I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but Grace is one of those words that doesn’t quite fit into our vocabulary anymore. We live in a fast world that moves quickly and we’re very transactional with each other. Often we don’t build relationships anymore with the people that we live around or the people that we work with. The whole concept of grace can be hard to get your mind around.

What is Grace? What exactly does that word mean? We know the hymn Amazing Grace, but in my life and your life what is Grace.
Exactly what does it mean? Today on Christianity Works we’re starting a new series called: “Coming to Grips With Grace.”

Maybe you’re someone who’s heard the message of Jesus over and over again Sunday after Sunday and you think you’ve heard all that before but what does it really mean in my heart.

Maybe you’re someone who’s never heard that message before. Maybe you’re somewhere in between. Wherever we sit, whoever we are, wherever we are in our walk in life, I honestly believe that the message of Grace is one that we need to hear time and time again. To bring our hearts to life as to who God, who Jesus really is.

Now, if I were to ask the average Christian on a Sunday morning as they walked in, to write down on a sheet of paper in 25
words or less why did Jesus die on the cross most people would write down something along these lines. The reason Jesus died on the cross is to pay for my sins so I can have forgiveness. That’s a reasonable answer, in fact, that’s the right answer theologically.

But now, let me ask another question. If the reason that Jesus died on the cross is to pay for my sin, all my weaknesses,
all the things that I’ve done wrong and everything that I’m going to do wrong. If the reason is that He should pay the price for
that, so I could be forgiven by God, there’s another question.

“Why do I need to be forgiven?”

The answer is, so you can have eternal life, so you can live forever with God. Well, that’s the correct answer. But now, let me ask you another question. If I’m going to have eternal life, what’s the point of all that? Why have eternal life?

John wrote in His Gospel in the New Testament that when God created the universe everything was created by Jesus and through Jesus. What was that like?

There was a time when there was nothing. There was a time when there was just God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then one day God decided to create the universe. Was it just a rainy Sunday afternoon and Jesus was playing with a cosmic play dough and He decided to slap a universe together? Was it a despotic act or was there a purpose?

If Jesus created the universe, then died for you and me so that we could be forgiven, so that we can eternal life, what’s the point to all of that? What’s the point of God being God, creating the universe and the stars? You go out and look at the stars, you look at the stats of how far everything is apart and how big the universe is. You see the wonder, the might and the beauty. You look at the fragility of the universe. You think, wow, that is some serious creation, a really serious creation. That’s what I’d like to look at today. We’re going to look at answering that question, what was the point of all that? And God putting you and I in that with a free choice—– either to follow Him or turn away from Him. God knew full well that you and I would blow it and would turn away from Him and that God would send Jesus to die on the cross in our place so we would be forgiven, so that we could have eternal life.

What’s the point? I’d like to look at that today. Beginning in Genesis. We’re going to go right through from Genesis to Revelation, all 66 books. We’re not going to stop at each one.

I’d like to look at this broad picture of how God has engaged with humanity. One of the basic tenants of Christianity is that God is a God who reveals Himself to us. When we look at the Bible, when we look at the sixty-six books from Genesis—-the very first book written by Moses— right through to Revelation we see that the way that God has revealed Himself or shown Himself to individuals and groups of people, has changed dramatically from the beginning to the end. As we look at the big story that spans 2000 years we will see in that story the whole point of creation.

Let’s start right at the beginning. If you’ve got a Bible, go and grab it. In chapter 17 of Genesis God has chosen Abraham. He makes a covenant, a promise that He will never break with Abraham. God says: “I will give to you Abraham and your offspring after you a land where you are now aliens. All the land of Canaan for a perpetual holding and I will be their God.” Here is the promise that God makes to humanity. He makes it to the father of His chosen people, the nation of Israel. It’s a wonderful promise given at a time when Abraham was struggling with a whole bunch of things: why has God called me, surely I’ll never have a son, I’m one hundred years old……….

But see how God reveals Himself to just one man. Abraham is a very important character in the Bible but he was just a man, like me.
He was just a person, like you, but God chose to reveal Himself and speak directly to Abraham. We know that Abraham had a son, Isaac, and Isaac had a son Jacob, and Jacob was the one who had twelve sons and those twelve sons became the fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Through a sequence of events Israel found herself exiled in Egypt as slaves. They were somewhere between several hundred thousand and a couple of million Israelites in slavery in Egypt. Most of us will remember the story: how Moses came along and God called him out of the desert to lead his people out of slavery. He dealt with Pharaoh and Israel was fleeing from the mighty Egyptian army. They went southeast down toward the Red Sea and of course, the Red Sea was impassable. Old men, old women, little kids, all sorts of people who just couldn’t swim across the Red Sea.

Here is a beautiful picture where we have the God of Israel who appears again to His people. But now in a very public way. With Abraham it was very private and personal. Now here with Israel it becomes very public. We’ll pick up the story in Exodus 14 where the Israelites are fleeing from the Egyptian army. The Egyptian army which is the real world force going on. (It’s like the American army is today). The Egyptian army is the real world force that was there and it’s going to kill the Israelites. We see how God appears to them as a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire. In Exodus 14 we see God was a pillar of cloud by day and He led His people where He wanted them to go. All of a sudden the Egyptian army caught up with them. God went from being in front of His people to putting Himself between His people, the Israelites and the Egyptian army.

Let’s read in Exodus 14:19: “The angel of God who was going before the Israelite army moved and went behind them and the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them and it came between the army of Egypt and the people of Israel. And so the cloud was there with the darkness and it lit up the night and one did not come near the other all night.”

Here, very publicly, God protected His people. Theologians call it a theophany. This was an appearance of God and everybody saw God’s power and God’s might. Then Moses lifted his staff, the Red Sea parted, the people went through, the Egyptian army followed them, and the water came and swallowed up the Egyptian army. Israel was saved. The Egyptian aggressors were killed. It’s quite a story.

It’s an appearance of God’s power and God’s might and God’s love and God’s compassion. Over the next forty years we see how this pillar of cloud by day and fire by night leads and guides the people.

We pick up the narrative at the end of Exodus in the last few verses. (You see, about half the book of Exodus is about the tent of the meeting or the tabernacle that Moses was instructed to build. This was the place where God’s presence lived and dwelt.)

“The cloud covered the tent of the meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses wasn’t able to enter the tent of the meeting because the cloud settled upon it and the Glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. Whenever the cloud was taken up from the Tabernacle the Israelites would set out each stage of their journey but if the cloud was not taken up they did not set out until the day it was taken up. The cloud of the Lord was on the Tabernacle by day and fire was in the cloud by night before the eyes of all the house of Israel at each stage of their journey.”

Now this was really significant because all of the other gods that all of the other nations worshipped were static gods. They were gods that were in temples on hills and the people went to worship their gods there, whatever their gods were, Baal and all the other gods that they worshipped. But, here the God of Israel is a God that travels on the journey of life, the journey in the desert with His people. It’s a beautiful picture and then we see how Moses goes up to Mt. Sinai and gets the Ten Commandments and comes down. Again, God has spoken through one person to all the other people. It’s quite different than the way God works these days.
And God asks Moses to build this Tabernacle, this Tent of the Meeting Place. (As I said, half of the book of Exodus is about how the Tabernacle or the Tent should be set out.)

Here’s how it worked. The tent was right in the middle of all of the people. There were three tribes that traveled to the north, three tribes that to the south, three tribes to the east and three tribes to the west. So God has gone from occasionally appearing to someone like Abraham and Moses to being a permanent God in the midst of His people. They had the ark of the covenant and God was mobile and He was committed to their journey.

Then, as the Hebrew Law is being given to God’s people, God says in Leviticus 26:11-14: “I will make my dwelling in your midst and I will walk among you and I will be your God and you shall be my people. The Lord your God brought you out of the land of Egypt to be their slaves no more. I have broken the bars of your yoke and I have made you walk upright.” That’s beautiful. Let’s hold that thought that as God is laying down His Law to His people says: “What is really in my heart is that I will walk among you, I will dwell among you, I will live in your midst and I will be your God and you will be my people.”

We’re starting to get a hint here what creation is all about. It’s not fully revealed yet but we’re starting to get a hint.

After Israel wandered in the desert for forty years, Moses died. Joshua led this great nation of Israel into a land that they had to fight for to occupy. Their leadership, their system of government was what is called a Theocracy. God was the head of state and there were a number of judges appointed by God to administer God’s Law. Some time went on and the people decided they wanted a king. It wasn’t really God’s plan, but God gave them a king. The first king was Saul and he was quite a disaster. The next king
was David. Often remembered as the greatest king that ever reigned over Israel.

David had a plan in his heart, you can read about it beginning in II Samuel 7:1. God had helped David win yet another battle and David came home one day and said: “Lord, you’ve done so many good things for me. I’ve got a house to live in. The people have houses to live in. We have food. We’d like to build you a house. At the moment you live in a tent. The ark of the covenant is still in a tent. I’d love to build you a house. I’d love to build you a Temple.”

While God never let David build the temple he did all the planning. His son King Solomon was the one who built the Temple. There was a day (you can read about in I Kings 8:4), when they had the dedication of the Temple. (It took a number of decades to build this massive building). They brought up the ark of the Lord to the Tent of the Meeting and all the holy vessels that were in the Tent for the dedication.

“And the priests and Levites brought them up. King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel who assembled before Him were there before the ark, sacrificing sheep and oxen that couldn’t be counted or numbered and the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place in the inner sanctuary of the house, the most holy place under the wings of the cherubim. (The Holy of Holies it was called). For the cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark so the cherubim made a covering above the ark and its poles. And the poles were so long that the ends of the poles were seen from the Holy Place in front of the inner sanctuary, the Holy of Holies.

Here we have God going from being a God who traveled in the desert with His people to now making His home in the midst of Jerusalem. The capital that David had chosen for Israel was Jerusalem. In the middle of Jerusalem was the temple and in the middle of His temple in the Holy of Holies was God.

God has gone from appearing to a man to appearing to all the people walking through the desert with Him for forty years and now to dwelling in their home.

God’s getting closer, ever closer. For the next several hundred years God spoke to His people through the kings. Through His prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Obadiah, Ezekiel, etc. He spoke a great many things and did many great and mighty deeds. All of that time Israel struggled with God. They deserted God and God called them back and they did it again and God punished them by allowing the Temple in Jerusalem to be destroyed and sending them into exile in Babylon. After seventy years He brought them back again.

The whole of the Old Testament is about how God’s chosen people Israel, struggled with their God. In fact, the word Israel literally means to struggle with God.

But then God does something amazing. God sends His Son Jesus. John tells us about it in John 1:1-3: “In the beginning was the Word (Jesus) and the Word was God and the Word was with God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him and without Him not one thing came into being.” Later in John 1:14 he says: “The Word became flesh and lived among us. We have seen His Glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son full of grace and truth.”

The Word became flesh, became man. What a huge step toward you and me. God has gone from being a Spirit, a God who reveals Himself through clouds and people. God has gone a huge step over the divide from the spiritual realm into the physical realm to become a man.

The Word became flesh and lived among us. Literally, the Word that John uses there is ‘tabernacled’ among us. He’s pointing right back to the Tabernacle, the tent that Moses built out there on that journey. He is saying God has taken another step closer to us. He’s become a person, a human being. He’s gone from being a cloud, to being in the Tabernacle, to being in the Temple, to speaking through the prophets, to being in our midst. That great crossing, across the Red Sea, which was the great act of salvation in the Old Testament was really only a shadow, a pre-cursor for the great act of salvation in the New Testament when Jesus would die to pay for our sins.

There is now thirty odd years when Jesus grew up from being a little boy to a man. He had his three to three-and-a-half year public ministry. It wasn’t just a holy bus ride to the cross. The cross is central, it’s so important, but along those years, Jesus showed us what God is like.

The apostle Paul writes later that Jesus is the very image of God Himself. The exact replica of God Himself we see in the face of Jesus Christ. This Jesus who hung around with the prostitutes and the lepers and stood up for the down-trodden and healed the sick
and loved the poor. Who preached the good news, who gave His very life for you and me.

This Jesus is the huge stepping stone in this process of God revealing Himself to you and me. Then Jesus talked to His disciples, to the twelve. He said: “Look, I’m going away, I’m going to be killed, I’m going somewhere where you can’t come. But it’s actually good for you. It’s to your advantage that I go away, John 16:7 says: “For if I do not go away, the Advocate, the Comforter, will not come. But if I go, I’ll send the Comforter to you.”

Just think about this for a minute. These disciples have been following Jesus around for all this time. He’s saying it’s good for you that I go away. In other words, something better is coming, some better expression of God’s love and comfort. Something closer, something more intimate. That’s why God sent His Holy Spirit. Jesus died, Jesus rose again. He’s sitting on the Father’s right Hand. Then we read in the first few chapters of Acts how God poured His Holy Spirit out on each person who believed. Jesus Himself said: “If you love me, if you keep my Word, my Father and I will love you. We will come and make our home in you, in each one of you who believes in me.

That is really radical. That is such a long distance from appearing in a cloud or speaking through prophets or living in the Holy of Holies in the Temple. All of a sudden Jesus is God in the flesh, close and intimate. And Jesus said: “There’s something better, there’s something much better. There’s the ability to have God in you, the presence of God in you. So we see how God falls on the believers. The truth is that each person today who believes in Jesus Christ has the Holy Spirit dwelling in them. They have the ability and the potential to have a close, intimate, loving relationship with God.

The God of the Old Testament, the God of the New Testament. The God of power and mighty deeds and acts of the Old Testament. The God of humility. The God of suffering in the New Testament. That God wants to dwell in each one of us, right here, right now.

But there’s a final chapter. Flip to Revelation 21. John is gripped by the Holy Spirit. He sees a slice of heaven. That’s what Revelation is about. He sees what’s coming. See, we know how the story of humanity is going to end. Jesus is coming back. There is an eternity and people Jesus won on the cross will be there.

But listen and you’ll hear the echo of what God says. In Revelation 21: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had all passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a Bride, adorned for her husband and I heard a loud voice saying: See, the home of God is now among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God and they will be His people and God Himself will be with them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more. For these first things have passed away.”

Remember earlier on we read in Leviticus where God was making a covenant or contract of promise with His people, the Israelites.
He said: “I will be their God and they will be my people. I will dwell among them. Over the whole history from Abraham through to Revelation when Jesus comes again what we see is this. And this is the crux, this is the purpose, this is the point of Christ. We see God taking steps, closer and closer to you and me.

From the pillar of fire and cloud, to the Tabernacle, to the Tent of the Meeting where God traveled on this journey through the desert for forty years with His people. To the prophets, to the Temple where God lived in the middle of Jerusalem, in the Holy of Holies. Then, to the person of Jesus as He walked among us, humble yet powerful, the Son of God, the Son of Man who died on the cross for you and me and rose again and now sits at the right hand of the Father. He now sits at the right hand of the Father to send His Holy Spirit to dwell in each person who believes in Jesus Christ.

It doesn’t get any more intimate and closer than this.

But there’s one last step. When Jesus comes again, to call the living and the dead. To call the people who believe in Him to spend eternity with Him.

And at the end of creation, the whole purpose has been for God to make His home among mortals. “I wil dwell with you as your God and you will be my people.” I will be with you for all eternity.

What’s the point of God creating this universe?
What’s the point of God creating us?
What’s the point of God sending Jesus to die for you and me?
What’s the point of forgiveness?
What’s the point of eternal life?

The point is this. God wants to be our God. He wants us to be His people. He wants a close, loving, intimate, wonderful relationship with each one of us forever and ever beginning right now. That’s the point. If you would like to have that sort of relationship pray this with me.

“Father, I’ve heard your Word today. I’ve heard this beautiful story, how you created the universe, how you came and over thousands of years revealed your love for us in the person of Jesus. In His face I see you. On the cross I see your love. In the resurrection I see your power, your hope and your joy. Father, I want your Holy Spirit in me now. I want my eternal life to begin now Father. I give my life to you afresh today. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. Baptize me with your Holy Spirit afresh, so Father I can experience the whole point of grace and your presence, your love and your tenderness. I want to hear your voice, see your face and behold your glory.

Have you ever wondered, ‘How much does God love me?’ When you look in the mirror and you look at yourself, and you think, ‘Surely You can’t really love me, I mean really love me.’ At the moment on Christianityworks, we’re doing a series on coming to grips with grace.

God’s grace is something that in today’s fast-food culture, we sometimes find really difficult to come to grip with. Today I’d like to look at the question, “How much does God love me? How much does God love you?” And to do that, we’ve got to start with a story about sheep.

When I was a kid, we always went on long driving holidays. Australia is a huge country, and to get around, you have to drive for days sometimes to get where you’re going. And Dad used to want to drive 500-600 miles every day, and it seemed through all we ever did was drive around in the car.

Mum, of course, she wanted to stop and look at things, so there was always this tension of too-ing and fro-ing, and we’d drive the 300 or 400 or 500 miles today or we’d stop to look at things. And we’d have this old holden special car, and I remember once as a kid, I don’t know where it was, we were on holidays driving in the middle of nowhere, and all of a sudden we couldn’t keep driving.

The road was blocked with sheep, thousands and thousands of sheep. There was a farmer who was droving his sheep from one part of his farm to another part of the farm, and of course, they were all over the road. So we stopped and we parked the car, and there were all these sheep, and the farmer came across on his motorbike and he offered us a couple of spring lambs, little lambs.

I mean these lambs hadn’t even had their tails clipped off. Well I don’t know, I was eight or nine, and my sister was a couple of years older. You can imagine that we, as kids, wanted to take these lambs in the car and take them home. Not particularly practical on a driving holiday, but you know, kids are kids, and we just loved these lambs.

And they were just such beautiful little animals. You ever seen a little lamb, white and soft, and it had this innocent face that was just gorgeous. The problem is, they grow up – they grow up into sheep, into these stupid animals, seemingly. Just like little baby anythings, little baby people; babies are always cute, and we grow up, and we become adults, and sometimes not very nice adults, and sometimes not very smart adults.

How can something so cute and so beautiful end up looking like this, we think, when we’re looking in the mirror in the morning. So I’d like to talk about sheep, and Jesus spoke about sheep. And He spoke about them in John’s Gospel chapter 10. If you’ve got a Bible, grab it and open up because that’s where we’re going.

And He talked about the question of sheep and their shepherd. And in this chapter, He works what truth is and who the authentic shepherd is, but towards the end, He explains to us how much He loves us.

Now John when he’s writing it in his Gospel, what he likes to do, he likes to have a story about the things that Jesus did, and then he puts them right next to what Jesus said, and you’ve got to read both the story and what Jesus said to get the whole point of what John’s trying to get across.

So before we look at chapter 10, we actually have to flip back and look at chapter 9. And chapter 9 of John’s Gospel is about a man, who is blind from birth, and he saw Jesus walking along, and His Disciples said, “Teacher, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?”

And Jesus answered, “Well, neither of them. But he was born blind so that God’s Work might be revealed.” And Jesus decided to heal him; He bent down, and He got some dust and dirt, put it in His hand, and He spat in it. I don’t know exactly why Jesus was doing that; He must have been having a particularly creative day, but that was the way He chose.

And He was mixing up this mud in His hand, and He put this paste onto the man’s eyes, and He said, “Get into this pool called Siloam and go and wash,” and so the man did that. And all of a sudden, he got his sight back. Incredible thing, this man – blind from birth – healed by Jesus. Now the religious leaders of the day, the Pharisees, these men were religious separatists.

They were fanatics about meeting the requirements of the religious laws of the Jews. The man went to see the Pharisees and he said, “Look, I was blind and now I can see.” Well the Pharisees had a lot of problem with this because the day on which Jesus did this was a Saturday, which is the Jewish Sabbath.

It’s the day on which a Jew is not allowed to do any work. And the Pharisees began to ask the man, “How have you received your sight?” And he said to them, “Well, Jesus put some mud on my eyes and then I washed it, and now I see.” And some of the Pharisees said, “Well this man isn’t from God because He doesn’t observe the Sabbath.”

But they would have said, “How can a man who’s a sinner perform such a miracle?” And they were divided. So again they asked the blind man, “What do you say about Him? It was your eyes that was opened?” And the man said, “Well I think He’s a prophet.” And still the Jews didn’t believe him so they dragged this man’s parents in front and interrogated them.

And the parents were scared because anyone who followed this Jesus would up getting kicked out of the synagogue because Jesus was seen to be a radical and a heretic. And the second time they dragged the man before them again and said, “Come on, what was going on?” It was like an inquisition, an interrogation.

And the man said, “I don’t know what you religious leaders are all about. But here’s the astonishing thing – you don’t know where He came from, yet He open my eyes.” We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but He does listen to one who obeys His will. And ever since the world began has it ever been heard to anyone that a man’s eyes were open when he was born blind.

If this man weren’t God, He couldn’t do anything. And the Pharisees were so angry they drove the man out and they kicked him out. And Jesus caught up with him later, and Jesus said to him, “Do you believe in Me, in the Son of Man?” That’s what Jesus called himself. And the man answered, “Who is He, Sir? Tell me so that I might believe in Him.”

And Jesus said, “I am He. I am the one speaking to you.” And the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and worshipped Him. And Jesus said, “I came into this world so those who don’t see might see, and those who think they see will become blind.” Now some of the Pharisees nearby heard Him say this, and they said, “Surely, surely, we’re not blind, are we?”

And Jesus said to them, “If you are blind, you wouldn’t have sinned, but now that you we see, the sin remains.” So it’s an interesting story about – you see the irony – the religious leaders with the blind leading the blind. They thought they were the seers, they thought they knew the law, and Jesus said, “You knew all about religion, you knew all about rules, you were worried about me healing a man on the Sabbath, for crying out loud.”

“He was blind; now he can see. Isn’t that a thing for rejoicing? But you people, you’re worried about religious rules. Actually, you’re blind.” And that sets the scene for this next chapter where Jesus says, beginning in chapter 10, “Truly, I tell you, anyone who doesn’t enter the sheepfold by the gate, but climbs in by another way, is a thief and a bandit.”

The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he’s brought them out all on his own, he goes ahead of them because the sheep follow him because they know the voice.

They won’t follow the stranger; they’ll run from the strangers. But they’ll follow the truth shepherd, and Jesus told this story but no one understood what He was saying. Now what’s the connection here between this serious big deal of a miracle of healing this man from a lifelong of blindness and the story about the sheep and the sheepfold? Well it turns out that we think that sheep are stupid.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had anything to do with sheep, but you could be driving along the road and there might be a sheep or two running along the side of the road by the car, and all of a sudden, they’ll dive in front of the car, and you think, “What a stupid animal. Why did it do that?”

The answer is sheep aren’t dumb at all. It turns out that sheep are actually shortsighted. I remember reading a book by a farmer, from New Zealand, who had a lot to do with sheep, and he was also the pastor of a church. And he was exploring this parable of the sheep. And he was saying, “Look, when you get to know sheep, what you discover is, actually, they’re really very intelligent animals.

“What they can’t do is they can’t see very far; they can’t see more than 15 or 20 feet in front of them clearly. They are actually very shortsighted.” Ahh. And in fact he said, “A sheep will remember for it’s whole life the place that it was born in the paddock in which it lives.”

They’re very bright; they have a good memory. What they don’t have is sight. And the other thing they don’t have – a little like my wife – is any navigation skills. My wife has a lot of other skills, but navigation isn’t one of those strong suits. So if you take a sheep in a truck and drive it five miles down the road and drop it off, it’s not like a cat that can navigate it’s way back, or like a pigeon that can navigate it’s way back hundreds of miles.

It has no sense of direction, and so it’s can’t find it’s way back. And here’s the connection all of a sudden between the story of the blind man and the blind religious leaders, and Jesus and His story and His connection that we find an answer to the question.

How much does He really love me? Truly, I tell you, anyone who doesn’t enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. He’s talking about the Pharisees; He’s talking about religion; He’s talking about religious rules. Have you looked around, and in the society we live in today, there are so many things that say, ‘I am the way.’

Money, consumerism, yoga, horoscopes, work, career, power, religion – you name it, and they all say, ‘Follow me and you’ll be happy. Buy this car you’ll experience fulfillment. Extend your house, buy this painting, buy this computer, buy this printer, and you’ll be happy. That’s what advertising is all about.

They want us to spend our money, and we think that we’ll get fulfillment – that has such a glossy face, they are so convincing, they are so seductive. There is large, large shopping center being built recently near where I live in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. I mean the thing is just huge, and it’s almost like an entertainment fair, it’s so up market, it’s so glossy, it’s so attractive.

And you see, people milling around this place looking for something. And if you went and asked those people, “Do you think you’d find it at church? Do you think you’d find it in Christianity?” And people would say, “Well, have a look at the church building down the road. I mean really? Do you really think I’d find fulfillment there?”

Well I don’t believe that you find fulfillment in religion, either. And that’s exactly what Jesus is saying here. The story that He’s using is the story about the village sheepfold. It works like this. In the winter months, the shepherds in a particular village would bring their sheep back in over night because it was too cold to stay out over night.

And there was one communal sheepfold, and they used to pay a man to look over their sheep at night so that they could go to sleep and have a life. And all the sheep would go inside the sheepfold; multiple flocks, a big gate, and housed there overnight. And in the morning, the shepherd comes and knocks on the door, the man recognizes him, and literally, the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

Eastern shepherding wasn’t like what I described earlier on in the program here, the Australian model of the farmer and thousands of sheep, and huge open spaces, and no no no. Each shepherd had a small number of sheep, 50-100 sheep at the most. And they got to know his voice. And he actually had names for each one of them, often.

There was a personal relationship between what we think are dumb animals and the shepherd. And Jesus is saying the real shepherd, the real one, not all of these imposters who say, “I’m glossy, I’m fantastic. Come after me and you’ll have true satisfaction.” They’re thieves. They don’t go to the front gate.

They’re not the ones that really call the sheep out because ultimately, the sheep will only go with the true shepherd because they know His name. And then the Eastern shepherd, one of the oldest occupations – in Judea, it was kind of a north-south plateau, 20-25 kilometers wide, really rocky ground – and they had herds, not crops.

And the shepherd’s job, 24 hours a day was to search for pasture and for water. It was a calling. He was born to it; he grew up in it. His job was to find food and water for the sheep, and to protect them with his life. And he would lead them because the sheep are shortsighted so he would walk ahead and all the sheep would follow him.

This is what Jesus is saying. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him and the sheep hears his voice; he calls his own sheep by name and leaves them out. And when he’s brought them all out on his own, he goes ahead of them and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.

It’s literally true they knew his voice and follow him and he knew each one of them by name. “Truly, truly,” Jesus said, “the Pharisees, the religious zealots, the people who think that it’s all about religious rules, they are thieves and bandits.” They are not legitimate leaders. The real shepherd goes to the gate and the sheep hear his voice, and they follow him.

They won’t follow someone who’s a stranger, an alien, or a foreigner, or someone who’s hostile. The sheep know their shepherd. In some way, Jesus is saying, “I am the true, legitimate shepherd and my sheep follow me.” Anyone who holds out to people, the prospect of a higher or better life, apart from the necessity from the necessity of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, are deceivers and charlatans depriving people of life.

We know the truth. That quiet still voice is still probably something that you can hear in your heart right now. And the things of the world, well they’re ok, but they’re not where we find the truth; they’re not where we find the satisfaction. But in Jesus shifts the metaphor in chapter 10 verse 7.

He tells the story again. He says, “Truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All those who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out in find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. But I have come that you may have life and have it in abundance.”

In the summer months, the shepherds would stay out overnight with their sheep. And they would put their sheep in rough, makeshift folds for the night. They were these folds that had been grown out of hedges, dotted all over the plateau, and the shepherds would use them as a place where the sheep would be herded in.

But because they were made out of hedges normally, they didn’t have gates. And so the shepherd would sleep across the opening and literally he became the gate. The issues for the shepherd were robbers and wild animals. And so the shepherd’s job was to protect the sheep in the fold and stop the robbers and the wild animals from taking any sheep.

So George Adams Smith had traveled through Israel in the early 1900’s said this. He said, “On some high moor, across which at night the hyenas howl, when you meet him, sleepless, farsighted, weather-beaten, leaning on his staff, and looking out on his scattered sheep, each one of them on his heart, you understand why the shepherd of Judea sprang to the front of his people’s history, why they gave his name to the king, and why Christ took him as the type of self-sacrifice.”

It’s a beautiful image, isn’t it? The constant vigilance, the patient love for the flock, the fearless courage. These aren’t just words on a page; the heart of God is beating in this place. This is about God’s love. And a shepherd used to carry a few things with him. A scrip or a leather bag he had his food, a bit of cheese, a bit of bread, and some olives.

He had a slingshot, just like David did, who slew Goliath – the little shepherd boy. It was a weapon, and he used it to throw stones sometimes just a little bit ahead of the sheep to warn not to go in a place. He had a staff. It was a club with nails. It was a thing that he used as an offensive weapon when he was attacked by animals or by robbers. And he had a rod, a shepherd’s crook. Why does he do all this stuff?

Let’s have a look at verse 9. Jesus tells us, “I am the gate; whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out, and will find pasture. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” Three things in there. Firstly, that we will be saved. Secondly, that we would be secure and at peace. The faith coming in and going out means we might say today, “To come and go as you please.”

It’s a Hebrew phrase that means to be safe and secure. No fear and know peace. And thirdly, so that we may have an abundant life. Literally, the word that’s used there by John means ‘superabundantly.’ Jesus is talking about huge blessing in life. Here’s the thing. Sheep only lie down when they feel safe and at peace.

If they felt a little bit twitchy, if they don’t feel comfortable, they will not lie down; they’ll stand so that they could run. Does Psalm 23 make sense now? “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me down to lie in green pastures. And even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will feel no evil for You are with me. Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”

This is about safety; this is about peace. This is about God’s comfort giving us freedom to have abundant life. What sort of life can you and I have if we’re always afraid, if we need to be on the run, if we’re not secure? Jesus is saying, “I am the way, I am the truth, because I have come to give you an abundant life.”

And now He set the scene for explaining to us that this abundant life is based on the magnitude of His love. Lets pick it up in verse 11, chapter 10. “I’m the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who isn’t the shepherd, and doesn’t own the sheep, he sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away. And the wolf snatches them and scatters them.

“The hired hand runs away because the hired hand doesn’t care for the sheep, but I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father,” and here’s the crunch line, “and I lay down my life for my sheep.”

A man by the name of Dr. W. M. Thompson in his book In the Land and the Book wrote this. He said that when he was traveling in Israel, a poor faithful fellow last spring between Tiber and Tiberius, instead of fleeing actually fought three Bedouin robbers, until he was hacked to pieces with their kanja’s and died amongst the sheep that he was defending.

Losing sheep for a true shepherd was a big deal. If something happened to one of them, he had to everything he could to bring that sheep back, and if he couldn’t, he had to bring home evidence to prove that there was nothing that he would do. For a real shepherd, a shepherd that was born and called to this, it was the most natural thing in the world for him to lay down his life for his sheep.

When Jesus laid down His life, when He hung on the cross there, He cried out in His own language in Aramaic, He cried out, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?’ And let me say with all reverence, this is the cry of God, and it’s a cry that rings down through the centuries to you and me here and now.

It’s God crying out, “Don’t you realize? Don’t you realize how much I love you that I would send my Son to die for you?” When we focus on ourselves and our own weaknesses and who we are, we think, “I’m not worthy of this sort of love.” And then we look around at money and work and materialism and power and politics and religion, and we think, “There’s no love like that in any of those.”

Show me amongst that list one of them that would lay down his life for you and me. All of those things are just hired hands. When the chips are down, they run away. When we’re in trouble, when life is hard, when we need something, those things can’t stand up in front of us and say, “I love you so much that I’d die for you.”

The cross is God saying to you and me, “You, you are to die for. That’s how much I love you. I am the Good Shepherd, and the Good Shepherd lays down His life for His sheep.” That is such a beautiful thing. That is so real, that is so Jesus, that is so God. And if we wake up one day and we think, “How much does God love me?”

All we need to do is look at Jesus hanging on the cross and hear Him cry out to us, “Don’t you realize how much I love you?” Whether you’ve given your life to Jesus or not, or whether you’ve been walking with Him for 50 years, we can live each day of our life not knowing how much He loves us.

And I believe the reason you and I are together here and now today is because He wants to know He wants you every day when you get up and do what it is you do, and go to work and deal with all the difficulties and the problems and the issues of life. When the thieves and the robbers and the wild animals come after you, Jesus stands in the middle of all that and says, “I love you this much.”

And in a sense, that sets us free because it gives us everything we need to live the abundant life that Jesus wants us to live. There are so many seductive things out there in life; ultimately, they kill and destroy. And religion, religious rules fall into that category. It’s like the difference between prostitution and pornography on the one hand, versus the beauty of the intimate union of husband and wife on the other.

Jesus wants us to have the real thing – the peace and the security “to maketh me lie down in green pastures.” Free from fear, beautiful relationship with our Shepherd, a beautiful relationship with this Servant King and His sheep. Do you hear His voice today? Do you hear Him crying out to you today, “I love you?”

I would encourage you to wrap your heart around that message, to embrace that message of His incredible love for you, and live your life in that knowledge every day from here to eternity no matter what comes, no matter what that wild animal looks like, no matter what that thief or bandit looks like. With our hearts wrapped around the message of His wonderful love, it’s a new life; it’s an abundant life. It’s a free life; it’s a peaceful life where you and I can come and go in the deep knowledge of this love.

How much does Jesus love us? How much does God love us? Look in the weather-beaten persecuted, crucified face of Jesus Christ, the risen Christ, the risen Jesus. How much do you love me? I love you so much, that I will send my only begotten Son, so that if you would just believe in Him, you will have eternal life.

One of the things that’s been really hard for me over the last ten years to come to grips with in my walk with Jesus is the whole concept of grace. Grace is a difficult concept to come to grips with and I guess the reason is that we don’t live, by and large, in a gracious world, we don’t live in a world where people often do things just because we’re asked and just because they love us.

A few weeks ago we started a new series called “Coming to Grips with Grace,” and over the last two weeks we looked at God’s whole purpose in sending His son to die for us, which is to give us an eternal relationship with him, a relationship that starts right here and right now; and last week we looked at the question How much does God love me?

This week I’d like to ask another question: Is God pleased with me? Is God pleased with you? I asked that question when I was sharing this message at a church about a year ago and I asked everybody before the message to write down a score from zero to ten, to give themselves a score of how pleased do they think that God is with them. A bunch of people, many of them who have been walking with Jesus for many, many years, the average score that people gave themselves was a six out of ten. And when I looked at that I’m thinking “Right. So Jesus died for each one of those people. Each one of these people believe that Jesus died for them, and the score of how pleased they think that God is with them on average was six out of ten”. That’s a pretty scary statistic, I mean, a six-out-of-ten existence when Jesus gave His life for us.

The story of the Prodigal Son is probably quite familiar to most of us. Maybe you haven’t heard this story, so let me just share it briefly. This is a story, it’s a parable, it’s like a metaphor that Jesus used to explain what God is like, and here’s what he said: He said there was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father “Dad, give me the share of the property that I will inherit from you,” and so the father divided his property between them.

And a few days later the youngest son gathered all that he had and went to a far-off distant country, and there he squandered all his money up on drinking and on prostitutes. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout the country and he began to be in need, so he went and hired himself out to one of the men in the country who sent him to feed his pigs in the field. He would have gladly filled himself with the pig food, and no one got him anything, but when he came to his senses he said, “How many of my dad’s hired hands have bread enough to spare, but here I am dying of hunger? I know what I’ll do. I’ll get up and go to my dad and say to him ‘Look, Dad, I’ve done the wrong thing by you and by God. I’m not worthy to be your son anymore, just treat me like one of your hired hands.’”

So off he went and he went to his father, but while he was still a long way down the road, his dad saw him and he was filled with compassion and he ran out and he put his arms around him and he kissed him; and then his son said to him, “Dad, I’ve sinned against you — against God, and against you. I’m just not worthy to be your son anymore,” but the father said to his slaves “Quick! Bring out a robe, the best one, and put it on my son. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet, and then get a fatted calf and kill it and let’s eat, let’s celebrate, let’s have a party because this son of mine was dead and he’s alive again, he was lost and he’s found,” and so they began to have a party.

Now, the elder son who was in the field, and when he came and approached the house he heard music and dancing and he called one of the servants and he said, “What’s going on?” and the servant replied, “Your brother’s come back, your father’s killed the fatted calf because he’s back safe and sound,” but the older son was angry and he refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him, but the son said, “Dad, listen. All these years I’ve been working like a slave for you and I’ve never disobeyed you. Yet, you’ve never even given me a young goat so that I might have a party with my friends; but when this son of yours comes back who’s eaten up all that you gave him with prostitutes and gambling, you killed the fatted calf for him.” And the father said to him, “Son, you’re always with me. All that I have is yours, but we had to celebrate and rejoice because this brother of yours, he was dead and he’s come to life, he was lost and he’s been found.”

That’s a story that Jesus told about who God is. I love Dad’s reaction, I love the fact that when this son had such low expectations of what would happen, remember what he said. He said, “Look, all these servants of my dad have food. Why don’t I just go back and say, ‘Dad, I’m not worthy. Just let me be a servant, let me be a slave, just as long as I have enough food to eat.’” The son’s expectations were so low, but he had faith in his father, and he came back and Dad was waiting for him. Dad was looking down the road, Dad saw him and ran out at him and the son couldn’t even get a word out before Dad threw his arms around him and put a robe on him and put a ring on him and put sandals on him and had a serious party.

Way back several hundred years ago before Jesus said this, the prophet Isaiah in Chapter 61 and verse 10 said this:

“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord! My whole being will exalt in God because He clothed me with garments of salvation. He’s covered me with a robe of righteousness.” And I believe what Jesus was talking about here, the symbol of the robe is the robe of righteousness.

Well, what’s righteousness? I mean, it’s a — sounds like a technical term, it sounds like an old-fashioned word. Righteousness is a right standing with God, it’s not necessarily doing the right thing all the time. Are you perfect? Well, no; I’m not. It’s not always doing the right thing. Righteousness means having a right standing with God, so I believe the robe is the robe of right standing with his father.

And in Ephesians the Apostle Paul writes in chapter 1 and verse 13, he writes about the seal, the ring, the signet ring of the Holy Spirit; and the symbol that Jesus is using here of the ring is being sealed, it’s belonging to the family, it’s the family ring, the family crest. By putting the ring on and the robe on, the dad is saying to his son Because you are my son, you have right standing with me no matter what you did, and you’re part of my family.

Now, the other son, the older son who’s been out there working like a dog, always doing the right thing by Dad, well, he wasn’t impressed. Can you blame him? Because this whole grace that the father showed to the son, well, it’s not fair. Grace isn’t fair because we live in a world where we’re used to getting by struggling, by doing things. We’re rewarded through all the things that we do. But Jesus here is painting a picture of a God who gives, who gives out of the goodness of His heart, and we need to take what’s being offered.

I wonder how that Prodigal Son, that son who went out and squandered everything, his inheritance, a third of what his dad had he squandered, because the way that inheritance works is the older son would get twice as much as the younger son. So that means that this young boy got a third of his father’s estate. How did he feel the morning after the party? I mean, on the one hand you’d be blown away by Dad, wouldn’t you? You’d be just kind of Wow! You’d wake up the next morning and think I never expected Dad to come out and run out and hug me and put the ring on my finger and the robe on my shoulders and then to kill a fatted calf to have a party. That’s just amazing!

But the flip side, the flip side would have been his brother’s scorn. I mean, his brother wouldn’t have got over it that night. I think it would have taken some time for his brother to get over it, and I think it would have taken some time to get over the dysfunction in his own life. Remember, he’s been out getting drunk, he’s been out sleeping with prostitutes, he’s been out gambling.

Have you got a teenager? I’ve had teenagers; in fact, I’ve got one left and she’s a beautiful girl, but teenagers can be difficult because growing up, well, you’re not always well adjusted. And here is a young man with enormous dysfunction in his life and he would have had this tension between the guilt and his brother’s scorn and his dad’s grace.

But where did he sleep that night? Did he sleep out in the servants’ quarters or did he sleep in the house with Dad? My idea is he slept in the house, because his father accepted him back as his very own son. But if he’d gone and slept outside in the servants’ quarters, could he have lived the life that his father planned for him? My hunch is that that’s how many people who believe in Jesus still live their lives — under the reproach of the past, under the sense of guilt, under the nagging suspicion I know I’m not good enough.

That’s why it’s so difficult to come to grips with grace, and that’s why it’s so difficult when we ask people who are walking, who believe that Jesus died for them, we ask them Do you think God is pleased with you? And they give themselves a six out of ten.

Just before Israel entered the Promised Land hundreds of years before Jesus was born, just before they entered the Promised Land in Joshua 5:9 God says this: “Today” — “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt.”

Now, I remember listening to a message on this by Joyce Meyer. Joyce is one of my favorite preachers and she’s had an enormous impact on my life, and so I’m going to share the whole story of rolling away the reproach of the past just the way that she shared it with me, because you know something? I’ve never found a better way of telling this story.

So here’s Israel, they’ve been in slavery for a long, long time in Egypt, and God does some amazing things. He sends Moses to lead them out. He goes through the Red Sea, parts the sea. They walk through the desert for 40 years, and just on the threshold of stepping over the Jordan, just a few days before going into the land that God promised them through Abraham and Isaac many, many years before, God says this: “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt” — the guilt, the condemnation, the nagging suspicion to enter the Promised Land, to enter the thing that God has for us which is a rich, abundant, eternal life in relationship with Him through Jesus Christ.

We need to get rid of the reproach of the past. If this son who came back to his father after squandering a fortune lived in the guilt and the scorn and the shame of what he had done for the rest of his life, he could not have lived the life his dad had planned for him and wanted for him, because his dad’s his dad, his dad wants the best for his son.

Let me ask you a question: Are you wearing the robe of righteousness? Because remember, that’s what Jesus says about the Prodigal Son. And the whole point of Jesus’ story is you and I are the Prodigal Son. Are you wearing the robe of righteousness or the rags of reproach? The morning after when we get up every morning and we know we’re in relationship with God because we believe in Jesus, do we put the robe on every day? Do we know that we are in right standing with God because of what Jesus did, or do we slink around out of the servant’s quarters and believe what everyone else says about us and live under the weight of our own guilt, under that nagging sense of I’m not good enough for God, I’m not good enough to have a God who would send his Jesus to die for me?

What saved this Prodigal Son from the consequences of his mistakes, of his — dare I say it — sin? Well, there were two things: The first thing was the decision that he made to get back on the road and come back to Dad. Have you made that decision yet? In your life, no matter whether you’ve gone to church every week for 50 years or whether you’ve never gone to church, that’s not the issue here. Have you made the decision to get on the road and to walk back to God?

That’s the first thing; and the second thing was Dad. Dad was out there on the road looking, yearning for his son to come back, and he just raced out and loved him. The second thing that saved the Prodigal Son was Dad’s heart, Dad’s love, Dad’s grace, Dad’s forgiveness.

The Apostle Paul wrote this, he said, “He who knew no sin” — Jesus — “made Himself to become sin so that we” — you and I — “who believe in Jesus Christ might become the righteousness of God,” not all the things that we do. Do you think the morning after the party the Prodigal Son was perfect? Of course he wasn’t, but Dad still invited him home. We so often think that God’s kindness depends on what we do.

I love Jesus, I love the way He turns all that upside down, because God’s loving kindness, God’s grace, God’s love for you and me comes thousands of years, it comes an eternity before anything that you and I can ever do to please God. The son was accepted back because he’s part of the family, because he was Dad’s son. You and I are accepted back because we believe in dad’s son, we believe in Jesus, we believe that Jesus died on the cross to pay for my sin, for all of my mistakes and all of yours. Once and for all, when Jesus died, the last thing he said was “It is finished. The job is done. The door is opened.”

Dad is on the road waiting for you and me to come back. The platform, the rock, the beginning is God’s grace in Jesus, not what we do. The whole point of God’s kindness, Paul writes, is that it’s meant to lead us back to God. First comes God’s kindness and then, you know, when we fall in love with Jesus, when we fall in love with God, when we realize how rich and how wonderful this all is, then our behavior starts to change. What we do follows a law behind who we are in Jesus, just like the Prodigal Son. No matter what he did, no matter how bad, no matter how much he squandered Dad’s inheritance, it didn’t change anything. He was still dad’s son.

Doesn’t matter how bad you and I are, doesn’t matter what mistakes we’ve made in the past, doesn’t matter how much we have squandered life. If we can look at Jesus on the cross and say, “I believe,” then we are children of God, and Dad wants us back home.
Of course we’re still going to make mistakes. I’m not perfect, some days I get up and think How could I have done that stupid thing yesterday? But I go to God and I say, “Father, I’m so sorry. I — I am so sorry,” and there is a release, there is a peace, there is something that you can’t get by working your way into it because it comes from God’s love.

Again, the Apostle Paul wrote this in Romans 4 beginning at verse 4, he said someone who works, well, their wages aren’t reckoned as a gift, but it’s something that’s due to them; but to someone who, without works, without trying to work their way into God’s favor, trusts God who takes them back, that faith is reckoned to them as righteousness. In other words, that faith is what gives us a right standing with God.

And when I make a mistake, when I do something wrong, I believe that the Holy Spirit whom God sent to live in me, well, because he’s serious about having a relationship with me and because we enjoy each other’s company, I get this gut-wrenching pain when I do something wrong. And when I get that gut-wrenching pain, I say, “Lord, I am sorry” as quickly as I can to come back into that wonderful relationship and move on. That’s conviction, that’s what the Holy Spirit does to us.

Condemnation, on the other hand, is a nagging What do I have to do? or What do I have to do? I’m not good enough, what do I have to do? I’m never going to be good enough for God. What do I have to do? That’s condemnation. It’s not from God, it’s from the devil and it’s not meant for you and me because we are meant to believe in this Jesus who died once and for all for us.

I am the righteousness of God. In other words, I am in right standing with God and God approves of me. God is pleased with me, not because of what I do or don’t do, because I believe in Jesus; and if you believe in Jesus, exactly the same is true of you. I don’t mean that in a proud or a haughty way, but we need to roll away the reproach of the past and know who we are in Jesus. There’s no more shame game, there’s no more blame game, there’s no more disgrace, there’s no more slinking around like we’re a servant. Jesus said, “You are no longer servants, you are my friends,” and if we believe in Him, we are friends of the living God.

“What about all my sin?” you say. Well, if we have received eternal life from Him through faith in Jesus, if we’ve received that, let me tell you something. Deliverance from sin comes exactly the same way: through faith, through believing in Him, through enjoying the relationship, through feeling the conviction of the Holy Spirit when we make the wrong move and when we do something wrong. And eventually what we do catches up with who we are, or as Joyce Meyer would put it, our do catches up with our who.

You and I are no surprise to God. He knew what he was getting, just like that father knew what he was getting when he took that dysfunctional teenager back into his house. He knew what he was getting. And he was in it for the long haul, and by inviting him home and putting the ring on his finger and the robe of righteousness on his shoulders, he began a good work in his son, he began a good work, and God is able to complete the good works that He begins in us. He never, never, never gives up on you and me.

That is such a secure knowledge, that is such a secure feeling. We need never feel lousy about ourselves again in the presence of God. And just like the dad in the story — Dad, God, Abba Father — wants us to live in His house, in His promises free from guilt, free from condemnation, in a peace and a joy and a relationship with Him that is just beyond anything we could ever imagine; that He is our promised land.

God wants us to enjoy Him, and we can’t enjoy life every day and feel that security until we receive and accept our forgiveness, until we forgive ourselves and until we say, “I am in right relationship with my God because I believe in Jesus and my God is pleased with me.” Doesn’t that still jar you a little bit to say, “Well, God’s pleased with me?”

Let me take you to some other verses, let me just lead you through the way Joyce once led me through this. If you got a Bible, open it at Matthew 3:13. People sometimes think Well, this guy’s talking about feeling good. Feeling good is — oh no! Surely I can’t feel good.

I believe God wants us to feel good in our relationship with Him, just as we’re supposed to feel good in our relationship between, say, a husband and wife. Doesn’t mean that it’s always easy, but we need that security in the relationship.

When Jesus came to John the Baptist to be baptized, God’s presence descended on Jesus like a dove, and Matthew writes “The heavens opened up and a voice came from Heaven and the voice said, ‘This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.’”

And there was another time in Jesus’ ministry, and you can turn to it in Matthew 17:5, it’s when Jesus went up onto the mountain and he was transfigured. God’s presence fell on him in an amazing way and Elijah and Moses appeared, even though they had been dead for a couple thousand years, and again the heavens opened up and God said, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.”

Why did God say that? Why did God twice appear in Jesus’ public ministry and — can you imagine — the heavens opened up? God’s voice comes down from Heaven, that’s a pretty amazing thing. That doesn’t happen every week. Why did God do that? I believe God did that because it was important.

What sort of ministry do you think Jesus would have had if he didn’t know that God was well pleased with him? If Jesus was slinking around saying, “Oh well, you know, I’m just a little carpenter from Nazareth. Who am I? What should I be doing?” Jesus needed to know, because remember, he is the son of God, but he laid his glory aside when he came on this earth and he was a man, a human being, just like you and me. He was human as well as being the Son of God. If Jesus said, “I don’t believe that, I don’t believe that God is well pleased with me,” I don’t think he would have had a very powerful ministry.

“That was Jesus,” you say, “but what about me? It may be true of Jesus, but surely you can’t say that that’s true of me as well.” Well, John writes in Chapter 16 and verse 14 of John’s gospel, he writes this. He’s talking about the Holy Spirit, and Jesus said about the Holy Spirit “The Holy Spirit will glorify me” — listen to this — “because He will take all that is mine and declare and impart it to you.” Let’s listen to that again: The Holy Spirit will take all that belongs to Jesus and declare and impart it to you. How much is all? All is everything. All includes every right that Jesus has.

Later on in the New Testament we read that we are joint heirs, co-heirs with Jesus to God’s blessing. All includes God’s approval, all includes the right standing that Jesus has in front of God. So when we place our faith in this Jesus who came and who died for us and who rose again, then we have the right standing before God that Jesus has before God, everything — righteousness, approval.

If you have a Bible, turn quickly with me to Ephesians 6 beginning at verses 13 and 14. Paul writes this, he says, “Take up the whole body armor of God so that you can stand on that day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand, therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waste and put on the breastplate of righteousness.”

The breastplate of righteousness is the body armor of God. Where does it come from? Not through all the good things that you and I do. It’s a gift from God, it’s a breastplate that covers our hearts where we feel, where we know ourselves. It is the breastplate hammered out on the anvil of the cross of Christ. It is the breastplate of God’s approval.

God approves of me and God approves of you, not because of the good things that we do. He approves of us, He gives us right standing, He gives us eternal relationship because we believe in the one who died for us and rose again.

Every day when you and I get up in the morning we can open our eyes and know that God approves of us. God values us. God is pleased with us, not because of the good and bad things we do, but because of what Jesus did.

I believe God wants to set us free. I believe that God wants to set you and me free in a new way today, if we can just open our hearts and let Him pour this truth into our hearts. But just like Dad with the Prodigal Son accepting his son back and rejoicing and being glad, He accepts you, He accepts me because he’s Dad, because He loves us, and it’s just the way He is. And in a sense — let me say it with all reverence in my heart — He just can’t help himself. That’s who God is. Grace is a difficult thing to come to grips with. Believe this: God approves of you.

Isn’t that just awesome? God approves of you and me.

Over these last few weeks on Christianity Works we’ve been looking at the whole question of coming to grips with God’s grace. It’s not an easy thing to come to grips with. We live in a gracious world anymore. Grace isn’t one of those trendy words out there. And so we’ve been looking at this whole question of what was God up to in creating us, in sending Jesus to die for us, in putting us in this world and the whole point of that, the whole point of Him doing all of that was so that we could have a relationship with Him. That’s a really exciting thing.

I noticed that the last couple of weeks we’ve looked at two particular questions. How much does God love me? And is God pleased with me? To me those two questions are central in coming to grips with this amazing thing, this amazing grace.

What we’re going to do today in this last message in the series “Coming to Grips With Grace” is in a sense go back to the beginning, go back to where we started three weeks ago. And looking at this whole question, is it God’s desire to have a relationship with us? I call this message “Back to Square One.”

Relationships are a funny thing. They bring joy and they bring pain in life. Both come from relationships. Joy when we experience love and affirmation and listening and understanding. And pain when we experience rejection, when we experience conditional love; I’ll love you if. When we’re ignored, when people don’t take the time to understand who we are.

One of the things that often we’re not very good at is maintaining and growing relationships. Let’s look at marriage for a minute. It begins with boy meets girl, there’s an attraction, there’s a courtship, there’s a honeymoon. There’s that first year which is a mixture often of the joy of being married and the struggles of coming to grips with living together now with someone else.

And then by the third year maybe we’re looking at kids and work starts getting harder and the mortgage has to be paid and all of a sudden by the fourth or fifth year your wife or your husband’s weaknesses are really beginning to grind. Then all of a sudden distance comes in, argument comes in and half of marriages, almost half of them end in divorce. And of the other half, maybe half again are far from satisfying ideal.

The world conspires to tear us apart in relationships. As a marriage proceeds and we have each other’s weaknesses and the pressures happen and the kids and the mortgage and the work and the housekeeping and all of those things happen. Communication starts to break down, arguments happen and it’s like bricks start being put, just another brick in the wall and just another brick in the wall. And before you know it there’s a really big brick wall between these two people who are suppose to be in a close and loving relationship.

Good communication is about kicking down that wall. It’s about not letting the bricks go down in the first place. But after many years people who on the surface are happily married, people who should be close, two people whom God has joined together as one flesh can be lonely, can be distant and can be experiencing real pain.

What almost makes it worse is the façade keeping up the outward appearances, making other people think that we’re still in a happy relationship when in fact, behind closed doors the relationship has all but broken down. If it’s true in marriage I believe that it’s also true in our relationship with Jesus, with God.

We first become Christians and we can’t wait to pray, we can’t wait to read the Bible, we can’t wait to go to church. And the months and the years go by and we should be growing, we should be maturing, we should be seeing our weaknesses being dealt with but instead sometimes we end up peddling harder, working harder to deal with our own weaknesses, trying to impress God; but what about the relationship? What about our first love? Often when I sit and talk to people who believe in Jesus about the problems that concerns the pains, the fears, the insecurities they’re experiencing in life, a question that I often ask is, how’s your relationship with Jesus? And you know the answer that I most often get terrifies me. They say, well the relationship is terrible. I don’t really find time to spend with Him. I feel so guilty, I feel so far away from Him, but I don’t know what’s going wrong.

And it’s not just average people like you and me. I often ask these questions of people who are in Christian leadership, people who are hitting up large and well-known ministries. I asked this question and the number of times I get this admission, “well, you know I’m so busy doing life and stuff and ministry, I don’t have time to spend with Jesus.” And so here they are, these people who believe in Jesus, they’re busy keeping up appearances, they’re busy polishing the façade. The things that you and I can see on the outside; doing stuff, peddling hard and yet that soft, beautiful, tender thing inside, that relationship with Jesus that should be there, sometimes it dies.

Let me ask you a question, “How’s your relationship with Jesus?” I mean on a scale of zero to ten, with ten as a stunning relationship with Jesus and zero’s just an awful relationship, where are you? How’s your relationship with Jesus? And often people say, “Well, I think I’m about a four or a five or a six. I know I should spend more time, I know I should be closer to Him. I know that stuff. I feel so guilty, I feel so bad, I feel so condemned.” And that condemnation paralyzes us from moving forward. We feel as though we’re frauds because we’re keeping up this outer appearance where people think, “Wow, they’re doing really well with God. They’re moving on with God,” but inside, inside something’s missing, inside something’s died. Something that used to be there just isn’t there anymore, because the world conspires to tear us away from Jesus. The world conspires to make us so busy; somehow we don’t have time to spend with Jesus.

People say to me, “Bernie, you talk an awful lot about this.” That’s because right at the center of my understanding of God is that we are supposed to have a wonderful relationship with this wonderful God and with this wonderful love.

So how do I get there? With all the precious worries in life, how do I recapture my first love? If the whole point of creation, the whole point of God sending Jesus to die for us, is that we should have a relationship with Him. How do I get back?

Jesus told us that. He spoke to His disciples. If you have a Bible, grab it. Open to John, chapter 14, verses 1 to 4. He said to them, “Don’t be troubled, believe in God, believe in Me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places, if it wasn’t so would I have told you that I’d go and prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you I’ll come again and I’ll take you myself so that you are where I am. And you know the way to the place where I’m going.” You already know.

Now the context He was Jesus was about to be crucified. The disciples knew it; they were in fear for their own lives. Jesus was talking about his own death; he was talking about the fact that He was going away. They were under pressure, they were in fear, they were going to lose Jesus. They were going to run and be confused and feel like frauds because this man, this Son of God that they put their hope in was about to die on the cross. And in the middle of all that Jesus said, “You already know the way.”

And one of the disciples, Thomas said, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going.” “How can we know the way?”

Hang on a minute, what was Thomas expecting here? Some map, some street directory, something that says, “You are here?” “Father’s house is there?” “Take the third one on the left, take two on the right?” Is that what he was expecting? Listen to what Jesus answered Him. Jesus said, “I am the way, I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me. If you know Me you’ll know my Father.” From now on you do know Him and you’ve seen Him.

Thomas was expecting a formula, do this, do that, turn left, take right. What are you and I expecting? Be good, stop being a fraud, spend more time with Jesus, do this, read your Bible. And she said, “I don’t know?” It’s not about rules; it’s not about a formula. I am the way, a relationship with a person of Jesus. God is a person. We have it here it here as a concept. But we have a relationship with a person.

Jesus says, “there’s a room in my Father’s house, and He’s home, in His dwelling place. I’m going to prepare your room for you, for me.” The way home is Jesus and a relationship with Him.

About a thousand years before Jesus was born King David wrote this, he said, “Even though an army should encamp against me my heart won’t be afraid. The war rises up against me, yet I will be confident. One thing that I have asked of the Lord and this I will seek, that I might dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon his beauty and to seek Him in His temple, because in the day of trouble He will keep me safe in His dwelling.”

David knew what Jesus was talking about. David wanted to spend everyday of the rest of his life in God’s presence.

So often when we pray we’re asking God to show us His hand, to do things for us. Now, please don’t get me wrong. I often ask God to do things for me. One of the things that I have been asking God over the last few months is to grow the territory, to grow the boundaries of this ministry, Christianity Works that I’m involved in. And just in the last couple of days I received word that these Christianity Works programs would now be heard on a network right across Europe. God answers those sorts of prayers. He delights to answer those sorts of prayers.

But Jesus is talking about a relationship too, about seeking God’s advice. David and the disciples are amidst fear and threat and confusion and pain. Were asking which way, where, how? And Jesus says, “I am the way;” a relationship with Me.”

Well, How do I have a relationship with the invisible man? It was OK for the disciples. Jesus was there in the flesh. He was there to touch and to feel and to see the expression on His face and to hear him laugh and cry and see Him do things, but how about us? How do we have a relationship with the invisible man?

Let’s move on a little bit in that same chapter of John, chapter 14, verse 15. “And Jesus said to them, if you love Me, you’ll keep My commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever – this is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, because He abides with you and He will be in you. I won’t leave you orphans; I’m coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you. They who have My commandments and keep them, are those who love Me. And those who love Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love them and reveal Myself to them.”

Judas (not Judas Iscariot) but another Judas said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will reveal Yourself to us, and not to the world?” And Jesus answered him, “Those who love Me will keep My word; and My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make Our home with them. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; but the word which you hear is not Mine it’s from my Father’s who sent Me.”

It turns out that the disciples did have the same problem as us. Jesus was leaving them, He was going to die, rise again, ascend into heaven and no longer would they see Him. Sure, they had memories, but they would no longer see Him. And Jesus said, “I will not leave you orphaned.” And He said, “I will send you another advocate, another comforter.” In other words another one just like Me. And he was talking about the Holy Spirit.

And later on He said, “And we will make, Dad and I will make a home in you.” So He’s calling us there to a relationship. Everybody who believes in Jesus receives the Holy Spirit. That means the very presence of God comes to dwell in each one of us the moment we believe in Jesus.

Now sometimes we know that in our heads but we forget that in our hearts. We forget that in our experience. And the Apostle Paul later on in the New Testament in Romans, chapter 8, verse 5 calls us to walk in the Spirit, to walk in faith. He says, “Those who live according to their sinful nature will have their minds set on what that nature desires.” But those who live in accordance with the Spirit will have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.”

One is death, one is life and God calls us to choose life. To choose this relationship that Jesus died and rose again to give us. They sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in us, to give us. Just think about that for just a minute. The very presence of God, God himself come to dwell in you and me by the presence of His Holy Spirit, another one just like Jesus but virtue of the fact that the Holy Spirit dwells in us. So the Father and the Son, Jesus dwells in you and in me if we believe, if we put our faith in Jesus.

Can you image anything closer? Anything more intimate? 24 by 7, 100 percent of the time Jesus is right here. And there is a paradox, He said, “If you love me you’ll obey me.” So love, loving God, loving Jesus is to obey Jesus. To listen to what He says. He talks about loving other people and sacrificing and honoring Him first and what we do with our money and how we spend our time. He talks about all those things. And He says, “If you love me, I’ll know if you love Me, because you’ll obey me.”

This is kind of the chicken and the egg, well which one comes first, God’s love or our obedience? How does that whole thing work? Which one is first? Do I have to make myself perfect to have a relationship with Jesus? Jesus answers that in the very next chapter. He talks about you and me and our relationship with Him.

Again, if you have a Bible follow me and let’s pick it up at the beginning of chapter 15. We’ll read what Jesus says in those first eleven verses of that chapter. He says, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vine grower. He removes every branch in Me that does not bear fruit. Every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You’ve already been cleansed by the word that I’ve spoken to you. Abide in Me, as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bare fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in Me, and I in them, they’ll be much fruit, because apart from Me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in Me, is thrown away like a branch that withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified, by this that you bear much fruit and become My disciples. As the Father loved Me, so I’ve loved you; abide in My love, live in my love. If you keep My commandments, you’ll be doing just that, just as I have kept My Dad’s commandments and abide in His love. All these things I have said to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”

Now here, Jesus picks a vine, a grapevine. Not a big strong woody olive tree but a vine, a vine that grows grapes. And grapes were designed to do what, to make wine. Well, God tells us actually why He created wine. And I’m sorry if anyone’s offended by this, but He’s not talking about non-alcoholic grape juice here. He’s talking about wine. God says in Psalm 104, verse 15 that He made wine to gladden the human heart.

So here is this branch. You and I are the branches and are relationship is defined as us a branches being connected, being grafted into the vine. And Jesus says, “I am the vine. Without Me, you the branches simply can’t be a fruit.”

Now, I don’t know if you thought about it, but if I’m a branch it doesn’t matter how much I concentrate, how much strategic planning I do, I much I try, I much I work, how much I’m committed to it. I can’t grow fruit on my own. I can’t do it. I need to be connected to the vine. I don’t just mean on Sunday, I don’t mean on sacred zones, I mean in everything, everywhere, here and now. And when we do that Jesus promises, go back to chapter 4, verses 21-23, “They who keep my commandments are those who love Me and those who love Me will be loved by Dad. I’ll love them and I will reveal myself to them. And those who love Me will keep my word and my Father will love them and will come to them and make a home with them.”

There are two promises there. If you love Jesus and obey Him, he says, “I will reveal Myself to you. I will show Myself to you or have a relationship with you.” And the second promise comes in verse 23, “If you love me and obey me We, Dad and I, God the Father and God the Son will come to you and make our home with you.” In other words, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.”

At the end of that discussion Jesus said, “The reason I told you all of these things is so that your joy will be complete. So when it happens you’ll believe, you’ll know, you’ll understand.”

Jesus is not looking for us to be perfect. I’m never going to be perfect until the day I stand before Him when I’ve left this life. He’s looking for holy intent, He’s looking for us to set our hearts on Him, so set our sights like flint on following Him and following His commandments.

We look on the outside, we look at people’s veneer, we look at things that we can see. But Jesus looks on our hearts. And what He’s calling us to do here is to set our hearts on Him, to set our minds on Him, to love Him with everything that we are and for Him and enjoy spending time with Him. Do you get it? It doesn’t matter how often you and I go to church. It doesn’t matter how much we put into the offering, it doesn’t matter how much ministry we do or how many committees we’re on. Unless we’re in a relationship with Jesus there’s not going to be any fruit, because without Jesus we’ve got nothing to give. Come on! The branches job is not to worry about growing fruit, it’s staying connected to the vine. Stay connected to the vine and what? The vine grower will prune us, he’ll chop us back, oooh, ouch, pain, yuck!. But out of love He’ll prune us and cut us back so that we’d be bear more fruit. The natural result of being connected to the healthy vine, of being connected to Jesus is bearing fruit. Grapes that are pressed into the lives of other people that bring gladness to other human’s hearts. I wonder sometimes, whether we haven’t forgotten that God is a person.

I’d like to read you something that I summarized from a great book called “The Pursuit of God” by A.W. Tozer. It’s a beautiful book. It was written in the mid twentieth century, so the language is a little bit different. But just have a listen to what he says. He writes so beautifully. He says, “Where the modern scientist has lost God amid the wonders of His world, we as Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His word. We’ve almost forgotten that God’s a person and that as such, we can have a personal relationship with Him.”

In this hour of all but universal darkness, one cheering gleam appears within the fold of conservative Christianity. There are increasing numbers of people who spiritual lives are marked by a growing hunger of God himself. They won’t be put off with words or shallow logic, they won’t be content to busy themselves with nervous activity and get now a deep inner emptiness. There’s a thirst for God. They won’t be satisfied until they drunk deep at the fountain of living water. They are those who while they love the altar and they delight in the sacrifice, they are unable to reconcile themselves with a continued absence of fire. They desire God above all. There’s a thirst to taste of themselves the piercing sweetness of the love of Christ. They want a taste to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God.

I want to deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God because the lack of it has brought us to our present lowest state. The stiff and wooden quality about our spiritual lives is as result of our lack of holy desire.

Complacency is the deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. To bad that with so many of us He waits so long, so very long in vain. If we would find God amidst all of the world’s distractions, we must first determine to find Him and then proceed along the path of simplicity. Now as always God discovers Himself to babes and hides Himself in thick darkness to the wise and the prudent. We need to simplify our approach to Him. Put away all effort to impress Him and come with a guileless candor of childhood.

If we do this without doubt God will respond. How do I get better connected? Probably read my Bible? Yes. But the answer doesn’t stop there. It starts with what A.W. Tozer was just saying in his book. It starts with a desire, with a spark. With a spark that we fan that grows into a flame, a passion. It starts with a step towards Jesus.

James, in his letter in the New Testament, chapter 4, verse 5 said, ” Do you suppose that it’s for nothing the scriptures says, God longs jealously for the Spirit that might dwell in us. Draw near to God and He’ll draw near to you. Cleanse your hands you sinners, purify your hearts.”

And the writer of Hebrews in chapter 11, verse 6, “Whoever would approach God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.” The whole point of creation is for us to have a relationship with God. He loves us enough to send Jesus, His son to die for us.

Is God pleased with me? Absolutely! If I believe in Jesus and I believe that today God is calling us back to square one. Where is your relationship with Jesus? Is it full of passion and desire and fulfillment? Or is it bankrupt or is it maybe somewhere in between?

My prayer is that today, right now the Holy Spirit would fall on you and light your fire. Do you need God to pour His spirit out on you? Maybe you don’t know which way? Maybe we’re confused or lost. Jesus says, “I am the way.”

If we simply honestly pray, Lord pour your Spirit out on me, bring me home, bring me back to you. This is what will happen. We won’t have to wait long. God will act because He loves us.

It’s a great message isn’t it, God’s love and His desire to have a relationship with us. You know, I believe passionately that Jesus changes lives. That’s why we call this program Christianity Works.