The Good Shepherd Series

Only when you become familiar with Jesus’ voice and learn how to follow him will you be able to resist the voices of strangers. Our passage says in vv. 4 and 5 that “the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” What other voices are competing with Jesus to be heard in your life? How can you alter your priorities so that Jesus’ voice is the one with real authority in your life? Only when you become familiar with Jesus’ voice will you be able to distinguish his voice from that of strangers – and be able to run from the strangers of false teaching, other worldviews, media influence, etc.

I remember when I was in university and involved with IVCF. Someone was talking to us about spending time studying Scripture and doing our devotions. They said that if we considered our relationship with Christ more important than our studies, our use of time should reflect this fact. If we spend several hours a week studying and writing papers and doing homework, then shouldn’t we also make time for the Bible and for learning more about Jesus? And for us here today, how often could we read the Bible instead of watching television, reading newspapers, playing on the internet, reading secular books? As Paul says in Philippians 4: “Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Remember the three Rs: Read the word, reflect on the word, respond to the word. Jesus calls each one of us to listen to his voice, and only by listening to his voice will we be able to follow.

Our Shepherd is the Only Way

Where are we following Jesus? In the imagery of our passage we follow him into the sheepfold. We need to know, then, that the sheepfold could only be entered properly through one gate; there was no other access. Jesus takes this image of the gate and applies it to himself in order to tell us that he is the one through whom we are to be saved – he is the way. Jesus provides the entrance to eternal life. It is through Jesus that we find pasture.

One scholar says that “When Jesus identifies himself as the gate for the sheep, he points to the ways in which one’s place in the sheepfold, and hence one’s identity as a member of the flock, is determined exclusively by one’s relationship to Jesus as the gate. One enters the fold through Jesus.”

As Psalm 23 says, “He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.”

Ezekiel 34: 13 – 15 says this: “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 watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God.” These words are fulfilled in Jesus. By identifying himself as the good shepherd Jesus is deliberately recalling Ezekiel 34, thereby identifying himself as the one who fulfills the promises of God and does the work of God.