Embracing the Abundant Life: Improvement and Increase

"John chapter 10, verse 10 is an, it's a verse we all know, but in this, Jesus is drawing a very sharp contrast between himself and the klepto that's called the thief. And that's literally in the Greek. Jesus said that he's a klepto. The English translated it thief, but you ever heard of a kleptomaniac? The devil's the chief kleptomaniac. And Jesus said this, he said, the thief, the klepto, comes only to steal, to kill, and to destroy." [00:50:20] (38 seconds)


"Now that's, that's the word klepto. again it's it's it means he steals by stealth the enemy comes in and he takes things out of your life without you even knowing they're gone and suddenly you're wondering what happened to my dream i i used to have dreams where'd my dreams go hello klepto right he he takes your hopes he takes anything that's good in your life and he takes it without you you don't even know till years down the road when you haven't become who you once thought you would be what happened to the dream that god gave me it was stolen by stealth that's what it means to steal and the second thing he does is he kills now this word is thuo in the greek and this is this is a barbaric word it literally means to butcher it's not you don't just kill like stop them from breathing this is the word butcher as in for a sacrifice see if you've been cut you can be sewn back up if you've been butchered there ain't no putting you back together yes sir and that's what the thief comes he comes he he comes in like a klepto he he stealthily steals from us and then the other is he just butchers your life ain't nothing right ain't nothing the way it's supposed to be and you even feel it when your hopes have been butchered your dreams have been butchered and you're not going to be able to do anything about it your love has been butchered and then this last one is to destroy and that's apaluma and apaluma literally means to make void to to siphon it all it's like a jug with nothing in it where he makes void in your life hope he makes void in your life joy" [00:51:18] (115 seconds)


"and someone that's gone that they have been destroyed their greatest ambition their highest aspiration is death because life is intolerable life without hope isn't life it's drudgery it's monotony it's it's a curse so jesus is saying the thief of life these are the three things he employs to destroy god's people but he's drawing a contrast between them and trust me when i say that i'm not telling you what i say this the thief sometimes wears religious garbs sometimes the thief is standing behind a pulpit and preaching sermons to you that instead of infusing you with life siphon all the joy out of you i mean if the devil appeared to you in anything but religious you know if he appeared to you in red horns pitchfork tail you say no you ain't taking my stuff but if he comes to you as a person of religion or a man of god then you'll listen to him but the effect is the same instead of being born into significance you live a life of no consequence and jesus says in contrast to this he says i came contrasting myself my mission my purpose to the thief i came so that they would have life now see when we read this we can't be like the pharisees who when he talked to them about being free they said what do you mean free we ain't enslaved to no man ain't never been know how no time any place ever been enslaved and yet the romans were walking around as they said we're not enslaved to anybody hello centurions and so when we read this we can't just say well i'm already alive because jesus is not talking about bios he's not talking about being biologically alive so here is a magnificent word and it's really hard to define it's the god kind of life it's called zoe and we can look it up in a biblical dictionary but it doesn't really do it justice because zoe being the god kind of life means it's kind it's god kind of big it's god kind of enduring it's god kind of everlasting it's god kind of grand how do you define the god kind of life you have better luck defining god himself yourself but jesus said this is the life that i came that you might have not biological life where you're just born you exist and you die he said i've come to reconnect you with the source of all life i've come that you might be infused with zoe" [00:53:14] (168 seconds)


"and then he said that you would have it abundantly and i like that word abundance because it literally means if you look it up it means over atop above beyond and all around so what jesus is saying and he says to i've come that they i'm going to backtrack he said i've come that they who's the they the they is everyone that the thief affected the thief everyone that the thief ever stole from jesus said i've come that you might have life i've come that the thief has ever killed and butchered your hopes your dreams your ambitions your relationships your home jesus is declaring to you i've come to give you the greatest gift man's ever received i've come that you who have been butchered might have life he said to you that have been destroyed that you once thought you would amount to something now you're satisfied with being nothing i've come that you might have zoe life the god kind of life that you might have life that you might have life that you might have life that you might have life and have it in abundance where it's too much it's too grand it's too big see we gotta listen we've got to allow the word of god to redefine us what does it mean to you to be infused with the god kind of life does that remain that that that life is nothing really much more than it was before i met christ except now i go to church on sundays is it more than that what is the god kind of life capable of well i read somewhere that god spoken to nothing and created everything that's the god kind of life i read somewhere that god spoke into the darkness and said let light be and light was that's the god kind of life i" [00:56:05] (117 seconds)


"it's a life that satisfies it's it's like when you when you end your day and you just think man that was an amazing day i would like to rewind it and enjoy it again but you don't need to because when you're walking in zoe tomorrow's going to be better than today so as good as today was tomorrow's going to be better than today tomorrow's going to be better than today because god is the only personality in all of creation that can do the most amazing thing that's ever been done in like forever today and outdo himself tomorrow and that's the kind of life that god wants this is the greatest gift ever given because it's zoe life and the psalmist referred to this go to psalm 91 verse 16 is this okay this morning psalm 91 verse 16 the psalmist said this with a long life i will satisfy him not with a long life will i punish him but with a long life will i satisfy him and in the satisfaction he'll see my salvation" [00:59:20] (81 seconds)


"everyone say it's the greatest gift ever now let's read john 10 10 again but this time i want to read it to you out of the passion translation a thief has only one thing in mind a thief has only one thing in mind he wants to steal slaughter and destroy but i have come to give you listen to this everything in abundance and our real life church if you're with us for the first time this might be new to you but this is old hat to us if it's written if it's written we don't need to question it and he said right here i came i have come that you to give you everything yeah in abundance, more than you expect, life in its fullness until you overflow." [01:02:29] (54 seconds)


"Can I tell you something, church? I don't do karma. I do charis. I don't believe in karma. I don't believe in karma. I believe in cares, the grace of God, the goodness of God. And we need to hardwire, rewire what we've been hardwired to believe in constant negativity that if you're winning too much, something's wrong. If things are going too good, something must be wrong. That ain't wrong. That's right. Because you are a recipient of the God kind of life." [01:04:39] (37 seconds)


"Imagine living a life without limits. Can you? Where you believe in your own new nature and the power of Christ in you to overcome anything that comes against you. Still talking about life. That's the idea behind this concept called life. Nothing can defeat you. No weapon formed against you can prosper. Every word spoken over you in judgment, you condemn it. You condemn it. We see limitations as stepping stones to greatness. Remember Goliath and David? To everyone else, Goliath was an insurmountable obstacle. To David, he was a doorstep." [01:13:18] (51 seconds)


"Jesus constantly spoke about a life without limits. And you know what? Here's the thing. He portrayed it. He portrayed it. Only someone with a religious brain, tainted, made toxic, can look at Christ and somehow see him as not enough. Right? Jesus always had the solution. Jesus never met anything and said, well, I wished I could. With one exception that I'm aware of. In his own hometown, because they placed limits on the limitless one. Apart from that, he met death. He raised him from the dead. He met blindness. He made him see. He met lameness. He made him to walk." [01:14:37] (53 seconds)


"Romans chapter 8, verse 37. Listen to this. Yet amid all these things, say all these things, we are more than conquerors. Do things come against us? Oh, absolutely. Do people persecute and prosecute? Absolutely. But in all these things, things seen and unseen, voices, viruses, we are more than conquerors and gain a surpassing defeat, victory through him who loved us." [01:16:27] (39 seconds)