the ditch anymore. Then within five seconds of the sheep being released, the sheep finds its way right back to the ditch. I would tell you to Google it today or YouTube it. Please don't. You'll be there for hours. It's a waste of your time. I've watched that clip many times over the years. I wasted innumerable hours this week again watching it. And every time my hope is that the sheep will learn. Spoiler alert, the sheep does not. I've heard many people teach on sheep over the years, whether it's this passage or many of the other bat passages that talk about sheep in the Bible, and many times well-intended, and I genuinely believe they are well-intended people, will say that sheep are stupid. I can't argue that. Not a shepherd, nor am I acquainted with sheep. But What I've learned this week by being in this text and reading it and researching it is that it is not so much that sheep are stupid. It is more that sheep are helpless. Sheep are anxious creatures. They are easily frightened and worked up into a panic. Sheep are easily led by and follow each other, often going astray and being led into danger. Sheep often find themselves in trouble and in desperate need of rescue. And what Jesus tells us in this passage today is that that is who each one of us is. We are sheep. And sheep need a shepherd. Without one they're gonna meet a disastrous end. Now that all of us have had our self-confidence buckets filled up, let's pray. No, I'm just kidding. But seriously, there's a reason the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 53 says that all we like sheep Had gone astray. It's not that we're stupid. That we're helpless. We are sheep. And without a shepherd, we will be anxious creatures, easily worked up to a panic over the smallest little thing. We will easily be led by others or even our own desires and we will find ourselves far off the path and away from safety. We will find ourselves lost in trouble and in desperate need of rescue. For each of us here today, even those of you that are the best and the most put together at all times. This is who we are. Every one of us. And while this seems like a wet blanket of heaviness, it is wonderful, wonderful news. My wife Amber and I have five sons and now a daughter-in-law for which we are very, very grateful. One thing I've tried to teach my sons from as early as they could understand words is that self-awareness is one of the greatest skills that they can develop in life. We need to know the true situation and circumstances of our lives so that we are able to take an honest assessment of the condition of our life at any given moment. If we lie to ourselves, if we Deceive ourselves, we keep ourselves from receiving the care and the help that we need. Friends, each one of us this morning is in need of great care and great help. And Jesus is telling us in this passage where we need to go to find it. And this leads to our next question because our text answers for us who is Jesus? You may not like to learn about your helplessness. It may confuse you as well. It did the people there in John chapter 10, verses 1 through 6 of this chapter. They're told as a parable. John says it's a figure of speech, but it's a parable. Jesus isn't talking about specific people or specific things in there. He's going to point to them and reference back to them, but he's just telling the story of something that would be very simple that they could relate to. But they didn't understand it. And so Jesus had to explain it to them. And in his explanation, he wanted them to understand very clearly who he was. In these verses, Jesus tells us three things about himself. He tells us that he is the door, he tells us that he is the good shepherd, and he tells us that he lays down his life for the sheep. And Jesus being the door and the good shepherd, both are deeply intertwined with his laying down his life for the sheep. The good shepherd laying down his life, we can. You can somewhat understand if you've grown up in and around the church, if you have an idea and understanding of the gospel. But if you're like me, Jesus calling himself a door, we we need to work that out together a little bit. In the first six verses, Jesus tells us about how sheep were kept back at that time. There was a sheep pin. And that sheep pen is where the sheep would be kept at night. They would go in, they would go out, they would find pasture, they would come back in. Many times this pin would be up against a shallow cave or an embankment. Why? We've already talked about sheep. They're gonna wander off. So you've got a back protection. Now all you need is a front protection, and it would have a some type of wall. Typically with something on the top to guard it, briars or other things that was there to prevent the thieves and robbers from getting in and to keep the sheep from getting out. And to get in, the only way in is one would have to go through a very narrow, small entrance into the pen. The shepherd, his job, after all the sheep were in the pen, was to spend the night in the door of the pen. He was the first and primary source of defense and the protection of the sheep. As one commentator put it, as he would rest at night on watch. The shepherd was literally laying down his life for the sheep. We may ask, if these sheep are so obstinate, so anxious, so confused, so prone to run away and find trouble, why would any shepherd do this? Well, he does this because there's thieves and there's robbers, and there's wolves and there's other animals, and they're always trying to sneak in and steal the sheep. It was the shepherd's job to put himself between these threats and the sheep. To meant his life or the life of the sheep, sheep were the priority. You may ask, well, sheep are so helpless. Again, why? Why is this the priority? Why do these people care? Because sheep were of great value, incredible value. Like most livestock, every part of the sheep had value, which is why it was so attractive to enemies. You could use its outer coat. You could use its skin. Every part of the sheep could be used for something. It had great value. The shepherd understood the value of the sheep and at the risk of his own life would do all he could to protect them. And Jesus is here saying that I am the door. Door. And if he tells us, if he is the door, he tells us the only way we can receive the protection we need is to enter the pen through him. There's no other way. You can't climb over the wall. You can't dig a tunnel under the ground. You have to go through him. If we want to find pasture and safety and rest. Jesus is telling us that he is the only place that we can find it. And we can only find it by entering through him as the door. And Jesus tells us that every other door we look to find these things, these doors belong to thieves. They belong to robbers. They belong to wolves. These thieves, these enemies, they want to steal from They want steal your joy. They want to steal your happiness. They want to steal your success. They want to steal your time. They want to steal your resources, your peace of mind and heart. 'Cause these thieves aren't just content with stealing from you. These thieves will not be satisfied until they have killed you and until they have destroyed you. Friends, please listen. Every single door we run to that is not Jesus. going to lead you and end up in destruction. Our addictions, whether they're substances, technology, any number of other things. Our desire for control and manipulation, our longing for fulfillment and success, our hatred and our spite for one another, our bitterness and our resentment, our greed and our gluttony, our indifference and our apathy. longings for human touch and affection, the list could go on and on and on and on. Jesus is tenderly telling us that the only way to have life and have it be a full life. is to enter through the door that He makes for us. Question that we need to think about is what are the doors in our lives that we run to over and over and over again that are not Him? What are the doors of quick comfort? What are the doors of easy satisfaction? What are the doors that that bring us temporary relief? What are the doors we run to that aren't him? This week, let's pray, let's ask the Holy Spirit to help us shut those doors for good and to set them on fire in the name of Jesus. And let's run to the door that he opens so that we can know we have found safe and good pasture. But Jesus just isn't our door. He's also our good shepherd. And Jesus tells us that he's not like a hired hand or just someone that's being paid to watch. The sheep, unlike the thieves and robbers, the hired hand is not a bad person. He's just just human. And when a real threat comes in fear and panic, they care more for their own life than they do for the sheep. And let's be honest here. Every single person in this room, we can relate to that, can't we? There's a part of us that can relate to that. I would dare say most everyone here in this room this morning has had at least one moment in your life where self-preservation came at the expense of protecting someone else. might not be overly dramatic, but self-preservation is a natural human response. There's desire to protect ourselves. There's just a desire to make sure that we're safe. There's a desire to make sure that we're gonna be okay. something bad happens am I all right before is anyone else and what Jesus tells us here is that self-preservation is not why the good shepherd was sinned When the threat was at its greatest, the Good Shepherd laid down his life. He didn't protect his life. Isaiah again from Isaiah 53 tells us that in the Good Shepherd laying down his life for us, that Jesus wouldn't just die as the shepherd. He had no thought for his own life to the point, and he cared so much for the sheep that he became a sheep to protect the sheep. No self preservation there. See, sheep have great value. the thieves and robbers kill the shepherd, they will still be able to steal the sheep. But if the shepherd becomes a lamb. The sheep of greatest value. Now the other sheep can have protection. Friends, this is what Jesus did for us. Our good shepherd put himself between us and the punishment that we deserve for our sinfulness. He put himself between us and the threat we face from our mortal enemy. And he did this becoming like us, taking on our skin, looking like us, walking like us, eating like us, sleeping like us. He became one of us for us. And in his death on the cross and his resurrection three days later, he silenced the thief and he opened the door. And he is inviting each and every one of us in to find good pasture in him this morning. If this is true, and believe me, it is true, then this warrants a response from each one of us. And that is our final question. How do we respond? For each one of us here today, this warrants a response. The gospel always warrants a response. And whether you know that you have been saved by God's grace today, or you know that you have not, or you are filled with doubt and are unsure, might I suggest two things for us to remember as we think about how we need to respond? And this is our application this morning. First, if you are in Christ, you need to remember that he knows your name. Jesus says over and over in this passage that the shepherd knows the sheep by name. He calls their name. They hear him and they respond to him. Friend, if you were in Christ this morning, remember that you have been saved by the one who called your name. few were here today and you have placed your fa faith and trust in Christ alone to save you. He called out your name. Jesus died to make a people for his own possession, but that people is made up of individual persons. And if you are here today and you are in Christ, you are one of them. And he called you by name. If he knew your name then, he knows your name now. And no matter what you were facing or going through, if he knew your name then, he knows your name now. He knows right where you are. He knows you by name. Shepherds called sheep by name. Sheep knew the sound of the shepherd's voice. Many of these pens would keep multiple flocks of sheep with multiple different shepherds. And when a shepherd would come to the pen to call out the sheep, the sheep would only respond to the voice of their shepherd. Didn't matter if the call sounded the same, didn't matter if the noise was simple, didn't matter. The sheep were only going to move if their shepherd called them. But in addition to that, Back in these times, Shepherd had names for the sheep, nicknames for the sheep. Again, helpless creatures that wander off all the time. And when they would see the sheep moving toward trouble, or they would see trouble moving in on the sheep, they would call the sheep by name, and the sheep would turn and respond. Friend he knows you by name. Trust. Trust that he knows you. Hear his voice. Respond to him. Run to him. If you are not in Christ, this is a call for you as well. In this text, Jesus makes it very, very clear that not all the sheep that are his know that they are his yet. He says, I have many other sheep that are not of this fold, and I'm going to call them and they're going to come in. Now listen, I how God works his mystery of salvation in the hearts and minds of people is a mystery. It's made plainly clear in the Bible. And yet the Bible also makes it plainly clear that Jesus calls who he will call. But Jesus is always calling. Can you hear him call? I grew up in a time when you get to the end of a service like this, we're gonna sing, we're gonna sing, but gonna sing. And we had all of these invitation hymns that would be sung. And I'm just being real. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen year old Blake, not a fan. Just be just say it. There were a couple, there were a couple that stuck with me over the years, and I'll never forget it. It was 2014, together for the gospel conference. I had left early and I missed this session, but many of my friends who were there came back and they were speechless. And in that session, John Piper closed his session by quoting two stanzas of one of these hymns. The hymn was softly and tenderly, and this is what these words say softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me. See on the portals, he's waiting and watching, watching for you and for me. Ye who are weary Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling. Calling, center. You are here today and you are far from Jesus. Can you hear his call? Will you open your ears to hear if he is calling you? Will you incline your heart? Will you bend your ear? Will you will you listen for his voice? And when he calls you, will you run to him so he can bring you in to find good pasture? The second thing for us to remember from this text today. It's not just that he knows our name, but it is that he is the good shepherd. The Greek word for good here in this passage is a word that we don't quite comprehend and understand in modern English. It means beautiful, incomparable, par excellence, noble, right, truly good. Jesus is wanting us to know that this is who he is. He's the very definition of the word. And yet, for many of us in here today, we struggle and we rest with that. If he is good, why would a good that isn't good? Friends, until we understand that God and God alone sets the definition and the standard of goodness. We should not begin to ask those questions. And that may seem that they may sound, and that may seem very callous and very unkind and very careless. And I'm pleading with you to hear me when I say this, it's not. His standard of goodness far surpasses our understanding of goodness that we can't even see and understand most times how he's acting in goodness in the situations that we find ourselves in. See, a shepherd was good, but the sheep didn't always think so. The shepherd was good. But an enemy comes in to take the sheep. You ask them if they want to meet the shepherd. See, a shepherd always had a rod, and the shepherd always had a staff. And the rod was made of the root of a tree, the root of a tree, the strongest part of a tree. And many times they would bore out the root of the tree and they would put a steel rod down inside. And if anyone dared to attack the sheep, you did not want to meet the butt end of that rod. But a shepherd also had a staff, and the staff was for the sheep. See that when the sheep would wander off, it's the shepherd's job to make sure that they don't wander off. If you have a sheep that's wandering, do you think that that sheep wants the shepherd to put the rod around its neck to yank it back and keep it from safety or keep it in safety? The shepherd sees an enemy or an attack or a threat coming. Do you think the sheep wants to be yanked back and protected? It doesn't even know that one is there. Our shepherd is good. You can trust him with your life. You can trust him with your relationships and you can trust him with your finances and you can trust him with your friendships and you can trust you can trust him with your health. You can trust him with everything. And if it's not going the way that you would define as good, it doesn't mean it's not good. Just means that he knows what we don't and he's inviting us to enter in, to come out, to enter in, to come out, to enter in, to come out, to enter in and find good pasture. So this morning, would we begin to know and understand the goodness of our God? Would Psalm 34, 8 through 10 be true for each and every one of us? Would we taste? Would we long for? Would we desire? Would we run after? Would we taste? Would we see that He is good? Would we understand the blessed happiness that comes from trusting in him? Not trusting in horses, not trusting in chariots, not trusting in strength and resources, not strusting in power and fear, not trust trusting in him. That bring us to light? And then turn, would that give God glory? If we live our lives that way. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for your word. Thank you for the tenderness of this text. I thank you for what it teaches us about Jesus, who you are. And Father, how you worked to provide him for us. May we remember that today. May we consider that today. May we rest in that today. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

John 10 · chapter mention Psalms 34:8–10 John 10 · chapter mention John 10:1–6