Salvation belongs to our God.
A Sermon preached at Church of the Resurrection, Franklin, on May 11, 2025
Scripture: Acts 9:36-43; Revelation 7:9-17; John 10:22-30
It is good to be with you all here this morning on Good Shepherd Sunday, to be able to reflect on what it means to call Christ the Good Shepherd. I would submit to you, as we begin this reflection, that it means far more than we often consider. That we call Christ the Good Shepherd—that we call Christ the Lord—these titles are bound up together. In fact, Messiah, Lord, Good Shepherd—they all flow into one another. Each of our readings, in their own way, reflects some aspect or lens through which we can come to understand who Jesus is, and who we are because of who Jesus is.
When we look at Acts, we see a witness to what the disciple is to be and how a disciple is to act. When we look to the Gospel of John, we see what Jesus’s Messiahship entails. And when we look to Revelation, we see Jesus’s identity presented clearly and repeatedly through powerful imagery. In all three texts, we find a testimony to the hope that is ours through faith in Christ.
Years ago—more years than I care to count—I was an undergraduate and heard a lecture by Dr. Michael Budde entitled Jesus on the Job: The Corporate Exploitation of Religion.1 His thesis was an interesting one. He argued that advertising companies and others actually benefit from our "post-Christendom" culture: the general disaffiliation of people from the Church. We are far enough removed from the Church that most people no longer have deep formation in it, yet close enough that religious language and imagery still hold resonance.
And here was the key insight: people are familiar enough with the imagery to find it meaningful, but not formed enough in the faith to recognize blasphemy when they see it. So the culture is ripe for the misapplication of Christian imagery, faith language, and symbolism. This matters because many of us, even within the Church, unknowingly absorb these misuses of faith. We may mistake charisma for authority or equate moralism with the Gospel.
Now, Budde was naming something about our culture, but I think what he was really pointing to is a misuse of faith and of God that has always been present, across times and places. Here’s what I mean: whether we're talking about spiritual leaders, political leaders, family leaders, or institutional authorities, there are always people who will presume for themselves the kind of loyalty, authority, and status that rightly belongs only to God.
So I want to lift up two phrases from our readings today—two that I hope you’ll carry with you. First, from Revelation: "Salvation belongs to our God” (Revelation 7:10). And second, from the Gospel: "No one can take them from my hand” (John 10:28). These two declarations—That God alone is Savior, and Jesus never loses what the Father has given him—give us the foundation for understanding faithful leadership and discipleship.
These declarations guide us as we consider leadership in all its forms—spiritual, political, and familial. In each of these situations, people should not present themselves in such a way that they have somehow presumed the place of God. In other words, they should not be saying something that sounds like, “I am your salvation. I am the one that you should listen to.”
Now, that doesn’t mean there aren’t people with authority. Obviously, Scripture tells us we should show respect to our parents and to those in positions of leadership. But here’s the key: if someone is standing in my position and they say something like, “Trust me; I know what’s best,” and they’re not pointing you to Jesus, they’re aggrandizing themselves. They’re lifting themselves up.
If someone is standing in another place of authority and they’re saying you should give them the sort of obedience that belongs rightly only to God, or if they’re saying that their ideology or their perspective is where you’re going to find salvation—in other words, if anyone in any place is telling you that your salvation depends upon obedience to them rather than faithful obedience to God—they’re misleading you. That’s not the voice of a shepherd, but of someone attempting to take the Shepherd’s place.
We are given the gift of discernment to recognize the difference between good shepherds and false ones. Scripture teaches us this. In the Old Testament, “shepherd” is often royal language—kings were meant to be shepherds of the people. Later, this image extends to prophets and priests. But predominantly, “shepherd” means “king.” What’s fascinating in the New Testament is that this kingly image is redefined. The King is also the Servant. The Shepherd is the one who lays down his life.
Christian leadership—whether in the Church or outside of it—must take the form of service. Those who would lead must love. We are called, in every part of our lives, to identify with and imitate Jesus.
We see this in Acts, where Peter visits the grieving community after the death of Tabitha, a beloved disciple. There’s no indication that they expected him to raise her. They just hoped he would come and comfort them. This was a pastoral call. But Peter, imitating Christ, goes into the room and, in a scene that closely echoes Jesus’s raising of Jairus’s daughter, he tells her to arise. In Acts, we're told that Peter says, "Tabitha, get up” (Acts 9:40)—words that closely echo Jesus’s command in Luke: "Talitha koum” (Luke 8:54) ("Little girl, get up"). The resonance is not accidental. “Tabitha, get up…” Tabitha koum. Do you hear it? Tabitha, Talitha? Luke, the author of both accounts, invites us to hear Peter’s ministry as an echo of Christ’s own—right down to the syllables.
This is what it means to follow Jesus: to imitate him. And through that imitation, wonders can happen—not because of our power, but through God’s. People ought to be able to tell where we are taking our direction—from whom we are receiving our voice and values.
In John’s Gospel, we see another dynamic of Messiahship. Jesus is confronted at Solomon’s Portico and asked plainly, “Are you the Messiah?” And he essentially says, “I’ve already told you—but you cannot believe because you are not of my sheep.” It’s a matter not of clarity, but of recognition. For John, faith is not first about intellectual assent; it’s about following. Faith leads to understanding, not the other way around.
Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me (John 10:27).” To follow Jesus is to live like him, to walk his path. Think of John 14:6: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). Jesus is not just the truth to be believed; he is the way to be walked. Discipleship is about behavior as well as belief.
When people say the Jews of Jesus’s day were expecting a “political” Messiah, they are partly right—but what they mean is a military leader who would overthrow Rome. Jesus is political, but in a radically different way. He fulfills the vision of Isaiah 11, where the Messiah from Jesse’s line will judge not by what he sees or hears, but with righteousness and equity: "He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth (Isaiah 11:3–4)."
The hope of Isaiah—and of the entire prophetic tradition—is that God himself will shepherd his people. God will not abandon us to merely human rulers. The critiques of bad shepherds in the prophets all build toward this climax: God will be the Shepherd. And in Jesus, God is the Shepherd. The Good Shepherd.
The Good Shepherd brings the flock together—a great multitude as we see in Revelation. The shepherds condemned by Scripture are precisely those leaders who seek to bolster their own authority by dividing people and alienating us from one another. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, operates differently, and so should we.
Revelation brings this into sharp relief with its layered imagery: God on the throne. Then the Lamb, the Shepherd, at the center of the throne. One throne. One God. And Jesus—fully God—is the Shepherd who saves. He is priest, sacrifice, and Savior.
And so, the message for us today is this: if our leaders lead with humility, if we ourselves act in ways consistent with the behavior of Jesus, we are on the right path. But when someone demands a kind of obedience or allegiance that places themselves at the center, that divides people while aggrandizing themselves, that should be a red flag.
Salvation belongs to our God (Revelation 7:10). That is both a word of warning and a word of hope. Because salvation belongs to God in Christ, it has been given to you and to me. And as Jesus says: "No one can snatch them out of my hand." No one can take us from him.
Amen.
Budde wrote a book from which the lecture was taken, entitled Christianity Incorporated: How Big Business is Buying the Church.