Jesus, the Good Shepherd, lays down his life and takes it up again for his flock!

Your protection is important. There are many aspects to your protection as the number of ways you can be attacked is on the rise. There are PPE, personal protective equipment, which was not a common household term until a little over a year ago, that are meant to protect you, but there are debates as to whether or not they do and to what extent. There are Second Amendment rights that are meant to protect you, but there are debates as to whether or not those rights do and to what extent. There are identity theft companies constantly monitoring your phone number, email, name, address, driver’s license number and social security number with a mix of preventative measures and insurance to reimburse you when your identity is stolen because they recognize they cannot protect you from all identity theft, but they can at least try to make up for the damages when your identity is stolen. Your protection is important but there is a lot of debate about what does and does not protect you.

Protection is also important to sheep. There may be some debate as to the greatest threat to sheep, but for now we can agree that the wolf is the greatest threat to sheep. Sheep need protection from wolves, and they have many options for protecting themselves from wolves. A sheep can find the best patch of rich green grass to eat, get strong and be in the greatest shape of its life, so that it can fight off the wolf. A sheep can find a patch of grass mixed with some other plants and a pool of water mixed with some other things that make life seem like a dream and as the sheep eats the other plants and drinks from the water with extra ingredients, the wolf does not even feel like a problem anymore. A sheep can spend time shining its coat and hooves to be the prettiest or most handsome sheep that is the envy of all the other sheep, so that when the wolf comes it will be so overcome by the sheep’s perfect image that it will not attack. A sheep can be so lazy and not move from its spot by a stream and grass that the grass around it grows up to hide it, and then maybe the wolf will not see it (but the wolf has an excellent sense of smell). A sheep can chase around the other sheep it finds attractive hoping that since it is always on the move or that it always has another sheep with it that the wolf will not be able to attack. Now, we could go on and on talking about the ways a sheep might find protection from a wolf, but it is clear that none of these examples work because each scenario still boils down to sheep versus wolf. And when it is sheep versus wolf, the wolf always wins.

Like the sheep there are many ways you try to protect yourself. You might spend your time focused on health, wealth or relationships for protection, or you may turn to a variety of foods, drinks and substances both legal and illegal for protection. You may try to protect yourself by facing and fighting attacks proactively or you may try to protect yourself by running and hiding from attacks reactively. Take a minute and fill in the blank for you own method of protection. Often, you and I do not even realize what we are doing is trying to protect ourselves until you understand the wolf is your greatest enemy who is the devil. There is no debate as to the devil being your greatest threat because he wants you trapped by your sin until you die and go to suffer God’s wrath in hell forever separated from God’s goodness.

The sheep cannot protect themselves. Notice that all the ways we listed for the sheep trying to protect themselves from the wolf were useless. The ways may have taken a lot of time and energy and filled the sheep with purpose or feelings like they were prepared for a fight with the wolf, but in the end all the sheep would die in the jaws of the wolf. They would all lose the fight because none of the scenarios we listed talked about the sheep standing with the shepherd. The shepherd is the one who keeps the sheep safe from the wolf and the same is true for you.

You cannot protect yourself. You spend your life working, playing, eating, drinking, alone, together, active, resting, etc. and during all of these activities, the devil is there attacking. And you are not able to fight the devil and win. The devil is more powerful than you are. His weapons and tactics are far more advanced than anything you could come up with, which is why they often go unnoticed. The Apostle Peter warns us in 1 Peter 5, 8 “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” You are surrounded by people whose souls the devil is gnawing on that are walking, talking and alive, but are spiritually dead and being pulled into hell. Be alert and stop trying to protect yourself like someone who is dead, spiritually dead. In John 10, Jesus, said, 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.” When you follow others, who lead you away from Jesus, or follow your own heart away from Jesus, you are left defenseless against the devil. The devil wants you alone living your life feeling safe and protected, so that he can attack you away from the saving hands of your Good Shepherd Jesus and take you without faith in Jesus to an eternity in hell. The tactic of the devil is to make you think he does not exist. The truth is that the devil does exist, and his purpose is to take you away from Jesus so that you die in your sins, without faith in Jesus, forgiveness or eternal life.

Your protection is important to your Good Shepherd. Jesus knows your enemy the devil. Jesus saw the creation of the once good angel, who turned on God and became the devil. In Luke 10, Jesus said, 18 … “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” Jesus knows everything about the devil especially his desire to keep you from faith in him. Jesus also knows how to defeat the devil, and he already has. Jesus is God and the devil is only an angel. Jesus is the Creator, while the devil is a creature. When the devil first attacked Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, pulling them away from God, God gave this promise to Adam and Eve to hold onto in Genesis 3, 15 “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” This promise was fulfilled at the cross where Jesus died, which to all the world looked like the devil won. The suffering and death Jesus endured was real, but it did not keep him down. Jesus rose from the dead, and it is the resurrection that crushed the devil’s head.

The resurrection of Jesus is the decisive victory over the devil. Jesus always planned to give his life as a sacrifice for sin on the cross. It was on the cross that Jesus died for all the moments you have lived against God’s will, separated from him, thinking you were protected from the devil by your own resolve against him or living completely oblivious to your vulnerability to sin, death and the devil. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, gave his life to save the flock, as he said he would in John 10, 18 “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.” Jesus came as a sheep, to be like you, as we hear in John 1, 29 the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,” to let himself be attacked and killed. Then, he took his life back up. He did the unthinkable and came back from the one thing none of us has any power over, death. He smashed the devil’s greatest weapon of death with his power of life. Jesus’ resurrection is your victory because Jesus died to forgive your sins and rose to give you the hope of eternal life with him free from the devil, death and hell.

Your protection is important to your Good Shepherd in all aspects of your life. With Jesus as your Good Shepherd, you are protected while working, playing, eating, drinking, alone, together, active, resting, etc. Jesus lived every day of his life serving God the Father as he said in John 6, 38 “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.” Everything Jesus did whether working, playing, eating, drinking, alone, together, active, resting, etc. was all done according to God’s will. Faith in Jesus means that you trust in his good life for you that gets you into heaven, not how you live your life. It is this faith in Jesus that stands against the attacks of the devil. In Acts 20, Paul spoke to the Ephesian elders, those who were going to continue teaching and preaching to the people about Jesus, 29 “I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31 So be on your guard!” Anyone who turns you away from Jesus is a wolf. Anyone who tells you to live your life in a way that goes against God’s Word is from the devil. Anyone who calls sin good or avoids calling sin what it is will be punished with the devil in hell.

Sheep must be guided back to the Good Shepherd. The word pastor means shepherd. Pastors are called to point all people to the one Good Shepherd, Jesus, as Peter wrote in 1 Peter 5, 2 “Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; 3 not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.” It is God’s will that believers be cared for by pastors who point them to Jesus as Peter also said in Acts 4, 12 “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” The clear truth that must be spoken to all people day after day was given to Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah 53, 6 “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” You and I are sinners, but with Jesus’ forgiveness, we live every minute of our lives protected.

There are many aspects to your protection as the number of ways you can be attacked is on the rise, but there is one enemy that rises above the rest, the devil, the relentless wolf eager to kill the sheep. There is no debate whether or not Jesus protects you. Your identity is protected with him because what he did for you cannot be stolen or duplicated. Only one Good Shepherd died and rose. Only one Good Shepherd lived out the will of God the Father for you. Only one Good Shepherd never sleeps and always keeps watch over you. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, lays down his life and takes it up again for his flock. Amen.