Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on John 15. The sermon’s main subject is Jesus’s role as Savior of the world and the nature of His ministry.
Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on John 15. The sermon’s main subject is Jesus’s role as Savior of the world and the nature of His ministry.
– SERMON TRANSCRIPT –
Well, I’ll tell you, I love expositional preaching, I do. I love to take a passage and just go through it, and I’m feeling a strong temptation to just take John 15:1-11, and just go verse by verse, but I’m not gonna do it today. This is a topical message focused specifically on some areas of spiritual growth for you, and I’m starting, as a starting place, in John 15, and I think it’s a good place to begin. My two basic ideas in this message and behind the reason for the message is, number one, that someday you will be totally conformed to Jesus Christ if you’re a believer in him. You’ll be as righteous and as holy and as perfect and glorious as he is today, some day you will be like that. That’s my first premise. The second is, you’re not like that now. That’s my second premise. I’m not saying that by way to insult you or anything I know about your lives other than you’re sitting here listening to me today. And so therefore, there’s a journey to be traveled between point A and point B, between where you are now and where you will be some day when the gospel has finished all of its work in your life.
And the year 2005, if it’s gonna be a year of spiritual health and growth for you, it’s gonna be a year in which God shows his faithfulness to you and his sovereign power in your life, but also a year in which you must apply yourself diligently to spiritual disciplines, to the attending of the Word, reading of the Word, to prayer, to certain other structures that God’s put in your life, or you will not grow. So I believe with all my heart that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion to the day of Christ Jesus, but it’s gonna take working out your salvation with fear and trembling in order to get there. And so I desire that this sermon be a very practical assistance to you in that matter.
Now, John 15:1-11, the vine and the branches, is a marvelous place to talk about spiritual growth. The context of John 15 is, in John’s gospel, the whole purpose of John’s gospel, is to set before us Jesus of Nazareth, that’s what the unbelieving world calls him, and we can say that, it just didn’t go far enough, that Jesus is God in the flesh, and that if you believe that, you’ll have eternal life. That’s the whole purpose of John’s gospel, what a powerful book. It’s written so that believing that Jesus is the Son of God you might have eternal life. In John 20:31, it says, “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and by believing, you may have life in his name.” This is the overall goal, but there’s a second theme to John’s Gospel. In one sense, almost as important, but it’s a description of what that life looks like. There is, woven through the 21 chapters of John’s Gospel, a description of what eternal life will look like. Just running through the chapters, it’s like in John 2, like a super abundance of high quality wine at a wedding banquet. Or in John chapter 3, it’s like being born again by the power of God. Or in John 4, it’s like having a spring of water inside you welling up to eternal life, which you can drink any time you want. Or John 5, like being paralyzed for 40 years and then suddenly able to walk by the power of God. Or in John 6, to have a never-ending supply of heavenly bread you can just feed on whenever you want, spiritually in Christ. Or John 7, like having a river of living water flowing from you outward to others. Or John 8, having the light of the world so that you never walk in darkness but have the light of life; and John 9, like being born blind, you never saw that light before, but now suddenly, for the first time in your life, you can see color, and the spectacle of the created world that God has made, and that just by Jesus spitting and making mud. In John 10, it’s like having a good shepherd who takes care of all your needs and protects you from all harm and will never let you go until you are finally in his presence, saved. John 11, it’s like being dead for four days and hearing “Lazarus, rise!” and you’re alive. I could go on, I just love John’s gospel, isn’t that marvelous? All the beautiful things there are in there, but it’s just a sense of what eternal life is like. In John 15, it’s like being connected to an eternal vine, and life-giving sap just flows through that vine right out through you into fruit, full fruitfulness, a lush and lavish vine, that’s the picture in John 15.
Jesus wants you to be fruitful. And as a matter of fact, we go so far just based on principles in John 15 that you heard, if you are not fruitful in the way he thinks of, if you’re not fruitful the way he considers fruit, you’re not a Christian. This is not an option; you must be fruitful. And so, John 15 tells you the secret of fruitfulness. And there’s a role for everyone. There’s a role for the Father, the Heavenly Father, he is the vinedresser, he’s the gardener; he is the one active in your life. Interestingly, another one of Jesus’s parables, the father is portrayed as the owner of the vineyard, somewhat of an absentee landowner, and he rents it out to others who are gonna look after its day-to-day operation, but here, he is looking after its day-to-day operations. He is the vinedresser; he is all over your life, and not just your life but the life of the whole church, he’s the vinedresser, he’s looking after you.
And what does he do? Well, he does two things in the vine, he cuts off every branch that bears no fruit, and it withers in a pile and its burned; and also, he prunes every branch that is fruitful so that it will be even more fruitful, those two things the vinedresser is doing. Now, Jesus role is to be the vine, he is the vine. He’s the source of life, he is just drawing up, sucking up the moisture and the nutrients from the soil and through him all of it flows out to the branches, and without that, no fruitfulness is possible. If you’re not connected to the vine, you can’t bear fruit. It’s a simple lesson, John 15, must be connected to the mind. So Jesus’s role is to provide you with strength and health and support and nutrients and water, everything you need for full fruitfulness, that’s the Son’s role, Jesus’s role.
Well, what is your role? Well, I don’t know that it could be any clearer. It says again and again that you need to abide or remain or dwell or live or continue or persevere in the mind. It’s a simple word, it just means you gotta stay with the vine; you gotta stay in him. Look what it says in verses 4 and following, he says, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you,” or abide, some translations, give, or dwell. “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” Now, what does it mean to remain in Christ? Well, earlier in John 1, when Jesus is just beginning his earthly ministry, he’s meeting his disciples for the first time, those, I believe, that he meets in John 1, in the middle section there, were John the Baptist disciples, and John the Baptist points and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” and then he points to his own disciples, “Go follow him now; he’s the one.” And so they go, and they follow after Jesus, literally physically follow after him, and he turns around and says, “What do you want?” And they say, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” And he says, “Come and see.” So they remained… It’s the same Greek word. They stayed with Jesus that day. It’s about the 10th hour. Now you’re thinking, “Boy, if it were that easy, I’d love it, I’d love to eat with Jesus and sleep and walk and talk and work and just have him physically there all day long.” Wouldn’t that be wonderful? But that’s the same word, the idea is live your life with Jesus, moment-by-moment, live with him, stay with him all day long. Go to bed, wake up the next day, do it again, walk with Jesus. And Jesus says, “You must abide in me.” But the thing is, we can’t. Not the way they did, not in John 1, he’s gone on up into heaven, he’s in the heavenly realms, he’s at the right hand of the Father, he’s interceding, he has sent the Holy Spirit, so our abiding in Christ is gonna be of a spiritual nature.
And so he points us to the Word and to prayer. He says, “I am the vine, and you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up and thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” And so here it is, to abide or remain in Christ, you’ve gotta have his words abiding in you, you gotta take in the Word, you gotta just be feeding on the Word, and you need to speak to him in prayer, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you, this is an abiding remaining, and out of this will flow fruit. And I bet you’re wondering, “What is fruit?” You’re thinking, “I’m not gonna be a Concord grape, am I? Is that what’s gonna come out of my life?” No, that’s not it. It’s spiritual fruit.
“To abide or remain in Christ, you’ve gotta have his words abiding in you, you gotta take in the Word, you gotta just be feeding on the Word, and you need to speak to him in prayer, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you.”
I’ve never forgotten what John MacArthur said about fruit, I think it’s a good characterization, that there’s two different kinds of fruit that God builds in your life. One of them is attitude fruit and the other is action fruit, both of them are equally valid, equally important. Attitude fruit is the inward disposition of your soul, your reaction to certain things, what you love, what you hate, what you believe, what you trust, what you feel inside yourself, that’s that internal fruit, that is valid fruit. And it’s a great work, isn’t it, that God does inside us? The external fruit is what we call action fruit, and that has to do with witnessing and prayer and giving of money to the needy and all kinds of good works that God has prepared for you to do, both of those put together are fruit. We evangelicals tend to think of fruit only in terms of souls that are won to Christ through our witness. That is a kind of fruit but it’s not the only fruit there is. They’re important, but not the only one. So what I’m saying is, attitude fruit, action fruit, all taken together, that’s the fruit, I believe, John 15 has in mind. Without it, you are not his disciple. Do you see that? If there’s no attitude fruit, if there’s no action fruit, you’re not a Christian. And so he says, “This is,” verse 8, “to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit.” Not a little fruit, much fruit. “And in this way, you will prove to be my disciples.” Do you see how this is not an option? There must be full fruitfulness in your life.
Alright, well, that’s just the John 15 background for the diagnostic questions I’d like to take you through. Now, what happened was, a year ago, as the ministerial staff, every year, we think about ways that we can help you grow, that is our purpose, that is what we seek to do, we want you to be maximally fruitful, we want you to have a full harvest to show to God on judgment day. And so, for the year for 2004, we were using these diagnostic questions through the Deacon Family Ministry Plan and our own personal counseling with people, just conversations to keep, in front of you, key basic areas of the Christian life. And now at the official end of the year, in the beginning of a new year, 2005, I wanna bring us back to those questions, and I wanna talk about them in a very practical way, okay? So the first one of the four are concerning personal devotions, have you been spending time in the scriptures and in prayer today? The second question has to do with family devotions: Have you been fulfilling your role in family devotions? And third, has to do with witnessing, with evangelism: Have you shared the gospel lately? And the fourth has to do with ministry: Have you committed to a pattern of ministry at First Baptist Church? Let’s take them one at a time.
I. Personal Devotions: Have You Spent Time in the Scriptures and Prayer Today?
First, personal devotions: Have you spent time in the scriptures and prayer today? Now, you say, “Today is a good day for you to ask, it’s Sunday, and I usually have my quiet time, plenty of time on a Sunday.” Okay, today means symbolically for just habitually in your life, that’s what I mean by that. It begins, your health, your spiritual health, begins with the taking in of the word of God. That’s how it all starts, that’s how it began at the start for you as a Christian, right? Remember in verse 3 in John 15, it says, “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.” It’s the word spoken from God that makes you clean; it saves your soul. Interestingly, it says, “He prunes every branch in me, so it’ll be even more fruitful.” The pruning, literally, it says, “Cleans, he cleans every branch in me.” In other words, the word’s gonna keep working in you, just like you were justified by the Word, you’re gonna be sanctified by the Word. You were originally brought into a right relationship with God through the believing of the gospel, so you’re gonna keep growing as a Christian by hearing the Word, by believing and understanding it. Well, in order to do that, you have to be under the ministry of the Word, and this little time of two hours that we have this morning is not enough. Two hours, that’s a joke, okay? We’re not gonna be here for two hours. You can see how little time we have. I have about 35 minutes or so. I can’t compete, nor do I desire to compete with the 35 minutes or an hour that you spend in the Word every single day, that is God’s avenue of discipleship in your life. Are you taking the Word in? Are you reading it? Are you meditating on it? Are you memorizing it? Are you feeding on it? Faith comes by hearing the Word. Are you growing in faith by taking the Word in? Are you having a regular quiet time? That’s what I’m focused on here.
“Are you taking the Word in? Are you reading it? Are you meditating on it? Are you memorizing it? Are you feeding on it? Faith comes by hearing the Word. “
Now, the top priority then in your Christian life is hearing God speak to you today, by means of the Word, it’s top priority. Just like we’ve been learning in the Book of Hebrews, which we’re studying in the evenings, on Sunday evenings. It says in Hebrews 3, “So as the Holy Spirit says: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” How do we hear but except by the scripture. He speaks to us. And so we learn, and we feed on it. And when we take it in we don’t harden our hearts, but we do what it says, an obedient faith-filled hearing of the Word, that’s what I have in mind. So you’ve got to take in the Word today. But it’s not enough just to take in the Word, to hear the Word, you also need to speak back to God in prayer, and so the two of them are the two basic components of a quiet time: taking in the Word you’re hearing from him, he’s speaking to you, and then you’re speaking back to him in prayer. “Ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you,” that’s what he says, “If you abide in me [or remain in me] my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.” So what do you wish for? Well, I wish for spiritual health and growth for you folks, that is so much more valuable than any of the things that we could wish for in a material realm. We want spiritual health and growth for ourselves, our family, for people around the world, and so ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you. So we’re gonna take in the Word and we’re going to pray.
Now, what I have in mind here is what we call a quiet time. I’m not talking about listening to sermon tapes while you drive. That’s part of it, saturating the mind and all that, or those quick little prayers that you pray at certain moments through the day, that’s so vital; but I’m talking about a concentrated time like Jesus did, early in the morning, getting up, “Great while before it was dawn,” it says in Mark’s gospel, and meeting with his Heavenly Father. You’re doing nothing but the word and prayer during that time. You gotta do it. It’s essential to your spiritual health. And I do advocate that morning’s the best time. I don’t think it’s in the Bible but someone once said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” I think it’s “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” Benjamin Franklin, right? What would you rather have, a Spirit-filled day which is so fruitful and don’t miss any of the things that God had for you to do because you’re sharpened and alert because of your morning quiet time in which you’re going through all that, or a time at the end when you clean it all up and ask God a lot of forgiveness and just get right with God at the end of the day, right? I think the morning quiet time is the way to go.
Evening is a great time as well to pray and to concentrate your mind just as you’re going to sleep, and that’s fine, but I’m really advocating that you get up early, earlier than you’ve been perhaps, and have a time with Jesus. I only ask the diagnostic questions that we gave at that time, a year ago: How many times have you met with the Lord for personal Bible study and prayer in the last 30 days? How many times? What grade would you give your devotional life right now? If you had to grade it, what grade would you give? If you looked at Scripture and your intake of Scripture, what would you say is your biggest weakness in personal scriptural intake and fervent prayer? What would you say is your greatest strength? What are you doing well? What’s going well in your life that you can give God thanks for? Do you keep a Scripture notebook in which you write down notes of things that focus your mind on the Word as you’re taking it in? Do you have a yearlong plan for Bible reading? Do you have a strategy for what you wanna do in the year 2005, what do you wanna read? Do you wanna read through the whole Bible in the year, through the whole New Testament? Do you wanna concentrate on maybe five key books and just really work them? All of those things are fine, just whatever God’s leading you, have a plan for reading the Bible. Have you committed yourself to memorizing any scripture this year? Did you commit yourself to memorize scripture last year and got going well but didn’t keep up with it? Is there a fence that’s broken down in your pasture that needs to be re-established? Go back and do it again, God’s giving you time, make use of it.
Do you keep a notebook for intercessory prayer needs, sharpening your intercessory prayer life so that you keep track of things that you pray for to find out whether God was faithful and to keep praying for brothers and sisters in Christ? Which of the following areas would you most like to improve upon in your life, prayer life, would you like to pray longer? You pray too short maybe. Would you like to pray more fervently with greater depth? Would you like to show more compassion in prayer? When you see a great need like we’ve seen in the daily news and the newspaper and the nightly news, does that draw you into prayer? And if you say no, then say, “Lord, I need more compassion, I don’t seem to have enough compassion for people whose lives are being shattered. I need to grow in compassion, the way that Paul was compassionate on his own people who didn’t believe in the Lord.” Do you usually meet with the Lord in the morning or the evening? Are you willing to make a sacrifice to have a morning quiet time like Jesus did?
What would you say is the biggest obstacle to your consistency in your devotional life? What’s hindering you with your devotions? Find out what it is and overcome. What specific goals for growth in your devotional life would be reasonable to make? And are you willing to commit to the Lord that you’ll reach these goals this year? So that’s the first question, are you being faithful to have a quiet time daily?
II. Family Devotions: Have You Been Fulfilling Your Role in Family Devotions?
Secondly: how about family altar time or family devotions? I believe the family is the essential building block of the church and of society. It’s the first thing that God instituted in the Garden of Eden. And a family is a husband and a wife. You’re a family if you’re married and you don’t even have children. And so you can start patterns of family devotions even early in your married life, but I think that there is a concentrated attack by the devil on the family. I think we who are believers, who know the word of God, we can see how so many of the devil’s attack focus on the family unit, a husband and wife relationship, parent-child relationship, the family is essential. And I’m not saying that a family altar time, a consistent family altar time will solve all your problems. I’m not saying that, but I’m saying it is foundational to a growing family spirituality, that’s essential.
Now, what is the family altar? We take this language from the Old Testament, when the patriarchs, like Noah, getting off the ark, he builds that altar and immediately sacrifices some clean animals to the Lord. Or we see Abraham establishing an altar in every place that he went in the Promised Land. So he’s establishing that altar. And so Isaac in Genesis 22 said, “Here’s wood and fire, but where is the sacrifice?” He knows very well what’s going on. He sees his father in a regular pattern of worship to the Lord, family worship, the family altar time. Now, I am not in any way, I’m actually exhorting you not to build a physical stone and earth altar and sacrifice animals. We’re not doing that. This is spiritual, it’s a time in which the family gathers around the Word and prayer and worship together as a family. And the question is have you been fulfilling your role in that? Now, I know that it’s busy, I know if you’ve got kids, your growing family, other issues, I know it’s a busy time in your life, my opinion, all the more reason to have it and to do it. We struggle with it, too. We don’t do it as consistently as we should. I am rededicated in 2005 to be more faithful than I was in 2004. It’s so easy to make excuses, isn’t it? “Oh, we got back too late or we’ve been too busy. Or we had some Bible time while we were in the car,” things like… We’ve done all those excuses, but I don’t wanna do that in 2005. I don’t think you do either.
Now, we all have a different role to play. You may say to yourself well, “I’m a widow, I’m a widower. I’m aged. My kids are grown. What role do I have to play?” Or, “I’ve never been married, or, I’m not married now,” whatever your past, whatever is going on in your life right now, you may not be in the situation where you regularly have a family unit around you. You still have somewhat of a role to play here in the church life. You can, for example, be praying for families that are in the midst of the struggle, in the midst of the time of growing, you’d be praying for that. If you feel that your time of having a family around you is passed and you’re not going to be doing it regularly, you can pray for that. You can encourage your own children in this area, grown children who have kids of their own, grandkids, etcetera. You can set an example or disciple younger folks who are just beginning to go through it, the older folks can do that.
But for those of you that are going through it, you have different roles to play, too. Fathers, it’s your responsibility to take the lead in this area, to initiate, to be the one to say it’s time for our family altar time, to sit down, to open the Bible, put it on your lap and lead. And wives, it’s for you to show a loving and godly submission to the husband’s leadership in the spiritual life, and to take his place when he’s on the road and not able to be there, to continue on, to lead in that way, when he can’t be there, so that the husband and wife are working together beautifully and set an example for their children. And children, you have a role to play, too, to look forward to and to enhance the family altar by your joyful participation, to make it everything that it can be. And so it’s a family time, a time of family altar.
My question is: are you being faithful in your area of responsibility? How consistent have you been in the last month, in the last six months to have a family altar time? Has it been a regular part of your life? Has the Spirit shown you any ways of growth that you could grow in this as a man, as a woman, as a child, as a widow or widower? Are there ways you could grow to be faithful in this area of family devotions?
III. Evangelism: Have You Shared the Gospel Lately?
The third area is the area of evangelism. Simple question, have you shared the gospel lately? Have you shared the gospel lately? The great commission is given, the great commission of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is given five times over at least in formal form, five times over, one in each of the four Gospels, and in the book of Acts. We know the one in Matthew 28, the best. Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Father, in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded. Surely, I’m with you always to the very end of the age.” But in Mark’s gospel, it says, Jesus said, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” And in Luke 24, he showed them from scripture, he said, “This is what is written: the Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.” And then in John 20, on the resurrection night, first time of the week, he appears though the doors are locked, he comes and stands among them and says, “Peace be with you,” and then he says, “‘As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.’ And then he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ And then he said, ‘If you forgive anyone their sins, they are forgiven, if you do not forgive their sins, they are not forgiven.’” That is John’s version of the great commission. And then in Acts 1:8, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” So we have, as a church, collectively, a responsibility to evangelize the lost. Jesus said, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost,” lost people; he cared about that. That’s what he came for.
Now the question I ask is: are you fulfilling your own personal responsibility in that? I believe that spiritual gifts fit the church together as a whole corporately, to be very effective for reaching the lost together as a body. The most effective agency for reaching the lost is a well-organized local church in which spiritual gift ministries are just flowing by the power of the Spirit, very powerful. We see it in the book of Acts again and again. But I believe each individual Christian has a responsibility to be a witness for Christ. It says in Ephesians 2:10, “We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance that we should walk in them.” So he has a bunch of good works for you to do in the year 2005. Is it not possible that some of those involve the opening of your mouth and the witnessing to a lost person? I think so, that you might share the gospel to somebody that’s never heard it before, and I believe that there are certain people that only you can reach in a specific way, that you can have a witness and an impact because you have been shaped and prepared for that witnessing opportunity.
“I believe each individual Christian has a responsibility to be a witness for Christ.”
And so what I’m advocating, this is a kind of a challenging thing, is that you would say every day, as you wake up, during your morning quiet time that we talked about earlier, in the morning, you say, “Lord, I pray that you would give me a witnessing opportunity today, and that you would help me overcome my weakness enough to make the most of it.” Pray that kind of prayer, and I found almost every time that I pray that kind of prayer I have a witnessing opportunity that day. And you think, “Well, it’s not surprising. You’re being alert.” Exactly. We’re being alert. We’re looking for opportunities to say something. Let me ask some questions. When was the last time you invited somebody to church? When was the last time you spoke the name of Jesus Christ to somebody you believe to be lost, somebody you believe that was not a Christian? When was the last time you did that? When was the last time that you actually sat down and went through a full gospel presentation? God, man, Christ, response with an unbeliever, and if your answer is a month, six months, six years, never, what I would say is, “Lord, in 2005, make me a witness. Change Me. Transform me,” if you feel like you need more training, then take advantage of the training times. We had numerous training times in 2004; a variety of training times, take advantage of them. We go out every month, a neighborhood outreach, go. There are creative ways. We’re adopting a school, an inner city school, so that we can go and share the gospel with young children. If you’re more gifted to reach out to young children, take advantage of that. There are so many different ways that you can be a witness. But be a witness for Christ.
IV. Ministry: Have You Committed to a Pattern of Ministry at First Baptist Church?
Final question I wanna ask is do you have a ministry? Have you committed to a pattern of ministry at First Baptist Church? And I think there are two different kinds of ministry you can have in a local church. One of them is what we call a spiritual gift ministry, and the other is just general servanthood kind of ministries. Both of them need to be part of your life. Now, what do I mean by spiritual gift ministry? Well, every Christian, every believer in Christ has a spiritual gift package, it’s mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12-14, it’s mentioned in Romans 12, it’s mentioned in Ephesians 4, in 1 Peter 4. These are important sections of Scripture that talk about how God has uniquely fitted you for a ministry. Maybe your gift is teaching, maybe it’s encouragement, maybe it’s administration, maybe it’s giving, maybe it’s faith, maybe it’s prayer, maybe it’s a combination of some of those in a marvelous way. I think there’s as many different combinations as there are Christians. I’ve also come to believe that, I used to think you got your spiritual gift package the moment you’re saved, let’s say, I don’t think that there’s anything in Scripture that says when it comes. It could be you venture forth in a new ministry and God gifts you for that ministry. God gives grace. And so a spiritual gift ministry in which you are regularly, if your gift is teaching, you teach faithfully and regularly here in the local church. If your gift is of administration, you’re here organizing and helping ministries be well run. If your gift is giving, you’re doing that cheerfully and abundantly. You’re using your gift here at the local church, that’s one kind or style of ministry.
The other is what we call general servanthood kind of ministries. We have a lot of events here and a lot of things in which just general things need to be done. I don’t know anybody with the spiritual gift of putting paper with masking tape on a table, alright. That’s just something anybody can do. Or cutting up food into small portions so that there’s a reasonable amount for everybody, or cooking covered dish or any of these things, or folding pieces of paper for an outreach, these are things anybody can do. And we need people to do those kind of things. My question to you is as you look back over 2004, how many hours did you spend serving here in the church that does not include times in which you came to worship or Sunday school or some set activity? Not counting that. Just take all that and put it aside. What’s left? How many hours did you spend serving in some way through the local church? That’s a question to ask. I believe God’s calling on us, sacrificially, to give time. This church is very generous financially, and so many in the church are generous with time. What I’m asking to do is not just settle into a pattern which you come to church and you’re thinking what can the local church do for me or being a consumer of local church ministries, but rather that God would use you to venture forth in some exciting new ministries. I can guarantee that there’s some people who are listening to me right now who have a vision for ministries that we don’t have, ministerial staff we don’t have. But you have the vision, you have the gifts, and you can organize people to move in that direction. Let’s do it in 2005. Let’s see it happen.
Now, overall, as I look at this whole area, personal devotions, have you been spending time in the Scriptures and prayer today, or have you spent or are you regularly doing that? Secondly, family altar time, have you been fulfilling your role in family devotions? Third, evangelism, have you shared the gospel recently? And fourth also in ministry, have you committed to a pattern of sacrificial ministry at First Baptist Church? I look at each of those areas and say I wanna grow. I wanna grow in each one of them. I’m not satisfied with where I’m at in any of them. Well, I came across a verse recently that was like the ultimate New Year’s resolution verse, and I wanna show it to you, and I’ll close with that. Look with me, if you would, at 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12. And I have read Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, many times, but I never noticed this. But in 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, I found a great New Year’s resolution verse. And it says this, 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12. I’m reading here in the ESV, “To this end, we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling [and listen] and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and you in him according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Look at that, right there in verse 11, “that God may fulfill every resolve of good inside you.” The other translations, “every good intention,” or, “every good plan that you may have.” Do you have any for 2005, any good resolves or good intentions? May God fulfill it in you, may he make you ambitious for spiritual growth for yourself and for the church in 2005. May he give you wide-ranging resolves, and may he fulfill them by his great power and for his glory. Resolve, resolve to grow, resolve to grow in your personal quiet times and your family altar times, resolve to grow as a witness for Christ and resolve to serve here in the church, and may God fulfill it.
Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on John 15. The sermon’s main subject is Jesus’s role as Savior of the world and the nature of His ministry.
– SERMON TRANSCRIPT –
Well, I’ll tell you, I love expositional preaching, I do. I love to take a passage and just go through it, and I’m feeling a strong temptation to just take John 15:1-11, and just go verse by verse, but I’m not gonna do it today. This is a topical message focused specifically on some areas of spiritual growth for you, and I’m starting, as a starting place, in John 15, and I think it’s a good place to begin. My two basic ideas in this message and behind the reason for the message is, number one, that someday you will be totally conformed to Jesus Christ if you’re a believer in him. You’ll be as righteous and as holy and as perfect and glorious as he is today, some day you will be like that. That’s my first premise. The second is, you’re not like that now. That’s my second premise. I’m not saying that by way to insult you or anything I know about your lives other than you’re sitting here listening to me today. And so therefore, there’s a journey to be traveled between point A and point B, between where you are now and where you will be some day when the gospel has finished all of its work in your life.
And the year 2005, if it’s gonna be a year of spiritual health and growth for you, it’s gonna be a year in which God shows his faithfulness to you and his sovereign power in your life, but also a year in which you must apply yourself diligently to spiritual disciplines, to the attending of the Word, reading of the Word, to prayer, to certain other structures that God’s put in your life, or you will not grow. So I believe with all my heart that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion to the day of Christ Jesus, but it’s gonna take working out your salvation with fear and trembling in order to get there. And so I desire that this sermon be a very practical assistance to you in that matter.
Now, John 15:1-11, the vine and the branches, is a marvelous place to talk about spiritual growth. The context of John 15 is, in John’s gospel, the whole purpose of John’s gospel, is to set before us Jesus of Nazareth, that’s what the unbelieving world calls him, and we can say that, it just didn’t go far enough, that Jesus is God in the flesh, and that if you believe that, you’ll have eternal life. That’s the whole purpose of John’s gospel, what a powerful book. It’s written so that believing that Jesus is the Son of God you might have eternal life. In John 20:31, it says, “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and by believing, you may have life in his name.” This is the overall goal, but there’s a second theme to John’s Gospel. In one sense, almost as important, but it’s a description of what that life looks like. There is, woven through the 21 chapters of John’s Gospel, a description of what eternal life will look like. Just running through the chapters, it’s like in John 2, like a super abundance of high quality wine at a wedding banquet. Or in John chapter 3, it’s like being born again by the power of God. Or in John 4, it’s like having a spring of water inside you welling up to eternal life, which you can drink any time you want. Or John 5, like being paralyzed for 40 years and then suddenly able to walk by the power of God. Or in John 6, to have a never-ending supply of heavenly bread you can just feed on whenever you want, spiritually in Christ. Or John 7, like having a river of living water flowing from you outward to others. Or John 8, having the light of the world so that you never walk in darkness but have the light of life; and John 9, like being born blind, you never saw that light before, but now suddenly, for the first time in your life, you can see color, and the spectacle of the created world that God has made, and that just by Jesus spitting and making mud. In John 10, it’s like having a good shepherd who takes care of all your needs and protects you from all harm and will never let you go until you are finally in his presence, saved. John 11, it’s like being dead for four days and hearing “Lazarus, rise!” and you’re alive. I could go on, I just love John’s gospel, isn’t that marvelous? All the beautiful things there are in there, but it’s just a sense of what eternal life is like. In John 15, it’s like being connected to an eternal vine, and life-giving sap just flows through that vine right out through you into fruit, full fruitfulness, a lush and lavish vine, that’s the picture in John 15.
Jesus wants you to be fruitful. And as a matter of fact, we go so far just based on principles in John 15 that you heard, if you are not fruitful in the way he thinks of, if you’re not fruitful the way he considers fruit, you’re not a Christian. This is not an option; you must be fruitful. And so, John 15 tells you the secret of fruitfulness. And there’s a role for everyone. There’s a role for the Father, the Heavenly Father, he is the vinedresser, he’s the gardener; he is the one active in your life. Interestingly, another one of Jesus’s parables, the father is portrayed as the owner of the vineyard, somewhat of an absentee landowner, and he rents it out to others who are gonna look after its day-to-day operation, but here, he is looking after its day-to-day operations. He is the vinedresser; he is all over your life, and not just your life but the life of the whole church, he’s the vinedresser, he’s looking after you.
And what does he do? Well, he does two things in the vine, he cuts off every branch that bears no fruit, and it withers in a pile and its burned; and also, he prunes every branch that is fruitful so that it will be even more fruitful, those two things the vinedresser is doing. Now, Jesus role is to be the vine, he is the vine. He’s the source of life, he is just drawing up, sucking up the moisture and the nutrients from the soil and through him all of it flows out to the branches, and without that, no fruitfulness is possible. If you’re not connected to the vine, you can’t bear fruit. It’s a simple lesson, John 15, must be connected to the mind. So Jesus’s role is to provide you with strength and health and support and nutrients and water, everything you need for full fruitfulness, that’s the Son’s role, Jesus’s role.
Well, what is your role? Well, I don’t know that it could be any clearer. It says again and again that you need to abide or remain or dwell or live or continue or persevere in the mind. It’s a simple word, it just means you gotta stay with the vine; you gotta stay in him. Look what it says in verses 4 and following, he says, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you,” or abide, some translations, give, or dwell. “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” Now, what does it mean to remain in Christ? Well, earlier in John 1, when Jesus is just beginning his earthly ministry, he’s meeting his disciples for the first time, those, I believe, that he meets in John 1, in the middle section there, were John the Baptist disciples, and John the Baptist points and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” and then he points to his own disciples, “Go follow him now; he’s the one.” And so they go, and they follow after Jesus, literally physically follow after him, and he turns around and says, “What do you want?” And they say, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” And he says, “Come and see.” So they remained… It’s the same Greek word. They stayed with Jesus that day. It’s about the 10th hour. Now you’re thinking, “Boy, if it were that easy, I’d love it, I’d love to eat with Jesus and sleep and walk and talk and work and just have him physically there all day long.” Wouldn’t that be wonderful? But that’s the same word, the idea is live your life with Jesus, moment-by-moment, live with him, stay with him all day long. Go to bed, wake up the next day, do it again, walk with Jesus. And Jesus says, “You must abide in me.” But the thing is, we can’t. Not the way they did, not in John 1, he’s gone on up into heaven, he’s in the heavenly realms, he’s at the right hand of the Father, he’s interceding, he has sent the Holy Spirit, so our abiding in Christ is gonna be of a spiritual nature.
And so he points us to the Word and to prayer. He says, “I am the vine, and you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up and thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” And so here it is, to abide or remain in Christ, you’ve gotta have his words abiding in you, you gotta take in the Word, you gotta just be feeding on the Word, and you need to speak to him in prayer, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you, this is an abiding remaining, and out of this will flow fruit. And I bet you’re wondering, “What is fruit?” You’re thinking, “I’m not gonna be a Concord grape, am I? Is that what’s gonna come out of my life?” No, that’s not it. It’s spiritual fruit.
“To abide or remain in Christ, you’ve gotta have his words abiding in you, you gotta take in the Word, you gotta just be feeding on the Word, and you need to speak to him in prayer, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you.”
I’ve never forgotten what John MacArthur said about fruit, I think it’s a good characterization, that there’s two different kinds of fruit that God builds in your life. One of them is attitude fruit and the other is action fruit, both of them are equally valid, equally important. Attitude fruit is the inward disposition of your soul, your reaction to certain things, what you love, what you hate, what you believe, what you trust, what you feel inside yourself, that’s that internal fruit, that is valid fruit. And it’s a great work, isn’t it, that God does inside us? The external fruit is what we call action fruit, and that has to do with witnessing and prayer and giving of money to the needy and all kinds of good works that God has prepared for you to do, both of those put together are fruit. We evangelicals tend to think of fruit only in terms of souls that are won to Christ through our witness. That is a kind of fruit but it’s not the only fruit there is. They’re important, but not the only one. So what I’m saying is, attitude fruit, action fruit, all taken together, that’s the fruit, I believe, John 15 has in mind. Without it, you are not his disciple. Do you see that? If there’s no attitude fruit, if there’s no action fruit, you’re not a Christian. And so he says, “This is,” verse 8, “to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit.” Not a little fruit, much fruit. “And in this way, you will prove to be my disciples.” Do you see how this is not an option? There must be full fruitfulness in your life.
Alright, well, that’s just the John 15 background for the diagnostic questions I’d like to take you through. Now, what happened was, a year ago, as the ministerial staff, every year, we think about ways that we can help you grow, that is our purpose, that is what we seek to do, we want you to be maximally fruitful, we want you to have a full harvest to show to God on judgment day. And so, for the year for 2004, we were using these diagnostic questions through the Deacon Family Ministry Plan and our own personal counseling with people, just conversations to keep, in front of you, key basic areas of the Christian life. And now at the official end of the year, in the beginning of a new year, 2005, I wanna bring us back to those questions, and I wanna talk about them in a very practical way, okay? So the first one of the four are concerning personal devotions, have you been spending time in the scriptures and in prayer today? The second question has to do with family devotions: Have you been fulfilling your role in family devotions? And third, has to do with witnessing, with evangelism: Have you shared the gospel lately? And the fourth has to do with ministry: Have you committed to a pattern of ministry at First Baptist Church? Let’s take them one at a time.
I. Personal Devotions: Have You Spent Time in the Scriptures and Prayer Today?
First, personal devotions: Have you spent time in the scriptures and prayer today? Now, you say, “Today is a good day for you to ask, it’s Sunday, and I usually have my quiet time, plenty of time on a Sunday.” Okay, today means symbolically for just habitually in your life, that’s what I mean by that. It begins, your health, your spiritual health, begins with the taking in of the word of God. That’s how it all starts, that’s how it began at the start for you as a Christian, right? Remember in verse 3 in John 15, it says, “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.” It’s the word spoken from God that makes you clean; it saves your soul. Interestingly, it says, “He prunes every branch in me, so it’ll be even more fruitful.” The pruning, literally, it says, “Cleans, he cleans every branch in me.” In other words, the word’s gonna keep working in you, just like you were justified by the Word, you’re gonna be sanctified by the Word. You were originally brought into a right relationship with God through the believing of the gospel, so you’re gonna keep growing as a Christian by hearing the Word, by believing and understanding it. Well, in order to do that, you have to be under the ministry of the Word, and this little time of two hours that we have this morning is not enough. Two hours, that’s a joke, okay? We’re not gonna be here for two hours. You can see how little time we have. I have about 35 minutes or so. I can’t compete, nor do I desire to compete with the 35 minutes or an hour that you spend in the Word every single day, that is God’s avenue of discipleship in your life. Are you taking the Word in? Are you reading it? Are you meditating on it? Are you memorizing it? Are you feeding on it? Faith comes by hearing the Word. Are you growing in faith by taking the Word in? Are you having a regular quiet time? That’s what I’m focused on here.
“Are you taking the Word in? Are you reading it? Are you meditating on it? Are you memorizing it? Are you feeding on it? Faith comes by hearing the Word. “
Now, the top priority then in your Christian life is hearing God speak to you today, by means of the Word, it’s top priority. Just like we’ve been learning in the Book of Hebrews, which we’re studying in the evenings, on Sunday evenings. It says in Hebrews 3, “So as the Holy Spirit says: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” How do we hear but except by the scripture. He speaks to us. And so we learn, and we feed on it. And when we take it in we don’t harden our hearts, but we do what it says, an obedient faith-filled hearing of the Word, that’s what I have in mind. So you’ve got to take in the Word today. But it’s not enough just to take in the Word, to hear the Word, you also need to speak back to God in prayer, and so the two of them are the two basic components of a quiet time: taking in the Word you’re hearing from him, he’s speaking to you, and then you’re speaking back to him in prayer. “Ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you,” that’s what he says, “If you abide in me [or remain in me] my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.” So what do you wish for? Well, I wish for spiritual health and growth for you folks, that is so much more valuable than any of the things that we could wish for in a material realm. We want spiritual health and growth for ourselves, our family, for people around the world, and so ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you. So we’re gonna take in the Word and we’re going to pray.
Now, what I have in mind here is what we call a quiet time. I’m not talking about listening to sermon tapes while you drive. That’s part of it, saturating the mind and all that, or those quick little prayers that you pray at certain moments through the day, that’s so vital; but I’m talking about a concentrated time like Jesus did, early in the morning, getting up, “Great while before it was dawn,” it says in Mark’s gospel, and meeting with his Heavenly Father. You’re doing nothing but the word and prayer during that time. You gotta do it. It’s essential to your spiritual health. And I do advocate that morning’s the best time. I don’t think it’s in the Bible but someone once said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” I think it’s “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” Benjamin Franklin, right? What would you rather have, a Spirit-filled day which is so fruitful and don’t miss any of the things that God had for you to do because you’re sharpened and alert because of your morning quiet time in which you’re going through all that, or a time at the end when you clean it all up and ask God a lot of forgiveness and just get right with God at the end of the day, right? I think the morning quiet time is the way to go.
Evening is a great time as well to pray and to concentrate your mind just as you’re going to sleep, and that’s fine, but I’m really advocating that you get up early, earlier than you’ve been perhaps, and have a time with Jesus. I only ask the diagnostic questions that we gave at that time, a year ago: How many times have you met with the Lord for personal Bible study and prayer in the last 30 days? How many times? What grade would you give your devotional life right now? If you had to grade it, what grade would you give? If you looked at Scripture and your intake of Scripture, what would you say is your biggest weakness in personal scriptural intake and fervent prayer? What would you say is your greatest strength? What are you doing well? What’s going well in your life that you can give God thanks for? Do you keep a Scripture notebook in which you write down notes of things that focus your mind on the Word as you’re taking it in? Do you have a yearlong plan for Bible reading? Do you have a strategy for what you wanna do in the year 2005, what do you wanna read? Do you wanna read through the whole Bible in the year, through the whole New Testament? Do you wanna concentrate on maybe five key books and just really work them? All of those things are fine, just whatever God’s leading you, have a plan for reading the Bible. Have you committed yourself to memorizing any scripture this year? Did you commit yourself to memorize scripture last year and got going well but didn’t keep up with it? Is there a fence that’s broken down in your pasture that needs to be re-established? Go back and do it again, God’s giving you time, make use of it.
Do you keep a notebook for intercessory prayer needs, sharpening your intercessory prayer life so that you keep track of things that you pray for to find out whether God was faithful and to keep praying for brothers and sisters in Christ? Which of the following areas would you most like to improve upon in your life, prayer life, would you like to pray longer? You pray too short maybe. Would you like to pray more fervently with greater depth? Would you like to show more compassion in prayer? When you see a great need like we’ve seen in the daily news and the newspaper and the nightly news, does that draw you into prayer? And if you say no, then say, “Lord, I need more compassion, I don’t seem to have enough compassion for people whose lives are being shattered. I need to grow in compassion, the way that Paul was compassionate on his own people who didn’t believe in the Lord.” Do you usually meet with the Lord in the morning or the evening? Are you willing to make a sacrifice to have a morning quiet time like Jesus did?
What would you say is the biggest obstacle to your consistency in your devotional life? What’s hindering you with your devotions? Find out what it is and overcome. What specific goals for growth in your devotional life would be reasonable to make? And are you willing to commit to the Lord that you’ll reach these goals this year? So that’s the first question, are you being faithful to have a quiet time daily?
II. Family Devotions: Have You Been Fulfilling Your Role in Family Devotions?
Secondly: how about family altar time or family devotions? I believe the family is the essential building block of the church and of society. It’s the first thing that God instituted in the Garden of Eden. And a family is a husband and a wife. You’re a family if you’re married and you don’t even have children. And so you can start patterns of family devotions even early in your married life, but I think that there is a concentrated attack by the devil on the family. I think we who are believers, who know the word of God, we can see how so many of the devil’s attack focus on the family unit, a husband and wife relationship, parent-child relationship, the family is essential. And I’m not saying that a family altar time, a consistent family altar time will solve all your problems. I’m not saying that, but I’m saying it is foundational to a growing family spirituality, that’s essential.
Now, what is the family altar? We take this language from the Old Testament, when the patriarchs, like Noah, getting off the ark, he builds that altar and immediately sacrifices some clean animals to the Lord. Or we see Abraham establishing an altar in every place that he went in the Promised Land. So he’s establishing that altar. And so Isaac in Genesis 22 said, “Here’s wood and fire, but where is the sacrifice?” He knows very well what’s going on. He sees his father in a regular pattern of worship to the Lord, family worship, the family altar time. Now, I am not in any way, I’m actually exhorting you not to build a physical stone and earth altar and sacrifice animals. We’re not doing that. This is spiritual, it’s a time in which the family gathers around the Word and prayer and worship together as a family. And the question is have you been fulfilling your role in that? Now, I know that it’s busy, I know if you’ve got kids, your growing family, other issues, I know it’s a busy time in your life, my opinion, all the more reason to have it and to do it. We struggle with it, too. We don’t do it as consistently as we should. I am rededicated in 2005 to be more faithful than I was in 2004. It’s so easy to make excuses, isn’t it? “Oh, we got back too late or we’ve been too busy. Or we had some Bible time while we were in the car,” things like… We’ve done all those excuses, but I don’t wanna do that in 2005. I don’t think you do either.
Now, we all have a different role to play. You may say to yourself well, “I’m a widow, I’m a widower. I’m aged. My kids are grown. What role do I have to play?” Or, “I’ve never been married, or, I’m not married now,” whatever your past, whatever is going on in your life right now, you may not be in the situation where you regularly have a family unit around you. You still have somewhat of a role to play here in the church life. You can, for example, be praying for families that are in the midst of the struggle, in the midst of the time of growing, you’d be praying for that. If you feel that your time of having a family around you is passed and you’re not going to be doing it regularly, you can pray for that. You can encourage your own children in this area, grown children who have kids of their own, grandkids, etcetera. You can set an example or disciple younger folks who are just beginning to go through it, the older folks can do that.
But for those of you that are going through it, you have different roles to play, too. Fathers, it’s your responsibility to take the lead in this area, to initiate, to be the one to say it’s time for our family altar time, to sit down, to open the Bible, put it on your lap and lead. And wives, it’s for you to show a loving and godly submission to the husband’s leadership in the spiritual life, and to take his place when he’s on the road and not able to be there, to continue on, to lead in that way, when he can’t be there, so that the husband and wife are working together beautifully and set an example for their children. And children, you have a role to play, too, to look forward to and to enhance the family altar by your joyful participation, to make it everything that it can be. And so it’s a family time, a time of family altar.
My question is: are you being faithful in your area of responsibility? How consistent have you been in the last month, in the last six months to have a family altar time? Has it been a regular part of your life? Has the Spirit shown you any ways of growth that you could grow in this as a man, as a woman, as a child, as a widow or widower? Are there ways you could grow to be faithful in this area of family devotions?
III. Evangelism: Have You Shared the Gospel Lately?
The third area is the area of evangelism. Simple question, have you shared the gospel lately? Have you shared the gospel lately? The great commission is given, the great commission of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is given five times over at least in formal form, five times over, one in each of the four Gospels, and in the book of Acts. We know the one in Matthew 28, the best. Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Father, in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded. Surely, I’m with you always to the very end of the age.” But in Mark’s gospel, it says, Jesus said, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” And in Luke 24, he showed them from scripture, he said, “This is what is written: the Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.” And then in John 20, on the resurrection night, first time of the week, he appears though the doors are locked, he comes and stands among them and says, “Peace be with you,” and then he says, “‘As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.’ And then he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ And then he said, ‘If you forgive anyone their sins, they are forgiven, if you do not forgive their sins, they are not forgiven.’” That is John’s version of the great commission. And then in Acts 1:8, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” So we have, as a church, collectively, a responsibility to evangelize the lost. Jesus said, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost,” lost people; he cared about that. That’s what he came for.
Now the question I ask is: are you fulfilling your own personal responsibility in that? I believe that spiritual gifts fit the church together as a whole corporately, to be very effective for reaching the lost together as a body. The most effective agency for reaching the lost is a well-organized local church in which spiritual gift ministries are just flowing by the power of the Spirit, very powerful. We see it in the book of Acts again and again. But I believe each individual Christian has a responsibility to be a witness for Christ. It says in Ephesians 2:10, “We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance that we should walk in them.” So he has a bunch of good works for you to do in the year 2005. Is it not possible that some of those involve the opening of your mouth and the witnessing to a lost person? I think so, that you might share the gospel to somebody that’s never heard it before, and I believe that there are certain people that only you can reach in a specific way, that you can have a witness and an impact because you have been shaped and prepared for that witnessing opportunity.
“I believe each individual Christian has a responsibility to be a witness for Christ.”
And so what I’m advocating, this is a kind of a challenging thing, is that you would say every day, as you wake up, during your morning quiet time that we talked about earlier, in the morning, you say, “Lord, I pray that you would give me a witnessing opportunity today, and that you would help me overcome my weakness enough to make the most of it.” Pray that kind of prayer, and I found almost every time that I pray that kind of prayer I have a witnessing opportunity that day. And you think, “Well, it’s not surprising. You’re being alert.” Exactly. We’re being alert. We’re looking for opportunities to say something. Let me ask some questions. When was the last time you invited somebody to church? When was the last time you spoke the name of Jesus Christ to somebody you believe to be lost, somebody you believe that was not a Christian? When was the last time you did that? When was the last time that you actually sat down and went through a full gospel presentation? God, man, Christ, response with an unbeliever, and if your answer is a month, six months, six years, never, what I would say is, “Lord, in 2005, make me a witness. Change Me. Transform me,” if you feel like you need more training, then take advantage of the training times. We had numerous training times in 2004; a variety of training times, take advantage of them. We go out every month, a neighborhood outreach, go. There are creative ways. We’re adopting a school, an inner city school, so that we can go and share the gospel with young children. If you’re more gifted to reach out to young children, take advantage of that. There are so many different ways that you can be a witness. But be a witness for Christ.
IV. Ministry: Have You Committed to a Pattern of Ministry at First Baptist Church?
Final question I wanna ask is do you have a ministry? Have you committed to a pattern of ministry at First Baptist Church? And I think there are two different kinds of ministry you can have in a local church. One of them is what we call a spiritual gift ministry, and the other is just general servanthood kind of ministries. Both of them need to be part of your life. Now, what do I mean by spiritual gift ministry? Well, every Christian, every believer in Christ has a spiritual gift package, it’s mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12-14, it’s mentioned in Romans 12, it’s mentioned in Ephesians 4, in 1 Peter 4. These are important sections of Scripture that talk about how God has uniquely fitted you for a ministry. Maybe your gift is teaching, maybe it’s encouragement, maybe it’s administration, maybe it’s giving, maybe it’s faith, maybe it’s prayer, maybe it’s a combination of some of those in a marvelous way. I think there’s as many different combinations as there are Christians. I’ve also come to believe that, I used to think you got your spiritual gift package the moment you’re saved, let’s say, I don’t think that there’s anything in Scripture that says when it comes. It could be you venture forth in a new ministry and God gifts you for that ministry. God gives grace. And so a spiritual gift ministry in which you are regularly, if your gift is teaching, you teach faithfully and regularly here in the local church. If your gift is of administration, you’re here organizing and helping ministries be well run. If your gift is giving, you’re doing that cheerfully and abundantly. You’re using your gift here at the local church, that’s one kind or style of ministry.
The other is what we call general servanthood kind of ministries. We have a lot of events here and a lot of things in which just general things need to be done. I don’t know anybody with the spiritual gift of putting paper with masking tape on a table, alright. That’s just something anybody can do. Or cutting up food into small portions so that there’s a reasonable amount for everybody, or cooking covered dish or any of these things, or folding pieces of paper for an outreach, these are things anybody can do. And we need people to do those kind of things. My question to you is as you look back over 2004, how many hours did you spend serving here in the church that does not include times in which you came to worship or Sunday school or some set activity? Not counting that. Just take all that and put it aside. What’s left? How many hours did you spend serving in some way through the local church? That’s a question to ask. I believe God’s calling on us, sacrificially, to give time. This church is very generous financially, and so many in the church are generous with time. What I’m asking to do is not just settle into a pattern which you come to church and you’re thinking what can the local church do for me or being a consumer of local church ministries, but rather that God would use you to venture forth in some exciting new ministries. I can guarantee that there’s some people who are listening to me right now who have a vision for ministries that we don’t have, ministerial staff we don’t have. But you have the vision, you have the gifts, and you can organize people to move in that direction. Let’s do it in 2005. Let’s see it happen.
Now, overall, as I look at this whole area, personal devotions, have you been spending time in the Scriptures and prayer today, or have you spent or are you regularly doing that? Secondly, family altar time, have you been fulfilling your role in family devotions? Third, evangelism, have you shared the gospel recently? And fourth also in ministry, have you committed to a pattern of sacrificial ministry at First Baptist Church? I look at each of those areas and say I wanna grow. I wanna grow in each one of them. I’m not satisfied with where I’m at in any of them. Well, I came across a verse recently that was like the ultimate New Year’s resolution verse, and I wanna show it to you, and I’ll close with that. Look with me, if you would, at 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12. And I have read Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, many times, but I never noticed this. But in 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, I found a great New Year’s resolution verse. And it says this, 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12. I’m reading here in the ESV, “To this end, we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling [and listen] and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and you in him according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Look at that, right there in verse 11, “that God may fulfill every resolve of good inside you.” The other translations, “every good intention,” or, “every good plan that you may have.” Do you have any for 2005, any good resolves or good intentions? May God fulfill it in you, may he make you ambitious for spiritual growth for yourself and for the church in 2005. May he give you wide-ranging resolves, and may he fulfill them by his great power and for his glory. Resolve, resolve to grow, resolve to grow in your personal quiet times and your family altar times, resolve to grow as a witness for Christ and resolve to serve here in the church, and may God fulfill it.
