No Fruit on the Vines

Introduction

## Introduction

Last week we spoke about what I said I believed was at the heart of Christian faith. We got there by asking ourselves what is basically wrong with us, and we all gave the basic Sunday school answer: sin. But we decided that wasn't satisfying as a real answer, and we dug into what that means about our disease, we were trying to understand the nature of our sickness. We turned to mark 9:33-37 and saw ourselves reflected in the disciples, arguing over who was the greatest. We saw this is the motivating force behind sin generally. Sin means we put our personal urge for glory ahead of God's glory. Our basic sickness is greater loyalty to our own ego than to God. This is what our first parents did when they took the fruit in an attempt to be "like God" in and its what the Pharisees did when they killed Jesus. When they saw more people came to his services, and that they really liked him. When they saw his power and found they couldn't stump him with their riddles, when he made them look bad and cost them money by clearing the temple for true worship they decided he had to go. So they arrested and beat and killed him, buried him and waiting for it to all blow over so that they could go back to being the most important people around. It was for their ego.

When Jesus responds to the disciples he tells them that their desire to be great will have to change significantly if they want to to be great in His kingdom, because his kingdom is completely different than the current earth. He says that to be great in his kingdom, to be eminent in the eyes of this king, you must be last and servant of all. We looked at what he said about how his kingdom will function in too and saw the pure in heart and meek and mourners and those thirsty for righteousness were those who were blessed and we said, that's not how it is now! That's what Jesus will do. Right now our world stomps all over the poor in spirit and takes advantage of the meek, but Jesus says they will be the greatest in his kingdom.

So then we said our response to Jesus' calling was the live as citizens of his kingdom now, even before its reign is here in all its power. We said that would mean looking at ourselves differently, not as if we are the most important people in the whole world. And that we would look at others differently, not as opportunities to boost our ego but as real people, images of God, that we could rejoice over and encourage and build up rather than joining our voice in the chorus of complaints in a vain attempt to build our egos. Finally, we said this should change the way that we view of God. We are to be last and servant of all because that is what Jesus modeled for us. Paul in tells us to have the mind of Christ who left heaven at the right hand of his Father for our sake. In his own words, Jesus came not to be served but to serve. And we thought on that for a moment and realized that we need to think of God as the great giver. He's not a mean dictator deciding what we can and cannot do, he's the giver of every good gift. We go low in service because that is what our God does, the Lord of the universe, the one who made the stars to sing beautiful harmony and the planets to dance to their music, the one who designed our bodies, even little baby fingers, and who made our hearts such that they can love and want, that God who controls everything decided he would serve us.

But not we need to ask ourselves a question. Our basic desires are to be satisfied and signifiant. This is what our God has made us to look for. We want to be happy and completely convinced that we matter. So, if our response is stooping low in service emulating God, is that worth it? Does it bring me satisfaction and significance? We aren't sacrilegious by asking this question, we're accepting our design from God and finally on the road to worship that is not just from our lips, but from our heart. But before we can ask if it's worth it, we have another pressing question that needs to be answered, and perhaps you good reformed Presbyterians have seen it already.

Why is it even possible that I can stoop low in God-honoring service? That doesn't seem to be natural, or even possible, for sinful humanity, so what's going on? What happened that I can put my sinful self-glorifying love affair with myself aside and consider others as better than myself? This is what really gets at the heart of our faith. Not just what is wrong with us, but how it got made right.

Possibility to Stoop Low in Service: Regeneration

## Possibility to Stoop Low in Service: Regeneration

In Jesus describes our ultimate salvation as giving water to the thirsty. Jesus says that he will give this salvation to those who are thirsty. In other words, all those who what God, who desire to spend their lives with him, Jesus will give them that salvation. But you have to be thirsty. And that's not the natural state of humanity because of sin. Remember from last week? We're not thirsty for more God, we're thirsty for more thing that benefit ourselves, that build up our ego. We want better bigger cars, and houses, and clothes. We want people to think we're important, or we sat least want to be important to ourselves. We're the star of our own show naturally.

In Paul pulls together a medley from the Old Testament Scripture to prove the utter sinfulness of all of mankind, and that *none* of us are thirsty for God, we're all thirsty for other things.

> “None is righteous, no, not one;

> no one understands;

> no one seeks for God.

> All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;

> no one does good,

> not even one.”

> “Their throat is an open grave;

> they use their tongues to deceive.”

> “The venom of asps is under their lips.”

> “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”

> “Their feet are swift to shed blood;

> in their paths are ruin and misery,

> and the way of peace they have not known.”

> “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

says it most plainly,

"You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked..."

Paul describes us as corpses in a grave. Humanity naturally is one massive graveyard, dead and doornails. And dead people can't make themselves come alive again. So how is it that some of us have come alive and aren't bound to sin in this way anymore? How is it that some of us became thirsty for God instead of their their own good? Just a few verses later Paul tells us,

> "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, *made us alive together with Christ..."*

That's it! It's not anything that we do that gets us to be made alive again, or what Jesus calls elsewhere "born again." We can't work enough for it, we can't do enough good to get it. Paul is super clear about that too,

> By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is *not of your own doing:* it is the gift of God, *not a result of works,* so that no one may boast."

So you and me were dead bodies in a grave. Spiritually we were totally dead and we're never going to be alive to have life with God. We were never going to be thirsty for the salvation he offers because we were dead, and dead people don't drink water. But because of the work of God, completely apart from any work of our own, God made us alive again. How did that work? Because that's the answer to our question of why it's possible for us to lay aside our sinful desire for personal glory and serve others. It was because of the action of God. What is it that God did? We need to go back to to see it.

> "*he chose us* in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love *he predestined us* for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of *his will* to the praise of *his glorious grace."*

While we were dead in our graves, God the Father chose us to be his. He walked through the graveyard of humanity and marked our graves for excavation. Then Jesus came, and he said this,

> "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd ays dow his life for the sheep."

And,

> "The son of man came...to give his life as a ransom for many."

Jesus walked to each of those graves the Father had marked and he exhumed our sinful dead bodies and he jumped in our grave. He took our place. When we should have remained dead forever, Jesus died instead so that we could have life.

Finally, the Holy Spirit breathes new life into each body Jesus had traded places with and gives them a new heart. This is all over the Bible!

> "I will give you a new heart, and and new spirit I will put in you. I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." Ez. 36

> "I will write my law on their hearts."

> "If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation."

That's what God did! That's why it's possible for you and me to get over our sinful desire to increase our ego and not God's glory. Because in the beautiful dance of redemption the Father marked our graves, the Son took our place, and the Spirit breathes new life into our dead bodies. And when the Spirit gives you a new heart, that heart truly beats with love for God. This is why we *must* love God. We can't just use him as a get out of Hell free ticket, we can manipulate him by showing up the church sometimes and saying we're a good enough person to deserve heaven. God isn't letting people into heaven that way! He's give us new hearts that want to be in heaven because God is there! Not because it sounds better than hell. With new hearts we become thirsty for the water that Jesus is providing, and he gives it to us without payment.

It's possible to stoop low in service because of the gospel, that God is raised us from death to life and given us hearts that love him. And if that's not what you've experienced, if you've never turned heavenward and found God more attractive than anything, if you've never been able to sing with conviction, "take the world but give me Jesus," look there now. There's a God who gave his life for you, he traded place with you in you grave and made you alive so that you could one day have him. He gave you a new heart, so that the test for if you have him or not is if you want him. If you want what I'm talking about, if you're thirsty, then accept and fear not! Jesus loses not one of his sheep.

Worth While to Stoop Low in Service: Ultimately Satisfying Glory of God

## Worth While to Stoop Low in Service: Ultimately Satisfying Glory of God

But we still have one more question to answer. We've figured out why it's possible for us to go low in our service for God, and it's because our hearts have flown the heights of God's love for us by the power of God himself. The question now is if it's worth it. We only have a short century here on earth. And it feels like looking to other's interests above our own like Jesus did is kind of a waste of that life. It doesn't seem super satisfying to us. **Let me give you five short reasons why emulation the example of Jesus and putting others before ourselves is worth it.**

1. **It's what we were made for:**

We were created for God's glory, we saw this last week. Remember ? God will call his children, "whom I made for my glory!" When we emulate Jesus we glorify him. When we do as he said we honor him. This is why God made us! He made us with a heart so that we could love God, and with a mind so that we could know him truly, he made us with hands so that we could extend them with God's love to our neighbor, with lips so that we could share this love with the world. Everything about us was made to honor God, so when we don't we're like a work dog without a job and we go crazy. Living out our purpose is worth it. We trust that the great designer has a good design with us.

2. **Going against the design is dissatisfying:**

Even if you wanted to go against this design, you would find it dissatisfying eventually. Remember, God gave you a new heart. So if you have been saved and received that new heart it wants God now, not other things. Ultimately its desire is for God, so trying to fill that desire with anything else is futile. It just can't be big enough.

3. **The end is awesome!**

Another reason that you should decide that laying yourself down in this present life is worth the sacrifice is that the eventually reward is *awesome!* Paul says,

> I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

So Paul invites us to check it out and see if it's worth it, and what he says is that when you do that you'll find that if you put the goodness of heaven on one side and pain on the other side it's like comparing tons to ounces. It's like comparing the size of a diamond to a size of an aircraft carrier. And Paul didn't have an easy life! He was beaten and whipped and stoned and jailed and shipwrecked. He looks at those experiences, suffering we can't really imagine, and says that heaven will be so good, blow past our expectations so much that we won't be able to compare the two.

Listen to how it's described at the end:

> "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe way every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

I don't know about you, but *that's* what I want! That's worth anything here, so I'm with Paul and in for the ocean-liner of pleasure instead of the bath toy.

4. **We can have Jesus!**

And what is that pleasure from? The next reason is because we get Jesus! Listen to Paul describing his desire for Christ,

> Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

And here describing Jesus himself,

> He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

As David describes his God he says,

> Whom have I in heaven but you?

> And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

> My flesh and my heart may fail,

> but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Remember, we're coming to God to get God, not to get out Hell. And the God we get in *incredible!*

5. **Even in this painful earth we can rejoice in affliction**

Perhaps the most amazing, this kind of faith that loves God enough to emulate him in service gives you a love for God that weathers any affection. It's this kind of faith that says,

> Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

> I will fear no evil,

> for you are with me;

> your rod and your staff,

> they comfort me.

It's that kind of faith that says,

> My flesh and my heart may fail,

> but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forevermore.

And finally, and most importantly to me,

> Though the fig tree should not blossom,

> nor be fruit on the vines,

> the produce of the olive fail

> and the fields yield no food,

> the flock be cut off from the fold

> and there be no herd in the stalls,

> yet I will rejoice in the LORD;

> I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

That verse Maddie and I chose to have read across our marriage at our wedding because we want our whole lives, with some of you as witnesses of those vows, to be about showing Christ as preeminent *even* and especially when the hard parts of life set in and making rent is tight, and the car repair doesn't seem like it can happen. Even when friends don't show up, in sickness and in health. And God took us seriously, when we moved here you all know we moved homeless. Mom and Dad drove the Uhaul down and helped us move the stuff into a storage container and we hugged them goodbye and drove to the house the Barsama's so generously let us sleep in. It didn't feel like there was any fruit on the vine then.

But God tells us that his strength is made perfect in our weakness. In other words, when it's clear that it's his power at work, and not our own. God is glorified by us when we are satisfied even in the face of affliction. We make the pleasure of God look even bigger when it satisfies us in the face of pain.

Experiencing the Glory of God

This all makes God look like the kind loving outrageously scandalously generous glorious God he is. He is really that good. It really is that clear that stooping low in service emulating him in love for him is worth absolutely anything at all. That should convince you that you want more of that. It’s what you were made to do! What how do we experience it more? Just a couple practical suggestions before I close:

That what we were made to do

We want to experience it more: How?

Remember that he’s here ()

He’s a man

You’re heart is changed

Tell and teach others: discipleship

Pray for more

When the produce fails really do look heavenward

Keep God always in view

“Whatever you do…”

Closing Challenge

## Closing Challenge

Hear me as I go, I want this for you. I do not want to you be satisfied by lesser satisfactions while God is offering himself! Don’t take the rubbish over the riches, the mud pies over the mashed potatoes. Your hearts are alive, they want those greater pleasures, so don’t dull your desires by refusing to enjoy feast of God. I can tell that you love him:

Not lesser satsifaction

certain ly not rubbish instead of riches

Your hearts are alive

I hear them in the chorus of songs you know well

I see them in your smiles as you contemplate God’s truth

I feel them in hugs over precious time spent together in fellowship, admiring the same diamond of christ

I’m touched by tears over parting

The love of God is alive and well here! You don’t have to be ending the 3rd Pres. chapter in the Dubuque, 120 years in it can just be starting to ramp up! Your wisdom and experience and love for God is not done changing here. You have love for God that ought to overflow to his images.

You aren’t near the end or wrapping up

You have love for God that ought to overflow to his images

So don’t you all dare:

Lose sight of that goal, it’s about loving God more and letting that love spill all over each other

Not tell those who have to know. Get your neighbors and friends and coworkers in your house to know you and introduce them to Jesus and these amazing saints.

Stop being amazed by God. Let yourself be in wonder of the majesty of God. Look heavenward and let your jaw drop, be enraptured.

Look heaven and let your jaw drop, be enraptuered

Love God with all your heart soul mind and strength.

Maddie and I hope to be back, but we will see you all in glory. Thank you to all of you. We’re just beginning to learn and love you all, and only eternity will be long to enough to learn the wisdom and soak up the love from all of you, so it’s a good thing we have all that time together gathered around the one who we care about most.

Thank you to all of you, espeically you Chris, I’m just gettings tarted learning from all of you, and will have thousands of years to fini

To God be the glory through Jesus Christ by the Spirit operating in each of our hearts.