What Does John 10:10 Mean? Life to the Full, Explained
Pastor Keith Roberson opened this message with a dare: be brave and bold, and shout out the most random, awkward job you’ve ever held.
New River did not disappoint. Spray tanner. Denny’s hostess. Grocery store clerk back before scanners, typing in every number by hand. Sticker factory worker. Someone who scrubbed barnacles off a buoy. Two people, it turned out, who detasseled corn — one of whom also climbed to the top of a corn pile a couple of stories high to knock it all down. A Pizza Hut waitress from the era when shag carpet in a restaurant seemed like a great idea.
Then Keith offered his own. After college, feeling called to ministry but stuck in a holding pattern, he became a denture delivery boy. Buckets of little chompers in his car, driving eleven hours a day, three days a week, hauling dentures and partials between dental technicians and every dentist across the Texas panhandle and eastern New Mexico — which he described, lovingly, as the least glorious place to drive in the universe.
Here’s the thing about all those jobs: none of us are doing them anymore. We did them for a season because we had to. But they were never going to work long-term, because they weren’t in our hearts. And that observation became the doorway into the whole message: there is a difference between work you can grind through and work that is fueled by love. The same is true — maybe especially true — of faith.
What this sermon is about
This message from the WORDS series comes down to one sentence: fullness is presence, not perfection. Jesus did not come to hand you a system of rules that you power through like a chore. He came to give you himself — his actual presence — and that presence is the fuel for a heart that’s alive. If church, faith, or the Bible has started to feel like duty or drudgery, this one is for you.
Love will outwork work every time
Keith named a truth most of us know from experience: you can do work. You can give energy to things you’re not passionate about if you have to. But when something is burning alive in you, everything changes. You can go all in even when the job is hard, because love is fuel.
“Love will outwork work every time.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
Think about the phrase “a labor of love.” It means you gave a lot — energy, sacrifice, maybe even pain — but you did it because you loved it, so it stopped feeling like suffering. Now contrast that with cleaning out the garage. There are tasks we do because they must be done, not because anything is burning in our hearts. You might be glad for the end result, but nobody’s soul comes alive over it.
And then Keith turned the corner: a lot of us relate to God exactly like that. We’re here, we’re at church, we know religion is something we’re “supposed to do” — but the heart isn’t connecting. When heart’s not in it, faith becomes duty, drudgery, or just empty. When we lose heart, we lose presence. And when we lose presence, we miss the fullness we were made for.
Fullness is presence, not perfection
So what is fullness? Keith was careful here, because the answer hangs on one of the most quoted and most misunderstood verses in the Bible.
John 10:10 — “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it to the full.”
What did Jesus mean by “life to the full”? It can’t mean perfection. You can give your whole heart to Jesus and that is not a guarantee your circumstances become painless. Jesus never promised no sorrow, no hurt, no fear. So what’s the promise?
Presence. I came to give you life, and I came to be present fully in it. I came to give you me. His word, his heart, his peace, his courage, his power, his mercy, his forgiveness — through thick and thin. The promise of John 10:10 is not perfect circumstances. It’s a person who will be with you through every circumstance.
This is also why Christianity will not work as religion alone — as a system of rules, regulations, and morality, a list of dos and don’ts. Try to run your faith that way and it breaks down, because there’s no fuel for life in it.
“Christianity without presence is just cleaning the garage.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
Jesus is saying: I’ll show up to you fully, so you can show up fully to the world around you. That’s why we open the Scriptures at all — to come to the word and get presence, to get our hearts attended to by a person.
Show up. Lay it down. Receive.
How do you actually do that? Keith walked us through the picture Paul paints in Romans 12.
Romans 12:1 — “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
First: show up. “Present your bodies” means bring your actual presence — the whole thing, wide open, telling the truth about who you are and where you’re at. Here I am, Lord. I’ve been hiding from this issue. I’m afraid of the future. I’m beset with this addiction. I’m angry over this circumstance. Here I am. None of us shows up holy and blameless on our own merit — that’s the point. You show up, and something gets imparted to you.
Romans 12:2 — “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Second: lay it down. Here’s the way the whole world is thinking about my situation. Here’s what my coworker tells me to do. Here’s what the news, the app, even the chatbot is telling me to do. Here are the lies I’ve believed, the places I’ve tried to stay in control. Lay it all down — because the way of the world is garage cleaning, and there’s no life in it.
Third: receive. Being transformed by the renewing of your mind means asking one question and actually waiting on the answer: What do you say, God? He’s asking you to be present because he’s ready to be present. Don’t run. Don’t hide. Come receive.
Four things God wants to speak over you
Then Keith did something a little different. Instead of preaching about hearing from God, he had us do it — and he gave the room four words from Scripture that God speaks over his people. He guessed there are 412 million things God wants to say over you; he picked four. At least one of them is the one you need this week.
You have the pleasure of the Father. In John 17:21-23, Jesus prays that we would know the Father has loved us even as he loved Jesus. So whatever the Father feels about the Son — “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17) — that’s what he feels about you in Christ. You could have totally blown it yesterday; his fresh mercies have washed you.
“It’s not your perfect record that makes you his delight. It’s the perfection of God that’s washed over you.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
You are seen and you are chosen. In Deuteronomy 7:6-9, God tells Israel he chose them not because they were big or mighty — they were the fewest of all peoples — but because he loves them and keeps covenant to a thousand generations. And lest we think that was only for Israel, Ephesians 1:4 says he chose us in Christ before the foundations of the earth. If you came in feeling skipped over and second-rate, hear it: you’ve been picked by the King. He chose you, he’ll choose you tomorrow, and on your ugliest day, he chose you. You belong.
You are clean and made new. Some of us are wrestling with addiction, shame, and guilt pressing down. 2 Corinthians 5:21 declares that the Father made the Son to be sin — the Son who knew no sin — so that in him we could become the righteousness of God. Whatever you carried into the room, it doesn’t overwhelm him. If the enemy’s word over you is “trash,” God’s word over you is “righteous.”
You are more than a conqueror. Everybody in the room has circumstances they’d like to change. Romans 8:35-37 asks who can take away what we have in Christ — tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, danger, even death? — and answers: in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
This, Keith said, is the difference between doing the duty of Christianity and a heart set ablaze. It’s why we come to the word at all — not for a preacher’s voice, but for the word of the Father over us. You’ll need it today. You’ll need it fresh again tomorrow morning.
What this means for your week in Franklin
- Find your garage-cleaning zone. Name the part of your faith that has quietly become a chore — the reading, the praying, the showing up. Don’t quit it. Bring your heart back into it by bringing it to a person instead of a system.
- Run Romans 12 once a day. Show up honestly (“Here I am, Lord — here’s what’s not working”). Lay down the conventional wisdom, the lies, and the control. Then ask, “What do you say, God?” and give him a quiet minute to answer.
- Carry one of the four words. Pleasure, chosen, clean, conqueror. Pick the one that’s hardest for you to believe right now and let it confront the other voices all week.
- Trade the world’s feed for the Father’s voice. Before the news, the app, or coworker Janice gets the first word on your situation, let God have it. His word is the one that fuels a heart that’s alive.
Watch the full message
The full sermon — “The Word, Alive” from the WORDS series — is in the video above. We post a new message every Sunday from New River Church in Franklin, TN. Browse our message library for more from the WORDS series and other recent teaching.
Coming Sunday at New River Church in Franklin, TN
If this message resonated and you’d like to experience worship and community in person, we’d love to have you with us. New River Church meets Sundays at 9:00 AM and 10:45 AM at 1153 Lewisburg Pike in Franklin, TN 37064 — just minutes from downtown Franklin and easy to reach from across Williamson County, Brentwood, and Spring Hill.
You don’t need to dress up. You don’t need a good voice. You don’t need to know much about church or the Bible to come. We’re a community of ordinary people walking through ordinary life, trying to do it together with Jesus at the center. Whether you’ve been a Christian for forty years or you’ve never set foot in a church, you are welcome here.
If you’re new to the area or new to faith, our First Time Guest page walks through everything you need to know before your first visit: parking, what to expect on Sunday morning, what your kids will experience in River Kids, and how to find us when you arrive.
If you’re looking for deeper community beyond Sunday morning, our Community Groups meet across Franklin and the surrounding area throughout the week. Groups are where Sunday morning faith becomes Tuesday afternoon real life.
Whatever you’re carrying right now, you don’t have to carry it alone. There’s a place for you at New River Church in Franklin, Tennessee. Come as you are.
Watch more sermons: newriverfranklin.com/messages Plan your visit: newriverfranklin.com/firsttimeguest Find a group: newriverfranklin.com/groups
📍 New River Church | 1153 Lewisburg Pike, Franklin, TN 37064 | Sundays 9:00 AM & 10:45 AM
