The Abundant Life
Notes
Transcript
Just burned my Hawaiian Pizza… should have used an aloha temperature
Why do the Norwegians put bar codes on their battleships? So they can Scandinavian
Before Easter, we talked about different types of sheep pens, and Jesus telling us he was the gate, the door, and the Good Shepherd, and in conclusion to this idea in vs 9
6 This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.
9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.
And to wrap it up he says
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
And in this moment Jesus is telling us that not only are the pharisees thief’s but so are all false religious leaders. There are so many leaders today or self help gurus tell you you can find your inner peace and happiness by following your truth, or believing that God wants to prosper you, or just emptying out the negative… Now in and of themselves these ideas aren’t crazy, but this is not the way to peace or to have life eternal. We cannot become our own rulers of universes as the mormons believer… and Jesus is telling us no matter what people tell you, if it is not what I am telling you, its a lie; throw it out.
Jesus in verse 11 will tell us that he is the Good Shepherd, but here as Jesus talks about giving life abundantly there are so many things that people come up with,
This is indeed where we get some of our prosperity teaching in the world… God wants to give us more abundantly… money and possessions, etc..
The thing we have to remember here is in Jesus’ day much like these prosperity teachers, they were widely acclaimed. People Loved them, they looked up to them, but all you have to do is look at the way they viewed Jesus to see how we should approach them and the things they were teaching.
And we can see we must judge these teachings by the way people are teaching Jesus because we know they are coming to steal, kill and destroy.
But what does that have to do with life abundantly.
SO when he tells us that he has come to give us abundant life, it means first and foremost that he will provide care for us…
and we can see so much of this in the 23rd Psalm
1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
I shall not want. What an amazing promise from God, I shall not want. And when you pair this with giving us life abundantly, there are so many who will turn this scripture and make it all about prosperity. Time once posted a cover article “Does God want us to be rich?” IN tells the story of George Adams… lost factory Job.. moved to texas to Join Joel Osteen’s Church. Most of you know what he preaches, but here is a quote from Osteen, “I think God wants us to be prosperous. I think he wants us to be happy. I think he wants us to enjoy our lives.”
This in and of itself doesn’t sound terrible, until we understand the things he is talking about are all material.
And with all of this he defines it in terms of material things. God wants us to have material things abundantly… and so in the article, Adams testifies to how his life has changed… he has gotten a job selling cars and is selling them hand over fist… and when he is asked what he looks to receive because of his faith he says “Twenty-five acres and three bedrooms…We’re going to have a schoolhouse… we want horses and ponies for the boys, so a horse barn. And a pond. And some cattle.” He goes on to say, “I’m dreaming big, because all of heaven is dreaming big.” And he has taken his teachings from Osteen and run with it, and is deciding that what God wants is for us to have material happiness in the here and now. And this can be such a popular theology… you can go on to look at other pastors like Creflo Dollar who has bought amultimillion dollar jet as part of his ministry because that is what God wants him to have.
So much like those Pharisees in Jesus day, there are these teachers that have a great following, and Jesus is telling us to question it… We are to look at it and judge it based on Jesus. So what are we to do with all of this.
What are we to do with this prosperity gospel. I think if you were to look at those who support this prosperity gospel they would tell you it is important to have this gospel because we live in a world where people are downtrodden and beaten down and feel like they have no hope, so what they truly need is a means for hope in this world. And this is true, when it comes to the world we are living in, we need nothing more than people to have hope, but what they are missing is hope is not found in material possessions but in Jesus.
Another problem with this prosperity Gospel is it never speaks of Sin or our need for a saviour. Most of us in this world do not want to hear that we are sinful, we have enough wrong in our lives for us to hear how bad we are apart from Jesus so we shy away from these messages and will run to a place where we can hear a message that will uplift us for who we already are, but unless we know how sinful we are apart from Jesus, we will see no need for a savior and without a need for a savior we won’t ever look for him. And as we celebrated last week, our only hope is Jesus.
We also hear preaching from these prosperity teachers that our sickness, or losing of things in life are a result of a lack of faith in our lives. In fact, they will tell you because Jesus raised the dead so should you, and if you can’t its becasue you don’t have enough faith. I met a man once who believed his own mother didn’t have enough faith to pray her sickness away and that was why she was still sick, I never could figure out why he didn’t pray it away.
But what does the Bible say about this, should we never face trial or temptation? The simple answer to this is No. Listen to the words of James
2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
And we need not only look at the words of James, but look through the Book of Job to know how God feels about us going through trials. One of the main points of Job is for us to know that even in the middle of earthly difficulties God can cause us to prosper spiritually. He wants so much for us even in the middle of our pain in this world as we grow closer to him. And there are some of you here this morning that are dealing with some stuff in this world and are struggling, and you may have friends like Job’s who are telling you its because you don’t have enough faith, or because you have messed up too much, but the truth is, sometimes we are going through things so we can cling to him tighter, so that his glory can be made known in the world…. Look at what comes up in the very next verse of psalm 23
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.
As part of the abundant life God promises that he will help me lie down in green pastures… what you may not know about sheep is what it takes to get them to lie down in green pastures
In order to get sheep to lie down, 4 things had to be present:
1. Free of all fear.
2. Free from friction with others of their own kind.
3. Free from torment by flies or parasites.
4. Free from the feeling to need to find food and be free of hunger.
And part of the abundant life he promises belong to these things, not that we will have prosperity but that we will have all of these…
But what of still waters? Did you know sheep will refuse to drink from rushing water? It scares them, so the only way we would drink is when it is calm and he knows this.
He is promising in the abundant life to lead us to these places where our fear can die, where we can have less torments, where we can have less friction and we can have the food and water that we need to survive. And an amazingly abundant life this will be
Not only does he promise provision in the abundant life, but he promises guidance…
Again look to Psalm 23:3
3 He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
I love what James Montgomery Boice says about sheep, “Sheep are stupid creatures. In fact, they are probably the most stupid animals on earth. One aspect of their stupidity is seen in the fact that they so easily wander away.”
And this is true about us in our spiritual walks as well, we would easily walk away from Jesus given the chance. We DO easily walk away from Jesus given the chance. This is why we as Craig Grosechel says as christian atheist … we know what is right, but its the little things that carry us away and get us to go down the wrong paths… much like sheep we see a green field and go running for it and sheep will easily eat food that poisons them and not give it a second thought, thinking it will give us exactly what they need.
We do the same when it comes to Jesus, we see these little quips that look better in life than him and seem to make life easier, so we slowly walk away. this could be something as easy as making the excuse that God would understand our not doing what he wants…
But Jesus being the good shepherd as we will see next week, is willing to give us the staff and pull us back into line as part of the abundant life. Our life is abundant because he keeps us straight. We have talked about this before in the church it doesn’t go as well…
The third thing he offers us is spiritual comfort
When we are promised abundant life, it is hard to imagine having an abundant life when we live in a world full of death and pain…
Look back to the words of the Psalmist in Psalm 23:4
4 Even 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.
In the midst of all of this He is with us… this is part of the abundant life that even in the middle he is with us
Look at the promise of
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
This promises in the abundant life he has invited us to dine with him and be with him.
Jesus didn’t come to give us money or possessions or status…
Jesus came to give us life…. and that abundant life is found through a relationship with him… a real true relationship that happened even in the middle of the chaos and pain. True hope and life is found in relationship with him. Life abundant is not in the hope of the men or the people of this world, we find that and he meets all of our needs in the middle of walking in his kingdom.
Thats an amazing picture of what the abundant life is supposed to look like in this life… the world/our enemies swirling around us, and us, sitting at a table with JEsus dining with him… thats why I say all the time the world won’t save us… remember Jesus’ kingdom is IN the world not OF the world, and the way we get to partake is by accepting him as our Lord and Saviour… and then we are a part of his Kingdom… and we realize there is no government in this world that will save us… no man in this world that is the answer… and no matter how bad they mess it up we don’t have to fear because he has prepared a place for us to sit and dine with him. Are you ready? Today maybe3 you have never
