Let's read John chapter 10.
Some of the best truth in all of history is in John chapter 10.
Now, we have to understand the context.
In John chapter 9 is an amazing story about Jesus doing something brand new that had never been done in the history of the world.
A man born blind
was made to see, and this caused a major uproar. Because the powers of the day did not want to admit that the Christ was from God, and was affirmed to be from heaven because indeed this notable miracle could not be denied.
So this man was healed of his blindness and we don't have time to tell the whole story but we're gonna
explain the context of where John chapter 10 begins.
We have to back up to John 9.35, “And Jesus heard that they cast him out, [the blind man, they kicked him out of the temple.]
And when Jesus had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?
Now this man had never seen Jesus because of the manner and the method in which he was healed.
You'll have to read the whole story.
And he, the blind man, answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I may believe on Him?
And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee.
And he said, Lord, I believe, and he worshipped Him.
Only God receives worship.
Notice Jesus did not stop this man from worshipping Him, which is an obvious indication of deity.
And Jesus said,
Now most of the things that Jesus said, He knew that people were listening.
So He wasn't just saying this to the audience of the formerly blind man.
So people are watching.
There's an audience.
You'll see the audience show up here in the next verse.
So the blind man says he believes on the Lord.
He worships the Lord.
And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see, and they which see might be made blind.
Two separate audiences there.
Some who cannot see that they might see, and those who think they already do see remain blind.
Wow.
And some of the Pharisees, which were with him, heard these words, and said unto Jesus, Are we blind also?
Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin.
But now ye say, We see.
Therefore your sin remaineth.
So this is the introduction.
A little bit of tension right there.
Jesus is trying to get the attention of the Pharisees and He's calling them some words that we might think are unkind, but Jesus has the ultimate kindness motivation.
He wants to wake them up.
The context of John 10, there are two significantly different audiences.
There are the spiritually blind, the spiritually lost, which they are typified in this passage as the Pharisees.
And there are those who are truly born again, able to spiritually see the saved.
You'll see this audience split back and forth.
And the joy of John 10 is you can recognize that difference.
All of us have some Pharisee tendencies in us and we tend to think like they do, and we should not look down on them because we can see that in our nature.
We all by nature trust ourselves that we're kind of awesome, and we need God to wake us up.
I love how Jesus wakes people up, especially people that don't think they have a problem.
You don't have a problem?
Well, then you don't need a solution.
But Jesus is the solution.
So He has to explain to you, you have a problem.
All right.
You should always pray before you read Scripture.
And we kind of started in the middle, but let's pray.
Dear Jesus, thank you for being the Word.
Thank you for being the Author.
Thank you for writing us a Book.
Thank you for loving us.
Help us to understand You better.
Help us to experience joy and peace and love from reading about Who You are and get us ready for eternity.
Amen.
The Parable of the Good Shepherd.
John 10.
Verily, verily, which means super duper true.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door
into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same as a thief and a robber.
So here we have a superhero and we have a villain right away, right?
So the thief is a robber.
Whoa, there's a bad guy.
I like this movie.
But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
Now Jesus talked in layers.
He's got the best animation.
He's got the best delivery style.
He's got the Holy Ghost to help the audience stay entertained.
Jesus is the best storyteller.
So there's layers.
There's nuance to it, right?
He's going to explain where he's going.
Where are you going?
Where are you going?
Stay tuned.
You'll enjoy it.
Verse 3, to Him, this is the Door, the Shepherd of the sheep.
To him the porter, the porter is the person standing at the door deciding whether the door should open or not.
To Him the porter openeth, and the sheep hear His voice, and He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.
And when He putteth forth his own sheep, He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him, for they know His voice.
He's speaking spiritually.
These people are trying to understand with their intellect instead of listening with their heart and their soul.
And a stranger will they, the sheep, not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers.
This parable spake Jesus unto them, but they understood not which things they were which He spake unto them.
Teacher, I don't get it.
Then Jesus said unto them again, Verily, verily, let me start over.
Let me go back to the beginning.
Who here didn't understand the teaching?
Okay.
Verily, verily, second grade, I say unto you, I am the Door of the sheep.
Let's slow it down for the kids.
All that ever came before Me are thieves and robbers.
Now right there, he is pointing a finger at the Pharisees and the spiritual leaders of his day.
The fake leaders are thieves and robbers.
But the sheep did not hear them.
I am the Door.
By Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved,
and shall go in and out and find pasture.
The thief cometh not before to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.
I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
So here Jesus is splitting the crowd.
He says if you want to hang out with the thieves and the robbers,
Take a step to the left.
If you want to be on Team Jesus and you want to be a sheep who finds pasture and security and salvation and you want to have life more abundantly, take a step to the right.
He's splitting it right down the middle, making it super clear.
You're going to have to make a decision today to be on the team of the idiots or on the team of the Truth.
That's where He's going.
You see it?
I want to be a sheep.
He promises
Life more abundantly.
We made it to verse 11.
He's called himself the Door.
Now he says, I am the Good Shepherd.
The Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep.
But he that, now he's going back to the bad guy, but he that is in hireling, that means a temporary employee and not the shepherd.
Whose own the sheep are not.
He has no vested interest in actually caring.
Seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth.
And the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.
The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling.
He's just doing it for the money.
And careth not for the sheep.
I am the Good Shepherd.
You'll notice I'm different.
I'm different.
I am the Good Shepherd, and know My sheep,
and Am Known of Mine.
He said earlier, I'm willing to lay down my life for the sheep.
The other guy ran away.
I'm here to die.
As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep.
Now some people are hearing his voice.
They're resonating with the truth.
They're like, wow, this is awesome.
God is coming down to provide the sacrifice to lay down His life for the sheep.
And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice, and there shall be one fold and one Shepherd.
That means I'm going to reach more people than just My people.
I came here for the whole world, not just for you guys.
Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I may take it again.
I love it.
No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of Myself.
I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.
This commandment have I received of My Father.
There was a division, therefore, again among the Jews for these sayings.
They like to
tear His words apart, rip it to shreds.
What does He mean?
He has power over His own life to raise it up again because His Father told Him.
And many of them, the Pharisees, the Jewish rulers, the hypocritical tradition following religious elite, kind of the senators and congressmen, the political rulers of their day as well, because these people had a position of leading
But they were not good shepherds.
They were hirelings.
They were thieves.
They were robbers.
They were there to make merchandise of the people.
They were there for themselves.
And they were not willing to lay down their life for the followers.
And Jesus was calling them out.
And the sheep were like, yeah, these guys make a lot of money on us.
So there's a division.
These guys, they had their name.
Their name got put on a billboard.
Not the Good Shepherd, right?
It's like a political campaign.
And how do they respond?
But many of them, the pharisaical people, said, uh, uh, mm, uh, He hath a devil and is mad.
He's crazy.
Why hear ye Him?
Why are you listening to that guy?
Others said, uh, actually, these are not the words of Him that hath a devil.
Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?
Remember the context?
Jesus had just done the impossible.
God had given Jesus miracle-working power to confirm that He indeed was the Messiah, and the devil cannot open the eyes of the blind.
So the crowd was like, we're going to listen to this guy because he's come from God, and he's a better shepherd than you guys.
Oh, this next passage, the paragraph starts, Jesus asserts His deity.
So for those of you that have any doubts at all, like, “Why wasn't Jesus super bold and courageous to say that He's come from God and that He is God?”
Just, just listen.
John 10, 22, “And it was at Jerusalem, the Feast of the Dedication, and it was winter.
And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch.”
I always imagine Him …
Just swooping in, just with the powerful gait, steady, stoic, royal, postured, composed.
He walked in.
Solomon's temple was nothing compared to the mansions of heaven that Jesus was used to.
He was elegant in His arrival.
They knew He was there.
And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch.
Then came the Jews round about Him.
They're going to attack Him.
Let's go get that Guy.
He's our political and spiritual nemesis.
He's trying to get the following of the people.
And then we won't have any sheep to fleece.
Then came the Jews round about Him and said unto Him, How long dost Thou make us to doubt?
If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.
See, that's the big question.
Where did Jesus just declare his deity, declare his God?
Why are you making us doubt?
And He's going to tell them why they have doubts.
If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.
Break it down.
One word, three words.
Jesus answered them.
I told you.
And ye believe not.
You refuse to believe the truth.
I am the Truth.
I already told you I'm God.
And you won't receive it.
But He didn't even … He's going to get to that part again.
But now He's laying on another layer.
And I just have to hear an inch of sarcasm.
I mean, these people are accusing God of not being God.
Does He defend Himself?
It's like, I told you, you don't want to hear it.
You're choosing not to believe.
It's not my fault.
You don't believe that I'm the Messiah.
And he gives evidence.
Here it is.
The works, the miracles, the good deeds, the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me and my identity, that indeed I am the Christ.
I am the Messiah.
I am God in the flesh.
I am Emmanuel, God with us, God come down from heaven.
The works, the miracles that the Father empowers me to do, they bear witness of me, but ye believe not.
You're the problem.
You're not believing, because ye are not of My sheep, as I said unto you.
I mean it's so terse and sharp and slicing that you have to laugh because the air is so thick.
He's telling these people, you are not My sheep.
You don't understand God.
You're refusing to believe.
He's splitting the crowd again.
He's saying, those of you on the right,
Believe.
Those of you on the left, I will still talk to you and persuade you to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God;
Come down to save your soul.
Will you be My sheep or no?
Verse 27, My sheep, and he probably turned to the right, hear My voice
and I know them and they follow Me.
You do none of those three.
You don't hear My voice.
You don't … I don't know you and you don't follow Me.
That means you're in the other crowd.
Now keep in mind all of us have at times this fearful, doubtful, self-confidence, religious infection of wanting to behave like a Pharisee.
So just recognize
Three things we should be doing at all times.
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
What's the result?
John 10:28.
Memorize this verse.
Jesus says, and I give.
I give.
That's a significant action that only God can do in this case.
I give unto them.
Here's the package.
Here's your gift.
I'm going to give unto my sheep.
If you join my crowd, here's the reason why you should join Team Jesus.
Ready?
I give unto them eternal life.
Can your God do that?
No.
You can't give yourself eternal life.
Why don't you just surrender now and trust Me?
Why?
Because I give unto My sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish.
Never perish.
These people on my team, they will never perish.
He was implying there are people who will perish.
The word perish means to fall, collapse, destruct,
Go to the Place of Destruction, [and this is the peart where He just bursts out with Divine confidence.] neither shall any man pluck them [these sheep] out of My hand.
My hand will hold the Eternal Soul Secure.
I will keep them secure.
I will protect them.
They will go in and out and be safe and experience salvation in My hand.
My hand.
Then He said, My Father, which gave them, the saved ones, unto Me, is greater than all.
And no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
And he did not say it was my Father's hand going around My hand.
He said it was just ONE hand.
I and my Father are One.
One hand.
It's My hand.
It's the Father's hand.
Because I'm God.
And you know it.
And you won't believe Me.
I and my Father are One.
Long pause.
And what do the Pharisaical unbelieving, God-rejecting, truth-resisting, anti-Christ spirit, what do they do?
filled with demonic opposition, filled with rage and anger, filled with resisting the Holy Ghost, filled with resisting the truth, which we all do at times.
Then the Pharisaical unbelieving Jews took up stones again to stone Him.
We will crush You into the ground.
We're going to kill You, you God-claimer.
Now, why did they want to stone Him?
Because they knew exactly what He said.
He just said, I and the Father are One.
It's My hand, God's hand.
I'm the Provider of salvation.
I came to save and protect My sheep for eternal life.
Who can give eternal life?
Pause.
Rewind.
Who can give eternal life?
Only the Source of eternal life, right?
“Where does Jesus ever claim to be God?”
Read the Book and stop resisting, Pharisee.
Jesus answered them.
What does He come back with?
Many good works.
See this blind guy?
He's no longer blind.
See this lame person?
That's no longer lame.
Your God can't do that, but I can.
Many good works have I showed you from My Father.
For which of these works do you stone Me?
Are you going to kill the Guy that provides sight and life and healing and help?
The Jews answered Him, probably not in the nicest voice, saying, For a good work we stone Thee not, but for blasphemy, because that Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God.
There it is, right there.
Pause, crowd.
You will get this from the Mormons, the Jehovah Witnesses, the Latter-day Saints, the Muslims.
Dear God, please help me.
Where does Jesus make himself to be God?
The audience understood clearly in John 10:33, we have to kill this Guy because He just claimed deity.
He just clarified extremely clearly, you know, in other passages He says, only God can forgive sins.
I'm God.
There is none good but One, that is God.
Are you saying I'm God?
Of course I'm God.
There's no one else that can provide this level of healing miracle.
Are you going to kill the Guy that brings you the miracle works?
And now He says, I and My Father are One, and I provide eternal life.
And they're like, we got to kill You.
We got to kill You because You think You're God.
Yeah, I'm God.
They were going to stone Him for blasphemy because Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God, equal with God.
In fact, he was God in the flesh.
Jesus answered them.
They're still talking.
The stones are back.
Like, we're going to get this guy, right?
Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law?
Wait, aren't you guys the rulers of the law?
Don't you know the book?
Is it not written in your law?
I said, God the Author, ye are gods small-g. This just means it's a smaller word for god.
It means like a sir, a mister, a lord.
Somebody has dominion over a region.
If He, my Father, the Author, Jesus was the Author of Scripture as well, if He called them gods unto whom the Word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, say ye of Him whom the Father hath sanctified, sent into the world, thou blasphemest, because I said I am the Son of God,
We can unpack that portion later.
Jesus was not telling the Pharisees that they had divine powers.
No.
He was saying, you've been given a measure of authority, so what is it any big thing if I'm claiming that I have ultimate authority?
If I do, now he's back to the works.
He's like, you can't argue with the works.
If Jesus was His own lawyer, He'd be like, look at the proof, look at the evidence.
He's back to, count how many times he says works, which means absolutely impossible to deny miracles.
If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not, go ahead and stone me now, crush me into the ground.
You don't have to believe that I'm God, but I am.
You don't have to believe it.
If you can somehow logically dismiss the works that I've done in the name of My Father.
He's given Me the authority.
I'm telling you He's given Me all authority because I'm Him.
You don't have to believe Me if you can disprove the miracles.
Go ahead.
But if I do, comma, though ye believe Me not, believe the works,
that ye may know and believe that the Father is in Me and I in Him."
That means Me and My Dad, we're a team.
He's in Me, I'm in Him, we are One.
He just went back and revalidated that I have divine power, I have divine authority, I'm here on assignment from God because I am Him.
And He's saying, but if I do the works of My Father, believe the works.
Because the Source is undeniable, that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in Him.
Therefore sought they again to take Him, but He escaped out of their hand.
I don't think Jesus was a pansy.
I don't think He can swing a hammer for 18 years as a carpenter and not have hands.
I'm pretty sure He had carpenter hands, big, large, calloused, beast-man hands.
He didn’t probably use that power. He didn’t smack anybody in the face.
I just think He wasn’t a weakling.
They sought to take Him again, but He escaped out of their hands.
Scripture does not tell us how. You can use your own imagination. If He used divine powers to make Himself invisible. Or if He just walked through the crowd. Or if He had to … settle them down, because there were stones about to fly.
I mean, these people were angry, vicious, murderous, God-resisting.
He was an affront to their entire religious belief system, which is based upon tradition and respecting the elders and respecting the hierarchy of, I'm a shepherd, I'm a leader, I'm a father, I'm a somebody.
Jesus is like, “No, I'm God.”
You guys all step down.
Believe Me.
And Jesus went away again beyond Jordan, into the place where John at first baptized.
And there He abode.
I'm done with you guys.
I'm going to give you a chance to pause and understand My message, but that's all you can handle for now.
And many resorted unto Him and said, John did no miracle.
But all things that John spake of this Man, Jesus, were true.
And many believed on Him there.
Many people believed on Jesus after the conflict; after He had face-to-face aggressive, agitated accusations of, “Say we not that Thou hast a devil and you do these miracles by the prince of the devils,” After they accused and they wanted to kill Him, how He responded in a Christ-like manner, how He brought the truth, how He smiled in the face of their death threats,
brought great peace and many people believed on Him.
Wow, that was long.
We're going to summarize, we're going to go back and recap.
I'll just read.
I want you to notice in John chapter 10 there's a razor-sharp dichotomy of two crowds.
The sheep, the non-sheep.
Jesus, the Truth, causes a slicing severance so that we can see in one crowd the spiritually blind as drastically different from the spiritually enlightened.
In one camp, we observe the self-confident, tradition-following, religious-yet-spiritually-lost, confused Pharisees having no shepherd but pretending to be their own shepherd versus those who were simply sheep, and they were experiencing the cozy comfort under the tender care of the One true and Good Shepherd Who's willing to die for them.
We see here a drastic difference between one Door on the right versus those who've chosen to identify and resist that Door.
See truth divides, truth by its nature separates the true followers from the non-followers.
Jesus in the spirit of ultimate compassion here is standing in the face of people who He knows have a destiny of separation from Him and He's persuading them and pleading with the Pharisees to not die without a Shepherd to lead them into the next life.
Please do not pass into eternity blind to the light of the world, because here you're looking, Jesus the Speaker, at the Light of the World.
He was begging the unsaved, please do not exit into the abyss, but instead enter into the only Door to eternal life.
Do not fall into the pit of swirling destruction, but instead be safely scooped into that massive, secure, strong hand of God …
and there in the hollow of His hand you can rest assured of eternal life and eternal protection.
Don't you want to feel safe like a sheep?
Don't you want to feel safe in the hand of God?
Because currently you're not.
You're trusting yourself.
There's a difference.
So here, John 10 can be summarized as choose Christ, not self-affirming logic.
John 10, we meet the Door.
And then we meet the confused and prideful few who will not approach or open that Door.
We meet the Good Shepherd who is drastically different than the thief who comes to kill, to steal, and to destroy.
We meet the True Shepherd who's in direct opposition to the leadership style of the fake hireling who does not genuinely care for the sheep.
Here we meet Christ Who's accused of being a devil.
But he's not a devil.
He's obviously empowered by God.
His genuine miracles validated that indeed the Heavenly Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
And he had the power to provide eternal life.
And the Pharisees would not receive that truth.
Jesus said, My works.
Believe the works if you can't believe Me.
There's a great divide in John 10.
Those who believe and those who refuse to believe.
There are Pharisees in hell today who were face-to-face with Christ in this very conversation and said, I don't believe you're the Door.
I don't believe you're the Shepherd.
I don't believe you have Eternal Life.
I don't believe you're the Christ of God.
Here, the gracious gospel of Christ is poured forth from heaven through the willing personality and the pen of John,
who was just the instrument contacting the ink of Heaven with the page of your heart, writing to you the gospel.
The great message of John chapter 10 is choose which audience you are in.
Will you enter the Door or slam the Door?
Will you hear the call of the Good Shepherd or refuse and resist His claim to identity as God?
Will you go toward the Light or will you remain spiritually blind in darkness?
Will you allow yourself to be rescued by the awesome hand of God or will you continue to fall towards eternal damnation?
On the one hand is extreme security.
On the other hand is extreme pride and self-confidence.
Choose your crowd wisely.
Enjoying John 10 Together