Sermon Audio

Dear listeners assembled in the sheep pen of Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church, hear the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Jesus said,

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep...Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.

He has laid down His life for the sheep, dieing the death due the sheep on the tree of the cross. He has taken it up again, risen on the third day. This is good news for you, for you are a sheep of His fold. He has died that you would not have to, suffering the full wrath of God in your place with every last bit of your sin, and gives you the benefits of His death and resurrection—namely, forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation—sealed to you personally with the sign of the cross made on forehead and heart with the waters of Holy Baptism whereat He called you His own—His own sheep, His own child, His own brother and fellow heir of salvation.

But there was more good news proclaimed to you today, some that is often overlooked, or unheard, as may be more appropriate. Listen to it again:

But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own.

The good news is this: Jesus Christ is no hireling, and no hireling is Christ. Furthermore, Jesus Christ is no ordinary shepherd; He is the Good Shepherd, and He is the only Good Shepherd. Related to this is that there is one Christ, and His work as Good Shepherd is sufficient for all.

Hirelings are not Christ-like. When trouble comes, they flee. Hirelings like to avoid controversy and conflict. When it comes, they are gone, looking out only for themselves. Gary P. Baumler comments,

The hired hand is like those church leaders who think more of their own well-being than of serving God’s flock. They are not true shepherds. They do not feel any personal responsibility for the sheep. They do the job to make a living. When wolves come, they show their true colors. They abandon the flock and let the wolves ravage and scatter it.

I’m sure we can all relate to Baumler’s observation. At the least, we know of someone who knows someone who’s church is led by such a hireling. We may have all heard the horror stories of pastors who do little more than go through the motions, whose only concern is the paycheck that comes at the end of the month. And I’m sure we can speculate to no end the result such a hireling has on Christ’s church: members become apathetic and go through the motions as well, and this carries over into their daily and vocational lives, where little deference or acknowledgment is given, in word or deed, to the Creator and Redeemer of the world.

And before we move on from this, only pointing the finger at “them” out there, we each have an Old Adam which seeks the preservation of self over sacrifice for others. Those hireling church leaders aren’t the only ones to run when the wolf prowls around. At the first sign of trouble, of controversy and conflict, our old-flesh instinct is to turn tail and run; get out of the situation before it turns into something that would cause you physical and/or emotional harm.

Not so with Jesus, the Good Shepherd. As He says, He lays down His life for the sheep. He gets in the way of all that which would harm the sheep and gives His life as their ransom. Think of the sheep pen: a walled-in area with a narrow door, wide enough only for one sheep to pass through at a time. The Good Shepherd places Himself squarely in that opening. No harm will come to the sheep from outside the pen, so long as the Good Shepherd is at His post. When the wolf comes, He stands His ground, giving His own life to the wolf in order that the sheep would be spared.

This differs from ordinary shepherds, too. Ordinary shepherds will stay to defend the sheep, but not at the cost of their own lives. Ordinary shepherds may vow to die in place of another, but when push comes to shove, that old-flesh instinct will almost always kick in. Ordinary shepherds easily turn into hirelings, and it is a danger which every faithful shepherd faces to this day. It is a danger which every husband faces who may have vowed to die to spare his wife, as Christ died to save His Bride, the Church. It is a danger which everyone who has made any vow faces, as the old-flesh instinct to self-preservation, self-gratification, self-service comes head-on with the vow which would require giving a little up or sacrificing one’s self in order to keep the vow.

Again, not so with Jesus, the Good Shepherd. He is no hireling; He is no ordinary shepherd. He doesn’t turn tail and run. In fact, He scarcely puts up a fight. He lays down His life and dies for the sheep in order that they may live. This He vowed to do, way back when our first parents were expelled from the Paradise of Eden. And it is a vow He kept, despite the danger to Himself, on a cross planted outside of Jerusalem. “And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” (Philippians 2:8)

And we can talk about that wolf, too. Again, Baumler comments:

The wolf is the enemy who, if unchecked, will destroy the flock and keep it from the Good Shepherd. Every false teacher is such a wolf. Jesus warned another time: “Watch out for false prophets. The come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves” (Matthew 7:15; see also Acts 20:29).
The leader of such a wolf pack, as Jesus had told the Pharisees earlier ([John] 8:44), is the devil. Jesus was prepared to give up his life to save us from the devil.

Every enemy of the Good Shepherd is a wolf. There are those which outwardly show themselves to be wolves, openly known as such by the Church—adherents and proponents of false religions and no religions, such as Muslims and atheists, those who pit science and faith against each other as mutual exclusives, such as those who endorse the theories of big bang and evolution. But there are those who purport to proclaim Christ, but the Christ they proclaim is not He who is found in the Scriptures, such as the Papists or those who teach errors such as Pelagianism and synergism, which teach that in one way or another, you must work out your forgiveness and salvation—these all are the wolves in sheep’s clothing. Every one of these is led, whether they acknowledge it or not, by Satan, the great Deceiver, whose chief goal is to prevent you from the Good Shepherd.

Again, let us not be so hasty as to think only those outside of this building are wolves or wolves in sheep’s clothing. Any moment any one of us does anything, says anything, espouses anything, confesses anything contrary to what the Scriptures reveal to us of the Word-made-flesh, we are keeping ourselves and those around us from the Good Shepherd. And we know it can happen, too, not only for those times when it was revealed to us that we were in error, but also in the example of one of the first fathers of the Church, St. Peter, whom Jesus had at one time told to get behind Him, calling him Satan—the leader of the wolf pack. (cf. Mark 8:31-33)

Against this, the Lord places Himself squarely against. He does it for His sheep. Dear listeners in the sheep pen of Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church, take this personally: He does it for you. He is the Church’s Good Shepherd; He is your Good Shepherd. He lays down His life for the Church; He laid down His life for you. Unlike the hirelings and ordinary shepherds, He willingly lays down His life—and here’s the interesting nuance: He isn’t merely passively killed, He actively dies for you, as He said, “No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.”

While hirelings will turn tail and run, while ordinary shepherds will defend the flock without the shedding of their own blood, not so with Christ, the Good Shepherd. He is fully invested in His flock—life and death, body and soul, body and blood, in strength and in weakness. He goes to the cross—He went to the cross—of His own will for you.

For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8)

As has been proclaimed by every faithful, ordinary shepherd, the Good Shepherd took His places as the sacrificial lamb—the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world—and dies having taken all sins into His flesh and blood—every one of yours, dear listeners, and all the sins of the world, for every sin of being and being like a hireling, of being and being like an ordinary shepherd, and, yes, of being and being like a wolf, sheep’s clothing or not. And, as the sacrificial Lamb of God, He bore the full brunt of God’s wrath for sin.

Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. (Romans 5:9-11)

Through Him, through the blood of the Lamb, the Good Shepherd, you have reconciliation with God. That is to say, you are forgiven for all of your sins.

We can’t end there, though. Jesus said, “I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” Truly, I say to you, you are forgiven for all of your sins by the very fact that the Good Shepherd laid down His life for you. But He also has the power to take it again—to take it up again. While He died on a very Good Friday for the forgiveness of your sins, He has risen from the dead on the third day, and ascended into Heaven 40 days later. There, He is seated at the right hand of God as your Good Shepherd, advocating for you as one for whom He laid down His life, directing and guiding all things for the good of His Bride, the Church, and Her members. Therefore, be assured that these words are certain, not merely words: you are forgiven for all of your sins! Life and Salvation are your through the Lamb who was slain and who is risen again!