What’s So Great About the Good Shepherd? - Part A

Okay, you say he's the Good Shepherd, but there's been a lot of religious leaders before and after him.

He says he's so singular. What makes him so great? What is so great about the Good Shepherd?

I'm glad you asked that. If you did, there are four things so great about the Good Shepherd. Number one, he's great because he sacrifices for the sheep.

Welcome to Connect with Skip Weekend Edition. One of my favorite Lucy Schroeder moments from the Peanuts comic strip was when Lucy told Schroeder that she didn't think Beethoven was so great. Lots of people talk about him being great, but Lucy didn't think Beethoven was all that great. Schroeder rather incredulously wants to know why Lucy doesn't think Beethoven was great, and she said it was because he never got his picture on bubblegum cards. Well, today in Connect with Skip Weekend Edition, we're going to talk a lot about what makes the Good Shepherd so great, and it doesn't have anything to do with not being on bubblegum cards.

Now, before we get started today, let's see what's going on at the Connect with Skip Resource Center this month. What is the purpose that God created man for? Listen to this from Skip Heitzig about God's ultimate purpose. God's creation of man was so that his reflection would be in man, but the ultimate purpose is that God might interact with man and woman.

Fellowship, intimacy, to be conversant with, at ease with, to interact with. Fulfilling purpose requires clarity of vision. You'll want to order our vision resource package for this month, which also includes a full color magazine about the vision that drives Skip's ministry. You'll also receive an audio copy of Skip clearly outlining his philosophy of ministry in the past, present, and future. Receive your vision package when you make a donation of $50 or more to Connect with Skip. Give your gift by calling 1-800-922-1888 or online at connectwithskip.com.

That's 1-800-922-1888 or online at connectwithskip.com. We continue today in John chapter 10, starting in verse 11. So if you'll turn there in your Bible, Skip Heitzig gets us started by sharing his experience of being a shepherd. I don't know if you know this or not, but I was once a shepherd. Of course, I was eight years old and it was a Christmas play. I was the shepherd that I was, but every boy in my class wanted to be a shepherd. It was much less of a commitment than being Joseph or the Magi.

They had lines to memorize. Being a shepherd, you just sort of stand there and smile. But I had no idea what a shepherd really did.

A life of a shepherd is very demanding and rigorous, endless hours, a deep kind of commitment and expectation to care for an entire flock of sheep. There was a fable about an old man traveling with a young boy and a donkey. The man was a shepherd, so they would be walking along and trailing behind them would be a flock of sheep. The first village that they walked into, the man was leading the donkey along, and the villagers said that the old man was a fool to not be riding the donkey. So to appease the villagers, he sat upon the animal and rode the rest of the way and out of town. In the second village, the villagers saw the old man riding the donkey and complained that it was cruel to let a child walk while he rode, so he jumped off the animal and let the young boy ride. When they went into the third village, the villagers said that the young boy was lazy, making the old man walk, and the old man was encouraging his lazy lifestyle. And they suggested that they both ride the donkey together, so the old man hopped back on the animal along with that boy. By the time they got to the fourth village, the villagers cried out, cruelty to donkey, that two people would be riding a single animal.

The last time they saw the old man, he was walking down the road carrying the donkey. You just can't please everyone. There's something I notice about Jesus. He didn't seem to care about appeasing people's ideas about how he should be or act.

You notice that? He just said what he says. He is who he is, and the truth of the matter is, what people thought about him would determine their eternal destiny, not his. In fact, he seemed to only care about what his Father in Heaven thought about him, and he only seemed to care about how to best care for his sheep. That's the analogy that he's giving in this chapter of John, the Good Shepherd. In fact, in verse 6, it's called an illustration.

It was a common analogy. Everyone in that crowd understood shepherds and shepherding. Everybody got it, that there was a corral in every village, and the sheep were kept there, and the shepherd would lead the sheep out to the countryside. More than that, many of their heroes had been shepherds. Moses was once a shepherd in the backside of the wilderness. David, before he became king, was a shepherd boy in Bethlehem. Jacob and his sons lived the life of wandering shepherds in the Middle East. Even the prophet Amos was found among the sheep herders in Tekoa, when God called him.

It's a very common analogy. But now in verse 11 of chapter 10, in the same story, Jesus makes a very bold and singular statement. Read it as we look at it. I am the Good Shepherd.

That's his statement. I am the Good Shepherd. It's the first time he says it quite like that, and he'll say it again. He makes the statement, and now he proceeds to tell why he's a Good Shepherd. Now I have to say that, and just indulge me for a moment, the English doesn't carry the force and the intensity of the original statement. You read this in English. You have a subject, a predicate, an object, and one modifier. I am the Good Shepherd.

And it doesn't really capture the force. You know, it's sort of like in any occupation, there's good ones and bad ones. You've got some good doctors. You've got some bad doctors. You might have a good lawyer. Then there could be a bad lawyer.

You might have a good secretary or a bad secretary. Well, there's good shepherds, and there's bad shepherds, and I'm a good one. That is not the intention at all. And though I never do this, I just thought I'd try this, just so you can see for the sake of force.

Let me put a slide up, and you can see the idea. Now on the bottom is the Greek, and in the original language, it reads, ego eimi hapoimen ha kalas, which translated literally above in English, I am the shepherd, the good one. Now here's what's noteworthy. There's an object before the modifier, the good.

Good is an adjective, but there's an article, because it's to intensify the meaning. So what Jesus is saying is he is a shepherd in a class of his own. No one can compare to him.

No one can compete with him. He says, I am the good shepherd. In that way, he's saying, I am a shepherd in the sense that no one has ever been a shepherd before. I am the supreme shepherd.

I am the greatest shepherd. And I'll tell you why that's important, because it helps us understand the negative reaction at the end of the paragraph in verses 19 through 21, which we'll get to. We come here to the fourth of the seven I Am statements in the Gospel of John. We bring them up to you every time we go through one of them. This is the fourth, and we're already on number four, and we've only been at this a year in the Gospel.

We're making good progress. But I would say that of all of the seven I Am statements of Jesus, that this is the most popular and the best love. He said, I am the light of the world. I am the bread of life. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. But I Am the good shepherd ranks number one in popularity, because it resonates with something in our core, that God is pictured as someone who cares that much like the tender care of a shepherd for a sheep. By the way, the most popular symbolic representation of the early church when they were persecuted and lived in the catacombs in Rome, scratched on the walls of the catacomb, was this motif of the good shepherd.

They loved that. An unbeliever in hearing what I've just been saying, okay, you say he's the good shepherd, but there's been a lot of religious leaders before and after him. He says he's so singular. What makes him so great? What is so great about the good shepherd?

I'm glad you asked that if you did. There are four things so great about the good shepherd that we see beginning in verse 11. Number one, he's great because he sacrifices for the sheep. Verse 11, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. But a hireling, that's a hired hand, is he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them.

The hired hand flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. 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 and I lay down my life for the sheep. I found out that shepherding is risky, dangerous business because you had to lead those sheep that were in the corral in your village in a protected environment and you had to lead them out into the countryside where they could fall prey to a number of predators.

You were more vulnerable when you lead your sheep out in the countryside than when they're in a corral in the village. You remember when David, who was a shepherd boy, stood before King Saul? King Saul wanted to know, who are you?

Where do you come from? This is what David said to him. Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went in after it, struck it, and rescued the sheep from its mouth. And when it turned on me, I seized it by its hair and struck it and killed it. Wow.

A bear? That's pretty dangerous. I found something out this week that just took me off guard. It just blew my mind. It's according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service. I didn't even know there was such an entity. The National Agricultural Statistics Service. That's sort of like 4H on steroids, I suppose. According to that group, 224,200 sheep were killed in the United States by predators in the year 2004.

I thought, really? And it goes on to say, the sheep lost in that year represented a sum total of $18.3 million for sheep producers who were killed by coyotes, bears, eagles, domestic dogs, et cetera, et cetera. So it was and still is dangerous. A book in my study called The Land and the Book about a man's travels through the Middle East and how it compares with what the Bible says, written by W.M.

Thompson. He interviewed shepherds, and this is what he writes. I've listened with intense interest to these shepherds' graphic descriptions of downright and desperate fights with savage beasts. When the thief and the robber come, and they do come, the faithful shepherd has often to put his life in his hand to defend the flock. I have known more than one case where the shepherd had literally to lay it down in the contest.

One poor fellow, instead of fleeing, actually fought off three Bedouin robbers until he was hacked to pieces himself, and he died among the sheep that he was defending. But here's the difference. Here's the difference between the dangerous occupational hazard of a shepherd and Jesus himself. What Jesus says is, I lay my life down. I give my life.

I don't want you to see this as some accidental unintended tragedy, some occupational hazard. Jesus gives his life. He says it four times. Verse 11, the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. Verse 15, I lay down my life for the sheep. Verse 17, the father loves me because I lay down my life. Verse 18, no one takes it from me. I lay it down of myself.

I have the power to lay it down and take it again. Now, this is so basic and so vital to what we believe and so repeated throughout the New Testament that if we don't have it yet, today is the day we need to really get this. There's two important things implied by this. Number one, Jesus' death was voluntary. It was voluntary. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't like Jesus got himself into trouble, said some really bad things, and oops, he got arrested and they killed him. It was all part of the plan.

It wasn't plan B. It wasn't just a tragedy or a murder. From a human level, yes, but not from a divine level. Revelation 13 calls Jesus the Lamb slain from the foundations of the world.

It's all part of the plan. Now, about six or eight months after this very conversation we're reading, Jesus has by that time died and risen from the dead, and Peter and the apostles are in Jerusalem, and they're spreading the message everywhere. This is what Peter says to the crowd, very same group in Jerusalem. In Acts 2, Peter says, Jesus, him being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands and crucified and put to death.

You see what he does with that, how he combines human responsibility? Yeah, you killed him, but God planned it all along. There's the sovereign manipulation of events because Jesus volunteered his life. That's number one, was voluntary.

Number two, it was substitutionary. He died for the sheep. He died for us. He didn't die for himself. He certainly didn't die for his own sins. He didn't have any sins to die for. He died for the sheep or the sins of the sheep. Verse 11 and verse 15, I want you to see it. Look at the little phrase, for the sheep, for the sheep. A little word, the word for is who pair, who pair in Greek.

It means on behalf of or better translated, in the place of, as a substitution for. He died so they wouldn't have to die. He took their death. You want to know why the good shepherd is so great?

That's why. He took all the filth, all the muck, all the mire, all the sin of all the sheep and bore it upon himself so we wouldn't have to. Isaiah 53, you know the verse. All we like sheep have gone astray. The Lord laid upon him the iniquity of us all. By the way, that's how sheep get into the sheepfold to begin with, right? Acknowledging their sin and need for the death of someone to clean up their life, to take away their sin. So that's why he's so great because he sacrifices for the sheep.

Here's the second reason. He's so great because he knows his sheep. Verse 14, he says, 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, frankly, this sounds a little odd to me at first. What do you mean he knows his sheep? I mean, you know, to me, a flock of sheep, they all look alike. A sheep is a sheep is a sheep is a sheep, like a cow is a cow is a cow, but that's how much I know. Ask a shepherd, he'll say, oh, you got it all wrong. Sheep are so unique and so individual and some are large and some are small and some are squatty and some are lean and some have quirks and others have differences in their personality and some like to lay around and others like to wander off and they are so unique and so different. I know my sheep. I like that because he knows all the differences between us.

In fact, it's those differences that make us so unique and distinguishable. And what this tells me is I don't have to be anybody else. I don't have to desire what anybody else desires. I don't have to have the same gift as another person. I don't have to be an evangelist. I don't have to be a musician. I don't have to have a great voice.

I don't have to have a bubbly personality. I can just be who I am and God's okay with that. He knows us sheep individually and he can work with that. Also, there's comfort in the fact that God knows his sheep.

Think about it. After knowing all about you and all about your failures and all about your propensities, he loves you anyway. He loves you anyway. Look at the word no in these verses. I know. It's the word ginosko. That's the Greek word. It means a deep, profound, intimate, affectionate knowledge that people who have a close relationship enjoy, like a husband and wife or good friends.

They really know each other. I know my sheep and am known by my own. In fact, look at verse 15. The knowledge that Jesus has of us is as complete and intimate as the Father and the Son's knowledge of each other. He says, as the Father knows me, even so, I know the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep. You know why this is cool?

Here's why it's cool. You can't surprise God. You know what that means to you?

You'll never do something or think something or have a motive for something that God will be shocked by. He'll never go, I didn't know you were like that. Now I know that you're like that. I don't quite love you as much as I did.

I didn't know that about you. That's quite a shock. God will never be surprised. Nothing can diminish his love. You'll never have to worry that he'll find something out that will change that. I've always been fond of the story of the old, rich grandfather who was losing his hearing and he went to the doctor and got a hearing aid and it worked. He went back to the doctor two weeks later and said, Doctor, these things are so great I can hear conversations in the next room. The doctor said, oh, that's wonderful. I bet your family is really glad that you can hear. He said, I haven't told them. He said, I've just been listening and listening and getting to know my family a lot better and guess what, Doc, I've changed my will twice. You never have to worry that that will happen between you and God.

He knows all about you and he still loves you. Psalm 139, David said, Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down.

You know my rising up. You understand my thoughts afar off. There's not a word on my tongue, but behold, Lord, you know it altogether. He knows when you lay down to relax. He knows when you get up to resume your activities. He searched and anticipates your thoughts, your motives. He knows what you're gonna think before you think it. He knows all the, he's got the dirt on you.

Okay, he's got the dirt on you. He knows you and he cares for you and loves you nonetheless. You know, a few things are quite as precious as unconditional love, and the only one who can really share that with us is the Good Shepherd. He really does love us unconditionally, even though he knows every single flaw we have.

That's probably the greatest thing about having God is the Shepherd of our life. We'll continue with his study some more next time, but for now, here's Skip with details about a Holy Land tour coming up next year. Hey, our 2024 Israel tour is coming up.

This is Pastor Skip, and we still have space on this trip that Lenya and I are hosting. We will be touring Israel from May 1st through May 12th. I hope that you'll join us firsthand to see some incredible sights like the Sea of Galilee.

I'm sure you've always wanted to see that. The Temple Mount in Jerusalem and the Garden Tomb, the place many people believe is where Jesus rose from the dead. The final deadline for registration is December 31st, so there's still time to take action and join Lenya and I for the trip of a lifetime. Find full Israel information at connectwithskip.com. And if you'd like a copy of today's message, you can find it at connectwithskip.com, or you can call us and order one at 1-800-922-1888.

Each copy is just $4 plus shipping. We'll continue to find out what's so great about the Good Shepherd next time, so I hope you can come back and join us right here in Connect with Skip Weekend Edition, a presentation of Connection Communications. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection, a connection, a connection. Connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.