John 10:1-21 - Follow The Good Shepherd

Main Idea: Find your guidance in Jesus’ identity and His active care for you.

• Follow Jesus into God’s fulfilling life. (vs. 1-10)

  • Believing in and following Jesus is the only way to God, not a way to God.

  • There are false teachers that will attempt to get you to God through your works, or lead you to actions that God is against.

  • God’s way of living is joyful, peaceful, and loving.

• Follow Jesus into sacrificial love. (vs. 11-21)

  • Jesus’ love was most clearly presented through His voluntary death, and our love for one another is most clearly seen in difficulties.

  • Choose to have a love like Jesus that does not run from hardship, but stays in order to protect and care for others.

  • Realize that Jesus’ desire is for you to be as connected and affectionate with others at Tabernacle as He is with the Father.

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

But today, we are in John 10 verses 1 through 21, and the title of the sermon is Follow the Good Shepherd. Follow the Good Shepherd. Do you know that what you are following, what's guiding you, is vitally important?

How many of you grew up in a time period where you would have a map or an atlas that would tell you where you're going? Like when you're going on a long drive, you used a map. Okay, several, yeah.

How many of you grew up in the GPS time period where you had a special item that you bought and you used the GPS to drive around? Okay, a couple of you too. How many of you have only known using your phone as your way of thinking?

Okay, sweet. All right, we got a couple of us brave ones that have only ever used our phone for. Everyone has their way that they really enjoy.

I'm sure some of you that had maps at times is the like GPS or the phone, is that a little bit easier than having the full thing out?

Yeah, I'm certain that there were benefits of the full map, but I am grateful that it can fit all into a small screen now. When you want to go the right way, it is vitally important that whatever's guiding you is correct.

If you've got a, it's happened to me actually several times with my phone. This is the downside of phones where it was like, oh, I want to take you this alternate route that'll save you time.

And then like 45 minutes later, you're going, I'm still not at my location and I only had to drive five minutes. What you are following is so important.

And today we are going to be encouraged to find our guidance in Jesus' identity and his active care for us. Find your guidance in Jesus' identity and his active care for you. This week, you're going to make some choices.

You're going to choose some directions with your life. And God wants you to follow Jesus, who Jesus is, recognizing what Jesus wants from you as you make those decisions. So let's pray together and we'll dive into the passage.

Dear Lord, thank you for today. God, I pray that you would be glorified in your church. Lord, if there's someone here today that does not know you as their savior, I ask that today would be the day that they choose to follow Jesus.

Lord, we love you and we pray that you would bless. In your name I pray, Amen. First thing that we're going to look at today as we follow Jesus, we're going to look at two directions.

We're going to follow Jesus into God's fulfilling life and we're going to follow Jesus into sacrificial love. And the first of these that we'll see today in verses 1 through 10 is we are going to follow Jesus into God's fulfilling life.

Jesus is here speaking to his disciples and some people there in Jerusalem. And he says this, Truly I tell you, anyone who doesn't enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a robber.

The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens it for him and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

When he has brought all his own outside, he goes ahead of them. The sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will never follow a stranger.

Instead, they will run away from him because they don't know the voice of strangers. Jesus gave them this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them. Have you guys been there before too?

You're reading through the Bible and you're going, what is he talking about? I'm thankful that right after this, Jesus gives the interpretation of this. Jesus said again, verse seven, truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.

So you go in by any other way except by Jesus. Jesus says, you are a thief and a robber. They're in verse eight.

All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn't listen to them.

This is talking about false messiahs, false Christs, that in the time in between when the Old Testament scriptures were completed and the time that Jesus came on the scene, which is about two to four hundred years, there were some people that the

Jews at various times thought, this could be the messiah, but Jesus says these people were thieves and robbers. They didn't come God's way.

They came in their own way, and the sheep didn't listen to them, that the nation of Israel as a whole did not follow these individuals. Verse number nine, Jesus says, I am the gate.

If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. I love this. Jesus says he's the gate.

If anyone enters the gate of Jesus, he will be, what's that next word? Notice he doesn't say if anyone enters by being perfect. He doesn't say if anyone enters by putting in a certain amount of money.

You go in by Jesus, what's the guarantee? You will be, amen. Then in verse number 10, a thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance. Following Jesus into God's fulfilling life. The first thing that we're gonna see today is that believing in and following Jesus is the only way to God, not a way to God.

Here Jesus makes it very clear. He says, I am the gate. You come in through Jesus and what Jesus has accomplished, or you don't come in at all.

He says, those that try for a relationship with God outside of the person of Jesus, he says, the people that want to make that, he says, that person is not truthful. In fact, they're a thief and a robber.

They are trying to steal and kill and destroy your soul. In our world today, many of us have seen a lot of like the co-exist bumper stickers and it'll have, you know, perhaps the Islamic moon, that crescent moon that's there.

And you'll see some symbols for Buddhism, you'll see symbols for Judaism, you'll see a symbol of a cross that's on there.

And certainly there's a truthful aspect to that, where not everyone is going to be a Christian and we should never force anyone to become a Christian.

You can look at church history and see perhaps the Crusades, or you can see Bloody Mary or the Spanish Inquisition, and you can know how it looks when people try and force people into a religious mold.

Instead, we are to follow Jesus, and so while we coexist, we, if you will, tolerate one another, we love everyone that we come into contact with because they are made in the image of God with inherent worth and value.

We have to, as Bible-believing Christians, declare there are not multiple ways to God.

It frankly doesn't matter what Oprah has said that, okay, God's at the top of a mountain, and Christianity is one way up the mountain to God, and Buddhism is one way up the mountain to God.

No, and in fact, the various religions of the world would tell you that that would be insulting to their faith. You would never be able to go up to a Muslim individual and say, okay, it's great that you serve all of it.

Well, I really serve all of it too, so I will eat my pork and I will not pray three times a day or five times a day towards Mecca, but I really worship the same God as you and we're exactly the same. They would be insulted by that.

So too, we as Christians need to realize Jesus is the gate. He's not a way to heaven. He's the only way to heaven, the only way to God.

You might ask, okay, what does it mean for Jesus to be the way to God? Scripture tells us this, all of us, old, young, men, women, kids, teens, and everything in between, all of us have sinned.

We have done things, said things, and thought things that go against the nature and character of God. God is perfect. He has never done anything wrong.

We do wrong things daily. You spend probably more than five minutes with me. If that, you're gonna be like, oh, yeah, he was maybe rude to that person, or he could have been more patient with this other person.

I'm sure if I asked your spouse or your best friend, hey, what are some of your loved ones' faults? They could give it. All of us have sinned.

But the problem is that our sin isn't just something for God to be like, well, that's just kind of one of the quirks of their personality. No, our sins are defiance against a holy God.

And as a result, as any good judge would judge wickedness in our world, you can't rob a bank. Joan, what bank do you work at? M&T.

I can't go down to M&T, rob the bank, and then go in front of the judge and just be like, oops, my bad. He will punish me for my robbing of the bank. And so God, the ultimate source of justice and truth, must punish sin.

But what kind of punishment would fit for a sin against an eternal, holy, perfect God? It's eternal destruction. What the Bible calls death and hell and the lake of fire.

But Jesus loved us so much that God created us and he did not create us to be sinners. He created us for a relationship with him.

And though we left that relationship with him in the Garden of Eden, and every person since then has engaged in sin, Jesus loves us so much that he came to this earth. He lived a perfect, sinless life in which he never did anything wrong.

And so as a result, when he died on the cross 2000 years ago for our sin, he died in our place, as our substitute, that if you will, there was a fine that needed to be paid, and he paid it in full.

He was buried and then three days later, he rose from the dead, and he reigns forever as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And so when we think about Jesus as the gate, he's the way.

You and I don't get to say, listen, God, I know Jesus did all of that, but I think I can kind of add to what Jesus did. Like, it's great that Jesus did this, but I'm going to add in, you know, if you will, my baptism.

I'm going to add in, given a million dollars to a church. I'm going to add in this or that. God says, no, like, you can do all of those things in obedience and love for me, but that doesn't reconcile you to God.

Jesus reconciles us to God. And we can't, as the writer of Hebrews says, we can't mock the Son of God and say, I know that you died for me, but your sacrifice wasn't good enough. I think I can add to it.

Jesus is the gate. It's not of works that you or I have done, but it is according to his mercy that he saved us. I love this quote from a pastor from the previous century, Warren Wiersby.

He said, under the law of Moses, the sheep died for the shepherd, but under grace, the good shepherd died for the sheep. So thankful for that.

And then I love this, that as we believe in Jesus and we follow him, those that belong to Jesus, listen to and follow him.

Did you notice what Jesus was saying there about the sheep, that they will not follow the voice of a stranger, they're not going to follow the thieves and robbers, those that are a part of the family of God truly, they are going to listen to Jesus

and follow him. Can I ask you today, are you listening to and following Jesus? Are you spending time in the Word of God each week? It doesn't have to be a through the entire Bible in a year.

It doesn't have to be even a chapter a day, but God speaks through his word to you. And if you're going to listen to Jesus, you need to spend time in the Word of God.

That's one of the reasons that I, as a pastor, every single weekday, Mondays through Fridays, I have our Tabernacle Talk podcast on YouTube and Facebook and Apple Podcasts and all of that, is because I want to be in the Word of God personally, and I

want to help you all that, like, man, I don't really know where to start, but I could listen to 12 minutes or, Roger and Kathy, you're here. You know, sometimes it's been 26 minutes, sometimes it's gone longer, but this current one, I'm keeping

pretty steady within 10 to 12 minutes. But I want you to spend time in the Word of God because I know it's transformed my life. It's changed me. And I know that it can do the same for you as well.

So are you listening to the Word of God? Secondly, there are false teachers that will attempt to get you to God through your works or lead you to actions that God is against.

As we saw in the passage, those attempting to get to God or lead others to God outside of Jesus are thieves and robbers to God's rightful possession.

Those that say repentance and belief in Jesus plus a baptism or plus a weekly communion or plus a set amount of your money, those are not true teachers.

Those are false teachers that would say Jesus and this other stuff that I want you to add on for a relationship with God. The people that say, as long as your good works outweigh your bad, when you get there, you'll be fine.

Don't listen to those false teachers. Those are the thieves and robbers that Jesus warned us about. Then I noticed this true Christians flee from false teachers.

Jesus said that the sheep that listen to Him, the sheep that belong to the Lord, they run away when there is a false shepherd that tries to lead them astray. True Christians flee from false teachers.

You are responsible for the teaching at your church. I go, what? Not in the same way the preacher or the pastor is, you're not saying the teaching, they are, but where you go to church declares what you believe.

If you don't believe what a church or a pastor teaches, you shouldn't go there. You should go someplace that preaches the Bible. The Apostle Paul tells us this in 2 Timothy 4.

He places the blame for false teachers on the people that choose to listen to them because they tell them everything that they want to hear.

And in Galatians 1, he tells the churches of Galatia that even if Paul himself or an angel from heaven declared another gospel other than the gospel of Jesus' finished work, he says, let that person be accursed.

True Christians flee from false teachers. That might be in where you go to church.

It might be in when you're doing your devotions, when you're looking at some maybe preaching on YouTube, or if you're listening to a podcast or something, make sure that those people align with the gospel of Jesus.

Don't just follow a person, don't just follow a movement, follow the gospel of Christ.

If I'm ever like, hey, yeah, Jesus is great, but I think you really need to be a Baptist in order to go to heaven, you guys like get up, leave, be like, no, that's not the Bible. I like being a Baptist. Being a Baptist never saved anybody.

Only Jesus Christ has ever saved anyone. And so true Christians flee from false teachers. So whether in where you go to church or in what you listen to, make sure that those people agree on the gospel of Jesus.

And then in verse eight, as Jesus talks about those that came before that were thieves and robbers, there had been false messiahs that had come to Israel and they led the people into violent revolts and death.

One of these was Simon Bar Kokba, who led a Jewish revolt against Rome in 132 BC.

And many people had believed that this guy Simon was the long-awaited messiah, but it ended up in hundreds of people losing their lives in violent fighting against the Romans.

Even today, there are people that want to make you angry, to rile you up to violent actions against others.

All across our world, go to the streets of LA, go to the Capitol on January 6th, go to any news station on the planet, and you're going to hear something along the lines of, this other group is the reason that you're not experiencing the good life.

So get rid of them, and then you will have the abundant life. But don't believe the lie. You can have Jesus' abundant good life, regardless of warfare, of chaos and riots, of the daily difficulties that you're going through.

Jesus' fulfilling abundant life is given to everyone who believes on him and follows him. This is what Jesus says. I have come so that they would have life and that they would have it in abundance.

Jesus was saying this to Israelites that were under Roman occupation. They weren't even in charge of their nation. They had Rome all the way across the Mediterranean Sea that was dictating what they could and could not do, what their laws were.

And yet, those people under heavy oppression and ridiculous taxation, thankfully, unlike anything that you or I have to deal with, theirs was so much worse. And yet, Jesus says, you can have abundant life.

Don't follow the thieves and the robbers who want to rile you up to anger and violence. Instead, follow Jesus. And that's what we see last year in this point, is that God's way of living is joyful, peaceful, and loving.

Those that follow the true Messiah and enter through his gate will find God's abundant life. As opposed to the false Messiahs that led people into violence and death, Jesus' way is joyful, peaceful, and loving.

What would it look like in our world if the first thing that people thought of when they thought of Christians was joyful? What would be different in our families if the first word that came to mind when your family members thought of you was loving?

This week, commit to joy and peace and love. They are a part of the fruit of the Spirit, which is what it means to actually live your life as a Christian.

This would mean not despairing about the world every time you turn on the TV or radio or Facebook.

It would mean having a calm confidence that your God is in control when that unexpected cost hits your account or when something catastrophic happens at work that leaves everyone else cursing and blaming.

It means choosing to love people that don't deserve your love, that haven't earned it, but you give it to them anyways. God's way of living is joyful, peaceful and loving. And then lastly today, follow Jesus into sacrificial love.

We can see this in verses 11 through 21. Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

The hired hand, since he is not the shepherd and doesn't own the sheep, leaves them and runs away when he sees a wolf coming. The wolf then snatches and scatters them. This happens because he is a hired hand and doesn't care about 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, I lay down my life for the sheep.

But I have other sheep that are not from this sheep pen. I must bring them also and they will listen to my voice. Then there will be one flock, one shepherd.

This is why the father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have the right to lay it down and I have the right to take it up again.

I have received this command from my father. Again, the Jews were divided because of these words. Many of them were saying, he has a demon and he's crazy.

Why do you listen to him? Others were saying, these aren't the words of someone who is demon possessed. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?

Follow Jesus into sacrificial love. I love these verses. We could spend a hundred different messages on this particular portion of scripture, but I want us to see a couple of things this morning as we close.

Jesus' love was most clearly presented through his voluntary death. And our love for one another is most clearly seen in difficulties. Did you notice there?

Jesus says, I laid down my life. No one takes it from me. When you and I go through our struggles, most of the time it's against our will.

We're like, no, I did not choose to go into this financial difficulty. I wasn't trying to, you know, anger this family member. It just happened and I'm here.

Jesus went through death itself and it was his choice. Why did he die? He died for you and for me.

He died in laying down his life for the sheep. So if Jesus went through hardship and Jesus went through death, then why do we always try and shortcut it? We want to go through life with no difficulties.

We want to go through life without having to have the hard conversations. We want to go through life without ever having to experience any sort of pain or anguish.

But if even God the Son went through anguish, then shouldn't we in our love for one another, in our love for our family members, in our love for our friends, shouldn't we go through difficulties as well?

Notice there that Jesus says that He is the good shepherd. And Jesus died for you because He is good. You and I, we are not good.

We have been sheep far away from the pasture, headed for the lions and ravines of death and hell and destruction. But Jesus, Jesus lived a perfect life. He healed because He is good.

He loved the unlovely because He's good. He preached because He's good. And we need to know what is good.

He rescued the hurting and the oppressed because He is good. And He died in our place because we needed a perfect substitute that could take all of our punishment. And because Jesus is good, He could be that substitute.

And Jesus rose from the dead because the goodness of God can't be contained in the tomb. He ascended back to His Father in heaven because all good things come from God and will return to Him. Jesus is the good shepherd.

And if you and I want to follow our good shepherd, it means we follow Him into laying down our life for one another. Will you choose to love others in your life? Will you love that coworker that no one really wants to be around?

Will you love the sibling or the cousin that everyone views as a lost cause? Jesus didn't hold back any love from you. So why are you holding back your love from the other person?

If God in His goodness, in the goodness of Jesus, so loved us, we have to love others. Secondly, choose to have a love like Jesus that does not run from hardship, but stays in order to protect and care for others.

Jesus talks about the hired hand, that when the wolves come, when things get hard, the hired hands, they just book it out. They're not dealing with the difficulty. And Jesus says it's because the sheep don't belong to them.

They don't have a personal love or knowledge of the sheep like the good shepherd does. Unloving shepherds run away from conflict and abandon God's people to be destroyed through false doctrine and sin. This is a challenge to me as your pastor.

The Lord says in the book of Zechariah, strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter. My call from God is to be like the good shepherd and to stay with the flock.

And as with the good shepherd, God calls me to lay down my life for you all, to be as Jesus was dead to offense and slander and betrayal, to expend myself fully for your spiritual benefit, to lead you to pastures of God's word where there's good

eaten and not just junk food, to guard you against wolves and thieves and robbers, fake Christians, false teachers and temptations of Satan. Would you pray for me that I would be a good shepherd and not a hired hand, not one who abandons the flock

because he doesn't own them. If I own you as my flock, I'm saying these are my people and I'm going to love them and protect them and provide spiritually for them because they belong to me, because Jesus has given them to me to watch over them.

Would you pray for our churches, elders, for Jim and Myron and Owen and Ron, as we together shepherd and lead. Satan wants to destroy believers and when he can make shepherds abandon their posts, the sheep are easy pickings.

And for you, do you know that God has intentionally placed you in the family and in the friend group and in the job, in the neighborhood and in the church that you're a part of?

It can feel easier to leave a friendship, to leave a marriage or to leave a church when things get difficult relationally, but that's when you can love the most clearly like Jesus.

We look like Jesus when we love in laying down our lives that we don't run from hardships, but we stay to protect and care and love.

Choose to stay in the difficult times because God can use you to be a light that points to him through his love shining in you.

And lastly today, realize that Jesus's desire is for you to be as connected and affectionate with others at Tabernacle as he is with the Father. Did you notice that?

Jesus says, I want there to be the same love between the sheep as there is between the Father and the Son. This echoes a prayer Jesus is gonna pray later in the Gospel of John, where he asked the Father that we would be as united as the Trinity is.

That blows my mind. There's never been a day when the Son was like, oh yeah, I'm not going to, if you will, I'm not gonna talk with the Father today. There's never been a time like that.

There's never been a time when the Father went, I'm gonna withhold some love. I'm gonna withhold some care from the Son or from the Holy Spirit. What a challenge to you and I, because we're human.

We deal with human emotions and, you know, she didn't say anything, but if Shelby was like, hey, listen, Brian, your, you know, shoes are stupid or whatever. I could either get my feelings a bit, oh, this. Or I could go in my brain.

Okay, Jesus wants me to love Shelby like God, the Son loves God, the Father. That probably means I can't get upset at her for that. And if you're like me, then you're going, well, then I can, I can get run over pretty easy sometimes.

Jesus died for me. And I don't think that anyone at Tabernacle, Lord, really, is going to kill me and crucify me and put me on a cross and whip me to death. I don't think any of y'all are doing that.

So Jesus is asking less of me than he did for me. So for you and I, let's give up our offenses and say, God, would you help us to be unified? Would you help there to be a oneness in us?

And the fact that Jesus prayed for it, in John, it's either 17 or 18, the fact that Jesus asked the father for it means it's not natural for us. We're not naturally unified, but God wants us to be.

And that means that it's something that you and I and you and you and my wife over in nursery and all of us, we all work together towards. It's a process.

And as we pursue that, we glorify Jesus, because we say, Jesus, I want to be as connected to my brothers and sisters as you are with your father. Do you know people personally in this church?

Choose to spend time getting to know one other person this week, hearing their story, praying with and for them. God's not looking for you to come and, you know, check a box on, yeah, I showed up at 11 o'clock on Sunday.

I've gotten in my Jesus stuff like God's happy with me. No, no, God wants you to be as connected and affectionate as the Trinity is with your brothers and sisters in the Lord. So can I challenge you?

Yeah, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna pray together, we're gonna sing, we're gonna dismiss today. Grab one person and not your best friend. I know you guys, you guys have friends.

Friends are good. You should have friends. You should have close friends, people that you love.

But you should also reach out to someone that you've never shared a meal with them. You've never spent time with them. God wants you to love and to know them.

So take that proactive step even this week. I love also that Jesus mentions, he says, I've got sheep that aren't from this flock and they're going to come in too and there's going to be one flock and one shepherd. Jesus doesn't have multiple brides.

Jesus has one bride. And that bride comes from every nation and tribe and language. It comes from all across the world.

It's not just composed of the Baptist. It's not just composed of the Episcopalians. It's every person that believes in Jesus for salvation.

Those that enter through the gate, we are all part of the family of God. So that means when we interact with other believers and other churches in our area, they're not our competition. They're our brothers and sisters.

And I'm thankful for churches like Middle River Baptist. I'm thankful for Bethlehem Church. I'm thankful for Church of the Harbor.

I'm thankful for, I think First Baptist Dundalk is still around because I think that's a Pastor Chris Goodmunson or something like that. I'm thankful for these believers. I'm thankful for Freedom Church.

I used to pass by all the time when I lived in Middle River. I'm thankful for these churches that are proclaiming the gospel because that means that God's mission is going out.

And I'm looking forward to the day when we don't have to deal with Shepherd Brian anymore. I can't wait to be with the Good Shepherd and all of the flock is together.

I'm sure many of you before have been to like a worship night or maybe there was a music group or something that was coming through. And you have people from all over and all sorts of churches gathering to sing to the Lord and to praise Him.

And I imagine that'll be a little of what heaven is like, that together with one flock and one shepherd, we extol the King of Kings forever and ever. So Jesus didn't just come for Tabernacle. God's church is bigger than just our church.

And in the last of the day, the father loves the son because he does what God does. Jesus sacrifices and loves for relationship. Can I ask you, when was the last time that you sacrificed in your marriage?

Giving up your desires for theirs. When was the last time that you sacrificed in your relationship with someone at church? That you gave something to someone else that actually cost you, that wasn't easy, but that you did because you loved them.

This is what we're called to. To love like Jesus, because he is the point of it all. Today, as we follow the Good Shepherd, we follow Jesus into God's fulfilling life.

It's a life of joy and peace and love. It's a life following Jesus alone, not any other gods or any other ways to try and get to God, following Jesus.

And then we follow Jesus into sacrificial love, that if he wasn't looking for the easy way, if he didn't just experience good times, we shouldn't expect that for ourselves, but we can choose to lay down our life for each other, for our families, for

our loved ones, just as Jesus laid down his life for us. Today, find your guidance in Jesus' identity and his active care for you.