T.C. Lo (盧天賜弟兄) on June 5, 2011 at
The House of Christ's Love
Theme Scripture經文Jn 10:9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. Jn 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. Jn 10:11 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Reality of Life追求美滿的人生Sheep and Men羊與人的共同點
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The characteristic of life is growth. Living beings must grow. The purpose of growing is to attain fullness of maturity. What is the formula for a happy, successful, perfectly satisfactory life into which we like to grow?
We were told by our parents and teachers that in order to obtain a good life, we must strive to overcome difficulties, acquire a Ph.D. degree, get married and establish a good career, make good money and have smart and well behaved children. Sounds picture perfect. But the reality is:
Life is far from perfect. But this is the reality we are facing.
God made each one of us different. Applying the same formula to everyone can only result in disappointment, sense of failure, and disillusionment. But the Bible in John 10:10 gives us a universal principle and promise to abundant life. Before we apply this principle to our life, we must first understand our situation, our needs, and our definition of satisfaction.
The Bible always described men as sheep. What is the uniqueness that characterizes the sheep? I can think of three aspects:
1. Sheep is near sighted.
2. Sheep is vulnerable to attack.
3. Sheep is not able to protect themselves.
When a sheep gaze at you, you are not sure she is looking at your direction. All sheep can see is the grasses few inches in front of them. Sheep bend their head and graze tirelessly in the meadow all day long. Sheep go to where the grasses grow. They eat the grass in circles---start the circle immediately around them, then progressively move to the outer circles. A sheep may stray away from the flock and loss its way home.
Men are rather similar to sheep. We care about our next meal; we are anxious about whether we have food on table the next few days or not; we care about the livelihood of our children and our families. Our scope of concern is like many concentric circles with different sizes. Every one of us thinks: “I am the center of the circles around me.” When danger or conflict of interest comes, we would progressively give up the outer circles in order to protect the inner circles. If the circumstances force us to do so, we would first betray our friends, then our relatives, then our families, and then even our children. All I do is to preserve myself and show no consideration whatsoever for others. Our near-sightedness can best be described in Luke 12:16-21. Let us listen to a rich man’s internal conversation as told in one of Jesus’ parables:
Lk 12:16 And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop.
Lk 12:17 He thought to himself, `What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.
Lk 12:18 "'Then he said, `This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.
Lk 12:19 And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."
Lk 12:20 "'But God said to him, `You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?
Lk 12:21 "'This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."
These people are near-sighted like a sheep. The Bible admonishes these people by calling them “you fool!” A fool is a muddle-headed person; their nerves are mangled up. This is a very deprecating name-calling and only God is qualified to rightly say it to people. So never call others “fool”.
Stealing a sheep is much easier than stealing other livestock. A cow is too heavy to handle; a chicken would make noices at the thief’s hand; a dog would bark even before the thief is approaching. To steal a sheep is effortless. A Brazilian ranger would tell you this story: The thief would spread out his own jacket to wrap around a sheep that reacts quite cooperatively; the thief would then carry it on his shoulder and walk away without any sound of disturbance being heard. When Christ voluntarily gave up His right as God, the Bible use sheep to demonstrate His humility and obedience as saying, “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth (Isaiah 53:7).”
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy (John 10:10a)---But Why would we let the thief come into our lives in the first place? It is because we don’t fear God. Why? Read on…
Pr 14:26 He who fears the LORD has a secure fortress, and for his children it will be a refuge.
Pr 14:27 The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death.
If we don’t fear God, we are in effect taking away the secure fortress and leaving our children unprotected. We not only endanger them their spiritual well being, we’ve committed a crime before God for not protecting our children. While we talk about the cold side of the dos and don’ts, let us not forget the loving side of grace and promises of God. To fear God ought to be our outpouring of awe and worship for what God really is: Love, holiness, righteousness, justice, and purity. When we fear God, we are literally connected to the source of life and thus we begin to enjoy the animated abundant life. Jesus said, “The thief comes (as a result of not fearing God) only to steal and kill and destroy (because their houses are no longer a secure fortress); I have come (if they fear God) that they may have life, and have it to the full (connecting to the fountain head of living water)” (John 10:10).
It was staggering to know that even a man who loves his wife and his children still cannot be exempted from sexual temptations. Satan is happy to see Christians, especially Christian-leaders, to succumb to temptations of this kind. The Bible says, the adulterer will pay like “arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare; little knowing it will cost him his life (Proverbs 7:23).” Let us rely not upon our human volition because man knows not his weakness, but upon the power of the Holy Spirit to help us to overcome temptation.
Men are also vulnerable to the temptation of money. I used to think that only the very poor would be greedy for money because they don’t have enough for their livelihood. I was wrong. Reading of the news nowadays, it was the very rich who committed heinous crime of cheating on ordinary people’s pensions. Ponzi scheme was a clever-and-rich men’s invention. Hedge fund billionaire was guilty of insider-trading conspiracy. The wealthy exploit the poor; the haves cheat on the have-nots. The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure (Jer.17:9).
On one occasion, the mother sheep led a little lamb to a higher place where she nursed her baby there; the mother sheep might have felt itchy as the little lamb sucks her nibble, the mother sheep wiggled her body and jerked her legs and inadvertently, she pushed the baby lamb down the hill and the baby lamb died from falling. On another occasion, as a sheep was drinking water by the creek and accidently slipped and fell into the water. Because the sheep’s body is round and her legs are short, the body floats but the legs are not able to reach the bottom of the creek to give it the balance and it drowns in a matter of minutes. In the same way, man is helpless. Let us read the story of John 5:1-9:
Jn 5:1 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews.
Jn 5:2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades.
[If you take a sight seeing tour to Jerusalem, the tour guide would tell you this: There is a “Twin Pools” near Saint Anne’s Church believed to be the biblical Pool of Bethesda.]
Jn 5:3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie--the blind, the lame, the paralyzed,
Jn 5:4 waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
Jn 5:5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.
Jn 5:6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"
[Have you thought of this? I just wonder why Jesus would ask such an obvious question: "Do you want to get well?" Ah! Maybe the answer wasn’t that obvious. The lame beggar might not even want to get healed for the following reasons:
Jn 5:7 "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."
[The beggar failed to see the power of Jesus. He still relied on the healing of the water rather than Jesus’ healing power. In the same way, when we are helpless, we rely on men’s help, on self-effort, on money and on social status rather then on Jesus.]
Jn 5:8 Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk."
Jn 5:9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,
[Usually, Jesus healed those who had faith in Him. But in this case, did the beggar get healed because of his faith? No. It was totally God’s grace.]
We try to avoid suffering yet we feel empty inside in our pleasure. This reflects men’s finitude and God’s immenseness. At the height of her career, folk-musician Tsai Chin (蔡琴) saw a new generation of young and energetic musicians, capable of singing and dancing, rising up after her, she sensed a new era has dawned. She went to her boss and asked, “Am I on your blacklist?” To her great disappointment, her boss, without missing a beat, replied, “Yes, you are in deed on my blacklist; not just you but also your peers.” Meaninglessness fell upon her. But as she later became a Christian, she found new meanings in her life.
(Tsai Chin’s testimony said at Lincoln center Benefit Concert on 5/10/11)
In like of our lostness, we need a good shepherd to lead us, protect us, and save us. As sheep need to be shepherded in order to feel satisfied, in the same way, we need a Savior to lead us for this life and the life to come.
Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10b.
The word “I” is of paramount importance. In order to understand its significance, we must know our condition of depravity first. Throughout history, humanity has projected a distorted view of God and used their eccentric imagination to come up with various worldviews.
Pantheism---holds the view that the universe itself is god. Since everything is part of the universe, everything is god. As they all are god, there is no such thing as evil for god is good. When people wrong you or hurt you, it should not be considered as a bad thing because nothing is bad in this “God is good--God is all--All is good” universe.
The word “I” in (John 10:10) denies Pantheism because “I” signifies that God has a personality; He has a will, intellect, and emotion; He has the capacity to feel sad, to feel pain, and to feel joy. Jesus is 100% man and 100% God. He is a Person. We come to know Him through an “I-Thou” relationship not “I-It” relationship.
Polytheism---is a worldview believing in many gods. One god rules over birth and cultivation; another god is responsible for reaping and harvesting; yet another god governs disasters---a god we better not to mess around with. Hinduism is one of many examples. Chinese folk religions too.
The word “I” in (John 10:10) negates Polytheism because “I” signifies that there is only one God. The first of the Ten Commandments proclaims, "You shall have no other gods before me (Exodus 20:3).” In Acts 12:12, the Bible says, “there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
Deism---argues that the relationship between God and men is manifested through not revelation but natural laws. It believes that God is a remote Creator; once He created the universe, He no longer interrupts but let the natural laws He created to rule the universe. He is like a clockmaker---he wind up the spring and let the clock run on its own. Hence, prayer has no meaning, worship is superfluous. There will be no judgment to worry about. Judgment is a man-made threat to manipulate men’s conscience.
The word “I” in John 10:10 negates Deism because Jesus said, “I am your good shepherd.” He is the God who cares about us and takes care of our daily lives. Yet He is a holy God who judges sins, though loving sinners.
Jesus set Himself apart from all other religious leaders and “Isms.” Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me (John 10:14).” He knows each one of us by name and He listens to our voices. The word “know” is an emphatic word. It signifies marital intimacy: Adam knew his wife Eve, and she became pregnant (Gn.4:1). Jesus knows us all the more than we know ourselves.
When Jesus said, “I AM the good shepherd.” Again, we see a linguistic significance here: We must pay attention to the phrase “I AM” which is, in fact, the name of God which means He is the Eternal-and-Self–Sufficient-One. Jesus proclaimed that He is the “I AM” many times in Gospel John:
How do we let the good shepherd to lead us? Simply put: Just follow Him to enter His gate into the sheep fold. Jesus said, “I am the gate.” But many times, we choose our own gates and ignore Jesus’ only one gate to life.
Throughout the history, atheistic thinkers, philosophers, religious leaders, sociologists had opened many gates that led humanity into agony and destructions, economic and moral bankruptcy, and genocides of the twentieth century. But the gate of Jesus leads us to human dignity, hope, mutual trust, spiritual abundance, meaning of life, and truth.
We, as parents, have the solemn responsibility to guide our children into the Great Shepherd’s gate which is far more important than their entrance into the gates of Harvard and Princeton. When a child’s thinking becomes perverted and futile, the more knowledge he gains the more destruction he may have inflicted to himself and to the society. Jesus said, “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved and he shall have life to its fullness.” Behind the gate is a way—a new and living way (Hebrews 10:20) leading to eternal life.
It was a story of a rich man who had a huge art gallery and he had a terrific son. And the son would go to the street and one day he befriended a beggar and he started to see this beggar regularly and he described his father’s big house and paintings and all that his father did in business and the family and the beggar really liked this young man. But one day this young man stopped coming, two days, three days and the beggar found out, he’d suddenly died. So he went and got himself some papers and crayons and he drew a portrait of that young man and he went to the home of that rich man and gave it to the watchman outside and said, “Would you please give it to the man because his son is very good to me; and I’ve drawn his portrait because I heard he has an art gallery in that house.” The watch man look at it and rather bemused by it and say, “Okay, Okay” and sent the boy. But he thought it was quite a gesture so he waited for the right moment from which the rich man was driving out in his car one day and said, “You know, the beggar came here and gave this because he painted this as a portrait of your son.” The rich man took it, nothing was heard. Some years went by the beggar found out the rich man had passed away and they were going to auction his art gallery. He decided to get some nice looking coat to see he could squeeze in; he did. And he walked through the hall to see if the boy’s portrait was hanging, with all the grand masters’ pieces, it turned up there. And the auctioneer came in with a magnifier, examined all artworks, studied all details and then the gravel was pounded and the auctioneer said, “We are going to begin.” Everybody yelled “Good, good!” He said except there was a condition left in the will---The rich man said this portrait of his son is the first one to be auctioned. And there was a moan and groan, no body bid on it. The beggar put his hand in his pocket and got few coins and bid what he had. No counter offer. Gravel pounded---Sold. He went to pick it up his own drawing. As he was walking away, the gravel pounded again, and the Auctioneer said there was a second condition: The will says whoever bids on the portrait gets the whole gallery.
(This story was heard on one of Ravi Zacharias’s sermons in mp3)
When you get the Son who died on the cross for your sins, you get all the components of meaning and life. This is how we get abundant life from Christ. Apostle John wrote, “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5:11-12). Do you want this abundant life?