The Voice Of Jesus - [John 10:3-5]

We're going to be looking at John chapter 10 this evening as we see Christ exalted in the words of scripture.

As we get into our text, I just want to draw a little picture and little imagery for you to grasp this particular passage a little better.

We've had a beautiful day. We enjoyed the wonderful weather that God has blessed us with.

Picture this, if you will, you're walking down a nice little meadow in the beautiful sunlight with the wind blowing and just you're cherishing

God's creation and the beauty of it and maybe you're walking with a few friends and having a little snack and as you're basking in the evening sun, all of a sudden a shadow comes over you.

You look up and you see a huge eagle with its claws just down to grab you.

Granted, some of us are a little heavier than eagles can take us up, but if you're a little one you probably should watch out.

Maybe you can picture a little kitty like a puppy or a little kitten that is actually possible prey.

Anyway, as you're looking at this predator that's out to eat you, you probably freeze because you know you can't outrun that thing that's spiraling down from the skies.

The only hope you have is for your master or your father or someone to just come down and fall between you and this danger that you have no hope of escaping.

Today's passage is going to be talking about Jesus as our shepherd and the sheep ran into those kinds of trouble in the

Old Testament times, which is why the Bible often talks of us as sheep.

There are dangers from the outside that the shepherd would protect the sheep from, but the sheep were not just like the little kitty or the little puppy that was just walking away.

There were dangers on the inside as well for the sheep that the shepherd had to watch out and provide for.

It's not just these dangers from the sky or these wolves like the coyotes today that are from the land, but there is also a danger from within.

These sheep tended to wander away off on their own and they look at this beautiful meadow and as they're going off, little do they know that there is a cliff right at the corner and off they fall and break their legs and have no hope for coming back.

So they needed the shepherd to guide them and lead them and take care of them. Today we're going to see how

Jesus, our good shepherd, does that for us. Let us pray as we go into God's Word.

Our loving and gracious Father, as we open the word that you have given us, as we see

Christ exalted in the words of Scripture, we pray, O Father, that you would send your

Spirit to quicken these words to us. May they come alive to us.

Lord, in whatever circumstances these dear people are, we pray that you would exalt

Christ and you would minister the Word to them in their particular state and that you,

O Lord, would be exalted in each and every single heart that is here this evening. In Christ's name we pray,

Amen. John chapter 10, I preached in February on verses 1 and 2 and today we are going to be looking at verses 3 to 5.

As some of you know, John chapter 10 comes after John chapter 9 and they both go very closely together.

You need to understand what happened in John chapter 9 in order to understand the teaching that Jesus gives in John chapter 10.

So we will go back and look at some of the events in John chapter 9 later this evening as we try to understand what

Jesus is saying about himself and the people. Just to give the broad picture,

John chapter 9 has the event where Jesus sees this blind man, a man who was born blind, incapable of any healing in that time of history.

Jesus heals him and that starts an entire firestorm as people try to understand how can this impossible event come to be?

How can something that humans cannot achieve suddenly come to happen right in our streets among the people that we knew?

As the Pharisees try to understand it, they do not want to give credit to Jesus and therefore they try to libel and they try to besmirch

Jesus' name and we will find that the blind man does not want to go along with this agenda of the

Pharisees and finds himself being kicked out. The blind man is kicked out,

Jesus talks to the Pharisees and says, the one that is truly blind is you.

We say that at the end of John chapter 9 and then that begins this passage in John chapter 10.

In fact, if you look at the first verse, Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.

If you look through all the teachings of Jesus, Jesus typically never opens a discourse with truly, truly.

He normally has something else he has spoken about or something that has happened and this comes as a culmination of what has already gone on before.

And we will see more of this in a few minutes. But I want to point out one thing before we get into the text and that's in verse 6 of chapter 10.

There we read, this figure of speech, which is the sheep and the shepherd imagery, Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

If you remember the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus uses a lot of parables. He gives the parable of the vineyard, the parable of the coin, lost coin, there's many and the lost sheep and that's probably the closest you will see to this particular allegory or parable that Jesus uses.

And typically, you know that parables have one central theme and the imagery is painted by Jesus for you to grasp it.

It's an earthly picture to portray a heavenly truth. And when you read a parable in the

Synoptics, you want to say, what is the central truth in this passage? You're not looking for all the different elements of the parable to try to make them all translate into some spiritual truth.

So, that's not the purpose when Jesus uses a parable and we should not try to make those extra, they will say, try to make the parable walk on all fours.

If it has one single theme, one single purpose, we want to understand what that is. And here in John chapter 10, it is like John chapter 15, when you talk about the wine,

Jesus uses various different images. You see the sheep, you see

Jesus call himself the shepherd, the good shepherd, the door. There is a lot of changing images right there in John chapter 10.

And so, when you look at individual sections, you have to understand what the imagery is in that particular section of John chapter 10 and try to draw what

Jesus is communicating. It was very complicated to people who understood sheep and shepherding in first century

Palestine. And we need to be careful as we try to understand what Jesus is trying to tell us today.

In terms of the cheat sheet, if you will, who is the shepherd? The good shepherd is

Jesus Christ. Who are the sheep people?

And among the sheep, you will find there are some who are going to respond to Jesus. These are the elect.

And then there are some who are going to reject the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And you will be surprised to find who they are in this passage.

And with that, let's now get into our text. I'm just going to read verses 1 and 2, so we know what has gone on before, before we get into verse 3.

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.

But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. In February, when we looked at this passage, the thrust of this verse is very simple.

There is a legitimate way to enter the sheepfold, and that is through the door. And there is an illegitimate way to enter the sheepfold, and that is by climbing over the wall.

We know the kind of people who climb over walls. Here it is those who are thieves and robbers, those who come in stealthily and want to do violence to those sheep that are inside.

And Jesus says, I am the one who comes in through the God -ordained door.

The Bible, as we saw, as was read this evening from the passage in Isaiah, is all pointing to the

Messiah, to Jesus Christ, who was to come. And Jesus comes and fulfills everything that was said about him.

So there is an objective truth about this Messiah who has come to redeem his people, and Jesus comes along the objective word of God.

All that is said about him, he comes and fulfills. There is also a subjective element to this door, and we are going to be seeing that in today's passage.

But those who climb over these walls, we saw a couple of categories. We have the

Pharisees, who are the main targets here, and these do not come in through God's ordained door.

Although they were the leaders of Israel, they did not value God's word exactly as God had given it to them.

Instead, they would pervert the truth in one form or the other.

How was it that the Pharisees perverted the truth? Instead of relying on God's word alone, they would add their laws to the scriptures.

So the Pharisees were legalists who would add man -made laws in order for people to come to God.

And that was no way to come to God, and that was the means by which they had perverted the truth. And we saw their counterparts, the

Sadducees, were the ones who would say, we don't really need God's word. We just need to enjoy this good life now and live a materialistically good life.

And that was the way in which these liberals would take away from God's word. And instead of coming through the

God -ordained door of God's word, they would instead make up their own laws. And there are descendants of these

Pharisees and the Sadducees. We still have people who would add laws and pervert the pure means of grace in Jesus Christ, and we also have people who would reject everything that the

Bible says and say, you know, I want to come to God my own way. And as you heard this morning, that is not honoring to God and that will not get you to heaven.

So with that, let's now get into today's text, which is verses 3 to 5.

Let me read them and then we will dive into them. To him, this is the shepherd, the gatekeeper opens.

The sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them and the sheep follow him for they know his voice.

A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him for they do not know the voice of strangers.

So the passage, the message today is titled the voice of Jesus. And we're going to be looking at what this voice really means for you and me today.

But before we get there, I want to do three things. Firstly, we are going to look at this imagery that Jesus paints in verses 3 to 5.

Let's first go back to first century Palestine. Look at what this sheep and shepherding imagery that Jesus is using.

So we understand what he's saying. And then we will look at what specifically Jesus intended his original hearers to know.

What was it in first century Israel that Jesus had to communicate? And once we understand these two, then we will come back and apply it to our lives.

What is it that we ought to do because of this truth? So let's first go to the imagery of shepherding in Israel.

So I want you to notice that right in verse 3, you read the gatekeeper or the doorkeeper in some of your translations.

This is already a little different from verses 1 and 2. In verses 1 and 2, you're looking at a sheep pen, which is three walls attached to a house, a courtyard, which has three walls like an enclosure so that you can have your sheep here.

But here you have something a little bigger. You have a place where you have a gatekeeper, which normally means you have a lot of sheep.

This is not just one flock, but probably many flocks that are put together. So in first century

Israel, you would either have these different shepherds, they would bring their sheep and leave them in this place, and they will have one person who is in charge of this place.

So he might be a hired person. He could be a friend or they could be taking turns watching this.

It could either be in the town or it could be out there in the pasture where at night they need this place taken care of.

But this gatekeeper was responsible for the sheep that came in, and he would not let them out unless the shepherd truly was there.

And that's what verse 3 is talking about. To the shepherd of the sheep, the gatekeeper would open the door.

And we read a few things about the shepherd here. We read that again in verse 3, he calls his own sheep by name.

I think the best imagery for this is for those of you who have pets. So if you had a couple of cats or dogs, my pastor

Steve is not here, so you might call one Starbucks and another Kona because one is a little darker, one is a little different.

You might call Blackie, one with a white tail. You just make up names so you can identify the individual animals that belong to you.

So when you call them, they know that you're talking to them. And this was the practice of the shepherd.

The shepherd was not just some callous guy who just, okay, here are some animals that need to be butchered.

By the way, the shepherd was not taking care of the sheep for butchering. They were normally taken care of for their wool.

So these were dear to him and he knew his sheep by name. So he would call his own sheep by name and he would lead them.

And as many of you know, 1st century Israel, the shepherd did not drive them forth.

He wouldn't stand at the back and beat them or yell at them to make them go. He would go in front and the sheep would know him enough to follow him.

And that was the practice of the shepherding in 1st century

Israel. And that shows the kind of relationship that the shepherd had with the sheep.

And Jesus wants us to know there is something about this that translates into our relationship with Jesus Christ.

And he says something else in verse 4, when he has brought all of them out, he goes before them, the sheep follow him for they know his voice.

And every single sheep that the shepherd had, he would care for and he would make sure that they were following him.

And there is something in verse 5 about strangers. It says that a stranger they will not follow.

So these sheep, dumb as they were, still recognize their master. They knew who they needed to follow.

And when they heard these sounds, so some of these shepherds would make these calls that are unique to themselves.

But the voice of the shepherd, the sheep knew. So when someone else either came and imitated that sound or tried to call these, they would not follow.

They were in fact scared of people who would try to draw them away from where they were staying and they would actually run away.

So that was stuff that people that Jesus were listening to knew pretty well.

This was shepherding that was going on. So why did Jesus say these three verses?

What was Jesus trying to communicate? Firstly, let me remind you, this is an allegory, a parable with images.

Not every detail in this passage is necessary to have a spiritual counterpart.

And the very first one that we are talking about, the gatekeeper, there is no direct analogy. We are not looking at someone who is a counterpart of the gatekeeper.

He is just part of the picture that you can understand, but there is something else that Jesus wants to communicate.

So what do you think that Jesus is communicating? I already told you,

John 9 has just finished. There is something that has happened at the end of John 9, and Jesus is now teaching in the context, probably with all the people from John 9 still around him.

So Jesus says, in effect, you've seen something happen, and now I'm going to give you what that really means.

So for us to understand what Jesus is saying, we need to be able to go back and say, what are the people in John 9 that probably fit this image in John 10?

If I can be so bold, I will say that Jesus has just confronted the

Jewish leadership in John 9, and here he is pretty much slapping them with his words.

He is saying something that the Pharisees should get, but although you will see later, they do not really get it.

And the way for us to understand this is to go back to John 9. And the way you want to look at this is, the sheep here is the blind man.

One of the sheep is the blind man. Jesus is the shepherd, and the strangers that Jesus is referring to are actually the

Pharisees who are teaching. So let's now go back to John 9, and I will walk you through this so you can see what

Jesus is saying. We'll begin actually with verse 24 of John 9. What has happened thus far?

The blind man has been healed. He's come to the Pharisees. He says, Jesus healed me. They don't want to believe.

They doubt it because the healing was done in a Sabbath, and of course, you can't work on a

Sabbath, and healing is work, even though it's a good thing. If someone does healing, he can be from God.

So the Pharisees are divided in John 9, and they don't want to believe this man.

So they call his parents, and the parents, and they ask him, is this really your son? Was he really blind? Who healed him?

And the parents say, well, we know he's our son. He's not a young kid.

He's an old man. He's not a little child, so they've had him for a while.

We know he was blind, and we can see, obviously, that he can see, but who healed him, we don't know.

And the Bible says they didn't want to commit because the Pharisees are already predetermined in their mind anybody who attributes good to Jesus was gonna get kicked out of the synagogue.

So they didn't want to take any of the blame, and they say, well, the facts are obvious, but the interpretation, we don't wanna risk our hides for.

And this is what has happened as we come to verse 24, and here we read, so for the second time, they called the man who had been blind and said to him, give glory to God.

We know that this man, referring to Jesus, is a sinner. Talk about leading questions.

They want the blind man to honor, but the way they want him to honor is by calling

Jesus a sinner, like they, the studied, already knew. So here is a voice that is coming out to the sheep, and in verse 25, this particular sheep answers.

Whether he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now

I see. Here, the easy way out for the blind man would be, you know, here is the leadership.

I know the consequences of saying anything good about Jesus. I will just follow this voice that has told me that this man is a sinner.

You know, I'm not as learned in the scriptures. These men say that Jesus must be a sinner.

He probably is. I can just go along with that. I'll have my life, I have my sight, and everything would be fine.

In fact, if you think about the blind man, he is, the location where he is, he probably knows many of the people in this area.

Even the Pharisees, maybe he knows, or at least knows about them. Jesus is an itinerant preacher.

Jesus comes along, sees him begging, and he heals him. He might have heard something about Jesus, but Jesus is the outsider.

He's not the one that is part of his community, if you will. Jesus comes from Galilee. It would be much easier to listen to people that he knows.

Yet, God is doing something, and there is a voice that he is going to hear that is very different from that of the

Pharisees. And so he makes this testimony in verse 25. And then in verse 30, if you skip a few verses down, the

Pharisees say, we don't even know who this guy is. We know Moses, we want to trust Moses, but Jesus, we don't really want to trust.

And at this point, once again, the blind man, as the sheep, could hear what the

Pharisees are saying, and he could have said, I want to follow you. Yes, we all know Moses is true. Let's just stick to Moses.

If you say Moses is what is true, then I will say amen, and we'll be fine. But listen to what this sheep responds to the

Pharisees. He answers and says, why, this is an amazing thing.

You don't know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will,

God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind.

If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. This blind man was not a theologian.

He was not someone who was a scholar to be able to talking to these Pharisees. But here, something has happened within him.

God has changed something in his hearing apparatus, and so when he hears the Pharisees talking to him, he says, what you're saying makes no sense.

You're saying that this guy is a nobody who comes from nowhere, and what he has done is a genuine miracle from God.

Why are you not seeing it? The Pharisees are the ones who are unable to see what is so simple, plain, and obvious, and this sheep has no trouble talking back to people who should know better, who have the authority to deal with him, as we will see, and he is not going to listen to these voices that are coming at him, and instead will speak back to them.

And what we see in verse 34, they, talking about the Pharisees, answered him, and they said, you were born in utter sin.

Do you know what they're referring to here, born in utter sin? They're not necessarily talking about original depravity and the fall of man.

They are talking about the fact that this man was born blind. So there is, excellent.

And, in fact, if you look at the beginning of John chapter nine, that's what the disciples thought. Who sinned, this man or his parents?

It's kind of hard for this man to sin in his mother's womb, but maybe he did something there, but his parents at least must have done something, and Jesus says, neither this man nor his parents, but for the glory of God to be revealed.

Excellent point. And these Pharisees say, you were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?

And they cast him out. They no longer wanted him as part of their flock. And a good thing too.

So here is the Pharisees. These are the strangers that are coming and talking to this sheep.

And this sheep, which in a human perspective should have just said, yes, bowed the knee and moved on, does not want to listen to these voices and instead goes the other way.

And now when the genuine shepherd comes, you see how the sheep responds. This is not just a rebel that doesn't want to listen to anybody.

The sheep is going to follow, not the stranger, but the good shepherd. In verse 35, we read,

Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him, he said, this is a shepherd that comes and seeks his own.

He said, do you believe in the son of man? Here is the voice of Jesus making a claim and asking for a response to the sheep.

Verse 36, he, the blind man, answered, and who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?

Jesus said to him, you have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.

And verse 38, he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshiped him.

So here you see Jesus speaking, the shepherd speaking to his sheep, and this sheep has no trouble recognizing who the shepherd is.

This is the shepherd that has healed him of his blindness. This is the shepherd that is speaking the words of truth, and this sheep is willing to follow, at great cost, this shepherd at this point in time.

Now, when you think of the Pharisees, one of the things that they obviously are in this passage are these strangers that want to draw away the sheep away from the fold of God.

But there is something more sinister about them. And look at verse 39 to 41.

Jesus said, for judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.

So Jesus is actually pronouncing right at the end of chapter nine, what is his purpose here on earth?

He is going to give sight to some, and those who see or claim to see, he is going to show that they are blind.

Some of the Pharisees in verse 40, near him heard these things and said to him, are we also blind?

Jesus said to them, if you were blind, you would have no guilt. But now that you see, we see, your guilt remains.

What Jesus is saying here is, this blind man who got saved, he was part of the sheep and the fold of God.

And here are these Pharisees who are supposed to be the leaders of the sheep, that actually did not even belong to the sheep.

And we will see more of this as we get into chapter 10 a little bit more. So who are the strangers?

The strangers are those like the Pharisees, and their teaching is not something that the sheep of God will listen to.

Instead, they will run away the other way. And that's what the blind man did. Who is the shepherd? This is Jesus Christ.

And when he teaches, when his voice calls out, his sheep will follow him, and they will obey what

Jesus has to say. So that's the two big background that we need to have as we try to apply it to our lives today.

What happened to the sheep? What was the context in which Jesus spoke? So let's bring it down to earth.

You, whose voice do you listen to? Whose voice do you obey?

In John chapter nine, we have the blind man who heard both the Pharisees and Jesus, and he rejected one and he followed the other.

Who do you listen to today? Before I bring this down,

I wanna give you a little bit of a general truth about our hearing apparatus. John Calvin said this.

He said, all of us have something called the senses divinitatis, sense of the divine.

Whether you are a sheep that is elect or a sheep that is reprobate, you all have this capacity.

And what did Calvin mean by this? Because all humans are made in the image of God.

We are made in God's own image, and there is a propensity for us to know our creator, know our maker.

There is someone that we belong to that we need to respond to. So whether you're a believer or an unbeliever today, we all have that in us.

How do we know that? If you look at Romans 1, 18 through 21, we'll read that in a minute.

We see that all people know God because God is the one who made us. Yet, all of us also have this propensity, it's called sin, that wants to suppress this truth.

And it suppresses this truth we read in unrighteousness. Because we love sin, we do not wanna acknowledge

God, our creator, the holy God, the one whom we'll have to deal with if we recognize him and acknowledge him.

Let me just quickly read 18 through 21 of Romans 1. If you want, you can turn there. We read there

Paul saying, "'For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven "'against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, "'who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.'"

What is the truth that they suppress? Verse 19, "'For what can be known about God "'is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.'"

What are some of the things about God that God has shown in verse 20? "'For his invisible attributes, "'namely his eternal power and divine nature, "'have been clearly perceived "'ever since the creation of the world "'in the things that have been made, "'so they are without excuse.'"

Whether you look at the world outside or look at yourself, you know that there is someone who has made you, and that's what

Paul is talking about. And in verse 21, he says, "'For although they knew God, "'they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, "'but,' and this is the state in which the world is, "'but they became futile in their thinking, "'and their foolish hearts were darkened.'"

Why is it that people no longer acknowledge God? It's because of the suppression of the truth, that you no longer wanna see

God, and you no longer see him anymore. So let's keep that in the mind. So when we talk about sheep, it's not that some sheep don't have any eardrums at all.

They have eardrums. What Calvin called senses divinitatis is like an antenna. Before the fall, this antenna heard clear and loud what

God was saying. After the fall, this antenna was broken, and this will no longer receive the message clearly, because in sin, people have suppressed the truth.

Now, with this understanding of sheep or people, let's now look at the two kinds of sheep, the sheep that run to Jesus when his voice calls, and the sheep that run away from him.

Let's talk about the elect, those whom God calls, and those who run gladly and willingly to him, like this blind man.

I want you to look at a little further down in John chapter 10.

We'll read these two together. Verses 27 to 28. Jesus says this.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My sheep know my voice. So when God calls his sheep, those whom he has chosen out of all the people in the world, they will hear his voice.

This hearing is not just listening with their eardrums. This is listening with an intent to obey.

They no longer just listen and go about their own ways, but they hear, and they now want to follow after their

Lord, their shepherd, Jesus Christ. And we read in verse 27, they follow me.

What about those who do not listen? We read this in actually verse 26. If you look at those who do not listen to Jesus in verses 22 to 25, in verse 26,

Jesus says, you do not believe because you are not part of my flock.

Shocking words to hear. Jesus says, you do not believe because you are not part of my flock.

And it is important to understand. It is not that Jesus does not have the power or the capacity or the strength to draw every sheep to himself, but there are certain sheep that he chooses for his own purposes, and there are certain sheep that do not belong to his flock, and they will not follow after him.

So what does this mean to you? So many of you who come here in the evening, you know the Lord, you love him, and how does this relate to unbelievers?

So when you talk to unbelievers and talk to him about the shepherd, we call that evangelism, you want to give the shepherd's words.

You want to have the shepherd call out in his own voice to his sheep.

There is nothing that you and I can speak on our own because we will be like strangers to the sheep, but when we use the words of the shepherd, and when we give that to the sheep who are not yet following after him, they will follow because they can recognize the voice of the shepherd that will call them out of darkness and into light.

So when you are doing evangelism, all you need to do is take the words of Jesus, make the, if you remember in chapter nine,

Jesus said, you have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you. That is all you need to do as you speak to those who do not know

Jesus Christ yet. You do not know who the elect are. You do not know who are the ones that are reprobate, but you can give the words of Christ and his voice will speak to those whom he has chosen and he will draw them out, surprisingly through your agency as you bring

God's word to them. Jesus calls his own even today by the gospel, by his own words, and his voice will ring loud and clear to his sheep as he calls them out of darkness.

Having said this, we've been focusing on the sheep for a bit. Let's now turn our attention to Jesus Christ, the good shepherd, the voice of Jesus Christ.

I wanna give you a little bit of a background before we look at the voice specifically here. What do you think happens when

Jesus speaks? No, I speak a lot of things and half of them don't make sense.

You can ask my wife. There are things that all of us say which don't mean much and some of the things that we say with power and authority don't really go too far, sometimes even with our children.

But when Jesus speaks, what do you think happens? I'm gonna show you, read a few verses very quickly, just so we know who

Jesus is before we come back to John chapter 10. I'm gonna be reading a few verses.

We'll begin right at the beginning with Genesis 1. God said, with his words, let there be light and there was light.

Verse six, God said, let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters from the waters.

And it was so. God said, let the waters out of the heavens be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear.

And it was so. When God speaks, it happens. Oh, by the way, just in case you weren't sure who this was in creation,

I'm gonna read for you a few verses from John chapter one. In John chapter one, in the beginning was the word.

We all know that is Jesus. Why is it called, why is Jesus called the word here? If you go to the end, to verse 18 of chapter one, no one has seen

God, the only God who is at the father's side, he has made him known. Jesus Christ reveals the father.

He is the expression, the word of God himself. This word was with God and the word was

God. He was in the beginning with God. And in verse three, all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made.

Let me jump quickly to Colossians chapter one, verse 15.

Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation for by him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.

And he is before all things and in him, all things hold together. Just so you know who we are talking about when we talk about Jesus.

Sometimes we just think of the humanity of Jesus Christ and we think, oh, you know, he's just a man like you and me.

And sadly, many of the world thinks that way. We are talking about God himself who created everything by his word, who is called the word of God.

And this God in Philippians two, we read, humbled himself to come in the shape of man.

And yet when he comes and when he speaks, it is still with that same authority and with the power.

Just in case you forget, if you remember in Mark chapter four when the disciples had a little bit of a crisis of faith, you remember that Jesus was going in a boat, he was very tired and he was sleeping.

And in verse 35 of chapter four in Mark, these disciples panicked because these shepherds, no, they were not shepherds, they were fishermen who knew how to handle the boat.

But when the storm came, they knew that they were going down and they wake their Lord in a panic and say,

Lord, we're going to perish. Aren't you going to do anything? And we read in verse 39, he awoke and rebuked.

He spoke to the wind and said to the sea, peace be still.

My words fall empty many times, but when Jesus speaks, there's a different result.

And we read, and there was a great calm, such a calm that in verse 41, the disciples were now filled with great fear.

Megalos phobos, if there was fear, afraid before the storm. Now, when Jesus speaks and stills the storm, they are terrified because they thought they knew who

Jesus was, but they didn't have no clue his divinity and his power as he speaks. Okay, so that's the

Jesus and the voice that we're talking about. When God speaks, there's creation. When God speaks, creation submits to him.

All right, so that's the Jesus. Now, let's come back to John chapter 10. When he talks to his sheep, there is a personal element when he speaks to image bearers, to sheep that he wants to pluck out out of the fire.

In verse three, we read, he calls his own sheep individually by name.

Those types of thoughts should just causes to just shout with joy and praise our

God. Here is the God of the universe, and he chooses to call his own by name.

Just like that shepherd would call that blackie and to come out of that little sheepfold, he calls you and me by name.

There is no just general universal generic salvation. Some people think that God just accomplished it on the cross and then he said, you know, all of you guys, the door is open, whoever wants just come.

If you come in, I'm glad, if you don't, too bad. That's not the way Jesus operates. When Jesus calls his own, he calls them individually by name.

Each of you can look back at those times, at that time, for some of you at least, you can remember when

God called you and that was a call that you just couldn't reject. I remember for myself,

I was steeped in sin and loving the pleasures of it. But when God called me, there was nothing that could keep me still in my state of sin.

I remember that moment of, I'd rather stay here, I love you, but I don't wanna give up, but there is nothing.

This is like the Pied Piper, except in a good way, because when God calls, you just have to leave everything else behind.

And because here is a greater, sweeter note that is being played and you will give up everything.

We sang, I surrender all, when you did that, when Jesus called you by name. And not just you, we also read here that in verse four, he brings out all of his own.

There is not one that Jesus is going to leave behind. When Jesus calls, he is not just gonna call randomly and say, okay,

I'm done with this. He knows every single one that is his own. When we talk about the elect, every single one

Jesus will bring out in his time. And we can have great confidence in that.

So if there is one here that does not know Jesus Christ, so if you are here this evening and you're saying,

I've heard about Jesus, I do not know who this, whether I am part of the elect or not, maybe today is the call that you are hearing because God will never let you go.

What happens to the sheep when Jesus calls? So here I am enjoying my pleasures of sin.

And all of a sudden the words of Jesus become very pleasurable. Why? Because in the

Bible we read that God gives us a new heart when he saves us.

Just as he created in Genesis one, John one, Colossians one, 15 through 17, just as he created the physical universe, he gives you a new heart when he speaks to you.

That's why all of a sudden you go about saying, I don't care about Jesus. I just love myself, my sin, and my world.

And when Jesus calls you, when he calls you by name, suddenly your world changes.

It's upside down. The things that you enjoyed, you now hate. The things of God that you hated, you suddenly start to enjoy because God creates in you.

The Bible calls it regeneration. Your dead stone heart is out and he gives you a heart of flesh.

That's what happens that makes you, this antenna that was broken is now fixed and you hear

Jesus loud and clear. And when your creator calls you, there's no holding back.

Now there's one thing I wanna just briefly mention. We do not wanna forget what enabled this to happen.

You all know that when we are dead in our trespasses and sins, when we enjoy the pleasures of sin,

God doesn't just take a fire hose and wash everybody off and say, okay, just come on in. There needs to be a penalty.

So this shepherd is not just calling anybody willy -nilly. He has paid the price for his sheep to enter.

And this shepherd, we will read later, is the one who gives his life. We use the imagery of the father who falls on his child to save him from the eagle.

And Jesus has already done that. He has purchased our life from the wrath of God, which was in Romans 1, 18.

And he did that by giving his own on the cross. He sacrificed himself.

He took the shame and the horror upon himself to the extent of being separated from his father, things that we just can't comprehend in order to grasp you and me and bring us into his fold.

Now, this is all justification. This is what happens as you come into the fold of God. And there is more here.

We will just, we are about almost out of time, but I just want to end with this. In verse four, you also read that he leads them.

He goes, in verse three end, he leads them out. And then he goes before them and the sheep follow him for they hear his voice.

So also, just as in justification, when Jesus called you out of sin and into life, so also in your walk as a

Christian, it is not that Jesus just gets you out and says, you know, very well, do live life on your own way.

Jesus is the one who goes on ahead of you. He is the one who leads you and guides you and protects you in your walk with the

Lord. I just want to use one reference here so that you can think about this in the

New Testament language. Ephesians 2 .10 says, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which

God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. God doesn't just save us and then say, do whatever you have to do.

God who called you by name has an explicit purpose for you. He has prepared beforehand those works, that path along which you need to walk.

And he will lead you on. So let me just ask one thing.

So for many of you here as believers, when you think of the sanctification, the voice of Jesus, many of us just think, oh, voice of Jesus has to be this sound that just comes out of the air and tells me go do this or do that.

And wow, I will do that. That'll be pretty straightforward, simple, and easy. And sadly, many of the people who claim to do that are not following the voice of Jesus, but rather their own voices or voices that are contrary to that of Jesus Christ.

Where do we go to find the voice of Jesus today? Hebrews one.

Thank you, Frank. You go to the word of God. God incarnate has given us the truth about himself in the

Bible. So we have God's word inscripturated, written down, and he speaks to you and me through his word today.

So that is why when a believer opens the Bible, there is a huge difference than when an unbeliever opens.

When a believer opens the Bible, he hears God's voice. So when you get down in the morning for your prayer, for your devotional, when you read this, you're not just saying,

Jesus said, if anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. You're saying, this is

God speaking to me. You know your shepherd's voice as you read the scriptures and you know what

God is calling you out to do and you follow him. You know, sometimes there are times in our

Christian walk when things are just going great and wonderful. I mean, all of you can relate to this.

There are times when God just fills you with this abundance of his goodness, his presence, and his joy that you can just, you know, burst out into tears as you think about some scripture or something that you see in life.

I was talking to my mom the other day and she talked about the call in our lives and the gifts that God has given us.

And I'm just ecstatic just thinking about God and what he has said to me in the scriptures and as he calls me and as he leads me on.

But there are other times when the voice seems like dull. I don't know if some of you are going through this.

Last week was one of those weeks when I read the scriptures and I find it hard. And am

I just not a sheep for that particular week? Am I off the fold? No.

No. The work of God that is done in us is deep, complete.

And as we read in John 10, 28, done. No one can take the sheep out of the father's hands.

What happens is there are times when you will need to dig, as those of you who are in BBS know, dig deep into God's word.

What did I have to do when I was finding my hearing a little off? Sometimes your hearing goes off a little when you decide in your sanctification that you want to put yourself above the

Lord. We heard this morning, the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We never do it perfectly. All of us struggle with our flesh.

We need to submit to the spirit in order for us to experience that goodness and the power of God. Sometimes it is sin.

Sometimes there are other reasons, but you are never too far off from the voice of God because his words are always near you.

In Psalm 119, we read about how you hide God's word in your heart, that we may not sin and that we may be in the presence of God.

There was one verse that I normally do this when I struggle is whatever

I'm studying for that particular day, I just take one verse. And for me, that particular verse was John chapter nine, when

Jesus talks about how, let me just read that. In John nine, we read how

Jesus said, for judgment have come into this world that those who do not see may see and those who see may become blind.

You might think, what kind of a verse is that to kind of lead you through the day? Those of you who are believers will know that when you think of the blindness that you come out of,

I was thinking to myself, here was I a dead, unrepentant sinner, blind and totally gone.

And the power of God has changed me. He has transformed me and given me everything these past many, many years that I did not deserve or have any claim to.

And he's freely gave them to me. And that is the same powerful God that I worship today. Right now my sky might be cloudy, my eyes may be dark, but I know this

God who has called me. So when I read that verse, I still hear the voice of God in my darkness because I know that he will lead me through this valley, even if it looks like a shadow of death and he will lead me onto glory.

So when you are a believer, when you're thinking of sanctification, the words of God are never too far off from you.

And there are times when you can just hear it in all the beautiful sounds and splendor.

And there are times when there is just that little still voice that you need to just be down on your knees and talking to. But this

God who pulled you out of darkness will always and ever go before you as your shepherd. And he is the one who will lead you.

And once again, if you're not a believer here, I would urge you, call upon the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who can give you a new heart and he is the one who can lead you on onto glory.

So as you're walking today, whether it is on a sunny, wind -swept meadow, or if it is a rain -drenched, thunderclouds -capped night, remember that this shepherd who leads you is always before you, and he will lead you and guide you and protect you.

Let us pray. Our loving and gracious Father, we come before you,

Lord, with hearts filled with gratitude. We thank you for your

Son, Jesus Christ, our good shepherd. We thank you for the word that you've given us as a lamb.

We thank you for your Spirit that empowers us to live a life that honors you and takes great joy in your presence.