Why Jesus Calls His Disciples Sheep

We're talking about reaching out with the Gospel, especially to the current young adult generation that is marked by skepticism and doubts about the validity of the Christian faith. Many such young adults were brought up in the fellowship of the Christian church. Many of us who parented that generation struggle with our own doubts about what we failed to do to support faith in Christ. The Lord Jesus spoke to the skeptics of his day with these words: 

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one." - Jhn 10:27-30 ESV

Let's look carefully at what he says as a commentary upon his mashal or parable of the Good Shepherd (John 10:1-6).

Is there anyone among us with personal experience with sheep? Although I grew up on a farm in southern Minnesota I have zip experience with that particular mammal. So I wonder why Jesus purposely calls his followers sheep. In his Head Heart Hand blog David Murray, who seems to have had at least some such experience, characterizes sheep in this way.

1. Sheep are foolish - they only know how to do one thing well—eat grass. 
2. Sheep are slow to learn - they'll even try to get through a barbed wire fence. 
3. Sheep are unattractive - awkward, dirty, smelly and ugly
4. Sheep are demanding - insatiably demanding food, day and night
5. Sheep are stubborn - don't even think of maneuvering them into a fold
6. Sheep are strong - a running sheep will flatten you
7. Sheep are straying - over cliffs, into bogs, out in the middle of nowhere
8. Sheep are unpredictable - they'll dive right in front of a car
9. Sheep are copycats - if one starts running, well, the rest follow without thinking
10. Sheep are restless - they'll be eating grass at 3 a.m. 
11. Sheep are dependent - they can't live without their shepherd
12. Sheep are the same everywhere - in Asia as in Africa as in America

Wow! As I read that description I began to realize why Jesus called his disciples sheep. Nothing more need be said. 

BUT he also said, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." 

The voice of God is, was or will be spoken

• by John the Baptist as he declared himself the one sent to prepare the hearts of God's people by calling them to "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 3:2-3). 
• by the heavenly Father on the Mountain of Transfiguration, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3:17). 
• by Jesus upon the cross as he said, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!" 
• by the spiritually reborn who hear the sound of the Holy Spirit (John 3:8). 
• by the dead who will hear the voice of the Son of God and live (John 5:28). 

We pastors, teachers, parents and all who guide must ask ourselves day by day these question: Do I speak for Jesus? Do my hearers hear me speaking the voice of God? When I speak do they hear Jesus speaking through me, calling them to renew their thinking, to see the wonder of Jesus, Son of God and the Savior upon the cross? Do they hear God's voice through me to comfort and to guide? Or do they hear another voice, beating, berating and babbling nonsense? Such a voice they surely will not follow.

As foolish, slow, demanding and stubborn as Jesus' sheep are, they do recognize the voice of the Good Shepherd when he speaks—even through under-shepherds such as we may be. 

". . . and they follow me." We sheep who are by nature restless, demanding, dependent and slow to learn, we will follow someone. That should be obvious when we consider all the stupid things we humans do. This is why we must do whatever it takes to teach and proclaim the Word of God. 

Judging According To The Flesh

Yesterday as I wrote about the rapidly changing views on marriage and sexual license here in the United States I was painfully aware of how different my views are from those self-styled enlightened voices calling for such changes. To most of us who follow Jesus, it seems so very obvious. The definition of marriage is clear : one man and one woman for life! Period, end of discussion. This is what Jesus teaches clearly in his Word. This is how he, our Creator, Master and Lord designed human life. We have no choice but to follow his way of life. He is LORD. He brings light. He is the Light of the world. And when we follow this Light our personal, family and community lives are blessed.

But my conclusions are not at all obvious to those outside Christ's Kingdom, to those who do not accept his authority nor that of the Scriptures as God's Word. You can see this clearly as we pick up the conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees. Jesus has just declared himself to be the light of the world.

So the Pharisees said to him, "You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true." Jesus answered, "Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. - Jhn 8:13-16 ESV

"You judge according to the flesh!"

Like the talking heads who decided which candidate won the recent series of televised presidential debates here in the United States, the Pharisees brought their own personal agendas into this conflict between themselves and Jesus. They judged him, says Jesus, "according to the flesh!" And as a result they did not accept him nor the light he brought into the world.

Flesh in Jesus' usage refers not to the soft substance that covers the bodies of men and beasts. Rather, it refers to that sensuous, sinful nature of a man or woman with a self-centered agenda. To "judge according to the flesh" is decide on the basis of "what's in it for me." The apostle Paul puts it this way:

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. - Rom 8:7-8 ESV

In the minds of the Pharisees, Jesus was nothing more than some self-promoting carpenter from the nothing-town of Nazareth. "You are bearing witness about yourself," they shouted. "The claims you make are empty and meaningless."

Jesus countered, "Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me." 

They said to him therefore, "Where is your Father?" 

Jesus answered, "You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also." - Jhn 8:16-19 ESV

Earlier in the Gospel of John we hear Jesus equating the Scriptures to the voice of his Father.

And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. - Jhn 5:37-40 ESV

The Pharisees and learned Scribes rejected the witness of the very Scriptures they so highly treasured. Driven by their flesh, they persisted in the belief that they could earn the blessings of God by their righteous lives. In this belief they were blind to what these same Scriptures say about sin and about Jesus as the only Savior from God's judgment upon sin. They continued to "judge according to the flesh!"

Bottom line: when we Christians despair about how the morals of this world are changing, let us remember that that this is the world of men and women who "judge according to the flesh!" It has always been so. It will always be so until Christ returns. Until and unless they are reborn by the power and working of the Holy Spirit (John 3:5-6), there will be no changing of their minds. We must ever be conscious of this truth. Jesus' kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36).