Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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If you're able to remain standing,
please do and let's turn to John Ten,
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so that we might hear of our
God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
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John Ten, verses one through ten, will be our focus today, but
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I'm going to read one through Twenty
One, the Gospel of John Chapter Ten.
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Truly truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the
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sheep fold by the door, but
climbs in by another way, that man
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is a thief and a robber.
But he who enters by the door is
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the shepherd of the sheep. To
him, the gate keeper opens the sheep
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here his voice and he calls his
own sheep by name and leads them out.
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When he has brought them brought out
all his own. He goes before
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them and the sheep follow him,
for they know his voice. A stranger,
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they will not follow, but they
will flee from him, for they
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do not know the voice of strangers. This figure of speech Jesus used with
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them, but they did not understand
what he was saying to them. So
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Jesus again said to them. Truly
truly, I say to you, I
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am the door of the sheep.
All who came before me are thieves and
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robbers, but the sheep did not
listen to them. I am the door.
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If any one enters by me,
he will be saved and will go
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in and out and find pasture.
The thief comes only to steal and kill
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and destroy. I came that they
may have life and have it abundantly.
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I am the Good Shepherd. The
Good Shepherd lays down his life for the
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sheep. He who is a hired
hand and not a shepherd, to who
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does not own the sheep, sees
the wolf coming and leaves, and the
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sheep leaves the sheep and flees,
and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.
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He flees because he is a hired
hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
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I am the Good Shepherd. I
know my own and my own know
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me, just as the father knows
me and I know the father. And
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I lay down my life for the
sheep. And I have other sheep that
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are not of this fold. I
must bring them also, and they will
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listen to my voice, so there
will be one flock, one shepherd.
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For this reason, the father loves
me, because I lay down my life
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that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me,
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but I lay it down of my
own accord. I have authority to lay
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it down and I have authority to
take it up again. This charge I
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have received from my father. There
was again a division among the Jews because
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of his words. Many of them
said he has a demon and is insane.
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Why listen to him? Others said
these are not the words of one
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who is oppressed by a demon.
Can a demon open the eyes of the
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BL mind? As the reading of
God's Word for the moment, you may
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be seated. Well, this passage
in John Chapter ten is famously known as
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the Good Shepherd passage. In the
Bible that I'm reading from here, the
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editors have added a little heading that
says I am the Good Shepherd, and
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indeed Jesus says says that. But
before he says that, before he talks
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about himself as the Good Shepherd,
he also talks about himself as the door.
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Perhaps you noticed that in verse nine
he says I am the door,
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on parallel to the way he says
I am the Good Shepherd. A later
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on, Jesus gives a little parable
here at the beginning of John Ten,
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and he gives an explanation of it, and then he comes back around and
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he talks about it again, and
there are various ways and things that we
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ought to ways of understanding this and
things we ought to to take from it.
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Before we do that, I want
you just to notice that this comes
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in connection with what has happened before. In John Nine, remember how the
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the this passage that I undread ends. The people say, how could he
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be oppressed by a demon? He's
open the eyes of the blind. They
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are, of course, talking about
the blind man, that he's just healed
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and will come back to him at
the end of the sermon. Here,
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at the beginning, Jesus gives this
parable, a parable that makes a distinction
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between a true shepherds and false shepherds
as they relate to Jesus. As the
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door earlier, I mentioned that that
passage in Matthew, Chapter Twenty five is
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in some ways parallel to this,
because we have people that are either ministering
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or not ministering to the sheep.
Jesus says, those who cared for his
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sheep, those who loved them,
cared for him, they followed his will
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in this way, those who did
not minister, but, to put it
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in terms of John Ten, killed
and destroyed and stole, those do not
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belong to him. Those are thieves, those are robbers, those are people
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that are there to harm the sheep. I had an opportunity this summer to
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meet with a few of the young
men from our in our church here and
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we went through a little book called
called to the Ministry by a man named
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Edmund Clowney. Ed Clowney was a
Presbyterian Minister and the OILLPC and the PCA,
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served a number of churches and also
was a seminary professor at both Westminster's
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and Philadelphia and an Escondido. And
this little book that he wrote, called
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to the ministry, is often given
to young men who are considering going to
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the ministry and it's asked this question. It's a way to help you ask
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this question. Am I called?
Should I join the ministry? Should I
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become a Minister of the Gospel?
And the question am I called? Is
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answered this way. Yes, everyone
is called to the ministry, ed Clowne,
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he says. Perhaps not in a
full time official capacity as an ordained
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minister, but we all, he
says, and rightly says, have a
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responsibility. Right. This is Jesus's
Point in Matthew, Chapter Twenty Five.
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There are people who said what?
When did you say? I was supposed
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to take care of people? When
was I supposed to take care of you?
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Where was my ministry? And he
says you failed to do it in
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these regards, you are a goat
depart from me. So we have passages
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like these, we have passages like
John Ten, we have passages like Colossians
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three hundred and fifteen, which says
that to the church, and Colossius says
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let the word of Christ dwell in
you, richly teaching and admonishing one another
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with all wisdom. Each of us
are shepherds in a way. In some
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way or another, God has given
put people around us in our lives,
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often family and friends, and perhaps
a few people at Church as well,
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that he gives us some responsibility for
to teach, to admonish, to sing
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with, to dwell together, which
Richly Im with the word of Christ.
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So in a way we get to
approach this passage in a couple different ways.
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One way is to think about ourselves
as the sheep right. WHO ARE
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TRUSTING CERTAIN SHEPHERDS? WHO's a wolf
and WHO's not? WHO's a hired hand
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and WHO's not? WHO's a thief, who's a robber and who's a true
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shepherd. That should matter to you
as one who belongs to the Lord.
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But we can also approach this passage
all as shepherds. What is my job?
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What is my responsibility? What does
it look like for me to CARE
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FOR THE LAMBS OF CHRIST? So
let's consider that. First, with Jesus's
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distinction that he makes in versus one
and two. He says he who does
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not enter the sheep fold by the
door, but climbs in another way,
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that man is a thief and a
robber, but he who enters by the
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door is the sheep of the shepherd. So goods. If you are drawing
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notes on your bulletins, or adults, if you are drawing notes on your
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bulletins, you can draw a sort
of square, but leave off one side
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right, and that's your sheepfold.
This is a enclosed area where the sheep
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are put into and on the open
side that's where the gate is, right.
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Does that make sense? So you
have one open side of your square
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and the sheep go in and out
through that gate. If you are out
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in the desert, for example,
with your sheep and you're wandering around,
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you're looking for food. You're taking
them to various places and you need to
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put them into a protected place.
You're going to try and find a place
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like this, try to find an
enclosed place where you can block off one
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side and and guard it and protect
it. And that's at your door,
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that's your gate. And what Jesus
is saying is that the the true shepherd,
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goes in and out through the gate, and thieves and robbers they don't
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use the gate, they don't use
the door, they go in over the
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side or the back. Now let's
continue going on and then we'll come back
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through this in the way that Jesus
explains the parable. So let's just first
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listen to the parable and see what
he has to say. So first and
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verse is one and two. He
makes this distinction. The second thing he
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says in verses three through five is
the shepherd's relationship to two groups, one
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to the gatekeeper and too, to
the sheep. So his relationship to the
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gatekeeper is a good one to him. The True Shepherd, that is the
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gatekeeper, opens the gate. He
opens the gate and to the shape we
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read that he hears his voice,
or the sheep hear his voice, and
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he calls his own sheep by name
and leads them out. When he has
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brought out all his own he goes
before them and the sheep follow him for
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they know his voice. I read
story about this in which there were person
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was describing seeing this in action,
where there were multiple shepherds with multiple flocks
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that brought the their sheep together into
sort of a circle and then surrounded that
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circle of multiple flocks with various tents
for the night. So they sort of
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they kind of created a sheep folded
away by the shepherds with their various tents.
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Well, in the morning they have
you have this large body of sheep
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and the shepherds then go out of
the circle at different points and do their
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very their particular calls to the sheep, and then the sheep then filter out
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of that circle at the appropriate place
and go to their particular shepherd. I
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heard another story about a lady who
had had her sheep taken away from her
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and they were inclosed and again mixed
in with a bunch of other people.
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She was then released from her captors
and she said, I want to take
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my sheep with me. Well,
good luck. Right there, they're in
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there with all these other people sheep. How will you know which one?
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She says, they'll hear my voice, they'll recognize it. And sure enough,
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she she I think there was a
whistle or something that she used,
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and all of a sudden certain little
head started bobbing and out came her sheep.
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So the shepherd has this particular relationship
with his particular sheep. He also
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has a relationship with this gatekeeper who
opens and closes. So why is any
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of this important? Right? Here's
the here's the the picture Jesus gives.
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The people have trouble understanding it in
verse six. So he explains in verses
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seven through ten, and here's what
he says. He says, I am
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the door of the sheep. Truly, truly, I am the door of
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the sheep. All who came before
me are thieves and robbers, but the
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sheep did not listen to them.
Right. So the thieves and robbers,
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the sheep don't listen to them.
Thieves come to steal and kill and destroy.
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So what is Jesus saying? He
is saying that he has a relationship,
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then, with the shepherd and the
sheep in this way. Later he
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will talk about himself as the shepherd, but hold off from that till next
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week. For now, he's saying, think of me as the door.
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The true shepherds, the good shepherds, use the door. They take the
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sheep in and out through me.
The gatekeeper, which many commentators, and
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I would agree with this, would
say, is the Holy Spirit. The
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gatekeeper is the one who opens that
door. He is the one who lets
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us come in and out through Christ, hearing the Voice of Christ, in
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the shepherd of Christ, who uses
only Christ to call the sheep. The
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connection between the shepherds call, the
under Shepherd's call and the greater shepherds call
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is, of course, because he
speaks the word of Jesus. Jesus,
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as we sang in one of our
hymns, himself, speaks his own word.
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Jesus is not a shepherd for someone
else. He calls the sheep by
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his own name, and those who
serve under Jesus don't call by their names,
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but they call by his. And
so Edmund Clowney in this book called
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to the ministry. One of the
things he emphasizes is how important it is
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that the Christian Ministry be, unsurprisingly, tied to Christ and to Christ alone,
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and for anyone who might have heard
or known a little bit about this.
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Particular theologian, Ed Clowney, was
known particularly for being extremely Christ centered.
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He understood this the core of his
being, that to be a true
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minister meant to preach Christ, to
teach Christ, because that is where the
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sheep have life and have it abundantly. Those who steal, those who rob,
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those who destroy, they kill the
sheep, they take from the sheep,
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they harm the sheep. But those
who use the door, what does
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Jesus say? Jesus says in verse
ten the thief comes only to steal and
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kill and destroy. I came that
they may have life and have it abundantly.
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There is freedom in this image of
going in and out, in and
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out, led by the Voice of
the shepherd who speaks the words of Christ,
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who uses the words of the door, who the WHO is in step
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with the spirit, who is opening
that door, because it is all of
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Christ. If you want an example
of this, you can go to chapter
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nine. Consider the Pharisees. Right
here is this blind man who's just been
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healed by Jesus. What do they
do? Do they take care of this
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man? Do they comfort this man? Do they love this man. Do
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they say, let's go back to
Jesus, maybe there's more for you.
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Do they do they take him to
him? No, they mock him,
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this man, this bland, who
had been blind from birth and is now
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healed. They mock him, they
shame him, they publicly humiliate him and
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then they cast him out of the
Church or out of the synagogue. If
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that is an example, that to
me sounds like an example of a thief
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and a robber and someone who is
destroying the lambs of God. Interestingly,
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the blind man actually ends up becoming
a shepherd himself. You remember that the
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way he has healed. Jesus puts
mud on his eyes and tells him to
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go wash in the pool of Sylom, which means scent. So he goes
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to this, as one commentator said, this kind of missionary pool. He
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his eyes are cleansed, his eyes
are healed, he comes out and then,
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in all of the persecution that he's
facing, he just keeps telling the
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truth about what Jesus, about who
Jesus. He keeps testifying to the door
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that one healed me, that one
healed me. Jesus tells him, I
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am the son of man, and
he worships him and in this people believe.
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The blind man actually, though he
was persecuted by these false shepherds,
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actually becomes in a way, a
true shepherd himself, one who is testifying
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to the works of Christ. If
you want another example of this, you
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could look at the woman, the
woman of the well, at the well
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that Jesus met there. He speaks
to her, he testifies to her,
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he tells her things about herself that
she thought no one knew. And what
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does she do? She goes and
she starts pointing to the door. She
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goes to her her to townspeople,
and she says this is what happened,
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this is what he did, and
they started coming out to Jesus and they
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started believing him. These are examples
of teaching and admonishing and shepherding in a
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true way. By pointing to Christ. The Pharisees were afraid of Jesus.
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The Pharisees did not want to use
the door. They were going to go
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any other way. They were going
to but in doing so they were not
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helping the people at all. Instead
they were harming the people. And there
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are many examples of this today.
They are all kinds of other ways into
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the sheet fold that ultimately destroy and
hurt the sheep. There are ways that
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people will try to a shepherd you, to teach you, to lead you,
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that are not through the door,
that are not in Christ. They'll
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point to mystical strategies, they'll point
to other gods, they'll point to particular
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teachers and books and say here's the
only way or this is the only way,
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or pay attention to me, or
all kinds of things. Sometimes,
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like the Pharisees, people will even
use the Bible itself and true and good
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doctrines in a way that takes us
away from Christ. Again, using the
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Pharisees an example, remember what their
emphasis was. We are going to hold
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to the Sabbath and we are going
to pound this truth. Now, of
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course they were constructing all kinds of
man made things around it. They were
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not living as it or they were
not following it as it was meant to
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be followed. But how is the
Sabbath meant to be followed in Christ?
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It is in Christ that we have
our rest, it's in Christ that we
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have our peace. How do we
know this? The healing of the blind
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man on this if they he healed
this man, he brought him restoration in
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life and peace and his body.
That's what the Sabbath is about. That's
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what it's that's why we rest,
that's why we celebrate, that's why we
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take one day out of seven to
rest in the Lord Jesus. But the
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Pharisees were using this and using a
biblical practice in a way to go around
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Christ, to have another way.
And this happens in the church all the
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time. Sometimes there are churches,
even where it seems like there is good
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doctrine and biblical emphasis, where Christ
is still not present. What a sad
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thing that is, when Christ is
the Christ of all the scriptures and the
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doctrines and the teachings all point to
him and find their grounding and their source
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in him. It's the voice of
your shepherd is not one that is pointing
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to the door. If Your Shepherd
is leading you in and out through a
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different door other than Christ, he's
not a true shepherd. And if you
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are doing that for other people,
if you are encouraging them in the things
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of God through some other path other
than this door, than you are not
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a true shepherd. This is,
of course, the danger that we have.
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The good news is that Jesus is
the supreme shepherd above all shepherds,
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and knows how to take care of
his sheep, even when they're in bad
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situations and even when they're being naughty
themselves. Jesus is the Good Shepherd and
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he knows how to guide us,
he knows how to protect us, he
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knows how to keep us, and
he doesn't do that by going somewhere else.
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He does that by grounding us in
him. Why? Because he is
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the door, he is our life, and in him, him and in
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him, we have freedom and life
abundantly. So if you want to belong
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to God, if you want to
be one who is cared for and protected
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and loved and known, then enter
in and out through Christ, belong to
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him, know to him. Put
surround yourself by people who speak his words,
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who teach and admonish and all wisdom, and let the crought word of
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Christ dwell richly in them and in
you, and be that kind of person
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yourself. Minister to others, is
Christ has called you to do as a
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member of his body, bring and
call others into that body and point them
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to Jesus. We're called Christians for
a reason, because we are in Christ.
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May God keep us in him and
never let us fall away. Let
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us pray
