Sermon Series: He Calls His Own Sheep By Name

 

The Lord is My Shepherd

John 10:1-6; Psalm 23:1a

January 8, 2006

Dr. Larry D. Thorson

 

 

John 10:1-6

Jn 10:1 “I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber.    

Jn 10:2 The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep.    

Jn 10:3 The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice.   He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.    

Jn 10:4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.    

Jn 10:5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” 

Jn 10:6 Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them.

 

Psalm 23

Ps 23:1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.   

Ps 23:2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,   

Ps 23:3 he restores my soul.  He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Ps 23:4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Ps 23:5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Ps 23:6 Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

 

Today we’re starting an eight week series entitled “He Calls His Sheep By Name”.  It’s going to be a fun series that looks at some of the many references to sheep in the Bible, the most famous of which is the twenty third Psalm. 

The Bible talks a lot about sheep.  Even the word pastor is from the same word for herdsman.  It means to feed or nurture and it’s derived from the word for pasture which means a place of feeding.     

 But when the Bible talks about sheep it’s usually comparing us to sheep which I think beats being compared to a pig or an armadillo or a porcupine.  But the thing about sheep is that they don’t do very well on their own which makes people think they’re pretty stupid.  But they’re grazing animals not hunting animals.  They do best when they have a leader who guides their grazing and keeps them together. 

            The problem with comparing humans to sheep is that humans think sheep are stupid animals because they need a shepherd to guide them whereas we pride ourselves in being intelligent and self supporting.  You’ve never seen a sheep walk on the moon.  But then you’ve also never seen a human walk on the moon apart from a very large, intelligent team at NASA with leaders who pulled those brilliant minds together.     

What we’re going to see in this series is that we really are like sheep in that we need a shepherd to guide us.  But that doesn’t mean we’re weak or stupid.  That’s just how we’re designed.  The problem is that the world is filled with shepherds who abuse their power and hurt us.  Then we never want to trust another shepherd again but we become even more vulnerable when we go off on our own.  

My prayer in this little series is that you will be set free from all the bad shepherds you’ve had in your life: the father who beat you, the mother who criticized you, the boss who bumped you, the pastor who betrayed you.  Once set free from their grasp you will meet afresh the Good Shepherd who wants nothing but the very best for you.         

So hang on, here we go.  “The Lord is my shepherd”.  Say that with me.  It is a rare funeral when those words aren’t read.  I actually memorized the 23rd Psalm in something called “Religious Release Time” in elementary school.  It was held in a trailer parked outside my school in San Jose where students could go if they wanted religious training.  I think I just wanted to get out of school but I’m glad that I did.

            “The Lord is my shepherd”.  To fully understand and appreciate the 23rd Psalm we have to realize that the first part of it is written from a sheep’s perspective, as if a sheep had written it.  I want you to picture a talking sheep looking across the fence at sheep who are under the care of someone else and our sheep is bragging to the other sheep across the fence, "Well, I see the kind of circumstances you live in. I see that your fields are all brown and that you don’t have good water to drink. I also noticed that your master beats you. But, buddy, my shepherd is the Lord!"

            When David wrote what he did, it was with a strong sense of pride. He was literally boasting, "Look who my Boss is. Look who my Manager is, look who my Owner is." David knew from first hand experience that the well being of the sheep depends on the type of person who owned him.

            Now look at John 10 with me again.  This is a passage of Scripture where Jesus was teaching his disciples who were not yet fully committed to following him the difference between following a bad shepherd and a good shepherd.  Jn 10:1 “I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber.    

            His disciples would have understood that the sheep pen had four high walls usually made of stone and no roof.  They were used primarily at night to keep predators out like wolves or jackals.  The word “thief” implies trickery while the word for robber conveys violence and plundering.  Neither the thief nor the robber was concerned for the welfare of the sheep. 

Phillip Keller in his wonderful little book A Shepherd Looks at the Good Shepherd and His Sheep says “I had a neighbor whose flock was raided one night by a cougar.  By daybreak more than thirty of his finest ewes lay dead on the ground.  Fences and walls had been cleared by the powerful predator without it ever passing through a gate or open door.”  (p.281)

            Now look at John 10:2 The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep.   Jn 10:3 The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice.   He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.    

            The sheep pen would hold several flocks of sheep belonging to other shepherds.  The night watchman would only open the gate for someone he knew had sheep in that pen.  Multiple flocks could be stored in a common pen only if the shepherd knew his sheep and his sheep knew their shepherd. 

People say sheep are stupid but over a period of time sheep will come to associate the sound of the shepherd’s voice with special benefits.  They also know enough to stay away from predators.  A trust develops between the sheep and their shepherd.

It says “He calls his own sheep by name…”  In my last church we had some 1100 members which in Texas is a small neighborhood church.  People would visit us from the neighboring mega churches which had the finest of everything.  One church down the street from us had a shopping mall with a food court, video arcade center, health club and multiple theaters for its 15,000 members.  We couldn’t compete with that on any level except one.  If you joined our church, the pastors knew your name and we’d pray for you by name on a weekly basis.  The same is true here.

Knowing someone’s name indicates that you care about them.  They  mean something to you.  I haven’t met too many people who when I ask them what their dog’s name is say “Oh he doesn’t have a name, he’s just a dog.”  My father-in-law the cattle farmer in Virginia even has names for each of his bulls. Interestingly he doesn’t have names for his cows or his calves.

I read of a man who wanted to know if shepherds really did know their sheep so he did a survey.  He asked almost every shepherd he met, and they all assured him that they knew every one of their sheep. He had a conversation with the owner of a large flock of sheep, a couple of thousand. He asked, "Do you really know every one of your sheep?"

The shepherd looked at him as if he was crazy. "Of course I do. How could I be their shepherd if I don't know them?"  He wasn't convinced, so he pressed further. "What do you mean, you know them? What exactly do you know about them?" The shepherd replied, "I know the year the sheep was born, the circumstances of its birth. I know if it's broken any bones. I know which diseases it's susceptible to, which foods it doesn't digest well. I know which animals it doesn't get along with. I know its temperament—if it tends to wander or fight or follow" He got the point. A good shepherd knows his sheep.

              Let’s continue in verse four.  Jn 10:4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.    I want you to contrast that with herding.  A border collie uses its eyes and its body position to warn the sheep to move on.  It pushes from the side and the back to move the sheep.  The sheep move because they don’t know what the dog will do to them if they don’t move. 

            But the sheep know that the shepherd has their best interests in mind when he calls them.  If he ever beats them and abuses them that trust is gone.  The same is true for any kind of animal and people.  I grew up with a dog and never had a cat.  When we got married we got a cat.  I had a beagle growing up and he was a genuine, honest to goodness thief.  Skippy would steal a bottle from a baby and wouldn’t feel the least bit guilty.  When he was doing something bad we would spank him, tell him he was being bad and make him go in the garage.  After a little while we’d let him back in and he would be fine with us, for a few minutes. 

            I thought cats responded the same way.  So when our cat clawed a piece of furniture I’d spank her.  That’s a really stupid thing to do.  I couldn’t understand why all of our cats always liked Martha better.  Cats never forget a spanking and they never learn anything from it except to hide from you when you come in the house. 

The Good Shepherd has a trust with his sheep that he has cultivated and worked at for a long time.  They know that his voice means something good for them.  Pastors can have that trust with their congregation, but not at the beginning.  That’s why they always tell you in seminary never make major changes in your first year at a new church.  You have to build a trust with the people.  They have to know that you’re looking out for their best interests.  Once you gain that trust it’s not to be taken for granted.  I know of a pastor who resigned his church because he said his members had lost confidence in his leadership.  They no longer trusted his decision making.  He was no longer their shepherd.

You see the problem with having a man as your shepherd is that a man will let you down.  I want to be your shepherd.  I want to help guide your spiritual growth right up to the throne of God.  But if I am your shepherd you will never see the throne of God because you will only see me.  So instead I want to pray “The Lord is our shepherd.”  You and I are in this pasture together.  We’re going to thrive together in this wilderness because our great Shepherd is looking out for us.  We will thrive as we listen and do what the Good Shepherd tells us to do. 

            You may have noticed that we have made some little changes around here this morning in the way we worship.  We sheep have been moved from where we have been grazing. 

I want you to know that none of the decisions to make changes were made lightly or quickly or solo.  They were made through a process of discernment.  I made observations to our staff along with some suggestions.  The staff developed the suggestions and we brought them as suggestions to the Worship Committee and then to the elders.  Working together we have heard the Shepherd’s voice.  That doesn’t mean everyone will be happy because there are people like me who are routine people.  I have my exercise routines, my eating routines, my sleeping routines, my worship routines and I don’t like people messing with my routines.  In some areas I would graze in the same field until it was dirt. 

But life is changing at an incredibly fast rate now regardless of whether we like it to or not.  I received this email this past week which says what life was like one hundred years ago in 1905

The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.

Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.

There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

Alabama , Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.

 California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union with a mere 1.4 million people,.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower! 

The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents per hour.

The average U.S. worker made between  $200 and $400 per year.

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at home.

Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had no college education. Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."

Sugar cost four cents a pound.

Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

 Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.

Five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:

          1. Pneumonia and Influenza

         2. Tuberculosis      3. Diarrhea

         4. Heart disease        5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars.

Arizona , Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was 30!!!

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented yet.

There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.

Two out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn't read or write.

Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores!  Back then pharmacists said, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health." 

Eighteen percent of households in the U.S. had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.

There were about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.

Futurists say that the rate of change in our culture is only going to increase in the years to come.  Change is affecting all of us most of the time.  Last year my then 86 year old mother left her house of 53 years and her twin sister a block away to move in with my sister three hours away.  She said to me at the time “I don’t want to go but I know that I have to”.  Many of you have gone through the same experience or are facing it now. 

Change is hard but if you know that you have a Good Shepherd looking out for your best interests you can thrive in the change.  As a church I want you to have the confidence that we’re making the changes together following the voice of the Good Shepherd Jesus Christ who loves us and cares for us.  He’s a savior that wants only the very best for our lives.    

 

 

 

            The Bible refers to sheep a lot. 


 

            Sometimes pastors are called shepherds of the flock.  If we say that I’m the shepherd of this flock called the First Presbyterian Church of Hemet, that would appear to make you the stupid sheep being raised to get a haircut.  I don’t like that picture and fortunately that’s not the biblical picture of sheep and shepherds.

I know of a pastor who resigned his church because he saw his members losing confidence in his leadership.  They no longer trusted his decision making.  That’s a sad day for him and his church.

I read an article this week in the LA Times about Coach Pete Carroll, head coach of the USC football team.  It said that Coach Carroll has a different style of coaching, a more collegial style where he seeks the input of players and shows a genuine interest in their opinions than the old style coach who mainly yelled at his players.  When he went to SC there were many who doubted whether his approach would work there.  It hadn’t worked in the NFL.  So he had to build a trust in his leadership style.

           

Notice too the passing of the seasons which can be identified as the Psalm progresses. The year begins in the spring with the birth or purchase of the lambs (the owner's mark is cut into the ear). Then with the start of summer, the sheep are led into the mountain areas, along pathways carefully chosen by the shepherd, up through valley passes until they can begin feasting on table land. By winter they are back to dwell in the safety of the fold.

There is a well-worn story of a great Hollywood actor who was asked on one occasion if he would recite some poem. With great eloquence, he articulated the 23rd Psalm. When he was finished, he finished it to a standing ovation. There was an old retired Pastor at the same party. Someone turning to him asked him if he would recite something. Stumbling his way through the passage the old minister also recited the 23rd Psalm. But when he had finished, there was no applause. There was deathly silence. When the actor got up he said, “Ladies and gentleman, tonight you have heard two recitations of Psalm 23. I have demonstrated to you that I know the Psalm. This man knows the Shepherd.”

 

            With a domesticated sheep, everything depends on the shepherd's care.  Shepherding involves a very protective attitude and sacrificial concern of the shepherd for the sheep. When it says he lays down his life, it is implying a voluntary sacrifice. The shepherd does not have to stay and face the lion and the bear, but he voluntarily does it. He could easily reconcile and justify and say, "Well, what is a few sheep? I can afford one, because I want to escape with my life. Is not my life more valuable than a sheep's?" Certainly, but Jesus Christ did not think that way.

The good shepherd lays his life down for the sheep. When the predator shows up that is threatening the destruction of the sheep, the hireling runs away, but the shepherd lays down his life. To him the safety of the sheep is more important than his own life. The hireling does not give courageous leadership and he will not endanger himself for them because his main concern is his pay.

Why do you think the good Shepherd lays down His life? Because He knows you! It is a personal thing with Him. You are not just a number; you are a personality and you have character. You have hopes, and you have dreams, and you have discouragements, and you have strengths, and you have weaknesses. To Him—there is a relationship of trust and intimacy between you and Him; and He will not break faith with the sheep that are under His care because He knows them, and He loves each one of them individually.

Horse and cattlemen brand their stock, do they not? They get a hot iron and they singe the hide. You cannot do that with a sheep because the wool is so thick. Besides that, you will ruin the wool that is there as well. But a sheep man has to put a distinctive mark on his sheep as well so that, at least visually, someone can differentiate them from someone else's.

This is important, because in areas where pasturage is crowded, there will many times be two, three, four, and five different flocks that are in the same field. Sheep all look pretty much a like, even to shepherds, although there may be something distinctive. But there is a way a shepherd can tell his sheep from others visually. He takes a sharp knife, and he lays the sheep head down on a block of wood, bends it over, spreads the ear out; and he puts his brand in the sheep's ear (usually on the outside so it can be seen).

There is an interesting thing as I mentioned before about sheep. Sheep cannot talk. The shepherd can put a mark on the sheep's ear, but sheep can do something very well. Turn with me to John 10 again. This is the way God's sheep will be as well.

John 10:3-4 "To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice."

The shepherd has to put a mark on the sheep, but the sheep has the mark in his mind. He recognizes his master's voice. This is one of the things I learned with the sheep, because my landlord and I shared the responsibility of feeding the sheep in the morning. They had reasonably good pasture to forage in, but we made sure that every morning we fed them a mixture of really good grains—corn, oats, we mixed molasses within it, put a little bit of salt within it as well. They had a very nice mixture. Those sheep liked that. They would give up grass any day for the fodder we gave them in the morning.

All I had to do was walk out of the house, walk out to the pasture, regardless of where they were and say, "Come on in." They came running regardless. They knew my voice. They knew my landlord's voice, too. They differentiated between the two of them. They understood the time of the day, they knew the voices; and, when we called out they came running.

We had another signal too and sometimes I would test them just to see whether or not they would come without my calling. All I had to do was rattle the pan with a spoon. That disappointed me a little bit, because it was not me they were coming for, it was the food. They did not like me. They liked the food I was giving them.

For you and me, or for someone having sheep like we had, that did not make too much difference because we only had one flock. As I mentioned before, sometimes in places where it is crowded, like in the Middle East, where there is not a great deal of pasturage for them to forage around in, all the shepherds have to share the pasturage that is available to them. There will be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of sheep, each one belonging to a different flock. In a day's time, they all get mixed together. All a shepherd has to do is to give his familiar call, whatever it happens to be. All he has to do is to give his sheep a command and the flocks begins to shake and shimmer and flutter, and his sheep stand up and separate themselves away—and they come toward the voice.

That is what Jesus is talking about here. His sheep hear His voice. His sheep will come when they are called. They will separate themselves from the world—from Satan's sheep—and they will head toward the voice that they recognize (if they are hearing, if they have that mark within them).

What we are beginning to see here is that "The Lord is my shepherd," shows two things: It shows that the shepherd is the personification of tender care and watchfulness. It is another way of saying there is a loyalty and devotion of intense feeling that comes from the top down. The Shepherd will provide.

It ought to breathe confidence into you and me that we have a Shepherd that is like this, who feels a loyalty to you and me that (I am sure) we are incapable of feeling toward Him. We just do not have the resources to be able to do it. But certainly I think that He deserves at least a great deal of the measure of the loyalty that He has toward us, that we ought to be able to give toward Him.

 

 

 

 

            “The Lord is my shepherd.”  I was in the third grade at Walter L. Bachrodt Elementary School in San Jose, California when I attended something called Religious Release Time in a trailer some Christians would pull up to the school and give us some teaching.  I signed up for the class

 

Today we’re going to learn what the words “The Lord is my shepherd means”

 

What does lord mean?

What is a shepherd?

Who are the sheep? 

 

I don’t know if you’ve ever had this experience where you had a car that you meticulously cared for always having the oil changed, washing it every week, keeping it in the garage.  It was like an old friend.  But then you had to sell it and someone bought it in your neighborhood but they didn’t treat your old car like an old friend.  They never washed it, they dented its fenders, a hubcap fell off and wasn’t replaced.  Each time you saw the car it looked worse and worse.  The well being of that car depended on the type of person who bought it.   

 

It's a story about Dollywood. For those who are not country music fans, Dollywood is the name of Dolly Parton's theme park, located in her hometown of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. It's got rides and attractions and restaurants and shows, just like you'd expect. But the article wasn't really about the theme park itself. It was about the people who have found refuge there. People like Thomasina Bicer, a 50-something-year-old employee at the park. Thomasina first visited Dollywood some 10 years ago, at a time when life wasn't working well for her. There she found what she called a "peace haven" that changed her life. "I was on five different medications for high blood pressure and depression, and after I got back from here and listened to her songs, I went off the medicines completely. Doctors asked me what happened, and I said, 'Dolly did that to me.'"

She visited the park six or seven times a year for the next seven years, and then moved from New Jersey to Tennessee and began working at the park. Soon after she wrote Dolly a thank-you note. "I told her that she saved my life. If it wasn't for her making a peaceful, loving place to calm me, I would have gotten sicker." She never did hear back from the star, but that doesn't bother her. "Dolly's a very busy person," she explains.

As it turns out, Thomasina's experience is not unusual. Hundreds of Dollywood employees and thousands of Pigeon Forge residents feel the same way about the singer. One observer attributes the phenomenon to Dolly's "authentic accessibility." Now, authentic probably isn't the first word that comes to mind when you think of Dolly Parton, but whatever it is, people are drawn to it. Even though she makes only two appearances a year at Dollywood, the people there feel that she knows them and cares for them personally. Like Thomasina, many would say that their relationship with Dolly has saved their lives, in one way or another.

But the thing that caught my attention about the story, and the reason I begin with it this morning, was the headline: "St. Dolly and Her Flock." The writer is suggesting that Dolly is like a shepherd to the residents of Pigeon Forge.

The Dollywood phenomenon speaks to the universal human longing to be known and cared for by someone—someone important and powerful, like a movie star, an athlete, a business mogul, a politician. Why else do people collect autographs or have their pictures taken with famous people? And the more important or powerful that someone is, the greater the sense of security and significance, even when the so-called relationship is just an illusion.

The Good Shepherd: Counting Sheep in Preaching Today
Bryan Wilkerson

 

Now, why the extreme reactions? What was so outrageous about this claim? Well, two things. First of all, Jesus was identifying himself as a very special servant of God Almighty. In the Old Testament, the shepherd was a very common metaphor for describing God's relationship to Israel. Remember Psalm 95: "Come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our God our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under His care." And Isaiah 40: "He tends his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart." Several of those prophecies linked the role of the shepherd to the ministry of the Messiah. Like Micah 5: "He will stand and shepherd the flock in the strength of the Lord Almighty." Or Ezekiel 34: "I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd." This was spoken long after David was dead and buried, so God is clearly referring to David's descendant, who would be the Messiah of Isreal.

Karen and I were in India a few weeks ago. One day we went to the Ganges, to visit one of the holy sites, where pilgrims come by the hundreds and thousands each day to bathe in the Ganges, hoping that by doing so their sins might be forgiven. They're hoping that one of the gods will see their act of contrition and perhaps take pity on them, and reward them in the next life. I remember watching one woman in particular, middle-aged, I would guess. She was standing in the icy water, splashing it over her head, and as the water ran down her face, she would look into the sky and talk to the sun, pleading for mercy, hoping to be heard. I don't think I will ever forget that woman's face, turned heavenward, pleading. Is there anyone up there? Anyone who cares? Anyone who can save me from myself and this wilderness of a world?

There's that longing—that yearning of the human heart for someone to turn to, someone wiser and stronger, someone who knows us, who understands, who can meet our needs. It's the yearning for God himself. Not a distant, capricious, vengeful god. But the one true God of heaven and earth. Not a flawed and fallible human shepherd. But the Good Shepherd, God's Son, who lays down his life for the sheep.

My fear is that too many people are listening to the wrong voices. They're looking to the wrong gods. There's only one shepherd who knows us personally, who cares for us personally, who saves us personally. Only one who calls us by name, and offers us life, life to the full.

The Lord is my shepherd. Who's yours?

F. Bryan Wilkerson is pastor of Grace Chapel in Lexington, Massachusetts.