Listening to Jesus’ voice
Readings: John 10. 22-30
Whose voice are we listening to? Who or what is shepherding us?
Jesus in today’s passage is following up on the previous, rather famous section, in which he declares himself to be the good shepherd, the good shepherd. And here he reiterates that his sheep hear his voice.
And, you know, there are so many voices vying for our attention. From the moment you wake up there are voices vying for our attention. You turn on the TV or the radio and there are programs vying for your attention, there’s adverts bombarding you. Open your phone and there’s Twitter and Facebook and all of those are bombarding you. Different adverts ‘your life will be better once you own the new iPhone’. Different organisations and influencers saying ‘listen to me, I’m the one who’s telling you the truth’. You leave the house and there are plenty of adverts out around town as you wander around ‘buy this’, ‘get that’, ‘support this cause’. Katy & I were on holiday in Cardiff last week and my enduring memory of Cardiff, and it hasn’t changed, is trying to walk down Queen Street dodging all the different people either trying to get you to sign up for a thing or support this cause. So many voices vying for our attention. I don’t think at any point in history we’ve had so many voices calling out to us at once.
The endless stream of news, political leaders criticising one another, vying for our attention and our vote, influencers whether celebrities or podcasters or social media figures wanting us to listen to their perspective and views, campaign groups and organisations ‘support our cause’. And there’s the voices that have always existed, those of our friends and family, our local leaders whether official or not.
We have all these voices vying for our time and attention. Watch this, do that. Have you thought about buying this? Isn’t this thing the other party is saying utterly outrageous. Are those people really telling you the whole truth? There seems to be an endless, utterly limitless stream of voices constantly pouring out of our devices wanting us to listen to them. And I don’t know about you, but it’s exhausting. On the one hand just the sheer volume. But also the sheer contradictions in it all. Every moment and event and news item spun a dozen different ways, each telling us that’s the only way to think about it.
There are thousands of people and organisations lining up to be our shepherds. We often don’t think of them as such but that’s the role they’re trying to play. Offering to guide us and show us the way, bring us through and out the other side unscathed. Some are well meaning, others not. Some trying to do what they think is the right thing, others purely in it for themselves no matter the cost to others. But all are shepherds, and someone or something will end up shepherding us despite what we might assume.
But here’s the thing, all of them have an agenda. All of them have a need for you to listen to them because they need something from you. Whether it be your vote, or your support for a campaign, or your money so they can make a profit, or your clicks and views to make them more money, or to simply be famous and well known. Every voice that’s calling out to us in this world, it’s because they need something from you.
And in some ways that’s unsurprising, but in others it’s a little unnerving isn’t it. We need to be mindful of the voices we’re listening to, the people who are shepherding us. Can they be trusted? Are they just in it for themselves? Are they leading us towards God or away from him? So many of the voices in our era revel in controversy, in making us angry. There’s an endless stream of reasons to be furious coming at us online, because anger drives views and clicks. But are they the voices that deserve our ears?
Jesus is the good shepherd, and his sheep hear his voice. It’s an interesting statement that last one isn’t it. His sheep hear his voice, even amidst the clamour. And Jesus expands upon it just in case he’s not clear, those who aren’t his sheep don’t hear his voice. That’s rather stark isn’t it. And it’s not so much that those who don’t hear can’t audibly hear him, the people before him can hear him but Jesus says they’re not his sheep. It’s that they don’t recognise in his voice the voice of the master, the voice of the shepherd. Something or someone else is shepherding them and they’re quite content with that.
And yet Jesus is the good shepherd. All those other shepherds, they need something from us. But Jesus doesn’t want from us, doesn’t need us. Instead he is the one who lays down his life for the sheep, who dies that we might live. He dies that he might give us everlasting life. He dies so that we won’t. He descends to the depths so that we don’t need to follow him there.
This shepherd truly is good because he’s not in it for himself, not even slightly, he’s in it for you. He doesn’t need your vote or your money or your attention or your support. He dies to give you what you need, a restored relationship with God, and everlasting life in a world made perfect and new. This shepherd is not just good, he is for our good.
And here’s the other wonderful thing Jesus tells us in this passage, nothing will snatch them from my hand. Isn’t that an amazing truth, a wonderful truth to hold onto today. If you’re following Jesus, if you’ve put your faith and trust in him, if you’re part of his flock, nothing can snatch you from his hand, nothing at all. Isn’t that amazing? Having entered his flock we are kept secure eternally.
And the fact that nothing can snatch us from his hand rather implies that plenty will try. All those other voices vying for our attention, whether spiritual or earthly, will try to keep us from Christ, and then, once we are Christ’s, will try to tear us from him. And yet we have great comfort in this, he is holding us tight.
When you were younger and you’d be walking with your parents beside a busy road, they’d hold your hand wouldn’t they, at least mine did. They’re holding your hand to keep you safe, partly to ensure you don’t run off into the road, they’re partly protecting you from yourself. But as a child, holding your parents hand, is your safety in those moments, is that to do with how tightly you’re holding their hand or how tightly they’re holding yours? It’s the latter isn’t it. If it was down to how tightly I’m holding on, well, at the first distraction I might let go, run off, get into all sorts of trouble. No, they’re holding your hand. Your safety isn’t dependent on how tightly you’re holding on, it’s how tightly he’s holding on. I think it’s one of the greatest comforts of the Gospel, once we are his, we are his forever.
Let us hold onto that truth, treasure it, let it go down deep into our souls. But let us not allow it to dilute our seeking him, our following of him. It’s one thing to fear for our salvation, to not know the assurance that Christ gives that we are his forever, that’s a terrible place to be, but it’s quite another to use that assurance to do nothing in our faith and live as though we were not Christ’s. For if we are not listening to his voice, if we are not following where he leads, as a sheep does their shepherd, are we his? Are we truly? If we care not to hear his voice or to live as he commands, are we part of his flock?
So let us learn to listen to his voice, to recognise his voice. And the way we learn his voice, the way we come to know what that voice sounds like, is through the words of the Bible. Old and New Testaments. If we want to hear Jesus speaking loud and clear, we’ll hear him between those covers.
There are many who claim to hear Jesus speak outside of these words, and you certainly can, I’m not denying that, hearing his voice speaking to you in myriad different ways, in prayer and through other people and thoughts that swim into your mind seemingly from nowhere. But until you have learned what his voice sounds like, how he speaks, his rhythms and inflections and accent from the words of Scripture. Until you have grounded your knowledge of his voice in these words which we know are his, we are ill equipped to recognise his voice elsewhere. His voice will never contradict the words he has spoken definitively through the Bible, and you will never find a time when you can move from this book and find no more need of it. For here is his voice, calling to you amidst the noise, to come and know him as shepherd, and follow where he leads. So let’s be reading our Bibles, day by day, week by week, not just for knowledge and learning, but to learn to recognise the voice of our shepherd.
My brothers and sisters, Jesus is not just the good shepherd, he is the shepherd for our good, laying down his life that we might live eternally. And having brought us into his flock, nothing can snatch us from his hand. So let us learn to listen to his voice. Those other voices, politicians, influencers, brands and campaigners, media, they’re not inherently bad things, they can be good things, but they’re terrible shepherds. Let us open our hearts and our ears that we may hear Jesus’ voice above the clamour, and in hearing, follow where he leads.
Amen.