I’ve been hearing voices this week. Uh, oh, you’re thinking. He’s finally snapped. Gone off the deep end, wandered into the twilight zone, traveled to his happy place, been elected mayor of crazy town. But no, I will argue, it is none of that. Admittedly, since I have been alone for a few days while La Donna and the kids are in Washington DC on the youth trip, there have been moments when the remaining cat and I have had some serious conversations. But that isn’t what I’m referring to right now. Though, Hairy is a cat with opinions, let me tell you. I can’t say I know what they are all the time. Or any of the time, come to think of it. But he is good in the expressing department.
No, it isn’t the howling cat voices that I’m talking about. Or even the inner dialogue that sometimes happens to fill the silence. Surely I’m not the only one there. Am I? No, I don’t think so. They say talking to yourself isn’t a problem. The problem is when you start answering yourself. Is that right? Yes, it is.
OK, I really need the family to come home.
Back to my point. It was in the office that I was hearing the voices this week. And don’t say “well, duh.” It was in the quiet moments, when no one was there that I heard the voices. It was while I was reading or writing. No one around that I could see, and there would be these voices. I couldn’t always tell what was being said, and that was just the problem. I would find myself straining to hear. Interrupting whatever it was that I was supposed to be doing to tune in these voices. It sounded important, urgent even at times. And then at other times there were words followed by muffled laughter. It was curious, distracting, interesting, all at the same time.
OK, full disclosure, they’ve been replacing the roof at the church this past week. The voices were accompanied by footsteps clumping over my head, and hammering and generators and the occasional flying piece of roofing material dropping past the window. Curiosity explained.
Except the voices continued. I don’t mean the guys on the roof. Though they were still there all week long. I’m shifting philosophical gears here, stay with me. The voices continued. We live in a talkative world. And all these voices seem to be trying to tell us that they know better than we do how to live our lives.
These voices might simply be distracting, or they might be truly destructive, it is often hard to tell the difference. What we really need is the ability to listen. Jesus seems to imply in our passage this week that listening is an easy thing to do. But is it really?
Listen to this:
John 10:1-10 "Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." 6 Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. 7 So again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
I know, you’ve heard this before fairly recently. These verse sound familiar, don’t they? We began our One Month to Live challenge with these verses and now we end with the same words.
I’ll tell you again that the real crux of this passage is the last half of verse 10: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” But while that is the crux, there is always the larger issue of what does it mean? Or in this case how do we get it? What do we need to do in order to experience this abundant life?
We need to learn to listen. OK, it is never as simple as that. That is only a part of our task. We need to not only to listen but to follow. We need to not only to listen but to trust. We need to not only to listen but to hope. We need to not only to listen ... well, you get the idea.
But the piece I want us to hear today is that we need to listen. Following, says Jesus in this passage, is a product of listening. He will lead, he tells us in verse four. But only after we’ve come out at the sound of his voice. He will lead, he tells us, if we choose to follow. And the only way we can follow is if we know that voice. If we can recognize the sound of it. It calls for a certain amount of discernment. There are voices we need to run from. Voices that don’t have our welfare and our safety in mind, voices that don’t want us to prosper and to grow, to know the joys of abundant life.
So, how do we know? How do we figure out which voice is His and which voice is the one who wishes us harm? Unfortunately, John doesn’t help us out a whole lot in these verses. In part it takes a lifetime of study and devotion. John Wesley called this lifetime process sanctification, the process of moving closer to Christ, becoming more like Him. There is more involved than I can pull out of John chapter ten.
But there are a couple of hints that I want us to be aware of in these verses. First of all, the Shepherd knows our name. The call that comes from Christ matches us in the deepest essence of our being. He calls us to be who we are, and not who we might think we want to be, or who the world tells us we need to be. Following Christ has a “rightness” about it. It is a response to the longings of our soul. And the more we follow, the more we are truly ourselves.
In verse nine, we are told that Christ is the way, “whoever enters by me will be saved.” But then it says we will come in and go out and find pasture. Come in and go out. There is a lot of movement in the Christian life. We don’t just sit, we don’t just find a safe corner and then remain there. We don’t lounge in place waiting to be fed. We find our sustenance in coming and going, in study and in service, in spending time with the word and going out to share it. We are called to be coming and going throughout our lives.
If we feel as though we are pulled in too many directions, then we need to come back. Worship with the community of faith, study together the Word or books on Christian living or knowing, find places of fellowship for laughter and joy together. On the other hand, if we feel as though our faith isn’t doing much, is all head knowledge, then you need to go. Go and serve, go and help, volunteer in our community, do something with your hands, teach or share, help or heal, there are lots of opportunities for us to be going out in service to the world.
The odd thing is that it is both in the coming and in the going we learn to listen. We listen through the study and contemplation of the Word. But we also listen through the voices of need and hope in the people around us. And the more we listen, the more we come to recognize the voice of the shepherd. A life of no regrets is a life lived in hearing distance of Jesus Christ.
Did you hear that voice?
Shalom,
Derek
No, it isn’t the howling cat voices that I’m talking about. Or even the inner dialogue that sometimes happens to fill the silence. Surely I’m not the only one there. Am I? No, I don’t think so. They say talking to yourself isn’t a problem. The problem is when you start answering yourself. Is that right? Yes, it is.
OK, I really need the family to come home.
Back to my point. It was in the office that I was hearing the voices this week. And don’t say “well, duh.” It was in the quiet moments, when no one was there that I heard the voices. It was while I was reading or writing. No one around that I could see, and there would be these voices. I couldn’t always tell what was being said, and that was just the problem. I would find myself straining to hear. Interrupting whatever it was that I was supposed to be doing to tune in these voices. It sounded important, urgent even at times. And then at other times there were words followed by muffled laughter. It was curious, distracting, interesting, all at the same time.
OK, full disclosure, they’ve been replacing the roof at the church this past week. The voices were accompanied by footsteps clumping over my head, and hammering and generators and the occasional flying piece of roofing material dropping past the window. Curiosity explained.
Except the voices continued. I don’t mean the guys on the roof. Though they were still there all week long. I’m shifting philosophical gears here, stay with me. The voices continued. We live in a talkative world. And all these voices seem to be trying to tell us that they know better than we do how to live our lives.
These voices might simply be distracting, or they might be truly destructive, it is often hard to tell the difference. What we really need is the ability to listen. Jesus seems to imply in our passage this week that listening is an easy thing to do. But is it really?
Listen to this:
John 10:1-10 "Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." 6 Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. 7 So again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
I know, you’ve heard this before fairly recently. These verse sound familiar, don’t they? We began our One Month to Live challenge with these verses and now we end with the same words.
I’ll tell you again that the real crux of this passage is the last half of verse 10: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” But while that is the crux, there is always the larger issue of what does it mean? Or in this case how do we get it? What do we need to do in order to experience this abundant life?
We need to learn to listen. OK, it is never as simple as that. That is only a part of our task. We need to not only to listen but to follow. We need to not only to listen but to trust. We need to not only to listen but to hope. We need to not only to listen ... well, you get the idea.
But the piece I want us to hear today is that we need to listen. Following, says Jesus in this passage, is a product of listening. He will lead, he tells us in verse four. But only after we’ve come out at the sound of his voice. He will lead, he tells us, if we choose to follow. And the only way we can follow is if we know that voice. If we can recognize the sound of it. It calls for a certain amount of discernment. There are voices we need to run from. Voices that don’t have our welfare and our safety in mind, voices that don’t want us to prosper and to grow, to know the joys of abundant life.
So, how do we know? How do we figure out which voice is His and which voice is the one who wishes us harm? Unfortunately, John doesn’t help us out a whole lot in these verses. In part it takes a lifetime of study and devotion. John Wesley called this lifetime process sanctification, the process of moving closer to Christ, becoming more like Him. There is more involved than I can pull out of John chapter ten.
But there are a couple of hints that I want us to be aware of in these verses. First of all, the Shepherd knows our name. The call that comes from Christ matches us in the deepest essence of our being. He calls us to be who we are, and not who we might think we want to be, or who the world tells us we need to be. Following Christ has a “rightness” about it. It is a response to the longings of our soul. And the more we follow, the more we are truly ourselves.
In verse nine, we are told that Christ is the way, “whoever enters by me will be saved.” But then it says we will come in and go out and find pasture. Come in and go out. There is a lot of movement in the Christian life. We don’t just sit, we don’t just find a safe corner and then remain there. We don’t lounge in place waiting to be fed. We find our sustenance in coming and going, in study and in service, in spending time with the word and going out to share it. We are called to be coming and going throughout our lives.
If we feel as though we are pulled in too many directions, then we need to come back. Worship with the community of faith, study together the Word or books on Christian living or knowing, find places of fellowship for laughter and joy together. On the other hand, if we feel as though our faith isn’t doing much, is all head knowledge, then you need to go. Go and serve, go and help, volunteer in our community, do something with your hands, teach or share, help or heal, there are lots of opportunities for us to be going out in service to the world.
The odd thing is that it is both in the coming and in the going we learn to listen. We listen through the study and contemplation of the Word. But we also listen through the voices of need and hope in the people around us. And the more we listen, the more we come to recognize the voice of the shepherd. A life of no regrets is a life lived in hearing distance of Jesus Christ.
Did you hear that voice?
Shalom,
Derek
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