The Good Shepherd (10Min)

The Door

Illustrate this- A shepherd would sit or prop up at the opening of the sheepfold. It is only by Jesus that one enters the sheepfold.

The Thief

The sheep don’t listen to the voice of the thief. Why? The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

The Good Shepherd

And then Jesus uses this phrase right here… I am the Good shepherd.

When we think of Jesus as a shepherd, we often think of Him snuggling a lamb, but when Jesus tells people he’s a shepherd, they’re not imagining that. A shepherd in Jesus’ day was a hard worker. People didn’t like to be around shepherds because they smelled like sheep, and sheep smell gross! So why would Jesus call himself a shepherd, and further, why would he distinguish Himself as the good shepherd?

This right here… The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Think about that for a moment… What kind of a shepherd would do such a thing??

Let’s just try to make that make sense… You see, sheep exist for the shepherd. I grew up on a farm, and I know that our livestock were there for us. We’d eat the chicken eggs, process a cow every once in a while, and all of that.

We wouldn’t die for those animals. Many times, those animals died for us!

Jesus turns this expectation on its head in order to teach us something. He does this a lot, you know. In this, He teaches us about His love for His people. The truth is we exist for God’s sake, not our own. He made us. We exist for Him.

But yet, Jesus came down to this earth to serve us and to DIE FOR US.

Crazy. But that’s the kind of love God has for us. He’s a giving God. And not only does He love us and did He die for us, Romans 5.8 tells us:

Romans 5:8 ESV

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

We were sinners and yet Christ died for us… Wow. Sin isn’t just something that deserves a hand-slap. Sin is when we take what God says, and we say, “No, God, I think I can do better than that,” and we go our own way. “I can meet my needs without You, God.” That’s kind of offensive when you’re looking at the Creator of the Universe who knows everything, isn’t it?

And looking at our sin and rebellion against Him, God chose not to wipe us out of existence but to make a way for us to be brought back into His family.

That comes through repentance and trusting in Christ: Salvation.

Should we continue to go our own way, we show ourselves to be deceived by the Thief, we have no answer for our sin, and consequently, we go where the Thief will spend his eternity along with him. In Hell.

But! If you would turn from your sin and trust Jesus, He will save you from your sinful way and secure your place in eternal Heaven with God.