Today on Summit Life with J.D.
Greer. Our culture does not like authority, so we would rather recast Jesus as a moral model we aspire to. We're a life coach. We're the ultimate TikTok religious influencer.
But the central Christian confession is not that Jesus is insightful or helpful or cool, but that Jesus is Lord. Welcome to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer.
As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Sheep without a shepherd are in trouble. Whether they wander off and get lost or face danger from predators, they just don't do well on their own. But under a good shepherd's care, they can thrive. Today, Pastor J.D. takes us to John chapter 10, where Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. And what makes this so remarkable isn't just that he protects his sheep from harm. He actually lays down his life for them.
That's a next level shepherd. And as a result, we don't have to focus on all the threats around us. We can fix our eyes on the one who leads, protects, and provides for us. What an amazing truth to consider today.
Now remember, if you've missed any of our previous messages, you can always catch up online at jdgreer.com. We're in John chapter 10, as Jesus tells us, I am the good shepherd. There's an old Sherlock Holmes story called The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual. How many of you have read that story or are familiar with it? Three of you.
Awesome. So there is an old British family in this story that's living out on this historic old estate that notices that their butler starts acting very strangely one day, and then one night he just disappears. With the help of Sherlock Holmes, they discover that he's been following this treasure map, and they're able to retrace his steps to an old forgotten cellar in an abandoned wing of this old house. There, they find the butler's body stretched out over a box of what looks like a worthless pile of debris. The pile that they discover looks like it's nothing.
It's got four or five old coins in it, which yeah, they've got a little bit of value, but certainly nothing that looks like it's worth dying for. The mystery of the story is how did the butler die and what was he really after? Eventually, Sherlock Holmes notices that in this pile of debris is an old twisted, circular piece of metal that nobody's paid any attention to. But Holmes is curious about it, so he starts to rub one of the corners of this piece of metal, and it starts to glow like a spark. Turns out to be a diamond, and Holmes eventually realizes that this relic is the ancient lost crown of the kings of England. That's what the butler had died trying to acquire, but nobody else had eyes to see the treasure.
All they saw was a worthless pile of debris. You say, well, pastor, great, now you've spoiled that story for me if I choose to go home and read it today. Y'all, listen, that story has been out since 1893, okay? Do not tell me you were planning to go home this afternoon and read it.
I'm just not feeling bad about that. There is a paradox at the heart of the gospel. The heart of the gospel has a paradox, and that is what looks to others like nothing more than a twisted pile of debris God sees as a treasure of such value that he is willing to lay down his life for it.
The irony is that he sees more than anybody just how messed up we actually are, and yet, and yet he's also the one who loves us more than anybody else ever has, and that fact, that fact, the fact that he sees us most clearly and yet loves us most deeply, that he's going to explain in John 10, that is one of the ways that we know or can know that he is the true savior. In this passage of scripture we're going to look at today, you're going to see how Jesus's leadership stands out, stands apart from every other religious leader in history, and how his authority, his leadership answers one of the deepest soul yearnings that we have. Jesus's claim in John 10 is very simply this, I am the good shepherd.
You see, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. This is the fifth of our I am statements from the gospel of John. The fifth of seven times that Jesus takes for himself the loftiest name of God in the Old Testament, I am, or Yahweh in Hebrew, Jehovah in the Latin translation of that, and then Jesus connects that lofty name of God to one of our greatest points of brokenness. So to those who were hungry, Jesus said I am the bread of life. To those who feel like they're in darkness, Jesus said I am the light of the world. To those in need of shelter or refuge, Jesus says I am the door. To those feeling the sting of death or confused by where God's love is in the middle of it, Jesus says I am the resurrection and the life.
Today we're going to come to what might be the most famous of all of those I am claims. To those who feel isolated or abandoned or alone, Jesus says, John 10 verse 11, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He, you see, who is a hired hand and not really the true shepherd, who does not own the sheep, yeah, he sees the wolf coming and he leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and actually cares nothing for the sheep personally. I am the good shepherd.
I know my own and my own know me. These verses are a continuation of the discussion Jesus started with the Pharisees in which he explained that he was the one door for the sheep. We looked at that passage a couple weeks ago. It's the first few verses there in chapter 10.
You might remember that. In that discussion, Jesus was contrasting his leadership, you might recall, with that of the Pharisees. Jesus had just forgiven this adulterous woman that the Pharisees were ready to stone, and he's just healed a blind man that the Pharisees despised. And so to the Pharisees, Jesus says the true shepherd, the true shepherd sees value where other people only see junk. In these verses, Jesus is picking up on a famous passage in Ezekiel, Ezekiel 34, where around 600 BC, God had condemned the worthless shepherds of Israel. One of my people's problems, God had said through Ezekiel, is that their leaders are corrupt.
And then God, through Ezekiel, lists out 10 different complaints about Israel's political and religious leaders that all center around the same thing. You don't love the sheep. You use the sheep. You don't feed the sheep.
You use them to feed yourselves. You don't shield and protect the sheep. You shear the sheep to profit yourself. You don't bind up the wounded or go out searching for the lost. You abandon the sheep the moment that they become an inconvenience for you.
You worthless shepherds, he says, you treat the sheep like they are little more than an asset to your personal fortunes. Sadly, by the way, that description would still apply to a lot of Christian leaders today. And I know, by the way, that some of you have suffered under that kind of leadership. If that is you, I just want to say that I recognize how difficult it can be for you to even come back to a place like this and sit here this morning. You being here right now, we do not take that lightly.
I know it is a huge step for you. But all of our leaders here want to model the kind of sacrificial leadership that Jesus is about to commend here. Because Jesus's leadership, you see, is different from those worthless kinds of shepherds that God is lamenting in Ezekiel. Shai Lin, who is a Christian hip-hop artist, says that Jesus presents his leadership in John 10, verses 10 through 14, in direct contrast to the corrupt shepherds of Ezekiel 34.
He is most likely thinking about this passage when he gives us that description in John 10. In contrast to their authority, Shai Lin says, Jesus's authority is a, number one, protective authority. Number two, it is a loving authority. Number three, it is a sacrificial authority.
I'm going to use Shai Lin's list but expand it slightly, and I'm going to make everything in the list start with the letter P, because I'm a Baptist and that's just what we do, okay? I'm going to show you that Jesus's leadership in these verses, in contrast to that of the Pharisees and other false shepherds, is protective, personal, prospering, and propitiatory. And that is how you know Jesus is the true shepherd.
It's also how you know I'm a Southern Baptist, because I did that right there at the piece, okay? Before we unpack each of those words, let me be very clear with you, okay? Jesus claims to be an authority.
He never menses words about that. Our culture does not like authority, so we would rather recast Jesus as a moral model we aspire to, or a life coach, or the ultimate TikTok religious influencer. We wish Jesus's I am claim was something like, I am the ultimate algorithm who will populate your feed with wonderful spiritual options for you to choose from. But the central Christian confession is not that Jesus is insightful, or helpful, or cool, but that Jesus is Lord. And Lord means that whatever Jesus says on anything, at any time, in any place, becomes your new rule if you're going to be his follower. Jesus once said to a group of would-be followers, Luke 6, 46, why would you call me Lord, Lord, and then not do the things that I say? Why would you call me Lord if you're still your own Lord? Even if you've given Jesus 95% control of your life, aren't you still really the Lord of your whole life since you get to decide what 95% he gets and what 5% you keep? Unless he's Lord of all, he's not Lord at all. Jesus might say that to many of us today, by the way. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not believe what I say about this or that area of your life?
Why would you call me Lord and not give me control over this area? See, unless you've submitted yourself fully to Jesus, making him the complete and unchallenged Lord of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, he's not your Lord. So yes, Jesus is an authority. But Jesus' authority is different from almost every other authority you've experienced, certainly from any toxic, abusive, self-serving authority that you've suffered under. And that, Jesus explains, is one of the ways that we know that he's the true shepherd. First, Jesus' authority is protective.
Protective. Verse 11 again, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, the sheep. By contrast, verse 12, the one who's a hired hand and not really the shepherd, who doesn't know the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees. The true shepherd loves his sheep and is committed to protecting the sheep up to the point of dying for them. I've explained this before, but y'all, it's hard to think of a less flattering analogy that Jesus could have come up with for us than sheep. A sheep without a shepherd in the wild is called a meal. Sheep are slow and they are clumsy and they are dumb. They are not great fighters.
All due respect to Ramesses, the UNC mascot, but typically sheep are not threatening animals. If sheep trip on a rock and they fall overcast on their back, they stay there like a beetle until somebody comes along and flips them back over. That is not a good quality to carry with you into a fight. Right? Imagine an MMA fighter who, when he got flipped onto his back, couldn't stand up until somebody flipped him back over.
That guy's not going to make it very far. By the way, I heard a missionary to Muslims over in the rural Middle East, where shepherding is still a thing, say that when he explained Jesus' parable about the sheep and the goats to a Muslim friend there, that parable where at the end of time, Jesus separates the sheep from the goats and takes only the sheep, the Muslim shepherd objected and said, that can't be right. A true shepherd would never take sheep over goats. Sheep are so time intensive. Goats, by contrast, by contrast, they take care of themselves. Every shepherd prefers goats over sheep. Well, yeah, the missionary explained, but God wants sheep, not goats because he wants us to depend on him.
Not because he is controlling or domineering, but because he knows how weak we are and he loves us. Thanks for listening to Summit Life with J.D. Greer. If you want to know more about this ministry, visit us online at jdgreer.com. I'd like to take just a moment to let you know how much we are thankful for you, our faithful listeners.
It's an honor for us to be able to be a source of encouragement for you each day on the program. But did you know that these Summit Life broadcasts are only one of the ways that you can keep up with Pastor J.D. 's ministry? There's our website, our newsletters, but you can also follow Pastor J.D. on social media.
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Now, set your phone down for just a few more minutes and let's finish up today's teaching. Once again, here's Pastor J.D. His love is a protective love. A few weeks ago, I showed you this picture of an ancient sheep pen, and I explained to you how this shepherd slept in this little doorway right here to keep out predators. Literally, the shepherd was the door. And I asked you how your disposition would change if you believed that nothing came into that pen without the permission of the shepherd. I gave you this promise, Psalm 84-11, no good thing does God withhold from those who walk uprightly before him.
That doesn't mean I told you. That doesn't mean that nothing bad or painful ever happens to the Christian. It just means that I know it comes into the pen only by permission of the shepherd and with the promise that he is going to use it for good. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly before him. Y'all, that means if God withholds it from me, it isn't really good.
And if he allows it, he plans to use it for good, even if it's painful. So again, how would your perspective in life change if you actually believe that? That nothing came into your life that God did not intend to use for good. Again, I don't mean that he caused it or that he's the one who did it, just that he promises to use it for good.
Think about the worst thing that's happened to you this week. How would your perspective, your attitude change if you said, God, thank you for the pain of, and you fill in the blank, because I know you, my shepherd, who lies at the gate of my life allowed this thing, this painful thing, and you plan to use it for good. In Psalm 23, David, who began his life as a shepherd, revels in the protection of his shepherd. It's one of the most well-known scripture passages in the world. I don't know if you've ever thought about it like this, but it's actually all about protection.
In fact, I saw one commentator describe the protections promised in Psalm 23 like this. The Lord is my shepherd. That is protection beside me. He leads me in green pastures. That's protection beneath me.
Besides still waters, that's near me. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake. That's ahead of me. He restores my soul. That's protection within me.
He prepares a table before me. That's protection around me and the presence of my enemies. That's protection against those who are against me.
His rod and his staff, they come for me. That's protection for me. His oil is upon my head. That's protection upon me.
My cup overflows. That's protection above me. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me. That's protection behind me, and I will dwell in the house of the Father forever and ever. That is protection before me. I'm literally surrounded by protection. That means there is nowhere or no thing that is exempt from his sovereign care. Nothing. You literally can't get anywhere.
How would your perspective change if you actually believe that? Psalm 139, David exalts. Where could I go from your spirit? Where could I flee from your presence if I ascended to heaven? Of course you're there.
That's where you live. But if I made my bed in Sheol, the Old Testament word for hell, you'd still be there if I took the wings of the morning and dwelled in the uttermost parts of the sea. Even there, your right hand, in their hands, shall leave me, and your right hand shall hold me.
David said, I literally cannot get away from your love. Even if I made my bed in hell, God, you wouldn't leave me there. Truth is, of course, we did make our bed in hell. We rejected God and ran as far as we possibly could from him, and yet even there, he still kept his promise to protect us.
He entered hell and took it in our place. It's no wonder David says in the next verse, how precious also are your thoughts to me, oh God. How vast is the sum of them. If I could number them, they would outnumber the sand of the seashore. Y'all, that number of grains of sand on the seashore is eight quintillions, or eight with 18 zeros after it. That's the amount of times that God has thought about you individually and your protection. Pick up a handful of sand next time you're at the beach.
Let it run through your fingers. Look at each grain and think, God thought about me individually. There and there and there and there, and then look down the beach and think each of those grains of sand represent a thought about me.
Y'all, I cannot even get my mind around that. Do you ache to be special to someone? You're special to God. You yearn in the depths of your soul to matter to somebody. You matter to God. Do you know how much and how often he thinks about you?
My goodness. God's thoughts about you outnumber the sands of the seashore. I can assure you, nothing gets into that pen without his awareness and his promise. You may think it's random or unfortunate or bad luck. And again, I'm not saying God's the one doing it to you. I'm just saying that whatever it is comes with his promise to use it for good because you have a savior who neither slumbers nor sleeps, who always stands guard at the gate of your life. The Lord is my shepherd. Amen and hallelujah, which leads me to the second characteristic of his authority. It's personal.
It's personal. Verse 14, Jesus says, I know my sheep. My sheep know me.
I call them each out by name. Jesus' sheep are not one big formless mass to him. He knows each of them by name, Fluffy, Snowball, Wooly, Rufus, Bernadette, whatever you name sheep, I don't know. There's a Scottish pastor named Douglas McMillan.
He died when I was in high school, but he worked as a shepherd in Scotland before becoming a pastor. He tells a story about one day he said he was on a train with a shepherd friend who three weeks prior had sold a number of his lambs to another farmer, another shepherd. As the train was pulling out of the station, they passed a flock of sheep and a pen that was, you know, a dozen yards or so from the railroad track and the shepherd looked up and said, hey, there's four of my lambs in there. He knew his sheep so well he could spot four lambs out of a flock from a moving train.
Honestly, I'm not sure I could spot my kids from a moving train. I mean, just kidding, but that's how well a good shepherd knows his sheep. There's an individuality to God's love that the Holy Spirit enables you to feel. It's not just that God so loved the world, as in God has a generic kindly disposition to the world, but God loves me. Paul says in Romans, that's what the Holy Spirit does in our hearts. He sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts individually, teaching us to say Abba, Father, or my Daddy. I think of my kids, especially when they were young, when they called me Daddy, it was a deeply personal name.
They knew I was paying attention to them in crowds more than I was anybody else. And sometimes, by the way, God even goes the extra mile in communicating that to us. I once heard a pastor tell a story about how one night he was putting his 10-year-old daughter to bed. And as he tucked his girl in, he was just singing over her that little, you know, that song, you are my sunshine, my only sunshine.
Well, when he got back to his room, his wife was crying. And so we asked her what was wrong, and she said, I'm just listening to you. My Daddy never sang over me like that. And I'm watching you raise our girls, and I rejoice in that, and I know I'm supposed to be happy about it, and I am, but I never had a dad like that, and I know I'm never going to. And she said, I'm grateful for all that God has given me.
I'm grateful for you as a husband. It just feels like there's these gaps in my heart that I'm never going to be able to fill. Pastor said, I tried to comfort her, but I just couldn't.
This was an old, deep wound that my love for her wasn't going to be able to fix. Well, life moved on, and they forgot about it. A few weeks go by, and the pastor said one of his pastor friends came to speak at their church's staff meeting. At the end, they just opened up the altar for prayer, the way we do sometimes, and this pastor and his wife came up to pray specifically. They were coming up to pray about a financial crisis, and they were going to pray about a financial crisis, and they were going to pray about a financial issue they were facing.
Their coming forward had nothing to do with this moment she'd had a few weeks before. Well, their pastor friend came over and laid his hands on them and started to pray for them, and then after a few sentences of the prayer, he stopped and said, he said, y'all, I think God is putting something on my heart that he wants to say to you, but honestly, it's really unusual, and it's strange, and I can't really sing, so I'm just going to say it. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray.
Dear how much I love you, please don't take my sunshine away. Pastor said my wife and I just came apart. We had not told anybody about that moment, and we knew our Heavenly Father was speaking right to us. His love is a personal love. By the way, maybe you hear that story and you say, oh, I wish God would do something like that for me. He might, but listen, this is important. It's not just in those divine butterfly moments that you perceive his love.
That's not even the main way. Paul says the Holy Spirit sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts by allowing us to perceive the gospel. He lets us see the gospel is for us. You see, the truth is if you perceive and you believe the truth of the gospel, that is evidence of God's love at work inside of you. If that's who Jesus is, the shepherd who calls us by name and lays down his life, then what he's inviting us into next really matters. Come back tomorrow for the conclusion of this message.
This is Summit Life. Okay, so Pastor JD, with only a few days left in our study in John here on the program, what's the biggest takeaway from this teaching series on the I Am statements of Jesus? Yeah, if I had to sum it up in one sentence, I would say Jesus plus nothing equals everything, and everything minus Jesus equals nothing. The I Am statements show us that whatever's lacking in our life, whether that's direction, hope, happiness, security, the answer is found in Him. He's our bread of life when we're hungry. He's the light to our path when we're lost.
Here's the thing. Jesus doesn't just give us these things. He is these things to us.
When you know Him, you have all these things. And so what John shows you is that regardless of what brings you to Jesus in need, Jesus himself is the answer. If you are a gospel partner, we are going to be shipping this new Bible study out to you this month as a thank you for your ongoing support. If you're not a gospel partner, I'd love to challenge and invite you to consider becoming one.
If this ministry is benefiting you, it's a way of enabling it to benefit somebody else. We'd love to get you either the print or digital version of this I Am Bible study when you give today at jdgrier.com. Yes, we would love to have you join with us as a monthly partner. And we'd love to send you a copy of our brand new featured resource called I Am, Seven Weeks in the Gospel of John. Call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.
Or give and request this new resource online at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch reminding you to join us Thursday for the conclusion of today's message about the Good Shepherd here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.
