Jesus, Our Good Shepherd

Sermon Introduction

Years ago, I used to raise sheep for my FFA project. Before I started that, I knew they were white, wool producers. It didn’t take me long to figure out they were also incredibly dumb. Some of them had walking around sense and that was where it stopped. These things worked hard at finding ways out of the pasture. We had one whom I would have named Houdini if I hadn’t already named him something else. He was incredibly gifted at finding the slightest loose spot in the barbed wire. He had scars all over his back because he didn’t care about the pain as long as he got out. And the worst part was, none of them knew when they were lost until I found them! Then it was like, “Oh, sorry, boss. Did we go into the neighbor’s pasture… again? So silly!”

You get one screwball in the lead, and they all follow. Somehow, the screwballs always wind up in the lead. Can’t have the one-in-a-thousand level headed ram leading the flock. Nope, the mean-girl ewe Mel bullied him until he let her lead.

Scripture Introduction

As you turn to John 10, think about this. John was the last of the four gospels, and differs greatly from the others. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are very similar in the stories they tell, but each has a particular view of Jesus in mind. So, does John, yet many of the stories he selects are not found in the others. John knew that Matthew, Mark, and Luke had done as the Spirit led them. The Spirit led John to other stories to provide a view of Jesus needed in John’s time and place.

Matthew emphasized Jesus as the Lion of Judah, the fulfillment of prophecy. Mark emphasized his suffering and status as the suffering servant. For Luke, it was important to remember that Jesus was the Son of Man, the savior for all mankind. John, however, focused more on Jesus being the second person of the trinity. Now, the others portray Jesus that same way, but for John, it was the focus.

John’s gospel also differs from the other three gospels in that it has no stories that begin with the standard parable introductions like, “To what does the thing compare?” or “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…” John records exactly seven miracles of Jesus in the first half of the book, which is often called the Book of Signs, because that’s the term John uses for the miracles. “This was the first sign Jesus gave…”

Along with the seven signs, Jesus gives us seven “I am” statements. This is one of them in John 10:7-18.

John 10:7-18 Jesus therefore said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. ⁸ “All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. ⁹ “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. ¹⁰ “The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly. ¹¹ “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. ¹² “He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. ¹³ “He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. ¹⁴ “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, ¹⁵ even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. ¹⁶ “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. ¹⁷ “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. ¹⁸ “No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”

Point 1: The Door to the Sheepfold (7-10)

Sheep have been tamed and raised for millenia. That’s why Jesus and the prophets before him use them as symbols so often. Everyone from the smallest village to the largest city knew something about them. They knew what Jesus meant when He said:

Jesus therefore said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. ⁸ “All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. ⁹ “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. ¹⁰ “The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly.

Twice in these verses Jesus points out that He is the door to the sheepfold. That makes us scratch our head. Is He made of wood? Ah, I say, do we not also make doors out of stone? We might be thinking this is metaphor, but for shepherds in Judea, it was not. As they went with the flock, some of the shepherds would make a temporary enclosure for each night. If they were near a hill or mountain, they would use that for one wall and make a fence out of stones for the other. If they had no hill, they would make a ring of stones. This allowed the shepherds to sleep part of the night. But where does the door come in?

The shepherds would leave a small part of the wall open so that the sheep could be brought out in an emergency. The chief shepherd of each group would lie in that opening, forming a human door that thieves would have to go over to get into the sheep and sheep would have to go over if trying to run away. The next morning, the shepherd would rise from the opening and pull down part of the wall.

The sheep, anxious from being kept up all night, would push and break through the wall. Only the shepherd can allow sheep in—sheep from another flock are not allowed. Those inside may go out and find pasture when the shepherd allows them. This is the job of the shepherd, and our Good Shepherd does it.

Jesus makes one final comparison to a thief here. The thief comes only to destroy. Whatever of your property he cannot use he will simply break. But Jesus, as the shepherd, gives the sheep abundant life. Remember in Psalm 23 where the shepherd allows the sheep to graze in the best valleys and with the best before him. There, the Lord removes the destroyers from the sheep’s pasture. Jesus is here connecting Himself with God. The Jews knew God as their loving shepherd; Jesus said He was that shepherd.

Point 2: He is Good (11-14)

¹¹ “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. ¹² “He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. ¹³ “He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. ¹⁴ “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me,

We’ve all heard the story of the boy who cried wolf. The boy was watching sheep for someone in the village. We get the story. Now, the boy is not a good shepherd, he’s a hired hand and does badly.

Jesus first compares the good shepherd to a hired hand. The hired hand does not do well. The hired hand does not own the sheep, so feels no compulsion to stay and fight off the wolf. He will flee as soon as he sees the wolf coming. This is contrary to David, long recognized as a good shepherd in Israel’s history. When the lion and the bear came, David fought each one off because the sheep were his father’s. The hired hand is not concerned about the sheep and lets the wolf have them. The surviving sheep—being stupid—are now going to distrust any human because of how one let them down.

What makes a good shepherd? According to Luke 15, a good shepherd goes to look for the one lost sheep out of a hundred. He doesn’t say, “well, that’s an acceptable loss.” He goes looking for what is lost. All of the gospel writers use sheep and shepherd imagery to describe Jesus and believers. An old Christian statue portrays Jesus as a shepherd lad, carrying a young lamb on his shoulders. One of the first Christian books outside the New Testament is “The Shepherd of Hermas,” which portrays Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

It’s a very comforting image. Jesus as the Good Shepherd makes sure that no harm comes to us. He knows his sheep. My grandfather and uncle raised horses long ago. Preparing for my grandfather’s funeral, we found a black-and-white photo of Papa on a horse. The scenery behind him was nondescript. Nobody could identify it. My uncle took one look at the photo and said, “that was taken before we left West Texas. We sold that horse before moving.”

Some four decades later, from a black and white photo, my uncle could recognize a horse his father had owned. How much more so do you think Christ will recognize His own sheep?

Point 3: He Lays Down His Life (15-18)

¹⁵ even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. ¹⁶ “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. ¹⁷ “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. ¹⁸ “No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”

Matthew and Mark both remind us that if the shepherd is stricken, the sheep will scatter. Jesus was stricken and the sheep scattered. Our Good Shepherd lay down His life for the sheep. He made the way that we could not. To prevent us all from being taken by the destroyer, Jesus lay down His life. No man took it from Him. He lay it down, for us.

The last thing Jesus says here is that He has other sheep in another fold. This would be a reference to gentiles. During Jesus’ life, only Jews believed in Him as the Messiah. They were His flock. Only sometime after Pentecost would gentiles become believers. I am sure that these words from Jesus scandalized some of His critics. But Jesus knew you can’t make the critics happy, so He never tried. He always stuck to His guns. In John 8, when the Pharisees accused Him of blasphemy by making Himself equal to God, they gave Him a chance to take it back. Jesus doubled down and made sure they understood He knew Himself to be divine the same way the Father is divine. When the high priest questioned Him in Luke, Jesus again made sure they understood He was claiming to be equal in power with God.

This amazing offer of salvation—of becoming part of the Good Shepherd’s flock—being made available to gentiles was quite surprising. Oh, gentiles could become God-fearers and eventually converts if they acted completely like Jews, but not many did because of the rigors associated with the Jewish life, such as being of restricted diet.

But Jesus said others outside the flock would come in. In Acts 15, the Holy Spirit would move the church to realize that gentiles did not have to bind themselves under all the Law to become part of the Good Shepherd’s flock.

Conclusion

We need a good shepherd because we fall so far from God’s standard. We are not good. Yet, He loves us and cares enough to send the Son for us. Jesus, the One who is Good, and Beautiful, and True, was struck for us. The Good Shepherd lay down His life to make a way for the sheep to come in. He guards us. Do you need to become one of His sheep today?