Welcome 2

Audio Player

Let me read to you from one of the student newspapers. This comes from Freshers’ Week a few years ago:

“Probably the worst thing about being a fresher is the despicably patronising lists that newspapers publish telling you exactly what you should and shouldn’t do to enjoy university life. They are utter rubbish and should be ignored… The brilliance of university life is that you’re given the freedom to do exactly what you want… So [expletive] to anyone who lectures you on how to have a good time. Just go out and do it. (The Courier, 25/9/97)

And if you’ve just arrived as a student, you’ll have spent last week having people telling you what to do. People like the Freshers’ Week organisers. Telling you you must get drunk. Telling you you must pair off with someone. It’s amazing how many people are trying to tell us what to do. And that’s true of all of us, not just students. Adverts, TV, films, magazines, teachers, the organisations we work for, the people we look up to, the government… they’re all trying to tell us what to think and be and do.

And most of us like to think we’re not really influenced by all that, that we’re really independent - more leaders than followers. But experience says otherwise. Eg, I was flying back from Spain this year and arrived at check-in to find this single, massive queue for Easyjet. So I joined the back of it and then realised there were five other desks open that no-one was using - because everyone had simply followed the lead and joined the back of the queue. So I strode past these 100 or so people, right to the front and checked in at the next desk. And I could feel 100 pairs of eyes staring at me in disbelief and resentment, and then immediately there was this stampede for the desks. You see, if there’s a queue to join we join it. If there’s a stampede to join, we join it. Experience says we’re actually followers by nature. And that’s what Jesus Christ says, too. In fact, one time he described us as sheep – the classic example of an animal that’s a natural follower and desperately needs a good shepherd. And according to Jesus, the most important decision we make in life is: who we ultimately allow to be our shepherd.

Now there are many new faces here tonight, and I don’t know what you currently believe about Jesus. So let me say that we’re a church that believes that he was God become human, and that he’s the only way we can come into relationship with God. So we believe in simply putting Jesus’ claims out on the table so that whoever you are, you can give them a first or second thought and make up your own mind about him. To do that you have to go to the Bible, so would you please pick up a Bible and turn to John’s Gospel, chapter 10.

We’re looking at part of the eye-witness account of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection by one of Jesus’ twelve original followers, John. And Jesus is painting this kind of picture of our lives, where we’re like sheep surrounded by would-be shepherds. And on the one hand, there’s this world full of people trying to tell us what to think and be and do – from Freshers’ Week organisers to government legislators. And on the other hand, there’s Jesus. So look down to John 10.7:

Therefore Jesus said again, ‘I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd.’ (vv7-11)

So Jesus is basically saying this: choose any other shepherd but him, and they will ultimately mess up your life - you’ll ultimately be the loser. Because according to Jesus, only he can deliver the good life because only he is the good shepherd. Which is a pretty big claim, so we’re going to spend the rest of our time having a look at it. And I want to ask three questions:

1. What do other shepherds have to offer?
2. What does Jesus have to offer?
3. Who are you going to trust?


First, WHAT DO OTHER SHEPHERDS HAVE TO OFFER?

And Jesus’ answer is: not just nothing, but worse than nothing.

In John 9, Jesus has just healed a blind man. He can now see and has put his trust in Jesus. And the religious leaders of the day, who’ve already made up their minds against Jesus, haul this man in and put him under real pressure to side with them against Jesus – ie, to rejoin the crowd. But he won’t. He’s in a minority of one and he stands his ground. Now in chapter 10, Jesus enters the scene again and is speaking to some of those leaders plus this man who’s come to believe in him. And Jesus says, v8:

‘All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. [And he’s talking about the religious leaders who are standing there. He’s saying, ‘You’re not the spiritual shepherds you claim to be; you’re robbers.’ And he goes on in v10:] The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy…’ (vv8, 10)

That’s what Jesus says about these religious leaders who are rejecting him. And the same applies to all kinds of leaders (spiritual and secular), opinion makers and peer group leaders whose lives are built on rejecting Jesus.

Eg, Decca Aitkenhead. She’s now a national journalist. But as a student she wrote a piece for The Independent newspaper’s Student Survival Guide for one Freshers’ Week. So let me quote from one would-be shepherd – in this case, shepherd of your student sex-life:

"There is no point in being coy about this. Nobody else has been. Your friends have savoured endless speculation on the subject. Your father has mumbled about condoms. Even you, dare I say it, have given it some thought. In the awe-struck words of your younger brother, ‘Wow! You’re going to have so much sex.’ … What you do, how often you do it, and with whom is entirely your own affair… Your freshers’ pack will probably include a free condom, but this is unlikely to last you for your entire university career, so it’s wise to stock up…. Hopefully your little brother is right. It would be a shame not to sample all the opportunities of life at university - particularly those [you find] between the sheets."

Which sounds so persuasive. But look back to John 10.10 to see what Jesus says about Decca Aitkenhead. Jesus says, ‘The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.’ Ie, Decca Aitkenhead comes only to steal your virginity, kill your conscience and destroy your relationships. But boy does she make life without God sound fun. And as she smiles out at you from her photo in the paper, you’d never guess the secret pains and doubts and guilt that trouble her as a result of her own lifestyle – and that she wants to drag you into, too. Because false shepherds and their flocks always have to keep up a front that everything’s OK. No-one’s allowed to admit doubt about what they’re up to, or that people are getting hurt.

Decca Aitkenhead is a false shepherd, out to rob us. The teacher in the PSE lesson who says, ‘All normal people are experimenting at your age,’ is out to rob us. The peer group leader in the bar or the office party who’s trying to get people over-drinking is out to rob us - of our individuality and dignity. The media that says, ‘This is the perfect body you must have,’ is out to rob us of our contentment to be ourselves. The financial industry that encourages us to work and earn and spend more and more is out to rob us of our generosity and our balance of life. Soaps on TV are out to normalise sin and so rob us. Celebrities are out to glamorise sin and so rob us.

And Jesus is saying here: look at all the people who are trying to influence us, while building their lives on rejecting him. Look at the Freshers’ Week organisers, look at some of the things your teachers or lecturers say, look at many of the adverts and magazines and films and programs and ‘Comment’ columns in the papers, and see them for what they really are. Not shepherds, but robbers.

What do other shepherds have to offer? Well Jesus says what never gets said. While other shepherds are saying they offer fun and fulfilment, Jesus says they have not just nothing to offer, but worse than nothing. I wonder if you believe that? And if we do, Jesus’ words here call on us to follow his lead in seeing through all the messages of all the would-be shepherds around us, and distrusting them and questioning their wisdom and their motives. So can I encourage you to do that?


Secondly, WHAT DOES JESUS HAVE TO OFFER?

Have another look down to John 10.10:

‘The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.’ (v10)

So Jesus is saying only he can offer us life at its best. And again, that never gets said, either. In fact, quite the opposite: the Christian life is often portrayed (eg, in the media or conversation) as negative, and Christians as losers who are missing out. Eg, one of the student newspapers here ran an article headlined, ‘No sex, please, we’re students.’ It was an interview with a group from the Christian Union about why they believed in keeping sex for marriage. Let me read a few bits. The interviewer writes:

"This [kind of] assertion… would cause intense discomfort if not outright ridicule in any student bar you care to mention. Many people would [say]… this is an unnatural and regressive response to an outdated piece of literature [ie, the Bible]."

So the world says it offers life to the full and Christians are missing out; Jesus says he offers life to the full and the world is missing out. Which begs the questions: what is life to the full? And what missing ingredient means you don’t have it?

Well, according to the Bible, the missing ingredient is relationship with God. It’s a bit like Freshers’ Week, where the number one thing I remember is that you most need to make friends: the nightmare is sitting on your own in your room feeling you don’t know anyone. And that’s a nightmare because we were created to be relational creatures. We need the love of other people – eg, someone knocking on our door to check we’re OK. And we need the wisdom of other people – eg, someone whose door we can knock on to ask how you cook beans on toast, or some other taxing question of student life.

And it may not have occurred to you that above all we were created to relate to God. And that above all we need his love – because human love isn’t reliable enough to build our whole security on. And that above all we need his wisdom – because human wisdom isn’t enough to answer all the questions life throws at us. So your neighbours in halls can tell you how to do beans on toast. But they can’t tell you what’s right and wrong, or what the point of life is – eg, whether or not to sleep with a girl or boyfriend; or how to make those big choices in your final year.

And Jesus says: that relationship with God is what he came to offer. And to do that, he had to die. Look down to what he goes straight on to say in v11:

‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.’ (v11)

So Jesus adds a bit more to this picture of us as sheep and him as shepherd. He adds the issue of the sheep being in real danger. So imagine a wolf coming for them, and the shepherd stands between the sheep and the wolf and takes it on, on their behalf - and in the process of killing the wolf, the shepherd himself is killed. That would be the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.

And Jesus is saying that’s a picture of what he’s done for us. Because according to the Bible, we are in real danger from God. According to the Bible, we were created to live in relationship with God, looking up to him to tell us how to live. But where we all are by nature is: turned away from God. Like it said in that Old Testament (OT) reading:

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,each of us has turned to his own way... (Isaiah 53.6)

Which is incredibly offensive to God: it’s basically accepting life, but ignoring the giver of life. It’s like accepting your parents’ support for your time at uni and then ignoring them for 3 years - no contact, no visits, no thanks, no relationship.

So God is offended. Not just by that ‘ignore him’ attitude, but by everything we think, say and do wrong as a result. And according to the Bible, at the end of our lives, when we face God as Judge, all of that is what God should hold against us. All of that is the reason we should be shut out of the kingdom of heaven. Because you can’t be a member of a kingdom if you won’t accept the king’s rule.

So we are in real danger - from God’s judgement. And the only way out from under that judgement is if God removes it. And he has made such a way by sending his Son, the Lord Jesus, to become a man alongside us, and then to die on the cross instead of us. That OT reading said this:

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,each of us has turned to his own way,And the LORD [God] has laid on him [ie Jesus]the iniquity [ie, wrongdoing] of us all. (Isaiah 53.6)

What that’s saying is that when Jesus died on the cross, it was God himself taking on himself the judgement we deserve. It was God standing between us sheep who’ve ignored him, and the danger of his own judgement. That’s what Jesus meant when he said:‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.’ (v11)He was talking about his death on the cross so we could be forgiven. And just look down to v18 of John 10:

[Jesus has just said: ‘The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.’ Then, v18:] ‘No-one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again...’

And the reason I ultimately believe any of this to be true is that Jesus did ‘take his life up again’. He was crucified on Good Friday and put in a tomb. On Easter Sunday, the tomb was empty and eye-witnesses were seeing him alive again beyond death. And that sets Jesus apart from any mere human being. Eg, I might say, ‘I have authority to lay down my life – I’m going to jump off the Tyne Bridge and end it all tonight.’ But none of us can say. ‘I have authority to take it up again – I’m going to jump off the Tyne Bridge and end it all tonight, and appear risen from the dead on Tuesday morning.’

So what does Jesus have to offer? The answer is: forgiveness back into the relationship with God which we were created for. Look at Jesus’ death on the cross and you see the love that’s on offer – love that values you enough to die for you. And look at Jesus’ rising from the dead and you see the wisdom that’s on offer – you realise that he is himself God and has all the authority in the world to tell us what’s right and wrong and how life works.

That’s what Jesus offers. Which brings us to my last question:


Thirdly, WHO ARE YOU GOING TO TRUST?

Who are you going to allow to be your shepherd? Who are you currently allowing to be your shepherd? Now it’s pretty obvious in this incident in John 10 which way Jesus is calling us to go. Have a look down to v16, lastly:

[Jesus speaking:] ‘I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen [he was talking about everyone who’d ever hear and believe the Christian message]. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.’ (v16)

So Jesus is calling us to abandon all other would-be shepherds and to trust our lives to him.

Now you may already have done that. Or you may still be on the outside looking in. Whichever you are, you’ll know that trusting Jesus in the face of all other would-be shepherds is easier said than done. You’ll know that when you look outside Jesus’ sheep pen, the grass really can look much greener. It can look as if those sheep are getting a whole lot more life, while those inside are missing out. Which can make you hesitate to become a Christian; or make you think about quietly dropping the Christianity you’ve been brought up with; or just make you a miserable Christian - who can’t drop it because you know it’s true but can’t enjoy it because you wonder whether non-Christians are getting a better deal. And at that point you’ve basically got two options.

Option 1 is experiment. Go and try the grass elsewhere. See if it tastes good. The problem with experimenting is that it’s simply not true that if it tastes good, it therefore is good. Eg, sex tends to feel good at the time - but that’s because it was created to. And it still feels good in all sorts of contexts where in fact it’s wrong and harmful.

Option 2 is: trust Jesus. Trust that the grass is greenest inside his sheep pen - even at those points where it seems difficult if not impossible either to obey a particular area of his will, or to understand why he’s not currently giving you things in your life which you wish he would. And it isn’t easy to trust his goodness at those points. And the only answer is to look back to the cross and remember that the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. That’s ultimately how we know he is good, that he does have our best interests at heart.

One Christmas as a boy, I asked my parents for a racing bike and a penknife. In their wisdom, they decided to give me the bike but not the penknife. They knew I needed a penknife like a hole in the head and that if they gave me one my brother would probably have a hole in the head by the end of Christmas Day. And in my 10 year-old lack of perspective, I concluded that they weren’t really being good to me. I couldn’t see that by far the biggest thing they’d done for me (the bike) was the measure of their love; and that in the light of that, the far smaller thing they’d withheld from me was actually also an expression of their love.

And if you are going to keep trusting in Jesus, or start trusting in Jesus, you need that perspective that says, ‘He’s done the ultimate biggest thing for me – laid down his life for me – so I am going to trust him - including at those points where trust seems difficult if not impossible.’

I must finish. Imagine I were to draw a line. At one end of the line would be people who’ve already put their trust in Jesus – been forgiven by him, and let him take over the leading of their lives. If that’s you, he calls on you this evening to keep seeing all other would-be shepherd for what they are, and to keep trusting your life to him. At the other end of the line are people who’re just thinking about this - not sure whether it’s true; not sure whether you do really believe it yet yourself. If that’s you, it’s great to have you along; we hope you’ll come again; and we’d love you to join one of our Christianity Explored groups for thinking more about all this along with others at the same stage of asking questions. But in the middle of the line would be someone who’s saying, ‘I know this is true. But I also know I haven’t yet taken the step of turning to Jesus and trusting my life to him as my shepherd.’ If that’s you, I’m going to end with a prayer that would be a way of taking that step. Here’s the prayer:

Risen Lord Jesus,I confess that I have gone my own way, and ignored you my rightful shepherd.Thank you for being the good shepherd and laying your life down for me.Please forgive me. Please take your rightful lead of my life. And please help me to trust and obey you from now on.Amen

If you’re further up the line or back down the line, that prayer may not be appropriate for you. You might like to pray something else, even if it’s just, ‘God, if you’re really there, please bring me to know you.’ But if it is appropriate for you, and you want to take that step of becoming a Christian now, you could use it now to speak to the risen Lord Jesus.


If you do pray that prayer and mean it, you can rest assured that the risen Lord Jesus will hear and answer it. And if you have prayed it, you’ve just begun a new life with Jesus in charge. And to start finding out how to live that new life, let me mention two things that will help you. One thing is this booklet Why Jesus? It goes over the step of becoming a Christian and says something about what will help you to go on from there. And even if you didn’t pray that prayer tonight, if you’d value reading that, please do take a copy from the Welcome Desk at the back of church. The other thing is to tell another Christian what you’ve done, so they can make some suggestions about what will help you go on from there – especially what’s going on here at church that would be good to join in with.

Back to top