The Good Shepherd — John 10:1-41 (07.05.2026)

Please remain standing as a way of honoring the reading of God's Word.

Today's scripture reading will be coming from John 10, verses 1-16 and verses 24-29.

John 10:1–16

After I finish reading, I will say this is the word of the Lord,

and please respond by saying thanks be to God.

Verse 1. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by

the door, but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.

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

To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own

sheep by name, and he leads them out.

When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow

him, for they know his voice.

A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him,

for they do not know the voice of strangers.

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

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

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

If 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.

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd who does not own the sheep sees the

wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees And the wolf snatches them and scatters

them He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep I am the good shepherd.

I know my own and my own know me Just as the father's knows just as the father

knows me and I know the father and I laid down my life for the sheep,

And I have the other sheep that they are not of this fold I must bring them

also, and they will listen to my voice.

So there will be one flock and one shepherd. Verse 24.

So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, How long will you keep us in

suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.

Jesus answered them, I told you, and you do not believe.

The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me,

but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able

to snatch them out of the Father's hand. This is the word of the Lord.

All right, if you have a Bible, you can go ahead and turn to John chapter 10.

John 10 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible with you, we have a little insert in the bulletin

that you received when you came in and that has the scripture on it and it'll

also be on the screen so you can follow along.

As you're finding your way in your Bibles to John 10, let me pray for us one more time.

Father, would you please help me, Help me to handle your word rightly and help

us to hear your word as we have been praying this morning. Give us ears to hear.

And would you speak to each one of us and meet each one of us where we are.

Give each one of us what we need this morning. In Jesus' name, amen.

So to give us a little bit of context of where we are, help you find your bearings,

we are in about the middle of the gospel of John, and we're working our way through this gospel.

And John wrote it, he says, in order that we would believe in Jesus and in believing

that we would have life in his name.

So that's the goal. That's the goal of any of the gospels is that we would see

who Jesus really is. and in seeing him, we would worship him.

We would believe in him. We would trust him.

So that's the goal that John is after in this gospel.

You know, you got to think about that he's a witness to the life of Jesus.

And so he even says in this book, there's so much more I could have written.

There's so many things that he did and all the books in all the world couldn't

contain all the things that he did.

But John is picking and choosing particular things to get us to that point of

seeing Jesus rightly and believing in him.

So John has chosen seven signs and they're all seven signs are within the first

11 chapters. And so we've already gone through six of the seven signs.

Jesus turned water to wine.

He healed the official's son from miles away by just speaking the word.

He heals a paralyzed man at the pool called Bethesda.

He fed the multitude with a boy's lunch.

He walks on water and meets the disciples in the boat as they're in the storm.

And then the sixth sign was healing the man born blind.

And that sign is still kind of the context of this passage. So this man that,

was born blind, the Lord heals him miraculously.

The Pharisees, the religious rulers are very upset. They're calling him to come and bear witness.

They want him to call Jesus a sinner. He's like, look, I was blind and now I see.

God doesn't listen to sinners. I don't know how you could think that this guy is a sinner.

And so that's the context.

And there's a ruckus, there's a

crowd, and Jesus is now taking this opportunity to teach about who he is.

And he's telling this crowd that he is the door, that he is the good shepherd.

There are also not only seven signs, but there are also seven I am statements in the gospel of John.

And two of those are actually in this passage. I am the door and I am the good shepherd.

So today, the point of this passage, the point of this sermon is that we would

see how crucial it is that we relate to Jesus and understand that he is our good shepherd.

And part of that is also remembering who we are, that that means that we are sheep.

Philip Keller wrote this great little

book, A Shepherd's Look at the 23rd Psalm, I think is the name of it.

And he talks about his experiences as a shepherd now, and he's also a pastor.

So he has the dual experience of pastoring and shepherding. And he talks about

how sheep can become cast.

And so apparently what this means is they can either like lie down in,

a divot, an indention in the ground, and they accidentally get rolled on their

back, or they can have like too much wool on their bodies and they get rolled

on their back and they can't get up.

And I looked it up, I've seen some videos. It's pretty funny, it's pretty sad.

But when this happens, the sheep cannot right itself. It's helpless and it will

kick its feet in the air and to the point of exhaustion.

And eventually, unless someone helps this sheep, unless a shepherd goes and

helps the sheep over onto its feet, it'll die.

It cannot it cannot,

rescue itself. And this is just one way that sheep show us just how helpless

they are. It's, and it's such a illustration actually of us.

You know, we, as Americans, we like to think of ourselves as independent,

and able to, you know, able to rescue ourselves, able to get ourselves out of

trouble, able to get ourselves where we need to go.

But we are actually a lot like sheep.

The real problem for a sheep that

becomes cast is when it does this after wandering away from its shepherd.

As long as a sheep stays near to a shepherd, as long as the sheep stays in the

flock, then the shepherd can take care of it, right? But.

The problem is that sheep have a tendency to wander. They have a tendency to go astray.

And we are a lot like that. We are foolish.

We're fearful. We're helpless. We're stubborn.

But most dangerous, we frequently wander from our shepherd because that's what sheep do.

But the good news that's found in this passage is that we have a shepherd who

cares so much for us that not only does he come find us when we wander away,

our shepherd loves us so much that he lays his life down in the place of ours.

And that's what we're gonna see this morning.

Our task as his sheep is to listen to his voice and to remain close to him,

trusting that he will lead us and care for us.

My sermon is really simple this morning and I've divided it just into two parts.

And one is just what we learn about ourselves ourselves that we are his sheep.

And the other is what we learn about Jesus, that he's our shepherd.

So first of all, let's consider what we learn about ourselves,

what it means that Jesus calls us his sheep. And the more I found that you study

sheep, the more you realize this is not flattering.

Jesus could have picked, you know, so many other animals.

He could have compared us to bears or lions or eagles, something graceful,

but he chose sheep and it is very humbling.

And of course, this isn't the first time that the scriptures use sheep to describe God's people.

God's people have been compared with sheep many times in the scriptures.

We've already heard some of those in the service this morning.

But Isaiah 53, 6, you have probably heard, is a very famous verse.

All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way.

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

This going astray is the most prominent way that we are like sheep.

And sheep have a relentless tendency to wander from the safety of the flock

and the care of their shepherd.

And they do this not because they're so brave. Sheep are not brave.

It's not because they're so adventurous or curious or spirited.

Sheep are none of those things.

Sheep go astray and get lost and they get hurt and sometimes die because they're foolish.

Sheep, you may have heard this,

are so foolish that they'll follow another sheep right off of a cliff.

If the other sheep walking in front of them walks off a cliff,

which they'll do that, the one behind it or the many behind it will follow it.

They can't find their own food or water. They can't defend themselves against predators.

Think about it. What other animal requires a shepherd to survive?

Philip Keller in this book on the 23rd Psalm writes, sheep do not take care

of themselves, as some might suppose.

They require, more than any other class of livestock, endless attention and meticulous care.

When we're honest with ourselves, and usually after a period of wandering and

we feel the pain of that, we can see how foolish and stubborn and weak we are.

We forget how much care we need from our shepherd.

We wander by ignoring him. We wander by getting spiritually lazy.

We wander by getting distracted by other things that are not as important.

We wander by simply choosing sin instead of faithfulness.

And as we do, little by little, his voice fades in the distance and we find

ourselves in serious danger.

So it's crucial that we not lose sight of our need for a shepherd,

that we not fall for the lie that we're self-sufficient, that we can take care of ourselves.

When we do that, we stop praying, We stop depending. We stop relying on him.

We try to fight our own battles and our own power. So we wander because we're

foolish. We wander because we forget our weakness. Finally, and most importantly,

we wander from our shepherd because we want to.

This is the one that stings the most.

At the end of the day, you and I stray through sin and idolatry,

spiritual indifference because we want other things,

money, pleasure, ease, more than we want God.

Tim Chester in his great book, You Can Change, says, desire is at the helm of our lives.

It determines our behavior. As far as our circumstances allow,

we always do what we want to do. The question is which of our desires is strongest at any given moment?

That's what the apostle Paul is talking about in Romans chapter 7.

Romans 7 · chapter mention

If you've read that passage, He says, I want to do right, but I do evil.

And then he talks about these warring desires within him.

He says it a different way in Galatians 5. The desires of the spirit are against

or opposed to the desires of the flesh to keep you from doing what you want to do.

All of us, every one of us, we have competing desires inside of us.

We have a desire to do what is right. We have other desires that are selfish and fleshly and sinful.

We're born with that. It's called the flesh. And the question at any given moment

is simply which desires are strongest.

We all do what we want to do at any given moment.

And so for me, as I've been studying this passage this week,

this is the part that stings the most.

To recognize, as John talked about earlier in this gospel, that we choose darkness

because we love the darkness rather than the light.

This is the first part of this passage that we have to see. We can't appreciate

how good our good shepherd is until we see that we're sheep and what that means.

So we see foolishness, we see weakness, and we see a desire to wander.

And these are the sobering realities about being sheep. But there's also some

encouraging realities about being sheep in this passage as well.

Look at verses three and four.

He says, the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them.

This is the first encouraging reality. we may be sheep, but we belong. We belong to someone.

We may not be great. We may not be impressive, but we belong to someone who

is great and who is impressive.

We are owned. We are not orphans. We have a good shepherd who has purchased

us at a very high cost, the cost of his own blood.

He owns us forever. He will never abandon us. He will never trade us to another shepherd.

He'll never lose a single one of his sheep.

Another encouraging bit is that he gives us a name.

Verse three, he calls his own sheep by name.

You know, in scripture, we see this happen various times. I think about Abraham.

First, before he's Abraham, he's Abram.

And the Lord changes his name. And when he changes his name,

there's a real purpose to it. He gives him a name that fits his purpose.

He's going to go from being distinguished father to, or exalted father to the

father of nations, the father of multitudes.

I think about when the Lord gives James and John the name sons of thunder for

their boldness and their courage. And he gives Peter, then, you know,

was Simon, he calls him Peter.

And he says, on this rock, I'll build my church because Peter means rock.

A name in scripture is, it means something it's connected to purpose.

And so when we learn that he has a name for us, our shepherd has a name for us.

Revelation 2, 17 tells us that one day, every one of his saints will be given

a name that only we and he will know.

He has a name for us. It means that every single one of us has purpose.

Every single one of us has a mission to accomplish. Every single one of us was

made particularly, especially for those purposes that he has for us.

And we spend a lifetime learning that. It's not something we just figure out and we know it.

We learn this throughout our lives that he has purpose for me.

Another encouraging thing that we see here is that we hear and know his voice.

It says over and over again in this passage that his sheep know his voice.

Verse four, the sheep follow him for they know his voice. Verse 14,

I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.

Verse 16, they will listen to my voice.

Verse 27, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.

This is so encouraging. I know that most believers, we go through seasons where

we feel like, oh, just not hearing from the Lord.

But if you are following Jesus,

if you're trusting him, then you have periods in your life and the majority

of your life should look like that you are hearing his voice.

What it means is that as his sheep, you have the ability to recognize the voice

of truth over lies and deception.

It means that his spirit convicts you when you sin.

It means that he gives you discernment between what is good and what is evil.

You hear his voice when you hear the scriptures read or preached,

or you read the scriptures, or you study the scriptures for yourself,

and you know that experience when you're reading or

you're studying or you're hearing

a sermon, and it feels like God is speaking directly to your heart.

That's what Jesus means, that his sheep can hear his voice.

And primarily, I think what he is saying because of the context,

he's talking about false shepherds, the false shepherds of the religious leaders

who are trying to lead people away from him.

I think the first thing that it means is that you hear the gospel and you believe it.

You hear and believe that Jesus is the son of God who came, who died on the

cross to pay for sins, that he was raised on the third day,

that he died for you, that he has a way for you to be reconciled to God,

that he has a way that he has paid for your guilt.

He's taken away your condemnation. So that's the first way that you hear his

voice. You hear his voice proclaimed in the gospel and you believe that good

news and you turn to him from your sin and you trust in him and you follow him.

You hear his voice in the gospel.

You hear his voice through the preaching of the word, through the reading of the word.

You hear his voice as he gives you a renewed mind and wisdom for living.

You hear his voice as he convicts you of sin. You hear his voice as he gives

you discernment, as you make decisions.

All of this is the way that he leads us as our shepherd.

And anytime he leads us through his word, by his spirit, our shepherd is calling

to us and we're hearing him.

What about you? Have you forgotten what it's like to hear his voice?

Are you, perhaps you're in a season right now where you'd say,

I don't know, I'm not hearing his voice.

I don't feel like I can point to something that he is teaching me or some way

that he is working in my life.

If that's the case, then I would ask first, have you ever heard his voice?

Have you ever believed the gospel?

Have you responded to that call?

And if you say, yes, yes, I have. I believe in him. I trust him.

Then I would ask you, have you wandered?

Have you been in a season of distraction? Have you been in a season of rebellion?

Is there something that you've been ignoring that he's been putting his finger on in your life?

Have you wandered? Is that why you're not hearing his voice?

The Bible is so encouraging. to wanderers. It says that the moment that we turn

back to him, he turns to us.

It says that as soon as we return to him, Zechariah, he returns to us.

And in fact, what we learn is that if we turn back to him, then he has been

at work to draw us. He has been at work in our hearts to bring us back.

Maybe there are some here this morning that.

We're halfway through this sermon, but maybe this is the thing you need to hear.

Maybe this is what you need to take home is that you've wandered and you need

to return to your shepherd.

You need to repent.

So that's what we learn about being his sheep. Let's see what we learn about

our good shepherd. First of all, he says, I am the door.

Verse two, verse seven, verse nine.

What does he mean when he says, I am the door? He means he's the only way to eternal life.

He means he is the only door into the grace and presence of God.

Jesus is very, very exclusive. He does not call himself one of many doors, one of many ways to God.

He says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

He says, I am the door. He says, no one comes to the Father but by me.

He is very, very clear. He is very exclusive.

So those who say that Jesus is one way to heaven are not taking Jesus at his own words.

They're creating a new Jesus to suit themselves. But Jesus says, I am the door.

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

He's saying no other shepherd can rescue us. No other shepherd will love us

as he loves us. No other shepherd.

All other shepherds are thieves and murderers. The thief, he says,

verse 10, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

He is the door.

Now let's see how does he get us where he wants us to go. Verse four, he goes before us.

Verse four, he goes before us to lead us.

When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them and the sheep follow him.

A good shepherd doesn't drive sheep like cattle. He walks ahead of them.

He calls to them and they listen and they stay close.

And this is how Jesus leads us. He leads us through all the twists and turns of life.

He leads us through valleys. He leads us to the mountaintops.

In John chapter 14, we're going to see one of the disciples,

John 14 · chapter mention

Thomas, doubting Thomas, he gets the unfortunate nickname, asks Jesus.

Jesus is talking about the fact that he's going to the Father.

He's going to prepare a place for them. And Thomas says, Lord,

how can we get where you're going if we don't know the way? He says, Thomas, I am the way.

In other words, you get there by staying close to me.

You get there through relationship. Jesus is not the kind of leader that he

gives us a roadmap and then leaves us with it.

He gives us himself. He gives us his spirit to indwell us.

He gives us his presence. That's how he leads us. It's through relationship.

He is not only the door, he's also our personal guide.

He's committed to our good. He's committed to training us on this narrow road.

And when we wander, his rod and his staff will be used to correct us.

He loves us too much to lead us in our enslaving sins and desires.

Hebrews 12, 5 through 6, and verse 11 says, Do not regard lightly the discipline

of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.

The Lord disciplines the one he loves, chastises every son whom he receives.

For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant,

but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who've been trained by it.

As I said a little bit earlier, we wander because we want to.

That's a stinging truth.

But the good shepherd, our good shepherd trains us to create in us new desires.

He's at work not just to modify behavior, but to change us from the core of who we are.

He's at work to make us want righteousness and not our sin.

And so he leads us in a way that no other religious leader leads people.

He is our guide. He walks with us. His presence is with us. He's training us.

He's changing us and shaping us from the inside out to want what we should want.

The fact that he goes before us means also that he never asks us to walk a path

that he himself has not walked.

Yes, our good shepherd asks us to walk the path of obedience and sometimes suffering,

but he walked the path of obedience and suffering even to death, even to death on a cross.

And he never disobeyed and he never missed a step. He obeyed the Father perfectly.

And now he walks before you to lead you on the same road.

Says in verse 10, I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Other voices are promising all the time that they have the way to abundant life constantly.

I mean, if you just start looking out for it, you'll recognize that there are

competing voices with Christ all the time saying, promising,

this is the way to abundant life.

The American dream is the way to abundant life. Success in your career is the way to abundant life.

The perfect family is the way to abundant life. Perfect health is the way to abundant life.

Perfect productivity is the way to abundant life.

There are so many competing voices.

Jesus is the only way to abundant life. What voices does scripture tell us that

we're tempted to follow?

The voice of the world, the voice of the flesh, and the voice of the devil.

World tells us that we should love money, we should love pleasure,

and we should love ourselves.

Maybe not in that order, but those are the three things, right?

Love money, love pleasure, love yourself. That's the voice of the world constantly

calling to us, trying to convince us that that's the way to abundant life.

And then we have the voice of the flesh to compete with.

Even though Christians have been given a new heart and new desires in the core,

we still actively must put to death our old nature that's competing against

the desires, these new desires of the spirit that are within us.

And then we have the voice of the devil. The Bible calls Satan the accuser of believers.

He's the father of lies. He whispers lies to deceive and lure us into rebellion

against God. He makes us question God's word and God's goodness.

But the abundant life is experienced in listening to the voice of Christ and following him.

It's found when we let him determine the course of our lives,

not someone else, not ourselves.

And so the abundant life is experienced in a personal and experiential relationship with Christ.

Says in verse 11, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Jesus is the good shepherd who can be trusted because,

he has proven once and for all how truly good he is, how truly trustworthy he

is, how much he actually loves us.

He lays his life down for us.

This is more than just a shepherd who's willing to risk his life to protect his sheep.

This is a shepherd who goes and puts himself in the place of death,

in the place of danger, so that we don't have to be there.

Perhaps some shepherds would willingly risk their lives to protect their flock,

but Jesus is doing more than that.

When he says, I lay my life down for the flock, we heard Isaiah 53 earlier,

all we like sheep have gone astray. But you know what it says in the verses

right before and right after that?

Let's look at it. It says, but he was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.

And with his wounds, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray,

we have turned everyone to his own way.

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb

that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent.

So he opened not his mouth. Did you hear that?

What does our shepherd do for sheep who've gone astray? He takes their sin and guilt.

Our shepherd becomes one of us and dies in our place like a lamb led to the

slaughter, like a sheep.

Lord took your sin and laid it on Jesus. This is the gospel.

This is the gospel. Our God is holy. He is more holy than we can fathom.

He is perfect. He cannot ignore sin. So what does he do?

He provides a way to deal with our sin. He takes our sin, our rebellion off

of us and places it on our good shepherd.

Our good shepherd lays his life down, becomes a sheep like us,

is led like a lamb to slaughter. That's what happened on the cross.

He willingly laid his life down. at any moment, at any second,

he could have escaped that suffering.

And he chose to bear your sin and mine, to take the wrath of God for sin so

that you and I didn't have to.

That's what it means when Jesus says he lays his life down for his sheep.

He was crushed and pierced and

chastised and wounded so that we could have peace with God and be healed.

Do you believe that? Because if you do, you're hearing his voice.

Look at verses 27 through 29.

Says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.

I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to

snatch them out of the father's hand.

Listen, believer, when you hear his voice, when you hear the gospel and you believe it,

when you turn from sin and rebellion to him and trust in him, you are safe.

You are secure. He says, we can't wander too far away for this shepherd to find

us, to bring us back to the fold. Yes, we are sheep.

Cannot be too foolish or too stubborn or too weak for this shepherd to protect you from yourself.

There is no enemy strong enough to get past his watchful eye.

No one strong enough to snatch you from his hand or from the hand of the Father.

Do you believe that, Christian? There is no better place to be.

There is no better shepherd to follow. There is no better voice to listen to.

There are no greener pastures.

So stay close to Him, listen to Him, and trust Him. Let's pray.

Lord, what comforting truth.

We keenly feel our sheepiness,

how foolish we are, how prone to wander, how weak, how we get ourselves into

predicaments, how we hurt ourselves and others by our sin.

And Lord, you are a good shepherd.

You come for us. You pick us up and put us over your shoulders and you come back rejoicing.

Lord, thank you for being who you are.

I pray that you would help us to see you for who you are, to love you and to trust you.

To listen to your voice and to stay close.

I pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.