Keswick at Portstewart - Wednesday Morning 8 July 2026 - Mark Maynell

 

KESWICK AT PORTSTEWART – MORNING BIBLE READING – WEDNESDAY 8 JULY 2026 – MARK MAYNELL

 

Well, we are going to break into Colossians chapter two verse one to verse 7.

 

Now, I wonder if you have heard of Luis Carlos Dorona Cabral de Camara. Correct. You haven't heard of him probably.  I practiced that a couple of times this morning. So, that was the best yet. So, I'm relieved and I'm not going to say it again.  He was a Portuguese aristocrat who died in 2007 at the age of only 40. He was a bachelor with no siblings and at the age of 28 he made his will in front of two registry offices office witnesses in Lisbon to ensure that things would go exactly according to the plans he had set in the event of his death. And he was adamant that his riches would not end up going to the state as apparently that happens automatically in in Portugal if you die in testate without legal heirs. And so Luis Carlos had clearly a very troubled life.  He was the illegitimate son of an aloof mother. He was brought up by a nanny. He inherited a huge estate from his grandmother but had no relatives and very few friends. He largely spent his wealth on motorbikes and wine. He was liked by his neighbours and acquaintances, but he kept himself very much to himself. So when he finalized his will, he asked the lawyers in Lisbon for a phone book. He then literally picked out 70 names at random from the phone book and they were his chosen heirs. Now, when he did die in 2007, these heirs were contacted out of the blue. They had no idea that their names were in this man's will. Initially, I guess many thought it was a scam. I mean, you would, wouldn't you? I mean, it's like getting, you know, an email from a Nigerian prince saying that, you know, I just need £10,000 and then you'll inherit a billion or something. And you think, yeah, right. But actually, no, this was genuine. And each of these 70 families, either the individuals or their descendants, gained nearly €3,000. As one of his neighbours said when the news came out, and actually this news did go viral around the world, one of the neighbours said, "I'm sure that he just wanted to create confusion by leaving his belongings to strangers. It would have amused him." I mean, after all, you can't take it with you, can you? And the first that each of these 70 heard that they were the inheritors was when lawyers made contact out of the blue. Before that moment, they've been oblivious. Even though their names were recorded in a legal docent, it had been kept hidden for whatever it was 12 years or so. 

Now, we are more like that 70 than we might care to realize. We are inheritors and we have been even from the point when we were blissfully unaware of it. So let's just think about how that might be. The first point I want to make is is what I've called the revelation of the gospel. Now Paul understood this very clearly.  speaking of this Christian gospel, he says back in chapter 1 verse 5, I've become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness. The mystery that's been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord's people. A great mystery. Now, he's not talking about some sort of detective who done it that you buy at the station or whatever, you know, when we discover the killer on the last page. No, this is not some spooky kind of ghost story or a story of the unexplained or an P D James story or whatever it might be. No, a biblical mystery is nothing like that. It's actually more of a technical term. It’s for something that was secret that is now revealed. It now gets made known. So what is it? Drum roll, please. And then there's a trumpet fanfare. 

Verse 27, here it is. “To them, God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you the hope of glory.” What people hadn't grasped before was Jesus, the Jewish king, the Messiah, the anointed one, the one who is the Lord of his people, will be recognized by the entire world as their rightful king. He has claims over everybody. The Lord's people, the Jews, received this shocking news. And at first, many of them struggled to come to terms with that. Even some of the apostles and disciples struggled to come to terms with that. I mean, I thought this was just for us. I mean, you know, the language, the prophecies, the culture, the role that he's stepping into is very much ours. But we're now told this is for everybody whether you recognize him or not. Now of course people in the world around the world they weren't expecting anybody to come along and say “oh actually by the way I'm your king. Most of us, you know, we might have our own political systems and our own cultures and countries and so on and that's all well and good, but to be told actually you got a king over all of that.” And even in those places that are monarchies, you got a king over your king because he's the king of kings, the president of presidents. And of course, not everybody is that pleased about it. And it's been like that since the beginning, since this king was an infant. When a particular king is suddenly told there's a king to be born, it's not surprising he doesn't feel that good about it. And of course, it's not like some lawyer getting in touch  and just saying, "Oh, by the way, you've been given €3,000." But Paul's job is to get the word out to say you are due for some inheritance. something really quite mind-boggling. Whether you're Jewish or not, but there's a king. He's your king. And you must acknowledge that. Otherwise, you don't get anything. That's what drives Paul on, isn't it? It's what he himself has come to know. And for Paul, the most Jewish of Jews, as he writes to the Philippians, the one who, you know, prides himself on all his heritage and his family tree and his education, you know, he was the Jew of the Jews. It's fascinating, isn't it? That the Lord chooses him to be the one to take it to those who before he considered utterly unclean, revolting, and completely to be avoided. It's interesting that the Lord did that, don't you think? And in fact, it is this job that Paul devotes his entire life to making sure that Jews and then for the Greeks, for the Gentiles, wherever he goes, hear about their king. But when you begin to unpack, as we have already done actually this week, we begin to unpack what this Jewish Messiah entails and who he is and what he's done, you can begin to see why he's so energized and motivated. It's not hard once you begin to grasp it. But I think verse 27 of chapter 1 gives us one of the most succinct and distilled expressions of what being a Christian believer is like in the entire Bible. It takes only seven words.

It's only seven words in Greek. It's only seven words in English. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Just seven words that can contain multitudes. “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Isn't that brilliant? Let those words echo around your mind and heart and memory. It's not difficult to memorize. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in me. Christ in us, the hope of glory. Now, not only does that work as a superb distillation of our experience, it also actually gives me a perfect structure of my talk. So, that made me happy.  And we see being modelled in Paul's ministry what it is to live this out for the Colossians to imitate to understand what it means to have Christ in me and what it means to have this hope of glory. So let's think first about what it means for Paul the Apostle. We'll touch briefly on what it means for the Colossians and then we will pick up and run with that and focus entirely on that tomorrow. But what does it mean for the apostle? A life motivated by, focused on, completed by the gospel. Remember back to the Damascus road, an event that was just so formative, fundamental for Paul and indeed actually for the New Testament church. I mean, it's fascinating, isn't it? I mean, the book of Acts is kind of misnamed, isn't it? It's not the Acts of the Apostles. It's the Acts of well, maybe two and a half apostles. That's not such a good title, probably.  But actually what is even odder is that Peter is the focus and then after Paul is converted he becomes the primary focus and think of you know the hundreds of stories and amazing things that each of the apostles and others are doing as the gospel you know the pebble is dropped in the pond in Jerusalem and then it ripples out to Jude to Samaria to the ends of the earth and in every direction things are happening the world is being transformed. Think of all the stories Luke could have contained in his book, but he focuses on just a few. In a way, that's a bit frustrating. I guess we'll have eternity to find out the rest. But we get Paul's conversion in detail three times in the book of Acts. Have you realized that? The whole story, it's clearly that significant and important. And you remember what happens? What Jesus says to the one who had been persecuted him. Acts 22 is one example. Verse 15, you will be his witness to all people. All people, not just the people of Israel. You will be my witness to all people of what you've seen and heard. So, what does that entail? Well, back to Colossians 1 and verse 8, “He the Lord Jesus is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end, I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.” In a way, he he's doing what those Portuguese lawyers had to do, tell unsuspecting beneficiaries that they had the right to an inheritance. They had no idea. But there the similarity stopped because of course these inheritors, these recipients are not chosen at random in a phone book. And the inheritance is not some sort of measly financial sum. I mean, if you want to give me €3,000, I would be delighted. Just putting that on record. But that's measily compared to the greatest gift human history has ever known. A gift that lasts for eternity and is offered to every creature on earth. Why? Because this gift is not an idea, is not a way of life, is not a concept, let alone a philosophy. This gift is a person. He's the one we proclaim. Now, sure, there are things to know about him, just as there are always things to know about your spouse. There are statements that are verifiably true or false. There are perceptions. There are assumptions which may or may not resonate with your spouse's own perceptions. But in the end, that's not the point. It's not enough just to know things about It's another thing to know them. It's not news about the king that Paul introduces people to. Paul introduces them to the king himself. It's like there's someone rather special I'd like you to meet. He really is the point of it all.  the beginning and the end. And it's hard to improve from on these lines from Max Lucado. Let me just quote. He said, "If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist. If our greatest need had been money, he would have sent us an economist. Heaven help us." If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer, but our greatest need was forgiveness. So God sent us a Saviour.” The ultimate benchmark for Christian preaching, for all Christian ministry, is Jesus. Does it point to him? It might be indirect. It might be oblique. But in the end, does it point to him? If not, then it's not Christian. End of. It really is as basic as that. And that is why Paul just slogs at it. So you know the first illustration of this, the first sort of manifestation of this is we see this in his priorities, his unshakable priorities. He proclaims that's the announcement, but he doesn't just leave it there. He’s not, you know, the human equivalent of a billboard. He's engaged. He's involved with the people he meets and mingles with. He recognizes that this makes different demands on him. People respond differently and so there's not one size fits-all.  I think that was mentioned in the notice yesterday about the Slavic gospel work that basically people have different needs and different issues and so ministry must take that into account and I think that's the kind of thing that Paul is talking about here and that's implied by admonishing and teaching everybody which is shorthand I guess for the various things required of a pastor teacher Here it does not mean he divides the world into two groups. Those who need rebuking and those who need encouraging. Although sometimes it feels a bit like that. There are all kinds of different aspects to this. There is encouraging. There's explanation. There's reasoning. There's argument. There's appealing. There's pleading. That's just for starters. A task that requires great wisdom and sensitivity. A willingness not to presume what people are thinking or come where they're coming from, but to listen with great wisdom and patience. But you see that there's more to it even than that because for all the differences that the various people we encounter in life may show for anyone this is a job that's beyond us. It's impossible. We cannot do it. think of this. So Paul walks into a city with just a handful of friends of teammates into central Anatolia which is that sort of huge land mass that we now know as Turkey or Turka despite from being from Tarsus which is sort of on the south Mediterranean coast. Many places around Anatolia would have been new to him and he would have had to learn and understand something of what it meant to live in this place and that place and this county or whatever it is. But that doesn't stop him but as we read from Acts chapter nine onwards you get a sense of the variety that he encounters and in some places people are absolutely overjoyed to find that they've got a king they can trust at last in contrast to all the rulers and emperors and provincial governors and warlords and all the rest of it. At last a leader we can truly trust. But in other towns, Paul has to leave under cover of darkness. His life literally in danger. And in fact, in some places, he is stoned to within inches of his life. People knew what death looked like. And people then sometimes after stoning Paul, they thought they'd finished. Maybe it's because I watch too many sort of detective shows and so on, but I do sometimes wonder if anyone did an autopsy on Paul's body after his death without knowing anything about him. This is a bit gruesome. I know it's early in the morning, but just bear with me.  if they did an autopsy on his body, what would it reveal? Just think of the scars, the fractures, let alone just the wear and tear of an extraordinarily difficult life. Quite apart from the three shipwrecks, I don't know how that might manifest itself on him, but you without knowing anything about him, a pathologist would have a field day as to the kind of life this person has led. But he's driven because he wants to introduce people to their king. It's incredibly tough. So, how on earth does he keep going? Well, verse 9, he tells us, "It's not me." I mean, the fact that I'm still at it, the fact that I'm still writing this letter to you, Colossians, is testimony to the fact that, well, as he says, it's all the energy that Christ so powerfully works in me. But you see, that's precisely what Christ promised would happen at Pentecost. God's power comes down on his people to bear witness to his name. And if you want evidence of this in Paul's life, just look on pretty much every page of Acts from chapter nine more or less onwards. I mean, I just thinking of, you know, I mean, I have not been stoned. I'm relieved to hear and I hope that no one is. It's not something that, you know, we don't want to have some kind of sort of martyr mentality, but if I was Paul and I'd just been stoned, I think I'd want a sabbatical after that, don't you? I think I'd at least allow myself a bit of a holiday, don't you? But, you know, I'm clearly far too soft. What does he do? Goes to the next town and risks exactly the same thing happening. And no doubt, word gets around. I mean, you know, in the age before modern communications, people still communicated and word spread. I'm sure there were people going around on the trade routes and saying, "Hey, watch out for this weird guy, Paul. You'll recognize him because he's covered in bandages and stoning markings." He gets up and does the same again. This is weird. This is supernatural. No, I don't think this is necessarily something everybody's expected to do. I think there was something fairly unique about Paul. But, you know, there are stories occasionally of people who just do the most extraordinary, even reckless things. Perhaps there's even something a bit reckless and unhealthy even about how Paul does it. I don't know. I don't want to get into that and we're all different and we all have different capacities. But Paul in quite a remarkable way is testimony in his own body and life to this idea that Christ is in us. Christ is in him, the hope of glory. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Paul's natural drivenness and ambition and I've no doubt that he was a very ambitious man and in its sort of ungodly pre conversion form it was brutally ugly. It was kind of psychopathic really. He wanted people dead. And God seems to take some of those attributes and transforms them not for Paul's own agenda, but for God's kingdom. I think that's why, you know, Paul has ambitions, you can see this in Romans, of wanting to take the gospel to Spain. And who knows, maybe even to the British Isles, if he'd lived long enough, it's entirely possible he wanted to get the gospel everywhere. Christ in you. I think this shows Paul himself is becoming more and more like his Lord. Paul is taking up his cross. But to what end? To what end? End of verse 8 “that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.” You could translate it complete for the job to be finished for someone who is everything God intended them to be. What we were made to be and what we're saved to be. The job is done. And so that's his unwavering gold. He's on one track minded on that.

A few years ago, I was chatting to old friends who live in a country that I often go to for work and they've been committed to serving a small body of believers from the country of Turkmenistan. They first lived in Turkmenistan but were thrown out and for decades they've been living in an adjacent country and their job has been to translate the Bible into Turkman. and it's been a massive project as I'm sure you can appreciate. They got into doing this translation work because they both, studied Russian at university and that was sort of the way into serving the gospel in Central Asia. And one of the real challenges and was incredibly discouraging. I remember we were texting soon after they discovered this that there had been a New Testament, not an Old Testament done yet, but there had been a New Testament or much of the New Testament rather in Turkman. And the more they worked with it, the more they realized it really wasn't very good. And in fact, it was better for them just to junk it and start completely again from scratch which was easier than trying to sort of play around with what was there. But after I think it was something like 9 years, the project was done. The first time in history the Bible in the language of Turkman and they gone through all the necessary checks and proofreading and trials in with the few Turkman believers there are not that many but trying them in Bible studies and with preaching and all the rest just seeing how it goes and feedback and so on it's a very laborious process but just a few years ago finally the digital version was released online and then it went into physical print at some presses in Moscow and then distributed. But it's illegal in Turkmenistan itself. And so the best way to distribute it was on thumb drives and on the old dumb phones. You they had a version of it you could put on a dumb phone rather than a smartphone that was very hard to detect. And that's how it began to be spread around. A remarkable thing. It's absolutely thrilling. And it was, you know, I had absolutely nothing to do with it, but it was just amazing and inspiring just to sort of be alongside these friends that they've been slogging away for so long in very sort of laborious, often really boring, invisible work. And then finally to be able to say, "We've done it." And it occurred to me at the time, and we were chatting about this afterwards, that this is probably one of, if not the only type of Christian ministry where you can say, "It's finished." You can actually say, "Yeah, there's nothing more we can do with this. It's done." Maybe in 29 years there'll be a revision. You know, that happens. Every generation or so does things, but it is finished. The work actually is finished. And now what they've been doing for the last 10 years or so is producing all kinds of materials, study guides, all kinds of things. You know, you name it, it's needed. And it's just amazing how they're able to build on what they've already done. But that is pretty much the only type of ministry where you get to see the whole thing in every other way. And it doesn't matter whether you are someone who is a leader from the front or someone you wouldn't say boo to a goose from a stage but you're quietly getting along with people just alongside in a coffee shop or whatever. We sow a seed here. We have a word there. We help out at a meeting wherever. We assume it's part of a bigger thing, but we just don't get to see it. It's very rare that we see the whole thing. We want our friends to know the Lord. There were a couple of guys I was at university with. I was a baby Christian when I first went to university. I was converted in the February of my A level year and there were a couple of guys in the Christian Union in my year who were mature. They were enthusiastic and I learned huge amounts from them especially actually looking back because they were different from me from very different backgrounds.  But they were enthusiastic and yet one of the hardest things, it was just at the beginning of my fourth year. Both of them had fallen away and we're now 35 years on. As far as I know, neither of them have come back to the Lord. It was devastating at the time. It was the first time it had happened to somebody I knew.  To have them both at the same time was quite shocking. And the thing is, one of the things I had to learn at the time, and I still hold on to this, is that I don't know the end of the story. I don't know the end of the story. And when I remember, I still pray for them. Now, this is pure speculation. I have no idea, but I just have a hunch. And my perception at the time was one of them was doing it with a high hand, and it was just like a huge relief to them. But the other, it was almost as if that after that point, he laughed but never smiled again. Now, that's an exaggeration and it's, you know, not strictly true, but the point is I always had a sense that this second guy called Matt just always knew what he was turning his back on. I don't know the end of the story. I'm sure we've got all kinds of instances and  friends like that. But you see, it's interesting, isn't it? Paul is committed to the long term to the full story to presenting somebody complete in Jesus even after he's moved on to the next place even after he's shuffled off this mortal coil he knows that actually we do our bit and pray for the end of the story because in the end it was never about him and it was never about me or you in the first place. It's all Christ's power that works powerfully in his people. Because you see, the ultimate proof of the pudding is not cards filled in at a meeting, not even going to church for 5 years or 30 years, not even being on the church council or an elder or even being in the pulpit regularly. The proof of the pudding is on the last day, fully mature, the story finished. And because that is way beyond anything I can imagine, it reminds me that it's not up to me in the first place. And so Paul, both in terms of his own walk and in terms of what keeps him going in ministry, holds on to those seven words. I do this because Christ is in me. And I keep going because I have the hope of glory. But I do this because I want Christ in you. And I keep going with you. Even though I might now have moved a thousand miles away. Even though I know my time on earth will some soon be done, I do this that you might have the hope of glory and so that when we say goodbye, we're actually saying see you then. It gives us encouragement in the face of real discouragements because the Christian life is full of them. It's particularly painful when actually some of the discouragements hit headlines as I know that they have in this part of the world in recent months as I know they have in the last 5 years with people who led me to Christ who discipled me one of whom should be in prison but isn't. But in the end, it's not about them. It's not about you. It's not about me. It's about Christ in you, the hope of glory. So that's what drives Paul on. How does that sort of work out in the Colossians lives? You know, it's a bit like needing bread has to be needed into their lives. Well, Paul is straightforward. The acid test is very clear, very simple, and completely logical. Verse six. “So then, just as you receive Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and build up in him., strengthening the faith as you were taught, overflowing with thankfulness. Do you see how this precisely mirrors what Paul has said for himself? And that's why Paul mixes his metaphors. I was taught at school, never mix your metaphors. It never stops the Bible writers because they do this with abandon all over the shop. Jesus does that. So basically suddenly we're mixing the metaphor of a tree and a building. We can do that now. We have apostolic authority to mix metaphors. So go and mix your metaphors with abandon. Anyway, that's not the point. What do we know about this town of Colosse? Well, over the last years or so, Turkey has been a country I've done more work in than any other. It's a country I've grown to love deeply, and my last visit was there just in April, which was my 22nd visit to the country. And I love that going there, not least because my background was in classics. So, I love the fact that it's full of all kinds of classical relics and history, but actually mainly because of the burgeoning Turkish church. so, in the 1970s, it's thought that there were literally only 10 Turkish ethnic Turkish believers. There were other believers in Turkey, but ethnic Turks. And I remember the first time I first few times I was going to Turkey, it was very discouraging because you think all these places are in the book of Acts. Paul, you know, if he was alive today would be a Turk and it's just like all these places have lost their Christian heritage. And yes, but it's not quite like that because the Turks came from the Asian steps around 1066. or thereabouts. Around the time of the Norman conquest of England, the Turks moved westwards with Islam. So the Turks have never had the gospel. There has never been an ethnic Turkish church and they pushed people west and to begin with there was some executions of people who wouldn't bow the knee to Islam.  but what is fascinating is that the Ottoman Empire was far more enlightened in many ways than Europe was when it came to other religions. And so Jews and Christians were allowed not just to exist but even to thrive in the Ottoman Empire. And so in every town there would be many churches and synagogues. And so when in the 1970s one or two started being converted, I've met two brothers who remember being two of that original 10. And now there are about 10,000. Now think about that. That's astonishing growth in 50 years from 10 to 10,000. I can't do maths or stats. I think lines go like that or something. It's up and they're some of the most inspiring brothers and sisters I know. I just love just being with them. Anyway, I was there a few years ago and some friends of ours drove up to the Lus Valley from Antalya on the south coast where there's there are there's a guy who's planted four churches in the last 10 years in Antalya. But we drove up north about three hours drive to the Lus Valley and there’s a triangular valley where the river Lus goes through the middle and you'll find Colosse, Hierapolis Laodicea and if you stand where Colosse was, you can see the other two. They're just a few miles further up the valley. So they could the three cities could see each other and they were very close. That's explains why you see in Colossians there's communication between the three and each of these cities was bustling was lively and they you know they were like sort of triplets almost and at the end of chapter 4 we read that the Colossians great friend Aristarchus become the great sort of envoy from here actually had relations with Laodicea and Hierapolos as well. But you go to Colosse today and there's nothing there because the city and indeed the whole region kept on having earthquakes and Colosse's never been excavated. The other two have and you can go and visit them and they're spectacular. One day I hope Colosse will be excavated. But in earthquakes buildings crumble and trees fall over unless they have strong deep roots and buildings are well constructed. Oh, do you see now why Paul might just use those mixed metaphors? Be a tree with deep roots. Roots that are kind of the mirror like on your handbooks of the branches above ground. Build up carefully and slowly to make the building sturdy and strong. And the way to do that it's very very clear. Verse six and seven. Stick with where you started. I mean, if you're building a building, you build your foundations. But if the subsequent floors are slightly off, it's not strong and it'll wobble and when there's an earthquake, it'll be a jelly and just collapse. A tree without roots will just be blown away, let alone blown over. And Paul's point is, stick with Jesus. The Jesus you were taught. The Jesus of the scriptures. The Jesus who is revealed. The Jesus who was a mystery to the Gentile world but has now been revealed. The King of Kings. Stick with him because he's the only king in town. It's a tough call. Especially in a culture in a world that has grown up has done away with such phases. You know some of my family thought when I got religion at university it will be a phase. Stick with him. Christ in you the hope of glory. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in you, in us, our hope of glory. Those roots and that construction are unbreakable.

 

Keswick at Portstewart - Tuesday 7 July 2026 - Clive Bowsher

 

Keswick at Portstewart – Tuesday 7 July 2026 - Clive Bowsher

 

The theme this evening is the same – rooted, rooted in life, rooted in Christ. The accent is a little bit different but the theme is unchanged. And over these four evening celebrations, Tuesday to Friday, we're going to be thinking still about that gospel invitation from the Lord, from Jesus to each one of us, that gospel invitation of intimacy which Jonathan has already spoken to us about. And this evening I'm going to speak under this title, being united to Jesus. Being united to Jesus and togetherness. Togetherness.

Well, imagine this. It's early on a Monday morning and I'm working on a project in the city and there is a really tall building. You know, I I'm not great in the mornings. I don't know about you. Does anyone else suffer from that that particular affliction? I don't get going really quickly in the mornings and   you know really tall sort of skyscraper building and I think stairs or lift? Well definitely lift at that time in the morning and I go in and the door's about to close and this colleague walks in and she's looking very very bouncy on Monday morning and she says to me “ah Clive what were you doing over the weekend” and I'm hardly awake. I can hardly even remember what day of the week it is and I say, "oh you know, I went to church and yeah, it was pretty good." And she said, "Do you know, you always seem so sort of passionate about this God stuff? What is that all about? What is so great about Christianity?” And I'm thinking, "Oh boy, you know, it's so early. I wasn't expecting to have to do an elevator pitch or to deal with this. And then the lift starts going and the floors start flashing by and I'm thinking like how tall is this building? How long do I have for this? Anyway, I take a deep breath and I want to rely on the Spirit in this moment. And I actually pray, you know, “Lord, help me to, just to answer this, to really connect at this point.” And I say, ”do you know, I think the thing that just really excites me is that I've got to know a God, not a God who I need to work up to and climb up to, but I've got to know a God who has come down to me to meet me where I am as I am. You know what? What is so great about it is that God is that good, right? Jesus is that good. I've got to know a God who actually wants to be with me, who desires to dwell with me.” And I think she probably got a slightly fuller answer than she was expecting at that time on a Monday morning. But, you know, she looked quite intrigued by that.

You know, that is the great sweep of the Bible, isn't it? That we know a God who positively desires to be with people like you and me. That we know a God who positively desires to dwell with his people. And it starts that way, does it not? In Genesis with God walking in the garden. Do you remember with Adam and you know all the way through to Revelation, what are we told? “Behold, the dwelling place of God is now with men and women and they will be his.” And then get this, “he will be theirs” (Revelation 21 verse 3). That's where it's all going. That's where it's all heading. We worship a God who positively desires to be with you. Not him up there and us sort of down here, but a God who has come to us. A God who positively delights and desires to be with you. How good is that? That the one who made everything has that kind of heart towards you and me? It's the story of the whole of scripture. And is it not the deep deep longing of your heart to know God ever closer to you? To know the presence of God in ever richer reality. Is not that the deep cry of every human heart and actually God wants to meet that cry and I think Philip here in John’s gospel is feeling something of that first thirst, something of that spiritual longing. Jesus has just said to them, “I am the way the truth, and the life.” And Philip pipes up in   in verse eight there. You know, I imagine that Philip and Jesus are standing next to each other pretty much eye to eye and Philip full of longing says “you know Lord Jesus show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” And that has always kind of made me smile. I don't know what Philip expected Jesus to do at that point. But you see, Philip hasn't quite realized yet who it is that he's looking straight in the eye because Jesus says to him, "Phillip, I've been with you so long and you still don't know me, Philip. Whoever has seen me, Jesus, has seen the Father. Whoever knows me, Jesus, knows the Father. How can you say, Phillip, show us the Father?” This is God in the flesh standing right next to him.

I've got three headings for you this evening. I'm not going to tell you them all up front. The first one is this. It might sound a little bit unfamiliar. First of all, but I think you're going to get to know this little saying over the next four evenings. First heading is this. Me and you and you in me. Me in you and you in me. How is it that Jesus is able to satisfy that deep longing of our hearts? How is it that Jesus is able to give us the spiritual reality that we are longing for, that many of us here this evening will be longing to experience in ever deepening ways? Maybe you were praying for that before you came to the tent this evening. How is it that Jesus is able to satisfy that? He says to Philip verse 10, "Don't you believe Philip that I Jesus am in the Father and the Father is in me Jesus which is Jesus' way in John's gospel of saying I and the Father are one." And so, Phillip, the words that I that I say to you, they're not just my words. They're the Father's words as well because the Father is dwelling in me and doing his works. Believe me.” Did Jesus repeat it? He's saying it's so important that we get this in one another thing, that we get this me in you and you in me thing. He says, "Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or else just look at the works that I'm doing and that will point to who I am." Earlier in John 8 verse 58, Jesus says, "Truly, truly, I say to you before Abraham was I am.” Jesus says, "I and the Father are one." You can't get much more together than that, can you? Than being one, than the Son in the Father and the Father in the Son, you know, thoroughly at home with each other. And so as you see Jesus going through the gospels, there's this astonishing ease, isn't there, that he has in the Father's presence. The Father says at Jesus' baptism, “this is my beloved son.” And again at the transfiguration, “this is my beloved son.” Everything that the son is committed to, the Father is committed to. Every time you see Jesus full of compassion, full of gentleness and loneliness in the gospels, you're seeing the heart of the Father. If you see me, Jesus says, you've seen God. If you know me, Jesus says, you know the Father. I and the Father are one.” I mean, just imagine that. Before galaxies, before mountains and oceans and Atlantic salmon. Is that what you have swimming around here? Before rainforests and rainbows, Jesus's son talks about the glory that he had with the Father before the world existed, before any of those things. Just imagine the goodness of that. Imagine the vibrancy of that where love is everything. Where love fills everything and everything is love. The Father and the son perfectly united along with the Spirit. That sounds good, doesn't it? That sounds glorious. Believe me, Jesus says that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or else believe on account of what you read and what you see in the gospels of works that that I have done. I and the Father are one. Astonishing togetherness in one anotherness. Just in case you think this is just a little bit sort of, I don't know theological or something. It's going to come it's going to get very real for us in what Jesus is about to say in verses 19 and 20. 

What kind of days would you say spiritually we're living in? It's tremendous thirst, isn't there around us? Tremendous thirst. Do you know we have all this technology. Social media promises to connect us so much better and yet there's so much loneliness isn't there? You know, people don't actually feel that they know each other that well. A lot of us are wearing masks a lot of the time.   it it's astonishing spiritual thirst. But Jesus says there's a more important reality about the days in which we live. He says this in verse 19. "Yet a little while and the world will see me no more because he's about to go to the cross for you and me, but you will see me." He says, "Because I live because of my resurrection. And because of that resurrection life that I'm going to pour out on you, you also will live." Then verse 20, “in that day.” I want to remind us this evening, this is our day. We live this side of the resurrection of Jesus. We live this side of him pouring out his Holy Spirit so that we can know that gap between God and us fully closed. “In that day.” It's interesting what he says here, having just spoken about his resurrection. He says, "In that day you will know that I am in my Father and the Father is in me.” In that day, the spirit is going to open eyes and you're going to realize who I am. And in that day, you will know not only that I'm in my Father and he's in me, but that you are in me and I mean you. And you go, whoa. Well, you didn't actually, but you might have. Hold on, Jesus. Are you saying that that kind of relationship that you've always enjoyed with the Father since before the foundation of the world in glory, where everything is love and love is everything, is the kind of relationship that you've brought us into by sending the spirit? Is that really what you're saying for real? In the here and now, already true of each and every believer who has trusted Jesus for everything and so with everything? Yeah, absolutely. That is absolutely what he's saying here. That's why he uses just the same sort of language. He's not saying that that we have exactly the same sort of relationship as he has with the Father. Obviously, we don't become God, but the same kind of togetherness, the same kind of intimacy, the same kind of connection, the same kind of closeness. And it's easy for those words just to kind of wash over you, isn't it? You know, okay, I kind of sort of see what you're saying, but if you pause and you think, whoa, he's saying, therefore, that right now with all my weaknesses, you know, all the things that he hasn't yet fixed, you know, me as a work in progress, saying that I am loved as the Father loves the son. John 17. Doesn't that have you breathing a tremendous sigh of relief? You are loved. Truly loved. Personally loved. I mean, that love between the Father and the son, that's got to be the most personal thing in the cosmos, right? The most foundational thing. And Jesus says it's true of each one of us this evening who put our trust in him. We are loved that way by God. Doesn't that have you breathing a sigh of relief, friends? I want to hear you. you just breathe out. That's a huge relief. That's freedom, isn't it? That's the ability to take off the mask. You know, in Song of Songs, God says to us, "I want I desire to see your face, beloved, and to hear your voice." How astonishing is that? That the one who made everything wants us to turn from our guilt and our shame because he's dealt with it all on the cross and he's united us to Christ by the spirit. He wants us to look him in the face and see his smile and know the freedom of the sonship of Jesus. That is the gospel. Astonishing freedom, astonishing privilege. In that day, Jesus says, "You will know that I am in my Father and my Father is in me and that you are in me and I in you by my spirit." And so, it is not Christ up there somehow distant, but Christ in us and united to us.

The Father loves the Son eternally. He has brought you eternally and unfailingly into this kind of friendship and fellowship with him. You can't lose it. You can't slip out of it. You can't slip out of it any more than the sun can somehow slip out of the trinity. It just can't happen. You are united to Christ for keeps. Jesus stays with you through thick and thin. He never leaves you. He's united to you. It's him in you and you in him. And I tell you, on a on a damp Monday morning, when you're just struggling to wake up like me, reminding yourself of that when you come to him, it's just, you know, prayer just starts to flow a little bit more easily. That's what he's done for you. That's where he's brought you to be. So that's our first heading. me in you, Jesus says, and you in me. You singular and you plural.

Second heading, togetherness. And I'm going to read to us from John 14. And we're going to look in particular at verses 15 to 24. 

I just like us to dig in a little bit more deeply to what Jesus is saying here. You know, verse 15, he says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." And something that you see running all the way through here is that Jesus is saying this union with him is a union of two-way love. You know, he loved us first. And there's a you know that creates this by the spirit this union of two-way love. “If you love me, Jesus says, you will keep my commands and I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever.” And that word that the ESV translates helper, sometimes translated paraclete, a good translation would be strengthener. Actually, one who is called alongside to strengthen, one sent by the Father. You see, he really is the God who comes down to us, isn't he? Jesus says, "You know him for he dwells with you. It's the God who delights to be with us and he will be in you." This indwelling of the spirit unites us to the son. Union with Christ is real. It's by the spirit and it is deeply relational. And Jesus here sort of expects and rejects, doesn't he? The scepticism of this talk of the spirit. He says, the world can't receive these things of the spirit. It neither sees the spirit nor knows him, but you know him. And the spirit of God dwells in you for real. and unites you to Christ in this way. And do you see it's all a gift from the Father. This sending of the spirit made possible by the work of Christ. made possible by the cross of Christ received through faith and resulting in this astonishing freedom for us of knowing ourselves united to Christ in just the way that we've been talking about. And Jesus says verse 18, as the spirit comes to you in this way, I myself come to you also. The spirit brings to you, in other words, the presence of Christ. And so, I will not leave you as orphans. Jesus says, in fact, be being bound to you now, and you still see this being bound to you and connected to you now like this, I can't possibly leave you. No matter what you're going through, no matter what life might be throwing at you, friends, at the moment, Christ is with you in that place. and actually more with you than any other person can be. With you in the secret place, with you in the hidden place by the spirit. I don't know what place in your life you might find yourself sometimes wondering, you know, can Jesus reach me there? Or perhaps does he want to reach me there? Will he cope with reaching me there? He's bound to you like this, you know, it's him in you and you in him sort of intimately entwined. There's no place in you that he cannot reach therefore by his spirit and there is no place in you that he would hold back from reaching therefore by his spirit. So whatever it was that came to your mind when I just asked you that rather bold question, he sees you there. And that the Father's love, which is the Father's love for the son, showers down on you even in that place as you turn to him, as you we were thinking about repenting last night, weren't we? As you turn to receive that, it's astonishing grace that God would already love us as he loves the son. It's an intricate entwining. It's a bond that cannot be broken. You see me because I'm risen, Jesus says. And so you also live. I hold you securely in resurrection life. Whoever has my commands, verse 21, and keeps them, he is who loves me. You see, it's astonishing. We get to love him back. God is actually desirous of your love, your real person to person love. It's astonishing. He it is who loves me, Jesus says, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and or her. And I promise you this evening, I'll continue to make myself known to you, to him or her. And then Judas, not Iscariot, has this question about, you know, “Lord, why are you going to do this for us and not to the world?” And Jesus doesn't want them to be distracted from this key thing that he's trying to teach them at this point. He answers and he says, "No, I want you to get this. If anyone loves me and that matters to me, Jesus, that that you know, that's a key thing. He or she will keep my word and my Father will love him and my Father and I will come to him or her." But you see, he really is the God who comes down to be with us, even to make his home with us. That just blows me away. God wants to make his home with you. He's already done that through faith and because of the work of Christ by the spirit. And that is where it is all heading. Revelation 21, “behold, the dwelling of God is with man, and they will be his people, and he will be theirs.” It's all about union. It's where it's all headed. God has made his home with you. And can I just show you something in verse 23  here, which is really beautiful. You might be thinking, well, is this just a sort of union with Christ for all of us corporately together as the body of Christ, as a church? And of course, it is that and that is hugely important. We are one in Christ. But it's also individual. Do you see that in verse 23? Jesus says, "If anyone (singular) loves me, he will keep my word and my Father will love him and we will come to him or her and make our home with him or her (singular)." It's true of you individually as well. That should send goosebumps all over you, that God indwells you personally in that way, lovingly in that way. It's also deeply reassuring because it means that the resources of God himself are there for you for real at work by the spirit in the nitty-gritty of what you're facing and in the disappointments and the difficulties and the things that you feel that you can't face by yourself. And the good news is that you don't have to because he's there with you. It should give you goosebumps at some of the possibilities of that for mission. We were thinking about mission earlier on. Not the things that you know you can do in your own strength but the things that that he might choose to do in you and through you. There's some astonishing verses John 14 verses 12 to 14 that I hadn't planned to talk about. But Jesus says, “truly truly whoever believes in me,” so that's us, “will also do the works that I Jesus do.” “The kind of stuff that you see me doing in in the gospel in John's gospel for example.” Why? “Because I'm going to the Father and I'm going to ask the Father for you and he's going to give you the spirit.” And if you've trusted Jesus, that's already happened. He's talking before the resurrection here, right? And so whatever you ask in my name, isn't that gloriously extravagant? You know, whatever you might ask in my name, be bold, be expectant. This I will do that the Father may be glorified in the son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. So, it's interesting, isn't it, in verse 12, it begins with us doing the works, the kind of works that Jesus does, and it ends with him doing them. Well, you go, "Well, who's doing the works? Is it us or is it Jesus?" And the answer is, "It's him in you and you in him, and you're sharing in what he's doing." And that is full of strength and it's full of possibility and it builds our expectancy, doesn't it?

Third heading. Worship. Because of all of this, worship ignited. Now, you might be going at this point, okay, Clive, talk to me about obedience in these verses. Talk to me about those places where Jesus is talking about keeping his word, keeping his commandments. And the short answer is that this love of Christ, this kind of love of Christ loves you into life. It changes you. It gets your heart beating with his love. It draws you into his ways and it and it flows out. But I want to ask you a question, too. If you're thinking about obedience right now, what is the most Christlike thing you can do? What was Jesus doing before galaxies, before what did I say? Mountains, oceans, Atlantic salmon. What was Jesus doing? What's the most Christlike thing you could go back to your flat, your caravan, your house this evening and do? What is that? You know, you might be thinking about relationships with other people. And the most Christlike thing you can do is to love the Father with all your heart. Isn't it? You know, when Jesus is asked, "What is the most important commandment of the Old Testament?" Mark 12, what does he say? He says, Love, right? “Love the Lord with all of your heart and all of yourself and all of your mind and all of your strength." And we we've been saying, haven't we, that, you know, that the heart of the gospel is this this union with Christ, this fellowship with Christ, that he's made possible by what he's done for us on the cross and in sending his spirit. Unites us to himself. It's real. It's deeply relational. It's a two-way love. We've just seen, haven't we? So what is worship? It's our side of that, isn't it? Whoever loves me, Jesus says, will will keep my word. What is the most Christlike thing that you can do? It is to to love him, to love the Father. It's to worship.  We've been talking a lot about the invitation to intimacy, haven't we? That gospel invitation. Intimacy also requires immediacy, doesn't it? You know, just think about a human relationship. If we want to, you know, grow in friendship with someone sooner or later, we have to kind of step out of our comfort zone a little bit and really relate in the here and now. God desires our worship in that sense. He delights in that kind of fellowship with us even whilst we're works in progress.

 

Keswick at Portstewart - Monday 6 July 2026 - Jonathan Thomas

 

KESWICK AT PORTSTEWART – MONDAY 6 JULY 2026 – JONATHAN THOMAS

But this evening, I want to change the focus and I want us to look at ourselves. Over the next 40 minutes, please don't think of anybody else. Don't apply this to anybody else, you know. This is a sermon for us to apply to ourselves about sin in our own lives. And so I've got a very simple question this evening and here it is. Are you a Peter or are you a Judas?

John chapter 13.

Over the last few chapters, we've seen Jesus addressing the Pharisees. Jesus addressing those who don't believe in him. And within that mix has been Judas. And really at this point we have in this kind of last evening of Jesus the point at which Judas walks out to betray Jesus. And then there's a hinge in verse 31 of John chapter 13 when it says this “when he Judas was gone Jesus said now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him.” There's a kind of change. there's a hinge and what you get is Judas on one side and then Peter on the other and there's a comparison. There's a contrast and I want to work that through this evening. Now, it is fair to say that Jesus referred to both Peter and Judas in satanic terms. You'll remember that, won't you? Matthew 16 verse 23, what does Jesus say to Peter? “Get behind me, Satan” or John 6 verse 7 what does Jesus say to Judas? “One of you is a devil.” Now, Judas and Peter, it's interesting, isn't it? Both were outwardly part of Jesus's inner ring, one of the 12 disciples. And both, as we're going to see this evening, were repeatedly offered love by Jesus. And I think it's fair to say that both Judas and Peter throughout this gospel struggled at times to truly grasp who Jesus really was. As one commentator puts it, how close Peter and Judas are. But there's one crucial difference. One went to heaven and one went to hell. And so  , this is the most serious question I could ask. Are you a Judas or are you a Peter? Well, let's look at each man in turn and then we look at our own hearts. Let's look firstly at Judas. John chapter 13 verses 1 and 2.

Let's have a look at Judas first. I want to call this brutal betrayal. Have a look down to verse 21 of chapter 13, and let's see what happens. John chapter 13, beginning at verse 21. 

If you've read John's gospel, John tends to talk on two levels, doesn't he? He's not just telling you it was night. He's telling you it was a spiritual night for Judas. So let's think about Judas. When you read through the gospels, you'll see that Judas is always listed amongst the 12 disciples. Interestingly, always listed last. You'll notice as well that in those lists, it tends to say that he's Judas, the betrayer. But we need to realize that with Judas, there was something wrong with him from the very start. You'll notice there in verse 29,  that Judas is described as the treasurer. Now, please don't think of other people, particularly church treasurers. That is not fair. But Judas was the treasurer. He looked after the money. Now, I want you to go back to an occasion in the Gospels. Do you remember when Jesus goes and Mary's there and she wants to anoint Jesus at Bethany, the anointing at Bethany, it's told in in in three of the gospels. Matthew 26, for example, talks about the way she comes. She wants to kind of extravagantly anoint Jesus. And it says that all of the disciples were indignant, calling what she was doing a waste. In fact, Mark's gospel in chapter 14, it says that they not only did that, but they rebuked her harshly. They didn't like this extravagant offering over Jesus. Interestingly, all the disciples at this point were struggling with who Jesus was and how you react to Jesus. They were all on a journey of discovery. But John's gospel goes a little bit deeper. Back in John chapter 12, we read the account there and Judas pipes in and says, "Yeah, hold on. This is terrible. We should give the money to the poor. And since I'm the treasurer, you should give it to me and I'll hand it over." I mean, it's quite cold and calculating, isn't it? There's a sense in which the disciples are on a journey. But Judas, even at the start, was a thief. It was a liar. There's a sense in which when you look at Judas in the Gospels, even at that point we've just read in John chapter 13, the disciples are completely oblivious to him. He's living a double life. It's possible to live as a Christian and it's possible to be here this evening and to be living such a double life that everybody around you and even those closest to you think that you're just living a good Christian life, but deep down you know you're not. And Jesus knew this. You can go to John chapter 6. Jesus says Judas is a devil. You see what's happening is this. When you look at someone like Mary in the anointing, what she wants to be is extravagant towards Jesus. But what Judas wants is to be extravagant towards himself, towards himself. So back to John chapter 13, we see in this kind of conversation, in this last meal, we see a kind of standoff between Judas and Jesus. It's in the public gaze, yet it's very private. Did you notice that they're having this conversation, but the other disciples just don't get it. And so they speak in front of everyone and the disciples all hear there's going to be a betrayal. They even hear Jesus tell Judas to go and do whatever you're going to do quickly. But verse 29, they think, "Well, it's Judas. He's a good egg. He must be going to give something to the poor." Jesus knew what was going on in Judas's heart. but no one else did. Can I ask you this evening? Who are you when no one else is looking? Who are you deep down this evening? Not what is your outward appearance, but where is your heart? So Judas goes and he decides to sell Jesus for money. Interestingly, if you look at Luke's gospel, Luke 22 and here in John, it states it's at this point that Satan entered Judas. It's a very important point. It's not that Judas had been entered by Satan early on and was doing everything because he had no choice. No, no, no, no. It wasn't until this point that Satan entered Judas. You see, it would seem to me that up until this point, Satan had been prompting him. You can go back to John chapter 13 if you're not quite sure. Have a look at verse two. The evening meal was in progress. And the devil had already prompted Judas. So, he'd prompted him, but he hadn't entered him. I'm going to controversially say I think Satan prompted Judas, and I think Satan prompted Peter. I think there were times when Peter was prompted by Satan to do the work of Satan. Jesus, you don't need to go to the cross. Jesus, you don't need to die for me. Hey, Jesus, I've got a sword. I can lop off ears.” What does Jesus say? “Get behind me, Satan.” You haven't got to mind the things of God. You don't realize what I need to do. But interestingly, Peter always ends up listening to Jesus. But we'll come back to Peter. But back to Judas for now. Judas walks out. He's going to get a band of soldiers. He's going to kiss Jesus in betrayal. And then he's going to feel guilty and he's going to kill himself. But the one thing Judas is not going to do is he's not going to repent. It's really important that we understand this evening who Judas really was. We need to know that Jesus knew who he was and that Judas knew exactly what he was doing. You see, in all of this, Jesus isn't some kind of hapless victim. Now, what's going to happen is as we go into this kind of last farewell discourse, and then as Jesus is going to be betrayed and handed over, as he's going to be taken through this terrible overnight court, as he's going to have all of these false allegations put against him, as he's finally going to die on the cross, and the disciples are going to think, "But this was the man who was going to save us. How can a dying man save us?" They're going to scatter, and they're going to run, and they're going to be confused. And so Jesus knows what's going to happen. And so all that he's doing at this point is to prepare them for this. Really, from chapter 13 verse 31 onwards, he's making sure that they know, he knows exactly what's going to happen. He's going to say it all in front of them. This was all a plan. And so we have Calvin, the great reformer. This is what he tells us about Judas. “He was not one of the elect and of the true flock of God. Yet the dignity of the office gave him the appearance of it.” Judas knew what he was doing. I wonder, do you sometimes wonder if Judas was some kind of hapless victim himself? Can we do a little bit of deep thinking on this? A little bit of theology, a little bit of philosophy to try and figure out what's going on here because for years I struggled with Judas. I kind of thought, well, hold on. If God had decided he was going to do it, then poor Judas had no choice, did he? I mean, what happened to Judas? Because in the text, it's clear Jesus knew he was going to betray him. So, what's going on? Krish Kandia in his excellent book Paradoxology this is a great title isn't it Paradoxology in the chapter the Judas paradox he said this “Judas is a tragic hero of the providence of God a man to be pitied more than any other or is he the master villain of the gospel story? Had God pre-programmed him as a robot assassin of the son of God.” It’s really is a debate about free will. And so, on my last night, let me chuck the theological grenade and ask ‘How does it work out?’ Because there is a quandary, isn't it? So, let me give you a silly example, okay? If God knows you're going to have chicken for dinner, do you now have to have chicken for dinner? Because if he knows you're going to have it, well, then you're going to have to have it. So, did you choose to have chicken for dinner or not? Well, it was probably your wife who chose. But, but seriously, how does it work? These really are questions of foreknowledge, predestination. And look, these aren't unique to Christianity. Muslims believe in divine destiny. Hindus believe in karma. Material atheists believe in biology and they were born this way. It's in their DNA. About the way some people deal with addictions. They were born with a weakness or it's societal. They had no choice, everybody in the world in one way or another believes in some kind of predetermination or whatever you believe that never takes away the responsibility of people's actions. And even if God does know all things and God as the master orchestrator of all history is in control of all things within that each and every one of us is responsible for everything we do. We choose to do it. You see when you look at Judas he knew what he was doing. He chose to steal that money. He chose to tell people he was giving it to the poor. He was someone who looked great on the outside but not on the inside. Spurgeon in his two volume autobiography tells the story of how as a child he used to go to I think it was his grandfather's house. Someone can correct me on the way out if I get this wrong. But Spurgeon would go to his grandfather's house and in his house on the mantlepiece there was this beautiful looking apple. This glorious juicy looking red apple. But Spurgeon says if you would go to bite it, you'd knock all your teeth out because it was a stone apple. It was an ornament. And the reality is you're able to look like one thing but be something completely different. You see, if you go back to John chapter 6 verse 64 and 70, it says this, "For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him." Then Jesus replied, "Have I not chosen you, the 12? Yet one of you is a devil." He had never truly believed. And so I also believe when you read the text of John chapter 13, that he had a choice. He had chosen, but Jesus gave him a choice not to choose that way. It's interesting meal, isn't it? They're sharing bread. They're dipping bread. I get a little nervous in that kind of meal. You know, like when you have nachos, that was our family tradition on a Sunday evening after the evening service. I'd go home and my wife would just make a huge bowl of nachos. We'd cover them in cheese and we'd have lovely salsa. But let me be very clear. I only share nachos with my wife. No matter how nice you are, don't come anywhere near my nachos bowl. There's something quite intimate about sharing nachos. And here's this picture of Jesus with the bread, dipping it. He's giving it to the ones he loves. This is an intimate act. And in this passage in John chapter 13, even though he knows what Judas has been doing, he dips the bread and he offers it to him.  I think that was an act of love from Jesus. Could Jesus even offer an act of love to Judas at this point? Krish Kandia says Jesus offers Judas genuine love. If those aren't heavyweight enough for you, Don Carson says “this is a final gesture of supreme love.” Look at the context. Chapter 13 verse one. “It was just before the Passover festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. And having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” I think at that point how this works out philosophically, theologically in the paradox of God's economy, I have to believe that that offer of Jesus was genuine. But what did Jesus do? He offered it. And Judas, Don Carson says this. “Judas received the sop, the bread, but not the love.”  We thought about that on the first night, isn't it? It's possible to receive the bread, the stuff, the manna in the desert, but not the love, the bread of life. There's a sense in which when it comes to Jesus, as we get close to Jesus, it is possible that as you've come close to him in church or in the convention this week, you can come to Jesus, but one of two things can happen. One Christian writer puts it like this. “If you get close to Jesus, one of two things will happen. Either you will become wholly his or else you will slingshot away from him and end up farther from him than who you would have been if you'd never known him at all.” If you've come this evening and you don't know Jesus yet and you've heard of the love of Jesus and he is extending the bread to you, his love to you, if he's saying, "I am the good shepherd who has laid down my life for you." Can I tell you, welcome him into your life now. Give your life to him now. Don't slingshot away from him. Too many people have said, "I'll do it later in life."  If you really get who Jesus is, you don't want to put it off. Jesus doesn't come to ruin your life. Jesus comes to give you life. Talk to Christians here tonight. Maybe a Christian who's brought you and I think they'll all tell you this. I wish I'd become a Christian sooner. I wish I'd given my heart to Jesus sooner. So Judas, he had a choice. But what about Peter? Because really we have Judas, he walks out into the night.

And then in John chapter 13 and verse 31, we turn then to look at Peter. Now I love Peter. I think Peter is one of my favourite people in the Bible. I think he's wonderful. I think Peter, he's the guy who's always the first in. You know, I used to love watching war films, Vietnam war films. And you know, when they kind of come in in the helicopter, I always imagine Peter's the first one out of the helicopter. Come on, lads. We can take them on. He's always out first. And when you look at him through the Gospels, he literally is always first, isn't he? Luke chapter 5 and the calling. Do you remember? And his calling shows the contradiction of Peter. He's been out fishing all night. They're not really getting anything. And Jesus, the carpenter, turns up. “Let me tell you how to fish, boys.” And he tells them what to do. He wants to say, he's determined to have his say first. But what did he do? He followed Jesus. He did kind of waver, but he followed him. Oh, what about in Matthew 14? Do you remember when Jesus comes out to the boat and they've been there overnight and the storm's been there and then Jesus just before dawn walks out to the boat and they see Jesus walking on the water? Who's the first to say, "Hey, Jesus, invite me onto the water. I'll have a go." It's Peter, isn't it? I love it. But then I love the contradiction which is Peter. He walks onto the water. He's hear Jesus's voice. He sees his face. He's standing on the water and then he goes, "Oh no, I'm going to sink." But I love it because what does he do then? “Save me, Jesus. Save me.” I love the way Jesus says to him, "Oh, you of little faith." Yeah, but at least he's got a little faith, hasn't he? I'll take that any day. Or what about what I think is one of the biggest highlights for Peter in one of his low lights? Do you remember his confession in Mark chapter 8? Jesus is like, "Okay, you're getting who I am. Let me tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to have to suffer. I'm going to have to be handed over. I'm going to have to die, but I'm going to die for you." What does Peter say? “Not on my watch. No, no, no. Jesus, look at us. Why do you need to die?” And so he rebukes Jesus. And so what does Jesus do? Jesus rebukes him. You got this wrong. I've got to go to the cross. But you know what I love in that passage? I love the way Peter's just blurts out honestly what he thinks. Gets it so royally wrong. And then he just makes the great confession. And Jesus says to Peter, the one who's always the first in and always gets it wrong. He says, "Do you know what, Peter? I'm going to build a church on your confession." If you were Jesus, would you have said that to Peter? I don't think he would have made it through an elder election. I mean, I would have been like, "Peter, you're really good, but if you could just learn not to say something, we might let you do the youth work." I mean, what is going on? But here we have him. And then after Mark chapter 8, did you know you get Mark chapter 9? It's wonderful, isn't it? How it works like that. And you get the transfiguration. And so now he's made this great confession. He sees then the transfiguration. He sees Jesus in all his brilliance. And do you know what? You think Peter should have learned? Just don't say anything, Peter. And he's so amazed. He's got nothing to say. And he's like, "Hey, let's have a building project." Because that's what you do as Christians, isn't it? “We'll build you something, Jesus.” I love the way the Father speaks from heaven. Have you ever noticed this? I love it's a repeat of the baptism. Do you remember in the baptism of Jesus, the Father just says, "This is my son whom I love. With him, I'm well pleased." But this time for Peter, “this is my Son whom I love. I'm well pleased with him.” And you think by this point he's got it. John chapter 13. What's happening here? The context is feet washing. Jesus is coming and saying, "I want to wash your feet." So what does Peter say? First to speak out he blurts again. “No, no, no, no, no. You don't need to do it.” But it's interesting, isn't it? Because Jesus says, "No, no, no, no. If you don't let me do this, you can't have any part of me." And so, what does Peter say? “In that case, wash all of me. Let's go for it.” I love Peter. And I think we should love people like Peter all the more. They get it wrong. They blurt it out. They doubt. They falter. They fail. But they get there in the end. In the end, they always listen to Jesus. In the end, they always come back to him. Interestingly, in Luke's account of what's happening here in John chapter 13, in Luke 22, there's that added detail, isn't there, that at this point in John chapter 13, Jesus actually says to Peter, "Satan wants to sift you like wheat." It's interesting, isn't it? Judas and Peter prompted sifted under this kind of satanic attack. Judas just goes with Satan. What a wonderful verse, isn't it? Jesus praying for Peter. Can I tell you when you read the New Testament, you read the book of Hebrews, I got some news for you. Jesus is praying for you, too. I love that idea. You know, there's that famous Robert Murray McCheyne quote, isn't there? If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.”  In heaven today, Jesus is praying for you. The whole point of Peter, I think in the gospel, and I've taken this from Ted Donnelly, Ted Donnelly in his wonderful little book on Peter, he says that Peter acts as both an encouragement and a challenge.  You’re going to get it wrong, but a challenge, but you need to repent and trust. Don't try and be self-sufficient. You need to trust in Christ. So, let's get back to our passage, John chapter 13, and we're going to read from verse 31. 

There's two things we need to see in this passage. Two things that will mean we are Peter and not Judas. The first thing is this. What did Peter see? What did Jesus teach him here clearly? Well, in verse 37 and 38, Peter is still going for self-sufficiency. I will lay down my life for you. You don't need to die for me. And Jesus is clear. No, you won't. you will fail. And so he says, what does he say in verse six? “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” There is no other way to heaven. The only way to heaven is through me. The first thing you need to grasp is this. We need a Saviour. Jesus is not an option to heaven. Jesus is the only way to heaven. It is impossible to save ourselves. The only way you are getting into heaven is through Jesus. I remember as a teenager many years ago, the accusation was always thrown at me, Christianity is a crutch. And many years ago, I'm sure many of you preachers here said exactly the same as I'm about to tell you. Christianity is not a crutch. It is a stretcher. We do not need a helping hand to heaven. We can only be carried to heaven. It's all of Jesus. And the whole lesson for Peter is I can't be self-sufficient. Jesus has to die for me. It's the only way.  It is really easy to delude yourself into thinking that if you try hard enough, if you do enough, you're going to be okay. One of my kind of heroes in technology and in business, he's a controversial figure, is Steve Jobs. You know, Steve Jobs, I've got my Apple iPhone, I've got my iPad. I mean, he owns me even though he's no longer on this earth. And I loved reading the kind of biography of Steve Jobs and you see all of these amazing things he did. He just reinvented the way that we use computers and technology and phones and music and everything. But it is one of the saddest books you'll ever read. And it's the saddest book because Steve Jobs got cancer and he decided just like he had beaten the world of technology, he could beat the world of cancer. And so he didn't go to a normal doctor like everybody else would. He didn't take the normal treatments that everybody else would take. He just tried acupuncture and fruit juices. And nine months later, he died. It is possible to know the way of salvation, but still to be convinced if I try hard enough, if I look good enough on the outside, then I'll get there.  You won't. Jesus is the only way and it is the most glorious way because he has paid everything for you and he wants to say, "Here is eternal life. All your sins forgiven, all your shame taken away, a new status of being adopted into God's family, made a son, made a child of God, given eternal life, which doesn't just start when you die, but starts now. Eternal life isn't just about death and length. Eternal life is knowing God and its quality now. That he is with me each and every day. And he has given me a mission and a purpose for life. The Christian life, even though it is a struggle at times, is a wondrous thing because the Christian life means that even when you struggle, God is with you and God is for you.  He has done it all. And we need to remember that, we need to trust in him. But we need to remember that as Christians, we don't just need the gospel to get into the kingdom. Do you remember yesterday we saw that Jesus was the shepherd? He became the gate. He was the way in to the sheepfold. But what did it say? Jesus brought them in and out and he gave them pasture. Jesus isn't just the way in. Jesus is how you stay in. The gospel isn't just the ABC of Christian life to get you in. The gospel is every day of Christian living.  We need to realize exactly what Peter realized over the next couple of chapters. We need to realize that even when we trust in Christ, we're going to fail. Even when you have new life, when you're brought into his family, even when you are one of his, even when you have your mouth wide open and he fills you, I'm going to be honest, you're still at points going to fail. And so to come into the kingdom, you have to admit, I cannot do this on my own. I need you, my Savior. And every morning when you wake up as a Christian, you need to admit, I cannot do this on my own. I can only do it by Jesus. It's wonderful, isn't it? Jesus doesn't just save you and then say, "Off you go, have a great one." Jesus is with you. He saves you and he keeps you. He secures you. He strengthens you. Do you know what's interesting? Peter denies Jesus. In John 21, you get the wonderful reinstatement of Peter, don't you? And you kind of feel by the end of John's gospel, Peter must have graduated now into the school of Christian maturity. He's obviously going to get everything right. And then you get to Acts and then he's there on the day of Pentecost. I mean, he's one of the first to get the Holy Spirit. And not only is there on the day of Pentecost, he also gets filled by the spirit in subsequent measures. You can discuss that one over supper. But something happened. And guess what he does? Paul tells us, he fails again. He starts to get his theology wrong. He starts to make disastrous pastoral decisions. Paul has to go and confront him. Whilst we will grow in holiness, the more we see Jesus, the more we love him, the more we will become like him. We will be transformed as we're transfixed on him. I want you to grasp that. But in this world, you will still fail. You will still fall. That's why you need to remember Jesus isn't just the way in. He's the way you stay in. and he always has grace for you. And so it seems to me, what did Judas get wrong? Judas never believes in Jesus. And even at the last point when Jesus held out that hand of love, he would not give his life to Jesus. I don't think he would ever be able to tell everybody, "I've been stealing the money." He'd built that facade. He was that stone apple that Spurgeon had seen and there was no turning back. He never trusted. But Peter, Peter got it wrong time and time again. But every time he came back to Jesus and trusted in him, trusted in him.  If you're struggling in the Christian life at the moment, if you're here this evening and you have started to live a double life, I don't know what you've done. Have you started to tell people in church you're doing one thing when you're doing something else? Have you started late at night looking at stuff on screens that you know you know you shouldn't be looking at? Have you started to harbour bitterness in your heart and now whenever your imagination has time to roam, it's roaming into revenge? Have you just gone cold towards Jesus and you've just stopped reading your Bible? You don't know how it happened. You missed a day and then you missed a week and now you've missed three months, but you haven't told anybody. And now you're finding yourself in church when people ask you how you are. “I'm great. I'm grand.” We all fall into these things. And now you have the choice. Will you live a double life, let that sin fester in the darkness and stop going to Jesus? Or will you see him hand you the bread of love and say, "Friend, I've died for you. My death has covered all of your sins. As far as the east is from the west, so far have I removed your transgressions from you. Come now, though your sins are as crimson. Come on, let us reason together. They will be as white as snow." You don't have to live a double life., if you've just started down that road of hiding your sin, of letting it fester in the dark, you don't have to follow it. This very evening, you can make a decision. I'm going to follow Jesus. I'm going to bring him my sin.  , look, I read someone once who put it something like this. If Jesus gave his life for you when you were his enemies, now that you're his child, now that you're his, how much more will he love you? How much more will he forgive you? Whenever you bring your sin and your guilty conscience to Jes to Jesus, he is like the father in Luke 15, isn't he? He will run towards you with open arms and he will embrace you. Don't let Satan tempt you to despair and tell you of the guilt within. Look upward and see him there who made an end of all your sins.   1 John chapter 1 and verse 8 says this, "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

 

Keswick at Portstewart 2026 - Sunday 5 July 2026 - I am the Good Shepherd

 

KESWICK AT PORTSTEWART 2026 – 5 JULY 2026 – JONATHAN THOMAS

I remember watching the news about 15 years ago. There were riots in London and as I was watching the news, some imagery came up of a CCTV angle and it showed an international student who had been assaulted. I think his bike had been stolen, his jaw had been broken and then you saw these two bystanders come and help him. I don't know if you remember watching this CCTV and you thought, "Wow, they're helping him." And as one of them helped him, the other one stole everything from his rucksack. They looked like they were helping, but they were actually there to do him great damage. Do you know the world is full of people who claim to try and help us, but often are only out to con us. We do a thing in work called scam safe every year and we have to find out about how do you know if an email that comes through is real? How do you know if a phone call that comes through is genuine? But even sometimes, how do you know someone who's asking how you are and you start to tell them what's happened? How do you know they're not just listening to gossip? How do you know? It's a big question in life, isn't it? How do you know who to trust? Who is legit? And what about leaders in the workplace? How do you know if they're genuinely there for you or just going to use you? Or politicians? How do you know if they really want to serve your community or just siphon off your money? Or what about church leaders? How do you know they genuinely want the best for you? They are who they say they are. Perhaps you're here this evening and you've had a bad  experience of some kind of person who's promised to be there for you, promised to want the best for you, but actually in the end has hurt you. How do you know who's truly for you, not out to devour you? Well, this evening as we come to John chapter 10, we're going to see that actually the Bible is open and honest about all of these things. That actually the problem with leaders and shepherds actually abusing their power is nothing new. And Jesus wants to show us an answer to that in John chapter 10. But before we get to John chapter 10, we've got to go to Ezekiel chapter 34. We're going to look at what was happening in the Old Testament because these abuses of power are nothing new. Ezekiel 34 verse 1 to 10

I think it's fair to say God hates false shepherds. God despises and prophesises against men who say they're here to serve you but aren't. Last night we were in John chapter 6 with Jesus declaring he is the bread of life. Over the next chapters you see those who are meant to be the shepherds of Israel the Pharisees. And you see them coming in and starting to speak against Jesus. Not wanting the flock not wanting the sheep to get to their Saviour but actually start to want to keep them for themselves. They wanted to keep the power. They wanted to keep the people. Do you remember in John chapter nine how they bullied the man who was born blind and his family because he dared to speak about Jesus?

So come back with me to Ezekiel 34. Let's read on and see what God says. Ezekiel 34 verses 11 to 16.

Isn't it amazing? Jesus says that when the shepherds fail, he himself will be the shepherd. He himself will come to the people. He himself is the promise of the shepherd. And in tonight's passage in John chapter 10, we see Jesus coming and revealing himself as the good shepherd. He is the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises. Now, a note about this word shepherd. When Jesus uses the term shepherd to describe himself, he's using it as a metaphor, not as not as a parable. And so when he says he's a shepherd, he is a shepherd, but he's going to do two things with it. The first thing he's going to do is he's going to use it in an elastic nature. He's going to change and morph this idea of a shepherd as he goes on. And the other thing he's going to do is he's going to take this idea of the shepherd to the extreme. He's going to take it beyond all sense. John chapter 10 verses 1 to 6

Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees, they did not understand what he was telling them. The first thing I want you to see this evening from our passage is this. Jesus, our good shepherd, leads us by name. This is really how this picture starts. A shepherd and a sheepfold. Now, we need to be careful here. It's easy to get it wrong. I said last night I live in the Breconen Beacons, and when I walk up my local mountain, I get to walk through these ancient sheep pens. These walls have been there for hundreds of years. And I love walking through and imagining what the shepherds and farmers of old used to do with all the sheep. But the thing about the sheep pens is they're a 45minute walk up the mountain from my house. And sometimes it's easy to think of sheep pens as somewhere out on the hillside. But actually in this context and culture, the sheep at times would come into the home. They would be with them. They were close by. The shepherds would sleep with them. The shepherd didn't keep the sheep at a distance, but was with them. And really when Jesus is talking about the sheepfold and the shepherd, what he's talking about is the family of God, God's household, who is really in. Because, you know, sometimes it's hard to tell who's in and who's out. Sometimes it's hard to tell who is a true shepherd and who is a false shepherd. So, who is it? And Jesus is clear. What's happened is some have climbed in over the fence. Some have come in and they are imposters. You don't have to be a Christian for long to realize that you can get people very wrong. In the 30 years since I went into full-time gospel ministry, a number of men who I served alongside, I prayed with, I wept with, I loved have left families and are now in prison. I look at one guy in particular used to go to conferences with him and I would look at everybody and think “I think he's the humblest guy and I thought if anybody was a fake it definitely wasn't him.” No idea what he was getting up to. What do you do when you get that phone call to find out what's happened or you read that article and you realize it's your friend? Your whole world comes crashing down. Mark mentioned Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoffer. I would say it's one of my top five books as well. And what I love about life together with Dietrich Bonhoffer is he says one of the biggest problems for Christians is we fall in love with an idealized idea of the church - that the church is this perfect place and all your leaders are going to be perfect and everybody is going to be truly a Christian. And we end up being shattered with disappointment when we realize the church is full of sinners who live in a fallen world. And part of Christian growing is realizing that the church in this world with the wheat and tears together is a mess. I'm going to confuse you and say it's a glorious mess. But because within that mess there is grace and there is true Christians. But how do you deal with it? I have found the only way I can deal with shepherds who have failed is by rooting myself in the good shepherd who never fails. When I see him and realize even if those closest to me fail me, if I look to him, I can stay the course. I don't think it makes the hurt any less. I don't think it makes the disappointment any less bitter at times. But when I look to Jesus, the true shepherd, when I realize that he has come because no human shepherd can be everything we need, what it also does is it helps me take the shepherds off the pedestals. It helps me stop putting pressures on leaders wanting them to be perfect. And it makes me pray for them more. Makes me care for them more. Makes me love them more. Makes me want to ask them more, how are you doing? what's going on. And so we need to look to Jesus. And the first thing I love about Jesus, this good shepherd in these first six verses is Jesus leads us by name. Verse three is just beautiful, isn't it? The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, the shepherd, and the sheep listen to his voice because he calls his own sheep by name. I get a real kick out of believing that God, the creator of the universe, knows my name. That's amazing, isn't it? I love it when you talk to some people and they keep using your name. I love it. When someone takes the time to remember my name, I just love it. God doesn't know your name because you've got a badge. He knows your name like I know the names of my three boys. He knows your name because he is your heavenly father. He is your good shepherd. I would say this, God doesn't just know your name off by heart. He knows your name on his heart. It's wonderful, isn't it? And so, here he comes, knowing our names. Can I say when I read the Gospels, I love the way Jesus uses names. Do you remember Peter after he'd fallen, after he'd failed the Lord Jesus, after he'd disowned him at the end, I love the way that when Jesus sees Peter, he says, "Simon, son of John." And I love that because there he is. I know you. I know your name. But the one I really love, the kind of story that stands out to me in the New Testament is the story of Mary and Martha. I write about it in my book. My book is about this idea that we get interrupted by our phones all the time. Social media is pinging up all the time. And the reason I love it is because I feel like someone wants to connect with me. That's why I get addicted. That's why I scroll through all these things. And my conviction was actually we need to learn to turn those interruptions off because all of those interruptions are about distracting us. And what we need to learn to do as Christians is learn to hear the interruptions of Jesus. Have you noticed how often in the gospels Jesus interrupts people? Do you remember how many people Jesus prioritized a meeting with? Either they interrupt him or he interrupts them. And I love the way he interrupts them even by name. So here's my favorite one. Do you remember Mary and Martha? Lovely sisters, aren't  they? And I love it one day and and I'm going to say Martha, I think, is in many senses the hero because Martha sees Jesus walking by and she's like, "Jesus, come for tea." She deserves a tick for that, doesn't she? She invited Jesus in. So Jesus comes in and then straight away she's Jesus is here. I best make him tea. Best make him some wee buns and 15s. Let's get everything we need for Jesus. And so she goes and straight away she's seen Jesus. She has Jesus and she walks away from Jesus because she believes that we need to serve Jesus before Jesus serves us. But Mary, Mary gets it. Mary's like, "Jesus is here. He's going to speak. I'm going to sit at his feet and I'm going to listen." Because Jesus had walked into her house. Jesus had interrupted her and Mary got it. When Jesus interrupts you, you sit and you listen. And then Martha, oh, I love Martha. There she is in the kitchen banging the pots ever so quietly to medium to louder. I think she probably dropped a plate or two. And as she's doing it, she kind of just shouts at Jesus, "Jesus, tell Mary to get in here." And I love this moment. Jesus looks at Martha and he calls her by name. I don't know if you've ever wondered how did he say her name? I love to read the Bible out loud and I love to see when people read that passage how they read it. I think it tells a lot about us. Did he say “Martha Martha stop banging the pots?” How did he say? I think he said Martha. Martha, you're stressed. You're worried. You've got a lord of cares. I see you. I get you. But Martha, one thing is needed and it won't be taken away from you. Let me interrupt you. Come and sit down. Listen to my voice. We have a good shepherd who is in the busyness of life, but as well in the disappointments of life, knows us by name. He calls us by name and he wants to speak with us. He wants us to sit down with him. I love the fact that Jesus knows my name. Are you are you brave enough in your faith to believe that Jesus knows who you are? And even tonight, Jesus is speaking to you. Sometimes we can worry that if we put ourselves out as Christians and ask God to speak to us, he won't. But he will. He always speaks to us when we ask him to. He is the good shepherd who knows us by name. But let's read on. He's even more. Have a look at verses 7 to 18 of John chapter 10 verse 7.

Here's the second thing we see in the passage. Jesus, our good shepherd, lays down his life for us. Jesus, our good shepherd, lays down his life for us. Really, this is the big news. Not only does Jesus know my name, but Jesus lays down his life for me. You know, there are some people who know our names and would do anything for us, but they can't save us. Jesus knows our name and he came to die for us. Now, this is where we see the elastic nature of the metaphor. He started off as the shepherd, but now he's the gate. That's really confused me. I thought you just came in through the gate. Oh, yes, but I'm the gate as well. And he's Jesus, so he can do that. He's both. It's a metaphor. He's putting them together. So the shepherd comes in through the gate in verses 1 to3. But now the shepherd is the gate. Verse seven. That is the only way into relationship with God. The only way into God's family, into the kingdom of God, is through Jesus. He's the only way you can be saved. You see, Jesus is the only one who has come into our world and who is in the world and was able to save us. No one in the world could save us because we're all in the same situation. And if God had stayed in heaven, he couldn't save us. And so the Father sends the Son, the good shepherd, to come. And what does he do? He comes into our mess, into the mess we've created by our own stupidity. And he comes not just to pull us out in a very easy way, but actually because sin is so much greater than my stupidity. He comes by laying down his life for us. A price that no one with us could pay because we were all in the same boat. And a price you couldn't pay for us unless you became one of us. And so Jesus comes and he says here, I am the good shepherd and the good shepherd lays down his life. And can I say that is the extreme version of the metaphor. Shepherds do not lay down their lives for the sheep. The shepherd is worth more than the sheep. But here's the idea. It seems crazy. It seems wild. But the God of the universe, the good shepherd, became one of us and laid down his life for us. So now, he is the way into the gate. He is the way into God's family. It's through his death and his resurrection. And look what he offers us.  In verse 9, he says, "I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved. If you trust in Jesus, if you put your faith in him, then you will be saved and they will come in and go out and find pasture.” I love that Jesus not only saves us, but he satisfies us. He feeds us. There's no way I could get through this sermon this evening without referencing Psalm 23, is there?

“The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He refreshes my soul.”

This is our good shepherd. He guides me along paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

“And even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil and my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

This is our good shepherd who laid down his life so we could live in the reality of Psalm 23. Don Carson, the great Bible commentator and theologian has, I think, one of the best lines on this. Don Carson says, "When we read this passage in John 10, we should think of, fat, contented sheep safe from oppression." Well, I'm claiming that from Don Carson. I want to be a fat contented sheep. Do you believe that the gospel that Jesus feeds you and keeps you safe that you can be contented in him? He gave his life so that we could have this life that he offers us. And he did it in such an amazing way, didn't he? Look at how he does it. Verse 11, he lays down his life. Verse 15, he says again that I lay down my life. H says in verse 18, he says, "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord." Friends, the good shepherd who knows your name decided to lay down his life for you repeatedly. He wants you to know he wasn't forced to do this. He didn't do this by accident. You're not a happy byproduct. Jesus knowingly, willingly, deliberately came to lay down his life for you. whatever shepherd has disappointed you, whatever leader has disappointed you, whatever Christian has disappointed you, whatever has happened in your church that has broken finally this illusion the church is perfect. Can I tell you, take your eyes from the church and put it on Jesus because he is the good shepherd who knows your name. He says to you, Martha, Martha, Jonathan, Jonathan, Simon, Simon, Mary, whatever your name is, he says, I know, I see you, I know you. I laid down my life for you. Let me keep you secure and feed you. Two years ago, we found ourselves as a family in a situation where those we thought were there to shepherd us didn't. And in that season, you have a decision. Will I focus on the shepherds who haven't cared for me, or will I look to the shepherd who truly loves me? We need to realize there is a shepherd who will never fail. That doesn't excuse the shepherds who falter. It doesn't excuse what has been done. But I tell you, it keeps you safe. It keeps your heart right. But this shepherd is far more. Look with me very quickly at the last few verses of the passage. Let's go to verse 19.

Can you believe there is a debate about Jesus? All of these miracles, all of these signs, all of these amazing words, and they still don't get it. Friends, do you know it is possible to reject Jesus? It is possible to hear all about him and to miss out. Perhaps you're not yet a Christian. I want to urge you, don't miss out. If you hear the voice of Jesus call your name, respond because he is the only person who will never disappoint you. He is the only one who will never leave you. He knows your name. He came to lay down his life for you and he wants you to enter through him the gate so that he can be your good shepherd and he can give you eternal life. And if you're a Christian this evening, do you know that Jesus is your good shepherd? Do you know that he knows your name and that he loves you? Let me just as we come to a close, just focus on a third and final thing. You see, what we saw in the passage here is Jesus, our good shepherd, gives us eternal life. I love that. Those statements are great, aren't they? Verse 28, they shall never perish. Again, no one will snatch them out of my hand. Why? Because verse 29, my father is greater than all and no one can snatch them out of my father's hand. If you trust in Jesus, he will hold you fast and he will keep you and he gives you eternal life and it's the best eternal life you can ever have. There's a great book by Julian Barnes, A History of the World in 10 and a half chapters. It's not a very accurate history. It's more a collection of kind of short stories with a thread. But Julian Barnes has very interesting insights. He has a chapter on were there woodworm in the ark? But the other one is he has this picture of heaven. And so in this last chapter, he goes to heaven and basically heaven is where you go after you die and you get everything you've ever wanted. So whatever you want to do, you get to do. So if you want to play golf, if you want to spend heaven in Portrush, then then you can do it, play golf. If you want to play tennis, whatever it is you want to do. And as he's walking around, he talks to him. He says, "What's the one thing everybody asks to do?" And the guy said, "Oh, that's very simple. They all ask to enter the dream state." He says, "What do you mean by that?" Well, basically, they all ask to die. They can say, "Hold on. heaven get everything we want. Why would they do that? Says, well, once you get a hole in one and you've beat that golf course, gets a bit boring after 100 years. When you've been there 10,000 years, the stuff, the gifts, things you want is not enough. Julian Barnes, I think, really gets it, doesn't he? For heaven to be heaven, for eternal life to be eternal life, we need something greater than us. Dare I say, we need someone greater than us. The wonderful thing is we have a good shepherd who gives us eternal life. And this is eternal life that we know the Father. Heaven will never be boring because in heaven we'll be gazing upon the lamb. We'll be worshiping him. And so, give your life to him. Trust in him. And know that the life he gives is a wondrous life. And the life he gives you is a life that can never be taken away. No one can snatch you from his hand. I love that. I love the fact that Jesus, the good shepherd, knows me by name, lays down his life for me, gives me eternal life, and says, "No one can snatch you from my hand." Do you know? Perhaps you've been disappointed with other Christians. Maybe you've been disappointed with yourself. I think that's been my biggest spiritual crisis.  Its not the sin in others, but the sin in me. And perhaps you're thinking, I don't know if I can hold on any longer. I don't know if my faith will hold. I want you to imagine this evening that you go out and you're walking by the rocks. You're going down over the rocks and a wave comes and just knocks you. And the wave knocks you into the sea and before you know it, you're being dragged out and your clothes are weighing you down and you're gulping for breath and the freezing cold water is taking away your breath. It's getting into your bones. You don't think you're going to make it. You're just going further out and further down. And then in the distance you see the RNLI. You see the lifeboat and the lifeboat just comes because you can't save yourself. All the people watching from the side, they can't save you. But they are in a lie. They get in the boat. They come out to you. And as they come out to you, they come up alongside you. And what do you do if you know you're going to drown. If you know that boat can save you, what do you do? You put your hand out. And as you put your hand out, the hand comes from the boat and grabs you. And as that hand grabs you, you are saved. You're saved holding on to the hand and you're going through the waves. And then you start to think, I don't think I've got enough energy to hold on anymore. I'm too cold. I'm too tired. I'm being dragged down. I don't think I can hold on anymore. Do you know what will happen? It doesn't matter because he's holding on to you. You may have put your hand out to him, but he's got you. If you feel in your faith tonight like you're coming and you're holding on like a fingertip, Jesus has you. You are united to him. You are rooted in him and he will hold you and he will never let you go. He is your good shepherd. Even when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, even when you walk through the most difficult of times, he is holding you. He will never let you go. If you feel your faith is weak, I want to encourage you to come to the Lord Jesus, to be honest with him, to tell him how you feel and how you're struggling, and to ask that he would come and give you strength. Perhaps as we've talked about shepherds who have failed, hurts have come up. If those hurts have come up, don't leave them where they are. Don't let them fester. Bring them to the Lord.