John 4:1-26 • The Red Lens
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Would you look in your Bibles with me this morning at John chapter 10, John chapter 10, one of the the sweetest and dearest passages in Scripture. This is Jesus' last public address in the Gospel of John. Now you may remember that John is writing decades later, and you might think if you were the Apostle John and you were selecting which of the addresses of Jesus would you choose to be the very last one that you would record, what would you say and why would you pick this one? Do you see what the subject is? It's the Good Shepherd. So you think the first public announcement of Jesus was by shepherds and the last public address of Jesus is his announcing that he is the Good Shepherd. This is a wonderful Christmas gift, the Lord's parting message to a large group of people saying who he is and what he will do because he is the Good Shepherd.
John 10, we'll look at verses 1 through 18. Jesus said, "Truly, truly, I say to you,
he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by 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 leads them out. When he is brought out all 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 again said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who come 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 out, go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is 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 them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep.
And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice, so there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 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 charge I have received from my Father. Let's pray together.
Father, thank you for precious words from Christ Himself that teach us how precious we are to you, that you would send your Son and that He would be our Good Shepherd. Would you take these truths and make them in this Christmas season a great gift to our hearts that we, should we face suffering or distance, distraction, difficulty, or tragedy, may in it all claim the Good Shepherd who would carry us through whatever we need to go, and by that knowledge we would have peace whatever we need to face. Grant this blessing of your Son, our Shepherd, in whose name we pray. Amen.
It has been one month since the last Christian was killed in Man's Syria. A small town torn by government and rebel fighting that most Christians had already been killed or evacuated, but once stayed. Elias Mansour, 84 years old, stayed despite the great threat to his life because he needed to stay to take care of a seriously ill child. Though he put his life in jeopardy, though it ultimately cost him his life, he laid down his life to take care of a child who could not take care of himself.
As we read in the news accounts of that last Christian who was alive in Mansour, we cannot help but think of how similar his heart to the heart of the Savior, the Savior who had laid down his life for children who could not take care of themselves. And yet, as much as you recognize the nobility of that heart, I want you to think not in this moment of the heart of the man, but of the heart of the child. What after all would it mean for a child seriously ill to recognize that though others had left, though once life was in jeopardy, though danger or closing is, there was one who would not leave or forsake, that there was one who was willing to stay and give his life for the sake of your safety. What would it mean to your heart? It would bring you a certain amount of peace and all the fear that you were facing to recognize there was one who would stay to take care of you, but it would be incomplete peace because you would recognize that one could not ultimately turn back the gunfire, could not ultimately save his own life. And so, as much as you might be encouraged by one who would give himself for you, it would not be ultimate peace. But what if the one who was willing to offer himself for you controlled all creation and resurrection and eternity?
What if he had the world and heaven in his hands? If that one offered never to leave you or forsake you, to give his very self for you, if that one offered to take care of you, what would that give you? Even in a world of difficulty and hardship, if you knew that one were for you, then despite the difficulties of the world, you could have true, deep, and abiding peace. It's what Christmastime ultimately offers, right? It's what the angels said to the shepherds, that there would be one who would come who would give us peace.
And in this passage on the Good Shepherd, that's ultimately what Jesus is doing, by telling us that he is both creator and shepherd, the prince of heaven as well as the prince of earth, who would nonetheless give himself for us to secure our eternity. What he's giving us, even in a world of hardship, is giving us peace, the greatest Christmas gift of all.
What does Jesus mean when he declares himself to be the Good Shepherd in this passage? One thing he's doing, of course, is he's contrasting himself to other shepherds. If you just remember what Jesus expresses, he will say in verse 8, "All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them." Jesus is talking about shepherds of another sort, shepherds who do not take care of the sheep. You have to recognize that background to this passage is a common phrase in the Old Testament. Those who were leaders of religion in Israel were known as shepherds of Israel. And now Jesus is separating himself from them by saying there are shepherds who are not doing their job, and actually they are characterized for us in Ezekiel chapter 34, a passage Jesus is reflecting as he refers to himself as the Good Shepherd.
In Ezekiel 34, we read these words of the Lord to Ezekiel, "Prophesy against the shepherds of Israel.
You do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened. The sick you have not healed. The lost you have not sought. And with force and harshness you have ruled the sheep."
Why would those words of Ezekiel be in the mind of Jesus at this point, of shepherds of Israel who do not take care of the sheep but deal with them harshly? Well, you have only to back into the preceding chapter to remember why Jesus would have harsh shepherds in mind. Do you remember? There was the healing of the man born blind. And despite the fact that he could now see after decades of not being able to see it all, the shepherds of Israel were not happy about it at all. But instead they began to threaten his parents. They began to question him and ultimately threw him out of the synagogue because he claimed that Jesus had been the one to heal him. "They were shepherds of Israel who were harsh, and they had acted harshly before when there was a man healed though he had been lame. They were harsh when there were those who had been fed though they had not ultimately had food provided for them by the shepherds of Israel." Jesus is saying, "Those who came before me are not the true shepherds. I am the true and good shepherd of Israel." But what would characterize such a shepherd? What would he be like?
That shepherding nature is described first as one who cares and then one who leads and ultimately one who protects his people. The element of care is obvious to us as we just kind of think of the first two verses here. As Jesus is describing his ministry, he says, verse 2, "He who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens, the sheep hear his voice, he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out." And the end of verse 4, why does he lead them out? End of verse 4, "For they know his voice." The message is rather simple at this point, but sometimes the most precious and strong of scriptural truths are the simple ones.
The nature of Jesus being a good shepherd is that he calls his sheep by name. And there's two dimensions of care being indicated there as you think of the intimacy of one who would call others by name. First is that they recognize his voice and second that he calls them by name.
An intimacy of relationship is always indicated as you say, "I can pick out a voice among others." You understand more about this account when you understand that there are many flocks in this one sheepfold that's being described. For economy of space or people, resources, or maybe just protection, there are numerous flocks in this one sheepfold. And so a shepherd calls his own sheep out and they recognize his voice, which means there is familiarity. There is intimacy of relationship already being identified. If the good shepherd is known by his sheep, they are close to him.
My brother is career Air Force, and at one stage of his career, his job was being a ground director of air-to-air combat. So pilots who were in air-to-air combat missions would receive their instructions from him. And he said, "One of the great difficulties when you're involved in air-to-air combat is there are so many messages coming into pilots when they're involved in that high stress situation that they lose track of the voices. They have signals that are coming from their weapons systems. They have signals that are coming from their flight systems. They have systems that are coming from the director. They have voices coming from other pilots. They can have so many voices coming at them that they just begin to phase out. They stop hearing anything anymore. And basic things like the fact that their aircraft may be in such a steep angle that's about to stall. They don't even hear the stall alarm going off anymore." He said, "Different air forces have experimented to see what can break through all the noise and still alert a pilot in those high stress situations. The British have introduced a woman's voice into the stall alarm." She is known as nagging Nellie. "You're about to stall. You're about to stall. You're about to stall." You know, the Americans, my brother said, have experimented with something different.
Programmed into the computer with the stall warning is each pilot's child's voice.
So that in the midst of battle, when all the noises and all the stress are so intense,
"Daddy, you're about to stall," comes through.
If you hear the voice among all the other voices, there's an intimacy of relationship being expressed. It's maybe even more particular in the fact that John takes such care to record that Jesus say the shepherd causes sheep by name.
I mean, it's sweet. We borrow the sweetness this time of year, don't we? That one would call each of his own by name, Dasher and Dancer and Donner and Blitzen.
But of course, it's not sweetness that's being indicated here. It's something absolutely astounding. The creator of the universe, the one who knows each of the stars in their billions by name, the one who made each fish in the sea, each bird in the air, who knows that when each sparrow falls, when you go to China and you say 1.4 billion people to India, another billion people in the United States, hundreds of millions of people, and you say, "And he knows me by name,
and he knows you by name, and he doesn't even need the church directory."
It is coming, by the way. What God is saying to you and to me is that we don't get lost. He knows us. We know his voice, and I think how important it was is the carmines we're saying, as Jim and I were talking about, in the midst of the stresses of the tornado and all that was happening, how Scripture spoke to them, how it penetrated the disaster. It penetrated all the difficulty that Scripture meant they heard God's voice, but at the same time they knew they were known by him. And the wonder and the goodness of that just helps. When you wonder why you're experiencing what you experience, why the hardness, why the difficulty, it helps just to know he knows you and cares about you and calls you by name. More than that, verse 4 says, "Not only does he call by name, but he leads. When he is brought out of all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him."
Verse 9 adds a little more to that dimension. "If anyone enters by me," said Jesus, "he will be saved and will go out and go in and find pasture." Two elements. First, the shepherd leads out. It's just a common dimension that we often mention about the Middle Eastern shepherd, right? They didn't drive their sheep, they instead went ahead of their sheep.
And Jesus makes that point over and over again in his ministry, that he was in all matter
tempted, such as we are, yet without sin. He experienced the trials, the temptations, the hurts that we do. He went ahead of us, but he also went ahead of us not just on earth, but into the heavenlies to prepare a way for us that we who need relief from this earth might have a way prepared for us by the Prince of Heaven. He goes ahead of us, experiencing the hard things, preparing the good things. It's an expression of his care that he would lead to us. Verse 9 says he leads to pasture, and that's an important note. It's a reflection, of course, of Psalm 23, right? "The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. He leads me beside
still waters." Leads me to where? To green pastures.
It's hard to know exactly what that means. It's important that you recognize in Psalm 23 that green pastures are not places with no difficulty whatsoever. After all, this abundant life that is being promised is pastures
that also are around the valley of the shadow of death.
The good shepherd helps us by putting a table before us in the presence of our enemies.
The reason I want to take some time to talk about what is this abundant life that Jesus refers to here, the green pastures to which we are taken, is because there can be sad promises made sometimes by Christians in the world as we begin to define the abundant life in terms that Jesus is not using.
After all, what is the abundant life? You and I should recognize that much of Christianity that is prospering in this world is prospering under false promises, sometimes known as the prosperity gospel. That if you're a Christian, if you have enough faith that you're going to hit the lottery.
I mean, health and wealth are on the way, and people listening to that kind of promise sometimes go after Christianity thinking that if they just have enough faith, that the right kind of faith, all life's problems will go away. You must understand that's precisely the opposite of what Jesus is saying in the book of John. This promise of pasture that is abundant life is a following of teaching that has already occurred. Do you remember in John 4, Jesus promised living water. And the woman at first thought he was talking about just water that would not keep her thirsty in this life, some sort of fountain of everlasting water, so she wouldn't have to keep coming to the well and drawing water. And ultimately, Jesus said, "No, you're thinking of the wrong thing. I'm not talking about earthly water. I'm talking about water that will what? Well up inside of you, that would become a fountain of eternal life. I'm talking about things spiritual." A little bit later, remember in John 6, Jesus would promise living bread, eternal bread, and what the people thought they wanted was just more loaves of barley bread. And he said, "You're coming for the barley bread, and I am promising you spiritual bread, the bread that will nourish you for eternity." If ever we begin to say to people, "Listen, the abundant life is just more of earthly stuff," we haven't understood that Jesus was saying, "No, the abundant life is the ability to survive without the earthly stuff. It is having such confidence in Christ's presence and His promises of eternity that when earthly things do not go as we think they should, that we do not despair, that we have peace beyond understanding because there is promise to us of God's presence and provision for whatever is necessary eternally." If all God promises is more earthly things, then you must recognize that that is an empty promise. I mean, just recognize what we know about people who get all earthly things that we could possibly imagine. I'm not the first to recognize, for instance, the parallels between the life of a Howard Hughes and a Michael Jackson. How could a pop icon in an aircraft manufacturer be similar? Well, because early in life they both got fame and fortune and spent it on pleasure and everything this world could provide that supposedly would bring you happiness. But if you track those men to the end of their lives, having had all the fame and the wealth and the pleasure that this world can offer, they both ended up focused almost entirely on toys and germs and the need for sleep. They had it all. And yet having had it all, they just were still dissatisfied. It wasn't enough. And if all we say to people is you'll just get more earthly stuff,
you recognize that people who get that stuff just wonder where's the next toy coming from that's going to make me a little happy again? Or where's the bug, the germ that's going to get me?
Or can't I just get some sleep? C.S. Lewis said, "Here's the real problem. The problem is not that we want too much from God. The problem is actually that we want too little. If all you want is the worldly things, you don't want enough because those won't satisfy. And the Good Shepherd is offering the things that are greater and beyond those things. And ultimately he is offering those things because his great duty and desire is to protect us." If you want to understand the kind of protection that Jesus is talking about, look at verse 7. You must recognize that what is being promised there is Jesus Himself. Verse 7, Jesus says, "Truly, truly I say to you, I am the door to the sheep." What does that mean? Verse 8, "All who come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep do not listen to them." Verse 9, "I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture."
Sometimes people look at this passage and they wonder how Jesus has switched metaphors.
He's been talking about shepherds and now suddenly talks about himself being the door or the gate in the older translations. But it's not really a switched metaphor. Some of you may have actually gone to the Holy Land as you're out on what's called the shepherd's fields outside of Bethlehem. There's a stone enclosure where shepherds still gather their sheep. And almost every westerner when they go and they're shown that stone enclosure points out, "There's no gate.
There's no door to the sheepfold here." And almost always there's a Middle Eastern shepherd that will look at you like a silly westerner and will then say these words, "What do you mean there is no gate?" What does the shepherd say? "I am the gate." And reminds you of the Middle Eastern practice that what the shepherd would do would lie down as the doorway so that nothing would get into the sheepfold except through the shepherd and the sheep would not come and go except by the will of the shepherd. Gates are important in farming even now, aren't they? I think of those of you who are in farming in agrarian economies and businesses now and I go back to my child and I recognize on my grandfather's farm how much gates regulated the business of the farm. Some fields left fallow, some used for feed, some used for water, and the gates regulating where the cattle would go, where the livestock would go. And when Jesus talks about himself being the gate, what he's declaring is not only that the sheep are dear to him, but that he regulates their lives,
that there's nothing that comes into the sheepfold by his will and the sheep do not come and go, but as he intends. We need that truth. In a time of tornadoes or lymphoma or job questions,
it's so hard at times when we face the difficult things in life and we wonder, is this right? Is this good? A pastor long ago taught me that if I'm dealing with God's people, one of the ready phrases that should be on my lips is simply this, "Even if I cannot explain what you're going through, this I know, Jesus is the good shepherd." Things don't come and go without his purpose. We may not see it, we may not know it until we are with him, but here is his assurance. He is the good shepherd and our lives are regulated according to his purpose. He who knows us by name also knows the events that we would face and also knows what we would face and regulates it for an eternal purpose. Why should we trust him? Why should we trust that that is true? Because the good shepherd not only leads and not only protects, he came when he did not have to.
It is so interesting if you go through the first six verses here and Jesus is making the analogy comparing the good and the bad shepherds and you get to verse 6 and it says, "This was a figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand. They didn't get it yet." And so Jesus presses forward on the same analogy making it even more pointed and plain in verse 7. So Jesus again said to them, "Truly, truly I say to you, I am the door to the sheep."
And verse 9 says it again, "I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. I not only intend to protect, I intend to regulate the life in such a way that what is best is going to occur." And as though people still don't get it, Jesus finally presses the point most strongly in verse 11, "I am the good shepherd." Don't you get it? By the way, he doesn't say, "I am a good shepherd."
He says, "I am the good shepherd." And to say what that mean, he first describes his function. What would it mean to be the good shepherd? The end of verse 11, "The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." He'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 them and scatters them. He flees because he's a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. The good shepherd is the one who's in contrast to the one who's just the hired hand, who's willing to take care of his hide rather than take care of the sheep. And Jesus says, "I'm not that one. I'm the good shepherd who would give his life for the sheep."
Now, you and I recognize the allusion to the cross that's coming, that Jesus would give his very life's sake for the preparation and preservation of the sheep who need eternal protection. But I have to make this maybe sing home to you a bit more by telling you this early in my ministry became one of the most important verses in my life,
that the good shepherd is not like the hired man who runs away when the sheep need help.
I don't need to give you a lot of details, but
in one of my very early pastorates, I was called to a church. And it was a church that I knew was in a town that was noted for particular community sin.
I knew it. Everybody knew it. But I was assured as I went to that particular church that the people of my church and particularly the leaders were not involved in that particular sin.
I was only there a few weeks and found out that what I had been told was not accurate at all. I don't know that I had been lied to, I will tell you. I think people had been so immersed in the sin for so long they just even stopped seeing it.
But I knew it was wrong. And I wondered, "What should I do? I wasn't told the truth. I came here under false pretenses. What obligation do I have here?" And it was this verse that kept me in place for seven years. You're not here to take care of you. Yeah, you could walk away. You could, "Hey, it's going to be bad for me, going to be bad for my life, going to be hurtful and harmful. Why should I deal with this?" But it was not what Jesus did. And I say that to you not for my sake, but those of you who are leaders in this church, elders and deacons, and Sunday school teachers, and youth leaders, and parents. There are times that we just, and honestly, would have to say to ourselves, "It would be so much easier just to walk away.
Why put up with this? Why grieve my heart with their sin?" And the answer of Scriptures is because we follow the Good Shepherd. And he gave his life for others. It was not his life that he sought to preserve, it was others. And those of us who follow him are called to similar obligation. An even greater obligation, perhaps, than we perceive when you go on down to verse 14. One more time Jesus says it, "I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep.
The Father knows me, and has known me, and I'm the Good Shepherd." You may not recognize it, but Pastor Gregg was already preparing us for this portion when he read that portion of the Christmas narrative from Matthew. In Matthew, you may remember that Herod learns from the wise men that Jesus has been born, but he doesn't yet know where the Christ child is. So he questions the wise men. In Matthew 2, Herod asks, "Where is the Christ who was to be born?" And the wise men answered, "In Bethlehem, for so it is written by the prophet Micah, from Bethlehem will come a ruler
who will shepherd his people Israel."
In Micah, the prophet says these words, "His coming forth is from of old. From ancient days, he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord, and they will dwell secure to the ends of the earth, and he shall be their peace." Who is the shepherd who had been known by the Lord for so many centuries? It is the Lord Jesus who says, "I will lay down my life for the sheep." He knew what was coming. He knew what had to come. It had been prepared for hundreds and hundreds of years. He could have avoided it all, but he came to lay down his life for the sheep. He is the Good Shepherd. Knowing what he had to do, he would still come when he didn't have to do it at all. And the reason I say that and know it is so important is because it is telling me what my calling is and what your calling is as well. When Jesus came, he told us what love's greatest expression would be. He would lay down his life for the sheep. In verse 14 and 15 he says, "Why? Because I know my sheep just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father." The great expression of Jesus in this place is, "As much as the Father and Jesus love each other, so that much Jesus loves you and me." It's incredible. As much as Jesus loves the Father, as much as the Father loves Jesus, so Jesus loves you. He knows your sin. He knows your weakness. He knows your family. He knows your hurts. He knows your brokenness. He knows the failures and still says, "I love you as much as the Father loves me, and I love the Father."
It's this great expression of love which would say why he would bother to come. Because his love is that great. But here in the passage, he's not just talking about love's expression, but ultimately love's great expansion. He says in the 16th verse these wondrous words, "I have other sheep." "Who are not of this fold, I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice, so there will be one flock and one shepherd." One flock and one shepherd. That's the words of Ezekiel 34.
As God promised to the Jewish nation going into exile, "I will gather my people from the nations." And the Jews all the way to this point would think, "Well, that's the ultimate task of the Messiah. He will gather our people from all the nations." But now Jesus says, "I have more sheep,
and they are not of this flock." And the reason that you and I are sitting in this place today is because Jesus says, "I don't just love my flock. I love the expanded flock, all for whom I will give my life, who will know my voice, and I will call by name." That's why you and I are here.
And the wondrous thing about this great calling is Jesus says in verse 17, "This reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it up again. I am called to lay down my life and rise again the victor over the sin of those for who I die." Who's going to make me do this? Verse 18, "No one takes it from me." The Jews may think that they have crucified Him at their will, but in that strange and wondrous mix of human will and sovereign plan, He was the Lamb slain from the foundations of the world. That God knew that He would claim His own Son, and the Son came knowing His life would have to be claimed, but He came to claim a wider flock, more sheep, you and me. He came to do it, and no one made Him. He did it of His own accord, laid His life down,
and rose the victor over it. That was His charge from the Father that He willingly took up. It's the greatest Christmas gift to you and to me in this time of year or any time of year, to recognize that what would happen is the Savior who knows us by name
planned to come and came for us and laid His life down. And now nothing happens in our lives, but is intended for our eternal good. And when I face the hurts
and the "I can't explain it and it makes no sense and I will sure ask the Lord I'm there,"
in all of those things we still trust Him, because He's the Good Shepherd,
and He has told us already what that means. The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want,
He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul, He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup overflows." "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
He is the Good Shepherd. Merry Christmas. Amen. Father, so work Your words way into our hearts,
that truths too dear to make complex would now be so plain that we could not escape them.
Jesus is our Good Shepherd. He came to lay down His life for us. And now, regardless of what we have to face, He will be with us.
He will give us a peace that passes understanding, because this world and the next is in His hand.
And He who knows us by name calls us to that place and will carry us all the way that we need to go. Grant us the assurance of His care, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.