By Mark West
“Sheeple!”
It’s common epithet typically hurled at those with whom the speaker disagrees. It’s used as an insulting slur to elevate the deliverer and diminish the recipient.
“Woke”-ness implies a special knowledge that only the initiated can have which confers on the “woke” the absolute right to denigrate those who dare to question the mysterious conspiracies being spun.
No side of our cultural conversation in America has cornered the prospective market on this derisive term. I’ve witnessed people slinging it at supporters of both President Trump and President-elect Biden. However, it goes beyond Presidential politics into heated divisions over human rights, masks, vaccines, climate change, abortion, and the shape of the planet.
I struggle to grasp the mental methodology that believes the best argument is an insult. When I’m insulted by someone, I tend to downgrade the argument. Character attacks often are a method of insulating shallow evidence from critical evaluation.
I think we’re all in the same struggle, but instead of dealing with the real foe, we’ve chosen to make enemies of one another. We need to focus on our commonality instead of using it to wedge ourselves against each other.
‘Sheep’ Is Term of Endearment
Christians should immediately recognize and be drawn to the imagery of sheep. It is the exact term used by our Savior and King in description of those of us who belong to Him.
“But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.”
John 10:2-4 NASB95
Jesus calls Himself the Shepherd and calls those who follow Him sheep. At this juncture in human history, He sees all of mankind as sheep. We all have the common need for a shepherd.
Either Jesus will be our Shepherd, or something else in the world will take His place, but we will be sheep following a shepherd either way.
If He is our Shepherd, will do three things. Two of those are found in the text I just quoted. We will hear His voice and we will follow Him. Sounds pretty simple. Yet, it’s the third thing by which we who follow Him are supposed to be known that solidifies the line of demarcation.
“A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.”
John 10:5 NASB95
Christ’s sheep will not follow the voice of anyone but Christ. All the strange voices of our world that call us to compromise our values are competing with Christ’s voice. This extends into every realm of our existence.
Being one of Christ’s sheep endears us to our King.
“I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.”
John [10:14]-15 NASB95
We who belong to Him, know Him, and better yet are known by Him. Our relationship with Him will make it unbearable for us to live outside of His will, or even worse, living in direct contradiction to His teachings.
Voice of Strangers
In our relationship with our Shepherd, as Christ’s sheep, we should be more apt to ignore the enticing voices of strangers that seek to put us on the path of their own agenda.
Any agenda that emphasizes any earthly kingdom over the gospel of the kingdom of Christ is the voice of a stranger. This applies whether it be the voice of polity or charity.
The stranger’s voice is easily recognizable in that is takes no pertinent issues with the use of violence or coercion in achieving it’s goals. Jesus described the voice of the stranger in two ways: thief, hired hand.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;”
John [10:10]a NASB95
The thief is set toward explicit violence. The thief’s only agenda is theft, murder, and destruction. The voice of the thief is prominent in our politics. The thief delineates the enemy and excuses any violence toward that foe.
Winning at all costs is the objective of the thief. The thieves are willing to shed the blood of others to achieve their agendas.
“He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep.”
John [10:12]-13 NASB95
The hired hand is different, not in that the hired had is unconcerned about the lives of sheep, but in that the hired hand isn’t driven by any agenda aside from that of self-preservation.
The hired hand exerts tremendous energy in convincing others that their wants, desires, and needs are bound up in the hired hand’s own agenda. The hired hand has no specific or compassionate concern for the sheep. The only concern for the hired hand is what profit can be gained from the sheep.
The hired hand will cut and run the minute things turn dangerous or life-threatening for himself/herself. Everything the hired hand does is about furthering themselves, not the flock. The flock is a mere means to an end.
Those hearing and obeying Christ’s voice should be resistant to the stranger’s voices, whether they be the voice of the thief or the hired hand. Those voices manipulate the flocks for their gain whereas Christ leads us into eternal life.
“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.”
John [10:10]b-11 NASB95
Embrace Our Shepherd’s Voice
Fortunately, in the Holy Spirit, we have a choice before us.
We can continue to listen to and obey stranger’s voices, or we can choose to listen only to Christ’s voice and obey His commands. His voice is a call to abundant life. His example was one of self-sacrifice for the good of His enemies.
“For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified aby His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”
Romans 5:7-10 NASB95 (emphasis added)
Jesus didn’t just preach, “Love your enemies”, he put His own teaching into practice and loved His enemies enough to die for them. He is our example.
His voice is the opposite of the voice of the thief who implores us to theft, killing, and destruction. It is also the opposite of that of the hired hand in that His concern is for our best, giving us eternal life, not for His own best or self-preservation.
Rather than war with His enemies in this age, He surrendered everything to them and allowed them to carry out their evil against Him. Many of His own have followed Him in the same martyrdom since.
So the problem isn’t in being sheep led by someone else’s voice. Rather the issue lay in whether we are following a stranger’s voice, or the voice of our true Shepherd.
The next time you’re considering slandering another with the label, “sheeple”, please realize that in reality, you are one as well.
Mark West is the author of the book What He Said: Living the Sermon on the Mount, Transforming American Culture that is available to purchase online at www.markwest-author.com
We All, Like Sheep was originally published here
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