Dennis Tuuri

Please stand for reading of God’s word. Most assuredly I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.

Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers. Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things that He spoke to them. And then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door, and if anyone entered by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. But a hireling who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, flees, and leaves the sheep, and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them.

A hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know my sheep and am known by my own. As the Father knows me, even so I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. Now I have other sheep but they are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and they will hear my voice. There will be one flock and one shepherd. Therefore my Father loves me because I laid down my life that I might take it again.

No one takes 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 command I received from my Father. Therefore, there was a division again among the Jews, because of these sayings. And many of them said, “He has a demon and is mad. Why do you listen to him?” Others said, “These are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” That is right.

Father, we confess the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and Your Holy Spirit bringing us Your life and Your character. We are blind. We acknowledge that, and of ourselves we cannot understand anything around about us, and certainly not Your word. But we also gratefully acknowledge, Father, You have opened our eyes to wondrous things out of Your scriptures. You have brought us into communion with Yourself by means of Your Spirit and the work of the Son.

We thank You for that. We pray now that Your Spirit would open this text for understanding. Open our eyes, for otherwise we are blind. Illuminate our minds and our whole person in understanding of this text, that we might be transformed, that we might give You praise and glory in this worship service, Father, and that we may go forth from this place empowered to speak Your word, using Your voice, living our lives in the context of service to You and to Your church. In Jesus’ name we ask it.

Amen. Please be seated. We’re in that section of John’s gospel, chapter 10, verse 1, where Jesus is being portrayed as the light of the world. We see links in this text back to chapters 9 as well as chapter 8. This is that whole section, chapters 8 through 12, where Jesus declares Himself the light of the world. In chapter 8, He shows and demonstrates that through the end of chapter 12. We’re moving in a progression through John’s gospel, an overview of this section is that we move in terms of the way a priest would walk through the articles of the Holy Place, coming to the laver first, and we saw water allusions in the first portion of this section of the book.

And then the priest would go to the table of showbread and shed drink libations of both bread and wine. And this correlates to the chapters leading up to chapter 8, where our Savior is indeed the bread come down from Heaven, and He says that He is the water of life. If anyone drinks from Him, His Spirit will flow out of the midst of our being.

And now we come to that section represented by the lampstand in the Holy Place, representing oversight, supervision, and authority in the context of reflected light. We can see this movement in terms of the creation week as well. The light of God on day one is very directly linked to God. Some consider this perhaps the Shekinah glory of God, but certainly very directly linked on day one. We get around to day four, where we have sun, moon, and stars created. These represent reflected light of God. So they are, as it were, under-rulers. The sun, moon, and stars—sun to rule the day, moon to rule by night.

They represent reflected light. The moon reflects the light of the sun. The sun really reflects the greater light of God Himself on the first day of light. And so this movement of the gospel is the same way. And the opening of the gospel of John, Jesus is the light that brings life to men. And then as we move through now to the middle section of this gospel, Jesus is talking about Himself being the light of the world, reflecting the light of the glory of the Trinity and the Father, but also pointing, and very specifically in this text, as we said last week, to the under-shepherds.

Now, we take this text almost always to refer to Jesus, but not thinking of the under-shepherds. But very specifically, He begins this discourse by attacking the false under-shepherds who have kicked the man out of the synagogue, who have not entered by the door, which is Him and belief in the triune God as He has revealed Himself, but rather have appropriated authority to themselves. And they then are the false shepherds that He is addressing. That’s why His discourse begins in the negative. He attacks their sin, calling them thieves and robbers, and then goes on to talk about Himself and His under-shepherds, His under-shepherds.

So as we’ve said, in this middle section of John’s gospel, we read certainly about the Lord Jesus being the light of the world. He is Shiloh. But we are sent ones. We are sent to be light in the context of the world. And so we are these reflected sun, moon, and stars as we go forth from this place. The context then prepares us for lesser lights. Sun, moon, and stars are lesser lights to the great light reflected by God on the first day of creation. Lesser lights administering an overseeing function with the light of the Savior. We don’t have light of our own.

Apart from Him, we are darkness. But we reflect the light of the Savior. And so the context sets us up for correctly interpreting this discourse of our Savior in these 21 verses as referring in large measure to lesser lights, under-shepherds, under the Great Shepherd of the sheep.

So in chapters 8 through 12, in the temple, the priest would go from the sink laver we call it, to the table, and then he would go to the lamp, lampstand, candlestick. The lamp is just simply what it is. And so he would go to the lamp on the children’s outline. On the fourth day of creation, God made lesser lights—lights on the fourth day of creation that represented rulers. Rulers. And so that prepares us for correctly understanding this text.

And we said the other thing that prepares us for understanding the text is the agricultural context. We say that it is not a compliment being referred to as a sheep. It’s not the Walt Disney version of sheep. It’s the real version of sheep. Sheep are dirty creatures. Sheep cannot clean themselves. Sheep are not intelligent. They need to be warned about where they might go. They’ll walk into danger by themselves. Sheep are complaining animals. Sheep are animals that are easily led. Sheep really will sit there. As Howard L. was telling me last week after the sermon, he took care of sheep for a couple of years.

And if you give the sheep enough food, he will sit there and eat himself to death. One of those kind of creatures. So the sheep needs great care. It’s not a compliment being referred to as a sheep. Again, the analogy prepares us then for the importance of under-shepherds. Since the sheep are not neat, clean creatures and need all this care, the agricultural context and understanding of shepherding prepares us for the need for under-shepherds to take care of Christ’s lambs.

So you children, I’d ask you to draw on your children’s outline of sheep. This is supposed to represent the kind of sheepfold that was used at this time 2,000 years ago. Three solid walls, very small opening, and then the dotted lines represent the different folds that would be within one big fold of the sheep. You would have a number of shepherds who would come in and out with their own little group of five, six, seven sheep.

The sheep would have a name by the shepherd. They would hear the shepherd’s voice, and when the other shepherd came in, they wouldn’t follow him out. They’d only follow their own little master out, who was master of six or seven. So the door here is the door into the sheepfold. And I’ve asked you children to draw specifically a dirty sheep, easy to show dirt on the wool, bleating, you know, bad—even though they’re always complaining, stupid—I don’t know how you present that—defenseless sheep in the context of the sheepfold. So the sheep has great need for a shepherd and a sheepfold.

Jesus is the porter, the doorkeeper. And on the children’s outline, draw the doorkeeper’s—the porter’s—the watchman’s bed roll in the door of the sheepfold. So the porter who would let the under-shepherds gain entrance into the sheepfold would lie his bed roll right across this door to be built just wide enough for him to have his bed roll in. So he would sleep there at night and prevent animals coming in and prevent the sheep from going out. So Jesus is the porter, but He’s talking about the under-shepherds who would bring sheep in and bring them out in this particular discourse.

And so this is kind of a pictorial representation of that. You know, I didn’t stress this last week, but you know, one of the clear implications of this is that sheep are collective animals. I mean, if sheep cannot clean themselves, the image here is not—again, if we get rid of this image that we just talked about, Jesus and not under-shepherds—that the whole thrust of the passage is negative against false under-shepherds and then positive for what good under-shepherds under Jesus do.

Then that helps get rid of this image we have of individual sheep and Jesus is the only shepherd and He’s going to take care of us one by one. No, the whole illustration is that you are not to be seen as an individual sheep. You’re part of a flock or a fold of sheep within the great flock of all the sheep. So sheep need under-shepherds. They need to be part of a particular fold or flock of sheep. You need to be attached to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ and a specific manifestation of the church, which is overseen by under-shepherds.

The only individual sheep that I can think of in the gospel accounts of this is the one that’s lost. And Jesus doesn’t go out to run away from the sheep, the rest of the sheep, and say, “Isn’t this nice?” and feed him a little bit and pat him on the head and walk away from it. He goes, grabs the sheep that has strayed, brings them back. The good shepherd does. To the fold.

See, Calvin said that once you leave the institutional church, you leave the normal method that God has of sanctification. And you know, the Catholic Church has kind of pushed the limits on this, saying there is no salvation outside of the church. But do you understand why they say that? Because the whole picture is our need for the institutional church. We have great need for this. And that’s why when people stray from this particular congregation, we go after them, and we try to be kind about it and encouraging to them, but we can’t just let them sit out there all by themselves. Disciplinary action, if necessary, has to be entered into.

If you know Christians that don’t go to a local church and aren’t connected to a local church and yet think of themselves as Christians, I believe that over a series of years and proper exhortations to attend a church and be part of a church, if they don’t do it, we have solid reason to wonder whether this is a sheep or a wolf in sheep’s clothing, making some kind of profession that makes their conscience feel good or somehow makes you feel good about them, but really are not part of the flock of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I think we can draw that implication from our text certainly about under-shepherds, but it’s certainly also playing upon the fact that the sheep need relationship in the context of a flock with under-shepherds under Christ. We related this as well to the rest of the Bible. David was a lamp. David was the shepherd king. Ezekiel 34 talks about civil government in terms of the shepherds as well as ecclesiastical government. R.J. Rushdoony in his commentary on John chapter 10 quotes G. Campbell Morgan to this effect. Morgan said the shepherd always represented kingship, full and final authority. It was Homer who said all kings are shepherds of the people.

That saying embodies the Eastern idea. The shepherd is the king. The king is the shepherd, and his authority is based upon his care for the sheep. So this under-shepherding doesn’t refer just to the institutional church but also has clear implications for the civil arena. And in fact, the primary reference to shepherding in light in the Old Testament are civil rulers first and foremost, and ecclesiastical rulers as well.

We said that the parable itself can be seen in a structure where Jesus first attacks the Pharisees, who have rejected Jesus, as thieves and robbers, and then continuing in the context of this first couple of verses, 1-5, of the actual teaching itself, Jesus, having begun in the negative, then addresses, as he addresses, the false shepherds of chapter 9, then turns to who true shepherds are. And they are ones who enter by the doorkeeper, the Lord Jesus Christ, who lets them in.

So they have proper authority in the context of a submission to the Great Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Pharisees’ voice is not recognized by the sheep because they are not true shepherds. Next week we’ll talk very much in more detail about how the sheep hear the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s a common thread throughout these first 21 verses. He’ll return to this in the last half of chapter 10 as he builds even more on this imagery about the sheep hearing His voice.

And next week we’ll get into that aspect of chapter 10, that the sheep hear the voice of Jesus. How do they hear it? And I’m going to make the case that they hear it primarily through under-shepherds and other people. We’ll deal with that next week.

The further explanation of this saying then begins in verse 7 of the text. Jesus is the door. And I’ve corrected your outlines this week to represent this a little more faithfully than I did last week. Jesus begins now, as he explains what he just taught them. He begins in the positive in verse 7. He says, “I am the door.” So he’s shifted from the negative to the positive in terms of his emphasis, because now he’s unpacking what he said against the shepherds. And the emphasis now moves to who the true shepherd is. So he says, “I am the door of the sheep.”

And then secondarily, he says, addressing the negative again, “All those who came before me are thieves and robbers.” So he addresses. He takes the present situation of those men who were not true shepherds, under-shepherds, brings them in a lineage with those in the past, the false prophets, those that caused people to stumble in history, and he says you’re of that same lineage.

So ultimately this is, you know, the antithesis here—there are two seeds, and there’s warfare going on, and that warfare happens in the context of the institutional church. These men are put in a lineage going back to the past. So Jesus takes the present, talks about the past and their connection to it, and then moves to the future in verse 9. “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, will go in and out and find pasture.”

So now he says in the future what’s going to happen. Past is dealt with. Jesus comes to bring mankind into the future, and his teaching moves that same way. And at the center of this then, he says that he’s the door. If someone enters by him, he’ll be saved and will go in and go out and find pasture.

Now the problem with our understanding of this particular text has been all too often we’re not thinking about what he’s saying. We think now he’s going to shift. He’s been talking about under-shepherds. Okay, in the first, in the actual teaching, and now he’s going to explain that if he’s going to move from talking about under-shepherds to individual sheep in verse 9, he would have said, “I am the door of the sheep.” Now. But he’s talking about whether shepherds, under-shepherds, come in or out, using him. So if he doesn’t change the topic for us, we shouldn’t change the topic either.

So he says, “I’m the door.” Repeating what he had just said. “If anyone enters by me, he’ll be saved.”

Now again, if we’re going to flow in the context of what Jesus has said and not bring our own meaning into the text, he’s talking about under-shepherds because that’s been the whole topic up to now. He doesn’t change it here. What gets us confused is the saved thing. We think, “Well, it’s not just the under-shepherds who are saved,” but what he means here—and this is what I have last week on your actual text—it means safe. In other words, from the doorkeeper. He is there to establish his sheepfold and lead them in and out ultimately through the under-shepherds. But he’s also there, as we’ve said before, to judge the false under-shepherds. Remember, they remain in their sin. He’s come for judgment into the world. That’s what he just said in chapter 9. So he’s repeating that here.

The false shepherds will be judged by him. They’re not safe from him. Jesus is attacking the wolves who have climbed over the wall, all false under-shepherds who have gained access to the sheep in some other way. They are not safe from Jesus. Okay? And so he’s saying that the true shepherds entering through the door—that’s the illustration again—they come in properly through the door, not over the wall. These true under-shepherds are safe from the doorkeeper.

It seems like that’s the only really way to consistently read this text. They’ll go in and out and find pasture. You see, if we take this as individual sheep, we now have individual sheep coming in and out by themselves without being led by a shepherd. And now we’ve got an individual sheep coming in and out and going and finding his own pasture. Well, that’s not the way it works. Jesus clearly is building upon the image of the under-shepherds leading the flock in at night, bringing them out in the day, and the under-shepherds find pasture for the sheep.

You see, so there’s at least two or three major lines of reasoning here that lead us to positively, you know, convincingly say that verse 9 is not about individual sheep being saved by coming into salvation through Jesus. No, it’s about individual under-shepherds being safe from Jesus as they lead part of the flock of Christ in and out, in terms of bringing them in at night, going out in the morning, finding pasture for them.

So this corrects our understanding of this text. He’s talking about under-shepherds. And we said that this going in and coming out language has clearly been established throughout the Bible to speak of these under-shepherds engaging in warfare for the King of Kings under the Lord Jesus Christ. It has a victory component to it.

Now, I did not include these in your outline, but those of you who want to know these references for going in and coming out, I’m sorry I didn’t put them on the outline, but I’m going to give them to you now. I’ll just read the text. Okay? So if you’re taking notes, we’re under the middle one of B, “The Further Explanation. Jesus is the Door.” One, “Jesus is the Door.” Two, “the Pharisees.” One in the middle, “Jesus is the Door. True Shepherds Feed, Guard, and Lead His People into Victory.”

Numbers 27:15-23. I have on there, I believe. Numbers 27:15-23. What I don’t have is Joshua 14. Joshua 14, verse 11, I believe. First Samuel 18, verses 13 and 14—that’s talking about David rather (not Solomon). And then in First Kings 3, verses 5-12, is the reference for Solomon asking for wisdom to lead the people in and out against God’s enemies, victory. Second Chronicles 1:10 is another reference to Solomon having wisdom to lead in and out and give his people victory.

In addition to that, John Anger in the question and answer time last week pointed out Psalm 121:8, Psalm of Ascent, that talks about you’ll be blessed and you’re going in and coming out. So the idea was brought into the temple of the Lord on the Lord’s day, and you go out. This is where this warfare ultimately occurs—going in and coming out in the context of worship.

You know, we believe that this warfare is not first and foremost a matter of physical combat. It has been that, and it will be that in the future at points in time when Christian nations battle on Christian ones. But ultimately, we come here and enter into liturgical warfare, equipping God’s people, battling against the forces of sin that would invade you, giving you victory and dominion over sin, and also praying for the nations round about us, praying for the world, praying for Oregon City, and affecting, going in and going out, victory in the context of the liturgical warfare we enter into on the Lord’s day.

Psalm 121:8 is kind of a reminder of that.

Additionally, in Deuteronomy 28:6 and 7, we have here a reference to the blessings of the covenant. Deuteronomy 28:6 and 7: “Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. And the Lord shall cause your enemies that rise up against you to be smitten.”

So once more, it’s the blessings of Jesus, the greater David, the greater Solomon. It’s the wisdom of Jesus supplied to the world that affects victory for His people. It’s the blessings of the covenant upon us in the context of Deuteronomy 28:6 and 7. And then in Deuteronomy 28:18, the curses, if we disobey the covenant, the judgments of God upon us is that we shall be cursed in our going in and coming out.

So Deuteronomy 28 goes on to say that. Second Samuel 5:2 is another reference we could look at. Again, this is David. And this is an explicit reference of going out and coming in. Second Samuel 5:2 says this: “In times past, when Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel out and brought them in. And the Lord said to you, ‘You shall shepherd my people Israel and be ruler over Israel.’”

So here we have an explicit connection with David, the great shepherd, referred to as the shepherd, as the one who brings the people of God in and out, giving them victory over their enemies. Second Samuel 5:2. Second Samuel 3:25 refers to Abner, another reference. First Samuel 29:6, Achish, the Philistine ruler, tells David that he was faithful in his going out and coming in and the military endeavors he did, when actually he was fighting the Philistines. But again, it’s military reference.

And then finally, one last reference. Look at Acts 9:28 and 29. Acts 9:28 and 29. And here we see one of these great under-shepherds under Jesus being referred to—Saul, right? Acts chapter 9:28. “So he was with them at Jerusalem coming in and going out.”

So see, we understand this now. Yeah, we understand this is what the scriptures have built up for us, the meaning of what these things are. Paul is aggressively. Saul is aggressively engaging in under-shepherd work, in leading the church into victory, going in and coming out. And it goes on to say in verse 29, “He spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus and disputed against the Hellenists, but they attempted to kill him.”

So very, you know, right in the context of the warfare of proclaiming the word of God in the midst of the pagan culture, to drive back Greek Hellenistic thinking, replace it with biblical thinking. That’s what we do.

Now I say we remember that what we’re trying to do in correcting our view of John chapter 10 is say that there is this great role for the under-shepherds. You see the structure on your outline? “This Jesus is the Door. Pharisees are bad guys. Under-shepherds who enter through Jesus go in and come out and find pasture for the sheep. And then at the end of this section, Jesus goes back to talking about Himself under ‘One Jesus’ and ‘Under-Shepherds Come to Bring the Sheep Abundant Life.’”

He says the result of this, you know. The bad guys come to kill and maim and destroy. “I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”

Jesus is the door. Under-shepherds reflect Jesus’s ruling authority, leading in and going out and finding pasture. The end result of this—Jesus comes, establishes under-shepherds, that we might have life and might have it abundantly.

You see, it’s the same kind of structure as the light of God on the first day, fourth day, sun, moon, and stars representing reflected light and authority, seventh day. God comes to view with His people, day of enthronement, and abundant life is entered into. So it’s the same movement.

So at the center of this initial explanation of what Jesus is saying is the idea that these under-shepherds, not the individual sheep, the under-shepherds go in and come out. Paul went in and came out. David went in and went out. Saul went in and went out. Joshua in and out. Now, the sheep follow them. But what I’m trying to say here is that there is a particular responsibility to engage in evangelistic warfare in the context of the culture that the under-shepherds have, that the elders of the church have, and should engage in.

You are not called to go out every day and try to find people to speak to about the gospel. You are called to exercise dominion in particular vocation, in the family, and as opportunity presents, give a reason for the hope that lies within you. But it is the particular job, it seems, of what Jesus teaches us here, of the elders very specifically to have care for the flock but also engage in this evangelistic liturgical warfare, leading the church into victory as we move to the future away from the past.

That’s what Jesus calls shepherds to do. Pray for me. That’s what I very specifically want to begin to do in the next couple of weeks here in Oregon City, walking around, going in and coming out of the representation of the glory of God and His dwelling with us here in this particular facility. Go in and go out, talking to the people in the context of our neighborhood, evangelistically pressing this. I think that’s an obligation that specifically the under-shepherds are given here.

And we, if we understand this text correctly, it moves that way. And the end result of this is that the sheep have life and have it abundantly. They’re guarded by the rulers. They are brought into safety. They’re also given pasture. They’re fed by the elders, and this is to the end that they would have this abundant life and be victorious.

Now remember, we’ve said many times that the scriptures teach two kinds of warfare, pictured in the Psalms as the coming of Christ is reflected—the movement from external enemies to internal enemies. You’ve got internal warfare, right? You know, Romans, and Paul wrote the book of Romans, you talk about the struggle that goes on that is the normal Christian life, to struggle with indwelling sin. And part of the job of your elders, your under-shepherds, is to assist you that you might go in and come out warring against your old man, as it were, and being given the abundant life by being delivered from specific sins that indwell you.

So if you need, you know, and you will at some point, you know, a lot of help with indwelling sin, your elders are here to assist you, to pray for you, to bring scriptures to bear, accountability if it’ll be helpful to you. Pastoral counsel and advice, one-on-one teaching as well as group teaching, to give you victory over indwelling sin. That’s our job. That’s our job.

So we have both the external evangelistic warfare being described, initiating in the context of the worship of God within the gates of the Lord, and we have this other warfare, going out against sin. And all of these things, the great culmination of this first explanation is the result of all of this is abundant life. Praise God.

I was thinking yesterday, our anniversary, did lots of fun things. And the end of the day, I was sitting back reflecting on the day with my wife at a restaurant in Portland, and thinking what a blessed life the Lord God has given to me. I got lots of problems, lots of problems, lots of health problems, lots of difficulties, number of people don’t like me. Some do. Everybody’s got problems. But I’m telling you, people, we’ve got a wonderful, blessed life. We’re to believe that the Lord Jesus came and grabbed hold of us to give us life and that more abundantly. And we should greatly delight. We should believe that today. We should reflect upon the blessings that God has given to us and rejoice in that and give Him praise and glory in the context of the worship service today.

This is what he has accomplished. This is what he has accomplished.

The great human shepherd of the Old Testament, children, is David. Was David a pastor or a king? Well, he was both, sort of. Really, not a pastor in the sense of leading the church. He was not an ecclesiastical ruler. He was a civil ruler. What three tasks do Jesus’s pastors and rulers perform? They’re to guard. They’re to feed. And they are to lead into victory.

Guard and feed and lead into victory.

Then Jesus goes on in the text in verse 11 to say that He is the good shepherd. And this is really where the title that I was supposed to get to last week is hidden, and the title this week is really from. Jesus is the good shepherd. This begins in verse 11, this particular section, and it also has a structure that has kind of a heart to it. We saw that the heart of the first explanation was these under-shepherds coming in and going out and leading into victory.

You know, whenever we have this sort of structure, I hope we’re learning this—that you know, the middle is important, the beginning and end are important. That’s what our attention is drawn to first. Jesus gave us under-shepherds not to give you a hard time, not to insist that you come into worship respectfully and honoring the King that we worship, not to bug you about, you know, Sunday school class in a bad way.

God gives you under-shepherds for the purpose of bringing you to that conclusion of that portion, the abundant life, to bring you victory. So He gives shepherds. We see that at the middle, the importance of that. But it’s to the end, it climaxes in this wonderful gift of the abundant life.

Well, here there’s a middle too. It’s kind of a negative middle. From the very beginning, or at the very middle rather, the heart of this next text are these hirelings who abandon the sheep. Question is, are your under-shepherds going to stick with you when times are tough, or are they going to abandon it as Satan comes to attack the man that Jesus gave sight to in John chapter 9? Are the under-shepherds going to do their job? Maybe the guy in 9 had a local synagogue leader he was attached to who didn’t do anything. Has the rulers, representing the wolf, come and kick this guy out of the synagogue and tear him up?

Well, that’s at the center—that the hirelings depart. But before and after is the fact that the ultimate, the unique, the shepherd, the excellent, has a sacrificial relationship to the sheep. He won’t give them up, as it were.

Verse 11: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.”

Relationship to sheep. And he identifies here what the proper under-shepherd will be motivated in the same way. However, he is very distinctively separating Himself from all other shepherds in verse 11. The way this is in the Greek, there is the definite article. The shepherd. The definite article good or excellent. Okay? And so without getting into a big long explanation, the best Greek guys I read in my commentaries tell me that Jesus is differentiating Himself from all other shepherds. He is the good shepherd.

He is the shepherd who is the picture that preeminent illustration and reality of what excellence is. So now he relates that all of the under-shepherds must enter by the door, but he is the unique shepherd who is the excellent one. And he identifies this for us in a particular way. At the beginning of this section in verse 11, he identifies Himself in terms of His relationship to the sheep. What is the excellence of this particular shepherd?

It is that he lays down his life. He gives his life for the sheep. It is of the nature of Jesus Christ in being God to give himself to bring us life. Okay? He’s going to build on this in the next section. He’s going to tell us that he lays it down, but he also takes it up. You know, this avoids the kind of what doormat kind of theology that we think of in terms of Jesus, or in terms of under-shepherds, what they should be like, or in terms of what you should be like.

He doesn’t stay laying down. He takes his life back up. See, he lays it down and takes it up. If all Jesus did was to give his life for the sheep, what good does that do in terms of the illustration he’s building up? Now the doorkeeper has died. What are the wolves going to do? They’re going to come in the flock. They’re going to come in the fold. They’re going to tear you up. Right? So that’s not the point.

The point is he lays down his life sacrificially, but he’s going to tell us in the next section that he raises it back up. So he does it to a purpose and goal of shepherding the sheep. But does it—He does. His uniqueness is found in relationship to the sheep. And then at the conclusion in verse 14 or verse 15, “As the Father knows me, even so I know the Father, and I lay down my life for these sheep.”

So Jesus is the unique and the excellent one who gives us His self-sacrificial nature tied to His relationship to the Father. We come together today to celebrate, to worship and praise the triune God. And we come to celebrate and worship the Lord Jesus Christ because of His relationship to the Father and His relationship to us, makes Him the unique, the shepherd, the picture of excellence in terms of His self-sacrificial giving of His life, that He might take it and bring us back to life in the Lord Jesus Christ as well.

The contrast to this—at the center of this, the heart of this particular section—are the thieves and the hirelings who leave the sheep and flee. Leaves the sheep and flees. Not so Jesus. Jesus has this intimate relationship with the Father, which we’ve seen throughout John’s gospel. And as a result, He brings us into the same intimacy of relationship in verse 14.

“I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and am known by my own. As the Father knows me, even so I know the Father.”

See, this is what our auxiliary catechism question this quarter is all about, you Sunday school teachers. You probably maybe already picked this up here, right? Triune God exists in the context of the covenant of life—self-giving relationship one to the other. We are brought into that union and communion of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Father and the Spirit by means of the Savior, and the relationship that exists between Father and Son is put on a parallel here with the relationship He brings us into in our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

He fulfills His covenant for us by dying and being raised up. And He brings us into covenant relationship with the triune God that exists in this self-sacrificial relationship one to the other from all eternity. Jesus is the good shepherd by relationship to the sheep and by relationship to the Father. And notice, as he describes the false under-shepherds, the hirelings, they have no relationship to the owner, and they have really no relationship to the flock either.

In verse 12: “A hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep.”

See, I don’t own the sheep either, but the Father does. And because I have relationship with the Father and He’s placed me in the context of this church, then I have relationship with the sheep. Well, the hireling doesn’t own the sheep, meaning he’s not caring for those that are owned by the Father. So the hireling’s lack of relationship with the Father is what Jesus is talking about in verse 12.

And then in verse 13: “The hireling doesn’t care about the sheep, because he doesn’t have relationship with the Father through the Son. He doesn’t have relationship with the sheep.”

Under-shepherds, their relationship to the sheep results from their relationship to the Father who has called them to minister in that particular way. And so this center section pictures for us Jesus the Great Shepherd of the sheep. Jesus the unique, the good shepherd, the excellent shepherd, who is a shepherd in a sense in which no one else can be a shepherd. He is the shepherd, the good or the excellent one here. And he is portrayed to be that for us.

He lays down his life for the sheep. Clear picture of the substitutionary atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. We as sheep deserve death. But the Lord Jesus lays down his life and dies so that we don’t have to pay the price of eternal death, which Jesus did. God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

How do we get to relationship to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the covenant of life? We get there because Jesus lays down his life for us as our substitute. He makes atonement for our sins.

Matthew 20:28: “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, to give His life a ransom for many.”

Mark 10:45: “Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many.”

So Jesus is the good, the excellent, the shepherd because He makes substitutionary atonement for the sins of His people. He is the Lamb of God come to take away the sins of the world. He lays down his life, takes it up again of His own volition, and His sacrifice—and this is part of the uniqueness—His sacrifice, laying down his life, affects or bestows life upon us, upon us.

So the Lord Jesus Christ is the shepherd, the good shepherd, because of His relationship to the sheep. He lays out His life for us, and secondly because of His relationship to the Father.

Okay, so taken together, the door and the shepherd portions of this discourse contrast false and true under-shepherds and give us important information about the function of these lesser lights. The context is the antithesis, the warfare that goes on between the two seeds and its resultant necessary warfare. The shepherd must be under the jurisdiction of Christ and His word.

You know, Joshua was to listen to and obey what Eleazar the priest said, and at the word of God, lead them in, lead them out, back and forth. His warfare is not autonomously directed. It’s rather at the word of God. Under-shepherds have no voice of their own. Jesus’s voice speaks through them as they are consistent to the word of God.

They’re like Joshua—under-shepherds who lead in and out according to the word of God. Meaning they must know the word under the jurisdiction of Christ and His word. The under-shepherd must be self-sacrificial, laying aside self-interest, taking up the life of service. We put aside the old man that serves ourselves. We take up the life of Jesus Christ, which says to serve other people. This is what under-shepherds do.

They take up the life of service—guarding, feeding, and leading the sheep assigned to his care into victory. There are appropriate applications of this to family, church, state, business, and school. Clearly, the immediate application is the ecclesiastical and civil realms. That’s what this text is directly related to. But there are obvious implications for the family as well.

You know, there’s an old John Prine song, years ago when I had a problem with one of my legs, a diabetic difficulty, and there was a hole about this size that I’d had to get healed up over a period of months. Every day to the doctor, I thought about this old John Prine song, “There’s a Hole in Daddy’s Arm Where All the Money Goes.”

I was spending lots of money at the physician to patch up, patch up this hole in my leg. Of course, he’s referring to addiction, shooting up drugs. And the song goes on to say, “There’s a hole in Daddy’s arm where all the money goes, and Jesus died for nothing, I suppose.”

Now, that’s an interesting song. I’m not—Prine appears to be kind of a pagan nerd-dweller sort of fellow, but those are interesting words. The prophet of our culture spoke forth, and I wonder what our children see. If we’re going to apply this—feeding, nurturing, self-sacrificially serving the sheep, taking up the life of service—now not, you know, doormat service, but leading our children into victory. If that’s our calling, man, what are our children? Do our children see that?

Do they understand that you’re an under-shepherd correctly related to Jesus by manifesting the divine nature? Right? Does it say in Philippians? “Because he existed in the form of God, he emptied himself and came and died for us.” Not in spite of him being God, but because this is who God is—self-sacrificial Father, Son, and Spirit giving to one another in the context of the eternal relationships within the Trinity.

If we’re legitimate under-shepherds, if we haven’t climbed up over a rock wall, men, if we’ve really entered into our responsibilities properly through the door, which is Jesus and His word, and have we properly modeled a proper self-sacrifice to our children? How much of our lives are engaged in self-satisfaction? How much are we still living our life for ourself, our own delights and pleasures, as opposed to serving the Lord Jesus Christ by serving our families, serving the church, serving in our culture, and serving in vocation?

“Hole in Daddy’s arm where all the money goes, and Jesus died for nothing, I suppose.”

Churches are filled across America with men who, instead of taking Saturdays and spending time with their children, go out and take time with their recreational events, speedboats, whatever it is. I heard Elisabeth Elliot talk about this several years ago. I’ll never forget it. You know, she said, “Why do these men engage their time with all these toys of their adolescence instead of tending time guiding and directing their own children and raising them up for the Lord Jesus Christ?”

Because we have holes in our arm where all the money goes. And what we’re showing our children then is that the death of the Lord Jesus Christ laying down His life for the sheep is not being imaged for them. Jesus died for nothing because I’m engaged in self-interest. All I care about, kids, is whether I’m having a good time or not.

You see, we’re going to understand the implications of this. It leads us to a life laying aside our own sense of whatever we want to do and instead living for the purposes that Christ has called us to do. So this is important for us to consider in the context of our homes.

Now, we’re brought into today to do these things.

Now, Ezekiel 34, which we read last week, says, “The weak you have not strengthened. The sick you have not healed. The injured you have not bound up. The strayed you have not brought back. The lost you have not sought. But with force and harshness you have ruled them.”

Again, if we can apply this in the context of the family to the under-shepherds, the father, with your little six or seven sheep in your flock that know you by name and you know them by name and they follow you, what do you do? Do you analyze? Do you think through your family to see which ones are weak at a particular time, sick, injured, strayed, lost? Or is your view of what I’m telling you here—to lay down your life and then serve them and lead them into the future—just to be mean and harsh with them?

You see, God says no. Says when you do that, you image John Prine—a hole in your arm. Whether you’re a drug addict or not, you can be another kind of addict just as easily—self-pleasure and whatever you want to do. But Ezekiel 34 says that as under-shepherds here in the church, we’re to lay down our life that we might take it up to serve the congregation. And in the family, you’re to lay down your life that you might serve the particular flock that God has given to you.

Understanding, of course, the need for vocation. That’s certainly part of what we do. But to image this idea of laying our lives down to serve and calling our children to work in the context of that same model, that they might serve one another in the context of the family instead of seeking their own state of well-being and delight.

Jesus says that the end result of this kind of modeling by under-shepherds of Him, it has a worldwide impact in verse 16: “Other sheep I have which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, they’ll hear my voice. There will be one flock and one shepherd.”

He’ll bring them by means of His voice, placed in parallel at the center, heart of this little section of Scripture. This verse 16 has a heart beating in the middle. And the heart beating in the middle is the voice of Jesus being heard, by which sheep from other folds will be brought into the one flock. And clearly this is a reference to the Gentile, bringing together of Jew and Gentile into one institutional church separated in the Old Covenant—a priestly group and a world to be saved by that priestly group—but now brought together.

And so the worldwide emphasis of the church and the ministry of this Great Shepherd and His under-shepherds is portrayed. The vision of proper shepherding and the resultant victory is expanded now in this part of the discourse to a worldwide vision. Raises the question of how the sheep hear Christ’s voice. That question we’ll answer in more detail next week.

So you see, Jesus has begun by attacking false rulers, by empowering and describing what true under-shepherds are, and how are there to be their relationship to the sheep, their relationship to the Father through Christ. He’s given us the model of who he is. He said that the end result of a proper understanding of this will lead to the evangelization of all the world, and all the flock will be one big great flock. Now the voice of Christ is unto all the earth. So he’s given us this kind of movement from false shepherds, at the heart, true shepherds, and now he’s building to the end or conclusion of this explanation by talking about the worldwide impact of his gospel in terms of the world.

And he finally brings, at the end of this, the great climax to it, which is the divinity of the good shepherd in verses 17 and 18. As he builds to this climax, at the end of this particular discourse in John 10:1-21 clearly marked off as we said last week—we read in verse 17:

“Therefore my Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one takes 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 command I have received from my Father.”

So this is the way he concludes the text. These discourses conclude now with a climax, a christological emphasis. Who is the Lord Jesus Christ? And very explicitly here, He tells us that no matter what’s going to happen six months from now at Passover when he’s crucified, no one is taking his life.

He is laying his life down. It is of his own initiation. “No one takes it from me. I lay it down of myself.”

His sovereignty in the crucifixion of himself is declared here. And not only that, “I have power to lay it down. I have power to take it again.”

How does he have this power? Because he is the second person of the triune God. Only God can lay down his life and take it back up again. And Jesus asserts to himself here the ability, the authority, and the act of resurrection.

Now, I’ve said this before in other portions of Scripture. Clearly the Father and Spirit are involved in the resurrection of Christ. But in John’s gospel, you see, the only thing we know about the Father is by way of Christ’s explanation through his own actions. So Jesus takes up his life again. “This command I’ve received from my Father.” But understand that the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ is at work because he raises himself back from the dead.

That’s why, as I’ve said before, this is the eighth miracle of Jesus in the book. It’s why we should structure with eight miracles and not seven, the way most people do, because clearly our Savior here is attributing the resurrection to his own power to take his life again.

So he builds this climax of the good shepherd. Why is he the good, the excellent, the shepherd? Because he is the second person of the Trinity. And this christological emphasis again exalts the Father. “The shepherd, the excellent, is loved by the Father. Therefore, my Father loves me.”

Not as if his Father didn’t love him before he took on this mission. Love exists in the context of the Trinity. But he’s telling us something very important about intertrinitarian relationships, that the love and obedience are all of a piece. There’s no law-grace distinction of the eternal covenant of life that exists in the Trinity. No, love, obedience, submission one to the other in the context of the triune God, and of the church that mirrors that in our relationships to God.

All of a piece, all of a piece here. “Therefore, the Father loves me because I lay down my life.”

We are partakers of the divine nature. Second Peter 1:4 tells us that we find our lives, our voice in the Lord Jesus Christ. We seek to preserve our own life, our own well-being. We seek to bring our understanding of the world to bear, and we walk in terms of the false under-shepherds. We come in through the good, the excellent, the Lord Jesus Christ who lays down his life, takes it up again for the purpose of bringing you into the triune relationship, or the covenant of life, and the relationship that exists in the context of his relationship now with mankind.

This is the very purpose for which Jesus laid down his life, took it up again—that he might exalt the Father. That we might exalt the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is tremendous truth. This is tremendous news for which we should give God praise and glory today and into the rest of our lives.

Lay down our own life of self-seeking. Take up our true life in the Lord Jesus Christ. If it’s the very nature of God, because he exists in the form of God, Jesus lays down his life, gives it for us, that he might take it up again in new life. And this is our nature as well. God says this is who we are. You know, we worship Jesus. We’re transformed more and more into the image of Jesus. As we put aside selfish interests and move instead in terms of serving others, we lay down our life that we might take up a life of service. We lay down our understanding and articulation of the world that we might raise up with one voice to serve the Lord Jesus Christ and be his voice in the context of the world.

I ended last week with an exhortation to personal holiness in the part of our families. I do it again this week. I don’t know if it’s going to take effect or not. Tomorrow morning I’m going to have breakfast at the Vice President. Yeah, intimate thing. Probably be several thousand people there. Vice President Cheney is going to be in town doing a fundraiser for Senator Smith, Oregon Family Council, which I’m a board member. We’ll have a table there. So I’m going to be there. And I want to make sure today I remember to take my suit coat home. I usually leave it here because this is the only place I wear a suit. Need to take it home. I’m not coming to church tomorrow morning at 6:30 before I go to the breakfast.

If you were going to see Cheney tomorrow, what would you wear? Well, when we come before the King of Kings today in special convocative worship, what do we wear? Do we have a sense of personal holiness and a commitment to this one who died that we might live, who laid down his life for the sheep, who takes it back up again that he might exalt the Father, and who brings us into the throne room of the Father in Lord’s day Sabbath worship services?

Do we have a sense of the awe and majesty of the good, the excellent, the unique shepherd that we come to worship and sing praises to today? Do we have a sense of the holiness of the God who displays himself to us here in the context of John 10 as the unique shepherd, the good, the excellent one?

Who have a sense of that? The fathers, do you have a sense of it? Do you model this to your children? Do you lead your young people in a sense of devotion and commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of the universe? And as I said last week, if not here, where? Why would we be honoring the Vice President or the Senator by dressing nicer for him than we would as we are given an audience every Lord’s day and are actually brought to not just some breakfast table, you know, thousands of feet away from wherever Cheney might be?

I won’t be able to see the fellow with my eyesight. But we’re brought to this table, and we’re given the very shepherd himself in the context of these elements. This is the meal of all meals. I had delightful meals yesterday, excellent meals, good food, good wine. It was our anniversary, and I thought of the whole day. I thought, boy, this good food is wonderful. But this is the table that defines that table.

This is the relationship we have with the triune God that defines all other relationships. This is celebration that should define all other celebrations. And all other celebrations should be subservient to this celebration of worship and praise to the Great Shepherd who gave his life that we might live, takes it up that he might lead us into victory.

“Worship God in the beauty of holiness.” We have our minds in proper position understanding the need to honor and glorify him in the worship of the church. If not here, where? And if not now, we’ll talk about this more next week, but if Jesus’s voice streams forth from the preaching of His word, if not now, in the context of convocated worship, in terms of whether we’re going to present ourselves with a mindset, hearts, dress, appearance, dedication, well-rested, ready to go—if we don’t do it now, when will we do it?

I submit never. I think that if we cannot appreciate and worship the holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Father and the Spirit now, at this place, and at this time, we’re not going to do it anyway. And if we don’t have that as our primary motivation, the praise and worship of God, where we enter into, which we enter into on the Lord’s day, then we’re going to go off and our lives will become more and more kind of self-interested in different ways. At least I think that’s the way it works.

May God grant us the grace to worship and praise the unique, the shepherd, the excellent. Let’s pray.

Father, as we come forward, help us, Lord of God, to confess our inabilities, our sins of not submitting to the Lord Jesus Christ, not delighting in the good news, not believing we’ve been forgiven of our sins. We thank you for the tremendous news that we read in the text before us. We pray, Father, we would not forget it. We pray that this might be a day when we rejoice because of the work of the Lord Jesus.

We thank you that he laid down his life for his sheep, for us. Help us to believe that. Help us to in loving respect and in great worship and praise to you come forward now with our tithes and offerings, offering ourselves once more, laying down our own lives that we might take up the life of service that our Savior provides us.

In his name we ask it. Amen.