Sunday, June 18, 2017

Jesus the Gate and the Shepherd John 10:1-18

"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me- just as the Father knows me and I know the Father- and I lay down my life for the sheep."  John 10:14-15

   I want to outline for you five points that I see in the verses of John 10:1-18.  The first thing we should note is that this conversation in chapter 10 is related to what happened before in chapter 9.  Jesus heals a man born blind and Jesus refers to spiritual blindness.  The spiritual blindness and thief and robbers are the Pharisees from chapter 9.  In contrast, Jesus refers to himself as the true gate and Shepherd.

   First, Jesus has a legitimate right to enter by the gate unlike the thief and robber.  The doorkeeper is a porter who has the keys.  The porter opens up the sheep gate  in order for the shepherd to lead the sheep out to pasture.  The thief wouldn't have access to the doorkeeper and would have to break in through illegitimate means.  The thief has the intention of using the sheep for his or her own needs.  The Bible makes it clear that there are many false shepherds today who take advantage Jer 23:2; Jer 50:6; Eze 34:2-3.

   Second, the sheep know the shepherd's voice.  The sheep will run from a stranger, but there is an intimate understanding and knowledge that the sheep have of the shepherd.  Jesus is referred in many places in the Old Testament as the shepherd.  Isaiah 40:11; Ezek 34:23; Zech 13:7; Heb 13:20; 1 Peter 5:4.  The voice that is referred to here means a sound or voice that the sheep identified with their owner.  Jesus said he also knows his sheep by name.  By name implies intimate knowledge or to know the essence of a person.  God knows your name and knows you better than you even know yourself.

    Third, Jesus describes himself as the gate which leads to salvation (green pasture) full and abundant life John 10:7,9,10.  He isn't one of many gates, but only one.  The benefit of going through this gate is that it leads to safety, prosperity and an abundant life.  Jesus told his followers in Matthew 7:13-14 "Enter through the narrow gate.  For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

    Fourth, the good shepherd lays down his own life for the sheep.  He does this because he love the sheep.  His does this as a part of his own free choice.  In contrast, the thief and robber runs when trouble comes because they don't care for the sheep. 

    Fifth, the thief or robber is someone who enters by some other way than the gate.  In Acts 20:29-30 Paul tells the church that he knows that soon after he leaves that savage wolves will come and some would arise even out of the church and distort the truth.  This happened in both Galatia and Colossae and were the reason that Paul wrote those letters.  He refers to false brothers in Galatians 2:4 who infilitrated their ranks to spy on their freedom and to seek to make them slaves again.  The sheep should be aware that these false breathren still exist today and take advantage of the sheep if they can.

See also J.Vernon McGee's sermon about this passage
https://www.blueletterbible.org/audio_video/popPlayer.cfm?id=7715&rel=mcgee_j_vernon/Jhn

Commentary on this passage
David Guzik https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/guzik_david/StudyGuide_Jhn/Jhn_10.cfm?a=1007001

Matthew Henry https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/mhc/Jhn/Jhn_010.cfm?a=1007001

Chuck Missler https://www.blueletterbible.org/audio_video/missler_chuck/Jhn/John_Vintage.cfm#John_10_I_Am_the_Door

Friday, June 9, 2017

Hope in the middle of chaos

"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness."  Lamentations 3:22-23, NIV

    Jeremiah is often called the "weeping prophet" because of how much he lamented during his prophetic time period.  He was often ridiculed and laughed at, jailed and mistreated because of the Word of God that he preached to the people.  His prophetic message ranges from a period of around 626-629 B.C. until some time after Jerusalem is destroyed around 586 B.C.   So, he had a long period of trial.  During this time, because Jeremiah lived among the people even when in captivity when they suffered he also suffered.  It was bad enough that in Lamentations he makes mention of women cooking their own children due to starvation.

      Jeremiah didn't have a very hopefully message.  He lived during a time period when the Babylonians were rising in power.  God ended up using the Babylonians to inflict judgment upon Judah and Jerusalem due to their idol worship and numerous other sins.  The people had taken upon themselves to worship the sun, moon and stars and many of the pagan gods around them.  This included at times human sacrifice to pagan gods and sexual immorality.

      Jeremiah was not viewed a success because of his many converts.  In fact, of those who believed in him we know of very few except for a faithful scribe named Baruch who wrote and helped Jeremiah spread the message he was preaching.  Other than that, he left Jerusalem as a captive of those who remained and went down to Egypt even though he was telling the people not to go there.

      It makes it all the more remarkable that Jeremiah has these words of hope in the middle of a oracle dedicated to lamentation over the people's sins.  Jeremiah understood that it wasn't because of God's unfaithfulness that the people experienced all of their heartache and pain.  In fact, for almost 40 years Jeremiah had be trying to warn the people to repent.  Jeremiah understood that God is faithful when man is not.  He says in jeremiah 3:22-25

    "Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness.  I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."  The Lord is good t othose whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him." Lamentations 3:22-25, NIV

     This is a reminder that God is still good and his desire is to show compassion and love to others.  His discipline is proof of his love.  His patience with the people waiting over 40 years for them to repent was an act of love.  God didn't destroy all the people overnight like he could have.  It was 606 B.C when Jerusalem was first destroyed and the king and princes taken captive.  It was further attacked again around 597 B.C and then later burned to the ground 586 B.C.  God gave them time to repent and turn back to him because of his love.  Because of his holiness, he couldn't ignore the sins the people were committing.

   God called out to the people in Jeremiah 3:12, "Return, faithless Israel, declares the Lord, I will frown on you no longer, for I am merciful, declares the Lord, I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt you have rebelled against the Lord your God, you have scattered your favors to foreign gods under every spreading tree and have not obeyed me, declares the Lord."  The Lord asks them to consider how it has gone for them since they rebelled and to realize that it is in their best interest to return to him.  God says in Jeremiah 2:19b "Consider then a realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the Lord your God and have no awe of me."

    I believe this is the same message that the church should heed today.  That in many cases people who claim to be Christians are worshipping other things in their hearts and minds and not completely in love with the Lord and following after him with their whole heart.  He would say the same thing to us today to consider and realize that things are better when we follow the Lord with all our hearts.

Friday, June 2, 2017

Verses about God's love

The Attributes of God: Love

(part of this list is taken from web site: https://www.josh.org/resources/spiritual-growth/attributes-of-god/? A free Bible study site by Josh McDowell)
  • as a father, God corrects His beloved children (Prov. 3:12) Discipline is proof of his love.  Discipline - yakach, reproves, corrects. In Hebrews 12:11 it says that the displine of God is painful, but produces a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who are willing to be trained by it.  Similiar to the idea of in Romans 5:3-5 where it says that suffering produces perseverance, endurance and character and eventually builds hope.
  • Believers should imitate God’s universal love (Matt. 5:44-45) this comes right before where Jesus says to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.  Then he gives the example of God who sends his rain upon the good and the evil.
  • eternal plans are motivated by His love (Eph. 1:4-5)  God chose us in Him before the world was even created.  His motivation was love to adopt us as sons through Jesus Christ.
  • God loves and preserves His godly people (Ps. 37:28) The Lord loves those who are just and won’t forsake those who are faithful.  Love is the word ‘ahab which is the word used to describe God’s love for people. 
  • God loves His people, even when they are faithless (Hos. 3:1) God tells Hosea to go love his wife even though she is an adulteress just as God loves Israel even though Israel was not faithful and had turned to other gods.
  • God deserves thanks because of His perpetual love (Ps. 100:5) says that the Lord is good and his love is something that endures forever.  This word for love is checed which can be translated lovingkindness.  It can mean goodness, faithfulness, kindness. 
  • God loved the world enough to send His Son to die (John 3:16) God’s love motivated him to give His only son that the one who believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life
  • God loves those who love His Son (and obey Him) (John 14:21)  Jesus says the one who loves him is the one who has his commands and obeys them.   The Father will also love this person and Jesus promises to show himself to this person.
  • His love is poured into believers’ hearts (Rom. 5:5)  God has poured out his love to the believer through the Holy Spirit.
  • God is love, and those who know God love others (I John 4:7-8, 20-21)  Love is from God and the person who loves has been born of God and this is evidence that he knows Him because God is love.  True is is not that we loved God first, but rather that he loved us and sent Jesus to be a substitutionary sacrifice for our sins and make atonement for us.
  • nothing can separate the believer from His love (Rom. 8:38-39) Through the one who  loves us we are more than conquerors and nothing can separate us from His love.  Paul goes on to mention many things that cannot separate us like life and death, angels and demons, present nor future, nothing else in all creation because love is greater than all of these.
  • to love enemies and the wicked is to be like God (Luke 6:35)- similar to what was said in Matthew 5:44-45 that we are to love our enemies just as God is kind to those who are good and those who are evil.
  • (Romans 13:10) says that love is the fulfillment of the law.
  • (John 15:9)  Jesus repeatedly tells them to love each other as he has loved them.  He says that if they obey his commands they will remain in his love. Jesus love for the believer is similar to the Father’s love for the Son. 


Psalm 32:5-7 God is Ready and Eager to Forgive

  Psalm 32:3-7 3 When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. 4 For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me...