One Door And Only One Series

There’s a cute little children’s song about Jesus that goes this way:

“One Door, and only one, and yet its sides are two, inside and outside, on which side are you? One Door, and only one, and yet its sides are two, I want the inside - on which side are you?

“One Lord, and only one and yet the ways are two, right way and wrong way on which way are you? One Lord, and only one and yet the ways are two, I want the right way - on which way are you?

“One Door, and only one, and yet its sides are two, Inside and outside, on which side are you?”

In our culture, there are doors everywhere. There are doors to our houses, restaurants, factories and churches. And doors have a purpose – they’re designed to keep good stuff in and bad stuff out. In fact, just to be sure the doors do what they’re designed to do we put locks on them.

Jesus said “I AM THE DOOR. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.” John 10:9

Jesus is THE DOOR. He is there to protect the flock - that’s us – and He is there to keep the good stuff in (that’s us) and bad stuff out (thieves, robbers, wolves and other bad things). And He’s not just the door… He’s the lock on the door.

(We showed a picture of a shepherd laying across the opening of sheep pen) In this passage, Jesus is talking about something called a Sheepfold or Sheep Pen. From the picture, you see that the shepherd is literally THE DOOR. He lays down across the opening of the pen so that the sheep don’t wander off. As the song says: I want the inside.” I want Jesus to protect me.

Now, what’s interesting here is the negative aspect of this that Jesus stresses. He 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.” John 10:1

For the sheep who hear Jesus’ voice and follow Him, the door is open. But, for the thieves and robbers, the door’s locked. Not everybody who wants to get into the sheep pen is going to get in. Some folks apparently want to get in on their terms… not Jesus’.

For those kinds of folks, Jesus says: "Strive to enter through the NARROW DOOR. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’” Luke 13:24-27

Jesus says… it’s a narrow door. And there are people who deceive themselves, and try to deceive you, into believing that they are on the INSIDE of that door. But They’re Not! Jesus calls them the “thieves and robbers.”

This runs counter to our “Can’t we all just get along” kind of mindset. There’s a part of us that would just as soon ignore the people who teach and believe false doctrine (the thieves and the robbers, if you will) and just let them live their lives and we live ours.

ILLUS: Back when I was a boy, dad had a policy at the dinner table: He would not allow any discussion of politics and (wait for the audience to respond: “religion”). But, frankly that silence can be dangerous.

ILLUS: At the last church I served there were a couple of families that had a “home Bible Study” built around the teachings of a TV “evangelist.” They were all excited about him and wanted me to watch a tape of him. “Sure,” I said, and as the tape rolled I saw a big man, sitting behind a desk wearing a cowboy hat and smoking a cigar. As bizarre as his presentation was, he spoke with authority and conviction and some of the stuff he said made sense. But the more I listened to him, I sense something wasn’t quite right. I sensed that he was leading up to something. And then he got to his point: he taught that after Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, Satan had sexual relations with Eve, and the offspring of that union was… Cain. And Cain was a black man. (PAUSE) Yeah! He was a racist. He was a bigot.