"I Have Other Sheep"

I greet you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is good to be together this morning to worship our risen Lord and Savior. We're here because Jesus is alive from the grave. There was that day 2,000 years ago when his cold body was in the ground. And three days later, the blood began to pulse through the veins, his heart began to beat, his lungs began to fill with air, and he is alive today, sitting on the throne, ruling and reigning in heaven above. And we get the privilege of worshiping him today.

If you would, turn in the Bible that you have before you, or you can just listen along. We're going to be looking at John chapter 10, verse 16 today. John chapter 10 verse 16 that can be found on page 950 Jesus here is speaking to a mixed crowd of Jews and there are Pharisees there we clearly understand that and he gives a lot of details about what he came on this earth to do and we're going to be looking in one particular verse here which speaks really to the topic of world missions. Before we read let's ask the Lord's blessing on the hearing and preaching of his word. Father, we come before you and we thank you that you have given us all that we need for life and godliness through Jesus Christ. Thank you that you have given us your Word, which sustains us on our pilgrim's journey. So we ask, Lord, that you would open our hearts now, that we would be attentive to what you want to speak to us today. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. John 10, verse 16. And I have, and other sheep I have, which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd. Thus ends the reading of God's word.

It is estimated that of the eight billion people alive in the world today, 3.4 billion of them live in unreached people groups. Unreached being defined as less than 2% of the population have access to the gospel or know Christ. According to the Joshua Project, an online resource, there are approximately 17,446 people groups in the world.

And 7,391 of them are considered unreached. And then the vast majority of these unreached or least reached people groups live in the 1040 window. And then inside that 1040 window, that is where less than 3% of missionary work is being done. A lot of numbers here. According to another resource, there are 189 unengaged, I'll define that in a second, 189 unengaged people groups, numbering something like 5.7 million souls that are still beyond the reach of the gospel.

Meaning that there is no known individual church or mission organization seeking to bring the gospel to those people. Every single day, People are dying without having once heard the name of Christ or had the opportunity to learn about the gospel. In Africa alone, one person every five seconds enters into a hopeless eternity. And where we work in South Sudan, there are six unreached people groups right now in this world. People who don't have access to the gospel.

These numbers can seem complicating and hard to comprehend, but what these numbers demonstrate to us is that there is a great need to take the gospel to the furthest parts of the world. There is great need for people to follow Christ, the Great Shepherd, to such places. For apart from Him, there is no hope.

In today's text, John 10 verse 16, this is a verse that is packed full of meaning for the missions. We often think of a verse in Matthew when we think about world missions. If you were to go to the book of John, I would submit that this is a good place to start if you want to learn about world missions. This one little verse is really just loaded.

And it calls us to follow after our great shepherd to the unreached in the world, to seek them out and to see them saved. We are called to follow our great shepherd, to seek out and to save the lost sheep. Well, to understand this more, we're going to consider three different points. We're going to consider the foundation of missions, We're going to consider the method of missions and the hope or the confidence of missions.

First Point

First, the foundation of missions.

It says, and other sheep I have which are not of this fold. It's kind of a simple message today in a sense, but we want to understand more. What is Jesus teaching us here when he starts with this imagery of sheep? It's a familiar one, is it not? The idea that Christ is our shepherd and we are his sheep. But just think about it for a moment. What is it seeking to communicate to us when Jesus says, I have other sheep, and what does it mean that we are sheep?

If you've ever worked with sheep, You know that sheep aren't exactly those cute woolly little creatures bouncing across the hills of Scotland or on your grandmother's crochet pattern or something like this. Sheep are messy. Sheep are smelly. Sheep aren't the wisest of creatures. They need a lot of help. So kids, if you're drawing today, you might draw some pictures of sheep. You might draw pictures of sheep that are inside of a fence, inside of a pen. You might draw some sheep that are still lost out in the dark.

So we learn something about ourselves, but I would submit that more than getting down on ourselves about being foolish sheep, We ought to understand that Christ is the great shepherd who has great patience, great long suffering, that tenderly cares for the sheep.

He is patient with us. And as it says here, Jesus has sheep. He says, I have sheep. He owns them. They belong to him. You could say they are branded with his mark. And why is that? How did he come to have sheep? Well, the Father elected those sheep. He elected people. He chose people. Even from the beginning of the world, before the foundations of the world, the Father set his love on a particular people, a group of people, which are called sheep. And then those sheep were given to the Son.

John 6, verse 37. And all that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. You see there the idea that the Father is giving to the Son. Later on in this passage in verse 29, My Father who has given them to me, that is the sheep, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. Staying in the book of John again, John chapter 17, verses one and two. Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son that the son may glorify you since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. So Jesus has sheep and he has them because the father has given them to him. Now, so far for the Jews who are listening to this, this message is not too offensive, but that is about to change.

He then says, I have other sheep which are not of this fold. What is the meaning of a fold? Well, usually a fold is something that we do with the bulletin, maybe Saturday night or Lord's Day morning. But in this case, the fold is referring to the safe place where the sheep were kept at night in particular. We could think of it as a fence. But in the New Testament, the same word is translated as courtyard, even palace. So it's the safe place inside the compound, you might say.

And so Jesus is saying, I have other sheep that are outside this fold. And as we know, Jesus is the door. He's the one through whom the sheep come and enter. Again, so far the Jews are okay with this. Except that he says, I have other sheep that are not of this fold. And without giving a lot of explanation, most scholars and biblical commentators understand that in this case, Jesus is referring to the Jewish people. That's what he means when he says, this fold. So this group of sheep, this group of people.

And you can think about how this was the case for hundreds of years, right? God's chosen people were the people of Israel, and with few exceptions were there other people brought in. This is where the Jews start to get uncomfortable, even to the point where later on in this same passage they say, this guy's insane. Maybe he has a demon. How could he talk like this?

So this was shocking that Jesus says, I have other sheep that are not of this fold. And we might look at the Jews and think, that's, you know, how could they think that way? But if you stop for a moment, bring this into your life, right? This is not just meant for the people 2000 years ago. This is meant to speak to us today.

How might you be slipping into a rut and thinking you have an idea of who God's people are? The type of people that are God's sheep? This is meant to expand your mind to think about all the different types of people, different colors of people, people from different cultures who speak different languages, who live very different lives than you live. You're to be thinking about how God has sheep in those places as well. And so we need to allow this verse to speak to us and to not assume that we know who the sheep are.

The other day, maybe six weeks ago at this point, I was driving down the path between one of our compounds, coming home, and this big flock of creatures were on the path. I had to slow down, and at first, I didn't know what I was looking at. They're these creatures that, I mean, they're about this tall, they're kind of long and skinny, and they have these big tails, big fat tails. I thought, what is this?

I'm used to seeing goats and sheep. I mean, all the time, goats and sheep, you know, common as flies out there. I thought I knew what sheep were until I saw these things and they look like small camels. But I came to find out that they're called either long-tailed sheep or fat-tailed sheep, but they don't look anything like the sheep that I was used to. I had gotten into a rut of thinking this is what a sheep looks like. This is what a Christian looks like.

We need to allow this passage to speak to us and to remember that God has people from all different parts of the world that are sheep and he has yet to call. And then he says, I must bring them. Remember this again is our foundation for missions. He has sheep that are not of this fold and he must bring them. He has been mandated. He has been commanded to bring them. It's not a, I might bring them. If the weather's nice, I might bring them. If they treat me kindly, I will bring them." No. He says, I must bring them.

And if you were to study the musts and the shalls and the I wills of Scripture, well, let me just say what Spurgeon says here. Spurgeon wrote, how greatly I prize a portion of Scripture that is filled with God's shalls and wills. We might add, I musts. Everything he says is precious, but his I wills are particularly precious. There are the I wills of the Psalms, the I wills of Christ, many of them. But when we come to the I wills of God, then we get among the most precious things, the deep things, the things which minister comfort and strength to the people of God.

This is something that Christ must do. He must bring these sheep. Why? Because he's obedient. He is an obedient son to the Father. John 6 verse 38, For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day." The mission of Jesus. is to gather in the sheep. This is why Jesus came into the world, to glorify His Father by accomplishing His will by gathering in His sheep.

He must bring them. Bring them from where? Bring them from lostness, from the darkness, from the confusion, from the sin, from the deadness of their trespasses in which they are living. And He must bring them because they can't do it for themselves. All right, we're not going to go deep into all the underlying doctrine here, which there's a lot of. But Jesus must bring them because they don't have the ability to save themselves, just like foolish sheep often can't help themselves. We sinners, we can't help ourselves. We need Jesus to come and save us, to bring us out of our darkness, to bring us out of our sin, to work in our hearts, to change us, to convince us to come.

And so he must bring us. And he doesn't just bring us out of something, but he then brings us into something. He brings us into salvation, into union with him. Into eternal life He gives us hope and purpose, a calling, a future. So He brings us into good pasture.

For the Jews, they're surprised at this. They, again, they just thought, this can't be. Now, they should have remembered passages such as Ezekiel, which we already heard read about. God the Father being the Great Shepherd, He's going to gather in people that are lost. But how did they get around verses like Isaiah 42 verse 6, where Yahweh speaking to the Messiah says, I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations. Those nations are called Gentiles according to Luke in the New Testament.

To go to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring them out of the prison, from the dungeon, from the prison, those who sit in darkness. And then what's the extent of that? So the life of the nation, so what extent? Isaiah 49 verse 6, I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. Clearly, the plan of the Father and the Son together was to take this gospel, not just bring it to the Jewish nation, but to then extend to the furthest ends of the earth.

Who was this Messiah? Well, it's crystal clear that it is Jesus. If you were to turn over a page in John 11, John 11 verses 51 and 52, he that is Caiaphas, did not say this of his own accord. But being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation. and not for the nation only, that would be the nation of Israel, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on they made plans to put him to death. So Caiaphas, he didn't necessarily know everything that he was prophesying, but he was prophesying that Jesus was going to gather in the children that were scattered abroad in all the nations. This was the plan all along.

And he does this because he's the good shepherd. And with this understanding that Jesus has sheep and that he must bring them, this provides for us a rock-solid foundation for world missions. And why we can have confidence, which we'll look at more later, why we can have confidence that Jesus is going to succeed in this mission. Well, how is he going to do this? How is he going to do this? This brings us to our second point, the method of missions. How is Jesus going to save his sheep?

Other sheep I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they will hear my voice. they will hear my voice." Another way that can be translated is, they will heed my voice. They will listen to it in such a way that they will obey my voice. It's not a hearing and ignoring, but a listening to and responding to. The reason Jesus came was to bring this message so that people could hear. So when it says that People will hear His voice. This is what it says, people will hear His voice. What do they actually hear? What do people actually hear in their ears? I would submit that hearing the voice of Jesus is like hearing your voice. Or hearing the voice of someone reading the Scriptures. Sheep hear the voice of their Savior through the lips of messengers.

You can probably think of or might know someone who came to Christ just as a result of picking up the Bible and reading it. But that's an exception. If you think about your own life, how did you come to know Christ? How did you come to learn about the hope of the gospel?

I can almost guarantee that it was through a parent teaching, or it was through a friend who invited you to a Bible study, or a co-worker inviting you to church, and you heard through the lips of a servant of the Most High, you heard the voice of Jesus and the Spirit began to work in your heart. In a sense, we can say that people are saved as a result of human messengers.

How did Paul speak? In 1 Corinthians 9, verse 22, this is where Paul says, I have done this so I can become all things to all people that by all means I might save some. I become all things to all people that I might be able to save some. Now before we correct Paul, of his theology that he thinks he's so arrogant as to say, I'm going to go save people. Don't worry. Paul has pretty good theology.

He wrote Romans. He wrote Ephesians. He knows that it's only Christ that saves. So how can he say this? Well, he's speaking here to human instrumentality. He understands how God has chosen to work in the world. And he understands even from his calling, when the Lord called him, that God uses people to spread the message.

Remember in Acts 26, verse 18, God was speaking directly to Paul and he says, I am sending you to the Gentiles. I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and a place among those who are sanctified by me in faith. What was Paul's job description?

To open the eyes of the blind. What an amazing calling. What a significant and serious and weighty calling to go and open the eyes of the blind. It's scary if you think about it. And I would submit that this passage from John is speaking to us today and would instruct us to understand But we also are called to speak and to take the message of the gospel to people because it's through broken vessels, like you and me, that God works and God speaks to those who have yet to hear. They're going to hear. Romans chapter 10. Verses 13 up through 17 speaks about this topic where it says, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?

Just a little bit of a logical argumentation here. How are people going to believe How are people going to preach? Well, they're going to hear if people are speaking, if people are preaching. And they're going to go do that if they are sent. So people hear through vessels, like you and I. Now, I'm putting a lot of emphasis on human responsibility. I understand that. But I want us to understand this today.

So, You might think, OK, well, if we don't open our mouths, if we don't take the gospel to those people who have not yet heard, what will happen? If I'm sinful and don't obey scripture, what will happen? Well, first of all, You shouldn't be interested in disobeying scripture when scripture says go into all the world or to speak about the hope that is within you or to take the gospel to places. First of all, you should be interested in obeying scripture. But if you do disobey. If people don't rise up to take the gospel to the hard places of the world, what's going to happen? Is God going to be stopped? Are His plans going to be thwarted by our sinfulness?

No. Just one verse to maybe frame this and think about this. Esther chapter 4 verse 14. Remember, there was persecution that was going to come. And her uncle spoke to her and said, For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this. God was given the opportunity to be a vessel, to be an instrument in the Redeemer's hands, to bring about some good. But if that person wasn't going to obey, Redemption would come from another place.

So there's an opportunity here to get on board with what God is doing. I'm thinking about world missions today. There's an opportunity that we have before us to take the gospel to the world. And the world starts right outside those doors. And there's work to be done here. There's work to be done in the state and in this country and in the world. Well, thirdly, The hope or the motivation of missions. The hope or the motivations of missions.

Other sheep I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring and they will hear my voice and there will be one flock and one shepherd. We've said it already, Jesus promises and says, they will hear my voice. They will obey, they will heed the call. This gives us a promise that the unreached people, the people of yet to hear the gospel, they will hear, they will respond. It's a guaranteed win.

And if you want proof positive that this verse is true, just look around the room. There are certainly sheep here in this room that at one time were not of this fold. And God brought the message of the gospel from that place so far ago in the Middle East. And He, through His vessels, through His people, by the power of His Spirit and Word, has found lost sheep like you and me. It is effective. The gospel is at work. Jesus is building His church. And if this is you, if you have heard the gospel, if you have responded to it and have been living in the light, this verse ought to move you to praise and thanksgiving. Because you were one of those foolish lost sheep. You had no hope apart from Christ. You were confused. You were dead in your sins and trespasses.

And so we just praise God that He was gracious to reach out and to save. And we praise Him for that. And you can remember what it was like to hear the sweet call of the Savior. The cross, which was once offensive, became a thing of beauty, a thing of worship and adoration.

However, it's possible that some of you here today have not yet heard the Gospel. You have not yet heard it in such a way that you've responded to it and heeded its call. And if that's you, and if you are hearing His voice calling to you today, respond in faith and repentance, following after the Shepherd. If you hear His voice today, do not harden your hearts.

After applying these words to our own lives, we need to think about how it gives us that hope and confidence for the world. People will hear. They will repent. Their eyes will be opened and they will respond. Remember the I shalls and the I wills of Scripture. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. Like lost sheep, they will hear His voice, and they will come.

Yes, there are discouragements. There are challenges. The reason why There are so many people that have not yet heard the gospel. Humanly speaking, it's because many of those people live in some of the hardest places to get to. Places that are hard to live. And so, we need to think about who will go to the places that are dirty, to the people that are despised. There are people that will hear.

Paul was also discouraged at times. He was tempted to give up, to think it's too hard. It's too scary to talk to my neighbor. It's too scary to talk to that person and lie at the grocery store. It's too scary to think about going to hard places in the world. Paul was also discouraged.

And the Lord spoke to him in Acts chapter 18 verse 10. The Lord said, do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent. For I am with you and no one will attack you to harm you. For I have many in this city who are my people. I have many in this city who are my people. Just think of the confidence that that must have given to Paul to think, There are people out there.

I don't know who they are. I don't know when they're going to respond. But the Lord has said they're out there. And we can understand that there are people still out outside the church, outside the fold that have yet to be brought in. And they will hear. There are people I'm willing to say, to go on record as saying, there are people in Iowa that the Lord still wants to save and He is going to save. And we need to take the message of the gospel to them. There are people in this country, and as we've already noted, there are millions of people in this world. People groups from which the Lord is going to gather people in, to draw them in, and they will hear.

This is no wild goose chase. This is no fool's errand to think that people are going to hear. We need to take this promise. Take this promise, apply it to our own lives and allow it to move us to action. To become the hands and feet of Jesus in this world. Taking this good news this message of hope. And we need to speak in such a way that people will hear the voice of the Savior. This is a beautiful thing to see when people hear the voice of the Savior.

We had the privilege recently of giving audio Bibles. So the Bible recorded on an audio device and give it to someone who was a believer, but they came to faith through a different language. They came to faith through Arabic, which wasn't their mother tongue. And when we were able to give that audio Bible to them, it was a beautiful thing to see. I mean, just his eyes were welling up as he heard the voice of his Savior through the written word as it entered his ears. It is a beautiful thing to see Jesus speaking to his people.

Second Point

The second reason for hope is that Jesus says there will be one flock and one shepherd. There will be one church, one body, under one leader, one king, one great shepherd. In the Greek, this flows a little more smoothly. The Greek word for shepherd is poimen, and the Greek word for flock is poimne. So to kind of bring it into English language, we might say something like, there will be one pastor and one pastor. What a beautiful picture this is.

Jesus gathering into one, people from every tribe, tongue, and nation into one, following the shepherd. Again, different countries, different skin colors, different marks on their skin, different things that maybe don't look really familiar to us. These are the types of people that Jesus is gathering in to his group of believers, into the sheep. Isaiah 56 verse 8 puts it like this, the Lord God who gathers the outcasts of Israel declares, I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered. Matthew 8 verse 11, I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. God's desire is to see the message go out and for his sheep to be brought into one flock. One fold, one church. In the place where there will be neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free. And we can have confidence that they will hear.

As we wrap up, I want to ask you, what is your heart's desire? What is your bent towards the nations? God's heart clearly is to see this message go to all places. What gets your heart excited? What are you interested in? What are you passionate about? This application, it starts with the youngest in our midst. Perhaps those who are still in diapers, right?

We need to bring the gospel into their lives in such a way that they can understand so that they can hear and respond. And then it extends to our families, to our neighbors, so forth and so on, starting with Jerusalem, Judea and all of Samaria. But we always should have that outward momentum, that outward bent, that outward thrust. You need to embrace these promises. Allow them to change our lives. And when we get too comfortable in our pew, we need to remember this verse. This verse is to function as a little bit like a thorn or a needle that you find in the pew and you sit on and it kind of gets you to move up, move out.

If you get too comfortable here, allow this verse to prompt you outward and so then today and tomorrow and for the rest of our lives with hearts full of faith follow after your great shepherd who is on mission to seek out to speak to and to save the lost let's go lord in prayer our father we thank you that you have sent your son into the world to save Save us, broken sinners who are not worthy of anything but your condemnation and wrath. And yet in your abundant loving-kindness and mercy, You drew us to Yourself. And so, Lord, today we worship You, we thank You, and we pray, Lord, that we would be obedient in following our Great Shepherd, our Savior, who calls us to praise Him and thank Him, and then to follow Him, to bring this beautiful message of hope that we have to a fallen and broken, perishing world. Father, we pray that You would gather in those people who are in the farthest ends of the earth, and that you would raise up people to go. Perhaps even some in our midst here today, Lord, you might use to take the gospel so that Jesus might save his sheep. We thank you for this great work that you're doing in our midst and in the world, and we pray that you would do this for your namesake, for your glory, and we pray it in Jesus' name.