Lays Down His Life

John 10:11,14 – “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep…“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.

John 6:35 – Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Psalm 23:1 – The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

Ezekiel 34:11 – “‘For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them.

Hebrews 13:20 – Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

John 15:13 – Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

1 Samuel 17:37 – The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”

Isaiah 53:6-7 – We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

Application:

• ·         Shepherds might risk danger for their sheep, but they expected to come through alive.
• ·         Jesus said that the good shepherd is willing to die for His sheep.
• ·         “I know…my sheep know” is a deep mutual knowledge, like that of the Father and the Son.
• ·         “Shepherd” was a widely used metaphor for kings in the ancient Near East, and also in Israel.
• ·         David the king acknowledged that the Lord was His Shepherd-King.
• ·         Having dealt with the faithless shepherds, the Lord committed Himself to shepherd His flock.
• ·         Christ’s love was demonstrated not only in His words but also in His sacrificial death.
• ·         Reliance on the Lord was essential for the true theocratic king.
• ·         “Laid on him the iniquity of us all”, just as the priest laid his hands on the scapegoat and symbolically put Israel’s sins on it.
• ·         John the Baptist called Jesus “the Lamb of God”. Jesus remained silent before the chief priests and Pilate and before Herod.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV