Introduction:
Knowing How to Abide: A Metaphor from the Vineyard. (John 15:1-11):
- The Father Cares for His branches. (John 15:1-3)
Galatians 5:22-23 - But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control...
- The Son Produces Fruit in the branches. (John 15:4-6)
- Our job is to Abide . (John 15:4)
Three Evidences You Are Abiding in Christ:
- You see Prayer answered. (John 15:7-8)
- You keep Jesus' Commandments . (John 15:9-10)
- Your life is marked by Joy . (John 15:11)
Hebrews 12:2 - looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:53-00:57
We seek You now through Your Word which You have given us, Father.
01:01-01:09
Your church comes to You in the name and through the blood of Your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior forever.
01:10-01:24
And all of God's people said, "Amen." Muhammad Ali said, "I am the greatest." I said that even before I knew I was.
01:26-01:49
Richard Nixon said, "I am not a crook." Darth Vader said, "Luke, I am your father." You know, when you start a sentence with the phrase "I am," that's powerful.
01:50-01:53
Because what you're about to do is to define yourself.
01:54-01:55
This is who I am.
01:58-02:00
We hear it all the time, right?
02:00-02:03
People say, "Hey, hey, I am retired.
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I am a Marine.
02:08-02:22
I am a cancer survivor." And Jesus Christ made some serious "I am" statements, and they were even more than just self-disclosures because every single one of them tied into his deity.
02:23-02:57
You see, "I Am" is the name of God back in Exodus 3.14, when Moses said, "Who should I tell them sent me?" God says His name is "I Am." And today, Jesus tells us, "I Am the true vine." Yeah, you read your Old Testament, so many times Israel was referred to as a vine, but every time that vine metaphor comes up in Israel, it's to highlight Israel's faithlessness.
03:00-03:04
Because Israel never lived up to God's standard.
03:06-03:13
But in contrast to that, Jesus says, "I am the true vine." I'm the true vine.
03:15-03:16
Look at where we left off last week.
03:17-03:44
Jesus said in chapter 14, verse 31, He says, "Rise, let us go from here." So there's a thought that at this point, we have left the table, and we are walking to the Garden of Gethsemane, and the disciples, in either case, whether they're still in the room or whether they're walking, are surely processing everything Jesus just said that we've covered with these past several messages.
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And John, the disciples had been thinking through this, like, okay, like he said he's leaving, but he's gonna be with us and we're gonna have all the resources of heaven and it's better that he leaves.
04:01-04:03
And oh sure, we get it, right?
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Because we live on this side of Pentecost.
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So we understand just by virtue of where we live in history, but can you imagine how perplexing this would have been to the disciples?
04:19-04:23
Like, how is he leaving and still with us at the same time?
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And see, that's why I believe at this point, they did leave, they were on the way to the Garden of Gethsemane, and they would have been walking through many of the vineyards in the area.
04:34-04:39
And Jesus used that to give them the perfect picture.
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Walking through the vineyard, verse one, in chapter 15, Jesus said, "I am the true vine.
04:47-05:01
"And my Father is the vine dresser." Down to verse five, "I am the vine, you are the branches." Okay, so Jesus is gonna give us this metaphor.
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This is a metaphor, right?
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Analogy, simile, which one is this?
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Is this a metaphor?
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Okay, some English teachers sitting here like cringing right now.
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Like I just want to make sure that I get it right.
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Jillian, is this a metaphor?
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Okay, Jillian says it's a metaphor.
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I think, all right, that's what we're going with.
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So in this picture, the father is the vine dresser.
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Jesus says, I'm the vine and you are the branches.
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And Jesus says, "As the vine, I'm the source of your life.
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And as the branches, you are attached to me and you're getting your life and your growth from me." And in this metaphor, the Father is overseeing all of this.
05:50-05:53
So jot some things down here on your outline, knowing how to abide.
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Here's a metaphor from the vineyard.
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A metaphor from the vineyard, number one, The Father cares for his branches.
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Okay, this is the first picture here.
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The Father cares for his branches.
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And that's the first thing that Jesus points out here is the Father cares and he is personally involved in your life.
06:19-06:23
Despite popular opinion, God is actively involved in your life.
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Did you know that a well-cared for vine can produce fruit for hundreds of years.
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Did you know that?
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Hundreds of years.
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Like how does that happen?
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It has to be expertly cared for is the thing.
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And see, that's the picture that Jesus is painting.
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We have the ultimate expert vinekeeper here in the Father.
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And Jesus points out that in this vineyard, there's two kinds of branches.
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There's fruitful and there's unfruitful.
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So the father, as the vine dresser, has two jobs.
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Let's talk about the first job, picking up in verse one.
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He says, "I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser.
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Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away." Let's stop there.
07:17-07:21
The first job, the branches that don't bear fruit, he says he takes away.
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At a certain time of the year, The vine dresser's job is to cut off what are called the sucker shoots.
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Like what is a sucker shoot?
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It's a little branch that grows off of the branch, that grows leaves, but it's never going to grow fruit.
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And you see the vine dresser has to cut those off.
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Why?
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Because those sucker shoots have a way of drawing the life and vitality from the vine, so much so that it affects the fruit on the plant.
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And the vine dresser says, "Well, this branch is never gonna produce fruit, "so we gotta get rid of that "for the health of the overall branch, the overall vine." And I imagine the disciples were starting to connect some dots.
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Like a branch that's not fruitful that's removed.
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Does that sound like anybody we know?
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Does that sound like anybody?
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Judas, right? Judas was just dismissed.
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And he was the perfect illustration of this.
08:31-08:36
Yeah, we have a branch that's seemingly connected, but he's not, he's not fruitful.
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So the vine dresser prunes that, gets it off the vine.
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You're like, "Yeah, well, Judas, right? Oh, Judas." But the reality is that churches are full of fruitless branches.
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Churches are.
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You're like, "Not this church." Yeah, this church.
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Every church is going to have some fruitless branches.
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You're going to have people that attend.
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And you're going to have people that even affirm the beliefs of the church.
09:11-09:16
Like, "Oh yeah, yeah, I'm on board with that. Sure, sure, I believe that." You're going to even have people that get involved.
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Like, "Oh, this is a good thing. You know, we're doing the train thing for the kids.
09:19-09:27
That sounds like a good thing." And you have people that look like they're involved, but they have zero interest in being connected to Jesus Christ.
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Zero interest!
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When I leave here, that's where my commitment to God ends, okay?
09:34-09:41
But connected to Jesus in my home, in my workplace, in my private life, I'm not interested in all that.
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Those branches eventually leave the church.
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Eventually they're cut off.
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Well, here's the second job, picking up in verse 2.
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The second job, he says, "Every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit.
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Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you." That sounds a lot like what he said, I believe, in chapter 13, verse 10.
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But the second job of the vine dresser, the fruitful branches get pruned.
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Okay? Not cut off, they get cut back.
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And this is what God does to all of His true people.
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True, genuine, born again in Jesus Christ believers, we get pruned.
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God is working to make you more fruitful.
10:57-11:01
And I'll be honest with you, this sometimes can be hard to swallow.
11:04-11:15
Because what that means, is anything in your life that God recognizes is inhibiting your growth, He will cut it off.
11:15-11:18
Even if it's something that you don't think is inhibiting your growth.
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because you don't have God's perspective or his knowledge or his wisdom.
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He does. And he's like, "Oh, this isn't going to be good for you, so I'm cutting it off." Like, "How could God cut that off? That's the exact thing!" God's like, "No, no, it's not. It's got to go. It's got to go." Right?
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Why, Christians, are we sometimes deprived of something we want?
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Like, we really want this, and, "Oh, God, this would be so good for me!
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Why can't I have this?" Because God as the vinedresser says, "No, you can't have that because it's not going to be good for your growth." Why is it that a sincere Christian can be passed over for that promotion at work?
11:59-12:10
Like, "Hey, I was more qualified than that guy, and he got the job!" How can that be? Because the vinedresser knows if you get that promotion, that's not going to be good for your growth.
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So we're cutting that off.
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How can a child of God come to financial ruin?
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You know, many times the answer is simply this.
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God is pruning.
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And Christian, you cannot ever look at your life as a series of random misfortunes, like, "Well, that was unlucky of me." It's not unlucky, because the vine dresser pays close attention to the vine, every branch, every shoot, and he's like, "This is not going to be good for you, but if I cut this, you're going to be even more fruitful." Like, man, that's hard.
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Yeah, it is.
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Like, where is it written that it was going to be easy?
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Because change can be painful.
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I mean, I've never interviewed a prune branch before.
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But I imagine if you went to the vineyard and asked a branch that was just pruned and it was able to talk, it should be weird.
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But how did that feel?
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How did that feel when He came and snipped all of those appendages off of you?
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"It hurts!" But why did He do it?
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Because He knows I'll be more fruitful without those things drawing the life out of me.
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You're like, "Okay, you're talking about fruit, you know, fruitfulness. What is fruit?" Well, biblically fruit is a lot of things.
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But, in this context, fruit primarily refers to Christ-like character.
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And I would suggest to you that Christ-like character is the foundation for every other fruit that there is, like people coming to Christ, and good works, and things like that.
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It has to start with Christ-like character.
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And the Bible talks about that fruit.
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Galatians 5, verses 22 and 23 says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." He has something interesting about that.
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See the first three, love, joy, peace.
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Those things are, those three are kind of the, you could say they're kind of the starting place for the other ones too, right?
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And interestingly, in this upper room talk that Jesus gives the disciples, those are three things he specifically promised his disciples, his love, his joy.
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We're gonna get to that in a second.
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And the last week we saw he promised his peace.
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So this is the fruit that God wants to produce in you.
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He wants you to have this, because this is like His Son.
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This is what God wants for you.
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And it's not instantaneous.
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And heaven knows I wish it was.
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It's a process. It is a growth process.
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Sanctification.
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The Father's way of producing fruit.
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He's going to come into your life.
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If you're a true Christian, "Born again, he's going to come into your life "as a vinedresser, caring for you, actively at work, "pruning you to make you more fruitful." All right, so the father cares for his branches.
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Number two, in this metaphor, the son produces fruit in the branches.
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Look at verse four.
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Jesus says, "Abide in me, and I in you." As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.
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Abide, that word comes up a lot.
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It's in this passage like nine or 10 times.
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Abide, abide.
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You're like, what does that mean?
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What's that mean?
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It's very simple.
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It just means remain.
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It just means stay close, stay attached.
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That's what abide means.
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And there's two parts of abiding here.
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Jesus said, there's first of all our part, we are to abide in Him, and then the second part of that equation is He is going to abide in us.
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So I want to talk about Jesus' part of that for a second.
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Verse 5, Jesus said, "I am the vine, you are the branches.
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Whoever abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." This is Jesus' part.
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This is what we can expect to happen.
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This is what we can trust God to bring about.
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That a branch attached to a vine will be fruitful.
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That is just a truth of life, agriculturally and spiritually.
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But at the same time, in both realms, it is also true that an unattached branch will not produce fruit.
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It just won't.
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And when we are unattached to Jesus, there is no fruit in our lives.
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Because Jesus said a statement here, that I pray echoes in your heart and mind the way that it does mine, and has for a couple of decades now.
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expression he said, "Apart from me, you can do nothing." Well, look, you can do many things without Christ.
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I mean, let's be honest. You can do a lot of stuff without Christ.
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You can care for your family. You can run a business.
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You can be a good neighbor, and you can look really, really, really busy.
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But if in your busyness, you're not abiding in Christ, you're not becoming Christ-like from God's point of view, from Christ's perspective here, you've literally accomplished nothing in your life, that you're going to cross the finish line of death someday and you've accomplished zero in your life because you haven't been abiding in Christ.
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You're fruitless.
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You're fruitless.
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Okay, okay, well maybe I am fruitless.
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So what's the problem with that?
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Well, look at verse 6.
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Jesus said, "If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers.
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When the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned." You know, I don't know what it is, but we moved to a beautiful downtown economy, what was that, in 2016?
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I don't know if the weather changed or if it's just the way it's always been in economy, but we get some crazy windstorms.
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You know, every time we get one of these, one time we had this windstorm come through, our trampoline was way up in the neighbor's yard.
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I had to call Ryan Stroop to help me carry it back to our yard, it was so far away.
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Like how does a windstorm, Well, every time we get one of these windstorms, we get branches all over our yard.
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And these branches that fall into the yard, they take root and now we have a forest in our backyard.
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You believe that?
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You shouldn't.
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You're like, that's impossible because once the branch is attached from the plant, what is it?
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It's dead.
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And do you know what we do?
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Is we walk around the yard and we gather up those sticks and we throw them in the burn ring.
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Because that's about all they're good for at that point.
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And that's the exact picture that Jesus is using to describe someone not abiding in him.
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You know what you're good for?
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Nothing.
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You've refused to abide in me, so the day's going to come that you're going to be gathered up and burned.
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That's the picture of the great white throne judgment.
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So what makes a difference between a fruitful branch and an unfruitful branch?
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Abiding.
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That's the difference.
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Being attached to the vine.
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That's the difference.
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And you've got to hear me closely.
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Because coming to Jesus Christ is so much more than just picking your religion.
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Coming to Jesus Christ is so much more than joining a church or attending a church.
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Coming to Christ is more than subscribing to a certain morality.
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Some people think that's where it begins and ends.
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Like look, what do you want from me Jeff?
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I'm in church, right?
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Isn't that good enough for God?
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And the answer is no, it's not.
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Because coming to Christ is nothing less, nothing less than being attached to Him and receiving life from Him the way a branch receives life from a vine.
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If you have anything less than that, then you have nothing in Christ at all.
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The sun produces fruit in the branches.
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And our job, verse 4, we saw, our job is to abide.
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That's the command.
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You know, it's the one thing that Jesus calls you to, really, honestly.
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Everything else.
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It goes through this filter.
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It's abiding in Him.
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It's remaining.
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It's staying close to Jesus.
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It's being attached to Jesus.
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That's what He calls you to.
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That is what Jesus is calling you to.
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Abide.
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Abide.
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This one word describes everything that the Christian life is all about.
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It's in that one word.
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Because anything and everything that Jesus wants to do with you and through you and in and you all starts and ends with one condition, abiding in Christ.
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But do you know what we do church as people?
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Do you know what we do?
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We tend to focus on the fruit, don't we?
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Like what matters church?
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I'll tell you what, the fruit matters.
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We're gonna focus on the fruit.
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That's what Jesus wants from us.
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Jesus wants the fruit.
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so we gotta focus on the fruit.
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And if we're gonna focus on the fruit, then we gotta manufacture some fruit.
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But you know, we're not commanded to produce fruit.
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Well, there's one time the Bible says, there is one command in the Bible about fruitfulness.
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And you go back to the Old Testament, and God commands us to be fruitful and multiply.
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And I'm like, I know this church has that one down.
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So we're not talking about that.
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But church, we're not commanded to produce fruit.
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Jesus isn't going to come back and say, "Let me see the fruit," because that's really what matters is how much fruit you have.
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What matters individually and corporately, church, is abiding.
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Because then, when we abide, Jesus will produce the fruit.
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Jesus will work through us if we are attached to Him.
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Because Jesus said, "Apart from Me, you can do nothing." Right? You know what he said? "Apart from me, you can do what? Nothing." So why do we try? I mean, why are we so prone to trusting our talents and our creativity our network more than abiding.
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Why do we do that?
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You know, why do we set out to say, here's what we're gonna do, church.
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We're gonna reach this number of people and we're gonna raise this much money and we're gonna have VBS and we're gonna have FPU and we're going to change the world, church.
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And then somebody comes along and says, hey, how's your personal prayer life going?
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You're like, "I ain't got time for that.
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I got stuff to do for Jesus, yo." Personal prayer life.
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You see a problem?
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Or the other thing we do, this is where it gets real convicting for me.
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We can look at past accomplishments and say, "Hey, I can do this.
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I can do this.
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I can do this." Like, "Hey Aaron, you know what?
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I don't really need to pray that much this week because the passage that I'm preaching, and I've preached on this passage before.
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I know this passage really well.
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I know how to put a sermon together.
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I've been doing it for like 20 some years.
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I can do this.
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I don't really need to spend all this time praying and seeking like I do sometimes.
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I mean, some weeks, obviously I have to, but this week, this week's in the bag." What?
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That is backwards thinking, church.
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If you want fruits, and we do want fruit, the primary concern has to be the spiritual health of the branch.
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In other words, instead of trying to manufacture fruit, which we can't, the most fruitful thing we can do as a church is to focus on our walk with Jesus Christ.
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That's why we're spending this series, three years, knowing Jesus.
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Why are we doing that?
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Because this is what matters.
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If we're gonna be fruitful as a church, drawing near to Jesus in His Word, in prayer, fasting, repenting, fellowship, abiding.
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He produces the fruit through you.
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And it's at this point that maybe you're like me.
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These are very convicting words from Jesus, right?
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And at this point we're like, "Am I though?
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Am I abiding?
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Am I a true living branch in Christ, abiding in Christ, or am I not?
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Am I just a church-goer?
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Am I just a church streamer?
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But not really attached to the life of Christ.
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Well, we're blessed that Jesus didn't leave us hanging.
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So as we head down the home stretch here, three evidences that you're abiding in Christ.
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Here's three evidences that you're abiding in Christ.
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A) You see prayer answered.
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You see prayer answered.
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Look at verses 7 and 8.
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Jesus said, "If..." "If" - did you catch that? "If..." Ah, He's selling us.
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You're going to see some proof here.
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"If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.
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By this My Father has glorified that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples." Jesus is giving the conditions here.
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If, right?
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If, if you abide, His words abide in you.
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If, Jesus isn't promising to fulfill every whim.
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Like, oh, Jesus right here says, you know, if I pray for the Corvette, He'll give me the Corvette.
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Like, that's not what He said at all.
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But if you give me one, I won't turn it down.
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But that's not what He's promising.
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He's saying we need to abide in Him And specifically here, He also brings this truth, that we have to have His words abide in us.
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And you see, it's praying according to His Word.
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And church, your prayer life will take off like never before if you learn how to pray like this.
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Because if we're going to be honest, A lot of us get bored with prayer.
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Prayer is boring.
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Do you know why prayer is boring?
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Do you know why you're bored with prayer?
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It's because you pray the same old things about the same old things, and that will bore anybody.
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Right?
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We pray the same stuff about the same stuff.
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Okay, God bless grandma.
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God heal Uncle Jim.
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You know, God be with me today.
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You need to learn how to pray the word of God.
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And if you do that, you'll find that you can't pray enough.
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And your prayer life becomes exciting and interactive and you get done praying feeling as if you had a two-way conversation with God.
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Like, well, how do I pray the word of God?
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Did a whole thing on this a while back, just very quickly.
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You take a passage of Scripture and you read a portion and then you pray that back to God.
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However, the Spirit leads you to pray that back to God.
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Okay?
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For example, Psalms are the easiest place to do this by the way, because Psalms are divinely inspired but they're written from the perspective of man to God.
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So Psalms are easiest to do this.
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For example, take like the 23rd Psalm.
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"Make it part of your prayer life." What's the first line?
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"The Lord is my shepherd." Okay, God, I'm gonna pray about that.
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God, I thank you that you're my shepherd because I'm a helpless sheep.
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And God as shepherd, I know that you're providing for me.
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I know you care for me.
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I know you're watching me.
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God, thank you.
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I need a shepherd.
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So God, thank you for your care for me.
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God, I thank you that that's the level of involvement you have in my life.
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Do you see?
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Now what's the next line?
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The Lord is my shepherd.
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What's the next line?
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I shall not want, right?
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God, I thank you that when I'm in you and following you, I don't lack for anything.
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You provided everything I need.
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And God, I just wanna thank you.
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Everything that I have right now, you provided, and I know the things that I'm going to need, you're gonna provide because your word says, I shall not want when I'm with the shepherd.
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Do you see how praying the word of God just energizes your prayer life?
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But do you know what else it does?
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It results in you seeing prayer answered because you're abiding in the word And Jesus Christ gave a promise here.
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When you pray like this, you're going to see him answer prayer.
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When your heart and mind is saturated with God's word, when you have eyes of faith, you're going to see him working.
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So I just have to ask you, when was the last time that you personally saw prayer answered?
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Meaning, when was the last time you prayed very specifically for something And you received a crystal clear answer on that.
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And right now, if you're saying, "Well, you know what, Jeff, I'm gonna be honest with you, I don't know if I've ever seen that." Then I have some bad news for you.
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You aren't abiding in Christ, because he says when you are, you will see prayer answered.
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Like, "Man, Jeff, I don't know.
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I can't remember the last time.
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I can't remember the last time I saw prayer answered.
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Then I would say, "Are you abiding in Christ?" And I bet the farm your answer would be, "Not like I need to." Because Jesus promised you're gonna see prayer answered.
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If you're truly abiding, right now you know what I'm talking about because you've seen it and you are seeing it right now.
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Letter B, three evidences you're abiding in Christ, you keep Jesus' commandments.
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Look at verses nine and 10.
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Verses nine and 10.
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As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.
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Abide in my love.
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If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.
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Just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love.
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I can't even...
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I can't wrap my brain around it, let alone explain it.
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But Jesus said that He loves us with the same love that the Father has for Him.
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I can't even...
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I can't even wrap my brain around that.
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But here's something I can wrap my brain around.
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He calls us to respond to Him the same way that He responded to His Father.
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Did Jesus love the Father?
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Did Jesus love the Father?
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This is a yes or no question.
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Did Jesus love the Father?
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Yes!
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How do you know?
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How do you know?
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Through His obedience, right?
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That is the way He demonstrated His love for His Father.
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I'm going to do what He told me to do.
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That's why I'm here.
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I'm here.
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I'm here to do what the Father told me to do.
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Nothing more, nothing less." Like, "Wow, wow, he really loves the Father." Yes.
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Yes.
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It was loyalty demonstrated in obedience.
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And again, church, you can say you're a Christian serving in his church, but if you aren't showing your love for Jesus through personal obedience to his word, then you aren't abiding in his love.
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Because obedience is the benchmark of abiding.
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Obedience is the benchmark of abiding according to Jesus.
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You're like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, Jeff.
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I thought we were saved by grace, not saved by obedience." Yeah, that's still true.
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See obedience is the evidence that you are saved.
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Obedience is the evidence that you are abiding.
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But here's the thing, and this is what a lot of people miss when it comes to obedience.
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It's a matter of want to.
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It's a matter of want to.
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It's a hard issue, right?
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How did Jesus obey the Father?
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Do we see Jesus walking around during His ministry like, "Oh, this is what my Father wants me to do, and I'm not really thrilled about that.
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I don't really agree with it, but I'm going to do it." Is that how we see Jesus obeying?
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No.
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No.
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And you see, Jesus had this attitude of, "Father, I love you, and I trust you, so I'm doing things your way." And that's the attitude of the abiding branch.
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If that's your attitude towards Jesus Christ, you say, "Jesus, I love You, and I trust You, so I'm doing things Your way." How are we doing there, church?
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Are you showing your love and loyalty to Jesus Christ through obedience?
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You're like, "Well, no, not really." Well, then you're not abiding, if you're not.
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Then finally, your life is marked by joy.
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Life is marked by joy.
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Look at verse 11.
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Jesus said, "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full." You're like, "Jesus, what's your endgame here with all this?" Jesus says the result of abiding is having His joy.
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Having Jesus' joy.
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You're like, "Well, what's Jesus' joy like?" Hebrews 12.2 gives us a peek here.
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Hebrews 12.2 says, "Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
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What was Jesus' joy?
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Jesus' joy was being used by God.
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Jesus' joy was doing what His Father wants.
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And there is no greater joy than God accomplishing eternal purposes through you.
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There's no greater joy.
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And I would challenge you to submit anything in this world to me, and say, "This is greater than that." It's not.
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There is nothing greater than, "God's using me to advance His kingdom.
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I see fruit. I see God's eternal purposes." If you've ever led somebody to Christ, you know exactly what I'm talking about right now.
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If you've ever baptized someone, you know exactly what I'm talking about right now.
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If you've ever discipled someone, if you've ever taught children the Word of God, if you've ever ministered to a small group in your home, whatever, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
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There is no greater joy than knowing that the Father is producing fruit through you." That was Jesus' joy.
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In fact, that was Jesus' joy all the way to the cross, right?
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Because Jesus, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross.
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I'm going to ask the worship team to come forward.
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If we can get a couple of our elders to come forward.
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I saw Dawn's here.
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We're going to come to the Lord's table.
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As the worship team plays, we're going to ask, when you're ready to receive, to come up the center aisles, receive from one of our elders, and go on the outside aisles to return to your seat.
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I'm going to ask that you hold on to the elements, And when everybody has received who wants to receive, and this is for believers, but when every believer has received every abiding branch, we're going to receive the Lord's Supper together.
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Because our faith was founded by Jesus.
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It was perfected by Jesus.
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And because He is divine, it's empowered by Jesus.
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You know, somebody might say, "Jeff, aren't you afraid a message like that would chase people away?" My answer is, I hope so.
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I hope it does.
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Because I know that the people that are truly abiding in Christ aren't going to run from a message like that.
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But the people that aren't abiding and have no intention to, those branches are going to be removed anyways.
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So I'm not worried about losing those branches.
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My concern is for the branches that are bearing fruit.
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Because Jesus Christ is coming soon, and there's work to be done.
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So our focus has to be on healthy branches that bear fruit.
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And to those, on the night that Jesus was betrayed, He took bread and He broke it and He gave thanks, and He said, "This is My body which is broken for you.
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Eat this in remembrance of Me." The Bible says that after the meal, Jesus took the cup, and He said, "This is the blood of the new covenant which is poured out for the forgiveness of sin.
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Drink this in remembrance of Me."
Small Group Discussion
Read John 15:1-11
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Tell of a way that the Lord has pruned you. What happened? How did you know it was “of God”? How did you grow in Christlikeness as a result?
Prayer answered, keeping Jesus’ commandments, possessing Jesus’ joy - Which evidence of abiding is strongest in you? In which area do you struggle? What can you do to better draw near to Christ and abide in this area?
Breakout
Pray for one another.