The Voice that Leads to Life (John 10) Myles Holmes | November 2, 2025

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you have your Bibles, you're gonna want to open them to John chapter 10.

John 10 · chapter mention

You need a copy this morning.

So if you don't have one, lashers are coming down the aisles, and you can flag one of them down.

They will get one into your hands, which you can keep as our gift to you.

Now I gotta say, typically this Sunday in the year is the one that I'm most excited for because everyone has an extra hour of sleep, and so you're ready for an extra long sermon, right?

Amen.

Amen.

However, uh this morning has been a bit of a funeral for me.

I've been, you know, came in, talked to the production guys.

I was sorry for your loss, man.

I know some big Blue Jays fans there, so feel the need to acknowledge that and just say this.

Let's not let Satan prevail over the morning we have right now and over maybe the tiredness we have from staying up and then not being able to sleep because of sheer disappointment and stress.

John chapter 10.

John 10 · chapter mention

I wonder if you've ever considered what weapon the enemy used when he set out to ruin God's creation.

It's fascinating that the story of sin doesn't begin with violence or sort of this chaotic uprising, that it really begins with a voice.

Fascinating to me that all the evil and destruction that we see in our world has all been the product of a simple sentence that was believed by Adam and Eve in the garden.

It was in Genesis 3 that a serpent was in the garden and a serpent was speaking.

The question was subtle.

Did God really say?

The intent was deadly, to convince Adam and Eve, not by force, but with persuasive words, that the fruit that they had just been told by God would lead to their death would actually be good for them.

And in that moment, humanity stopped listening to the voice of their shepherd, the voice that was meant to lead them into life, and they tuned into another.

Wonder if you've considered just the power of voices in your life.

And I want you to know, loved one, that we have been really living in the echo of that conversation that happened thousands of years ago, our entire lives.

Thousands of years later, not much has changed.

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't hear voices from snakes speaking to me.

And if you do, that might be need for some biblical counseling.

We can sort that out.

But we do hear thousands and thousands of competing voices, each whispering that same lie.

Did God really say, no, no, no, no, this is where life is found?

We don't argue with a snake anymore, but certainly the voices come through an algorithm, a newsfeed.

The pressure in your workplace to perform, the whisper that is constantly in your ear that you are just not enough, that you can't handle what the Lord has brought into your life, the whisper that comes to the ear that if you could just be a little bit more, then everything would finally be okay.

Day after day, you and I are constantly pulled in ten different directions, voices promising life, but like the serpents in Eden, only leading to death.

In fact, sometimes to be a Christian, I don't know if this resonates with you, but doesn't it sort of feel like a spiritual schizophrenia?

Like you know the voice of Jesus, you know what God's word says, and yet as you go through your day, there are so many competing voices pulling you in different directions.

Well, John 10 shows us a voice.

In fact, the voice speaking into that confusion.

It's the voice that John tells us about in John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

It was the word from the beginning, which we sang about this morning.

And into that confusion, Jesus steps in and says, This, my sheep hear my voice.

And I give them life.

And here this morning, as we open up God's word and we hear the voice of Jesus through it, we find the voice that we lost in the garden.

We find the voice through all of the noise that can lead us home.

And so I want you to understand what we're doing this morning.

As a preacher, let me just lay all my cards on the table and tell you exactly what's going to happen this morning.

What I want to do this morning and what this passage accomplishes in us is really like what we just sang in that last song, what a beautiful name.

You know, we're singing, what a beautiful name it is, what a wonderful name it is, what a powerful name it is.

And what's happening in that moment is we are really preaching to ourselves, telling ourselves about the wonder, the beauty, the power of that name, so that every other name then then pales in comparison to the glory of Jesus' name.

And that's sort of what I want to do this morning.

What I want to do is spend so much time focusing on the glory of the voice of Jesus, of the way that Jesus' voice leads you to life, so that when you go out into the world and you hear all these other voices competing for your attention, your affection for Jesus' voice is so great that you just, there's no other voice for you.

And so this might feel a little bit different this morning.

I'm gonna try my hardest, as hard as a preacher can, to stay away from application, as important as application is, to stay away from do this, do that.

And what I want to put before us this morning is the glory of the voice of Jesus Christ that calls you to life.

And I really want this to be an experience of worship for us as we walk through this text and we hear Jesus' voice ourselves.

This is what we're gonna see today.

This is my our main idea.

This is what I want you to take away.

The voice of Jesus is so life-giving that when you see it for what it is, you'll gladly follow him above every other voice.

Would you stand with me this morning as we listen to the voice of Jesus?

Remind you as you set your eyes on John chapter 10, this is the same voice that spoke into the garden.

John 10 · chapter mention

It's the same voice that spoke creation into existence, and it is the voice that speaks to us this morning.

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.

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 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 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 any one enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

The thief comes 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 knows me, and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep.

And I have other sheep that are not of this fold, I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.

So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

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

This charge I have received from my father.

There was again a division among the Jews because of these words.

Many of them said, He is a demon and is insane.

Why listen to him?

Others said, These are not the words of one who is oppressed by a demon.

Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?

At that time the feast of dedication took place at Jerusalem.

It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon.

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.

I and the Father are one.

The Jews picked up stones again to stone him.

Jesus answered them, I have shown you many good works from the Father, for which of them are you going to stone me?

The Jews answered him, It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for a blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.

Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said you are gods?

If he called them gods to whom the word of God came, and scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him of whom the Father consecrated and sent into this world, You are blaspheming because I said I am the Son of God?

If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me, but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father.

Again they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands.

He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing at first, and there he remained.

And many came to him.

And they said, John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true, and many believed him there.

This is the word of the Lord.

You can take a seat.

This is Jesus' voice speaking to us this morning.

And the first thing that Jesus accomplishes is bringing us comfort.

Notice in this passage that Jesus emphasizes again and again, He knows all his sheep by name.

And I want to start there.

The first thing I want you to see this morning is that the voice of Jesus knows me.

The voice of Jesus knows me.

Two sides of a coin Jesus is presenting.

First, that the sheep know the shepherd.

Loved ones, I don't think I need to convince you of your need to know God's word and to know Jesus through it.

Many of us, I trust, already have the conviction placed by the Holy Spirit in our lives and feel the gap between what we believe about Scripture and how we actually treat it.

We know we should be reading it, we know we should be growing in it, we know we should be memorizing it, meditating on it.

What we actually do is another question.

But I want you to see something in this passage that knowing Jesus' voice is only half the equation.

The emphasis here isn't just that the sheep hear his voice, the emphasis is also that the shepherd knows his sheep by name.

He calls them by name, he says.

They are his own.

Later in verse 14, he says, I am the good shepherd.

I know my own, and my own know me.

In other words, what you find in this passage is that before you recognize his voice, in fact, the foundation of recognizing his voice is that he recognizes your voice.

It is the divine initiative of Jesus, so that before you ever sought him, he already knew your name.

Now, what becomes clear in this passage is that is that Jesus is using a common career, that of a shepherd, as an illustration to teach us about his intimate love for us.

And so some context helps us to understand that in first century Israel, shepherds often kept their flocks together overnight in a shared sheepfold.

The closest thing I can imagine is redemption kids.

You know, there's four classes there, but there is one place you go to pick up your kids.

I think.

I don't usually do that, so I think that's how it works, right?

So it was for shepherds.

There was uh one entrance watched by a gatekeeper.

In the morning, the shepherds would come, stand outside, and call their sheep.

You can imagine the chaos.

You've been at Redemption Church after the service ends, and the kids are running everywhere, and parents are consulting with each other.

Have you seen my kid?

I saw your kid by the river in the forest.

Oh, I saw your kid by the druggy circle up there in that forest.

Okay, we converge and we go and we find them.

And this is what was happening with the sheep.

One gatekeeper, many shepherds coming and calling their sheep, but fascinating that the sheep didn't follow any random voice.

They would follow the voice of their shepherd.

The shepherd would simply call his sheep.

And he did not have to force them.

They would come willingly because they knew what that sound meant.

The sound of their shepherd's voice was green pastures, was security.

And this is the picture that Jesus is painting here of our intimate relationship with him.

You see that there?

Now, the Greek word here for calls, kale, it's it's not just a generic summons, it is a very personal address.

It is me looking you in the eyes and calling you out this morning.

It is not a word that is for everyone, it is a word that is for his sheep individually.

And so what Jesus is saying here is that his voice to his children, to the believers, to sheep, is not universal, that it is personal.

It speaks to you.

Now, loved ones, this is a staggering picture of the intimacy and initiative of Jesus Christ, that whenever his voice rings out in your ears, it is for you.

You believe that this morning?

Loved one, do you believe in the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit this morning, where one preacher can preach and the Holy Spirit can deliver a word that you need to hear.

It's one of my favorite things as a pastor to talk to people after the sermon and you know, to have people come up and say, Oh, when you, you know, when you said this, it spoke to me so powerfully.

Sometimes people say, you know, when you said this and they say something, I never actually said it all.

And I say, that's you know, that would have been a really good thing for me to say, but I want you to understand that was the Holy Spirit, maybe taking what you studied, what you're experiencing in life, and and drawing truth to your mind.

Loved one, Jesus Christ has a personal word for you every time you hear his voice.

You know what that means?

It means right now you should be sitting up with attention.

It means the shoulders should be up.

It means are you ready for Jesus to say something for you?

Because love, I think too often we just think, okay, you know, there's a hundred people in here.

I'm sure this word is for everyone.

That's not how it works.

When Jesus' voice goes out, it is personal and for his sheep.

It's why you've experienced it time and time again.

Haven't you experienced it when, you know, in the morning you open up God's word and you're like, this is just what I needed to read today.

And you drag yourself in on a Sunday.

This is just what I needed to hear today.

I'm convinced that one of the main reasons we don't pick up God's word more often is because we don't believe it actually has something to say to us specifically.

We've we've lost the belief in the Holy Spirit speaking through his word.

We love a personal word elsewhere.

We love a voicemail.

You know, that someone has left a message for us.

We love the mail.

I mean, not the bills, but the mail with a handwritten name from the person, from a friend, from a family.

It's personal, it's for us.

You know that God's word is that what if you treated God's word that way?

What if every time you opened your Bible, you expected your name to be written between the lines?

You believed the Holy Spirit's ability to take the text and aim it at your heart.

Maybe that's why Christianity today has come to devalue the pulpit so greatly.

Maybe we've lost confidence that when God's word is preached, God Himself is speaking through his servant.

Lost the belief of what Paul says about preaching, that preachers stand as ambassadors for Christ speaking on his behalf.

How many times have we experienced it?

And do we long to experience it again that God has a personal word for us?

Do we know why he has a personal word for you?

Because he knows you're knowing what you're walking through.

I mean Jesus knows what you need.

Even more than you know what you need yourself.

And love Jesus is leading you.

And this morning, his voice is ringing the ministry of the church to lead you.

And is it if his voice speaks, don't harden your heart to it.

Because your heart's soft.

Jesus knows you and he is speaking to you and he is leading you.

Now it's one thing to be known, there is intimacy there, but Jesus then presses us deeper because it's another thing to be led by him.

His voice doesn't just call us by name, he tells us, it calls us into freedom, it calls us into life.

That's the second thing I want you to see that the voice of Jesus leads me to life.

The voice of Jesus leads me to life.

How many texts do you have on your phone from this past week asking if you're interested in remote work?

Is that you?

Is that just me?

Because I respond to them.

One time some guy named Jelly texted me asking for remote work.

And I said, that's great.

Is your I want to talk to your colleague.

Is peanut butter there?

And I don't think that's helpful for getting less text messages from them, but I just couldn't resist.

How many times has your phone rang with a scammer trying to get your banking information?

We get it at the church.

People posing, creating emails with the names of our elders asking for access into important accounts.

Scammers are everywhere.

And so you have to understand that not every email you get is genuine, that not every voice you get is genuine, that not every text you get is genuine.

You must be on watch.

And Jesus is saying the same thing here about the thoughts that you have internally.

Loved one, not everyone is from the Father.

You better be aware of the voices that are out there, not only in the world, but in your mind that are competing for your attention.

You better know what they're trying to do.

And so Jesus brings multiple characters into this illustration to teach us what these voices do.

First, there is the voice of the thief.

Look at verse 10 with me.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

Jesus is warning that there are voices that sound inviting, but their only goal is to take from you.

They don't give life.

They steal it.

This is the thief's voice.

It deceives.

The thief's voice promises life, disguises itself as the shepherd, but it only delivers loss.

Do you know that every voice you follow that is not the voice of Jesus only does the same?

It will always steal and kill and destroy, the scriptures say.

This is how Satan works.

And there are only two voices in the world.

There is the voice of Jesus and the voice of Satan that masquerades as many different pursuits to your heart.

And this is how Satan's voice works.

He presents the bait, but he hides the hook.

He makes it look appealing.

He whispers into your ear just this once.

And it won't hurt.

And you're tangled in a web of shame.

He says, You deserve this.

And by the time you do it, it's realize what it's cost you.

It's already stolen from you.

This is the thief's way.

Sin makes itself look harmless, it makes itself feel good, but it makes itself cost your soul.

Every sin you have ever fallen into has only ever robbed from you.

Whispering before it robs from you that this will just make you happier.

It's the voice of a thief.

Secondly, there's the voice of the hired hand.

The hired hand comes in like a friend.

The hired hand isn't the owner, he's there for a wage, he's a provision of the shepherd.

But when it costs, he leaves.

Look at what Jesus says in verse 12.

Look at the pages of scripture with me.

Verse 12, 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.

The hired hand leaves.

And loved one, I want you to understand that some of the most deadly things in your life will not be vices that you know are bad, but will actually be things that are approved by the Father, but have actually taken the primary spot of worship in your heart.

Good things make terrible gods.

Worshiping the gift rather than the giver is as deadly as pursuing idolatry and sin.

And so we need to understand that there are voices that are not explicitly bad, but that will kill us.

A thief's voice deceives.

The hired hand's voice abandons.

Then there's the voice of Jesus.

You see the voice of Jesus in verse 10?

I came, Jesus says, that they may have life and have it abundantly.

We know where life is found.

In fact, I don't have to I don't think I have to work very hard to convince you that every other voice only takes from you.

I think that experientially we can look back on our life and see that only the voice of Jesus has ever given us life.

That every other voice has only ever robbed from us.

Just think for a moment about the ones that we keep listening to.

These are gonna come up on the screen.

They're gonna be incredibly helpful for you because I made them all start with A.

You can thank me later for that.

Notice there's the voice of achievement.

The voice of achievement promises worth if you just do this, but it in the end it leaves you empty, doesn't it?

It leaves you longing for more to achieve more.

A voice of approval, it promises belonging if you just listen to it, and yet it leaves you more enslaved.

The voice of autonomy, of control, of being your own boss.

It promises freedom, but at the end of the day, you listen to its voice and you're just more and more stressed.

A voice of anxiety promises safety if you can just work out the situation the way that it should go and let it yet it leaves you restless.

A voice of appetite, it whispers in your ear that you can find pleasure by digging in, and yet the more you dig in, the more wanting you are.

The voice of apathy promises relief if you just stop caring, and yet what it does is multiplies itself so you care about less and less.

It's the voice of activity, the voice of constant busyness.

It promises purpose, promises that if you just put your kids in this program and you just commit yourself to that activity and do this and do that, then you will find purpose.

But instead it leaves you burnt out.

A voice of anger.

Promises control, it promises justice, but it leaves you bitter.

The voice of appearance, it promises confidence, it promises respect, it leaves you insecure.

Lastly, the voice of affluence promises you peace, but leaves you discontent.

Love one, not a single one of them has ever delivered.

Not once in the history of humanity.

Satan presents the bait, he hides the hook.

They all steal, they all take, they all destroy, but there is one voice that never deceives, it never abandons, it never fails.

The voice of Jesus does not take your life, it gives you life, it gives you abundant life.

That's the voice we were made to follow.

It's the voice of Jesus that gives life.

I want you to notice that it the life he gives is the ultimate gift.

What Jesus tells us next is that he gives us himself.

That's where Jesus takes us.

The good shepherd, he says, does not just lead his shepherd, his sheep to life.

He lays down his own life for the sheep.

That's what I want you to see thirdly, that his voice proves his love.

The voice of Jesus proves his love.

Look at verse 11 with me.

You get your eyes on the text, you know, do some movement with your neck.

We're working out this morning.

We're looking at the text.

Chapter 10, verse 11.

Look at what Jesus says.

I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Five times in this section, Jesus will repeat that phrase.

Lays down.

Jesus wants you to take out a pen, to circle that in your Bible.

He says it five times so you do not miss it.

What is it that makes this shepherd good?

You know what it's not.

It's not that your life is free from pain.

It's not that you get to do whatever you want, that you are given complete autonomy in your life.

Jesus says that the reason he is good is because the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Where the thief takes life, where the hired hand saves his own life, the shepherd gives his life.

This is what makes Jesus good.

The glory of the shepherd is his willingness to die for his sheep.

He will stop at nothing to protect them.

I loved what we sang this morning.

So, Jesus, you brought heaven down.

He goes on a rescue mission for his sheep, and he's unwilling to stop at nothing, save giving his own life.

He uses all of his authority.

Verse 18, you see that there?

No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

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

It is a deliberate substitution.

Jesus came with a mission to die.

Jesus uses his rule and his sovereignty and his power not to amass power for himself, not to even amass respect for himself, not to amass money for himself, but to lay down his life for you.

Loved one, do you have a leader in your life that is like that?

I look around the world and I look for a leader like that, and I can find none but Jesus Christ.

He is the shepherd who lays at the gate and puts his head in the wolf's mouth.

And he does it on behalf of you.

Why does that matter?

I'll tell you why that matters because you and I are constantly looking for life in the voices that we listen to.

You know, that list comes up, and my prayer is that the Holy Spirit is at work in your life, and you know, you're kind of highlighting some of those some of those voices that you are maybe more prone to listen to.

Why are those voices so seductive?

Why do they work?

Why do we listen to them?

It's because they work a little bit, don't they?

I mean, at some point, if approval is your voice, if that's the voice you listen to, at some point you got someone's approval and it was like a dopamine hit of joy.

This feels nice.

The rest of your life is then spent doing a lot of work for a little payoff.

We'll do that, won't we?

We'll work a lot for a little payoff.

I mean, there's whole restaurants that, you know, live on this motto.

Isn't McDonald's kind of like that?

Don't they exist for a little payoff?

Have you ever talked to anyone who's eaten McDonald's and been happy about it six minutes later?

I haven't.

I've eaten a lot of McDonald's too myself.

I can experientially tell you.

I mean, I love it in the moment, but when that brick hits your stomach- Okay, we're getting off topic here, but there is glory in all of our pursuits.

There is a taste of satisfaction, and we need to be honest about that.

That's why it's appealing to us.

The problem is that holding on to that satisfaction is like trying to grip onto sand.

It flows through your fingers.

The tighter you hold on to it, the more it squeezes through.

You can't hold on to it.

And so we're constantly looking to these voices, looking for life from them, but they cannot deliver.

All of our idols, they deliver a rush, but they rob the reward.

Affluence, it feels good.

Achievement, it pays off.

Approval, it soothes the ache, but it only does it for a moment.

And one of the reasons why we are so slow to listen to the voice of Jesus, whether that's opening up his word or obeying his voice, his call, or trusting him when we can't see the plan, why one of the reasons why we're so slow to listen to him is because we doubt that that voice will actually give us anything.

It's because there are times where we open up God's word and the reward isn't immediate.

And we then, like children, go wandering off looking for the next sugar hit, looking for the next dopamine hit of sin.

Everything changes when our constant meditation is the cross.

In fact, one of the reasons why we're so hesitant to follow Jesus is because we're so unfamiliar with the love that purchased us.

There is a brand of Christianity, and we I I hesitate to even call it Christianity, that tries to brand itself without the cross.

That tries to do something like host a worship service without talking about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And I want you to know that even more pervasive than that brand of Christianity is Christians themselves who do not meditate on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And when we are like that, we become incredibly unfamiliar with the love that purchased us.

That's why every Sunday here, every sermon gets to the cross.

That's why every song we sing about is ultimately about the cross.

That's why every prayer we pray is ultimately about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Everything we're doing.

I mean, I'm just not interested in the fluff that is happening in so many churches.

What I am interested in is preaching Christ and Him crucified.

That is what the church exists for.

That's why we need the church, because we need this weekly reminder of how we know the love of Jesus Christ.

We know it because he laid down his life.

This all happened at the cross.

Christ gave all that he could so that if the Paul can say in Ephesians 1, we have been lavished with grace in him.

And in Romans 8, he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also graciously give us all things?

There is nothing that Jesus could do more to prove his love for you.

He has secured for you, Christian, eternity, eternal life.

And if he can lead you for an eternity, then it is important that we trust him with our lifetime.

If he called us out of death, we should trust him in the valley.

Reminded when we look at the cross that every time we turn back to him in scripture, in prayer, in fellowship, we are not stepping towards a taskmaster.

We are returning to a shepherd who has proved his love for us by laying down his life for us.

The cross makes the goodness of Jesus undeniable.

But the reality we see in this text is that not every voice wants to hear it.

And we've seen this before.

In fact, really the last few chapters of John has been exposing this reality that the voice of Jesus divides loyalties, confronts us.

Where some draw near to Jesus' voice in faith, others harden in unbelief.

So I want you to notice this fourthly that his voice not only proves his love, but confronts our loyalty.

Look with me at verse 19.

We're told by John that there again was a division among the Jews because of these words.

That is always the response to the voice of Jesus.

You read through the Gospel of John, and so many more are hardened by the words of Jesus than are softened.

That same voice that confronts the proud brings comfort to the humble.

And so we see this response here in verse 20.

Many of them said he has a demon and is insane.

Why listen to him?

Others say, well, these are not the words of one who was oppressed by a demon.

How could he open blind eyes like he did in chapter 9 of John's gospel?

Notice that it's the same message, it's two radically different reactions.

And here is the striking part that everybody in this crowd heard the same words.

They had seen his work.

The issue wasn't evidence, the issue was the allegiance of their hearts, so that by the time you reach verse 25, notice what Jesus says.

Look at it with me, verse 25.

I told you, and you do not believe.

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

That's an interesting statement, isn't it?

I think if you and I were to write, we would probably write the opposite of that, wouldn't we?

Jesus, however, doesn't say, you are not my sheep, because you don't believe.

You notice what Jesus says?

He says, You don't believe because you are not my sheep.

In other words, the disbelief, it's not an intellectual problem.

You understand that disbelief is not an intellectual problem, it is a loyalty problem.

The problem is that you are the reason why you don't believe is because you are not a sheep of the shepherd that is Jesus Christ.

It's not just that you don't understand enough.

It's a loyalty problem.

Now, every time the voice of Jesus does this, it reveals who's really listening.

Every time, do you know this?

Every time Jesus speaks, loyalties are exposed.

His voice always confronts.

That's why you should kind of feel like this, you know, you gotta brace your stomach for this gut punch whenever you're singing sitting in front of God's word.

Because when Jesus' voice rings out, it confronts us.

It is always a hard word.

I mean, if you get this idea of Jesus that he's the sort of teddy bear that always brings this word of comfort, you just haven't really read through the Gospels.

When Jesus speaks to us, his voice confronts our allegiance.

We've seen it all through the Gospel of John.

You cannot follow two voices at once.

So understand this.

If you are a Christian, you will have this constant tension in your life, and it's not evidence that you're not saved, it's evidence that the Holy Spirit is in you.

It's this tension of the Holy Spirit and your flesh.

Until Jesus returns, there will be this boxing match inside of you where God's word says forgive, you will be tempted to decide to withhold forgiveness until that person has earned it.

When God's word clearly says to be generous, you will be tempted to withhold generosity for another month until things are comfortable.

When God's word says to trust him in the trials and challenges of your life, you will be tempted to withhold your trust and submission to him until you understand exactly what he's doing and accomplishing.

When God's word says, take up your cross, sacrifice yourself for him, you'll be tempted to try to embrace a comfortable version of discipleship that really does not exist at all.

It's it's the life of the Christian is constant battle.

It's constant.

The word of God is confronting.

In fact, the thing that you should be most worried about right now is if you sit constantly with sort of a clean conscience.

I've sat with Christians who are like that every time, hey, how's your walk?

My walk is great.

You know, Paul talks in Romans 1 about people whose walk is great.

He says that there are people who, for so long, they've hardened their heart to the voice of God ringing through the world that he has given them over to their passions.

And be careful, loved one, that if there is no conviction in your life, that you have not given yourself over to be comfortable with passions that are ultimately dishonoring to God.

In fact, the most mature Christians I know are those who are so torn up over their own sin.

And I know it to be true in my own life.

Closer I've been to Jesus, the more aware I've been of his stark holiness in comparison to my great sinfulness.

Don't be shocked when your loyalties are divided.

If the flesh and the spirit are both alive in us, what should we expect?

We should expect war.

That's the life of the Christian.

It is a constant clash of allegiances.

So we should expect it.

We shouldn't be discouraged by it.

We should be greatly encouraged that the Holy Spirit is here and exposing our enemies.

We shouldn't be surprised by it.

I was thinking about that this morning.

I thought, you know, what, you know, just in deep pain in light of what happened last night with the Blue Jays, I thought, what would happen if there was a Dodgers fan in this church?

I mean, I deal with enough Habs fans and senators fans.

I suffer in this church.

I need you to know that.

What would happen if someone walked in with a Dodgers hat?

Well, I want you to know, we would kick him out immediately.

We got security.

We've got a lot of police officers, okay?

We might do more.

It's a war of allegiances.

When two loyalties collide, they can't both win.

And loved one, as long as you and I are breathing, as long as Jesus hasn't returned, we will live with hearts that are conflicted.

That's why I'm not surprised when I'm talking to so many of you, and it's not I'm not surprised by it in my own life.

That there is great struggle.

The voice of Jesus is speaking, loyalties will be tested and exposed.

The question isn't if your heart is divided, the question is whose voice are you listening to?

And Jesus makes it clear right here: the mark of a disciple isn't perfection, the mark of a disciple is attention.

Whose voice are you listening for?

The true disciple wants to hear his voice.

The true disciple wants to follow.

You know, I am a big Survivor fan.

I know there's a few people in this church who are also Survivor fans, and we huddle up every once in a while and talk about what's going on.

There's a challenge in Survivor that I love because it's just pure chaos.

They blindfold these people, and you know, these people supposedly, I mean, this is reality TV, so I choose to believe it, but these people haven't eaten days and weeks.

And the challenge is that one, the team is blindfolded, and there's one person on each team, sometimes three teams, that are all calling out directions to these blindfolded people.

I love the chaos that comes from that.

I mean, these people are blindfolded, there's all sorts of heavy, wooden, sharp objects all over the field.

They're bumping into things, they're hurting themselves, they're hitting their head, there's blood.

It's great TV, okay?

I'd highly recommend it.

Yet it really highlights, I think, what's happening in our lives constantly.

We're hearing all these voices.

Loved one, here's the question for the disciples of Jesus Christ: whose voice are you listening for?

Through all the chaos, are you listening for the voice of Jesus Christ?

By the end of this chapter, Jesus informs us of some incredibly good news.

That even when our loyalty wavers, the most important thing about sheep is not their perfection, but the unwavering commitment of their shepherd.

You know what makes the sheep get to the end?

It's not their ability to listen, Jesus will turn and tell us at the end.

It's the constant, unwavering commitment of the shepherd to carry them home so that even when they wander, his voice restores.

You know, our very presence together this morning reminds us of that, doesn't it?

God allows us to weakly gather together.

I mean, no one came in this morning and was struck by a lightning bolt, right?

I haven't been out front in a little bit, so I could, I probably need to fact-check that.

But God in his grace allows us to gather together, to be reminded of the cross, to worship him, to be called back to him.

This is what makes Jesus so different from every other voice.

He doesn't demand more devotion.

Everything else demands more and more.

Look at verse 27 with me.

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.

The last thing I want you to see this morning, as we wrap up our time together, is that the voice of Jesus holds me secure.

After exposing the voices that compete for our attention, Jesus ends not with a demand that we do better, not with a demand that we listen better.

That's why I'm very hesitant to make the sermon all about application, because look where it ends.

It ends with a promise of security.

He doesn't just call his sheep, he keeps them.

He doesn't just lead his sheep, he holds them fast, he carries them, and no one will snatch them out of his hand.

When things go well, the sheep will follow.

But Jesus knows that things won't always go well.

There will be times when your life is an absolute mess.

There will be times where you crawl into church.

He says, I don't even know if I'm a Christian.

I don't know if you even look at my last life, my week this my life this last week and say that I'm a Christian.

And yet we are reminded by Jesus.

It's not about how well you follow.

It is about how tightly the grip of your shepherd is holding you.

It's different than every other voice.

Every other voice demands more and more.

The voice of success says do more.

The voice of people pleasing says be more.

The voice of religion says try harder.

We can't live up to the expectation of these voices.

And Jesus comes and he says, follow me.

And you know what the problem is?

We can't even do that.

And our following is constantly wayward, it's constantly faithless.

Yet, here we are reminded, after being called to follow the shepherd, that it is not about our faithlessness, it is about the shepherd's faithfulness, that his grip is stronger than ours, that he is like a parent helping his child cross the road, that the grip is not the child's, it is the parent's.

This is your confidence, loved one.

That's your security, that your eternal assurance is not in the strength of your devotion, but in the strength of the hold that Jesus has on your life.

That perseverance to the end will not be evidence of your power, but evidence of the promise that Jesus made that to those he began a good work in, he will bring it to completion.

So that even this morning, if your heart is cold, you have this reminder that his voice, if it is calling you this morning, it will bring you home.

Maybe this morning you've walked in and you've been chasing all these other voices, believing the lies whispered into your ear.

Would you right now in this moment, in the presence of the Holy Spirit, who perhaps has been drawing conviction out of your heart, as we've ex as we've studied John 10, would you hear the voice of Jesus in these pages?

He's calling you.

He's calling us, not in condemnation for how we fail to follow him, he's calling us in invitation that the shepherd who laid down his life is still calling sinners to himself and promising them eternity.

In the end, every other voice will fall silent.

Achievement never lasts, comfort never lasts, success never last.

In the end, one voice will still be speaking.

The same voice that called your name the day you were saved will call your name again the day that you stand before him.

It is the voice of our shepherd, and the sheep follow his voice.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we praise you.

Because we know our waywardness and we know our sinfulness, and we know how cold and apathetic our hearts can be to your love for us.

God thank you that it when we walk in this morning with hearts that are so often like this, your voice still rings out in this place through the pages of Scripture and through the miraculous provision of your Holy Spirit, which delivers it to our hearts.

That the shepherd knows us by name.

That he leads us to life, that he holds us secure to the end of time.

God, we sing the song together to declare this truth, Lord, that we have no hope.

Lord, there is no hope in ourselves.

We have no hope but for Jesus Christ, the great shepherd.

To keep us secure to the end.

God, we love you.

And we thank you for this work.

We thank you for who you are, and we praise you in light of who you are.

I pray this all in the name of your son.

Amen.

Would you stand and sing with me?