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TEACHINGS TO VALLEY VIEW COMMUNITY CHURCH

The Great I AM

08/12/2007 - The Door, John 10:7

Valley View Community Church began with a handful people under an oak tree at Valley Forge National Park. We met there for the first time on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, September 12, 1993. It sounds a bit romantic now, but back then there was a part of us that really felt let down by God because we were meeting under a tree and not in a building. We had spent over a month driving around the area, searching for a facility, but not having much money for rent we didn't find any doors open to us.

Yet a few days after our first meeting that all changed. God opened a door when he provided the barn at the Fairview Village Church of the Nazarene as a meeting place. And I can remember tears filling our eyes the very next Saturday night when we held our first indoor worship gathering there. It was a moment that those of us who were there will never forget. In our name Valley reminds us ofValley Forge National Park where the church began and View reminds us of the Fairview Village Church of the Nazarene that opened their doors to us.

We met at the barn on Saturday nights for two and half-years until we sensed it was time to move to a new location that we could use on Sunday mornings. The barn wasn't available to us on Sundays. So I drove to three places looking for an open door. The first was Methacton High School, but at that time they didn't open their doors for anyone on Sundays. So we couldn't meet there. The second was right across the street at the Seventh Day Adventist Church. They meet on Saturdays so I thought that maybe we can use their building on Sundays. I left a message, but never heard back. That door was closed too.

The third door I knocked on was the Audubon YMCA and that's when I first met Janet Genuardi. The Y had just purchased this building and so there was a lot of work to be done. But she said we could use it on Sundays and promised to call me a few months later when the work was complete. We prayed together and I drove away thinking maybe, just maybe this would be the next meeting place for us. First, a tree, then a barn, and now a warehouse.

Sure enough after a few months, Janet was true to her word and called us up and said the place is yours. And on Sunday, February 4, 1996, we held our first worship gathering here, setting up about sixty metal chairs facing that way. God had provided an open door for us and he used Janet Genuardi to unlock it. And for these past eleven years we've thanked God for her and for the Audubon YMCA.

But God wasn't finished yet. A few years ago we started praying that he would provide a more permanent place for us to meet. We even put a target up on the wall week after week with this slide. We prayed for someplace near the Oaks exit of Route 422 that would be accessible from either direction. We organized a task force and started actively looking at properties and immediately went into sticker shock when we discovered what it would cost to purchase or even rent any kind of building or land in this area. It was a lot more than a tree or a barn or even a warehouse. Once again, the doors seemed shut tight.

But then the phone rang at our little office on Main Street in Collegeville and it was Werner Anderson calling from Sunnyside Community Church. He wanted to set up a meeting with us and in that meeting told us that Sunnyside wanted to give their building and seven acres of property to Valley View!

Their church was without a pastor and some of the people had started coming to Valley View and saw that we were a church without a building and they had a building without a church. And so in March of 2004 God once again opened the door for us. And when we looked at the property and looked at the map, we discovered that it was right smack in the bull's eye of the target on the wall we were praying about! Isn't God amazing?

And now the door is open for us to move the church to the Sunnyside property and next week will be our first gathering there. Open doors. Open doors mean opportunity. Open doors mean accessibility. Open doors mean we can move ahead. And today Jesus uses the image of a door to describe himself.

This morning we continue our series called "The Great I AM" with a look at the fourth "I AM" statement of Jesus contained in the gospel of John. Jesus makes eight "I AM" statements in all. And today he says, "I am the door."

First, he called himself "The Bread of Life" right after he performed the miracle of feeding the 5,000 on a hillside in Galilee. He's the one who can satisfy the hunger of our souls. Then he called himself "The Light of the World," standing under a 75 foot high candelabra in the Temple in Jerusalem. He's the one who can illuminate our path and guide us through this dark world. And last week he called himself "The I AM," the very name of God. Jesus is the eternal, self-existent one. He is God come in the flesh and knows all about us our past, our present, and our future and loves us anyway. He's beyond space and time. He is the eternal now and he is with us right now.

And each time Jesus makes these statements he divides the crowd between those who believe him and those who don't, between those who are for him and those who want to see him dead. Last week he almost got himself killed for his statements and this week he'll have to dodge another rock throwing crowd.

If you have a Bible turn with me to John 10. In John 10:1-6 Jesus tells a parable, "I tell you the truth, the one who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. ²The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. ³The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice." ⁶Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them.

Jesus tells this little story shortly after he healed a blind man in John 9. And again he created controversy because he performed that miracle on a Sabbath Day, on a day when no work was to be done. And when the religious leaders heard about it they were livid.

Look at John 9:40, Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, "What? Are we blind too?" ⁴¹Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin, but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains."

Ouch! Jesus was calling these religious leaders blind because they were blind to who Jesus was and they were blind to how a person gains access to God. You see the Pharisees believed that the way to gain access to God was by keeping the Law of Moses. The name Pharisee literally means "separated one" and so in their minds the way to enter into a relationship with God meant that a person had to keep himself or herself separate from sin.

And the way to do that was to keep the Levitical Law which they had codified into 613 commands, 365 don'ts and 248 do's. For them it was all about rule keeping. So they had all these hoops that they required the people to jump through if they wanted to gain access to God. "You want to know what it takes to please God? Here's the list. Get busy!" And, of course nobody could do the list. They all had F's on their report cards and felt like spiritual failures.

There was another group out there called the Sadducees. They believed that they had the way of access to God. They didn't like all the rules that the Pharisee's loaded up on the people. Instead, for them it was all about performing the rituals of the Jewish faith, keeping the seven sacred feasts each year, and observing the sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem. That was the doorway to God.

So the people wanted to know, "Was Jesus going to weigh in with the Pharisees or was he going to weigh in with the Sadducees? Is he into rules or into rituals? Which one opens the door to God?"

So Jesus tells this little story about sheep herding to say, "Neither!" Look at verse 7, Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. ⁸All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. ⁹I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. ¹⁰The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."

Jesus is saying that rules are not the way to God. Rituals are not the way to God. I am the way to God. I am the gate for the sheep. I am the door. You gain access to God through me. To make his point Jesus uses an analogy that every one in his audience would understand.

Israel was a sheep herding country. Sheep were used for wool and meat and sacrifices at the Temple. Sheep were everywhere. And throughout the Scriptures God likens himself to a shepherd and his people to sheep.

Listen to Psalm 23, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. ²He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. ³He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.⁴Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me. Your rod and your staff they comfort me. ⁵You prepare a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. ⁶Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

The image of a shepherd and his sheep is a powerful one and also used in Scripture to refer to a king and his people. In his comments on this passage Tom Wright says, "In the modern world we don't think of rulers and leaders in quite that way. We think of people running big companies, of the presidents of banks and multi-national corporations. We think of people sitting behind desks, dictating letters or chairing meetings. Often such people are quite removed from most of those who work in the organization. They seldom see them face to face, and probably don't know the names of very many. But in the Bible the ideal king is pictured as a shepherd, modeled by the shepherd-boy David, who became the king after God's own heart. In a world where they knew about the intimate contact and trust between shepherd and sheep, this was their preferred way of talking about kingship. This is the image that Jesus chooses to explain his own claim to be the true king of Israel."

And in verse 11 he'll say, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Matt will explore that beautiful image next week. But today Jesus says, "I am the gate. I am the door for the sheep."

In that culture, shepherds worked long hours and still do today. All day long they would lead their sheep to green pastures and beside still waters, climbing up and down rocky hills, under the hot Middle Eastern sun. It was a tough job. And when night fell they were exhausted. And so they would take their tired sheep into a sheepfold for safety and protection from thieves and robbers so that they all could get some sleep. And if they were near a town that sheepfold might be big enough for a number of flocks to spend the night.

The walls of the sheepfold were often made of piled up stones or mud baked bricks or sometimes just thorns twisted together to make a hedge. And the door to the sheepfold would be a very narrow opening, only wide enough for one sheep to pass through at a time. And at night the good shepherd would lay down in front of the door to guard it with his life. No sheep could get out without waking him up and no thief could get in. And when morning came he would give his call or play his flute and only those sheep that were his would follow him out.

Jesus is saying that he is that narrow door. He is the passageway who provides us with access to God. And that access comes when we believe in him. Faith in him is what gets us into God's fold, into God's kingdom. It's not keeping rules or performing rituals. That's the way of thieves and robbers in this analogy. The Pharisees and the Sadducees were suggesting that we climb ladders of rules and rituals to get into the fold.

But we don't need ladders of good works to come to God. Instead, access to God comes by entering through the door and that comes when we believe in Jesus. And that wasn't easy in that culture and it's not easy in our culture either. Jesus would divide this crowd too. Drop down to verse 19, At these words the Jews were again divided.²⁰Many of them said, "He is demon possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?" ²¹But others said, "These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?"

What has Jesus been telling us all throughout the gospel of John? Those who believe in me have eternal life. In a few weeks we'll look at John 14:6 where he says, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

He used a similar analogy in his great Sermon on the Mount that we studied last fall when he says in Matthew 7:13-14, Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Jesus is the gate who provides us with a relationship with God. But he provides us with something else as well. What do we do every night before you go to bed? Most of us lock the front door because not only do doors provide access, a way in and a way out, but doors provide security. They keep us safe.

And that's part of this image as well. In this passage Jesus says, "I'll keep you safe too." Look at John 10:28-30,"I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. ²⁹My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. ³⁰I and the Father are one."

When we believe in Jesus and put our faith in him he gives us eternal life. Eternal life doesn't just mean living forever in God's kingdom. Although, it certainly does mean that. But Jesus defined eternal life as a special quality of life that at its center means knowing God.

In John 17:3 he'll say, Now this is eternal life. That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Eternal life is another way of saying that through faith in Jesus Christ we have a relationship with the one true God. And it's a relationship that we can never lose. We will always be one of God's sheep, even if we stray from the fold.

And the analogy Jesus uses is two hands. We are in the hand of Jesus. And his hand is in the hand of the Father. "And no one," he says, "can snatch them out of my hand or out of my Father's hand." We are doubly secure! This is the passage that I believe teaches the eternal security of the believer in Christ. Once we are born into God's family through faith in Jesus we'll always be a member of his family even if we misbehave.

This is also another passage where Jesus claims to be God. I and the Father are one. And again it almost costs him his life. Look at verse 31, Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, ³²but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?" ³³"We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."

And once again, there's heated debate over the person of Jesus. Doors are wonderful things. Doors provide opportunity. Doors provide accessibility. Doors provide security. God has opened door after door for us. But the most important door is Jesus. He has given us the opportunity to be part of God's sheepfold. He has given us access to God the Father. He has given us the security of eternal life simply through faith in him. Have you believed in Jesus? Have you walked through that door yet? I hope so. If not, you can walk through right now.

FOR MORE INFORMATION about Valley View Community Church, feel free to contact us at info@valleyviewseek.org or call 610.631.2707.