Sometimes I get up from my desk and charge into the church office with such authority and sense of purpose that Patti, our Church Secretary, will stop what she is typing on her computer and look up to find out what I want.  If she has been having a conversation with someone else, the conversation will stop and everyone will wonder why I am charging into the office.  But then I will get a blank look on my face and it will become clear to everyone that, once again, I have forgotten why I came.  Then I will retrace my steps back to my office and see the tray pulled out from my printer and remember, "Oh yes, I need to get some paper for my printer."  Sometimes we wonder why we have come, or why others have come.

If two Police Officers show up at the front door, we are going to wonder: "Why have they come?"  If Stacy London and Clinton Kelly of "What Not to Wear" are sitting in the front pew some Sunday, some of us are going to wonder, "Why have they come?"  We who study our Bibles might even find ourselves wondering, "Why did Jesus come?"  That is the first of nine questions being asked by our Adult Bible Study Group that meets on Sunday mornings.

One of them was the highest bidder for an item offered at the Workcamp Spaghetti Dinner and Auction.  It was the chance to pick the topic for a Sunday sermon.  Only instead of picking one topic, the winner went to the Adult Bible Study Group and they came up with nine options and left me to make the choice.  All of the options looked edifying to me, so I picked the first one for today—this being the day we are commissioning our Workcampers and Staff--and will probably work down the list either in future sermons or newsletter articles for The Spire.

The first question on the list was this: "Jesus’ coming was for what purpose?  What was his main teaching?"  That is actually two questions, but we will find that the answers relate to one another.  The answers come from Jesus himself.  Our text for this morning is one of them where Jesus says: I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full (John 10:10).  I want to begin with that answer before we proceed to some other places where Jesus explains why he has come.  Time will not permit us to get to all the places where Jesus addresses that question, so I must confine myself to a few that are personal favorites.

Indeed, our text for today is one of my personal favorites from the Bible.  Jesus is speaking about the sheep of his fold—those who follow him as sheep follow a shepherd.  He has come so that we may have life.  Is he talking about biological life?  No, because even those detractors who are not among his fold have biological life.  Jesus is talking about having life to the full or, as the King James Version puts it, having life more abundantly.

If there is one thing that we all have in common, whether we are young Workcampers or aging Pastors who cannot remember why they have charged into an office; whether we are members of a Community Church or another church or no church at all; whether we are rich or poor, or black or white, or American or Afghan—the one thing we all have in common is that we are yearning for a life that is as full and abundant as it can possibly be. No one is trying to go from bad to worse here.  Everyone is trying to avoid bad and get to better.

God created us with that yearning to draw us to him, the giver and sustainer of life.  As St. Augustine of Hippo prayed to God: "Thou hast made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee."  The Lord God wants for us what we most want for ourselves and for our children and for our loved ones.  He wants us to have life and have it more abundantly.  This is why his teaching—you will recall that the second question asked about his main teaching—his teaching is called the Gospel, which means: "Good News."

The great good news is that God not only wants for us what we most want for ourselves, God has the power to deliver it through Christ.  Jesus said, I have come that you may have life and have it to the full—a "Life Without Limit" as the title of our message puts it.  Indeed, many of the places where we have translated the Bible to read "Eternal Life" could more accurately be translated "Life Without Limit.  The life Jesus offers is not just quantitative, it is qualitative.  If that is not good news, I don’t know what is.

The not-so-good news is that we do not always trust the Lord to provide life without limit.  We think that we can manage that on our own.  If we just feed our carnal appetites enough, we will be satisfied.  If we just get high enough, or drunk enough, that will be the good life.  Remember that the next morning when your head is splitting and you are giving it to the toilet bowl.  If we just indulge our sexual appetites, surely we will be living the good life.  Remember that when the baby cries at 2:00 AM, or when the baby does not cry because you had to face the awful decision to terminate a pregnancy.

Maybe if we just make enough money and buy enough stuff, surely then we will be living the good life.  The compulsion to hoard money and things for oneself has to be the most devious compulsion of them all because it is the only compulsion which is socially sanctioned.  Everyone knows that alcoholism and drug addiction and unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases are not having life to the full.  But not everyone knows that the compulsion to hoard money is just as life-destroying.

The author of Ecclesiastes was the world’s richest man in his day.  He wrote: I have seen a grievous evil under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner… (Ecclesiastes 5:13).  A miser is a person who hoards wealth.  There is a reason the word miser and misery share the same linguistic root.  More on that in another sermon.  For now suffice it to say that the socially sanctioned compulsion to hoard money for oneself, or to spend money only upon oneself, is not a characteristic of someone who is living life to the full.

Quite to the contrary according to Jesus, who also said: …whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave--just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Luke 20:25-28).  "Jesus’ coming was for what purpose," the Bible Study Group asks?  He did not come to be served, but to serve….

He came to develop a servant heart in us so that we could have a life without limit.  There are 42 youth and 15 adults who have either worked at fundraisers like the spaghetti dinner and silent auction, or who pay good money for the privilege of serving the needs of others at Workcamps in Clearfield, PA and Rochester, NY—and they do it year after year after year.  Why?  Why would anyone want to sweat in the hot sun doing manual labor during the day and otherwise associate with the underprivileged in the poorer places of this land?

There is a reason—a secret—and it is this (shhhhh).  They do it because they get something out of it—something surpassing.  They get something out of it that is more than worth 40 hours of sweat, more than worth many more hours of fundraisers and more than worth riding for yet more hours in a van stinking of boys.  I will let them tell you in their own words what they get out of it that is so amazing when they return.  For now I can tell you this: it has to do with living life to the full—living life more abundantly.  If that is self-interest driving them, then it is enlightened self-interest in keeping with God’s will.

Here we have one of life’s great ironies.  Irony is when things are not as they seem.  It seems as if feeding our carnal appetites and hoarding things and money for ourselves would be living life to the full.  But things are not always as they seem, for this only diminishes and destroys the good life God created us to have.  It seems as if becoming a servant and serving the needs of others would diminish the quality of our lives.  But things are not always as they seem, for the more we give the more we get.

"Jesus’ coming was for what purpose" the Bible Study Group asks?  Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind" (John 9:39).  Jesus came to help us see differently and to reveal the supreme irony that a full and abundant life is not to be found in what we get, but in what we give.  Those who are in the business of getting and getting and getting without any thought for giving—these are the truly blind.  The Lord refers to the blindly self-sufficient in the book of Revelation where it is written: "You say, `I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.'  But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked" (Revelation 3:17).

How would you characterize your life right now?  Is it full and abundant, or is it less than satisfying and contented despite your best efforts?  Maybe God is trying to tell you something in the disconnect between the yearning he has placed within your heart and its postponed fulfillment.  Perhaps he is making you restless until you find your rest in him and his will and his way.  Jesus’ coming was for what purpose?" the class has asked. Jesus said, I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me (John 6:38).  And because Jesus did the will of his Father, he returned to heaven showing us the way to a "Life Without Limit."