Sermon, Spiritual Growth

1. CHOSEN TO BEAR FRUIT

3. For you are a people holy to the
LORD your God. The LORD your God
has CHOSEN you to be a people for
his treasured possession, out of all
the peoples who are on the face of
the earth.
(Deuteronomy 7:6 ESV)

4. v. 13 It was YOU who formed my internal
organs, fashioning me within my mother's
womb.
v. 14 I praise you, because you are fearful
and wondrous! Your work is wonderful,
and I am fully aware of it.
v.15 My frame was not hidden from you
while I was being crafted in a hidden place,
knit together in the depths of the earth.
(Psalms 139: 13- 18 ISV)

5. v. 16 Your eyes looked upon my embryo,
and everything was recorded in your book.
The days scheduled for my formation were
inscribed, even though not one of them
had come yet.
v. 17 How deep are your thoughts, God!
How great is their number!
v. 18 Were I to count them, they would
number more than the sand. When I
awake, I will be with you.
(Psalms 139: 13- 18 ISV)

6. Before I formed YOU in the womb I
knew YOU, before you were born I SET
YOU APART;
I APPOINTED YOU as a prophet to
the nations.
(Jeremiah 1: 5 NIV)

7. Why we were chosen by GOD?

8. I. To be a WITNESS
v.10 "You are my WITNESSES," declares the
LORD, "and my servant whom I have chosen,
that you may know and believe me and
understand that I am he. Before me no god was
formed, nor shall there be any after me.
v.11 I, I am the LORD, and besides me
there is no savior.
Isaiah 43:11

9. WITNESS
- one who has PERSONAL
knowledge of something.
- Merriam- Webster Dictionary.
(Story of the DOG and the RAT)

10. II. To GO and BRING FRUIT
You did not choose me, but I
chose you and appointed you to GO
and BEAR fruit.
(John 15:16 a NIV)

11. GO and BRING
are verbs (words of action).

12. FRUIT
a. Sanctification
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, longsuffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith,
Meekness, temperance: against such
there is no law
Galatians 5: 22 &23

13. FRUIT
b. Effectiveness in Evangelism - Matthew 13: 3-8 (Parable of the sower)
V.3 Then he taught them many things by using stories. He
said: A farmer went out to scatter seed in a field.
V.4 While the farmer was scattering the seed, some of it fell
along the road and was eaten by birds.
V.5 Other seeds fell on thin, rocky ground and quickly started
growing because the soil wasn't very deep.
V.6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched and
dried up, because they did not have enough roots.
V.7 Some other seeds fell where thornbushes grew up and
choked the plants.
V. 8 But a few seeds did fall on good ground where the plants
produced a hundred or sixty or thirty times as much as was
scattered.

14. FRUIT
Now I would not have you ignorant,
brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to
come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that
I might have some FRUIT among you also,
even as among other Gentiles.
Galatians 5: 22 &23

15. III. To be the vessels God
uses to show the world
who HE is.
God has chosen us to show the world
how they SHOULD LIVE in GODLINESS and
RIGHTEOUSNESS.

16. He hath shewed thee, O man,
what is good; and what doth the
LORD require of thee, but to do
justly, and to love mercy, and to
walk humbly with thy God?
(Micah 6:8 KJV)

17. IV. To be a minister.
Let a man so account of us, as of the
MINISTERS of Christ, and stewards of the
mysteries of God.
(I Corinthians 4: 1 NIV)

18. MINISTER
-an under-rower. An under-rower was
the slaves that sat in the belly of the ships
and pulled the oars to carry the ship across
the water.

19. GOD is the Captain and His ship is the
word of God, we are his ministers (slaves)
to carry His word across the world.

20. To be STEWARD of the mysteries of God.
The word steward means: overseer. The
steward was always a slave, but he was
placed in charge of the other slaves. (This
does not mean that everyone will be a
pastor, but everyone has charge over the
word of God to ensure that it is delivered
to the world).

21. ** The mysteries of God. A mystery is not
something hard to understand, rather it is
something that has been hidden and kept a
secret.
II Corinthians 4:3-4 says “But if our
gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are
lost: In whom the god of this world hath
blinded the minds of them which believe
not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of
Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine unto them.

22. How is the light or image of God going
to shine?
Matt. 5:14
Ye are the light of the world.
It shines through the children of God.
We have been chosen to be the light of the
world.