Not My Sheep (part 1) - [John 10:22-30]

The Setting of John 10 and the Question of Unbelief

I would invite you to take your Bibles and open them up to the 10th chapter of John. Thank you for your prayers this week. So I went and saw my mom in Denver, and she's in a new facility. And it was good.

It was a very good visit, and I was thankful to be able to preach the gospel to her, and at least gain some assent to what I was saying. So it was positive, and we had a really good time together. I don't know if you've seen the advertisements on TV for a new TV show.

I think it started maybe last week on the National Geographic Channel. How many of you have that? Raise your hand and repent. Oh, no, I'm just kidding. Morgan Freeman. Great voice. And what does he say?

I've always been fascinated by God. Is that true? I don't think so, given the fact that he's touring around the world and looking at the different ways that people worship different gods, and he presumes that they're all one.

Why do people believe? Why do they believe anything? And given what we know about human nature, how does anyone come to faith in Christ? And this morning, we're going to be looking... I'm going to depart a little bit from what I normally do.

We're going to be looking at more of a, I'm going to say, systematic view of unbelief, but it's really, we're going to be focused in the gospel of John, so I like to call it a Johannian, because you can't say Johnian, right?

It's a Johnian. No, a Johannian. It sounds more, you know, well, yeah, more spiritual or more, I don't know. It sounds like I sat in the academy for a while and really studied it. But as I was just, you know, I was in the airport on Tuesday when I was leaving, and I saw this man and he had to be, because I was sitting down and I was still taller than him.

So he was under four feet tall and gray hair. That's how I knew he was fully grown. Gray hair like me. And he had a walker and he was just really struggling. And I sat there and I watched him and I just thought, you meet a variety of people or you see a variety of people in airports and different places.

And I thought, you know, this is a man created in God's image, who one day will stand before God and give an answer for what he did with the Lord Jesus Christ. And as I look around the airport, I'm just like, it's not just him.

Everybody here is going to one day stand before God and give an answer for what they did with the Lord Jesus Christ. And as I went into the rest home, now, those of you who don't know, my mom had an aneurysm six years ago, eight years ago.

Eight years ago, I guess it was. And almost died. For two months, she was in a coma. She was, you know, the doctors told me she's going to die. She didn't die. But she still has some effects from that aneurysm bursting near her brain and the strokes subsequent to that where she gets confused and she's not able to live on her own.

That's why she is where she is. And they had to, I had to move her to this new facility where they, it's really like it was like being in jail. I had flashbacks of being in jail because you can't get out unless you know the code.

And when they locked that door, I just thought, I can't get out. And there was a momentary panic attack, which is weird, you know. But then I remembered, oh yeah, this is just like jail. And then once I got the code, I was fine.

But they have to do that. And as I looked around that room where my mom is, and there are people wandering around and they're shaking and they don't know where they are. And they can't, some of them could hardly even speak.

And they talked in gibberish and different things. And over and over again, the refrain that was going through my mind is what? Every single one of these people is going to stand before their creator one day.

And they're going to have to give an answer for what they did with the Lord Jesus Christ. And every one of you here this morning, one day, are going to stand before your creator. And you're going to have to give an answer for what you've done with the Lord Jesus Christ.

And what that ought to do for all of us is give us a few things. One is humility. Because we're no different than anybody else. It doesn't matter what anybody looks like, what they sound like, what their abilities or their disabilities are.

We're all the same. We're all in the same level playing field. Except if you know the Lord Jesus Christ, you're at an advantage. So you want to walk tall, walk proudly through the airport? No. No, you should walk with a great deal of humility and empathy.

You need to think these people, all of them, are one breath, one moment, one aneurysm, one heart attack from hell. If you study hell, the one thing I can assure you is you don't want your worst enemy to go there.

We need to have empathy, a desire to share the truth with them. Let's look at John chapter 10. We're going to begin at verse 22. At that time, the feast of dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon.

So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my father's name bear witness about me.

But you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. 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 father who has given them to me is greater than all. And no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand. I and the father are one. Now, John wrote this book to give the readers a first-hand testimony that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God, and that by believing in him, the readers of this book would have eternal life.

And when we say Christ, what do we mean? We mean Messiah. The long-promised Messiah, the one who would redeem God's people. This morning we're going to look at some really difficult truths about unbelievers.

As I said, it's a Johannian look at unbelief. Who are unbelievers? Why don't they believe? Jesus certainly gives us some insights in his interaction with the Jewish leaders, the Pharisees, this morning.

Now, the setting. What is the setting? Well, this is just a couple of months after the last section we covered in John. Well, what did Jesus do after the last section? And if we just back up a little bit, if you recall, he healed the man born blind in chapter 9, and then the Pharisees did this investigation.

And they ultimately, what did they do? They cast the man that Jesus healed, they cast him out of the synagogue, they un-synagogued him. They said, you are not permitted to come into synagogue. You're not permitted to have fellowship with other Jews.

And then Jesus seeks him and finds him, and starts in really kind of discussing the difference between the sheep and non-sheep, and calls himself what? The good shepherd. The good shepherd discourse.

And it ends with the Jews, or that section ends with the Jews, there's a division. If you look back at verse 19, 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? And that's where it cuts off. And it doesn't tell us what happens after that.

And it really leaves us, because that was shortly after the, sometime after the Festival of Booze, within maybe a few weeks of that. And so we're probably about two months later. This is early December.

And if we look at the text, it tells us it is the Feast of Dedication. The Feast of Dedication. Dedication of believers? No. Dedication of the temple. What we would call Hanukkah. Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights.

And it celebrates the Jews liberating under the Maccabees. Liberating the temple from Antiochus Epiphanes, the Seleucid leader. Basically, the Persians had invaded Israel and taken the temple. And he had desecrated it.

And set up a false priest over the temple. And really made a mockery of the Jewish religion. Well, you can just imagine. They're forbidden to practice their religion. They're forbidden from, or they don't want to go into the temple.

Because there's false ceremonies going on. The temple has been desecrated. And this was the heart of their religious practice, was in the temple. Well, you can imagine. It wasn't too hard to get people riled up about that.

And so they revolt. They take back the temple. And the legend goes, the reason that they celebrate is they only had oil for one day to light the temple. And it lasted for eight days. That's why it's the Festival of Lights.

And this became quite a celebration. And so here we are at that time of the year. The Festival of Dedication. And Jesus, it doesn't tell us here. But most likely the apostles are with him. It frequently doesn't mention them.

But basically, they're his disciples. They're his learners. He's the teacher. They're the followers. They're the disciples. And they just follow him around. It's life on life. This is how he taught them.

And so they're probably with him. As he walks under this colonnade, it says here, some of your translations might call this Solomon's portico, Solomon's porch. Why Solomon's porch? Why is it dedicated to him?

Because it's the last standing part of the temple that Solomon built. The rest of it is all gone, been destroyed over the years. And I can't think of the guy's name. Rebuild it. Anyway, so Solomon's temple is basically gone.

Except for this porch. And he's walking in that porch, that covered area. And if you want to know why, it's pretty much there in the text. Why? Because it was winter. It's cold. You're looking for some kind of protection from the cold.

And this is the warmer place in the temple. So our first truth about unbelievers. Unbelievers are dishonest in their unbelief. They're dishonest in their unbelief. The Jews, the Jewish leadership, they come and they kind of crowd around Jesus, right?

They surround him. In our text it says, so the Jews gathered around him. And it means that they really kind of pressed up against him. They stopped him from whatever he was doing. And they sort of surrounded him.

And said to him, how long will you keep us in suspense if you are the Christ? Tell us plainly. It's verse 24. Now, if you listen to that, you might just think, oh, they just wanted to know. Come on, Jesus, just tell us.

If you're the Christ, just tell us and we will believe. That's not what they were after. That's not what they wanted. When they said, you know, how long are you going to keep us in suspense? The word picture is, how long are you going to leave our souls lifted up in the air?

How long are you going to leave us suspended literally in space? How long are you going to keep us hanging here? Like, we don't know. We don't have enough information. Can you provide us some more proof?

But that wasn't the case. They had plenty of evidence. And what they did was they suppressed that truth and unrighteousness. Look at verse 25. Jesus answered them. I told you. And you do not believe. The works that I will or that I do in my father's name bear witness about me.

Says, listen, I've already told you guys that I am the Christ. But you don't believe. This really is an illustration of Romans chapter 1. Where Paul writes that unbelievers do what? They suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

They hold it down. It's like the picture of suppressing the truth and unrighteousness is if you have something, a flotation device that would normally float on top of the water. And you just want to push it down under the water and just hold it there.

Well, the problem is what? Eventually, it's going to pop up. But they don't stop trying to press it down. Now, had he told the Jews before that he was the Christ? Did they have evidence? Yes. Turn to John chapter 5.

As I said, for the most part, I'm going to stay in John today. In John chapter 5, we read that Jesus healed the man who had been an invalid, a paralytic, for 38 years. It's a great, it should be a great story, right?

It would be page 1 of the newspaper. Man paralyzed for 38 years, healed by Jesus. Take up your bed and walk. It should be a great story. But the Pharisees confronted that man, if you recall. And they asked him, who told you to carry your bed on the Sabbath?

Oh, you broke our rules. Carrying your bed on the Sabbath, what an outrage. And he couldn't remember who it was. Look at verse 13. Now, the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn.

See, he just left him there. He said, take up your bed and walk, and then he left. As there was a crowd in the place. Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, see, you are well. Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.

The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. So, here's your payback, right, for healing him. He's going to go, they want to know who it was. He's like, okay, I'll tell them.

Verse 16. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus. Because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, my father is working until now, and I am working. He compared himself to the father there.

He said, I do the works that the father does. This was why, verse 18, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him. Because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his father, making himself equal with God.

Had he told them? Yes. And that's why they wanted to kill him. So they knew, so what's all this then in John chapter 10? Suppression of the truth. It's disingenuousness. It's dishonesty. It's flat out lying.

In John chapter 9, as I said earlier, he healed the man born blind. And their response, the Jewish leader's response, was to do an investigation to find out who had done such a thing on the Sabbath. When they determined that the man had been healed on the Sabbath, they pressured him to slander Jesus.

When he refused, as I said earlier, they put him out of the synagogue. They knew who Jesus was. They knew what he had done. And I mean, when you consider what the Pharisees were willing to do in the face of the evidence that they'd already seen, is it any wonder that Jesus spoke to them like he did in Matthew?

Let me just read a couple passages from Matthew chapter 23 and be brief. You don't need to turn there. Just listen. Matthew 23, verses 13 to 15. But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces.

As I talked about empathy before, just think about what he's telling them. You have no empathy for people. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte. And when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. Rules, regulations, strict adherence to all these laws that they made up.

They were legalists. How did you get to heaven in their mind? By doing. Do, do, do, do. And if you violate those rules and regulations, you are in trouble with them and they were the religious authorities.

Listen to verses 27 and 28 in Matthew 23. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.

So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. They put on a good show. They looked really good. They were dressed nicely. You know, in our parlance, we would say, well, they put on a suit and tie and went to church every week.

Got all the kids ready to go and went. But it was for show. Had nothing to do with what was going on. They had no faith. Their heart was filled with hypocrisy, sinfulness, uncleanness. Now, in contrast with the Pharisees, the heartlessness of the Pharisees, their lack of empathy.

Let's consider what God does. Let's consider what God does in contrast to the Pharisees. Number one, God condescends. He stoops. He reaches down. John 1, 9 to 14, as we consider Jesus coming in the flesh, John writes this.

He says, The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, Jesus, and the world was made through him. Yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth. The second person of the Trinity, at the Father's direction, comes into our world, stoops to live within the confines of our existence, his creation.

He made everything, and then he comes into the world to live with gravity and all the inconveniences of this world, death, disease, corruption, everything that's going on. So God condescends, but God also reveals.

God reveals. Let's turn to John chapter 4 for a minute. Familiar story of the woman with the well, or woman at the well, the Samaritan woman. And if you recall, she has many things going against her in the ancient world.

First of all, she's a woman. You say, what are you talking about? Well, in those days, women were considered something on the level of cattle. They weren't that important. There was no women's rights movement in the ancient world.

There was no equality for women. They were second or third class people, basically. Samaritans were considered by the Jews to be half breeds. They were part Gentile, part Jew. They had their own religion.

They were outcasts. So this woman had very much of a disadvantage when Jesus comes upon her at this well in the middle of nowhere. The woman said to him, I know that Messiah, this is verse 25, I know that Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ.

When he comes, he will tell us all things. Now, he's already revealed to her that she's got a real sin problem that he knows about. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he. Just then his disciples came back.

And look, they marveled that he was talking with a woman. But no one said, what do you seek or why are you talking with her? So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, come see a man who told me all that I ever did.

Can this be the Christ? He condescends, he reveals himself to her, and what does she do? She goes and tells the people in her village, in her town, that she's met the Christ. God reveals himself to us in the written word, yes, but then in the living word.

And we have a record now of the living word, the Lord Jesus Christ. But even then, he was setting about witnessing to people, showing people who he was. Thirdly, talking about God in contrast to the Pharisees, the Jews, God is patient, God is patient.

Turn to John chapter 3 and beginning in verse 1. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs, the miracles, the even small m miracles that he was doing, that you do unless God is with him.

Jesus answered him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Notice he doesn't tell him what he must do, he tells him what must be done to him. Now you say, well, how's that a picture of patience?

Well, Jesus could have said, could have just laid it all out for him. After all, as their discussion goes on, we find out that Nicodemus was the teacher in all of Israel, that he wasn't just a Jew, he wasn't just a Pharisee, but he was really in the higher ranks of the Pharisees.

There are a lot of things he could tell him, but he doesn't do any of that. Instead, he just lays out what the requirements are for heaven, which is namely to have a work done by the Holy Spirit on him.

But turn over to chapter 19. This is after the crucifixion, verses 38 to 40, talking about the patience of God. Rather than confronting Nicodemus, telling him how terrible he is, I mean, he is one of the Pharisees, he is that Matthew 23 person, verse 38 of John chapter 19.

After these things, after the crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, the secret Christian, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission.

So he came and took away his body. Verse 39, Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about 75 pounds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.

Now again, let's just think about who Nicodemus is. He's a Pharisee. What happens when you touch a dead body under Jewish law? You are unclean. A Pharisee would not voluntarily do these things. Nicodemus, who had been a man of the law, had been the teacher of the law, had been the teacher of all Israel, is now saved, is now a Christian, is now serving even the dead Jesus, carrying this heavy load of aloe and myrrh.

And what was that stuff anyway? It was to keep the body from stinking. They wrap them up in this to keep them from stinking. Have you ever smelled a dead body? It's horrible. Just as an aside, I remember I've smelled a few.

And you know what you kept in your patrol bag? We would have... what is that stuff? Not even mentholatum is strong enough. Yeah, Vicks VapoRub. And you just put a healthy dose of that stuff on there because they stink.

And this is exactly what he's doing. And you just think Nicodemus is now willing to serve Christ. God is patient. Didn't judge Nicodemus right away, told him the truth, but waited. And God drew him and saved him.

God is also a truth giver. He's a truth giver. About 20 times in the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks about or says that he's either telling the truth or that he is giving them direct truth from God or that God's word is truth.

In fact, John 17, 17 says that, what? Sanctify them in truth. Your word is truth. God is a truth giver. He wants people to know the truth. And believers love the truth. But the Jewish leaders hated the truth.

If you recall back in Matthew 23, as I read earlier, when they made a disciple, he said, you make them twice the child of hell that you are. You're already a child of hell, you Pharisees. Jesus at another point said, what?

That they were of their father, the devil. They were liars because they were the children of the father of all lies. God is a life giver. Look at verse 28, this chapter, which we'll get to in a few weeks.

I give them eternal life, his sheep he's talking about, and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. Well, what about the Pharisees? Again, the contrast. If people follow the Pharisees, they would go to hell.

They would perish. Now getting back to this idea of evidence. Tell us plainly, they said to Jesus. The Pharisees had no excuse. Neither will they have one on judgment day. In fact, the truth is, no one will.

But these Pharisees knew not only of the paralytic that he healed, not only of the blind man that he healed, but they knew of many other miracles. They were not lacking in evidence. But let's go back to the text, verse 25.

Jesus answered them. I told you, look at the pronouns there, you. I told you, I've told you already, and you do not believe. They knew the truth. He had told them the truth and they did not believe. Well, why is he stressing that?

Why does he repeat it there? It's for emphasis. As with every unbeliever, the Pharisees were morally responsible. It was their problem, their fault, as it were, that they didn't believe. They knew the truth.

He told them the truth, but they chose not to believe. I'm going to say something a little controversial here. They exercised their free will and they rejected the truth. And this is what every unbeliever does.

It is a universal truth. Every human being chooses to believe or disbelieve God. How do I know that? Again, Romans 1 tells us that we look around and we know that there's a God because of creation and all the order of it, all the glory of it.

Psalm 19 also talks about that. Romans 1 tells us what they do. Again, they suppress that truth and unrighteousness. And what do I mean by free will? Well, they choose freely to do that, but their will is bound by their nature.

You can't choose something outside of your nature. Think back about the example of Nicodemus. Nicodemus was told by Jesus that something had to be done to him, not by him. It wasn't a matter of making a decision.

It was a matter of being transformed by a work of the Holy Spirit. You can only choose that which is within your nature. Look again at verse 25. Jesus says, The Pharisees, these religious rulers, they knew of the miracles of Christ, but they willfully chose to reject them.

And let's just take it a step further. When it says bear witness there, here's the picture. It's as if they're in the jury box. They're sitting there in the jury box, jurors 1 through 12 or however many there are of them.

And this parade of witnesses is coming before them. All these works of the Father done by Jesus. Work after work after work. And the judge says, do you have any more witnesses? And here they come. And they're sitting in the juror box going, nah.

Don't believe that. Nah. There's some other reason for it. There's some other explanation. They were denying the Father. Jesus did the works to obey, right? He says, I do everything that the Father shows me, everything that he tells me.

And they're also denying the glory of God by rejecting these miracles. He was providing direct evidence of his sonship, of his godhood, as it were. And they were rejecting it. In effect, every unbeliever sits in judgment of God.

I'm not going to believe. I don't have enough proof. I don't have enough evidence. They had all the evidence, all the proof anybody could ever want. And they rejected it. When they did this, and in fact, when every unbeliever does this, they sit in judgment of God.

They dethrone God and establish themselves as the ultimate authority. You've probably dealt with that when you're talking to people. You tell them the truth about Jesus Christ, what do they say? Oh, I don't believe that.

Well, that's fine for you, but that doesn't work for me. Okay, I'm giving you the truth, and you don't care. You're indifferent. I want to give you the prescription, the antidote for your problem. And you don't care.

Why is that? Well, look at verse 26. But you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. What happens when a believer, here's the gospel, a believer sees the transforming work of the gospel in somebody else's life?

When we have baptisms, you know, do you just think, eh, baptism, schmaptism. No, you're like, glory to God. He saved somebody. He changed somebody's life. Listen to his testimony. Listen to how he changed her life.

And believers say, well, you know, that's good for them. I hope it works for them. Why? That first word there in verse 26, but. Again, I say this from time to time. There are two different words for the word but.

This is a strong contrast. They should believe the evidence. They should accept the evidence, but they don't. They fail. Why not? Because they're not a sheep. Well, how do sheep act? Look back at verse 2 of John chapter 10.

Jesus says, but he who enters by the door, he's talking about himself, is the shepherd of the sheep. To him, the gatekeeper opens, the sheep hear his voice, and he calls out, or 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.

Luther said this. He said, this lovely, delightful picture you may, if you wish, see for yourself among sheep. When a stranger calls, whistles, or coaxes, come sheep, come sheep, it runs, it flees, and the more you call, the more it runs, as if a wolf were after it, for it knows not the strange voice, but where the shepherd makes himself heard a little, just a whisper.

They all run to him, for they know his voice. Luther says this is how all true Christians should do. Hear no voice, but their shepherds, Christ, as he himself says. Unbelievers who are not Christ's sheep hear his voice, and they're totally indifferent.

His voice, they say, is only as valid as that of other religious leaders, other spiritual leaders. What about Buddha? What about Muhammad? What about, you name it. What about Dawkins, atheist? I mean, he has just as many compelling things to say as Jesus did.

They hear the voice of heretics. They hear the voice of rule givers, and they run. The Pharisees had their own system, and the voice of Jesus had all the appeal to them, of fingernails on a chalkboard.

They hated it. And Jesus' words, again, emphasize their responsibility. He puts you in a place of emphasis, as if to tell them there is no one else to blame. You are not among my sheep, and it's their fault.

Their refusal to believe the evidence makes them guilty. They convict themselves. Again, it's like the juror who hears the overwhelming case, proving the guilt of the suspect without a doubt, and they declare the man innocent, the criminal innocent.

What does that mean? They ignore the mountain of evidence, and they declare him guilty. Well, in effect, they are guilty of the crime, because they ignored all the truth. God bears no responsibility for the unbelief of the unregenerate.

They are how they are because it pleases them. It suits them to reject the Son of God. They have no weariness from their sin. They have no sense of its burden. Do you think the Pharisees were sitting there going, Oh, I'm just such a sinner.

If only somebody would die for my sins. They thought they were good. That's why Jesus gave the parable of the Pharisee and the publican. I thank thee, God, that I'm not like these other people. That is your typical Pharisee.