[Opening prayer] Our sermon title this morning is “Not My Sheep”. “…not My sheep.”
The Scripture text to be expounded upon, is in the gospel of John, chapter 10 and verse 26, where our Lord declared to the people gathered around Him who were still questioning whether or not He was the Messiah:
“…you do not believe because you are not My sheep.”
This passage, John 10:26 – is quite a powerful statement made by the Lord Jesus Christ!
Starting with verse 24, we see the full context of it: The Jews who were there gathered around Him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
25 Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not My sheep.”
Notice our Lord did not say “you are not My sheep because you do not believe”, rather he said to them, “…you do not believe because you are not My sheep.”
These were those who had seen the mighty miracles Jesus had wrought, and yet they still did not believe in Him as the Messiah.
Of course the reference to sheep is in accord with symbolism God uses for His people; His flock, His sheep-fold, as brought out in today’s Scripture readings which we just heard.
Also we have the familiar 23 rd Psalm: The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2He makes me lie down in green pastures. Etc.
Psalm 100, verse 3 states: Know that the LORD, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. That’s the word of God.
Even so, the ungodly reject the idea of being like sheep dependent upon a Shepherd. Too proud to humble themselves even before God, they rely on their own self-sufficiency. Suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, they lean upon their own spiritual strength and understanding, and look down their nose at sheep as weak, defenseless, meek and needy.
Well you know what I say to that? Baaaaaaaaaa. 😊 It’s God’s word that counts.
The Lord, who is ‘The Good Shepherd’, and His sheep, have intimate knowledge of one another; therefore these Jews challenging who He is prove that they are not His sheep.
In John 8:47 Jesus makes a similarly shocking statement - “He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.”
Earlier in His ministry Jesus had stated: “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out", as recorded in John 6:37.
These people addressed in our text were not among the sheep given to Jesus by His Father… if they were, they would have come to Him; that is, they would have believed in Him.
The doctrine brought out by our text is known as the doctrine of “election”…
This election is not like in politics where citizens vote for competing candidates; rather in theology, ‘Election’ is defined as: the act of God before creation choosing some people to be saved, not on account of any foreseen merit in them, but solely based upon His will, according to His sovereign good pleasure .
The apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, declared the doctrine of election to the saints in Ephesus when he wrote to them:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. (Eph. 1:3-6)
-the Beloved of course referring there to the Lord Jesus Christ.
In his 2 nd inspired letter to Timothy, Paul reveals how God the Father
…has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity…
Luke, the historian and physician; companion of the apostle Paul, recorded in the book of Acts the fruits of the gospel as it was being preached, writing these inspired words: and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. (Acts 13:48b)
So these unbelievers whom Jesus identified as not His sheep, were not among the chosen ones of God and not predestined to eternal life; for as many as are ordained of God to eternal life, do believe, in God's own time.
"The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit" .(John 3:8)
…and the Holy Spirit can regenerate a person any time between conception and death.
On a personal note, my dad, who passed away in 2005, was not a member of the visible church, but upon his death bed he made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ… and so my family has hope… not because he lived a more Godly life than many of his church-going peers, but rather…
because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.10For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. That’s Romans 10:9-10.
Back to our text… These people gathered around our Lord, challenging His identity were not among the elect of God; they did not have the faith of God's elect.
Jesus Christ, the omniscient God Himself, knew this - that they were not the chosen of God; because He was present when the names of God's elect were written in the book of life .
If they had been His sheep, Jesus would have known them; He knows all His sheep, and calls them by name.
If they had been given to Him by the Father, he would know it, and would have gathered them to Himself. But since that was not the case, they were left to hardness and unbelief.
The apostle John wrote in the 12 th chapter of his gospel starting with verse 37:
But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: “Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?” Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again:“He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, Lest they should see withtheir eyes,lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.”(John 12:37-40)
And as Paul wrote to the Romans:What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded.Just as it is written(here he also quotes the prophet Isaiah) : “God has given them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear, to this very day.”
And to the Corinthians he wrote: But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age(that’s a reference to the devil)has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
All of these Scripture references and many more, emphasize this doctrine of election.
The important thing to understand is that the gift of believing in the Word of God is a special gift of saving grace…
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.-Eph.2:8-9
So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. -Rom. 9:16
Now we don’t know who is elect and who is not. Only God knows. Jesus knew that these hostile questioners gathered ‘round Him were not of His sheep and He told them so.
"How long will you keep us in suspense?” they asked. “If you are the Christ, tell us plainly."
When you first read it, this question may seem reasonable; but it is certainly not. Plainly stating that He was the Christ would not have helped those whom His works and words had only caused to be more prejudiced against Him.
Just think of that: there was the Son of God Himself, in the flesh, casting out demons, making the lame walk, the dumb talk, giving sight to the blind; healing all manner of sickness and disease, and even raising the dead… and what was their response?: “Let’s get him!”
Their unbelief wasn’t due to any lack of showing and telling by Jesus; rather they did not believe because they were not His sheep.
Those who were given to the Son by the Father, however, acknowledged Him, and were taught and led by Him.
Listen to these passages about how the sheep of the Good Shepherd followed Him, no questions asked:
Now as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen.
And He *said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men."
Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.
Going on from there He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and He called them.
Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him. (Matthew 4:18-22)
And one more: As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, "Follow Me." So he arose and followed Him. (Matthew 9:9)
…you get the idea. …and to those who are His sheep, the Lord Jesus Christ gives all the eternal and heavenly blessings which He came to provide for His own.
But those who gathered ‘round to challenge Him, in fact, were the children of the devil, in spirit and conduct. They didn’t even understand His speech because they were not even able to listen to His word. It is written by the inspired Apostle John, in his gospel, that the Lord spoke this truth plainly: John 8:43 reads “Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word."
As a matter of fact, a ll men are by nature like untamed beasts! …Even so, God has His own, which He turns into sheep, and the Father gives them to the Son and sets them apart in His pasture so that they fear no evil though they walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
Jesus proclaimed during His ministry on earth, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day… everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me." (John 6:44~45)
And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”(John 6:65)
Here in our text, the Lord Jesus Christ gives the reason for the Jews’ unbelief: that they were not of His sheep. How could that be? Were they not Israelites? Yes, but they are not all Israel who are of Israel
The expressionMy sheep,here, cannot mean members of the church, for they were indeed of the church of Israel, whom the Lord had led as a flock, out of the land of Egypt.
Nor can My sheep in this context mean believers;for then the statement would be: ‘You do not believe because you are not believers’… besides which our Savior had said before that He had other sheep that were not of that fold – by which He meant the Gentiles, who would yet come to believe on Him when they heard the gospel at some point in their lives.
By sheep , therefore, Jesus meant: those who were ordained to life , that is:the elect.
So spiritually-speaking, then, there are two races—the elect and the reprobate.
The reprobate Jews our Lord condemns in our text by telling them “you are not My sheep”, were the branches broken off from the olive tree symbolizing true Israel written of in Rom. 11:
[You] were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear.
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. We are but lowly creatures absolutely subject to the will of the high and awesome Thrice-Holy, sovereign God.
The predestination of the saved and the lost goes back to the beginning:
As God told the serpent right after the Fall: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15).
Thus the Fall didn’t produce racial division along physical lines, but spiritual lines. This is why the Bible forbids Christians from marrying non-Christians, but does not forbid Christians from marrying any nationality or ethnicity. For Christians, when it comes to marriage, the issue is whether the other person is a Christian, regardless of their skin color or place of origin.
All the sheep of the Good Shepherd are sons and daughters of God, and heirs of eternal life, according to the faith of God’s elect.(Titus 1:1)
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal. 3:28)
And so the word of the Lord, written by the apostle Paul to the church at Thessalonica so long ago, abidingly applies to us here today:
We are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle.(2 Thessalonians 2:13-15)
And to the Colossians: Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering… (Col 3:12)
And finally, to the Romans: What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?
Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.
Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,
nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Let us pray:
Our God and our Father, we are eternally grateful that You have called us into the fellowship of Your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and brought us near by His blood; we who by nature were far off.
And we give thanks for all those to whom the gospel has come not only in word, but in power and in the Holy Spirit.
Grant us wisdom as we contemplate the doctrine of the high mystery of predestination; that with awe and reverence we would give You praise and glory in all things.
We ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.
[Preached by PCA Ruling Elder Gordon Graham]