Fruit that will last - 5/9/2021

 

Call to worship:

L: O sing a new song to the Lord our God, a song resounding to the ends of the earth!

P: A song of birth and gladness.

L: A song of life and peace! 

P: A song of love and victory,

L: O let your voices roar with the seas! Clap hands with the floods and shout with the hills!

A: For our blinded eyes are opened, and our deafened ears unstopped; our crippled feet are leaping, and our muted tongues have found their song!

Opening Hymn:  Victory In Jesus  #370

I heard an old, old story, How a Savior came from glory, How He gave His life on Calvary To save a wretch like me; I heard about His groaning, Of His precious blood's atoning, Then I repented of my sins And won the victory. Chorus O victory in Jesus, My Savior, forever. He sought me and bought me With His redeeming blood; He loved me ere I knew Him And all my love is due Him, He plunged me to victory, Beneath the cleansing flood. I heard about His healing, Of His cleansing pow'r revealing. How He made the lame to walk again And caused the blind to see; And then I cried, "Dear Jesus, Come and heal my broken spirit," And somehow Jesus came and bro't To me the victory. I heard about a mansion He has built for me in glory. And I heard about the streets of gold Beyond the crystal sea; About the angels singing, And the old redemption story, And some sweet day I'll sing up there The song of victory.

Opening Prayer:   

Mother of heaven, you have delivered us. You have brought us, like your child, from that world created and ruled by our parents, and ushered us into the world that you, alone, create and rule.

Love us, O Spirit, with the love that transforms the tomb into a womb. Let the waters of rebirth forever break upon your creation, that what is heaven may be begotten on earth.

Epistle Reading:  1 John 5: 1-6

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. ² By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. ³ For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, ⁴ for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. ⁵ Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Hymn:  Spirit of the Living God   #393

Spirit of the living God, Fall afresh on me. Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me. Spirit of the living God, Fall afresh on me.

Prayer of Dedication:

O Lord, your first group of followers was a motley lot. Fishermen, housewives, tax collectors, prostitutes, rebels, and more: some of them would have been mutual enemies had Christ not brought them together, and most would have walked through their lives indifferent to one another, for each had traveled a different road, and each had harbored different hopes. And yet in Christ their crowded ways crossed. Their lies intersected for all time. 

They were then promised that the way of one would become the way of many, that the hope of one would become the hope of many. Thank you, Lord, for being the One to bring many together and to encourage many to work together as one.  Amen.

Gospel Reading:   John 15: 9-17

⁹ As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹ I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

¹² “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³ No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵ I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. ¹⁶ You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. ¹⁷ I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

Sermon Title:   Fruit that will last

Imagine if you will, you're sitting in your most comfortable chair, reading a book or watching television when suddenly, you feel a pang of hunger or thirst roll through you. So you head to the kitchen and open the refrigerator to find a worthy snack and while your face is getting cold you are abruptly met with an odor that you are certain is not supposed to be in there. Soon, you forget all about the snack and the book or tv and you are now on the hunt for whatever could be making that terrible smell. 

You search until you find the culprit, which is a small box of peaches that had somehow been forgotten about and were now molding, syrupy, and way too soft to pick up with your fingers. You grab the box and you throw it in the trash; you get some baking soda and put it in a jar and leave in the frig to absorb what odor is left.

Once all of this has been accomplished, you then ponder why you bought the fresh peaches in the first place if you weren’t intending to use them right away. And then you remember that after the trip to the grocery store, you had three meetings, one trip to the hospital when your son got injured while playing in the backyard, and to visits with the neighbors because you are a sociable person. No wonder the fruit was forgotten and then went bad. So how do we get fruit that will last?

In today’s passage from John, we hear that Jesus has appointed us to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, but many of us fear that we will end up with some box of moldy, unidentifiable mess if we try to bear fruit that will last.

I believe the agenda for the day must begin with knowing what kind of fruit we are dealing with. If we look in Galatians 5: 22-23, we find the fruits of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. You may not see these fruits hanging from a tree, but pick them we shall and bearing much fruit means that we will exhibit these traits around others so that they can see God reflected in our hearts. And if these are not enough for you, perhaps we can take a look at 2 Peter 1: 5-8, where we are told, “For this reason (God has promised to be with us always so that we may escape the corruption that is in the world) you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love.

Right character will result in right conduct’ or in simpler terms, be good and you will do good. Colossians 1: 10 tells us, “so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.”

Obviously, we are not just talking about rotten peaches in the back of the refrigerator. The fruit that Jesus wants us to bear is the fruit of the Spirit, to act like Him, to think like Him, to be like him. Even though we will never achieve the perfection of being Christ Jesus, we can let others understand how important a relationship with Jesus is.

Hebrews 13: 15 “Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.”

Be ready to proudly say that you are a follower of God and that Jesus’ sacrifice and your acceptance of his gift are the very things that ensure your place in heaven. He is risen, he is risen indeed! Now that is some fruit that will last!

Amen.

Closing Hymn:  O Church of God, United   #547

1 O church of God, united to serve one common Lord, proclaim to all one message, with hearts in glad accord. Christ ever goes before us; we follow day by day with strong and eager footsteps along the upward way. 2 From every land and nation the ordered ranks appear; to serve one valiant leader they come from far and near. They chant their one confession, they praise one living Lord, and place their sure dependence upon his saving word. 3 Though creeds and tongues may differ, they speak, O Christ, of thee; and in thy loving spirit we shall one people be. Lord, may our faithful service and singleness of aim proclaim to all the power of thy redeeming name. 4 May thy great prayer be answered that we may all be one, close bound, by love united in thee, God's blessed Son: to bring a single witness, to make the pathway bright, that souls which grope in darkness may find the one true light.