Do Sheep Hear Their Shepherd's Voice?

I submit to you that a vast number of those who claim to be Christ’s sheep are like those people in Roosevelt’s receiving line. How do I know this? Well, the other readings appointed for today show us.

Take that passage from Nehemiah, for example. There we read about some shepherds – Levites, and Nehemiah even gives us their names – who lead the people of God in the worship of their Lord. Later today, get your Bibles out and reread that entire chapter. What you will notice is something very, very common among faithful undershepherds: their praises of the Lord are quite historical, recounting the might works and judgments of the Lord. Creation, the covenant with Abraham, God’s judgment of the Canaanites, God’s judgment of the Egyptians, God’s leading his people forth into the wilderness, God’s giving the Law at Mount Sinai. Keep this passage of Scripture in mind the next time you walk into a Christian bookstore and survey the titles on the shelf. Keep his passage of Scripture in mind when you turn on the radio and listen to a church service being broadcast. Sometimes you will hear voices which match these in Nehemiah; more often, you will not.

Or take the passage from 1 Peter that we heard in the second lesson for today. Let me quote a couple of lines again: “But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. 21For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps.” How often do you hear that preached? How many television personalities in the Christian Broadcasting Industry would immediately lose all of their audiences if they began preaching and teaching something like THAT? When you hear the prosperity gospel people telling everyone that God wants us all to be driving Cadillacs and living in mansions, do you suppose they are … well, perhaps, they are NOT employed by the same head shepherd who employed the Apostle Peter? Jesus told Peter, feed my sheep, and here is Peter doing just that. Boy, it doesn’t sound anything like what I’d be apt to hear when I turn to the religious channels on the TV these days!

Or take the Psalm we sang earlier – the Lord is my shepherd. That one is so famous that I expect most of us here can recite it from memory. It was composed by a shepherd, King David, who recognized in all the ways God related to him the marks of a good and faithful shepherd. David the shepherd sees himself, rightly, as one of the sheep. Is the Lord your shepherd? How would you know?

I submit to you that Jesus’ words of admonition to the Pharisees in today’s gospel lesson also give to us the answer to this question. We can know our shepherd’s voice, and we can judge the faithfulness of his undershepherds by hearing his voice, knowing his voice, in the words of the Scriptures.

“20Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”