June 7, 2020 Sermon - Jesus: I Am the Good Shepherd”
So glad that You were able to join us today for our online worship service, and to continue our exploration of the “I AM” Statements of Jesus.
I want to pause before we begin this message by acknowledging the extraordinary pain that is being experienced by the black community both in the US, and by extension here in Canada, in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by police in the states.
I’ve had a great deal of dialogue with other pastors and leaders in my denomination in the past week as we put together a statement against racism for my denomination, the Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada. If you want to read that statement, you can view it here (include URL of statement).
I have witnessed some very strong support for racialized Americans and Canadians on social media, much of it from Christians who I know and love. I have also witnessed some grotesque ignorance of the reality of racism that so many face. It is hard not to see this ignorance as willful. Given the abundant access we have to information in the age of the Internet, it takes effort NOT to learn and grow. It is hard not to see that ignorance as itself racist.
I’m going to make a very simple statement: it is not possible to be racist and Christian at the same time. Anyone who insists in this matter must choose one or the other. It’s possible to struggle with prejudicial feelings, acknowledging them and any outworking of them to be sin, but it is a completely different matter to blithely carry on in the sin of racism, without repenting of the deep evil that it represents.
It is a sin that blinds us to the reality of God’s good creation, it’s impoverishes us by eliminating the possibility of friendship with whichever group we are prejudiced against, and it reflects truly terribly on our Saviour who died arms wide open for all. Our arms must also be wide open to all for whom Christ died.
There. I’ve said it. I needed to get that off my chest.
Now, Jesus found a lot of helpful insights as he considered the relationship between sheep and their shepherd. Last week Pastor Jan spoke about Jesus being the gate or the door through which the sheep enter. Jesus is the point of or person of access into the presence of God.
He is the one who “sleeps at the gate“, in order to protect his beloved. That is you. If you Love and serve God, the way that you entered into that relationship was through Jesus. There is no other way to enter.
Today, in our passage, Jesus shifts from wanting us to understand him as the gate or the door to the shepherd, to safety; he wants us to shift our understanding so that we recognize that he himself is our shepherd.
The Shepherd Cares For The Sheep
Jesus speaks about himself using the adjective “good“. He is the good shepherd. He is the one who is all in, who is completely committed to the welfare and well-being of the sheep. The sheep are in His thoughts. He knows them all by name, by their markings, by whatever makes them unique.
Those who are injured he tends to with special care. Those who are pregnant are given special care. The older ones protected from the rambunctious younger ones. The younger ones protected from the grouchy older ones dealing with their own aches and pains and not up to giving grace to the young bundles of energy. The sheep are in the thoughts of the shepherd.
Let me tell you something about you. Can I tell you something about you? You are in the thoughts of God. God knows all of your movements. He knows your thoughts, even your far away thoughts. There isn’t anything about you that he does not know.
Psalm 139 versus 2 to 6 say: “You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. 5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain”
The Shepherd Protects the Sheep
When a hired-hand sees the wolf coming he thinks about the scary wolf and the threat to his own safety. His thoughts are of himself. The hired hand, thinking of himself first, abandons the sheep when the threat comes.
When the hungry jowls of the wolf are happy to tear through whatever it takes to get a good meal, when the wolf attacks, and scatters the sheep in the hopes of terrifying and separating the sheep so he can focus on the slowest one that’ll make a tasty snack, The hired hand is long gone. He cares nothing for the sheep.
But the good shepherd. How does He behave differently when the threat comes, when that same ravenous wolf is staring him down? He stays. He stays and battles; He even even lays down His life for the sheep. That is being all in. That is love. That is being wholly committed to those in your charge. That is Jesus Christ. That is the one who cares for you.
The enemy of your soul, Satan, wants you dead. Wants you for himself. His only aspiration for your life is your death, spiritual death and physical death.
That is why the Scripture says “Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul. This is a spiritual battle, a battle that Jesus Christ won on the cross by triumphing over death. The kingdom of God, for which Jesus died, is our realm of safety.
Living in loving obedience to God, following Jesus by his grace, is the passport of the kingdom. Each time we do not abstain from sinful desires which wage war against our souls, we, in a sense, stick our toe outside the parameters of of safety. We wander from the kingdom of light, where we are safe in Jesus, and we toy with the kingdom of darkness.
Let’s not make any mistake. Jesus wants us all in. That is where our freedom is. That is where our life Is. Because he is incredibly gracious, he gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit and the spirit of God in us leads us to repentance when we stray from loving obedience to God.
May we keep our accounts short. If we stray from the realm of gods triumph in our life, into sin, may we return quickly and be very, very fast To repent and realign ourselves with our gracious and merciful God.
The Shepherd Knows His Sheep
“I know my sheep and my sheep know me”, Jesus says. That ‘know’ is ginosko in the original Koine Greek. It means to know, understand, perceive, have knowledge of.
‘I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me – just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – and I lay down my life for the sheep”.
God knows. God knows that we love him. And all of us love him imperfectly. That’s not surprising. Or it shouldn’t be. What is really quite extraordinary is that we can know him. We can know him because of his grace. And what he does with his grace is to reveal himself to us.
Two people can be sitting at church, or watching this online. Seeing and hearing the exact same thing. One responds in faith and love to Jesus. They respond with worship and adoration and even a real commitment of their lives to follow God more nearly and more dearly.
The other, with the exact same input going in, is grossly offended and put off by something or other that’s being said. Why? For sure it’s not that one is better than the other. For sure it has nothing to do with merit. Elsewise it would not be Grace.
But God reveals himself, and stirs something in us that responds in faith. It’s an extraordinary thing. I have no idea why in the world I came to follow Jesus, given the background, the ignorance I had about the gospel; given the extremely negative view I had of God and of religious people.
I don’t know how I came to understand the gospel, and why it was and remains the single most beautiful thing on this planet to me. But I know that I know what I know because God has revealed it.
And so I know him. And so do you if you follow Jesus. You and I; you and I are blessed beyond all comprehension. May we never take that for granted. May we pursue Jesus, maybe follow him with ever increasing passion and zeal until the day that we cross over from The Garden of this World to the Garden of God.
Other Sheep Not of This Sheepfold
I have other sheep that are not of this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.
This is one of those passages that I’ve heard some incredibly bad teaching about over the years. It’s been used to say that anyone and everyone, regardless of their response to Jesus Christ, is saved.
It’s been used to say that anyone and everyone, regardless of how they live and what they believe about Jesus, is somehow redeemed. if you believe that, let’s have a chat. It is incredibly far off the mark.
Jesus was speaking to his own people. He was addressing Jewish people. Nearly his entire ministry was to other Jewish people like himself, with the possible exception of his interactions with Samaritans and some Gentile military people.
We need to do the sometimes difficult work of seeking to understand the context that Jesus was speaking into. If we don’t do that, there are some passages of Scripture that we will never understand.
Jesus knew that he came for the house of Israel, to redeem the Israel with His blood shed on the cross. But He also knew that he actually came for all people: Israel as well as all Gentiles. All Gentiles, which is all of us who have not been Jewish over the multiple centuries, ARE the other sheep. And he brings us also, uniting Jew and Gentile into one Faith one Hope one baptism. Listening to his voice as one flock, under one shepherd.
In a moment, Pastor Jan is going to read a passage of scripture that is very familiar to many of us. It is written by King David, a man who new the shepherding hand of God. He knew that God always provided for him, that God is always Jehovah Jireh. Our provider.
He knew that God is our Sabbath, the one in whom we find rest and restoration. He knew that God corrected him when he went off. When he blew it and really messed up his life, he knew that God would bring them back to a good path, and God would do this because he is good, and God would do this for his own glory.
David knew that when things got really, really terribly bad; when the end seems near and I was bleak, that in God he did not need to fear darkness; he did not need to fear evil because God was with him. God was with him in love, God was with him as his guide through life, and God was with him as the one who would lovingly correct and redirect him when he was in the middle of doing something stupid.
David knew that God would vindicate him. That God will be his salvation. He knew that he would experience the blessing and anointing of God. And because of that David rejoiced. David rejoiced.
And may WE rejoice. As we listen to Pastor Jan, in a few moments, after we celebrate communion, read Psalm 23, may we see ourselves as David saw himself. As people who are shepherded and cared for and loved by One willing to risk His life for us; Who in fact DID give His life for us in order that we might be reconciled to God. In order that we may become a new creation in Christ.
Let us continue to pray for our racialized brothers and sisters in Christ, that they with us would also know the deep and abiding joy of the presence of Jesus in the midst of the deep mourning that is still happening all over America and in Canada as well.
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
