Mike Novotny - No One Can Keep You Safe Like Jesus
Controversial Names of Jesus
Following Jesus Christ called himself a lot of controversial names. In fact, if you’ve ever worshiped here live at the core and grabbed a cup of coffee out in the lobby, you might have looked up and seen a wall where we have painted and printed this massive name of Jesus. All around Jesus are the names that he called himself or that other people called him. In case you’re watching at home, let me show you a picture of the wall I’m talking about. There in big block letters is the name of Jesus, and then around these titles, when you give them just 10 seconds of thought, you realize they are incredibly controversial to call yourself by, like the title «I AM.» You know enough about the Bible to realize what that means.
The Meaning of «I AM»
Back in the days of the Exodus, the days of Moses, God appeared to Moses the prophet in a burning bush. Moses didn’t know what to make of it, and he said, «Well, God, if I go to your people, who should I tell them is sending me?» God responded with his name: just two words, «I AM.» So in John chapter 8, when Jesus was speaking to the religious leaders of Israel and he said, «Before Abraham was born, before Moses even existed, I AM, » it was a confrontational thing to say. That’s why the people picked up stones to stone Jesus. Who does he think he is, saying he’s the «I AM»? But there are other names too, names like Lord and King and Master, where Jesus wasn’t just claiming to be a nice guy or a good example; he was claiming to be the Master, and we are the servants. He is the King who gives the command; he is the Lord who gets the last word. He’s not just a nice counselor you pay by the hour; he claims to be the ultimate Authority. In fact, he came down from heaven itself, all these controversial names that divided people back in the days of Jesus.
Jesus as the Good Shepherd
But there’s one I want to put up on the screen that seems maybe a little less controversial, where Jesus said, «I am the Good Shepherd.» If there’s one thing that Jesus called himself that you would think would make people put down their stones, it would be this. Because come on, what is more tender and more comforting and more sweet than thinking of Jesus as the Good Shepherd? It’s like little kids' Christian decor—fluffy sheep, here’s Jesus with his nice beard and a big smile, and he’s holding a little lamb in his arms. You know it’s 42% likely that if Christians open a preschool, they’re going to call it «The Little Lamb’s Daycare» because it’s just so sweet and so nice. Here is Jesus, and he’s so loving, he’s so kind; he’s carrying a little lamb over his shoulders. That’s like saying, «I’m the Rock, the Master, the Lord, the Great I AM.» That’s confrontational language from Jesus, but the Good Shepherd is the softer side of him, is it not?
The Division Caused by This Claim
And yet, if you would open your Bible to John chapter 10 and look at the original time when Jesus called himself that, what you will find in the verses that follow are not crowds of people saying, «Isn’t that nice of Jesus?» Instead, let me show you the reaction that people had when Jesus claimed to be the Good Shepherd: the Jews who heard these words were again divided. Many of them said, «He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?» But others said, «These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?» When Jesus claimed to be the Good Shepherd, just like all the other times, people were divided—they had to pick a side. No one could say that Jesus was nice or that he was their pastime or their hobby. They either followed him, loved him, gave up everything, and worshiped him, or they said things like, «He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why would you bother with him?»
Even with this sermon series, I’ve been trying to get you off the fence when it comes to Jesus. To be a person who goes to church or is kind of spiritual and gives a shout-out to Jesus when life is off the rails—it’s really not a biblical option. It’s not honest based on what Jesus said about himself. You can love him, or you can hate him, but don’t be indifferent about him. You can say he’s demon-possessed, or you can call him the Deity that came down from heaven, but don’t show up two times a year to church because he’s kind of nice and you could use a little spiritual boost. No, Jesus divides people one from the other; he forces you to pick a side. So, I guess today my question for you is, which side are you on with Jesus?
C.S. Lewis on Jesus: Liar, Lunatic, or Lord
This makes me think of C.S. Lewis. Some of you know the amazing spiritual story of the man who later wrote «The Chronicles of Narnia.» C.S. Lewis kind of grew up in church but then rejected it. He was an incredibly brilliant kid; he became an atheist in his teenage years. He started to teach, I believe, at Oxford and Cambridge, one of the brightest minds in all of Europe. But then through his friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien, the Lord of the Rings guy, he became a Christian. C.S. Lewis used his brilliant Oxford mind to actually read the unfiltered Jesus in the Bible, and what he came to the conclusion was that you really only have three options with Jesus, and there’s not a fourth. You can call Jesus a liar, you can call him a lunatic, or you can call him Lord.
There’s no fourth option. A guy who claims to be the Great I AM, the Lord, the Master, the Rock, the Bread that came from heaven, the Light of the World—the one that you need to survive—you can call him a liar if you want, or you can be convinced he’s convinced of it, but he’s kind of crazy—crazy, demon-possessed, raving mad—you can call him a lunatic. Or, option three, as Christians claim, you could believe him, follow him, call him the Lord who gets the last word. But C.S. Lewis would say Jesus did not leave us open a fourth option. He was blunt. In fact, he said, «Let’s give up this patronizing nonsense about calling him a good example or a great moral teacher.» He did not leave that door open to us.
The Big Question: What Do You Think of Jesus?
So, back to my big question for today: what do you think of Jesus? Is he a liar who knew he was not God but claimed to be? Is he a lunatic who thought he was God but was incredibly deceived? Or is he the Lord that will get the last word over every part of every day of the rest of your life? Today, I want you to think about that question as we go back to one of the more familiar things that Jesus said about himself, but we’re going to look at it today with fresh eyes. Let’s look at maybe one of the more controversial things that Jesus claimed when he said that he is our Good Shepherd. If you take notes in your program or you’re watching at home, I’d love for you to write this down: I think the proper way to understand Jesus’s words would be by saying this: Jesus is our Good Shepherd, no offense.
Thank God today Jesus, in these classic words from John 10, is going to offend us and hopefully send us out with gratitude and thanks in our hearts. You might be so offended you’ll leave; you might be so thankful you’ll stay. But today, I want to leave you with no room in between. So let’s jump back into our Bibles, John chapter 10. We start with verse 11, where Jesus himself, the unfiltered Jesus, spoke these words: «I am the Good Shepherd; the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, so when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away, and the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he’s a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. But I am the Good Shepherd.» To describe himself, Jesus chooses something that every one of his neighbors would have been familiar with, but most of us are not.
Understanding Sheep and Their Flaws
How many of you here have ever raised sheep? Two hands? All right, that was one or two more than I was expecting for this church service. Yeah. Let’s think for a second. Jesus uses the word «shepherd» three times and «sheep» four times. So let’s think critically about sheep for a second. I actually brought a friend with me today. Let me introduce you to my friend, the sheep. [Holding a stuffed sheep]. We practiced that, didn’t we? Yeah, well done. All right, so what do you know about sheep? Sheep are a huge animal in modern life, and they were a huge animal in ancient life for a bunch of good things that sheep could provide. Right? Sheep grow wool; we turn wool into fabrics; we stuff our mattresses, our pillows. Maybe you had a good night’s sleep last night, thanks to a friendly sheep.
Sheep provide milk, which is turned into cheese; they can provide meat. People in the ancient world, if they were rich and wealthy, would have tons of sheep because they could clothe you, they could feed you, they could make you rich. But sheep had two really big flaws. I want to jot a note about these flaws. Number one: sheep, by their very nature, were prone to wander. Sheep would very rarely pop up their heads, look around, and make sure they were staying close to their shepherd. Instead, what they would often do is notice a little bit of grass, and notice another one, and notice another one. Bit by bit and bite by bite, they would end up rather far from their shepherd. They were prone to wander. Most sheep weren’t rebellious; they didn’t give the middle hoof to their shepherd and take off for some other pasture. They just got interested in something that wasn’t necessarily bad; it was good—it fed them. They just pursued it so much that they ended up a big distance from the shepherd who cared for them.
What made it even worse is that sheep have something within them that you might have heard of called the flocking instinct. Sheep sometimes get separated all by themselves, but that’s very rare because their instinct is to stay with the rest of the flock. So if their buddy Shawn the sheep pursues a little bit of grass, our instinct is to stay with Shawn, even if Shawn is separated from the shepherd. We feel like we’re in the right spot when we’re close to them, even if they are very far from him. A sheep’s fatal flaw is that it’s prone to wander from the only one that can keep it safe.
The Danger of Wandering
And here’s the second flaw: when a sheep has wandered, it ends up in grave danger because of this guy [holding a wolf puppet]. It’s amazing what you can find on Amazon these days, is it not? All right, here’s the wolf. Let me make sure I get all these claws out here so you can see them. I did a bunch of Google research; sheep on average run about 20 miles an hour top speed. They hit 25. Jamaican sheep can get to about 27. That’s not true; I don’t know if there are Jamaican sheep. Right? So they’re fast; they could outrun me if I was chasing them, but not a wolf. A wolf can easily run 25, 30, up to 37 miles an hour. He’s going to like a JV wolf—a varsity sheep every time. And once it catches it, a sheep’s fatal flaw is that it has no natural defenses, right? There are no claws here like a bear to fight back; there are no jaws like a shark to bite back; there are no scales on the back to protect it from the wolf; there’s no strong tail like an alligator.
A sheep, in fact, as its wool grows, gets heavier and slower if it wanders from the Good Shepherd. If it gets isolated, well, we’d say a sheep is dead meat. The two fatal flaws that Jesus wants us to think about today are that sheep are prone to wander, and sheep end up in very, very great danger. And no offense, but Jesus called you and me sheep. Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep—you realize what an insult this is, don’t you? You see it online when someone shares a news story about the side of the pandemic or that you’re not a people; you’ve become sheeple. You’re followers; you’ll believe anything that they tell you. You’re prone to wander after half-truths and lies. Well, Jesus would say, «No offense, that’s all of us.» We, as human beings, are prone to wander from God. Very often we’re not trying to be spiritually rebellious; we’re not tearing up the Bible in our backyard and burning its pages. Instead, what so often happens is we notice something that makes us happy, and we pursue it. Then we pursue it, and then we pursue more of it, and more of it, and more of it, without popping up our heads to look and wonder, «How close am I to Jesus right now?»
It’s not that that something is inherently bad; it’s just that pursuing so much of it can go from a good thing into forgetting about God, which is a very, very bad thing. Has this ever happened to you in your life where, just unintentionally, you were going after some goal, some hope, some dream, and you ended up maybe in a not-so-safe and strong spiritual place? You maybe were in school and just wanted to make it to college, to be the first one in your family to get a higher education, to get the scholarship. And so you take the tougher classes; you pick the AP, and there’s the extra homework. And then, you know you don’t get the scholarship if you poured out yourself into volunteer work, so you sign up for this and that. You’re in this club, student council, sports, and rarely, rarely do students pop their heads up and say, «Is this good for my soul?»
Our college isn’t wrong; scholarships aren’t wrong. We’re just so prone to think about the thing that we want that we can lose sight of the thing that we most need. It happens so frequently. I actually see kids who go to Christian high schools in our community who are convinced, «I get enough Jesus during the week. I don’t need to be a part of a church family on the weekend.» We’re prone to wander. Oh, you just want to be good at sports, and all your friends are moving in this direction. You know you’ve got to start young; you’ve got to play club; you’ve got to go to the camp. There’s nothing wrong with it. You want to get the spot; you know you’re not going to make the team unless you do this, this, and this. So you make the commitment another night, and rare, rare are even the Christian parents who will pop their heads up and say, «Wait, wait, is this good for our faith? All these weekends away from our church home, is that actually good for our soul?»
Prone to wander. And maybe we’re just hanging out with friends, and friends make jokes about this or that—jokes that might be slightly discriminatory, might be sexist—or prone to wander. In America, we see how everyone else lives, and we follow the example. We’re used to 1,000, 1,500, 2,000 square feet with families who really give nothing with intentionality to the poor, the oppressed, and the downtrodden, and it feels normal. We need another car, an upgrade, a new device. We never pop our heads up to say, «Well, what did Jesus say about money?» We’re people who are prone to wander. We get invited to a bachelor party and don’t pop up our heads to think about what Jesus thinks. We’re prone to drink what our buddies drink, to watch what our buddies watch. «Sheeple» is what Jesus says that we are. We are prone to wander.
Whether you don’t know Jesus or you do, there’s something in your heart that sees something good, and it pursues it and pursues it and pursues it, and very rare is the soul that’s sensitive enough to think, «Where’s Jesus right now? Am I close to my Good Shepherd?» And even worse, if you’ve wandered, you are in grave danger. I would love to drop some modern American mantra on you that you’re brave and you’re strong and you can do it, but if you’re a sheep, you can’t fight back against the wolf. You might be a better human being than your brother or your sister; you might be the fastest sheep in the whole flock, but you still can’t outrun the wolf of regret and sin and death and hell. You could try harder; you could run faster. But if you’re separated from the only God who can protect you, you will not be protected. Jesus says you are sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep—prone to wander and in great danger.
Why Listen to Jesus?
And now you understand why people said he was demon-possessed. Come on, Jesus, I’m not in danger. I’m a decent human being; God’s not going to send me to hell. What? Me? Come on, why listen to this guy? Instead of flattering people, Jesus called them sheep. Instead of saying they were strong, he called them weak. Instead of calling humans good, he called all of us wicked. Why would you listen to him? That’s the right question.
So I hand back my friends; I want you to think about that question: why would you listen to Jesus? There are many philosophies, many podcasts, and, in fact, many religions that would flatter you a million times more than this book does. They would call you good, better than average, worthy, deserving. Of course, you’re going to have a better life after this one ends! You’re you! But Jesus does not say that. Instead, he calls himself the Shepherd and you the sheep—no offense. So, why would you come back? Why would you keep reading this book, watching this show, attending this church, or following Jesus? I actually thought of that question 12 hours ago. Yesterday, I was down in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for my daughter’s band concert, and in the lobby of the Christian high school where we were, was this memorial for a girl who died about 20 years ago. A 16-year-old had cancer, passed away, and right on the wall, there’s this massive mosaic, taller than me, of Jesus as a shepherd. Like the centerpiece there in the lobby of this high school is a giant Jesus, basically saying, «You’re all sheep; he’s the shepherd.»
Why? Why would people proclaim that message of Jesus? Isn’t it demeaning or insulting to us? Or to make it more personal: why, above my daughter’s head and above my daughter’s bed, is a framed picture of Jesus holding a tiny lamb? Why not tell her she’s a lion, a tiger, an eagle? Why raise the daughter that I love, who I want to be so strong, to tell her that she’s just a little sheep? Well, Jesus knows. Let me read to you one more time these words from John chapter 10: «I am the Good Shepherd; the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, so when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away, and the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. But I am the Good Shepherd.»
The Goodness of the Shepherd
You see, here Jesus is not just saying, «You’re the sheep; I’m the shepherd.» He chooses and then repeats three times this epic word «Good.» Now, in the Greek language of the New Testament, there are multiple words for good. This one has the flavor of something that is of the highest moral quality; it’s the most admirable, the most beautiful. In other words, line up all the shepherds; put the most beautiful, inspiring one at the front of the line, and you would be looking at the face of Jesus. He explains why: «I’m the Good Shepherd because I lay down my life. When the wolf comes, when danger approaches, the hired hand getting paid by the hour takes off. He doesn’t love the flock, but I stay. I fight. I get bit. I bleed. I lay down my life. I don’t run away when you need me the most.»
There’s often actually something very powerful about being in the city of Jerusalem. If you would look at a Google map after church today, you would find out that the city of Jerusalem is this major metropolitan area. Hundreds of thousands of people live there, but just outside the main part of the city to the east is absolute desolation and desert. It’s shocking. You get on a tour bus; you’re in the middle of this big city, ancient ruins, and like two minutes later, you look around and there’s nothing. The landscape plunges down to the Dead Sea, thousands of feet, little caves, places to hide, which is very fitting for what happened to Jesus the night before he died.
See, in the center of the city, Jesus’s friend Judas had betrayed him. The soldiers and the Pharisees were gathering their torches and their swords to come get Jesus, and Jesus was praying in a garden on the east side of the city, the Garden of Gethsemane. In other words, the wolf, the threat, was coming from the west, and Jesus was so close to running away to the east. Like his ancestor David, who had lived a thousand years before him, he could have bolted. He knew the danger was coming. He could have run away, hidden in the cave, gotten away from the torches, the swords, and the wolf, but Jesus did not. Read the Gospels. Jesus gets up from his prayer and he walks to the west, to those who came to arrest him because he was not a shepherd who would run away from danger. He was one, he said, who would lay down his life for the sheep.
What makes Jesus so unspeakably good is the fact that he was not in this shepherding business for himself. Even though it would cost him, even though he would have to lay down his life, bleed, and die on a cross for the forgiveness of your sins, he was willing to do it. I am the Good Shepherd, he claimed. Here’s why: the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
Yeah, I’m kind of embarrassed it took me 42 years to think about this, but just last week that phrase caught my attention: lays down his life for the sheep. Think of me for a second: why would anyone become a shepherd? Why would someone choose that boring job of watching sheep shivering on a cold night to keep the flock together? What? Well, there’s a simple answer: they would do it for themselves! Right? If sheep can produce wool and clothe my family, if they can produce milk and feed my family, if I can sell them for beef and get rich, it might be hard work, but I will shepherd this flock for myself to feed me, to keep me alive, to make me prosperous, right? I’ll lay down my comfort; I’ll sacrifice because in the end, the ROI on being a shepherd with the sheep is positive.
But now think about Jesus. When he’s up in heaven and he sees all of us wandering like lost sheep on Earth, why does he become the Good Shepherd? Does he need clothes from us? No! He was clothed in splendor and glory up in heaven. Does he need food from us? He could just make lunch, feasting with saints and angels for all eternity. What does he need from us? The answer is nothing. So why would Jesus become a shepherd? Here’s the answer: for the sheep.
What shepherd in all of human history would not just give his time or his energy or his wealth, but his life for the sheep? And the answer is only one: only Jesus. The reason Jesus is the good, the most moral shepherd is because he laid down his life for the sheep when he needed nothing and we needed everything. Jesus did something when we could offer him nothing, and we owed him everything. Jesus laid down his life in the greatest sacrifice and the greatest act of pure, unconditional love that history has ever known.
If someone asked me today, «Why would you stick with Jesus? He calls you a sinner, dependent, weak—a sheep, » my simple answer would be, «Who else has loved me like Jesus?» You got me a birthday present: thank you, Jesus! He laid down his life for me. You raised me when I was a kid. Mom, that beautiful Jesus gave way more than a few years of his time. He gave his very body and his very blood. Some people in this world will flatter you; some people will do nice things for you; some people will love you, but no one, no one, no one will be like Jesus for you.
I am the Good Shepherd, he says. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. So back to our question: what will you do with Jesus? If you can’t respect him as a moral teacher or a religious founder, if you have to choose between calling him a liar or a lunatic or the Lord, what will you do? You know some people in our self-affirmation world will say he’s demon-possessed and crazy. I suppose you could do that too, but I prefer to follow the one Jesus who gave up everything so that I could be part of his flock. And I hope you do too, friends. There’s no one for the rest of your life who will love you like Jesus. No one who will sacrifice like Jesus. Hear the voice of pure goodness today and follow him as your Good Shepherd.
The Story of Robert Robinson
That’s what Robert did. I’m going to invite our band to come back up on stage as I tell you the amazing story of a 22-year-old who wrote one of Christianity’s most classic hymns. His name was Robert Robinson. He lived about 300 years ago in the 1700s, and if Robert knew one thing about himself, it was that he was prone to wander. Before he became a Christian, he was prone to wander into all sorts of things that Jesus wasn’t okay with. In fact, Robert was pretty honest because he said even after becoming a Christian, after going to church and after knowing the truth, his heart was still prone to wander. He was so easily tempted by words and choices that he should not have chosen.
And he also realized at the same time the immense goodness of his Good Shepherd, Jesus. And so, in the 1700s, Robert Robinson wrote the classic words of a hymn entitled «Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.» Have you heard it? He wrote classic lyrics like this: «Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold or the flock of God. He to rescue me from danger, bought me with his precious blood.» I wandered; I was just a stranger, and yet Jesus sought me; he bought me; he rescued me from danger with his precious blood.
He wrote, «Oh, to grace! How great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be. Let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee.» «Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, oh, take and seal it; seal it for thy courts above.» God, it’s so easy for me to be led astray, and yet you love. Take my heart; you’re worth it! No matter how much you challenge me, how much you want to change me, you’re worth it. Take my heart and seal it for thy courts above. Or, as the Old Testament prophecy so beautifully said, «We all like sheep have gone astray; each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has laid on him, on Jesus, the sin of us all.»
Prayer
So I want to invite you to please stand. We’re going to join in this classic hymn. As you catch on with our musicians, I invite you to sing. Invite you to sing at home too. Let’s lift up our praises as wandering sheep to the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ.