John 10:22-30 ~ May 11, 2025
Call to Worship:
With all those in heaven and on earth, let us say together:
Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!
Let us praise God with joyful hearts:
We come before the throne of God to worship day and night.
Called together by the Holy Spirit, let us rejoice and sing:
We will hunger and thirst no more; Christ brings us eternal life.
Hymn: #434 For the beauty of the earth
Prayer of Approach and Confession:
God of the ages, God of today,
you are compassion; our cup overflows.
You are hope; you lead us into green pastures.
You are truth; you lead us beside quiet streams.
You are life; you restore our souls.
Morning, noon and night, O God, you are the source of our joy.
We gather to worship you as one family of your people,
honoring you as our Creator,
trusting you as our Saviour,
celebrating you as the Spirit who gives us life.
Merciful God,
we confess we stray from your ways like lost sheep;
we follow the devices and desires of our own hearts,
ignoring the needs of others and seeking more for ourselves.
We judge ourselves more generously than others and
fail to offer others the forgiveness we seek from you.
Forgive the ways we betray your love,
and return us to your paths of truth and mercy.
Assurance of Pardon:
Christ dwells in our hearts through faith,
for we are being rooted and grounded in his love. The forgiveness he offers is a gift of this love. Receive God’s forgiveness with faithful hearts,
and be at peace with God, with yourself and with each other.
Hymn: #485 Saviour, like a shepherd lead us
Scripture Readings: Acts 9:36-43
36 In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Dorcas); she was always doing good and helping the poor. 37 About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room. 38 Lydda was near Joppa; so when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, “Please come at once!”
39 Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.
40 Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, “Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. 41 He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called for the believers, especially the widows, and presented her to them alive. 42 This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord. 43 Peter stayed in Joppa for some time with a tanner named Simon.
John 10:22-30
22 Then came the Festival of Dedication[a] at Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. 24 The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
25 Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all[b]; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”
Meditation: “Hear My Voice”
“My sheep hear my voice,” Jesus says, in today’s gospel reading. “I know them, and they follow me.” And I want that to be true. I want it to be true that you and I hear his voice. And that we always follow him. But I’m not always sure that it is.
After all, we live in a very noisy world these days. A world filled with all kinds of different voices, all competing for our attention. And it seems difficult, in the midst of all this noise, to hear the voice of our Shepherd, doesn’t it?
You and I have heard a number of different voices this week, to be sure, all competing for our attention. And some of these voices are incredibly good at convincing us to pay attention to them. They create ads, geared just toward us. They convince us that we need whatever they are selling, to be safe, or to be popular, or to be successful, or simply to feel better. Modern technology and social media mean that companies know us better than they ever have, and they use that information to convince us that we need whatever they have.
Just for fun, as I was preparing this sermon, I googled this question: “Is my phone listening to me?” And the top hit was a simple answer: “Yes, and here’s how to stop it.” The other week I was talking to my sister about shampoo and we were discussing if switching things up would be better for our hair. The very next time I went on Facebook I saw ads for shampoo. Has this ever happened to you?
Yes, our phones and other devices are listening to us. They hear our voices. And then they try to sell us stuff. They know us, and all too often, we hear their voice and follow them. But they are often false shepherds, making promises that they cannot keep. There is only one true shepherd. And we are all his sheep. And today, we are reminded to listen to his voice. Because at the end of the day, there is only one voice we can trust; one voice that truly matters to our soul. And that is the voice of the shepherd, the voice of our Savior, Jesus.
So why don’t we always hear that voice? And how might we hear it more effectively? I want to put aside the obvious reasons why we don’t hear his voice – that there are too many other competing voices, and we don’t always take the time to listen to his voice. And, instead, I want to share three other reasons why, according to Scripture, we don’t always hear his voice as well as we might, and three corresponding ways to do something about that.
The first reason why we sometimes miss hearing Jesus’ voice is that he is not saying what we expect. That was true of the Jewish leaders in today’s gospel reading. They were right there, listening to Jesus. But they didn’t really hear him, because he was not saying what they expected to hear. They expected the Messiah to act differently. They thought he’d be like King David and lead them into battle to overthrow Rome. Jesus was different. And he didn’t say or do what they expected. So, they didn’t really hear him. And isn’t that often true of us? We miss Jesus’ voice because he is not saying what we expect to hear.
It’s challenging these days to listen to anyone or anything with an open mind. As soon as anyone speaks to us, on social media or anywhere else, we are listening for their agenda, or for evidence of how they view the world. We are making up our mind about what they are saying, even before they finish saying it. That’s the nature of the world we live in. And this is why it is more important than ever to listen to Jesus with an open mind, and an open heart. Not to listen for what we expect him to say, but simply to listen. Let our minds be changed. Let our hearts be changed. Put aside all the voices in our world and listen for the loving voice of our true Shepherd.
This is the first reason we sometimes miss hearing Jesus’ voice, that he is not saying what we expect to hear. What is the second reason? It is that we are sometimes too ashamed to listen. Our sin and guilt cause us to feel unworthy of Jesus speaking to us, so we fail to hear him. In Genesis (3:8), we see this happen with Adam and Eve, after they committed the first sin:
“They had heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
That can happen to us, too. Our sin can cause us to feel naked and ashamed. And we are tempted to hide ourselves from God, so that we can miss hearing his voice calling us.
I have talked to people, and maybe you have, too, who won’t come to church until they get their act together. Or who won’t come to church until we get our act together! But church, as Martin Luther reminds us, is not a hotel for saints; it is a hospital for sinners.
That is one of the reasons we begin our worship with confession and forgiveness. To acknowledge that we are not worthy, that we don’t have our acts together. And to confess that. But also to receive God’s forgiveness. To be reminded of God’s grace, mercy, and love. And then, because we have been made worthy by Christ, we can listen to the voice of the shepherd.
But there is a third reason why we sometimes miss hearing Jesus’ voice that I have to mention today: Sometimes, he is saying something to us that we don’t want to hear.
Remember the rich young ruler? He wanted to inherit eternal life. Jesus told him to sell all that he had and give it to the poor, then come and follow him. That was not what he wanted to hear! He “was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions” (Mark 10:22).
The rich young ruler, and others in scripture did not want to listen to God, because they didn’t like what they were hearing. That can happen to us, too. We don’t really want to go where the shepherd is calling us to go or do what the shepherd is calling us to do. So, we give up listening to him. Often when this happens, we need something to happen in our lives that forces us to listen.
C.S. Lewis says that “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
And sometimes that is the only way we will hear him. Like a shepherd in search of lost sheep, Jesus looks for us. And doesn’t stop until he finds us. “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” We can and do ignore this voice, but still the voice persists. And we often find ourselves restless and unsettled until we hear and respond to his voice and follow him. We have heard his voice enough to know and believe that our lives are not complete until we hear and respond to the voice of the Shepherd; until we allow that voice to lead us through our days on earth and to finally lead us home.
As I wrap this up today, I just want to emphasize that in this reading, Jesus is calling us sheep, rather than followers or disciples. This is important, because the people who first heard these words would have pictured the shepherds that they knew. They would have known that these shepherds would often get together with their sheep at various times during the day, a bunch of shepherds all together with lots and lots of sheep. Say at a watering hole. The shepherds catching up on events, the sheep getting something to drink. It was noisy and chaotic, to say the least. But at the end of the day, the shepherds would call for their sheep. And the sheep would follow their own shepherds to a safe place to sleep. In the midst of all that chaos and all those competing voices, the sheep would hear their shepherd’s voice, recognize it, and follow him.
And I think that is why, in today’s gospel reading, Jesus describes himself as a shepherd, and we his followers as his sheep. “My sheep hear my voice,” he says, “I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.”
You and I have heard a number of different voices this week, to be sure, all competing for our attention. But at the end of the day, Jesus seems to be saying to us, it is only the voice of the shepherd that can lead us home, that can lead us to safety. It is the voice of the shepherd that has called us to this place. It is the voice of the shepherd that calls us to follow him. And it is the voice of the shepherd that leads us home.
Amen.
Hymn: #635 Brother, sister, let me serve you
Invitation of Offering:
In the Easter season, we celebrate God’s most precious gift to us in Christ’s dying and his rising. As we present our offering, may our generosity reflect God’s goodness to us, and the hope we have in Christ Jesus, even in these troubled times.
Doxology: #830 Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye heavenly host; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Prayer of Dedication:
Generous God, thank you for all we have received from you in Christ and in creation; your generosity to us overflows. Bless the gifts we bring and use them and us in the service of your reign of justice and peace, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Guide.
Prayers of the People and Lord’s Prayer:
Shepherding God, you walk with us and show us how to love each other. We now turn to you with our hopes and concerns and love for others in these uncertain times. Draw near to us and to all those for whom we pray, so that your love will be known in the world this day.
Nurturing God,
on Christian Family Sunday,
we pray for the families we belong to
in which we received some reflection of your unconditional love.
We thank you for parents, grandparents and great-grandparents,
for the generations who started our families and all they gave to us.
Today we thank you for all those who mothered us and we pray
for loving mothers and fathers throughout the world,
especially those in places of conflict and violence who are
worried for their children and the future.
Strengthen every caregiver’s hope and courage by the power of your Spirit,
and create peace in the world so children can grow up in safety.
God who holds all people in your hands,
we pray for families in our community and around the world
in these uncertain times.
We remember families in need:
those struggling with economic upheaval, unemployment and the high cost of living,
those who know sorrow because someone has died or gone away,
those who live in pain or fear, or face some kind of discrimination.
Surround all people with your love and courage;
bring them support from their neighbours,
and guide each child and young person into the future.
God of the nations,
we pray for the family of nations in this time of threat and conflict.
Change the hearts of leaders bent on destruction or conquest, greed and self-promotion.
Give wisdom and courage to those who seek justice through negotiation,
and protect all those who offer themselves in aid and advocacy work.
Bring peace with justice to this troubled world.
God of love,
we pray for each other and for our church family.
We give you thanks for the friendship and fellowship we share
and the unique gifts each one brings to our life together.
Rekindle our energy for ministry and mission
and show us our path into the future.
Make us a beacon of hope in your name.
Caring God, the Good Shepherd,
guiding us through dark valleys and green pastures,
we thank you for your presence with us in all times and situations
as we offer together the prayer you gave us as one family of followers:
Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth,
As it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
The power, and the glory,
For ever and ever.
Amen.
Hymn: #479 The church’s one foundation
Benediction:
Go in peace; God calls us to step out in faith, to follow where He leads
even if what He calls us to do seems impossible. So let’s go from here with courage, trusting in God’s presence and power, and eager to do God’s will.
Now may the LORD keep us and bless us,
May the LORD make his face to shine upon us
and be gracious unto us,
Now and for ever more, AMEN.
Choral Closing: “Go Now in Peace”
Go now in peace. Never be afraid.
God will go with you each hour of every day.
Go now in faith, steadfast, strong and true.
Know He will guide you in all you do.
Go now in love, and show you believe.
Reach out to others so all the world can see.
God will be there watching from above.
Go now in peace, in faith, and in love.
May 4th, 2025
https://pccweb.ca/knox-goderich/files/2025/05/Do-You-Love-Me-1.docx