Now What--What Difference Will It Make?
NLAC August 31st, 2014 Psalm 15:1-5 Matthew 7:13-27
We are completing our series on “We Accept The Job—Our Mission.” The job we accepted was to love others, to teach the word, to reach the world and to support it all with our giving of our money and our abilities. Now that we have heard the messages, I ask the question, “now what—will it make a difference.” Is your life going to be any different come September than it was in the first part of the year.
Will you be more likely to reach out to someone you don’t know at church or school at work. Will you decide to become a part of one of the small group bible studies to learn the word in order to teach it? Are you going to be more willing to pass out a church card, add a bumper sticker to your car, or simply invite someone to church or to get to know someone as a person? Are you going to give financially as a generous person and are you wrestling with what ministry can yor do, or will be more willing to do it more effectively? Is the fruit that is going to start flowing out of your life going to be sweeter and more productive than it was before? It takes work to produce the right fruit?
Have you ever been around someone the who wanted a job, but had little desire to work. You may have asked them, “why did you take this job?”. I remember the last time I got in an actual fist fight. It was back in eleventh grade, the summer before by senior year. I had a job working for the forestry division at the dam system. Each spring the water from the melted snow would cause the reservoirs to fill up and when they went back down, tree branches would be left behind on the sloping rocks. I had a co-worker name Doug.
Our job was to remove the branches off the rock. Our boss would take us out in the hills and tell us what to do and leave us alone until it was time to quit for the day. As soon as he was gone, Doug would take out a book, lay down and start reading. One day I had enough of this lazy joker. I didn’t want to tell the boss on him. I told Doug to get up and help do the job. He told me, he was not killing himself for anybody. I said, “get up and help”. We began shouting at each other. I remember punching Doug in the face real hard. All I remember after that is that Doug started to help out a lot more even when the boss was gone.
Even though Doug had accepted the job, he really had very little intention of doing the work. Somehow that spirit that was in Doug, has found itself in the life of the church. There are people who want to sign up to follow Christ, but have little intention of doing much work. Like Doug, they are happy to sit back and let others do most of the work, and then accept credit for the work they did not do. They falsely believe, all that’s required to produce fruit is to show up in the building.
Can you imagine meeting a person having an illness who goes to the hospital once every week. You ask the person, what do they do to help you at the hospital? What would you think if the person said, “Oh all I do is go and sit in the emergency room for two hours. After that I get me some coffee and leave.” We come to church because we have been bruised and battered by sin and the influence of this world. In our true worship, God washes the effects of sin off of us and points us in a new direction.
I have seen several people wearing a t-shirt that has bold letters, “Nobody can judge me, but God.” Are they saying, “I get to live like I want to live and you have nothing to say about it? Are they saying, “I’m so right, that only God can know I’m right in my choices.” “Are they saying only God can tell me what’s right and what’s wrong?” By God telling them, do they mean a booming voice out of the sky?
One of the most misunderstood and misquoted verses in the bible is “Judge not, lest you be judged.” The verse is not saying, don’t judge anything. It’s saying the level you use to judge others, will also be applied to you. So if I judge you for being racist, and then turn around and be racist then I’m guilty. Let me ask you something, if you were in the parking lot at a grocery store alone which would make you more nervous. Three white males teens coming towards you or three black male teenagers with drooping pants coming towards you. Why “if a white person says black mechanics are inferior to white mechanics”, you get all upset. But then when your friend says, I went to get my car fix and it still is not working, you have no problem saying, “did you take it to one of us. I knew it.” You see it’s possible to judge others and not recognize you have the same problem.
It’s interested that Matthew begins chapter 7 with the words, “judge not lest you be judged” and then in 13 verses Jesus tells us, judge the teachings and actions of others. Jesus actually tells us we are to be fruit inspectors. Sometimes it’s hard to tell when the fruit is bad. It’s hard to tell if a watermelon is bad until you open it. It’s a little easier with a peach because it bruises on the outside.
The interesting thing about fruit, is that it tells your about it’s source. If you have an apple, you know it came from an apple tree. If you have an orange, you know it came from an orange tree. If you have a pear, it came from a pear tree. Do you know how much money I could raise for New Life At Calvary, if I had an apple tree that produced oranges? Absolutely nothing, because if it produced oranges it would be an orange tree.
We produce fruit in everything that we do. The issue is what does the fruit say about its source. If you come to church to worship God, to offer praise to God, to hear a word from God and to encounter God, what does that say about the source of fruit coming from your heart. If you come to church simply to engage others, to keep checking in with your cell phone, or to complain about how your specific needs were not met, what does that say about the source of the fruit coming from your heart? Some of us are building the church with our fruit, and others are tearing it down with our fruit.
By looking at the fruit, you can tell something about its source. Jesus in warning us against false prophets or people pretending to be one thing, but in actuality or some thing else, he said, “Beware” and “recognize that you would know them by the fruits.” What does Jesus mean by telling us to look at the fruit of a person? When a person in Jesus’ day heard the word fruit, he or she would immediately think of conduct and character. By telling us to examine a person’s conduct and character, we can determine what a person’s heart is actually like.
Have you ever done something, that you hope nobody ever finds out about. I have and I am not about to tell you what it is. Isn’t it something that God knows about it, and God still loves you and loves me and want to have a relationship with you and with me. God still believes you can be somebody wonderful. I do not fully understand how the Lord can be so accepting of us when others if they knew, would alienate themselves from us.
Apart from those things that we never want anyone to know about, if a person started to examine us to see if we believed our purpose statement what would they find? Did you know that you are being examined everyday, by someone? Did you know you’ve been examined since you entered the church today? We have all displayed elements of our character, and our conduct has been seen and it has affected others.
What have others find out about us so far this morning? One of the great tragedies that has come up on our society is that you can somehow separate your character from you conduct. We are in a world in which if your conduct can produce the right results for us, we could care less about your character.
This thing has crept into the church. It comes in the form of thinking that you can accept Jesus Christ as your Savior without changing your life. Or you can come forward for prayer and that made you cool with God. I’ve got some bad news from Jesus. Jesus says, just because you call me “Lord, does not mean you will enter the kingdom of heaven.” In other words, you can come forward at the end of service, repeat the sinner’s prayer, cry a few tears and still go to hell. Pastor Rick, are you saying I could lose my salvation. No I’m saying you probably have not gotten your salvation in the first place.
There are people who think they can profess to have faith in Christ while having an allegiance to something else. But Jesus is saying, “do not look at the mouth of what’s being said, but look at the actions of what is being done.” Jesus says plainly, “not everybody who calls me Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father.” What is the will of the Father. If you are a part of New Life At Calvary, the will of the Father is that for you to remember, in response to God’s love, we are to love others, teach the world, and reach the world for Christ. That can only happen if you are in a living relationship with Christ, because these things are not humanly possible to do.
What did our purpose look like for you last week. This past week when you got angry, or you were hurt, or you got upset. What attitude did you choose to take. Which one should you have taken? What will it look like this week. It means there is a temptation for you to get something that does not belong to you. It could be a person, it could me money, it could be anything. Living out our purpose is going to mean walking away from it with your integrity and honesty in tact because you will choose to walk in the spirit.
You are going to see someone is in need of something. It could be a friend, it could be money, it could be encouragement, it could be forgiveness. You have the ability to make a difference. Living our purpose means you take that chance to make a difference. What are you doing? You’re doing the will of the Father because it is the right thing for you to do.
Why do so many people think, they will have a special go free card from God which exempts them from living for God 24/7. There is this false idea that somehow we can get God to owe us one by doing certain things. How can God ever owe us one, when if it were not for God, we would not be here in the first place. Jesus says, that on the day when he fails to recognize people, they will try to refresh his memories by the activities that they do, which suggests He owes them one.
He said, they will say, “Don’t you remember me. I was the one who gave prophecies in your name. I was the one who had the miracle crusades in which many people were healed in your name. I was the one who cast out demons and set people free in Your Name.”
Some of us will try things such as “I was a member at New Life At Calvary.” I was an usher for you. I was a choir member for you. I gave each Sunday. I came to church somewhat regularly. I was a dancer. I was an elder or a deacon. I was a teacher.” Let me say, all of these things are good that you are involved with, but these things do nothing in terms of pleasing Christ if you are not saved. God has the right to use you, me, and any other part of His creation in anyway that God chooses, but that does not mean God is pleased with our lives.
Before we choose to live for Christ, we are dead in our sin. It means in God’s eyes, there is nothing we can do to improve our condition. We do not impress him in any form or fashion with any of our behavior. We can make sacrifices, but they are not for his honor and glory. They are for our own. The only thing we can do to make heaven take notice is to genuinely give our lives to Christ. There is great rejoicing in heaven when a person truly turns and gives his or her life to Christ. The only ones who can do something for Christ that will last is the one who is living for Jesus Christ at the time of the action.
We are known by our fruit which is an indication of our character and our conduct. You will hear people say, so and so was such a good man. God has never called a person good, who was not in a relationship with Him at the time. He has never looked down from heaven, and said “she is such a good person, I want her saved.”
God has done an examination of our conduct and character and this is what God declares in Romans based on His standards of what it is to be good. In Romans 3:10-12 Romans 3:10-12 (NIV) 10 As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one."
Before you remind me of how you are an exception to the rule, let me remind you of your answer when I asked the question, have you ever done something you hope nobody finds out about. Well God knows all our secrets both actions and thoughts. Therefore none of us can try to pretend to be something we are not. One of the reasons we come to church is to admit that we have not been all that God wanted us to be, and to seek the presence of God in our lives so that we can be led by the Spirit of God. The further away we move from worshipping God, the less likely we are to walk in the Spirit.
God knew that some of us would see Christianity as a game to be played on Sundays, and not as way of life to be lived all week long. We are told in 2 Corinthians 13:5 (NIV) 5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you--unless, of course, you fail the test? What do you find when you look at yourself.
I’m afraid that if we do not do more self-examination of ourselves now, we will hear the most dreaded words that one could ever hear from Jesus and those words are. Depart from be, I never knew you, you evildoers. An evil doer is not some mass murderer or some other horrendous criminal. An evil doer is a person insisting on being good enough to not need God. God you’re a liar in what you have said about me.
An evildoer is one who has told God, I’m not listening to your word.” I’m going to do what I want to do.” Jesus says there is no place in his kingdom for such a person who owes allegiance only to himself or herself. Jesus wants nothing to do with such a person. He paid too great of a price to have it thrown away. That is why Jesus says, “Just leave me alone and go to the place prepared for you and all those like you.” There is no appeal from Jesus decision. There is no second chance. There is no,” but that’s not fair.”
The one thing a person who is living a double life will not be able to say “is that I did not know what I was doing.” Jesus went on to give us a story about what it’s like to live a life of obedience and what’s it like to live one of disobedience. He lets us know that from a distance, both lives can appear to be pretty much the same at times.
It’s as though two men were building houses. One took the time to dig deep in order to lay his foundation for the house. The other one took the short cut and laid his foundation right on the dirt. Everything was fine until the storm came. The water washed away the foundation and the house collapsed.
What separates us from those who know Christ, and those who talk about it, is circumstances. When the storms come, we are going to demonstrate our true character. If there is an inconsistency between the character at church and the character at home, school or work, guess which one is probably our true character.
Following Jesus Christ is never a decision that should be made lightly. It cannot be an almost decision or a sometimes decision. Jesus gave His all for us in dying to pay for the wrong we have done. We get to decide what we intend to do about it. We can accept it and change or we can neglect it and go our way, but the worse option of all is to claim to accept it, and still go on our way for we are guilty of making a mockery of the love that God has offered to us.
Do you really want good fruit. The only way to produce good fruit is to be part of a good tree or vine. Jesus says, I am the vine you are the branches. A branch cannot bear fruit unless it is a part of the vine. The only way any of us can become a part of the vine, is to yield our lives to Christ and let him graft us in. Our purpose statement can become a life changer for us and for our church, or it can simple be a nice words on a wall.
I believe God called us together for a purpose. Even though we may not understand, how big that purpose is, Satan does and Satan wants to keep it from happening. His goal is to get us to think more about ourselves and our preferences than to keep us from remembering we accepted a job that involves Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners. He died and was raised from the dead to prove what we do in this life has eternal consequences. There are consequences for us and consequences for those who do not yet know that God loves them. Now that we know what our mission is, what if any difference is it going to make.
