Is The Lord Your Good Shepherd?

[0:00] after I read these verses, I'll say, this is the word of the Lord, and you can respond, thanks be to God. And as I read this and you follow along, remember this is the inspired, inerrant, infallible, clear and sufficient word of God himself.

[0:18] John 10. 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.

[0:33] 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.

[0:48] When he has brought out all of 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 the strangers.

[1:05] This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So, Jesus said again to them, truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

[1:20] All who come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.

[1:34] The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd.

[1:47] 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.

[2:03] The wolf snatches and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd.

[2:15] I know my own, and my own know me. Just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father, and I have laid down my life for the sheep.

[2:30] This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. Indeed, you may be seated. Let's pray.

[2:52] Prepare our hearts, O God, to accept your word. Silence in us any voices but your own. Cause us to hear your voice, and as we hear, help us to follow you.

[3:06] For Christ's sake, amen. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, I need to ask you this question today.

[3:28] Is the Lord your good shepherd? Lord your good shepherd. There was a tour guide in Israel who had taken some people from churches like this one to see the land and to see these locations that we read about in our Bibles.

[3:48] The tour guide had just told them how you can always tell in the pasture who is the shepherd of each flock, and it's because the shepherd will be out in front, and the sheep will be following the call, the voice of the shepherd.

[3:59] And right as he said this, the story goes, he looked out, and there was a pasture and sheep running, scattering, and the man chasing behind them. So it seemed to not fit.

[4:10] So the tour guide asked the translator who was local, he knew the farmers and knew the shepherds and knew the area, said, I thought the shepherd was always out in front. Why is that man chasing that flock?

[4:22] And the local guy just grinned and said, that's not the shepherd, that's the butcher. Well, when you and I were little, we knew that we needed shepherding.

[4:35] We knew that we needed someone to care for us, to feed us, to protect us. We were happy to admit that. We would cry for it. We would ask for that. But as we grow older and older, we learn to become more independent, and that's good, but we become self-reliant as well.

[4:52] So we start to think we don't need any kind of shepherding. On top of that, we have to go through hard things in life. There's a loss of innocence.

[5:03] There's pain. There's injury. And sometimes that even comes from those who should be shepherds. Maybe you're going through something like that right now, even a boss or a teacher or a coach, maybe even a relative.

[5:18] Supposed to be in that role of caring and shepherding and protecting, but instead is hurting very deeply. See, the people of Israel, they were ready to be out from under Rome, and they were sick of the religious leaders who were abusing them.

[5:38] They were greedy, these religious leaders. They were tax collectors. They were doing exchanging of money and basically selling out what God intended to be a sacrificial system to minister grace to those who have faith.

[5:51] And they were ready to be independent, to be out from under these bad leaders. When our Lord Jesus took on the flesh and walked throughout Israel, He was coming to fulfill what God had promised all along.

[6:10] I've come to the conclusion that we will not get the full depth of meaning of John 10 unless we also have Ezekiel chapter 34 in mind. And it's too much for me to exposit that chapter.

[6:24] But I do encourage you, if you've got a Bible, turn to Ezekiel chapter 34, keep your finger there, and be ready to flip back and forth as much as you would like. See, in chapter 10 of John, we read that some who heard the teaching of Jesus, giving this analogy, this figure of speech about the sheepfold and the shepherd, some of them said, a man that teaches like that cannot be possessed by demons.

[6:52] That's what it says in John 10, 24. These words are from God. We know that. This is from the true God. They said on top of that, a man who can heal a man born blind from birth, that has to be from God as well.

[7:05] That can't be the work of a demon. So by the end of this teaching in verse 21, we know it's the same audience as the chapter that came right before it. So to really make sense, I think as well, we need to ramp into this text that we just read by doing a brief review of the contrast from chapter 9 that we saw last time.

[7:25] In chapter 9, we saw how the religious elite had cast out the man born blind. They only gave that man the law. He's unclean. He's fit. He's broken.

[7:35] He's going to be in the dust as a beggar. But Christ found that man. Remember, he went out and found him after he had been excommunicated, and Christ gave that man grace. The religious elite presumed to be God's spokesmen.

[7:50] They presumed to rule over, to rule above Christ and the people. But when Christ showed up, he spoke, and God's people followed him.

[8:02] The religious elite pretended to be shepherds of God's sheep, but they did not know their own need. That wasn't a problem for the blind man, was it?

[8:13] He knew his need. And the Lord met him. The religious elite drove that poor beggar away from God, but Christ made that blind man close.

[8:27] In Isaiah chapter 40, verse 11, the promise comes of the Messiah. When he shows up, the Savior, he will tend his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms.

[8:38] He will carry them in his bosom, and he will gently lead them. That's exactly what our Lord Jesus did to that blind man. And now with the same audience gathering around him, Jesus sets up this word picture.

[8:54] If you look on chapter 10, the first six verses, it just tells us this familiar scene. He's painting a picture with his words, isn't he? He says, there's a sheepfold, verse 1, and that sheepfold has a door.

[9:11] Let me describe what this would be. To them, it's a very familiar image, but we need to understand what they were picturing. A sheepfold was made by collecting stones of different sizes.

[9:22] Those stones were cemented together to form a wall, and that wall would have come up about waist high. And the wall would form a circle. Sometimes it was not too big, but other times it could be pretty big to the point where more than one flocks and more than one shepherds could bring their sheep into the fold.

[9:40] And this wall didn't have any windows or other doors except for one opening, and that was called the door of the sheepfold. So the purpose of the sheepfold was to bring the flocks in from the pastures at nighttime, bring them all in here so they're safe, circled around this stone wall.

[9:57] And then during the daytime when the sun's out and the predators have gone to hibernate and nap, then the sheep can come back out through the door and they can go and enjoy the grass. So oftentimes the shepherds would also hire someone to watch over them so that at nighttime the shepherds could sleep so that they could be alert during the day to watch them in the pasture.

[10:18] And so then the person they hired, that hired hand, would be in charge of these flocks. Here's these three shepherds that brought their flocks to me. They're going to pay me to keep an eye while they're not here. So you see now, in their context, that's what our Lord Jesus set up.

[10:33] Now, this wall is not very high. Someone could jump over the fence and then pretend to be one of those shepherds. You know, they could put something over their head and there was one way that a hired hand could tell.

[10:43] As that shepherd starts calling out the sheep, walking out through the door, do any of the sheep follow that shepherd? See, sheep have a fear built into them and they would not follow a shepherd they didn't know.

[10:55] So this was their system. And even as I'm describing this, you might be thinking, we're in 2023. We go to the grocery store and buy our food.

[11:07] We don't keep our money in a herd. We put our money in banks. And so why is this figure of speech relevant to us still today? Well, Peter says to the church that Jesus Christ is the chief shepherd of your souls.

[11:23] And he's writing to an urban church. And the church of God throughout all the generations, ancient Israel, has always, you're going to see the language we've always been referred to as God's flock.

[11:36] So our task today is to try to take, look, verse 6, it's a figure of speech. To take all that God intended by this beautiful, rich, humble figure of speech.

[11:47] And ask for the Holy Spirit to teach you, teach me to receive all the richness here for me. from this. So the first thing I want to point out is this, that you and I, we need protection, just like a sheep.

[12:01] We need protection from thieves that act as shepherds. That's what our Lord says in verse 1. 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.

[12:23] So the sheepfold, what is the sheepfold? This analogy, this figure of speech is tricky, isn't it? Well, later on in the same chapter, our Lord Jesus is going to say, I have other sheep that are not of this fold.

[12:37] And who is he talking about? He's talking about the Gentiles. Yeah, about those that are not of Israel. So the sheepfold, he says in verse 1, the sheepfold that he's talking about, this is Israel.

[12:50] And what does it mean to enter, as part of God's people, enter Israel by another way other than what God has called for? I believe that there's a couple layers here.

[13:03] Let me see if I can make this clear. So the sheepfold, God has hedged in. He's given his law and his commandments and he's given the prophecies that will make really clear to Israel who the Messiah is.

[13:17] And the Messiah will meet and surpass all of the promises that national Israel ever received. So, it would be impossible for any other nation that didn't have the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, to recognize the Messiah.

[13:31] He would come first under the law from Israel, from the seed of Abraham. Not the seed of Adam, generally like all the nations. He would come from the seed of Abraham.

[13:42] Abraham. And God himself would take on flesh. And he would come from the seed of Abraham. That's also then, that picture, it's amplified with David. He would be a shepherd and a king.

[13:54] And he would rule and God would speak through him the words of life like David the great psalmist. And so Jesus would come from that line through the sheepfold in the right way.

[14:05] But there's also a contrast being set up. Think about those books of the Bible that we've gone through on Friday nights. What is the purpose of 1 and 2 Kings and Chronicles? What is the purpose of those books?

[14:18] It shows us that God is lifting up the ideal king. And man, after man in Israel, falls short of that ideal.

[14:28] There is no king, no man, no mere man can fulfill all that God requires of the king of Israel. But there will be one. All the promises and blessings attached to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to David, fulfilling all that God has promised way back for me, that will be fulfilled in one great king, the Messiah.

[14:49] So when Jesus says, all those who have come before me were thieves and robbers, all those other kings of Israel, they were falling short of that glorious standard.

[15:00] They were incapable of caring for the soul of God's people the way only God himself could. In Ezekiel 34, verses 1-4, we read this.

[15:13] And if you want to look there, you can. Ezekiel 34, 1-4. Let me give you context. Who is Ezekiel? Ezekiel was a priest of Israel, and he was carried away by Nebuchadnezzar, same time as Daniel.

[15:26] So you read of Daniel and the Hebrews being carried off. Well, Ezekiel was a prophet writing to Israel from exile, carried away. And listen to what God said.

[15:37] This is why judgment came. This is why the people of God were drug out of their land. You shepherds have been feeding yourselves. You should, should not shepherds feed the sheep?

[15:48] The weak, you have not strengthened. The sick, you have not healed. The injured, you have not bound up. The strayed, you have not brought back. The lost, you have not sought.

[15:59] And with force and harshness, you have ruled over them. Israel has failed. The leaders of Israel came short of the glorious calling that God gave them.

[16:16] But the good news is that from within Israel, from that line of Abraham, the line of David, would come Jesus Christ, the shepherd, the king, to rule over them.

[16:31] See, the contrast that Ezekiel 34 is describing, he's describing shepherds that are using the sheep. And to the Jewish here, the shepherd, it would have been a picture of a warmth relationship.

[16:45] They were not like, like the chickens that get sent to Kentucky Fried Chicken today where they're just on a, you know, assembly line to be devoured. No, these sheep, they would have lived an entire lifetime with the people, with the shepherd.

[16:59] You know, the shepherd would have milked them every single day to enjoy sheep and goat milk. They would have enjoyed using the wool for their own clothing. Look how close they're living. We saw how the shepherds would bring them in in the winter.

[17:12] They would actually share the warmth of a cave or a space together like that. You know, as the shepherd's family grows, they have their first child and second child. They need more money. They need more food.

[17:23] Well, those lambs are giving birth and they're raising up other lambs and their flock is growing just as the shepherd's own family is growing. That would have been the picture. But yet, Ezekiel said, Israel, your shepherds, the leaders over God's people, they've just been using and abusing God's people.

[17:41] So let me pause here for us application as well. It's that the heart of God to you is the heart of a caring shepherd. He brings you near him. He brings you into his family.

[17:53] That's what Jesus is showing. He says, your soul needs the shepherding care of one who is with you. He wants you to be so close to him. You need to be doing life with your shepherd.

[18:05] When you look to God, he is not the shepherd who will abuse you. He is the shepherd who will provide for you. He will heal you in every way that you need it. When the Lord is your shepherd, you will fear no evil.

[18:18] He makes you to lie down and to peace and to sleep. And this is true no matter where you end up in this world. When I thought of this wonderful promise that when the true shepherd is near you, you can rest.

[18:35] You will be safe. I thought of this pastor, a man who got saved in Medellin, Colombia. And he was living in one of the most dangerous prisons in Colombia. But the Lord saved him.

[18:46] He heard the gospel. It was through a missionary woman who was there all alone, very brave missionary. And he would get life threats even while he was sleeping in the cells at night.

[18:57] He couldn't lay down and sleep because someone might want to kill him because of the drug cartels and what he had done in his life. But when the Lord saved him, he said he had never slept so well. And he knew the Lord was with him because even in that prison, they started a Bible study and every Lord's Day they would gather a very small group of them and they became a little church.

[19:16] You fast forward several decades, that man was there lifetime sentence but he was a pastor of this little church inside one of the most dangerous prisons of Medellin, Colombia because the Lord was his shepherd.

[19:29] He didn't need to fear the evil of man anymore. So you need protection. You need protection from false shepherds and the Lord's presence is your protection. I want to look at verse 12 because there's one other threat that the Lord talks about that we need to pay attention to as well.

[19:47] Look at verse 12. Verse 12 he says, he who is a hired hand sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.

[20:00] Let me ask you this, what time of the day do you picture a wolf attacking the sheep in this sheepfold? They go into the sheepfold at night time, right? And that's when predators love to attack.

[20:13] When all the animals are still, the wolf would try to sneak up. But think about this, the wolf in the sheepfold, even if the wolf could jump over this wall, probably could, and kill a lamb, the wolf couldn't drag that lamb out, not up and over the wall.

[20:28] They would have still had to go through the door. And if it's just a hired hand sitting there and he sees a wolf coming up to intimidate him, those eyes of the wolf at night and you're all alone, the other shepherds are all getting their sleep, that hired hand is out of there.

[20:42] They're not paying me near enough to do this job. So then picture the shepherd. You show up on the scene the next day, there's blood all over the sheepfold and you can just tell a wolf has been here.

[20:54] And that hired hand is nowhere to be found. He collected maybe half the money and he's out of there. Well, that would be the scene that would be very familiar that our Lord is warning against. And Ezekiel 34 verses 5 and 7 say the same thing that the sheep of God were scattered because there was no shepherd and they became food for all the wild beasts.

[21:16] Remember, Ezekiel is writing because Israel had been carried off into Assyria and Babylon. My sheep were scattered. My sheep have become a prey and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts since there was no shepherd and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep but the shepherds have fed themselves and have not fed my sheep.

[21:38] See, every other king of Israel was like a hired hand. The people were not their own. They were abusing the people for their own gain. But the Lord refers to his people as his own.

[21:52] These are mine and even though they've been scattered I will go gather all of them and I will bring them back to me. In verse 13 Jesus said he flees because he is a hired hand.

[22:05] He cares nothing for the sheep. Well, the stern warning had been prophesied as well. Zechariah 11, 17 says, Woe to my worthless shepherd who deserts the flock.

[22:18] In Acts 7, 54 we get a picture of what it was like at the time of Christ. These hired hands who didn't really care for the flock. And listen to how similar they're described to a wolf.

[22:30] Acts 7, 54 when these same religious elite standing there heard Stephen's sermon. Remember Stephen the first martyr? The Lord saved him.

[22:41] He was serving the Greek widows serving as a deacon a servant of the church and he preached the gospel and he told them Israel you have lost sight of the Messiah who was to come.

[22:53] And he tells them the same message but Jesus fulfills it and by grace he came to save you. Well, when they heard this they're described this way they were enraged.

[23:04] Enraged. Picture that snarling wolf and they ground their teeth at Stephen. See, these wolves these elite would come to devour the church.

[23:16] The church would undergo persecution and Jesus is warning them when this happens I am still with you church. I am with you spiritually. I do not abandon my own.

[23:29] What does this look like in our lives today? Well, if you have a loved one which we all do and your loved one suffers some great injustice which we all go through don't you want sometimes just so badly to try to get vengeance or try to take some measure of justice into your own hands?

[23:54] The encouragement we have here is that the Lord knows the wolf. The Lord sees the injustice that's inflicted on his sheep his people and he wants you to look to him the shepherd.

[24:09] It's his rod and it's his staff that will enact judgment when the time is right. His rod and his staff let them comfort you.

[24:24] When the Lord is your shepherd he protects you. He leads you beside still waters and he restores your soul. He puts balm inside those fang marks those wounds from a wolf and he heals you.

[24:43] He pours the gentle water of his spirit and his word over your soul. Have you experienced that type of healing from your shepherd? Praise be to God.

[24:56] But this is only true if the Lord is your good shepherd. That type of restoration and abundant life can only come if he is your good shepherd.

[25:08] Look at verse 2. He who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. Jesus Christ came fulfilling all of the promises given to Israel.

[25:21] He fulfills all of the promises of scripture. They all find their yes and amen in Jesus. He came in in the light of day teaching openly the gospel of the kingdom of heaven.

[25:33] He came in through the door into the fold to call his own and to call all those from other folds so they would follow him. See the good shepherd he says he is the door.

[25:47] He is the door of your salvation. Look at verse 3. To him the gatekeeper opens. He entered redemptive history according to scripture.

[25:58] Now look at verse 7. Jesus again said to them he's explaining this analogy truly truly I say to you I am the door of the sheep. I was stumped on this one.

[26:10] I had to dig and get some help. So you remember I described the sheep fold as having only one opening just that that continuous wall in a circle. When the shepherd didn't hire a hired hand when it was the shepherd himself watching the flock at night where do you think he would be?

[26:29] He would sit right there at the opening right? He would sit there at the opening he could lean back and he could keep one eye on the sheep one eye for those yellow eyes of predators that might be creeping up from the wilderness and he would watch over his sheep.

[26:43] The shepherd himself is the door. There is no way for a thief or for a wolf to get these sheep if the shepherd himself is their door. Jesus is the door of our salvation.

[27:01] I want to read to you how our confession of faith the second London puts this. how does this Holy Spirit cause you to enjoy Jesus as the door of your salvation?

[27:17] This is what we call the effectual call. It's when the shepherd's voice goes out the sheep know that voice and the shepherd calling his sheep all those that belong to him will follow him through the door of salvation.

[27:31] Our confession says it's when you savingly come to understand the things of God by taking away your heart of stone and God gives you a heart of flesh.

[27:42] God renews your will and by his almighty power he effectually draws you to Jesus. Yet so as you come most freely being made willing by his grace.

[27:57] See what a kind shepherd he is. He gives the sheep a heart to follow him so that he goes out in front and they willingly follow the sound of his voice.

[28:10] Look at verse 9. Jesus says if anyone enters by me he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The sheep fold is just to keep you safe from the wolf at night and from thieves but during the daytime he doesn't cage you in.

[28:29] He says here are my green pastures. Feast. Go live abundantly. Enjoy. Enjoy all that I have for you. And I'll call you. You'll stay near my voice. You'll hear me.

[28:40] You'll walk with me. I will lead you in this life abundant. You will go in and out and you will have life. You will thrive under my shepherding care. See that's the promise that he's fulfilling from Ezekiel 34 verse 14.

[28:56] God himself said I will feed them with good pasture. and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountain.

[29:15] You have life abundant when you're following the voice of your shepherd. He keeps you safe and he also allows you to thrive, to grow.

[29:27] on those hardest moments in life when we need to go in and out of that fold, don't we? When a loved one has cancer and is going in for a fourth round of chemo, we want to come back inside the fold.

[29:46] We want to huddle up close with our shepherd, know that he's watching over us. You want to know that all those that you love are inside the fold, belonging to his flock.

[29:57] You want to know that once again, he will give you the peace and settle you. He will keep his watchful, compassionate, and all powerful rod and staff protecting you, looking over you.

[30:14] But again, the safety of going in and out through the door of his salvation, it's only good for those who follow his voice. See, Jesus is the gate.

[30:25] He is the good shepherd. Only for those who follow his voice. Look at verse 3. It says, to the shepherd, the true shepherd, the gatekeeper opens.

[30:38] So the watchman is there, the true shepherd arrives, he's going to call out his own. Look at verse 4. When he has brought out all of his own, he goes before them, out in front, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.

[30:54] Verse 5, a stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers. Ezekiel 34, verse 10, Jesus said, I will rescue my sheep from the mouths of the greedy, false shepherds.

[31:13] If you follow Christ, you know his voice, you know when you hear truth from his word, and you know when you can take the step of obedience that God is calling you to take, it's because his spirit is calling you.

[31:30] There will be a moment in your life, if you are already saved, there will be another sweet moment when you receive a gift from the Lord, and it's the gift of assurance. And all those who are saved ought to desire to have assurance of your salvation.

[31:46] But our temptation is going to be to look at my own life. Am I a sheep? Do I belong to Christ because I'm a good enough sheep? Isn't that how we always want to think? Maybe if I could just walk around with a better posture, maybe if I could perk my ears up, I'm trying to think what a sheep would want to do to impress the shepherd.

[32:04] Isn't that how we want to live our lives? But here's where your assurance comes from according to our Lord in this chapter. And I want you to see this for yourselves. So take your finger and touch verse 3. I'm going to ask you some questions.

[32:19] First of all, which sheep follow the shepherd? According to verse 3, which sheep follow the shepherd? The ones he calls by name.

[32:32] Do you see that? The ones he calls by name. And so then the next question is, well, which sheep does the Lord call by name? Yeah, you had it, Ken.

[32:43] Look at verse 3. Which ones does he call by name? His own sheep. his own sheep he calls by name. Now, let's try to catch up, okay?

[32:55] What we've seen in John so far is this. In John chapter 6, verse 37, Jesus said, all that the Father gives me, all that the Father gives me will come to me.

[33:09] And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. In John 6, 39, Jesus says, it is God's will that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

[33:26] Do you see what Jesus is saying? And in verse 6, this is a figure of speech. They did not understand him. But let the word of God clear up your thinking about God.

[33:38] If the Father has given your soul to the Son, he will not cast you out. he will go and find you like you found that blind man.

[33:50] He will call you by his voice, by name. Say your first name in your mind. He will call you by name and you will follow him because you are his.

[34:08] The Father gave you to him. Isn't that good news? he will not lose his own. So where do you get your assurance from?

[34:21] You get your assurance if you know the voice of your shepherd and if you're following him. That's where our assurance comes from. Well, what does it look like then for those who belong to Christ to follow his voice?

[34:37] I've encouraged us to try to meditate upon and even memorize Ephesians 1. What does it look like to follow Jesus? Ephesians 1. He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.

[34:52] Why? What does it look like? That we should be holy and blameless before him. So you remember those religious elite who were there grinding their teeth enraged at Stephen?

[35:04] One of those was Saul. Saul was a wolf. He was the best wolf. He was tearing Christians out of their homes, throwing them in prison. Saul was grinding their teeth enraged like a wolf.

[35:20] And our Lord Jesus called Saul by name, gave him a new name. And Saul followed our Lord as a missionary, walking holy and blamelessly before the Lord Jesus Christ.

[35:34] That's what it looks like. And this is where in our human minds we want to start breaking it down. Why? Why did God do this? We want to try to figure it all out and put our human words to it.

[35:47] Well, let's stick with Ephesians a bit more. We've reviewed how he predestined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ. And if you want to ask the why question, he gives you three answers right here in verses 5 and 6 of Ephesians 1.

[36:03] Why? In love. Because God is love. Why else? Number two, according to the purpose of his will. He is God.

[36:14] This is his will to save you in love. Number three, why? To the praise of his glorious grace. God gets all the glory in our salvation.

[36:27] He is the door of our salvation. So my encouragement to you is to follow the good shepherd. shepherd. You can enjoy abundant life in him.

[36:42] Verse 11, he says that. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. The wolf comes at night.

[36:59] The shepherd says, over my dead body, will you get anyone of my own? our Lord Jesus Christ lays down his life. The wolf of sin, Satan, death, the wrath of God, he lays down his life as the good shepherd so that his sheep can enjoy life abundant through him, through the door.

[37:30] father. So whether we like it or not, the Bible says that you and I are like sheep in more ways than we want to admit. Isn't your heart so prone to wonder, to be scattered like a sheep?

[37:47] But don't go out again this week into this world thinking that you're invincible, you can do it all by your own strength, because you will be devoured.

[37:57] I want us to all picture in the dark of night, those yellow eyes of the wolf that Christ warns against, but you find your comfort in his rod, in his staff, and you listen to his voice.

[38:12] Go to the Lord, hear him speak to you. Has God taught you that your soul needs to be shepherded by God himself, by the Lord Jesus?

[38:25] I hope you can look to a point in your life where you finally were ready to confess that. I, my soul, I need a shepherd, and it needs to be God. Anyone else will disappoint, will fall short.

[38:38] And if you've not reached that point yet, what's it going to take? Because if you're one of God's, he will use whatever it will take to bring you to the point of confessing that your soul needs his shepherding care.

[38:54] God's love to hear. And don't let the injuries you suffered at the hands of false shepherds, don't let those injuries put up a guard to the good shepherd, the Lord himself.

[39:07] Jesus wants you to confess that he is the good shepherd. He is God himself, but also to trust that he is your good shepherd.

[39:19] shepherd. He calls you by name. And it's only when the Lord is your good shepherd that you can enjoy abundant life in him.

[39:30] Let's pray. From Psalm 79, verse 13. From generation to generation, we recount your praise.

[39:44] We do that again today, Father. We are your people by your grace. We are the sheep of your pasture. You are our good shepherd.

[39:56] You are with us forever. We will give thanks to you forever and ever. And if anyone hears your voice today, I ask that your Holy Spirit will cause them to not harden their hearts, but to follow you in obedience for the glory of your name.

[40:16] Amen. I have made sour you