Tonight I am preaching from John 15. It is Jesus' deathbed conversation. By morning, He will be stretched out on a cross bearing my sin and yours. It is neat to share tonight from this passage because Jesus was actually sharing this message with His disciples on this same night almost 2,000 years ago. The Passover was about to begin and Jesus was standing in the vineyard teaching them these timeless truths. Tonight we will look at those truths. He was essentially asking His disciples......
"So how is your fruit?" (title of my message tonight)
Jesus tells in John 15 that there are three different types of branches; ones that bear no fruit, others that bear some fruit, and still others that bear bountiful amounts of fruit. We are all one type of branch. The barren branch is in John 15:2. Jesus tends to the barren branches by intervening with discipline. Our lives are sometimes barren due to sin that is choking out the branches. God will intervene in discipline.
The next type of branch is the "some fruit" branch. Still nothing to write home about here; Jesus intervenes on this branch to cause it to bear much fruit! This branch is not about sin but about self. The Gardener comes in to prune us of ourselves. We are growing rampantly but not producing much fruit. God's purpose here is to cut away immature commitments and lesser priorities from our lives to make room for even greater fruit for His glory. Pruning changes your life from a basket almost full to a basket overflowing.
Finally, the third branch yields a basket full of fruit. This is what the Father wants. God asks us to let go of the things that keep us from His Kingdom purposes and our ultimate good. This branch abides, or remains, in Him. It is not so much about activity anymore, but it is about spending time with Him. The third branch has to remember that all of its success in the beginning came from being close to the Vine, Jesus. Take Paul for example; by the end of his life he was now a man who had been pruned until there was nothing left of his self-life. Paul no loner had to order his priorities. He had only one.
"But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." - Philippians 3:13-14
So How is Your Fruit?
3 comments:
the TURN has been hosting a series called "8 Hot Nights". tonight the speaker talked about how were suppose to be wild for Jesus and completely in love with Him.
everyone knows the generation after ww2 is called, the "baby boomers"; our generation today is called the "baby busters". society has described our generation as lazy, unmotivated, irresponsible, etc. but guess what?! we can change that!! if we allow God to be in the middle of our lives and think about Him in the morning, in the evening, every minute of the WHOLE day, our generation can change from what society thinks of us and focus on what God thinks of us.
here are some facts:
58% of 18-29 year old people every year are out of a church service. this number has dramatically gone up in the last 30 years. the problem of this is that we as a generation sometimes are consumed or preoccupied with the wrong things in life. yes, God gives us many opportunities in life to succeed at the wonderful things He has given us but when we put those things first and push God aside how do we know what His will is for our life?? God cares more about who you are as an individual than what you do in life. i'm not saying that school, church, and other things aren't important it's just that if we don't have God in the middle of it and if we aren't consumed with Him every second of every day, then we loose track on what's really important....and that's Him. all he wants us to do is fall madly and completely in love with Him ALL the time. not just for a season or when we feel like it but ALL THE TIME!!
psalm 37:4-5 says "DELIGHT yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. COMMIT your way to the Lord, TRUST also in Him. and He shall bring it to pass."
he wants us to DELIGHT in Him!! how beautiful that is! when we do this on a regular basis our relationship with Him is stronger and more intimate than ever. he wants us to feel more beautiful than ever and the only way possible is to DELIGHT in Him. the process of Him molding and transforming us fires God up! He gets soo excited when He is working in our lives and we obey Him.
he absolutely LOVES to mold us! did you know that sometimes God can make a mess out of a situation just for you to come running back to Him? it's like our wake up call from Him. all He wants you to do is to quit pressing the snooze button and to get yourself out of bed!! all He is saying is "i'm right here. come back to me and let ME lead you".
micah 6:8 talks about the will for our lives
"he has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly(do things right), to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?"
sometimes we go to God and say "God i have 4 choices to make, A,B,C,D and i really don't know what choice to choose." we wait a minute and think that God has given us an answer but really His answer isn't the same as ours. micah 6:8 IS THE WILL FOR OUR LIVES! not the 50 billion choices we have going thru our minds daily.our will is for us to do justly, love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. "But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." Matthew 7:33
don't go to God all confused on what to do with your life, seek HIM FIRST and everything else will fall into place the way He intended them to. He is not our information booth guide that stands at the mall all day. he is your daddy-God who wants you to be in love with Him every second of every day!! quit pushing Him to the back of the line and think that we can handle it on our own because we can't.
in God's eyes we are all uniquely created and in psalm 139 it says that "we are fearfully and wonderfully made". in genesis it says that we are made in His image. if are made in His image then we should be thinking like Him as well. it makes sense. we need to quit getting preoccupied with all the things around us and focus on God and our relationship with Him.
i love you all.
anita elisabeth szaller
The sermon last night was nothing short of incredible. I'm glad you put it in blog form so I can refer back to it. [:
I even made a blogspot, just so I could follow up. lol
God bless;
Talking about Jesus' deathbed conversation, then later on in the story we all know that his last words were "It Is Finished". I find this so profound, coming from actually God himself, who came to Earth to live as man and die for the entire world. Him dying for you and me is something to celebrate.
Of course by now, Satan thinks he has won this battle, oh but little does he know, that two days after Jesus said those words, "It Is Finished", Satan gets an unexpected surprise. On the third day, Mary finds the tomb empty. It's no longer even guarded. Thinking that someone has taken Jesus' body, she then see's a gardener, who then says to Mary, that he is Jesus.
He is Risen! Jesus is Risen!
Hallelujah!!!!
Post a Comment