With Jesus viewed as our shepherd, then the logical response from us will be to follow Him. In John 10, Jesus presents Himself as our shepherd and He gives us many reasons why we should follow Him and, if we do, then we will live a life of joy with Him.
Back in Matthew 9:36, Jesus saw the people around Him as “distressed and dispirited.” In heaven, Jesus will act as a shepherd as He separates the sheep from the goats (Matt 25:32). In Matt 26:31, Jesus quotes a prophecy from Zechariah 13:7 and applies it to Himself, to the effect that the shepherd will be attacked and His sheep will be scattered. That happened, of course, in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Jesus pictures Himself on several occasions as being the shepherd. In 1 Peter 2:25 Peter refers to Jesus as the shepherd and the Hebrew writer will call Jesus the “great” Shepherd in Hebrews 13:20. If Jesus is the Shepherd then His people are the flock. Jesus calls His disciples His flock in Luke 12:32 but the term in the NT is used more often for Christians: Acts 20:28-29 & 1 Peter 5:2-3.
I want us to look at verses 11-18 and focus our attention on the last half of this lesson Jesus gives, as He tells us four reasons we should follow Him as sheep follow a shepherd…
SACRIFICIAL (10:11):
A Good Shepherd lays down His life for His sheep. Notice also Jesus’ statements in verses 15, 17-18. Jesus loves us and offers to us His time, His heart, but especially His life. Jesus sacrificed His life to be with us.
Paul writes in Philippians 2 that Jesus was with God in heaven but did not believe that equality with God was something that He should cling to, and so Jesus emptied Himself, poured Himself out as an offering for us (vs 6). He knows where He is going. He knows how to get there. So He calls on us to follow His voice. If we want to get to heaven, we’ve got to follow His voice because He sacrificed His life to bring us that message.
PROTECTIVE (10:12-13):
We should follow Jesus as our Good Shepherd because Jesus is protective. Look at His words from 10:12-13. There are always going to be men and women who think they know better than Jesus does. They do not necessarily want to deceive us but if they are not accurately teaching the truth of God, then they are deceiving us whether they realize it or not. That’s why it is so important to follow Jesus and walk closely with Him.
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Jesus will also protect us from Satan and his influences. The New Testament does not talk a lot about a spiritual battle going on that is not visible to us but we do know that Satan is out to trap us and motivate us to believe error. But that is the only way Satan can draw us away from Christ. Only if we accept and believe something that is wrong. That’s why Jesus gave us His truth (Eph 4:14).
INTERESTED IN UNITY (10:16-17):
Jesus emphasizes the importance of unity. Jesus is interested in unity between man and God (most importantly) and between man and man. Notice here that this unity will result when men hear His voice (vs 16). As a parallel, Jesus prays in John 17 that there will be unity when men obey the words of the apostles (17:20-21). Jesus Himself makes the words of the apostles equal with His own words. The words of Jesus are no more important; they are no more authoritative than the words of the apostles.
Jesus desires unity between the lost and God. That’s why He calls on us to share the gospel with others. Jesus desires unity between Christians. That’s why He calls on us to be peacemakers and to shelve our opinions in the interest of unity. Jesus calls on us to “force ourselves” to maintain unity among ourselves, in Eph 4:3.
We should follow Jesus, the Good Shepherd, because He seeks our unity with God and our fellowman.
WILLING (10:18):
All that Jesus did, He did willingly. That is simply an expression of Jesus’ love for us. All that He did, He did willingly. Because He loves us. The Holy Spirit did not have to entice Jesus to lay down His life. The Father did not have to compel Jesus to lay down His life for us.
We need to follow Jesus as our Good Shepherd because He loves us so much. It is a perfect, complete, eternal love.
Paul Holland
