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Serenity: Soothing Inspirational Favorites Performed On Piano

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Well, good morning. Nice thing about the morning after you set your clocks back. Everybody's on time, early even, and wide awake, ready to go.
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So, good to see you this morning and hope you did get some good rest last night. Appreciated the fellowship at Aaron and Diana's place last evening, and many of you were able to attend that.
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It didn't look too promising yesterday morning, did it? I wondered if their garage would even be standing after that storm hit us, but worked out that we had a good evening of fellowship together.
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Well, we've come together today to worship the Lord and want to focus on that. Before we begin the worship service, in a moment though, just a few things to point out in your bulletin.
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One, of course, our evening service tonight will be looking at the end of Mark chapter 12. I encourage you to come and hear how the
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Lord turns the tables on some folks this evening in the evening service. Concurrent with the evening service at 6 o 'clock is the kids club, also at 6 for the boys and girls.
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They have a good time, Michael and Kelly working with them, learning things of the
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Lord, and having some fun together. So, take advantage of these opportunities at the end of the
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Lord's Day. I want to point out we've been studying the last several weeks in the book of Isaiah, and that series comes to an end next
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Lord's Day. Two weeks from today, we'll begin a new series in the book of Philippians in Sunday school, in the adult
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Sunday school class. Three different men are going to be teaching that class. Each one will have a week.
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Eric, notice Eric Foreman, Ed Brill, Mike Gottemoeller. They each take a week teaching a lesson and share in that responsibility.
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So, a couple weeks. Look forward to the beginning of that. It's a wonderful New Testament letter the
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Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, encouraging God's people to rejoice in the
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Lord. Then, notice today has been designated as the
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International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, and we will offer part of that in our prayer this morning.
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Pray for the church. But Wednesday night, I want to focus more attention on that. So, I encourage you to come
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Wednesday evening, 7 o 'clock, here in the auditorium, and we'll share a few things about different places where persecution is going on, and then be able to pray for these people, these places, and God's people in them.
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Then notice down at the bottom of your right side of your bulletin, the Christmas gift for our missionaries.
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We're supposed to be receiving in our Sunday school classes an offering every week, and I haven't done a good job of emphasizing that through the year.
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We kind of lost track of it during the COVID crisis junk, and we weren't doing
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Sunday school, and we weren't passing plates, and so on and so forth. Well, anyway, that offering we collect in Sunday school time is used totally for missionary
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Christmas gifts, and that offering is, for this year, the total so far is pretty much behind what we have been traditionally sending to the missionaries.
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So, I just want to put it out there to encourage you to give in a special way toward that purpose.
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There is, right by the offering box on the foyer table, there's some offering envelopes.
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They don't specify missions or anything, but they're there. They have a little corner clipped off, so we know that anything given in that envelope with a corner clipped off goes to the missionaries for their
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Christmas gift. So, you can do that. You can contribute to the missionary
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Christmas gift in three ways. One, in Sunday school, Sunday school offering.
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Two, by using those corner clipped envelopes by the offering box.
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And the third way is you can give online. Some of you are already in the habit of giving online.
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There's a place on the screen for online giving that is
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Missions Christmas, and you can give that way as well. So, I just wanted to point that out so we can be generous with our missionaries in their
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Christmas gift this year. All right, we've come together today to worship the Lord, and I want to read 1
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Chronicles 16, 28, 29 before we sing together. We're exhorted to give to the
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Lord, O families of the people. Give to the Lord glory and strength. Give to the
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Lord the glory. Do His name. Bring an offering and come before Him. Oh, worship the
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Lord in the beauty of holiness. And let's sing a hymn of glory to the
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Lord. Number 44 in your hymnals, to God be the glory. Hymn number 44, and let's stand together as we sing.
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Shall we?
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To the Lord.
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Stand in place for prayer. Kevin? Let us pray.
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Father, we just thank you again that we can come into your house and praise your name.
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To hear from your word, just penetrate our hearts and our minds and draw us close to you.
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Help us to encourage those around us. We just thank you,
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Lord, for the ultimate sacrifice that you paid for us. You made it possible to stand here and be forgiven.
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So, Lord, be glorified today and may you be honored and praised.
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In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you.
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You may be seated. To prepare our hearts for the Lord's table, we're going to read in Psalm 22 today.
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I encourage you to take your Bible and turn there. Dan's going to come and read verses 1 through 19.
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And then we'll sing the hymn from the Psalter according to that psalm. Dan? Psalm 22, verse 1 reads,
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My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring?
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O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in the night season, and I am not silent.
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But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee, they trusted and thou didst deliver them.
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They cried unto thee and were delivered. They trusted in thee and were not confounded. But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men, despised of the people.
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All they that see me laugh to scorn, they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
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He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him. Let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.
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But thou art he that took me out of the womb. Thou didst make me hope when
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I was upon my mother's breast. I was cast upon thee from the womb.
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Thou art my God from my mother's belly. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, for there is none to help.
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Many bulls have compassed me, strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.
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They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.
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My heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a pot -shed, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws.
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And thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For the dogs have compassed me, the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me.
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They pierce my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones, they look and stare upon me.
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They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture. But be not thou far from me,
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O Lord. O my strength, haste thou to help me. In your
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Psalter, the number is 42. Corresponds to Psalm 22, in this passage it was read,
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My God, my God. My God, O why have you seen me?
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To myself you can say,
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My soul cries out.
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On to the fifth, on the fifth. O me, thy soul cries out.
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As I call upon you,
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My God, have mercy.
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We can't begin to imagine the depth of heart from which those words were uttered on the cross.
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Jesus cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
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It was less than 24 hours before he said those words that he was in that upper room with his disciples.
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There in that upper room, he had that last supper with them. It was a
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Passover meal. The Passover lamb had been slain, had been eaten, and they did not understand the significance of that moment, of that lamb, and the lamb that was right before them there at the table.
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The lamb who picked up the loaf of bread and gave it to them, the lamb who lifted the cup and passed it to them, they did not see the significance of it all.
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Not for another 24 hours, and even then, they didn't.
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It took days for their eyes to fully be open and fully understand. We have the benefit of hindsight this morning, and the
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Lord called us to frequently exercise that hindsight. As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you show the
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Lord's death until he comes. This do, he said, in remembrance of me.
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Reflect back. Employ hindsight frequently to consider the one who hung on the cross, forsaken by his
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Father. Let's have a brief word of prayer as we give thanks to the Lord for these elements and for what they signify to us today.
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Our Father and our God, we do thank you today for this opportunity you've given to us to reflect, to remember what our
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Savior has done for us. As we partake of this little wafer, may we see in it the body of our
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Savior hanging on that cross broken for us. We drink that little ounce of juice.
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May we see in the redness of it the blood of our Savior shed for the new covenant, shed for us, for our remission.
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Bless these thoughts into our hearts today and our time as we gather around this table.
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In this we pray in Jesus' name, amen. And so there at that table, the
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Lord took a loaf of bread. It was one single loaf, and he broke it and shared it with his disciples.
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And as he did, as he broke it and then passed it on, he said, This is my body, which is broken for you.
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Take and eat. After the bread, the
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Lord took the cup, and he said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. All of you drink from it.
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Take your blue song supplement book and turn to number 65 just to seal that remembrance in our hearts and our minds.
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I want to sing the first and last stanzas of the power of the cross. Number 65 in your supplement.
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Oh, to see the dawn. And all
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God's people said, Amen. As we pray together today, we do want to remember our
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Missionary of the Week, Mark and Lynette Hynek. They're serving in the city of Gracia in Costa Rica.
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And in the last prayer letter that we got from Mark, he mentioned just some of the significant challenges that they face in the work where they're serving.
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If you recall, Mark took over a very fledgling, pained, hurt church about a year ago, and the people all wanted him.
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That's what they said, but then started leading in a biblical direction in some things.
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A lot of folks weren't interested in going along. So it's been a challenge for them, and we want to pray for God to do a work of grace in that work, in that church, and especially not only in the people who comprise that church.
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There's certainly some growth that needs to take place there. But Costa Rica and the city of Gracia itself are predominantly
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Roman Catholic, probably 99 percent, and it's really dark, really dark.
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And pray for the light to shine in that city. As you well know, this
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Tuesday is Election Day, and a lot is at stake, as it is in every
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Election Day. But I just want to encourage you not only to pray about those elections and for whom you should vote, but I want to encourage you to actually do that, to actually vote.
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I mention that because I came across a forum the other day
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I was reading. It's a Christian forum. And a guy wrote an article declaring that he was not going to vote this year.
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He was going to sit out the election. And his argument was the guys in the
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Democrat Party, I couldn't vote for them because of their positions, and the guys that are Republicans, none of them are really very good, so I'm just going to sit out.
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I'm not going to vote at all. And I can imagine where many people can feel that way sometimes, get so frustrated with politics and politicians that they make promises, they disappoint, and they're all a bunch of crooks, all those kinds of things, all those kinds of attitudes and sentiments.
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And so his thing, I'm just going to sit out. I'm not quite sure what that accomplishes. I really don't think it accomplishes anything, but I have some opinions about it anyway.
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What I want to get at is what do you expect? What do you expect from politicians?
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Do you expect to have a politician that you can vote for that is a conservative
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Christian that believes like you believe, that has the moral values that you have, that holds to an economic policy that you hold to, that is a biblical one, that holds to biblical wisdom, that holds to scriptural standards?
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Do you really expect to find a politician like that, a candidate like that?
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If you do, it is exceedingly rare. What we have to do as Christians is to realize where we are, who we are, and where we live.
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Where are we? We're in the middle of a fallen world. We are
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God's chosen people. Yes, we are citizens of the New Jerusalem.
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We are citizens in heaven, but we are nevertheless also pilgrims and sojourners on this land, and as such we have responsibilities and we have opportunities.
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But we are unique. We are God's chosen people, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a people of his own, and we can't expect to find very many politicians who are going to be what we are.
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We live in a fallen world, and therefore what we should expect is that any politician that is running for office is going to be a fallen creature.
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He's going to be a sinner, and his expressions of sinfulness may be different from another politician's expression of sinfulness, but he is nevertheless a sinner.
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My point is that we are kidding ourselves if we think we can vote for somebody who's going to bring in a
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Christian utopia. It isn't going to happen. What our responsibility is is to vote for the best candidate that's out there, the one that most closely aligns with our particular viewpoints, and some are going to be better at that than others.
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Our duty is to vote for the one that's better at it than the others and let God take care of the consequences and the implications of that vote.
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But I don't think it's a responsible thing. I don't think it's a particularly Christian thing to do, to just sit out on the sidelines and say, well, they're all a bunch of crooks, they're all a bunch of fallen people, and therefore
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I'm not going to participate in this election. Let me encourage you to exercise your right and your privilege and responsibility as a citizen to cast a ballot on Tuesday.
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Let me encourage you to do that. So let's pray about that election, and let's pray that God give us wisdom to be able to cut through all of the rhetoric.
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I mean, if you look at the rhetoric, yeah, they're all evil. I get that. We have to cut through the rhetoric, cut through the personality attacks and all that kind of stuff and get to the core issues, and may
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God give us wisdom to do so. Let's look to the Lord in prayer. And so, our
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Father, we come to you this morning thanking you and praising you for our citizenship that is in heaven.
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We thank you for calling us, your chosen people, to be a people of your own, to be a holy nation, to be a royal priesthood.
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For those of us who have not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy, we thank you for that mercy.
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And, Father, we also are mindful of Jesus in his high priestly prayer mentioning that he wasn't asking you to take us out of this world but to leave us in it.
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And while we are in it, we carry on with responsibilities that come with citizenship, that come with employment, that come with everyday life in a fallen world.
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Father, we pray that you would help us to be faithful stewards of that which you've given us, stewards of even the responsibility as a citizen in this
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United States. So, Father, we have coming before us in a couple of days an opportunity to express our opinion of which candidates and which issues should be passed, which candidate would be a better of two and perhaps even a lesser of two evils.
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But, Father, may we be responsible and may we indeed have the insight and the wisdom to cut through all of the political wrangling and the personal attacks and just really focus on issues that are important to us as your people, the sanctity of human life, morality that does not attack your creative work.
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Lord, we need so many issues really in these days that are being presented before us as a people in how we vote.
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Give us wisdom, we pray. And we pray for the outcome of this election that you would to this nation be merciful, merciful.
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We are not meriting anything from you, anything from you but other than further darkness and turmoil and judgment.
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Father, we are a nation that is under, in many ways, under your judgment. We ask,
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O Lord, for you to relent. We pray that you would turn this nation by turning people to yourself, bring souls to faith in Christ as we languish in the darkness.
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May many turn to thee light, the Lord Jesus Christ. And, Father, you've called us to be light in this dark world.
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You've called us to work and live in such a way that our righteousness, our good works, would shine forth and we would be the light of the world in that way.
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You have given us the light of the glorious gospel. May it so impact us that it affects how we live and even what we say to those around us.
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Help us, Father, to be faithful bearers of the light. Father, we pray for Mark and Lynette Hynek trying to hold forth the light in the darkness of Grecia, Costa Rica.
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I pray that you would help them to be faithful, faithful to the word and faithful to the work.
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And I pray that by your grace you would open the eyes of many, turn many from darkness to light.
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Use the Hyneks, we pray, to your glory. Father, we commit these things to you today and we ask them in Jesus' name and for his sake.
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Amen. Would you take your hymnal and turn to number 374 before the message today?
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374, the hymn, Be Thou My Vision. Let's stand together as we sing, shall we? 374.
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Be seated, please. If you would, turn in your
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Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 2. Ecclesiastes chapter 2.
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I'm going to read verses 1 through 11. I'm going to begin today a series of messages.
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I don't think it will be very long, very many installments in that series on the subject of a fruitful life.
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I don't often do this. I usually will preach through a book of the Bible and, you know, passage by passage.
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But every once in a while I'll step back and look at a subject, an idea that covers many passages.
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And we want to see how that idea is fleshed out in the Scripture. And this particular idea or subject, a fruitful life, came to me a few weeks ago.
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I was thinking about the importance of such a way of living. Ecclesiastes chapter 2.
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Solomon, we believe, wrote this. He said, I said in my heart, come now, I will test you with mirth.
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Therefore, enjoy pleasure. But surely this also was vanity. I said of laughter, madness.
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And of mirth, what does it accomplish? I searched in my heart how to gratify my flesh with wine while guiding my heart with wisdom.
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And how to lay hold on folly till I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives.
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I made my works great. I built myself houses and planted myself vineyards. I made myself gardens and orchards.
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I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made myself water pools from which to water the growing trees of the grove.
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I acquired male and female servants and had servants born in my house. Yes, I had greater possessions of herds and flocks than all who were in Jerusalem before me.
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I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the special treasures of kings and of the provinces.
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I acquired male and female singers. The delights of the sons of men and musical instruments of all kinds.
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So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me.
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Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure for my heart rejoiced in all my labor.
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And this was my reward from all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which
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I had toiled. And indeed, all was vanity and grasping for the wind.
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There was no profit under the sun. Brief prayer. Father, help us to see the importance of fruitfulness in our lives, not merely productivity.
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We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. The hanging gardens of Babylon, maybe you know and recall from your history lessons in school a long time ago.
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Those hanging gardens were considered to be one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
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Don't have any pictures of them. They don't exist any longer. But the way they were described totally amazed everyone, astounded everyone who saw them.
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They were described as a remarkable feat of engineering. This was a whole area in the city of Babylon where were built these terraces of gardens filled with trees of all kinds and varieties of shrubs and vines.
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And all of this resembled a large green mountain, but it was constructed out of mud bricks.
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It was a fascinating structure, exhilarating structure to behold. Well, according to one legend, the hanging gardens were built alongside a grand palace known as the
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Marvel of Mankind. It was all built by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar.
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And he did so for his wife. Not the first time or the last time someone has built some grand, grandiose structure as a gift or a tribute to his wife.
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But Nebuchadnezzar supposedly did this for his wife, Queen Amytas. And he did so because Babylon was kind of like an arid brown area.
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And she came from the green hills and valleys in her homeland. Nebuchadnezzar did this for her.
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Well, one cool evening, Nebuchadnezzar was in his palace, this grand palace, taking a stroll.
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And as he strolled, he was able to look out over the city and particularly, probably these gorgeous, astounding hanging gardens that he had built.
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And from this vantage point, he could take it all in, the splendor of those massive gardens, the splendor of the city.
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And he puffed out his chest and he said, is not this great Babylon that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?
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And within 24 hours, the very productive but arrogant king was driven out to pasture to eat grass like an oxen.
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Nebuchadnezzar was incredibly productive, but his life was not truly fruitful.
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When we think of productivity in our age and in our culture, we mean something like this.
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And we've gotten our definition, I think, probably from the Industrial Revolution. But we think of something like this.
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We think of productivity as, and I'm quoting here, the efficient and consistent accomplishment of important tasks that result in desirable outcomes.
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Now, you don't need to memorize that definition, you know instinctively what it's all about. And you see it at work, you see it in the community and so forth.
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So, for example, the line supervisors at Wall Clipper or Micron or Rain or Garage Door Manufacturing, these line supervisors, they monitor the efficiency and the consistency of their employees as they do their job.
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And they do so because that work of the employees impacts the output of clippers and transformers and garage doors.
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Football coaches do the same kind of thing. They evaluate productivity. They evaluate the productivity of their team by analyzing things like the average yards per possession or per play.
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They look at the win -loss record. They look at the number of penalties that their team has incurred in the course of a game.
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They look at the performances of individual players. Coaches are evaluating the productivity of their team.
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A salesman keeps track of his productivity, of the leads that have been generated and successfully followed up on, the number of sales that he's actually closed, the commissions that he's earned, even evaluates his productivity by looking at his rank among his colleagues.
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A homeschool parent evaluates productivity too, tracking his child's reading progress, his math progress, his writing abilities, tracking the grades of the child, wanting to see improvement.
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Productivity is evaluated on the basis of improvement in scores and so forth.
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The teacher will monitor the material covered in the course of a week, a semester, a year, looking for productive results.
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And she does this while she's still looking at her other household chores that have been accomplished during the course of the day and the course of a week as well.
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No matter what area of life, no matter what area of life, you can be and you probably want to be very productive.
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You were created for this, right? You were created for this. When God made man,
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He made us in His image, but He told us to multiply and fill the earth.
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He told us, He gave Adam, our father, the responsibility of tending a garden so that that garden would be productive.
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God created us for productivity. But what we want to understand, first of all, is that personal productivity is in itself inadequate.
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It is inadequate. Here in our text that we read this morning, a very wise man discovered that truth, that personal productivity is in itself inadequate.
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Look at the objective that he established in verse 3. It's a very clear objective. He says at the end of the verse,
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I wanted to find out what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their life.
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He wanted to see what was good for you to do all your life.
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To do, to accomplish, to achieve. What was good, that is, what was pleasant and agreeable.
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He wanted to discover what is it that you should give yourself to? In what should you find satisfaction and fulfillment?
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This was his quest. This was his objective. And he put forth incredible effort to achieve that objective.
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Verses 4 through 8, he was extremely productive.
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Look at the things he produced. Houses, vineyards.
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Verse 5, gardens, orchards, all kinds of trees, watering pools for irrigation purposes so that the trees could receive water.
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He acquired a huge staff of male and female servants. He had greater possessions of livestock than anybody else in the area.
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He had vast wealth that he had accumulated, that his efforts had produced.
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Vast amount of wealth in verse 8. And he acquired even substantial entertainment options.
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If this were the 21st century, he'd have the biggest screen TV that one could have with the most elaborate and expensive sound system to go with it.
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He would have his own projection equipment. He would have all kinds of musical capabilities.
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He would be able to go anywhere he wanted to to see any kind of performance that he wanted to see. His entertainment options for his day were endless, he saw to it.
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He was extremely productive. But I want you to notice, in his productivity, his extremely productive life, he was terribly self -absorbed.
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Did you notice the repetition of I and my and myself and me through this?
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I made my works great. I built myself houses, planted myself vineyards, and on through the rest of that checklist, that bullet list of productivity.
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It was all for me. It was all mine. It was all for my purposes.
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Well, he was incredibly, incredibly, put forth incredible effort to achieve that objective.
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And verse 9 tells us that he achieved in all of that self -absorbed productivity, he achieved unparalleled success.
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Look at verse 9 again. I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem.
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There's this little thing at the end of the verse, though, that is quite different from most who enjoy such success.
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He says, I became great, excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem, but, he says, my wisdom remained within me.
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He still maintained the ability to discern some things, to look at all of this and truly evaluate it.
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Not everybody who comes to such success in their productive life has such wisdom.
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But in his wisdom, he shows us that he makes some unsettling observations in verses 10 through 16.
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So he's done all of this. He's produced all of this. He's achieved this unparalleled success, but in his wisdom, notice these observations that he makes.
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He makes two of them, two very important critical observations. One of them is that none of this that he has produced is going to endure.
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And in the end, it's all unprofitable. Verses 10 and 11 again.
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Whatever I wanted, I got. I didn't withhold my heart from any pleasure. My heart rejoiced in all my labor.
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I was very, very productive. This productivity was the reward from all my labor.
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But then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled, and I didn't find any satisfaction.
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I didn't find any fulfillment. Indeed, all was vanity and grasping for the wind.
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There was no profit under the sun. In his wisdom, he understood that this isn't going to last.
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This isn't going to endure. And in the end, therefore, all of this personal productivity is unprofitable.
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His second observation is that we all come to the same end, regardless of what we achieve or don't achieve.
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And that same end is death. You see this in verses 12 to 16.
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We didn't read it earlier. Let's look at it now. He says, Then I turned myself to consider wisdom and madness and folly.
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For what can the man do who succeeds the king? Only what he has already done.
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Then I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness.
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Yet I perceived that the same event happens to them all.
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So I said to my heart, As it happens to the fool, it also happens to me. And why was I then more wise?
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In other words, why did I have such wisdom and ability to create all of this stuff, to be so productive, and to achieve such success?
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But in the end, I'm going to go to the same place. I'm going to have the same end in life as the fool who wasn't able to do any of this stuff.
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It was terribly unproductive. Why was I the more wise? I said to my heart, this is also vanity.
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For there is no more remembrance of the wise and of the fool forever. So all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come.
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And how does a wise man die? As a fool. As a fool.
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These are some pretty unsettling observations that he, after all of the success and what he has produced, he's able to make.
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And that wisdom that he still holds on to. But that wisdom, after making these observations, leads him to reach an important conclusion.
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And it's brought out in verses 17 through 23. And one of the aspects that's going to lead to the conclusion that he makes is that I can be very productive in my life and yet hate life.
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Look at verse 17. He says, Therefore, I hated life, because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me.
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For all is vanity and grasping for the wind. Look back at the productivity of his life.
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None of us could tick off on a checklist, a list like this of productive success.
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None of us could do this. But he did. He accomplished it all.
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He made the unsettling observations, and it led him to this point as he's reaching a conclusion.
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And the point is that he is very productive, but he hates his life. He hates his life.
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In other words, he says, It hasn't given me the happiness that I was looking for.
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I can be very productive and hate life. And a second component that leads him to a conclusion that he makes that he's going to draw here is that I can be very productive and hate my productivity.
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Even my productivity. Look at verse 18. He says, Then I hated all my labor in which
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I had toiled under the sun. Why? Because I've got to leave it to somebody else. I've worked like this.
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I've worked my head off. I've worked my tail off. I've given my life to be extremely productive.
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I've given my all to all of this productivity. And where is it going to go? What good is it going to do me?
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I'm going to die like a fool. And then who gets it all? I hate all this stuff that I've done.
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I hate all the work that I've done to get it. Who's going to get, when all is said and done, what
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I have achieved? And in verses 19 through 21, he asks the question,
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What in the world will come of it all anyway? He says, And who knows whether he, the person who gets what he has achieved and acquired, who knows whether he will be wise or a fool?
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Yet he's going to rule over all my labor in which I've toiled, in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This is vanity.
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Therefore, he says, I turned my heart and despised, despaired of all the labor in which
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I had toiled under the sun. For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom and knowledge and skill, yet he must leave his heritage to a man who has not labored for it.
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This also is vanity and a great evil. What's going to come of it all, this productivity that I have brought forth with my efforts?
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And in verses 22 and 23, he asks the question, Was it really worth it?
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Was it really worth it? He says, For what has man for all his labor and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun?
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For all his days are sorrowful and his work burdensome. Even in the night, his heart takes no rest.
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This is also vanity. What he's describing here in these two verses is the person who is hurried and harried in a relentless pursuit of greater productivity.
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Productivity. Let me say that again. Verses 22 and 23. The person whose days are sorrowful, his work burdensome, and in the night his heart takes no rest.
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Why? Because he is in a constant hurried and harried relentless pursuit of greater productivity.
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So Solomon, this wise, very productive guy, has to reach this important conclusion that being productive is simply not enough.
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A wise man discovered the truth that productivity is not enough.
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Now would you turn with me to Luke 12. Luke 12, and look at verses 16 through 21.
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So a wise man in Ecclesiastes 2 discovers that productivity is not enough.
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But here in Luke 12, a foolish man finds out the same truth, but he finds it out the hard way.
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And what we have described in Luke 12 in these verses, 16 to 21, is an illustration of what we just read in Ecclesiastes 2, verses 21 to 23.
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Now in this passage, before we look at verses 16 and following, notice how Jesus warns against a merely productivity mindset.
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Verse 15, he says, Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.
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Jesus is issuing a warning here. He's warning us to beware of the seductive, self -absorbed pursuit of productivity, as it's commonly understood.
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Good. The word covetousness here, covetousness is the root of mere productivity, of a mere productivity emphasis, covetousness.
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Think back of Solomon. Think back of his objective and what he did in his objective.
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I made myself this. I got myself this. I built myself this.
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I got more wealth for myself than anybody else had. I was considered the greatest. I, myself.
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I, me, myself. Covetousness. Jesus says, beware of this seductive, self -absorbed pursuit of merely being productive.
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And at the end part of the verse, the last part of the verse, he shares a principle that actually contradicts that mindset that I've just got to be personally productive.
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He shares a principle, and the principle is this. One's life does not consist in the abundance of the things that he possesses.
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Very simply. Life doesn't consist in the accumulation of stuff.
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And that stuff does not necessarily have to mean a full closet of clothing or too many cars than can fit in your garage or a bigger garage that will hold all the cars that you've come to acquire in your productive life.
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No. Life doesn't consist in the accumulation of stuff. And the definition of stuff is whatever you're looking at as the compensation of your productivity, however you might define that compensation.
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And it can differ from one person to another. One person might consider themselves to be very productive if they are able to get an extra car or two or if they are able to have a camper and a boat and to go off in places all summer long and enjoy those things without...
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One person can look at productivity in that light. Another one can look at their productivity, the stuff, their compensation for mere personal productivity as an incredible bottom line in their company, and so on and so forth.
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However you might want to define it. But Jesus says your life doesn't consist in the accumulation of stuff.
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And isn't that what Solomon came to? Isn't that the conclusion Solomon came to, right? "'I became great,' he says, "'and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem.'
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"'And indeed,' he says, "'it's all vanity.'" And grasping for the win.
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William Irvine, he's not a believer, I don't think. He wrote a book more praising the virtues of Stoicism.
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But he did make this point in his book. He describes misliving. Here's what he said.
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He says, "'There's a danger that you will mislive, "'that despite all of your activity, "'despite all of the pleasant diversions you might have enjoyed while you were alive, "'you will end up living a bad life.
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"'There is, in other words, a danger that when you are on your deathbed, "'you will look back and realize you wasted your one chance at living.
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"'Instead of spending your life pursuing something genuinely valuable, "'you squandered it "'because you allowed yourself to be distracted by the various baubles that life has to offer, "'by that stuff that is the compensation of a merely personally productive life.'"
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Well, then in verses 16 to 21, Jesus shares a parable to drive home this point of the principle that He just shared.
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And in this parable, in verses 16 to 17, He describes a man who is extremely productive, right?
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He spoke to them a parable saying, "'The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully.' And he thought within himself saying, "'What shall
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I do since I have no room to store my crops?' This is a man who would be envied and admired by many people for his success, as would have been
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Solomon. Everybody looked up to him as the greatest and the wealthiest and the best.
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He was an extremely productive man, but notice also in verses 18 and 19 that he's also a terribly selfishly absorbed man.
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He thought within himself saying, "'What shall
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I do since I have no room to store my crops?'
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So he said, "'I will do this. I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there
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I will store all my crops and my goods.'" Are you getting a theme that's running through all of this so far?
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A very self -absorbed way of life? A focus on mere personal productivity is a very self -absorbed way to live.
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What can I do to produce such crops that I can then make my barns bigger and my crops can be so, etc.,
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etc.? He's a very selfishly absorbed man. But he's also, notice, a terribly misguided man in verses 20 and 21.
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He shows absolutely no concern whatsoever for glorifying God and expressing anything of gratitude to Him, none whatsoever.
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God said to him, "'A fool, this night your soul will be required of you. Then whose will those things be which you have provided?'
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No thanksgiving to God, no Psalm 103, verse 1, we heard last night. "'Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless
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His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.'" Oh, he's completely forgotten all his benefits.
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He's forgotten anything about the Lord. But he is very productive. He shows no concern about glorifying
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God, but he also shows, this man, this terribly misguided man, that he doesn't know himself at all.
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What I mean by that is he doesn't realize that he is a mere mortal, that life is short and its end is imminent, as at any time.
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He doesn't seem to realize that all he's produced is, in the end, worthless.
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In his end, it is worthless. The conclusion, what conclusion can we draw from this?
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Productivity in itself is not enough. Productivity is not enough, but here's where we're going with this.
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Fruitfulness is absolutely critical. Fruitfulness is absolutely critical.
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What do I mean by fruitfulness as distinguished from productivity?
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Well, I shared with you earlier the common cultural understanding of productivity.
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By the way, there's an excellent book that's just been published, and I was mulling over this series and thinking about it, and then
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I get this email about this book that a good guy has written.
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It's entitled, Redeeming Productivity. He has the same emphasis that I want to emphasize in this series, but what he's doing is he's even redeeming the term productivity to equate it with fruitfulness.
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I want to keep a distinction here because when you go out there and talk to the people in the community, and if you happen to work on a line or if you're a supervisor at one of these factories, you're looking at people and you're expecting productivity as the culture defines it.
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You can't really afford to be concerned with their fruitfulness. As a believer in Christ, we're called to be fruitful.
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We'll say more about that in just a minute, but what do we mean? What do I mean by fruitfulness as distinguished from mere productivity?
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Let me give you a definition of fruitfulness. It's going to guide our thinking in the next several weeks. Fruitfulness involves the development of inner character coupled with growth in external obedience.
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Now listen, that determines your practical effectiveness.
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Let me give you that again. Fruitfulness involves the development of your inner character coupled with growth in your external obedience that determines your practical effectiveness.
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Productivity, as it's commonly understood, is concerned only with practical effectiveness.
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Let me elaborate on this definition a little bit. Your inner character, who you are inside, determines the why of your productivity.
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It determines why you produce what you produce. Your character does.
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Your external obedience affects how you go about being productive.
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And that practical effectiveness is the what of your productivity.
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So let me put it this way. Fruitfulness in the Christian life is not satisfied merely with the what.
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It's not satisfied merely with accomplishing more and achieving better outcomes.
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Fruitfulness in the Christian life develops godly character and more consistent obedience to God, which yields
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God -glorifying practical effects. So look, it is very common for people to be very productive but be woefully unfruitful.
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And that can be true, and that is true, even in the church.
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Believers in Christ, followers of Christ can be very productive but woefully unfruitful.
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The fruitful Christian, Lo, listen, the fruitful Christian will be also truly productive.
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Now let's go to John chapter 15 and just look at a few things very quickly here in John 15 as we leave this subject for the day.
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I want us to see that fruitfulness is God's will and design.
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While you're turning to John 15, listen to what Paul wrote in Romans 7 verse 4. He said this,
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You also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ so that you may be married to another.
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You may be married to him, to Christ, who was raised from the dead.
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Now listen, why? So that we should bear fruit to God.
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You have been redeemed by the grace of God to bear fruit to God.
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You were crucified with Christ. You were raised up together with Christ to have a fruitful life.
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And in John 15, Jesus makes it clear that that fruitfulness is a mark of discipleship.
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It's a mark of discipleship. Look at verse 2. In verse 2, notice true branches.
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You're familiar with this passage. I am the vine, you are the branches, Jesus says. And he says, true branches will bear fruit.
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Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, Jesus says, he, the Father, takes away.
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Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit.
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True branches bear fruit. And that fruitfulness gives evidence of the reality of your profession, that you are truly a branch in the vine.
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What do I mean? Look at verse 8. He says, by this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit, so you will be my disciples.
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A true disciple, a true follower of Jesus Christ indeed bears fruit.
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And that fruitfulness is an evidence of your profession of faith in Christ.
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No fruit, you're not a branch taken away. Now, I want to, by the way, remind you the context,
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John 15. This is happening at the Last Supper that we just commemorated a few minutes ago.
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What's fresh in everybody's mind? One of you will betray me, Jesus said. One of you is going to sell me out.
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One of you is going to demonstrate that even though you came across as a branch, he's going to be taken out and thrown in the fire.
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You're speaking of Judas. Judas was a fake disciple. There are people in churches today, good churches, maybe even this church, that have a profession of faith, but fruitfulness, where is it?
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If there is no fruit, he's not a real disciple. This is what Jesus is saying. Fruitfulness is the mark of discipleship.
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I want you secondly to notice that fruitfulness is the means by which we glorify God. We just read that at the beginning of verse 8, right?
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By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit. Why? Because it reflects
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Him. God is glorified in our fruit bearing because it reflects
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Him. There is fruit to be produced in the inner man, and that fruit in the inner man reveals
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God's person, reveals what God is like, reveals God's character.
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Let's go back to the creation, okay? When God was about to create man, what did
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God say? Let us make man, what? In our image. Let us make man in our image so that man would reflect who
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God is, the person of God. We lost that in the fall. We didn't lose all of the image of God in the fall, but we lost our ability to accurately, clearly present the character of God in our fallen condition.
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It takes a new birth. It takes regeneration. And in regeneration, we now have the privilege and the opportunity to reflect
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Him, to be like Christ, to be conformed to the image of Christ, and in so doing to reflect
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Christ. That all occurs inside of us in the inner man.
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In the inner man, we reveal what God's character is like, what
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God is like. The fruit of obedience reveals
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God's position. That is, He is my
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Lord. He is my master. I am His servant. He has every right to tell me what to do.
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I have every responsibility to do what He tells me to do. The fruit of obedience reveals the authority that God has over me,
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His position. The fruit of productivity reveals God's productivity.
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What I mean by that is this. As believers in Christ, we cannot argue that, well, you know,
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God will take care of me. You know, be not afraid.
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Whatever comes, God will take care of you. Don't be dismayed. Just sit back on your hands and let go and let
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God, and all will be well. No, that's irresponsibility.
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God calls us to be like Him in being productive. How do
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I know that? Well, because of what Jesus said in John 5, 17. In John 5, 17, Jesus says, my
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Father has been working until now, and I have been working.
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And in their work, they are productive. And going back to the creation, go to the creation mandate, right?
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Be fruitful. Multiply. Replenish the earth. Here's a garden.
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Take care of it. Work the garden, Adam. Work the garden.
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The fruit of productivity reveals God's productivity, God working through us to produce in us and through us what
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He wants accomplished by our hands. Fruitfulness is the means of glorifying
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God. And then lastly, verse 16. Fruitfulness is the purpose for your being chosen.
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Jesus says in verse 16, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain.
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Whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give you. Do you notice the contrast here?
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Do you notice the contrast between fruitfulness and mere productivity? Mere human productivity dissipates.
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Remember Solomon, verse 22 of chapter 2, what has man for all his labor and for the striving of his heart with which he toiled under the sun?
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What is to be the end of all that I have produced? Where is it all going to go when
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I go and die and pass off the scene? Who's going to get it? What are they going to do with it? Where will it go?
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I have no earthly idea. From Solomon's perspective in his wisdom, he's looking at all that he has produced in his merely human productive efforts for himself.
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And he said it's all going to go away. It all dissipates. But divinely produced fruit, look at it.
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Look at your verse. It remains. It remains. You should go and bear fruit that your fruit should remain.
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Fruitfulness is the purpose for which God in His grace chose you to be one of His people, chose you to be in the vine as a branch.
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So first of all, let me ask you this. Are you even a branch? Are you even a branch?
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Are you a branch that can be fruitful? Let me warn you. Are you merely professing to be a branch, merely saying you're a branch?
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But you know in your inner character, in your inner heart, God's not doing anything in there.
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And you know when it comes to the matter of obedience to His word, you're not even thinking about it.
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You don't even really think about it. Oh, but you insist I'm a branch. No. No, no. No fruit.
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Not a branch. Are you a branch? I trust that by the grace of God, those in this room listening to me today, those listening by a live stream watching today,
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I trust that by the grace of God you are indeed a branch. But if you are, let me ask you, are you focused on being fruitful to the glory of God or merely being productive for your own glory?
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Our Father in Heaven, I pray as we ponder this question today, we would ponder it sincerely and honestly and even look back over the past week and how we spent our days, how we invested our time to what we gave ourselves to and consider whether or not we did it for ourselves or we're actually bearing fruit to the glory of God.
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This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Would you close with me this morning with hymn number 369?
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369 is a good hymn of commitment to begin to apply the practical implications of what we've just discovered this morning.
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369. Let's stand together as we sing, shall we? We'll sing the first and the third stanzas. On the third is the last.
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Let me ask for myself, and give myself for me.
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Heart shall be thy. I encourage you to join us again this evening at 6 o 'clock.
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We'll look at Mark chapter 12 as Jesus turns the tables. Let's close.
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And now may you be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor in the
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Lord is not in vain. This we pray in the name of our Lord Jesus.