Full Transcript

To those of you who are just joining us for the first time, welcome to Share the Word. And for all of those who have made Share the Word a part of your day and spiritual life, thank you, thank you, thank you. Let’s just jump right into today’s lesson. Here’s Paul. John chapter 10. Can you say, Baa?

Have you ever been to a meeting where the leader tried to acquaint everyone and make everybody comfortable by asking icebreaker questions? I have, more than once, actually. Often the questions are something completely off the wall designed to get people to open up and just tell something interesting about themselves. For example, once I was asked, Who’s the most famous celebrity you’ve ever met? Well, I’m from Delaware, tiny small state. I met Joe Biden once at an outdoor holiday concert.

This is long before he became president. Another kind of icebreaker question I remember is designed to get you to reveal something new about yourself. For example, if you had to be an animal instead of a human, what animal would you be? Don’t you hate questions like this? Well, what would you choose? Somehow I’m betting nobody is thinking right now, A sheep.

I’d love to be a sheep. Am I right? So it might surprise you that in the section of scripture we’re looking at today, Jesus suggests that we do exactly that. Think of ourselves as sheep, really. Let’s read the first part of John chapter 10, which reads to me sort of like the synopsis of a message or a lesson, maybe a short sermon that Jesus taught. He said, Truly, truly, I say to you.

He who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, that one is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name, and he leads them out. When he gathers all of his own sheep, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow. They will flee from him because they don’t know the voice of strangers.

This figure of speech Jesus spoke to them, but they didn’t understand. So Jesus said to them again, Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are the thieves and robbers. But the sheep didn’t hear them. I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

The thieves only come to steal, kill, and destroy. But I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd would lay down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he’s a hired hand.

He’s not concerned about the sheep. But I am the good shepherd, and I know my own, and my own know me. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me, and I give to them eternal life, and they will never perish. And no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of his hand.

I and the Father are one. Sheep do not play a large role in my society. As close as I ever get to a sheep is a new pair of fleecy sheepskin slippers I ask for every so often at Christmas. But during biblical times in Israel, sheep were very essential to their economy and way of life. In Jesus’ day, there were millions of sheep in Israel, in large commercial flocks as well as in small family flocks that grazed the pasture lands. Their meat was a staple, their wool provided the main fabric for clothing, and of course, they were very important to the sacrificial system of Israel’s temple worship.

So when Jesus, who liked to communicate using images people could understand, talked sheep, he was speaking the language of ordinary people in his time, although probably not speaking your language. So let me explain his teaching a little bit. In one image Jesus used in this section, he’s talking about a sheepfold and the door or gate to the sheepfold. Sheep were kept in folds during periods of danger or foul weather, or just to sleep safely at night after returning from grazing. So what are you picturing when you hear that? In your mind’s eye, do you see a corral like in a western movie with a big swinging gate to keep the livestock in?

Actually, what you should be picturing by the term sheepfold is different. Typically, it would be an enclosed area created by fieldstone walls stacked up rocks. In a place where many flocks grazed, there would be very large communal sheepfolds where many shepherds would bring their flocks each night to protect them from predators and thieves. And for security reasons, because the sheepfold was all about security, there was only one way in and one way out, one door. Jesus emphasized this when he said, If anyone tried to come in any other way, he is a thief who’s come to rob. There was only one legitimate way to get into the sheepfold through one door.

What was he trying to illustrate by this? We don’t have to wonder, because when those listening to him were wondering the same thing, he said, Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t hear them. I am the door, and if anyone enters through me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. Jesus’ claim is pretty clear when you understand the imagery, isn’t it? On an established sheepfold near a town, for example, there may actually be a wooden door built.

But out on the range, where the sheepfolds were just roughly constructed by stacking up rocks, they didn’t have a door as we think of a door. Do you know what the door was? The door was the shepherd. After he led his flock inside the fold, the shepherd would camp out at the opening, as we would say, at the doorway, and he himself became the door. If anyone or anything wanted to get at his sheep, it would have to come through him. He himself was the door.

So do you get that picture? Jesus is talking in spiritual terms, of course. The sheepfold represents the place of security, of belonging to God. Jesus used the term saved in verse 9, so we know he’s talking about spiritual things. In the New Testament, that’s the inclusive term for being in a right relationship with God, securely belonging to our heavenly Father. In order to be saved, Jesus said, you have to come through the door, and I am the door.

As we discussed a couple podcasts ago in the Gospel According to Phil, the most spiritually deceptive message being fed people today is the notion that there are many equally legitimate ways to God. Believe whatever you want, as long as you believe it sincerely. That idea is repeated so often today, it’s almost become conventional wisdom. Tolerance, broad-mindedness, these things are valued over truth. It’s an attractive message because it suggests we can be okay with God on our own terms. But sincerity is not the answer.

It’s not enough. It’s very possible, isn’t it, for people to be sincere, but sincerely wrong. Carried over into Jesus analogy, you’d have to say, there are many doors to the sheepfold. If believing whatever you want, as long as you believe it, is actually the truth. But Jesus was emphatic. You can’t square what Jesus says with the gospel according to Phil.

The notion that there are many legitimate ways to God, many paths to salvation, many doors to the sheepfold, with the emphatic claims that Jesus made when he says, I am the door, and you’ve got to come through me. If you want to be saved, you have to come through me. There’s no other way into the fold. If there are many other ways, why in the world was Jesus here saying these things? And more importantly, ultimately willing to lay down his life on a cross. The bad guys in Jesus’ imagery, Jesus called thieves, robbers, and hirelings.

It’s a not-so-veiled reference to false religious leaders of his time. Sadly, tragically, there are religious teachers and leaders all the time, then as well as now. And what’s worse than that, there are also religious leaders who misuse their influence and manipulate people for their own end, use their position to take advantage of people for personal gain. We don’t need to be afraid of them or their threats, or we don’t need to make excuses for them. Jesus said they’re thieves and robbers. There are also many religious leaders who are just going through the motions.

Jesus called them hirelings. They don’t believe much of what they say. They’re collecting a paycheck. They’re doing their job. Jesus had very little, if any, respect for the religious establishment like that. My opinion is he’d feel pretty much the same way seeing much of organized religion today, sadly.

In contrast, he describes himself as the Good Shepherd. In what ways was a Good Shepherd different from thieves, robbers, and hirelings? The Good Shepherd, he says, will lay down his life for his sheep. He’s deeply invested in their welfare. He’ll do what’s necessary to protect them. On one level, the people Jesus was speaking to understood that because they knew shepherding was a pretty dangerous job.

A shepherd might not only have to contend with thieves, but even with wild animals like wolves or bears. So on that level, Jesus’ listeners understood what he meant when he said, A good shepherd would lay down his life for his sheep. But on another level, John realized in retrospect, Jesus was speaking prophetically when he said these things. He was speaking about his own death, which would come at the hands of these wolves and bears, these thieves and robbers, the religious leaders of Israel, some of whom were no doubt in his audience this very day. He reiterates four times in John chapter 10 that he will lay down his life. He wasn’t just talking hypothetically.

He insists, I will lay down my life, not, I’ll do it if it comes to that. It seems to me almost in defiance of those in his audience who would be involved when it happened when he said, No one will take it from me. I will lay it down of my own accord. Because I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it up again. Jesus is telling, in advance, that he would be killed, actually allow himself to be killed, that he would come back to life. John, in retrospect, understood that as an important prophecy, as has become a pattern now when Jesus said these things, there was a division in his audience.

Some heard in his words what sounded to them like the ravings of a mad person, but others the very words of life. When Jesus said, I am the door, and you have to enter in through me to be saved, and no one takes my life from me, I will lay it down, and I have the authority to lay it down and take it up again, when you hear these claims, what do you hear? John points out that when Jesus’ words were understood, they forced people to make a decision about him, and guess what? He meant them to. And when Jesus’ words are presented accurately today, as I’m trying my best to do, they still do. Maybe the most interesting thing for me to reflect on from this passage is that from the imagery, it’s inescapable that we who’ve made the decision to believe in and follow Jesus, we are the sheep, whether we like that characterization or not.

Jesus laid down his life for the sheep. Can you say baa? What is it about sheep and the shepherd analogy that makes this fitting, that makes it work? Jesus said here, sheep listen to their shepherd’s voice. He calls his sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought them out, he goes ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.

There’s a real relationship between the sheep and their shepherd, isn’t there? Jesus said, I know my sheep, and my sheep know me. It’s a beautiful thing to think that Jesus knows his sheep by name. That means he knows me by name. He knows me personally. And Jesus goes on to say, They listen to my voice and they follow me, and I give them eternal life so that they will never perish, so that no one could snatch them out of my hand.

My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than anything, and no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. You know what? Those are some of the greatest promises of assurance in the Bible. When I understand that imagery, when I became a believer in Jesus, when I accepted his claims and received him as my Savior and Leader, I became one of his sheep. I joined his flock. I was taken into his sheepfold.

In Jesus’ day, shepherds marked their sheep by their ears. They cut into their ears to show ownership. That means Jesus has a mark on me that he sees. He knows me, and he knows me by name. I’m part of his flock. He’s the leader of my life.

He leads me in and out, and he promises nothing is going to be able to take that relationship away from me. Man, that gives me tremendous assurance and internal peace. One thing about sheep is they are very good at following, for better or for worse. I remember seeing a documentary on television a while back. It was filmed at a packing house where sheep were being slaughtered for the meat market. They’d been trucked to this site, and now they were huddled in pens outside, waiting to be processed, as they say.

Some of them seemed to sense the danger in their unfamiliar surroundings and were looking nervous and were bleating loudly. Then a gate was opened up. It led up to a ramp and through a door to the right. It was actually the path to their deaths. In order to get the sheep to walk up those ramps, the handler had to use what is known as a Judas goat. Are you familiar with that term?

It’s a goat that’s trained to lead the sheep into the slaughterhouse. The goat did his job really efficiently. He confidently walked down to the bottom of the ramp and he looked back. He took a few more steps and he looked back. The sheep looked at each other skittishly and then began to follow him, moving toward the ramp, up the ramp. Eventually they followed that confident goat to the top, where he went through a little gate to the left, and then they were forced to turn to the right to their deaths in the slaughterhouse.

The Judas goat. That’s an interesting term because it speaks about betrayal. The sheep followed the Judas goat, thinking they were safe. After all, they were in the herd. Everyone else seemed to be going that way. But then they found out too late they had been betrayed and they had been led to their death.

Hmm, that’s a graphic picture. Today, people are being led astray in many, many ways, whether by false religions who teach there are other ways to God, many ways to be saved, or devices that Satan uses just to distract and pull people away from thinking about the truth. Everyone is following something, whether they realize it or not, and are following it toward an eternal destination. It’s for most a herd mentality, and they just keep shuffling along. Are you sure about the path that you’re following? Let me leave you with that question today.

Or could it be a Judas goat up ahead of you? Me, I have staked my destiny on the Word of God, on the Good Shepherd, not on some popular current philosophy, not on where the crowd is heading, not on some religious system even. I belong to the Good Shepherd. I’ve put my faith in Jesus Christ, who lays down His life for the sheep. When He speaks, I recognize His voice, and they ring true to me. When He tells me, I believe, I trust Him, and where He leads me, I will follow.

I hope that’s true for you as well. Thanks for listening to Share the Word, the best way to learn the New Testament, chapter by chapter. Thanks for listening. We hope you found this commentary both interesting and insightful. Keep in mind that Share the Word releases two new podcasts weekly at 9 a.m. on Mondays and Thursdays. If you’re just joining us, visit sharetheword.org and check out all the podcasts we’ve already released, as well as other offerings available to you.

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