Sharing our faith with others Part 1
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If Someone were to ask you... How can you be in a relationship with a God you can’t see? What would your answer be?
(Talk about it for a few minutes and share)
If you would have asked me this question in the first part of my life I would have answered this question with actions.
• I follow His commands.
• I serve the poor in His name.
• I teach teens to obey his commands.
• I worship
But the honesty is that I lived most of my life working for God but not in a relationship with God.
Now, this may not be you, I will share my story in a moment, but the best illustration I can compare this to is if Jenny and I were in an arranged marriage where we were thrown together without building a life together. In this marriage, I busy myself with things I believe will make her happy. I work long hours to build a house for her. I work to keep that house in the best condition and I keep the yard immaculate. I give her the better car. I make sure she is clothed well.
But I am so busy that we don’t talk about our day. We never have time to date. I have never told her she was pretty. When I am stressed I remind her I do all of this for her.
This is the way I was taught to love God.
I grew up Church of Christ, a restoration movement church. We are part of the restoration movement. The church has grown a lot in my fifty years on this earth, but during my formative years, I was taught Patternism. More about that in a minute.
My parents had a messy divorce and even though their fights would spill out onto us as children, I still remember my dad crying on the day he was told by the courts he had to be out of the house. At nine, not understanding what was going on, I threatened to bludgeon myself with a hammer if he left. He did, I did not, but the next day my aunt told me that if I had committed suicide I would have gone to hell because I was not baptized.
Knowing I did not want to go to hell and my aunt telling me that baptism would prevent that from happening, I was baptized, not understanding the commitment I was making.
I had some great teachers and mentors though who helped me learn the way to follow Jesus, it is called Patternism, though they called it command, example, and necessary inference. They taught me that if I just searched the scriptures for all of the commands that God want me to follow, all the examples like taking communion on the first day of the week, or necessary inference…like Paul telling us to make music in our hearts means we only worship with acapella music. I would be saved, but no one taught me what it means to remain in him.
The problem is this was creating a system that put its salvation, not in Jesus, but much like the Israelites trying to keep the law, it put salvation in one's ability to keep the law.
I was in my mid 20’s teaching teens to follow the pattern when I could not shake two scriptures that were sticking in my brain. The first is from the Psalm. Psalm 63 to be precise.
You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.
I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.
Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.
I remember crying the first time I realized that this was not the kind of relationship I had with God. That what I was about was going through the motions without the true motivation.
The second passage that gave me pause was Jesus condemning words to the Jewish Leaders:
You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me,
yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
“I do not accept glory from human beings,
but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts.
So, in my mid 20’s I realized I did not know what it mean to love God, not like the Psalmist, when he talks about thirsting for God, for knowing that His love is better than life.
Now, I spend my life seeking to love God in a way that I find myself remaining in Him and from this position allowing the outpouring of His love to help me bear fruit.
You may have heard me talk about this seeking God as being with Him. That is the terminology that many who have influenced my thoughts over the last 25 years use, but for consistency here I am going to begin using the language that has been adopted here at Crossway, the idea of remaining or abiding in Christ that Kris introduced last week.
I will ask us to focus on the words of Jesus that we looked at last week in John 15 about what it means to abide or remain in Him because if somehow my words have given you the impression that all you have to do is believe or love Jesus and that is it, then you have not heard me correctly. Let’s briefly look again at John 15
Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
Jesus calls us to remain in Him. I call us back to the marriage illustration I used earlier. Sure, I can give Jenny things. I can fill her life with possessions, but we would not know love. We would not be in a fulfilling relationship. Jesus calls us to remain in Him because He knows that only when we find ourselves in love with our savior will our actions come out of the right motivations. It is only then that we will bear much fruit.
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
Some think this is the Genie in a bottle, but what Jesus is saying here is that when we are in a relationship with each other to the point that I live in you and your words are my words, will you ask The Father for the things that will bring Glory to Him. Those things He will see you bear much fruit in.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
It is not enough simply to love Jesus, our love must find its fulfillment in the outpouring of that love. It is in keeping His commands and it is in loving each other as Jesus loves us. (vs 12.
Our walk as disciples begins in our ability to remain in Christ and allow the outpouring of that relationship to transform us into followers who following Jesus' commands and who love others as Christ loves us.
I hope these moments helped you know me a little better, and understand a little better the balance of remaining in Jesus, but allowing it to pour out into your life to help you bear much fruit.
We are now going to open it up to questions about this section of John 15, the concept of remaining in Christ, and how as disciples we allow the remaining of Christ to outpour into our walk.