Please open your copy of God's Holy Word to the Gospel of John 10. Last week we focused on the first 10 verses Jesus using shepherding metaphors, shepherds and sheep, sheep folds, gates, to describe His person and His work in ways that are extremely helpful, that He wants us to understand. He's contrasting the good shepherd with thieves and robbers and wolves who would seek to destroy within the flock. We're told in other parts of the Scripture that these wolves often dress like sheep. They look like us. but they seek to destroy us. The shepherd is welcomed in by the gatekeeper, we were told, where thieves and robbers climb over the wall to do harm. But the sheep run from thieves and robbers. And remember, the sheep are His own. His own people. His own chosen, elect people. They run from thieves and robbers. Why? Because they know the voice of their shepherd. But then He declares that He actually is the gate itself. There's only one way into the sheepfold. There's only one way into the family of God. And that's through the gate. Through Christ. He's the only way to life. He Himself is the gate. So this is an exclusive flock because not only is He the only way into the sheepfold, He's the gate. But He also calls out His own by name. Jesus expands on this message by declaring Himself in the verses that we'll read today, not only to be the gate, but the good shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep. We'll see that in this description of Himself as a good shepherd and the attributes He takes upon Himself in this narrative, we see the essentials of the gospel. Salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to the word of God alone, to the glory of God alone." So this is John chapter 10, carrying on from verse 10, where we are told that He came to give us life and abundantly to give us life. I'll begin reading in verse 11. Please stand for the reading of God's holy I'll read 11 to 33. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 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. I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. There will be one flock and one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again, this charge I have received from my father." There was again a division among the Jews because of these words. Many of them said, he has a demon and is insane. Why listen to him? Others said, these are not the words of one who is oppressed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind? At that time, the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter and Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them. I told you and you did not believe the works that I do in my father's name. Bear witness about me. But you do not believe because you are not among my 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." The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him, and Jesus answered them, "'I have shown you many good works from the Father, for which of them are you going to stone Me?' The Jews answered Him, It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you being a man, make yourself God. Amen. Please be seated. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God will stand forever. Let us pray for wisdom as we hear the preaching of His Word. Our Father and our God, truly, It is apt that you call us your sheep. For sheep often need correction. They need to be reminded of who you are. They need to be brought back from wandering off into the woods or into dangerous places. Lord, we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way, and yet you have called us your own. Open our eyes that we might see in this text. the great privilege of being part of your sheepfold, the kingdom of God, in Christ Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, one thing we learn in this text is that our shepherd is a shepherd who dies. He gives up his life for the sheep. Our good shepherd dies is the title of the sermon. We'll see, first of all, that he is a courageous protector as a shepherd. He doesn't run. He still is that way. Secondly, He is intimately united to each one of His sheep. He's united to us in a personal relationship with each one. Thirdly, we'll see that this flock of His is not just Jewish. It's massive. It's expansive. It includes the whole world. Well, in verse 11, we have, of course, another one of the great I am statements of John. Many times, some would say seven, I would say eight or nine. Jesus says, I am. Ego, a me. Again, this is a phrase in the Greek that is redundant. Ego means I am. A me means I am. So ego, a me, with a predicate after, means I am, I am. That should sound very familiar. This is how the Greek translates The Septuagint translates Moses' words from God at the burning bush. When he asked, what is your name? And God said, I am that I am, or I am who I am. The Septuagint written or translated 200 years before Christ translates that. Ego, a me. So John is showing us through Christ's words that he knew that he was the eternal, ever present, Existent, eternally existent, pre-existent, Almighty God. He knew this. And He's declaring it to His people. I am. I am the Good Shepherd. And actually, literally, I am the Good Shepherd. In the Greek, it's ego eimi, the Shepherd, the Good. The Shepherd, the Good. Again, this is for emphasis. John does not have to write it this way. Jesus does not have to say it this way. Ego eimi. I am, I am the shepherd, the good. Jesus is good. He's the good shepherd. One thing that you need to get just rock solid in your mind is that God is good. He's good. All the time, God is good. And the common word used often in the Greek Bible for good is agathos, which means objectively good, not bad. Good, not bad. Black, not white. It's an objectively true word. But that's not the word that John uses here. Our shepherd is a different kind of good. It means that he's objectively good. But kalos is the Greek word used and this means Not just good, but also beautiful and noble. There's a character in this goodness. He's lovely. He's excellent in his attributes, in his character. He's worthy. He's good in this way. So he's our good and noble and lovely and excellent upright shepherd. I am the good shepherd. He's God. And he's our shepherd. And praise be to God. We learn four things, I believe, from the text that make him good, by which we can see that he is good. And the first point, of course, I mentioned is that he is courageous. He dies for his sheep that they might live. Our good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He's not like a hired hand who doesn't care about the sheep and runs. He lays down his life for the sheep. Twice we are told that the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He doesn't run. He stands strong and he does his duty. This is called courage. Fear did not control him. As someone who loves history, especially military history, I've read many books. One is called, The Face of Battle, written decades ago by a man named John Keegan. It's an excellent book. The Face of Battle. But in it, he describes individuals throughout history, and by looking at what battle was like, you get a sense of how they faced battle. How they courageously were able to go forward. I think of the many times in our history when we've seen Men fighting in battles and doing things in the face of fear with great courage and in the face of danger. The storming of the beaches of Normandy. Can you imagine riding along in boats over the choppy waves? Everyone is sick throwing up because it's so choppy and you know that as soon as the front opens up that the Germans are just 50, 70, 100 meters away with machine guns ready just to mow you down. What caused these men to do that? It was courage. It was courage. They were afraid, but they had courage. Or at the Battle of Gettysburg, Lee's army crossing a mile of open ground to try to take a position. Just under fire for an entire mile. Why did they not break rapes and run? It was courage. Or the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava or so many other examples of men who have courage. But courage, although probably it is a common grace, God is he defines courage, but he's given us the ability to have courage as well. We must acknowledge that there was no one who had more courage. In the history of the world than the man, Jesus Christ, nobody, the most courageous man who ever lived was Christ, we'll talk about why. Our Good Shepherd has courage. He's not a hired hand. He doesn't turn and run. He doesn't like the hired hands. He just has no relationship with the sheep. He's just paid to do a thing. He cares nothing for the sheep. No, we're told that's not our Good Shepherd. He doesn't run when the wolf comes. He sacrifices himself so that the sheep will be safe. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace. With His wounds we are healed. All we 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. So Christ laying down His life for the sheep is courageously laying down His life for the good of the sheep. He's facing down spiritual danger for His own sheep. This is what He did on the cross. In Gethsemane, we read that He sweat drops of blood. He sweat drops of blood in anticipation of the cross. And He asked the Father, if possible, can this cup be removed from Me? Yet not My will, but Yours. Why? Why was He affected so deeply at the thought of the cross? If you read the Fox's book of Martyrs, and you should, you'll read of many Christians who were tortured, it seems, more terribly than a beating and all the mistreatment of Christ and then being crucified. Men and women. Young and old who seem to endure worse physical torture than Christ. And yet they're not. They're not seeming to be, at least in the moments of their death. Scared. So what was it? What was it that made this cross so terrifying for Christ that he would sweat drops of blood that he would ask his father if possible to remove this cup from him? Was it just that he was afraid of being beaten and having nails put in his hands and feet? That he sweat drops of blood? I tell you, it was not the physical pain that terrified our Lord. He was about to take the wrath of God. The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all. We are saved from the wrath of God by His sacrifice. 1 John 4, and this is love, not that we have loved Him, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Propitiation is our atonement. Our sins are paid for, but it's also the wrath of God being placed upon the Son to pay for that sin. In Gethsemane, he saw the infinite wrath of God reserved for the enemies of God in hell. And in his own holiness and purity, his perfection, his sinless body and soul recoiled at the thought of experiencing the wrath of God. And yet, the sinless became sin for us and endured that cup. He laid down his life for the sheep. Do not ever think this is a small thing. what He has done for you if you have faith in Christ, you will never, in all our time in heaven, we will not understand what He did. It was big. He laid down His life for us. He took eternity for us. An eternity of hell on those moments on the cross. His sacrificial death was not like like a Secret Service man taking a bullet for someone. It's not like a Secret Service man just jumping in front of the way and protecting a president. It wasn't that he just also allowed someone to kill him unjustly like a great tragedy is playing out. This was personal. His death was personal. He died for his sheep. If you have faith, he died for you. It's personal. It should overwhelm you. What He did should overwhelm you. It should overwhelm us all. Well, that's the second point, is that it's personal because He is united, intimately united, personally united to His own sheep. He says in verse 14, I am the Good Shepherd. He says it again. 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, in verse 27 we read, my sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me. Jesus knows all of His own sheep intimately. He knows everything about them. He knows how they wake up, how they go to bed. He knows what they're concerned about. He knows the physical problems they have. He knows everything about His sheep. The old Puritan Thomas Manton wrote, Christ has a particular and exact knowledge of all the elect, their individual persona, who they are, where they are, what they are, that shall be saved. He takes special notice of them, that He may suitably apply Himself to them. Oh, the compassion of our Good Shepherd. We don't worship a God who's just up there somewhere. We worship a God who's in us, who is with us, who knows us. That's why this Word is so powerful. It's not just a book that's written for a group of people that we don't know. It's written for you. God speaks to you. You know His voice when you read those words. He's speaking. He's so intimately united to each one of His sheep that His Word speaks to you personally by His Spirit. The words of the Word of God that you read are God's Word for you. Astoundingly, this relationship between the shepherd and the sheep, between Christ and His elect people, is just as the Father knows Christ, and Christ knows the Father. That should cause you just to fall over. He's saying just as the relationship He has with the Father in the Trinity, so is the relationship between Himself and His sheep. John 14, verse 20, Jesus says, In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He makes such statements again and again in the Gospel of John. This is an intimacy with the Son that we cannot comprehend. Our union with Christ compared to the union of the Godhead and the Trinity. This intimacy shared between the Father and the Son and the Spirit is just as the intimacy we share with Christ by His Spirit. Wow. Wow. This certainly should cause us to rejoice. Praise be to God for sending His Spirit to us to unite us to Christ. To be in the Father in Christ. Should cause us to rejoice. but there should also be some trembling involved. Would you agree? This should inspire not just delight, but also duty. This should humble you immensely. This union with our Almighty God. A song that was written many years ago is called, Who Am I? I think it's Casting Crowns. Listen to these words. I think they hit the nail on the head. Who am I? that the Lord of all the earth would care to know my name? Would care to feel my hurt? Who am I that the bright and morning star would choose to light the way for my ever-wandering heart? Who am I that the eyes that see my sin would look on me with love and watch me rise again? Who am I? that the voice that calmed the sea would call out through the rain and calm the storm in me. You've told me who I am. I am yours." You see, we know our Shepherd personally. It's an experiential knowledge. If it's just religious, if it's just going and doing things, without a real love relationship with the Almighty God, then you don't know Christ. Knowing Christ is not about knowing things. It's about knowing a man. It's about knowing a person. We know Christ. Dr. Gordon Keddy writes, the true sheep know that they know Jesus. He is the decisive experiential reality in their lives. Jesus is the decisive experiential reality in the lives of all of His sheep. Can you say that about your own life? Is Jesus Christ Himself the decisive experiential reality in your life? Is He the center of your universe? Or is it just this thing out there that you hope gives you some good graces maybe after you die? I'll just hold on to this little bit and put it in my pocket, and when I die, I hope God does a good thing for me. No, if He is the decisive experiential reality in your life, if He's the center of your universe, this makes His Word personal to you. He's speaking to you in His Word. And if He isn't the decisive experiential reality in your life, then you do not know Him. As we have read, the sentiment relationship is founded on the Trinitarian love of the Godhead. I'm in the Father and you and me and I and you. In his high priestly prayer. Before he goes to the cross the day before, he says the glory that you have given me speaking to the Father is praying the glory that you have given me. I have given to them. That they may be one even as we are one. I in them, you in Me, that they may become perfectly one. So that the world may know that you sent Me and loved them even as you loved Me." It just gets better and better, brothers and sisters. As the Father is in the Son, so are we in Christ. As the Father is one with the Son, so are we in Christ. As the Father loves the Son, so does He love the elect in Christ. His chosen sheep are beloved by the Father as He loves Christ. This special relationship we have with the Good Shepherd is grounded in this intimacy between the Father and the Son. And this relationship is made even more intimate by the sacrifice of Jesus, the Good Shepherd on the cross, for His sheep. Christ mentions His own death when talking about His own intimate knowledge of the sheep to emphasize the definite nature of His atonement. He didn't die for everyone who's ever breathed on planet earth. He died for His own sheep. He called them out by name. He's dying for His own sheep, for His friends. He said to His apostles, to His disciples, greater love has no one than this, that He lays down His life for His friends. So this is, again, moving when you consider that our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ died for you in particular. He knew you. Before the world was created, He knew you and chose to come and die for you. Not for everyone. For His sheep. For you. It's not that you kind of stumbled into this gospel and you decided to believe it and now you're part of His flock. No. He had received a people from His Father and He came to die for them and bring them to Himself. And so He did. And of course, that humbles us because why? Why you? Why did He die for you? Are you better than your neighbor? No, you're not. He died for you because He chose to put His love upon you. He died for those whom He knows. And who know Him? He's not dying for strangers. He's not dying for the goats or the wolves. He's dying for His own sheep. And His oneness with the Father and the sheep, this makes it permanent. Nobody can change your redemption. Nothing can alter this adoption. It's impossible to remove someone from the sheephold who has been called out by name and brought in by the death of the shepherd. Verse 28, He says, I give them eternal life. They will never perish. No one will snatch them out of My hand. He gave them eternal life and they will never perish. My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand. I and the Father are one. So let me just say, those whom He has chosen and known and died for those whom He has given eternal life, are safe in the Father's hand and are safe in His hand." If you have faith in Christ, you're safe. In Christ, you're one with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. You are known by Christ. You are loved and cared for. He died for you, and you specifically, He knows you. And He has intimate relationship with each one of His flock. He knows them well. But this flock is more than just Jewish people. He's telling his disciples and the Jews that are listening, this is the third point, that the flock is massive. He's the shepherd of Gentiles as well as Jews, which was shocking for the audience. It was shocking for them. Verse 16, he says, I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them in also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock and one shepherd. Christ instructs His listeners really on the expansive nature of His mission. This fold... I have sheep that are not of this fold. This fold refers to the Jews. He's saying I have other sheep that aren't Jews. I'm going to bring them in also. So that there will be one flock. Jew and Gentile. One shepherd. It's not that the old flock is dispensed with. And He creates this new flock that has nothing to do with the old. That's not what He says at all, is it? We are brought in as Gentiles into the Jewish flock of the elect. The promises of the covenant of Abraham are ours because we are grafted into the line of Abraham. The promises of Abraham are not forgotten. They are ours. They're our promises. We'll talk about this more tonight. And Jesus, notice, He says, I must bring them in also. Yes, He loves the world. I must bring them in also. This is part of His mission. But through our union with Christ, it's also part of our mission. In His authority, He passes that to us. Before He went up to heaven, He said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you, and lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age." He takes His authority and this mission to bring others in also when He tells us to go. He told the apostles to go. Which is why in His high priestly prayer, He asked or said, I don't pray for these only, speaking of His disciples, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word. That's us. We believe the apostles' teaching is true, and we believe in Christ through their Word, which is written down in the New Testament. We're also in the flock of Abraham. We are the ones that are not of this fold, and he calls us by name as well. Gentiles are not some second-class members of the flock. No, he calls us in. He grafts us into Abraham so that we will all be one. There will be one flock, one shepherd will be one in Christ. The father is in the son, the son is in the father, and we are in the father and the son with Abraham because of Christ. Paul in Ephesians 3-6 calls this a great mystery. He says the mystery is that through the gospel, the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel. Members through one body. Shares together in the promise in Christ Jesus. For an Israelite or a Jew to hear that the Gentiles were made part of their promises in Abraham, it blew them away. And yet, God's plan is always good. And that was always his plan, was to bring in the Gentiles. If you would please open your Bibles with me to Genesis 9. In the very beginning, we see God showing us that it wasn't just the Israelites that were going to bring life to the world. Genesis 9. This is right after the flood. Noah and his family depart from the boats. We don't know exactly what happened, but Ham, the son of Noah, did something to his father. Something that involved his nakedness. And this is Noah waking up and knowing what had been done to him by Ham. And from Ham comes Canaan and all the Canaanites, the immoral people that lived in the land before Israel. So verse 24, read that with me. 9-24, When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants, or a slave of slaves, shall he be to his brothers. He also said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant." You might be asking me, what are you talking about, Richard? Well, let me explain it to you. Shem, Ham, and Japheth. We see in Ham the seed of the serpents. All those who would rebel against God, descended from Cain, if you will, the seed of the serpent represents the line of the serpent is represented by Ham. and his son Canaan. They're said to become slaves of their brothers. So it follows that Shem and Japheth are blessed. Well, the descendants of Shem are the Israelites. Shem is the chosen line. Abraham comes from Shem. The Israelites all come from Shem. Christ comes from the line of Shem. Humanly speaking. But then we see a blessing of Japheth. That's verse 27. Japheth, actually the Hebrew word Japheth sounds like enlarge. It's a play on words. May God enlarge Japheth. May God enlarge the enlarging name. May God enlarge Japheth. It's kind of a pun. What does it mean that the descendants of Japheth will enter the tents of Shem? Well, you might be catching on. Japheth's descendants spread throughout the whole world And they're commonly known as Gentiles. When you think Japheth and the descendants of Japheth, you would think Gentiles in the time of Christ. So Japheth's descendants spread throughout the whole world. These Gentiles are ingathered into the tent of Shem. See, God said this was always His plan. The tents of Shem were going to be enlarged and Japheth himself was going to be the Gentiles themselves were going to be brought under the covenant. This engrafting of all peoples and nations into the chosen line of Shem, and from Shem, Abraham, by Christ, also from Shem. This is a special blessing. So Christ has promised to us all the way back in Genesis 9, that we as Gentiles will be brought into the fold. And I keep saying we as Gentiles because most of us are. There are some who probably have Jewish blood within us and praise God. He says in verse 16, I have other sheep that are not of this fold. Japheth, right? The Gentiles. And there's going to be one flock and one shepherd. This is an expansive, massive flock. And it's not just Jews. So our shepherd dies courageously to give the sheep life. We saw that. We see that number two, he's personally and intimately united to his sheep. He knows you. He died for you. And thirdly, this flock includes not just Jews, but Gentiles also. God loves the world indeed. Let's conclude with v. 17. For this reason the Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. And this charge, v. 18, I received from my Father. Let me remind you that all human history from Adam until the end. All human history hinges on Christ. He is the fulcrum of history. He's the center of the universe. He's the nucleus of history. The turning point, the climax of the story is Jesus. The whole story revolves around Christ. He walked this very earth that you and I walk on. He breathed this very air. He looked up and saw the same sun that you see, and the same stars and moon at night. He lived a real human life 2,000 years ago, and then died for His sheep. This charge He received, we see in this phrase, a glimpse into the covenant of redemption. which is the agreement in the Godhead to save a people. Not to let all of the human race perish. And this covenant of redemption was made before the world was created. Where God the Father gave His Son a particular people. A certain number of individuals in the human race were given to the Son before the foundation of the world. And the Son and the Father determined that they would save them by the incarnation, the life and death and resurrection of the Son. And for this, the Father loves Him, He says. Well, the Father loved Him from all eternity because of the trinitary nature of their love between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. They needed nothing outside of the Trinity. They had perfect life, perfect love, perfect holiness, perfect existence. And yet, when Christ came to earth, that love is made manifest to the world. We see that love. And we see that the Father loves the Son. Loves Him. He loves Him because of His infinite, eternal, and unchangeable love which existed before the world began. But He also loves Him because Jesus was perfectly obedient while on earth. Perfectly submitted Himself to the Father while on earth. to all that the Father had told Him to do. He was the perfect human, the perfect son, the perfect shepherd, the perfect sacrifice. And He's God. Verse 18, no one takes my life from me. No one takes it from me. But I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again. All of His shepherding. has the purpose of a particular redemption, of a particular people. And it's in authority that He came, powerfully to save His own. I've told you a few times already, but I heard a sermon where a woman was preaching. That, of course, was the first troubling thing. But a woman was preaching in church, and she said, well, the death of Christ was such a tragedy. It shouldn't have happened. If only those people had seen their Messiah. What a tragedy it was. And yet God somehow used it for good. And I just wanted to get up and leave. I wanted to scream. There was no tragedy in the death of Christ. It was the plan of God to save His people from the foundation of the earth. Christ was slain. He came in power. He has authority to lay His life down and authority to take it up again. By His own power, He rose from the dead. Actually, the Scriptures tell us by the power of God, the Father, He rose from the dead, and also by the power of the Spirit, He rose from the dead. It was the Godhead's purpose that He would rise from the dead. And all of His shepherding has this purpose of redemption. He didn't die a martyr's death. He didn't die for a cause. He died for people, in obedience to the person of His Father. He died for His sheep. And He was on a mission, and it was unstoppable. No one forced Him. No one took His life. He lays it down for His sheep. And this sacrifice is once and for all. As we say in theological words, it's the perfect, substitutionary, penal atonement. It's the perfect atonement because it's God the perfect One. The perfect sacrifice. The sinless One. It's substitutionary in that He took our place. He died so that we do not have to. It's a penal atonement because He took the wrath of God. He took the punishment for us. And it's atonement because by His death and resurrection, we are made righteous. And He is powerfully in charge from the moment He got to earth to the moment He left. He was God. No one is killing Him apart from His own plan, apart from His own desire. He laid His life down. This isn't a tragedy. It's not bad luck or fate. It's not an unlucky circumstance. He's the Almighty God. the agent of creation, who has come to die. And He has all authority in heaven and on earth. He holds the universe together by the word of His power. I think this is most powerfully seen in John 18. And I'll close with this verse. In John 18, He's in the garden of Gethsemane. He's praying. He's sweating drops of blood. And He determines to stand through the fear and to courageously walk to the cross and take the wrath of Almighty God upon Himself. And they come to arrest Him with a vast army of people. A bunch of soldiers come to arrest Him with swords and spears and lanterns. They come in the middle of the night, like the cowards they were, to arrest one man. In John 18, verse 4, then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to Him, He's not surprised by any of this. Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward, the courage, came forward and said to them, whom do you seek? They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said to them, I am. When Jesus said to them, I am, they drew back and fell to the ground. This is Jesus saying, you can arrest Me, but it's not because you've overwhelmed Me. I am that I am. I'm allowing you to arrest Me. And when they were faced with the power of God for that moment, they all fell down. He allowed them to get back up. He did not kill them. And He allowed Himself to be killed. He laid down His own life for the sheep. And He raised it up again. He was in complete control of everything that happened to Him in His life. Because He's God. He knows His own sheep. He died for them. He's one with them. He's the Good Shepherd. And He's also in control of everything that happens in your life. There's not random things that happen to you. Everything that happens to you happens for a specific purpose. To the glory of God. And for your own good. Even difficult things. If you know that God has predestined you to life, You know that He's elected you in Christ, that He's called you by name into His sheepfold, that He's chosen you personally to be adopted sons and daughters in His family. He's justified you by the blood of Christ and will keep you in His hands forever. And will glorify you with His Son when He returns. Then I ask you, Christian, what do you have really to worry about in this life? Is it difficult? Yes. Do you have anything to worry about? No. Nothing. Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, who is our powerful Savior. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank You that You have blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ. You've chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world that we might be holy and blameless in His sight. In love, You have predestined us for adoption as sons. We thank You that Your Son, while on earth, was obedient to You to death. He drank to the dregs the cup of wrath that you had ordained for Him. And now we have no hope whatsoever in life or in death except in the blood of Christ. We pray that we would trust our Shepherd, that we would love our Shepherd, that we would be courageous like our Shepherd, and that we would lean into this personal relationship with Jesus Christ more and more every day. because of the gospel, the hope that we have in the gospel, that we might see Christ in