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Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Dear Saints of God, have you ever sat down at dinner and looked at the plate of food in front of you and said, “There’s no way I’m going to finish this?” This is how I feel about the text this morning. So, this is what I want to do. I want to actually prepare two quick doggy bags, a couple of verses for you to bring home with you to chew on this week, and then we’ll dig into the main course.
So we turn first to the book of Acts, the first lesson. You have it there in your bulletin. That, by the way, is what you should say if anybody asks, “Are the sermons long at your church?” You should say, “Yeah, we have large portions.”
The book of Acts, chapter 4, finds Peter and John at odds with the religious rulers in Jerusalem. They had just healed a man. In fact, they were walking into the temple, and there was a man begging, and they said, “We don’t have gold or silver, but what we do have, we give you in the name of Jesus, stand up and walk.” And so they carried on the healing ministry of Jesus, and now the religious rulers in Jerusalem are up in arms.
Now, I just want to contrast this, what we see in this verse, with what we saw on Easter. Do you remember where Jesus found the disciples on Easter Sunday? They were in the upper room, and they had locked the door because they were afraid of the Jews. They were afraid of the people who had arrested Jesus and had brought him before Pontius Pilate, where he was beaten, crucified, and died. And they were afraid—probably rightly so—they were afraid that the same thing that happened to Jesus would happen to them. And so they were hidden. They were huddled up. They were hiding there, not only on Easter but even a week after Easter, and they were afraid all the way through until Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit comes.
Fifty days after Easter, ten days after Jesus ascends into heaven, the Holy Spirit comes upon them, and now they are no longer afraid. We find them here, Acts chapter 4, verse 1, preaching the resurrection of Jesus in the temple. In the temple. It’s not just that they’re out of the upper room and out on the street, but still kind of hiding around—no, they went right into the middle of it, where they knew they would get in trouble, and they were arrested. They were thrown in jail, and they were brought, the text said, before Annas and Caiaphas, the same two high priests who had overseen the trial of Jesus.
In other words, they are not afraid. They’re not afraid of the consequences of confessing the name of Jesus. They’re willing to be imprisoned. In fact, just about every prophet or apostle who’s worth their salt was at one time or another thrown in prison, beaten, persecuted, cast out, thrown out of the synagogue, cursed, spit upon, killed for confessing Jesus. It’s what it means to be a Christian.
Now, as we have our men’s Bible study on Saturday mornings, and as we have our Sons of Solomon, the men’s group, and they’re having conversations about various things, this is coming up more and more and more about how the pressure to deny Christ or to deny the teachings of Scripture, especially regarding marriage or sexual identity—gender and things like this—how that pressure is getting stronger and stronger in the workplace. And this is hard; the threat comes that will you be quiet or you will be punished, and I think it’s just beginning.
And so it’s good for us to underline these verses. Look at verse 2, Acts chapter 4, verse 2. “They were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead, and they arrested them.” This is how it goes. So that’s a verse to pack up and take home with you, and especially also the last verse of this text, verse 12. They were preaching that Jesus is the stone who was rejected, who has become the chief cornerstone, and Peter says this: “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Jesus, who died and rose again, who loves you and forgives your sins, and loves your neighbor and wants to forgive their sins as well, and the people that you work with and everyone else—He wants that glory, that salvation, that deliverance to be known in His name. And so we cannot be silent. We cannot stop confessing the name of Jesus. We have to confess no matter the consequences, trusting that the Lord is with us.
So take those two verses with you and chew on them some this week. There’s a couple of verses that I want to pack up for you also in the epistle lesson, 1 John chapter 3, which is a beautiful, beautiful text. We talked about verses 19 and 20 in Sunday school. “By this we know that we are of the truth and reassure our hearts before Him, for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and He knows everything.”
This is so important because so often in this life—just very briefly—so often in this life our heart tells us lies, like God has forgotten us, or God is not with us, or God doesn’t love you, or God doesn’t forgive your sins, or you are not part of His family, or you still stand condemned, or whatever. Your heart and mine often condemn us. And what are we to do in those circumstances? Well, we should remember that our heart can lie, and more importantly, we remember these words: God is greater than our heart.
If your heart is telling you you are not forgiven, then listen to the one who is greater than your heart, Jesus, who says your sins are forgiven. If your heart is preaching to you that God is far from you, listen to Jesus who cannot lie and says, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” When your heart is preaching that you are condemned because of your sin and uncleanness, listen to Jesus who says, “I came to seek and save that which is lost. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” You have one greater than your heart. This is important.
And then look at this verse 23. Martin Luther highlighted this verse for us, and he says this is really the key verse of the whole Bible, 1 John 3, verse 23. “This is the commandment that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus and love one another just as He commanded us.” If you want to know what it means to be a Christian, this is it. We have faith in God and love toward our neighbor. We trust in Christ and we love each other. It’s really that simple. So, take those verses with you as well.
Now we turn to the Gospel. The Lord, it seems, has a special place in His heart for shepherds. This goes all the way back to the very beginning. Remember Cain and Abel? It was Abel who was the shepherd. Or Noah, who was the super shepherd, I think; he shepherded all the animals. Or you remember Abraham was a shepherd, Isaac, Jacob was a shepherd, Moses was a shepherd—a shepherd for 40 years, watching the flock of his father-in-law Jethro. King David was a shepherd. All his older brothers were soldiers, but he was the runt of the litter, so he had that humble work of being out in the fields watching the sheep and protecting them from the bears and the lions. Or Amos the prophet.
Or remember when the Lord sends the angels to sing the Gloria in Excelsis at the birth of Jesus? He sends them to the shepherds, out watching their flocks in Bethlehem. It’s an amazing sort of thing that this picture of the shepherd and his sheep—the Lord really treasures. Not only does He love the shepherds, but He most especially loves the picture. He puts it before us all the time. We have it in the Venite, in Matt, in Psalm 95. We are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Also in Psalm 100. It’s all the way through the Psalms. In fact, one of the most beautiful pictures we had in Psalm 23. We sang it already twice today: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” He leads me. He guides me. He makes me lay down. He protects me. My cup runs over. The paths of righteousness, that’s where he takes me.
It’s absolutely stunning that the Lord provides for us, that the Lord protects us, that the Lord keeps us. In Ezekiel 34, the Lord starts thundering at the false prophets as the false shepherds who fatten the sheep so that they could live off of the sheep. And the Lord says, “I’m going to destroy those shepherds, and I,” the Lord says, “I Myself will shepherd My flock.”
So the Lord promises that He will lead us, and guide us, and protect us, and keep us. Jesus takes this preaching up. Remember, in His parable, He says, “What man of you, if he has a hundred sheep and one wanders off, will leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go and look after the one? And then when he finds him, he’ll put him on his shoulder, he’ll carry him home, he’ll call his friends together, he’ll have a feast for joy that the lost sheep is found.”
And so Jesus gathers all of this up in this chapter 10 when He says, “I am the good shepherd.” All of these things that all of the good shepherd does, all of these promises that you have from the Lord—all of them are fulfilled in Me. The picture that Jesus is using is the picture of the ancient world, the flock. The way it would work is that the shepherds would get their flocks, and they would take them out during the day to the wilderness, where the sheep could eat the grass and drink the water and everything like this and feed, so they would graze all during the day.
And then at night, the shepherds would all bring their flocks back to town, to the village, and there would be a village pen where all of the sheep—all the different flocks—would be gathered together. And so at night, all the flocks would go into the pen, and the shepherds would go home, and they’d hire a high school kid or something to watch them at night, you know? And then in the morning, the shepherds would come back, and all of the sheep would be all mixed up from all the different flocks.
And the shepherd would call his sheep by name. And the sheep, all mixed up—you’ve got to imagine hundreds of sheep all, you know, confused and everything—and the sheep would recognize the voice of their shepherd calling them by name, and the sheep would gather each to their own shepherd. And then they would lead them out into the wilderness where they could give them grass to eat and cool water to drink and so forth and so on.
That’s the picture that Jesus is using when He tells us, starting in chapter 10, verse 1: “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 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 he 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.”
Can you imagine a more beautiful picture of what it means to be a Christian? Jesus has called your name in baptism. He’s called your name, and now you’ve left all the multitudes that don’t belong, and now you’ve followed him. Wherever he goes, you’ve followed him. You recognize his voice. He knows you, and you know him.
And also, Jesus said—and this is at the end of our text, this is kind of funny, it has to do with the same picture—Jesus says, “I’m going to gather a few other sheep as well.” So He stands there at the gate, and not only does He call His sheep from His own flock, but He starts to call the names of the other sheep as well. And they also come into His flock and start to follow Him. It’s a beautiful picture of what it means to do evangelism. Jesus is calling us by name and bringing us into His church and into His flock.
And then Jesus gathers up all of this preaching of the shepherd, of the Old Testament and the New—all of this good news about how He cares for us and He blesses us. He gathers it all up when He says, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep.” If we want to be safe, we have it. Jesus is our shepherd. If we want grass to eat and water to drink, if we want provision for this life, we have it. Jesus is our good shepherd. If we want to be safe from the enemies, from the wolves and lions and bears and the devil that prowls around, we have it; Jesus is our Good Shepherd. If we want to be content in life, we have it. Jesus is our Good Shepherd. We shall not want. He gives us all of these things.
But then—and this is quite stunning—Jesus goes above and beyond anything that we could ask for or imagine. He says, “All of these things you have, safety, provision, providing, protecting—all of this you have, but I’m going to give you something even more.”
And we have it in these words. Are you ready? “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.” Now, that is stunning. The good shepherd, who should protect and keep the sheep and watch over the sheep—who should even go looking for the sheep that’s lost and find them and bring them back—who should provide for the sheep in every way—the good shepherd should do those things. But if a sheep finds itself in the jaws of a bear, that’s probably acceptable losses. But not for Jesus. He gives His life for you.
The kids from Upbring come to chapel every week on Thursday mornings, and so they were sitting all here and I was sitting with them this week, and we were talking about how Jesus is the Good Shepherd. I told them this story about Frederick the Lamb. So you’ve got to imagine Frederick the Lamb. He was a sweet lamb but a little bit curious, and one day Frederick the Lamb got distracted. He was there eating some clovers or something— I don’t know if sheep eat clovers, but anyway, he was there eating, and he got distracted by some butterfly, and he kind of chased it around. He knew he wasn’t supposed to leave the flock, but he was curious about it, so he went a little ways.
And then the butterfly flew off, but then he noticed a little creek that was down the hill a little bit, so he went to check that out. And when he got down there, he noticed something else that caught his attention—a bird in a tree. And so he hopped over to check that out, and then he saw a rock that was interesting and some blue thing that caught also his eye, and he went and checked that out. And pretty soon, Frederick the sheep realized that he was lost.
“Oh no, I better find my way back to Mom and Dad, back to the shepherd.” So he turned around and he hurried back, but he realized that it didn’t seem like he was getting closer to the flock; it seemed like he was getting farther and farther away, and the trees were getting darker, and the forest was getting scarier. Until one day—one moment—he finds himself in the middle of all these boulders, and he rounds one of the rocks and walks right into the mouth of a cave in which there is a growling wolf. And the wolf looks at him, and Frederick the lamb looks at the wolf, and he’s shaking and he’s afraid because he knows that he’s a goner.
The wolf looks hungry, and he smiles at Frederick and he says, “You look like a good lunch.” Now, Frederick is terrified as the wolf is getting closer and closer, but then he hears rustling in the leaves behind him, some sort of sound. And he turns to look, and out from the forest steps the shepherd. And Frederick thinks to himself, “Oh, good, I’m saved. The shepherd’s here. He’s got his rod and his staff, his sling. I’ve seen him take care of the wolf before. This wolf is no match for the shepherd. He’ll just take care of him right away.”
And the shepherd says, “Hey, hey there, wolf, I don’t want you eating my little sheep, Frederick.” And the wolf says, “Well, shepherd, I appreciate that sentiment, but you know the rules. You know the rules that if a sheep wanders into my cave, I’m allowed to eat them.” Frederick remembers learning something like that in confirmation class, and now he’s particularly worried, and he looks at the shepherd, who nods his head and says to the wolf, “You’re right. But the shepherd then says to this wolf, ‘I’ll make you a deal. How about instead of devouring that little sheep, Frederick, instead you eat me?'”
And without hesitation, the wolf devours the shepherd without even missing a beat. One bite and he’s gone. And Frederick is safe. Now, Jesus is the good shepherd who gives His life for you. Now, by the way, the story doesn’t end there because unbeknownst to the wolf, there’s another rule—that he doesn’t know how to digest shepherds. So three days later, the shepherd is alive and the wolf is dead, destroyed. Jesus has risen indeed! Hallelujah! But this is what Jesus does—He gives His life for you.
You don’t deserve it. I know you don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve it either, but He loves you. He delights in you. He cares for you. He knows you. He calls you by name. You hear His voice, and you follow Him. So God be praised. Listen to what Jesus says: “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep.” Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Christ is risen. He has risen indeed.