Introduction
Did you see
the report which came out this summer about Dale Irby who retired from his job
as a gym teacher at Prestonwood Elementary School in Dallas ? The report and pictures told that he
wore the same outfit for his school picture every year for 40 years? The paper
reported, "The tradition began as a big mistake that his wife, Cathy,
turned into a running gag. In 1975, Irby was embarrassed to discover he had
unwittingly worn the same shirt and wool vest he had worn the year before. His
wife made him a dare: do it a third year in a row. Then Irby thought five would
be funny. Then five turned into 40." That story motivated Jonathan to try
to do the same thing and so far he has done it for 2 years in a row. Time will
tell if he is able to sustain this goal.
That may be
funny, but if we met someone whose Christian life was exactly the same as it
had been 40, 20 or even 10 years ago, that would not be a good thing. If we as
a church were exactly like we were in 1960 when the stone was set in place when
this building was built, that would not be a good thing. Following Jesus means
that as individuals and as a faith community we must grow.
Our theme
for this week will come from Ephesians
5:8-21 which invites us to talk about growing in maturity. I would
like to examine this theme from John
10:27 where we read, "My sheep hear my voice. I know them,
and they follow me."
I. My Sheep Hear My Voice
A. Hearing His Voice
Do you
recognize this image? It "comes
from a painting by English artist Francis Barraud, and is titled His
Master's Voice. It was acquired from the artist in 1899 by the newly formed
Gramophone Company. According to contemporary Gramophone Company publicity
material, the dog, a fox terrier named Nipper, had originally belonged to
Barraud's brother Mark. When Mark Barraud died, Francis inherited Nipper, along
with a cylinder phonograph and a number of recordings of Mark's voice. Francis
noted the peculiar interest that the dog took in the recorded voice of his late
master emanating from the trumpet, and conceived the idea of committing the
scene to canvas." Wikipedia
There are a lot of voices out
there. The voice of reason invites us to do what makes sense. The voice of
culture invites us to be aware and current. The voice of duty calls us to do
what is right. The voice of law calls us to obedience. The voices of our peers
are comforting voices. The voices in our own head sometimes confuse us about which
voice we should listen to. Many of these are good voices which we rely on, but
among all the voices we hear, is the voice of Jesus the voice of the master in
our life?
I read the following on a web site: "Judith
Fain is a Ph.D. candidate at the University
of Durham
"Wondering
how the three shepherds would ever be able to identify their own sheep, Judith
waited until the men were ready to say their goodbyes. She watched, fascinated,
as each of the shepherds called out to his sheep. At the sound of their
shepherd’s voice, like magic, the sheep separated again into three
flocks."
Do we hear
our Shepherd's voice?
B. Knowing and Being Known
When my
brother calls me on the telephone, he doesn't introduce himself. He doesn't
say, "Hi, George, this is your brother Ed" as if I didn't know. He
just begins talking. As soon as he does, I know that it is him. There is
something about the inflection, the tone, the volume of his voice which I
immediately recognize. We have known each other for a long time and we have had
lunch together often and visiting together many times. We have a relationship
and because of that, I recognize His voice.
The key to
hearing the voice of Jesus is having a relationship with Him. He says, in this
verse, "my sheep" hear my voice." How do we become one of the
sheep that have a relationship with Him? We enter into a relationship with
Jesus when we recognize that He is the Son of God who came to earth and who
died for our sins and rose again to forgive our sins and to give us eternal
life. When we acknowledge that, He comes to live within us and enters into a
relationship with us and we become His sheep. Then we will hear and recognize
His voice.
Jesus spoke
this verse to a group of Jewish religious leaders who were challenging Jesus.
They wanted Jesus to declare that He was Messiah, not because they were
uncertain and wanted to have clarity, but because they did not believe and
wanted to find some way of destroying Him. So Jesus says to them in verse 26,
"You do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep."
The
interesting thing is that they knew a lot of religious things and they appeared
before all the people as being very religious. Religion should be about knowing
God and understanding God, but when God showed up, they did not recognize Him.
That was why they did not hear the voice of Jesus. It was unbelief that
prevented them from hearing Jesus. They knew religion, but they did not know
Jesus.
Could the
same thing be said of us? Do we have all the trappings of religion, but we fail
to hear the voice of Jesus because, in fact, we don't believe in Him? If we
don't believe in Him, we will not belong to Him and if we don't belong to Him,
we won't hear His voice. It is only those who are His sheep who hear His voice.
The logical
next step which we would expect in this verse is that it would say that those
who hear the voice of Jesus know Him, but that is not what the text says.
Instead, we unexpectedly hear, "I know them." We also need to be
aware of the connection between "My sheep" and "I know
them." We are His sheep if we know Him, but even more important, we are
His sheep if we are known by Him. What does it mean that He knows us?
I have
sometimes walked through a hotel and noticed a wedding reception going on and
thought that it would be very easy to attend the reception even though you
wouldn't know anyone. The groom and his family would assume you were friend or
family of the bride and the bride would think you were friend or family of the
groom. Is it possible that there are some people who think that they are part
of the kingdom of
God
C. Growth In Hearing
Yet
relationships are never formed in a moment and so it is with Jesus. We may
enter into a relationship of being His sheep, but that does not mean we will
always hear and recognize His voice. Today we are talking about growth in the
Christian life. We become His sheep in a moment, but it takes time and effort
to build a relationship with Him in which we will increase in our ability to
hear and recognize His voice. What are the things we can do to hear His voice
better?
I said
earlier that there are a lot of voices out there. Some of those voices are good
voices. They help us discern wisdom and grace and understanding. In so doing,
they lead us towards Jesus and help us hear His voice. But there are also
voices out there that lead us away from hearing Him. There are voices that
distract us, voices that lie to us and voices that confuse us. If we want to
hear the voice of Jesus with clarity, we need to get rid of these other voices.
Sometimes these voices come from association with certain people so we need to
stop associating with them. Sometimes they come from things we read or watch on
television and we need to stop reading or watching those things. If we want to
hear the voice of Jesus better, we need to get rid of the voices that prevent
us from hearing His voice.
There is a
voice that will always lead us to hear and understand Jesus and that is the
voice of Scripture. A few years ago I taught a Sunday School class with College
and Career aged young people. For a period of time we did a project of studying
the gospels with the specific goal of trying to understand Jesus. We read a
portion of the Gospels and we asked, "What is Jesus like and how can we
imitate Him?" It was a very helpful study and we saw in it many aspects of
who Jesus is and it helped us learn to recognize the voice of Jesus. If we listen
to the written voice of Jesus in Scripture, we will also learn to recognize the
heart voice of Jesus as He speaks to us.
The project
which we carried out as a College and Career group also illustrates another
important way in which we learn to hear the voice of Jesus. We did the study in
community and as we looked at the life of Jesus together and as we talked about
Jesus, we learned from each other. If we do all our study and meditation on our
own, we may have difficulty distinguishing between the voice of Jesus and the
voices in our own head. For that reason, it is important to learn to listen to
the voice of Jesus in community.
That is why we have emphasized participation in a small group.
That is why we have emphasized participation in a small group.
When you
see someone cup their hand to their ear, what does that mean? It communicates,
"I can't hear" but it also communicates something else. It
communicates, "I want to hear." It communicates a level of
attentiveness. A comment in the Pulpit Commentary quips that it is "all in
vain if the sheep wander out of earshot." What does this (hand cupped to
the ear) communicate when it comes to listening to Jesus? If we want to listen
to Jesus, we also need to learn to be attentive to His voice.
How do we become
attentive? The noise between our ears is sometimes so loud that it prevents us
from hearing Jesus. The noise in the world around us often drowns out the voice
of Jesus so that we don't hear it. In such a context, it will take a concerted
effort to stop the noise out there and the noise in here long enough to listen.
One of the best ways I know to increase our attentiveness is in silence. I try
to listen to the voice of Jesus, but often the busyness of the day and all the
ideas running around in my head make it hard to hear. Once in a while I take
time just to be alone with Jesus in order to listen to Him. Often I hear his
voice best in the middle of the night when all the other voices are quiet and I
choose to pay attention to Him.
Jesus says,
"My sheep hear my voice." If we want to grow in maturity, we will
need to learn to hear and recognize His voice.
II. They Follow Me
A. Those Who Hear…Follow
In 1897 the
book, "In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do?" was published by Charles
Sheldon. It is the story of a pastor who challenges his congregation to not do
anything for a whole year without first asking, "What would Jesus
Do?" The book has sold more than 30 million copies. It is remarkable that
the book was such a draw. What was it that allowed the concept of walking in
the steps of Jesus to become so popular? Or is it that remarkable?
In the
1990's the second part of the title of that book suddenly took on the status of
a popular motto which came to be known as WWJD – What Would Jesus Do - and many
people wore WWJD bracelets. It is remarkable that the concept of doing what
Jesus did became so popular. Or is it that remarkable?
It is
remarkable that people who don't know Jesus would be attracted to the idea of
following Jesus, but it is not remarkable that those who hear His voice will
follow Jesus. Jesus declared that the normal expectation is that "My sheep
hear my voice and they follow me." In fact, it would not be remarkable to
say that those who hear His voice and do in fact follow Him do so because they
hear His voice. Hearing the voice of Jesus because we are known by Him leads to
obedience to the voice of Jesus.
B. Growth in Following
The truth
is, however, that we don't follow Jesus perfectly the first day we begin to
hear His voice. This is where growth in maturity really is necessary. We don't
get following all at once and we must grow in maturity.
Have you
ever learned a complicated routine? Perhaps you have learned to play a piano or
learned to crochet or any other thing. I remember when I taught skating lessons.
I could have thought it's easy to skate. Just put the kids on the ice and they
will take off and enjoy gliding around the ice very quickly. It doesn't work
that way. The worlds greatest hockey players and the world's greatest figure
skaters learned to shuffle along on one blade without falling before they
learned to skate, but repetition and practice and training have brought them to
the place where they don't even think about skating, they just do it, and in
fact they do it in a remarkable way.
Growing in
maturity in following Jesus is similar. We cannot expect that we will hear
Jesus' voice accurately from the beginning and clearly all the time. We cannot
expect that we will follow His voice perfectly from the beginning and all the
time.
It is as we
learn to hear and recognize the voice of Jesus that we will also grow in following
it. When we hear Jesus tell the gospel story to Nicodemus in John 3 , we hear the voice of
redemption and we learn not only to accept redemption, but to tell others about
it. As we hear the voice of Jesus say to the woman caught in adultery,
"Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more" we learn from Jesus
not to judge others, but to be gracious and forgiving and we learn to walk in
holiness. As we listen to Jesus condemn the hypocrisy of the Jewish religious
leaders in Matthew 23 ,
we learn to hate hypocrisy. As we watch Jesus wash the feet of His disciples
just before he went to the cross, we learn servanthood. As we listen to the
voice of Jesus, spoken through His Word or whispered in our ears, as we are
attentive to Him, we gradually learn to follow His voice in the every day of
life and as we do, we grow in maturity.
C.
Following Jesus
As we learn
to follow, however, we need to remember that we are not following rules or
principles, but Jesus. The verse says, "They follow me."
Many
religions including the Old Testament have given us a list of rules to follow. Even
the New Testament gives us guidelines and principles. We must follow these, but
as we do, we need to remember that ultimately we must not follow the rules and
principles for their own sake, but we must follow Jesus. This is the great
difference between the Old Testament and the New. In the Old Testament God
promised a new way. We read in Ezekiel
36:26 , "A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will
put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give
you a heart of flesh." When we follow rules, it is easy to make a list of
rules and make a check mark every time we obey one of the rules. As the sheep
of our Good Shepherd, however, we are called to something else. We are called
to learn obedience by listening to His voice. We are called to listen to the
voice of Jesus as we hear it in Scripture and as we are attentive to His
personal presence in our lives.
In some
ways it is much more difficult and uncertain to follow Him in this way than to
follow rules and some people have a hard time with that. It means that we need
to remain attentive to Him at all times.
Yet it is
much easier to follow Jesus than it is to follow rules. When we follow Jesus we
live by a relationship and we always have access to the source and we always
have His guidance.
May we grow
in following Jesus!
Conclusion
C.S. Lewis
said, "It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly
sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at
present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg.
We must be hatched or go bad."
Growth
involves change. Many find that difficult, but if we don't change, we lose out.
The means of change, of growth in maturity is learning to hear the voice of
Jesus and following it.
We are His
sheep! May we hear His voice and may we follow Him!
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