Sermon Tone Analysis

I AM the Sheep Gate

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Life-groups - Christian life & witness course

Last week's Memory verse - this week wrong again

Pray for Ukraine

Opening prayer

Lord, thank-you that we can gather today to hear your word.

May it be your words we hear, guided by the Holy Spirit.

May we each humble ourselves to learn what it is in this moment you want to teach us.

May todays message spur us on to be bold to declare Your good news to the people you put on our hearts.

Amen

last 2 weeks - I am who I am and I am the light of the world

Key idea - Jesus has opened the only gate to God and is calling our name.

Reflect

What gate or door have you been most excited to go through?

(E.g an Event or new home)

What a gate does - gives access, to city… something surrounded by a border

At the lakes a gate with no fence - shut the gate mate

Why God’s Kingdom has a gate

Skylahs book - Garden of eden, tabenacle, temple - couldn’t get in because our sin would kill us when entering the presense of our Holy God.

God said, Because of your sin, you can’t come in.

God put up a Keep out sign on the garden with an Angel and the temple with the curtain.

Read Genesis 3:21-24 & Hebrews 9:1-10

Are there any other verses or examples that remind you that we worship a Holy God?

The Pharisees have spent too long keeping these rules to keep people out that they have lost how to walk in step with or listen to God's voice.

Scan john 9 and compare it to the warning in Ezekiel 34:3-4, how did the Pharisees see the blind man? how did Jesus?

Recognise

Read John 10:1-5

What does this passage tell us about God?

Now Jesus is challenging that there is another way, actually the only way into the presence of God

John 10:1–2 (NIV)

“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber.

The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.

1. Appointed by God - not self-appointed as false shepherds (v1-2)

If we take into account what has just happened in chapter 9, the thieves and robbers are clearly the religious leaders who are more interested in fleecing the sheep than in guiding, nurturing and guarding them.

They are the ones who should have had ears to hear Jesus’ claims and recognize him as the revelation from God, but who instead belittle and expel the sheep.

2. A response - the sheep listen to His voice (v3) begger (9:38) vs Pharisees

3. The Call - He calls his own sheep by name (v3) - Eastern shepherds would have nicknames for their sheep by descriptions or character traits, log ears, white-nose.

Jesus also gave nicknames - Simon - Peter (rock) Saul-Paul.

by personal terms he calls His followers, you and I today.

Do you have a sense of a Nickname or special name God has for you?

4. Jesus provides direction - leads us.

living is not taught by rules as the Pharisees thought but by being guided, following a master.

Unlike Western shepherds who drive the sheep, often using a sheepdog, the shepherds of the Near East, both now and in Jesus’ day, lead their flocks, their voice calling them on.

The shepherd going ahead of his sheep is an admirable picture of the master/disciple relationship.

The sheep follow simply because they know his voice; by the same token, they will run from anyone else because they do not recognise a stranger’s voice

5. chosen obedience.

His Sheep follow him because they know His voice (v4)

In verse 6 we see that they still don’t understand.

This seems to happen each week where they haven’t quite got it so Jesus expands on the metaphor.

An interesting connection

That this shepherd leads his sheep out (in v. 9, in and out, to find pasture) may allude, to Numbers 27:15–17, where Moses prays for a successor who will lead the people of God out and bring them in, ‘so that the LORD’s people will not be like sheep without a shepherd.

The next verse in Numbers 27 makes clear that the successor is Joshua, which name, in Greek, is ‘Jesus’.

There is a passage together is a reference to the leaders/shepherds that have led Isreal over the centuries some to God, a lot more away from him.

Now Jesus is directing this at the religious teachers of the day and false teaching that again leads people away from God.

When I decerned that this might be a good series to do, I didn’t realise how connected these statements were with challenging the people that should of known God.

Maureen asked me at life group what I was looking for in the question Do we miss the heart of God sometimes?

do we get caught in the wording or practice and miss the light that Jesus is?

Is there anything currently blinding you to the full joy in Jesus?

Last week it was Jesus' identity and oneness with God, this week it is a miracle performed on the Sabbath.

They were so focused on keeping the rules that you should not do work on the sabbath that they would not accept good done on the sabbath.

I was asking if there was ever a time that you shut the gate because of tradition?

I have, Maddy and NRG kids - wanting to run a kids program because there was a need, fortnightly.

I ejected it because of tradition, youth is on every night and that would stretch leaders.

I shut the gate, then I saught people to agree with me.

I tried to claim the fence.

I have since apologiesed to maddy about it and know I was not listening to Jesus, who wanted to be open to that age group.

Going through the gate is...

God’s Way

Here, the idea is not that Jesus the shepherd draws out his own flock from a rather mixed fold (vv.

1–5), but that Jesus the gate is the sole means by which the sheep may enter the safety of the fold (v.

9a) or the luxurious forage of the pasture (v.

9b).

Church as the sheep pen - going out and coming in v9 entering the kingdom.

Walking again in the garden with God, there is no curtain is another illustration

Now a believer has access to God through Jesus Christ - this is life overabundant - the life we were created for, the Kingdom of God.

Listen to Jesus' voice and put it into practice

The arrival of Jesus - purpose to bring life in escalation.

However, sometimes because of our sin we don’t want to listen we don’t want to go through the gate

Man’s Way

The arrival of the thief - purpose to end as many lives possible

A rebellious decision that drives bringing others down with them.

John 10:10 (NIV)

10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

In the past or presently, what voices or pressures are competing with Jesus in your life?

how do you overcome them?

Conspiracies - false prophets and teachings.

Jeremiah 23:16, 1 John 4:1

We need to be careful what we listen to, if they are not pointing to Jesus, the open Gate, stay away.

Respond

Jesus knows our name, do we know his voice?

Is there something Jesus is calling you into today?

what is your next action?

Communion

Jesus knew as disciples in the pasture we would be challenged with competing voices.

That is why we met around the lord's table.

To confess the times we have gone man’s way instead of God’s way.

To remember the sacrifice that Jesus made to have life abundant and enter through the gate.

Because of your sin, you can’t come in.

BUT I died on the cross to take your sin… So all my friends CAN now come in!