Sermon Transcript

0:00:14.0

Please take your Bibles and turn with me to John’s Gospel, John 10.  We’re continuing our study titled “Why Jesus: Seven Reasons He is Still the One and Only.”  And we’ve been looking at the seven “I AM” statements of Jesus that are located uniquely in John’s Gospel.  We talked about Jesus who said, “I am the bread of life.”  He also said, “I am the light of the world.”  Last week we were in John 10, where we found two of the seven “I AM” statements.  The one we looked at last week was “I am the door of the sheep.”  And this week I want to pick it up in John 10:11.  These are the words of Jesus.  “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, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, 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.”  And then verse 19, “There was again a division among the Jews because of these words.  Many of them said, ‘He has a demon, and is insane; why listen to him?’  Others said, ‘These are not the words of one who is oppressed by a demon.  Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’”

0:02:26.4

Well, nothing pictures God’s relationship with His people better than a sheep with his shepherd or a shepherd with his sheep.  In fact, the shepherd’s staff could have been the national symbol in ancient Israel, because the most familiar scene in Judea and ancient Palestine was a shepherd standing on a hillside tending his flock.  That’s not a very common scene in our world today, but it was very common back in Bible times.  And so throughout the Old and New Testaments, God borrows this picture of a shepherd with his sheep and He applies it to Himself.  Now, there are some people today who tell us, well, we need to update the imagery in the Bible.  You know, we don’t have shepherds and sheep today, especially here in North America, at least not in places where most of us live.  And we ought not to talk about Jesus who is a good shepherd.  No, we ought to talk about Jesus the good CEO.  That identifies more with us today.  But I would suggest to you if we do that, if we abandon the imagery of scripture, that we’re gonna miss so much of the imagery here.  And you’d have to change so much in the Old and the New Testament.

0:03:42.1

Let me give you some sense of how much this sheep and shepherd imagery just is woven into the fabric of our faith through both the Old and the New Testament.  For example, the largest book in the Bible, the book of Psalms, 150 chapters, is written by a former shepherd name David.  And the Bible tell us is 2 Samuel 5:2 that when God called David out of the shepherding business to come the king of Israel, He said to him, “You will shepherd my people Israel.  You will rule over them.”  The psalmist Asaph described David’s leadership this way in Psalm 78:72, “So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart and guided them with his skillful hands.”  Not surprisingly, when you read through David’s psalms, they kind of drip with references from his early life and his experiences when he was tending his own father’ sheep.  Psalm 23 is the example that we all remember.  David wrote very tenderly, “The Lord is my shepherd.”  And in Psalm 77 he writes, “You lead your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.”  Psalm 80 begins, “Hear us, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock.”  In Psalm 95 David declares, “For he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.”  Psalm 100:3 says, “Know that the Lord is God.  It is he who made us and we are his.  We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.”  The prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, some of the biggies in the Old Testament, they spoke sternly to leaders at that time that were known as shepherds who showed little care for the flock of God.  In Jeremiah 23:1, “Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture.”  Ezekiel 34:2, “Woe to the shepherds of Israel, who only take care of themselves.  Should not shepherds take care of the flock?”  Even the prophet Isaiah, when he speaks prophetically about the coming of Messiah, the Promised One, he speaks of Him as a shepherd that cares for His sheep.  Isaiah 40:11, “He tends his flock like a shepherd.  He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart.  He gently leads those that have young.”  And, of course, those Messianic prophecies bring us to the ministry of Jesus and into the New Testament, where the Bible tells us that Jesus felt compassion for a very large crowd of people.  Mark tells us, “Because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”  On the night before He was crucified, Jesus told His disciples that they would all fall away.  And He quoted from the Old Testament, saying, “For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’”  He referred to His disciples in Luke 12 as His little flock.  Hebrews 13:20—still in the New Testament here—Jesus is known as the Great Shepherd of the sheep.  Peter instructs pastors and elders in the church to “shepherd the flock of God”.  And I could go on and on.  For what it’s worth, the Latin word for pastor is shepherd.  A pastor is not a CEO of a church, although he needs to bring great leadership skills.  He’s the shepherd of a church.

0:07:06.4

And all that brings us back to John 10, where Jesus says…makes two of those “I AM” statements.  He says, “I am the door of the sheep,” and we looked at that last week.  This week we want to look at that statement where He says, “I am the good shepherd.”  When He has an opportunity to identify Himself to us and make this self-revealing declaration, He doesn’t say, “I am the good teacher,” although He was a master teacher.  He doesn’t say, “I am the good moral leader,” although some people think that’s all Jesus was, was just a good moral leader.  He doesn’t say, “I am the good psychologist,” or, “I am the good CEO.”  No, He says, “I am the good shepherd.”  Not just any shepherd, but a good shepherd.  That word “good” is chalk full of meaning in the scripture.  You know, there was book years ago written called Good to Great, and we think great is better than good.  But in the Bible, nothing is gooder than good.  Do you follow that?  I don’t even know if I followed myself on that one.  But when Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd,” there’s nothing gooder than that.  There’s nothing better than that.  He is the good shepherd.  The ancient Greek language has two words that could be translated “good” in our New Testament.  One is agathos, and it refers to the moral quality of something.  We say that somebody is good in their moral quality.  That’s not the word that Jesus uses here.  He uses the word kalos, which speaks of intrinsic quality, of a winsomeness and a loveliness about His person and character.  As the good shepherd, we might say Jesus not only possessed a moral quality that was good and intrinsic to His nature, but He also held a quality that made people want to be around Him.  I always like to say Jesus made friends and influenced people better than Dale Carnegie did, because there was a winsomeness to Him.  There was a loveliness to His personality.  There was a sense that when Jesus walked in the room, everybody wanted to be around Him because He was a good shepherd.  There was a winsomeness to His personality as well as something good intrinsically in His character and in His person.  And when Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd,” the Jews heard that also as a claim to deity, because good meant God.  Jesus, in a conversation with the rich young ruler…the rich young ruler said, “Why do you call…”  Or Jesus said to the rich young ruler, “Why do you call me good, because only God is good?”  He was testing the man’s understanding of who Jesus is.  So like the other “I AM” statements, the ones that we’ve previously looked at, the ones we’ll look at in the future, every one of these is claim to deity.  The Jews heard it that way, and it’s how we need to understand it in our time as well.

0:10:02.4

But all of this brings us back to John 10 and this statement, “I am the good shepherd.”  And it begs this question for me.  What’s so good about the Good Shepherd?  You ever ask a question like that?  Maybe you're going through a time that is not so good.  If you were to be honest with yourself and with your family and with your church family, the time you're going through right now is bad.  In fact, it really stinks.  I’ve been through some times like that.  And this is a safe place, by the way, to verbalize some of that.  This is a safe place for broken people.  It’s a safe place for people who are going through hard times and difficult times.  It’s a safe place for somebody who walks in this morning and sees a message titled “I am the Good Shepherd” and wonders, given the bad thing I’m going through right now and the really tough thing I’m going through, what’s so good about the Good Shepherd?  You know, when we named a radio broadcast “Something Good Radio”, it came out of a really, really bad and hard time in my ministry of more than two decades.  And I went back to a simple verse of scripture, Romans 8:28, “For God works all things together for good to those who love him, to those who are the called according to his purpose.”  And I was asking a real simple question.  Is that true?  Is God able to take something that is hard and dark and bad, something that I wouldn’t have signed up for, and is He really able to work that into something good?  Is God who my pastor said he was when I was growing up in the church?  We used to sing a little chorus.  “God is so good, God is so good, God is so good, He’s so good to me.”  And our pastor would say, “God is good.”  And everybody in the church family would say, “And He’s good all the time.”  And I believed that with child-like faith.  And then I got a little bit older and I went through some hard times, as we all do, some bad times.  And I’m wondering, What’s so good about God?  What’s so good about the Good Shepherd?  Romans 8:28 never promises that we won't go through hard times.  It says He’s able to work all things together for good.  It doesn't say that all things are good.  It says He’s able to work all things together for good.  In The Message it says, “Every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.”  God can take the bad thing that you’re going through right now and work it into something good.  It may take some time for that to happen.  But I’m a big believer—having gone through some of my own bad times and hard times—I’m a big believer that God is up to something good in your life.  And we try to broadcast that every day to an audience all across this country of people who are going through some really, really hard times.  And maybe some of you here are facing those hard times right now.  So this is a safe place to ask the question, What’s so good about the Good Shepherd when I’m going through a bad time?  I want to try to answer that question this morning and highlight the goodness of God, the goodness of God.

0:13:08.8

Let me share three or four things as we go back to John 10.  Number on, He is a good shepherd becomes He comes to us with good intentions, good intentions.  Let’s go back to verse 1 where Jesus starts off by sharing a word of reality here, the idea that not everybody who comes into the fold of our life comes with good intentions.  He says it this way, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.  But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.  To him the gatekeeper opens.”  Now, last week we talked about how Jesus was the door of the sheep.  And at night when the shepherd builds the sheepfold, he lays across that door.  Remember that imagery?  And he literally becomes the door of the sheep.  Well, sometimes he brings his flock back to a community fold where there are several shepherds perhaps on a hillside, several flocks.  They come back to a community fold, and together these various flocks go into the fold.  There’s a gatekeeper at the front, a watchman.  He know, you know, the real shepherds.  But they kind of co-mingle their flock into this community fold. And then the shepherd goes and rests someplace else.  Sometimes he does that.  That’s what Jesus has in mind here when He says, “He who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. He who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.  And the gatekeeper opens to him.”  Okay?

0:14:47.3

Jesus goes on to talk about those who maybe do not have good intentions.  He’s already identified thieves and robbers and strangers.  But in verses 12 and 13 He says, “He who is a hired hand,” a hireling, we might say, “and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.  He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.”  The hireling is somebody, you know, who doesn’t have the sheep’s good intentions at heart.  He has some bad intentions.  He’s a hired hand.  He bids out to the person who will pay him the most, and when danger comes, he flees.  He could care less about the sheep.  He’s just in it to kind of feather his own nest, as it were.  He’s a hired hand, all right.  First question he asked is, “How much you gonna pay me?”  You know, that’s what a hired hand does.  And what Jesus is warning about here is that there are some people in life, some people who will enter the fold of your life, and they have bad intentions.  They will tell you anything to get you to believe whatever ruse, whatever story they have.  They will use you.  They will abuse you.  They will exploit you.  And when they’re done with you they will cast you aside.  That’s the thief.  That’s the robber.  That’s the stranger.  That’s the hireling.  But that’s not Jesus.  He’s not a stranger.  He’s not a thief.  He’s not a robber.  He’s not a hireling.  He is a good shepherd who always comes to us with good, good intentions.

0:16:27.7

But the world is full of people with bad intentions, is it not?  They are wolves in sheep’s clothing.  And they’re the people that want something from you.  You know, don't you get tired of that?  Whether it’s a knock on the door or a call on the phone or, you know, somebody who, for their own selfish reasons, wants something from you.  Jesus doesn't want something from you.  He did something for you.  And we’re gonna talk about that in detail a little bit later.  It has something to do with Him laying down His life.  But the difference between the thief and the robber and the predator, the worst offenders of these kinds of people with bad intentions are child abusers.  And the steal into an innocent person’s life and they take something.  And they use and abuse and exploit and cast aside.  And some of you may have been on the receiving end of some of those people with bad, bad intentions.  And so it’s hard for you to trust a good shepherd.  Maybe you went through a divorce that just turned your world upside down and shattered your ability to trust into a million pieces.  And when you hear that Jesus is a good shepherd with good intentions, you’re coming at that from a different framework and reference point in your life.  I’ve talked to a lot of people who have had very abusive pasts.  And they’re shackled in this inability to trust.  And I’ve also met some people who met the Good Shepherd, who is Jesus.  And they experienced a healing, a time where they were able to trust again that this Jesus, who is the Good Shepherd, will always come to them with good, good intentions.  And I want you to go there.  I know that maybe what you’ve been through in the past is hard.  And it’s difficult, and I would never minimize that.  But just know that Jesus is a good shepherd because He has good intentions.  The world is full of thieves and robbers and predators and people with bad intentions, people who will take from you.  Jesus isn’t here to get something from you.  He wants something for you and did something for you very, very special.

0:18:56.6

So he’s a good shepherd because He comes to us with good intentions.  Secondly, (0:19:00.1) He’s a good shepherd because He knows us by name and He leads us to good places.  Let’s go back to John 10 and review verses 3 and following from last week.  “The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.  When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.  A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”  Then verses 14 and 15, “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.”  Now, picture again that community sheepfold.  You know, when the shepherd comes back and chooses to put his sheep in there, and there are lots of different flock.  You know, to you and me, one sheep looks like another.  I mean, how do you differentiate between or the other.  But the shepherd knows his sheep.  He knows them by name.  (0:20:00.0) He knows them because, you know, that one called Lucky over there has a little hitch in his get-along, and he’s…you know, “That’s mine over there.”  He knows his sheep.  He knows them by name.  And he can call out them, and they recognize his voice.  And they come out one by one from the sheepfold, even though they were all together the night before.  It’s an amazing thing to watch, that relationship between a shepherd and his sheep, because a shepherd will take time to get to know his sheep and to study the unique idiosyncrasies of that animal and then name that animal.  And we do the same thing with our pets, don’t we?

0:20:34.7

When I was growing up in Indiana, one of our friends down the street, they got a family dog.  And they name him Zero, Z-E-R-O.  And I said, “Why in the world did you name your dog Zero?”  And he said, “Well, you know, that’s kind of what he scored during potty training, so we just called him Zero.”  You know, “Come on, Zero!  Come on, Zero!”  Can you imagine something like that?  But we do this with our pets.  We get to know them.  We study their idiosyncrasies.  We name them in a very affectionate kind of way.  And the shepherd does that with his sheep.  By the way, did you know that God knows you by name?  He’s very personal with us.  He’s very intimate with us.  Isaiah 43:1, the Lord says, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you.  I have called you by name.  You are mine.”  That’s very personal and very intimate language.  I love the Psalm 139, coming from David the shepherd’s pen.  And he talks about how the Lord knows him intimately and is acquainted with all of his ways.  He says, “Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me.  And you know when I sit down and when I rise up.  You discern my thoughts from afar.  You search out my path and my lying down, and you’re acquainted with all of my ways.”  David went on to say, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.  It’s too high.  I cannot attain to it.”  And it is hard for us to wrap our finite minds around this idea that God, who created and spoke the worlds into existence, knows little ‘ol me and He knows me by name.  And He knows what I’m gonna put on my Outlook calendar on Tuesday before it ever gets there ‘cause He’s intimately acquainted with everything about me.  That’s why He’s a good shepherd.  He isn’t watching us “from a distance”, as the famous song says.  No, He is Immanuel.  He is God with Us.  He is up close and He is personal.  And He calls us by name.  He knows us.  By the way, do you know Jesus?  Do you know Him intimately?  In that High Priestly prayer that Jesus prayed in John 17—go check it out—Jesus says this, “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”  Do you know God personally?  Do you possess eternal life to where you know Him?

0:22:52.5

Let me ask that question a different way.  Are you a friend of Jesus, or are you just His fan?  You know what I mean by a fan, don’t you?  You know, one of those sports fans.  Earlier this year we took a little family vacation to south Florida.  And we checked into a resort down there.  And my kids, before they went out to beach, they wanted to go to the workout room, the spa or whatever it was, and do a little weightlifting and a little bit of training.  They're both athletes.  And no sooner did they get there that I get a text message from my son.  Dad, you’ve gotta come here!  You’ve gotta come here!  J.R. Smith is in this room!  Some of you are saying, “Well, who is J.R. Smith?”  Well, he’s an NBA player, plays with Cleveland Cavaliers and, you know, was part of the group that took them to the NBA finals last year.  And I think they won.  I forget.  But, I mean, J.R. Smith is here.  And so I, you know, get my stuff together and I head on down there.  Well, by the time I got there, J.R. Smith wasn’t there any longer.  But my son had a picture with him and J.R. Smith.  Him and J.R.  He posted it all over his social media.  And his friends were, like, “Wow, man!  You’re hanging with J.R. Smith.”  If you were to call J.R. Smith today and say, “Do you know Reagan Jones,” he’d go, “Who?”  Because this picture was deceptive.  It looked like they were hanging buddies, workout buddies, friends.  All it was, was a fan who wanted to take a picture with an NBA player.  And some people are content to walk into church, maybe pop into church once in a while and just kind of snap a picture with Jesus.  And they’re more fans of Jesus than friends of Jesus.  And it’s to the fans of Jesus that I’m reminded of what Jesus said in Matthew 7, that on that last day some will say, “Oh Lord, Lord, didn’t we do great and mighty things in Your name?  Look at all these pictures we snapped with You, Jesus, yeah, just You and us…You’re my hanging dude, Jesus.”  And He says, “Depart from Me.  I never knew you.”  Haunting, haunting words.  So do you know Jesus?  He knows His sheep.  He says, “Yeah, that picture…yeah, he’s a friend of mine.”  Remember Jesus called His disciples on the night before He was crucified…in the upper room He says, “You’re my friends,” not “my fans”.  “You’re my friends.”  Do you know Jesus personally?  Do you possess eternal life, to know God, the one true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent?

0:25:40.1

So He knows us by name.  Here’s the other part of this.  Because He knows us by name, He leads us to good places.  This one of the reasons He’s a good shepherd.  And I love what David writes in Psalm 23.  “He leads me by still waters.  He makes me lay down in green pastures.  He leads me in the paths of righteousness.”  These are all very descriptive ways of talking about a good place that the Good Shepherd is leading His sheep.  David even says, “He leads me through the valley of the shadow of death.”  Remember that one?  I’m so grateful for the preposition “through”.  He leads me through the valley of the shadow of death.  What I’m about to say is worth the nickel’s worth of gas it took you to get from your home to church here today.  Are you ready for it?  You’ll get through this.  Whatever it is, whatever this is that you’re going through right now that feels like the valley of the shadow of death—a difficult, dark really hard time you’re going through—you’ll get through this.  How do I know that?  Because your Good Shepherd will make sure you do.  He leads you by still waters.  He leads you by those green pastures in the paths of righteousness.  Sometimes to get from this good place to this other good place, you gotta go through the valley of the shadow of death.  But He promises to lead you through it.  In fact, I love what the prophet Isaiah quotes the Lord as saying.  Isaiah 43:2, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.  And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.  When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned.  And the flames shall not consume you.”  You’ll get through this.  You will.  There will be a brighter day.  But you’re gonna have to cling tightly to your Good Shepherd, who will lead you, yes, through the valley of the shadow of death, but He’ll lead you to a good, good place if you know Him.  If you know Him by faith, not by religion, not by good works, not by some, you know, catechism that you went through.  “For by grace you are saved through faith.  And that not of yourselves, it’s the gift of God; not of works, lest any many should boast.”  So this gift called eternal life He wants to give you free of charge.  But you have to accept it by faith.  That’s how you get to know Jesus.  That’s how He knows you by name and then leads you to good places, even in the midst of a fallen world that has some really dark shadows and some shadowy people in it that try to move into our fold with bad intentions.  No, He’s a good shepherd with good intentions.  He knows us by name and He leads us to good places.

0:28:43.8

Thirdly, He gives His life for the sheep.  Remember I said Jesus doesn’t want something from you.  He did something for you.  Here it is.  Verse 11, “I am the good shepherd.  The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”  “For this reason the Father loves me,” verse 17, “because I lay down my life that I may take it up gain.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own account.  I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.  This charge I have received from my Father,” Jesus says.  I counted five times in John 10:1-20 or so, five times Jesus says, “I lay down my life.”  He did something for you that He alone could uniquely do.  Why is He still the One and Only?  Because He’s the only one who has ever laid down His life for you.  We’re talking about the cross.  We’re talking about the cross.  And I know some people who say, “Oh, you know, the cross of Christ.  What a sad ending to a good life, a tragic ending to a good life.”  That’s not the Bible, friends.  Jesus said, “No one takes it from me.”  The Roman authorities did not take Jesus’s life from Him.  The religious leaders didn’t take Jesus’s life.  He says, “I lay it down of my own accord.  I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again.”  Remember in the Garden of Gethsemane He spoke the words ego eimi, “I am”, and a whole battalion of Roman soldiers fall back because of the power of I AM.  He could have snapped His fingers and a legion of angels show up in Gethsemane and whisk Him away.  He could have avoided the cross, but it wasn’t the Father’s plan.  It wasn’t the Father’s plan.

0:30:36.9

And, by the way, herein lies the difference…one of the big differences between Islam and Christianity.  You know, we’ve been asking this question, “Why Jesus?  Why Jesus and not Mohammed?”  Let me give you a couple of good reasons.  First of all, because, in Islam, Allah is pleased to have you sacrifice your son for him.  That’s what these suicide bombings are all about.  But in Christianity, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life.”  That’s polar opposite theology there.  Another reason that there is a big difference between Islam and Christianity is around this idea of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  Do you know Islam denies that Jesus Christ ever went to the cross?  I learned this when I was in Istanbul, Turkey, a couple of years ago.  We were on a Something Good Radio tour of the seven church of Asia Minor.  And we were traveling up and down the western coast of Turkey.  And we started in Istanbul, formerly Constantinople.  And one of the things you want to visit when you go to Istanbul is this place known as Hagia Sophia, or the Blue Mosque.  It was built in 537 A.D. by Emperor Justinian.  And it was back then a Byzantine cathedral, a place of Christian worship.  But in history the Ottoman Turks came in and, well, Turkey is now a Muslim country.  And the beautiful Hagia Sophie, or the Blue Mosque, is a mosque.  And so we went to visit it.  And you can go in as a visitor.  And you’ll have to take off your shoes to show respect and all of that.  And we did that.  But I noticed a literature rack over here, some brochures, you know, that the mosque wanted you to pick up.  And so I picked up one of them.  And here is what this brochure at the Blue Mosque said.  “Muslims believe that Jesus did not die on the cross at all.  Allah saved Him, and someone else was crucified in His place.”   Are you kidding me?  I mean, there are some people smoking a wacky weed out there that might deny the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth and say, “Oh, there was never person like that.”  We’ve kind of debunked that.  I mean, secular historians like Josephus and others that had nothing to gain by talking about Jesus and establishing historicity have well established that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person in real history.  Likewise, they’ve well established he was crucified on a Roman cross.  And you’re telling me that the Koran denies that event, that it never happened the way the Bible says and the way other historians say it did?  You’ve got to be kidding me.  It goes on in that brochure—and it’s quoting the Koran each time—but it goes on to say, “There is no need for salvation from sin, for there is no original burden.”  Well, that is a direct shot at the core of Christianity, because the reason why some people, you know, think that the cross is just mere foolishness is because they don’t understand the biblical diagnosis of our humanity, that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  We’ve all broken God’s law.  And we’re all in the same, sorry spiritual state thanks to our spiritual forefathers, Adam and Eve.  That’s what we call original sin.  The Koran denies that, says it doesn't exist.  And so, you know, pardon me if I just say I’m a little bit tired of people who have never read the fine print in the Koran or in the Bible declaring that all religions are basically the same.  Listen, not even a Muslim theologian would say that Christianity and Islam are the same when it comes to Jesus, crucifixion, and this idea of original sin.  Nobody would say that with a smile on their face who has any measure of intelligence or who have read either of the two faiths.  This Good Shepherd gave His life for us.  There is no mistaking that in John 10.  Jesus says it five times.  “I give my life.”  He’s talking about the cross.  He did it willingly for you and for me.  It was part of the Father’s plan, because without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.  And it’s later why Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by me.”  This is the only way, folks.  And this is what the Bible says, and this is why He is a good, good shepherd.

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Fourth and finally, He is a good shepherd because He generously invites other sheep into the fold.  Go with me to verse 16, John 10.  Listen to this, “And I have other sheep,” Jesus says, “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.”  Who are the other sheep that He’s talking about?  Well, He’s talking about Gentile nations.  He’s talking to Jews here.  And He says, “Listen, there are other sheep that need to be brought into this fold.”  You and I are here, friends, 2000 years later and a half a world away, because of this generous expression of our Good Shepherd, who didn’t just build a tiny little fold for us four and no more.  No, it’s a big fold.  Heaven, friends, is a big, big place.  It’s the Father’s big house.  He’s got a big sheepfold.  And there are other sheep that He wants to bring into that fold.  You and I are here, mostly Gentiles in this place, maybe some Jews scattered about who believe in Jesus.  But we’re here because of the generosity, the goodness and the generosity of this good shepherd who says, “You all come.  Whoever believes in the name of Jesus, you come and be one of my sheep.  And I’ll relate to you with good intentions.  And I’ll know you by name.  And I’ll lead you to good places.”  And He’s generous in that way.  I was so proud of this church last week when we did Hallelujah Harvest.  And you saw the numbers earlier.  We had 4000 people is the official count.  The people estimated between 3800 and 4200.  We just split the difference and said, okay, the official count is 4000.  That was a wonderful, wonderful outreach.  A lot of people on this campus.  And as I was walking around the parking lot and doing all the trunk-or-treating and in and out of the Life Center just saying hello to people, one lady kind of crossed my path.  And she said, “There are so many people around here that I don’t even recognize everybody.”  And she said it in a positive way.  She as very excited about that.  And I was glad she was, because you know what?  There are some other sheep in Virginia Beach that need to come into the fold of the Good Shepherd.  And we need to be the kind of place that says, “Oh, no…just a little bitty sheepfold here.  Us four and no more.”  You know, in some churches you have an event like that and people walk around and say, “There are so many people here.  And who is that sitting in my chair?”  I’m serious.  Come on now.  That’s not this place.  That’s not the Good Shepherd.  The Good Shepherd has a fold with a wide, wide open door, and whosoever will may come by faith in the Lord Jesus.  Like we said last week, you’ve got to walk through the door of the sheep.  That’s Jesus.  Not these other doors.  Not these other religions that will rob and steal from you and manipulate and exploit you.  But through the door of the sheep to meet the Good Shepherd, who will always come to you with good intentions.  You never have to question His good…oh, you may be going through a hard time.  But He’ll get you through that.  He’ll take you to a good place.  He’ll know you by name.  He’ll generously welcome anybody into this fold.  And my prayer is that this church and this place will always be that kind of place.  You are welcome here in the name of Jesus Christ.  And I’m excited as a pastor to say that and to be pastoring a church that I know is full of people who share that sentiment to so many people in this large community that need to meet Jesus.  People who have been exploited and used and abused and who have a hard time trusting, because there are a lot of people in our world with bad intentions.  But we get the opportunity to introduce them to a good, good shepherd.  And I’m excited to be a part of something like that, aren’t you?  Let’s pray together.

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And with our heads bowed and in an attitude of prayer, you know, the Bible says—and this is part of that spiritual diagnosis—“All we like sheep have gone astray.”  As the old hymn writer said, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.  Prone to leave the God I love.”  I think there are two kinds of people here this morning.  There are those of you who, yeah, you crossed that threshold one day from being Jesus’s fan to being His friend.  And you haven't lost your salvation.  You've just wandered away.  And, you know, it’s possible to even be in the vicinity of spiritual things, to be in church every week, to kind of be going through the motions, even snapping some pictures with your hanging buddy Jesus, and your heart has wandered away like a sheep does wander.  I love the story Jesus told about the shepherd that had 100 sheep, and one of them wandered away, you know, stuck in the thickets over here.  And he left the 99, and he went to find that one. He’s searching through the thickets of your heart and your life and mine today, and He’s looking for that one wandering sheep.  He cares about you that much, and He wants you to come home.  There are others who have never been a part of the fold maybe.  Maybe you’ve just been snapping, you know, fan photos of Jesus.  And you really don't know Him personally.  Today is the day to get to know Him.  You say, “Well, how do I do that?”  You receive the gift He wants to give to you.  Remember, Jesus doesn't want something from you.  He did something for you.  And He has this wonderful gift called eternal life that He wants to give you free of charge.  It’s been paid for.  Paid for by His blood on the cross.  And all you have to do is receive it by faith, is just say, “Yes, Jesus, I trust You.  I believe that what You did on the cross was for me.  I believe You rose from the dead.”  And you make that transition from fan to a friend of God.  And once a friend, always a friend.  So we’re gonna sing a song here in a moment.  And it’s a song for wandering sheep, a song that calls us home.  Maybe you want to just come and kneel and the altar here and pray or have somebody pray with you.  Maybe you need some more of your questions answered.  We’ll be happy to do that.  But as we sing together—and I’m gonna ask you to stand right now—as we sing together, use this as an opportunity to hear your Shepherd’s voice and His call.  And, Father, we ask that in this time, that You would do Your work with us.  Thank You that You’re a good, good shepherd and You love Your sheep.  And You love even those who are not technically Your sheep today, but You want them to come home.  You’ve got other sheep you want to bring into the fold.  And we just want to make it possible for that to happen here this morning as best as we can.  In Jesus’ name, amen.

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