Kaleo San Diego Church

INTRODUCTION

We have taken a break from the Gospel of John over the last two weeks to talk about Father’s and Biblical Counseling, so today we will pick up where we were last.

We finished chapter 9 three Sundays ago and if you remember Jesus comes to this man born blind and heals him.

Then begins the dialogue of this man with the Pharisees and his subsequent excommunication from the Synagogue because He believed that Jesus had performed this miracle.

Later in that chapter we see Jesus come to this man and ask him if he believed in the Son of God, and the man asks Jesus who this man was so that he might believe on Him. Jesus answers with beautiful words by declaring; "You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you." This man who had not seen the light of day his entire life now was able to see God’s Son with his eyes. The man responds by telling Jesus “Lord I believe” then he falls to his knees and worships Jesus Christ as His Lord and Master.

What a beautiful story of salvation. Jesus heals a man that did not ask for healing. Jesus comes to a man that did not ask for His presence. Jesus grants the man faith by declaring His identity and the result of all of this is that Jesus is worshipped.

In contrast, the Pharisees did not accept Jesus miracle as coming from God. They didn’t deny the miracle had taken place, they just didn’t want to believe that this man could be God’s Son. So in their darkness they grow in hatred rather than humility.

Jesus then turns His attention to the Pharisees by proclaiming them as the blind. He speaks to them about judgment for their blindness. The Pharisees sarcastically respond to Jesus by asking Him “are we blind also?”

Jesus answers them by telling them that their sin remains. They are already judged.

Why did Jesus posses such a righteous indignation for the Pharisees?

Why was He constantly pointing to them with a negative reference?

Simple, they were supposed to be this mans shepherd. They were supposed to be the one caring and tending for the needs of this man. They were supposed to be more interested in healing broken bodies and broken hearts than fattening their pocketbooks and focusing on their stature.

They were under the judgment of the one that is the Good Shepherd and were being judged by the very standard they hated. Instead of gathering the sheep together to care for them, they were scattering the sheep to care for themselves.

Turn with me to Jeremiah 23:1-5 "Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!" says the LORD. 2 Therefore thus says the LORD God of Israel against the shepherds who feed My people: "You have scattered My flock, driven them away, and not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doings," says the LORD. 3 "But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. 4 "I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking," says the LORD. 5 "Behold, the days are coming," says the LORD, "That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness; A King shall reign and prosper, And execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.

That King is Jesus, that King has now come to earth as a fulfillment of a promise that God gives to His prophet Jeremiah some 650 years prior. That Branch of righteousness now stands before the false shepherds of Israel and declares their guilt.

The blind man was lost with no shepherd. Jesus leaves His disciples to come to Him and bring him into the flock of God. Jesus heals and tends to this lamb and sets the tone of this next chapter.

Please turn with me to the Gospel of John chapter 10 starting at verse 1.

TEXT

Verses 1-2

1 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.”

Jesus begins this discourse by the statement “Most assuredly, I say to you,” in other translations this is rendered “I tell you the truth” it is a double amen in Aramaic. It is signifying that you can be sure that what He is about to say is rock solid truth.

A good shepherd is always honest. He speaks to us in love, yet never sacrifices truth for unity. He always is truth centered, because He came to do the will of His Father in heaven, and as He says in John 14:10 " I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.” Jesus speaks to us the Fathers truth.

Here Jesus is speaking of the Pharisees. We know that the blind man was part of the sheepfold. So he speaks to those that were suppose to be the Shepherds but had instead become thieves and robbers.

The idea of this passage is in the setting of a sheepfold. This was a roofless enclosure in an open field. It was made of a wall from stones and usually had a sturdy door that kept the sheep safe from wondering out and being taken by wolves and other animals that would want to devour them.

The true shepherd would have no need to climb over the wall. The true shepherd would simply enter the gate. Yet Jesus likens a thief (one who wants to take someone’s property for their own selfish gain) and a robber (one who uses violence to obtain property that is not theirs) to the Pharisees.

All religious leaders that are hostile to Jesus were trying to gain mastery over the people of Israel. They tried by intimidation, as in the last chapter when the parents of the blind man feared the Pharisees because if anyone accepted Jesus as Messiah, they would cast them out of the Synagogue, as they did with the blind man.

Yet Jesus stands in stark contrast to those illegitimate, false shepherds, as the one appointed by the Father, “but he who enters by the door is shepherd of the sheep.”

Verses 3-5

3 "To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 "And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 "Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers."

Picture this; during the night the doorkeeper has been with the sheep. He knows the shepherd. So, in the morning, when he hears the shepherd’s voice, he opens the door.

The sheep not only hear his voice, but also listen. They obey. This is true with actual sheep. If you were to travel to middle-eastern countries, you would find something very beautiful. The sheep know their shepherd and they obey their shepherd.

If you were to mingle sheep from a variety of sheepfolds, when the shepherds come to separate their sheep, the shepherd calls them with a unique call and the sheep recognize the call of their master and follow him willingly.

How beautiful. The sheep have been cared for, loved, protected by their good shepherd. They will not trust another’s voice, only that of their shepherd. And when their shepherd has come to them, they leave their social hour with the other sheep and follow their master.

This is a picture of those that are Jesus true disciples. This reality must be burned in your mind, because this is how the kingdom of God operates.

There have even been cases of shepherds that have been blindfolded; yet even with this handicap, the shepherd was able to tell who was his sheep. How much more does Jesus know His?

Jesus as the good shepherd, has intimate, personal knowledge of all those whom he intends to save. And just as the shepherd leads his own sheep out of the fold, so Jesus, being tender and loving, gathers his flock, leading them out of the fold of Israel.

The shepherd walks in front of His sheep, and they follow him. Though our culture would rather drive the sheep by means of fear. The way in which the bible refers, is the way God intended. Jesus leads His flock, and those that have come to love their master and trust in his care for them, follow.

It makes no rational sense not to follow. Sheep are the only animals that have no defense mechanism. They don’t bite, that can’t run very fast, they have no claws to fight of predators. They are helpless without their master.

For a sheep to leave the care of its master is a sheep about to meet its own destruction. Sheep need to be cared for. Sheep need to be protected. Sheep need the safety of others to keep them warm and safe.

But this is a picture of those that think they can live without their Shepherd Jesus. They wander about, lost, afraid, hungry, cold and without direction. They are easy prey for the wolves of the countryside. They are easy prey for those that want to take from them the memory of their good shepherd.

We are the sheep. We are defenseless without Christ. We have no ability to care for ourselves. Not just simple grazing. I’m speaking of caring for our true needs. The needs of our heart that is broken. The needs of our soul that is lost. The needs of our mind that is confused. Only the good shepherd can meet those needs.

No other person, method, or system, can give us what only I shepherd can give. His voice. His love. His tender touch that wipes away every tear from our eye. His path, that walks before us keeping us from the dangers ahead.

This is why David wrote Psalm 23. In it he says “1The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. 3 He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake. 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the LORD Forever.

Jesus is our LORD and our Shepherd. He is the one that leads us to peace. He is the one gives us our needs. He is the one that causes us to rest. He is the one that leads us away from the raging river to the water that is still. He is the one the shows us by leading us in the path of righteousness.

Even when we are afraid of death. He will keep you from fearing death itself.

Why? Because He is ever present. Because He has a righteous rod of protection. It defends us. It crushes the heads of the enemies that line up against us.

He has a staff that gently pulls us back in when we stray. It lifts us from the ditches of sin that we fall in. It gives us comfort.

During the times of Christ, the staff was the tool that comforted them, yet if a sheep were to wander off on its own continuously. The shepherd who cares more for the life of his sheep, than the sheep themselves, would turn his staff around and strike the leg of the sheep causing it to be lame. He would then carry the sheep around his neck until the sheep was well enough to walk on his own.

What a picture of how Christ lovingly disciplines His own sheep when we stray to the point of endangering ourselves and those in the flock of God.

This is why the writer of Hebrews says: Hebrews 12:5 "My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; 6 For whom the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives." 7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? 8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. 11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Verse 6

6 Jesus used this allegory, but they did not understand the things which He spoke to them.

An allegory is a story, or an extended metaphor. It has characters, objects and actions that tell us something that the author is trying to get us to understand. It makes us think about the story itself, and how this story is applied to us. It has a literal meaning, and a symbolic meaning.

The fact that the Pharisees, who were supposed to be the shepherds of Israel, didn’t get it, indicates their spiritual blindness. Jesus often uses an allegory or a parable to teach a truth. That truth can only be understood if an individual has been given the spirit of God. This is why the disciples in Matthew 13:10-11 say “10 And the disciples came and said to Him, "Why do You speak to them in parables?" 11 He answered and said to them, "Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.

Jesus must open the mind of those that are lost to understand His profound truths. If they have not been given this gift, the mysteries of the kingdom of God are foolishness to them.

Verses 7-9

7 Then Jesus said to them again, "Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 "All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9 "I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.

Jesus now moves to clear up the confusion about what He is discussing. He starts by telling them “I am the door of the sheep.”

He speaks about two things; Being the door to the sheep in verse 8, and then He speaks of being the door for the sheep in verse 9.

This is significant. For the Shepherd, He is the only door to the sheep. For the sheep, He is the only door to all the blessings of salvation.

The idea is very appropriate: a door leads both in and out: it gives the shepherd access to his sheep that are inside. It gives the sheep access to the fold, and to the pasture which is outside.

Jesus declares emphatically that He alone is the door and the key to salvation. All others that have come before Him to take the title “The Good Shepherd” are thieves and robbers.

He is not speaking of those that were God’s prophets it times past. He is also not even speaking of false messiahs. He is speaking directly at the thieves and robbers that stand in front of Him. He is speaking to the Pharisees. He is thinking of the religious leaders, the Sadducees, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees that try to force the sheep to follow them, but then don’t understand why they revolt and do not listen.

The reason is this; they are not the true Shepherd.

Jesus then tells them that those that will be saved, the true sheep, will have freedom. They will be given eternal life, they will receive freedom from guilt, freedom from the misery of life, and freedom from the punishment of their own sin.

He then tells them they will not only have this freedom, but they will find pasture. They will find rest in knowing the Shepherd is always with them.

Verses 10-11

10 "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. 11 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.

The thief is the Pharisee, who came to steal, kill, destroy. Remember, they are robbers and thieves.

These false teachers killed and destroyed the people who followed Jesus after Jesus death. They are in the same line of those that killed the prophets. They despise the servants of the true God, yet try to make claim that they serve the true God. They are hypocrites and liars.

These are the same that blaspheme the name of God by using manipulation and thievery to take from God’s people. They are the ones that tell you to send in your money. They are the ones that try to emotionally manipulate you into buying their product. They have the same dead spirit as these men that Jesus rebukes to their face.

Those that want to “name it and claim it” get rich while they take from those that have nothing. They talk about living abundantly, yet they are the only ones living abundantly. Their scheme works, but only for themselves.

Jesus on the other hand, as the Good Shepherd, not only promises to give you an abundant life, full of His blessings contained in the wonderful gift of salvation, He even ensures this will happen by giving His own life for His own sheep.

Jesus says “I am the Good Shepherd” and He backs us His statement by telling them what a Good Shepherd will do. A good shepherd will die for the lives of His own sheep.

Think of how strange it is to die for sheep! Think of how strange it is to give your live in the place of an animal! The reason good shepherds did this, from a human perspective, was because this was their livelihood. This was how they lived. It was a symbiotic relationship, which the shepherds cared for the sheep, and in return the sheep provided wool and other resources for the shepherd.

Here is the difference with Jesus. He doesn’t “need” anything. There was no personal gain for Jesus, other than perfectly obeying the Fathers will that had been decided before the foundations of the earth.

Jesus not only dies for His sheep, but He becomes one of them as He goes to the cross and becomes the “lamb of God, slain before the foundation of the world.”

This is true love. He is our hero! He is the one that we look to as the knight in shining armor that comes riding into town to save us. He is the ultimate Rob Roy, or William Wallace. He is the ultimate Gladiator, that comes to defend us, then give His life in our place.

Our story of salvation always has a hero, that hero is Christ!

Verses 12-13

12 "But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. 13 "The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.

Jesus has already called the Pharisees strangers and thieves, now He calls them a “hireling.”

They are hirelings because they have no love, no concern for the sheep. This is typical with someone that is hired to care for that which is yours. Some hired men may have a shepherd’s heart. But these hired men do not. They are only working for wages. The way they treated the blind man gives us a pretty clear picture of their heart.

The hired man sees danger coming and instead of protecting the sheep, leaves them and allows the sheep to be scattered and killed. He does this because he doesn’t care about the sheep. Why? Because they are not his sheep.

Did these men show any sympathy for the lame man the pool of Bethesda? No. Did they show any pity for the woman who was caught in the act of adultery? No. And how did they treat the blind man that Jesus healed? They cast him out. They are the opposite of the good shepherd.

Jesus is so effective in His job as a shepherd, that later in this chapter He says boldly in verse 27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.

Jesus gathers the flock of God, the hired man scatters them.

Verses 14-15

14 "I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. 15 "As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.

Here Jesus drives the point He makes home. By repeating what He said. I know my own, my own know me, my Father knows me, and I know my Father. How beautiful.

Verses 16

16 "And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.

Not all sheep belong to the fold of Israel. The good shepherd has other sheep. He has them even now because they have been given to him by the Father in the decree of predestination from eternity. This is why even before they are gathered out, they can be called his sheep.

In this is the promise that we all benefit from if we are not Jewish. The flock of Christ will no longer be mostly confined to believers from the Jews. We are now part of God’s family because God graciously chose to extend that gift to all nations. Regardless of bloodline, or birthplace. God has given salvation to those that are to be adopted into the family of God.

Jesus goes so far to say that He “must bring” them. This is a reference to God’s predestination of those that have been given by the Father to the Son. This will be seen more clearly as we study the rest of this chapter.

Verses 17-18

17 "Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. 18 "No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father."

Jesus again shows the difference in His relationship with the Father from the hirelings.

He voluntarily lays down His life as a sacrifice. This great sacrifice saves His sheep. This is not something that was taken from Him. It didn’t catch Him unaware. When the appointed time had come. Jesus willingly goes to the cross to save His precious lambs.

He had every opportunity and power to stop the act of the cross, but knew that only that act would provide a way to secure His sheep from eternal death and judgment.

He does this all out of love and obedience to the Father. The intimate relationship Jesus shares with His Father, causes Christ to say that “the Father loves Me.” Why? Because the Father ordained that I would “lay down my life, and then take it up again.”

This act fulfills God’s promises contained in Old Testament prophecy. He gives us the greatest example of love and obedience.

Verses 19-21

19 Therefore there was a division again among the Jews because of these sayings. 20 And many of them said, "He has a demon and is mad. Why do you listen to Him?" 21 Others said, "These are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?"

It’s not difficult to understand their blindness. Christ gives us a beautiful description of what a Good Shepherd looks like compared to a hireling, a thief, a robber, and a stranger.

Their spiritual blindness continues keep them in spiritual darkness, with no hope of ever seeing God’s kingdom.

Instead of receiving the Words from God the Son, they claim He is mad and demon possessed.

They would rather believe that, than to believe the truth. Remember is Chapter 8 when Jesus said they were of their Father the Devil? Here they continue to demonstrate the truth of that claim.

This passage ends with a beautiful question; “Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” We could put it another way. If this man were not from God, could he do the things He does?

True sheep, false sheep, true shepherds, false shepherds, thieves, robbers, strangers, hirelings. Where do you fit in this allegory?

My prayer is that you are a true sheep of God’s flock. That you hear the voice of your Good Shepherd and follow Him.

The lamb and the ewe analogy

Listen to His voice. Watch as He leads. Follow and worship your Good Shepherd, Jesus the Christ.

Prayer….

Communion

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