I Am The Door

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Introduction -

I don’t know about you, but have some compulsive habits in my life, meaning these are things that I do that I just can’t seem to stop doing and really and truly have no plans to ever stop doing. One of these is the habit of checking my doors before bed. I walk to every door in my house and check the lock before bed. Every night. No matter what. Even if I checked them earlier and they were all locked, I’m still making the rounds one last time to make sure they are locked.

There have been a few times where I’ve forgotten to do this and gotten into bed and you guys know what happens next right? I realize I forgot to check the doors, so what do I do? I get up and check all the doors. I can’t go to sleep unless I’ve done this. Now, this is not something my parents taught me. We grew up in the country where most people didn’t lock their doors. In fact, we were related to most of our neighbors, so there wasn’t much worry of someone breaking into your house.

If you are just joining us today, I’m glad you are here, you have caught us at the beginning of a new sermon series entitled “I Am” where we are studying the seven “I Am” statements Jesus makes in the gospel of John. Today we are going to look at the declaration of Jesus that He is the door.

If you have your Bibles with you, let’s turn to John 10. We are going to read the first 10 verses.

John 10:1–10 ESV

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold 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. 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, but 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 in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Why Does Jesus Describe Himself as a Door?

Now, this is one of the most fascinating questions about our text today, because we read this in context, we can come at this from an interesting angle. Jesus is talking about thieves and shepherds. He’s setting up this contrast beautifully and what I think everyone expects for Jesus to say is not that He is the door, but that He is the Good Shepherd, which he will say later, but he doesn’t say it now.

The disciples are confused and honestly, so are we. Jesus is talking about what a shepherd looks like and so if He had said right here that he was the shepherd, that would have made a bit more sense in the context, but Jesus evidently wasn’t that worried about the context as he was making his point.

So what’s his point? That in order to even meet the shepherd, before you can get into the sheepfold, you have to go through a door and He is that door. Yes, he’s the shepherd as well, but this relationship that he’s inviting us into, we have to walk through the door first. In fact, if you are trying to get into the sheepfold any other way, you are a thief and a robber. The only way to be a sheep is to go through the door.

Now, I could spend an entire sermon on the markings of a sheep, just from this passage. I won’t do that, but I will list them out here and will make a short remark about them.

The Sheep:

Hear The Shepherd’s Voice.

They Are Named By the Shepherd.

The Shepherd Leads Them.

The Shepherd Goes Before Them.

The Sheep Follow The Shepherd (Because They Know His Voice).

Sheep Flee From Strangers (Because They Don’t Know Their Voice).

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but this will let you know how you would tell if you are a sheep or not. Jesus here is listing out some contrasts because of the invitation he gives. He says, I am the door of the sheep. IF you want to be a sheep, you have to go through Him.

So what does this tell us about Jesus? I mean he is telling us that he is a door. That’s part of who he is. What does this mean? Well there’s a few things you can draw from this, but I think it’s important to look at the analogy to understand what exactly he means by this.

There are at least a couple of purposes for a door.

Doors Keep Sheep In

Doors Keep Predators Out

Doors Offer Protection

PICTURE IN NOTES

He is the door. And there is an inclusive call to this statement. He says IF ANYONE enters by Him…In other words, all are welcome. It does not matter what your past is, it doesn’t matter what sins you’ve committed, how horrible you are, who your parents are…none of that matters, IF ANYONE means IF ANYONE.

What will these people find if they enter through Jesus? There are three things listed, so let’s look at them one-by-one...

In Jesus You Will Find Salvation

Let’s first and foremost look at this in the most important light. When he says salvation, when he says that if you enter by you will be saved. This means the salvation of your soul from hell and receiving the eternal promise to live with Him always. He means saved to the uttermost. You are’t partially saved, you are saved completely, fully and wholly.

This is not something you are working towards…it doesn’t say you are on the path to salvation, it says simply, if you enter by the door, you will be saved. I know many people who have lived their lives believing they had to earn their way. Listen, the Bible is clear, your works will not produce salvation in you. You cannot earn that which is given away. He freely gives this gift to you. The only thing for you to do is to receive it.

I also want to point out that Jesus says he is THE door, meaning that other doors will not lead you to salvation. They will only lead you to death. There is only one door, one name through which people are saved and that is the name of Jesus.

“You may knock at a thousand doors; you may cry and pray and groan and agonize and sweat, even to drops of blood, but there is only one door to heaven, and that door is faith in Jesus Christ. If you will not enter by that door, God himself will not open another.”

Charles Spurgeon

Do not believe the pluralism of today’s culture. There are not many ways to get to heaven, there is only one way. There are not many ways to get to God, there is only one door. All paths do not lead you to this door, and this door is the only way to get to God. So if you enter by Jesus, you will find salvation, all other ways will lead to death.

In Jesus You Will Go In And Out

Number two, is a bit harder to understand. Jesus says that if you enter by me, you will be saved and you will go in and out. Now, I first want to talk about what this does NOT mean. We live in a transient society. Our culture is a culture of people who are uncommitted. They are uncommitted to everything. We do not like to be tied down. This is cultural, but it also affects all of us in JoCo as well.

Clayton as a suburb of Raleigh has become a transient area. People are moving here for work and moving away shortly thereafter. We are going to see more and more of this. I saw the same thing living in the Charlotte area. Big banking area, people moved to Charlotte for a few years and then moved to New York or Boston or wherever. Clayton is at the beginning of those same things. We are going to see more and more people moving here and they will be here for only a short time. And even though this phenomenon is rather new for Clayton, that transient nature has already been imprinted on our hearts by the culture. We want to go in and go out as much as we want. We don’t want to be tied down. And this transient attitude also finds itself in the church.

What this looks like is that we do not commit. We live our lives with one foot out the door. In church, in work, in marriage, in everything. That is not right. That is worldly thinking. Christians are to be planted. We are to be grounded. And I want our church to be a place where people who are easily tossed to and fro can find an anchor in the storm. That’s our goal.

I have been in church most of my life and have pastored this church for almost four years now. I have seen a lot of people go in and out within the church. They come to a church for a while, decide they don’t like it and leave trying to find greener grass elsewhere. Some of them with good reasons and some of them with bad reasons. Some of them are prayed for and sent out, others try to burn the bridge as they walk across it.

So whether people come to our church or they leave, our job is simple. We are to love them. We are to be family to them. We invite people over for dinner. We watch their children. We love without the expectation of love in return. When people leave, for whatever reason, we continue to love them. If you see them at the store, throw your arms around their neck and let them know you love them and miss them.

So this coming in and going out is not encouraging us to be like unanchored ships tossed to and fro with every storm of life. This is talking about something different. When Jesus says they go in, I believe it means they enter into his presence. When we enter the door, we are entering into the presence of the God.

At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His presence.

A. W. Tozer

This is the message. That as his redeemed children, we can enter into his presence. Hebrews makes this point emphatically. It says we can boldly enter into his presence (by entering through the blood of Jesus where a veil once stood).

One of the signs of a spiritually healthy person is that we do not run from the presence of God, but instead we run to it.

And the sad part is the church has largely lost this message and it’s people have forsaken seeking it. We are more worried about what programs we offer rather than whether we host his presence or not.

The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God and the Church is famishing for want of His Presence. The instant cure of most of our religious ills would be to enter the Presence in spiritual experience, to become suddenly aware that we are in God and that God is in us. This would lift us out of our pitiful narrowness and cause our hearts to be enlarged.

A. W. Tozer

This ought not be! Church, the first part of this promise that Jesus offers to us is that we can enter in! We can come into the presence of God.

The second promise is to go out. Augustine and many others believe this refers to going out for service. We come into his presence, and he leads us out for service. These ideas are equally important in my opinion.

Where I see this go wrong is when people focus on the one over the other. Typically churches are service oriented. People come wanting to serve in some way. Here I am, how can I help. Which is a great heart. The problem is, a lot of time what is overlooked is they serve, but they have no prayer life. They serve but they spend no time in his presence. They serve but they don’t worship.

Other Christians though, I’ve seen take the other route. They come in with a consumer mentality. I’m here to worship, but I don’t want to serve. I’ve put in my time. I’m retired. I just want to worship and soak in his presence. It sounds good doesn’t it? But its not biblical. We are to go in and come out. We are to spend time in his presence and serve others as well. It’s not one or the other, it’s both.

In Jesus You Will Find Pasture

When it comes to the final promise of those that enter the door, it says you will find pasture. When I hear that, I think about the significance of finding pasture. Why is Jesus concerned about his sheep finding pasture. I think there are two good reasons.

1. You Will Find Food

Sheep are hungry! When the Shepherd leads his sheep to a green pasture, I think the biggest reason is to find food! They need to eat. On the spiritual side of things, this means we will have our needs met by Jesus. We will receive the word of God with thanksgiving and feast on his words. Jesus the good shepherd leads us to places where will be able to hear the word of God and feed on it.

Now, while this does apply to the church, I don’t agree with some people who think it’s the Pastor’s primary job to feed them. “Oh, I left that church because I wasn’t getting fed.” The pastor’s job is not to walk out in to the field and pull up grass with his hands and then walk over to you and stuff it down your mouth. The pastor, like the great Shepherd Jesus, is to lead you to the places where you can feed yourself. He leads you to the pasture.

So my job is to help you find good food. And let me tell you, it’s not predominately found on Facebook and TikTok. It’s found in the Bible. It’s found in home groups, it’s found in bible studies, it’s found in discipleship, which if you want more discipleship, just ask. I will help you with that, just let me know.

2. You Will Find Rest

The second thing we see here is that when you find pasture, you find rest. How would you know that the shepherd has led you to pasture? You are at rest. In our transient society, no one rests. We can’t even use the bathroom without scrolling on our phones. We do not like silence and we do not like rest. We fight against it, when the Bible tells us we should be fighting for it.

Genesis starts with God taking a rest after six days of creation. It ends with us in eternal rest with Him in the City of God. Rest is not just something that was simply apart of the Mosiac law that should be done away with. On the contrary, ultimate rest, is found when we enter into the door! Jesus is our ultimate rest.

I’ve had many people over the years, whether they be small group leaders, ministry leaders, teachers, whomever and say, “Pastor, I need step down from what I’m doing and rest.” I have made it my goal to never try to make them feel bad for that. I always encourage them to rest. When we serve, it should come from a place of rest.

With that said, some of us put serving the Lord as the lowest priority, our lives are so hectic that we are exhausted from everything else that we have no time to serve. So we are quick to use God to run from God. That’s not rest. And you won’t find rest if that’s your heart. True rest comes from relationship with God, not running from Him.

Closing