I am the Door

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Recap

Over the past few weeks, we have been going on a journey to discover exactly what the seven “I Am” statements of Christ mean to us. As we discovered in the first week, we understood that when Jesus was proclaiming these statements, He was giving us an understanding of His purpose and ministry, ways to identify His character even.

What was found in the first statement given to us from Christ was that He is the bread of life, that while the Israelites wanted Jesus to satisfy their physical needs, His purpose was far more important, which was to satisfy our spiritual hunger and need for Him.

This was explained in that when man first sinned, a void was found in our hearts, a void that humans have tried, over and over again to fill, trying to satisfy a hunger with worldly, physical possessions.

The only way to fill this void is found in Christ alone, He came down so that we could fill a void found in our hearts.

While Jesus being the bread was understood to mean spiritual satisfaction, last week we discussed how Jesus is the light of the world.

In this study, we looked at the conflict surrounding this proclamation from Jesus, which was when the Jewish Scholars and Pharisees brought a woman caught in sin.

We looked not only at the conflict in and of itself, but what was found in the deeper understanding of what these religious people were trying to do to Jesus, how they were trying to pin Jesus down and discredit Him.

When we looked deeper into this conflict however, we gained an understanding that these people that considered themselves to be close to God, were ready to cast judgement on this woman, forgetting their own sin in the process.

Jesus being the Light to the World reveals to us the understanding that Jesus will illuminate our sins, calling us to repentance.

I Am the Door

For today’s study, we are going to look at Jesus proclaiming to be the door, and what exactly this means for us. We find this declaration in John 10: 1-10;

John 10:1–10 NKJV

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the 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. And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things which He spoke to them. Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear 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 does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

Now, just like the last few weeks, Jesus’s statement is a part of a broader story, and in this case, the story is found in John 9, which I don’t plan on reading today, however, we still need to understand what is found in the story to better grasp what Jesus means here.

At the beginning of chapter 9, we find Jesus and His disciples passing by a blind beggar, which brought to mind a question from the Disciples, which was who sinned in order to cause this man’s blindness.

This particular question surrounds the false Jewish belief that all suffering is caused by sin, and this man, being blind from birth, stoked their curiosity.

While this isn’t a big element to our study today, I still feel obligated to state this simple truth. That is that while this belief was found way back then in Jewish society, the false understanding that good things happen to those who are good and bad to those who are bad surround many people’s lives to this day.

Many people look at the bad things that have happened in their lives and blamed God, saying that it was God that caused this or that. Not only that, there are some out their that beat themselves up, blaming themselves for things outside of their control.

As God fearing Christians, I feel like it is necessary to show the world the reality that it rains on both the just and the unjust in life. If we paint the picture that being a Christian and following Christ is all sunshine and rainbows, people will feel as if it isn’t genuine or that if they find themselves in a season of struggle that their faith and belief isn’t strong enough.

To give you more proof in this, I had never met a person with more faith then in my beautiful bride. Meg has the most faith that I have seen, and through her faith, she has pushed me to new heights and encouraged me to be a better man. But even in her strong faith, she still had struggles and hardships to overcome.

I still remember the first time that I had come to you guys to speak, Meg was still recovering from one of her three surgeries to overcome her health issues.

The point that I am trying to make here is simple, instead of showing the world the false reality that following Christ brings a perfect life, we should show them the reality that following Christ might mean hardships in life, but in those hardships, we still have joy because of Christ.

Now, getting back to the bigger picture of the story, Jesus healed this blind man by making mud by spitting on the ground, then covered his eyes with that mud and instructed the man to clean it off.

When the Pharisees saw this blind man walking around, they were in disbelief, they couldn’t understand how this man, a man that was blind from birth, could have gained his sight again.

They even started to condemn Christ on the grounds that He healed this man on the Sabbath. But when they couldn’t get the answers they wanted from the man, they chose to excommunicate him, casting him out on the streets.

When Jesus found this man again, after he was cast out of Jewish society, asked him if he believed in the Son of God, and because of all that Jesus had done for him, he believed and worshiped Jesus.

This is where Jesus starts his proclamation, and he does it through a story about something that all of them there knew, and that was sheep.

Here we have to put ourselves in the mind of the people of that time, because their culture surrounding sheep has been lost to us throughout the years due to so many different factors.

To start with, the historical understanding to how sheep were kept is that while many families in the village had at least a couple of sheep, there was still only one sheep fold, or place in which the sheep were kept at night.

Now, this sheep fold was usually consisted of roughly built mud-brick walls, sometimes it was partially roofed, but more then often it wasn’t roofed at all. More often, it was a cave in the hills, whatever it was built with, the similarity in all of them was that it had only one entry point, one way in and out, and the only way for the sheep to leave was through the door.

This was done to protect the sheep against any number of things, thieves or even predators.

They have to protect their sheep because they aren’t very smart, as a matter of fact, they are helpless, defenseless, they follow the crowd even if it leads the their death.

In this particular story, the portrayal of the sheep was for the nation of Israel and the Jews, and for good reason.

Throughout Israels history, there is major evidence to show how they have strayed from God, following the sins and idols of the nations that surrounded them. Sheep often follow the rest of the herd around them. I have heard stories of how sheep will follow other sheep even if they were walking off of a cliff.

But while the portrayal of the sheep in this story was for Israel, we also can find some commonality here, because we too follow after things that lead to our destruction.

Just the other day, I took Isaiah to the builder expo in Christiansburg, and they had a silent auction there. In that silent auction was a play house that Isaiah loved, and what did I do? I had to bid on that playhouse. Still don’t know if I had won it or not, but I bid without any regard for the price.

The point I am trying to make here is that we live in the moment, we live our life without thinking in the future. I forgot to add up the cost of what I was trying to win, not thinking about all the other things on our to-do list. And the same can be said of our spiritual lives. We choose to live in the moment, making choices, often wrong choices, seeking after the satisfaction in the moment, and like the sheep, moving toward destruction.

We need the protection of the shepherd in our lives.

But there are more important details that are important for us to understand in this passage of scripture that speak to the culture of the time. Because of the need to protect the sheep at night, when they put the sheep into the fold, they would hire someone called the doorkeeper, who was a hired person whose job was to protect and keep the sheep safe until the morning.

The doorkeeper is important to the story because he would refuse entry to any person other then the shepherds, which is why Jesus made sure to specify that they only way to enter into the fold was through the door.

Jesus made clear in this that any person that gained access to the fold from any other place was only there for one purpose, which was to steal, kill, and destroy.

This is probably the second biggest element to this story, almost like the catalyst of the entire confrontation to begin with, because here, Jesus is calling the Jewish leaders thieves and robbers.

We see this element of the story develop early on in the story, I want to take you back to John 9: 13-16, because here we see their true hearts.

John 9:13–16 NKJV

They brought him who formerly was blind to the Pharisees. Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” Therefore some of the Pharisees said, “This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them.

The people who knew this blind man were confused, they couldn’t believe in his healing and naturally wanted an explanation to what happened, so they took him to the people that they thought knew the answer, they Pharisees.

Now, the Pharisees saw what Jesus had done as violating the Sabbath, but not in the way one might expect. They were applying restrictions, saying that tradition was law. When Jesus had mixed his saliva with the dirt was looked at as kneading, and also, because saliva was thought to have medical qualities, looked at what Jesus had done as giving medical treatment which was prohibited on the Sabbath.

These religious men were making the Holy day an oppressive burden, governed by unnecessary and even tedious rules. Jesus was showing them that to apply such rules was wrong.

But even more to the point, it shows us their heart, because they looked at the traditions and laws so fervently, they failed to see who Jesus was, they couldn’t see that Jesus was the prophesied Christ, and through their legalism, they were leading the Israelites to destruction.

But, how does this relate to us? Where are we in all of this? The simple answer is that we find ourselves in this by following after these thieves and robbers.

Just the other day, I found a video of John MacArthur explaining Roman Catholicism teaching. In his explanation, he tells his church that the Catholics say that the only way to get to the Father is through Mary. As we know and being something that we will go over in detail shortly, access to the Father can only come through Christ, Mary has nothing to do with it.

The point is simple, millions of people follow this teaching, they follow false prophets, false teachers, without ever going to scripture for proof.

As a matter of fact, this teaching falls apart with Christ very own words in John 10: 7

John 10:7 NKJV

Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

Jesus is our access to the father, He is the only way to enter into His presence.

Closing

As we begin to close today, I ask this, first, are we like the Pharisees? What I mean by this is, are we so bound to religious laws and teachings that we are taking God out of church and our lives?

I have seen it way too often, where people come into church, not looking like the church type of people, and are often chased away with sour looks of judgement.

Second is this, are we following teachers and preachers without verifying what they are saying lines up with the word of God?

I have said this before and will say it again, please study what I preach and teach to verify it to be true. The last thing I desire to see is people believing false doctrine. I do not want to be a thief or a robber and lead you down the wrong path, but for you, you should desire to follow Christ and Christ alone.

Last one is simple, are you going to Christ?

Too many people have felt as if they mean nothing to Christ, thinking that because of the life they live or have lived is too much even for Christ, often forgetting the amount of Grace he has for our lives.