The Door Is Open | I AM - Part Three | Sunday Service

If you have your Bibles, grab those this morning.

We're going to jump straight into the Word together this morning.

I'm going to bypass the dad jokes this morning.

I really, I really don't want to, but um I'm going to, for those of you that are thankful for that, say thank you, Pastor.

You're welcome.

Some of y'all don't have a sense of humor, that's okay.

I love you anyway.

Stand with me as we read God's word together today.

John chapter 10.

John 10 · chapter mention

John chapter 10, verses 1 through 10.

John 10:1–10

We are looking at the seven I am statements that Jesus makes in the book of John.

These seven statements give us a picture of who he is and what he does in our lives.

And today we're going to look at the image of the door.

Everybody say the door.

And we're going to unpack how Jesus wants to be the door of our lives.

And all that means.

Verse 1.

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

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

The gatekeeper opens the gate.

Don't underestimate.

Don't overlook how significant it is that the Bible says that God calls each of us by name.

Our God is a personal God that desires a personal relationship with every person.

Let me say it this way: you aren't just another number to him.

You're his son and daughter.

Don't miss the significance of that.

When he has brought out all of his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.

Why do they know his voice?

Because he's personal.

They will never follow a stranger.

In fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice.

Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.

Shocker, they never did.

Therefore, verse 7, Jesus said again, very truly, I tell you, I am, I am the gate.

All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them.

Verse 9, he reiterates it.

I am the door.

And whoever enters through me, through me, through me, will be.

Come on, somebody, will be.

But I have come, Jesus says, I have come.

This is my purpose.

This is my mission.

This is my objective.

I have come that you might have life and it more abundantly.

Can somebody say amen to that this morning?

Church, this is God's word, and the title of my message this morning is simply this.

The door is open.

Come on in.

The door is open.

Come on in.

The door is open.

Come on.

Say that after me this morning.

The door is open.

Come on in.

Turn to your neighbor and say the door is open.

Come on in.

Turn to the other neighbor and say the door is open.

Come on in.

All right, turn around to the person behind you and say the door is open.

Come on in.

Father, we thank you for your word today.

Your word is a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path.

Shows us the way to go and how to arrive there safely.

And I pray this morning that we wouldn't just be hearers of your word, but that would be doers of it.

In Jesus' mighty name.

And everybody said, You may be seated.

Thank you, Caleb.

In our world that we live in, we don't think about doors very much.

We walk through so many doors on any given day that we can miss, we can overlook the significance of what we're doing when we walk through a door.

See, a door is really a threshold.

A threshold that is separating two different worlds.

So when you walk through a door, everybody say through a door, through a door, you're leaving one world and you're stepping into another world.

As I said, we really don't think about that very much in our world because we walk through so many doors on any given day.

But this truth for me became very real many years ago when I stepped into what I thought and on the surface looked like an innocent little souvenir shop.

And quickly found out that it was anything but innocent or anything but a souvenir shop.

It was actually a witchcraft store.

Let me tell you the story.

I was in Providence, Rhode Island, many years ago on a college trip.

I was in my early 20s and had the opportunity to go to Providence and study there for a summer.

The summer between my sophomore and my junior year of college at the University of Alabama Roll Tide.

They play sometime today, and I need to get that in.

Anybody else excited about March Madness?

Come on, somebody.

I love this time of the year.

So I was there on a college trip and we got to tour some incredible historic sites in American history, and it was just a great, great experience.

The one place, however, that we went to that I did not like at all was Salem, Massachusetts.

I mean, you guys know what happened in Salem, Massachusetts about 400 years ago.

It's the site of the Salem witch trials.

And to say that the city was eerie is a gross understatement.

I mean, as soon as we pulled into the town, it was it was a little bit of a mix of eeriness and awe.

It's a beautiful, old, old city with cobblestone streets and old buildings, and the main street is absolutely beautiful.

But the city itself had this eerie feel to it.

Anybody ever been in a place like that?

You know what I'm talking about.

So we're walking down Main Street and um finishing up our time there for the day and going to purchase some souvenirs, and we find a souvenir shop and looks great, and so we walk in.

And as soon as I crossed the threshold, the atmosphere changed.

I mean, it it was dramatic.

I I crossed the threshold and the atmosphere changed.

Conversation stopped immediately.

It wasn't just me that was recognizing something, it was the my classmates with me recognized that that we had entered a different world.

The hair on the back of my neck began to stand up.

I I shifted my attention from my classmates to the store.

I'm trying to get my bearings.

What in the world is going on and what have I walked into?

And as I'm scanning the store, the further you look back into the store, you could see that the thing shifted.

There were objects of the occult.

And I looked at my classmates and I said, uh, if y'all want to stay, y'all can stay.

Deuces, I'm out.

I turned around, whirled myself through the crowd, and stepped across the threshold.

It was so amazing to me and so dramatic that the threshold was literally the barrier separating two worlds.

When I stepped in, there was a weight, there was a heaviness, there was an oppression that was so tangible, it shifted the atmosphere.

When you step back out, it lifted.

And it was in that moment that I began to realize the significance of doors, thresholds.

They really are spaces separating one world from another world.

They're not just architectural aspects of a building.

You know what they really are?

Doors are spiritual thresholds separating one world from another.

And by your response to my story this morning, you've experienced stepping through a door and how different a world can be from what you were previously in.

If you're going to understand what Jesus is trying to communicate in John chapter 10, you need to understand the significance of what a door is, its purpose, its function.

John 10 · chapter mention

See, see, a door really does three things.

A door grants access in.

Everybody say in.

What you find is that doors were the places, gates were the places where people of authority sat and they literally decided the destiny of the city of the nation at the place of the door.

At the place of the gate.

So I don't want you to miss this because you can't really understand what Jesus is trying to communicate if you don't understand what a door does.

It controls access.

Everything that a door does, Jesus says, I am that for you, and I want to be the door of your life.

How many of you guys think the thankful that Jesus is the door of your life?

So let's break these things down.

Really, what Jesus tells us in these 10 verses, there's four things that he offers us as the door that we need to embrace and we need to get a hold of.

The four things are he gives us pardon, he gives us protection, he gives us his presence, and he gives us his provision.

These are the four things that Jesus says in John chapter 10 that he wants to give his children.

John 10 · chapter mention

I say yes to all four of those things.

How about you?

Let's break these down.

Number one, pardon.

Jesus says, I am the door of your life, and I am a door that saves.

In verse nine, he says, I am the gate.

Whoever enters through me will be what?

Come on, church.

Will be what?

Saved.

Through Jesus, we are pardoned.

We are forgiven of our sins and reconciled into a right relationship with God.

Listen, I'm gonna be honest with you.

If we didn't get anything else but the pardon, it'd all be worth it.

The Bible says that if we confess with our mouth and believe in our heart that Jesus is Lord, we will be saved.

Jesus, first and foremost, says, if you want entry into salvation, you have to come through me.

I grew up in a pastor's home.

My dad is a pastor, has been for 50 plus years.

As a matter of fact, uh, dad is gonna be with us preaching next Sunday.

So you don't want to miss miss that.

The bishop's gonna be in the house with us bringing the word, and it is always wonderful.

Or as as some people like to call him, Nick Saban is gonna be in the house next Sunday.

Uh they call me Kirby.

I don't really like that.

Thank you, Antonio, for that tagline.

My dad reminds me often that he's Nick and I'm Kirby, so I appreciate that.

Um I grew up in a pastor's home, and I and we grew grew up in a in a Pentecostal environment.

And and if you grew up in that kind of environment years ago, back during the 80s and 90s, you know that every Sunday night at church, you got saved all over again.

Any anybody with me this this morning?

It it Sunday night service was about rededicating your life to Christ.

And and things would be said like, don't leave here with unconfessed sin in your life, because if you do and you die in a car wreck on the way home, you might go to hell.

And so I was scared to death my whole life.

Anybody with me this morning?

I was scared to death.

I love God, I'm following God, but I'm saying I'm thinking that any mistake that I make is nullifying my salvation.

Church, that's not the gospel.

If if that's the gospel, grace is really weak.

I just want to tell you that your mistakes and your failures in your walk with the Lord don't nullify your salvation.

You don't have to rededicate your life every time you make a mistake.

All you do is repent, confess, and move on.

Because God's grace is all-sufficient.

And when we come through him as the door and we surrender our life to him, we are showered with his grace and with his goodness.

If one sin could nullify the sacrifice of our Savior, then the blood of Jesus is weaker than we say that it is.

The Bible, however, says that we overcome the enemy not by works, so that no man can boast, but by our testimony and by the blood of the Lamb that is all sufficient.

I'm thankful today that my mistakes don't nullify his work.

Come on, somebody.

I'd like you to tell us how you live so perfectly.

I don't live perfectly.

Oh, I strive to follow him with all of my heart and all of my life, but he reminds us in scripture that we are still flesh and blood, that we're still human, that we're still going to make mistakes.

I'm thankful today that my mistakes don't nullify my perseverance after him.

Through Jesus the door, we are offered salvation for all time.

I'm thankful.

Some of you may need this morning to stop wrestling with your salvation and thank him for his grace.

Second thing that Jesus offers us as the door is protection.

Everybody say, protection.

Jesus is the door that safeguards, he is the safeguard of our life.

Verse 1, very truly I tell you, the Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep bin by the gate but climbs in by some other way is a thief and a robber.

But we have a shepherd that is the door that protects us from every enemy, from every foe, from every adversary that would attempt to attack our lives.

I'm so thankful that I don't have to have my own security system.

Now I do it my house.

But can I tell you, even my house has a security system that's bigger than the technology that is wired into it?

Can I tell you the best security system you can have for your house is the blood of Jesus?

Just because it happened in the Old Testament doesn't mean we don't need to apply it in the New Testament.

If we remember when Israel was being freed from the bondage of Egypt and the last curse was being broken that would free Israel from captivity was the death angel.

And when the death angel came, what protected the children of Israel from the adversary?

It was the blood of the lamb that was applied to the threshold of their house.

See, your door has the power to protect you from what's outside if it's got the blood of Jesus on it.

I believe in security systems.

Many of you work in that arena.

I approve of that.

Anoint my doors, my heart.

Home, apply the blood of Jesus, God.

When we do that, the Bible tells us that no weapon formed against us shall prosper.

Notice, it doesn't say it won't be formed.

No weapon formed against us.

Oh, the weapon may be formed, it just doesn't have the power to prosper against you.

See, the enemy's really good at forming weapons against us, but the Bible reminds us, even when they are formed and they take shape and they're trying to attack us, they have no protection against us.

They will not prosper in Jesus' name.

The Bible tells us that he will cover us with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge.

He is your faithfulness, he will be your shield and your rampart.

I'm thankful for the protection of Jesus in my life.

I'm thankful that greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world.

Can I just clear something up theologically for you today?

I know you know this in your head, but sometimes we don't work it out well in our lives.

The enemy was created by the creator, and the created can never equal the creator.

And far too often in our lives, we view the enemy as an equal opposite of the Lord.

What Jesus reminded us that he saw Lucifer fall like lightning from heaven, it was at the word.

Listen, God didn't even have to lift a hand, he didn't have to lift an arm.

Why?

Because they're not equal, church.

So quit treating the enemy as if he's the equal of your protector.

Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.

It's time that the practice of our faith lines up with the theology of our faith.

He is our protector.

In every regard.

Doesn't mean, don't miss, doesn't mean trouble won't come.

Jesus promised, trouble's gonna come, but greater is he.

Number three, Jesus, as the door offers us his presence.

Jesus is the door that shepherds us.

Verse three, the gatekeeper opens the gate for him.

And the sheep listen to his voice.

He calls them by name.

Oh, don't miss that.

That's so good, church.

Listen, every other religion, every other God is something that's far off removed, that doesn't know those that are serving it.

But our God knows us by name.

Ordained our steps, leads them out.

Verse 4, when he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him.

Why?

Because they know his voice.

One of the greatest promises that we have in Scripture is that our God isn't far off and removed from his people, but he is up close and personal with us.

As a matter of fact, I heard an old time preacher say one time, God has a middle name.

You know what his middle name is?

Emmanuel, God with.

God with.

That he will never leave you, he will never forsake you, that he'll be a friend that sticks closer than a brother, a very present help in time of trouble.

Even when Jesus was departing from his disciples and they were wondering, what are we gonna do without you?

Jesus interrupted their conversation and said, Oh, just because I go away doesn't mean I'm not gonna be with you because I'm gonna send a helper that's not just gonna be with you.

As a matter of fact, he's gonna be so close, he's gonna be in you.

I'm thankful that my God is with me.

See, the lie of the enemy is that you're alone.

Nobody sees you, nobody knows what's going on in your life.

Nobody cares, nobody's concerned.

The Bible tells us that we have a God that sees.

Number four, fourth thing that Jesus offers us is provision.

Jesus is the door that supplies.

He supplies all of our needs according to his riches and glory.

In verse 10, Jesus said the thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.

Only to steal.

That's his only objective.

That's his purpose.

He wants to steal, he wants to kill, he wants to destroy.

Can I let me just just give me just a second?

I know we had worship that was amazing.

Hey, put your hands together for our worship team and how they usher us into the presence of the Lord.

And we had ministry time, but I've got a word that's gonna help you today if you'll give me just a few minutes.

Do you know that the things that God encourages us not to partake in?

Things called sin.

The Bible says that sin on the surface looks appetizing.

And and even sin for a season can feel good.

But the Bible tells us it always ends in the objective of the enemy to kill, steal, and destroy.

So what we need to understand as followers of Jesus is that when God invites us to follow him in his way, he's not trying to keep us from fun.

He's trying to keep us from bondage.

He's trying to keep us free from the things of life that can hold us in captivity.

He's kind of trying to keep us free from things that can kill, steal, and destroy our lives.

Here, Jesus makes the statement abundantly clear.

I've come for one reason, that you might have life in it to the full.

Supply all of your needs according to his riches and glory.

Psalm 16, David declares, in your presence there is fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures evermore.

John chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

John declares that in Jesus there is fullness of joy in his presence, there is peace, there is hope, there is every true need that we have, and our lives are met in him.

Can I tell you the greatest need for your life isn't more things, it's more of him.

If we're not careful in our world that we live in, we can put a characteristic upon God that's not anything that God associates with himself.

The Bible is very clear that our God doesn't have scarce resources.

The Bible says, as a matter of fact, he has a cattle on a thousand hills that we know not of.

And because we live in a world of scarcity, we can adopt a scarcity mentality relative to who our God is.

But the Bible counteracts that in every regard and says that God lavishes his grace upon us, that he pours it out abundantly above all we could ask or think or imagine.

Here in John chapter 10, Jesus said, I've come that you wouldn't have a scarce life, but that you would have an abundant life, a full life in every regard in me.

John 10 · chapter mention

We need to throw off a scarcity mentality that the world keeps trying to put on us and embrace the abundance of our God.

It'll change how you live.

When you know all you have need of in every area of your life is found in him.

It's not found in your hard work, although that's needed.

It's not found in your intellect, although that's good.

We have need for all those things.

But as we said earlier in the service, we're not enough, but he's more than enough.

We need to understand through Jesus the door, our needs are abundantly supplied.

Now, some of you are thinking this morning, and I'm gonna wrap this up and bring this to a conclusion, and um, you're not gonna give me a lot of credit for how quickly I have done this this morning, but I've got a lot more notes than we're gonna go through.

Some of you are thinking this morning, I'm experiencing some of that.

But not all of it.

Maybe not even most of it.

And you're you're thinking as I've been preaching, yeah, he he's forgiven my sin.

Yes, he has protected me some, but I've experienced some things that I question his protection about.

I've experienced his presence, but not to the degree that I desire or maybe even expected.

And yeah, my needs have been met, but man, if I was honest today, my life has been defined more by scarcity than abundance.

And you're you're thinking, if this is what Jesus the door does, why am I not experiencing more of that in my life?

I don't know all the reasons for that, but I'll offer you one thought.

A lot of times when we don't experience the fullness that Jesus offers us, is because we've opened the door of our life to him as well as to the enemy.

What do you mean, Pastor?

What I mean is that we as a people have multiple doors in our lives.

The Bible tells us that our eyes are a gate.

See, what we look at is a door that impacts our life, our ears are a gate.

What I listen to is a door into my life.

My mouth, what I consume, and I'm not just talking about food, I'm talking about what you consume in your life is a door.

Who you walk with is a door.

So when you really look at our lives practically, what what we find is that Jesus says, I want to be the door, and we open our life to Him as the door, but we don't close wrong doors.

We keep looking at things that we don't need to look at, we keep listening to things that we don't need to listen to, we keep consuming things that we don't need to consume, and we keep walking with people that we don't need to walk with, and we wonder why we struggle with the things that we struggle with.

Am I preaching to anybody this morning?

See, we when we don't experience the fullness that God has for us, it's because a lot of times we've got too many doors open.

I know there's more, but I can't seem to get there.

And I know there's freedom, but I keep struggling with the same old things.

It's because we haven't closed the door to the enemy that we opened maybe years ago.

And I believe that part of our abundant life that we have in Jesus is connected to opening our life to Him.

Yes, first and foremost, number one.

Number two, it's closing doors that we've opened to the enemy.

And I want to be careful here because this is where churches and ministers and believers can get real legalistic, and this isn't about legalism, this is about lordship and having one Lord over your life and making him the door for every gate in your life, that through Jesus, I'm gonna allow him to set what I look at, I'm gonna let him set what I listen to.

I'm gonna let him set what I consume.

I'm gonna let him set who I walk with because what I have found, whether it's what I look at, what I listen to, or what I consume, or who I walk with, all of those things affect my thinking.

When I look at something, I will think about it.

When I listen to something, I will think about it.

When I consume something, I will think about.

And so what I think about, I always end up desiring.

And if I desire it long enough, then I will always pursue it.

And so you're wondering why you're pursuing both Jesus on one hand and something of the enemy on the other, is because you haven't shut the door, you've left the door open, and it's time to close the door, it's time to cut the enemy off from having access.

Remember, what does a door do?

It grants access.

Well, how do you keep the enemy out?

You got to shut the door, and so if you want to really move forward with God, you got to go through Jesus the door.

And as you're walking with Him, you make Him the door of every gate of your life.

Closing.

Now I'm not gonna look at that.

I'm I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna listen to that.

I'm not gonna consume that.

Lord Jesus, help me.

Consuming isn't, when I say that, immediately your mind is going to food.

But you know that we consume a lot of other things in our lives.

As I was preparing this message, the thing that came immediately to my mind is that we consume experiences and activities.

And we keep consuming them because of the emotion that it creates of happiness in our lives.

That's almost a retreat from the everyday.

Listen, if you're having to retreat all the time from your normal day to day, your normal day to day is not right.

We live in a community.

I like I look, Meg and I love to travel.

I love to see the world.

I love getting out and going.

I, you know, it's a big world that God created, and I will see it all.

Can somebody say amen to that this morning?

But if we're not careful, as we do that, we accumulate, consume experiences and activities.

And oh, I want to go there and I'll go to this.

And all of a sudden we want to consume, we want more vacations and we want more trips, and we want more retreats, and we want more time of way.

In order to do those things, then we've got to work more to produce more money so that we can have those experiences, and all the while we're missing the abundant life that God provided for us.

Does that resonate with anybody this morning?

There's nothing, peace no here, there's nothing wrong with a vacation.

We all need vacations.

We all need downtime.

But if that has become the driving factor in your life, it probably means you've got a door open that the enemy is exploiting.

Do you still love me?

There's some doors that we've got to shut and allow Jesus to you the door over every gate of our life.

You stand with me where you are this morning.

I want to thank you for giving me a little bit of liberty today.

We're gonna wrap this up, but before we do, I want us to respond.

Together this morning.

You may be here this morning and say, Pastor, I've got some doors and some gates open in my life that I know I need to shut.

How do I do that?

It's not complicated, church.

It's not complicated at all.

As a matter of fact, if there's some doors and gates that you need to shut, the Bible tells us there's three things that we have to do.

We have to confess it, acknowledge that it's open.

Repent, ask for forgiveness for opening it.

And number three, apply the blood of Jesus to it and close it.

Jesus, I'm making you the door of my life.

How many of you would say, yeah, there's probably some doors in my life that I need to close?

There's things that I've had to close in my life.

I mean, look, I'm gonna be transparent.

I I pretty much, I'm pretty much not on social media.

And I know that's a profession for some, and I'm not belittling your profession.

But for me, for Jeremy, it's not a door that I need to open in my life.

I'm not telling you to be like me.

This isn't legalism.

I'm just being honest as an illustration of doors that need to close so that I can experience the fullness of God in my life.

Did you hear what I'm saying this morning?

So you just bow your heads right where you stand this morning.

And pray this prayer.

I just want everybody to pray this prayer with me today.

Lord Jesus, I make you the door of my life.

I confess today that I've opened some doors to the enemy.

I acknowledge it.

Today I turn from it.

I close that door.

I ask you to forgive me of it.

And today I apply your blood to that door.

You are the standard.

You are the gatekeeper of that door.

Only allow in what is of you and keep out what is of the enemy.

In Jesus' name.

And everybody said, Amen.

Amen.

I just have a parting habit to encourage you with today.

This week, as you go about your life, every time you walk through a door, I want the door to be a sign.

Jesus, I receive your pardon.

Jesus, I receive your protection.

Jesus, I receive your presence.

Jesus, I receive your provision.

Every time you walk through a door this week, I just want you to say that.

Can you do that this week?

Say that after me.

Jesus, you're the door of my life.

Be my pardon.

Be my protection.

Be my presence.

Be my provision.

In Jesus' name.

Everybody said?

Amen.