Jesus – The Good Shepherd
Pastor Glenn Newton
May 15th, 2011
Text: John 10:1-18
The Good Shepherd and His Sheep
1 “Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” 6 Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.
7 Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.[a] They will come in and go out, and find pasture.10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
I have a question for you this morning….. it’s pretty simple. “Has Jesus been a Good Shepherd to you? Has He demonstrated the qualities of a good shepherd in your life?” This morning I want to talk about what those qualities are, and I want you to ask yourself…Has Jesus offered these qualities to me? How have I responded?
Let’s talk about sheep for just a minute. In this passage, Jesus is the Good Shepherd and we are compared to the sheep of his flock. Since we don’t have any sheep herders here this morning that I know of, let me share just a couple of insights about sheep.
a. Sheep are not pictured as the most intelligent animals in the animal kingdom. The truth is sheep are known to jump off cliffs when put into pressure situations and they don’t know what to do…they are followers by nature…they need a leader.
b. Sheep are known to be stubborn. If left to their own devices, they will find themselves in danger. So, they are not real bright and they are stubborn. Are you starting to get the picture?
c. Have you ever taken your kids to the zoo and hear the kids say, “let’s go see the sheep!” I’ve never heard that. They are not known for their superior qualities, anything that would make them stand out in a crowd.
d. Last, but not least this morning….they pretty much are defenseless. They are not fast. They don’t have a lethal bite or sting. They have no secret weapon to defend themselves; they pretty much are lunch on a platter if they are not protected by some outside force.
Knowing all this information helps us understand how important the Shepherd is to the sheep. The truth is that the Shepherd makes all the difference, in life and death to the sheep.
The image of the shepherd and the sheep is interwoven throughout Scripture, showing us the relationship we can have with God, as Jesus is the Good Shepherd. What we can come to know is that God has offered us a special connection to Himself, through a personal relationship with Jesus. Let’s look at how this Shepherd to Sheep relationship is displayed in this passage.
1. Jesus wants to get personal…..first name basis. V. 3 (Read v. 1-3)
I don’t know if you have ever known someone who just had the gift to remember names. Every one of us would like to be remembered, we would like people to remember our name. John Maxwell told this story; He was a pastor of a church in California that ran in the thousands, so he would have not five or ten visitors a week, but literally over a hundred on most Sundays. As part of their visitor orientation, he would ask if they could take a Polaroid picture to be put with their information. He said he would come into the office on Monday and start memorizing the names as he looked at the pictures, he would spend a couple hours every week working on knowing the names of those first time visitors so that when they walked in the next week he would be able to call them by name. He said it worked, people loved it, it made them feel like they were known, and they were in a place that cared about them.
3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. This morning, I want you to remember who it is that is calling you by name. I want you to remember this morning that this one who knows your name, He not only knows your name, He died personally just for you, He laid down his life for you.
Jesus Christ, the creator of the heavens and the earth, He calls you by name, even today, right now. He has a message for you today. Will you listen to his message this morning? I believe He wants you to hear this right now.
“Whatever kind of hurt that you are experiencing today….Jesus is calling your name and is saying that He wants to protect and heal you”
“Whatever situation that you find yourself in today….it may be a long ways from where you intended to go in your life, but just like the sheep that has went astray and been lost….today, Jesus is telling you, As the Good Shepherd, he has come to find you….he’s calling you by name.
Friends, there are a lot of voices that are calling for our attention. Loneliness, loss of a loved one, hurt and anger, addictions, the voices are many and they can get so loud that we shut out the one voice, we tune out the one voice that truly cares about us and wants the best for us… who are you listening to this morning.
God offers intimacy to you through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, maybe you already have accepted Him as Lord of your life, but somehow, someway you have allowed his voice to become distant and you realize that you are in danger because the wolves, the predators have moved close and you know you can’t defend yourself…I have Good News, the Shepherd has come close today, the only question is will you listen and follow Him? He offers safety and relationship….the closer you are to Jesus, the safer you are.
Jesus wants to get personal. The Christian life is not about being acquainted, it’s not about being associated with Jesus….it is about being Intimate. This is a Love affair kind of thing. This is a passionate relationship that drives your life, because when Jesus takes hold of your heart, when you let Jesus heal and forgive and do His transforming work in your life… you are different, you are on fire with this Holy Love that just flows out of your life….people become important again in your life. God’s love in you does a funny thing…..it makes you love people; even the hard to love kind of people….How’s that going?
2. The Good Shepherd leads his sheep, he doesn’t drive with a whip. V. 4
4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.
From what I have read about this sheep and shepherd relationship, the sheep are very in tune with the shepherd’s voice. Sheep are kind of on the nervous side, they are a little antsy, I’m thinking most likely because they know they have no way to defend themselves…that would make me a little nervous too. But what we do know is that the sheep only respond to their shepherds’ voice.
We need to get the picture here. These Shepherds were trained at a very early age, many times they were in charge of their flock of sheep by the age of 12, 13 years old. Sheepherders was a common job, but it was well respected because people understood that the Shepherd had a lot of responsibility and also would need to show courage when the wild animals came around to take one of the sheep. The shepherds would literally spend night and day with his sheep. The sheep would learn to depend on the shepherd to lead them to good pasture, they would depend on him to lead them to water, they would depend on him to keep them from danger, they were dependent upon the shepherd to have their best interest in mind with every decision made. There is a word that goes along with this kind of relationship. Love, Care, Protection….well there’s three words.
One of the most frustrating aspects about teaching 11 and 12 year olds is that many times when I am trying to lead them through a lesson, they don’t want to follow. I know most of you probably just love Math, I can tell that the memory of your Math classes just bring an overwhelming joy to your face. I realize that not all my students enjoy math either. But as you found out hopefully, math has a lot of concepts that build on one another. If you don’t learn the concept, the idea, you will have trouble grasping the next concept and so on. This is why so many people don’t like math, they missed the foundational concepts and math never made sense to them again.
What’s frustrating is that they just want the answer, they don’t want to learn the concept, they just want the answer so they can say they finished the lesson. I can try my best to lead them, but if they don’t want to follow or listen…not much will be learned.
How true is that in our lives. Jesus is calling us to follow, He has some important concepts about the Christian life He is wanting us to learn, but we are to worried about getting an answer, we are more worried about just getting through, we don’t like to struggle, we don’t want to wrestle….God, just give us the answer!
There are a lot of concepts in the Christian life that we need to learn, they are foundational to our walk with God. When we are not willing to listen and follow Jesus, we are missing the lesson, we are missing the important learning that will help us with the things that will come later in our lives. I want to challenge you this morning to not be like the 11,12 year olds who only want the answers all the time, who are not willing to learn the lessons, who chose not to follow the instructor and miss out on the most important parts.
Are you following Jesus this morning? Do you know His voice? Have you spent enough time with him, just following Him, just enjoying his presence, so that when He speaks you know it’s Him?
Here’s what I do know. Our world is filled with voices that are working to distract you. Some of you here this morning are trying to make decisions about important things; life altering decisions…are you listening to God’s voice? Satan will bring all kinds of distractions into our life to keep us from listening to our Shepherd. I don’t think I have told this story to the church, I know I have shared it with my church board, but it’s a great example of distractions and how they could potentially take us out of God’s will.
As you know, the last two years have been eventful to say the least. Not only in the life of the church but also in our personal lives. Let me share the highlights…..
About two years ago Calah started really struggling with her health, multiple surgeries and just a lot of problems, at the same time, Nola’s Dad was diagnosed with cancer. At about the same time, because of some unfortunate circumstances our personal finances went into a all time crisis mode…while that was going on in our home, there were some things going on in the church….. maybe you remember…
We found out that the Daycare was in big time debt to the IRS… that was one of the toughest days Nola and I have ever endured.
Not long after this, after 8 years of ministry to lots of families, we were forced to close NG
The church had just celebrated being debt free six months earlier, now we were going to take on over 100,000 worth of debt….remember all this was happening within a short period of time….
Then, after Christmas, 2009 the church had a water line bust and it flooded the church, which lead to the building being totally gutted and starting over from scratch…we used port a potties in our parking lot for almost two months….it was awesome….do you remember?
In the midst of all this stuff, during some of the darkest days of our ministry I got a call out of the blue. It was a District Superintendent from the Dallas/Ft.Worth area, someone that I have never met. He introduced himself and told me that He had an invitation for me and my wife to consider. He had a church, with a new building, a new multipurpose building…(you know the kind we have been trying to build for the past 15 years)… a church that ran about 100 people, in a big community….they wanted me to come down there and interview for the job.
I literally laughed out loud and said, you got to be kidding me. Why in the world did that invitation come right then? When I was at my lowest, here came a voice….hey, it was a voice that was offering something good….It was a step up…it was a church…it couldn’t be bad could it?
I didn’t even have to talk to Nola, I told him thank you for the call but that because of where we were and everything we were in the middle of, there was no way we could leave the church. Plus, we love New Hope and have no intention of leaving.
Sometimes, the voices can be disguised as good things, things that will “help” us. But if we are not listening to God’s voice, it can still be used to destroy us and the people around us that will be affected by our wrong choices.
Who’s voice are you listening to? Do you have an intimate relationship with Jesus this morning? He is calling you this morning, he wants to speak to you. Here’s the truth. God is faithful to talk to us, we can never say God isn’t talking, because He speaks to us through His Word, and through prayer….and God even makes sure that we can hear…the question is are we listening?
There is a difference between hearing and listening….amen.
Isn’t it time to tell God that you’re ready to listen to His voice? Aren’t you ready to learn the lessons that He has been trying to teach you? The truth is we need to go through the trials of life so we can learn the lessons God has for us…..let’s trust the Good Shepherd.
