First Presbyterian Church
Wichita Falls, Texas
May 15, 2011
YOU GOTTA COME IN THROUGH THE DOOR
Isaac Butterworth
John 10:1-10 (ESV)
1 "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. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers." 6 This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
7 So Jesus again said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
There’s an old spiritual. I’m sure you’ve heard it. It starts out, ‘So high you can’t get over it, so low you can’t get under it, so wide you can’t get around it! You gotta come in through the door.’
That’s what Jesus tells us in this passage from John’s Gospel. ‘I am the door of the sheep,’ he says. ‘I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.’ It does not always sit well with our ears -- it may even sound a bit restrictive to our sensibilities -- but Jesus is unapologetically exclusive here. There are not multiple entrances to life with God. There is only one, and it is Christ. He is the door -- he is the only door -- to the Father. In another place, Jesus says, ‘The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few’ (Matt. 7:14). And in John 14:6 we hear Jesus saying, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’
The way to life with God is through the door, and Jesus Christ is the door. As we read this passage in John, chapter 10, we see that there are two groups of people that ‘gotta come in through the door.’ First, there is the shepherd, and then there are the sheep. Let us look at each of them in turn.
I. THE SHEPHERD’S GOTTA COME
IN THROUGH THE DOOR
First of all, the shepherd’s gotta come in through the door. Shepherds are admitted to the fold only by Christ’s authority. In John 10, the first two verses, Jesus says, ‘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.’
Jesus is talking to the religious leaders of his day. He is speaking to the Pharisees. And he is telling these would-be shepherds that they have disqualified themselves from being the leaders of God’s people. As we read from Ezekiel earlier, ‘Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves!’ (34:2). They have become ‘thieves and robbers.’ Why? Because they do not come in through the door.
God’s people need shepherds. The Latin word for ‘shepherd,’ as you probably know, is ‘pastor.’ We need pastors. The Second Helvetic Confession is one of the great statements of faith that came out of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. It lays out for us in helpful ways the contours of our Reformed heritage. And it says very simply, ‘The ministry is not to be despised’ (5.143). We need pastors.
In Romans, chapter 10, Paul underlines this need. He says that ‘“everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”’ But then, he asks, ‘How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?’ (vv. 13f.). We need pastors.
And we need pastors who are called. Again, shepherds are admitted to the fold only by Christ’s authority. Romans, chapter 10, again -- in that same section. Paul says: ‘How are they to preach unless they are sent?’ (v. 15). The shepherd’s gotta come in through the door. In other words, no one is to preach unless Christ has authorized it. In Jeremiah, God says of those who preach without a call, ‘I did not send [these] prophets, yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people’ (23:21f.). Those who preach to us must ‘stand in God’s council.’ They must proclaim God’s Word to us, not their own word. To put it another way, they gotta come in through the door.
Now, we need to talk about what has taken place in our denomination this past week. How are our shepherds called? With the passage of amendment 10A to the Book of Order, the national church will no longer have specific language that bars certain categories of people from ordination. The change does not require the ordination of practicing homosexuals, but it may open the door to their ordination by congregations and presbyteries who interpret Scripture as allowing it. Individuals will now be considered on a case by case basis. In essence, this new legislation represents a decentralization of the national church’s power and puts the responsibility of discernment in the hands of people at the local level.
Because of my view of Scripture and what I believe it teaches, I voted against amendment 10A, and within our presbytery I was in the majority. I am aware, of course, that members of our church are on both sides of this issue. We are a diverse congregation, and we do not always agree with one another. That has not changed. Nor has this new ruling changed the way we examine candidates for the office of elder or deacon. We will continue to consider each person’s readiness for church office in the same prayerful way we always have. We will continue to rely on Scripture and The Book of Confessions in choosing our leaders. And we will still be entitled to our own expectations for church officers. None of this has changed. What I hope is that we can move forward together while keeping our eyes focused on the mission of Christ. What I hope is that we will not allow any issue to deter us from what I believe we all agree is our number one priority: following Jesus Christ and serving his kingdom.
So, back to our text. What have we said? We need pastors, and we need pastors who are called. We also need pastors who will do what they are called to do. And that is to preach Christ. When a pastor does that, he enters the sheepfold by the door, and ‘to him the gate keeper opens’ (John 10:3). Such a pastor does his work by Christ’s authority, because that is what Christ has called him to do. Paul wrote to Timothy, ‘I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word’ (2 Tim. 4:1f.). And the Westminster Confession says, ‘Repentance unto life is an evangelical grace [and] is to be preached by every minister of the gospel, as well as...faith in Christ’ (6.081). The pastor who does this -- the pastor who preaches Christ -- enters the sheepfold by the door. And Jesus says, ‘The sheep hear his voice’ (v. 3).
II. THE SHEEP GOTTA COME
IN THROUGH THE DOOR
That brings us to the sheep. Shepherds, we have said, by which we mean pastors, must have Christ’s own commission. Only the pastor who enters by this door may lawfully ask ‘the sheep [to] hear his voice.’ Only the pastor who is authorized by Christ may call Christ’s sheep ‘his own’ and lead them out to ‘find pasture.’ Shepherds are admitted to the fold only by Christ’s authority. So it is with the sheep. They are admitted to the fold only by Christ’s atonement. Listen again to Jesus’ words: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.... I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved’ (vv. 7, 9).
Notice what Jesus says here. He says, ‘Entrance is “by me.”’ ‘If anyone enters by me, he will be saved.’ We shall not enter the sheepfold by any other means than by Christ. The door of innocence is shut to us. We cannot present our record of conventional morality to ‘the watchman’ at the door and say, ‘Look how good I’ve been. Let me in.’ We are all disqualified from entrance by our own merit.
The door of pedigree is shut to us. We cannot claim the right of entrance by declaring that our parents before us -- or our grandparents before them -- were admitted, then why not us? Like the generations before us, we gotta come in through the door.
The door of religion is shut to us. We will not be granted admission solely on the basis of church membership or baptism or any such thing. Once more, let’s hear the words of the Westminster Confession. It says, ‘There is no other way of salvation than that revealed in the gospel...,’ and it says again that this gospel ‘promises eternal life to all who truly repent and believe in Christ’ (6.058; 6.056). In short, you gotta come in through the door.
Do not seek to climb into Christ’s fold ‘by any other way.’ It is not necessary, because there is a door. Do not remain outside, longing to come in but fearful that you will not be welcomed. Jesus says, ‘All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out’ (John 6:37). There is a door, and it opens to faith. ‘Come to me,’ Jesus says, ‘all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matt. 11:28). Do not neglect this tender offer that Jesus makes to your heart. ‘I am the door,’ he says. ‘If anyone enters by me, he will be saved.’
Let me know bring this to a close. Jesus tells us that the shepherd enters the sheepfold only by his authority. If a pastor does not ‘stand in God’s council,’ as Ezekiel puts it, he ‘does not enter the sheepfold by the door.’ Our Lord also tells us that the sheep enter the sheepfold only by his atonement. We cannot rely on ourselves or our own merit. We must respond to the gospel offer by faith and by faith alone. In other words, shepherd or sheep, pastor or people, we gotta come in through the door.
