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Mark Thompson: These things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God. And that by believing you may have life in his name, shall we pray together, father, we look forward to that day when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And we pray that you might anticipate that day amongst us, that we might live as those who recognise his lordship. Who rejoice in his humility and who live out what it means to be his saved people.

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This morning, as we turn to your word again, we ask you Father, to address us. Take promise every distraction. Enable us to hear what you would want us to hear so that we might indeed live as his faithful disciples and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

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When we take up our study of John's gospel together this morning at John 10 and verse one, truly, truly, I say to you, the one who does not enter the sheep fold through the gate, but climbs in another way, is a thief and a robber. The one who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. To him, the gatekeeper opens and the sheep prick up their ears at his voice, and he calls his own by name and he leads them out. When all of his own have gone out, he goes before them and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.

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They do not follow a stranger, but flee from him because they do not know the voice of strangers. Jesus spoke this figure of speech to them, but they did not know what he was saying to them. Then Jesus spoke again. Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the gate of the sheep.

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All who came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the gate. If any enter through me, they will be saved and they will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy.

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I came that they might have life. And have it abundantly well. Have you noticed how often the claim to serve others in reality? Cloaks, self-interest, politicians who somehow leave their time in office having accrued a massive personal wealth they did not have when they began an enviable property portfolio.

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Carefully curated investments. Public servants now worth multi-millions of dollars. Or Christian leaders who pursue a comfortable life that house in a nice part of town or close to the family, regular trips overseas, elite schooling, a top of the range car, a lifestyle, really not so different from those who are doing well in the broader community. All the while neglecting the people placed in their care.

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Privilege without any real sacrifice except what they believe they might have had if they'd not gone into ministry. On a previous occasion, when I was looking at this passage, I was introduced to the word trough snuffles. It doesn't appear anyway today in a dictionary that I've been able to consult. So perhaps it was just made up by the journalist I was reading at the time, but it was a way of describing those with their snout firmly sun into the trough.

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Feeding their own interests, profiting from what was supposed to be service surrounding themselves with comfort and sometimes even ostentatious luxury, and easily, sadly blind or just insensitive to the needs of those they are supposed to serve. When it's exposed, most people tend to recoil in disgust. That's not what it's supposed to be like. The service of others is well, the service of others, and of course, the trough there.

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Stuffing might not just be filled with financial gain. It might instead be a way of satisfying other indulgences, some even more sorted than financial enrichment. Some of us are still reeling from the revelations about what one world famous Christian preacher and apologist believed he was entitled to be given. Entitled to do disgusting hypocrisy and grossly immoral self-indulgence.

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In the case of Christian leaders in particular, it's clear that something has gone spectacularly wrong. In those cases, how did they get there? I mean, they might have started out thoroughly altruistic with lofty ideals and a commitment to the truth. They're not gonna hold onto anything.

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They'll go wherever the Lord will take them bear, whatever cost might be asked of them. Even the cost of isolation and relative anonymity, all for the sake of integrity and faithfulness, but something's changed. What wrong view of the mission did they embrace? What proper view of the mission did they lose sight of?

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And where did their centre of gravity shift to? The tragedy is that they might be fooling themselves as well as everyone else. They might not be aware of what has happened, which I think is one reason why we are given so many passages like this one in the Bible, not just so that we can recognise those who are not really shepherds, but rather thieves and robbers. Discerning the difference between their voice and the voice of the shepherd we really want to follow, but also so that we might not slip into becoming one of those thieves and robbers ourselves.

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Perhaps the first observation to make of this passage is that, though it's going to tell us something truly magnificent about Jesus, it begins with a tragic contrast. We get the negative in verse one. Before we get the positive in verse two, and the contrast between them continues right through the passage. And the reason for that's quite simple, really not surprisingly, John Chapter 10 comes immediately after John chapter nine, where we are introduced to the man born blind whom Jesus healed on a Sabbath.

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You might remember from the last week of last term that the once blind man was interrogated twice. By the Jewish religious leaders. Essentially, they tried to bully him in order to find a way to get to Jesus, and eventually they cast him out, but Jesus sought him out. How do you make sense of what happened to that formerly blind man?

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What did that whole incident reveal about Jesus and also about the Jewish religious leaders? Well, here it is, the one who does not enter the sheep fold by the gate. It climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. The religious leaders might have been institutionally approved.

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They might have presented as the properly authorised teachers and judges of the teaching of others. They might have had the right badges of office, but they did not enter the sheep fold. They did not come to God's people through the gate. They'd hopped over the side fence, so to speak, and Jesus was saying that people like those leaders who treated the once blind man like they did, were the very opposite of the shepherds they might claim to be.

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Though we're gonna be told in a minute that those who heard these words of Jesus did not understand them at first, the image that he was using is really quite simple, isn't it? The standard practise for shepherds in first century Judea was at the end of the day to gather their sheep into a sheep pen. Guarded by a gatekeeper in that pen might be a number of flocks, actually belonging to a number of shepherds kept together at night and guarded against these and predators. And then when daylight came.

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The shepherd would approach the gate, be let in by the gatekeeper, and he would call his sheep by name and his sheep would follow him out into the fields. Come on Sean. Come on Molly. Come on, Tinkerbell.

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Now that's another animal, isn't it Really? The sheep would recognise the voice of the shepherd. Their ears would prick up at the sound of his voice and they would hear him call each one of them by name and he would lead them out. He's come through the gate and they know his voice, so they won't go with anyone else.

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They will not follow the voice of someone they do not know. It's a pretty simple, and as I say, a rather familiar story. The point is that there is only one legitimate way into the sheep pen, and anyone can see who the true shepherd of those sheep is by watching whether he goes through the gate. Whether he knows the names of his sheep, the one who goes through the gate is the shepherd.

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Those who scramble over the side fence are merely thieves and Roberts. What is interesting in this figure of speech Jesus is using is that the sheep can tell the difference because they know the shepherd's voice. They do not know the voice of strangers. The shepherd knows their names.

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They know his voice. They spend time with each other. There's a real bond between them, but it's not a bond. The sheep share with the thieves and robbers who are scrambling over the fence with nefarious intentions.

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Those who were there just watching this play out with the once blind man, the Jewish leaders and Jesus didn't quite make sense of it, didn't quite make the connection at that moment. The fascination was the gate, the way of legitimate entrance and exit from the sheephole, the only legitimate entrance and exit entering into the place of safety and going out to pasture, always following and listening. The voice of the one who has their genuine interests at heart, fleeing from the stranger who has some other purpose. So what is the gate?

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What is it exactly that makes the difference between the one truly acting like a shepherd and those who are thieves and robbers? They weren't sure. They didn't understand, and so Jesus gets more explicit. I am the gate.

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The gate he was talking about was not a particular position or role, was not an authorization given by a religious institution, ordination or something like that? No. The gateway to the sheep. The only proper way to approach the sheep, the only effective way to pastor them is through him.

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Immediately, Jesus returns to the contrast with what was going on around them, the self-serving, ultimately cruel, degraded religious leadership that they'd seen on display in the incident with the one blind man. The Old Testament echo is undoubtedly Ezekiel 34, where the Lord himself exposes the wickedness of those who were supposed to be shepherding Israel. Remember his words? Ah, shepherds of Israel, who have been feeding yourselves should not shepherds feed the sheep.

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You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep, the weak ones. You've not strengthened. The sick, you've not healed the injured, you've not bound up the stray. You've not brought back the lost.

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You've not sought. And with force and harshness, you have ruled them. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd. It's a damning indictment on the shepherds of Israel, and what it makes crystal clear is that what they are doing is not hidden.

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It does not go unnoticed by the Lord himself. He sees right through the facade and a day of reckoning is coming. It's not only the sheep who recognise the voice of the true shepherd, so does the Lord God. Therefore, your shepherds hear the word of the Lord thus says the Lord.

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Behold, I am against the shepherds and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God.

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You see, taking on the care of God's people is always a very serious business. It matters to God. It is as the writer of to the Hebrews reminds us. Leaders are meant to keep watch over the souls of those committed to their care as those who have to give an account as those who have to give an account the sheep matter to the Great shepherd.

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We're going to hear next time we get together around John that the great and good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. So how they are treated or mistreated. It is not a matter of small importance as far as he is concerned. Some of those who heard Jesus that day had seen the mistreatment of the once blind man by the Jewish religious leaders, but the warning stretches out beyond them, doesn't it?

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Hold yourself to account. Don't be a false shepherd, a thief or a robber whose real concern is what they might gain from the sheep rather than the sheep themselves. There are too many examples of ministries like that around us today, aren't there? You might know some of them.

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I hope you're not exercising one of them, but he sees it and it matters to him. So what's this about the gate and what does it mean that Jesus himself is the gate, the entrance into the security of the sheet pen is only through him. There is no other way in. Nothing else secures the ministry you'll be involved in.

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Nothing else will protect the sheep from the walls and the thieves and the robbers. Only him only this gate. The message that brings life is the message about Jesus, the life that results is life in Jesus. The hope that lies before us is hope in Jesus.

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You've gotta go in this way and no other, don't try to jump the fence. That's what the ths and robbers do, whose real interest is only themselves. But also, don't finesse the message you proclaim so that strangely Jesus is on the periphery or not there at all. It's all too easy to be preoccupied by the trendy or contentious issues of the moment.

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Go through the gates. Take the sheep through the gate. It's the gate that provides exit towards the pasture, towards nourishment and strengthening and care, and that too is only him. There is no other way to maturity, no other way to godly discipleship, no other way to effectiveness in ministry.

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Only through him, only by listening to his voice and travelling with him through the gate. It's all tied to Jesus. After all he said it. I am the gate.

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The gates you see operate as a funnel. They concentrate the pathway. Think of those turnstiles at train stations or at a constant with people you're crowding in and having to get through the narrow gateway. People can push against the barrier all they like, but the entrance or exit is channelled through the gate.

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Interestingly, that's true from both sides. The true shepherd goes through the gate. The true sheep go through this gate. It all comes down to Jesus.

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In the end, if any enter through me, Jesus said they will be saved and they'll come in and they'll go out and they'll find pasture. Later in this chapter, we'll find out more. The gate to the sheep fold turns out to be the shepherd himself. But before we get there, Jesus ramps up the contrast between himself and those who exploit the sheep one more time.

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Those who pursue their own interests rather than the welfare of the sheep. I doubt the religious leaders of the time or the trough snuffles of our own time would recognise themselves in Jesus' words, but he said them anyway. Pointed to the glorious wonderful difference between their negative approach to ministry and his own very positive one. The thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy.

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I came that they might have life and have it abundantly. Self-interest in ministry, even carefully concealed self-interest. Where the focus is really you rather than those you've been given to. Love and serve is ultimately destructive.

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It corrupts the shepherd and it endangers the sheep. If the sheep in your sheep folder are only a means to an end, they will eventually know it and their trust will be eroded. You might not think you are stealing or slaughtering or destroying. Nevertheless, that is the result.

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See it reflected in those who resisted Jesus and opposed him over the healing of the man born blind and be warned. But the best news of all is that Jesus is so magnificently different. He nourishes the life of the sheep he provides for them. He protects them.

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He leads them to where they need to be. He comes so that they might have life, and we know how much that will cost him. Yet. Even more than that, when Jesus gives life, he doesn't parcel it out in small doses.

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He does not just give them enough to survive on. He gives them plenty. He gives them abundantly. Abundant life.

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The best wine at the wedding at Cana, the 12 baskets left over after the feeding of the 5,000 rivers of living. Water, forgiveness, life from the dead, the light of the world. Jesus never gives dingly. He is open, handedly generous with the gifts he gives.

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He wants the sheep to have life. That's why he came, and he wants them to have it abundantly life to the full. So in such stark contrast to the self-serving counterfeits, he provides a security that cannot be overcome, a personal relationship with all the intimacy of one who knows your name and whose voice you can readily recognise and direction toward the place where you'll receive past your life. To the full abundant life.

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That's what Jesus' ministry was about, and he wants it for them. It's directed away from himself to them. That's the glorious truth about Jesus made all the brighter by its contrast with those who really are little more than thieves and robbers. It's a magnificent comfort that this is the gate which we come in and go out.

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Find pasture from. But as I've been saying, it's also a warning. There is no other gate and it is possible to operate in ministry just like the Jewish leaders who cast out the man born blind and set their faces against the one who healed him. It is possible to fleece the sheep rather than feed them, and there are far too many examples of that today.

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It is possible to mistreat the sheep rather than nourish them, to wound them, rather than binding up their wounds to harden your heart rather than bringing back the strays. It is possible so to operate in ministry that you make it pay pay for you and your family rather than for those who came to serve. And the not so subtle warning here is that this matters. It always matters.

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It matters to the Lord God. As we heard in Ezekiel 34, it matters to the one whom will learn. Next time is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. So brothers and sisters bask in the joy of life poured out for us, life abundant that's been given to us life to the full, but heed the warning to.

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Shall we pray? We thank you, father, that you have given us this word and we pray that you might help us to heed it. Well, we ask this mercy of you in Jesus' name.