The Shepherd's Voice

“The Shepherd’s Voice”

John 10:1-15

Read John 10:1-15

The owner of a sheep ranch in Australia was arrested and charged with stealing his neighbor’s sheep. He vigorously maintained his innocence, however, claiming it was one of his own flock who had been missing, whom he had merely recovered from his neighbor’s pasture.

When the case went to court, there was no definitive evidence to decide it either way, so the judge very wisely called for recess and asked that the sheep in question be brought into the adjacent courtyard. When they reconvened, he then asked the man’s neighbor to step outside and call the animal. When he did, the sheep made no response except to raise its head and look frightened.

The judge then instructed the accused to do the same. He went into the courtyard and, using his own distinctive call, he called the sheep. As soon as he did, the sheep ran towards the door and that familiar voice. It was immediately obvious to the judge and to everyone else that this was, indeed, his sheep. “His sheep knows him,” the judge ruled. “It’s one of his own. Case dismissed.”

A shepherd spends a lot of time with his sheep, and as a result they develop a level of familiarity and intimacy with one another. The shepherd comes to know each of the sheep well enough to give them names, based either on their marking or their behavior. And the sheep will also grow accustomed to their shepherd--his ways and his voice--and they’ll develop a sense of whether or not he cares about them and can be trusted.

God is often spoken of in the Old Testament as the Shepherd of Israel. For example, in Psalm 100 we read: “...We are God’s. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.” And David, the former shepherd, beautifully described his relationship with God in those terms, in Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

And Jesus speaks of himself here as being that good shepherd, whom his followers can know and trust, and who will come to know his voice. He says of the good shepherd that “the sheep listen to his voice. He calls them by name and leads them out… and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they won’t follow a stranger; in fact, they’ll run away from him because they don’t recognize a stranger’s voice.” That was clearly illustrated in the Australian court case.

So, what does the Good Shepherd’s voice sound like, and what is it saying? Jesus provides a personal expression of God’s own voice, one that speaks to us in words of love and blessing. It’s a voice that calls us into a new and better life. Our belovedness is the foundational truth and the bedrock reality on which our salvation rests. God is love itself, who loves the world enough to send his Son, in a human life, to give of himself fully, even at the cost of indescribable suffering, and ultimately, death, to save us from ourselves and our sin.

Pastors used to commonly employ the phrase, “dearly beloved,” in their sermons to remind their congregation of the greatest truth of all: that we’re dearly loved by God. At the heart of our salvation is God’s gracious love for every person. We’ve been created precisely for that purpose, to know and to share his great love.

As Paul writes in the Book of Romans, “there is now, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (8:1). “No condemnation” means there is no longer the punishment of harsh judgment at all, ever. And he stresses that point emphatically by saying that there is absolutely nothing, no power that exists in Creation or the spiritual realm, that can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ, our Lord. It’s a perfect, pure form of love, unconditional and unchanging.

The spiritual blessings of joy and peace and hope are all really just different facets of God’s love for us--just as a diamond will refract light from every angle. All of God’s many blessings have their source in his amazing love. That’s why we always need to keep coming back to it as the wellspring of life. It’s that special quality of love we call “grace:” love in its essence, full of kindness and mercy, generously bestowed. We’re saved by that loving kindness, and only by God’s grace, never by our own works (Eph. 2:8-9). That’s where the joy and peace and hope all come from: in trusting that Jesus has already done for us what we never could. The good shepherd has already laid down his life for the sheep. We are dearly loved.