We Are Sheep In His Fold - Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt.

Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. We're several weeks into a series that I entitled, I AM WHO YOU SAY I AM. And the reason for the series was that so many Christians I know suffer from what we call low self-esteem. And that's an oxymoron for a Christian.

When you realize what our identity with Jesus Christ is and who God says we are, the last thing in the world any of us should ever have is any sense of low self-esteem. I started out by saying that the Bible is clear that we are children of God, not just believers in God, but children of God and what that means. And then I said we're also new creations in Christ.

Whatever is in the past is behind us and whatever's in front of us now is new. Last week I said we're all living stones in the same house. We're royal priests in the same temple and that we are a set apart holy nation of God, a people for God's own possession.

And this week I want to tell you something that on the surface may not make you feel too well. But once you see for what the Bible says about it, it's a wonderful, wonderful truth. In fact, I believe there's an amazing privilege to be called this by God. We are the sheep of his fold. We are the sheep of God's fold. Sheep is used over 200 times in the word of God. And often it doesn't refer to sheep, it refers to people just like us. But I think of all the descriptions that God gives us in the word of God of who we are, this new identity that we have. Calling a sheep is probably the best one to teach us. How do we relate to the Lord who saved us?

How do we relate to our Lord? I guess the first question is why would God call a sheep? Well one thing in Leviticus 11, God says that sheep are clean. Sheep are clean animals. Now the funny part is that sheep aren't really that clean. But the reason they're clean in Leviticus 11 is because God says they're clean. And that's why you're clean.

And that's why I'm clean. Not because we're cleaner than other animals, other human beings, but because God says we're clean. The other thing about sheep that's amazing is that sheep are also useful animals. I think we often get misguided when it comes to sheep. In Israel for the average family, they didn't very often ever eat sheep. Now they did eat sheep on the Passover. And according to Josephus, a couple hundred thousand sheep were sacrificed in Jerusalem on the Passover. But most of the time, the typical Jewish family didn't eat sheep.

They didn't afford the luxury of the meat. Sheep were very useful animals because of what they produced, the wool that they produced. And in fact, in Israel at that time, a person's wealth was often based on how many sheep did you have. And the more sheep you had, the more wealth you had. There's something else too, and that is that sheep have to stay in a flock. If you take a sheep out of the flock, the sheep will die. They have to be surrounded by other sheep. But even more importantly than staying with the flock, sheep have to have a shepherd. If sheep are going to live, if sheep are going to have a good life, they can only do it on the basis of a shepherd.

And there's good reason for it. Sheep are completely defenseless. They can't fight at all. And they can't run. There's nothing a sheep can do to really protect himself at all. And they're easily frightened. If you want to know what frightens sheep, one word, everything.

Everything that's not normal to a sheep makes the sheep afraid. And then lastly, the idea is that without a guide, sheep will always get lost. If they don't have a guide and a shepherd, they will always find themselves lost.

Doesn't that sound like us? You know, Peter said this in 1 Peter chapter 2. He said, unless we follow our shepherd, we will soon go astray. The relationship between us and our shepherd.

That's what I want to talk about this morning. First of all, I want to talk about our good shepherd. Open your Bibles to John, Gospel of John, Chapter 10. The Gospel of John, Chapter 10. The reason for these statements that Jesus is making is because he's in conflict. Jesus is having conflict with the Pharisees, as he always does. In Chapter 9, Jesus takes a man who is blind and gives him sight. But Jesus is unsatisfied with just giving a blind man sight.

Jesus wants to say, there's a spiritual implication to what I just did. And the Pharisees in verse 40 of Chapter 9 say, those are the Pharisees who were with him, heard these things. And they said, we are not blind too, are we? And Jesus said to them, if you were blind, you would have no sin. But since you say we see, your sin remains. And I think the average Pharisee looked at the other one and said, what?

What does that mean? Jesus loved to talk to them that way, in a very puzzling way. Basically, he's implicating, yeah, you're as blind as a person can be. He goes on and says, truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the door into the fold of the sheep but climbs up some other way. He's a thief and a robber. But he who enters the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him, the doorkeeper opens and the sheep hear his voice. And he calls his own sheep out by name and he leads them out. And when he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them. And the sheep follow him because they know his voice.

A stranger they simply won't follow, but flee from him because they do not know the voice of strangers. That's an interesting thing that they would have all understood. In the wintertime, when the sheep were usually near towns, when night came in order to protect the sheep, they'd bring all the sheep in and put them in a fold. It could be four or five shepherds and they put all their sheep in a fold. When morning would come, the shepherd would come to the door of the fold and he'd just call out his sheep and his sheep would come out. No other sheep would come out, just his sheep. They came because of his voice. And if someone else called them out, they wouldn't come out unless they heard his shepherd's voice.

One of the great things about sheep. Now, Jesus says, look, I am that. Then he goes on and he says in verse nine, he changes metaphors and he says, I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved and he will go out and come in and find pasture.

So there's a lot of metaphors here. John the Baptist sees Jesus and says, behold, the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. He's a sheep.

Then you're going to tell us he's a good shepherd. But now he says, oh, by the way, I'm the door. In fact, if you're going to go in and out, you can only go in and out. If you believe in me, it's, it's John's way of writing with the words of Jesus that when Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth and the life, and no one will come to the father, but through me, it's the same thing. I'm the door. If you don't enter through me, you can't be saved. That's what Jesus is saying. Then Jesus makes this statement. He said, I am the good shepherd and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Verse 11. I am the good shepherd.

Amazing. It's the fourth I am in John. John's books written this way, seven great I am statements by Christ.

I am. He said, I am the good shepherd. Ego, I me in Greek in Hebrew would be Yahweh. I am who I am sent you out of Exodus chapter three. Jesus says, I am the good shepherd, but he doesn't really say I am the good shepherd. He said, I am the shepherd, the good one. Now we said, what?

That's kind of interesting. I am the shepherd, the good one. Well, yeah, understand it when you understand what the word good is. Normally the word for good meaning morally good is the word Agathos. We get the woman's name. It's an older name now.

Agatha that means from Agathos. That means morally good. John doesn't write that word. John uses the word callous and callous means the excellent one in every way.

The intrinsically good one, the premier one. I am the shepherd, the premier one, the excellent one. That's what Jesus is saying. And he says, not only am I the shepherd, I lay down my life for the sheep. I lay down my life for the sheep. Now you could say, yeah, I know Jesus died for the sheep and it's a little different than you think. First of all, that's not unusual for shepherds. Hirelings don't work well, but a really good shepherd and owns his own flock, they're always willing to lay down their life for the sheep.

That's what they have to do. Remember when David was a teenager, he was talking to Saul at the time as David and Goliath. And he said, both the lion and the bear came and I killed them both.

David, young teenager, you're going with a lion or a bear, you're putting your life on the line. He said, yeah, that's what a good shepherd does. But Jesus isn't saying that exactly. He's saying something much more than that. He said, I lay down my life for this.

And the word you and I would use would be the Greek word would be bio, which is we get biology from or Zoe, which we get zoology from. That means your physical life. He laid down his life. Jesus doesn't say that. Jesus says, I lay down my suke, my soul. I lay down my soul for the sheep. It means it refers to a spiritual death on the cross. It's the reason that he cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He laid down his soul for the sheep.

In Matthew chapter 20 in verse 28, Matthew writes, the son of man came to give his life for many. Same word suke. He said, I gave it just I didn't physically just die.

He said, that's not the case at all. He said, I gave my suke for the sheep. And the word for the sheep is an interesting word. It's a word who pair and it means on behalf of I gave my life on behalf of the sheep. That's substitutionary atonement. He said, Yeah, I died in place of the sheep. I gave my life my suke for the sheep.

No wonder he's called the good kid. Now hold your place or just for a second because we're coming right back and go with me to Isaiah 53 in verse four. The reason I want you to see this is this is not a new thought. The Pharisees surely should have understood this. In Isaiah 53 in verse four, Isaiah is writing 700 years before Christ. So this is a long time before Jesus is on the scene.

And notice then what is written. Isaiah 53 verse four. Surely our griefs he himself bore our sorrows he carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. He was pierced through for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities. The chasing of our wellbeing fell upon him and by his scourging, we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray.

Each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has called the iniquity of us all to fall on him. That's why he said, I'm the good shepherd. He said, I am the good shepherd.

Now let me read on here in John. He said in verse 14, I am the good shepherd and I know my own and my own know me, even as the father knows me, I know and I know the father and I lay down my life for the sheep. He said, I have other sheep which are not of this fold. I must bring them also and they will hear my voice and they will become one flock with one shepherd.

That's us. To the Jews, this is what? Yeah, I have other sheep, Gentiles all over the world. I'm going to have a big, big fold. And then he says for this reason, the father loves me because I lay down my life so that I may take it up again.

Now we have an indication here, something important. What good would it be for the shepherd to give his life for the sheep? So you have 50 sheep, 200 sheep out there and someone comes and attacks him and the shepherd gives his life. And what happens to the sheep? They're all dead. Whatever comes with it, they're all dead.

They have no protection. So the shepherd gave his life, but it doesn't help. But Jesus said, no, you don't. You misunderstand.

Notice what he said. For this reason, he said, the father loves me because I laid down my life so that I can take it up again. He said, no one has taken it away from me. I lay it down on my own initiative.

I have authority lay it down and I have an authority to take it up again. He said, this commandment I received from my father. I gave my life for the sheep, but they weren't without me for very long. In three days, I was raised from the dead. You see, they weren't without a shepherd at all. He was raised from the dead.

And that's what he is saying. I'm not like any other shepherd. I gave my suitcase for the sheep, but I also was raised from the dead.

Wow. He loves the sheep. He gives his life for the sheep. He unites the sheep. And his flock is worldwide.

And none of this is typical. It's not because he had to. A lot of times, the shepherd has to defend the flock. I didn't have to do this. I did this because I chose to. I did this because I wanted to.

That's why I did it. How much he loves the sheep. The Lord is the good shepherd.

And that's kind of neat, but there's something more important to me than this. The Lord is not only the good shepherd, the Lord is my shepherd. And he's your shepherd. Turn with me now to Psalm 23, a very famous Psalm in the Psalter. Psalm 23. I don't know if there are more comforting words written in the Bible than Psalm 23.

You hear it everywhere. It really doesn't seem to matter almost that every funeral someone is reading Psalm 23. I don't know if we really understand the magnitude of this Psalm. I hope after today you have a much better idea of what this Psalm means.

First of all, it is written by somebody who has impeccable credentials. It's David. Now, he's the king of Israel and all that.

That's true. But he's also a shepherd. No one can write the Psalm like a shepherd can, and David's writing it as a shepherd.

And now he's put himself not as the shepherd, but as the sheep. And so he says this first phrase, the Lord is my shepherd. That word Lord is Yahweh. The holiest word of the Jews, they never spoke the word. You couldn't say the word.

If you were a copyist and you were writing the word, you had to bathe before you wrote it and bathe again afterwards. The word's holy. It's Yahweh. I am who I am. Exodus 3, the burning bush talking to Moses.

They didn't say the word. He says Yahweh, the great covenant keeping, creator of all things, the holy other God. He's my shepherd, my shepherd. The implication obviously is, too, is I'm one of his sheep. The self-sustaining, eternal creator of everything is my shepherd.

Understand what that means. Shepherds don't work like we do. They don't have a nine-to-five job. They don't punch a clock. They don't work five days and you're off to. They don't do that. Shepherd is 24-7. You don't get holidays, vacation days.

You don't get any of that. When you're the shepherd, you're responsible for the sheep 24-7. That's your job. He says, yeah, the Lord is my shepherd.

Wow. Everything in the sheep's life is focused on the shepherd. He said, I shall not want.

What? The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. We often read that and we use the word want. I mean, I have everything I need. He's my shepherd.

That's true, but it means more than that. When he says the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, he means that there's nothing that I envy. There's nothing that I want to have.

What do you mean there's nothing you want to have? The Lord's my shepherd. You see, if the Lord is my shepherd, there's nothing else I want. I don't need to have anything else because the shepherd is the one responsible for the sheep and the Lord is my shepherd. So I don't have to worry about anything like that.

I don't have to crave anything. But do you? I mean, you know this, your stuff isn't yours.

Ask any funeral director. Is your stuff yours? It's not yours. None of it's yours.

Max Lucado writes this. He said, you have a God who hears you, the power of love behind you, the Holy Spirit within you and all of heaven ahead of you. If you have the shepherd, you have grace for every sin direction for every turn a candle for every corner and an anchor for every storm. You have everything you could possibly need because the Lord is your shepherd. You couldn't have more.

The implication that's pretty clear. We should bleed contentment. You want to know what a contented person is?

Talk to a Christian. Somehow that makes us uneasy, doesn't it? Why are we not content?

You see, we should just bleed this. We're Christians. The Lord is our shepherd. Then he says this.

He makes me lie down in green pastures. That's no easy task by the way. Sheep have to have at least four conditions met or they won't lie down. They're afraid to lie down.

They won't. The first condition for a sheep has to be this. They have to be free of all fear. And remember, almost everything scares them. But they can't lie down if they're afraid. Secondly, they have to be free of any friction with other sheep. If they're not getting along with the other sheep, they won't lie down.

Just imagine what that would be like. Thirdly, they have to be free of flies and parasites. We'll talk about this a little bit later, but they're everywhere. And they drive sheep crazy.

And lastly, they have to be free of hunger. Notice what he says. He makes me lie down in green pastures. My shepherd does lie down.

I've provided everything you need. Wow. Philip Keller says this. He's also a shepherd, by the way. He says green pastures did not just happen by chance. Green pastures were the product of tremendous labor, time, skill and land use.

Green pastures were the result of clearing rough, rocky land, then tearing out brush and roots and stumps, of deep plowing and careful soil preparation, of seeding and planting and special grains and legumes, of irrigating with water and husbandry with care, the crops of forage which would feed the flocks. In fact, the shepherd has to do all that work so that they have green pastures. And what he's saying here is the Lord is my shepherd.

He does the work. He's prepared all this for me. Isaiah 26 says this spiritually about us. You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you. You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you. The Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want. Philippians 4. He says, be anxious for nothing. That's great words to give a sheep. But in everything with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. He says, and then the peace of God, which is above all comprehension, will guard your hearts. He's telling the sheep the same thing. He's telling us don't be why, but I feel anxiety.

Why? The Lord is your shepherd. You see, he's meeting your needs.

But that's hard for us and difficult for us. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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