“The Shepherd Calls Us”

Scripture: John 10:34-42

This coming week, Diane and I are going to get to spend some time away, which we don’t get to do all that often. True, we’ll be a vaction with my brothers and their wives, but it will be a good time, and we’ll have 12 hours alone in the car during the trip to Charlotte on Wednesday. We’ll get to see nieces and nephews that we haven’t seen in a long time, and will get to meet a great neice and twin great nephews who we have only seen pictures of.

In the past few years, my brothers and I have come to the realization that with the miles that exist between us now, we have to become more intentional in our getting together - to reminisce over the memories of yesterday and to renew our relationships for today. Without taking deliberate steps to nurture each other, we could very easily begin to drift apart.

Read John 10:34-38

And in our relationship with Jesus, we also have to spend quality time together and be intentional in maintaining that relationship. For the Pharisees and Sadducees, the time that they spent with Jesus was in a more negative light - it was to catch him in some indiscretion, instead of trying to truly get to know him. Jesus challenges them to look beyond themselves, beyond their own disbelief, and let his actions speak for themselves. “..even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” In essence, he asks them, point blank, if they really think that he could do the things he is doing if he wasn’t really the Son of God.

And the world today needs to ask themselves the same question. Could faith in Christ bring about the miracles that we see today if Jesus wasn’t truly God? Don’t try to explain away the miracles away – that it was only a coincidence, that it would have happened anyway, that it was a natural occurrence, and on and on. You’ve heard them all. Could he do these things without divine power?
And I challenge you to ask yourself the question, but in a slightly different way – ask "CAN faith in Jesus Christ bring about the miracles that we see today?" And the answer has to be a resounding YES! The evidence is before us. People are healed physically in ways that are beyond all reason and explanation. Resources suddenly materialize at the very moment that a believer has the critical need. A word is spoken, and relationships that have hung by a thread for many years, or which have broken completely apart, are restored.
“Believe the miracles, that you may know.” Jesus doesn’t even ask us to believe in blind faith! Believe because you have the hard evidence! Trust your eyes! Seeing is believing! He doesn’t care how we come to believe, just believe!

Read John 10:39-42

But for the learned men of the temple, seeing, apparently, wasn’t enough! They preferred to continue in their own self imposed darkness than to walk in the Light of God. But there were others who not only saw, but did believe. They saw the miracles with their own eyes, and the Son of God became real in them. They discovered the power of Christ through faith. (see Mark 10:46-52)
And disbelief is just as powerful as belief is. In several passages in the gospels, Luke 4:14-30 in particular, we read of the time when Jesus returns to his hometown, but is unable to perform many miracles because the people didn’t believe. Maybe that is why the Pharisees couldn’t accept the miracles of Jesus as the proof that they needed – their faith was misplaced and they simply couldn’t believe!

Jesus calls to us, he comes to us, right where we are, offering all that we need to believe. And this leads us to our next step. For the remainder of our time of worship, I invite all here today, who are in need of a word from your Lord, to come forward for prayers. Come for yourself. Come for a friend. Come for a physical need. Come for an emotional or relational need. Come by yourself or come with a friend.

Just come. Your Lord is waiting for you.

(As this point in worship, a healing service was held.)