This message is from the teaching
ministry of James Tippins, pastor of Grace Truth Church. More information
can be found online at www.gracetruth.org and www.anchoringfaith.org. A
people for His glory, by His grace. Good morning again. Turn your Bibles to John chapter
10. John chapter 10. We've had a wonderful Year plus in John thus far. We have several year pluses left. 21 chapters, we're not quite
halfway. And I want you to remember what
I say to us every week. If you are not reading this gospel
on a regular basis, you are missing the impact of the teaching on
Sunday. You're missing out. Because when you come together,
you are to be agreeing with the teaching, not getting it for
the first time. So you should be agreeing with
the teaching. God will show you as much, if not more, in the
hearing of the Word, in your personal reading and study, than
He will in my teaching and preaching. Because what happens when we
stand here, or I stand here, and you sit there for an hour,
and you listen, you gain, you get about, I would say on average,
60% your following. Because our minds think about
things, we're distracted. We have other things that may
go on. We may fall asleep, or we may start thinking about something
that was said, and it takes us somewhere else. I know for me,
when I'm listening to sermons, sometimes live, you know, in
person, and I'll go, oh, and then I'll think, wow, that reminds
me of something. The next thing you know, I'm in the Psalms for 20
minutes, and I'm going, where am I? I'm glad you didn't call
on me, because you just sort of lose yourself. It happens.
It's normal. It's normative. But when we have
the Word of God having been in our hearts and minds all week,
when we come together, it's as if you've written a sermon. It's
as if you have already prepared in your heart some things that
you've seen, and God has shown you things in your heart, and
then when it is confirmed by the teaching, you follow along.
I've had this conversation recently with a man who asked the question
why his pastor sort of reads a passage and then talks about
everything under the sun, literally, with no relationship whatsoever
to the text, and then at the end of the service, like 10 minutes,
he's like, oh, I better get back to the text. Why does that happen,
he said. Why do you think? Well, I'm not
psychic, I can't make judgment, but I can guarantee you this,
he did not prepare to preach that text that day. Because if
you've prepared, if you go to the grocery store with a recipe
in mind, and you buy all the ingredients, and you buy everything
that you need, and you come back and you set it all out on the
counter, you're not going to fry a bologna sandwich. And that's
sort of what happens. If we're prepared in the Word
of God, we will have something to say to others, we will have
something to receive from others, and there is a path and a plan
that God Himself has ordained for us to follow in the text
of Scripture. That's why exposition, we believe,
is not just the best way. We believe it is the ordained
way of teaching and learning Scripture. Because a pretext
of Scripture is just like a pretext of a recipe. If you're making,
oh goodness, cordon bleu, and you go and buy bologna, you have
not bought an ingredient that you need. Unless it's really
redneck cordon bleu, which might actually work. But if you just look at the recipe
and you say, oh, I need paprika. You go buy paprika. That's all
you buy. That's the pretext. That's what happens when we just
come on Sunday, having not dealt with the text of Scripture, and
you just hear me deal with, really, three verses today, or two verses
today, and you go out with those two or three verses, and you
never really connect it. Be in the Word of God. Be in
the Word of God, beloved. Reading your Bible is more important
is more important than going and listening to ten other sermons
on the text. Being in your Scripture is the primer for the Lord's
Day assembly. You might say, I don't have time.
I promise you, you do. I promise you do. I know most
of you, and I know what you do with your time. I see you online.
I know what's happening. We talk, we share, and I'm sharing
too. We have a lot of time. We have
a lot of time. If we eat, we can have the Word
of God there. If we drive, we can have the
Word of God in our ears. We can hear it. It's not about
marathon, it's not about eating the entire 45 pound steak, it's
about taking it every day into our hearts so that when we gather
we have something. You know, there are millions
of dollars made and spent in publishing every year in the
Christian circles of our culture. And then I'll get back to the
text, not to be guilty of what I just fussed about. where people
are making books and training sessions and all sorts of that
because churches and pastors and leaders and Christians are
desperate to buy programs to teach them how to have joy. We need that Joy for Life program.
You know, it's a 12-week program or a 40-day program where we're
going to talk about joy, we're going to have positive affirmations
of joy, we're going to have joyful songs. I mean, people would pay
$400 for that. It's funny, but that's what'll
happen. And there's counseling resources. After counseling resources,
there's a book on every thought that has ever befallen the heart
of man. And a book, I mean, when I say
book, I mean, you know, 700 good thick pages of a book about how
to overcome anger. But what we fail to remember
as the church of Jesus Christ is that the Word of God is the
vehicle through which the Holy Spirit of God empowers us and
gives us the grace to overcome all of these things. That's why
Paul said numerous times, it is an absurdity to the smart
world. It's an absurdity to the wise
that we would trust in some letters written by some men 2,000 years
ago. And we want everybody wants to
have the answer. We want the fast food nation
of Christianity. We want the counselor to fix
us. We want the book to give us the way. And we want somebody
to give us a punch list and a chart and everything else. And if we
could do it in half the time, that'd be great. And if it's
free, it's even better. Friends, we have all that we
need in the Word of God. Yes, we have to take time out, we
have to counsel, we have to do a lot of things. Just like we
have to maintain our bodies and we go to the doctor and we have
to maintain our homes and our cars and everything else. And
we have to work and pay electricity bills and pay water bills just
so we can survive. but that's not the mainstay of
what we do. That's not what the Christian
faith is all about. It's about being intimate with the Lord
Jesus Christ, and there's only two ways in which we are intimate,
and that is first and primarily in the Word of God, and then
secondly, the overflow of what God shows us in His Word comes
together as the saints. People who are not with the saints
of Christ and have no desire to be, something's drastically
wrong with their spiritual lives. Something's wrong and something's
missing. Be in the Word of God. God will do great things in the
Word of God. Truly, truly, verse 1 of chapter 10. Let's look at
this text today. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not
enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way,
that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door
is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens,
the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name
and leads them out. When he has brought out all his
own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they
know his voice. A stranger they will not follow,
but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice
of strangers." This figure of speech Jesus used with them,
but they did not understand what He was saying to them. So we'll
just go from here. There is controversy in theological
circles about where this text is supposed to go. Is it supposed
to be here? Is it supposed to be there? That's
common amongst interpreters, people who have taken all the
manuscripts and the papyri and the text and all the things that
we have of the Greek New Testament throughout antiquity, and they
wonder, does this really go here? Does this really go there? And
people argue that it doesn't fit in the narrative. Doesn't
matter. Now, I'm not talking about what
we see in the first part of John 8, latter part of John 7, which
is not anywhere in any of the most reliable manuscripts. We
don't accept that, neither do our Bibles accept that as canon.
It's marginal notes, and your Bible would say that. But this
is truly canon. It is truly written by the Apostle
John And it is truly written under the umption of the Holy
Spirit. It is here for our purposes. And this is where we get to put
to test our understanding of the structure of the Gospels
and why they're written. The Gospel of John is not written
to give us a blow-by-blow of the life and the ministry of
Jesus. That's not the point. The closest thing we'd see to
that, you know, would be Theophilus, whoever he might be, who asked
Luke to write the Acts. But even then, it's not about
the ministry of Jesus, it's about the ministry of the apostles.
The gospels are not written that we may have a full account. As
a matter of fact, the gospel writers even tell us there is
not enough words, there's not enough paper in the world to
contain the words given and the things done and the thoughts
that come from that which is observed and heard from Jesus
Christ. There's not enough paper in the world, but by golly, the
reformed writers have surely tried to fill up the world with
paper. And we're thankful for it. We're
thankful for theological things. We're thankful for preaching
and commentary. But we need to mostly be thankful
for the Word of God. It sustains us and it has been
sustained and preserved by the Spirit of God throughout all
of the world, all of history. And so here, don't try to put
this story, when did this take place? Who was He talking to?
What's happening here? We know several things that is
true about this text. Jesus did indeed say these words.
He did indeed teach these things in the presence of people who
heard them. And in that group of people, there were those who
believed in Him, His disciples, and followed Him, including those
who would later become apostles. There were those who were just
listening and learning, and there were the religious leaders that
we just got through seeing the prime of their heart in John
9. They were hearing this as well.
So Jesus makes a practice of teaching people through positive
doctrinal application, through teaching them in the sense of,
this is what I want you to know, this is doctrine. And in that
doctrine, as we saw in this text already, in John's Gospel, there
are a lot of theological truths that are there, deep things,
especially about the work of Jesus Christ, the condition of
man, Reprobation and election, we've learned a lot about that.
You cannot read John's Gospel without understanding the doctrine
of election and reprobation. And when you then read Paul,
you cannot get away from it. It is the primer from which he
starts. It is the foundation, which is
the work of God for his people, to save a people for himself.
I've even had somebody tell me this week, you know, as I study
and read and pray, sometimes I think, well, that's a neat
thought, I don't want to forget it. And I used to put it out
on Twitter as sort of like my little notebook, but they've
stopped communicating with other things. So I just put it out
on Facebook. Well, then I got accused a few years ago of using Facebook
to, you know, call out people, but I'm not. So now I have to
put John 9, John 10, this is my thoughts on the sermon, etc.
It's amazing. You have to police yourself because
of the hatred of others, but it doesn't matter. But I put
some of my thoughts out this week, and most of you look at
them, and then somebody has messaged me, and some people have messaged
me privately, and go, well, you know, all the Pharisees had to
do was change their attitude. All these religious leaders had to
do was just calm down, quit being triggered, and just change their
attitude. They don't have to be like this. They don't have
to be blind. They can just choose to see. And I'm thinking, have you
been listening to my sermons? No, you need to before you say
something like that, because I stand in great opposition to
that falsehood. We just learned in John 9 that
the man was born blind in order for the glory of God to be revealed
to show a physical and a spiritual truth. The physical truth is
that only God can give sight to the blind. The spiritual truth
is equally the same. That only God can give sight
to the spiritually blind. And so the best place for John
10 is right here. You cannot see. You say you can see. Jesus closes out that conversation
there. The Pharisees hear Him in verse
40 of chapter 9, Are we also blind? And Jesus said to them,
If you were blind, you would have no guilt. But now that you
say, We see, your guilt remains. See, that's the nature of humanity.
Religious people, and if you look at the book of James and
you look at Jesus teaching in Matthew about the fruit of faith,
if we can call it that, that the world will know you by your
fruit. He's talking to and about people who are highly religious.
highly moral, who have a lot of accolades from the culture
in which they live. And people go, oh, those are
godly people. Oh, those are Christian people. But a Christian, someone
truly born of God, can see that they still have sin. But a self-righteous
person cannot see it. A lost person, a reprobate person
knows that what they are doing is evil when they live in debauchery,
when they live in adultery, when they murder and steal and lie
and curse. Everybody knows that's wrong.
A baby knows that's wrong. We know when we do evil things. But the Scripture really focuses
on, and John's Gospel really focuses on the reality that only
those who have been made alive by God to see can actually see
their self-righteousness. I mean, isn't that the world
we live in? Isn't that Christendom? We had a wonderful way of talking
about this a little bit yesterday in our men's group that there
are people who live in self-righteousness to a blindness that they don't
think they have any sin whatsoever. And then there are some who say,
well, I know I have sinned, so the way they compensate that
is a secondary legalism that says, I'll just be really guilty
and I'll live in the mire of my guilt because I'm so sinful. Both of which are not trusting
in the fullness of the gospel of grace. Both are trusting in
the measure of one's own heart and own works and own abilities.
We're not righteous before God because of our obedience, and
we're not righteous before God because of our sorrow. In the
Gospel, even when we have godly sorrow, which is given to us,
it is godly sorrow over our self-righteousness also, which in turn gives us
joy to proclaim the glory of God and the mercy of the Gospel
of Christ. We are filled and full with all
the fullness of God because we recognize that there is no possible
way to stand just before the Lord except the finished work
of Jesus. And God has established a people for Himself. That's
what the election of Abram, a Chaldean, in Ur, worshiping the moon, God
called him out and said, this is my man through whom I will
bless the nations. See, that wouldn't fit today.
If some pagan witch doctor somewhere in the world decided to start
being a teacher of Scripture, the world of Christianity would
go, oh no, that guy just yesterday was, you know, lighting candles
to send spirits into his iPhone so he could carry them with him.
I mean, you know, some absurd thing. He's making that up so
that I didn't step on anybody's toes. They wouldn't tolerate it, but
yet God called Abram out. And 13 years later, without any
sort of record of much of anything from Abraham and Sarah, Abram
and Sarah, we see that they took matters into their own hands.
That God had promised them a son, and there this son had not come
yet, and Abram and Sarah got a little wise in their own eyes
and said, I know what it is. God wants you to have a son,
Sarah says, with another woman. And Abram's like, fine with me.
And Ishmael was born. Ishmael was born, and then on
the days, the week that Ishmael was born, God calls for circumcision
as a sign of a covenant, and He calls for Abraham to be circumcised
as well. And then what is it? Some 11
years, 12 years later, Isaac is born. So here we are, seeing God's
election to prepare for Him a people who were no people, to prepare
for Him a people out of a people who did not know Him and could
not see Him, who were worshipping the very creation that He made
with His hands." As a matter of fact, we're worshipping a
rock that spins in the orbit around the earth. Unless you're
a flat earth guy, then it just sort of floats. And the sun's reflection of that
moon, they worshipped it. God picked this man to be the
father of His purposes in this world through whom Christ would
come and through whom an entire people group would be called
Israel for thousands of years so that God could show in the
shadow of Israel the election of all who would be saved in
Christ Jesus. This is the gospel. It's the gospel. Now, why are
you going there? Because that's what's in view
here already in John 10. The Scripture talks about sheep
and sheep herders. In fact, David was a sheep herder.
We see the prophets talking about David where God says that, I
will give, I will put my people, my sheep under the head of one
shepherd. And they're like, yay, it's David.
No, it's Jesus. It's Jesus. He says that in verse
7, I am the door of the sheep. He's not just the door. He's
the good shepherd. He's not just a good shepherd. He is the beautiful
green grass that we eat upon the bread of life and the word
of life. So here, Jesus uses this common illustration of sheep
herding. Now let's change a minute, because
I have friends who have sheep. Some of you know those friends.
You're friends with them as well. They have a lot of sheep. And
they have a dog that runs sheep, and they clap their hands, and
they yell, and they scream, and they corral the sheep. and whatever
they can do to get the sheep in there. And it's amazing how
they can train animals to do. But in this day, they did not
herd sheep by getting behind them with guns and horses and
corralling them. They moved sheep by the shepherd
coming into the sheep gate and calling the sheep. And the sheep
would hear the voice of their shepherd, and whatever he said,
whenever he spoke, the sheep would follow him. Because the
sheep knew that when the shepherd came, they were safe. The shepherd
came, they were saved. It's sort of like our dogs, you
know? I don't know if you have smart dogs or dumb dogs or whatever,
but my dogs respond to my voice. My kids, my wife, they can go
out there, they can say the same thing to these dogs. They run
around, they jump, they step in their own mess, they go nuts.
I walk up there and say, hey! And the dogs just sort of sit
down, calm down. Because they know when they hear my voice,
I'm the only living, breathing thing that exists in the world
that's gonna feed them. Everybody else is just out there to aggravate
them or get in the way or whatever. But when I speak, they go. If I say kennel, they go into
that pen because they know it's the only place I'm going to feed
them or the one of the dogs. The same is true. This is the
illustration Jesus is giving. So imagine the sheep sitting
in the middle of this pen and there's one gate and there's
walls. Why? Because they don't want people
coming over and stealing sheep. They don't want animals jumping
over and eating sheep. And there is a gatekeeper. This
man is a hireling. He stands there. He just makes
sure nobody that's not supposed to come in to the gate comes
in. I had to make sure I had mine. Negatives and positives right
in that. So he keeps anyone who doesn't have permission and the
only person that's supposed to come in and bother those sheep
or take those sheep is the shepherd. So the gatekeeper watches and
when the shepherd comes, he gladly opens the door, opens the gate
for the shepherd and then the shepherd speaks and the sheep
follow. The sheep do what they're told and they follow the voice
of their shepherd. This is the picture you must have in your
mind. That's the physical picture, just like the physical blindness
of this man who begged every day of his life. But what's the spiritual implications?
And that's where this text takes us. So Jesus says, truly, truly,
amen, amen, where we get the word amen, amen. It is a powerful
word. It is something that we need
to recognize. It's not just a full stop or 10-4 or, you know, done
or out or Roger. That's not what amen is. It's
not the pause, the punctuation, so God knows that we're through
praying and not to listen to anything else we say because
it's not the hymn. That's not the point. And you
might say, where'd you get that? I had a grade school student
tell me that one time. Oh yeah, that's so God knows
to stop listening. We say, Oh God, and then we say, Amen. It's
like, stop, we're finished. So He doesn't sit there and listen
to our conversations all day long. No, that's not the point.
The word Amen is truly, truly. It is so. It is accomplished. It is done. It is true. So we pray by the will of God
that the will of God be done. Amen. It is true. It is done.
It is finished. It is complete. We trust in the
fact that God's will is done. That's why we pray that way.
That's why we say that word. You know, you ever thought about
it? No, we just say it, don't we? I thought most people would
pray for their food. I'm not trying to be ugly when
I say this, but you know, bless this food to our bodies and our
bodies through your service. Amen. I heard that same prayer
when I was three years old. And I'm hearing it now at another
age. Is it a prayer? No, I think it's
a prayer. I think it's sincere in some
people. But it's just the same words. Amen's the same way. What
are we saying there? So Jesus is saying, it is true.
This is of great importance. I'm saying this to you. It is
true. And I'm going to repeat myself
twice so that you can understand that what I'm saying to you requires
great attention. He who does not enter the sheepfold
by the door, but climbs in another way, that man is a thief and
a robber. Alright, let's look at practical
terms. There's a pen full of sheep.
The shepherd doesn't have to climb over the wall of his own
sheep pen, does he? He walks to the gate, the gatekeeper,
who's the guard, lets him in. Okay, we know you're supposed
to be there. It's confirmed that this man's supposed to be there,
as we'll see in a minute, because the sheep hear his voice. Now,
what's the spiritual sense here? It's just a parable. It's a story
of something that's very common that has a teaching attached
to it from a different point of view. And in this context,
it is spiritual. We have people who are the children
of God. Something to remember is that
all those who are the children of God will come to faith in
Jesus Christ. None of them will be lost. The
Pharisees, as Jesus has already said, are not the children of
God, but were the children of the devil. That doesn't mean
that every Pharisee was that, but they as a whole, as a group,
thought they were the children of God because of who they were
and what they did, but doing those things doesn't make you
God's. It's God's counsel after His
own will that makes you His. God's decision on how He establishes
His people. God chose Abram. God chose David,
who wasn't even in the running. God chose Jacob. And he wasn't even in the running.
He wasn't the firstborn. And God chose His people. The
spiritual leaders of this day looked at their congregation,
if we can just use those terms, I don't want to make a parallel
of Judaism and temple worship with first century and now New
Testament congregationalism. It's not what, there's no parallel
there. One is a shadow and is gone and
the other is the new, okay? Judaism is a shadow that has
no purpose in the world today except to look back at something
that has already been fulfilled. looking forward to something
that has already been fulfilled. That's watching a movie, and
I don't even know if I can use an illustration here, and getting
there and saying, no, I just want to see the preview. It's
done. Christ has come. Judaism has
no purpose. It's over. But these people looked at the
people of Israel, they were their heads. They were the ones who
were in charge. They had oversight and authority. And we see how they use that
authority, don't we? They threw people out of the
temple. They ruined people's lives because
they did not match their view of what righteousness looked
like. They hated them. In John 7 and 8, we see that
they even said that all those who do not keep the law are accursed,
talking about those who had come to the feast. And in view of
that, we see that they themselves are the only ones that thought
they kept the law of God. And Jesus told them they never
kept the law of God, they didn't know the law of God, and they
couldn't see the law of God because the law of God pointed to Him
and they refused Him. But yet, still the same, they
felt themselves the ones who were over God's people, the sheep. The same thing is true with some
application in our day. We see people who would come
and they're a pastor. I'm the pastor. By golly, it's
my way. That's not a shepherd, is it?
Matter of fact, that violates the very nature of what Paul
tells Timothy that every church member must hold to. Every church
member. Get this, there is no different,
there is no level of expectation with an elder that's not also
the same expectation for all of you. But in order to be an
elder, in order to be a teacher, in order to give oversight of
the church, you must meet those standards and check yourself
on those standards and correct those standards continually. There's not a hierarchy where
you've got another set of rules to follow than these people.
They're not rules anyway. The fruitfulness, there's things
that take place that we must adhere to. And when we don't,
we find forgiveness at the cross and we come and confess our sins
to one another that we may, what, walk free in the Son because
of the grace of God. But there are people today, I
mean, I know men right now who hold their congregations under
their thumbs. And they twist Scripture and
they make them do things that Scripture does not call for.
They put an undue burden on the sheep of Christ, just like the
Pharisees. They bind the conscience of people
by leveling out teaching that twists Scripture to a place where
these people will morally be compelled to match a particular
culture. The examples, I really don't
feel like doing that this morning, but many of you have been there. You've been under that type of
leadership. As we'll see, what a shepherd
does is a shepherd goes in, calls out, and goes before. So a shepherd
of God's people comes before. But the great thing is that we're
not comparing Jews to elders, Pharisees to pastors. We're comparing
all spiritual leaders to Jesus in this passage. And in our world today, there
is a many of people who have gone and made
themselves a shepherd when they are not pointing to the true
shepherd. So if someone comes into the
sheepfold, over the wall, Not through the gate, the man is
a thief and a robber. Why would Jesus say that? It's
like my grandmother Tiffin, she'd always say, you cannot get your
nose broken in a bar, it's impossible. I never really understood that,
I never really went to bars, you know? She would always say
that, I'd have my tux on, I'd have a concert, wind ensemble
or a jazz band concert, and I'd be going out, she thought I was
out there like Elvis. We had to get her to the university
to see what I was doing before she realized I wasn't going to
ruin my life. But she'd always say, you can't get your nose
broke in a bar now, boy. What that means is if you're in a
bar, expect things bar-like. That didn't happen. What do you
expect to happen? That kind of stuff. Well, if
someone's climbing over the wall, what do you expect? What are
they doing? If somebody drives up your driveway and comes in
your kitchen window, I mean, are they just trying to be polite
and not get mud on your floor? Or they just don't know anything
about coming through doors? Someone comes in another way,
but the normal way, but the true way, through the entrance, we
can suspect that they have mal-intent, right? We can suspect that they're
not true. We can suspect that there's no
fidelity there with their intentions and their heart and their love.
And what Jesus is saying is that anyone who comes into the ministry
of the sheep, anyone who comes into the sheepfold, and they're
climbing over the wall, and they're coming in a different way, they
must be a thief or a robber. In other words, they want something
from the sheep. They want a take for themselves.
What would a robber want with a sheep? To eat? To sell? To
just mess up the shepherd? To hurt him? Some people are
just cruel. They just like to do mean things. Like the rash of... Many, many
years ago, some 30 years ago, there was this rash of mailbox
bashings around here. Like, who does that? 20, 30 mailboxes
smashed. These kids are getting in the
back of pickup trucks with baseball bats and riding by and smashing
mailboxes and people's mail is flying all around. I'm like,
why is that funny? And we're all laughing. Some of you are
guilty. But some people are just malicious.
But then he says, but he who enters by the door is the shepherd,
is the shepherd. The shepherd enters the door. He is the shepherd of the sheep,
and to Him the gatekeeper opens." And the reason that people were
listening to Jesus, this is more of an introduction to this chapter,
and then in the weeks to come we're going to unpack it in its
argument, because the argument spreads long. In other words,
we spread the argument over 7 to 10 to 14 verses, and then we
have to go back and deal with it. But the sheep hear His voice. People were listening to the
voice of Jesus like this blind man. I don't know if he's a sinner
or not, but I know that I was blind and now I see. Why is it
that some people can hear the voice of Christ and the truth
of Scripture and some people cannot? I said about four weeks
ago that we're not smart because we believe the Bible. It's not
because we're smart. It's because we've been given
understanding. we can hear the voice of our shepherd. Why is
it strange to some people when they find out that we have an
hour of teaching every week? Have you ever talked to anybody
about that? They ask you what we do at Grace Church, at Grace
Truth Church, and you say, well, we sing and pray and sing and
preach and sing and pray and talk. And they usually ask, well,
what do we do for our kids? Well, they sit there. What about
our youth? Well, they sit there. I mean, surely it must be a puppet
show or something. There must be some ventriloquist over there. There must be a tap dancer or
a juggling fire clown or something to capture it. And some of the
kids are like, yeah, yeah, that'd be cool. You know, you want me
to juggle fire while I preach? I had to preach on hell that
day. But it's not really the hardest
thing that people have to swallow. When you say, yeah, our pastor,
he preaches from about here to here, sometimes longer. And they
go, what? An hour? Or like it was two weeks
ago, week 81, it was an hour and 17 minutes. I'm so sorry.
I just kept going. The clock is still stopping at
quarter to five. So we'll be here forever. People can't imagine that. And
I'm thinking to myself, when I hear preaching, unless I really
have some deadline that I can't lose track, I lose track of time.
I lose track of time up here. Most of you don't really sit
there and go, oh, is he gone? Because we understand and desire
to hear the Scripture. The voice of our Shepherd. So the gatekeeper opens the gate
to the shepherd. The sheep do hear his voice,
and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. Now,
there's a lot of imagery here in this parable. Calling out. What comes to mind? This is why
you need to read Scripture. What calls to mind when Christ
calls His sheep out? Well, He calls us out of death
into life. He calls us out of the domain of darkness into the
light of His kingdom. God snatches us from death. There's a lot
of ways. We see the effectual call that
God gives when they are given to the Son, and all who are given,
come to Me. And those who come to Me, I will
never cast out, but I will raise them up on the last days. And
the gospel being preached to the sheep of Christ, the Word
of God being taught to the church, to the true church of Christ,
is antithetical to every other religious activity in the free
world and the not free world. People are looking for experiences.
People are looking for some type of feeling. People are looking
for some type of miracle. People are looking for all sorts
of things, but the sheep of Christ hear the Word of God and they
hunger for more. They go and they follow it. Not
just that, but when the Bible corrects me in my life and matures
me in my faith, when I learn how I'm supposed to deal with
my enemies, when I learn how I'm supposed to love them and
pray for them, and I see that my flesh wants to pray imprecatory
prayers on them, and Jesus says to pray blessings on them. It
changes me because the voice of my shepherd rearranges my
mind Repentance, continually working through the Spirit and
through the Word, that I might learn what it means to walk in
a manner worthy by faith for the glory of the name of Christ. And the true Shepherd walks before
the sheep. He doesn't stand behind the sheep.
Listen to this. He doesn't stand behind the sheep
saying, go there, do this, get it right, go, go, go. What's
wrong with you? You know, parents, you ever ask
your children that? And they say, I don't know. Or
they're real smart and they say, well, I have your genetics. I
mean, you know, and you're like, oh, choca-cha. No. We are following the voice
of our Shepherd. who goes before us. This imagery
should take us to the writing of Paul to the Hebrews, in the
letter to the Hebrews, where he talks about Christ has gone
before us. We look to Him. We stand and
we focus on Him. We see where He's gone. We see
where we are going. We follow after the voice, because
if the shepherd's behind the sheep, they'll go that way. So
the shepherd must walk where the sheep need to go, speaking
to them, calling them by name. Do you see these pictures? But they will not run after a
stranger. We call this discernment in our
current day. Why do not many people have discernment?
How are people sitting under teaching that teaches a humanistic
gospel? How are people sitting with a
lack of exposition? How are people sitting without
intimacy? How are people staying in congregations
and they cannot see that what was just preached was not even
contextual? It wasn't even there. It wasn't even implied, like
a parable. You infer the parable until it's
actually explained, and then you check yourself. Like verse
7, Jesus explains it. Why? Chances are they don't know
the voice of their shepherd. So we've come to a really rough
place in history. And it's not new. I thought it
was new, but it's not new. As you read, we think anyone
with just the taste of the gospel of Christ are our brothers and
sisters. For example, like the cults. You hear me use the term
evangelical cult because I have come to see that some of the
things that some evangelical churches believe and teach are
no different than what Mormonism and Jehovah's Witness and others
teach. It's exactly the same. If a JW knocks on our door, we
see what? We see them say something about
Jesus who is the Son of God who died for sins. And if you didn't
know they were from Kingdom Hall because they had that literature
with them, you would think they were a believer. But the voice of the shepherd
of the true sheep teach them who Christ is, you see. Who is
Christ? Christ is God eternally. God the Son. Jesus is the One
through whom all things were made. That's why John starts
with this in his Gospel. Jesus is the God of the cosmos
who is the self-existent One, the I Am, who created all that
there is. And by faith, we believe that
He did and that He is who He is. It says He is. He proved
who He was. He proved who He is. and He taught
with authority and He taught with power. And when the Spirit
of God blew in the hearts of God's people, coupled with the
teaching of Christ and the witness of God of His own Son, this is
My Son. Listen to Him. This is My Son.
I am pleased in Him. This is My Son. When Jesus says,
I am speaking the words that the Father is speaking and doing
the works that the Father is doing, God testifies concerning
His Son that He is indeed God. This is the Christ that saves. Because only the Christ who is
eternally the God of heaven can become a man born of a virgin,
not taking on the federal headship of Adam's guilt, and live a life
of obedience without the ability of sin, impeccability. and then die a death that is
worthy to be counted as our judgment. Jesus is not a martyr that God
is pleased with His actions, and if we like those actions,
then God is pleased with us. Jesus is God who took on humanity
and who lived a perfect, obedient life and who died in the place
of His people. He paid for the sins of His people. They hear His voice. and they
follow Him. And no matter what religion,
no matter what sect of Christianity, no matter what level of theological
ability or authority any man, woman, or child has, no matter
how long-standing their denomination or their missions board or whatever,
when people reject the divine person of Christ and reject the
divine work of particular redemption that Christ teaches, how in the
world have they heard the voice of their shepherd that says,
come to me all who hunger? They haven't. This is not an
academic issue. It's a supernatural issue. It's
the issue of God regenerating His church. But we have fallen prey, church,
and all of us who have grown tremendously, myself included,
understanding how to get our language a little bit more precise,
using terms differently, redefining or defining terms specifically,
so that we aren't gathered up in all this ambiguity. that nobody
knows what we're talking about, that anybody could come to the
table and say, okay, yeah, yeah, we're all one and the same. Friends,
we've learned, but even though we have all grown and learned,
there is still so much for us to learn about the clarity of
the gospel. About the clarity of what the
church is, and who she is, and how she is supposed to live and
interact together. About how the evangel, what are
we supposed to share with people. See, we're all still, we still
have the, I mean, we've cleaned up pretty good, but it's like
when you step in paint, you never get it off the bottom of your
shoe. And you turn around and you go, oh my, when we were doing
this, there were many times I would step in some type of adhesive,
turn around, and on this brand new laminate floor, I could see
where I've been for the last 30 minutes. I'm going, what?
Who did this? I'm the only one here. I guess
it was me. So in the same way that we see those tracks at the
bottom of our feet, we're not looking there, but we can look
back. We have that same little bit of taintedness that can carry
us, or we carry with us, about evangelism. Well, how do we instruct
someone in the Gospel that they might believe? Well first we
recognize that the gospel is all of God and all of grace.
That the gospel is the good news of who Christ is and what He
accomplished effectually and for whom He accomplished it.
That is the encompassing reality of what the Bible teaches is
the gospel. And that it's all of God alone
and it's for His glory alone. And that there is nothing good
about an opportunity for salvation if it is not effectual for the
people for whom it was supposed to be applied. Because when we
are left holding the bag of what we can do for our salvation,
our salvation is in our hands. And beloved, there's nothing
in the Bible that teaches that. Our salvation is in God's hands.
And when we hear that as the sheep of Christ, there's something
that supernaturally takes place. For the first time we hear it,
we have been regenerated, we have been able to believe, we've
been granted repentance, and we have been gifted faith that
we believe in the finished work of Christ. The evangel is to
say these things and to proclaim what God has done for His people. the sinner's prayers, the aisles,
the decisions, the rededications, all of this stuff. I say this,
and I'm tired of saying it, but it just so comes to mind because
I have to deal with it every single day. And for you who are
sharing the Gospel and growing in faith, you need to recognize
these words when they come. People who put their hope in
these things, friends, are not saved. November of 2000. 11, I said something very similar
to that in a congregation, and many people were angry with me.
Because I said, I was preaching John 6 that day, ironically,
if you believe your eternal life weighs, or your assurance is
held in the decision you made, or the aisle you walked, or the
prayer you prayed, beloved, you probably are lost. I mean, they
got mad. One guy got up and opened the
doors in the middle of my preaching as if to say, it's time for us
to get out of here. People are going to get mad.
Pharisees get mad when they're called sinners. The elect who
are born again agree. Oh, you're right when you say
I'm a sinner, but I'm a sinner saved by grace, and God has set
me free from the penalty of sin. Because Jesus Christ died in
my place. He took my judgment on Himself. God the Father sent Him to settle
the debt for me. And in Him alone do I find my
righteousness, not His work in me to make me righteous, His
work as righteous, as the Holy and Anointed One of God for my
sake." False Gospels appear in many
ways, but they always come from the same mouth. They come from
the mouth of people who are not pointing to the shepherd. Because
see, I and Jesse and Dave and other men who are preparing for
the ministry here are not your shepherds. We are the under-shepherds
of Christ. So we point to Christ by teaching
the Word and walking together effectually in the power of God
the Holy Spirit with the Word of God. That is what it means
to point to the Shepherd. The Pharisees and the religious
leaders of this day do not point to the Good Shepherd. They point
to themselves. Listen to what I have to say.
Listen to what I think. Do what I say do. but the sheep of Christ will
not follow that. As a matter of fact, they'll flee just like
these sheep will run. Somebody opens up the gate and
they're looking. Maybe this guy is dressed like the shepherd.
Maybe he's got the shepherd's hat on and his jeans on and he
smells like the shepherd. But when he opens his mouth,
even if he's a good imitator of voices, the sheep know the
difference and they run the other direction. That's why I'm puzzled often
why so many sheep remain without Christ as their God in their
fellowship. You ever been to a large evangelical
church service? You ever sat in the middle of
a service of, you know, two or three thousand people in the last few
years? I'm not telling you to do it,
because then you have to go to the doctor. But when you leave that life
and you get away from it, which is very oppressing and depressing. Luke, you know what I'm talking
about. And then you go back after a
season, even if it's a year, and you look and you listen,
and you're going, what's happening here? What's being taught here? What's happening here? Because it doesn't make sense.
You flee. You flee. The antithesis of that is those
who claim to be the sheep but are not the sheep flee from the
true Shepherd. They run from Him. But they didn't
understand what He was saying when He taught this to them.
So let's see what Jesus says in explanation, verse 7. We'll
come back through all of this next week. So Jesus said to them,
truly, truly, again, amen, amen, I say to you, I am the door of
the sheep. All who came before me are thieves
and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. Now let me
stop there. He says again, I am the door. Who came before Christ? False
Christs? False prophets? Pharisees? Religious
leaders? Zealots? Saul of Tarsus? Many came before Christ. Many
came. And proclaimed to have the truth.
Proclaimed to say, this is the way to God. Proclaimed to say,
here is what you have to do. This is what you have to believe.
And He says that they were thieves and robbers. They came to steal
and kill and destroy. They came to do something that
was not pointing these people to life. Because here's the thing
we need to understand, beloved. If the shepherd never comes to
the sheep and takes them out of the pen to eat, they die.
They starve. If the sheep are not fed, they
die. If the sheep of Christ are not
regenerated and fed the Word of God, they're never born again.
And if the shepherds or the so-called
shepherds aren't going to the door who is Jesus and opening
that door to the sheep, then they're not preaching the Christ
of Scripture. They're not preaching the Christ
of Scripture. I think Dr. Queller said yesterday, the Puritan
sermons, they used to do an hour of theological exposition and
then an hour of practical application. Let's try that next week. Maybe
we'll just keep mixing up what we're doing. But imagine the
theological exposition of the Jews. Imagine the abuse We are
the ones who have been sent by God. We are ordained by God. I mean, how long would you sit
there and listen to me rant about how God told me and showed me
and put me in charge of you? Five seconds? Might even be some
guns come out. I mean, you know, all right,
we're taking you under arrest for being a fool. It wouldn't
last. And of course, it's not necessarily
that bold. People look at all these teachers, they look at
all this, and imagine these Pharisees teaching theologically, we know
what God is and who God is and how God is, and listen to us
and do what we tell you to do. Be like us. Oh, you can't. Oh,
I guess you'll never get to heaven. You don't wear phylacteries.
You don't keep the Word of God in front of your face and close
to your heart, before you at all times. You're not following
the law. Did you just pick up your towel? Did you just throw
that dirty diaper into the laundry basket? You violated the law.
You heathen. You're out of here. Why don't you speak like we do?
Why don't you act like we do? Why don't you dress like we do? Look
at all the things that religious leaders do. Fundamentalism. I'm
not picking on fundamentalism, but most of us know what fundamentalism
is. And as southern Americans, we
all have a little fundamental pain on the bottom of one of
our feet. We do, let's be honest. But it controls people. It controls
people. This is what the Bible said.
This is what I tell you to do. I'm your pastor, you better do
what I say. If you don't, I'm going to make it hard on you.
I'm going to sit here and browbeat you. I'm going to tell you how
bad you are, and how sinful you are, and how unholy you are,
and how unreverent you are. You ever been preached to like
that? That's not pointing to the shepherd.
Never do we see a place where the shepherd... Now, do we call
out sin? Yes. Do we expel people for unrepentance? Yes. Why? Because the Bible commands us
to. We don't like, yeah, we got them now, can't wait. No, we
weep. And we pray desperately that God will restore people
to a right place with the church. But Jesus never goes into the
sheep pen and starts whipping the sheep. Jesus doesn't illustrate anything
here where He comes in in a rage, kicking over food troughs. What's
wrong with you? Why can't y'all clean up? Why
do y'all stink so bad? Why are you wearing your winter
coats? It's hot. I mean, all sorts of things you could think
about with sheep. What's wrong with you people? Nothing. We are the sheep of our shepherd.
We are the children of our Father. We are the elect who has been
called before the foundations of the world to believe in the
finished work of Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd, our Lord,
our God, our Creator, our Savior, our King. Anyone else who comes and points
to anything else, who comes in any other way, who doesn't point
to Me, is a thief. They are stealing My glory. They
are stealing and robbing Me of who I am. And they want their
own glory to be seen. They want their own pedestals
to rise above or at least equal with the mountain of God to stay
just like Lucifer said. I will stand next to Elohim. I will stand next to the Most
High. I will stand next to Him because look at the radiance
of my glory. Forgetting the very nature of His essence was nothing
but a creation of God. They want to rob, they want to
take, they want to be praised, they want to take money, they
want to take possessions. Imagine the priests who were
robbers and thieves. And people wanting to be liked
and be somebody in society. What's the best way to do that?
Become really good close with the people who are somebody according
to society. People who are famous, people
who are wealthy, people who are influential, people who are authoritative. People who are well known, whether
you are any of those things. But the sheep don't follow that.
The sheep run from these people. Jesus says, He is the door. Verse 9, I am the door. The sheep do not listen to robbers
and thieves, but they listen to Me because I am their shepherd
and I go out before them. I am the door. And those who
come to Christ, those who believe in Christ, those who follow after
Christ, and that's not talking about obeying His commands, those
who trust in Him by faith. If anyone enters by Me, he will
be saved. And he will go in, and he will
go out, and he will find pasture." And you see that image. Brothers and sisters, we are
in Christ. And because of that, we are fed
the Word. The Holy Spirit teaches us. We grow in our knowledge
of Christ and His goodness and the grace of God. That's why
I so much... If I beat y'all up for anything,
read your Bibles. Please, read the Scripture. And then we eat and we feast.
And the symbol of in the pen, we're in and out. He closes that
gate. He is the gate. He is the Good
Shepherd as we'll see. And He holds fast His sheep and
no one shall touch them. A true sheep will not be deceived.
A true sheep will not fall away from the body of Christ. A true
sheep will not allow their personal interests and feelings and their
personal hurts to fall away from a body of Christ who truly holds
to the Word of God and to the Gospel and to the unity of the
faith by the Spirit of God, for we have the same Spirit and Jesus
is our Shepherd. As much as, like I said recently,
we who are the children of God will not despise one another.
for long. We have our moments, but we will
come to love each other. We will overcome sin and hurt
and harm and all of these things. The thief comes only to kill
and steal and destroy, but I came that they may have life and have
it abundantly. I am the Good Shepherd. And 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, and
I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice. So there
will be one flock, and there will be 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,
and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have
received from My Father. And in verse 19, there was again
a division among the Jews because of these words, and many of them
said, He has a demon and is insane. Why? Listen to him. Others said,
These are not the words of the one who is oppressed by a demon.
Can a demon open the eyes of the blind? And so you see what's
in there? You see what we've got to slow
down and deal with? The first time now, Jesus actually
says He's going to die. And Jesus says He's going to
die only for His sheep, and that none of the sheep for
whom He dies will run from His voice. There's a lot there. There's
a lot here. And then the reaction goes from,
we know that you are from God, to you have a demon, from the
spiritual leaders of that day. Beloved, the reason you and I
sit here today in agreement and shake our heads, yes, and we
say, Amen, it is true what I hear, is because God in His mercy and
His love for us has opened our eyes and ears to hear and see.
We have been given understanding to know the Gospel, to know that
the finished work of Jesus Christ is indeed our only hope. that
we are not righteous in and of ourselves even through monergistic
work of God the Holy Spirit, but we are righteous only in
the love of God who gives us the credit for Christ's obedience.
And then took our sin and crushed His Son in our place. We are
forgiven, beloved. Never take for granted what we
have here. It becomes mundane when it's all we do, isn't it?
Sometimes you're like, well, I feel stagnant. You are not
stagnant spiritually if you are hearing the words of Christ and
agreeing with them. Stop measuring your spiritual
fire by how much you do or how you feel. Measure your spiritual
fire, that inward healthiness, whatever you want to call it.
Some of you say fire as if the good deposit fanning into flames
like Paul talks about. I'm not talking about strange
fire. Whatever you want to call it, some of you measure that
by what the world sees. Why can't I have that zeal? Why
can't I be that compassionate? Why can't I be this powerful?
Do you see the gospel? Do you trust and believe in Christ?
Then you have been born of God. And that is not just enough,
that's everything. That's everything. So, labor
then in the Word of God as we prepare to gather again. next
week. Let's pray. We love You, Father. We love
You that we can call You Father. We love You, Father, because
You sent Your Son who is our great and good and powerful Shepherd.
Father, we love You, Father, because Your love for us is effectual
to us. We love You, Father, because
You have first loved us. We praise You for Your glory.
We praise You for the glory of Your grace. We praise You for
the finished work of the cross. We praise You, God, for this
solemn teaching that seems so simple that we just get through
this text in one or two sermons and move on, but, Lord, it is
also so rich to take time and contemplate what Jesus is really
saying here. Lord, help us to slow down, purpose for us to
be in the Word, and to pray for one another above all things,
God. Help us to continue doing the
work of the ministry that we're being prepared for right now.
When we don't think we have the words to say to help each other,
God, we can remind one another of the finished work of Christ.
We can go into the Word and read it to each other so that our
ears and moreover our souls would be encouraged and admonished. And Father, we are thankful that
You have sustained us through many trials. Though we see loss,
though we see pain, though we see persecution, Lord, it has
not crushed us, destroyed us, or killed us because, Lord, You've
promised to preserve us. And so we hold fast that all
that You have done and all that You have permitted in the sovereignty
of Your decrees is exactly where we are and what we are going
through this very day, whether it be in our personal life, our
bodies, our minds, our jobs, our marriage, or even within
our fellowship. We thank you for it. Father,
I pray for those who are displaced across this country. I pray for
those families who have said they feel led to meet a part
of our church, that they would go ahead and take this step to
trust in your call and become part of our local assembly. Father,
I pray for those sheep who are in these communities and the
friends that we have who are coming to see the gospel and
are longing to be in fellowship around the truth of Christ. Lord,
would you do one of two things, God. Would you call them together
with us What would you call their pastors to life that they may
preach to the sheep of Christ? No matter what, we know it comes
at a cost, but Lord Jesus has paid the ultimate cost. He was
crushed for our iniquities. And by His death we live. And
it's in His name we pray. Thank you for listening. We hope
that this message has encouraged you in the faith. Subscribe to
these messages and other teaching resources and podcasts at anchoringfaith.org. More information about the church
can be found at gracetruth.org.