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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for this morning comes from the gospel reading about the Good Shepherd. You may be seated.
A couple of questions that have caused me to look very introspectively at my own life, as I hope it gives you pause to look at yours. And the questions to consider are these two questions: Where is your identity located? Where is your identity located? And the second one is, how do you define yourself?
Now here’s the context. Is your identity located, and do you define yourself, by what you earn economically? And do you judge it by how it compares to other people, either more than or less than what they make? Is that how you identify yourself? Is that how you define who you are? For if there is a reduction, do you feel worse about yourself? And if there is an increase, do you feel… You see where I’m going? It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Or how about what it is you know? To have a high school education, do you judge yourself and identify yourself as that, or as one who has a bachelor’s or one who has a master’s? Do you compare yourself? And if you attain that degree, do you feel… a little bit better about yourself than you did before?
How about your age? Do you judge yourself as being something or less than because of how old you are? Because of how young you are? Or what about your health? Do you define yourself by your health? If you have great health, do you feel better about yourself? And if you don’t, do you beat yourself up and wonder, what is wrong with me?
And then about your experiences. Yes. Do you identify yourself because of the experiences under which you have endured? Be they wonderful or be they negative? Do you judge yourself better than because you haven’t had to deal with that? Do you judge yourself worse than because you have had to experience that tragedy?
When you and I identify ourselves and define ourselves according to these measuring sticks, we’re looking inside of ourselves. And that’s typical and normal for both you and me to look inside ourselves, to judge ourselves accordingly. But the Satan in this world is the one prodding you on to judge yourself accordingly. It is not your Good Shepherd. So don’t do it. Don’t judge yourself, be it positive or negative, because of your economic power, your intellect, your sphere of influence, your age or your health, your experiences, whether they be positive or negative. Don’t judge your worth, value, or identity in those places because it will not lead to confidence. It will only lead to disappointment and confusion.
Your identity is wrapped up in, however, in your relationship with the Good Shepherd—by what He speaks to you about you, by what His will is toward you. That is where your identity is wrapped up in. That is where you are defined. And yet Satan in your flesh continually points you inside yourself, while the Holy Spirit is continually pointing you outside of yourself to what the Good Shepherd says about you.
God determines your value through and in the Good Shepherd. God determines your identity in and through the Good Shepherd. You do not determine either. Now, Satan in our flesh thinks that. When you think about all of the judgments that we make about ourselves, be they positive or be they negative, they are not in accord with what God speaks of us. Either we judge ourselves too harshly, or we don’t judge ourselves harshly enough. Your value and your identity is found in the Good Shepherd, who by his own authority laid down his life for you. And he laid down his life for you, not because of all the things you did, and not because of all the things you didn’t do. He laid down his life for you, not because of all of the things that have been done to you, or all the things that have been neglected to be done to you.
The Good Shepherd laid down his life for you. He defines your identity. Your identity is wrapped up in what he declares about you, not what you declare, and God be praised, not what anyone else declares. He’s the one who laid down his life for you and calls you one of his sheep, his little lambs. But he doesn’t call you a lamb simply because you are alone. He calls you a lamb so that you may be a part of a flock, which is what you and I are a part of when we gather here—a part of a flock.
He proclaims to you very clearly that you know his voice. You can’t explain that or describe that to any other human being other than a believer, but no one else understands that, just you and fellow believers. But this is probably the most profound statement in this morning’s text. He proclaims to you that he knows you. And by proclaiming to you that he knows you, he is exalting himself above everything that we hold sacred or value in this world.
So you do have an extended degree and experience. Not going to matter a whole hill of beans when you’re sitting in a nursing home, is it? So you are able to work hard and take care of so many different things. It doesn’t matter a whole hill of beans when you’re in a car wreck and you’re very horribly disfigured.
Where I saw this the most is in the hospital hallways in Balad, Iraq and in San Antonio at the Brook Army Medical Center, where men and women work. Because of their own flesh and this world, they try to define themselves by what limbs they had or by what limbs they didn’t have. By what their body looked like or what it didn’t look like. That is not who they or you are. You are what the Good Shepherd says you are. And if he says, “I know you,” then he knows you better than you know yourself.
Of all the relationships that we can say we’re known, God never used the example of a parent with the child. You and I know as parents, we’re skewed in our affection for our children. But where we really understand being known—and I’m talking about every aspect of who we are—it’s in a marriage. Your spouse knows you. They know your great accomplishments and how you esteem yourself, but they also know every single one of your peccadilloes, every single flaw that you have, and every single idiosyncrasy that is a part of who you are—and still loves you.
Now, that’s an imperfect example, because you and I know as spouses, we like to hide things from our spouses rather than be full disclosure, for we fear what? We fear what? We fear their value of us changing. It is the same way with your Good Shepherd, except you have nothing to fear, for he knows you and still says, “You’re one of my sheep. You’re a part of my flock. You know my voice. I lay down my life for you, and I know you.”
For if we hold ourselves in any other light than what the Good Shepherd holds us, we’re wolf bait, brothers and sisters. Good old wolf bait.
Now this brings up another story. For this world doesn’t recognize you and I as being a part of the Good Shepherd’s flock. And there are times in your life and in my life when we are so submerged by our suffering and our shame, we are so covered with our disgrace that we don’t even recognize ourselves anymore as one of God’s sheep.
Someone else knows that, doesn’t he? When he was abandoned, abandoned. And yet he still believed, “I am God’s son, his beloved son.” When he suffered, when he bore your and my shame and disgrace, he still believed and trusted in what God declared about him: “You are my beloved son.”
We have a Good Shepherd who knows us and does not forget you, and does not forsake you. By his own authority did he lay down his entire life for you as one who alone would be forgotten by the Father and who alone would be forsaken by the Father so that you would never be forgotten by him and so that you would never be forsaken by him.
You are known by the Good Shepherd, not because of what you esteem within yourself, nor are you less known by the Good Shepherd by what you despise within yourself, but because he said, “You’re my lamb. I lay down my life for you, and I know you. Because I paid your price, you have nothing to fear. I know you, every jot and tittle of you. I call you my little lamb by name. I speak your name. You hear my voice. I am the Good Shepherd for you, and you are my sheep.”
Now the text also said, “I have other sheep.” Other sheep who are not a part of the flock yet. Who Jesus wishes to call into the flock, which means there are outreach opportunities for us. There are relationship opportunities for us to foster and cultivate. And when you speak his words to these outside of the flock that God wishes to bring into the flock, and you speak his word, you speak his voice.
And the text says very clearly, “My sheep know my voice.” And if his voice worked through your sinful parents and Sunday school teachers, pastors, and teachers who taught you, if God drew you through them and their sinfulness—in spite of them—God can draw them through you in spite of you. His voice will accomplish the drawing. Proclaim his word. He knows his sheep and he will call them and draw them by his voice.
He is the Good Shepherd, and it’s a great gift to be known like he knows you.
In the name of Jesus, Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
