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[0:00] Good morning, everyone. It's good to see you all here. You're all very welcome. This morning, our passage from God's word is in John chapter 10.

[0:16] It is a very well-known passage. John chapter 10, starting at verse number 1. Verse number 1.

[0:54] And he leads them out. And when he put forth his own sheep, he goes before them. And the sheep follow him.

[1:06] And they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow. But they will flee from him. For they know not the voice of a stranger. This parable spoke Jesus unto them.

[1:19] But they understood not the things which he spoke unto them. Then said Jesus unto them again. Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.

[1:32] All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers. But the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved.

[1:44] And shall go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they might have life and they might have it more abundantly.

[1:58] I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. But he that is a hireling, a hired hand, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not.

[2:12] Seeing the wolf come, he leaves the sheep and he flees. And the wolf scatters them and catches them and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hired hand and he caveth not for the sheep.

[2:28] I am the good shepherd and I know my sheep and am known of them. As the father knows me, even so know I the father.

[2:39] And I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold, them also I must bring. And they shall hear my voice.

[2:51] And they shall be one fold and one shepherd. And we leave it there, but we may go on at the end just with two more verses. There is one door, one fold, one shepherd.

[3:08] In verses 7 and verses 9, Jesus said, I am the door. And in verse number 11, Jesus says, I am the good shepherd.

[3:24] And these are two of the seven I am statements in John's gospel. I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the door. I am the good shepherd.

[3:35] I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. And I am the vine that Jesus spoke in John's gospel. And in the Old Testament, if we go back to Exodus 3 and verse 14, Moses, God commissions Moses to lead the children of Israel.

[3:56] And Moses asked God a question. He said, who shall I say sent me? And God said, tell them I am sent you. And in John 8, verse 58, Jesus said these words, before Abraham was, I am.

[4:14] And when Jesus said those words, they picked up stones to throw at him because he claimed that he was God. And the purpose, John tells us in his gospel, the purpose of John writing that gospel, and is told in John 20, verse 31, where John says that you might know that Jesus is the Son of God.

[4:40] And that in believing on him, you might have life in his name. And Jesus says here in verse number 10, I have come that you might have life.

[4:53] So we are seeing this morning here that Jesus is the one who came, the true one from God in God's appointed way. And when we read John chapter 10, we really need to take it really in its context.

[5:09] And the context of John chapter 10 is this, that we have to look at John chapter 9. What do we see in John chapter 9? We see a man that was born blind from birth.

[5:22] And Jesus gave that man his sight. He could see. There was a marvelous miracle took place. But the Pharisees could not accept that miracle simply because it was done on the Sabbath.

[5:37] And they ended up casting that man out from amongst them. They cast him out of Judaism. And Jesus met that man again, and he asked him, do you believe in the Son of God?

[5:49] And that man said, Lord, I believe. That's what he said. And in chapter 10, Jesus uses the imagery, I suppose, or the comparison with believers with sheep in this parable.

[6:07] That blind man was a sheep. And Jesus was a good shepherd who came and took him out of the pen of Judaism. And that pen was full of thieves and robbers, the Pharisees.

[6:23] And Jesus came in God's appointed way. And the Pharisees had come in their own way, in their own rules and regulations. They were steeped in their own rules and regulations.

[6:36] And they were robbing the people of what God had for them. And they were thieves and robbers. And the chapter starts off with, verily, verily, in other words, most assuredly, your Bible might say, this is so important.

[6:52] That you grasp this. That the one ear before you is the Son of God. And that looking to the Pharisees is just going to rob you of everything.

[7:03] In verse 1 and 2, it tells us that Jesus came in God's appointed way. If we go back to the Genesis, we see there that he was the promised one.

[7:14] The one that would crush the head of the serpent. All the way along in the Old Testament, it speaks about Jesus all the way along. And in verse number 3, he says, Jesus says, to him the porter opens.

[7:30] The one that came in God's appointed way, the porter opened up to him. And the question you might ask is, who is the porter that opened up to Jesus coming?

[7:44] And the porter, I believe the porter is the Holy Spirit who opened up the way to Jesus.

[7:55] We saw the dove descending at his baptism. We see John the Baptist opening up the way to him. And John the Baptist was full of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was working in everything that Jesus did.

[8:10] He fulfilled every prophecy that was foretold about him. At his coming. So the Holy Spirit was actively at work, opening up everything for Jesus.

[8:21] And in the same way today, the Holy Spirit is at work. And in the proclamation of Jesus. And that's so important, that Jesus is the only way to God.

[8:34] And the Holy Spirit opens up the people's blind eyes, like the Lord Jesus did with a blind man here. To see that Jesus is the door.

[8:44] And that is the message today to everyone here. That it's not about us or anyone here. It's not about amazing grace. It's all about Jesus. And he is the only way.

[8:55] And he is the one that we need to preach here in this place. To be true to God's word. Because he is the one that God has appointed as the means to get to heaven. And without him, you will get nowhere.

[9:08] You will be robbed. And you will be stolen from. And you will be destroyed. Because God has provided a way. And that is the only way to go. And the people here, they were robbed.

[9:20] They were robbed by what the Pharisees were lording over them with rules and regulations. I met a woman. I suppose it was a number of years ago now. The time does fly. But I met a woman.

[9:31] And she said to me. You know, she had a good few problems. And she said to me. But I can't pray anymore. And I said, why so? And she said, because in my denomination, she said.

[9:42] What I've seen happen by the leaders have put me off God. And I said, but you're looking to them. And you're not looking to God. And I hope that she did come around to look to God.

[9:56] And not to the hired hands. In verse 12 and 13, it tells us here. There are hired hands. There are people who are leading people. Because it's financially rewarding to them to be in that job or whatever.

[10:10] But they're not sheep. They didn't come the way of the Lord. And they are leading the people astray. When problems come and when the wolves come, they will abandon the sheep. Because they don't own the sheep.

[10:21] They're not really interested in the sheep. They're interested in themselves. But verse 5 is very encouraging. Because it tells us that the sheep have discernment. The sheep do hear the voice of the shepherd.

[10:35] Of the true shepherd. And that's so very encouraging to us all. But we're compared to sheep. And sheep do wander a bit. And they do go astray. So sometimes we do wander off a bit into areas that we shouldn't be going.

[10:50] So even though we have discernment, it might take a while to cut in. So that's important. But Jesus says, I am the dower of the sheep. And recently, I saw loads of sheep.

[11:05] Because I was down in Kerry. And Kerry is a great place for sheep. My son Simon said, right, get in the car. We're going to Killarney. So off we headed down.

[11:16] And we came down Mull's Gap. And down towards Ladies View. And as we came down the hill, I saw something that I didn't see before. And that was a load of cars in a car park on the left-hand side.

[11:29] And there seemed to be a load of sheep there. And there were sheep dogs. And Shirley turned to me. And she said, do you want to stop here? You might like this. And I'm like, what? I didn't think I was mad about sheep or whatever.

[11:41] I was wondering what she was talking about. And she said to me, you used to watch one man and his dog. And this is a display about the dog rounding up the sheep and putting him into the pin.

[11:54] She said, you'd love that, would you? And I said, oh, no, keep going. I wouldn't. I mean, I got kind of fed up in that half for a while. But anyway, I suppose two weeks later, I came to this passage.

[12:05] And I said, oh, I'm going to talk about that. Maybe I should have stopped. I might have learned something about sheep. But no, as I read a bit about sheep, because I know a little about sheep, I found that maybe I wouldn't have benefited much from Kerry from learning about sheep.

[12:22] Because the sheep pin in Kerry is different to the sheep pin in the Middle East. Because the sheep can in Kerry, they have the dogs and they round them up and they open the gate with a rope or whatever.

[12:34] And the sheep go in and they close the gate. But the sheep pin in the Middle East that Jesus is talking about is more, if you can kind of see that picture, that's more like it.

[12:45] It's like that, probably higher up with briars and thing on the top so no one could go over it. But there actually is no door in that. And the story is told of a man many years in the past, but I did read it in several places, that he was in the Middle East and he came to a sheep pin and he was looking at it and the shepherd was there with the sheep.

[13:06] And he went over to the shepherd and he said, how come there's no door? And the shepherd said, he is the door. The shepherd actually puts the sheep in the pin and he lies in the door.

[13:22] Nothing can go in or out of that door except through the shepherd. And when Jesus said, I am the door, he is the door. That door is so secure.

[13:33] There's no door like we see in Kerry like a gate. It's the door is Jesus. And that's what Jesus is talking about. And Jesus said, all who enter in by me shall be saved.

[13:46] There's no one going in or out. Jesus is there. Jesus is the one. And the Old Testament, it points to Christ all the way along. It's a picture of him in everything that happens in the life of other people even.

[14:01] There's a picture of Jesus in that. And God has always provided, as we go through the Old Testament, we will see in several places that there's a door.

[14:12] And God has provided a door, a door of safety in a time of judgment. If there's ever the judgment of God, there is a door that God provides.

[14:24] And we saw that like when we came to Noah's Ark, Noah's Ark points of Jesus. We were looking at that recently, that that Ark was a picture of Jesus. And it pointed to Jesus.

[14:37] And the Ark only had one door. And while God gave dimensions for the Ark and the size of the Ark and all that, he gave no dimensions for the door.

[14:48] Because you can never estimate the size of that door, of the work that Christ has done. And it's a picture of Christ being, to me, being big enough to take in the chief of sinners.

[15:05] Like me, like you, like the Apostle Paul who could say, I'm the chief of sinners. That that door is there for whosoever enter in, they shall be saved.

[15:16] And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man. Judgment is coming. Jesus said, if any man enter in by me, he will be saved.

[15:30] And there's two questions that I thought of as I thought about Noah's Ark and the door. And the two questions of this is, who shut the door of Noah's Ark? And what happened when the door was shut?

[15:43] And when we read in the Bible, I think it's in Genesis 7, 13. I should have referenced it here, but I haven't.

[15:55] That when they went into the Ark and when Noah went into the Ark, God shut the door. And I think that is very, very significant for us. It was God who provided that door.

[16:08] And the Ark was totally God's design, not Noah's. And it was God's idea. But God shut the door. And when the judgment started, that door was shut.

[16:20] And the second question, what happened when the door was shut? All the judgment was on the other side. And the door was shut to them. They could not then get into the Ark.

[16:32] The door was shut. And again, you know, we look in other places in the Old Testament and we see that there was a door of safety when judgment was there.

[16:44] And when judgment was about to strike in Egypt, God provided a door of safety again in the time of judgment. The blood of the Lamb, which speaks of Jesus, was put on the doorposts and on the lintels to protect from the coming judgment of the angel of death to the firstborn.

[17:03] And all those inside that door that was marked with blood were saved. And just like there was one door into the tabernacle, into the presence of God, there is one door into the presence of God.

[17:21] There was one God and there's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Don't look to anyone else. If you're outside that door, you will face the judgment of God.

[17:33] But God has provided that door. And that door is Christ. He took our judgment. And when we go through that door, the wrath of God is no longer on us.

[17:45] And we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We are brought into abundant life in Christ. When you go through the door, you will be saved. And you will go in and you will go out and you will find pasture.

[17:59] You will come into abundant life in Christ. Your life will change. The Bible says if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.

[18:10] Behold, all things are passed away. All things have become new. But you'll still have your struggles and you'll still have your problems. You'll still have your own nature. And you will still face many battles to face.

[18:24] And you'll have the enemies of the world around you, the flesh within you, and the devil who will seek to devour you. But all that, when you look at what you have, you have the good shepherd who leads you.

[18:41] That is so, so brilliant and so encouraging to us today. That he will provide for you. You know, when we, he will give you everything you need.

[18:54] Because he gave everything for you. Even his own life. Verse 11. And in Psalm 23, you shall not want anything. You will have green pastures.

[19:06] He'll lead you beside still waters. He'll restore your soul. He'll lead you in the path of righteousness. And even though you pass through the valley of the shadow of death, you shall fear no evil.

[19:18] Because he is with you. And your cup will overflow. You'll have goodness and mercy all the days of your life. And you'll dwell, like we sang this morning, in the house of the Lord forever.

[19:29] One thing I found interesting in my reading up about sheep. And I found interesting in relation to that, Sam. That sheep, and this is what I read.

[19:40] Sheep will not go near running water. That sheep will not drink from running water. Sheep seem to have a fear of running water. And that, Sam, says, he leads you beside still water.

[19:55] And in relation to the sheep, you know, that he knows our fears. And he is with us. And he'll lead us on the way. And whatever storm you have, he will still the storm.

[20:07] The man born blind in chapter 9 puts this into context. Before he met Jesus, he was living in darkness.

[20:19] But when he met Jesus, he saw things in a way that he never saw him before. And, you know, that happens when we come to the Good Shepherd.

[20:30] When we go through the door, the Holy Spirit draws us and influences our life and causes us to see things differently. I was interested this morning in the hymns that were picked.

[20:45] Because they did speak about seeing. And I think that's important. And when we come to the Good Shepherd and when he's in our life and we're trusting in him, we see things differently.

[21:00] We see things the same as everyone else all around us. But there's something different. And I think that point is brought out in the story of the 12 spies that Moses sent in to spy on the land of Canaan in Numbers chapter 13.

[21:18] There was 12 spies sent in to spy on the land because the children of Israel were going to go into that land and they wanted to see what it was like. And the 12 of them went in and they all saw the same thing.

[21:33] And they came back with more or less the report and they said it's a land flowing with milk and honey. It's a good land flowing with milk and honey.

[21:47] But 10 of those spies said, you know, we can't defeat it. Because look at the, there's giants in that land that we can't defeat.

[22:00] And we are only grasshoppers in their sight. But two of the spies said, let's go in and take it now. They had seen the same thing.

[22:14] But they saw it differently because of this. And this is the point. The 10 went in and saw the joints and saw themselves as grasshoppers and said, we can't defeat them.

[22:31] We can't beat them. So they came back and they said, we can't beat them. But the two that saw differently went in and they saw the same thing. They saw the joints and they saw the difficulties.

[22:43] But they saw that God had led them to this point, the good shepherd. And he had promised them this land. And they didn't look at themselves.

[22:55] They looked to God and said, let's go in now and defeat them. And you know, that I think is a lesson for us. That we have many things in our life that are joints that are so, so big.

[23:10] That we think we can't defeat them. And we can't. But when we are trusting in God. And when we are looking at the good shepherd.

[23:21] We see that our biggest problem is not so big. It is completely movable when we trust in God.

[23:32] I had something this week that I prayed about. And that problem was before me. And it seemed impossible. But I just trusted God in it. And I just want to thank God this morning that he moved that joint in my way.

[23:46] As if to say, this is the message today for everyone here. That although you have joints, that they are movable. Because he is a good shepherd.

[23:59] And he has the power to protect you. And he has the power to provide for you. And on that note, I just want to continue with two final verses.

[24:12] That Jesus spoke in 17 and 18. Therefore does my father love me because I lay down my life.

[24:25] That I might take it up again. No man take it from me. But I lay it down by myself. I have power to lay it down.

[24:36] And I have power to take it up again. This command have I received of my father. You know, no matter how great your mountain may be.

[24:48] Or your joints that you see. When you look at it. And you look at the good shepherd. And you see the power that's in Jesus. And the working. And the older. And the farther on you get.

[25:00] The more you see this. How God has led you. But you've been like a sheep. And I've been like a sheep. We've all been inclined to have that wandering thing in us.

[25:10] But he has always brought us back. And that's through his power. At work in us. And you know, he can do abundantly. Above all we can ever ask or think. Exceedingly abundantly.

[25:22] According to his power. That is at work in us. And you know, we sung this morning. Because he lives, I can face tomorrow. He had the power to lay down his life.

[25:33] No one took it from him. He had the power. And he had the power to take it up again. And you know, Jesus is alive today. And his power is at work. And he's no longer here physically on earth like he was when he gave these words.

[25:48] But the Holy Spirit is here today. And he's at work. And you know, Jesus said in that passage that other sheep must he also bring.

[25:58] And that's happening today. You know, that man, that blind man, he was of Judaism. He was led out of Judaism. But the Holy Spirit today is leading people out.

[26:12] Gentiles out of whatever they're in. You might be stuck in some denomination today that don't have Christ as a door. But the Holy Spirit miraculously moves into people's lives.

[26:24] And leads us out to see that Jesus is the door. And to come to the good shepherd. And that's still happening today. Other sheep must I bring.

[26:37] And that he is bringing us all into the one flock. The one fold. And we can confidently say the words of Psalm 23.

[26:50] Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Because the shepherd is leading me. The good shepherd. And as we sung this morning. I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

[27:03]  There's one door. One fold. One shepherd. Amen. oh