I AM THE DOOR

I AM THE DOOR/GATEKEEPER

John 10:7–10 CSB

Jesus said again, “Truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the gate. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.

7 Jesus said again, “Truly I tell you, I am(A) the gate for the sheep.(B) 8 All who came before me[a] are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t listen to them. 9 I am the gate. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 A thief comes only to steal(C) and kill and destroy.(D) I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.

So, the 3rd I AM declaration Jesus makes is “I Am the Door for the Sheep”.

Notice He say's I am THE door; He doesn't say A door, He says THE door, because Jesus is the one and only Door to Salvation…to God the father… He's the only way to heaven…He's the one and only way to freedom from sin, and so many more!

The word Door is used over 400 times in the Bible in various different ways, but right here Jesus is telling us something that's crucial to understand for us Christians, and not just because we need to understand it for our own salvation, but because we have an obligation to let lost people know about the One and Only Door that leads to life and life more abundantly… the only door that leads to God the Father!

See once we walk through the door, who is Jesus, we are then in the fold or church or Kingdom of God. And once we're in the Kingdom of God, then there's all of these other doors that are only available to us once we're in the fold.

For example, as we are growing in our relationship with Jesus, He begins to expose things like fear that needs to be dealt with, so we begin walking towards a Door of Peace. He begins to show us why He says Fear Not 365 times throughout the Bible.

So as we are walking through this door of peace and we're learning about fearing not, and through our relationship with Jesus, He is teaching us why we have fear and where it's coming from. As He is exposing that, He's also showing you His way to the Door of Peace. Once you have matured enough to walk through the door of peace, you are simultaneously closing the door of fear!

That's really how the relationship with Jesus works on so many different levels. We just have to take the time to develop that kind of relationship with Jesus.

That is why Jesus talks about the sheep knowing the Shepherd's voice. We must know Jesus' voice to dive deeper into relationship with Him. Knowing His voice is so, so important, because once you know His voice you then can know and discern when it's not His voice speaking to you!

That's so important because the enemy is always whispering in our ears. That's how he works, but also Jesus is talking about false prophets and false teachers right here!

Verse one says " Anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the door or gate but climbs in some other way is a thief and a robber!”

Jesus was talking about the religious leaders and political leaders, who were one in the same in that day. They acted like they were the ones who said who could enter the door and who could not enter the door.

Jesus is saying I Am The Door, and if you aren't called by God to be a Pastor, or if you didn't come through the One and Only Door, who is Jesus, then you're a thief and robber.

A true child of God will know not to listen to them, and they will not only not follow them, or listen to them, they will flee from them.

The second half of verse 4 say's “The sheep follow Him because they know His voice.” vs5

They will never follow a stranger, instead they will run from him because they don't know the voice of strangers.

Now in the first part Jesus is talking about the Shepherd, who is the Pastor, over a flock that God has entrusted to that pastor. So don't be confused by that because the Pastor is Shepherding a flock by the guidance of God. As sheep we know the voice of God through our personal relationship with Jesus, in turn allowing us to recognize if the Pastor is speaking with that same voice or also not speaking with the same voice.

So you see how absolutely crucial it is to have that personal relationship with Jesus and to know His voice? If you don't really know His voice, then you are subject to being in a church with false teachers and preachers who Jesus calls thieves and robbers, which shows that they are not only slick and tricky and can steal from you without you knowing until later, but they are also hostile and violent like someone who would just pull a gun or knife and rob you!

So do you see how the entire life of a Christian revolves around the Relationship that we have with Jesus, the door, and also our Shepard.

So Jesus is telling the disciples all of these things and the scripture in vs 6 tells us that… much as usual they weren't getting what He was saying, so He broke it down for them and He says it plainly that He is the door to the sheep.

We need to pause right here and talk about why they understood this a little easier and why Jesus being the door was significant. [TELL ABOUT THE DIFFERENT KIND OF SHEEP PENS/ ONE IN THE CITY AND ONE IN THE COUNTRY]

So, the sheep…or us…accept Jesus - or we walk through the door, and it says in verse 9, that we will be saved when we walk through the door - who is Jesus - and then we will go out and find pasture, meaning we'll be safe to graze, but also meaning I Am the Bread of Life, right? The first I AM.

So, Jesus is the Door. He is the Light - the eternal life we receive by walking through that door, and then He is the Bread of Life that we feed on while we're in the pasture!

Then in verse 10 Jesus makes a famous statement or declaration that the thief - the enemy - comes to kill, steal and destroy, but He comes to give us life and life more abundantly!

Remember that there's two words for life in the Greek. One if BIO and one is ZOE. BIOS is like plain life, but ZOE is like ahhh this is the life. In verse 10 Jesus uses the word ZOE meaning I want you to have Quality of Life and a Abundance of Quality of Life!

Church, what doors are you opening in your life? Do you know the voice of God as your Shepherd?