An Abundant Life

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We’re going to be in John chapter 10 this morning. John chapter 10. On our last trip to Santa Fe, Charla and I passed a group of cows that caught our attention.

And they caught our attention because you could first of all smell them from about a county away. And cattle is not always a pleasant smell anyway. I mean, it’s not something I want to have as an air freshener in my car.

But this was pretty bad. And then when we got up to where they were, you could see them from the highway. When we got up to where this farm was, it was huge.

It went on just about as far as the eye could see. And these cows were pinned up. They were separated into different stalls.

I should have gotten with Brother Greg earlier to learn the terminology before I got up here to talk to you about it. But they were pinned up in these little stalls, I guess you’d call them. And there wasn’t grass anywhere.

there. They were just standing there in mud. It looked like they barely had room to even lie down.

I mean, there were so many of them, and they were pressed in there. It was like it was Black Friday, and they were waiting for Best Buy to open. They were just wedged in there, and they looked miserable.

And I am not a vegetarian. If you are, I mean no offense, but I’m not one. I love beef.

But I want them to be treated nicely before we eat them. I want them to be, yes, be humane and treat them nicely and make them feel loved before we eat them. Let the irony sink in for a second.

We’ll be driving around out here though and we’ll see people have cows on their property and these cows a lot of times will be you know they’ll be laying by the fence out by the highway or they’ll be wandering around they’ll be standing out in a pond they’ll be eating the grass they’ll be doing whatever they do that makes them happy and I think sometimes back on that that farm we saw out by the interstate and then these cows that have the freedom to roam around. As far as cows go, the ones that I see here are living the life. I mean, they are enjoying their time, maybe until they’re getting eaten, I don’t know.

But they’re enjoying their time. They’re not crammed into little pens and no grass and no ability to move. There’s a difference between living and living abundantly.

The cows that we saw crammed into the tiny pens, they were alive. they weren’t really living life. They weren’t taking advantage, nor could they, but they were not taking advantage of all that life had to offer them.

Now, when you’re a cow, that’s not very much. You enjoy the grass, you enjoy walking around, you enjoy laying the pond, all that sort of thing. But they were not taking advantage of all that life had to offer them.

We know that for us, there’s a difference between living and living abundantly. I saw this with my grandfather. It’s been about 11 months since he passed away.

And I remember telling y’all at the time that we were shocked when he passed away, even though he was 92. And the reason that would be shocking is because the man could outwork any of us. Maybe not y’all, but he could outwork anybody in my family.

And I remember he looked so young and so vigorous when he was doing things and taking care of people and fixing cars, I mean, into his late 80s. And there in the last couple of years, some things that had nothing to do with health and some things that were outside of his control made it to where he couldn’t run and go and do like he used to. And as he began to just sit in front of the TV, that’s when his health began to decline.

See, before he was living life to the fullest, and then after that, when he was just living, things started to go downhill. There is a definite difference between living and living abundantly. even spiritually, we can be alive and not be living to the fullest extent of the life that God has for us and gives us.

God did not intend the extent of your spiritual life to be just coming to church on Sunday morning and hearing a fantastic message. And I pray one day you do hear one. But that was not the extent of God’s plan for your spiritual life.

It wasn’t just get saved, now go to church and just keep doing that until you die or I come back and that’s all there is. God intended for us to live abundant lives. And a lot of times the world will present us with shortcuts that we try to take to an abundant life.

If you don’t understand what I mean, think about all the people that you may know or that we may run into in town who are waking up this morning with a headache because of the living they did last night and they think they’re living life to the fullest. But it’s still a counterfeit of the life that God intended for us. You see, there’s a fulfillment in living for Jesus Christ. There’s supposed to be a fulfillment in our spiritual life. And dare I say, there’s supposed to be an element of adventure in our spiritual life.

Our spiritual life is not always supposed to be just boredom and the same thing over and over. They’re supposed to be growth, and they’re supposed to be vitality, and they’re supposed to be an excitement in growing to understand God deeper and deeper. There’s an excitement in serving Him every day and not realizing where that’s going to take you and seeing all the things that He does that would appear to be coincidences on the surface, but at the end of the day, you look back on it and say, wow, only God could have done that.

Or seeing God use you in ways that you never expected possible. I’d have never thought God would have me doing this. I’d have never thought God would send me there, but wow, look at what he did.

There is supposed to be an excitement and an adventure in serving Christ. We can be alive but not living abundantly. And it’s a shame because Christ, as we’ll see here in John chapter 10, Christ said he came that we would have life and that it would be abundant. But a lot of times we get stuck in the counterfeit, The counterfeit that we think promises life but really robs us of some of its richness and fullness.

And as I said, there are some out there this morning who have no thought for Jesus Christ, are living the way they want to live, and think that they’re living life to the fullest. And really it leads to emptiness, and it leads to heartbreak. There are others on the complete opposite side that say, living spiritually means I’m just going to sit here and be boring and recite the Ten Commandments to myself until I die. And unfortunately, that’s what the world thinks about us a lot of times.

They think if you’re a Christian, if you live for Jesus, well, your life is going to be boring. It doesn’t have to be. And it shouldn’t be, really.

There may be moments of boredom. I don’t think God is here to entertain us either. But there’s an excitement and there’s a fulfillment in a close walk with Jesus that we’re not going to find anywhere else.

And if you haven’t turned there already, John chapter 10, starting in verse 1, says, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same as a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name and leadeth them out.

There are a few things that are going on here. First of all, what has just happened prior to this, back in chapter 9, is that Jesus has healed a man who was blind, and it just happened to be on the Sabbath. And so the Pharisees got all in a twist about whether or not it’s right for Jesus to heal somebody on the Sabbath.

But our rules say you can’t do this. Where’s the amazement that Jesus just healed some guy who was blind?

but see when you don’t want to acknowledge the work of God when you want to focus just on your rules that’s all you see he violated the rules Bubba he made those rules so they got all in a twist about is it okay for him to heal on the Sabbath and they questioned him how he was able to do miracles like that they questioned the man who was healed too they’re interrogating everybody and what they’re doing is they’re trying to present the idea that Jesus is a sinner and that Jesus is somehow less than the son of God and one of the answers that they get from the man that has just been healed that they’re questioning is essentially I don’t know if he’s the son of God or not but if he was a sinner and not the son of God I don’t understand how he could have just done a miracle like that you decide for yourself what you think he is all I’m telling you is that I was blind and now I can see again and surely no sinner can do something like that and yet they continued to try to deny that Jesus was the Son of God.

Jesus tried to give this man, not tried, he succeeded, brilliantly succeeded in giving this man his life back. And the Pharisees still stood there and questioned, well, he’s violated our rule. The Old Testament law never said Jesus couldn’t heal somebody on the Sabbath.

It said, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Now, they put up all these rules around it. You can only carry enough ink to write this letter on this.

Okay, I know that God’s Old Testament law is very specific, but they took it way to an extreme beyond what God ever intended it to be. And so they’re all concerned about whether or not he’s the Son of God and trying to promote the idea that he is a sinner and not the Son of God. And because of this legalism that really blinded them to be able to see the life that Jesus had just given this man back, and had blinded them, this legalism that had blinded them to the work of God right in front of them.

They began speaking out against Jesus, and supposedly they think they’re speaking for God, but they’re speaking against God, because the only begotten Son of God is standing right in front of Him, and they’re calling Him a sinner, and they’re calling Him not the Son of God, and at other times they refer to Him as somebody who’s possessed by a devil, and so they were teaching all sorts of false things and trying to turn the people against Jesus. They questioned the authority of the Son of God and taught doctrines that God never revealed. And we see later that these doctrines, these things they were teaching, would be devastating to the sheep if they were to accept them.

And so he goes into this passage where he’s talking about sheep. As he’s dealing with the Pharisees, he’s talking about sheep. And he’s responding to what the Pharisees have said here, but he’s doing it in such a way that the people around him here, Have you ever had one of those conversations where you’re saying something to somebody, but you’re saying it for somebody else’s benefit?

I do this with my children sometimes, talking to Madeline. You know, I’m glad you didn’t hit anybody. It’s not nice to hit.

Because sometimes I just get tired of telling Benjamin, don’t hit. And I have to think of creative ways to say it, to try to get the point across. Things like that.

Jesus is addressing this to the Pharisees, but it’s really for the benefit of the people who are listening. And he says, I’m telling you the truth, whoever comes into the sheepfold and doesn’t come through the door, you’ve got to assume he’s a thief and a robber. You just, by virtue of him coming in and not through the door, you don’t have to ask questions.

You just assume he’s up to no good. Because the one who comes in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. And when the porter or the watchman sees him, and the sheep hear, he opens to him, and the sheep hear his voice, and they know him, and he leads them out.

This idea of a sheepfold. When there was not danger from predators, they would gather the sheep together in the field at night, and the sheep would huddle together out in the open, and the shepherd would stand there and watch them. When there was a worry about predators or even weather, they needed a little extra protection.

So there would be a fenced-in area, sometimes built with massive stone walls, sometimes built with things just like piled thorn bushes that would discourage wolves and things. But you would have this enclosure walled around that the sheep would come in and then there would be a door. And sometimes the shepherd himself would sleep across the opening to this door.

Sometimes there would be a watchman who would watch this door, who would watch the sheep. And what Jesus is saying is there’s this watchman who’s set to guard there. And if the shepherd comes in, the watchman knows who it is and lets him in through the gate.

Now he doesn’t let the thieves and the robbers in through the gate. He doesn’t let the wolves in to come and eat the sheep. He guards that door and he only lets in the one who’s supposed to be there.

And so if you’re in the sheepfold and you’ve come over the wall, it’s just got to be assumed you’re up to no good. But he said the shepherd comes in through that door. The watchman sees him and knows that that is the shepherd and he goes in through the door.

He comes in the right way. He has the authority to go in and deal with those sheep. And on top of that, he says the sheep know his voice.

And I’ve been reading some accounts of people 100 years ago, 200 years ago, who went to this same area of the world in what’s now Israel and watched groups of shepherds with these massive herds of flocks of sheep. And you’d have several different shepherds all there with their sheep, and the sheep were all intermingled. But when one shepherd called out to his sheep, he would have some kind of call that they would recognize.

Those sheep would come from out of the herd, out of the flock. I keep saying herd, that’s cows. They would come out of the flock and they would follow him.

And another shepherd would do his call and they would hear him and come. I have seen this. I have seen this with people.

When I was growing up, our youth pastor would always go, and I had trouble replicating the sound, but y’all won’t know. He would go something like that, only he was better at doing it. And he started doing it with his own kids.

But we’d be at Six Flags. We’d be at Six Flags with, you know, 30 kids from our church. And thousands of other people.

And other people might not even notice the noise, but we could hear it from a mile away. And we knew to look. You do it in church when people talk, and be at the back of the auditorium.

Pastors preach and you hear, some of you may do that with your own kids. My kids are so boisterous right now, they can’t hear anything I say. But there for a while I had it where I could go in a loud room and you might not ever hear it, but my kids would look that.

And maybe someday when they remember what my voice sounds like again, we’ll get back to that point. But the shepherds would do this. They would call out to their sheep.

And many times they would know them by name. They would name them. And reading these accounts of these shepherds who are doing the same thing that their forefathers were doing in Jesus’ day, they would call out to the sheep and they would call whatever word they normally used to call the sheep.

And each of them had their own. Somebody else would use that same call and the sheep would not respond. So Jesus is saying the shepherd comes with authority and the watchman knows who he is.

The sheep know his voice because he’s supposed to be there. And anybody who takes a shortcut and comes in and tries to, without authority, they’re there for no good, for no good reason. And so he’s drawing a contrast here between himself and the Pharisees because this whole passage deals with the authority of God.

And not just the authority of God for its own sake, but in this passage, the authority of God in providing his providential care over his sheep. And so he compares himself, the good shepherd, the one who comes in with God’s authority to care for his sheep. He contrasts himself with the Pharisees, these people who are taking shortcuts and saying it’s all about you do this rule and you live up to my standards and maybe God will love you.

And they’re coming in dealing with the sheep, and he says they’ve taken a shortcut. They’re not here with God’s authority. They don’t speak with God’s authority, and they’re here to do nothing but damage to the sheep.

He said, that’s not what I’ve come to do. Jesus didn’t come to hurt the sheep. Jesus didn’t come to restrain the sheep.

Jesus didn’t come to shackle the sheep. It says in verse 4, And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers.

This parable spake Jesus unto them, but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them. So Jesus spoke to them in parables that related to things that they understood better than we do. We don’t live in as widely agricultural a society as they did.

So there are some of these things that we have to have explained to us. But if you ever feel like I do sometimes when I’m studying for a message, and I’m on my fourth day of really digging into it, and I’m thinking, I still don’t get this. I feel so stupid.

If you ever feel that way, don’t feel bad, because the people who should have understood as second nature often had to have Jesus go back and explain it to them. So verse 7 says, Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. This is a different picture he’s providing here.

Don’t try to think of him as being the shepherd that walks through the door and the door the shepherd walks through in the same story because I spent all week trying to figure out how that works until I realized if you’ve got a red letter Bible, there’s a little black division in here because he’s gone on to a different word picture to explain what he’s talking about. The first one he talks about himself being the shepherd. In the second one he talks about himself being the door.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. I’m the door. I’m the gateway.

In this relationship with God, I am the gateway. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. And so he does refer back to the Pharisees again.

They came teaching you that you can have a relationship with God on your own terms. And even though we’d look at the world today and say most people aren’t doing like the Pharisees, they’re trying too hard to be good, whether we think we’re going to find a relationship with God by being good and sitting here and never doing anything wrong, or whether we think God just loves us whatever we do, and so we can go out and party and not give another thought to what he tells us to do. The thing that both of those have in common, whether it’s legalism or it’s license, they both have in common the idea that they’re going to come to God on their own terms. So he’s talking about these people, and he said, all that ever came before are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t hear them. He said, I am the door.

By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and she’ll go in and out and find pasture. And if you look at Bible commentaries and you listen to teachers, you’re going to hear a lot of explanations for what this sheepfold means. I’ve seen some say that the sheepfold represents the church.

He’s the Dorian, and he represents our entry into the body of Christ. And I think John MacArthur makes a great point that it can’t be the church because Jesus doesn’t lead them out of the church. Jesus doesn’t lead his sheep out of the body of Christ. And it says here in verse 9, they shall go in and out and find pasture. Well, I was reading where he says it’s Judaism and it’s laws that he’s leading them out.

It’s not talking about the going in, but he’s not the door in, but he’s the door out. And I thought, wait a minute, it says here that he’s the door and he leads them in and out. And Jesus doesn’t lead us back into the bondage of legalism.

So with all due respect to all these commentators and guys who are much smarter than me, I think they’re wrong on both sides. I don’t think it’s a picture of the church. I don’t think it’s a picture of Judaism.

I think it’s a word picture for us to understand our relationship with God. We go through the door, which is Jesus Christ, into the sheepfold for the protection of God. And we go through the door, which is Jesus Christ, out into the pasture and experience the abundance of God.

Whether it’s the going in or the coming out, we go through Jesus Christ and experience whatever God has in store for us at that moment. I may be totally off base on that. But when it says in verse 9 that He leads us in, we shall go in and out and find pasture.

He doesn’t lead us into bad things and He doesn’t lead us out of good things. He leads us to exactly where we need to be. Because you know what?

Sometimes the sheep did need to be locked up for their own protection. and sometimes the sheep needed to go out into the pasture and eat and frolic and just be free. And so whether it’s those times of huddling together for protection under the hand of God or whether it’s those times of being led out into abundance and provision, Jesus Christ is the door and he’s the shepherd who leads us through to where we need to be.

He says in verse 10, the thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. He wanted us to have abundant life.

We ought not to be content with the old way of thinking about things like the Pharisees. That I’ve got to just huddle here and be terrified. Am I good enough?

Have I done enough good things? Has the good I’ve done outweighed the bad? There is no security in that.

There’s no protection and providence of God in that. It’s all just waiting to see if maybe I make the cut. I don’t see where you find joy in that unknown, does God love me or not?

And again, whether it’s legalism or whether it’s license, that’s the way the world likes to look at our relationship to God. I’m going to come to him on my terms and hope he’ll accept me. I’ve given an illustration before, and I wish I could go back and find where I’d read the story, but these sociologists were studying, or it might have been psychologists, or maybe both, were studying patterns of behavior in school children.

and they said we’re going to do we’re going to try these new things no boundaries the world likes to experiment with that nowadays no boundaries we’re not going to put a fence around the playground we’re just going to let them be free range children as a parent I can tell you that works out tremendously free range children what they found out though was that rather than feeling like they could be free and explore the children felt unsafe and they gathered at the center of the playground. And they played toward the center of the playground, but they didn’t explore the whole playground. When they put the fence back, the children felt secure.

And the children went all the way out to the fence and they’d run and they’d play tag and they’d go to the swing set over here or further away because they felt secure. To my mind, the love and the unconditional love and the grace of God that comes not through my goodness, but through what Jesus Christ accomplished, is like that fence. We can be secure in the love of God because we know we didn’t earn it and it’s not conditional on something we do.

God’s not going to wake up tomorrow morning and not love you for this reason or that. I didn’t give enough money at church today. God’s not going to love me tomorrow.

I didn’t go to church today. God’s not going to love me tomorrow. There’s joy and there’s an ability to, there’s a freedom, there’s an ability to explore the abundance of a life, a spiritual life that grows in its relationship with God when we have the security around us of knowing that he loves us and will love us no matter what.

It came that we would have life abundant, not to be scared to death like the Pharisees, but to have the freedom to walk with him, to have the security of knowing that when times get tough, he takes us into the sheepfold. But also of knowing when times are good, we go out into the pasture and we explore all that he has for us. He came that we would have life more abundant.

And that abundant life comes from the growing relationship with God. The life spent exploring his plan and his purpose for you. Of waking up each day and saying, God, what do you want me to do today?

Where do you want me to go today? They used to advertise those Microsoft computers that said, where do you want to go today? If we would wake up and ask God that question every morning, how might things be different?

God, where should we go today? As I said last week, he had a plan and a purpose for you before you were ever born. That still blows me away.

Before you were ever born, he knew you. And he had a plan and a purpose. And you know what?

He knew. He knew that sometimes you would disobey him. He knew that you would sometimes throw a wrench in those plans, but it didn’t surprise him at all.

God knew where you’d be this morning. God knows where you’re going to be tomorrow. And asking him, God, what adventure do we go on today is a good way to start every morning.

In verse 11, he says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life to the sheep. And that’s true.

A bad shepherd would see the lions and tigers and bears and go running away and save himself. But a good shepherd says, uh-uh, not on my watch. A good shepherd sees the threat to the sheep and even at the risk of himself goes out and deals with the threat.

The greatest threat to God’s sheep is sin. The thing that was going to separate us from him and his love forever is sin. Yet the good shepherd laid down his life for the sheep in the most literal sense.

Jesus Christ gave his life to pay for our sins. This is one instance in the Bible see. It was not the sheep that were sacrificed.

It was the shepherd. The shepherd was sacrificed for the sheep. Folks, all of this points us back to not only the, I don’t want you to just leave here this morning with the idea that, hey, I’m supposed to have an exciting spiritual life.

Things may not always be exciting in the sense that we think they’re fun and entertaining. Things will be exciting, and things should be exciting in the sense that we’re growing and that we’re fulfilling the life that God has set before us and designed us for. But I don’t want you to leave here just thinking that this message was about having an exciting spiritual life.

Because everything in here points back to Jesus. Whether we’re talking about the door, whether we’re talking about the shepherd, whether we’re talking about laying down the life for the sheep, all of those things are about Jesus Christ. If you want to experience the abundant life that God has for you, You will not find in me or my teaching or the Bible that I take it from, you will not find the advice of a self-help book. Here are 12 steps, 12 things you can do tomorrow to make sure you have an awesome life.

I’m not going to give you that. I don’t have that. And that’s not what the Bible teaches.

If you want abundant life, you find it in Jesus Christ. If you want your life to be everything God intended it to be, If you want to experience everything that God has for you to experience, if you want to break out of the pit of complacency and go out into the pasture and experience God’s abundance, you find it in Jesus Christ. A relationship with God starts with Jesus Christ. And a relationship with God is possible only because of Jesus Christ and what he did. And then as we spend every day trying to fall more and more in love with our shepherd and trying to follow His voice wherever it leads, that’s how we experience God’s abundance, following the shepherd and loving Him.