Are You Listening: #2 Why Listen to Him?

Curious about who to trust for life’s big answers? Jesus the Good Shepherd can you discern His voice amidst a noisy world of competing solutions? 

Transcript

This morning, I want to start out with a question that, we often ask ourselves and that, we ask other people and really is at the heart of a lot of, human behavior, in terms of why we do what we do and, and how we, attempt to, improve our lives. And that question is, what's the problem? What's the problem? It's one of life's most important questions. And corresponding to that, another one of life's more important questions is what is the solution? And in fact, you could probably think about all human behavior being formed out of trying to answer one of those two questions. How can I, go from where I am to a better state? What's the problem, and how can I improve my condition? Most of our actions are are really formed out of, trying to improve from where we are to where we want to be. What happens if we don't actually know what the problem is? What if we think we know what the problem is, but we're wrong about what the problem actually is? How much of the time do we spend in life trying to solve the wrong problem? Or what if we really know what the problem is, but we don't know the right solution? Well, that's what determines who we're going to listen to. We listen to whoever we think, knows what they're talking about because we're hoping to get from them guidance as to what our problem is and what our solution is. Has anyone ever ask you the question? Or have you ever asked the question, why are you listening to him? Why are you listening to him, or why are you listening to her? Well, what's implied in that question? What exactly is implied in the question? When we ask the question, why are you listening to him? He doesn't know what he's talking about or he's misleading you. That's the. Those are the two things that are an implied in that question. Why are you listening to him? Especially if you have that sort of tone in your voice, or implying that that person that you're listening to is either misleading you or doesn't know what they're talking about. Or both. As we continue in our series, are you listening? We're going to look at that question. And that question was asked about Jesus himself. Why are you listening to him? Well, why should we listen to him? That's a question that asked about Jesus and the question we should ask ourselves. Why should we listen to him? Is Jesus misleading us? Does Jesus know what he's talking about? Or does Jesus actually know both the answers to the question of what life's problem is and what life's solutions are? Of course he does. He has the ultimate understanding of the human condition and the solution of the human condition. Last week, when we started this series. Are you listening? We started out by just looking at the power of speech itself, and we saw that from the very beginning. The basis of reality was God's spoken word, that behind all that is material are the immaterial thoughts of God expressed into the void. And creation was the result. We saw how he taught his people in the desert. This fundamental truth that we need to live by, that God does not live by bread alone, but by word. Every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, that the basis of life and living a good life is more than stuff. It is the proclaimed Word of God. And we also saw that from the tongue and from the beginning, from the tongue, from words was the power of life and death. That in deception is the power of death, and in truth is the power of life. We saw that at the very beginning in the garden where death came in, through the words of the deceiver, and we saw how life comes in through the words of Christ. Today, we're going to be looking at a division among the Jews who are listening to Jesus and some of them said that we shouldn't listen to this guy, and they gave their reasons why we shouldn't be listening to him. And then there are others that said, we should be listening to him. So why should we listen to Jesus? That's the question we want to ask ourselves will he lead us or will he mislead us? Does he understand the problems of life and is he right? And concerning his solutions? Is he the true voice of salvation or just another voice in the crowd? Well, this morning we're going to be looking at John chapter ten, verse one through 21. And the title of this morning's lesson is why listen to him? Why listen to him? That was a question asked by some of the Jews. Why are you listening to him? So, let's pray here for a moment. Heavenly father. Lord, we choose every day what voice to listen to. We choose every day what we think is the accurate, view of our problem and our solution. In fact, you could almost make the case that every one of our actions is born out of the voice that we listen to, to solve the problem that we're thinking about. Lord, we just pray that we would have ears to hear the voice of the good Shepherd, who whose words are the words of life. We pray that as we consider this question this day, that we would be more convinced than ever to listen to the voice of our master. In Christ name we pray. Amen. John chapter ten, beginning at verse one, says this I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters in by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads, leads them out. And when he has brought them out, or when he has brought out all his own, he goes out, goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him, because they know his voice, but they will never follow a stranger. In fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice. Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he is telling them. Do you understand what he's saying? Well, maybe you do. Maybe you don't. But the people who are listening to him didn't understand. So, therefore Jesus said again, I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers. That's a pretty radical statement. I am the, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers. But the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters in through me will be what saved. He will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep, so that when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me. Just as the father knows me, I know the father. I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice. And there will be one flock and one shepherd. The reason the father loves me is that I lay down my life only to take it up again. No one takes it up for me. But I lay it down on my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I receive from the father at these words. The Jews were again divided, so they were again divided after hearing them. They're often divided, you know. And what are they divided over? Many of them said he is demon possessed, a raging mad. He is raging mad. Why listen to him? But the other said, these are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind? So the Jews were divided as to whether or not to listen to Jesus. One group was saying, why listen to him? He's a crazy. Mad. He's mad. He's. He's full of evil. And the other group said, well, I don't know about that. He he opens the eyes of the blind. Have any of you guys ever done that? Have any of you guys done what we've seen him do? This. This guy doesn't strike me as being demon possessed. They were saying. So we're confronted with the question, why should we listen to him? Why do you listen to anybody? Why do you listen to the voices that you do listen to? We listen to those who we want to be led by, are influenced by, right. We don't listen to are we ignore those that we don't want to be influenced by. And the reason why we choose who we choose to influence us is because they think. We think they're going to help us. We think that that what they say will bring improvement into our lives, solve our problems. And, we when those we listen to are those we follow. In fact, this idea of listening and following are almost synonymous terms. Sometime later in our series, we'll talk about the, the indistinguishable concepts of listening and obeying. But what who we listen to and is who we follow and who we follow is, by definition, who we're listening to. The theme of this morning's message is this. We are all led by the voices. We listen to verse four. We are. Let me give you a little more time to write that down. We are all led by the voice as we listen to. Verse four. When he has brought out his, when he has brought out all his own. He goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. Jesus, using a figure of speech, talks about the relationship of a good shepherd and his flock, and he makes the point that we trust familiar voices and that we are led by the voices that we know. There is a relationship between the voice we listen to and the voice we trust. And the ideas that guide our lives. Now, here's the deal. And and, Satan exploits this idea. None of us like to look at ourselves as sheep. So one of the ways he gets us not to listen to the master is he tells us, oh, you don't want to be a bunch of sheep, a bunch of followers. You can need to to listen to your inner voice and follow your own path. We prefer to think of ourselves as not needing guidance. And, we can make our own way. But let's be real. Let's really be real. Let's think about this for a second. Are any of us not sheep? I'm talking about all of humanity. How many of you here today speak a language that you yourself invented? Anyone? You're a follower. You're following the language of your parents. You follower. If you were any kind of independent person, you would have come up with your own language. Yeah. Well, how about this? How many people here today are wearing clothes that they designed? I thank God. Yeah. There are a few people that do, but most of us, in fact, 99% of us are wearing clothes that somebody else had the idea of ahead of time. What about this? How many of us travel on roads that we built ourselves? Whenever you're going somewhere, are you ever thinking I'm being influenced and and the direction that I'm traveling by the people who decided to put a road here. Are you thinking I'm going my own way? I'm forging my own path. How many of us believe that the ideas we believe are ideas that we ourselves invented? Think of an idea that you believe that you are the only one that ever thought of it. No one else has ever thought of it. And you're just the seminal thinker who came up with it. You might think of something, but it would probably be stupid. See here. Here's the bottom line here. It isn't a question of whether or not we're influenced. We're all influenced. Look at us. You know, we speak the same language. We dress in similar ways. We have similar ideas and similar attitudes. We're all influence. The question our choice isn't whether or not we're going to be influenced. Our choice is who we choose to be influenced by. We have a choice of what voices to listen to, and those voices are the ones in which we will follow. We are sheep. Everybody's sheep. And we join the flock of the voices that we listen to. Unless we can say that most of our thoughts and most of our beliefs are totally original to ourselves. We are sheep being led by the voices. We listen to every group of like minded people are formed by the fact that they listen to the same voices. They share common beliefs and are being led in the same direction like a flock of sheep. That's what the Christians are. That's what we are. We are a flock of sheep, but so is everyone else. Everyone is a flock of sheep. We're all part of the flocks that are formed by the voices of our shepherds, whether our shepherds or Moses or Mohammed or Marx or Carl Sagan or the Dalai Lama, or John Lennon or Lady Gaga. Whoever voices we listen to are the are the are the flocks that we form. You know, the voices are voices that resonate in us. The voices that we give ear to are our shepherds or our shepherd. Christians gather to hear our shepherd's voice. We know his voice. Christians are, are the ones that don't listen to the stranger's voice, but listen to their shepherd's voice. You know, most people don't listen to the stranger's voice. I've heard, people talk about, you know, this group of people or that group of people, and most often, whatever group we're in, we tend not to listen to what the other group is saying. And, I kind of like to hear what the other group is saying. Not because I don't want to. Not because I want to follow the other group, but because I want to be able to authenticate my master's voice when I hear it. I I'm I'm fearful. And this is sort of a sidetrack, but I'm fearful for the Christian church because I think we've integrated voices that aren't Christ into a lot of our thinking and our attitude. I don't have this in my notes, but I'm going to say it now anyway. Several years ago, I read a book by an academic who is a not a Christian. His name is Alan Wolfe. He's a professor, over, at Boston University. And he was asking the question, how much influence the church have on culture and how much influence does culture have on the church? And he traveled around all throughout the country, through our bigger churches, through our little churches. He spent years going to church every Sunday. Just and he was asking this question and he was addressing an academic audience that was afraid of the power and the influence of the church. And he wrote this book called The Transformation of Religion in America and his, his, conclusion was to the his academic audience. We have nothing to worry about. The church is being far more influenced by us than we are being influenced by them, because they're listening to our voice more than we're listening to their voice. That's a sideline. Do we hear the stranger's voice? Can we distinguish the difference between Christ voice and the stranger's voice? Well, if we're really, of Christ's fold, we hear the difference. We know the difference between the sound of Jesus and the sound of the stranger. We're familiar enough with the sound of Jesus's voice to know it when we hear it. Do we listen to any voice that is not of him? Why should we listen to Jesus's voice? Why should we listen to any voice? Again, the theme this morning is we're all led by the voice as we listen to. And point number one is this. Every voice offers some form of salvation. Every voice you hear, whether true or false, offers some form of salvation. Verse seven through ten. Every voice offers some form of salvation. Jesus said again, I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me. And here, here he's talking about all those who have come before me that have professed some solution to life. All those who've ever come before me are thieves and robbers. But the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved. So he's making this point that that that. There's a lot of voices out there. But he's making the radical claim that I am the one true voice to salvation or to the solution in life. I am the one true voice. He will, I am the gate. Whoever enters in through me will be saved. He will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. So, Here Christ is making the point that all those who profess the way of salvation that have come before me are thieves and robbers. While. You know, we are all looking for what Jesus promises here. In, verse nine that they will be saved. The word saved here means to be made whole, to be protected from harm, to become able to do well, to be preserved from decay, to feel right, to be right, to act right. To be made righteous. To be restored. Every voice, whether true or false, is a voice of salvation. Is a voice who says, I have the answer for you. And Christ is saying all those voices out there, but mine are thieves and robbers. They don't have good intent. Offering salve solutions to the problems of life, but really not caring about you. Jesus here is claiming that every voice that has offered some kind of salvation or solution is for man's broken condition is a thief with false motives. That's a pretty radical statement. If you want to understand the voices that you're hearing and you want to compare them to the voice of Christ, there's two questions you want to ask. What is the problem they're professing, and what is the solution they're hoping to solve? And I'll just go through a few voices that throughout the ages. One the first one here would be Rousseau. And, of course, this is so simplified that if you know a little bit about it, you know, what I'm saying is right, but I'm not going to expand on it. But Rousseau said the problem in life is that people are corrupted by a corrupt society. And so first, Rousseau, the salvation of man would be to return to a lawless state of nature. Karl Marx said the problem with man is men have an inequity in what they own and their material inequity. They they form covetousness and in their covetousness there's conflict. And in that conflict we have all the problems in life. And the solution is to have a centralized redistribution of all the goods and services so that we can manage, how how people work and we can manage what they receive as a result of their work, so that we can have this material equality to get rid of all of the, all of the covetousness that causes conflict. L Ron Hubbard, he's kind of a science fiction meets, Sigmund Freud and, Hubbard, said that all of our problems, everything that's wrong with man, is the result of unresolved trauma that's happened to us in the past. Sort of like Freud. But he goes a little bit further because he he offers a process, costs a lot of money, but, where you can be cleared from these past traumas and once you get done with this life, you need to grow and go and get cleared with the past traumas in the life before the life before that and the life before that. And if you're still struggling, then you have to go to the live show. You used to live on other universes and get into the traumas that happened to you in those lives. And, hopefully someday you could be, the solution for Hubbard is be cleared of all of the effects of all the past traumas that happened in this life, in the past lives, in the past universes lives. And it kind of costs a lot of money all the way along the line. But anyway, that's his solution and problem. Hitler. You know, the problem with, with the world is, that the race, the master race, the, the Aryan race had become racially corrupted. And so his solution was extermination of the inferior races and eugenics. The building up of the master race. Maslow's idea of self-esteem was that every, negative behavior came out of, was born out of people having, to love, view of themselves. And so the solution was to, build people's self-esteem. Buddha. And, this is the only one that I give a whole lot of respect to because, Buddhism, I think, agrees with Christianity in terms of the analysis of the problem. The difference is it has a, a different solution from Christianity. The Buddhist view, the problem of life is man's ego and man's fallen desires or evil desires. If you ever look at the circle of Buddhist circle of life, it it shows, a, a circle of absolute futility and all the different things. The, satiated desires of man, the the the corrupt heart and the UN, the unrequited desires of man. And the solution in Buddhism is, to get rid of this evil self by self annihilation, by the denial of self, by the realization that you really aren't your own self. Well, Jesus, similar to Buddha, identifies the problem as the crop. Tired of the human condition that, we have a corrupt nature, and he offers as a solution through the gospel to transform our nature by, as it turns out, something similar to Buddhism, dying to our old nature, getting rid of the bad stuff but not losing the personality, not losing the self. Not losing the person, but restoring and improving and and making holy that which was defiled. So there's just a walk through some examples of various voices. But, the point I want to make is this every voice from Plato to Occupy Wall Street defines a problem and offers a solution. So why do we listen to who we listen to? And why should we listen to Christ? Verse 20, many of them said he is demon possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him? But others said, these are not the sayings of a man possessed by demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind? It's not hard to imagine why those who are listening to him didn't want to hear what he had to say, because part of what he was saying was, you guys are a bunch of thieves and robbers. You religious leaders, you're a bunch of thieves and robbers as compared to me. No wonder they didn't want to listen to him after all. He just told them that they're there in authentic and their voices shouldn't be listened to. On the other hand, in verse 21, some of them thought, well, this guy doesn't sound crazy to me. In fact, he's demonstrated his authority over nature. He's demonstrated his authority over sickness and disease. I think maybe we should humble ourselves and hear what he has to say. Jesus claims to be the true voice. Every voice claims to be the true voice, but only one voice that has ever spoken through the annals of creation has demonstrated his authority over life and death, and over nature, and over disease, and over storms and over all kinds of over gravity, over everything. He's demonstrated his authority over those things. And what other voice that has ever spoken into humanity, who who has ever, who we've ever seen has said anything like this in verses 17 and 18 where he claims to have authority over life and death. How did Moses ever claim to have authority over life and death? Did they? No Muhammad ever claim to have authority over life and death? Did L Ron Hubbard ever claim to have authority? Jesus said, look, I have authority over my own death, and I have authority over my own life. I have authority, I'm the author of life, and I have authority over life and death. No one has ever made that claim, and no one has ever demonstrated that that claim is true. But Christ, what other record do we have of the miracles that Christ demonstrated over the laws of nature? No other voice has authenticated itself by these kinds of proofs. All other, voices claim to know what our problem is and claim to offer some form of salvation. And all these voices, according to Jesus, are thieves who want to kill, steal and destroy. Again this morning, our theme is we are all led by the voices that we listen to. And point number one is every voice offers some form of solution. If you want to understand what people are saying, just ask. Just ask yourself what? How are they defining the problem and what are they offering as a solution? Point number two is Jesus's voice leads us into true salvation. Verses nine through ten. Jesus's voice leads us into true salvation. I am the gate. Whoever enters in through me will be saved. He will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. The reason we listen to Jesus and the words of the Apostle Peter is because Jesus alone, Jesus alone has the words of life. That's what Peter said when everyone was abandoned in Christ and Christ said, are you going to leave me to Peter? And he said, why would I go? You alone have the words of life. He leads us. He is the gateway who leads us into greener pastures. He alone is the one who came to give us not only life, but life complete and full and abundant life. Every other voice says, here is your salvation, or there is your salvation. But Jesus himself says, I am the gate. I am the solution. Our problem is our corrupt and fallen nature, our sinful nature. That is, we have desires we shouldn't have. Just like the Buddha say, we do things that we shouldn't do, just like the Buddha say. We have, our selfish expressions and attitudes that bring conflict into the world. We experience, the results of our evil actions and regret things that happen. Yet we cannot change ourselves because in the end, we will do what we want to do and we will act out of who we are. We can't change ourselves when we realize that we're wrong. We just become guilty and have no where to place that guilt. We become guilty of doing wrong because in our hearts we are wrong. We are wrong by nature and we can't change our nature. Can a leopard change his spots? Can an elephant fly? No, but a caterpillar can be metamorphosed. Transformed into a butterfly. And that's the solution of the gospel by receiving what Christ Jesus has offered us, we have the opportunity to change from what we are into what we ought to be. And that's where our solution is. He has freely given us, and that's what we're going to talk about with these elements that are here with communion this morning. He was freely given us everything we need to be changed from the inside out. A sinner can be changed into a saint. When a sinner receives fully what Christ has offered, what does Christ freely give? Those who by faith receive? Verses 14 through 18 I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me, just as the father knows me. I know the father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my father loves me is that I lay down my life only to take it up again. No one has. No one takes it, takes it from me. But I lay it down on my of my own accord. I have the authority to lay it down. And the authority to take it up. This command I receive from my father. He gives his life for his sheep. One of the things that we like to think about is the fact that he gives his life for us so that we can have his life living in us. But part of the the gospel, that's always been a struggle for me, and I think one that we overlook as part of the gospel, is he gives us the cross to he gives us the cross. He he gives us his death. He gives us his his death to to mortify our lives. And then he gives us our lives to bring us out of death. Part of the gospel is that we are crucified with Christ. He gives us his crucified life, and he also gives us his resurrected life. We receive the crucified life of Christ in us to put to death our own sinful nature. To solve the Buddhist problem. We are crucified with Christ. We die to our old nature, not to become extinguished or annihilated, but so that in the resurrection of Christ in us our personalities might be renewed and be made whole and be made, right in him, that we would have a new heart. It's kind of like this, this is, our old nature. There's, things that have to be done to this car before it's restored. The guy who's going to restore it has to get rid of all the rust, has to get rid of all the dense, has to go in and take all the rat infested, interior and upholstery out of it. Has to rip up everything that is not good in it anymore. Has to reduce it back to its, its, basic, personality or frame. And then after that is done and that's what has to be done in us. We have to die to, we have to be crucified with Christ, to our old nature, our old self. The power of Christ in us has the power to mortify our old desires. And once that's done, then the new life in Christ starts working in us to to transform us, to renew us, to make us whole and restore us to God's original condition. The condition that he intended us to be to reflect his glory. So where does that lead us right now? As people, where are we in this story? The story of of having, what's bad taken away from us and what's good instilled into us while we still remain the same person. This car still has the same personality. It's just now gone from being corrupted and and close to worthless to to being, a worthy, thing to admire, a reflection of its creators. Love for it. Well, where does this where are we in this story? Verse 16, it says, I have other sheep that are not of this sheet pen. That's us. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd. So you know, the difference between this car analogy and us is that the car doesn't have a will. It gets in the hands of the one that restores it, and it pretty much does whatever the restoration person wants. We have on the other hand, a wheel that interacts with, with God. And here's the problem. We don't like to give up our junk. It's kind of like, you know, this hoarder here, what's the deal here? This is my stuff. This is valuable stuff. If I might lose myself, if I give up this stuff. No, it's, Look, it's trash. It's trash. You'd be better off without it. Oh, no. If I gave up my, anger, I might lose something. If I gave up my jealousy, I might lose something. If I gave up my bitterness, I might lose some of myself. If I gave up my lust, I might lose some of myself. I might lose who I am if I gave up the right to lie, or the right to kind of cheat a little here and there. I wouldn't be the same. Well, that's right, you wouldn't be. But you'd be better and then you'd be made better by him. We are all sheep. We are the Gentile sheep. We also listen to the voice of our Savior, that voice who offers to crucify our fallen nature and to restore us to a new and glorious nature. We are all led by the voice as we listen to. Every voice offers some form of salvation. Jesus's voice leads us into true salvation. Today, in preparation for communion, I'd like to read from Luke chapter 22, verse 14 through 20, which says when the hour had come, when the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God. After taking the cup, he gave thanks and, you know, take this and divided among you, for I tell you that I will not drink again of the fruit of vine until the kingdom of God comes. And he took the bread and gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it for them, saying, this is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. In these elements we see the same thing that we see in baptism. We see the idea that, Christ's death is work in us, that Christ life might be emerged from us, that that what is evil is taken away from us, that what is holy may, grow and develop in us. And that's what I'd like you to think about as we take communion this morning. Could I ask the ushers to come forward that you're receiving from Christ the death of Christ, the death of Christ that would mortify, your old nature and then your receiving the blood of Christ, the life of Christ. That would be bring total renewal and restoration to you and your personality and be who God has called you to be. And of course, this is a lifelong daily, task to die to self and to live for Christ. This is what's pictured in baptism. This is what's pictured in and in communion. This is what's pictured in the gospel. This is what we're called to do daily, to die to ourself and come alive to Christ. Let us pray. Heavenly father, Lord, sometimes we let you take the junk out of our house, and, we go out in the streets and we find a way to, bring it back in again. Sometimes we, let it get thrown away, and we let the trash truck actually drive it all the way to the dump, and we lose track of it, and we never have to deal with it again. Hey, friends, thanks for listening to the Ultimate Outcomes Sermon podcast.