I am -- I Am the Door of the Sheep -- John 10:1-10

1. Introduction
I used to be the member of a secret society as a Teenager called the Order of Demolay. One thing you did not want to do was to be late for a chapter meeting. It was a huge deal if you were late. You would show up and the member watching the outside of the door called the sentinel would quiz you. You go to school with this guy. You come to meetings twice a month with this guy and he still quizzes you about the step, sign, and token of the initiation and then the password and secret handshake. Then he knocks on the door with the secret knock and that knock is answered with a knock from the inside.
Let’s change scenes. We are now inside the chapter room and the knock comes to the door. The officer sitting by the door, the junior deacon, stands and says to the leader, the master councilor, that there is an alarm at the door. The leader tells him to “ascertain” the purpose for the alarm. The junior Deacon would ten knock on the door and open it and ask the sentinel and then report to the MC, “Brother Waller seeks admission to the chapter.” The MC would than ask, “Can anyone vouch for Brother Waller?” Again, these are all guys you go to school with and you have these chapter meetings every couple of weeks. Someone would raise their hand and vouch for you and then you are allowed in the door but you have to walk to center of the room and give a secret sign to the Master Counselor.

2. Describing the Biblical Text
As we look at this text, we see Jesus continuing to teach regarding Himself and his identity.
He is beginning here to show his legitimacy as the shepherd and in the process of doing that he makes a very surprising and I think unusual claim about himself.
He sort of moves from the idea of being the shepherd, an ideas to which we will return, to the idea of being the door or the gate for the sheep.

3. Narrate the Contextual application
He was telling the Pharisees that he was more than a man.
He was the gate through which God’s sheep must pass.
They would not lose the imagery of the idea that there is a gate and it is only to let the shepherd and sheep in and out.
Anything else that tried to use that gate would be rejected and turned away or if it was a predator, it would be killed.
I remember spending the night with my uncle and in the middle of the night, I was awakened by a bang and then another bang. I grabbed a pair of pants and went outside and it turns out that there was a wild dog after Uncle Palmer’s chickens. But that dog would never steal another chicken again. But that dog jumped the fence and did not use the gate because he was not entering for legitimate purposes. However, the chickens would use the gate. They would come in to roost and lay and they would go out to scratch and feed. They used the gate and the chickens were cared for abundantly.

4. Life Application (thesis)
No one is any more expert on life be it eternal or abundant than Jesus.
As Jesus describes himself as the door, He makes a very important statement at the end.
I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.
This would lead us to this conclusion.
Knowing Jesus gives His followers abundant life.

5. SO WHAT!! (Outline)
I want to tell you about a friend of mine named Renée. She was a really good pianist and could lead music pretty well. But, Renée could not give directions worth a flip. Some where in every set of directions she would give would be the statement, “If you get to the _____, you have gone too far.” Instead of telling you where to turn, she would tell where you missed the turn, when you went beyond the street or road or even the destination.
When we see this word abundant in the NT, we get that same sense.
It is from a word that literally means beyond.
It’s like that Christian song that plays on the radio some times.
“Life is good eternal; life is better.”
But, as we look having abundant life in Jesus, that is having a life that goes above and beyond, we are going to se why that happens.
Let’s look at 2 hinges of abundant life this morning.
Abundant life hinges on the connection between the sheep and the shepherd.

What is funny is that we are not really talking about the shepherd and we won’t talk about the shepherd until next week.
But the gate as we see it in this passage is that which allows the shepherd to enter the sheepfold.
As we get the idea from verse 1, the gate really validates the one who passes through it.
The people who pass through the gate are the ones who have the right to come through it.
The gate and by association, the gatekeeper, only opens the gate to those who are supposed to come in.

Those who do not enter by the gate are thieves and robbers.
This points us to something that is really important to see.
The Pharisees, who were placing an undue burden on the people by forcing to keep a ridiculously rigid legal code to even have access to God, are the object of Jesus analogy in this comparative metaphor.
He is in essence calling them thieves and robbers because they are stealing the joy of a relationship with God from the people.
They are making it too burdensome and therefore too miserable to be a good Jewish adherent.

Jesus is saying that they are not coming into the sheepfold through the gate.
They are climbing the fence much like that wild dog did that I told you about earlier.
The point then is this.
If they do have a legitimate relationship with the people of God, can they lead them?
The obvious answer to that is no.
The law which they were making so cumbersome was killing the people rather than pointing them to life.
These Pharisees should have seen the gate open and they should have heard the shepherd’s voice as he entered.
Yet, they disputed the shepherd.
They argued with Him and they tried to kill Him.

Jesus is saying I have come in through the gate.
Have you ever been expecting company and you tell them to let yourself in?
Or maybe you are visiting your relative or parents or something and just go to the door and you don’t knock, you just go inside the house.
When he says that the shepherd comes in by the gate, he is saying that he is letting himself in.
God is the only one who has the authority to be both be the shepherd and the one who let’s the shepherd inside.
This speaks to His involvement in regards to our salvation which is complete.
Gods prepares us for the coming of the shepherd becoming the door to give access to the shepherd.
The shepherd then is able to reach the sheep that do what?
The sheep follow him because they know his voice.
The shepherd is connected to the sheep.
There is a relationship there that gives the shepherd access to the sheep through the gate or door which is also the shepherd.
And we hear His voice and we follow Him.

The seconds hinge that we can see here is that abundant life hinges on the convection between the sheep and the shepherd.Convection is just something that is swirling.
A convection oven cooks with moving air.
A tornado comes out of a convecting cloud.
I want to show you that the metaphor changes in verse 9.
No longer do we see the shepherd as the one passing through the door.
Now we see the sheep.
The come in and they are saved or rescued.
Colossians 1:9-12 has a prayer of the apostle Paul for the church and at the very end of that prayer, we see something very important: Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.
Jesus is the gate to bring the sheep qualified or prepared by the Father to come in to the sheepfold and they are saved.
Is the gate standing open now?
Are you feeling like you want to enter the sheepfold that Jesus might lead you for the rest of your life?
All have sinned
Wages death
Gift of God
But as many as received Him

The greatest thing about this passage is where it leads
If anyone enters though Christ, he is saved.
He comes and goes and finds pasture.
That relationship to the shepherd leads us to having our needs met in him.
Finding pasture is the equivalent to finding all we need and all that fulfills us.
And, we find that when we enter into a relationship with God through Christ.
That is what I mean by convecting with the shepherd.
We come and we go as His sheep and we3 trust him to meet our needs.
This is abundant life.
It is stating as Paul did that we have learned to be content in Christ.
We are trusting Him with what we have and also trusting him in what we do not have.
I want to ask you this morning.
Are we convecting with Christ?
Is he leading our coming in and our going out?
If we don’t have abundant life, life that goes beyond, it is because we have not yet yielded our lives to Christ but we are following a thief that only wants to kill steal and destroy.
He is come to give us life, and to give it abundantly.