The gospel is so very simple but also stunningly powerful. The gospel is this; our inclusion into the life that Jesus lives and the favor He lives under. Let that sink in. The life more abundant that Jesus promised is His life of favor lived through our unique humanity and personality. It blows my mind to think that the favor that I get to anticipate from the Father is the same favor that Jesus expects from the Father.
To explain the nature of the Father’s favor that Jesus lived under as the Son of Man, let’s look at a couple of verses. In John chapter 5, when Jesus healed the man who had been infirmed for 38 years, the Jews were attacking Jesus because He healed the man on the Sabbath. In explaining why He healed the man on the Sabbath, Jesus said in verse 17, “My Father is working until now, and I myself am working,” and in verse 19 and 20, He said to them repeatedly, “truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. FOR THE FATHER LOVES THE SON, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and greater works than these will He show Him, that you may marvel.”
Jesus said in John 14:10 that it was the Father in whom he was in union who did the work through Him. Jesus described the favor that he lived under by saying the Father loves (continually loves) the Son and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing. The Father always gave Jesus an opportunity to participate in divine activity because the Father loved Jesus. This is unrestricted favor.
In John 3:34 – 35, Jesus says, “For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure (Giving the Spirit without measure is great favor). For the Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.” (Another extraordinary description of unmeasured, limitless favor because of the Father’s love for the Son.)
Jesus said the one who the Father sent and loves receives the Spirit without measure, and therefore all things have been placed into their hands. In John 20:21, Jesus says about us, “as the Father has sent Me, I also send you,” and in John 17:23, “… You did send Me and did love them, even, as you have loved Me.”
You and I have also been sent, and being in Christ, the Father loves us the same way He loves Jesus; therefore, we can be confident that the Father has given us the Holy Spirit without measure and has placed all things into our hands. All the promises of God are yes in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20), and if God has already said yes to us concerning all of His promises, then we can just thank Him for that and start living in the confident expectation of the same favor that Jesus lives under because we are in Him. The problem with Christian’s is not that they have hoped for too much and been disappointed. The problem is they have hoped for too little. Our inclusion into the life that Jesus lives and the favor He lives under should provoke our spiritual imagination to run wild and to live with a confident expectation of the same favor that Jesus expects.