The Voice of the Shepherd | Sunday Sermon

Well, as I thought about this message this week, I struggled a little bit.

And what I was struggling with was what I should teach from Acts chapter 13.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

And I didn't struggle with it because there's not a lot of stuff to teach in this chapter.

I struggled with it because there's almost too much to teach in this chapter.

We could have gone a million different directions.

We could have talked about justification of the saints or eternal election or the concept of the remnant or the inclusion of the Gentiles or the prophecy of Isaiah.

We could stay on that one for a couple of days.

But as I was thinking about it, I'm like, well, none of those things actually really like sums up, you know, the whole heart of this chapter.

And so as I was thinking about, as I was praying about it this week, what I thought was, I came to is I realized that the heart of the chapter is actually very simple.

And it's this what happens when the gospel's preached?

What happens when the gospel is preached?

What happens when the good shepherd calls out to his sheep?

Remember in this part of uh the story of Acts, we've we've covered a lot.

We're in verse, we're in chapter 13 now.

Okay, so in this portion of the book of Acts, in chapter 13, we've already covered a lot of ground.

The Holy Spirit has come to Jerusalem.

He's been poured out upon the church, the gospel has gone out, and thousands have been saved.

And then we talked about a couple weeks ago how the gospel went to Cornelius through the ministry of Peter.

Okay, and now as we come to this chapter, we need to remember something.

That the the idea of Gentiles, okay, non-Jewish people being a part of the church and being a part of the covenant community was a new thing.

It hadn't been happening for very long.

And so this was something the church was adjusting to.

It's something they're getting used to.

So at this point in the story, in uh in Acts chapter 13, Christ has begun calling out to the Gentiles as well.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

And so this passage reminded me of that.

In John chapter 10, this section where he says, I'm the good shepherd, I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father.

John 10 · chapter mention

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 and one shepherd.

See, I think this is sometimes where us Christians get confused because we start to think that maybe God actually has kind of like two different peoples, right?

He has the nation of Israel and the Jews over here, and then he has his church over here, and he's kind of dealing with us in different ways, Jews on one side, Gentile church on the other, but that's not even close to what Jesus says in this passage.

Jesus in this passage simply says, I have sheep.

I have sheep.

And some are of one fold of the children of Israel, and the others are of another fold.

They're the Gentiles.

And what he's saying here is, I'm gonna call those who are mine, whether they're Jews or whether they're Gentiles, and I'm going to gather them into one flock.

In other words, there's not going to be two flocks under one shepherd.

There's going to be one flock under one shepherd.

And so he began by calling the sheep in Jerusalem from the very beginning, on the day of Pentecost, the shepherd began calling to his sheep among the children of Israel.

And that's a call that has never stopped.

It's just kept going over the centuries.

But now the shepherd, at this point in Acts, has begun calling to his sheep among the Gentile nations as well.

And what Acts 13 is going to show us is just how the Lord plans to go to the nations to call his sheep from the Gentile nations.

And so in Acts chapter 13, verse 1, if you have your Bibles, or if you don't, you can read it right off the screen up here.

Acts 13:1

It says, Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers.

Barnabas, Simeon, who is called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Menaeon, a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul.

And while they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.

Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and they sent them off.

So that so being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.

Remember the name of our series.

We remind you, I remind you all the time.

But it's Acts, the story continues.

And the premise that we're operating under in this series is that the ministry and the work of Jesus Christ did not end when he was killed on the cross.

It didn't end when he was laid in the tomb, it didn't end when he was resurrected, it didn't end when he ascended to the Father, and it didn't end at his coronation as he was seated at the right hand of his father in heaven.

Wherever lives to make intercession for us.

The book of Acts tells us the ministry of Jesus continues on this earth even to this day through his church.

And here we begin to see the shepherd preparing to go in search of his own sheep among the Gentile nations.

And to do so, he's going to send his servants.

And so the Holy Spirit tells the church, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.

And what was the work that he had called them to?

It was to go on a missionary journey to Cyprus and to parts of Galatia.

Not Cyprus down the street, to the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean and to parts of Galatia, and they would proclaim the gospel to all the people there, both Jews and Greeks.

And the call goes to everyone who's there, but as we just read, and as Carol read to us, the sheep who are there are going to hear his voice.

So in verse 5 it says, when they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of the God in the synagogues of the Jews, and they had John to assist them.

So they arrive in Salamis and immediately they proclaim the word of God to the Jews.

And I just want to keep making a point of this because again, many times those of us who have studied the Bible for a long time and maybe read it again and again, we think of Paul's missionary journeys as the mission to the Gentiles.

We think of that he's just going to the Gentiles, and yet every time he goes into a city, if there's a synagogue there, if there's some Jews meeting down by the river, he's going to go and speak to the Jews first.

And why do you think he does this?

Well, I think in part you could make the case that God's being faithful to his promise to Abraham and to the biological descendants of Abraham, but I also think there's a practical reason.

In Romans, Paul, he's a he sorry, in Romans, Paul asks a very practical question.

What he's doing is he's explaining in Romans how salvation is not based upon whether a person is a Jew or a Gentile.

It's not about whether a man is circumcised or whether a person follows all of the Mosaic laws.

It's not about whether a person eats shellfish or not.

So you don't have to worry, and you shouldn't be so shelfish, right?

Don't be shelfish.

That's so bad.

But you know, John started the dad jokes this morning, and I just had to finish them.

God's more interested in the condition of a person's heart than their outward obedience to a set of rules.

And so he tells them we're justified by faith apart from the works of the law, and then he asks a rhetorical question.

He says, What advantage then has the Jew?

So we're not saved based on the fact that we're Jews or we're Gentiles, we're not saved by following the Mosaic law, we're not saved by the covenant of circumcision, we're not saved by the feasts and the new moons and the sabbaths, and so what advantage then has the Jew?

And then Paul answers his own question.

He says, Much in every way.

He says, To them were given the oracles of God.

In other words, they were the recipients of the law and the prophets and the promises and the covenants and the temple, and through them, through their race, comes the Messiah.

In other words, their advantage is that they have all of the context.

They've been given the insider information.

They already know what to expect.

And so when someone comes to them and preaches that the Messiah has come and God has raised him from the dead, that he's paid the penalty of our sin and redeemed us from the curse of the law, they have everything that they already need to believe.

And so, in that context, it made sense that Paul always went to the synagogues first, because it would have been the most fertile fishing ground.

And so they reach Salamis and they go into the synagogues and they preach to the Jews.

And in verse 6, it says, When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar Jesus.

He was with the proconsul Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God.

But Elamus the magician, for that is the meaning of his name, opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.

But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?

And now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.

Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand.

Then the proconsul believed when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.

And so Paul and Barnabas travel across the entire island of Cyprus.

They're traveling from the East Coast all the way to the west coast, and as they're traveling, they're preaching the gospel to everyone, to the Jews and to the Gentiles.

And they get all the way to the city of Paphos, which is on the opposite side of the island, where a governor, a proconsul named Sergius Paulus lives.

This is a man of intelligence.

In fact, the um uh the ancient geographer Pliny the Elder had written as Sergius Paulus was a source.

His books were a source for this the books that Pliny the Elder wrote.

And so he was a man of intelligence.

He was a brilliant Roman governor, okay?

But he had this guy named Elamus who liked to hang out by his side.

And the Bible says he was a magician, but when it says magician, I don't want you to think of a black top hat and a black cape.

And he says, watch me, pull my habit out of my hat, abracadabra, and flowers come up or something.

He's a comedic magician.

He's not a magician in the way that we think of magicians in our day.

Okay, what he is is a wise person.

He's a magos.

He's like the magi that came to offer the gifts to Jesus when he was born in Bethlehem.

They followed the stars, they followed omens, they followed dreams, but it says something else about him that he was a Jewish false prophet.

Do you remember the penalty for false prophets in the Old Testament?

What was supposed to happen to him?

Huh?

They get stoned, and not in that way.

Okay, they were supposed to be stoned to death.

It was death.

The penalty was death for being a false prophet.

And so this guy is a Jewish man.

He knows the Torah.

He knows about God.

He knows these things, and yet he's there making a prophet by trying to interpret omens and dreams and elicit spiritual practices in the island of Cyprus.

And so he's threatened by the message that Paul and Barnabas are bringing.

Because if Sergius Paulus believes, then Elamus loses his job.

And so he opposes them, and Paul confronts him.

And as he's confronting him, he says, Now mist and darkness is going to cover your eyes.

And he walked away blind, looking for someone to lead him by the hand.

And so this miracle convinces Sergius Paulus that the message delivered by the apostles was true.

And so he believes he becomes a Christian.

And in verse 14, it says on the sap, I think I am lost my place.

Yep, there it is.

Okay, verse 13, it says, Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos, and they came to Perga and Pamphylia, and John left them and returned to Jerusalem.

But they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia.

And so what they did is they got done in Paphos.

They got on a ship and they sailed north across the Mediterranean and they landed on the mainland again.

And so they land there in the city of Paphos.

And they've got Barnabas' nephew or cousin, John Mark, with them, who later ends up being the author of the Gospel of Mark.

But he's just a young man at this time.

And it says he went back to Jerusalem.

He left the missionary journey.

He returned to Jerusalem where his mom lived.

So I don't know if he was just homesick for mama or whatever the reason was, but John left them, and it doesn't tell us why.

And so Barnabas and Paul carry on on their own and they arrive at a city called Antioch in Pisidia.

And this is not the same Antioch that they departed from.

It's another one.

So they get there, and just as they do everywhere they go, they go into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and they share the gospel.

And so on verse 14, it says, And on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and they sat down.

After the reading from the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them, saying, Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.

So Paul stood up, and motioning with his hand, he said, Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen.

The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt.

And with uplifted arm he led them out of it.

And for about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness, and after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance.

All this took about four hundred and fifty years, and after that he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet.

Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years, and when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who will do all my will.

Of this man's offspring, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised.

Before his coming John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel, and as John was finishing his course, he said, What do you suppose that I am?

I'm not he, no, but behold, after me one is coming, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie.

Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among whom fe you fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation.

For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him, nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him.

And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed.

And when they had carried out all that was written of them, they took him down from the tree, and they laid him in a tomb.

But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people.

And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children, by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, You are my son, today I have begotten you.

And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead no more to return to corruption, he has spoken this way I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.

Therefore he also says in another Psalm, You will not let your holy one see corruption.

For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers, and he saw corruption.

But he whom God raised up did not see corruption.

Let it be known to you, therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him every one who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

So Paul is preaching the good news to the Jews.

He's telling them, look, the law is good because it calls people to holiness that God requires.

But the problem is that even the most faithful and obedient of us Jewish people were never able to perfectly obey it.

And so Paul's announcing to them the amazing news that because the penalty for sin was paid in Christ and God's raised him from the dead, that now salvation, apart from obedience to the law, is available to everyone who believes.

In other words, it's to everyone who puts their trust in Jesus for salvation.

And then Paul gives them this warning.

He says, Beware therefore, lest what is said in the prophets should come about.

Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish, for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe, even if someone tells it to you.

And so Paul stands up in the synagogue and he begins to preach this gospel message and he's preaching it to Jewish people.

And so he preaches a sermon that's very Jewish-centric.

He talks about God's faithfulness over Israel's history.

He proclaims Jesus as the Messiah, the promised son of David.

He's quoting the Jewish prophets.

He's pointing to the resurrection as evidence of Jesus' identity.

He's proclaiming forgiveness of sins through his blood.

He's declaring justification through faith rather than trying to be obedient to the law.

And he's giving a warning against fulfilling the prophecy of Habakkuk 1.5 about those who reject Israel's Messiah, Jesus, and the message of the gospel he offers.

And so in the scene, we're seeing Paul preaching.

But I want you to bring you back to John 10 because what's happening in the spirit is that Jesus, the good shepherd, is calling out to his own sheep among the Jews of Antioch and Pisidia.

In the next few verses, we're going to see the response of the people as the voice of the shepherd begins to reveal both those who are his and those who are not his.

In verse 42, as they went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next Sabbath.

And after the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who, as they spoke with them, urged them to continue in the grace of God.

And so we see a mix of reactions here.

Some are curious, they're excited by what they're hearing, and maybe they haven't made a final decision yet, but they want to hear more.

And there's others who believe and they follow the shepherd, they respond to the call of Jesus in the gospel.

But not everyone believed.

Verse 44 it says, the next Sabbath, almost the whole city turned out.

But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and they began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him.

And so not every reaction is a positive one here.

Some people are curious, some people are jealous, some people are hungry for more, others receive the gospel with joy, and there was others that rejected and opposed it.

And so the same voice was calling out, the same message is being preached, but what it's revealing, what it's doing is revealing in each person's heart who they truly are.

And so in verse 46, Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you.

But since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we're turning to the Gentiles.

So he says it was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you.

So, like we said, God is keeping his promise to Abraham, and the apostles are diligent to take the word of God first to the Jewish people.

First, they're the people of the covenant.

Second, this is the most fertile ground for the gospel because they already understand sin and the holiness of God.

They already understand the law of Moses, they already understand the prophets and the promises and the covenants, and they're waiting for the Messiah.

And so he says it's necessary that the word of God, that the shepherd's voice, go to you first.

But since you thrust it aside, since you count yourselves unworthy of eternal life, I want to say that again.

Since you thrust it aside, since you count yourselves unworthy of eternal life.

Church, these are the stakes.

The Christian faith and the decisions that we make about the gospel is not a matter of choosing which faith system that we're most comfortable with and which we prefer the most.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is about eternal life or eternal death.

And Paul and Barnabas are declaring to these people Jewish people, descendants of Abraham, who had rejected the good news of the gospel, who'd rejected the voice of the good shepherd, their Messiah, that in doing so, they themselves bore the responsibility for their own condemnation.

In other words, the gospel had been extended to them genuinely, but they didn't judge themselves worthy of the eternal salvation that the gospel would have provided.

And so they said, since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy, behold, we're going to the Gentiles.

And to me, it's tragic that these Jewish people rejected their own Messiah and they missed the salvation that He provides.

Paul had preached a message about all the fulfillment, all the ways that Jesus the Messiah had filled, all of the prophet prophecies, all of the promises, and this should have been the key to.

Understanding that Jesus was their Messiah, and some did believe, but there was also many that rejected him.

But when you read the whole Bible, and especially if you've read it multiple times, you start to understand that this is not something new.

When you're reading the Old Testament, you see that there's only always ever been a remnant who believed.

There's only ever been a portion of the overall people who identified themselves at any given time in history as the people of God that actually truly believed and followed Jesus.

In Elijah's day, he thought he was the last one because all the people were worshiping Baal, and there were 400 priests of Baal and just little old Elijah.

And he's like, I'm the last one left.

And God says, No, Elijah, I've reserved for myself 7,000 in Israel who have not bowed their knee to Baal.

7,000 out of the entire nation.

The reality in Jesus' day, and the reality in the apostles' day, and the reality in our day is that not all who are descended from Abraham are truly God's people.

Not all who were of the nation of Israel truly were Israel.

Not all of the sheep of Israel were Christ's sheep.

There's only always ever been a remnant.

And the same thing that is true of Israel, guys, is true of Christ's church.

And when I say that, I mean his visible church.

In this world, there's billions and billions of people who would call themselves Christians and identify themselves as followers of Christ and they have communion every week and they go to church and they sit in church and they listen to sermons.

And they might have been baptized, but they've never submitted their heart to him.

They've never repented of their sins.

They've never turned to him and asked him to forgive them.

And so they call themselves Christians, but Jesus said on the last day.

There's going to be many who say to him, Lord, Lord, didn't I prophesy in your name?

Didn't I cast out demons?

Didn't I sit in church and sing the songs?

Didn't I take communion and go forward for the altar call?

Didn't I go get baptized at Corona del Mar?

And he's going to say, Depart from me, you worker of iniquity.

I never knew you.

Because there's a difference between the visible church and those who call themselves and identify themselves as God's people, and those who truly are.

And so Paul and Barnabas tell these Jewish people who've rejected their own Messiah, it was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first.

But since you thrust it aside and judged yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we're turning to the Gentiles.

And then they quote the prophet Isaiah, chapter 49, about God's servant.

Isaiah 49 · chapter mention

It's talking about Jesus, who would God would make him a light to the Gentiles.

And in verse 47, he quoted, I have made you a light to the Gentiles that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.

And what they are revealing to these Jewish people and to the Gentile people who are present is that God has always intended his salvation to be for all the nations, not only for Israel.

And in verse 48, when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord.

And as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

And the word of God was spreading throughout the whole region.

One of them.

This is the amazing thing about election.

That before the foundations of the world, there was this thing called the Lamb's Book of Life.

And all those who would ever be God's people, their names were already written in the Lamb's book of life from before the foundation of the world.

Before you existed, he knew you.

Before you ever thought to come to church, he called you by name.

That he's always known those who were his.

And as Christ goes into the world and he seeks the lost, as his voice goes out through the gospel, he's calling those who are already his back to himself.

He says, Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I'm going to give you rest.

Rest from thinking that you have to be good enough or believe hard enough or do enough to try to earn your way into heaven.

I'm going to give you rest.

Resting in my son Jesus, who did all the work for you, who lived it out fully for you, and then went to the cross to pay for your sins.

And Luke doesn't try to reconcile these two truths, does he?

And neither do we.

We just need to know that the shepherd knows his sheep, whether they're Jewish, whether they're Gentile, and he calls them through the preaching of the gospel.

And when the sheep hear his voice, they come and they follow him.

I quoted earlier, Isaiah 55, 11.

When God through the prophet Isaiah says, So shall the word be that goes forth from my mouth.

It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, it shall succeed in the thing for which I send it.

See, over all my years I always thought that his purpose was always the same, but what I'm starting to understand is that God's purpose can be different in different situations.

Sometimes his word goes out and the purpose is to call his sheep to himself.

Sometimes his word is to go out and to expose a false prophet.

Sometimes his voice goes out to separate those who are his from those who are not his.

But his word always accomplishes the purpose for which he sent it.

That's why I want to plant it in the hearts of the little ones.

Because his word never returns void.

But there's a couple of points I wanted to make here.

There's a couple of questions that I think that this might bring up in us as we talk about these kind of deep things here.

And one of them is about our loved ones.

Because all of us have people in our lives that we love that maybe right now aren't following Christ.

We got daughters, we got sons, we have mothers, we have fathers, we have grandchildren, and we worry about them and we pray for them, and we just hoping that the Lord saves them.

We're like, what if they're just not his sheep?

But I want to encourage you in this because we don't know who are his sheep and who are not his sheep.

Paul and Barnabas didn't know who his sheep were.

They didn't try to pick and choose who they preached the gospel to.

They just preached the gospel.

They just kept on going around and they preached it to everyone.

And I want you to remember that when they left an area, they left people who believed.

And those people would continue to be the voice of the shepherd in that place.

The shepherd continued to speak, continued to call.

You know, the problem is sometimes the little sheep have wool in their ears and they can't hear very good.

I was like that for a while.

I had wool in my ears and he was calling me, and he was calling me, and I was too busy doing my own thing.

Don't feel discouraged.

Continue to pray.

The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous person avails much.

Continue to intercede and pray.

I literally pray for my kids.

God, I pray that their names are written in the Lamb's book of life from before the foundation of the world.

I pray into election.

It says, He's called us from before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him.

In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons.

I pray that over my kids.

Why?

Because God's not subject to time.

He's still in the past and he's in the future and he's here right now with us.

And I say, God, I pray that you would choose them in you from before the foundations of the world to be holy and blameless in you.

I pray that in love you'd predestine them for adoption as your daughters, according to the good pleasure of your will in Christ Jesus.

Don't be discouraged.

Continue to pray, continue to believe for the people that you love.

You don't know who his sheep are.

Our job's not to figure it out.

Our job is to love people, to pray for them, and to trust the shepherd to call the sheep to himself.

And the second question that I think this might bring up is uh this one.

How do I know that I'm one of his sheep?

How do I know that I'm one of his sheep?

The answer is in the John 10 passage.

It says he brings out his own.

And he goes before them.

And the sheep follow him.

For they know his voice.

Every time the word of the God is preached, the voice of the shepherd is heard.

And so the question is not whether you're hearing his voice.

The question is whether you are following him.

Judy, you're one of his sheep.

I can see it.

In the Bibles multiple times when he says by their fruit, people know that the evidence of a life that's been changed, the evidence of seeing one of Christ's sheep is that they're following him.

And it's that same image of the shepherd that leaves the 99 and goes in search of the one who is lost.

And he searches and searches and searches until he finds him.

Be like, you don't give up on your loved ones because Jesus doesn't give up on them.

He just keeps searching and searching and calling and calling out to them.

As I was thinking about this, I remembered another scene in Matthew chapter 4, where Jesus is walking by the Sea of Galilee, and he sees two brothers, Andrew and Peter.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

And they're casting their nets into the sea, and he walks over where they are and he says, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

And it says they left everything and they followed him.

And they went a little further down the shore, and he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John.

And they were with their father Zebedee in the boat, mending the nets.

And he called out to them, and immediately they followed him.

They left their father, they left the nets, they left the boat, and they followed Jesus.

Jesus started his public ministry in the same way that he continues his ministry this morning in Faith Church.

He calls out the voice of a shepherd, calling to those who are lost, calling to his sheep, whom he knows from before the foundation of the world, that they are his.

It started in Jerusalem, it went to Samaria, it went to Judea, and now it's going to the ends of the earth.

And the same thing's happening today, wherever the gospel is preached.

And throughout this whole message today, he's been doing just that.

And so the question today is do you hear his voice?

Do you hear the shepherd's voice?

And if you do,