Jesus is my Good Shepherd
John 10:11-15 (ESV):
11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12He 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.
13He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,
15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.
When you were still children, how many of you have memorized Psalm 23? How many of you can still recite it from memory? There’s no doubt that Psalm 23 is still the most cherished and the most memorized Psalm in the Bible. Why? It is because King David, who was once a shepherd, knew exactly how precious it was to have God as his Great Shepherd in life. So, he took the time to
boast about Him. Here are some of the amazing things he said about the Lord: 1. He supplies his every need – "I shall not want"
2. He Satisfies his innermost wants – "He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters."
3. He strengthens him despite his fears – "Though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death . . ."
4. He shapes him through his disciplines – "your rod and your staff, they comfort me."
5. He secures him at all times – “Surely goodness and mercy … I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
How can you not boast about Jehovah as the Great Shepherd? But what is even more im portant is that in the Old Testament, God had introduced Himself as the Shepherd for His people:
Isaiah 40:11 (ESV):
11 He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.
He promised to care for them to the extent that He would even carry their most vulnerable people, their young children.
Jeremiah 31: 10 (ESV):
10 “Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare it in the coastlands far away; say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.’
When Israel went astray and was scattered by the Assyrians and Babylonians, He promised to gather them back in the Promised Land and care for them as their Shepherd.
What a great and wonderful Shepherd is Jehovah God to His people! As you go to the New Testament, the very same title will be used by Jesus Christ as He relates to the believers. This truth is plainly stated in our chosen text this morning. Verse 11 is our key verse - I am the good shep herd. The good shepherd lays dow
As we continue to explore who Jesus Christ is to us, it will bring us so much
encouragement to also see Him as our Good Shepherd. You see, the people during the time of Jesus were very familiar with the livelihood of shepherding, and they knew exactly the relationship between the sheep and their shepherds. Last Sun day, when I spoke about Jesus being the Bread of Life, you and I are familiar with the significance of the bread in terms of our day-to-day survival. We cannot make it in life without eating. But how about seeing ourselves as sheep? I know in the Western world, it would be humbling to be referred to as a sheep. But when we go to the Scriptures, we are often regarded as sheep be cause sheep depend so much on a shepherd to survive. They are the most defenseless animals. They don’t fight or run when they are attacked. Also, they don’t have any sense of direction. They can eas ily go astray and wander. They will follow whoever is leading them, even if they are leading them off to a cliff. These are the very reasons why we need Jesus Christ in our lives today. So, let’s examine our text and discover some major characteristics of Jesus Christ as our Good Shepherd:
I THE AFFECTION OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD (vs.11-12)
As we begin with verse 11, we find Jesus declaring that He is not a mere shepherd but a Good Shepherd because of His willingness to lay down His life for His sheep. If you read verse 12, He sepa rates Himself from the hired hand or from shepherds who are doing their jobs just for the money be cause those people will not risk their lives for the sheep. Once they smell danger, they will leave and abandon their sheep. The hireling will think of himself first before the sheep.
The Good Shepherd will not only risk His life for the sheep; He will lay down His life for the welfare of the sheep. Now, since Jesus is the Good Shepherd, it provides a deeper meaning when you recognize that He is the Great Son of God, giving up His life to save insignificant sheep like us. Listen to these words in John 10:17-18 (ESV):
17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18No 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.”
It is important for us to be reminded that when Jesus Christ went to the cross, it was not be cause He was helpless and was not able to fight against the religious leaders who plotted His death or that He was powerless against the Romans who crucified Him. No, everything happened because He allowed all these things to happen. Everything happened according to God's redemptive plan. Evi dently, He did it because of His love for His sheep.
John 15:13 (ESV):
13Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
I’m fully aware that we would not just lay down our lives for anyone. But most definitely, we won’t hesitate to lay down our lives for the people we love the most. I remember reading a story of a plane crash that happened on August 16, 1987. The Northwest Airlines flight 225, heading to Phoe nix, crashed just after taking off from the Detroit airport, killing 155 people on board. Out of the flight, the sole survivor of this plane crash was Cecelia Cichan, a 4-year-old girl from Tempe, Arizona. Do you know how she survived the crash? According to investigations, Cecelia survived because, even as the plane was falling, Cecelia's mother, Paula Chican, unbuckled her own seat belt, got down on her knees in front of her daughter, wrapped her arms and body around Cecelia, and then would
not let her go. Nothing could separate that child from her parent's love.
I believe that such is the love of our Savior for us. He was willing to go
through all the pain and suffering of the cross in order to save us. Now, speaking of the sacrifice of the Good Shepherd, what is even more amazing is to realize that He was willing to humble Himself to the level of becoming a mere sheep to fulfill His work. Remember again the announcement of John the Baptist in John 1:29 when he saw Him:
29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
When Jesus took our sins on the cross, He had to be just like us so that He could give us His righteousness. But don’t stop here. We need to jump to Revelation 7:17 in order to have a com plete picture:
17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Today in heaven, the Lamb is restored back to being the Shepherd who will be the ultimate guide to all the blessings we as God’s children will enjoy in heaven.
II THE ATTENTION OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD (vs. 12-13)
Let’s go back to verses 12-13, saying, “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.”
It is important for us to mention that the reference to the hired hand in these two verses was Jesus contrasting Himself with the religious leaders during those times. Many of them really don’t care about the people they were tasked to lead and guide. They were just shepherding for the mon ey. To be true shepherds for the people, they must be willing to care and protect the people, even to the point of living a life of danger. Remember these words of David about his life as a shepherd:
1 Samuel 17:34-36 (ESV):
34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock,
35 I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him.
36 Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.”
When David volunteered to fight Goliath, King Saul was not so sure if he was up to the chal lenge, so David explained that he was well-prepared to face Goliath because while shepherding, he had to fight vicious animals like lions and bears to protect his sheep. I believe the same is quite true with our Good Shepherd. Caring for us today is a commitment that He has promised to us. If you are wondering what kind of care He is giving us, we need to go back to some verses prior to our text:
John 10:7-10 (ESV):
7So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
8All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.
9I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
To appreciate this passage, we have to revisit the teaching of Jesus being the door for the sheep. Here, the Lord Jesus is describing the picture of a sheepfold where the shepherd guards his sheep against robbers and thieves who usually would come to steal and kill the sheep. The sheep fold was an enclosed area; usually, they would have a fence made of wood or piled rocks with a small opening, around 5 to 6 feet wide, where the sheep could enter or exit. At night, to guard the sheep, the shepherd would lie down on the opening to serve as a door for the sheepfold. The pur pose was primarily to protect the sheep. They can't get out once they enter the sheepfold without the shepherd knowing it.
This truth is the reason why Jesus referred to Himself repeatedly, saying, “I am the door of the sheep” (vs. 7,9). He is committed to protecting His sheep from the thieves who want to steal, kill and destroy them. In this life, Satan and his demons are the ones who are doing their best to take advantage of us. I trust that all of us will recognize that only Jesus can protect us from them.
The last part of verse 10 is quite a familiar statement - I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. The word “abundantly” is worth emphasizing. The Greek word used suggests superabundant in quantity and superior in quality. Without a doubt, the entire text helps us under stand that because Jesus promises to care for and protect us, He can give us life that is superabun dant or far more superior than living a life without Him. The comments of Dr. William Barclay on this text is very enlightening:
“To be a follower of Jesus, to know who he is and what he means, is to have a superabun dance of life. A Roman soldier came to Julius Caesar with a request for permission to commit suicide. He was a wretched dispirited creature with no vitality. Caesar looked at him. “Man,” he said, “were you ever really alive?” When we try to live our own lives, life is a dull, dispirited thing. When we walk with Jesus, there comes a new vitality, a superabundance of life. It is on ly when we live with Christ that life becomes really worth living and we begin to live in the re al sense of the word.”
The reality is that many people are not really living; they are merely existing. The life that the Good Shepherd gives is a life filled with joy, meaning, and vitality.
III THE ATTACHMENT OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD (vs. 14-15)
As we come to the last two verses of the text, we find Jesus saying, “I am the good shep herd. 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.”
In contrast to the hired hand, the Good Shepherd builds an intimate relationship with His sheep. He talks about knowing them, and they also know Him. Certainly, this is not ordinary knowledge because the comparison is the knowledge that exists between the Heavenly Father and the Son.
This knowledge is more than intellectual; it speaks of an intimate
knowledge built in love and concern. The idea is that the Good Shepherd knows His sheep personally, giving Him the greater ability to minister to His sheep.
It has been said that in Judea, shepherding is not so much for the meat of
the sheep; it is more for the milk and the wool. So many shepherds will have long er relationships with their sheep. Most often, they stay together for many, many years. On many occasions, the sheep belonging to several shepherds might be brought in at night to one large sheepfold while the shepherds take turns in gatekeeping. When the morning came, shepherds would come one by one and start calling their sheep. The sheep would recognize their shepherd once he started calling, and they would follow him.
The question for us is: How intimately do we know the voice of the Good Shepherd, and how closely do we follow Him? In the Gospels, Jesus explicitly said that when we follow Him, it is not only because we know Him but because we love Him.
John 14:21 (ESV):
21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
Read closely this entire verse. The last part says, “I will love him and manifest myself to him.” There is a big difference between Him being present and Him manifesting Himself to us. Lis ten, we don’t want him to just be present. We definitely want to see Him at work in our lives, inter vening in our struggles and difficulties. We want Him to manifest Himself by answering our prayers. But the biggest barrier to His manifestation is our disobedience. So, let me encourage you to exam ine how you are obeying the Lord. If you need to be more obedient to Him, I trust that you will humble yourself before Him and ask Him to give you the grace to live in greater obedience to Him.
Let me close by going back to Psalm 23 again. When I think about David and Psalm 23, I can not help but appreciate David's intimate relationship with Him being His Great Shepherd in life. He knew exactly how blessed he was in their relationship that he was able to boast about Him. Many of us need to know Him more. We need to appreciate more what He is doing for us.
I remember one time, while teaching the Book of Romans in the seminary, we were studying the many blessings we have received from Jesus Christ because of our salvation. At the end of Ro mans 8, I asked the students to write a thank you letter and just express to Jesus how grateful they were for saving them. This exercise became a life-changing experience for my students. Many of them started crying while writing; they were overwhelmed with emotions just stating some of the blessings they had received from Him. Have you tried doing that? I pray that we won’t take this re lationship with our Good Shepherd for granted.