SEVEN Series Minicast: The Good Shepherd - Knowing the Voice of Jesus

What Jesus is is really saying up is I'm the good shepherd because I'm willing to serve the sheep.

I exist to lay down my life for the sheep.

Hi Jacob.

What's up, Jake?

Thanks for being on here today.

Of course.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, this is just another one of our short form podcasts that we've been doing for our seventh series, where we're just kind of breaking down these passages a little bit more than maybe what uh the than what the sermon could get into a little bit, but also uh helping people just uh prepare for their time in this passage as we uh study it throughout the week, whether it's in our small groups, um, our life groups, um, or in just our personal devotion time, um, just having an opportunity to kind of set this week up.

And so thanks for being willing to sit down with us today.

Um, I wrote our devo for this week in the journal for those of you that are following along in the journal.

Um, so I needed somebody else here.

So thanks for stepping up and saying yes.

I got you.

Anything for that extra Bible time, Sunday is not enough.

Right.

I need more of it, and so yeah, happy beer.

I just wanted to grab the other Jake or Jacob.

Oh, yeah.

So we have the same name, and so you know it could it's can be attributed to either one of us.

But we're we are in John chapter 10 today.

John 10 · chapter mention

Yeah.

And so I'm stoked to get to talk about this a little bit.

This is where Jesus says that he is the good shepherd and that he and the father are one.

And so uh, why don't you just walk us through this passage really quick, tell us what's going on, paint the picture for us, and we'll dive into discussing it a little bit.

Oh, yeah.

I think a lot of this this chapter, I'm prefacing by saying that this a lot of this chapter is built around what happened in the last chapter.

So, like in chapter nine, what happens is this is Jesus heals this man who was born blind, is blind his whole life.

Jesus heals him on the Sabbath.

And just like we've seen a couple different times already in John, whenever Jesus heals someone on the Sabbath, all of the Pharisees and all the religious leaders have a problem with that.

They ain't happy, they are not happy.

And so uh Jesus heals this man, he's again born blind, and he heals him on the Sabbath, and uh the guy who is born blind is just walking around, he's able to see uh the people in that area.

They knew him, they knew his face, and so they recognize hey, this is that guy who used to be sitting over here in the corner 24-7, who's blind, and now he's up on his feet, do just living normal life.

How is that?

So they start asking him questions, and he says, Jesus did it.

Um, they start asking him, okay, like how did that happen?

He explains it, and they even just ask him, Okay, what do you think of Jesus?

Who who is who is Jesus to you?

Really just trying to put him in the corner and get him to make uh not an accusation, but really make a statement about Jesus that would condemn him to being in a prison or something like that.

We punished somehow.

The guy basically just says, Hey, I don't really know much about Jesus.

All I know is I was blind and now I see.

That's all I know.

And he simply says that the Pharisees start to throw a fit, they confront Jesus, and uh Jesus and the Pharisees are having a pretty heated discussion.

That's like the whole background to chapter 10.

And so literally throughout all of chapter 10, Jesus is giving this picture.

He uses like this this analogy of shepherds and sheep and how they would take care of sheep.

He this is uh an analogy used throughout the entire Bible, especially in different places like Psalm 23, uh, where David writes, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Like this isn't like some sort of coincidence that Jesus is using shepherd language, and he's using that language to really confront the Pharisees on the way they have quote unquote led the people of God versus the what he versus what he is doing as they're confronting him.

Yeah.

And so he claims that he is the good shepherd.

He says that he is the door of of the sheep.

He even like the first statement he makes in verse one is literally coming right at the Pharisees, talking to literally uh by way of implication, calling them thieves and robbers.

Um, so there's a lot here on the whole thing, uh not not quite the middle, a little bit after the middle of the chapter, Jesus makes this super bold claim.

He says, verbatim, I and the father are one, which is the most uh we use the word bodacious.

That's a good word.

I'm gonna use more often bodacious claim.

Um, he and the father are one, uh, which leading up to this point, that is the most explicit statement Jesus has made about who he is as the Son of God.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you ever question whether or not Jesus claimed to be God, it's kind of it's kind of a a popular trend right now amongst um like some people that come against Christianity that that claim Jesus never never actually claimed to be God.

You know, like nowhere in the Bible does it say that Jesus is God.

Yeah, yeah, it does quite a bit, actually.

He's pretty clear in saying that he and the Father are one.

And uh in a couple other places too.

I think he he even mentioned it in chapter nine.

Um, but yeah, that that there there is no bones about who Jesus is claiming to be here, you know.

And even like the Pharisees' reaction, like we can, it's maybe a little bit of a side thing, like the Pharisees immediately react after Jesus says that he says, like, I and the father are one, immediately they pick up stones to stone him for claiming to be God.

Yeah.

So like the they understood it that way, and Jesus is not dumb, like he he has a following of hundreds, thousands of people at this point, has gained such an influence.

He's smart enough to build that much of an influence.

If this was just one big misunderstanding, he would be smart enough to figure that out and clear up, clear the air.

He doesn't, and he later on is literally put to death.

Obviously, like Jesus' execution is done by the will of the Father, but there's legal precedent for it.

Yeah, you know, that that the Pharisees bring against him.

It's this, you know, it's this claim of being God.

This this this passage is shocked full of major statements by Jesus here, and um there I feel like there's a bit a lot of people, like especially online, uh, that are like in the atheist space or like um that are like uh uh Muslim that make claims that Jesus never claims to be God.

You know, this is like a huge argument that people make against uh against Christianity, but it's pretty blatant, you know.

Here he says the father and I are one, you know, it's like, yeah, he's claiming to be God, you know.

There he makes no bones about it here and in multiple other places as well.

And so, yeah, I I I love this conversation that he has with them because it it inevitably um leads to our salvation, you know, like him coming on earth is what leads us to our salvation.

However, um that there were there was legal precedent that the the Pharisees had to uh to start the process of Jesus' inevitable execution.

You know, that was done through the will of the Father, you know, like we know that the grand scheme of Jesus' death was to set us free from sin.

You know, he died in our place so that we didn't have to do that, you know, we'd have to go through that and we can live with him for eternity if we just believe in him because of the work on the cross.

But the the the earthly reason why he's executed are these claims that he's making, you know, like they they pick up stones to stone him here to kill him because they think that he's committing blasphemy.

Yeah, and I think we talked about this last week when we talked when Michael and I talked about chapter nine, where Jesus makes these claims, but the the Pharisees are having like for some reason they're having a hard time accepting Jesus being the Messiah.

And we kind of talked about how there's two different levels of where that how they could be having a hard time accepting it.

The first being a spiritual reality, you know, of like like how do we trust that you are who you say you are, and I don't we don't know how to confirm that for one, and he's trying to show them like I'm doing these miracles, you know, like I'm I'm making these really strong claims, and there's nothing to come against the like nothing that you can pull out of scripture or out of your own opinions that would conflict with that.

Um, but then there's also the political side of it, you know, there's also the okay, if the messiah is here, that means that everything is fulfilled, you know, and that means that we're not needed anymore.

You know, that there's a great, that there's a better teacher that's come that is going to lead us, even even in their small understanding of who they thought the messiah was to be to set them free in earth to establish Israel as a kingdom, set them free from Rome, all this stuff, um that alone would pull them out of their position.

Out, but Jesus comes to do even more, which is to set the people free from death, and he said in death, which totally changes who they thought Jesus was supposed to be.

So no wonder they have a hard time with it.

Like because they that that means they lose who they are, yeah, essentially.

Yeah, that means they lose their way of life, you know, and their position.

Um yeah, they at the very least they lose who they wanted to be and who they who they made themselves to be.

Right.

Like, I don't think God never intended for the teachers of the law and for the people to to put themselves on a pedestal that only God was meant to be on.

Right.

And yet they did that and even made their religiosity and their their rule keeping, their rule um enacting upon other people like their their judicial role, I guess, so to speak.

Uh they they would even make that a source of identity for themselves to the point where everyone else was uh down here and they were up here, where they are able to look down on everybody else, where they were the ones with all the power, all the influence, and Jesus uh just frankly has not has none of it.

He just completely tears down their system, it just takes it and flips it completely on its head.

Um, on one of those ways, simply I I love how in this chapter that Jesus' verbiage about the sheep and the shepherd, and how he talks about really two different kinds of shepherds.

They he's making the claim that I am the good shepherd.

One of the things he says that can be a little bit confusing at the surface is verse 9, where he says, I am the door.

If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture, or verse 7, where he says just simply, I am the door of the sheep.

That's a statement that can get a little bit confusing.

Like you read that and you're like, okay, what does that mean?

Right.

Good shepherd, we kind of understand that.

Like we know Psalm 23, we know different passages of scripture that talk about that specifically, but then I am the door, like, what does that even mean?

In their time, shepherds would do something really interesting.

So they had like the sheepfold, which Jesus references in verse one, like a sheepfold where you basically like a like a fence area where you would keep all the sheep.

Except the thing was on that little sheepfold, so give us like a rectangle, there was no door on it.

So, what the shepherd would do is during the night when the most amount of threats were out, so like wolves, thieves, robbers, um, other wild animals, things like that, when all those things would be out in the night, the shepherd would wouldn't go in a tent and go sleep somewhere comfy because then they would be too zonked to hear the threats.

Right.

They would go out and they would literally lay flat at that little gap in the sheepfold, and they themselves, like the sh the shepherd, would be the door.

So they would just sleep there and protect the sheep from any threats that would come in, and they would allow and like if there was a sheep that for some reason got out or anything like that, like like they they are only able to get out if if the shepherd gets up and lets them go, or if the shepherd lets him in.

Yeah, uh, like the shepherd is the door blocking the way to the sheepfold.

So that being said, like I can just imagine being a shepherd in that day, how uncomfortable that is, how uh even borderline, like humiliating that is to like just lay on the ground surrounded by a bunch of stinky sheep that are sheep, like they're they're dumb animals.

That's what they're notoriously known for.

And I'm just laying there on the ground getting all dirty, all this stuff, probably not having a great night's sleep.

And um, it's it's the total opposite.

What Jesus is is really saying up is like I'm the good shepherd because I'm willing to serve the sheep.

The sheep don't exist to serve me.

Yeah, I exist to lay down my life for the sheep.

Yeah, the Pharisees is the complete opposite.

The sheep, the people of God, that from their point of view, all these people that were under their influence existed to serve them, to serve their ego, to serve their um their own compulsion, their own need for power and control, instead of them existing to serve the people of God.

Yeah.

Which is which is why God um instituted people to oversee law keeping and oversee all those things.

Yeah, oh, and even just the imagery of being a shepherd, um, the the door thing is is awesome.

And it kind of points to later in John 14 when he says that he's the way, the truth, and the life.

There's one door, you know, like and it's the shepherd, you know, it's him.

He but being a shepherd, like they are among their sheep.

Yeah, you know, the there's there's the master of the house and everyone else that's not in the pasture, that's not with the sheep in the relational sense, you know, like um he still owns the sheep, he's still master of the sheep, and he um wants his pasture to grow, you know.

But then there's the shepherd that is sleeping with the sheep, you know, that brings new sheep in and lets sheep out to go explore, you know, and degraze and all those things and protects them from danger.

Um, but the just the idea of again of Jesus being our shepherd and seeing when we fall, watching us grow, knowing what we need, seeing the danger and being present with us.

Man, what what a what a beautiful picture for him to paint of the kind of relationship he wants with us.

He wants to guide us, he wants us to know his voice and to know not only that we can trust him, but also he wants to be he wants to be close with us to make sure we're okay.

And so yeah, like the this this not only paints the the picture of God of Jesus being God, but also his intimate love and care for us.

Yeah um and the value that he places places in us, and um the value that he has in us is how he describes himself, you know, like man, that's a huge part of his identity is is that he loves his people.

And this just confirms again that that God is love, you know, and the the shepherd lays his life down for the sheep, yeah um to to protect us, to love us, so that we uh so that we can enter through that door and be of his pasture.

Yeah, yeah.

Right after Jesus makes that claim, I am the good shepherd, he needed to kind of give some of the angles of what that means.

Just shortly after that is when he says that the second big claim, which is I and the father are one.

If there's one big misunderstanding that we can have sometimes, it's that Jesus is kind of one person, like he kind of has his own personality, his own heart, his own character.

Like Jesus is super loving and caring and um would protect us, do all these things for us.

But then God the Father, like you read the Old Testament, God the Father is someone very different, like he's just wrathful, he's just has all this anger, and um, he's sovereign and it's all powerful, and it's to be feared, like all these things that we can kind of have this like paradox where Jesus is one way, God the Father feels like something different in the Old Testament.

But Jesus saying, like, I and the Father are one is saying that hey, like this isn't just my heart, this is also the father's heart, too.

Like our our hearts are the same, and then it's like we we're one.

I am the good shepherd, not just like Jesus, I am the good shepherd, as in like just myself, but also like God the Father is also the good shepherd.

I am the good shepherd.

Yeah, and I'm also the shepherd that David is writing about.

Literally, yeah.

Same one, I mean yeah, same way David is saying, like the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Um why is that?

Because God's providing everything that he needs.

Um He makes him lie down, green pastures, he leaves him beside still waters, and gives him all that he needs and comforts him in the middle of every dark thing he's walking through.

Uh and David walked through some dark stuff.

Yeah.

And he did a lot of bad things.

He did a lot of dark stuff himself.

Like there's a lot of a lot of really, really hard things there.

I'm sharing uh right now as as my girls are going to bed, I'm telling them the story of the life of David.

Yeah.

We start we started with uh with Samuel becoming a prophet, you know, and the the the the story of his birth and everything, and we're working through it, and we just got through the uh the portion of where uh Saul's in the cave relieving himself, and then David cuts a little bit of off his robe.

And um, but there's there's parts of his story I'm like, do I tell you about this?

You know, for like PG versions, yeah.

What are we talking about?

Like David lived a really hard life, you know, but like regardless of what he did and what happened to him, like in all the highs and the lows, he knew that it was that it was God that was near to him and that loved him and gave him everything that he needed.

Yeah, and Jesus is like that the Pharisees would know the Psalms of David, you know, very well, you know.

Um anybody else.

Yeah, and that the fact that he like tells them like that that shepherd that David's talking about, that God that was with him, uh, of this the the second king of Israel that everyone reveres that knows the Messiah will come from his line.

That's me.

You know, oh so cool, so cool.

And the fact that they that they don't see it is just crazy.

Um, so man, I my preferably that's watching today would that they would become so familiar with the voice of their shepherd that they would know his voice, that they would hear where he's calling them, that he they would understand that their shepherd loves them and wants to provide for them, um, that wants to be the intimate, deep relationship with them, that is the doorway as well, that that he is the key to being with him.

You know, he is the key to everlasting peace.

Um and that they would uh just again grow in their intimacy and their love for him and know that that no one no one can take his sheep away from him.

Yeah.

Um, that that you are secure in him.

Uh man, such such peace comes from this passage for those of us that believe that follow Jesus.

Um, I wish that the Pharisees would have seen that.

Totally.

But do you have a thought?

Oh yeah, just again, piggybacking off of it, I guess so good.

Just though I love the way Psalm 23 ends, the first six.

It can get they can get overlooked.

Like we we talk a lot about verse four, like, even though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me, you're running your staff that comfort me.

Like that, that's a like put that on every coffee mug.

Yeah.

Tattoo it to your face.

Like I like that's just beautiful.

But verse six can often get overlooked.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Um, that's that's what Jesus has done for us.

Yeah.

Um, no matter what you've been through, no matter what you've done.

Um, because we have a good shepherd, his goodness and his mercy follow you all the days of your life.

Um, yeah, such a good promise.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, thank you so much for your time today, Jacob.

Yeah, thank you.