Characteristics of the Sheep of Jesus — John 10

0:00 Morning. It's good to be here this morning. Let's open in prayer. Father in heaven, thank you for this day. Thank you most for your word.

0:11 Help us to learn from it and have the courage to apply it to our hearts. Thank you for the Holy Spirit who is a master at working in our own hearts. Pray that we'd be submitted to him today. In Jesus name I pray, amen. If you have your Bibles, please turn to John chapter 10.

0:31 John chapter 10. Last week, the first half of that chapter was covered, and so this week I have the pleasure of teaching on the second half of John chapter 10. As we study through the book of John, we have known and learned that the point of the book of John says, These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing Him may have life in His name. And so the focus, culmination of John is that you might believe. And so my message today is for people who might not believe yet, but it is also for those who have believed in Him.

1:16 And so the emphasis there is that we might trust Him more. It is very important that we trust the Lord wholly. Where we are in John chapter 10, Jesus has performed six of the seven miracles that are recorded in the book of John. He had just finished giving sight to the blind man and is just about to raise Lazarus from the dead. The first part of chapter 10, as covered last week, shows that Jesus was the Good Shepherd and that theme is continued in the passage that we have today.

1:51 And lastly, there there's a little bit of a time gap between where we ended last week in verse twenty twenty one or so and where we start today in verse 22. How many of you have maybe asked somebody a question and expected a certain answer and been given a different answer and you kind of wish you hadn't asked, you know? I've done that. I've learned not to ask for advice that I'm not willing to take. It is true, is kind of one of those things.

2:28 And so today I am going to give the audience that Jesus is interacting with are the Jewish people. So let's start in verse 22 of John chapter 10, it says this, Now it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem and it was winter and Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. I'm not going to spend much time on this, it's just telling us what time of year it was. It was about December 25 and Jesus was in the Temple, right? The center of the Jewish system.

3:00 So the Jews come to Him and they ask Him, How long do you keep us in doubt? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. I find it fascinating that they kind of put the blame on Jesus. How long do you keep us in doubt? And I wonder today how many of us are saying, Well, God, why speak don't to me?

3:24 What's going on? And yet God has spoken to us, He has revealed Himself to us and it's us that we need to listen to the things that He said. And throughout the book of John, Jesus has been presenting Himself as the Christ. He said, Before Abraham was, I am. That's previous to John chapter 10.

3:44 He has revealed Himself in many different ways to the Jewish people. So Jesus answered them and said, I told you and you do not believe. Secondly, the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. So Jesus has the testimony of His words and also of His works, the Father's works, the things that the Father had given Him to do. So He told them in John chapter five, we see that the Jews tried to kill Jesus because He said that God was His Father, meaning that He was equal with God.

4:22 Those are His works or His words. He said many other words. And the works that He did, many different people, many prophets in the Old Testament, they do works and yet the works that Jesus did were the works that the Father gave Him to do. And Jesus had just performed giving sight to the blind man. As a little bit of review because I really enjoyed it and I think it is profitable, a couple weeks ago, almost a month, actually over a month ago, Ray Gonzalez showed us from Chapter seven that there is four responses to Jesus' claim to be the Messiah.

4:59 So very quickly there is a convinced and these people said, When the Christ comes, will He do more signs than these which this man has done? They had seen, the evidence is here, we believe. They were convinced. Secondly, there was a contrary. These were the Pharisees who they heard the teachings of Jesus very clear and they sought to seize Him, they sought to silence Him, they were very contrary to His message.

5:29 There was a confused and here in John seven it says Others said, this is the Christ, but some said, will the Christ come out of Galilee? Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the seed of David and from the town of Bethlehem where David was? And so this confused group, they had some bad information, right? There was some confusion about who Jesus was. Lastly, there was the contemplating and Nicodemus fit in this group.

5:59 They were still searching out whether Jesus really was the Christ. And so, we're going to kind of ask which category do the Jews fit into? We're going have to look at the response to his to his answer to see what they which category they fit into. And as we go through this passage, whether you are a Christian, whether you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior or not, I want you to ask the question, which category do I fit into? Am I convinced or am I still contemplating?

6:39 Continuing on with the passage, I believe the Jews fit into perhaps the questioning or the contrary because we'll see the response later on. Jesus continues and He says in verse 26, But ye do not believe because you are not of My sheep. We must not, as we look at salvation, we must not discount the work of God to draw people to Himself. William McDonald says this, Their unwillingness to receive the Messiah proved that they were not of His sheep. If they had been set apart to belong to Him, they would have shown willingness to believe in Him.

7:24 They were not of His sheep. They were not interested in knowing who He was. So they asked Him, Are you the Christ? And we are going get into that, but first gives characteristics of His sheep, characteristics of those who believe. And just to remove all ambiguity or what not, Jesus calls those who are His followers, His people who believe in Him, sheep.

8:12 That is what sheep do. They are to listen to His voice. And so the question is to you and to myself, I am speaking today as if I was sitting down with you there. Do you hear his voice? Are you listening for his voice?

8:26 I found it very helpful illustration for this point. It goes like this, two men were walking along a crowded city sidewalk. Suddenly, one of the men remarked, listen to the lovely sound of that cricket, but the other man could not hear the sound of the cricket at all. He asked his friend, How can you hear the cricket amid the roar of the traffic and the sounds of that city? The first man who was a zoologist had trained himself to hear the sounds of nature.

9:01 He couldn't explain to his friend how he could hear the sound of the cricket. Instead, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a $0.5 coin and dropped it on the sidewalk and watched intently as a dozen people began to look for the coin as I heard it clinking amid the sounds of the traffic and of the city. Alright? So he turned to his friend and said, We hear what we listen for. And so my question to you today is, what are you hearing?

9:34 What are you listening for? And again, I'm including myself in that question. What are the things that come through? There's so much stuff that is coming at us, right? We're in that busy city.

9:43 There's so much noise around us and yet if we are listening, we can hear the words of the Savior primarily through the Scriptures. So we listen to His voice by reading His Word and spending time with Him. The second characteristic of those who are His sheep says this, Jesus says, I know them. This is fantastic. The Lord Jesus knows His sheep.

10:13 It's an intimate knowledge. In fact, from verse three of chapter 10, he knows us by name. Each and every one of us is known by the savior by name. We're not a mass of, you know, Christians. We are a group of individuals who are known by our Savior.

10:29 It goes further, He knows our every struggle and trial. Hebrews four fifteen says, For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Also in Hebrews two or three, let me find it real quick, Hebrews two, we might say, well, we suffer, but then we look at the Savior and He suffered far more than we have. Hebrews two eighteen says, For in that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted. We know our Savior is without sin and yet He endured suffering and temptation.

11:19 And I can be very honest with you today, I am never going to suffer anything near to the spiritual suffering that the Lord Jesus went through. And I'll tell you that there are many Christians, probably not in America, but perhaps in China or Iran or different places, are suffering physically very near to what the Lord suffered. It's not beyond us to suffer for Him and yet He knows us, He knows our suffering. And we should be bold because the Lord is with us. Hebrews thirteen:five says, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

12:47 And so the part I would like to put the emphasis on under they follow me is that by faith Abraham obeyed. And I have found that if I truly believe the Lord in a certain area, just like Abraham, I will obey that area. But when I try to put obedience before I trust the Lord in an area, then it is very much harder for me to be obedient. As an example, I believe that I should be that all people are born into sin and without the Savior they will be separated from Him for eternity. And so when I get distracted by this and that, I know, you know, Jesus says, Go into all the world and preach the Gospel.

13:34 I know that and that is obedience. But when I am convinced, when the Lord shows me, wow, you know this person and that person, they need to hear because what I have said is truth, that I died for their sins and that they can be saved through faith. When I realize that, when I am gripped by the conviction that God's Word is truth, then obedience comes much easier. So by faith Abraham obeyed. Romans four twenty says, referring to Abraham, He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God and being fully convinced that what he had promised, was able also to perform.

14:25 And I am convinced personally that a lack of obedience to God is related to not trusting Him. Trying to force yourself to obey Him without trusting Him will result in frustration and discouragement, that's what I found. Trusting Him first will result in joyful obedience. And this applies to all areas of a Christian's walk. And again, just to make this clear and not cause any confusion, Abraham didn't know where he was going, right?

14:55 He didn't understand all the details. What he trusted was the character of God and that's what we need to do today. God might be asking us to do something where we might not know what the destination is. He is asking us to go in a direction. When we trust the character of God and what He said in His Word, we can obey Him.

15:18 In Acts four, the disciples, two of them specifically, are put in prison and said, You must not share about this Jesus anymore. But here is what is interesting, they were convinced and they said this, We cannot stop telling about everything we have seen and heard. They saw it, they heard, they were convinced and they could not keep silent. May we be the same way today, two thousand years later. Mark nine after, this was the father of a son who was healed of demon possession, he said, Lord, I believe.

15:58 Help my unbelief. And I think that is a prayer that each of us as Christians should pray. Lord, help me to trust you. Help me to believe in you more. There is that old song, trust and obey.

16:35 He goes kind of above and beyond even what we can ask. And so let's look at verse 10 of John 10. I'm sure this was covered last week. John ten ten, we are going to see what kind of life we are given. It says, The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy.

17:09 I have come that they may have life and that they may have life more abundantly. We are given eternal life as sheep of Jesus Christ. That is qualitative, or that is quantitative, right? It is eternal, it is also qualitative, given by the Savior. We have eternal life.

17:27 If you see a Christian who is not joyful, there is something wrong there. We see that the gift is of unprecedented value and cost. It didn't come cheap, this gift of eternal life. It cannot be bought. It is a gift and it's timely.

17:48 I was thinking about this recently. Eternal life doesn't have an end, but it has a beginning, right? We receive eternal life and then it's ours. And so there's a certain window for us to receive that and that's the time when we're alive. So I challenge you if you haven't received God's gift of eternal life, if you haven't trusted in Him, today is a day of salvation.

18:16 Fifthly, the characteristic of those who are Jesus' sheep, it is said that they shall never perish. It is very similar to eternal life, right? But this is God's promise to those who believe, God's promise to those who believe. We cannot remove ourselves from God's hand. We may sin or even deny the Lord like Peter and the rest of the disciples for that matter, but the Lord will restore us, those who are truly His, after we repent.

18:51 So we can't remove ourselves and neither can anyone else snatch them out of it says, Neither can anyone snatch them out of my hand. We are secure in Jesus. So this is God's security to those who believe. It says in verse 29, continuing in John chapter 10, 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. A hireling might leave, but God, the God of the universe, will never leave us.

19:26 Romans eight thirty nine says, No power in heaven above or on the earth below, indeed nothing at all, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that has been revealed in Christ Jesus, our Lord. That's a big encouragement to me that once I am God's child, I'm secure. There's... I can't remove myself. Nothing else can remove me.

19:59 There's nothing that I should fear because I am a child of God. We know that we see here that John chapter 10 is one of the clearest passages that talks about eternal security of the saints. And so now we get down continuing on. Jesus is answering the question, right? The question at the beginning was, tell us plainly, are you the Christ?

21:02 He didn't always do that but here, he gives it to to them quite clearly and so the question is, did the Jews understand? Yeah, they they they got it and we we can see that because they responded to something, they responded in a way that would be quite customary. Someone claimed to be god and this time, the penalty was that they'd be stoned. And so we see in verse 31, then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. They understood.

21:36 They had, you might call it, a contrary response to Jesus' claims. And I've met people here and there, and Jesus makes a claim, This isn't fictitious. This isn't made up and yet it is rejected because of the consequences of actually believing that. And so they didn't believe and they took up stones to stone Him. Jesus answered them, many good works I have shown you from my father.

22:11 For which of these works do you stone me? The Jews answered him saying, for a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy because you, being a man, make yourself God. They understood. Again, the works that he did were his father's works. I find it curious here that they say, Well, you being a man, make yourself God.

22:41 They had an overemphasis on His humanity because that is what they could see. Right? He was a man and yet He was God. And I think today perhaps we put an overemphasis on Him being God and forget that He was a man. He was the perfect God man.

23:03 This next passage has kind of or this next portion has been a little bit confusing to me and so I really enjoyed studying it. In verse 34, John ten thirty four, Jesus refers back to the Old Testament. He is making an argument. And so there is a couple of key concepts here that we need to understand. We need to understand God's emphasis and the importance God puts on those who represent Him.

23:37 And we need to understand the concept of doing God's work, alright? So being God's spokesperson. So in verse 34 it says, Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law? I said, you are gods. And 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?

24:08 So here Jesus is making an argument from the lesser to the greater. He calls them gods and the word here used for gods is Elohim. It is a very powerful word for God because these are when He says, You are Gods, He is referring back to the judges of the children of Israel. And so these are judges who were representing or God's spokespersons to the nation of Israel. He is quoting from Psalms 80 two:six and if you look at that context, the judges or the gods that are referred to there, lower case g, are judges who were corrupt men just like the rest of the nation of Israel.

24:49 They weren't really doing their job and yet they had great responsibility. They represented God to His people or they were His spokesperson, it might be a better way of putting that. So Jesus is arguing here that if the judges of Israel who were sent by God are called gods, lower case g, how much more did He have the right to be called the Son of God since the Father sent Him into the world to reveal Himself? So Jesus was God. He was sent by God.

25:25 He was spokesperson for God and He was doing the Father's will. And so how much more right did He have to call Himself the Son of God? That is what He was. Turn to Hebrews chapter one, a familiar passage, Hebrews chapter one and verse three. How closely does the Lord Jesus represent the Father?

25:50 Hebrews one... We will start in verse one. Hebrews one verse one, God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things through whom also He made the worlds. Who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High. In John 14, Jesus says, He who has seen Me has seen the Father.

26:43 So this is Jesus' argument that He is presenting to the Jews here. Verse 37 of John chapter seven, continuing on with the passage, 37 says, If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe me. But if I do, though you do not believe me, believe the works that you may know and believe the father is in me and I in him. So, essentially, what Jesus is saying here is, even if you do not believe, consider the evidence. He didn't do these miracles.

27:21 He didn't preach in a little closet on the back corner of somewhere in Jerusalem. He did it in the temple. He healed in the temple. He preached in the temple. All his miracles were public things that they could see and so he's asking them to consider the evidence.

27:40 And each of us must earnestly desire to know the truth. What is the truth? No one wants to live a lie, although sometimes we do because we are afraid of the truth. I find that happens sometimes. And so the question I am asking to you and to myself, are you willing to seek and know and obey the truth?

28:06 I have a Muslim friend at Cleveland State and I have a lot of respect for him. He would face a lot of pressure if he became a Christian. But he told me this, he says, I'm interested in knowing what is true. And he comes to the Bible study at CSU regularly, nearly every week. He's he's searching out who this Jesus is and incidentally enough, not incidentally but through the power of god.

28:37 We're studying the book of John which is pretty amazing to how it teaches who Jesus is. But anyways, he said this, If Judaism were true, I would follow Judaism. If Christianity is true, I would follow Christ. Right now he is still convinced that Mohammed was true and so he is following Mohammed, but I have to respect him because he is after what's true. And so the challenge is, am I seeking to know the truth Am I willing to follow what the truth is regardless of the cost?

30:14 And so to conclude, we are going to see in verse 40 some of the responses that happened. It says in verse 40 of John chapter 10, And he went away again beyond the Jordan to the place where John was baptizing at first, and there he stayed. Then many came to him and said, John performed no sign but all the things that John spoke about this man are true. And many believed in him there. So many did believe in Him.

30:47 They saw the evidence and God was working in their hearts and they believed. I was kind of convicted because it says, John performed no sign, but all the things that John spoke about this man were are true. And so I was thinking about how how I present the gospel. When I present the gospel using the Word of God, when people hear it, well, I do any miracle signs. I just present the Gospel.

31:18 But when they hear it, they say, Even though you don't present any signs, I know that it's true. John performed no signs and yet the people were able to say all the things that John spoke about this man were true. And I think it is very important that we become very learned at what the Gospel is and what it isn't because there is a lot of unnecessary confusion where you expected or you wouldn't even expect to have that confusion. So many believed on him there. So Jesus had proclaimed and demonstrated that he was the Messiah but the Jews were looking for a Messiah to deliver them from the Romans.

32:00 They were looking for the wrong thing and today there are many who are looking for a God of their own creation, you might say. They are looking for a God who can kind of just wink at sin, looking for a God who will support them in their ideas and yet truth is absolute. We need to find and we need to hold on to the God of the universe and onto His Son, Jesus Christ. Looking for a God that meets our expectations will result in missing the true God. Jesus had done six of the seven signs that are recorded in the book of John.

32:42 The evidence that Jesus was God was clear, but the Jews still did not believe. So the question is, what is holding you back from trusting Jesus Christ as your savior and shepherd? And for those who have already taken that step of faith, what's holding you back from letting him access to each area of our lives? I'll be honest, there's areas of my life that I'm kind of afraid to let the lord into because I know that he's going to necessitate some changes. And and I don't always find those changes easy.

34:11 Father, are very thankful for Your Word. Again, help us to have the courage to allow it to to change our lives, to allow you to to permeate every area of our life. I pray for those who might not know you yet as savior. Maybe you've come to church for a very long time, that you would show yourself a mighty savior who desires that each may be saved. In Jesus name I pray, amen.