Week 6 - I AM - The Good Shepherd

I Am: The Good Shepherd

Palm Sunday 2024

John 10:11-18

Series Slide

Good morning and welcome to worship on this beautiful day that the Lord has made! Renee, Evan, and I enjoyed our time together a couple of weeks ago, but it was good to get back here and do the work that needs to be done! This week, we celebrated an amazing life well lived in Virginia Surley. We have continued praying for Eric as he continues to recover from his surgery. And we continue to pray for Sandra and the family as we grieve the life of Ed Golden.

Now, in the midst of all that… we had a garage sale here at our church to provide funds for the graduates to be able to participate in a safe after graduation party.

Today, we are in the final hours of our Jubilee Weekend where we have had several men, including our Associate Pastor Shaefer Church, in prison sharing the love of Jesus with the men-in-white at the Haven’s prison unit. In addition to those on the inside, we have had people working in the kitchen to make sure that these men-in-white feel the Agape love of Jesus. Lives have been changed because of the ministry offered this weekend. Last night was a night of forgiveness as the men confessed sins and watched as those sins were washed away. Men gave their life to Christ, they rededicated their life, they committed their lives to Jesus… and you need to understand, these men are getting out of prison, they don’t have to play the game anymore. They don’t have to look good for the Warden so they might get a parole hearing. These men are at The Haven’s Unit to spend 6 months preparing to get out of prison. Your ministry to them is making a difference.

There will likely be another Jubilee weekend in about 4-6 months. Please consider being a part of the team!

Changing the subject, how many of you enjoyed the children’s procession and song today! Esme is doing such a great job introducing the children to Christ in relevant and powerful ways. I want you to know, if you decided to skip out on a couple of Sundays every now and then so you can work with Esme in the Children’s Ministry, I would not be offended in the least.

And, talk about Serving. I want to thank Priscilla and those working in the Diakoneo ministry for the care they give to our shut ins and those in the Hospital. There has been a lot going on in pastoral care lately, and you guys are rocking it!

Last week, Priscilla did an amazing job preaching and sharing about how Jesus is the gate… the gate that protects us, the gate that offers us a place to enter a life of faith, and a gate or a door that invites us home. Priscilla brought us a message of love and hope in a way that only she could! Sharing examples of the gates she grew up swinging on and the importance of those gates, but more than that, the importance of The Gate.

Sermon Slide

But today, we aren’t talking about the gate anymore, today we are talking about the shepherd. More importantly, the fact that Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd.” If you remember, what Jesus said was “Ego eime” – I AM… the very name that was spoken from the burning bush declaring God’s name forever. In using that word, Jesus defined himself for those listening. Jesus basically said, “God in the flesh stands before you today.” So first he defined who he was, is, and ever will be… then he goes on to describe His character.

I am the Bread of Life… I am the Light of the World… I am the Living Water… I am the Gate… and today, I am the Good Shepherd.

I love the video that Priscilla shared last week with the shepherd who called to his sheep and they came running. What a beautiful image of the sheep knowing the shepherd’s voice. Let’s read the passage together. You already know we are in John since all the “I Am” passages come from John’s Gospel. So, flip on over to chapter 10 and we will begin reading from verse 11. This passage overlaps with last weeks passage so some of it will sound a little familiar.

John 10:11-18

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep. A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don’t belong to him and he isn’t their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock. The hired hand runs away because he’s working only for the money and doesn’t really care about the sheep.

“I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep. I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd.

“The Father loves me because I sacrifice my life so I may take it back again. No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.”

<Prayer>

Sermon Slide

I have not forgotten that today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. Today, we remember Jesus entrance into Jerusalem. I want to encourage you to read today’s devotional email, it goes into great detail about what was going on that day.

Today, as we focus on the fact that Jesus is the Good Shepherd, there are parallels to the passage and the events of Holy Week. As the lambs are being herded in to the city for the sacrifices and the Passover meals, Jesus is coming into the city as well. The Good Shepherd has become The Passover Lamb. We call it Jesus’ Triumphant Entry, but when you know the rest of the story, it is anything but a triumphant entry. Jesus is willingly walking, or riding, into Jerusalem to be sacrificed. Only those that know the end of the story can possibly have a clue about the triumph. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Today, as we consider Jesus, our Good Shepherd, I want to recognize four things:

1) The people understood God as a Good shepherd.

2) Jesus is the Good Shepherd that goes after the lost sheep

3) Jesus is the Good Shepherd because he knows the sheep by name

4) Jesus is the Good Shepherd because he lays down his life for his sheep

So, let’s take them one at a time.

1) The people understood God as a Good shepherd.

All through the Old Testament we find passages that use the imagery of God being a good shepherd for the people.

- Psalm 100:3 “We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.”

- Psalm 23:1-4 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.

He restores my soul;

He leads me in the 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.

- Isaiah 40:11 “The Lord tends his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.”

So, when Jesus uses this imagery along with the statement, ”I AM”, it is undeniable that He is claiming to be God in the flesh. The people were looking for a Messiah that would fulfill the role of the good shepherd. Those gathered, especially the Pharisees gathered around, knew exactly what he was saying, and as we look at Jesus’ life described in the Scriptures, we can see that he met their expectation, that’s the next three points.

2) Jesus is the Good Shepherd that goes after the lost sheep

Flip over to Luke 15.

Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!

So Jesus told them this story: “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

You and I tend to look at who is present, who is here. We count, we say – Oh, we’ve got 80 in worship… that’s pretty good!

Or, well, there’s 99 out of 100 that’s excellent, that’s almost 100%!

But not Jesus. Jesus looks not only at who is here, he looks at who is missing. Jesus said he has other sheep not in this fold… what he meant was you and me, we gentiles, we non-Jews. That Jewish crowd would have been a bit perplexed, thinking they were present… they were the ones to be counted, but Jesus looked at them and beyond them. Jesus included us, now we are his sheep and He is our one shepherd, our Good Shepherd. A shepherd who knows you and me!

3) Jesus is the Good Shepherd because he knows the sheep by name

In the Middle-East, even today, sheep and shepherds wander the countryside. There are some fences in places, but across the Judean desert you will find Bedouin shepherds. In fact, when we were coming out of Jericho on our visit in January 2020, a shepherd had stopped traffic to cross the road. All the cars and busses where honking their horns and drivers were yelling at him and his sheep, but what did he do, he kept calling to his sheep and guiding them across the road. The sheep knew him and they knew his voice. In the midst of all the noise and other voices, they knew who to follow.

Here's another interesting thing. These shepherds knew the safe places to pen their sheep for the night – caves, box canyons, places they could place the sheep and then be the gate to protect them from the predators. When a shepherd would arrive at one of these places, they might find 2, 3, or more shepherds already there with their sheep. They just let the sheep all mingle together for the night as the shepherds visited and took turns protecting the sheep. Which, to a rancher, that probably sounds like a nightmare the next morning… but it wasn’t. The shepherds started calling their sheep and the sheep came to them, each shepherd knew his sheep and the sheep knew their shepherd.

That’s what Jesus was talking about here in John.

You and I need to know the voice of our Good Shepherd. We need to be able to listen for the voice of our Good Shepherd by spending time in prayer, by reading our scriptures, by gathering together in worship, by fasting, by sitting in a quiet place. We need to learn his voice and listen to him, so when the noises are all around us, we can still recognize the voice of our Savior who gave his life for us… that that’s our final point.

4) Jesus is the Good Shepherd because he lays down his life for his sheep

This is what we remember and celebrate during Holy Week…

John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Jesus willingly rode a borrowed donkey into Jerusalem. No one was forcing him. In fact, all through the story of his life told in the Gospels, we see moments where the humanity of Jesus could have said, “No.” He could have given in to the temptations during his 40 days in the wilderness. Jesus could have changed his mind in the Garden of Gethsemane when he prayed that the cup would pass from him… but he said, “Not my will but Your will be done.”

Sermon Slide

Jesus willingly gave his life for you and for me. That’s what the Good Shepherd does… but Jesus did not give his life as one who died never to live again. Jesus gave his life, and took it up again, and that is where we find the power of the resurrection… but more on that next Sunday.

At the end of John 10 there is a wonderful little paragraph, hardly noticeable really. “Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days. Here he stayed and many people came to him. They said, ‘Though John never performed a miraculous sign, all that John said about this man was true.’ And in that place many believed in Jesus.” (John 10:40-42)

This is a beautiful example of the sheep recognizing the voice of the shepherd. “All that John said about this man was true.” And they could do nothing else but follow.

As we inch closer to Easter, let’s take some time this week to consider all the ‘voices’ in our lives. Some are encouraging, some are hurtful, some are just adding to the cacophony of noise we live within… Take some time to consider Jesus’ voice… How do you tune your ear to Him? Have you spent any time listening to Him or for Him recently? And if this is a completely foreign concept to you today, ask in prayer that Jesus would speak to you this week. Ask that you could hear Him. I’m not talking about an audible voice… I’m not talking about voices in your head… I’m talking about a spiritual knowing and spiritual hearing of your Lord Jesus. Trust me, as I’ve experienced recently, when you listen with Spiritual Ears, Jesus will speak, and it will be undeniable.

Now, as we come next Thursday to celebrate Maundy Thursday , then Sunday to celebrate the Resurrected Christ, let’s prepare our hearts and minds to receive the miracle of Easter.

Let’s pray together.