FROM THE VAULT
A series revisiting previous posts
If you haven’t read the first blog in this series click HERE. It is short but helpful to make sense of this post! It finished by asking these questions in response to reading John 15:16;
“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 abide…”
— John 15:16 ESV
1. What is your instinctive reaction to this verse?
2. Which part do you focus on?
3. What do you find yourself praying about/for as a result of reading it?
4. What do you think ‘fruitfulness’ is in this context?
What were your answers?
I like DOING and getting the to practical outworking of what the Bible says, and as a result I would usually jump to the ‘get fruitful’ part of the verse and start asking questions such as; How? What does it look like? How am I doing? How can I honour Jesus in this? That is not a bad thing…too often we know a lot but don’t do a lot! HOWEVER it can be unhelpful at best, and crippling at worst if that is where we START. If you focus on the second part without mining the first part of the verse you’ll miss the FOUNDATION FOR FRUITFULNESS that sets the FLAVOUR for the ‘go and…’ part!
Jesus starts (amidst a bigger section I know) by saying ‘You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go…(and bear fruit).
We usually make ourselves too important and think it is down to us – Jesus shatters that by stating ‘You DID NOT choose me’ – rather I ‘head hunted you’. When you apply for a job and you get an interview along with various others…you go in PROVING YOURSELF form the outset, wondering if they will like you, if you will be good enough…and then if you get the job you work extra hard to show them they made a good choice – you have to impress!
When you are headhunted you know you are good enough from the outset! They have watched you, seen you and want you! You go in to the interview confident, free and start the job excited to be able to use your skills…not to prove yourself but to be fruitful! They think you have proved yourself already.
Jesus says ‘I CHOSE YOU’ – I like what I see (even though it is far from perfection!)…and in case you weren’t sure – HE KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING! Commenting on this John Piper says that basically Jesus is saying;
““Your presence here is my doing and so I take full responsibility. I know you agreed to join me in this work, but deep in your heart you know it was I who laid claim on you and so my honour, not yours, is at stake in this work.” If that is what Jesus means, then the reason he said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you, was to encourage us that he would help us. If his honour is at stake in our success because he chose us for the work, then we can be sure he will exert all his power to make us fruitful. Jesus will not lightly let his wisdom be scorned. Therefore, he will not look lightly on our cry for help, when we say, “Lord you chose me! You are not fickle. You are not short-sighted. You are not impulsive. Your choices have the weight of eternity in them. You will not let your chosen one be ruined. Help me, Lord.” Such a plea—if it comes from the heart—he cannot ignore. His wisdom and constancy and reliability are at stake.”
— John Piper
Wow! HE knows what He is doing. He knows what you are like. He STILL CHOSE YOU, AND APPOINTED you.
The word appointed means ‘laid out’, ‘put in place’…the Sovereign Saviour has chosen you and laid everything out (Check out Acts 17:26) for you to be fruitful – he lays out where people live, what they do so that they feel their way to God and find Him…mainly by placing you next to them! He CHOSE WISELY, knows what he is doing and has set everything up for you to be fruitful.
“And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having DETERMINED allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling places, 27 that they should seek God in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us”
— Acts 17:26 ESV
He takes responsibility for his decisions (yes we have a part to play – we get to that!) and his zeal is at work to make it happen. He calls us to follow him…and he MAKES us Fishers of men (Matthew 4:19). The Harvest is plentiful but the workers are few so work extra hard? No! Pray to the Lord, HE will send out more labourers (Luke 10)!
Breathe deeply, drop the shoulders and look around – how has God set things up for you to be fruitful? Who is around you? What are the relationships he has drawn you in to? Anyway I am getting ahead of myself!
God’s edicts are always accompanied by his enabling. He qualifies the called. His Spirit shapes us. How we approach ‘being fruitful’ – what our foundation is makes a huge difference between it being an exciting and liberating mission we join in with, or a crushing burned we feel responsible for.
Some questions for his post;
1. Do you live with a sense of the Sovereignty of God guiding you for his purposes?
2. Did you focus on the first part of John 15:16 or the second part in the previous post? Power comes from both…but start with His choosing!
3. Where is your focus on Mission – your responsibility or his sovereignty? How do you work out both/and?