John 10:11 and 14-18-11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.”
I want us to understand that what Jesus did, He did willingly. No one forced Jesus to die. No one took Jesus’ life. He laid it down. Jesus made His point a few times in these short verses to drive it home. He said, “I lay down my life. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” And notice how He emphasized what He was doing. He said, “I have authority to lay it down.” Twice, in these two verses, He also said He would take His life up again. It is clear that Jesus had made a decision to sacrifice His life, to give His life for the sins of the world.
Mark 10:45 emphasizes Jesus as the One who had pre-decided, pre-determined to be crucified. He said this of Himself, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
He didn’t have to be talked into it. He wasn’t deceived or tricked. He knew what He had determined to do.
Now, what I want us to notice is something that could easily be missed or minimized. Here it is: His decision was in response to the will of God the Father. We cannot miss this. When faced with the plan of God, when confronted with the will of God, Jesus had a choice, and He chose, not just in the instance of the cross, but in all of His earthly life, He chose the will of God. Look at John 6:38-“For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.”
In His humanity, Jesus had to wrestle with the will of God, just like we do. His surrender to the Father’s will wasn’t a one-time surrender either. He left Heaven which took the surrendering of His Divine rights and privileges as a member of the Godhead. Look at Philippians 2:5-8 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature[a] God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature[b] of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man…
His commitment to the will and plan of God led Him to surrender. He literally emptied Himself to become a human. God became a servant. Deity became a commoner. Glory was forfeited for flesh. Oh, the surrender began long before the Cross.
His surrender began in His mind. He chose a mindset of surrender. There will be no surrender to the will of God without the surrendering of our way of thinking. The mindset of discipleship is a full surrender to the will of God.
The mind of a disciple of Jesus must be focused on doing the will of God alone. John 4:34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish His work. Do you hear the commitment in that statement? Jesus compared doing the Father’s will to feeding His own body. We don’t willingly skip too many meals, do we? We pay attention to the cravings of our bodies, the needs of our bodies. And when we start to get hangry, we do something about it. We are conscious of what our bodies need, and we take the necessary steps to satisfy those needs.
As disciples of Christ, we are to be conscious of the will of God and take the necessary steps to accomplish that will. All throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus was questioned and harassed by the religious leaders. Time after time, He chose not to defend Himself because He was surrendered. He was surrendered moment by moment to a greater plan than one His flesh could create. Most of us would be quick to defend ourselves, to let people know just “who they are dealing with,” and so many times, Jesus let attacks roll on without the need for any defense. Why? Because He was choosing the will of the Father.
There are many times the Scriptures tell us that Jesus said, “My time has not come,” or “My hour has not come.” Jesus resisted any temptation to exert His will if it usurped the will of the Father. If defending Himself didn’t fit the moment, if it didn’t support the will of God, He didn’t engage.
Choosing the Father’s will was an ongoing, daily choice for Jesus, and it must be for us as well. Not only did surrender involve Jesus’ mind, but it absolutely involved His heart.
When we read the Scriptures, we often read them as words on a page, as history that took place, as a story to know, rather than as deep passion that was expressed. Gethsemane was a gut-wrenching place of deep anguish and sorrow. There, we see Jesus’ heart on display. His heart was broken. He was absolutely gutted in the Garden of Gethsemane.
In Gethsemane, we witness the failure of His disciples to watch and pray with Him for even an hour. While Jesus was in agony and distress in the place of prayer, His disciples were asleep a few feet away. How cold-hearted or selfish or emotionally unintelligent would people have to be to not be able to see the struggle their friend Jesus was enduring? Satan had entered into the heart of Judas to betray Jesus. Had he somehow blinded them from seeing the enormity of Jesus’ agony in the Garden? That is an extra-biblical thought, so don’t take that as Bible. It’s just something that came to my mind as I tried to wrap my mind around how they could have been so insensitive to Jesus in that crushing time.
The content of Jesus’ struggle was the weightiest to date. Surrender would require not just a commitment to a plan in His mind, not just a suspension of a desire to defend Himself, but it would require His all, and in that moment, Jesus was conflicted. It’s in the text. Luke 22:42-42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”
In that moment, Jesus and the Father had a different will, a different desire. Jesus asked to be excused from His mission. His hour had come, but He didn’t want to step into it. He didn’t want to “drink the cup” that He was being given to drink. He asked for the cup to be taken from Him. He was wanting to pass on drinking the cup of sacrifice.
It was going to be too hard. It was going to cost too much. It was going to involve horrific physical and emotional abuse and heartache. It was going to be a bloody and bitter cup that He would have to drink. He was literally going to take into His inner being a cosmic blast of wrath, the judgment for the sins of the entire world.
What I want us to see, however, is that there was no hesitation from Jesus’ ask for a pass and His surrender to the Father’s will once again. He didn’t say, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me,” and then wait to see if the Father would say, “I’m so sorry You have to do this. I wish it didn’t have to be this way. Maybe we can work something out.” Jesus didn’t say what He said to try to get the Father to change the plan. No, Jesus said what He said so that we could see that He was making a choice to surrender.
Jesus wanted us to understand that surrender IS a choice, and that surrender IS often a struggle. I would also submit to you that Jesus wanted to model that surrender to the will of God is the highest goal and will accomplish the greatest good. It took more than His mind in that moment. It took His whole heart.
Perhaps this is the greatest, most poignant expression of the reality that Jesus and the Father are one. They were one in heart. Jesus’ heart was for the Father’s will and for that reason, He quickly moved from “take this cup from Me” to “have Your way with My life.” And the will of the Father was to crush Jesus (Is. 53:10) and to cause Him to suffer so that we could live.
Remember, no one took Jesus’ life. He laid it down. He, the Good Shepherd, laid it down. He gave His mind to it. He gave His heart to it. He gave His all. Here’s what I want to leave you with: The surrendered life isn’t imposed on anyone, including Jesus. It must be chosen.
Neither the “Hosanna Crowd” or the “Crucify Crowd” understood what was happening as it was unfolding for Jesus. Many people won’t understand your choice, if in fact, it is full surrender to the will of God because it will seem counter intuitive at times. It might even appear weak, in those moments that you choose not to defend yourself. It might cost you more than others think is reasonable to pay, but what is accomplished will be far greater than you could ask or imagine. To exert our own will, to accomplish our own plans will gain us a moment of earthly applause or a second of satisfaction, but to accomplish the will of God, will be to make a lasting impact on many for eternity.
One last Scripture: John 8:28-29- 28 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up[a] the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. 29 The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.” Anything less than full surrender would have kept us from knowing, truly knowing that Jesus was and is the Messiah. Had He stopped short of the cross, we could never live convinced. Aren’t you glad that Jesus surrendered? Notice that the surrendered life is where we experience God with us. The surrendered life is where we become aware that we are never alone. And the last phrase of Jesus’ words here in John 8 sum up the entire message: “For I always do what pleases Him.” Can we say the same? Jesus surrendered. Will we?
