A LIFE LAID DOWN

JOHN 10:17-18

I want to talk this morning on the subject “A Life Laid Down.”  Here in this passage we see that very early on in his ministry Jesus began to prepare his disciples for his coming death.  One day while in Galilee He said to them, “The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men:  And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again. And they were exceeding sorry”. (Matthew 17:22-23).   In Matthew 26:2 Jesus reminds them again that his death is coming, saying to them, “Ye know that after two days is the feast of the Passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified.”

           I am sure that Jesus recognized that they often did not understand his reference to his soon coming death.  However, Jesus knew that his death was coming and when it did he wanted those who were his disciples to be prepared.  Here while teaching on the role of the good shepherd, Jesus explains that the good shepherd is willing to lay down his life for the sheep.  The good shepherd loves the sheep and cares for them.  He provides for them and protects them even to the point of putting his own life in danger.  The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 

JOHN 19:7-12

          Pilate finding out that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, and fearing that it might be true, wanted to release Jesus.  When Jesus would not defend himself against the accusations of the Jews, Pilate said to him speak up man, don’t you know that I can kill you or let you live, for I have that much authority.  Jesus wanted Pilate and later the world to know, that no-one had power over him except that power be from God.  Jesus’ life was not taken from him neither by Pilate nor by those who delivered him up to be crucified.  Jesus himself told us in John 10:17-18 that he would be laying his life.  The fact that Jesus was laying down his life is important.  It is important because it tells us that He made a choice.  It is important because it helps us to understand the relationship between God and Christ and thus gives us better clarity on the relationship that God expects to have with those who now call themselves his children.  There are 4 things that I want us to understand today about a life laid down.

JOHN 12:27-30

Jesus was experiencing a "troubled" soul. As we learned last week this means he was feeling heavy, weighed down, strained, stressed, and disturbed.  Of course the reason His soul was so troubled was that He was about to face the great cause for which He had come into the world. His hour was at hand, staring Him in the face; the terrible sufferings were now beginning.  Note two things.

a.   He had come to die, and to die was the supreme cause of His life.  He was born to die and now that he was faced with his purpose, he was extremely distressed.  Fulfilling his purpose was not an easy task.  Sometimes I think that we feel that if we just knew clearly and exactly what God wanted us to do, we would just go out and do it.  But the truth of the matter is that even when we know our function in life we still wrestle with fulfilling our purpose.   This brings us to the second thing I want us to note.

b. His supreme obedience. Imagine the terrible sufferings of the hour.  But even in the midst of suffering Jesus says, “What shall I say? Father save me from this hour.” What he is saying is “This is tough, but should a tell the father to save from this because I don’t want to do this.  Of course not, for this is why I came.  This is my purpose in life.”  He could not, for He had come to die.  To perform the will of God was the supreme purpose for his living.  He told the disciples in John 4: 34 “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.”   He must obey God, and to obey God was the supreme act of His life.  To obey God was to die.  When we know what God is asking us to do, and we are struggling with fulfilling his will for our lives, we too like Jesus must be committed to a life of obedience.  When we see and understand that the supreme purpose for our lives is to obey God, then we too will carry out his will even when his will means the death of our will.

In this distressed state Jesus prayed for the glory of God. He prayed for the Father to glorify His own name. This is significant. It shows a complete selflessness on the part of Jesus. It shows that the primary concern of Jesus was to complete His purpose and cause on earth, which was to glorify God by doing exactly what God wanted. So the first thing that we see in the laid down life is that it glorifies God.  How was God glorified? It was God's will for Jesus to die for the sins of men. By dying, Jesus showed that God is the supreme Being of the universe. He is the One who is to be honored and respected and obeyed, even when obedience means death.  Jesus prayed that God would glorify his name through the death he was about to die and God answered I have glorified it and will glorify it again.  I have glorified it in the life you have lived and I will glorify it in the death you die, in the defeat of Satan and in resurrecting you to life again.  God has but one enemy and each time his enemy is defeated in any way, God is glorified.

 Not only does the laid life glorify God, but Christ too was glorified in death.

JOHN 12:31-32

      Watching as Judas went out to betray him Jesus declared now is the Son of man glorified (to make glorious or honorable).  Jesus saw being appointed to die for the sins of the world as a glorious and honorable task.   It was a privilege, a hard task, but still a privilege.  Many times what God is asking us to do may seem hard to us, but we like Jesus should see carrying out the will of God for our lives as a privilege.

PHILIPPIANS 2:5-11

Here we are told to have the same mind set about doing the will of God as Jesus had.  The fact that he was and is the son of God did not hinder him from coming to this world in the form of man and suffering a cruel and inhumane death for a crime of which he was innocent.  He knew no sin yet he died the death of a sinner.  But verse 9 lets us know that because he submitted to the will of God, that God has now given him a name that is above every name and that he will be honored by all as they bow and confess that he is the savior of the world.  Because Jesus laid down his life he has been glorified in heaven and will be glorified before all men as he takes over and rules his kingdom.  Romans 8: 17 lets us know that if we expect to be glorified together with him then we must be now willing to suffer with him.  How do we suffer with him?  By doing as he did, laying down our lives in submission to the will of God.  When we choose to lay down our lives we glorify God.

Second, a life laid down is a life of obedience.

HEBREW 5:8

          We have seen how Jesus surrendering to the will of the father laid down his life at Calvary.  Here we are told that he learned obedience through the things he suffered.  When we choose to obey God and submit to his will we are laying down our lives for him and doing as Jesus said in Luke 9:23 where he said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”  Often we submit to some portion of the will of God for us and then we pick up our own will.  We carry the cross of Christ for part of the day and then we carry our own cross for the remainder of the day.  We fail to die daily and instead resurrect our own wills daily.  God’s will is that we would choose daily to lay down our lives, our will and accept his perfect will for us.  A life laid down is a life of absolute obedience.

Third a life laid down is an offering to God.

EPHESIANS 5:1-2

          Christ did not just give himself as a sacrifice for us, but he gave himself as an offering also.  What you might ask is the difference.  The sacrifice is what was laid on the altar.  The sacrifice itself had no choice in the matter.  The animal did not walk up to the altar, jump on it and say slay me as a gift to God.  Also sacrifices where associated with man’s need for God’s forgiveness.  Offerings on the other hand were associated with man’s thankfulness for the blessings of God.  They were free will offerings, given because a man desired to show love and reverence for God.  Jesus gave himself to pay for our sins, but he also offered himself freely.  In Hebrews 10:5-9 we see reference to Jesus receiving a body that he may offer himself up to God who no longer pleased with the blood of goats and bulls.  Jesus gave himself to God as a free will offering.  He presented himself to God as the option and may I add the only option for the salvation of mankind.

          As Children of God we too are to offer our selves to God.  We are told to offer praises in Hebrews 13:15 and in Romans 12:1-2 we are told to offer ourselves as living sacrifices.  When we truly lay down our lives we offer it to God to do with as he pleases.  We must keep in mind that just as no one took Jesus’ life, so no one has taken our life.  We are to give our lives as free will offerings in appreciation for the life that God has given on our behalf.

Finally a life laid down is a demonstration of love.

JOHN 15:12-14

          In Christ laying down his life for us he demonstrated his great love for us.  There is no greater love that one can demonstrate than this which has already been shown on our behalf. 

ROMANS 5:6-8

          We were in no way deserving of this demonstration of love shown on our behalf.  We were enemies of God.  Even with all that he had previously done for mankind and in the lives of each of us individually many of us were determined to remain his enemy and follow after evil rather than God.  This scripture explains that we probably would not have done for a good man what God did for his enemies.  God has a love for man that goes beyond anything that we can do or anything that we have not done.  It was this great love that urged Jesus forward towards the cross.  The love not only for his disciples but for all those who obeys his commands.  He laid down his life demonstrating his love for us, will we now lay down our lives in service, in demonstration of our love for him, in an offering of ourselves to him that he might be glorified in us and we in him in a time to come.