What’s In a Name?
Week 6: I Am the Good Shepherd
Have you ever thought about the fact that church is the only place you hear someone described as a sheep like it’s a good thing? Outside the pages of Scripture, no one describes being sheeplike as anything desirable, You’ve never heard of a sports team being called “the sheep.” You’ve never heard of a gangster called Tony the Lamb.
Vineyard, what kind of truck do you drive? Would you have bought it if it was the “Dodge Sheep?” Come to think of it that may be why Yugo went out of business. No one wanted to drive a car named after a female sheep.
No one wants to be described as a sheep. If you look up “sheep” as it refers to human beings you get a person who is meek, stupid, timid, submissive, unimaginative, easily led, without initiative. docile, compliant, or easily influenced.
In 2017, Webster’s dictionary officially added “sheeple” to the dictionary. Sheeple is a mashup of “Sheep” and “people.” The word was used for people who uncritically took everything the media or the government or politicians told them at face value. It hit its peak during Covid when it started being applied to people who followed the mask mandate or practiced social distancing.
So it is interesting that most of us would never want to be known as a sheep. And yet, Psalm 23:1 is the 8th most searched for Scripture passage on Google, and the most popular funeral passage. You know it, don’t you: “The Lord is my … [audience].”
So if the Lord is your shepherd, what does that make you? [sheep]
But that’s weird. That’s counter-cultural. Most people today, especially those who don’t have any Biblical frame of reference, would hear us talking about being the sheep of God’s pasture and go—why would anyone want to be a sheep? Stupid, timid, submissive, unimaginative, docile, compliant, helpless, weak, easily influenced. That’s not me. I’m the captain of my fate. I’m the master of my soul.
But here is the big idea for this sermon. And if you get this—if you really understand it, then you can leave now. If you really live like you get this main idea, you can go ahead on to Huey Magoo’s or Olive Garden or wherever you go for Sunday lunch, because this is all I’m going to talk about. Are you ready? Here is the big idea:
If you have a good shepherd, it’s okay to be a sheep.
Jesus is the Good Shepherd
And so this morning, we are going to study Jesus’ 4th I Am statement: I am the Good Shepherd. We are in John 10. We read verses 1-10 last week, so this morning we are going to zero in on verses 11-18.
11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may 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 I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”
May God bless the reading of his word. Let’s pray [pray]
Background:
I want to make a really profound, deep, theological observation as we dive into this morning, and you don’t want to miss this or forget it, so write this down. I noticed in my studies this week that Chapter 10 comes right after chapter 9.
And in chapter 9, just to recap for those of you that maybe weren’t here last week, Jesus healed a man who had been born blind. Now this was significant, because the Old Testament prophet Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah would open the eyes of the blind (42:7), and we have talked about how there is no record anywhere in the Old Testament of anyone opening the eyes of the blind. So the Pharisees and teachers of the law are grilling this guy to try to figure out who Jesus is. Because, see, He had done this miracle on the Sabbath. And so the Pharisees are having some cognitive dissonance between two opposing ideas: First, Jesus has to be from God, because no one else could heal a man born blind, but second, Jesus can’t be from God because no one coming from God would break the sabbath. So they don’t know what to do with Jesus. He’s breaking their rules. But he’s doing things that only someone who came from God could do.
So the scribes and Pharisees are freaking out. And they had already said that if anyone said Jesus was the Messiah, they would be barred from the synagogue. Sure enough, the man born blind said he believed Jesus was from God, so they chucked him out.
And maybe you are wondering what any of this has to do with Jesus being the Good Shepherd. Well in order to understand what qualifies someone as a good shepherd, you first need to understand what a bad shepherd is. Turn to Ezekiel 34 for just a minute, but keep your thumb on John 10, because we will come back there.
Throughout the Bible, the idea of shepherds and shepherding has been a metaphor for the religious and political leaders of Israel. In fact, of the 114 times the word “shepherd” is used, only 20 of them are about actual shepherds and sheep. The other 94 are about God as shepherd, Saul and David and the other kings of Israel as shepherds, Moses and the priests and religious leaders as shepherds. Ezekiel 34 talks more about shepherds than any other chapter of the Bible. In this chapter, God says He is against the shepherds of Israel—both religious and political—for getting fat off the sheep without feeding the sheep. In verse 2 and 3, God says.
Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? 3 You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep.
They care for themselves, and not the flock. Twice, he emphasizes that they are not feeding the sheep. Then verse 4 tells us that the shepherds of Israel weren’t doing anything a shepherd was supposed to: they weren’t strengthening the weak. They weren’t healing the sick. They weren’t binding up the injured. They weren’t bringing back the strays.
Think about all those humane society commercials you see of dogs that are neglected and abused by their owners. Your heart goes out to those animals and you think, what kind of horrible person would treat a dog like that? Well that is the same feeling God has when He looks at shepherds who don’t care about the flock.
Worst of all, says God, these shepherds aren’t looking for the lost sheep. Look at 5-6:
5 So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered; 6 they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them.
If this is what shepherds are like, no wonder no one wants to be called a sheep. No one wants to be “fleeced.” People see politicians and preachers who are getting rich off the ones they are supposed to be leading, and they don’t want to have anything to do with either one.
And so what does God say He will do? Look at verses 9-16 in Ezekiel 34:
9 therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: 10 Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.
11 “For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. 12 As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. 13 And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. 14 I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. 15 I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD. 16 I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy.[a] I will feed them in justice.
There’s one phrase that is repeated eighteen times in this passage. Did you catch it? It’s the phrase I will. The Great I Am becomes the Great I Will.
• I will rescue my sheep and bring them home (v. 10-12)
• I will pasture my sheep. That means I’ll provide for their needs. I’ll give them rest.
• But I will also pastor my sheep.
• I will feed them. I’ll strengthen them. I’ll bind their injuries. I will. I will. I will.
So back to our main idea: if you have a good shepherd, its ok to be a sheep. The reason most people hate the idea of being a sheep is because they’ve never experienced a good shepherd.
Then along comes Jesus, who says, “I am the Good Shepherd.” All the things God says He will do in Ezekiel 34, Jesus says He is doing in John 10. Verse 14 says know my sheep and they know me. I call them by name.
In 1997, the movie Air Bud came out. (Air Bud is nearly 30 years old. I’m just going to leave that here). Air Bud tells the story of a golden retriever named Buddy. Buddy is at first owned by a bad clown who uses Buddy in his birthday party shows. The bad clown has trained Buddy with a rolled up newspaper, and beats Buddy whenever Buddy doesn’t do what he wants. So Buddy runs away, and he finds a little boy who teaches Buddy how to play basketball—and they go on to win the state championship, or something. (True story? I think this might have been an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary). Anyway, the bad clown sees Buddy on TV and wants him back. So he takes the kid to court. And the judge decides there is just one way to settle the case. He lets Buddy decide who he will listen to. Here’s the last scene of Air Bud:
[play clip]
You know the rest of the story. Buddy goes on to have a record breaking career in the NBA, while the bad clown goes on to live in the sewers in a small town in Maine. Or something like that.
But the point of John 10 is that all of these religious and political leaders who are fattening themselves on the flock are just a bunch of clowns. And Jesus is the Good shepherd. Who knows his sheep, calls his sheep, and lays down his life for His sheep.
Last week we talked a little about what a sheepfold would have looked like during the time of Jesus. At the end of the day, the shepherd would stand at the gate of the sheepfold and call to his sheep to come in. The sheep would pass under the rod of the shepherd one by one. He would count them to make sure they were all accounted for. He would inspect them to see if any of them were coming back with an injury or disease that the shepherd needed to attend to. Then, when all the sheep were present and accounted for, the shepherd would lay down in front of the gate and guard the sheep through the night. Basically saying to any predator or thief, you will get these sheep over my dead body.
But I want you to look closely at verses 17-18, because I think sometimes we miss the second half of the sentence. Jesus didn’t just lay down His life for His sheep. Think about that. You’ve got this picture of the shepherd, guarding the opening to the sheepfold, and Jesus saying He lays down His life for the sheep. But you know, if the pack of wolves kill the shepherd, then the sheep are unprotected and the wolves just come straight in. So it wasn’t just that Jesus laid His life down. The gospel comes in the second hag of the verse:
17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may 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 I have authority to take it up again.
Jesus laid down his life—but three days later he took it up again. He defeated death! That’s the reason the last part of Psalm 23 says, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever!
The death of Jesus was a strategy, not a tragedy!
That’s the gospel message. But as we close, I want you to think about this: The gospel message isn’t just for the sheep that are already in the sheepfold. This is maybe the greatest difference between the Jewish religious leaders and Jesus.
Look at verse 16:
16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
