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At Sandals Church, our vision is to be real with ourselves, God and others. This channel features sermons and teaching from Pastor Matt Brown and other members of the Sandals Church preaching team. You can find sermon notes, videos and more content at http://sandalschurch.com/watch
How many of you have ever been in excruciating pain before? It's been almost 20 years since I felt some of the worst pain I have ever felt in my entire life. It was the summer of 2003, almost 20 years ago, it was July, right before my senior year, it was summertime, I was out with some friends and we were up in the kind of trail areas of Marino Valley, so Sandal's Church Marino Valley might know where this is, it's right off Pigeon Pass Road and I fell out of a tree swing. You can laugh at that, that's okay. And up on this trail we came across this massive, massive tree, it was a beautiful tree, been there for a long time, and you can tell that a lot of people swung from it because the tax show was this huge rope and this handle at the end of it. And what you would do is you would grab a hold of this rope, kind of run back and then run and then jump over what was a dry ravine. You swing out and then you come back around the other side. Now even as I describe this to you now, I feel like Miles Barralis, I can totally do this swing through the city and be just fine, but that's not at all what happened in this moment. It was a hot day, I wiped my head of sweat and then grabbed the handle. I stepped back, did my little run and I can't run that fast. I ran, jumped out and my momentum was so much that it swung my body too far and I let go. And of course gravity did not take a day off that day. And so I plummeted 25 feet into this dry ravine. And I remember I landed like this, like, and I got up and just was in complete shock. And my whole body just started to sweat. You ever been in shock like this? You just start to sweat. And I looked down at my elbow and this bone, it wasn't out, but it was not where it should be. And so in my shock, I have my friends start pulling on my arm to try to pop it back into place. And then pain starts to say, pain in my back, pain in my legs. And the sound my elbow is making is the sound that like a bag of chips makes when you're like crunching it up. It was disgusting. And then the excruciating pain came. And the pain that I have never felt before in my life. And they rushed me to the hospital. I got in. The ER doctor had already worked on like multiple surgeries, been up for over two days, so they couldn't perform on me. Next day I get about five hour operation done. I'm told beforehand by the doctor that they're not sure how I'll be able to use my left arm. But thankfully by the grace of God it works. And I had an incredible surgeon. But I have now two, two massive plates and about 22 pins in my left elbow. In fact, when people are curious about it, I always put their hand on my elbow, I haven't filled the weird squishy part of the metal in there. But I have this scar here as a reminder of that wound. And I share that story because I would imagine many of you guys also have wounds. You have scars. Scars that you have for your entire life. And today as we continue in our series encountering Jesus, we're going to meet an individual who has wounds, who's got a scar, who knows what it's like to be in pain and then encounter Jesus. And something profound happens in their life. And we've been going through this series looking at different moments in the Gospel of John when Jesus reveals himself through these statements, these I am statements. But he does so in a way that, like I said, is profoundly transformational for people. And today we're going to see what it's like to have a wound but to encounter Jesus with that wound. And so if you're willing and able, I'm going to ask that you would stand with me for the reading of God's Word. And this is what John says in John 10. He writes, therefore Jesus said again, very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers. But the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. But I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. This is God's Word. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, in this moment that we have gathered as a church, we pause and prayer to acknowledge you have gathered with us too. And God, we are thankful for your presence. And we pray now that as Jesus said, you would give us ears to hear your voice today. You would give us eyes to see and you would help us to be open. Open to you so that we might receive all that you have for us in Jesus. We pray these things in His name. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much. You can be seated. Hey, as we get going into today's message, I just want to take a second to invite you to be a part of the work that's happening here at Sandals Church. One way you can do that is by partnering with us financially and going to donate.se today. For now, we're going to get back into the message with Pastor Frito. Now, I've got to be honest with you. Out of all the ways that Jesus through the Gospel of John gives these I am statements, like I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection. I am the vine. This one seems, to me at least, the strangest. I am the gate. Some translations say, I am the door. It's strange. It's a bit bizarre. It doesn't maybe feel as comforting as some of the other ones. And to understand what he means when he says this, it requires us to go backwards a little bit in John's narrative. Not just a verse seven, but to verse one there in John 10, to see the first parable that he gives where he says to the Pharisees, I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate but climbs in by some other way is a thief and a robber. Now, who is he saying that to? Pharisees. Through this parable, through this story, he's accusing them of the way they have treated sheep. He goes on to say, the one who answers by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. Now, this is a parable. This is a picture that Jesus is painting that would have been very common in his world. The Middle Eastern world where shepherding and shepherds are about as common as coffee shops and brew resort to the modern world. So his listeners would have fully understood. And what he's describing here is a pen for sheep to enter, for a place for them to live and listen to me carefully, have safety. He's describing a kind of entry point to say that if you come to me, if you enter in by me, if you encounter me, you will know what it's like to live, to have a pasture, to hear my voice and listen to be kept safe. Now, here's the thing we've got to remember, he's not speaking to the crowds though, he's not speaking to his disciples, he is speaking directly to religious leaders. And he's speaking to them in a way that is reacting to something he just saw. And so to understand what he's getting at, we need to also see what Jesus saw in this moment. And to do that, we've got to go back to John 9. For familiar with John 9, Jesus has an encounter with a blind man. A man that we're told was blind from birth. Think about that. Born in the dark and his whole life, his whole existence has been in darkness. And in this single encounter with Jesus, for the first time in this man's life, he sees. And at one point of the story, we're told that he declares in the temple, when he's on trial in front of religious leaders, I once was blind, but now I see. What a moment for this man to finally see, himself to see people to see colors. What he's long for the most, he finally is now experiencing. It's a beautiful story, but listen, in this narrative, we also learn a very, very hard lesson about wounds and about healing. And it's this, the healing of our wounds always comes with a cost. It always comes with a cost. Here's what I mean by that. When this man is first healed by Jesus, people don't know what to do with it. His own community. Look what it says there in verse 8 and 9. It says, his neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, isn't this the same man who used to sit in beg? Some claim that he was. Others said, no, he only looks like him. And he himself insisted, no, I am the man. Like it's me. I'm that person. You saw sitting on the ground forever, begging, blind. But that's not me anymore. I can see. They're suspicious still. Like you and I would be. Like imagine someone you've known your whole life who's used a walking stick to get everywhere because they're blind. And then I will say, they see. Part of you would be like, wow, really? They don't believe it. They don't believe it. And so here's what the cost comes in. You see, healing our wounds often costs us relationships. Like you would be surprised to hear about how many people, when they're trying to get healed or they're ready to make a decision to make their life better, that their own family members or friends get in the way of that. You ever experienced this? Like you're trying to better yourself. You're trying to make a decision about some habits. You want to get healed and your own family or friends are like, I don't think so. Not going to happen. Maybe how many of you here maybe are pursuing a relationship with Jesus, but you have family who like are doubtful of it. And you find yourself fighting against a family system that you grew up in because following Jesus is so different than what you were raised in. When you think about it, healing of this kind is very, very costly. Like when we look back to even just John 8, the woman who's caught an adultery, Jesus says your accusers are gone. I don't accuse you either. Go and sin no more. Have you ever thought that if she was a prostitute, she's got to find another job. Like if she worked in that way, she's got to provide for herself in a new way. If she has kids, she's got to find a way to feed them with another kind of job. Healing, when you think about it, comes with a cost. And it oftentimes is a relational one. And we see this even so, not just with his neighbors, but this blind man, the religious leaders are also suspicious. Here's what they say in verse 16. Some of the Pharisees said this man is not from God, referring to Jesus, for he does not keep the Sabbath because they acknowledge that Jesus healed this man on the Sabbath. A holy sacred day where to rest, Jesus was working. But others asked, how can a sinner perform such signs so they were divided? Right? Some are thinking, Jesus can't possibly be from God. He broke the law. Others are saying, well, I've never seen a sinner bring sight to the blind. So they call for more witnesses. Even their suspicion, they call for more people. They even call for this blind man's parents. In a moment where we should be celebrating that someone who we have known our whole lives is blind can now see that they want to have a trial. Because they, like many of us, are blind to where God is actually at work. We don't see it. Not only are we blind to it, we'd actually think it's not God actually at work. In our religious setting. And so here we go with this trial. Verse 20, they call the parents and the blind man's parents come in. They confront them. And they respond to the Pharisees' questions by saying, listen, we know he is our son, the parents answered. And we know he was born blind. Because they're asking, like, are you sure he's your son? Was he really born blind? I would imagine a mom in a moment of giving birth, like coming to the realization, oh my gosh, my son can't see. You're giving birth to a child with a disability. He's like, you don't forget that. You live with that. You go through the agony of what that's like, right? And they got the audacity to challenge. Are you sure he was born blind? As if she wouldn't know. And they say, yeah, we know he was born blind. But how can he see now or who opened his eyes, they say? We don't know. Ask him. He is of age. He will speak for himself. Now, why do his parents say that? One says it's because they were afraid. Afraid of what? They were afraid that the religious leaders of the community would treat them the same way they had been treating their son for years. There's been a stigma around this man who was born blind. Why a stigma? Because in this day, it was believed that if you were born blind, you were cursed. So cursed that there had to be a kind of secret sin. Something that you did or your family did that karma, God, whoever you believed in was coming back to get you. You were cursed. You were ostracized. You were kicked out. Which is why when the disciples show up in the beginning of John 9 with Jesus to see the blind man, they're like, who's sinned Jesus? This man or his parents. They're in that same line of thinking. They're believing that he deserves this. Which is crazy. In a moment when you can see your rabbi, your master heal them, they're like, who did this? Instead of like being ready to see creation, they're ready to see condemnation. Like that's what they're wanting to see. They're not looking to create. They're looking to condemn this man's life. And their line of thinking is completely in line with a common understanding of that day. This is how they believed and operated. They thought if this is how you were going to, like, if this is how you came out, this is on you. So much so that it's very possible that this man had never even stepped foot in the temple because of his disability. He's never even allowed to celebrate with everyone else during the holiday festivals, the religious celebrations not allowed in. It's very possible this man, born blind, had zero interactions with the priest until this very moment. The greatest moment of his life was his first time in the temple and he's being accused. He's on trial. And we wonder why people struggle to come to church for the things that they wrestle with, for what they've been carrying their whole lives. And then the first time they come in, we want to bother them about the very thing that's kept them out of the church or so long. Why are we like this? Like consider with me for now to be born blind for this person was not just a physical disability, but a way of being communally ostracized. And this logic, though very misguided, corrupt, and very poor theology, was exactly how many people believed back then. And so Jesus, in response to His disciples, as listen, you're asking the wrong questions. No one's sinned. This happened that the works of God might be fully seen through this person's life. But this man, this man, born blind, he's suffering on two levels. Here they are. First, physical. Second, emotional and relational. It's costing him a lot of relation when he'd be healed. But here's the second way that it costs us. And this one's going to sting us a little bit. Heal in our wounds. Listen, now often costs us our own exposure. You've got to bring it out. When you look at the story there in John 9, the way that Jesus heals him is by approaching him. Now, what I find so funny is he doesn't introduce himself, hi, I'm Jesus. And if you heard of me, he just walks up. We're told he spits in the mud. Remember this man's blind. He can't see this. Like, so does he hear Jesus like spit? He's like, what's going on here? He spits in the mud. Your spits in the dirt makes mud. Rub his in his eyes and then tell someone to go wash in the pool. Which again, I'm like, that's kind of funny. Jesus, I don't know if this man knew where the pool was. Or maybe he did. But he's told to go wash in the pool. What's he doing here? My best guess is that Jesus, because he's so brilliant, is recreating the scene from Genesis 2. When God himself, how does he create man out of the dirt, out of the mud? Man is formed out of the mud, the dirt of the earth. And then we're told that God breathes the breath of life into him. I'm wondering if Jesus is not intentionally recreating the creation scene. And restoring to this man what belonged to him, eyesight, eyes, eyes that can actually function. And tragically, the most religious people of the day couldn't see it. In fact, in their self-confidence, in their own sight and understanding, they were convinced they were right. Which is why Jesus says at the end, you're the ones that are blind. And they take this even further to blame this man, like, who did this to you? We want to know. It's got to be anyone and anything else other than God. And the man responds, listen, I don't know who. This is amazing. It's wonderful. He expresses gratitude. It upsets them so much that they say you were steeped in sin. And who are you to lecture us? They kick the man out. The best day of his life, he's kicked out of the church. What a word for us today. Just think about that. The way we interact with people, the way we treat them, the way we try to understand what God's doing in their life. Their best moment to celebrate, he's thrown out. You know what he's experiencing here? This is trauma. This is trauma. Trauma can be defined as a kind of distorted state, mentally, emotionally, physically, even spiritually. That's what this man is dealing with. The word itself means a wound. And there's a pastor and author. His name is Rich Viotis. And he defines trauma in his book, Good, Beautiful and Kind. It's a fantastic book that I would recommend to you guys. But Rich Viotis says that trauma is about the story that we tell from our wounding. And trauma at a point begins to inform us, the wounds we have begin to inform us about what is safe and what is a threat. In fact, he goes on and he says that trauma is the state of woundedness and the story, listen, now the story that arises from living in that state. This is what we need to catch. Trauma is just not about being wounded, but the story that we begin to tell because of that wound. And because of the pain we feel. And that pain, you know, let's be honest, it's pain sometimes we've caused ourselves because of our own decision making. It's pain that maybe we've experienced from other people. And sometimes that pain fades, other times it feels more chronic and it kind of stays. And unfortunately, that's some of us, no, the pain that has stayed, the pain that has become a part of us. Dr. Kurt Thompson, he's a brilliant neuroscientist, psychiatrist, he's also a believer. He wrote a book that I would wholeheartedly commend to all of you called the soul of shame. And he says there are two types of trauma. Type one trauma is kind of the single dramatic moments that happen in our lives. Things like the fact that one in five Americans were abused in childhood. Or that one in three couples engage in physical violence towards each other. Or that one in four people have a relative who is an alcoholic. Or that one in eight children witnessed their mom being hit at some point when they were young. All of these are examples of type one trauma. Along with things like sudden car accidents, medical diagnosis that kind of changed your life. The loss of a loved one. And just walking with that grief that doesn't have kind of an expiration date. Or just the general lack of human nourishment that we need as children growing up. Maybe you were in a foster care system for a while. Maybe you just moved a lot as a kid. Parent left, you witnessed a divorce. Or in John 9, you were born blind and kept out of the community that you longed to be in. That's type one. But then type two trauma are wounds that are more subtly inflicted by people closest to us. And they're kind of harder to name because we're so used to them being a part of our lives. And Kurt Thompson points out that too is what many of us, if you're not in that first category, just come to have through life because life is just broken. The world is broken. Our relationships are broken. And I think it's fair to say as we look at this man born blind, he's suffering from both types. A physical disability. But also type two. There's a shame connected to his blindness. Why? Because he has been ostracized by the people who he longs to be in community with. His neighbors question it. His own parents don't protect him. And the religious institution at the time throws him out. When you think about it, this has been the human struggle from the very beginning. When you go all the way back to Genesis, the word that we hear there, maybe not his trauma because maybe that bothers you. We're talking about trauma in church. Just relax. The word the Bible uses is shame. Why is it that Genesis 2 paints a picture before sin entered the world by saying that they were naked and unashamed? Why? Because right after we're going to see what it's like for human beings to know that they are vulnerable, exposed, and what ashamed. And they hide. Our wounds are often accompanied by shame. And we see that from the very beginning with Adam and Eve. They hide. When you look at it from a psychological perspective, the Bible, when you really consider it as a story about trauma, it's about a sin wound that leads us all living from this place of woundedness. And that's the thing. All of us are wounded. There is no version of life outside of the garden where someone lives without shame. And unless we become familiar with hearing the voice that Jesus talked about, the voice that invites us in to deal with that shame, we will also find ourselves hiding for most of our lives. And so let me ask you, in what ways are you hiding in shame maybe right now? Because shame can keep you in a moment like from raising your hand in church to worship. Why are you lifting your hand? You don't know the song. You don't believe that lyric. You hate this song. Shame will keep you from serving. What do you do? You have nothing to offer. Shame will keep you from showing up to your community, to people in your life that go into small group. Oh, you're going to go? They don't want you. They can't possibly bear to hear what you're working through. Shame will keep us from things. Shame will keep us from living a life of generosity, a life of truth. It will keep us from so much. Bear in your life right now. Are you dealing with shame? Because the invitation from Jesus, there in John 10 verse 9, when he says, I am the gate, it is an invitation for us to embrace this truth that he's not afraid of your shame. Were you hide? He pursues. And for him to declare, I am the gate. He's saying, come to me. I'm the entrance point. I can heal you like I did this blind man. I can deal with what you are most afraid of. Jesus is not afraid of your shame. He's not afraid of the things that make you feel most vulnerable, exposed, and as if you are not enough in yourself. And I believe this is Satan's one of his greatest tactics. It's no accident that when Satan meets Jesus in the wilderness, he begins to say, are you really the son of God? He goes after his identity. Surely, you're not enough. If you were, you can turn these stones to bread. If you were, you could have the kingdoms. He goes after his sense of being enough. So Jesus, as the gate listened now, allows us to safely expose our wounds. He says, whoever answers through me will be saved. We'll come in and go out and find pastor. Whoever answers through me, as I was thinking about that this week, it dawned on me. Whoever answers through me. But Jesus, I think, is implying that everyone is looking for safety. So whether you're ready to acknowledge your shame or not, you know deep down inside. You are looking for a place to be safe. You're looking for a place, maybe in work, in a career, in a family, in a relationship, in an identity, in a social media image. We are looking for places of safety. And Jesus is saying, I am the gate. I am that entry point. And so the question is now, how do we enter through? How do we enter through? Here are some thoughts. We need to listen to His voice. Do you realize that the blind man heard Jesus long before He ever saw Jesus? So much so that when Jesus goes back to meet Him, the blind man doesn't know what's Jesus. Like He's the one who did it. And we need to hear His voice on a regular basis telling ourselves a different story than the story our shame is trying to tell us. The person that you and I are in conversation with the most every single day of our lives is ourselves. And when you have unaddressed wounds, what you often hear is your shame. This is why they don't listen to you. This is why you don't have that job. This is why no one likes you. This is why you can't be in a relationship. This is why you can't hold the job. We are constantly in a conversation every day with ourselves. And if our wounds are unaddressed, if we are blind to our own wounds, we will not know what it's like to hear the voice of the good shepherd calling to us. We need a voice. We have always needed to hear a voice. You know one of the things that we all share in common is we were all delivered into this world by our mothers. And that too was a pretty crazy experience. When you think about the magic and just the frantic, chaotic moment of childbirth, it's beautiful and freaky at the same time. But we all move from our home of nine months in a womb of safety, place where we can grow, become someone, become a person. And then we're traveling through, we'll save some of the details, right? Traumatic experience. But you know what we're hearing before we see anything? We're hearing a voice. What voice? We're hearing a voice of a parent of our mom, of our dad, of our... Whoever's in the room, we're hearing voices that we are familiar with before we're seeing anything. When you think about it, you have always longed to hear a voice. That's how we came into the world. The last thing some of us will probably hear is a voice. More than we'll see something. Like if my eyesight goes out, that might be a good thing. I don't want to know how bad my life is or how bad I look right. So maybe I lose eyesight, but I can hear. But we've always heard a voice. And we need to hear a familiar voice calling us back. And that's exactly what Jesus says in John 10 verse 3. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. This picture is one of a shepherd. In the eastern part of the world, leading sheep from the front. This is one of the distinguished remarks between shepherds in the east and shepherds in the west. Some shepherds, they drive from the back. In other words, they're kind of shouting. They're giving direction from the back, but the sheep are leading the way. Not so in Jesus' context. They led the way. Right? We have a Jesus who goes before us and then speaks to us, which is a word we need to hear today. This means in that the sheep walk ahead, not because they see where they are going, but because they hear the voice of the one who is leading them. We need to be reminded that in our own lives. We are taking steps forward in our life of obedience, not because we know the way, but because we can hear the one calling us by name, leading us. He is a good shepherd. He's the one. He's driving us not from the back, but from the front. He is going before you in your life right now. You need to listen. You need to listen. But this, of course, raises a question as a pastor I constantly hear. What if I don't hear his voice? In fact, this may be even a moment of shame for some of us. Is there something wrong with me? Because I don't feel like I hear from God. Like I don't hear from God like Pastor Matt does. Or other people do. We're like a leading worship looking so nice on a Sunday. They dress. They sing so beautifully. Like, man, they hear from God. I want to be like them. I don't feel like that. These are real questions. I hear all the time. I don't know if I'm hearing from God. I ask that myself sometimes. I don't know if I'm hearing from God. Here's my thought that I hope is somewhat helpful. Our confidence as sheep is not found in our ability to listen, but in his ability to speak. He is better at leading and speaking than we are at listening. He is the good shepherd. Jesus is very good at what He does. So the pressure in some way, it's off. He's better at leading than we are at following Him, you guys. The pressure's off. And here's the thing. When you listen to this story, who are we? We're the sheep. We are a generally dumb animal with poor eyesight. Y'all seeing those sheep videos on TikTok in and out of the trench. Just wandering on their own. They're dancing. Their butts aren't cut like the hairs not cut. Their butts are bouncing everywhere. I love these videos. I watch them all the time with ash. I like them when they're getting hugs. I like them when they're dancing when they're moving around. But they are a dumb animal. We are not anything. Jesus is calling a sheep, yo. Totally dumb with poor eyesight. It's said that they have better peripheral vision than they do frontal vision. Is that it? Some one optometrist any? Frontal vision? Which means they can't see, some believe they can't see past their nose. And so you need to place your confidence in his ability to shepherd you with your poor eyesight. And not be so think like, oh man, I got to be, I got to listen, yeah, listen, but remember he's going to speak well. But I know for some of us, we still think like God is playing a game of hide and seek with us. As soon as we flashed a light on him, he was like, oh shoot, they found him, I got to go. We really think that God is working hard to not be found by us. And he is not like that, though. And if that's your view of your life with God, then you will end up so tired and so exhausted of trying to chase down a God who you think doesn't want to be with you. He longs to be with you. He longs to speak to you and he is very good at it. But I want to honor this question, though, of people who still feeling like, man, I just don't think God speaks to me the same way he speaks to others. And here's my thought to you, maybe God is actually speaking to you on things you're not listening for. Maybe he's been saying stuff to you, but you don't want to hear it on that. I think about my own life at times and God speaking to me, I would love for God just to walk through my future. I need to know God. What's happening next? How much money do I need to have in my account? Where are we going? I want to know these things about my future and not like in just some silly way, but in honest way, God, I need to know. I honestly feel like God is saying, Fredo, let's just talk about right now. Let's talk about some of the things you're working through right now. Let's talk about your ongoing desire just to control everything. Or let's talk about your anger. It's something I'm like, oh, Fredo gets angry. I get in the tea today, right? Because it's funny. I often hear from you guys, like, man, Fredo always seems just so calm. It is. I'm a pretty calm, relaxed person. But on the inside, it's like a scene from Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, where Anakin is just screaming his head off, volcanoes behind him, redden yellow eyes, like, you betrayed me! That's what it feels like a lot internally. And I feel like where I need to hear God's voice is in these areas of my life, but I'm just not listening to him there. Where I need to hear him speak to me, Fredo, let's talk about some of this deep-seated anger and the wound that's there and how we can be transformed by that. Because that wound, that needs to be exposed to God's loving presence, his salvation, the work of the Spirit. Because my primary concern is that I am filled and transformed by the love of God for me in Christ Jesus. And then everything else will take care of itself. My future will be my future. My plans will be my plans. If I am becoming a more loving person like Jesus, that's primary, that's critical. So maybe you need to consider that God has actually been speaking to you on things that you're just not ready to actually listen to. He's good at speaking, though. So let's listen to his voice. Secondly, how we enter this as we close, we need to reflect both on his miracles and on his wounds. We like the Jesus who's magical, who'll dance, who will perform, but what if we were to also meditate on his wounds? I love the scene. Jesus goes back and encounters the blind man and gives him something his soul has long for and that's community. It's not only that his eyesight's returned to him, but he gets to experience community. Jesus restores this whole person, not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually. He is a good shepherd. He is the safe gate to enter, and this man got to experience that. It's like imagine, just for a second, if you were to go to the doctors and you saw a doctor and thankfully, man, we all see a doctor that knows what they're doing, is trained. They're an expert. They've done this before. You just get all the confidence and we're like, okay, I'm in good hands. My issue, my wounds are in good hands. But imagine sitting with a doctor that actually has personal experience with what you're suffering. They just don't know how to treat you. They know what it's like to be you. That's what we have in Jesus. That's why in encountering him, you get to encounter someone who knows what it's like to walk in your shoes, to deal with your wounds. Isaiah 53 says it like this, he was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces, he was despised. And we held him in lowest theme. In other words, the world rejected this man, Jesus. Surely he took our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him. And listen to this phrase, by his wounds, we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray. Each one of us is turned to our own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. This is what Christians for thousands of years has referred to this incredible act of exchange or substitution. What should have gone on us goes on Jesus. This is the gospel. What we could not do for ourselves, Jesus does for us. And so if you were slightly bothered by me referring to you as a sheep, and not a big bear, or a lion, or a tiger, or a really smart fox, I'm sorry, this is the gospel, right? We are sheep. And what I think just profoundly changes Jesus and our perspective of Him, and this just hit me like a wave when I was in college, coming to Him for the first time, was realizing that what makes Him so different from every other religious guru, philosopher, any other religion is that this Jesus, the real Jesus, comes with scars. No other teacher does. He has his own wounds. And his greatest healing comes not from his miracles, but from those wounds. That's how you and I get saved. That's how you and I are healed. And what's so beautiful about this parable that we have about the sheep pen is that the shepherd were told, lays down their bodies at the gate. So at the entry point, in these pens that were in the field, the only place of danger, that's exactly where the shepherd lays down a night to sleep. So nothing could end. No danger can get it. No prey can get it and no sheep can get out. The shepherd is willing to risk their own life to protect the sheep. And that's what we have in Jesus. Now what is so good about the good news is that pain did not get the best of Jesus. He did not let his wound define him for his whole life. He did not let his own shame become the lens that he just stayed his whole life in and viewed the world through. He moved on from it. He allowed that pain to transform him and he beat it. He conquered it. He is alive. So that all the pain we carry, the wounds we carry, are not the last chapter. There is a new lens to see our whole experience through. So much so that you can begin to pray like this, Jesus, may your wounds heal mine. Yes you're wounded. Yes you have shame. Yes people have hurt you. Yes you're dealing with trauma, but learn to pray Jesus may your wounds heal mine. May they heal mine. And I say this fully knowing that it is Father's Day weekend. My parents, fathers especially, I'm one, so I'm going to speak to you as a dad, not as a pastor. There is a temptation to not speak about our wounds and in so doing to then wound our children. This is what the Bible has referred to as generational sin because we are unwilling to confront with the grace and love of God what has happened to us, what we have done and to allow it to be exposed to the one who says I'm the gate would you come in and be healed. And so what an opportunity, Father's Day especially for those of you who have dedicated your children to say Jesus I need to enter through your healing gate today. I need to come in. I don't want this wound to be the wound of my children. I mean I'm regularly haunted by that as a dad like I don't want to screw up Eli and Ella. Especially as a pastor. God keep me from that. I often forget how many ways I can point them to the gate like it's bound to happen. Like I'm sorry Eli and Ella, like I'm bound to hurt you. But it's going to happen. But man, how beautiful that that doesn't have to be the end of the story. There's a gate. We have a gate. We have a Savior who can come to and parents the best way for you to work through raising your children is to first enter the gate for your own sake. For the abundant life, for the good life that Jesus is offering you. Go through the gate today. Go through your own healing. You cannot offer your children what you haven't first received for yourself. So be healed today. Be healed today of what you need to give. And then in turn, model for your children. Father's model for your sons and daughters, what it's like to honestly, courageously expose wounds so that they can be healed. So that you can go through the gate and that you can walk with your family through that gate too. I want to encourage you, if you're watching online and you're working through a wound, I want you to, if you've got enough courage, just to share that with the people who are watching, we want to respond to you. For those of you who are at a Sandals Church location today, as we prepare to take communion, I want to encourage you to not just receive communion today, but to receive prayer. To receive prayer for a wound, maybe some shame, and to experience what it's like going through the gate as you receive the gift of listening and prayer from someone at your campus. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we acknowledge right now in this moment that we have all gone astray. And our wounds and the things that we have done and the things that people have done to us, but we now want to respond to you, Jesus, that you are the gate. And so we come to you and we ask that you would heal us. You would give us courage and faith today to share our wound, but be transformed by your life and your wounds and what you have done for us so that we can be new. God help us to experience that safety in Jesus today, we pray, in His name. Amen. Amen.