A Song of Salvation
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“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not a shepherd and does not own sheep, sees the wolf coming and abandons the sheep and runs away. So the wolf attacks the sheep and scatters them. Because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep, he runs away.
“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not come from this sheepfold. I must bring them too, and they will listen to my voice, so that there will be one flock and one shepherd.
Unlike the other two songs in this series, we don’t actually know who wrote “Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead us.” We know it first showed up in a songbook for children in 1836, and we know a guy named William Bradbury wrote the music for hit. Bradbury is better known for having written the music for “Jesus Loves Me,” and for being close friends with the guy who wrote the music for “Joy to the World.” Perhaps in some future version of this sermon series, we will look more closely at their stories.
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not a shepherd and does not own sheep, sees the wolf coming and abandons the sheep and runs away. So the wolf attacks the sheep and scatters them. Because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep, he runs away.
“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me—
just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.
“I tell you the solemn truth, the one who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. The doorkeeper opens the door for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.When he has brought all his own sheep out, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they recognize his voice. They will never follow a stranger, but will run away from him, because they do not recognize the stranger’s voice.”Jesus told them this parable, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
So Jesus said to them again, “I tell you the solemn truth, I am the door for the sheep.All who came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved, and will come in and go out, and find pasture.The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come so that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not a shepherd and does not own sheep, sees the wolf coming and abandons the sheep and runs away. So the wolf attacks the sheep and scatters them. Because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep, he runs away.
“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not come from this sheepfold. I must bring them too, and they will listen to my voice, so that there will be one flock and one shepherd. This is why the Father loves me—because I lay down my life, so that I may take it back again. No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down of my own free will. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it back again. This commandment I received from my Father.”
Another sharp division took place among the Jewish people because of these words. Many of them were saying, “He is possessed by a demon and has lost his mind! Why do you listen to him?” Others said, “These are not the words of someone possessed by a demon. A demon cannot cause the blind to see, can it?”
Then came the feast of the Dedication in Jerusalem.It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple area in Solomon’s Portico.The Jewish leaders surrounded him and asked, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”Jesus replied, “I told you and you do not believe. The deeds I do in my Father’s name testify about me. But you refuse to believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; no one will snatch them from my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them from my Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”
The Jewish leaders picked up rocks again to stone him to death. Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good deeds from the Father. For which one of them are you going to stone me?” The Jewish leaders replied, “We are not going to stone you for a good deed but for blasphemy, because you, a man, are claiming to be God.”
Jesus answered, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’?If those people to whom the word of God came were called ‘gods’ (and the scripture cannot be broken),do you say about the one whom the Father set apart and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I do not perform the deeds of my Father, do not believe me. But if I do them, even if you do not believe me, believe the deeds, so that you may come to know and understand that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Then they attempted again to seize him, but he escaped their clutches.
Jesus went back across the Jordan River again to the place where John had been baptizing at an earlier time, and he stayed there. Many came to him and began to say, “John performed no miraculous sign, but everything John said about this man was true!” And many believed in Jesus there.
“One Christmas Eve, Ira D. Sankey was traveling by steamboat up the Delaware River.
Unlike the other two songs in this series, we don’t actually know who wrote “Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead us.” We know it first showed up in a songbook for children in 1836, and we know a guy named William Bradbury wrote the music for hit. Bradbury is better known for having written the music for “Jesus Loves Me,” and for being close friends with the guy who wrote the music for “Joy to the World.” Perhaps in some future version of this sermon series, we will look more closely at their stories.
Unlike the other two songs in this series, we don’t actually know who wrote “Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead us.” We know it first showed up in a songbook for children in 1836, and we know a guy named William Bradbury wrote the music for hit. Bradbury is better known for having written the music for “Jesus Loves Me,” and for being close friends with the guy who wrote the music for “Joy to the World.” Perhaps in some future version of this sermon series, we will look more closely at their stories.
Unlike the other two songs in this series, we don’t actually know who wrote “Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead us.” We know it first showed up in a songbook for children in 1836, and we know a guy named William Bradbury wrote the music for hit. Bradbury is better known for having written the music for “Jesus Loves Me,” and for being close friends with the guy who wrote the music for “Joy to the World.” Perhaps in some future version of this sermon series, we will look more closely at their stories.
But for today, I want to focus less on the origin of our song, and more on its impact.
We may not know who wrote “Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us,” but it seems pretty evident which passage they had in mind when they did so. Jesus called himself The Good Shepherd, and this is a song about Jesus being a good shepherd. The connection is pretty cut and dry.
In that same passage, Jesus declared that his sheep - by which he meant his followers - would recognize his voice. And today’s story is about one such sheep doing precisely that. It’s a story about Ira D. Sankey, the traveling singer and companion of Dwight Moody, and how his life was saved by one of Jesus’ sheep hearing the voice of his shepherd.
“One Christmas Eve, Ira D. Sankey was traveling by steamboat up the Delaware River.
Asked to sing, Mr. Sankey sang the Shepherd Song. After the song was ended, a man with a rough, weather-beaten face came up to Mr. Sankey and said: “Did you ever serve in the Union Army?”
“Yes,” answered Mr. Sankey, in the spring of 1860.
“Can you remember if you were doing picket duty on a bright, moonlit night in 1862?”
“Yes,” answered Mr. Sankey, very much surprised.
“So did I,” said the stranger, “but I was serving in the Confederate army. When I saw you standing at your post I said to myself: ‘That fellow will never get away from here alive.’ I raised my musket and took aim. I was standing in the shadow completely concealed, while the full light of the moon was falling upon you.”
“At that instant,” continued the singing, “ just as a moment ago, you raised your eyes to heaven and began to sing. Music, especially song, has always had a wonderful power over me, and I took my finger off the trigger. ‘Let him sing his song to the end,’ I said to myself. ‘I can shoot him afterwards. He’s my victim at all events, and my bullet cannot miss him.’”
The singer continued: “But the song you sang then was the song you sang just now. I heard the words perfectly:
We are Thine, do Thou befriend us,
Be the guardian of our way.
“Those words stirred up many memories in my heart. I began to think of my childhood and my God-fearing mother. She had many, many times sung that song to me. But she died all too soon, otherwise much in my life would no doubt have been different.
“When you had finished your song it was impossible for me to take aim at you again. I thought: ‘The Lord who is able to save that man from certain death must surely be great and mighty’ and my arm of its own accord dropped limp at my side.””
-http://www.tanbible.com/tol_sng/sng_saviorlikeashepherdleadus.htm
On that day in the battlefield, two of the Good Shepherd’s sheep stood a few yards apart from one another. They were from different sheepfolds. They did not know one another. But when one of them began to sing, the other recognized… something. Something that made him stop and listen. Something that, when the song was over, made him lower his weapon and allow the person opposite him to live.
When Jesus called himself the Good Shepherd, he said all his sheep would know his voice, and there has been debate ever since about what that meant. What does Jesus’ voice sound like? How do we know if we’re hearing it? Is it an audible voice, or a metaphorical voice? If I don’t think I’ve heard Jesus’ voice, can I call myself one of Jesus’ sheep?
But on that battlefield, the voice of the Good Shepherd came from the mouth of one of his sheep. Another of his sheep, while from a different sheepfold, chose to stop and listen. In doing so, he heard the voice of the Good Shepherd, and in that moment two lives were saved.
The voice of the Good Shepherd can be heard many different ways. But we are most likely to hear it when we set aside our prejudices and assumptions, and choose to truly listen. Where will the Good Shepherd lead you when you listen to his voice?