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We are in John chapter 10 today, so if you have a Bible, I would encourage you to pull it out. John chapter 10 is the next passage of scripture. We're working our way through the book of John. I hope you've enjoyed it. I personally have really benefited a ton just from even my time studying it, listening to different teachers. Last week we had Matt Altman uh teach uh John chapter 9 to us, did a phenomenal job, so good, such a such a uh a great, rich text. And uh and so today we're gonna be in John chapter 10. There's actually some Bibles underneath the chairs if you need one. Feel free to grab one of those, and uh, and then the the words will be on the screen as well. Um but one thing you'll you'll see pretty fast as you you open to John chapter 10 is this theme on shepherd, uh, on the shepherd and sheep. Now, does anybody in here have much experience with sheep? Any anybody? I mean, this is Austin, so I doubt very many. My wife just raised her hand, I already knew that. Um so here's the thing, because I I don't really have much experience with sheep. Uh I didn't grow up a country boy, even though I did end up in a couple small towns. Um, I don't really know much about sheep. But what I have heard is if you were to summarize uh, you know, kind of like all you hear about sheep, it maybe the word would be dumb. Um that they're just not very bright, that sheep are a very helpless uh creature that tends to find itself in in bad predicaments. Like, for example, if you flip a sheep over on its back, um it can't write itself on its own. It is just basically stuck on its back. I think we should go try that. What do y'all think? Um I know that's that's bad. I don't want to do that, but um but uh if you if you yeah, they say that that's the case, or uh you may have heard this, but sheep um are are really bad about like they will go to a pasture you put them in, uh, and then they'll eat the grass down, and then there might be uh some some other grass or some other food source nearby, but they will just stay right there in the same place and eat the grass, and eventually they'll starve themselves to death rather than going to find more food. Um that's just odd to me. I don't know why they do that, but that's what they do. Uh apparently, they're just not good at going and finding other food sources. Again, you can see them being a little bit uh not so bright. Um, and so with that in mind, um, and because the text today talks about sheep and shepherd, um, I was thinking, like, why in the Bible, throughout the Bible, are we as human beings called sheep? And I don't know if I should be offended by that or or what. Maybe that's actually pretty accurate, though, when you really stop and think about it, because we are pretty helpless and hopeless without God. We are we are pretty foolish, should I say, on our own our own. And so we we really do fit the bill uh of a sheep. We fit the description, and so we can see that God uh calling a sheep is is actually pretty accurate, even though I probably don't want to acknowledge that or admit that. So I want to read to you four different sections of the text from John chapter 10 today and talk a little bit about this. And and so we'll start in verse one, and just as you're as you're looking there, this is not um this is not like a change of direction uh from where we were last week. And in fact, uh this flows right out of the text we read last week. And for those of you who were not here last week, just to catch you up to speed, uh in in brief, there was a man who was blind, and Jesus heals this man. Uh he heals him on a Sabbath, uh, which is their day of worship, their day of rest. And the Jewish culture, it really makes the religious leaders mad and angry. And how he heals them is he spits in some dirt, makes some mud, puts it on this guy's eyes, and then tells him to go to this pull of saloon to wash it off, and the guy sees. And so it's just a really odd story, you know. I mean, like, I don't know how many of you guys have gone to the eye doctor and had someone spit in dirt and put it on your eyes and say, Okay, I hope you can see better now. But that's what Jesus did because he is so awesome and so amazing and so powerful, and he was able to heal this man's sight. And so as we go into the text today, this is a continuation because on the very back end of chapter nine, Jesus says something that's very profound and again very convicting, where he says to these religious leaders who, rather than being excited for this man who gets his sight, they're actually a little angry and miffed, and they continue to press Jesus on, are you the Messiah? Are you not the Messiah? Why did you heal this guy? Uh what is your goal? What is your intent? Who, you know, they're basically like, they're who are you? Because they are blind to him. And what's fascinating is throughout the whole chapter of uh chapter nine, we see that the that the men who actually had physical sight increasingly have less and less less spiritual sight. So they become blind, while the man who is physically blind increases in spiritual sight throughout the whole chapter. And so at the very end, Jesus says, those of you who think you can really see can't. But if you would acknowledge you can't see, then you could start to see. And it's a reminder that to come to Jesus, to come to God, to receive by faith what Jesus has done, it requires humility. It requires acknowledging that apart from him we are helpless and hopeless. And these guys were just not ready for that. They weren't having it. And so Jesus calls them blind. And now he's going to give us an illustration of what that actually looks like. So here we go. John chapter 10, verse 1. I assure you, anyone who doesn't enter the sheep pen by the door, but climbs in some other way is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. The doorkeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name, and he leads them out. When he is brought all of his own outside, he goes ahead of them. The sheep follow him because they recognize his voice. They will never follow a stranger. Instead, they will run away from him because they don't recognize the voice of strangers. Jesus gave them this illustration, but they did not understand what he was telling them. Once again, he gives them an illustration, he gives them a picture to show them what's going on here, and they don't get it. They don't get it, they don't understand. And the people of that day, I mean, they would have understood the illustration as far as the sheep thing because that was normative. That was normal for them to see sheep roaming around their streets and even being pinned up in their city because that's the culture they lived in. That's the day they lived in. So it was very powerful that Jesus would, of course, use a very natural picture for them that would help convey a truth, but they missed the truth. Once again, they missed it, and we're going to talk about why in just a minute. But did you notice that on the front he says anyone who doesn't enter the sheep pen by the door but climbs in is some other way is a thief and a robber. Now, this thief and robber language is going to be throughout the entire passage, but they were assuming that Jesus was the thief and the robber, that he was the one who was the criminal, that he was the one who didn't get it, that he was the one who was off base, that he was the one who was blaspheming against God, calling people to himself and even healing on the Sabbath. They thought he was the one who had issues. But Jesus is saying that him as the shepherd, and there's all these different components to this story, he comes right to the front gate. He's got nothing to hide. He's not a thief or a robber. He comes right to the front entrance of this sheep pen. And in fact, when he comes, the doorkeeper opens the sheep pen for him because he knows he's a legit shepherd. Now I want to come back to this thief and robber idea in a second in the next section of text, but just for now, I want us to notice that in this section, Jesus is gathering his flock. That's what Jesus is showing us. He's gathering a flock. Through this illustration, he is calling to himself a flock. Now, the way this would have worked in their culture, just so that we get the illustration, since we don't have the benefit of watching this every day in our lives, is that they would pin up uh different flocks together in a sheep pen. You could either rent the space or already had a communal space, a pen, and they would put your your sheep in that pen, and then maybe in the morning after the night had had gone, um, the shepherd would show back up and he would gather his sheep up. And the way that the sheep knew which where to go and what to do is because they knew the voice of their shepherd. And so there might be one or two or three or four shepherds stationed outside the sheep pen, and they start saying, Here, sheepy, sheepy, sheepy, right? I don't know what they said. I don't know. I mean, I've never heard them call sheep, but somehow they had a unique call for their sheep. Okay? And as they start calling their sheep, the sheep, though they might be dumb, one thing that they can do is they know their shepherd's voice. And they would go out to their shepherd. Now, what I love about this is because this is, of course, an illustration of what Jesus does, is he calls his flock to himself. And specifically in this illustration, he's saying the flock of Israel, the people of Israel, he is calling to himself a people from the people of Israel, the his chosen people, the people who the first 39 books of the Bible talk about, who he calls to himself, even going all the way back to the very beginning, and especially through Abraham, the father of this Jewish nation, and he says, You're gonna be my people, and I'm gonna multiply you, and I'm going to use you to be a light to all the nations. And so these chosen people, he's calling sheep to himself out of this as Jesus is on the scene. And he's he's saying that the sheep, they hear him and they come to him. But what I love is that it says, This shepherd is better than most shepherds. Because he doesn't just say, Here, sheepy, sheepy, sheepy. He says names. He starts calling his sheep by name. Isn't that awesome? Because the illustration is that when God calls, he calls us by name. Because he knows, and we're going to see that theme throughout this passage as well, but he knows and he knows our name and he knows details of our lives, and he actually calls individuals into his flock. And I love that imagery for us this morning as Jesus gathers his flock, because he not only called out individuals like the blind man, like the man at the pool of Beth Seda, some of you guys were here for that week, like the adulterous woman at the well, individually engaging them and calling them to follow him. But guess what? He's still doing that today. He's still calling individual sheep to himself today. But let's continue in this passage because this is going to give us more depth to what's really going on. In verse 7, it says this: So Jesus said again, I assure you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn't listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal, kill, and to destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance. Now I'm guessing that many of you in this room, if you've been around church very long, have heard chap had have heard chapter 10, verse 10. I'm assuming that because it's a pretty popular verse and it's quoted quite often. And we'll get to that in just a second. But before we do, Jesus is giving us another image. In fact, we know that the way it would work at the sheep pen, of course, the sheep pen had a gate, and it also had a shepherd or a helper that would be laying in front of that gate, making sure no one came in that wasn't supposed to, or anyone would leave. That's that's the person we mentioned earlier, this doorkeeper. But Jesus is actually saying in this text, I'm the gate, which is very similar to what he's gonna say in John 14, chapter 14, verse 6, when he says, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. But in this illustration, he says, I'm the gate, and all of the sheep come in and out through me. Now, notice what verse 8 says. What is Jesus talking about there? Well, if you know anything about history, um, and specifically about Jewish history and around the time when Jesus was on the scene, Jesus wasn't the only one claiming to be a Messiah. He wasn't the first who had showed up on the scene who had claimed that he was God, that he was Messiah. There had been many who'd come before him, many who said that they knew the way to God, many who said that this is the way to follow, and if you want to be with God forever, if you want to be in the kingdom. And so there were others that had come, and and Jesus just says straight up, he says, those are the thieves and the robbers. Those are the ones who you don't want to follow, those are the ones you don't want to listen to. And so Jesus says that these others that have risen up, and in fact, the the tense of the verb there is it's a past and a present, and those who are currently speaking to you, and of course, at this point, he's talking to the ones who are sitting right in front of him. You're the thief, you're the robber. You're the one who is trying to rip people off from seeing the truth, from experiencing the truth and the grace and the mercy of the true Messiah. And so he's in this text reminding them that there are other people who come with a voice. Now, I think that's interesting because the first part of verse 10, which is this popular verse we probably know, he says, A thief comes only to steal, kill, and to destroy. Now, why does this matter? Well, it matters because the way I always thought about this verse, John chapter 10, verse 10, uh the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I've come to give you life. That's that's I memorized it as a kid, probably. And most of us in this room, I'm guessing, when you heard that, you immediately went to Satan is the thief. The devil's the thief, right? Uh if you learned it like me, that's what I always thought. The thief, that's the devil. He comes to steal, kill, and destroy. In the context, that's actually not what Jesus is saying. He actually says they're a thief, and he's already talked about thieves and robbers. He says they come to steal, kill, and destroy. The reason why this matters is because for us, many times we think that the thief is the one who like tries to get us sidetracked into the big moral issues, the sin issues like uh, you know, like sexual immorality or lying or stealing or killing or those kind of things that the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy in that way. Which is absolutely true, by the way. The enemy really does want us to do that. But notice the context. What is he saying here? The thief is the religious leaders preaching a false gospel, a false kingdom. Are you with me? This is really, really big because the problem's not always out there. The problem can actually be in here, in the church, inside the Christian church where you've got leaders who are not actually preaching Jesus, but they're actually preaching themselves. Not actually preaching Jesus is the way, but actually preaching our religion is the way. And in fact, when we do that, we are like thieves and robbers. Robbing people of the opportunity to know the one and only Savior, Jesus Christ, and robbing the glory from God that He so deserves. Do you see the difference? Now, don't get me wrong, behind all of those thieves and robbers, all of these false teachers, these false gospels, there is one author, and he is the deceiver, and his name is Satan. So we can say that ultimately he's the one behind all of that, but we need to be on guard to make sure that what we are hearing is consistent with God's word. Because any message that's inconsistent with God's word is not the gospel. It's not the message that we should be listening to, it's not the message we should be following. And I think it's important to see that as a people, we need to be aware of the deception that's out there. Not only that, but uh also just remembering that Jesus is the one who gives life. He is the one who gives life. Did you notice there? It's not just that he's gathering his flock, but that he actually gives his flock life. Being the gate, being the one that they can go out and eat, and they can be nurtured, and they can be, they can get what they need. It says a thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance. He doesn't just protect the sheep, he gives life to the sheep. He saves the sheep. Now this is significant because uh, again, um we see how Jesus wants us as his sheep to have life. He wants us to have life. If if we see what Jesus offers as simply um some more rules to weigh us down, we've missed the point. He wants to give us life. In fact, he even uses the word abundant life. Now, when you hear that word abundant, some of you guys in the room, some of you might think that what Jesus is talking about here is that he wants to make your bank account bigger. Because I've actually heard people teach this this way. See, if Jesus comes to give you a big bank account, a big house, a good job, and lots of health and wealth, right? That's what I hear. Some people say that. Now, the problem with that is that Jesus himself didn't even have a place to lay his head. First off, okay? When he came, he did ministry. He was he was he was poor. And not only that, but his disciples, the eleven, after Judas deserts, betrays Jesus, and they replace him. But these these apostles, these disciples, guess what? All of them, they didn't live like kings when they were here. They actually lived lives that were very difficult and challenging, and they died following Jesus. Died proclaiming the gospel of Jesus. I just want to make sure that we're clear that when we say abundant life, that we don't just mean that this life now is gonna be cushy and it's gonna be great and it's gonna be all awesome. Because if you believe that, then when you accept Christ and you have that condition of if I follow you, Jesus, then you gotta bless my life. Then when things don't go your way, guess what? Boom, you're gone. Wait, I thought I thought Jesus, you said it was gonna be easy. No, he didn't say it was gonna be easy. In fact, later in John he says these very words in this world you will have troubles. But take heart, I've overcome the world. And here's the cool thing is that this abundant life isn't just a temporary thing, it's an eternal thing. That's the real key, that's the relinch pin. When he gives life, he gives it for eternity, not just for the moment. Now, I I get it that some of you came in today and you're struggling, you just need encouragement for today. I believe that the abundant life can have impact here and now. I do believe that we can live with increasing peace and joy and happiness now. But I don't want you to be disillusioned when you face hardship and struggle. I don't want you to be disillusioned when you suffer because there are no guarantees that you will not suffer in this life. But we do know that as we suffer, we have a shepherd with us to guide us through the suffering. Isn't that awesome? To know you're not alone in your suffering, but to know that he is guiding us, he is leading us, he is caring for us as we go. So I want to read this next section from verse 11 through 18 and follow along with me there as we continue this thought. Jesus now turns his words and he says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired man, since he is not the shepherd and doesn't own the sheep, leaves them and runs away when he sees a wolf coming. The wolf then snatches and scatters them. This happens because a hired man, because he is a hired man and doesn't care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd, I know my own sheep, and they know me. And as the Father knows me and I know the Father, I lay down my life for the sheep. But I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. Now hang on to that verse because that's a powerful verse right there. Then there will be one flock and one shepherd. This is why the Father loves me, because I am laying down my life so I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father. Now, in this passage, Jesus tells us he's the good shepherd. I mentioned earlier that throughout the Bible we get this imagery of sheep and shepherd. And maybe one of the most familiar, most well-known passages where this is the case is Psalm 23. How many of you guys know that Psalm? It's read at funerals, it's read at weddings. It's a very familiar Psalm. And in that it says, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want, right? He leads me beside the still waters, he gives me food, he anoints my head with oil, he sets a banquet in the presence of my enemies. Even when I'm going through this hard, difficult journey through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. I recently talked to somebody who was in the Holy Land and got to see where the valley of the shadow of death is, and they were just talking about how that psalm just like it clicked for them, how it was such this ominous, uh dangerous-looking space. And he and the people would have totally understood what it meant when he said, you know, when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. It's such a beautiful uh picture there. But the imagery of Psalm 23 is not just imagery that kind of gives us um some sort of random ideas about God. These are true things about our Savior, these are true things about how he actually operates as our shepherd. And in fact, in just a little bit, we're gonna sing this shepherding psalm together. We're gonna hear these words of Psalm 23. But in this passage, we see Jesus is the good shepherd. He's not just a hired hand, by the way. He's not just a hired Hand, he's actually the shepherd himself. And I love that, but I also am reminded, like I said while ago, that there are some who are hired hands. There are some, you might even say, that they don't take the responsibility of shepherding seriously. Now, again, I'm just I'm just inferring here because Jesus is driving this point, but I think it's actually true, which is as he's looking at these other religious leaders, I think he's saying, you kind of are like hired hands. You're in it for yourself. You got paid, you get you're doing your thing, but the moment the sheep struggle, you know, you abandon them. You don't really care about them. And I would say even today there are people, there are shepherds, quote, under-shepherds, according to scripture, that aren't actually caring for the sheep. And I'm praying that at Point Community Church that God will continue to grow our leaders and those who have these responsibilities to shepherd, to do that well under the chief shepherd Jesus, to follow his example and to care for the sheep when they're in the midst of struggle and hardship and difficulty. It's one of the reasons why we say to you guys, we want to know you. We want to know what's going on in your life, we want to be a part of your life, we want you to be participate in the family here so that we can care for you and help you. It is hard to care for the sheep when they stay hidden. And so we just encourage you, not out of like commanding or instructing you, out of control, but out of a desire to help you. And if you're going through hardship and difficulty, we want to be the kind of shepherd that can come alongside and serve you and care for you and minister to you. And so we invite you into the community here so you can do that. But Jesus is not the kind of shepherd who runs away when the wolf comes. He protects his sheep. He protects his sheep. And I love that about that, about Jesus. In fact, if you'll notice in this text, four times he says, What does he do for his sheep? He lays down his life for his sheep. So not only does he gather sheep, not only does he give life to his sheep, but how he gives life, the cost of giving life to his sheep, is his life. In order to give his sheep life, he actually lays down his life. Did you notice that? Verse 11, the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. Verse 15, I lay down my life for the sheep. Verse 17, I lay down my life so that I may take it up again. Verse 18, I lay it down on my own. I have the right to lay it down and I have the right to take it up again. Jesus willingly takes his life and lays it down so that you and I could have life. That's awesome. What that says to us this morning is that we are valuable to him. If we are one of his sheep, that we are valuable to him, so valuable that he gave his very life in order to purchase us. But the other thing you got to note here is that, did you see? Um, if you think much about how Jesus died, and some of you have heard that story countless times, we can begin to think that people finally got to Jesus, they finally broke through, they finally, you know, figured out a scheme that was good enough, they finally got their hands on him. Have you noticed previously in the book of John, for those of you who have been along with us on this journey, how every time that they would get really amped and they would get angry and they'd start getting ready to stone him or seize him, arrest him, that he keeps sneaking away. It says he slips away. It's kind of peculiar, isn't it, that John puts that in there over and over again. You know why? Because it wasn't the time yet. Because the people weren't in charge of the timeline. Who was in charge of the timeline? The shepherd, the father. He was in charge, and in fact, Jesus says it this way: He says, I laid down my life for the sheep. They don't take it from me, I lay it down willingly. And that's good news for us because Jesus himself was willing to lay his very life down. And not only did he lay it down, but he took it back up again. Now, what would happen if you strike the shepherd and he's got a flock of sheep, and let's say the shepherd dies, and all those sheep are out there in the pasture. What happens to the sheep? Well, if another shepherd doesn't come along, they die. They're gone. But I actually think you could make this case that, see, here's the deal. Whenever Jesus goes to the cross and lays down his life, we know that he didn't stay dead, that he rose back from the grave, and instead of the sheep being scattered, he gathered more sheep. In fact, the reason we sit here today is because our shepherd conquered sin and death. Our shepherd conquered our greatest enemies. Our shepherd, Jesus, he gave us life by giving up his life and then taking his life back up again. That's the resurrection. Now, when we talk about the difference between the Christian faith and every other faith in the world, here's another huge distinction, right? We celebrate this every Easter. But if you go to the grave of every religious leader that's ever lived, people like Mohammed, people like Buddha, they laid down their life, not for their sheep, they just died, and they're dead. But our shepherd laid down his life for us, and he is alive. And so we can have hope. We can have the confidence that our shepherd is bigger and more powerful than any enemy that we face. And that is great comfort today. That is great comfort for us today. Just a few other notes from this section before we move on to the last final section of our message today. And that is this Jesus says in verse 14, I am the good shepherd, I know my own sheep, and they know me. Jesus intimately knows his sheep. We already mentioned earlier he calls them out by name. But Jesus intimately knows his sheep. If you're one of his sheep today, he knows you. He knows everything about you. In fact, while he was the same God, Creator God, who numbered the stars in the sky and named them, he knows the number of hairs on your heads, what scripture says. He intimately knows you. He knows the good, the bad, and the ugly, and the beautiful thing is that he still loves us. In fact, if you're his sheep, you can't keep him from loving you. Some of you came in today saying, I don't know if God loves me, I don't know if God cares about me. Let me just go ahead and dispel that lie. He loves you. If you're his sheep, you are loved by him. But also, verse 16 is really key for us in the room. I don't even have enough time to preach it. It's actually a whole sermon in of itself, okay? I don't have time to preach it today, but some of you in this room, you get really fired up about mission, about reaching people with the gospel. And I think if you're a sheep, if you're a believer, you ought to be excited and passionate about reaching people with the gospel because you've experienced life in Christ. But verse 16, did you know what it says? But I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd. What in the world is Jesus talking about? Let me tell you what he's talking about. In the first illustration, we said that Jesus was talking about the people of Israel, that he was galling out of the people of Israel a flock. In this passage, in this verse, he's saying what? There's another flock. Who's that other flock? The Gentiles. That's us. That is us. The reason that we're here today is because Jesus decided not just to call sheep out of the Jewish nation, but to call sheep out of the nations, including us today. Now, this is awesome, awesome news because none of us should be here except for the grace of God that He chose to call sheep from other nations. That's humbling to me, and it's also empowering to know that we have been called by our Savior, by our Jesus. And so this is a reminder, too, that God called is still calling people from all nations, every tribe and every tongue, from all people groups. He is calling people to himself. He's calling sheep to himself. And the beauty is that we get to participate in that. Not that we can call people by ourselves, but that we get to help them hear the shepherd's voice. We get some help to help them hear this great shepherd who is calling out his sheep. Now, one other note here. Um I want to make sure I don't get into the weeds, but I want you to just have a little bit of grasp that there are things that we learn in Scripture that you're never going to get your head around. Okay? Agreed? Anybody who's been a Christian very long, you know the more you study the Bible, the more you feel like, man, I can't understand this. I can't explain this. This is just beyond my comprehension. But here's the thing. Did you note that throughout this passage, that there's this sense in which God is calling his sheep, and the sheep hear his voice and they respond. The reason why I think this is a mystery is because there's in essence this sense that before, as Ephesians tells us, before the foundations of the world, God chose us to be his sheep. That God already knows, some of this is going to mess with you guys, God already knows who's going to be his sheep. And he is calling out to the ones who he already knows are going to be his sheep. But somehow in the mystery of this whole thing, the sheep have to respond to the shepherd's voice and follow him. That's a mystery. You're like, well, what's the mystery? The mystery is that God somehow has already decided who's going to be sheep, but that we as people better respond to the shepherd's voice when we hear it. Are you with me? That's what the Bible teaches, is this dynamic reality that while God has chosen before the foundations of the world, we are still in our humanness. We have the opportunity to respond to that. And so maybe that's for you today. Maybe today you're hearing the voice of the shepherd call to you, and my encouragement to you is simply this that you would respond to his voice and you would follow him. The final section of the text here. Then the festival of dedication took place in Jerusalem, and it was winter. This, by the way, is a little bit gapped from our previous section. They got mad again, they wanted to stone him. Surprise, surprise. Then the Jews surrounded him and asked, catch their question, how long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you're the Messiah, tell us plainly. Do you see how these Jewish leaders are still totally missing it? Like, how many times does he have to say who he is and do these different ways and do these things? And yet they don't, the reason they don't believe is because they don't want to believe. And I would say that most, if not all the people in the world today who don't believe in Jesus, it's not because they can't believe, it's they don't want to believe in Jesus. I did tell you, and you don't believe, Jesus answered them. The works that I do in my Father's name testify about me. But you don't know, you don't believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish. Ever. Now catch this let this next part of this verse. This is encouraging. No one will ever snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given me, given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. The Father and I are one. So as we close out today, I want to just briefly address this question. Because I hear it all the time. How do I know? They wouldn't say it this way, by the way. How do I know I'm a sheep? You ever felt that? You ever struggle with that? Anybody here ever had doubts about your faith, about whether I'm actually a Christian or not? Most of those doubts come whenever we're struggling with behavioral sin issues. Like we do something really foolish, dumb, and we're like, well, if I'm a if I'm if I'm a Christ follower, then I wouldn't do stuff like that. I mean, that happens a lot. I hear people say things like that. Or some difficulties happen and you doubt God's goodness, and you're like, I don't know if I'm a sheep. I don't know if I'm really Christian because I'm doubting. If you are doubting, or if you struggle with doubts in your heart, in your mind, if you wrestle with that, I would just say to you, welcome to the club. Because the sheep, we have a limited perspective. And there are days and there are times where we are going to feel a struggle with not understanding what's going on around us. But I would also say to you, there are ways to be confident that you're one of his sheep. There are. You see, God calls out to his sheep. Jesus the shepherd calls to his sheep and they hear his voice. They hear his voice. Um, if you have never heard the voice of the shepherd, you are not a sheep. Now, some of you are like, wait, wait, wait. You mean like audibly out of the like sky, God speaks to me? If I never heard the voice of the shepherd like that, no, I actually know very few people who've ever told me that they said, I heard God speak to me audibly. I know very few people that way. But I have heard many, many testimonies, people who said, I know God was speaking directly to me. I heard his voice and I responded to it. And if you have never, ever had God speak to your heart, the impression, the call to come and follow him, to put your trust in him, then I would say, according to scripture, you're not a sheep. But if you've heard in your heart, if you have heard him impress upon you, come and follow me. Maybe God used his word. Maybe you were reading it, and it was if the words began to leap off the page. Maybe someone was preaching like I am right now, and you heard the spirit deep inside of you saying, This is true, believe it. Maybe you were completely by yourself, driving your car down the road, and you sensed God saying, I am real, follow me. I hear stories like this all the time. But the bottom line is that no one becomes a sheep unless the shepherd calls him. And the sheep responds. So do you want to know if you're in the flock, if you're a sheep? Have you heard the voice of the shepherd? Do you know him? Not just about him. There's a lot of people who know about him. I know people in seminaries that can tell you all kinds of things about God. Doesn't necessarily mean that they know Jesus, they know the shepherd. Have you heard him? Do you know him? And I would say that a fruit of that would be, are you obeying him? Because if you've heard him, and if you know him, you'll obey him. In fact, Jesus is going to say just a few chapters ahead that if you love me, you will obey me. The sheep hear his voice, they obey his voice. But did you notice what the sheep get? What the sheep get as we are part of his flock? Verse 28, I give them eternal life, and they will never perish ever. No one will snatch them out of my hand. That's good words right there. Right? That's awesome. No one will ever snatch them out of my hand. And he even says, just as a reminder, my father is greater than all. Nobody can get you out of my father's hands. Have you heard the voice of the shepherd? Do you recognize it? Have you responded to it? Um now, some of you guys know our family. You know that I'm a dad of six kiddos. And our very first kid, um, who's now 15, I still remember as clear as day the moment she was born and that time in the the hospital room. And uh my wife and I were there, obviously. Um I was I was really struggling with all this process I'd been through. No. Um, but uh she my wife did it was amazing, and and and I was just blown away by the whole process. It felt a little bit like an out-of-body experience, and and just like, what is going on? And and then I remember um our daughter was born. Now, previous to her birth, uh, throughout the entire pregnancy, I'm sure some of you have done the same thing. Uh, at night before bed, I would talk to this baby that was in Jada's tummy. We didn't know uh if it was gonna be a boy or a girl. Uh we so we I just say hey baby, and then I just start talking. Or we would sing, and we just have conversations, I pray, you know, but I always start with like, hey baby. And I remember in the room whenever Auburn was born that she was doing what every or most newborns do. She was she was throwing a fit, she was screaming her head off. They'd, you know, slapped her bottom and then put her on the app the table to do the apgar, and they're like, you know, I'm like, man, they seem like they're so rough, and she's just you know, flailing over there, and they're trying to test her out, and they're pulling on or stretching on her and all this thing. I'm like, what is going on? And I just started walking towards her while she was out on this table under the lights, and I said, Hey baby. And instantly her crying stopped. And her head went like this. And I remember in that moment, one, I lost it. It was, I was like the biggest crybaby ever. But I remember in that moment, like going, she recognized my voice. She knew her father's voice. And she responded to it. And I was just thinking about that again this week that we talk about the shepherd and the sheep. Listen, when the shepherd speaks, his children know. His sheep know. And they respond. They know the voice of the shepherd. Are you one of his sheep? Have you heard his voice? Is he talking to you right now? Is he speaking to you? You know the kind of things that the shepherd says to his sheep as he says, I love you. That's one of the biggest things he says to his sheep. I love you. I care about you. I am for you. I want to help you. Follow me. If you will follow me, you can I will I will lead you to green pastures. I will lead you to the still waters. I will care for you when you're going through the valley of the shadow of death. I will care for you. My rod, my staff, they will comfort you. He is saying that to his sheep. But if you feel like you are a person without a shepherd, he's saying to you, come, be a part of my flock. Come. Be a sheep. Father, I feel like that there's a very real possibility of people in this room today who for the first time are hearing the voice of the shepherd. That for the first time they feel or sense that you are calling them to yourself. And I pray, God, that you would just help those that might be hearing in their hearts for the first time this pull to come and to follow you, Jesus. To put their trust in the reality that you laid down your life for the sheep. And that you took your life back up again. To stop trying to do life apart from you without you, but to receive the gift of joining the flock, of hearing their name called and responding to you. Um God, I pray for us who are sheep, those of us who've heard your voice and have responded, those of us who've sensed your presence and have responded that are now part of your flock, God help us to faithfully, consistently invite others to come and hear your voice and to speak to them and encourage them and to call them to you. Help us not to distract people from your voice. Help us not to point people to other shepherds or other gospels, but help us to point them to you. We pray for that. We ask for your help in that. Because we know that when you come back, you're not gonna come back as a as the shepherd as much as the judge. That when you return, you're gonna come and you're gonna separate the sheep and the goats. And you're gonna take your flock, you're gonna return to an eternal abundant life with you forever. And those who are not your sheep to eternal separation from you. So I just pray, God, even in this moment, you would help us to believe and to know the truth of that. Thank you so much for the beauty of your word. And even though we're not we're not from first century Jerusalem and we struggle with the metaphors of sheep and shepherd from a practical sense, we totally get this. We just thank you today.