Pay Attention To Who You Follow

John 10 (2)

Pay Attention to who you follow

- Read John 10:1-21

In verse 4 we read, “And His sheep follow Him because they know His voice.” His sheep follow Him.

The writer John makes it clear in this Gospel, that the Shepherd in this passage is Jesus, and the sheep He is referring to are those who are saved. Those who have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

And again, in verse 4 we read, “And HIs sheep follow Him because they know His voice.”

My friend, who and what you follow in this life can make all the difference win the world in where you end up and how you do, both in this life and in the one to come.

There is a tire store you can go into right now in Orange City. If you walk in the front door and look to your left, 90% of the time you will see an older gentleman sitting there in the corner chair, watching TV. He used to be an electrician. He had his own company in Sanford. At one time he had over 20 electricians working for him. He had a house on the St. John’s River that in the 80s and 90s was worth over 1 million dollars. There’s no telling what it’s worth today.

His first wife died at a relatively young age and he decided to marry again. He’s still married to his second wife, but they no longer live together. As a matter-of-fact, he lives in a small place in Debary. He goes down to the tire store for the company, and because they have cable tv he can watch, because he can’t afford that at home.

Why the change? What happened? He followed his passions instead of the Lord, and it cost him everything he had spent a lifetime building.

Who and what you follow makes all the difference in the world, both in this life and in the life to come. Who or what are you following?

Are you following a plan you put in place, working and striving to get ahead?

Are you following a path put in place for you by your parents? Some parents try to live through their children. They try to accomplish all the things in life they wanted to accomplish and all the things they wanted to do in life through their children, with no regard for how the Lord has shaped or made them.

Are you following a path laid out for you by others? You’re growing up and people say, “You’d be good at such-and-such” and you spend your life trying to accomplish and do what others have said about you without ever thinking about what you really want to do, and without ever thinking about how the Lord has shaped and made you.

Are you following a path of least resistance? You get out of school and know you need to get a job, know you need to start working and making a living, so you take the first job you come across and then are unable and scared to leave that job, because you’ve gotten a little good and it and you can’t walk away from the money you’re making so you spend a lifetime doing a job you hate.

A while back I was at Sunniland in Sanford, talking to the manager there. Sunniland sells 2 products. They mix, bag and sell fertilizer and they sell roofing materials. Their slogan is, “from roots to roofs.” I was talking to the manager there, about the roofing business, and about roofers. He said, “No one plans to be a roofer. That is a job where they just end up.”

That’s one reason so many roofers, and a lot of people in the construction industry, end up leaving work early on Fridays, and calling in sick on Mondays, or coming to work on Mondays with a hangover. They drink, party, or whatever you want to call it on the weekends, trying to forget what their lives have become.

There is nothing in the world wrong with those trades. I’m a roofer myself. As a matter-of-fact, I was working on my brother-in-law’s roof several years ago and the guys installing the air conditioner in his addition said to me, “You’re a pastor?” I said, “Yeah.” And you’re a roofer? Yeah. Never saw one of those before.

I work 2 trades, just as Paul did, because that’s how the Lord led me, and let me tell you, it makes all the difference in the world who you follow. Let me ask you this morning, Who are you following?

Jesus says, “My sheep hear My voice and they follow Me.”

Let me tell you about my Shepherd.

I. My Shepherd Has Been around for a while.