Today’s text is one that is somewhat difficult to deal with, for at least a couple of reasons. One, is we are coming into what is really the tail end of an ongoing dialogue that Jesus was having with the religious leaders of Jerusalem concerning His deity. And we are picking it up near the end of that discussion. So that provides some difficulty, in bringing you up to speed without repeating all of last Sunday’s message. And the other main difficulty is that Jesus makes reference to a somewhat obscure portion of scripture as validation of His argument, which potentially opens up a lot of questions. But I hope to answer those questions for you today, as well as affirming the deity of Christ, and in the process, offer some principles from this passage that I believe are essential to living out our faith effectively. So I hope you will bear with me as we go through this somewhat difficult passage, in the firm conviction that all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, if we will give proper place to it.

As you might recall if you were here last week, Jesus was walking in the temple under the portico known as Solomon’s porch during the Feast of Dedication, which we know as Hanukkah. So it is winter time, about three months before Jesus will eventually be crucified. And the Pharisees and priests have sort of cornered Him there, and they ask Him, “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.” They claim to want to know if He is the Messiah. But the fact is, they don’t really want to know. They have already decided to kill Jesus, but they need a good excuse. And so the excuse they are trying to give themselves is to get Jesus to commit what they consider to be blasphemy; to say that He is the Son of God.

So, of course, Jesus knows their trickery, and so He answers them by saying, “I have already told you, and yet you did not believe Me. And then if I may paraphrase the rest a bit, He basically says, not only did I tell you, but I also did works of God which gave testimony to my authority, but you didn’t accept them either. So they did not believe His words, and they didn’t accept His works, both of which confirmed that He was the Messiah.

But then Jesus makes the most startling, dramatic statement possible, which obviously answered their question, but to an extent that perhaps they were not expecting. Jesus says in vs.30; “I and the Father are one.” This is probably the most direct statement that Jesus ever made in His ministry regarding His deity. He is claiming equality with God. Oneness with God. It is to say that He was one essence with God. There is one other statement that Jesus made to Philip and the disciples, which is just as clear, but it had a limited audience. Jesus said on that occasion, “if you have seen Me you have seen the Father.” But this statement is made to the Jewish leaders, and is the most forthright declaration of His deity that He made.

To claim to be absolutely one with God is to claim to be equal with God. And so we read then, “The Jews took up stones again to stone him.” They feel justified, because they know that He is claiming to be no less than God. John records them as giving the reason that they wanted to stone Him in vs.33, because, they said, “You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.”

Jesus could have answered the question of being the Messiah and not taken it that far. The Biblical definition of Messiah was that He was deity, but their conception of the Messiah was limited to that of a political figure, someone from the line of David who would restore the throne to Israel and overthrow their enemies. And so Jesus could have played along with their expectations and not given them much reason to condemn Him, but He deliberately ups the ante by stating not only His Messiahship, but declaring that He is One essence with God.

So they took up stones to kill Him. And Jesus stops them with a word. Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.”

Jesus then answers that charge with a most interesting argument and one that I think has great theological implications for us. Jesus quotes a relatively obscure scripture from Psalms 82. Jesus said, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I SAID, YOU ARE GODS’? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?

Now this quotation Jesus gives is found in Psalm 82 and verse 6 and there we find the words, “I have said, you are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.” This is a Psalm in which reference is made to unjust judges. And the Lord goes on to say, “But you shall die like men and fall like one of the princes.” So he is talking about unjust judges, but nevertheless the Psalmist speaks of them as if they were gods, with a little “g”. So the Lord Jesus refers to this rather obscure text in the Old Testament, certainly not one of the more well known texts of the Bible, yet he refers to it as a basis for this most important doctrine of His deity.

Now there are several points that we can make from this statement. First, we should point out that judges in Israel did have a limited relationship of union with God because they were divinely delegated representatives. In Israel a judge was one who was supposed to judge under God, and was supposed to judge with the judgment of God. The Psalmist says they had been given the word of God, and therefore should have judged with the judgment of God.

So there is a sense in which Jesus was arguing from the lessor to the greater. If the Psalmist under inspiration of God called the unrighteous judges gods, then how much more appropriate can He be called God if He was the righteous judge, if He spoke the words of God, and did the works of God?

But I think there is justification in expanding that verse to include an even greater audience. And though this may be shocking for some of you to consider, I think that this statement can be applied to us as well. That to a limited extent, we are gods. Or at least, we were designed to be as gods. Now I hope you will hear me out before you charge me with blasphemy as well and stone me here this morning.

As justification for my claim, note that the Psalmist makes a correlation between “you are gods” and “all of you are sons of the Most High.” Now we would all agree that we that are saved are sons and daughters of the Most High. But at the same time, we recognize that there is a difference between Jesus being the Son of God and we being sons of God. Jesus used the designation of God as His Father, and we pray to God our Father, yet we realize that there is a difference.

But notice that the Psalmist equates “god’s” with “sons of the Most High.” It’s a parallel statement. If one is true, then the other is true. And so I feel justified in saying that this is true for us. That we are to a limited extent, gods, even as we are sons of the Most High.

Now why do I feel it’s important to make this claim? I make this claim because I think that this speaks to the relationship of man to God as He was deigned to have in creation. It refers to the kind of relationship we had with God before the fall. And so part of the purpose of redemption, the purpose of atonement, is to restore man to that fellowship with God that we had before the fall.

Look at Genesis 1:26 for a minute. Hopefully a very familiar passage. It says, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Notice that in Psalm 82, in vs.1, the same word translated as rulers there is the same word translated as gods in vs.6. So here in Genesis 1, man was called to rule over every living thing in the earth.

Now that statement alone is justification for calling men gods. As they were in the beginning, as God designed them to be, they were to rule over every living thing that moves on the earth. Not only that, but we were made in the image of God, in the likeness of God. And in the Garden of Eden, prior to the fall, there was a special relationship that man had with God where he was in full fellowship, full communion. That was the design of God.

So man was designed to be as gods in this world. We were designed to be much greater than the ungodly, human judges of Israel who the Psalmist calls gods. We were to rule over creation. Every living creature on earth we are to subdue and to rule over, according to God’s command.

You know, I was thinking about this the other day when I was messing around with my dog. I have a crazy dog named Maggie. She is part pit and part black lab and full on crazy. But little by little I am trying to teach her some things. And as I was working with her the other day, mainly not to try to yank the leash out of my hands and walk beside me, I realized that to Maggie, I must seem like a god. I do all these things that are completely beyond her comprehension. She cannot comprehend how I can drive her somewhere in the car. She can sniff at the car, bark at it, ride in it. But she doesn’t know how to drive it. She doesn’t understand how it works. She knows that I give her food and water. But she can’t understand how I do that, how to go to the supermarket and buy her food. To a great extent, she realizes that I am the source of everything that she needs. And consequently, she loves me. She has no greater joy it would seem, than to lay at my feet and look up at me with those big brown eyes. If I move, she moves. She follows me everywhere I go in the house. She loves me. I’m still trying to get her to obey me, but she is learning that as well.

I wish I could say the same for most Christians and their relationship with God. I wish I could say that they trusted Him to provide for them even when they cannot comprehend what God is doing. I wish I could say that we love God, that we love to follow Him, that we have no greater joy than to obey Him, and do what He tells us to do.

So to say that we are gods illustrates perhaps in a small way our relationship to God, that we are little gods over His creation, even as He is the Supreme God over man and the earth. But I think there is even more to that analogy. I think it relates to our relationship to God as the bride of Christ. Remember in Gen.2:18 when God said that it was not good that man should be alone? It’s interesting to see what God did next. He didn’t immediately make woman. Instead, God brought every living creature to parade before Adam. And Adam gave them all names. That illustrated the rule that God authorized Adam to have over the creation. But it also illustrated Adam’s lack of a suitable companion. When he was finished naming them all, it says, “but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.”

Now I believe that serves as both a historical fact and an analogy of God’s relationship with His creation. I think that before the creation of the earth, God searched through all of His creation and all the creatures that He had made, through all the vastness and dimensions of the Universe, and there was not found a mate suitable for Him. And so God decided to create a companion like Himself, made in His likeness, with whom He would be able to have a relationship such as Adam had with Eve. That is why the church is called the bride of Christ. That is why in Ephesians 5 when Paul starts talking about the way the husband should love his wife, and the wife should love and respect her husband, Paul says [Eph 5:28-32 NASB] 28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are members of His body. 31 FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. 32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

And we see that love relationship borne out in the act of creation. With everything else in creation, God simply spoke them into existence. But with man, God got down on His knees in the dust of the earth and formed man with His hands, and then it says that He breathed into man’s mouth the breath of life, and he became a living soul. God kissed man, breathing His very life into our lips. That speaks of a relationship like no other. It speaks of the love of God for mankind, and His purpose for making us, to be His bride.

Here is the point I want to make this morning. In the second creation, we are born again by the Spirit of God, we are made righteous and holy by the atonement of Jesus Christ, and as this new creation we are designed to be the bride of Christ. We are designed to be like God, to be conformed to His image, to share the throne with Christ as His bride, to rule over not only animals and every living creature on this earth, but even to judge angels, to have dominion over infinite dominions yet to be revealed. We are made to live forever with Christ and to share His glory.

Listen to Jesus’ promise to the church in Rev 2:26-29 “He who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, TO HIM I WILL GIVE AUTHORITY OVER THE NATIONS; AND HE SHALL RULE THEM WITH A ROD OF IRON, AS THE VESSELS OF THE POTTER ARE BROKEN TO PIECES, as I also have received authority from My Father; and I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’ And then in Rev 3:21-22 “He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”

I spend so much time on this principle this morning, because I want you to get a glimpse of what God has in store for those that love Him. To understand the scope of our salvation. There is so much more that I don’t have time to get into this morning. But this is the love of God. It is the love of God that pursues us, like Hosea pursued his adulterous wife. It is the love of God that sent Jesus, His Son, to humble Himself to become a man,to lay down His life for us as the ultimate act of love that He might effect our atonement on the cross, by taking our sins upon Himself, in exchange for Christ’s righteousness. It is so that we might complete the plan of God before the world ever began, that we might fulfill the desire of God as His bride, as the object of His desire, and that He would be the object of our desire. That we might come to Him in love, because of love, and not of compulsion. We were not designed to operate simply on instinctual desires like animals, but to choose to love even as God has loved us. This is the plan of God. We do not see it come to fulfillment yet, but we have a deposit made in our souls that one day will be realized in full when we shall see Him as He is, and we shall be like Him, and be with Him, forever.

Now let me just make a couple of more points of application. I think you understand Jesus’ argument. I hope you understand that He was God, and that He had to be God in order to accomplish our redemption. No mere man could atone for even his own life, no matter how righteous he may have been. But for Christ to atone for the sins of the world, then He had to be deity, in order to have an infinite quality of atonement that could cover the sins of the world.

But there is another point that Jesus makes, and that is the statement found in brackets in most translations; “(and the Scripture cannot be broken).” The brackets indicate it as an afterthought, or perhaps a clarification but I can assure you that Jesus doesn’t consider it an afterthought. Jesus had a very high view of scripture. Jesus is taking a very obtuse word in the Psalms, just one little word, and upon one word He hinges such an essential doctrine as His deity. And as He does this, He says the scripture cannot be broken. In other words, every word of scripture is inspired by God. Jesus is saying that every word in the scriptures is important. He is making a case for the inerrancy and sufficiency of scripture for all of life and doctrine.

And I want to give you a couple of more examples of Jesus’ high view of scripture. First is found in Matthew 22:23. The Sadducees are questioning Jesus concerning the resurrection. And Jesus answers them by saying in vs.31-32 “But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God: I AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, AND THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”

Now in that case, He isn’t talking about a word in the Old Testament as being important. He is referring to a tense. If Abraham and Isaac and Jacob were dead then He should have said, I was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, past tense. But Jesus shows the OT use of a present tense as an argument that they were living, and not dead. Thus He says the proof of the resurrection of the dead was found in the present tense of the verb.

And then one other example of Jesus’ view of scripture. In Matt. 5:17-18 during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” There Jesus is speaking of one of the little dots on a Hebrew letter used to distinguish it from a similar letter. Jesus is saying not even one little stroke of a letter shall pass until all is accomplished. So then in these three examples, we have a word which cannot be broken, we have a verb tense which cannot be broken, and we have a stroke of a letter which cannot be broken. I would say that Jesus had a pretty high view of scripture. And I would hope that we might have the same. The battle against the authority of scripture is undiminished, in fact it has increased 10 fold today compared to what it was a century or two ago. Yet if our Lord had such a high view of scripture that He depended upon it to defend His deity, He depended upon it to defeat all of Satan’s temptations, and as He was the author of scripture, then how much more should we be in the word of God. How much more should we depend upon it for every decision that we make. Notice back in Psalm 82, the judges were called gods because the word of God came to them. We have the word of God made more sure, because it is written and confirmed in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Let us treat it no less seriously than did Christ.

One more point, and that is found in the verses 37-38, Jesus said “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” So Jesus invokes one more attempt to show these unbelieving Jewish leaders that He is who He said He was. They had not believed His words, HIs preaching. So Jesus asks them to consider His works. He says, “believe My works.” My works show that I am from the Father, and that the Father is in Me and I in Him.

Nicodemus, who was one of them, had spoken earlier to Christ in secret in John 3:2 saying “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” So Jesus is appealing to just that kind of reasoning. He says, believe Me because of My works. That was the reason Jesus did signs and wonders. It was to confirm by signs that God was with Him. It’s the same reason that the apostles did signs and wonders. It was to confirm that they spoke the words of Christ. Miracles were not given to simply heal people because they were sick. That was a benefit of the sign, but that was not the reason for the sign. The reason was to confirm the word that they were preaching was of God. And that is what Jesus appeals to. Believe My works, that they might believe My words.

But there is an application of that for us, I believe as well. And that is this; that when we give testimony to the grace of God, to our salvation, to our Christianity a lot of times we are met with rejection, with disbelief. Sometimes, we are even met by animosity, as in the case with Christ here in our text. But there is more that we can share beyond our words. And that is our works. We should be able to have the same argument as Jesus Christ. We should be able to say as He did, “If you won’t believe my words, then believe my works. I am doing the works of Christ. You should be able to show your friends and coworkers and family, that Christ is in you, and your works are the evidence of His life in you.

Not everyone is going to accept you, or believe in what you are saying. But as we see in this passage, Jesus left Jerusalem and went to Bethany where John the Baptist had preached during his ministry, and those people saw the signs that Jesus was doing, and it says that many believed in Him there.

Listen, I’m afraid that there is a disconnect today between what the church professes and what it practices. I’m afraid that when the lost look at the lives of professing Christians today they don’t see the truth of the scriptures lived out. And as a result, they have an excuse. I’ve said it before, your life is either an example or an excuse. Your life is an example of a Christ filled person, and as such points men to Christ, or your life is an excuse as to why they don’t need to believe, and as such your life turns men away from Christianity. I hope that it may be an example.

I hope that you will take away from this message today the realization that you were meant to live for so much more than what this life offers. You were meant to be gods, to become the bride of Christ. That is why Christ came to earth and died for us. That we might become righteous through faith in HIs sacrifice. And then I hope that you will walk in this life with a dependency upon the inerrancy and sufficiency of scripture. That we might be totally reliant upon the word of God as our guide for every action and every deed. And thirdly, that we might be a testimony not just by our words, but by our works. As we do the works of God we will show the truth of God in our hearts as a testimony to the world.

I’m reminded of a song written some years ago by the band Switchfoot called Meant to Live. It said something like this;
Fumbling his confidence
And wondering why the world has passed him by
Hoping that he’s bent for more than arguments
And failed attempts to fly,
We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?

Dreaming about Providence
And whether mice or men have second tries
Maybe we’ve been living with our eyes half open
Maybe we’re bent and broken,
We were meant to live for so much more
have we lost ourselves?

We want more than this world’s got to offer
We want more than the wars of our fathers
And everything inside screams for second life,
We were meant to live for so much more

Jesus Christ has made it possible for us to live as God designed us to be. To be all that He has desired us to be. And all that is possible by faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord. Let us pray.

One of the great questions of our age, particularly the post evolution scientific age, is whether or not God is real. From time to time you will hear someone ask the question, “if God is real, then why doesn’t He show us? Why doesn’t He reveal Himself? Why doesn’t God prove that He is real?” And sometimes, people will ask us that are Christians to prove that God is real. To prove that He exists.

But it is noteworthy that Jesus Christ never addressed that question. He did not defend the existence of God. In fact, the Bible is not written to prove that God is real. The Bible does not defend the existence of God or try to prove it. The fact is, that God doesn’t need us to defend Him, but just to declare Him. That He is. Period. God’s personal name that He gave Moses out of the burning bush illustrates that fact. When Moses asked God His name, God said, “I Am the I Am.” He is. And you can either accept that, or reject it. It’s your choice. But there are consequences to your decision. Eternal consequences. And consequences in this life as well.

So we do not need to defend God’s existence, nor define Him. Our job is to declare Him. Let the scientist’s expostulate on their theories. God has declared who He is. Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Science changes it’s mind from day to day, but the truth of God endures forever. I was telling my kids just this week much of the dietary advice we were given about fats and carbs growing up has now been proven to be completely wrong. Science can change it’s mind without any problem whatsoever and what had once been proclaimed to be the facts is just conveniently dismissed in favor of new facts. I saw an interesting quote recently from a man named Werner Heisenberg, who was the father of quantum physics. He said, “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will make you an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass, God is waiting for you.”

But nevertheless, on the question of God’s existence skeptics abound. But God doesn’t need to answer them. It is foolishness, the existence of God is self evident for those who believe in Him. Now there was a similar question posed to Jesus by the religious leaders of the Jews. They had come to ask Him if He was the Messiah. Christ, by the way, is the Greek word for Messiah. It had a pretty broad definition according to popular interpretation. The limited view which was favored by the Pharisees and scribes and priesthood in Jesus day, was that the Messiah would be a ruler, of the royal line of David, who would restore the throne of Israel, and overturn their enemies. The Biblical view of the Messiah was quite a bit more expanded than that, however. Isaiah, for instance, made it clear in Isaiah 9 who the Messiah would be. It says, “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.” This prophecy makes it clear that the Messiah who would sit on David’s throne was no less than the Mighty God. Why the Jewish leaders could not see this from such scriptures is beyond me. But as with most people, I guess, they heard what they wanted to hear. And so they had a limited, one dimensional view of the Messiah.

So the Jews come to Jesus as He is walking in the winter time under the portico of Solomon, that is the remnant wall of the original temple of Solomon that was all that had survived the destruction of Solomon’s temple. And John tells us that it was during the Feast of Dedication. We call that feast Hanukkah today. It was a celebration of the rededication of the temple which had happened during the revolt which had been led by Judas Maccabee a couple hundred years earlier. So perhaps that was the incentive for asking Jesus this question. Because Judas Maccabee had been the type of revolutionary that they wanted the Messiah to be like. And I think they knew full well that Jesus was the Messiah. But He wasn’t the kind of Messiah that they wanted. Jesus was concerned about spiritual things, and they were concerned about earthly things. They wanted deliverance from Roman oppression, Jesus offered deliverance from their sins.

I’m afraid that we still have that problem today. People are always trying to define God according to what they think God should be like. But God has already declared what He is like. And so when a preacher like me tries to teach what the Bible says about God and our relationship to Him, we get vilified. Because the Bible doesn’t square with what they have decided God should be like. I had a woman the other day tell me repeatedly that I could preach about God all that I wanted to, but her God was not the same God that I spoke of. She said her God was a loving God, and a merciful God. And every time I tried to speak to her, she just repeated that over and over again, getting louder and louder. The real problem though with her view of God was that she wanted to be able to deliberately sin and not have a guilty conscience about it. But whether or not her conscience is bothered is not going to change the fact of who God is. He is a loving, merciful God. But He is also holy, righteous and just. And you cannot limit God to just the characteristics that you like and dismiss the others. Jesus said, “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”

So back to our text, Jesus answers their question without seeming to answer it directly. He doesn’t say outright that He is the Messiah because of their misconceptions about the Messiah’s purpose. He has previously told individual people that He was the Messiah. And His own disciples had professed that He was the Messiah, the Son of God. But Jesus knows that what they were attempting to do was not come to an understanding of the truth, but they were trying to find something that would justify them murdering Him. And so they wanted to accuse Him of blasphemy. The way that they decided to do it, was by getting Him to declare who He was in the temple, in the presence of witnesses. And so they descend on Him in a pack, and put the question to Him. Vs. 24, they say “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.”

But Jesus knows their hearts and their deceit, and so He gives them this answer in vs.25, “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me.” So Jesus offers two proofs of the fact that He is the Messiah. First His words show that He is the Messiah. Over and over again, Jesus had shown by HIs teaching that He spoke the word of God. For instance, Jesus said in chapter 8 vs 28, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”

So as He said there in chapter 8, and now again in chapter 10, “I have already told you and you did not believe.” He offers two evidences; I speak the words of God, and I do the works of God. And they had not missed either of those proofs either. Nicodemus, one of their own, and speaking on behalf of the Pharisees, told Jesus back in chapter 3 that “We know that You have come from God as a teacher, for no one could do the signs that You do unless God is with him.” So they evidently knew that He had come from God and God was with Him, and yet they had rejected Him.

So Jesus said I have told you, and I have shown you, and yet you do not believe. He said You don’t believe because you are not my sheep. Now all of chapter 10 is on this theme of Jesus as the Shepherd of His sheep. And so even though this takes place three months later than the earlier portion of this passage, yet the theme of this passage remains the same. The theme is that Jesus is the Great Shepherd of the sheep. Jesus has declared Himself to be the Shepherd of His sheep. And this idea of a Shepherd was a great Messianic theme throughout the Old Testament. I don’t have time to take you to all the references for it this morning. But one example in Micah is quoted in Matthew 2:6, “‘AND YOU, BETHLEHEM, LAND OF JUDAH,
ARE BY NO MEANS LEAST AMONG THE LEADERS OF JUDAH; FOR OUT OF YOU SHALL COME FORTH A RULER WHO WILL SHEPHERD MY PEOPLE ISRAEL.’” So this was a common Old Testament picture of the Messiah.

So having already declared Himself to be the good Shepherd in vs.11, now Jesus delineates those who are His sheep from those that are not His sheep. Jesus gives three evidences for knowing His sheep. First of all, He said, His sheep believe Him. Secondly, His sheep hear His voice. Thirdly, His sheep follow Him.

The Pharisees did none of that. They did not believe His words or His works. They did not hear His voice, that is HIs call. And they did not follow Him. They were not interested in becoming disciples. Here is the crux of it, I think. They didn’t want a shepherd. They didn’t think that they needed a shepherd. And I think that is the state of most people today. They don’t see themselves as needing a shepherd. They don’t see themselves as needing a Savior. They don’t see themselves as being like foolish, wayward sheep who are always going astray, who are always wandering off, who are always prone to get in trouble from predators. People today see going to church as adding some degree of sophistication, or some degree of respectability to their lives. They acknowledge certain facts of the Bible, they acknowledge the existence of God, they are even willing to accept the premise of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, but they do not see themselves as needing a Shepherd of their souls. People want God to be like a genie, that sits on a shelf somewhere out of the way until we want our wishes granted, then we come to Him and rub the statue just so, and say some prayer like abracadabra, and poof, God gives you what you want. We want a god like that. But we don’t need a Shepherd. I can decide for myself what I need to do, where I want to go, how I want to live. A Shepherd is too restricting. A Shepherd might try to control me. So we don’t believe we really need a Shepherd. We’ll take a genie though, thank you very much.

But if you have that attitude, then there is a very good chance you are not one of His sheep. You can’t be His sheep unless you accept Him as your Shepherd. Personally, I had to come to the place where I finally realized I couldn’t make it on my own. I wasn’t able to manage things on my terms. When my life finally got so messed up I couldn’t stand it anymore, then I knew I needed a Shepherd to save me, to restore me, to make me one of HIs flock and to lead me and guide me. And I can tell you this, there is no greater comfort or peace that can be found, than knowing that Jesus is my Shepherd and I am HIs sheep. I have a confidence that nothing else can provide, because I know that He knows me, because I am His.

That’s why Jesus said that He came to seek and to save those that were lost. When you come to the point of realizing that you are lost, then you will welcome a Shepherd, who will save you and lead you and guide you. There is a popular slogan out there you see on t shirts or bumper stickers which says, “not all who wander are lost.” But the fact is, we are all lost. Isaiah 53:6 says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” And until you realize that you are lost, you cannot be saved.

So Jesus says His sheep follow Him, and obey Him because they are His. 1Cor. 6:19-20 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” Some people see obedience as a limitation, but I think that it is a great benefit. I just follow Him, and know He will take care of the details. He will take care of me. And that is such a great relief. None of us know the future. None of us know what tomorrow holds. But Jesus sees tomorrow. He has a plan for me, and I can trust His plan. That’s the benefit of being His sheep and following Him.

But the benefits don’t stop there. Jesus said in vs.27, “I give eternal life to them and they will never perish, and no one can snatch them out of My hand. My Father who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”

Now there are three benefits to the life we have been given by Christ. First of all, He says He gives them eternal life. Some people think that eternal life is something that we get when we get to heaven. But in saying that they show they fail to understand the nature of eternal life. Eternal life, or everlasting life, is given to you at the new birth. When you are born again, by the Spirit of God, then you receive eternal life. It begins at conversion. And it continues forever.

Back in chapter 10 vs.10, Jesus said, “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.” It’s a never ending stream of life. Back in chapter 7:37, Jesus said, “]If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” He was speaking of the Spirit which those who believed in Him were to receive. Going back to that conversation with Nicodemus in chapter 3, Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

So in conversion when we are born again, we are born by the Spirit, and as such we become spiritual beings, and as spiritual beings we have spiritual life, which is eternal life. It’s an abundant life, springing up in our soul which will never run dry because it comes from the Spirit of God within us. And then Jesus says they will never perish. Listen, this body will die but our spirit will never die. In the next chapter, Jesus said in 11:25-26 “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise.” Paul said to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And when we believe that, we can live victoriously in this life. We don’t need to fear those who can kill the body but do nothing more to you after that. Because we can know that we will never die. In fact, we can even start to look forward to that day when this old body is cast off, and we receive a new body which is not weighed down by sin, which is not weak, which is not corruptible. The longer I walk with the Lord, the more I look forward to that day.

And then the last aspect of our eternal life that Jesus is teaching is that it is eternally secure. It’s what the Reformers called the perseverance of the saints. It is the double guarantee of our eternal life. First of all, Jesus said we are in HIs hand and the Father has given us to Him. So that is our first guarantee, and then the next guarantee is that we are in the Father’s hand, and no one is able to snatch them out of HIs hand. In Colossians, Paul puts these two things together: “Your life is hid with Christ in God,” (Colossians 3:3). It’s a double guarantee.

I’ve used the illustration many times of my kids when they were little, and we would have to cross a road or a parking lot. And I would tell my child, “hold onto my hand.” And usually they would grab hold of my hand. But though I told them to hold onto my hand, I did not rely on their strength to hold onto my hand. Neither did I rely on their obedience. I’ve seen them suddenly try to let go and do something silly like pick up something, or turn around, right at the worst possible moment. So rather, I held onto their hand. I wanted them to obey me. But I made sure that I kept them firmly in my grip. Their security was up to me.

So it is with God and His children. All of us like sheep are prone to wander. But though God wants us to obey Him, He keeps us by His sovereign power. We are not kept by our power. No one, Jesus said is able to take them from the hand of God. No one. That includes you and I. Just as my child could not escape from my hand, we cannot take ourselves out of God’s hand. Romans 8:30 says, “and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.” God will keep us from the cradle to the grave through eternity.

And then Jesus concludes His answer to their question in vs.30, in the most dramatic way possible, saying, “I and the Father are One.” Not only that He is the Messiah, but that He is the Messiah promised in scripture, the very God of God in flesh. Now He is saying two things in that tremendous statement. First of all, He is saying He and God have one purpose. That is the context of vs.28 and 29. Both Jesus and God are agreed in their purpose to keep HIs sheep. And this is consistent to what I read earlier from chapter 8 vs 28, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.” So they were in agreement in all that Jesus did and said. He spoke the words of God and did the deeds of God. So they are One in purpose.

Secondly, they are One in essence. They are One God. Isaiah 9 which I quoted from earlier made that clear. The Messiah was called the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father. Now they are two persons, the Father and the Son. But they are One essence. In the great high priestly prayer of John 17, when Jesus is in the upper room on the night before His crucifixion, He is praying with HIs disciples, and He prays to God saying, that they may all be one, “even as You, Father are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us so that the world may believe that you sent Me.” So this statement that “I and the Father are One” is the greatest self declaration of His deity. He makes Himself equal with God.

Well, we read in the next verse that they didn’t like the answer to their question. They had wanted Jesus to tell them plainly if He was the Messiah. And Jesus answered that, but according to HIs interpretation of who the Messiah is. He says clearly that He is One with God. And the rulers know that is what He means because they say it in vs. 33. They say we are going to stone you to death, because you being a man makes yourself out to be God. They know full well what He is saying. But they don’t want God to be their Messiah. They want a revolutionary. They want freedom from Rome. They want to be the rulers of Israel, and rulers of the world, and the Messiah that they wanted they thought could provide that.

Jesus on the other hand, made them feel guilty. He made them realize that they needed a Shepherd. That they needed to follow someone. They rejected that idea. And so they picked up stones to kill Him.

No one here today I am sure would admit that you would like to kill Christ. But I wonder how many of you have rejected the notion that you need a Shepherd? How many of you reject the idea that you need to follow Him, and obey Him, if you are going to have abundant life? I believe that the Jews that day knew that Jesus was the Messiah. But they rejected Him and chose to live their lives their way, and rejected the notion of a Shepherd. And I believe some here today may have the same response. You don’t want to be under the authority of a Shepherd, you don’t want to submit to a Shepherd. And as such you reject Christ.

But I hope that is not your decision. Today you have heard the truth. Today the invitation is being extended to you to believe in Him, to hear His voice, and to follow Him. If you will do that then you will be HIs sheep, and He will know you, and He will give eternal life to you. And no one can snatch you out of His hand. You can face life with the confidence that you will never perish but have everlasting life with God, and He will be with you, today and forever. I pray that today is the day of your salvation. Come to Christ, believe and follow Him. Answer His call.

That you may be able to say as the Psalmist David; “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures;He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousnessFor His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows. Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” This is the life that the Lord is offering you today. I pray that you will accept Him, believe Him, and follow Him.

From the very earliest examples of literature, we find the use of anthropomorphic allegories or similitudes used to illustrate various types of human behavior. Even today, much of our perceptions of human behavior is influenced by tales of animals who talk, and think as we do. And so it is not surprising that we find in the Bible uses such analogies from time to time as a means of teaching certain principles.

Today we come to one such allegory, that of the church, or the people of God, presented as sheep, and Christ as the shepherd of the sheep. Also in this allegory, Christ portrays false religious leaders as wolves who prey on the sheep. Most of us can appreciate this type of teaching mechanism. We understand, at least in some fashion, the picture of a shepherd and his sheep.

But I suppose that this allegory is not as clear to us in this modern industrialized world as it would have been to listeners in Jesus’ day. Because even though we are familiar with the idea of shepherding, most of us probably have never spent much time around sheep. The Israelites though were sheepherders by heritage, going back to the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. When the Israelites moved into Egypt during the time of Joseph they settled in the land of Goshen. They lived separately from the Egyptians because they were shepherds, and that was a loathsome profession to the Egyptians. So historically, the Israelites were shepherds, and as such the people listening in Jesus’ day would have been very familiar with this type of allegory.

However for us folks living today, we may have a vague picture of Jesus carrying a lamb on His shoulders tucked away somewhere in the photo bank of our memory, but that’s about the extent of our knowledge about the subject. Such anthropomorphic stories might be much more understandable for us if they were about dogs. My kids grew up on Disney tales like 101 Dalmatians, or the Fox and the Hound. We have had several dogs as pets at our house. So most of us can relate to dogs. We like to imagine that they have certain human attributes. Some of us even treat our dogs like humans, sometimes we treat them better than humans.

But Jesus in His wisdom did not use dogs in allegories as teaching entities. To be frank, dogs are much more intelligent than sheep. In fact, in some cases, dogs seem to be more intelligent than people sometimes. But to illustrate humans, Jesus used sheep. And before we can really appreciate this passage, I think we need to first of all recognize that Jesus is symbolizing His people as sheep.

Popular perceptions about sheep are actually not all that accurate. Sheep are often considered symbols of innocence, meekness, submission, and patience. Or at least that’s the common perception. But I read a number of articles written by experts on sheep and shepherding, and I have to say that those attributes were not really highlighted. What we perceive to be innocence of meekness or patience they call just being dumb. Sheep are actually very stupid creatures. One writer listed 12 characteristics of sheep that I will just briefly run through, just so that we might get a more accurate picture of what the Bible says we are like.

First of all, he said sheep are very foolish. Out of all animal IQ’s, sheep would have to be at the bottom of the list. 2. Sheep are slow to learn. You don’t see sheep performing tricks in a circus for good reason. 3. Contrary to idyllic pictures that we might have seen somewhere, sheep aren’t all that attractive. They are dirty, smelly, actually kind of ugly up close.4. Sheep are demanding. They always want to eat, and will turn a grassy field into a mud patch in no time, eating the even the roots of the plants. They constantly need new pastures to satisfy their insatiable appetites. 5. They are extremely stubborn. They are almost impossible to herd. Perhaps that’s why shepherds are described as leading the sheep. Because if sheep don’t want to go somewhere, you can’t hardly make them. 6. Sheep are stronger than they look. They are physically strong. 7. Sheep are prone to straying. They have little sense of direction. They get lost easily. Perhaps because they are always looking down. They will wander away without supervision. 8. Sheep are unpredictable. They do foolish things without any sense of reason. 9. Sheep are followers. If one starts running, others will run as well. If one wanders away, others will follow them. 10. Sheep are restless. For sheep to lie down they need freedom from fear, freedom from friction with others, freedom from hunger, and freedom from pests and parasites. That is a rare combination. 11. Sheep are dependent. Without a shepherd for protection, sheep would die from starvation, from thirst or from predators. 12. Though sheep may look differently in different countries, in nature all sheep are the same. That’s an unflattering picture of sheep, and yet that is the picture of sheep that those Jews listening to Jesus would have had.

Now to be fair, the Bible does not paint quite such a dismal picture of sheep. But it does emphasize their nature to stray as their primary characteristic. One of the best known verses is Isaiah 53:6, which says, “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, but the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” That verse emphasizes the nature of sheep to go astray, to wander from the fold, to become ensnared in trouble.

You will remember the parable that Jesus told about a lost sheep who went astray in Matthew 18:12-14. “What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying? If it turns out that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray. So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish.”

So it’s important then that we understand what Jesus is talking about when He speaks in this passage to the religious leaders of the Jews and says that He is the Shepherd of the sheep. We cannot understand this allegory while holding onto some idealistic picture of sheep, if we are to understand the simile correctly. Sheep are a picture of people, of the human condition, and His sheep represents those sheep that belong to Christ. That means they are the church. They are followers of Christ. As Jesus said in verse 9, “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” He said in vs.4, “the sheep follow him because they know his voice.” And in vs.10, He said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” So to be the sheep of Christ is to be the church of Christ. We are the ones who go astray, we’re the ones who are foolish, who follow our appetites to the point of ruining our life, who will perish at the hands of false teachers if not for our shepherd who defends us. Our well being is completely dependent upon Him and His under shepherds.

So that’s our characteristics as sheep. Now let’s look at those of the good Shepherd for a moment. Jesus said in vs.11, “I am the good Shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” Jesus describes first His nature, and then His purpose. First let’s consider His nature. The word Jesus uses for good is the Greek word “kalos”. There is another Greek word commonly used for good. That’s the word “agathos”. That word means morally good. But the word “kalos” is different. It literally means beautiful. But it’s not referring to physical beauty, but to being excellent, magnificent, admirable, noble, praiseworthy. I would add to that desirable.

Not only is He presenting the nobility of His character, but He is contrasting between Himself and the aforementioned thieves and robbers who enter into the fold to take advantage of the sheep. He is the Shepherd of excellent character. One who comes with a noble calling to take care of the sheep, to give the sheep abundant life, to lead them to pasture. So He is making a contrast between the true shepherd and the hirelings of verse 12, who haven’t got the best interests of the sheep in mind, but are in it for money. We can trust that the Lord is good, that His desire for us is for our best interests. This is the failure of our faith many times, that we doubt the Lord’s goodness. We don’t surrender our will to Him because we doubt that His will is for our best. We need to trust in the Lord’s goodness towards us and follow Him.

And then He presents His purpose as evidence of His goodness. He said He gives His life for the sheep. Four times Jesus repeats this phrase that He lays down HIs life for the sheep. This willingness to give His life for the sheep is the ultimate attestation of the nobility of His character. It shows His love for the sheep. Jesus said in John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” That’s the standard of love that God has given to us to emulate. But I dare say Jesus went even beyond this exalted standard. Because Jesus did not just die for those who were His friends, but for those who were HIs enemies. Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Even when we were in rebellion against God, Christ laid down His life for us.

This is the reason that Christ came to earth; to give His life as a ransom for sinners. He says in another place, that He came to seek and to save those that were lost. And the only way that God could bring about the salvation of lost sheep, to save sinners, of which we all are partakers, is by dying in our place. Because God’s law is unchangeable. In the Garden of Eden God declared that if you eat of the tree you will die. Death is the divine punishment for sin that passed from Adam to all men because all have sinned. Romans 3:23 says, the wages of sin is death. But God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son to be our substitute. The Shepherd offers His life in exchange for the sheep. This is the doctrine of atonement; that Jesus paid the penalty that we deserved, by offering Himself as our substitute.

2 Cor.5:21 says that God made Jesus who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. That is why Jesus came. Not just to be a great teacher about life, not just to be the supreme example of how we are to live. Those things are true, but secondary to the primary reason which is to save us from the penalty of death by offering up Himself as our substitute.

Then in verses 12 and 13, Jesus further defines His ministry by contrasting that of the hirelings. These are those false shepherds who are only doing it for the monetary or political gain or social gain that they might get from their position. When trouble comes, when the wolf comes, they flee and leave the sheep to fend for themselves. The point being that the distinguishing feature of a true shepherd as opposed to a false one is that he loves the sheep enough to lay down his life for them. That’s a distinguishing feature of a true under shepherd as well. He may not become a literal martyr for the sheep, but he will give up his life for the sake of the sheep. A true pastor will give up his life for the sake of the church. He will give up whatever career he might have, what riches he might enjoy, what benefits he might have in this world, for the sake of the church. That’s why when I see these television evangelists sitting in lavish studios wearing $1000 dollar suits, and flying around the country in their private jets, I am skeptical of whether or not they are true shepherds. A hireling is someone who assumes the position of a shepherd but is only interested in the financial rewards.

The next point that Jesus makes in this allegory is the relationship between the true Shepherd and His sheep. In vs.14-15 Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.” Notice that Jesus says that the relationship between the shepherd and the sheep is the same as the relationship between the Father and the Son. That is a tremendous statement. The relationship between the church and Jesus, is the same as the relationship between the Father and Christ. Now what kind of relationship is that? Well, I would suggest that it’s a relationship of intimacy, of fellowship, of communion. We could summarize it by saying it is a relationship based on love.

Now when you look at the text you don’t see the word love mentioned anywhere in it. But love we have already determined was the reason that Christ gave HIs life for the church. We know that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son to save them, to become His church. But the word that Jesus uses in the Greek is “ginōskō”, which is translated “know”. But He isn’t talking about knowing as just knowing information. He is using a term that indicated intimacy. Sometimes it was used to indicate sexual intimacy. In Jewish terminology, they spoke of sexual intimacy as to know one’s wife as in Genesis 4:1 when Adam knew Eve or Matthew 1:25 where Joseph did not know Mary when she was with child.

And notice that further proof of that is that the word “knows” of vs. 15 is explained in vs.17 as “loves”. God loves Christ in vs.15, and that is explained in vs.17 as God loves Christ. That same type of relationship between God and the Son is to also be between Christ and the church. That love that we have with Christ is the love of intimacy pictured in Ephesians as the love of Christ for His church. Listen to Ephesians 5:25, “ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” Here it is again, this concept of love being that Christ gave Himself up, that is, He gave up His life for the church. And that love consummated becomes the basis for a communion that can best be illustrated by the marriage of a husband and wife. Ephesians 5:31-32 “FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.”

This relationship between the church and Christ is based on the same love between the Father and the Son. Jesus said in John 3:35 “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.” And in John 5:20 “For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing.” So that intimate relationship between the Father and the Son is to be mirrored between Christ and His bride, that is the church.

Then notice how that love is manifested between Christ and the Father. Jesus said in vs. 18, “No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.” So that love between the Father and the Son is characterized by the Son’s obedience to the Father. He was obedient to the Father’s command. Phil. 2:8 says concerning Christ, “And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” And also look at Heb. 5:8 “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.” So though Jesus was the Son of God, the very God in flesh, yet He humbled Himself to be obedient to the Father because He loved the Father.

Now as Christ was obedient to the Father as evidence of His love, so also Jesus said we are to be to Him. We are to know Him even as He knew the Father. So our relationship to Christ then is based on love, which is based on obedience, even as was Christ to the Father. Let’s look again at that reference which we quoted earlier, John 15:13, Jesus said “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” But what’s the next verse say? “You are My friends if you do what I command you.” There it is. The correlation of love to obedience. You cannot have one without the other.

Jesus said in John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” That is the way love is expressed. That is the way love is expressed by Christ to God, and that is the way we as the church express our love to Christ. That’s the way the sheep show that they know the good Shepherd. They follow Him. They go where He tells them to go. They answer Him when He calls. In Luke 6:46 Jesus asked, Why do you say to Me “Lord, Lord,” and don’t do the things which I say? But the one who hears HIs word and acts on His word will show that He knows the Lord.

And then that obedience brings about the next characteristic that Jesus teaches, and that is the unity of the church is mirrored by the unity of the Father and the Son. Jesus says in John 10:16-18 “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”

Those other sheep that Jesus had which are not of this fold are none other than the Gentiles, that is you and I. We were not a part of the fold of the Israelites. But Jesus came to save the world, all nations, all tribes, of all tongues. The fact that He is the Savior of the world means that He draws all men to Himself. Where there was once division between the Jews and the Gentiles, He has made into one church, one kingdom, one people.

In Jesus’ high priestly prayer, He prays for the unity of the church to be even as the unity that He had with the Father. I’ll give you just a few verses from His prayer which illustrate that. In John 17:11, 20-23 Jesus prayed, “I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. … 20 “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”

Why is that unity so important? So that the world might know who Jesus is. The church is to be unified by the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them, that they may do the works of Christ. We can know Him intimately because He is in us. And because He is in us, we do HIs work. So that the world might know Him as they see Him operating in us. So then the gospel is not the exclusive domain of Christians in America. The gospel is not the exclusive domain of the nation of Israel. But it is the domain of Christ, the Savior of the world, who desires all men to be saved and to know the truth of salvation. That can only be realized when the church goes into all the world and preaches the gospel to every living creature.

Now there is a final aspect of that relationship with Christ to the world. And that is found in the last three verses we are looking at this morning. Vs.19-21 “A division occurred again among the Jews because of these words. Many of them were saying, “He has a demon and is insane. Why do you listen to Him?” Others were saying, “These are not the sayings of one demon-possessed. A demon cannot open the eyes of the blind, can he?’”

So the relationship with the world will be characterized not only by unity with His church, but by division. He came He said in Matt. 10:34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. He said in Luke 12:51 “Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division.” Listen, the truth of God is dividing. It causes division on purpose. He came to divide between the sheep and the goats. Between the light and the darkness. Between truth and a lie. Between life and death. The gospel of Jesus Christ brings division. Unity is to be unified to the truth. We are not to be unified to the world. James 4:4 You adulterers and adulteresses, know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”

This division that Jesus brings causes people to have to make a decision. Will they listen to the voice of Christ? Will they recognize the truth of God? And then what will be their response to it? How about you? You have heard the voice of the good Shepherd today. Is there a response in your soul to the truth? Do you recognize that you are a sheep that has gone astray, and you’re in need of the shepherd of your soul? If the Holy Spirit has so convicted you and called you today, I pray that you will heed the voice of the Shepherd and answer Him, and follow Him. He has paid the penalty for your sin and if you will but surrender to Him as Lord, He promises to be your Shepherd and to lead you into the path of life. I pray that today you will answer that call.

As usual, today we are looking at the next passage in our ongoing verse by verse study in the book of John, particularly the teachings of Jesus. I don’t preach topical messages. It doesn’t matter if it’s Christmas or Mother’s Day, I’m going to preach the Word of God as we come to it. But I will say this in light of the recent events in our country. We live in a fallen world, we live in a broken world, a world broken by sin. And the only hope for the world is not found in political parties, it is not found in social justice, the only hope for the world is found in Jesus Christ. And that hope is manifested in HIs church here on earth, it is manifested by His body. His church manifests Jesus Christ to the world when we are conformed to the image of Christ. So to that end, we are going to look today at a simple allegory which Jesus gave, which illustrates the true church of Christ, and their relationship to the Great Shepherd of the church.

This passage we are looking at today is the first part of a discourse that Jesus gave shortly after healing a blind man. If you look back at chapters 8 and 9, you will remember that Jesus had been teaching in the temple and said some things regarding His deity to the Jewish religious leaders which infuriated them, and so they took up stones in order to stone Him to death. But Jesus disappeared into the crowd and escaped. Then on the way out of the temple, He and his disciples saw a man who John tells us who had been born blind. And so Jesus spat on the ground, made clay and rubbed it on his eyes, and told the man to go wash in the pool of Siloam. The blind man believed Jesus, and obeyed by going and washing, and John says he came back to the temple seeing.

He eventually finds himself in front of the Pharisees, the religious rulers of Israel, and they interrogate him, trying to find information that they can use to discredit this miracle of Jesus. But they cannot. They can’t dismiss the irrefutable fact that he who was born blind can now see. But their anger so burns against Christ, that they take it out on this man, and so they excommunicate him from the temple. That meant that not only was he now a religious outcast, but a social outcast as well. But Jesus comes later on that day and finds him, and reveals Himself fully to him as the Son of God, the Messiah, the Lord Jehovah. And so it says that this formerly blind man worshipped Him. Worship is reserved for God. Not for prophets, not for great teachers. But this man worshipped Him as Lord God, and Jesus accepted that worship.

Shortly after that, Jesus declares to the Pharisees in 9:39, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” In other words, Jesus is saying that He came to separate those who are in the kingdom of Light, from those who in the kingdom of darkness. That is the judgment that Jesus said He brought to the world. Jesus said in John 3:19, “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.” So the judgment Jesus brings is to distinguish between light and darkness, truth and error, and life and death. This is the judgment that comes through Christ on the world.

Now as we come to chapter 10, Jesus continues to teach that principle even further by use of an allegory. The first part of this allegory which we read is that of sheep which belong to a shepherd, which are kept in a sheep fold, and the nature of true shepherds and false shepherds. And this allegory is expanding upon and illustrating the nature of the people who belong to God, which Jesus likens to sheep belonging to a shepherd. This is a recurring theme we see throughout the Old Testament, that of God as the Shepherd of His people.

For instance, one of my favorite psalms is Psalm 23. When we studied through the Psalms recently in our Wednesday night Bible studies, we memorized the 23rd Psalm. I’m suffering a little jet lag this morning, so I don’t trust my memory. I am going to read it for you, because I think it sets the stage for this allegory that Jesus was teaching. Psalm 23 says, “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows.Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”

Now that is a beautiful Psalm. And we hear it used to speak to lots of different situations or circumstances in our lives. But it’s important to realize that the primary interpretation of this Psalm is to paint a picture of salvation. And as we look at it through the template of salvation, we see first of all that the Shepherd satisfies our need for salvation, as He gives us rest from our attempts at our own works of righteousness, He saves our soul, He leads us into the path of righteousness which comes through His own righteousness, He delivers us from the penalty of death, He provides blessing for us even though we live in the midst of a perverse world, He leads us and corrects us through the Word, He anoints us with the Spirit of God, He gives us all things to enjoy, He will never leave us or forsake us, and we will live forever with the Lord. That is the picture presented in Psalm 23, the picture of those in the church, who are saved, who are born again into the family of God, and are of the body of Christ.

Psalm 23 shows the relationship between the Shepherd and his sheep when one is saved by repentance and faith in Christ. The natural state of all men is like that of a lost sheep. Isaiah 53:6 says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him (that is upon Christ) the iniquity of us all.” So those who hear the call of God and turn to Jesus as their Shepherd, by repentance from their sins and faith in Him as Lord who is able to save them from their sins, God lays their iniquity on Christ, and as they follow Him as their Shepherd, they are made part of His flock. That means that they become part of His church, His body.

That method of salvation was true in the Old Testament times and it is true in the New Testament times. That principle of the church is important for us to understand. Jesus was the Great Shepherd of the church of Israel, and He is the Great Shepherd of the New Testament church. In the Old Testament, the church was limited to being or becoming an Israelite, either by birth or by becoming a proselyte. But in the New Testament church there is no more Jew and Gentile, but we are all baptized into one faith, as one new race, a new people, the people of God. But God’s people were always His church.

So Jesus illustrates that relationship through a very familiar allegory in those days, that being the picture of a shepherd and his sheep. Now that was a familiar subject to an agrarian community such as that of the Jews in Jesus day, but it is not so familiar to us today I suppose. And I won’t pretend to be an expert on sheep either. But I have read many accounts from those who are. So I think it’s helpful to our understanding if we explain what these experts have written concerning shepherds and their sheep.

In those days, there was usually a community sheepfold near a village or town which would have been used by several different shepherds. This would be a large pen or fenced enclosure on the outskirts of the village. And during the day each individual shepherd would lead his flock out to pasture and watch over them and care for them. But in the evening, all the shepherds would lead their flocks back to the sheepfold where they would be kept for the night. The shepherd would turn over responsibility to a doorkeeper, or porter, who would guard the door of the fold all night. And from what we are told, this door would be a narrow opening in the fence, which only one sheep at a time could pass in and out of. And so once all the sheep were safely inside the fence, the doorkeeper would lie across the gate, or door so that none could enter or go out. There was no other door.

In the morning, the shepherds would come back to the sheepfold to gather their sheep again in order to pasture them. And the way this was done was each shepherd in turn would call his sheep. In some cases he would call them by name. Names that he had given them. And as his sheep recognized his voice they would come to him and he would lead them out to pasture and tend to them all day, leading them to water, leading them to rest, leading them to green pastures. Now that is a beautiful picture, not unlike that of Psalm 23, but note that it is only true for those sheep that belong to that particular shepherd. There are other sheep that belong to other shepherds, and they do not recognize the shepherd’s voice, and so they do not follow him.

Now that is a simple illustration which shows as I said the relationship of the Lord with His church. And Jesus uses this not only to illustrate that, but to rebuke the Pharisees and expose them as false shepherds. Look at vs.1, Jesus says that “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. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 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 strangers.”

So the contrast is very clear. There are some who enter the sheepfold who are not the true shepherd. They do not enter through the door but climb over some other way under cover of darkness, to steal and rob the sheep. Now this is a pointed reference to the Jewish religious leaders. They attempt to rob from the church of God by climbing up some other way. They do not come through the door, who is Christ. They seek to defraud the church for their own advantage. He explains further in vs.10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” False teachers, false shepherds have the same agenda as Satan. Jesus said in chapter 8:44 to these false religious leaders, “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

That’s why in this allegory they come under cover of darkness. Jesus is called in chapter one the Word, and it says the Word was Light. And the Light shines in darkness. That is how we know the truth, because the truth is light. So the characteristic of false teachers is that they don’t come with the truth, they don’t teach the word of God, they come with lies, with half truths, with silly stories, with philosophy, with human reason, with entertainment, tickling the ears of their listeners to deceive them, to defraud them of the truth, which leaves them in darkness and ultimately destroys those who are deceived. It destroys them because it blinds them to the truth, and Jesus said in 8:32 that only the truth can make you free. Only the truth of God can make your free from the penalty of death.

And that is what the Pharisees, the priests, the scribes and lawyers, the religious teachers of the Jews were; false shepherds, defrauders of the church by their false teachings which leave people in darkness. Jesus said in vs. 8, “All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.” He is speaking of the priesthood and the rabbis and Pharisees that had come to take advantage of the sheep. They are thieves and robbers. They are not serving the sheep, but serving themselves. They do not come through Jesus Christ.

Here is the thing. Though God had appointed the Levitical priesthood to conduct the services in the temple, and to teach the word of God, they had become apostate. They still conducted the services and ceremonies and rituals, but they had departed from the truth. And the other religious leaders in Judaism were apostate as well. They gave precedence to the traditions of their forefathers. They observed their ordinances and traditions, but they had long since lost sight of any application to their hearts. Furthermore, many of their offices were appointed by politics, not by God. Much of the leadership that was controlling and influencing the church of Israel such as the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees had never really been appointed by God. And so they were in it for the political power that it gave them, and for the financial opportunity it provided as rulers of Israel. Jesus says they were thieves and robbers. However, God did use men to be His spokesmen. He appointed prophets such as John the Baptist or Elijah, who would faithfully call His people to repentance. But for the most part the religious leadership of Judaism was apostate.

I believe that has a lot of similarity with the situation in the church today. I would dare say that a large percentage of pastors and priests in churches today are not really called by God to preach His word, but are nominated by men, by denominational boards, by countless human mechanisms, but they are not sent by God, and as such they are not true shepherds or doorkeepers. They have climbed in some other way. They did not come through Jesus Christ. God didn’t call them or appoint them. They are man appointed. But just as in times past, God still speaks through His appointed prophets. Not fortune tellers, not future tellers. That’s not what it means to be a prophet of God. But prophets who are forth tellers. Men who will faithfully proclaim forth the truth of God’s word without adulteration or hesitation.

By the way, let me make something clear that has been on my mind lately. As the church, we need to understand that God has chosen men to be His instruments here on earth. To be His ambassadors, His ministers. We are not all called to be pastor’s or preachers, but we are all called to be ministers, to be workers in the kingdom. God has always chosen to use men to perform His works here on earth. God divided the Red Sea, but He told Moses to strike it with His rod. God raised the widow’s son, but He used Elijah to do it. God is the author of His word, but He used men to write it down as the scriptures. Even when it came to providing salvation for the world, God did not act without incorporating man in that salvation. Jesus not only was God, but He also became a man in order to effect our salvation.

So I say that to emphasize that if there is a work here on earth that God has determined to do, then He will usually use the people of His church to do it. That is the purpose of the body of Christ. To be His hands and His feet. This idea that all we can do is say a quick prayer and then go back to our regularly scheduled programming on television, believing that if it’s going to be done then God will have to do it, and that means we do nothing, is bogus. That isn’t taught in the Bible. Jesus gave us the example of the good Samaritan so that we might learn that if we say we love God, then we need to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. And that means we don’t pass by a situation and say, “My, my. God help that person.” But just keep on going on by. No, Jesus said if you love your neighbor as yourself you will get down off your high horse and spend whatever time and resources necessary to help that person. To be the hands and feet of God. To display the mercy and love of God.

James said the same thing in James 2:14, “What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.”

Now we do those things by the strength which God supplies, but we do them. This idea that we need to just give everything up to God and leave the lost or hurting or destitute to somehow discover the love of God on their own is a travesty of what God has designed the church to do. I’m not suggesting the church is about a social gospel either, where we just focus on meals and water and material things. I’m talking primarily about providing for spiritual needs while not neglecting physical needs. Usually both are needed, and God has designed the church to perform His will here on earth in both of those areas conjointly. And there is a reward James said in chapter 5, to those that do so. James 5:19 says “My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth and one turns him back,let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”

All right, that was a freebie. But I believe it needs to be made clear that God has not given us a commission to be passive, but to go into a hurting, dying world and share the gospel. Well, in spite of His allegory, the Pharisees fail to understand what He is saying. So Jesus expounds upon it starting in vs.7, saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.” Jesus will say later, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me.” So when Jesus says He is the door, He means He is the only door. There is no other name given among men by which we may be saved. John said in 1John 4:3, “every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.” These cults that say that Jesus was not God in the flesh are antiChrist. The new emergent churches that are espousing that all religions lead to God are antiChrist.

So notice that Jesus is not only the Shepherd, but He is the Door. By Him only is entrance gained into the church of God. He lays down His life for the sheep. But He is not speaking of Himself in this allegory as the doorkeeper. I would suggest that the doorkeepers are the men that Christ has called to be His pastors. The word pastor comes from the idea of a shepherd. Peter tells the elders to shepherd the flock among you. So a pastor is an under shepherd. He is a doorkeeper. When the Great Shepherd of our souls went back into heaven, Paul said in Eph. 4:11 that “He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers,for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” So the pastors/teachers are to shepherd the flock. We are the doorkeepers. We are guardians of the flock while living in this present darkness. We don’t save people, God saves people. But we guard the flock, we guard His word, we guard the church and we guard the door.

In vs.9, Jesus again reiterates that He is the door saying “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” He will be saved. What does that mean? That word “saved” has fallen out of favor in many churches today, but to their own detriment. Because the Bible speaks of those that believe in Christ unto salvation as being saved. Saved from what, you might ask? Saved from the penalty of death. Saved from destruction. Saved out of darkness into light. And I will add, saved not only from the penalty of sin, but the power of sin. Saved from enslavement to sin. Jesus quoting from Isaiah 61 when He was in Galilee said that He came to proclaim liberty to the captives and set the prisoners free. What He was talking about was setting them free from the enslavement to sin and the trap of Satan. That’s what it means to be saved. To be set free from sin and death.

And yet salvation doesn’t stop there. Salvation is only the beginning of following Jesus. It is the first step. It is new birth. Jesus said in vs.9, not only will they be saved, but “they will go in and out and find pasture.” Why does the shepherd take the sheep in and out to pasture? Obviously, it is to feed the sheep. This is the duty of the shepherd to feed the sheep. And we too need to be fed spiritually through the word of God. This is how we grow and mature. Hebrews 5:12 tells us, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.” This is the job of the shepherd of the flock, to feed the sheep. To grow them to maturity, to edify them, build them up, so that they can do the work of service that the church has been commissioned to do.

Then the in the last verse that we will look at this morning, Jesus presents a final contrast between His ministry and the ministry of the false shepherds. Vs.10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Now earlier I already talked about the characteristics of false teachers. They share the same characteristics with their father the devil as we talked about earlier when I quoted John 8:44: Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

That’s the tragedy of false doctrine. If we condemn false teachers we are told we need to be more loving, more tolerant of other viewpoints. But the fact is that nothing short of the truth will save you. Watered down or diluted truth cannot set you free. It will not save. Half of the gospel is not the full counsel of God. So that’s why Jesus was so intolerant of false teachers. That’s why He gives us this allegory, because it’s a rebuke to those false shepherds who continue to keep the people enslaved to their captivity even when faced with a true miracle of God as in the case of the blind man, and then have the audacity to excommunicate this man from the church because they hate the truth so much. They end up killing and destroying with their lies those that Christ came to save with the truth.

But then Christ contrasts their ministry with His own saying “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” See, here is the truth of the gospel; it is not only what you are saved from something, but you are saved for something. We are saved from condemnation. We are saved from the wrath to come. But Jesus says we are saved for an abundant life. What that means literally is exceedingly abundant life. Now that doesn’t mean what the prosperity preachers say it means. Jesus isn’t promising you a Mercedes 500 if you follow Him. But what He is offering is a surplus of life that will not fade away. He is offering everlasting life that will never die. He is offering a life that is filled with the source of all life bubbling up within us. Remember what Jesus had just cried out in the temple a few days earlier? In chapter 7 vs.38 Jesus cried out in the middle of this ceremony, ““He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’ But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive.” That is the promise to us, that we who believe in Him will have the Holy Spirit in us, like a spring of living water springing up from our soul that will never fail. The promise is that God will lead us and guide us, not only in this life, but in the life to come, and in the ages of eternity to follow forever and ever. As Psalm 23 said, God will anoint my head with the oil of the Holy Spirit until my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”

I hope that you will hear the voice of the Shepherd today and you recognize His voice as the word of God. And you will believe in Him, and follow Him with all your heart. Jesus said, “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” The invitation is extended to you today to enter through that door and be saved. I pray that you will. Let’s bow our heads in closing.

Today’s message is the continuation of a story that we began looking at last week. I realize some of you weren’t here, but you should be able to catch up quickly – it’s a simple story of a man born blind, that Jesus healed. We looked at the first seven verses last week. Today we are going to try to finish this chapter which is basically a narrative of the people who are affected by this miracle.

And so I have titled today’s message, “Salvation in slow motion.” The idea behind that title is that this passage illustrates salvation in an expanded way. What I mean to show in this message is the progression of faith as illustrated by this blind man. I believe that is why we have this very long narrative in the scriptures. I believe, as I said last week, that every miracle in the gospel is presented to teach spiritual principles by spiritual parable. So to just focus on the historical narrative here and miss the spiritual implications that are being taught would be a mistake. I think the spiritual principle being taught here is the progressive nature of saving faith.

Jesus said in the last chapter, chapter 8 vs.31, that “if you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of mine, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” So Jesus is saying that there is a necessity to continue in the truth, to continue to follow His word, and when you do that, the truth will make you free.

That truth finds support in Psalm 119:105 which says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” So to continue in the word indicates a desire to follow the truth as God reveals it, step by step, day by day. When you do that, God will make you free. It doesn’t say, set you free. It says make you free. It’s talking about not just being set free from the penalty of sin, but making you free from the power of sin. That’s an important distinction.

In the Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln declared all slaves to be free. But the war was still going on between the North and the South. And it did so for quite some time after that declaration. Even after the cessation of hostilities, there were many slaves that continued to live as slaves. They had been set free. But though they might believe that fact, they had not yet been made free. Because they were still attached to the plantations, they had familiarity with that place. To some extent, the plantation was all they knew. They were made free when they acted on the declaration that set them free. When they walked away from their home, walked away from their bondage, and started living as free men, then they were actually free.

That’s the problem we still have today in the church. Many people come to church and hear the good news that Jesus came to save them. And so they believe in Jesus. They believe that is true. But effectively they are not made free. They continue to live in enslavement to their sins. They are comfortable in the world. That is their home. And as such, they are not made free. The way that they will be made free will be the day that the power of sin is broken in their life and they can begin a new life being free from the power of sin.

So this blind man illustrates that continuance in the truth, and the freedom that comes through salvation. And as we will see, there is a progression to his faith. At the beginning, he doesn’t know very much. But at each step of his journey, his faith grows, culminating in worshipping Jesus as Lord in vs.38. So this man’s salvation was given to us as an example. And John reveals that it is a sort of like slow motion, an expanded process for this guy. We don’t know how long it took, but it likely took all day, maybe longer to come to the full realization of what happened in his life.

Well, let’s jump in. There is a lot to cover in not a lot of time, so we won’t exegete every word. But I do want to highlight each step of his growing faith. First by way of review, we see the beginning of his faith as the result of divine action by Christ who came to him and selected him, chose him to be the recipient of His grace. This man wasn’t really seeking Christ. He doesn’t even seem to be too familiar with who He was at first. But one thing this man does know; he knows he was blind. Nobody had to tell him he was blind. And one thing we can be sure of as well; he didn’t want to be blind.

Now that is the necessary precursor to salvation. Blindness is analogous to being in darkness, spiritual darkness. That is, you are dead in your trespasses and sins. That is necessary to understand if you are going to receive salvation. Salvation is not you’re a nice person, you are a good person, and if you believe in Jesus He is going to make your life really great. That is no where taught in the Bible.

Rather, in the sermon on the mount, Jesus taught that you had to come to God as a beggar, even as this blind man had been a beggar. Matt. 5:3 says “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Poor in spirit is to admit that you are a beggar spiritually. You have no means to buy your way into the kingdom of God. And then Jesus added in vs 4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” That means that you must come to a place of mourning over your sin. That’s repentance, and when you come to God in repentance you will be comforted. And then Jesus said in vs 6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” That’s the recognition that you need righteousness, and you desire to be made right with God. You cannot supply that righteousness on your own. That need is satisfied by Christ’s righteousness when He takes your sin upon Himself, and trades His righteousness to you.

So Jesus made clay out of spittle and dirt and rubbed it in this man’s eyes, then telling him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. And in this we see symbolized the man’s faith and obedience, we see the application of the Savior, and we see the forgiveness of his sins illustrated in washing in the pool of Siloam.

But that was just the beginning of this man’s progress of faith. His eyes were opened to the truth, his sins were forgiven. But he is still going to continue in the word of Christ and come to complete freedom. Now in this process this man interacts with four groups of people. We have the narrative before us, so I don’t need to belabor each part of the dialogue. But each interaction brings this man further in his progression of faith.

The first group he interacts with after having his eyes opened was his neighbors. Vs.8, “Therefore the neighbors, and those who previously saw him as a beggar, were saying, ‘Is not this the one who used to sit and beg?’” Listen, when you get saved, people are going to notice. Your neighbors, your coworkers are going to notice that something about you has changed. I remember when I got right with God 30 years ago, while living in California. The next day I went by the restaurant where I worked to pick up my paycheck or something, and my coworkers thought I had been drinking. I was sober. I wasn’t acting strange. But something about my demeanor was like a great burden that I had been under was taken away. And so they noticed something different. They didn’t know what it was, but it gave me the opportunity to tell them that I had gotten right with the Lord.

Well, that’s what we see happening here. He has the opportunity right at the beginning to share what has happened to him. And I will tell you an important principle here. That is, the testimony of a changed life is the most effective testimony. It’s not what you are like in church, it’s what you are like out of church that matters. The testimony of a changed life is the most powerful sermon you will ever preach.

Now this is also the means of a step of faith for this man. Jesus said, If you confess Me before men, I’ll confess you before My Father. And when this man meets the skepticism, the questions of his neighbors, he confesses Jesus without wavering. They could not help but notice that there was a tremendous change in him. He had been blind, and now he could see. So they ask him how were your eyes opened? And his answer is “A man called Jesus anointed my eyes with clay and told me to go wash in the pool of Siloam, and I went and washed and received my sight.”

Now that’s a good testimony. Some of you say you don’t know how to witness for the Lord. I would suggest starting by using this man’s testimony as a template. You don’t have to know all scripture. You can simply tell what Jesus did in your life.

Notice that at this point, this man only knows Jesus by name. He doesn’t know all doctrine. He does know more than a lot of people though as we will see from some of his other comments. But at this point, his faith is elementary. He knows Jesus gave him his sight. Jesus was a popular name in that day to be sure. But nevertheless, the meaning of that name was also well known. Jesus means Jehovah is salvation. So when this formerly blind man said Jesus was responsible for his healing, he is professing faith in the name of Jesus as the source of salvation from Jehovah God.

Well, his neighbors are not really sure what to make of his testimony, so they take him to their religious leaders, the Pharisees. And of course, the Pharisees are very familiar with Jesus. They have been plotting to kill Him for some time and in fact just that day they had picked up stones to stone Him to death but Jesus disappeared from their midst. This is the second group, the Pharisees. And they are defiantly a hostile audience. They see this as an opportunity to build a case against Jesus.

You know, if you were to try to condense all the error of Judaism in one practice or one tradition, then that error would be best illustrated by the Jew’s practice of keeping the Sabbath. The Sabbath requirements were the best example of all that was wrong in Judaism. And the greatest proponents of Judaism were the Pharisees. I’m not going to give you a lesson concerning Pharisees this morning. I’m going to assume you know all that means. But perhaps what you haven’t thought of before is that the hypocrisy of the Pharisees was best illustrated in the observance of the Sabbath.

So I think that is why Jesus deliberately healed on the Sabbath. There are seven miracles of healing recorded in the gospels that Jesus did on the Sabbath. So I would say He did it deliberately. This idea of a mild mannered, weak wristed Jesus is not Biblical. I think Jesus was deliberately confrontational to those who taught a false doctrine. And conversely, Jesus was deliberately sympathetic to those who were caught up in that false doctrine and as such were still trapped in their sin. But He is deliberately offensive to those who heaped heavy loads on others, but figured out ways for themselves to wriggle out of any burden whatsoever. That’s what false religions do. That’s why the scriptures are so damning towards false teachers. Because it keeps people in darkness, and it keeps people from being made free. That’s why sometimes I name names, or call out certain false teachings. I’m not trying to be mean spirited, but I hate to see people duped by self serving religious teachers.

In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that the greatest opposition to true discipleship is often popular religion. Because rather than continuing in the truth so that you become free, they teach traditions of men, which have no redemptive power, and those traditions end up enslaving people to repetitious ceremony that isn’t even founded on truth.

And that’s what the Pharisees did with the Sabbath. Jesus said man wasn’t made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man. It was to symbolize rest from your works, rest in what God has done for us through Christ. But instead, they added ordinance upon ordinance until the Sabbath law had become this yoke that kept them in servitude to their religion.

According to rabbinical law, there was a specific ordinance that prohibited using saliva to administer to a sick person on the Sabbath. They had so defined every possible thing that it was just insane. For instance, they prohibited healing on the Sabbath unless it was a life or death situation. So if you weren’t about to die, they could make you comfortable but not try to make you well. This had evolved into something far removed from the original fourth commandment. So anyhow, Jesus healed on the Sabbath in order to confront their hypocrisy, and to expose their false teaching.

So they confront the man about his healing, but the miraculous part of it goes right over their heads. They aren’t interested in a man suffering blindness being healed. They are interested in finding some way to convict Christ. So their deduction is that ““This man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” vs.16. So their reasoning is that their Sabbath law was true, but God’s Word was not true. Listen, that is the hallmark of false doctrine. Regardless of what denomination it is, or what a religion’s name is, the hallmark of false religion is that they subject the word of God to the traditions of men. You see that all the time with cults. They will claim to believe the Bible, but then they say that their prophet had a dream and received new revelation. And angels or someone told them to write it down. And then eventually, you find that their revelation ends up being the means by which they interpret the Bible. And then finally, they ignore what the Bible says if their prophet or priest says something that is not supported or even refuted by the Bible. They basically say their prophet or priest is right and the Bible is wrong. Many times they end up changing the Bible to fit their revelation. Now that’s the progression of false religion. And that’s exactly what these Pharisees were doing. They had added to the law, until their law superseded the law of God.

But notice the progression of faith of the man who was formerly blind. Vs.17 the Pharisees ask him, “What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?” And he said, “He is a prophet.” Now I don’t know if he was being obtuse or that simply was the limit of his knowledge. But I will say that even in the language of the ordinary people, the word “prophet” did not mean simply a predictor of events in the future, but one who was as the representative of God. He was not only a “fore-teller,” but a “forth-teller,” declaring God’s truth, revealing His will and character, bearing the witness of divine works.

Now that was a major claim of Christ Himself, that He spoke the words of God. That His word was the truth of God. At the beginning of the feast He said in John 7:16-18 “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”

And as I said a few weeks ago, that is the way you can tell a true prophet of God, or a true preacher of the gospel, or a false teacher. A true prophet speaks God’s word. It’s just that simple. That is why I preach verse by verse here. It’s not that I couldn’t buy sermons online like a lot of guys do, complete with sappy illustrations and funny jokes. That’s easy. Anyone can do that. But to preach the word of God is not always easy. It’s certainly not always popular. But it’s what we are commissioned to do. Not to tickle people’s ears. But to teach the truth. That’s the primary purpose for our service. It’s to meditate on the word, to be taught the word. Everything else is just icing on the cake. The music is icing on the cake. Too many churches today only offer whipped cream icing, and there’s nothing substantial underneath. So you get a sugar rush on Sunday morning, and then crash on Monday.

But I wouldn’t be surprised if this man didn’t know a fair bit of theology. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t thinking of Moses when he said Jesus was a prophet. Moses said in Deut. 18:15 “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him.” Moses was talking about the Messiah. So I wouldn’t be surprised if this former blind man realized at this point that Jesus was the Christ, that is the Messiah.

Now there is another group that we see in the text. And that is his parents. The Pharisees go after this man’s parents. They probably were disgusted with the former blind man’s answers, so they go to his parents to try to discredit him somehow. And this is where I get additional support for my idea that the blind man meant Messiah when he said prophet. Because it says in vs.22, that they were aware that the Pharisees had stipulated that if anyone said Jesus was the Christ, they would be put out of the synagogue. And so they avoid that question. They answer in the affirmative the Pharisees first two questions concerning whether or not he was their son, and if he was indeed born blind. But the third question, “How does he now see?” They didn’t want to answer that question. And the reason is there was a good possibility that the son had said that Jesus was the Christ. They want to avoid having to confess that for fear of being kicked out of the synagogue. So they say, “he is of age, ask him.” So we can assume that this man’s faith is steadily progressing throughout the day. He has grown from confessing the man Jesus, to the prophet, to the Christ, which is the Greek word for Messiah. And all along he is steadfastly refusing to budge in his faith in Jesus regardless of the criticism and the mounting hostility.

So having got nothing from his parents, the Pharisees call the man back in for questioning. They are like a bull terrier, they won’t let go until they find something. This time, they ratchet up the indictments from saying Jesus couldn’t be of God because He broke the Sabbath, to saying that He was a sinner.

So the former blind man at this point turns the tables and starts to teach the teachers. And he gives a really great rebuttal to these Pharisees. His greatest point is made in vs 25, as he replies, “Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” This is the evidence that they were too blind to see. This is the evidence that Jesus was who He said He was. And this is the evidence that we need to show the world that does not know Christ. Like the line of Amazing Grace, “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.”

That is the testimony we need to tell the world. The world can’t refute the testimony of a changed life. When you were living in sin, when you were a drunkard, when you were a partier, an adulterer, a fornicator, a liar, a thief, whatever you were, by the grace of God you are not any more. You are brand new. You are remade. You are different. You were once blind, but now you can see. That kind of testimony cannot be argued against. We can have a debate until the cows come home about evolution versus creation. We can argue about the existence of God, and the existence of evil. And there may never be any agreement, and there will probably never be anyone saved as a result of your apologetics. But the transformation of your life is indisputable. That is the trophy of grace that God holds up to the world. That is why sanctification is an essential part of your progression of faith. That is why renunciation of sin is essential in the life of a believer. That is why it’s essential that though you come to Christ as you are, you do not stay as you are. If you are in Christ, you have become a new creature, you’ve been made free. Act as free men and women. Free from not only the penalty of sin, but from the power of sin. Then you will be free indeed.

So in vs. 33, this man makes yet another step in the progression of his faith, he says, “If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.” He’s teaching the teachers here. And in the process, his own faith is growing exponentially. That’s what happens when you start putting your faith in practice, by the way. When you start teaching, or preaching, you start growing spiritually. I don’t necessarily mean preaching professionally. But when you start professing your faith to others, it serves to build your faith personally.

Well, they kick this man out of the synagogue. They excommunicate him. Listen, in that day that was a pretty serious deal. That meant he might not be able to even find work in his community. He was a social outcast. His own family would not be able to communicate with him. That was a very traumatic thing. And I will just add that is something I see happen quite often. Someone comes to Christ, and before the glow can start to fade off their face they end up getting sideswiped by someone. They end up having to choose between a boyfriend or girlfriend or Christ. They have to chose between family and Christ. They have to choose between a career or following Christ. And you know, we could blame that on the devil trying to trip them up. But I think God wants us to make a decision for Him first, above everything else. I think God may sometimes put a choice in front of you. Are you going to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and will all your might? Or are you going to love the world and the things of the world. If you chose the world, the love of the Father is not in you. Choose carefully ladies and gentlemen. What does it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?

Listen, sometimes getting kicked out of your community is the best thing that can happen to you. Like the slaves on the plantations, they weren’t really free until they left the place of their bondage. Sometimes going back to what is familiar is just going back into bondage. Jesus came to make you free. And that was the case with this man. He was excommunicated, and that was a good thing. Because Jesus came and found him in his solitude. And Jesus revealed Himself to him in a way that completed this man’s faith like very few had found. Jesus said in vs.35, “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 worshiped Him.”

This blind man saw, and kept on seeing, until he saw the reality of the Son of God. He saw Jesus for who He really was. Lot’s of people in that day saw Jesus with their natural eyes. But God gave this man spiritual vision. He gave him the privilege of seeing who Jesus really was. The Messiah, the Son of God, the Lord.

That aspect of Christ’s divinity is one that is sorely lacking today. Some think that Lord is a proper name of Jesus. But actually it’s a title. It means ruler, master, owner of all. I believe in the necessity of the lordship of Jesus Christ. Where we bow our will to HIs will. Where we stop serving ourselves and start serving Him. This is an essential part of the progression of your faith. You cannot stop with just believing. You can’t stop with just forgiveness. But if you continue in His word, then you are truly disciples. And you shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free. You cannot be truly a disciple, you cannot be truly free, until you bow to Jesus as Lord of your life. All your life submitted and in subjection to the Lord of the Universe. The Lord of Creation. This man understood that. And so he worshipped Jesus. I believe that indicates that he bowed on his knees before Christ, maybe even prostrated himself on the ground in front of Christ. And notice that Christ did not reject that worship. Because He is God, and worthy of our worship.

Listen, worship is not just singing or listening to music. Worship is bowing before the Lord and doing His will, renouncing your will, renouncing everything and everyone for the surpassing value of knowing Jesus as Lord.

Finally, notice Jesus last statement. John 9:39-41 “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” 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.”

What judgment did Jesus render? I’ll let His words speak for themselves. Jesus said in John 3:17-21 “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”

Today enough light has been revealed through Jesus Christ to expose your sin. To show you your need for spiritual healing, to show you your need to be made free. If you will but confess your sins, Jesus is faithful and just to forgive you of your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. He is able to make you free. If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. What a great time to be made free. We are celebrating our freedom as Americans this weekend. But many of us are not really free. Many of us are still in bondage to our sin, still living under the power of sin. Today the invitation is given to be made free indeed. Call upon Jesus today and He will make you free.