You’re In Good Hands Series

Today, we're going to look at John 10. This is the passage about the good shepherd. In order to look at the good shepherd passage, this is the one that's going to talk to us about the shepherd knows each one of his sheep by name. That we hear the shepherd’s voice, we recognize it, and we listen to it. In order to talk about John 10 though, I want to go back to the favorite psalm we have, Psalm 23, and look at that psalm for a moment. Because it's the shepherd psalm. So would you stand with me and let's just read it together if we could.

Read this with me. This is Psalm 23. Some of you have this memorized, but this is the ESV version. Let's read it together. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. That's a great psalm.

The Bible uses this picture of the shepherd and the sheep a number of times. I think of Isaiah 53:6 where it says – All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. I think, wow, it is true that we like sheep go astray. We tend to find other grass. We tend to listen to the wrong voices. We have to be careful of that. We're going to be reminded of that today as we look at John 10.

Jesus got out of the boat, and He looked at all the people and the Bible says He had compassion on these people in the crowds because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

There's that one story that Jesus was told to defend Himself against the religious leaders who were saying, “Why does he hang around with all these publicans and sinners, tax collectors?” And Jesus said, “There was a shepherd who had 100 sheep and one of the sheep drifted off and got lost. What would the shepherd do? The shepherd would leave the 99 and he would go after the one.” Just describing Jesus’ response, even to us. That He wants to connect with us. He wants to find us.

Maybe you feel like you're that lost sheep today. Maybe you don't know the shepherd’s voice. And maybe today will be that time where you say, “Yes, you know, I want to commit myself to Jesus. I'm realizing that this understanding of discipleship and following Jesus is different than what I had learned or what I've thought. I want to make that commitment to be a sheep to follow Jesus in my life.”

I am privileged as a pastor to see in 1 Peter where Peter takes the same word poimen (shepherd) and applies it to the pastoral role. It says as a leader, you need to pastor the flock. I think, wow, what a good picture of the job of a pastor. We're not policemen, we're not guards in that sense. But we're pastors of the flock. What a privilege.

I think we're going to learn some really good things today in John 10. It is the classic passage that teaches us all about the good shepherd. But as we start the passage, John starts or Jesus starts by talking about the other people that interact with the sheep besides the shepherd.

Let's pick it up in John 10. It says this: “Truly, truly (or amen, amen) I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens.”

We have to start by recognizing there are other voices out there, there are other situations, there are people who are trying to hurt us and harm us in our world today. They're trying to destroy us. Many times you might start thinking, going down that negative path in your own mind, you start getting anxious, or you start getting angry, or you're finding yourself in despair. You're listening to the wrong voice. There are thieves, there are robbers that are trying to harm us, to damage us. We need to know that. Because it's the midst of that context that we have to realize there is a good shepherd that we want to listen to and pay attention to.