Caleb Reed: John 15 is where we're at here this morning.

This passage is very, very familiar to all of us, likely, in the sense that you've probably heard messages preached out of John 15.

The wonderful imagery, the illustration that Jesus uses of the vine and the branches, the husbandman who tends the vine, tends the branches, Jesus, that life-giving flow, and from that fruit flows.

I would imagine that all of us here in this room have heard messages out of John 15.

But if you are anything like me, I have many times read John 15, and the phrase that is so well known throughout the chapter, the phrase abide in me, or the word abide.

I've read John 15, I've studied John 15, I've heard John 15 preached, but I have oftentimes found myself struggling to understand.

So what does that look like?

What does it mean to abide?

In John 15, Jesus is giving us a powerful truth.

He is telling us that he, Christ, is the only and true vine.

That phrase rings with authority.

That statement rings with comfort.

As he tells us, don't look for another life-giving source.

Don't go somewhere else.

I am the true vine.

And you can trust the true vine.

You can trust the work of the husbandman.

And from the vine flows life.

So he commands us in verse 4, so abide in me.

I want you to look with me starting in verse 4.

We're going to read verses 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

And I want us to see this morning as practically as I can make it, what does it mean to abide?

Starting in verse 4, Jesus says this, Abide in me and I in you.

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me.

I am the vine and ye are the branches.

He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.

For without me ye can do nothing.

If a man abide not in me, He is cast forth as a branch and is withered, and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples.

I think probably all of us in this room, if given the option, if we were given a piece of paper with two options, and the piece of paper says, would you like to be a disciple or not be at the same time?

Not be a disciple of Christ.

I would guess that most of us will say, well, I want TO BE A DISCIPLE OF CHRIST.

If given the option, would you like TO BEAR FRUIT OR NOT BEAR FRUIT?

I think probably all of us would say, well, I want TO BEAR FRUIT.

If given THE option, would you like TO HAVE POWERFUL PREVAILING PRAYER OR WOULD YOU NOT LIKE TO HAVE POWER IN PRAYER?

we'd probably all say, well, I'd like TO HAVE POWER IN PRAYER.

And those are some incredible benefits that he spells out in verses 7 and 8 saying, look, you'll bear fruit and you'll be my disciple and you'll have power in prayer.

But all of those blessings are intricately tied back to knowing the person of Christ.

John 15 is positional truth.

But John 15 is also relational truth.

Positional truth is powerful.

He says it in verse four.

He gives a command.

He says this, abide in me and I in you.

I in you is helping us see Jesus is saying, I live inside of you and you need to get a hold of it.

You heard already this week, I think it was Wednesday night, Dr.

Jim, if I remember correctly, I get the messages confused sometimes in my mind, but Dr.

Jim at one point during this week preached to you on positional truth.

He said, ye are the light of the world.

Ye are the salt of the earth.

Or that's what it says in Matthew chapter 5.

And his whole premise of that message was, that's who you are in Christ.

Christ in you.

That's your very being.

We need to get a hold of positional truth.

A number of years ago, well I say a number, it was three years, four years ago in 2020, the Victory Conference, if you're familiar with that, we took an entire year to focus, or entire conference to focus on positional truth because it is so important to understand who I am in Christ.

Many times we will find people focusing on positional truth, and it's utterly necessary because if we don't, we will regularly fail.

In other words, because of my flesh, young people, I will always fail without fail.

Track what I'm saying?

Every time my flesh is going to fail.

But when I discover positional truth, it unlocks the inner power of victory that is in me, not being me, being Christ.

You've heard some people will say, you got to dig deep.

Sometimes we talk about that in the sports realm.

You know, this is the time, dig deep.

You'll hear singers or actors talk about a time of great difficulty and they just, they dug deep and they wanted to find themselves.

Brad Paisley wrote a song about finding yourself.

And I'm going to think to myself, I don't if I want to find myself.

Man, you know what happens when I dig deep?

I find more of the problem, not the solution.

Digging deep is not where you find the solution.

Inside of me is my failed flesh, and it'll always fail, but inside of me is Christ.

So positional truth is so incredibly important.

Constantly plagued with pride, Christ in you is humility.

Struggling with bitterness and a a lack of ability to forgive, well, the Christ in you is forgiveness and flows forgiveness.

Failing in lust, well, then Christ in you is purity.

Plagued with fear of man, Christ is rest, is security, is approval.

Wracked by fear, Christ is fearless and he lives in you.

That's why he is saying, I in you, I live in you.

John 15 is positional truth, but John 15 is not only positional truth, It is the perfect wedding, the perfect melding, the perfect welding of positional truth and relational truth and placing it together because you cannot have one without the other for it to work.

Maybe if you've ever worked with epoxy or bondo.

Some of you guys maybe down south have a beat up vehicle, but bondo covers a multitude of sins.

If you've ever worked with an epoxy or a bondo, you know how it works.

You take the resin or the main covering agency, and you're going to place it down on a piece of paper.

And every time you use something like that, you're always going to have it.

It's a two-part bond.

You'll have your resin, and then you have what's called a hardener.

And you'll spray that or drip that on there, and then you mix it together.

And the science behind it is that resin in and of itself will not do the job.

But as soon as you place that chemical hardener on there and mix it together, there is a chemical bonding that begins to happen.

The fibers inside of that bondo begin to overlap and it creates an incredible strength that the two parts on their own could never have, but bonded together, they are inseparable and that's where you find power.

That's where you find hardness in your bondo, your resin.

And so it is with positional truth and relational truth.

Do you realize what John 15 is saying is, I'm in you, so let's interact.

that's what abide is all about.

Is there anybody here in this room that you would say, Brother Reed, if I'm honest, I'll raise my hand.

Sometimes the word abide confuses me.

Raise your hand.

Anybody like that?

Okay, a few more.

You'd say, this is sometimes I don't understand how to abide.

Well, let me try to illustrate it because I think it's probably a little less complicated than we think.

Okay, let's see.

I asked Pastor Royalty, could you come up here?

Is Caleb Royalty?

Where's Caleb Royalty?

okay Caleb why don't you come on up here okay I want to try to uh okay the word abide if you're to define it the Greek word is to remain or to stay meno it's that idea of just living in one place and staying there and so if I if I if I preach it like that okay uh just stay in Jesus it's kind of like okay but what does that mean is that positional relational how does how does that work so let me see

if I can illustrate this to make it clear that it's actually not as complicated we actually understand abide better than we think.

So pastor, if you could come on up here.

Okay, Caleb, I'm gonna give you a command and you, I'm not gonna lay the parameters on it, you just do whatever you think that command means, okay?

Caleb, I want you to abide in the chairs.

Okay, would you guys agree that's a safe definition of what I meant by that phrase.

Caleb, I want you to abide.

That's kind of hard to see here, but Caleb, I want you to abide in the choir loft.

Okay, now you're going to have to trust by faith because we don't have cameras back there, but Caleb, when you feel like you're abiding in the choir loft, tell me.

Okay, he's there.

Okay.

All right, Caleb, I want you to come back down here and I want you to abide in Luke LeBee's lap.

No, I'm just kidding.

Just kidding.

Okay, but Caleb, come on down here, wherever you are.

Okay, so I could give multiple illustrations.

Now, Caleb, I want you to abide in your dad.

Okay, all right.

I was hoping this is what he'd do, and it was perfect.

Abide in my dad.

I'm not going to sit on him.

Like, how do I do this?

Naturally, He embraced him.

Because abide intrinsically is relational.

Thank you guys, you can sit back down.

Jesus is not trying to give you some deep theological exegesis.

No, he's just saying, let's have a relationship.

Now, that phrase is so used today, And that is a good thing.

There has been, in years past, there has been an incredible emphasis, at least in the conservative, independent Baptist world, there has been an emphasis on doing for Christ.

And then there has been a realization that, man, we were off or unbalanced in how we communicated it.

And so there has been an emphasis in the last few years.

And rightfully so.

It's not about doing for Christ.

It's about knowing Christ.

And so the word relationship is used all the time.

so much so that sometimes to us it seems cliche.

You'll say, it's not a religion, it's a relationship.

And if you know what you mean, you know what you mean.

But to the person who doesn't know what you mean, they don't know what you mean.

But in the real life, it's actually not that complicated.

If I get a young guy that comes to me and says, you know, I'm in a relationship with a girl.

I don't say, now, what does that mean?

I'm not psychoanalyzing the nuances of how do you relation.

No, it's very obvious what he means.

Do you realize that every single relationship, no matter how you got to it, whether it was a good relationship or a bad relationship, every relationship is built the exact same way?

Communication and time.

That's how all relationships are built.

If I could try to put abide in me into 2023 vernacular, I would say it this way.

Hey, relation with me.

Okay, it's a weird way of putting it.

I understand, but I'm trying to break us out of our natural thinking.

It is Jesus saying, hey, I want to be best friends.

Why don't you come over to my house and let's shoot dart guns together.

I'm not trying to lower him in the sense of making him feel that, get him too low.

I guess what I'm just trying to say is that is what he's saying in abide in me.

He is saying, I want you to talk with me.

I'm in you.

You don't have to search far.

So let's interact.

Relate with me.

Let us communicate.

We understand that in the physical world.

We know that if we are going to build a relationship with someone, we're going to spend time with them.

Okay, let me give you this illustration.

Some of you are going to get freaked out.

If you're a BCM student, don't worry about this.

Okay.

If you were going to be in a relationship with a girl, you're going to be in a relationship with a guy, how would it work?

Okay, I want you to imagine with me, you're 20 years old, mom and dad are all about it, so it's good, it's a good thing, and you're like, okay, that girl, I think I want to marry her, and the girl says, man, I think I like that guy.

I mean, how would that start?

How would it go?

Normally, okay.

Okay, you might send, you might, if you got the approval, and dad's all about it, okay, so what you might do is, you might send her a text and be like, hey, you know, we're going to have a game night on Friday night.

want to come over for our game night?

And she'd come over and you'd go to the garage.

No.

She'd come over and you're excited that she's going to be there.

And so you guys would sit on the couch with your friends or your family.

You guys might play a game together for an hour and a half and then that would be over.

And she'd go home and you'd think, well, that was really nice.

We spent a little time together and that was sweet.

I liked the time we were together.

And so what would you do next?

Maybe you'd send another text or phone call.

Hey, let's go get ice cream.

And you guys would go get ice cream.

And maybe you guys would go for a bike ride.

And as it is developing, you would find yourself enjoying the time spent.

And you would say, man, this is developing and I want to spend some more time.

And as you spend more time with them, the bond begins to grow.

And you're recognizing, wow, this is real.

And you want to spend more time.

And it gets to the place, if the Lord is in it and you're doing it right, it gets to the place where, man, you don't want to live without them.

And every moment that you're away, you're thinking about it.

I wonder what she's doing right now.

I wonder what he's doing right now.

And you send a text and all of that.

And you're just longing for the day that you can be together forever.

It's not complicated.

We know how that works.

Hallmark is built on that.

Right?

Young people, if I can reverently say that, take the same illustration and put it right here.

Because Jesus is longing.

I really want to know you.

and I want you to know me.

But for some reason, we find ourselves thinking, well, I want the power of prayer and I want the power of its presence and I want the power of the fruit and I want to be a disciple I just don't want to put the time in.

In ministry, I'll be the first to tell you, in ministry, one of the biggest challenges, one of the biggest struggles, I don't know why it is this way, it's just this way, is that as a leader in ministry, man, you want to have a good marriage, An exemplary marriage, but you just don't want to put the time in.

Oh, you do.

It's just there's so many other competing things that you don't end up putting the time in.

And what happens with many people in ministry is they feel like they've got to minister and they feel like they've got to have a good relationship.

They don't put the time into it.

And what ends up happening?

You hit a wall at eight years in.

You hit a wall at 15 years in.

You hit a wall at 10 years in.

And what happens in every one of those situations is they either divorce or they put the time in.

You've heard it said before, young people, do you want a relationship with Jesus Christ?

It comes by no other way than communication and time.

Look at verse 7.

I'm out of order a little bit, but look at verse 7.

He says this, if you abide in me, relation with me, and my words abide in you.

Okay, that's this right here.

That's like when I'm getting up in the morning with the Lord and I'm pouring over his scriptures and he's speaking to me.

And then throughout the day, maybe I'm memorizing and meditating and his words are affecting the way I view life.

And when I spend time just letting his word wash over me, it affects my worldview and it affects the way I think.

And I'm spending time with him and I'm talking to him and I'm praying his scripture back to him.

And he's saying, when you abide in me and my words abide in you, do you know what happens?

A transformation of the soul begins to happen.

I become more like Christ.

Well, in that place, you know what happens?

He says, then you get to the point where you can ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

Now, some people read that, and they're like, sweet, then I want a Maserati.

As you begin spending time in, just with Jesus and his word in you, your desires actually change.

So you actually can pray your desires, and the Lord will bring it to pass because they were his desires.

infused in you because you spent time together.

The biggest challenge that we have is we get really stubborn sometimes.

We get really frustrated sometimes.

We hear testimonies.

The one that was given earlier.

We could have done an invitation right after a testimony.

We hear a testimony like I shared last night.

We hear a testimony of Brother Ryan's and we say, man, that's great.

I want to get to where you're at right now.

And we miss the time involved.

And so too often we go to the Lord and say, okay, Lord, I'm going to give you six minutes this morning.

You better show up.

Because if you don't, you're not real and I'm moving on.

How would that work with the girl you're dating or girl you're recording?

Would that work very well?

The relationship would be off really fast.

Well, we would never do that because we give them the benefit of the doubt.

Hey, we're learning each other.

It's a relationship.

take some time.

When Emma and I were first married, this became very, very apparent to me.

Those first few months of marriage, we were challenged, don't jump right into ministry as soon as you get married.

Take some time and let the relationship just go deep.

In the Old Testament, there's a principle of the men that were warriors in war.

They were to take a year off from battle, not go to war.

And the scripture says that they were to be home with their wife to cheer their wife.

And it wasn't because she's grumpy as much as saying, you need to know her.

You need to spend time with her.

And so I was challenged by several people, that's what you guys need to do.

And so I said, okay, we're not going to jump right into ministry right away.

And we're going to, you know, we're going to be involved at our church, but we're just going to, I'm going to work a secular job and we're just going to learn each other.

And two weeks, well, got back from my honeymoon and I don't think it was a week after the honeymoon or two weeks after the honeymoon, Brother Bosler texts me and says, hey, I lined up two meetings and I have no team captains.

You just got married, and so this would be perfect.

You're a team captain and a co-captain.

This is great.

And there's another couple in our church that just got married three months ago.

They're a team captain, co-captain.

Why don't you two couples, freshly married couples, come and travel with me?

Sounded great on paper.

We go and we get to that first, I mean, Emma and I are married now three and a half weeks.

We get to that first meeting, and it was miserable.

because I'm in team captain mode.

I'd travel before.

You just, you spend time.

When you're a team captain, you're usually solo.

You don't have to think about, you know, someone back in the hotel.

You just invest and invest and invest and invest.

So I'm staying up late at night.

I'm out talking with the guys and my wife is back at the hotel going, don't you love me?

Like, why aren't you coming home?

Because I got to dig a mud pit.

That's why I'm not.

Yeah, but I thought we were married.

Well, yeah, we are, but I got things.

And the truth is, if that happened today, it wouldn't even, it wouldn't throw her at all because our relationship five and a half years later is so much deeper.

There is confidence that even when I do something that she says, that threw me off a little bit.

I wasn't expecting that.

She's not worrying about whether I love her because the time has been invested and the relationship has gone deep.

Young people, if there are times where you find yourself thinking, God, I don't know why you allowed that.

When the relationship is deep, the time has been spent, the abiding has been beginning to happen.

You can say, Lord, that doesn't make any sense to me, but I know you make sense and I can trust you.

Lord, the, Korten Poon put it this way, never fear to yield an unknown future to a known God.

What she's getting at is if you know who God is, if you know his nature, if you've been abiding in him and you've been in his word, He begins to speak to you and he's showing you my loving kindness never fails.

And you ingest that and you just live there and you talk with him and it begins to be settled inside of your soul.

Then when something happens that doesn't feel loving kindness, you can say, now, Lord, I know who you are.

It's not going to throw me.

It did for a second, but I know who you are.

Stephen, why don't you come on up here?

I thought you guys were going to be cold and wet and tired in here and you guys are all very alert.

So I was trying to give as many illustrations to keep you awake, but you're doing a great job.

Okay, Stephen's going to come up here.

You guys all know Stephen Gilmore, right?

Okay.

Stephen, you can stand up here.

Stephen Gilmore and I have been friends for a number of years.

I knew him before he came into college, and then he entered into college, and we overlapped some.

Stephen and I have been able to be a part of a number of skits together, which always bonds you.

If you don't know something, skit planning always happens at 2 a.m.

in the morning.

That's just how it happens.

And so when you spend multiple nights at 2 a.m.

or all night together, Joe can tell you the same thing.

It just bonds people.

I've worked for a summer with Stephen.

He would ride with me to work.

We've spent a lot of time together.

Because I can feel and see Stephen, this relationship is far more natural.

It's why we understand human-to-human relationships really, really well.

But if there's a time when I can't see Stephen, like I can't see God, sometimes we find ourselves groping and struggling.

So here, let me just, Stephen, are you real?

Yeah.

Okay, okay, good.

For real, okay.

All right, Stephen, I want you, as best you can, if I have you stand here, they're going to be able to see you.

So I want you to stand right behind here so no one can see you.

Oh, no, he's gone.

I don't know.

Stephen, are you still the same?

Yeah.

I'm right here.

Okay, that's good.

I hear his voice.

I love him.

Yes.

Okay, and the truth is, you know Stephen well enough that you hear him make those quips and you could all say, I know that Stephen Gilmore.

Right?

Now, I can't see him, but because I've talked with him.

Stephen, you still there?

Okay, he's over here.

Now, what if Stephen did something that is bizarre to someone that had first met him?

Like maybe spoke in a different kind of voice.

This is great!

Now, anybody who's ever been here to hear his Pinocchio voice, you'd still say, Ah, that's Stephen.

Okay, it was a little bit different than I've normally known him, but I'd know that voice anywhere.

Okay, that's Stephen.

You know, there are times, because I have spent time with Stephen, even when I can't see him, I still know him.

And the same way it is with us in Christ.

Though I cannot see him because of my abiding in him, because he lives in me, and just getting to know him, even when God allows something that seems to be strange or confusing, because who he is never changes.

He's not strange, and he's not confusing.

I can still recognize, but that's my Jesus, and it doesn't throw me.

Okay, Stephen, thank you.

You can, wherever you are, you can go back down to your seat.

Okay.

A couple years ago, the Lord began to confront me.

In my journey of wanting to know Jesus, the Lord began to show me where I was dissecting my day and my time with him.

You can probably relate.

Get up early in the morning, and this is back when I was painting for my father-in-law, get up early in the morning, and I'd have my cup of coffee, and I'd spend that time in the Word, And I would have my hour with the Lord, my devotions, and many of you do that routine as I was doing.

Wonderful routine.

Spend that time with the Lord and truly abiding with Him, talking with Him, confessing things and praying and things and journaling maybe.

And I finished that time and I got finished with my devotions and I put on my painter whites and I get into the van and I drive off to work.

and what I didn't realize was I was hoping that that feeling would carry with me like tag along if you want but I actually wasn't taking time to continue the interacting with him.

So when I'd get home in the evening the day might have gone frustrating the day might have gone poorly and in the evening I'm feeling just a need and so maybe in the evening I'd take some time in prayer and I'd spend some time with the Lord and in the evening we'd refresh that again and what I began to realize God began to confront me and say, Caleb, this is good.

In the morning you talk with me, and in the evening you talk with me, but Caleb, for the majority of the day, we don't talk.

Now, that wasn't him slapping me around as much as he was saying, I miss you.

So God began to deal with me.

So what is a real relationship?

Well, I text my wife in the day.

Why don't I text Jesus?

I don't mean that in a weird way.

I'm not actually going to pull my phone out and send a text because I don't have his number.

I do, actually, in a weird sense.

He has mine.

I know that for sure.

But what I might do is while I'm up on the ladder and someone just criticized my paint line saying, that's crooked, and immediately I start getting frustrated and the Spirit of God begins to speak and I can right there on the ladder say, okay, now, Lord, I got mad.

Or, Lord, I feel like I'm about to get mad and I know I shouldn't get mad.

Lord, how do I handle this one?

Lord, my pride is riling up and I'm not sure what to do with it.

Lord, someone just made a joke that I thought was funny but I don't feel like I probably shouldn't think that was funny.

And Lord, how do I work through this?

I'm not getting down off the ladder and going our most graciously dear and heavenly father we thank you for the air that we breathe today and I might, no, I don't do that with my wife I did that once, I got on my knee but I don't do that anymore I just talked to her like she's my friend earlier this week this is the second time this has happened unfortunately we pulled into a church and I brought our trailer in, lined it up, and jumped

out to hook the trailer up, the hoses and the cables, and I realized that where my trailer was positioned was not in a good line with where their hookups were, and I'd already dropped my tailgate to pull out all my stuff, and if you understand how a fifth wheel works, your fifth wheel hangs over your bed of your truck, hooks into a hitch in the bed of your truck, and so there's space.

When the tailgate is closed, there's space for that trailer to maneuver.

Once you drop your tailgate, you've got about three to four inches of clearance between your tailgate and your trailer.

And I dropped it to pull out all my hoses.

And I get there and I realize, oh, this is not going to work.

I actually need to turn the trailer around.

And I was so focused on that, I hopped inside the truck and I put it into drive.

This is Saturday, this last week.

And I start turning the wheel and I hear…

and I knew what I did.

I just turned the wheel and drove my tailgate into the front of my trailer.

And what makes it worse is that was the second time I've done that this year.

And I have babied that truck, washing it every couple of weeks, trying to make sure it's in a good shape if I ever wanted to trade it in, And I get out there and I come around and sure enough, there it is again.

And internally, all the frustration begins to rise.

And I responded differently than the first time I did it.

But it was very instructive for me.

I said, Lord, I didn't want that to happen.

Now that's obvious, right?

But I usually say that to my wife or to my kids.

And I very rarely said that to the Lord.

My wife actually can't help me on this, but he can.

And the Lord began to just minister to my soul.

I began to just take my needs and my cares to the person who lives inside of me and interact with the person in me.

Lord, I didn't want that to happen.

Lord, you know, Father, how I've been trying to protect this truck so it has good trade-in value.

And, Lord, it feels like that's…

Father, I've got to trust you with this.

and it was in that moment the Lord began to teach me again I'm so real you can actually just interact with me if you know the name Harold Vaughn Harold Vaughn is a traveling evangelist I greatly appreciate his preaching just recently they did a meeting where they produced a video about revival where he traveled over to Ireland he interviewed a number of different pastors and looked at the history some of you may have seen that video my brother-in-law sent it to me last week He

said, man, you've got to watch this video.

And so I started through the film.

And at the very beginning, Harold Vaughn's giving his testimony.

He says, man, I got saved, surrendered to the Lord, went off to Bible college, went through four years of Bible college, knew I was supposed to be an evangelist, got married to my wife, and I said, we're going to travel.

And that's exactly what they did.

They started on the road traveling.

He said, two years in, I was out of gas.

He says, I'm in my hotel room.

I get up early one morning.

I'm so frustrated.

I walked out of the hotel room and slammed the door.

His wife said, yeah, I knew he was going to be gone for a while.

He said, I walked out there and I got along with the Lord and I said, Lord, if this is all there is to Christianity, if this is what I'm experiencing, this is all there is to Christianity, you can have it because I'm sick of it.

He said, I've never talked to the Lord in that tone before.

He said, we know what I learned that day?

You can be real with Jesus.

Please don't misunderstand me.

I am not saying you're spitting mad at him and you walk away bitter.

But did you realize that there are times when the psalmist under inspiration says, what are you doing?

I don't understand this.

Why me and why now?

That's not disrespectful.

It's abiding, actually.

You're going to the only source that can actually help you.

You're not digging deeper to try to work yourself out of that.

That's only going to bring more depression.

It's going to the only one who has the solution, who is the solution, and you're pouring yourself out because he isn't you, and you're interacting with him, and you're abiding.

It's relating.

It's spending time.

I'm afraid that too many of us have believed that because of the failures in our life, we can't talk with Jesus because he's so holy and I'm so not.

Ryan preached it.

Do you realize who he came for?

He came for those who know they need him.

Romans 5.20 says this, where sin abounded, does sin abound in your life?

Well, guess what?

Where sin abounded, grace does much more amount, which means that because of your sinfulness, that does not disqualify you from a relationship with Christ.

Your sinfulness qualifies you for a relationship with Christ.

So he says, abide in me.

It's a relationship, young people.

Abide in me and I in you.

Because he illustrates, as the branch could not bear fruit of itself.

I mean, that'd be silly.

Think about this.

We travel all over the place.

We do not own a home.

Our home is on wheels.

It's a fifth wheel trailer, which means I pay no property taxes, which is kind of nice, but I have no yard.

I have no garden.

And if my wife wanted the garden, we couldn't.

Imagine with me that my little son comes to me and says, dad, I've always wanted a fruit tree.

And I say, well, son, we don't have a property.

We can't grow a fruit tree.

He says, dad, no problem.

Pastor so-and-so had a fruit tree.

I cut off one of the branches that had all the apples and we're going to bring it with us.

We can have apples all season.

Would I be excited about that?

No, I would say, son, It's not going to grow.

It's not going to work.

It's disconnected from the vine.

This is what he is saying.

Why would you try to live the Christian life without me?

You can't.

Abide in, if a branch cannot bear fruit of itself except to abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me.

That seems discouraging, but actually it's very encouraging because he's saying, so come back to me.

He's not just telling you, hey, you're a lowlife.

No, he's saying, hey, you're messed up, but I'm the fixer-upper, so come to me.

It's actually directional.

It's very encouraging.

You want to know where the true vine is?

It's me.

You don't have to search any farther.

Verse 5, I am the vine, ye are the branches.

He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.

For without me ye can do nothing.

He says, when you relation with me, when we spend that time together, fruit begins to flow.

you say well yeah fruit fruit that's right fruit I want fruit what does fruit look like ever wondered that well fruit must mean I lead a person to the Lord every week that's got to mean what fruit looks like it's got to be something big certainly leading someone to the Lord would be fruit but could I put it in even simpler sense fruit is just Jesus being extended through me right?

Consider this.

As an apple tree has apple fruit and as a pear tree has pear fruit and a mango tree has mango fruit, so a Jesus branch will produce Jesus fruit.

What will flow out of you as you abide are the very touches of Christ.

In other words, you become an incarnation of Christ.

You become his extension.

If you want to know, the Pharisees would come to him and say, so who is God?

Jesus says, look at me, and you've seen God.

I'm God with skin on.

You can't see him, but you can see me.

Could I put it this way?

If people want to see Jesus today, when believers abide in him, they see Jesus in your skin.

So if Jesus was here today and he walks up to a guy who's struggling, you know what Jesus would do?

He'd put his hand on him.

He might even give him a hug.

He might squeeze him so hard that the breath comes out of him and he says, man, I love you.

Well, maybe the Lord wants you to do that with somebody else.

Same gender, if we could.

That'd be good.

So here's my question for you.

Does Jesus flow from you?

That's the fruit.

If we say, I don't know if much of Jesus has come out of me recently, then it's because I'm not taking the time with him.

I'm not abiding.

When Ron Hamilton wrote the words, I saw Jesus in you, it wasn't just a cute phrase.

He actually meant, I saw Christ in you.

What flowed from you was what Christ would have done on this earth.

How does Jesus speak when he was reviled against?

And so when you were reviled against, lied about, when abiding with Jesus, the way Jesus responded would come out of you.

How does Jesus care for the lowly?

Let that come from us.

How does Jesus care for widows and orphans?

It ought to be flowing from the church body.

He is gentle.

He is kind.

He is a servant.

Let that flow from us.

He says in verse 7, if you want to have that kind of a prayer life, abide.

Most of us think that kind of being able to pray what I desire, I've never experienced that.

that kind of power and prayer doesn't exist in my life because that level of praying doesn't exist outside of extensive abiding that verse 7 is not a pipe dream verse 7 is not a fairy tale verse 7 is not like dangling a carrot in front of a mule's nose no that's actually truth the unfortunate part is most of us haven't experienced it because we don't put the time in and please understand what I mean When I say put the time in, I am not talking

about punching the time clock.

Like, well, I did my hour, Lord, so you better answer my prayer.

No, that's not the point.

My abiding with the Lord ought not be relegated to 60 minutes.

Abiding lasts as many minutes as in 24 hours, right?

I don't know how many.

I don't do the math well.

I don't have time to fully develop the rest of this, But look at verse 6.

He says, If a man abide not in me, he's cast forth as a branch and is withered.

And men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned.

He's not saying that if you don't abide in me, you're going to go to hellfire.

The idea of fire and burning is not dealing of damnation.

It's not dealing with hellfire.

As much as he is saying, as useless as a burned up branch, smoke and ashes is, so a believer who walks this Christian life having never spent time with me, their life amounts to nothing but a little bit of smoke.

We could all give testimonies of times in our life when we stepped out of the abiding relationship.

And it always brings consequences and it's never sweet.

And so Jesus is saying, want to know me?

It's just a relationship.

Caleb illustrated it perfectly.

Abide in the chairs.

He went and did it.

He knew how to do that.

Abide in the choir loft.

He knew how to do that.

Abide in your dad.

Well, I'm not sure, but I think it's something like this.

Yes.

If you this morning say, well, I want to learn how to abide.

I'm not exactly sure.

I think it's something like getting alone with him and spending time with him, but I'm not sure how that's going to work.

That's okay.

That's how all relationships are built.

You get together with that girl for the first time.

You're like, well, this is kind of awkward, but I like it, but it's a little weird.

I don't know how to work.

and you just spend more time, the Lord matures it, and then you begin to understand, wow, I don't want to leave him.

I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with him.

Abide in me.

It's a lot less complicated than we think.

It is intrinsically a relationship.