What are the first things that come to mind when I say “Worship” (Write them down)? Ok, now, what are the first things that come to mind when I say the word “Serve” (Write these down)?

At first glance these two words seem to have nothing in common with each other, and yet these two words are found together again and again throughout scripture. It shows up many times in the Old Testament where God is warning the Israelites.

God says, If you do forget the Lord your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Deuteronomy 8:19 (NRSV)

Here God connects “serving” and “worshipping” as though these two things go together like bread and butter.  Worship is this context seems to be deeply related to serving. God repeats this warning throughout the Old Testament and then at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, the Holy Spirit drives him into the wilderness where he fasts for 40 days and at the end of this time we’re told that Satan approaches him and tempts him four different ways. In one of those temptations, Satan tells Jesus that if he will bow down to him and worship him, that he’ll make him ruler over all the nations of the earth.

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” Matthew 4:10 (NIV)

Sometimes people say things like, “I go to church at New Community,” but realize that what you are doing here today is not “Church” because the church is the people. The church has gathered here this morning to worship. However, worship is not just something that we do; it must become something that we are. Let me explain. To worship God means that God becomes central to your life and mine. Worship means to put something at the center of your life.

For instance, you can worship soccer. Your entire life can revolve around soccer. You go to work to make money to pay for soccer and soccer lessons. You can spend your time watching soccer, practicing soccer, and talking to other people about soccer. Soccer can become your god. Worship is about what’s at the center of your world. If soccer is your god, as I’ve just explained, then you interpret your whole world through the lens of your god, soccer. When something is your god, everything in your life finds its meaning from that one thing.

Jesus said this, “No one can serve two masters (you can’t have two things at the center, you can’t have two gods). Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve (There’s that word) both God and Money. Matthew 6:24 (NIV)

Money is one of the greatest things that people worship.  People worship money because in the world that we live in money is power. Those who have the most money have a certain kind of power. People want power because they feel like they will be more important and have greater value in the eyes of others. If money is your god, then you will focus your life on making it and spending it, and essentially serving it. You will spend the majority of your time earning it, counting it, grieving over the loss of it, figuring out ways to make more and drooling over the next thing that you can buy as soon as you make enough. If you live with money as your god, you will focus on it and serve it. Money will become the thing that you worship and you will focus on it and serve it.

What is most important in your life? Whatever you’ve give the value of “Most important” in your life, is the thing or the person, or the god/God that you will serve above all others. Satan loves to deceive Christians into thinking that God is who they worship because they come to this building and sing songs of praise for one hour a week on a Sunday, while spending great amounts of their time and energy focusing, and therefore worshiping, something else.

How about you? What or who are you worshipping? Don’t be too hasty in answering this question. This isn’t about giving the right answer! We’re all here as the church, so we all know the answer is God, but the right answer doesn’t count for much, unless you are living the right answer.

It’s easiest for you and I to figure out what we worship by asking the question, “In what ways are you serving God?” That’s what God commands us to do – worship and serve him, so if you think the answer to the question “What do I worship?” is “God,” then there ought to be evidence in the ways that you’re serving him, not just on Sunday, but every day of the week. Remember, worship is about focus and about what gives meaning and direction to your life ALL THE TIME.

Let me ask you a very difficult question. Why do you go to work? If your work is at home taking care of kid’s, then you need to ask the question specific to what you do each day. What’s the reason you go to work?

If we’re honest, the answer for why most people go to work is “To make money”. Who’s your god then? What is your focus during those 8 hours? Now, it’s ok to make money. We need money to purchase important needs in our lives, so making money isn’t wrong, but to have it be our focus is. Because as soon as it becomes your focus, it becomes your god and you will serve it.

So, how do we serve God while we work? Jesus gives us some direction in this statement. He says:

‘The greatest among you must be a servant. But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.’ Matt 23:11-12

‘The greatest among you (according to Jesus, according to God) must be a servant. My first question is, “A servant to whom?” The answer is, “to God”. The greatest person among us is the person who is a servant of the living God, who is serving God while he or she works.

We’ll how can I do that? Remember, the whole idea of being a Christian, a follower of Christ, is that you and I would serve God wherever we go. The kingdom of God is about being in right relationship to God, so that the kingdom of God, the goodness of God is growing inside of us, and overflowing out of us in ways that love and value those people around us.

Serving God means that we do the right thing, the good thing, the God thing even when nobody’s looking. It means that we don’t steal, no matter how small and insignificant the item might be. It means that we use the gifts God has given us with the right heart to bless other people, always. Serving God means that we love the people whom we work with through every word and action no matter how difficult that person is to love. And we do these things, because we’ve committed to following Christ, and because we are seeking to serve him in all the areas in our lives. Worship is about turning God’s love into action through serving him.

‘The greatest among you must be a servant. But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.’ Matt 23:11-12

Jesus makes it real clear here that if you chose to do life apart from him, with him not at the center, and if you choose to focus on something other than him and put something else in his place, and if you choose to exalt yourself and say, “I know what’s best at the center of my life and you chose to serve someone or something else other than God, you will be humbled, you will be brought down.

However, for those who humble themselves and bow before the king and say, “I’m here to serve you and your will, then those people God exalts. Those people God lifts up and calls great.

It’s important not to just say “I’m here to serve and worship you God”, but then not do it. Love is about action.

Remember where we started. Let’s go back and reread what God says.

God says, If you do forget the Lord your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Deuteronomy 8:19 (NRSV)

God is basically saying, it’s not safe to worship and serve other gods. It’s kind of like a mother who is standing at the curb getting ready to cross the street with her three year old child in the middle of Chicago during rush hour. She tells her daughter “it’s not safe for you to let go of my hand while we’re crossing the street. She thinks to herself. If she does, she’ll surely die.” That’s just the reality of it. God is saying, “you can’t navigate life correctly with anything else at the center of you world, it just doesn’t work.

It doesn’t work, because God created you to be connected to him, not because he’s some egotistical, arrogant psychopath, but because he loves you and he knows that nothing else is able to replace him.

So, let’s make an assumption for a minute. Let’s assume that you want to both worship and serve God. If you genuinely seek to discover God’s unfolding purpose for your life, you must ask yourself this question: “How does God want me to serve him?” the answer God often gives us when we ask him how we’re to serve him is almost always, “Love others the way that I have loved you.”

Whatever your path, whatever your calling, you may be certain of this: serving others is an integral part of God’s plan for your life. Christ was the ultimate servant, the Savior who gave His life for humankind. As His followers, we, too, must become humble servants.

Every single day of your life, including this one, God will give you opportunities to serve Him by serving other people, of whom he is their Father. Welcome those opportunities with open arms. They are God’s gift to you, His way of allowing you to achieve greatness in His kingdom.

Worship is not worship apart from serving others. Worship is a way of living. This is why Jesus when asked about the greatest commandment couldn’t stop at “Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” That’s worship! Put God at the center of your life by focusing on him in every aspect of your life. But the crazy thing is that Jesus can’t stop there. He was asked for the greatest commandment, but he gives two. He says “and there’s a second command much like the first, “Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.”

Worship is not worship unless it’s connected to serving others in love. Love is a feeling, yes, but not just a feeling. Love is an inner activity that must overflow into an outer activity. Love is about being a certain kind of person on the inside and that inner being overflowing into action on the outside. Serving other people is a way of acknowledging your love for them and for the God who created them.

The cross – the vertical beam of the cross depicts the work that Jesus did here to make it possible for us to worship and love God. Prior to this our sin separated us from God. Jesus made it possible for us to connect with God again. Worship is allowing God and his will and his love to be central inside of us.

The horizontal beam of the cross depicts the work that Jesus did to make it possible for us to love others like we love ourselves. Jesus, after removing our sin, gives us the Holy Spirit, part of God’s Spirit to counsel us and teach us how to love the way God loves. This is where God calls us to not just to love our neighbor – those people we find ourselves next to – but to serve them in love. Love isn’t love until you give it away.

James says it this way

What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. James 2:14-17 (NLT)

Here’s what God is saying to us, “Don’t come to this place of worship and think that it gives you some sort of clout when you get to heaven, just because you came.  Singing songs of praise to God apart from living lives of service to him and others isn’t worship at all. Worship for God is expressed in how you serve him and those whom he loves.

Love isn’t love until you give it away.

Let me give you an example.

If you’re married, but you’re not serving your wife or your husband in ways that express your love for them in physical acts of serving, you’re not worshipping God.

Love is not passive, it’s active. Love is not just an inner feeling; it must manifest itself in outer expressions.  Worship is not worship until you’re serving God and others in a way that honors God. That’s why our passion is turning God’ s love into action. Love is not love until you give it away.

Jesus said, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” Matthew 4:10 (NIV)

How are you serving God? How are you serving your spouse? How are you serving your kids? How are you serving your parents? How are you serving those that are strangers wherever you go? True worship is about serving God by serving others, because that’s God’s will.

Now, here is an important question.

Can you serve God without worshipping him? Yes. Worship has to do with a condition of the heart. For serving to be worship it must overflow out of a heart of love for that person. Jesus harshly rebuked the Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day, because they served God out of obedience, not out of love. If we do the right thing with the wrong heart, God doesn’t receive it as worship. So be careful. You can do all the right things, but with the wrong heart, and still be no closer to God.

So, how does worship and service come together here on Sunday morning?

There are people that would love to sleep in late and drink coffee until 10:30 and move slowly into worship. However there are a few who sacrifice their wants and get here at 8:15 on Sunday morning to serve God and you. They set up all our worship gear, not because they like to per say, but because they have a servant’s heart. They have a heart of worship way before they begin worshipping at 11:00. Others get here at 9:00 and 9:30 and 10:10 and 10:30 and 10:45 to prepare this space for worship. They serve God and they serve you and their serving is received by God as worship if the serving is done with a heart of love for God and others.  It is received by God as worship, if their hearts are doing it for reasons of love. These men and women are worshipping God and serving him. They love God and you by what they do.

When we all serve our God in love, his kingdom is advanced. When we serve him in small ways, God multiplies our efforts to change the lives of other people. People who give a tithe – 10 percent of their income, are worshipping God by serving him and the others whose lives that are being transformed as that money is put to use. That money will help teach and train people in the ways of God and it will help us reach others for Christ.

Here’s the big idea of what I want you to take home with you today.

Serving authenticates our worship, if it’s done with a heart of love. Worship and serve are two words in the Christian faith that cannot be separated. Worship is seeking to put God at the center of your life.  Serving seeks to speak and act in ways that align our lives with the God whom we worship.

When you come to worship as each of you did today, we must ask the question, “How am I serving God? How am I serving the people of New Community? How am I serving those that I say that I love? When God is at the center, then all that we say and do ought to reflect him, not just in our hearts, but in all the things that we say and do each week.

Muriel, our Worship Admin. has been worshipping and serving God with her gifts in lots of wonderful ways in the past weeks, so that you could have lots of wonderful opportunities to worship and serve God among us.

Muriel, I want to invite you up, so that you can share with us the opportunities that are available to us.

Prayer

Song

Next week we’ll be having our kindness outreach event, where we seek to worship God by serving others in our community. So we invite you to come with serving clothes on. We need many people to bring garden rakes in as we’ll be spreading lots of mulch down at the elementary school. The maintenance supervisor will be there helping us move the mulch. As you’re serving him and helping him do a job that he couldn’t possible do without your help, remember you’re serving him and worshipping God as long as you do it with a love for him and a love for God who made him.

Remember, serving authenticates worship. Worship is the inner centering of our lives on God. Serving is the overflow of that love into the lives of others that God loves and even died for.

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Video Clip: Amistad Trailer – youtube

What comes to mind when I say the word servant or slave? For most of us, we understand the word servant or slave as a negative, derogatory term. We view the term servant or slave as a put down, as a way of demeaning a human being and making them into something subhuman, something lowly.

When we talk about such words they denote a hierarchy, with a master up here (hands up) and the servant or slave being down here (hands lower). When we use the words servant or slave, we’re talking about power – who has it and who doesn’t. Right? The master has all the power and the servant or slave really has none.

In this way of thinking where do you want to be? Do you want to have the power or not have the power? Do you want to be on the top of the hierarchy or the bottom? Do you want to be the master or the slave?

So . . . you and I have these ideas in our minds and they often influence how we act. In our world, we are taught conflicting things that we often struggle to make sense of. We’re taught that we want the power, that we want to be on top, that we want to be in charge, because when we’re at the bottom, people often times use their power to control us and oppress us and make us feel small, even subhuman, right?

When we’re at the bottom, the ones at the top try to elevate themselves and make themselves look good. They take all the credit, stealing it from us and others to make themselves look better. Have you ever worked with or for someone like that?

But then there’s a conflicting point of view and for many people they oscillate between these two points of view, never really realizing what they’re doing or why.

We also understand that when someone does something nice for us, we feel good, and when we do something nice for someone else, we feel good and the person we served feels good, right? We understand that serving others is a lot about what love is all about.

So often times we get confused with who we are and how we should act. On one hand we feel like we want to be on top, we want to be the person with power, we want to be in control, we don’t want to be someone else’s servant or slave, because that feels subhuman. On the other hand, we, at some level, understand that being served feels good and that it can feel good to serve other people by doing something nice for them.

We often live in a conflicted world where we don’t want to be someone’s servant, but we’re called to serve.

Often times, because we are only aware of these things subconsciously, but haven’t really thought them through, we get confused about which role we should be playing and why.

It’s interesting that Jesus and the authors of the New Testament talk a lot about the right use of power and how we often times get these things messed up. Listen to what the gospel writer Mark tells us about Jesus.

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory. . .

What are James and John asking for? They are asking for the seats of power. They want the big seats. They are seeking to rule over people. They want to be on the top of the hierarchical chart, because they’ve seen what happens when you’re at the bottom. They want to be the master not the slave. Who can blame them right?

When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Why, because who would be on the bottom then? Yeah, the other ten. So they’re upset and rightly so.

So Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers (those who rule; those who have the power, those who are on top) of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. He’s saying, you know how all the Gentiles – that is, all the people who don’t believe in God, you know how they use power, right? They use their power to rule over other people. They use their power to set themselves up as lord, and then they rule over people and make them their servants. They control other people and make them powerless. These rulers typically use their power to inflict fear into the hearts of the people whom they rule over. They control them and punish them when they don’t do what they’re supposed to do. That’s the way the world often works isn’t it.

So Jesus says, “There’s this group of people over here. Jesus calls them the Gentiles. In Jesus’ day those people were considered spiritual, but they served false gods, not God. So the Israelites called them the Gentiles or non-God people. They weren’t following God. The Gentiles use power to rule over people and make others their servants or slaves.

Then he points back toward the disciples and says, Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you . . .

Because this people over here, they all tend to think of themselves as great, because they have all the power. They think to themselves, I’m great because I’m at the top of the power ladder. I’m at the top of the hierarchical chart, and in those days there were only two levels on the hierarchical chart; the top and the bottom, the master and the slave.

If you were on the bottom, you were powerless and you were treated like an animal; you were treated as subhuman. If you were at the top, you were great because you could do whatever you wanted because you had all the power. You could force people to do anything you wanted and they couldn’t do anything about it. At some level, those people who were at the top were playing God.

Jesus says, Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.

What in the world are you talking about Jesus? Whoever wants to be great among you, whoever wants to be on top, to be the best among you must be a servant, and whoever wants to be first, must be slave of all??? Come on Jesus! Dude, what are you smoking? Are you smoking dope? That kind of talk is crazy!

Oh . . . I get it, it’s like penance, right. It’s where I have to endure all this pain, because I’ve done all these bad things, so I’m supposed to serve someone else as a way of saying I’m sorry to you God and paying the price of all my wrong doing, that’s what you’re saying, right Jesus. It kind of makes sense that way, I guess.

Jesus says, “No, that’s not what I mean at all. Let me explain it to you a bit.”

For even the Son of Man (who was God) did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:35-37, 41-45 (NIV)

Now, in order for this statement to hit us with its full effect, we must recognize who it is that Jesus is talking about. The Son of Man is Jesus way of talking about himself. He said, “I did not come to be served, but to serve. Now, why is this significant?

It’s significant, because Jesus is God and he has stepped down out of heaven, and he is at the top of every hierarchical chart. He is the one who is above all. He is the one who has all the power . . . all the time. He is the Lord of Lords and he is the King of Kings. He’s it. He’s great!

So when Jesus says, “I did not come to be served”, it’s important for us to realize that he certainly could have come and told everyone to bow before him and told everyone what to do and how they needed to serve him, and what they needed to change and how he was going to make them pay, and if they didn’t he could have just taken them out. Don’t you think that would have made some people afraid? Instead of raising people from the dead, he could have made them dead. Jesus could have done that, but he didn’t. He could have used his power in ways that oppressed people and made them fear, but he didn’t. Instead he served them.

One of the things that I never really thought about was that Jesus had all this power – raising people from the dead, healing people, walking on water, multiplying bread and fish to feed thousands – can you imagine if he had used all that power to rule over people instead of to serve them? Can you imagine how different the gospel might look?

Look at the end of what Jesus says: For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Instead of killing all those who opposed him, he died for them. He became their servant, giving them the very thing that they needed to live.

This is a very important distinction. In verse 35, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, ask Jesus to let them have the seats of power, so that they can rule over people, so that they can be on top, so that they can have all the power, so that they can be above everyone else.

Jesus responds, “You don’t know what you’re asking.”  Then he goes on to tell them that to be great means that you must be a servant, to be great you must be a slave of all.

To be a servant is very countercultural. There is a huge part inside of many of us here that says, “No, I don’t want to be a servant, because that person doesn’t have any power. That person is the one who is less valuable, that person is subhuman. To be a servant is the exact opposite of what many of us long for.

How many of you would feel good about being demoted? How many of you would feel good about being promoted. We tend to take our work world and then interpret the rest of the world through that lens, thinking, “It’s better if someone is serving me, rather than me serving someone else.” It’s better because we’ve been around people that have used their power in self serving ways, pushing others down while trying to lift themselves up.

Jesus says “If you want to become great, then you need to become a servant.” Doesn’t that feel wrong to you? Doesn’t that feel messed up? Doesn’t that contradict so much of what you know about how life works?

I want to take a time out for a minute and ask you a few questions. You each have a piece of paper and a pencil.

• · Is there a power differential in your marriage? Is one of the people in your marriage at the top and the other doesn’t have the same level of power?
• · Is there a power differential going on between you and your kids?
• · Is there a power differential between you and someone at work?
• · Is there a power differential between you and your parents?
• · Is there anyone in your life who uses power to regularly get their way in your life?
• · Is there anyone in your life who likes to put you down and do anything they can to elevate themselves?

What I’m about to say is very, very, very important to being a Christian. If you don’t get this one principle, it will be impossible to follow Jesus where he wants to take you.

There are only two ways to live.

The first one is to live in fear. The reason why we live in fear is because our value is threatened. When we don’t feel like we’re valuable, fear fills our soul. When we don’t feel significant and when we don’t feel secure in who we are, fear fill us. When that happens we don’t think that we’re great enough, so we use our power to push others down, so that we become greater.  Subconsciously many of us live our lives thinking that we’re not great enough and so we live in fear, though it may be a subconscious fear.

Emotionally this is what happens. When we feel empty inside we do anything we can to make others feel empty inside. When we feel empty inside, then we use our power to push others down so that they feel empty inside.

Project: When you live in fear, you do not serve others, you serve only yourself.

(PPT) When you serve only yourself you use power in corrupt, evil ways. When you are filled with fear, you seek to be at the top, in the position of power, at the top of the hierarchy chart because, in our world, that’s where we think we will be the greatest. In that place we have other people serve us.

People who live in fear seek their sense of worth in their position or their title, in their looks, or by what other people say about them. These people live in reactive living, either attacking or withdrawing when their sense of value or worth feels threatened. People who live in fear struggle with feeling or giving love deeply. They do not know the love of God.

Unfortunately, many of us in this room live lives of fear, because even in the church we’ve rarely understood the truth of Jesus’ message. Thank God there is another way to live.

The second way to live is in love. The reason we live in love is because our sense of value and significance are secure, because they are tied to God who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  In love, we know who we are and we know what our purpose is. Because of this, when we get into conflict with someone we seek to understand them without feeling threatened because they see the world differently than us. These people don’t attack or withdraw because they don’t feel threatened by others who think differently. Even when people say bad things about them, they’re not filled with anxiety, because they know who they are, because God has told them, and they know that they are valuable, because God has told them, and they know what their purpose is because God told them and they believe him. And even if they did something wrong, they know that it’s ok, because God knows that we’re not perfect, he’s forgiven us already, so we’re not troubled by it.

When it comes to power, we already know that we are powerful, because God has called us his sons and daughters; we are the children of the King of Kings.  So when other people who are filled with fear, and they try to use their power to oppress us, they can’t because we have a power inside of us that is greater than their power.

Jesus who laid down all the power of God and stepped down out of heaven says, “I did not come to be served but to serve. What he’s saying is, “My serving is out of love for my people. Sure I could have rained down fire and brimstone and killed off all my advisories, I could have done that, but how does that make the world better? How does that move us toward heaven on earth? Instead I came to serve people, to teach them what it means to love each, and to model how we are to use power, not to rule over people, but to serve them.

When we rule over people and force others to be our servants we create more hellishness in the world. When we serve others in love, we become the servant who helps people become who God created them to be. We become like God. As servants, we are ok with others thinking that we are lowly, because we are certain of our high position as children of the King.

James and John are seeking to serve only themselves when they ask Jesus for positions of power. Jesus then tells them how we become greatest in the kingdom of God by serving others.

Here’s what Jesus is getting at. We all have power, but when we use it in a wrong manner we usually use it to put others down, to oppress their God given value and significance. We make them our slaves. We seek to elevate ourselves to make us feel better about who we are, while trying to make others look small. Jesus says, “That’s all wrong!”

Look at what the Apostle Paul says about Jesus: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11 (NRSV)

Jesus Christ was willing to lay all the power of God down and step down out of heaven and become a servant to all people. He did not use power to oppress others and make them his slaves, but instead he became a servant to them even to the point of death. Why, because he knew who he was and he knew what he was about and he wasn’t worried about his value. He knew he was well loved and he operated out of that love serving others and lifting them up, so that they could be like him.

He knew that to die was to pay the price for all the sins of the world and when people received that gift, they would be forgiven of their sins and then God could give each person the gift of his Spirit, the Holy Spirit inside of them to teach them how to live in love and not fear, teach them how to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love their neighbor as much as they loved themselves.

God loved you so much that he was willing to give his life for you. Know that you mean so much to God and that you are so valuable to God that you have nothing to fear but fear itself. My question is this: Do you believe that God loves you and that you are significant, no matter what anyone else has ever said about you or will ever say about you. Do you believe that Jesus died for you sins – the ones that you’ve already committed and those that you will commit and as long as you seek to love and follow him, he will always forgive you and so your worth isn’t tied to your mistakes. You’ve been forgiven and it’s unconditional. God loves you no matter what you’ve done, but he loves you so much that he refuses to keep you where you are.

Friends you have nothing to fear because you are significant and you are valuable and  you have lots and lots of power as God’s children. Believe this good news and live in God’s love. Fight against fear. Fight against attacking and withdrawing with others because that only creates more hellishness in your world.

Live as servants of the living God. Grow in your knowledge and love of him and as you grow in your love and connection with him, remember that’s not enough, because we’re called to turn God’s love into action. This week we’re called to serve others in love by becoming their servant, loving and caring and encouraging others, so that they can become God’s best version of them.

9-25-11 Fruit: Fruit that will last

Big Idea:

Movie Clip: Madagascar 2 – 55:22 – two different types of love displayed for Gloria by Moto Moto and Melman

How many of you have ever loved someone? Sure, I pray that we all love lots of people around us. Here’s my question for the day and this may seem like a really bizarre question at first. How do you know? How do you know what love is? How do you know you’ve ever loved? How did you get your definition for love? How do you know the definition you have is legit? How do you know your love is really love at all? Where did your idea of love come from?

Now, you might say, “Awe, come on Adam, give me a break, love is love and you sort of naturally know what it is. Love is kind of instinctive isn’t it?”

When I was in elementary school, I love a girl by the name of Vicki. On recess I would chase here around trying to catch her and not knowing what to do when I caught her, I tackled her. That was love for me as an elementary school boy.

By the time I got to high school, my definition of love had changed. There it was rooted more in hormones and strong urges. I loved a few young ladies, or at least I thought I did.

Then in college, my definition of love changed again when I met a lady by the name of Shannon (my wife) and fell head over heels in love with her, knowing almost immediately that I’d marry her. I didn’t’ think love could ever get any better than that, but did.

When the first of our kids were born my definition of love changed again. I knew that I would sacrifice almost anything for this dear miracle that God had given us, and so it went . . .

The last five years my definition of love has changed again and again and again as God has been teaching me what love is. My definition of love has gotten richer and bolder, and more beautiful than I could have ever thought possible.

How do you know what love is? Where did you get your definition?

Here’s the question I want to ask this morning. How do you get better? How do you love better? Do I just have to try harder? How did I get my definition of love? Where did that come from? Is it right? How do I grow in my ability to love?

We’re in our third and final week of a series entitled Fruit. This series followed a lengthy series on the kingdom of God. Many Christians think that the kingdom of God or the kingdom is a synonym for heaven, but Jesus never talked about it that way. In fact, Jesus’ said that the kingdom of God is at hand, it’s within reach, it’s available now, and then he said these amazing words, “The kingdom of God is within you.

Over eight weeks we talked about what the kingdom of God is because it is Jesus’ central theme. Jesus said that the kingdom of God is like a seed that grows inside of you. It starts small, but can grow into something very large, so large that it takes over. We said that this seed of the kingdom of God is planted in every human being and it has the DNA of heaven in this seed. That God wants to grow the goodness of heaven inside of us.

The question we’re asking in this series is how does the seed of the kingdom of God grow inside of us? How does the DNA of heaven grow up inside of us. Jesus says, “In this world you will have trouble.” But then he goes on to say, “Take heart, I have overcome the world.” He does this by filling us with heaven on the inside, even while things on the outside can be hellish. We can be filled with peace, joy, and love, even when all kinds of bad things are going on all around us.

So how do we grow the fruit of heaven inside of us? That’s what we’re talking about and today’s topic is love. Love is the core of everything that it means to be human. You cannot have peace and you cannot have joy until you have love. Today, Jesus talks to us specifically about growing in our ability to love. Let’s see what he has to say.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.

Why does Jesus say it this way? Why doesn’t he just say “I love guys, now go and love others like I have loved you? Why does he add “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you? Or why doesn’t he say, I’ve loved you guys like Mary and Joseph loved me, so now go and do likewise, because that’s where most of us learn how to love isn’t it? We learn how to love from mom’s and dads.

Here’s the thing. You and I think that we know what love is. Everyone in this room thinks that they know what love is. The one thing that I’ve learned in my 25 years of seeking God is that I don’t really understand what love is. Oh, I understand what I understand about what love is, but as I seek to view love, and live love as God understands love, I realize that I’ve only just scratched the surface. I have so much to learn and I have so far to grow in how I love and even how I understand love.

Quote: The thing that keeps us from learning is that we think we know.

The other thing that just kills me is as I look at how others love. Take your love for example. I believe you’re loving the best that you know how to love. None of you are trying not to love. You’re doing it the best that you know how, just like I am. But for each of us, our love falls incredible short of how God calls us to love and how Jesus modeled love for us.

Sometimes our love is so small, and so weak, and so powerless, but we don’t even know that, because it’s all that we’ve ever understood love to be. That’s what someone taught you what love is, and you didn’t question it, you just mimicked it.

However, sometimes we’re taught a kind of love that’s very sick, it’s hemorrhaging love. Sometimes it looks like cancer filled love. It’s love, but barely, and of the sickest kind. What’s worse is that we don’t even realize that our love is lacking because it’s the kind of love that was modeled to us. Sometimes we don’t think there’s anything wrong, and yet our relationships are filled with all kinds of brokenness. Instead of pointing a finger at our understanding of love, we point our finger at those whom we don’t feel love us well.

Sometimes we don’t even realize that we’re living in the poverty of love when God is standing right next door holding the keys to a mansion of love.

Powerpoint: Two houses next to each other – one mansion, one run down shack

When I read what Jesus is saying, I read, “You have no idea what love is in your context.” Your parents had no idea what love is, even if they are Christians and have been Christians their whole lives, UNLESS they realize that their own love is something far less than what God has in store for them and they seek after God’s version of love with all their heart.

How does Jesus know what love is? “As the Father has loved me.” Jesus has learned what love is because he’s been watching and seeking to understand what love is by being with the Father. WE’re told in 1 John 4:18 God is love. He is the author of what love is. But the devil is selling cheap imitations of love, and most of us have filled ourselves with his free samples.

How did the disciples know what love truly was? They got it from Jesus, who had received it from the Father. Jesus modeled love for his disciples, so that they could understand what love, God style – really was.

We wonder why kids get so messed up in this world, but it’s really quite simple. It’s because they’re learning how to love from their parents and their parents learned how to love from their parents who learned how to love from their parents. And unless one of those parents were learning how to love from God, they didn’t know how to love at all.

We learn what love is from our parents, whose love is twisted, distorted and small, and we then teach our children to love in our own twisted, distorted and small way and this keeps on perpetuating itself in a downward spiral for generations. People with distorted ideas of love, teaching other people to love in distorted ways, who teach other people to love in distorted ways.

Jesus said, “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? Luke 6:39 (NIV)

Here’s the biggest problem. Satan has deceived us into believing we know what love is. He’s taught us what love is and we’ve never questioned that there could be something else that’s better. Did you ever question the idea that you received how to love from somebody, maybe more broken and messed up than you?

It reminds me of the bumper sticker that we often times see, that says, “Don’t follow me, because I’m lost too.” When it comes to love that should be your slogan.

What happens if I take this original document and continuing making copies from copies. If you continue to make a copy of a copy of a copy, what do you end up with? Less and less of the original.

Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.” There is no loss. You’re getting the original. Jesus got love from the source, so he knew it was good. Jesus is our model of how to live life. He’s telling you and me that we have to learn what love is from the source. We can’t learn it from any other place and expect it to be good.

How about you? Where have you learned what love is? Was your source the authentic source or did you learn from a corrupted, distorted, weak, depleted source?

“As the Father has loved me, Jesus says, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.

Remember the image that Jesus is painting for us in this passage. He says the Father is the gardener and Jesus, himself, is the vine, and we are the branches. Remain in my love, he says. Stay connected to me. I am the source. I am the vine that provides all that you need in order to produce the fruit of heaven. I am your source for producing the kingdom of God inside of you. I will show you how to live and how to love. God wants to grow the kingdom of God inside of you, but you must be very, very close to him. He must be the source of how you live, and he must be the source for discerning what’s good and right inside of you.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Where are you learning how to love? Jesus says, Now remain in my love. He says, “I am the source of your love”. I am the way that you learn how to love. I am the way that you are to understand love. You must measure how you love by me. You must evaluate how you love by me. You must study how I love and weigh everything in your life by me. I am the standard. I am the prototype of what a human being should look like apart from sin. You cannot take anything for granted when it comes to love. You must find how to love only from the source.

Most of us have learned how to love from our parents and those around us. None of them are without sin. None of them have loved you perfectly. Only God can teach you how to love well.

I have found that most people love selfishly. Their mantra could be “I’ll love you if you love.” Many couples get married with this kind of love. This is cheap love. That kind of love is business deal love. If you give me this, then I’ll give you that. If I want a can of pop, I have to give you $1. You have to give in order to get. And if you don’t give then you don’t get. That kind of love is cheap, shallow, hellish love.

Jesus said, Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13 (NIV)

And that’s exactly what Jesus did. He was willing to do anything to help us understand how much we meant to him, including dying for us.

Here’s the deal. Until you connect deeply with God, you will not be able to love others with the love of Christ. Here’s why. When we are not full of God’s love, we are full of ourselves. This becomes a problem with love.

You see, love is a gift. Love always costs you something. Love is a giving of yourself, no string attached. Love is giving yourself away. Here’s the problem. If you’re giving yourself away, you become empty. When you become empty, you subconsciously say to yourself, “I can’t give anymore love away, because I’m already too empty. I’m only going to give love away to those who will give me love back.

Marriage and parenting and love itself, never works well apart from God’s definition and his filling us with his love. Apart from God’s definition of love and us finding our source of love from him, we end up with very poor relationships, because when we don’t go to the source, we get less and less and less of the original love, which is God.

Why is the greatest commandment the greatest commandment? Why is the number one commandment in all of life, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength?’ Mark 12:30 (NIV)

Why? It’s because our idea of love is contaminated with evil. God is the source of perfect love and we are to remain in him, get close to him, remain connected to him, learn from him what true love looks like, what true life looks like.

Friends, here’s the deal. The main reason why the divorce rate in America and in the American church is at 50 percent or more is because we are not truly seeking to learn how to love from the source. We have a view of Christianity and God that is not correct, because we understand the kingdom of God as being something that we get when we die, but Jesus said, “No, no, no, the kingdom of God is within you. It is another reality, another realm that exists and you can enter into it and it can enter into you. Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble, but inside of you God want to grow the kingdom of God, the DNA of heaven inside of you. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, Jesus says, I have overcome the world.

Let’ finish this way. Jesus says, My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you – not as your parents taught you to love, but in the way that I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if, if, if, if you do what I command. . .You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit–fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other. John 15:9-14, 15-17 (NIV)

Moto Moto and Melman had different definitions of love. Each definition of love brough diffrent results as each lived into them. What’s your definition of love? Where’d you get it? Are you sure its legit? Did you get your definition from the source of all love, which is God? The source of love doesn’t come from you, it comes from God, and you can’t give what you haven’t gotten. Connect to God who is the source of all love. Allow him to teach you what love is and he will redefine your love in such a way that it will fill you and overwhelm you and give you an understanding of love that you never thought possible.

I was reading Genesis a few weeks ago and I came across this passage:

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground–trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:8-9 (NIV)

Why does God put these two stories together? God had just formed all kinds of animals – birds, fish, mammals, but God doesn’t say anything about them. Instead he plants us so-to-speak with the other trees of the garden.

What’s interesting is that throughout the Bible, the authors of many of the books make references to us producing fruit.

If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your forefathers. He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb . . .Deuteronomy 7:12-13 (NIV)

When we think about it, this makes sense. The apple tree produces apples. The human being produces humans. Children are our fruit. But this isn’t the end of it. The Bible writers go on to tell us that not only is there physical fruit that comes from the womb in the form of babies, but that there is spiritual fruit that comes from the seed to God.

Babies come from their father’s seed which is planted in the womb of their mother. The child grows up to become much like his or her parents.

However, most of the summer we preached a series of messages about the kingdom of God, where Jesus says, The kingdom of God is something that grows inside of you. In a parable Jesus says the kingdom starts small like the tiniest of seeds, but it can grow really big, like the tallest of trees. This seed of the kingdom is planted there by your Father in Heaven, and we’re told that in order to become fully human, in order to become all that you were created to be, you must learn how to grow the seed of the kingdom of God inside of you, so that it can produce spiritual fruit.

The kingdom of God is like a seed and that seed has all the DNA of heaven inside of it. However that seed can lay dormant inside of you your whole life, never sprouting, never growing, never producing the fruit that you were created to be filled with. There is external, physical fruit which is our children. And there is internal, spiritual fruit, which comes only from God. This series is focused on helping us to understand what the fruit is and how it grows.

This series we’re seeking to understand how we grow the seed of the kingdom within us, because for most of us in the room, these ideas about the kingdom of God growing inside of us, are new ideas, and for many in the room, there are a dozen varieties of hellishness that we have growing inside of us – anxiety, fear, low self esteem, depression, lust and addiction just to name a few.

How do we kill those things that are growing in us? And how do we grow the DNA of heaven – love, joy, peace, patience, inside of us? How do we grow the kingdom of God inside of us?

Two weeks ag we read where Jesus began this discourse saying, “I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You  are already clean (or pruned) because of the word I have spoken to you (John 15:1-3). That’s all the further we got two weeks ago.

Today, we continue reading. Jesus says: Remain in me, and I will 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 a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:4-5

We said two weeks ago that in this teaching Jesus is referring to a vineyard. Father God is the Gardener, Jesus is the trunk vine, and you and I are the branches and the big question that Jesus is presenting is how do the branches produce fruit? Let’s start with this little phrase.

Look at this little word. Remain in me. Why the word “In”? Why not, “Remain attached to me?” That would make more sense to my way of thinking. That’s what branches do, right? They need to stay attached to the main vine or they die, but Jesus uses the word in. Remain in me.  It’s that pesky word “in” that keeps popping up. The kingdom of God is with-in you (John 17:21). Streams of living water will flow from within you (John 7:39). Jesus is again pointing, not at outside fruit, but inside fruit.

He’s saying don’t interpret this teaching as “If I love Jesus then he will bless me with a big house and nice cars, numerous vacations and a big 401K.” Jesus is again pointing toward inward fruit of the kingdom of God. This doesn’t mean that you won’t be blessed externally, but blessing starts inside and moves outside, not the other way around.

In our American culture, we are taught that if we make enough and do enough and become educated enough, then we will have enough and be happy, but we know this isn’t how it really works. Jesus turns that around and says, “No, no, no, you must be good on the inside before things can be good on the outside. The outside is an overflowing of the inside.

Now, if we actually take this literally, Jesus is saying, “Stay connected to the inside of me,” which means stay connected to my heart, to my will, to the things that make me tick. Seek what’s on the inside of me, the things that are dear to me, and important to me. Seek the things that I know, that I believe about the world. Which if we know anything about Jesus’ teaching, we know that the main reason he stepped down out of heaven is to proclaim and make available the kingdom of God. “Remain in me” Jesus says. That’s a loaded statement.

How do we remain in Jesus? According to Jesus the greatest command of life is to: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ Mark 12:30 (NIV)

Love is about what’s inside. Jesus says in this passage, if you remain in me, then I will remain in you. I get God’s Spirit being on the inside of me, but how do I get in Jesus? The answer is love and deep connection.

A vine cannot produce fruit if there’s no juice flowing. It can be connected physically by the tough exterior bark and still not produce anything. Some of you here, might call yourself a Christian, and you might come to worship, and you might even put some money in the tithing box. You might have Christian friends and you might listen to Christian music and you might even have a fish bumper sticker. You might have all the physical connections with being a Christian, but if you are seeking God’s love, his truth, his will, and serving out of that, then it’s all empty. It’s all external, while nothing’s happening internally.

Jesus got very angry with the religious leaders of his day because they did all the right things, but they did it with the wrong heart. If you do all the right thing externally, but you fail to be the right person and have the right heart internally, Jesus calls you dead wood.

What’s the most important thing in life? Let me ask you this, is loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength a priority in your life?” We all know what the right answer is, but is this the most important thing in your life – to love God with all that you are – to seek after him and his will and to know him and join him in the work he’s doing in the world?

At another level, all of us, including me can say, “No, no it’s not.” I don’t love God with all that I am, because I still chose my own will from time to time, I still sin, I still do things I’m not proud of and am sure God is not proud of them either.

Here’s a tougher question, “Is that ok with you?” Are you seeking, longing, panting, hungering, craving more of God in your life, or are you ok with where you’re at?

Jesus says, “Remain in me. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.

Wow, isn’t that sort of barbaric for Jesus to say such things? How humane is that? He seems to be insinuating that people are thrown into the fire and burned? What happens with anything that is burned? It is reduced to ash. It’s reduced back to its original state, which is dirt. When you burn branches, the process of burning returns the branches back to their original state – ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

God is the author of goodness and he’s created this place called heaven where all the wrongs are righted and where evil is dead and where there are no more tears, but as we’ve been saying, “There are some things that don’t work in heaven” and Jesus calls us to fight against all that is evil. We are called to draw closer and closer to God so that we produce the fruit of heaven. We are called to draw closer and closer to God so that we become more and more like him.

“If anyone does not remain in me”, Jesus says, the connection to God’s goodness is lost. Heaven cannot grow in you. The seed of the kingdom will wilt and die. The kingdom of God will be lost to you.

If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.

There is a very consistent theme throughout the Bible. The theme is this: The farther people move away from God the more evil they become. Let’s look at how the story of God begins.

The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth–men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air–for I am grieved that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Genesis 6:5-8 (NIV)

God always destroys that which no longer has any good in it. The seed of the kingdom is taken away from those who don’t grow it. For those who don’t want a deep connection to God, and for those who don’t want to grow in their goodness, for those who are ok with the evil condition of their heart, God says, “Away from me you evil doers.”

Here’s what God is saying. We become our choices. Initially you can chose to be angry, but the longer you choose it, the less you have the choice of being angry, you become anger. At first anger is a choice, but the more you chose it the more it becomes your nature. Our choices and our actions are a path that leads somewhere. Where is your path leading? What kind of fruit are you producing?

If you choose your will, instead of God’s, and you choose God to be just a small part of your life, then that doesn’t work in heaven, because God is at the center of heaven. God is what makes heaven work. He’s what makes heaven possible. If you aren’t seeking God to be the center of your will, then you can’t go to heaven because you don’t work in heaven.

If you want to make all the decisions in your life or if you want God to be one of the many side dishes in your life, instead of the main meal, you can do that, but that doesn’t lead to heaven. That’s like you saying to Jesus “Jesus, remain in me.”

Jesus says, remain in me, otherwise, you won’t produce any of the fruit of heaven inside of you today and your life will come to exactly nothing.

Know this, it’s not such a big deal how much evil is in you, but rather what path you’re journeying down and your intentions on that path. Do you want to be like Jesus, but you got a long way to go? That’s ok, as long as you are seeking and desiring to draw close to God and to form your life around his will and not yours. It’s not enough to say, “I want to be like Jesus” without doing anything to be like Jesus. Your will has to match your intentions otherwise it isn’t your will.

Jesus continues: If you remain in me (connected to me, in love with me, with me at the center of your world) and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.

Now, Jesus says things like this numerous times in the gospel accounts of his life. He says things like “Ask whatever you wish, and I’ll give it to you.” And people with a perverted idea of who God misconstrue these statements by Jesus.

Remember in all of Jesus’ teaching, he has been talking about internal spiritual fruit. He’s still talking about that. When he says, “Ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you, he’s saying, “Ask for any spiritual fruit that you want and it will be given to you.” This is indeed good news. Jesus says, if you’re lacking spiritual fruit in any area, ask me for it and I’ll give it to you. Any other translation of this verse takes it out of the context that Jesus is using it.

So what is spiritual fruit? First, I’d like to read a list of things that Paul says will never bear spiritual fruit for us.

The apostle Paul says, “It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time (with you on the throne of your life): repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies (which are comical misrepresentation) of community. I could go on. This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom. Galatians 5:19-21 (MSG)

There’s no fruit of the kingdom of God in such things. All those things are evidence that you are full of yourself, full of sin, full of broken and twisted and distorted ways that will never bless you and never bless those around you. The kingdom will not grow in you if you are ok with those things in your life. They have to be evicted, cut out. Ask God to help you with getting rid of that kind of evil in your life and he will.

The apostle Paul continues:

But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others (love), exuberance about life (joy), serenity (peace). We develop a willingness to stick with things (patience), a sense of compassion in the heart (kindness), and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people (goodness). We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments (faithfulness), not needing to force our way in life (gentleness), able to marshal and direct our energies wisely (self-control). Legalism (rule following without love) is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Galatians 5:22-23 (MSG)

This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

A disciple is one who follows. Jesus says to you and to me, “Come follow me. Remain in me. Be connected to me, love me with all that you are, for I will grow you in the ways of heaven. I am the truth that you are looking for. I am the life that will fill you up with all the goodness that you long for and even more, so much so that it will overflow out of you onto others.

You were produced out of a physical seed that your father planted inside of your mother’s womb. You are evidence of physical fruit. Your heavenly Father has also planted a seed inside of your heart. He wants it to grow, so that you begin to look like him on the inside.

In Genesis one, we’re told that we were created in the image of God. This is what he means. Will you learn to grow the kingdom of God inside of you? You were created to bear physical and spiritual fruit. In your physical being you probably resemble your parents. In your spiritual being you were created to resemble your heavenly Father. How are you doing on that?

The Father is your gardener. Ask you to help you grow great fruit. Don’t be content with where you’re at. God’s not. He wants you to resemble him. Remember, Jesus says the way to growth is through connecting deeply in him.

The kingdom of God is the central message of Jesus. For many, we’ve come to falsely understand the kingdom of God as being an equivalent of heaven or eternal life, but Jesus never talked about it that way.

Jesus announced that the kingdom of God was something that was at hand, within reach, and available now, today. Then we looked at the place where Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you.” And we looked at the parables where Jesus said, “the kingdom of God is like this and it’s like that, it’s like buried treasure, it’s like the smallest of seeds that grows into largest of trees.”

For all of you who have been with us for the series, you should now have a good idea about what the kingdom of God is, but the question that I’ve been purposely avoiding until now is, “How does the kingdom of God grow inside of us?” How do we get the DNA of heaven to grow inside of us? How do we get the good things of life to grow inside of us and the dark things of life that grow inside of us to leave?

If you’re unclear about what the kingdom of God is, then I highly suggest going out to our website and review my sermon notes of those messages or the MP3 recordings of those messages, because growth as a Christian is nearly impossible without a right understanding of the kingdom.

The condition of our hearts are central to growing the kingdom of God inside of us. Just as a seed in a garden can’t grow in acidic soil, so it is that the kingdom of God doesn’t grow in an acidic heart. So today, let’s look to the master gardener and let’s see what he has to say about growing the kingdom of God inside of us. How do we get the DNA of heaven growing in our hearts?

Jesus said, “I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean (or pruned) because of the word I have spoken to you. John 15:1-3

Ok, so let’s name all the parts of the metaphor that Jesus is talking about in these verses, because we’re not going to look at all the verse today. In this metaphor Jesus is saying “I am the trunk vine that comes out of the ground in a vineyard. Next he tells us that we, as human beings, all human beings, are the branches of the grape vine. And that our purpose as human beings is to bear fruit, just as the purpose of grape vines is to bear grapes. Father God is the Gardener – the farmer or caretaker of the grapes. Those are all the pieces of the metaphor that Jesus is using to teach us. Let’s step into it.

Jesus says, “I am the true vine. He doesn’t say “I am like a vine.” He says, “I am a vine.” The vine that Jesus is most likely talking about is a grape vine. So we must ask, what does a grape vine do? What are its characteristics? What is its purpose?

This is an interesting illustration because we live in grape country. We are surrounded by grapes. We know that grapes get pruned every year and many of the branches get cut off, but the trunk vine never gets cut off. Jesus is referring to himself as that trunk vine. That trunk vine is necessary for the branches to live. If the branches of the vine are cut off, they die. They cannot live independently from the main trunk vine.

Now, it’s interesting. Jesus also says, “I am the TRUE vine,” as if there are false vines. He distinguishes between types of vines. He is the true vine, but there are also false vines. We all have seen other types of vines. These vines climb anything that’s vertical and, if allowed to grow, eventually kill it anything that they grow on. They constrict the life out of other living things. This type of vine doesn’t produce any fruit. It doesn’t provide anything good, it just kills anything that it climbs on.

There are two types of vines. A grape vine produces fruit. Other types of vines don’t produce fruit. An Jesus is very clear here. He is true vine, one that produces fruit, as compared with the false vine that doesn’t. He gives life and vitality, but other vines kill.

The fruit that Jesus is talking about is the fruit of the kingdom of God, the DNA of heaven growing inside you. You and I can’t grow anything good inside us apart from Jesus.

Now, the vine image that Jesus refers to was used throughout the Old Testament. Here are a couple of illustrations. The Psalmist says,

You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. Psalms 80:8 (NIV)

Here the vine refers to Israel, God’s chosen people. Then in Jeremiah 2:21 we find where God says,

I had planted you like a choice vine of sound and reliable stock. How then did you turn against me into a corrupt, wild vine? Jeremiah 2:21 (NIV)

There’s a choice vine and a corrupt, wild vine. There’s the true vine, which is Jesus and then there’s the false vine. One produces the fruit of heaven, the other, if given the chance, will kill you.

Now, it’s important to understand that the back drop of Jesus’ teaching here in John 15 is the parables of the Kingdom of God in which Jesus tells us, “The kingdom of God is like a seed planted in a field.” The reason why the seed is planted is to produce fruit. The reason the vine is planted is to produce fruit – fruit of the kingdom, fruit of heaven.

God longed for fruit from Israel, but the vine that God planted in the nation of Israel had degenerated and produced rotten fruit. Israel could not produce fruit on their own, because sin and a misunderstanding of who God is corrupted their vine and couldn’t produce healthy fruit.

Some of you have been living with a misunderstanding about what Christianity is and when you look inside of yourselves you see fruit that’s not all that good. There are different vines. There is the true vine and then there are other types of vines. There are many teachings about Jesus. Which Jesus do you believe in? Is it a false Jesus or the true one? You can tell by the fruit that is on the inside of you (see Matthew 7:17 for more).

“I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. John 15:1

Those listening to Jesus in the first century would have immediately connected this idea of the Father being a gardener with the God in Genesis one who’s first act after creating the world was to plant a Garden in the center of it, called the Garden of Eden. That garden was full of physical fruit. Jesus uses this image to help us understand that we’re created to bear fruit in our hearts. He’s saying, the One who created heaven on earth in Eden can create it in your heart as well, if you let him.

Jesus continues. “I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes (or cuts it off, but differently) so that it will be even more fruitful.

In this teaching, the people of this world – you and I are the branches. Now, it’s interesting again, just as it was with the sower of the seeds and different kinds of soil, there is this quality of in-ness for all people. Sometimes Christians think of themselves as “IN” while they think of others as out, but Jesus never does this. In all of his teaching, all people are in, but the question that he raises is “What are you going to do with your In-ness?”

All people receive the seed for the kingdom, but the question Jesus posses is what are you going to do with your seed? In the parable of the prodigal son, both sons are invited to the party, but the question for the older brother is will he join the party or not. Jesus died for the whole world, but what will you do with the gift he’s given you? All of Jesus’ teachings are about inclusion, not exclusion. It’s about grace. In this teaching, all the branches are connected to Jesus who is the main vine. The question is what are they going to do with their connection? Will they stay connected or not? Will they produce fruit or not?

He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

Now it’s interesting that there are two types of cutting that Jesus records. The first type is to remove the branch because it is dead. In the branch that’s dead, there’s no life, there’s no goodness, there’s nothing that is compatible with heaven. In this Jesus is referring to people who don’t have a seed of the kingdom of God growing in them. As far as Jesus is concerned, the seed of the kingdom of God growing in you is mandatory. Goodness doesn’t come from you or from me, it comes from heaven, it comes from God and God alone. When we are not connected to the true vine, which is Jesus, we have no fruit, we have no evidence that the kingdom is growing in us. People without the kingdom growing in them are not compatible with heaven. Eventually they get cut off.

We’re told in Genesis chapter 6 that

The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart. And the Lord said, “I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. Genesis 6:5-7 (NLT)

God is good and what he wills to do with the earth is good, and for him there is no room in it for people who do not will and want that which is good. God wants to move us toward heaven, but he gives us a choice. God wants to redeem you and I and every human being on the earth, but it’s each person’s choice. Each person has to want God’s help. Each person has to want to stay connected. You can chose to say, “God I don’t need your help. I don’t want to be connected.”  That’s your choice.

However, if you chose not to want God’s help, it is the testament of God’s word that says, “You will become evil apart from God.” God’s word makes it very clear that human beings don’t know what is right and good apart from God. We think we do, but we don’t. Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” His life is a testament to the truth that leads us toward living in goodness. Apart from him there is goodness. Jesus says,

He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

The second kind of cutting the Father does, doesn’t cut the whole branch off, like he did in the first cutting. Instead he cuts part of the branch off. He cuts only the part that’s not producing good fruit. This branch is producing some fruit, but it isn’t producing its full potential. The Father wants to produce the fullest amount of fruit in you. He wants to grow the fruits of heaven inside of you. Pruning is essential to produce healthy fruit. It is essential in order to grow healthy people.

That anger issue, it doesn’t work in heaven, it needs to be pruned. That lust issue that you have, it’s not compatible with heaven. It’ll have to go. All that anxiety that is like a wet blanket in your soul, that’ll have to go. Some things aren’t compatible with heaven – they’re evil, they’re dark, they’re contrary to heaven, they’ll have to go. They need to be pruned off.

If you have believed that the kingdom of God is something that you’ll experience some day when you die, and you never knew that there was a realm in which the kingdom of God could grow in you, then the fruit of heaven won’t grow in you.

This is important, because I find that many Christians today are living powerless lives. Evil is winning in their lives. After years and years of being Christians, evil is still triumphing over them. This happens because the way they view the world, the way they view God and the way they view even themselves. Though not intentional, they are worshipping a false god. They have a false view about who God is and what God wants for their lives today.

Jesus came to redeem you, not some day when you die, but now, today. It’s a process, it’s a journey, but it begins today. And get this, our Father God, the great Gardener wants to grow fruit in you. That’s why he’s the Gardener in Jesus’ story. He wants to produce the fruit of heaven inside of you. He wants to give you peace, not anxiety. He wants to grow joy in you, not depression. He wants the fruit of heaven to grow in you, and in order to do that he calls you to work with him to do the pruning of the evil that’s within you. He wants to prune you, but you have to understand what it is, why it’s necessary, and want it. We have to ask for pruning. We have to want more fruit and we have to want to be whole. We must seek it more than anything else in life.

Maybe you’ve believed that the fruit of heaven couldn’t grow in you until you died, until you went to heaven. Our beliefs form us. They form a reality that we live into. Our beliefs are the prison that holds us captive. If you believe wrongly about Jesus you will live into that reality. It will hold you captive. That’s why Jesus tells us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, because it is the right worldview.  When we see the world as Jesus does, he teaches us what good and evil is and how to grow goodness in our hearts and how to war against the evil that grows within us and win.

So often we think Christianity is all about comfort, about feeling good, about happiness, because we think to ourselves, “Well if the kingdom is about Love, Joy and Peace, then I ought to feel good, and sometimes we equate that to comfort.

However, for Jesus there was an aspect of losing a part of yourself that was necessary to grow the kingdom of God within you. Pruning isn’t easy. It doesn’t feel good. In pruning we have to hold on to Jesus the vine, more than the evil within us. We have to let go of the evil and cling to the vine. But what happens more often than not is we cling to the evil and let go of the vine. We cling to the sin and let go of Jesus. We actually like the evil within us more than we like Jesus. It’s because we’re comfortable and familiar with the evil in us. It feels natural. It doesn’t feel good, but it feel like me. I am who I am. You can’t change that, right?

Friends, every human being is born into this world with good and evil in them. If we get to know others, we can often see good and evil side by side. In this person I see a great encourager, but then say the wrong thing to them and they become abusive as they erupt in bitterness, as vile words come from their mouth – goodness and evil out of the same mouth. I see good hearted people who are tender and warm and compassionate and right alongside that goodness is a heart that is filled with anxiety that threatens to overrun them. Goodness and evil side by side. James says this of the tongue.

Sometimes it (the tongue) praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God. And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right! Does a spring of water bubble out with both fresh water and bitter water? Does a fig tree produce olives, or a grapevine produce figs? No, and you can’t draw fresh water from a salty spring. James 3:9-12 (NLT)

What kind of heart do you have? Is it compatible with heaven? Is there any evil in you? Are you ok with it being there? No, I mean it, are you ok with it being there. Don’t be too quick to answer this question. Ask yourself, “What am I doing to fight against the evil in my heart?” If you’re not doing anything about the evil in your heart, then either A) you’re ok with it, you’re comfortable with it, or B) you don’t believe that you have any power to defeat it.

Friends, let me remind you of the series that we’ve just finished. God has planted a seed inside of you with the DNA of heaven. Jesus calls it the kingdom of God. He wants to grow heaven inside of you. He wants your heart to swell with the goodness of his presence inside of you. Jesus tells us that God is the great Gardener and he wants to grow great fruit inside of you. If great fruit is not growing inside of you, it’s not God’s fault.

Jesus says: You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father. Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it! John 14:13-14 (NLT)

Jesus isn’t talking about asking for a pot of gold or a new Hummer. He’s talking about fruit – the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of heaven.

Jesus tells us that pruning needs to take place in order for the fruit of heaven to grow in our hearts.

How serious are you about confronting evil within you? God has given you free will. He refuses to do anything in you that you don’t want, that you don’t ask for. God will not prune the evil inside of you unless you ask him to and are willing to do the hard work of warring against that evil.

Jesus continues: You are already (pruned) clean because of the word I have spoken to you. John 15:3

Let me say that again. You are already clean (pruned) because of the word I have spoken to you.

What does the pruning? Jesus’ word – God’s word. Jesus is God’s word in the flesh. Our Bibles are significant tools for pruning. They give us a right understanding about what God deems as good and what God deems as evil. We cannot be serious about producing the fruit of heaven, the kingdom of God in our lives without God’s word filling us. We must become students of God’s word. We must master God’s will. We must see the world as he does. We must understand who he is and what he calls us to be in him. God’s word prunes us.

The word that Jesus uses for “word” is Logos, and in ancient Hebrew thought, a word was deeply spiritual because when God spoke the world into being, his breath, his Spirit went forth from him and created the world. Word and Spirit are deeply tied together. Here, the Spirit of God that is in Jesus is cleansing the disciple’s hearts. The Word of God and the Spirit of God are the ways in which we are pruned. The Word of God and the Spirit of God are both for our benefit. They are gifts of God to us to prune us of evil.

When Jesus says, “You are already clean because of the words that I have spoken to you.” He’s saying, “Because you have spent time with me listening to me and learning from me, you have already been pruned. All the evil ways of thinking, all the twisted and distorted worldviews that you came to me with have been loped off.  My word and my presence have pruned you. There is no substitute for pruning. We must spend time in prayer and God’s Word to be pruned. We must seek to know who God is and who we are in him. We must seek to conform our will to his will. We must seek to know the difference between good and evil, because the Evil One is a liar and a deceiver and often times we think up is down and down is up, we think evil is good and good is evil. We need to know who God is and who we are in him. We must learn how to fight against evil with God’s word and with prayer if we want to produce the fruit of the kingdom inside of us. As long as evil grows within us, there will be barren places in which nothing good grows. We must learn to discern between goodness and evil and fight against the evil, even while growing more and more of Heaven’s fruit inside of us.

Last week we looked at a very small part of Matthew 6:33 where Jesus said, “Seek first his (referring to God) kingdom”, or said another way is “Seek first the kingdom of God”.

In that message we looked at each of those four words. We said that “Seek” means that it’s not going to be obvious. The kingdom of God, as Jesus stated in the parable of the treasure is hidden. You’re going to have to want to find it. It’s going to take time, and persistence. You’re not just going to stumble upon it and say, “Oh, what do we have here.”

The second word is “First”, seek first. That means that there are other choices that will vie for our attention. Other things will probably try and crowd out that which is most important and you’ll have to make some decisions. Will I seek first the kingdom of God, or will I seek something else.

The third word is “His”, seek first his, which in this case refers to Father God.  His is a possessive word. It’s not ours, it’s his – it’s the Father’s. We don’t own it. We can’t have it, and we can’t get it apart from God. We’ll have to get it from him and from him alone, because it’s his.

And the fourth word is “Kingdom” – the kingdom of God. We’ve spent seven weeks talking about the kingdom of God. We said many people have thought that the kingdom of God is something that you will only experience in heaven, but Jesus rarely talks about it in those terms. He says, “The kingdom of God is within you.” It’s at hand. It’s within reach. It’s available now.

Jesus said the kingdom of God is like a small seed that is planted in your heart and it can grow to the largest of trees so that it takes over your garden and crowds everything else out. The kingdom of God is like a seed with the DNA of heaven planted in your heart and it has the ability to grow and produce all the fruit of heaven crowding out all other evil and all other ways that are not God’s.

We said that if we choose to seek first the kingdom of God that God becomes king of our life and his will is done through us and his Spirit works through us to do his good will. That’s one choice. We also said that if we don’t grow the kingdom of God inside of us, then the old saying is true, because you can just be full of yourself. You can make all the decisions and you can choose what’s right and what’s wrong and you can decide how to live in every area of your life and you can bear the responsibility for where your life goes and how it turns out. You can do that. You have that choice. You can either be full of the Spirit of God inside of you and you can decide to follow his will and his truth and his idea of goodness in your life or you can be full of yourself with you sitting at the center of you controlling what goes on in your life. You can seek first your kingdom or you can seek first your kingdom. It’s your choice.

Ok, let’s just assume that we’ve got that one settled. Let’s just assume that we want to live with God at the center of our lives. We want him to be our king. Maybe we’re honest enough to recognize God is not the king in our lives yet, or at least not in every area of our life – that’s good that we recognize and admit that, but how do we go forward. What does that look like? That leads us to the next two words in Matthew 6:33.

Seek first his (God’s) kingdom and his . . . righteousness Matthew 6:33a (NIV)

And this statement leads us to another question. What does it mean to be right or righteous according to Jesus?

This is where so many Christians get stuck as they seek God and his kingdom. It’s one thing to say that God is at the center of our lives. It’s another thing entirely to live as though God is at the center of our lives. For many of us, we equate knowing the right things to living the right way and then we can’t figure out why the fruit of heaven isn’t in our lives.

For many who have grown up in the church, they think they know what righteousness is, but in reality most don’t.

When Jesus says, “Seek first his (God’s) kingdom and his righteousness” he is speaking about something called a worldview. It’s very possible that you don’t know what a worldview is, and maybe it’s something that you’ve never heard of before. If that’s the case, it’s unfortunate, because it is a necessary concept to understand if God is going to be king in your life.

A worldview is a framework (pointing to glasses frame) of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world around them and interacts with it.

It is how people see and interpret what’s going on around them. For some they’ve never thought about such things. For many of us, we’ve never been taught that such a thing exists, and yet at some level we intrinsically understand what a worldview is.

Let me give you a couple of examples of worldviews, so that you begin to understand what I’m talking about here. This has everything to do with understanding righteousness

Most women in American shave their legs and their arm pits, would you agree? Most men and women in America have been taught that it’s attractive for a woman to shave her legs and underarms, right? We’ve been taught this from a very early age. We don’t challenge it. We just know it to be true. If you see a woman who has long hair on her legs or if she lifts her arms and you see long shaggy hair in her pits, what’s your first thought? Ugh!

However, women in some European countries are taught from a very young age not to shave their leg or underarm hair. They have been taught not to shave their legs or underarms and they consider this to be very normal, so when European men see European women with shaggy hair on their legs and under their arms, they’re ok with it. They think that ok, or even good.

These are examples of opposing worldviews. The very same thing – leg and underarm hair is interpreted exactly opposite. What’s good in America is bad in Europe and what’s bad in America is good in Europe. Here we have exactly the same thing interpreted in exactly opposite ways – good and bad.

We could use burping after a meal as another example. Here burping after a meal is considered rude, but in some Eastern countries it’s considered a way of saying that the meal was good and it’s actually expected.

How do you know who’s right, Americans or some other culture? Of course we as Americans are, right, right?

Now, we don’t have to go very far to find people that disagree with us about politics, religion, abortion, gay marriage, or a host of other hot topics. Each of these people have a different worldview. They view the world differently. They interpret it differently.  If you’ve been married, many of you have had disagreements with your spouse or your ex. If you’ve had children, you’ve definitely had disagreements with them. Why? Each person views the world in different ways and some will get very fierce about being right. Maybe you’re one of them. People view the world and interpret it in different ways. This is what causes all the conflict in the world. This is what causes all the arguments, all the fights, all the conflicts, all the wars

Let me ask you a question, “What’s the right answer?” With so many opposing views, who’s right? Of course if you are the king of your kingdom the answer is “Me”. You are at the center of your world, you think that you’re right and that everybody else is a moron if they don’t agree with you.

How we define our view of the world is based on many, many things. It’s based on:                (puts on a new pair of glasses for each bullet point)

1. 1. What country you were born into What social class you were born into
2. 2. What race you were born into
3. 3. Whether you were born male or female
4. 4. What DNA you were born with
5. 5. Who your parents were
6. 6. Whether you were raised by both parents, only one of your parents, or neither of your parents.
7. 7. How we were loved or not loved
8. 8. How we were encouraged or put down by those around us
9. 9. The things that we did or didn’t do and the positive or negative experience we had with those things

10. How you have been hurt and by how you were blessed.

11. Do I need to go on?

How you see and interpret the world is literally determined by millions of things that influence how you were formed.

A worldview is a framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world around them and interacts with it.

Is anyone here perfect? How do you know that you see and interpret the world around you correctly? How do you know you’re right and someone else is wrong? Think about that the next time you disagree with someone else. How do you know that your worldview is right?

It doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong when it comes to women with hairy legs or burping after dinner, but it does matter on a whole host of other things that are far more important.

When Jesus says, “Seek first (God’s) kingdom and his righteousness” He’s asking us to seek God’s rightness first, always.

Our God is perfect and he commands us to seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness – his rightness – his will, his truth, his life – how he understands it – how he sees it, his view of the world. Put him at the center. How will you start your day? How will you treat your spouse? How will you teach your kids and show them love? How will you know what’s right and wrong, when you might have been taught what was right by someone else who was wrong?

Is your worldview correct? Are you so arrogant and proud to suggest that you have the right worldview and that everybody else who disagrees with you is wrong? Are you so arrogant and proud that you know what’s right apart from God?

Jesus calls us to see the world as God sees the world, to have his view of the world, and to align our views with his rightness, with his righteousness. We have been taught how to view the world and it might be right or it might be wrong – we don’t know unless we seek to understand how God sees the world.

Think of any sport. I’ll use football as an example. Can you imagine if everybody didn’t agree on what he rules where or where the boundaries where, or that the referees didn’t have the authority to blow the whistle and call penalties. Can you imagine if professional football was like backyard football when I was a kid. We didn’t have any rules or any boundaries. We’d just make up the rules as we went along. I’d be running the ball and someone would say, “Your out of bounce!” and what would I say? No I’m not, I’m still in bounds.” Who was right? Who was wrong? The boundaries were never defined. There was no definition of rightness, so we made up rightness as we went along. You know how almost every one of those games went? Somebody would get made and go home because they thought someone else was cheating.

The Bible, then, is God’s instruction on how to see the world. He is the only one who is perfect. He is the only one who is right, and he calls us to align our lives around his view of the world and how he understands right.

You must know how to interpret the Bible correctly, on how to understand it, and on how to experience the very best of life and avoid all the worst of it. If you have a hard time making heads or tails of the Bible when we read it, then it’s likely that you’re not seeing the world as God sees it.

PPT Chart – Circle with arrows around the circle. The word “Issue” in the center. There is a large arrow on one side stating “God’s view”. Each of the other arrows represents other views that are not God’s.

If what God’s saying doesn’t make sense to you, then you can come to one of two conclusions. Either you can come to the conclusion that God is a blithering idiot who doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or  that you’re . . . I’ll let you come to your own conclusions on the second one. If you don’t understand what you read, it’s not a big jump to say that you don’t see the world and understand the world and interpret the world in the same way God does.

If this is the case, you are interpreting and understanding the world with a system of lies that will never bless you. If you are seeing and interpreting the world through your own sense of rightness, then God’s kingdom is not at the center of your world, yours is. If God’s rightness is not in you, then that only leaves one choice. It’s all about you and your rightness.

Now, I know that I’m being a bit “In your face with this, because I want to make a very bold point.

We are all at different places in life and that’s ok, but it’s not ok to stay where you are, because God has something better for you. He has planted a seed inside of you that has the DNA of heaven inside it. God’s kingdom has been planted inside of you and God wants you to experience the fruits of his kingdom, of heaven itself. He wants you to be blessed. As long as you are trying to interpret your world, you will never be blessed with the joys of the kingdom of God inside of you. You might become rich and you might be comfortable with your wealth and you may have a lot of toys, but the peace, and joy and love of the kingdom will never fill you.

Sometimes what happens is that when we read God’s word we don’t really seek to understand what he understands. We don’t really seek to know what he knows. We don’t really seek to experience what he says we could be experiencing. We just close the cover and say at some level in our heart, “that was kind of boring. It’s not a very good read” as if we know something.

The apostle Paul speaks about worldview in this manner. He says this:

The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment: “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:14-16 (NIV)

How did Paul receive the mind of Christ? He sought to know what Christ knew. He sought to see what Christ saw. He sought to have the same worldview as Christ. He sought to experience what Jesus said he could experience.

Jesus said it this way:

“No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead he puts it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. Luke 11:33-34 (NIV)

How we see the world determines if we are filled with light or darkness. It’s interesting that Jesus only says “eye” in the singular. We only see the world in one way. That’s our worldview. The question is, “Are we right in how we see it?” The answer, “only if you see with the eyes of God”. When you see the world the way God sees the world, then your whole body is full of light or goodness. If you don’t see the world rightly, then your whole body is full of darkness.

We’re told that we can’t see what God sees until we’re born again. We’re told that we can’t have God at the center until we seek to follow Jesus. If you’ve never put God at the center of your world and sought to know him and understand him and see what he sees and live how he directs, then you will never experience the fruit of his kingdom growing inside of you.

In following Jesus, we are to weigh everything that we do and everything that we see and everything that we understand with what Jesus did and what Jesus saw and how Jesus understood. (Project)

Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, Matthew 6:33 (NIV)

That’s why the Bible is so important. That’s why the Spirit of God living inside of us and counseling us is so important.

Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:33-34 (NIV)

Powerpoint

This life_______________________________} death

Parallel reality

The kingdom of God _________________________Eternal life – unchanging, always existing since creation and never ends. Not based in time, but just IS.

What Jesus is instructing us to do in this verse is to seek first the reality of the kingdom of God. It exists and it’s real and its within reach, it is near, it is within you. It is like buried treasure. It is hidden. It is extremely valuable, and when you find it, it will fill you with immense joy. It starts small, but grows big inside of you. You’ve been given much, but are you using and investing what you’ve been given well? Is your light growing? Is the kingdom filling you?

Seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, and everything that has to do with the kingdom will be given to you – exceedingly great joy, so much so that you’re sell everything that you have, because what God wants to give you makes everything else that you could own, pale in comparison. Peace, so much so that Jesus says, “Do not worry. Do not fear, for I am with you always, even until the end of the age. Love, so much so that you will have so much that it will overflow out of you.

Who’s the king in your life? What or who is at the center of your world? Whose kingdom are you seeking first? Who’s right? What are you using to evaluate right from wrong, good from bad? Your own will and sense of right? Or are you weighing every thought, every idea, every feeling, are you taking it captive to Christ?

What are you seeking first? What’s right? The answer to these questions will deeply influence and determine how you will live and how you will die. Take some significant time this week to weigh these questions. Don’t be too hasty because Satan will often deceive us at first glance. Look deep within you, because that is where God and his kingdom can be found.

Invitation to follow Jesus

8-14-11 Kingdom of God – What’s at the Center?

Illustration need: Big Balloon

We’re in our seventh week of this series on the Kingdom of God. We’ve spent a lot of time on this series, because I’m convinced that many Christians have either no idea what the kingdom of God is, or they have a very distorted view of what the kingdom of God is. I was 35, and in my second year of seminary, before I found out that the kingdom of God is the central theme of the Bible and the central them of Jesus’ teaching. What’s worse is that I had grown up in church.

We’ve said that many people think the reason that Jesus came was to forgive people of their sins, or to help people get into heaven, or to teach them how to live good, moral lives, but none of these is the focus of why Jesus came. His self-proclaimed reason for coming was to preach and teach about the kingdom of God. Jesus taught about heaven, the forgiveness of sins, and morality, but these are part of something Jesus calls the kingdom of God. They are a part, but not the whole.

Imagine dropping a large rock into a pond. The kingdom of God is the rock and it makes a big splash. Morality, forgiveness of sins, teaching about heaven, are all the ripples created by the rock being dropped into the pond. They are not the rock. They are a result of the rock.

During this series on the kingdom of God we’ve been looking at the parables of the kingdom. In one set of parables Jesus began the parable with “The kingdom of God is like” and then he went on to tell us what the kingdom of God is like right now. How it works, what it looks like, where we can find it, and how we can experience it. Then, we spent a couple of weeks looking at parables where Jesus began with “the kingdom of God will be like” and in those parables Jesus taught about what would happen someday. And we said Jesus didn’t just give us those parables to teach us about what would happen someday so that we could know what it would be like, but rather, he gave us those parables because preparation is necessary today for the kingdom of God to grow in us.

Today, we’re not going to look at a parable as we have the other six weeks, but a command. No longer is Jesus teaching about the kingdom of God or telling us what the kingdom of God will be like, in this passage he’s telling us what to do in light of what we’ve heard about the kingdom of God. Today we’re going to look at just the first four words of Jesus command. Next week we’ll focus on the rest of his statement.

Seek first . . . his (God’s) kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow (Live at peace in the present), for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:33-34 (NIV)

Timeline – seek first KOG/eternal unchanging life filled with peace, joy and love

Who’s kingdom is Jesus’ talking about here? “His” refers to the “Father” in the sentence before this one. Father God. Seek first the Father’s kingdom, God’s kingdom and his righteousness. What is Jesus getting at in this statement? If he’s commanding us to seek first, before we do anything else each day, God’s kingdom and his righteousness, then there must be choices that we need to make. What are the other choices?

I’d like to define two questions that Jesus challenges us to answer. The first one is, “What other kingdoms are there?” Let’s name them. And the second is, “What does it mean to be right or righteous according to Jesus?” Both of these questions and their answers are deeply connected.

First, “What other kingdoms are there?” A kingdom is all about who’s at the center. Kingdom is made up of two words. The first is King and the second is Domain. It means the king’s domain.  Domain means “The territory over which rule or control is exercised.” It all comes down to who or what is at the center. A king sits at the center of his kingdom and his world and he rules and controls the events in his kingdom. His will and power radiate out from his throne, from his voice, from his authority.

So, what’s at the center of every kingdom? A king! Then let me ask you another question and I want you to be very careful about giving a hasty answer. This is not a time to be hasty, but a time to be real. What or who is at the center of your life? Where are most of your thoughts, time, energy, and money spent? And for what purpose are you spending your time, energy, and money? What is your end goal? What is your focus? What’s at the center of your world? What direction are you heading? What do you want to accomplish in life? When you get to the end of your life, where do you hope to end? What steps, money, energy, time are you committing in that direction?

Is your goal or focus comfort? A bigger house or a nicer car? More money? A Comfortable retirement? More or bigger toys? What do you want?

Some people have goals even though they’ve never been stated. Some people have never thought about what their goals in life are. They just live from day to day without goals, but over time, focus and goals develop even if they are unintentional. If you look closely at how someone spends their time, money and resources, you could say, “Ah, so that’s what’s at the center!” But for most, they would say, Oh no it isn’t – that’s not it. It’s this!” But Satan loves to deceive us. Often times we know the right answer to the questions, but how we live our lives is in deep contrast to what we say our goals and focus is. What is your focus? What are your goals?

The act of worshipping is the act of putting something at the center of your life and elevating it higher than everything else.

Don’t tell me the right answer to the question to who or what’s at the center of your life? We’re all in church and we all know the right answer. The right answer doesn’t count for much when you’re living for something else in reality. Satan loves to deceive people. He lies to us telling us, “God is your focus.” When if fact it’s something else entirely.

Jesus once taught, Once the owner of the house (He’s speaking of God here) gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ “But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ “Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ “But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’ “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. Luke 13:25-28 (NIV)

Many of you will go home today and you’ll forget the question. You’ll let it go. But I challenge you to be careful about what you put at the center of your life. I implore you to answer the question this week. What’s at the center of your life? What dictates where you spend your money, your time, your energy, your talents? That’s the king that you worship, whether you come here on Sunday mornings or not.  Jesus speaks about a different kingdom when he says, See first God’s kingdom.

Will the king and the kingdom that you’re worshipping really take you to where you want to go? Whatever you put at the middle of your life, you end up investing lots of time, energy and money to serve that goal, but my question is, “Will it bring enough return on your investment?”

I find it very interesting, and I’ve never seen this until I was writing this message. This is so cool! For all of you who have been with us for the kingdom series, “Where did Jesus say the kingdom of God is found? Yes, “Within you”. God has planted a seed inside of you with all the DNA of heaven in it and he has planted that seed . . . in the center of you.

Now, we just said that the king is defined by whoever is in the center of the kingdom. The one who sits on the throne. Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you.” If you’re looking for it, it’s hidden inside of you. It’s interesting that God places his kingdom at the center of who you are, don’t you think? The kingdom of God is not something that happens someday in some other place when you die. That’s heaven. The kingdom of God is found at the center of who you are and God wants to grow that inside of you, but other things crowd and choke it out.

So what other choices do we have? What other kingdoms can we seek? There are two kingdoms that are possible in your life. One is, “You.” You can be at the center of you. If God is not in you, the old saying is true, “You can be full of yourself”. You can be at the center of you. You can make all the rules, you can make all the decisions, you can decide what’s right or wrong, you do what you want. You can spend money where you want. It can all be about you. You can be the king and it can all be about you.

In your kingdom, other people will be important to you, but if you look deep down inside of yourself you will find that you will use people to give you what you want or what you need, and you only give them what they need, so that you get what you need. Love in this case is a business deal. Oh, many will deny that’s what it is, because Satan is deceiving them. Love will be a business deal – you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, but as soon as you don’t scratch my back, then I’m not going to scratch yours. That’s not God’s kingdom, that’s your kingdom.

Most marriage today end in divorce for this reason, even among Christians, because they are not seeking the kingdom of God first. They are still at the center of their world. People get married, but they’re at the center of their world. The man is at the center of his world, and the woman is at the center of her world, and they raise kid’s to be at the center of their own world, and they will all be pulling in their own direction until it pulls them apart.

That’s one choice. Thank God there is another choice. This is the choice we’ve been talking about for weeks now. You can choose God to be your King, your center. You can choose his ways and his will and his truth and receive for your love and obedience God’s desires for your life.

Jesus teaches us in the greatest commandments to Love him with all that we are, and to love our neighbor, those people we find around us as much as we love our self. Where is self in the greatest commandments? It’s not to be found. For God, self is not at the center, it’s not even around. We find ourself when we lose our self in God.

Jesus commands you and I, “Seek first the kingdom of God.” Put God at the center. Don’t bet on any other horse. Don’t gamble with any other way. Seek first the kingdom of God and put it at the center of your ways. Let God be at the center of all that you are.

Blow up a balloon called the kingdom of God. The balloon represents your internal being. Without this (let the air out of the balloon) the world and all it’s worries rush in – worry and fear rush in and we end up deflated and empty, crushed by the worries of this world.

You have two choices. You can be full of yourself or you can be full of God. If you choose to be full of yourself, then you dictate your life and where your life goes, and in this, you will be responsible. You can run from God, but in the end, as we’ve read in previous weeks, you will be asked what you produced with you at the center of your world, doing it your way, you will be asked how much heaven you created with all that you were given. God will want a return on his investment. He’s planted the seed of his kingdom inside of you and he will expect a crop of righteousness. There will be a day of accounting.

Jesus tells us that we have two choices. We can be at the center of our world and we make all the decisions and we can decide what’s right and what’s wrong and we can determine completely on our own what our focus is going to be, and how we’re going to spend our money and how we’re going to be married and how we’re going to be in relationship to each other. We can be full of our self. We can do that. We have that choice. God gives us that freedom.

On the other hand, we can adamantly say, “I don’t want that! I want to be filled with the fruit of heaven and I want God to lead me and guide me and teach me how to live life filled with the fruit of heaven. We can say, God, “I want you to fill me up with your kingdom. I want you to be my king. I want to align my life with your will and I want you to grow the seed of the kingdom inside of me so that it pushes our all darkness inside of me and fills me with light and with life.

You can seek first God’s kingdom or not. You can be the king of your life or you can have God be the king of your life. You can be full of yourself, or you can be filled with God.

It’s interesting that many people in their forties have a mid life crisis. The number one thing that people who have a mid life crisis ask is, “Is this all there is?” They have been seeking to fill their inner self with all the world says to fill it with and having run hard in the race of life, they’ve gotten all the things that this world says will fill you up and they’ve found that they are still empty. Their life is void of meaning.

Many then buy nice cars, boats, etc trying to fill that hole inside of them. Others turn to another woman, thinking, it must be her fault that I’m not feeling fulfilled. Still others think that if only they had more money, they’d surely be happy then, and so they turn towards fraud and embezzlement and downright stealing to get what they think they need in order to feel fulfilled.

Still others take on addictions – alcohol and drugs, food and sex, spending and accumulating to drown out the ache that’s inside of them for meaning and fulfillment.

This week, I want you to name what you’re seeking first. It’s a really important question. Ask yourself, what’s at the center of your life? What are you living for? What’s most important in your life? If you continue on the same path of life, how will your life end? What will you have lived for? What will you have lived for? If God is not at the top of that list, then you are worshipping the created and not the Creator. As marvelous as that person or thing is, it’s not as marvelous as the One who made it.

Seek first the kingdom of God. Why? Because God loves you and he wants the very best for you. He wants heaven growing inside of you. He wants you to grow up into everything that he created you for. He wants you to live into a life that has purpose and meaning and that plays a part in the grand story that God is telling.

Seek that which is hidden and not readily apparent. Seek it first, because there are other choices that will never satisfy. Seek first God being central in your life. He will teach you how to live in a way that blesses you and blesses others. And heaven is growing inside of you, may you join God in his story, serving him to make the world a better place to live, bringing a bit more of heaven to earth in small practical ways.

There are things inside of us that are not ready for heaven. There is still evil within us that needs to be purified before they will be acceptable in heaven. We have work to do, but sometimes we get stuck in comfortable ruts and we forget that preparing for heaven is something that we need to do every day. Preparation for heaven is never done. Today we’re going to talk a bit about what God expects from us at the end of our lives so that we can be ready and well prepared when we get there.

We’re in this lengthy series on the kingdom of God, because for many of us, we’ve always equated the kingdom of God, heaven, and eternal life as synonyms that mean the same thing, but for Jesus they were very different. For many of us, we’ve believed that the kingdom of God is the same as heaven and that it’s something that we will experience only after we’ve died and gone to heaven. However, this is not how Jesus talked about the kingdom of God.

In first four parables that we’ve looked at, Jesus began each of them with the phrase, “The kingdom of God is like,” and in each of these parables he describes how the kingdom works in the present. It’s like yeast, it’s like buried treasure, it’s like a small seed that grows into a large tree, it’s like weeds that grow up next to wheat. In each of these parables Jesus is teaching us what the kingdom of God is like now, so that we can understand what it’s like and live into it.

Two weeks ago, we looked at the parable of the talents where Jesus described to us what the kingdom of God will be like some day. There will be an accounting of what we’ve done with what we’ve been entrusted. In that parable, Jesus told us about the kingdom of God in the future, so that we could make some decisions about how to live in the present. In that parable, the future instructed us about how we should live in the present if we want to experience the kingdom of God now and in the future.

The parable that we’re going to look at today is similar to the one two weeks ago, but yet different. In this parable, he begins with the words, “At that time, the kingdom of heaven will be like.” Matthew 25

Now, all the prophets spoke of a day and a time in which God would right all the wrongs, heal all the wounds, defeat every evil, and wipe away every last tear. So Jesus’ audience was living with this expectation, anticipation and assumption that a time was coming in which the world would be fixed, saved, and redeemed from its present evil state back to its original goodness that God created it for.

So, as Jesus speaks the words “At that time” they all know the time that he’s speaking about. In their heads their thinking, “Oh, oh, oh, he’s talking about when God’s going to fix everything that is broken, heal all the wounds, and put our world back together. They would have known exactly what Jesus meant when he said “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like.” It’s THAT time.

This is the parable that Jesus spoke:”At that time, the kingdom of heaven will be like this (future tense). Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.” Matthew 25

Now, if you piece together all the historical fragments about wedding customs during the time of Jesus we learn that there would be an engagement party in which the groom would hold up a glass of wine and propose to his girl. If she took the glass from his hand and drank from it, it meant that she accepted his proposal. They would leave the party and the young man would go and begin building an addition on the family home. They would go and live there someday, but nobody knew exactly when that day would be. There was no date set for their marriage as it is today. The marriage would take place when he finished the addition on the family home. This could take a year, maybe even two years, and during this time he lives with his family and she lives with her family.

Then when the room on the family home is finally complete, at night he goes and knocks on the doors of each of his friends and they join him one at a time and they march through the streets with torches and singing and celebrating gathering people as they go. Culturally, you were obligated to join in the celebration. In our culture, we do the very elaborate gesture of honking as the wedding party goes by. In this culture, people would join in festivities and a large crowd of raucous people would be going through the streets in the middle of the night singing and celebrating.

Now, the people in the village know that the room on the house is getting closer and closer to being done. They don’t know the exact day or hour when the groom will come, but they know he’s coming soon. The bridesmaids don’t know the exact day or hour when the groom is coming, but they know he’s coming soon, so they are expected to prepare, so that when the raucous groom and his friends come with torches and celebrating in the night, they’ll be ready.

Now then, when the groom and his buddy’s come, it will begin a party that could last a couple of days to a week or even two with all their friends.

So this is the mood that is hovering around this parable that Jesus tells. The groom is about to show up and there is going to be a great feast and the party will last for days and days with dancing and friends and singing. And the thing that we have to understand is that the context of this parable that Jesus is telling is, again, great joy. Sometimes we can get stuck on other aspects of this parable, but the context of this parable is great joy. Don’t miss the great joy. Don’t miss it, because it’s gonna be great!

Robert Capon wrote about this parable and his said this: “What we are watching for is a party. And that party is not just down the street making up its mind when to come to us, it is already hiding in our basement, banging on our steam pipes, and laughing its way up our cellar stairs. . . God is not our mother-in-law, coming to see whether her wedding-present china has been chipped. He is a funny Old Uncle with a salami under one arm and a bottle of wine under the other. We do indeed need to watch for him; but only because it would be such a pity to miss all the fun.”

You have to understand that this is the setting of this parable. The groom is going to come and he is going to inaugurate a massive celebration and feast, with the whole story being immersed in joy, lots and lots of joy. Who would want to miss that? Who wouldn’t want to prepare for that?

At that time, the kingdom of heaven will be like ten bridesmaids who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. Matthew 25

There are five foolish and five wise bridesmaids and they are waiting for the bridegroom, but he is delayed and they all fall asleep. Sleep in this parable is not a bad thing. In other parables sleeping isn’t a good thing, but in this parable both the wise and foolish do it, so it’s not a bad things here.  In this parable the whole thing turns around the groom not coming when they think he’s going to come. He’s delayed. They thought he was going to come earlier, but he doesn’t come then.

This parable points out that there is a time of waiting, waiting for things to happen. But more than the waiting, the parable is asking the question, “How are you waiting?” Way back when the bride and groom announced their engagement, everybody was excited and in their excitement they got ready, but now since days and months and years have gone by, some have lost their excitement. Let me ask you. Are you excited for heaven? Are you excited to meet the groom, which in this parable is Jesus? Are you excited to join in the festivities of heaven?

The fundamental thing this parable is asking you is, “How are you waiting?” Are you waiting expectantly? Are you preparing for that day? Will you have prepared for the festivities? Are you wise or foolish?

Now, just below the surface of many of the parables where Jesus teaches about the kingdom of God, is the idea of inclusion into the kingdom of God. In Matthew chapter 21 Jesus tells the parable of a farmer who rented his vineyard to some farmers. So the farmers in the story have the vineyard and it is producing. The question is how will they manage the vineyard. In Chapter 22 Jesus tells another parable where the king throws a party and he sends his servants to those who had been invited and the parable is about what they are going to do with the invitation. They’re in. They are accepted. They’re welcomed. They’re invited. They have possession of the invitation. Something has been given to each of these people and the question that is just beneath the surface of each parable is “What are they going to do with the invitation, with the vineyard, with the talents that have been entrusted to them, with the seed of the kingdom that’s been planted inside of them?”

This is huge! Jesus does not tell parables about people who are out and people who are in. Jesus doesn’t set up the parable with “there are the good, God, Jesus, people, and then there are the bad people. He doesn’t create separation. He tells parables of inclusion. Everyone is given the seed of the kingdom of God. Everyone is invited. Everyone receives wealth. Everyone’s entrusted. The parables are about how you’re going to respond to your inclusion. You’re at the party. Are you going to join it or not? You’ve been invited. What are you going to do with your invitation? You’ve been given talents. What are you going to do with them? Here all the bridesmaids have been invited. What will they do with their invitiation? Will they prepare for it or not.

But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the groom! Come out to meet him.’

He and all his buddies come dancing and singing in the streets and we know the song he came singing right? Proclaimers (I’m gonna be). The bridesmaids all wake up to all the singing in the streets and they realize, “The groom is here.”

Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! There will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open the door for us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ “Therefore keep watch (be alert, be prepared), because you do not know the day or the hour. Matthew 25:1-13

So, that’s the parable. Half have enough oil and half don’t. Half get to go into the party and half don’t. The groom actually arrives and five are prepared and five aren’t. Five go into the party and the other five rush off to get more oil, but there aren’t any shops open at that time of the night.

Now, the one thing that we have to understand is that you don’t arrive at a wedding late. It’s the one show in town and you’ve known about this wedding for a year. The highest cultural offense in Jesus’ day is to show up late for someone’s wedding. Everybody has known for a year or maybe even two. What would your excuse be for not being ready? You’ve had plenty of time.

In this parable, Jesus is the groom. He is basically saying, “Be prepared for when I come preparation is necessary.” It’s not something that you can just decide at the last minute that you want to be a part of it. It’s not something that you can put off and put off and put off until it’s too late. It is something that you’ll have to be ready for.

In this story, history is linear and you don’t get another chance. He doesn’t say, “And then two weeks later there was another wedding and the foolish bridesmaids had gotten more oil and so they went in to that party. Time moves forward. The wedding happened and some were there and some missed it.

So let’s take a moment to name all the characters in this parable. As we’ve already stated, Jesus is the groom. The bridesmaids are generally all the people in the world, but very specifically the people of the church. We know this by asking the one glaring question about the character that this parable omits. Who’s the bride? In this parable, we have the groom and we have the bridesmaids, but what about the Bride? The bride, throughout the New Testament is the church, or the people of God. They are called this because they called to love Jesus and make vows concerning their commitment to him. The Bridesmaids are the servants of the bride, which is the church, and in this ancient first century setting, the male was the head of the house and he made all the decision and had all the power. This is deeply connected to how we are to think about Jesus’ relationship with us.

When the bridesmaids go to sleep, this isn’t bad in this parable, because sleep is understood as death. All people die, both foolish and wise, but the question in the parable is how did they prepare before they slept?

The lamp is undoubtedly our heart or soul, or our inner most being. Everyone has a container in which the oil can be stored, both the foolish and the wise. The oil in the lamp is the Spirit of the Living God who lives inside of us, growing the fruit of the kingdom of God, which is the light in the lamp.

If you’ve ever seen a coleman lantern, you know that the oil in the lantern is not seen. It is in the bottom of the lamp and is unseen, just like the Spirit of God inside of us. The way that you know the Spirit is there is because there is light coming from the wick. In the same way that we talked about God planting a seed of the kingdom inside of us, expecting to reap a harvest, so it is that The Lord of the party knows only those who have light, have fruit coming from the inside of them where the kingdom of God is growing.

All the bridesmaids were invited and all the bridesmaids had lamps. They all had been invited and they all had lamps to display their light. However, some of the bridesmaid’s lamps were going out, while others were in no danger of going out.  Some had been working on their heart and some had not. Some had been seeking a close connection with God and his Spirit, while others were not. All ten bridesmaids had been invited to the wedding banquet, but only 5 prepared for it. Only five had the light and the goodness of the kingdom of God in their heart.

The five bridesmaids who ran out of oil were without light. They were left in the darkness of their own hearts. How do we fill the container of our soul with God’s oil and produce light?

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12 (NIV)

In this parable, there seems to be a deep connection between the light in the lamp and whether or not the Lord of the party knows them. If you are people of the light, then you are known by the Lord of the party. If you are not people of the light, then you are not known by the Lord of the party.

In the parable, there is the Lord of the party, a door, and a great wedding party. This represents the day of judgment. Some will enter and some will not. God is the Lord of that party. Some will have prepared and some will not. For those who enter, the theme is great joy, in which there will be a feast and dancing and a coming together of all those who seek to put God at then center of their lives.

The groom is coming. His name is Jesus. Some day you will stand before him and you will have to give him an accounting of your life. Will you be ready or not? Will he call you wise or foolish? Are you becoming more and more like Jesus or not? Are you experiencing more and more of the fruits of heaven – love and joy and peace or not? Is your lamp full of oil? Is your light shining bright? If not, there is still time to prepare. Use the time that has been given to you. Preparation is necessary for heaven. We are called to practice for heaven – practice for eternity – practice loving God with all that we are and loving our neighbor as our self. Begin growing heaven inside of you today. You can’t do it alone. Start talking to God about it today.

Are you ready for heaven? Are you ready for the day in which God will wipe away every tear and stomp out every evil and heal all the wounds? Let me ask you a very similar question. Are you READY for heaven? Have you prepared for it?

If the answer is no, that’s ok, because life is a journey and there is still time, but don’t delay, don’t put it off, begin preparing today. Commit your life to the groom Jesus and seek to love him and follow him with all that you are. He is already cares and love you for you so much that he’d willingly do anything for you, including die for you, even death on a cross.

Is anyone here hoping to retire someday? Some of you have already retired. How did that happen? Did that happen without a plan? Retirement happens by investing in the present, so that you can do something different in the future?

Did anyone here plant a garden this year? How many of you plant seeds in the garden, but don’t expect to get any fruit? Nobody, right? We plant expecting the seeds to produce a yield.

As humans we’ve all been given certain gifts and resources. We’ve all been given a life. Each day we are given food that God provides from the earth. We consume air, food, water, and natural resources each day.  God gives us each of these gifts.

In addition to the gifts that all humans are given, we have been given unique personal gifts: Athletic ability, charisma, intelligence, leadership, artistic talent – drawing or painting, singing or playing or acting. We each have been given unique abilities by God. Is there a purpose to these?

Lastly, God has given each of us the seed of the kingdom of God.

So the question we might ask is, “Why does God give us all that he does each day. Is there any purpose to it all? What is the purpose of life? Is the purpose of life to accumulate more and more stuff? Is the purpose of life to have as much fun as you can? Is the purpose of life to be as comfortable as you can? How we answer these questions determines how we live.

The questions is, “How shall we use what we’ve been given?” That’s the question that’ll Jesus will be answering today. Is there a purpose to what God has done? Does God expect a return?

Let’s dig into our next parable.

“Again (Jesus says), it (The Kingdom of God) will be like

Over the last four weeks we’ve looked at four parables on the kingdom of God. In each of the four Jesus began the parable with “The kingdom of God is like” – present tense. He said, It’s like this and like that – it’s hidden, it starts small, but grows big, it’s valuable, etc, etc. He began each of those parable by telling us that the kingdom of God is like “This” – and he says it all in the present tense. The kingdom of God is within you. It’s within reach. It’s at hand.

Jesus begins this parable with “The kingdom of God will be like.” Jesus is telling a parable about the future, about what will happen someday. However, it’s important to understand that Jesus is not telling us a story about what will happen someday just so that we’ll know how things will be, so we won’t be surprised when we get there. He’s telling us this story to help us to know what will happen someday, so that we’ll be ready when that day comes. Jesus tells us this parable because he wants us to do something now, in the present, today, so that we’ll ready when that day comes. “Again, it (The Kingdom of God) will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. Matthew 25

There’s a lot said in this one sentence. The man in this parable is almost certainly Jesus, himself. The very next chapter in Matthew is the beginning of Jesus’ walk to the cross. He told this parable just before he left for heaven – his journey. He was going to be gone for a long time and then return. But before he leaves, he calls his servants (in this case you and I, including all the peoples of the earth) and we’re told that he entrusted (the root word is trust) his property to them.

So we have the characters defined in this story, but what about your story? Sometimes we get the hats that we wear messed up? Who is God in your story and who is the servant? is God our servant? No, but do you or I ever act as though he is? Do you ever act as though God owes you something? Do you ever take the food that you eat for granted and don’t thank God for it? Everything that you see and everything that you have is first and foremost God’s. You came into this world with nothing and you leave this world with nothing. The whole world is God’s and we are but his servants entrusted with his possessions. This is a parable about you and I and our  relationship to the one going on a journey, Jesus.

Do you ever treat him as though he is your servant, because it’s real easy to get the characters in our story mixed up, as we’ll see?  However, it’s real easy to cut through all the junk of our minds and our hearts by analyzing our prayers. Do you mostly pray for God to bless you, for God to do things for you, to fix things for you, to  keep you safe, to. . .  you fill in the blank, or do you seek to know what he wants you to do, and how he wants you to grow, things that he wants you to work on, and how he wants you to be. Analyze your prayers and you’ll find out who’s the master and who’s the servant in your story.

The kingdom of God is first and foremost about understanding the part we play in the story of God. What character are you and what role are you supposed to play. Are you the Lord of the estate and God is your servant or is God the Lord of the estate and you his servant? Do you own all that you have or does God own it and you’re the manager?

The second thing that comes out of Jesus’ opening statement about the kingdom of God is that God entrusts us with his property, his stuff. To entrust someone with something is to trust them with what is yours. When you entrust someone with something that is yours, you trust that they will take care of the item in a way that honors your wishes and your will.

When our kids were little, we would sometimes go away and leave our kids with someone in our family. We entrusted our children to them, believing they would take care of our children in a way that we would agree with.

You and I have been entrusted by God with everything that we have – our things, our cars, houses, spouses, kids, 401K’s. God has entrusted each of us with assets. In addition, God has given us a personality with a certain gift mix. You might be great with numbers or with the arts, or with sports. You might be a great gardener, leader, photographer, or cook. God has made you distinctly you and each of these gifts have been entrusted to you by God.

Some day you will have to give an account to God on what you did with the gifts he has given you. In what ways did you bless those around you? It will be asked of you, “How did you gain a return on that which was given to you, because God seeks interest on his investments just like you and I do because he has plans for the future. His future is heaven.

Again, it (The Kingdom of God) will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money (one talent equals about 1 million dollars), to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.’ “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ “The man with the two talents also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.’ “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

Then comes the climax of Jesus story

“Then the man who had received the one talent came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed Matthew 25

Really??? The Master in the story is Jesus. Is Jesus really a hard man? “Harvesting where he has not sown,” He’s accusing Jesus of being a thief. If you’re harvesting grain in a field that someone else planted, then you’re a thief. You’re taking something that which is someone else’s. “Gathering where you have not scattered seed” – again he says the same thing in a different way. He is accusing Jesus of being a hard man and a thief? Is he?

Now, Jesus, in telling this parable about the kingdom of God, does something unusual. He mixes two different metaphors. He starts out talking about “Talents,” finances, money, but then switches the metaphor from finances to planting when the third servant says – “Harvesting where you have not sown seed and gathering where you have not scattered seed.” Why?

In Matthew 13, Jesus states, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; Matthew 13:37 (NRSV)

God is the giver of every good gift. Jesus is the one who plants the seed of the kingdom of God inside of people. “Harvesting where you have not sown – Gathering where you have not scattered seed?” The third servant is very confused. The master in the story is Jesus and he is seeking to reap where he sowed his seed. In the parable, the master gave the servant the one talent. A farmer plants a seed expecting to receive a harvest, which is always many more seeds. A corn seed when planted will produce 200-800 corn seeds per cob. The farmer plants expecting to receive a harvest. The person who invests with a banker expects to receive interest. You put money in a 401k expecting to receive more than you put in.

The master has been gone so long that the servant began to think that those talents that the master had entrusted to him were his.

I ask you, “What is your purpose in this life?” For what reason were you born? God has entrusted you with lots and lots of funds and abilities and a seed called the kingdom of God that he has planted inside of you and he expects a return on his investment. A sower always plants expecting a yield, an increase on what he has planted. An investor always invests expecting to get a return on his investment.

When you die, you will be expected to give God an accounting of your life. He will ask you, “What have you done with what I have given you? Have you returned it with an interest? Have you done anything valuable with it? And what he’ll be asking is “Did you use what I have entrusted you with to do my will? Have you used what I have entrusted you with to grow yourself and others in a way that honors me, in a way that produces more of heaven on earth? Or did you squander what I entrusted you believing that it was yours to squander?

The servant continues, Then the man who had received the one talent came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed So I was afraid. Fear, throughout the Bible is understood as the opposite of faith and it is always understood as the fruit of hell. Fear is the fruit of Satan, because it always comes from not trusting in God.

So I was afraid. and went out and hid. Hiding is what Adam and Eve did when they didn’t listen to God and trust his word as being right. When Adam and Eve sinned against God, the immediately were afraid and hid from each other and hid from God.

So I was afraid. and went out and hid your talent in the ground. Fear is the seed of Satan. It is the seed of hell, and this servant, being afraid, hid it in the ground, or planted it in the ground of his heart and it didn’t produce anything good, nothing that contributed to heaven.

The servant continued. See, here is what belongs to you. (which is a way of saying “You have what is yours, therefore I’m no longer responsible) ‘ “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

Here’s the judgment: “‘Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. The one who knows how to take something good and multiply it. For everyone who has (of the kingdom) will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have (the man didn’t create anything good with the seed of the kingdom that was planted in him), even what he has will be taken from him (the seed of the kingdom of God in the parable of the different soil types, that landed on the hard ground was eaten by he birds). And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ Matthew 25:14-30 (NIV)

Why does Jesus use the word “Worthless” to describe this servant? Isn’t that awfully harsh language? In God’s eyes, your value has to do with what’s inside of you. He is considered worthless, valueless because he didn’t create anything good with all the resources that he was given. Why is God so angry about this? It’s because God has given you life for a purpose. He has entrusted you with his possessions and in doing so is trusting that you will do his will with what he has entrusted you with.

Does a farmer plant a seed without expecting a crop? Does someone who invests money not expect a return on their investment? Should God not expect in your life, some return on investment? If so, what is it? What kind of an investment does God want?

The wicked and lazy servant believed that was entrusted to him by his master was his. You and I often think of our stuff, our cars, houses, things, money is ours. I invite you to name what you came into this world with, and when done with that, name what you will leave this world with. When done with those two very short lists, you will understand exactly how much you own. You have been entrusted with everything that you are and everything that you have. It is all God’s.

1. 1. What God wants first and foremost is for you to realize who is God and who is the servant and what your rightful role in the story is.
2. 2. Next, God would like you to acknowledge who owns what? Do you own what you have or has it been entrusted to you by God for a reason?
3. 3. Lastly, God wants a return on his investment in you. He wants you to join him in his mission of bringing up there down here, of bringing heaven to earth. That starts by learning what his kingdom is and how you are to participate in it today. That happens by becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ.

God has planted a seed in your called the kingdom of God. It is a seed of heaven. It’s DNA has all essence of heaven and God wants to grow that in you. In order for that to happen you need to become his disciple and find out who God is and who you are in him. You must become a student of the living God, not just taught to know the right answer to certain questions, but to begin to think and act and see like God. God’s wants you to experience the kingdom of God, heaven in your midst today.

You cannot do anything good for God until you allow him to grow good things in you.

In September, we’re going to begin a new phase of New Community called Discipleship.

The end goal is about taking what you’ve been given and multiply it, so that the seed that’s been planted in you will take root and grow and produce heavenly fruit inside of you that will produce 30, 60, even 100 times what was planted in you.

Mark Gilley Testimony