Sermon Transcript

0:00:14.0

            In John 10 beginning in verse 1, these are the words of Jesus.  “‘Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.  But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.  To him the gatekeeper opens.  The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.  When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.  A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.’  This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.  So Jesus again said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.  All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.  I am the door.  If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.  The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.’”  And then verse 1, “‘I am the good shepherd.  The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.’”  Now, the sheep and shepherd imagery is pretty well-known in the Bible.  It’s well-documented, we might say.  In fact, the first thing that might come to your mind is that most beloved psalm, Psalm 23, written by a king…actually, a shepherd to became a king, King David.  And he spent a lot of time herding or shepherding his father’s own sheep.  And the Lord let him to pen these famous and iconic words.  “The Lord is my shepherd.”  What powerful words those are and followed by incredible, incredible imagery.

0:02:15.7

But have you ever wondered by the Bible compares us to sheep?  Why not lions or tigers or cheetahs?  I’d much rather be a cheetah than a sheep, wouldn’t you?  And that’s because everybody knows that notoriously dumb animals.  I’m sorry, they just are.  They’re not very smart.  In fact, one sheep will walk over a cliff, and the entire flock will follow to their death.  They’re just that stupid.  They’re all directionless animals.  They’re prone to wander from place to place.  That’s why they need shepherd who loves them, who will lead them besides still waters and to those green pastures.  Because if the shepherd doesn’t watch the sheep constantly  and keep a constant eye on them, one or two or maybe bunch of them will wander away to dangerous places.  They’re directionless animals.  They’re also defenseless animals.  They aren’t the king of the jungle by any means.  They’re not hunters.  They’re not predators.  They’re not strong, independent animals.  They’re rather dependent on a shepherd to lead them.  There’s no other animals in the wild kingdom that fears a sheep.  No, just the opposite.  The sheep fear the lions and the tigers and the wolves and all those predatory animals.  So to understand that the Bible compares us to sheep is rather humbling.  Have you ever taken one of those temperament tests, maybe those personality tests?  And they have, kind of, one of four categories they want to put you in.  And you’re either a lion or a golden retriever or an otter.  And I forget the fourth one.  But I can guarantee you it’s not a sheep, ‘cause nobody wants to be sheep.  Right?  It’s humbling to identify with what the Bible says about us, God’s people, that we are sheep that need a shepherd.

0:04:11.3

And that bring us John 10, to this body of teaching that John records for us from Jesus.  And inside here Jesus draws upon the sheep and shepherd imagery.  And He gives us two more of the “I AM” statements.  He says “I am the door of the sheep.”  And then a little bit later He says, “I am the good shepherd.”  We’re gonna split these into two weeks.  We’re gonna talk about the door this week and the good shepherd next week.  But throughout the discourse here, Jesus, who is speaking metaphorically, kind of mixes the images in.  One minute He is the door of the sheep, and the next minute He is the shepherd who walks through the door to get to His sheep.  So let’s give Him the freedom to do that in a literary sense, because He’s speaking metaphorically.  But He says here, “I am the door of the sheep.”  What does that mean for people like you and me living far, far away from an agrarian culture where there were shepherd and sheep and all that?  What does it mean for people like you and me living in the 21^st century?

0:05:14.4

Well, before we get to all that, if you would indulge me with a whimsical moment.  When I hear the phrase, “I am the door of the sheep,” it reminds me of one of my favorite Disney movies.  It was back in the early 2000s, I believe, when Monsters.com came out.  Come on, parents.  I know you took your kids to it and you probably enjoyed it more than they did.  But here’s the plot summary.  Lovable Sulley and his wisecracking sidekick Mike Wazowski are the top scare team at Monsters, Inc., the scream-processing factory in Monstropolis.  When a little girl named Boo wanders into their world, it’s the monsters who are scared silly.  And it’s up to Mike and Sulley to keep her out of sight and get her back home.  Now, I loved the movie.  I took my kids there.  We probably rented it three or four times since then.  It’s a great kind of kid/parent movie.  And one of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Mike and Sulley are trying to get Boo back home.  And they find themselves in this giant warehouse with thousands, maybe ten thousand, maybe millions of doors.  And they’re traveling on these fast conveyor belts, hanging onto a door.  Beyond each door is a destination.  And the pressure is on and time is running out to get Boo back home.  They’re trying to open the door and go through the door that leads to her home and to her bedroom where they can tuck her in safely.  But Randall, the slithering snake, is chomping at the bits.  And he’s chasing them and he’s going after them.  And you’re just wondering, Are they gonna make it?  Are they gonna make it?  Are they gonna go through the right door?  It’s one of the great chase scenes in Hollywood.  I love it.  This is one of the great chase scenes.

0:06:49.7

And it reminds me that we all walk through doors in life, don’t we?  Some of those doors are open, some of them are closed.  Some of them are locked up.  Some of those doors wide.  Some doors are very narrow.  Some of you have French doors in your home or sliding doors.  There are trap doors.  Some of you grew up in a place where you had a barn door, or your mother said to you, “Don’t bring that in here.  You don’t live in a farm with a barn door, do you?”  Some doors, most of them swing on hinges, don’t they?  And other doors revolve on a vertical cylinder.  We call it a revolving door.  Have you ever been in a revolving door before?  I embarrassed myself once at a revolving door.  Can I tell you the story?  I was in my senior year in college, and I interviewed with a Fortune 500 company that came to campus to interview students.  And the interview went well.  And a couple weeks later they invited me to their corporate headquarters in New York City.  I’d never been to New York.  I grew up in Indiana near cornfields.  We had maybe one or two tall buildings in our downtown, but I had never seen anything like New York City.  And I flew into La Guardia Airport just as nervous as nervous could be.  I got in one of those cabs they told me to get.  Gave them an address, and they whisked me to midtown Manhattan, to Park Avenue.  I stepped out of that car.  And I looked up—tall, tall buildings as far as I could see.  I checked the address, I walked in, went up to the third floor and checked in for my interview.  And the receptionist said there, “Okay, Mr. Jones, you sit over here in the reception room.”  And I walked in, and there were about five or six or eight or ten other people dressed just like me.  Interviewees for the day.  And what seemed like about an hour or so passed.  And I’m waiting and I’m waiting.  And suddenly, this rather gruff man walks in, and he says, “Which one of you is Jones?”  You know, I raised my hand.  And boom!  He’s off and running.  I’m having to pick up the pace to catch up with him.  And I finally do, and we squeeze into a crowded elevator and we go down to the first floor.  And as quickly as we squeezed into that elevator, the elevator doors opened up and “boom”, he’s out the door and mumbling something about being hungry.  And that’s when I figured out he was taking me to a lunch interview.  Hadn’t been told that.  So I’m thinking, I better not spill something on my tie or my shirt or all of that.  And I’m all nervous.  We’re coming through the lobby of this big, Fortune 500 corporate headquarters building.  And there’s a revolving door. Never seen one of these things.  He jumps in.  I jump right in there with him.  And I didn’t realize it was only for one person.  And so we kind of move our way around the revolving door like this.  He pops out the other side and gives me one of those looks like, What planet did you…  I told you it was embarrassing.  I did get the job, but I don’t think he recovered from the experience.  I think he’s still wondering about this guy from Indiana that he hired.

0:09:57.4

But we all go through doors in life, don’t we?  All kinds of destinations on the other side.  Jesus said this very interesting thing.  He says, “I am the door of the sheep.”  What did He mean by that?  Let me suggest three or four things.  Number one, He’s a door of defense.  He’s a door of defense.  Look in John 10:1 again.  “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.”  Now, I want you to picture in your mind this agrarian culture, this culture that has shepherds and sheep.  A shepherd out in the middle of the fields would build what’s called a sheepfold.  He’d build it out of rocks.  There’d be walls all around.  And he might put thorny bushes on the tops of those walls so that predators and thieves and robbers wouldn’t jump over the sheepfold.  And it would be a wall all the way around to a certain point where there would be an opening on the other side.  And that’s through that opening is where the sheep would come in and out of the sheepfold.  Now, at night—and here’s the powerful picture—at night, the shepherd would lay down across that opening.  And he would literally become the door to the sheepfold.  He’d put his own life at risk.  He’d become the last defense, the last point of protection against any predator or any thief or robber that might try to come through that door and hurt the sheep in some kind of way.  In fact, twice or maybe two or three times in this longer discourse in John 10, Jesus mentions thieves and robbers and strangers.  It was the primary responsibility of the shepherd to protect his sheep from these kinds of predatory animals and from these kinds of people.  And in that way, Jesus says, “I am the door of the sheep.”  He is a door of defense.

0:12:09.1

Now, what’s true in the animal kingdom and with shepherds and with sheep is also true in our spiritual life as well.  And it’s true inside the church.  And the apostle Paul figured this out about 2000 years ago.  You know, he was a church planter.  He started a lot of churches and was kind of an itinerant church planter and went from place to place, gathering believers and getting them started in their relationship with the Lord and forming churching.  One of the churches that he planted was in city called Ephesus.  And the longest that Paul, this itinerant church planter, ever stayed in one place was in Ephesus.  He stayed there three years.  But Acts 20 records the time when he departed.  And there is a tearful goodbye happening on the shore as he’s getting ready to set sail to another place.  And the elders and the leaders of the church and others come out to gather with Paul.  And Paul takes the opportunity between tears and hugs to say this.  Acts 20 beginning in verse 28, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which He obtained with his own blood.”  He says, “I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.  And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.  Therefore,” he says, “be alert, remember that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears.”  Any pastor that is called away from a church ought to bring his church to this passage of scripture and say, “Beware.  Beware in my departure and as you look for a new pastor, because in that leadership vacuum, fierce wolves might arise from within or from without,” he says.  “There may be some men who want to come here and speak twisted things,” he says, “and try to draw away the disciples after them.”  And that’s an important warning for all of us.  You know, one of the biggest and most important responsibilities I have as a pastor of a church is to protect the flock of God.  That’s what a shepherd does, or an under-shepherd who is serving under the chief Shepherd, who is Jesus Christ.  And the primary way that a pastor does that is by protecting what happens from this platform, the teaching of God’s Word.  I commit that I will always preach to you Christ and Him crucified.  I will never allow anybody to come onto this platform who has an agenda, speaking twisted things that want to draw away the disciples after them and not point them to Christ.  We have to be on the alert about that.  Jesus is a door of defense.  His under-shepherds, the pastors of the church and the elders of the church, are there to protect the flock.  Because there are a lot of people out there in the world—sometimes from within, sometimes from without—who want to come in and fleece the sheep.  And we don’t want that to happen.

0:15:13.7

Now, in a broader sense, Jesus, who is our chief Shepherd, is our door of defense, and He protects us.  He protects us.  He has a protection plan.  And if you have your Bibles, turn with me to Psalm 91.  And I want to show you what I’m talking about here.  I love the book of Psalms, and none that is more delightful than Psalm 91.  It speaks of our Lord’s defensive protection over His people.  “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will above in the shadow of the Almighty,” verse 1 says.  “I will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’  Those are beautiful words.  Not the picture of a sheep protected by the shepherd in a sheepfold, but the picture of a God who builds a shelter and a high tower to protect those under His shadow.  He goes on to say, “For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.  He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.”  It’s a dangerous world out there in a lot of different ways.  And you have the promise from God that He will protect you.  He will defend you.  It doesn’t mean that harm will never befall you.  We’ll find out later, He promises in the midst of those times He’ll never leave you and He’ll never forsake you.  It goes on to say in verse 5, “You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.  A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand and your right hand, but it will not come near you.  You will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked.”  These last verses are why Psalm 91 is often referred to as the “Soldier’s Psalm”.

0:17:09.8

I have a number of retired colonels that are on my Something Good Radio board, and they have walked with us over these last several years as we have developed a broadcast ministry.  And one of them, my dear friend Colonel Moak, just sent his son off to Afghanistan.  And Colonel Moak is a great American hero and a great man of God.  And one of the things that he wanted to do when he sent his son off to Afghanistan is send him with the Word of God.  And so he got him a New Testament, but he also realized—‘cause he’s a veteran of combat—that you can’t always carry that into combat with you.  So he wanted to laminate some verses on kind of a business card-size piece of paper.  And he texted me.  And he says, “Here are some verses I was thinking about.  Do you have any that you might be thinking about, too?”  And I thought of Psalm 91, the Soldier’s Psalm.  It’s also the place where we learn that God has His own security detail called His angels.  You see that in verse 11?  “For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all of your ways.”  This is one of the places where we get this idea of guardian angels.  Not necessarily a specific one that is assigned to you or assigned to me or assigned to a child.  That’s probably a stretch.  But make no mistake about it, there is a security detail that stands ready to be deployed by the heavenly Father to protect you and to protect me.  His angels will stand guard over us.  And you say, “Well, how do I get in on that protective detail, so that Jesus, who is the door of the sheep, is a door of defense for me and my family?”  Well, we read about some conditions in verse 14.  Now, the Lord speaks directly.  “Behold, he holds fast to me in love, (0:19:00.0) I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name.  When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him.  With long life I will sustain him and show him my salvation.”  He’s talking about those who are in relationship with Him. “Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him.  He knows me by name.”  When you know somebody by name and you’re on a personal basis, it’s because you’re in relationship with that person.  And this protective detail, this door of protection and defense is for those who are in relationship with Jesus Christ.  We can walk with confidence, knowing that the Lord will be our front guard and our rear guard and our left and our right guard.  And even if we come into harm’s way, He will never leave us and He will never forsake us.  He will be with us through those times and carry us through those times.  That’s the promise for the believer in Jesus Christ.  That’s the promise for the sheep who is (0:20:00.1) inside the sheepfold through faith in in Jesus Christ, because the shepherd lays down across and becomes the door of defense to the sheep.  You got the picture there?

0:20:10.4

Secondly, He’s a door of direction.  He’s a door of direction.  Let’s go back to John 10:3-4.  “The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name,”—there’s that relationship again—“and leads them out.  When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.”  You know, some doors are directional doors.  We have signs over some of the doors in this auditorium that say “Exit”.  Other doors might say “Entrance”.  They’re directional in that way.  And Jesus, who is the door of the sheep—and now I’m going to mix the metaphor a little bit—who is the door of the sheep and the good shepherd, He leads his sheep.  He leads them out.  He’s in relationship with them.  The sheep hear his voice.  He calls each of His sheep by name and He leads them out.  He brings them out.  “He goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.”  Do you need some direction today?  Are you kind of wandering around aimlessly, not knowing what decision to make or where to go, to go through this door or that door?  You need some direction.  Well, in a very real sense, Jesus is the door of direction.  But you’ve got to be in relationship with Him.  By the way, the difference between a sheep herder and a shepherd is relationship.  I learned a long time ago as a shepherd or a pastor, you can’t herd people.  You have to love them and lead them.  Okay?  We’re not called to be sheep herders, where we’re herding people with our own agendas.  We’re called to shepherd people and to…they know them by name.  You’re in relationship with them and doing life and ministry with them.  And you lead them out.  Well, that’s the relationship we have with our Lord.  I love the other language here where it says, “And the sheep hear his voice.”  They recognize the voice of their shepherd.  You know, when my wife calls me on my cell phone or I call her on her cell phone, I don’t have to introduce myself and say, “Hi, this is Ron.  Is Cathryn there?”  No, we recognize…if I did, oh my.  We recognize each other’s voices after all these years.  I can be a room and I can hear her laugh over here, and I recognize her laugh.  Why?  Because we’ve been in relationship for all these years.  I know her voice.  She knows my voice.  Do you know the voice of the Lord when He speaks to you?

0:22:55.8

You say, “Well, pastor, how does the good Shepherd speak to us today?  I’m so glad you asked, because I anticipated that question.  And I want to give you just a little short course in theology here on how God speaks to us.  Let’s start in Hebrews 1:1-2 where the writer of Hebrews says, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.”  Who’s that?  Well, it’s Jesus.  “Whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.”  Yeah, God is speaking.  He’s been speaking for a long time.  His first act of creation was to speak the worlds into existence.  God is speaking.  The question is, are you listening?  That’s why Jesus said over and over again, “Do you have ears to hear?”  This is for those who have hears to hear.  And He’s not talking about your auditory capabilities.  He’s talking about your ability to discern the Spirit of God and the voice of God.  So how do we hear the voice of God?  Well, in times past, the Hebrews writer tells us that God spoke through the prophets.  And when a prophet of God stood up a said, “Thus saith the Lord,” he was speaking with divine authority.  There was really no distance between what God said and what the prophet said.  And oftentimes God spoke to those prophets in visions and dreams.  Sometimes He spoke in an audible voice.  Sometimes He spoke by saying, “Hey, write this down.”  There were many different ways that God spoke as the writer says, “at many times and in many ways long ago, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Spirit, Jesus Christ.”  And where do we have the record of Jesus’s words and the record of His life?  We have it right here in this book we call the Bible.  So just understand this.  If you want direction in life, if you want to know the will of God concerning something, you can’t know the will of God apart from the Word of God.  Let me say that again and let that sink in.  You can’t know the will of God apart from the Word of God.  As He speaks to us through His Word, the written word and the living Word, who is Jesus Christ coming alive in the pages of this book.  Not just in the Gospels, but you can find Jesus, you know, in every book of the Bible.  In the Old Testament they were talking about Him coming.  In the New Testament we read about His life, and then further on in the New Testament beyond the Gospels we have…talking about His Second Coming, all the way to the book of Revelation.  This entire book is about Jesus Christ whom God has spoken to very clearly and very directly in these last days.

0:25:49.6

There are some other ways that God speaks to us, the Bible tells us.  One is through creation.  Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God.  Night after night they pour forth speech.  Day after day the heavens are speaking to us and declaring the glory of God.”  God has written something about Himself in the heavens.  Look at creation very carefully and you’ll find some spiritual principles in there and ways that God is communicating to us.  As New Testament believers, He speaks to us by His Holy Spirit.  As a New Testament believer, you have the Holy Spirit in you.  He came to live inside of you at the moment of salvation.  You’ve got all the Holy Spirit you’re ever going to get by faith in Christ.  He’s resident in you.  And 1 Corinthians 2 talks about how the Spirit of God speaks to our human spirit.  I call those the mysterious, inner promptings of the Holy Spirit.  And they are always, friends—how do you discern it?—they are always in harmony with the Word of God.  So, you know, if you decide to come to me one day and say, “Oh, pastor, I believe the Holy Spirit is speaking to me.  I’m gonna leave my spouse and marry this sweet thing over here.  I know it’s the Holy Spirit speaking because it just feels so right.”  I’m gonna say to you very kindly, “Friend, that ain’t the Holy Spirit talking to you.  It ain’t even holy smoke.  It’s some whacky smoke you’ve been smoking on that’s making you think like that.”  Because the Holy Spirit would never say anything to us that contradicts the Word of God, written or living, in this book or in the person of Jesus Christ.  Now, we could go on to talk about how He does speak to us through wise counsel, friends and godly people who speak into our lives.  Just always remember when you’re going to counsel, find a person or people whose minds and hearts are saturated with the Word of God.  You know they’re in this book, thinking God’s thoughts, reading His thoughts on a daily basis.  They're in relationship with Him.  And they’re in communication with Him through prayer and through the study of His Word.  That’s the kind of counsel you need.  Everything else might lead you in a dangerous direction.  So He is a door of defense.  He is a door of direction.  He has this relationship with His sheep.  He speaks to them.  They hear His voice.  He leads them here.  He leads them there.  I tell you what, that’s an exciting part of the Christian life is to know that we serve—we sang about it earlier—a living God, a living God.  Not some dead God of the past who is in a grave somewhere.  He’s the living God, and He’s alive today.  And He’s still speaking through His Word, through His Word.  So read His thoughts every day and listen to His voice and be directed by the truth that you learn in scripture.

0:28:51.3

Thirdly, Jesus is a door—are you ready for this one?—a door of division.  This is where you need to strap on your seatbelts a bit.  Tray tables in their full and upright locked position, and be ready for takeoff.  I want you to think about this in a practical sense.  Every door divides one room from another.  It can actually divide one group of people from another group of people.  Now, we live in a day and age today when our culture is very inclusive.  The politics of inclusion, okay, you just hear it all over.  “Everybody needs to be included.  Everybody needs to be included.”  All the political parties, they're trying to race to see who has the biggest tent.  “Big tent politics” they call it.  Everybody is included.  And I understand that in some point.  Everybody needs to be able to voice their thoughts and their ideas in a free society.  And, you know, those kinds of freedom are very, very important.  But when we‘re so inclusive that we say every idea is equally valid, well, now we’ve got a pot of stew that’s gonna give us a bellyache in time.  And I’m here to tell you, Jesus is not about the politics of inclusion.  Oh, if you’re inside the sheepfold, He unites the sheep around His purposes.  I want to take you on a little journey through the scriptures.  You won’t have time to turn to these passages, but they’re in your notes and you might want to write them down.  But you may be surprised to hear what the Gospel writers say about, well, how Jesus divided some people.

0:30:43.3

John 7:40-43 says, “When they heard these words from Jesus, some of the people said, ‘This really is the prophet.’  Others said, ‘No, this is the Christ, the Messiah.’  But some said, ‘Is the Christ to come to Galilee?’”  And then it says, “So there was a division among the people over him.”  John 9:16, “Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.’  But others said, ‘How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?’  And there was a division among them.”  One of the reasons Jesus is so controversial in our society, even today, 2000 years later, is because He draws lines in the sand.  He’s the door to the sheep.  He says, “You’re either on this side or that side.  You’re either an insider or an outsider.  You’re either a sheep or a goat.”  I’ll get to that in a moment.  But here’s where you really need to strap on your seatbelt tight.  These are the words of Jesus found in Luke 12:51.  “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division.  For from now on, in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three.  They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”  Whatever happened to the Prince of Peace?  You mean Jesus is a door of division?  He’s gonna cause division in families, in relationships?  When we moved to Washington, D.C., almost a decade ago, we met this young girl in our church, a beautiful young girl.  And she was from India.   And she grew up in a Hindu home.  And her parents sent her to the United States to be educated here in the Washington, D.C., area.  And she went to one of the great universities there.  Brilliant girl, attractive, had a great future ahead of her.  And somewhere in the process she met Jesus Christ as her Savior, an authentic conversion to Christ.  And it created some tension back home in the Hindu family in which she grew up.  She was never disrespectful to her parents, not at all.  But it just created some tension.  You know what I’m talking about?  I’ve met some messianic Jews, some Jewish people who believe Jesus is the Messiah.  And the same thing kind of happens.  Maybe you have a close friendship, somebody you’ve known since grade school or college years.  And, you know, together you were wild childs back then, but you came to faith in Christ.  And, well, they’re just not here.  And you’re just kind of wondering, do I tell them about my Jesus or do I just kind of keep that out of our relationship, because it could create some tension?  Here is what you need to understand about Jesus.  He values loyalty to Him far more than He values your loyalty to any human relationship.  And if it comes down between your family and Jesus, a friend and Jesus, a coworker and Jesus, He’s not asking you to be rude or dismissive, but it’s all about Jesus.  That’s why He says sometimes it will be father against mother and brother against sister and mother-in-law against…there may be tension in the home because you choose…and in an attractive way, not an abrasive way, not a dismissive kind of way, not a pious, “looking down your nose” kind of way, not in a way that fulfills all the caricatures that people have about Christians in our culture today, but in a way that loves people and loves God.  But still, they’re on this side of Jesus and you’re on this side.  There is a door of division.  And we try, until the end of the age, to build a relational bridge and to bring people into the sheepfold, because the Bible is very clear.  There are sheep, and there are goats.

0:35:04.5

Now, I want to take you to some teaching that Jesus gave to His disciples during the final week of life.  Probably on the front end of Holy Week, Monday or Tuesday of that week.  Remember the upper room, probably Thursday of that week, and crucifixion on Friday.  But early in the week, Peter, James and John and Andrew, just four of the disciples, came to Jesus and had some questions about the end of the age and the signs of His Second Coming.  And you know what Jesus did with them?  He gathered them up and sat them down on the Mount of Olives just on this side of Jerusalem.  And He had what we call the Olivet Discourse.  There are three or four major teachings and discourses the Gospels record for us.  You know the Sermon on the Mount.  You know the upper room conversation and discourse.  Well, the Olivet Discourse is all about end times.  It’s all about the signs of the times and His Second Coming.  And Jesus gives them a glimpse into the future.  It’s recorded in Matthew 24 and 25.  And He comes down to the end, and He talks about the Final Judgment at the end of the age.  And here is what Jesus said.  These are not my words.  These are Jesus.  He says, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.”  Now, verse 32, “Before him will be gathered all the nations.  And he will separate people, one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on his left.”  My friends in Washington want to make political hay out of that, you know, the right side of the aisle, the left side of…no, nothing political about that.  Just note the Good Shepherd separates the sheep from the goats at the end of the age.  You can fast forward to Revelation 20.  You’ll read about something we call the Great White Throne Judgment.  It’s a sobering scene, one of the most sobering scenes in scripture where all the nations are gathered at the final judgment, rich and poor, black and white, young and old, kings and presidents and peasants and factory workers, all who rejected Christ.  And the door to heaven closes with them on the outside.  And the Bible says they are cast into the Lake of Fire.  It’s serious stuff.  Important for us to contemplate today.  Because, yes, Jesus is a door of defense.  He’ll protect us.  Yes, He’s a door of direction.  He’ll guide us if we let Him.  He’ll lead us.  But He’s also a door of division.  And I can’t honestly deal with the scriptures and what Jesus Himself said without, you know, saying it this morning.  He’s a door of division, sheep on one side and goats on the other.  Until that time, the sheep and the goats—the wheat and the tares is another analogy He uses—are kind of co-mingled here in this earth.  And we may not know who is a sheep, who is a goat, who is a wheat, who is a tare, who is inside, who is outside.  But at the end of the age, He draws a line.  And He says you’re either in or you’re out.

0:38:22.9

And that brings me to the fourth thing that I want to leave with you.  He’s also a door of decision.  Every one of us have to decide when we’re standing in front of a door, are we gonna walk through it or are we gonna stay over here?  There’s a decision to be made.  You remember the old game show “Let’s Make A Deal” with Monty Hall?  Door #1, door #2 or door #3?  They had a decision to make.  And if you choose the right door, behind that right door might be a vacation for you and your family or a new car.  Or over here, Monty Hall loved to give goats away.  And when door number whatever opened up and it was a goat, they’d go “Zonk!”  Remember that?  When it comes to eternity and life and death, you don’t want to choose the wrong door and get “zonked”.  You want to choose the right door.  And it’s not a guessing game, you know.  The world says, “Well, every door leads to God.”  Not according to scripture.  Jesus said, “I am the door.”  And you and I have a decision to make.  He’s given us a glimpse even beyond that door.  Will we walk through it?  Will we decide today?  Here is what He promises us.  John 10:10, wonderful words here.  He says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly.”  Does anybody want abundant life here today?  Does anybody want eternal life and the abundance that goes with that starting today?  You just choose the door He’s put in front of you.  And by faith, by faith—not by your good works, not by church attendance, not by how many good deeds you’ve done—but by faith in the Jesus, in the good shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep—we’ll talk more about that next week; that’s the cross—by faith in what Christ did for you on the cross and by faith in His powerful resurrection, you walk through that door.  And you go from darkness into light, from this side to that side, from a child of death to a child of life, from a goat to a sheep who is eternally in the sheepfold.  And I pray that will be true of every one of us in this room.  Put aside the politics of inclusion for a moment, and let’s just speak some truth about eternal matters that really, really are serious and that affect every one of us in this room.  Let’s pray together.

0:41:19.6

Father, thank You so much for Your Word.  Thank You for a place where we can have some serious conversations mixed with some fun and some laughter.  But, Lord, every time You talk about eternal things in Your Word, there is a seriousness and a soberness to it and a sense of urgency where You says, “Today is the day of salvation.”  Because we’re never promised another moment like this or another day like this.  It’s only by Your grace that we’re here again this week.  But who knows what will happen between now and next week or even tomorrow?  So, Father, urge every one of us in this room to make the spiritual decisions that we need to make, especially those who need to come to faith in Christ right here, right now, who need to say, “Lord Jesus, I am a lost sheep.  I have been wandering for years.  I am directionless.  I’ve made some really, really dumb decisions.  And I need You to come into my life right now and be the Good Shepherd.  Love me, lead me, give me that abundant and eternal life that You promise right now.”  And, Father, we thank You that You are doing Your work every day, every week, all the time.  Jesus said, “My Father is working,” and You’re doing Your work right now to draw us to Yourself.  So we’ll praise you for that and thank You for that.  In the name of Jesus our Savior who said, “I am the door,” amen.

0:43:14.6