Sermon Tone Analysis

I Chose You to Bear Fruit

May 28, 2006

John 15:16

 

Orben’s Current Comedy, a book of laughs, has this quip: “I’m not against using preservatives in food.

What I’m against as a loaf of bread that has a life expectancy greater than my own … We all choose products from our grocery store with a shelf life which has not yet expired; or at least we try to.

My wife roots to the back of the mil rack hoping to find a couple of extra days of shelf life.

Do you do that?

I’m sure we would all show concern if the product we were about to consume was drastically expired.

Right?

We are guarding our life expectancy!

Our message today is fruit – our fruit – the fruit God creates in us: good fruit.

Fruit with a life expectancy!

Turn with me to out key verse for today.

We are still in John 15.

So, let’s look at verse 16: /"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit"/.

Speaking of life expectancy, George Chauncey says, in Leadership Magazine, The church should be a community of dates instead of pumpkins.

Pumpkins you can harvest in six months.

Dates have to be planted and tended by people who will not live to harvest them.

Dates are for future generations.

On the day after the night in which Jesus spoke these words to the eleven, he laid himself down on the cross and bought you with his blood.

You are now his fruit and his fruit-bearer.

The only fruit that will ever endure to eternal life is fruit which grows out of the cross/.

"The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit"/ (John 12:23,24).

We are Christ's fruit because he died for us.

We are his fruit-bearers if we are willing to take up our cross and die with him.

It is not accident that when Jesus had commanded us to go and bear fruit, he went and died.

His life expectancy was up; ours was just beginning.

Our call and your ministry must always stand in the shadow of the cross of Christ.

The only fruit that will last is the fruit that grows on the cross.

/"You did not choose me, but I chose you," /Jesus says to the eleven apostles, and surely to everyone today whom he calls to minister.

Why did he say, /"You did not choose me."/

It's not literally true.

They had chosen to follow Jesus.

He did not drag them into his service kicking and screaming.

He does not hold them with bit and bridle.

They are not looking for ways to escape from his ministry.

In John 1:37 Andrew follows Jesus without even being asked and he goes to get Peter and brings him to Jesus (1:41).

So the point is not even that Jesus made the first contact.

Turn it around.

What if Jesus had said, "I did not choose you; you chose me?"

What would most likely be the point of saying that?

Wouldn't it mean, "I'm not bound to you.

You wanted to come along.

If the going gets rough, don't come whimpering to me.

It's your choice, man.

I didn't stake anything on your success."

But Jesus said the opposite: "You did not choose me, but I chose you."

And so the meaning is: "Your presence here is my doing and so I take full responsibility.

I know you agreed to join me in this work, but deep in your heart you know it was I who laid claim on you and so my honor, not yours, is at stake in this work."

If that is what Jesus means, then the reason he said, "You did not choose me, but I chose you, was to encourage us that he would help us.

If his honor is at stake in our success because he chose us for the work, then we can be sure he will exert all his power to make us fruitful.

Jesus will not lightly let his wisdom be scorned.

Therefore, he will not look lightly on our cry for help, when we say, "Lord you chose me!

You are not fickle.

You are not shortsighted.

You are not impulsive.

Your choices have the weight of eternity in them.

You will not let your chosen one be ruined.

Help me, Lord."

Such a plea—if it comes from the heart—he cannot ignore.

His wisdom and constancy and reliability is at stake.

But in what sense did Jesus choose you differently from your choice of him?

In at least two senses.

He said, /"All things have been delivered to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (/Matt.

11:27).

None of us would have ever chosen Jesus had he not revealed to us the glory of the Father.

Had Jesus not enabled us to see in him the image of the invisible God, we would never have come.

Dead in trespasses and sins, blinded by the God of this world, we were hopelessly hell-bent until he called us by name and raised us from the dead.

/"The sheep hear his voice and he calls his sheep by name (he chooses them) and leads them out /(John 10:3).

So your choice of Christ was very different than his choice of you.

His choice was a recreating, resurrecting, life-giving choice when he called you by name and you were born again and made a child of God.

Your choice was all response and trust in his commitment to you.

The other sense in which Christ chose you differently than you chose him is in the call to ministry.

Now all believers are chosen, and can have the assurance that Christ's honor is at stake when He chose you.

We were chosen to be His children.

As well, all believers are chosen for ministry.

But among the saints, whose responsibility is the work of the ministry?

Ephesians 4:11-12 tells us, /“He is the one who gave these gifts to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers./

/Their responsibility is to equip God's people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ,” /

 Christ sets some people apart as pastors and teachers to devote their full-time labor to the ministry of the word and prayer in order to equip the saints.

Here again those who serve do so willingly.

I have chosen the pastoral ministry.

But if I am where I belong, there has been a call /from the Lord/ preceding, equipping, inspiring and finally enabling our choice of this ministry.

You too have been chosen for a purpose.

God called you to be His child and His hands.

He gave you gifts of the Spirit to enable you to serve Him honorably.

Those gifts are explained in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verses 27 and 28.

Turn in our Bible now and we will look at them briefly together.

“/Now all of you together are Christ's body, and each one of you is a separate and necessary part of it.

\\ Here is a list of some of the members that God has placed in the body of Christ: first are apostles, second are prophets, third are teachers, then those who do miracles, those who have the gift of healing, those who can help others, those who can get others to work together, those who speak in unknown languages.”

/Now turn to the 14th chapter of 1 Corinthians and look at verse 26.

It reads: /“Well, my brothers and sisters, let's summarize what I am saying.

When you meet, one will sing, another will teach, another will tell some special revelation God has given, one will speak in an unknown language, while another will interpret what is said.

But everything that is done must be useful to all and build them up in the Lord.”

/The gifts are given to all of us to use to strengthen our church.

Verse 40 at the end of chapter 14 summarizes best how our gifts are to be used.

It reads, “ \\ /But be sure that everything is done properly and in order/.”

Properly and orderly!

Our God equips us so we can serve others properly and in order.

Years ago, Marcy and I took gifts testing.