I Am
the Gate[1]
April 28, 2013
BMC- John 10:1-10
Introduction:
Gates of West Liberty
As
we continue our series on the seven “I am”s of Jesus this morning from the
Gospel of John, I want to begin with a bit of a quiz. I want to start by testing your “Gate IQ,” in
particular your recognition of the various gates of West Liberty. I will show you a picture of a West Liberty
gate or the frame of a gate and you will tell me where I can find that
gate. Ok, let’s begin…
1. Ohio
Caverns
2.
Piatt Castles
3.
Lion’s Park
4.
Fairview Cemetery
5.
Rabenstein Electric
6.
The General Casting Co.
7.
Bethel Elevator
8.
Bethel Trash Corral
9.
Maurer Backyard
10.
Maurer Bathroom
Well
in today’s passage, Jesus tells us that he is the gate. Within this imagery there are several
lessons, but perhaps we need to begin by adding a little context to this
statement.
Text Background: Gate
Our passage for
today comes right after the extended story of the man who was born blind. Jesus healed this man. He restored his sight, but the religious
leaders had a difficult time accepting this because Jesus did it on the
Sabbath. They asked the man about it. They asked the man’s parents about it. And they again asked the man about it. In the end the man not only received his
sight, a fitting story to follow Jesus’ statement that he is the light of the
world, but he also came to see Jesus as the messiah and was saved.
So in John 8, Jesus
declared that he is the light of the world.
In John 9 he restored sight to a man born blind. And now in chapter 10, Jesus spends time
talking about sheep and offers two interrelated “I am”s. I am the gate, which is where we will focus
our attention this morning. And I am the
good shepherd, which is where we will focus our attention next week.
As chapter 10 opens,
Jesus was once again in the midst of a discussion with the Pharisees. And he suggested that anyone who entered the
sheep pen by any other way than by the gate was a thief and a robber. It was only the shepherd of the sheep who
entered the pen through the gate. Makes
sense, right?
He went on to
suggest that the sheep know their shepherd and follow him. In fact while they will follow their
shepherd, they will not follow a stranger; but rather run away from a
stranger. The sheep know the voice of
their shepherd and that matters.
At this point, the
Pharisees were not getting what Jesus was saying so he made things more
plain. He declared, “I am the gate.” He
said that all who came before him were robbers and thieves. But those who entered through Jesus are
saved. Those who enter through the gate,
Jesus, will have life to the full. Jesus
is the gate.
Now it seems to me
that we can picture Jesus as the gate of any sheep’s pen and still remain true
to the intent of this metaphor. But the
imagery becomes more powerful to me when I consider what some of the sheep pens
looked like in Jesus’ day and how the shepherds gated those pens. You see, in some areas that the shepherd
would take his sheep to graze, they would be far away from a safe place to keep
the sheep over night. Instead of
returning home, he would herd the sheep into a stone enclosure like this one.
But notice, this pen
does not have a gate to close. Now this
is not because the gate has rotted away or been destroyed. It is because after getting the sheep into
the pen, the shepherd himself would sit or lie across the opening to serve as
the gate to keep the sheep in and the predators out. The shepherd literally was the gate and this
imagery was likely in the mind of Jesus’ hearers when he declared “I am the
gate” in the context of talking about sheep.
Enter through the gate
Within this imagery, Jesus teaches
us several things. First, he teaches us
to enter through the gate. Jesus is the
gate and it is through Him that we enter the kingdom of God. Jesus is the one whom the Father sent. Jesus is the one who dwelt with us, God
incarnate. Jesus is the one who died on
the cross and rose from the grave. It is
through Jesus that we gain salvation and so it is by entering through him, the
gate, that we enter the kingdom of God.
Know His Voice
Second, we know His voice. As the sheep know the voice of the shepherd
so we know the voice of Jesus. It is a
voice that is familiar to us and that we trust.
It is a voice that guides us, corrects us and comforts us. We know His voice.
This is a significant thing for us because knowing
someone’s voice means familiarity and often deep relationship. A couple of weeks ago, Mark said that he
heard me on the radio. It was one of the
testimony spots that I shared about last week.
He didn’t know that I had done two of those, but he recognized my voice.
I’m told by the people serving in the nursery during
worship that they sometimes need to turn the speaker off during my sermon. They claim that this is because Silas does
fine until he hears my voice come over the speaker. They say that he becomes upset because he
knows my voice but doesn’t see me, and I choose to trust that this is the real
reason that they turn the speaker off.
It’s interesting to me, going back to the story of the
blind man in chapter 9, that while this is a story of sight following Jesus
declaration that he is the light of the world, it is also a story of
recognizing Jesus’ voice prior to this declaration that he is the gate and that
we know his voice. After the man has
been questioned multiple times, Jesus sought him out. And when he found him, the man did not
recognize him as the son of man.
The man who was once blind asked Jesus to tell him who
the son of man is so that he might believe and Jesus replied, “You have seen
him, in fact he is the one speaking to you.”
And it was at that point that the man believed. Not upon seeing him, but upon hearing him
speaking. I can’t help but think that
like Mary in the garden on Easter, it was at that moment that he recognized the
voice of Jesus and believed. He
recognized His voice.
Follow His Lead
Third, we follow
Jesus’ lead. The sheep follow the
shepherd and we are to follow Jesus’ lead.
We do not know where this will take us, in fact it may take us into some
uncertain territory at times. But as
long as we continue to follow Jesus’ lead we will be in Jesus’ care as we seek
to live out His kingdom principles.
We began this
morning with Psalm 23, a psalm that begins with the words, “The Lord is my
shepherd.” It goes on to say, “he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his
name’s sake. Even though I walk through
the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your
staff, they comfort me.” We follow Jesus
wherever He may lead us even through dark valleys.
Begin by Listening
With the knowledge
that Jesus is the gate, comes the opportunity to respond to this truth in our
faith lives. To do this, I believe that
we begin by listening. Jesus declares
that as His sheep, we know his voice.
But in order to recognize his voice, we must first begin by
listening. It seems to me that all too
often we go about our lives too distracted, too busy, or too verbose to hear
the voice of Jesus let alone to recognize it.
Thus we must begin by spending time listening.
Climbing the Glacier[2]
Ben Patterson shares that “In 1988,
three friends and [he] climbed Mount Lyell, the highest peak in Yosemite
National Park. Two of [them] were experienced mountaineers. [Ben] was not one
of the experienced two. [Their] base camp was less than 2,000 feet from the
peak, but the climb to the top and back was to take the better part of a day,
due in large part to the difficulty of the glacier one must cross to get to the
top. The morning of the climb [they] started out chattering and cracking jokes.
“As the hours passed, the two mountaineers opened up a wide gap between
[Ben] and [his] less-experienced companion. Being competitive by nature, [Ben]
began to look for shortcuts to beat them to the top. [He] thought [he] saw one
to the right of an outcropping... so [he] went, deaf to the protests of [his]
companion.
“Perhaps it was the effect of the high altitude, but the significance
of the two experienced climbers not choosing this path did not register in
[Ben’s] consciousness. It should have, for 30 minutes later [he] was trapped in
a cul-de-sac of rock atop the Lyell Glacier, looking down several hundred feet
of a sheer slope of ice, pitched at about a 45 degree angle. ... [he] was only
about 10 feet from the safety of a rock, but one little slip and [he] wouldn't
stop sliding until [he] landed in the valley floor some 50 miles away! It was
nearly noon, and the warm sun had the glacier glistening with slippery ice.
[He] was stuck and [he] was scared.
“It took an hour for [Ben’s] experienced climbing friends to find
[him]. Standing on the rock [he] wanted to reach, one of them leaned out and
used an ice ax to chip two little footsteps in the glacier. Then he gave [him]
the following instructions: Ben, you must step out from where you are and put
your foot where the first foothold is. When your foot touches it, without a
moment's hesitation swing your other foot across and land it on the next step.
When you do that, reach out and I will … pull you to safety.
“That sounded real good to [Ben]. It was the next thing he said that
made [Ben] more frightened than ever. But listen carefully: As you step across,
do not lean into the mountain! If anything, lean out a bit. Otherwise, your
feet may fly out from under you, and you will start sliding down.
“[Ben notes that he] doesn't like
precipices. When [he was] on the edge of a cliff, [his] instincts are to lie
down and hug the mountain, to become one with it, not to lean away from it! But
that was what [his] good friend was telling [him] to do. [Ben] looked at him
real hard. ... Was there any reason, any reason at all, that [he] should not
trust him? [Ben] certainly hoped not! So for a moment, based solely on what
[he] believed to be the good will and good sense of [his] friend, [he] decided
to say no to what [he] felt, to stifle [his] impulse to cling to the security
of the mountain, to lean out, step out, and traverse the ice to safety. It took
less than two seconds to find out if [his] faith was well founded. It
was.”
It began with listening. He should have listened in the first place
and followed his more experienced friends.
Then once he found himself in a predicament, he needed to listen to the
advice of his friends, ignoring his fear.
Likewise we begin with listening.
Continue by
Dwelling:
Next we continue by dwelling. Jesus is the gate by where we enter the
kingdom of God, but Jesus is also the gate that protects us from the thieves
and the robbers. We need to be
intentional about dwelling within that safety, about dwelling in God’s
presence. It is as we dwell with God
that we become more attune to God and the desires of God’s heart. Yet how often to we put that off ‘til later?
With Only Days to Live[3]
“What would you do if you knew that you
had only one day to live? That was the question Gunther Klempnauer asked 625
young students in 12 different German vocational schools. He reported a wide
variety of responses including the expected, Get drunk, get a fix, get a girl.
Some said they would spend the time with family, others wanted to climb a
mountain or sail their boat, and yet others wanted to go on a picnic with
friends. One student indicated that he would spend the time reviewing his photo
albums and savoring the memories. An 18-year-old young woman wrote: I would
like to spend my last evening in church alone with God and thank him for my
full and happy life.”
She would choose to spend the last day
of her life dwelling with God. Yet if
dwelling with God is so important that she would do that with the last day of
her life, why wouldn’t she spend her whole life dwelling with God? How many of us have similar responses? How many of us think of what we would do
with the last day of our life and suggest something that is deeply important to
us but that we give little time to on a daily basis? We should not wait until the last day of our
life to dwell with God. We should choose
to dwell with God on a daily basis.
Proceed by
Following
Finally, we proceed by following. The time that we spend
in safety, dwelling with the Lord is essential.
And yet it is a mistake to believe that it is an end in and of
itself. Our dwelling is in preparation
to follow. We begin by listening, we
continue by dwelling, but we proceed by following. We proceed by following Jesus’ lead and going
where he takes us to live out his kingdom plans for our lives and for the world
around us.
Swimming in a Fog[4]
“Philip Yancey tells the story of a friend of his who went swimming in
a large lake at dusk. As he was paddling at a leisurely pace about a hundred
yards offshore, a freak evening fog rolled in across the water. Suddenly he
could see nothing: no horizon, no landmarks, no objects or lights on shore.
Because the fog diffused all light, he couldn’t even make out the direction of
the setting sun.
“Yancey then tells how his friend
splashed about in absolute panic. He would start off in one direction, lose
confidence, and turn 90 degrees to the right. Or left - it made no difference
which way he turned. He could feel his heart racing uncontrollably. He would
stop and float, trying to conserve energy and force himself to breathe slower.
Then he would blindly strike out again. At last he heard a faint voice calling
from shore. He pointed his body to the sounds and followed them to safety.”
In like fashion we can be swimming
through our lives with not a care in the world, when suddenly a blinding fog
arises and we loose our sense of direction.
In times like that but also in the midst of our everyday lives, we
proceed by following Jesus.
Conclusion:
Gates are a common part of our
context. They keep some things out while
keeping other things in. They provide a
way to enter as well as safety from that which would harm us. Jesus declares in John 10 that he is the
gate.
Take a moment to consider Christ’s
lessons that coincide with him being the gate. We are to enter through the
gate. We are to listen to Jesus’ voice
and we are to follow Jesus’ lead. What
significance do these teachings have upon your life?
{Pause}
With that in mind, I invite you in
the week ahead to begin by listening to what God has to say to you. I invite you to continue by dwelling with the
Lord in safety. And I invite you to
proceed by following to where ever it may be that God would lead you.
Of course if you are someone who has not yet entered through the gate,
who has not yet accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior of your life, I also invite you this morning to respond to
that familiar voice and to follow Christ into the life transforming process of
salvation. Jesus declares in verses
9-10, “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 full.” Jesus
offers you life to the full if you but enter through Him, the gate. If you have not done so but would like to
enter through that gate today, I invite you to come forward after the service
to pray with Pastor Rick or me after the service to pray with you. Let’s pray together.
{Pray God’s blessings upon the congregation as they live this out in
the week ahead.}
Amen.
[1] http://www.spoonerwesleyan.org/media/sermons
Pastor Ron Gormong
[2] -Ben
Patterson, Waiting, Leadership, Vol. 15, Number 1. www.homileticsonline.com
[4]
--Yancey, Disappointment With
God (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1988), 203. www.homileticsonline.com
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