KBM The Door
Notes
Transcript
As many of you know we have been studying through the theme “Names of Jesus.” I hope you have enjoyed this study as much as I have. There is something powerful getting to know Jesus all the more through the names and titles given him. Today, we are going to continue looking at the “I Am’s” of the gospel according to John, this time examining Jesus as “The Door.” We find this account in John 10:1-10 and Jesus calling himself “The Door” in verse seven.
7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
Shepherds, during this time, would travel vast distances from time to time and thus needed a place to keep their sheep safe during the night for protection. These places were called sheepfolds and they were typically a large circular holding area for sheep that was encompassed by a very large stone wall. It was had no roof and shepherds stayed in bunk houses next to the sheepfold instead of inside it. At the entrance to the sheepfold was a door and a doorkeeper. It was his job to make sure the sheep stayed safe. You would think Jesus would say he was the “doorkeeper” but no, as we just read, Jesus declared he was the door. Why would Jesus do this, because there is no more fitting name or title for him. Jesus is both the barrier and opening to the Father. How is Jesus the barrier to the Father. He keeps people away from the Father. I hear people say, in one for or another, all the time “God loves us so much He can’t keep any away from heaven.” The truth is he doesn’t have to if we remember the words of Jesus.
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
The apostle Paul points out that we only have access to the Father through Jesus.
18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.
Those that refuse to do the will of the Father will not have access to the Father because Jesus will not allow it.
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
However, Jesus isn’t just The Door that blocks but rather also opens. When we seek to do the will of the Father and then obey his word Jesus says the door will open.
8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.
9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.
Yes, Jesus, The Door, is a barrier to the sheep that are unwilling to seek and obey their Good Shepherd's Father’s will, but to us, those willing to seek and find, The Door is open to God’s saving pasture where we can be feed with the Bread Of Life.
