Jesus Is: The Gate | Part 3

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Well, good morning, Awakening Church.

Great to be with you.

And wow, you guys did amazing.

Way to get up this morning.

Why, Daylight Savings, it just gets me every year.

When are we going to be done with this?

Anyways, that's another another talk for another time that doesn't need time up here.

We're in a series called Jesus Is.

And we've been asking this question, who is Jesus?

In fact, we've said it this way over the last couple weeks that if you have any intellectual intelligence, you have to fundamentally ask that question, who is Jesus?

He is absolutely the most important figure in all of human history.

We date our time to his life.

We're in the year 2023, Ano Domini, the year of our Lord.

He was this obscure carpenter-turned rabbi that was in this part of the Roman Empire that was very obscure and then eventually was executed by Rome itself.

And yet, 2,000 years later, we're still talking about him, intrigued by him.

Who is this man?

I think even a better question or bigger question is who did Jesus say that he was?

Like who does he say?

Like if you ask him, Jesus, who are you?

What would he say?

And in John's Gospels, we actually get seven I am statements.

Jesus, who are you?

This is who I am.

Week one, we talked about Jesus.

He said, I am the bread of life.

Week two, last week, he said, I am the light of the world.

This week, Jesus says, I am the gate or I am the door.

Next week, we're going to look at Jesus being the good shepherd, the way, the truth, and the life.

I am the vine.

And then the series will conclude on Easter Sunday with Jesus, where he declares, I am the resurrection and the life.

No.

I was 16 years old, and I actually, this is another girl story.

I realize all three weeks have been a girl story.

Um, I don't know why.

But it was my first real girlfriend because I could finally drive.

You know what I mean?

And I was just like absolutely smitten, as any teenager is.

And I remember my dad sitting me down to not have the talk, that had already happened, but have a very important talk about what I was going through in this dating process.

And he sat me down, I said, son, I I know that you think you're in love.

And and I go, in my mind, I go, um, I don't think I am, I am in love.

I know that you think you're different.

I'm different.

I mean, in my mind, I am just arguing with him the entire time, uh, you know, and like this is gonna last forever.

He said, but son, these are things that just happen as a teenager, and all in my mind, I am arguing with him, disagreeing with every single point that he brought up.

Of course, not out loud, just in my mind.

And of course, as you all now know, I wasn't any different.

She was not the love of my life, and thank God I did meet the love of my life later on.

And there's something interesting that I think we all do, but I I definitely did there.

What's interesting is we can often think that those who have our best interests are the people who agree with us or say what we want.

Instead of like my parents who go, like, oh no, they're just out of touch.

They just don't understand what it's like to be a teenager anymore.

You see, what's fascinating though is we grow up in life, but some of us don't ever grow out of that way of thinking.

Let me ask you this.

Who do you believe has your very best interests at heart?

Like, who do you fundamentally go?

They have my best interests.

And here's why this is important.

Those who you believe have your best interests, you actually will listen to, and perhaps you might even follow after.

In Jesus' day, those who were supposed to have the very best interests of the people of Israel were the religious leaders.

And yet they exploited their relationship, they put all these burdens onto people, they set stuff up for their own gain, for their own popularity, their own influence and effluence.

And no surprise, Jesus had incredible conflict with the religious leaders because they were supposed to be the ones shepherding the best interests of the people of Israel, and yet they were the ones who were exploiting and taking advantage of them.

And we pick up this next I am statement of Jesus, and it's actually Jesus confronting the Pharisees and where they're actually thinking they are the gatekeepers for who's in the community, who's a part of the people of God, and who are not.

And so the context for what Jesus is about to say happens just after someone got kicked out of synagogue.

You're like, whoa, you can do that?

They did that.

In fact, uh it was on a Sabbath day.

Jesus sees a man who was born blind, he has compassion on them, he heals him.

Think about this.

You have never seen in your entire life, and one day, all of a sudden, whoa, sight, you get to see everything.

How joyous and how amazing.

And he's seeing his friends, and they're like, oh my gosh, it's you can see his parents.

The Pharisees get word of this and they call him in and they begin to examine him and go, who did this?

Well, it was a Sabbath, you shouldn't heal.

That's silly, by the way.

Um and they examine them, and he says, This Jesus does, and they bring in his parents.

Is this true?

They say, Ask him, he's a man.

And then they go back at him, and Jesus or and the Pharisees are saying, Listen, now that you are a follower of Jesus, get out of the synagogue.

And they literally kick him out of the synagogue.

They were the gatekeepers of who was in and who was out.

Now think about this.

This man, he's like, I don't even really care about all that anymore.

I couldn't see.

I was begging on the side of the road, and now I can see.

And the Pharisees are so resistant to Jesus, not even recognizing that one of the great signs for the coming Messiah was that he would bring sight to the blind.

In fact, if you're following along in our journey through Lent last yesterday, we read Isaiah 41, where it foretold this is what this coming Messiah would do.

And Jesus had some very stern words for the gatekeepers of Israel.

We pick it up in John chapter 10, verse 1.

John 10:1

If you got your Bibles, wouldn't you go ahead and open up there?

John 10, verse 1.

John 10:1

He's speaking to the gatekeepers.

He says, 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.

The gatekeepers open the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice.

He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

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

But they'll never follow a stranger.

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

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

They're like, Okay, shepherds, sheep, we get this picture, we use that.

A shepherd is used of the picture of God.

Uh, it's also used of our kings and leaders and spiritual leaders, it's used of the coming picture of the one who would be the Messiah in Ezekiel chapter 34.

Ezekiel 34 · chapter mention

Jesus, what are you saying to us?

Therefore, Jesus said it again.

Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.

O you self-proclaimed gatekeepers.

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

I am the gate.

Whoever enters through me will be saved.

They will come in and go out and find pasture.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

I have come that they may have life and have it to the fool.

And then he's going to go on and talk about him being the good shepherd.

Here's what I want to do with our time.

Jesus introduces uh really four elements or four characters: the thief, the shepherd, uh, the sheep, and the gate.

And I just want to draw your attention and pull out some things that are really important for us in this day of what it means of who Jesus is and how we follow him and and who has our very best interests at heart.

Let's take a look at the thief.

The thief, by the way, doesn't come to bring freedom but destruction.

The free the thief doesn't come to bring freedom but destruction.

He says the thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

In ancient uh Palestine and all throughout the ancient days, thievery was a big issue and it was a big problem.

Uh, and having your flock, which was also part of your wealth stolen, was a major issue.

The way they would guard and protect, uh, especially during the winter months, is they would in the one city, one town, they would have one major pin that everyone would use, and they would pay a gatekeeper or a guard to stand guard over that.

All the sheep would come in at the end of the day there, and they would watch over that and protect it from any outside um robbers or bandits or wolves or uh lions or whatnot that would want to kill or destroy the sheep.

Now, it may seem obvious that the thief doesn't come to bring freedom but destruction.

And yet, here's what's interesting.

Jesus uses two different words here, thief and robber, and they mean something subtly different.

Thief means subtlety and trickery, and robber is one that does so by violence and plundering.

And I think in our mind, when we're thinking about the thief, we often think about the violence and the plundering, and we miss out on the subtlety and the trickery.

And so we aren't aware that the thief is actually at work and drawing and wooing us away from the pen.

Well, what does that look like?

See, I think the thief comes and the enemy comes and he says to the sheep and the pen, and he doesn't go, hey, you see this lovely pen for your safety?

No, no, no.

This is a prison.

This isn't, this isn't, you know, like stealing you.

This is a prison break from this, it is not a pen, this is a prison.

Don't you see outside and see all that vast landscape?

Wouldn't you want to roam free out there?

Look at how the moon's hitting the mountains.

Doesn't that look so enticing out there?

Aren't you tired of always listening to that shepherd that's calling you?

You know, he uses this whistle and you just perk up and you run after him, and you know, you have to go everywhere he leads.

Don't you want to go somewhere on your own?

Don't you want to have your own freedom?

Do your own thing?

Don't you get tired that when you do start to stray off the path that he he either calls you or he might even use his staff to kind of correct you and move you around?

Aren't you so tired of that?

See, the enemies always use subtlety and trickery all the way from the beginning.

Uh back in the garden with Adam and Eve, the enemy shows up, says the serpent was more crafty than all the other creatures.

And you know what he did?

First, he cast doubt on God's word.

First thing that the enemy wants to do subtly in our hearts is to cast doubt on God's word.

Did God really say you must not eat of any tree in the garden?

And then he cast doubt on God's character.

See, God doesn't want you to do that because then you'll be like him.

See, fundamentally, we know that the thief comes for our destruction, not for our freedom, but the thief is constantly telling us, no, it's for your freedom.

That's the reason we keep buying into it.

Keep thinking, beyond the pen, there's actually something better for me.

Beyond the shepherd's voice and beyond the shepherd's guidance, I actually can do this all on my own.

And we buy into it time and time again.

My friend was telling me about the tactics of uh coyotes, and he was telling me this.

I looked it up, and there's actually some dispute on whether this really happens, but it makes a really good illustration, so here we go.

That coyotes will come and actually play with a dog.

They'll send one in, a younger one, and just kind of play around and eventually lure the dog away from its home and to where the pack is waiting to kill it.

See, I think that's so often true of us, and that the enemy is like, hey, I'm just toying with it, I'm just playing with it.

I I just got some stuff.

You know what?

That pornography, that's not really that big of a deal, but it's actually gonna kill your marriage.

It's actually gonna kill your thriving.

You know, that conversation uh at work, and she's really nice, and he's really wonderful, and wow, they listen to you the way your spouse doesn't at home, and man, you guys are in it together.

You're building something important, and you play and you hang out, and eventually it undermines the thief, doesn't come to bring freedom but destruction.

The shepherd, on the other hand, we know this.

The shepherd's purpose is for the flourishing of his flock.

Fundamentally, the shepherd's purpose is for the flourishing of his flock.

I have come that they may have life and life to the full.

Now, when we translate this word full, we don't really get the full meaning of it.

Fool is like, oh, that's nice.

Life to the full.

This word full means exceeding abundantly above.

I just realized some of you can't even see the screen because of my door.

That better.

We'll move it off to the a little more to the side next service.

It means exceeding.

It exceeds abundantly above.

What is abundantly above?

Well, it's an extraordinary amount.

It's beyond measure.

And Jesus came, he said, I came that I would give you life, and life that exceeds abundantly above, it's beyond measure.

Like my purpose is for your flourishing.

It's the reason I showed up.

And so my ways, my guidance brings flourishing.

Sheep are pretty helpless on their own.

In the wild, they can kind of survive, but not for long.

In fact, uh, you'll see this if you Google this and I did, uh, that you'll find that there are some sheep that have gotten lost and have been found.

A lot of this happens in Australia.

A lot of sheep herding goes on there.

And what's interesting is I think in our minds, we think, if only I could get out and wander and do my own thing, then I'd finally be free.

And actually, we end up shackled down and stuck, and we're just trying to survive and rather than thrive.

I want to show you a slide.

This is uh a sheep named Chris.

Chris, uh they found him and he was uh on his own for about five or six years, got lost from some uh, you know, um flock, and he had 89 pounds of wool on him.

He only weighed his actual body 97 pounds.

About half of his body weight was wool.

He became so heavy that he could barely walk.

Um, he had multiple burns because of urine that got stuck in his wool.

And as they saw where he was at, they thought there's a good chance he wouldn't survive the very next summer heat.

And so they actually had to uh put him under and shave him.

Next slide, you can see there's Chris all, oh, it's all stretched out on you.

Uh, but there's Chris all um, you know, shorn up, and you can see the wounds.

Here's what I just want to say.

Just because it's for your flourishing doesn't always mean it feels good.

See, we translate flourishing with feeling good, and that's the reason we resist the good shepherd in our life.

The shepherd at the end of the night, as he's coming in, he would take his staff and he would put it low, and as the sheep would go into the gate, they would have to go in and climb under his staff.

And what he was doing is he's inspecting every single sheep to see if there's anything that happened throughout the day, any wounds they incurred.

He would anoint them with oil.

That's where we get that picture out of Psalm 23.

It's what the shepherd would do to bring healing and to bandage any wounds.

Like the tender care of, like, you know, it's kind of a hassle to go down.

It's kind of, yeah, but he sees what you're going through.

Think about the good shepherd of what Jesus says here.

He goes ahead.

He says, He goes ahead of you.

Think about, he doesn't drive you forward, he guides you in front of you.

He's not like, get going, get going, get going.

He says, Do you want to come?

I'm going this direction.

He guides you, he sets the pace.

The shepherd would uh the shepherds would lead either from the back or the front.

It was common to do either way.

Jesus says, I'm the shepherd that leads from the front so that I set the pace.

And so if you're weak, if you're young, you're not gonna get worn down or injured along the way.

He sets the pace, he scouts the path.

He goes in front to check and make sure, hey, is this all safe?

And think about the intentionality.

We don't know how si how big the flock was.

It could be a dozen, a few dozen, it could be actually up to a couple hundred.

He says he knows them by name.

You're not a number to this shepherd.

He knows you by name.

He personally knows you and calls you by name.

You're precious to him.

The thief.

He doesn't come to bring freedom but destruction.

The shepherd his purpose is for your flourishing.

And sheep, they fundamentally need a shepherd to thrive, not just survive.

And here's what I want to point out about the sheep that's so great.

Did you notice the sheep actually know the voice of their shepherd and follow him?

Like I said, in the town, and this was really mainly during winter season, they would uh keep the flock in a big pen and they'd have multiple flocks in there.

They weren't concerned about getting confused, their flocks getting confused, because every flock of sheep understood and knew their shepherd's voice.

Many had a little whistle that they would use to call them, and they would come out.

And so the shepherd would come and he would call his sheep, he'd use the whistle, and then all the sheep that were part of his herd, his flock would come out.

And here's what I just want to draw for us the sheep.

Know the voice of the shepherd.

And they follow him.

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

But they'll never follow a stranger.

In fact, they'll run away.

When they hear a stranger's voice, they're like, nah, that's not my shepherd.

Friends, we need people, we need the church to know the voice of their savior.

And my fear and my concern is that we don't know his voice, and so we don't recognize the stranger's voice.

And we're listening to so many voices, and we're plugged into so many areas, and yet we we have cast doubt on his word, and we don't get into his word.

This is the reason we're doing a year through the life of Jesus, of studying Jesus.

I want you to know his voice and to follow him.

He said, I came for your flourishing.

Let me ask you a few questions.

Who's leading your life?

See, that's the problem with shepherds, is they lead.

We don't mind Jesus being, you know, um a consultant.

Right?

Hey, yeah, with love, consult, good, but you can't be in charge.

Who's leading your life?

Let me ask you.

Do you know the voice of Jesus?

I'd really encourage you, if you aren't already, go do the silence and solitude that uh Jen Smith is putting on, that you can begin to work and learn to hear the voice of your Savior.

Do you know the voice of Jesus?

And then final question if Jesus is in front and he's leading the way and we're to follow him, are you running ahead of Jesus?

That's by nature, I think many of us just simply run ahead of Jesus.

I got to coach my son's seventh-grade basketball team, and we made it to the playoffs, um, not because of my great coaching, but because of some really talented kids.

Uh, we the playoff was at this uh junior college about 40, 45 minutes away.

We drive up, I had four kids, one of them was mine, in the car, and we get out.

I had studied the map, they had marked everything out for me, and the boys, this is so funny.

Seventh graders makes sense.

Four of them, they get out of the car and they're just chirping, talking, and they start walking.

They have no idea where they're going.

They start going this way, but the gym is that way, and I just watch them for a little bit, and they get about 50 yards away.

And I go, hey, hey boys, what?

What?

Oh, oh, and then they follow me.

See, I think we get so consumed with what we're doing and what we want to do, and we're just kind of chirping with one another that we don't recognize our Savior's over here, and we're not checking in with him.

We're getting way out ahead, we're not ending up where we should be, and we're curious.

No, no, no, we're wondering why in the world this Jesus thing doesn't work.

The thief.

He doesn't come for your freedom but for your destruction.

The shepherd's sole purpose is for your flourishing.

Jesus says, the life that I came to bring you exceeds abundantly more his sheep.

Well, they know his voice and they follow him.

Are you getting out ahead of Jesus?

And then it brings us to the gate.

You know, like, when are you gonna get to this door?

It's been up here for a while.

You haven't even used it yet.

I want to thank Wyatt for putting this together.

Good job, buddy.

The gate provides access to life and protection from harm.

The gate provides access to life and protection from harm.

And you'll notice uh that there's two paragraphs.

First, Jesus tells a story, the Pharisees didn't understand it, and then he explains it even more clearly the next time, saying, I am the gate.

Uh many scholars believe that Jesus is kind of mixing metaphors here.

And so if you think about the first story really being about shepherding during the winter season in town, when they would be close and bringing the flock in for warmth and safety, uh the next, those who know, you know, I don't really know a whole lot about shepherding.

I've never shepherd my a day in my life.

I read a lot about it this week, though.

But during the summertime, the springtime, when you needed to go up into the highlands and go days away to bring, you know, get just the right uh food and nourishment for the flock.

They would camp out with the sheep and they would have either a makeshift pen that was built out uh in the plains there, or they would use a cave.

Now, these pens didn't have doors, they didn't have gates.

What a shepherd would do is at night he would be the gate.

And he would lie down in front of the opening to protect the flock.

To say, if you're gonna come in here, if you want what's in here, you gotta go through me.

And Jesus says, I am that gate.

That fundamentally, when you walk in and you come in, you experience life.

And he says, Salvation through me.

And by the way, at the same time, I am standing guard and protecting you, safety and security.

He'd say it this way in another part, he'd say, No one can snatch you from my hands.

The gate, it provides access to life and protection from harm.

In my backyard, uh, the other day, it's got this kind of opening.

It's it's it's not a nice big door like this.

It's about the backyard entrance.

It's got a half gate, and then an opening.

You can literally, I'm across the street from a park.

You can see into the back yard.

You can even kind of see into the house from the backyard.

It's a little too exposed for us, but we're working on that.

The other day, what something odd happened is all of a sudden we looked in our backyard and there was a man there.

Thankfully, I happened to be home.

My daughter sees this man first, and I was like trying to figure out what was going on.

It was a homeless man, unfortunately, and he looked like he was uh probably on something and not in a good space.

It was really sad.

But I go back, I mean, it was alarming, it was scary.

I'd go back there and I go, hey man, this ain't your backyard.

And I lead him out because our gate there was insufficient, but my presence there was.

See, we have all these things that we think are gonna be the safeguard that we're gonna put our security in, and it's just insufficient.

His presence, Jesus' presence, is.

He says, I'm here, I'm gonna show up, and what threatens your peace, what threatens your security, what threatens your identity, I stand guard at it.

The gate.

Well, the gate provides access to life and protection against harm.

And so Jesus is the entrance into the life that is truly life, bringing freedom and security.

Who is Jesus?

He says, I'm the entrance.

I I'm the if you want to know what life is really like, life that exceeds abundant, it's not like some hoops you gotta jump through, some kind of levels you gotta attain.

It's me.

And the and the door's not locked for you, by the way.

And you don't have to earn your way or good your way or do better.

He says, no, no, no.

The door to life, the entrance to life is a person and it's me, and I long for your flourishing.

Would you come into me?

Bringing life and security.

Who do you?

Who do you believe has your very best interest at heart?

See, I would argue we often buy into the enemy's lies, believing his best interest rather than the shepherd's heart that he paid for with his life.

I'm gonna invite the band up as we close.

I just want to ask you a few questions.

What door have you been knocking on to bring you life?

Knocking on the door of success.

Knocking on the door of finally getting a family.

Knocking on the door of image management.

What door have you been knocking on?

And whose voice are you listening to?

There's so much noise.

And so many voices.

Whose voice are you listening to?

You know what's interesting about Jesus?

He says he's the gate, he's the door.

In Revelations 3.20, he says, Behold, I stand at the door of your heart and knock.

He reverses the image on us here.

Because I think some of us, we have a door up from Jesus.

We actually have a barrier up.

And today you need to let your barrier down.

You've been believing a lie where you thought, no, his best interest, he doesn't have the very best interest.

I want to look out beyond in the pasture.

I want to roam free.

And by the way, you're looking a whole lot more like Chris, the sheep, but you have your freedom.

And Jesus saying, I'm standing at the door right now, knocking.

Anyone who opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me.

It's personal, it's a relationship with him.

And maybe you've never started a relationship with Jesus.

Today's your day.

Where you say, Jesus, I believe you are the shepherd that brings flourishing and the gate to life.

Today, I open the door of my life to you.

Would you come in and make me new?

And it's just that simple, honest conversation.

He says yes every time.

And others, you've been well, you've been doing the Jesus thing, but you've been listening more like a consultant to Jesus.

And you have doors up.

Would you actually what would change?

Think about this.

What would change if you actually believe Jesus has your very best interest?

What would actually change if you actually believed in him through him alone?

You will experience abundance.

No, no, no, exceeding abundant life.

I just want to give you a moment.

Where are you at?

Would you wrestle with those questions?

Just take a moment.

Close your eyes.

The band's gonna play.

If you've never started a relationship with Jesus, I want to invite you today to start.

It's simply a prayer.

Prayer is just a conversation with God.

God, I'm tired of doing life my own way, and I've been seeking stuff to finally bring life.

And it hasn't worked.

Today, I believe you are the good shepherd that you came for my flourishing, that you died for my brokenness and my sin.

And you came back to life that I might have life to the full.

Today I opened the door of my heart to you.

Would you come into my life and make me new?

And all who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved.

And friends of who are followers of Jesus, would you would you invite your heavenly father to do whatever's necessary in your heart, break down any walls that's somehow keeping you from experiencing his goodness, his life.

Jesus' name.

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