Good morning. If you've been following us in our worship, we've been in the series of the I Am Statements of Christ. There are seven specific ones. And we talked about Jesus as the bread of life. We talked about Jesus as the light of the world. And then during Easter, we talked about Jesus as the resurrection and the life.

So we're going to be covering chapter 10, but it's really connected to chapter 9. And it has to be understood together because chapter 10 is spoken of in the context of what happens in chapter 9. And so we have the two statements of Jesus where he says, "I am the door and I am the good shepherd." And so let me read the passage where he states that in John chapter 10, verse 7, and John chapter 10, verse 11, and then we'll jump into the text this morning.

John chapter 10, verse 7, "Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.'" Then John chapter 10, 11, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." Let's pray. Father, we pray that your word would speak to us.

Help us to have a deepening understanding of Christ and that in light of the surpassing knowledge of knowing him better, that all these other things, Lord God, that easily entangles us and tempts us would truly become rubbish. Help us, Lord, to see a greater vision of the glory of Christ, that our eyes may be opened, that we may see the light, and that Christ and Christ alone would be our treasure and our goal.

So we ask for your anointing this time, this morning, that our worship may be given to you in a way that honors and glorifies you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So again, as I said, chapter 10, these two statements, the "I am" statements, really ought to be understood together.

So if you've read chapter 10 before this morning or you've studied it before, you may have noticed that in chapter 10, the "I am the door" and "I am the good shepherd" is really used interchangeably. So it's hard to dissect, is he talking about the door, is he talking about the shepherd?

Because again, you'll see better what he means by that by really looking at chapter 9. In fact, if you don't look at chapter 9, what Jesus says about the door is really not going to make a lot of sense. We can understand Jesus as a good shepherd, right? He's a shepherd, we are the sheep, he guides us, he leads us, feeds us, we understand that aspect of it, or it's easier to understand.

But what is the statement of "I am the door"? So again, if you don't understand the context in which he says that, the "I am the door" statement, it really is just going to go over your head and say, "Well, Jesus says he's the door, so we trust him." But what does he mean by that?

How did the first recipients understood this statement? In order to do that, we have to look at the event in chapter 9, because that statement is said right after this event. And so what happens in chapter 9? So what I ask you to do, because there's too many verses, I don't have the text that's going to be written on the screen, so if you have your Bibles, I ask that you would open up to John chapter 9 and just keep it there, because I'm going to be reading the narrative, parts of it together with you, and then when we get to the three-point meaning of "I am the door" and "I am the good shepherd," it'll be easier to follow and the text will be coming up for you.

So let's look at John chapter 9. What happens here that sets up for his statement, "I am the door"? John chapter 9 verse 1, it says, "As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth, and his disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?'" So let me stop right there.

So the setup of the story is that they run into this blind man, and you can see by the attitude of the disciples, the very first question that they ask, which was not unique to the disciples, the whole Jewish community believed that if you had any kind of defect or if you were struggling, that it must have been because you're being punished by God for some kind of sin, and that was their initial first response.

And you can understand if that was their attitude toward the blind, there was no benevolence program for them because they believed you deserved it. In fact, you know, in many cultures around the world, unlike the Judeo-Christian culture, they believe that if you're suffering, if you're poor, if some affliction happened to you, you must have done something maybe in your previous life, and you need to pay off your sins in order for you to progress into the next life.

Many cultures, they actually speak against helping the poor because they must be poor for a reason. Well, the Jewish culture was very similar to that. Not only did they have the physical hardship, they believed that if something bad happened to you, you must have done something, and that's why they were asking a question, not unique to the disciples, but the Jewish culture itself.

So you can imagine as a blind person, hard enough, your life is hard enough as it is, but that the people around you in society, every time you came around, it's like, "Look at that guy. He must have done something." And that's the question that is asked, and Jesus answers in verse 3, "It was neither that this man has sinned, nor his parents, but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him." Remember, Jesus says the same thing in John chapter 11 about Lazarus' death.

He said that God allowed to happen because God has a specific plan. So Jesus, obviously, you know the story about how he spits on the ground and takes mud and puts it on his eyes and tells him to go and wash at the pool of Siloam. Then he comes back and he sees.

And then when people see it, they're obviously surprised. Wasn't this man the same guy who used to beg at the temple day in and day out? How was he able to see? So some people didn't believe him. Some people said that maybe it was somebody that looked like him.

And then he begins to speak up. And he says, "I am the one," in verse 9, to confirm. So you can imagine he opens his eyes and he's excited to go see people. And then people are like, "No, that can't be you. How can that have possibly happened?" So again, all of this is a setup of what's going to happen in chapter 10.

We get to verse 13. And so some people are shocked. Some people are praising God. Some people don't believe. But look at the response of the Pharisees, the leaders, in verse 13. They brought to the Pharisees the man who was formerly blind. Now it was a Sabbath on the day when Jesus made this clay and opened his eyes.

Then the Pharisees also were asking him again how he received the sight. And he said to them, "He applied clay to my eyes and I washed it and I see." And look at verse 16, what they say. Therefore some of the Pharisees were saying, "This man is not from God because he does not keep the Sabbath." A miracle takes place.

A man who was blind all his life that was a common figure at the temple gate. And there's clear evidence that his eyes are open. But their first response is, "Because Jesus doesn't jump through the hoops the way we ask our people to. He didn't keep the Sabbath." And again, Jesus never broke the Sabbath command of God.

He broke the Sabbath that they created. That they created. All the extra laws that they created. So if he doesn't abide by us, he can't possibly be from God. That's basically what they're saying. If he doesn't submit to us, even if he performs a miracle, he's not from God.

Because clearly I'm the one anointed by God so therefore if you don't submit to me, you must not be from God. That's basically what they're saying. "The document who is a sinner performed such signs and there was a division among them. So they said to the blind man again, 'What do you say about him since he opened your eyes?' And he said, 'He is a prophet.'" Verse 18.

"The Jews then did not believe it of him that he had been blind and had received sight until they called the parents the very one who had received his sight." So obviously you're a sinner. We can't trust what you say. Jesus doesn't submit to us so therefore he must not be from God.

So we're going to investigate a little further and we're going to call his parents. Now understand the blind man's relationship with the parents. Typically at that time if you were blind, there was no social program to take care of you and other people would look at the blind man and say, "Remember the question that they asked?

Was it his sin? And what was the other question? Or was it his parents?" So to have a blind son in the house would invite ridicule from the society that they belong to. So the typical practice was to release them to live with other blind people. And that's probably why he was begging at the temple gate because his parents weren't taking care of him.

And his parents show up because they, for the purpose of indicting Jesus, they call him, them in and they ask them, "Your son clearly wasn't blind because this sinner, Jesus, could not have performed this miracle." In verse 20, "His parents answered them and said, 'We know that this is our son and that he was born blind.'" In other words, I can't lie to you, right?

That's what he was. In verse 20, "But how he now sees, we do not know. Or who opened his eyes, we do not know. Ask him, he is of age, he will speak for himself." Now let me stop right there, okay? Because what they say in the next text is really the setup of what Jesus says in verse 10, verse 22.

"His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews. For the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue." Okay, stop right there. The Pharisees were the leaders of the synagogue. Now understand what the synagogue was.

The temple was God-ordained where people were to come give sacrifices. But because of the diaspora of the Jews, they were spread all over the known world at that time, they had to find a way to worship God. So what they did was, their law was wherever there was 10 men, Jewish men, they were given permission to set up a synagogue, sort of a mini-temple.

And so through that synagogue, they would perform the worships and various things that they needed to do, but the major sacrifice, they still needed to come to the temple. So the temple was ruled by the Sanhedrin and the high priest. But the synagogues were ruled by the Pharisees, and that's where majority of the Jews practiced their faith.

So for the leaders of Israel to say, "If you don't agree with us, if you don't submit to us, if you don't agree that this man clearly is a sinner because he's calling us out, so we're calling him out. If you take his side," he said, "we're going to kick you out of the synagogue." And so in fear of being kicked out of the synagogue, they basically were plain dumb.

"Well, he's our son, we can't deny that he was born blind, but as to how his eyes were open, we can't say." Now again, it's helpful for us to understand what the synagogue meant for an average Jew. Because the synagogue was not just a place where you went to worship.

Synagogue was your community. Synagogue was where your children were educated. That was also your school. Synagogue was where you went and you probably married within that context. So synagogue to them was their world. So if you were kicked out of the synagogue, not only would you have spiritual ramification, not only would you have ramification for the education of your children, you wouldn't be able to do any kind of business.

Because anybody who does business with that person, anybody who supports that person, anybody who relates to that person would also be kicked out of the synagogue. So they had this tight rein, they had this power over the synagogue, and these men basically were saying, "We've labeled him to be a troublemaker, and he's a sinner.

So anybody who supports him in any way will be kicked out of the synagogue." Now all of that was a setup to verse chapter 10. For this reason, verse 23, the parents said, "He's of age, ask him." So the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, "Give glory to God, we know that this man is a sinner." He then answered, "Whether he's a sinner, I do not know.

One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." Verse 26, "So they said to him, 'What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?' He answered him, 'I told you already.'" You can kind of see he knows that he's not going to get through to them.

What he's telling them, "I already told you that I was born blind. My parents told you I was born blind, and I see. Clearly you're not going to accept my answer. He said, 'I already told you, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again?

You do not want to become his disciples too, do you?'" Sarcasm. So if you don't know what sarcasm is, right there, lesson one, that's sarcasm. I mean, think about this man's position. He was born blind all his life, and his lot in life was to be a beggar all his life.

So can you imagine not being able to see and hearing the whole community of people going back and forth into the temple with their animals to sacrifice? Families, husband and wives, laughing with their children, going back and forth. So can you imagine him being forced to be on the side of the street begging all of his life?

So for him to open his eyes wasn't simply that, "Now I can see and function like a normal person." For a blind man, a Jewish blind man, to have his eyes open means that he can enter back into society. And in order to enter back into society, he needed the approval of these Pharisees.

So you can see the boldness of this man. Now he's standing against these Pharisees who really hold the key, at least humanly speaking, for a good life for him. He may be able to, he'll always be known as that guy who used to beg and God perform miracle on him.

He's able to now find a wife possibly, have children, get a normal job, be able to worship at the synagogue, raise his children. He must have had all of those thoughts in his head. But he's standing before these men who have the key to good life for him, and now he realizes that he's not going to get through to them.

So he's basically challenging them. Why are you so stubborn and why do you refuse to see this? In verse 30, "The man answered and said to them, 'Well, here is an amazing thing that you do not know where he is from, and yet he opened my eyes.'" We know that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone is God-fearing and does his will, he hears him.

"Since the beginning of time, it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of the person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. And they answered him, 'You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?' So they put him out." Look at that conversation.

Here's a man, if he was blind, he probably had never had any kind of education, never had any kind of training. He was a beggar all his life since he was a young child, and yet he's the one trying to open their eyes spiritually. So he may have been the one physically blind all his life, but spiritually he was seeing clearly.

And here's these men who had the access to his word, who were the teachers of the law at the synagogue, who were the leaders of the spiritual community, and yet they did not understand what was plainly in front of them. And as a result of challenging these people, they did exactly what everybody was afraid of, what his parents were afraid of.

They put him out. And it is in this context that Jesus meets up with this man who's just been put out. He now sees, but because he can't participate in society, he may still have to beg. He's not going to be able to get a job. He's not going to be able to go to the synagogue.

He won't be welcomed at the temple. And Jesus meets him in verse 35. Jesus heard that they had put him out, and finding him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He answered, "Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him?" Jesus said to him, "You have both seen him, and he is the one who is talking with you." And he said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshipped him.

And Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and those who may see may become blind." And then in verse 40, "Those of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things and said to him, 'We are not blind too, are we?' Jesus said to them, 'If you were blind, you would have no sin.

But since you say, 'We see,' your sin remains.'" All of that was an introduction. Because it's difficult to understand what he says in the next statement without understanding chapter 9. When he says he is the door, now I hope you're already thinking, I hope you're already making the connection.

When he's saying, "I am the door," he's saying the Jews are not. And that's why chapter 1, chapter 10, verse 1, begins with an indictment of the Jewish leaders that they are not the door to eternal life. That they are not the door. The synagogue is not the door for your refuge and your safety.

So what I want to do, again, these three observations of what Jesus says in chapter 10 about these two statements, about him being the door and the shepherd. And I'm using it interchangeably because that's how it's used in chapter 10. And it's all as in response to the Jewish leaders kicking out this blind man for stating the truth.

First thing that he says, an indictment against the Jews, "Jesus is the owner and not a hired hand." Again, this is an indictment against the leaders. Verse 10, chapter 10, verse 1, "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber." Now, who is he referring to?

Clearly, he's talking about the Pharisees. He's talking about these leaders. That they are standing in the position of proclaiming the word of God, but they were never appointed by God himself. They were thieves who didn't come through the door and they basically forced their way into leadership. Now, all throughout Israel's history, one of the primary indictments against the nation of Israel almost always started with the leaders going astray.

People that God did not anoint speaking. The people that God did not call self-willed themselves. Maybe through some family ties, maybe through some sort of revolt, maybe through education, maybe through talent, but it wasn't God-ordained. In fact, if you want to read details about that, Jeremiah is a really good book to see what God thinks of Israel's leaders.

Because the passage that I'm going to read to you, you can find it in dozens and dozens and dozens of other passages, but I'm going to choose only one for the sake of time. Jeremiah 14, 14, "Then the Lord said to me, 'The prophets are prophesying falsehood in my name.

I have neither sent them nor commanded them nor spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, futility, and a deception of their own mind.'" In other words, they're thinking to themselves, "What should I say? What can I say?" Instead of speaking the truth, they're speaking what they think is important, what maybe you want to hear.

That's exactly what Paul says to Timothy, that in times that people aren't going to want to hear the truth. Sometimes the truth is encouraging and sometimes the truth is cutting. He said, "They're not going to put up with the cutting part and they're going to gather around themselves leaders who want to tickle their itching ears." And this was not a problem only of the end times.

We see in the Old Testament, this was a continual problem with the nation of Israel. These false teachers were forcing their way into leadership and they weren't speaking for God. He says that they have come to rob and to steal. In Matthew 7, 15, "Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves." Well, how are they thieves?

Well first of all, they're thieves because they rob God of his glory. The reason why they jump in and try to be leaders is for self-exaltation, self-glorification. Even though they talk about God, ultimately it's about themselves. They're not willing to be in the back. They're not willing to serve.

They're not willing to be in the shadows. Their primary reason to be leader is so that they can rob God of his glory in the name of Christ. But they also rob people of access to truth and to God's glory. So not only do they rob God, they rob the sheep because they stand in a place where they supposedly speak for God, but ultimately bring glory to themselves.

In fact, it goes a bit further in John 10, 12-13. It says, "He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep," again, the Israel's leaders, "sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees. And the wolf snatches them and scatters them.

He flees because he is a hired hand and he's not concerned about the sheep." In other words, what he is saying is you're not safe under their leadership because they're there for themselves. So if you being there helps them, then they might be benevolent. They might be there serving you.

But as soon as his life is in danger, as soon as it doesn't benefit him, he packs up and he leaves. So in other words, he's warning them, you're not safe there. Now why is he saying this? Because of what just happened in chapter 9. The nation of Israel was living in fear of being kicked out of the synagogue.

And so they were jumping over hoops, obeying all of these laws. And many of them probably were looking at this and said, "Well, the Sabbath law is ridiculous. That we can walk 300 feet, but as soon as we walk 301 feet, we broke the Sabbath? That we can feed the donkey, but we can't feed the poor man?

These laws don't make any sense. But if you went against the leadership and you questioned them, you get kicked out of the synagogue and basically your life is ruined." And that's why the first thing that he does, he brings indictment against the nation of Israel. That's not where life is.

See, shepherds who don't have ownership and who are only there for his own glory, when the wolf comes, he will flee. They don't ache for the people. They don't cry out for those who are hurting or drifting. They've never had compassion for the lost. It was just a legalistic duty.

And it was, you know, one way to bring glory to himself is to go out into the world, make a lot of money, become famous. Or another way to do that is become a leader in the church, get a good reputation, have many people who may honor you. They're seeking their self-glory, except they're just doing it in the church.

We have countless, countless examples throughout church history, how the church became corrupt because of these false leaders. In contrast, we see Jesus in Matthew 9, 36, seeing the people, he felt compassion for them because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. In other words, why did he feel compassion?

Jesus had compassion because those sheep were his. They weren't just bad news that he was seeing on television. You know, like you can hear horrific things and say, "Oh, I feel bad." And then you just press dislike. But that's usually where it ends because we don't have a personal connection with that.

But it's a whole different story when it's our kids, when it's my uncle, when it's my dad, my brother. So Jesus says he had compassion because he's a true shepherd. And those are his sheep, John 10, 2-3. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep.

To him, the doorkeeper opens. In other words, God has an ordained path. And you know that he's the shepherd because God has been preparing for him to come for generations. He sent magi, prophets, angels, and even John the Baptist to go ahead of him, prepare, and to ordain so that the door that Jesus comes through may be wide open.

And the reason why he's saying that is you will recognize who the good shepherd is because he will come through the door that has been opened by God himself. And that's the reason that we see in Matthew 3-15 when John the Baptist, whose whole purpose was to prepare the way for the coming of Christ, Jesus comes out.

And what's the first thing that he does before he enters ministry? He gets baptized by John the Baptist. John the Baptist looks at him and says, "My whole ministry was to prepare for you. I'm unworthy to even untie your sandals. Why would I be baptized by you?" And he says, "This must be done to fulfill all righteousness." In other words, Jesus himself was coming through the front door.

He was coming through the door that was prepared by the prophets, the magi, the angels, and John the Baptist. So when you see the Son of Man coming through the door that God had opened, you know that that was the good shepherd that God had prepared. Number two, not only is he the owner, Jesus knows his sheep and his sheep know him.

In John 10-5, "To him the doorkeeper opens and the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out." Now I have a really, I think, appropriate video that I want you to watch and it's only about a minute and a half. So if we can watch that for a minute before I jump back in.

>> Okay, let me stop right there. All right. For those of you who are here who didn't hear the sound, okay, basically the three children were trying to get the attention of the sheep and the sheep don't recognize the voice, so they don't move. But you notice when the farmer, the shepherd comes, the owner, and he begins to make sound, if you could see it, the sheep all of a sudden perk up.

As soon as they hear his voice, they perk up and you can see all of them just kind of perking up and then he begins to call and they all just kind of swarm at him. All right, so Jesus knowing the context of the farmers, the agriculture culture that people would have easily understood, he's using that as saying, he says when the true shepherd comes, you will be able to recognize his voice.

In verse 4, 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 will not follow but will flee from him because they do not know the voice of the stranger. And he repeatedly says he knows them, he knows them, they know him, they know him.

And the word know here isn't talking about knowledge. The sheep didn't raise their head and say, huh, he's wearing that same jacket, you know. Everything that we know about this man, he seems to fit that knowledge. He's not talking about an academic knowledge of the shepherd. He's not talking about that he had written bio, a resume of all of his sheep.

He's talking about an intimate relationship, a personal intimate knowledge of each sheep. And so he knows them and they know him and the Bible says that. He said he counts every hair on our head. You know, if somebody says something like that to me, if another human being says that to me, I know your sentiment but it's a hyperbole, right, it's an exaggeration.

There's no way you know the number of hair on my head. I mean, I don't know how many are going to fall off today. So there's no way you would know, right. But when God says, I know every strand of hair on your head, you know that he knows the exact number.

He knows. He knows when we were born. He knows when we're going to die. He knows what kind of life we're going to live. He knows what kind of sickness. He knows our hardship. He knows our anxieties. He knows our fears. He knows when we're full. He knows when we're hungry.

He knows when we're dejected. He knows when we feel hopeless. He knows when we're caught in a trap of our sins. And he knows how to lead us out of that. That's what he means when he says he knows his sheep. He knows us well. He's not some stranger standing far off making loud noises.

Say, if you hear his noise, come to me. He says no. He knows us. He knows our struggles and he approaches us. And that's why he says, my sheep know me. They know my voice and they follow. Why do they follow? Because when we hear his voice, why do the sheep follow the shepherd's voice and not the other children?

Because that shepherd is the one who feeds them. That shepherd is the one who takes care of them. In Mark chapter 13, 22, it says, for false cries and false prophets will arise and will show signs and wonders in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect. You know why he says if possible?

Because he's saying it's not possible. In other words, there's going to be a lot of people who may pose to be the elect, but when the true deception comes, they may also fall. But they're not the true elect. That's what he means by that. Because those who are of his, when they hear their savior's voice, they recognize him.

Just even application of our own lives. How did you come to Christ? In some way, in some form, whether it was preaching from the pulpit, whether it was somebody who shared with you one on one, maybe some of you heard the gospel from somebody out on the street. Maybe you just read a book about the gospel.

Maybe you went to a conference. We don't know. But at some point, all of us heard his voice. And we recognized him as our shepherd. And we believed. You didn't go to three, four years of apologetic classes. You didn't understand your faith that you do now about how the Bible came to us and the fulfilled prophecies and God's inerrant word, his own very breath and experiences that you've had with Christ.

You didn't have knowledge of all of that. But somehow, you heard his voice and you recognized that he's your maker. You recognized the shepherd's voice, and that's why we followed him. Even as he told us to pick up our cross, even as hardship came into our lives. We recognize his voice and we follow him.

That's why the primary goal of the church, the primary goal of the under shepherd is to make his voice clear. If I stand up here for years and years and tell you because I live longer than you, that you should listen to me, I'm telling you, don't listen to me.

I'm telling you right off the bat. Don't listen to me. If I stand here and say, because I've been a pastor and I've been leading a church for almost 30 years, I have much more experience than you, so you need to listen to me, don't listen to me. Because there's people who've done ministry 50 years more than I did.

Maybe not 50 years, that'd be a long time, right? Or 50 years compared to my 30 years. So then you should listen to him. Oh, I went to seminary and I had education. Well, somebody has a PhD, then you should listen to him. No matter if I put my own personal experience and my own talent, my own gift, and my own education as the authority that you ought to follow, you should not follow because the primary goal of the church is to make his voice clear because the primary goal of every Christian is to follow the shepherd, not the under shepherd, not the leadership.

The goal of the leadership is to point you to the true shepherd Christ. If our goal is to have the best organized church, then we should hire MBAs, you know, people who've studied and got their masters and how to milk the most productiveness out of the church. If the goal of the church is branding, we want people to know who we are and we want, when we say Berean, we want the whole world to know who we are, then we should consult Coca-Cola, you know, in our generation, they did the best job, right?

Or Facebook, we should get people who are experts in branding. If we want to make the greatest impact in our society to influence people by what we think is important, then we should get influencers, right? Social media influencers. So if they have 30,000 followers or a million followers, we should recruit some of these people and spend some of our money asking them to help us be a better influence because somehow they figured it out.

But if our goal is to get to God, the most important thing that the church needs to do is to make his voice clear so that his sheep will hear his voice and continue to follow him. That's the goal of the church. So even if all other parts of the church isn't running well, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't run it well, I'm not saying we shouldn't have influence, but the primary and the most important and the greatest task that we need to give all our energy to, our finance to, is to make sure that our shepherd's voice is made clear.

All the more, as you and I are in a situation in a world pandemic, you know, I lived over 50 years and I never experienced anything. Of course, I've never gone through the war physically. You know, my parents' generation and that generation went through all kinds of wars, but I haven't experienced that.

This is probably the craziest thing, at least most people, you know, my age or younger would say that they've ever seen, unless you've been to some kind of war. In this time of darkness and uncertainty, whose voice are we looking to? A lot of people are hanging on to every word of the governor, every word of the president or the doctors, or maybe even the lawyers, or sometimes the movie stars, the athletes.

What do they have to say? What are they saying? When is it safe? When can we live? Where's the stock market going? Is my job going to be okay? But who do we look to? Whose voice are we looking to? Do we pay attention to our shepherd's voice as much as we pay attention to the leaders of our country?

Because all leaders ultimately are his under shepherds. Third and finally, Jesus, the door, the good shepherd, leads us to green pastures and to abundant life. The reason why they hear his voice and they follow him is because they know that the shepherd is going to lead them to green pastures.

Now, if the shepherd says something and they all run and every time they run, he hits them, right? They're going to hear his voice and they're going to run the opposite direction. They're not going to follow him. They're going to run from him. But when the shepherd says something and the sheep perk up and they go, they run to him because they know that he's going to lead them to green pastures.

And that's why we follow. Sometimes the green pastures may be a path that you have to go through the valley to get there. Sometimes you have to go through wolves because the green pastures is on the other side. And that's why they cling to the shepherd because they know that the shepherd knows the way.

They know that the shepherd is going to protect them. They know that if they stick with the shepherd, they're going to green pastures. And that's what he says in chapter 10, verse 9 through 12. I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved. You see the door that they're trying to get into the synagogue.

You're trying so hard and you're so afraid of being kicked out of the synagogue. But once you get in there, it's actually more dangerous because they're thieves. And when danger actually comes, they're going to leave. But if you come through me, he said, you will be saved. And we'll go in and out and find pasture.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and to destroy. And who is he talking about? The Pharisees. I came that they may have life and have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. You see the distinction between the shepherds, the fake shepherds and the real shepherd.

The fake shepherd will lay your life down to protect himself. The good shepherd lays down his life to protect us. You know, one of my favorite passages and favorite parts of the gospel message is this part where he says that I have come to give life and to give it abundantly.

He didn't just give life. He didn't just get people who are going to die and go to hell and be punished forever. And then he just kind of like reluctantly saved us and said, OK, now you don't have to go. He changed the line for us. Now we can get to heaven.

He says, I have come to give life and to give this life abundantly. So sometimes we focus on the life and we miss the whole part of being abundant. Because the part of life, the point of life is the abundant life, not just life. Because sometimes we think of life as just not dying.

Sometimes we think of life as just not being punished, not going to hell. He said the whole point of why he came and why his sheep hears his voice and they follow him is so that he may lead them to green pasture so they may have life abundant. In 2 Peter 1 11, it says, for in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.

In other words, it's going to be crystal clear. Everything that you need for a life of godliness has been given to you. God did not give you bits and pieces and tease us. He's not playing hide and seek. That if you find me under the rock, if you find me in certain places that that I'll come out and I'll bless you.

He says, no, he said he will abundantly supply it to you. Neon signs, straight roads. And that's why if you guys ever studied the cities of refuge, that's where people ran when they when they by accident killed somebody. And the avenger of blood, their nearest kin basically wants to kill you because you killed their relative.

So out of fear, they begin to run to the run to the city of refuge, six cities scattered around Israel in the highest plains so that anyone anywhere in Israel can see. And there was a constant reminder that if I'm in danger, I go to the city, I go to the city of refuge.

All the best roads in Israel were roads that were that led them to the city of refuge because God commanded them to lower the the mountains or the hills and raise the valleys. In other words, make the path that runs to the city of refuge the easiest path that they can take so that the one who is running will not have to go through the valleys.

They don't have to go climb the hills that they just run a straight path to the city of refuge. Why did he do that? Of course, he cared. He was trying to protect somebody who accidentally killed somebody. But ultimately, all of that pointed to Christ. That the roads that lead to Christ.

For his sheep, he prepared for us, and he says he abundantly prepared for us. Isaiah 55, 7, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to the Lord and he will have compassion on him and to our God. And he will abundantly pardon.

Do you sometimes feel like when you repent that God reluctantly forgave you? Oh, my gosh, again, OK, just one more time, you do it again, I'll kill you. How many times do we think? We've exhausted his patience. And we are forgiven, but just barely, you know, just barely. You know, there's some there's some, you know, like lovable, cute people.

They embrace, they sit on his lap and say, oh, you know, Heavenly Father, we love you. There's a lot of us who think that our pardon was reluctant. He begrudgingly pardoned us. That's not what he says. He says not only did he make the way to salvation abundantly clear, he said that his pardon was abundant.

And that's why the Bible describes when a sinner repents. What happens? Heavens celebrate. That's why he gave the picture in Luke chapter 15. He said when a sheep goes astray, he's like, oh, my gosh, he went astray again. He says he left them behind, he went after him. And what was his point?

Every sinner, everyone, every one of those sheep matters to him. And then when he comes back, what happens? They celebrate, they call a huge party. And then they have the lost coin. He sweeps the whole house. It's like, ah, just a little coin. I have all this other, I'm a rich person.

He said, no, that one coin is precious. He sweeps the whole house. And then when they find the coin, they have a huge celebration. Right? Those of us who are anals will look at that and say, well, that kind of defeats the purpose of finding the coin if you spend all of that to celebrate finding the coin.

But that was not the point. Don't get sidetracked. The point is that it was precious. And he was willing to sweep the house. And he was overjoyed when he found it. And all of that leads to the prodigal son. When the son leaves and he comes back, his father is a, okay, you screwed up.

So you want to be one of my servants? Okay. Even that, you're going to have to earn that. Go live with the pigs for a while. And if you do good for the next two years, we'll consider. That's not what he says. The parable that Jesus gave was the father was eagerly waiting for him to return.

And when he came back, even before he said, I'm sorry, he knew. He knew the humble position that he was in. The father runs out, puts a cloak on, puts a cipolla on him, brings him back home and says, we're going to have the biggest party we've ever had.

So when he says he will lead us to green pastures, that we may have life, not just life, not just not die, but have abundant life. We are abundantly pardoned. Exodus 34, 6, "Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, 'The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness and truth.'" You and I, no matter where we are in our walk with God, maybe even this week, we failed.

Maybe even this week, as we are worshipping God sitting wherever we are, we may be thinking, I better do better this week. And maybe we should, you know, we should try harder. But in the end, in the end, the Bible says we are where we are because he is abounding in compassion.

He didn't bring us into his kingdom reluctantly. He didn't turn the other way and say, you know what, that one, I'll let him squeeze in. Every single one of us with the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son. And God called us out by name. And that's why you and I are here.

Psalm 36, 7-9, "How precious is your loving kindness, O God, and the children of men take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They drink their fill of abundance of your house. For with you, and you give them to drink the river of your delight. For with you is the fountain of life and in your light we see light." You see how the description of our salvation, of our life, is not just you will not die.

It's abundance in your house, river that's filled with delight, fountain of light. That's what he means. When he saved us, he saved us so that you and I can have life and have this life abundant. That's why one of the greatest evidence of somebody who has encountered Christ is joy.

Life. I mean, you ever see somebody who accept, genuinely accept Christ? Some of you may have been recent. Maybe it's been a while. Maybe you were on a mission field sometime. But you ever meet somebody who met Christ, like, you know, like just immediately met Christ? You ever meet somebody who met Christ and they're kind of like, "Oh, I'm so depressed." I don't know, maybe you met somebody.

But I've never met anybody who just met Christ and their immediate reaction is depression. Right? You know, part of the reason why so many are discontent is because they have strayed from the well of Christ. They're not drinking from the river of life. Maybe at one point you experienced it, but you drifted from that.

They're not eating from the bread of life. They're not being guided by the Father of light. They're not running toward Christ as life and resurrection. That we want certain doors to open that may lead us to more heartache. We're looking to shepherds that's going to guide us, that ultimately is going to hurt us.

Let me finish with this, this favorite psalm of so many people, Psalm 23. Because this relationship basically summarizes our relationship with Christ. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Meaning, I am content with Christ. I have enough in Christ. The Lord is my shepherd. There are no other doors.

There's no other water. There's no other bread. There's no other light. There's no other gate. There's no other shepherd that I'm looking for. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. Not the leaders, not my education, not my business, not opportunities, not my friends.

And sometimes maybe not even our church. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me besides quiet waters. Maybe some of us are in turmoil. Now I know some people are getting furloughed. There's some anxiety, especially the healthcare workers going into work. There's anxiousness of possibly you're being exposed and you're going to get it and bring it home and there's a lot of anxiousness.

But where do you find peace? So he restores my soul. He's the one where I find peace. He's the one who leads me to green pastures. He guides me in the paths of righteousness. For his namesake, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. You know what shadow of death means?

When you see the shadow, it means the reality is coming. So in other words, it's close. And again, I think, you know, at least in my lifetime where the whole world was locked down because of fear of death, I mean, a good way to put that is a shadow of death.

I think the reality of death has caused all of us to be more sober. Whether that happens or doesn't happen during this period, we know for a fact that it is coming. The shadow of death lingers over mankind. That's what the Bible says. That because of the sin of mankind, the bondage and the fear of death has gripped the whole world.

But he says, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. You know, you notice how he said he doesn't fear death. He doesn't feel hardship. He doesn't fear suffering. He says, no, I fear no evil. Because even as sheep at times will go through suffering, we're going to have to go through the valleys, dryness, wolves.

And ultimately, we will all die physically. But here he says, I fear no evil. You know, the sting of death is sin. So in other words, he says, because he's taken away the sting of death, I fear no evil. That even in death, my shepherd guides me. For you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. The reason why the shepherd holds the staff is to fight off the wolves who come to. So it was a it was a source of a weapon. But he said when he sees his strength, his rod, they comfort me because that rod is to protect them.

His judgment, his righteousness, even at time discipline in the church, he said it comforts them because it's for their own good. You prepare a table, table before me in the presence of my enemies. I do not need to fear those who want to hurt me because my shepherd is with me.

You have anointed my head with oil. In other words, I have been set apart for his service. And so my cup overflows. I pray that as we meditate and think about Christ as our door and him as our shepherd. And we ask ourselves, is my cup truly overflowing? Do I catch myself day to day overflowing gratitude for what I have?

Or am I constantly thinking that only if I had this, only if I had that, only if I could get out, only if I can get a promotion. Is my cup overflowing? Are we experiencing this abundant life? And I think, again, with all the horrible things that may be going on around the world.

That this time is God ordained for us to maybe take a step back to refocus our attention on our shepherd. And ask ourselves, am I going to the green pastures that he is leading me to? Or have I been drifting somewhere else? And let me leave you with this, and I've shared this so many times, I think some of you may have memorized it.

When I was younger, my parents had this little clock in our living room and on it had a little proverb, not from the Bible. I think it was given to them as a gift. And on that it said, happiness is wanting what you have and not having what you want.

Let me say that again. Happiness is wanting what you have and not having what you want. And I remember so many days sitting on my couch, angry about something, discontent about something. Maybe I got in a fight with my brothers or my mom punished me for something. And I'm just sitting there pouting and I'm looking at this clock and I would just, happiness is having what you want, not wanting what you have.

Now, it got embedded into my psyche, not because I understood it, not because I was applying it, but because it was just right there. It was on the wall for years. Looking back at it now, and I think so much about how, where my discontent comes from. So much of my discontent comes from wanting to think that if I have what I want, that that's when I'm going to have abundant life.

But the salvation that he gave us, every sheep of his already has. And when we recognize the value of what God has already given us, that's when we find life. That's when we find life abundantly. So I pray that again, there's all the distractions and everything else that again, not that you're not distracted, there's a lot of stuff to distract us even at home.

But in the midst of this pandemic and when our normal life is not happening right now, that it'd be an opportunity for us to focus. What is it that I should be rejoicing in that I've kind of drifted from? And learn to restore that abundant life that God intended for us.

Let's pray.