John chapter 10 today, if you
want to turn back to that chapter. I've entitled today's message,
The Lord is My Shepherd. The Lord is My Shepherd. What
a comfort that is, isn't it? There is very much spoken in
scripture of the Lord Jesus Christ as our shepherd. And so we can
spend a long time in this chapter, but I'm happy to be here with
you all. I think that the first few words
of that psalm that Brad just read for us, the Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want, is really a summary of everything God has said in
scripture. Because Christ, Jesus, the Lord
is our shepherd, there's nothing that we lack. We have everything. Having Christ, we have everything. If we have nothing but Christ,
then we have everything. If we have Christ and need something
else, at least we think we need something else, then we really
have nothing at all, do we? There's a song that I've been
fond of for a number of years. It says, there were ninety and
nine that safely lay in the shelter of the fold. But one was out
on the hills away, far off from the gates of gold, away on the
mountains wild and bare, away from the tender shepherd's care. Lord, thou hast here thy ninety
and nine. Are they not enough for thee?
But the shepherd made answer, this of mine has wandered away
from me. And although the road be rough
and steep, I go to the desert to find my sheep. But none of
the ransomed ever knew how deep were the waters crossed, nor
how dark was the night that the Lord passed through ere he found
his sheep that was lost. Far out in the desert he heard
his cry, t'was sick and helpless and ready to die. Lord, whence
are those blood drops all the way that mark out the mountain's
track? They were shed for one who had
gone astray, ere the shepherd could bring him back. Lord, whence
are thy hands so rent and torn? They are pierced tonight by many
a thorn. And all through the mountains,
thunder riven, and up from the rocky steep, there arose a glad
cry to the gate of heaven. Rejoice, I have found my sheep. and the angels echoed before
the throne, rejoice for the Lord brings back his own." Now that's
a hymn that really summarizes the sentiments of someone who
can say, by God's grace, the Lord is my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. I pray
that we can say that from scripture and from this chapter. There's
nothing in this chapter that is said of the sheep that is
the cause for the Lord being their shepherd, nothing in them. All of the strength, all of the
ability, and all of the trust was put into the hand of the
shepherd. And that's a comfort to the sheep. And we saw this last week, but
I want to remind you of this in the verses, verses 27. And actually, let me read from
verse 25. Jesus answered those who opposed
what he said here in this chapter. When they asked him, if you're
the Christ, then tell us plainly, in verse 24, he said, I told
you. And you believed not. They did not believe when he
said what he was, that he was the Christ of God, the Son of
God. And he explained that he was the shepherd. He said, the
works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me,
but you believe not, the second time he said that now, because
you're not of my sheep. Sheep are not sheep because they
believe. And those who are not Christ's
sheep, are not his sheep, not because they believe, but they
are unable to believe because they are not his sheep. And so
those who are given this grace to believe are the Lord's sheep. And that's what he means in the
next verse when he says, my sheep hear my voice. when he says voice
here, he's talking about not just the sound of his voice,
although that's the way sheep recognize the shepherd, but he's
talking about the message that he brings. The message, because
the sheep recognize Christ by the message that he brings. People
will pretend that they are speaking for the Lord Jesus Christ, but
when they tell men and women and boys and girls what is not
true from God's word, then the sheep find nothing in that voice
that's comforting and everything to be afraid of. And so they
won't hear that. My sheep hear my voice and I
know them. He doesn't just mean he knows
them as sheep. He knows them. He really knows
them. He has named them and he loves
them. He knows them with a saving love. I know them and they follow me.
And that's what he means when he's talking about those who
are not his sheep. You don't believe, they do. Those who are
not his sheep hear and they don't believe. Those who are his sheep
hear the message of the gospel, how God saves sinners who are
helpless and needy and poor and have nothing to recommend themselves
to God and no claims on God except that God has told us of Christ. And we have found as sheep, we
have found ourselves to be helpless and needy and needing one to
save us from our sins. And we believe Him. We trust
Him. We hear that voice and we trust
that's the shepherd. That's how we know we're God's
sheep. God's sheep believe what God
said, the Lord Jesus Christ has said to us. We believe the truth
that God has revealed because He said it. Because the one who
has promised to save us from our sins has spoken these things.
We believe, we agree, there's nothing in me. I can't produce
anything of all that God requires. I can't even produce what people
in religion require. Every time I try, I fail. And
when I think I'm doing better, I find myself getting worse and
worse. And so we recognize our need
is so great that only God can meet it, and he has met it in
Christ. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
the voice we hear from the gospel. And so that is the sign of one
being Christ's sheep. They were his sheep before they
believed. There was nothing in them that caused God to choose
them or for Christ to die for them. You cannot find it in yourself. If you look for it and find it,
then you are not God's sheep. But if the Lord has saved you,
then you know that I'm constantly in need of saving and can only
be saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what it means to believe
Him. It means to embrace the truth that God is all of my salvation
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and I have nothing else. I will never
bring with me a bag of things that can recommend me to God
because there's nothing in the bag. There's nothing to recommend
me to God for myself. I can't promise to do better
because I'll always fail. I can't promise to continue because
I know I can't continue unless by God's grace He gives me that
continuance. I can't understand, I can't believe,
I can't follow him unless he calls me and keeps me and saves
me and gives me life. That's what the sheep do. They're
helpless. And they know something about
that. And I saw a movie recently about how cattle are prey animals. They're subject to being devoured
by animals that prey on them. And when the cattle are sensing
danger, they make a loud sound. That's why they move so loudly. And I thought that was interesting.
Sheep do that. You hear them out there just
making loud sounds. Because they're afraid. And they're
calling to one another. And the shepherd hears them,
and he goes out, and he finds them, and he brings them back.
And that's what this is about here. So I want to go through
this chapter with you some more today. And hopefully, we'll see
more things here that we saw last week. In verse 1, it's picking
up on what we saw in chapter 9, that the Pharisees pretended
to be what they thought, really, that they were enough, that God
was pleased with them and themselves, the very opposite of the sheep.
The opposite of the sheep are those who trust in themselves
that they are righteous. A sheep says, I have no righteousness. The sheep say, I'm blind. I can't
see the way of salvation. I need someone to bring me. I
need someone to open my eyes and give it to me, and keep giving
it to me. Give me this salvation. And so
they make the sound of sheep, that sheep make. They call out,
because they're such needy. And the enemy hears that, of
course, they would have them. But the shepherd hears, and he
comes, and he saves them. The Lord is my shepherd. If the
Lord is my shepherd, the God of creation, God Almighty, the
Most High God, if He has so stooped to consider my need as His own,
there's nothing that can stop Him from saving me and bringing
me and fulfilling all of His will. And so, how did he do that? How would God Almighty save a
sinner? Well, he appointed a shepherd. Someone who was able to save
them. Someone who was willing to save
them. To be a shepherd to them. To
go after them. To find them. And to do everything
necessary to bring them to God. And that requires what is said
in this chapter. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
shepherd. And so he speaks this parable
to those who trusted in themselves, but he says it not just to them,
but for the comfort of the sheep. In fact, the first 18 verses
of this chapter are spoken to the sheep. Notice, he says, verily,
verily I say to you, he that entereth not by the door into
the sheep fold, but climbs up some other way, the same as a
thief and a robber. Now, this is a parable. And the
Lord Jesus Christ often spoke in parables. Those who did not
hear, didn't understand, it was spoken that way so that they
wouldn't understand. But those who were given to understand,
they were given this grace to see that the parables all speak
about the Lord and his salvation of his people. In Matthew 13,
Jesus said, I speak to them in parables because they, seeing,
see not, and hearing, they hear not, neither do they understand.
And that's exactly what happened in John 9. They said, we see. And Jesus said, no, you see not. They said, we hear. No, you don't
hear. And so he gave them this parable
here in John 10. There's a sheepfold, there's
a shepherd. And the way into the sheepfold is through a door. And the only one who can go through
that door is the shepherd and the sheep. The sheepfold are
those people with God, given by God to the shepherd to save. They're the Lord's people. How
I long to be that. Don't you? There's nothing more
I want in this life, for myself, my wife, my children, and for
you, than that you would be one of God's sheep. That you would
hear Christ's gospel. That's his voice. that you would
hear and believe Him. You would find yourself so needy
that your only hope is that Jesus Christ, the Lord, the God of
glory, would do everything God requires and then answer in judgment
for you. according to the holy requirements
of God's own holiness and all of his glory to save your soul. And if that's in your heart,
if you realize, Lord, I need you. I need you to answer for
me. I need you to bear my sins. I need you to choose me. I need
you to give yourself for me and give yourself to me to make yourself
known and to give me this grace to believe you. See, that's the
attitude of a needy, poor sheep. Someone who's helpless and can't
see and can't hear unless the Lord calls them. So they're in
the sheepfold. They're there by God's choice.
God the Father has chosen his people before the foundation
of the world. He chose them in Christ. That's the sheepfold.
What is the sheepfold? God's people chosen in Christ. What's the door? God's choice
of Christ to be their shepherd. Only the shepherd can come through
that door to get the sheep. God the Father will not allow
any but the one he chose. He's the only one worthy. He's
the only one able. He's the only one willing to
give his life for the sheep. He's the only one who loves the
sheep and loves the Father. He's the only one who can do
all that God himself in all of his holiness requires in order
to save a sinful people and to bring them into the presence
of God's glory without fault, blameless, in love with all of
the joy of God's own heart. That's the door, that's Christ.
And he's the only one who can lawfully come in this way because
he's the one God chose. So the porter is God himself. He grants entrance to Christ
and to his sheep, those chosen in Christ. They come to him when,
by God's grace, the Lord Jesus Christ makes himself known in
the gospel, and they trust him. And they come to God trusting
Christ. Acts chapter 4, in Acts chapter
4 and verse 9, it says this, listen. He says, Be it known unto you, verse 10,
be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel,
that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified,
whom God raised from the dead, even by him, does this man stand
here before you whole. Jesus Christ of Nazareth. This
is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which
has become the head of the corner. You rejected him, God made him
the cornerstone. Neither is there salvation in
any other, for there is none other name under heaven given
among men whereby we must be saved. There's only one name.
It's Jesus Christ the Lord. He's the shepherd. He's the door.
God says there's only one name. It's the shepherd, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And he directs us to him. And
he receives Christ. When the Lord Jesus Christ came
to his father to undertake for his people to bring them to God,
God said, yes, you're the one. And he chose him, he anointed,
he appointed him and anointed him and sent him. That's what
this means. God the Father sent his son as
our shepherd. Look at John chapter 10 and verse
36. They were very angry at Jesus because he
said, I am one, I and my father are one. And here in verse 36,
he says, do you say of him whom the father has sanctified and
sent into the world that I blaspheme because I said I am the son of
God? So God the father set him apart
as our shepherd and sent him as our shepherd into the world
where his sheep were, and he is the son of God. Throughout
this entire chapter, Jesus refers to the father as my father, which
identifies him as the son of God. There's only one who could
say my father, it's God the son. And so God the father sent his
son into the world, as it says in 1 John 4, 9, that we might
live by him. he sent his son to be the shepherd
of the sheep that he might give life to his sheep, to his people.
And so that's what he's saying in verse 1. The Pharisees, they
had usurped, they had forced their way into that office that
was only given to Christ to fulfill, to be the one through whom men
would come to God. And they had put themselves in
that place. Men must come through us to get
to God. And he said, you are a thief and a robber because
you don't come by Christ. You have to recognize that you
yourself can only come to God by Christ, let alone pretending
in your arrogance, in your pride, in your idolatry, to put yourself
in that place. So he says, no. Verily, verily,
I say to you, verse 1, he that entereth not by the door, by
God's choice setting him up as the shepherd, into the sheepfold,
but climbs up some other way, the same as a thief and a robber.
But he that enters in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep."
He comes by God's commission, by God's choice, by God's anointing. To him, to the shepherd, the
porter, open it. That would be God the Father
opening to Christ to give access to him to come to save his people,
which he did when he sent him into the world and called his
sheep to him. Remember what Jesus said in John
chapter 6? No man can come to me except
the Father which has sent me draw him. Remember that? In John
6, verse 44, no man can come to me except the Father which
has sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day.
The Father has given sheep, given people to Christ. He draws them
to him. He shows them their need. He
shows them their sin. He shows them their utter helplessness
and their hopelessness in their natural condition, in themselves.
They have no strength and they're under the judgment of eternal
judgment. death and hell, and they're under the delusion and
the deception of Satan, and they can't do anything about it. And
then God the Father sends his Son into the world to redeem
them, to lay his life down for them. And given that, given the
fact that he did put away their sins, that he draws those people
to Christ. And he shows them, he's everything,
everything in your salvation. He's even the grace that he gives
to you to see, open your eyes, to believe, and to trust him.
That's all from him, the shepherd. And so God the Father has designated
and appointed and given him this as the shepherd. And then he
says this in verse four, in verse three, to him the porter openeth,
and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by
name, and he leads them out. Now, this is the sheepfold, and
he doesn't lead them out to leave the sheepfold, but he leads them
out to himself. You see, because a shepherd in
the parable is taking sheep that were protected in the sheepfold
and leading them out to the green pastures. But the green pastures
can't be grass. God doesn't give people grass
to eat, does he? No, he gives them what they're
hungry and thirsty for and what they really need for their life.
What is it that they're hungering and thirsting for and they need
for their life? Well, in Matthew chapter 5 and
verse 6, he says this. He says, blessed are they, and
I'm looking at Matthew chapter 5 verse 6, as soon as I get there. Blessed are they which do hunger
and thirst after righteousness. For they shall be filled. What
is this green pasture then? It's what sheep hunger and thirst
for. And what do God's people hunger and thirst for? But the
righteousness that they have in the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything,
everything, all spiritual blessings are given to us in the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's from Ephesians chapter
1 verse 3. God the Father has given us every spiritual blessing,
all heavenly blessings in Christ. And because that's where he deposited
those blessings, he chose us in him to give us those blessings,
and that's where they are. So when here in verse 3, John
10 verse 3, he leads them out, he calls his sheep by name, And
when he, in verse 4, when he puts forth his own sheep, he
goes before them, and the sheep follow him, and they, for they
know his voice. So here we are now, God's people,
called by the gospel. We're helpless, we're sinful,
we're dirty, we're stinky, we're lost, we've gone astray, we can't
save ourselves, and we're victims, we're subject to being consumed
and devoured by the wolves, and scattered from the shepherd. And the Lord Jesus Christ calls
us, and he shows us his wounds. And we hear him say in the gospel, he says in Zechariah chapter
13, verse 7, stretch forth my hand against the shepherd, smite
the shepherd. So now we see that the way we're
brought to God is God the Father had to smite our shepherd. He had to pierce his soul with
many a thorn and sorrow and put him to death in order to bring
us to God. And so that's what he's speaking
about here. He goes before them. He goes before them to the cross,
He goes before them to glory, He goes before them in the resurrection
and the ascension, and He's at the right hand for them, pleading
for them and advocating for them. They're sinful, yes, but I bore
their sins. They're sinful, they're like
others, yes, but they're mine. You gave them to me, and I died
for them. and I'm praying according to
the blood of my propitiating blood to receive them for my
sake. The Father receives us for Christ's sake. Notice, I
want you to see this in Ephesians. Look at Ephesians chapter 5.
This is such a great, a wonderful text of scripture. I want you
to notice this in the scripture. Everywhere where the Lord Jesus
Christ gives himself for his people, everywhere, it speaks
of his love for them. He loves them and gives himself
for them. Notice here in Ephesians 5, he
says in verse 2, walk in love as Christ also has, what? Loved
us and has given himself for us, not just something he created,
not just a piece of himself, he gave himself entirely because
of his love for us. There was nothing in us to love,
no reason in us to be loved by God or anyone else for that matter.
especially by the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet He loved us because
He loved us, because it pleased Him to set His love on us. Walk
in love. You now who believe the gospel,
you live this way. As Christ has loved us and given
himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling
savor. He gave himself for us out of
love. Therefore, we are to follow God
in this. We are not to treat our brethren
in any other way. In the last verse of chapter
4, he says, Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving
one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Because he loved us and gave
himself entirely for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God,
God says, Forgive them. Forgive them. The scales of justice
have been more than satisfied. Give them everything. Look at
Galatians chapter 1. In Galatians chapter 1, in verse
4, he says, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver
us from this present evil world according to the will of God
and our Father." You see, there's the will of God. That's the porter. Christ is the shepherd. It was
God's will. Christ stepped up and did it.
He gave himself. Look at chapter 2, Galatians
2, verse 20. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless,
I live. I was crucified with him, but
he rose, and therefore I rose. Yet not I, I don't live as an
individual separate from Him, but Christ lives in me. He is my life. He says, and the
life which I now live in the flesh, in this body that's dying
and sinful, I live by the faith of the Son of God. In other words,
I'm listening to my shepherd. I'm following him. I'm looking
to him in everything who loved me and gave himself for me. Isn't that wonderful? And one
more text like this in Revelation chapter 1, I'll take you to this
one, finally, and we'll go back to John 10. He says in Revelation
chapter 1 and verse 5 that this message, this book, was given
to John. He says, he's writing, John to
the seven churches, verse 4, which are in Asia, grace be to
you, peace from him which is and which was and which is to
come. That's Christ. And from the seven spirits which
are before his throne, and from, actually that was God the Father,
and from the spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ,
who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the
dead, and the prince of the kingdom, kings of the earth, unto him,
Jesus Christ, that loved us, and washed us from our sins in
his own blood. That's what the shepherd did.
Did we bring anything to the table? Of course not. We were
the sinners. The only thing we had is sin. And the Lord, in fact, He did
this before we were even born. He loved us before we were born. He gave Himself for us before
we were born. Because God the Father had given
us to Him before we were born, before the world began. Back
to John chapter 10. So they hear, they follow him.
A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him,
for they know not the voice of strangers. Has anyone ever...
Have you heard someone who claims to be a minister of God and to
say things like, now all you need to do is... Well, you want to be saved. All
you need to do is... And then they say something after
that. That is not the message of the gospel. The message of
the gospel is, yes, you are a sinner, and here is what God has done. And you're a sheep now, and you
hear that, and in hearing that, the Spirit of God gives you life. And in that life, He causes you,
with God-given persuasion, to see Christ is everything. It doesn't matter what I have
done or what I could ever do. The only thing that matters is
what God did when He gave Christ, what Christ did when He gave
Himself, what God the Father did when He received Him again
from the dead. He received us in Him. It's all
about what God has done and what He thinks of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we hear that. And we say,
yes, that's the voice of my shepherd. And we follow Him. We trust Him.
We look to Him. What does it mean to follow Jesus? We think of that as imitating
Him. And yes, it's true. We ought to imitate the Lord
Jesus Christ. But following means you look
upon the one you're following, don't you? You know what it's
like when you're following somebody and you start looking and see
how someone else is following them. Well, how are you doing
over there? And all of a sudden, where did
they go? You lose sight because you're not following them, you're
looking at someone else. Or you're looking at your feet.
How am I doing? Not well, because you're looking
at your feet. I always remember when I was in the third grade
or fourth grade, I was with my cousin. He said, why are you
always looking at the ground? Well, to see where I'm going. You got
to look up. You have to look to the shepherd,
not to your own walk. You see, that's what following,
that's what believing Christ is. It's having only one object
of faith. It's not the strength of my faith
that's looking at myself. It's not the strength of someone
else because the preacher is strong, no. He's just a sinner
like me. It's not looking at the politicians
that everyone votes for because only God's vote counts and he's
only chosen one, the shepherd. I don't trust men. I trust Christ. I don't trust men a little bit
to save my soul. I trust them nothing at all.
I trust the Lord Jesus Christ. And the only faithful man will
be the one who tells you that. Men will say other things that
the sheep say. No, that can't be the voice of
my shepherd. They say, well, you have done this, but now you
need to continue doing this in order to be a true disciple.
And you think, well, okay, I'm not really a Christian then until
I have these marks, these evidences, until I can reach this level
of accomplishment, this standard. But you keep striving to reach
it and it keeps moving. It seems like you never get there.
The harder you try, the further behind you get. That's not looking
at the shepherd. Looking to Christ, following
Christ means seeing everything that God requires of me. He has
accomplished and he is going to give me everything so that
I might live depending upon him. And so he says, stranger, they
will not follow. They'll flee from him. They don't
know the voice of strangers. That doesn't sound like my shepherd.
That sounds like a gospel that is not good news. That sounds
like something I need to do in order to get God to save me.
But the gospel says, this is what you were, totally blind
and dead in your sins, and this is what God did. And then that's
the voice of my shepherd. Okay. So you see this? You see these things? All right. Now, the rest of it, then, the
explanation Jesus gives fits, doesn't it? He says, this parable
Jesus spake to them, but they understood not what things they
were which he spake to them. Then Jesus said to them again,
verily, verily, this is verse 7, I say to you, I am the door
of the sheep. Could words be plainer? I am
the door. A door is what you use to get
into a place. It allows you to get in, it gives
you access. The walls of the building you
can't go through, but you can go through the door, that's the
point of access. And the door also keeps out those
who are not supposed to get in. Are you the shepherd? No. Then
you go away. How are you coming? Are you coming through Christ?
Well, I was hoping that he would recognize what I've done for
him. No, go away. Remember what Jesus said of the
five foolish virgins that came to him in the night? They had
left their oil and they came to the door of the bridegroom
and they said, open up, let us in. He says, I don't know you. Remember? You see, that's coming
without the gospel, without Christ as our all. They didn't have
any oil in their lamps because they didn't see Christ as everything.
They didn't have any light. And so he says, I'm the door.
You have to come through me. And only coming through me. Him
that cometh to me, Jesus says in John 6, 37, I will in no wise
cast out. That's the promise of the Lord
Jesus Christ. You come to him and you will be received. Lord,
I'm a sinner. I have nothing. You're everything.
You're all I need. Come in, come in. God has taught
you that. He says in verse 8, all that
came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not
hear them. If we have something that we put before or in addition
to Christ, that's a thief and a robber. Well, I have to get
myself ready in order to be saved. No, you don't. You've messed
it up. You can't get yourself ready.
And if you think you can get yourself ready, then you obviously
don't see yourself to be blind and dead in your sins. You see? All that ever come before me,
Moses came before him, Isaiah came before him, John the Baptist
came before him. They weren't thieves and robbers,
but those who come telling you that you have to provide something
in order to be a sheep, in order to get through this door. That's
a thief and that's a robber. We come to God through Christ
alone. His name and only His name allows us entrance. What
He did and only what He did is our righteousness. His blood,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can wash away my sins? What
can make me whole within? This is all my hope. This is
all my righteousness. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
This is all my praise. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
That's what the sheep say. It sounds redundant. Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. But it's so sweet to the ears
of a sheep, isn't it? Jesus said in verse 9, 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 green pastures of Christ's
righteousness, his blood and righteousness, that's what we
thirst for and hunger for. And we find it in Him. We are
saved, going in and out, through the door, in Christ, to Christ,
back to Christ, all about Christ. And realizing, coming to Him,
we have the very blessings of God. Because we don't have time
to get into this, I want to pick up next time with verse 11. I
am the good shepherd, the good shepherd gives his life for the
sheep. What more could be said than
what he just said there? He gives his life for the sheep. The shepherd, the one God has
chosen and sent into the world, gave himself for sinners. He gave himself for the most,
the dumbest of animals. the most prone to go astray of
animals. That would be me. That would
be me. The most needy and the filthy.
You know, I was reading this thing about sheep. There's this
thing called a cast sheep, C-A-S-T, cast sheep. When sheep, when
the wool on the sheep gets heavy, or if they're a female sheep
and they're with, they have, They're pregnant, and they're
about to be delivered, and they get heavy. If a sheep turns over
on his back, they can't get back up on their feet. That's called
a cast sheep. The shepherd has to watch out. They'll shear them if they're
too heavy with wool, or their wool gets dirty and wet and muddy,
and they'll turn upside down, and they can't get back up. And
if they're not rescued, they'll die. That's what we are. We're cast out. We were cast
out. We went astray, and we were upside
down, and we would have been left there ready to die, and
our feet were getting cold, the blood stopped running, and we're
dying. The Lord Jesus, when we were dead in sins, for His great
love, wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins,
has made us alive with the Lord Jesus Christ. He raised Him from
the dead, and us with Him, because He's a shepherd. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the Lord
Jesus Christ who willingly gave himself for our sins, that he
might have us as his own, because he loved us. What love is this? What wondrous grace? What wondrous
love? We can't begin to describe it.
But we just stand in awe and we long to hear the voice of
our Shepherd calling to us who so need to be saved by Him. Need Him to do everything and
trust Him and expect Him to not fail. He cannot fail. He's God
Almighty. The Lord Jesus Christ, a heart
full of love, so wise that He can't do wrong, so holy that
He can't fail or do wrong. What a glorious Savior we have.
In His name we pray.