John 10
Joel Fritz - September 27, 2020

Living Streams! This is going to be weird. I hope you can bear with me. It’s been sixteen months since my family’s been in this church. So I’m standing in worship right now. Man, it’s just like I’ve been wandering in a desert for sixteen months and then I finally come home—come to this sweet pool of water and get to drink.

I don’t know how to do this. I have a little intro to tell you a little bit about myself, because I know as I even look out today that I’m speaking to a lot of people who don’t know me. So that requires me to introduce myself just a little bit. Those of you online, this is just kind of a cool moment, to know that there is such a big group of people who are joining with us that aren’t here.

But boy, what I’ve got to share is just this little sermonette before the sermon; and that is just that, man, it is a special thing to be together with you all. The body of believers is a powerful thing. We’re sitting here, worshiping together, singing those words out together, speaking out truth. We don’t always form words with our lips, do we? And the truth that we read maybe out of the Bible and the things that we want to believe in our hearts, we don’t always do that.

But then we come together on Sunday mornings, when we get the opportunity, you can now feel how special it is. For me, I’ve been in Italy for fifteen months. And we have a small group of people. But it’s not the same, right? You come into this big group of people and you all join in worship together, and you sing the same words, and you feel the power of the Holy Spirit move, and it’s an incredible thing.

And I know there are so many people who haven’t been able to come back to church. You’re maybe watching right now, and I’ve just got to tell you how special it is. When it comes around, it’s good. It’s just so sweet. So I’ve just go to start with that because I’m filled with emotion. In fact I told Dave, “Okay, I’m going to work really hard and not just make this a therapy session for myself, where I’m talking about all the things that happened and all the difficulties we went through for the last fifteen months.” Because that’s not the point. The Lord has given me a word to deliver to you guys. It’s a special word. It’s in John 10.

You guys have been in the book of John, right? You’ve heard David preaching. He did 8. I listened to that message. I didn’t catch his last message last week, so maybe I’ll say the same thing, who knows? Maybe the Lord wants to do that again. But I know he did John 9.

So let me just give you a little background. My wife and I started praying about what we should do, like, “Hey, Lord, you seem like you’re stirring something.” This was a couple of years ago. Here we are, I’ve been a pastor at Living Streams for about eight years. We’ve got a great group of friends and we feel like the Lord is saying, “I want to do something else for a season.”

So we made ourselves open to him. We prayed. He introduced us to some people in Italy. I stood up in front of the church and I said, “Who on earth is ever going to support a family to go to Italy in doing missions?” And, sure enough, the church wanted me to go, just like the Lord wanted us to go. And we went and we ministered to people. Some great things happened. Some difficult things happened. The COVID onset. The video camera of the world alighted on Italy and we sat there in our little three-bedroom apartment going, “What is happening?” Right?

It was a very strange moment. But we got to see the Lord work. After being locked in our apartment for sixty-two days, we got set free, I guess you’d say. And, boy, what a perspective we had on life. What an opportunity we had to be with people again. It was very special. And then we felt the Lord leading us back. I’ll get into that a little bit later. But I just wanted to give you a little heads up who I am.

I’m going to be talking in John 10 today. So, if you actually want to pull out your Bibles right now that’d be very cool. We’re all for digital devices because we know the Bible can be on there, probably just hit your “Do Not Disturb” so that nothing else interrupts you. But then go on there and find John 10 and we’ll read into it.

I want you to know what this message is about today, so I’m going to say it again and again. This message is about Voices. I think there is one thing that we can all agree about right now: it’s that there are a million voices clamoring for your attention. They are passionate voices that want you to listen to them. So we’ve got to filter through that. We’ve got this complex task.

Before you run away because you’re thinking that I’m going to start preaching about which voices you should listen to and where you should follow them and exactly the right answers to all of it—I’m not. Stay with me. I’ll leave that stuff to Pastor Dave. Today I’m going to talk about one voice. One voice. And it’s the voice of the Good Shepherd.

You guys want to read a little bit with me out of John 10? We’ll start in verse 1

“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”

I’m going to skip down to verse 9:

9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

This is the word of the Lord. Would you bow your heads with me as I pray and invite the Lord’s presence?

You’re here today, I believe it. What a special thing, the people that are joined in presence with one another, get to experience this moment. Lord God, I pray that it would extend out past this room. There are many good reasons that people can’t be here today. Lord God, I pray that you would sit with them, in their midst in this moment. That you would connect us like only you can by the power of your Holy Spirit. And that we would experience you and listen to your voice today. There are so many voices clamoring for our attention, Lord God. But we want to be able to zero in, home in, acutely listen to you and your voice. We thank you so much for who you are, that you’re alive and that you love us. Now, Lord God, would you grant me the ability to speak your words and not my own, even if you want to change the direction. We love you. I offer myself to you in this place today. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

About two years ago, I remember something kind of funny happening. I remember my wife and I were having a conversation about something we wanted to buy. We were thinking about dinner plates. I think a few of ours were cracked. We’ve got little girls, you know, and things break over the years. So we were thinking, “Hey, we need to get some new dinner plates.” We had a conversation about it. And then, the next day, I was looking for a drill on Home Depot or something like that, and then, you know they’ve got that little column there on the website, like Home Depot and all these other places; and then, all of a sudden, these little pictures start popping up. But they’re pictures of plates. And I’m like, “Plates? What?”

Now, can you guys see this? I don’t know if the camera is good enough. I’m trying to Duane “The Rock” Johnson eyebrow thing. I love that quizzical look because that’s how I feel in my heart when I saw those pictures after saying it. “Who’s listening to me,” Is what I thought. “Who is listening to me?” Right? And then I think about it and I’ve got this thing called an Echo. My kids call, you know, saying, “Alexa, do this for me. Do this. Do a back flip for me, Alexa. Do you love me, Alexa?” All this kind of stuff. But Alexa is always listening. And if you don’t have your phone turned off, you know, like Siri, where I push the button first, Siri is listening.

So I don’t know how this all works. I am not a tech guy, and I’m not here to tell you the ins and outs of how that is all working. But what I do know is that people who are trying to get your business, not a bad thing, but they want your attention and they are more crafty today than they have ever been in the history of the world. They are somehow listening to you when you enter in a web address, when you enter in a search query, they are listening to you. Somebody is giving your information to somebody else, they’re landing that picture of that plate right there on that page where I’m searching. They’re crafty. Their voices want your attention today, and they’re going to do anything they can do to get it.

Some of the important things that I think we need to be asking are based around this one question. What are the motivations of the voices that are speaking to us? What are the motivations of the voices that we’re allowing ourselves to listen to today? This is it. The critical thing. It’s so important.

Now, when we look back on this John 10, and I’m going to do a little bit of what we call “exposition” here. I want us to be able to have a picture of what’s happening in this text of scripture, John 10. I’m going to dig in to it just a little bit.

When we look into it right, off the bat, I see three voices speaking. One: I see the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ. He is saying something. There’s a voice in that. And then he says there are these other voices that are speaking. There’s a hired hand. We’ll talk a little bit about that. And then there’s another voice. The thief. Or the word that I like better, the robber. It’s just fun to say. But there’s the Good Shepherd, the hired hand and the thief (or robber).

These voices are real voices. And I believe that these voices are active today. But now let’s get back into Jesus’ day and think a little bit about what he’s talking about. Who is he speaking to first?

Now if you’re a student of the Bible, you’re asking some simple questions on a regular basis when you’re reading the word of God. One of those questions is Who is speaking? Two: the question is Who is this person speaking to? Or who is the narrator speaking to. Right? So I want to answer those questions real quick. It’s very simple, but for four chapters actually, seven, eight, nine and ten, Jesus has been speaking with a particular group of people, and they are called the Pharisees. Now, when we hear the word Pharisee, I don’t know what it means to you. Maybe you grew up in Sunday school and you remember the flannel graphs, or you had these cute little videos that showed you these different pictures of Pharisees and who they are. But simply put, they are religious leaders. These were the authorities of the day in Jesus’ time. They held the structure in place. They were also the ones that had built the structure under themselves and they were on top of it.

So Jesus is speaking to these guys, in this case, and he is speaking to them about all the different perspectives that he had on this authoritarian structure. He was sharing what he thought about it. And they were not happy about it, because he was also introducing other ideas that were very dangerous for these people. Ideas like, “I am the Son of God.” And they had these back and forth arguments.

So when you think about teaching, and oftentimes you might think about something like this. Today we might think, was Jesus standing on a stage? Was he out on a hill? Was he speaking to people who were peaceful like you guys are peaceful right now? What was this context? What did it look like? What I want to make sure you know, I’ve heard David mention it in his sermons, but what I make sure you know is that this was not a peaceful circumstance. Jesus was saying things that were provoking the Pharisees and the religious leaders. So much so that I remember David pointing out chapter 8, that they picked up stones to stone Jesus. In that moment Jesus had said a word that was very precious to the Jewish people: Yahweh. It’s a word that they didn’t even want to pronounce. It was a word that they wouldn’t even write out. It simply means “I AM.” Jesus looked at the Pharisees and said, “I AM.” That’s reserved for God and Yahweh alone. Nobody else is allowed to say that. But he said it. They picked up stones to stone him. This was an intense moment.

And here we go, at the end of these four chapters, Jesus is having a simple exchange. But he’s sitting there and he’s telling the Pharisees who they are and who he is. So I need you to be able to see. To be able to get inside of this story, you have to be able to feel the context of what’s happening. People are listening. A crowd has gathered around. They’re watching as Jesus is speaking to these people. And he’s telling them their business. In fact, the very things that he’s saying are threatening to erode the foundation that they have built their entire lives upon. They have everything to lose in those moments.

So there is this one question, though, that we see. And it permeates this entire section and then transitions us into what we’re going to talk about with these voices. But this one question is a question that every person must ask in their life and have an answer for. It’s really a fascinating one, but it’s so simple. That question is this: Who is this guy Jesus? And that is the question of the day in which we find ourselves, as Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees about the Good Shepherd, the hired hand and the robber.

Hopefully that gives you the picture that you need. But now I want to pick up and I want to allow you to see a little bit of this and then transition into talking about the hired hand. John 10:27-33 says this:

27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”
31 Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?
33 “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”

Who is this guy, Jesus?

The hired hand. Jesus says this in John 10:11:

11 “I am the good shepherd.

You’ve heard that already. We’ve talked about it.

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

I have these question I will ask multiple times today. What is the motivation of the hired hand? Because there are hired hand voices speaking into our lives today, just like there were hired hand voices, the voices of the Pharisees, many times some of the Pharisees speaking into the lives of the people in that day. What are the motivations of the hired hand? Personal gain.

Remember when I talked about Siri and Alexa? I mean, it’s such an interesting picture. But companies want your attention. Now listen to me closely, please. I am not against profit. I am not against sales. And I think that people need things like plates like I talked about, to eat off of, and that make their life better. Somehow I need to find the best ones for the best price and all of that. So in and of itself, advertising is not bad. We need to be able to see that. That’s not my point today one bit at all. I’m not thinking in that way.

What I am thinking about is you asking the question, myself asking the question, what’s the motivation of the voice? When the voice gets our attention, what’s the motivation? The answer is the motivation is for personal gain. Is it wrong, if you’re a salesman, to want to be able to feed your family or make a few bucks or do well at your job? No. No. No. It’s not. The thing is, for you, when the voice has your attention, you have to be able to pay attention and think “Is this is my best interest, or is this in the best interest of the person?” I can’t tell you.

This is a lesson I want my daughters to understand, a lesson I want to live my life by. And I have a hard time doing it because the message that those voices, the hired hand, communicate are very slick. They make a lot of sense. It’s a voice that I want to hear because of the way they’re saying it. But what I have to do is to ask myself, “What’s the motivation?”

Jesus says that the hired hand is out for themselves. And that’s what I find so interesting about this passage. The hired hand is about what? Getting paid. So when the wolf actually comes in this story, the hired hand flees and runs away. I think it’s the same exact thing when we look at the voices speaking to us about “You need this,” and “You need this.” We have to stop. We have to analyze. We have to think, “Who is this voice for?” If it’s not for you, then it’s for them. And if it’s for them, then it’s not necessarily always in your best personal benefit. That voice can lead you down a road that won’t take you to green pastures and abundant life.

So we have to beware of the voice of the hired hand. But there’s a more sinister voice out there. This one’s an interesting one for me to talk about. But it’s the voice of the thief. You know the voice of the hired hand is not necessarily a bad voice. It’s just a voice that we have to pay attention to and be cautious about. Understand the motivation behind it. But the voice of the thief, listen to this:

8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them.
9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;

So what is the motivation of the thief? We can all say it together. To steal, to kill and to destroy. Now, I don’t even know how to convey this. This is such an interesting thing to me. I think oftentimes in our society today we have kind of gotten to this place where we’re thinking that people who believe or let me see… people, when they speak to us, their motivations aren’t bad, I guess. But there’s truly an evil that exists in this world. Sin is still a part of this world today. Motivations from certain people’s voices, literally can be a voice of the thief in your life. And the motivation of the thief is not just to get something from you like the hired hand. It’s actually to destroy you.

And that’s where I think, when I think about my daughters, or I think about people that I’m caring about, these are voices that we really want to warn our kids about, that we really want to warn one another about. But the truth is that the devil is real. There is an enemy that you have that is trying to undermine everything that you do, that doesn’t want the best for you, but wants the worst for you. A thief comes to steal, to kill and to destroy. I think about that voice. That’s the voice that I want you to stay away from the most.

How can I illustrate this voice? When I was in Italy, I had to come up with these creative ideas to get to know people. I mean, here’s a guy that, we show up over there, I can’t speak Italian and I want to get to know people. Very few people speak English. This is not Rome or one of these tourist cities where people are speaking English because it’s part of their business. We were in kind of like the armpit, podunk town in Italy that you’re never going to see on the tourist map. Albeit, it’s beautiful. It’s in amazing country. I love it. But it’s not a tourist city. So nobody speaks English.

So how am I going to get to know people? I joined a bicycle club. I’ve been a bicycle rider for quite some time and I knew that Italians love road biking, right? So I thought, “Well, hey. That’s a way to get to know people.” So I get a bicycle, start riding with these guys. They’re serious, you know. They’re just going to leave you in the dust if you can’t keep up. So I had to do some riding out on my own.

There were some great hills around there and I remember this one day in particular where I was riding up a hill. For you runners and cyclists out there, you understand this lingo, but I had already ridden about fifteen hundred elevation feet up. This is just a big mountain. I was climbing straight up this mountain. I probably still had another five hundred feet to go of elevation feet, so maybe another mile or two.

When I get at this point and my heart rate is probably at 85-90% of its total capacity, and right at that moment, there are these sheep dogs everywhere, because there are sheep and there are cows, and the bells ringing on the cows—it’s surreal. It’s like something you never experience in the United States. But here I am riding in this serene environment, riding up this hill, heart’s pounding away and these dogs come out barking.

And for the history of cycling, I know there’s never been a friendly relationship between a cyclist and dogs. So these dogs start chasing me. Think of what my heart rate is doing. Pow, pow, pow. It’s accelerating past the 100% and I’m going to explode. I’m going to die. I stand up on the pedals and I’m pedaling away from these dogs. You don’t know what to do. You just react. I presume the dogs were all bark and no bite. But I get past the dogs, my rate comes down and then I keep on riding.

The next time I go up that hill, wouldn’t you know what happens? I come to that corner and my heart rate elevates. Boom. I’m already at 85-90% of my maximum heart rate. And I just come around the corner and bam, bam, bam. It starts pounding. Why? Because the voices of those dogs were so acute, that I immediately recalled them as soon as I came to the same place that I was before. They weren’t there this time. And they weren’t there the next time. But the same thing happened the next time .

You know what’s fascinating to me is that I think the enemy puts these barking dogs in our own lives; because he doesn’t want the best for you. I was faced with a moment of anxiety when I came to that corner, and my heart started pounding again. And the thought crossed my mind, “Should I turn around and go back?” Thankfully I answered, “No, I’m going to press forward. I’m going to keep going up the hill. I need to accomplish what I set out to do.”

But the enemy doesn’t want that for you. The thief comes to kill, to steal, and to destroy. And so my question would be to you then, what are the voices of those barking dogs? What voices are the thief using in your life to try to slow you down, to stop you from being all that God wants you to be, to stop you from finding the green pastures that Jesus talks about, the abundant life that Jesus talks about.

Let’s ask this question. What is the Good Shepherd’s motivation? What is the motivation of the Good Shepherd? John 10:9-11 tells us very clearly:

9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. 11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Jesus. What’s his motivation? The well being of the sheep.

When we look at these three distinct voices that exist today, we see very clearly. The hired hand, out for personal gain. Not always bad, but definitely something we should be asking questions about. What’s the motivation? Is it in my best interest

To the thief. What does the thief want to do? Steal, kill and destroy. Those barking dogs in your life that just won’t let you go. Those things, those voices that continue to tell you you’re worthless. "Remember when you failed at that? You’re never going to be able to overcome." “You can’t move forward any longer.” Those voices of the enemy that don’t want good for you.

And then there’s the voice of the Good Shepherd. And truly he says, “The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep because he wants the abundant life and to lead you into green pastures.” This is his motivation. We see this because Jesus actually came. He gave up his rights as God, lived among us, and did the hardest thing imaginable in order that we can experience life for ourselves.

So I want to ask, how do we come to know the Shepherd’s voice? Let me ask. Are there any dads with daughters out here today? You can raise your hand at home, too. Dads with daughters, come on! Be proud. I’ve got three little girls. I have no sons to my name. I have three precious little girls. And my three little girls talk, talk, talk, talk…which requires a lot of listening, listening, listening, listening for me. I want to talk too. I have some things to say. But I don’t always get to say those things.

And sixty-two days in lockdown with three little girls was an interesting experience. I found out that I can escape and I can go somewhere where I didn’t have to hear the voices all the time, and all the words that they have. But then, when you’re in lockdown and you’re stuck, I had to listen, listen, listen. And I prayed to God for patience. And he gave me patience much of the time. There were also times that I found myself locked in a room, curled up on the bed while my girls were actually outside heckling me. I mean, you get that picture in your head, standing at the door, “Daddy, daddy, daddy!” And they’re laughing! They’re like, “I can’t take it, ha, ha, ha!”

Those voices. Those precious, beautiful, amazing voices. Those voices that sixty-two days in lockdown just made me more aware of the intonations, the tone, the personality, specificity, of each one of my precious little girls. I promise you, if I were in a dark cave filled with kids and I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, if one of my daughters called my name, if one of my daughters asked for help, I’d know exactly who it is.

I think it’s the same thing with God. If it takes sixty-two days, if it takes a hundred and two days, if it takes that time during the day that I’m going to talk about in just a minute, we have to figure out how to listen and hear the voice of the Shepherd. Because that’s the voice that will give you life. God has a voice. This may seem like a simple statement. And if you’re on board, I mean, great. But I don’t think everybody in this place today has really grappled with this question. God has a voice.

When I first got to Italy for survey trip in January of 2019 I met a man named Pasquale. Pasquale—neat guy. A real brainiac. He could speak English, so maybe I just loved him because he could speak English, but he loved to talk about theology. Not so much religion, because remember, this is a very religious country, Italy is. But the young people don’t want to talk about religion. They want to walk away from anything that smacks of religion at all. Basically everybody under 40 would call themselves an aonteistic or an agnostic. Very few people would claim any sort of faith. But Pasquale was wrestling with these questions of theology.

We had these amazing conversations. And when I returned in June of 2019, we would sit down probably every week or every other week. And we would have these conversations. And my friend Steve who was there with us, we would have these conversations together. It was fascinating. Because during the time that I was there, Pasquale said he was an atheist, which if you don’t know, means don’t believe there’s any God whatsoever. There’s no creator, there’s no God.

Then he transitioned himself from saying that to saying, “No, I believe that there’s a higher power. I just can’t know that higher power,” which would be called an agnostic, if you’ve ever heard that term.

Then Pasquale goes from being an agnostic during our conversations, into saying, “I’m a Deist.” Now I don’t know if you know what a Deist is or not. But a Deist has this concept that God made the earth, wound it up, kind of like a watch, built the watch, wound it up, and it just ticks and takes care of itself. We do what we’re going to do, but God is off in the distance and he has no interaction.

And, finally, one day we were having a conversation and I’m pressing, pressing Pasquale in a very friendly way, because we had developed this great relationship. And I’m like, “Pasquale, do you believe that God is real?”

And he goes, “I believe that God is real.”

I said, “But do you believe that God is conscious? Can you have an exchange with this being that exists out there?”

And he goes, “No, I don’t. I don’t believe that God has a voice and can speak to me because I don’t believe that God is conscious.”

I just have to say there are a few more things I want to mention in this sermon, but this may be the end for you. Does God have a voice? Because, until you answer the question, Does God have a voice, you can’t move on. Until you answer the question, Is God a conscious being? You can’t move on to listening, can you?

But today, this message is about listening. This message is about listening to a voice that I believe God has, and has used in the Bible for many years publicly, and uses often personally for each one of us.

So, finally, I want to ask for those of us who do believe, that have come to that place where we would say “God does have a voice, he is a conscious being, and I want to hear that voice,” I want to ask this: How do we hear God’s voice? And give you some simple steps.

Number one simple step is this: Be a sheep. Now, I was going to go off on this because in Italy there are sheep everywhere. We actually had shepherds leading sheep and I told you about the sheep dogs and everything. But the point is, what do we simply know that sheep do? And it’s real! Sheep follow. They follow. That’s what sheep do.

So my first thought for you is to be a sheep. And once you start thinking, “I can be a sheep. I can be like a sheep.” Then you have to ask, “Well, am I acting like one?”

Number two: listen to this. I hope all of us can hear this because this is one of the most difficult things in the world to do. Hit DND. Do you know what DND means? It’s an acronym for Do Not Disturb. Right? Every single phone has a Do Not Disturb button. But the question is, how often do we use that Do Not Disturb button. DND. Not to be confused with Dungeons and Dragons, which is another use of that acronym. But this is the number one way to use it. Do Not Disturb.

Are you hitting Do Not Disturb on your phone at any time in your day in order to hear the voice of God? Are you hitting Do Not Disturb on life at any point in your day in order to hear and listen to the voice of God? I wish I had a more simple answer and a crafty way for you to be able to say, “If I do this thing, then I will carve out the time and be able to listen to the voice of God.”

I don’t have that. It’s just hard. When you have kids, when you have a business, when you have a pain that you experience chronically on a regular basis, when you have all of these things that are screaming and yelling and trying to take your attention, it is difficult to hit DND on life and on the phone.

But if you think about the phone, I have another question for you. Do you tell your phone when to talk to you or does your phone tell you when it wants to talk? It’s just kind of a funny way to think about it. Your phone, my phone tells me when it wants to talk all the time and then I just go running, “Okay okay, okay.”

When I get out of bed in the morning, what’s the first thing that I do? Do I go to my phone and check the messages? Then somebody else has my attention. In those moments, that’s the time that I choose to hit DND and go to the Lord. For you, it may not be in the morning. But I ask is there a time that you hit DND?

We need to practice being silent. Number three: Listen to hear. Would you say that there’s a difference between listening and hearing? Listen to hear.

Finally, number four: Follow. It’s kind of where it begins.

See yourself as a sheep. Hit DND. Listen to hear. And then finally, when the Lord speaks—because he will—it’s our role to follow.

This message began with the word voices and finishes with the word follow. Have you heard the voice of the Lord recently?

I wonder if you’ve been listening for the Lord’s voice. If you have heard it recently, more importantly, I guess, is to ask when was the last time you heard the Lord’s voice. Was it through a Bible verse this morning? Was it when you gave your attention to God’s word? You gave your attention to God’s written word. The Lord showed you something simple in scripture but profound, something so profound that not even death can shake it.

Was it a few months ago when you found yourself alone with no job and were wondering what you will do? Finally coming to a point where you shut your mouth and say, “Hey, God, maybe you forgot about me, but if you have anything to say, this would be a good time.” And then something miraculous happened because, instead of moving on to the next thought or the next fear, or the next notification, you actually listened for a moment.

And in that moment, God reminded you that he is for you and not against you. That he loves you and that he gave up all his rights as God to come and allow himself to suffer just so that you could be close to him, reminding you of your worth and value, and that he doesn’t need anything from you because he already possesses everything in himself.

Or was it last year when someone you trusted took a chance and shared something you needed to hear? Something that actually changed your relationship because it meant you were wrong. You ever been there? As you reflect on it now, though, you see it was not for selfish reasons that that person came to you and risked the relationship. They were risking and paying a cost because they love you and they want the best for you.

When people speak to us, we need to ask the question, what’s the motivation? And even when people speak things to us that we don’t want to hear, if the motivation is right, true, pure and leads us into green pastures, it leads us into the abundant life—we don’t want to hear it even if it’s hard.

When Jesus speaks out and says these things, these voices that you hear and sound so good, they don’t have your best interest at heart. This one voice, it wants your attention and it’s not necessarily for bad reasons, but it’s not for you. It’s for them. Their number one motivator is for them. And if hard times come, if the storm of life comes, they won’t be there for you. Or is this the thief who wants to steal, to kill and to destroy?

The way we listen to these voices matters because it will influence the way that we respond. It will influence the situations of our hearts. It will influence whether or not we listen, we hear, and we follow the Good Shepherd.

What is God’s motivation? He’s for you. I hope you can believe it.

We’re going to do a baptism in just a minute and I was thinking about how I would pray at the end, maybe wrap it up and ask the Lord if we could hear him speak something. But I think this baptism is a pretty special thing; because when we’re listening to the Lord and we’re following his voice and he speaks, one of the things he speaks to us is about baptism. And he’s made it very clear, and it’s something that is so beautiful that the Church has done for thousands of years, ever since Jesus ascended into heaven.

This beautiful baptism, we even saw John the Baptist doing it before Jesus, where you get dunked under the water and it represents the reality that Jesus Christ descended into the earth from heaven, and then went step further down into the depths of Sheol and into death, was buried inside of the grave, but did not stay there; but proclaimed and declared his power as God, which you have seen clearly in John, declared his power as God, and resurrected, overcoming death, back to life, which means he’s alive today, that he is conscious, he’s alive today, cares about you, and wants good things, even the abundant life here and for eternity for you.

One of the things then he asks is that you would follow him into baptism; and I think there are some people here that the Lord might be speaking to that haven’t signed up for baptism yet. I want you to come and I want you to talk to Kurt or maybe Ryan over here and maybe they can get another pastor or two, and talk to them about what the Lord is doing in the way that he’s been speaking. Because this is a step of obedience, and there are ten people today through the services that are going to take that step of obedience and follow like a sheep after Jesus Christ the Good Shepherd.

So I’m going to take just a moment and I’m going to pray for us and then during that time Kurt is going to come up and is going to share with you a little more and he’s going to celebrate with them because they’ve received that new life, Jesus Christ, and their following him into abundant pastures.

Lord Jesus, I thank you for who you are. You’re incredible. I believe that you’re alive and that your voice is real and speaking. I’ve experienced it in my own life today. I’ve experienced it in my own life in the past, and Lord God, you have led us into green pastures, even sitting in the midst of Corona Virus. So many difficult things are happening in this moment in history, in this moment in our world, and yet, Lord God, you speak in the midst of it. You push aside the voices. You calm our racing hearts, and you take over and you tell us what is best for us. And I pray, Lord God, that your people would be able to hear you today. And for those that you are leading into baptism to follow you right into that, I pray that take that step in these moments. I thank you for them, Lord God, and that you called them. Let your blessing be upon them and in this first step into this new life, Lord God, I pray that it would be an abundant one, that you would show them clearly exactly where you’re leading them. We love you, Jesus. It is your day. It is your voice. In your name we pray. Amen.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

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