John Message #36 “Enjoy Him” Ed Miller, Dec. 4, 2024
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Listen to the audio above while following along below in the transcript which is also available for download at www.biblestudyministriesinc.com
Before we look in the word, I’d like to give this, Proverbs 18:2, “A fool does not delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own mind.” I’ve been praying that I wouldn’t be a fool because I’m not here to reveal my own mind and give you what I think. My prayer is, of course, that you’ll hear from the Lord, and anything that you hear that is not from Him, scrap it. So, let’s bow together and commit our time to the Lord.
Heavenly Father, we thank You that You have promised that Your sheep would hear Your voice, and we just thank You that we can trust the indwelling Holy Spirit, the Life of God who lives inside of us, and we just ask You, Lord, now to direct our hearts, our spirits, that we might behold the Lord Jesus again in a fresh way. We thank You, Lord, that we don’t deserve it, but You do, and so we come claiming it in Your matchless name. Amen.
Welcome back to our precious gathering at Maryland Bethany. I hope you all had a refreshing time at Thanksgiving. I know for us it was wonderful because we got to see family we hadn’t seen in years, and it’s sort of a preparation because I guess we’re going to be inundated again at Christmas. So, we’ll get to see the family. It was a wonderful time in the Lord. As we get closer and closer to the New Year, as far as this gathering is concerned, nothing changes, week after week and month after month, year after year we gather for the same wonderful purpose, and that is to hear from the Lord, to behold the Lord; we want to see our Lord Jesus. So, we gather to behold Him. The Holy Spirit promised that He would be in us and reveal Christ to us. Listen to John 14:19&20, “After a little while, the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live, also. In that day,” that’s when the Holy Spirit comes, “you will know that I am in My Father and you in Me and I in You.” So, we study the Bible in order to know the Lord.
Let me bring you back to John where we left off. We begin, of course, with the theme of the whole book, John 20:30&31, “These things have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you might have life in His name.” We broke that down into principles. John wrote that we might know the Lord Jesus more intimately. John wrote that we might trust the Lord more completely, and he wrote that we might enjoy the Lord and experience life and life more abundantly.
Let me summarize where we left off, and then we’ll pick it up. John 10:18, Jesus speaking about Himself, He says, “No one has taken it away from Me,” that’s His life. “I lay it down on My own initiative; I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it again. This commandment I’ve received from My Father.” You notice that verse begins with death. He said, “I have authority to lay My life down.” It ends with resurrection, “I have authority to take it back again.” For Jesus, dying was a miracle. He gave His life; He released His spirit. You and I can’t do that. We can’t just decide, “I’m going to die right now and just let my spirit go.” We can’t do that. That’s how He died. And then, we can’t raise ourselves from the dead.
I call attention to that because He is describing the Christian life, and it begins with our death, and it ends with our resurrection. For the Lord, that was a miracle. The abundant life is pictured in that. I’m almost certain if I were to ask the most uninstructed Christian to describe the Christian life, they would include those two things – that, and resurrection. If you really are going to be a Christian, you are going to have to die to self; you are going to have to die to ego and so on. They might express it differently. They might say, “The Christian life is full surrender or a living sacrifice or a life of dedication to the Lord,” but it all amounts to that I have to die to who I am. Just so, they continue, “If you are going to live the Christian life, you don’t only have to die to who you are, but then you have to be raised up to live in the power of the risen life; you have to live a resurrection life. You are dead to self but you are alive unto God.” I don’t think any Christian would deny that that is a good picture of the Christian life – I’m dead to myself and alive to the Lord and that’s what the Christian life is.
Well, that’s why we have this passage, because I know the Christian life is for me to die, but I can’t. I want to die to myself, but I can’t. I want to live a risen life, but I find that it’s impossible to live a Christian life. I’ll tell you, from my own testimony, I’ve tried. I thought, “I’m going to be the best Christian He ever saved, and I’m going to witness every day,” and all that kind of thing, and try to obey the Lord. My life was up and down, and I fell and then I repented and I came back. It was just a life of bondage; it was a terrible Christian life.
I need to die to self, and I need to live unto God, and this chapter tells you how and how that can happen. Last time we went through the fact that Jesus is called the “last Adam” and the “second man”. In other words, Jesus came to live the Christian life as God intended man to live it. I can’t live it and you can’t live it; Jesus lived the Christian life as God intended to live it, and He lived it as your representative, and as my representative. He did it in my place. At all times He pleased the Father. Brothers and sisters in Christ, ask God to burn this reality deeply into your spirit. Jesus was the only One who ever lived the Christian life and He’s the only One that can ever live it again. The Christian life is Christ living in me, Christ living in you. I want to live the Christian life, but it’s not possible for me.
Is it my responsibility? Am I required, as a Christian, to live a holy life and to keep the Law? Is it my responsibility to have victory every day over sin, over the world, over the flesh, over the devil? Is it my duty and my responsibility? The answer is that without qualification, “Yes, it’s my responsibility to live the Christian life, but although it’s my duty, I have no power. And though it’s your responsibility, you have no power.” God has made a provision in our Lord Jesus Christ that we can live the Christian life, enjoy the abundant life by allowing Christ to live in our place. It’s a life changing experience when God reveals to you that it takes God to be man, and it takes God to be woman, and it takes God to be the Person that God created you to be, and created me to be. It takes God to be the husband that God intends. It take God to be the wife that God intends. It take God to be the child that God intended you to be, and the parent, and the grandparent. It takes God to be the neighbor that He wants you to be, and the friend that He wants you to be, and the brother and the sister in Christ that He wants us to be. If you have privilege to teach, you need the Lord to be the elder, to be the teacher that God wants you to be, to be the servant that God wants you to be.
Jesus died on the cross as my substitute. Almost every Christian gets that, but this is the part they get hung up on. He now lives to be my substitute. He not only died to be my substitute, He lives. Listen to Romans 5:10, “If while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son,” that is that He died to be my substitute, “much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” By His death, He saved me; by His life He is saving me. Day by day we live by the life of Christ. Some people say, “The Christian life is easy.” They’ve never learned the Christian life; it’s not easy. They say, “The Christian life is hard.” No, they don’t know what they’re talking about either. The Christian life is not easy, and it’s not hard; the Christian life is impossible, and that’s why we have the Lord Jesus, because He wants to live as a mirror in our lives.
He enables me to die, because He died by a miracle, and He enables me to live, because He lived by a miracle, and He becomes a picture, a substitute, and this is the way God created us to live. My part is not struggling and straining and striving to live a good Christian life and walking on eggshells and continually failing and confessing, back and forth. That’s not the point. Listen to Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” That’s why I say that the revelation of the shepherd here enables me to enjoy the Lord, because it took the burden off my shoulders. When He was born, we had the prophesy that the government would be on His shoulders. It’s His responsibility; that’s what makes the Christian life; His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. When He lives, not when I live or try to live, but when He lives. Romans 6:11, “So, consider yourself dead to sin, but alive to God in Jesus Christ.” That’s where we left off last time, the truth of the exchanged life.
I’m going to give you another illustration. John 10:4, “When He puts forth His own sheep, He goes ahead of them. The sheep follow Him because they know His voice.” If you are studying in the whole Bible, “What is the voice of God?” you are going to have a lot of different answers. He speaks through nature, He speaks through Christians, He speaks through trials, He speaks through many, many things, but in the context for the sheep, the sheep hearing the voice simply means that they know who the shepherd is. That’s how it’s used, that, “My sheep know My voice.” They don’t understand what He’s saying, and they don’t understand the message. That’s not in the context. It’s just that, “I’ve got to know who is speaking.” Let me jump ahead. We’ll come to this when we come to chapter 15, but it’s a great illustration of staying in the context.
I think you know that chapter 15 gives the parable of the vine and the branches, and I think you are familiar with the fact that the main teaching of the vine and the branches is fruit bearing through abiding in the Lord; if I abide in Jesus, I can bring forth fruit. That’s the message. Well, some people come to verse 6, “If anyone does not abide in Me, he’s thrown away as the branch and dries up, and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they’re burned. Some say, “Well now, there’s a verse that says that you can lose your salvation, because you were once a branch, and you were in the vine, and you didn’t bear fruit, He cut you off, and He bound you up and you are going to end up in the fire.” The thing that’s wrong with that is that it leaves the context. The context is not talking about eternal destiny and where you are going to go after you die. It’s talking about how to bear fruit by abiding in Jesus. That verse is simply saying, in the context, “Anybody that does not abide in Christ as far as fruit bearing is concerned, is worthless, and they’re like a branch that is bound up and thrown into the fire.” You’ve got to keep it in the message of that parable, and that is that’s it’s worthless as far as fruit bearing is concerned. It has nothing to do with eternal destiny.
John 10:4, “They know His voice.” Every day is the day of salvation, and they’re going in and out, and the sheep are led out of the safety of the fold into the world where there are dangers, and there are troubles and there are tests and there are snares and pitfalls, and so on, and they’ve got to depend upon the shepherd to protect them, and provide for them. The sheep don’t know the path of righteousness; the shepherd has to lead them on that path. The sheep don’t know which watering hole is safe; that might be polluted. The shepherd has to lead them to the watering hole. They don’t know which pasture is going to nourish them the best. They’ve got to trust the shepherd to do that. There might be an attack during the day, and the sheep have to trust the shepherd to use His staff and His rod, and they’re comforted because the shepherd is there protecting them. Sometimes they are led into an environment of enemies; you’ve seen that in your life where all of a sudden you find yourself in a place, and there is only unbelievers. The sheep have to trust the Lord to prepare a table in the presence of the enemy. Do you see what I’m saying? It’s all about being saved every day. He’s watching over you and He’s protecting you. The Good Shepherd once saved us when He laid down His life, but now we’re being saved by His life, Romans 5:10, “For 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.”
I want to revisit verse 9, “I am the door and if anyone enters through Me he’ll be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” The more we meditate on this, the more we see that it sheds light on what we call “abundant life”. Here’s how I’d like to look at verse 9. First of all, I want to meditate on the word “door” as I tried to meditate on the word “saved”. Secondly, I want to mediate on “in and out”. What does it mean that they go in, and what does it mean that they come out? Then, I’d like to meditate on pasture. What is the pasture? They go in and out to find pasture. In other words, we’re just taking that verse apart, step by step. Again, it’s all an expansion, nothing new; it’s the exchanged life; it’s this life of Christ living in my place.
Let’s begin in John 10:1, “Truly, truly, I say to you, ‘He who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, climbs up another way, is a thief and a robber.’” Verse 7, “Jesus said to them again, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, “I am the door of the sheep.”” Verse 9, “I am the door. If anyone enters through Me, he’ll be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” I’m taking time to remind you that in this parable, or this allegory, this figure of speech, Jesus identifies Himself as the door. So, when the sheep go in, they are going in through the door, and when they come out, they’re coming out through the door. They’re going in through Jesus, and they are coming out through Jesus. So, whether they’re coming in or coming out, it’s always through Jesus. There are other things in this chapter, but now He’s the door. We need to start with that truth. If we’re going to illustrate the life that is abundant in Christ, it always begins with union with the shepherd. That’s the whole life of the sheep; in and out through Jesus, and then the shepherd leading them all along the way. I think it will make more sense as we go through this.
What’s pictured by going in? The sheep have to go in. I think in the context, at the end of the day, the shepherd would lead them into the sheepfold. That’s the in; they’re going in for the night. They’ve had their day of activity and they’re going in for the night. I showed you in another connection how sometimes the fold is corporate, many sheep flocked, and sometimes it’s individual, but the whole point is, going in is going in to rest. It’s time to go to bed; the day is over. There’s a time to come in from all the activities of life; you come in, and finally the day is over, the work is over, and I can rest, and I can lay down, and I can get rejuvenated. That’s what I understand by “in”.
When the sun comes up, it’s a new day, “Good morning! Wake up!” Now it’s time to go out, and you go out into the world. So, the shepherd calls His sheep by name, and He says, “Alright, let’s go experience life out there.” And so, there is in and out. John 10:3&4, “To Him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear His voice, and He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out. When He puts forth His own sheep, He goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow Him because they know His voice.” So, when the morning comes, the rest is over, it’s time now to go out for activity, for nourishment, for expansion, for growth, for development. It’s in the fold at night, and it’s in the world in the morning; in and out.
Some Christians are all about in, “I like that part; I want to go in and rest, and I want to be with other Christians, and be with the flock, and all I care about is rest, rest, rest in the Lord.” There are some Christians that are all about out. They don’t really care about resting in the Lord; they just want to be out in the world and out in the struggle and out in the fight, “God has called us to be active, so let’s go outside there where the enemies are and where the dangers are and where the snares are. The Shepherd is going to be with us and He’ll protect us, but let’s live out there. But there’s a process, and there’s in and out, and He wants you to come in and rest, and He wants you to go out and work. He’s going to do it all; it’s in through the Shepherd and out through the door. It’s all about the Lord Jesus, but it’s a process. It’s not like, “I came through the door in 1958 and I got saved. I’m done.” No, I’ve got to go out. It’s a process in my life.
I told you that the “in” is the safety of the flock in the fold, the place of rest, renewal, where you can get rejuvenated. I find the older I get, the more rest I need. A nap is my favorite indoor sport these days. It’s easy to be applied spiritually because rest is a picture of our experience with the Lord, in the place of rest and safety. For me, when I’m meditating, when I’m studying, when I’m focused on the Lord, a sweet time of meditation, it’s the interior life; it’s the root system and it’s me and Jesus. The “in” is a wonderful, wonderful place.
I don’t know if you are in habit of being in fellowship with the Lord, but I think, even today for some people, there’s no room in the inn. We’ve got to get into the inn and take time to meditate with the Lord, but we can’t meditate forever. It’s not just focusing and meditating forever. The morning is going to come, and it’s time to go out. I think most of us are familiar with Austin Miles’ gospel song, “In the Garden”, “I come to the garden alone.”? In a sense, it could be, “I come to the sheepfold, because that’s the place of rest where He talks with me and He walks with me and I hear His voice, and it’s sweeter than the birds.” But in the last verse, it says, “I’d stay in the garden with Him, though the night around me be falling, but He bids me go through the voice of woe; His voice to me is calling.” There is a time in the fold where you are just enjoying the Lord, but then we’ve got to go out, a time to follow the Shepherd.
I can understand when Peter was on the transfiguration, “Let’s build three tabernacles.” Of course, the Bible tells us why he said that. He said it because he didn’t know what he was talking about. I understand why he wants to stay on the mountain, but there’s a demon possessed person down below that needs some help, and so we can’t stay there. I think Paul would have loved to stay in the third heaven, but he had to come down and get a thorn in the flesh to keep him from pride, and so on. So, there’s an “in” and there’s an “out”. We go in through Jesus and we go out, and now the sheep are going out and their going to find guidance and restoration and revival and provision and protection, and so on. Whether we go in, it’s through Jesus, and out it’s through Jesus, and now we’re going out to be saved by His Life. This is written so that we might enjoy the Lord, so that we might experience Life in His name.
Using this imagery, the sheep come in at night and go out in the morning, just picture your everyday life. It’s like my everyday life. Night is wonderful. That’s one of the things that bothered me when I was studying about heaven, that there is no night there. I didn’t like that; I’m going to miss it. I know better, of course. But you rest at night and you rise in the morning, and you face a new day.
I want to focus on the “out”. I’ve been resting when I go to bed at night and I meditate on the Lord and I study a little bit, and I most of the time go to bed with a book on my chest and fall asleep that way. Anyway, we’ve been resting, and now it’s time to face the day. John 10:3&4, “He calls His own sheep by name and He leads them out, and He goes before them, and His sheep follow Him.” The sheep are basically in the dark about the day that’s in front of them. They have no clue where the shepherd is going to go. They have no clue what road, they’ll know it’s a road of righteousness, but they don’t know the road, the path, and they don’t know what stream and what watering hole and what pasture. He is the Shepherd, and the sheep really don’t have an agenda. The Shepherd has an agenda, and the sheep are now going out to follow the Shepherd and His agenda. There’s no fear for the sheep because they’re going to be led, “Where will He lead me today?” The Shepherd comes and calls them by name, and says, “Alright, you’ve had your rest, let’s go. Now we’re going out through the door. You are going to start the day with Jesus. You are going out into the world. What does the day hold?
I’m going to give a little bit of my testimony. Lillian can verify it. God has begun to dawn this reality on my heart, especially now. I think God deals in nature in seasons, and He deals in life in seasons. Seasons come and seasons go in your life, and there are transitions to seasons. I’ve been through seasons. I’ve been through rest, and I’ve been through liberty, and I’ve been through union, and I’ve been through prayer, and I’ve been through the exchanged life. If I could name the season in my life now, it would be excitement. I’ve never been more excited as a Christian. As I get older, as I get weaker, and as my mind begins to fade away and my memory and energy is gone, I actually wake up giddy in the morning, because I’m saying, “Alright, Lord, You live inside of me, and your instrument is getting more frail every day, what does this day hold?” To me that is so exciting. I have no clue, and I don’t know what path. I know it will be a path of righteousness, and I’ll have to make some decisions, and I’m not going to compromise, and I don’t know what watering hole, but I’m trusting it will be safe. I may need chastening today, His rod and His staff. I may need protection, His rod and His staff. It may be a day that I’ll have to walk down a dark valley in the shadow of death. I have no clue. It doesn’t matter, because He is with me.
You see, this sheep and Shepherd thing is just a picture of the Christian life. I don’t know where the day is going to end. Today, am I going to end up in the hospital? The nursing home? The morgue? It doesn’t matter; He’s the Shepherd, and we are the sheep. We don’t have an agenda. I’m not saying to not make plans. Paul made plans. A couple of times he got accused because he had to change his plans. He’s following the Shepherd, and he got accused, “Oh, you are just back and forth. You promised you were coming, and you didn’t come.” The Shepherd went another way, and I have no other choice; I’ve got to follow the Shepherd. We have an agenda. Paul said, “I’m going to go to Spain.” Did he ever go? No. We can make plans, but in the Lord, we’re going to follow the Shepherd. So, I don’t know where the day is going to end. He might lead me to an environment where there’s all enemies. I’m going to have a table there in the presence of mine enemies. It just doesn’t matter. The day must start with Jesus, and the day must end with Jesus. I go in through Jesus, and I come out through Jesus, and I follow Jesus the whole day long. It’s all about the Lord.
I related this at one time to the “inside the veil and outside the camp”. Inside the veil is like inside the fold. We’re safe; I’m in heaven with Jesus, and I’m seated with Him; I’m in the veil, but then there’s outside the camp, and that’s rough out there. And every day is outside the camp, so we better let God teach us Hebrews 13:13, “Let us, therefore, go to Him outside the camp.” It’s not just going outside the camp. It’s to Him. A glorious day is coming, and for some us it’s sooner, nobody knows. My mother-in-law used to always say, as she got more frail and she was getting weak, “I’ve looked all over my body, and I can’t find an expiration date.” We don’t know; the Lord knows all about that. A glorious day is coming, and it’s mentioned in Psalm 121:8, “The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever.” There is going to be a final going out, and there’s going to be a final coming in, into glory, and that day is coming. We don’t know when, but we’re going to follow the Shepherd all the way.
Once again, let’s go outside the camp to Him. We talked about in and out. What’s pasture? We go in and out to find pasture. He’s the door, and I go in through Him. He’s the door and I come out through Him. He’s the Shepherd, and He guides me all the way, and now define pasture. I think I’ve illustrated this before. Often, we get what is called “putting the cart before the horse”. So, when you’re focused on Christ, there are some people that chase the will of God, “I’ve got to find the will of God.” The will of God is not a goal; it’s the God whose will it is. If you have the God whose will it is, you are not going to miss the will of God. It isn’t guidance, “I need guidance.” No, you need the Guider; follow the Guide and you are going to have guidance. Some people are Bible centered, “Oh, the Bible, the Bible, the Bible.” It’s not the Book of God; it’s the God whose Book it is. It’s not the children of God; it’s the God whose children they are. We’re going to enter into what it means to be body; it’s got to be focused on the Lord. It’s not the blessings. It’s the Blesser; it’s the One who blesses. It’s not the healing; it’s the Healer; it’s the One who does the healing. It’s not the gift; it’s the Giver. Some people say, “There’s power in prayer. There’s no power in prayer. There’s power in the God you prayed to. That’s a different thing altogether, but it’s to be Christ-centered. It’s not faith; we don’t have faith in faith; we have faith in Christ, the object of our faith. So, now here, the sheep are going in to find rest and out/activity, and they’re going to find out there the green pastures and quiet waters and restoration and security and nourishment and fulfillment and protection, and all the rest, but those are the gifts.
This chapter is so tremendous because Jesus is the Good Shepherd. You keep reading; Jesus is the door. You keep reading; Jesus is the Porter/Doorkeeper. You keep reading; Jesus is the sheepfold. You keep reading; Jesus is the lamb. You keep reading; Jesus is now the pasture. In other words, He’s leading us out to find provision and nourishment and rest. It’s not provision, nourishment and rest; it’s the One who gives provision and nourishment and rest and protection and all the rest. That’s guidance and security, He’s the Giver of that.
I think it’s safe to say that one of, I can’t say exactly, the greatest books on union with Jesus in the Old Testament is the Song of Solomon. The reason why I can’t say that’s the best is because of the book of Psalms. Anyway, Song of Solomon actually is a story, a love story on earth to picture our union with the Groom. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed how the Song of Solomon opens; it opens with the story of the shepherd and the sheep; that’s how it begins. The would-be bride in the Song has two questions. Song 1:7, “Tell me, oh you whom my soul loves, where do you pasture your flock; where do you make it lie down at noon?” She’s crying out and asking her lover, “Where do you pasture your flock; I want nourishment and where you let it lay down, I want rest.” Nourishment, “I want food, I want rest.” She discovers it in her groom; her groom became the pasture. So, it is here referring to Jesus as the pasture of the sheep. That’s true in the balance of scripture. This doesn’t contradict John 6:35, “I am the bread of life; he that comes to me shall never hunger. He that believes in me will never thirst.” He’s the food of life and He’s the drink of life and He’s the pasture and He’s where we get fed. So, in this wonderful chapter, we’re seeing that it’s Jesus. It’s Christ every day, and morning and night, rest, activity, conflict, and it’s all about Jesus.
When I was at Columbia Bible College we had a brother who was from the Open Air Campaign, and he was one of the instructors named Bron Carlysle from News Zealand. I loved his accent. He taught us a little chorus. I asked Lillian if she would sing this with me and she said that she wouldn’t, so I’m not going to sing it. I’m just going to recite it. “Under the blood of Jesus, safe in the Shepherd’s fold, under the blood of Jesus, safe while the ages roll, safe though the worlds may crumble, safe though the stars grow dim, under the blood of Jesus I am secure in the end.” That’s a wonderful chorus.
Anyway, as we get ready to wrap up, I want to get to the next part. The Shepherd/sheep; set that aside, the first thirty verses, and now there’s a break you’ll notice in verse 22. “At that time the feast of dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking through the temple at the portico of Solomon.” Verse 39 at the end, of course, they’re rejecting again, “They were seeking again to seize Him, and He alluded their grasp.” Look again at verse 22&23, “It was the time when the Feast of Dedication took place, and it was winter.”
Let’s begin with what was the Feast of Dedication? First I’ll ask if it was commanded in the Old Testament or anywhere in the Bible to keep this Feast of Dedication? I’m going to save you all a lot of work and a lot of research. It’s not commanded anywhere in the Bible. You don’t read about it except here in the Bible. Let me give you the next fact; nobody knows what the Feast of Dedication was. There are guesses. Some say it was the dedication of Solomon’s temple. Others say that it was the dedication of Zerubbabel’s temple in the restoration. Others say, “No, it happened between the Old Testament and the New Testament and there was conflict, and a man named Judas Maccabee came and cleansed the temple because it had been violated; somebody offered a pig on the altar, so they dedicated it anew.” It’s not the feast that’s important; it’s the conversation that took place at this feast. So, I’m just saving you some time; don’t try to look at what the feast was because you aren’t going to find out.
A discourse took place between Jesus and unbelieving Jews. How do I know they aren’t Christian Jews? John 10:24, “The Jews then gathered around Him and were saying, ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us finally who are You?’” Verse 26, “You do not believe because you are not of my sheep.” That’s how I know they weren’t Christians, because Jesus said so. We want to look at the discourse, the conversation that took place at this feast. The theme, I think, is in verse 25, “Jesus answered, ‘I told you; you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me.’” They keep saying, “Who are You?” and He said, “That’s not really what you are upset about. You are not upset about who I am; you are upset about the One I said lives inside of Me.” That’s who you are upset about. What we have in this discourse is the relationship of the exchanged life and the fruit, the works.
One of the main differences between Matthew, Mark and Luke, is that they give you the history of the Lord Jesus, the life of Jesus. The gospel of John has a little twist. You say, “Well, doesn’t the gospel of John give the history of Jesus?” Yes, but the emphasis is not Jesus, but God in Jesus. That’s an emphasis in John that you don’t find so prominently in the other gospels. Jesus had a passion that people would know, through His miracles, through His works, that they would see who lived inside of Him. Listen to John 10:37&38, “If I do not the works of My Father, do not believe Me. If I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I am in the Father.” He wanted everybody to know who lived in Him, and He said, “His works don’t point to Him; they point to the One that lived inside of Him.” That was the exchanged life, that’s life as God intended it to be.
These verses are not on your sheet, but in John 5:19 He said, “I can do nothing on My own. I don’t initiate anything; I can only do what the Father does.” And then in John 6:38, “He sent Me from heaven to do His will,” and John 5:30 again, “I do nothing on My own initiative,” and John 12:49, “The Father tells Me what to say, I don’t even say a word unless it’s the Father.” John 14:9, He said to Phillip, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” It’s all about that. Jesus was insistent that through His life and ministry and works people would see the One who lived inside of Him and actually did the works, and then He sent us out. John 6:57, “As the living Father sent Me, as I live because of the Father, so He who eats Me will live because of Me.” We see that in 2 Corinthians 10:4, “Always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life, also, of Jesus may be manifest.” We see it again in John 10:31-33 where He said it again, “Why are you trying to stone Me? It’s not Me; it’s the Father that lives in Me.” That’s what was driving them crazy. They could handle the works, but that He said, “I am the Son of God, and He lives in Me,” that bothered them and people could stand your works, but once you say, “The Father in Me is the One doing it, then they have a problem.” There are other passages that we’ll come to that develop this more, but Jesus had a passion to reveal the Father; that was His passion. Jesus lives in you as the Father lived in Him; you should have the same passion to reveal the One that lives in you, as He had to reveal the One that lives in Him. We’re told that a tree is known by it’s fruits, Matthew 6. In John 10:13 we read about the hireling, the one who does things for money. Why does somebody do something for money? John 10:13, “He flees because he’s a hired hand.” He does what he does because of who he is.
John 12:6, when we get there we’re going to see that it refers to Judas as one who pilfered; he was the treasurer and he always had his hand in the box. Now, if you’re going to pilfer, you are going to do it in secret; nobody is going to know. You are going to try to be sneaky about pilfering. Poor Judas, he’s a pilferer and he made the Bible; the whole world knows that he did it; he tried to keep it a secret. But why did Judas pilfer? John 12:6, “He said this, not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief.” He had the money box and he used to pilfer what was put into it. Why did Judas steal? It was because he was a thief. You do what you do because of who you are; it’s your character, and our works proclaim who we are, “Let your light so shine before men, that they might see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
So, the more people know it’s the Christ in you, the more you are going to be hated and rejected. If they just think it’s you, you are a good person; you are a nice man. Once they know it’s Jesus, they’re all up in arms against you. Maybe as we close we should ask the Lord to help us have the same passion. When you do something for somebody, the Lord leads you to call somebody or make a meal or drive or provide a mailbox miracle, or whatever, let them know that it’s from the Lord. Let them know that the Lord is the One that laid it on your heart. “God is concerned about you and He wanted me to contact you, and He wanted me to help you, and He wanted me to give you this.” Let them know it’s the Lord, and that’s the exchanged life. Christ lives in me and now He wants to live through me.
We have one more thing to look at in John 10, and then we’ll introduce, Lord willing, chapter 11. Let’s pray together.
Father, thank You for your word. We always have to say, “Not what we think it might mean, but everything that You’ve inspired it to mean, even if I didn’t touch on that. Work in our hearts what You know Your word means. We thank You that we can gather and just meditate on You. We know, Lord, that Life is Christ, and eternal Life is Christ, and abundant Life is Christ, and we just pray that You might lead us deep into the wonders of being led in and out day by day, and You call us by name, and You lead us out, and You are the pasture. Work these things in our heart. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
