The Good Shepherd (John 10:1-21)

Starting in John chapter 10, verse 1.

John 10:1

Truly I tell you, anyone who doesn't enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in some other way, it is a thief and a robber.

The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.

The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice.

He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

When he's brought all his own outside, he goes ahead of them.

The sheep follow him because they know his voice.

They will never follow a stranger.

Instead, they'll run away from him because they don't know the voice of strangers.

Jesus gave them this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them.

Jesus said again, Truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.

All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn't listen to them.

I am the gate.

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

A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, and I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.

I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

The hired hand, since he is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, leaves them and runs away when he sees a wolf.

When he sees a wolf coming.

The wolf then snatches and scatters them.

This happens because he is a hired hand and doesn't care about 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.

I laid down my life for the sheep.

But I have other sheep that are not from the sheep pen.

I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.

Then there will be one flock, one shepherd.

This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it up again.

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

I have the right to lay it down, I have the right to take it up again.

I have received this command from my Father.

Again, the Jews were divided because of these words.

Many of them were saying, He has a demon and he's crazy.

Why do you listen to him?

Others were saying, These aren't the words of someone who is demon-possessed.

Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?

Let's pray as we dive in.

Father, we thank you that you've given us your spirit, Lord, that you speak by your word and that you move from the inside out.

And we ask that you would have full reign in our minds and our hearts this morning, in our lives, that there wouldn't be anything left exposed.

You would soften us to the things you have to say, whether those are words of encouragement or admonishment, that you would build us up and prepare us for the things you have before us, the things we're in now.

Lord, that you would root deeply in our hearts your word, that it would be uh there and wrought out and applied in real ways.

You would not fill our heads with knowledge, but that you would fill us with your love and with uh the application of these truths.

We ask for uh you, Lord, you to speak through me and uh into our hearts.

In Jesus' name, amen.

You may be seated.

Alright, this morning we're we're in John chapter 10, and John chapter 10 is just a continuation from chapter 9, so we're gonna be jumping back into that a little bit.

John 10 · chapter mention John 10 · chapter mention

It's really just part of the same discourse, and the context is all one in the same.

So we'll do a little bit of review and then we'll dive into the text.

If you recall from last week, there was a miraculous healing of a man born blind.

The man was born blind.

He hadn't been born born, he had not seen before, he was healed of his blindness, and it was on the Sabbath.

And verse 3 says, Neither because this man sinned nor his parents sinned, this came about so that God's works might be displayed.

The man uh believed in Jesus as a son of man.

But the problem with last in last week we saw was that the Pharisees, some of the Jewish leaders of the day, as Chris highlighted, they were not in awe, they weren't in wonder, they didn't seem to really care that the man had been born blind or were just enthralled and amazed that he had been healed.

They were concerned that Jesus did it on a Saturday.

And when Chris said that last week, I was like, it's so out of place.

The man was healed miraculously, and they were concerned that Jesus hadn't followed their rules.

The Jews of the day had a bunch of rules.

They were making rules upon rules to keep and guard themselves from breaking the law, from going against Torah.

They sought to approach God by their own righteousness, not by not by God's righteousness.

They were blinded by their sin, and they couldn't see the truth of who Jesus was.

They were so concerned about being righteous in themselves, about their own authority, about their pride, about the pride of who they were and of what they were bringing to God.

More so, this passage is going to identify these Pharisees as thieves and robbers.

The Pharisees, as we saw in John chapter 9, were robbing people of the freedom of approaching Jesus, freedom from sin of approaching Jesus by faith and uh earning uh having salvation by grace.

John 9 · chapter mention

They were enslaving people to their works.

At the end of the chapter, towards the end of the chapter, the the Pharisees told the man, You were born entirely in sin, false.

They replied, You are try are you trying to teach us?

And they threw him out.

As we get into John chapter 10, we're gonna see this dichotomy.

John 10 · chapter mention

That's just the big word that just says this comparison between the Pharisees and the thieves and robbers, and and I'll give it away, the good shepherd, right?

But that's what we're gonna see a lot of.

I won't go into the whole chapter, but for some bigger picture context, there's a lot to cover this morning.

Um there's two I am statements.

There's a lot of truth.

But the but the problem of bad shepherds has been really throughout millennia in the Bible.

And a few verses from Ezekiel will show this is not a new thing and it's not a new problem.

Ezekiel said, This is what the Lord God says to the shepherds.

Woe to the shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves.

Shouldn't the shepherds feed their flock?

You eat the fat, wear the wool, butcher the fatted animals, but you do not tend the flock.

You have not strengthened the weak or the blind, healed the sick, bandaged the injured, brought back the strays, or sought the lost.

Instead, you have ruled them with violence and cruelty.

It's not a new problem.

As we jump into chapter 10, Jesus has addressed this.

He's tried to tell them, he said, You're blind.

You've been blind, you're blind from your sin.

Your sin has blinded you.

He's going to bring us some truths.

He's going to highlight who they are, what they're doing.

He's going to use an illustration.

Of course, we, a lot of us learn better by illustration.

It's just we get to our head.

So Jesus is going to use this illustration of uh of the shepherd and the sheep pen.

He's going to reveal that he and his father are not just the good shepherd, but the one good and true shepherd.

He'll differentiate between counterfeits.

This illustration uses a handful of characters we're going to see and that we've read about.

The shepherd and the sheep.

Those are the kind of the, obviously, the a couple of the obvious ones.

The doorkeeper and the door gate, thieves, robbers, and wolves, and there's a stranger thrown in there as well, and the hired hand.

The setting is a sheep pen or sheep fold, as maybe some of us have had it or in our uh in the our scripture.

And if you can imagine, I don't have a photo of this up, but if you can imagine if this room were a sheep pen, often in the this is the classic, we're I'm presenting on the classic sheep pen that Jesus is teaching about here.

If this room were a sheep pen, there would only be one opening.

It would be consist of, say, stone walls, sticks, branches, briars, it could be different things, but generally there was a wall and it would generally keep sheep in and keep people out.

But there was one opening.

So instead of three doors, there was one opening, and there wasn't necessarily a swinging door on hinges.

And so instead, so what a shepherd could do is he could come and bring his sheep into this place, a place of protection, and maybe multiple shepherds could bring sheep into this place, and they could uh the shepherd could drop his sheep off, maybe he could leave, and there could be a hired hand or a doorkeeper there, and they're gonna keep the sheep in.

And in the process of things, the the as a shepherd could return, he might, uh he'd come through to the to the gate, and there was someone there, and instead of just opening the gate himself, there was an actual physical warm-blooded person there who's gonna make sure that the person coming in that he owns some of those sheep.

And it and he would open the basically just step back and he could let those sheep in.

There was one way into that sheepfold.

There was only one.

It didn't need to be more than one, but there was one way.

And the door of that sheep hen was a person.

We'll see more that this illustration is not just about sheep and caring for sheep.

This is really a spiritual illustration, an illustration of salvation.

We'll jump into chapter 10.

Verse 1 starts out with, truly I tell you, this is surely the truth, or the word is amen, actually.

I like to kind of say my wife would tell the kids, uh, look um, are your listeners on?

Are your listeners on?

And uh that's not so much behold, that's a that's a this is truth.

Listen up.

This is this is a statement of truth you need to hear.

And he's saying it because the men were just, he's addressing men who completely ignored.

They not they didn't just not care for him, they threw the they threw the blind man out, right?

The man had the who had been born blind.

Anyone who doesn't enter the sheep pen by the gate but climbs in some other way is a thief and a robber.

How do they come in?

It doesn't exactly say it says in some other way.

What is it?

It's in an illegitimate way.

Maybe the Pharisees were doing it through their education, their lineage, through deception.

I think in the grand context of the passage, they were seeking to enter the sheetfold of the sheetfold of God by their works and by their righteousness.

Right?

There's one way to enter this sheetfold that we're gonna see.

The thief and the robber, this is in Scripture we can see, in this case, it is the Pharisees, and other cases we'll see more specifically that it's false prophets.

Specifically, Jesus is addressing the leadership here.

The one who enters by the gate, this is verse 2, is the shepherd of the sheep.

So how does the shepherd get in?

He gets in through the normal, true, legitimate way.

There's one way to get in, and that shepherd goes to the gate.

It's because he owns the sheep and he has legitimate access because he cares for them.

I'm getting a little bit ahead.

And how does he do it, verse 3?

The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice.

He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

When he has brought all his own outside, he goes ahead of them.

The sheep follow him because they know his voice.

In verse 3, the scripture actually literally says the gatekeeper opens for him.

It doesn't, the word it is not even in there.

It just says the gatekeeper opens for him because the gatekeeper's, he's in the he is the gate.

He just has to open and stand aside for the shepherd to enter.

And Jesus is still a little bit generic terms right here, right?

He there's no I.

He's talking about the shepherd.

He's still using very, very illustrative terms.

And and what happens?

The sheep hear his voice.

He calls them by name.

Now we're starting to see the personal aspects of the shepherd.

They have names, he knows them, he calls them by name, and what does he do?

He leads them out.

The shepherd.

One of the first qualities of the shepherd is that he leads.

Everyone can lead in a lot of ways, but the shepherd is going to lead in ways that we we um he's gonna lead in ways that are sheep first, not me first.

As a lot of a lot of uh I've heard, I'm not, I don't raise barn animals, I don't raise animals.

I've got a cat.

Wish I had a dog.

Some people raise uh cows or sheep, right?

And the classic story of those raising animals is that the animals they they become pets and you name them, right?

You give them a name.

And what happens?

You no longer want to make them food.

You give the animal a name, you you start to love on them, and so what do you do?

You don't name your food.

If you want to eat the animal, don't name the animal.

So, but Jesus knows his sheep, and he leads his sheep.

When he's brought, verse 4, when he's brought them outside, he goes ahead of them.

The shepherd doesn't trail behind, he doesn't shield himself from the wolves with the sheep.

And this sounds a little bit extreme, but it really is more what was happening spiritually and relationally.

Right?

We're looking here at a bottom line, the thieves and the robbers take and the shepherd gives.

Shepherd sacrifices.

The sheep follow him because they know his voice.

Let's apply this a little bit.

How do we know the voice of the Lord?

If we know his voice and we we know the shepherd, we're kind of getting it, we know that we've read the text, right?

I feel like I'm getting ahead, but if we know his voice, how do we know it?

I think the simplicity of knowing someone's voice, we know someone, if we know people right, we know the sound of their voice, we listen to them and we spend time with them.

Just in real simple.

We listen to them, we listen to God's word, we spend time not just talking, this is hard, because we can spend a lot of time praying, but we don't pause and have time to listen.

The bottom line is the sheep know the shepherd because they spend time with them.

They know that they have experience that that shepherd cares for them, and they know his voice.

It's very it's just very simple.

There's relational, they have a knowing relationship.

We're gonna see more of that in a handful of verses.

And then he said he contrasts this in verses 5 and 6.

They will never follow a stranger.

Instead, they will run away from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.

Jesus gave them this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them.

We have littles in the room this morning.

If you've ever approached a little, and I have littles, so this is easy, easier, easier analogies for me, but um, you know a little.

My son came up this morning out of the blue and gave me a hug, my littless, which is not all that common at church, but we had a different routine this morning.

But if you've approached a toddler that you don't know, a lot of time you get the shrinking back, the hiding, or the running away, right?

Why?

Because there's they're a stranger.

Even if you kind of know them, or if, let's say I know you, but you don't know my toddler, what are they gonna do?

They might kind of you're gonna see them maybe step away.

Same kind of thing.

It's very simple.

The sheep just don't, they're they're not gonna follow the stranger, they're not gonna follow the Pharisees, right?

They're not the true shepherd.

And so this is not quite getting through to the Pharisees.

And so Jesus is gonna take it the next step, and he's gonna start making it personal, more personal.

Verse 7, Jesus said again, truly, I, truly I tell you again, amen.

Here's another truth.

Listen, I am the gate for the sheep.

We know Jesus is it's coming, John 14.

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

He's not just, he doesn't just go through the doorkeeper.

When the door, when that when that there's that opening, Jesus says he's not just, he isn't just going through that opening.

He is the door or the gate by which by which you may gain entry.

For those who've had young young kiddos, you ever had a baby?

Maybe you put the baby on the bed, and you're like, if I leave that bed, the baby's going over.

I can't put a pillow on the side of the bed.

There's no, there is just no guaranteeing.

So what do you do?

You put your body between the baby and the edge.

And I kind of look at it similarly.

There's a person there who really can identify and has the ability to understand who is who.

Jesus is the one himself who opens that gate to the sheep pen.

Who came before him, he says, are just are thieves and robbers.

But the sheep didn't listen to them.

Now this may seem at first it's like, well, who came before him?

Well, Moses and Abraham.

Really, Jesus is referring here to the false prophets, to the Pharisees, to those who've come in a way to lead, but they've been in actually in other ways, they've pulled the people from God.

They've been robbing the people, either physically, and by the way, these thieves and robbers, we're not going a ton into the detail, but a thief can be very obviously, intentionally coming after you to rob and commit violence, and uh, and someone else may come surreptitiously, and they don't always look like they've got, they're not always wearing black with a face mask.

The Pharisees may not have been wearing, right?

They weren't actually thieves, but they were they were acting, they were spiritual, they were spiritual thieves.

And in some cases, in the in the temple, as we saw with uh what Jesus, he overturned the tables.

Because he looked, because he he said uh he called them the temple of Den of Thieves.

In Matthew 7, Jesus says, narrow is the gate.

And difficult is the road that leads to life.

Jesus is a gate and he's a narrow, and he's and he's a narrow gate.

In verse 9, I am, Jesus says, I am the gate.

If anyone enters by me, he's repeating it right, second time, he's repeating himself, it's important.

He says, I am the gate.

If anyone enters by me, three things.

He will be saved and will come in and go out and will find pasture.

What are these things?

He'll be saved, delivered, preserved, protected, will come in.

That's protection.

Go out and have freedom.

Find pasture, eating, resting, thriving, ruminating.

He'll contrast these two again in chapter 10.

He says, a thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

I have come so they may have life and have it in abundance.

We can identify a thief because what's happening?

They're stealing, killing, destroying.

Maybe they steal a sheep away.

Sometimes this may not even be very obvious.

There could be someone who comes into a church body and they're not looking necessarily, they're not maybe saying it overtly, but maybe what they're trying to do is bring you into their own little doctrines, right?

Or maybe pull you into their special study.

These things happen.

Maybe they really just want to see the sheep killed spiritually and pulled away from the Lord.

Jesus says, I have come so they may have life and have it in abundance.

The thief takes, the shepherd gives.

This word life in verse 10, there are a few words we're gonna see in the word life from John.

This word is not the word bios, and I and I'm just trying in the transliteration to be able to kind of say what the Greek word is, but the Greek word just it means existence.

So Jesus is not using the word existence here, he's not.

Saying, I have come so they may have existence.

Because that's not not such doesn't seem like such a big deal, right?

We all we have existence.

Jesus is using the word Zoe, and that word means absolute fullness of life.

Jesus is saying, I have come so they may have the absolute fullness of life.

And how?

Have it in abundance.

This is the word exceedingly abundantly, supremely over and above.

Jesus is saying, I have come so they may have life and have it in abundance.

Like how Paul said, exhorts in Ephesians 3 says, Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we could ask or think, according to the power that works in us.

We're seeing more and more separation and difference between the thieves and robbers and the good shepherd, right?

The thieves and robbers are coming to seek, kill, and destroy.

The shepherd is coming so that we can have life abundant.

If we are sheep, it then begs the question: if we are sheep, do we have this abundant life?

It's easy to just hear and know that the analogy and illustration of the shepherd, but Jesus came not just that we would have life, but we'd have life, and not just so we'd have existence, right?

But have abundant life.

Have life and have it in abundance.

Do we need to worry if we don't have this abundant life?

We don't need to worry a shred.

We just need to recognize that God has God has given us a spirit.

If we aren't experiencing that abundant life, and he's not saying long, right?

He's not necessarily saying that you're going to live for a long time.

He's not, he's saying it's not just saying it's not going to be difficult.

He's saying it will be abundant.

And it will be exceedingly supremely.

If we find ourselves not experiencing that abundant life, we just have to call upon God and ask his spirit to fill us.

If we feel like we're more consumed by the circumstances and we feel like we're a sheep, we're just not eating, we're not flourishing, we're not growing.

God's given us a spirit.

We're going to learn a lot more about that in John 14 through 16, but he's given us his spirit, living and residing in us, to speak to us so we hear, that we can hear his voice from within.

And he's given us a spirit to lead us in an abundant, empowered life.

Not that we can do by our flesh, by our own strength, but that he can do through us by the strength of his own spirit inside of us.

So as we get into verse 11, so we've gone from the first ten verses, the way I like to look at these is we're looking at the true shepherd.

He enters by the gate, right?

This is what he is in comparison to the thieves and robbers.

Now we're going to see Jesus as the good shepherd.

The classic, one of the classic hallmark verses of John.

I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

We're going to see that again, the first thing he says after I am the good shepherd, and he'll say it five times, unless I've miscounted.

He's going to say it over and over.

I lay my life down for the sheep.

Over and over in the passage that precedes, the hallmark of the good shepherd is he lays his life down for the sheep.

We should see that quality in shepherds.

The thieves and the robbers, it's them first, right?

We're going to see that here.

In verse 12, he'll kind of contrast it again.

He'll say, Here's our contrast.

And he's not going to bring up the thief and the robber, but instead it's the hired hand.

The hired hand, verse 12, since he is not the shepherd and doesn't own the sheep, leaves them and runs away when he sees a wolf coming.

The wolf then snatches and scatters them.

This happens because he is a hired hand and doesn't care about the sheep.

The hired hand, he doesn't have skin in the game, is the way I kind of like to think of it.

He doesn't own the sheep.

Now he may have good intentions, right?

But when there's real danger, he's going to go to flight mode.

He's going to go to self-preservation mode.

He's not that big sheep dog that's going to sit right, he's going to sit between the sheep.

And I like sheepdog because sometimes a dog can be this way, right?

There is no second thought about the care about one's own life or that dog having its own life endangered.

The first thought is what is how is what is the care for the sheep about the safety and protection of the sheep?

In Matthew 7.15, Jesus says that to be on guard against false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravaging wolves.

This is an illustration, right?

This is sometimes it's obvious, and in the case of the wolf, the wolf comes in and isn't necessarily obvious at first.

The wolf has is concealed in various ways.

The hired hand, we're just we're seeing that he's in comparison to the good shepherd.

The hired hand just doesn't compare to the good shepherd who really has a sheep first mentality.

He'll repeat himself in verse 14.

I am the good shepherd, repeat it again for the second time.

He says he's the gate twice, he says he's the good shepherd twice.

Immediately following, in verse 14, the second mention, the second time he identifies himself as the good shepherd, he talks about knowing.

I'm the good shepherd.

And how, what about knowing?

He knows the sheep, they know him, and not just they know each other.

This is groundbreaking.

What he's going to tell the Pharisees.

He says, just you'll know me and I'll know you, just as I know my father and he knows me.

That is radical.

God is saying we can know him in the same way that he knows himself.

Which is hard to even wrap, it's hard for me to wrap my head around that.

But we can live and we live and walk in that as believers.

In the truth that we know our shepherd and he knows us, sometimes that's more comforting than me knowing him.

He knows me better than myself.

And a lot of times, if you have an animal, or in some cases, even kids, you you kind of know them better than they are.

They've they can they know themselves or self-they have self-knowledge or recognition.

And the kids will be like, they can kick against the goat, and you're like, trust me, I know you better than you think you do.

We can trust God, who knows us better than we know us.

So sometimes we don't think something's that important, but in God's word, a lot of things that He knows before we're even we've even learned it.

Okay, moving on.

Uh, verse 15, he says, I lay my life down for the sheep, verse 16.

But I have other sheep.

We're gonna learn something fun here.

I have other sheep, not up not from my uh from this sheep hen.

I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.

Then there will be one flock and one shepherd.

It's commonly believed Jesus here is referring to another truth that he is going to be bringing in the Gentiles.

This is us.

So, some have thought this he's referring to Israel.

I really think that he's referring to, as Paul will illustrate in Romans 11 about the olive tree.

Paul says in Romans 11.

I didn't write down.

Paul illustrates in Romans 11 that the Gentiles who are the wild olive tree will be grafted into the tree, right?

In the same way he's saying, I've got this fold, but I'm a shepherd with other folds.

I've got sheep, other places.

I'm going to be bringing them into the fold.

We're all going to be one flock, and there's going to be one shepherd.

No, it's not multiple shepherds.

There's one good, true shepherd.

Shepherds will fail us.

Shepherds who even have the greatest intentions will fail us.

We're human, but the good shepherd will ultimately care over and watch over one flock.

Verse 17.

Jesus says, This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life.

There it is again.

He says it again, that I may take it up again.

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

He keeps saying it over and over.

I have the right to lay it down, I have the right to take it up again, I have received this command from my Father.

The Father is, uh the Father is endeared that Jesus would lay his life down, and not just lay it down, but he lays it down for the purpose, for the grander purpose of bringing salvation.

This whole thing is resting in the analogy that in the Old Testament there were sacrifices, they were just supposed to be temporary coverings.

And so these people understood about the sacrificial system, and there were sheep, and Jesus wasn't just a shepherd, he actually became the Lamb of God.

He he knew, and so this is the ironic thing is he fills so many of these pictures.

Jesus is the very Lamb of God who would lay his life down.

Hebrews 12 says, for the joy that the for the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus is the Lamb of God who's offered his life, so we would have a permanent atonement for our sin.

There is nothing else we need to do to be made right with God but to put our trust in our faith in Jesus.

That's how simple.

Faith and trust in the man who is the door and the gate.

It's through him.

We enter through Jesus.

It's very simple.

We don't have to wonder, we don't have to work.

We enter by faith in his grace, by his blood on the cross.

And this word in verse 18, he has a right to lay it down, he says, No, no one takes it from me.

I lay it down on my own.

I have the right to lay it down, the right to take it up again.

This word right is like power, or in fact, some translations may say power, bewaffle ability.

I like Philippians, I think it says it well.

I think Paul puts it well.

He says, adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited.

Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity.

And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross.

Jesus is saying, of course, we can even, we could dare, we could die for someone.

We could lay our life down.

Jesus was able to empty himself of that, of that, the form of God here, and become a man which is beyond us, and he's able also, I don't think anyone here can take, could, could raise themselves from the dead.

Jesus can, Jesus is saying, I have the right, I have the right, authority, and power to raise myself.

This is a unique shepherd.

Jesus wraps up in 19 through 21.

Again, the Jews were divided.

They're not getting it because of these words.

Many of them were saying, he has a demon and he's crazy.

Why do you listen to him?

Others were saying, these aren't the words of someone who is demon-possessed.

Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?

Some are getting it, right?

And that's amazing.

And some are still not getting it.

It's easy for us to really look back, to look and say, how can they not be seeing this, right?

But they were blinded.

In Isaiah 6, we see Isaiah, the Lord speaking to Isaiah, because the people continued to turn away from God and just to follow after other things that they that, other idols, things that they worshiped, things that became in a higher position than God, really.

Really simply.

And they were blinded.

He blinded their eyes, and in the same way, the Pharisees are blinded by their sin, by their pride.

I like to look back at John chapter 9 because I think Jesus has given us a picture of this good shepherd right in the end of 9.

John 9 · chapter mention

After the Pharisees threw out the man, the man who was blind, who had been blind, 9 35, Jesus says, he it says, Jesus heard that he'd thrown the man out.

And when he found him, which means he went to go looking, right?

He was a shepherd.

He went to go look for the sheep.

And when he found him, he asked, Do you believe in the Son of Man?

A couple verses later, the man says, I believe.

That's simple.

Just that simple.

What did the man do?

He entered by the gate.

Just in the same chapter, we saw a man enter by, enter into the fold of God by Jesus Christ just by an act of his faith.

What about the Pharisees?

They're still blind.

It's easy to be proud of that because we can think we're not Pharisees, but a lot of us, it's easy to have a Pharisee within us.

We can come up with rules and to make us feel like we're more righteous, right?

We can we can we can uh have some we can be consumed with authority, we can take advantage of people, there can be deception.

This morning we can we can choose to be the this uh this like the man born blind and we can put our faith in the one and true God who is the door of the sheepfold.

We can enter into the fold of God, and it's not if we look in if we look in uh verse nine, we're not just entering in the fold of God, which we enter in and we're saved, right?

It also says come in and go out.

We're finding this is the whole analogy of salvation.

If we put our trust in Jesus, we can be, we'll be saved and we'll have the protection to come in, we'll have the freedom to go out.

Outside of Jesus, we have no protection from, we really have no protection, we have no guarantees.

But when under the care of Jesus, we don't have to have the worry.

The worry of the of wolves, thieves, and robbers.

God, our good shepherd, will care for us.

So, in the same way, we can be this man, we can injure by the narrow gate, we can put our faith in Jesus.

We also have to choose actively how we're going to shepherd.

We have to choose if we're in the position of a Pharisee, how are we going to lead?

It's easy to think spiritual context in the passage.

But shepherding's not just a strictly church thing.

And it's easy to think it's just shepherds are church, maybe church leaders, right?

Or elders.

We just talked about elders.

But a lot of us have we're in places in life that we're we're not uh it's um the elders are not just shepherds, right?

We are shepherds over our kids.

Maybe men were shepherds over spouses, and in the workplace, if we're a if we're in any kind of position as a as a supervisor, as a boss, as an owner, um, we really can we can really look at and emulate being a shepherd where God has set us up to be shepherds.

It's not just here in the church.

People need shepherding, and sometimes we don't even necessarily feel like shepherding, because shepherding is sacrificial.

So we can look at the passage and and we, yes, are we are we actively going to the shepherd?

Are we walking and living in the abundant life?

We should.

He's given us everything that we need to live in life, a life of abundance.

But the to emulate the shepherd in our workplaces, we can say, how should I care for those sheep?

If you have employees, if you have even co-workers, but we can we we've got to ask ourselves, am I caring for that person or am I using that person?

Am I putting myself before those people or am I putting others before me?

How can I seek to actively lay down my life?

How can I seek to serve?

These are the real ways that God wants to work through us by his spirit to shepherd, to emulate our shepherd.

This morning, if you are here and you haven't entered by the door to the sheepfold, it's as easy as putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

It's not complicated.

We don't have to worry about if we've broken the Sabbath and a man is healed.

Or we don't have to worry about the thought that we've had.

We don't have to build rules upon rules.

Now, rules to protect us from things that were, you know, really bad.

We may need an extra rule for ourselves, right?

Not that we have to put that rule in other people, but we there may be rules.

But this morning, if you haven't put your faith and trust in Jesus and walk through the door into salvation, the care and protection of our Good Shepherd, you can do that this morning by simply putting your faith and confessing your faith to Jesus Christ.

Let's uh I'll lead you in that in this morning.

Let's uh let's close in prayer.

If you haven't put your faith and trust and you want to be under the care of Jesus this morning, just say, Father, I believe in you and I trust the blood of Jesus to cover my sin and to f and for forgiveness of all things that I've ever done or will ever do against you.

Father, cover me in the blood of Jesus.

Forgive me and cleanse me from all unrighteousness.

Father, we thank you for we thank you that you are so much to us in so many ways.

You aren't just the shepherd, you're the Lamb of God who has sacrificed, has laid his life down, and not just laid it down, but had the power to lay it down, the power to bring it up again.

You are the good shepherd, the one and true good shepherd who enters, who's entered by the one and true way, laying your life down, and you're able to take it up, and you're able and you've brought us into a place that you we can have abundant life and have it to the fullest.

I pray that you would go before us this week, Lord, that you would cause us to walk in the in the protection and security and into thriving that you desire as our good shepherd.

Plant your word deep within us, I pray.

Go before us.

We thank you for your word this morning.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.