Faith Means Following the Shepherd

The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. (John 10:25-28)

Jesus had come to Jerusalem for the Festival of Dedication (aka Hanukkah) and was standing in Solomon’s Colonnade, in the temple complex. Several of the Jews who opposed him came up to him and demanded, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly” (John 10:24). Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you did not believe me” (v. 25), then spoke to them about the works that testified about him. But they did not believe him, he said, because they were not his sheep.

Now, mind you, the whole of John 10 is about Jesus the Shepherd and his sheep. He talked about the Pharisees and others who tried to sneak into the sheepfold in order to steal the sheep (v. 1). He said that the one who comes through the “gate” is the rightful shepherd (v. 2). That the “gatekeeper” “opened the gate” for him (v. 3) — perhaps a reference to Moses (see John 5:45-47) or more likely to John the Baptist (see John 1:29-34). Jesus said that his sheep listen to him and follow him because they recognize his voice and not the voice of a stranger (v. 4-5). That he himself is the “gate” for the sheep and that all who enter in by him will be saved (vv. 7-9). That the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus comes that the sheep may have abundant life (the life of the age to come) because he is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep (vv. 10-11). He is the good shepherd — he knows his sheep and his sheep know him, just as he knows the Father and the Father knows him — and he lays down his life for the sheep (vv. 14-18).

And now, even though he and others have testified plainly to his opponents about who he is and has done healing signs and miracles in the name of the Father, they still refuse to trust him, to listen to him, to follow him. They did not really believe Moses and the prophets or else they would have believed Jesus, because he is the one Moses and the prophets spoke of.

You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. (John 5:39-40)

But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say? (John 5:45-47)

They did not listen to Jesus’ voice because they did not listen to the voice of Moses and the prophets. They did not follow Jesus because they did not follow Moses and the prophets. They were not Jesus’ sheep because they were never God’s sheep.

But now let’s look at who Jesus’ sheep are: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” Jesus’ sheep are the ones who listen to his voice, the ones who follow him. That is what faith is, what it looks like, what it does. Faith is more than an acknowledgement of who Jesus is or agreement with some facts about what he has done. Faith means trusting him, which is to say, entrusting ourselves to him — putting our lives in his hands. So it is listening to him and following him. The man who says he is trusting Jesus but does not listen and follow is not really trusting after all, merely acknowledging something about him.

Acknowledging who Jesus is may be more than those Jewish opponents were willing to do, but it does not measure up to faith. More importantly, it falls short of how Jesus identifies his sheep. Listening to his voice and following him describes their faith, their trust in him. And it is specifically of these that Jesus says, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.”

By a Way You Do Not Know

Moses and the children of Israel were hemmed in. Before them was the Red Sea. Behind them, Pharaoh’s army was closing in. They could see no way out. Only days earlier, they had been filled with hope and rejoicing, but now that had quickly vanished. In Psalm 77, in a direct praise to God, the psalm writer recounts what happened next:

The voice of Your thunder was in the whirlwind;
The lightnings lit up the world;
The earth trembled and shook.
Your way was in the sea,
Your path in the great waters,
And Your footsteps were not known.
You led Your people like a flock
By the hand of Moses and Aaron.

(Psalm 77:18-20)

God did something completely unexpected: He made a path through the great waters of the sea. It was not there before they needed it and it closed in after they passed through it. But just when they needed a way, God made a path for them where they did not even know to look. When they first beheld the sea, all they saw was an impossible situation. But as Jesus said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God” (Luke 18:27). And the children of Israel walked through the sea on dry land.

Think of Abram. He was the son of an idol maker — a trade completely antithetical to the God of the Bible — and he was getting on in years. But one day God came to him anyway and said, “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). Then God made wonderful promises to him: “I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:2-3).

So Abram believed and did as the Lord directed, though he had no idea where all this would take place or even how it would take place. After all, he was already 75 years old, and so was his wife, Sarai, who was well past child-bearing years. So what God promised him was impossible, at least from Abram’s point of view. But it came to pass anyway, and from him came a great nation — and a Redeemer — through whom all the families of the earth can now be blessed.

Finally, in the book of Isaiah, God describes how He will bring His people through, by a way they do not know.

I will bring the blind by a way they did not know;
I will lead them in paths they have not known.
I will make darkness light before them,
And crooked places straight.
These things I will do for them,
And not forsake them.

(Isaiah 42:16)

Our human nature always wants to see the way before us, but God often leads us by ways we do not know, ways we would not recognize or understand even if we could see them. Our part, then, is not to see but to trust. “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). God makes a way for us that we could never have imagined, and leads us through.

The Prayer of Abandonment

Here is that second prayer I was talking about the other day that has helped me to be content that the course of my life is in God’s hands. It is by Charles de Foucauld, also known as Brother Charles of Jesus. He reminds me of Heidi Baker in that he always sought to be “lower still,” to enter the low place of serving others, the ones in front of him.

When I first began praying this prayer years ago, it was with great resignation. Eventually, I found that I began to pray it with great joy and the confidence that my Father is love.

Father, I abandon myself into Your hands.
Do with me what You will.
Whatever You do, I thank You.
I am ready for all,
I accept all.
Let only Your will be done in me, and in all Your creatures,
I ask no more than this, O Lord.

Into Your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to You with all the love of my heart,
For I love You, Lord, and so need to give myself,
To surrender myself into Your hands,
Without reserve and with boundless confidence,
For You are my Father.

The Course of My Life

The course of my life is in Your power. (Psalm 31:15 HCSB)

The NKJV has the more familiar reading, “My times are in Your hand.” However, “the course of my life,” speaks to me more of the trajectory of my life — not just where I am now, but also where I am heading. It is all in the power of God’s hand.

Recently, I received a note from a friend who had a vision of me. She saw me sitting in my usual place at church (maybe I should get around the room more) with a hardbound book in my hand. Then she saw hands take the book and rip out the last quarter of the pages. As she prayed about this vision, she felt that God was saying I had some preconceived ideas about how things will end but that God had a different ending written. She also sensed that there were still more pages to be written and they would be full of unexpected turns that would never have occurred to me in my version of things. But God has them all written and woven into the plan of my life.

Sounds about right. It was only a week earlier that I myself had ripped out a section of pages. I had made the decision to quit pursuing a course I had been following, on and off, for about fifteen years. I had thought it was God’s path for me, but then I came to the unexpected realization that I did not need to take it to completion — I had already received the benefit I needed from it and this course would no longer serve. So I ripped out those pages about where I thought it would take me. It was a hard thing, but the right thing. There has been a little grieving over it, but mostly a pervading peace.

So now, I have a lot of blank pages. I think I know the chapter I am on, but I do not know exactly where, how or when this one ends and the next one begins. And that’s okay. The course of my life is in God’s hands — and His are very good hands.

I feel a little like Abraham, when God came and said, “Get out of your country … to a land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). Abraham probably thought he knew where his life was going, but then God suddenly appeared and changed everything. Abraham’s life now took on new and unexpected — and wonderful — dimensions. The significance of his life became immeasurable.

There are a couple of prayers that are helpful to me at moments like these. I’ll share one of them with you now:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you and I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road although I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death, I will not fear, for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. ~  Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude.

The course of your life is in God’s hands — and they are very good hands.

The Diligence of Faith

Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. (Hebrews 4:11)

Be diligent to enter into rest. Sounds like a paradox. As verse 10 said, “For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works a God did from His.” To enter the rest of God, we must cease from our own works just as God rested from His on the seventh day of creation. Still, there is a diligence to which we must attend. But what is it?

Earlier, the author of Hebrews used the illustration of the children of Israel, who wandered in the wilderness for forty years and did not enter the rest God had for them, the Promised Land. “So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief” (Hebrews 3:19). “For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it” (Hebrews 4:2). Nevertheless, the promise of rest remains, even though “those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience” (Hebrews 4:6). Put simply, the disobedience of Israel in the wilderness was their failure to believe the promise of God. They were not diligent to believe God; therefore, they did not enter His rest.

To see how this happened, go back to Numbers 13. The Lord said to Moses, “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel” (v. 2). Notice the promise: God was giving the land of Canaan to Israel. Moses believed the word of God and sent out twelve men, one from each of the twelve tribes, on a reconnaissance mission.

Ten came back and reported, “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless, the people who dwell in the land are strong … There we saw the giants; and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight” (vv. 27-28, 33).

The other two spies, Joshua and Caleb, having seen the exact same things the ten had, came back and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it” (v. 30). The ten answered, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we” (v. 31).

The children of Israel were persuaded by the report of the ten and, in their fear and unbelief, rose up against Moses, Joshua and Caleb. Joshua and Caleb exhorted them to be diligent in their faith and believe God.

If the LORD delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, “a land which flows with milk and honey.” Only do not rebel against the LORD, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the LORD is with us. Do not fear them. (Numbers 14:8-9).

Israel persisted in fear and unbelief. Except for Joshua and Caleb, that entire generation never entered the Promised Land but died in the wilderness. Joshua and Caleb, however, were privileged to lead the next generation into the land forty years later.

What made the difference? Diligence. Diligence in what? In believing the word of God. The same promise was given to all, but only a few believed. Joshua and Caleb were diligent in faith. The fact that God had promised them the land of Canaan settled the matter for them. Their focus was sustained on God. They saw the same giants the ten had seen but they did not let that, or anything else, distract them from what God had said. Their hearts were lined up with the promise, and when they spoke, their words overflowed from the abundance of their hearts and they spoke in accord with what God had spoken. They were diligent and focused in their faith to believe what God said, so they entered into the rest of God.

Faith is simply believing the Word of God. When we are diligent to believe what He says, we enter into His rest. When we move away from believing His Word, we get back into our own works, our own strength, and end up wandering in the wilderness of fear.

Prosperous Days, Peaceful Nights

The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime,
And in the night His song shall be with me —
A prayer to the God of my life.

(Psalm 42:8)

The “lovingkindness” of the Lord is His mercy and steadfast love. The Hebrew word is hesed, and refers to the love by which He has covenanted Himself to His people. God appoints, gives charge to His covenant love over us every day, to keep us, guide us, and prosper us.

In the nighttime, when the darkness closes in, He gives us a song to sing. It is a song of peace that turns our attention toward Him. It is a prayer to God, whom the psalm writer calls The God of My Life. For He is the one who gives us life, and He is well able to sustain us, to bless in the daytime and preserve us in the night.

Believe the lovingkindness of the Lord and look to Him to prosper you every day. Do not the fear the darkness of night, but listen for the song He will give you, and sing it to Him, and so let Him surround you with His peace. For it is the song of His love and tender mercies, and it will carry you through till dawn, and the manifestation of His prosperity in your life.

Sweet, Peaceful, Restful Sleep

If you have trouble sleeping, here are some verses to contemplate. For those who put their trust in the Lord:

I lay down and slept;
I awoke, for the Lord sustained me.
I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people
Who have set themselves against me all around.

(Psalm 3:5-6)

Be angry, and do not sin.
Meditate within your heart on your bed, ad be still.
Offer the sacrifices of righteousness,
And put your trust in the Lord.
There are many who say,
“Who will show us any good?”
Lord, lift up the light of Your countenance upon us.
You have put gladness in my heart,
More than in the season that their grain and wine increased.
I will both lie down in peace, and sleep;
For You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

(Psalm 4:4-8)

For those whose source is in God:

Unless the Lord builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the Lord guards the city,
The watchman stays awake in vain.
It is vain for you to rise up early,
To sit up late,
To eat the bread of sorrows;
For so He gives His beloved sleep.

(Psalm 127:1-2)

For those who keep godly wisdom and discretion (Proverbs 3:21):

When you lie down, you will not be afraid;
Yes, you will lie down and your sleep will be sweet.

(Proverbs 3:24)

For those who seek first the kingdom of God:

The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day. (Mark 4:26)

Even while you sleep, His kingdom is at work, and everything is being taken care of on your behalf (Matthew 6:33).

Put your trust in the Lord. Do not anxious, do not be angry, do not let your heart be filled with business. Meditate on Him and let His love be perfected in you to drive out all fear. Seek His kingdom, and He will watch over all that pertains to you. So shall your sleep be sweet, peaceful and full of rest.

The Rest of Faith

I lay down and slept;
I awoke, for the LORD sustained me.

(Psalm 3:5)

I will both lie down in peace, and sleep;
For you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.

(Psalm 4:8)

Be still and know that I am God.

(Psalm 46:10)

Unless the LORD builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the LORD guards the city,
The watchman stays awake in vain.
It is vain for you to rise up early,
To sit up late,
To eat the bread of sorrows;
For so He gives His beloved sleep.

(Psalm 127:1-2)

The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day. (Mark 4:26)

Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the Word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: “So I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest,” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works.” (Hebrews 4:1-4)

There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest. (Hebrews 4:9-11)

When you enter into faith, there is no striving, no sleepless nights of worry, no fear. There is only rest, peace, and the intimate knowledge that He is God. It is the way of God, the way of His kingdom, the way of faith.

Enter into the rest of God by believing His Word.

Soaking in the Goodness of God

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. (2 Corinthians 13:14).

The grace of Jesus. The love of God. The communion (fellowship) of the Holy Spirit.

Pause and meditate on that for about ten minutes (longer if you can — but ten minutes is better than no minutes). Let the Lord unpack that in your spirit. Then soak in it for the rest of your life.

Is there any problem or circumstance that you or I could ever have that cannot be solved by the grace, love and fellowship of the Holy Trinity? I don’t think so.