So, we’ve been uh going through the Gospel of John the last uh few months and uh I think my job’s really easy this morning because talking about Jesus as our shepherd, it’s the image of Jesus as our shepherd just resonates with something inside of us, doesn’t it? It’s an image. It captures the imaginations of young children and old seasoned saints. And you know with other religions there’s a maturation period before there’s understanding. It’s it’s kind of grownup religions. They people have to learn some doctrine and some systems and some rules either some complex mysticism or or a detailed set of ethics that need to be grasped. But Christianity puts uh the all the good fruit the best fruit at the height of a small child. salvation, security from a good shepherd. That doesn’t require much of a catechism before someone, a child can just be welcomed in and can grab hold of that image. Kids can easily accept being called sheep and they can delight in the idea of being in the arms of a shepherd. And even among a very secular crowd of people, like at the funeral of someone who never darkened the door of a church or or knew the Lord, you can always get away with reading the 23rd Psalm. The Lord is my shepherd. And you can usually top it off by singing Amazing Grace at the end. I I don’t think there’s an image in the Bible that’s more cherished, generally welcomed than this image of the Lord Jesus being our good shepherd. So this feel this message feels a bit hard to mess up. It’s rather idiot proof. Uh you can be the judge of that at the end, I suppose. But there’s an important pattern in the Gospel of John where Jesus makes statements concerning himself that begin with the phrase I am. There’s seven of them. And often when Jesus makes one of those I am statements, it’s like poking a hornet’s nest and it stirs up opposition against him. Chapter six, we’ve we went through that. Jesus declared, “I’m the bread of life.” And it says many of his disciples deserted him after that. Chapters 8 and nine, he said, “I’m the light of the world.” People picked up stones to kill him. In our brief passage this morning, two more I am statements show up. First, Jesus says, “I’m the gate.” And that’s followed by I am the good shepherd. We’re going to meditate on those statements together. It’s very lovely to think of Jesus as our shepherd, but less lovely to think of ourselves as sheep because they’re such dumb, dependent animals. Creatures for those who work with sheep. No other creatures require as much constant care and attention. There are a lot of animals, you know, if they escape captivity, if they escape their habitat and they go feral, they go out in the wild, they do okay, at least for a while. Cats and dogs and pigs and horses and cows, they can escape their enclosures and they’ll eventually come home, or else they’ll uh figure out a way to survive for a while. But a sheep without a shepherd, it’ll just die. They won’t find their way back home. They won’t survive. So as warm an image of the Lord being our shepherd is, it’s uh it’s a challenge to our identity for us to be called sheep. Perhaps no other time in history have people especially in our western world felt so emboldened to discover and redefine themselves and consider their identity to be very mal malible and shape shapable and self-constructed. And in our thrill to redefine ourselves, huge comedown then for us to be called sheep. We’re not sure we want or need that level of supervision that a shepherd brings. Tim Keller was fond of saying that we t generally want God to be our consultant, not our boss. We want to keep God on retainer for those times and situations where we really need him, but we don’t want him constantly meddling in our lives as a shepherd. So, it’s a challenge for all of us then to accept Jesus this way. Those of us who sense best that we’re dumb and we’re dependent are likely to get the most consolation from this passage this morning. So, as we hear Jesus’ words, it’s immediately apparent that he insists on his sole right and legitimacy to be our shepherd. Makes a strong contrast between himself and those he refers to as thieves and robbers. Jesus says that his sheep will listen for his voice only. They won’t recognize a stranger’s voice. They won’t follow a stranger. But Jesus will call each of his sheep by name and will lead them out. There’s a common distinction between western and eastern shepherds in that in the western world we drive our sheep from behind. We breed dogs like border collies to chase the sheep and nip at their heels and get them all huddled together and moving in the right direction. When our four kids were really small, we had for a while a border collie named Casey. But uh he insisted at nipping at our children and and hurting them together in the backyard. So our for children’s sake, for their survival, we had to give that dog away to a sheep farm in northern BC and trust that he had a very good life doing whatever came naturally to him. But in the Eastern world, shepherds don’t drive their sheep from the rear. They lead their sheep from the front. And that’s the picture of Jesus here. He calls his sheep by name. They in turn follow him out of the enclosure. So the image is that an enclosure would probably contain the sheep of many families or several families and they’d be enclosed together in the evening and and someone would be put on watch and the shepherds could go home and get some sleep uh that night and the gate would be closed so the thieves and robbers and predators wouldn’t be able to get in and in the morning the various owners would show up. They’d gather their flocks and take them out for the day to graze. Commentator Gary Bergie writes that during a Palestinian uprising in Israel in the 80s, the Israeli army decided to punish a village near Bethlehem for not paying its taxes. So the officer in command rounded up all the village animals, placed them in a big barbedwire pen. Later in the week, he was approached by a woman who begged him to release her flock. She argued that my husband’s dead. I don’t have any other source of livelihood. And the officer pointed to the pen containing hundreds of animals and laughingly said it was impossible. He’d never be able to sort her animals out from the rest. She asked him then if she could manage to do it herself, would he be willing to let her take them? And he agreed. So a soldier opened the gate and the woman’s son produced a small reed flute. He played a simple tune again and again, over and over. And soon sheep began popping their heads up across the pen. And the young boy just continued playing the music. He walked home followed by his flock of 25 sheep. So we read of Jesus the shepherd, the owner showing up at the sheep enclosure. Of course, the watchman opens the gate to let him in. And Jesus starts calling out to his sheep. They listen for his voice. They know it well. They know the voices of strangers. They’ll never follow strangers. When Jesus calls out their individual names, they just begin to follow him. The assumption is then that those of us who belong to Jesus, who are his sheep, we have learned or we are learning to hear his voice. We come to know it when he’s speaking to us. And we learn to discern when it’s just the voice of a stranger or an enemy or a thief or a robber and it’s not the voice of God. And if you’ve been a Christian any length of time at all, I’m sure you have some perception of what it’s like to have God speak to you. For most of us, we hear God’s voice clearest and best when we’re reading and studying and meditating on his word on our Bible. We we see something we’ve never seen before. There’s a new angle shows up in scripture. It’s the Holy Spirit. It’s like he’s using an invisible highlighter to uh to bring to our mind things that our spiritual eyes can detect. And it’s great fun not just to uh be refreshed by scripture, but sometimes to be astonished by something new in scripture. Uh God speaks to us in other ways as well, more subjective ways. You might have an impression come out of the blue in your life to call someone or send them a text or bless someone in some way. And we feel that God is uh is nudging us to do something. Occasionally you might have dreams that uh that are have more impact than most other dreams or you wake up at a certain time of night. For me, if it’s if it’s 3:33 in the morning and occasionally that happens, it just seems like it’s a call to prayer. There are spiritual gifts of discernment, spiritual gifts of words of knowledge and prophecy. All of that is to enhance and be managed by the church for the benefit of allto together. Sometimes God speaks to us through miracles, even angelic visitations. Maybe you’ve heard clearly some words from God that came unexpectedly and supernaturally. I’ve heard the stories from some of you and I know you’re not lying. You’re not exaggerating. I have my own stories as well. We don’t we just don’t want to close our ears to any of the ways that God wants to call us to attention. Jean Stallings was a um football coach in the NFL, legendary football coach at the University of Alabama in the 1990s. He has a young son named Johnny who was born with Down syndrome. And that meant a great challenge for the family. And Stalling writes that one night Johnny was very small. He heard a noise coming from his bedroom. He writes, “I immediately went to check on him. When I opened the door, I discovered not one but two baby boys in Johnny’s crib. They were playing a game known only to them, and they were squealing with laughter. The other baby turned toward me, looked into my eyes with a piercing glance, suddenly disappeared.” And he says, ‘ To this day, I believe with all my heart that God allowed me to see Johnny’s guardian angel momentarily in order to encourage me for the years ahead. Now, ever since that time, Jean Stallings had tremendous ministry and encouragement, comfort to other families with Down syndrome uh down syndrome children. When Jesus says that his sheep know his voice, that’s not just a throwaway line. That’s not just something that’s vaguely comforting. We worship today a God who speaks to us to the strong, to the weak, who knows us intimately enough to call us by name. And as we grow at as Christians, we should becoming increasingly find ourselves becoming increasingly attuned to listening for and recognizing his voice. Read in verse six that when Jesus spoke of sheep hearing the voice of the shepherd, the people listening were confused by that figure of speech. Jesus hadn’t yet identified that he he was the shepherd and they were the sheep. So they couldn’t understand where he was going with the illustration. So we follow along. Then in verse 7, Jesus began to make things clear. He first described himself as the gate for the sheep. Seems like an odd picture, but it depicts Jesus as the sentry, the way in, the way out, the one who guards and provides access to the enclosure. And again, there’s a contrast with Jesus uh uh and the ones who came before him, he says, who were thieves and robbers. Jesus is now the sentry. He’s the gate. And he says, “Whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out and find pasture.” I’m sure the ones that came before him, he’s referring to the religious leaders of Israel, the whitewashed tombs, the blind guides. He says, “The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” He says, “Whoever enters through me will be saved.” He’ll say later in John 14:6, “I’m the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. And in saying that he is the one gate for the sheep, Jesus is effectively closing all the other doors that people might explore to be saved. He freely offers himself. And in doing that, he shuts down the false paths and the promises of alternate routes. We don’t want to misunderstand either what Jesus means here when he says, “The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. I’ve come that they may have life and life to the full.” Life to the full. What does that signify to you? We know what it can’t mean. It can’t mean that uh Christians, the sheep of the good shepherd, are going to live longer lives or healthier lives or trouble-free lives or lives that amass great wealth and protection. There’s a lot of Christians who live short, painful lives with no possessions to speak of, but their lives are still permeated by purpose and joy and a settled peace with Christ. So life to the full could include imprisonment, starvation, persecution, and hardship. Book of Acts and Epistles would say that’s the case. Life to the full, it’s life lived at a higher level, committed to obeying God’s will, reflecting Christ’s glory. It’s not measured horizontally compared with other people. It’s measured vertically by a close quality relationship with our Lord and Savior. Looking at that parallel phrase, I shall not want in Psalm 23. Author Philip Keller who was a shepherd himself suggests that I shall not want means I shall not lack the expert care and the management of my master. And I think that’s a helpful way to think about life to the full that Jesus offers his sheep. Verse 11, Jesus puts his metaphor into full throttle. Here’s where he goes from identifying himself as the gate to disclosing himself as the good shepherd. He declares, “I’m the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd, does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he’s a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. So a shepherd will stay and keep a watchful eye on the sheep. A hired hand liable to bolt, run away when there’s danger around. Hired hand just doesn’t have any skin in the game. There’s a very well-known book that has circulated among Christians for decades. It was first published in 1970. It’s by Philip Keller. It’s entitled A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. Now, Philip Keller was born in Kenya in 1920 to missionary parents. He grew up in East Africa. He was around native cattle herders all of his uh years of growing up. His later university training came in Toronto and he studied agriculture and animal husbandry. and his goal was to return to Kenya and continue his father’s work, helping native people manage land wisely and productively. But after graduation, he decided to stay in Canada. He got married. His great love was to be a cattle rancher. He had worked some cattle ranches and eventually he was able to purchase a very fine piece of property that jutted out into the ocean on the scenic southern tip of Vancouver Island. Very secluded. He had two miles of oceanfront property. Says it was an estate sale and he had to pay cash for it and uh once he’d paid he realized he didn’t have enough to buy the cattle. So he was obliged to buy sheep instead. He says that in the years that followed that purchase he thought to himself and he wondered to himself often very audibly and to his wife and to the Lord why he was stuck with sheep on a sheep ranch. But he managed to learn a lot and uh did very well. And later when he wrote his book, Meditating on Psalm 23, he wrote of the difference between the shepherd, the owner, and the kind of hired hand that Jesus talks about here, who doesn’t care about the welfare of the sheep. Keller writes, “The tenant sheepman on the farm next to my first ranch was the most indifferent manager I’d ever met. He wasn’t concerned about the condition of his sheep. His land was neglected. He gave little or no time to his flock, letting them pretty well forage for themselves as best they could. Summer and winter, they fell prey to dogs and cougars and rustlers. Every year those poor creatures were forced to gnaw away at bare fields and uh impoverished pastures. Every winter there was a shortage of hay, wholesome grain to feed the hungry you. Shelter to safeguard and protect the suffering sheep from storms and blizzards was scanty and inadequate. They only had polluted muddy water to drink. In their thin, weak, diseased condition, these poor sheep were a pathetic sight. He says, “In my mind’s eye, I can still see them standing at the fence, huddled sadly in little knots, staring wistfully through the wires at the rich pastures on the other side. He simply did not care. What if his sheep did want green grass or fresh water or shade or safety or shelter from the storms? What if they wanted relief from wounds and bruises and disease and parasites? He ignored their needs. He couldn’t care less. Why should he? They were just sheep fit only for the slaughterhouse. And Keller then concludes, “As I’ve moved among men and women from all strata of society, as a lay pastor, as a scientist, I’ve become increasingly aware of one thing. It’s the boss or the manager or the master in people’s lives who makes the difference in their destiny.” That’s what Jesus is saying when he identifies as our good shepherd. He stays around when things get dangerous. When other people, other managers desert us. And much more than that, much more than that, he lays down his life for his sheep. Says in verse 17, “The reason my father loves me is that I lay down my life only to take it up again. No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.” It’s a vivid preview of Jesus’ crucifixion, his death, his resurrection. It’s like the trailer for the movie that would be played out in a few months time after after he spoke these words where Jesus would willingly obey his father in their joint mission to rescue sinners. He’d lay down his life in the most agonizing way voluntarily. No one would take his life from him unless he willingly allowed it. And following his death to pay the penalty for our sins, his life would be taken up again in resurrection power so that all who placed their faith and trust in Jesus alone for salvation would enter through that gate and be saved. When Jesus says, “I lay my life down for the sheep.” This is the language of substitution. I take their place. I take the punishment that my sheep deserve. I take the cross so they can have the crown. And you think just how incredibly valuable then we must be to Jesus. He lay his life down for us. Came looking for us. He found us. He rescued us. He called us by our names. And so now we follow him. Jesus never lived anywhere other than a little sliver of land in the Middle East. Says to his Jewish audience in verse 16, “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice. There shall be one flock and one shepherd. And that’s how most of us in a mostly gentile congregation got to be here this morning. Whether your roots are African or South American or Asian, many of us, our ancestors were barbarian pagans roaming the forest and plains of Northern Europe at one time. But we got in by hearing Jesus call our name and repenting of our sin and placing our faith and hope in him for forgiveness. And then he folded us into his massive flock and he placed us under the blessing and protection of one good shepherd. Now, of course, as sheep, we don’t stop being highmaintenance. We’re pretty high maintenance people. One of God’s ongoing provisions for all of us is to equip each church with undersheperds or elders who are flawed, sinful people, but they’re given pretty high responsibility. 1 Peter 5, we read these words to all local church elders. says to the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings, who also will share in the glory to be revealed. Be shepherds of God’s flock that’s under your care, serving his overseers. And don’t do it because you must. Do it because you’re willing, as God wants you to be. Don’t do it for the money. Do it because you’re eager to serve. We don’t pay our elders anyway, so they’re not doing it for the money, but be eager to serve. Don’t lord it over those entrusted to you, but be examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you’ll receive the crown of glory that’ll never fade away. You know, in Ezekiel 34, God castigates the bad shepherds of his chosen nation of Israel. They slaughtered the choice animals. They clothed themselves with wool. They utterly failed to look after the flock. God says, “You’ve not strengthened the weak. You haven’t healed the sick or bound up the injured. You’ve not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. But God won’t allow that to continue. He says, “I will rescue my flock. I’ll bring them from the nations. I’ll pasture them on the mountains of Israel. I myself will tend my sheep. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak. And I will shepherd the flock with justice.” So God desires that ongoing shephering ministry in all of our lives. And he delegates that responsibility or at least some of that responsibility to local church elders which is why it’s a serious thing when we have an AGM and we elect elders or we appoint elders or elders uh uh just take on those roles in our church. We should anticipate then that someone is always going to be looking out for us and coming after us. Luke 15 we see the futility of one of Jesus’ sheep ever trying to get away from him. When one sheep in a flock of a hundred wanders away, what does the shepherd do? He not only runs after that one sheep, but we’re told he puts that sheep on his back or on his shoulders. He comes home joyfully, says to all his friends, “Hey, we’re going to have a party now. I found my sheep.” Proves that the shepherd considers it his job to go after the most stupid highmaintenance sheep among us. He doesn’t say it’s outside his job description to chase people down. It’s not only his job to protect us from predators. It’s also his job to protect us from ourselves, from our own dumb decisions. So it really, you see, it doesn’t really matter how entangled we get, how lost or confused or how wrapped up in sin we become. The mission of Jesus also delegated to church elders, is to look for you and find you because you belong. You can get pretty far away. You can be lost for a long time and get in a lot of trouble. But if you’re one of Jesus’ sheep, he’s not going to let you escape from his flock. He’ll come looking for you and he’ll find you and he’ll bring you back because you’re one of his. You belong to the flock. He won’t let you take yourself out of things as well. The shepherd Philip Keller says there’s an old English expression for a sheep that has turned over on its back and can’t get up again. It’s called a cast sheep. And he says it’s a very pathetic sight. It lies on its back and its feet are up in the air and it fllays away frantically and it struggles to get up but without success. Sometimes he says it’ll it will bleet for help. Generally it just lies there in absolute frustration. He says, “If the owner doesn’t arrive on the scene within a reasonable length of time, the sheep will die because it lies there and gases begin to build up in the rin and as these expand, they tend to cut off the circulation to the extremities of the body, especially the legs.” Says, “If the weather is very hot and sunny, a cast sheep can die in a few hours. If it’s cool and cloudy and rainy, it might survive in that position for a couple of days.” And Keller writes, “That’s another reason why it’s so essential for a careful sheepman to look over his flock every day, count them to see that they’re all there and they’re all up on their feet. If one or two are missing, often the first thought to flash into his mind is one of my sheep is cast somewhere. I must go in search and set it on its feet again.” He says, “One particular U that I owned in a flock of Chevots was notorious for being a cast sheep. Every spring when she became heavy with lamb, it wasn’t uncommon for her to become cast every second or third day. Only my diligence made it possible for her to survive from one season to the next. Again and again, I would spend hours searching for a single sheep that was missing. Then more often than not, I would see it in a distance, down on its back, lying helpless. At once, I’d start to run toward it. I’d hurry as fast as I could, for every minute was critical. Within me there was a mingled sense of fear and joy. Fear that it might be too late. Joy that it was found at all. And as soon as I reached the cast u my first impulse was to pick it up tenderly. I would roll the sheep over on its side. This would relieve the pressure of gases in the rin. If she had been down for long, I would have to lift her onto her feet. Then straddling the sheep with my legs, I’d hold her erect, rubbing her limbs to restore the circulation to her legs. And this often took quite a while. He says, “When the sheep started to walk again, she often just stumb stumbled and staggered and collapsed in a heap once more. All the time I worked on the cash sheep, I would talk to it gently. When are you going to learn to stand on your own feet? I’m so glad I found you, you rascal.” And little by little, he says, “The sheep would regain its equilibrium. It would start to walk steadily and surely and by and by it would dash away to rejoin the others, be set free from its fears and its frustrations, given another chance to live a little longer. So, I’m sure that in any group like us this morning, uh there are those among us who are probably cast sheep, panicked and pawing frantically up in the air and unable to bring themselves to their feet. And they need God to come, that good shepherd to come get them on their feet and move them again in his direction. the elders, the undersheperds. We’re not always very good at this. We’re prone to discouragement and uh being unsure of ourselves like everyone else. But we’re here for you. We pray for you. We want to help as best we can. We want you to know that your mission and your ministry is not over. You just need to get some circulation back into your legs. And the good shepherd, Jesus, is here to rub you back toward health. His purpose for you might be discovered in a day or a week or next year, but his purposes continue. After going to university and planning to go back to Kenya to do missions work, Philip Keller says he uh well, he at times he struggled spiritually. He became a successful sheep rancher and that turned into his passion. But the good shepherd actually didn’t leave him in that place for altogether very long. One day his scenic sheep ranch on Vancouver Island was just suddenly taken away from him. Canadian government demanded that all farmers on that southern tip of the island sell their land to the government so that an arsenal for the Pacific naval fleet could be built on that peninsula. There was no other way out. Providentially about that time a letter arrived shortly describing a need for a missionary couple to come fill an empty post in Kenya among the Messiah people. and Keller perceived this was the hand of the good shepherd on him. So he and his wife and their two children traveled to Kenya as soon as they could arrange their affairs. They spent another decade serving the Messiah people. Keller’s skill and his experience in land management helped to restore some of the African pasture lands that were eroded by overg grazing. poor health eventually brought him back to Canada and that’s when Keller threw himself into writing including his most treasured book uh that that meditation on Psalm 23. A shepherd looks at Psalm 23 and he died in 1997 the age of 76. See the shephering ministry of Jesus doesn’t it doesn’t get well received by everyone. We as Barry read following his teaching that day that he was the good shepherd a number of his listeners uh looked at him and said well he’s demonpossessed. He’s raving mad. Why listen to him? But for those of us who are called by name, folded into his flock, there’s no other place we want to be, and there’s no other voice that we want to listen to. So, let’s let’s spend a couple moments just in personal prayer. And here are a few things you might want to bring before your good shepherd this morning. You might want to confess to God your dependent need on him to be your shepherd. And just let let him humble us as being very needy, dumb, dependent sheep. Thank him that he has called you. He’s enabled you to hear his voice. These gentlemen who were calledif over 50 years ago in this building that day. And if you feel like a cast sheep, thank your good shepherd that he’s never taken his eye on you. He’s still coming for you. He’ll still find you. You can’t get away from him. And uh even though you’re in a tough position right now, he won’t let you remain there. So just take some time to pray.