The
Sparrow
John
10:9
I
am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and
out, and find pasture.
Sometime
back I walked out on the back porch. It is screened in and has two doors, one
going into the house and the other out to the yard. Immediately there was a
great commotion as I walked through the door. It was a sparrow franticly trying
to escape from this back porch prison it had became trapped in. There is no way
of knowing how this fowl of the skies came to this awful predicament and
entrapment but I felt I needed to help it escape before the little thing died of
a heart attack. It was anxiously flying from one side of the porch to the other,
slamming into the screens and making all sorts of noise. So I opened the outside
door thinking it would see the door and fly to freedom, but to my surprise it
continued flying from screen to screen flying past the open door over and over
again still making noises that I have never heard coming out of something so
small. It would fly with in inches of the open door and never see the
seventy-eight by thirty-one and a half inch crevice that would free it from its
eventual demise.
I
have shared this with you to say this. You and I get into, from time to time,
what appears to you and me as predicaments that has no solution, right? Panic
sets in and though the door of escape is wide open, we don’t see it. Who or
what is this door? As you should have already come to the conclusion, it is
Jesus. Jesus says in John 10:9, “I am the door…” he is the way says Jesus,
in John 14:6.
Are
you as this sparrow and fly (walk, living) within inches of the door over and
over again? Are you looking at the problem or the circumstances rather than the
door of escape? Are you looking at the screen and not the door? The sparrow
could see where it needed to be through the screen but the path it was on it
could never achieve freedom from prison and eventually the sparrow would die.
How sad! Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath
made us free,
and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. The sparrow was entangled
with the yoke of bondage it was in a self inflicted prison, are you in the same
predicament?
You
might ask, well, what happen to the sparrow? In time it wore itself out and just
hung by its tinny feet from the screen. It appeared it had given up, its little
beak wide opening gasping for breath. Then finally it looked toward the
door. It was as it received new strength. Like lightening it flew through the
door!
I
have a question for you. Are you trapped in a self inflicted yoke of bondage? Do
you see yourself trapped with no way out? Is your heart heavy with pain and
agony? Is your despair as this sparrow’s? Do you think by ending it all will
somehow fix your predicament? Do you know that the door is within inches of you?
Do you know that the maker of all things made you? Do you know that he has the
power to open the door wide for you, even wider than your imagination?
The
only reality the sparrow saw was the screen that hampered it from freedom. That
which is hampering you is not a screen but as Jesus says it is sin! Jesus is the
way, the truth, and the life.
In
conclusion, this little sparrow was saved from its self inflicting prison by the
door. Jesus was aware of this on that day. But you are even more precious to him
than that little sparrow. To confirm this let us hear from Jesus himself.
Luke
12:6
Are
not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and
not one of them is forgotten before God?
Luke
12:7
But
even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are
of more value than many sparrows.
Mat
11:28
Come
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.