One day as we/were here in the church building we heard a loud banging noise, as if somebody were trying to get inside the building. It was an insistent loud knocking, but at first we couldn't find out where it was coming from. Our secretary went down the hallway to the door on the alley, but it wasn't coming from there. I went out to the Aspen Street doors, but no one was there. Still the noise continued … knocking, banging, insistent. And our sexton found it: someone was down in the stair well that leads to the Social Hall from out here in the yard ... not the stairwell off the alley, but the stair well and door that comes off the yard and directly into the Social Hall. It took us a long time to find the man who was there, because he was using a back door, a door we very seldom use ourselves and we just didn't expect anybody to be there.
As it turned out, he was a transient, one of the folks who come through here from time to time looking for a little help, and I don't quite know how he got around there to the back or why he picked that door to enter. It seems out of the way and obscure. But I do see a certain symbolism in it. I see a kind of message in it.
I see, quite possibly, a man who didn't think he was good enough to enter the front door. I see, very probably, a person a little confused, a little disoriented from all his trials. He just didn't have the lay of the land. I see, more than that, somebody who maybe just didn't know his way around churches, didn't have a feel for the way most churches are laid out, didn't have the ability to figure out where he should go. And so, when it came down to it, when he needed the help of the church, he just banged away on any door ... any door, back, front, side, alley, service entrance, whatever. It didn't matter. Any door will do when you hurt, and you will take any avenue you can to get help.
I say I see a symbolism and a message in that little incident. I see that as in part the way the world relates to the church, and I see it too as a signal for the mission of the church to the world. It is to have people enter by the front door. What we want to have happen ... we want to invite men and women of all walks of life to enter, but to enter by the front door.
Let me lay out what I am saying in a Biblical context. Let me speak to you of the door of the church, the front door, not in my own little parables, but in the great parable of the sheepfold as taught by Jesus. You’ll find it in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John.
John 10:1-11, 16
In this parable Jesus uses two pictures to describe himself. He calls himself the door, and he also calls himself the good shepherd. Actually these two pictures may be only one picture, but for right now I want us to focus on Jesus the door to the sheepfold, the front door.
He tells us that He himself is the door to the sheepfold, that if anyone will enter by this door, he will be saved, and he also tells us that those who enter by any other way than the door are not there legitimately. They are thieves and robbers, He says.
"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 ... he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in another way, that man is a thief and a robber."
I am the door ... the front door.
You know, people join churches for all sorts of reasons. All kinds of things motivate people to get on the church rolls. In some communities if you are not a church member you are just not socially acceptable; all the right people are in church. In fact the righter people are in the First Baptist Church or the Cathedral Episcopal Church or whatever. You know how it is … that some churches are very upper-crustish, and it's just good manners to be in that church.
Other folks join churches for business reasons; you'll make the right contacts. Some join churches to satisfy a need for friendship and fellowship. I do not read the advice columnists very much, but when I do I find that they are all the time telling folks who feel lonely to find a church where they can meet people. I don't really put that down ... I don't throw that out altogether. When I was in campus ministry I used to remind those husband-seeking young ladies that they might just find the right kind of fellow on the pew next to them; ah ha, I see you out there sneaking a look at who's sitting next to you! But it's true that sometimes people join churches for romantic or social reasons.
And some in fact join the church for vaguely religious reasons, just feeling, well, there is a God and I need His protection. And maybe if I get in the church and show up from time to time, get my name on the church roll, well, maybe that will persuade whatever God there be to take care of me.
I say again, there are many reasons why folks join churches; there are many doors through which they enter. But if I hear the Scripture rightly, there is only one legitimate door, there is only one front door, there is only one proper entrance, and that is Jesus Christ Himself, Jesus Christ alone. The way into the sheepfold is through personal trust in Jesus as savior. The way into the gift of salvation is through loyalty to Jesus Christ alone. The way, the door, to all that God wants for you and for me is a straight and narrow gate, a doorway of commitment to Jesus Christ.
"I am the door … I am the door of the sheep … if anyone enters by me ... by me …he will be saved … he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in another way, that one is a thief and a robber."
And so let me speak quite clearly and candidly to every person present this morning. The first issue to be raised with you is, by what entrance did you come in? What door have you used to get into the church? Did you come with full hearts and committed minds through the front door, through specific, clear, definite commitment to Christ as Lord? Did you come in the front door knowing that he had spoken to you and had invited you into the sheepfold? Or did you sneak in one of the back doors? Did you slide in the back door called, "I was just raised to go to church."? That's a back door, not a front door, if you have not chosen Christ.
Did you sneak in the back door called, "Bless this mess"? Somebody told me this week he was going to give me a sign for my desk that said, "Bless this mess." But that's the way some of us came to the church; we were in a mess and looking for somebody to say, "That's okay, you don't have to change, we'll just bless this mess."
Or maybe you crept in a back door that said, "I’m nobody and in here they'll think I'm somebody?" Did you creep in the back door of poor self-esteem, hoping that something better might rub off on you?
Oh, I want for you the front door. I want for you the front door named Jesus Christ and a relationship to Him, the front door that says, "You are somebody, you really are; you are one of his own. You belong to the shepherd, he knows your names, you are his." I want for you the joy and the wonder of entering by the front door. You remember, many of you, the days when, to our everlasting shame, it was customary for black folks coming to the white man's house to go around and tap on the back door, never the front door; the back door for the servant, the tradesman, the outcast. But I tell you Jesus the Christ is the front door, offering every person dignity, offering every man pride, offering all who will enter through Him and Him alone the gift of salvation.
"I am the door ... if anyone enters by me he will be saved." And so the number one issue today as we enter a year of focus on evangelism … the number one issue is not the world outside the church. The number one issue is you and me. Are we here in the proper way, and did we come in the front door? Do we know Jesus Christ? That we must answer before we can go on to anything else. Settle that today.
But once that's settled, once that's clear, then something else becomes evident. Something else becomes clear. And that is that the door, or to change the picture a little, the shepherd, Jesus Christ, wants others to find their way to that front door. Getting in the sheepfold, it turns out, is not an end in itself, but is a means to something else ... listen:
"The sheep hear the voice of the good shepherd ... he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out ... leads them out. If anyone enters by me, he will go in and out and find pasture …" There's something shaping up here, there is something we are being led outside the sheepfold to do ... what is it? Once we've gone to the trouble to enter by the front door and get safely into the church, why consider going out?
Keep listening. "I have other sheep, that are not of this fold … I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one fold and one shepherd."
In plain and simple English, we are saved to serve and to witness. We are not saved to sit and be satisfied, but we are saved to serve and to witness. We are not saved to stay inside in the comfort, we are not saved to stand by and watch the action through the stained-glass windows. We are saved to see the world come to the shepherd's fold, enter the shepherd's door, and become the shepherd's flock.
I need to confess to you this morning that I, like a good many other Christians, have had my problems with the task of outreach and evangelism. I’ve too often stayed away from being an evangelist because I didn’t like what so-called evangelistic Christians were doing. I didn’t like bullying people, I didn’t care for putting down people, I didn’t want to be associated with the sort of tub-thumping, rabble-rousing preaching that passes for evangelism so much of the time. And so I’ve too often kept silent, too often sort of hoped that if we just opened the front doors, folks would come on in and find Christ.
But I do see, and hope you too see, that men and women will enter by the front door, the genuine front door who is Christ, only if you and I who are already in the sheepfold will follow the shepherd out into the world, out into the pasture, if we will know his voice and follow him and share him with the world.
"I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring then also, and they will heed my voice ... So there shall be one fold and one shepherd."
I am calling you this morning a magnificent vision of a world united in loyalty to Christ, one fold, one shepherd. It is more than the vision, however laudable, of the president of the United States and his politics of inclusion and of coming together; this is the vision of a humanity reconciled through the transforming power of Christ, one fold and one shepherd.
It is more than a vision, however exciting it might be, of a larger church with a bigger budget and a finer building and a splashier program. We might want all these things, but I am afraid they may not wait for us. Ours must be the vision of the sheepfold where the core of the human problem is dealt with, where the issue of human lostness is met head on, and where the Lord Christ is lifted up and listened to. I am not calling you to church growth for it s own sake; l am calling you to church growth and to outreach for the sake of lost people who need a savior, who need to enter and enter by the front door. We are not going to push our church, our program, our pastor; we are going to present Christ as Lord. If the church grows, fine; if not, so be it. But I am calling you this morning to make a commitment in the coming year, a commitment to bear a burden and pay a price for the sake of a lost community. I am calling you to make a commitment to share out of your hearts and out of what you know , having entered by the front door, if you really have , now to leave by the front door and to follow the good shepherd into this community and to claim it for Christ. I am calling you, and not just I, but Christ Himself, I believe, is calling you and me, to see our families and our friends and our neighbors for what they really are, in so many cases: sheep having no shepherd. And then to reach then, love them, and bring them, so that here there may be one fold and one shepherd.
In a moment I am going to call on us all to pray, and to pray intensively, sincerely, to ask the spirit what our part shall be in this great work. I am going to ask you first of all to pray with a question in mind: have I entered by the front door? Have I come to Christ? Have I truly entered the sheepfold by the front door? Did I slip in the back door under false pretenses? And if so, how can I make that right with Christ?
And then I am going to ask you to pray about what your part will be as we move out of this sheepfold and into the world to reach others for Christ. The insert, "Outreach Options List," has just a number of concrete, specific possibilities on it. I want you to consider which of these you can share in; it may be one thing, it may be several, even all of these things. But I believe every person here who is one of Christ's own can make some response. And when you have prayed I am going to ask our ushers to distribute the offering plates again, not for an offering of money but for an offering of your commitments.
Jesus said, "I am the door … if anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out … I have other sheep not of this fold; I must ... I must bring them also ... so there shall be one fold and one shepherd," even Jesus Christ. Amen.
