The Good Shepherd Series

Many years ago, Candid Camera staged their prank at an exclusive boy’s prep school where all of the students tested well above average. Candid Camera staff posed as career consultants who assessed and interviewed the brilliant young men to determine what career would be best suited to them.

At the end of all the testing, one young man eagerly awaited the “career counselor’s” verdict. Surely, the counselor would tell the boy to pursue becoming president of a college or a bank. Maybe, he should pursue a career as a research scientist, something in line with his “superior” intellect. But, no, the “counselor” had other ideas. He told the young man:

“Son, after evaluating your tests and interview, I’ve decided that the best job for you is—a shepherd.”

The student did not know whether to laugh or cry. After all, who wants to be a shepherd? Why devote your life to “stupid sheep” who do not seem to have sense enough to find their way home? (Warren Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary).

Shepherd is not the first career choice for many, but that is how God identifies Himself to His people. In Psalm 23, David, the Shepherd King, writes, “The Lord is my Shepherd.” And in John 10, Jesus identifies Himself as the “good shepherd.”

So, what is Jesus saying when He says, “I am the good shepherd?” And what does that mean to follow such a shepherd? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to John 10, John 10, where Jesus makes it very clear what it means to follow Him.

John 10:1 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber (ESV).

In this context, the thieves were the Pharisees, who in the previous chapter kicked a beggar out of the synagogue. They did not care for this man or anybody. Instead, they mistreated him and thew him out. On the other hand, Jesus, the good shepherd took him in.

John 10:2-6 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them (ESV).

In Jesus’ day, several flocks of sheep were often kept in one big sheep pen with a stone wall all the way around it. A gatekeeper guarded the pen at night to prevent thieves and wild animals from entering. Then, in the morning, each shepherd came to the pen to call his own sheep and take them out to pasture. When a shepherd called, only his sheep would respond. The rest would scatter away.

In Palestine today, it is still possible to witness a scene very similar to this. When Bedouin shepherds bring their flocks home from the various pastures they have grazed during the day, often those flocks will end up at the same watering hole. They get all mixed up together—eight or nine small flocks turning into a convention of thirsty sheep. Even so, their shepherds disregard the mix-up. When it is time to leave, each shepherd issues his or her own distinctive call—a special trill or whistle, or a particular tune on a particular reed pipe—and that shepherd's sheep withdraw from the crowd to follow their shepherd home. They know to whom they belong. They know their shepherd's voice, and it is the only one they will follow (Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life, Cowley, 1993, p. 147; www.PreachingToday.com).

And that’s what it means to follow your Good Shepherd. 1st…

HEAR THE SHEPHERD’S CALL.

Listen for Jesus’ voice. Pay attention to His invitation to follow.

In 1801, at the age of 30, Ludwig van Beethoven complained about his diminishing hearing: “From a distance I do not hear the high notes of the instruments and the singers’ voices.”

Harvard professor Arthur C. Brooks notes that Beethoven “raged” against his decline. To be able to hear his own playing, he banged on pianos so forcefully that he often broke them. By the age of 45, he was completely deaf. He considered suicide but his conscience kept him from going through with it.

He lost all access to the world of sound around him. At times, he held a pencil in his mouth against his piano’s soundboard to feel the harmony of his chords. However, after he was completely deaf, Beethoven produced the best music of his career. That music culminated with his incomparable Ninth Symphony, a composition so daringly new that it reinvented classical music altogether.