One Flock, One Shepherd

I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to John chapter 10. Our attention this morning will be specifically on verse 16, but so that we have an understanding of the context, we will be reading verses 11 to 21.

That has been the focus of the last few weeks and will continue to be the focus at least until next week as we begin to draw this section to a close. And today's message is entitled, One Flock, One Shepherd.

One Flock Under One Shepherd

One Flock, One Shepherd. And I want to begin with a question, a thought question for us all to consider. Does God have two people? Does God have two people? This question actually divides many Christians today, both in the area of faith, but also in the area of politics.

Because there is great divide over how we are to recognize the Jewish people. Are they God's people? Are they meant to be distinguished as specifically God's people? And if so, what does that mean? Does that mean that they're God's people and the church is God's people and there's two people of God?

Is that what we're supposed to understand? That's a very important question and one that leads to a lot of division. Right now, I'm teaching a course with Brother Mike, who's not with us today. He was asked to preach at another church, so that's why he's out.

But Brother Mike and I are co-teaching a class right now entitled, Israel, the Church, and the Promises of God. And our goal is to help our people and those who are taking the class with us understand what we believe and teach about this important subject.

And when it comes to the question of whether or not there are two people of God, there are actually different theological systems that seek to answer this question and they come to different conclusions.

There is a system called dispensationalism. Dispensationalism is a system that believes that there is a distinction between the church and Israel. That the church has certain blessings and promises and Israel has certain blessings and promises and they're two distinct peoples of God.

That's the dispensational view in a nutshell. That's not all of it. I don't have time to give all of it. If you want all of it, come take the class. The second would be what's known as supersessionism.

Supersessionism says that the church replaces Israel. Israel failed, so God threw them away and put the church in their place. And that's known as sometimes replacement theology or supersessionism. There's also covenant theology or what's known as reformed covenant theology.

And that says that God has one people of all time and he simply works with them in different administrations. You have the old covenant administration, the new covenant administration, but it's one people of God.

And you might think that's a position we hold that's very similar to the position we hold. But our position here, we would define better as what we would call new covenant fulfillment theology, which means we believe that the promises that God made to Israel in the old covenant are fulfilled through Christ and in Christ.

New covenant fulfillment theology is that when Christ came, all the promises of God are fulfilled in him. That is all the promises God made to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, and to all the patriarchs are fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Paul says that all the promises of God find their yes and amen in him. And that is the position that we hold and teach. And so today, as I don't have time again to take eight classes and distill them down into one, I did want to at least address this subject because that's the very subject that Jesus is addressing in our passage.

Jesus is going to say very clearly that he did not come to create a second people or a parallel people or a different people, but that he was going to bring all people under one shepherd into one flock.

It is not two divided people, but it is one shepherd and one flock, and that is the flock of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so let us stand together and read. We'll read verses 11 to 21, and then we will study specifically verse 16.

The Good Shepherd Gives His Life for the Sheep

This is a part of what we call the good shepherd discourse, and Jesus begins by saying, 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's 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.

Verse 16, 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. 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? Let's pray. Our father and our God, we come to you in Jesus name.

We thank you and praise you for all that you have done and are going to do through the preaching of your word. And I pray Lord that you would, as I pray every time I stand behind your pulpit, I pray Lord that you would keep me from error.

For Lord God, you know that I am a fallible man. I am capable of preaching error. And so for the sake of your name, for the sake of your people, and for the sake of my own heart and conscience, Lord I pray that you would tie me to the post of your word and do not let me stray.

And may it be, oh God, that as your word is proclaimed today, that believers would be edified, that we would see the union that we have in Christ with believers from all around the world. For everyone who names the name of the Lord Jesus Christ has been brought into this flock.

And so Lord we thank you. And Lord for those who have not yet named the name of Christ, Lord for the elect who have not yet come, Lord I pray God that through the preaching of your word you might draw them in, open their hearts, that they may believe on your word and through faith be justified because of the work of Jesus Christ.

And we pray this in his name and for his sake, amen. You may be seated. Over the last several weeks we have been looking at John 10 and just to remind you the context of this particular chapter is this is a continuation of what happened in John chapter 9.

From the Healing of the Blind Man to the Good Shepherd

In John chapter 9 Jesus healed a man born blind. That man was taken before the Jewish leaders, the Pharisees, and they began to challenge him, you aren't really born blind. Then they brought in his parents, yes he was born blind, okay you really were born blind but how was this miracle happened?

He said Jesus did it and they excommunicated him from the synagogue because he affirmed Jesus had done the miracle. Then the man goes outside, Jesus is there, Jesus finds him and he says do you believe in the son of man?

The man said if I knew who he was I'd believe in him. Jesus said I the one who speak to you am he and the man fell down and worshipped Jesus. But the Pharisees who were listening and seeing this, Jesus said that he came to give sight to the blind and that those who had sight would be made blind and they said are we blind?

Are we the ones who are blind? And Jesus said if you were blind you would have an excuse but because you say we see your guilt remains. That leads into chapter 10 where Jesus then says, barely barely I say unto you in the King James or the ESV, I tell you the truth, I am the door of the sheep.

He says everyone who comes, or excuse me, truly truly I say to you he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in another way, that man is a thief and a robber. That begins what's known as the good shepherd discourse.

The good shepherd discourse goes all through chapter 10 and Jesus is essentially using an analogy to explain theology. We've talked about this over the last few weeks. He goes from analogy to theology.

The analogy of the shepherd, the analogy of the door, the analogy of the pen or what's known as the sheepfold, the analogy of the robbers and the thieves who come over the wall, each one pointing to something specific that was going on, a specific problem.

He uses thieves, robbers, wolves and he says that these are those who are the enemies. And as we pointed out, the enemies in Jesus' view are those who are teaching falsely, specifically who are falsely teaching about him.

He says they're trying to come in another way. They're trying to go another way. And these are dangerous men. And he uses the example of the door. He says, I am the door. I am the way. Anyone who comes in through me will find pasture.

Then he calls himself in our opening passage today, the good shepherd. Verse 11, he says, I am the good shepherd. And in verses 11 through 21, as I've said over the last few weeks, I find some of the dense theological teaching in all of the gospels.

We actually see six specific doctrinal teachings that can be derived or can be gleaned from this particular section of scripture. Six specific things that we've been going over in the last few weeks. We've taken those one at a time.

Starting next week at number four, we'll actually look at a couple at once rather than doing each one individually. But over the last few weeks, we looked first at vicarious atonement. Vicarious means to be in the place of.

Jesus said, I laid down my life for the sheep. That means to stand in their place, to take their punishment, to take what they would have received. Jesus is the substitutionary atonement of God provided by God to take the stripes that we deserve.

And by his stripes, we are healed. The second we looked at is particular redemption. Particular redemption is that Christ did not lay down his life for a nameless, faceless mass of people. He did not lay down his life to make salvation potential or possible, but he laid down his life for the sheep.

He came specifically for those who are his, and he gave his life not as a potential atonement, but as a definite atonement for those who are his. And today, we are going to see the third great doctrine that's found in this passage, and that is the doctrine of Gentile inclusion in the new covenant.

The Covenant of Grace and the Promise of a New Covenant

Now, what is the new covenant? Well, to understand the new covenant, we have to understand at least the rudimentary idea of what a covenant is. And I know in this church, we've talked about this so many times that it probably seems somewhat superfluous at this point, but let me remind you, not only do we always have new folks, do we always have visitors, do we always have folks who may not have ever heard these things, but there's always blessing in repetition because repetition is the key to learning, and the key to learning is repetition.

So keep that in mind if you say, well, I've heard this before. You'll hear it again, and that's okay. A covenant is a binding relationship established by God, grounded in his promises, and accompanied by particular obligations and blessings.

God establishes covenants with his people in scripture all throughout. Beginning, we see the first named covenant is the covenant with Noah. As Noah comes off of the ark, God makes a covenant with him.

He will no longer ever destroy the world by water, and he makes a covenant with Noah, and he gives Noah a covenant sign. Remember, the rainbow is a sign of God's promise. If we look through the covenants of scripture, we see almost every one is accompanied by some type of visible manifestation, a visible picture of the promise of God.

Like with Abraham, when God made the promise to Abraham, and then the covenant with Abraham, you remember what the covenant sign was? It was the covenant sign of circumcision. This will mark out my people that are the children of Abraham.

They will have this physical external marking on them. Then later, with Moses, God makes a covenant at Sinai. That's actually the one, when you read in the New Testament, where it talks about the old covenant, that's actually the Mosaic covenant.

That's the one it's referring to. We know very specifically that's the one, because that's the one where God gave Israel all of these laws that were intended to do one thing. According to Galatians, they were intended to act as a tutor to point them to Christ, to show them their need for a savior.

That's what the law did. And the old covenant, the Mosaic covenant, had a sign. Do you remember what the sign is? It was the Sabbath. It says in Exodus that God has given them the Sabbath to distinguish them from the rest of the world.

That they would have one day that they would set apart from all the other days, and that would distinguish them as a people. Not only would their diet, and their clothing, and their harvesting techniques, and their planting techniques, all of those would separate them, but very specifically, they would have this one day where they would cease all labor, and they would worship the Lord their God, and that was the sign of the covenant.

We have the Davidic covenant. That's the covenant God made with David. He says there's going to be a king who sits on your throne forever. Now, there's no specific mentioned sign of that covenant. Some people think it's David's throne.

That was the sign. We're not told specifically if there was a sign or not, but we do know this. The throne will last forever. That is true. There is something that we can look to and say there's going to be someone sitting on that throne, and who is it?

The Lord Jesus Christ. See, if you go back and look through all of the covenants of scripture, every one of them finds its terminus, or its termination point in the Lord Jesus Christ. They all find their fulfillment in him and in the new covenant.

The new covenant was actually promised in the old covenant. If you have your Bibles, I would encourage you to look with me at this very briefly. Turn over in your Bibles to Jeremiah chapter 31. In Jeremiah 31, go down to verse 31, and it says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt.

See, he's talking about the Mosaic covenant. It's not going to be like that one. My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord.

I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.

That is the promise of the new covenant. And look at what it encompasses. It says that God is going to write his eternal law on our hearts. It says that he is going to establish a relationship where he is our God and we are his people and we won't have to go around telling each one to know the Lord.

Why? Because in the new covenant, everyone who's a member of the new covenant knows the Lord. That's how you are a member of the new covenant. It is by faith. This is why John 1 says, Jesus came unto his own and his own received him not, but to as many as received him who believed on his name, to them he gave the power to become the children of God who were born not of blood and not of the will of the flesh and not of the will of man, but of God.

That's what it means to be part of the new covenant, to be born of God. Jesus said, unless a man be born again, he will not receive the kingdom of heaven. If he's not born again, he won't even see the kingdom of heaven.

And so this is the new covenant promise that everyone in the new covenant will know the Lord. The writer of Hebrews in chapter 8 quotes this section of Jeremiah when he's talking about the work of Jesus.

He says, this is the covenant Jesus came to make. This is what Jesus came to do. And you know what the writer of Hebrews says in chapter 8 verse 13, he says, in establishing a new covenant, he makes the old covenant obsolete.

That's the word, that's the biblical word. That's not my word. So if it offends you, take it up with whoever wrote Hebrews and you don't even know who that is. Might be Paul, probably not. I don't think it was Paul.

Tend to think it might have been Luke. Argue with me later. But whoever wrote Hebrews wrote that God was establishing a new covenant. And when he established this new covenant, he made the old covenant obsolete.

Now, why does something become obsolete? Because something better comes along. Those of you who grew up with eight tracks, you remember when you had to start buying cassette tapes and then you had to start buying CDs?

And then DVDs and Blu-ray. And now we're on to streaming. What's next? Who knows? But when something better comes along, the old becomes obsolete. By the way, if I could tell you that the thesis of the book of Hebrews, the thesis of the book of Hebrews is this.

The new covenant is better. Jesus is supreme to everything. It's all about the supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. And his covenant is better. He's a better priest. He provides a better sacrifice. And I know you've heard this joke, but I'll say it again.

It's the Papa John's covenant. Better priesthood, better sacrifice. New covenant. It's great. It's so much better than the old. And that's what we have in the new covenant. A better, greater sacrifice.

A better, greater priest. One who doesn't have to be replaced. One who doesn't have to sacrifice for himself because he never sinned. He sacrifices himself because he's the sinless sin bearer. One who will last forever to always mediate for us, for he always lives to make intercession for his people.

That's what we have in the new covenant. We should be excited about this. We should be thankful to God that we live in this administration of his work, that we live under the new covenant. Not looking forward to a Messiah who would come, but looking back at a Messiah who has come and accomplished our redemption in his blood.

That's what we have in the new covenant. And yes, we look forward to his return, but we live in the light of his work now. We live in the blessing of his completed work now. He said it is finished. There was a viral video that went out.

I mentioned it on my show this week of a man who talked about Jesus suffering in hell, said Jesus went and suffered and he was tortured in hell after the cross. That's not what the Bible says. The Bible says he completed receiving the wrath of God on the cross.

And what did he say to the man next to him? He didn't say, today you're going to be with me suffering in hell. He said, today you will be with me in paradise. Jesus Christ completed. It is finished. Tatal estai, paid in full, on the cross.

Every sin on him was laid. Here in the death of Christ, I live. This is the blessing of the new covenant. That's why at the end of the promise in Jeremiah, it says, I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.

God is not forgetful, but God chooses not to remember your sin against you. He chooses not to hold your sin against you because he has held it against his son on your behalf. And his son has drank the cup of the wrath of God all the way down to the last drop on your behalf.

And that's the blessing of the new covenant. Now, having said all of that, let us look back at John 10 and look at what Jesus says here in verse 16, as I believe he addresses this very issue of who's a part of this new covenant.

Gentiles Brought Into the One Flock

Because he says in verse 16, he says, and I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also for they will listen to my voice and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

So let's analyze this for a moment. Jesus is speaking primarily at this moment to a Jewish audience. Now, why would Jesus be speaking to a primarily Jewish audience? Well, he's in Israel, but also he came first to the Jewish people.

That is without controversy. Even the apostle Paul says what the gospel is the power of God to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Gentile or to the Greek. Jesus said, I came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

We know he came to Israel. We know he came to the Jewish people and we know that he is the Jewish Messiah. But that wasn't the only ones Jesus came for. And that's where the confusion lies for some people.

They don't recognize that the Jewish Messiah didn't come just to save Jewish people, but the Jewish Messiah came to be the savior of the world. He didn't come just to save one nation, but he came so that he could fulfill the promise to Abraham that all the nations would be blessed through him.

That's what Jesus came to do. So when he looks out at this fold, and by the way, there's a difference between fold and flock. I don't know if I mentioned this last week and if I did, it's a good reminder.

The word fold refers to the pen or the walled environment that the sheep were brought to at night to protect them from the dangerous animals that come out at night time. It was usually a rock-walled pen that would sometimes be overlaid with briars or thorns so that people would have difficulty getting over and getting to the sheep.

It was their version of barbed wire, as close as you can imagine. And they had these pens that they called sheep folds. And the shepherd would bring the sheep into the fold at night for their protection.

And Jesus says in this verse, he says, I have sheep that are not of this fold. Well, in this context, the fold here is referring to the fold of Israel. It's referring to the Jewish fold. It's referring to the fold of those who are sons and daughters of Abraham by their physical descendancy.

Because that's the fold Jesus came to. Jesus came unto his own. He came unto Israel. He came unto the Jews. That's the fold he's referring to. And he says, I have sheep, other sheep, that are not of this fold.

Now, I don't know if his audience at the time understood what he meant. I'm not even sure at this point if the disciples really knew what he meant. Later in John's gospel, we're going to see that they're going to bring some Greeks to Jesus.

And Jesus is going to say that that was a good thing. He says, because if I be lifted up, I'll draw all men unto myself. That doesn't mean every single person ever to live. It's not universalism. He's talking about men of every tribe, tongue, and nation.

I'm going to draw all kinds of men to myself. Because when he says, I have sheep that are not of this fold, he's talking about the fact that in history, in this particular part of the world, there was basically two folds.

There was the fold of the Jews and the fold of the Gentiles. Read your New Testament. You'll see Jew and Greek, Jew and Gentile, Jew and Greek. It's all over. That was the two major folds. Now, you could divide the Gentile folds into several others.

If you wanted to say you have the European fold and the African fold and the Asian fold, whatever. But in general, it's Jews and Gentiles. That's the two major folds. And Jesus says, I have sheep that are not of this fold.

I've got those who are going to trust in me who are not Jewish, who are not physical descendants of Abraham. I have sheep that are not of this fold. You ever thought about the fact that for the vast majority of people in this room, he was talking about you?

I look around and I know most of you, even though we have guests today, but I know most of you probably don't have Jewish heritage. Now, you may have a Jewish person in your line somewhere. Most of us do.

It's as much as there has been, you know, marriages and stuff over the years. I'm sure we all have somebody in our family who maybe has Jewish heritage. But most of us do not have what we would call genuine, you know, to call ourselves someone who is Jewish by nationality.

So when Jesus said, I have sheep that are not of this fold, he's talking about all of us. He's talking about the people that the Apostle Paul was going to go out on his mission and reach when he was going up through Asia Minor and over into Macedonia, down into Corinth.

If you read the first part of the book of Acts, you know what it says. Jesus said, you will be my witnesses. And if you ever look at Acts 1 .8, Acts 1 .8 is the thesis of the whole book of Acts. Jesus is speaking.

He says, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and to the end of the earth. Now you read the book of Acts with that in your mind. Where does it start? The church in Jerusalem.

Then the church spreads out to Judea. Then it spreads up north into Samaria. And it goes through the Apostle Paul and the other apostles to the ends of the earth. As all of these sheep who are not in the Jewish fold are being brought under the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The sheep that are not of this fold are Gentiles. That's who he's referring to. And what does Jesus say about this group? He says, I must bring them also. I must. In October, I've been asked to preach at a conference in Winter Haven.

And I've been asked to preach on the subject of evangelism, which is a near and dear subject to my heart. So that's a message I'm looking forward to. And I had originally planned to preach Matthew 28, the Great Commission.

Go and make disciples. But I've been thinking of maybe preaching this text. As I was driving in this morning, I was thinking about the fact that Jesus must bring them in also. But how does he accomplish this task of bringing in the nations through the ministry of evangelism?

That's how this task is fulfilled. That is what... When Jesus said, I must bring them in also, he's not saying I'm going to every individual person. Jesus is not going to go into Macedonia. Jesus is not going to go into Asia Minor.

Jesus is going to stay right where he is, and he's going to provide the sacrifice. And from that, he's going to send us out to bring them in. The great blessing of being a person who knows Jesus is you never have to wonder what your mission is in life.

Because you may have all kinds of different vocations, but you have one mission. And that is to share Jesus Christ with the world. That's our mission as a church. That's our mission as individuals. Our mission is to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world.

Remember a guy came here one time and he was sitting in service and it was a Wednesday night and someone else was teaching. So I was sitting next to him. He was a visitor. So I was trying to make him feel welcome.

Maybe a little awkward. I don't know. But I sat next to him and he left halfway through the message. He was upset. I don't know why, but I couldn't let him go without at least asking. I said, you're leaving early.

Is everything okay? Emergency or anything? And he said, I just don't understand what you guys are about. And I said, we're about telling people that they're sinners and they need a Savior and Jesus Christ is the only Savior.

If you ever have somebody ask you that question, what is Sovereign Grace Family Church all about? Telling people that they're sinners in need of a Savior and Jesus Christ is the only Savior. Everything else comes out of that.

Because that's the gospel. Do we go deeper? Yes. Do we go wider? Yes. We pray that the Lord would allow us to go deep and wide into his word and to preach the whole counsel of God. But everything points back to the fact that we were separated from God because of our sin and God sent his son to take the sin that we had committed upon himself, that we could be made the righteousness of God in him.

That's our message. That's who we are. And God is bringing in his people through that message. Think of it like this. When Jesus was talking to Peter, remember when Peter made the great confession, Jesus said, who do men say that I am?

They said, well, some people think you're Elijah, some think you're John the Baptist, some think you're this, some think you're that. And he says, well, who do you say that I am? Peter said, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.

By the way, if you ever wonder why when we welcome someone into new membership, that that's the question that I ask them, it's because that's the question that Jesus asked, who am I? Peter said, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.

And what did Jesus say? Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed that to you. But my father who is in heaven has revealed that to you. That is a precious truth if you can proclaim that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God.

But what does it go on to say? He says, I'm going to call you Peter, and on this rock, I'll build my church. Now, we're not going to go into all that. There's a lot of conversation about the rock and Peter and all those things.

Don't have time for that this morning. But the part I wanted to point out was the part where he says, I will build my church. Jesus Christ builds his church, but he builds it through his people. He builds it through us who recognize that there are God's people in every tribe, tongue, and language around the world.

And we go and proclaim this message because, as he said, I must bring them in. How is he going to do it? He does it through the proclamation of the gospel. Because notice what he says. They will listen to my voice.

They will listen to my voice. How do you know if you're a sheep and you belong to the shepherd? When the shepherd speaks, you hear his voice. When the shepherd speaks, you know the shepherd. Jesus said, they will hear my voice.

When we go out into the world and we're proclaiming the gospel and we're preaching the gospel to people, don't you know that there are people who don't want to hear it? Don't you know that there are people who will not hear it?

No matter how impassioned are our pleas, no matter how persuasive are our arguments, there are people who the Bible says it's like seed falling on a hard pathway. It will bounce off and the birds will come and eat it up.

We know that. Not everyone is going to hear the word. Not everyone's going to receive the word. But to as many as received him who believed on his name, to them he gave the power to become children of God.

So we go and we proclaim the word and the words of Christ here, he brings them in because they hear his voice. They hear his voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. Everyone who believes in Jesus is brought into one flock.

And we have one shepherd, one Lord. There is not still a flock of Jews and a flock of Gentiles. There is one flock which we would call the church. There is one shepherd of the flock. Jesus is the head, the shepherd of the church.

He establishes a new covenant blessing for forgiveness and righteousness for his flock by laying down his life for the sheep. The distinction between Jew and Gentile is not erased ethnically, but it is overcome redemptively.

There remains Jews and Gentiles physically in the world, but they are not two people of God. There is one flock under one shepherd. Here's the beauty of it. This was the plan from the beginning. This was the plan from the beginning.