Truth For Life

Alistair Begg: In a large church, or a classroom, or a business, it's easy to get lost in the crowd and just become one of many. But in the kingdom of God, Jesus is aware of every individual. He knows each of us by name.

Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg examines the intimacy between the Good Shepherd and his flock. Let's open our Bibles to chapter 10 in the Gospel of John.

Don't be put off by the idea of eternal life. I have conversations, I've told you this before, about eternal life, how the idea of eternity is a scary thought in many ways. But actually I've been thinking about it some more and I realize, and maybe it's time for you to understand this, but we think wrongly when we think about eternity just as an extension of the duration of life.

An extension of life's duration. So it goes on and on and on and on and on. But no, because eternal life is not something that is first of all out there. It is first of all something that is present here. Today, the reality of it brought into a new dimension. If you like, it is an intensification of the experience of life. An intensification of the experience of life.

You remember when you fell in love? You're like, "Whoa." Time stopped. You remember when you were in the Alps of Switzerland, if you had the privilege, or you were in the Rockies, or you were in the Grand Canyon, whatever it was, and you stood there in a moment of rapture. And you suddenly said to yourself, "You know what? I think I've been standing here for five minutes, and I haven't even noticed it."

They come offering all kinds of stories. They'll steal from you. They'll destroy you. All the false gods of the false teachers are self-depleting idols.

Jesus, life, life as you can scarcely imagine it. "I am the door. He who enters by me will be saved. Discover abundant life."

I also remembered this morning, something that I'd written in one of my little books. 2009, I was speaking at Mount Hermon, the conference center in Northern California, and I must have been talking along these lines because a lady came up to me and she said, "I want to tell you a true story." A friend of mine was suffering through brain cancer and its treatments. His relationship with Jesus was such that the nurse on duty wrote in his chart as a critical comment, "inappropriately joyful."

And the lady said, "Since then, it's become one of my goals."

Be prepared to be thought crazy, because you've got such a grin on your face in the midst of sadness and pain and persecution and disappointment.

Well, we must move on. "I am the door," one door. Verses 11 to 13, one shepherd. "I am the Good Shepherd." Interestingly, here the word that is transliterated, there are a number of words for good in Greek. One is agathos, from which we get the idea of moral rectitude or intrinsic goodness. So, for example, a restorative injection may be administered by a nurse or a doctor, and the contents of the injection are intrinsically good. But they may not give you something that is good in a particularly nice, kind, or attractive way.

The word for nice, kind and attractive is the word which is used here. It is the word kalos, kalos. And Jesus says, "I am the Good Shepherd." I am the Good Shepherd. I am the attractive shepherd.

I am the shepherd whose attraction does not lie in the fact that I am six foot five inches tall and and can throw passes like Mahomes did last Sunday. In fact, there is nothing about me that would mark me out from the crowd. No, the thing that makes Jesus attractive is that he is the servant of God. What is he like? He does not cry aloud. He doesn't lift up his voice. He doesn't make it heard in the street. In short order, he doesn't draw attention to himself. And a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoking flax he won't quench.

Why? Because he's the Good Shepherd. It's possible to be morally upright in a repulsive fashion.

Schaeffer on one occasion wrote, "Biblical orthodoxy without compassion is surely the ugliest thing in the world."

"I am the good shepherd, he lays down his life for the sheep." The main things are the plain things, you know that. So here is a main and a plain thing. Verse 11, "I lay down, he lays down his life for the sheep." That's in the third person. Verse 14, "I lay down my life for the sheep." That's in the first person. Verse 17, again, "I lay down my life." Verse 17.

In direct contrast to the hired hand, to whom we're introduced in verse 12, because the hired hand doesn't do this. The hired hand is not actually a shepherd. There's no intrinsic relationship between the sheep and the shepherd. This guy just has a job. He flees for his life when the wolf comes, and as a result of that, the sheep scatter.

Notice what it says there in verse 12. "He cares nothing for the sheep." He cares nothing for the sheep. It's actually verse 13, I'm sorry. He flees because he is the hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. In other words, it's a job. It's a responsibility. And as far as that hireling is concerned, it shouldn't involve the loss of life and certainly not the loss of his life.

But this shepherd lays down his life. Surely the death of a shepherd in those days was a rare occurrence. And probably if it happened, it came about as a result of an accident. And as a result of the accident and the shepherd being destroyed, the sheep would then be endangered.

But Jesus lays down his life voluntarily. Verse 18, "No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own accord." Jesus lays down his life. It is planned. "I have received this charge from my father." This takes us into the realm of eternity, into the great mystery of it. "For this reason," he says, "the father loves me." For this reason the father loves me. Verse 17.

He doesn't mean that the father withholds his love from Jesus until he agrees to give up his life on the cross. No, the father and the son's love for one another in the Trinity is antecedent to all these things. The father's love for the son is not contingent upon Christ loving us. That is not what he's saying. What he's actually making clear is that when the Father uttered the words at Jesus' baptism, remember, "This is my son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased."

What God said of his son at his baptism is actually exemplified in the cross. And I think it's Sinclair I've heard saying, "When the Father looks upon his son on Calvary, taking up the words of the hymn writer, the Father says of the son, 'My Jesus, I love thee. I know thou art mine.'" "If ever I love thee, my Jesus, 'tis now."

And in this shepherd-sheep relationship, the intimacy is so unbelievably tight that it is described in verse 15 in terms of the intimacy between the Father who knows me, says Jesus, and I who know the Father, that is the intimacy that you enjoy as grounded in Christ. And when we studied in chapter 6, I remember we quoted from John 17 in terms of these things.

This is Jesus speaking to his father. "Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were and you gave them to me, and they've kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I'm praying for them. I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them."

Back to verse 14. "I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own." "And my own know me."

Do you know Jesus? Not asking, do you go to church? Not asking if you're religious. Not asking if you've been baptized. Not asking if your great-grandfather was an orthodox minister. The text is saying, "I know my sheep," says Jesus, "and my sheep know me."

In other words, Christ's knowledge of his sheep is not a knowledge of a generalized mass of humanity. We saw that last time. He calls them by name. The shepherd knows his sheep. He knows you, not as part of a big, vast company of the church in North America, or the church throughout the world, but he knows you as you. That's what he's saying. "They know me, and I know them."

You think about it again in terms of the woman in Samaria. I've often wondered, and I've preached this and I'm not sure I ever got it right, but in John chapter 4, where you have the movement of Jesus, and it says there, "He had to pass through Samaria." And I remember thinking to myself, I wonder if that's a geographical statement or a theological statement. I've now decided it is both. That he had to pass through Samaria. Why did he have to pass through Samaria? Because one of his sheep was sitting by the well.

Oh, you say, but she wasn't a sheep yet. Oh, yes, she was. Chosen from before the foundation of the world. He was just about to make plain to her what was known by him and the Father and the Spirit throughout all of eternity. You got the very same thing.

With Zaccheus, the wee man up the tree trying to get a look in, despised by the general public because of his dirty business with the Roman authorities and so on. Jesus says, "Hey, Zaccheus, come down. I must. I must stay at your house today. I must stay at your house today."

Why? You're one of my sheep.

You see, our privilege as Christians is to persuade men and women of the immensity of the love of God for sinners. That he is the seeking God. "Jesus my Savior to Bethlehem came, born in a manger from sorrow and shame." "Oh, it was wonderful, bless be his name, seeking for me." For me. He wasn't seeking for humanity. He was seeking for you.

That's the whole point of the parable that he told. There were 99 that were all safe, but one was not safe. What does the shepherd do? The hireling says, "Forget it, 99 is a pretty good percentage." The shepherd says, "No, I go." There were 99 that safe lay in the shelter of the fold, but one was out from the sheep away, lost in the, whatever that is. And the amazing verse, but none of the ransom ever knew how deep were the waters crossed, nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through ere he found his sheep that was lost.

He's the shepherd, he's the door, and finally, there is one flock. Notice verse 16. "And I have other sheep that are not of this fold." Of this fold. And again, I want to point out to you that he doesn't say, "I will have other sheep." "I have other sheep that are not of this fold."

They already belong to him, even though they have not been brought to him. You say, "Can such a thing be?" We remember Luke tells us the very same thing. Describing the arrival of the preaching crew into Corinth. And God's word to them was, "I have much people in this city. I have much people in this city." "Go and tell them."

In light of this, is this a strange thought? I just had it in the last 24 hours. In light of what we're saying here. When the thief on the cross turned to Jesus and said, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

Isn't it fair to say that Jesus said, "I've just been waiting for you to say that." He wasn't caught by surprise, because from eternity the shepherd had set his gaze upon the sheep.

And there's not a Jewish church and a Gentile church. Says Jesus, "Some of you will come out of your background. Others will come as the message goes out to the world." And the distinguishing feature will all be the same, that they will listen to the voice of the shepherd. One flock that listens to the shepherd's voice.

There's nothing uncertain about it, he says, "Because I have the power to lay my life down and I have the power to bring it up again." In other words, it is a story of victory. It is a story of intimacy, and it is a story of ultimate security. For the sheep are those who are saved from the wolf.

You see, when we go out with our friends and neighbors, the fact is that men and women by nature are unaware of the danger in which they find themselves. They don't know that they're in a dangerous position. They don't believe that God made them for himself. They have not come to understand that God loves them in Jesus and seeks them. They have none of that at all. And therefore we have to both warn of the danger. It is appointed unto man once to die and after this comes judgment. Otherwise our friends just wander around like a sheep without a shepherd. They're scattered here, they're scattered there. They're mocked by death.

The ultimate insecurity that is there. And I read detective books and murder mysteries. I don't know if I should, but I do. And I just read and finished the book just a couple of days ago, and one of the characters in the book, the detective, is talking to his daughter and he says the hardest thing to come to terms with is the regret. I mean, life is an opportunity, the chance to do something that maybe won't mean much in the grand scheme of things, but will have significance in our own little universe. You waste your life on things that don't even matter. You want things you can't have. You dream of stuff that can never be. And all the time your life is slipping away through your fingers like so many finite grains of sand, squandered on nothing.

And Jesus stands forward and he says, "I am the door. Enter by me. Salvation, abundant life. I am the shepherd. I am the kind one. I am the attractive one." "And my sheep hear my voice and they follow me."

You see, religious observance will never deal with the insecurities that we feel. I remember as a child, when I was 15, that's still a child, despite what 15-year-olds think. I remember the feeling of standing at the radiators in Oaklee Grammar School, having moved from Scotland. And not knowing a single soul in the school, and dreading that first gap in between the first two lessons and the next two. And just standing against the radiator and thinking, "I don't really, I don't have a place to stand. I don't know if I belong here." In a very childish way, I understand. That was soon gathered up in the expressions of friendship.

But don't you realize that people that we meet every day are essentially standing beside their radiator, their lunchbox, their mailbox, their desk, insecure, unsure of love. And to us, since there's going to be one flock, Revelation 7 is entrusted the ministry of reconciliation.

You see, our security this morning as believers, those who believe, our security doesn't lie and didn't lie incidentally for the sheep in the walls of the fold's enclosure. That's not where the sheep's security lay, not in the walls of the enclosure of the fold. But in their proximity to the shepherd. That's the security.

"Lo, I am with you always, even to the ends of the age." That sounds pretty secure. "And though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will be with you." That sounds secure. Therefore, the believer's security doesn't lie in the strength of our faith, but in the indestructibility of the one in whom we have placed our faith.

I wonder, is that your story? It may be your story, because Jesus comes to seek.

Living for Jesus may be difficult, may be disappointing, may at times be dangerous. Often times it will be delightful. But I guarantee you one thing. It will never be dull. God forgive us for going out into the world and suggesting for even a nanosecond that life with Jesus is anything other than the finest adventure we could ever have with an unbelievable celebration at the end. I don't know, I can't tell why he whom angels worship should do these things. I can't tell how he will win the nations.

But we do know this: one door, one shepherd, one flock.

You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. He'll return in just a moment to close today's program. If you listen regularly to Truth for Life, you know that our mission is to build your confidence in the reliability of scripture and to help you grow closer to Jesus. In addition to the daily teaching you hear on this program, we carefully select books to help you grow in your faith. And today we're recommending a book called "Come You Weary, Enjoy Christ's Comfort." It's a book that warmly invites you to draw near to Jesus and let go of your worries and your burdens. Come to him and find rest for your soul. This little 60-page booklet points to the many affirmations found in scripture that remind us that no matter our circumstances, Jesus is waiting with open arms. All we have to do to find peace is turn to him. In fact, Jesus doesn't even qualify his invitation. He simply says, "Come." You don't have to clean yourself up. You don't have to have your life or your faith all figured out. You don't have to prepare. Just come. No matter what season of life you're in, this little pocket-sized book is perfect for keeping with you so you can refer to it again and again, reminding yourself that Jesus is eagerly waiting for your call.

Request the book "Come You Weary" when you donate today to support the Bible teaching ministry of Truth for Life. You can give a gift online at truthforlife.org/donate or call us at 888-588-7884. And if you'd rather mail your donation along with your request for the book, write to Truth for Life at PO Box 398000, Cleveland, Ohio, 44139.

Now here's Alistair with a closing prayer.

Alistair Begg: Father, thank you. Thank you that your word is so satisfying. We can never really plumb its depths. We could go back through this passage and do better. We could go back through the passage and glean more. But we pray that what is of yourself, you will write in our hearts. You will make it increasingly precious to us, the wonder of your shepherdoogy, the wonder of your care. And that we might in intimacy with you, rejoice in the security that is ours because not of how well we are doing, but because of who you are and because of what you, Lord Jesus, have done. Write it in our hearts, we pray, for Christ's sake. Amen.

Alistair Begg: A couple of words from Truth for Life, we're glad you've studied God's Word with us today. Jesus performed multiple signs and miracles that authenticated his identity, his purpose, and his power. Many were convinced, but the religious leaders of his day only became angrier and more frustrated. What about you? Do you believe? Tomorrow we'll review the evidence. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life.