The Good Shepherd is So Much Better than the Wolves

The Good Shepherd in John 10

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the 10th chapter. Jesus said, 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 is 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.

And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. And there shall 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. I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father. This is the gospel of the Lord.

In the name of Jesus. Alright, one of my favorite movies, The Legend of Zorro. I loved it when I was a kid. I mean, all the television programs that I would watch, they were always filled with really bad guys and really good guys, right?

And there was always this sharp distinction between the good guy and the bad guy. The good guy was always smart. He was kind. He was looking out for the poor. He was looking out for the oppressed. He was the guy who stood in the gap to make it so that the bad guys couldn't have their way with those who they wanted to oppress.

And I would note this. Isn't it fascinating that over and again you can tie some of our greatest good guys all the way back to Jesus. In fact, I like to sometimes think of Jesus kind of like Zorro. There are these evil bad guys oppressing people.

And then there comes Jesus, kind of hidden God in human flesh, and he's not showing his glory. But then he does his swashbuckling thing, and the bad guys are shown to be what they are. It's absolutely fascinating.

It seems like kind of a weird thing to talk about on Good Shepherd Sunday, but I want you to consider the distinction, the juxtaposition between just how deceived the bad guys are in our stories today and just how kind Jesus is.

Peter and John Heal the Lame Man in Acts 4

We'll start with the later story first and go back to our Gospel text. Acts 4. The context here is John and Peter, they went into the temple to pray, and there was a paralytic who was laid at the beautiful gate.

And you're going to note this fellow, Jesus overlooked him. Jesus never healed him during his earthly ministry, and yet it says he was laid at the beautiful gate for many, many years, for a long time.

He was kind of a standard feature in the temple at the time of Christ and the time of the disciples. And, of course, what happens? Peter sees the fellow, the guy's asking for alms, and Peter says these words, silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Get up and walk. And the guy stands up and walks. Now, a little bit of a note here. Who is our ultimate enemy?

The devil, right?

And so you'll note that because sin has come into the world, well, people born with handicaps like this, these are all the consequences of sin. And Christ has come to set us free from the dominion of darkness, and here his disciples being sent out, they, well, you're going to note, they didn't have any silver and gold.

You might want to let Kenneth Copeland and the televangelists know that. Peter and John didn't have any silver or gold. But that's a whole other sermon. But the whole point, that is, is that what they do with the power of Christ, they release this fellow from his suffering, and what should every single God-fearing, Yahweh-worshiping person do?

They should cry out, Hallelujah!

Right?

That seems like a normal, good, and, well, the expected response. But then we come to our epistle text, our first text. And in chapter 4 of the book of Acts, after Peter gives this wonderful sermon to the crowd that is gathered there, you can almost hear, like, the dramatic music going on in the background.

I always like to picture, like, the Darth Vader music.

Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.

Here come the Sadducees.

Dun, dun, dun, dun.

And the Pharisees.

Dun, dun, dun.

Right?

The whole thing just goes dark. So as they were speaking to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, the Sadducees came upon them. And I always have to use this to point something out here.

The Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection. Can you believe that? They didn't believe in the resurrection at all. These are people who, in the ancient world, were kind of equivalent to today's progressive so-called Christians who deny the miraculous and all stuff like this.

Well, if you don't believe in the resurrection, that explains the reason why they're sad, you see. So, yeah, I always have to tell that joke. I never tire of it.

All right.

So as we know then here, they deny the resurrection. And then the text says this. They were greatly annoyed.

Say that again?

They were what? They were greatly annoyed. And see, this then kind of gets at the nubbins here. Who in their right mind would be greatly annoyed that a paralytic has been given the ability to walk? They should be praising God that the power of God has visited them.

But no, they're annoyed. Why are they annoyed? Because they are the workers of darkness. Luther, in the large catechism, describes how if you don't want to hear God's word and you don't want to honor those who bring the word of God to you, he's going to send liars who are going to take you to the devil himself and put them in the church.

And that's what the Sadducees are. They're a bunch of liars. These are the people who are directly responsible when it comes to the crucifixion of Christ of being complicit in the whole plan that went down that resulted in him being crucified.

So now the disciples, taking up the mantle of Christ that was given to them, the authority given to them by Jesus, they are going and continuing his saving work. So they were greatly annoyed. They were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.

Of course they were. Of course. They had seen the risen Christ on multiple occasions, eaten fish with him, touched him, spent time with him, talked with him. Of course they were teaching in Jesus the resurrection from the dead, which, by the way, is a great, great thing for us because death seems to be the thing that looms over all of us.

The idea that we can be saved from death, oh, man, Zorro's got nothing on Jesus. Well, what did they do? This makes no sense. They called the police and then they had them arrested.

What?

We're sorry. We're going to need to take you into custody today. And so Peter and John spent the evening in the Jerusalem jail. I'm sure it wasn't a five-star resort kind of thing. I'm sure they didn't get a mint on their pillow and that they didn't get room service or anything like that.

Far from it. So what was the crime again? Isn't that how evil works? Evil hates Jesus. Evil wants to silence Jesus. Evil wants us to focus on it, not Christ. So the next day their rulers and the elders and scribes, they gathered together in Jerusalem with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander and all who were of the high priestly family.

We all know that church officials can never go corrupt, so they've got to be speaking the truth, right? Sorry, my apologies. A little bit of cynicism there. So when they had set Peter and John in their midst, they inquired, and here comes the interrogation.

By what power or by what name did you do this? This is just like a bad Saturday cereal. These bad guys are just stupid. But that's what happens. Sin makes us ridiculously dumb. Not just them, all of us.

By what power then did you do this? So Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, I love what comes next because it doesn't say then filled with the Holy Spirit, he began to bark like a dog or cluck like a chicken or roll around on the ground or speak in gibberish.

No, emboldened, empowered by the Holy Spirit, he stands his ground and points out the complete absurdity of this entire event. He said, rulers of the people and elders, if we're being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, right, is that against the law, doing good to a crippled fellow?

Have we broken some law? No. So let it be known to all of you and all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and you can almost see it in the text, that their blood runs cold whenever they mention the name of Jesus.

Kind of like scar whenever somebody says Mufasa.

Mufasa, oh, right?

That's the idea. So this Jesus Christ whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him, this man is standing before you. Well. Oh, Jesus doesn't even have to be physically present.

To save people.

Oh, what a great savior we have. So this Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone, and there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

I want you to think about this. Christ has come to save us. He's come to save you, come to save me, set us free from slavery to sin, death, and the devil, to release us from the dominion of darkness and to take us into his glorious light.

This is truly salvation. He wills for us to live rather than die, and he has promised us all because of his great love and mercy and inheritance and eternal life completely free. Have you ever noticed that false teachers, it's never free?

There's always a price. You have to buy their books. You have to make sure to sow a seed. You have to, you get what I'm saying here? Yeah, that's one of the things you get the idea, but here's where we have to pay attention.

There is salvation in no one else, and when we as Christians speak those words, the world, well, they are repulsed by such a statement. Are you saying that all the other world religions are false? Yes, that's exactly what we're saying.

There is not salvation for anyone in Islam. There is no salvation for anyone in Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism. Name the ism. There is no salvation for anybody in apostate Christianity either. If you have a false Jesus, a false Holy Spirit, and a false gospel, you can't be saved either.

There is salvation only in the real Jesus. Well, that's pretty narrow-minded.

Yeah, exactly.

Scripture teaches us that there is salvation in no one else. Oh, and by the way, there's not salvation in your name either. So if you're thinking that you're going to save yourself, that you're going to pull yourself up by your moral bootstraps, I'm going to get my act together this year.

I'm going to lean into being obedient, and I'm going to go and volunteer at the soup kitchen, and I'm going to say something nice to somebody. Therefore, God's going to save me. That's called salvation in your name, and you can't save yourself.

It don't work that way. And so we need to understand that when we are talking about salvation in no one else, Jesus is the Savior. Not you, not me, not anybody else. Full stop. End of sentence. End of discussion.

If you don't like it, get over it. And if you're repulsed by it, then you clearly consider yourself not worthy to be saved. That's just the hard reality of things. So in that context then, with Christ being our good shepherd, Christ being our good shepherd and Him being our Savior, consider then the fuller context of our gospel text.

The Blind Man in John 9 and the Pharisees’ False Theology

I always like to point this out because it's another one of these stories where the juxtaposition between good and evil is so stark that evil looks the way it is. Stupid, absurd, and like completely out of touch with anything even remotely approaching biblical reality.

Think of it this way. In the Gospel of John chapter 9, which is the beginning of the context of what we see in John 10, Jesus and His disciples were passing along through some town and there was a fellow who was born blind.

And what did the disciples do? They took up in their mouths the false doctrine taught by the Pharisees because you'll note that the Pharisees were very much akin to the prosperity preachers of today. The prosperity preachers of today.

God wants to give you divine health. God wants to give you divine wealth. He wants you to be the head and not the tail and He's going to make you the bee's knees. And if you're ugly and if you're sick and if you're oppressed and you've got problems, well, it's your fault because you just don't have enough faith.

And the reason why I fly around in three private jets is because I have strong faith and you don't. COVID -19. Anyway, anyway. All of that being said, you're going to note the Pharisees are that exact kind of thing.

So when there's a fellow who's been born blind, according to their false theology, well, it's because he sinned or maybe his parents did. And so the disciples ask Him, Jesus, who sinned? This guy or his parents that he was born blind?

And then Jesus gives an answer that no one saw coming. He said it was not that this man sinned or his parents. He was born blind so that the works of God might be displayed in him. Wait, what? That's an option?

The Pharisees aren't aware of this. So what does Jesus do? He spits in the dirt, makes some mud, puts it on the guy's eyes, sends him to the pool of Siloam, and this fellow hasn't even seen Jesus and he comes back seeing.

And then, well, the soundtrack goes dark again. He's going to be arrested and interrogated for what crime? Being healed by Jesus. Now, who's the kind guy here? Jesus is the kind one here. I cannot imagine what kind of religion this is that claims to worship Yahweh, the God of Israel, who is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, pardoning sin and iniquity.

And what do these fellows do? They're going to interrogate this guy because they'd already determined anybody who confesses that Jesus is the Messiah in the synagogue, you're going to be excommunicated.

Makes no sense. They became kind of like the synagogue Nazis, like the soup Nazis from Seinfeld.

You believe in Jesus? No synagogue for you!

Right?

That's how they did it. So what ended up happening is that they brought the fellow in to interrogate him. How were you made whole? How were you given sight? And they thought the whole thing was a joke.

Okay, you guys are just punking us. You weren't really born blind. So what they do is they pull his parents in and interrogate his parents. And his parents, their knees are knocking together because of how nervous they are.

And they said, yeah, he was born blind. He's our son. But how he sees, we don't know. What kind of church is this? What kind of religious leaders are these? And you're going to note something. We have a lot of religious leaders like this today.

A lot.

So now they bring him in for the second time. And now they're going to really put the thumbscrews down on this guy. So they bring him in. They say, all right, give glory to God. We know that this man's a sinner.

Really? Really?

Did the CDCR get together and determine that Jesus is a sinner? What's going on here?

Right? Uh-huh.

So the guy, you're going to note, what happened to him? He was healed by Jesus. But we see in what follows next, not only was he healed by Jesus, Jesus gave him saving faith. And he stood his ground and refused to deny his Savior.

That's what was happening here. So he said, well, whether Jesus is a sinner, I don't know. One thing I do know, I was blind, now I see. So they said to him, what did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?

And you could just hear the venom in their mouth. So he answered them, I've told you already. You wouldn't listen. You can't reason with people who are unbelievers, who are false Christians. You can't reason with them at all, especially biblically.

You start making sense biblically, well, those are just hate facts. So what do they do? So he said, why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become one of his disciples? And you can hear this, the people standing by going.

And so the text says, they reviled him. That's the word used, reviled. By the way, I don't know if you know this, reviling is a sin. It is a breaking of the eighth commandment. Here, these fellows, in the name of defending whatever their religion is, and the Pharisees, by the way, are not biblical Jews.

They're not, get that out of your head. They're not. When you read from Genesis to Malachi, the Italian prophet, there is no mention in all of the Old Testament of any Pharisees. They came up during the intertestamental period.

They didn't exist before the end of the Old Testament, and these are people who usurped the rightly ordained and called people to teach the people of Israel who were the Levites, and they took their seats in the synagogue.

They created their sect. They claimed that they had a second Torah that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai, but it was never written down. Of course, they were the guardians of it and could tell you the details of it.

They were flat-out heretics. And you're going to note this, that those who do not believe rightly are incapable of producing the fruit of the Spirit. They are absolutely incapable of it. They might put a nice paint job on the facade, but as soon as you get them annoyed, out come the fangs.

So they reviled him. You are Jesus' disciple. We're disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we don't know where he comes from. That's an argument? So the man said, well, this is an amazing thing.

You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but to anyone who is a worshiper of God and does his will, takes their theology and shoves it right back in their face.

So never since the world began has it ever been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. That's some good theology right there, right?

Could he deny the one who gave him sight? Of course not. Do you not get this, guys? I was blind. Now I see. What is wrong with you? Well, they answered him, and here it comes. Now their false theology is like a stomach sickness.

They just vomit it up. You were born in utter sin, and you would teach us? And so they cast him out.

No synagogue for you!

He's excommunicated. The juxtaposition between evil and good is stark, and we have to see it even in settings like this. And it's in this context, this fellow who woke up that morning, brushed his teeth, combed his hair, did his normal routine, maybe had an egg and a bagel, you know, went to work begging for alms, doing everything he normally does.

And Jesus finds him and gives him his sight, and now he's excommunicated from the synagogue. What just happened? But here now Zorro comes to the rescue, right? Now the beautiful thing happens. Jesus heard that they had excommunicated him, and having found him, he seeks him out.

They excommunicated that guy? I need to go find him. And so Jesus goes, seeks him out, and when he sees him, he says, Do you believe in the Son of Man? Interesting question. And he answered, Who is he, sir, so that I might believe in him?

It reminds me of the legend of Zorro. Do you believe that Zorro will come? Zorro's asking the question, right? And then the mask comes off and shh, right? But so something amazing happens. Jesus said to him, You've seen him.

It's he who's speaking to you. And I don't know what transpires, but at that moment, this man who was blind just a few hours ago looks into the eyes of the man who saved him, the God who saved him, and you can almost see Jesus give him a little wink.

It's me.

And the guy says, Yes, Lord, I believe. And what does he do next? He worshipped Jesus. This man does the most amazing thing ever, and worshipping Jesus here requires him to then bow down and get down on his knees on his face to the ground and worship Christ, his Savior.

And then Jesus now speaks against those who oppressed him, those who cast him out of the church. It is for judgment that I came into this world so that those who do not see may see, and for those who see that they may become blind.

So some of the Pharisees were nearby and they said, Well, are we also blind? And watch where Jesus goes. If you were blind, you would have no guilt.

Ooh.

But because you say we now see, your guilt remains. This is the context, then, of where Jesus then launches into this discourse about being the good shepherd. The good shepherd in contradistinction from the wolves and the hirelings who care nothing for Christ's sheep, who have no love, no mercy, no pity, nothing.

They are all in it for only themselves, and they will attack and destroy anybody who opposes them.

The Good Shepherd Versus Thieves, Wolves, and Hirelings

Jesus says this,.

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 he's a robber. But he who enters by the door, he is the shepherd of the sheep.

To him the gatekeeper opens, the sheep hear his voice, he calls his own sheep by name and he leads them out. What a beautiful picture. This faithful, loving shepherd who cares for his flock so much so that each and every sheep isn't called, hey sheep, you sheep over there, you sheep.

No, every sheep he knows them by name. He knows you by name. He knows me by name. When he's brought them all out, he goes before them and the sheep follow him and 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.

And then Jesus says, I am the door of the sheep and all who came before me, they are thieves and robbers. But the sheep, they don't listen to them. I'm the door, if anyone enters by me, he will be saved and I will go in and out and find pasture.

The thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. And who are the thieves? The wolves, the false teachers, the people who are in it for themselves. I came though that they might have life and have it abundantly.

What a thing, right? And you're gonna note then that the thieves and the robbers, what are they doing? They're taking away people's hard-earned money and hard-earned resources and ingratiating themselves with other people's money, all in the name of God and all done falsely.

And this takes away from people and is a breaking of the commandment. You will not murder. You are taking their resources and making their lives more difficult and endangering them in all kinds of ways in order to ingratiate yourself on their fleece or on their meat.

But Jesus isn't like that. He doesn't want anything from you. He wants you. He wants you to live. He doesn't want you to die. This good shepherd has come to protect you from those wolves and those hirelings.

He was the hireling and not the shepherd who does not own the sheep. He sees the wolf coming. He leaves the sheep and he flees and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he's a hireling and cares nothing for the sheep.

But I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. And just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, I lay down my life for the sheep. Scripture admonishes us in the book of Romans as Christians to overcome evil with good.

And how did Christ overcome the dominion of darkness?

How did he do it?

In his great love, he laid down his life for his sheep. It makes no sense if you think about it, but he was willing to die even for his sheep so that they can live, so that he can take them from the troubles of wolves and hirelings and lead them to places where they can rest secure, where they can live, where they can be happy sheep.

What a thought.

What a loving, caring shepherd we have. And Jesus says, I have other sheep that are not of this fold, talking about Norwegians, because they're Gentiles, right? Yeah, right? And I must bring them also.

They will listen to my voice, so there will be one flock, there will be one shepherd. And for this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I might take it up again. And listen to what he says next.

No one takes my life from me. I lay it down of my own accord. In other words, everything that Jesus suffered on the cross, although there were human instruments that led to the kangaroo court trial that led to him being crucified, Jesus willingly wanted it that way.

I lay down my own life of my own accord, my own will. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it up again. This I have received from my Father. So you'll note, your great Jesus, your Savior, the one who saves us from the oppression of the darkness that is around us, of our own sin, our own false ideas, those who oppress us with false religion and false ideas as well.

Psalm 23 and the Shepherd Who Gives Life

He has come to save us, to set us free. And you're going to note then that in our psalm today, Psalm 23, a psalm we all know. This is one that oftentimes comes out at funerals and things like this. But you're going to note, consider in this great context of Christ, our good shepherd, and our Savior, that this is a wonderful text that teaches us that we are saved by the mighty works of Christ, not by our own.

Listen to the words again. The Lord is my shepherd, and I shall not be in want. He is the one who makes me lie down in green pastures. Who's in charge here? The shepherd, Jesus. He is the one who leads me beside still waters.

He is the one who restores my soul. And it is Christ who has led us to the still waters of baptism so that we may be washed of the filth and grime of sin. He is the one who led us today to the green pastures of this church to feast on the green nibbles of His Word so that we can be sustained.

And He is the one who restores our souls. He is the one who leads us in paths of righteousness all for His name's sake. And even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, indeed we are doing that because our shepherd is leading us through this veil of tears, but because He is with us, we will fear no evil.

He is with us. His rod and His staff, they comfort us. And He even has prepared before us in the presence of our enemies a table, a table of His body and blood given and shed for the forgiveness of our sins.

And because He anoints our heads with oil, our cups overflow. And because we have such a great shepherd in Jesus, surely goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives. And then when we finally draw our last breath, the wonderful promise here, and we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Man, what an amazing Savior. What a powerful Savior. What a loving and kind Savior. The juxtaposition between Him and our own evil, Him and the false teachers is so stark. We praise You, Lord Jesus, that You are our kind and loving shepherd who overcame evil by going to the cross and laying down Your life for Your sheep.

In the name of Jesus, amen.

If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax-free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744. And again that address is Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744.

We thank you for your support. All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message. And again, thank you for listening.