Sermon Tone Analysis

I Am the Door

I AM’s recap....

CONTEXT:

Beginning of ch.7, the disciples go to the feast, but Jesus says He doesn’t want to go because His time has not yet come.

But He goes in secret.

The festival lasts a week, and in the middle, so a few days later, Jesus goes into the temple and begins to teach.

And it says that the Jews marveled because He was teaching and had never been formally trained.

So without reading all of ch.’s 7 & 8, I just want to go through and read some phrases to you, and you will see a theme that builds up to the passage that we will look at today.

7:28....He who sent me is true, whom you do not know.

But I know Him...

(sidenote)

(sidenote)

Jon 7:31

Remember I said that there is a difference between His followers and His disciples?

There were those that believed in Him, but didn’t believe that He was the Christ.

8:14 …I know where I come from and am going, but you do not know where I come from and where I am going.

8:19 You neither know me nor my Father....

8:23 You are from beneath, I am from above.

You are of this world, I am not of this world.

8:38 I speak what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have seen with your father.

8:42 If God were your Father you would love me, for I proceed forth and came from God;

8:43 Why do you not understand my speech?

Because you are not able to listen to my word (listening vs hearing)

8:44 You are of your father the devil

8:45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.

8:47 He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.

John 8:54-56

John 8:54-58

Do you see the theme?

The theme is that the people are different.

They are of a different father.

He knew who He was and where He was going, but they did not.

They didn’t know Him.

They were from below, He was from above.

They didn’t understand the things He said.

They didn’t love Him.

They didn’t believe Him.

This brings us to the immediate context of our text, which is the story from ch. 9.

In , we have the story of the blind man that Jesus healed.

This story is remembered because it’s the one where Jesus mixed His spit with some dirt and rubbed it on the man’s eyes to heal him.

Now, when teaching on this passage, everyone the first thing everyone wants to know is why Jesus did this.

Do y’all want the answer?

Me too!

So the people see that he now has sight, and ask what happened, and he answers that Jesus healed him.

They take him to the Pharisees, and the Pharisees question him, and they condemn Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, and conclude that He must be a false prophet since He ‘worked’ on the Sabbath.

So they go through this whole charade of questioning him and calling his parents and questioning them, and after it all they return to the question they started with.

vv.24-34

vv.35-41

So this is the context in which we come to John ch. 10.

We saw the theme through what Jesus was saying about the people not being of Him, then we see these teachers of Israel not receiving Him because they didn’t believe, which put them into this same camp.

And we see 1 lamb. 1 sheep that was blind and destitute, and he receives the kingdom of God.

In this context, Jesus is going to use the following illustration to show us a word picture of this scenario that we just looked at.

So John ch.10.

This is not a parable, but an illustration.

It is a word picture.

It is an allegory.

Jesus is going to use an illustration that is all too familiar to them.

The illustration of the people being sheep and God being the shepherd was not a new concept.

God had spoken to them using this terminology for centuries.

Psalm 23

Psalm 23

Read vv1-10

Shepherding was a common trade.... Shepherds were nomadic most of the time, because much of the land was arid.

So they had to travel to keep the sheep finding new fresh green pastures.

When they were traveling, at night the place that they herded the sheep to was a sheepfold, which was usually made of stones.

Sheepfold Slides

Sheepfold Slides

Sheepfold Slides

If they were in the countryside, they would sleep in the doorway of the fold.

If they were close to a city, there were usually sheepfolds in town that could sometimes even hold more than 1 flock.

In those cases, there would be a ‘hired-hand’ that would stay in the gate for the night while the shepherd found an inn, then the shepherd would return in the morning.

So it is this sheepfold that Jesus is referencing in John ch. 10.

Read vv1-10

Read vv1-10

So we are going to look at the sheep/sheepfold, the shepherd, the thieves and robbers, and the door to the sheepfold.

What is the sheepfold?

Is it the church?

Heaven?

Israel?

What is the sheepfold?

Is it the church?

Heaven?

Israel?

....I believe it is the church.

Maybe there was an immediate interpretation/application for Israel, but I believe that to take an occasion and say that it doesn’t apply to the church, but only to Israel, unless it is clearly stated, there’s something wrong with that viewpoint.

In this Illustration, who does Jesus say He is?

Slides

In v. 7.

He says that He is the door.

So if we let this play out… If we are the sheep, and He is the door, who is the shepherd that comes through the door to shepherd the sheep?

None other than Jeahovah, Father God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob.

We have to clear a couple of things up to be able to get this illustration.

#1 - But isn’t Jesus the Shepherd?

The Great Shepherd?

Well here, I’m going to show you that He is the door and Father God is the Shepherd, but yes, in the following verses that Craig will look at next week, we will see that Jesus says He is the Shepherd.

So first, we will see Him make the case that God is the Shepherd, then next week He says that He is the Shepherd, therefore He is again claiming to be God.

So in this text, Jesus is not the shepherd, but Father God is.

#2 - In v. 9 He talks about entering by the door to find eternal life.

Well, the Father doesn’t need to enter through Jesus to find eternal life.

So you have to see that that verse is parenthetical.