A Holy Fire

The text for this week's message is Acts 2:1-8, 11-13.

Last week was Ascension Sunday.  It is the week of the Christian year in which we look back to Jesus’ ascension into heaven.  The story, found in Acts 1, is a good reminder of our past history, but it also gives us some good glimpses of how to proceed forward.  We have to wait on the Lord to give us direction, but when He does, we also have to be ready to move forward in obedience to this call.  Today, our focus shifts a little bit to what it was that Jesus was talking about.  Today, we see why the disciples are told to wait in Jerusalem.  This is the day in the Christian year when we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Typically, when we hear the term “Pentecost,” we think about the event in Christian history that we read about in this morning‘s Scripture.  And that’s good because the coming of the Holy Spirit is the focus of this day on the Christian calendar; however, Pentecost had been celebrated long before the Spirit came in such a mighty way on this particular day so long ago.  Pentecost is one of the major festivals that was celebrated during the Jewish year.  There were three festivals in the Jewish calendar that had significant agricultural and historical significance, and Pentecost is the second one of these over the course of the year.

The agricultural significance of Pentecost is that it was typically the time when the first fruits were harvested and brought to the Temple, so sometimes it is known as the Festival of the First Fruits.  In some sense, giving the first fruits of the harvest is an act of faith.  How often in our lives do we work hard for something only to give it away, trusting that there will be more where that came from?  I’m willing to guess that it’s not very often.  I’ve never heard of anybody giving his first paycheck back to his employer.  And really, when we look at it like that, it is difficult to understand the concept of first fruits.

You don’t need me to tell you that we are living in a time in which the economic climate is difficult.  There are a lot of people all around us that have lost their jobs, or are concerned about losing their job.  I know of a large United Methodist church right here in Indiana that had to let go a significant number of staff because times are so tough right now.  Nobody is completely immune.  Likewise, I’m sure that many here this morning who don’t need me to tell them that some years the harvest just isn’t quite as good as it is in other years.  So to take the first fruits, the certainty of what you have earned for all your hard work, to take that to the Temple as an offering to God requires a big step of faith, but that is what God wants from each one of us.  He wants the first fruits of all we have.  He wants the best of all we have.  He wants us to take that big step of faith; to trust in Him for all provision in our lives.

The story that I immediately think of when it comes to the concept of first fruits is of Abraham and Isaac.  Abraham and his wife Sarah had been waiting a long time for their first child.  In fact, Abraham was 100 years old, and Sarah was 90 when Isaac was born.  Isaac was their  first and only child, a gift from God.   But one day, Abraham hears the Lord to tell him that he needed to take his son up and sacrifice him to the Lord.  Of all the things that God had asked Abraham to do as a step of faith, this would have been the most difficult one, hands down.  But Abraham took the boy and they went to the place that God had told him.  Isaac, clearly unaware of what was going on, asked Abraham where the sacrificial animal was going to come from.  Abraham replied that God would provide.

When they arrived, Abraham built the altar and put Isaac on it.  Just as he was about to sacrifice his only son, the gift that he had received from God, his first fruits, God stopped him and provided a ram for the sacrifice.  There are several different points to the story, and we could spend all morning exploring the angles, but this morning, I think the lesson that we can learn from it is that God wants that which is most precious to us.  God will provide if we only step out in faith and trust in Him.  That is what the concept of first fruits is all about.

The historical significance of Pentecost for the Jewish people is also important for us to be aware of here.  For the Jewish people, Pentecost was about the giving of the Law, or Torah.  One of the sources that I read this week pointed out that it is important to make note that this festival remembers the giving of the Torah  for the first time, but we have to remember that we receive it daily.  And I think there is something significant that we can learn from this as well.

It’s important for us to remember that at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down upon the disciples.  Much like how the Torah was given to the Israelites in the Sinai wilderness, the Holy Spirit was given to the original disciples.  And while this particular instance was a one time event, we still need to receive the Holy Spirit on a daily basis.  The Holy Spirit cannot come again for the first time, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t receive the Holy Spirit on a daily basis.  Am I making sense here?  The first time the Holy Spirit came is what we remember in Pentecost, but we also need to remember that the Spirit is still hanging around.  And while the Spirit is always moving, He didn’t go anywhere.

The Holy Spirit is who guides us and leads us as we attempt to discern and follow God’s will for us.  But in order to do that, we have to put ourselves in a position to receive the Spirit daily, and that’s what the disciples were doing as we enter into this part of our Christian history.

Just ten days before this happened, the disciples watched Jesus ascend into heaven.  They remembered what he told them about staying in Jerusalem, and that is what they did.  They continued to meet together.  Now, Luke doesn’t actually tell us this, but I imagine that they spent a lot of time in prayer with one another.  They were just waiting to see what God had in store for them.  And the language of verse 2 tells me that they didn’t exactly see it coming.  It says, “Suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind.”  “Suddenly.“  It’s like the disciples were surprised by what happened, they had no idea.  It just happened suddenly.

Now, this doesn’t mean that they were unprepared.  They had spent all kinds of time together preparing for what it was that God was going to do in their midst.  While they may not have known exactly how, when or what was going to happen, they still spent time together, praying and fellowshipping with one another.  That’s an important lesson that we need to pick up on as well.

We need to be putting ourselves in a position to receive what it is that God is planning on doing in our lives and in our community.  We don’t know exactly what it is and we don’t have any clue exactly when it is going to happen, but we need to be preparing ourselves.  We need to spend time dreaming about what we can do in our community.  We need to spend time reading the Word and praying for God’s guidance.  God is preparing to do something in our community.  Are we going to be ready to move when the time comes?  The disciples were uncertain as to what was going to happen, but they were certainly ready for it when it did.

When God is ready to move through us, it will happen suddenly, but that doesn’t mean that we’ll be unprepared.  We have been preparing for what God is going to be doing for some time.  The challenges that have come up each week, the goal of spending 15 minutes each day, recognizing that we have to live out our faith - all of these are ways that we’ve been preparing ourselves for what God is doing.  My hope and prayer is that everyone has been challenged to not just show up on Sunday and live the rest of your life as if Sunday doesn’t matter.  The last thing church needs to be is a social club.  Sure, there are social opportunities; reasons to get together just for fellowship, but if that is all church is to you, then I want to challenge you to take the next step.

Step out of that comfort zone.  Find some way to get more involved in what we’ve got going on around here.  Is there nothing going on that interests you?  Well, then let’s start something.  I’m not so rigid that I’m going to shoot down every possible ministry opportunity that comes around.  And quite frankly, I don’t have to be involved in every single thing that’s going on around here either.  

If you want to start a sewing club as a way to reach out to other people - that’s wonderful.  Don’t expect me to show up and start sewing anything any time soon, but please, go ahead and do it.  We need to be doing anything that we can to reach out to our communities.  We need opportunities to fellowship with people who may not be Christian, so that they can see our faith in action.  I’m not suggesting that we hire an evangelist for a monthly meeting of the sewing club.  That’s not practical, not because we don‘t have the money to do it.  If it was an incredible need, we could find the money.  But it‘s not practical because you are the evangelist.  You are the ones who have to be reaching out to your friends and family.  We can’t just hire somebody to come in here and do the outreach for us.  We have to be willing to do that ourselves.  And we do it because Christ has made a difference in our lives.

I think one final point that we can pull out of the text this morning comes from the end of the passage.  There will always be critics.  There will always be people who don’t have anything positive to say.  In verse 13 we read that some of the people that were witnessing the work of the Spirit in the disciples and others who were gathered there just wrote it off.  They said that the believers will filled with the new wine.  In other words, they had been drinking a little too much.  They were influenced by something, but it wasn’t the Spirit.

No matter what we do, there will always be people who don’t get on board.  There will be people who detract from the good work that is going on.  I have a friend who is the pastor of an off-site ministry, and he is constantly having to defend this off-site ministry which is continuing to grow and thrive.  In spite of the good things that the Spirit is doing through this ministry, there are people that believe it has no place.  It’s sad.  But there will always be people who try to tear down what the Spirit is doing.

Don’t be one of those people.  Don’t be a cynic.  Realize that God is working all around us, and he’s working in ways that we may not understand.  That’s okay, we don’t always have to understand completely what God is doing.  Our job is to either join in with what he’s doing, or get out of the way.  So, today, on Pentecost Sunday, I want you to leave here knowing that God works in different ways.  The Holy Spirit is not constrained to the little boxes that we limit ourselves to.  Allow the Spirit to work.  It may be different; it may not look like anything that you’ve ever seen before.  Join in.  Be a part of what the Spirit is doing.

Judea, Samaria and the Ends of the Earth

Hillsboro UMC did not meet in worship this week due to the Hillsboro Community Memorial Day Service at Rose Hill Cemetary.  However, below is what was preached at Veedersburg UMC on Sunday, May 24, 2009.  The message today applies to Hillsboro as well.  The text for this week's message is Acts 1:1-11.

In the calendar of the Christian year, this week is referred to as Ascension Sunday.  It is the week that we look back to Jesus' last time with the disciples.  After the resurrection, Luke tells us that Jesus spent time with the disciples over a forty day period speaking about the kingdom of God.  But then the time came that he warned the disciples about in John 16.  Jesus was going to have to leave them so that the Holy Spirit would come and be with them.  Jesus' ascension closed the book on one chapter of the disciples' lives, but turned the page to another chapter at Pentecost, which we will discuss in more length next week.  But this week, there are a lot of things that we can learn about how God has moved and look at how we can cooperate with God's movement in the world today.

Just a quick historical point before we really get into the meat of what is going on in this passage.  You probably noticed that the Book of Acts begins in a very similar fashion to the Gospel of Luke.  Both books are addressed to a person named "Theophilus."  This is a major indication that both books were written by the same person, who tradition, and the name of the gospel, tells us is the physician Luke.  If you read through the Book of Acts, you'll actually come across some sections in which the first person plural pronoun "we" is used.  These are recollections of times that Luke actually spent traveling with Paul.  One of the many things in Scripture that we often miss if we aren't paying close attention.

Now, it's not really known if "Theophilus" is the actual name of the receipient of these two books, or if it is a code name for a Roman official to whom Luke was writing in defense of Paul.  What I find interesting though is that the name "Theophilus" is comprised of two Greek words - theos, which means God, and philos, which is one of the words that means love.  Whoever it is, it seems apparent that these two volumes of Luke's work may very well be intended for one who loves God, and wants to know more about the early Jewish movement that became known as Christianity.  Does that describe anyone here this morning?  That's something to think about, but let's get back to the text.

It says that while Jesus was staying with the disciples, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem.  Okay, first of all, if somebody rises from the dead, and tells you not to leave a place, you don't leave.  In fact, if someone rises from the dead, you listen to every single word that they have to say.  You set aside everything that you thought you knew and you listen again and again and again.  The disciples were fortunate enough to have 40 days of this kind of learning from Jesus.  For 40 days, they sat and listened to somebody who had once died and was risen from the dead.  You can bet that they caught every single word that Jesus said.  They probably heard some of the same things that he said in the previous three years, but they heard it in a new way.  And they didn't just listen to what he had to say, they lived it out.  They shared the message with those they met.  They went to places far and wide telling people about Jesus and about the salvation that he made possible.  But they started by obeying Jesus' command to not leave Jerusalem.

It had to start at home.  For us, it has to start at home.  Being a follower of Christ is more than appearances.  How we present ourselves to those around us is important, but it is not the only witness that we give.  It is sometimes said that character is who you are when nobody is looking.  Something similar can be said for the Christian life.  The state of your spiritual self is revealed when there is nobody around.  Because when there's nobody around, there's nobody to impress.  Who you are when you are by yourself reveals a lot about who you are.  And here's the kicker: it doesn't tell everyone else who you are, it tells you who you are.  

More often than we'd like to admit, the image looking back at us through the mirror is not who we think we should be.  We are often our own worst critic, and sometimes that is a valid criticism because nobody knows us better.  At other times, we are being too hard on ourselves and we do need to remember that we are children of God.  The key is to discern between the truth and the lie in our self-criticisms.  Learn from the truths; set aside the lies.  Believe me, I know that this is easier said than done, but we are never challenged by things that are easy, and we never grow without being challenged.

There is a second element to the disciples staying in Jerusalem that we need to look at as well.  The disciples had to wait on the Lord.  If you'll notice, Jesus doesn't tell them how long they are going to have to wait.  He simply tells them that they need to wait for the promise of the Father.  The good news is that he tells them that it will be "not many days from now."  However, that is still vague.  What is "not many days from now"?  Is it tomorrow, the day after, a week later?  What is "not many days" for one that has been around since before time?  Thankfully, we find out that it was only ten days later that the Holy Spirit came; however, there is no certainty as to the timeline when Jesus tells the disciples to wait.  And that's the hard thing - waiting on the Lord, when there is no definite timeline.

Has anybody ever felt like God takes too long to work sometimes?  I'm serious, there are times when I wish God knew my schedule and He would just hurry up and get things done.  Have you been there too?  But what I have found out time and time again is that God's timing is perfect.  He is never early, and He is never late.  If you've seen the Lord of the Rings movies, you'll remember in the first movie where the wizard Gandalf is coming to the Shire and he is greeted by Frodo, who says, "You're late."  Gandalf replies, "A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins.  He always arrives precisely when he intended."  I'm fairly certain that Tolkien had a similar experience with God at some point in his life.

I remember at my seminary graduation, I still had no idea where I was going.  We were in the process of packing our apartment in Wilmore because Katie got her job as the assistant for the Indy East district superintendent.  At the time, I was waiting to hear back about a ministry opportunity, and was prepared to transfer stores and spend another year selling tools at Sears.  We finally received a call a few days before we were preparing to move that the ministry opportunity had become a reality.  I was fairly certain that God's timing was a little late at that point, but I know that it was perfect.  It caused me to put my full trust in him.  We were going to temporarily live with Katie's sister, and we had no idea where we were going to live, or about anything that was coming up.  We had to put all our faith in God.  We had to trust that He knew what was best for us, and that He would take care of us.  And I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that was one of the toughest things Katie and I have had to do in our lives.

But it's no different than what God does in all our lives.  He tells us to wait on Him.  As difficult as that can be at times, God is never late.  He always arrives precisely when he intended.  He tells us this as individuals, and He tells us this as a congregation.  I know for a fact that God has bigs plans for this congregation, but we have to wait on him.  We first have to learn to rely and trust solely on Him.  And that's hard to do.  All of the training that I've had in the past few years says that we need to get everyone together as soon as possible and write a vision statement and set goals for the church.  And that's true, we do need to do that, but first, we need to wait on the Lord.  At some point, we will be putting together a team of people who are listening for what God would have us do as a congregation.  We are going to shape our identity, and we are going to strive after some goals, but first, we have to wait on the Lord.

And don't get me wrong here, waiting on the Lord is not a passive thing.  We don't sit and twiddle our thumbs until God speaks to us in a loud voice from on high.  We have to be intentional about reading His word and listening to what is going on in our community, and in the world around us.  Ministry in today's society is shifting.  What used to be effective and draw people in doesn't work any more because the world around us has changed.  The message of the gospel hasn't changed in 2000 years, nor will it, but how we reach out to others and how we share the gospel with them has changed.

People no longer want long philosophical and theological arguments.  That may have worked in a different era, but now, what you'll hear more often than not is, "I'm glad that works for you."  We live in a world that doesn't believe in absolute truth.  Everything is relative.  Now, this doesn't mean that there isn't absolute truth, but that people don't want to recognize that there is.  If people are shut off from this message from the beginning, there is no chance of sharing the gospel with them through these means.

We no longer live in a time when we can scare people into the kingdom either.  I remember during my take-in with the PPRC, somebody asked what my style of preaching is.  I thought about responding by saying that I was a fire-and-brimstone preacher, but I thought that might not be the best first impression.  That's me keeping my onery side in check again.  Seriously though, there was a time when people were scared to go to hell and so they would join a church.  Salvation wasn't seen as a gift from God, it was seen as fire insurance.  

Now, hell is very real.  Hell is eternal separation from God; whether or not the lake of fire that is mentioned in Scripture is literal or figurative doesn't matter.  One way or another, hell is total separation from God.  It's not going to be a pleasant way of spending eternity; however, to use it as a tool to scare people into coming to church is dishonest and it misrepresents the core message of the gospel.  The gospel isn't - turn to Jesus because he can keep you out of hell.  The gospel is about turning to Jesus so that you can finally live your life as it was intended to be lived - in relationship with God.

So, where does that leave us?  If we can't use absolute truth or fear to bring people to Christ, what can we do?  People want to see that the gospel has made a difference in your life.  It doesn't matter how solid your arguments are if you aren't living a life that glorifies God.  It doesn't matter a bit.  We are in an age where people are searching for honest relationships.  Does this type of evangelism take a long time?  You bet it does.  It requires a serious investment of time and energy.  Of course, isn't that the same model that Jesus displays for us in the gospels? 

 

Jesus chose just a handful of people and spent an incredible amount of time and energy investing in their lives.  But in three years, they were the ones who were sharing the gospel all around the world; investing time and energy into the lives of other people, who then were the ones sharing the gospel.  It's exponential growth.  If one person can influence the life of four people, then each of those four people can influence the life of four more people; suddenly, there are 20 people that have been influenced, directly or indirectly, by the original person.  And if the original four and the ensuing sixteen can each influence four more people - that is 100 people that have been influenced because a single person decided to invest his/her time and energy into just a handful of people.

That is an example of the widening circle that we see in Jesus' statement that the disciples were going to be witnesses in Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.  Now, in the case of the disciples, they physically did go to those places, and there is certainly a need for us to reach out with the message of the gospel beyond just our surrounding community.  But we don't have to immediately be thinking of ways to widen our circle of influence.  We have to start where the disciples started - right where they were.  Right here, in Veedersburg, is where we need to start.  And don't forget, we start by waiting on the Lord.  I believe it was C.S. Lewis who said that if you are headed down the wrong road, progress means going back.  The call today is to come back and wait on the Lord.  Let's not run all over the place trying to do all sorts of things, if those things do not get us going in the direction that God has for us.

I think there is one more thing that we can learn from today's passage.  At the end, Jesus ascends into heaven and the disciples are all standing around staring into the clouds.  Two guys come up to them and say, "What are you looking at?  Don't you know that Jesus will come back?"  They're saying, "Hey, get your heads out of the clouds and get to work.  Jesus will be coming back, you don't have all day to be staring off into the sky."

We like to daydream.  We keep our heads in the clouds.  One of my favorite television shows is Scrubs, and the main character is constantly drifting off into the world of his imagination.  It's usually pretty funny, but it also shows us a very important point - we can't complete our task if we aren't focused on it.  If we have our heads in the clouds, we are going to miss what is going on all around us.  Ever heard the saying, "He's so heavenly minded that he's no earthly good."  It's not a bad thing to be heavenly minded, but if we aren't paying attention to what God is doing right next to us, we are going to miss it.  I don't want us to miss what God is doing all around us.

On this Ascension Sunday, we look back at the history of the Christian movement, but we also look forward to what God is going to do in our community.  I don't want us to miss it.  I want us to be intently focused on what God is doing, and I want to take part.  I really do, and maybe that's crazy, but I really think that we can do incredible things all around our community if we are only listening for the leading of the Spirit.  I've seen so much excitement here, and I truly believe that if we can plug in to what God is doing, then there is no stopping a significant movement of the kingdom of God in Veedersburg.

Fruit Bearing Trees

After a great vacation, it was good to be back to preaching on Sunday morning. The following was (for the most part) preached on Sunday, May 17, 2009 at Veedersburg and Hillsboro UMC. The text for this week's message was John 15:9-17.

As I was reading through the passage this week, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between what was just read and the passage that we looked at a couple weeks ago from 1 John 3. The onery part of me, the part that I have to keep in check more often than not, thought about reusing that sermon just to see how many people would really notice. But then, the more realistic part of me remembered that y’all absorb every word and take copious notes, so there’s no way I’d actually get away with it. Seriously though, there are a lot of similarities between the two passages. So the challenge, I think, is to ask ourselves if we are really taking it in? Are we really listening to the Word here?

Now, it’s not like the two passage are word-for-word duplicates. So, I want to spend some time looking at the differences, but first, what are some of the common threads? What is it that we come to again in this passage that we were faced with two weeks ago in the passage from John’s letter? Right out of the gate, we come across a familiar word: abide.

Believe it or not, this is not a very common word in Scripture. It’s only found 36 times in the 66 books that we have in our Bible. And here’s the baseball fan in me coming out, what do the stats look like? “Abide” appears in the Old Testament 7 times, and 29 times in the New Testament. Of those 29 New Testament appearances, 2 are in Paul’s letters and the other 27 are found in John’s writings – either in the gospel, or in his first two letters. Three quarters of all appearances of this word in the Bible are found just in the writings of John. So, apart from me having spent 5 minutes of my time looking it up, what does this mean?

It tells me that this is a very significant theme in John’s writings, at least in the course of four chapter of his writings. You see, not only does John use the word 27 times, he uses it in bunches. 23 of those appearances are found in John 15, or the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th chapters of 1 John. And why is it so important that John would refer to it so much thoughout these chapters? Because everything we are and do as Christians hinges on this single word.

To abide in Christ, to rest in Christ, to dwell in Christ is the very purpose of who we are as Christians. It is an important element of having a personal relationship with Jesus. Our lives as Christians need to be shaped by our relationship to Jesus – nothing more, nothing less. And it is out of that relationshiop with Christ that we begin to discern and fulfill our call as individuals and as a congregation. But it has to start with abiding in Christ. It has to start with each one of us committing to read, listen to and be transformed by the Word. Remember, that challenge to spend 15 minutes a day reading Scripture? That is where it has to start. Abiding in Christ begins with us putting ourselves into a postion to be receptive to his Word.

Imagine what we could do if only half of us here were consistently being changed and molded by Christ. After Judas was done hanging around… (okay, that was really bad; read Acts 1 later if you want to know why.) Anyway, after Judas was out of the picture, there were only 11 of the original disciples left, and look what happened. Christianity took off! It became a worldwide phenomenon. Lives were being changed. Unbelievable things were happening. And I know all the excuses – “the disciples have 40 days with Jesus after the resurrection, not to mention 3 years with him before the crucifixion, and THEN the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost. We don’t have the kind of advantages that they had. We can’t do something like this.” And my response is, “Why not?”

The Holy Spirit didn’t just come at Pentecost and go away for the rest of eternity. The Holy Spirit is still around, and if God is the same yesterday, today and forever, that same Holy Spirit is available to work in this world, if we would only put ourselves in a position to give over all control. The Holy Spirit still works in this world. And if we abide in Christ, we abide in the Spirit. We can do amazing things for the kingdom of God simply by abiding in Christ and listening for the leading of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is at work all around us. The only question is whether or not we are going to join in. Are we going to allow ourselves to get excited about what God is doing? Are we going to submit ourselves to God and be a part of what He is doing all around us? If we obey Jesus’ command to love one another, and if we continue to abide in his love, then all we need to do is listen and follow where the Spirit is leading us. And it sounds so easy, doesn’t it? But the challenge comes tomorrow morning. When you wake up tomorrow, are you going to make sure you set aside some time at some point in the day to pray and read Scripture? It doesn’t have to be at 5 o’clock in the morning, but it does need to happen at some point in your day. You know your schedule. You know when you can do it. And if we are all being honest with ourselves, we aren’t too busy. I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m not saying that I come through every single day. But it is so important. For us to grow as individuals and as a congregation, we have to be doing it. Period. It’s not something that we can fake. We do it because we want to develop our relationship with God, and for no other reason. God doesn’t want our mindless obedience. He wants us to obey out of love.

Jesus tells us in verse 15 that we are no longer servants, but friends. What he is talking about here is a deeper level of personal interaction that had not been broadly available before. In the Old Testament, while David is called a man after God’s own heart, only Abraham and Moses are called friends of God. That’s it. Two people in the entire Old Testament are considered friends of God. This isn’t to say that there weren’t people who were failthful, but that only these two men seem to have the kind of deep relationship with God that is available to us through Christ.

Because of Christ, things have changed. Jesus was God in the flesh – fully God, but also fully man. Jesus was a model for how we can live our lives in total obedience to the Father. The type of obedience that doesn’t come out of fear of punishment, but as a response to the love that one has for the Father. Think of your friends and family here. You do what they ask because you love them, not because you are afraid of the consequences if you don’t do it. And that’s how it should be in healthy relationships. We should act out of love, not fear. That’s the kind of relationship that we can have with God through Jesus Christ, all because Jesus has revealed the Father by his life.

This section closes with another important point. Verse 16 says, “You did not choose me, I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.” The Greek word for “chosen” here means “to be called out (of something).” We have been called out of the world, friends. We have been called out of the mundane and purposeless lives that we had before Christ, and we’ve been called out for a purpose. That purpose is to go and bear fruit. Maybe you haven’t responded to that call yet. Maybe you are still wandering through life without a sense of purpose, and without a relationship with the Father through Jesus Christ. That’s not what you were created to do. You have been called out of the world by Jesus Christ. You have also been called to go and bear fruit.

We aren’t called to sit and wait for people to come to us, but we are called to go to them. Opportunities are all around us every single day. Whether it is with our co-workers, our friends, our neighbors, our classmates, or even within our own family, we have opportunities to go and bear fruit, and we don’t have to go far. Spend some time praying about that this week. Pray that God will open your eyes to the opportunities that are all around you. It won’t take long for you to see them.

Did you know that you are perfectly positioned in somebody’s life to be a witness and to bear fruit for the kingdom of God? You are! You are in a better position than me, or the persons sitting on either side of you, or the persons sitting in front or behind you. People don’t accidently come into our lives. I wasn’t accidently appointed to this congregation. You didn’t just accidently come here today, and there aren’t people in your lives who just accidently happen to be there. We are all called out and appointed to specifically go and bear fruit for the kingdom of God.

So, today, I want to send you out with another reminder. Because you have been called and appointed by Christ, because you abide in Christ and have a deep fellowship with God, and because your obedience to the Father comes out of love, not fear, live out your faith. Remember that you, and only you, are perfectly positioned to go and bear fruit in someone’s life. That’s what we are all called to do.