Keys To Life
John 10:1-21 July 4, 2003
Life to the Full
I remember listening to a person on the CBC reflection of his brother’s fight with cancer. The man shared how during the long periods of waiting while his brother was being treated, he would often go an shoot hoops at a local gym. He wasn’t religious and had no real faith in God, but he talked about how shooting hoops was a type of prayer for his brother in his mind. “Three in a row and John has to get better…”
We might shake our heads at the idea of shooting hoops as a form of prayer, but there may be times when we are not that far off. We too can create little formulas in our prayers that we think will force God’s hand in prayer. We have our own rules about what type of prayers God will and won’t answer. We have our own rules about moral/spiritual condition of the person praying, whether it is ourselves or another person.
This was the difficulty of the Pharisees: They had a whole system, based on the law of the Old Testament of things that you must and must not do to find favor with God. It was based on the Law of Moses, but they also interpreted the law in the strictest manner, so much so that it was impossible to completely obey the law as a regular person in Palestine. Their interpretation of the law always placed themselves firmly on the top of the spiritual heap where they could look down their noses at the rest of the Jewish people
What they taught was that the way to life is through strict obedience of the Law and their interpretation of it.
Jesus Speaks out powerfully against them in John 10:1-21 (Watch DVD)
Jesus presents the Pharisees as false shepherds who are actually thieves and robbers.
The Pharisees claimed to hold the keys to the Kingdom of God, but they won’t let anyone in! Jesus says in Matthew 23:13:
13"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.
And in Luke 11:46:
46Jesus replied, "And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.
He says that they have only come to kill and destroy, but that he has come to give life to the full.
A powerful illustration is the encounter that Jesus, a blind man and the Pharisees have just before he talks about the Good Shepherd: watch DVD
Paul talking about the difference between the law that the Pharisees taught and the life that Jesus offered says this in Romans 8
1Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,[1] 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature,[2] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.[3] And so he condemned sin in sinful man,[4] 4in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
Modern Pharisees
Anyone who places themselves on a religious pedestal, and makes entry to heaven hard for others
Legalists – “people who concentrate so much on the don’ts of the faith that they forget the joy of grace. – traditional fundamentalists
We can fall into the trap of legalism in our prayers – people who teach that you can cause more problems by praying “wrong” – we leave grace out of the equation
Controllers – people who use fear and intimidation to create a nice little religious system around them with them at the top.
God says that you do not earn his favor by getting the next basket, or by obeying the Pharisees interpretation of the law, or by obeying every new rule that the fundamentalists think up – you gain his favor by entering his presence through his son Jesus Christ.
Jesus the Good Shepherd
Enters by the gate
The gate that Jesus enters by is obedient relationship with his father. It is funny, because the Pharisees taught obedience as well, but Jesus obedience was different – it was obedience out of Love for his father, rather than out of duty and a desire to twist God’s arm. It is a humble obedience instead of an arrogant obedience. Philippians 2:8 says he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross.
Leads the sheep – the shepherd leads the sheep, the butcher drives them. If you wonder where your Christian life is supposed to be going, look at the life of the shepherd, he has gone on before us. Not WWJD? but WIJD? (what is Jesus doing?) or WIJG? (Where is Jesus Going?)
Calls them by name
G. A. Smith:
"On the boundless Eastern pasture …the shepherd is indispensable. With us sheep are often left to themselves; I do not remember to have seen in the East a flock without a shepherd. In such a landscape as Judea, where a day’s pasture is thinly scattered over an unfenced tract, covered with delusive paths, still frequented by wild beasts, and rolling into the desert, the man and his character is indispensable. ...Sometimes we enjoyed our noonday rest beside one of those Judean wells, to which three or four shepherds come down with their flocks. The flocks mixed with each other, and we wondered how each shepherd would get his own again. But after the watering and the playing were over the shepherds one by one went up different sides of the valley, and each called out his peculiar call; and the sheep of each drew out of the crowd to their own shepherd and the flocks passed as orderly as they came" (Historical Geography of the Holy Land, 25th ed. [London: Fontana] 210-11).
They know his voice
This verse has caused much angst for charismatic Christians, myself included – if the sheep know his voice, shouldn’t I have perfect discernment? Really this verse is talking about hearing Jesus’ voice calling us to salvation. The proof that we are his sheep iws that we recognized his voice when he called us out the first time – we still want to hone our ears to recognize him now and follow his lead, but with the grace for ourselves and our slow ears that he has for us.
Jesus the Gate
In some sheep folds in the countryside, there would be no physical door, so that once the sheep were in the fold, the shepherd himself would become the door, lying down in the gap in the wall so that the sheep would have to go through him to go out, and any intruder would have to go through him to get in.
Through Christ we are kept safe.
Just as the shepherd literally lays down his life for his sheep, so Jesus goes further. The shepherd might fight off the wild beasts for the sake of his flock, but Jesus fought the devil and sin for our sakes. Not only did he risk his life for us, he gave his life for us on the cross, so that we might have life.
When we come to him and enter through his death on the cross that pays for all the things wrong in our life, we are saved.
Modern Thieves & Robbers
While the picture that Jesus paints of the fold has all these Pharisees surrounding ready to jump the fence and steal sheep from the true shepherd, today I would imagine that the sheep fold would be surrounded by billboards advertising products and lifestyles that promise life, enticing the sheep to leap the wall of the fence themselves. Just like the legalism and control leads to death, so do these things.
Today we might have the opposite problem that Jesus encountered – although there are some people who will follow the legalists and controllers to find life, there are far more who are willing to give themselves to the advertisers to find life. We struggle not as much with legalism, but with what my father would have called license. Even in the church we can have an “anything goes” attitude where we try to find life outside the boundaries that God has given us, or in things that in the end will not bring life to the full.
What promises life today?
Freedom 55, beauty, sexuality, material goods, success…
But it is the good Shepherd, the Gate that brings true life.
Life to the Full
Jesus, the Good shepherd, the Son in the trinity, created us with the Father & the Spirit. And he created us to enjoy him and the life he has given us. He knows what will fill out lives, he knows what will bring fulfillment. It isn’t more stuff, or more rules – it is living with him in his ways.
There are people who try to use this term “abundant life” to try to advertise that God wants to give you everything that the advertisers want us to believe give life. The life that Jesus wants to give is so much bigger than that.
C.S. Lewis writes in “The Weight of Glory,”
The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial but not as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promise of regard and the staggering nature of rewards promised in the Gospels it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.
Today we a beginning our summer series called “Keys of Life.” Jesus says that he has come to being abundant life. He does this by saving us from death through the cross, but he also teaches us how to enter into the abundant life. We are going to look at the keys to living Jesus’ abundant life.
Hebrews 13: 20May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 21equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
