The Sheep of the Kingdom

Good morning church family! It’s so good to be with you all again!

Let’s dive into the Word and explore this passage in John which I pray will bring encouragement and blessing to you all as we persevere in the faith and commit or lives to following our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Jesus identifies himself as the Good Shepherd and the one through whom all who enter through him and believe will be saved and find life. Unlike unworthy shepherds of the past, rulers and kings who had cared more for themselves rather than for the people of God entrusted to their care, here was the promised shepherd from the line of David who would genuinely care for his people, the sheep of his pasture. Once again Jesus works he was doing and the bold claims about his relationship to the Heavenly Father created great division among those listening...was he a demon possessed imposter, or was he in fact the Messiah King promised to redeem his people?

I want you to imagine it is the middle of winter (shouldn’t be hard at the moment!). But this is not only a winter in season but a winter of the soul as horrific disaster has swept through the city. A raging enemy has come in and trampled all over the beautiful land you call home. In this torrent of fury many have been slaughtered, others captured. Some of the locals you used to call friends have collaborated with these foreigners, hoping to secure their favour and experience freedom and prosperity under the watch of this foreign regime. As time goes on many of the people lose hope that there would ever be freedom from the abomination that invaded their lives. But for all this disaster that lay around, the most greivous shock and affront was the loss of the great and beautiful Temple of Yahweh, the God of all the world. No longer could you enter, offer sacrifice and honour the God of your fathers. No, these tyrants had desicrated the holy place with sacrifices that ought not be made before the Lord. They had erected their own gods in the Temple, and demanded the worship of those images instead of the deity that you serve.

However some had never resigned themselves to this new reality. Revolution was simmering and eventually reached boiling point. A sudden attack was made on these imposters, a great victory was won and a tyrant was overthrown. Three years after this horrific winter, the people were able to once again enter the Temple and purify it for the worship of Yahweh. With only a days supply of oil for the lamps, they set about cleaning and restoring the sanctury for its original purpose with prayer and proper sacrifice. Miraculously the lamps continued to burn over the coming days, allowing the people to complete the task of consecrating the Holy Place. Because you love holidays, a festival was instituted to commemorate this special occasion every year which would come to be know as Hanukkah, or feast of Dedication.

As you’ve probably clued on by now this is a true story. The year of the disaster was 167BC. The Tyrant was Antiochus Epiphanes. The hero of the rebellion, was a man named Judas Maccabaeus. The important thing to note for our message this morning is that because of his remarkable courage and devotion to liberate his people and reconsecrate the Temple of God, Judas became a king and shepherd to his people! He was as close as anyone had ever come to doing what the great king David and Solomon had done.

So as Jesus is walking through the Temple on this winters day during the feast of Dedication, there are all these things front and center in the minds of the people he is engaging with. A celebration of God and liberation. A looking forward to a new redeemer king, a greater Messiah, who would save his people once again from oppression and enslavement. And here Jesus was, claiming to be the Good Shepherd, consecrated and sent by God the Father to come save and protect his sheep...which to an attentive ear would pick up very clearly that this was indeed a claim to be the promised Messiah King profesied of in the Scriptures.

Using the symbolisom of the Feast of Dedication, we see Jesus last offer of salvation to these unbelieving Jews. The next time he enters Jerusalem, Jesus would be crucified. These Jews gather around him demanding he tell them plainly if he is indeed the Christ. It is almost a comical accusation implied by the question...as in, it’s your fault, not ours that we don’t understand, you havent made it clear, so just tell us plainly!

On the surface, this may sound like a fair criticism. Indeed, it had only be in a private conversation with the Samaritan woman and his interaction with the blind man where he had explicitely stated or affirmed he was in fact the Messiah. But in this public Jewish context with various political and military connotations and expectations attached to this idea of what the Messiah would look like, he did not proclaim of himself as such in those specific words. Rather, Jesus points to his teachings, and the works that he did in the Father’s name as bearing witness to who he truly was. Ultimately the question the Jews asks is rather disingenuous...they had heard his words, they had seen his deeds, and they were fully aware of who he was claiming to be...after all they had already tried to kill him three times prior to this conversation.

This can so often be our downfall in life can’t it. There are times when we see the signs, are presented the evidence that something is true...that commiting a certain act is wrong, that saying something will bring harm, that identifying as something your not is false. Yet so many times we can block the truth out and act in blindness for our own gain, our own self-security, or our own desperation to find purpose and meaning outside of relationshp with the Good Shepherd, the one who not only loves us and cares for our every need, but who laid down his own life on our behalf, that the chains of sin and death, indeed, the chains of our own selfish desires that hold us down might be broken and we might have life in him.

As Jesus enters into a dialogue with the Jews he begins to explain what it means to be one of his sheep, and the great assurances of those who put their trust in him as their Shepherd King.

‘You do not believe...Jesus says...because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.’

A podcastor who I enjoy listening to at times shares a story of when he did a tour in Israel, and this one day he was chilling out in the countryside when he observed these two Bedouin shepherds. They were standing together having an extended conversation while keeping an eye on their flocks grazing a little way off. As time went on one of the shepherds wrapped up his conversation, shouted some words in Arabic towards the flock of sheep and started wandering back towards the village. About half of the sheep lifted up their heads from grazing, turned towards the shepherd who was wandering off and then began following after him. Meanwhile the other sheep payed absolutely no attention to what was going on and continued grazing, not even for a second pausing to see where the others were going. Two things struck this guy as he observed this interaction playing out in front of him. One...how do sheep understand Arabic! But more importantly, what an incredible image of what it looks like to be a sheep or follower in the care of the Good Shepherd.

We see from Jesus discussion of his sheep three privileges for those who trust in Him.

The first privilege of those who believe in the Lord Jesus is that they hear his voice and respond. The call of Christ on their lives has brought them into a new relationship with him and their believing response then leads to a declaration of loyalty to God and this in turn leads to a new lifestyle… ‘they follow me’ Jesus states. Just like the obedience of the sheep following the shepherd, so is the believer who follows Christ. And this is truly a precious gift...the freedom to respond is a blessing of relationship between God and humanity.

Do you know the voice of the Shepherd? Do you know the voice of Jesus intimately in such a way that you can pay attention, drop what you are doing, and respond to what he may be telling you? How does one recognise the voice of another? By spending time with them, by building on their relationship, by sharing life with them. That is what followers of Jesus do. And the evidence of that is the transforming work his Spirit does in our lives, mending our brokeness, convicting us of truth, creating a desire in us to serve our heavenly king in the ways we love, care and sacrifice for one another. There are many ways we hear the voice of the Saviour in our lives. Through the Scriptures, in times of prayer and fasting, through the actions or words of others who bring blessing, encouragement or conviction to us when we need it most. Often it can be in the way Jesus places people in our field of influence to minister to, and serve, in the hope that they too will come to know the voice of the Good Shepherd and come into the sheepfold of God.

The second privilege of the follower of Jesus is that they are inheritors of an incredible gift. Those who hear his voice and believe will be safe forever. The new life of the kingdom of God is theirs, Jesus will watch over them, such that even death itself, the last great enemy, will not ultimately overcome them. They shall never perish, for followers of Christ are the inheritors of eternal life. Just as the Israelites journeyed through the wilderness, called to live in dependance and obedience to God who was present with them throughout their wanderings, and looked forward to God’s display of faithfulness in bringing them to the Promised Land...so we, the sheep of the kingdom of God are also journeying through the wilderness of this life, living in dependance and obedience to the Lord Jesus who is present with us throughout our own wanderings, even when we fall astray, and leads us to the green pastures of eternal life in his kingdom. What a promise...what an incredible hope we have as followers of king Jesus. But how can we have such confidence of our future beyond death?

And here is the third privilege of the believer: they are a secure possession. ‘No one can snatch them out of my hand...Jesus says...and no one can snatch them from my Father’s hand...I and the Father are one.’ Our confidence is not built on wishful thinking, or a vague hope that things will turn out alright...our hope is built firmly on Jesus own unbreakable bond of love and union with the Father. No matter how falteringly or feebly we may be clinging to Jesus in the ‘winters’ of our lives he will never let go his grip on us, and our Heavenly Father, who is greater than all, stands in guardianship of the flock such that the forces of evil and destruction that would seek to overwhelm and break us will ultimately fail against the awesome power of our God. No more profound a security can be found for the believer, such that Paul could say in Romans 8:38–39 “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

This is such a crucial truth for us to hold on to. It is amazing yet tragic that when people have grown confused or resistant to the unique union and unity between the Heavenly Father and the Son that it so often then leads to uncertainty and vulnerability in the hope of eternal life for the believer.

“I and the Father are one.” The Jews had asked Jesus for a plain statement of his messiahship, and it seems they got a little more than they bargained for!

As the Jews respond with picking up stones to kill him, Jesus makes one last plea to them to observe and see the testimony of his good works, that they are from the Father and proclaim the truth of who he is. “For what good works are you going to stone me?” Jesus asks. “Not for a good work but for blasphemy”, they reply, “for you being a man, make yourself God.” Jesus responds by pointing them to their own Scriptures and says “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came...do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blespheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?

Jesus references Psalm 82 in his pushback on the accusation of blasphemy. His appeal to this Psalm is intriguing and has been the subject of much discussion of both what the Psalm is saying and how Jesus is then applying it. I personally love this Psalm and it makes a great Bible study but we have no time to go down that trail this morning...always happy to discuss further at a later time! A couple of quick observations. The gods referred to in Psalm 82 have been interpreted in two main ways. One is that they are judges or rulers of Israel who have failed to rule faithfully over the people that God has placed in their care. The other is that this is addressed to the deities or spiritual beings of other nations, rebuking them for their favouritism toward sinners and indifference to the poor.

I would suggest we can hold both of these loosely in this context as Jesus main point is that while certain titles can be given to different beings and perhaps even people, it is the good works and the fact that Jesus was consecrated and sent into the world by the Father, that testifies to the truth that Jesus is indeed the unique Son of God, that he and the Father are one. As the twelve disciples had recognised earlier in John 6, Jesus was the Holy One of God, consecrated and sent to deliver the good news that a new kingdom had come, and that through his death, burial, resurrection and ascension anyone who would hear his voice, trust in Him as Lord and Saviour, would be cleansed and purified to enter his presence and receive the inheritance of eternal life in his kingdom!

Here on this feast of Dedication Jesus is portraying that he is the consecrated “temple” of God. No longer would people need to offer sacrifices at the Temple, and no longer would one need to go to a sacred place to approach the Lord. Jesus revealed himself not only as the sacrificial shepherd, but also as the sacrificed Lamb. Not too long from this moment the people would desecrate his own body and kill him on a tree, yet it would be through this ultimate sacrifice victory over the powers of darkness, the consequences of sin, and the curse of death would be achieved in the most glorious fashion.

As we reflect on our own lives and also look across the world and the signs that are in front of us, are we seeking and listening for the call of the ascended King on our lives? Have we surrendered our own gods, those things that tempt and draw our focus, have we given them up in pursuit of the Lord Jesus? The Good Shepherd has come, and he is pursuing every one of us who will listen and respond to his message of salvation. Just as in the parable of the lost sheep that many of us know so well, so is the Lord Jesus seeking out all who are lost, broken and weary, that they might find life in him.

There was an Iraqi woman who shares a powerful testimony of her finding Jesus in the depths of suffering and torment in her life. The wife of a radical Islamist, she would receive almost daily beatings from his hands as he believed it was his duty to keep her in submission through this oppression. Day after day this went on. One day, in a rage he beat her over the head with a frying pan and knocked her unconcious. She eventually awoke and in the depths of desperation she cried out in prayer saying: God/Allah ‘Every day I cry out where are you, why won’t you help me, and every day my husband beats me, and every day I am met with silence. Lord I am changing my question. God, who are you? Who are you? Because the god I’m crying out to either isn’t there or doesn’t care.’ In a series of powerful events Jesus did show up for this woman. And a way opened up for her to escape with her son and find refuge with Christian believers. People are ready, people are desperate for the Gospel...and Jesus is at work both here in our community, and across the world. Do you want to be a part of this spiritual war and reclaim souls for the kingdom?

The words of Isaiah 40:11 capture so beautifully the heart of the Good Shepherd who saves that which is lost...“He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arm, and he will carry them in his bosom; he will lead those who nurse.”

The question we face today is the same question those onlookers observing Jesus also faced. Are you ready to look with sincerity and vulnerability at the testimony and works of Jesus and draw the right conclusion in your hearts? If the answer is yes, be encouraged friends that as God’s people you have a great inheritence, cling to him, pursue him above all else...and tell others of the incredible news that our King reigns victorious and is calling all to dwell in his presence under his protection forever, as people redeemed, restored and purified to the praise of his name...Amen!