The Root of the Fruit

0:07We had a great weekend last weekend, Transform Conference. If you were part of that, missed a session, or weren't able to make it, thetransformconference.org. We've got all the sessions up there from that. We'd love for you to give a listen to those. But this morning we are back in the Gospel of John, so take your Bibles out and open up to John 15.

0:26John 15:1-11 is going to be our text. Now, as you're turning there, I wonder how many in the room remember the computer brand Gateway. Okay, the— those of you that are in high school or junior high have no clue what that was, which tells you how good of a product they were. Um, I think Acer bought them is what I understand. But when we went to college, my wife and I, at Master's College at the time— now university, but at Master's College They gave us generously about a 4-inch block called a Gateway laptop, and I'm pretty sure we were at maybe, maybe 50 gigs of storage in there.

1:07Memory was pushing 2 gigs, maybe. And they lasted, and they were great for about 2 weeks, and then they, uh, the, the obsolescence kicked in super early on these machines. So much so that really unless they were plugged in, they wouldn't work. And so every outlet on campus was a gold mine. You had students fighting for a plug because if it wasn't plugged in, it wasn't turning on.

1:33And I remember in particular my wife's laptop. I think she wrote her entire senior thesis on this thing, and she always had to be tethered to a power outlet, which you don't expect, right? You expect with a laptop that you can take it with you somewhere and use it on your lap and not have it plugged in, that there's going to be some power in the laptop itself to do something, unlike these Gateway laptops. See, there was no power within the battery. There was nothing you couldn't replace the battery, 2 weeks later it failed again, right?

2:02There was nothing you could do unless it was plugged in. These laptops wouldn't work. Well, church, we're not all that different. Unless we're plugged into Christ as Christians, we don't work. And we might think of ourselves like you might think of a normal laptop and think, well, surely I've got something inherently decent about myself.

2:24I bring something to the table here. I've got something that I can contribute that's going to be good. I've got fruit that I can bear of my own willpower. But the reality is, left to ourselves, devoid of our relationship with Jesus, we have nothing. We have nothing to bring.

2:43If we want to be a Christian that works, we have to make sure that we're connected to Jesus. And that's where Jesus goes in our passage. He's left the upper room. We talked about that 2 weeks ago as we came out of John 14. He and his disciples have departed.

2:56Now they're on the way over to Gethsemane, over on the way to the Mount of Olives there. And as they're going, Jesus is continuing to talk with them, continuing to teach them, continuing to help them understand what a relationship with Him was going to look like from this point forward. And so we pick up in John 15, verse 1, and Jesus says this: I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. This would have sent alarm bells off in the disciples' minds, because this is familiar terminology, familiar language for them.

3:29In fact, this would have reached all the way back into the Old Testament for them. Which they didn't call the Old Testament at that time. It was just the Torah and the Prophets and the Law. And so this would have gone back to passages like Isaiah 5, Jeremiah 2, Hosea 10, Ezekiel 19, Psalm 80, and there's others. But in all of those texts, Israel is compared to a vine.

3:52And so for Jesus to start out this conversation as they're walking out of the upper room on their way to the Mount of Olives by saying, I am the true vine, that would have been arresting for these disciples. They would have stopped and thought to themselves, man, Israel used to be the vine, but now Jesus here, he is the one saying he is the vine. And in verse 2, he goes on, he says, every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. That is the vinedresser, God the Father. Now that's what's consistent.

4:21In the Old Testament, it was God the Father that was the vinedresser as well. He would go and look for fruit from Israel, and so often he didn't find any. And so here Jesus is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he, the vinedresser, takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. Back in California, my wife and I moved into one of the houses that we lived in there as a rental home, and before we moved in, we looked at the backyard, and there was this latticework covering over the back patio.

4:51And at one point, there had been a— what appeared to be a lush vine that was growing over that latticework. And it had spread out, and it looked like it was probably beautiful at one point in time. But it had been left untended for so long that all it was at this point was a twisted tangle of really dead branches with a few green shoots here and there mixed in. And we looked at that, and we thought, man, number one, not only is it ugly, but number two, we have no idea what's living inside that thing. So, we talked to our landlord.

5:19We said, hey, can you take that away? Can you remove that before we move in? And he said, sure, no problem. So, he did that. See, that's the problem.

5:26A vine left to itself is going to become a tangled mess of branches. It's going to have some that are dead, not doing anything. It's going to have others that are just— they're living, but they're running wild because the vinedresser hasn't done anything to guide them. We see an example of this back in the Old Testament in Isaiah chapter 5. This is where Israel failed as the vine.

5:48Isaiah 5:4-6, God says through the prophet, what more was there to do for my vineyard, for Israel? Than I have done for it already? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? Those would have been good for nothing. They weren't good for wine.

6:04They weren't good for eating. They were, they were rotten fruit, essentially bad fruit. And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I'm going to remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured. I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.

6:16I will make it a waste. It shall not be pruned or hoed, and and briars and thorns shall grow up in its place. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. See, God had looked to Israel to be the vine and to produce fruit, and Israel had failed. And so what God says through Isaiah the prophet is, I'm done.

6:37I'm going to remove my protection. And what would happen is Babylon was going to come in and carry the people away into exile at this point in time. Here comes Jesus though in our text, And Jesus in our text says, I am the true vine. The true vine. And so now the true vine in Jesus, we learn in the text in verse 2, is going to produce branches that do bear fruit, because the ones that don't, the vinedresser is going to come and remove.

7:04But then the ones that do bear fruit, what's the vinedresser going to do? He's going to prune them that they might bear more fruit. Now pruning, a painful process I imagine for the plant because it involves shears and cutting. But what pruning does is it removes the offshoots. It removes the extraneous parts of the plant that might draw energy away from the good parts of the plant.

7:27And so I learned all about this because I don't keep plants alive at all. But I decided that I needed a plant for my office when I moved in there about a year ago or so, a little bit over that. And so I went down to this store by our office called Famous in Oregon. And I went in there and I was like, hey, I don't know anything about plants. Give me something I can't kill.

7:46And so they took pity on me, and they, they told me about this plant, and I ended up going home with this plant, or back to the office with this plant. But one of the things they said about this plant is this: they said this plant will produce bulbs that can become flowers. But the lady said, you're gonna want to take those bulbs, and you're gonna want to cut them off when those bulbs pop up. And she said the reason being is this is not really meant to be a flowering plant, and those bulbs, they will bloom, but they're really ugly. They're not pretty flowers.

8:14They're not anything that you want to look at. And so what you should do is you should— when you see a bulb pop up on that plant, you need to trim it, you need to prune it, you need to cut it off. Because the danger is the plant will divert so much energy into trying to grow and feed the bulb that the good things, which are the big green beautiful leaves on the plant, those will suffer because the energy is going to be redirected to trying to grow this thing that, that's really useless. And so she said, when you see the bulb, you need to prune it, you need to cut it off. So that what?

8:42So that the fruit may be more fruitful in other parts of the plant. That's the pruning process, and, and that's what Jesus is saying that the Father is going to do in the, the lives of those who bear fruit. He's going to come along and he's going to find the bulbs in your life, those things that are, are really ugly flowers and those things that draw energy away from you bearing fruit for Jesus. And the vinedresser is going to come along and he's going to take them off. He's going to remove them.

9:08Another word that that could be used here is He's going to clean the branches. In fact, look at verse 3. Jesus says to His disciples in verse 3, already you are clean because the word that I have spoken to you. This is where we're at a disadvantage as English speakers, because in the Greek it's the same root word used for the word prune and the word clean. It's the same word, the same concept.

9:33And really that's true. What you're doing when you're pruning a plant, you're cleaning the branches of all of the the garbage, all the excess, all of the things that draw the health and the energy away from the plant itself. So then in verse 3, why does he say you're clean already if he said he's going to keep cleaning us? Well, go back to the upper room. Come back with me to John 13.

9:53You remember there Jesus is washing the feet of the disciples, and he comes to Peter, and Peter says, Lord, no. And Jesus says, if I don't do this to you, you have no part in me. And Peter says, then Lord, wash all of me. And Jesus says back to him, no, you're already clean because you believe the word that I've spoken to you. All you have left to do is for me to wash your feet.

10:13He was pointing to the cross at that point, right? But he was saying, you're already justified, you're already clean, you already are positionally right with God, so you don't need me to clean your whole body again because faith has justified you before God. This pruning process, in other words, church— and that's why he includes verse 3— is not about your justification but your sanctification. It's not about making you right with God but making you more like Jesus, which is the process that we have to go through. And that's what the vinedresser, that's what the Father is going to do in your life.

10:46He's going to come and he's going to look for fruit. Positionally, verse 3, you are already clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. But what the Father is going to do, the vinedresser is going to do, is he's going to come and look for fruit in your life. And when he sees it, he's going to prune away the other things that are pulling away from that, making you less fruitful than you could be. He's going to prune those things away so that you will be more like Jesus through the fruit that you bear.

11:13We, we talk a lot about obedience to the Father and to Jesus. I, I get that. In fact, we've had some people who have left our church because they've been like, you know what, I feel like they focus too much on works. Church, I'm not going to apologize to that because hear me say right off the bat, you don't earn your salvation, okay? Can we be abundantly clear on that to start?

11:32I will never preach to you that you have to work for your salvation, ever. But I do want to preach to you what the Bible teaches us about what it looks like after you're saved. And what it looks like after you're saved is that you will go on to bear fruit. What it looks like after you're saved is that you will see works, James chapter 2. A faith without works is what?

11:52Dead. And so while we emphasize obedience and works, that's because the Bible teaches it, but that will never be about your justification but about your sanctification. And that's what Jesus is talking about here. But this morning, what I want us to focus on and connect and understand is that sanctification is only possible because first the justification is a reality based on a relationship with Jesus. We have to be connected to the vine if we're going to bear fruit.

12:20You have to have a relationship with Jesus if the works are going to be worth anything in the end. Point number 1 this morning along those lines is this: connect works to relationship. Connect works to relationship. Your fruit, the, the good things that you do in your life, they have to be connected back to a relationship with Jesus. Notice what he doesn't say.

12:47Jesus says, I am the vine. I am the source of your sanctification. In other words, I'm the source of the Spirit making you look more like Jesus. That's what Jesus is saying. I am the vine.

13:00Notice what is not said here. He does not say the church is the vine. He doesn't say the Bible is the vine. He doesn't say doctrine and theology, those are the vine. He doesn't say your family is the vine.

13:17He doesn't say morality is the vine. He doesn't say whatever cause that you want to get behind, that's the vine. Listen, are those things good for you as a Christian? Yes, right? Is the church good for your health as a Christian?

13:31Is the church going to help you be a more fruitful Christian? Yes, 100%, undoubtedly yes. Is the Bible good for you as a Christian? Yes. Is it going to help you be more fruitful as a Christian?

13:41Yes, 100% yes. Can sound doctrine and theology, healthy doctrine and theology, help you bear more fruit as a Christian? Yes, 100% it can. Yet none of those are the source of your life as a Christian. Jesus is.

13:58You have a relationship not with a book, but a person. And that relationship with the person in Jesus Christ, that's what transforms you. That's the power. That's the source. The computer plugged into the wall, the wall, the out— the power source there for your transformation, your growth in Christ-likeness, is Jesus.

14:15And we have to understand that and get that right. And when we're connected to Jesus, what we see in these first 3 verses is the fruit that we bear will keep increasing. In fact, Our author in 1 Peter— sorry, 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 8, he puts it this way. He says, if these qualities are yours, qualities that we'll get to in just a minute here, but if these qualities are yours and are increasing, notice that if they're growing, if they're multiplying, they, these qualities, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is why you're also never going to hear me stand up and say, this is your quota of fruit that you need to bear as a Christian.

14:54This is how much fruit you need this week. You need to have this many hours of Bible reading and this many days having prayer and this, this number of times with, with pure thoughts. You're never going to hear me say that. Why? Because to be a Christian is to live a life where the fruit is continually multiplying.

15:11The reason why the fruit is going to continually multiply is because when you're connected to the vine, when the relationship is intact and the works are following, the, the vinedresser is going to prune you so that you bear more fruit, right? Think about some of the fruit that we find in the Bible. We find fruit like we find in Galatians 5. This is probably where your mind goes immediately, the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, right? But how about 2 Peter chapter 1?

15:38This is the fruit that he was just talking about. If these things are increasing, it's this list right here: virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, Godliness, brotherly affection, love. Those are other things that as Christians we should want to see in our life. That should be fruit that we want on the branch of our life. Or Colossians chapter 3, if you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above.

16:00That passage, he says, what's that going to look like? It's going to be looking like you, you are somebody who is compassionate and kind, humble, meek, patient, forgiving, peaceful. Right? So we see all of these things and all of these lists, and, and these are good things, and we should want those things. And when we begin to produce these things by the Spirit's presence in our life, what Jesus tells us in our text is that the vinedresser is going to prune away the bulbs, the extraneous areas of our life, so that we might bear more of that fruit.

16:34The writer of Hebrews talks about this, this pruning process. He talks about it in Hebrews 12:10. He talks about it in the form of God's discipline in our life. He says of our earthly fathers that they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he, our heavenly Father, disciplines us for our good that— what?— we may share his holiness. In other words, that we may increasingly bear more fruit.

16:59So the discipline of the Lord in your life, Christian, is meant to cause you to be more fruitful. He's pruning away the extraneous bulbs of sin, or in earlier in Hebrews, in Hebrews chapter 12:1-2, the weights and the sin which cling so closely, he's going to prune those things away. He's going to strip those things away from your life. And sometimes that hurts. Sometimes that's a painful process, but he's going to do it so that you're more fruitful as a result, so that you look more like Jesus as a result, so that you can go back and you can see some of these things more in your life than you saw previously.

17:33Because your Father, the vinedresser, wants you to be a fruitful branch. And you're a fruitful branch, à la this point, when you're connected to a relationship with Jesus. Listen, church, it's good for us to focus on these things. I think you've probably heard me say it before. These things are there for us to take our life and to hold it up to this and say, do I see it?

17:54Do I see these things present in my life? And that's a good exercise for us, but this morning and And the whole point of this point is that I don't want you to forget that all of that is only possible because the source is Jesus. We can't miss that. We have got to get that right. Nobody has ever grown a tree by going from the fruit to the root, right?

18:20The tree goes from the root to the fruit. And so often as Christians, I think when when we don't find enough of the fruit in our life as we're looking at across horizontally, making comparisons with other people, we kind of get into this pull myself up by my bootstraps mentality or this willpower mentality, and we just try to manifest more of the fruit in my life.

18:41You've never seen an apple tree sweating to produce an apple. Why not? Because it's natural to the life source that it's growing from. When you are connected to a vibrant, active, deep relationship with Jesus, church, the fruit will come. Connect works to relationship.

19:01There's a couple of areas that we can turn to instead of the relationship with Jesus that we can be tempted to trust in to produce works. And these things I want to warn us against. Number one, as I was just talking about, is willpower. You can sit there and you can think, well, I just need to try harder to be kinder. I just need to work harder to be more humble.

19:18Let me pick up this book on humility and read that, and that's going to make me a more humble person. Listen, those things can help, but if, if all of your efforts to be a more fruitful Christian are sheer willpower, it's like trying to lose weight by not eating anything. You may see results initially, but long term it's not sustainable. You need the relationship, you need the life source of your connection with Jesus. To feed the growth in Christlikeness.

19:48The other area we might try to conjure up good works in our lives and fruit in our life is through emotions. We think, man, I just need to feel like I want more of this. I need to feel like I need more of this. I need to feel more godly, feel more humble, feel more joyful about this, and then, then I can show more fruit. Y'all, trying to bear more fruit by relying on our emotions is like living on a diet of candy.

20:13You may like it initially, it might be kind of fun for a little bit, but again, it's not going to be able to sustain you. Emotions can't sustain your walk with Christ. You have to come back to a relationship with Jesus. You may say, well, what does that relationship with Jesus look like? Help me.

20:30How do I, how do I feel that tangibly? I'm glad you asked. Let's keep going in our text. John 15:4-5, 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.

20:47I 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. So here it is, this is what we're talking about. We are talking about abiding Abiding in Christ. In fact, let's look first at what he says at the second part of verse 4.

21:05He says, abide in me and I in you. Okay, well, how does Jesus abide in us? We've talked about that recently in our study of the Gospel of John. Through the Helper, right? Jesus had said in the upper room, I'm leaving you the Helper, and if you are growing in your love for me, which is going to look like bearing fruit, then the Father and I will come and make our home with you.

21:26And so the way that Jesus is going to abide in us, church, is through the Helper, through the Holy Spirit. But what does it look like for us to abide in Jesus? Well, let's start by talking about that word abide. Look at your Bible. 10 times, starting in verse 4, between verse 4 and verse 11, 10 times in whatever that is, 8 verses or so, the word abide shows up.

21:47That, if you're new to Bible reading, a great way to know that a text is trying to tell you something is when it repeats a word over and over and over and over and over again. And so when Jesus says abide 10 times in 8 verses, all of us needs to— need to stop down and say, okay, so I feel like you're telling me you want me to abide.

22:07Great, what does that mean? Because that sounds super great. I'm abiding in Jesus. How do I abide in Jesus? Well, what does the word mean?

22:15It means to remain. It means to stay. It means to persist. To reside even. In fact, in the Old Testament we find it used in Isaiah 32:18: My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in a quiet resting place.

22:34To reside, to abide, to dwell. It's from the same root actually that Jesus uses back in John 14 when he says, I'm going away to prepare a place for you, and, and I will come and take you to be with me where I am. To prepare a place for you, a dwelling place, a residing place, an abiding place. And so Jesus is telling us that even right now we are to abide in him. Abiding.

23:00What does abiding in Christ look like? Well, church, I want to suggest this morning it's, it's more than 15 minutes of quiet time every day, right? Abiding in Jesus is more than 2 minutes of prayer before a meal.

23:15Abiding in Jesus is more than coming to church every week. Abiding in Jesus is more than picking up the latest Christian book and reading it. In fact, depending on what Christian book that is, that might not help you abide in Christ.

23:31Abiding is those things, but it's so much more than that. And what, what we so often are, I think, guilty of, if I can put it that way, as a as a people, especially here in our society, right? I mean, we are by and large comfortable, aren't we? Like, we're gonna go from here, you're gonna go to your home, Thanksgiving's coming this week, you're gonna get a turkey or you're going to somebody's house who's gonna cook a turkey for you. You know, you've probably got a television to watch the Cowboys lose this afternoon.

23:59You've got a— it would be funny if it weren't true.

24:05It's— we're comfortable. In other words, we don't feel a desperation that we feel like we need Jesus in every square inch of our life, right? But church, that is what it is to abide. We live in a compartmentalized Christianity wherein Monday through Saturday Christianity looks like the 15 minutes that I spend in my Bible reading when I have time to, praying before the meal, listening to a podcast in the car on my way to work. Or while I'm working out.

24:35And yet the concept of abiding, remaining, persisting in Jesus is, is so much more than that. It's a relationship with him that invades and pervades every corner of our life. The key to increased fruitfulness is a connectedness to Jesus that is about your whole entire existence. There's a point in my life early on as a Christian, I probably would have preached this message as we need to be more fruitful. So just go be more fruitful.

25:01But I totally would have missed what Jesus is saying here. You can't be more fruitful without abiding in him. That's why he says, apart from me you can do nothing. That's what that means— nothing. No qualifications, no exceptions.

25:16Apart from Christ, we can do nothing. That's why in the Old Testament God said of even the righteous deeds of the nations, they are as filthy rags before me. Because they're not connected to faith in him. They're not rooted to his glory and his good. And so apart from Christ, church, we can do nothing.

25:34Look again at the text here. Abide in me and I in you. Relationship. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself. Okay, there goes the bootstraps.

25:44The branch cannot bear fruit by itself. You can't just try to be more godly and have it result in you being more godly. It's not just willpower here. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, there's relationship again. Neither can you unless you abide in me.

26:02There's relationship again. Whoever abides in me and I in him, again, relationship, he it is, that one bears much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. Okay. Abiding.

26:19In Christ. It's a preposition that's important for us, to abide in Him, to be immersed in Him. A while ago, I went up to visit my mom. She lives up in Oregon. She lives on the Columbia River there, right between Oregon and Washington State.

26:33So my wife and I decided it'd be fun and romantic to go kayaking.

26:38Um, I'm not a big fan of water that doesn't have chlorine. Mostly because of the things that are in water that doesn't have chlorine. Okay, we tracking? Good. And, uh, and so I went down there with her, and, and we went down to the dock, and there was a guide there.

26:52And I don't know how long this, this guide had been out there, but she looked like she had been guiding kayak tours for a long time. Let's just put it that way. Okay, I think I asked her, she probably said 5 to 10 years, whatever. I said, okay. She was like, just climb in the kayak right there.

27:07And it was the dock, and then there's this hole that's like like this big, and I'm like, what? And she wants me to climb in the kayak. So I asked her a question before I got in the kayak. I said, how often do people fall in the water while they're getting in the kayak? She said, I've been doing this for 10 years.

27:24Let's just say 10 years, sounds like a good round number. Been doing this for 10 years, I've never had anyone fall into the kayak getting into it. Church, she can no longer say that's true.

27:35I was her first. I was getting into the kayak and then all of a sudden I was underwater. Thing flipped upside down. Let me tell you, there's a difference between being on the Columbia River and being in the Columbia River, and I know that difference. I got out of that kayak and there was not a place on my body that the Columbia River was not representing itself.

28:00That's what it is to abide in Christ.

28:05You can know something about the Pacific Ocean by standing on the shore. You can know the sound, you can know the smells, you can know what it looks like, what color it is. You might be able to tell whether it's a rough day out there or not. You may be even able to visually see something about the depth of it. But when you get in the Pacific Ocean, you know all of those things and then so much more.

28:28You know its saltiness, you know its temperature, you know its true depth, and you know what else is in it.

28:37We need to be those that are not abiding near Jesus, not abiding with Jesus, not abiding around Jesus, but abiding in Jesus. Church, we have to, with our relationship with Christ, be completely immersed in into that relationship. In other words, our identity as followers of Jesus has to invade and pervade every corner of our life, like when I was upside down in the Columbia River. That's what our relationship with Jesus needs to be about. And point number 2, let's put it this way this morning: you need to bring Jesus into all of life.

29:14Bring Jesus into everything in your life.

29:20When you fill up your gas, you fill up your gas as a follower of Jesus. Your relationship with Jesus, it matters when you fill up your gas tank. When you walk your dog, your relationship with Jesus, it matters. When you hang up your Christmas lights, your relationship with Jesus matters. When you drive your kids to their soccer game, your relationship with Jesus matters.

29:42If we are to truly abide in Christ, it means that every Every facet of our life will be understood and interpreted in light of the relationship that we have with Him. I can't half abide with Jesus and half abide in the world. I'm not abiding truly with Christ then.

30:00Abraham Kuyper, a famous Dutch theologian, once said this. He said, there's not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry mine. Church, can we say amen to that? Okay, if that's true, does that not follow that every square inch of your life then should be lived in light of your relationship with Jesus? We cannot compartmentalize our relationship with Jesus and say that we're abiding in Christ.

30:32This is why it's not just 15 minutes in the morning. It's not just the podcast while you're working out. It's not just the prayer before you eat. It's not just showing up to church on Sunday. It's all of that and everything else that you do in your life.

30:45Everything. You are never not a follower of Jesus, just like I am never not my wife's husband. I'm always Amanda's husband no matter where I go in this world. That relationship informs and impacts who I am and what I do. Your relationship with Jesus, even more than that, impacts everything that you do in this life.

31:07And so dads, when you come home from work to a child who's been disobedient, talking back to their mother, their mom, and they continue to talk back to her in front of you, men, your relationship with Jesus matters right there.

31:24As you discipline that child, you discipline that child as you abide in Christ. And how is that going to impact the way that you discipline that child, the way that you speak to that child, your tone?

31:35Or how about when any of us, you're on the road and somebody in front of you is driving 20 miles an hour under the speed limit. Oh, this is a routine struggle in my life. I drive Coleman to get to my office from my house, and so I drive by Reynolds. It's I get that the school zone is there sometimes. It's not a perpetual school zone.

32:00And yet some people treat it like it is. Anyways, when somebody is in front of you— very specific here— driving 20 miles an hour under the speed limit, your relationship with Jesus matters in your thought life right there.

32:19Or when it's late at night and you're tired and you pick up the TV remote, what you're about to put on that TV screen, your relationship with Jesus matters right there.

32:28Or when you are tempted, you have an opportunity to cut a corner at work to save some money for the company or to get ahead, but yeah, it's going to mean some moral compromise there. Church, your relationship with Jesus matters right there. You're called to abide in Christ right there. Or when you put your dog on a leash to take him out for a walk and there's your neighbor across the street and you know that that neighbor doesn't know Christ, and all you want to do is put your head down and keep going.

32:54You're abiding with Christ right there. How's it going to impact that? Think about the fruit of the flesh for a second, the rotten fruit of the flesh, if I can put it that way. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger. How hard do we have to work to see those things show up in our life?

33:12Answer? Not very hard, right? Why? Because our default as fallen human beings is to abide in the flesh. You don't have to work to produce the rotten fruit of the flesh.

33:25We have to be intentional, church, if we are going to do this. If we're going to bring Jesus into all of life, if we are going to abide in Christ, we have to be thoughtful and intentional and purposeful to make that happen. So yes, we need things like the word of God daily, and we need to be listening to podcasts and we need to be listening to worship music, and we need to be fellowshipping with other brothers and sisters in Christ, and we need to be in prayer. We need all of those things, and the more we do that, the more you practice abiding in Christ on a regular basis, you know what? The love, the joy, the peace, the patience, the kindness, the goodness, the faithfulness, the gentleness, and the self-control, those things will begin to show up more and more naturally over the works of the flesh.

34:05Because why? Because you will be abiding in Jesus. Abiding in Jesus and the relationship, remember, is what produces the works. The relationship there.

34:17Jesus is your power source. Abiding in him is key. What does this produce in us? Look at verses 7 through 11. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

34:32By this I my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.

34:56So some things that I want us to think about, about what abiding looks like here and what it produces And that's first is abiding in Jesus is having his word abide in us. That's what he says there. If you abide in me, my words abide in you. You cannot abide in Christ without a regular intake of the word of God. And that— this isn't enough, okay?

35:15Let's just put that and get that out there. What we're doing right now is good, but it's not enough. What did Jesus say? Man shall not live by bread alone, but on what? Every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

35:25God. We should have a desperation, a hunger for God's Word daily, daily. As much of it as we can get into us, that's going to be better because abiding in Christ is about abiding in His Word. Second, abiding in Jesus is also going to increase the effectiveness of your prayer life. Look at what He says there.

35:41He says, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. Why? Because you will be abiding in Christ. Well, what happens when we abide in Christ? The desires that we have, the prayers that we offer are going to be more in line with his will.

35:56And when we are praying for what the will of God is, we can be sure that he will answer that prayer. And that's why Jesus says, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. Why? Because you are abiding in me. Third, abiding in Jesus is going to result in the glory of the Father showing up in your life.

36:11By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit. How do I bear fruit? I abide in Jesus. Abiding in Jesus is going to result in you having a life that glorifies God. Remember what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, that others might see your good works and what?

36:27Give glory to your Father who's in heaven. And so, producing fruit through our abiding in Jesus because of our relationship with Him, what's that going to do? That's going to glorify God. It's another result of our abiding in Christ. Fourth, abiding in Jesus is going to evidence your standing as true disciples.

36:43In other words, it's going to confirm and give you confidence about your position in Christ. In fact, that's what 2 Peter chapter 1 says. He says, confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these things, you'll never become unfruitful. Right? Peter's saying the more we bear fruit, and where does fruit come from?

37:03A relationship with Jesus. And so abiding in Jesus, what's that going to do? That's going to give you a great greater level of confidence about your relationship with Jesus. Verse 8, my Father is glorified in this, that you bear much fruit and so— notice— prove to be my disciples. Abiding in Jesus is going to give you a greater confidence about your standing in Jesus.

37:22Fifth, abiding in Jesus is also going to help you understand what it means to experience the love of Jesus and to show love for Jesus. And that's when he says, as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love as I have kept my Father's commandments. It's a circular reasoning here.

37:44How do we keep the, the commandments of Christ? By abiding with Jesus. What happens when we abide with Jesus? We keep the commandments of Christ. What happens when we keep the commandments of Christ?

37:54We experience the love of Jesus because we're abiding in Christ. And so abiding in Christ is going to give you a fuller experience of the love of Christ. Finally, 6th, abiding in Jesus— and this is the point I want to zoom in as we wrap up together this morning— abiding in Jesus is the key to joy in your Christian walk. That's the key to joy in your Christian walk. If you want to see more fruit, begin by making sure you're abiding in Christ and realize that the pursuit of a relationship with Jesus, that is going to produce what he talks about here at the very end.

38:25These things I've spoken to you that my joy. My joy. Not just a joy. Not just some joy. Not just any joy.

38:35My joy. The joy of Jesus, that it may be in you and that your joy may be full. Church, as we're thinking about, man, if we're not plugged into Jesus, we can't do anything. When we are plugged into Jesus, one of the greatest realities of that is the joy that we get to experience as believers. Final point this morning is this: seek the joy that Jesus promises.

38:56Seek the joy that Jesus promises. How? By abiding in Christ. Church, if you are lacking joy in your relationship with Jesus, if it's more of a drudgery, a burden to you, can I suggest to you this morning that something's off? Something's off, because abiding in Christ is meant to produce His joy in us.

39:22It's not to say that you're not going to have seasons of sorrow or despair or difficulty, but as Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 6, you will be sorrowful yet always rejoicing.

39:35Paul says that in Philippians, rejoice always. Again, I will say rejoice. He says it in 1 Thessalonians, rejoice always.

39:44What's the core? What's the source? What's the fountain of that rejoicing, of that joy that we can have? Abiding in Christ. When we abide in Christ, the storms come and yet we remain steadfast.

39:56How do I pursue some of that joy? How do I seek some of that joy? Let me suggest a couple things to you as we land the plane here. You've got some time coming up this week. You've got Thanksgiving coming up Thursday, Friday.

40:05My guess is a lot of people are off work around this time. What are you going to do with the time that you've got? Let me ask you a question about your family. Where do you experience the most joy in your relationship with your family? For me, it's at home.

40:17I like being at home on my couch, weighted blanket when it's cold out. We're watching a Christmas movie. That's what we did last night. It was awesome. There's joy there with my family.

40:25But what did we do? Well, we didn't go out and buy a bunch of cinder blocks and some plywood planks and create an atmosphere with really uncomfortable and uncomfortable things. Ugly-looking things to sit at. No, we went out and got some things that would make the environment comfortable so that we could even maximize the joy of our family being together that way, right? We can do the same thing spiritually speaking.

40:48You can maximize the joy of your pursuit of Jesus. What does that look like? Well, what do you enjoy doing? What do you enjoy doing? Identify that, and then here's what I want you to do this week is Take Jesus with you into that.

41:03And if you would say, I can't, then we got a different sermon to preach about that, don't we? Maybe you love running. Take Jesus with you on a run. How? What do you listen to when you're going out running?

41:17Listen to a sermon, listen to a podcast, listen to good Christian music that's out there. Pray while you run. That's part of abiding and experiencing the joy of Christ, because you're doing something you love to do. And yet you're also marrying your relationship with Jesus with that. Maybe you love coffee.

41:33Brew a good cup of coffee and sit down with your Bible. Marry coffee with your relationship with Jesus. Bring Jesus into your enjoyment of that. Maybe you like to just go on a walk with your spouse. Great, go on a walk with your spouse and talk with each other about your relationship with Christ and how you're doing as, as followers of Jesus during that time.

41:51Or maybe you like to sing at the top of your lungs and nobody else around you wants you to do that. Get in your car, roll up the windows, blast it, and belt it, right? Make a joyful noise to the Lord and worship God. The point is this, church: find what brings you joy and bring Jesus into that. That's where to start.

42:13That's how abiding in Jesus becomes a joy. It doesn't have to be this drudgery. The problem is, I think a lot of us as Christians with our relationship with Christ, we're sitting on cinder blocks and plywood tables, and it doesn't feel great to us. Enjoy the good gifts that God has given you and bring Jesus into those things. Seek the joy that Jesus promises.

42:34This is a great time of year to be reminded of the importance of cultivating and maintaining our relationship with Jesus, right? Christian living divorced from the power of Jesus is powerless religion that defeats and leaves you empty.

42:50Empty. A Christian living without the power of relationship with Jesus robs you of the joy that Jesus wants you to have in a relationship with him. Christian living without the power of a relationship with Jesus is like trying to have a branch with fruit by just grabbing fake fruit from a model home and duct taping it to a dead branch.

43:10Jesus has to be the source. Jesus is the root of the fruit. He has to be the, the power source of your vibrant relationship with him. Again, just like that laptop doesn't work as soon as you unplug it from the wall, Christian, as soon as you are unplugged from Jesus, it's not gonna work either. Will you stand with me and let's pray together.