I Am the Door-Through Jesus

 Please grab a Bible and take a seat for a moment. Open your Bible to John Chapter 10,

John 10.

He had never seen the.

His world was only sick and sound. His friend took him by the hand every day to the temple. He could hear the, the travelers by. He could

thees, he could.

The priest, he walked by, he knew he could see it go blind. The pity of the worshipers who walked by and looked on upon him, there was a voice, put voice, and the voice asked, who said this man or his parents?

And there was another voice gentler. Sure, more confident that said, neither this man or his parents didn't. This is because it was meant to glorify the Lord. And then he heard the sounds of stink and he felt mud on his eyelids, and he heard the words go and wash in the pool of silo. And so he went feeling his way like he did every day, and he went to the pool and as he washed the clay off of his eyes, his world friends cracked with color, light vivid faces, trees, and he got up to run.

He could run without falling down. Can you imagine?

Sight comes at a cost.

People didn't believe him. Isn't that the beggar? No, that's not the beggar. It's just somebody who looks like him. The Shepherds of Israel, who should have been most excited about this, the Pharisees. They looked at him and they only scowled who did this to you? He said, Jesus did it to me.

And instead of being overwhelmed with joy and gratitude, they were furious. You know why? Because Jesus did that on the Sabbath and it broke their rules.

And they said to him, what happened to you? And he said to them, sir, as I do not know, all I know is I was once blind, and now I see. And they said, go get his parents. So they brought his parents and they said, who did this to your son? And they, because of the fear of the Pharisees and fear of getting kicked out of the temple, they punted it back to their son.

And they said, well, he's old enough. You should go ask him. And they said, this man is a sinner. He said, I don't know if he's a sinner. All I know is I once was blind, but now I see. Hut, the hutzpah that you would have the Pharisees said to this man that you would teach us. He says, sir, isn't it amazing? It's amazing.

And they said, no, it's scandalous. And this young man who had had his. Sight taken from him since birth blind since he was born, is taken by the hands of the shepherds of Israel. Those who should have watched over him, and they took him and they brought him to the edge of the temple. And instead of rejoicing, what did they do?

They pushed him out of the temple and they shut the gate behind him and left him exposed and lonely and isolated and wandering. They closed the gate on him.

In that context,

we find John chapter 10. So if you're willing and able, let stand as we read together. John 10 verses one through 10.

Jesus is speaking and he says. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheep pulled by the door, but climbs in by another way. That man is a thief and a robber, but he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him, the gatekeeper opens the sheep, hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

And when he has brought out all his own, he goes before them. And the sheep follow him for they know his voice. A stranger, they will not follow, but they will flee from him for they do not know the voice of strangers. This figure of speech Jesus used with them, pharisees, that they did not understand what he was saying to them.

So Jesus again said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go out in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.

I come that they may have life and have it abundantly. The grass withers and the flowers fade. That God's word stands forever. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. He may be seated. Father, would you use the words of my lips and help us to meditate on the beauty of your son? In these moments together, we ask in Jesus' name, amen.

Sally Johnson, come on down.

Come on down. Echoed through households for more than 35 years of the voice of. The host of the Price is Right. Do you know his name? Bob Barker. He made that line famous because he would call housewives and it always seemed like the women were most excited when they ran down the aisles on The Price Is Right Game Show.

And if you are ever homesick, if you're, you know, um, watching tv, you still hear it today. The price is right and one of the most, uh, exciting times of the, of the game show the price is right is whenever they had the three doors, do you remember this game? They had three doors. Doors, one, two, and three. And behind one of those doors would be like, you know, a lifetime vacation or it would be like a, um.

A vacation of a lifetime that is, or it would be like a, like a new car, something, you know, massive. And then, then door number two would be, you know, and door number three, like some kind of like mid grade luggage set or a kitchen appliance. And the contestant would stand on the stage and, and you would hear the crowd shout door one, door two, door three, and, and you'd be held in suspense as the music built.

And people were waiting for this contestant to pick the right door. C. S Lewis once said that every person is haunted by the door. That leads to eternity, and we are confronted every day with doors that promise life, that promise pleasure. All the world's pleasures and philosophies. Even all the world's religions are doors.

The question is not whether we'll walk through one, but whether that door actually leads to life or to destruction. And like those contestants on the price is right that stand before the three doors. We as human beings have always had a choice. We've had a path that promised us something, but only one of those paths leads to life.

When Jesus spoke these words in John 10, who is he speaking it to?

He was speaking it to the ones who had just. A blind beggar outside of the gates of the temple. And after watching this amazing miracle, and after this man believing in Jesus, they said, ah, this is too marvelous for our eyes. We cannot stand it. And they shut him out. Friends, each of us are standing before the door and Jesus says the true door, he is saying to you, I am the way.

And each of us stand in the place of the Pharisees this morning and we have the opportunity to say, is your theology in the way? Is your confidence in the way? Is your wealth in the way? Is your dream of what you wanted your life this life, this just green room of a much larger performance of eternity?

Is it distracting you from the one who calls you by and who loves you? I wonder. In the story if you're the Pharisee, because through Jesus, John 10 teaches us that you will win more than you could ever imagine. In Jesus, my friends, he is the way of true access. Jesus is the way of true security and freedom.

And through Jesus you have abundant life. And I wonder this morning if you know Jesus like that,

the truth of the matter is that. Each of us are confused by promises that hold out the good life, and we are just like contestants that stand before these three doors, and most of us use it like as some kind of guessing game. Some of you have tried Christianity for a while, now you're doing this, now you're doing that.

Now you're back. And I want you to know that you are back because you hear your savior calling you by name. He's begging you and telling you and calling you, and he will get you through. If he has your name on his mind, he will surely do it, come through this door because it is through Jesus, first of all, that we have true access to appreciate this parion, this figure of speech in Greek Cain Parion.

It's a, Jesus is telling the story and the Pharisees aren't getting it, so he says, okay. Knuckleheads, listen, it's a figure of speech and I've gotta use pretty simple images. How about a door? The door that you just cast out the blind beggar? Mm, I am that door. You can imagine in the first century, the first century HOAs worked like this, that you would own a few sheep.

You wouldn't be able to form a shepherd, uh, afford a shepherd. And so you would get together with your neighbors. And you would pull your money and you would hire one of the neighbor's sons or maybe, maybe somebody who was outside the neighborhood to watch all of your sheep. And in your little house you would have a collective courtyard and, and you would put those sheep in the courtyard and you would pay someone to then take your sheep out in the morning to guard the gate at night and to look over your.

You can imagine Jesus is telling the story in the midst of the temple in Jerusalem, but he is recalling the images of little small Jewish villages where they would pull together their money in their little courtyards and they would have a shepherd look over their sheep. And Jesus used this familiar word picture to expose the Pharisees false motives and self-righteousness in a way that they would understand.

Jesus's focus is not on the sheep court or the courtyard. Jesus' focus is here, is on the door. He says that only those who are able to enter are the ones who enter through me. And so if you reject me and the works that I've done, my friends, you are rejecting me. And they didn't get what he was saying. And so Jesus, it says in verse seven, he says to them again, truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

And all who come before me are thieves and robbers for the sheep, did not listen to them. Imagine the way that if they would receive that, because Jesus is calling the Pharisees and all who came before him, thieves and robbers, if they pointed not to the promises of God, but to some kind of self-righteous measurement by which God would approve of their behavior.

Jesus alone. Is the entrance to God's grace and he's the only point access to God the Father, not a priest, not a prophet, not a tradition, not a particular religious denomination. It is only Jesus. Amen. But notice that there's a door. He is that door, and he opens that door for you to enter into his covenant community, into his presence, which is the visible church, this side of death.

And he welcomes you. To enjoy all the privileges of being welcomed into his presence in covenant community. Throughout scripture, we hear that God is clearly the door. You heard it read earlier when Tanya and Blaine read about Noah. There's a little line dropped in in the midst of the story of Noah, that it was God not Noah who shut that door.

'cause our God is a God of doors. Exodus 12, the Passover lamb's blood is brushed over the doorposts so that the angel of death would pass over those homes in the call to worship from Psalm 118, open to me the gates of righteousness that I may enter through them. That is the cry of our hearts. Which door is it?

Ezekiel 26. The prophet records his taunt to tire. He boasts over Jerusalem's fall and he says the gate of the people is broken. The door has swung open to me

and Isaiah 22. It says, I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David, and he shall open and none shall shut. He shall shut and none shall open. He is. Jesus is the true key bearer. There's a, there's a passage in, um, Ezekiel chapter 10. Now we're going deep into the Old Testament here, so stay with me.

In Ezekiel chapter 10, there's a point where God says to the prophet Ezekiel, they have totally abandoned me.

I wr them through the wilderness for 40 years by a pillar of fire. A pillar of cloud. I supplied manna for them every day of their life. I protected them as they came into a country. I promised their father Abraham, and I've given them every bit of information they need to place their faith in my promises that they have abandoned me.

And so Isaiah has this vivid image and out the east gate of the temple goes the glory of the Lord. He leaves the temple and he and the glory of the Lord. The smoke leaves the temple as to say my glory will never. Come again until there is the sign of repentance and faith and true hope. We as obedience to be found.

And so for hundreds of years, the glory of the Lord had left the temple. If it's the saddest part of the Old Testament, God's glory leaves his people through the east gate of the temple in Ezekiel's. Then here in John chapter 10, when John is telling the story, he tells about the man who's born blind. One of the seven beautiful signs, miracles of Jesus.

And Jesus is saying, these seven I am predicate statements, I am this or that. He says, seven different images. And then right after this, Jesus goes back to Jerusalem and does his seventh sign in John chapter 11 when he heals Lazarus and he raises him from the dead. And then what happens right after that?

Right after that. In John chapter 12, Jesus comes out of the Mount of Olives with, if you've ever been in Jerusalem, you know that outta the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem, you have to come through the gate. And so here is the eastern gate of the temple and the triumphal entry, and every Jew would've seen the word picture and seeing the image of Jesus riding in back into the temple through which gate.

Through the same gate that he left, the Lord left in Ezekiel, chapter 10, the Eastern Gate, and he rides in through that Eastern gate as if to say, I am. Who I am has returned to the temple. And friends, Jesus provides us true access. He is the one who is the door. And when God's glory leaves, it is Jesus who brings that?

Just why you're so hungry and thirsty spiritually. That is why you are so strung out on your habits of trying to fulfill yourself in every way that doesn't fulfill yourself because you haven't come back to Jesus. Who is the door? God's glory is the very sign of his nearness, and you see his glory in the personal work of Jesus.

Who says to you, I am the door and I call you by name. Do you know it? There's a snippet from the, uh, the, the book that the women are reading on Thursday morning that I read this week that I thought was interestingly parallel to John Chapter 10, ejected from Eden's Eastern Gate. It says, we travel through and around the world from west to east forever, seeking the rising son, SON, and we find him standing at the Western Gate of Eden saying, I am the door.

The man who claimed to be God stood there neck deep in the river of history and called out from the moving molecules of the human mouth. Before Abraham was, I am, I am the way, the truth and the life, and no man comes to the father, but by me. Friends through the incarnation, you are invited in. Do you know him?

Through Christ, we move from wrath. To Grace. And if you walk through that door, you're at home with God permanently. He has you in his grip and he'll never let you go. He calls you by name. He knows each of you by name. And for some of you today, the day of salvation, would you place your faith in him?

Because through Jesus, you win more than you ever.

For the passage teaches us not only does he give us access, but secondly through Jesus we have true security and freedom. Notice what he says next. After calling himself the door, he describes what happens once you actually. Move through him. He says, I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

Now this little phrase in Greek, in and out is a Hebrew idiom. That basically means that you and the warp and wolf, the everyday nature of your life will enjoy his presence. It was a specific idiom that meant that. As the shepherd leads you out of the sheep gate and you enjoy the pasture, you can go and you can enjoy every bit of that pasture.

Enjoy the boundaries that the shepherd has given you because the shepherd is near and boundaries are not given to you that you may thump against the boundaries or complain that there's boundaries. No, that you'll know that the shepherd is near because you have true security and freedom when you are in the watchful gaze of the shepherd, who cares and it watches over you.

Are you with me? Jesus is the way to true security and freedom. And Jesus says to his people, go in and out. He's describing a life lived every day under his sovereign rule because you are kept securely in his grace, under his watchful care. When I was younger, um, the first time in my life I, I ever really understood that I was a little brother, loved by my older brother.

I have two older brothers and my oldest brother, one time I was coming home, I, I couldn't have been more than five or six years old. And on Berkeley Drive, I went by a house. We called it the Vampire House. It had a terracotta roof and it had, uh, this, this, um, uh, um, facade that made it look spooky when you're little.

And so we called it the Vampire House. So we were, I was coming by the Vampire House and in the yard of the Vampire House was this 20 foot dog. It was a husky. It had huge teeth, and of course it wasn't 20 feet, but it looked like it. In my mind, it scared me to death and I couldn't get home, and this dog stopped in the middle of the yard and I'd never been confronted by a dog.

And so I did what every 5-year-old boy did. I screamed for help.

I was paralyzed and I remember looking past the dog in toward my house, and I remember seeing my big brother, my oldest brother, jump out the front door down those steps and sprint down and he stood between me and that dog and he looked at me and I remember it like it was yesterday. He said, little brother, I got him.

You go home. I ran home and as I ran home, I remember I looked back at Brian, my brother, and I remember seeing that dog lunge at my brother and my brother knocking him away. And I went into that house and I thought, my brother just saved my life and he's gonna die.

And about 15 minutes later he came back home.

The truth of the gospel is that we also are separated from getting home by sin and death. Jesus, your older brother comes and he bursts out of eternity with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and he comes and he says, Hey, I got you. You can go home. Except Jesus didn't return home at 15 minutes and he was pierced for our transgressions and he died on the cross for us.

And three days later he. Hold and resurrected. Hallelujah. And he protects us securely and freely from the things that scare us to death. I know some of you are so afraid of death, as Woody Allen once said, who here is not afraid of death? It is stupefying in its terror. He once said, Jesus has conquered it.

He is the door who calls you by name and says in me, you have security and you have true freedom. You can go home. You can almost hear Israel's songs of joy echoing in the background as Jesus and the the Father and the Holy Spirit provide a way he makes us lie down in green pasture. Psalm 23, he leads us beside still waters.

In numbers 27. Moses' praying, Lord a appoint a leader for your people that they may not be a sheep who have no shepherd and the Lord provides Joshua. In Psalm 80, give Ero Shepherd of Israel. You lead Joseph like a flock In Zacharia chapter two verse five, it's a profound passage. Go and read it. He says, the Lord is like a fire, a wall of fire around his people.

All throughout the Old Testament, the Lord is the protector and he is the one who provides true freedom. But here's the paradox of Christianity. We are most free when we most yield ourselves. To him, and we are most secure. Objectively, we are totally secure in his justification by faith, but we experience the security the most when we lend him everything we have because it's his already.

And we hold out our hands to him and say, here are my children, Lord, I can't raise them by myself. I need your help. Here's my community. Father, I'm desperately lonely. Where will you give me purpose and intention in life? He is your true security and he is your true freedom.

The sheep don't need to fear the boundaries because they are given with joy. We have access through Christ. Secondly, we have true security and true freedom. And thirdly, through Jesus we have abundant life. Look how John closes. This, uh, closes this section. He says in verse 10, this famous line, it is embroidered on pillows and it's put all over coffee mugs.

You've seen it too. He says The thief comes only to kill, steal, and destroy. But I come that you may have life and you may have it abundantly. Perone in Greek you may have an over. Flowing life. Very great, excessive. It's as though John can't contain himself. It is an overindulgence. It is much more than you can imagine.

It is a life far deeper and richer than you could ever dream. When you find your life in me. Remember who he's talking about? He's talking to the thieves and robbers. He wants the Pharisees to identify as thieves and robbers and everybody else who came missing the promises of God and trying to rely on all of the rules that they had made up to clean themself up at o Trinity, please hear me with as much pastoral grace and care as I can possibly say it.

One of the dangers of the church is an over enthusiasm about particulars of theology that distract people from the finished work of Jesus. And everybody in this room is coming to understand the gospel at a different pace. Always encourage them to understand God's word fully and more deeply and more richly as it points them to Jesus to be oh so careful that in your attempt to disciple or to care, or to train them up or to read good theology, or to invest in the patristic sent to the reformers.

We wanna know theology in this church very well. All theology should have as, as a blazing sinner. Jesus who is the door who invites us back in to see that he is the true way of life and he gives it to us abundantly. Hallelujah. Know your theology. People know this church because we know our theology. Oh, how easy it is to shut out those who have just been moved by the Holy Spirit with a genuine work of God and shut them outta the gate because they can't quote from Calvin's Institutes.

One of the things that kills the gospel faster is an overconfidence or an over need of people's theological regimen and missing the simple good news. Somebody asked JI Packer one time, what is the deepest theological truth, you know, and JI Packer says. Jesus loves me. This I know for the Bible tells me so.

And so. If you're here this morning and you see pastors up here in robes in a building that looks different than other buildings around town, we want you to see Jesus. He is the access. He is your true security and freedom, and you know that He gives you abundant life. Notice what happens at the very end of John chapter nine that I described earlier, before I read it.

Jesus comes to this man, where does he come? He comes to him outside the gate and he says to him, do you believe? And he says, Lord, I wanna believe in the Messiah. Who is he? And Jesus says to him, I am the messiah. And the blind beggar says, I believe. I wonder if you do, do you see Jesus as the door? As the way in.

And do you see that Jesus has invited you to say, you are welcome to come home at last. It is the thing that you have been looking for your entire life and so haunted by the door that leads to eternity. Jesus, as one of our children said, busted down that door, and he is that door. May we sing of him and celebrated him and dance in him and live life in him because he has given us everything.

May our lives be so shot through with gratitude that people say, surely, surely this man, this woman has been with Jesus. They know the confidence that he gives them. They know the joy that he provides. He is himself the door. So I don't know which door you're gonna pick. Oh, contestants. But there is one who is standing by the door and he is saying to you, calling you by name.

I know the anxieties of your heart. I've come to meet them all. Welcome home.

Father. Would you help us to stop playing the guessing game in life? Would you help us to see that you are the one who has called your people to trust in you? And Lord, would you help us even this very moment who haven't placed their faith in you to see that you are the true door and that you are the thing that they have been looking for their whole life?

And Lord, would you help those of us who have access to grow and profound gratitude and humility, not in arrogance and confidence because of our theology, let us grow in profound humility. That we were once blind, that now we see, and thank you now that you invite us to this meal, we

praise you and pray these things in Jesus' name and all of God's people say, amen, please.

 Sermon transcript is computer generated.