Good morning, and we, uh, Lord's given us a glorious day, and, uh, thank the Lord for the music we've already sang, and, um, let's just ask the Lord to help us, okay? Can am I, is my sound going through? Is it coming across? Not coming across? I'm here, my sound is not, so... We have arrived. Okay. It's a wonderful thing. I, can you imagine the olden days when they spoke without any magnification? I just can't imagine that. I'm, I'm sure I would not have been one of the speakers. Okay. Let's just, let's just ask the Lord to help us one more time, just to help me. Father, we, uh, we thank you that you are so awesome. We thank you for the Lord Jesus. We thank you that we can just know him and rest in him. We want to right now depend on him to have his way in our midst, to work in my heart and my thoughts, to work in each of our lives. We, we know the Spirit of God is among us, and he longs to have freedom to work within us. So we just entrust ourselves to your perfect care and your perfect work, asking that you will be pleased and glorified. In Jesus' wonderful name. Amen. I, uh, sometimes have these little doodads that follow me around, and, uh, I have been blamed for various things. They're not all true, but anyway, I thought this, I would use this. Now we have this beautiful branch, if you can see it back there. It's, I'm gonna put it right here just for its decorative value, and uh, and then we have here, I'll uh see if I can get this out of here without it being mangled. Let's see. Oh, here we are. Okay. Now this we'll put over here. Okay. Nobody's stealing my flower, okay? I'm watching. Okay, now, what I want to ask you is this question. If you were going to give an evaluation, now this is just between you and the Lord, right? Does your spiritual life look a tad bit like this? Or... are you moving in this direction? Now, probably, if we were... What I'm thinking is, which direction are you leaning? Are you, are you more over here? Now, I, I know we're not telling anybody, right? But are you over here? Is this kind of... Now, I know you're here on Sunday morning, you look great, right? But how does the Lord look at us? Are we leaning this way? Are we barren in our Christian life? Or are we abounding? I want to read a quote. There are many Christians struggling to live the Christian life who have never discovered where the strength to live that life is found. There are many earnest believers, young and old, who are continually being disappointed, some because they are finding their own resources so inadequate to meet the demands of real Christian living. What we need to know is that all the resources of the Christian life are in Christ and in him alone. With that, let's turn to John fifteen. John fifteen. What a wonderful book. What a wonderful passage. Not only wonderful, but needed. Needed. John fifteen, and I want to begin, uh, with the first part of it, and we'll read, uh, to just verse eight. at the... I am the true vine. The Lord Jesus obviously is the one speaking. And my Father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit he prunes it, so that it may bear more fruit. You're already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up, and they gather them and cast them into the fire, and they're burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. What is your resource for life? I mean, really, just think about it. What are you leaning on? What are you drawing on? What are you looking to? What are you trying to, uh, draw from to be able to pull off whatever it is you're trying to pull off? The Lord Jesus says something so amazing to us, and he uses a word picture, obviously. He says, I am the true vine. Now, I'm sure as you've heard messages in this book, you realize that this is one of those I am statements. It's the actually the seventh. The Lord Jesus has reflected in other ways that he is I am. He is the light of the world. He, he is the way, the only way. Here he says, I am the vine. It's a, it's a wonderful claim. As one says, it is a supreme claim to deity. If we reflect back and we were go to go back to the Old Testament in Exodus, remember God had a job for Moses, just like he has a job for us. But his job, whoa, white right over the top. He says, I want you to go to Pharaoh and just tell him, let my people go. Well, that's, oh yeah, that's gonna work, right? Friendly Pharaoh? Well, Moses just a little overwhelmed, wouldn't you be? And one of the verses that we read, and this is Moses is saying, what kind of resources do I have? How can I possibly pull this off? You might be asking that about your own life, about your own situation. How can I pull this off? God said to Moses in Exodus three, and I read these words, I am who I am. Now that, that may seem like a, a just kind of a, a phrase. What does that mean? God is saying to us, and he goes on to say this, thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent me to you. I am, that's our phrase, and it's used in John. It's picked up from here in, in Exodus. The Lord Jesus says, and God the Father says, I am self-existent when he says I am. There was never a time when he began. He always has been. He has the I. He is self-existent. He does not depend on anything for his existence. Therefore, he is totally sufficient for himself. Can you say that about yourself? Way no. We're all dependent. We're all dependent. We're so inadequate in so many ways. We don't tell everybody, but it's the way life is. I mean, h- how you doing? You know, it's keeping that old heart going, right? Well, we're pretty dependent. You think, you know, it doesn't take much to realize how fragile we are. God's not fragile. He is all sufficient. He is the absolute sufficient, the total sufficient of the universe, and the Lord Jesus says, I am. You know what he's saying to us? He is saying, I'm God, and because I'm God, I'm totally sufficient for you. We're not sufficient, but he is. I am, notice he says, don't miss this, I am the true vine. You know, there are a lot of substitutes, aren't there? Ah, the world's got so many offers, so many promises. Hey, if, you know, if you take this course, you man, you're gonna be so super. You just, you woo! And you fall flat, say, oh, who offered this crazy course? If you take this vitamin, man, you're gonna be hopping, right? If, if you have this education, don't have anything against education, but you know what? You're still not gonna be adequate for all that life throws at you. We're not the true vine. He's the vine. He's the real deal. He's the real source. And he is trying to convince us and invite us, because you know what he says when he says these I am statements in John? He is inviting people to trust him. He is inviting us this morning to trust him. Now, initially, initially, I pray this is true for everyone in this room. Initially, we are invited to trust him for salvation. That's why he says, I am the way, the life, and the truth. No one comes to the Father but by me. He invites individuals to trust him for. He is the way. He is the only way. He died on the cross. He rose from the dead. He is the only way to the Father. And so he invites people, and he's inviting you if you've never, if you've never come, he's inviting you. Trust me for life. Trust me for your eternal salvation. I am the way. I am the only one who went to the cross, who was adequate, who was sinless, who was God in man to die for your sins. I'm the only one. I'm the only way. He invites you to trust, but does not stop there. He invites us now to trust him to live life, to to live out our Christian lives. And we need him just as much to live out our Christian lives as we needed him to begin our Christian lives. To put the weight of our life on him. He says, I am the true vine. Oh, we don't want to get caught up drawing and trying to pull from the wrong source. The world is deceiving. It's so easy, even for Christians, to get wrapped up in something that will fail them when it's all said and done. But, you know, we not only have an all-sufficient vine, and we're going to talk a lot more about that, but we also have one who watches over. It's like a little plant. It's like somebody watering the plant, taking care of the plant, making sure it grows properly. And notice, you see that? He says, I'm the true vine, but there's another resource. I have a father. I, my father, God the Father of heaven, is watching over the believer's life to help us grow. Isn't it amazing? God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit are all involved in wanting to accomplish the very best in your life and in my life. Isn't that amazing? God is so interested, he's invested in your life, and it says in this picture, he is, he's the sovereign gardener. He is, my father is the vine dresser. He's the one that cares for the plant, and we're the pictured as a plant. Notice every, every branch, he says he's my father, and he cares for every branch. There's a lot of discussion that swirls around this little phrase. Notice in verse two, every branch in me. What one New Testament scholar made this observation that every time we see the phrase in me, in Christ, or in him, referring to Christ, it always refers to a believer, and that's how I understand this. Every branch in me, when we come to Christ, when you- when you trust the Lord Jesus, so many wonderful things happen. You obviously, when you trust him for your salvation, your sins are forgiven. Isn't that an amazing thing? The weight of our guilt, that- that- that big burden on the back, God removes that, he forgives us, but also he unites us to the Lord Jesus and gives us life. We have, we're united to Christ, we're, we're in him. We're in him. So Paul uses a phrase so many times, in him. It's a wonderful union. It'll never bust, it'll never break. It's like the well that cannot be broken. But notice this. Th- there is some c- something concerning here when it says this. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit. Now, we probably should talk about the, what the fruit is before we go much further. Now, if, uh, if we were gonna think, and I have, have a... I wouldn't try to eat this, but anyway, uh, he he's obviously thinking about, you know, I remember one time I went, uh, down to Niagara, and uh, we we stayed with a couple, and and I remember I went out in their backyard. It was a beautiful day, kind of like today, except it was a little warmer, and all these these grapes. It was along, it was along this uh, this fence, actually, and I'd never seen anything like it, and these grapes were growing along that fence, the top of that fence, and all along the way there were clusters of grapes hanging down. I just was in awe. Well, the Lord Jesus uses a picture of fruit, of grapes, to be a picture of, of growth, of abundance. So what he is longing for is abundance. He wants growth. He wants, he wants us to keep growing. But notice this, and this is a concern, this is a concern in this. What does that mean? Well, I believe it's one of the simplest ways to say it is, when we have fruit, as used in this passage, it's talking about we express in some measure the characteristics of Christ. We express in s- some measure, I hear a little something coming. We express characteristics of the Lord Jesus, and it, it affects, obviously it affects the core of who we are, affects our character, and we think of the passage, I'm sure many of you are thinking even right now, Galatians, where it says, but the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians five, but the fruit of the Spirit is love. I, I, this, the second one is exciting too, joy. Some of you need, yeah, it looks like you need a little bit of this, right? Love, joy, peace. That's good too in this crazy world. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, students, self-control. Good. Isn't that awesome? When God is working in our life, when there's growing happening, character is changing. Now, also, it affects our conduct. Obviously, your character cannot be changed without your conduct being affected. So it is Christ being expressed in my character and in my conduct. It's, it's Christ being seen in my life. People are starting to notice there's a change going on. There's something great happening. I mean, you might be weird, but it looks better than it did. And God says there's good things, but notice, and this is the concerning part, every branch in me that does not bear fruit. Every Christian who has life will bear a little, some fruit, because you have life. But there may be seasons in our life that we bear just a little, or it's not obvious that anything's happening, you know, just, just a little bit. And then it says, when we come into these seasons, every branch of me that does not bear fruit, and this is kind of startling, he takes away. Now, there's various ways to understand this, and we actually don't have time to go through all the details, but the word can be translated, the, the Greek word can be translated, take away, in many, many majority translations translate it just the way I've read it, take away. The other word, to you is snip, snip, right? Now, you don't lose your salvation even in views, uh, it's not talking about losing your salvation, but the other way you can translate this little phrase in the original language is lift up, lift up. And it's used both ways, and it's used both ways even in the Gospel of John. My understanding of this verse is that when we're not doing so good, when our spiritual life is kind of crummy, when we're, our attitude is not what it should be, and your wife told you, right? Anyway, you, and, and, and God, God in his great, the great vine dresser, the, the one who cares more for you than you know, he comes along, and in that time, in the spring time of the year, when a person who cared for the vines, sometimes obviously the wind and, and the weather would knock some of the vines down. And so, in the spring time of the year, their big job wasn't just that, well, I just cut it right off. It was to lift it up and and wash it off, and so that air and light could get to the branch so there would be some fruit. So it was, it was working for fruit to happen in the future. And that's my understanding of this to, in in this part of the passage, is to encourage us. You know, when we're not doing so hot, God comes along in his care, his love, and lifts us up. I appreciate what one has said. When a branch falls into the dirt, God doesn't throw them away or abandon them. He lifts them up, cleans them off, and helps them flourish again. And that's in a little book, uh, titled The Secrets of the Vine from Bruce Wilkinson. Now he al- Bruce also goes on to say this, and this is obviously clear in the rest of scripture. If I can find my little, uh, which I'm not sure. Let's see. Oh yeah. If you need some work done, I've brought my tools, right? Okay. My little snipper. Do you see what our passage says? Notice, notice what it says. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, I would translate he lifts up. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. He prunes. He s- he snips off the things that need to be snipped, that are draining, draining the branch needlessly. You know what that involves at times? Sometimes God, you know, he just comes along, and if, and if, you know, we're just say, oh, we're, we're, we're relatively, you know, God just encourages us. Okay, Don, come on, come on. I'm here with you, I'm with you. But sometimes Don's not paying attention. And God has to do some snipping. He has to, you know, they call it, I, I know you don't like that word, especially when you're a little kid, discipline. God disciplines those whom he hates, right? Somebody bet you good reading in Hebrews. God love, God disciplines those whom he loves. He loves. God snips at us at times because he loves us. You know why? Because sin messes up our lives, and God loves us too much to let sin continue to mess up our lives. It might be a bad attitude, and he he he shows you. Sometimes, you know, you see the little mirror coming through in your kids, right? Oh no. Do as I say, not as I do, right? God says, hey, Don, you got to do some growing here. Let's shape up. You ever been disciplined by the Lord? I can say we don't have a lot of honest people here, right? I remember one time I was, I was in Dallas, Texas, and I, I was there, there on this spiritual course, right? Spiritual. My attitude was rotten. It's just like the traffic was terrible. I mean, Dallas, you know, it, it's just kind of like Toronto, but anyway, they drive bigger cars, I think. But anyway, and I remember I was stuck there, I was stuck in traffic, I was waiting, I was waiting, I was waiting. And everybody in Dallas was at that intersection, right? And finally I decided it is go- it is my, I am going to go. I did not see Super Duper coming over the hill. You know, he had a little Audi, I think. Bam! Man, my car, my car goes, I'm, I'm sliding into this gas station parking area. I'm thinking, oh Lord, let's don't hit the pumps. You know what I, before the car even stopped moving, you know what I knew? My attitude was bad, and not only from the traffic, but my attitude had just been bad. And God, say a little spanking here, salmons. I wasn't real excited. You know, fender benders means dollars, and this guy had a nice fancy car. But you know what? Never forgot that. I knew it was God, in his love, was dealing with my bad attitude. God love- you know what? He didn't want me to stay stinking. You know? He wants me to grow up. He wants you to grow up. And sometimes in life, not always, not every ca- not every fender bender or getting run over by a car, I might add, someone I was talking to, not is always a discipline from God, right? I n- that, but sometimes God does get our attention because he loves us too much to let us s- you know, soak and sour in bad attitudes. You know, sometimes it's not only a sin that he prunes. Sometimes it's just our priorities. Not really necessarily we're sinful, but our priorities just kind of out of whack. You know, we're spending too much time on stuff that doesn't count. Doesn't really matter when you think about it. Or some relationship that, you know, man, we really, really want, but God says this is not going to help you. We could go on down the list, you know, God tries to rearrange our life because he knows what we don't. He knows the future, he knows what we need, he knows what's dangerous, he knows what's wonderful, and he knows how to prune. And he'll do that. Now, if you're not listening, remember, remember what, uh, C. S. Lewis said? God whispers through pleasure, he shouts through pain. Sometimes, my mom, years ago, she was a Sunday school teacher. She's taught, she she's with the Lord now. She finally took a break from teaching Sunday school kids. And she taught until she was eighty. And anyway, one time she's telling this little kid, you know, about sin. She's telling me about the gospel and says, I'm not a sinner, I'm not a sinner. You know? Sometimes that's what we're saying to God. I'm not listening, I'm not listening. And God has to turn up the temperature, has to intensive pr- the, the pruning. Because God loves us. He's not being mean to us. God disciplines those whom he loves, and he loves you. He loves you. And why does he do that? Notice what it says. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it. Now there's some that bear no fruit. He, he has to lift us up. He's trying to encourage us, but it, you know, sometimes we're bearing a little bit, we're making a little progress. God is not satisfied to just teeny. He is, notice, bears, he prunes it that it may bear more fruit, that it may bear more fruit. Now just think, God, God is not satisfied with where we're at. You know, I don't care what age or stage we're at. God says, you know what? There's more to grow. There's more to go. You know, if, if we're, if our senior years, I remember a dear, dear friend who's with the Lord now. He said to me one time, he said, man, it's so hard to, it's just so hard not to just get stuck in his spiritual life. And, you know, I really respected him because he kept growing in the Lord till the very end when the Lord took him. God wants us to grow. He wants us to keep growing. Is there something in your life God's pruning right now? Something maybe he needs to prune? Now, just remember, I'd rather, I'd rather him get my attention with the pleasure than the pain. Is there something God wants to adjust? He only wants to adjust it because he loves you. He loves you. He's a... Now notice what it says in verse three. You're already clean. He's talking about they're already saved, talking to his disciples. You know, sometimes when we're getting pruned, we think, oh man, am I even saved? He said, no, you're saved. Those who have trusted Christ are saved. But then he says this in verse four. This is, the first is our resource. It's ultimately divine, our responsibility. Abide in me, and I abide in me. What does it mean to abide in him? One, one puts it this way. It means to keep in fellowship with Christ so that his life can work in and through us to produce fruit, to stay tight with him. Now, I think if we were gonna try to break it down in kind of real simple thoughts, I think one thing abiding requires is focus. Is focus on the Lord. Even, even like when we s- we have the breaking of bread, it helps us in the week to focus, right? Focus. Secondly, and this whole book is about this, when he says I am, he is calling us not only to focus on the Lord, but to have faith in the Lord. To, to put our f- focus of faith, to trust him. I am the true vine, trust me. Draw on me. And as we stay in the word, our faith grows. And as our faith grows, that, that third area, focus, faith, and fellowship. As I get to know him better, as I grow- draw closer to him, as I understand him in the word, what happens? I begin to share. I, I have fellowship. I spend time with him. Let me just get three practical things. How, how, how are we gonna, how are we gonna really focus? Well, I, we, we start the day with him. We s- we start the day with him. You know what? There's so much noise in life, and God wants us to start the day with him. You know, and then you spend time with him. We, we listen to him. You know, we, we have this wonderful book God has given us, right? Th- this, these are not just words on a page. This is not just one of many books. This is, this is his letter to us, and you've heard that. These are his truths. He is speaking. We need to listen. We need to open this up. And it's not, we're not talking mechanical here. Oh, I did my five-minute deal, right? I'm off to work. It- it's relational. These words are about the most important person in our life. So we, we not only start with him, we spend time with him, and we, we talk to him. We, we talk to him, say, God, I'm, I'm, I need help. God, thank you, you're so awesome. God, give me direction. I'm not quite sure to how to handle this call today. We spend time with him. We, we listen to him. We, we speak to him. And then, that third area, we just stay with him through the day. Now, it c- every moment cannot be consciously focused on the Lord. But you know what? God is the, God is the center of life. And if we go through the whole day and we, he has no relevance to that day, we're not focused, and we're not abiding. So we, we, we start with him, we spend time with him in the morning, and we stay with him through the day. I remember a young guy years ago, he was trying to learn Greek. And I got in his car one day. He had all these, all these things plastered on his, on his car, trying these words, trying to remember the Greek, right? How much of God's word do we have plastered in our life? How many verses, I mean, do you got some verses you can just take with you on the day? So- something, some verse that just really has resonated in your heart, maybe you read it in the morning, and you just take it with you. How about just, you know, it says pray without ceasing. You know what? That's, that's quite a bit of time, right? Not that we're always praying, but it's a, it's a very natural, continual part of our life. So we're staying with him in that day. Abiding, drawing on him, drawing on him. He is our source. He is our source. Now, there are many, many wonderful, wonderful realities that come through abiding, staying tight with him. I'm just going to mention a few of them. If you notice in our passage, and you drop down, and and I want to look in our passage at the last verse that we read, and when we did our reading together, notice what these words say. My Father is glorified by this. Verse eight, that you bear much fruit. To glorify God is to show his excellence. When Christ's life is being expressed through your life, you are showing a glimmer of God's excellence, of God's son expressed in your life. There's so many, many things that happen, answered prayer. We abide in his love. If you obey him, in order to obey him, we have to stay tight with him, to be close to him, to abide and obey. Remember the song Trust and Obey? There's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. To abide and obey is the only way to be joyful in Jesus. Notice these words. You drop, you drop your eyes down. In verse eleven, these things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full. Abide, obey, you know what happens? Joy begins to spring up in our life. How do I know if I'm abiding? Well, I want to give you one test of the reality, whether it's really happening. Verse twelve, this is my commandment that you love one another just as I have loved you. If we are staying tight with the Lord, the God of love, what's going to happen in our life? His love is going to be expressed through our lives. Do you think abiding is important? Do you think staying tight with the vine is is of any significance? Do you want joy? Do you want love to be expressed in your life? Just think what a difference it would make in our Christian families if love was abounding. Can you imagine? Think of all the stressed out couples trying to figure out how to s- hold this thing together. It only comes by the one who is the source of love, the true vine. How about in our church? We're all so different. How can we even set this long together? We're all so different. Because the true vine is the source of love. Is the source of love. You know, one of the things that goes on down in this passage talks about, you know, one of the things that makes having an abundant life difficult is the world will hate you. It says that. Yeah, where this is a real positive part on the front. The back part of of John fifteen gets a little tougher. The world will hate your guts. It doesn't quite say it that way, but that's the interpretation, my little paraphrase. The world's gonna hate your guts, and it gives some reasons why we're so different from the world. We bring, the world gets convicted. They realize we're so different because God, and they hate him, they're against him. How, how can we get through this world and have an abundant life? Let's just all give up, right? Okay, I sign up, I'm gonna give up. No. The true vine, the true vine is our resource no matter what comes our way. He's the resource. He's a wonderful resource. He is every, everything we need to have love and joy, and we talked tonight about peace. Isn't that what we want? Don't we want our life to count for something beyond just our little time? Don't we want the impact of our life to go on for eternity? If you glorify God with your life, the impact of your life goes on for eternity. Do you want to abide? Do you want to, and it's a learning process. It's not just we read this passage and we got it all figured out. It's as we get to know him, we draw near to him, we stay close to him, and he changes us. Mrs. Blacketer. She was in the nursing home facility far too soon. She and her husband had been out just driving, and they were hit head on by a drunk driver. Her husband was killed instantly, and she was left with a broken body, a relatively young woman, and for the rest of her life, she would have to use the walker to get around because of all the bones that had been broken. But you know what? Mrs. Blackadder was a radiant Christian, and she lived among other people who were Christians, but she, she was radiant in her attitude. You see, she had, she was physically broken, but spiritually she was abounding. We don't know what life holds. We don't know what, you know, is coming down the road. But you know what? If you have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ, he is not only the way to the Father, he is the vine, he is a resource for your journey from here until we get home. May we not live barren lives. May we abound. You only abound if you abide in the vine. May you draw on him. May you make a commitment to start drawing on him, getting to know him, draw near to him so that through faith you have rich fellowship. And as you abide in him, he will abound through you. Let's ask God for that to happen. Let's bow. Lord, we're here. We're here, and we know that we are barren on our own. We can