The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 16: Good Shepherd

Episode Date: July 25, 2021

All this world can offer is heartbreak, self-indulgence and disappointment. A full life can only be experienced in the fullness of Jesus Christ. Visit coe22.com/john to download the journal, find series resources and more.

Church, how are we doing? Everybody good? I don't believe you. All right, we'll see about that. Hey, you're going to need to grab your Bible, head to John Chapter 10. John Chapter 10, we have a whole chapter 42 verses to cover, so you're going to have to listen really fast this morning. And as you're finding your way there, a couple things that kind of be helpful, I think, to set the stage, give you some context. And the first one is this, is that John Chapter 10, at least the first half, is a continuation.

John chapter 7, 8, 9, and the first half of 10 all happened at the same time. So when Jesus had his encounter with the woman who was caught in adultery, and then the man who was born blind, Jesus spits in the ground, mixes the dirt up, makes mud, packs it on her eyes. All of that all happens together with John chapter 10. And the whole gospel of John is all about believing. That's what John is driving at through the whole thing. And actually in John chapter 20, verse 31, he says, I wrote all these things that you would believe that Jesus is the Christ, he's the son of God, and that in believing you would have life in him.

And so as he gets to the beginning of John chapter 10 and all through 10, what we're going to find is this is the end of Jesus' public ministry. After this, he goes, kind of goes dark, goes back with his friends. The next time we see him after this publicly will be his entry into John. Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday and then his crucifixion. And at the end of John chapter 9, Jesus has been asked 14 questions around the healing of the blind man. And so when he steps up and he begins to speak in John chapter 10, in essence, he's answering all 14 of those questions. And all 14 of those questions all boil down to Jesus, who are you? Just tell us straight.

Just tell us exactly who you are, and then we can decide whether we're going to follow you or not. Now, the other thing you need to know about John chapter 10 is that it happens in the context of one of the Jewish festivals called the Festival of Booths. The Festival of Booths was a celebration of when the Hebrew people had been in slavery in Egypt, and God had set them free out of that. And then they wander through the desert, and God leads them into the promised land. and that celebration, what it says over and over again is, God, we were like sheep wandering out in the desert. And you were like our shepherd, and you led us into these green pastures. You let us by still waters. And that's where you'll get things like Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd.

Or an Ezekiel, God will say, you are my sheep, and I am your shepherd. And so it's against kind of that backdrop of the celebration of that. remembering, the Hebrew people remembering that they were sheep and God was their good shepherd. And Jesus is going to say, I am that good shepherd. That's who I am. You want to know all those 14 questions? What does it all boil down to here? Here's who I am. And so in John chapter 10, start in verse 1, Jesus says, truly, truly I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in another way, that man is a thief and a robber.

But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him, the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name, and he leads them out. When he's brought them out all on his own, he goes before them,

and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow. but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers. This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So Jesus starts to answer by this whole discussion about sheep.

And there's a couple things that we need to know because when he's describing sheep, guess who he's talking about? You and me. That's who he's talking about. And so when he says, hey, there are sheep, here's the thing about sheep. The first thing about sheep is this, they wander off, they get lost, and they never even know it.

They just, a sheep will just put its head down and just kind of start wandering, and then they'll look up and they'll be like, huh, I'm here, and they will have no clue that they've wandered away. They don't look up and go, uh-oh, I'm lost. They don't know that they're not where they're supposed to be. They just wander off. And so when the Bible says, all of us are like sheep and gone astray, guess what? That's not a compliment.

What that is saying is, hey, you know what? You have such a tendency to sin. It's so deep in our bones. It's just like wandering off from God. And when you do that, you get so lost, you don't even have a clue how lost in your sin you are. Thanks, God. Super encouraging. Aren't you glad you came?

You know, there's a song, it's called Come Thou Fount, and there's a line in that song that says, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. I don't know about you, but that line in that song just defines me perfectly. I mean, have you ever gotten there?

Have you ever gotten to the place where you look up and you think, how did I get here? Like, not in a proud way, not like, how did, yeah, I made it, how did I get it? But like, how did, how did, I end up in this mess? Like, how did I wander off into this lie? Or how did I, how did I get here into this addiction? Or how did I get into this shady business deal? Or why am I doing this with him or

with her? How did I get here to this thing? Do you remember when you go to the mall? Remember what a mall was, that big indoor place where you used to go shopping once in a time? And there'd be the, you'd try to find your store. So you go to the kiosk and there'd be, you'd go to the kiosk and there'd be that big map with the big list and you know it'd be like it's in c27 and you'd find the grid and you know you'd find it and then the next thing you had to find was what the star that says you are here because it doesn't matter what store you're looking for unless you know exactly where you are or you put something into your GPS right on your phone onto maps or ways and yeah it's got the little dot but you need the little blue like you're here to know where you need to go

And that's as sheep, as people who have wandered off from God, the problem is not only have we wandered from God, we don't know where we are. We're lost in our sin. Remember that, can we just be honest for a second? That cheesy picture of Jesus with the sheep on his shoulders, this one? I mean, aside from the fact that he is way too Scandinavian, we look at that and we go, oh, look at that, he's so cute. like look at Jesus he's got a she's got a little lamb on his shoulders do you know why that lamb is on his shoulders it's because that lamb wandered off he had to go get him or that lamb wandered off and he became wolf meat or that lamb wandered off not just once he repeatedly wandered off and the shepherd

what they would do for a repeat offender is they would go find that sheep break its legs put it on his shoulders carry it back mend the sheep up sheep up and then the sheep would never wander off. Now think about that in your own life. Second thing about sheep is this. They are vulnerable and defenseless, in constant need of protection. The sheep wanders off

and there is no way for it to protect itself. Have you ever looked at a sheep and been scared? Like our daughter, Sophie, the first stuffed animal we ever bought her was this little sheep she named it lambie. Like she cuddled with it and slept, right? If you can't go to sleep, what did you, now we say watch Netflix, but before we did that,

you would sell somebody, count sheep. Why? Because they're not scary at all. Yeah, you would, they just, the sheep would just wander off. They have absolutely no defense mechanisms. They don't scare anybody. I was texting with a friend of mine, BJ, and they just moved from Gainesville, from the promised land of Gainesville to Texas, which, who would ever leave Gainesville, Florida?

The promised land. It's right. Somebody has to represent the Gators up here every once in a while. It's too late. Don't try now. I don't need your pity woo's. But I was texting with him because he had sent this picture. he has a four-year-old son.

They had gone to a rodeo, and his four-year-old son is in, like, this little rodeo, like chest thing, and he's got his cowboy hat on and everything. And he's riding a sheep. And I'm like, BJ, what the heck is going on? He's like, it's mutton busting. Okay. And I thought about it.

I'm working on this. This is like two nights ago. I'm working on this message. And I'm thinking about it. I'm like, yeah, of course. You don't put your four-year-old on a bucking bronco. You don't put your four-year-old on a bull. you put your four-year-old on a sheep.

Why? Because nobody's scared of a sheep. And you and I are like that. I mean, we bow up and we can act tough and we can act like we got it all together and we can be well put together and all that. But the truth of the matter is, we're defenseless. Left to ourselves, we can't defend ourselves against anything.

Third thing about sheep is this. They need to be fed and watered constantly. If you were to lead a sheep out into a pasture, here's what a sheep would do. Big green pasture. Sheep would put its head down, would start eating the little bit of grass right in front of them. And when he ate through the blades of grass,

the sheep would then, instead of moving its head over and eating more grass, it would just start eating the roots. And then when it got done with eating the roots, it wouldn't just quit. It would keep going, and it would eat the dirt and the rocks until its intestines got full of dirt and rocks, and it would kill them. That's you and me.

Man, we're wandering around this world, just grazing proverbial dirt and rocks. We think it tastes good for a minute, and we don't know, we're just taking all this stuff in in our lives. And eventually, it's going to kill us. And we need real food for our souls. We need real protection. The question is, what's going to save a sheep? What does a sheep need because they'll wander off and they can't defend themselves and they can't feed themselves?

What's going to do it for a sheep? Here's what's not going to do it for a sheep. Giving a sheep a pep top. All right, sheep, be the best sheep you can ever be. It's not going to do anything for a sheep. Or you're going to be like, okay, the shepherd goes in among the sheep, and he's like, all right, sheep, today we're going to have a sheep class. that's what we're going to do.

I'm going to teach you how to be better versions of you, sheep. Never going to work. Or here's 10 rules for living your best sheep's life now. Doesn't do anything. Nothing. Zero. You know what? There's one thing that solves the sheep's problems.

All of sheep's problems are taking care of them one thing. The one thing is a really good shepherd. A really good shepherd solves it all. And so when Jesus, he's about to do this, He's about to say, I'm the good shepherd. I'm the solution to every problem you have. I am enough for you. So he starts in verse 7 and he says this.

So Jesus said to them, again, said to them, truly, truly I say to you, I am the door. This is the third time Jesus uses one of these I am statements and it's acclaimed a divinity. It's the name of God. I am Yahweh. I am who I am. I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers,

but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved. And will go in and out and find pasture. So Jesus says, I am the door. I don't know if you're thinking, but I'm thinking, I thought Jesus was claiming to be the good shepherd. And then he starts to go down the door metaphor.

Like, Jesus, why are you mixing the metaphors up? Like, if you're an English teacher, you'd be like, Jesus, that's a C-minus, you should stick with one metaphor in your paper. You're like, what's the deal with door and good shepherd? And here's the deal. They're not two separate things. See, if you went back into the time when Jesus lived, they would have built a sheep's pen. And it could have been permanent, it could have been temporary. but however they did it, what they did was they would build it.

It would be square around, and there would be an opening in the wall or the fence. And they wouldn't build a door because what would happen is the shepherd would lay down in the gap, in the opening. And the sheep would enter in and would go out only by way of crossing through the shepherd. Little like little gospel bells and whistles should be going off in your head right now. that there's one that lays down his life by which you enter in. Sound familiar to any storyline, you know? Jesus says, I am the only legitimate way to God. I am the door, and if you enter by me, you will be saved.

That is a promise of Jesus. You enter by me, you will be saved. And there's all kinds of voices in our world that'll say, there's all kinds of doors and all kinds of paths. Fine. But Jesus says, I am. You want a guaranteed way to know that you can be with God the Father? It's through me.

I am the only way. I am the way to the Father. How good. How good is Jesus? That he wouldn't leave us to guess or wonder or come up with our own ideas, but that he would just say, if you want to be with God, the way to God is that you come through me, who I lay my life down in the gap, and you step in to life with God through me.

And then he goes on in verse 10, and he says, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. Now, Jesus says there are thieves and robbers, but there is the thief, the thief. and the the thief here is Satan. Now let me tell you some things about Satan. The first thing about Satan is this, is he is real. I think he would love for us to think he's a cartoon. I think he'd love for us to think he's got a little pitchfork and a red suit on Saturday Night Live like John Lovett

and we would just go, ha ha, he's cute. I think he would love that. The truth of the matter, that is not who is. Satan is absolutely real. And Satan is full of sin. Satan was actually an angel. You can go read about him in Scripture. His name was Lucifer, which means like a son of light.

That he was an angel who stood in the presence of God. And when he stood before God, instead of being like awe and wonder and worship and glory and respect and wanting to be like God, he said, no, I actually want to be God. And in his pride, God casts him out of heaven. And that it was his pride that cast him down, and he is full of sin. And he is real, and he's full of sin, and he is powerful. Angels can kill thousands. They just motion with their hands is what scripture tells us.

that they kill thousands of people and his power and his influence in this world are absolutely real 1. Sean 519 says the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. Ephesians 2 1 and 2 and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked

following the course of this world following the prince of the power of the air He's the prince of the power. His power is real in this world. It is powerful. The other thing about Satan is he is brilliant. He's brilliant. Listen, he knows more Bible than all of us put together.

Stack all the degrees, all the hours, all the time. Stack it all up. He knows more of it. He stood eyeball to eyeball with God. Think about that. He knows more Bible than you and I will ever know. He's brilliant. And he is hateful. Satan hates God and he hates that you would be one of his sheep. His mission is this. His mission is to steal and kill and kill and destroy. He would love to steal and kill and destroy your joy in the Lord. He would love to steal and kill and kill and destroy your joy in the Lord. He would love to steal and kill and kill. and destroy your marriage. He would love to steal, kill, kill, and destroy your devotion. He would love to steal, kill, kill, and destroy your worship of God. He would love to steal and kill and

destroy your holiness. He would love to steal and kill and destroy your purpose. And he'd love to steal and kill and destroy any sense of urgency that you have about the gospel. And then here's his methods. First one is this. He is sneaky. He's just straight up sneaky. Jesus calls him a thief, the thief. Like a robber, a robber shows up, blunt force, and goes,

give me your wallet. I'll take it. A thief sneaks in. And he says one of the chief ways that Satan is going to steal, kill, and destroy in your life is that he's going to sneak his way in. The other thing about Satan and his methods is this, is that he is a liar. It is his native tongue. He has been a liar from the beginning.

If you go and read in Genesis where he shows up with Adam and Eve, what's the first thing he does? He lies to them. He takes the truth of God and he just twists it just enough. Then he shows back up with Jesus in the desert. begins to tempt Jesus. Do you know what he does? He just, again, just twists enough. Jesus, you could have all this. And he lies. He's a liar. His other method is he tempts. He doesn't make he tempts. The devil made me do it? No, he didn't. The devil can't make you do anything. He can set the table, but he tempts. That's his thing. He doesn't. He doesn't. He

He'll throw the lure out and he'll go, you like this one? Sex? Drugs? What do you like? What do you like? Money, power, control? And he'll tempt. And his role is to deceive on earth and to accuse in heaven.

Satan in Hebrew, Hasatan, literally means the accuser. And devil out of Greek, Diablos is where we get diabolical, like deception from. And Revelation tells us that Satan's two jobs are this, to deceive on earth and to accuse you in heaven. That's what he does. Now, those are all true. But can I poke the bear for a minute? Can I tell you who Satan really is? Here's who Satan really is. Satan is. Satan is not omnipresent. He cannot be everywhere all the time to all people. He's not omnipresent. He also is not omnipotent.

He's not all-powerful over all things. Satan is also not omniscient. He doesn't know everything about everybody at every moment. All of those things are reserved for God. God is all powerful and God is all-knowful. and God is all present. Satan is not the ying to God's yang. He's not the balance out of God's power.

There is God and there's Satan. That's who he is. The other thing about God is this, I mean Satan is this. Sure he has power, but it is limited and it is only by permission. It's proxy power. You go back, you, you've, You read the story in Job, Satan shows up to God.

He has to, think about this. Do you know how bad it must gall Satan to have to show up before God and ask permission to do something to Job? He's like, can I do this? And God's like, nope, can I do this? Nope. Say, you can do this, but you can't touch him the rest of the way. Or when Jesus goes to the cross, God says, Satan, you get one hour.

That's it. that's it think about it think how how he's just got to go back and grovel again before god to get permission to do anything he's got power it's real it's just only under the authority of god god is all sovereign over him the other thing is this he is defeated and he is a loser that would be the appropriate place to clap on the cross jesus crushed the head of the serpent. Listen, when Jesus went to the cross, don't you think Satan was back there with all of his minions going, we did it, we did it, we did it, we did it for three days.

They're partying it up, and then Jesus goes, I'm back. Sorry. Listen, we had a snake get in our kitchen. This was a couple years ago. Do you know the only kind of good snake? A dead snake, right? So we get it out. You know what you do to a snake, you get a shovel, and you chop.

its head off. Now venomous snakes, this is crazy, a venomous snake, their fangs kind of, they're like spring-loaded. So they stay spring-loaded even when they're dead, which means you can chop a snake's head off and it can still actually bite you. Or you chop the head off and you see it like the body and the tail are still writhing around. That's Satan right now. He's done. He lost. It's over. He's a loser. Yeah, he might writhe around a little bit, but he's done. He's defeated. Colossians 2.15 says this, he, meaning Jesus, disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over him. He shamed him. He humiliated him in front of the world. That's what he did on the cross. The other thing about Satan is this.

He can't take your salvation from you or you from your Savior. Romans 838 and 39 says this, for I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

He has no power. He can't. cannot take you from your Savior, and he cannot take your salvation from you, and he has no future. One day, what little writhing around he has will be taken from him. It says, scripture tells us he will be bound up and cast away. He'll have zero power. He has no future. And the last thing is this.

You have every weapon you need to defeat him in your life. You have this. You have the Word of God. If you don't own a Bible, take the one that's in the seat back in front of you. And arm yourself with the sword of the Word. You've got prayer. You can literally go to the resurrected ruling, reigning Jesus who already defeated him and said, go fight my battle on my behalf.

When we show up and do this and worship, I mean, this is not worship attainment, right? This is not a cute social thing we do. What we are doing is we are putting our boot on the neck of Satan and crushing him. This is battle. That's what's happening. And we're reminding him, you're defeated,

you're a loser, you have no future, and you have no power over me, and you may not take my relationship with my Savior. That's what we do every time. time we show up. And you have the spirit of God. You have the same spirit that resurrected Jesus that defeated Satan living inside of you. You have everything that you need. Here's the thing about him. I don't know how else to say this other than he's just pathetic. He's pathetic. To the point where you'd almost feel bad for the guy if it wasn't who he was. So Jesus says the thief only comes.

to steal and kill and destroy. And I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. This is the verse that God used to bring me to faith when I was 15 years old. I love this verse. Jesus didn't come to make us better versions of ourselves. Jesus didn't just come to make you a more moral you. Jesus didn't come to like steal your good life. He didn't come to destroy your fun life.

Jesus came that you might have life. Think about this. What good is a death and resurrection if all you need to be is a more moral version of you? What does a dead man getting out of a grave do to help you with your morality? But you know what a dead man getting out of the grave does? it helps you if the problem with your sin is not just that you're bad but you're dead that it says that there is a god who is bigger and more powerful than death and that in him you can triumph over the wages of your sin which is death and jesus says i came that you might have life i learned it and have it to the fullest or have it abundantly and what abundant does not mean is abundant does not mean health wealth and prosperity

I mean, let's not forget, Jesus was a homeless carpenter. What abundant literally means is like a full spectrum life. The words literally, it's like a spirit, it's spiritually more than you could ever hope, dream, or imagine. That's what abundant is. And Jesus shows up and he goes, listen, I want you to have life. I want you to have new life. I want you to have everlasting life. And I want you to have this full spectrum life that you never could have imagined.

hope for in me. About six months ago, I started getting this pain like in my chest and in my back. I thought I had pulled something, so I laid off for a while and didn't go away. And I thought, maybe it's heartburn. I don't know. So I go to the doctor and they do this scope and they said, they call like an hour later, which is never good when the doctors call you an hour later. And they said, we need you to come back tomorrow. Go back tomorrow. They do another scope. And what they ended up finding was that I had a tumor. It was about the size of my pointer finger, a little bit less than my pointer finger, in my neck right here. This was about January or February. And they ran some tests, and they were like, it doesn't look good. Okay, we'd like to do some more tests. They

run some more tests. Those tests take weeks to come back. They come back and they say, you know what, it's not cancer. You're good. It's all right. But it's still, it's like pressing on your vocal nerves and growing towards your spine. So we're going to need to go in. We're going to need to cut it out. So about eight weeks ago, I go right down the street from where I am right now, down to Mayo, and the doctor's there, cut it out. They cut out the tissue that's around it. They take care of it. You know, I wake up and they're like, you're good. Go home. You're all set. Everything's fine. I go home. We get another call shortly after that, and they said, hey, we biopsied the whole thing. And that tumor we took out, that was benign. It was fine. But what we found was there was another

tumor hiding behind the benign one and that one's cancer. And so we had to walk through what it meant to be diagnosed with cancer. If Jesus came, which by the way, everything's fine, they took care of it and take deep breath. It's awesome. Not the point. But if Jesus came promising a life that was only health, wealth, and prosperity, then it wasn't true for me. But if Jesus came, meaning abundant means a full spectrum, experience me in ways that you have never experienced me before kind of life. Do you know what I got? I got an abundant life. I got to experience Jesus in ways that I had read about and I studied and I believed and then I got to see God actually hold the weight of all those things in my life. I got to see him actually be sovereign. I actually saw him be good. I actually saw him be good.

He says, I came that you might have life. Listen, we don't follow Jesus to get a better life. We follow Jesus because he is better than life. We follow Jesus because he gives us life. You'll see in your journal where it'll say the point, and we're not done, so don't think I'm landing this plane. We're only on verse 10. It says this, all this world can offer is heartbreak, self-indulgence, and disappointment.

life, a full life, can only be experienced in the fullness of Jesus Christ. And when Jesus says, I came that you might have life and life to the fullest, he's saying, I am that life. If you want life, if you want it to the fullness, it's in me. That's where you find it. And then he gets to the statement when we've been waiting for in verse 11, I am the good shepherd. There's the fourth I am statement.

The good shepherd lays down his life for a sheep. He who's a hired hand and not a shepherd who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches him and scatters him. And he flees because he's a hired hand and cares. Circle that word cares. Nothing for his sheep. Jesus said there are thieves, there's robbers, there's hired hands,

there's wolves. And none of those care anything about the sheep. I mean, somebody that leads you away from Jesus, they are at best a hired hand. They're just out for their own personal gain, fame, whatever. At worst, they are a wolf praying on you. And Jesus says, over against them who care nothing about you, I am the good shepherd, and I care for you. Think about that. Right now, Jesus is not tolerating you.

He's not putting up with you. He cares for you. For you. How good is God that he would care for us. Let that just sink in for a minute. If you hear nothing else today, that you would hear that God cares for you. Verse 14, he says, I am the good shepherd. I know my own, my own know me.

Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. He says, I know my own and my own know me. What he's saying is, I identify with you. I claim you as my own. Listen, we are dumb wayward sheep. We give him every reason to not identify with us. Do not claim us.

He is holy and just and righteous, and we are not. And he gives us every reason to never. be able to step in his presence and he says you know what you can't step into my presence but i can step into yours and he claims us while we were yet sinners christ died for us you were bought with a price you are not your own you know whose you are if you are in christ you're his and he's claiming you and it's grace upon grace upon grace upon grace upon grace and then he says i know my own and my own know me. Like he wants a relationship with you.

Back in verse three, he says that when a shepherd calls his sheep, that a shepherd would actually name their sheep. Think about that. There's a whole pen full of sheep. There's a couple shepherds, and each shepherd has his sheep, and they've named them, and the sheep actually recognized their own name. That if you're feeling this thing stir in your bones, Like, I want that, I want that guy to be my Savior.

It's not a generic invitation. It's not just a cast abroad net. He knows you. Like, he knows your name. And he's looking at you and he's going, all right, Beth, come here. All right, Carl, come here. All right, Stan, come here.

All right, Deb, come here. And he knows you. And he is calling you by name because he claims you as his own. And then verse 16, he says, and I have other sheep that are not in this fold. He's talking to a Jewish audience. And what he's saying is there are a bunch of non-Jewish people, Gentiles. That's most of us. He goes, I've got a bunch of sheep from other folds, not Jewish,

gentile sheep all over the world. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice so there will be one flock and one shepherd. Jesus says, I must. I have a mandate on my life. I am a rescuing God. That's who I am. I am a good shepherd that goes out and rescues the lost sheep. When Jesus tells in Luke 15, he tells three parables.

He tells one of a lost son, tells one of a lost coin, and tells one of a lost sheep. and he says, I'm like the guy that has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders off. And do you know what I do? I leave the 99 and I go find the one. Why? Because I know that one. That one is mine. I love that one.

I care for that one. I will go on a rescue mission to the ends of the earth to find that one sheep. And I will lay down my life to get that sheep back. He says, I came to seek and save the lost. He said, there will be every tribe, tongue, and nation around the throne. I'll have sheep from all over, from every tribe, every flock, every fold. Jesus has this mandate. This is why we go on mission.

Do you know to date we have partnered to plant 387 churches? That's 387 sheep pens. for God to go, you're my sheep, come on in. We got a pen over here in Uganda. Oh, you're one of my Japanese sheep. Come on, we got one in Tokyo. Oh, you're one of my Scottish sheep. We got one in Edinburgh.

You're one of my Orlando sheep? We got one there too. 387 does. We've sent 27 long-term missionaries to the ends of the earth. Do you know what they're doing? They're out there looking for the sheep. They're out there going, hey, you're one of the sheep? Come on.

come on come with me this year we have 156 people who have already in a year where you can't go anywhere 156 people have signed up or have already gone on a short-term mission trip to say there's a good shepherd you're a wayward sheep come on home here's what that means some of you all need to go some of you need to go some of you need to go some of you need to go plant a church some of you need to go build a sheep pin where there aren't any sheep pens. Some of you need to go get in one of those sheep pens. You need to go become a member of one of our church plants and you need to tend a flock with the pastor there. Some of you need to lay down your job or lay down your living in your mom's basement or whatever you're doing and go be a missionary. It'll be the best two years you ever

spent in your life. And you need to call sheep into the sheep pen. And so, Some of you all need to not be owned by fear. You need to get up and go and live on mission. And then he says in verse 17, for this reason, the Father loves me. Because I laid down my life. He's talking about the cross. And I take it up again, the resurrection. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

I have authority to lay it down. And I have authority to take it up again. This is the charge that I received from my own accord. my father, Jesus is saying, I am the sacrifice for you and instead of you. There was a Jewish holiday called the Day of Atonement, and they would take two lambs, two spotless lambs. And one of them, they would kill this lamb, sacrifice this lamb, and they would take the blood of the spotless lamb, and they would put it over the mercy seat, over the ark of the covenant.

And it was to symbolize the shedding of blood for the covering of sin. then they would go over here to this other spotless lamb and they would lay hands on it and they would pray and symbolically it was like a transfer of the sin of the people and so not only was your sin paid for but then what they would do is they would run that sheep out into the desert and if you've ever heard the passage that your sins would be kind of as far as the east was from the west it's because they would run that sheep out and so your sin was paid for and your sin was dealt with it was gotten rid of. And Jesus, the good shepherd, shows up and he says, not only am I your good shepherd, I am the sheep who will lay down his life for you. I am that spotless lamb, that when I go to the

cross, I who have committed no sin will take all your sin on me and I will be sacrificed for it. It will be my blood that will cover your sin. The wages of sin is death. I will be that death. And not only will I pay for it, I will take it from you. And you will no longer be in sin. And I will bear the burden of that sin for you. I, the good shepherd, will become the lamb who was slain for you. 19 says there was again a division among the Jews because of these words. Many of them said, he has a demon. He's insane. Why listen to him? Others said, these are not the words of one who's oppressed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?

What they're saying is, this guy's either a liar, a lunatic, or he's actually Lord. He's either crazy, he's lying to us straight from Satan, or he is who he actually is. Now, at this point, there's a break in John chapter 10 and a few months go by. And I imagine, I don't know this is true, but I imagine all of those Pharisees and all those religious leaders that came to Jesus and asked them those 14 questions and said, shoot straight with us, Jesus, just tell us who you are. They all went back and they went, I don't know, were you satisfied by the door answer? I kept talking about being a good shepherd.

Let's go back and ask them again. And so I imagine they show back up. Verse 22, it says at the time of the feast of dedication, that's Hanukkah, took place. Jerusalem. It was winter. Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him, literally surrounded them. It's like a military term.

Ambush him. And said to him, how long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. Quit with all the metaphors. Quit with all the parables. Jesus, just tell us.

If you want us to believe, just tell us exactly who you are. Have you ever been there? Maybe you're there right now. You're like, great, Adam, that's super. You're up there telling us all this stuff about doors and shepherds and sheep and all that. But I really, if Jesus would just tell me who he is, I could make a decision about following him. And then in verse 25, here's what he says.

The works that I do in my father's name bear witness about me. But you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. Think about that for a second. You don't become a sheep because you believe. because you're a sheep. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life. They will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My father who has given them to me is greater than all. And no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand. What he's saying is, I've got life that's eternal for you and I've got life that is secure for you. And I hold both of those and nobody can ever take your eternal life. or your security and me away from you. Why? Because I'm able to hold on to them.

It's not your responsibility to hold on to your salvation. It's me and my fathers. And we're not losing them. I haven't left my car keys yet. I gotcha. And then he says this, verse 30, I and the father are one.

You want to know plain? You want to know straight? You want all the metaphors and parables and stories and everything you just want to hear. Here it's straight from me, here it is. God, me, we are the same. The Father and I are one. I am the God who became man.

To take on your sin, to take on your waywardness and your lostness, and to bring you back to the Father. That's the God that I am. I am God in the flesh. And if you skip over to verse 41, here's how it ends. and many came to him. And they said, John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.

And many believed. Many believed in him there. And so here's the question I have for you. Do you believe? Do you believe that Jesus is who he said he is? Do you believe? Maybe you've never admitted it before. Maybe you've never admitted that you're like a sheep.

And left up to your own devices, you're going to wander off and get lost. Maybe you've never admitted that you've been looking for all these things in culture, but they're really no better than rocks and dirt in your gut, and it's killing you, and you know it. Maybe you've tried to act tough, but you just keep feeling the attack and feeling the attack

and feeling the attack, and you're taking blow after blow, after blow, after blow, and namely the attacks are just self-inflicted. Maybe today you would just stop and go, you know what? I am a sheep. And no amount of tips and tricks and classes and speeches and rah-rah and self-motivation and looking in the mirror and pumping myself up is going to fix this. What I really need is a good shepherd.

I need a good shepherd who will lay down his life for me that I could come in to the fold of God. And maybe you have never trusted that when Jesus died on the cross, it counted for you. Maybe you never knew that Jesus was God who came in flesh and came on a rescue mission. And he gave his perfect, spotless life

to be a sacrifice to cover your sin, to pay for your sin, and to take it away that you might be counted among the sheep of God. and that you would have eternal life, life now and forever. You might have life and you might have it abundantly. And you don't have to live in fear of ever losing that eternal salvation. Because God's got it for you.

And so what I want to do is I want to pray. So if you would, would you bow your head? And if you have never accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, if you've never admitted those things, but you feel him calling your name and you know you feel it. Would you raise your hand right now? Raise him up high.

Get them up. And God, I believe that you are my good shepherd. I believe you are my Lord and my Savior. Jesus, thank you. Thank you that you are the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. Lord, thank you for those in the Lord, thank you for those this room who right now just stepped through the gap, through you the door, into life and life

abundant and life forever and life secure in you, Jesus. And Lord, I pray for those who may have believed that long ago, but they found themselves wandering off. Lord, would you be the good shepherd throw them on your shoulders carry them do whatever it takes but bring them back into the fold and lord there's some where the wolf has been just nipping at their heels devouring their life and the enemy has been attacking them and i pray jesus you would be the good shepherd and you would take your rod and you would knock away that enemy and we pray it all in your your name, Jesus. Amen. Would you stand? And we're going to respond to God in worship. Worship is an act of believing. And so we're going to respond by singing. We're going to sing out. We're going to sing

some songs together that say, accounted for me, and we're going to sing songs about how it's prone to wander. And then for some of you, you just need to sing out and celebrate your good shepherd. For some of us, there's an act of giving back is our response. to say, God, you gave your life for me. I give back to you. Some of you need to come down here and you've given Satan a foothold and you need to get down on your knees and you need to go to God and you need to declare that he no longer has a place in your life. Satan doesn't, but God holy has you. Some of us need to repent of our wandering. We need to get down our knees and repent of our wandering. Feel the good shepherd. Pick us up and lead us back into the flock.

And so let's sing, let's bring, let's pray, let's respond to our good shepherd.