The Promise of More | More Life | Pastor Zach Weihrauch

John 10:10.

John 10:10

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

I came that you may have life

and have it abundantly.

Well, good morning

and welcome to what is a big weekend in the life of our church.

Because at least for our church calendar, it's the first weekend

of 2026, the weekend where we unveil our annual theme.

You know, the rhythm here is that every January we do a vision

sermon series kind of cast vision for where we think we're

headed this year as a church, what we think that God wants to do,

and introduce a theme that will really

be part of all of our teaching for the calendar year.

And this year, the theme I'm excited to tell you is More Life.

We take it actually from John 10:10 where Jesus said, I've come

John 10:10

so that they can have life and life more abundantly.

What we're praying for and what we believe God wants for us

as a church is for 2026 to be one of the best years in the history

of this church, a year where this place is infused with more life.

But but not just this church.

We're praying that for your family,

for your marriage, for your career, for your life, that

that you and I will be able to sit back in December of this year, look over 2026

and say, wow, I have never been more alive than I am right now, that my, my,

my life has never been fuller than it is right now.

We believe that's what God wants for us.

That's what all of our teaching is going to aim at in 2026.

What we're going to start this morning by looking at John 10:10.

John 10:10

So if you're here and you have a Bible, would you take it out and open it to John

chapter ten?

If not the verses I talk about are going to be on the screen behind me,

but I have three points I want to use to kind of set up the year

and to help us think about John 10:10, three points.

John 10:10

Very simple.

I want to talk about a mission statement, a marketing problem,

and a method for moving forward. A mission statement, a marketing problem,

and a method for moving forward.

Well, let's start with the first one.

A mission statement.

Now, a mission statement for any company or

organization is kind of a a guiding principle.

It makes clear what that company or organization is all about, what their

why is, and not just why they do things, but but how they do them.

A great mission statement lets everyone in the organization or company

know what to say yes to and what to say no to.

It helps customers to understand what to expect from that organization.

From that business.

A great mission statement.

Make sure that everyone from the CEO all the way down to the lowest

rung of the ladder, know why they came into work that day.

They know what they're participating in, and I happen to believe

that the best mission statements are simple.

They're concise.

They're they're a sentence.

In fact, if you're a business owner or entrepreneur or entrepreneur here

and your mission statement is a paragraph long, come see me afterwards

for some free consulting. It's too long.

We can't remember it.

In fact, some of the best companies that you do

business with, some of the best companies of our generation, have the most simple

and clear mission statements like, for example, Amazon.

Amazon's mission statement is to be Earth's most customer

centric organization,

which is why you can go on their website right now and order something

that will probably end up on your doorstep tonight,

because they go in to work every day saying,

how can we make this company better for the customers?

Nike exists to innovate and inspire for athletes.

You know, chick fil A exists to steward

what it has for the glory of God.

Apple creates innovative products.

Tesla, is moving the world towards sustainable energy.

My my point is this great companies understand this.

When you know what you're about, you know how to move forward.

You know what to do.

So here's my question for you.

If Jesus had a mission statement, what would it be?

If we distill Jesus

down, is his why his how?

What?

What he would use to say yes and what he would use to say no?

His guiding principle?

What would it be?

Now I know some of you I know will be uncomfortable with that.

You'll say, well, we'll Zach, Jesus is the son of God.

You can't try to sum him up in one sentence

and I agree, I agree, I can't,

but he can.

And in fact, that's what I think he's doing in John 1010.

He's telling us his mission statement.

Let me read it to you, by the way.

He gets it. It's only a sentence. Okay.

But let me read it to you and see if you read it that way.

John 1010. Here's what he says.

I came that they may have life

and have it abundantly say, here's why I'm here.

This is why I've come.

I've come to bring life and to bring it abundantly.

Life and more life.

Jesus is telling us he's in the production business

and what he produces is life.

More life.

He's telling us that he came so that everywhere he went, everyone

he talked to, everything he got involved

in, was infused with more life.

He's telling us that if we get involved with Jesus, if he gets involved

in our marriage, our marriage will have more life,

our family, more life, our career, more life.

Whatever area of our lives Jesus touches, we get more life.

That's who he is.

That's what he is about, is that when you think of when you think of Jesus.

Probably not.

And I'll tell you why I think that is in a minute, but probably not.

But it is what he told us to think of.

It's what he told us he was about.

By the way, Jesus isn't being new here.

The Bible says really from front to back that God is in the life business.

God is producing life and more life.

That's what he's about.

Even in places you're familiar with that you might have missed it.

Like like for example,

even if you didn't grow up in church, you don't know much about the Bible.

You know, Psalm 23.

Psalm 23 is read at funerals.

It says,

even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you know this one.

But listen, it's okay to read that at funerals.

That's okay.

But it's actually not about dying.

It's about living.

Well, let me read it to you.

And I want you to see if you hear Jesus's mission statement in Psalm 23.

This is what it says.

The Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

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.

My cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Now listen, there is some life after death.

Language there all live in the house of the Lord forever.

But overwhelmingly this psalm is about life.

It's about a God who

wants green grass and water and comfort and security for us.

In fact, this passage is about God telling us

he envisions his relationship with us like shepherd and sheep.

And do you know how you know a shepherd is good at his job?

The sheep are healthy.

They're living even more life.

Incidentally, when Jesus in John 1010 says, I've come

so that they may have life and life more abundantly.

John ten is famous for being the passage

in which Jesus calls himself

the good Shepherd.

Is it?

The Bible tells us that God is in the life business.

He wants more for you.

He wants more life for you.

That's who he is.

That's what he does.

Which of course begs the question,

why is it that we don't think of him that way?

Because if we're honest, most of us think if we were to give control of our lives

to God, if we were to do things God's way, we wouldn't get more.

We would get less,

we wouldn't get more life.

We'd get less. We wouldn't flourish.

We would wither.

It's why we don't do it right, why we don't give control to God.

Because we don't believe he's in the production business.

We believe God is in the reduction business.

And the reason for that, and this is my second point,

is we have a marketing problem.

You know, it's interesting.

Jesus gives his mission statement in John ten.

I've come so that they may have life and life more abundantly.

He also gives Satan's mission statement in John ten.

Now, now I have to say,

if you didn't grow up in church, you're not super familiar with the Bible.

You're not going to be, I know, super comfortable with the idea of Satan,

but the Bible tells us there's a spiritual entity in the world

who hates God and hates everything that God loves.

He he wants to undo everything that God says is good.

He is anti God and he's working in our world.

And Jesus says, Satan has a mission statement and Satan gets it.

It's only a sentence.

Here's what he says John ten Jesus says the thief comes

only to steal and kill and destroy.

That's Satan's mission statement.

I steal, kill and destroy.

But how does he do it?

You can't come up to people like knock on the door or nowadays, I guess.

Get a call from your friend and mine. Spam risk.

And you

answer the phone and they go, hey, we have an exciting opportunity for you.

And you say, okay, what is it?

And they say, we want to steal and kill and destroy.

Does 2:00 work for you?

Like that won't work, right?

You can't come directly at people to steal, kill, and destroy.

When we think about Satan, we tend to think about him

like a cheap horror movie.

The lights go out or flicker.

There's a rumbling in the closet.

There's something under the bed.

But if that's how he came to us, we would see him coming.

We would marshal our defenses.

We would batten down the hatches.

He can't come direct.

Well, let me ask you this question.

If Satan wanted to destroy the writer of Psalm 23, how would he do it?

Well, I think the answer is pretty simple.

He would separate him from the shepherd.

I mean, after all, Psalm 23, the writer says

it's it's the shepherd who makes sure he has grass and and water.

It's the shepherd

who comforts him and keeps him safe, who makes sure that he's taken care of.

So if you wanted to steal and kill and destroy

the writer of Psalm 23, it's pretty simple.

You have to separate him from the shepherd.

Well, how would you do that?

Well, the Bible tells us the way Satan does.

It is he lies about the shepherd.

This goes all the way back to Genesis chapter three.

God makes Adam and Eve our first parents.

He he rest them in the Garden of Eden, a Paradise that he's made for them.

The Bible says they're naked and without shame, which means Eve

looks at Adam and she doesn't compare him to her high school boyfriend.

That's not a joke.

Adam looks at Eve.

He doesn't compare her to the women he's seen on the internet.

They're totally free of insecurity.

They have a great marriage.

They have the promise of children.

They have meaning. They have purpose.

They have everything they need.

They live more life.

But when Satan shows up, here's what he says.

Genesis chapter three, verses four and five.

It says this.

But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die.

For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened,

and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

You see, when Satan shows up, when he says, Eve, Eve, Eve,

God is not for you.

He's against you.

He doesn't want more for you.

He wants less for you. Eve.

This isn't Paradise. This is prison

and you know that.

Why don't you?

I do lives in my head and it lives in my heart.

You see, when we think about Satan, we can't think about him as a bizarro god.

We've seen too many comic book movies.

You know, in a comic book movie, you have to have a hero who's very

powerful, and then you have a bad guy who's just as powerful.

That's how you build the tension.

You watch the movie, you don't really know who's going to win.

And so sometimes we think about Satan because,

you know, Marvel has taught us to think this way.

We think about him as the evil God.

But Satan is not like God.

He's not everywhere all at once.

He's not all knowing, okay?

He's a created being.

He's evil for sure, powerful for sure, but he's not God.

Which means if you're Satan and you want to separate people from God,

sheep from shepherd, and there are 8 billion people on the planet,

he cannot whisper in 8 billion years.

He doesn't have that kind of power.

So what he does is he takes the lie into our culture

so that our culture, in a million subtle ways, tells us

biblical sexuality is repression.

Biblical gender identity is patriarchal.

Biblical approaches to family are old fashioned.

Biblical approaches to career will keep you from ever getting ahead.

A biblical approach to money

will keep you from all the material things that will make you happy.

You see, the lie he introduces in Genesis three is the one our culture propagates.

God is not for you. He's against you.

He does not want more.

He wants less.

If you give him control, you will not flourish.

You will wither.

Do you know that lie?

That's the thief

who comes to steal and kill and destroy and knows the way he can do that is you'll

separate you from the God who made you, from the God who loves you, from the God

who knows what's best for you so that he can steal and kill and destroy.

If you don't believe me, consider this

we have never been freer than we are in 2026.

We can do what we want.

We can be who we want.

We can live how we want.

But we have never been more depressed,

never been

more anxious, never been more insecure.

Because detached from the shepherd, the sheep are vulnerable.

But here's some good news.

You know, Pastor Joe is one of our pastors.

Here is my mentor.

He says a lot of things that I think are brilliant,

and I write them down when he's not looking.

And one of my favorites is

he says that Satan always overplays his hand, and I think he's right.

And here's what I mean.

1985 Coke is losing

market share to Pepsi, and Coke has been the number one soda forever.

And Pepsi is starting to rise.

They just signed an ad campaign with Michael Jackson.

1985 Michael Jackson is the biggest star on the planet.

They've even they've even come up with this ingenious

marketing strategy, which is basically saying,

the only reason you drink Coke is because it's Coke.

It's not because it's best.

And so they do these blind taste tests where Pepsi is in one unmarked bottle

and Coke's in another unmarked bottle,

and people are drinking them and going, I like this one, and it's Pepsi.

It was brilliant.

It was genius. And Coke was getting scared.

I mean, they were they were losing and they knew it.

And they began to believe that perhaps, maybe Pepsi was right.

They had an inferior product.

So they introduced a new product, a product.

If you lived in the 80s, you know, it was called New Coke,

which, you know, if you lived in the 80s or if you watched Stranger Things

or both about.

So Coke introduces New Coke, and the idea was people don't like the old Coke.

They want something new.

And it was spectacular as a failure.

This is not a joke.

Within 79 days, Coke had taken it off the shelves.

Like, if you work in the business world, that's not even a quarter.

Didn't even make it a quarter.

And when they took it off the shelves, they came out with a new

can of the old Coke called Coca Cola Classic,

which is the can, you know, which is basically them going are bad.

I mean, basically, right.

Here's the thing.

People thought they wanted New Coke

and then when they tried it, they were like, New Coke is the worst.

We want something classic.

I think that's where we are as a culture.

I think we

were told we could sleep with whoever we wanted

and we've never been more broken.

I think we were told we could identify however we wanted.

We've never been more confused.

I think we were told to make politics our our ideology,

our center, and even stop talking to family members if they disagreed.

And we've never been more lonely.

I think we were told, you don't even have to leave the house.

You can work from home,

you can get food delivered at home, you can watch movies at home.

We've never been more isolated.

And if you find yourself thinking men,

new life

is the worst.

Maybe you need something

a little more classic.

And it just so happens that's the business Jesus,

is that.

Which is my third point a method for moving forward.

If you want more life, how do you get it?

You know, Jesus says two powerful things in John 1010.

He says, I, I've come so that they may have life and life more abundant.

Buried in that are two pretty profound statements.

One is Jesus says, if you want more life, he can give it to you.

No problem.

It's what he does.

In fact, he doubles down.

He says, if you want life

even more, life even more than you think,

even more than you can dream of, even more than you can imagine.

That's what he does.

In other words, Jesus is saying that if you're 20,

26 ends and you don't have more life, it's because you didn't want it

because no problem, he can give it to you.

Here's the second thing he's saying.

You'll never get it without him.

It's what he says.

He says, I came so that they may have life.

The implication of that is if I hadn't come, they wouldn't have had life.

Let me tell you why he's saying that.

Two steps to more life.

If you want it in 2026, two steps up to you.

Here's number one.

You have to fire yourself.

There may not be anything more unpopular to say

to a roomful of Americans than this, but your family's not the problem.

Your environment is not the problem.

Whoever's in the white House is not the problem.

I'm not saying all those things are great. I'm just saying

you're the problem.

I'm the problem.

We have no idea what we're doing when it comes to sex

or marriage or children or money or career.

Our lives should be evidence of that.

We have no idea what we're doing, and everything we touch withers.

We make really lousy God's.

This is what Jesus is teaching us.

It means to become a Christian is to become so dissatisfied with yourself.

You're looking for a new leader.

Jesus says he's that leader.

And to prove that he will live a sinless life,

he will go to the cross where he will take on your sins, come up under the anger

and wrath and judgment of God the Father as part of their plan

to eradicate your guilt, eradicate the judgment that's on you.

So the three days later,

when he raises from the dead, he will say, if you will fire yourself and follow me,

I will lead you to life eternal and life

now, are you ready to fire yourself?

You're ready to follow Jesus.

We're baptizing at the end of the month.

Falls in your court.

Here's the second thing he's saying.

You have to obey him.

But he knows how to get life.

That's what he's saying.

I know how to lead you to life. But.

But to tap into that, you're going to have to do things his way.

And you've you've grown up in a culture that has told you that

God is against you, that does things, everything, the opposite.

So when he tells you how to do sex, how to do marriage, how to do money,

how to do parenting, how to do career, it's going to sound crazy to you.

How could it not?

But you'll never get life unless you lean in.

The problem with that is I.

I know what you're thinking.

It's because it's what I was thinking this week when I was getting ready.

In fact,

the best way to picture this is to connect it

to another story in the Bible, Luke chapter five.

Peter, a disciple, has been fishing.

He's a fisherman.

Which means, of course, that his father was

a fisherman and his father's father was a fisherman.

It's a family business.

He's got the right boat, he's got the right nets.

He knows all the right spots on the lake.

He has all the right techniques.

He's been fishing all night. He's caught nothing.

And Jesus shows up.

And this is their conversation.

In Luke five, Jesus says this.

And when he had finished speaking, he hears Jesus.

He said to Simon, That's Peter

put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.

I, I love to imagine Simon here going, oh, is that what I forgot?

Jesus, just going to lay down the net

because that's how I'd be.

And Simon answered, master, we toiled all night and took nothing.

Listen.

But at your word

I will let down the nets.

The Bible says they took up so much fish

they couldn't even hardly get them in the boat.

Here's what I would say. I know what you're thinking.

I know you're thinking, but I've tried working on my marriage.

But I've tried putting my family back together.

I've tried getting control of my finances.

I've tried it, I've tried it, I've tried it, and I'm tired of trying it.

But here's my challenge.

Did you do it at his word?

Do you know what he says

about sex, about money, about parenting, about family, about career?

Do you know what he says? Have you done it?

That's what

2026 is going to be about for us as a church.

What has Jesus said?

And how can we start doing it?

And when we do, he promises life

even more.

A life

than we can imagine.

Let me pray for us, father God,

what an incredible thing it is, Jesus that when you came,

you said your mission statement was to bring life and life more abundantly.

You could have said anything.

You could have said, I came to bring judgment.

We deserve it.

You could have said, I came to make sure you feel the guilt

and shame you should feel for breaking this world.

We deserve that.

You could have said, I came to find the best and the brightest,

and to start over with them, and to get rid of the rest of you losers.

We deserve that.

What?

You said I came so that you may have life and life more abundant.

Defeat.

Jesus, we ask in the power of your Holy Spirit, the lie of the enemy

that keeps us from you.

Connect your sheep to you,

the Shepherd that we might really live in Jesus name.

We pray. Amen.