Bearing Fruit (3 Parts)

February 4, 2007 10:14 am admin Sermon-Series, Chapter 7, Romans, Sermon-Texts

A three part sermon series addressing the theme of Bearing Fruit for God from an exegetical treatment of Romans 7:4-6. These sermons were originally preached in January and February of 2007 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.

distribute this material provided you NOT alter the wording in any way and you

do not charge a fee. For web posting a link to this document is preferred.
:: The Resolved Church ::
www.theresolved.com
contact@theresolved.com
(619) 393-1990

THE BEARING FRUIT SERIES: THREE PARTS
by Pastor Duane Smets

BEARING FRUIT - Part I

January 28, 2007

Romans 7:4-6
4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

Intro: “while we were” and “but now” indicate a change
I. the change: a new conversion
II. the change: a new covenant
III. the change: four experiential evidences - flesh, passion, law, fruit
Conclusion: we need change

intro

Good morning church. Sometimes i have these clever bridges to sort of introduce a text and ease you into it, clever in my mind at least…but today i don’t have that so i’m just going to read the text and pray and we’ll get right into it. (read text)

God, you are real. This book is amazing and true. Our spirituality is both confusing and complex and simple and deep at the same time. Help us today I pray. Help us understand ourselves and may the words we study today give us great insight in that pursuit. And Father God I pray most of all that your Spirit would brighten our eyes to see the wonderous glory of Christ our Savior. Amen.

Our text today starts out with the words, “for while we were.” Four simple, seemingly insignificant words…but they are so significant. We are looking at two verses this morning. These four words start out our first verse and our second verse starts out with the words, “But now we are.” Four more, simple, seemingly insignificant words, that are so significant. “For while we were” and “But now we are.” “For while we were” and “But now we are.” “Were” & “are,” “While” & “now.” Do you hear the change? Were, are, while, now.

This is what Paul has been trumpeting ever since he introduced us to Jesus in this book. Jesus changes everything. First he told us we were in Adam and now we, believers, are in Christ. Then he told us we were dead and buried in sin, but now we, believers, are baptized and risen with life in Christ. Then we found out we were forced slaves to our ruinous master called sin, but now we, believers, are free servants to a loving master called Christ. Then most recently, last week, we learned we were married to the law, a performance driven marriage, and now we are married to Christ in a grace filled marriage. “Were” and “are.” “While” and “now.” Change.

And there are a couple of changes that this text reflects in a few things it says that are sort of like these big flags pointing to an overrall view of God and the gospel that Paul, our author has. And then there are specific evidences he gives here of how we experience these big overall things. So there are general references to this big umbrella stuff he is saying and their are specific, very dynamic and powerful word choices he uses to illustrate to us how these big general things play out in our lives. So we’re going to look at the big general things first and then look at the specific things.

I. the change: a new conversion

The first thing about this change is a conversion. Now, i know that converting people has become totally taboo these days. You are not supposed to push your beliefs on anyone or try and change what they think about anything. And if someone does convert from one belief system to another its usually seen as this thing that they did either because they were weak and needed some sort of spiritual crutch or because they were pressured into it by some social network they got involved with. Does that sound familiar?

Many churches and pastor’s answer to that these days is to just accept that and say, no we are not trying to change anyone, there is no point in which you are either a christian or not a christian. We are all just learning and growing and emerging and becoming and that is a process and a journey. What do you guys think?

What we think is important. But more important than what we think is what the Bible says. And sometimes maybe those two things don’t quite line up. And that’s okay. That why we study books of the Bible like Romans, and preach through them the way we do, to try and figure that stuff out.

So let’s talk about Romans first and what it has to say about this. Maybe some of your minds have already starting thinking about what we have been learning or studying? In Adam, now in Christ. Dead, now baptized and alive in Christ. Forced slave to master sin, now free servant of master Jesus. Married to the law now married to Christ. Or we could go back to chapter four of Romans where we learned that Abraham, the first Jew, believed God and at that moment his belief or faith was counted to him as righteousness. Its hard to get away from the distinct change presented in the Bible. Conversion is everywhere.

If we go to the stories of Jesus and the gospels, we read how Jesus shows up on the scene and the first thing he says is “repent” which means to turn around and change, “repent, for the Kingdom of God is near.” And then he starts going up to fisherman and tax collectors and tells them to quit their jobs and follow him wandering around the middle east doing weird things like miracles until he gets hung up on a cross and dies for saying he was God and that he was going to start a church. Its hard to get away from conversion.

But what about our lives? I’m not sure when, but sometime a few years back I stopped growing. Well at least my bones, my beer belly doesn’t seem to stop growing. Amy and I started this thing last week on the door of our fridge on this little dry erase board where everyday we don’t exercise we write “bad, bad, fat kids.” J

Anyway, my point is that we are always growing in life in our person, in who we are becoming. Our lives are really are this process of learning and maturing. It is like a journey. I don’t know how many times I have thought one thing and then later in changed what I thought because I experienced something I hadn’t before or met someone who totally had a big efffect on me or because I learned some new piece of information I hadn’t known. Life has these ups and downs and these things and how you respond to them really have a way of shaping who you are and who you become. And if that is true, then isn’t Jesus, if you do become a Christian, really just part of this whole process and there is no real point of beginning?

I don’t think so. This what I think. Yes, life is a journey for sure. That sounds so lame. But whatever, life is a journey… “don’t stop believing” starts playing in my mind immedietally. I need a different word. Life is a process. But I think there is the process before Christ and the process after Christ. There is the process that leads you up to the point where you start following Jesus and then there is life after that point when you walk through it with him. For those who like the big words, it is the difference between justifcation and sanctification.

I really believe there is a specific moment in space and time when we, as individuals, somehow, someway, deep inside make a heart decision and decide that Jesus is what we need and we devote ourselves to him. And that may be a big step or a small step. If you are older it is probably a pretty big step. If you are kid, it may not feel so big but it is a step that will stay with you your whole life.

So there is a change, a new conversion that happens in the gospel…a decisive turning point in the story of our lives. But there is more to this change and that is how it is related to the story of God and a decisive change he made in his unfolding of history. So let’s look at the second reference to another big unbrella issue that is reflected in our text, and that is what I have as “new covenant” in my outline.

II. the change: a new covenant

My first point came from the words, “while” and “now” and “were” and “are” in our text. My next point comes from the last phrase in verse 6, “we serve not in the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” “old written code” and “new life of the Spirit.” What is that?

If you were here about a year and half ago, just after we moved into this building, you may remember a sermon I preached called “Circumcision of the Heart” from the verses at the end of Romans 2. Listen to the last verse of Romans 2, “a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter.” Did you hear those words, “letter” and “spirit?” He says a similar thing in his second letter to the Corinthians when he says we are “servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills but the Spirit gives life.”

So Paul assumes we already know what he is talking about when he refers to “letter” and to the “spirit” because he already explained it to us earlier in Romans. But that was a long time ago for us, so let me just refresh our memories a bit because this is huge to understandinf our text for today.

What we learned back then was that our heart has a lot to do with who we are. As Proverbs 4:31 says, “out of the heart flow the issues of life.” Our problem is that we all have bad hearts, everyone. We mess up our lives because we don’t thank and honor God as we ought to for everything and so we are miserable because of the consequences of that.

Now, “letter” is a reference to law, and that’s what the old covenant is all about. Covenant means pact or agreement, in the Bible it is the way that God has chosen to work with mankind…through covenant. You can listen or read all about that in that “Circumcision of the Heart” sermon.

But what is significant for us this morning is understanding our text and what this “old written code” or “old covenant” and this “new life of the Spirit” or “new covenant” is all about. So what I want to do is go back to the promise in the Old Testament to find out.

Listen to God’s promise spoken through the prophet Jeremiah about 600 years before Jesus came on the scene. Jeremiah says, “Behold days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant…not like the covenant which I made with (Israel) when I took them…out of Egypt [so not like the 10 commandments, the heart of that covenant]. …But this is the covenant which I will make…I will put my law within them and on their heart I will write it and I will be their God and they shall be my people…(and they) will all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them…for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more (Jer 31:31-34).”

Ezekiel, another prophet, who shows up after Jeremiah comes saying the same thing. Listen to his words, the Lord declares, “I will give you a new heart and put a new Spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh (Ez 36:26).”

So God promises that a performance driven life of law and religion will not always be the only way to relate to him, that covenant will end and a new one will come. About six hundred years go by and then Jesus shows up, preaching, teaching, and healing and then the night before he goes to die on the cross he has one last meal with the closest of his followers and he takes a glass of wine and says this, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” And after that dinner he goes outside into a garden to pray and is arrested and within 24 hours is bleeding to death on a cross so that he might heal our biggest ailment, our hearts.

Now, that is kind of gory, and I know I just threw a ton of information at you if you have never heard any of this before. So let me try and make it a little easier. We talked earlier about our story. Think journey, rock n roll, our lives… What all this covenant stuff is saying is that there is one big story happening throughout history and all of our lives are connected to it. And that big story is the story of God showing himself to us and teaching us how wonderful and beautiful he is and how he is the best thing ever. And that story has one big climax, one big central part to it, one point when God most shows himself as God and that is the point when Jesus died on the cross. When that happened there was significant, monumental change in the way that God made himself available to men. A new covenant was initiated.

No longer would faith express itself through meeting requirements or laws or rules in order to relate to God, but now an internal desire and communion from the heart could be possible, a new covenant because of Christ.

So the biggest and most significant part of our lives is when our story intersects with the highest point of God’s story, the cross. When Christ becomes ours. When we accept his human death as being in our place and receive his divine payment as an eternal gift of life to us. And when we realize what that means, nothing but love fills the heart. There is conversion and a new internal desire to please God and not just appease him.

Okay, so now that we got something of conversion and something of covenant in our heads, I think we may be ready to look at these four internal evidences we discover inside ourselves. Let’s just re-read our two verses again to get re-acquainted with these things Paul describes. (re-read vs.5-6)

III. the change: four experiential evidences - flesh, passion, law, fruit

Verse 5 is what is of the old covenant, verse 6 is what is of the new covenant. Now, I’ve said in past weeks that from chapter 6 through 8 is about helping us deal with what to do with why we still sin and struggle in life after you become a Christian. And the way that Paul is trying to help us with that is to teach about these spiritual realities that happen when that conversion takes place.

So the more that we come to know and believe these things the more we will be empowered to live a happy life in our struggle. But there is still struggle, we are going to hear the worst of it in the latter half of this chapter in a couple weeks. But this struggle is present within us because we live in the time between the new covenants. All that stuff about the old covenant is true but so is all the stuff about the new covenant and it is sandwiched inside us. That is why many theologians and commentators in looking at the big picture of God’s story have described the time of these two covenants as two different ages. And we could say a lot about that but the main reason why I even briefly bring it up is so that we will know that we, as Christians, can find ourselves in both verse 5 and verse 6. There is an inherent imperative in Paul’s voice telling us not to live in verse 5 but to live in verse 6.

Okay, enough set-up. Four evidences inside us from changing and entering into the new covenant of Christ: the flesh, our passion, the work of the law, and our fruit…flesh, passion, law, and fruit. These are super practical.

First flesh, if you have an NIV translation, it says “sinful nature” which sucks because the NIV is interpreting there for you instead of translating. Which is why you really should get a different translation, so you can read the actual words God inspired. so flesh, it can be bones and skin like you see on all those myspace ads every time you sign out or like you see when you are alone with your wife. We’ll talk a ton about flesh once we get to chapter 8 in Romans. But here is a brief explanation.

In Romans flesh is the whole person, physical and spiritual that is tied to this world with its sin and corruption. Flesh is a power that exercises control over people. It is part of the old age of the old covenant that attempts to wield influence over the Christian and completely dominates the non-Christian.

It is interesting because all these Bible commentators have all these things to say about what flesh is. But of the 15 or so that I read, the best by far was John Calvin. I know I quote him a lot here, but it is amazing to me that with all the knowledge of scholars and what not these days that the exegetical work someone who lived around 500 years ago is consistently so superior. So here is what Calvin says, he says it is the dominion where the “ears are struck with (an) external sound (but there is) no fruit or effect because of (being) inwardly destitute of the Spirit of God.” it is “power…no other than the power of casting evil emotions as darts into all the faculties of the soul.”

Such picturesque description and an acutely accurate explanation. The flesh is a dominion where we operate with no ability to find any true soul satisfaction but only self-destruct in vain attempts because we are disconnected from God. In that state we are utterly numb to any sounds of the grace and love of God. For you mini-theologians out there it is what it means to be unregenerate, yet unchanged by God.

And Paul’s description here gets increasingly painful…calling this flesh domination one of “sinful passions.” Passion. James Montgomery Boice gives us a good definition of passion. He says it is “natural appetites, impulses or emotions, that can be enacted for good or for bad.” So passion is that which is receptive to what we experience. It is how we feel about things and greatly effects how we think about things. It is what Jonathan Edwards describes in “Religious Affections” when he speaks about us always acting according to our greatest desire. And Calvin, again, amazes us and calls it “the boiling up of lust.” I get this funny picture in my head of one of those big black bowls with the witch stirring up her evil stew with a broomstick. But that is probably not that far off.

Sometimes my passions seem utterly uncontrollable, like they act on their own without me. In the worst moments they are most evident when we are consumed with anger and rage against a person or when our sexual natures rule and will do whatever they must to be satisfied. It is the rapist and the murderer inside us. Our “sinful passions.” Passion gone bad. Totally corrupt.

And notice in Boice’s definition, it isn’t the actions that we take out of passion but passion is the potential itself. He says, passion can be “enacted for good or bad.” So passion is like this receptor, or this can of gasoline that at the slightest spark can be ignited into an unholy flame of desire.

Then notice the next lines…how the Bible is ingeniously written to prick our hearts, “sinful passions aroused by the law.” “Aroused” is a good translation here. You don’t have to stretch your imagination very far when the Bible uses words like passion aroused at work in our members. I’m pretty sure that sexual imagery was not far from Paul’s mind. Especially, when the sanctity of marriage was pissed on in his day by temples built to sex goddesses who would have professional prostitutes who worked there available for an orgy whenever you wanted it. Not too far off from where we are today, with our strip clubs and our general acceptance of people living together before they get married to see if they are sexually and familialy compatible.

But how does this work? Because it says that “our sinful passions are aroused by the law.” How does law stir up sinful passion? I think this is that ancient story of the garden of Eden, that continually replays itself out in each and every individual’s life. So I think it is like this… The essence of sin is self-deification…my desire to want to be my own god. I don’t like to be told what to do. That is why one of the ways the Bible defines sin is knowing the good you ought to do and not doing it (Js 4:19). Another way it defines is breaking God’s law, what God tells you to do. And there is something in us that just does not want to do what we are told to do.

Like in the garden of Eden when Adam and Eve are told they can eat of all the trees except one, I’m sure there was nothing special about the tree. There were probably thousands of other trees, but just because there was this one they were not supposed to eat, they had to eat it. It’s like a kid, when you tell them not to do something, they just have to do it to see what happens. Curiosity is far too nice of a word…sinful passion. It is rebellion, where we hate God and submission and prefer our own wisdom to the wisdom of the almighty God and we break and hate His law by nature.

Lastly is “bearing fruit for death.” This is a personification of death in all its dimensions…physical, spiritual, mental. There is a sense of death here being the great culmination at the end of our lives and until that point we die a slow death where our capacities are slowly eaten away…dying spiritually and becoming increasingly miserable, our minds dying, not being able to think straight about things, and at the end our physical bodies breaking down and our soul going on to forever be tortured in a dark depressing experience of death. That is what the life of the old age, the old covenant is: living in the flesh, with sinful passion, being aroused by the law…death.

But Jesus changes things…everything. So let’s look at how those four elements or evidences inside ourselves change in verse six when we convert and our lives intersect with the person and work of Jesus Christ. But now…such good words after that dark description. But now, it doesn’t have to be that way. But now, “we are released from the law.” That was last week…how we all marry the law but Jesus died for us and by uniting to him our marriage to the law dies and frees us to marry Him.

Last week there was one part of our verse I didn’t talk about and that was the very last thing it said and that was the phrase, “in order that we may bear fruit for God.” So here is where that fits…in verse six of being released from the law. It is the corresponding part to bearing fruit for death…now after Jesus we have an ability to bear fruit for God. And bearing fruit for God is one of the best things about being a Christian. Its where you naturally want to do the things that please God because you love him so much and the fruit part is that the joy we receive when that happens. It doesn’t happen all the time and sometimes you have to work hard for fruit…but it happens.

Its this beautiful metaphor of a tree. If we hadn’t spent so much time away from Romans last month, I’d stop here and preach a whole sermon on bearing fruit from Psalm 1. But we need to keep moving on, so I’ll just read part of Psalm 1 for you. “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners nor sits in the seat of scoffers but his delight is in the law of the LORD and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither in all that he does, he prospers.”

You see, what changes is the passion, the delight. Law becomes not a command or something that you perform or appease but what God says becomes a delight. That is why John Piper in the book the girls were studying, Desiring God, that is why he says, “Conversion is what happens to the heart when Christ becomes for us a treasure chest of holy joy. Saving faith is the heartfelt conviction that Christ is both solidly reliable and supremely desirable. The newness of a Christian convert is a new spiritual taste for the glory of Christ.” Bearing fruit for God is joy and it is a storing of eternal treasure, eternal fruit that has a neverending effect.

Lastly let’s look at the last part of our verse, “so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” So he brings back the slave, master, analogy and further describes the change from duty to delight. Now we serve in a different way. Out of love and appreciation and devotion…like in a marriage. We enter the new covenant, God gives us the Holy Spirit, writes his law on our heart…and serving him is no longer a burden but a blessing.

Oh, how we need to get ahold of that. The new life of the Spirit guarantees that our serving will pay off in joy. I hate Christianity that is guilt driven…where you try and appease your conscience by spiritually performing for God. Jesus died and performed everything for us…so now we can simply walk through life with him and know that we will be okay. Yes, there is a place for responsibility and commitment. But it is no longer a required responsibility and commitment it is a desired one because we know that is what will make us most happy.

In the next couple weeks Romans is going to go in depth talking about law and its role in the life of the believer and this tension that exists inside of us in being between two ages, two covenants…so I’m just going to conclude our working with the text here by saying, the new life is far better, so much more freeing, where you discover that Jesus is what you need and what pleases you. The old way just ruins us.

Conclusion

So let’s conclude our sermon with some application. I’m sure there are some things that may have already come to some of your minds. This chapter of Romans is deep psychology. Psychology is always this popular major in college…looking into trying to figure out how the human mind and heart works. Here it is. This is some of the best psychology you will ever get, Romans 7. I’m not saying don’t be a psych major. J Just that the Bible here has a lot very insightful things to say about our passion, why we do what we do, law, and how that can change, and when it does the conflict we encounter inside us.

But let me try and provide us with some application. First, conversion. There is such a thing. If you know that you have never made that deep life turn to devote yourself to Christ. I plead with you, do that. It will be the most significant and important thing that ever happens to you. For those who know that has taken place. Ponder that, never wander to far away from the cross. That’s one of the reasons why we take communion every week here. So that our story would always be about the climax of all of history at the cross. Cherish Christ. Love Him. Receive his marvelous grace.

Second, covenant. The new age has begun. But the old age and power still linger about. Live in the new covenant of Christ’s blood. That means Jesus is everything. Jesus is life is the foundation for our lives and his death is the end of our lives and everything that sucks about them. Jesus rose again and secured for us something new. And it is far better.

Three, how that plays out…living in verse 6 instead of verse 5. Let’s bear fruit for God and enjoy doing so. Don’t slip into coming to church and reading your Bible and befriending non-Christians and giving your money and praying to God…don’t slip into doing those things because “that is what you are supposed to do.” No, no, no, no. Know that God loves you despite your flesh filled, sinful passion, law hating nature and that is why he gave you Christ so that things can change. There is in inexhaustible portion of joy for us to be had by following after Christ. All those things, church, the Bible, friendships, prayer…are all good things but they can become death to us if happiness from our heart is not the motive behind them.

Let’s just take church for example, which is just one aspect of a life of worship… I don’t want anyone here who doesn’t want to be here. I don’t want to make people do something that they don’t want to do. I don’t pastor anyone here because it is my duty. Just the same as my marriage, I don’t care for my wife because it is my duty. I love my wife and I love this church. What we need is to see what an awesome privilege it is to partake in the glory of God and to be able to partake without any feelings of guilt and forced labor. That stuff is the old covenant. Now Christ has come and all things have changed.

Lastly, kids… We may talk about some things that are hard to understand here at church. But there is something simply behind every sermon, and that is Jesus. Today’s sermon is about how the Bible tells us that everybody always needs Jesus or they will never be happy. Because of Jesus your life can be like a tree with all kinds of good fruit that will last forever. So when you mom or your dad or when Jesus tells you to do something, don’t do it because you are afraid of disappointing them but instead do it because you love them so much. And that love, is God’s gift to you of His Spirit.

Let’s pray.

God we love you. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for the new covenant. Thank you for the Holy Spirit. Thank you for releasing us from the dark power of the law. Thank you for giving us joyful passion in exchange for sinful passion. Thank you for enabling us to bear fruit for your glory instead of fruit of our death. Thank you Jesus for dying on the cross and rising again. What happened in history when you did that changes my life. Continue to change me and change these people here today I pray. We continually need the new freshness of your Spirit to come into our lives and shows us the wonder of the gospel again and again. As we come to the table, may we see the greatness of the cross receive your grace into our hearts. Jesus, pastor your people. Take out the heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Write your love on their hearts. Fill them with a passion for your glory. Fill them with a passion to build and to grow your church. A passion to love this city, the people in it who have been rejected by the church and the people who think they are better than everyone else. Give us friendships that are meaningful for your kingdom. May the gifts of our money be used wisely to sustain and progress your kingdom. Thank you for the Bible and the gospel. Christ, we adore thee. Amen.

BEARING FRUIT - PART II

Sunday, February 4, 2007

duane matthew smets
(pastor/overseer/evangelist)

“Bearing Fruit for God”

introduction

On Monday morning I spent a good four or five hours studying the verses that come after verse 6 to the end of this chapter. I was looking at the Greek text, asking a bunch of questions, trying to figure out how many sermons we would take to tackle it…and the whole day I had this really unsettling feeling about it. But I didn’t know why.

On Tuesday morning I woke up and I was taking a shower and I was praying while in the shower and getting mentally prepared for a day of study and meetings with people and all of a sudden I realized what was bothering me. And it is something I said last week in my sermon. I said, “if we hadn’t taken so much time away from Romans during Christmas and all that I would probably stop here and preach a sermon on bearing fruit. But we need to keep moving.” And all I really did to address this bearing fruit issue is to read Psalm 1. That was really stupid.

There is no goal or prize for us finishing our study of the book of Romans sooner rather than later. We are not in a hurry or a race but instead are attempting to with the utmost integrity deal with the words that are here. It is wrong for us to just pass over parts of the Bible because we want to keep moving. I’ve always been this really impatient person… When I was little I could wait until I was old enough to ride a bike, then I could wait until I was old enough to have a girlfriend, then I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to drive, then I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to drink, then I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to get married, and now I can’t wait until I am old enough to have a kid. J I always seem to want to be older. Like there is some hurry to life. I don’t know how much else is left. I’m not quite to the stage where I can’t wait to get all old and grey…although it would be really cool to be all wise like old people are. J

So today I am preaching on bearing fruit because I am a sinful pastor and did not rightly handle God’s word last week. Let’s look at Romans 7:4-6. The two phrases I am concerned with today is the phrase at the end of verse 4 and the phrase at the end of verse 5. In verse 4, it says that Jesus died on the cross and rose again so that, “we may bear fruit for God.” So I guess that is kind of important huh, if Jesus died for it and all? Then In verse 5, we get a contrast, the opposite of that, where instead of bearing fruit for God we “bear fruit for death.”

I. We are Trees

First, let’s talk a little bit about trees. At my grandma’s house in Canada she has this big, framed, professional drawing of a tree and it has all these different names on it that show though relational connections of our family…I think at the top it says, “our family tree.”

I don’t know if any of your families have anything like that but whether you do or not we all have a family that we have come from. You may not like them or get along with them or you may be the only one left…or you may love your family and they are very dear to you. Either way we all a family. Fathers and mothers and grandparents and great grandparents and so on. And the thing is you can’t change who your family is.

We seem to hate things that we can’t change. But you can’t change who your family is and your family has a lot to do with who you are and who you become whether you like it or not. Whether it is the color of your skin, or the country you are from, or the language that you speak, or how tall or how short you are…or even sometimes the sins that you are born into that you have proclivities (whether they be spritual or physical) toward things like alcoholism, or obesity, or sexual promiscuity or racism or homosexuality or even things like perfectionism, materialism, or fits of rage-ism. We all have our blots.

So first, knowing that we are part of a family tree is important. This treeness thing, really is a big deal. It is one of the main metaphors that the Bible gives of what our life is like and trees are really important throughout the whole Bible.

In the very beginning of time, the Bible starts off with a tree. Genesis 2:9 says, “Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Physical and Spritiual things caught up with trees as something vital to life. When God appears to Abraham it is by an oak tree (Gen 18:1), and then later on in his life he meets God again and Abraham plants a tamarask tree (Gen 21:33). Saul, the first king of Israel is discovered under a pomegranate tree (1 Sam 22:6) and then is buried under a tamarask tree (1 Sam 31:13). Elijah, the great prophet in the Bible despairs of life and God comes to him while under a juniper tree (1 Ki 19:5). David, the greatest king of Israels talks about being like an olive tree who trusts in God (Ps 52:8), or being righteous like a flourishing palm tree (Ps 92:12), or being strong like a cedar from Lebanon (Ps 92:12), or being careful with your tongue not to spit out coals like the broom tree does (Ps120:4). Solomon, David’s son uses almond trees, fig trees, and apple trees in his descriptions of love and wisdom. Jesus comes on the scene, calls a disciple who is sitting under a tree, preaches a sermon about being a good tree and bearing good fruit, says all we need is faith like the seed of mustard tree and then we can uproot mulberry trees (Lk17:6). Jesus makes friends with a theif who was spying on him from up in a sycamore tree (Lk 19:4) and then ends up getting hung on a tree shaped into a cross. And then in the end, the last book of the Bible, Revelation, ends with all those tree who have Jesus as their root returning to the tree of life to drink and to dine with increasing joy (Rev 22:14,16).

So trees are kind of a big deal in the Bible. Whether we look at our personal family trees, that’s what those long list of names you sometimes come across when reading the Bible…they are family trees or geneologies. Or whether we look at the story of God in the Bible from the first tree in the garden of Eden until the last in the garden of Heaven. Trees are important. Especially when it comes to our own individual tree and whether or not we are a Psalm 1 type of tree…one that is planted by streams of water and bears fruit in due season.

II. We Bear Fruit

Here is the thing…we all bear fruit. We all bear fruit, it is just a question of whether we bear good fruit or bad fruit. Like in our passage from Romans, whether we bear fruit for death or whether we bear fruit for God.

Listen to Jesus words in Luke 6, “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks (Lk. 6:43-45).” And like every parable, the stinging part you get at the end is that everyone of us have spoken evil with our mouths, whether gossip, or lies, or hurtful things said to others…and so Jesus cuts us with his words telling us we need a new heart so that we can treasure him and begin to bear good fruit.

Notice the assumption that we all bear fruit. So the question is what kind of fruit that we bring forth? And the scary part is bearing fruit for death. Let’s go back to Romans 7 and look at how that happens…verse 5, “while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.” Let’s go backwards through this. We bear fruit for death when we live according a law, that arouses our sinful passions that are part of a flesh way of viewing this world. That’s what we learned last week, that flesh means the way of the world in all its corruption that plays itself out in our physical bodies and spiritual lives.

Here is the tension I think. Two points of tension. One, because we can bear fruit for God and have life and joy or we can bear fruit for death and thus experience eternal pain and destruction…I think it is a quick step to where we automatically begin to think that we earn our salvation and that Chrisitianity is really no different than any other religion…it just has a different set of rules to follow if you want it’s fruit. So that is one point of tension I think.

The other point of tension is with the issue of the past. Because we are part of a family history, and not even just a physical family history, but a spiritual family history like we learned in Romans of us all ultimately being connected to Adam, the first man who sinned at that tree in the garden of Eden. We have all inherited sinfulness, it is our natural disposition as humans. Our natural fruit is bad showing that our natural treasure is evil. That is our inclination, our proclivity, our nature…whatever you want to call it…it’s not good, it’s evil. And here is the tension, it goes like this: because our past, our history, our family is this way…then we will turn out that same way. Whether it be because of genetics, social construction, psychological birthright…whatever. It is the idea that there is no chance of change.

Notice earlier I said that our family tree is very important and that you can’t change who your family is. That’s true. But what I didn’t say is that you cannot change who you become. I said family has a lot to do with who you are and who you become but not that it is the only thing that will determine you. I didn’t say change wasn’t possible. Why?

Here is the answer, verse 4 of Romans 7, we “died to the law through the body of Christ, so that (we) may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.” Did you hear it? Do you see it? Bearing fruit for God is possible because Jesus died and rose again. That changes things big time.

I’ve come a long way in regards to psychology, it and sociology really…I used to hate them both. Now I can see the merit in those studies. It is good to know where we have come from and the things that have contributed to who we are. But the thing that bugs me about both those disciplines is that there is no hope in them. They usually say you are this way because of this, super matter of fact, and you are not morally responsible in any way, we are all just victims, and now we are just stuck because of it and should either see a counselor for the rest of our life or just hook up with a good psychiatrist and get some good drugs and get high for the rest of our lives to deal with the pain. Sorry. That gospel sucks.

Listen to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Unite to him…marry Jesus. He died and so in uniting to him all the stuff that is bad from the past that wields power and control and influence over you to make things bad for you…all that stuff it dies. In uniting to him it gets nailed to his cross and since Jesus rose, you rise too, in new life, with a new heart and bearing good fruit for God becomes possible. That’s a good gospel.

And because it is Jesus doing the work I think that is what saves us from the tension of thinking that the bearing fruit deal is a works issue of us doing things to earn our salvation. We are not following some rules religion with that gospel we are following a person, Jesus. And we don’t do anything but he does it all. So our joy comes when we stop doing and start living in that new life of the Spirit where he is always active and leading us through things like prayer in the shower and wrestling with the Word of God. J

III. We are for God

I pray that helps. Jesus is amazing and if we could just catch a glimpse of how amazing he is it is enough to carry us for weeks and months on end. That is what we need as his followers…to see his glory over and over again. To see and to savor Christ…

I think there is something else that may help us in that. Roman numeral III, “We are for God.” It is really important and can easily just be passed over. Notice the end of verse four that it doesn’t say, “bear fruit for life” but instead says, “bear fruit for God.” The counter part at the end of verse five is “bear fruit for death,” so you would expect verse four to say “bear fruit for life.” But it doesn’t say that, it says, “bear fruit for God.”

So what is up here? What is going on? Two things: one, I think this is another thing that protects Paul, our author here, to slip into a works religion. Yes, our work earns us death. Our bad fruit and bad tree and evil treasure surely earns and deserves to be burned up forever and ever. There is no question about that…if that doesn’t happen then God or whoever else any justice comes from is not a good God. But since the counter part is “bear fruit for God” I think Paul has something different in mind than earning eternal life. I don’t think he was schitzophrenic and would go back on everything else he has already said in Romans about no one, not one, ever being able to be righteous enough to earn eternal life (Rom 3:10-18).”

So here is what I think is up with this phrase, “bear fruit for God.” I think the fruit is our joy. Listen to Jesus, I think he unlocks it for us. Apparently Jesus hadn’t eaten for awhile and the discples come to him saying,
“Rabbi, eat. But he said to them I have food to eat that you do not know about. So the disciples said to one another, ‘has anyone brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say there are yet four month, then comes the harvest? Look I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for the harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that which you did not labor. Others have labored and you have entered their labor (Jn. 4:31-38)’”
The key phrase in that passage is, “the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together.” The key word there is “rejoice.” Who is the sower in this story Jesus told? It is him, Jesus himself is the sower, the work is his. Who are we in the story? We are the ones reaping…the ones who go around and gather up all the fruit Jesus has brought forth. So how does it work? It works like this…God does the work and we get the joy. So bearing fruit for God is being happy in God. Delighting in his work. Gathering up all the joy that he has labored for. I love it. Such an awesome picture.

And there is a greater theological isssue here. Theological. Every time I say that word I kind of sense everyone cringe like I just said something really dirty and gross. Get it out of your heads. Big words are awesome. Theology is awesome. So here is the theological issue. God delights in himself above all things. So the only way we can ever have joy or delight is if we delight in him. He is the source of all joy.

This is opposite of how we think. If I told you, “Okay look…everybody delight in me. I am the best thing that has ever existed. No one is cooler than me and you should all adore me because I am awesome and you will get a lot of joy out of just being around me. So you should do that.” If me or anyone else said that what is our automatic response? “Self-centered bastard!” Right? Why? Because we know that it is not true. We know that no human being is that great.

No here is the theology part…so think hard. If you are the greatest being ever then the most right thing for you to do is to command everyone to worship you. If the only way anyone would every find any true joy or lasting peace is for them to make a big fuss about you all the time, then it would be wrong, you would be robbing people if you did not tell them to worship you and find their joy in you. Do you get it? Oh, how I hope you do. I think that is what bearing fruit for God is. Making much of Him. Pursuing his glory with all our might because that is our greatest joy in this life and in the life to come.

IV. We Must Fight for Fruit

Okay, last point, “We Must Fight for Fruit.” This is the face of reality. I’ve seen it so many times, where that glimpse of the glory of Christ is opened up to someone and they begin following Christ, or start following him again after a period of not, and when that glimpse happens…there is initial excitement and joy and everything is great and wonderful. You begin to experience the newness of the Spirit versus the old letter of the law and there is great freedom and freshness to your faith. But then time settles in. Whether it is a few weeks or a few months or even a few years later and you find out what you are really made of. If that was really anything at all.

Paul is going to go deep into this experience in the latter half of Romans 7 but I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. I need something to preach on when we get there. J So what I want to do is go to Galatians. Galatians, like Romans is another book written by Paul. He trumpets many of the same things in it, like in chapter 2 he says straight out, “a person is not justified (that’s made right or just before God to receive eternal life) by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ (Gal 2:16).” Then Paul comes toward the end of his letter to the church in Galatia, hence Galatians, and he picks us the tree and fruit analogy along with the discussion of the flesh and the spirit that we have been learning about in Romans.

And in chapter 5, verse 16, he says this to Christians, “the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do (Gal 5:16).” So that is what we talked about last week about being in the new covenant now in the new life of the Spriit but the old covenant of the law and of the flesh still being around causing internal struggle and turmoil. And if none of that makes sense, that’s okay, it’s a lot.

Here is what we need to get. There can and will be struggle as a Christian. You will not always be happy. That is what this passage from Galatians says…that there is an internal spiritual struggle inside every person who makes a resolve to follow Christ. Thus, we will not always be happy. But we must not give up pursuing the fruit of joy, when we are not happy. Listen to what Paul says in the last chapter of Galatians, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows that will he also reap. For the one who sows ot his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will form the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not become weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up (Gal 6:7-9).” My summary, WE MUST FIGHT FOR JOY. We must not give up. We must fight and fight and fight for eternal joy.

This is what I usually see in myself and in your lives. When we are not happy…when we are not doing good spiritually. The first thing that happens is we quit pursuing joy in God because it is not giving us the immediate satisfaction that we want. Whether it is praying or reading the Bible or going to church or being involved with his people…Those things one by one start getting clipped away. So that is the first thing. Stuff gets hard and we start quitting. Second thing, then we start looking for joy in other people or things. Whether it is cheap sex, fake love, liquor stores, dirty coke, staying late at work, a credit card shopping spree, or looking at stupid videos on UTUBE for an hour instead of working on my sermon. It doesn’t work. And we are left way off, farther then we ever intended to be. And Jesus. He just gets lost in it all.

This is what I know. Life with Christ and His church is the hardest thing ever. Talking about your own personal spirituality. That’s hard. I don’t even know or understand what is going on in me half the time. Usually I can look back after time and sort of see some things and figure it out and it makes sense. But in the moment? I don’t know. And you want to talk about church? That’s crazy. It’s easy to rally people to a one time event. But every week. Week after week. And then trying to build a church that not all just about Sunday morning but actually sees each other during the week and really loves each other and serves one another. That’s intense.

Here is what drives me and I pray that we catch a hold of. The glory of God. The truth of God’s Word and his gospel pierces us to the deepest place of who we are. This stuff I’m preaching on today is real about our experience and being trees and fighting for fruit and pursuing joy in God. That is all real. But none of that is what drives me. Sure, I don’t want this church to fail because I don’t know if I could ever go to church anywhere else again because I love this so much. And sure, I want to be happy and I believe that is in God. But those are not the things that drive me…what drives me is the glory of God.

I am entranced with this being. The immensness of our God and his exceeding wonder grabs hold of me and I will never be satisfied with enough of it. I want more. I want to see more glory. The one and only true God who dwells in inapproachable light. The one from whom all power and wisdom and goodness just emanate out of his being. Yahweh, the great I AM who fashioned the universe with a whisper of His lips.

His son Jesus Christ and His Kingdom is unlike anything I have ever witnessed. I want to see Christ seated upon his throne. I want to see His Kingdom expand. The world is not like him. People are not like Him. He is better, Christ is better than all that I can ever lay my thoughts upon. He is the sum of every perfect quality. I want to find myself lost in the cross over and over and over again because it is my favorite place to be.

The Spirit of God is the softest and the sweetest thing I have ever felt. His compassion astounds me. The way I see him work, arcing across history and time and reaching down in specific moments and filling peoples bones with comfort. The way he ministers in the darkest and hardest of situations. The way God’s spirit comes like a wind and rushes in and fills me with strength and confidence and excitement. It is something no human energy can emulate.

I long to see the glory of God. I long to have others see it too and I am on a mission to build and to grow up a church that pursues the glory of God above all things as our chief treasure and delight. A thousand songs couldn’t contain it. A perfect sermon couldn’t describe it. But the beauty and wonder of the glory of God is above all things and worth all things.

That is the harvest, the fruit we reap, if we do not give up. That is how we fight for joy. We realize it is a fight and then we set our eyes on the prize and we pursue it with all our might.

conclusion

Let’s conclude this sermon. Four points today: we are trees, we bear fruit, we are for God, and we must fight for joy. Somehow I feel like application has been all over this sermon, so you might be far ahead of me and that’s good. Here’s some things you can take:

First, Think of your family tree, what you have come from. Your family, your history or heritage…your roots. Think about what things from that are good, that you want to continue and cherish and pass on. Then think of the things that are not good that you do not want to carry on and continue and make a determination for things to change in your family beginning with you. And how do you do that? Embrace Christ. He is the only way that real, deep heart change, is going to take place.

Second, Think of your life as tree. You are a spiritual tree that will bear fruit. What kind of fruit will you bear? Don’t bear the fruit of death. Continuing in a life apart from God, apart from trusting wholly in Christ, will leave you dead and dry. Think of what kind of tree you want to be, what kind of character you will form, what kind of legacy you will leave. We’ve got to begin to start thinking long term. Realizing that we are a person who is becoming and then taking care of what kind of person we become. Be a tree that bears spiritual fruit rather than rotten growth. You will bear fruit either way and it will either be good or bad. Make it good. Look for friendships that will help you do that, look for a partner in life who will help you do that, if you are married use your mate to help you do that, if you have kids, use them to help you do that. Just bear good fruit, think eternally about your life.

Third, when you bear fruit…bear it with a God-centeredness, bear fruit with God being the end in mind. That is the deal. The way to bear fruit spiritually is by making much of God in your life, not the other way around. God is not something you use to serve yourself along with everything else we use to make much of ourselves. No, we realize that He is the end of all things. He is what we have in view when we strive to bear fruit. And when we make much of Him, then that is how we are satisfied.

I was talking about this with our leaders the other night at our leaders meeting and I said that this is the difference between not being guilt driven or grace abused driven but instead glory driven. In a guilt driven life you serve God out of a fear of disappointing him or other people. In a grace abused life you serve God only when you feel like it or when it is comfortable because you know He has grace for you. Both of those ways are bad. Instead we need to be glory driven, where God is the end and the goal of all things. Where our desire and passion and wonder of His very being and the way He does thing is the thing that drives us. Where we see it as a great privilege to live for and serve him.

Let me give you a practical way of how this plays out. Let’s talk about church because it is the most readily available illustration for us to see. There are a lot of things that go on here on Sunday morning. A lot of ways to serve and to be a part of things. There are also a few things during the week that happen. And there are all the things that haven’t even begun to happen that could. Now if it is just one event or one week that is easy. But church isn’t like that. It is week after week. It’s a lifestyle. That’s a lot harder. And so you can either slip into being guilt driven…where you serve people and God out of a fear of disappointment (that serving law by the way). Or you slip into being grace abused driven…where you don’t really contribute or if you do it is sort of half-hazard, and you serve only when you are feeling good or when you need a quick spiritual fix.

Both of those things suck. I want this church to grow but I want to grow and build in love as I preached on the first Sunday of this year. And the way that happens is by being glory driven. Where God and the gospel are a treasure and a delight and we pursue that with all our might week after week and we see it as being a great privilege to be an intricate part of His church. He doesn’t need us. But He knows that what makes us most happy is Him and pursuing His glory as the end of all things. And I’m not saying these things just because I am a pastor and I’m trying to get you guys to perform. Honestly, I’m saying it because I truly believe that being part of God’s mission in the church for His glory is a huge part of what a satisfied life looks like. I don’t think we can feel complete or whole or happy in Christ unless we are using are giftings or trying to discover them without being actively involved in His church.

Okay, last point of application on fighting for fruit. A simple application, make the hard decisions. Just do it. There is struggle and that is real and there are those moments when you decide what you will do. I’ve been trying to eat better and try and get back the six pack I had when I got married almost 6 years ago and the other night Nate Whitsell here challenged me, I don’t know what we bet, but to see who could get one first. And my problem is in that split second moment when I want a hamburger and fries so bad. I don’t want a stupid salad. And that is a hard hard decision. J

But there are spiritual decisions like that. The decision to set your alarm a little earlier so you can get up and read the Bible and pray. The decision to go ahead and come to church when it is the last thing you feel like doing. The decision to go to a mid-week bible study group when the last thing you feel like doing is talking about how you are doing spiritually. The decision to talk to or hang out with who you really don’t like or is a lot difffernt than you. The decision to pray with someone who is hurting when suggesting prayer and doing it feels so awkward and weird. The decision not to date someone who you know is not going to be good for you. The decision not to have another beer because that might be the one that puts you over the edge. There are all kinds of split moment spiritual decisions and we must fight for fruit knowing that in the end…we will reap. Maybe not the moment after that decision is made but we will reap.

Lastly, for the kids or the kids at heart if all this stuff sounds just too complicated. This is for you. Trees are beautiful things that God has created. And like a tree you are a beautiful thing God has created. And he has made you to bear fruit like a tree and bearing fruit for Him is what makes you the most happy. So bear fruit for God. And the way you do that is by making decisions that you know will make Him happy. By loving Jesus and by loving His church.

Let’s pray.

God you are glorious beyond all our conceptions. You are the author of all life…every tree we have ever laid eyes on. And just as many trees that you have made grow in all their different kinds you have made all different kinds of people…and it is a beautiful thing. Thank you for the cross. The tree of all trees that was cut down and fashioned in order for your Son to hang on it and die so that we might come to know your glory and be fruit bearing trees. Thank you for enabling us to be fruit bearing vessels. There is so much joy in bearing fruit for you God. It is a joy and a privilegee to see you and your glory. As we come to the table to partake of your body and blood in the form of bread and wine, would you minister to us I pray. Pour out your Spirit upon us. We are trees that need a lot of watering…and there is nothing like your tender loving care. Christ you are most magnificent. We worship you. Amen.
BEARING FRUIT - PART III

Sunday, February 11, 2007

duane matthew smets
(pastor/overseer/evangelist)

“Bearing Gospel Fruit”

introduction

Good morning everyone. We are in Romans chapter 7 this morning and no that is not a mistake verses 4-6 are the verses again for this morning for the fourth week in a row. I kind of feel like the high school girl tease when I keep telling you there are other verses in Romans coming up…but we’ll get there I promise.

So here is what is going on. I got to have lunch this week with Mark Driscoll and then I listened to a sermon online that he preached on mission and I kind of got stirred up. I noticed that in the last few weeks in our working with this text we missed something. And we can’t have that…so here is sermon number 4 on Romans 7:4-6. Here is what we missed…bearing gospel fruit. In the last few weeks we have talked about a lot of thinks…but all of them have been primarily inward, personal spirituality type things. And there is something here about the outward mission. Let me show you.

Last week we learned that we are all trees, we have a spiritual family heritage that we will either take from and carry certain things on and/or discontinue some other things that were bad. We learned that as trees, we all bear fruit whether it is good or bad but bearing bad fruit leads to death and so it is better to bear good fruit and know Jesus and be happy. And then we learned that we must fight for fruit. That there is an internal spiritual struggle in the Christian and that you must wrestle against your flesh as a Christian if you are serious about being happy and knowing God. But notice all of those things are primarily internal personal things. There is something more.

There is mission and you hear it in the air of hope in these words. There is this underlying message that says this is to be spread because it is so good. We are no longer stuck bearing bad fruit, and no longer bound by the law…but through Jesus there is the new life in His Spirit which gives us freedom and passion and heaven. The underlying message is, “people need to know this.”

Paul said at the beginning of Romans that he longed to, listen, “reap some harvest among you…I am eager to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome (Rom 1:13,15).” So what do you reap when you harvest? Well maybe grain or maybe fruit? Sound familiar? And what is fruit there in that passage from the beginning of Romans (re-read it)? It is people. It is souls. Fruit is people who respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ and become Christians.

So that is what the sermon is on today…”Bearing gospel fruit.” And we are there are three aspects to bearing gospel fruit we are going to look at today: contending for the gospel, contextualizing the gospel, and being changed by the gospel. Now, I didn’t come up with them. My outline today is a complete rip-off from Mark Driscoll’s sermon, so thank you Mark. I think that is the first time I’ve ever done that because always think I can do everything better than everyone else…but this is a good outline as it hits on some key things we need to hear.

Contending for the Gospel

What is the gospel? Gospel means good news. When Paul began the book of Romans he opened it saying it was about the gospel and this is what he said it was, “The gospel of God…(is what) he promised…concer-
ning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ (Romans 1:1-6).” That is the gospel. The gospel is Jesus, who was a God-man who died and rose again so that you and me might belong to him by grace through faith.

It is the same thing we have in verse 4 that we have been studying of Romans 7. Listen, “You died to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.” So the gospel is that Jesus is real, that he is God, that he lived and died and rose again for our sins so that we might belong to him. To belong to him…Notice that word, “belong.” It’s both here in verse 4 and at the beginning of Romans… “belong to Jesus Christ.” And by belonging to Jesus we escape sin, death and hell. That’s good. That’s good news.

And that is what we are doing in San Diego, we are here to give San Diego the gospel…It is our gift to the city. Because San Diego is a beautiful city but it is a beautiful city full of bad people who need Jesus because he is good, and he loves them, and he died for them, and they don’t know that or believe it.

Let me tell you a little bit about San Diego. Contrary to the opinion of Ron Burgundy, San Diego does not mean the whale’s vagina. But it is a named after Saint Diego, or Didacus of Alcala, who was a Franciscan monk turned saint because he apparently healed paralyzed guy and a guy with a broken arm and then when he died of an abscess his body emitted a pleasant smell from the infection rather than a foul odor. Great story huh? Well here is what happened. The Kumeyaay native Americans used to live here until November of 1602 when a guy named Sebastian Vizcaino arrived on ship named after Saint Diego and held a church service here dedicated to his fame and this place has been called San Diego ever since.

Now San Diego is the 8th largest city in the U.S, over 1.3 million people living here within the city limits and 2.9 million living in the greater San Diego area. We’re a melting pot racially…50% white, 25% Hispanic, and 10% African American, and 15% Asian and other races. We have some of the world’s nicest beaches, parks, and museum. Our whether is perfect 364 days of the year. We have a huge navy, marine, and coast guard military presence. We’ve got the Chargers and the Padres. Four big colleges. Over 900 hundred bars and over 200 strip clubs. 50% of us are married with kids making over $50,000 a year and the other 50% live in Hillcrest because nobody can have kids there. J Just kidding. I love Hillcrest a ton.

So we’re a rich city that likes to watch sports, drink, fight, surf, go to school and then get freaky at the clubs at night and have promiscuous sex later. Good times. And we’re not only the 8th biggest city but we’re the 8th fastest growing city, so I guess that looks like fun to everyone and they all want in on the action. Probably at least half of your moved here huh? Welcome to the party. We’re glad you’re here. Really.

It’s important for us to know our city. I’ll tell you why…cities are important. Cities are strategic to God’s mission of spreading the gospel of Jesus. Here is what He says in Jeremiah 29, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile…build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and prayer to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

Now obviously we are not in exile here in San Diego…but God has placed us here in San Diego intentionally that we might bring good to the city…as Acts 17:26-27 says, “God made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and boundaries of their dwelling place (the cities they live in) that they should seek God in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him.” Cities are important because God places a lot of people there and Jesus weeps for cities like he did Jerusalem and He puts Christians in the cities to spread the news of what He did for them on the cross.

And San Diego is a city that needs Jesus. About only 6% of San Diego are Bible believing Christians. That means there are a lot people left out there who don’t know Jesus. It’s not like all the potential Christians have not been gobbled up in this town. There is vast need for the gospel in our city, there are a ton of people who are not being reached.

People are lost. San Diego is a very spiritual city. Our beautiful sunsets and our exotic animals and our picturesque bays intoxicate us so that from the creation we feel the handiwork of the creator and we think that us just feeling spiritual makes us fine. We think whatever way you want to think is fine and that you don’t really need Jesus unless you but if you are superstitious then fine, get a Jesus bobble head for your car and be on your way.

And so yes, there are things we need to contend for. Christians are ones who eyes have been opened up to something that is beautiful and true and anything that is good people will try and ruin because people are bad. Besides your basic meal of pluralism, San Diego is a hotbed for open theism, new school Gnosticism, and a whole bunch of other isms that will screw with our heads. And so yes, we must protect and contend for the gospel, demolishing arguments and caring about what is really true and not just following whatever sounds nice, because what sounds nice cannot feed the great need of our souls. Yes, there are things that we will not compromise about. Yes, Jesus died and rose again and yes I believe He is our only hope.

But here is the problem…the other reason why San Diego needs this church. Because Christians are jerks. Yes, we’ve got the gospel and yes it is a treasure but some of you or at least some of the people in this city or some churches in this city who bear the name “Christ” take that to mean that they have a black belt in Karate or something and they are ready to fight with any and everyone who comes around.

There was this reality TV show about boxing on for a little while called “The Contender” hosted by Sylvester Stallone from the Rocky movies. I think the show failed because everybody knows now that UFC is way better. But contending for the gospel doesn’t mean we are always picking fights with everyone we come across to prove to them how wrong they are and how right we are. Evangelism isn’t holding a gun to someone’s head and walking them down the aisle until they repent and get saved. It’s not shoving a flyer for church in someone’s hand because they look like they could use it while they are waiting to get inside the club. When you do that it’s like holding a sign in one hand that says “Jesus saves” and a gun in the other with the hammer cocked. Yeah, I hope he saves me from you. (If I were still cussing in my sermons I’d do it here.)

But that’s not the gospel, that’s just law and Jesus died to free us from the law…thinking that you have to earn him by your performance. No, Jesus gives himself freely and kindly and as divine royalty invites us into his court of friendship. He died so that we might belong to him. Not fighting for him but hold firm onto him. That’s contending for the gospel. On one hand it’s knowing what you believe and why and holding firm to it and on the other it’s not being a jerk and picking fights with people thinking that will make them want to become a Christian. We are supposed to love our city not fight with it.

Contextualizing the Gospel

Let’s talk about contextualizing the gospel and to do that we are going to look at 1 Corinthians 9:19-23. You can turn in your Bible’s there and I think once we read it you’ll see the connection to today’s verses in Romans. 19 For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings (1 Corinthians 9:19-23).

First, see the connections: For though I am free…how? Romans 7:5, he was “released from the law.” he got free. And then he relates to different cultural groups, Jews and non-Jews, all people, how? Romans 7:6 by being led through the “new life of the Spirit.” Why does he do this? So that some might be saved or Romans 7:4 “belong to (Jesus).”

Contextualizing the gospel…what does that mean? It means taking the unchanging message, the one that we contend for and hold firm to, the truthful tenants of the faith that have been passed down to us…and then changing the methods that we share that unchanging message depending on the culture that we are trying to reach. (repeat) It means changing the way you present or share the message depending on the context you are in…that is what contextualizing is.

What this is telling us is that we are all missionaries. If I said I was going to go to Croatia and go tell them about Jesus that I would move there to go live, I’d learn the language, I’d learn the customs and traditions, the religions, what food they eat, and I’d learn what they like to do for fun, and then I would take all of those things and use them to talk about Jesus. And all of you would be like duh? You would have to do that.

But what about next door? What about our culture? The one we live in or the one across the street? Don’t we have to contextualize the gospel here too? Not only do a quarter of the people in San Diego only speak Spanish but among the other 75% there are a number of different hybrids of English that you have to know if they were ever going to listen to you talk about Jesus.

The kids I work with never cease to amaze me. I took a few of them to Mission Valley Mall the other day…which is always awesome because I’m this rock-n-roll kid hanging out with three gansters, that’s ganster with an n, and we head straight for the “House a Flava” and they want to show me the grill they have there and see what bling they have in. I’m like sweet. So I start trying on all these jackets that are so big the bottom zipper is half-way past my knees and they’re all like, “you look good dog.” It’s great I love it. But it is a whole different culture, that I really know nothing about.

You see culture is not something bad as a whole it’s just the filter through which the sweet water of the gospel is poured. It’s hard to define exact boundaries of what makes up a culture. But there are different cultural groups that use their own language and have their own identities and need to be introduced to Jesus because almost always what they have heard of him is something really weird.

For example, in OB you are so stoked dude because Jesus is someone you get high with. At the dance clubs downtown or in PB Hesus is the name of the bouncer at the door. Once inside “Jesus!” is something you shout after taking shots at the bar. And at the Casbah Jesus is someone everyone hates because apparently he doesn’t like rock-n-roll. But that’s not the Jesus we’re talking about. That’s not the gospel Jesus.

The disciples of Jesus, the gospel Jesus, understood this that why they wrote four different gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And they all have different cultural groups they were written to. Matthew was written primarily to Jews to prove that Jesus was the promised Messiah. So you have a ton of Hebraisms and quotes from the Old Testament and he traces Jesus family line back to Abraham, the first Jew. Mark is short, sweet, and to the point. It is, Jesus is a man of action where you see the word “immediately” more than anything, and he is healing people and casting out demons and walking on water and calming storm and going here and there all the time. In Luke Jesus is for everyone…especially the outcasts. It’s the longest gospel and in it you see Jesus caring for the rich, poor, Jew, Gentile, prostitute, thief, crooked cop, and straight edge Pharisee. And then there’s John’s gospel, which is really different than the other three. He takes on a whole different approach because he’s really smart and in good with the Greeks and the philosophers so he systematically shows that Jesus is God with 7 main proofs. He starts it off saying that Jesus was the logos, and if you had ever read Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle, who all lived before Jesus…then you would know that the logos was thought of as the divine glue that held the universe together.

The disciples got it. They understood that the gospel had to be contextualized. That why they were able to turn the world upside-down. You see this everywhere. Whether it is TV, where you have 4 or 5 different major networks, CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX. Or whether it’s in food service where you have four different approaches to hamburger: In-n-out, McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy’s. Or take cell phones, you’ve got Cingular, Sprint, T-Mobile, and now Cricket. Different approaches to the same thing. Contextualization. Trying to meet a certain people group or culture with the same thing but in a different way.

That’s why we are all missionaries to this city but it seems we’re having such trouble reaching it. The conservatives love our theology because if you look at our doctrine online or if you even came to a single service they would find that we’re old school Bible reading, Jesus lovin’ Christians that believe in sin, death, & hell and we’re not afraid to say so. But they can’t stand us because we drink beer. We don’t drink beer, we just don’t drink light beer unless it’s Pabst. J

I found out just last week that apparently we have the reputation as being the new emergent church in town. I’ve never talked with one of these pastors but they’re out there warning their people about us like we are some kind of cult because we have someone spinning records before and after service, and because we use candles and because people smoke outside.

But the liberals can’t stand us either. They think we’re cool because we support art benefits and environmental causes and because we don’t get all bent out of shape if people about things like alcohol. But they wish we really wouldn’t talk so much about Jesus and wish we could just be more open and accepting of all ways and not ever talk about things like the wrath and justice of God.

It’s about contextualizing the gospel. We don’t want to take San Diego back for Jesus. We’re not here to fight. We are here to love. Like it says here 1 Corinthians 9:23, “(we) do this for the sake of the gospel, that (we) might share in its blessings.” The gospel is our gift to the city, Jesus is a great blessing. But the gospel must be contextualized according to the various cultures that are here in the melting pot that is San Diego. We must “become all things to all men so that by all possible means (we) might save some (1 Cor 9:22).” Just like Paul, we must be willing to join with culture and identify with the people of those various cultures so that we can most effectively introduce them to the love of Jesus.

Who knows what that looks like? “Becoming all things to all men that by all possible means we might save some (1 Cor 9:22).” What’s that look like for the indie rocker, the underground hip hop kid, the computer techs over at Qualcomm, the suburban family who just bought their first house which is a two bedroom condo costing $400,000. We’ve got to figure it out because tons and tons of people are not being reached and I want to reach as many as possible. That is the beat of my heart. We’re not trying to build the perfect church. There is no such thing. I gave up on that a long time ago. But I do want to bring people to Jesus. And to do that we have to go through the filter of culture.

Now I said that culture is not bad earlier. Culture is amoral. It’s not good or bad…but it expresses itself in different forms. Here is the thing though, not all aspects of culture are compatible with Christian living. Jesus was the king of entering culture. He is God and he came into our world, into the culture of 1st century middle east, and entered into relationships with people. But he did it without participating in sin. So there are three ways things we have to keep in mind about culture: rejecting it, receiving it, and redeeming it.

rejecting aspects of culture

Some things about various cultures must be rejected because they are sinful and destroy lives and make people unhappy and keep them away from Jesus. Things like drunkenness, orgies, and illegal drug use. You know becoming all things to all men does mean we start ministries called “strippers for Jesus” where we send out our girls with Bible verses on their G-string. No, that is stupid. That’s ridiculous. That’s not what Paul is saying. There are simply some expressions of culture that go too far…past the point of gospel pleasure and purpose. Where it is no longer contextualization but becomes fornication and intoxication. And we must simply reject them because of what it will do for us personally in our own spiritual lives and what it will do for the name and reputation of Christ. There are certain things we must be tight fisted about because our morality matters a lot. It matters whether or not you cheat on your wife. And when you look at porn that is what you are doing…inviting someone else into the bedroom. And if you’re like oh, well I’m not married that doesn’t help you because then you’re just having sex with someone who’s not your wife or your husband. That’s not the gospel Jesus. Jesus isn’t some pimp who was good with ladies you know. Jesus is the one who loves us and cares for us and knows what is best for us.

receiving aspects of culture

So there are some things we must reject. But there are aspects of culture that are good. That we should receive. Things like food shelters, and care for the homeless. San Diego has one of the highest homeless populations in the city. And there are some things that people are doing downtown that are good and we should support them. I love Saint Vincent De Paul downtown. If you want something to do sometime, go hang out with the people in line for food and talk to them. Or like the do-good foundation that helped out a few weekends ago to get skateboard for kids who couldn’t afford them. That’s cool. Or what about the environments. With Sea World and the Scripps Institute of Technology San Diego is a mecca of care for the environment. That’s good. We like God’s creation too. On Thursdays and Fridays I work at a group home for abused or abandoned kids. The company isn’t Christian but what they do is good. These are aspects of culture that we can receive and partner with and make meaningful relationship among.

redeeming aspects of culture

Lastly, there are some things about culture that need to be redeemed. They are morally neutral things. Things that can be used for evil but can be redeemed for good. Things like the internet, money, alcohol and sex. Yes people can use the internet to scam people or spread false gospels or to objectify women but the internet can also be used to support one another, to get the gospel out there whether it is through sermons, art, or email. The internet is not bad. Yes people can use money for their cravings of power and greed but money can also be used to take care of your family, to give away and bless people or to support and spread the gospel through Christ’s church. Money is not bad. Yes, people can use alcohol to get drunk and wasted and to try and take away the pain of their problems. But that doesn’t make alcohol bad…just abused. And that can be redeemed. We can drink like Jesus did, who though he was accused of being a drunkard never drank enough to put him over the edge but instead enjoyed it and the people he was with. Yes, people can use sex as something that you with whoever and whenever you feel like it…But we’re not against sex. Sex isn’t bad. We love sex in the marriage relationship of man and woman. You see, our answer to people’s abuses of these aspects of culture is not to reject them out of fear of what they could lead us into but rather to redeem them because of how they may be used for God’s glory in a way that shows people Jesus and demonstrates his love.

Changed by the Gospel

Last point for the day…to be changed by the gospel. Back to Romans 7. Three Sundays ago…my sermon was titled “Jesus Changes Everything.” Jesus died and rose again so that we could bear fruit for God. There is a change from the old, flesh-filled sinful passion, law appeasing way of life to the new covenant where life in God’s spirit makes us free all that so that we really come to hate sin, love Jesus and love people and be continually sanctified by his Holy Spirit.

The Gospel of Jesus changes things and it can change this city. I love this city. The happiest times of my childhood were spent here, I became a Christian here, I met my wife here…I love this city. But it is a sinful city that needs Jesus. It needs to hear who He is and what he has done. That might be you some of you. You may not be a Christian and that is why you’re here to become one. And that’s why we’re here to love you and accept you into the family. Here is the gospel: Jesus loves you and forgives you for all your sin, he bled and died on the cross to cover it and he rose again and is alive today to receive you into His kingdom.

Others of you might think you’re a Christian but you’re not because you know a different Jesus than the one of the gospel and you’re here because you know you need the real Jesus. That’s good. We love you. Sometimes it takes a while to figure things out. That’s okay, we got time. We’re here for you.

Then there are some who Jesus is changing. In our passage, Paul is telling us to live in the new life of the Spirit because the old life of the flesh continues to try and mess us up. Some of you get stuck in this cycle of getting all passionate and determined from meeting Jesus and you’re like, “alright, I’m really going to do it this time” and you go all out and try really hard but you just get tired, lose heart and give up and just go back to doing what you we’re doing before. That’s not good, that’s not the way it’s supposed to be. Being a Christian isn’t about going in spiritual circles. It’s about follow a person day by day. It’s not about doing everything and doing it all perfect. It’s just about following Jesus and letting him lead you.

There is a whole slew of things God want to do in us. Some of us are all about contending for the gospel and we’re always read for a fight. We need to repent of that. It’s good to know what we believe and why and to protect it…but it’s not good to be a jerk. You’re a great contender but you suck at contextualizing.

Some of us are really good at contextualizing the gospel. We know the right clothes to wear and know the right bands to listen to but do you ever talk to anyone about Jesus? It’s good to be in tune with culture and contextualize the gospel…but it’s not good to be more cool than Christian. You need to say something. Yes, I understand that we earn the right to speak…but we do have to speak eventually. Sin is real. Hell is hot. Forever is a long time. You don’t want to go there. And we’ve got to get over being afraid of offending people. There’s a way to tell people about the gospel without being a judgmental jerk.

Some of us really got to adjust our way of thinking about mission. Mission begins with us and we need Jesus to live it and do it right. So that we can drink with out friends without getting drunk and so we can going on dates with people without having sex with them. We need to learn how to reach out without selling out. Mark said this, “It’s a sin to change the message and it’s a sin not to change the method. Some love methods and lose sight of the message, some love the message but won’t let anyone else see it.” We’re on a mission here at The Resolved Church. We’re on a mission to love the city of San Diego by giving Jesus to it by all means possible in order that we might save as many as possible.

conclusion

Let’s conclude. We don’t have it all figured out. But I’m giving my life to this city. I’m trying with all I got to bring the gospel to this place and to glorify my God to cherish my savior. Jesus is everything. He is what it is all about. His gospel is the greatest thing that ever has been. From the time I was a little boy and I would got to these meetings where my Dad was preached and at the end people would walk forward to become a Christian…it would bring tears to my eyes. My heart still beats with that passion. To see souls come to Christ. The world and its cultures change, but Jesus doesn’t. Jesus is glorious beyond all descriptions. And he is what we need.

We are missionaries and we are in this together. To invite people to come on mission with us. Here is my application: Don’t think of this, right here, what is here now on this Sunday, as The Resolved. The Resolved is what isn’t yet. It is all the things that we could do to contend for the gospel and to contextualize in this city as we are being changed together. Dream some dreams. Partner with us and do something with your gifts that count. Get on mission. Reject the things from culture you know will just corrupt you. Receive the things from culture that good and can be used for the kingdom of God. And Redeem the things from culture that are used for evil but can be turned and used for the good of the gospel.

Kids. Love Jesus. Stay close to Jesus always, love him with your whole heart. But don’t be mean to other kids who don’t know Jesus yet. Instead be really nice to them and tell them how much Jesus loves them even though they’re bad. If someone is playing a game you don’t really like to play, go ahead and play it with them because then maybe they’ll see that you care about them and that Jesus cares about them too.

Let’s make a commitment to contend for the gospel and to contextualize the gospel and to always be changed by the gospel. Let’s pray.

Bearing Fruit (3 Parts)

Leave a Comment

Search

Categories

Archives

SERMON AUDIO

THE RESOLVED CHURCH

THEOLOGY RESOURCES

CHURCH RESOURCES