I Am the Door

From Psalm number one, verse three. And he shall be like a tree, planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

Here we have a picture of a person whose relationship with God is always alive, always fresh, never gets stale, because he's planted by the rivers of living water, brings forth fruit at the proper time. The leaf never turns brown or yellow, always remains green. And everything this person does prospers in God's will, comes to life, does what God wants it to do.

And the reason this person's life accomplishes these things is because his or her delight is in God. His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his laws that he meditates day and night. This person loves God so much that he just can't stop thinking about God.

Surely in their daily life they have hassles, things go wrong, you know, the water starts to leak, the roof caves in, the car won't start, this goes wrong. And yet, this man, this woman is so full of God that they go right on taking care of business and still praising God. Now we know in our hearts that this is the way it ought to be.

This is the normal life of the believer. And every once in a while we run across somebody who just has that burning passion for God. In the Scriptures we see again and again that one person after another is described as an ordinary man or woman, just like we are, who is nevertheless lifted by God's Spirit right up into that kind of consuming love for Him.

And yet, when it comes to our own lives, the way we're living them right now, it seems like the best that we can get is an occasional brief taste of it. A few months or perhaps a few days of glory. And then it seems to go away.

The light just flashes up and then it goes out. And we're in darkness again. And trying to ignite our hearts with this burning ardor for God, which we all ought to have as normal, it's not just for St. Francis or somebody else, it's for us, is like trying to light a fire in the midst of a thunderstorm where the wood is wet and the wind is blowing.

It doesn't seem no matter what you try, you use newspapers, kerosene, gasoline, you get a flash and then it goes out again. And how many times have we said to ourselves, most of us for sure, what I have now is just not enough. There's got to be more to it than this.

This life is so flat, so dull, so boring, so shallow, so false. This life that I'm living right now surely can't be the life of the Holy Spirit in the human heart. This can't be what it's all about.

Surely somewhere, this is a prison, and beyond the walls of this prison, the narrow walls of my soul, there must be a place where I actually penetrate into the kingdom of the true and living God. There must be some place beyond this prison of my own soul where I can come to life in God and stay alive, where I can live day after day uninterrupted in God's peace, and where day after day, all the time, I can just have the awareness of His presence, where I can have a vision of God that holds me through Monday morning, Friday afternoon, month after month, year after year, decades, lifetimes, eons, with a vision of God that's absolutely true, a God who is good. Now surely, after we have met Jesus, if we ever had any doubts before, now we know that this is possible because once we have in any way at all seen Jesus, heard His voice, received His living word into our hearts, we absolutely know that we have met one who is like the tree planted by rivers of water, and who does bring forth fruit, and whose leaf remains green, and who prospers in God's will, and we also know that in Him we can have that life too.

We know it. And then, and yet, for what weird reason then, knowing this, do we forever keep trying to push through other doors to find our way out of this dryness of soul that we experience in here? For many of us, it's like being trapped in a circular room, you know, where we're surrounded by a hundred doors which go in all directions. And we already know, being in this room, that they're one of these doors, and we even know which one it is.

One door alone opens into freedom, and all the other doors simply lead into a passageway which leads into another passageway which comes right back through another door. We know that, and yet what do we do? We ignore the one door that works and we try every other one. We fantasize, we try to escape, you know, we try experiments.

If only I lived in California. If only I had a different job. If only my mate were more fun.

If only I could find the right spiritual advisor. So Jesus again said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not heed them.

I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. We have not found freedom until we have come through this door, penetrated right into the heart of God, and then, after having absorbed the very nature of God's goodness and love, going through the same door that brought us into God's heart, we now penetrate into the depths of human misery and pain, taking God's life with us.

I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out, and in both places he will find pasture. He will go in to the heart of God, carrying with him human pain as prayer.

Then he will go out into the heart of human misery, carrying God's presence with him as healing, and in both places he or she will find pasture. Now, we can't live that kind of life, and that's the life intended for us, until we have found the door, and until we've settled it in our minds that this is the only door we're going to mess around with, and until we use it. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father but by me. Jesus is the only door, but he's not there to be looked at. He's there to be entered.

Specifically, Jesus is the door of prayer to God. The only way anybody ever gets to know God is by prayer. You can read books about God, you can listen to sermons about God, you can hear testimony about God, and all these things, and there are people who do all that and think they know God.

You never know God, until you begin to talk to God, listen to God, commune with God. Here's a woman who hasn't managed to communicate. Maybe it's her fault, maybe it's his, with her husband for months, maybe years.

Now, what makes her think that she knows this man with whom she never talks? He lies by her side at night. He sits across the table from her at the meal. But unless she talks with this guy, he's a stranger to her.

And how much more true this is of our relationship with God. See, people then say, but how can weak, frail, corrupt, evil, self-deceiving human beings communicate with a God of all holiness? Impossible, except that God has opened a way for us to do this. God has opened a way for each of us that we might come right through into the very presence of the Heavenly Father, the Primitive, who seems to know nothing at all about God, and yet whose heart reaches out by whatever light it has and tries to pray, is answered, although he may never understand this until light comes to him through some messenger of truth, that the spirit that answers that prayer and draws near to him is the spirit of Jesus.

Who was it who told Abraham to leave his homeland and go into the wilderness, to a land that was promised? And who was it who spoke to Moses in the burning bush? Who was it who led Moses with the Israelites out of Egypt into the wilderness again, brought him up to the top of the same mountain, Sinai? It was the I Am, Yahweh. I Am, the way, the truth, and the light. No one comes to the Father but by me.

Before Abraham was, I Am. I Am the door. And who is it who draws near to you and to me when our hearts just cry out for some help to know how to pray? But Jesus, the door.

He is the one who actually comes to us and assures us that the way has been opened through his blood and encourages us to ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened for you. Urges us to believe. Believe all things are possible to him who believes and gives us the Holy Spirit who will help us to pray.

If you're having trouble with prayer, go into a room and shut the door and cry out to Jesus. Lord, I don't even know how to start. I don't know what to say.

I don't know which way to go. Give me words. Lift me out of myself.

Draw me up in your Spirit to the very side of the Father's throne, by your side up there and enable me to know how to pray. And he will do this. He will.

Jesus is the door to a true vision of God. And the only door. All the warped, twisted ideas that we have about God until Jesus shows us what he's like.

And many of us, you know, have all the right words. We talk about salvation and justification and faith and grace and all the right words. And yet in our actual living and in our thinking and deep in our hearts, we're all the time afraid God is going to gobble us up.

He's going to stomp on us. He's going to grind us into the ground. We live in dread and unbelief.

So much so that we're afraid to take that pound of gold he's given us to trade with, to do something with. We're afraid to do anything with it because I might make a mistake. And then God will burn me to ash! It's amazing how many of us actually think that way, deep in our hearts.

And so we take the talent and we bury it. We wrap it up in a napkin and tuck it away in the drawer. And the reason we have these nutty ideas of what God is like is because we're pushing through the wrong doors.

Go through the right door and you will see what God is like. In Jesus, we see the brightness of God's glory, the express image of His person. And what is that image and that glory? Mercy.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed. He heals the sick, raises the dead, forgives the broken sinner, sets the captives free. The blinding goodness, the awesome kindness, the dreadful loneliness of the true and living God can be seen in Jesus.

He who has seen me has seen the Father. You want to get to know what God is like? Get to know Jesus. Jesus is the door to God's peace.

To God's peace. On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you.

When He said this, He showed them His hands on His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you.

Eight days later, His disciples were again in the house. And Thomas was with them. The doors were shut.

He didn't need a door because He is a door. But Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. This peace is far beyond anything the world has ever known.

It's not like the world's peace. It's God's peace. It calms the storm.

It heals. It fills you with the presence of God. It satisfies your inner longings.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am meek and lowly of heart and you shall find rest for your soul. That's what God's peace is. Rest for the soul.

The restless, unsatisfied, unfulfilled, uneasy soul that will never find rest until it has found rest in God's will. And the only door to that rest is Jesus. I am the door.

If anyone enters by me, he will be saved. And we'll go in and out and find pasture. How long will we go on mouthing faith that Jesus is the door at the very time we keep pressing through every other door in the room but him? God help us today and every day to see the one door that leads to life.

To draw near to that door. To walk through it. That we might go in and out and find pasture.

And first of all, Lord God, we pray for any man or woman or young person among us who has never, ever had the experience of going through that door of Jesus. For that one that has come so close and has been afraid. For that one who has seen the light through that door and yet has been afraid.

We're asking, Heavenly Father, that you would give to that person, whoever it is, among us right now, that strong encouragement to push the fear behind and walk through the door right now. And whatever needs to happen in order that that might be sealed to that person's life, whatever, Lord God, help them to be delivered from the fear of man and to walk through the door. Crawl through the door.

Whatever they have to do to know you in Jesus. And Father God, for all who have had the taste of who Jesus is and what He will do, help us, Lord God, today to take our eyes off all the distractions and to be delivered from this habit we know to be ridiculous of pushing and trying every door except Him and to concentrate on Him and find all our fulfillment in Him. Grant, Lord God, that as we do this we may be able to go out as well as in and bring life to the world.

That we might be, Lord God, the tree ourselves, planted by the rivers of water, bringing forth its fruit and its season. That our leaf might not wither. And that whatever we do in your will might prosper.

We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.