John Message #35 “Trust and Enjoy Him” Ed Miller, Nov. 20, 2024
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Listen to the audio above while following along in the transcript below which is also available for download at www.biblestudyministriesinc.com
As we come to look in the word, there’s that indispensable principle, total reliance on God’s Holy Spirit. Before we go to prayer, I want to share Psalm 28:9, “Save Thy people and bless Thine inheritance, be their Shepherd, also, and carry them forever.” There’s a Bible principle connected with that verse, and I’d like to share that. When we come together, we come to see the Lord, and He reveals Himself in different ways; He’s our comforter, He’s our friend, He’s our priest, He’s the Potter, but when He reveals Himself, it’s not just for a day, or for a week, or for a month or a year. When He unveils Himself, it’s forever, and since we’re in John 10, and we’re looking at our Shepherd, I just love the way verse Psalm 28:9 ends, “Be their shepherd, also, and carry them forever.” If the Lord opens our heart and eyes to Christ as our Shepherd, that’s for every day for the rest of your life. So, it’s just a precious truth.
Our Father, we do commit our gathering unto You and we ask, Lord, that Your Holy Spirit would take Your words and just minister to our hearts. Show us the Lord Jesus in a fresh way, and in a living way. We thank You that we can trust You this morning, and we’re just committing our session unto You, in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus, Amen.
We’re praying this will be a blessing to you, but we are also praying that it will be a blessing to the Lord. He delights in His Son, and He delights in us when we delight in His Son. Every time we look to the Lord, it brings great joy to His heart.
The gospel of John, the reason it was written, and we’ve been emphasizing this almost each week, John tells us why the Holy Spirit caused him to write this book. John 20:31, “These have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” We brought that down into these three great truths. The Lord gave us the gospel of John so we might know the Lord. He gave us the gospel of John, that we might trust the Lord. And He gave us the gospel of John that we might enjoy the Lord. That’s why the Holy Spirit gave it to us. So, as we meditate on this book and the revelation of the Lord, we’re trying to keep that before us, and stay focused on those three great reasons.
In our meditation, we’ve come to chapter 10 and we’re looking at the wonderful light the Holy Spirit sheds on Jesus as the Good Shepherd. We’ve been mediating on the Lord as the Good Shepherd. We’ve been trying to follow the outline of the book. In other words, what does John 10 reveal about the Good Shepherd that enables us to know Him more intimately, and what does John 10 reveal about the Good Shepherd that enables us to trust Him more completely, and what does John 10 reveal about the Good Shepherd that enables us to enjoy Him?
So far, in our meditation, we’ve looked at the first two of those; we were in the second. We saw that the Lord unveiled Christ as the shepherd so that we could know Him more intimately. How intimately? We’re to know Him just as fully as He knows the Father and the Father knows Him. He tells us that He owns us, and that we are the sheep of His pasture; we are His inheritance and His property, and He protects us. We are held in His hand, and no one can pluck us from His hand. In fact, He says that what is true of His hand is true of the Father’s hand, and no one can pluck us.
Then we were looking at how does the revelation help us to trust the shepherd more fully? We’ve been focusing on the security that we have. Listen as I read John 10:27-29, “My sheep listen to My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give them eternal life, that they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them from the hand of My Father.” The fact that we are so securely held is an incentive to just place our faith, our trust, in Him. When we looked at, “I give unto them eternal life,” we pointed out that life is not just a quantity. It’s not life that goes on and on and one and never ends. It’s that, but it’s also a Person. Let me quote again 1 John 5:11, “The testimony is this; God has given us eternal life. This life is in His Son. The one who has the Son has the life. The one who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.” The life is a Person. You say, “I have eternal life.” What that means is that you have the life of the eternal One living in your heart. I have His life; he lives in me and He lives in us.
So, we’ve looked through some of these precious truths that we are God’s gift to Jesus, and Jesus is God’s gift to us, and He holds us firmly, so we can’t be plucked. When we left off our discussion, we were looking at Jesus as the door, John 10:7-9, “I am the door. By Me, if any man enters in, He’ll go in and out and find pasture.” Verse 11, “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good shepherd lays His life for the sheep.” Verse 15, “Just as the Father knows Me, I know the Father, and I lay down My life for the sheep.” Last week we gave the illustration of the shepherd in some cases being a literal door; there was just an encasement, the sheep were in the fold, and the shepherd laid in the front in that space, so that the only way an enemy could get to the sheep would be over his dead body. We say how Jesus was the door. Verse 17, “For this reason, the Father loves Me; I lay down My life, so that I may take it back again.” So, one superlative reason for putting our faith in Christ is that, not only is He holding us, but He’s protecting us from any voice that is not His, from any enemy.
Last time we sort of closed with the different enemies that had to plow through Jesus to try to get to you; sinful man and sin, and the holy Law, and the character of God, and death and hell; He overcame everything because He loves you, because He loves Me. Romans 5:8, “God commanded it and demonstrates His love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The Shepherd gave His life for us when we were still sinners. Romans 5:10, “If while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” He gave His life as a Good Shepherd long before you knew Him, long before I knew Him. When you were separated by sin, when I was separated by sin, when we were His enemy, He loved us, and He gave Himself for us. So, that’s where I’d like to pick up this morning.
I want to return to that passage that calls attention to the shepherd laying down His life for the sheep. Verse 11, “I’m the Good Shepherd, and the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” Remember some time ago when we discussed what it means to be conformed to the Lord? When we see Him in a certain way, we need to become like Him. I called attention to the fact that if we saw Him as Lord, being conformed to Him doesn’t mean that now we’re like Him and we’re lords. Being conformed to Him as Lord makes us servants, bond slaves. When we saw Him as teacher, we didn’t become teachers; we became students. And when we saw the Lord as a loving Father, we just became obedient children. If you see the Lord by revelation as a potter, you don’t become a potter; you become pliable clay. So, I called attention to the fact that to see Him as a shepherd, we become sheep. In Psalm 23, that means that if I’m conformed to Him, I’m going to lay down in green pastures, and I’m going to be restored, and I’m not going to fear in the valley of the shadow of death; I’m going to have an environment of blessing and prosperity in the presence of my enemies, and on and on. That’s being conformed to Christ as the shepherd.
The reason I bring that up, we see the shepherd and we become the sheep, there are many revelations of the Lord in John 10. Some of them are in print, and some of them are implied. Here is what I mean. “I’m the Good Shepherd that lays down My life.” Well, in the balance of scripture, that was the sheep; He was the Lamb of God. In this chapter, it presents Christ as the Lamb very much as it presents Christ as the Shepherd. He’s the Lamb that’s become the sheep for us. It’s a very precious truth, that the Shepherd is also the Lamb.
I have in my Bible, I’ve printed out Psalm 23 this way. I’m going to read how it is in one of my Bibles…
“The Lamb is My Shepherd; I shall not want. The Lamb makes me lie down in green pastures. The Lamb leads me besides still waters. The Lamb restores my soul. The Lamb guides me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for the Lamb is with me. The Lamb’s rod and the Lamb’s staff, they comfort me. The Lamb prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies. The Lamb has anointed my head with oil, and my cup overflows. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lamb forever.”
The Shepherd is also the Lamb. Now, in John 10, the Shepherd is the Lamb for this life, but that truth goes into eternity. Listen to Revelation 7:17, “The Lamb in the center of the throne will be their Shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of the water of Life.” In John 10, the Shepherd is a Lamb; in eternity the Lamb becomes the Shepherd. It’s such a beautiful contrast. I didn’t want you to miss seeing the Lamb in John 10, just because the words are not there. So, it’s another powerful incentive to trust Him. We trust Him because He’s God’s gift to us, and we’re God’s gift to Him. We trust because we’re held so securely in Him and we are so safe. We trust Him because He’s the Door through which no enemy can pass to snatch us. There is every reason to trust Him.
Now I’d like to go to that third reason John wrote the gospel, in order that we might enjoy Him. What does John 10 reveal about the Shepherd that enables me to enjoy the Lord and to, basically, what John 10:10 says, “To have life, and have it more abundantly.” What is that abundant life? So, this morning we want to start to look at that. The Holy Spirit mentions a couple of things, but this morning I’m only have the time to look at the primary revelation of Christ as Shepherd that brings me into an enjoyment and an abundant life. So, we’ll spend the rest of the time just looking at that. John 10:10, “The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy; I came that they would have life, and have it abundantly.”
We’re going to be focused, almost the entire lesson, on verses 17&18, so keep that before your mind, please, “For this reason, the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life, so that I may take it back. No one takes it away from Me. I lay it down on My own; I have authority to lay it down; I have authority to take it back. This commandment I received from My Father.” Those two verses are an entire seminary course in theology. I don’t know any other two verses more crowded with doctrine. Unfortunately, my commentaries agree with me, and so, as I tried to study, that’s all I saw. All I saw was how much doctrine is crowded into these verses. If you analyze these verses, there are many questions that, really, are difficult and almost impossible to answer.
Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it’s legitimate to take apart every passage and look at every part of it and ask the Lord to teach us and show us truth, and reveal the Lord Jesus. But these two verses are so full and so rich and so fertile and they have such profound truth in them… I think you are familiar with the Latin expression, “Multum in parvo,” which means much in little, and there’s so much in this. Before I attempt to show you how this passage unlocks the secret of the abundant life, and show you how this passage is a passage that invites and entices you and draws you to enjoy Him, let me do some of the donkey work and look at some of this theology.
I’ll just raise some of the questions first. John 10:17&18, “For this reason the Father loves Me.” Did you ever think about that? Read the rest of the verse; is that why the Father loved Jesus? If that didn’t happen, wouldn’t He love Him? It’s something to ponder and to think about. The same verse says, “I lay down My life.” Now, what does that mean? Does it mean that He didn’t resist when others were taking His life? He had authority. Did He have authority to just die at will? We’ll look at that in another connection. In the same verse, “That I may take it again.” Did Jesus raise Himself from the dead? Are you going to do that after you die? “I lay it down on My own initiative.” How does that square with John 5:19, 5:36, 6:38, 8:28 and other verses which say, “I did nothing on My own initiative,” and now He’s doing this on His own initiative. John 8:28, “When you lift up the Son of Man you’ll know that I am and that I do nothing on My own initiative.” John 10:18, “This commandment I received from My Father.” What commandment was that? Read the verses; where is the commandment? Do you see what I’m saying? I’m just saying that there is a lot in this verse when you take it apart, and my commentaries delighted in doing that, chapter after chapter on these verses. So much theology.
This I gleaned from my commentaries. These are the theological things they said are in these verses: the eternal purpose of God, the Trinity, the sovereignty of God, the love of God, redemption, death and resurrection, free will, Christ as the last Adam and representative man, and let me add this, it’s also the doctrine of abundant life (they seem to not stress that). I’m not pretending that I have the answers to the questions raised in this passage; I don’t. I don’t think I have a tithe of the theology that’s suggested here. I know the big things. When I study this, I know Jesus is God. I know there is no controversy in the Godhead. I know that the love of God is the background of all of this, whatever it is, “For this reason the Father loves Me.” I know that it’s about the Good Shepherd laying down His life for the sheep. I know it begins with death and with resurrection. Those are big things. But as wonderful as all that sounds, if that’s all I have, and that’s all you have, you end, I think, with a cold, impersonal theology, a dead creed, and so what? If you see all that, so what? You say, “That’s fundamental truth.” Yes, it is; it’s orthodox. I have no doubt about that. It’s evangelical, absolutely. It’s sound and it’s pure and it’s scriptural, but it’s dead nonetheless. It doesn’t help me know Jesus; there’s nothing there from the theology point by itself. Thank God there’s more than theology in these two verses. May God help us see them! That’s what we want to look at. I know from conviction that when you put all of this together, we’ll have a little glimpse of what He meant when He said in verse 10, “I came that they might have life and that they might have life abundantly. May God open our hearts! Once again, we’re going to look at John 10:17&18.
Before I share that overriding principle that helps me enjoy the Lord, we don’t throw out theology; we don’t throw out sound doctrine and creed, but that is not the goal. That’s the point; it’s a by-product. If you ever substitute a goal for a by-product, you are going to lose the goal and the by-product. You’ve got to keep the by-products as by-products. Theology leads us to the goal, and the goal is ever, always, only the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the goal. So, I’m going to start with the by-product and show how that theology takes us to the goal. I’m going to mention from all of the theology three pertinent theological truths that take us to the goal—the Lord Jesus, abundant life, a great reason to enjoy Him.
The first theological fact is so simple. It’s in verse 18, “No one has taken it away from Me; I lay it down on My own. I have authority to lay it down.” I’m not the first, we’re not the first to ask the question, and of course, it’s just the theology, “Who killed Jesus?” A lot of people ask that question. Through the centuries there have been three basic answers, “The Romans killed Jesus. Pilate and Herod are the ones; they had the authority. The Jews didn’t have the authority. They had the authority and the will, so His death was an execution, even though it was viewed as a legal trial,” we’ll see that as we go through John, it was not.
The second answer is that the Jews killed Jesus, and not the Romans. There is scripture that they quote, 1 Thessalonians 2:14, “You’ve also endured the same suffering at the hand of your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us south.” Acts 2:23, “This man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to the cross by the hands of Godless men and put Him to death.” So, they say the Jews killed Jesus. In fact, they weren’t even ashamed to claim that honor. Matthew 27:25, “The people replied, ‘His blood be on us and our children.’” They were claiming that they killed Jesus.
Was it Rome? Was it the Jews, those who meditated on His death? Wait a minute, He died for sinners, so I killed Jesus and you killed Jesus and we all killed the Lord Jesus, since that’s the reason that He died. The gospel writers love to put that in poetry and you’ve got all these gospel songs and you hear the hammer in the background, banging the nails, and, “My sin killed Jesus.” Some who dive a little deeper say, “Well, the Father, God the Father killed Jesus.” Isaiah 53:10, “The Lord was pleased to crush Him.” John 10:18 says, “No one has taken it from Me; I lay it down on My own. I have authority to lay it down, and authority to take it back.”
What did Jesus mean when He said in verse 17, “I lay down My life.”? When He was on the cross, His final words, Luke 23:46, “Jesus crying out with a loud voice said, ‘Father, into Your hands I commit/entrust My spirit.’ Having said this, He died.” Matthews says, “He yielded up His spirit.” John says, “He gave us His spirit.” In what sense did Jesus give up His spirit, “Into Thy hands I commit My spirit.”? James 2:26 describes death, “Just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead.” Of course, the emphasis of that chapter, he’s talking about faith without works, but his illustration is the body without the spirit is dead. No matter what medical technology says, somebody is dead when the heart stops or someone is dead when the brain waves stop, the Bible tells us when someone dies; it’s when the spirit leaves the body. You can’t measure that but that’s when somebody dies.
Let me ask you this question. Is anyone in this room able by an act of the will to give up their spirit and say, “I think I’ll die right now,” and release their spirit? I know you can commit suicide. I’m not talking about that, but I’m talking about the idea that I have authority over my spirit, and I will let it go at my pleasure at the time of my choosing. Ecclesiastes 8:8, “No one has authority over the wind, the spirit, to restrain the wind, nor authority over the day of death.” There’s no military discharge in the time of war; we can’t do that. The moment of our death, we don’t decide that. When Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration, He was talking to Moses and Elijah, Luke 9:31, and it tells us what they were talking about, “They were talking about the departure, His death, that He was about to accomplish.” Jesus accomplished death.
Now, some of you know that I have had some heart problems. If I suddenly toppled over here and just was dead, I don’t think anybody would say, “Oh, look, Ed just accomplished death.” You would say, “He succumbed to death,” but I sure didn’t accomplish death, but Jesus did, and that’s the theology of this first part, “I have authority to lay down My life; no man takes it from Me.” It wasn’t an execution, it wasn’t murder. At the appointed moment Jesus released His spirit to His holy Father God. You and I can’t do that. Hold that because that becomes important. That’s the first theological point.
The second is from the end of the verse 18, “I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it back again.” He laid down His life in a way that you can’t lay down yours, and He authority to take it back. Did He raise Himself from the dead? John 10:17, “For this reason, the Father loves Me; I lay down My life, that I may take it again.” Verse 18, “I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.” Did Jesus raise Himself from the dead? It sounds like it, if that’s all the verse you had, but if you put it with Acts 2:24, “God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death.” And Acts 2:32, “This Jesus God raised up, to which we are all witnesses.” So, you say that it looks like God the Father raised Him from the dead. Well, that’s until you read John 6:63, “It’s the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.” Romans 8:11, “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal body.” Who raised Jesus from the dead? Was it God the Father? Was it Jesus Himself? Was it the Holy Spirit? The answer is yes; yes, it was the Trinity; it was God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
When we get to John 14, we’re going to talk about who lives in your heart. Is it Jesus? Is it the Holy Spirit? Is it God the Father? “We will come and make our abode with you.” Yes, the Trinity lives in your heart and lives in my heart; that’s how it was at creation. We read that God created the heavens and the earth, but then when we come to John 1, it says, “All things were made by Him, the Word, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” So, God did it, but He used God the Son. I think you are familiar with the fact that the word “spirit” and “breath” and “wind” are all of the same, and so creation, God spoke, and used the Word, Jesus, and breathed into Him the breath of life; the Trinity created this universe, the Trinity raised Jesus from the dead. That’s a very important principle because it begins with something you can’t do. You can’t die like He died, and you can’t raise yourself from the dead, and we’re getting pretty close to something that’s very vital, because I can’t live the Christian life unless I die, and unless I rise again. In accordance to this verse, those are two things that only one Person could do, and it’s a very important principle.
Okay, let’s bring it back into focus. We’re trying to answer the question, “How does the revelation of the Lord Jesus as Shepherd cause me to delight in Him?” We’re underscoring these three truths. We looked at the first; Jesus gave His life. We looked at the second, “Jesus raised Himself.” And now the third is not stated in the verse but it’s pictured there, and I’m going to state it up front and then validate it from the balance of scripture and we’ll see how this ties in. The doctrine can be stated in these words, “By the miracle of incarnation, Jesus the God-Man, lived as God created man to live.” He was our representative, and He lived in our place, as our substitute, as God intended man to live. If you study Romans 5, you’ll see a tremendous contrast between Adam and Jesus. In fact, that same name was given; Jesus is called “Adam”. 1 Corinthians 15:45, “It’s written that the first man, Adam, became a living soul, and the last Adam became a life giving spirit.” It doesn’t say that Jesus is the second Adam, because second implies third, and third implies fourth, and so on. He’s the last Adam. There’s only two Adams, and they’re both representing the whole race, and the first Adam messed it up, and so God sent a second Adam. 1 Corinthians 15:47, “The first man,” that’s Adam, “is from earth, earthy, and the second man is from heaven.” Jesus is called the second man. Now, you’ve got four thousand years between Adam and the incarnation, and He’s the second man. I say, “Well, after Adam there were a lot of men that were born.” No, not as God intended man to live. There’s only one, and it’s the Lord Jesus. Adam represented the race and failed; Jesus representing the race was victorious.
I don’t want this to get into a theology lesson, but it is beautifully illustrated in Philippians 2:6&7, “Although He existed in the form of God, He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, being made in the likeness of men.” By an act of His will, Jesus laid aside who He was by nature; He laid aside all the prerogative of the Godhead. That doesn’t mean He wasn’t God; it means that He didn’t use the Godhead for Himself. And then He adds, “And He thought it not robbery to be equal with God; He didn’t grasp at it.” There was no time in His life when He said, “I laid that aside who I was by nature, but I think I could use a little of it, now.” He never did that.
And the third thing is that He constantly depended on the One who was living inside Him, God the Father. Philippians 2:8, “Found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.” 1 Peter 2:23 ends with these words, “He uttered no threats while suffering, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously.” How does God intend for man to live? He intends that man lay aside who he is by nature, and determine never to go after that again, and trust the One living inside of him for everything, and that’s what Jesus did. John 10:14, “Do you not believe that I’m in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative; the Father abiding in Me does His work.” We’re going to come into that a little further in John 10, but Jesus always depended on the indwelling Father. He said, “I do nothing; the words you hear are His words. The miracles you see are His miracles. Everything I do He tells Me. He tells Me when to go, He tells Me when to stay, He tells Me what to do; I live in total dependence on the indwelling Father who lives in Me. That’s how God intended man to live. After it was all done, He commissioned His sheep. John 20:21, “Jesus said to them, ‘Peace be with you; as the Father sent Me, I also send you.’” John 6:57, “As the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so He who eats Me will live because of Me.” We are called to live as God intended men to live; we’re called to lay aside who we are by nature. We are called never to grasp at it again under any circumstances, and we are called to live 100% dependent on the indwelling life of the Lord who lives inside of us. That’s the Christian life as God intended it to be.
Now, let’s go back to the passage. John 10:18, “No one has taken it away from Me; I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it back again.” When we looked at the theology of it, I pointed out this passage begins with dying, and it ends with living, with resurrection life, and I pointed out that the way that passage is written, the dying, you can’t do it that way, and the living, you can’t do it that way, and I can’t do it that way. Every time you talk to somebody about the Christian life, “Describe the Christian life,” almost always they will include the terminal points of that passage. “The Christian life, you’ve got to die to self. The Christian life you’ve got to rise again and live the risen life.” Both are impossible; you can’t die to self, and you can’t raise yourself from the dead, and that’s why so many Christians are beating their heads against the wall; they’re trying and struggling to live the Christian life, and they’re frustrated and defeated because they’re trying to be the third man. There’s only two men. There’s only one Person who has every lived the Christian life as God intended it to be lived, and His name is Jesus. And there’s only one Person who can ever live the Christian life again, and His name is Jesus. He has not called me to live the Christian life. He has called me to lay aside who I am by nature and never grasp at it again, and depend 100% on the indwelling life of God, and allow Him to live. My part is to manifest the life that’s in me. Romans 5:19, “As to one man’s disobedience,” representing the race, “many were made sinners. Even so, through the obedience of the one, many will be made righteous.” I can’t obey the Lord. I’ve got to die, and I’ve got to rise again.
I’ll share a little of my testimony. I think some of you have heard it before, and I apologize for repeating it, but it was such a struggle for me for many years. I was taught that the secret of the Christian life is surrender, and that I had to surrender more, and when I came weeping back and I had failed, they said, “You are holding something back. You need to surrender more.” I went through a series, my poor Lillian had to put up with it, that I surrendered my guts out. I couldn’t surrender any more. I started with my family; I surrendered my wife, I surrendered my kids, I surrendered all of my grandkids (at that time I didn’t have great grandkids), but surrendered it all. Some of you have seen the library that the Lord gave me; it’s huge. I went through every book and surrendered every book one at a time. I gave them to the Lord. Then I went out and sinned again, and the indwelling corruption and thoughts, “What’s wrong; I can’t surrender any more.” So then, I surrendered my body. I started what they call my brain and I gave Him my eyes and I gave Him my ears and gave Him my mouth and I gave Him my hands and I gave Him my feet.
The Lord actually opened the door for me when I was studying Leviticus 14:19&20, this great truth from the Old Testament… If I sinned in the Old Testament, I had to bring my sacrifice, but I couldn’t lay it on the altar. I had to give it to the priest, and the priest had to lay it on the altar. I got so frustrated trying to surrender, and I saw that verse, and I said, “Lord, if that’s true, You are my priest; I give you my life; You surrender it because I can’t,” and He did, and it’s not been a problem since. I’m surrendered by faith because He surrendered me.
The whole point I’m trying to show you is that I can’t die to self, and I can’t surrender, I can’t obey the Lord, and that’s why we read in Romans 5:19, “As through this one man’s disobedience, many were made righteous, even so through the obedience of the One, the many will be made righteous.” Only He can delight in the Law of God. He lays down my life, and He takes it again. Now, the duty of living a Christian life as God intended, that’s mine; the responsibility is mine. I’m responsible to live as God intended men to live. The duty is mine but the power is not mine. The duty is mine, but the enablement is not mine. Romans 10:4, “Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness, for everyone who believes.” Unless He keeps the Law, it won’t be kept. Go up to the most uninstructed Christian and say, “Do you believe Jesus is your substitute?” They’ll say, “Yes, yes, on the cross He died in my place.” That’s only half the truth. Romans 5:10, “If while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” It’s His life that saves me now. He was not only my substitute on the cross, He’s my substitute now; He wants to live for me. People think, “God has called me to live for Jesus.” No, He hasn’t! Let Jesus live for Himself. He wants to live, and He wants to live in you. He wants to live, and He wants to live in me. He was my substitute on the cross, praise God, but He’s now my substitute in life. That’s what we call the exchanged life; it’s not my life. It’s His life; He died in my place, and now He lives in my place.
The question is, “Am I required to live a holy life of obedience?” The answer is, “Yes, yes, yes; you are required,” but has God made provision for that to take place? And the answer is again, “Yes, yes; it’s the life of Christ in you and through you.” That’s the provision God has made, the indwelling life of Christ. So, how does that reveal Jesus as Shepherd in terms of me delighting in Him? I’ll tell you, you weren’t in my shoes; if you had seen the struggle I went through trying to be a good Christian and I wanted so much to honor the Lord and to please the Lord, and I failed at every turn. I kept failing. I would confess, and then repent, and then come back, and then get revived, and then peter out again, and then fall and come back. My whole life was not Shepherd leading in and out; it was up and down, and I was always vacillating.
I’ll tell you; I don’t struggle to obey the Lord anymore. “Why? Because you are such an obedient Christian?” No, it’s because I’m not in the picture. I’m dead, and He lives in my place and He’s doing it, and I don’t have that struggle, that Christless struggle that I had for so long. If I would just let Him live, because if you say, “He’s just going to live in you and give you the strength to live right,” no, no, no; that’s improving you, and the flesh cannot be improved, “That which is flesh is flesh,” and it will always be flesh, and you will never improve. You are no more closer in the flesh to be a Christian than the day you got saved, even if it was fifty or sixty years ago. You don’t improve and you can’t improve. He doesn’t want you to improve. He wants you to die; He wants you crucified. That’s why we read, and we’ll close with this, Galatians 2:20, “I’m crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
So, being released from the burden of trying to be a Christian, He said that His yoke is easy and His burden is light, but not for me; His yoke was tough and His burden was heavy. It’s not heavy anymore. It’s light now because He lives in me. So, we’ll close with that. Next week we’ll not meet, and I pray that you’ll have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Adjust your calendars so we can have that fellowship dinner. Let’s pray together.
Our Heavenly Father, thank You so much for Your Truth, not what we think it might mean but for what You’ve revealed it to mean. Thank You for dying the death that we could not die and living the life that we could not live, and then being willing to be our substitute, our indwelling God. Oh Lord, we want to lay aside who we are, by Your grace. We want by Your grace never to grasp at it again, and by Your grace we want to trust in You forever. Thank You, Lord, for this abundant life. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
