Join the Fun! Habitat for Humanity has created small renovation projects that will be completed in a week or less. Volunteers will perform exterior repairs, painting or landscaping. If swinging a hammer or digging in the dirt doesn’t appeal to you, there will be volunteer opportunities to provide snacks, sending out communication notices and other less messy tasks. Come to an exploratory meeting on Sunday, April 22 after the service and learn more about this community service opportunity. The meeting will be held in the East Community Room (the room behind the kitchen). Contact John Leegwater 452-2754 or Lori Kane 949-9700 with questions.
Disciples of Jesus follow Jesus in giving away their lives. (sermon audio)
Of all the marks of a disciple, this is the capstone – a willingness to sacrifice of oneself to follow Jesus. By definition, a disciple is follower of Jesus, not just someone who is intrigued by Jesus or thinks highly of him. Disciples of Jesus are followers of Jesus, so when we talk about Growing disciples who make disciples, we are talking about growing people who: 1) follow Jesus faithfully no matter the cost and 2) help others do the same.
The dictionary defines sacrifice as the “surrender of something for the sake of something else.” And that is exactly what God has done for us in Jesus. Jesus willingly gave his life for us, not simply as a model of selfless living for us to follow (though his example certainly is that) but as a sacrifice for our sin.
Think about that truth. Pick up the Bible and read Hebrews 10:1-14. Let your heart ponder this sweet center of the Gospel – “we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Theologians call it substitutionary atonement. Simply put – Jesus died in our place, and that death reopened the possibility of a relationship with God.
Throughout the series, we have been looking at the stages of spiritual growth as defined by the REVEAL study:
The idea is that all of us are on a spiritual journey and called to keep moving spiritually, to be growing people. The ultimate goal of following Jesus is to become more and more like Jesus, not simply to use Christianity to improve our lives. A distinguishing characteristic of a Christ-Centered person is a mindset of surrender. “Rather than expecting Jesus to be there for the sole purpose of helping them with their lives, they respond to his call to sacrifice and lay down their lives to serve Jesus and advance his mission in the world” (Move, Greg Hawkins & Cally Parkinson, p.93). This is what it means to be a sacrificing person.
In Ephesians, the Apostle Paul tells us to follow the example Jesus when he offered up his life for us (Eph. 5:1-2). In Romans, Paul writes this: “Offer your bodies as living sacrifices.” Basically, this means “live as if you’ve died to yourself.” It is exactly what Rob Ellis was getting at in the March 16 devotional he contributed to our Lenten Devotional Guide. Rob wrote this: “This is the true meaning of discipleship—the suffering through the loss of our natural self by denying its sinful lusts.”
This death to self becomes visible to others through a willingness to sacrifice of self to follow Jesus. A willingness to sacrifice for the sake of others is love. And as the old song says, “They will know we are Christians by our love.”
Disciples of Jesus follow Jesus in giving away their lives.
“A Night with the Artist,” Dan Van Duinen, will be held at Fifth Reformed Church on Tuesday, March 27th from 7-8 pm. During Holy Week, April 1-7, Fifth Church is honored to connect to the Western Michigan Artistic Community and incorporate Van Duinen’s photographic piece, “In Light of Suffering” into the “Thieves on the Cross Station.”
Dan is a commercial photographer by profession – and you may also recognize the names of his brothers, Tracy, Corey and Randy, also Art Prize artists. On March 27th we will share a short question and answer session with the artist as well as some refreshments. Come hear what inspired Dan to create and include last year’s Art Prize exhibit. Then also sign-upto attend Fifth Church’s interactive Stations of the Cross between April 1 & 7. http://www.fifthrc.org/_bpost_11035/Stations_of_the_Cross_Sign_Up%21
Fifth Reformed Church is located at 2012 Griggs, SE, Grand Rapids, MI.
Disciples of Jesus reproduce the life of Jesus in others.
“No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me” (John 15:4).
Everything needed for fruit to grow comes from the vine, not from the branch. Unless we are abiding in Christ and maintaining contact with him over a sustained time, there will be no fruit. We do not produce fruit on our own--we can’t.
God is glorified when Christ followers maintain contact with him so fruit is produced in the shape of transformed lives. This is how it works:
People are transformed by the message of Jesus
They grow in Christ
They impact others in positive spiritual ways
Subsequently, everyone involved is drawn closer to Christ
“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last” (John 15:16).
This verse shows us is that the initiative is not ours; it is God’s. If you are a follower of Jesus; God chose you before you chose Him.He appointed you to bear fruit—to reproduce the life of Jesus that is in you in other people. With so many references to bearing fruit in Scripture, it seems obvious that an essential mark of a disciple is that we are reproducing.Basically, Jesus is saying, “Hey, focus on the fruit.That is why I came, and it is the work I share with you.” Our primary task is to abide in Christ--to stay connected and to create the environment in which fruit might be borne from our lives.
The fruitfulness of a person’s life tells us something about the person. A lack of fruit might be an indicator that we are not as spiritually healthy as we think. Of course, that is not a firm rule because there are many examples of Christians being very faithful for long periods of time without any apparent fruit:
Fruit might be others coming to Christ.
Fruit might be persevering in holding out the life of Jesus to others who seem so hard-hearted that it’s difficult to imagine them ever changing.
Fruit might be modeling life in the Spirit to others by demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit to them such that they want to be more like you.
Are you investing your time and effort into bearing fruit in the shape of the life of Jesus being reproduced in others? Is the church bearing fruit with all of our activities and programs? We need to think about it, pray about it and if it doesn’t start producing fruit, let it go so we can move on to something that will be fruitful.
There is no such thing as a sterile disciple. This is why Jesus focused on making disciples and why he asks us to do the same.
Disciples of Jesus reproduce the life of Jesus in others.
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12).
Jesus gave us all sorts of other instructions and commands, but he boils obedience to God down to one thing: love. In the summary of the law, Jesus said to love God and love people. Here he says to his followers, “Love each other.” But he didn’t stop there. He said, “Love each other as I have loved you.”
The thought process goes like this:
As God loved Jesus, so Jesus loves us.
As Jesus loved us, so we are to love one another.
The love of God is a self-giving love – a willingness to give of oneself for the benefit of others.
But what does that love look like? Christ-like love means being Christ-like in our willingness to give everything away–even our lives–for the sake of God’s purposes in others. Yikes. Thankfully, Jesus doesn’t expect perfection from us, but he does expect imitation. If we are just throwing up our hands and saying, “I can never do that,” we are missing the point. Our goal is to grow in Christ-likeness until we are willing to lay down our lives for our friends. (And not just in the imaginary moment of being a martyr – but in the everyday routines of life where all of us naturally focus on ourselves and our needs.)
You might have heard it said that hurt people hurt. That means if a person is hurtful to others in their words, actions or presence, it is probably because they have been hurt themselves. This perspective gives us a way of become curious about others rather than furious with them. But it is also true that loved people love.
The church is often accused of being hypocritical (and let’s face it: we have a less-than-stellar record because we are less-than-stellar people). Sometimes in the face of these accusations, we overlook the great change God has worked in the world through the transformed lives of people. Much of the world has no concept of the very real value added every day to life on this planet by authentic followers of Jesus Christ. The church isn’t perfect, we know that full well. But God is up to something. God is using his church to reach the world.
Practically speaking, the purpose of Christians loving one another is not to create a holy huddle. The purpose is twofold:
We move toward the goal of the entire Christian life, which is becoming like Jesus.
The world will witness a new kind of community that surprises them, that wows them, that baffles them, and that attracts them.
Bill Hull in The Disciple-Making Pastor said, “The distilled essence of Christ’s ministry to mankind was motivated, sustained, and underlined by love”. Boil this Christian thing down, and it is all about self-giving love. Jesus gave himself for us. When we let that sink in, really sink in, we are transformed by understanding that God SO loves us. And then we give ourselves for others. We are empowered by the Spirit to obey Jesus’ command to love one another within the church, and to love our neighbors outside of the church.
