Good morning. It's a pleasure
to be with you all this morning. I have well wishes from Kingsport
for many people. We had a family birthday thing
Friday night, and my dad told me to tell all of his friends
in Danville that he said hello. And even for those of you who've
never met him or don't know him, that includes you too. If you
would, open your Bibles to the book of John. John chapter 10. Chapter 10. We'll start in verse 1 and read
a few verses of John 10. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth
up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he
that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
To him the porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice, and
he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when
he put forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep
follow him, for they know his voice. And a stranger will they
not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice
of strangers. This parable spake Jesus unto
them, but they understood not what things they were which he
spake unto them. Then said Jesus unto them again,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me
are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.
I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he
shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for
to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they
might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and
not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf
coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth. And the wolf catcheth
them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because
he is a hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good
shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. This morning
I have a question I want us all to think about. I was given advice
by my grandfather Henry when I first started preaching to
use pronouns that included people. So don't stand up here and say
I did this or look at you did this, but use we and us and include
because we all believe the same thing. We're all talking of the
same thing. But this morning I'm going to
break that rule because I want to use the word I. And when I
ask this question I want everyone to think of this within yourself. This question is, am I one of
the Lord's sheep? Am I one of the Lord's sheep? Ask yourself that question. Now
if I ask myself that question, and I have asked myself that
question for decades, and I had a couple different answers, or
a few different answers that I have answered that question
over the years, at times the answer was no. Look at me, no,
there's no way I'm one of his sheep. Then in other times, I've
answered that question, yes. Whether that be out of confidence,
arrogance, or whatever it was, I had said yes. But most of the
time, my answer found itself in the middle somewhere. Something
along the lines of, I'm not sure, or I have my doubts. Now why
would I answer that question like that? Well, the first thing
is my worthiness to be one of his sheaves. From the outside,
it's obvious I'm nothing worthy of being one of the Lord's. Inside,
it's so much worse. I know all of you who have heard
the gospel and have heard this word preached understand that
we have no worthiness. We're not worthy of anything
from God other than death. I doubt often because of my ability. I've got no ability to save myself. I've got no ability to make myself
one of His. I can't do anything. I have my
doubts based off of my faith or lack thereof, off of my belief
or lack thereof. I have so many doubts, so many
things that I just, I can't see it. I can't see how I could be
one of His sheep. And all of these things, all of them are
problems that I have and they're all doubts with me. They're all
doubts that are all of this flesh, all the things that I see in
myself. And let me give you an illustration to explain the point
I'm getting to. These doubts are all with me.
None of them are doubts about the Lord. None of them are doubts
about Christ. When I lived in Lexington a decade
or more ago, One time, I decided, I want to be baptized. I want
to be baptized. I had heard Todd there talk about
it. I had heard what he said, and
I had heard it growing up, and I wanted to be baptized. So I
thought to myself, I'm going to go over and ask him. So one
day, I got in my car, and I decided I'm going to go ask him to be
baptized. You know, I didn't make it to church. I didn't get
there. And then a few days later, I
thought, I need to go over and see him. And I didn't make it
again. And then one day, finally, I
decided I was going and I pulled in the parking lot and immediately
put it in reverse and backed out and left. And every single
time I was right there and wanted to ask to be baptized, I thought,
I'm not ready. I can't. That's not for me. I
don't have the worthiness to ask that. I can't be baptized.
Look at me. And over the course of years,
this went on forever. One time, I pulled in the parking
lot and sat there for about 30 minutes but just couldn't get
out of the car. One time, I finally got enough nerve and I went into
the church and into his office. And we gave our pleasantries
for a few seconds and he said, so what brings you over here?
And I totally panicked. And I said, I just wanted to
talk about Kentucky basketball with you. And all of that, I
want you to understand that when we look at ourselves, when we
try to find worthiness, ability, faith, all of those things in
ourselves, we can't convince ourselves of anything. When I
ask you this question, or you ask yourself this question, am
I one of the Lord's sheep? If I look visually at myself,
or inside, or you, if I'm being honest, the answer is just no
way. The best I can do is say I have
my doubts. Maybe there's a chance. And that's
only because of Him. I've read in this book and I've
heard men tell me for my entire life how gracious He is, how
merciful He is, how wonderful He is. All of those things. And
that's the only reason that I can get myself from no to I have
my doubts. Because I think to myself, maybe.
Maybe there's a chance. But when I look at the Lord Jesus
Christ, I believe that He is a worthy sacrifice. I believe
that He is worthy of taking on the punishment that I deserve.
I believe that He is worthy. I believe that He is able to
save to the uttermost. He can do it. I believe that
He is faithful to the end. I believe that He loves His sheep
and did what was necessary to save them. When I look at Him,
my answer begins to change. I think upon Him, I lose my doubts. Our focus is on the wrong part
of this question. We always look at the I, we always
look at that part, and we see what we can do, how we are involved,
what part we play. And this is false religion's
greatest ruse, it's their greatest trick. Make salvation about our
favorite topic, ourselves. If you ever read, you decide,
I'm going to look into these self-help books, I'm going to
look into sales books, all these things. You know what they all
basically come down to? If you want to sell somebody
something, you talk about them. Honestly, if you come up to me
and you start talking about anything in the world, I might pay attention
to you. But you talk about me, I'm all
in. I love talking about me. And
that's what false religion does. They make everything about us.
They make everything about you sit in the pew. They say all
these things about what you can do and what you can do if you
act this way. All these things. It's false religion's great trick.
The key to this question, as with everything, is the phrase,
the Lord. It's about Him. We must look
at Him. Would you go into a hospital,
into a NICU, into a newborn facility, and would you go up to one of
the newborn babies and say, who's your father? You'd be waiting
forever. You'd never get an answer. They
don't even know the answer. Instead, you go to the father
and you say, who is your child? You go to the Lord and that's
where you find the answer. Look to Him, He has all the answers.
Look with me here for a couple of these verses in this portion.
Now if I ask this question, am I one of the Lord's sheep? I
think you all understand the other way you could say this
is, am I saved? But I'm using it this way because this is the
portion of Scripture and the Lord is the shepherd and He talks
so much about His sheep. So look at verse 14 here. Verse
14 says, I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known
of mine. In this passage, there's plenty
of things that are talked about about the sheep doing. The sheep
hear his voice, the sheep come, all those things. But every time
it does that, it's not saying those things. You need to look
at what follows it. So when it says things like,
and am known of my sheep, implying that I know him, what it says
is I'm the good shepherd and I know my sheep and am known
of them. The only reason a sheep knows
its shepherd is because the shepherd knows the sheep. The shepherd
makes the sheep to know who he is. We don't have a clue who
the shepherd is until the shepherd makes himself known. We can't
be hard on other people who don't know the shepherd. We didn't
know the shepherd until he opened our eyes and our hearts to see
the shepherd. And this says, I am the good shepherd. I love
that it uses the word good when it talks about our Lord sometimes.
because we know he's all powerful, he's great. But to know that
he is good to his sheep, I need someone who is good to me. I
don't just need someone who's powerful, who has the ability.
I need someone who acts in a way that shows me they care. They're
gentle, they're careful with me because I'm fragile, I need
that. Look at verse 15. As the Father
knoweth me, even so know I the Father. And I lay down my life
for the sheep." Here it is again. I know the Father. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
mediator to God. He is the one who takes our place.
We can't stand before a holy God. He has to stand for us. He had to bear our sins. He had
to do all of that for us. And it says, I lay down my life
for the sheep. That's the shepherd we need.
We don't need any of these hirelings. We don't need someone who wants
to act like the shepherd or do things that are kind of like
the shepherd. We need a shepherd who loves the sheep and would
give his life for the sheep. That's who we need because he
had to give his life. You know, there's a song that
somebody says something about, I would take a bullet for you,
but it's easy to say because there's no bullets going through,
like nobody's shooting. Well, it's really easy for someone
to say, I would give my life for you. I mean, I pray I would. I really do, that I would sacrifice
myself for my children or somebody to protect them that I love.
But I don't have a lot of confidence in myself. But the shepherd here,
it doesn't just say, I would lay my life down for my sheep.
He did lay his life down for the sheep. He is a proven shepherd. He did what was necessary for
his sheep. Verse 16, and other sheep I have
which are not of this fold, them also I must bring and they shall
hear my voice and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. Our Lord is faithful to the end.
Our Lord talks so much in this book of salvation and how salvation
was done and what He did and for all of those that are His
sheep. But it's so comforting when you read stuff about there
are more sheep. I know a lot of people, I love a lot of people
that I really want to be a sheep. And even for myself, when I say
I answer that question no sometimes or I have my doubts, it makes
me happy that it says he will save all of his sheep. Just because
someone doesn't appear to be a sheep or someone doesn't act
like a sheep, it doesn't mean they're not a sheep. The Lord
Jesus Christ saves all of his sheep. Every single one he chose,
every single one he elected, he will save them. Look at verse
17. Therefore doth my Father love
me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again."
The Lord Jesus Christ loves His sheep. He loves them. And He
laid down His life, and because of who He is and what He's done,
that He might take it again. Our Lord is not one that sacrificed
Himself in the way that we think of that. We think of a sacrifice
as one who puts themselves in a position, and once they do
that, that's all they can do. No, our God saved us and then
arose from death victorious and ascended on high in His glory.
Not only could He sacrifice Himself for us, but then His omniscience,
His power, He ascended into glory. And that's where He is now. Look
at verse 18. And this is so important. When
it says there in these previous verses, "...as the shepherd that
lay down his life for his sheep." All those things. Verse 18 says,
"...no man taketh it from me, but I lay it down myself." Our
God is one who did it by choice. He didn't do something because
He just... Someone had the power, or he
had a weak moment, or he couldn't, all these things. Whatever religion
likes to say that we had to do something or play a part of.
Our God himself did something because he wanted to do it, he
needed to do it, he had to do it, and he loved his children.
He did it by choice. And it says, I have power to
lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment
have I received of my father. He did it as a willful son. He did it as one who was doing
what he was told to do. He had to do it to save his children.
Now let's read a few verses here. Let me read you something out
of Luke real quick, a couple verses we all know. What man
of you, having a hundred sheep, If he lose one of them, doth
not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after
that which is lost until he find it. And when he hath found it,
he layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing. And when he cometh
home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying
unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was
lost. I say unto you that likewise
joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than
over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance. This
passage, talking about the Good Shepherd and our Lord, as a child,
I remember hearing that phrase saying, anyone who had a hundred
sheep, if one of them ran away, who wouldn't leave the ninety-nine
and go to the one? I remember thinking to myself,
me? I'm going to protect the ninety-nine. I'm not leaving
them to go get the one. And everything in this is just
something we can't even comprehend, what He did for His sheep. I
say unto you that likewise, joy shall be in heaven over one sinner
that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons
which need no repentance. Our Lord celebrates, he loves
his sheep. He loves his children. He loves
them. Let's read a few more verses
in this passage. Verse 19. So he told this story, this parable
to them. And verse 19 says, There was
a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. And
many of them said, He hath a devil and is mad. Why hear ye him? Others said, These are not the
words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of
the blind? Everybody who heard these things, there were people
there who heard the Lord speak and their response was, this
guy is crazy. How in the world? And then other
people thought, well, he can't be that crazy because of all
these miracles he's doing. Verse 22 says, And it was at
Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus
walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews round
about him and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to
doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us
plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you,
and you believed not. The works that I do in my Father's
name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye
are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice,
and I know them, and they follow me." This is so important because
when I ask this question, am I one of the Lord's sheep? It says here that the Lord said
these things. He goes, I told you and you believe
not because you're not one of my sheep. Well, that's a scary
thought. If the Lord says this to all
these people and some believe and some don't, I don't trust myself to believe.
Keep going. But ye believe not because ye
are not of my sheep. As I said unto you, my sheep
hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. The sheep
hear because the Lord makes them hear. They follow because He
leads them. He takes them. Verse 28, And
I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father which
gave them Me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck
them out of My Father's hand. I and My Father are one." We don't hear Him, but He speaks
to us. We don't follow Him, He takes
us. He's the one who does all the
work. He does everything. He gets all the glory for it.
That song, Be Thou My Vision, I love that song and there's
phrases in it such as, that you would be the only thing in my
heart, you'd be my heart of my heart, whatever happens. I love
the thought that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only thing that
we can see. Do you know one day that's the
way it will be? You know in glory it won't matter where we are,
it won't matter which direction we're looking, it won't matter
if our eyes are open or closed. He will be all we will see. That's
how glorious He is. That's how wonderful He is. We
couldn't possibly not see Him. And that's the way it should
be for us now. He is worthy of our praise. He is due of our
love. He is faithful no matter what. The Gospel is the truth
whether He saved us or not. This is the truth. Now I realize
that I've spent a decent bit of time here and I've gone to
this question that I ask, am I one of the Lord's sheep? And
I haven't really helped anyone out in answering that question
for yourself. I want you to know that no one
can help you answer that question. It doesn't matter if it's a preacher,
a stranger, the person you trust the most, the person you spend
the most time with, no one can answer that question for you.
But it's so important that we do ask ourselves that question. But let me help you in a way
that might help you answer the question. If you will turn with
me over to John 21. Admittedly, I'm a bit of a cynic
or a pessimist when it comes to the world and the concept
of being one of the Lord's sheep or being saved. I see things
publicly and you hear things and there's just no way. There's
just no way that person actually believes. The question here, look with
me real quick and I'll come back to that. Look in verse 14 of
John 21. In verse 14, this is now the third
time that Jesus showed Himself to His disciples after that He
was risen from the dead. So the Lord's risen, it's the
third time He's appeared to them, and everybody's going to know
this story once we start here. So when they had dined, Jesus
saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me
more than these. Remember, Peter denied the Lord
three times. A little maid came to him and
said, aren't you with him? And he, no way, and just berated
her and got so angry that anyone would even think to ask him that
he followed the Lord. And he denied him three times,
and this is when the Lord came back. So he asked Peter, Simon
son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He said unto
him, yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. And the Lord
said unto him, feed my lambs. And the Lord said to him again
the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter
said unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He
said unto him, Feed my sheep. And the Lord saith unto him the
third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved
because He said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And
he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things. Thou knowest
that I love thee. Jesus said unto him, Feed my
sheep. I bring this part up in this because I want us to notice
something. Peter had done something that
I've been guilty of. Now thankfully the Lord has kept
me from completely making a fool of myself in public and denying
him out loud to where everybody knows about it. But there have
been plenty of times where I could have said something, I should
have said something, I could have done something, and I have
faltered and just wilted pathetically. But what Peter did here is a
great example to us about lack of faith, lack of belief, lack
of our strength, our ability, our worthiness, all these things
I've been talking about. Yet after all of that, what's
the one thing our Lord asks him? Do you love me? Peter, do you
love me? That's the question we have to
ask ourselves. There are a lot of people, and
I mean a lot of people, who would say that they love the Lord.
A lot of people. And when we have to ask ourselves,
do I love the Lord Jesus Christ? That's a question that Peter
said, yes, and the Lord said, feed my sheep. That's the only
question that Peter had to answer, that he loved the Lord. And when
we ask ourselves, Do we love the Lord? Do I love the Lord
Jesus Christ? We have to ask ourselves that,
removing all the baggage that our sin creates. The first is,
we can't say that we love the Lord because that's what benefits
us in society. There are a lot of people, a
whole lot of people, who when asked if they love the Lord,
they would say yes. Because that's what they want their friends
to think. That's what they want their family to think. That's
what they want their community to think. There are a lot of
reasons. And if I'm being honest, my sinfulness
causes me to answer some of those questions or act in a behavior
like that. I don't know if you've ever been
in a situation before where the subject of the Lord Jesus Christ
comes up And if I'm in a group of people who love Him also and
believe Him, I'm very vocal. I'm very strong in my love. Absolutely
I do. I believe it. But if I'm in a
group of people who don't or who I'm not sure what they think,
I don't talk the same way. I don't quite stand the same
ground. I don't quite bring up the subject
and try to push the issue and say, you have to believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. If you don't believe on Him, But that's what most people do
when we say, do we love the Lord? Now, we also oftentimes say we
love the Lord Jesus Christ because of His power. There have been
a lot of people over the years that have bowed before a king
that they hated because they were scared of what that person
could do to them. We can't love the Lord because we know that
He has the authority to condemn us or to save us. And there are
many more of that, but let me focus on this instead. When we
say, do we love the Lord? The answer to that question has
to come in, do we love it that the Lord Jesus Christ gets all
the glory? He gets all of it. Every single
thing in my life that I've done that is negative in any way is
my fault. And every single thing that I've
ever done that's a positive or anything is all because of Him.
All of it. Are we okay that when it comes
to salvation, us either being condemned or being saved, it
is 100% Him that saves? We can't give ourselves any credit,
not a pinch, not anything. That famous line of if we were
put on the threshold of glory and we literally just had to
take a step or fall forward, we couldn't do it. We don't get
any of the glory. Are we okay when we say, We love
the Lord and that it really doesn't matter what happens to us or
to our loved ones? Our God is faithful to His sheep. Our God is holy. And whether
He saves me or not, He is still holy. I don't deserve anything. If He does that, it is because
His glory, His mercy, His grace, and His will, His kindness, His
goodness to us. When we say we love the Lord,
are we saying that we are okay with whatever happens to us in
this flesh? That those days that we have,
those moments that don't go our way, that we get frustrated,
can we understand that all things work together for the good of
them who love God, to them who are called according to His purpose?
I have a gentleman that I know really well. that recently his
entire department where he worked was just eliminated. He had a
meeting, had no idea what it was about, 9.30 he goes into
the meeting, within moments the entire department is in there
and all of their access on their phones is getting deleted. They
are being eliminated from a job in a moment. No idea anything
happens. a couple weeks later gets a call
from someone in the same area and says, I understand if you
don't want to come back here, but I've got a job for you that
pays you more and you have to do less work. And I was so happy
for him when I found that out. But put ourselves in that situation.
If you were at your job and your boss came in to you and said,
I'm going to give you a raise and I'm going to take a little bit
off your plate. What would we do? First thing I'd do is be
like, it's about time they recognize how important I am, and how much
I do for this place, and all these kind of things. But instead,
if He takes it away, and then gives it right back to us. So
in that couple weeks, that situation went from A to B. But the way
we would ask for it to happen, we get all the glory. But when
the Lord does that to us, we realize He's in control. And
yet every time something bad happens, what do we do? We question,
we wonder, all those things. Back to this, do we love the
Lord no matter what He does with us? No matter in what way this
flesh, this wind takes us earthly, do we love Him? That's the question
we have to ask. Because as it says here with
Peter, do you love me? Now, let me close with this. We love Him because He first
loved us. Us answering this question, do
we love the Lord Jesus Christ? This is not, I made a decision
to love Him. Or, I've read through this book
and I've decided that He's worth loving. None of that stuff happens. He loved me, so I loved Him. Once He shows one of His sheep
who He is, and I mean once you just get a glimpse of who He
is, the immediate reaction, the only thing possible that can
happen, is you love Him. Once you see what He has done
for you and once you see how little, you don't have any claim
to it, you have no claim to it, not little, you have no claim
to it, you've got no ability, no worthiness, all the things
that give us our doubts, all the things that make me not sure
if I'm one of His. Once we see that and we realize
that the Lord Jesus Christ loves And that's a love that one day,
thankfully, He will give us an ability to love Him like we should,
because His love is perfect. And that's what we must ask ourselves.
And if we don't know that answer, it's okay. There were plenty
of times in my life that I didn't even, the word love, with someone
I've never met or seen felt very odd as a child. It's kind of
like when you go to a family reunion and an aunt or somebody
that you either never met or they know you when you were a
child and they come up to you and they're like, I love you so much. And it's
just so hard to be like, I love you too. Like, you just aren't
sure what to say and all that stuff. But ask the Lord, ask
the Lord, Lord, would you please save me? Would you please love
me? I would like to say, Lord, make
me love you. But if he loves me, I love him. And so when we
ask her that question, am I one of the Lord's sheep? If we love
him, then we're one of his. So pray to him, ask him, Lord,
please save me. Please give me just an ounce
of love for you. Just give me something because,
Lord, we're desperate. We need you. All right.