Because Jesus is the Good Shepherd, You Can Share Your Faith Confidently

This morning we’re going to start a new sermon series that will run through Easter. I have chosen this sermon topic because I have heard directly from some of you but indirectly from a lot of you that you would like help in sharing your faith.

And the feeling that most people have is this: “I want to share my faith. I know I need to share my faith with unbelievers. But I lack confidence in sharing my faith. I don’t know how to share my faith. For whatever reason, I don’t feel up to the task.

And the first thing I want to say to you is that you’re not alone. Most Christians I have talked to feel kind of the same way, and this is true regardless of how long they have been Christians or how much they know. Sharing your faith with others is hard. It’s risky. You’re taking something that means the world to you and offering it to someone who may not respond positively. It’s personal. It makes us vulnerable. And most of us also know that we’re living through a time when there are likely to be more obstacles to sharing your faith, not less.

So this is why we’re starting a series on sharing your faith. Sharing your faith confidently. The first sermon in that series will come from John 10:11-16 and from that text I pray that you learn and internalize just one truth. That truth is the sermon title: Because Jesus is the Good Shepherd, you can share your faith confidently. But there are a couple of steps we have to go through to get there.

[SLIDE: STEP #1]

Step #1: The good shepherd cares for his sheep

The Good Shepherd cares for his sheep. Look into the text with me this morning at verse 11. First Jesus identifies Himself. “I am the good shepherd.” The OT Scriptures, Genesis through Malachi, talks a lot about God as the shepherd of His people, Israel. Most familiar to is the 23rd psalm. Psalm 23

Psalm 23 ESV

A Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even 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. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

The Lord is the shepherd of His people. Jesus is taking up that picture and applying it to Himself. He is our good shepherd. Good in contrast to the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, who loved policies and procedures more than they loved people. Good in contrast to the wicked King Herod. Good in contrast to the Roman Empire who ruled them with an iron fist. Jesus is the good shepherd.

How do we know? How good is He? He tells us in the very next sentence. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

This past weekend at the pastor and wife retreat, our speaker said something profound about sheep. Really profound. Are you ready for it? He said, “sheep are dumb.”

It’s true. Sheep are dependent. They are completely dependent on the shepherd for safety, for food and water, for shelter, and if they get injured. If they shepherds leave, they just lie down and starve to death. Or are eaten by wolves. Sheep don’t really think for themselves. The brightest sheep in the bunch may follow the leader, the but rest of them are just following the herd. So they’re easily led astray. Get this: sheep often can’t find their way back to the sheep pen, even if the sheep pen is, like, right there. [DBI p782]

So, for the sheep, everything rises and falls on the character and quality of the shepherd. So in verse 12, Jesus draws a contrast between himself and other so-called shepherds in verse 12, and given what I just told you about sheep, you can easily see that this is a problem: “He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.”

Jesus the good shepherd prefers the well-being of the sheep to his own life. The hired hand prefers his own life to the well-being of the sheep.

And we share our faith with others not out of obligation only, but also because we want others to know the joy of a relationship with Jesus the good shepherd.

Jesus the good shepherd cares about His sheep. If you have a relationship with Christ through faith in Him, you are His sheep. He is your good shepherd. Jesus the good shepherd who cares about His sheep, cares about you.

That’s step one. Step two: the good shepherd has intimate knowledge of his sheep.

[SLIDE: STEP #2]

Step #2: The good shepherd has intimate knowledge of his sheep

Jesus has intimate knowledge of His sheep.

We see this in verse 14: “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.”

Just take a moment and underline those words: “I know my own.” And think about it: let the words hang in the air and take root in your heart. Jesus says, “I know my own.”

That is a really affectionate way, an intimate way, for Jesus to describe His disciples — us. You don’t call someone “my own” unless you really, really love them, unless you have deep and profound affection for them.

You and I, if we use that phrase “my own”, we use of our closest family members. If you go gather some of your coworkers in the morning and give them a group hug and rub their shoulders and say “I just love my own”, you probably wouldn’t be able to work there anymore. But if after the service I go and grab Shannon and Abigial and Noah and do the same to them, and call them “my own”, that’s not weird. That’s appropriate. They are my favorite people in the world. You say “my own” when you’re talking about people that you love and like, people you have intimate knowledge of. Jesus calls you “his own.”

What kind of knowledge is this knowledge Jesus has of us and that we have of him? When Jesus says “I know my own and my own know me”, the word for “know” — you can’t see this from the English alone — the word for “know” is a word that means experiential knowledge. This is knowledge you gain of someone by spending time with them.

What is the depth of this intimate knowledge that Jesus has for us? What Jesus says next is simply stunning. Look with me, will you? I want you to see exactly what I am talking about, so you can see it coming directly from the inspired text of God’s word, and not just from me. Verse 14: “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and I know me.” We’ve already seen that. Now notice verse 15: “I know my own and my own know me” — and here it is — “just as the Father knows me and I know the Father”.

What I’m about to do I used to do alot. I’m going to quote someone. I’ve tried to stop doing that as of late. But sometimes I come across what another pastor has said and I cannot improve on it. This is from Charles Spurgeon, the great British Baptist pastor in the 19th century:

The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Vol. XXXII Our Own Dear Shepherd (No. 1,877)

Dost thou know how much the Father knows the Son, who is his glory, his darling, his alter ego, his other self—yea, one God with him? Dost thou know how intimate the knowledge of the Father must be of his Son, who is his own wisdom, ay, who is his own self? The Father and the Son are one spirit. We cannot tell how intimate is that knowledge; and yet so intimately, so perfectly, does the great Shepherd know his sheep.

Jesus has intimate knowledge of you, as complete and perfect as the knowledge that He has for His Father and His Father for Him.

And we share our faith with the lost because we want them to know the One who knows them intimately.

Jesus the good shepherd has intimate knowledge of his sheep. If you have a relationship with Christ through faith in Him, you are His sheep. He is your good shepherd. You are his own. Jesus the good shepherd who has intimate knowledge of his sheep, has intimate knowledge of you.

[SLIDE: STEP #3]

Step #3: The good shepherd gives His life for his sheep

We saw that Jesus intimate knowledge of His sheep. “I know my own, and my own know me.”

But maybe one or two of you here this morning would say, “Yeah, that’s the problem. Jesus knows me — all of me, the worst of me.” Here’s where you need to understand step #3: the good shepherd gives his life for his sheep. Five times in just verses Jesus makes reference to laying his life down for his sheep.

Friend, Jesus is not ashamed of you. On the contrary, He gave His life for you. That means He’s not afraid to get too close to you. He took your sin and laid it on Himself and then He laid His life down for you, bearing your sin and guilt, and He came forth from the empty tomb victorious over sin and death. He has dealt with all of that mess you bring to Him. You’re still dealing with it, but He’s sticking with you for the long-haul.

He is not intimidated by you or put off by the mess your life has become. Other believers may be surprised by your imperfection. Jesus is not surprised by your imperfection. Other Christians may be scandalized by your sin, but Jesus is not. Your family members or fellow church members may be disappointed by some of your choices. Jesus is not.

Jesus the good shepherd lays his life down for his sheep. Why did He lay His life down for us? you say, “Pastor Dustin, he laid his life down to show us that He loved us. Okay, but did His death accomplish anything for us? What’s the purpose of Jesus for us dying unless in dying for us He accomplished something for us that He could only accomplish in death?

“In the day you eat from [this tree] you shall surely die” (Gen 2:17 ESV). Adam ate from the tree and so did Eve. They rebelled against God. We inherited Adam and Eve’s sin nature, and we have willingly followed in their rebellion — each of us — in our individual lives.

God cannot live with us and our sin. God wants us to live forever with Him, though, so He has dealt with the sin. Jesus laid down His life and paid, in His death, the debt for our sin.

If you have a relationship with Christ through faith in Him, you are His sheep. Jesus the good shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep, also laid down his life for you.

Step 4: The good shepherd will call and save all his own.

[SLIDE: STEP #4]

Step #4: The good shepherd will call and save all his sheep

And now we turn our attention back to the topic of sharing our faith. So many of us feel such pressure when it comes to evangelism. What if we could be assured that the results don’t depend on us? So many of us fear messing things up when we share our faith. What if we could be assured that we can’t mess things up — that God is sovereign over the salvation of those we share our faith with?

I think can be assured of both of those things. Let me correct myself here — I know we can be assured of the fact that we can’t mess it up, and that the results don’t depend on us.

How do I know that? The answer is verse 16 of John 10. Will you look there with me? Jesus says, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold.” And then notice what Jesus says next: does he say “I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I will try to bring them, and maybe they will listen to my voice?” No, he says: “I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.”

You can share your faith confidently. The results are guaranteed. The results are guaranteed by God’s own power. Jesus says “I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.”

At the end of this series on sharing your faith, we’ll culminate all of this on Easter Sunday with a special emphasis on inviting your friends to church. If there is ever a Sunday when the lost or unchurched is willing to give church a try again, it is Easter.

So we’re going to encourage you to bring a friend to church on Easter Sunday and we’re going to have special cards for you to hand out with all the information about that serve on it.

Inviting your friends to church is something every single one of us can do even if all we do is hand them the card and say nothing. We can do this and we can do it confidently!

[SLIDE: WHAT WILL IT TAKE?]

What will it take to get them back?

Desire to make new friends: 28%

The invitation of a friend: 17%

Finding a friendly church: 17%

Finding a pastor they like: 18%

Finding a church they like: 14%

This text not only assures us that the results are guaranteed. What Jesus says also challenges and convicts us. “I have other sheep”, Jesus says, “that are not of this fold.” Do we have a passion for Christ’s other sheep who haven’t yet come into the flock? Do we realize that we ourselves were once sheep without a shepherd?

Some of us are calloused toward Christ’s lost sheep. Some of us would rather keep them outside of the walls of our church rather than let them come in and risk being hurt by them. Some of us are more concerned about how their presence in our church would change the dynamic in our church.

I hear this a lot: “we need to take care of our own first.” By which is meant “we need to attend to the needs of our congregation before we bring others in.” Church, we need to repent of that nonsense. As if God is not able to help us do both. Remember: we serve the Savior who leaves the 99 and goes after the one missing sheep and rejoices — all of heaven rejoices — when another sheep comes into the fold.

That means that our church does not exist for us. Our church is not a cruise ship carrying us to heaven. On a cruise ship, everything is about our pleasure and enjoyment. A church is more like a battleship than a cruise ship. We have a mission that involves more than our personal happiness in church. We exist for the lost.

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36 ESV). We are never more like our Savior than when we get the focus off of ourselves.

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23 ESV). We are never more like Christ than when we die to our own needs, and die to our own preferences, and die to our own opinions.

“All that the Father gives me will come to me,” Jesus said in John 6:37, “and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” This was apostle Paul’s way of saying it: “Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom 8:30 ESV).

This is why we can do VBS and Back to School Bash summer and know that the children Jesus is calling to follow Him will respond to His call. This is why we can be confident that when we hand out hot chocolate at Cherryville in December, God will draw some toward us and they will respond. This is why we can go to Hungary this summer, for the second year in a row, and we can know that our efforts will not be in vain.

Why? Because “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd” (John 10:16 ESV).

So the pressure is off. All you and I are called to do is share. God does the rest. Now He says, “Go!”

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:19 ESV). Jesus commands us to be his verbal witnesses not just in our churches but outside our churches, branching out beyond the walls not just of our church but our state and our country. “You will be my witnesses”, Jesus says, “in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8 ESV).

[SLIDE: TITLE]

Call for response

What if we don’t? It’ll be our loss. Jesus says He will draw His other sheep. He assures us they will hear His voice and He will bring them. God’s purposes in saving a people for Himself for all eternity will never be thwarted or undermined. If we don’t do it, He’ll just use someone else, and it’ll be our loss.

Share your faith confidently, because God is working behind the scenes and preparing and drawing them to Himself, and He wants to use you as His instrument.

So let’s give our faith away. We can do it confidently because Jesus is the good shepherd/ who cares for his sheep, and knows his sheep, and gives his life for his sheep, and who will call and save all His sheep.