December 23, 2025 • 24 mins
You’ve likely heard the talk about “the good old days” when no one worried about locking their doors. Such a sense of security feels further away on a daily basis. But our passage today introduces a solution to the need for a sense of safety.
John 10:9
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
That's the first part of the image here of Jesus being the
door. If anyone enters by me, he will
be saved. Now, this is such a relevant
word for us today, isn't it? Yes, as we celebrate Christmas
with all the festival of light. And yet at the same time, as
John symbolically puts it, it was winter.
And we too, don't we? We live in a day when there is a
(00:21):
great sense, a renewed sense, ofa need for safety.
Welcome to the God centered lifewith Josh Moody.
The series is called Who is Jesus?
Today's installment we're calling the door looking
specifically at the 10th chapterof the book of John and verse 9.
(00:42):
Josh Moody is senior pastor of College Church located in
Wheaton, IL Thanks for joining us today.
Interesting approach there, Josh.
As we've been saying, the Jesus of that Advent story is a small
baby, but the statement we're looking at today introduces the
idea of safety. Yes, that he provides the the
(01:02):
safety for his for his sheep. And so, especially today, I
think that's a relevant and needed word where sheep may
safely graze. And we're combining this study.
We'll take a look at verse 11 ofJohn 10 in our next study where
we'll talk about specifically the Good Shepherd.
But these are linked today. It's about the door, verse 9 of
(01:26):
John 10. Here's Josh.
Well, it's great to be with you this morning as we get closer to
Christmas. It's a wonderful time of year,
Christmas, isn't it? With kids going Jingle belling
and everyone telling you to be of good cheer and things like
this. But what does it?
What does it all mean? John Chapter 10 tells us if the
(01:53):
doors of perception were cleansed, everything would
appear to man as it is infinite.So said the poet William Blake
in his best known work, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
It's a line that influenced Aldous Huxley's exploration of
(02:17):
the effects of drug use on altered consciousness in his
book The Doors of Perception, and that in turn was picked up
by the archetypal 60s mega groupThe Doors.
What is the pathway to life? The stairway to Heaven?
(02:41):
The door to an improved existence in practical terms,
key to the meaning of Christmas here Jesus says he is the door
now you see, this passage comes in the context of winter
(03:04):
celebrations. It is the time of the Feast of
dedication at Jerusalem. The Pharisees had been unable to
see that Jesus had healed the blind man, and they returned
again to that miracle, Jesus. Again.
At the end of our passage today,and as I say, soon after the
next verse we're told by John, comes the Feast of Dedication,
(03:27):
verse 22, or what is more commonly known today as the
festival of light. What is more, in context it is
possible, not certain but possible that one of the
readings used at the Festival ofLight, the Feast of Dedication,
what we call today Hanukkah, wasfrom the great prophet Ezekiel
(03:51):
and his famous chapter 34 where he describes how God himself
will come to shepherd his people.
So it is possible that actually in John 10 John is expositing
explaining Ezekiel 34 as they begin to get ready for the feast
(04:11):
of dedication. Who is the shepherd?
It is he himself, he say, but Jesus also in the same context
calls himself the door. This is another of these well
known I AM statements, each claiming that he was God, that
(04:34):
the Pharisees knew that he was making this to them outrageous
claim. As they say in verse 33, you
being a man, make yourself God. Now here with this particular I
AM statement, He is saying that He is the door, which is a
strange image. In ancient times, shepherds
(04:55):
would, as it is often now believed, bring their flock into
the sheepfold and there would bean entrance way into this stone
rock enclosure into which they called their sheep.
And often there would not actually be, it is thought, and
a physical wooden door over the entrance.
Instead, especially in those sheepfolds that were in the
(05:17):
fields, it is thought that the shepherds would literally lie in
the entrance way to the sheepfold so they could protect
the sheep from the wolves by being the door.
This it is possible, is the image that Jesus is referring to
(05:38):
here and as he does so, He givesus 3 signs, 3 indicators, 3
marks that give us reason to believe that He is the door to
understanding the meaning of this feast of dedication, the
winter festival of light, salvation, pasture life, first
(06:04):
salvation. I am the door.
Jesus says verse 9, if anyone enters by me, he will be saved.
Now salvation there has the sense of refuge.
It's all part of the image as well as the actual word.
You see the sheep have come in from the fields, they are
(06:24):
entering the sheepfold. If they enter by this door, and
Jesus is the door through which they enter, they will be safe or
saved. He will lie down at the
entrance, the sheepfold, and protect them from danger.
Any attack will literally have to be over his dead body.
(06:46):
He's lying down in front of the danger.
The story is told probably apocryphal.
Historians think of the courtierSir Walter Raleigh, who put his
cloak over a puddle to prevent Queen Elizabeth from muddying
her feet. Well, this is a far greater
(07:08):
protection. So there you are.
You're out on a hill in the Wilds, and there's no protection
against wolves or any other dangers.
You're far enough away from civilization that a roving
bandit or a thief could get awaywith stealing from you and your
family and one person, as you gathered together and threw up a
(07:30):
hasty enclosure of some kind or other.
One person sits at the entrance and takes up God all night.
He says if anyone is going to come to attack, he'll have to
come through me first. He is protecting, guarding,
saving. Now, that's the first part of
(07:55):
the image here of Jesus being the door.
If anyone enters by me, he will be saved.
Ezekiel put it like this. They shall dwell securely, and
none shall make them afraid. Now, this is such a relevant
word for us today, isn't it? Yes, as we celebrate Christmas
(08:15):
with all the festival of light, and yet at the same time, as
John symbolically puts it, it was winter.
And we too don't we, We live in a day when there is a great
sense, a renewed sense of a needfor safety.
Security can read any number of different reports and tensions.
(08:39):
Where is the door? Where is the person, the
organization, the system that can provide us with the security
that we need? Perhaps you this week are facing
some question like that, not at sort of global level or national
level, but at a personal level. Jesus says, verse 28.
(09:01):
I give them eternal life. No one can snatch them out of my
hand. The second and third signs are
coming our way momentarily, but first, a reminder that we'd love
to hear from you. If these studies have been
meaningful, if you've been listening with us for a while,
(09:22):
or if you're brand new, say hello.
You can do that through our contact page, God centered
life.org. There's an address and phone
number there as well. If you happen to be stateside,
however you reach out, we'd loveto hear from you.
Back into John. Here's Josh.
During the Spanish American War,Clara Barton was supervising the
(09:42):
activities of the Red Cross in Cuba and one day Theodore
Roosevelt came to her wanting tobuy food for his sick and
wounded Rough Riders, as his followers were called.
At the time, she refused to sellhim anything.
Roosevelt was perplexed. His men needed the help and he
was prepared to pay out of his own funds.
What was the problem? He asked why he could not buy
(10:06):
the supplies and was told Colonel just ask for it.
A smile broke over Roosevelt's face.
Now he understood the provisionswere not for sale.
All he had to do was simply ask and they'll be given freely.
Jesus is the door. Enter through him and you will
(10:31):
be saved. First salvation, 2nd pasture
again verse 9. I am the door.
If anyone enters by me, he'll besaved and will go in and out and
(10:51):
find pasture. And so there's this image that
Jesus is using of the sheep under his can.
And here they will find pasture that is food to eat, grass to
graze upon, provision, sustenance.
So we can know that Jesus is thedoor, the key to Christmas, not
only because he protects and is our salvation eternally, but
(11:15):
also because he provides healthyspiritual food.
How do we get this food? Well, Jesus says the way to find
this food is to go in and out through him, the door.
So the flock, the sheep, one of the most common descriptions in
the Bible of God's people, the church, this flock, this people
(11:36):
find pasture, food to eat as they go in and out through
Jesus. So this, this picture of going
in and out, there's a sense of liberty to it, isn't there?
This is not a dictatorship. It's not a prison.
The sheep go in and out. It also has a sense of the right
kind of liberty about it. It is all through Jesus, the
(11:59):
door. So we go out through the door to
our daily work, to our homes, toour study.
Many a person finds that their work, their study, their thought
life fades very quickly when they leave church.
And they wonder why? What?
It's because they don't go out through Jesus.
They they don't read the Bible in the morning each day.
(12:22):
They don't take Jesus with them to their work.
They leave him behind with theircornflakes.
Many a person comes to church but does not do so by going in
through Jesus either. There's a rather nice story of a
great preacher who a new attendee at the church where he
was pastoring was entranced by his rhetoric.
(12:45):
She marvelled at the message anddetermined to come back again
the next week to hear him once more.
This time it fell flat and she didn't like it at all.
And so she went up to the preacher afterwards and told him
the previous week had been great, but this week it was
terrible. So the great preacher asked her
this question, Why did you come to church the first time?
(13:09):
She said, because I wanted to meet with God.
And he said, so is that what happened?
She said yes. And then he said, why did you
come back again? Oh, she said, because I wanted
to hear you. You had exactly what you came
for both times. He said how we come in, whether
(13:29):
to come in to hear from Jesus, going in through him, and how we
go out matters to how well fed we are and how effective we are
living out what we have heard. I love the little story of
Charles Spurgeon at this point. He said this, If people come to
find faults, we always give plenty of our imperfections for
(13:53):
them to be entertained by, so they need not be disappointed.
He was a businessman well known for his ruthlessness, once
announced to Mark Twain his great ambition.
Before I die, I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
I will climb Mount Sinai and read the 10 commandments from
the top. Oh, said Mark Twain, I have a
(14:16):
better idea. Stay in Boston and keep them.
Are we going out through Jesus for food to do us good?
It must be accompanied by exercise.
Putting it into practice. Martin Luther put it like this.
(14:40):
The life of Christianity consists of possessive pronouns.
It is one thing to say Christ isa Saviour.
It is quite another thing to sayHe is my Saviour and my Lord.
The devil can say the first, thetrue Christian alone can say the
(15:03):
second. So can we say that we are here
today to meet with Jesus and in particular your Jesus that you
personally know and want to hearfrom going out.
(15:24):
I'm going in through Jesus. That's the way to find healthy
food from the word that the pasture listen to him.
So that's another sign that Jesus is the meaning of
Christmas. This feast of dedication, this
festival of light salvation pasture third life.
(15:44):
Look at John 10 verse 10 famous words.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.
I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Who is the thief? The thief comes only to steal
and kill and destroy. We need to know who he is.
Well, in this context here the thief is the the full shepherd
(16:07):
who is seeking to lead God's people for his own benefit and
is leading them away from God. That is those who do not
recognise that Jesus is God. That is the Pharisees here who
are rejecting Jesus. Those shepherds against which
God, through his prophet Ezekielhad already warned God's people
(16:27):
about, are now being replaced byJesus, who is, as we shall see
tonight at the carousel, is the Good Shepherd of the sheep, the
thieves of those who come to take life, whereas Jesus has
come to give life. Thieves are leaders, rulers,
kings, governments, authorities,celebrities, ideas, tendencies,
(16:52):
passions that are designed to get things from you in order to
enrich, better, ennoble, improve, line the pockets of the
thieves. And how do you know there are
those who deny that Jesus is God?
I am the door. Jesus says He comes to give us
(17:15):
life and life abundantly. HL Mencken said this about life
as we experience it outside of Christ.
The basic fact about human experience is not that it is a
tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not that it is so
(17:40):
predominantly painful, but that it is lacking in any sense.
This is the human condition all around us.
It's why we as a church are so passionate about mission and
outreach. Where is the key to the meaning
(18:01):
to Christmas this winter Festival of light?
Where is the door? He gives meaning and time now.
Every moment, however mundane, when live for Jesus can be
filled with significance. William Berkeley describes how
(18:23):
even the most mundane parts of life can take on great meaning.
He said This Lord of all pots and pans and things, since I've
no time to be a St. by doing lovely things, or watching late
with thee, or dreaming in the dawn light, or storming heaven's
gates, make me a St. by getting meals and washing up the plates.
(18:49):
He is truth. As Martin Luther King Junior put
it, Jesus Christ was an extremist for love, truth and
goodness. He is the one alone who can give
(19:10):
us meaning. You know what the number one
search on the Internet is these days?
What is the meaning of life? Christ is that meaning.
The life is found in relationship to Him.
He is life. He offers us fullness of life.
(19:31):
Knowing Him is to live and live to the full.
He gives life forever, not merely an extension of
existence. Where it is estimated that
stress is the cause of 75 to 90%of the visits people make to
(19:52):
their primary care physician today.
Not just an extension of existence, but life so full of
life that it is now unending, abundant. 3 signs that Jesus is
(20:13):
the meaning of Christmas salvation pasture life was a.
Tourist group in the Middle Eastin Israel and they were on a bus
and the tour guide was explaining to them about how
shepherding functioned in ancient times and how it still
(20:35):
functioned in in the Middle Eastin those places.
And at those times, he explainedthe shepherd would call his
sheep by name and he would lead them and they would follow not
like in the West where shepherdsdrive their sheep with dogs.
And no, no, in the Middle East in ancient time and still in
(20:56):
some places today, he was explaining the shepherd would
call his sheep and they would follow.
And so he was explaining all this on the tourist bus when one
of the tourists looked out of the window and noticed that
there was a man driving sheep, put up his hand and said, well,
what's this about then? And the the tour guide
(21:16):
immediately stopped the bus, ranout of the bus, went to the man
who's doing this driving of the sheep.
And all the tourists could see they were having a sort of
gesticulative conversation. And then the tour guide came
back in onto the bus, looked at all the tourists and said, it's
all OK, He's not the shepherd, he's the butcher.
(21:41):
That, in a sense, is what Jesus is saying.
Listen therefore, to Him. Read His Word.
The Bible is not only the greatest treasure that this
world can afford, it is also theone solution to spiritual
(22:02):
hunger. Read His Word.
Follow His teaching. The exercise of Christ, like
love, is the surest path to spiritual fitness and community
(22:23):
reconciliation in our world. Follow His teaching, read His
Word, worship Him. Mary, did he know that your baby
boy would one day walk on water?Mary, did he know that your baby
(22:47):
boy would give sight to a blind man?
Mary, did he know that your babyboy is Lord of all creation?
That when you kiss your little baby, you kissed the face of
(23:09):
God. The sleeping child that you are
holding is thee great, I am. That's Josh Moody and this is
the God centered life, salvation, pasture and life.
(23:32):
The three signs that point to Jesus is the meaning of
Christmas. Thanks for that, Josh.
Well, we hope you're enjoying this study and it's bringing a
dynamism to your holiday perspective.
Sometimes we get in the rut and it's the same thing over again
and there might be joy in it, but we lose track of the deeper
joy of why we're celebrating. We hope this study is helping
(23:54):
restore that for you. We're excited about what we're
heading into with the new year. Yeah, we're a couple days from
Christmas, but the new year is right around the corner.
And we want to give a shout out to all those who have partnered
with us in 2025, especially those who have signed up to be
regular monthly partners. Thank you so much.
We're celebrating what God has done through this ministry in
(24:14):
2025 and looking ahead next timewe get together, more
celebration. This time it's the Good
Shepherd. Jesus is saying that he is the
Good Shepherd, and that means that part of the nature of Jesus
as God, the I Am, is this caring, protecting, shepherding.
(24:38):
Continuum look at the book of John.
When we get together next time God Centered life.org, reach out
and connect with us through our website and then join us as we
next open God's Word here at theGod Centered Life with Josh
Moody.
That's the first part of the image here of Jesus being the
door. If anyone enters by me, he will
be saved. Now, this is such a relevant
word for us today, isn't it? Yes, as we celebrate Christmas
with all the festival of light. And yet at the same time, as
John symbolically puts it, it was winter.
And we too, don't we? We live in a day when there is a
(00:21):
great sense, a renewed sense, ofa need for safety.
Welcome to the God centered lifewith Josh Moody.
The series is called Who is Jesus?
Today's installment we're calling the door looking
specifically at the 10th chapterof the book of John and verse 9.
(00:42):
Josh Moody is senior pastor of College Church located in
Wheaton, IL Thanks for joining us today.
Interesting approach there, Josh.
As we've been saying, the Jesus of that Advent story is a small
baby, but the statement we're looking at today introduces the
idea of safety. Yes, that he provides the the
(01:02):
safety for his for his sheep. And so, especially today, I
think that's a relevant and needed word where sheep may
safely graze. And we're combining this study.
We'll take a look at verse 11 ofJohn 10 in our next study where
we'll talk about specifically the Good Shepherd.
But these are linked today. It's about the door, verse 9 of
(01:26):
John 10. Here's Josh.
Well, it's great to be with you this morning as we get closer to
Christmas. It's a wonderful time of year,
Christmas, isn't it? With kids going Jingle belling
and everyone telling you to be of good cheer and things like
this. But what does it?
What does it all mean? John Chapter 10 tells us if the
(01:53):
doors of perception were cleansed, everything would
appear to man as it is infinite.So said the poet William Blake
in his best known work, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
It's a line that influenced Aldous Huxley's exploration of
(02:17):
the effects of drug use on altered consciousness in his
book The Doors of Perception, and that in turn was picked up
by the archetypal 60s mega groupThe Doors.
What is the pathway to life? The stairway to Heaven?
(02:41):
The door to an improved existence in practical terms,
key to the meaning of Christmas here Jesus says he is the door
now you see, this passage comes in the context of winter
(03:04):
celebrations. It is the time of the Feast of
dedication at Jerusalem. The Pharisees had been unable to
see that Jesus had healed the blind man, and they returned
again to that miracle, Jesus. Again.
At the end of our passage today,and as I say, soon after the
next verse we're told by John, comes the Feast of Dedication,
(03:27):
verse 22, or what is more commonly known today as the
festival of light. What is more, in context it is
possible, not certain but possible that one of the
readings used at the Festival ofLight, the Feast of Dedication,
what we call today Hanukkah, wasfrom the great prophet Ezekiel
(03:51):
and his famous chapter 34 where he describes how God himself
will come to shepherd his people.
So it is possible that actually in John 10 John is expositing
explaining Ezekiel 34 as they begin to get ready for the feast
(04:11):
of dedication. Who is the shepherd?
It is he himself, he say, but Jesus also in the same context
calls himself the door. This is another of these well
known I AM statements, each claiming that he was God, that
(04:34):
the Pharisees knew that he was making this to them outrageous
claim. As they say in verse 33, you
being a man, make yourself God. Now here with this particular I
AM statement, He is saying that He is the door, which is a
strange image. In ancient times, shepherds
(04:55):
would, as it is often now believed, bring their flock into
the sheepfold and there would bean entrance way into this stone
rock enclosure into which they called their sheep.
And often there would not actually be, it is thought, and
a physical wooden door over the entrance.
Instead, especially in those sheepfolds that were in the
(05:17):
fields, it is thought that the shepherds would literally lie in
the entrance way to the sheepfold so they could protect
the sheep from the wolves by being the door.
This it is possible, is the image that Jesus is referring to
(05:38):
here and as he does so, He givesus 3 signs, 3 indicators, 3
marks that give us reason to believe that He is the door to
understanding the meaning of this feast of dedication, the
winter festival of light, salvation, pasture life, first
(06:04):
salvation. I am the door.
Jesus says verse 9, if anyone enters by me, he will be saved.
Now salvation there has the sense of refuge.
It's all part of the image as well as the actual word.
You see the sheep have come in from the fields, they are
(06:24):
entering the sheepfold. If they enter by this door, and
Jesus is the door through which they enter, they will be safe or
saved. He will lie down at the
entrance, the sheepfold, and protect them from danger.
Any attack will literally have to be over his dead body.
(06:46):
He's lying down in front of the danger.
The story is told probably apocryphal.
Historians think of the courtierSir Walter Raleigh, who put his
cloak over a puddle to prevent Queen Elizabeth from muddying
her feet. Well, this is a far greater
(07:08):
protection. So there you are.
You're out on a hill in the Wilds, and there's no protection
against wolves or any other dangers.
You're far enough away from civilization that a roving
bandit or a thief could get awaywith stealing from you and your
family and one person, as you gathered together and threw up a
(07:30):
hasty enclosure of some kind or other.
One person sits at the entrance and takes up God all night.
He says if anyone is going to come to attack, he'll have to
come through me first. He is protecting, guarding,
saving. Now, that's the first part of
(07:55):
the image here of Jesus being the door.
If anyone enters by me, he will be saved.
Ezekiel put it like this. They shall dwell securely, and
none shall make them afraid. Now, this is such a relevant
word for us today, isn't it? Yes, as we celebrate Christmas
(08:15):
with all the festival of light, and yet at the same time, as
John symbolically puts it, it was winter.
And we too don't we, We live in a day when there is a great
sense, a renewed sense of a needfor safety.
Security can read any number of different reports and tensions.
(08:39):
Where is the door? Where is the person, the
organization, the system that can provide us with the security
that we need? Perhaps you this week are facing
some question like that, not at sort of global level or national
level, but at a personal level. Jesus says, verse 28.
(09:01):
I give them eternal life. No one can snatch them out of my
hand. The second and third signs are
coming our way momentarily, but first, a reminder that we'd love
to hear from you. If these studies have been
meaningful, if you've been listening with us for a while,
(09:22):
or if you're brand new, say hello.
You can do that through our contact page, God centered
life.org. There's an address and phone
number there as well. If you happen to be stateside,
however you reach out, we'd loveto hear from you.
Back into John. Here's Josh.
During the Spanish American War,Clara Barton was supervising the
(09:42):
activities of the Red Cross in Cuba and one day Theodore
Roosevelt came to her wanting tobuy food for his sick and
wounded Rough Riders, as his followers were called.
At the time, she refused to sellhim anything.
Roosevelt was perplexed. His men needed the help and he
was prepared to pay out of his own funds.
What was the problem? He asked why he could not buy
(10:06):
the supplies and was told Colonel just ask for it.
A smile broke over Roosevelt's face.
Now he understood the provisionswere not for sale.
All he had to do was simply ask and they'll be given freely.
Jesus is the door. Enter through him and you will
(10:31):
be saved. First salvation, 2nd pasture
again verse 9. I am the door.
If anyone enters by me, he'll besaved and will go in and out and
(10:51):
find pasture. And so there's this image that
Jesus is using of the sheep under his can.
And here they will find pasture that is food to eat, grass to
graze upon, provision, sustenance.
So we can know that Jesus is thedoor, the key to Christmas, not
only because he protects and is our salvation eternally, but
(11:15):
also because he provides healthyspiritual food.
How do we get this food? Well, Jesus says the way to find
this food is to go in and out through him, the door.
So the flock, the sheep, one of the most common descriptions in
the Bible of God's people, the church, this flock, this people
(11:36):
find pasture, food to eat as they go in and out through
Jesus. So this, this picture of going
in and out, there's a sense of liberty to it, isn't there?
This is not a dictatorship. It's not a prison.
The sheep go in and out. It also has a sense of the right
kind of liberty about it. It is all through Jesus, the
(11:59):
door. So we go out through the door to
our daily work, to our homes, toour study.
Many a person finds that their work, their study, their thought
life fades very quickly when they leave church.
And they wonder why? What?
It's because they don't go out through Jesus.
They they don't read the Bible in the morning each day.
(12:22):
They don't take Jesus with them to their work.
They leave him behind with theircornflakes.
Many a person comes to church but does not do so by going in
through Jesus either. There's a rather nice story of a
great preacher who a new attendee at the church where he
was pastoring was entranced by his rhetoric.
(12:45):
She marvelled at the message anddetermined to come back again
the next week to hear him once more.
This time it fell flat and she didn't like it at all.
And so she went up to the preacher afterwards and told him
the previous week had been great, but this week it was
terrible. So the great preacher asked her
this question, Why did you come to church the first time?
(13:09):
She said, because I wanted to meet with God.
And he said, so is that what happened?
She said yes. And then he said, why did you
come back again? Oh, she said, because I wanted
to hear you. You had exactly what you came
for both times. He said how we come in, whether
(13:29):
to come in to hear from Jesus, going in through him, and how we
go out matters to how well fed we are and how effective we are
living out what we have heard. I love the little story of
Charles Spurgeon at this point. He said this, If people come to
find faults, we always give plenty of our imperfections for
(13:53):
them to be entertained by, so they need not be disappointed.
He was a businessman well known for his ruthlessness, once
announced to Mark Twain his great ambition.
Before I die, I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
I will climb Mount Sinai and read the 10 commandments from
the top. Oh, said Mark Twain, I have a
(14:16):
better idea. Stay in Boston and keep them.
Are we going out through Jesus for food to do us good?
It must be accompanied by exercise.
Putting it into practice. Martin Luther put it like this.
(14:40):
The life of Christianity consists of possessive pronouns.
It is one thing to say Christ isa Saviour.
It is quite another thing to sayHe is my Saviour and my Lord.
The devil can say the first, thetrue Christian alone can say the
(15:03):
second. So can we say that we are here
today to meet with Jesus and in particular your Jesus that you
personally know and want to hearfrom going out.
(15:24):
I'm going in through Jesus. That's the way to find healthy
food from the word that the pasture listen to him.
So that's another sign that Jesus is the meaning of
Christmas. This feast of dedication, this
festival of light salvation pasture third life.
(15:44):
Look at John 10 verse 10 famous words.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.
I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Who is the thief? The thief comes only to steal
and kill and destroy. We need to know who he is.
Well, in this context here the thief is the the full shepherd
(16:07):
who is seeking to lead God's people for his own benefit and
is leading them away from God. That is those who do not
recognise that Jesus is God. That is the Pharisees here who
are rejecting Jesus. Those shepherds against which
God, through his prophet Ezekielhad already warned God's people
(16:27):
about, are now being replaced byJesus, who is, as we shall see
tonight at the carousel, is the Good Shepherd of the sheep, the
thieves of those who come to take life, whereas Jesus has
come to give life. Thieves are leaders, rulers,
kings, governments, authorities,celebrities, ideas, tendencies,
(16:52):
passions that are designed to get things from you in order to
enrich, better, ennoble, improve, line the pockets of the
thieves. And how do you know there are
those who deny that Jesus is God?
I am the door. Jesus says He comes to give us
(17:15):
life and life abundantly. HL Mencken said this about life
as we experience it outside of Christ.
The basic fact about human experience is not that it is a
tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not that it is so
(17:40):
predominantly painful, but that it is lacking in any sense.
This is the human condition all around us.
It's why we as a church are so passionate about mission and
outreach. Where is the key to the meaning
(18:01):
to Christmas this winter Festival of light?
Where is the door? He gives meaning and time now.
Every moment, however mundane, when live for Jesus can be
filled with significance. William Berkeley describes how
(18:23):
even the most mundane parts of life can take on great meaning.
He said This Lord of all pots and pans and things, since I've
no time to be a St. by doing lovely things, or watching late
with thee, or dreaming in the dawn light, or storming heaven's
gates, make me a St. by getting meals and washing up the plates.
(18:49):
He is truth. As Martin Luther King Junior put
it, Jesus Christ was an extremist for love, truth and
goodness. He is the one alone who can give
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us meaning. You know what the number one
search on the Internet is these days?
What is the meaning of life? Christ is that meaning.
The life is found in relationship to Him.
He is life. He offers us fullness of life.
(19:31):
Knowing Him is to live and live to the full.
He gives life forever, not merely an extension of
existence. Where it is estimated that
stress is the cause of 75 to 90%of the visits people make to
(19:52):
their primary care physician today.
Not just an extension of existence, but life so full of
life that it is now unending, abundant. 3 signs that Jesus is
(20:13):
the meaning of Christmas salvation pasture life was a.
Tourist group in the Middle Eastin Israel and they were on a bus
and the tour guide was explaining to them about how
shepherding functioned in ancient times and how it still
(20:35):
functioned in in the Middle Eastin those places.
And at those times, he explainedthe shepherd would call his
sheep by name and he would lead them and they would follow not
like in the West where shepherdsdrive their sheep with dogs.
And no, no, in the Middle East in ancient time and still in
(20:56):
some places today, he was explaining the shepherd would
call his sheep and they would follow.
And so he was explaining all this on the tourist bus when one
of the tourists looked out of the window and noticed that
there was a man driving sheep, put up his hand and said, well,
what's this about then? And the the tour guide
(21:16):
immediately stopped the bus, ranout of the bus, went to the man
who's doing this driving of the sheep.
And all the tourists could see they were having a sort of
gesticulative conversation. And then the tour guide came
back in onto the bus, looked at all the tourists and said, it's
all OK, He's not the shepherd, he's the butcher.
(21:41):
That, in a sense, is what Jesus is saying.
Listen therefore, to Him. Read His Word.
The Bible is not only the greatest treasure that this
world can afford, it is also theone solution to spiritual
(22:02):
hunger. Read His Word.
Follow His teaching. The exercise of Christ, like
love, is the surest path to spiritual fitness and community
(22:23):
reconciliation in our world. Follow His teaching, read His
Word, worship Him. Mary, did he know that your baby
boy would one day walk on water?Mary, did he know that your baby
(22:47):
boy would give sight to a blind man?
Mary, did he know that your babyboy is Lord of all creation?
That when you kiss your little baby, you kissed the face of
(23:09):
God. The sleeping child that you are
holding is thee great, I am. That's Josh Moody and this is
the God centered life, salvation, pasture and life.
(23:32):
The three signs that point to Jesus is the meaning of
Christmas. Thanks for that, Josh.
Well, we hope you're enjoying this study and it's bringing a
dynamism to your holiday perspective.
Sometimes we get in the rut and it's the same thing over again
and there might be joy in it, but we lose track of the deeper
joy of why we're celebrating. We hope this study is helping
(23:54):
restore that for you. We're excited about what we're
heading into with the new year. Yeah, we're a couple days from
Christmas, but the new year is right around the corner.
And we want to give a shout out to all those who have partnered
with us in 2025, especially those who have signed up to be
regular monthly partners. Thank you so much.
We're celebrating what God has done through this ministry in
(24:14):
2025 and looking ahead next timewe get together, more
celebration. This time it's the Good
Shepherd. Jesus is saying that he is the
Good Shepherd, and that means that part of the nature of Jesus
as God, the I Am, is this caring, protecting, shepherding.
(24:38):
Continuum look at the book of John.
When we get together next time God Centered life.org, reach out
and connect with us through our website and then join us as we
next open God's Word here at theGod Centered Life with Josh
Moody.
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