Sermon Tone Analysis

When was the last time you went to a circus?

I’m not even sure there ARE circuses around anymore, and if there are, then they are surely not the kinds of circuses that most of us went to as children, or even the ones we may have taken our children or grandchildren to see.

In these days of animal rights activists and all, I don’t think a circus could get away anymore with having lion tamers and monkey wranglers and elephant riders and all those other politically incorrect acts.

But I want you to think back to the last circus you attended.

Maybe there was a lion tamer.

There were probably monkeys.

And almost certainly, there were elephants.

But did you ever notice that there were no sheep?

Now, there’s a reason you never saw sheep at the circus.

And that’s because you can’t teach sheep to perform in a circus.

They just don’t have the brain for it.

Sheep are basically dumb.

No other way to say it.

They don’t know what’s good for them.

And what makes matters worse is that they don’t KNOW that they don’t know what’s good for them.

So they’re not just dumb; they’re dumb and stubborn.

Sheep are basically defenseless, and because of that, they’re easily frightened.

If a rabbit hops out of a bush near a flock of sheep and startles one of those sheep, the startled sheep will take off at a gallop.

And the other sheep, who have no idea what startled the first one, will take off running behind it, blind not only to the “danger” they’re escaping but to any potential danger they might be running toward.

Sheep have a way of getting themselves into situations they can’t get themselves out of.

Just this weekend, there was a story out of England about five sheep that became stranded on the rooftop of a farmhouse after having jumped across a gap from a neighboring field and onto that roof.

Firefighters had to be called in to build a makeshift bridge that the sheep could cross from the rooftop.

Not the smartest animals God created.

And yet, all throughout the Bible, God compares PEOPLE to sheep.

Whenever we start to think of ourselves too well, perhaps we should remember this and consider just how smart we are in light of this comparison.

Today, as we continue our series on “The Church — Revealed,” we’re going to look at the first of several metaphors the Bible uses to describe the church.

And, as you may have guessed by now, the first metaphor that we’ll consider is that of sheep following a shepherd.

Turn with me to John, chapter 10, and in a few moments, we’ll take a look at what’s often known as the Parable of the Good Shepherd.

But first, as always, some context.

In the chapter immediately before the one we’ll look at today, Jesus heals the man who was born blind, miraculously healing whatever physical deformity had caused this man never to see.

Now, this healing had taken place on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees were upset about it.

So they called the man’s parents before them and questioned them about.

But the parents said they didn’t know how it was that he could suddenly see, and they suggested that the Pharisees talk to their son himself.

And so they did.

And they told the man that Jesus must be a sinner, because He had worked this miracle on the Sabbath.

The man responded with one of the classic lines of the Bible: “Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

Actually, this guy was just getting started with the Pharisees.

They had already asked him how he had received his sight, and he had told them how Jesus had mixed some spit with clay from the ground, rubbed it on his eyes and told him to go and wash himself in the Pool of Siloam.

So, when they asked him once AGAIN to explain what had happened, he Got a little bit snarky with them: “I already TOLD you how it happened, and you didn’t listen.

Why do you want me to tell you again?

Do you want to be His disciples?”

Well, this ticked the Pharisees off, and they said, “You’re His disciple.

We are disciples of Moses, and we know that God spoke to Moses, but we don’t have any idea where this man is from or who sent Him.”

So the formerly blind man replied — and you can almost hear him snickering to himself as he spoke to them: “Well, here is an amazing thing, that you don’t know where He’s from, and yet He opened my eyes.”

And the important thing in this passage — at least in regard to the storyline of John’s Gospel — is in the last line of the chapter: “So they put him out.”

These religious leaders of Judea — the ones who were supposed to be in charge of taking care of God’s people and protecting them and feeding them — excommunicated this man from the synagogue.

That’s what it means there when John writes, “they put him out.”

They took away from him his right to worship and learn in the synagogue.

And they did so solely because his healed condition threatened the power they held.

This was not a new situation in Israel.

Way back during the times of the prophets, God had announced His coming judgment on the priests of Israel — the shepherds of His flock — because of the way they had treated His sheep.

We see that in the Book of Ezekiel, in chapter 34, where God says through this prophet:

God had placed the priest of Israel in a position of protecting and feeding and caring for His flock.

But they fed themselves instead of feeding the sheep.

They ignored those who needed to be strengthened or healed or brought back after wandering from the fold.

Indeed, they treated them so severely that the sheep were scattered.

What we see here is a picture of people so mistreated by the priests who were supposed to be serving God by serving them that those people were turned from God completely.

And this is exactly what has happened in chapter 9 of the Book of John, when this man who was blind from birth is given sight and then suffers the wrath of the religious leaders because they now realize that they have no further power over him.

And so, as we turn to the first verse of chapter 10, we begin to see Jesus making a contrast between Himself and the Pharisees, who claimed to be the shepherds of Israel.

Let’s read this passage together, and then I’ll make a few points about what we’ve read.

READ John 10:1-18

So, now that the Pharisees have demonstrated that they are not true shepherds of God’s people by hurting one of the sheep they were supposed to nurture, Jesus tells this figure of speech, this parable, to describe how the truly Good Shepherd interacts with His sheep.

He is the door for the sheep, He says.

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father, but by Him.

It is only through faith in Him that any of us can be saved from the penalty we are due for our sins.

And it is only through faith in Him that we sinners can be reconciled to the holy God who made us to be in fellowship with Him.

The doorkeeper of verse 3 “was the person hired to protect the sheep from their enemies.

In the case of Jesus’ ministry this person corresponded to John the Baptist.

Normally there were sheep from several different flocks belonging to several different owners that stayed together in these large pens.

The pen then symbolized Israel or Judaism.”

Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), Jn 10:3.

So John the Baptist announced the arrival of the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world, and he was sent to prepare Israel for its promised Messiah and King.

He opened the door for Jesus’ ministry.

And Jesus, with the door now opened for His ministry as the Good Shepherd, had begun calling His sheep, as He still does today through the work of the Holy Spirit and Scripture.

You can read about this online, but there are many stories of groups that have visited Israel, even in modern times, and watched as shepherds came for their sheep in the morning.

Normally, sheep from several different flocks are kept within a sheepfold or pen for the night.

When it comes time for the shepherds to take their sheep out to graze and look for water in the morning, the door to the pen is opened, and one shepherd will stand outside and give some distinctive whistle or call.

When the sheep of his flock hear that call, they know it.

They hear his voice and they begin coming out of the pen and go to him.

Another shepherd will then do likewise with his own distinctive call, and his sheep will then come out of the pen and follow him.

And as each sheep leaves the pen, the shepherd is able to count them to make sure all of them are there.

The same is true at night, when he returns them to the pen.

As they enter, he counts them, and if there are any missing, he goes to search for them.

That’s what good shepherds do, and that was the contrast Jesus was making between Himself and the Pharisees, who had put the healed man out of the synagogue.

Now, look what it says the sheep do in verse 4.

Once the shepherd has called all of his own sheep out of the pen, he goes ahead of them, and they FOLLOW him.

Sheep are led by a shepherd.

They don’t lead the shepherd; they are led.

This becomes an important thing to remember as we see the word “shepherd” being used as a synonym for elders and pastors of the church in the New Testament letters.

One of the things that Congregationalism has lost during the past 450 years or so since its appearance among the people who would become the Puritans is the sense of a flock of God’s people being led by a shepherd — or more appropriately an under-shepherd of the Good Shepherd who is the true master of His flock.

There has been much damage done to the church by the idea that we are all independent and wholly capable of leading ourselves.

That doesn’t describe sheep; it describes goats.

And we’ll talk more about this matter when we look at the Book of Titus in a couple of months.

But I want you to remember this idea that we are all sheep, and therefore, we are all called to be followers.

So, Jesus is the door.

He is the only one through whom we can be admitted to the Kingdom of Heaven.

He is the only one through whom we can be saved.

And Jesus is the Good Shepherd.

Unlike the priests of Israel, those shepherds who put such heavy burdens upon the people they were supposed to love and protect, He tells us that His yoke is easy and His burden is light.