“Abundant Life”
October 21, 2015
John 10:7-11
7 Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.
“Abundant” – don’t you love that word? Jesus says that he has come to give LIFE – and not just life but ABUNDANT LIFE. I love words like that coming from God. In my favorite Psalm it promises that the Good Shepherd will make us lie down in green pastures and lead us to quiet waters. He promises to renew our souls and lead us on the right path. He promises to set a banquet table for us and to give us so abundantly that our cups run over.
Isn’t that awesome. Not only that- but he promises that goodness and mercy (or love) with be with us all our lives – and then we will live with Him FOREVER!
WOW! Doesn’t that make your heart fill with joy? Isn’t that thrilling? In my Scripture reading this morning I read where God’s people will BURST into ‘songs of joy’. Another verse says if we pursue love and what is right it will result in us finding “life, prosperity and honor” (Proverbs 21:21)
Sometime when you are discouraged or depressed go through the book of Psalms and highlight all the positive words. It begins in the first Psalm with the word picture that we will be like fruitful trees planted by the water and that whatever we do will prosper. Some of the picture phrases and words I have are highlighted in my Bible are:
“you will fill me with JOY and eternal pleasures” (16:11)
“He rescued me because he delighted in me” (18:19)
“God turns my darkness into light” (18:28)
“The man that fears the Lord will spend his days in prosperity” (25:13)
“God turns our wailing into dancing and clothes us with joy” (30:11)
“God surrounds us with songs of deliverance” (32:7)
“those that seek the Lord lack no good thing” (34:10)
“we can find refuge in the shadow of His wings” (36:7)
“we feast on abundance and drink from the river of delights” (36:8)
“At night His song is with me” (42:8)
“He anoints with the oil of joy” (45:7)
“the Lord daily bears our burdens –Selah” (68:19)
Those are just a few of the wonderful promises of God. ‘Selah’ – THINK about that! Our God is an awesome God! But more than that – He is a GOOD God. More than that – He is a LOVING God. More than that – He loves US and wants to bless us!
I guess that’s why they call the Gospel the “Good News”. It is good news! We can exchange our tears of sorrow for tears of joy. (126:5-6) He lifts us from the dust and the manure pile and seats us with royalty. (113:7-8)
We have all shed tears of sorrow for one thing or another. That is what life does to us. It brings us to tears through death, divorce, debt, discouragement, depression – and on and on it goes. Sin shoves our face in the dust and grinds away. We are broken to pieces and crushed and thrown on the manure pile of life. That is what sin does to us – and we all have sinned. We have all experienced the painful consequences of sin in our life.
The Good News is that the Good Shepherd wants to bring us life – and not just ‘life’ – but ABUNDANT life. He wants to fill our life with love and songs of joy and blessings. How does He do that? Let me tell you how. I have experienced most of it. I will tell you what I learned.
It is hard for people to believe the kind of person I once was. I was raised in the church thanks - to a godly mother. I went to all the meetings and sat through all kinds of Bible studies – because Mom made me. When Mom was no longer around, because I packed up to go my own way, I forgot the church and its teachings. I forgot about God. And sin dragged me down. I experienced sin and was enslaved by it. I won’t even tell you all that I did and the kind of sinful person I was. But that kind of sinful living leads to pain. And I was in pain. I felt alone, despised, hated, worthless and without purpose or direction in my life. In the midst of that darkness – Jesus saw me – and He pursued me. He spoke to me through His word and through the Holy Spirit. I believed. A spark of belief ignited in my heart and I knelt in prayer.
When I prayed I was confronted by my sin. I felt so ugly and disgusting. I asked for forgiveness. Do you know what the first thing the Holy Spirit communicated to me? He told me to repent. Oh, not in that word. But I knew I was to stop doing some things. And I did. There was an instantaneous repentance of some things. I stopped cold turkey. But I found that there was more to this thing of repentance. The Holy Spirit continually reveals things we are to repent of. He leads us in paths of righteousness and we have to continually repent or turn away from things the Holy Spirit reveals is not God’s will in our lives. That’s called “growing in grace” or maturing.
The first step from of life of sin and death is to, 1) repent from your old way of life. If you believe, truly believe the Gospel message you will repent. John the Baptist told some phony religious people,
“Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance” Matthew 3:7-8
Jesus said, ““Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Matthew 4:17
“…unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” Luke 13, 3 & 5
The old way of life leads to death and destruction. It leads to spiritual poverty and pain. The first thing we need to do to find ABUNDANT life is to repent from our old way of living.
The second thing we need to do is to 2) release our life to Jesus. What that means to is make Jesus our Lord. We surrender our wills to His will. We die to self-rule and make Jesus the King of our life.
In our Scripture in John 10:10 Jesus promises to not just give us life – but ABUNDANT life. There has to be a second work of grace in our life. The first is when we believe and repent. We receive ETERNAL life from our Savior, Jesus Christ. More abundant Life is when we make Jesus our Lord. It is only when we release our life to Jesus that we find abundant life. Why? Let me tell you why.
Jesus wants to lead us to green pastures and beside still waters. He wants to daily direct us to the right path. He wants to anoint our heads with the oil of the Holy Spirit, then he will make our cup overflow and seat us at a banquet table of blessings. Goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives when we make Him our Lord and Shepherd.
Jesus said, “…the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.” John 10:3-4
There are too many people who call themselves Christians who do not know the Shepherds voice. There are too many people who call themselves Christian who have not left their life of sin. How can Jesus lead to green pastures and still waters if the sheep won’t follow? How can we seat at the table of spiritual blessings if we won’t be anointed with the Holy Spirit?
Most Christians today want just enough religion to get them to heaven. Most Christians today want their ticket to heaven but they don’t want to repent of their sin. Most Christians today want Jesus in their life – just not sitting on the throne. They want that spot for themselves. How foolish that is. We cheat ourselves out of so many blessings IN THIS LIFE when we live that way.
I want to encourage you to make Jesus your Shepherd so you can experience ABUNDANT life. I want to encourage you to make Jesus your Lord so you can experience a life of mercy and grace and love. I want to encourage you to make Jesus your King so you can experience the rivers of delight in this life – and after this life is over – we will dwell in the House of the Lord forever. That’s a promise. God who cannot lie, promises us eternal life with Him.
That leads us to the third thing we need to do. I have experienced the first and second thing – but I am looking forward to the third thing, which is to 3) receive the Glorified life.
One day, one glorious day – we will see Jesus face to face. One glorious day we will put aside these old bodies of flesh and we will put on a new body – a glorified body. A body that will never wear out or grow old. The Bible says,
“Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” 1 John 3:2
“My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” John 14:2-3
“I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”
1 Corinthians 15:50-52
“Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” 2 Timothy 4:
“Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and 8
(afterwards) I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalm 23:6
I have not experienced receiving the glorified life yet – but I am looking forward to it. I am confident, by the grace of God and the blood of Jesus, I will experience it. He has promised it. So what do I have to fear? David said,
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”
Psalm 23:4 (KJV)
I like how the Living Bible puts it,
“Even when walking through the dark valley of death I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me, guarding, guiding all the way.” Psalm 23:4
I am going to look into that valley again in a week or so as I go in for my 12th and 13th stent. Hopefully I won’t have to go through it yet, but if I do – I am assured Jesus will be there with me. Because of that – I don’t have to fear death. His rod (club) and staff give me comfort. I am protected and will be rescued from anything in that dark valley of death. And when the time comes – I will receive the Glorified Life.
How about you? Will you be ready?
I’ve been thinking about eternity lately. In this life we pursue happiness is so many different ways. We think if we were rich – we could buy happiness. If we were stronger we could achieve peace. If we could have someone love us like we want – life would be so good.
All those things are not the blessings. They are simply things that bring the blessings. Love, joy, pleasure, peace – all those things are what we crave and we seek for so many ways to get them. But we always fall short. In this life we will always fall short. We can only experience the reality of our desires in our glorified state in the presence of Jesus.
I pray you will experience it. Now you know the path way to abundant life for all eternity. 1. Repent from your life. 2. Release your life. 3. Receive the glorified life.
May you make wise decisions with your life.
