Northside Church - Sydney
Leading A Legacy Week 3: Produce
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. One of the great blessings that's come out of Australia's recent supermarket price war has been not just that down prices are down, but the fact that we've got some catchy giggles out there, and I sit more on the other side of the fence, I can't help but walk through the aisles of Woolworth singing, we are, we are, the fresh food people. And the crazy thing is that I'm even at Woolies, they've got, like there's a whole three minute song, I wish it was on iTunes, it's that catchy, the fresh food people, look Woolworths, Coles, those guys, look the essence of their message is not so much judges by the catchiness of our jingle, but judges by what we produce, they're the fresh food people, they've got the best produce, the best product, and up until this point in 2 Timothy, we've been going through the book of 2 Timothy, if you're with us tonight for the first time, talking about leading a legacy, we're up to chapter two at the moment, in this section Paul moves from a concern, not so much about the message, but the messenger. And so in that sense, what he's saying is that he's been concerned with the gospel that we should protect the message, that we should progress the message, we should pay it forward, that's what we looked at last time, but now we see that the product of the gospel is not just faith but people, people are the product of the gospel and part of the reason that the church took off was not because they had a catchy jingle, they went around singing down, down prices are down in Palestine, in other words, like Woolies, God's intention was to spread the message but through his product, through the quality of his product, through his, to use Graham's term that he once coined a couple of years back through his fresh fruit people. And so people who not only pass on the message but who in themselves embody the message of the gospel. And so those that lead a legacy, what we're going to learn from the passage tonight, they not only protect the gospel, they not only progress the gospel, but they produce a character that is consistent with the gospel. Their gospel produce and so they're fresh fruit people. So now how do we become a fresh fruit person? What does that look like? Well, like a great gospel apple tree, we see that gospel people have roots in the truth, they ain't got no junk in the trunk and they aim for the sun, that's where we're going tonight, but first and foremost, fresh fruit people have roots in the truth and we can remember the scene Cartway 1992, I was just a little tyke in high school, that great movie with Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, courtroom scene, military general. You want answers? I want answers. I want the truth and Nicholson says, you can't handle the truth. And that's part of what Paul was getting at tonight, he says in verse 15, approved workman can handle the truth. Verse 15, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved a workman or workperson, let's be politically correct here, who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. Now Paul's saying the difference between an approved workman, he goes on to say a difference between an unapproved workman or workperson, is their ability to handle the truth. And not only believe the truth, they rest on it, they move out from the truth. And Galatians, Paul used the word orthopadao when he was correcting Peter about his racism towards the Gentiles, he was saying he was not ortho walking, he was not walking in a line with the gospel, he was not aligned to the gospel, he uses a similar sort of word here tonight when he says that uses a word ortho to mayo, which literally means to handle the truth is to literally cut a straight path through the countryside. In a way that someone would get a machete and hack their way through a dense jungle forest and just take the easiest path from point A to B, he's saying to correctly handle the truth is to cut a path straight through the landscape of the world around us with the scriptures. Now the issue today is that is truth really a straight path and our post-modern culture, you've got your truth and I've got my truth and they've got their truth. And so what we start to see in our culture today is that today's world doesn't, it doesn't cut a straight path through the landscape. Truth in today's standards is dictated by the landscape. What's ever is true to you is true to you, whatever is true to me is true to me. You see what Paul is saying to us tonight through the scriptures is you can't cut a straight path unless you believe the facts of Christianity to be objectively true. That's what it means to handle the truth of the gospel. That is to be a Christian's not to believe that Christianity works just because it's good for you but because it's objectively true for everyone in the world. Truth it's a tough topic. Now the average person, let me be a bit facetious here, probably comes to church and says, look I'm just checking it out, I want to see if Christianity works for me. I want to see if it's something that's going to be good for me. I want to sort of adhere to the beliefs and see if it's going to work for me. Now the question there is how can you be assured that Christianity is going to be good for you? How do you know it's going to be good for you? What does that look like? Does it mean you're always going to be happy when you turn up to church and you believe this stuff? You see musicians, I don't have a terrible tough time practicing the scales the whole time and the fingers are almost starting to bleed because they're practicing so much. The question is a musician knows that all this hard work eventually moves to something more fruitful but you ask them in the middle of the practice, how's piano playing going for you there? You see what I'm trying to say is when do you know whether or not Christianity is working for you? Because if to believe in Jesus Christ, part of what we've seen in the letter of 2 Timothy is to believe in Jesus Christ might mean you might lose your job. To believe in Jesus Christ might mean that you might lose family and friends. To believe in Jesus Christ might mean that you become unpopular. And the question is if you're believing in Christianity because you think it's going to be good, how's it working for you then? And do you know Christianity is going to work for you? But look what I'm saying here guys, don't figure out if Christianity is going to work for you, figure out if it's true. If Jesus Christ really did come to this earth from the Father, if Jesus Christ was the pre-existent one, if Jesus Christ walked and lived and breathed on a section of the earth that's still there today, if he was the one who died and rose again, if he actually did all this, if that is actually true, if what he said himself about himself is to true is true then to serve him is not only to find your design of it, it's to find your design. But what if it's not true? What if his claims are wrong? What if his bones are still rotting in a grave somewhere? What if the disciples were crazy or their lunatics or liars? What if it was just some big fantasy story? Then Christianity can't work. It can't work for you. It's just a placebo. It's just a sugar pill. What if it's true? You've got to work out whether it's true. And so the reason is because there's one thing it can't be. Christianity can't be right for a bunch of people that are worshipping on a Sunday night in the corner of Oxley Street in Poland. It can't be just right for those guys and not right for the rest of the world. Christianity is either right for the entire world or it's entirely wrong. You've got to work out if it's true. That's what it means to handle the truth. So how do you figure it out? You've got to make a choice. You've got to make a choice to submit to its truth. For Christians, for Paul, the word of God is the truth. Another way to describe it is that the word of God is God's reality. It's the way that he revealed himself to this world. And so now if this is your belief of the Bible, if you think, hey, it's got some cool stuff in it. If 50 years ago the way they thought about it was a bit funny, duddy, and now we're modern people and this sort of stuff can't possibly apply to our lives. Or if you think that I've got to write to believe whatever I want to believe, if you're starting to use the Scriptures like that, what have you done? You've rejected the very notion of having roots in the truth. You're saying I'm not willing to be planted. I'm not willing to stay in the pot. I want to shift around. I want to move. I want to read in whatever I want to read in. The question is who's making up your mind as to what is true and what is inspired and what is and which is, it's your mind, it's your perception, it's your emotions. If you're anything about like me, you look back at yourself a couple of years back and think, I thought totally different to the way that I feel now. You see, what is going to be the basis for your foundation if it's not the word of God? Science. Science can only tell us about what is, not what ought to be. Culture. Look back on things a hundred years ago in our culture and we laugh at them. Our heart, our emotions, as I said of you, if I look at my own life, I don't know about you, but if you look at your own emotions three years ago, they're up and down like a roller coaster. What I'm trying to say here, the purpose of what Paul is saying here tonight, the purpose of mastering the Scriptures is so that they might have mastery over us. We don't just learn the Bible for the sake of it, we do it because we want roots in the truth and it means when we approach the word of God, the question is for you, who's going to be the informer and who's going to be the informant? What are you reading into, are you reading your own bias into the Bible or are you allowing the Bible to bias you? I don't know if you've got a set of knives at home, but I've always got to sharpen the knives after I get them out of the dishwasher, it's a good practice to go through. When I want to sharpen those things, I've got to put them up against a funny thing, blunt object, very hard, called a steal, and rubbing against that steal means that the knives sharpen and they sharpen. The question is, are you using the Bible like a knife sharpening steal or are you using it like a marshmallow, that the word of God, the roots in truth sharpen us. Now, here's the question, you think, what about all these issues of interpretation? What about all these things that I don't understand in the Bible? Look at verse 14, he says, "Worn them before God against quarreling about words. It's of no value, and it only ruins those who listen." Now, look, I'm not saying that you just chuck out whole chunks of the Bible if you don't understand it, but here's what Paul is getting at. Verse 16 to 19 is saying, "Don't get so caught up in the small stuff that it gets destructive." Don't get so argumentative about the small stuff that it gets destructive. Look at Paul's example. What does he talk about? Chapter 1, verse 9, "The gospel is not anything we've done but what he's done." Chapter 1, verse 14, "Gard the good deposit which is the gospel." Chapter 2, verse 1, "Be strong in grace." Chapter 2, verse 8, "This is my gospel, remember Jesus raised from the dead, descended from David." You know what? He sticks with the big rocks, and what Paul is saying, he's saying, "Remember Timothy, remember fellow Christians that the main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things." Paul paints a picture that I'm starting to learn in my life as a young guy, that it's not so much about innovation all the time when it comes to ministry, but just affirmation of the core basics. The main things are the plain things. Remember the gospel. Remember the truth of the gospel. So in verses 14 to 19 of this passage, and I hope you take a note in your Bibles there, because we can't get through the whole passage to read it through, Paul's saying, "The roots of your character develop in them a love for truth that matters." Don't get caught in the small stuff, but be grounded in a desire to submit to the Scriptures, a desire to submit to God's truth. That's why Luther said, "We've heard it before, that the truth of the gospel is the principal article of all Christian doctrine. Most necessary is it that we know this article well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually." Isn't that what Paul's doing? Verse 14, "Remember Tim, keep reminding them of these things, Timothy. Beat it into their heads." The main things are the plain things. You've got to be grounded in truth, have roots in the truth, and the question is not just can you handle the truth. The question is how you're handling the truth. Are you cutting a straight path in your life? Are you submitting to the Scriptures as the bedrock and the pot that you are planted in that got roots in the truth? The other thing is that fresh fruit people, they ain't got no junk in the trunk. I love going for a drive-through of Bill Purn. We've got good friends here that've got a place up there. I love Bill Purn because you can go by the side of the road, you get all these gorgeous apples that are up there. I don't know if you've ever been for a nice drive up to the mountains there. Maybe Lisa has her shoes at Mount Victoria today, but I always go past these rows and rows of apple trees in the orchard there, and I wonder what's the difference between a tree that's sitting there and one that's hanging in your backyard? It's that the trees in Bill Purn have been planted there for a purpose. There's a purpose there. They've been planted to be fruit-producing trees, and in the same way, verse 20 of this passage shows us that fresh fruit people have been set apart for special fruit-bearing purposes. That's God's purpose for your life, that you would bear fruit. Poor users of funny analogy says in a large house, there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wooden clay, some of the noble purposes, and some for disposable disposal or refuse. Here's another funny word I love in old translations, "eager" noble purposes. He's saying, "There's noble purposes, and there's ignoble purposes." Paul is saying to Timothy, "You are vessels," and he says to us tonight, "you are vessels to carry the message of Jesus Christ." So be clean. Don't have any junk in the trunk. Why? Because God has occasionally used rather interesting wretched characters to play out his drama in the Gospels. We sort of think about Judas and his betrayal of Jesus and the broader purpose that happened in that. There are many throughout the Old Testament, but what we see right throughout Scripture overwhelmingly that God uses people that are holy in character. People who have set themselves apart for God's use and his purposes. And so what it means for us is if we're not striving to walk in holiness, then our ability to minister effectively, our ability to pay it forward, our ability to deliver the message of the gospel will be greatly compromised, and the power will be reduced. Because there's a transmission of the gospel just doesn't happen through proclamation. That's what I'm doing now, but through demonstration. Not just through proclamation, but demonstration. That is, look, a Christian intellectual is one thing, a guy that can argue into the kingdoms one thing. But look, I've seen, I don't know about your experience, but I've seen my experience. Very rarely do you argue a person into the faith, instead it's someone that they've seen or no exhibiting a lifestyle of goodness and of wholeness and of purpose and of holiness. Someone who gets there being set apart for special purposes, you see, it's because, and this is something that scares me when we talk about leading a legacy is that our lifestyle tends to teach everyone else as much or more than our words do. That's what a legacy is, right? It was what we've been talking about. Our lifestyles teach other people more than the words do. It's why Dallas Willard says that people won't forget the sort of person that we are. He says the people to whom we minister and speak will not recall 99% of what we say to them, but they'll never forget the kind of persons we are. This is true of the influential ministers in my past. The quality of our souls will indelibly touch others for good or for ill. So we must never forget that the most important thing happening at any moment in the midst of our ministerial duties is the kind of person we are becoming. What did Jesus say? Did He say, "Come, come and follow my message? Come and subscribe to the JC five secret steps to success?" He didn't say that. He said, "Come and follow me because in the person of Jesus Christ, God incarnate, God in the flesh." He said, "Follow me. Why?" Because people don't tend to follow abstract principles and truths, but they follow people who embody those abstract principles and truths. That's what happened. You can't get any more abstract than God coming down and inhabiting a man with crazy, but follow me. It was in Jesus Christ. You can't have junk in the trunk, this is why, I was at my auntie's place. She's got a lovely view down over the Roseville sort of waterway, the back of her place, plenty of bush around. She almost got in a bit of trouble from the police because there was a most magnificent tree, a pine tree that happened to be right in the middle of her view. Mysteriously one day, that thing suddenly started to go brown and disgusting and the branches began to start falling off and peeling off and the leaves fell off the thing. It pretty much died from the top down. Why? That's because someone had gotten in with a little bit of a drill bit and gotten into the trunk of the thing and injected a bit of a poison into it. The thing had roots in the truth, it had great roots in the tree but it had junk in the trunk and you get what I'm saying. If we're seeking to lead a legacy, what's poisoning your trunk at the moment? The Bible talks about the devil being a great deceiver. The devil has got little spiritual drill bits and he's trying to get into your life every single day that you're living, breathing and walking out there. He's trying to purport if you can have roots in the truth. He knows that. He knows God's people agree on the truth but he's always trying to get junk in the trunk and so Paul is saying you are a vessel for Jesus Christ, you are a fruit producer for Jesus Christ. You're a part of God's orchard. Don't get junk in the trunk. God is greatly concerned with the kind of character that we're building and we effectively carry the message of the gospel when we pursue holiness. If you've got roots in the truth, if you ain't got no junk in the trunk, then the last thing the fresh fruit people do is that they aim for the sun, all good trees aim for the sun, gospel trees aim for the SON, not the S-U-N if you're listening to the podcast tonight. Now I've gone pretty organic tonight. I'm not really that organic but it just seems to be fitting well. I don't know if I've told you yet but I've bought a herb guard in the other week so I've got my little herb guard in and we're growing some mint at the moment because we just love mint in our drinks and our food and all that sort of stuff and one of the things about crazy things about mint is you just give it a little bit of sunlight, the thing goes everywhere and so this stuff has been spilling out the side of the pot and so I took it out a bit and I turned it round the other day and lo and behold after about three or four days, the whole mint mysteriously sort of managed to pick itself up and move back out to the open side of the balcony. What was it, it was aiming, it was aiming for the sun, why? Because we all know if you're a great botanist like me that the sun for any plan is a source of its growth, not only its growth but its power. Paul says if you want the power to grow to be a person that is holy then you've got to aim for the sun, S-O-N for Jesus Christ, verse 22 to 26 and the message paraphrase says, Run away from infantile indulgence, run after mature righteousness, faith, love, peace, joining those who are honest and serious in prayer before God, you see Paul's saying that gospel producing people, fresh fruit people aim for the sun by fleeing the desires or youthful desires in order to go and pursue righteousness and faith and love and peace. Now when Paul talks of youthful desires, he's not necessarily talking about lust or the modern day equivalent of fleeing desires such as to have a PlayStation 3 or the Twilight movie series or Lady Gaga, he's not talking about those sorts of desires here. What he's saying is he's talking about desires that are yet to be affected by the passage of time. That's why I love having all the members of the congregation in here because they're the people that have grown in wisdom and in stature. The people that over time have seen that the youthful desires are things like trying to make success and in for itself. Useful desires are the sort of thing where we're trying to build an identity on what the world says, what the latest magazines saying to us, on what our workmates are saying to us. Youthful desires are those allowing riches and material possessions and all the lure of everything that they are to be, the very thing that drives us and we've said this before, the very problem in the human heart is not the presence of desire. Desire is a good thing, it's just its direction. First John chapter 2 verse 15 to 17, John says to us, he says at the center of the human heart is a war for the desires of the heart. He warns, don't love the world because if you do, then the love of the Father won't be in you. It's a big, it's a big call, he's saying you'll either love God or you'll love the world. Why is that? It's because maybe Dietrich Bonhoeffer was right when he said the heart only has the capacity for one love, for one major affection and therefore it's always about, you know, it's always about the direction of the affection, it's always about the direction of the affection. It's not about the desire itself, it's where the desire is pointed towards and so Paul's approach is it's about the direction of the affections, don't just deal with earthly desires, flee from earthly desires. The word fugo there means to shun, to run away from as if you're trying to escape danger. You're saying run away from this stuff as if you're trying to escape danger and you know the funny thing is when you're trying to escape danger, it's very difficult to do that and run away from it if you're constantly looking at all the time. It just asked my little cousin when he was being chased around the house once and he was watching the older cousin chase him around there and he eventually ran through a wall. It's very difficult to flee desires if you're constantly looking over your shoulder at them, that's what Paul is saying. He says instead pursue righteousness, that's his solution, faith, love and peace aim for the sun. Now that sounds simple and it is simple, it's simple because the main things are the plain things and the plain things are the main things. It's simple because the human will is unidirectional, it's very difficult to decide the things of the world when you are so caught up in desiring God himself. Will is, it's one way, it's a one way process and what do you think Jesus says, pray for those that persecute you, it's because it's very difficult to hate your enemy when you're willing they're good. The will is one directional and it sounds simple but it works, it works because that's how we are, that's how we're built. It's like if you want to catch a plane from Sydney to Brisbane, that pretty much takes care of the decision or the question in your mind as to whether or not you should fly to Melbourne. The very act of making that decision casts out all else, what Paul is saying is aim for the sun, flee evil, pursue good, that's how duty as Christians, both negative and positive is a consistent teaching of scriptures, to deny yourself and then to follow Christ, to put off what belongs to our old life and put on what belongs to your new life, to put the death out earthly members and to set our mind on the heavenly things, to crucify the flesh and to walk in the spirit, to repent and to rejoice. Can you see the pattern that he teaches here in every other one of his letters? You might be saying tonight as we finish up, I'm fleeing, I'm trying to but where's the power? You're saying I know I've got it, roots in the truth, no junk in the trunk, I'm trying why aren't I growing? It's because the same reason that any plant doesn't grow, you haven't been aiming at the sun. You think you're aiming at the sun but there's other things around you that have pulled you off course. Look remember Christianity is not turning over new life, Christianity is not a nice set of emotions, Christianity is not just some general inspiration, Christianity is a power from outside ourselves, it's a spiritual photosynthesis. Just as the sun, S-U-N activates a plant internally and grows it, as those photons hit its leaves and it grows it internally so the sun activates our internal growth through this spiritual photosynthesis, grows us internally by the power of his holy spirit and so therefore it's, I want you to get this, it's not your job to grow, it's just your job to aim. Like the mint in the pot, pick yourself up and move to wherever the sun is, even mint gets it. So if the kryptonite of holiness is the over-desire of good things then you need as Thomas Charles puts it, the explosive power of a new desire, Paul, verse 8, remember the chapter before he says remember Jesus, remember Jesus, remember Jesus, when you meditate on all that he's done for you, when you begin to preach that to yourself, when you begin to teach that to yourself that because of Jesus you're not just forgiven, because of, you don't have, you haven't just received forgiveness because of your bad record but you're accepted on the basis of his, when you teach yourself and preached yourself that you're accepted on the basis of his record, when you teach yourself and preached yourself that you're right with God and so therefore you've got no need to construct your own sense of righteousness, you're not chasing after your own righteousness here, it's not an intellectual exercise, we're here to worship him, we're here to adore him, we're here to lift him up to a place in our lives in which he becomes so wonderful, so desirable that we don't desire anything else. Aiming for the sun changes us, but it's a Billy Joel change, because Jesus says, you know, don't go changing, to try and please me, you never let me down before, don't imagine that you're too familiar and I don't see you anymore, I wouldn't leave you in times of travel, we'd never have come this far, I took the good times and I'll take the bad times, I'll take you just the way you are, I said I love you and that's forever and this I promise from the hard, I could not love you any better, I love you just the way you are. All calls us to a life of purity and doctrine in truth, purity in our lives not on the basis of obligation, not on the basis of compulsion, but on the basis of unconditional love. Love you just the way you are, he says, and he said I love you and that's forever, look Billy Joel is something about the Christie Brinkley years ago and now where's the relationship. When God sings out over your life tonight, the only person, he is the only person in the universe that knows that he can deliver on that lyric. I said I love you and that's forever, he is the only one that will ever be able to deliver on that lyric, is that true in your life tonight? Have you received that love tonight? Is it stirring your heart so much tonight that the things of this world begin to fade into the background? To be a Christian is not an element of religiosity, to be a Christian is not a moral reformation project, but it's to aim your life at the sun and watch yourself grow. So those that lead a legacy are called not only to protect the gospel, not only to progress the gospel, but to produce a character that's consistent with the gospel, how fresh fruit people, they got roots in the truth, not just can you handle the truth, but how you're handling the truth this week? Have you got roots in the truth? They ain't got no junk in the trunk, that is the degree to which we bear fruit for the kingdom of God, is the degree to which we are actively seeking to get the poisonous stuff out of our lives. And it's fresh fruit people they aim for the sun, they recognize that Jesus Christ is the source of growth and the source of power in our lives this evening. My hope and prayer this week that you might, my hope is that you too get this stupid jingle in your head because it is driving me crazy. But I hope whether you're on the train, whether you're washing up, whether you're going at work, whether you're in your desk, maybe you'll be in bullies yourself and you'll continue to sing, we are, we are the fresh fruit people. I hope that is my blessed prayer over all of you tonight in the name of Jesus. Yet it's stuck in your heads. We are the fresh fruit people. We are not just, we're not just passing on a message, we're embodying the message. We are God's product. Well let's pray. Oh Lord God, each and every one of us come before you tonight. Yeah, not up to the level that we'd like to be and not to the level that you call us to be Father. And so in the way we just commit to you in this quiet time are the things that are in our lives that are not of you. Father is born out of a passion and a desire to be fit for the purposes for which you have called us Lord God. Stems out of a desire and a response to the unconditional love that we see in your son Jesus Christ at the cross. So Father as we head into this week may we truly grasp our identity in your son Jesus as fresh fruit people as not only just messengers of the gospel but as a product of the gospel and so on that way we're going to need your Holy Spirit to come into our lives this week Father and continue to cast off the old stuff and keep bringing in the new. With a desire that we take this message to the world not just in words not just in billboards that are hanging up there on the M4 of this city but through lives that are lived with purity and wonder and beauty that declare to the world that we are a new people a gathered people we're your people we're gospel people and for that we praise you we thank you we're going to need your help this week and so we pray these things in Jesus name, Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]