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24

Jan, 2021

Abide

  • joy
  • strength
  • abiding in Christ
  • protection
  • care


n/a



eso Good morning, Thio. Everyone who's here with us this morning and for anyone who might be watching us online or listening. Thio our podcast. My name is Kevin Millar on the student pastor here, Holland Avenue. And our pastor has actually spent this whole last week being a guest lecture for a Bible school in Texas. He's been doing it virtually, but that is left him very, very, very busy this past week. But I actually received a text message from someone at the school. I guess it was probably Wednesday night I got a text and he just wanted me to relay a message to all of you that he was thankful that we were letting then borrow Dow for a week. And I said that it was no problem. You're grateful to have him for one week. We're grateful to have him every other week of the year. So our pastor has been teaching many hours all week. S o. We're thankful that he had that opportunity. There was one other message that, uh, this guy from the school who, by the way, his name is Kevin Aziz. Well, it's not confusing at all, but Kevin sent me a text and said Now, I also want you to tell everyone that if there are any Native Texans in the congregation or maybe anyone who's even visited Texas or the Midwest before that I will happily continue to eat What a burger on their behalf. So that is a message from Kevin. Not this Kevin, but the other Kevin. So we will actually be in John Chapter 15 this morning. So if you have your Bible, you can just turn Thio John 15. But before we before we jump in, we have to talk about a little bit of background information so that we can better understand what the Lord has for us. From John Chapter 15. So in the book of John Jesus makes seven. I am statements he makes eight. If you count in John eight when he says before Abraham was, I am. But these seven I am. Statements are I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the door or I'm the gate. I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, the truth and the life and I am a true vine. So this morning, before we jump into our text, I want to take just a brief look at these passages. I am the bread of life was the first of these. I am statements that Jesus made Jesus had just got done feeding the 5000 men and presumably some women and Children as well. He had just fed them lunch. So the next day they wanted lunch again. So they showed up. Toe may be here a little bit from Jesus, but definitely to be fed by him. But when they got there, Jesus explained to them that there was something even better for them and more satisfying for them then bread. And that was himself. Jesus. Being the bread of life doesn't just satisfy our stomachs. He satisfies our everlasting soul. I am The light of the world was the next That was in chapter eight of John Jesus was teaching here that like light in the darkness, he reveals salvation to those who are in darkness and can't see past their own sin. But he also said here that he speaks testimony about himself. So Jesus, again teaching that salvation belongs to him and him alone. I am the door, or I am the gate found in Chapter 10 of John. And in this passage, Jesus explains how he protects his sheep, and he protects his sheep by acting as a door or a gate, keeping out wolves and keeping out enemies, but also keeping the sheep from wandering out themselves. Our salvation in Jesus is secure because he protects us. He protects us from enemies. He protects us from wolves who might harm us. But he also protects us from our own misguided wandering. A few verses later, Jesus explains how he does this by calling himself the good shepherd. Jesus explains that the good shepherd protects his sheep and provide salvation for his sheep by laying down his life for them. The shepherd has a relationship with the sheep. He cares for his sheep. Because of this, he lays down his life, offering a salvation that only he can give to his sheep. The next I am statement is I am the resurrection and the life. Jesus perfectly illustrated this in John, Chapter 11, when he brought his friend Lazarus back from the dead. Jesus proved there, and John 11, that not only does he have the ability to physically speaking bring the dead to life. But spiritually speaking, he brings the dead toe life even today. And then in John Chapter 14, maybe at this point Jesus was growing tired of having to explain all of these statements. So he laid it out. We're really clearly here. Jesus says I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father or no one received salvation except through me. So if you haven't gotten the idea by now, okay, salvation belongs to Jesus. Jesus is the only means of salvation. Which brings us to John 15. I am the truth. I'm so I am the true vine is a little bit different than the other. I am statements that we've seen so far I am the true vine seems to almost act as a culminating statement or a final statement. The previous six statements were all related to the question of how does one get saved from sin? I am the true vine, though takes it a step further. I am the true vine answers the question Well, what now? Or as the video We watched a minute ago said How do we grow? So those are the questions we're going to be answering today Before we dio Let's pray once again your heavenly Father God, I thank you for this opportunity. I thank you that we have the freedom the ability to come to this place this morning that you have granted us the desire Thio, come to Church and Thio study your word and sing songs of praise to you Father, do not let us take that for granted. God! As we look into John 15 this morning let us see very clearly what your son has to say when he says that he is the true vine God let us understand what that means. And God, when we see that you are the vine dresser, let us know without a shadow of a doubt what you did God. As we continue on into this sermon, I just ask that you will take away any thoughts or distractions worldly influences from our minds and from our hearts. And that you will even take away my words this morning that you'll replace them all with your words God, let us hear from you this morning. We love you. It's in her son Jesus name. We pray. Hey, Mr So how much do you know about Garden? If someone were to ask me that question, I'd have to embarrassingly say, I know about as much about gardening as I know about buying women's shoes and to my wife's dismayed. That means I know nothing about gardening because I know nothing about buying women's shoes on. Probably in trouble with that, because my daughter is not even 20 months old and she already love shoes, so we'll see how that goes. So in prepping for this sermon, I had had to do a little bit of research on gardening. We're talking about vines and branches. I had to do a little bit of research on gardening, and one of the things that I learned is that vines that bear fruit need to be pruned in order to better grow more fruit. Some of you might think that's a really obvious thing, and well, Kevin, you should have known that will. Now I do now, I do know. But knowing this helps us to make sense of the passage that we're studying this morning now, in order for us to get to the primary application of this passage, which we see in versus four and five about abiding in Christ. In order for us to get to that point, we have to take a deeper look into Jesus illustration that starts in verses one through three. So Verse one and John, 15, says this. I am the true vine and my father is divine dresser. So Jesus is making his final I am statement here that we just talked about him in Jesus is making the final statement. He calls himself here the true vine, which sounds cool, but we don't necessarily know what that means if we don't look into it a little bit more well in the Old Testament, God called Israel Levine. He did that a couple places I know in the Book of Isaiah in the Book of Jeremiah. He did this. He called Israel Levine. But over the years, Israel had kind of misconstrued their role as God's chosen vine as to thinking that they were God's only chosen vine, that they were the Onley people of God, and because they thought this they actually thought that they were the Onley people who could have a relationship with God. So Jesus hear he differentiates himself from that by calling himself the true vine. He differentiates himself from Israel and their faithlessness by pointing to the fact that he is faithful and true. When Israel failed God over and over again, as they did in the Old Testament and even as we do today, Christ was perfectly faithful. Christ was sinless. See, being part of Israel does not and did not make anyone have a true relationship with God. To put that in modern terms, coming to church that doesn't make anyone necessarily have a relationship with God. Calling yourself a Christian even doesn't necessarily mean that you have a relationship with God doing good things, saying the right things. These don't make us have a relationship with God. Onley having a true and faithful relationship with God means we have a relationship with God. And when Jesus calls himself the true vine here there seems to be an implied warning that there are false vines everywhere. There are worldly influences that will try to distract us from the true vine. Sometimes these are the enemies that you might expect. Sometimes they might even be the people who claim to be the people of God. But this tells us that relying on people is not going to ever leave us fully satisfied. That's because people will fail you. I'll fail you. Your spouse will fail you. Your kids will fail. You, your friends will fail you. Everyone you know, has the potential to failure. But we can be satisfied in Christ because we know that he will never fail us. He is true vine, and he calls his father vine dresser and vine dresser. Prunes the branches on the vine, and this pruning is mentioned in the next verse in Verse two. Jesus says every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that doesn't bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit so fine Dresser knows a whole lot more about gardening than I do. Because of that vine. Dresser would have already known that the branches on a vine need to be pruned in order to remove what is dead and what his lifeless what is getting in the way of the plant. And they also know that they need to prune back the living branches so that they will grow better. So it seems like there's two types of pruning that the vine dresser that God the father does to the branches. The first is seen in the final judgment at the final judgment. The Lord God will completely separate those who are dead and separated from Christ from those who are alive in him. Scripture attest to that. Last week, if you were, if you were able to be here, are able to listen to Michael Kennedy. Preach. Michael did a great job leading us through song Chapter one last week, and Michael explained to us what chat Waas chap is essentially the extra left over kind of useless stuff that's on a plant that you don't want. It has to be removed in order to promote growth in the rest of the plant. Likewise, at the time of the final judgment, the Lord will remove from the plant the shaft in order to best harvest the fruit from the living branches. The other type of pruning is done to God's people if you know anything about pruning, which now I do, because I did a little bit of research. If you know anything, about pruning. Pruning is the act of cutting back the branch. This pruning hurts the plan, but only in the immediate. This proving it's the cutting back the breaking down of the plant so that one day it will recover and grow even more. This is what God does in the life of believers as well. And again, this pruning it might hurt. It might feel like you're being beaten down. It might feel a Ziff like job said that you're being Slade even. But ultimately it is for Are good Romans Chapter eight, Verse 28 reminds me of this idea when Paul speaks from the Lord, he says, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose, the pruning even when it hurts, even when it feels like things aren't getting better, the pruning is for our good and for God's glory. James, the younger brother of Jesus, talks about this idea a little bit, too, and James Chapter one, he says. Count it all. Joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, the pruning that hurts the pruning that may be seen as a trial in your life. Count it, joy, because it will lead to steadfastness and steadfastness, is directly related to patients and the faithfulness, which we know is part of the fruit of the spirit. So how does the vine dresser go about Peru? Nigga's well, just before this and Chapters 13 and 14 of John Jesus was speaking to his disciples and what is called the upper room. And while he was there, he taught them a lot of things. But his ending message was about the coming of the Holy Spirit. See, Jesus was preparing his disciples for the fact that he was going to die and then be resurrected and they'd celebrate and be glad that he was back. But then that he was going to leave again. But he told them not to worry, because he would still be with them through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who who prunes now because he is the one that teaches us and guides us and leads us through life. The Lord in orderto grow us and produce fruit and us we'll prove us, and it will be for our good. Something else about pruning is that for many plants, part of the pruning process is more than just cutting back some of the branches. In fact, some plants react very badly to the initial pruning, and when they're proved their branches kind of slumped down and hang along the ground in their weak, they get withered. When this happens, the vine dresser will literally with his own hands. Take that branch and move it up into a better place. Or it can receive more water, more sunlight, more attention. And sometimes that branch is so weak that the vine dresser does this by tying the branch back to the vine itself. Because the vine is strong, the vine is the livelihood of the branch. So the vine dresser will even tie the branch to divine until it is strong enough to be untied. If you didn't see the illustration there, this is something that is true for us as well. When the Lord prunes us, he doesn't cut us back and leave us withering and dangling and broken and abandoned us. He does not do that as any good vine dresser would do for his plant. If that were happening to his branches, he would lift him up, even if it meant tying branch to himself. Jesus goes on in Verse three of John 15 to say already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken, Do you? Jesus is again referencing something that he said in Chapter 13 when he was in the upper room with his disciples. Okay, if you're unfamiliar with that passage, Jesus washed his disciples feet in the upper room. That might seem like a strange thing for the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords to do. But Jesus is trying to illustrate something for his disciples. He wanted them to see that through a relationship with him, were made clean, were made righteous, not because we're clean or because we're rightist with one who does. The washing is clean and righteous. The word that he mentions in this verse is him mentioning his declaration to his disciples in Chapter 13 that they were all made clean through a relationship with him, all of them except for Judas. The same is true for believers today for Christians today, anyone who places their true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ has received the inheritance of salvation through a relationship connection with the only one who can provide it. We can see this truth even in the biology of the vine. If you're thinking of a plant and you're thinking of a vine and its branches, the very same sad that runs through the vine that runs through true vine runs through the vines branches. The very same righteousness of Christ are true. Vine runs through believers his branches. He is gifted this righteousness to us making us clean. So then this raises the question we mentioned at the beginning. What next? Well, thankfully Jesus, being the best teacher who ever lived, knew that question was coming on. When had answered it versus four and five of John 15. 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. I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him he it is that bears much fruit For a part For me, you can do nothing. So Jesus makes it pretty clear we're supposed to abide in him, which again sounds great unless we don't know what it means to abide. So what does abide actually mean? Well, according to the great minds of Miriam and Webster, abide in this context means to remain stable or fixed in place, or to continue on while in the same place. In other words, to abide in Christ means to remain in place in Christ as we continue through life. So how do we do that? Well, unfortunately, there's some people that believe that abiding in Christ means you have to live your life imagining that Jesus is watching over your shoulder and that every turn he's waiting to get you. Some people think that Jesus, because he knows everything and he does is just waiting to pounce on any mist ake that we make this kind of mentality, though paint Jesus out to be some kind of hyperactive Santa Claus or some kind of overeager parking meter attendant who just wants to give us a lump of coal or give us a ticket any time we do something wrong. But that is not how our God operates. Praise the Lord for that. Abiding in Christ is so much more than living in fear simply because he knows everything. E. I'd even argue that the fact that God knows everything is an encouragement to us. Think about it. God knows everything. He knows everything that you've done. He knows everything that I've done. He knows everything that you said, everything that you thought and the reasons why you've done said or thought these things. He knows my wicked heart. He knows what I would be without him. And yet he loves us anyway. So the fact that he knows everything should not scare us. It should actually make abiding in him even easier because we know he loves us despite the fact that we're failing. So let's re visit this definition of abide. To abide is to remain stable or fixed in place while also being able to continue on in the same place. Many of you know that the Bible is known as the word God, and we know that Scripture is called the word God. But did you know that Jesus shares the same title in John? Chapter one versus one and two, John writes in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. And if it's not clear enough in those verses in Verse 14, he gets a little bit more direct with and says The word became flesh and dwelt among us. Remember, this is the disciple John talking. He spent three years with Jesus. The word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory. Glory is of the only son from the father full of grace and truth. It might seem a little strange at first. Thio think that Jesus in the Bible share a title. But why is that so strange? What is the Bible? The Bible is the written revelation of God to us so that we can know him. And who is Jesus? Jesus is God the son, the physical revelation of God given to us so that we may know him. So in order to abide in the word made flesh, we must abide in the word preserved in the pages description. But we can't do it out of a sense of obligation. We can't do it for any other reason than for our joy in knowing God. The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard had a lot of interesting ways. Thio describe a relationship with God. But one of the one of the more poignant things that Kirkegaard said was that he argued that there were a lot of people in this life who do not abide in Christ, and they don't abide in Christ because they think that they can trick other people. Or maybe even that they can trick God into thinking that they abide in him because they go to church or because they do good things or because their parents, we're Christians or maybe even they read their Bible because they feel like that's their obligation where they study it. For academic reasons, Kirkegaard says that these people seemingly think that this charade is going to be enough to trick God so that they can avoid the punishment of hell. Kierkegaard likens these people too. A young boy who has done something wrong and knows he's in for a little bit of a spanking later, So in his child like foolishness, he goes to the linen closet and pulls out washcloths and hand towels and stuff him in his pants to protect himself from the punishment that's coming. However, the father knows better, right? The father can't be tricked. The father knows this child. The father knows this child's motivations. The father even knows the child better. Then the child knows himself. Just as the vine is the true vine, so also are abiding in Christ. Must be true. Abiding way cannot trick the father who knows us even better than we know ourselves. Whatever our internal motivation for doing the things we do, even the things that God has called us to do. God knows it. As Christians, we cannot place our faith in God because we want to avoid punishment. We cannot place our faith in God because we think it might make our grandparent's happy. We can't place our faith in God because we think that's just what we're supposed toe Do we place our faith in God because we want Yeah, we place our faith in God because we want to know God. We want to experience God. We want to know more of him. And when we know him, we know what he has done for us. We have to want to abide in him with great and abundant joy. And that joyful abiding in Christ is a byproduct of our faith. Despite the fact that we've talked about this Ah lot this morning, the word abide might not be one that we actually use in our everyday lives very often, but I I probably say that it z likely that most of us know or familiar with at least the word abode if we're If we're feeling fancy one day and we've got guests at the house, you might tell them Welcome to my humble abode. If we want to sound like we use fancy words like that, Well, if we're to abide in Christ, we should think of him. And his word is our abodes. We should think of Christ in his word as where we live as our home. We live in our homes, We rest in our homes. We spend lots of time in our homes. We find comfort in our homes. We find safety in our homes. We're thankful for our homes. But these things should be even more true of the one in whom we abide. We need to be less worried about our humble abode and be more worried about humbly abiding in Christ. Amos Wells was a hymn writer and a poet who wrote about what it means to him to joyfully abide in the word. And he illustrates this idea like this, he says. When I'm tired, the Bible is my bed. When I'm in the dark, the Bible is my life. When I'm hungry, it is living bread. When I am fearful in his armor for the fight, when I'm sick, it's healing medicine or lonely throngs of friends I find they're in. If I would work, the Bible is my tool, and when I play, it is the heart of tuneful sound. If I'm ignorant, it is my school. If I am sinking, it is solid ground. We could only joyfully abide in Christ if he abides in us right there in the text. We just read, and John 15. I'll read it for us again is 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. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit for apart from me you can do nothing. The reality of our situation is things is is that we cannot abide in Christ on our own. So we're finally getting to answer the question of how do we abide and I'm telling you we cannot do it. It's a really encouraging thought, right? Well, if we think about it makes sense. Just a za branch cannot have any sort of life apart from the vine. We can have no spiritually life apart from Christ. We must humble ourselves and ask him to abide in us on Lee. When he abides in us, Can we faithfully abide in him? Only then can we bear fruit. And this sounds like a complicated thing. But really, to me, this is the most encouraging part of this entire passage. The only way that we could be pleasing to God in our relationship with him is by relying on the strength of another, relying on the strength of the vine, relying on the strength and the righteousness and the perfection and the sinless nous and the love and the compassion and the mercy and the grace of Jesus. And that's a whole lot better. Then, if we had to rely on our own strength in our own righteousness. I don't know how you feel, but I sure know that Jesus is. Righteousness is a much, much, much more pleasing offering to the lower than anything I could ever gift to him. But the good news, the good news is for Christians. Unlike a literal branch on the vine, we can never be separated from Christ, the one who we need a connection with. We can never be taken from him in the passage where Jesus calls himself the good Shepherd and John 10, Jesus goes on to say, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. Let that stoke the fires of your joy in God or is our pastor, might would say in his daily podcast, Make that one of your headlines today abide joyfully because of the promise from Christ to abide in us forever when we abide in him. Abiding in him will always be not just a duty but our joy on that joy in Christ that abiding will be in our best interest when things are going is badly for you is you can ever imagine them going. You're at rock bottom. The best thing for you to do in that moment abide in Christ when things are going as well for you is you could ever imagine you're on cloud nine The best thing for you to do in that moment abide in Christ when things in the world and the nation aren't going in the way that you want them to go. The best thing for you to do in that moment is to abide in Christ when things in the world and your country and your community going exactly the way you want them to go. The best thing for you to do in that moment is to abide in Christ when your kids, your spouse or your friends, or your church staff or fellow church members or the random person you see at the grocery store when they let you down and we will. The best thing for you to do in that moment was to abide in Christ when you don't think you can, because the circumstances of your life are too heavy for you. You feel like that beaten down, withering, drooping branch that's doing nothing more than hanging on the ground at this point. When you feel like that, like God training, let him lift you up. Let him bind himself to you because let's be honest. Whoever said that God won't give you more than you can handle. They didn't know what they were talking about. If you thought that was in the Bible, it's not. We often get mawr than we can handle. Why? So that will lean on the everlasting arms of the one who can handle them. We as drooping branches, cannot hold up the weight of everything that life will throw us. We just can't. But divine divine is strong. Jesus is strong. When we are weak, he will hold us up. He will strengthen us and he will keep us with himself. Ultimate abiding in The Lord is abiding. His word and his word is one clear message. A perfect and loving God made us in his image. But when we let him down and we send, we had a need for a savior. Jesus Christ! True vine. Jesus is his name. And this Jesus, the son of God himself. He lived a perfect and sinless life and that life should have never faced death. But 30 or so years after he was born, he willingly walked towards death two across the Calvary. And he took the punishment that was reserved for sin that he didn't earn. He took that punishment that we earned. And on the third day, our savior rose victoriously from the grave, granting his people life eternal. The greatest victory that could ever be had on the vine has given us that share of his victory. He's given that victory to his branches. He's given that victory toe us. And unlike a victory a a sports team. My experience. There is not a new champion next year from the team. When God has your God has you forever, he will never, ever let us go. The branches can never be broken off from the truth. Fine. So to close this, I want to read the words from a familiar him that encourage us What we Well, we try. We do our best to abide in the Lord when I fear my faith will fail. Christ will hold me fast when the tempter would prevail. He will hold me fast. I could never keep my hold through life's fearful path For my love is often cold He must hold me fast He will hold me fast He will hold me fast for my savior loves me so he will hold me fast Those he saves are his delight Christ will hold me fast, Precious In his holy site he will hold be fast He'll not let my soul be lost His promises shot last bought by him at such a cost He will hold me fast for my life He bled and died. Christ will hold me fast. Justice has been satisfied He will hold be fast raised with him to endless life. He will hold me fast until our faith is turned to fight. When he comes at last, let us abide in him until one day we abide with it.

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