04 Salvation - Fruitfulness

So this is the last session on the concept of salvation. We've covered sin. We've covered the blood of Jesus. We've covered believer's authority. And now we're covering the green. The fruitful practices that we need to do in order to have a fruitful Christian life.

And this really centers around conviction and the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit when He leads us into obedience to Christ. Because as we keep in step with the Spirit, we are called sons and daughters of the living God. And so in the next session, we will be talking about this concept of how do we have fruitful practices within our Christian walk.

To make sure that we're bearing all the fruit that Jesus wants us to bear. So in the previous session, we covered white. What is our believer's authority? What is the scope of the authority that we have within the Lord in order to extend His kingdom?

Faith as a Fruitful Practice

Today we want to speak about green, the fruitful practice of faith. How do we actually do that within our lives? So I want to look at Acts 2:37-38. Let us look at Peter's life and use salvation, the salvation experience of the Jews at that point, to just illustrate a process for us that the Holy Spirit uses over and over again in our lives. This walk of faith that we have.

The Word That Cuts the Heart

Acts 2:37-38 says this, "Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Brothers, what shall we do?'" Now this is obviously Peter preaching to the Jews on the day of Pentecost. He's preaching to the same people that crucified Jesus. When they heard it, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?"

And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." And so the first thing we see there is that the word is preached.

And it's not just any type of word. It's a word that brings a cutting to the heart. Now, Romans 10 says that faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of the Lord. Now, as Christians, we need to put ourselves under the word of the Lord.

Whether it be preaching, teaching, testimony, Christian conversation. There's times when the word gets spoken and there's a cutting conviction that comes to our hearts. There's a faith that rises in our hearts. It's not just any type of word. It's a word that cuts our heart.

It's a word that as the word is there, there's power. Now that convicting power in that moment, that is the Holy Spirit empowering us to take authority and to live a fruitful life. And so we need to learn to recognize when the Holy Spirit is on something and He's convicting our hearts.

He's enabling us to extend the kingdom. The first point. So we need to be at the preaching and the teaching of the word. We need to look for the cutting conviction of the Holy Spirit. It's that heartfelt conviction that comes. And then we see that they respond and they say, "What shall we do?"

Responding to the Holy Spirit

And so when the word of the Lord comes to us in that way that we feel convicted by the Holy Spirit, we need to ask questions like, "What must I do?" And it might be different in different situations. In this situation Peter said to them repent, change your mind.

Be baptized, every one of you, so that you can receive the Holy Spirit. But sometimes the Holy Spirit will come to you and He'll ask you to do something else. There's the convicting presence of the Lord. It's heartfelt. And He might ask you to go and say sorry to someone.

Or He might ask you to share a testimony with someone. Or He might ask you to evangelize with someone. Or He might ask you to pray with someone. And it's in those moments that there's faith, that the Kingdom of God moves forward. There's probably a couple of ways we can respond in that moment.

We can either be like the Israelites. In Hebrews it says there, "Today, if you hear the voice of the Lord, do not harden your hearts like the Israelites did in the rebellion." And then most of them died there. You know, this thing of the word of the Lord, it's a precious thing when God speaks to us.

Abram’s Obedient Faith

And when He leads us and guides us in this way, we shouldn't take it for granted. And so we should be a people that is quick to respond. I actually say that, well, I feel like our salvation is tied up in this. And you see Abram, the voice of the Lord comes to him at the age of 75, and he obeys God.

God says to him, go to a country that I will show you. And so at 75, he leaves the city, his father's house. Collects all his stuff, he goes to the gate, and he, he acts in faith on this God that spoke into his heart.

And told him that he must go to a place that He didn't even tell them where to yet. Romans says that that faith, that trust, that Abram put in the Lord there was counted to him as righteousness. And so it's our relationship in faith and obedience to the Lord that gets counted to us as righteousness.

A Personal Testimony of Conviction

When He speaks to us, we must listen. So that can manifest in different ways. I can give you an example of something that happened in my life. When I was an intern I started working in a pharmacy, and the previous year there was a lady there that wasn't a very good worker.

It sounded like she was quite lazy. I never worked with her, but the people that worked there were now my tutors. It sounded like they didn't like her very much. And so they would talk about it all the time and not very nicely.

Malicious and slanderous talk, gossiping. And I heard this over and over until one day. I was a Christian at that point, they weren't Christians. I just retold the story. And as I retold the story, I just had this like convicting awareness in my heart.

Like, oh, I just did something wrong. I just sinned. And I remember walking with this and I felt the Holy Spirit say to me, "Morne, you have to go and apologize to her." Now just to give you some perspective, I'd never met this lady in my life. And so to go and apologize to someone that you've never met before, to tell them that, "I'm so sorry that I gossiped about you"—it was quite a quite a big thing. It was quite a big faith step for me to do.

And so I wrestled with this for for like a week or two. And it's just God just wouldn't move beyond that point with me. Everything else stopped and God was focusing in on that area of my life. And so after two weeks, I got the guts together. I went to the pharmacy where this lady worked. I walked in and I introduced myself and said, "Hey, my name is Morne and I'm so sorry. I gossiped about you. Will you please forgive me?"

And she was very gracious and she forgave me. She was probably a little bit surprised. When I left there the pleasure of the Lord was on me. I'd grown in my faith. The Lord in that moment had worked something into me of who Jesus is.

Now, if you think of what I do today—I'm a pastor of a church. People come and confess and share so much of their problems with me. If I had a loose tongue, and I told their stories around the church, what would the effect of that be on the church of Jesus Christ?

It would tear the church apart. There would be no trust in the church. There would be no trust in me as a pastor. And so God, early in my walk used that moment to sanctify me, to make me more like Jesus. But through this process of faith, you see, the Holy Spirit came to me in a moment of conviction.

It was heartfelt. I'd done something wrong. It was heartfelt. I was like, what should I do? The Holy Spirit said, "Go and say sorry." I felt like Peter. I was walking on water there, man. There were some times when I was looking around and just going, "this is too much for me." I felt like I was sinking, but I kept my eyes on Jesus.

Walking with the Holy Spirit

And through the grace of the Lord, I could do that. It changed me. Just like that, the Lord wants to walk a walk with you through His Holy Spirit. And He wants to convict about sin, righteousness, about relationship with the Lord, and about judgment, about the reward that's waiting for you one day.

And this is a process that we as Christians will go through for the rest of our lives as we walk this road with Jesus and the Holy Spirit that's now alongside us. And He'll equip us. He'll strengthen us. He'll teach us. He'll guide us.

He'll teach us how to fight. And as long as we keep in step with Him, our faith will be built. We will have an assurance of our salvation. There will be hope in our hearts and we will feel the pleasure of the Lord over us, like I did on that day when I was obedient to God.

It was a big thing for me at that point. And so I hope this helps. This is what it is to live a life of faith. God calls us to live a life of faith in His word, in His leading, in His guiding. And He can speak to us through many ways. Of course, everything must be established by two or three witnesses. We can test the word of the Lord, but we know when that small, still voice is speaking to our hearts.

We know when He's speaking to us. When He speaks, be like Peter that kept his eyes on Jesus. Don't look around at the wind and the fears. And allow Him to, through obedience, make you more and more righteous. And extend His kingdom in yourself, in your relationships, and into the world and into society.

And that's what it is to live a fruitful Christian life with the Lord. We've just finished talking about this concept of fruitfulness. And fruitfulness in the world looks different to the fruitfulness in the kingdom. And so we want to share a testimony with you about Joey's life.

And how God took him out of being in his comfort zone and through the leading and the guiding of the Holy Spirit, bringing him into a greater journey of faith. And so listen to this testimony. We trust that your faith will be built as you listen to this real life story of how God has changed Joey's life.

Living the Dream in Bali

And through obedience brought 'em into a higher level of fruitfulness. Many of you guys have thought about living the dream or living your best life. Well, 10 years ago I was living in Bali, in Indonesia, with my wife. And if you guys know anything about Bali, from a surface point of view, it's paradise.

Perfect tropical blue waves. Island culture. And not only that, but my wife and I had U.S. dollar salaries there. We had a disposable income. If we wanted to travel anywhere for holidays, we would go. If I wanted to buy stuff, we would just buy it.

We had an incredibly big house. I remember on our travels, we would talk to people about our lives, and I could feel the envy in their hearts. They were just like, "wow." They weren't saying it, but they thought, "I wish I could have your life right now."

A Friend Challenges Joey's Spiritual Life

Particularly if you're a surfer. On one of my trips back, I hooked up with one of my old friends, Andrew Selley. We would smoke drugs before we got saved. Before we had given our lives to Jesus. He was a pastor by then. I was, in Bali, in a church.

I was on an eldership team there. Preaching every now and then. But not living my life like Andrew was. And Andrew started to ask me some questions. "Joey, how's it going in your life since we'd given our lives to Jesus? How's God using you?"

I just knew that I was missing it with God. I knew that there was a level of spirituality I had. But I was chasing the world so much. There was so much of the world in my life that there wasn't time for the Spirit to come through in a fullness.

There wasn't a way for God to come completely into my life. And Andrew challenged me, he said, "Joey, don't waste your life." And I was a little bit offended when he shared that with me. I thought, "Andrew? I mean, you haven't even seen me for so long. Yet here you are, just challenging me on this area."

God Warns Joey Not to Waste His Life

I went back to Bali. And I remembered those four or five words. I couldn't get it out of my head. They were just bugging me. And I knew it was the God speaking to me.

"What are you doing with your life? Is this your life or are you just going to continue here in Bali? Just surfing out, surfing your life away? Or are you going to answer the fullness of the call on your life?" I felt God working in my life.

I broke my wrist and I was out of the water for six months. I just knew it was God starting to work in my life. Things that I thought were maybe bad, God was actually trying to speak into my heart. He would say, "Joey, what are you doing? Why aren't you following Me? Why are you chasing Bali and chasing waves? And chasing this lifestyle? And what you consider a dream in your heart? Instead of answering the call, instead of being obedient to what I called you to in the first place?

Leaving Bali and Answering the Call of God

"I saved you. I saved you when you were 18 and here you are at 40 years old living some other life. Not the life that I have for you." So we ended up walking away from Bali and it wasn't easy. I remember times just crying, trying to process that.

Just before I left, I was on a cliff and I thought of that quote from Jim Elliot, the missionary that was martyred by the Amazon Indians. He said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

Just words like that from guys in history that have given up their lives for the call of God. And deciding, "I'm gonna make that decision, I'm gonna answer the call of God." And I walked away from Bali. Everything that I chased for 8 years.

I know now that I'm at peace again. I know that there was some part of me in Bali that was never at peace. There was some part of me that knew that God is calling me, but I was never answering the call of God.

Restoration, Peace, and Greater Fruitfulness

Truly, here I am, I know that God can do whatever He wants. I've been back here 10 years in South Africa. But I've been back on a few mission trips to Indonesia. I know God is using me more powerfully than He's ever used me in Indonesia.

Because now I truly am submitted to Him. Now I truly am serving Him with all my heart. I know that God has restored my marriage incredibly here. He's taken my marriage, which was so iffy in our Bali days, and He's actually turned it into something vibrant and incredible.

We have a beautiful son and I know that he loves Jesus. I know that God's gonna do something incredible with him, too. My life is no longer in my hands, and I'm dictating to God on my terms. Now my life is in His hands, and in a way I'm set free.

Jesus has set me free and I know that I'm walking daily with Him. He's brought me peace, He's brought me joy. And I know that He can do that with you too. If Jesus is knocking on the door of your heart, why don't you answer Him today?

Once you answer the call, nothing is worth more than Jesus. And I know now that Bali and that lifestyle was not worth the call of God on my life. And God has a call for you and your life, too. Won't you answer His call?

Discussion: Sharing Where God Has Brought Fruitfulness

And won't you see Him do incredible things in your life? So we've listened to Joey's story and it's an amazing story of how God is so faithful to bring fruitfulness into our life. And so we want to give you an opportunity to share with one another some of the things that God has worked in your life that has brought fruitfulness. Or maybe there's an area in your life that you're not experiencing fruitfulness. You can share that too, pray for one another, and just use this time to speak about what you've heard and what the impact of the session was on your life.