Sermon for 4-14-24

Sermons, The Word

Jn. 10:11-16.

Good Shepherd Sunday

Easter 3: Misericordias Domini (The goodness of the Lord.)

 

Opening Prayer: O Lord Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd of the sheep, who came to seek the lost and to gather them into Your fold: Have compassion on those who have wandered from You; feed those who hunger, cause the weary to lie down in Your pastures, bind up those who are broken in heart, and strengthen those who are weak; and lead us all, O Lord, in the paths of righteousness, for Your name’s sake.  Amen.

 

+In the Name of Jesus+

 

Who among us is not familiar with the beautiful Psalm of David recounting his relationship with God in terms of a Shepherd and His sheep.   Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and all the Minor Prophets illustrate the relationship of God with His people in the language of tending a flock.   So, when Jesus spoke about Himself as the Good Shepherd, He traveled very familiar ground with His listeners and His disciples.

 

But as we consider the words of our Savior, I believe that in many ways, He was telling them something that had not fully occurred to them or completely sunk in to their thick skulls.    The relationship is not merely an earthly bond but one that extends into eternity.    Their misunderstanding of this was apparent even as Jesus ascended into heaven, “Lord, are You now going to reestablish the kingdom of Israel?”

 

However, before we blast the disciples too harshly, do you fully understand the eternal and glorious relationship between God and the sinners?   This morning, I would like to emphasize it again for our comfort as we consider this thought:

 

FROM ETERNITY OUR GOOD SHEPHERD HAD HIS HEART SET ON US.

 

I intend to give you this comfort as we concentrate on three eternal truths that flow from the lips and heart of our blessed risen Savior:

 

  1. The Good Shepherd knows His sheep and they know Him.
  2. The Good Shepherd has other sheep.
  3. There is one flock with one shepherd.

 

THE GOOD SHEPHERD KNOWS HIS SHEEP AND THEY KNOW HIM.

 

“I am the Good Shepherd.”       Jesus says this boldly and openly.    But what lies behind this claim is what remains so very comforting, “I know My own and My own know Me.”   Jesus knows all about you.   He knows your joys and sorrows, what you are doing, thinking and feeling at all times.   

 

Now this can be disturbing, very disturbing.   It means that while we can hide our evil thoughts from others, our lust, our greed, our bitterness, our selfishness, God still sees it right along with every secret sin that we hide from others.     And as Paul warns us, “If you live according to the flesh, you will die.”

 

You may look good on the outside, but what lurks in your heart?      Don’t be fooled by nice sounding words that picture God as one who smiles and simply looks the other way at your sin.  This is the god of this world.   It is A God without wrath who brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without the cross.       Paul says again, “Sin, brings God’s anger on disobedient children.”    Your sin is as real as that hard and cold pew in which you sit.

 

However, the words of Jesus are not meant to disturb you, but to comfort you.    In the midst of our sin, Jesus speaks to the heart and soul burdened and overcome by the sin that invades the sinner’s life, “I know My own.”   The depth of this knowing goes so much deeper that knowing only about your grief and trials.

 

Jesus knows you in His eternal love.    We are His “flesh and blood.”    Through Holy Baptism where He adopted you as His Child, He joyfully and proudly acknowledges you as His own even with all your shortcoming and weaknesses and sins, “Yes, I know My sheep.”     This knowledge started, not when we came out of our mother’s womb, but in eternity as Paul says, “Before He made the world, His love led Him to choose us in Christ to be holy and blameless in His sight.”    From eternity your Good Shepherd has set His heart on you.

 

But there is also a glorious flip side to this love.   As Jesus says, “I know My own and My own know Me.”   This speaks of more than a knowledge stored up in the head.    If it were merely a knowledge of the head, we would have faith only when we were awake and consciously thinking about Jesus.

 

To know Jesus in faith is to believe that Jesus lived his sinless life and died his innocent death for me.   This faith does not sleep.   God placed this faith in you through the miracle of the Gospel.     Because of this God-given faith, you are now able to say, “He is my Savior,” just as Jesus says you are “My” sheep.

 

And in order to underscore this blessed relationship between Himself and you and me, Jesus draws a comparison, “As the Father knows Me and I know the Father.”   The comforting point Jesus wishes to make is that the relationship between Himself and believers is so intimate and close that any earthly relationship cannot compare to it, even that love between husband and wife or parents and children.

 

This intimate relationship springs not from our somehow meeting God on His terms, but God meeting you in the midst of your sin.    You don’t need to build another Tower of Babel to climb up to meet God, He came in your flesh, He took on your sins in His body.   Before you cleaned up your life, Jesus claimed you as His own.   This is what our Good Shepherd means when He says, “And I give up My life for the sheep.”

 

It is not your life that establishes or maintains this intimacy, but the blessed life of Jesus.    In a sense, we might say that Jesus played the old game of “Bait and switch” on none other than Satan himself.     Jesus set Himself up as the bait.   Satan fell for it.  Jesus died and Satan thought he had won.    Jesus rose from the grave and in the place of our sinful life, you now stand before God in the righteous life of our Savior who planned this from eternity.     Oh, Christian do you again not see that from eternity Jesus has set His heart on you, the sinner?

 

THE GOOD SHEPHERD HAS OTHER SHEEP

 

One of the great comforts we have is that from eternity Jesus saw that there would be a great number of Gentiles, that is, ordinary sinners.   So we hear Jesus speak as if He were looking across the eons of time, “I also have other sheep which are not in this fold.   I must lead them also.”   Contrary to Mormon theology, the “other sheep” are not those in South America.   You and I are the other sheep.   This phrase means that Jesus, the Son, took part in the eternal act of your election, “I have other sheep.”

 

The comfort in this is that Jesus did not state a requirement that sinners like us would first of all have to become Jews in order to become one of our Savior’s lambs.   “Other sheep” means that we are no longer bound to the Old Testament civil and ceremonial laws incumbent on Jews, for as Paul says, “These are a shadow of things to come, but the body itself is Christ.”  

 

                And Dear Christian, let us not even for one moment overlook that little word “must,” “I must lead them also.”   This “Must” is once again not dependent on what you have accomplished, but on Jesus.   It is embedded in the “must” of your Savior’s love for you.   Love compelled Jesus to go to the cross and accomplish your acquittal and then to do His Good Shepherd’s work in leading men to Himself through Word and Sacrament.   He tells us, “They will listen to My voice.”

 

The “hirelings” of which Jesus speaks in this discourse, are those who would bind us to certain rules and regulations they say must be fulfilled before we can be assured of Salvation.   The voice of Jesus tells us, “Com unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden.  I, will give you rest.”   This is the gentle voice of forgiveness and longsuffering.   From the very beginning, Jesus planned for you to hear this voice.   Oh, Christian do you again not see that from eternity Jesus has set His heart on you, the sinner?

 

THERE IS ONE FLOCK AND ONE SHEPHERD

 

The words, “They will listen to My voice,” are not spoken in a vacuum, but are embedded in the words, “And so they will become one flock with one Shepherd.”   The goal of our Good Shepherd is to bring all sinners together, not under a different set of rules depending on the gravity and depth and nature of your sin, but to wipe out your entire record of sin equally.

 

No one goes away guilty.      Regardless of what our conscience and the Law say, we are all equally justified and as righteous as the Law requires in this flock.

 

But this we must understand: we are still sinful.   But the difference is that we are also at the same time a perfect saint in the eyes of God.

 

There is one flock and one church in which all are Children of God as Paul says, “There is one body and one Spirit…one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of us all.”   This flock is not of one generation only but extends from eternity to eternity.   Oh, Christian do you again not see that from eternity Jesus has set His heart on you, the sinner?

 

You might now be saying, pastor, you are being redundant.   Yes, I have been redundant.   I want

 

  • you who came here burdened with your secret sins,
  • you who tremble at the lies of Satan that you haven’t repented deeply enough, or shed enough tears, or
  • you that your struggle with that ongoing and pet sin telling you that you cannot be one of Jesus sheep, to have the confidence that as you walk out of this sanctuary today, you have the absolute confidence, in spite of your weaknesses and failures, that you are one of the lambs of Jesus. So, I will remind you one more time, “FROM ETERNITY OUR GOOD SHEPHERD HAD HIS HEART SET ON US.”   Go in peace.