Sunday 10 • 20 • 19

In the congregation like we've been doing for the past several months to help save his voice a little bit. So I'm gonna count down three, two, one, and then we're gonna read the scripture together. And it should be back here on the wall. So this is Ecclesiastes three and seven and eight. Three, two, one.

I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same. As one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts. For all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth.

So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?

Again, I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them. On the side of their oppressors, there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who were already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not yet seen evil deeds that are done under the sun.

Consider the work of God who can make straight what he has made crooked. In the day of prosperity, be joyful. And in the day of adversity, consider, God has made the one as well as the other so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

In my vain life, I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who is perished in his righteousness. And there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evil doing.

Then I saw the wicked buried. They used to go in and out of the holy place and were praised in the city where they had done such things. This also is vanity because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily. The heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before him. But it will not be well with the wicked. Neither will he prolong his days like a shadow because he does not fear before God.

There is a vanity that takes place on earth that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.

And I commend joy for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful. For this will go with him in his toil through the days of the life that God has given him under the sun.

When I applied my heart to know wisdom and to see the business of what is done on earth, how neither day nor night sleep. Then I saw all the work of God. That man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find out.

The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. — Ecclesiastes 3:18-4:3; 7:13-15; 8:10-17

Thanks for reading that. I have a bad cough that I've had for the last week and a half and I am heavily medicated and not contagious. But I do sound like a barking seal. And so if that happens, you don't need to call the authorities. Just bear with me for a sec, but pray that I'm okay through this.

Let's pray together as we open God's word. Lord, I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts would be pleasing, acceptable in Your sight. You are our rock and our fortress and our Redeemer. In Jesus' strong name we pray. Amen.

The Emperor's New Clothes

Now, do you know the story by Hans Christian Andersen called The Emperor's New Clothes? Anybody familiar with this? Kind of a staple of elementary school literature. And it's the story of a very vain emperor and his equally prideful court. And one day, two weavers show up at court and they promise that they can make the king the most amazing luxurious robes that anybody has seen. But there's a catch. Only those who are wise and fit for office can see the robes. And so the robes can show off those who are unfit for office or stupid or unwise. And the king loves this twist. And so immediately he commissions the weavers and they pull out their looms and they begin to pretend to weave. And the shuttlecock goes back and forth and they work and people keep looking in on them, but no one says, "I don't see anything" for fear, of course, that they're going to be shown to be thought of as stupid or naive or incompetent for office.

So the time comes when the emperor is to pray before the subjects in his new clothes. And of course, no one dares to say that they don't see the robes, including the emperor himself because he doesn't want to be judged as unfit or incompetent for office.

But finally, as he is walking down the street naked, a child pipes up and says the truth that everyone else was too afraid to say: he isn't wearing anything at all.

Now the teacher of Ecclesiastes is just like that child. The teacher here says what I think maybe we are too polite to say in church or in a community group setting: that it's really hard sometimes to believe in God. That sometimes it appears that God is absent. Sometimes it seems like God doesn't care. Sometimes it feels like God is even unjust. And while you and I are nice people and wouldn't say that out loud, who hasn't said those things under their breath? Who hasn't wondered those things?

But the good news of Ecclesiastes is that we don't need to play pretend.

One of the most helpful writers today for me is Carolyn Custis James. And she says this:

When my personal world is falling apart and something or someone precious is at stake, it is frightening when God doesn't show up to hold things together, especially when I'm begging Him to come. Christians are great pretenders.

And then she goes on to say:

We tell ourselves it's not supposed to be this way for Christians. So we resort to a covenant cover up, but God won't and doesn't participate in this kind of masquerade.

I love that. Let me say that again: God won't and doesn't participate in this kind of masquerade.

See, the teacher in Ecclesiastes is saying the things—like the child—that are obvious to everyone, and yet we can't say out loud because we're too embarrassed to admit. And yet these words are right here in the Bible, inspired by the Holy Spirit, in the inerrant word of God. So I just want to underscore that to you. These are not the words of some cynic. This is not a deconversion story or someone who's just trying to tear down people's faith. This is a teacher. The teacher is taking us somewhere. He is teaching. And yet he says out loud what many of us find hard to say: that sometimes it is really hard to believe in God. Sometimes it is really hard for us to believe.

So today, if you take notes, really only two points in today's sermon. First: why it's hard to be a sheep. And second: why it's good to be a sheep. Why it's hard to believe in God? Why is it hard to be a sheep?

In Ecclesiastes, the teacher is sort of taking us on this grand tour of faith-challenging observations of all those situations that you and I walk into that make it really hard for us to believe in God. I'm going to walk back through all these passages we read in Ecclesiastes. I'll just say this jumps around, so I've pieced together a bunch of these and we're going to look through them. All these things—why is it hard to believe in God? Let's look at this together.

Why It's Hard to Believe: All Die the Same

First, look at Ecclesiastes 3:19. You don't need to pull out your bulletin for this. Actually, can you pull it out? Find these sections. So this one, 3:18 through 22, I'm going to title this one: "All Die the Same."

Listen to what the teacher says—the Kohelet in Hebrew:

What happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same. As one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath. Man has no advantage over the beast, for all is vanity. They all go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. — Ecclesiastes 3:19-20

These are hard words. But who hasn't felt this? Death comes to everybody and everything. You know, the goldfish you get at the state fair that barely lasts the car ride home, and your beloved grandmother. I mean, who hasn't been to a funeral and thought, "This doesn't make any sense. It's not the way it's supposed to be"?

This is particularly true with regard to the death of a child. Even at the funeral of a child—and bless you if you have lost a child. This is so hard. Nothing, maybe nothing, makes us question more than the death of a child. Like, "Where is God and what is God up to?"

One of my friends says it this way: "The smallest coffins are often the heaviest ones."

Consider our friend Ashley. Six years ago, Ashley was traveling with her family on route from Minneapolis to Pasadena, California. Ashley and her husband, Jewel, were part of our congregation in Philadelphia for many years while Jewel was doing his medical residency in downtown Philly. I baptized their two little girls. They were good friends of ours. Together, Jewel and Ashley led a really terrific community group in South Philly. They were incredible people. After they finished residency, they moved to Minneapolis for a one-year fellowship for him before he was going to start practicing as a doctor. So they had just finished up, packed up the car, and they were going to drive out to Pasadena and finally start his first role as a surgeon and live right down the road from her family.

And as they're driving, the tire blew—the rear tire blew—and the car flipped five times. Jewel, who was driving, he was kind of banged up. The two girls in the back seat, they were untouched. But Ashley and the baby she was carrying didn't make it. My wife and I flew out to California to do this funeral. And throughout the funeral, what was in everybody's mind is just: Why? Why? This is a great woman. Her little girls need her. They were finally going to arrive. Why? How does this make sense?

Justice is Either Slow or Never

Look at chapter four, verses one through three.

Again, I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun and behold, the tears of the oppressed—they had no one to comfort them. On the side of the oppressors, there was power and no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who were still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not yet seen the evil deeds that are under the sun. — Ecclesiastes 4:1-3

James went over these words last week, so I'm not going to belabor this one a lot. But do you hear the teacher's frustration? Justice seems like it's late or never. Aren't you tired? Aren't you weary from the news cycle? Aren't you sick of shootings? Aren't you sick of corporate greed that doesn't seem to matter? Aren't you tired of trafficking? I mean, is anybody here? Am I the only one that's weary of this stuff?

This past week, let me just say the name: Atatiana Jefferson. Senseless death. So tired of senseless death. I watch the news and it's wearisome. There was a time we were doing a lot of pastoral prayers on Sundays and we would pray for things that would come up in the media. Do you know what? It's hard to do. We could do a pastoral prayer every week on injustice. The news cycle right now is just washing over us, and the net impact is that it's hard to feel all that all the time. I think that sometimes it makes us even numb because you hear of this all the time and it doesn't make you go, "God, I'm tired of seeing and hearing." What about you? Are you seeing and hearing this? It's so wearisome. God seems like justice is late or never.

God Doesn't Make Any Sense

Look at chapter seven, verse thirteen. Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?

It doesn't seem like God's ways make sense to us. A couple years ago, a movie by Martin Scorsese and the book before that by Shisaku Endo called Silence came out. This really touched a nerve. If you aren't familiar, it's a story of seventeenth-century missions—some Western missionaries, Jesuit missionaries, show up on the shore of Japan to bring the gospel. They find that there's a small struggling Christian community there. Because of fear of the government, the little Christian community hides the missionaries. But soon the government hears that there are missionaries doing work here, and they round up people who are part of this little Japanese Christian community. They give them a chance to walk away, to abandon their faith—apostatize or die.

The most powerful image from Silence is the picture of four crosses out in the sand. Four of the lay leaders of that little church were tied to these crosses in the tide and drowned to death by the Japanese government. The missionaries are in hiding and they know what's going on. They struggle very much like: Where is God? And the title says everything—Silence—because it's like, why is God silent right now? Why is God not doing something or saying something? God seems to be absent. God seems to not even notice. Is anybody feeling this?

No Karma

Look at chapter seven, verse fifteen, and then chapter eight, verses ten through eleven.

In my vain life, I've seen everything. There's a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness. There's a wicked man who prolongs his life in evildoing. Then I saw the wicked buried. They used to go in and out of the holy place, and were praised in the city where they had done such things. This also is vanity because the sentence against the evil deed is not executed speedily. The heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. — Ecclesiastes 7:15; 8:10-11

Karma is kind of a popular term right now. It actually comes from Buddhism and Hinduism. The kind of pop notion of this is: you do something bad, something bad has to happen to you to kind of even it out. It's an evening-out philosophy. You do something good, something good will happen to you. Do something bad, something bad will happen to you. That's fate or karma.

And the idea is the good people should get good, the bad people should get bad. But listen what the teacher says, no karma. Look at Ecclesiastes 8:11:

Because the sentence against the evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of children of man is fully set to do evil.

Like just getting more evil and more wicked. And one thing—this is for free, we'll time out. This is not part of the sermon. Do we really want karma? You know, karma sounds good when you're on the nice list. Like when you're on the nice list and things are going well, you've been doing good things, we're like, yeah, there should be karma for the bad people. But I'm on the naughty list a lot. I'm a sinner. And I for one, I'm really glad there's not karma. I'm really glad that there's God's patience and forgiveness and kindness towards sinners. So even though we think we really want that, that's always from the perspective of people who think they're really good.

Next, Ecclesiastes 8:14:

It doesn't really matter how you live. Therefore, it is a vanity that takes place on earth that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous.

Now this is kind of a version of karma. But don't we want to believe that this is true when all the evidence says opposite? You know, when the tornadoes come and hit the trailer park, they don't hit just the homes of the bad people. They hit all the homes. Dementia, car crashes are pretty undiscerning in the type of people that they take out.

You might know of the Christian writer and speaker and activist, Joni Eareckson Tada. You might have heard that name. Joni has spent over fifty years in a wheelchair. And it's all due to a diving accident that she had as a teenager where she dove into a too shallow pool of water and broke her neck and has been a quadriplegic since then. Fifty two years in a wheelchair. She's one of the longest people on record to have been a quadriplegic that long. And yet, okay, this is a woman who's done so much amazing stuff. Hands out wheelchairs all over the world, speaks publicly, encourages all kinds of people in their faith. I mean, prolific writer and speaker.

And yet in 2011, she was diagnosed with cancer. And she's being interviewed right after starting chemo. And this is what she said:

It is really hard to go on. I mean, privately, I've wondered, gee, Lord, is this cancer my ticket to heaven? Because I sure am tired of sitting in a wheelchair and my body is aching. And I'm so weary.

You know, you listen to that, you're like, God, Joni, really? I mean, this woman is doing so much. I have a long list of people I would love for you to zap with cancer but Joni is not on that list. This is a good person. This is a person who does all kinds of wonderful things for you. And does it matter how you live if this is what happens? I mean, does anybody wrestle with this?

Or what about this one? Finally, last verse here, Ecclesiastes 8:17, the incomprehensibility of God:

Then I saw all the work of God that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much a man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out.

See, finally, the teacher asks the question: who can know? God's ways are inscrutable. Maybe you don't use that word very much, but incomprehensible. God doesn't make sense.

John Calvin, the French theologian said it this way: the finite cannot grasp or contain the infinite. In other words, our brains—we just can't. We don't understand what God's doing. Even God's ways. What God is like sometimes. Like, what is He doing?

And here's something though. If we could—this is if we had a god we could fully comprehend—this is what the African church father Augustine says: it would be an indication that we probably weren't thinking about the real God. We're probably thinking about a god of our own making.

Let me put it this way, and I'm going to cite a different Calvin. Calvin and Hobbes. Okay? So let's imagine Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin and Hobbes is a comic strip. They live on a page. Right? They live in a two-dimensional universe. They live where there are only two kinds of measurements: length and width. You go to Calvin and Hobbes and you try to describe depth to them, and they don't have an idea for that. There's no way that fits into their worldview because they live on a page. Right? Everything is two-dimensional.

Now you come to them, and you're a three-dimensional person, and you're trying to describe what life is like in three dimensions. There's no way they can understand that. It's incomprehensible to them. In some way, God is like that with us. God is beyond our ability to really grasp. I mean, who understands God? You can toil, as the teacher says, but you can't really get it. You can't really understand.

That doesn't mean we can't know anything about God, but it means we have a lot of limitations to this. This is why, incidentally, those proofs for God don't really work. Why they don't actually satisfy or add up—because they're all two-dimensional trying to describe a three-dimensional God. That's why they don't work.

Now, look. Here's what I want to say. Can you identify? Anybody here identify with the teacher? Like, it is hard to be a Christian. Isn't it? Isn't it hard to be a sheep? Sometimes you're like, sometimes God seems unjust. We wouldn't say that out loud. Sometimes it seems like God doesn't care. Sometimes it seems like God is absent. Can I get a witness? Right? This is hard to be a sheep.

And some of you like, "Wait, why are we doing this this morning? Is not the sermon you thought you were going to get this morning. Right? Is it even productive to have this conversation? Is this even helpful?" But look, that's a good question. And while I know this is not the sermon that some of you need this morning—you're like, "Thanks for the encouraging message, right?"—like, we need to hear this.

I want to make a couple observations about the teacher because the teacher shows us something. Just pause on this and think about what the teacher's showing us. Four things.

First, sometimes the most productive exchanges we have with God are in the moments when we are most bewildered by God. Sometimes the most productive exchanges—this is throughout the Bible—are when people have been most bewildered by God. Now, it's one thing to be one of those people who just dismisses Christianity straight out. "Oh, that's kind of dumb." But if you've actually read the Bible, if you're an honest reader of the Bible, you'll go through and you'll find sections where God's people say things like, "How long?" Psalms, the minor prophets. "How long? Have you forgotten us?" There is bewilderment all over your Bible. Go read the lives of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Hannah, Elijah, Job, Naomi. All these characters—all these people throughout Scripture—completely bewildered by God, don't know what God is doing.

Have you ever been in a movie with a friend who asks questions about the plot throughout the movie? Drives you crazy. You know, like a friend who's like, "What is she doing? Who is that? What's going to happen?" And you're like, "You know, we're going to find out. Just shut up. I want to watch the rest of the movie."

And I think the reality is, that's us. That's us all the time. We're in the middle of the movie. We can't see how it ends. We're asking all the plot questions. And what we may need to hear is, it's moments when we're actually the most bewildered that our faith grows the most. When things are going well and you're sort of on Christian autopilot, cruise control, you're not motivated to pray or search the scriptures or be with God's people. It's moments when we're most confused, where we're asking all the plot questions—those are the moments when we search the scriptures, when we pray, when we need brothers and sisters. Sometimes those are the most productive times.

Second observation: sometimes there are no answers. You know, we all want a Jesus bow. There are a lot of you who would love a Jesus bow to put on you. You're a helper. You want to help people. You want to help people figure out their life. You want to be able to come alongside people and just want to be able to put the Jesus bow on things that make it all better. The little band-aid that makes it all better. But listen, there's a good word here from the teacher. You can toil and search and sometimes we just don't know. There are no answers. It doesn't add up.

You know what I've noticed about our congregation? We love to at least people. You know what I'm talking about? We love to at least people. You come alongside someone, beside someone who's hurting, and you add a little "at least" phrase. "Hey, you know, at least you still have a job. At least you have other kids. At least you got to be married one time. At least you have your church." Do you hear how radically unhelpful at-leasing is? And the truth is, sometimes there are no answers. So can we make an agreement this morning to stop at-leasing each other? It just really hurts and doesn't help.

Third, sometimes speculation is not helpful. You know what I mean by speculation? You're trying to write the story. You're trying to figure out. You're like, "I've got to complete the story arc for God. I've got to make a moral out of the story. There's a lesson that I think I need to learn here that God's trying to teach me."

Let me figure out the lesson so I learn it and then we can move on. We're doing that like speculation. But remember, you're in the middle of the storyline. You don't know. And sometimes speculation is radically unhelpful for other people coming along and trying to write their story. Don't do that. It's not helpful. Listen to the teacher.

And finally this, and maybe most important: faith may want answers, but somehow it is able to survive without them. Faith may want answers, but it is able to survive without all the answers.

Notice again this litany of observations—all these faith stumpers this morning—they are not the first part of a deconversion story. They're not coming from a cynic or someone who's like, "I don't believe in God anymore." In fact, the teacher is taking us to chapter 12. Chapter 12 is all about fear of the Lord. That's where we're going with this. The teacher is taking us somewhere. He's not just stirring up discontent.

But look, when we are bewildered by God, Carolyn Custis James says it well: "It doesn't cause me to doubt God's existence. But it does force me to admit there's a lot about God that I just don't understand."

You know, as we've noted throughout this series, there is a strong connection between the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament and the Gospel of John in the New Testament—between the teacher here and the rabbi, where the teacher asks all the questions and says all the things like the child and the emperor who has no clothes, and Jesus comes along and gives a response.

And today, even as we've looked at why it's so hard to be a sheep, everybody here would be like, "Uh-huh." Jesus says to us, "It is so good to be a sheep." So I want to direct us to John 10. We'll read a couple passages here.

Jesus the Good Shepherd

Truly, truly I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice and he calls out his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them and the sheep follow him for they know his voice. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one. — John 10

Why is it good to be a sheep? Why is it as hard as it is? Why is it good to be a sheep?

Now, remember, the teacher has said back in chapter three eighteen: "Everybody dies like a beast." The beloved grandmother, the goldfish from the state fair, all die like beasts. And it's like Jesus is playing poker with the teacher. He's like, "I see your bet and I raise you. Because not only do we die like beasts, we actually live like beasts too. In fact, sheep. That's what we live like. We live like sheep."

Now couple things about this. That is an incredible statement of our vulnerability. Sheep are known for their incredible vulnerability and also for their incredible lack of intelligence.

Now, I doubt many of you grew up on a farm. Anybody grow up on a farm in here? We got like two of you or something. But you know this from having been through art museums. You have never seen paintings of settlers arriving on the shores of America to find wild herds of sheep ravaging the hillsides. They just don't do that. These are sheep that are incredibly vulnerable. They're animals that have to be taken care of.

A sheep is maybe the only creature in the whole animal kingdom that neither celebrates its freedom nor knows how to return back home. So lots of other animals, when they get out and get free, they go paint the town. It's like party time. We had a black lab named Lucy, and we called her Houdini. I mean, if you left the gate open for like half a second, that dog would be out of our backyard, high-tailing it down to Hillsborough Street to Chipotle to get leftovers from NC State students. You're like, "So cute. Here you go." Right? That dog was always going there.

And sheep don't kick up their heels and celebrate like that. But they also are not smart like some of your other kinds of dogs that can find their way home. Horses do this, cattle do this. Sheep don't do this. Sheep just wander off and get lost.

So you've seen those pictures of the shepherd carrying the lamb on his shoulders back home. You know why he has to do that? Because even going to get a sheep, it is hard to gather sheep. You can't put on a leash and just walk the sheep home. You have to pull the sheep out of the bushes, throw it to the ground, subdue it, and then put it on your shoulders to get it home. That's not a sentimental picture. It's a picture of stubbornness and foolishness.

Sheep are incredibly vulnerable, incredibly so. And when Jesus calls us sheep and Himself the Good Shepherd, He's saying something that we don't want to hear about ourselves. He's saying you're dependent, and you're weak, and you're vulnerable. And man, nobody wants to hear that. But isn't it the case? Isn't it the case in moments when we're most angry with God and frustrated with God, that actually one of the things we're frustrated about is our vulnerability and the fact that we're not in control, and the fact that we're weak and powerless to do anything about our circumstances? We're actually angry not just about God, we're angry at being sheep. We're angry that this is true.

See, Jesus, Rabbi Jesus doesn't just say something to be insulting. He says this like, you're sheep—I want you to know what kind of a shepherd I am. He's saying something likewise about his aim to care for us. He knows us by name. Did you catch that? Jesus says this a couple times in John 10: I know my sheep by name. We need him to call us by name.

There's a children's book called Cecil, the Lost Sheep. You may have heard of this one. It's kind of silly, but it makes the point. It's based on the parable of the 99 and the one. Jesus tells about the shepherd who leaves the flock in order to go get the lost sheep and bring it back.

So this is what happened. One day, Cecil the sheep wanders off and the shepherd has to go get him. The shepherd is counting off the sheep: one, Michael, two, Annette, three, four, Lucy, going down the line, six, 96, Meredith, 97, other Meredith, 98, Abdul, 99, Emily. And then he realizes: Cecil. Where is Cecil? Cecil is missing. He goes and calls Cecil by name. Cecil comes back.

You know, you all are mostly adults in this room and you can be like, yeah, okay, I know. Jesus calls his sheep by name. But I think you need to hear this: Jesus calls you by name. Jesus calls you by name. He knows you. He designed you. He knows more about you than your mama ever did. And he loves and cherishes you.

You know, each week in our service, we make you get up out of your seat if you're going to take communion. And we instruct those who are serving communion—I hope that they do this and I hope this more and more is a practice of our church—that when people come forward, if someone serving you communion, they say your name if they know it. Like, "John, this is the body of Christ broken for you. Sarah, this is the blood of Christ poured out for you." And why do we do that? Because you need to know that Jesus calls you by name.

You need to know this, and this is really important. Here's why: You are not a sheep because you've been born. You're not a sheep because you go to church. You're not a sheep because you know a lot of things about God. You're not a sheep because you know the Bible. You're not a sheep because you grew up around things of God. You're a sheep because God calls you by name, because he knows you and loves you. He calls you by name. That's what makes you part of his fold. He calls you. He knows you. His call on your life is what is the ultimate value. You are a sheep because God calls you.

Your Value in God's Eyes

It's a statement not only of our vulnerability and His care, but also of our value. You've probably heard, maybe from other pastors or from me, talk about this passage before. Yeah, sheep are dumb. Yeah, sheep are weak. But I want you to hear this: Sheep are also incredibly valuable.

Think of Bedouin tribes keeping herds of sheep. Why do they do that? Because they use every part of the sheep. Sheep have wool, which is valuable for clothing. They give milk, which is great for cheese and great for sustenance. They make more sheep and they become meat. All these things. Sheep are incredibly valuable to the Bedouin community. The sheep is a very valuable livestock.

And this is what I want you to hear. In calling us sheep, Jesus is saying: I find you so valuable. You are the apple of my eye. I love you. Maybe you need to hear this over and over.

Yeah, we're a church that believes in sin. We talk about sin. We're sinners. We talk about total depravity. But do we hear enough? Jesus loves you. You are so very valuable to Him. He prizes you.

And He does so even in this passage showing us not only that we have value, that we're valuable. It's not just a statement of our value, it's also a statement of His price for us. See, the rabbi, the good shepherd actually did do what Ecclesiastes said. He actually did become a beast. He actually put on the limitations of human flesh, and he died. And he died like a beast.

In Isaiah 53, centuries before the coming of Jesus, Isaiah writes this about Jesus:

All of us like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed. He was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep before its shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. — Isaiah 53

See, John 10 tells us, this is exactly who Jesus is. He came to lay down His life like a beast. He came to die for us. Remember my Calvin and Hobbes illustration? The only way a two-dimensional comic figure is going to understand is if a three-dimensional person comes into the two-d world. That's exactly what Jesus Christ did. Jesus who was from all eternity without limit was born. Jesus who was a spirit everywhere at the same time became human flesh. Jesus who had no ending, has no ending, dies. Jesus does so in becoming a beast for us, becoming a sheep.

In Revelation, the end of the Bible, we read and see this picture of what's going on right now in heaven. And what's happening right now? Are there people from every tribe, language, nation and tongue gathered in the middle of a giant room worshiping what? What are they worshiping? A lamb. Worshiping a lamb who looks as if it was slain.

See Jesus comes like in the Calvin and Hobbes world, into the two-d world to become a sheep. The shepherd who becomes a sheep. And it's a one to one exchange. You, your life, paid for by Him. That's how valuable one life is—purchased by another.

The Comfort of Being a Sheep

And this is why it is so comforting. It's hard to be a sheep. But this is why it's also so good to be a sheep. It's so good to be a sheep because faith in the final analysis is trusting someone you know even when you don't always know what he's up to.

It's looking at the foot of the cross and saying, that is a picture for me of suffering and pain. And that suffering and pain had the greatest outcome for my life. And therefore I can look at the suffering and pain in my life that doesn't make sense. Two plus two equals five, and I don't know why that person was removed. And I don't know why justice isn't happening. And I don't know why things aren't working out for me, but God is at work even in suffering and pain. I can trust Him. He is a shepherd and He is a sheep. And our sufferings take us into deeper realms of God's character, enlarging our vision of Him.

One last thing I want to say to you. One last thing that Jesus promises is that nothing—nothing, nothing—can remove you from his hand. From his pierced hand. The shepherd who is a sheep, nothing can take you from him. Not your unbelief, not your fears, not your doubts, not your sins this week, not all the ways that you're rebellious against Him. Nothing can remove you from His hand.

He says that those who are in the Father's hand, nothing can take them away. Look, this is what I want to say to you today. Your salvation has nothing to do with the strength of your faith. It has nothing to do with you. It's the one who holds you. And he is faithful and strong to the end.

Yes, it is so hard to be a sheep. And it is so good to be a sheep.

Prayer

Would you join me in prayer?

Father, come this morning in all kinds of places and yet in the ways that most matter, we're exactly the same. We are vulnerable and we're in need. We don't understand what you're up to. Father, I pray for those whom you have called by name. That this morning, they would hear again your voice, your affection on them, your love for them, that nothing can take them from you or them from you. Father, I pray for those who've never trusted in you this morning, who have been washed over with tides of doubt and fear and cynicism. Lord, I pray that they would find in you the meaning maker and the great shepherd and the great sheep. Lord, we praise you and give thanks for these things in Jesus' name. Amen.