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Dec. 5, 2024
Fruit Check: Embracing Trials that Help us Grow our Spiritual Fruit
Join us as we humorously explore what it means to be "Fruity Christians." Drawing from Matthew 21:18-19, we unpack the metaphor of spiritual productivity, challenging ourselves to produce genuine, godly fruit rather than just showcasing outward appearances. Considering how truffles grow under certain conditions and in a specific climate, we understand how some spiritual fruit is also rare, and only comes about from embracing growth through trials and life’s difficulties. These reflections inspire us to align our lives with biblical promises, embracing challenges as stepping stones toward spiritual maturity and fruitful living marked by answered prayers.
(00:00) Living in Constant Dependence on God
(02:58) The Importance of Bearing Fruit
(19:41) Embracing Growth Through Pain and Resistance
(36:19) Enduring Pain and Waiting
(48:17) Growing Fruitfulness Through Prayer and Maturity
www.citylightnyc.com
Chapters
00:00 - Living in Constant Dependence on God
02:58:00 - The Importance of Bearing Fruit
19:41:00 - Embracing Growth Through Pain and Resistance
36:19:00 - Enduring Pain and Waiting
48:17:00 - Growing Fruitfulness Through Prayer and Maturity
Transcript
00:00 - Speaker 1
When the pain hits, then you want to cry out. What happens? This is a hypothetical what happens if we lived in a place where we constantly depended on the Lord? Instead of waiting for that one moment of pain, we would constantly live in the present moment, whether they were valleys, whether they were mountains, and we would just say I'm with you all the way, lord. I'm not going anywhere without you.
00:26 - Speaker 2
Welcome to the City Light Church podcast. Thanks for joining us today as we look into God's Word and discover the hope and truth that he has for us. If you want to connect with City Light Church, feel free to visit us at citylightnyccom. That's citylightnyccom. Citylightnyccom. That's CityLightNYCcom. Pastor Boyan Jancic and his team believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is already working in our hearts and minds. As you listen to today's teaching, remember that you are deeply loved by God, that you are surrounded by His grace and that he has a real hope and a future for you.
01:06 - Speaker 1
My name is again. My name is Pastor Muhammad. I'm one of the pastors here at City Light Church. I welcome you Now.
01:12
I got to spill the tea, the 10 am. They was talking smack about y'all. The 10 am was like we, the real Christians up in here you know what I'm saying, everybody just. You know what I'm saying they lounging around with that Thanksgiving feast Worship wasn't as sweet in the 10 am as it was just now. I ain't going to lie, so I'm not going to let them drag y'all too long. I'm not going to let them drag y'all.
01:42
There's something beautiful about having one heart in the room, and I felt that, so give yourselves a round of applause, all right, so today we're going to talk about something very specific. We got some things to preach on. The title of today's message is called Fruity Christians. Can I get three snaps? Very questionable, I'm not going to lie to you. We made the thumbnail. Put the thing up there. Matter of fact, show the graphic that we got online. Don't be scared. Now. It's online already. Don't be scared. Media team. Fruity, fruity Christians. Now I just want to just put this out there. You've been Rickrolled. Some of you know what that is, some of you don't.
02:58
Now I will say this we are not afraid to preach on any given topic as long as the word of God has something to say about it. So no, today's topic is not about homosexuals, amen. But we don't shy away from that. Listen, homosexuality is a sin. I don't look at it as any different from any other sin, but sin is sin. Now, all are welcome here at City Light Church. I can't tell you over the years how many thousands of people have come through here, and many of them being homosexual. We welcome all to come as they are. The beautiful part about God and this wonderful gospel is that you don't stay as you are. So just know that. Like, I don't want you to think that we're skating. That was clickbait, because I know many people need to see that and be a part of something, because there are people searching for affirmation. You're just in the wrong place if you think that we're going to say that it's okay. The scripture is very clear about God's heart for that. It is not his best for you. He made them male and female, the scripture says.
04:07
But we are here today to talk about fruity Christians. Raise your hand if you're a fruity Christian. Only the people in the first service. Well, I'll ask again before we get to the end and we'll. We'll see the impact that we could have. Fruity Christians, there's a fruit check. It's's a fruit check today.
04:29
Let's go directly into the scriptures. Let's go to Matthew 21, verses 18 to 19. Now, in the morning, as he returned to the city, he was hungry and seeing a fig tree by the road. He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves and said to it let no fruit grow on you ever again. Immediately, the fig tree withered away. So again, today is a fruit check.
04:58
We need to see how leafy you are or how prodigious you are in your Christian fruit. Amen, because look at how dangerous this scripture really is. You have to now ask yourself are you producing the right matter of fruit or is Jesus coming to you and still finding himself hungry? Because everybody knows that moment, when you go to the fridge and you're like, come on, man, what are we dealing with today? You got to bend down. You really got to look past all the leftovers, like, what is it for me today? You know, sometimes you got to give it. You back up and look at this thing and sometimes I feel like the Lord does that with us, because the Lord is looking for a measure of fruitfulness, he's looking for a level of maturity, and sometimes it's looking real leafy, because the Lord will be like huh, let me see. All right, okay, okay, the footwear is on point, all right.
06:17
Where the fruit at, though, how many of us are leaving Jesus hungry? Because, again, just understand, this Fruit is just something that is produced. It's a production issue. How many of you are truly producing as Christians Every one of us here we're producing all manner of things, but the question is what type of fruit are you producing? If you're an apple tree, I should not see oranges. Now, here's where community and accountability come into play, because when you're supposed to be an apple tree and you smell like vitamin C and your fruit looks mighty orange, I got to question you on some things. Oh, you're not saying nothing yet. We're going to get there, don't worry, church, we're going to get there, all right. So I'll bring it down, because sometimes it's a lofty thing. You talk about fruit and everybody's like oh, you know, praise God, I want to be fruitful. All right, I'm going to bring it down. Very practical. How many of us want to be successful and prosperous. I'm gonna bring it down very practical. How many of us want to be successful and prosperous? Everybody puts their hands up amen, okay. So now the question is do you actually have the fruit and the character to carry? The success that you're praying for gets a little dicey after that. But how about this?
07:50
I grew up in a Spanish Pentecostal church and when I first got saved I won't lie to you I had an extreme desire to prophesy, because I watched a man of God one day expose all the secrets of the hearts in the room and I was like oh, I want that. But here's the thing. I'm not going to lie to you. It wasn't for holy purposes. I didn't want it that I might be a grand benefit to the church. I liked it because I saw that how I felt about him and I said, man, I want the people to feel that about me and I wanted the gifts. I was praying incessantly God, let me prophesy that I might bless your church and edify and read the mail of the people. Oh God, and I can't tell you how many years I did not prophesy until the Lord showed me. It makes no point to ask me for a gift that you can't carry. In the same way, I wouldn't give my daughter she's eight. I wouldn't give her the keys to my car and let her go to the store for me because she's not ready to carry certain things. She would hurt herself. And oh so the Lord didn't allow me to start prophesying and speaking into lives and bring edification until I understood what was at stake, until I finally came to the point when he grew the fruit that would carry the gift. Oh, y'all ain't saying nothing, it's a fruit check.
09:36
It's weird because I feel like the spirit of the age in New York City and the principalities that rule New York City. They have us being a very ambitious people. It's very much a rat that rule New York City. They have us being a very ambitious people. It's very much a rat race in New York City, more than any other place in the world. Amen. There's a reason why, when you go to other places, as a New Yorker, you kind of feel like everything is moving in slow-mo Because, like you, just what are we doing today? We're going to the outlets, we're doing this, we're doing that and everybody else is just like you can relax, we chill, go get you some orange juice, you'll be all right, and, mind you, I'm not against ambition.
10:19
I married the most type A person that I know Wife, mother of three, full-time nurse, business owner, project manager, like everything you can think of this. This woman got, she got. She set goals, boom, she go after and knock it off. Let's go to. And, mind you, she ain't the only one. I don't want you to just think I'm just slouch with this type a lady. I, you know, we, we have helped each other, amen, like we compliment each other. I've taught her to chill. She's taught me how to be hardworking. Praise God, there's a reciprocity here. But I'm not against. It is what I'm saying. I don't want you to hear that and think that, oh, he's against ambition. No, ambition is good, ambition is holy when you're running for the right things.
11:08
But we live in a generation that is only looking for the bag, they're only looking for the mountaintop moment and they're not respecting that. There's so much more to this life than just the curated pictures that you keep seeing from other people's lives. Yeah, yeah, oh, the algorithm people. They ain't happy. Today. We live in a life that longs they desperately seek only the mountaintop, and that makes me a little sad, because I know that that's the spirit of the age. I know that that's most of society.
11:50
But the sad part about that is a lot of Christians have been snatched up into this way of thinking. They think to themselves well, look at that person, look at that church, look at their husband, look at that church. Look at their husband, look at their wife, look at their life. It's not mine, and I'm here to tell you today that you don't have to get yourself sad and dejected because you don't have somebody else's life, because you don't have somebody else's life. Did you know that comparison is the thief of joy? The Lord has not called you to run your race while simultaneously looking at other people. Any track star in the world will tell you that when you run, you can only look ahead. You can't even properly hunt and get ahead of other people if you're focused too much on what's happening here. You gotta look ahead. Gone, gone. You can't stop and go. Ah, because you do, you'll end up on your face. The Lord is calling us to this place where we're going forward without comparison. We're going forward without using other people as our metric man.
13:24
this is not the message from the first service, because I feel this in the room so strongly. You have paralyzed yourself for fear that you won't live up to somebody else's curated snapshot. What you see on social media is not reality. They have curated their lives and put it into a snapshot, added filters and then put the most sublime poetry to describe the scene that you might think, oh, if only my life could just be like that. Let me let you in on something. God is not just into the mountaintop moment. There's this thing called the valley. God is in as much as he is in the valley, as much as he is in the mountaintop. But the thing is we don't really like to hear that because it doesn't fit with what we're learning about on social media. Social media says I need to get the bag, I need to get the money, I need to get the mountaintop and I got to make sure that when I get it I pose cute enough, I've climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.
14:40 - Speaker 2
Take my picture.
14:41 - Speaker 1
I've climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Take my picture. That's not actually it.
14:52
There's this thing called fruitfulness, and I've learned, and some of the old-time Christians you'll understand and you'll get with me on this there's a certain level of fruit that can only be produced in certain circumstances, in a certain climate. It's like truffles. Truffles are mad expensive, right? You want to know why truffles are expensive? Only the foodies are like truff, or the non-foodies are like truffle. What's the? You ever had a truffle fry? The little thing that? All right, bring it back, holy spirit. The reason why truffles are expensive? Because they only grow on certain parts of the earth under very, very specific climate change. So it takes a lot to unearth them and cultivate them. So when you do and you bring them to buy, you can sell it for a big deal, because it was a big deal to have them grown and to get them. This is why they're so expensive.
15:49
There's a type of fruit that God is trying to grow in you, christian, but the thing is you have been circumventing and running away from the process that would give you the type of fruit that you need. Sometimes the Lord is looking to get. You're asking for stuff, you. I want to prophesy, I want to preach, I want to teach, I want to move mountains for Jesus and he gives you a drop, not, he doesn't give. You asked me for patience. I gave you people that it's hard to be patient with what are we doing.
16:37
I thought you said you wanted to be more like me. Oh yeah, I. He's saying that you keep asking God for stuff, but then you're running from the thing and the process that brings the fruit. Where's your sweat equity? I want to be thin. I want to look like a snack, jesus, but you keep eating snacks. That's not how you become a snack. You need to go to the gym, you need to work it out, you need to sweat. Don't you look at the message and don't think that the message ain't on point? It ain't about me.
17:24
Judging judging you need to understand what is the true prize, because we want this fruit, but we keep running away from the process that produces it. We want the mountaintop, we want the bag, we want these moments, but you don't want what is necessary, which is to be able to depend on God in every and all circumstance. And again, this is how society thinks, but that thinking has crept its way into the church, unfortunately, so that we're now also looking for these mountaintop moments and not realizing the true prize. So the only question is what is the true prize? I'm going to tell you a story that I told my life group, and I'm just curious to see if your reaction will be like theirs, because I lost a lot of people.
18:25
That night. I was in life group and I said you know, if I get to heaven and Jesus is not there, I'm burning the place down. Half the life group was like you know, life group seven. That's probably not for me, and you might think to yourself, like Pastor Mo, that's, you're doing a bit much. What do you mean by that? Well, here's the thing Heaven is not my goal. A driveway made out of gold that sounds nice I'm not going to lie Doors that are made out of pearl, sweet, but that is not my goal. Jesus is my goal. So again, if I get to heaven and the angels are trying like well, here's the waiting area, you can put your feet up here. I'm like my mom, you're my man, my man, my man, my man, my man, you're my man, real quick, um, I got a question where's Jesus at? Because you know how people try to talk fast. Oh, because you know, if you know, just due to timing and circumstance, you know you could stay really. Uh, the bible teaches me that all things are subject to the name of Jesus. So I understand the authority that I have. So I'm going to be in heaven causing a muck early. Angel, in the name of Jesus, be still. Because the Bible says all things under heaven and earth, they're subject unto Christ Jesus. So, in the name of Jesus, be still. Where's Jesus at?
20:01
And the many try to start talking. And you might say that is why. What are you talking about? Well, here's the thing Heaven is not why I'm fighting and exercising my faith daily and dying daily. No, that's not eternal life. Let me show you from the scripture John 17 3 says this and this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. It doesn't say anything about dying and get to heaven. I'm not living my life as a christian, as an escape artist. I can't wait to just get out of here. I want to go. So bad, life is so hard. Nah, eternal life started the day that I knew him and received the one whom he sent, christ Jesus. He lives in my heart and I live in him. See, it's a subtle, subtle perspective shift.
21:13
But when I know that Jesus is my prize and I know that I already have the prize I don't have to run on the rat wheel or the hamster wheel of religion. I don't have to do things like come to church to try to get my attendance. I come to church because I get to come to church. I come to church because I get to fellowship with the believers in unity. There's something about the congregation coming together with one heart and one mind that says Jesus is Lord that I can't get at home, because I pray at home and I sing at home, much to the dismay of my children, but I do those things at home. But there's something different when I come and my faith locks with your faith and your faith locks with their faith and then in one spirit we declare Jesus is Lord. So I have a different prize that has nothing to do with heaven, it has nothing to do with the, it has nothing to do with the curated mountaintop moments that the world says I need to be going after. So now that I know that there's a different prize, I know that there's a different fruit that I should be looking for, and the only sad part for some of you is that that fruit doesn't always look glamorous. Sometimes it looks real gritty to get that type of fruit. Only the baby said it the right way.
22:47
And also just know this that the Greek word for no in the verse that I just read you it implies a deep level of intimacy. Just know that in the Old Testament, when it said that he knew the woman, he didn't just meet her at the Duane Reade. When it says that he knew her, he was intimately acquainted with the most intimate part of her. So God is saying I want you to know me, know the one that I sent, and then you can start bearing this fruit. God is very much concerned with the totality of your existence, not just the mountaintop moment. He cares about the journey and how you're maturing in him.
23:44
And I know we can't fathom that in the generation that we live in, because we live in an unprecedented age where so many curated peaks into other people's lives have been given. A few hundred years ago you didn't know anything about somebody living on the other side of the world. But today, not only do you have to deal with looking at your neighbor, you have to deal with looking at your neighbor who lives on the other side of the world, in Dubai, and you feel like that's it. I just need to move to Dubai and my life will be better. That's the problem I'm not in Dubai. Jesus, take me to Dubai and it will be better. How many churches are in Dubai? All right, can I free some of you?
24:39
Today, just like the truffle, there is a fruit that can be cultivated from your life if you are willing to not run, because sometimes we get this weird thing where we ask for a certain thing and then, when the opposition and the resistance that is useful to bring about that thing comes, we run Because you finally go. Oh man, I found this church. It's crazy. City Light Church. Oh, it's amazing. Like the worshipers, I don't even know where they got this word. They must have got it from like India or somewhere. Like it's just crazy. He'd be singing and stuff and the team would be like I feel the presence of God and it's amazing. Pastor Bo gets up there and he's like unpacking the word of God, oh my God. And then there's this other pastor and he's just cute. I don't even know what to do. I don't know what he do, but he cute. That's me, by the way. So you're like man.
25:39
And then you get to a life group and somebody doesn't agree with what you said. I'm leaving. You find an interaction that's not perfect. I'm done and we do this pain avoidance dance where, anytime there's resistance, anytime there's a little bit of conflict, anytime there's a little bit of friction, we run, we got to let go. I understand, as humans, it's a very real thing to be triggered by pain avoidance. And we run, we got to let go. I understand, as humans, it's a very real thing to be triggered by avoidance, but you have to let go of that, because we talked about equity earlier, right?
26:13
So how many people are going to join me and not running? No, no, not the way you're thinking. Stop it. You just don't want to exercise. You want to be trimmed, but you don't. That's not what I'm talking about when I say don't run. How many people are not going to run from the scary stuff? How many people are not going to run from the hard things that you wouldn't pick? From the hard things that you wouldn't pick? Oh man, I'm sick in my body. Symptoms of dis-ease. How many people run after that?
26:45
Jesus was good up until that happened. Oh, I lost my job. How could he do this to me? You mean, how could he do it for you? You know that God is not the author of every evil in your life. I have to say it that way because there are many people who have been duped into believing that everything that happens in this world is all God, good and bad. God is not the author of confusion. You live in a fallen world and guess what you know how we talk about. There are no perfect churches, because the minute you show up, it's no longer perfect, like it's no different. Here, city Light was amazing. Then I showed up there, everybody done, but in the same way, there is no perfect life, no perfect circumstance, no perfect situation.
27:40
You need to deal with the resistance that is going to make you grow. Stop running from that. You are running from the thing that is going to help cultivate the fruit that will give you the very gift that you desire in God. We have to stop running and avoiding the hard things. That's why I said who's going to not run with me? Three people praise God. I thank God for my three. We'll see y'all, us three. We'll see y'all on the other side and we will look so much better than you thought you looked, because in the spirit, we'll have grown, we'll have matured, we'll have gotten to the place where we can suffer certain things and know that God is with us.
28:28
Because here's the oh man, I get excited on this part. You can only know God a certain way, under specific conditions. Everything on the mountaintop is nice. I've been on the mountaintop of answered prayer. God, I need you to come through, I need you to open these doors. It's a very theological term, by the way. It's a very theological term, by the way.
29:01
I've been to that place, but it's so funny because that mountaintop place brings with it its own temptation and trial, and the temptation is to let go of the rope through complacency, because things are so good that you get to this is a little bit of weird pride that creeps up, that you feel like you're the one who got you there and you're the one who can sustain it and maintain it, and it's anything but the truth. So now you hit the mountaintop and you feeling real good about yourself. Like man, look at me, deep Christian that I am, I'll be praying. I'm out here, fasting, casting out devils, doing my job, bearing fruit, prospering. You don't check in with Jesus, though. You're just going about your life.
29:49
It's a different vibe than the person who needs their rent paid. It's a different vibe for the person with sickness in their body. They're getting diagnosed from the doctors that they got months to live. Those are two different types of prayer, and I'm not saying I want you in that place of hurt all the time, but I'm saying that you can't avoid it. If you're going to truly do life, you got to let the hurt come, because he will be in the hurt with you and he'll raise you up. He'll comfort you in a way that nobody else can, so that you later can be a comfort to those hurting. But if you don't let him in into those moments, if you avoid those moments. Where is the growth? Where is the fruit? You're going to end up being a regular french fry. I want to be a truffle french fry. Put some gold leaf on mine. You know what I'm talking about.
30:52
I want high class fruit. But high class fruit, it grows in the dirt, man, sometimes you got to get it out the mud. It's not just slang. We talking. This is Bible. We talking the author and the finisher of our faith.
31:11
If you even look at it just his life and his ministry he didn't get to where he got being our savior without first suffering defeat. So how could you try to live a life of pain avoidance when God is promising you? Because I'm telling you, I've been in the valley and it sucked and I did not like it. The one consolation I had is that I experienced God like never before, so much so that when I came out of that moment into a prosperous place, I, low-key, found myself looking back longingly at those hard times. I miss those moments of prayer, lord. I miss going to sleep at 12 am with tears in my eyes because I didn't know how it was going to work. But I went to sleep praising you, thanking you, believing that you would come through, only to wake up at 3 am with more doubt, more fear, more unbelief and needing his presence to come again. But then he would.
32:23
Let me ask you a question how many people in here take one aspirin every day? One person out of over a hundred. Did you know that doctors say that if you take one aspirin per day you can lower your chance of cardiac arrest significantly? One a day. Nobody does that, though. Until what is? Give me some aspirin man.
32:52
Throwing things back like Tic Tacs. But it's funny how, when the pain hits, then you want to cry out what happens? This is a hypothetical what happens if we lived in a place where we constantly depended on the Lord? Instead of waiting for that one moment of pain, we would constantly live in the present moment, whether they were valleys, whether they were valleys, whether they were mountains, and we would just say I'm with you all the way, lord, I'm not going anywhere without you. The problem comes as we try to do life, and then, when something happens, we run to him Jesus, heal me. Oh, she come out. And really what the Lord is asking for is this If I'm going, you go in with me. I'm going to the store, jesus, bring yourself. We going to the store? Yeah, I'm going to go pray. What you mean? We going to pray store? Yeah, I'm going to go pray. What you mean? We going to pray, jesus, y'all.
34:03
There's a baddie in church. Hey, jesus, I'm going to holler at her we, it's we. It's no longer me. Because wherever I go, jesus got to come too. Oh, man, ain't nothing but trials and stuff over there. Now, before, we would run the other way, but now, because of who, I got with me. All right, jesus go.
34:29
I'm okay because I've entered the fray with Jesus. I've entered the fray with my. He's my everything, he's my rock. He's my rock. He's my savior, he's my point of refuge. He's my safe house. He is the lily of the valleys, he is the bright and morning star. He is the one that has everything that I need. When I offend Chris by dragging him all over the church, he's the one that gives my brother the grace to forgive. Can you understand Everything that you do? Let it be that you bring Jesus into it. He is not a supplement that you just add to your life. He's not a part of your life, because if he's a part of your life, there are other parts that don't touch that one part. He has to be the center of your life so that he connects to everything. Thank you, brother. Chris is like never again. This front row life ain't for me.
35:42
So one last note about this, because we have to take advantage of the fact that on earth we have an opportunity to offer something that we will never be able to do on the other side of heaven. You get to offer God praise that has been seasoned with temporal human hurt, see on the other side of eternity. I don't even believe that there are tear ducts. The Bible says that he will wipe every tear from your eye. There will be nothing but joy, unspeakable. So how can you give him a sacrifice of worship and praise when everything will be jolly? Can you give him a sacrifice of worship and praise when everything will be jolly?
36:19
You know, I told you I have a certain disdain for, for celebrating and decorating for christmas and things like that. Right, I know some of you like I can't believe it. No, it's real. This past saturday, not this saturday, it just passed the sat Saturday before that, my wife tells me hey, babe, I think we should decorate. And I say, hey, babe, the devil's a liar.
36:45
Now here's the thing, though I've been fighting my wife off since July. I don't know what, I don't know how she was raised, because her family's not even like this, she's the only one. It's like my own personal torture. The Lord gives me the ears of an elf and a wife who, just, I don't know what I did church, but since July she's like throwing subtle hints like you know how you feel today I'm like yeah, like yo, this is my first Saturday with nothing to do in like a real long time. Yo, thank God. She's like, I know right. She's like what do you think about putting a tree over? What do you think about putting a tree where we could put one right over here? Why are we going about putting a tree where we could put one right over here? Why we gonna put a tree there, tiffany, just to spruce it up? You see what she did. There is a pun, yeah, yeah.
37:51
So the one Saturday that I have with no activity, I end up meeting my mortal enemy Christmas decorating. It gets worse. I woke up that Saturday feeling ill. You know how you get that one cough that tells you where your week is about to go. Oh man, and I'll share with you because it's gross. And I'll share with you because it's gross. I woke up Saturday and I immediately coughed up this quarter-sized shape of pure mucus no phlegm, no viscosity to it. It was pure and I was like oh God. And from that moment I just got sicker and sicker and I, it was pure, and I was like oh God, and from that moment I just got sicker and sicker and I knew what was coming. I had to feel like that. Plus, I had to decorate. Can you feel my pain?
38:48
So now, here I am in this space of just not really enjoying things but giving God glory not really enjoying things but giving God glory In this space where I'm getting calls and still having to live life. I still got to minister to people, I still got to show up, I still got to be present and even now I'm not feeling super well. My whole family's not here today because they are sick. We will pray for them, amen. But it was such a rough week.
39:17
Now, in the midst of that, when I can lift up my hands and go Father, you are all that in a bag of chips. You are Jehovah, Rapha, my healer, you are my deliverance, you are my peace, you are my joy, that has a certain see my praise, that hallelujah we were talking about earlier, that highest praise. It's been seasoned by my suffering and it produces a fruit for Jesus that he can't get anywhere else. There's no fruit like that in heaven. The angels praise him 24-7. They circle his throne saying holy, holy, holy is the lord, god almighty. The 24 elders take their crowns and they throw it before his feet and none of them got nothing on us, because we offer him a worship that can only be received and cultivated here on earth, in the present, in this temporal thing that we call humanity.
40:18
But a lot of us are not even taking advantage of that because we're running from the moments that would create this type of fruit and create this type of praise. We're cursing the fact that we have to live life and go through circumstances. Listen, I understand you would have never chosen for the cancer to come. I know that you have never. You would have never have chosen for the cancer to come. I know that you would have never chosen for the baby to be lost. But I've seen God in those moments show himself off as the true deliverer, as the true healer. And yes, there's a great many things that I never would have planned on, but because he allowed them and showed himself off in those moments, I'm better for it.
41:08
You know, I remember there was a time, before our second son was born, my wife has a very terrible time with pregnancies. She has a condition called hyperemesis. It's like this. This is low compared to what actually happens. It's like this zenith of morning sickness where you can't eat anything. You can't even drink anything. You drink water. Water will make you throw up. So she's living like that for months, hospitalized, and all that, but she's sacrificing, knowing what's on the other side of that which is our child. So she's undertaking this sacrifice for our family and then the doctors tell us there's a miscarriage and she loses the baby. After all the suffering and it was hard and it hurt, but she offered up such a sweet, beautiful worship to God that it was crazy because in the same year God visited us again and she got pregnant again and my son was born later that year and Dallas is an amazing kid. All my kids are amazing and I don't say that just because I'm their dad, like they legit are amazing people.
42:37
We were only able to get to that point because we didn't run. It was weird because when, when Dallas came, we looked back on the situation and we were like hold on. I remember what happened, but the way that the Lord set it up, it felt like it was 20 years ago. There was so much joy, there was so much faith, so much belief that God was going to do what he said and what he promised, that the pain of what we had experienced. We felt so separated from it. It was only some months ago, but the Lord found a way to refine our faith and grow it to the point that we could receive through the pain. So now I have to expound and explain to people don't run, because you prolong pain by running. You know people who go to the gym. They will tell you you need resistance in order to produce growth. He will do it. He will do it.
43:44
Church. You cannot let the pain of what you've experienced stop you from believing for his best. There is a fruitfulness that he will give you if you would be willing to trust him, despite what you've seen. He will cultivate it and he will bless you, because he is not a respecter of persons, and he blessed me and mine, so I know that he can bless you and yours. Praise God. Let us learn to enjoy the process as he matures us and produces the good fruit from our life. So let me ask you again where my fruity Christians at yeah, hallelujah. We got to step away from the immediate gratification and we got to realize that there's a cost to certain fruit, a spiritual sweat equity. Amen, you'll have to give up on some things to get that precious thing called fruit. You know the Bible says work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, and this is where you got to put in the disclaimer so people, that they don't get disillusioned. This is not a works mentality. When it comes to fruit, you cannot produce the type of fruit that you need in your life. You have to lean on Jesus to produce the fruit. He will cultivate it.
45:17
Your job, as a living sacrifice, is to not run off the altar. That's your job. Your job is not to grow yourself. Your job is not to become a better Christian. All those things happen because of and through him. So don't think that I'm now telling you you need to be a better Christian by doing this. The this that you need to do is trust him, not crawl off the altar. That's the problem with a living sacrifice when it gets too hot, not today. That's the problem with a living sacrifice when it gets too hot, not today. But if you really trust him, you'll listen to that sweet woo that says come on back, worship team. You can come on up. You can actually prepare communion too as well.
46:06
Ushers, I'll close with this. You want to know what's an underrated goodness of God? Those moments when he tells you to wait. We don't like that. We and I'm saying we don't like that. Sometimes I'm going to lie to you. This is foolish to say, but sometimes I'd rather you just tell me no, bro, don't have me out here just suffering and struggling unnecessarily, and every single time the Lord keeps reminding me. It's not unnecessary, because if I gave you what you wanted now, you would kill yourself because you weren't able nor ready to carry the things that you desire in God. So he needed to grow me, he needed to refine me, he needed to press me, he needed to allow certain circumstances, certain losses to happen so that he could work together for good, those things that are for me. He says he works everything together for good for those that love the Lord and are called according to his purposes and will, ain't that you? Ain't that me? You can hand them out. So we got to stop being scared of the process, scared of the valley moments. I'm telling you you're going to know God so well in the valley that you won't even mind the valley.
47:30
You ever had a circumstance where, like you, miss a train or something like that, but because of the company that you're with, you didn't even mind it. I missed some trains before, and who you miss with makes the story, because I've had situations where I was leaving church and like it's late. This is when I used to, and who you miss with makes the story, because I've had situations where I was leaving church and like it's late. This is when I used to go to church in Queens, but I lived in Staten Island and I don't run a lot, but I would run for the boat that time because if you missed that ferry back in the day you had to wait a whole nother hour. It was already two in the morning. I'm like I'm not trying to wait for three in the morning just to take a 30 minute boat ride to then catch a bus to then walk home.
48:17
So I'm and I don't know why, it scarred me a little bit, but I remember this dude at the ferry. He watched me run from the stairs and he stood there closing the door like this. He's watching me run and he's closing it. I'm like, alright, no worry, I know he gonna hold it at the end. So I'm like I'm not giving up. I want him to see I'm putting in the effort. Just think of it. Give me the keys like dun, dun, dun, dun dun, just going for it, ha ha. And I didn't let up, not even until the end, and he just let that joint close right in my face.
48:54
I'm not gonna lie, I didn't feel very Christian in the moment. I thought about what would express the love of God with the appendages that I had, and I didn't. I didn't adequately come up with one, so I settled on one. Those moments of waiting by myself were terrible, until I got saved. And then I found out how to wait in those moments with Jesus. I find out how to go through life with Jesus, and it makes the difference. It made me better, so I no longer look for ways to validate somebody. Now the Lord gives me a true reason to rejoice. In every and all circumstances. He's grown a level of maturity and fruitfulness in me Because, if you didn't know, the ultimate goal is that God is trying to cultivate Jesus in you.
49:56
Now, that's an impossible task. In and of yourself. You cannot grow up to be like Jesus, amen. But look what the scripture says. Because here's the thing Fruit is something that's produced. Right, we all agree on that. The Bible says that the fruit of the spirit is love, but the Bible also says that God is love. So when the spirit makes his abode in you, you accept Jesus to be your Lord and your savior. The thing that's supposed to be produced in you is love, but love is God. So when the spirit lives on the inside of you, you're supposed to be developing into Jesus.
50:41
Ephesians 4.11 says this. And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the son of god, to a perfect man who was the perfect man to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head, christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effect of working, by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love, aka. He's trying to grow jesus in you. He's trying to make you produce a fruitfulness that makes you more like him. Please stop running from that process. Be willing to receive the hard times, because he's not going to leave you in them by yourself. We're going to take communion now, and it's fitting that we do, because what's happening with communion?
52:18
The Bible says that we are proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes. What do you mean, proclaiming the Lord's death? Well, here's the thing when Jesus died on the cross and then resurrected for us, there was a great many benefits that he afforded to everyone who would believe. So what I'm asking you to do is take stock of your life and if there is anything that is not lining up to what he promised in the scriptures, belongs to you. I need you to proclaim his death. I need you to shout it from the rooftop, even with your actions. This is what is owed to me because of what Jesus did. This is what I believe I can live in and walk in.
52:58
If you are sick in your body, you have symptoms of dis-ease, know that it is by his stripes that you were healed. If you are emotionally bankrupt and hurting and depleting, know that the joy of the Lord is your strength. He was abandoned in every way possible at the cross emotionally, physically, spiritually, even financially. He was straight. It's not like like the movies. He didn't have a little, two drops of blood and a little loincloth. He was naked. The bible says that he became poor, that through his poverty you would gain riches.
53:38
So examine your life and think about what is not lining up to what jesus did for you at the cross. If you're burdened by guilt, shame and condemnation, know that the Bible says that you have been made perfect. You are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. You have joy that no man can take from you. You abide in perfect health, even as your soul prospers, according to the word. So proclaim his death today.
54:04
Proclaim the maturity that you are growing up into Christ. If you look at your life and you think, ugh, that makes a bag of nuts man, I don't feel the maturity of the Lord like I want to Proclaim the Lord's death. You can speak yourself into good fruit. I'm going to share this with you guys. First service didn't get. This Part of the maturity that he's calling you to is a life of fruitfulness and answered prayer A mark of your life. When you enter this zone of fruitfulness, your life is going to be marked by answered prayer. That's powerful because you're going to learn how to pray better, matter of fact, when you pray, because right now we have this false assumption that when we pray it has to be with a lot of words and different things, like that God do this, god do that, and it says this is laundry list and really that's not how Jesus prayed.
55:04
Jesus believed and he said exercise your faith. But he said a lot. He didn't ask a lot, he said a lot. Let me just very quickly show you this Hold your communion and think about these things so that you can get it all in one. Matthew 28 says so. Jesus answered and said to them assuredly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, be removed and cast into the sea, it will be done. And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will. Why am I bringing this up again? I'm actually going to close with this Part of the fruitfulness, of you becoming more and more like Jesus.
56:11
One of the hallmarks on his life on earth was answered prayer.
56:14
If you're going to be a fruity Christian, you have to have a prayer life that breeds results.
56:21
John 15, 16 says this you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain. That, whatever you ask the father in my name, he may give you. When you get the fruitiness, you get whatever you ask for in his name, because we have Jesus as an example, jesus didn't just ask for in his name. Because we have Jesus as an example, jesus didn't just ask for whatever he wanted. He asked only for what he saw the Father doing. So when you mature to this point and you stop running, you're only going to ask God for the things that you know are a part of God's. Will Eat and drink to your fruitiness, father. Touch the heart of your people that we would not be a people of pain, avoidance, that we would be willing and able to enter any and every circumstance because we know that you are with us. Make us to grow, make us to be fruitful, father, mark our lives with answered prayer. Father, we ask you in Jesus' name.
57:34 - Speaker 2
This is the City Light Church Podcast. If you've missed any part of today's message or if you would like to find out more about Pastor Boyan Jancic and City Light Church, visit us at citylightnyccom. That's citylightnyccom. Feel free to visit us online or in person anytime. We would love to connect with you. We pray that you have been encouraged today, that you have been reminded how much God loves you and that you are surrounded by grace. Thank you for listening. Make sure that you subscribe to City Light Church Podcast wherever you find your favorite podcasts worldwide.
When the pain hits, then you want to cry out. What happens? This is a hypothetical what happens if we lived in a place where we constantly depended on the Lord? Instead of waiting for that one moment of pain, we would constantly live in the present moment, whether they were valleys, whether they were mountains, and we would just say I'm with you all the way, lord. I'm not going anywhere without you.
00:26 - Speaker 2
Welcome to the City Light Church podcast. Thanks for joining us today as we look into God's Word and discover the hope and truth that he has for us. If you want to connect with City Light Church, feel free to visit us at citylightnyccom. That's citylightnyccom. Citylightnyccom. That's CityLightNYCcom. Pastor Boyan Jancic and his team believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is already working in our hearts and minds. As you listen to today's teaching, remember that you are deeply loved by God, that you are surrounded by His grace and that he has a real hope and a future for you.
01:06 - Speaker 1
My name is again. My name is Pastor Muhammad. I'm one of the pastors here at City Light Church. I welcome you Now.
01:12
I got to spill the tea, the 10 am. They was talking smack about y'all. The 10 am was like we, the real Christians up in here you know what I'm saying, everybody just. You know what I'm saying they lounging around with that Thanksgiving feast Worship wasn't as sweet in the 10 am as it was just now. I ain't going to lie, so I'm not going to let them drag y'all too long. I'm not going to let them drag y'all.
01:42
There's something beautiful about having one heart in the room, and I felt that, so give yourselves a round of applause, all right, so today we're going to talk about something very specific. We got some things to preach on. The title of today's message is called Fruity Christians. Can I get three snaps? Very questionable, I'm not going to lie to you. We made the thumbnail. Put the thing up there. Matter of fact, show the graphic that we got online. Don't be scared. Now. It's online already. Don't be scared. Media team. Fruity, fruity Christians. Now I just want to just put this out there. You've been Rickrolled. Some of you know what that is, some of you don't.
02:58
Now I will say this we are not afraid to preach on any given topic as long as the word of God has something to say about it. So no, today's topic is not about homosexuals, amen. But we don't shy away from that. Listen, homosexuality is a sin. I don't look at it as any different from any other sin, but sin is sin. Now, all are welcome here at City Light Church. I can't tell you over the years how many thousands of people have come through here, and many of them being homosexual. We welcome all to come as they are. The beautiful part about God and this wonderful gospel is that you don't stay as you are. So just know that. Like, I don't want you to think that we're skating. That was clickbait, because I know many people need to see that and be a part of something, because there are people searching for affirmation. You're just in the wrong place if you think that we're going to say that it's okay. The scripture is very clear about God's heart for that. It is not his best for you. He made them male and female, the scripture says.
04:07
But we are here today to talk about fruity Christians. Raise your hand if you're a fruity Christian. Only the people in the first service. Well, I'll ask again before we get to the end and we'll. We'll see the impact that we could have. Fruity Christians, there's a fruit check. It's's a fruit check today.
04:29
Let's go directly into the scriptures. Let's go to Matthew 21, verses 18 to 19. Now, in the morning, as he returned to the city, he was hungry and seeing a fig tree by the road. He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves and said to it let no fruit grow on you ever again. Immediately, the fig tree withered away. So again, today is a fruit check.
04:58
We need to see how leafy you are or how prodigious you are in your Christian fruit. Amen, because look at how dangerous this scripture really is. You have to now ask yourself are you producing the right matter of fruit or is Jesus coming to you and still finding himself hungry? Because everybody knows that moment, when you go to the fridge and you're like, come on, man, what are we dealing with today? You got to bend down. You really got to look past all the leftovers, like, what is it for me today? You know, sometimes you got to give it. You back up and look at this thing and sometimes I feel like the Lord does that with us, because the Lord is looking for a measure of fruitfulness, he's looking for a level of maturity, and sometimes it's looking real leafy, because the Lord will be like huh, let me see. All right, okay, okay, the footwear is on point, all right.
06:17
Where the fruit at, though, how many of us are leaving Jesus hungry? Because, again, just understand, this Fruit is just something that is produced. It's a production issue. How many of you are truly producing as Christians Every one of us here we're producing all manner of things, but the question is what type of fruit are you producing? If you're an apple tree, I should not see oranges. Now, here's where community and accountability come into play, because when you're supposed to be an apple tree and you smell like vitamin C and your fruit looks mighty orange, I got to question you on some things. Oh, you're not saying nothing yet. We're going to get there, don't worry, church, we're going to get there, all right. So I'll bring it down, because sometimes it's a lofty thing. You talk about fruit and everybody's like oh, you know, praise God, I want to be fruitful. All right, I'm going to bring it down. Very practical. How many of us want to be successful and prosperous. I'm gonna bring it down very practical. How many of us want to be successful and prosperous? Everybody puts their hands up amen, okay. So now the question is do you actually have the fruit and the character to carry? The success that you're praying for gets a little dicey after that. But how about this?
07:50
I grew up in a Spanish Pentecostal church and when I first got saved I won't lie to you I had an extreme desire to prophesy, because I watched a man of God one day expose all the secrets of the hearts in the room and I was like oh, I want that. But here's the thing. I'm not going to lie to you. It wasn't for holy purposes. I didn't want it that I might be a grand benefit to the church. I liked it because I saw that how I felt about him and I said, man, I want the people to feel that about me and I wanted the gifts. I was praying incessantly God, let me prophesy that I might bless your church and edify and read the mail of the people. Oh God, and I can't tell you how many years I did not prophesy until the Lord showed me. It makes no point to ask me for a gift that you can't carry. In the same way, I wouldn't give my daughter she's eight. I wouldn't give her the keys to my car and let her go to the store for me because she's not ready to carry certain things. She would hurt herself. And oh so the Lord didn't allow me to start prophesying and speaking into lives and bring edification until I understood what was at stake, until I finally came to the point when he grew the fruit that would carry the gift. Oh, y'all ain't saying nothing, it's a fruit check.
09:36
It's weird because I feel like the spirit of the age in New York City and the principalities that rule New York City. They have us being a very ambitious people. It's very much a rat that rule New York City. They have us being a very ambitious people. It's very much a rat race in New York City, more than any other place in the world. Amen. There's a reason why, when you go to other places, as a New Yorker, you kind of feel like everything is moving in slow-mo Because, like you, just what are we doing today? We're going to the outlets, we're doing this, we're doing that and everybody else is just like you can relax, we chill, go get you some orange juice, you'll be all right, and, mind you, I'm not against ambition.
10:19
I married the most type A person that I know Wife, mother of three, full-time nurse, business owner, project manager, like everything you can think of this. This woman got, she got. She set goals, boom, she go after and knock it off. Let's go to. And, mind you, she ain't the only one. I don't want you to just think I'm just slouch with this type a lady. I, you know, we, we have helped each other, amen, like we compliment each other. I've taught her to chill. She's taught me how to be hardworking. Praise God, there's a reciprocity here. But I'm not against. It is what I'm saying. I don't want you to hear that and think that, oh, he's against ambition. No, ambition is good, ambition is holy when you're running for the right things.
11:08
But we live in a generation that is only looking for the bag, they're only looking for the mountaintop moment and they're not respecting that. There's so much more to this life than just the curated pictures that you keep seeing from other people's lives. Yeah, yeah, oh, the algorithm people. They ain't happy. Today. We live in a life that longs they desperately seek only the mountaintop, and that makes me a little sad, because I know that that's the spirit of the age. I know that that's most of society.
11:50
But the sad part about that is a lot of Christians have been snatched up into this way of thinking. They think to themselves well, look at that person, look at that church, look at their husband, look at that church. Look at their husband, look at their wife, look at their life. It's not mine, and I'm here to tell you today that you don't have to get yourself sad and dejected because you don't have somebody else's life, because you don't have somebody else's life. Did you know that comparison is the thief of joy? The Lord has not called you to run your race while simultaneously looking at other people. Any track star in the world will tell you that when you run, you can only look ahead. You can't even properly hunt and get ahead of other people if you're focused too much on what's happening here. You gotta look ahead. Gone, gone. You can't stop and go. Ah, because you do, you'll end up on your face. The Lord is calling us to this place where we're going forward without comparison. We're going forward without using other people as our metric man.
13:24
this is not the message from the first service, because I feel this in the room so strongly. You have paralyzed yourself for fear that you won't live up to somebody else's curated snapshot. What you see on social media is not reality. They have curated their lives and put it into a snapshot, added filters and then put the most sublime poetry to describe the scene that you might think, oh, if only my life could just be like that. Let me let you in on something. God is not just into the mountaintop moment. There's this thing called the valley. God is in as much as he is in the valley, as much as he is in the mountaintop. But the thing is we don't really like to hear that because it doesn't fit with what we're learning about on social media. Social media says I need to get the bag, I need to get the money, I need to get the mountaintop and I got to make sure that when I get it I pose cute enough, I've climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.
14:40 - Speaker 2
Take my picture.
14:41 - Speaker 1
I've climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Take my picture. That's not actually it.
14:52
There's this thing called fruitfulness, and I've learned, and some of the old-time Christians you'll understand and you'll get with me on this there's a certain level of fruit that can only be produced in certain circumstances, in a certain climate. It's like truffles. Truffles are mad expensive, right? You want to know why truffles are expensive? Only the foodies are like truff, or the non-foodies are like truffle. What's the? You ever had a truffle fry? The little thing that? All right, bring it back, holy spirit. The reason why truffles are expensive? Because they only grow on certain parts of the earth under very, very specific climate change. So it takes a lot to unearth them and cultivate them. So when you do and you bring them to buy, you can sell it for a big deal, because it was a big deal to have them grown and to get them. This is why they're so expensive.
15:49
There's a type of fruit that God is trying to grow in you, christian, but the thing is you have been circumventing and running away from the process that would give you the type of fruit that you need. Sometimes the Lord is looking to get. You're asking for stuff, you. I want to prophesy, I want to preach, I want to teach, I want to move mountains for Jesus and he gives you a drop, not, he doesn't give. You asked me for patience. I gave you people that it's hard to be patient with what are we doing.
16:37
I thought you said you wanted to be more like me. Oh yeah, I. He's saying that you keep asking God for stuff, but then you're running from the thing and the process that brings the fruit. Where's your sweat equity? I want to be thin. I want to look like a snack, jesus, but you keep eating snacks. That's not how you become a snack. You need to go to the gym, you need to work it out, you need to sweat. Don't you look at the message and don't think that the message ain't on point? It ain't about me.
17:24
Judging judging you need to understand what is the true prize, because we want this fruit, but we keep running away from the process that produces it. We want the mountaintop, we want the bag, we want these moments, but you don't want what is necessary, which is to be able to depend on God in every and all circumstance. And again, this is how society thinks, but that thinking has crept its way into the church, unfortunately, so that we're now also looking for these mountaintop moments and not realizing the true prize. So the only question is what is the true prize? I'm going to tell you a story that I told my life group, and I'm just curious to see if your reaction will be like theirs, because I lost a lot of people.
18:25
That night. I was in life group and I said you know, if I get to heaven and Jesus is not there, I'm burning the place down. Half the life group was like you know, life group seven. That's probably not for me, and you might think to yourself, like Pastor Mo, that's, you're doing a bit much. What do you mean by that? Well, here's the thing Heaven is not my goal. A driveway made out of gold that sounds nice I'm not going to lie Doors that are made out of pearl, sweet, but that is not my goal. Jesus is my goal. So again, if I get to heaven and the angels are trying like well, here's the waiting area, you can put your feet up here. I'm like my mom, you're my man, my man, my man, my man, my man, you're my man, real quick, um, I got a question where's Jesus at? Because you know how people try to talk fast. Oh, because you know, if you know, just due to timing and circumstance, you know you could stay really. Uh, the bible teaches me that all things are subject to the name of Jesus. So I understand the authority that I have. So I'm going to be in heaven causing a muck early. Angel, in the name of Jesus, be still. Because the Bible says all things under heaven and earth, they're subject unto Christ Jesus. So, in the name of Jesus, be still. Where's Jesus at?
20:01
And the many try to start talking. And you might say that is why. What are you talking about? Well, here's the thing Heaven is not why I'm fighting and exercising my faith daily and dying daily. No, that's not eternal life. Let me show you from the scripture John 17 3 says this and this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. It doesn't say anything about dying and get to heaven. I'm not living my life as a christian, as an escape artist. I can't wait to just get out of here. I want to go. So bad, life is so hard. Nah, eternal life started the day that I knew him and received the one whom he sent, christ Jesus. He lives in my heart and I live in him. See, it's a subtle, subtle perspective shift.
21:13
But when I know that Jesus is my prize and I know that I already have the prize I don't have to run on the rat wheel or the hamster wheel of religion. I don't have to do things like come to church to try to get my attendance. I come to church because I get to come to church. I come to church because I get to fellowship with the believers in unity. There's something about the congregation coming together with one heart and one mind that says Jesus is Lord that I can't get at home, because I pray at home and I sing at home, much to the dismay of my children, but I do those things at home. But there's something different when I come and my faith locks with your faith and your faith locks with their faith and then in one spirit we declare Jesus is Lord. So I have a different prize that has nothing to do with heaven, it has nothing to do with the, it has nothing to do with the curated mountaintop moments that the world says I need to be going after. So now that I know that there's a different prize, I know that there's a different fruit that I should be looking for, and the only sad part for some of you is that that fruit doesn't always look glamorous. Sometimes it looks real gritty to get that type of fruit. Only the baby said it the right way.
22:47
And also just know this that the Greek word for no in the verse that I just read you it implies a deep level of intimacy. Just know that in the Old Testament, when it said that he knew the woman, he didn't just meet her at the Duane Reade. When it says that he knew her, he was intimately acquainted with the most intimate part of her. So God is saying I want you to know me, know the one that I sent, and then you can start bearing this fruit. God is very much concerned with the totality of your existence, not just the mountaintop moment. He cares about the journey and how you're maturing in him.
23:44
And I know we can't fathom that in the generation that we live in, because we live in an unprecedented age where so many curated peaks into other people's lives have been given. A few hundred years ago you didn't know anything about somebody living on the other side of the world. But today, not only do you have to deal with looking at your neighbor, you have to deal with looking at your neighbor who lives on the other side of the world, in Dubai, and you feel like that's it. I just need to move to Dubai and my life will be better. That's the problem I'm not in Dubai. Jesus, take me to Dubai and it will be better. How many churches are in Dubai? All right, can I free some of you?
24:39
Today, just like the truffle, there is a fruit that can be cultivated from your life if you are willing to not run, because sometimes we get this weird thing where we ask for a certain thing and then, when the opposition and the resistance that is useful to bring about that thing comes, we run Because you finally go. Oh man, I found this church. It's crazy. City Light Church. Oh, it's amazing. Like the worshipers, I don't even know where they got this word. They must have got it from like India or somewhere. Like it's just crazy. He'd be singing and stuff and the team would be like I feel the presence of God and it's amazing. Pastor Bo gets up there and he's like unpacking the word of God, oh my God. And then there's this other pastor and he's just cute. I don't even know what to do. I don't know what he do, but he cute. That's me, by the way. So you're like man.
25:39
And then you get to a life group and somebody doesn't agree with what you said. I'm leaving. You find an interaction that's not perfect. I'm done and we do this pain avoidance dance where, anytime there's resistance, anytime there's a little bit of conflict, anytime there's a little bit of friction, we run, we got to let go. I understand, as humans, it's a very real thing to be triggered by pain avoidance. And we run, we got to let go. I understand, as humans, it's a very real thing to be triggered by avoidance, but you have to let go of that, because we talked about equity earlier, right?
26:13
So how many people are going to join me and not running? No, no, not the way you're thinking. Stop it. You just don't want to exercise. You want to be trimmed, but you don't. That's not what I'm talking about when I say don't run. How many people are not going to run from the scary stuff? How many people are not going to run from the hard things that you wouldn't pick? From the hard things that you wouldn't pick? Oh man, I'm sick in my body. Symptoms of dis-ease. How many people run after that?
26:45
Jesus was good up until that happened. Oh, I lost my job. How could he do this to me? You mean, how could he do it for you? You know that God is not the author of every evil in your life. I have to say it that way because there are many people who have been duped into believing that everything that happens in this world is all God, good and bad. God is not the author of confusion. You live in a fallen world and guess what you know how we talk about. There are no perfect churches, because the minute you show up, it's no longer perfect, like it's no different. Here, city Light was amazing. Then I showed up there, everybody done, but in the same way, there is no perfect life, no perfect circumstance, no perfect situation.
27:40
You need to deal with the resistance that is going to make you grow. Stop running from that. You are running from the thing that is going to help cultivate the fruit that will give you the very gift that you desire in God. We have to stop running and avoiding the hard things. That's why I said who's going to not run with me? Three people praise God. I thank God for my three. We'll see y'all, us three. We'll see y'all on the other side and we will look so much better than you thought you looked, because in the spirit, we'll have grown, we'll have matured, we'll have gotten to the place where we can suffer certain things and know that God is with us.
28:28
Because here's the oh man, I get excited on this part. You can only know God a certain way, under specific conditions. Everything on the mountaintop is nice. I've been on the mountaintop of answered prayer. God, I need you to come through, I need you to open these doors. It's a very theological term, by the way. It's a very theological term, by the way.
29:01
I've been to that place, but it's so funny because that mountaintop place brings with it its own temptation and trial, and the temptation is to let go of the rope through complacency, because things are so good that you get to this is a little bit of weird pride that creeps up, that you feel like you're the one who got you there and you're the one who can sustain it and maintain it, and it's anything but the truth. So now you hit the mountaintop and you feeling real good about yourself. Like man, look at me, deep Christian that I am, I'll be praying. I'm out here, fasting, casting out devils, doing my job, bearing fruit, prospering. You don't check in with Jesus, though. You're just going about your life.
29:49
It's a different vibe than the person who needs their rent paid. It's a different vibe for the person with sickness in their body. They're getting diagnosed from the doctors that they got months to live. Those are two different types of prayer, and I'm not saying I want you in that place of hurt all the time, but I'm saying that you can't avoid it. If you're going to truly do life, you got to let the hurt come, because he will be in the hurt with you and he'll raise you up. He'll comfort you in a way that nobody else can, so that you later can be a comfort to those hurting. But if you don't let him in into those moments, if you avoid those moments. Where is the growth? Where is the fruit? You're going to end up being a regular french fry. I want to be a truffle french fry. Put some gold leaf on mine. You know what I'm talking about.
30:52
I want high class fruit. But high class fruit, it grows in the dirt, man, sometimes you got to get it out the mud. It's not just slang. We talking. This is Bible. We talking the author and the finisher of our faith.
31:11
If you even look at it just his life and his ministry he didn't get to where he got being our savior without first suffering defeat. So how could you try to live a life of pain avoidance when God is promising you? Because I'm telling you, I've been in the valley and it sucked and I did not like it. The one consolation I had is that I experienced God like never before, so much so that when I came out of that moment into a prosperous place, I, low-key, found myself looking back longingly at those hard times. I miss those moments of prayer, lord. I miss going to sleep at 12 am with tears in my eyes because I didn't know how it was going to work. But I went to sleep praising you, thanking you, believing that you would come through, only to wake up at 3 am with more doubt, more fear, more unbelief and needing his presence to come again. But then he would.
32:23
Let me ask you a question how many people in here take one aspirin every day? One person out of over a hundred. Did you know that doctors say that if you take one aspirin per day you can lower your chance of cardiac arrest significantly? One a day. Nobody does that, though. Until what is? Give me some aspirin man.
32:52
Throwing things back like Tic Tacs. But it's funny how, when the pain hits, then you want to cry out what happens? This is a hypothetical what happens if we lived in a place where we constantly depended on the Lord? Instead of waiting for that one moment of pain, we would constantly live in the present moment, whether they were valleys, whether they were valleys, whether they were mountains, and we would just say I'm with you all the way, lord, I'm not going anywhere without you. The problem comes as we try to do life, and then, when something happens, we run to him Jesus, heal me. Oh, she come out. And really what the Lord is asking for is this If I'm going, you go in with me. I'm going to the store, jesus, bring yourself. We going to the store? Yeah, I'm going to go pray. What you mean? We going to pray store? Yeah, I'm going to go pray. What you mean? We going to pray, jesus, y'all.
34:03
There's a baddie in church. Hey, jesus, I'm going to holler at her we, it's we. It's no longer me. Because wherever I go, jesus got to come too. Oh, man, ain't nothing but trials and stuff over there. Now, before, we would run the other way, but now, because of who, I got with me. All right, jesus go.
34:29
I'm okay because I've entered the fray with Jesus. I've entered the fray with my. He's my everything, he's my rock. He's my rock. He's my savior, he's my point of refuge. He's my safe house. He is the lily of the valleys, he is the bright and morning star. He is the one that has everything that I need. When I offend Chris by dragging him all over the church, he's the one that gives my brother the grace to forgive. Can you understand Everything that you do? Let it be that you bring Jesus into it. He is not a supplement that you just add to your life. He's not a part of your life, because if he's a part of your life, there are other parts that don't touch that one part. He has to be the center of your life so that he connects to everything. Thank you, brother. Chris is like never again. This front row life ain't for me.
35:42
So one last note about this, because we have to take advantage of the fact that on earth we have an opportunity to offer something that we will never be able to do on the other side of heaven. You get to offer God praise that has been seasoned with temporal human hurt, see on the other side of eternity. I don't even believe that there are tear ducts. The Bible says that he will wipe every tear from your eye. There will be nothing but joy, unspeakable. So how can you give him a sacrifice of worship and praise when everything will be jolly? Can you give him a sacrifice of worship and praise when everything will be jolly?
36:19
You know, I told you I have a certain disdain for, for celebrating and decorating for christmas and things like that. Right, I know some of you like I can't believe it. No, it's real. This past saturday, not this saturday, it just passed the sat Saturday before that, my wife tells me hey, babe, I think we should decorate. And I say, hey, babe, the devil's a liar.
36:45
Now here's the thing, though I've been fighting my wife off since July. I don't know what, I don't know how she was raised, because her family's not even like this, she's the only one. It's like my own personal torture. The Lord gives me the ears of an elf and a wife who, just, I don't know what I did church, but since July she's like throwing subtle hints like you know how you feel today I'm like yeah, like yo, this is my first Saturday with nothing to do in like a real long time. Yo, thank God. She's like, I know right. She's like what do you think about putting a tree over? What do you think about putting a tree where we could put one right over here? Why are we going about putting a tree where we could put one right over here? Why we gonna put a tree there, tiffany, just to spruce it up? You see what she did. There is a pun, yeah, yeah.
37:51
So the one Saturday that I have with no activity, I end up meeting my mortal enemy Christmas decorating. It gets worse. I woke up that Saturday feeling ill. You know how you get that one cough that tells you where your week is about to go. Oh man, and I'll share with you because it's gross. And I'll share with you because it's gross. I woke up Saturday and I immediately coughed up this quarter-sized shape of pure mucus no phlegm, no viscosity to it. It was pure and I was like oh God. And from that moment I just got sicker and sicker and I, it was pure, and I was like oh God, and from that moment I just got sicker and sicker and I knew what was coming. I had to feel like that. Plus, I had to decorate. Can you feel my pain?
38:48
So now, here I am in this space of just not really enjoying things but giving God glory not really enjoying things but giving God glory In this space where I'm getting calls and still having to live life. I still got to minister to people, I still got to show up, I still got to be present and even now I'm not feeling super well. My whole family's not here today because they are sick. We will pray for them, amen. But it was such a rough week.
39:17
Now, in the midst of that, when I can lift up my hands and go Father, you are all that in a bag of chips. You are Jehovah, Rapha, my healer, you are my deliverance, you are my peace, you are my joy, that has a certain see my praise, that hallelujah we were talking about earlier, that highest praise. It's been seasoned by my suffering and it produces a fruit for Jesus that he can't get anywhere else. There's no fruit like that in heaven. The angels praise him 24-7. They circle his throne saying holy, holy, holy is the lord, god almighty. The 24 elders take their crowns and they throw it before his feet and none of them got nothing on us, because we offer him a worship that can only be received and cultivated here on earth, in the present, in this temporal thing that we call humanity.
40:18
But a lot of us are not even taking advantage of that because we're running from the moments that would create this type of fruit and create this type of praise. We're cursing the fact that we have to live life and go through circumstances. Listen, I understand you would have never chosen for the cancer to come. I know that you have never. You would have never have chosen for the cancer to come. I know that you would have never chosen for the baby to be lost. But I've seen God in those moments show himself off as the true deliverer, as the true healer. And yes, there's a great many things that I never would have planned on, but because he allowed them and showed himself off in those moments, I'm better for it.
41:08
You know, I remember there was a time, before our second son was born, my wife has a very terrible time with pregnancies. She has a condition called hyperemesis. It's like this. This is low compared to what actually happens. It's like this zenith of morning sickness where you can't eat anything. You can't even drink anything. You drink water. Water will make you throw up. So she's living like that for months, hospitalized, and all that, but she's sacrificing, knowing what's on the other side of that which is our child. So she's undertaking this sacrifice for our family and then the doctors tell us there's a miscarriage and she loses the baby. After all the suffering and it was hard and it hurt, but she offered up such a sweet, beautiful worship to God that it was crazy because in the same year God visited us again and she got pregnant again and my son was born later that year and Dallas is an amazing kid. All my kids are amazing and I don't say that just because I'm their dad, like they legit are amazing people.
42:37
We were only able to get to that point because we didn't run. It was weird because when, when Dallas came, we looked back on the situation and we were like hold on. I remember what happened, but the way that the Lord set it up, it felt like it was 20 years ago. There was so much joy, there was so much faith, so much belief that God was going to do what he said and what he promised, that the pain of what we had experienced. We felt so separated from it. It was only some months ago, but the Lord found a way to refine our faith and grow it to the point that we could receive through the pain. So now I have to expound and explain to people don't run, because you prolong pain by running. You know people who go to the gym. They will tell you you need resistance in order to produce growth. He will do it. He will do it.
43:44
Church. You cannot let the pain of what you've experienced stop you from believing for his best. There is a fruitfulness that he will give you if you would be willing to trust him, despite what you've seen. He will cultivate it and he will bless you, because he is not a respecter of persons, and he blessed me and mine, so I know that he can bless you and yours. Praise God. Let us learn to enjoy the process as he matures us and produces the good fruit from our life. So let me ask you again where my fruity Christians at yeah, hallelujah. We got to step away from the immediate gratification and we got to realize that there's a cost to certain fruit, a spiritual sweat equity. Amen, you'll have to give up on some things to get that precious thing called fruit. You know the Bible says work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, and this is where you got to put in the disclaimer so people, that they don't get disillusioned. This is not a works mentality. When it comes to fruit, you cannot produce the type of fruit that you need in your life. You have to lean on Jesus to produce the fruit. He will cultivate it.
45:17
Your job, as a living sacrifice, is to not run off the altar. That's your job. Your job is not to grow yourself. Your job is not to become a better Christian. All those things happen because of and through him. So don't think that I'm now telling you you need to be a better Christian by doing this. The this that you need to do is trust him, not crawl off the altar. That's the problem with a living sacrifice when it gets too hot, not today. That's the problem with a living sacrifice when it gets too hot, not today. But if you really trust him, you'll listen to that sweet woo that says come on back, worship team. You can come on up. You can actually prepare communion too as well.
46:06
Ushers, I'll close with this. You want to know what's an underrated goodness of God? Those moments when he tells you to wait. We don't like that. We and I'm saying we don't like that. Sometimes I'm going to lie to you. This is foolish to say, but sometimes I'd rather you just tell me no, bro, don't have me out here just suffering and struggling unnecessarily, and every single time the Lord keeps reminding me. It's not unnecessary, because if I gave you what you wanted now, you would kill yourself because you weren't able nor ready to carry the things that you desire in God. So he needed to grow me, he needed to refine me, he needed to press me, he needed to allow certain circumstances, certain losses to happen so that he could work together for good, those things that are for me. He says he works everything together for good for those that love the Lord and are called according to his purposes and will, ain't that you? Ain't that me? You can hand them out. So we got to stop being scared of the process, scared of the valley moments. I'm telling you you're going to know God so well in the valley that you won't even mind the valley.
47:30
You ever had a circumstance where, like you, miss a train or something like that, but because of the company that you're with, you didn't even mind it. I missed some trains before, and who you miss with makes the story, because I've had situations where I was leaving church and like it's late. This is when I used to, and who you miss with makes the story, because I've had situations where I was leaving church and like it's late. This is when I used to go to church in Queens, but I lived in Staten Island and I don't run a lot, but I would run for the boat that time because if you missed that ferry back in the day you had to wait a whole nother hour. It was already two in the morning. I'm like I'm not trying to wait for three in the morning just to take a 30 minute boat ride to then catch a bus to then walk home.
48:17
So I'm and I don't know why, it scarred me a little bit, but I remember this dude at the ferry. He watched me run from the stairs and he stood there closing the door like this. He's watching me run and he's closing it. I'm like, alright, no worry, I know he gonna hold it at the end. So I'm like I'm not giving up. I want him to see I'm putting in the effort. Just think of it. Give me the keys like dun, dun, dun, dun dun, just going for it, ha ha. And I didn't let up, not even until the end, and he just let that joint close right in my face.
48:54
I'm not gonna lie, I didn't feel very Christian in the moment. I thought about what would express the love of God with the appendages that I had, and I didn't. I didn't adequately come up with one, so I settled on one. Those moments of waiting by myself were terrible, until I got saved. And then I found out how to wait in those moments with Jesus. I find out how to go through life with Jesus, and it makes the difference. It made me better, so I no longer look for ways to validate somebody. Now the Lord gives me a true reason to rejoice. In every and all circumstances. He's grown a level of maturity and fruitfulness in me Because, if you didn't know, the ultimate goal is that God is trying to cultivate Jesus in you.
49:56
Now, that's an impossible task. In and of yourself. You cannot grow up to be like Jesus, amen. But look what the scripture says. Because here's the thing Fruit is something that's produced. Right, we all agree on that. The Bible says that the fruit of the spirit is love, but the Bible also says that God is love. So when the spirit makes his abode in you, you accept Jesus to be your Lord and your savior. The thing that's supposed to be produced in you is love, but love is God. So when the spirit lives on the inside of you, you're supposed to be developing into Jesus.
50:41
Ephesians 4.11 says this. And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the son of god, to a perfect man who was the perfect man to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head, christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effect of working, by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love, aka. He's trying to grow jesus in you. He's trying to make you produce a fruitfulness that makes you more like him. Please stop running from that process. Be willing to receive the hard times, because he's not going to leave you in them by yourself. We're going to take communion now, and it's fitting that we do, because what's happening with communion?
52:18
The Bible says that we are proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes. What do you mean, proclaiming the Lord's death? Well, here's the thing when Jesus died on the cross and then resurrected for us, there was a great many benefits that he afforded to everyone who would believe. So what I'm asking you to do is take stock of your life and if there is anything that is not lining up to what he promised in the scriptures, belongs to you. I need you to proclaim his death. I need you to shout it from the rooftop, even with your actions. This is what is owed to me because of what Jesus did. This is what I believe I can live in and walk in.
52:58
If you are sick in your body, you have symptoms of dis-ease, know that it is by his stripes that you were healed. If you are emotionally bankrupt and hurting and depleting, know that the joy of the Lord is your strength. He was abandoned in every way possible at the cross emotionally, physically, spiritually, even financially. He was straight. It's not like like the movies. He didn't have a little, two drops of blood and a little loincloth. He was naked. The bible says that he became poor, that through his poverty you would gain riches.
53:38
So examine your life and think about what is not lining up to what jesus did for you at the cross. If you're burdened by guilt, shame and condemnation, know that the Bible says that you have been made perfect. You are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. You have joy that no man can take from you. You abide in perfect health, even as your soul prospers, according to the word. So proclaim his death today.
54:04
Proclaim the maturity that you are growing up into Christ. If you look at your life and you think, ugh, that makes a bag of nuts man, I don't feel the maturity of the Lord like I want to Proclaim the Lord's death. You can speak yourself into good fruit. I'm going to share this with you guys. First service didn't get. This Part of the maturity that he's calling you to is a life of fruitfulness and answered prayer A mark of your life. When you enter this zone of fruitfulness, your life is going to be marked by answered prayer. That's powerful because you're going to learn how to pray better, matter of fact, when you pray, because right now we have this false assumption that when we pray it has to be with a lot of words and different things, like that God do this, god do that, and it says this is laundry list and really that's not how Jesus prayed.
55:04
Jesus believed and he said exercise your faith. But he said a lot. He didn't ask a lot, he said a lot. Let me just very quickly show you this Hold your communion and think about these things so that you can get it all in one. Matthew 28 says so. Jesus answered and said to them assuredly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, be removed and cast into the sea, it will be done. And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will. Why am I bringing this up again? I'm actually going to close with this Part of the fruitfulness, of you becoming more and more like Jesus.
56:11
One of the hallmarks on his life on earth was answered prayer.
56:14
If you're going to be a fruity Christian, you have to have a prayer life that breeds results.
56:21
John 15, 16 says this you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain. That, whatever you ask the father in my name, he may give you. When you get the fruitiness, you get whatever you ask for in his name, because we have Jesus as an example, jesus didn't just ask for in his name. Because we have Jesus as an example, jesus didn't just ask for whatever he wanted. He asked only for what he saw the Father doing. So when you mature to this point and you stop running, you're only going to ask God for the things that you know are a part of God's. Will Eat and drink to your fruitiness, father. Touch the heart of your people that we would not be a people of pain, avoidance, that we would be willing and able to enter any and every circumstance because we know that you are with us. Make us to grow, make us to be fruitful, father, mark our lives with answered prayer. Father, we ask you in Jesus' name.
57:34 - Speaker 2
This is the City Light Church Podcast. If you've missed any part of today's message or if you would like to find out more about Pastor Boyan Jancic and City Light Church, visit us at citylightnyccom. That's citylightnyccom. Feel free to visit us online or in person anytime. We would love to connect with you. We pray that you have been encouraged today, that you have been reminded how much God loves you and that you are surrounded by grace. Thank you for listening. Make sure that you subscribe to City Light Church Podcast wherever you find your favorite podcasts worldwide.
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