The good news of the Gospel is that there is life, full and free, in Jesus Christ. When He says in John 14:6, “I am the life“, He wants us to understand that you don’t need to leave your senses behind and believe in zombies to have life after death, but that you can have His eternal life within you today and beyond death. In Jesus is true, dynamic life – life offered free of charge and with no hidden catches. There are 3 elements of Jesus as the life I want to us to explore together: first, life in Jesus; secondly, life from Jesus and lastly, life for Jesus. My prayer is that each of us would be filled with the life of Jesus, fully equipped for living as a Christian in today’s Scotland.

[A] Life in Jesus

Someone might claim to know the way to life, but no-one claims to be life itself. They might say they have discovered some activity which gives them life, but they won’t and can’t say that they themselves have that life. But Jesus says, “I am the life”. What gives Jesus the right to say that He not only knows the way for someone to have life, but that He Himself is that life? Is Jesus some kind of egotist, some kind of madman or some kind of deceitful liar? On the contrary, there are two very good reasons that Jesus is telling the truth when He says, “I am the life”: first, Jesus as God and second, Jesus as Creator. This is the Jesus who in Himself has life and whose life is the life of the universe in which we live and more particularly, our own lives.

1. Jesus as God – throughout John’s Gospel, Jesus repeatedly gives evidence, both by word and by work, that He is God. His miracles are performed as signposts to His acting as God in the flesh – doing things only God can do. His teaching is deeper, more authoritative than a mere man can go. And here, in John 14:6, we have another strand of evidence, where Jesus says of Himself, “I am”. As you know from our previous studies, the OT name of God is ‘I am’. And so, by self-consciously using the OT name of God, Jesus here is claiming to be God. Jesus is the great ‘I am’ of the OT – the God who divided the Red Sea; the God who revealed Himself in glory to the prophet Isaiah; the God who miraculously triumphed over His enemies. And this God has life in Himself. When you think of God, you are to think of life – of pure and highly charged life. After all, His Name is ‘I am’ – the God who always was, always is and always will be. He doesn’t depend upon us for His existence, nor does He rely upon us for His life. Rather than drawing His life from us, He gives life to us. In John 1:4 we read of Jesus that, “in Him was life, and that life was the light of all men”. He is life not because He draws life from us, like some divine parasite, but because, in grace and love, He gives life to us.

2. Jesus as Creator – back at the beginning of John 1 we learn that it was through Jesus that the world was created. The life of God is seen in all He has made. It is seen in the things we encounter every day – in trees and sky; in fire and water. But it is also seen in things we meet less frequently. We see His life in the power of solar flares and of the orbits of the planets. We see His life in the strength of the ocean currents. We see His life in the temperature of the earth’s core. We see the quantity, quality and variety of His life in the number of the living organisms, each according to their own species, which inhabit our world. None of us have big enough brains to understand all there is to know about our universe. We are small grains of sand on a huge beach. What is our energy compared to that of a stampeding herd of wildebeest or to that of a mighty hurricane? This says nothing about the heavenly beings, the angels whom God has created. If we cannot fully take in the sheer quantity, quality and variety of life God has created, how can we even begin to understand how much life there is in God Himself. And yet, Jesus says to us today, “I am the life” – the life of the whole created universe.

Does Jesus have the right or authority to say, “I am the life”? You can see that He does by virtue of His being God and of being Creator. The irony here is that the atheist, who so confidently asserts that there is no God, depends upon the very life of the God in whom he does not believe, for his being alive in the first place, for the very breath he takes and for the brain which rebels so badly against God. Jesus says, “I am the life”. Believe Him and trust in Him and you too will have life.

[B] Life from Jesus

Dominic Sandbrook is a leading British modern historian. He has charted the story of our lives by looking at the kind of things we place in our shopping baskets. In 1947 the kind of things we bought said a lot about our lives then – vegetables, meat, prunes, fish, tinned salmon and woollen clothes. These were days of rationing, no freezers and no mod-cons. Today, our shopping baskets are filled with energy drinks, parmesan cheese, baseball caps, fresh milk and newspapers. It reflects days of plenty where people have far more disposable income. The story of our lives is found in where we buy, what we buy and who we buy from. And by saying, “I am the life”, Jesus is saying to us today, “buy life not from the world around you, but from me!” Let the shopping basket of your heart be filled with life from Jesus. There are two areas in which Jesus offers us life: first, life from Jesus’ death and secondly, life from Jesus’ word.

1. Life from Jesus’ Death – one of the greatest paradoxes is that life often comes from death. Someone dies in a car crash. Having given consent that when they die, their organs can be used, someone who desperately needs a liver transplant receives life. He lives because another man died. On a greater scale, the Glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ is that Jesus has died in order to give us life. On the Cross, the same Jesus who spoke these beautiful words in John 14, gave Himself up to the most horrible of deaths and the anger of God against our sin. He paid the price we owed to God; He died the death we deserved to die; and in His death we have life. One commentator has put it like this, “He who died, condemned, enables us to live, forgiven.” Jesus descended into the deepest pit of death so that we might ascend to the highest heights of life. Now what makes this utterly astonishing is when you remember who this Jesus is – the Jesus who has life in Himself because He is God in the flesh; the Jesus who is the Creator. And in His death, Jesus gives us His extraordinary, infinitely beautiful life.

It’s not good to be fascinated by zombies and death. It leads to despair. You start wearing black and hearing voices in your head. But let me tell you that it is good to be fascinated by the death of Jesus – not in terms of the blood and gore – but in terms of what Jesus was doing on the Cross by dying our death, paying the price of our sin and giving us life through Him. Do you want to enter into life? Then make a life study of the Cross of Jesus. Through the Cross, we have life from Jesus’ death.

2. Life from Jesus’ Word – in John 6:63 Jesus says, “the words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” The words of Jesus, as recorded for us in the Bible, are the life of the Christian. They are the means by which Jesus gives us life – the life He died to give us; the life He has in Himself by virtue of His being the God and creator of all things. It is as we read the Bible for ourselves, study it in groups and hear it being authoritatively preached that Jesus, the life, is offered to us. And yet, there still is a missing piece in the puzzle – namely, how that life becomes ours. We can listen to the Word and yet leave this place today no more alive than we were when we came in. Just because life is offered to us through the Bible doesn’t mean to say that we have it for ourselves. How can the life Jesus offers us through His Word become ours? Jesus answers that question in John 5:24 when He says, “whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life.” Life becomes ours as we hear the Word of Jesus and believe in Him. We hear of our sinful state before God and we believe that Jesus is the Saviour who has died to take our sins away. We hear of how without Christ we are without hope in the world and we believe that Jesus is the meaning, logic and reason of all things. In other words, we place our faith in Him.

Through the medium of the Word of God, the Bible, we believe and trust in the Jesus who taught such powerful truth, who said of Himself, “I am the life” and who died to give us life. And it is as we have faith in Him, He gives us His life. In other words, life from Jesus comes to us as we believe in who Jesus is and what He has done. And so my question to each of us today is this: we might be fascinated by life after death, but have you trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ so that you may have that life now? Do you believe that what He did on the Cross by dying to take away sin, He did for you? Have you placed your faith in His finished work such that you can say along with the Apostle Paul, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I life by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me”?

This life comes from Jesus and from Jesus alone. He is ‘the’ life such that there is nowhere else we can get life from if it is not from Jesus. Come now, come today and taste the life there is to be found in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.

[C] Life for Jesus

I hope thus far to have showed you why Jesus has life in and of Himself therefore why He has the authority to say, “I am the life”. I also hope to have showed you how it is that the life Jesus has can become yours – namely though hearing the Living Word of Jesus and having faith in what He did upon the Cross for us. I want to close today by dealing with the single-most important issue as far as each of us is concerned – namely, what is the life Jesus offers us? In what way is the life He offers us different from our natural lives? In other words, what difference should this study into Jesus as ‘the life’ make to you. We shall deal with this in two ways: life today and life forever.

1. Life Today – throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus uses the phrases ‘life’ and ‘eternal life’ interchangeably. Jesus is making the point that whatever eternal life is, it isn’t life which is merely in the future, when we die, but it is life that begins now – in fact, as we learned from John 5:24, life which begins at the moment we believe in Jesus. We also know that its not just natural life – the life everybody else has. It is something more. I want to quote one commentator who says, “this life is God given to the soul and imparting to it holy strength and perfect blessedness”. What is this life which we can have in Jesus today? It is God Himself living within us giving us strength and contentment. Just as Jesus has life in Himself and gives us that life through our believing in Him, so that life is Jesus living within us. When we die, we will go to be with Jesus forever. But the life we can have today is that same Jesus within us through His Holy Spirit. We can have, as one famous Scottish writer put it, “the life of God in the soul of man”. This is a life which the natural, unbelieving man knows nothing of.

God within us, the God who is life and created life, opens our eyes to the true reality of the way things are. He gives us eyes to see through our problems to His provision. He gives us strength to deal with the issues we are facing. He opens the curtain of heaven and allows us a sneak preview of life there. He gives us His presence so that we know we are not alone in this world but that He is with us. He gives us real, true, spiritual life – ours from the first moment we believe in Jesus.

2. Life Forever – eternal life might begin the moment we believe in Jesus, but, as the name suggests, it never ends. Think of a grain of sand on the beach as being a 1,000 years. Now think of how long is represented by all the sand on the biggest beach in the world! Millions, billions, trillions of years without end. But not only will our life then be infinite in its quantity, but also in its quality. It will be very different from this life. The American preacher and theologian B.B. Warfield once wrote, “It would not be no boon to continue natural life forever.” What makes his remark so poignant is that Warfield married his wife in 1876. Very soon after, she was struck by lightning and paralysed. He cared for her for 40 years until her death in 1915. He loved her dearly, but for her to continue endlessly living a paralysed life would not be a heaven. No – eternal life will be filled with the intimate pleasures of God, and just as we cannot begin to imagine the depths of the torments of hell, so we cannot begin to imagine the heights of the pleasures of heaven. Life forever, in the physical presence of Jesus – what a prospect!

Life in Jesus Christ begins now with the inward, spiritual presence of Jesus; but there is no end to the life. Rather, it will go on, but not like it is now with all the problems – it will go from being all about the inward presence of Jesus to being all about inward presence of Jesus and the outward presence of Jesus. And on the authority of the Bible, I invite you to experience the life of God in the soul of man. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will live in Him as He comes to live in you. Come now, for in Jesus is life and life to the full. AMEN

‘Choosing to die’ was the title of a BBC Documentary aired last week. Introduced by Sir Terry Pratchett, ‘Choosing to die’ followed the last few days of people who were determined to end their lives at the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland. Now any fair reading of the Bible leads us to conclude that Euthanasia, or the taking of one’s own life – literally, a ‘good death’ – is wrong. But the point is that millions of normal people tuned in to watch a retired hotelier drink a potion of poisons which killed him. Even though terrified of it, people are morbidly fascinated by death. Like rabbits caught in the headlights of car, we stare into the face of death and, like the famous painting by Edvard Munch, issue a silent, terrified scream.

It is for people who hate and fear death but are also morbidly fascinated by it Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” In John 11, Jesus is confronted by the worst of situations – two sisters have lost their brother Lazarus. He became ill and died. Here we have the ultimate wall, the ultimate barrier – human death – what can Jesus do about it? The Dignitas Clinic inSwitzerland doesn’t give life, but takes it away. Can Jesus give life? Can Jesus raise the dead? Does He have the answers to the human fixation and fear of death? In this fifth of the ‘I am’ sayings of Jesus, He says to us, “I am the resurrection and the life.” I want to look at three things concerning the truth of Jesus being the resurrection and the life: first, this is a truth for us; secondly, this is a truth for life and lastly, this is a truth for faith.

[A] A Truth for Us

We can easily fall into the trap of thinking that Christianity is for people living in ivory towers; people who aren’t suffering the things we are. People like Martha in this story, are all too often pictured as angel-like and wearing shining halos. The reality is very different. Here’s someone just like us – wading through the problems, hurts and fears of life – sometimes falling down under the pressure; sometimes just treading water; and sometimes, but very rarely, making progress. When Jesus said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’ he was speaking to someone just like us. As we think about the Martha to whom Jesus spoke these words, there are four attitudes which sum her up: first, she is anxious; secondly, she is grieving; thirdly, she is questioning and lastly, she is believing. If you can identify with any of these attitudes, then what Jesus says isn’t just for Martha, but for you also.

1. Anxious – this isn’t the first time we encounter Martha, her sister Mary and their brother Lazarus in the Bible. In Luke 10 we learn that on a previous occasion, Martha had invited Jesus to stay with them. But at that time, Mary had sat listening to Jesus but Martha had been running about dealing with catering and hospitality. She was that type of person – so busy serving Jesus that she never had time to sit with Jesus. She was what we would call, ‘hyper’. She was the anxious sort – a worrier always thinking about making sure everything was right. And it was to her, this hyper-worrier, Jesus spoke these words saying, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Jesus is for anxious people who can’t seem to find a minute out of the day to rest and be at peace. If we are at all like that, this is a truth for us.

2. Grieving – Martha’s brother Lazarus got sick and died. It had all happened so quickly and now Martha was left mourning. We learn from vs. 33-35 of how she and her sister cried tears of grief. The man of the house was gone and the sisters were now worried about what the future held for them. Perhaps that’s where you are today – mourning and grieving for those you have loved and lost. Your heart is broken in two. It is to people with heavy hearts Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life”. If we are at all like that today, this is a truth for us.

3. Questioning – when Lazarus became unwell, Martha sent for Jesus. But Jesus didn’t come – rather, He waited three days. By that time, Lazarus was dead. Martha and Mary didn’t understand Jesus’ timing in it all and in vs. 21 and 32 say, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Here we have people with questions – why didn’t Jesus come quicker; why didn’t Jesus heal their brother. When we are confronted by life’s big issues, we too have questions. We ask God questions like, ‘if you are a God of love, why has this happened’, or ‘if you have power to heal the sick, why didn’t you heal my brother’? There are a lot of questions and not many answers. But it is to people like us – people who ask the ‘why’ questions Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life”. If we are at all like that today, this is a truth for us.

4. Believing – for all Martha’s questions, anxiety and grief, she still believed in Jesus. Even though she didn’t have all the answers, she clung onto faith in Jesus. This was faith walking in the darkness of human experience. We know this because of her faith in Jesus expressed in vs. 22 – “but I know even now, God will give you whatever you ask.” Her faith was imperfect, but it was faith. Today, for all that we fear death and grieve over the death of loved ones, we still have faith in Jesus. We might ask difficult questions, but in our heart of hearts, we know He knows what He is doing and that He loves us deeply. It is to people like us – people who are clinging onto faith by our fingertips, Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life”. If we are at all like that today, this is a truth for us.

You see, faith in Jesus isn’t for ivory towered, sugar-coated, insulated people – but for ordinary people who go through troubles and hardships. Are you an ordinary person – are you going through any of the troubles of Martha? Then what Jesus says is for you, “I am the resurrection and the life.” This is a truth for us.

[B] A Truth for Life

So many people are paralysed by the fear of death that they never really begin to live. When Jesus stands at the graveside of His friend Lazarus, comforting a grieving sister, He’s not just talking about how to die well, but more importantly, to live well. He says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” This is a truth for death, yes, but even more so for life. Jesus is making reference to two things about Himself here: first, Jesus the Resurrection and secondly, Jesus the Life.

1. Jesus the Resurrection – in vs. 25 Jesus says, “I am the resurrection”. Later in the verse He expands on what He means by saying, “He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.” People will go to extraordinary lengths to prolong their lives. A recent scientific study has concluded that people who live at high altitudes tend to live longer than those who live at sea level. Men living at 6,000 feet live as much as 3 and ½ years longer than those living at 0 feet. And so, once people hear this new study, they’ll build themselves cabins in the Himalayas and become hermits – just to scratch another couple of years out of life. But Jesus is totally realistic – He says, ‘even though he dies’. He recognises that all men die. It doesn’t matter whether it’s today or in three years time; by the beach at Bognor Regis or on the peaks ofMount Everest, every one will die.

What is our human reaction to this? It is one of a number of things: first, as I’ve said, we’ll invest all our money to find ways to live longer and try not to die. But whilst we may be able to put death off, it is coming to all of us and there’s not enough money in the world to stop it. Secondly, we throw up our hands and say, ‘If I’m going to die, then it doesn’t matter how I live’, and so we make sure we have as much carnal pleasure here and now before age and frailty become the party poopers. Thirdly, we don’t talk about death and by sticking our heads in the sand, perhaps it won’t happen to us. Thinking about it is too painful and so we’ll empty our minds of it completely – except when death approaches and we start to panic because we’re not prepared for it. Lastly, we can become so fearful of death that we become fascinated by it. It paralyses us and we can’t stop thinking about it. Every beautiful view is dominated by the spectre of death. Gothika takes over and even if we don’t wear black on the outside, our hearts are darkened by death.

Jesus is standing by the graveside of a man who had just died and says, ‘I am the resurrection … He who believes in me will live.’ A bit later, Jesus will raise Lazarus from the dead. He will perform a dramatic parable of how, at the very last day, He will raise all those who believe in Him from their mortal remains lie. In John 6:40 Jesus says, “This is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise Him up at the last day.” Jesus as the resurrection is telling us that even though we will die here, yet on the very last day, He will raise us to new life. He will resurrect our bodies and they shall be like His glorious body. How do we know that what Jesus says is true? Many have prophesied that they would rise from the dead, but only Jesus has. On the third day after the crucifixion, Jesus left the tomb empty was raised to glorious new life. Jesus means what He says – and this opens up a new possibility for how we are to approach death. Namely, death is not the end – rather, as Jesus calls it in vs. 11 – it is the long sleep of our bodies. These bodies of ours will sleep in the grave as they wait for Jesus to fulfil His promise on the last day to be our resurrection. The Christian can face death with confidence because to her, it is like falling asleep. She doesn’t need be afraid of sleeping in Jesus; she doesn’t fear it – rather, she can truly live in confidence that Jesus shall be her resurrection on the last day.

2. Jesus the Life – in vs. 25 Jesus says, “I am the resurrection AND the life”. He expands on what He means by saying He is the life in vs. 26 – “whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” What does Jesus mean here? Is He contradicting what He said in the previous verse about people dying? Do people die or don’t they? There is no contradiction – there never is in the Bible – rather, Jesus is referring to the life of the resurrection which we can enjoy before we die, when we die and after we die. He’s speaking of what He calls in other places in this Gospel – ‘eternal life’. Jesus is standing beside the grave of His friend Lazarus and He’s saying of this man that there’s a part of him which isn’t dead at all but lives eternally. Lazarus entered into eternal life the moment he believed in Jesus. That is when he began to live. That’s a life which physical death cannot take away from him. It is life in Jesus – a life which is eternal.

Our Catechisms tell us that ‘the souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory’. Jesus said to the dying thief on the Cross, ‘today you shall be with me in paradise’. Eternal life doesn’t begin when you die; it begins at the moment you believe; but when you die, the teaching of the Bible is that your soul ascends straight into the presence of God Himself. You are joined to Christ – your life is in Him. There was an amazing picture in the papers last week of the Space Shuttle docked to the International Space Station. Taking place hundreds of miles above the earth’s surface, there was a connection between the Space Shuttle and the Space Station. When we believe in Christ, we are connected to Him and that link can never be broken – no not even by death. Death may separate us for a time from our loved ones, but it cannot separate us from Christ. We live now and we shall live hereafter and it is all in Christ. That’s what makes eternal life so full of joy and delight – because it all about Christ.

Jesus tells us, “I am the resurrection and the life.” To complete the quotation from the catechism, ‘the souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory, and their bodies, still being united to Christ, do rest in their graves, till the resurrection.’ There is no need to be paralysed by the fear of death when Jesus is our resurrection and our life. We can look forward confidently to Him, in Him and with Him.

[C] A Truth for Faith

I want to close by reflecting on the importance of making Jesus our resurrection and life so that the wonderful gifts of eternal life and end-day resurrection become ours; so that we can be rid of the fear of death forever. In both vs. 25 and 26 Jesus tells us how that can happen – through faith in Him; by believing in Him. It is by believing we gain access to last day resurrection and to eternal life. And so Jesus asks in the words of vs. 26, “do you believe this”? We must believe in two things: first, in who Jesus is and secondly, in what Jesus does.

1. Believing in Who Jesus Is – what Jesus said had a profound impact upon Martha. Bearing in mind that she had known Jesus for some time by this point; but also bearing in mind that she didn’t have all the answers and was filled with grief, she says in vs. 27, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God.” She believed that Jesus was THE ‘special one’ – Christ, the Son of God. Further on in the chapter, we’ll see the great compassion of Jesus in the shortest verse in the Bible, John 11:35 – “Jesus wept”. Later on still we’ll see the great power of Jesus in raising Lazarus from the dead. Jesus is all glorious. As I am fond of saying, “there is a depth of excellencies in Christ such that there is ever room for new discoveries in Him.” Trust and believe in who Jesus is – His glorious love and His loving glory.

2. Believing in What Jesus Does – we often make the mistake of thinking that the people of the Bible were saints living in holy bubbles with no trouble and no grief. I hope we’ve seen how false that idea is. But the other mistake we make is to assume that Jesus lived in a spiritual bubble and didn’t know anything about human suffering. Nothing could be further from the truth. See Jesus weeping at this graveside – deeply moved by the grief of Lazarus’ sisters! More than that – Jesus knew that He Himself was shortly going to experience death – the death of the Cross; He knew that He Himself was going to be buried in a grave; and He knew Himself that on the third day He would be raised again. In the front of His mind, He has His own work of redemption on display.

And how is it possible that Jesus can promise us resurrection and life? Many make promises, but how do we know that Jesus is genuine? It is because He gave up His life upon the Cross in order that we might have eternal life – He dealt with our sins; the barrier between ourselves and God by bearing our penalty. It is also because on the Third Day He rose from the dead to new, glorious life as the first fruits of all His people. He can promise us resurrection and life because He has died to give us life and He Himself has been raised from the dead. His death is the certainty of our life and His resurrection is the certainty of our resurrection.

And so I ask you this afternoon – will you believe in who Jesus is and in what He came to do? Will you take your fear of death and give it to Him; trusting Him to replace your anxieties with His peace; your grief with His glory and your pain with His delights? Will you believe in Him, for it is only by believing that what He did can become yours. Come to Him today and live forever.

Our next outreach service wil be taking place on 19th June, 3pm at Westburn Hall. We are going to be exploring Jesus’s saying in John 10:25 – “I am the Resurrection and the Life”. We’re going to put hundreds of invitations for the service out round the local community. Please come along and enjoy the preaching and fellowship.

 Do you ever get the wrong image of someone and what they do? Most mornings, I get a train into town to go to my study in the Church. The train is packed with people going to work and sometimes, I look at them and wonder what they do for a living. Is that gentleman in a suit an accountant; is that girl wearing an attractive dress and high heels a shop assistant; is that young man wearing jeans and steel toe-capped boots a joiner? Perhaps I’ve got it all wrong and the guy in the suit is a criminal with a court appearance; the girl in high heels a student and the young man with jeans a lawyer on his day-off. We tend to have a romantic, slightly effeminate view of shepherds – soft men playing with fluffy lambs. The reality is very different – the Shepherds I knew in my youth in the Highlands of Scotland were men’s men with broad shoulders and huge hands. They didn’t suffer fools gladly and had been hardened by spending their lives on the moors pulling sheep out of bogs. When Jesus says of Himself, ‘I am the Good Shepherd’, we mustn’t get the wrong image; rather, we are to see Him as our strong, secure, all-competent Shepherd who is fully committed to us in love, compassion and determined mercy.

“I am the Good Shepherd” is the fourth ‘I am’ saying of Jesus, each one reinforcing the whole picture of Jesus as our Divine Messiah who meets every need we can ever have and whose grace is sufficient for us. He has already revealed Himself to us as the Bread of Life, the Light of the World and the Gate for the Sheep; and now, in John 10:11-16 He tells us, ‘I am the Good Shepherd’. For those first listening, who would have been very familiar with sheep and shepherds; and for us today, Jesus is speaking about four things concerning His being the Good Shepherd: first, commitment; secondly, crucifixion; thirdly, communication and lastly, communion. Let’s pray that as we explore Jesus’ teaching on Himself as the Good Shepherd that we, as His Sheep, may learn to rest secure in His love for us and commitment to us.

[A] Commitment

Over the last few weeks there has been a huge fuss in the media over what are called ‘super-injunctions’. These injunctions are taken out by celebrities to prevent the publicising in newspapers of bad things they have done. More often than not, these ‘bad’ things are extra-marital affairs. Rich celebrities, because they have enough money to pay the huge fees lawyers charge for such things, take out court orders preventing anyone publicly exposing their lack of commitment to their husbands or wives. From the richest to the poorest; from the lowest to the highest; from the most noble to the most foolish; commitment in marriage, or in anything else for that matter, is a bad word. Promiscuity and selfishness are promoted; commitment and sacrifice are scorned. Maybe this is one reason Christianity is so unpopular today because the Christ we preach emphasises commitment in every sphere of life and epitomised what it means to be committed by being the Good Shepherd who is prepared to lay down His life for His sheep.

As we compare the first part of vs. 11 with vs. 12 and 13, the commitment of Jesus to us is being contrasted with the faithlessness of those who do not own the sheep and have no attachment to them. When the wolf comes, the hired hand will run; but the Good Shepherd won’t – he’ll fight to the death for His Sheep. We look first at a hired hand and a wolf; and secondly, we see a Good Shepherd and His Love.

1. A Hired Hand and a Wolf – it’s not clear to whom Jesus is referring when He is speaking about ‘hired hands’ – perhaps He is referring to the Jewish religious authorities of the day who claimed power and authority, were good at getting the people into trouble but even better at leaving them in it. Whatever and whoever He is speaking about, the message is clear – the hired hand is just in it for money and will run a mile before he risks his life against a wolf. His only commitment to the sheep is what’s in it for him in his wallet, but the moment there is trouble, He’s a speck on the horizon and leaves the wolf to seize and scatter the sheep.

I wonder whether you have experienced people and philosophies like this hired-hand – people and ideas which say they care for you and love you and when the going is good, everything seems fine; but the moment when trouble strikes, they are nowhere to be seen, no help at all and you are left alone to deal with the wolves of life. Atheism, false friends, materialism – its all fine when you’ve got money and a job; but when depression strikes; when the money dries up and you can’t go out on the town anymore; more importantly, when your conscience begins to grumble because of all the wrong things you’ve done, they’ve got nothing to say and no help to give. They leave you to the wolves. Laugh and all the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone, so they say. If that’s the way it is for you today, perhaps its time you realised that the people you’ve put your trust in and the false philosophies you’ve followed are hired hands and don’t care about you at all.

2. A Good Shepherd and His Love – in contrast to the hired hand who cares nothing for the sheep, the Good Shepherd is willing and prepared to lay down His life for His sheep. They are His sheep and He will not allow a wolf to get in among them; rather, He will put His own life on the line for theirs. That is the level of His commitment for them. He will endure the cold of the winter and the heat of the summer; the thirst of the drought and the hunger of the famine – He is steadfastly committed in love towards His sheep. For Him, commitment means a readiness to sacrifice Himself for the Sheep.

Arctic terns are small seabirds which live onNorth Atlanticcoastlines. Throughout their lifetimes, migrating arctic terns fly huge distances. Scientists have recently calculated that throughout its lifetime, an arctic tern will fly a distance equivalent to three trips to the moon and back – approximately 1.2 million miles. That’s what you call a serious effort! The commitment of the Good Shepherd to His sheep is no less involved – He’s there when the going is good and when the going gets tough. This is the Lord Jesus – a friend in deed and a friend in need; a friend to the prodigal and to the lost sheep; the Shepherd who won’t leave you when mental illness strikes but will support you; the Shepherd who won’t abandon you when there are problems in your family but will stand beside you and hold you up. He is the Good Shepherd who loves you with an immeasurable intensity and an infinite quality.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd of His Sheep – completely committed to us. He will never need to take out a super-injunction to cover up how He was unfaithful to us because He is too committed to us to ever abandon or forsake us.

[B] Crucifixion

Throughout the earlier portions of the Gospels Jesus gives us hints of what His commitment to His people will cost Him. He’s not just willing to lay down His life for us; the truth is that He will lay down His life for us. Jesus says in vs. 11 and vs. 15 – “I lay down my life on behalf of the sheep.” As we think through what it means for Jesus to lay down His life for us we notice two things about this sacrifice: first, He lays down His life for us and secondly, He lays down His life freely.

1. For Us –one of the latest crazes to hit the American fishing community is known as ‘noodling’. Noodling is when a fisherman finds a fish in a hole in the riverbed and then sticks his arm in the hole and waits for the fish to bite his arm and latch onto it with their sharp teeth. They then fight to drag the animals, which can weigh up to 30kg onto the riverbank. It’s sacrificial fishing where you literally risk your life to catch a fish. You allow yourself to be bitten so that you may land a catch. Jesus didn’t just risk His life to protect His sheep from their predators; He gave His life for them. He didn’t give His life because He was a masochist – because He liked pain; He didn’t give His life because He was suicidal – because He wanted to kill Himself. Rather, He gave His life upon the Cross for us. He died to protect His sheep from their sins and the consequences of their sin; He died to protect us from death and the fear of death; He died to protect us from hopelessness and meaninglessness. In the Old Testament sacrificial system, men would bring a sheep to the temple; the sheep would be slaughtered and the man would be forgiven. In the New Testament, rather than the sheep giving its life for the shepherd; now the shepherd gives His life for the sheep. Jesus laid down His life for us.

2. Freely –the emphasis in this passage is on the free-ness of what Jesus did. He didn’t need to, nor was He under any compulsion to lay down His life for us. Rather, He was the voluntary sacrifice for our sin. He freely decided to lay down His life for the sheep. He wasn’t pressured into giving Himself for us; He wasn’t guilted into giving Himself for us – rather, He loves us so much and is so committed to us that He laid down His life freely on our behalf.

Jesus loves you and like the tern, He’s willing to do something even more amazing than flying to the moon and back three times – He’s not just willing to go the Cross, but He actually went – freely and lovingly, bearing our sins upon His shoulders. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, the tough Shepherd who loves us enough to die for us. Do you know this Jesus? Have you put your faith and trust in Him? Is He your good shepherd, or like a sheep caught in a Highland Bog, are you in great danger of being lost today – lost alone without a Good Shepherd who loves you and cares for you?

[C] Communication (vs. 14-15a)

If Jesus is our Shepherd and we are His Sheep, then there will always be a relationship between us. If He is as committed to us as much as He says He is; and if He has demonstrated His love for us by freely dying for us on the Cross, then there is a relationship – there is communication between us. This relationship, this communication works at two levels: first, ownership and secondly, love.

1. Ownership – in John 10:14, in black and white, we have recorded for us the fact that we belong to Jesus. He says, “I know my sheep and my sheep know me”. We belong to Jesus – we are His. We are His because from before the beginning of the world He chose us; we are His because He formed us in our mother’s womb; we are His because He laid down His life for us. As the Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 6 – “you are not your own, you were bought with a price”. This message of belonging to Jesus doesn’t sit well with a society in which we each want to assert how capable we are. But we belong to Jesus – we are His precious possession. If that is true, then we aren’t free to do what we want to do – rather, we are to follow Jesus and do what He wants for us. Sheep want to do their own thing and sometimes that means they will put themselves in danger of falling from high cliffs or drowning in fast flowing streams. But because we belong to Jesus He will feed us, guide us and protect us. Can’t you see that there is great security and comfort in knowing that we belong to Jesus? We hear His voice and follow Him into green pastures and beside still waters.

2. Love – in the language of the Bible, to know something isn’t merely to intellectually know it – it means to love it. And Jesus, by saying, ‘I know my sheep and my sheep know me’ is telling us that the fundamental nature of our relationship with Him is love. He loves us and we love Him. He knows us so well – our strengths and our weaknesses; our sins and our faults; and yet He loves us so much. A book of funny family photographs has recently been released. It is called, “Awkward Family Photos”. It is filled with pictures taken of families in the 1980’s – a time when it was trendy for parents and children to have matching pyjamas; for mothers and daughters to wear matching tops and jeans; for fathers and sons to dance around the Christmas Tree. What was fashion best then is a fashion worst now. The sub-line of the Book is, “Photos that only a family could love”. Jesus sees us at our worst and yet loves us. He is our Good Shepherd and His heart beats with love for us. Yes, we are His – but we are His in love. He loves us. Can you believe it – good news in itself – Jesus, the Good Shepherd, loves you!

Even today, we can enjoy communication with our Loving, Good Shepherd. Through prayer we can speak to Him; through the reading, study and preaching of the Bible He reminds us how much He loves us. Are you communicating with Jesus; are you building your relationship with Him? He loves us with all His heart.

[D] Communion

As we close I want to briefly reflect on what it means for us to be sheep together under the headship of the Christ who is so committed to us that He has laid down His life for us; the Christ with whom we communicate as disciples and beloved. There are two implications of this communion together under Christ, both found in vs. 16: first, we are one flock and secondly, we have one shepherd.

1. One Flock – the Jews to whom Jesus spoke were used to themselves being spoken of as the flock of God. Psalm 80 and Psalm 23 speak much of God leading them like a shepherd leads a flock. As they wandered through the wilderness on their way from slavery inEgypt to freedom inCanaan, they must have looked like a huge flock of sheep. But now, in vs. 16 Jesus says to them, “other sheep I have which are not of this pen”. Jesus here is referring to the Gentiles – to people like us who are not physically descended from Abraham – who are not ethnic Jews. Jesus’ salvation is not just for the Jews, but for the whole world – God loves the world in all its variety. God’s people are made up from Jew and Gentile; slave and free. Gathered around the throne of Jesus in heaven there is a great multitude which no-one can number – the great flock of Jesus for whom He laid down His life. And they are taken from every nation, colour, language and tribe. Surely this is a call for us as Christians to go and find the lost sheep and bring them into the flock of Jesus. Let’s go and tell all people that Jesus is the Good Shepherd who lay down His life for His sheep. Let’s go and evangelise and offer all men the Gospel.

2. One Shepherd – if we are one flock, then we have one Shepherd. It is as Jesus says in vs. 16, “there shall be one flock and one shepherd”. The Church has One Lord and Master; One Saviour and God. His Name is Jesus and He is our Lord because He gave Himself for His Church; He shed His blood so that His flock could be His. We are One Flock; the Church is One with Him as our Lord. This surely is a call to us as Christians to be united to each other in love; united to each other in Jesus Christ our Good Shepherd. We love to speak of His salvation to one another; we love to pray for each other and build each other up, until finally, we shall see Him face to face – our Good Shepherd – and we, along with all the millions and billions of other Christians for whom He has laid down His life, will cry out in adoration and worship, “Praise and Glory and wisdom and thanks and honour and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. AMEN”