To come in and go out

As I read John 10:1-10 for sermon preparation last week, the line that really jumped out at me was verse 9: “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” William Barclay says that verse 9 was the Jewish way of describing a life that was absolutely safe and secure. Quoting Barclay, “Once anyone discovers, through Jesus Christ, what God is like, a new sense of safety and security enters into life. If life is known to be in the hands of God like that, the worries and the fears are gone.”


We often think our job is to invite people to church—to bring them in so that they become a part of the church, but that’s not our calling. Look at that verse 9 again – “to come in and go out….” We, as a church, are to invite people to both come in and GO OUT. Churches don’t have one way doors – churches have revolving doors.

We invite God’s people to come into the church – to become disciples of Christ. To be a disciple is to be a learner – a follower. The best description I have ever heard of discipleship was by John Ortberg. He’s a pastor and an author of some great books. He says that to be a disciple is to walk so closely behind the master – Jesus – that as Jesus walks, we become covered by the dust the passage of his feet stir up from the path. We, as a church, invite people to live the life of a disciple and to walk that closely with Christ.

But that’s not the end of the story. The door revolves. We are called to send people out of the church.

Being a disciple is not the end goal – it is the means by which the world is transformed. We, as part of the church – as the gateway – invite people to discipleship so that they can change the world. We don’t learn all we can about God through discipleship just to know it. We don’t come into relationship with God just to experience it. We are called to be stewards of what we have been given. As a church, we are called to lead people out the door to use what they have been given through stewardship.

It’s too bad stewardship has come to be so closely related to money, because it means so much more than giving of our money. If discipleship is the sacred act of committing to follow God and to learn about him, then stewardship is the sacred responsibility of putting into action what we have learned. Stewardship is the going out. It is the action in response to the discipleship. Stewardship is how we change the world – transform it for Jesus Christ.

As a church – as the gateway – our calling is to lead people to Christ and then to send them out to change the world – to come in and to go out.