Key Scripture: John 10:10

Introduction:
Abundant Life: What does it mean and how do we get it? Jesus says, this is why I came.- “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
            Everyone wants something better than what we have or know. There must be more to life than this! What is it? Is it the good life? Having it all? Attaining success? Navigating life to avoid failure or conquering all the challenges that come your way?
            Abundant life is a matter of perception and perspective. Perception= to understand who God is. Perspective= to see a thing in relationship to another, a stretching into the distance. It is having an eternal, or ‘kingdom of God’ perspective.
            1. Abundant life can come only through Jesus Christ. He says, “I am the door.”
( John 10:7) He gives us perspective for the abundant life; putting things in relationship to each other:

There is one out to kill and steal and destroy us. ( the enemy)
There is one out to give us abundant life. (Jesus Christ)

2. He goes on to add perception- who God is. Verse 11- “I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.” Verses 11-18
3. Five times Jesus says, “I lay down my life.”

You can’t have abundant life without the resurrection.
You can’t have resurrection without the admission of death.
You can’t understand death until you recognize sin

             4. The resurrection of Jesus takes us into a whole new dimension of life on earth. Abundant life also involves labor, sacrifice, and love.
            5. An Americanized version of abundant life: God is out to bless me, to do me good, God is for me, He wants me to prosper and overcome. This teaching is based upon my faith. – ‘What am I believing God for? Do I believe God can move my mountain?’
I do believe God can move my mountain and by faith I overcome. I believe in the positiveness of both faith and blessing. I don’t want a negative faith and negative blessing. Abundant life is not living a defeated, dread-filled, down on myself, ‘I’m a nobody’ kind of life. When Paul say, “of sinners I am the worst” he wasn’t beating himself up. He was telling Timothy, “There is hope for everyone, no matter how trapped in sin they may be.”

I. God is Abundant to His Core

Physically abundant-

Gen 1:20-21- “and God said let the waters swarm (bring forth abundantly)…
Gen. 8:17 - “may breed abundantly…be fruitful and multiply…”
Gen. 9:7 – “bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply.”
John 2: 7 - “Fill the waterpots…up to the brim.”
Matthew 14:19-21- “ so they all ate and were filled..”
Matthew 4:23 - “healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of diseases…”

Spiritually abundant-

Ex. 34:6 “ The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love ( abundant in goodness and truth) to the 1000th generation.”

II. Abundant Life is For Giving Away

Abundance is not for our consumption alone.

Luke 12:15- “for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
Luke 21:4 – “for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty…and the Lord commended her.”
2 Cor. 8:2 - “for in a severe trial of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed (abounded) in a wealth of generosity on their part.”
2 Cor. 8:14- “Your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness.”
What are you giving away? Is it the leftovers, the things you don’t want? If it is, we won’t get to where Jesus wants us to be. He laid His life down.

III. Abundant Live Creates Thanksgiving

A. L. creates thanksgiving in others.

2 Cor. 9:12 - “for the ministry of this service (giving) is not only supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing (abounding) in many thanksgivings to God.”
2 Cor. 4:15 – “for it is all for your sake, so that as (the abundance of) grace extends to more and more and more people, it may increase (redound) in thanksgiving, to the glory of God.”
What can you do tomorrow that will cause someone to give thanksgiving?

IV. Abundant Life Honors the Lowly and Those Who Lack

1 Cor. 12: 23-24- “on those parts of the body we think less honorable, we bestow the greater (more abundant) honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty…but God has composed the body giving greater (more abundantly) honor to the part that lacked it.”

V. Abundant Life is Increasing Our Sphere of Influence

The mission of Jesus and the mission of the church are the same: to increase the sphere of influence of who God is in the earth.

2 Cor. 10:15-16- “…but our hope is that as your faith increases, our area of influence among you may be greatly enlarged (may abound) so that we may preach the Gospel in lands beyond you.” ”
Whatever our sphere of influence may be: community, neighbors, students, co-workers, etc., that is where we are to take the knowledge of who God is.

VI. Abundant Life involves an Abundance of Laboring and Suffering and Love

Kirsten’s story- She served a summer internship with International Justice Mission. She heard many tragic stories of injustice and corruption, but many ended with God bringing hope and justice to many. It is not a vague concept, but Jesus Himself who gives hope. God is passionate about the freedom of our heart. He works everything for His glory. As Jesus is the light of the world, so are we. We labor in His name.

1 Cor. 15:10- “but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”
2 Cor. 11:23- “are they ministers of Christ?…I am more; in labors more abundant; in stripes above measure; in prisons more frequently; in deaths oft.”
2 Cor. 12:15- “and I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved.” Message Bible- “I’d be most happy to empty my pockets even my mortgage for you.”
2 Cor. 2:4 – “for out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you, with many tears; not that you should be grieved, but that you might know the love which I have more abundantly for you.”

VII. Abundant life Recognizes the Paradox of What is Seen and What is Unseen

Paul is in prison writing about joy. He is writing about Jesus as Lord, ruling and reigning right now, though Caesar and the Jews have him in prison.
It’s about perspective!

2 Cor. 4:17- “For our light affliction, which is but for the moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. For we look not at things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen. For the one is temporal and the other is eternal.”

N.T. Wright- It’s time to wake up!

Living at the level of the non-heavenly world around you is like being asleep; worse, it is like that for which sleep is a metaphor- it’s like being dead.
Lying, stealing, sexual immorality, bad temper, and so on, are forms of death; both for the person who commits them and for all those whose lives are touched by their actions.
What we all need from time to time is for someone to say, “It’s time to wake up! There is a world we are to inhabit with abundant life.

VIII. Abundant Life is Two Beings; Two Kingdoms; Two Realities

Both are dedicated to something extreme.

The enemy seeks our destruction. He hates us with a malignant, malicious hatred. He wants to destroy us through lies, theft, and murder; to keep us out of God’s grace. He plays on our fallen nature,
God is the complete opposite. He wants to lavish us with an exuberant life that teems with possibilities and generosity.

IX. Abundant Life is Dedicated to Overthrowing the Work of Evil

Abundant life calls us to operate in the dimension of who God is: His goodness that overcomes evil. Goodness keeps evil down.

Romans 12:21- “ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
What if the biggest problem in the world is not terrorism, the economy, drugs, hopelessness, or sickness, but is simply the lack of goodness?

The enemy downgrades our perspective of God’s affection for us.

He messes with our heads, causing us to accept a lower class of Christian life.
He wants ineffective, blasé’ Christians.
He wants ‘secret cynics’ who, sort of but not really, believe all the promises of God. Who sort of, but not really, live as though we believe these promises.

The more religious and world-weary we become, the more static our faith is.

We stop reaching out to God in faith.
We become comfortable, resigned to things.
We quit asking God the Father for anything.
We tolerate our position rather than confront it.

You are worthy of God’s love.

I am worthy of salvation, though I don’t deserve salvation.
Graham Cooke- “I don’t put much value on myself, but God does, and He showed it by sending His own son to die for us.”

X. Abundant Life is Living Creatively

It is having an active imagination, and a release of creativity, and energy.

It is a freedom to think creatively about ourselves and God.
When we portray legalism, disgust, misery, and fear, we are not living in abundant life.

What if we wake up each day asking ourselves how we might reveal more of the goodness, the kindness, the abundant forgiveness, the patience of God, to the people we interact with everyday?

What if we went through the day looking for the hand of God everywhere?
The enemy wants us to see the bad in others. What if we were to look for the good in others, and to speak to that in their lives?
Luke Rawling’s dream: He saw a picture of huge corn silos, then saw God giving him a little sour cream sized tub ( small expectations). He said ‘this is what you are asking of me, these corn silos (abundance) are what I have to give you.’ This is God’s abundant life.

XI. Abundant life is based on your perception of who God is and your perspective of how He wants to work through your life.

Discussion Questions:

What does it mean to you personally that Jesus came to give you abundant life?

In what areas of your life are you giving abundantly to others in their need?

In what ways does the enemy try to keep you down and from living the abundant life?

What is your perception of God, and your perspective of how He wants to use you? Where does this perception and perspective come from?