Did anybody hear a really good original moment?
They're all good, right? They're your moment where you
experienced God who had trouble remembering the past week.
Yeah, that happens. You know, sometimes it's like if
we don't actually take stock on it and and write it down at the
end of the day. If in fact, you could make this
your plan at the end of every day that you're going to write
down, hey, when did I love God, love people or delight in the
gospel today? Those could be like three wins
at the end of every day. And then you could forecast the
next day, hey, tomorrow I think God, let's look at tomorrow.
When can I, when can this happen?
You know, you don't know till the end of the next day where
you review it. When did I love God, love
people, share the gospel, or delight in the word of God or
even experience any of those things?
So you can do that. You all like a schedule.
You signed up for school, so you like a schedule, which is a good
thing. We're into a new adventure this
year. We're calling it Operation
15/16. Now.
It's been mentioned we rolled it out in July, but we wanted to
explore it here as we just wrapped up a series in the book
of Acts and we're bridging over into this next part of the year
and getting ready to welcome new and returning students and new
and returning faculty. It makes UBC really fun.
I mean, I loved being on campus this week because the vibe was
back, you know, you were here and it was so nice to actually
see so many people running around with jump start and
orientation, getting connected here on campus.
One of my prayers, and maybe you'll write your own prayer on
the creative prayer board, is that this year every person at
UBC would know. They know a friend of Jesus.
Now, I would love to also pray. I hope that every person at UBC
becomes a friend of Jesus. But I think part of the first
step of that is actually getting to know that they know a friend
of Jesus. That's the piece.
You know, sometimes I walk around and I see someone wearing
a cross and the first thing that flutters in my stomach like,
like butterflies is I wonder if they're a friend of Jesus
because they're wearing a cross. Or, you know, some guy who's got
muscles in his arm as big as my thighs and he's got a cross
tattoo on it. I'm thinking, I wonder if he's a
friend of Jesus. Don't you wonder that too, when
you see someone wearing a cross, sporting a cross, but also those
who don't? Do you wonder about those who
don't? I wonder if you're a friend of
Jesus? That becomes our impossible
possible mission, to see the friends of Jesus here at UBC and
get to know them, but also to make ourselves known.
And we're calling on you to bear fruit that will last.
Do you know when I was with my mom this past month, helping
take care of her? She's 85, fighting cancer and
some dementia. So she needs some scaffolding, a
little bit of care. We would buy bananas when we
went to Ingalls, to the grocery store, and she would say, we
need to buy a big bunch of bananas.
And I'm like, I can't eat that many bananas.
And she would just laugh. She'd just laugh and then we'd
get home and there on the counter would be bananas.
And whenever they got freckles, my mom said we should throw them
out. I'm like, man, we're throwing
away a lot of bananas. She's like, they don't taste
good anymore. You know, that banana on the
counter is not going to last forever.
And likewise, in our own lives, there's all kinds of fruit that
we produce like that, that we want to produce fruit in our
life. We want to get the grades, we
want to get the salary, we want to get the cars, we want to get
the house. I met someone this week who I
asked, well, what is your sense of purpose in life?
And she said, I'm not that deep. I was like, wow, at least you
are honest. I said, So what do you want in
life? She says, I want to graduate.
I want to get a really good job. I said, what's a good job?
Big money. I want to get a house, I want to
get a car, and I want to have comfort, he says.
So don't ask me your deep questions.
I was like, that's honest, right?
But that's fruit that will not last.
And Jesus actually invites us into a life in which fruit will
last. But we can't do it.
We can't do it on our own. There's actually some conditions
that Jesus gives us for fruit that will last, and part of it
is tapping into the greatest love there ever is.
Let's read his words in John chapter 15.
These are words given to disciples when they're nervous,
they're anxious, they're facing some sense of foreboding trauma
on the horizon. This is the night before Jesus
is crucified. This is just hours before he is
arrested. And Jesus is being very tender
with his disciples. If you read John 13 through 17,
you'll see that Jesus calls them, Oh, my, my children, my
child, that that he's using words that are couched in
tenderness, that he knows the impending violence, but he
avoids using the worst of terms of it.
And in the middle of that address, Jesus gives some
incredible promises to his disciples, and he paints an
incredible picture of life in the communion of God.
And he says this, I am the true vine, and my father is the
gardener. He cuts off every branch in me
that bears no fruit, while every branch that bears fruit he
prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
Remain in me as I also remain in you.
No branch can bear fruit by itself, it must remain in the
vine. Neither can you bear fruit
unless you remain in Me. I am the vine, you are the
branches. If you remain in me and I and
you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from Me, you can do
nothing. If you do not remain in me.
You are like a branch that is thrown away in Withers.
Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
If you remain in me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you
wish and it will be done for you.
This is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit,
showing yourself to be my disciple.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.
Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you
will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands
and remain in His love. I have told you this so that
your joy, that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be
complete. My command is this love each
other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than
this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command.
I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know
his master's business. Instead, I have called you
friends. For everything that I learned
from my father, I have made known to you.
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so
that you might go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, and
so that you, so that whatever you ask in my name, the Father
will give you. This is my command.
Love each other. If the world hates you, keep in
mind that it hated me first. If you belong to the world, it
would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to
the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.
That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you.
A servant is not greater than his master.
If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also.
If they obeyed My teaching, they will obey yours also.
They will treat you this way because of My name, for they do
not know the one who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to
them, they would not be guilty of sin.
But now they have no excuse for their sin.
Whoever hates me hates My Father as well.
If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they
would not be guilty of sin as it is they have seen.
And yet they have both hated me and my Father.
But this is to fulfill what is written in their law.
They hated me without reason. When the advocate comes, whom I
will send from the Father to you from the Father, the spirit of
truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about
me. And you also must testify, for
you have been with me from the beginning.
When we talk about Operation 1516, the 1516 comes from this
verse. Have you memorized it yet?
Let's read it. You did not choose me, but I
chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear
fruit, fruit that will last, so that whatever you ask in my
name, the Father will give you. Earlier we read another one of
the commissions, We call it the Great Commission.
Go and make disciples of all nations.
But Jesus had a bunch of commissions.
It's almost as if he knew he needed to say the mission a
bunch of different ways. But every Commission, and this
is one of them. You did not choose me, but I
chose you and appointed you. I commissioned you to go and
bear fruit, Fruit that will last.
Every Commission of Jesus also is sandwiched with relationship.
And so though we may speak of a great impossible goal of how
could we touch 10,000 people on campus this year?
How could we pray and engage in prayer?
10,000 people this year? We know we're not actually
driven by the numbers. That's the scary part of setting
goals sometimes as a church. Oh, you're attaching a spiritual
act to a a number to a goal. Yes, we are.
There's a whole book in the Bible called Numbers.
I guess we're in good company. God must know something, but we
miss if we don't also recognize that all of the commissions come
with a relational well, a relational ground, a relational
air that we're meant to breathe and take nutrients from and rest
upon. And they also come with amazing
promises. In fact, Jesus told his
disciples here, you will bear fruit, your lives will be
fruitful, There's going to be something good produced by your
lives. This was important for the
disciples to know because they were on the cusp of what it
might, could have been the worst day of their lives.
But Jesus is telling them there's greater things ahead,
There's great days ahead, and you will bear fruit twice.
He says it, that there's going to be fruitfulness in their
lives in the picture of the vine.
How many of you have had grape juice before?
Yeah, we serve it for the Lord's Supper every week.
Grape juice, the fruit of the vine.
Some of you have had wine, fruit of the vine.
There's the anticipation that where there are grape vines,
there will be fruit. In my backyard, I'm having to
get rid of my grape vines because I'm having lots of urban
wildlife come to visit. Rats, raccoons, they come and
they like my grapes too, and it's become unbearable for me.
My grape vines make too much fruit.
It's incredible. I cut a branch that wasn't
producing fruit and before you know it there's a new branch
poking out and the next year there's fruit on it.
There's fruit every year, everywhere.
I had to wait on it, though. When those vines were planted,
there was no fruit for three years.
Three years? Well, what was happening in
those three years? That Grapevine that had been
planted there was running its roots deep into the ground and
maturing. One of the practices of
veniculture is sometimes to graft into the vine new
branches. They're not going to produce
fruit just hanging out in the yard.
They have to be connected. Jesus is telling the most
obvious thing here. Remain in me, abide in me, stay
connected to me, and you are going to bear so much fruit,
fruit that will last. Do you know why I cut back one
of the vines and it is like a well, Even in the driest days in
the past month, that vine was surrounded by water because it
was pulling up water and it was dripping out of the place where
I cut it back. And Jesus says I'm the true vine
and if you stay connected to me, there is going to be great
nutrition for your soul, drawn up for you, and it comes by word
and spirit. Here Jesus says, remain in me,
remain in my word, and you will bear much fruit.
Some of you are starving yourselves.
You're fasting from the Word of God.
You're not spending time in the Scripture.
I really appreciate Frank Lobach.
Did anybody hear, know Frank Lobach?
In literacy circles, he's known for the Lobach method or Laubach
or my literacy people telling me, do you know the United
States created a stamp to honor him because millions of people
are said to be literate and read because of this man who was a
missionary and a friend of Jesus.
He went to the Philippines and he worked with a a Muslim people
group remote area. And there he began to share the
gospel. But he became deeply burdened
for their lives because literacy was so low.
And he developed a little program called Each One Teach
One, Each One Teach One that every person who reads should
teach someone else how to read. And, you know, he's now credited
with teaching 60 million people how to read in their language.
But he would say that was only the beginning of the fruit that
will last. That's only the beginning.
He wrote a whole book on prayer. It's such a great, great title.
Prayer. The mightiest force in the
world. Yeah.
Do you believe that? Or are you like the squirrels
that run across the power line in the back of my house?
They run across that line and I watch them go and they go
across. And I think you have no idea of
all the power underneath your feet.
The rats do it too. You choose squirrel, a rat.
But are we walking around unaware that we have at our
hands, at our access, at the call of our mouth, the greatest
power in the world? In fact, the subtitle of his
little book on prayer is Thoughts for an Atomic Age.
In his little book on prayer, which is fantastic, if you can
ever get a copy of it, go for it.
I like old books. He says this about us and
prayer. We must have a mind that's
saturated with Christ. There's only one way to get a
true picture of Him, and that is to read his life in the four
Gospels so often that we know it by heart.
We who wish to be Christ like ought to never allow a day to
pass without reading a chapter, at least a chapter of the
Gospels. We get the best results if we
will take an hour, a fresh hour every day.
The last hour before going to bed is poor, especially after a
hard day's work, for we are likely to fall asleep halfway
through the chapter, right? He's very realistic about us.
Many of the spiritual giants read their Bibles at four or
five in the morning before others can disturb them.
Anyone signing up? We need to determine wills.
We need determined wills to protect this hour with Christ
from competing interests. Busy people.
Anybody busy? Raise your hand if you're going
to be busy in a week. Busy people are under constant
temptation to allow Bible reading to be crowded out every
other day until omission becomes a habit.
This is his book on prayer and he's saying if you want to
sustain prayer, you must have both the Word and the Spirit.
Jesus frames this passage with an image of you staying remained
and abiding in Him and that your his word is being drawn up into
your life. He ends this chapter with
Speaking of the Holy Spirit who comes to lead you and remind you
of all truth so that you can testify.
Testifying to Jesus requires both word and Spirit.
So go and bear fruit. Do you know I love this word
bear, bear fruit Not because it's like fruit, because it's
just produced. We bear it.
It's a passive word. He didn't say you're going to
produce fruit. He actually used a passive word
here to say fruit will be produced in your life.
And that's good news because if I'm thinking if I need to do
anything that's going to last for eternity, Jesus, you picked
the wrong person for it. But Jesus picked you to do
something that would last for eternity and have eternal
impact. And so he's going to make it
happen. He makes it happen and you bear
it. Wouldn't it be ridiculous if I
looked at my grapevines in the yard and said bear fruit, Bear
fruit. You're like Greg.
That's not how it happens. If anything, talk nicely to the
grapevines. They do it because they have the
power within them to reorganize reality and to bear that fruit.
Do you know that everyone of Jesus promises here in this
passage about bearing fruit are also accompanied by the promise
of prayer? He says you will bear fruit, so
I ask what you will. In John 1516 he says I've chosen
you and appointed you to go and bear fruit.
So ask what you will. It seems like the bearing of
fruit is being associated with asking is being associated with
telling. While it seems ridiculous that I
would tell the Grapevine produce fruit, Jesus gives us permission
to do a ridiculous thing, to go about our lives in relationship
to each other, to meet people who have never had anyone pray
in the name of Jesus for them, and to do that.
And he's promising I'm going to do something.
And this is the foundation of this ramped up prayer walking in
our lives that we're going to go and walk and pray.
And we're going to do the ridiculous thing of asking those
who we meet, what do you wish and hope that God would do for
you? And we're going to wrap it up a
bar and we're going to ask them, we're going to ask God to do
something in their lives. A few years ago, my wife Ellen
was invited to go to Tupper High School and she was invited to
come and speak in a social, political, religion class of
some sort. I have no idea what it is today.
I'm not sure if they even allow it today, but she was brought in
as the one who was going to talk about Christianity.
So she did. She gave a historical overview
and she said, but every faith is also personal.
And one of the personal moves of Christianity is that we pray for
others believing that God hears. I'm curious, she says.
How many of you in this classroom know that someone
prays for you? One hand went up in that
classroom that day. One hand.
It was Christy, whom Ellen had been spending time with and
discipling, and she was the only person in the classroom who knew
that someone prayed for them. You are going to be surrounded
by people who have never had anyone pray for them in the name
of Jesus. We're going to go looking for
them. The greatest privilege you and I
have at times is to be an agent of Jesus, ready to pray, ready
to ask and do the ridiculous thing.
So many times I've been out and I've met someone on campus and
they've described the situation in their life and I said, could
I pray with you about that? And they're like, every once in
a while someone says no, but most of the time they're like,
yeah. And then they're shocked when I
just start praying. I'm like, OK, God, I thank you
so much for my friend that I've just met.
And I pray that you would do something incredible in their
lives. You see, Jesus has invited us
into that. He says you are a friend of
Jesus, you are a friend of God. And he goes on to say I, I don't
call you slaves and servants. If you're living a slavish
relationship with God, you are missing out.
If all of your life in relation to God is about just doing the
right thing and doing your duty, you are missing out on the
greatest of adventures. Because he says, look, I'm going
to reveal to you my business. I'm not holding it back.
I'll reveal it to you. I will reveal this business to
you. And his business is about
answering the prayers of his people.
Now we can deal. We can even take a class on
unanswered prayer. I have a lot of unanswered,
unanswered prayers, it seems at the moment because I do a lot of
praying. I'm like, Lord, not yet, huh?
Or maybe something different and I trust you.
But prayer is a conversation that's ongoing with God and He's
inviting you as a friend of Jesus to go and to do this very
thing. He wants to make his business
known to you. Sometimes his business is just
revealed to you in the next step, that as you step forward,
you're drawn to a person in that first day of class.
And Jesus says, would you go sit beside them?
I know you've got your circle of comfort over here, but will you
go over there, get to know them, and maybe you ask them, hey,
what are you thankful for today? I'm so glad I'm at UBC.
Well, what's concerning you? You know, I'm really worried
about this class. I'm afraid I'm going to fail it.
There's a long list of people who failed this biochem class.
Well, I don't think I'm going to pass Gateman's exams.
There's a long list of people who didn't, and I'm afraid.
And so then you say, what can I pray with you about that prayer
and an economics class? Sure.
You just pray for them. Don't wait.
Just pray for them. Make it natural to talk to God.
Do you know the basis for this? It's really love.
Jesus says my command is this,
that you love one another. This is what he wants, but it's
really rooted in this relationship of prayer.
So I'm, I'm wondering, Are you ready to go on a prayer
adventure this year? Are you ready to go on an
adventure with Jesus? He says, you're my friends.
I'm telling you everything. I'm inviting you in it.
Let's sign up in our hearts for Operation 1516 just as an excuse
to get to know Jesus better, just to trust Jesus a little bit
more. Just to say, oh, I want to draw
from the rich well of His word and I want to draw from the
power of His Spirit and let it meet in me and ignite me for a
life that's so different. This year.
I know you've all got work to do.
You've got things to learn. You're going to have to buy
groceries. Some of you, I know you're right
out in the dorm anymore. It's hard.
You're going to have to cook, but maybe you could cook with
each other because you love one another.
You're like, oh, I know this is a hard week.
I cooked a humongous pot of spaghetti and so let's let's eat
it for the next 5 days. And then you invite someone else
to come in and they share that life together and you pray at
the table and then you pray for them after and you involve them
in your relationship with God. You make it normal that what is
private is actually public. You must testify.
Jesus said let's pray together. Lord Jesus, we don't know what
this is all going to look like this year, but we're asking you
for great things. And you said there is no greater
love than this than to lay down your lives for your friends.
And Lord, our fear of people feels like we're laying down our
life. Sometimes it feels like a kind
of death when we face the fear of people because we've made
this commitment and then it requires courage and sometimes
it just becomes normal and then we face a day where it didn't
feel normal again. It felt like the the cost was
high until we look to you, Lord Jesus, who says I have called
you friends and greater love has no one than this.
Then they they lay down their life for their friends.
Jesus, you've made us friends by laying down your life.
And so we come today to celebrate you, to honor you, and
to remember you as the greatest friend of heaven and earth.
We have a whole campus who's desperate for friends, and we
are too. And you are the one who says
there's no greater friend. I'll show you.
So we remember with this bread today, your body broken for us,
given for us, and we remember today your blood poured out for
us, for the forgiveness of sin, for the promise of life with you
forever. And so we pray, Lord, as your
followers as we come to this table today, that you would be
honored and that you would give us some kind of extra grace in
this moment. You chose us to be friends with
you and we say thank you. Lord Jesus, thank you, thank
you, thank you.