Shepherd At The Gate

Shepherd at the gate

John 10:1-21

Good morning everyone, certainly glad that you are with us this morning. May God touch you with His Word.

Prayer- Father let us come this morning with no perceived idea of what you want to say to us. Lord we just that you want to speak to us. May our hearts be open and ears tuned in to your voice so that we may experience the good shepherd first hand. In Jesus name! Amen.

Turn to John Chapter 10. Let’s start by reading the first 10 verses.

It is the parable of the Good Shepherd spoken by Jesus himself.

Shepherds get a bad rap because of their standing in the community.

They were the not so nice.

They were the rough necks.

The Gypsies that come to town where everybody watches their belongings

The uneducated, the smelly ones that you would not want in your fancy restaurant or guest in your home.

I personally believe that God uses shepherds throughout scripture to show that no matter where you are on the social ladder, that God can use you and me.

He used the smelly, dirty Shepherds to announce the birth of Christ the Messiah.

Shepherd David went from dirty Shepherd to King of Israel.

To grab this in the right context, you have to see who He is talking and what He meant by the content.

Jesus himself is speaking (Red letter) about sheep- want to know why he compares us to sheep?

They are not the smartest animal and sometimes we are not either.

Sheep get lost easily; they wander from where they belong.

They cannot fight off enemies and need a shepherd

They become beside themselves when they are in need of food or shelter. Ever see a guy in the store trying to buy a Christmas present. Deer in the headlights.

Sheep are dirty and need someone to clean them up. They could not do it on their own.

When sheep fall on their backs, they are like sea turtles on land, they cannot get up by themselves.

Sounds like people today! The good thing about sheep is they learn to know the voice of their shepherd- more about that in a minute.

The text right before chapter 10 talks of Jesus healing a blind man from birth.

Jesus asks the man if he believes in the “Son of man”, the man says yes and begins worshipping the Lord. Jesus makes a statement- “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see, and those who see will become blind.”

There were some Pharisees present when Jesus did this they said “What are we blind too” Jesus says, if you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”

If I was writing, it would like yea…duh! You are not only blind but you are full of yourself!

Listen to the first verse of the text again- “Very truly I tell you Pharisees… He is coming after the religious that have no relationship with Him. He is coming after all the skeptics who claim they know Him but do not know Him and are spiritually blind to the things of God.

Anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way is a thief and a robber. The sheep pens were usually made of stone on all sides with a gate. It is a pen to protect the sheep at night from outside dangers. Animals, and people who would rob and steal and hurt them are kept out. Different versions of text call them different things but there was a watchmen, gate keeper, on the gate. No one got in except the shepherd.

The shepherd’s voice was familiar to the sheep and they followed the shepherd where they needed to go. The shepherd would call “out his own” and his own followed.

It was not unusual for several shepherds to keep their sheep in the same pen.

It was not a problem of who’s sheep were who’s because they followed their shepherds voice and were afraid of the other shepherds as they entered the pens.

Scripture says that the Pharisees did not understand and needed Jesus to interpret.

We see the importance of the Shepherd in our lives to keep us safe and from the enemy of our souls.

As dumb as sheep are, they know their shepherds voice.

We begin to see the player’s here-

We are the sheep

Jesus is the shepherd

The Pharisees are the thieves and robbers.

The blind man went against the Pharisees and worshipped Jesus once he saw and experienced who he was and the Pharisees didn’t like it.

They claimed to be the ones who saw but they were the blind ones!