And will you have your Bibles open with me to St. John chapter 10 first, we're reading verses 7 through 14, and then basing our thinking upon part of this passage. The gospel according to St. John chapter 10 at verse 7, then Jesus said to them again, most assuredly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. People who ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep, but he who is in hireling and not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is in hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know my sheep and am known by my own. Our Father, we thank thee for these clear statements of our Lord Jesus, and we pray that thou wilt work them in to our conscious living by the blessing of the Holy Spirit just now, as we are around the Word, undivided in our focus and attention, single-minded, to hear thy voice through the Holy Scripture, these things we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. I would guess that we would be 100% in saying in this meeting this morning that character does matter, because conduct inevitably flows out of character. What we do demonstrates, reflects what we are in the world of business, how many a greedy counselor has done in a customer for his own benefit in their loss. I know people perhaps you do who come to their retirement years within sufficient funds because the conduct of a person they trusted in business affairs matched what he really was, greedy, selfish, thoughtless, character does matter, and the Lord Jesus is underscoring that in this passage. When he first of all designates himself as the good shepherd, good, excellent, not just the opposites of bad, there is a word for that, and it is not used here, remember indeed that we believe in the verbal inspiration of Holy Scripture, that the Spirit of God so controlled and guided the human authors, that whether or not they were aware of it, they wrote exactly as God intended, stimulating the memory, controlling the personality, so that with all of their individuality and all of their distinctiveness, when they wrote epistles and records, they wrote exactly right without any shade of error. We believe at Trinity Church in the verbal, cleanery, inspiration of Scripture, this word is essential to know, it is the word in that language which means indeed the apex of all moral beauty, excellence totally and singularly. So that when the Lord Jesus said, I am the good shepherd, he is saying, I possess, I am in my being, in my nature, divine and human, in one personality, I am the highest moral, beauty, good, and he is saying as well, I alone. He designates himself as excellent and exclusively so, there is none other equal to me, no one surpasses me, I am the good one who is also shepherd, and it is good for us as we move through this Holy season in particular in approach, holy week in the Lord's table and the glad celebration of Easter Day, to know what we mean and what we have in mind when he says, I am the good shepherd, and by saving grace we are able to say, with authentic confession, the Lord is my shepherd, because of his goodness, I shall not want, that's how he designates himself. This rather astounding designation, what must have sounded like to the first hearers to the apostles themselves, what must have sounded like to his detractors, I alone, and quintessential goodness, all perfections reside in my being, and I will be your shepherd if you enter the sheepfold, while there follows then doesn't there, the demonstration of that, the designation is wonderful, if not astounding, many people in human history even living now make all kinds of astounding claims, and in colloquial language you and I have said to people, and it needs said to people, will prove it, show me, you claim to be such and such, you say you can do this extraordinary thing, then just demonstrate it, show me, and it is as though the apostles, it is as though the detractors, the people of his day knowing what he said, challenged him on that, and so he have in the record and in his own action, demonstration, which matches his self-designation, I am the good shepherd, and is the good one, I am good because I lay down my life for the sheep, this is a voluntary sacrifice, it is not defeat in defense of the sheep, and hiring who works for pay, who does not own the sheep, might indeed try to fend off wolves attacking the flock, and it is conceivable, they may be overcome, outnumbered, killed, he does not have this in mind when he says very clearly in our text in verse 11, I am the good shepherd, the good one who is shepherd, and the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep in voluntary sacrifice, not just losing my physical or natural life as any shepherd might do in defense of the sheep, but porting out my whole being in behalf of the sheep, doing it voluntarily, making the sacrifice for them, and so in this demonstration of his designation he is a voluntary sacrifice, and he is a vicarious substitution so that his death benefits the sheep, and hiring a hired hand, seeing the wolves come, may indeed fight them off, may indeed die in defense, and then the flock is left, unbenefit it, but the death of Jesus demonstrates because it is a voluntary sacrifice, and a vicarious substitution in our stead benefits the sheep, and brings safety and salvation to them, not destruction, a fevery, loss, the thieves do, he demonstrates his claim, voluntarily, substitution, so that salvation heaven, safety are the sheep's. Now this is important because there is implied here in our passage with the thief mentioned in verse 10, the stealing, the killing, the destruction in verse 10, the hiring in verse 12, the hiring fleeing because he isn't hiring, and the sheep being scattered, if not destroyed, there's a picture of devastation, let's understand lostness with that word, to be outside of Christ, is not simply to choose another option, it is to end up in destruction and devastation at last, without safety, without salvation, subject to the whims of the hairline, that's the condition outside of Christ, lostness is never neutrality, it's always danger, leading pale male to devastation and destruction, and the Lord Jesus in this allegory, speaking of himself as the good shepherd, speaking in contrast of hirelings who don't own the sheep, and who don't really care about the sheep, they're only working for pay, the Lord Jesus reminds us how desperate and dangerous it is to be outside of Christ, he makes this designation, he demonstrates the validity of it because of the devastation of the condition of sheep, not of his fold, is not neutral out there, no one is safe outside of Christ, regardless of appearances, bravado, arrogance, lossment, devastation, destruction, so the Lord Jesus says, because of that truth, I am the good one, excellent and exclusively, excellent, and I demonstrate that in a voluntary sacrifice of my life, that because it is the substitute for the sheep in the center, brings about triumph from an instrument of torture, we cherish the cross, did Jesus, we sing it sentimentally don't we, so I'll cherish the old rugged cross, did Jesus cherish it, did anybody cherish it in Jesus' day, was an instrument of torture and death, and it's transformed in that voluntary sacrifice, and in that vicarious substitution in to an emblem of triumph, and ever it stands, and all of Christendom, the symbol of our faith, and the son of God who loved us and gave himself for us, well think for a moment, of what I want to label the derivation, where does this originate, why does he die, why does he make the claim, why does he demonstrate the claim, well you say it's because we're in a place of danger and devastation, that isn't right, he is not the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep because we are so pitiful and powerless, why does he give his life, read it again in the text in verse 11, I am the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep because they are in danger, not at all, he gives his life for the sheep because he is good, this originates in his being as goodness, and we who are pathetic and scattered and headed for destruction and amnation, outside of the sheep fold of grace benefit from it, but we are not the cause of that demonstration on the cross, make it clearly firm in your mind, he dies for us because he is good, scarcely for a righteous man with one dare to die, sometimes novels, films, a soldier dies for his buddy, but who steps forward in the execution chambers of our states and volunteers for someone who has hacked people to death, nobody, nobody, but God commends his love toward us and that while we are yet sinners Christ died for us and he did that, this originates the derivation of this great demonstration by the good shepherd is in his own being itself in his own nature and essence, not in our dreadful and lost condition, you did not bring him to Calvary,
he came because he is good and thus we believe when we say Psalm 23 and shall sing it before we go,
the Lord is my shepherd, the Lord is my good shepherd and I shall not want in the midst of disease,
dissolution of everything, death, you can never evaluate the Lord Jesus and whether or not you give your life to him and heed his demands and risk all for him, you can never settle that issue of the basis of what you see that he did or did not do there in our culture, his demands are met by true disciples of the Lord Jesus because we have come to believe and are absolutely sure that he is good even when martyrs die for him. Could he not prevent martyrdom? Could he not have prevented Amy Carmichael, the British missionary, from falling into that pit and spending 40 years and an invulnerant bed in the south of India in the heat, are you evaluating the Lord Jesus and light of what you have or see or what happens to you? No, no, no, no, you'll always be disappointed. You listen to him say by his own self designation I am the good one, quintessentially good and I am the shepherd therefore who gives his life for the sheep to release you from destruction and devastation to be sure to redeem your life from destruction bless the Lord, O my soul, but it's because he is good, not because we're so needy and we believe he is good when business fails,
when there's an abnormal birth, when war comes, we don't evaluate him in light of circumstances or conditions, we look at the cross, that's why we have holy week services, to deepen our grasp of Calvary and to behold the Lamb of God and to contemplate the great transaction by which we are delivered and that he did it because he is good, absolutely. Without Pia, without anyone ahead of him, he is good. We were able, the latter part of last week to drive to Columbia, South Carolina for 75th anniversary celebration and banquet of what is now known as Columbia International University where I'm completing 20 years as a trustee, humble beginnings, five women, some of means, business women, unusual 75 years ago in Columbia, prayed for Bible school, for girls who worked in the mills, who had no education, they were leading to the Savior and they wanted them trained and all these years later we celebrate the great advancement and development of that school. 11,200 people at the banquet in the Coliseum in downtown Columbia, wonderful program, it was so good I decided to enroll. The main speaker was Johnny, you read or booked, didn't you? saw her film Johnny, Eric, and Todd a 30 years now on the wheelchair, 17 years old, all promises hers, one dive and the rest of her life in that chair. She spoke on suffering, she used her hands because there's a muscle or two left up here and the braces on her arms made that gesture. We were on the front directly at the DS, it could look straight into her eyes, my mind raced over truth, the issue of suffering, goodness of God, set backs for believers, she stimulated my heart and mind, she brought tears,
she turned to CS Lewis to finish, I knew the passage 12, so do you perhaps, from the lie in the which in the wardrobe, what wonderful creativity and spiritual depth of that man, and I reread it yesterday afternoon, I found myself lost with Lewis, nobody else around Trinity on Saturday afternoon,
I went through the wardrobe with the four kids, Lucy, Peter, to the land of Narnia, under the control of a used surfer, the white witch, but they'd come to the house of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, remember, and they were believers waiting for the great king, Oslin, and I read you just a few lines from CS Lewis, but shall we see him asked Susan? Quite daughter of Eve, that's what I brought you here for, I'm to lead you where you shall meet him, said Mr. Beaver, is he a man, asked Lucy, Oslin, a man, certainly not. I tell you he is the king of the wood, and the son of the great emperor beyond the sea, don't you know who is king of the beasts? Oslin is a lion, and the lion, the great lion. Oh, Susan, I thought he was a man, is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion, that you will dairy and make no mistake, said Mrs. Beaver, if there's anyone who can appear before Oslin without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most, or else just, then, then he isn't safe, said Lucy,
safe, said Mr. Beaver, don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe, and I interject who said anything to you about escaping difficulty, and testing, and disappointment, who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe, but he's good, I am the good shepherd, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want a man.