Sheep Who Must Discern

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[0:01] So today is kind of a special day, and it's not a holiday, and it's not even an official day on the church calendar, but today is the day that in the lectionary the Good Shepherd came up in all of the readings. And this is something that happens every year. The lectionary switches between a three-year cycle, but every year, right around this time, it's Good Shepherd Sunday, and we read part of the Good Shepherd passages. And I like this. I like this day. I like these scriptures.

[0:42] I love Psalm 23. It's encouraging. It's empowering. It reminds us that no matter what life throws at us, our Good Shepherd is protecting us. Our Good Shepherd is walking beside us. And providing for us. And taking care of us.

[1:01] I love Good Shepherd Sunday. And it's something we should remember all year round. But just as with all passages, there's more to this. There are so many themes, and there are so many directions we could have gone with just the passage we're going to read today. That it was hard to do. And it's hard to decide on just one. But I think there's often a temptation when we come to these passages to want to focus on exactly what it means that Jesus is our shepherd. And that's a good place to focus. I like that. But I think we've probably done that before.

[1:48] So today, I want us to focus on what it means to be the other characters in the story. And I especially want to focus on what it means for us to be the sheep. What does it mean for us to be a sheep in Jesus's fold?

[2:11] And we're especially going to focus on discernment and spiritual blindness. And of course, in Ovine language, I think that really means we're going to focus on not having the wool pulled over our eyes. But let's jump in first by reading John 10.11-18. And again, I'm using the NLT version which is not in your bulletin. But it is printed on your screen.

[2:44] So John 10.11-18. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices. sacrifices for the sheep. A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He'll abandon the sheep because they don't belong to him and he isn't their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock. The hired hand runs away because he's working only for the money and doesn't really care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own sheep and they know me. Just as my father knows me and I know the father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep. I have other sheep too that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also.

[3:49] I I ! They will listen to my voice and there will be one flock with one shepherd. The father loves me because I sacrificed my life so that I may take it back up again. No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For the authority to lay it down when I want and also take it up again. Sorry, for I have the authority to lay it down when I want and also take it back up again. For this is what my father has commanded. Let's pray.

[4:33] Dear God we thank you for sending us a good shepherd. We pray for these scriptures today. We pray for this message. We pray that you would owed open hearts and minds that we would be receptive to your word.

[4:55] These things we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So first things first, we have some characters to focus on in our story. We have some obvious ones. We have Jesus, who's telling this story. We have the sheep, the wolves, the thieves, the hired hand. We have the shepherd, and then we have some less obvious ones like the gate.

[5:24] But those are pretty easy. I wonder if you guys can also think of more characters that are in this story. It's kind of a trick. These characters are from chapter 9, and I didn't read chapter 9 this morning, but we really do need to examine chapters. We need to examine chapter 10 in the light of chapter 9. In fact, chapter 10 really shouldn't be separated from chapter 9 at all. At the very end, the very last verse of chapter 9, Jesus was admonishing the Pharisees, and that admonishment carries on in the very first verse of chapter 10. It's the same breath from one chapter to the next.

[6:14] So we need to add in this character palette from chapter 9, and that is a blind man, and the Pharisees, and even the parents of the blind man. And then we have to add in the Jews and the Gentiles. And with all of those characters, we have a full cast. And that's a lot to keep track of. But I want you to think of and imagine what it means to be in each of those roles as we go today. So here we go. We have a man who had been blind since the very day he had been born. And Jesus healed him.

[7:05] And the man went away with his sight restored, but the Pharisees needed to investigate this situation. Because for one thing, Jesus had healed him on what was the Sabbath day. And that was a problem. But ultimately, they didn't want to believe that this man had been healed at all. They wondered if he had ever been blind. They thought, well, maybe it's a different man altogether.

[7:41] They just didn't want to believe that Jesus had changed. They just didn't want to believe that Jesus had truly healed him. Because if Jesus had truly healed him, maybe they could jam him up for healing on the Sabbath. But healing comes from God.

[7:58] Healing does not come from evil. Healing does not come from the forces of this world. Healing comes from God. So if Jesus had truly healed this man who had been blind since birth, then Jesus was working with power given by God. And they did not want to accept that. They did not want it to be true. And so they were trying to control the situation. They didn't want it to get out of hand. But this man who had been blind started talking. People started noticing. They knew it was the man who had been blind, but now he saw. And so the Pharisees were trying to contain this situation. And they started investigating.

[8:47] They went to the blind man's parents. And they asked him, Is this your son? And how was he healed? Well, there's a problem. You see, it wasn't an innocent question. The Pharisees had power. You did not want to mess with the Pharisees.

[9:12] They were going to throw out anybody who spoke the name of Jesus. Out of the temple. Now that's not like today if we're switching churches or even if somehow we are asked to leave a church. It's far, far, far more powerful than that. The temple was the center of activity. The temple was the center of religious activity, social activity, political activity. The temple had an impact on all of those areas of a person's life. And if a Jew was removed from the temple, it could impact their career. It could make them a social pariah. It could really end their life as they knew it. And not only that, but they would be able to be removed from the worship of their God. And that was the hardest of all.

[10:19] So the parents of the man who had been blind were asked by the Pharisees, how did this happen? And is this even your son? And you know what they said? They threw him right under the bus. Or I guess not the bus. They threw him under a camel. I don't know. They threw him into the wild to fend for himself. They said, yes, he's our son. But as to how this happened, you know what? Just ask him. Leave us out of this.

[11:02] And so they did. They asked the man how he had been healed. And the man was honest. And he said that it was through Jesus Christ. And you know what? He was, in fact, thrown out of the temple. And so that's where we pick up. That's where we pick up our story. Jesus admonished the Pharisees. And he said, you know what? One day, the blind will see, like this man here. He physically sees, but he also sees. He also spiritually sees what the truth is. And one day, those who see will be blind.

[11:49] Those who see, the Pharisees, who are supposed to see God, who are supposed to see what God has for the people, they are the truly blind. And then the story continues, and Jesus jumps into this, into this story about the sheep in a flock. Now, who are the characters in the story? The sheep in the flock are the people of Israel. And that's easy.

[12:24] God's people are under his care and his protection. You know what must have really made the Pharisees just so mad? That Jesus claims that he's the one And he claims that in addition to the people of Israel, there were other sheep who would be brought into the flock.

[12:49] At that time, this could only mean the Gentiles. There were two kinds of people in the world. There were the Jews, and there were the not Jews, the Gentiles. That was it. If the sheep of the flock are the people of Israel, then anyone else who's invited into the flock are Gentiles. And that was not the way the Pharisees thought it was supposed to be.

[13:19] The flocks cannot mix. Now, I said we're going to look at what it means to be a sheep in God's flock. And this is our first lesson. We are not the sheep of God's flock. We are one flock. Jesus said, I must bring them also. The word for must denotes not just a desire or a want. He's not just like, oh, you simply must come. No, he's saying, you must, I must, I need to bring this. This word was not just a desire, but a divine necessity. It is God's will that the flocks be one flock.

[14:12] Gentiles are welcome in the sheepfold, just as the Israelites are. All of the sheep will recognize his voice and follow him so that there will be one flock and one shepherd. And now the people of God are not just Jewish, but all who according to later, 1720, which we also didn't read, but we'll be interacting with chapter 17 throughout here. According to 1720, all who believe in Jesus through their word. And so this is Jesus's vision of unity for the church, that Jewish and Gentile believers would be living together under Christ's leadership.

[14:58] Jesus is looking toward this much bigger, greater scope of his ministry to reach the world. And then later, also in chapter 1711, Jesus prays, Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name that you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. And then in 1721, that they may all be one, even as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one. And then in 1721, that they may all be one in us, that the world may believe that you have sent me.

[15:37] This is good news for you and for me, because really, for the most part today, we are the Gentiles that were welcomed into the fold. And today, the church is not divided into Jew and Gentile as it was then, but we fight against allowing other sheep into the flock.

[16:02] We are called to bring the gospel. And we're called to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth. But we try to push the other sheep that Jesus has invited, we try to push them out of the fold. Sometimes we do this actively, sometimes passively. We're divided by race, by nation, denomination, gender, sexual identity, socioeconomic status, political affiliation, and so much more. But the sheep don't get to decide who deserves to come into the fold. That is the job of the gate and the shepherd.

[16:47] It is only our job to be welcoming to those that he invites in. So here's the problem. The sheep are not the only characters in the story. There are wolves and there are thieves and there are bandits. These antagonists in our story are geared up for constant attack. You know what made the Pharisees even more mad than the idea of allowing Gentiles into the fold?

[17:18] That Jesus claimed that the Pharisees were the attackers of God's people. They were the very people who were meant to be examples of God's law. And examples of the religion of Israel. The examples for God's people. And now they were being called the enemy of God's people.

[17:43] I said that we are called to be welcoming to all the sheep that the shepherd invites into the pen. Well, if we, the called, stand in opposition to God's will and don't welcome in, the sheep that Jesus welcomes in, then we are in the same situation that the Pharisees were in also. We think that we are called to be the people of God, but if we're standing against God's will, in opposition to God's will, then we are the attackers.

[18:21] But we also know that the enemy today, and even back then, was more than the Pharisees. It was the messages of the devil, the temptation of sin, the idols and ideologies that infiltrate society and even become implanted in our minds. And they go against the will of God. Those are attacks.

[18:47] And throughout all of history, we've been susceptible to these. Make your own list. You know what you're doing. What temptations, what sins, what circumstances, what idols and ideologies are a constant attack to you and what attack you the most viciously.

[19:10] But I can name a few. We've faced some absolutely ferocious wolves this year. Different from the ideologies and sins that attack us personally, we've faced some absolutely ferocious wolves this year. We as a nation have faced a pandemic and racial tension and political chaos and mass shootings. And it's constant. It just keeps coming.

[19:41] This has been a year filled with attack. And those are only the most obvious. But here's some more bad news. We don't always see the attacks coming. In fact, the deadliest attacks are the sneakiest. And their entrance into the pen is stealthy. The wolves and the thieves and the bandits don't enter through the gate. That would be crazy.

[20:13] They jump over the wall. These are temptations or idols or ideologies that maybe seem harmless. But they'll grow into something greater once we allow them to take hold. And an example could be an addict or an alcoholic who takes one hit or one drink. But it just spirals into something deeper. One can't be so bad.

[20:45] Or another example might be telling just a single white lie about somebody. But it's not all bad. But that lie spirals into more. Or even if it doesn't spiral into more lies, one single white lie could really, really hurt somebody else.

[21:05] It's a stealth attack. We don't think it's going to be a big deal, but then it is. On a societal level, we have ideologies that perpetuate social injustice. Things that seem harmless, or even things that are a benefit to us. On the surface, they're a benefit.

[21:31] But actually, these things keep other people down. And when other people are down, we are attacked too. Maybe in ways we don't recognize right away. These are all stealthy enemies that climb over the walls of the sheep pen. They don't go through the gate.

[21:56] Personally, or as a church, or as a society, we must be just as aware of the stealth attacks as we are from the reckless and obnoxious big bad wolf attack that we see coming from a mile away. Now the stealthiest of all are the hired hands.

[22:22] The hired hand flees because he's a hired hand and he doesn't care for the sheep. Well, he should. That's what he was hired to do. Having a hired hand is dangerous because the shepherd who hired him relaxes. He thinks, oh, there's a person here, a physical body here, whose job is to protect my sheep. I can relax. I can know that my sheep are in good hands. If a wolf or a thief comes to attack, the hired hand will take care of it. But the problem is that when the shepherd lets his guard down and the hired hand actually faces the attack, the hired hand has no connection to the sheep. They're just a job. They're not his sheep. He doesn't love the sheep.

[23:25] They mean nothing to him. And so when it comes to having a job or having your life, the hired hand flees without a second thought. And the shepherd doesn't know about the attack because the shepherd has gone to rest while the hired hand is watching the flock. The hired hand is far more dangerous than any of the other attacks and the hired hand is not an attacker at all. That is a stealthy attack.

[24:00] The very best example in our passage would be the parents of the man who had been blind. They are people of God. They worship in the temple. They are good people. They are people of God. They're even parents.

[24:23] They should care immensely for the spiritual development of other people of God and most especially of their own son. But at the first sign of true danger, they threw him to the wolves in order to save themselves.

[24:40] That is exactly what the hired hand in this story does. But even when Jesus was talking about the hired hands, he was still targeting the Pharisees, the spiritual leaders who put on a facade of caring for God's people when they cared most about saving their own interests, their own agendas, their own well-being.

[25:10] They sacrificed the spiritual life of the blind man and even the blind man's parents in an attempt to get to Jesus. And this was common. They sacrificed the good of God's people in order to save their own self-interests.

[25:31] They did not love God's people. They would not lay down their lives for God's people. When we are called as Christians, and especially as spiritual leaders, whether in your workplace or in your home, with your extended family, with your friends, when we are people of God and we are leaders in this kingdom, we must do it from a place of love.

[26:04] It's not a thing to be a leader in God's kingdom just because. It's not just because God told you. It's because we have genuine love for God's people that we can be called as hired hands and shepherds. So I made us identify as sheep at the beginning of this, but all of us here today also have a role as hired hands as well. We are tasked with the spiritual care of the sheep in the flock, and we are tasked with the spiritual care of the sheep who have yet to enter into the fold.

[26:48] It is not enough to go through the motions as a Christian, especially as our leaders or examples to non-Christians. If we say we are Christian, if that is who we proclaim ourselves to be in front of the world and in front of other Christians, then we must, there's that word also, that word must, not want, not should, but must, as in God's will necessitates it. We must also think, speak, and act on behalf of the shepherd. We must love as the shepherd has loved us. We must actively fend off the wolves that attack us and that attack the other sheep in the flock. We must actively welcome, other sheep into the fold who Christ has invited.

[27:47] Christ calls us in ways great or small to proclaim the good news of salvation through him. So we are simultaneously hired hands and sheep in this case. Because as sheep, we have another mighty job. The hired hands, we see that their job is mighty, but as sheep, we have another mighty job, and that is determining who is friendly and trustworthy as a hired hand and who is not. We must see through the stealth attacks of the wolves and the thieves.

[28:26] And in order to do that, we must be constantly listening for the voice of the good shepherd. Now, sometimes the voice of an attacker sounds good. The Pharisees stood for the Jewish people in the eyes of the people. They seemed to be upstanding individuals. They were people who were supposed to see the clearest, yet they were the spiritually blind because they refused to see Jesus' truth.

[28:56] They said things that sounded kind of right, and they did things that looked kind of right, but it was not right. And the differences could be subtle sometimes, but it is of the utmost importance to listen closely and discern right from wrong.

[29:18] We have religious leaders, political leaders, secular ideologies, self-serving ambitions, systemic ideas that all seem good. They sound right, but in fact, they lead us and God's people astray. Now, sheep really will listen and discern their shepherd's voice. They're taught to follow the sound of his voice. Sometimes they're taught to follow a certain tune or a certain whistle while he calls them. So if multiple shepherds are walking their multiple flocks all together, each shepherd only needs to give their special call, and all the sheep will just divide and go to their shepherd, and they'll do it accurately.

[30:13] It's really impressive. And Jesus is our shepherd, and he calls to us, not with some general call for the whole flock, but he calls us by name, and he knows us, and we know him. The word used here for know is gnosko, and it refers to a type of knowing that is deep and personal and relational. It's just kind, it's not like I know of that person. It's not like I know you because we've exchanged names before. It is I know you on a deep, personal, relational, loving level. That is how we know our shepherd, because he knows us.

[31:06] He has an identity for us. And that identity is who God has called us to be. So if we think back to what we've covered so far from verses 14 and 15 in this chapter, but also later in chapter 17, we see that this deep relational knowing comes first from the Father to the Son, and then from the Son to us.

[31:38] And first, from each of us, it goes to each other. We know and discern what is God's glory because we deeply and relationally know the shepherd. And we know and discern what is good and right for the other sheep in the flock because we deeply and relationally know these other sheep through our relationship with the shepherd. Our identity as God's sheep will always include living for God's glory and loving the other sheep. And sometimes it's hard to discern the message of the hired hands. Sometimes we don't see a stealthy wolf attack coming. But here's a general rule of thumb. If you feel called or led or tempted to do something that will in any way ever lead to the harm of any person, even if it's roundabout and subtle, then that is an attack and not the call of the shepherd.

[32:46] And likewise, if you feel led, called, or tempted to take a path that may eventually go against the will of God, then that is an attack. To be a sheep and to be a hired hand in God's flock means that we must take the task of discernment very seriously for the sake of ourselves and the sake of the people we serve. The sake of the rest of the flock and for the glory of God.

[33:12] But we are not helpless in discernment. And we are not defenseless against the wolves. We have a gate and we have the good shepherd. Not just a shepherd who is good, but the good shepherd. Just like we have double roles as sheep and hired hands, Jesus has a double role as the gate and the good shepherd.

[33:43] He lays down his life at the gate and takes it up again. A good shepherd, not the good shepherd, but a good shepherd, using the word agathos, for good, would do what is decent and would protect the sheep. And he would die, if he must, in the event of an attack.

[34:13] Agathos means good, as in having a certain degree of upstanding morality. But Jesus is the good shepherd. And the word for good here is kalos, meaning beautiful. Jesus is the beautifully good shepherd. What is beautifully good, or somebody who is beautifully good, goes beyond good to fully encapsulate all that is good.

[34:54] This shepherd goes above and beyond dying, if the situation calls for it, to actually laying down his life without being forced to. Jesus was a willing and active participant in God's plan for salvation. He willingly laid down his life for his people. Then he had God's authority to take it back up on their behalf.

[35:23] This sacrifice cemented the relationship between the Father and the Son and all the people of the flock. It also brought salvation to all the people, allowing all people to be welcomed into the fold, if only they believe. And that salvation, in John 10, 9, is linked to the promise of pasture and protection, both inside and outside of the sheepfold. And that means we have all that we need. We have protection and provision, healing and grace and salvation, both now and in the kingdom of God. And so, the sheep in Christ's flock listened to his voice and truth.

[36:09] The truth that he did lay down his life and take it up again. In the midst of this world, filled with threats and dangers, we long for the fulfillment of Jesus' promise that there will be one flock and one shepherd.

[36:29] Christ wants us to be participants in making that a reality. And so we boldly go with the protection of our shepherd into the world to proclaim his truth. Let's pray. Our God and our shepherd, we thank you for your protection, your provision, your love and your guidance.

[37:02] God, we ask that you would open our ears to help us listen and discern your voice and to actively follow. These things we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.