John 3:1-8; Galatians 5:22-26
I am humbled when I think that 234 years ago today, a small band of some 50, very brave men gathered together in
These men had a mountain-moving faith, didn’t they? Can you imagine the mountains they had to sway others to join this treasonous act and then all the logistical mountains they had to move when it came to such things as communication, moving men and supplies, mustering troops, and simply knowing who was truly a patriot and who was a Tory.
We have no idea what they went through in order to bear the “fruit” that we enjoy, but we do know that historical winds were unleashed and released on July 4, 1776, and that on that day, sails were hoisted and the wind was captured.
A new “sail” was hoisted, a new banner was raised, and a new and mighty wind blew across the colonies before the ink had even dried on the Declaration. It was the wind of change. It was the wind of freedom. It was a God-given, God-driven, Holy Spirit inspired, wind.
Freedom is attained, mountains are moved, lives are saved, souls are won, and independence is gained when people of faith and conviction hoist their sails and capture the wind.
We’re going to move from mountains to wind here in July, because it is the wind of the Holy Spirit, said Jesus to Nicodemus in John 3, that moves believers forward in bearing good “fruit” for the
We can continue to leave a similar legacy of good “fruit” here at
So, how do we best do that?
John 3:1-7In order to “hoist the sails and capture the wind,” a person must first be on board.
One day, Art Linkletter asked a child who came on his show, Kids Say the Darndest Things, what Noah did in the Bible. The lad replied, “He took all the married animals on a boat and left the bachelors behind.” Pursuing this interesting line of reasoning, Linkletter asked again, “What does that story teach us?” The child answered, “Always be married – and you won’t be left behind on a boat ride.”
Dozens of generations after Noah successfully saved all the married animals from the Flood, a carpenter’s son from
One of those who heard this invitation was a Pharisee, a religious leader of the Jews, by the name of Nicodemus. His heart was being stirred by a wind he had never felt before. He could feel the breeze whispering through the rigging of his own soul. There was this “something” in Jesus that Nicodemus just had to get settled in his soul, because his soul was anything but settled.
So as you know, under the cover of darkness, Nicodemus finds Jesus and basically states the obvious: There’s something different about you, Jesus. What is it?
And I can almost hear Jesus respond to Nicodemus in a way like that precious little boy on the Art Linkletter show, saying, Come aboard, Nicodemus. I’m looking for people who desire to wed themselves to me, people who are tired of being bachelors and going it alone in this world without a Savior. Come aboard, Nicodemus. You really don’t want to miss this ride. Come aboard. Hoist your sails. Capture the wind that I bring, and together let’s bear good “fruit.”
Here’s the point: You and I cannot bear fruit for the Master unless we’re on board.
There is no way that a person can hoist the sails of their heart, capture the wind of the Holy Spirit, and bear good “fruit” for Christ, unless they’re first on board with Him. The only way to come on board this ship is to be “married” to Jesus Christ by being “born from above” and being “born of water and the Spirit” (John 3:3,5.)
When you gave your life to Christ, when you confessed your sins and accepted Him as your personal Lord and Savior, you entered into a marital, covenantal relationship with the Son of God. You were wedded to Jesus and you came aboard when you were born again.
On
And because they came on board, as did thousands of others, they produced “fruit” – fruit that has lasted. No person can hoist their spiritual sails, capture the wind of the Holy Spirit, and bear good “fruit” for the kingdom of God until they quit being a bachelor and come on board.
Galatians 5:22-25
When we “hoist the sails and capture the wind,” we must then allow the Holy Spirit to guide us because that’s the only way that we will bear good “fruit” for God.
Do you know why so many people who come on board and are born again in Christ still fail to hoist their sails, capture the wind, and bear good “fruit” for the
It’s because when they come on board, they want to be captain. They want to be in charge. And by the way, the “they” on any given day is you and I. We’ll come aboard, that’s not the problem. The problem is we want to be the wind, and if we can’t be the wind, then by golly let me have the helm….and we take the wheel from the Master, don’t we?
Jesus said to Nicodemus, to the man who was hearing the wind whispering in the riggings of his heart: “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes form or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8.)
Look at this text carefully.
Who’s in charge here, the wind or the one who’s windy?
In addressing the Christians in the Mediterranean
Take any movie, from westerns to Tarzan in the jungle, from Indiana Jones to John Wayne as a leader in the United States Marines – what happens when people who don’t know where they’re going decide to ditch the guide they choose to be “wedded” to and choose to go it alone?
They run into more troubles, they get lost, and some end up losing their lives.
When we get brutally serious with ourselves, it doesn’t take much convincing to confess that we have often forsaken the Holy Spirit as our guide, and when we did, we made matters worse. We sinned more. We hurt ourselves and others. We dragged others in to sin. We ended up eating crow. We had no peace, no sleep, no joy, or no prosperity in the process, did we?
Your heart has sails. You may have them hoisted, but are they in the right position to capture the wind? Are you adjusting your life so that the Holy Spirit, the Holy Bible, and holy living are guiding you? Or, are you expecting God to adjust and reposition Himself to your sinful ways?
I don’t do that with my children, so why in the world would I expect God to treat me in a similar way, giving in to my demands just to keep me on board.
The wind blows where it wills. You don’t know on any given day where God wants to send you, who He wants to bless through you, or what “fruit” He wants you to bear in His name. You don’t know where the wind comes from or where it is going, but you can hoist your spiritual sails and position them accurately every day through the reading of your Bible, spending time with the Lord in prayer, singing sacred music, and as Joyce Meyer keeps saying, “Get up and do something good for someone.”
You may be on board and be born again. You can sign your name and be wedded to the Lord. But the question of the day is, “Who’s guiding you?”
Who guided the signers of the Declaration of Independence when they penned their names to the ship manifest of the newly commissioned battleship, “The United States of America?”
To the man, they would have said that they were guided by the Creator who has endowed all of us with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
You see, they bore “fruit” because they were not just on board. They bore good “fruit” because they lived by the Spirit and were guided by the Spirit. And so shall we when we follow.
Galatians 24:26
Becoming conceited, competing against one another, and failing to crucify the passions and the desires of the flesh will always take the wind out of our sails and we will fail to bear good “fruit” for God.
Have you ever heard of the “doldrums?”
The doldrums are places at sea along the equator where there are dead calms that leave a sailing vessel “dead in the water, ” often for days on end…blistering, hot, torturous days.
It’s dead in the water because the wind has been taken out of her sails.
Individual Christians and whole churches can sail into the doldrums and, consequently, fail to bear good “fruit” if they are not attentive to being on board, rightly positioned, and rightly related to one another. For there are things between us on board that can take the wind out of our sails here at St. John’s and leave us dead in the water.
To lure us into the spiritual doldrums, all Satan has to do is scatter the seeds of conceit (thinking that you are better than someone else), competition (thinking that you can one-up someone else), and envy (having ill-will towards someone for who they are or what they have that you wish you had.) These three are an “unholy trinity” that will leave any Christian and any church in the doldrums, spiritually dead in the water. They will take the wind out of the sails of the great things that God is doing and plans to do in a church. They must be rooted out and destroyed if we find them in our hearts or in the heart of a church.
You and I would not be here today, as citizens of the
The Lord Jesus is calling us in our day to come on board, to hoist our spiritual sails and capture the wind of His Holy Spirit, living by it and being guided by it. When we do so, we will be the patriots of our day, inviting others to come on board this freedom ship for the sake and purpose of bearing good “fruit” for the
