John Chapter 10:1-5

This whole book is about God desiring a relationship with us and he's willing to do anything and everything to develop that relationship.

See, when you go back to the garden, what was that about? It was about God dwelling with man. As you look at the tabernacle in the Hebrew Scriptures, what was that about? It's about God dwelling with man. You go into the temple, what was that about? God desiring a relationship with man.

When you go to the cross of Calvary, what was that about? God desiring a relationship with man. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David Magee. David is the senior pastor of The Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Did you know that when you boil down Christianity, it all comes down to God desiring a personal relationship with you? Today on Cross the Bridge, Pastor David Magee explains more about this special relationship as he continues in the Gospel of John chapter 10. Now, here's David Magee with his teaching, The Shepherd. If you remember in John chapter 9, what was going on? Well, we had the blind man who was healed of his blindness, and then he got kicked out of the temple. And then Jesus goes looking for him to find him, to minister to him. Now, this is important because remember, guys, that the verse and chapter divisions came much later, so we need to look at this in a continuing thought kind of way in that he just sees this. He's just speaking to the blind man, and then that sets the stage for John chapter 10, verse 1. 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. Now, the Pharisees that were in the previous chapter, they thought of themselves as shepherds, but we can see that they really didn't act like shepherds. Now, one mistake we can make is that we think all Pharisees are bad, and it's just not the case. We see the case of Nicodemus, of Joseph, of Arimathea, who were noble men who ended up ministering to the Lord after the disciples had all left. But what had happened is they had gotten, well, they'd gotten religious. They'd gotten pridefully religious.

And you know what? That gets in the way. That gets in the way of people coming to know God. That gets in the way of people experiencing the reality of Jesus Christ.

And so at this point, a lot of the Pharisees, a lot of the leaders were corrupted. When it says sheepfold by the door, the sheepfolds were usually connected to a house, and there was a doorway into the pen. And so what would happen is if you were there for legitimate reasons, you would bring the sheep in through that door, you would bring them out through the door. But if you were there to steal a sheep, then you would come over the wall.

So there's a lot of really neat pictures in this next few verses that I'll try to describe as we go through. Verse 2, but he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. Now, understand, and maybe you're sitting there and you're kind of new to the Bible and you're going, okay, he's talking about how to shepherd sheep.

I'm not sure how this is going to help me in my life. Well, let me explain. In the Bible, we are described as sheep. I used to be really offended at that as a young Christian. And to be honest, I didn't see any parallels between me and a sheep. But as I've grown in the Lord and as I've kind of looked at that sheep and how they act and how they do things, boy, it's a good analogy. And I'm actually considering buying just a couple of sheep just to kind of watch them and learn from them, you know. But there's a lot of parallels.

Number one, I'm going to go through about seven of these. Number one, they are led by the shepherd to keep them from danger. They are led by the shepherd to keep them from danger.

Sheep will hurt themselves if you allow them to do so. They'll turn themselves over and not be able to get back up. They will walk right into a ravine or a crevice or off a cliff. They will, you know, they just, they don't know where they're going. Now, the problem is they don't know where they're going and sometimes they think they do. That's a little convicting, isn't it?

But let's go on. Now, the other thing is they are led to food by the shepherd. The shepherd is the one that leads them to food. They're led to food by the shepherd. Now, next week we're going to kind of take a quick look at Psalm 23 and how it ties into the whole sheep and shepherd. And so they're led to food, but the sheep will actually starve to death, staying in one spot.

They will eat the grass down to a nub and they'll just stay there until the shepherd goes, you know what, we got to go somewhere else and get something to eat. Sheep tend to flock together. They just kind of, you know, if you have them all separate in the field, they all, you know, gather as a group and, you know, they do good things together and they do bad things together. You know, if one sheep finds a hole in the fence, then they all kind of follow that sheep right out of the fence.

And so, again, that's kind of another parallel with us. And then we tend, you know, if you're going to do something bad, what do you do? You call somebody, see if they want to go do bad with you, right? Okay, a couple of people are being honest.

All right. So, or if you're doing something good, don't want to leave you hanging. If you're doing something good, you know, coming to church, hey, come on, let's go to church. That's a good thing, flocking together. Sheep imitate one another.

If one starts doing something, the other sheep start doing something. Have you ever done that little, and I'm not going to do it. I thought about doing this to you, but I felt bad, so I decided not to do it.

You ever been somewhere and somebody looks up in the sky and starts doing this and then you notice what happens, everybody's walking by, it's like, what, what, what's up there? We're all just, see, you're glad I didn't do that to you. You know, we all tend to imitate one another. And number five, the sheep desperately need the shepherd. They need the shepherd. They just, they can't exist in the wilderness without the shepherd.

They can't exist in pastures without the shepherd, to take them to water, to take them to green pastures, to keep them out of the crevices and the ravines. Now, number six, sheep were tied to sacrifice in the Bible. They were tied to sacrifice. And it's not, it's not just us, but Jesus speaks about being the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And that certainly ties back to the Passover lamb that we see in the Hebrew Scriptures. So throughout the Bible, we see lambs being a picture of sacrifice.

And I think there we see a picture that we should sacrifice our lives to the Lord. And number seven, sheep tend to stray. They tend to stray.

If you kind of leave them by themselves, they just kind of start to wander off somewhere and they find trouble real, real easy. Now, this is probably one of the, one of the seven here that, you know, has absolutely nothing to do with any of us. Amen. Praise God.

Yes. I'm kidding. We tend to do this. Now, some of us are honest about it. Some of us try to hide it. But this is what we do. We tend to stray. And maybe you thought as a believer, maybe you thought that was just you, that you're the only one that tends to stray, that you're the only one that perhaps struggles with prayer time or struggles with devotional time or struggles with getting to church. But you know, we all do that.

We all do that to one degree or another at one time or another. Some of you have been real honest as you come through the line. And I don't know if you're aware of what you're saying, but you come through the line and you go, yeah, we didn't want to come this morning, but the kids wanted to be here, so we're here.

Praise God for the kids. But if we pretend that we don't have this thing that likes to stray, we're in danger then. But when we recognize that our hearts tend to wander, there's a safety in that.

There's a safety in knowing that that can happen, not only can it happen, but it tends to happen. Prone to wander is what is the phrase John Wesley used in terms of sheep. And again, I think we qualify on all those levels, but let's read on verse 3. To him the doorkeeper opens and the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

I like that. Calls them by name. See, God is personal. He desires a personal relationship with us. And you know, it's really an amazing thing if you stop to consider, if you look up in the sky and you see the stars and you realize that God created that, you look at the sun and the sky, God created that, the trees and the earth, the heavens and the earth, and God created that. And the amazing thing is He desires a relationship with you and I.

He wants to be personal with us. This isn't just in this verse, this is in the whole book. It's in the whole Bible. This whole book is about God desiring a relationship with us and He's willing to do anything and everything to develop that relationship. See, when you go back to the garden, what was that about? It was about God dwelling with man. As you look at the tabernacle in the Hebrew Scriptures, what was that about? It's about God dwelling with man. You go into the temple, what was that about? God desiring a relationship with man. When you go to the cross of Calvary, what was that about? God desiring a relationship with man. You go to the end of the book, to the book of Revelation, and that's about God desiring a relationship and dwelling with us. That's an amazing thing.

And it's good news, isn't it? I don't know how Christianity came to be what it is today because it's a far cry from what I just mentioned. It's a far cry from understanding that God desires a relationship with us so much that He was willing to send His Son to die for us.

Somehow we've boiled it down to, it's like a list of rules and regulations. The life lesson here is God desires a personal relationship with you. God desires a personal relationship with you. We'll be right back with more from David Magee on Cross the Bridge. Right now, here's a word from Associate Pastor D.A.

Brown. Hey, Bob. We want to take a minute to pray for our listeners in these cities in Georgia, Warner Robins and Woodstock, and also these cities in Hawaii, Hilo, Honolulu, Kalua, and Kaleo. Lord, we thank You for these cities, and we thank You for the people living in these cities that we get to pray for right now. We pray that You would encourage them in Your Word, that You would encourage them to get plugged into a Bible-teaching, Bible-believing church. Lord, if some are sick, we pray that You would please heal them. God, we pray that You would give them wisdom how they can be a blessing to their neighbor, for You. And Lord, we pray for the pastors in those areas, that You would give them wisdom and discernment, and help them to not grow weary and doing good. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. Thank you, brother.

And now, let's get back to David Magee as he continues teaching verse by verse. God desires a personal relationship. What does that look like? What does that look like to you? If you had a really good friend, and you had a personal relationship with that friend, what would you feel like if the friend called you and said, hey, listen, I really don't want to talk to you throughout the week, and I know you wrote me some letters, and I just don't have time to read them, but I tell you what, I love you, and I really, I like being with you, but let's just hang out for about an hour on Sunday. Oh, that gives you a warm fuzzy, doesn't it?

And yet, do you realize that's the way we treat the Lord sometimes? Oh, I'll give you an hour on Sunday, and I'll feel good about it because I've given you an hour. Well, an hour and a half here, but anyway, that's not personal. That's not a personal relationship. A personal relationship is much more intimate than that.

Can you imagine telling your spouse that? Hey, I really love you. I only want to see you an hour on Sunday. That's not going to work, guys.

Don't try it. Now, and what happens if we call it a personal relationship? When does it get personal? When does it get personal? You see, here's what happens to us as believers. We're trekking along as believers. We're sitting in a church, and you hear a Scripture, or you hear the pastor talk about something, man, that just nails you.

I mean, it's something you need to deal with, some life adjustment, some course correction that needs to be made, and then what do we tend to do? I mean, I've sat where you've sat, and I've heard pastors talk, and I've sat there, and when I should have been applying the Word of God, got mad at the pastor. I can't believe he said that.

I can't. I'm upset he talked about giving again. What? No, I don't give, but it upset me that he mentioned it. When does it get personal? God desires a personal relationship with us, and part of that relationship is ongoing, and He will speak truth to our life, and we'll need to adjust things.

We'll need to make these course corrections, if you will, because it is a personal relationship. Do you remember the day He called you, the night He called you by name? Maybe some of you have not yet had that experience. It's an awesome thing.

When you realize that the Lord is calling you, and the Lord always calls individuals. He doesn't say, hey, you know, the group of you off to the left, you all do this, or He calls you by name. It's a personal thing. I don't know if you have animals or not. You know, there's some animals that you can call, and they respond, like dogs, and some animals that don't usually respond when you call them, like cats. My wife has some cats that they actually come when she calls, but you know, by and large, just, you know, when you call a cat, he kind of looks at you like, yeah, right. Maybe that's just me because I don't feed them enough or something.

I don't know. But, you know, dogs, man, you can be way across the field and just, you know, whistle or say something and they're like, they're on you. I want to be more like a dog with Jesus. When Jesus calls my name or I see Jesus or, oh, Jesus, hey, you know, not like a cat because cats don't respond. And every one of us should respond to the Lord when He calls to us.

Amen. And you know what's interesting? Do you know why we don't respond? I don't think it's a cat thing because cats, well, you know that thing dogs have owners, cats have servants kind of thing. I think that, and I love cats, okay, don't call or email or anything like that because I really love cats.

They taste like chicken. Okay, I'm sorry. Okay, you can email and call now because I kind of walked into that one, but anyway. But we don't, Jesus will call us and we don't respond because we don't feel like we're worthy. We've been beaten up by the world. We think that He's going to find out that we've strayed. He already knows that. Why do you think He's calling us? Why do you think He's reaching out to us because He sees us doing this and He's like, oh, don't do that.

Don't go there. You'll get hurt. And He calls to us. And instead of staying away from Him when we experience being unsure or being afraid, beloved, that's the time to run to Him. If you're here this morning and you feel that way, you feel beat up, you feel afraid, you feel unsure, run to Jesus. Run to Jesus. Don't run from the cross.

Run to the cross. Verse 4, And when He brings out His own sheep, He goes before them, and the sheep follow Him, for they know His voice. This is an interesting thing because what would happen sometimes is they would have several flocks that got mixed together. And the shepherds, it wasn't a problem though. The shepherd could come and call to the sheep, and the sheep would run out to Him knowing His voice just like a dog. They recognize the voice of the shepherd. We need to develop a life of listening to the voice of our shepherd and knowing what that sounds like.

And that's what we do here. Do you understand that? When we're reading God's Word, you understand what's really happening at a much deeper spiritual level? It's the shepherd calling out to you. It's the shepherd's voice speaking to you. And whether it's here this morning or the radio or the television or internet or whatever, that's God's voice going out to His sheep calling them, calling them, calling you, calling me. And we should learn to recognize that voice. Verse 5, Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from Him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.

Be careful with this one because this is something that we need to be careful with. Let me run through just a few verses real quick. 2 Corinthians 11 verse 13 says, For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.

I'm going to go through several here. 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 1 says, But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And another verse, 1 John chapter 4 verse 1 says, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. Now it's interesting, and I could name a lot of other verses that we could go through, these verses are written to the first century church. See, we tend to think that the first century church was…they had it all together.

They didn't have any problems. But here in the first century church, they're being warned against false teachers. They're being warned against heresies. They're being warned against all these things.

Guys, if that was true then, how much more so now? See, we have to know the book, because it keeps us in a safer place. We're warned in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 3. It says, Let no one deceive you by any means, for that day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition. So here we're warned that there's going to be a falling away.

Who do you think the people that are falling away are going to be following? False teachers, false teachers. Now we tend to think of, you know, false teachers or people in, I don't know, India or, you know, somewhere far away or…no, false teachers are all around us.

They're down the street. False teaching. And guys, this is a time where you need to be especially, especially careful. That's why solid biblical teaching is so important. See, if you know this book, you know this book. And when somebody says, well, da-da-da-da-da, you say, eh, that's not what it says. There's this one verse that says actually the opposite of what you just said when you know the book.

If you don't know the book, you're placing yourself in peril. And the thing is, and I strongly believe this, that we are probably in the most scripturally illiterate generation of Christians that have existed in two thousand years. We just don't know our Bibles.

You know why? Because we're not taught our Bibles. I mean, I was a believer for fifteen, umpteen years before I really started digging into the Word, and it was because I started fellowshiping at a place that taught the Word. They placed an importance on it.

And that's what feeds us, and that's how we grow. And I don't know of another way to avoid false teaching better than to go systematically, verse by verse, chapter by chapter through the Bible. There's just not a better way. Maybe you go, well, you know, as long as some scriptures are mentioned, wait a minute, wait a minute. One of the things that the cults do is that they have, it's called isolated scriptural emphasis.

In other words, they take one scripture and they just dwell on that one scripture, and you go, what about this other scripture? Well, we're not talking about that scripture. We're talking about this scripture. So just the fact that a scripture is mentioned, don't feel safe. I don't mean to freak you out, but just because you're in a Christian bookstore, don't feel safe.

Just because you're listening to Christian radio, don't feel safe. That's up to us to be careful, to discern, to say, that's not in there. When they mention a verse, look around it.

It's not what he was talking about here. Galatians chapter 1, verse 8 and 9 says, but even if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. Anybody that tries to add something to the gospel, Paul says not once, twice in these two verses, let him be accursed. What's adding something to the gospel?

Adding some requirement to the gospel other than what's in the Bible. If somebody says, well, you got to do this, and you got to do that, and you got to do this, that, and the other, or you're not really saved, let them be accursed. That's strong language, but that's the language of the Bible. That's Paul's language. And see, what we're supposed to be doing is we're supposed to be digging in the Word of God. Acts 17, 11 says, these were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, and that they received the Word with all readiness and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.

These are the people in Berea. You can look at the verses around that, and you should look at the verses around this verse, and see that it's talking about the Bereans. And so when believers say to another, be a Berean, this is what it's talking about. If somebody says, hey, this, you know, God said the real problem is you got a lack of self-esteem. Really, where is that in there?

Can you show me a chapter and a verse? Well, it's not really in there, in there. It's just kind of insinuated or something. You know, ask people that. Ask people that when they share some spiritual knowledge with you.

Say, you know, that sounds really good. Where is that in the book? What chapter and verse do you get that from? Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that He died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask Him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P.O. Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. You know, the Bible tells us that the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. But it does cost for us to come and bring that message to you and to others in your neighborhood, through radio, through the internet, and through the mobile technologies that God has gifted us to be able to use. So if you'd like to support this ministry, please go to crossthebridge.com, click on the donate button, and ask God how much he would have you give either on a one-time basis or a continuing basis each month to help ensure that the teaching of God's Word continues to go out through Cross the Bridge.

Thank you so much. Well, DA, before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God, with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the Gospel of John.