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Empowering multimedia ministry for bold Christian living: Weekend Messages, Deep End Podcast, Deep Dive Bible Study. Tim Hatch, Lead Pastor, Waters Church, 26 years of pastoral ministry, book author.
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Doors Reveal Authority, Destination, and Protection 0:00 You're listening to Waters Church podcast where faith meets real life. We're 1 church, many locations, and 1 mission to see lives changed by Jesus. No matter where you're listening from, you are a0:12 part of Waters Church family. Now let's dive into today's message from our pastor.0:20 Take out your notes. They look like this. I am the door as we do part 4 of this series, and we're gonna go to the book of John chapter 10. So keep your bibles open. I know you're already there. And we're gonna talk about0:30 doors for a moment because I don't know if you know this, but doors are a big part of our life. And I did not even realize that until I started to study for this message. And I thought, man, we lock we walk through a lot0:40 of doors all the time. You've already walked through several doors this morning. You walked through your bedroom door, and we pray to God you walked through your bathroom door. Maybe a0:52 shower door, out of the bathroom door, into the bedroom door, through the bedroom door, into the kitchen door, out of the kitchen into the maybe you went into the garage door, opened your garage doors, drove out. But1:03 first, you got into your car through the door. Right? Then you got out to our parking lot, got out of the car door into our outside door, checked in your kids through the kids' check-in door, then walked through the1:14 doors of the sanctuary. And when I'm done preaching, after we sing 1 more song, you will exit the doors on your way out. A lot of doors. Yeah. Don't forget to give on your way out. Amen. We don't pass the1:25 plate in the church. So you give at the door. And and I thought about some things concerning doors that you may never put together, but I believe that they tie together what Jesus is speaking about regarding his1:35 identity. Letter a in your notes. Write this down. Doors reveal authority. There are doors that you can walk through. There are doors that you cannot walk through. What doors are you allowing1:48 to stay open that shouldn't be open? The actual first time the Bible mentions doors, check this out. Genesis chapter 1 I'm sorry. Genesis chapter 42:00 verse 7, god says to Cain, who wants to kill his brother because he's jealous of his acceptance before god, Abel gave god his first and his best. Cain gave God his leftovers. So2:11 Cain sees God favor Abel. He's resentful. Resentment gets into his heart. He opened the door to resentment. And then God comes and challenges, warns Cain. Says if you do2:23 well, you will be accepted. But if you don't if you don't do well, sin is crouching where? At the door. At the door. What happened was Cain left a door open for sin.2:36 What about you? What doors are you left letting open? You you got to understand. You have authority over the doors of your life. How about this 1? What doors are you opening with your ears? Who2:48 are you listening to? Who are you letting speak into your life? Who's gonna be your counselor in your moments of sadness and depression? Be2:59 careful who has authority over the doors of your life. Amen, somebody. Jesus was warning the people of Israel in chapter 10 of John. He3:11 actually warns them by saying, you know, if you don't if people don't enter God's sheepfold by the door, they're thieves. They're coming for nefarious purposes. You have to understand that there's a3:23 real spiritual battle at work all around you all the time, and your ears are so big a part of this. Whose voices are getting into3:35 your heart? Letter b, doors determine my destination. You are in the sanctuary because you walk through the doors of the sanctuary. You're in the church because you walk through the doors of the church. When you go home,3:44 you'll go back through the doors of your house, back into the destination of your home. Jesus makes this absolutely clear in verse 7 of our text. He says, I am the door of the sheep. Notice this the3:56 phrase is intentionally, exclusive. He does not say I am a door. He says I am the door, underline the. Because if Jesus4:08 wanted to play nice with all the other religions of the world, he would have said, I'm a door. You can walk through me and get to him. Or you can walk through Buddha or Mohammed or all these other thing. And if he wanted4:19 to play if that was his intention, right, to play nice with all the other religions of the world, that's what he would have said. But he didn't say that, did he? He said, I am the4:31 door. The only way for the sheep to find the father, to know the father, to go of ultimately to eternal life. But in this life, to have eternal life, it's4:43 only through Jesus Christ, which means he determines the destination of your eternity. That's pretty cool. Letter c,4:54 doors strengthen my position. 1 of my wife's pet peeves about me is that sometimes I forget to lock the doors at night. And the reason why I know this5:06 is because every morning, she inspects the doors. And I'm like, well, you have time to inspect the doors in the morning. Why not just inspect them in the evening and lock them if I forget? That5:18 conversation doesn't go my way. Nonetheless, I think what she wants is she wants me as a a lot of women do. Don't get offended here, ladies, but I think a lot of women, you want protection from your husband, and that is5:28 our role. We should be protecting you. We should be standing between you and danger. Yeah? Amen. That's not that's not being, you know, misogynistic. I think that's just normal and natural. And, and so listen. That's5:40 what a door does. It when when thieves approach, lock the door. Or to make sure that they kick it in, lock the door. They strengthen your position. Here's what Jesus is saying. I'm the 1 who keeps you protected5:53 from the evil 1. If you're fighting sin in your life, you can't get the victory over sin, guess what? You just you need Jesus. He's the 1 who shields you from the evil 1. He's Jesus6:05 actually says to 1 church in Revelation, I open doors nobody can shut, and I shut doors nobody can open. I am the 1 who has the keys of hell and death, Jesus says. I have authority over the doors of6:17 your life. Some of you opened some stupid doors, stupid doors to some relationships you you never should have gotten involved in, some conversations you never should have started, some some destinations you never should6:28 have gone to, some jobs you never should have taken. And he said, I don't understand why I'm gonna do that. Well, listen. Here's what you do. You come back to Jesus and you say, father, close the doors in my life. Open6:38 the doors you want. Shut the doors. And you know what you gotta do as a Christian? You gotta learn to be okay with the doors Jesus shuts. Amen. You gotta be okay also and walk through the doors Jesus opens because6:50 he's a good shepherd, and we'll get to that 1 next week. But this week, he's the door. Come on. Somebody say he's the door. He's the door. Now Now you gotta understand in the context of what he says here, he says it in7:00 the context of there are thieves all around you. In fact, in verse 10, a a passage that we could quote by memory. Right? This is very well known. John 10 10. The thief comes only to steal,7:12 kill, and destroy. But how many of you have ever put together what Jesus means in verse 10 when he says oops. I'm back here. When Jesus says in verse 10, the thief. I I think that we7:24 have misinterpreted the word thief in this passage, more than we realize. I I've always done this. I've always said, oh, the thief is Satan. But I would suggest to you today based on what I'm about to tell you is that7:35 Satan is behind the actual thief that Jesus identifies in this passage, and it's gonna shock you who it is. To understand who it is, we gotta look at verse 6 because John gives us a littleThe Thieves: Religious Leaders as Robbers 7:47 notation of what Jesus is talking about and doing here. First off, he's using a figure of speech, verse 6. And he's using it with them, but they do not understand what he was saying to them.7:59 3 times referenced. They, them. Who what is he like? Well, we gotta understand the context to whom Jesus says these words in order to understand these words. And to realize that context, let me just take you back to John8:10 chapter 9 because before, the 13 hundreds, the Bible did not have chapters. It had books, and John is 1 of those books, but it had no chapters, which means you were supposed8:22 to read John 9 right into John 10. And a good bible pastor a good bible preacher, sorry, will lead your understanding of God's word contextually. That means that he will give you context8:34 for the text. Our text is John 10 1 to 10, but the context is what happens in John 9 that leads to what Jesus says in John 10. Got it? So let's take a look at this moment. This is the healing8:46 of a blind man. Jesus is somewhere around the temple. He's in Jerusalem, and he heals his blind man. First, a conversation ensues with the disciples. They say, was he was he a sinner or was8:58 his parent were his parents sinners that he was born blind? Jesus says, neither. This is so that the works of God might be displayed in him. Sometimes sin causes sickness. Some of you know this firsthand.9:11 Sometimes sin has nothing to do with sickness from us. It's just we live in a fallen world that's filled with sin. And so some of us directly cause sickness9:23 because of our sin. Sometimes it's indirectly. Sometimes it's just the state of the world is fallen. We need a hopeful future world that Jesus will redeem and there is sickness. But here's what Jesus says. We're gonna do9:32 the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming. No 1 can work. As long as I'm in the world, I am the light. We already talked about that. Jesus is the light. Jesus is the bread of light. And then having9:42 said this, verse 6, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said, go wash in the pool of Siloam, which means sent. So he went and9:54 washed, came back seeing, and people were flummoxed, flabbergasted. Is this the same guy? This conversation goes, oh, yeah. It's him. No. No. It's not somebody. It looks like him going on. He says, how is your eyes open?10:06 He said, the man called Jesus made mud. K. So this gets referenced again for emphasis and anointed my eyes and said to me, go wash in the pool of Siloam. I went and washed and I received my sight. Now they were10:18 like, okay. Where where is he? I don't know. And they brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. And John makes notice it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made10:30 the mud and opened his eyes. So the Pharisees oh, here we go. This is the them. The Pharisees again asked him who would receive the sight, and he said to them, he put mud10:42 on my eyes, and I wash, and I see and I see. And this infuriates the Pharisees. Who are the Pharisees? The Pharisees were the religious elites10:54 of Israel. They were the people who knew the Bible chapter and verse. These were not, in their estimation, immoral sinners, unclean, unholy people.11:07 These were churchgoers. These were people who prided themselves on their good behavior and moral works. And you have to understand, you gotta get this right. Alright? The11:18 people who put Christ on the cross with the help of the Romans were religious people. Religious people had a problem with11:30 Jesus more than irreligious. Sinners love Jesus. And I've known this to be a fact about ministering the word of God. The hardest people to reach with the gospel11:43 are religious minded people because they don't actually think they need forgiveness for their sins. They've already made up for it with their religious acts. They're good people,11:55 and they're hard to reach with the gospel because they actually believe a lie that they're good people. Yeah. There's there's no good people out there.12:07 Anybody who's met people knows there's no good people. You know who knows there's no good people the most? People who have birthed other people. Moms, come on. You know what I'm talking about. You did not need to12:19 teach your child to disobey. You have been struggling to teach them to obey since they were born. Evil comes stand with standard programming in the human heart.12:31 The Pharisees, they had all kinds of rules and regulations on top of the laws of God. You see, what the Pharisees did was they were they were strict adherence to their moral12:43 code that was based on God's law. God's law is a gift. Thank God for God's law. Through God's law, we know you shouldn't murder, you shouldn't commit adultery, you shouldn't steal. God's law is very good. It's very12:54 protective. But some of some of the religious leaders in Jesus' day, like the Pharisees, they built laws on top of the laws. They built traditions on top of the rules. And this is how you drive people13:06 crazy with legalism. Anybody ever been to a legalistic church? I was raised in a legalistic church. They were, don't do that. Don't do this. Don't listen to that. Don't go there. Don't do that. And everything and it was13:14 like, after a while, you're just like, I'm done. I can't take this anymore. Maybe that's your story. Religious, legalism just kinda frustrated you to no end. You just shook your hands of of of13:26 anything to do with the church. Then Then you went out and had fun with the devil's stuff for a little while, and you realized that wasn't any better either. And now maybe you've circled back to water. We're glad you're13:36 here. But but listen, our aim is not to make you religious. Our aim is to bring you into relationship with god. So so so here's what happened. Little backstory.13:49 There's 10 commandments. Some of them are pretty clear. Like, don't commit adultery. You kinda know when you're doing that 1. Yeah? If you14:00 don't, we'll pray for you and for the service. You know when you're killing somebody. Right? Don't murder. You know when you that's happening. But the 1, number 4, don't work on the14:12 Sabbath. You see, this 1 could be a little bit vague because in order to not work on the Sabbath, I need to know what constitutes as work. Well, the Pharisees14:24 really stressed over this 1, and they came up with 39 laws in their day on what constituted work. For instance, you couldn't walk more than 3 quarters of a14:36 mile on the Sabbath. If you walked 3 quarters of a mile, not work. Over 3 quarters of a mile, work. Therefore, forbidden. Another 1, you could tie a knot, but only if the knot was a temporary14:47 knot. Otherwise, it would work. Another 1 was, you could throw an object in the Sabbath, but you could not catch an object. So15:00 good luck playing football with your son on the Sabbath. Toss it, Johnny. Good job. Okay. Game over. Let's go sit down. You couldn't cook on the Sabbath. A lot of weird roots.15:11 Now there was 1 in particular. You couldn't spit on the ground on the Sabbath, lest somebody swipe15:23 across your spit and make mud. That was considered, according to the Pharisees, work. What did Jesus do? He made15:35 mud, and he and how many know Jesus knows exactly what he's doing? He knew their stupid rules, and he broke them on purpose. He did not break the law.15:48 He broke their traditions, and there's a huge difference. You see, religion comes and ties people up with all kinds of bondage and legalistic righteousness so that the people who do it can16:00 feel good about themselves over against the people who don't. And what happened by the time Jesus showed up in Judaism in Jerusalem at this time was that the religious system was so utterly16:11 corrupt on these rules and regulations. Jesus was done with it. And you get to John chapter 10, and he calls these people16:24 thieves and robbers. He's talking about the religious people. He's not talking about the bad people. Go on to16:36 verse 7, and he says the same thing. Verse 7. He says, I'm the door. All who came before me are, present tense, the people now running the system, they are16:47 what? Thieves. Thieves. Robbers. And robbers. He's talk again, the religious system. Then you get to verse 10, the thief. The religious system17:00 comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Get this in your heart. Religion kills. I I I know that there is a true and pure religion that James talks about. You help widows17:12 and orphans. Yes. But that is rooted and predicated on belief in Christ. Okay? But institutional, that's the key word, religion17:24 destroys. Our nation is at war with Iran right now. Do you know what it's really at war with? It's it's at war with institutionalized Muslim religion. Just look at the pictures and17:36 videos of Iran before the Islamic Revolution. They looked like you. Ladies, they dressed like you. They lived like you. Islam takes over. Ladies' white rights wiped17:48 out the map. Now covered head to toe, men dominate, rule over their families, and people's freedoms and joys, gone. Do you know who's18:00 you know who's the happiest about those bombs dropping on Iran right now? Iranians who have had it with institutionalized religion. Alright? Now let's18:11 not just say it's Islam. Islam is a false religion. But even Christianity has, at times, been oppressive. There was a time in in the 1518:23 hundreds. Do you know why we're not Catholic today? Do you know why? Because in the 15 hundreds, Christianity had become so rooted in tradition and rules and laws and institutionalized, you18:35 know, systems that protected power that some men within the Christian faith said this isn't right. 1 of them was named John Wycliffe. John Wycliffe was a a priest in the Catholic18:47 church who believed that it was important for the people to hear god's word in their own language. And at the time, only the Latin Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible was appropriate and was read in masses. And18:57 most of the people couldn't even read it. And the priest liked it that way. The powers that be liked it that way. They wanted authority over people's lives rather than to help people find Christ. Institutionalized19:08 religion kills. So John Wycliffe gave his life to translating from the Latin into the English, the common language of the common man. That's that was his life's ambition. They19:20 excommunicated him. The church did. And that wasn't bad enough. Then he died, and they were so mad that he had translated the Bible into the common tongue. They dug up his bones,19:32 burned them, and threw them into the river. John Wycliffe. Not only John Wycliffe, but several others gave their life to make sure that you could hear God's voice through19:44 the written word in your own language. And institutionalized religion was threatened because you threaten religion when you give god's people god's power. And now no no longer does the19:56 institution have power over them. You you got what I'm saying here? This is what got Jesus crucified. He challenged the powers, the structures of institutionalized religion,20:07 and they turned on him and handed him over to the Romans. Let me give you a little bit more depth on how bad Judaism had become by the time of Jesus. 3 pilgrimage feasts a year20:19 whereby the Jews would travel to Jerusalem from all over the world to worship according to the dictates of scripture. They're supposed to come 3 times a year. Well, by the time of Jesus,20:31 there was something called the bazaar of Annas. Bazaar meaning like fair marketplace. Annas is actually mentioned in the Bible. He's the high20:43 priest's father-in-law. He was the high priest around AD 15. He had been there for many, many years. He was so corrupt, the Romans actually deposed him20:54 by force. The Romans deposed a Jewish high priest because he was that corrupt. But he held on to his power through his sons who took over the priesthood and his sin. And his son-in-law21:07 was named Caiaphas. Does that name sound familiar? Caiaphas was the 1 who actually handed Jesus over to the Romans to be crucified. They called it the the bazaar of Annas because every time people came to Jerusalem to21:17 worship, he had this mafioso style run religious power hold over the system. Here's what they would do. You'd have to travel maybe 30421:29 hundred miles in the ancient world with sacrifices to come and offer your sacrifices at the temple. And you would show up, and Annas had priests assigned to examine21:41 your sacrifice to see if it was spotless. Now how many wanna measure how many wanna guess how many times they found a fault with a sacrifice that you brought? Every time.21:53 They were instructed to do this. They say, oh, no. I'm sorry. Your lamb has a spot here, and the hoof is a little bit awkward. So, nope, you can't sacrifice that to god. But good news, we've got already approved22:05 sacrifices available for sale, and they would jack that price up. Anybody ever been to the auto mechanic for an oil change? And he comes out22:17 and he's like, I don't know how you're driving on this thing. Oh, I I got the oil done. The oil is fine. No problem. But you know what? Those tires are almost bald and, you're probably gonna slip and slide all over the22:27 ice this winter. Oh, and by the way, you probably should have the transmission replaced. The brakes need to go as well. Total all up. I can probably do the whole job for about 20 grand. Let's get it done right right now.22:39 That's exactly what Annas was doing with religious sacrifices in the temple. In the you know, it's 1 thing to do it in the name of auto mechanic y stuff. It's another thing to22:51 do it in the name of god. Not only that, but Annas would charge exorbitant exchange rates for the money to be exchanged because you traveled from other countries. Sometimes as a Jew, as a pilgrim Jew, you'd come to23:01 Jerusalem. You'd had to change your money over to the to the denarius. And and and so he was in charge of the currency exchange rates, and his sons would perpetrate this nonsense. Not23:13 only that, but he had, henchmen, guards, temple guards. By the way, when Jesus is put in the in the grave, remember that the priest demand that Pilate,23:25 yeah, Pilate provide a guard for the for the for the grave. What does Pilate say? You provide your own guard because he knew he already had henchmen. And those henchmen were assigned to guard the grave of Jesus. Well,23:36 those henchmen before they guarded the grave of Jesus, do you know what they were in charge of doing? They were in charge of beating people with sticks if they didn't pay their temple tax. This was a mafioso23:48 insider utterly corrupt system, which is why in John 2, Jesus goes into that temple with a whip, throws24:00 over the temple changers and their tables, and whips those suckers out, and no 1 complains. Got it? Yes. Now you24:12 see why Jesus also says in John 10, these people aren't just bad. They're thieves.24:24 They're robbers. They don't care about people. They care about their religious system. And I'm here to tell you that24:36 I am the door. By the way, that blind man, they cast him out in John chapter 9. And later in the chapter, Jesus finds him. Hey. Can I tell anybody who's ever been24:48 cast out by institutionalized religion? Religion might cast you out, but Jesus will bring you in. That's the good news of the gospel. Alright.Relationship with Jesus Opens Eyes and Ears 25:00 Here's the point that Jesus is making. Write this down. Religion isn't the door to life. Jesus is. Religion is not your way to God.25:12 That's the claim that Jesus is making here. I'm the door of the sheep. You wanna go in to heaven? I'm the door. You wanna go into abundant life? I'm the door. And any other way25:25 is a con job on the human heart. So the question today that we wanna answer is simply this. Write this down. Am I religious, or am I in relationship25:37 with Jesus? And that's the question everybody needs to answer today, today, because you can be religious and miss Jesus. That's what the Pharisees25:49 and the Sadducees did. They knew their Bibles. They had the protocols. They they wore the funny hats. They had the26:01 long garments of religious institutions, and they were face to face with the son of the most high God, and they hated him.26:13 So 3 things about a relationship with Jesus, and then we're done. Number 1, a relationship with Jesus opens my eyes. That's why John chapter 9 opens because this26:25 man in John chapter 9 was blind. He was blind. By the way, later in the passage, when they ask him, what happened to you? And they interrogate him.26:37 And they and he says, well, I think he's a prophet, and they don't believe it. They wanna and they call his parents in. And the parents are like, we know it's our son, but we're not here to say anything because they26:45 don't wanna be cast out of the synagogue. Let him speak for himself. And and the fact that matters is what this man says is all I know is that I was blind, and now I see. The difference between who I was26:57 and who I am is Jesus. When you come to know Jesus, he opens your your eyes. Amen, somebody. Now the Pharisees didn't realize this. But at the end of John27:09 chapter 9, as Jesus tells them, listen. I've come for judgment in the world, verse 39, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. In other words, the people who think they see are actually27:19 gonna find out that they're blind. And the Pharisees are picking up they they know. He's talking about them. They say, are are we blind as well? And he says, if you were blind, you would have no guilt. But now that you27:30 say we see, your guilt remains. Because you think your religion saves you. You think your good works save you. You think your traditions save you. And I'm here to tell you Jesus saying, I'm here to tell you27:42 there are nothing in the economy of God. Let me set the table for 20 26 America here. You're not27:54 gonna get to heaven because you're a good person. So you you might not be a religious person, but you think you're a good person. And that's that's the equation28:06 that you've been working out in your brain for a long time. Listen to me, especially men here, because you guys are oftentimes more susceptible to this than women. Well, I'm a good person.28:18 No. You're not. And I'm gonna prove that you're not from the bible. Bible's kind of important. Yeah? Just 1 verse of scripture. All I need to do that is all I28:30 need for this. For all have sinned. Romans 3 23. And all fall short of the glory of God. And all are justified28:42 only by his grace. There's no getting to heaven because you're a good person. You know, I said 1 verse, but I got another verse, just so you know.28:54 Rome, Psalm 14. The fool says in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt. There is none who does good. None.29:06 Book of Proverbs says, there is no 1 who does good always and never sins. We're all, in some ways, sinful and broken and rebellious.29:20 But the good news of the gospel is that through Christ, your sins are no longer the issue. Your sins are no longer the issue. The issue now is,29:32 are you in a relationship with Jesus who was the door for sinners to come home to god? He opens your eyes. And only when you open the only when Christ comes in can your eyes truly29:44 be opened. You start to see things differently. Amen? When Christ is in your life, you see your sin differently. You might even see sin you didn't even know you29:55 had. And and not only do you see your sister, you see other people differently, don't you? Before you were in Christ, other people were the enemy.30:08 Now they are your opportunity to tell them about Jesus. And and and and and, yes, even the people that you don't like. Like, I need30:20 this 1 for me because sometimes I forget that the people that I don't like are still my opportunity. Like, the person who doesn't take the right on red, I that person. I mean,30:31 help me, Lord, to love them in Jesus' name. Who's it for you? God opens your eyes to show you that really there's not good people30:43 and bad people. There's just found people and lost people. And he opens your eyes. Number 2, a relationship with Jesus opens my ears.30:56 This is my favorite part of the message. Because when your heart has been changed by the Lord, you start to hear his voice. And31:08 it and it really is incredible. Some of you could stand and say, yeah. That's my testimony. This book made no sense to me until I came to Christ, until Christ saved me. This book was Charlie Brown's teacher.31:23 Anybody ever watched those cartoons? They're like, And and Charlie Brown would be like, yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. It'd be like, what is she saying? That was this book before Christ saved you. And I'd be up here,31:34 but I'd be preaching my heart. I'd be like, not getting in. And then 1 day come on somebody. 1 day, boom. The Lord did something in your heart, opened your31:46 ears, opened your eyes to Jesus. And now when you hear now when you read this book, it comes alive. Like, that's how you know you're saved there. You read the scriptures and you31:57 say, oh, I know what's happening here. Now I get it that there's still some confusion about some places, and and I completely understand that the scriptures are hard to understand. In fact, there's a bible passage in32:09 second Peter where Peter says the scriptures are hard to understand, but there's a delight when you do understand them. Yeah? That's a sign you're saved. Jesus says about being the shep the shepherd.32:21 He's the 1 who enters by the door, the shepherd of the sheep. Now here's what it says. To him, the gatekeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by32:33 name. I found out this week that sometimes shepherds in the ancient world would have nicknames for their sheep. And I wonder if Jesus has a nickname for you. You know, he had a32:45 guy named Jacob who was so proudful and arrogant, and at the same time so easily broken that he had to put his hip out, and and Jacob walked for the rest of his life like this. I bet you Jacob's name32:57 in heaven is Gympie. Here comes Gympie. You know? Simon was named Peter. James and John were named the sons of thunder.33:09 Thomas was nicknamed the twin. I I I think I think Jesus has a nickname for you. And do you know what that means? Do you know what happens when you have a friend who has a nickname for you? Do you know what that means?33:20 That's a real friend. That's not a acquaintance. Now you bros. You know? Now you're sister because you can call each other by something other than the name. You know? And it might be even a little bit of a jibe33:32 because that's your care, but you know it's out of love. Man, I love this about our savior, our shepherd. He calls us by name. He leads them out. And when he has brought out his own, he33:44 goes before them and the sheep follow him. Why? They know his voice. And then verse 5 is my favorite verse in the passage even though33:56 it doesn't sound like it's a very important verse, but it's hugely important. Jesus, make sure. Not only do my sheep hear my voice, but they don't follow a stranger because they don't34:08 know the voice of strangers. And I cannot tell you, as a as a bible pastor, as a bible preacher, how much this passage34:19 means to me. Here's why. I'm a pretty good pastor. Nope.34:31 Stop. Too late. Too late. But I'm not perfect, And, I've made mistakes from this pulp from34:43 this stage. And 1 of the great fears of my life is that I would say something to you that the lord would not want you to hear. That's 1 of my greatest fears. And, this verse, man, I'll tell you34:55 what this verse tells me is that sometimes even if I do make the mistake, the work of the Holy Spirit in you is gonna be like, don't listen to35:07 that. That's not from the savior. And more importantly, I know that the key to growing this church is not by cool35:19 presentations and exciting events. I mean, I could grow a crowd that way, but the key to growing the church is to get up here and just tell you what the35:31 shepherd says. Tell you what Jesus because his voice will pull his sheep close. That's what Jesus is35:43 communicating, and I absolutely love it. Now I gotta be frank with you, and we're gonna talk about this a little bit more next week. Don't be offended here because I'm 1 of them. Sheep are stupid.35:56 We'll talk about that more next week. But amazingly enough, what Jesus says here about sheep knowing the voice of their shepherd is actually a36:07 biological fact. God has programmed in the ear canals of sheep this incredible reality that I I researched this week. I I have a video to show you that when they36:19 hear their shepherd's voice, they respond. When they don't, they don't. And this is a video of people trying to call sheep who aren't their shepherd, and then the shepherd speaks, and watch the reaction. It's36:31 incredible. Check this out.36:43 1 more time.38:10 Yeah. Eunice made them go away. Oh my god. Was that cool or what? Yeah. It's powerful. Not only did they hear and lift their heads, but what else did38:21 they do? They ran. You see, some of you, you've been wandering. And I know this about it. I know this about wandering. You can only wander so far. And then the voice of the shepherd38:33 comes and you come running back. Do Do you know why? Because he's done a work in your heart to connect you to his voice. Number 3 and finally, a relationship with Jesus opens myShow more In this video 0:00 Doors Reveal Authority, Destination, and Protection7:45 The Thieves: Religious Leaders as Robbers25:00 Relationship with Jesus Opens Eyes and Ears38:42 Abundant Life: Jesus the Door and Shepherd31:51
Guest Message - Pastor Geyser Pastor Tim Hatch
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