I Am the Good Shepherd: "Everyone Needs a Good Pastor"

 He sat for years in the same place every Sunday, eager, sincere, ready to grow. His pastor was a great leader, a good teacher, and he eagerly, uh, listened to him, followed him. Great church. But over time, that pastor's voice turned from a voice of authority into a voice of fear, and the pulpit for this particular pastor became a pedestal and a spotlight.

And later when this pastor was removed from his position as the pastor of that church, this young man found it an incredibly confusing time. Did he go with the people who had left the church? Did he go with the elders who had stepped up in action? What did he do and did he just go at it alone with his Lord and Savior to whom he so intimately enjoyed fellowship and long for deeper communion?

That story is a tragic story because it's the story of so many people that we know. And it may be even your story. And before we read John chapter 10 verses 11 through 18, I want you to know that though some of us have had bad shepherds, the Lord Jesus Christ is the good shepherd. Who lays his life down for his sheep.

And so if you ache with church hurt, I wanna invite you to hear John chapter 10 afresh. And if you know people who have ached from church hurt, I want you to hear again the beauty of the gospel of Jesus, who is our good shepherd, who lays his life down for his sheep. For everyone, me included, pastor Mark, each of us, we need a good pastor to point us to Jesus.

And so if you're willing, wherever you are, would you stand with me for the reading of God's word, verses 11 through 18 of John, chapter 10.

Jesus is speaking. 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, does not own the sheep. Sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and fleas, 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, the grass withers and the flowers fade, but God's word, friends stands forever. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

You may be seated. Please. Father, would you take your word and would you transform us by it as we see the beauty of your son Jesus who gave his life for us? We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. We are in a series on the seven I Am Statements of Jesus in the Gospel of John. And if you know those seven I Am statements and you've read about them, you'll know that lots of things have been written about six of those I am statements.

I am the bread of life. I'm the light of the world. When you get to I Am the door, it's like I am the door. Because so much is written in the context of John about Jesus being the good Shepherd and after the Good Shepherd, of course, he is the resurrection in the life. He's the way, the truth in the life, and he is the true vine and the image of Jesus as adore and as a shepherd, it comes right.

After one another in the same context in John chapter 10 verses one down through verse 18. Jesus says, I am the door, which you talked about last week. And this week he says, I am the shepherd. And I bring this up because talking about a door and a shepherd are mixing images. Jesus just heaps image upon image, upon image to describe who he is.

And the image of a door and a shepherd do not seem to go together, and most commentators focus all their energy on talking about Jesus as the good shepherd. But I want us to recognize that these mixed metaphors create for us a kind of paradox. Because isn't Jesus just like that? I mean, isn't he a mixture of things that you would seem to think don't go together?

A paradox defined as a statement or a sentiment that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense, and yet true Jesus is adore. Metaphorically speaking, and he is the good shepherd. And before we launch into the text, I just want to emphasize the mixture of these metaphors because Jesus in himself is the mixture of seemingly contradictory things, 100% divine and is 100% human both at the same time.

He is Word and he is flesh. He is light, and he is truth. And Augustine said it. Well, in confessions, in book four of chapter one, Augustine says, what then is the God I worship? He is none but the Lord God himself. Augustine just writes this beautiful picture of the paradox of Jesus. He says, you my God are supreme, utmost in goodness, mightiest and all powerful, most merciful, and most just.

You're most beautiful and yet most strong ever enduring, and yet we cannot comprehend you. You are in changing, and yet you change all things. You are never nude, never old. Yet everything that has new life comes from you. You are the unseen power that brings decline upon the proud you are ever active, yet always at rest.

You gather all things to yourself, though you yourself suffer. No need, you support, you fill and you protect all things. You create them. You nourish them. You bring them to perfection. You seek to make them your own, though you never lost them. Do you hear the paradox? You treasure them, but without apprehension.

You grieve for wrong, but you suffer no pain. You can be. Angry and yet serene. Your works are varied, but your purpose is one and the same. It's just like these paradoxes drip off of Augustine's lips as he writes in the confession. You are my God, my life, my holy delight. But is this enough to save you?

Augustine says, can any man possibly say enough of you, but woe, but tied those who are silent about you? Because even those most gifted with speech cannot find words to comprehend you. And so as we enter into this picture and thinking about Jesus as our good shepherd, I want you to recognize it's in the larger context of Jesus, on the heels of healing, a man who was born blind and the Pharisees being concerned that Jesus healed him on the Sabbath.

Jesus who's saying, I am the door. I lay my life down at the doorway to protect the sheep. And not only am I the door, but I'm also the Good shepherd. The good shepherd who unlike bad shepherds. Unlike the Pharisees who sort of rejoice that Jesus healed this man, born and blind, I lay my life down for my sheep.

So in these verses of verses 11 through 18 of John, chapter 10, we're just gonna spend time on two points. What kind of shepherd is he and the magnitude of his flock? So first, what kind of shepherd is he? What makes him good? Well, first look at the very last half of verse 11. He lays his life down for his sheep.

A good shepherd protects his sheep from wolves. There's lots of images in agrarian society, lots of examples where the shepherd would have to literally put his body in harm's way in order to protect the sheep. The sheep were the wealth of the shepherd. They were valued by the shepherd. He needed to protect the investment, and so he would place his life between the sheep and the wolf.

And Jesus compares this good shepherd to hired hands. When the hired worker is personally threatened, he doesn't put his life in harm's way, he cuts and run. The very moment that the hired worker is threatened is the moment when he fails to perform. He runs away in the background that that. Jesus is trying to bring the attention of the Pharisees to as the passage that Pastor Mark read a little earlier for us in Ezekiel chapter 34, where the true shepherds of Israel and the leaders of Israel should have guarded and guided.

God's people to see his promises, but instead they served and abandoned the promises of God for idols. And God steps in and he says, I will be their shepherd. I will nurture them. I will bring my flock in. In fact, I will go outside of my people to help them see my promises and make them part of the people of God and the application for us.

Going back to this young man that I mentioned at the beginning is pretty plain that we all need a good shepherd. We all need a good pastor who points us to Jesus. Pastors today who are hired hands. They do not preach the word of God. They tickle the ears of the people and the pews if they're not careful.

And the moment that parishioners put pastors on a pedestal, that pastor is dead meat because there's only one good shepherd in any local church. And it's the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. And pastors are there to point the people to Jesus, who is the good Shepherd and friends, I just can't emphasize this enough to you.

One of the scariest things about pastoral ministry for me when I was young and in seminary, was the fear that one day God might call me to lead a church. I never wanted to be in that position because I grew up. In a wonderful church, but a church where the leadership had a very commanding sense of authority over that church.

And like many people, a story I heard the other day where the pastor becomes kind of the CEO who runs things, and it really wasn't until I began to see that there is a system or there is a place where I could just be one. Of the shepherds of the church called to preach God's word, but with the same authority of other shepherds called elders of the church.

And not only would the local church have shepherds, but that these local shepherds in the church would be watched over by regional shepherds that I learned about a term. I had heard very little love, and it's the term Presbyterian. And it was first the polity. It was the way the church was governed to protect the people from bad shepherds and to protect the shepherds from bad people.

That I found maybe, maybe that would be the place where I could serve, because I had also experienced good and bad shepherding, just as many of you had. And so Jesus here is drawing a parallel for these. Disciples, and for all those who are listening that there are bad shepherds, namely the Pharisees in this context, and Jesus is the true and the good shepherd who lays his life down for his sheep.

I wonder what your experience is in the local church. Do you have a good shepherd? If you're a member of Trinity, I pray that this church always has people who their first priority is to care for the souls of those people. There are a thousand things in ministry leadership that can distract people from what they should be fundamentally called to do, and that is to preach the beauty of the gospel from every passage of scripture and to welcome them into the sacraments in the Lord's Supper and in baptism.

We long to do that, and I pray that every person who ever preaches from this pulpit, from now until the return of Jesus holds high God's word and administers the sacraments with integrity of heart. And skillfulness of hands. But the truth is, every pastor, including me, including Pastor Mark, pastor Nathan, we will disappoint you because there is one good shepherd, one true shepherd, and it is the Lord at Jesus Christ.

And before I go on, let me just help you think about it, uh, this way, elders of a church, they are to focus with laser precision on knowing their sheep. And in this church we have shepherding groups. We have every elder has a group of people that they regularly pray for, connect with, know, and they are the first point of contact for that person should they need prayer or pastoral care.

And elders should know their sheep. And so, dear brothers, if you are an elder in this church especially, or if you're listening and you're an elder in some other church, know your sheep. Your sheep can always find a better sermon somewhere else, A better podcast. To be more insightful into God's word. They can always find a beautiful building, a more beautiful building than the one that they're currently in.

They can always find whatever else it is about that church somewhere else, somewhere better, except they care for their soul. That is the role of the local church. And now some of you believe in Jesus. You, you really, really find yourself to be spiritual, but you don't like traditional Christianity. And so let me say something to you as well.

Because undoubtedly, Jesus is not calling us away from his people. He's calling us to his people. Many people that I hear who've been hurt by the church will say, well, I just don't trust the authority of the local church anymore. But when I listen to them tell their story, what they really don't trust are the five people who hurt them or the one person that hurt them.

And lemme just challenge you and just say to you, I am so sorry. That you are hurt by people in authority in your church,

but don't give up on her because the Lord wants you to be part of his local church to say to Jesus, I want you Jesus, but I don't like your church, is to say to a man, Hey, I really like you, but I just hate your wife. You get the family with. Jesus, you get the church with him because they, the church is his body and pastors, to use an analogy, are kind of like sails in the sailboat.

It is the sail that helps the people on the boat catch the wind of the Holy Spirit, if you will. But the boat is still good, even if there's holes in the sail, and sometimes there need to be a replacement of the sail. Sometimes sails need to retire and move on, but the boat is still beautiful. So brothers and sisters, please, please, please don't start jumping off the boat because the sail is bad.

It is the Holy Spirit, the wind of the spirit. That is actually the power that moves you forward and the sails. Christian leadership is just there. Pastors ordained in ministry are just there to catch the wind of the Holy Spirit to help you see the beauty of Jesus, and to get where he's calling us to go as his people, which is to be a beautiful picture to the world of Christ's kingdom breaking in now as a foretaste of life to come.

So what kind of shepherd is he first? He's a shepherd that lays down his life for his sheep. In verse 13, he gives the reason for the hired workers' actions and one commentator, uh, ed Clink III says it like this. He says, the sheep do not matter to him. That is why they are of no care, of concern of his. The, the sheep are to the hired worker as a means to an end, and an expendable means if the self benefitting end in view is threatened.

This is neither a good hired worker nor a real shepherd. Serving as a co. A stark contrast to Jesus, who is the true and good shepherd.

Not only is he a good shepherd who lays his life down for his sheep, but notice secondly, the purpose for which he lays down his life for his sheep. The word there for life is que in Greek. It's not bio or Zoe, other Greek words they could have used. It's que. It is his life. It is his soul. It is his very essence, my soul.

He says in Matthew 26 is consumed with sorrow near the hour of his death on the cross, he poured out his que unto death. It says his life unto death. Jesus lays everything down, everything. And think about what Jesus gave up and taking on flesh to become a human being for you and for me.

Staggering. And he lays every single bit of that down because he loves you. He treasures you.

Men have risked their que in Acts chapter 15 for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. He has given himself and it says that he gives himself. Er tone prob ratone for the sheep on behalf of the sheep. That is the motivating principle. It's a preposition of purpose. It's not about Jesus. In other words, he says, I lay it down on purpose.

And why does he lay it down on purpose? He says, because I know mine. Literally in Greek it says, I know mine. Speaking of a sheep and mine know me, there's an intimacy and there's a nearness. One commentator says that there is a mutual knowledge between the good shepherd and a sheep that defines the nature of their coexistence.

This kind of knowledge does not blur the line between sheep and shepherd. It fastens them together in an appropriate manner. Whereby the shepherd provides for and loves his sheep and the sheep respond in gratitude, faith, and obedience to their good shepherd. Lower your eyes to the text and look at verse 15.

It says, Jesus here explains the relationship of the shepherd in his sheep with the partial analogy of the son's relationship. To the father. This intimate union differentiated different roles, but they form a holy HOLY and unique a relationship. John Calvin says It is as if Jesus says that it is no more possible for him to be oblivious to us and for the Father to reject or neglect him.

Jesus the son. There's no need to speculate, but simply to note here, what we have received from the Good Shepherd is deep love, even mysterious love that is rooted in the Trinitarian God, the kind of shepherd he is, is one who lays his life down for his sheep, and he does so with purpose. It's not about him.

It's about your good to bring you in. To a Trinitarian love that the son shares with his father, staggering, and that takes us to the second point. The magnitude of his flock in verses 16 to 18. Who's included? Jesus, his proclamation of him being the good shepherd, he says, and I have other sheep that are not of this fold, that is Jesus has Gentiles, those who are outside of the covenant people of Israel.

He says, I have many sheep, and I bring them. In beyond the courtyard so that there will be one flock and one shepherd. It's hard to see this in English, but in Greek, there's a play on words here. One flock and one shepherd. Mia poem, a pme. And Poe, you hear the similarity in the two words, the same six letters in Greek, except the last two letters.

The new and the Epsilon are just transposed, one shepherd, one flock. It's a play on words to say that we are all called to be one and Gentiles. Have access to the same good news, and that word gentile seems foreign to us today. But it just means people who are outside of God's Old Testament covenant, people brought in John's language, fits pretty close with the Apostle Paul who says in Galatians chapter three, for in Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith.

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female free. You are all one in Jesus Christ. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs, according to the promise. In the context of the blind beggar, you see it back in chapter nine, verses 35 and verse 38.

The blind beggar placed his faith in Jesus. He was kicked out of the temple, and Jesus says, do you believe? And he says Yes. And there are many examples of blind beggars. Kicked out or out on the outside looking in. Jesus says to Nicodemus, you must be born again for God. So love the world. John three 16 that he gave his only son, whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

The friends of the Samaritan woman, when the Samaritan woman told, uh, her friends about what Jesus has done, they said It is no longer because of what you have said, that we believe we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the savior of the world. Gentiles, all throughout the New Testament who are brought in, this is an overt reference to Ezekiel 34, the passage that Mark, uh, read earlier.

The vision of the unity of Judah and of Israel, the northern and southern kingdoms coming back together after the division of the nation. It's a picture of how one day someday Jesus is gonna fully unite all his people in the new heavens, in the new Earth. And we get a foretaste of that now when we love people who are different than us.

We have churches that are radically diverse economically, socially. In so many other ways, but they're centered on the truth, doctrinally that Jesus lived a life that they could not live, and he died of death, that they should have died. Do you see the magnitude of his flock? If you're gonna have a good shepherd, it allows you not to.

Put your preferences before others. It allows you to say, Hey, we're gonna look at the gospel together. Yes, there are certain ways and styles churches have to run and lead and worship, but we're gonna fight together to keep the gospel central in everything that we do. And I pray that that's certainly true of us here in verses 17 and 18.

Lastly, not only the magnitude of his flock, but you. See the magnitude of his power in bringing that flock together. Those that we submit to have limited power and authority in every relationship we have in life, except in our relationship with God whose unlimited in power and unlimited in authority.

For this reason, Jesus says the Father loves me because I lay my life down. That I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again, and this charge I have received from my father,

Jesus is the one whose authority knows no bounds, his authority even over sin and death. And it was Jesus, the good shepherd who laid his life down on the cross for us so that we might have access to God. Jesus was the one who put himself at the door of the sheep pen, and literally is the way that we have access to God.

Jesus is the good shepherd who is never trying to draw attention to himself. He's trying to point us to the beauty of who he is. Sinless. Perfect in every way so that we might place our faith in him. The only one who could fill the law's demands for us. And Jesus is the true and the good shepherd. And when you see that Jesus is the true and good shepherd, you begin to love his body once again.

You begin to move in toward the church. And for some of us who have been confused, like the young man I mentioned at the beginning of the service who are wondering what is my role in the local church, I just wanna encourage you to come. Come to this local church, come to Trinity, move in with us, and let's look at Christ together.

Because when Christ is the good shepherd for us, who lays his life down for his sheep and leadership of the church says all we can. Like John the Baptist to say we must decrease that. He must increase. People begin to get a taste of what it's like. And CS Lewis describes this at the very end of, of the Chronicles of Narnia, when finally Lucy at last comes into the new Narnia and her old friend, Mr.

Tni is with her. And Mr. Tni says, the further up and the further in you go, the bigger everything gets. The inside is larger than the outside. And Lucy's Lucy realizes this is my real country. The land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it. And that is the kind of love that Jesus wants to show you if you're willing.

It's not about your moral behavior, it's what the Pharisees did not understand. It's about his finished work for us, and he invites us as the good shepherd. It presupposes that you are a sheep among others. Shepherds guard, sheep, plural, and he wants to invite you in. And once you're in, in a church where the gospel is preached with good leadership who point you to Jesus, you see that the inside is far bigger than the outside, and you find that in your confusion, you can find rest again and again and again in his finished work under his word.

And coming to his table in communion with faith and with joy. Let's pray together. Father, we pray that you would remind us in a hundred ways, even amidst the snow this week of how your son Jesus is the good shepherd, and that you would help us as your people. To submit ourselves wholly to him and to love his body, the church to only worship him, but as members of his body of the church to help point others to the beauty of Christ for it is not only the pastors and the elders' responsibility to point others to Jesus, it's also the members.

And so would you help us to do that in this local outpost of your kingdom called Trinity Presbyterian Church, PCA, in Owasso, Oklahoma. Would you strengthen us to do that not only for Tulsa Metro, but all of green country in northeast Oklahoma, and Lord willing, as far and wide as you would call us to serve?

I pray, father, that you would help the children love the church who are listening, that they would grow up and they would see the beauty of the church, that they would never put their pastor on a pedestal, that Jesus would remain the one who's always on the pedestal. And that you would guard and protect people who have bad shepherds.

Oh Lord, would you protect them and would you bring them into a church where the pastor's held accountable and the people together with the pastor can make much of Christ Jesus think that you are a good shepherd and we pray these things in your name. Amen.

And now if you're willing, let's close as we sing together.

Sermon transcript is computer generated.