John 10:3-5 To him the porter opens; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out.… I. CHRIST HAS COME THAT MEN MAY HAVE LIFE. 1. Prolonged natural life is due to Him. The barren tree would not stand so long but for His intercession. 2. Life in the sense of pardon, deliverance from the death penalty. 3. Life from the death of trespasses and sins, the life of the Spirit. 4. This spiritual life is the same which will be continued and perfected in heaven. 5. Of this Christ is the only source. It is not the result of working. How can the dead work for life? It is exclusively a gift of God. If we could have had it without Christ coming, why need He come? II. CHRIST HAS COME THAT THOSE TO WHOM HE HAS GIVEN LIFE MAY HAVE IT MORE ABUNDANTLY. 1. Life is a matter of degrees. Some have life, but it flickers like a dying candle; others are full, like the fire upon the blacksmith's forge when the bellows are in full blast. Christ has come that we might have life in all its fulness. 2. Increase of life may be seen in several ways. (1) In healing. When a sick man recovers he has life more abundantly than in his illness; so when Christ restores sick Christians, strengthens their faith, brightens their hope, etc. (2) But a person may be in health, and yet you may desire for him more life. A child, e.g., is in perfect health, yet cannot run alone. As he grows, however, he has life more abundantly. So we grow in grace, from babes to young men, and then fathers. (3) Health and growth may coincide with a stinted measure of life, as in the case of a prisoner who tenants a living tomb. When he is set at liberty he knows, as we when the Son makes us free what it is to have more abundant life. (4) But a man may have liberty, etc., and yet be so poor as to be scarcely able to keep body and soul together. So there are some believers who exist rather than live, and have small conception of the rich thing Christ has stored up for them. (5) A man may enjoy all this, and yet need more life, because a despised castaway. The love and esteem of our fellows is essential to life. When under conviction a man finds himself to be less than nothing, he finds it a mighty addition to life when Jesus makes him, a slave, a son of God and heir of heaven. 3. The particulars in which more abundant life consists and should be sought. (1) More stamina. An embankment is to be cut. A number of men offer themselves for the work — these with sunken cheeks and hollow coughs. They will not do. Yonder is a band of stalwart fellows, with ruddy faces, broad shoulders, mighty limbs. They will do. The difference between the two is the presence or absence of stamina. And Christ has come that we may have spiritual stamina for arduous service. Alas! some Christians want medicine and nursing. Give them work, and they will grow weary. (2) Enlargement of the sphere of life. To some forms of human life the range is very narrow. Our streets swarm with men to whom "the music of the spheres" means the chink of sovereigns. The souls of such are like squirrels in cages; each day their wheel revolves; it is all the world they know. Christ has come to give a broader life. True, there are many men whose life traverses wide areas, who map out the stars, fathom the sea, etc. but that, wide as it is, is bounded by time and space. But when Christ comes He makes the greatest intellect feel that it was "cabined, cribbed, confined," till Christ made it free. (3) The exercise of all our powers. All the powers of a man are in the child, but many of them are dormant, and will only be exercised as life is more abundant. Christ has come to give us a fuller life. Look at the apostles before and after Pentecost. Many professors seem to be more dead than alive. Life is in their hearts, but only partially in their heads, and has not touched their silent tongues, idle hands, frost-bitten pockets. (4) Increased energy. A man is most alive when in determined pursuit of a favourite purpose. Christ has supplied us with the most stimulating purpose — His constraining love. Abundance of life is painfully manifest in insane persons: the demoniac, e.g. Now, if possession by an evil spirit arouses men to an unusual degree of life, how much more shall possession by the Divine Spirit! (5) Overflow of enjoyment. When on a spring morning you see the lambs frisking and children playing, you say, "What life!" Just so when churches and individuals are revived, what joy there is! (6) Delicacy of feeling. There is a great deal of difference as to the amount of pain which persons suffer. People with a fine mental organization, having more life, suffer more than coarser people. When Christ brings His abundant life, those who enjoy it will be pained by a given sin a hundred times more than he was before. And so there will, on the other hand, be more pleasure. The name of Jesus is inexpressibly sweet to those who have abundant life. I mean by delicacy this — (a) There is a delicacy of hand which a man may acquire, and which renders him a worker of feats. So the educated hand of faith can not only grasp, but handle the Word of Life. (b) It shows itself in keenness of perception. An Indian will put his ear to the ground and say, "There is an enemy in the way," when you cannot hear a sound. Recall the incident at the siege of Lucknow. Jesus would have us quick of understanding, so that we may hear Him coming. (7) Supremacy. Some races have physical life, but not abundantly, and after awhile perish. Christians should have such abundant life that their circumstances should not be able to overcome them. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. |
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