Look Into My Eyes II, What You See When Serving Others

John 15 verses 1 through 5, I want to urge you to read the whole passage of John 15 on your own later on today, but let me just read the first five verses, John 15. I am the true vine, and my father is the vinedresser, the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I like that verse. While every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I've spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. That word remain is the word in the King James, abide, and we're going to talk about that in a moment. What does it mean to abide or remain? No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine, and neither can you bear fruit unless you abide or remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me, and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can pretty much get it done. Now, what does it say? You can do nothing. Apart from me, however, Jesus says you can do nothing. Well, it's the peak of apple season, isn't it? Apples are everywhere. We brought a lot of them up here in the platform. Just to remind you of this season. It's the time when they're bountiful, cider's flowing, and of course, God's best intended use for apples is increasing right now, and that's apple pies. One very gracious family saw fit, I think they were in prayer and heard from the Lord, that they were to bless our family with a gorgeous homemade apple pie. I remember I took two hands to lift it. It was beautiful, deep dish, you know, the flaky crust thing, beautiful. Carol took it home and walked in the house, had a few other little bags and so on, and things that she was bringing up the steps, and she put the pie down on the countertop and then went to put some of those other things away. And the only other family member that's still permanently living at our home strolled in and checked out that sweet-smelling pie. You know the only other family member I mean, don't you? And he buried his head down in that pie before Carol could get there and took this huge mouthful right out of the center, tin foil and all. I want the family that provided the pie to know we've salvaged the majority of it. Carol moved quickly and it was delicious, even the part that we cleaned up. And Tucker even commented it was the best that he'd had in a while too. Anybody looking for a dog? Just make me an offer, Jeff. We'll talk after. It's important that such things not be passed around too freely, but that's life at my house. I want to talk to you about bearing fruit, making the best of what you've been given by God. You know, in conversations I have with people outside of Sunday morning especially, they often move into the realm of talking about how can I make my life count? How can I be a person that really makes a difference? How do I measure significance in my life? And I'm hearing that conversation increasingly, by the way, from people who are moving along in maturity a little bit, but also from younger people who are realizing that life's not about necessarily just climbing the corporate ladder or even just surviving on it, if that be the case. Why is it that people want this issue of fruit bearing to be made a little more clear to them? Well, I think it's because they want fulfillment and they're smart enough to know that success in the worldly sense doesn't necessarily bring fulfillment. I think it's because they want meaning and significance and satisfaction. And it's also because, as the next slide shows, that Jesus said it's what you're supposed to do. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit. That's what we're called to do. And if you study that passage in John 15, you'll see three things that you can expect if you bear fruit. What are we doing? Are we playing video games? See, now that's what he does. He's probably hanging around here. Okay. Three things that you can expect. This isn't on your outline. I just want to throw this in. You can expect fulfillment. Jesus said you're going to know satisfaction. Second, he said your joy is going to be complete. Verse 11 and verse 8, probably the most important, you will glorify the Father. How many of you want your life to be fulfilled, full of joy, and glorifying the Father? Well, if you're a member of this church, I would expect that. And if you're just seeking, let me tell you, that's what I think a definition of a wonderful life would be. There have been all kinds of theological debates about what does it mean then to abide in Christ? If that's the secret to bearing much fruit, how do I abide in Christ? Now, don't worry about the outline. I'm not there yet. How do I abide in Christ? What does it mean, the word abide, to remain, as it says in the NIV? Well, a better translation, more contemporary, is it means to be at home with, to be comfortable amongst, or to be, as last week's language would say, wholeheartedly devoted to Christ. A fully devoted disciple is one who abides, lives in, or is at home with Christ. Now, there are two kinds of fruit that the Bible talks about. Here's where your outline comes in. The first one is the fruit of character. Our lives are to be more and more like God's. That's the definition of character, a God-like life. My life being like Christ. Look at the outline. The first evidence of that is the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. How many of you like that just naturally? You wake up every day, that's you. Probably not. At least it's not me. I find that every day I need to depend upon God to keep rounding off those rough edges. He keeps putting, does God have a way of putting you in circumstances where the very things that, if your character needs shape, get attended to? I had one of those just last week. I think it was probably a payback for the message I had a while back about patience. I went through to the drive-thru bank. They advertise the drive-thru as the place you go when you're in a hurry, right? You don't even have to get out of your car. Marketing genius, but a total lie. And so I pull up to the bank and there's one line with three cars in it and one line with one car. I do the math, okay, I'll get in the line with one car, can't be long. The person right in front of me was doing estate planning and they didn't have a pen. The first time that the little tube came back, I thought, hey, great, this will be all over quickly. The tube came back and he was just getting a pen so he could start writing out all of his documents. And I watched five cars go through the other side. Now, I was turning up my praise CD at that point as loud as I could, just wondering, God, what have I done today? I hadn't done anything. I hadn't been rebellious. I just needed that whole patience thing to be worked on and God was saying, just sit here and understand, that's what I'm doing. It's character development and it happens all the time. But I don't want to focus today on the fruit of character. I want to focus on the other fruit that's mentioned in the Bible, and that's the fruit of conversion. Paul writes to the church of Philippi, this will mean fruitful labor for me. What will? Your lives growing in Christ. You see, when you are privileged, and it's a great privilege to be somehow used by God to affect another life for Christ, that's called bearing fruit for the gospel. And if you've ever experienced it, if you've ever been used by the Lord, you know it's not really you, you know God's just flowing somehow life through. It really energizes you. People get affected by you. And you say, is there a more noble thing in the world than to be used by God to touch somebody? I don't think so. So how do we bear fruit? How do we help people to go from darkness to light, from fear to faith, from spiritual death to spiritual life? How do we do it? It doesn't need to be all that complicated. You don't need to hang around the church and expect that it's just going to sort of happen automatically. It no more happens automatically by hanging around the church than it does by driving around the Oxford Health Club and getting in shape. Try that afterwards. Drive up there and see if your muscles start to just pop out when you drive by. When you come and just sit in the church, you've got to apply yourself, and I've reduced it down to four things. And I believe, and as simple as it sounds, and I know it's probably a little bit of an oversimplification, these four things are the core roots that have to go down in the soil of your heart if you are to be a fruit bearer. So here we go. And I'm going to do it, by the way, in the form of four little pictures, four snapshots of the New Testament, four stories that Jesus was involved in. And when I say fruitful, I mean fully devoted. I mean wholehearted disciples. Now, the first snapshot is near the end of Jesus' life. It's in John 17. Now, you might just want to write John 17 next to that number one, because the first thing is love. Love. And in John 17, Jesus gathered the disciples together. He's about to be crucified. And he prays a prayer with them in his presence. And he says, Father, my prayer is that they would be one, even as you and I are one. That the whole world would know that they're my disciples because of their love for one another. Listen, a fruitful disciple is one who is radically committed to community. Let me say it again. A fruitful disciple is one who is radically committed to loving relationships and community. What do I mean by that? But someone who orders their calendar around their relationships, not the other way around. Someone who says, I'll be there because I'm committed, and then other things find their place. A fully devoted disciple knows that without relationships, you're just a shell. You're just going through the motions of a head game with God. A radically devoted disciple is one who has given up on the idea of being a lone ranger Christian, of showing up when they feel like it, of sort of playing the game. They're there because they're committed to being there. There's someone who's intentional. And by the way, can I say, if you're a person who's been in the family of God for 10 or 20 years, you're very vulnerable to getting a little bit crusted over on this one. I want to say it bluntly. A person who's fully devoted is always growing in the level of commitment, taking on new relationships, going another level deeper, because love requires that of us. And I'm amazed, frankly, at how oblivious people, some people are anyhow, to the obstacles that are in their life to loving others. Things that they do, I mean, consciously or unconsciously, to distance people from themselves. Things like, ask yourself this question, when you're in relationship with people, do you talk too much? Oh, now you're getting really personal, aren't you, Pastor Jim? I'm not meaning to, but I'm surprised at how some people in a small group may just talk incessantly, and they're oblivious to the fact that nobody's really listening anymore. You know? Or maybe you're in a situation where you just can't help but be a little bit judgmental. And someone shares a struggle that they have, and you say, Oh, man, I'm glad I'm not there. Well, that's not really the way that God would act. Or maybe, you know, maybe you're just opinionated, and maybe you're, you know, every time something comes along, you've got your opinion, and you're just kind of set, and you're figuring, you know, you've got it together, learn from me. Or maybe you're a person that's just sort of emotionally distant, and just too busy to really be involved and care about others. See, these are all obstacles to really loving. And I want to ask you an honest question here. Does anyone talk to you at that level? Can that person next to you bump you and say, Can I just share with you, do you see yourself this way? Or do you go along merrily, blindly, oblivious to the fact that you're keeping people from loving you, and you're not really loving them as Christ loved you? Once again, without love, all the rest that we do, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13, is nothing. You see, part of the issue is, you never really know when you're going to need community. And that's where so many of you could give a testimony right now. Life was cruising along, and then all of a sudden you hit this huge, unexpected turbulence, and your seatbelt of community wasn't strapped on, and you hit the roof or the bottom. I got this note just a couple of weeks ago from someone in our church who will remain anonymous, but she wrote to the church, and so I'm taking the liberty to read it to you. She said, Pastor Jay, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the church for all the help and love that has been extended to me and my daughter. Listen, when I unexpectedly became a single mother, I didn't have family or friends to turn to, but God provided me with a family through North Way. My cell group, Heartline, Rebuilders, Young Moms group, Search for Significance group, Retreat, the food bank, have all been wonderful blessings in my life, and I have grown so much spiritually. You see, she didn't expect to become a single mother, but when the bottom fell out, she turned to community. She turned to love. And I want to say, friends, if you're just postponing that, or if you've been in a group and you've dropped out, or you're just playing games, when we end the service a little bit earlier today, wander over to that wall over there and meet with some of the people who are leading groups and say, Hey, I'm ready to give this a try. I'm ready to take a step. I'll be part of a beta group or a cell group. I'll try because I want to be in community. Second story, so familiar that I'm afraid that we've maybe lost the meaning of it. Jesus is in the upper room. He arrives in this scene, again, just prior to the time of his crucifixion. The disciples had walked quite a ways to be there, and when they arrived, their feet were dirty. Have you ever been to the Holy Land? It is a dirty place, relatively speaking, even today. I mean, there's still a lot of dirt roads and so on compared to what we have. When they arrived, they needed to have their feet washed. Usually there was a household, just a common house boy that would clean their feet and off they would go. But there was none there. And so the disciples, rather than one of them just extending themselves to do it, to their astonishment, Jesus shocked them by bending down himself and washing the dust and dirt off their feet. I mean, you remember Peter even said, Don't do that. Lord, you shouldn't do that. And Jesus looked up and, listen, he looked right at them and he said to Peter and the disciples, he said, The thing that you've just seen me do is an example for you as to the way I want you to live the rest of your life. I want you to be a servant. I want you to be willing to humble yourself and do whatever it takes to serve the other person. Don't lord it over them. Don't distance yourself, but serve them. And friends, I just want to ask you the question. Are you a disciple who's not embarrassed to take up the uniform of Jesus and wear it when needed? The Bible says that he took a towel, put it around himself and served. This is his uniform. I'll tell you, in a large church like this, you know what the temptation is? I'll tell you what it is. Somebody else will do it. Somebody else will show up at the food bank and distribute the food to the people in need. Somebody else will help in a kid's ministry. Somebody else will be an usher. Somebody else will come and set up the coffee and donuts for fellowship time. Somebody else will go pray for the sick. Somebody else will come help visit with a person who can't get out of their house. You know, whatever it is. And friends, the truth of the matter is, we have a large army in this church that's sitting back in the barracks, not serving. And if you're part of that army that's just sort of reclining, waiting for someone to come and clean your feet, I want to challenge you this morning. You're not being fully devoted. This isn't something you do one time and say, well, I tried the serving thing. It's something you do all the time through the rest of your life. And you know what the great thing is? The Lord has so orchestrated this serving experience that it becomes the most fulfilling part of your life. As was spoken by a couple of people, and one person in particular, you will never find soul satisfaction by seeking self-gratification. That's the lie of the culture. By just going ahead and pursuing your dreams, you'll get to the place where your heart will be satisfied. That's what USA Today or CNN or all the media will tell you as they just put the panorama of the rich and famous across the screens for us. Not true. In fact, fulfillment comes when you learn to serve. Think back in North Way's history, those of you who've been around a while. What are some of the brightest moments of our experience as a church? How about the Christmas banquet? Some of you are here in the Christmas banquet era. When we would fill the David L. Lawrence Convention Center with 3,000 or 4,000 inner-city people, and many of us literally would go down and take an apron and serve the poor, and a towel and wipe the tables. Or how about the Christmas shoeboxes when we just go out and we serve children that we'll never see in Bosnia or Honduras or wherever we may send those boxes, and we take the time to fill those boxes and choose the things that those kids will enjoy. Well, you can go on and on. One of my most vivid memories recently was just two years ago when our pastoral team went to the home of a widow here at North Way, recently with a woman, and we redecorated her home for the Christmas season. No fanfare, no big deal, but it was a great experience. Aren't those the moments that really stick into your mind and heart? That's what Jesus says. If you want to be fully devoted, then become a servant. The greatest of all, Jesus said, will become the servant of all. And I know this isn't easy to do in our days of busyness, but it's critical that we cultivate that. The next story is one in Luke 16. It's a very vivid story that Jesus tells to a group that's gathered, and he talks about an extremely wealthy man, a man dressed in purple, which was the exotic color of wealth of that day. He even says in Luke 16 that his inner garments were of pure linen. I mean, this guy really had a lot of bucks. He lived in his palatial mansion, ate gourmet food, lavish lifestyle of the rich and famous times ten. Then he goes on to say, but seated right near him, outside the gate of his palace, was this very destitute man who was desperate just to get some of the crumbs that would fall off the platters going by into the castle so that he could eat. A little morsel of food, literally is what it says. And this man was in pathetic shape, so bad that, listen, the Bible says that the dogs of the city came and licked the sores on his body. Now, I can picture the group watching Jesus and listening to this story, and I say, okay, where are you going with this, Jesus? And I get the picture of this really rich guy that has it all, and this really poor guy that's in bad shape. And then Jesus comes up with this verse. Finally the beggar died and was carried by the angels to be with Abraham in heaven. And the rich man also died and was buried. And his soul went to the place called Hades, which is hell. Leave it up for just a second. You want to believe that that got the attention of that group? Because what Jesus was saying was that the man who was poor in this life was rich in faith, and he ended up in heaven with abundance forever. And the man who was rich in this life was bankrupt spiritually and wound up in hell where he spent the rest of eternity regretting his spiritual and financial arrogance. The power of money has wrecked many souls, Jesus says. A truly devoted follower, a full-fledged believer is someone who comes to terms with the power of money and has a deep respect for the alluring, almost addictive way in which money gets its hooks in us and pulls us where it wants to go rather than letting us take it where we need it to go. And the question I want to just pose to us all today, even in the back, as well as here in the front, is who's controlling who in this issue of money? Timothy chapter 6, verse 10, 1 Timothy says that the love of money is the root of all evil and many have become ensnared by it. A fully devoted follower is one who takes seriously the biblical teaching about money and gains control of it early on. They earn money responsibly and don't get greedy about trying to win the lottery and all that kind of craziness. They live within their means. They establish a reasonable budget and learn to tithe and give God the full 10% of their earnings on a regular basis as evidence of their trust and His provision in their life. They seek to avoid unnecessary debt. They cultivate contentment and manage what they've been given diligently. And they are devoted, committed to not let money control them, not to compromise their values and their soul in the pursuit of more and more money. How are you doing on this one? You want to know? I have a sense that this is something a lot of us still struggle with. Well, you know, I really... It's really hard to make ends meet, we say. 10%, I mean, that's... What if God had made the tithe 50%? I think it'd be pretty generous to say, here's 90%. Just give me the 10% as an evidence of your faith. Let alone the opportunities He gives us to give over and above that. You see, don't rationalize this one, please. A lot of us are real good at saying, well, you know, I'll give God back in kind. My time's worth 25 bucks an hour or 50 bucks an hour, whatever it is. So I'll give God two hours. That's equal to $100 worth of tithe, isn't it? Don't play games with God that way. Give Him the full measure that He's required of you. You see, the fully devoted disciple wouldn't think of withholding from God. He'd be the last one that you'd withhold from. Because it's all about your heart. It's about responding with thanksgiving to the grace that He's shown you. Who's gonna win this year? Jesus says you can't serve God in money. When we end 1999, who on the balance sheet is gonna have more? Who's gonna win the affection of your soul? Okay, last thing. Last little story. Matthew chapter 8. Jesus tells the story of a centurion. And a centurion was a Roman leader of 100 men. Very seasoned, kind of rough cut military guy. And Jesus said, or Jesus was teaching a group and this centurion came up and he said, Master, my servant is seriously ill. The Greek literally means deathly ill. The Bible says he was paralyzed and in great pain. Paralyzed and in great pain and suffering. And Jesus, without hesitating, remember this Roman soldier was not a Jew, not a follower of Christ as we would know. And Jesus looked right at him and said, Doesn't matter. I will come and heal him. And then this soldier says something very powerful. Let's look up on the screen. He says this, Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. There was a humble man who knew who Jesus really was. But just say the word. Say that with me. Just say the word and my servant will be healed. Well, the Bible goes on to recount in Matthew 8 how Jesus was astonished at that reply because the centurion said, Look, I'm a soldier. When I tell my men what to do, they do it. They don't discuss it with me. They don't niggle about it and complain about it. They just go do it. He said, and I'm under authority. When people tell me what to do, I go do it. And Jesus, I know that you have authority. And when you speak the word, it's going to happen. And friends, the mark of a truly devoted disciple is one, when Jesus says the word, you get on and do it. You obey. That's the critical word. You obey what the Lord tells you to do. True followers, if it's in the word, it's done. If the spirit nudges you, it's done. You don't justify. You don't rationalize. You don't complain. And the Bible says that such obedience, such faith, amazes God. I would love for the Lord one day in my future to say about at least one thing in my life, that was amazing when you did that. I was amazed when you did that. So there it is, just four simple things. A wholehearted, fruitful disciple loves, serves, gives, and obeys. What's all this doing up here? Well, it's about bearing fruit. Fruit in other lives. And you see, if you love, serve, give, and obey, your life's going to affect other people. And you're going to bear fruit. I want to close with this little picture that just got put into my heart this week. Our neighbors, Mack and Susan McCabe, have an apple tree that's real loaded this year with apples. And they're not beautiful apples like these. They don't take the time to spray them and all that, but they're actually better than normal this year. And the branches are laying down, and now some of the apples are starting to fall all over the ground. And I was walking over there earlier this week, and this Lord just popped in my mind this picture. You know, here's all this fruit, and it's going to fall to the ground. And a lot of it's going to get trampled underfoot. The deer are going to come up and eat it. A lot of it's going to get eaten by bugs, and eventually a lot of it's just going to rot away into the ground. And the Lord impressed on me this, that there's fruit all over our community, all over the North Hills. There's fruit waiting to be picked from the tree before it falls and gets trampled underfoot and rots away. And the question is, will we be ready to bear that fruit? God wants to use us. Let's stand and ask Him for grace to do it. Lord, in the name of Your Son, I pray that You would help each one of us to look honestly at our life, to see where we need to tune in, to love, to serve, to give, to obey. Lord, that we would be fruitful followers of Christ. That it would be said of us, Lord, that we bore much fruit, that many lives were touched because we were faithful to You. Lord, I pray You'd just shake us out of our fear, shake us out of our introspection, and give us faith, Lord, to do what it is You've called us to do. For I ask it in the name of Jesus.