In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Bible describes the relationship between Jesus and His Church in a number of ways.  Jesus is the Bridegroom and His Church is the bride.  Jesus is the Head and His Church is the body.  Jesus is the Vine and His Church is the branches. Jesus is the Cornerstone and His Church is the temple.  And Jesus is the King and His Church is the Kingdom.  Every one of those different metaphors that the Bible uses is intended to teach us something unique about the precious relationship between Christ and His Christians.  But in today’s Gospel lesson from John chapter ten, we get to hear about what is perhaps the most beloved metaphor of them all. Jesus is the Shepherd and His Church is the sheep. So, on the basis of this metaphor, and what Lord says about it in our reading, let us consider together in today’s sermon some of things that Jesus does for us as our Good Shepherd.

The first and the most important thing that Jesus does for us as our Good Shepherd is, of course, die for our sins. As Jesus says in John chapter 10, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for His sheep.” Everything else that Jesus does for us would not make any difference in our life at all if He had not laid down His life for us on the cross. Nothing else in our life would matter, because no matter what our life was like, it would still be doomed to end in the exact same way. Some day we would still have to answer for our sins, and those sins would condemn us. As the Bible tells us elsewhere, “The soul that sins shall die,” and “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”

Despite the impression that is often given today by those who don’t know God’s Word, our sins are real and they are bad. They are so bad, in fact, that the only way for them to be forgiven is that someone has to die for them. Someone has to pay for them. Someone has to offer to God such a perfect and holy ransom for them that it actually has the power take them away. And that someone, of course, is Jesus. Remember what Saint Peter writes about Jesus in 1 Peter chapter 2. He writes, “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like a lamb without blemish or spot.” Part of the reason why Jesus calls Himself the Good Shepherd is because Jesus is also the Lamb of God. Jesus takes care of His lambs first and foremost by taking the place of His lambs and dying for their sins. As we read in Isaiah chapter 53, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned – every one – to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

The atoning death of Jesus for our sins is the central teaching of the Bible. When Saint Paul came to the city of Corinth, he told the people there that he decided to know nothing among them expect “Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” It is not that the atoning death of Jesus for our sins is the only teaching in the Bible, but it absolutely is the main teaching. It is the basis for everything else that the Bible teaches us. If we don’t get what the Bible teaches us about the death of Jesus right, we will get everything else that it teaches us wrong. Think about, for example, what the Bible teaches us about good works. The Bible teaches us about good works all over the place. In fact, there is hardly any place in the Bible that does not talk good works and how we Christians are supposed to do them. But if we try and talk about good works without talking about the death of Jesus, then we will end up saying something about good works that the Bible doesn’t say at all.

Why do we Christians do good works? Why do we Christians seek to love and serve our neighbor in the various vocations that God has given us? Why do we honor God with our bodies and flee from things like sexual immorality and every other sin? Do we do it to earn God’s favor? Do we do it to win a place in heaven? No! We do it because we have God’s favor. We do it because we have a place in heaven. We turn away from our sin and seek to live holy lives in accordance with God’s Will, because we have been bought with a price. We have been redeemed by Jesus. Our God shepherd Jesus has laid down His life for us, and that is why we lay down our lives for each other in humble obedience to God’s Word. We do it because of what God has already done for us.

Jesus did not go to the cross and die for us because of something that we did for him. He did it of His own accord. As He says in our reading, “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” Anytime that anyone gives the impression that a person is saved because of the things that they do, they rob Christ of His glory and they rob themselves of their comfort. They undermine what is the most essential thing that Jesus does as our Good Shepherd, He lays down His life for His sheep.  

The second thing that Jesus does for us as our Good Shepherd is gather us together through His Word. As Jesus also says in our reading, “And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice, so there will be one flock, one shepherd.” Besides laying down His life for us on the cross in order to purchase the forgiveness of sins for us, Jesus also brings that forgiveness to us. The death of Jesus for our sins would not do us any good at all if we didn’t know about it and if we didn’t believe it. In the same way that winning the lottery doesn’t do a person any good if they don’t know that they are sitting on the winning ticket, it doesn’t do sinners any good if they don’t know that their sins are forgiven. 

So, God makes His forgiveness known to us. God brings us His grace. That is why we Lutherans call them “the means of grace.” The means of grace are God’s Word and Sacraments. They are the tools that God uses to bring us the forgiveness that Jesus won for us on the cross. God uses Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, the Absolution from the pastor, and the preaching of His Word to bring people forgiveness. That is where our Good Shepherd speaks to us and those are the only places where He wants us to listen for His voice: in the pure teaching of His Word and in the right administration of His Sacraments.

Jesus warns us in our reading that there are other voices that try and pass themselves off as His voice in order to get us to follow after them instead. He says, “He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.” All over the place we are surrounded by false teachers and false teachings which can draw us away from Jesus. We are threatened by “hired hands,” who try and deceive us in into believing all kinds of things that are not actually true, and that can cause us real physical and spiritual harm.

One of the most deceptive false teachings that we encounter in the world today is the teaching that what a church teaches doesn’t really matter. Since there are so many different religions in the world, and so many different denominations in the Christian Church, many Christians ignore their differences and say that our differences are unimportant. They say that doctrine is unimportant. They contend that doctrine only divides people and that if we would only put our doctrinal differences aside, then we could finally get things done. Then we could actually bring people together and make this world a better place. But the people who teach that we should put our doctrinal differences aside, and ignore certain things that the Bible teaches which we can’t agree on, are actually teaching something wrong. They are teaching something wrong, because they are looking for the voice of Jesus in the wrong place. They are seeking unity in the wrong way and through the wrong means. How does Jesus gather His Church together? How does Jesus unite His Church and bring people to faith so that they may be one? It’s not through ignoring His Word. It is through teaching His Word. It is through doctrine. The word doctrine literally means “something that is taught.” People don’t become Christians by avoiding doctrine. They become Christians by listening to doctrine. They come to faith by hearing the pure doctrine of God’s Word and believing it. As Jesus tells us very famously in Matthew chapter 28, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded.” 

When people try and claim that it is impossible to know what the pure doctrine of God’s Word is, so we should just not talk about things that we can’t agree on, they are saying something that is in direct contradiction to what Jesus says in the Bible. Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.” Jesus says, “If you continue in my words, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” According to Jesus, it is possible to know exactly what our Good Shepherds sounds like. It is possible to be able to distinguish His voice from every other voice that there is. Just like sheep know the difference between a hired hand and their shepherd by listening to the sound of their voices, we Christians can know the difference between true teachers and false teachers by listening to what they say. We can know the difference by comparing what they say to what Jesus says in the Bible.

The Bible never tells us to put our doctrinal differences aside. In fact, it tells us the opposite. As we read in the book of Jude, “Contend for the faith once delivered to the saints.” And as Saint Paul tells us in 1 Timothy chapter 4, “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the doctrine. Persist in this, for by do so you will save both yourself and your hearers.” It is through doctrine that we know of our forgiveness. It is through doctrine that we know of our salvation. It is through doctrine that we can know that one day we will go to heaven when we die. All of those things are doctrines! They are different teachings of the Bible that Jesus uses to bring us to faith and save us. Because, again, that is another thing that He does as our Good Shepherd. He gathers us together through His Word. 

And the last thing that Jesus does for us as our Good Shepherd is He knows us and He reveals Himself to us. As Jesus also says in our reading, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.” In laying down His life for us and gathering us together through His Word, Jesus shows us who He is. He shows us His character. He shows us what He is like, and how deeply He loves us, so that regardless of what we are going through in our lives, we can have certainty that our lives belong to Him.

Jesus knows what you are going through in your life. He knows what you are going through in your life, because He is the author of your life. As the Bible tells us, “He formed you in the womb” – “He counts every hair on your head” – “Your days were written in His book when as yet there was none of them” – “He is acquainted with all your ways” – and “He knows when you rise up and when you lie down.” Jesus is not unaware of your suffering, nor is He unable to put your suffering to good use. It’s true that we don’t always know how God is using our suffering for good. We don’t get the bigger picture. But God does. And that is what He promises to do for us in Hs Word. That is what He reveals to us in the Scriptures. Remember what we read in places like Romans chapter 8. There it says, “[God] works all things together for the good of those who love Him,” and “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” We know that God will give us everything that we need in this life because He has given us everything that we need for eternal life. We know that no matter what happens in our lives, our lives will be okay, because in Jesus our lives will never end.

As a shepherd knows each one of his sheep, Jesus knows each one of His Christians. Just like we know His voice, He knows our voice too. He hears the bleating cries of His sheep. He listens to our prayers. There is not a single prayer that we pray that Jesus does not hear. There is not a single thing that we ask for that He does not promise to give answer to in whatever way is best for us. As Jesus says elsewhere, “Ask anything in my name and I will give it.” That does not mean that Jesus will give us whatever we want, but it does mean that He will give us whatever we need. Our Lord knows what we need. We do not always know what we need. Sometimes we think that we know what we need and we are wrong. But Jesus is never wrong. Jesus knows everything and it is enough for us to know Jesus. It is enough for us to know what He has done for us on the cross and what He promises to give to us through His Word. 

When we know what Jesus has already done for us on the cross and what He promises to give to us through His Word, that is, when we know that all of our sins have been forgiven, then that allows us to face every day with confidence no matter what the day brings. Even if we don’t escape from suffering, we know that our suffering will eventually come to an end. We know that because Jesus’ suffering came to an end. Not only did Jesus lay down His life for us, but Jesus took it up again. Jesus died and Jesus rose. And that means that all those who trust in Jesus will rise from the dead too. They will live even though they die.

Yes, we live our lives sometimes like sheep among wolves. But we are not without a Shepherd. And our Good Shepherd takes care of our every need. He lays down His life for us. He gathers us together through His Word. And He reveals Himself to us so that we can be at peace.  Dear Christians, Jesus is our Shepherd and we are His sheep. And there is nothing better to be than that. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.