Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching from the Book of
John, Chapter 10. The Gospel of John, Chapter 10. And the title of the message
is Christ, the Door of Life. Christ, the Door of Life. Now,
often I quote scriptures on this program that are so telling concerning
gospel truths. And one of those scriptures that
I quote quite often is 1 Corinthians 2.14 which talks about the natural
man. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God. He cannot know them, understand
them savingly. They are spiritually discerned,
judged. And then I use that with a passage
in John chapter three, beginning at verse 19, where Christ is
represented as the light, the light of truth. And that's the
gospel. And it talks about how this is
the condemnation, verse 19 starts out, that light has come into
the world and men love darkness. and hate the light because their
deeds are evil. And those verses, 1 Corinthians
2.14, John 3.19, they tell us the truth about ourselves in
a state of natural birth, the natural man. That's as we are
naturally born into this world. You see, the Bible teaches that
we are all sinners. all have sinned and come short
of the glory of God." Romans 3 23. Well, why is that? Well, the reason that is, is
because we all fell into a state of sin, spiritual death, and
depravity by our father Adam. Adam's fall brought about the
sinfulness of the whole human race. And that's stated in Romans
chapter five and verse 12, when it talks about, by one man, sin
entered into the world, and death by sin, and death passed upon
all men, for that all have sinned, or all sinned. And so, that's
what the light of truth tells us something about ourselves
that we naturally don't like. We just don't want to see it.
We don't want to admit it. We want to think that there's
some spark of goodness in us by which we can pull ourselves
up, as it were, by our bootstraps and make the right decisions
and the right choices. But the Bible teaches otherwise. And this is why you need to study
the Bible. Don't just go through life going
to church, as they say, and not confronting the truths of the
Bible. The Bible says in Romans chapter
three and verse 10, there's none righteous, no not one. And that's
speaking of all of us by nature. Now God has a chosen people,
we'll talk about that later. But all of us by nature, none
righteous. We don't have a righteousness.
that answers the demands and requirements of God's law and
justice. And God, make no mistake about
this, is another gospel truth. God does require righteousness. Now righteousness, the righteousness
that God requires far exceeds what we can attain by our own
natural choices and thoughts and doings. It far exceeds human
morality. Now that's not to say that we
should not try to be moral people. We should try to be the best
people we can be. But knowing that, we should realize
that the righteousness that God requires far exceeds what we
can attain. And that is why grace reigns
through the righteousness of Christ. That's why salvation
is by grace and not by works. You understand? Grace, God's
grace reigns. Romans 5 21 says that as sin
hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life. And here's the key, by Jesus
Christ our Lord. And that's why the gospel light
is a revelation of the righteousness of God. Romans 1, 16 and 17,
because that righteousness of God is not what you do, or what
I do, or what we try to do, it's what Christ did in His obedience
unto death as the representative, the surety, the substitute, the
redeemer of His people. Well, in light of that, one of
the most hated gospel truths that the natural man will not
receive that men who love darkness and hate the light, why they
hate it, is when we tell people that the Lord Jesus Christ and
the grace of God through Him is the one and only way into
salvation, eternal life, the kingdom of heaven. There's no
other way. I mean, friend, it is exclusively
Christ. I don't care who you are, where
you come from, and what you're trying to do. And I hope you're
trying to be the best person you can be on earth. You fathers,
I hope and pray you're trying to be the best fathers that you
can be. You wives, the best wives. And
mothers, the best. You bosses, be the best you can
be. Treat your employees right. You
employees, work hard for your boss, for your employers. Do right. Be honest. All of these things. Yes, there's
no excuse for being otherwise. Don't be criminals. Don't be
amoral, without morals, or immoral. But be the best you can be. But
understand this. The best you can be when it comes
to salvation and a right relationship with God is not good enough. So how can we have, how can we
have salvation? How can we have a right relationship
with God? There's only one way. And every,
listen, there's only one way. It's the religion of grace in
the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm telling you, all other
religions are false and deadly to the soul. And you say, well,
I just don't like to hear that. Well, the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God. Light's coming to the
world and men love darkness and hate the light. And it says there
in John 3, 19, it says the reason we hate the light is because
our deeds are evil. Now, what deeds is he talking
about? He's talking about our efforts to be saved by our works
or our character or our decisions. For by grace are you saved. There's
another one I quote all the time, Ephesians 2, verses eight and
nine. For by grace are you saved through
faith. That's not of yourselves. That
faith is the gift of God. Salvation is the gift of God,
not of works, lest any man should boast. You remember back in John
chapter four, Christ told the woman at the well, he said, if
you knew the gift, the gifts of God, The grace of God. And that's what we need to know.
Well, here in John chapter 10, the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking
to his disciples, look at verse one. He says, verily, verily,
I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold,
but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. Now, what is the door? Well, that's the entrance into
the sheepfold. What is the sheepfold? The sheepfold
has to do with the kingdom of God, the true church of the living
God, citizens of a heavenly kingdom, the sheep of Christ. You know,
one of the most beautiful pictures of Christ in the Bible, Old Testament
and New, is Christ is the shepherd of the sheep. Psalm 23 that we
all love. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures. He leadeth me beside the still
waters. Ah, that's a beautiful Psalm.
And it's only four believers, the sheep. And who are the sheep? Well, they are they who entereth
in by the door. The door there is Christ, who
is the doorway into salvation. He's the doorway into a right
relationship with God. He is the doorway into eternal
blessedness. He's the keeper. He's the savior
of the sheep. Over in John 10, 11, he says
this, I'm the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. And that tells us who Christ
died for. He died for the sheep. Now, not everyone is a sheep.
We'll see that later on in John chapter 10. Who are the sheep? Well, they are the ones for whom
Christ died. And he finds his sheep. He says
the good shepherd gave his life for the sheep. And he says in
verse 14 of John 10, I'm the good shepherd and know my sheep
and am known of mine. He laid his life down for and
he's going to have them. You know what Christ, he speaks
of himself as the good shepherd, the chief shepherd, the great
shepherd. who seeks and finds and brings
his sheep into the fold. And you know, a sheep is a good,
very good type of believers, because sheep basically are pretty
dumb animals. I'm not a shepherd, but I've
spoken to shepherds about this. They say sheep, they have to
be led around, they have to be kept in the flock, they get lost,
they cannot find their way home. That's the truth. And Christ
is the good, the chief, the great shepherd. And he finds his sheep,
he picks us up and brings us into the fold and he keeps us
there and brings us into glory. That's salvation by grace. And
that's what sheep are. So he says, verily, verily, I
say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold. How do sheep come into the sheepfold? In other words, how are sinners
saved? You could say it that way. That's what he's talking
about. How do they enter in to the glory and the blessedness
of eternal life, of righteousness? We've been talking about righteousness.
How does God make a sinner righteous before him? One way. It's not by keeping the Ten Commandments.
You can't do that. The law curses us based upon
our best efforts to keep it, because we always fail to meet
the requirement. It's not by trying to be a good
person. Yes, we should try to be good people. But that's not
the way to enter into the sheepfold. That's not the way to be righteous
before God. That's not the way of forgiveness
of sins. It's only by the door. And there's
only one door. And that's Christ. He is the
way. He is the truth. He is the life. John 14, 6, he said, no man cometh
unto the Father but by me. So my friend, there are a lot
of ways of religion in the world. A lot of ideas of man. Most of them, well all of them
except for one, are salvation conditioned in some way to some
degree at some stage upon you, upon sinners, and it's a wrong
way. And those who tried to come into
the sheepfold that way, he says they are thieves and robbers. What are they trying to steal? They're trying to steal God's
glory and retain some glory for themselves. That's what a sinner
who seeks salvation by their works does. You're trying to
rob God. You're not gonna be successful,
but you're trying to rob God, a thief, a religious thief, trying
to rob Christ of his preeminence. Paul wrote in Galatians 6, 14,
he said, God forbid that I should glory except in one thing, the
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the cross there doesn't mean
a piece of wood or something you hang around your neck or
tack up on your wall. The cross means the glorious
person and the finished work of Christ as the one and only
way of salvation. The one and only way of righteousness. The one and only way of forgiveness
and eternal life. We look at verse two, John 10. He says, but he that entereth
in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. Now, Christ is
the door, but he talks about himself as entering in by the
door. Now, what is the door that he entered in? His own glorious
person, his own finished work, his righteousness. Christ was
sent by the Father into the world, having the sins of God's sheep,
His elect. Now that's another term for the
sheep, the elect. We can talk about the different
names for God's people. They're called the elect, they're
called the justified. And what is it to be justified? To be forgiven of all my sins
and to be declared righteous in God, they're the justified.
They're the redeemed. Redeemed how? By the blood of
Jesus Christ, not by their works, you see. Again, they're the sheep,
they're the family of God, they're the brethren. All of that we
could go on and on, the church. And so Christ was sent by the
Father, having the sins of his sheep charged to his account,
imputed to him, he was made sin, that's what that means in 2 Corinthians
5.21, God made him to be sin or made him sin, it means that
the sins of his people, the debt, the demerit of their sins, not
the, listen, was imputed to him, and he was made sin, he wasn't
contaminated with their sin, he wasn't turned into their sin,
he wasn't made to be a sinner, he wasn't corrupted by their
sin, but it was charged to him, the debt of their sins was fully
put upon his shoulder. That's what it means that Christ
is the surety of the sheep, the surety of his people. He stands
surety for me. so that I don't have to pay for
my sins. Christ paid for them. And the
Father sent Him into the world to do just that. And in order
to do that, He had to become incarnate. He's God, manifest
in the flesh. The second person of the Trinity,
the Son of God, co-equal with the Father and the Spirit, was
made flesh and dwelt among us. And as you know, over Matthew
chapter one, verse 21, it says, his name shall be called Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. Who are his
people? His sheep. And he's the door. And it says
there that his name shall be called Emmanuel, which being
interpreted as God with us. Great is the mystery of godliness.
Paul wrote in first Timothy chapter three, great is the mystery of
godliness. God manifest in the flesh. And he came into this earth to
keep the law and to die for the sins of his people. And out of
his obedience unto death comes the perfect righteousness. by
which God justifies his elect, the ungodly, sinners, his sheep. And that's Christ's righteousness
imputed. And he himself, he entered in
by the door of God's justice. God's justice, he satisfied it. You may be familiar, if you read
and study your Bibles, you may be familiar with the word propitiation. The word itself is used four
times in the New Testament. Once in Romans, and twice, I
believe it is, in the book of 1 John, and in one other place
in 1 John. And what does propitiation mean?
It means satisfaction. And what it is, is a sinless
substitute who brought satisfaction to the justice of God. He paid
the penalty. by the price of His blood. That's
justice satisfied. That's righteousness established. And so when he says in verse
2 of John chapter 10, he says, he that entereth in by the door
is the shepherd of the sheep. Christ came in through that door
of God's justice. And the source of it was God's
unconditional love and mercy and grace towards His people. Before the foundation of the
world, God chose a people and gave them to Christ. He loves
them with an everlasting love. He marked them out for salvation. And Christ here calls them His
sheep. And He came through that door
the door of God's justice. And he's the door, he himself
is the door by which all of his sheep come in to salvation. A right relationship with God.
Christ, there's none other name given among men whereby we must
be saved. That's what Peter preached in
Acts chapter four. One way, one way and no other
way. And it says in verse three of
John 10, it says, to him the porter openeth, and the sheep
hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name and leadeth
them out. He leads them out of the world.
He leads them into the sheepfold. He leads them through the door,
the door being himself. The porter here you could say
is God the Father, because God the Father accepted the merits
of the obedience unto death of Christ. He said, this is my beloved
son in whom I'm well pleased, hear ye him. There's one God,
one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And when Christ finished his
work, When he satisfied God's justice, he arose from the dead,
and he ascended into glory, into heaven, to the Father, and he
sat down at the right hand of the Father. ever living to make
intercession for his people, his sheep. And you know why he
sat down? Because the work was done. The
work was finished. Righteousness was established.
Sin was put away only by his obedience unto death on the cross
as the shepherd of the sheep. The good shepherd giving his
life for the sheep. The surety of the sheep. The
substitute of the sheep. the redeemer of the sheep, and
now he's the keeper of the sheep. He preserves it, he's lit right
now, making intercession for them. And God opened the door
because Christ, who is the door, satisfied his justice. And he
says, and the sheep hear his voice. They hear his voice. Now how do they hear his voice?
Through the preaching of the gospel. Romans 1, 16 and 17,
for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power
of God unto salvation. To everyone that believeth, the
Jew first and the Greek also, for therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith, from knowledge, truth
revealed, to knowledge, truth received. For as it is written,
the just, the justified shall live by faith, by looking to
Christ, who is the shepherd, who is the door. And that's what
happens. They hear his voice in the power
of the Spirit. Remember, it's the gospel of Christ now. All
of salvation conditioned on Christ. And showing us in the gospel
how he fulfilled those conditions, satisfied justice, brought forth
righteousness. As Daniel 9, 24 says, he finished
the transgression, made an end of sin, brought in everlasting
righteousness, sealed up the vision and the prophecy, entered
into the holiest, All of that. Hebrews 10, 14 says, for by one
offering Christ hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. And so they hear his voice. He
sends the spirit into the world to gather them under the preaching
of the gospel and he communicates that truth. And this is what
happens when you're born again. You're brought under the gospel
and the spirit gives you spiritual life. Remember Ephesians 2.1,
and you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. He quickens dead sinners. As we're born into that state,
fallen in Adam and spiritual death and depravity and sin,
the spirit gives life. You must be born again or you
cannot see or enter the kingdom of heaven. You don't have spiritual
ears to hear and spiritual eyes to see, but the spirit gives
them to you. And you hear his voice. Now,
you may be hearing a preacher physically, but if that preacher's
preaching Christ, crucified and risen from the dead, righteousness
established by him, preaching the true gospel, if the Spirit
gives you life, you're gonna hear the voice of Christ, and
it says here, and he calls his sheep, his own sheep. Did you
notice that in verse three? He calls his own sheep, he owns
them. There he is, he bought them lock,
stock, and barrel on the cross. He paid their debt in full, and
they belong to Him. And He says, He calleth His own
sheep by name. He knows your name, if you're
one of His. You remember back in the Old Testament, the high
priest of Israel went into the holiest of all one time a year
on the Day of Atonement, and he had 12 names on his breastplate. It was the names of the tribes
of Israel. And he had 12 names on his shoulder amulets, six
over here and six over here, and had the names of the tribes
of Israel. Well, that's the way Christ is. The names of his sheep, God's
elect, are on his heart, his breastplate, as it were. He's
the great high priest, he's the sacrifice, he's the altar. And the names of His sheep are
written on His heart. And they're upon His shoulders
because all of their salvation is conditioned upon Him. The government, Isaiah said in
Isaiah 9, 6, the government will be upon His shoulders. That's
the government of the kingdom. That's the government of salvation.
It's the government of the covenant of grace. It's the government
of the sheepfold. And so he calls them by name
and he leads them out. He leads them out of the world
and into the sheepfold and he guides them all through. He keeps them. He masters them. And he sheds his grace and his
love and his mercy upon them in a way that glorifies God in
all things as both a just God and a savior. Christ, the door,
to life, eternal life and salvation. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2-1. Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia
31707. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.theletterrofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.