Bentley Baptist Church Sermons
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Bentley Baptist Church Sermons
Abide in Christ to Abound in Fruit
John 15.1-8 | Pastor Alex Huggett
© Bentley Baptist Church Inc.
www.bentleybaptist.org
Okay, john 15, verse 1 to 8. I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes and he prunes. Every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit because you can do nothing without me. If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire and they are burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.
Speaker 1:Well, as is clear by now, today is our AGM, which is where we look back on how we've been fruitful, by God's grace, as a church. But I want to spend a few minutes this morning looking forward at where God might be taking us. So first I have a question how do you know someone is truly a Christian? Well, I mean, there's a sense isn't there in which we can't judge anyone's heart? So that's between God and them. But you know, from an external point of view, jesus gave us a very simple test. He said you'll know them by their fruit. And in the Sermon on the Mount, he actually said something similar about the opposite of a Christian, a false prophet. He said you know them by their fruit as well.
Speaker 1:Can a good tree produce bad fruit? Can a good tree produce bad fruit? Can a bad tree produce good fruit? You know the tree by its fruit. Now, if I claimed to be a carpenter, you'd probably quickly discover I'm not, because whatever the fruit of carpentry is, I'm the opposite. Once I put a medicine cabinet up in our bathroom and I carefully measured it, pulled out the spirit level and everything. You know where this is going, right To this day. It is not straight. I'm not even a handyman. You know that by the evidence. The fruit I, in this case, don't produce. So what is the fruit that Jesus wants from his followers?
Speaker 1:Well, we read just a short part of chapter 15, but in chapters 14 to 17, which is Jesus' last supper discourse with his disciples. He mentions many kinds of fruit. He doesn't call them fruit, but that's what they are. He mentions things like love, like unity. He mentions intimacy with God, unity with God and his people, obedience to his commands and peace. Obedience to his commands and peace. And when we display this fruit, jesus implied that we can expect to see the fruit of other people becoming his disciples, as they're attracted to what God is producing in us.
Speaker 1:Now, sometimes people confuse the call to fruitfulness with what we call works, righteousness, and that's the belief that you have to do certain things, you have to be good, in order to be saved. The Bible tells us that actually, far from having to earn God's favour, earn our salvation. We can't. God loves us. We're saved by God's grace as a gift. We don't earn it. We trust in him through Jesus' death and resurrection. We don't have to work for salvation. You can't display to work for salvation. You can't display the fruit of salvation if you're not saved, because it is a result of salvation. But once we are truly saved, we will, over time, produce the fruit of salvation. There we go. So, as Paul says in Galatians 5, if we say we have died with him, with Christ, and have the Spirit, then we must crucify our sinful nature. Keep in step with the Spirit and we'll produce the fruit of the Spirit.
Speaker 1:And you know, this requirement to bear fruit doesn't just apply to individual Christians but also to churches. In Revelation 2-3, jesus addressed seven churches that he commends or condemns according to what they do. And so here to the church in Ephesus, he said you've lost your first love. Repent, do what you did at first. And his message to those churches was be fruitful, be faithful.
Speaker 1:So, christian, are you producing the fruit that Jesus desires? Church, are we producing the fruit that Jesus desires? Well, if you're like me, you might feel like you have a bit of a mixed report on that. Actually, you know what Some of the fruit feels like. It's coming on quite well, having a good season today. Some is immature but developing. Maybe some looks a bit manky or is missing altogether. But you know whether you're having a season of fruitfulness or leanness.
Speaker 1:If you're a follower of Jesus, you'll have a desire to abound in more fruit, because that's to the Father's glory and that's what you want to do, regardless of whether you think you're doing it well or not. You'll have a desire to do it well or not, you'll have a desire to do it. Now here's some good news. Jesus clearly wants us to produce fruit, good fruit, but just as salvation is not by works but through God's grace, neither is fruitfulness Not by works, but through God's grace, neither is fruitfulness. You can't make yourself fruitful any more than a grapevine can. Jesus said you can do nothing without me. So how does it happen then?
Speaker 1:Well, jesus said by remaining in him I like the way some translations put it by abiding in him. And so this little sort of phrases popped up that when we abide in Christ, we will abound in fruit. So, in Mark 3, jesus called 12 of his disciples to be his apostles, and they were going to go and do the things that Jesus did. They were going to go and preach his message. They were going to go with his authority and drive out demons. They were going to be fruitful. But before they could go out and be fruitful, mark tells us, jesus called them to be with him, and we see in the Gospels that they spent three years with Jesus so they could learn to do what he did. And then, after Jesus ascended to the Father, they spent the next 10 days what? Just waiting? In a prayer meeting, jesus said that the one who abides in him and he in them will abound in fruit. And so they waited for the presence of God. When the presence of the Holy Spirit came and abided in them, then they started to bear much fruit. And in that early church we see the fruit of love and unity, of gospel, witness of joy, of obedience, and we see a great harvest of souls, all the things that Jesus looks for. So, to put it another way, their doing flowed out of their being. So if the key to abounding in fruit and glorifying the Father is abiding in Christ, what exactly does this abiding look like? Because clearly it doesn't mean doing nothing. You don't become fruitful simply by wishing it.
Speaker 1:Jesus used the image of the vine. How do you make a vine, or any plant, fruitful? Well, you do it by cultivating the conditions. You can't make fruit grow, it just happens. But you can create the conditions in which that plant will flourish. If you're not a green thumb, I'm sorry this metaphor completely breaks down for you, but in the case of a grapevine, it needs the right soil, plenty of sun and water, and Jesus said it needs to be pruned. Even fruitful vines, in fact, I would say probably especially fruitful vines. We had a grapevine. I got rid of it, but it was going gangbusters. I mean, it would get these huge bunches of grapes growing on it, and we never got to enjoy them Because while one end was still green and unedible, the other end was starting to rot. It was so ripe. What was the problem? Well, the problem was there was too much fruit for that vine to feed and so it couldn't ripen the bunches evenly, and the problem was I didn't prune it properly.
Speaker 1:So sometimes becoming fruitful means trimming activity from our lives. Sometimes we do this as a spiritual discipline. Sometimes God has to do it to us. So Andrew and I are going on leave after church today, as much as I love being the pastor here. We pray that the next three weeks will be a time of refreshing as we prune many of the normal tasks from our life. Time of refreshing as we prune many of the normal tasks from our life. But while part of a holiday is switching off, if you've been on holidays you know that it's also switching on to some things, isn't it that refresh us that we may not be able to do in the normal course of life? Now, exactly what, those things that refresh you are depends on your temperament.
Speaker 1:For Andrea and me, it does not mean going away or not for very long. We prefer a staycation. But there are things we stop doing and there are things that we sort of cultivate for that refreshing. What about a church? How do we abound in more fruit as a church? What is the gardener, god, doing among us? Well, by God's grace, I don't know about you, but it feels like we're entering some sort of season of fruitfulness. How do we cultivate this to be more fruitful? We can't force fruit to happen, but we can create the conditions in which the gardener can grow it. Well, the leaders have a planning day in a couple of months, so I don't want to pre-empt too much.
Speaker 1:But subject to that meeting, I want to talk about a few things that have sort of been simmering on my heart for a little while. This is a bit of an abstract image for a little while. This is a bit of an abstract image. These represent nine practices, spiritual disciplines, spiritual practices that have been part of Christian tradition for a long time. I'm not going to make a big deal of this. I've just been exploring some resources that we might be able to use in our small groups to help cultivate our spiritual lives, spiritual practices a little more deeply called Practicing the Way by John Mark Comer, if anyone's familiar with that. I'm not going to say too much about that because I'm still looking into it, but I think we've sort of touched on discipleship spiritual practices off and on through the last few years and I think there's some exciting opportunities to explore that more deeply there.
Speaker 1:But what I really want to talk about first of all is local houses of prayer. This launches actually in a couple of weeks with the LHOP conference. Now you might. If you haven't seen them. I haven't seen my emails. Lhop conference Now you might. If you haven't seen them. I haven't seen my emails. There are some posters around the building about this.
Speaker 1:So LHOP Local Houses of Prayer is a movement that's coming out of Wales actually out of a retreat centre in Wales where God has been moving quite powerfully for many years and it's about bringing blessing into the community and not just doing works of blessing, although that's part of it, but actually speaking a blessing over people, places, communities, and as churches and Christians go and do this, they're finding God does amazing things because you know we carry God's presence as his people, we carry the authority of Jesus. The Bible says that we are a kingdom of priests. We have a priestly role in the community and so we carry authority to bring a blessing. And when Christians bless in the name of Jesus, it sort of opens up possibilities for God to work. And so this conference is really about activating that, learning a bit more about our identity in Jesus and just how this works. It's very simple but very powerful, and as I've been reading I've read a couple of books recently and looking at the principles and practices of LHOPs, it strikes me not just at what can happen in our community when we do that, but the sort of culture of blessing that can form in a church.
Speaker 1:There was a story told in one of the books I was reading about. A man came up and he said thank you for saving my marriage. And this guy's like how did I save your marriage? He doesn't do marriage conferences here or anything. He said look, I was very critical. I'd criticize everyone and everything. I'd undermine the leaders at work and kept getting sacked. I'd undermine the leaders at church. He was just critical of his wife all the time. And then he did this thing on blessing. And he said I started to bless everyone and I'm so busy blessing people I can't criticize them anymore. My marriage has been saved. He's a leader in his church. He's been at the job for years. A culture of blessing is a powerful thing. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Wouldn't it be amazing if the community knew us as a church that blesses, that blesses the community, that everyone who comes into our church and our meetings experience blessing, that everyone who goes out of this church, this building, brings a blessing to families, neighbourhoods, workplaces and communities. What if someone heard oh, you go to Bentley Baptist Church, could you bless me? Could you imagine how that could be transformational, particularly in a world that has become so divided and negative?
Speaker 1:I really believe God wants to activate something in our church through LHOP and through that training day. Now, the training day isn't for us. It's not even our event really. It's sort of just someone put on a pastor's network WhatsApp group I'm in the international director's coming over. We sort of would like to host it in Perth, because this person's in Bunbury and they've been involved and would anyone be interested? And something dropped into my heart. I'm like I feel like this is Bentley and so we're hosting it, but I believe we'll receive a great blessing through it. So I really want to encourage you if you're free on the 5th of October, register at the QR code there, come along. If you know others who might be interested might be blessed by being part of this, feel free to invite them. And would you please pray for the day, pray for registrations.
Speaker 1:I'm sort of taking a lead on a lot of the organisation, even though it's not our event. We are hosting it and pray that God blesses it. Whatever God does on that weekend, we want to establish as part of our culture and I say that very carefully whatever God does on that weekend, we want what God is doing to become part of our culture Now, as well as the weekend. There's actually a course by the man who established LHOPs that I'd like to make part of our small group curriculum so future members of our church can understand and continue in that blessing as well. And, as I say, I've just finished reading that book. It's quite exciting. So, anyway, stand by for more of that.
Speaker 1:The second thing that we want to really be looking at and this has been simmering away for a few years, but I feel like it's time and that is outreach. Now we do outreach and one of the things I love about this church is your heart to reach and to bless this community. We've run various events and ministries through the years with some effect. So we have the kids club, we have playtime, we run the Christmas festivals. But at least in the four years I've been here, one of my frustrations is that, despite our best efforts, we don't necessarily see much fruit from that in terms of people becoming disciples of Jesus like he commanded. Wouldn't it be amazing if we started to see some of our friends and families, the people we connect with through playtime and holiday club and so on, come to faith? What about your friends and family who don't know the Lord yet? Now, remember, we can't create fruit, we can't save save people, we can't make them get saved. But what we can do is cultivate the conditions for fruitfulness where God can move and people can respond.
Speaker 1:And so in the next year, two opportunities are presenting themselves. One is very old actually, so the Alpha course. Is anyone here familiar with the Alpha course? Has anyone done Alpha? A few of you. Some people aren't actually familiar with it. It's been around for, I don't know, 20 years or more More probably 30 years. It's a video course, originally of teaching. Now it's been snazzied up a little bit more but discusses the big questions of life. It really is a video course with discussion and dinner that opens up an opportunity to discuss the big questions of life and faith. It's been very successful. I would think millions of people have come to faith through it. Next year, baptists across Australia in Term 2 are going to have an Alpha emphasis, so there'll be a lot of promotion around that, and so I'd love us to be part of that, and I would love Alpha just to try it out for a season, see if we can make it a regular part of the rhythm of our church and just present opportunities for people to come together, discuss faith and see if God uses it. And I'll have some more information about that later in the year, and we'll be needing a team to help run it for next year, so stand by for that.
Speaker 1:The other opportunity that's launching is the new Jesus film. Now the original Jesus film was made in 1979. Has anyone seen the Jesus film, the OG? No, okay, it's quite. Yeah, yeah. So it's been used around the world, translated into thousands of languages 1,500 languages or something like that and again has been used. So it's just a film that uses the narrative of the Gospels, doesn't embellish it to tell the story of Jesus. Millions of people have come to faith all over the world with that, but it's quite old, it's quite dated. It's not something we would use in our context. It would probably be a bit cringe.
Speaker 1:But they're redeveloping it now as an animated movie, and when I say an animated movie, they have a budget of $150 million because they've got such a big network. It's not like they have a big. I asked them who's funding this? I said we've just got people seeding funds into it, but they've got Disney, pixar, dreamworks level animation on it. I've seen some of the assets they're using and it is mind-blowing and I think what you can do with animation and the scripture, I think it's going to be pretty amazing. I think it's going to be particularly I hope I'm praying for effective for families, and so next year the plan is for it to launch at the end of next year. But they're going to have a cinema showing to be able to invite friends to come and see it with you. They're going to have an app you can use to reach out to people. It's going to have a whole strategy around it when it launches in Australia and, as I say, it won't be launching until the end of next year.
Speaker 1:But I think, again, this will be an opportunity for us In one sense. It's like, well, I've got a whole emphasis. You're talking about this, alex. It's like, yeah, but we just need to create space, sometimes even for simple things. We just want to create a bit of space, give ourselves a bit of air to breathe so we can be mindful of these things Local houses of prayer and outreach Very, very simple. It's not the totality of our strategy for next year. We'll continue doing some of the things we've been doing, like playtime and so on, and just the regular things we do as a church. But these are two of the things we've been doing, like playtime and so on, and just the regular things we do as a church. But these are two of the things that I feel could be catalytic for us and, as I say, we still need to discuss these as a leadership.
Speaker 1:But the point is, god wants us as a church to position ourselves for his presence, to abide in us, so that we can abound in much fruit as we abide in him. Would you please pray that God leads us in that. Let's pray now. Father, we thank you that the Christian life is not meant to be a heavy burden. Jesus said come to me all who labor in a heavy burden, and I will give you rest. Father, we just want to take off any of those yokes of feeling like we have to work for your approval. We have to work for your approval. We have to work, lord, to see things happen. And, father, you do call us to work, but you call us to do it in a way that is light and easy and flows out of your grace within us, your spirit at work within us. Father, we pray that in the coming year you will bless our church so that we can be a blessing to your heart and to our community. Lead us. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.