“What Makes a Shepherd?”

John 10: 11: “I am the Good Shepherd; the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” Why could Jesus call Himself the Good Shepherd? Because He had already been functioning as a shepherd, long before the final sacrificial act of laying down His life for the sheep. By going forth to find Philip (John 1: 43), by delivering the bridegroom from utter humiliation and shame (John 2: 1-10), by calling His people to true worship (John 2: 16), by leading Nicodemus to the truth and the people of Samaria to faith and the paralytic man at Bethesda’s pool to wholeness, and by being provider for the multitude, He had already been serving as Shepherd of the people far more than those who claimed for themselves that title.