I Am The Door

(John 10:7-9 KJV) "Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door<thura {pronounced = thoo’-rah} a door, opening, entrance> of the sheep. {8} All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. {9} I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture."

Jesus Christ is the Door of the Sheep. What a wonderful truth!

When my family was stationed in England, one of the most interesting things that I used to watch on television was Shepherding. Every year the Shepherds in England would get together and be tested. The Shepherd would, through whistles and signals, guide the sheep along the pasture and into a gated area by means of a sheepdog. The sheepdog, no true threat to the sheep, would nevertheless seem to be a threat as he chased the sheep. As both dog and Shepherd worked in perfect union the sheep would be guided to a gated area where they could escape what they perceived to be danger - the dog.

The Door was a place of safety and security. When the sheep ran into the safe place, through the door, they were protected. The sheep knew that the dog could not come through the gate, that behind this door they were safe.

Jesus Christ is that safe place, a Door by which we can enter into a relationship with God. Jesus is the Door of salvation, perfect Salvation. How do we enter this Door? We must decide, in our heart of hearts, that we will cease our own works, our own pride, our own means to get into Heaven, and depend on Jesus Christ as our Savior and Rule of life.

Our Jesus spoke the words we read today to Pharisees and religious people. Pharisees and religious people are clean living, moral, law abiding, and - to all outward appearances - a wonderful addition to any society. Yet this is the outward appearance of the religious. We only need compare the teachings of the Pharisees to the teaching of our Lord Jesus, and immediately you see the difference.

God is love (1 John 4:8). These to whom our Savior spoke did not know God. They knew the Law of Moses. They knew the rituals that were handed down to Israel, a stiff necked and disobedient people, under the leadership of Moses. They knew how to do what the Law of Moses demanded, but could not see the love of God that gave the Law to fallen Israel. The Pharisees believed that the Door to God was ritual, the keeping of the Law. Pity the Pharisees.

Pity anyone who tries to approach God through any door other than Jesus. You cannot approach God unless you go through Jesus Christ.

• The Pharisees used the Law as a door to reach God. This door produced a stony, loveless heart in each of these deceived souls.
• The Saducees used politics as a door to reach God. This door produced a dry, hopeless theology, one that taught that - once you die - that's it! Pitiful, pitiful.
• The Romans used the military as a door to reach God. They even claimed that Caesar was a sort of God, and persecuted any who did not revere him. Rome today is no nation at all, just a broken religious husk.
• Herod used self satisfaction as a door to reach God. Yet he died a miserable death, and he is remembered with disdain.
• The rich young ruler used riches and religion as a door to reach God. We do not even know his name. Thus you see the value of chasing the riches of this world as a door.

Here is the greatest indictment of the Pharisees: Perfect Love healed a blind man, a man blind from birth, but Religion could only see that the blind man was healed on the Sabbath.

Our Lord Jesus was ministering in Jerusalem when, as He walked and talked with His disciples, He saw a man who was born blind. In most societies when people are afflicted with disease or disabilities there is an immediate assumption that God is punishing that person. It was no different in Israel. The disciples saw the man and asked the question, "Was the man born blind because he sinned, or because his parents sinned?" (John 9:2). Jesus answered with a profound truth that God wants to share with you today. Sickness and disease are not, by any means, necessarily always evidence that God is displeased with the afflicted. Sometimes the Love of God creates a vessel of clay with a crack, a blemish, some imperfection so that the Master can show His great love in the midst of trial. So it was with this young man.

God created this young man blind from birth not to punish him, nor to punish his parents, but to show that Jesus is the Light of God and that religion for religion's sake is darkness. Religion without relationship with God is empty, futile, useless. Ritual without relationship with God Who is love is both faceless and useless.

Love looked at this young man, bent down, and "spat on the ground" (John 9:6). Beloved, even the spittle of our Savior is more precious than the empty ritual of the Pharisee. Jesus took that spittle, mixed it with the dirt of the earth, and put this mixture on the eyes of the blind man. Jesus then told the man to go to the pool Siloam and wash himself. The nameless man did as Jesus asked, and his sight was cleared, his eyes opened.

Jesus saved this man from a lifetime of blindness, darkness, staggering, and begging. The Pharisees saw that the man was healed, but rather than praise God for his healing they indicted Jesus, they accused Jesus, they tried and convicted Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. What an indictment! Jesus healed on the Sabbath, and for that He must be accused.

Jesus is the Door of Perfect Salvation. The Pharisees had the Law of Moses by which they tried to work their way to God. The harder they worked, the more they became ritualized, the more they used the Law of Moses without first having a relationship with God Who is Love, the harsher they became in their lives. Law without Love harshens. Ritual without relationship coarsens.

The sheep will not hear the thieves and robbers, the religious without love, the ritual without relationship. The sheep know the gentle touch of the Master. They see Him at night, when fearful sounds come out of the dark. They see Him framed in the moonlight, tall and strong, lovingly watching the flock lest a wolf come in our midst. Jesus is the door of Perfect Salvation.

Application: The Scripture says:

(Hebrews 7:22-25 KJV) "By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. {23} And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death: {24} But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. {25} Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them."

Jesus Christ, the Great Shepherd, is able to save to the uttermost. He does not save just at the moment we give ourselves to Him, but Jesus - because we are His sheep, because we are His Beloved - Jesus keeps on saving. He lives, sitting even now at the right hand of God the Father, ever making intercession for us. The Perfect Salvation that we have in Jesus not only includes a guarantee that we shall one day kneel at our Savior's feet in Heaven, but that Perfect Salvation protects us as we move through this life. As Jesus said:

(John 10:9) ".. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture ... "

You do not have a hope so salvation in Jesus, but you have a know so salvation. Jesus has promised that if we rely on His payment, on His imputation (which we neither earned nor deserved), then then that person shall be saved, both in eternity and in life. Our Shepherd shall lead us to good pasture, providing our every need.

(John 10:10-13 KJV) "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly<perissos {pronounced = per-is-sos’ } beyond measure, exceedingly abundantly above>. {11} I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. {12} But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. {13} The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep."

a. The Christian Has Eternal Life

The Christian has eternal life, yes, eternal life because of the eternal, unchangeable payment of Christ. We have life, Eternal Life. You can rest on that truth, bank on that truth, believe that truth, for it comes from God Almighty. As the Scripture says:

(John 10:10) "... I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly .."

and Again:

John 10:28-30 (KJV) "And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. {29} My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. {30} I and my Father are one."

That life is a free gift given us by our Shepherd. But that, glorious though it be, is not the only life that we have from Christ.

b. The Christian In Fellowship Has A Better Quality Of Life

If we follow Him whom we have believed, our Shepherd, we will have a much better quality of life while we yet walk this earth. Consider the Pharisees who followed Jesus so as to accuse Him. Consider how pathetic, how empty, how hypocritical, how vain their lives had become. Religion and Phariseeism sees healing on the Sabbath as a violation of God's Law. The Good Shepherd sees healing on the Sabbath Day as an outpouring of the Love of God. Religion sees man as fallen, unredeemable unless he perfectly follows a series of rituals. The Good Shepherd sees the sheep, sees our need, sees our lost estate - and moves to help us with His very life. Though the law of religion forbade comfort and healing on the Sabbath, Christ Jesus our Savior was compelled to heal. Can Perfect Love do any less than heal His creation?

(C.H. Spurgeon) "... (Jesus) bequeaths us his manger, from which to learn how God came down to man; and his Cross to teach us how man may go up to God. All his thoughts, emotions, actions, utterances, miracles, and intercessions, were for us. He trod the road of sorrow on our behalf, and hath made over to us as his heavenly legacy the full results of all the labors of his life. He is now as much ours as heretofore; and he blushes not to acknowledge himself “our Lord Jesus Christ,” though he is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords. Christ everywhere and every way is our Christ, for ever and ever most richly to enjoy. O my soul, by the power of the Holy Spirit! call him this morning, “thy Redeemer.”"...

The Pharisees shock us with the emptiness of their conversation ... Jesus Christ surprises us with His tenderness of heart. You may have riches beyond counting in this life, yet be a pauper if you know not Christ. What child has not walked in the fields and looked at the wonder of God's Creation: each flower perfectly formed, each blade of grass colorfully hued, moving gently in the unseen breeze? What child of God has not walked out on the dewey slopes of earth, watching the sunrise and hearing the whisper of our Savior, that whisper which says "I love you"? What man or woman has not cradled a newborn babe in their arms and seen the wonder of the tiny toes, the tiny fingers - can you not hear Him call to you?

c. The Christian In Fellowship Has Certain Protection In Life

We have all had hard times, yet Jesus keeps providing - our Shepherd keeps providing our every need. Jesus provides our emotional needs, He provides our spiritual needs, He provides our physical needs. Our Lord is neither wolf nor hireling, but our Shepherd. Our Lord does not fleece the flock, nor does He run from the flock when it is in need. If Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners, lost and undone, separated from Him, then will He do less than protect us now while we are His and He is ours?

I do not know the source of this illustration, but I am told that it is true.

A young soldier found himself in a terrible battle. The enemy was soundly defeating this young man's platoon. He and his comrades found themselves hastily retreating from the battlefield in defeat, running away in fear of their very lives.

The enemy gave chase. This young man ran hard and fast, full of fear and desperation, and soon found himself cut off from his comrades in arms.

He eventually came upon a rocky ledge containing a cave. Knowing the enemy was close behind, and that he was exhausted from the chase, he chose to hide there. After he crawled in, he fell to his face in the darkness, desperately crying to Jesus to save him and protect him from his enemies.

When he looked up from his despairing plea for help, he saw a spider beginning to weave its web at the entrance to the cave. As he watched the delicate threads being slowly drawn across the mouth of the cave, the young soldier pondered its irony. He thought, “I asked God for protection and deliverance, and He sent me a spider instead. How can a spider save me?”

His heart was hardened, knowing the enemy would soon discover his hiding place and kill him. And soon he did hear the sound of his enemies, who were now scouring the area looking for those in hiding. One soldier with a gun slowly walked up to the cave's entrance. As the young man crouched in the darkness, hoping to surprise the enemy in a last-minute desperate attempt to save his own life, he felt his heart pounding wildly out of control.

As the enemy cautiously moved forward to enter the cave, he came upon the spider's web, which by now was completely strung across the opening. He backed away and called out to a comrade, “There can't be anyone in here. They would have had to break this spider's web to enter the cave. Let's move on.”

Where God is, a spider's web is as a stone wall. Where God is not, a stone wall is as a spider's web.

Application: As the Scripture says:

(Romans 5:5-8 KJV) "And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. {6} For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. {7} For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. {8} But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

If Christ gave His life for you, then what would cause Him to abandon you in your times of need? He has already paid the greater penalty for our eternal salvation, would He not pay the lesser price for our protection in this life? Yes, Beloved, yes!

3. Jesus Christ Is The Door Of Perfect Love

(John 10:14-18 KJV) "I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. {15} As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. {16} And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. {17} Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. {18} No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father."

The Good Shepherd surprises us with the richness of His love. The religious and the Pharisee surprise us with their unbending lovelessness. The well of Christ's love can never be drawn dry. There can never be a time where the child of God can say, "Jesus just doesn't love me anymore"! Such a thing is impossible. Once more, if Christ did the greater thing at the Cross, shall He do a lesser thing now in our lives?

Perfect Love along has the power to duplicate His Love in our lives. If God is your Father, you have the ability to love Christ and to love one another. The Pharisees had no such ability, for they knew not Christ:

(John 8:42-44 KJV) "Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. {43} Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. {44} Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."

(2 Corinthians 13:11 KJV) "Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you."

Not so the believer. The love of God is shed in your hearts through Jesus if you are saved, and once that Perfect Love enters our lives we must share that Love with others. Jesus Christ asks that we who are His walk in love, as He walked in love:

(Ephesians 5:2 KJV) "And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor."

The Pharisees, that old religious crowd, did not walk in love. They walked in tradition, they walked in the rigidity of the Law, they walked in carnal pride and self righteousness. For the Pharisees the greatest thing was to follow the ritual rather than the Reality. God our Creator, even in the Book of the Law, said:

(Proverbs 21:2-4 KJV) "Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts. {3} To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice. {4} An high look, and a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked, is sin."

(Hosea 6:6 KJV) "For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings."

What does God want of a person? He wants a submissive, loving life, following the example that our Lord Jesus gave us when He walked this earth. What does God want of a person? Look to Jesus. Wherever Jesus walked, He loved. Wherever Jesus talked, He loved. Even as He hung dying from that old tree, He loved. God does not want a prideful person to follow Him. God does not want an arrogant, ritual worshipping person to follow Him. God desires that His people, those whom He has called to salvation, to forsake pride and to walk in love and mercy. To our God, to know Him through His Word, this is greater than the rituals that we often focus on.

Application: The Bible tells us that "God so loved the world, that He gave us His only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). The great love of God that passes all understanding offers salvation, life, and love to all who will call on the name of Jesus. Jesus Christ is the only door to God, the only door to life. A life in Christ is a rich life indeed, but you must be in Christ. Accept Jesus Christ as your Savior today. (Closure)