This is a passage that many of
us will be familiar with, but I trust that there may be some
lessons in it for us today. We're going to read John chapter
10, and we'll begin at verse one. John chapter 10 and verse
one. 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 putteth 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, 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 an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good
shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the
father knoweth me, even so know I the father, and I lay down
my life for the sheep. 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. Therefore doth my father love
me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No
man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power
to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment
have I received of my father. 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? 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 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 ye 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. 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.' Then
the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered
them, Many good works have I showed you from my Father. For which
of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying,
For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, and because
that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them,
Is it not written in your law, I said, ye are gods? If ye call
them gods unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture
cannot be broken, say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified
and sent into the world. Thou blasphemest, because I said,
I am the Son of God. If I do not the works of my Father,
believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe
not me, believe the works, that ye may know and believe that
the Father is in me, and I in him. Therefore they sought again
to take him, but he escaped out of their hand. and went away
again beyond Jordan into the place where John at first baptized,
and there he abode. And many resorted unto him and
said, John did no miracle, but all things that John spake of
this man were true, and many believed on him there. Amen,
may God bless to us this reading from his word. The title of our sermon this
morning is How to Recognise a Sheep. And I specifically want to spend
a little bit of time just dwelling on some of the things that the
Lord Jesus Christ had to say concerning his sheep. There are
a lot of Bible types and pictures that we have likening God to
the shepherd of his people and his people as the flock of God. And it's a very appropriate association
that we have in scripture. It's a very basic picture. It's
simple. And it would be familiar to those
who heard these things either written in the Old Testament
and declared by the prophets or spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ. You'll remember one of the characteristics
of Israel is that they were a nation of shepherds. Jacob and his sons
were shepherds. Moses tended the flock and David
had his shepherding responsibilities too. And the history of Israel
is bound up with sheep rearing. So we find that the Holy Spirit
often used the language of the shepherd and of the sheep in
order to describe God's relationship with his people. David could
say, for example, the Lord is my shepherd. And that psalm,
Psalm 23, is a psalm of such simple beauty that it has touched
the hearts of the Lord's people since it was first penned thousands
of years ago. And we find that throughout the
Old Testament, references like that The Lord leading his people
to the green pastures and the calm waters, nourishing, blessing,
helping, protecting, is a picture which resonates throughout the
Lord's revelation to his own people. He says through Jeremiah
in chapter 23 in verse 1, woe be unto the pastors that destroy
and scatter the sheep of my pasture. and he goes on to speak about
the hireling and how the sheep are lost and the innocence of
the sheep under the misdirection of these pastors who do not lead
them and direct them properly. And in John chapter 10, the chapter
that we read together, the Lord Jesus Christ is in a sense gathering
countless threads from the Old Testament scriptures and from
the experience of the people, from the testimony of their lives
and their practices and their knowledge upon this pastoral
theme and drawing them together. You know about shepherds. You
know about these pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep,
says the Lord to the people. Well, I am the good shepherd. And he is contrasting himself
with those who are false and who are divisive and disruptive. And here we see the Lord using
a phrase in the context of this presentation in which he uses
these words, verily, verily, a couple of times here in the
passage we read these words used. And these tell us that the Lord
is drawing particular attention to this. He is saying, I am the
Good Shepherd, and verily, verily, I am the Good Shepherd. Verily,
verily, I say unto you. And when the Lord speaks in this
way, When the Lord uses this authoritative term, He is saying
to the people, listen carefully. Listen to what I'm about to say.
Listen to this because this is how it is. Your God is speaking
to you. This comes with all the force,
all the power of the great Amen. And indeed, that word verily
can be translated, amen. Let it be, this is how it is.
This is the truth of God. I am the good shepherd, says
the saviour in John chapter 10, verse 11. The good shepherd giveth
his life for the sheep. And that is a picture there already. being shown to us of how this
shepherd presented himself as that one who would sacrifice
himself for his people. A good shepherd, a good shepherd
would be a man or a woman who might risk their life for the
well-being of their flock, who when they saw the snow blowing
or the dust storm blowing, would nevertheless step out of their
home and go out into the fields, out into the wilderness, out
into the desert, in order to gather in that sheep. A good
shepherd would be prepared to risk serious injury and even
death for the well-being of their flock, for their possession.
The Lord Jesus Christ goes even a step beyond that. And this
shows the fitness of the Lord to bear this title of Good Shepherd. It shows His worthiness as that
one to whom we look this morning, as the Saviour and Deliverer
and Redeemer of His people. And it shows us the purpose for
which He came and the knowledge that he had, the self-awareness
that he had, that this was his great purpose, to give his life
for the sheep. And so here is the shepherd to
whom we look. And he says in verse 14 of John
10, I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and am known
of mine. He knows for whom he gives his
life. We are the Lord's people. He
has a relationship with those people. They are under the Lord
Jesus Christ's ownership and possession, and they are the
flock of his heritage. This people that had been committed
into his care, this flock that had been given to him as his
very own to preserve, to protect, to save, and to deliver. The
Lord Jesus says of them, I know my sheep. Now, I'm sure that
there is a lot to be said from this passage, and I'm sure that
there have been many, many sermons preached from it, and many sermons
are contained in it. But today what I want to do is
just answer a few simple questions from these very familiar verses
and these delightful verses that we have here in John 10. And
I want to ask a couple of questions, three questions. I want to ask
this question, how do you recognise one of the Lord's sheep? The
second question is, how do I know if I am one of the Lord's sheep? And thirdly, how might I know
if someone else is one of the Lord's sheep? Now, just before
I begin here, I'm going to take those three questions and answer
them. The first question is going to take up the bulk of my time. So when you hear me saying, now
I'm moving on to my second question, I don't want you all to be panicking
and thinking that it's going to take too long because most
of my thoughts are going to be based on this first question.
And that is, how do... you recognise one of the Lord's
sheep. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ has
himself given us three clear criteria to distinguish the sheep
of his flock in this passage, and it always makes it an easy
job for the preacher when he gets his commentary from the
words of the Saviour himself. The Lord gives us three clear
statements to tell us how we can recognise who his sheep are. And the first one is this, the
Lord Jesus Christ says of his sheep, my sheep hear my voice. And this at once is very distinguishing
and it's very specific because it tells us that the Lord Jesus
Christ is identifying sheep that are his own. He says, these are
my sheep and my sheep hear my voice. We thought about that
with Paul and Barnabas at Antioch and Iconium and wherever the
gospel was preached. Wherever that true gospel is
declared, wherever the Lord Jesus Christ is lifted up, there will
be division. There will be a distinguishing
and a separating. There will be those who hear
the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ and those who do not. Just look again at John chapter
10. Look at verse 2. The Lord says
there, He that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the
sheep. To him the porter openeth, and
the sheep hear his voice. He calleth his own sheep by name
and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his
own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for
they know his voice. This shows us, I think, Something
about the propriety of the gospel. Now let me just explain that
for a moment. I'm not here this morning trying to sell you anything. This is not an advert. Neither
will I endeavor to play upon your emotions. I'm not offering
you anything. I'm not offering you wealth.
I'm not offering you happiness. I'm not offering you a panacea
for a successful life. And yet there are plenty who
use Christianity for exactly that purpose. You know what the
Lord calls those people? He calls them thieves and robbers. and religion is awash with thieves
and robbers. The gospel has a propriety about
it. The Lord Jesus Christ doesn't
climb over a fence in order to reach his sheep. The Lord Jesus
Christ enters by the door. And here is a message that is
very different from the free will works religion that fills
our society today. I'm not here trying to convince
you. I'm not even here trying to convert
you or to hoodwink you in any way. I'm not capable of doing
any of those things. The Gospel is a simple, clear
declaration and statement of what the Lord Jesus Christ has
done. It's open, it's true, it's trustworthy. The Apostle Paul calls it a mystery
that has been revealed. And while I am privileged to
declare this message to you today, it is only to the extent that
I speak in Christ's place. Because in the gospel, Christ
speaks. I think we may say in this verse
three, when the porter opens the door to the shepherd who
comes to gather his sheep, we could discern the person of the
Holy Spirit in that porter. For it is the work of God the
Holy Spirit to open the heart door of every elect child of
God, to whom the Lord Jesus Christ then calls their names, calls
his own sheep by name. And the sheep, their hearts opened. The door of their heart opened.
They hear his voice and he leads them out. You see, that's not
my work. That's not the preacher's work.
That is a work of the triune God. God the Father having a
people that he commits into the care of Christ. God the Holy
Spirit pursuant of that falling away, that rebellion in Adam,
seeking out, searching out that flock, and through the preaching
of the gospel, opening heart doors, and the call of Christ
coming in the gospel, and the people of God, the Lord's sheep
being called out. We call this regeneration, and
we call it conversion. It is God's work. Father has
his people given to Christ. He calls those people his sheep. The Holy Spirit opens the heart
and the mind and enlivens the spirit of those sheep. And the Lord Jesus Christ comes
in the gospel and calls those sheep by name, having laid down
his life for them, having shed his life's blood for their cleansing
and redemption. And he calls those for whom he
died, mine. In Ephesians 1, verse 4, we read
there, And then there's the work of the Holy Spirit in Ephesians
1, 17. the elect are given, the spirit
of wisdom then comes, the spirit of revelation in the knowledge
of him, that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened,
that ye may know what is the hope of his calling. This is
the work of the Holy Spirit upon the mind, upon the heart, upon
the spirit of an individual. And here we see that it is more
than just the words of a preacher, convincing as they may be. It
is more than even the signs and wonders that could be employed
by the Apostles Paul and Barnabas in their day. These attested
the authenticity of the minister, but it was the Holy Spirit that
applied those things. It was the Holy Spirit that opened
the eyes of the blind to show them that there was true life
to be found in faith and trust of the Lord Jesus Christ. who
hath saved us and called us with unholy calling, says Paul to
Timothy, not according to our works but according to his own
purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the
world began. Christ's sheep then hear his
voice. not just to hear the gospel,
but they hear his voice in the gospel. They hear a holy calling,
a calling to holiness and in trust and in belief in the cleansing
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So the first thing that the Lord
says there is that his sheep hear his voice. And then he says,
I know them. Now, of course, God knows all
things. It's an attribute of the divine
nature. He is an omniscient God. He knows
everything. There's nothing can be hidden
from God. But the knowledge here that the Lord Jesus Christ is
speaking of is a knowledge that carries a sense of intimacy and
a tender relationship that has been formed already. And it's in this sense that the
Lord Jesus Christ knows his sheep. I tried to think of an example
of that and I was wondering about a school teacher. And you would
expect a school teacher to know all the children in her class.
But if one of those children is also her daughter, then she
knows all the children, but she knows her daughter in a quite
different relationship than she knows the other children. A doctor
may know all her patients, but if one of those patients is also
her son, then she has a different knowledge and relationship with
that son than she does with the rest of her patients. And Christ
knows his sheep. He knows them because they are
his children. He knows them because they are
his own, his possession. And there is a particularity
even in the omniscience of the Lord Jesus Christ in this relationship
that he has, this tender relationship and intimacy that he has with
his people. And we must constantly resist
the modern gospel emphasis of an indiscriminate offer to everyone
being created in the preaching of a sermon or in the preaching
of the gospel. It just doesn't exist. That is
not the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Rather, what we are hearing
here is that the Lord Jesus Christ has a people who hear His voice
and He knows them. "'I am the Good Shepherd,' he
says, "'I know my sheep.'" Well, of course he knows them. There's
no question about that. He has known them eternally.
He has known them from before the foundation of the world.
He has foreknown them. That's a beautiful word that
the Apostle Paul uses in Romans 8, and it talks about that knowledge
that exists. Even before time, as the Lord
Jesus Christ knows his people with an intimacy of possession,
he foreknows us. It would be a poor shepherd who
didn't know his sheep. But the Lord Jesus Christ is
not a poor shepherd. He is a good shepherd. When I
look at a field of sheep, when I look at a flock of sheep, they
all look the same to me. but a shepherd knows individually
his sheep. He just does. He not only knows
who his sheep are, he knows the mother of that sheep. He knows
the father of that sheep. He knows the sisters and the
brothers of that sheep. He knows when that sheep was
born. He knows where that sheep was
born. He knows the quality of that
sheep. He knows the attributes of that sheep. He knows if that
sheep is prone to wander, or whether it will be first there
in line when the food is being given out. He knows all about
his sheep and the Good Shepherd knows his people. Our brother, Richard Shadow,
whose name was up there a little bit earlier in the box. He comes
in with his wife, Shirley, from Grand Rapids, I think. He sent
me a sermon over the past few days by a man called James Wells. Richard maintains a website with
a lot of Wells writings in it. I'll put a link to the website
under the video a little bit later and you can find it there
if you want to have a look back for it. In the sermon that Wells
had preached there was a reference there to Rehab and Rehab was
that lady in Jericho who looked after and protected Joshua's
spies when they came to spy out the city of Jericho. Rahab is
described to us as a Canaanitish harlot. And so she wasn't a Jew,
she was a Canaanite. These were the idolatrous worshippers
that God said had to be destroyed from the land, the promised land,
which would be the possession of Israel. And she's told, the
scriptures say that she was a harlot, and yet for all of the disadvantages
that she had, we're told that she had faith in God. John Gill
says of Rahab, this woman is a wonderful instance of the free,
sovereign, distinguishing, powerful, and efficacious grace of God. And that's quite a statement. I think he pretty much nailed
it there. And why am I telling you all this? Well, I'm telling
you this because Rahab was an ancestor of the Lord Jesus Christ. Rahab, when she married, when
she had her children and then her grandchildren, down through
all the generations, was a great, great, great, great grandmother
of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, all of these things,
the whole history of the world, the families of the world, the
individuals of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ knows who they
are and he brought Rahab into his very own genealogy. So that all those years later
when the Lord Jesus Christ was born and when Matthew wrote the
introduction to his gospel, there was Rahab in the lineage. There was Rahab in the genealogy
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well may we say the Lord Jesus
Christ is the good shepherd and he knows his people. And the
third thing the Lord says in this matter is that They hear
His voice, He knows them, and they follow
Him. And that's just a fact. The Lord's
people follow Him. They just do. They know the Lord
Jesus Christ and they follow Him. If you've ever had anything
to do with churches, and I know that most of you have, you will
know that what a church wants you for is a member. They want
you to join their church because numbers means money, numbers
means prestige, numbers means promotion and influence within
a denomination. And I don't want anything to
do with that mentality. I don't want it for myself. I
don't want it for my church. I don't want it for my faith.
I don't want it for my religion. I don't want it for my preaching.
I want the question to be not your allegiances to a denomination,
but the question of your soul. and the question as to whether
you are a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because the Lord
Jesus Christ leads his people out of the darkness of this world
and out of the darkness of sin and out of the darkness of loss
and isolation into the glorious light of his truth. The Lord
Jesus Christ leads his people out of legal bondage and into
liberty. The Lord Jesus Christ leads his
people out of a works-driven religion into the experience
of grace and love and mercy. To experience the grace of God
in our hearts. to come to that place of recognising
God's mercy in the plan of salvation, to send a Deliverer, to send
a Redeemer, to send the Saviour Jesus Christ into this world,
that the Saviour should pick up the burden, pick up the yoke,
pick up the responsibility of my eternal well-being and lay
down His life for me. This isn't just theory. This isn't just vain
imagination. The elect of God hear his voice
and they follow. They desire to follow. They're
not driven, they're not beaten, they're not whipped. There's
not a shepherd's crook or a rod taken to chase them along the
road. The shepherd walks before them,
they hear his voice, they recognise his voice and they follow him
because they know they will be nourished by him. They know they
will be refreshed. They know they will be fed. They
know that there will be that love demonstrated towards them
whereby they dine in green pastures and lie beside still waters,
that their souls will be nurtured by the very truth and the words
and the grace and the communion and relationship that we have
with our Saviour Jesus Christ. That's what it's about. It's
not about names on a church roll. It's not about somebody saying
nice things about us. It's not about that sense of
identity and allegiance and fellowship that we might have in an organisation
and the social dimensions of that. There's important things
there in the fellowship of the Lord's people, but the question
is of our soul. And the question is to be seen
here. The Lord's people follow Him. In John chapter 6, the people
turned against the Lord and he turns and he says to his 12,
will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him,
Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life, and we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ,
the Son of the living God. We believe and are sure. You
see, when that faith is given, when that voice is heard, when
that assurance is granted, Where else are we going to go but to
follow the Lord Jesus Christ? Where are you going to go? All
who know Christ must follow him. And I know you wonder sometimes. I know there are questions come
into your mind and questions come into your heart. But we
go and we go on. And we keep faithful, we stay
the course. If ever you are brought to know
the Lord Jesus Christ, you will follow him. And neither devil,
nor flesh, nor this world's trials and temptations will stop you.
How do you recognise one of the Lord's sheep? the Lord's sheep
hear his voice. They recognize the words of eternal
life. The Lord's sheep are known of
him. Though they are lost, they are
sought out. Though they are Caught and snagged
and snared in this wilderness world, the Lord Jesus Christ
seeks them and he calls them to himself. And the Lord's sheep
follow their shepherd because he satisfies their souls. Well, that's the answer to the
first question. Now, I told you not to worry. So here's the second
question. How do I know if I am one of
the Lord's sheep? Well, that's an important question.
The Lord Jesus Christ said, I lay down my life for the sheep. And that atoning sacrifice is
salvation for the guilty soul. That's what's important. We need
to know that the Lord Jesus Christ's blood was shed for us. We need
to know that grace and peace for the sin-troubled heart that
we have. If you have that sin-troubled
heart, then you know that you need a saviour. But how can I
know if I am one of those for whom Christ died? How can I know
if I'm one of his sheep and not a goat? And we ask ourselves the question,
if I were one of the Lord's sheep, would Christ's sheep think the
way that I think? Would one of Christ's sheep feel
the way that I feel? Would one of Christ's sheep act
in the way that I act? Well, what does the Lord have
to say? He says, I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and
I'm known of mine. And there's the point. We know
the Lord. We don't know the Lord in the
way that the Lord knows his sheep. We don't know the Lord in the
way that Christ knows us. The Lord Jesus Christ has foreknown
us. He has known us from eternity
since we were committed into his hands. But nevertheless,
the sheep know him. And to the extent that they know
him, they long for Christ to be their shepherd and their saviour. They desire no other shepherd
and saviour. So I ask you a question. Do you
desire Christ to be your saviour? Do you desire Christ to be your
shepherd? The Lord's sheep admire the greatness
of his salvation and the Lord's sheep confess that there is no
other salvation, that there is no other way. The Lord's sheep
confess that they've tried other ways and they have found that
they do not bring the peace and they do not bring the liberty
that they desire. The Lord's sheep love Christ
sincerely, and yet they are aware of the struggles that they have
to love Him as they want to love Him. They believe his gospel,
and yet they struggle with disbelief and unbelief all the time. The Lord's sheep trust in his
power, for they know that there is no other power but his, but
it grieves them to shame him as often as they do. The Lord's
sheep know that if they are to be saved, it is only he that
can save them. And in knowing that, they know
Christ. They know him to be an able saviour. They know him to be an able deliverer. They know him to be the only
one who has shed his blood for the salvation of sinners. And
they know him to be the true shepherd of the sheep. These
are evidences that attest the true sheep of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Don't make this harder than it
is. You don't need to know that Christ
died for you personally. You need to know Christ. And
if you know him, it is because he has taught you who he is. He has taught you what he has
done. And he has taught you those things
because you are one of his sheep and because he is your shepherd. and all the negative feelings,
and all the sinful temptations, and all the falling, and all
the failures, do not pluck you from His hand. And they do not
pluck you from the Father's hand, because knowing the Lord Jesus
Christ is eternal life. Knowing Him is to be the beneficiary
and the recipient of all the things that He has done for His
church and for His people. And the third question might
be this, how do I know if someone else is one of the Lord's sheep?
Why is that important? Well, it's important because
who are we going to fellowship with? It's important because
who are we going to spend our time with? It's important because
who are we going to listen to and hear for the preaching of
the gospel? How do I know if one of these
is the Lord's sheep? Well, again, what does the Lord
say? You know, it's important how
we spend our time and who we spend our time with. The Lord
says, don't be unequally yoked. That's important for our church
fellowship. That's important for who we will
marry, who we spend our time with, who our friends are. How
do I know if someone else is one of the Lord's sheep? The
Lord says in John 10, verse 16, You see, the Lord Jesus Christ
has other sheep. He was speaking here to the Jews,
and he was preparing them for the day in which the Gentiles would be gathered
in to the church also. And that shows us that all over
this world, The Lord Jesus Christ has his sheep. That's what Paul
and Barnabas were going to Turkey for. That's why they were going
to these towns and cities. That's why we preach the gospel
to whosoever. We desire that this message will
go out and be heard because it is a declaration of what the
Lord Jesus Christ has done, which the Holy Spirit will apply to
the hearts and lives of men and women. And when he does, that
is the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ going forth in the
gospel, seeking and saving that which is lost, calling them,
gathering them into his fold, and they shall hear his voice. So how do we know if someone
is or is not one of the Lord's sheep? By their confession. They have heard the Gospel. They
will testify to the Gospel. They will preach the Gospel. They will preach the message
of the Lord Jesus Christ in all of His sovereign purpose, in
all of His limited atonement, in all of His gracious salvation,
and in all of the particularities of that work for the salvation
of His people. They have heard Christ. They
know Christ. They will testify to Christ. They will confess him. They have
heard Christ's voice in the Gospel. They have believed that Gospel. They have believed in Christ,
who he is, what he has done, what he is doing, and what he
will yet do. They will confess Christ and
they will follow Christ. My sheep hear my voice. They follow me. How do we know
if someone is a believer? They follow the same Christ as
we follow. They bear testimony to the same
Christ as we testify of. Following Christ's doctrine,
following Christ's example, loving the Lord, loving the brethren,
sharing in that common fold, which is the Church of God in
this world. We have a good shepherd. We have
the Great Shepherd, a shepherd who has laid down his life for
his sheep. And by his goodness and his mercy,
we shall follow him all the days of our lives. Amen. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to our hearts and teach us by the things which we have said.