GOSPEL PARABLES 13 THE GOOD SHEPHERD AND DOORKEEPERSWe are continuing in the Parables today with the narrative of the shepherd and the sheep and we previously discussed the story of the shepherd who goes out to find the lost sheep and bring it back to the sheepfold. All the Gospel parables come from Matthew and Mark and Luke, however John does record this one and only parable of the Good shepherd which is not found in any of the other Gospels. In this parable Jesus tells us that as the Good...
GOSPEL PARABLES 13 THE GOOD SHEPHERD AND DOORKEEPERS
We are continuing in the Parables today with the narrative of the shepherd and the sheep and we previously discussed the story of the shepherd who goes out to find the lost sheep and bring it back to the sheepfold. All the Gospel parables come from Matthew and Mark and Luke, however John does record this one and only parable of the Good shepherd which is not found in any of the other Gospels. In this parable Jesus tells us that as the Good shepherd he is the only door to the sheepfold.
John 10:1-5 “I tell you the truth, anyone who sneaks over the wall of a sheepfold, rather than going through the door, must surely be a thief and a robber!
Jesus had said that he was ‘sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Matthew 15:24). And in the first verse in this parable, he is describing the tragic story of how the sheep flock of the house of Israel had been taken into slavery and captivity many times by alien nations like Egypt and Babylon and Assyria, who climbed over or broke down the wall of the sheepfold and robbed and destroyed God’s flock. Jesus continues,
But the one who enters through the door is the shepherd of the sheep, and the doorkeeper opens the door to him, and the sheep recognize the shepherd’s voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice. They won’t follow a stranger; they will run from him because they don’t know his voice.
Jesus is talking here to a crowd of Jewish people, some of whom did hear his voice and believe while many others rejected his voice and chose to listen to the voice of legalism and tradition or political power instead of the words of life. But the people were unsure where Jesus was taking this story and they began to express their confusion, so Jesus had to take this story to its fulfillment and reveal himself to them as the Good Shepherd, not only of the house of Israel but of the whole earth. Reading on.
Vs.6-14 Those who heard Jesus use this illustration didn’t understand what he meant, so he explained it to them: “I tell you the truth, I am the door of the sheep(fold) – for the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and robbers. But the true sheep did not listen to them. Yes, I am the door. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures. The thief’s purpose is to rob and to kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.
In the first part of the parable the door is described as the door ‘to’ the sheep (eis) that the doorkeeper opens for the one true Shepherd, who is Jesus. But we have now just seen in the second part of the parable that Jesus describes himself as the door ‘of/for’ the sheep. Jesus has become our door to the Kingdom of God where we experience life in the family of God with him and the Father and the Holy Spirit and one another - Those who come in through me will be saved.
Jesus continues.
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep. A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don’t belong to him and he isn’t their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock. The hired hand runs away because he’s working only for the money and doesn’t really care about the sheep. “I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep.
Jesus then proclaims the awesome prophetic purpose of this parable about the rest of humanity becoming his sheep.
I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd -Israel will come back in.
There is one very important character mentioned in the beginning of this story that we must be careful not to overlook - the doorkeeper. And there are some important doorkeepers in the Bible that need to be known and understood. A doorkeeper is one who gives Jesus access to the sheep as the Good Shepherd who is the door for the sheep into the Kingdom of God. There was a doorkeeper for Jesus from before the very beginning of time and the creation of the earth. And there have been doorkeepers as the door for Jesus right up to his death and resurrection and there have been doorkeepers right up to this present time. I want to list what I believe are seven doorkeepers that give access to the door of our Shepherd Jesus.
The first doorkeeper was Father God who committed his Son to us before the foundation of the world and sent him into the earth for humanity. (Ephesians 1:3-4)
The prophets were doorkeepers anointed by the Holy Spirit to open the ears of God’s people to the Messiah Jesus. And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself (Luke 24:27).
Mary as the human mother of Jesus was the doorkeeper who carried him in her womb for humanity through the work of the Holy Spirit. (Isaiah 7:14)
John the Baptist as the most anointed of all the prophets was the doorkeeper sent to prepare the way of the Lord and pronounce Jesus as ‘The Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world’ where the Holy Spirit appeared as a dove upon Jesus at his baptism. (John 1:6-9,29)
The Holy Spirit was the doorkeeper always within Jesus, who took him into the wilderness to be tempted after his baptism and then accompanied Jesus on the earth throughout his ministry. He was the doorkeeper that opened the eyes and ears of those who beheld Jesus as the Messiah then heard him speak and saw him die and witnessed his resurrection and his ascension into Heaven. (John 6:63)
The Holy spirit who fell upon all of humanity at Pentecost (Acts 2:17) was the doorkeeper for every person that entered the world (John1:9) to reveal Jesus as the shepherd who lives for his sheep and who goes out looking for any lost sheep to carry them home. ‘For you were like sheep going astray but have now returned to the Shepherd and keeper of your souls.’ (1Peter 2:25).
The final doorkeepers are all those who carry the life of Jesus within them and are willing to lay down their souls for the life of Jesus to be seen in them, and the empowerment for us to do that is the gift and grace of the Holy Spirit. Jesus told his disciples before he returned to the Father in Heaven, how the Holy Spirit would operate in them to let their lives on earth bear witness to the fact that he was alive and active within them in the earth.
He said The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. (John 14:26).
He also said when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth… He will testify of Me (martyre??) and you also will bear witness (martyre??). (John15.26). We saw in the parable we just read that ‘the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.’
There are two ways that the Holy Spirit in our lives acts as a doorkeeper Jesus. The first way is for us to keep the door open for people in our lives to find faith in Jesus. We can be consciously aware by our faith and our prayer that we can release the power of the Holy Spirit through our simple obedience to what he directs us to do and to say.
Paul spoke about the doorkeeper ministry of the Holy Spirit in and through his own life.
He prayed for a door of utterance to be given to him that he might declare the mystery of Christ (Colossians 4:2). He did not put confidence in his own natural ability to open doors to release the supernatural power of God for peoples’ lives. His own testimony of his ministry was For we also are (humanly) weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you. The Holy Spirit does things behind the scenes. Jesus spoke to his disciples about bearing witness to him and that now applies to us who believe in Jesus, and this means that the life we live is evidence that God lives through us and that we carry the reality of the life of God within us, not just concepts or opinions about God.
The second way that the doorkeeper work of the Holy Spirit occurs is the hidden way he sovereignly works in every person’s heart in his unceasing desire to turn their hearts towards faith in God’s goodness and love. Jesus explained it this way ‘And when the Helper has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment’. (John 16:8). He reveals the darkness in every human heart and the corruption that is in the world, and he reveals what is upright and in alignment with God’s will in every human heart. The Holy Spirit becomes the light of judgement that divides between the light and darkness and he unveils the reward for what is good and the sentence upon what is evil.
It is good to be aware that the Holy Spirit is the unceasing inner tugging upon the heart of every person on the planet regardless of their religious or cultural background. The soul of mankind opposes and resists this tugging on our conscience concerning God’s truth about who we are and who he is. This is because of our self-determined mindset of independence – our own self-serving idea of what is right and wrong, and good and evil. The Holy Spirit had been the doorkeeper piercing the mind and heart of the apostle Paul to bring him to this encounter with Jesus where he entered through Jesus the door into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Our life of faith is our conscious awareness that the Holy Spirit is working in both of these ways in our own circumstances, and we can live in constant hope and expectation of seeing people being drawn to the Kingdom of God and entering through the door into eternal life.
