Sermon: I AM, Am I willing to allow Jesus to stand in the gap for me?
Before I went off to train for ministry; I used to live in an old house in Oamaru with an acre and a half of land, I had the usual garden and lawn but I also had about an acre and a quarter of pretty rough hillside that was planted in a variety of trees and grass. The best way I found to keep the grass down, and the leaves cleaned up was to have a few sheep.
When I first moved there I had no sheep and I’d never had sheep, but one of my neighbours had too many; so off I went to her house and offered to buy three, I thought I was ‘home and hosed’ as I walked these sheep over to my place. These sheep were easy to control, actually these sheep were starving; I carried one lamb under each arm and the old ewe that I’d brought on seeing some grass made a bit of a bolt for my place and straight through the gate. Yip, shepherding was a breeze and I didn’t even need a dog.
My adventure with sheep had begun, my breed of sheep, well as it turned out they were motley, cross breed, half baked, deviously cunning animals and it was only the fact that two of them were ewes and were useful for producing more sheep that they didn’t become roasts and chops along with the wether.
Once these sheep had put on condition and gained what was a normal weight and a little energy, they were off; at the slightest chance they would push through a gap under the fences, open gates and attempt to sneak out while I was sneaking into their paddock. I had procured the Houdini’s of the sheep world.
Often their previous owner would phone me and inform me that they had returned. Sometimes they disappeared like a vapor only to be found hiding in flax bushes (a bit Jacobean like) at the sewage pumping station a kilometer away down the hill. Each time I would trudge off possibly with one or both sons in tow on the great sheep roundup. I always blocked the holes closed the gates and returned the errant sheep to the paddock, bless their little wooly hearts and their empty heads.
This was jolly good entertainment for those looking on, and us for a while but it soon became a nuisance, then an extreme nuisance, then I made sure the gates were secure, all holes blocked and fences regularly checked. The sheep seldom escaped and I slept easier at night. The truth is that sheep need constant care; they require protection and regular work to ensure they are healthy.
Sheep require boundaries for their own good!
Back to the gospel of John, Jesus is having a discussion with Pharisees again, those pompous religious always right blokes, who on encountering a bloke who had been born blind that Jesus has healed, excommunicate him from the synagogue. So Jesus went to see the excommunicated bloke knowing that getting the heave-ho from the equivalent of church was a big thing.
Jesus tells the man that he himself; Jesus that is, is “The Son of Man” which is like saying he is the Christ, The Chosen One and the one who “is entrusted by God with authority, glory and sovereign power” .
Jesus then proceeds to give the Pharisees present a bit of a serve about their being spiritually blind, and guilty of sin. Then he tells them this. Read John 10:1-10.
This needs an explanation, back in the day there was no number eight wire, and sheep mesh fencing did not exist. What they had is called a sheep pen or fold, made of either prickly bushes or rocks that had been all piled up to form a barrier. Sometimes a natural feature like a stone bank or a glade of trees might form part of the enclosure. How to get in or out? The same way we enter a paddock through The Gate.
The gate was not a well hinged galvanised cyclone netting model. Some times it was another prickly bush or large rock, all capable of keeping out the majority of things that would annoy sheep. But most likely the gate was a man or woman, a shepherd. This person would fill the gap with their body becoming the gate.
This person, completed to pen, this gate would spend their evening and night in the Gap, having swept aside what the gardening shows call sheep pallets, they would sleep across the entrance, keeping the sheep in the enclosure and the world out, the sheep need not be concerned, they could sleep easy, they remained safe and healthy. They had no opportunity to wander off, they were totally enclosed. Any wolf or lion, any thief had to get both past the thorny bushes or rocks and past the human gate!
So what is our role in this picture if Jesus is the Sheep Gate what are we? Any ideas.
1) I guess that you could say we are sheep. We know all sorts of biblical references to us being sheep. “The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” John 10:11 is always a favourite, more on that in a couple of weeks.
Let’s remember this is what Jesus did for us, making it possible for us to approach the Throne of God the Father because he laid down his life for us, his body was broken and his blood spilt for the forgiveness of our sins. Jesus became ‘the gate way’ through which we can approach The Father.
Today we can come under Jesus protection, how does he care for his sheep, he is a living gate. We the sheep need to be within his protection, if we are outside the gate we are susceptible to being stolen or destroyed. We have an enemy who would keep us from the best God has for us!
When we come to God, when we turn our backs on the world we come to a place of spiritual protection. The truth is we will all be physically destroyed at some stage, I’ve recently been reading a book called “The Heavenly Man” by a Chinese Christian by the name of Brother Yun, the people of the Chinese Church know very well that they are under God’s spiritual protection but physically they are vulnerable to persecution, imprisonment , torture and death. Their eternal hope still rests in Jesus.
Here is a quote from the book:
“The guards travelling in the back of the van switched on an electric baton when they heard me praying and jolted me with shocks. The pain was too severe for me and I felt my heart and my brain were going to literally explode from my body. Again I cried to the Lord, “God, have mercy on me. Please receive my spirit now.”
Quite a price to pay for prayer, a heavy price to follow Jesus and that is only the tip of the suffering of The Church in China.
Being a sheep within the pen with Jesus standing in the gap is about spiritual protection, staying spiritually safe requires being under God’s guidance. To be spiritually right necessities coming under God’s spiritual guidance, being enclosed in his will, it is what God wants from us a right relationship with him. We have that safety when Jesus completes the pen when he completes our lives.
If you’ve been walking this walk for any time, you will know that in your humanity you are able to be lead away from where God would lead you. I’ve heard people give all sorts of excuses for it, “it’s a stage they’re going through”, “it’s a cultural thing”, “it’s because of their up bringing”, “their parents were working, cared to much, cared to little”, you know the sort of thing! The truth is something caught their eye and they wandered off, only to get caught up in the world again, some time later they came or may come back to their senses it is hoped and find them selves in the pen where Jesus is standing in the gap for them. Jesus stands in that gap for us; he fills that entrance and keeps us spiritually safe. But only if we desire it! Only if we submit our will to his!
The Salvation Army’s ninth doctrine says it this way… “We believe that continuance in a state of salvation depends upon continued obedient faith in Christ.” Jesus stands in the gap for us (SBI.) We have to stand on the right side of him not returning to the ways we once followed, if we do there is no future there, the enemy has a field day with us, our lives will never be as abundant as they could be. This could be the difference in believing in God and submitting to his will.
What do we do if we see one of the sheep wandering off, do we say it’s a stage they’re going through, it’s a cultural thing, it’s because of their up bringing, they’re only human, you know the sort of thing, do we step up? We are two other things in this picture that Jesus is portraying!
2) The first is this; you may be the sheep but you are also part of the sheep pen!
This especially applies to those who are mature in the faith and those in leadership in “The Church” (Church being the body of believers not the building). Welcome to the reality of being a thorny bush fence or a rocky wall protecting the sheep. Not quite as dynamic as the gate but never the less protecting the sheep – as a congregation, linked together in community as part of the living body of Christ, “The Church” it is your duty to protect the rest of it. It is your duty to guard the sheep to ensure that they don’t wander off; it’s also your duty to ensure the rest of the structure is solid. That they only respond to the shepherds voice and aren’t enticed away by that clump of Lucerne just beyond the bounds of safety, that they, especially if they are young in the faith don’t respond to a voice that isn’t the True Shepherds and find themselves in trouble, while we are a community of believers living for God and serving all people we have a duty to look out for one another and to only respond to Jesus. To follow his teaching to realise that as we are part of the sheep pen.
Jesus is standing in the gap completing us, like a gate completes the pen and spiritually protecting us as we are his sheep, with his teaching, the words of scripture, by his Holy Spirit he is our encourager, our comforter, our helper, and friend. We as his followers are within his Spiritual protection as long as we are on the right side of the Gap, as long as we take our place beside him, enclosed by him and we are able to care for one another as we take our place in the sheep pen as Jesus is never off duty.
To do these things, to be Jesus flock to be part of the sheep pen we are to act as the watchman acts; for like the sheep he knows the voice of the one who protects the sheep.
3) The watchman opens the gate for the shepherd. Again a little explanation is required here; Jesus in his description of the sheep pen is talking about two types:
(a) The one I have discussed so far is the type that is used in the open country. (b) The one with the watchman is a type of communal pen or group of pens I would compare then by saying they are a little like a modern sales yard that is in a township or city but made of stone or wood. A watchman or doorman is employed to keep them secure for the shepherds that use it. Once inside again the shepherd acts calls his own sheep and they listen to him and follow him out of the pen leaving behind sheep that follow other shepherds.
The watchman knows the shepherds voice, just as the sheep know the shepherds voice.
If you have made a decision to follow God and you are in that personal relationship you know Jesus voice, you study his words until you really know his voice. There is no confusion over who you are hearing. You know the value of true salvation.
True lush pasture is found in Jesus, his life, his words and through his Holy Spirit; He came so that we can have life to the fullest. In him we can be complete. PP
How?
3i) You become a watchman. Opening the door of your life only to the things that are within God’s will, you hear his voice, study his words, and stay within his will for your life. Outside are left those things that previously bound you to the world, dragged you down, had you fearful and controlled, those things that are outside the freedom that comes through being in God’s will. We know those things, the addiction that controlled, the compulsion, the lies, the cheating, the greed, that fire of desire for that thing - that’s burns up your ability to function, the fear that kept you isolated, the need to be one better than the next man. Jesus has made a way for us to enter into a life free of these things; we can enter into this freedom he then stands in the Gap for us, offering us his protection, completing us.
These points leave us with questions, if Jesus is the Gate for the Sheep?
What are you, a sheep that has entered his pen to come under his spiritual protection or one that wanders not knowing safe boundaries?
Where are you, are you part of a structure that builds up the rest and protects only being completed by the gate or away from the gate outside the will of God?
Which voice are you listening too and what are the results of responding to those things that call you?
Jesus said I Am the gate for the sheep – ask yourself, Am I willing to allow him to stand in the gap for me?
