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Oops - The most rebellious heart longs still for God to be God.

Psalm 23 no slide

The Lord is my shepherd; I have what I need.

He lets me lie down in green pastures;

he leads me beside quiet waters.

He renews my life;

he leads me along the right paths for his name’s sake.

Even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, for you are with me; your rod and your staff—they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I...

will dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live.”

Something happened in your faces as I read that Psalm.

Tension drained, peace filled the gaps, I don’t know if you could feel it, but from up here, it was tangible.

If you have walked into a church for the first time this morning, knowing nothing of Jesus or the Bible, the odds are good those words were still familiar.

I have been at funerals of atheists and agnostics where this psalm is still read, often at the request of the deceased.

CS Lewis, pointed out in Mere Christianity that:

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

Even the most rebellious heart, at it’s core, has a longing for God to be real, and to be like David’s shepherd.

I have found far more atheists and agnostics who have rejected the God of scripture not because he is impossible, but because he has disappointed their expectations.

The bottom line is, we want Psalm 23 to be true. We want to know we have a shepherd.

Ugh - But the even the most humble heart fights to be the ultimate thing…though it makes us slaves to desires. The offshoot is attempts to be justified on your own. Religion, fear, and these leaders who were so decided about Jesus that they kicked the evidence of a miracle out of the community of faith.

But at the same time, even the most humble heart, the most religiously astute…fights to BE our own shepherd. Like toddlers insisting, “I do it”, we push ourselves into the God chair in our own lives.

I want to define myself, I want to justify myself, I want to protect myself, I want to earn it myself...

All the while, we can go back to Genesis 1 and read that God created the world and placed us in it for us to partner WITH him and depend UPON him.

That we definitely have a role to play, even leadership, but not in meeting our own needs…Our work was to tend the garden and meet the needs of one another. Trusting God to handle our needs…the way that a sheep…trusts a shepherd.

So we return to our story of the man born blind. One of the great things about being at the bottom of life, is your readiness to look for a shepherd. You know you have to depend.

Let’s look at what we’ve seen so far.

Aha! - Jesus, the bread, in response to their actions has already declared himself the light that gives life and understanding, and the gate who opens for the sheep, now goes one farther. He is the David’s shepherd. (11)

Jesus, who told the crowds: I AM the bread of life, I am what you actually need. Not what I can give you…you need me.

This Jesus comes to Jerusalem and outside the temple finds a man born blind whom he restores. This ends in a fight with the religious, who are already tired of Jesus.

Jesus declares again, I AM the light of the world. I AM the light that makes everything else make sense. For you to see correctly, you need to see God and creation through me and in that vision you will find life!

Then we get to where we were last week. The leaders kicked the man born blind out of the temple. Jesus receives this man and some of the religious who followed him keep the argument up.

In response to this excommunication, Jesus…and it’s funny…I think the voice actor we have in our head for Jesus is set on a default of like, a yoga instructor…be at peace, feel the room, I am the gate for the sheep…But...

That’s not the character and nature of God. Why do we tend to neuter the emotional range of Jesus when we are told in scripture how emotionally real he was.

As God, he knows why the temple was made. The point of the tabernacle and temple was to dwell WITH PEOPLE. And here were those who claimed to represent him…removing someone because of the work GOD had done in restoring his sight.

And so Jesus declares I AM the GATE. I open and shut for the sheep. You who come in and out any way that isn’t mine are only here to hurt the sheep. And last week we ended on the words,

I have come so that they may have LIFE and have it in ABUNDANCE!

And today we pick up right there, because Jesus has another I AM for us in this same response to the bad shepherds that were keeping people out.

Quick reminder, that in these texts we’re looking at in this series, when Jesus starts a statement, “I AM” he is directly referencing the name God gave Moses in Exodus when asked for God’s name.

I AM who I AM.

There is a reason each of these stories, if they contain religious people, end with them picking up stones. Jesus is making a claim about himself that they can’t tolerate.

Picking up in verse 11 of chapter 10.

John 10:11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

Don’t think they missed the point. They would have understood that Jesus was making a claim on being David’s shepherd, they would have heard the promises of God as a shepherd for his people echoing across the text of the law and prophets.

And Jesus says it so plainly. The claim absolute blasphemy and insanity if it isn’t true. I AM the good shepherd.

Then he tells them what the good shepherd does.

Whee! - And as the good shepherd, he is faithful (12-13), calling (14-16), offering (17-18), and holding (28-29).

Let’s follow the path here:

The Good Shepherd

Is Faithful

John 10:12-13 “The hired hand, since he is not the shepherd and doesn’t own the sheep, leaves them and runs away when he sees a wolf coming. The wolf then snatches and scatters them. This happens because he is a hired hand and doesn’t care about the sheep.”

The best human shepherds…fail.

David was called to be a shepherd for Israel as it’s king.

He had God’s shepherd’s heart for the people.

But then he grew complacent. He began to focus on himself. He sent his commanders out to lead in battle and stayed home.

He saw the wife of one of those commanders and decided she could be his.

The end result was a pregnancy, an attempted cover up, and when that failed murder.

I love God’s story-telling. There are so many ways he could have confronted David…but knowing David had been a shepherd, and given God’s call for David to be his people’s shepherd, God sends a prophet who tells David a story…about a sheep.

A poor man with one sheep has that lamb stolen for a rich man to feast on. What do we do to that rich man?

David’s shepherd’s instincts kick in and he is ready to go after that criminal…until the prophet says to David…you are the man. (that’s in 2 Samuel 11)

David was a great shepherd, until he wasn’t.

The priests were good shepherds, until they weren’t.

Every pastor, elder, life group leader, sunday school teacher, and worship leader are good shepherds until they aren’t. Every mayor, governor, president, and counselor are good shepherds…until they aren’t

From the subtlest failures to care, to the scandals that make the news, human shepherds always fail to love the sheep as they should.

I don’t say this to say we shouldn’t work at it. Each of you has a shepherding role and has shepherds in your life. I hope with every year that goes by, I am living out that role better than I was before.

I hope you husbands, wives, parents, friends, and every other kind of shepherd out there are doing the same.

But…there is only one Good Shepherd who won’t fail and his name is Jesus and he is the Lord.

Jesus is the one who leads us to green pastures, makes us lie down by still waters, restoring our souls.

Only Jesus can set out a banquet in the presence of our enemies and walk with us perfectly through the shadow of death.

Jesus is a faithful shepherd. If you have been let down by people, it means you have lived around people. And the truth is you have let others down in equal measure. But Jesus isn’t like us. He is perfectly faithful.

We can grow more like him…and we should…but only Jesus is THE good shepherd.

And what do we see that faithful shepherd do?

Is Calling

John 10:14-16 ““I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep. But I have other sheep that are not from this sheep pen; I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. Then there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

You may have Noted the phrase, now used for the second time, “I lay my life down for the sheep” which I skimmed past once. I’m going to do it again, because he’ll say it again…so hold that over here and catch this:

I know my own and my own know me. I have other sheep that are not from this sheep pen…I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.

They didn’t use sheep dogs in Israel.

You know how a shepherd led their sheep? With their voice.

The sheep knew their shepherd and followed him by voice recognition. To the point where if a shepherd died suddenly, they would be hard pressed to keep a flock together unless there was a second shepherd that the sheep knew as well.

The night Jesus is betrayed, to explain how the disciples are all going to run away he quotes from Zechariah 13:7 - Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered

Here is why this matters.

If you are wrestling right now with your place in God’s family, if you aren’t sure if you are worthy, if there is any part of you trying to earn a place with God HEAR THIS!

How does the sheep know it belongs to the flock?

pause

They’re called.

It’s not the color or texture of their wool, it’s not how often they wander away, it’s not their perfectly trimmed hoofs…They are called. They hear the shepherd’s voice.

We would find it ludicrous to think of a sheep refusing to respond to the shepherd’s voice because it didn’t know if it was worth it.

So why do we?

It comes back to that being our own shepherd thing. We fight so hard to prove we can do it ourselves, that we don’t need a shepherd, that we don’t want one…that we convince ourselves that in part, we need to earn one.

Are your wrestling with surrender to God because you feel like you aren’t enough? Hear his voice, respond. Remember, no one else is the gate. If HE is calling, HE is going to let you in. I can’t shut the gate on you, no one else can shut the gate. At this point, the only thing separating you from being in the gate is you.

It sure isn’t God. And it can’t be anyone else.

Romans 8:31-32 “What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything?”

Which brings us to our next point:

Is The Offering

John 10:17-18 “This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”

I told you we would come back to that.

Given the repetition, what is the key thing about Jesus being the Good Shepherd?

He lays down his life.

Throughout this series in the life of Jesus, I have pointed toward his statement to his disciples that anyone who would come after him must deny himself, take up their cross and follow him.

This is Jesus saying that HE WILL DO THAT. Not forced, no one is going to take his life away from him. He is giving it away. In the previous statements he gives the reason.

verse 11: The good shepherd lays down his life…for the sheep.

verse 15: I lay down my life…for the sheep.

You don’t have to know how the death and resurrection saves you.

We can get caught up in the mechanics of the thing…but thats not the point. Any more than the movement of gears in a watch is the reason for the watch.

What do you need to know about a watch for it to accomplish it’s purpose? You need to know it works.

This is what matters: Jesus is going to lay down his life. He is going to allow sinful men to nail him to a cross, to torture him and kill him in the most painful and embarrassing way possible.

Then he will take his life BACK.

The Father loves the son because the Son reflects the heart of the father to pursue by any means necessary reconciliation between God and humanity.

No slide Romans 11:33-36 “Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and untraceable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? And who has ever given to God, that he should be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.”

That’s the kind of shepherd calling. That’s the kind of shepherd we fight against when we refuse to surrender. The kind of shepherd that lays down his life for his sheep.

Oh the unsearchable love of God in Jesus. Do you know how loved you are? Can you fathom it? And it goes even farther! The Good Shepherd not only faithfully calls, and lays down his life for the sheep but he...

Is Protecting

There is more arguing at this point…some time passes, as the leaders continue the discussion, but before Jesus leaves Jerusalem they come back to him demanding he tell them if he is the Messiah…

Jesus must of done the incredulous head tilt at this point. “I did tell you…you don’t believe”

He says they don’t believe…because they aren’t his sheep. At least not now. And then he closes out this section with some amazing words for us.

John 10:27-29 “My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”

You know what can ruin God’s love and care for you? What can make you unacceptable before the throne of the King of Kings? What can drag you away from righteousness in Christ?

Not a thing. Jesus says I GIVE THEM eternal life. NO ONE will snatch them from my hand. NO ONE can snatch them from the FATHER’S hand.

Please hear me: This is not a call to receive Jesus because then you don’t have to worry about doing the right thing. You’ve got your fire insurance, so now go live in sin and rebellion all you want!

That’s silly.

That’s not hearing and responding to the voice of the shepherd. Eternal life is a different kind of life, not just one that doesn’t end.

Life with Jesus as the shepherd will change you. Because you can’t know that kind of Love without becoming something like it in the process.

Sheep are going to wander and get stupid. But they are going to follow when they hear the voice. And there isn’t a wolf in life’s wilderness that can mess with our shepherd.

What changes? What do the sheep do? They listen. They follow like P 23, (14), and they receive life. And those intent on their own justification can’t handle it. Jesus will close with a parting shot (30) and they pick up rocks to stone him. CS Lewis’ trilemma…do we hear him call? baptism, rededication. Do we allow him to speak through us so others may hear the call by the way we live and by our willingness to speak of our hope? Next week...

So if Jesus is the Shepherd, what do the sheep do.

They listen.

They follow like Psalm 23. Like verse 14 pointed out: John 10:14 I know my own, and my own know me

They follow the shepherd to green pasture and still water, they also follow through the valley of the shadow of death with NO FEAR because he is with them.

They live in confidence that they will be protected, that no matter what comes, even death or persecution that in the end, they will dwell in the house of the Lord forever because no one can snatch them from the father’s hand.

Jesus finishes the argument with the pharisees. After the claim about no one being able to snatch his sheep, he says something outrageous.

John 10:30 “I and the Father are one.”

They stoop to pick up rocks.

There is a little argument here and then Jesus doubles down by saying that the “Father is in me and I in the Father” and they try to seize him.

And Jesus leaves Jerusalem for some time.

These I AM statements, maybe this one more than any of the others, make it crystal clear that Jesus was something more than a teacher or just a really good guy.

This was a part of what convinced CS Lewis as an atheist to look closer at the claims of Jesus. He had grown up with the idea that Jesus could be just a teacher or example…but as he looked closer he saw differently. Later he would explain it this way:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.

As the worship and prayer teams come up, let me close with this call.

If you are hearing his voice, he’s inviting you to come. You have nothing to fear of being rejected because HE is not only the shepherd, but the gate. If he’s calling, you can be confident you are invited in.

We are two weeks from our baptism service on Easter. Baptism isn’t a step you take after you have achieved level 7 of spirituality. It’s a picture of the death and rebirth that takes place when we surrender to Jesus and place our faith in his work to accomplish our salvation.

If you’ve never taken that step of obedience, why not? Come talk to me or the prayer team afterward. We have a few already, the water will be ready and warmed up.

We’ll also have a time of rededication at our service. Like we did last year, we won’t ask you to come prove you’re recommitting, instead, like Jesus, we will invite you to come let us serve you.

Because that is how Jesus operates. We don’t earn it, we receive it. When we hurt him, he serves us. We have done this in the washing of feet. Following Jesus’ example in serving the very disciples who would all fail him later that night.

What better way to remind ourselves that we don’t judge those who struggle, we serve.

And if you know this love. If you have heard the voice of the shepherd and entered in to eternal life. If you know the love and grace of Jesus and have felt his power give you comfort and peace.

Will you in new ways beginning this week, let his voice be heard through you.

Let the lost hear the shepherd calling them home.

Let the wounded hear comfort

Let the lonely hear love

Let the fearful hear protection

On your drive home, count the houses. 9 out of 10 don’t have the hope you know. According to research, 3 out of those 9 would be willing to listen. And the other 6 are still filled with men, women and children we are called to love and serve in the name of Jesus.

Our shepherd is calling us to follow him. Not only into the pen, but out into the field.

Let’s pray.