Sermon Tone Analysis

Simon Guillebaud in his book /For What It's Worth,/ made this statement, "There are so many people in the world, who just sit there…who just sit there."

That's nothing new.

Even the ancients would say, in fact an ancient sage warned, "Fear not that your life shall come to an end, but rather that it should never have a beginning."

The great fear is not that you're going to die, but that you never lived.

It's no coincidence that Jesus brings us this monologue about the Good Shepherd here in John, chapter 10, today, in a message that I want to call…/The Art of Living/ because that's exactly what He's battling.

He's battling people, religious leaders who have found themselves trapped in a system that is lifeless, that is brutal, that is oppressive to one another, and does not bring out the life that God intended, really, from way back in the Garden of Eden, and through life in Christ for everyone to have.

It's after the encounter with the blind man that we come to John, chapter 10, and it is in keeping with the fact that this man has been cast out of the synagogue, Jesus has found this young blind man.

He has confessed his faith in Christ.

He has worshipped Him openly.

The Pharisees have responded to Jesus because Jesus says, "You have sight, but there are those who are still blind."

They say, "Are we blind also?" Jesus said, "You're problem is not that you are blind to the truth.

Your problem is that you've rejected the truth, and that's what has made you blind."

In light of that, Jesus wants, once again, to reach out to them, to reach out to you and to me as He uses this metaphor of a Good Shepherd, this metaphor of a good doer.

The idea of good here is the word kalos in the Greek.

It's more than just kind, it's also noble; true; the correct; the right one.

Jesus is that authentic Shepherd is what He is going to be saying.

The rabbis and the Pharisees pretend to be shepherds, but they become like the shepherds in Ezekiel 34 and Ezekiel 37 when God was prophesying through Ezekiel about shepherds who ate the fat of the sheep, who took the healthiest sheep and killed them and used their skin for their clothing, but they never raised up any more healthy sheep.

Because of their selfishness, they took advantage of the fat of the crop, but never fed the lean of the crop.

They were like the priests who were enjoying the benefits of the priesthood, but were never teaching the people how to live.

God said, "I'm not happy with those shepherds in Ezekiel."

Jesus is saying here, "There are true shepherds and there are false shepherds."

This man, this blind man, he has just been cast out of the synagogue, but really it's by false shepherds.

It's by thieves and robbers.

So he uses the metaphor of a sheep pen where a family would bring the different flocks of sheep into their courtyard.

They would keep the sheep there so that they would be protected.

They might even have a hireling.

They might hire a shepherd to watch over those sheep so that wolves or wild dogs could not come in and take them.

The owners of the sheep would come to the front gate.

The gatekeeper would open the door.

They would go in.

They knew their sheep by name.

They would call them.

Their sheep would come and they would follow them.

But a thief and a robber were ones who would try to sneak in over the fence, who would come in some other way.

He didn't come in in an authentic way.

He came in some artificial way.

His purpose, Jesus tells us, is simply to destroy…to destroy.

Oh there have been many false shepherds in our world.

Our world seems to always follow the siren call of false shepherds whether it's Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot.

There are always those in the world who are promising grandiose things, but the ends of their roads are destructions.

The ends of their roads, the ends of Mao Tse Tong's promises are poverty and impoverishment, imprisonment, destruction.

Jesus stands opposed to all of those false philosophies of the world.

He offers everyone here, not a dull, drab listless life, but life to the full, abundant life.

Join with me in John, chapter 10, Jesus says, /"'Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.

But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.

Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.'/

/Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things which He spoke to them.

Then Jesus said to them again, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

All 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.'"/

Jesus said all the others are taking away life.

I have come to give life.

All the others are making promises, but the end result is destruction, but I am coming that you might have life.

The art of living, my friends, is first of all hearing the voice of the true Shepherd.

It is knowing the voice of Christ, knowing the voice of a Holy God who loves you and who desires to give you life to the full.

That's literally what it means in the Greek, not just a life where you're breathing, and not just eternal life after you die, but life to the full right now.

Not the false promises of full life that so many in the world who are nothing more than thieves and robbers who are out to get your money, who are out to get your life, who are out to get your place in life, they promise all of these things but they don't ever deliver.

But Jesus says, "I came that you might have abundant, full life when you hear My voice."

Oh His sheep are hearing His voice.

This blind man hears His voice.

This tax collector over here hears His voice.

There are those who have seen the end results of the world that religion had to offer, and now they're hearing the voice of the Shepherd and they're following the Shepherd.

They're not wanting to follow the voice of the thieves and robbers, and as a result, they're learning the art of living.

The art of living begins by following His voice, by being attuned to the voice of Jesus, by listening to Him speak to you when you read His Word, when you pray to Him, being able to pause and stop and let His influence come to you and direct you and lead you.

You must be able to hear the voice of the Shepherd through the den of all the other noises that are out there.

Boy, it's a noisy world we live in.

There are many philosophies that are constantly calling to you from the simple commercials on TV to books to friends and peer pressures.

Always there are those that are tugging at you at one direction and the other.

You need to learn to hear the voice of the true Shepherd.

When you do, well first of all, you'll know His voice.

That's the promise Jesus has.

He says, "They know My voice.

They know that it's not a false voice.

They know that it's real."

Then He says, "They follow Me, and when they follow Me, I give them full life, rich life.

I come that they might have life and have it to the full."

Everyone who listens to Jesus' voice, this promise, this art of living comes.

You know a few weeks ago as the New Year rolled around, I get those mailings that come in the mail.

I received one advertisement wanting me to subscribe to a magazine that was promising to give me expert tips and advice on everything I could possible need to feel better, to feel healthier, to be happier, to know all of the holistic solutions to all the ailments and the creaks and the problems I was having.

People claiming, in this magazine, "Everything I ever wanted to know was there if I would just subscribe to it."

Maybe you've made New Year's resolutions this year to exercise more, eat less, eat healthier food, drink more water, whatever it may be just to try to make your life happier and healthier, and those are all wonderful things.

They're all worthwhile because certainly God wants our bodies to physically be healthy so that we can serve Him, and live a healthy life, and make the most of the life He has given us.

But at the same time, life is so much more than just those things.

Life is so much more than just the physical.

Life involves so much more than just the temporal.

Back in Deuteronomy 30, a thousand years earlier (2,000 years earlier) Moses on the planes of Moab, giving his farewell address to the children of Israel before they followed Joshua across the Jordan River into the Promised Land, in Deuteronomy 30, beginning in verse 15, he says, /"See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess.

But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess./

/I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them."/

Imagine being promoted into the Promised Land, but yet not choosing God and having your days cut short, not choosing to obey Him, and finding that your life does not have the abundance that the Promised Land had offered.

Oh the Promised Land was what everybody in that great throng of Israel dreamed of and fantasized about and longed for, a land flowing with milk and honey, houses that were already built and vineyards that were already growing and the ability to just walk in and, by God's power, to conquer and to take it for themselves.

No longer to wonder in the wilderness, but to be able to possess fruitful and fertile land.

It was every Israelite's dream, but if they marched into that land without the conviction that God loved them and that the best for their life was to love and serve God, well Moses said, "I set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, you need to choose life, but you can choose the other."

You know we live in a land of plenty.

We live in a promised land.

We live in a land of tremendous opportunity.