Celebrating God's Promise of a Life Better Than Your Dreams

Introduction (5m)

What are your life goals? What do you want to achieve in life?

Need to invest in planning your life, otherwise you simply drift through life and leave future to chance.

Article with 100 life goals. What about these?

Enjoying abundant health, energy and vitality

Travelling the world to exotic locations and experiencing different life cultures

Spending money where it is not an obstacle to living the life you’ve designed

Having a close relationship with your spouse

Experiencing nurturing relationships with your children

A fulfilling career as an employee or business owner.

Living in your custom designed dream house

Owning a cottage or vacation retreat on a lake, ocean or in the woods

Driving your dream car

Living to 90 or even 100 years old, doing things that people half your age are still doing

Would those goals be enough to make your life a life that is better than your dreams?

Relevant question today as it was in J’s day.

Modern, western world has discovered how unsatisfying materialism really is. It is still looking for something more. Something beyond.

J calls us to invest in full life, abundant life, overflowing life, a life that is truly better than our dreams.

Goals that are truly worth investing in

In speaking about being the Good Shepherd, J is alluding to a picture painted in Ezekiel 34, promises a life that incorporates:

Being rescued and found

Having good pasture and grazing

Having injuries treated

Being strengthened

Tasting justice

Being secure and at peace

Having a plentiful crop and no longer being hungry

Being liberated from slavery

No longer being afraid

Experiencing deliverance

Being in intimate covenant relationship with God.

Do they sound like better life goals? Something better to invest in?

Covenant Sunday - what are you doing to invest in this life?

Explanation (5m)

Jesus calls us to participate in a life that’s better than any life we could dream of

John 10:10 M:BCL

A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.

Many people - Christian life is drudgery

Nothing further from the truth. J calls us to a life of abundance, rich and satisfying.

J doesn’t come to steal life from us but to give us more than we ever dreamed of

Doesn’t come to kill us but to give us life. Doesn’t set out to destroy us but to build us up. J offers us life that is full, satisfying and free - not just in the future, but in the here and now.

A Hebrew word picture

John 10:9 M:BCL

I am the Gate. Anyone who goes through me will be cared for—will freely go in and out, and find pasture.

Well known Hebrew phrase - freely go in and out. To be able to come and go as you please was a Jewish way of describing life that is absolutely secure and safe. If you can come and go and you please, your country must be at peace, the forces of law and order are in control, and you enjoy perfect security.

Life in Jesus is one with a new sense of safety and security

All worries and fears are gone.

Another Hebrew word picture

J moves from describing himself as the Gate to the Good Shepherd. We are left with a picture of the Good Shepherd leading his sheep into green pastures, leading them b y quiet and still waters, going after the strays and bringing them home, keeping them away from poisonous plants, taking them to the good water, making sure they have all they need.

J says this is a life of abundance, the life of your dreams

In fact, the Greek used here describes not just abundance, not just the life of your dreams, but of more abundance, a superabundance, a life that is beyond your wildest dreams!

Application (5m)

The question is: Will you invest in this life?

J is offering you a full life, an abundant life, an overflowing life, a life that is more and better than your dreams. That’s his gift to you.

But you have to accept it

You have to experience it. You have to participate in it. You have to invest in it. Because at it’s heart it’s a relationship. A relationship with God.

If you don’t invest in a human relationship, it dies

Spouses drift apart. Children become estranged. We lose touch with friends and colleagues. Unless we invest ourselves in those relationships.

Our covenant relationship with God is no different

If we put other things first, if we prioritise worldly pursuits over our life in God, it will suffer. It will stagnate, die.

Heard someone this week give their testimony. Testified that they had been at a point where they might have turned away from God, church, Army. Spoke to someone about how they felt, that person said perhaps they should try intentionally investing in those things to breathe new life into them. So she did. Offered herself to God, church, Army. Offered her presence. Offered her gifts and talents. And you can see the difference! I’ve watched that person turn from a sometimes sullen, often reluctant - any old excuse not to turn up - Youth Chorus member and blossom into someone who is clearly much happier, much more at peace, content young woman.

That’s the difference that investing in your relationship with J can make!

She is enjoying a life that is more and better than her dreams because she has invested in her relationship with her Saviour.

Not something that happens by accident

We need to be intentional. If we simply turn up here each week - whether religiously every week or just when we feel like it, our life in God will continue to perish on the vine. If we serve God out of a sense of drudgery and duty, the life that is more and better than our dreams will continue to allude us.

So how will we intentionally invest in the superabundant life that J is willing to give us?

Might be to intentionally spend more time with him. Might be to intentionally seek to his image in those we serve from week to week. Might be to intentionally go deeper with him and his word through Growth Group or Battle Drill devotionals. Might be to intentionally invest in our relationships between ourselves.

And the other thing we can do is to celebrate!

When we constantly remind ourselves just how good is the life J offers us, his full, overflowing, satisfying, abundant life, his life that is more and better than we can dream of, then we encourage ourselves to invest in it again and again.

So let’s celebrate what Jesus has given us and share it with others.

Next Steps

What has Jesus given you that is more and better than the life you dreamed of?

Write it on balloon and take it home to remind you to celebrate it.