[SERMON] HOTL 101: With Before Witness: Multiplying Through Discipleship

Pastor Cyle unpacks Heart O' The Lakes Church's vision of "multiply through discipleship," tracing God's call to make disciples from Genesis through the Great Commission. Using John 3:30 as the foundation ("He must become greater, I must become less"), he challenges the congregation to move beyond being "withered up Christians" to bearing fruit through intentional relationships—abiding with Christ first, then witnessing to others through love, patience, and the fruits of the Spirit lived out 24/7.

Transcript

 

Introduction: Church Vision & Growth

Uh, this year we are starting the year with kind of talking about who we are as a church, uh, why we exist, because obviously we've, we've grown a lot this year. We've had to go to three services, uh, Cody's over at the other campus this morning because that campus has also been growing and we're excited about, uh, potentially adding another service there this spring.

As well as that, God just been blessing us and so we know we regularly need to talk about who we are and why we exist. So new people. Can be part of the vision because we really believe at this church that vision matters because the Bible tells us in the Old Testament that uh, people without a 

Vision: John 3:30 - He Must Become Greater

vision will perish.

And so we believe that we must operate with a vision. And so our vision here is this three 30, and it is that for the years 2030, we have three things that are our vision. So three. 30. Got it. So that's how we do things here. And it's also, it's based off scripture, but these are our two campuses. You're obviously at the one, uh, and then Jackson campus is where the other guys were at this morning.

And, uh, we are just excited about what God is doing. But we, every event that we do, every study that we do, we try to filter through our vision. We know why we exist. We know why we don't exist. We know why we do things. We know why we don't do things as a church. And that goes through our vision. That's three 30.

And our vision's on the wall. We've got it on the wall so you won't forget it. Uh, it's in the lobby. And so our vision is based off a Bible verse also, which is John three 30. That's how we, we do things and it's this, he must become greater and I must become less. It's important, we believe this as a church wholeheartedly, not only for our church that Christ must become greater in heartedly and and we must become less, but also in our individual lives.

He must become greater in life and we must become less. We become, we need to become more selfless. And more focused on Christ in our lives. And this is a 24 7 thing. We don't believe it's just a Sunday morning thing. We believe it's 24 7. And so the verse is on our, our wall. It's also in the lobby so that you can remember it and not forget it.

It's one of the shortest Bible verses. So if you wanna memorize one, memorize this one. He must be become greater and I must become less. That's our goal and our vision is really the three points of our vision. It's simple and we, we put it on the walls for you. Also, remember, it's boldly introduced our community, Jesus, which we talked about last 

Point 1: Multiply Through Discipleship

week.

And embrace the culture of honor, which we also kind of addressed last week with care about what the people you care about, care about. This week we're gonna talk about multiply through discipleship. We're gonna talk about what that phrase means and why we, we live and believe that phrase at our church because we believe that this.

Big word discipleship. And it's one of those churchy Christian words you only often hear in the Christian circle. But the word discipleship just means, it's like a process of making a disciple. And a disciple just means a follower, someone who follows another person and tries to imitate them. And what, so you could just say, multiply followers of Jesus.

That's by multi, you know, we wanna multiply through making followers of Jesus. That's, that's our process. And so in the churchy words, we'll use multiply through discipleship. And this is not, this is not like a new thing. This is not like, oh, we do, this is a cool thing we do here in the 2020s. This is a thing that's been going on all throughout recorded history and all since creation because we go all the way back to the beginning of time in the beginning of the Bible and Genesis 1 28, this is God's speaking to Adam and Eve in the garden.

Scripture: Genesis 1:28 - Be Fruitful and Multiply

He's telling them this. And remember the yellow part you're supposed to read out loud and proud, and it says, and God bless them. And God said to them. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion. See, we often try to tell you through our different sermons and different things we do, there is one consistent story from scripture from the beginning through Jesus till now and through till Jesus comes back for all eternity.

There's not an Old Testament version of the Bible and a New Testament version of Bible and our. Today's version of the Bible and the future version of Bible, the Bible is all connected and the Old Testament, new Testament, there's so many connections between the two, and then it connects on to our lives and it'll connect to when Christ comes back.

There's one consistent story of scripture written over thou, you know, 1500 years by people in 40 different, uh, 40 different countries, but 40 different authors. There's all these different connections and scripture that are a consistent message that were to multiply. And fill the earth and subdue it. And the way you subdue it is by teaching people about the creator and who he is and the goodness of our God.

And that was be making disciples. So since the, since Genesis, the beginning, all through now. There's a process of discipleship and multiplication through telling people about the creator, telling people about God, the goodness of God, and showing them how to be like him. That goes back to the beginning, and so the Bible's first discipleship mandate appears in Genesis.

We're really told in Genesis to multiply. To have family tell them about Jesus and then to multiply that family and tell them about Jesus and do that over and over and over again. And so Jesus comes on the scene after the Old Testament. Jesus comes to the world. God sends his son, and Jesus keeps a consistent message because Jesus is God's son.

Jesus is God. He's telling the same message. There is no new message. It's the same message. I'm still the same God. I still love you. I still want you to tell people about me. I still want them to know me. Follow me. That's the goal. So Jesus comes and on his last kind of charge to his closest friends, his disciples, he makes a statement and he says to them, which we know is the great commission, it's found in Matthew 

Scripture: Matthew 28 - The Great Commission

28.

So Jesus at this moment. As getting ready to ascend into heaven. He has come back from death. He's resurrected, he's spent time with, with his people. Uh, he's shared with them. He's seen them, they've seen that he's re, you know, resurrected from the dead. And when he goes away from his closest friends, he says this first, go, therefore, and.

Make disciples. Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age. So Jesus, before he leaves, the people who have been following him, doing life together with him, his closest friends, they've been with him three and a half years, he goes and says to them.

I'm gonna go prepare a place for you. Your job is to go into the world, tell people about me, make disciples, baptize them, and then teach them. To obey everything I've commanded you. Now, what I love about our church is at our church we do, we do some things different. Obviously, if you come here, you know that, but one of the things that we do is we allow people to baptize other 

Illustration: Baptism & Making Disciples

people.

You don't have to be a pastor or a priest to do it at our church, there's a reason. This passage, this passage, we believe that every one of us is called to do this. We believe this. This wasn't just for the 12 guys that Jesus knew. We aren't them, but like them, we believe this charge is still for us. This is the charge from Jesus to the Great commission.

We are to go into the world and make disciples, baptize them in the name of the Father, son, and the Holy Spirit and teach them, deserve all that he commanded. Them. That's the goal. We know what Jesus commanded them and we know how Jesus lived from the reading the scriptures. So we know what this looks like and what this means, and we are to do this, not just Cyle, 'cause I'm a pastor and I'm on stage, but every single one of us is called to go and make disciples.

This is a command, this isn't a suggestion, this is a command. It actually says in the, in the Greek, as you are going. Make disciples. That's how the better translation of it as you're going, it's implied. You're already gonna have, you're doing this because you're a disciple. If you're a follower, Jesus, it isn't like, we'll start doing this now.

It's you should be doing this and as you're doing this, as you're going, you need to make disciples and do all these things. That's the reality of this scripture, and it's for me, it's for you. So I am so proud when I get to stand on a beach and watch somebody else baptize somebody else. Because that means we get this, we're doing this.

Now, oftentimes I, I end up joining the people in there and there's a reason people don't wanna say the words 'cause they don't know what to say. And here's the trick. Ready. When we baptize people and put 'em in the water, we literally say, I baptize you and name the father and the son and the Holy Spirit.

See why it's right here. It's in the word. This is what we do. We acknowledge and confirm that people have accepted Jesus's Christ. Then they can be baptized in his name, the name of the Father, son, and the Holy Spirit. That's really what I say. That's the words. Have you ever been baptized? You go, that's how it works.

And so we allow people to do that because we truthfully believe as our vision that the word matters and Jesus word matters. And he's saying, go do this. We should do it. And so we exercise the authority to allow people to do that. And it's so powerful when someone who's been pouring into your life gets to dunk you under the water as a symbol of that discipleship relationship.

That's why we multiply through discipleship. That's as a church, how we operate. And so Jesus, he didn't say to them, teach them every little detail and nuance of scripture. Make sure they know every little aspect of the Old Testament and the law and everything. That's not what he said. He just said, go and do and while you're doing, love them, baptize them and teach them and then imitate me.

That was his goal. That was what he kept teaching them. And he said, make disciples. That was the process. Make disciples, and it's a process that reproduces, if you're making disciples, those disciples should then make disciples. That's, that's our hope. If I'm gonna go teach people how to be like Jesus, hopefully once they become like Jesus, they will then teach people to come like Jesus.

And then the process continues on. That's multiply food, discipleship. We don't advertise as a church. That's not a thing. A lot of churches spend a lot of money in advertising. What happens is, how we grow is you guys go live out your discipleship experience, right? And you live like Jesus. You imitate them.

Other people should see the change in you and they're gonna say, Hmm, I something different about that person. I wanna figure out what it is. And here's what they normally do. When people come in the doors, they usually tell me they find out a church two ways. One, it's a huddle sign in the yard, or it's so and so invited me.

Or I notice so-and-so's different and I wanna be like them. And usually when it's the sign in the yard, the conversation then goes, uh, my neighbors are just so kind and so loving. I saw the sign in the yard, so I just wanna figure out where they go to church. Because really what they wanna say is I wanna be more like them.

It's multiplied through discipleship. That's how people find our church. And we keep growing as a church because people are doing this process. Living it out, but that's the process we're all called to. And the word disciple, it appears actually a hundred twenty two hundred sixty times. I dunno why I said a hundred twenty two hundred sixty times in scripture.

Point 2: Disciples vs. Christians

The word Christian only appears three. In the Bible. I dunno if you know that now we call ourselves Christians. That's, that's their, we should just call ourselves disciples. And I think early after in my college career or after I went through this phase, um, where I did not wanna be called C anymore because I didn't like a lot of the Christians I knew they were, they were not good people.

And so I was, I don't wanna be associated with those people. Alright, just call me a disciple of Jesus, A follower of Jesus. Cody actually went through this phase too. A lot. A lot of people go through this phase. 'cause like you get to know Christians, you're like, I don't like those people. I don't wanna be titled the same.

And so I went through the phase of just call me a disciple Jesus. Don't call me a Christian. Like, and it got over it because like we're, we're Christians. This is what it is. But you probably know Christians like, I don't wanna be like that person. We all do, right? We wanna be like Jesus, I wanna be a disciple of Jesus.

I wanna be a follower of Jesus because that word disciple, it matters. And discipleship is, is the primary way the church grew. And discipleship is just the process of making a disciple, which is learning how to follow a master and following in his footsteps. That's what it is. And so people making disciples by living out their faith and then someone else wanting that and figuring that out and then imitating that and then repeating that process is how the church has grown through all history.

It's how we're still sitting here today. In Acts six, seven. Right? I know, I know. I didn't pick it 'cause of that, I didn't pick it. That just happens to be there every week. I find a way and, and the word of God continued to increase and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem. That's the thing.

Scripture: Acts 6:7 - Disciples Multiplied Greatly

This acts six, seven is when the early church is forming. This is the formation of the early church after Jesus has, has ascended into heaven. This is the early churches coming together. They didn't have all the stuff that we have. They didn't have all the letters of Paul. Paul was writing the letters.

During this time, they didn't all have access to 'em. They didn't read First Timothy and Second Timothy, and they didn't read First Peter and second Peter. They didn't even know those books existed. They didn't even, those letters didn't exist at this time. This was the formation of the church. That stuff is coming years later, decade later, two decades later, they just had the story of Jesus that someone shared to them from their personal experiences.

They're living out their, their imitation of Jesus being a follower of Jesus. They're just living it out, and they're different than the Roman world and the Roman culture, and it's attractive and people wanted to know more about it. That's how they came to faith. They didn't have this big giant Bible and say, Hey, you read this and do this.

They just lived it out and it continued to increase more and more and more by the day, and it multiplied greatly in Jerusalem and in the world. That's multiplication to discipleship. That's what we hope and pray we do as a church, that we live out our faith so well. We imitate Christ so well that people can't help but wanna know more about what that looks like and then live that in their own 

The Fruits of the Spirit

lives.

There wanna be change and imitating Christ being a disciple. A disciple is just a follower of Jesus who lives like him, and we have an example of what that is. The fruits of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That's the fruit of spirit. So living like Christ and imitating him is just imitating those nine things and others about Christ in the world.

And if you do those things, it's a lot different than our world. People are not overly loving in today's world. I can show you Facebook and TikTok and Twitter, and you name it threads. You name it. People are mean, right? They're not kind, they're not patient, they're not joy filled. Especially if they watched football game last night and they're Packers fans not, it's not so much, 

Catching Faith Before Comprehending Theology

right?

That game changed real quick at half time. Ultimately, we have to understand that if we want to see Christ increase in the world, we have to participate in this process. See, I think people catch faith before they comprehend theology. You don't have to know everything. You don't have to be. You don't have to.

People will tell me, oh, I'll start telling people about Jesus mind no more. You're never gonna know enough to tell people about Jesus. You don't have to know much of anything other than just gotta imitate the Christ that you know or see in others. People catch faith before they comprehend theology because if you wait and wait and wait to become a scholar, you're never gonna become a scholar.

I don't know everything. I promise you. I don't like, here's an example. We were talking about this in my Bible study. Um, there's the book of Revelation. It talks about the end, and there's this belief that there's gonna be a seven year period of like torment and judgment. And so some people believe that Jesus is gonna come back at the beginning of that seven year period, and he's gonna rapture the Christians and they're all gonna poof outta their clothes and go to heaven.

Um, I don't know if they'll leave their clothes, but that's my vision. That is called pre tribulation, pre-trip. He's Jesus coming pre the tribulation. Some people believe that Jesus is gonna come back in the middle, three and a half years in, and that's called mid tribulation, mid trip. And then some people believe Jesus is gonna come back at the end of tribulation period after the seven years.

That's called post trip, post tribulation. I have no idea. Honestly, there's all different scholars I'm probably supposed to believe, preach it because of the type of denomination we're and all those things. But I don't really know. When I got interviewed by this church, this came up, what do you believe?

And I, my answer was, I am a pan millennialist. Okay. Um, that's just a big phrase to say. It'll all pan out in the end. Okay. So that's what I believe. That's literally what I said in the process. Uh, Paul, maybe Mark, maybe they were there. They can tell you. I literally said that in that process. I don't think they asked, they asked me the question, but they asked me, are there anything you thought we'd ask you?

And I said, I thought you'd ask me more about theology and stuff, like, am I pre tri or not? And they said, well, are you? And I said, I'm at Pam Millennial, so I wanted to say the joke. And I did. Um, this is sex thing exactly how it happened. I was in a couch in a room down here. Um, but it was, it was a joke that I had heard from a pastor who attended my church, uh, for a long time.

And he shared me. And I, I loved it. So it, I've used it for kind the rest of my life. It's been awesome. But people catch faith before they comprehend theology. You don't have to comprehend, comprehend everything. I don't know everything. I don't know every answer to everything. We'll figure it out in heaven and then we won't care anymore.

That's the truth. What we can do is imitate Christ. One Corinthians 11, one. Now Paul is writing this to people in the city of Corinth. Now, Corinth was, uh, the biggest city in the area. It was on the thoroughfare between, um, kind of the, the GNC and they had to cut across. And so they had tons of money. They were rich.

They had, they had all kinds of amphitheaters and arenas. They had the Olympics. Were there all these different things. This was. They had these sports games to Poseidon. They were the city of cities in the region. And so what's happening, Paul is writing to people then, and he's saying this, that's not much different than the culture of today, 

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 11:1 - Imitate Me as I Imitate Christ

right?

We have 2000 years more of technology. That's about it. But, but that would've been like writing to our modern day America. He would've been writing to people like us in that time and, you know, perspective. And he says this, be imitators, imitators of me as I am of Christ. That's, that's what he said, Hey, just watch my life, live like me, because I live like Christ because they didn't have all this.

He's writing scripture as he goes. He didn't even know he was writing the Bible. He didn't know we'd be reading this 2000 years later, right? He just was writing a letter telling them how to live, and he says, just imitate me. I try to live like Jesus, so like imitate like me. Paul wasn't a perfect person.

No human can be, but imitate me, and so I imitate as I imitate Christ. That's discipleship. We're supposed to be imitators of the people in our life that show us Jesus because they're imitating Christ. We luckily have scripture to know and teach us how to do that, but that's why we're supposed to be in relationship with people.

We're supposed to imitate Christ. Now the word disciple in Greek is actually this word ti, which means, uh, which would people often think it means this, they often think it means someone who attends lectures or someone who agrees intellectually, Hey, if I agree with you intellectually, then I'm a disciple of you because I sit under your teaching and I believe in your teaching.

And then I, I absorb that teaching as my teaching is for me, what it really means. It means a learner by following an apprentice, someone who patterns their life after a master. Now I've been fortunate enough to go to Athens and I gotta go to, um, the school of like, Plato and Socrates soak crates, and I gotta see the school.

It's just, it's a hole in the ground. So it's, it's not anything, but it's not a bunch of cool buildings. It's literally just dirt with a little hole marked up. But it's where they would go and teach and what they would do in, in ancient, you know, we, we all had Greek, uh, well, except my kids didn't have Greek.

They don't know what it is, but everybody else has Greek. And so when you have Greek. When you learn about Plato and the philosophers and, and Socrates and all those Aristotle, they would go to a school and they would sit under the teachings of the master and they would just learn and they would try to emulate and be like the master.

They didn't have to become scholars because often their teachings, they didn't agree with each other. They would write about it and argue, but they became very similar in lifestyle as their master. They became followers, apprentices, and someone who patterned their life after master. It's really cool how they 

Illustration: Cody the Intern - Modern Discipleship

had this school.

It's much like modern schools today. They come in and they learn, they grow. They would do life together often for years, for decades, and it was great. Now, that's kind of an ancient example of this, but I, I have more of a modern example for you, and I call it Cody, the intern. Now, you know, Cody as Pastor Cody, who's up here in sings our teens, often would know Cody as Crazy Cody or some other, uh, you know, their youth pastor.

But I know Cody as Cody, the intern because when I, I met Cody when he was a high school kid. I was his camp Dean, and then he eventually ended up going to college 20 minutes away from where I was pastoring. And so Cody came to visit and he said. Hey, I wanna learn ministry from you. I wanna do ministry just like you do.

I wanna learn from you and to do that, I need to come from college and I need to help you with your youth ministry. Well, that's great. You can do that. And then it went from that to, I really wanna learn more from you, so I think I need to live with you for the summer. You, Patty, and I'll learn from you and help you with your youth group for the summer, and I'll learn how to do ministry for you.

I said, that's fine. And then it became. Why don't I just live with you all the time and learn from you? And so six years later we introduced him to Bethany to get him out of our, our basement. So, um, yeah, but literally Cody was, was trying to be around so he could do ministry like me, not be a hundred percent green on every single thing, but learn how to do ministry.

To absorb and imitate the ministry that I do. And now we're still working together all these years later. And Mark just lived, mark, mark just got married at our other campus. He just got back from his honeymoon. And um, mark lived with Cody for longer seven years plus. So I think that's Cody's penance. And, um, so Mark also wanted to learn from Cody, and so he ended up living in Cody's basement.

And learning from Cody do a ministry together. And now Mark is, is doing a great job at our other campus. And very similar, he's learned to imitate the ministry of kind of his master right now. I love calling Cody the intern because here's the thing, Cody, the intern, every time Cody would tell me he didn't wanna do something, I don't wanna do that.

I would like, well. You know what, you know what intern means in Swahili And then I was, what do that thing that you don't wanna do? And then I would say, like, he would tell me, I don't wanna do that. And I'd be like, well, intern in Chinese means this. And it was always the do the thing you don't wanna do. So I always had a lot of fun with it.

So, but now he's Cody the pastor, and he's become a great pastor. Mark's become a great pastor. And so we think Mark's penance eventually will be, so one of these other guys at church will live with Mark, so for eight years. So it's gonna happen. So it's gonna work. But that's what the process of discipleship looks like.

You pour into someone. Now, I'm not saying you need to take someone into your home for the next six or seven years, um, like I'm not doing it, but like ultimately you need to be pouring into somebody, the relationship, the love they have of Jesus. It needs to come out and it needs to be poured into somebody so they can imitate it, and then they need to have someone they're pouring into.

We all need to have a master and we all need to have. A mentor mentee, or a mentor and a mentee, however you wanna call it. You know, people don't like to say the word master anymore, but, but like ultimately we have someone that's pouring into us and then we need to be pouring into somebody else. That's 

Application: Date Your Friends - Build Intentional Relationships

discipleship.

You have to be doing this. And you know, I was having this conversation with this week with somebody at coffee. Like I was just telling 'em, you need to date your friends. You, if you don't have, you don't have the right friends. Go date people and make them your friends. Like you go out and say, Hey, you wanna have a coffee?

Let's get together and then see if we click, see if we can be friends. You can't be friends with everybody. I've learned that in life, right? Some people are just like, that's not gonna work. We just can't do it. Right? Um, but some people you go have a coffee with, you're like, Hey, I like this person. I think we could do life together and I could pour into this person.

They could pour into me. Because there's always one person in the relationship typically, that's pouring more into the other person. And you need to find someone in your life who you can pour into. But you have to start the conversation by, Hey, come over for dinner. Hey, let's go for a coffee. Let's, let's go do something together and see if we can have a relationship where one of us or the other can pour into the other person so that we can disciple each other.

So we can imitate Christ together. Like I intentionally do this all the time in my life. Who can I pour more into? Who can I pour more into? Who can pour more into me? I have people in my life that I call for advice. There are other pastors who pour into me and then I pour into people in my life. I'm always looking for someone new that I can pour into until they don't wanna be poured into anymore.

Then I'll move on to somebody else. But hopefully they'll go from that relationship when they're ready and they'll find someone else to pour into. 'cause relationships have a season. You don't have to pour into somebody's rest of life. Cody doesn't live in my basement anymore, thank God. Right? Like right.

So. We don't, we, we got a house now with a slab. He can't live in the basement and he is never coming back, ever. So, yeah. So Jesus expected his disciples to make disciples. That was the expectation. That was always the intent. He was gonna get disciples, 12 guys to come together, who are his friends, his followers, 

Scripture: Matthew 4:19 - Fishers of Men

his people.

And he was gonna pour into them for the entire purpose of making disciples, not just 'cause he wanted to hang out with the guys. Right. He literally poured into them, so they make disciples. Matthew four 19, Jesus says this, and he said to them, this is Jesus. Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

This is a famous passage. We know this right. But the whole purpose is I'm going to make disciples out of you. So then you go find people to make disciples out of. Now I of, you know, I'm a very unsuccessful fisherman. Fisherman. The only fish that I've caught in Michigan is a $250 ticket. Um, literally I've not caught, I don't think I've caught other fish.

I tried going fishing with Mark, maybe ice fishing. I never caught a thing. Watched him catch a dozen fish. Um, so. But I know the process. If you wanna catch something, you have to proactively go out to the place and put in the work and effort to catch the fish. They don't just swim up into your house well, unless you have a flood.

But that, that's not good. Um, but like the fish don't come to you. No one's banging on your door except for maybe a Jehovah's Witness And, and, uh, Julie Freeman yesterday, um, Julie texted me, she had this great conversation with, with the Jehovah's Witness about the culture of honor in our church. So, um, I'm not kidding.

He was texting me yesterday. Yeah. She said he loves it. Yeah, I bet he does. But other than that, people aren't coming to your house to sit down for you. To tell them about Jesus. You actually have to do something about it. You have to go have the conversations. Do you wanna have a coffee? 

Point 3: Go Fish - Be Proactive in Making Disciples

Do you wanna get together?

Do you wanna come over to game night? Do you wanna do whatever? You have to do something proactive to make disciples. You gotta go fish. And the problem is, Christians don't, A lot of Christians don't fish. We're lazy. We're lazy Americans. We don't ever put any effort into a lot of things. And so we just expect the fish to just jump up into our boat and get into our, you know, our container and go home with us and just jump into the skillet.

That's what we think. We actually have to go fish, put in the effort, get the gear, learn, learn how to fish, and go out and do it, and then teach people the things that you learn. And so for our church, our vision is to boldly introduce people to, in our community, Jesus, we want to, we want them to know that Jesus loves them, and then once they know that Jesus loves them, we wanna multiply that love through discipleship, by teaching 'em how to be like Jesus, because we're like Jesus.

So that then they go out and tell people about Jesus. The way churches grow when they grow, it's because new people who are coming into relation, Jesus are so excited about Jesus. They can't help but tell people about what's going on in their life. It's not because the old prune people. Right. There's a lot of Christians who've been Christians a long time.

They're just prunes, right? They're withered up fruit and they don't do anything to tell people about Jesus. They're not inviting people to church. They're like, ah, everybody I know already knows, like I, I don't know anybody else. They're not fishing. Right? And I, I was having a conversation this week about tearing down some apple trees.

Illustration: Withered Apple Trees vs. Good Fruit

With the bulldozer. And, uh, somebody, a guy asked me, he was like, Hey, can I, can I tear these apple trees down? And I'm like, I don't know. Uh, I didn't know their apple trees. I was like, do they have any fruit? And I'm looking on the ground for fruit. Can't find any, you know, it's winter, but there should be some fruit evidence, fruit area evidence, I don't know.

But, um. So I look up in the tree and he's like, well look up there. And he, I look up in the tree, there's these tiny little withered apples on the top of the tree because the tree didn't bear good fruit. Like if they would've had beautiful apples, we would've ate 'em. 'cause there was another tree on the property that at the camp, there's another tree on the property.

We ate the apples this year. It was great. These trees didn't bear good fruit. They're pruned. They're withered. And so I looked at it and I said, I don't know. Looks like they don't bear fruit. Good fruit. Tear 'em down. Like literally the Bible story, like we were, we just had this conversation, bulldoze it over.

Because their pruned fruit that that tree once produced good fruit. I had somebody tell me, Hey, there's tree. There's other trees in this, this property with with apples. I'm like, I haven't seen any. Right. Well they used to bear good fruit. They used to have great apples. A lot of Christians used to bear good fruit too.

And my experience as a pastor, there's a lot of Christians, a lot of churches who used to bear good fruit. Early on their welcome of the Lord when they were imitating Christ. And they're excited about making disciples. They're excited about fishing, but a lot of us are just a pruned up tree. And guess what?

I will tell people to do with you? Bulldoze you over. Right? And when people tell me why did I bulldoze those three trees? 'cause it's gonna happen this year, I'm gonna say they were just pruned up Christians. So like it's gotta get rid of him. Right? But that's the truth. Do you want to be a pruned up tree?

Do you wanna be that? Or do you really wanna, uh, multiply through discipleship? Do you want to be excited about Jesus? Do you want people to, to know Jesus because you live Jesus out in your life so much that they want to figure out what's different about you? That's the reality. See, John 15. Jesus says this, 

Scripture: John 15 - Abide in the Vine

abide in me.

And abide just means like, live in me. Like live your life in me and I in you. And as, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it. Abides in the vine. Neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. Jesus is saying if you want to bear groove good fruit, it only comes through me sustaining you, giving you life.

And if you know right now, if you know like, oh man, Cyle is talking about me. I am a withered up pruny little tree with these, these withered up little apples. If that's you, it's, you're not abiding in the vine. Knowing the vine exists and abiding the vine are two different things. I, I, here's how, here's a good example.

We planted a garden this year. It was a absolute travesty 'cause I was not home. My wife was not home, car was not home. We had good intentions. But if you went out in that garden, it was a mess. It was full of weeds. Everything died in the vine. And we didn't water enough things, didn't produce good fruit because we didn't take care of it.

'cause we were too busy with other things. For some of us, we haven't been taking care of our relationship with the Lord and, and we're just a mess. And so when people see us, they don't see Jesus. They just see a Christian that they don't wanna be associated with that Christian. And that's why people decide I wanna be a disciple, not a Christian.

'cause that person, and I've known a lot of grumpy, withered up pruny Christians in my my life. That's why I went through a phase. I didn't wanna be called a Christian as a Christian. As a pastor, I was like, I don't wanna be associated with Christians. That's really hard because then it sounds like you're a cult leader.

Right. And the truth is, we have to abide in Jesus. If you, you gotta fish. You gotta go and proactively look for people to pour into. That's the job that we're called to do. We're not called to sit in our couch, wait for someone to walk in and sit down and have a conversation about Jesus. It's never gonna happen.

It's 2026. People don't, like we had someone, Rob Freeman came over yesterday and brought me some cheese. He knocked on the door, the entire house freaked out. Someone's here. I'm like, it's the police run. No, I mean. It is, it's like it's Rob like, like we love Rob. Like no one's excited about visitors anymore, right?

Like I was like, he's got cheese, let him in. And we ate the cheese and he brought cheese and by the time he hit the end of the driveway it was gone. Uh, it was really good. But some of you others there got cheese deliveries from Rob. So there, you know, I'm talking about great. But the truth is that just doesn't happen.

People aren't just gonna show up other than Jehovah's Witness and Rob, for you to tell him about Jesus. You've gotta learn to abide in the vine, you gotta go fish, you gotta go make disciples. And so here's, here's is, I wanna share this, it is with before witness. Okay? If you abide in 

With Before Witness - Can I Get a Witness?

Jesus, then you're with him.

So it's with before witness. Woo. Okay. Now, I've been thinking this all week, so here we try this. Can I get a ness right? Yeah. I have, I've been thinking, you know, it's, it's there. So we're gonna do it together on three, 'cause I know some of you wanna say it too. Ready? 1, 2, 3. Can I get a with this? Yeah. Feels good, doesn't it?

Um, I, this feels like a hoddle shirt. Can I get a witness? Witness Hoddle? Yeah. So, uh, we might have ho with this shirts, so we'll see. Um, but this is the truth. Yeah, it's silly, but it's true. We have to abide in Jesus with him. Him. If we wanna witness to other people and tell 'em about him and we want to imitate him, we gotta know him to imitate him.

Scripture: 2 Timothy 2:2 - Teach Faithful Men

And we do that in relationship with each other. Bible studies, life groups, those type of things. We do this when we imitate Christ for and to each other so that then we can learn to do that for each other. Two Timothy two, two says in what you have heard from me and the presence of many witnesses and trust a faithful man who will be able to teach, teach others also.

Once we learn to be like Christ, to imitate him, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That's the fruit of the spirit. Once we can learn to live that, then we can truly witness and tell people about Jesus. See, we have to imitate Jesus 24, 7, 7 days a week, every day of 

Application: Bear Fruit 24/7

the week.

That's for you. Seven days is all of them. 24 hours a day from the time you get up to the time you go to bed. We're supposed to be imitating Christ. That's witness to witness. So then once you abide in him, you can go tell people about him. And it doesn't have to be hard, right? You can find ways. Just loving 

Scripture: John 15:8 - Bear Much Fruit

people different.

Being patient can be different. Caring about people being kind, being considerate, those type of things, it matters. John 15, eight. It says, but this, my father, by this, my father is glorified. That you bear much fruit. Fruit and so prove to be my disciples. You want people to know that you're a disciple Jesus.

You gotta bear fruit. You gotta be more loving than our culture. More, more peaceful, more patient, more kind, more gentle, more considerate, more loving, right? More, have more self-control. All those things, more faithful. Than our culture, because our culture wants you to be like the culture, and the problem is our culture's awful.

It is. And it's not just our culture. It's not just I, it's not like I don't like America. I love America. But the culture of 2026, globally awful, awful. The culture of Christ bearing fruit, loving people, being patient with people, being kind and considerate, being gentle, being faithful. Having self-control over what you do, how you do what you say that matters.

That's what it looks like to be a disciple. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentle, and self-control. That's the fruit. That's how Jesus says, I will. People will know that you're my disciples. If you're not loving, if you're not kind, if you're not peaceful, if you're not those things, people aren't gonna know.

You gotta go imitate Christ. This isn't just for people who are 18 and over. This is for our middle schoolers. This is for Jackie at 12. This is for everybody. This is what we need to teach our kids. This is what we need to teach our grandkids. This is how we need to live. And you can do this with people you don't like and people that you do like.

There's people in my life. I'm working on this stuff all the time. I'm trying to love people so much so that they can know they're loved by Jesus and what I generally will say, that person just doesn't know they're gonna attend to Huddle, but they're eventually gonna attend to Huddle, and they're gonna attend Huddle because they're gonna try to figure out what we know here that they don't know.

I've got a person right now that I've been working on very intentionally in this community that one day is gonna come in these doors and I've just telling her, yeah, they're gonna 10 Hall, they just don't know yet. And it's not about hoddle, it's about Christ. What I'm saying is we're gonna love this person so well, myself and the church that they're gonna come here because they're just not gonna know what else to do.

'cause this is the only place they can figure that out and they wanna figure out why we love them so well. 'cause Jesus measures success by fruit, not attendance to church, not attendance to Bible study, not attendance to affinity group. He measured success by the fruit that you show. Yeah, it's great that we, we go to those things we should.

That's how we learn more and more about Jesus, so we can become better imitators of him. But he measured our success by our fruit. How loving we are, how kind we are, how peaceful we are, how self-control we are. That's how he measured our how we love him. And so what does this mean for you? Fruitfulness is evidence of real discipleship.

Application: Fruitfulness is Evidence of Real Discipleship

That's what looks like if you are a disciple of Christ, you're gonna be more like him. And the more you are a disciple of him, the more like him you should be. And if you don't have the fruit evidence of the fruit of spirit in your life, you are just a withered up apple tree. You are. And I'll be honest, I, there's probably been times where I've been a withered up apple tree.

I'm not just saying I'm perfect. We all, we all got withered apple seasons in our life. Right. Some of us need to start fertilizing with the gospel truth. I don't know. I, I didn't, this is all coming to me. I don't know. We'll see how that one goes. So, but that's spirit. But fruitfulness is evidence of real discipleship.

It really is. And so a couple questions for you. Are you growing a knowledge of Jesus so you can imitate him daily? Are you getting invested in him? We have, we have a lot of different groups. We have bible studies, we have affinity groups, we have women's groups, we have men. We have all different stuff going on in church.

Everything that we do is filtered through. We ask all of our leaders to make Jesus a part of everything. You wanna go fishing up north and catch salmon? I don't catch 'em, but you can catch 'em. Um. Right then there, the goal is there's like a, a time of a prayer every day or a a devotional or something.

Everything we ask ours to do is make Jesus part of everything we can. Go have all kinds of crazy fun, and we do have a lot of fun as a church, but Jesus is always the core of the fun, always the core of the relationship, always the core of everything, because that's it. Are you finding a way to plug in so that you're growing the knowledge of Jesus so you can imitate him more daily?

Are you getting that involved and invested in your faith? And other people's faith. And then are you reproducing your faith in others? This doesn't mean you have to have somebody live in your basement. It doesn't mean you need to have intentional relationships. I always know who my mentor is and I always know who my mentees are.

Always, and you should too. And if you don't have a mentee, someone you're pouring into, you need to find them. Because you are supposed to imitate Christ, so then others imitate Christ and you have to have those people and yeah, I know some of you can default. What's my wife and my kids? No, my spouse, no.

Like those are by default. Who else besides that are you pouring into? Right? Who are your kids and your spouse seeing you pour into? Right? How are they seeing you change someone's life? So they say, wow, I wanna be more like dad or mom because watch them pouring into these other people is just transformative.

I want my kids to see me pouring other people, not just them. It's intentional reproduction of faith in others that's discipleship. And so I think for us as a church, what we want to do is commit to discipleship that multiplies leaders, families, and faith. And you should do this in your own life so that one day you're standing in the lake baptizing people who are imitating you as you imitate Christ.

That's powerful. That's powerful. Jasmine was with me, uh, this last summer and we did a, we did a couple baptisms and like the women asked her to baptize them, and I didn't really know them that well. They were going to her bible study. They come to church. I just say hi. A lot of times somebody, I don't get to know you that well.

And so she was just so excited to be part of the baptism. She's like, can I do this? I'm like, yes, this is great. And just watching her baptize them was powerful. It was powerful. Like, those are the things that excite me at church. That, and when I get, when I get like a message from my Bible study group on the phone, like we do bible study at 6:00 AM every Thursday.

It's early. But what I love about it is it's not just Bible study. Those guys, when they go through stuff, it's a text to the group and it's like, Hey, I'm going through this, and the all the guys will respond. And like the quickest response is usually when somebody's going through something, it's not when I need to make a change to plans that can, that can be a delayed response.

But normally when something's happening, man, guys are on it right away. That's. That's just being involved in people's life, that's caring about what people care about, that's living out your faith imitating Christ so that other people then can imitate Christ. It's those type of things that matter. That's our commitment as a church, collectively as a church and individually that should be ours As individuals, you are ministers of the gospel just like I am and so.

Challenge: Are You a Withered Tree?

Today as we kinda close, I'm gonna make a challenge to you. If you think, I mean, go home. Go home today, and on the drive, this will be fun. Watch out for the deer. Um, but on the drive or at lunch, ask people, ask somebody, am I, am I a withered up tree? Right? Am I with it a tree? Am I bearing fruit? And then give them the ability to say, and you can just say, I like to say this.

Be honest with me. I can take it. Now, some of you have said that and you don't take it very well, but take it well. Because what happens is if, if the answer is not really, or you used to be, it's so that's an okay answer. There's been times where somebody would say, you used to be or not really right now, but then fix it.

And the way that you fix it is abide with Christ. Get more plugged into Christ. Get into Bible study. Get into your word. Get into your prayer life. Get with Christ. Get ness going on in your life, right? Have some ness. That's how you fix it. And become more and more like him and get a mentor, somebody who can pour into you and then start pouring into somebody else, showing them God's love, showing 'em the fruits of spirit.

And so as a church, that's what we gotta do. You know, if it's you, if not your spouse or your kids, they'll tell you or your friends, they'll tell you very clearly. If you're withered up tree, I don't want to be guilty of that. I wanna imitate Christ. And I wanna see people and take Christ in our church. And I want our church to grow, not because I care about if people come here.

I could care less if anybody else ever comes. What I care about is are we boldly introducing people to Jesus and are we multiplying through the discipleship? If we do that, God takes care of the rest. Honestly, always, that's our goal. And so as we pray, I'm just gonna pray that as we are a church, that we buy in Christ, that we live out the fruit in our life, and that we show people how to imitate Christ because we imitate Christ in our 

Closing Prayer

lives.

Let's pray. Heaven, father Lord, we just thank you for your word. Lord, we thank you for your son Jesus in his life, but we pray that we can imitate him more. Lord, we, we know the challenge in your word that you gave disciples is also for us. We need to go into the world and make disciples, and we do that by imitating you, by living out the fruits of Spirit in life.

And by finding others that we intentionally fish for so we can pour into them intentionally, those fruits of spirit, the love, the knowledge we have of Christ, and we can live it out and share with them how to live it out too. But I just pray that we all can get those relationships formed in our lives, that we all get a desire to go fish, make new relationships that are intentional so we can pour in the love of Christ in each other's lives.

But we pray that we can also, if we struggle, if we're withered, that we find someone to pour into us so that we can begin in this process of discipleship. And, and carry it out into other people in our lives. We just thank you. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.