2019.03.01 Hopewell @Home ▫ John 10:7-21

Read John 10:7-21

Questions for Littles: Who is speaking in John 10:7? Whom does He say is the door of the sheep? What were those who came before (John 10:8)? What did the sheep not do with them? What will happen to someone who enters by Jesus (John 10:9)? What will that person do? What are the only reasons that a thief comes (John 10:10a)? Why has Jesus come (John 10:10b)? What does He call Himself in John 10:11? What does the good shepherd do? Who flees when the wolf comes (John 10:12)? What doesn’t he care about (John 10:13)? Whom does Jesus know (John 10:14)? Who know Him in verse 14? Who knows Him in John 10:15? Whom does He know? What does He do? What does He have (John 10:16a)? From where? What will He do to them? How will He bring them? How many flocks and shepherds will there be? Who loves Jesus in John 10:17? Why? Who takes Jesus’s life from Him in John 10:18? How does He lose it, then? How does He get it back? Why? What was there, again, among the Jews (John 10:19)? Why? What did many of them say in John 10:20? What did others say in John 10:21? What question did they ask?

In the Gospel reading this week, Jesus tells us about Himself as the Good Shepherd.

The first thing we learn about the Good Shepherd is that He Himself is the door. Perhaps John 10:7-9 has us scratching our heads: door to what? But the answer in John 10:10 is plain: the door to life, and that abundantly. The importance of following Jesus couldn’t be put more sharply. We are either plundered and killed and destroyed, or we are saved to have life, and more than enough of it.

The second thing we learn about the Good Shepherd is that He gives His life for the sheep. Why? Because He cares about them. Because He knows them. Because it is what His Father wants. Notice that the sheep are His Father’s and His long before Jesus comes to die for them. The distinguishing, saving love for those specific sheep is the cause of the dying!

Finally, we see even in the encounter in these verses that Jesus’s method for gathering those who belong to Him is by His preaching on who He is. Even though there is great opposition and great pressure to deny Him, there are those who are His sheep. These say, “these are not the words of one who has a demon.” Yes, they notice the miracles too (opening the eyes of the blind), but it is His voice that they hear!

In what activities do you “hear” the Lord’s voice? How else might you have responded? What has made that difference?

Suggested songs: ARP130 “Lord, From the Depths to You I Cried” or TPH433 “Amazing Grace”