• http://lockwoodchurch.org/media (Listening time: 20:25)

In this short sermon, Jesus introduces himself as the Good Shepherd. If you are a sheep, you have only a few possibilities: You have a good shepherd; you have a bad shepherd; or you have no shepherd.

In A Shepherd Looks at Psalm Twenty-Three, Philip Keller writes about his time as a shepherd in east Africa. The tract of land next to his was owned by an absentee landlord and run by a manager – a contract employee type – who was supposed to care for the sheep. But they were sickly, skinny (the land was overgrazed) and beset by predators. Keller says that those poor sheep would stand across the fence and just stare into his green pastures and at his healthy sheep. It was as if they hoped some good shepherd would free them from the abusive one with whom they were stuck.

We have a Good Shepherd who frees us, cares for us, and makes us his own. Read about him in John 10:11-18 and then listen to this encouraging message.