Jesus the Good Shepherd

John 10:1-6 ESV

1 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

This morning, we are embarking on a new series of sermons that will take us through to the end of this month. I have eagerly looked forward to preaching this series of sermons to you as in it we will be covering a narrative that I am extremely fond of. A narrative that is so interesting and so touching that it will inevitably move those who God causes to truly come to understand it.

There are so many intricacies and there is so much information in this narrative that I am going to use this first sermon in the series, as we look at and exposit the first six verses of this tenth chapter of the Gospel of John almost as an introduction to the entire series.

When we look at the beginning of this chapter, and we examine what comes before it in the previous chapter, we see that there is no break, but rather, there is one continuous narrative. So, in reality, the narrative that we will be working through this month is actually a continuation of a narrative that had already begun at the beginning of the ninth chapter.

And so, of course, we are going to have to look at what happened in chapter nine in order to really make sense of what is being said here in chapter ten.

The ninth chapter begins by focusing on a certain man who was born blind and had therefore never, in his whole life, been able to see. When the disciples of Jesus saw this man, they asked Jesus, “who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Now, in ancient Jewish culture, it was believed that if one was blind or had any other kind of physical ailment, it indicated that this came about as a result of sin. So, if someone was able to see at one point in his life and had become blind at some point, then it was generally assumed that such a person had committed a sin, and God has punished that sin by making that person blind, taking away his sight.

But this case was altogether different because this man had always been blind, he was born blind and had thus never been able to see. So, the disciples of Jesus thought that maybe this man had been born blind because of his natural sin condition that all people have, or that perhaps he was born blind because of a specific sin that his parents committed. But Jesus told His disciples that neither was the case, but instead, He told them that this man was born blind so that the works of God may be displayed in him.

Jesus then proceeded to take away the blindness of this man and thus, for the first time in his life he was able to see! I have always been intrigued by this. Imagine living your entire childhood and then well into adulthood never being able to see and then suddenly, for the first time in your life you can see as well as one who has always been able to see! I can’t even begin to imagine how that would feel! In fact, I’ve often thought that it would overwhelm me to such a degree that I wouldn’t be able to handle it.

Well, after this happened, this man went to the religious leaders, the shepherds of Israel, the Pharisees, so that he may report to them what had occurred. Now, like I said, these were the divinely appointed shepherds, the spiritual guides of Israel, but when this man went to report what had happened to him by the hand of Jesus, rather than giving glory to God, the shepherds of Israel became jealous of Jesus.

They recognized what had happened, that Jesus had given this man sight, they did not deny that, but these men were opposed to Jesus on every level. In fact, this giving of sight had taken place on the Sabbath and so they told this man who now had sight that though Jesus had in fact performed a miracle, Jesus was nonetheless not of God because He performed this miracle on the Sabbath.

But regardless of what they said, this man remained constant in his allegiance to Jesus and so, the Pharisees, the shepherds of Israel excommunicated the man from communion in the Jewish faith… These had obviously failed miserably in their duty as Israel’s shepherds.

After being cast out, the man found Jesus Who then revealed Himself to the man, declaring that He is the Christ. The man then responded to that declaration of Jesus by declaring that he believed Jesus and subsequently worshiped Him.

Jesus then took this opportunity to declare Who it is that is the true Shepherd of the elect people of God, Who it is Who is indeed the Good Shepherd. And then contrasting the Good Shepherd with these shepherds who seek to have the blessings of God without God Himself, the shepherds who seek to live sumptuously on the wool of the sheep, without caring for the sheep, in fact, abusing the sheep who are under their care.

And He does so by speaking a parable of sorts that would be recognizable to those who were then present.

For us to fully grasp what Jesus speaks of here in the first twenty-one verses of chapter ten that we are looking at this month, we need to understand the cultural context that surrounds this parable.

The first thing that we need to recognize, something that I am sure most of us are already aware of, is that the sheep industry was big business in ancient Israel. And because it was such big business, communities in those days provided local shepherds with many resources for their operations.

One of the resources that were provided by a given community was a large, centralized sheepfold which would be surrounded by a large wall to keep sheep in, and to keep predators and sheep robbers out. This was provided by the community for the local shepherds who ran their operation near the community.

At the end of the day, all ofthe local shepherds would bring their individual flocks into the big, centralized sheepfold. And all of the local shepherds who kept their sheep in the big fold would pitch in so that together they could hire a gatekeeper, whose job was to stay with all of the shepherds’ sheep throughout the night, keep the sheep from leaving the fold, and to drive out any predators or sheep robbers who might successfully scale the wall.

But the gatekeeper’s job included more than just watching and protecting the flock, he also, as his job title insinuates, kept the gate. This means that in the morning the gatekeeper would open the gate for those who he knew were the actual shepherds of the various sheep within the sheepfold. Therefore, the only ones who were allowed to enter the fold were the shepherds as the gatekeeper would permitentrance only to them.

It is for the reasons that have been statedthat Jesus spoke what was already known to all of those who were present when He says in the first two and half verses of our text:

John 10:1-3a ESV

1 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3a To him the gatekeeper opens.

So, Jesus says that there is but one legitimate way to enter the sheepfold, and that way is through the door, which is monitored by the gatekeeper. Anyone who tries to enter through any other way, Jesus says is not the true shepherd of the sheep, for the shepherd has a right to enter through the door. If one attempts to enter through any other way, it proves that such a one has no right to enter the sheepfold and therefore is not the true shepherd.

But the question that we need to ask, that may have already come to mind is, if the sheep of all of the local shepherds are in the large sheepfold, how is it that the individual shepherds differentiate which sheep are theirs and which are the others when they enter into the fold?

That is where the relationship between a shepherd and his sheep comes into play. We see this relationship described in the last half of verse three and all of verse four in our text, where we read Jesus saying:

John 10:3b-4 ESV

3b The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.

So, the shepherd would go into the large, centralized sheepfold that would hold quite a number of flocks, and he would begin to call out his sheep by name, much like we do with our household pets. Whenever a particular shepherd’s sheep would hear their shepherd calling out their name, they would willingly come to him, and he would then lead them out of the fold for the day, from the same door through which he entered.

Then, as the day goes on, the shepherd leads his flock and the flock follows him. They follow him, obey him, go where he leads them to go, then at the end of the day, he leads them back into the centralized fold and the next day they do it all over again.

But why do they do this? Why do they follow the shepherd? Jesus says, they follow him because “they know his voice.” When they hear the shepherd’s voice, they know that that is the voice of their shepherd. Furthermore, they know that their purpose is to follow their shepherd, therefore, when they hear their shepherd call their name, they instinctively obey his voice.

But as we look at verse five, Jesus says that the opposite is true of those who are not the shepherd of the sheep, when He says:

John 10:5 ESV

5 A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”

So, the shepherd of the sheep can call out to his sheep, using the names that he himself has given them and his sheep will come to him. But Jesus says that if a “stranger”, one who is not the shepherd of the sheep, stands within the fold and calls out to those same sheep, even if he uses their correct given names, they will not come to him.

Now, you might wonder “Why not? He is calling out their given names, why wouldn’t they come to someone other than their shepherd when that person is calling out their name?” Because they know the voice of their shepherd, but the voice of a stranger, they do not know.

So, if a stranger, a robber were to break into the fold and he called out to specific sheep that he knew the names of, they would not willingly come to him, but instead, they would flee from him, because they know that they do not belong to him.

At saying this what Jesus is openly declaring in the midst of His disciples and even the Pharisees is that the reason why this man born blind follows Him, believes Him when He professed to be the Christ is because he is one of Jesus’ sheep, he is among the elect people of God. And because he is among God’s elect people, he followed when He heard the voice of Jesus summon him.

But the opposite was the case when he stood before the Pharisees. They called this man born blind to denounce Jesus and be of their flock and follow them. But he had nothing to do with that, he would not follow them, but instead, he fled from them as he emphatically denied their accusations against Jesus.

This, my beloved friends, speaks of the irresistible grace of God. Grace that, irresistibly draws the elect people of God into the fold of God.

All of God’s people, those who are saved, at one time heard the voice of the Good Shepherd for the first time. Now of course, I’m not saying that all those who are now saved at one time heard the voice of God audibly, but rather, there was a time when you were first drawn to God byGod. And the reason why is because Jesus, the Good Shepherd called your individual name and at hearing His voice, you said to yourself, “I have never before known this Shepherd, but that is my Shepherd!” and we found ourselves coming to Him.

And glory to God, we came to Him!