Let's quieten our hearts once more as we
prepare to hear the word of the Lord.
Lord, that's some expression.
Refiner's fire.
We can only imagine what it would mean
if we went through all the processes that
you sometimes need to put us through.
And Lord, I sense that most of us
singing that now meant my one desire is
to be holy.
But Lord, I know in my life I
had an extra longing as I sang that.
That longing that tomorrow, or Tuesday, when I'm
back at work, my one desire will be
to be holy.
And Lord, that means that we are going
to follow you, for there's no difference.
We can only be holy as we follow
you.
And Lord, as was prayed earlier in our
before the service, we don't like being called
sheep.
Sometimes they do appear to be very weak
and stupid.
But Lord, it's so like so many of
us.
Indeed, you've said all of us.
But there's one thing they do very well,
Lord, and we don't do so well, and
that is they follow.
So Lord, I pray that we may follow,
that we may become like you, that our
one desire may be to be holy, Lord.
We leave ourselves in the hands of your
precious spirit this morning, O Lord, and we
ask that he takes your word and applies
it to our hearts, that we may have
this increasing desire and then the will to
do it as we leave here.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Well, I can see you've got a little
heavier clothing on this morning than you've had
the last few Sundays.
It's sort of getting there.
Isn't it wonderful how we can depend upon
the seasons?
I mean, the Lord says, right, I know
they're starting the new church here at the
beginning of September, so I guess I'd better
change the weather so they'll feel like going
to church.
And this is what's happening, isn't it?
As I said last week, we're all like
sheep.
We come in here and you all follow
us in.
So that's the way it is.
And it's the first Sunday of September, and
we're going to carry on this morning in
our readings through John's Gospel.
Now, I've been thrilled to have a chance
to go through John's Gospel with you, with
Pastor John, the last few months.
We've only got up to chapter 10, and
this is the first one we're going to
do two sessions in.
But for the next couple of Sundays, you'll
be pleased to know that Pastor Doug is
going to be starting a series of two
messages, two mornings and two evenings, and that'll
be a wonderful time as our new interim,
our new transitional leader will be here, and
he'll be sharing with us something of his
vision and his goals as we see him
open the Word.
I'm thankful to God that we've got somebody
who's both musically inclined and Mary indeed.
Both of them.
It's not that one is music and one's
the Word.
They're both music and they're both the Word.
And so we're going to be excited as
we see them leading us during this, these
coming months.
So after those two Sundays, I'm going to
be away then in San Antonio, Texas over
the next couple of Sundays, and we've got
Pastor John.
I'm sorry, we haven't got Pastor John.
He's coming up a little later.
We've got Dr. J.I. Packer coming.
And Dr. Jim Packer, as you know, an
internationally known Bible teacher and theologian, the professor
at Regent College, so well known perhaps for
his many books, but particularly that bestseller, Knowing
God.
And Jim Packer is going to be here
for those two Sundays, the last one of
September and the first one of October.
And then the next two Sundays, Pastor John.
Pastor John Imbo is going to be here,
and he's going to be opening the Word.
I'm not sure whether he's going to stick
in John.
I'm not sure about that.
We'll have to find out and we'll wait
until we get there.
And then the last two Sundays of October,
I'm going to be back and we're going
to be going through the first Sunday anyway.
We'll probably continue John.
And then the last Sunday is going to
be an international mission Sunday.
And I'm looking forward to that whenever there's
a fifth Sunday of a month.
That's four times a year, but particularly in
the fall and in the spring.
I almost said in the fall and the
autumn.
That's my two minds the other side of
the Atlantic working.
But in the spring and in the fall,
we'll have an international mission Sunday, and hopefully
it will be just laden with all kinds
of good things to just let us see
that tremendous need across the world.
And then that's in the last Sunday morning,
and in the evening I will finish with
my last message.
So this morning, I want you to turn
with me then to that passage that we
had so very well read to us from
John 10.
Thank you so much, Don, for reading that
so meaningfully.
It's wonderful when we read the scriptures, not
like a newspaper, isn't it?
But it's the word of the living God.
So now I've admitted to find out what
page it is in your Bible.
If somebody will shout out, if you've got
a pew Bible, then I'll tell the rest
of you.
769.
That's the same as it was last week.
That's right, it's the same passage.
And we just are going to carry on.
And I'm going to be very brief this
morning, and we're just going to pick out
three great thoughts in this.
And what I want you to remember is
that we have led up over these months
to seeing that John is on a journey.
And a number of you are visiting this
morning, and you didn't get that, but John
is on a journey.
And as he travels through his gospel, he
takes us on a journey that Jesus had
taken John on with the other disciples.
And that journey, frankly, is the fulfillment, the
New Testament fulfillment of the journey in the
Old Testament that we saw.
You remember, in those books of Moses?
And we see how John, although he quotes
less from the Old Testament than the Synoptic
Gospels, yet in actual fact, after having half
a century to think it through, he says,
now I can see why Jesus said, I'm
the bread, I'm the light, about the water
of life, about I'm being the word, about
the good shepherd, about the door.
And I can see all these now, because
they're all picking up those wonderful stories in
the Old Testament.
I can understand it now.
And what John does is he takes us
through.
And you remember in chapter one?
Behold, said the Baptist.
Behold, said John the Baptist.
Behold, the Lamb of God pointing to Jesus.
He said, you remember the lamb that took
you all out in the book of Exodus?
You remember you killed that lamb and put
his blood on the doorpost and on the
lintel, and it was only through that blood
that you were protected and saved and ultimately
you could be taken out across the desert
into the promised land.
Jesus now is the fulfillment of that.
You may not be Jews today, but I
can tell you this, that Jesus is the
fulfillment of that.
And we all need to have the protection
of the blood of Jesus Christ.
And a lamb needs to be slain.
There needs to be a sacrifice.
Jesus, who was sinless, died for the sins
of the world, so you and I could
be free to cross that wilderness into the
promised land of the Christian life as we
possess that land, going on and on, deeper
and deeper with Jesus Christ.
Then we saw that we had to have
food in the desert.
Well, Moses gave them manna, that little round
white stuff that came down from heaven, like
bread from heaven.
Jesus said, I am the bread from heaven
now.
You're on your journey through life, starting another
church year today perhaps, and as you are,
I'm the one you feed on.
You want to feed and you want to
grow and you want to grow spiritually and
mature into the Christian faith, then you must
feed on me and in your mind inwardly
absorb and take in and be saturated with
me.
Then he says, you're going to need guidance,
aren't you?
So I tell you what, they had a
pillar of fire in the desert there, but
I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me won't walk in darkness, but
will have the light of life.
So Jesus is the light.
He shows us how to live.
He models it for us and he teaches
it for us.
Not only that, but he said, you're going
to get thirsty and need refreshment.
We'll do more of that tonight on the
23rd Psalm as he leads us beside the
quiet waters.
But he said, look, do you remember that
rock they smote?
That rock was Christ, says the Apostle Paul
in 1 Corinthians 10.
And from that rock in the desert, when
they had no water, the water poured forth
and the people drank.
Jesus was the rock smitten for us upon
the cross.
From his death, the Spirit of God flowed
into our lives as we trust him.
Not into every life, only into those lives
who put their faith and trust in him,
recognizing that on the cross he took their
place and died instead of them.
Not only that, but you know, as we've
come to John chapter 10, you need guidance
through the wilderness, through the desert of life.
I want you to know that I am
that good shepherd.
You are sheep.
We don't like it and it is embarrassing
to think of it that way, but nevertheless
we are sheep.
But he is our shepherd.
Oh my, I'd rather be a stupid sheep
and be in the company of a very
good shepherd that knows exactly what he's doing
and where he's going than be someone who
thinks he's quite bright and find that I'm
going to lose the way.
So Jesus is that good shepherd.
Now then, in our passage in John chapter
10, which is the good shepherd, then I
did remind you that there were various characters
mentioned there.
And let me just quickly tell you who
these are.
I want you to notice who these represent.
This is not a parable so much as
an allegory, where each point really represents something
else.
We're not altogether sure on all of them,
but most of them seem to be quite
clear as we look in scripture.
For instance, verse 11, I'm the good shepherd.
Who's the shepherd?
Jesus is the good shepherd.
Then also, who are the sheep in this
allegory?
The sheep are Jewish believers in Jesus.
Those who recognized in Jesus that he was
their Messiah.
And they are the sheep.
Then not only that, but we've got other
sheep in verse 16.
I have other sheep that don't belong to
this sheep pen.
The other sheep, are most of us here
today, would be in the other sheep category,
because those would be others, not in the
Jewish believer category, but who are Gentile believers,
other sheep.
They called them dogs.
They couldn't believe they could ever become sheep.
But frankly, they were sheep, and he's got
other sheep that weren't in this fold.
But not of this sheep pen.
The sheep pen that Jesus spoke about was
Israel itself.
Then not only the sheep pen, but he
talks about in verse 1, I tell you
the truth, the man who doesn't enter the
sheep pen by the gate is a thief
and robber.
The gate is the office of the Messiah.
And as Jesus completely fulfilled all the things
that he was to fulfill, if he was
the true shepherd.
So that was the office of the Messiah.
And Jesus came in through the gate.
Then not only that, but notice also in
verse 10, verse 9, the end of verse
9, it says that the person that comes
to Jesus will come in and go out
of that sheep pen.
He'll go in to find protection, but he'll
go out to find pasture.
The pasture is that abundant life spoken of
in the next verse, life with a capital
L, life to have it to the full.
And Jesus is indeed just that for us.
Then we notice also that the wolf comes
in verse 12.
The wolf is the evil one, the arch
enemy of the Christian.
But as Jesus died on the cross in
those death throes, he slew for good the
power of the wolf.
He just completely disempowered him.
He no longer has any power over us
because now our shepherd is the Lord Jesus
who died instead of us.
Not only that, but verse 12, there's a
hired hand who isn't the shepherd.
The hired hand isn't the slave of the
house who's given himself and will serve like
one of the family.
The hired hand is the man that goes
down at five or six in the morning
to the marketplace and sits waiting in line
to see if anyone will choose him to
give him a day's work.
And here we are.
OK, I'll give you a day's work, a
penny for the day.
OK, away you come.
But he hasn't got any love for those
sheep.
And if he sees the wolf coming in
verse 12, he's not the shepherd.
So when he sees the wolf, he abandons
the sheep and runs away.
The hired hand is, in fact, like the
stranger, the stranger, or rather like the thief
and the robber, too.
The thief and the robber may well be
the previous false messiahs that weren't the true
messiahs.
And there were many of them before Jesus
came who claimed to be the messiah, but
they never came in the gate.
They didn't fulfill the prophecies.
It may well be that the Pharisees were
those because they were leading the people in
wrong ways.
And indeed, but we see the hired man
would be perhaps like the stranger and the
sheep say, who in the world is this?
We don't know this voice.
And not only do they not come to
him, they will turn around and they'll run
away from him.
So these are some of the things that
are in this passage.
Now, I just want to look at three
little expressions this morning.
I want you to notice that at the
beginning of the chapter, it says, I tell
you the truth, the man who does not
enter the sheep pen by the gate, but
climbs in by some other way as a
thief and the robber, the man who enters
by the gate is the shepherd of the
sheep.
Notice there's only one gate to that sheep
pen, only one gate.
It's called the gate in this chapter a
few times, the gate.
Notice then, and another couple of expressions, one
of them now down in verse 16, after
having spoken about other sheep that are not
of the sheep pen, that's Gentile Christians, I
must bring them also, they too will listen
to my voice and there shall be, here's
the second thought, one flock.
So not only is there one gate, but
there's one flock.
Thirdly, you notice after that there shall be
one flock and one shepherd.
One shepherd, the rest of us are under
shepherds if we're in shepherding, but here are
these three concepts now.
One shepherd, one flock, and one gate.
And I just want us to think about
that this morning, the exclusivity of Jesus Christ,
the uniqueness of the Christian gospel, the Christian
message.
There aren't many gates, there aren't many shepherds,
there aren't many flocks, there's only one real
shepherd, the rest of us under him.
If you want to call us shepherds, if
we're in Christian leadership some way and to
one degree or another, we're all shepherding people.
But if you want to call us shepherds,
then he's the chief shepherd, the good shepherd,
the great shepherd.
But really, he's the only shepherd and we're
the under-shepherds.
And secondly, there's only one flock.
One flock, that means there may be many
worship places, many churches, many different denominations, but
in those churches, in those denominations, here and
there perhaps in some, and maybe more plentiful
perhaps in some others, but are those who
are truly his sheep, who know his voice.
And wherever they are, no matter what place
of worship it is, if they know his
voice, and they're part of that body, and
they're part of that flock, they are indeed
a part of the one flock.
And then thirdly, there's that one gate.
There's only one entranceway into the kingdom of
heaven.
There's only one way, Jesus said, I am
the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through
me.
And not only that, but there's still only
the one gate, and if you know him,
you go in for protection and out for
pasture and in for protection, but it's still
only one gate.
So let's think of those three things.
First of all, then, there's one shepherd.
That's what it tells us in verse 16.
One shepherd.
Now, I don't know whether you know the
Old Testament fairly well, but you may know
that beautiful passage in Psalm 80.
And in Psalm 80, it's that beautiful part
about the shepherd of Israel.
And it tells us that when those people
of God were going through the wilderness on
their way out of Egypt, out of slavery,
to live this life to the full in
Israel, as they were going there, God was
indeed their shepherd.
And it says at the beginning of Psalm
80, the prayer, Hear us, O shepherd of
Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock.
And then it speaks to God.
God himself, the Father, was the shepherd.
He was the true shepherd.
He looked after his sheep.
And then in the same general area of
the Bible, just a couple of chapters before,
at the end of Psalm 77, he said,
You know, I've got undershepherds, and they are
doing well too.
The last verse of Psalm 77, verse 20,
the psalmist says to God, You led your
people like a flock, but then he's the
shepherd, but you led your people like a
flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
So Moses and Aaron were undershepherds.
They were faithfully serving God, and they did
what God told him to.
Not only Moses and Aaron, but you look
over at the end of Psalm 78.
At the end of Psalm 78, just before
our eighth psalm, it says this, in verse
70, God chose David, his servant, that's King
David, took him from the sheep pens because
he was a shepherd.
From tending the sheep, he brought him to
be the shepherd of his people, Jacob, or
his people, Israel.
And David shepherded them with integrity of heart,
with skillful hands he led them.
So here you have the great shepherd, who
was God the Father, who then he showed
that there were undershepherds, Moses, Aaron, David, and
likely others too.
But unfortunately, by the time you get towards
the end of the Old Testament, you're getting
into the prophecy of Ezekiel.
And if you read chapter 34, all of
it is about people who were supposedly shepherding,
but were more interested in their own good
and their own future and their own goals
than the good of the sheep.
And the whole of chapter 34 of Ezekiel
is tearing them apart and saying, you've looked
after yourself, you haven't bound up the wounds
of the sheep, you haven't healed those who
were just feeling down, you haven't strengthened the
weak, you haven't done all the things.
When they've lost, you didn't go searching for
them.
They've gone off into many countries of the
world.
Then he says, but I am going to
bring them back, and I'm going to do
it through a good shepherd.
And so it is that when you come
to the New Testament, now Jesus says, all
right, God the Father was the sample.
You saw Moses and Aaron and David.
Look at all these others that led the
sheep in the wrong way.
Oh, there were one or two good ones
among them, but largely they led the sheep
in the wrong way, selfishly.
Now I want you to know that just
as the vine was Israel and they produced
only wild grapes in Isaiah 5 and in
Psalm 80 again, wild grapes, I want you
to know I'm the true vine, and we'll
get to that maybe one day in John
15.
Similarly, just as you had a good shepherd
in the Old Testament, the Father, then you
had all these rotten shepherds and they did
the wrong things, I want you to know
now, just like I'm the true vine, I'm
the good shepherd, the good one, as opposed
to all these false ones.
Not only that, he says, but now I
want in this age of grace, in these
years between his first and second coming, and
we don't think it's going to be too
much longer, do we?
The things are mounting up, and even secular
scientists tell us they can't see how the
world can go on another 20 or 30
years.
With the exponential growth of everything, not only
is it going that way and that way,
but it's going up almost backwards again.
It's just growing right up, and we say,
Lord, I don't know how we can carry
on.
Lord said, well, I'm going to return one
day.
You don't know when, and just ignore those
who think they do, but I'm going to
come back.
I'm going to come back, but until that
time, you, you must feed in good posture,
and indeed, I'm going to give you under
shepherds to lead you.
Pastor Doug is coming in now over the
next little while, and he's going to give
that leadership with Pastor John and the rest
of our ministry team.
As he does that, we pray that God
will indeed lead us into good posture, and
that's the way that he loves to see
us lead.
So then what happens is he says to
Peter, Peter, I want you to know you're
one of those shepherds, and in John chapter
21, after the on that seashore, Peter, do
you love me?
Lord, you know I care for you.
All right, feed my lambs.
Peter, do you really love me?
Well, Lord, you know I'm fond of you.
All right, take care of my sheep.
Peter, are you fond of me?
Oh, Lord, you know that's what it is.
I'm fond of you.
All right, I'm going to meet you where
you are, said Jesus, because God always meets
us where we are, not where he thinks
we ought to be, and he met him
where he was, and he said, all right,
feed my sheep.
So here was this shepherd, an under-shepherd,
under Jesus, and when you come to 1
Peter chapter 5 and those early verses, he
says, I'm telling you, or you under other
under-shepherds at South Delta Baptist Church or
anywhere else, I want you to know I
appeal to you as a fellow shepherd.
Look what he says.
1 Peter 5, it says, to the elders
among you, which is just a word for
old really, you know.
It really is.
Sorry about that, Doug, but I'm older than
you are.
But it really is old and elders.
It's just the word old with a couple
of extra things added on.
It just means an old one.
It's just like, you know, do you know
where the word senator comes from?
I mean, you know the word senile, don't
you?
It's the same.
Yes, the same root.
In fact, if you think you're senile, you
may be a senior.
Same root.
So anyway, here it is.
It's the elders, the older persons, the elders
of the church.
I appeal as a fellow elder, not as
the great one, no, as a fellow elder,
a witness of Christ's sufferings and one who
also will share in the glory to be
revealed.
Be shepherds of God's flock.
That's the exact word for pastors.
So you elders in the church, be shepherds
of God's flock that is under your care,
serving as overseers.
That is the word from which we get
our word bishop.
You know the word episcopal, knock the E
off the beginning.
You've got piscop, which was the old English
word for bishop.
So here you've got bishops, or here you
have these people who are watching over.
They're watching over is the literal meaning, not
overlooking, but watching over as they watch over
the flock.
So here he says, I want you to
know, the elders, the shepherds, overseers, and he's
speaking to the same bunch of people here,
not because you must.
This is the way you must serve.
Three things, not grudgingly, but willingly.
I wonder if you're in some leadership this
year.
Maybe God is bringing you in to lead
a small group, to shepherd that group.
Maybe God is bringing you in to teach
in one class or another.
Maybe God is bringing you in to shepherd
people in all different kinds of ways.
Oh, I want to ask you this morning,
are you going to do it grudgingly or
willingly?
So he says you must do it not
grudgingly, but willingly.
Secondly, in the middle of verse two, not
greedily, but eagerly, not for what you can
get out of it for yourself, but eagerly
because you want to serve the Lord.
And thirdly, not lording it, verse three, not
lording, but leading.
In other words, not lording it over saying,
I'm the boss here, you know, there's a
my way or the highway, and that's the
way we're going to do it.
No, no, no, not lording, but leading and
leading by example to the flock.
As the shepherd went out in front and
Jesus was the good shepherd, as we follow
him, that's the way that we're to lead
as under shepherds.
So all of this, when Jesus says, I'm
the good shepherd, he is saying, I want
you to know that I am the example
now of what God the Father was in
the Old Testament and what I want Christian
leaders to be in the New Testament.
What do shepherds do?
Oh my, let me suggest to you before
we go on to the second point, that
shepherds do a number of things.
Let me suggest seven.
Number one, what we've just said, leading.
For the shepherd goes ahead of his sheep
in those countries.
He doesn't drive them from behind.
He goes ahead and they know him and
they love him and they follow him because
they know his voice, because they love him,
because they know he loves them, because he
knows them by name and he cares for
them.
That would take some doing in this church,
but it will come after time.
But he knows them by name.
And first, a shepherd leading.
Second thing, where does he lead them?
Into pasture.
So not only leading, but feeding.
And that's the job of a shepherd.
He feeds them.
And the main way we feed people, and
we'll see tonight as he makes us to
lie down in green pastures.
I can't wait to get under the 23rd
Psalm tonight.
Hope you've got 29 hours for me to
get through it.
Now, we'll just take a little while, but
oh, it's wonderful.
As he makes us lie down in green
pastures.
Try this book.
This is feeding, feeding on the word.
But you know, we go beyond the sacred
page and we feed on Christ himself.
I am the bread of life.
And our inner man just absorbs and is
saturated with Christ himself.
So there's leading and there's feeding.
Not only that, but a third thing a
shepherd does is protecting.
He protects.
So he brings them into the sheep pen
at night and he makes sure they're safe
there, that no animal can get into them
and they won't be fearful and they can
lie down and sleep.
He protects them.
And that's the task of a shepherd in
the church, to protect people, make sure that
the enemies of their soul, the enemy of
their souls doesn't get in.
And all his agents, the cohorts of the
damned, don't come in and start to create
problems.
So he protects them.
Not only does he protect them, but also
a fourth thing is correcting, protecting, correcting, because
sometimes they do go astray.
And of course, he's got his sling there
and he'll throw a stone in front of
them, they'll whip back the other way.
Or some people think they're sheep dogs.
That didn't normally happen in Israel.
It was a rare, rare, rare time.
I guess they weren't real shepherds when they
had sheep dogs.
And goodness and mercy may have another meaning
anyway.
You come tonight to find out about that.
But you see, really, the sheep dogs, they
aren't there.
No.
He would throw that and he'd bring them
back.
He'd correct them.
And then he talked to that sheep.
He said, now sheep, you know me.
You know what I told you before.
You know the trouble you got into.
All that poisonous stuff in the grass.
You're going to be sick if you don't
watch it.
I've got to rebuke you and correct you.
That's what a shepherd has to do.
Not only protecting and correcting, but also searching.
For you read Luke 15.
You remember we had it in the weekend
of a time for healing.
Remember we went through Luke 15.
And you remember the part before the prodigal
son parable.
You remember the part where the one sheep
was lost and he left the ninety and
nine and went searching after the other one.
That's what a good leader will do.
He will search, go out and search for
those who maybe have gone astray.
Not only searching, but also when he comes
back, he finds that sheep has got all
torn up there in some underbrush and all
kinds of other stuff.
And he comes back and he starts to
put oil on him and starts to heal
him and clean him up.
So the healing process is there.
And not only that, but once every day,
at least that good shepherd will say, OK,
come on, George, come on, three foot, come
on, black ear, whoever you are, come over
to me.
And they know their name and they'll come
over and he gets them under his arm
and he tickles their chin, just like you
do that cat.
And so you run and he just cuddles
him and he has that beautiful time of
communion and loving.
And that's something that sheep looks forward to
at least once every day.
What a wonderful thing it is.
That's the job of a shepherd to do
all those different things.
So God says to us, you're under shepherds.
Maybe you're shepherding a family today.
Maybe you're shepherding someone in this church in
a small group.
Maybe you have some responsibilities to shepherd a
whole section of the church or the church
itself.
Then it is.
He's the great shepherd, but you're the under
shepherd, he says.
And I want you to do these things
for there's leading, feeding, protecting, correcting, searching, healing
and loving.
So there's only one shepherd.
He's the model.
He's the example.
Be careful when anyone elevates you to that
kind of position.
Rather, take the bottom place, the apex of
the triangle when it's down here, where there
isn't any competition.
Don't aim for that place.
Not lording, but leading, and leading in service.
So there's the one shepherd.
But secondly, I want you to look at
the little expression.
Oh, it's not in Peter.
The little expression in that same verse, not
only one shepherd, but it says there shall
be one flock and one shepherd in verse
16.
One flock.
A flock of sheep.
You say, but wait a minute, they're all
different kinds of them.
You say he's got this pen over here
and that pen over there.
Yes, but frankly, those are sheep folds.
Those are sheep pens.
Those are sheep enclosures.
Those are places where the sheep stay overnight
and probably they'll get up four or five
in the morning or maybe before.
But that's the place where they're protected.
No, no.
They may be in different pens and folds,
but he says there's only one flock.
You know, some farmers, one of my relatives
through marriage, had the largest dairy farm in
British Columbia with a thousand head of dairy
cattle with the quota, so on, but they
were in different places.
But it was all the same owner and
he was the master of them.
Well, he thought he was anyway, and here
they have it.
So there's one flock and there's one shepherd,
but they're all in different places.
Now you'll remember, as well as I do,
that Jesus was saying, I've got other sheep
in that verse that are not of this
pen.
This is the pen of Israel.
You're Jewish believers in Jesus.
You found your Messiah.
You know he's the Messiah.
You've read the scriptures.
You've not been just led across the wrong
way.
You've seen the scriptures.
He was born in the right place, when
he should be born, and exactly how he
should live and how he should die.
And Jesus met that, and you've realized he's
the true Messiah.
Now then, if you know that and you've
trusted him, he said, you are my Messiah.
Yes, you're a Jewish believer in Jesus Christ.
You found your Messiah.
You're a Messianic Christian, Messianic Jew, whatever you
want to call yourself.
You're one who has found your Messiah because
you found your Messiah.
Then you are a part of the flock
that's in the sheep pen of Israel.
But there are other pens, and those are
the Gentile pens.
And when we get to the book of
Ephesians, why, the apostle Paul says, I want
to tell you about these two pens.
Well, one pen for Israel.
A lot of other pens are Gentile ones.
Look at this.
Let me read this to you.
It's in Ephesians 2, verse 11.
Remember, says the apostle Paul, looking back to
when Jesus said, Jew or Gentile, there's going
to be one flock as long as you
trust me for your Messiah, for your Savior,
for your Christ.
Same word.
Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles
by birth, and called uncircumcised by those who
call themselves the circumcision, remember that at that
time you were separate from Christ.
You were excluded from citizenship in Israel.
You were foreigners to the covenants of promise
without hope and without God in the world.
No wonder in the temple there was the
inner part there where only the priests went,
and then outside that, of course, was where
the men were.
Outside that was the court of the women,
and right outside that was the court of
the Gentiles, who were the dogs.
They couldn't get anyone near there.
And so you were excluded from the promises
of Israel.
It shouldn't have been because in actual fact,
God's purpose in giving the gospel to his
people in the Old Testament was that they
would tell all the other nations of the
world, but they failed to do that.
That's why Jesus had to come, so that
he could start it all over again.
But now it says in Christ Jesus, Ephesians
2.13, you who were once far away,
that's me, have now been brought near through
the blood of Christ.
It's because of Jesus' death that we've been
brought near.
For he himself, Christ is our peace, who
has made the two, that's Jew and Gentile,
one, and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing
wall of hostility, which was in that temple.
By abolishing in his flesh, when he died
on the cross, he abolished the law with
its commandments and regulations.
Not that it was wrong, but you could
never meet the standards, and that was no
longer the standard.
Nobody met it.
Only Jesus could, and when he met it,
he therefore became the new leader.
His purpose was to create in himself, in
Jesus, one new humanity, one new man out
of the two, Gentile and Jew, make one
new man, thus making peace.
And in this one body, Jew, Gentile, the
one flock, in this one body, he was
going to reconcile both of them to God
through the cross.
In his body, as he died on the
cross, and this was to be one body,
as he reconciled them to God through the
cross, by which he put to death their
hostility.
So you can see what happens.
So consequently, you are no longer foreigners and
aliens, says the apostle Paul.
You're fellow citizens with God's people and members
of God's household.
And he goes on, you read chapter two
of Ephesians, my brother and sister, I've been
in ministry now for almost half a century,
and I tell you the greatest thrill I
ever have, as I'm probably six out of
seven times I speak, is usually with people
from all different groups, all different kinds of
churches, those who know and love Jesus Christ,
and are hungry, and know his voice, and
love the shepherd, and want to learn from
him, and want to come to him to
show how to love others.
And I tell you, it's a tremendous joy
for me, and I'm looking forward to heaven
so much that way, because I hope there'll
be one little job I can have in
heaven as the assistant introducer of denomination to
denomination.
Now wait a minute, that doesn't mean to
say everybody who goes to a church is
a Christian.
Doesn't mean to say everybody who's in this
church is a Christian.
We tend to think everybody in the other
churches aren't Christian.
Of course, this church is different.
I mean, we're Baptists.
Poppycock.
You can be a Baptist and not a
Christian.
Yes, some of you get upset at that,
because you say, no, I'm going to show
you now if you really are a Baptist,
then you do this, and this, and this,
and this, you believe this, and this, and
this, and this.
Well, sure, you believe it up here, but
your life hasn't been changed.
Christ wants to come in and revolutionize our
lives.
We are sheep.
He wants us to follow him, and the
evidence that we truly have been changed is
that our one desire is to be holy,
and we will follow him Sunday, Monday, Tuesday,
and the rest of the week.
No, no, and you can be an evangelical
and not be a Christian, because you can
be a nominal evangelical.
You've got all the facts right, answered all
the questions right, everything has gone fine.
There's only one thing wrong.
There's no life for the capital L within
us.
My dear brothers and sisters, it's like that
in virtually every church I minister in, and
it's my privilege to minister in about 40
denominations in different countries.
Virtually every church is the same.
There's an admixture, and even the leaders of
the church do not know absolutely whether that
person is a true Christian or not.
Only God knows that.
We can only go by the evidence that
he's told us to look for.
We look for the fruit in the life,
not the knowledge of the word.
They can preach, or they can do that.
No, it's the fruit in the life that
really counts.
The fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control.
And when that is in our lives, and
when Christ has moved in, not just a
knowledge of him, but we've personally appropriated him,
then it is that we can say, yes,
I'm part of that flock.
So, Lord, I want you just to show
me that the church is much wider than
one little building.
It's much wider than one sheep pen of
Israel.
It's much wider than Israel and the Gentiles
being put together.
For those who truly know you, and only
those who truly know you, make up the
one body, the one flock.
The question really is then, can I have
fellowship of that person?
Well, you can always have fellowship.
You've got two ears, two eyes, and a
nose, and a mouth, and they have two.
You can have fellowship in that sense.
But can I have Christian fellowship?
Well, who's going to judge?
You got a whole lot of questions?
No.
Are they following?
The question is, are they a part of
the body of Christ?
Does Jesus Christ live in them and dwell
in them?
If they tell you that, and you can
see some evidence like that, then certainly, I
don't care what denomination they're from.
There may be all kinds of other things
that I don't agree with, but they may
not be the non-negotiables.
For the non-negotiables that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of the Living God, that
Jesus God came in the flesh in the
person of Jesus, that he died on the
cross and is atonement for our sin, and
that we personally need to come in repentance
and faith to him, and we need to
follow him.
Beyond that, frankly, I cannot see that they're
non-negotiables.
After all, how can they believe in the
inspiration of Scripture when they only became a
Christian yesterday, haven't had a chance to read
it?
Give them a chance to do that.
Meet them where they are.
That's what God does.
And God will open their eyes.
I tell you, my brothers and sisters, nothing
has thrilled me more in this half a
century of ministry than being able to fellowship
with God's people so that the secondary matters,
though important, and I have my convictions, like
most of us do.
I have strong convictions, but moving around, I
don't unsolicitedly share those on secondary matters.
But all those non-negotiables, the basics of
the Christian faith, I want to fellowship with
all who know Christ.
For those who have part with Christ have
part with me, and I'm not about to
exclude them.
No amens.
Okay, let's have a look at it.
Still no amens.
Do you believe that or not?
I'm glad you do.
It sure didn't sound like.
All right, let's have a look at the
last part.
There's one shepherd.
There's one flock, but finally notice there's one
gate.
And notice it's at the beginning of John's
Gospel in chapter 10, and I'm not doing
much exposition this morning.
I've just taken these general thoughts because we
should be spending six weeks on this chapter
likely.
But here it is, it's the one gate.
It's called the gate.
Now then, it's the gate.
There are really, in a sense, two ways
in which the word gate is used in
this passage.
If you look here at the beginning in
John chapter 10 and the first verse or
two, the gate is the place where the
office of the Messiah, where the true Messiah
will fulfill the promises and go in and
all the sheep will listen to him.
But when later on in the chapter, Jesus
changes the analogy, the allegory, and he says,
not only am I the good shepherd, but
I am also the gate.
It says, I tell you the truth, verse
seven, I am the gate for the sheep.
All whoever came before me were thieves and
robbers.
But verse nine, I'm the gate.
Whoever enters through me will be saved and
come in and go out and find pasture.
Now, he's saying, do you remember I said
last week there were two kinds of pens?
And in Israel you had this rural pen,
which was out there on the mountainside or
on the plateau or somewhere in the fields
away from the town.
And then you had that semi-rural one,
I called it, in a village or in
a town that was rather more permanent.
And they had a proper gate on that.
There was a watchman there.
And we sure saw that God the Father
was the watchman who used John the Baptist
to open the gate.
So in a sense, both of those.
But in the ones in the fields where
the sheep stayed out overnight, particularly in the
good weather during the year, as they did
that, then there wasn't a gate on that
pen.
So the shepherd himself would lie down facing
the sheep.
No, and he would sleep there.
He would be the gate.
There's no way that they could go out
and no way that any wolf could come
in except by stepping over his body.
And even though it be his dead body,
he would fight to the end because he
was going to protect them like Jesus protects
us.
So here he says, I am the gate.
But notice there are two categories of sheep
that go in and out that gate.
The first one is the category of sheep,
the category that comes.
And for the very first time, it says,
yes, now I can see that Jesus is
the only way he's the gate.
I'm going to come through him and I'm
going to become a Christian because I'm going
to enter into his sheep pen and as
a part of his flock.
Then there's the other kind of sheep that
says, yes, that's right.
I came that way, but that was months
ago or years ago.
But now I tell you, each night I
come into this pen and I'm going to
have protection.
Each day, each morning, I go out of
this pen and I'm going to have good
posture.
So there are two ways in which that
is used.
And this morning, it may be that there
are both categories right here.
Maybe you see you've never truly trusted Christ.
Or maybe this morning you've known just everything
I've ever said and you're going to pick
up every little mistake I probably uttered and
you picked it up already this morning.
But in actual fact, is the life of
Jesus Christ in you?
Have you come through Christ?
There is none other name out of heaven
given among men whereby we must be saved,
says Acts 4.12. And it's only through
Christ, the way, the truth and the life.
That means through his death.
You can't live his life unless, first of
all, you identify with his death.
He died for me.
This one is dying instead of me.
I accept you as my Lord and Savior
to thank you for the rest of my
life by the way I live.
And as you do that then, having accepted
him, you seek to follow him.
And as you follow him, you then each
day go in and out, get protected and
find posture.
Now, do you do that?
Do you have that time?
When's the best time for the sheep to
feed?
The best time for the sheep to feed
is four or five in the morning, maybe
three thirty in the morning in Israel.
They'll get up early there.
They want to go straight at it and
get all those best grasses when the dew
is on them and they don't even need
to drink then.
They've got that dew on them, they're fresh.
They love it early in the morning.
I'm not going to split a church over
this, but I love it to have it
early in the morning.
How wonderful to have a time with God
early in the morning when the juices, when
the dew is on the pasture, whatever it
is there.
And God in a wonderful way can start
to feed you, which is, of course, one
of the main tasks of the Good Shepherd.
But not only that, but notice he still
says, I am the gate.
But notice, in closing here, that Christ is
not only the Good Shepherd, he is the
gate.
Now close your eyes and imagine this pen,
right?
Here's the pen out in the country.
Here's the man coming along the field.
He's the Good Shepherd, that's Christ.
Then imagine that there has to be a
way into this pen.
So there that one lies down and he,
in actual fact, is now for you the
entranceway into the sheepfold, into the flock of
the kingdom of God.
So Christ is not only the shepherd, but
he's the gate.
Not only that, but where do we go
when we go in the gate for protection?
We go into the sheep pen, where Christ
is the sheep pen, for it's in him
we are protected.
That's why he says, I will never leave
you nor forsake you, because it's in him,
as we hide in him.
That's when he's the sheep pen.
Not only is the sheep pen when we
come in, but when we go out for
pasture, he is the pasture.
So you see, it's no wonder Griffith Thomas,
that great Anglican evangelical of the early part
of the last century, spoke about, wrote a
book on Christianity as Christ.
Whatever it is you long from God, all
of it is found in Christ.
Everything in him I find.
Let me ask you then this morning, three
questions based on these three things.
Number one, have you come to the point
in your life where you have deliberately, with
a sense of acting upon your considered thoughts,
with your own will, invited Jesus Christ to
be the guide, the shepherd of your life?
Have you done that?
You do that by coming in repentance, and
by telling him you believe that he died
instead of you, and you've messed up your
life when you want to hand it over
to him.
Have you made him your shepherd?
Are you allowing him to lead you, feed
you?
Are you allowing him to protect you, correct
you?
Are you allowing him to search for you
when you stray, to heal you when there's
some problems?
Are you allowing him to love you, to
commune with you?
Second question, do you know something about the
one flock?
Do you know something about all those who
belong to that body, that flock?
Are your brothers and sisters in Christ?
If they truly belong to that, not all
of those in this body this morning, not
all of those who were even members of
this church.
I'm pretty positive.
Oh yes, others will say, we know they've
got to be, they could never become members,
but that's how every denomination gradually drifts from
perfection, which it never was anyway, to imperfection.
Gradually it drifts back.
But are you this morning, do you feel
that sense of oneness with all those here
and elsewhere who truly belong to Jesus Christ?
And thirdly and finally, do you use as
a Christian that gate to go for protection,
to go out early in the morning to
find pasture?
Do you feed on him?
Do you enjoy the good shepherd?
Oh, may the Lord just teach us these
lessons, and oh, I can't wait to get
into the shepherd's psalm tonight.
What a beautiful psalm, and we're going to
do that at 6 30 this evening.
So thank you so much.
May I call upon the pastor Doug.