The Voice Above All Others John 10:1-10

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ.

Today we’re going to talk about the voice for us to listen to above all others.

We live in a noisy world; would you agree? It can be; and often is.

If you go to a rock concert, your ears will ring for two days afterward from the loud music. That can’t be good.

Even our homes can be noisy places, with TVs blaring, maybe radios, or laptops or iPads or cell phones playing through portable speakers, and people trying to talk over them all; young children playing inside the house, using their outside voices.

Your son or daughter may be in his or her room, practicing the drums, or trumpet, or saxophone, or downstairs playing the piano; and then phone rings, or the dog barks.

We can get so accustomed to all the noise that we learn to just tune it out; and we can get very good at tuning it out, even when we shouldn’t.

It’s like when you talk to your husband, and he smiles and nods; and then you ask him what you just said, and he struggles to recall a couple words so that he can prove he was listening to you, even though he wasn’t. But I know none of the men here would ever do that.

In our noisy world it’s important for us to know what to listen to, and what to tune out; what’s just background noise, and what’s the sound for us to pay attention to.

Our Gospel tells us the voice to hear above all others is the voice of the Good Shepherd. Verse 4 says, The sheep hear his voice.

In verse 11 Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Like a good shepherd to the sheep, Jesus didn’t run away from trouble and leave us on their own; instead he faced down the enemy, sin, death, and the devil, and risked his life to save his lambs.

For a lamb, a false voice can be very dangerous; a wolf in sheep’s clothing makes easy prey of a little lamb.

As compared to the power of sin, death, and the devil, we people are just little lambs. We need a Good Shepherd who will fight to save us.

Jesus fought the good fight, and won. He died so that death and the devil would lose their claim on us, and he rose that the sinful culture would lose its power over us.

Once something has been defeated, the only strategy left for it is to make a lot of noise. And that’s exactly what the sinful world does.

It screams and shouts at you; tempting you, belittling you, hoping to wear you down, so that you’ll give in and come along with it; join in the popular culture of self-absorbed, self-serving sin.

That’s the noise we need to block out; that noise calling us to accept the sinful culture, and reject the culture of God’s Word.

The way to block it out is by hearing the voice that rises above it, the Good Shepherd calling us by name.  

We hear his voice in His Word; His Word is His voice to us.

If we distance ourselves from God’s Word, then it’s hard to hear His voice over the clamor of the world. The farther we are from his Word, the harder it is to hear what our Good Shepherd has to say to help us. He will help us, but we have to listen.

We need to hear his reassuring voice, forgiving us every Sunday in the Absolution of our sins.

We need to hear his voice teaching us about life with Him in the readings and the sermon.

We need to hear His steady voice in the words of the liturgy, over and over again to comfort us.

We need to hear his voice calling us by name in Baptism. As our Gospel says, He calls His own by name, promising us that we belong to Him; that we’re His little lambs, and He’s protecting us in a sometimes hostile world.

We need to hear the voice of our Lord blessing us in the words of the Benediction: The Lord bless and keep you. With those words you leave worship assured that your Good Shepherd will bless and take care of you every day of the week.

And we often need to hear his voice in the words of the Sacrament, Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins; and then come to His table, to receive the blessings promised in those words, and given to us through His body and blood. 

There’s a lot of bad noise in our world, so we need to hear the good voice of our Shepherd: His Word to us, and His Sacraments for us.

We need to keep the volume turned up on God’s Word in our lives, and intentionally turn the volume down on the worldly noise.

If we fail to tune out the godless noise, it can eventually harm us beyond repair, because it’s more than just obnoxious, it’s destructive.

About 7 years ago now, the car I was driving, a 1999 Oldsmobile Intrigue, which I loved, but had 200, 000 miles on it, started to make an awful noise under the hood; quite the racket. I had to turn the radio way up to cover the awful sound.

The mechanic said, “I wouldn’t drive that thing if I were you, and definitely not in the city.” So I bought the car I’m driving now, and my old car went to that happy junkyard in the sky (actually on the ground). 

So while that was an obnoxious noise, it was also a dangerous noise.

All the noise against God and His Word in the world today, is more than just irritating or grating, it’s deadly and destructive.

Over the loud, deadly noise of the world, God speaks a word of hope for the world. He says, There is a Good Shepherd who would hold you close and love you dear; he calls your name; listen to Him; hear His voice, His gospel, and follow; He’ll lead you to me. I know, because He’s my Son.

I have life for you. I have love for you. I have truth for you. I have peace for you.

Through the Gospel Jesus invites us to hear his voice and follow, and leave the noise behind.

That doesn’t mean leaving the world and hiding somewhere; it’s impossible to leave this world until God takes us from it. Until then, we’re his hands and feet in the world… and his voice.

I wonder what the voice of Jesus sounded like when he was in the world? Did he have a soft soothing voice, or a loud booming voice; a good speaking voice, or a good singing voice?  Was he a bass, or a tenor?

We’ll get to hear that in heaven. For now, on earth, we’re his voice.

Be the voice of Jesus to the world; share the gospel to make the Good Shepherd known. That’s a good sound for the world, not just more useless or harmful noise in the world.

And consider your voice in the world. Do your words (and deeds) just add more bad noise to the world, or do they add a godly sound, and value to the world?

Like the voice of your Good Shepherd, let your voice rise above the noise, not by screaming and shouting, that just adds to the noise, but by sharing words of goodness and love.                                                                                                      

And as it does, may you hear the voice of peace from above, which passes understanding, and guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Good Shepherd. Amen.