John 10:10-21 How to Live The Good Life God Intended

Do you remember the game show Let’s Make a Deal?

Let’s Make a Deal is a television game show which originated in the United States in 1963 and has since been produced in many countries throughout the world. The program was created and produced by Stefan Hatos and Monty Hall, the latter serving as its host for many years.

The format of Let’s Make a Deal involves selected members of the studio audience, referred to as “traders,” making deals with the host. In most cases, a trader will be offered something of value and given a choice of whether to keep it or exchange it for a different item. The program’s defining game mechanism is that the other item is hidden from the trader until that choice is made. The trader thus does not know if he or she is getting something of greater value or a prize that is referred to as a “zonk,” an item purposely chosen to be of little or no value to the trader.

Life may feel like that game show. You try to trade up in life and try to open doors all by yourself. But you don’t know if you are trading up or trading down. Life can be very difficult when try to make life work all by yourself.

Then Satan comes in like a slick Monty Hall and he gives you the opportunity to open three doors. The problem is that the three doors that Satan wants you to open are all fixed against you. Satan creates barriers to living the good life that God intended.

Remember that Satan tempted Eve by questioning God’s certain word. He does the same thing in your life. He promises the good life. Instead, behind each door, you lose.

Unlike the game show “Let’s Make a Deal,” there are no prizes when Satan shows you the three doors.

“A thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy….” (John 10:10, HCSB)

SATAN’S BARRIERS TO LIVING THE GOOD LIFE GOD INTENDED

1. He steals

When you open the first door, Satan shows that he has stolen from you. The word for steal here is where we get our word “kleptomaniac.” This describes Satan. He doesn’t produce something of his own making. Satan isn’t creative like God. All Satan can do is copy and steal. If he can’t copy to get attention, then he will steal to get attention. He steals your joy. He steals your energy. He steals what you think is valuable here on Earth in the hopes that you will stop listening to God. Like a slick con-man, Satan tells you a deal you can’t refuse. Yet, when you look back, you realize that Satan was stealing from you.

2. He kills

When you open the second door, Satan has killed you. The word here means to slaughter or sacrifice. But the sacrifice Satan demands and the slaughter he creates kills you. He kills you from the inside. He speaks lies to you to tear you down. He speaks fear into your life. He wears you down emotionally and mentally so that you will not choose to live the good life that God wants for you.

3. He destroys

When you open the third door, Satan has destroyed you. The meaning of the word here is to perish or lose. When Satan destroys, it is because he is going to lose. He wants to take down as many people with him as he can. Satan works at destroying relationships. As the devil, he tempts you to destroy yourself. He tries to destroy everything you have ever built in life.

In contrast, Jesus came to give me the good life God intended.

“…I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.” (John 10:10, HCSB)

Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum made the following insight:

The message of Christ was not: “Be good now so you can go to heaven later.” His message was: “Get right with God so you can enjoy the kind of life God wants you to enjoy now, as well as heaven later.”¹

A Christian enters the good life that God intended only through the right door that God shows. The basis of this good life is not what I can accomplish. The basis is what Jesus accomplished.

““I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11, HCSB)

The essence of the gospel is not what Jesus will do for you—it’s what He already did for you when He died for your sin. Because Jesus bore the wrath of God we deserved, our sins past, present, and future are forgiven in totality. Thus, the gospel means we need to be about the business not of saying, “Get saved so you can buy a new car,” or, “Get saved so you won’t have any more problems,” but, “Get saved because Jesus Christ died for your sins.”²

So if Jesus’ work on the cross is the basis of the good life that God intended, how can I live it?

HOW TO LIVE THE GOOD LIFE THAT GOD INTENDED

1. Trust the word of no one but Jesus (John 10:12-13)

“The hired man, since he is not the shepherd and doesn’t own the sheep, leaves them and runs away when he sees a wolf coming. The wolf then snatches and scatters them. This happens because he is a hired man and doesn’t care about the sheep.” (John 10:12–13, HCSB)

Jesus is the good Shepherd because He gives His life for the sheep. This is why He has come. He cares for the sheep daily, watching, feeding, and protecting them. But in the end, He must finally deal with their greatest danger, face the mightiest thief, the evil one, who spreads darkness and disorder through his own servants, the false shepherds. So the good Shepherd will give His life at the cross in this last struggle with this enemy and overcome.

Jesus is also the good Shepherd who knows the sheep and they know Him. There is a loving intimacy between Shepherd and sheep. The Shepherd knows the weak and the strong, the stubborn and the submissive ones, the hurts and the needs of every sheep. And the sheep know and trust their Shepherd—every inflection of His voice, the way by which He leads them out to pasture, His courage in the face of danger. He is their Shepherd. This intimate knowing between Shepherd and sheep is rooted in and modeled after the union between Father and Son.³

2. Keep listening to Jesus (John 10:14-15)

““I am the good shepherd. I know My own sheep, and they know Me, as the Father knows Me, and I know the Father. I lay down My life for the sheep.” (John 10:14–15, HCSB)

My family and I keep cows on our ranch in Missouri. The name of the ranch is Bar-Bar-A, named after my mother. Like many other cow ranchers, we keep track of our cows by branding them. The reason for this is because many times, when a rancher handles hundreds of cows, a couple of cows will get lost. Or perhaps someone will come to the barn in the middle of the night and steal a couple of cows.

Branding is a way of showing of ownership. It is also a way of organizing the herd. So a rancher will brand cattle. When I went to Germany, I noticed that the cows had bells on them. I was surprised to see cows walking down the street with bells on their necks. But I discovered that this was the way they herded cattle here. They use bells instead of brands to identify their cows.

Shepherds, on the other hand, do not need to have their sheep identified. They do not brand their sheep. The first reason is the branding of a sheep will destroy the wool. Naturally, the sheep’s wool will catch fire and will hurt the sheep. The second reason has to do with the relationship between the sheep and the shepherd. The sheep listen to the voice of the shepherd. They learn their way by listening to the shepherd. When the shepherd speaks, the sheep listen. A shepherd will speak and the sheep will follow. You do have a few people that stay behind, but only so that all of the sheep will hear. Sheep don’t need bells because the bells will prevent the sheep from listening to the shepherd.

Jesus doesn’t brand us like cattle. We are not burned with a spiritual identification brand. We don’t have crosses or fish branded on our legs. Jesus owns us, this is true. But He wants us to voluntarily follow Him. Like sheep, we must learn to follow sheep. We must learn to listen to the Shepherd.⁴

3. Keep sharing about Jesus (John 10:16)

“But I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice. Then there will be one flock, one shepherd.” (John 10:16, HCSB)

More than likely what is in view are the Gentiles who would come to believe in Christ. The idea is not many shepherds with many flocks but one Shepherd joined together as one flock5 Here, Jesus shows the missionary nature of His work. He is in the business of bringing in more people into God’s fold. Just as He reached out to Jews, He also reaches out to Gentiles. That work still continues today. He commissioned us to do this. Sharing Jesus is part of living the good life that God intended. This sharing is in contrast to the way the world teaches you to live. The world says to think only about yourself. Jesus says that it is not just about you. Jesus has all kinds of people He wants to reach. He wants you to reach them.

4. Keep living life based on God’s definition of love (John 10:17-18)

“This is why the Father loves Me, because I am laying down My life so I may take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down on My own. I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to take it up again. I have received this command from My Father.”” (John 10:17–18, HCSB)

We have to listen to Jesus, and if we trust no one other than Jesus, then we will see that Jesus understands love the way God designed love to be. Jesus sacrificed himself because that was the ultimate expression of God’s love. Jesus lived the good life – and this included not stealing, nor killing, nor destroying. Living the good life included the loving lesson of giving.

Jesus lived this life and sacrificed Himself for us because He loved God and He loved us. Jesus was confident in the love that comes from His Father. The basis of what Jesus did was because of love. Now Jesus says here that the sacrifice that Jesus makes – to give His life for our sin, was the reason God loved Him. I also think it goes both ways. Jesus voluntarily gave His life because He loved His Father. He wanted to make His Father proud. Jesus knew that God the Father loved Him. He heard in front of other people:

“And there came a voice from heaven: This is My beloved Son. I take delight in Him!” (Matthew 3:17, HCSB)

Jesus loved God because He knew that God loved Him. Jesus lived life and overcame death because of love. That was His motive. That motive is something Jesus taught all along. This is why He made it His greatest commandment:

“He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37–39, HCSB)

So Jesus equated living the good life to loving God and loving one another – but only by the standing of God’s love of sacrifice. We give. We give to God and we give to others.

“I have come that they might have life . . . more abundantly.” Two cities in New York drew water from nearby mountains. One depended on a lake that tended to dry up during droughts. The other got its supply from a lake in the Catskills that never went dry, fed by underground streams. They could never exhaust that lake. Many of us forget we have endless supplies of grace, joy, peace. We don’t have to worry about our spiritual reserves, but we’ve got to tap into them by faith. If we’re committed to Christ and walking in the Spirit, we have an ocean of God’s blessing to draw from every day.⁶

The sermon video can be found on Facebook Live here.