The Blessing of the Here and Now // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 9

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Sometimes as we’re travelling through things in life that we’d rather not be travelling through, we can get to imagining that any promise of God’s blessing, of an abundant life – must be a promise for some time way off in the future. Certainly not for here and now! But what if I told you that He means if absolutely – for here and now.

I sometimes think that Jesus would have benefited from the services of a good PR consultant. You know a spin doctor that would dress up some of the difficult messages He had to get across. Take this one for instance, Matthew chapter 16 beginning at verse 24:

Jesus told His disciples, ‘if anyone wants to become one of my followers let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.

I mean that picture of a cross is a brutal one. It’s a picture of being nailed to a cross and dying a gruesome death. If any of you want to become my disciples, said Jesus, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. Huh, give me a break! Who wants to follow someone like that? I want to be healthy, wealthy and wise. I want to live life on “easy street”. Take up my cross? You’ve got to be kidding me.

Yep, Jesus could have used a good Public Relations consultant to get some spin on this message to make it more palatable. No wonder it says in John’s Gospel that many turned away from Him. Have a listen:

‘It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless’ said Jesus. The words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and life but among you there are some who do not believe, for Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that would believe in Him and who were the ones who’d betray Him. And He said, ‘for this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by my Father’ and because of this many of His disciples turned back and no longer went about with Him.

Yeah, the guy definitely needed a spin-doctor. And you know something? I so often hear people speaking about Jesus; whether it’s a preacher preaching or a person telling me what Jesus is doing in their lives, and what I hear is not this gritty authentic Jesus who was prepared to lose followers in a world where the measure of a Rabbi’s success, a key performance indicator back then, was the number of followers or disciples he had.

Jesus was prepared to lose followers, lots of them, because He wouldn’t play by the world’s rules. He never let them squeeze Him into their mould. You know they were looking for a messiah, a king like David, a powerful warrior to raise up an army and boot the Romans out of the Promised Land. That’s what Israel was believing for, when Jesus came onto the scene.

After He miraculously fed five thousand people with five loaves and two fishes the crowd wanted to grab Him and appoint Him king. I mean this guy was definitely the messiah, can you imagine that? He’s been wandering around out there in the fields speaking and wooing the crowds, doing some amazing miracles.

Here He is, this obscure carpenter’s son from Nazareth. I mean Nazareth of all places, does anything good come out of there? And finally Jesus is about to hit the big time. They want to make Jesus their king. Finally they recognise how good He really is and they want to make Him king. Woo hoo! So what does Jesus do? John chapter 6, verse 15:

When Jesus realised that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king He withdrew again to the mountain by Himself.

He withdraws. Jesus, what’s the matter with you? You’ve made it, success at last! What are you doing? He didn’t just need a spin-doctor; he needed a couple of good strategic planning consultants as well. And He continued His journey, His inexorable journey to that ugly brutal cross where He was nailed and left to suffocate, hanging by nails through His hands and His feet. And He tells us why He did that. He tells us in this outrageous promise why He did that. Listen to it again with me, John chapter 10, verse 10:

The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly.

He did this contrary to the thief, this thief who comes only to steal and kill and destroy. He did it that we may have life, real life and have it abundantly. Literally, it says in the original Greek language that sits aback of our English translation, it says super abundantly.

Now He wasn’t talking here just about eternal life. Sure He came that we could have eternal life and that’s something we’re going to look at tomorrow, but He’s talking about our lives here and now. And in this passage He’s painting a stark contrast between the impostor and the truth. Let’s listen to it again, John chapter 10, verse 1:

Truly I tell you anyone who doesn’t enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the true shepherd. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, the sheep hear his voice, he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

And when he’s brought out all of his own he goes ahead of them and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They won’t follow a stranger but they’ll run from him because they don’t know the voice of strangers.’ Jesus used this figure of speech to them but they didn’t understand what He was saying.

So again He said to them, ‘truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and bandits but the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out to find pasture.

The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that you may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. The hired hand who’s not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, the hired hand sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.

The hired hand runs away because the hired hand doesn’t care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me just as the Father knows me and I know the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep.

Do you see the contrast in this passage? Do you see the difference between the real shepherd and the impostor? The true shepherd and the stranger, the good shepherd and the hired hand, Jesus and the thief who comes only to steal, kill and destroy? One sharp contrast after another. The real thing, Jesus. And all those impostors; the devil, and the thin, hollow promises of this world.

And it’s only the true shepherd who brings abundant life and we know Him, His seal of authenticity is this. He is the one who’s prepared to lay down His life for His sheep. He is the one who is prepared to step out of heaven, become a man and be nailed to a cross.

So, we can bow down to the impostors just as the devil said to Jesus when he dangled all the kingdoms of the world under His nose in Luke chapter 4, verse 6. The devil said:

‘To you I will give their glory and all it’s authority for it’s been given over to me and I give it to anyone I please. If you will then worship me,’ the devil said to Jesus, ‘it will all be yours.

Yeah okay, we can do that. We can bow down to that but listen to me. I don’t care how tempting it is, I don’t care how seductive it looks; that thief comes only to steal, to kill, to destroy. Or we can lay hold of this abundant life by living in this truth. Luke chapter 4, verse 8:

Jesus answered the devil, ‘it is written, worship the Lord your God and serve Him alone.

Friend, that’s where the abundant life that Jesus came to bring us is to be found. The choice is yours. The choice is mine and I know, friend I know how seductive the things of this world are and it’s not that we can’t have a car or a house or the things we need and maybe even the things we like, it’s not that at all.

God wants us to enjoy His creation, God wants us to be blessed but the moment we put those things ahead of God, the moment the things and the temptations of this world, the glory of the kingdoms of this world come ahead of our God, we have bowed our life down to the thief and remember the thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. Jesus came that we may have life and have it abundantly.