Scripture: John 10:1-10; Nehemiah 4:6-9; Nehemiah 4:15-20 Series: Easter
Drawing on the personal story of his wife crossing a DO NOT CROSS line to retrieve their child’s car seat in Geneva, Wilson preaches Jesus as both the gate and the gatekeeper of John 10. Through Jesus, believers are made citizens of heaven and brought home; the gate is not to keep people out but to protect the sheep from the thief (the devil). Pairing Nehemiah’s wall-building amid threat (‘Our God will fight for us’), he reframes Covenant’s capital campaign: the church is not building a wall but a flexible future to be a gateway of Christ in North Austin, called to be the welcoming, serving Body of Christ rather than a social club.
Illustrations: geneva-car-seat-do-not-cross, coin-with-caesars-head, augustus-statues-idolatry, patton-fixed-fortifications, covenant-social-club
April 26, 2026
Nehemiah 4:6-9, 15-20 John 10:1-10
The Gate
So we rebuilt the wall, and all the wall was joined together to half its height, for the people had a mind to work. But when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward and the gaps were beginning to be closed, they were very angry and all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it. So we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night.
When our enemies heard that their plot was known to us and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to his work. From that day on, half of my servants worked on construction, and half held the spears, shields, bows, and body-armor, and the leaders posted themselves behind the whole house of Judah who were building the wall. The burden bearers carried their loads in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and with the other held a weapon. And each of the builders had his sword strapped at his side while he built. The man who sounded the trumpet was beside me. And I said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, “The work is great and widely spread out, and we are separated far from one another on the wall. Rally to us wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet. Our God will fight for us.” - Nehemiah 4:6-9, 15-20
John 10:1-10
“Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
Sermon
My sister used to live in Switzerland. We were able to visit her family when Dominic was 4 and Ephraim was 1. Because of his age, we had to bring a car seat for Ephraim.
It was a journey to get from Austin to Geneva, but once we arrived, we were so excited to reconnect that we at first didn’t notice the missing car seat. We looked at the expected place, but it was not there. It wasn’t at the baggage claim. It wasn’t in the specialty baggage claim for skis and golf clubs — still no car seat.
We kept moving forward and crossed a line that said DO NOT CROSS. But then we saw the car seat on the other side of the line, past a door that said as well, DO NOT ENTER. I couldn’t believe it! We were so close to finding what we were looking for, but this darn line got in the way. I couldn’t very well cross a line that said DO NOT CROSS, could I?
I couldn’t, but my wife, Alina, could. She didn’t hesitate to cross the line to help her child. She found a new gate where moments before it seemed like none could be found.
There are always gates in our lives — ways to transition between one area and another, one place and another, one period to another, even one identity to another.
Citizenship is an important concept in the Bible — civitas — but it’s a much older version than the one we understand today. The bureaucratic complexity of the modern nation-state has added a tremendous conceptual layer to the idea of citizenship. The Bible holds an understanding of citizenship with the question: who are your people?
We see this come up when Jesus is by the Sea of Galilee and someone asks him whether it’s okay to use coins with the head of Caesar to pay taxes. This is a theological discussion, because faces on currency are historically understood as idolatry — especially at that point, it was idolatry to have graven images of any kind, especially that kind. And the Romans used God-language around their emperors. The sculptures of Augustus were promulgated in large part to compare him to the sculptures of the pagan gods that were found all over the Roman Empire. Jesus’ response: give to Caesar what is Caesar’s; give to God what is God’s.
The Sermon on the Mount is also filled with the language of citizenship — with kingdom language, the language of nation. In the language of giving: do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. Do not give so as to be seen by others, but by your Father in heaven who sees in secret, so that your Father who sees in secret will reward you. That is where you’re from. That is your home.
But the radical thing of this passage from John is that Jesus is both the gate and the gatekeeper. Jesus is our way into the kingdom of heaven, but also the one who brings us there. Through Jesus we are made citizens of heaven and through Jesus we are brought home. Whether you hear his voice today or not, Jesus is calling you. Whether you heard it before but it seems so distant now, Jesus is calling you.
Nehemiah
In our passage from Nehemiah, we have the people completing the wall, but also getting ready for an attack. A wall is a fixed fortification to protect something of importance from a military attack. If you build a wall and no one is there to man it, it is a useless device. As General Patton said, fixed fortifications are a monument to man’s stupidity. This was in the 1940s, after the advent of air power and accurate artillery. Before then, walls were seen as nearly impervious. The reason the Assyrians tore down the wall in Jerusalem was to make it easier to retake the city if it revolted against their rule.
But the key to the passage is the very last verse: “The work is great and widely spread out, and we are separated far from one another on the wall. Rally to us wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet. Our God will fight for us.”
Even if things look bleak, God is there with us because God has drawn us in through Jesus Christ. We are no longer distant from God. We are citizens. We have passed through the gate where before we thought it impossible. It is no longer us against the world.
John
Jesus says, “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”
This seems exclusive at first, as if the focus is on an in group and an out group. The whole passage seems exclusive, but we have to think through what it means to be a sheep or a thief.
Jesus is talking about the devil. The thief is not the people who don’t listen to God but the devil who actively attacks God’s children. There are challenges today. There is brokenness. There is sin. There are structures that deplete and corrode the souls of people in this world. Jesus does not let those in. We are the sheep. Whether you hear his voice today or not, he is calling to let you in. The wall is not keep you out. The gate is not to keep you out but to protect you. You matter. You belong. Your future matters.
Christ welcomes us not to take away our challenges but to offer us life abundant, so that what seemed like a challenge before is no longer a grave threat. 1
We are not building a wall here at Covenant. We’re building a flexible future through this capital campaign in order to free us to better be a gateway of Jesus Christ in our community. The church is called the Body of Christ in Ephesians. If we are not the body of Christ — the body that welcomes, receives, forgives, expands, baptizes, mourns, consoles, heals — if we are not doing these things, we are not a church. Might as well change the sign. Just call it the Covenant Social Club. There are good things about social clubs, but that is not what we’re called to here.
God did not plant this church to be a social club, but to be a kingdom-building community in North Austin — for people to be his hands and feet in the world, and to welcome others in need of Christ, to serve our community, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, but also to welcome and to seek those in need of mercy and grace and life with Jesus, with the gatekeeper and the gate.
Our job as a church is always to point to God, to point to the Shepherd — to be so reflective of the Shepherd that it’s obvious. Our commitment as a church is to Jesus Christ. The things we do here, even this capital campaign, are merely a portion of that commitment to Jesus Christ.
Our God will fight for us, but we are not left helpless. We are called home by the shepherd and called to be part of the life of the shepherd in the world today. That is what it means to be the body of Christ. Doing the things of Christ. Caring for our community, for the stranger, for the child.
We are welcomed by Christ to welcome others, to seek others, to serve and comfort and teach and walk and remind the ones around us who can’t perceive the voice that Jesus is calling them, too.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.