4/13/08 - Easter 4 - John 10:1-10

CHRIST CARES FOR OUR SOULS
- He is concerned about who we follow
- He provides shepherds for us to follow

Jesus was none too happy. His people, his sheep, had been told things that were damaging to their faith. They had been fed things that were harmful to their hope in Christ. And they had been led in the wrong direction by false leaders far too long. Jesus was not happy because deeply cared for his sheep. He was concerned for their souls. And that is what prompted his words recorded for us in John chapter 10 today. Here in the gospel lesson he is speaking mainly to the Pharisees within the crowd, the current but illegitimate leaders of God’s people at the time. They had been the ones telling and feeding and leading Christ’s sheep in all the wrong ways. And because of this, his own sheep were suffering. The Lord was understandably disturbed by the lack of quality control for their souls. And so he used this analogy for both the Pharisees and his people to hear, “The man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep.” Jesus said this to demonstrate that the Pharisees did not have the right to shepherd his sheep nor were they doing it for the right reasons. They had climbed over the wall of the sheep pen as would a thief or a robber. They had not come through the front gate like a true shepherd would. But Scripture tells us that “They did not understand what he was telling them.” And so Jesus made it crystal clear, “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep.” The Pharisees had not entered the sheep pen through Christ. They had not been appointed by Christ, they were not leading the people for Christ, and they were not teaching about Christ. Everything they were doing was without Christ. They had not entered through the Gate. And so now Christ’s flock was all the worse for it. And Jesus knew something had to be done about it. Because if his sheep continued under the spiritual leadership of these false shepherds, nothing good would come as a result. And the Lord was not going to let that happen. And he did not let that happen. He continually condemned the teachings of the Pharisees while he lived on this earth and brought many of his sheep back under his protective arms.
Isn’t it refreshing that the Lord cares so much about the souls of his sheep? Because you are included. He cares about your soul. And he cares what your soul follows. Everything you hear he wants to be pure. Everything you are taught he wants to be the truth. And everyone and everything that you listen to he requires that they first enter through the Gate. They must not contradict Christ. They must be God-pleasing. They must not cause you any harm. Because he does not want anything to hurt you in any way. The Lord cares enough about you that he does not want even one little impurity contaminating your faith. Your soul and everything that can affect it is so important to him that he has made it his highest priority every day you live on this earth. He doesn’t have anything better to do. He doesn’t get tired, he doesn’t get bored, he doesn’t have any other hobbies. The only thing God does is take care of your souls.
If only we were concerned about our own souls as much as the Lord is! Because our standards for whom and what we listen to are nowhere near the standards Christ wants kept. He does not want us to be in contact with anything impure or contaminating or sinful that could harm our faith. But we just don’t take it that seriously, do we? We listen to a lot of different “spiritual advisors” other than the ones coming through the Gate. What about the temptations of this life that we find readily available and all too interesting? Our souls love to listen to those false shepherds! We may be reading a book, watching a movie or something on tv, and there will be language and images and topics in those forms of “entertainment” that we know (we know!) we shouldn’t be dabbling those topics or that language or the sexual innuendos. But we’re mature enough Christians to handle those things in small doses, aren’t we?... And so we don’t avoid them, we don’t turn away, we just drop our standards a notch and we listen to and follow things that have not come through the Gate.
What about the bad influences of those around us? We may have friends and acquaintances who act very unchristian-like, their language and their actions and the gossip that flies out of their mouths is nothing close to what Christ would tolerate. But we’re strong enough Christians that those things won’t affect us too much, right? Plus they are relatively good people and fun to be around… And so we don’t turn away and avoid, we simply drop our standards again and we continue to listen to and follow things that have not come through the Gate.
And we should probably mention our own sinful natures. We love to follow that Old Self inside of us! We love to think the thoughts that it conjures up! We don’t regulate those thoughts like we should, do we? Our impure thoughts go in and out of our minds all day long usually without us being aware of their sinfulness! Because no one sees our thoughts. No one can accuse us or confront us with our thoughts. And so our thoughts usually go unchecked and uncensored. We let them run free in our minds. We don’t worry about our thoughts. We really aren’t too concerned about them… and so our standards keep dropping lower and lower and lower and lower, and we listen to and follow the thoughts of our sinful nature, things that have nothing to do with the Gate. Our standards for whom and what we listen to our pitiful. We let any and everything in. We don’t care if those things crawl over the walls in the dark, we don’t mind of they didn’t come through Christ the Gate… You would think by looking at our standards that we don’t care about our souls at all.
But Christ cares. Christ cares about our souls far more than we ever have. In fact, Christ cared so much that he appeared on this earth in a human body to do something about it. He took things into his own hands. We certainly weren’t going to do it! We have far too much fun listening to and following ungodly shepherds like earthly temptations and bad company and our own sinful natures. We didn’t want to do anything about it and we couldn’t even if we tried. And so he came because he cared. He didn’t want to see us drag ourselves to hell. And so he went to hell for us and took the impurities and the contaminations that we had willingly let in with him. He took our very lives and dipped them in his blood because “the blood of Jesus purifies us from every sin” (1 John 1:7). He suffered so that we could be saved. He put holes in his hands and his feet so that our souls could be whole once again. Jesus took it all on himself to do what was needed for our eternal life. He put up his life for his sheep. He died for you. He cared that much about you.
And he still does. He cared enough to save your souls 2000 years ago and so he certainly still cares enough to keep you strong in the faith now. And in this country at this time in this Synod, Jesus’ love for our souls has been clearly demonstrated in an amazing way. Because he has been providing faithful men and women to feed us the true Word of God for the last 158 years! We have been blessed with thousands and thousands of spiritual leaders coming through the Gate of Christ in the Wisconsin Synod since 1850. When has that ever happened before? When has the Lord blessed his Church like he has been doing for us in this country? Not even during the time of the apostles did the Lord supply his sheep like he is doing now. Paul and Peter and John were constantly writing against others who claimed to be true teachers and apostles, but who were really wolves in sheep’s clothing. And these people were infecting the Church because there was no college or seminary back then in which solid leaders were being trained. And although we should always be on the look out and always make sure that our leaders are in line with the Word, the Lord has blessed this Synod with worker training schools that have continually produced pastors and teachers to lead us in the truths of Scripture. We know that when we go to another Wisconsin Synod church we will be fed the Word. We know when our children are sent to a WELS school they are getting the Word in its truth and purity. We don’t have to worry about what they’re getting. We know it’ll be solid. And that just wasn’t the case in the early Christian Church. It didn’t even happen during Luther’s time of the Reformation.
When that group of believers in Germany were coming back to the Word and figuring out what Scripture said again, each and every congregation in that country had to be very careful about the pastor they called. Because there were no solid, evangelical schools at that time to train Christian leaders with the true Word of God. Orthodox pastors and teachers were few and far between in those times. And compare that situation to the situation we live in today. The Lord has relentlessly been sending us pastors and teachers through the Gate for over a century and a half in order to feed his people exactly what they need! And this blessing is not only completely unique in the history of the Church, it’s unique within our own society today. Look around. Look at what is happening to all of the other Christian denominations in this country. They are fracturing. They are splitting. They are becoming looser and looser in the doctrinal stances because they do not have leaders who stick to Scripture. And they do not have leaders that stick to Scripture because they were trained in the truth of God’s Word in the first place. Their schools are either sub-par and not teaching what they ought to be teaching, or their various schools teach different things depending on which school it is. In either case, it does not bode well for the Christians involved with those congregations! They have not been blessed like we have. And that’s not to brag about ourselves, that’s to boast in the Lord! Look at what he’s done for us! And look how long he’s done it for! It’s an amazing thing the Lord has done for this group of Christians in this country.
So don’t ever take it for granted. Don’t ever look past the blessing of the Lord’s provision of shepherds for his Church in this land. Because it may not last. The Lord may not always sustain our worker training schools like he has been doing. Our Synod may not survive. This congregation may be shut down one day. Christianity itself in this country may come crumbling down all around us in the near future. But even if it does, even if everything the Lord has blessed us with so far is taken away, the Lord will still care for your soul. He will look after it. He will provide for it. And he will continue to do everything that is needed so that your soul remains pure in faith in him. The Lord cares for your soul. Remember: he died for your soul. And if the Lord cares that much about you, nothing will ever be able to take you away from his hands.
Amen.

“May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” - 1 Thess. 5:23