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“MY SHEEP HEAR AND FOLLOW”
Text: John 10:22-30
Sunday May 4, 2025 – Easter 3(Confirmation Sunday)
Trinity – Creston
Grace, mercy, and peace is yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! Our text for this Confirmation Sunday is the Gospel Lesson from John 10 that was just proclaimed.
Let Us Pray: Dearest Jesus, send your Holy Spirit to remind Bethany, Lincoln, Londynn, Wyatt, and Lydia that you created, redeemed, and continue to take care of them, enabling them to know, hear, and follow you. Amen.
Dear Fellow Redeemed in Christ:
God’s blessings! This is an exciting day, isn’t it! And I’m excited for you. It’s an important day—whether you realize it yet or not—one of the most important days of your life. And so I pray it’s a day you’ll remember.
What you’re doing this morning reflects a wonderful relationship that is certainly not just for today or just for your life up to this day. Here’s how Jesus expresses it in our Gospel, our text for this letter, in 10:27–29:
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”
You know that Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd and us his sheep. Even today, a shepherd calls his sheep and his sheep recognize his voice. Please notice today—and remember for your whole life—that hearing the voice of your Good Shepherd, in fact your entire relationship with Christ, is something that continues forever.
See the way Jesus talks in our text: “My sheep hear my voice.” Or, to put it another way, see what Jesus doesn’t say in our text; namely, “they heard my voice.” Jesus’ sheep didn’t just hear his voice in the past. They hear it now. They hear it every day. In English class we call that present tense. “I know them, and they follow me. And I give them eternal life.” I didn’t just “used to” know them. They didn’t just follow me when they were little lambs. I know them; they follow me, now. Present tense.
It’s always present tense, and it always will be. And I give them eternal life. You know that’s never past tense. See, your relationship with Jesus is now and always will be. Let’s talk about that.
Do you know when you heard Jesus’ voice for the first time? It was when you were baptized. You don’t remember hearing the voice of Jesus then? You did. Your ears did, but especially your heart did. When you were baptized as babies, the Holy Spirit then and there caused you to believe in Jesus as your Savior.
That’s what it means to hear Jesus’ voice—to believe that he is the One who protects you and forgives you and feeds you and cares for you, that he is the One who laid down his life for you—like a shepherd.
But for all of you, hearing Jesus’ voice happens again and again, like your Baptism, for instance. Once and for all, you are made God’s children. You are wrapped in the arms of Jesus’ cross. Not just “once and done.” Jesus is still speaking to you every day through your Baptism.
Every time you think about your Baptism, whether it was several years ago, a few moments ago when you confessed your sin and received absolution, or minutes from now in the Lord’s Supper, Jesus is saying, “You are mine! You are forgiven! You have eternal life!” As long as you live, you can hear him say that to you in your Baptism.
You know that he keeps on speaking to you in other ways as well. You know the Bible will never go out of print, and I hope you know it will never go out of style. You know it’s Jesus’ voice you hear when I or whatever pastor you may have says, “I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
I pray that every sermon you hear for all these years to come is the voice of Christ. And it certainly is always Christ who says to you—today for the first time but for maybe three or four thousand Sundays in the future -”This is my body, this is my blood, for the forgiveness of all your sins.” Hearing your Good Shepherd’s voice is something that continues forever.
Next Jesus says, “I know them.” He has ever since your Baptism. And Jesus certainly knows you today. He knows what a huge moment this is for you. Again, you may not yet realize that this is one of the most important days of your life, but he does.
He knows everything you’re feeling right now—excitement, nervousness, and serious wonder. He knows, what’s different about each of you. He knows what’s special about each of you and what you especially need. He knows what each of you are thinking this very second. And he’s glad to know all that about each of you.
You may feel a closer-than-usual relationship with Jesus today, but he’ll know you just as intimately every day from now on too. I like so much this passage. God says through Jeremiah, “I know the plans I have for you . . . plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jer 29:11).
Jesus knows each of you so well that he knows right now how he will shape your life in beautiful ways—what you’ll do after you finish school, whom or if you’ll marry, whether you’ll have children of your own to bring to confirmation, all the opportunities you’ll serve him until he takes you to heaven someday.
He knows you a lot better than you know yourself, doesn’t he! And he knows everything you’ll need at each step of that way, so he’ll surely be there to provide it.
Please pay very close attention to what Jesus says next: “My sheep follow me.” It’s really pretty amazing that Jesus says this, because we are his sheep, and you and I all know how often we don’t follow him. We stray into sin constantly. Every time you reread this letter—like right now—you’ll be able to think of specific ways you’ve wandered away from Jesus.
Maybe one day when you read this in the future you’ll know you’re involved in some kind of deadly sin, that you’re not following Jesus at all. That’s not living like one of Jesus’ sheep, and that’s eternally dangerous. But that’s also why he died for you—for times just like that—to pay for those sins, to wash them away in his blood, to continually renew you as one of his sheep. After all, if Jesus hadn’t died to forgive your sins, he couldn’t say you were following him even now, could he?
So then, because he has been that faithful to you, I want you to promise—in fact, solemnly swear—that you’ll follow him all your life. You realize, of course, that that’s exactly what you’re going to do in a few minutes.
It’s an oath you’re taking, you know, just like the oath, the vow, you’ll take if you get married someday, except that this oath you’re making first, and that means you keep it ahead of any you’ll make later.
Nothing—not what your parents do, not whom God gives you to love someday, not what seems cool or fun somewhere down the line—is to get in the way of your keeping this vow. Remember what you’re going to promise?
“Do you hold all the canonical books of the Bible to be the inspired Word of God, and the doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, drawn from the Bible, as you have learned to know it from Luther’s Small Catechism, to be the true and correct one?
Do you also, as a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, intend to continue steadfast in the confession of this church, and suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it?” I do so intend, with the help of God.
You’re declaring today, once and for all, that you are going to follow Jesus, your Good Shepherd, all your life, and that this is what it means to follow him.
The last thing Jesus says to you in our text is the best: “I give [my sheep] eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”
Long before you ever came for confirmation class, you knew Jesus gives you eternal life, didn’t you? And you know that’s not just for today! That’s forever. But for the years to come, I want to remind each of you how sure that will always be. No matter what happens in the future, no matter what anybody—including the devil—will do to you, nobody can snatch you away from Jesus.
I have a feeling your parents like hearing this part, because they know the sorts of stuff that can happen. Jesus and his Father both promise that they will protect you from all of it, and they’re strong enough to do that!
The only one who can cause you to lose your salvation is you yourself, and that’s the reason your Good Shepherd, Jesus, will keep on speaking to you. When he speaks, he tells you, again and again and again, for all the years of your life:
“I laid down my life for you, and I’ve taken it up again to give you eternal life. You are my sheep!” That voice will always be speaking for you to hear. That will never change.
Amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. Amen.
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