The Good Shepherd Discourse (John 9:35–10:30) — A Sermon by R.C. Sproul

1:17 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. For My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand. I and the Father are one. He who has ears to hear the word of God, let them hear. You may be seated. Let us pray. Our fathers, we consider these words from the 10th chapter of John. We pray that you would grant to us understanding of the meaning of Jesus' words, how they relate and edify His people even now.

2:14 For we ask it in His name. Amen. Last week we, for the second time, considered elements of Jesus healing the man born blind. And we didn't finish chapter 9 last week, but at the very end of that chapter, leading up to what I read this morning, the following things took place. Jesus found the man who had been cast out from the presence of the Pharisees because of his testimony to Christ, and he said to him, Do you believe in the Son of God? And the man said, Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him? And Jesus said, You have both seen him, and it is he who is talking with you. And the man said, Lord, I believe, and he worshiped him. And then Jesus said, For judgment I have come into this world, and those who do not see may see that those who see may be made blind. And then some of the Pharisees who were there heard this exchange between Jesus and the man whom He had healed, and they said to Him, are we blind too? And Jesus said, if you were blind, you would have no sin, but now you say, we see, and therefore your sin remains. So we see at the conclusion of this episode of the encounter that Jesus has with the man born blind and with the authorities because of His healing of the man, we see the radically different responses between them.

3:52 The man who had been healed first came to the conclusion that Jesus was the prophet. Now he recognizes that he's more than the prophet, that he's the Son of God, and he bows in worship before Jesus. And it's significant for our understanding of the person of Christ that Jesus accepts worship from Him, which no one who would be merely a prophet and an apostle would dare do in the economy of the kingdom of God. Remember when those people sought to worship Paul and Barnabas thinking that they were divine, they were rebuked. Those angels who were worshiped by human beings rebuked the people because worship belongs only to God. And now when this man who sees Christ, who before had only heard His voice, now falls down and worships Him, Jesus accepts that worship and compliments the man. But He has no compliments for the Pharisees and the scribes.

4:53 And this transitions now into chapter 10 of John, where at the beginning of that chapter we have Jesus launching into this lengthy passage. I read the end of it, or that which was toward the end of it, with respect to the Good Shepherd discourse. Now let's look how Jesus began that discussion after this conclusion with regard to the man born blind. Chapter 10 opens with these words, most assuredly or truly, truly, Jesus said, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. Now Jesus begins this discourse by making contrasts. And the first contrast that He makes is between the one who enters the door of the sheepfold and those who climb over the fences and try to sneak in the sheepfold by some other way.

6:03 For those who try to sneak in the sheepfold, Jesus identifies as thieves and robbers. Now remember, this comes right on the heels of this discussion about the man born blind. And some look at this text and say that Jesus is referring to the thieves and robbers as being false messiahs or to the devil. I don't think so. It's far more pointed than that. He's addressing those whom God had called to be the shepherds over His flock, to the clergy of His day. And Jesus is contrasting these ones who have cast out the man born blind, who was a sheep in the flock of God, and Jesus is calling them thieves and robbers. Now He draws this illustration from the sheep industry of the day.

7:04 The way in which sheep were taken care of in ancient Israel is different from how we deal with sheep in our culture today. In fact, the way in which the ancients in Israel handled sheep is still carried on to this day in Israel. In those days, people would have their own small flocks in a given community, and there'd be one great big central pen or sheepfold where the various sheep owners at the end of the day would lead their sheep into that great big pen. And then they would put their resources together and hire a gatekeeper. And it was the job of the gatekeeper to stay with the sheep during the night, and in the morning he would only open the gate to those who were truly shepherds, who had their own sheep enclosed in that sheep fold.

8:03 Now, Jesus makes use of that daily activity in the culture, and He says, He who enters by the door, rather than over the walls, which is the crook, but the one who enters the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear His voice, And he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. During the night, all those sheep get mingled amongst themselves, and they're all gathered together, and the shepherd walks in the gate, and he begins to call out for his particular sheep. And he is so intimately involved with the care and the nurture of his sheep that he has names for them.

8:59 And so He begins to call them by name, and the sheep know the shepherd's voice. And so when the shepherd calls, they come and they follow the shepherd because they know Him. Now that particular illustration is one that Jesus uses over and over and over again in the New Testament to speak about His relationship to those whom the Father gives Him, to those who are the believers, that the believer is known by Christ, and the believer knows Christ, knows His voice, and will follow Him. Again, I remind you of that dreadful warning that comes to us at the end of the Sermon on the Mount when our Lord said to those who were assembled there that many would come on the last day saying, Lord, Lord, didn't we do this in Your name and that in Your name and so on?

10:06 And Jesus said, and I will say to them, depart from Me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you. He's saying, they're not my sheep. They don't know me, and I don't know them. But the good shepherd knows his sheep, and his sheep hear his voice. And obviously, in terms of the illustration here, the gatekeeper who opens up the sheepfold to the shepherd represents the Father who opens the gates of heaven to Christ and lets Him bring in His sheep to the safety of the fold. This image of the shepherd is so rich in the New Testament.

11:02 My friend John Guest once preached on this text, and he said, it used to be in the church that one of the church's strongest hymns was the old hymn, the ninety and nine, which described the mission of the good shepherd. And you know how that hymn went, there were ninety and nine that safely lay in the shelter of the fold. But there was one lost sheep on that hill far away, far off from the streets of gold. And so the song celebrates the pursuit of the good shepherd who will go over land and sea to find His one lost sheep to bring Him in. Then John went on to say, he said, but the theme song of the contemporary church is not taken from the pages of Scripture, but from Mary had a little lamb. Because our attitude seems to be today, leave them alone and they'll come home wagging their tails behind them. Of course, in our day and age, people don't believe that anybody's lost in the first place. But in the biblical view, our Lord is the shepherd who seeks and to save those who are lost. He is known by His sheep, and the sheep follow Him because they know His voice. Now, yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from Him, for they don't know the voice of the stranger.

12:34 And Jesus used this illustration, John tells us, but they didn't understand the things which He spoke to them. One other difference between how sheep are tended today in our country and how they're tended in Israel. In our country, sheep are herded. You might have a dog that sort of herds them in and keeps them going where you want them to go. Whereas in Israel in antiquity, then and now, the way the sheep were controlled was that the shepherd went ahead of them. And where the shepherd went, the sheep followed. They weren't just roaming all over the place where the shepherd sent dogs out to herd them in. They followed the shepherd. The shepherd was their leader. And if one began to stray, he would simply call it.

13:27 And they knew His voice, and they would follow Him, but they wouldn't follow a stranger. Jesus says again, most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. Now He changes the analogy altogether. First, He is the good shepherd to whom the gatekeeper opens the door, and now He says, I'm not only the shepherd that leads the sheep in and out of the sheepfold, but I'm the door. All who ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn't hear them. I am the door, and if anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief doesn't come except to steal and to kill and to destroy, but I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly." So Jesus is not only the shepherd of the sheep, but He's the door to the sheepfold.

14:33 Nobody goes into the sheepfold except through Him. And finally, He says in verse 11, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees. the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling, does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and have known by my own. And as the Father knows me, even I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep have I which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and they will hear my voice. There will be one flock and one shepherd." So now Jesus contrasts Himself not with the thief and the robber, but with the hireling.

15:37 Sometimes people took care of their own sheep, but also sometimes if they were too busy with other things, they would hire somebody to look after their sheep. And Jesus said the difference is this. If you're out in the wilderness and you're grazing there and you're leading your sheep, you own the sheep, they're your possession, and the wolf comes. You stand there in the gap. You use the rod of the shepherd to beat off the attack of the wolf. If necessary, you lay down your life for those sheep. But if you're just being paid a wage, you don't own the sheep. You see the wolf coming, you say, my life's worth more to me than these sheep. Let the wolves have the sheep.

16:31 Now those of you who are in ministry, and I have to speak now to me, to Tim, to the The elders, the Sunday school teachers, the people in this room are God's sheep. I don't own you. You don't belong to me. You belong to Jesus. The best you can hope from me is that I'm a good hireling. But I am a hireling. That's why you don't look to me. We look to Christ, who is the Good Shepherd, who when the wolf comes, will not flee and desert you. Then he says, other sheep have I which are not of this fold. Boy, has this text been misinterpreted.

17:25 I've heard this text cited again and again to prove that Jesus, after His earthly ministry on planet Earth, went to Mars or to Venus or some other galaxy somewhere and continued his mission of redemption, seeking out these sheep that are found somewhere in the cosmos apart from this earth. I don't think that's what he's talking about at all. I think what he is talking about is that he's got sheep that aren't members of the household of Israel. He's talking about the mission of the expansion of the gospel going beyond the borders of Israel into the world of the Gentiles, and he's going to bring from the Gentiles those whom the Father has given to Him, and there will be one sheepfold, Jew and Greek, Jew and Gentile, in the church that our Lord the Good Shepherd will build. And they also will hear My voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd.

18:28 Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life, that I may take it again." Now, in conclusion, hear these words. No one takes it from me. but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down. I have power to take it again. And this command I have received from my Father. He warns those whom He knows are already busily engaged in plotting His death. And what He's saying is, you can't have it. You can't take my life from Me. I can give my life for my sheep, but you have no power over Me unless I give it to you. And that He demonstrates.

19:22 Remember how He was mocked on the cross. You saved others. He saved others. Himself He cannot save. Why don't you call upon the legions of angels that are supposedly at your beck and call to come and save you from the cross. You have no authority over Me except that which I give to you because of My Father's will. At any moment Jesus could have stopped the execution. He could have stopped the crucifixion. He could have called on those angels from heaven, and just as the angels and myriads and myriads surrounded Elisha in the Old Testament, they were there hovering over Calvary. They could have descended at that moment and torn Jesus from the cross and slain all of his enemies in that very moment, except the Father had given the Son a cup to drink. And He said, so I lay down my life for my sheep. That's very important for us to remember, beloved, that the death of Christ, that His perfect sacrifice for us was voluntary.

20:31 Pilate had no power over him. Caiaphas had no power over him. Ananias had no power over him. Caesar Augustus had no power over him. But He laid down His life for His sheep, to save His sheep from something far worse than wolves or thieves or robbers. but from hell and from the judgment of God. We are His people, the sheep of His pasture. Finally, in the Old Testament, chapter 34 of the book of Ezekiel, hear these words, where the prophet receives the Word of God and he is to announce it to Israel.

21:29 We read in chapter 34 of Ezekiel, And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to them, Thus says the Lord God to the shepherds, Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks? But you eat the fat, clothe yourselves with the wool, You slaughter the fatlings, but you do not feed the flock. The weak you have not strengthened, nor have you healed those who were sick, nor bound up the broken, nor brought back what was driven away, nor sought what was lost, but with force and cruelty you have ruled them, so that they were scattered, because there was no shepherd.

22:28 When God looked at the corruption of His people Israel, He laid the responsibility at the feet of the priests and of the clergy of that day who were charged by God to feed the flock. Go fast forward to the end of this gospel in a discussion between Jesus and Peter. after Peter's denied Jesus and Jesus approaches him after the resurrection and he says to Peter, Simon, do you love me? Simon says, Lord, you know that I love you. Jesus said, then feed my lambs. Simon, do you love me?

23:20 Lord, I told you that I love you. You know that I love you. Then feed my sheep. Sheep. Simon. Do you love me? Yes, Lord. Feed my sheep. that is the task that has been given to the church, to care for the flock of God. That's what the people of Israel failed to do in their leadership. That's what the Pharisees failed to do in their leadership. That's what the leaders of the church in our day have failed to do to the people of God. But beloved, let us keep our eyes on the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for us, for we are the sheep of His pasture.

24:21 Let's pray. Father, we thank You that You have not only given us a shepherd, but You have given to us the one who is supremely the Good Shepherd. Give us the ability to give us the ability to give us the Lord.