Following the Shepherd

When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. (John 10:4)

Back in the first century, they had much smaller flocks of sheep. They didn’t have a huge professional farm. They were required to move them around to find food. The shepherds led them to the food. Depending on the time of year, they had different approaches to grazing. In the winter and spring, grazing was abundant. They didn’t have to move them. They would put the sheep in large more permanent pens and they would share the pen with other flocks.

How did they keep the flocks separate in the pens? They didn't. The sheep knew the call of their shepherd. When it came time to pull the sheep out, the shepherd simply whistled or called and his sheep came running. In the summer, grazing was much scarcer. The shepherds had to take the sheep to the high country or spring areas where grass would still be growing.

 As the Good Shepherd, Jesus goes on before us. He is not driving us with a whip. We follow because we know His voice and have learned to trust Him. He has a personal connection with us. We need that personal connection with him. He is not sitting behind a desk, from a position of power, barking orders. He is out in front of us modeling for us what we need to do and where we need to go. 

But where does that leave the responsibility to follow? With us! If we are going with Jesus, we have to follow Him. As the sheep, it is our responsibility to know our shepherd's voice and to follow Him. If we stay with Him, He will provide food and protection.

And as leaders of our families, as servants in our community, we need to be a model for others to follow as well. We can’t fill our lives with junk and not expect others to fill their lives with junk too. We need to be careful how we live. They don’t do what we say, they do what we do. Scary, I know! We need to be an example that is trustworthy. We need to provide food and protection. We need to lead them to the Good Shepherd. As Paul says, "Follow me as I follow Christ."

Questions to ponder:

How do we grow our relationship with the Good Shepherd so that we know His voice? How do we follow where He is leading? How do we lead those who follow us so that they aren't following us but are actually following Jesus? Try to be as practical in your answers as possible.

Leading Through Relationships

The gatekeeper opens the gate for [the shepherd], and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. (John 10:3)

What is this telling us? In the first century, during good grazing seasons, the shepherds would combine many flocks of sheep into one large pen. Interestingly enough, they didn’t mark the sheep to know whose was whose. When it came time to draw out the different flocks, the shepherd simply called his sheep and they came. They followed the shepherd because they knew his voice. The sheep knew their shepherd. 

But did you catch the extra detail? The shepherd also knew his sheep. The shepherd knew his own sheep by name. This really stresses the importance of relationship. We aren't just a flock of sheep. I matter, you matter, as an individual. We have personal knowledge of the shepherd but he also has personal knowledge of me. How incredible is this? The Creator of the Universe knows your name- knows you by name.

It is very interesting to me that Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is actively involved with each of his sheep. He is not a CEO of a huge company with a corner office with a view and his feet up on the desk. He doesn't just bark orders to make sure his hired hands are overseeing his flock. He is directly involved! In fact, Jesus wants to lead us through relationship. He doesn’t want to just give us laws to follow Him. He could. He could lead us through positional authority- simply because He is God we should follow Him. But He wants a personal relationship with us. He wants us to follow Him because we love and trust Him.

What should this tell us about our leadership style- as we try to be more like Jesus? We should try to influence others relationally as well. Parents, we could discipline our kids positionally- through law. "You are going to obey me because I said so and that is the end of it!" But according to Jesus, we should be disciplining our kids through relationship, through love and trust that we have earned. The problem comes, dads, when we have not spent the time to develop that relationship with our kids. The problem, disciplemakers, is when we try to speak into people’s lives before we have earned the right. 

If we are going to be the church- the body of Christ, if we are going to influence and encourage each other the way Jesus wants us to, if we are going to have deep conversations from the heart and not just a discussion about external behavior, we have a huge need for deeper relationships, don’t we? We have to be good at relationships. And this takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. The sheep learn to trust the shepherd through spending time with him or her. The shepherd learns how to help the sheep by spending time with them.

Take some time to think about how you can invest more time in the important relationships of your life. How important is it that those you are trying to influence trust you? Is it worth making some sacrifices for?

“Not a Fan” Thought of the Day

“Fans want to follow Jesus, but not in a way that interferes with their lives. According to some recent research I came across, sixty-five percent of American adults between the ages of eighteen and forty-two, would agree with this statement: ‘I have made a personal commitment to Jesus that is still important.’

Now on the surface, that seems pretty good. Sixty-five percent is impressive, but according to that same research, these committed Christians lived a life-style that was quote ‘Statistically equivalent to that of non-Christians.’ So when asked about their activities from the previous thirty days, Christians were just as likely as non-Christians to have gambled, to have visited a pornographic website, to have taken something that didn’t belong to them.

They were just as likely to have gotten drunk and been involved with physical abuse. They were just as likely to have lied and talked badly behind someone’s back. See, they said they were committed, but they weren’t completely committed. Fans try to compartmentalize their life.” –Kyle Idleman

When we do our own thing in spite of what Jesus has said about it, then we are acting like we know better than Jesus. Think of a time in the past when you disagreed with Jesus over how to live your life, and you did it your way. Recount what you decided, why, and how it turned out.

This is what the Lord says- your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” (Isaiah 48:17-18)