Book of Romans, 8:1 - Fruit Bearing of the Believer, Pt. 2 (09/15/2019)

Well, do we want to keep the kids here or do Children's Church today? What do we have planned?

We have quite a few. All right, so we will have

Children's Church. We will see you guys at lunch. That was beautiful,

Glenda. Thank you for the special this morning. The offertory was the special this morning.

It was great. Yes, it was. And that song choice, Charlotte, was very good.

Imagine that. I was thinking about, you know, who writes songs like that nowadays?

Not too many people can make them majestic like that, you know. Quite amazing.

Yeah, I think there's stuff going around. I've been feeling a little weird all week. Just my stomach's been a little churny or something like something's not quite right.

So I'm glad we're here. And maybe we should be glad the others aren't here so we don't catch whatever it is.

But I'm sure the teachers are tired. I mean, it's still hot and getting used to the new schedule.

And the kids bring nice little things we can catch around too, I'm sure, for the teachers. It takes them, it's got to take them a few weeks to get immune to all that, right?

All right, well, yeah,

I would say if you think about Sharon, Henry, pray for her through the next few days because she's having a little difficulty with her recovery.

And, you know, they send people home so quickly now, you wonder about that. Because it was a pretty major surgery, and they sent her home the same day.

And, you know, she's been very lethargic and not springing back very quickly.

So pray for her and for Joe to have wisdom if he needs to take her back or whatever. Not that they're talking about doing that, though.

I'm just theorizing here. Great Sunday school lesson this morning, by the way. It gave us a lot to think about.

We all learned something new, I think, today. I know I've never considered the fact that perhaps

Jonah literally died, drowned in the ocean before the fish swooped him up.

And then he was resurrected the third day inside that fish. Quite a bit of evidence that that's the case.

Brother Bill presented that this morning and noted that Matthew Henry believed that.

So did J. Vernon McGee believed it. And so who knows? I wish I knew what Rocky thought.

Have any of you had a chance to listen to Brother Rocky on our church website yet? You should do it. I'm telling you, it's a seminary education.

It was my seminary education. It's phenomenal. You'll learn more. Like, if you listen to one, it's usually an hour to an hour and a half.

You'll learn more than other people would teach you if they had ten hours in one hour. It's amazing how much he talks fast, for one thing.

All right. All right, let's just get right into this. I wish you guys gave me a little extra time to preach.

I can always use that, you know. So I want to review just a little bit here.

We've been in Romans chapter 8, verse 1 for a long time. The second part of the verse about that we walk according to the spirit, not according to the flesh, and how that's an effect of the salvation.

It's not a condition of salvation. It's the result of salvation. And John Calvin said that's what he believed it meant.

And we started looking through Scripture to see if Calvin was right or not. See, did he base that on the Bible? Well, in Colossians chapter 1, there are at least 30 of the things that the

Lord did to us immediately upon our salvation listed in this one chapter. And some of the things that we have talked about already,

I might have put my glasses on to see my sloppy notes here. First was in Colossians chapter 1, starting with verse 1 and going all the way down through about verse 10 is what we've done so far.

And so we have seen about 11 things that God did to us the instant he saved us.

I'll just mention them. He made us faithful. In other words, he gave us his faith, which makes us able to be faithful.

He opened our eyes to grace and what it really means and how if it is grace, then there's no part we play in it other than receiving it as a gift, a free gift.

He gave us peace. And that root word, if you remember, comes from iro, which means to be joined together with something.

So obviously the only peace we have is when we're joined with Christ. He gave us faith. He gave us love of the brethren.

He gave us hope. Elpis is the Greek word for that, and it means a joyful anticipation of a certain future event.

He put that in our hearts. He gave us ears that hear. It's kind of interesting, the

Greek word proakouo there means to hear already. In other words, the moment he saved us, it's like we already hear.

We didn't have to learn to hear. We could hear with understanding. We could hear and understand the Bible. Not all of it at once, but it came alive to us.

Number eight, he made the Bible bear fruit inside of us. Remember that one?

He made the Bible bear fruit in us. Number nine, he allowed us to know and understand grace.

The first mention I had of number two of grace was talking about how we grow grace unto grace. This one means he gave us an understanding of what grace means.

Unmerited, undeserved favor. That was number nine. Number ten is he caused us to have knowledge of God's will for our life.

How do we know God's will, what he wants us to do tomorrow? He gives us knowledge of how to determine that.

Number eleven was he causes us to be fruitful. That's what we've been talking about lately.

We started out on that little road. We were talking about the story of when

Jesus went into Jerusalem. He looked around about the temple, and he saw some things that weren't right, didn't he?

He took a whip, and he whipped the money changers out. He turned their tables over, destroyed their equipment.

He took a hard look at what God's house should look like. It didn't look right. We mentioned how he's doing that today with the modern church.

The next thing was he cast out the secular and the false prophets. We talked about how when we talk about fruit, one of the things about fruit that's important is it allows us to judge our teachers, our preachers, our teachers, because Jesus says you know them by their fruit.

You have the negative side of fruit, and you've got the positive side of fruit. We talked about the negative side for a little bit, what it looks like when a person is a false prophet.

Remember that? You look at two things. You look at their life. That takes a little bit of time to see that.

Secondly, you look at their words. Do their teachings match the Bible or not?

We talked about that a little bit too. Then we talked about the last thing I think was what did the

Bible mean by they had the error of Balaam and the doctrine of Balaam.

We talked about that quite a bit. Really, if you want to think about the problem with Balaam was he was truly a prophet.

He could pray, and he could hear from God, which is interesting. But he sold out to a worldly king and went with him in order to make money, and that was his error.

It's kind of interesting because if you read the story where it's actually talking about the story, you don't necessarily in the

Old Testament reading it, you don't see that he did anything really wrong. It doesn't look like it if you read it, even carefully if you read it.

But if you go to Revelation 2 .14, the Holy Spirit comes back and gives us a little more insight into that story that's not in the

Old Testament about how he was in fact going after the money. He was doing it for money, and he was tempted to sell out

Israel, which he didn't end up doing because God stopped him by speaking to him from the donkey he was riding on, right?

Remember that? Literally sent an angel with a sword that was going to kill

Balaam if the donkey hadn't stopped. The donkey could see the angel, but the prophet couldn't see the angel until later.

So it's a fascinating story about how not to be, but we certainly don't want to bring prophets like that in here.

Some of the things we notice about this man, though. Most people in most churches in this country,

I'm sorry to say, would have thought he was a great man of God. Why? He could do miracles.

Most churches today, as we have the biggest growth, is in the Charismatic and Pentecostal movements worldwide.

So most people in these megachurches are looking for miracles like this man could do.

And it's all being set up for the Tribulation period because Satan himself is going to indwell a person called the

Antichrist who's going to do great miracles and say great swelling words. Better than Hitler.

Hitler was great at speech giving. And this man will just woo people into doing exactly the wrong thing.

They will even think he's the Messiah. So it's all being set up for that. And so to me, this was a pretty timely study for us to go through.

Well, that brings us to talking about fruit bearing from the positive side.

And I just want to give you a rendition of what the Bible has to say about that issue.

And it's fascinating because Charlotte has been listening to Brother Rocky early in the morning. I'll go in there and she's got him on the loud speaker in the kitchen.

And I walk in and just want to cry every morning because there he is. It's like he's alive again on the face of the earth.

He had the most unusual ability to teach. He was more of a teacher, but he could preach too. But he was going into some of these fruits of the

Spirit in the lessons she was listening to. And it's called the Abundant Life Series.

If you would want to go out to parkmeadowschurch .com, click on the Rocky Freeman area that Ben just got set up.

And choose the one that says the Abundant Life. It's going to tell you even more stuff about these fruits that we're talking about today.

Because I'm just going to hit it today and be done with it. He'll go into hours on it. And it's fascinating stuff.

It's not stuff you've heard before. It's fascinating stuff. Like what's the difference between fruit bearing and spiritual gifts?

Fruit and spiritual gifts. What's the difference between that and good works and all these kind of interesting things? So wonderful stuff to listen to.

Please take advantage of it. I want to thank Ben. He's not here to hear me. But Ben Mitchell for totally revamping our church website, putting the

Rocky stuff on there. Eventually we're going to have some Brother Bill stuff on there. We're going to have some Brother Otis stuff on there.

Some Raj stuff. And now Ben's got it where when I preach right now, this sermon will be on there by Tuesday of the week

I preach it. We've been like a year and a half behind. So he's caught us up. And what he'll do is he'll go back in time and get that caught up later.

So it's pretty cool. So it'll be people out there in the country that know about us can hear it pretty much after we have this service.

So that's great. Well, let's go to John chapter 15, verse 1. I want to talk to you this morning about fruit from the good side of that.

The kind of fruit that born again people have. And there's several really cool ways to remember it.

Remember how to divide this study up in at least a couple of different cool ways. But first I just want to go through this passage with you in John 15, starting with verse 1.

And here we have the greatest teacher. This is Brother Rocky's teacher that's going to teach us this morning,

Jesus. All right. And here's what he said about fruit. He said, I am the true vine, and my father is the husbandman.

So what's he going to do? He's going to give us an object lesson, an agricultural lesson, which made way more sense back then, 2 ,000 years ago, when most of the family businesses were agricultural, right?

So, like, he could tell the story. They knew exactly what it meant. He said, now, physically, this is what you do.

This is what you do when you plant a vineyard. And here's how it works. Spiritually, it's the same way.

In your life, it's going to be the same way. So it's an object lesson. So he says, I am the true vine, and my father is the husbandman.

What do you think about that, just that phrase? Jesus says,

I am the true vine, my father is the husbandman. That means the farmer, right? It makes everything happen.

So think about the difference between the farmer, who's not always there. You can't always see the farmer running around the vineyard.

But the vineyard grows when he's not there, doesn't it? It just keeps doing its thing while he's asleep.

It does its thing when he's in town on vacation and comes back and goes out and does what he needs to do to make it all work.

And that's a picture of the father. But Jesus is the vine actually growing out of the earth.

Now, think about that. So that is showing us his physicality, the fact he's fully man. He's fully

God also, but he's fully man. And God the Father sent him here and planted him in this earth.

And he was physical where we could touch him, we could be with him. And that's a picture of it in that little phrase.

Think about that. He says, I am the vine, my father is the husbandman. He's not always around, but I am. I'm here growing right here in front of you, and you can learn from me.

So he says, every branch in me, now he brings us into the picture.

He is the vine. He's also known as the root. So he is the bottom part of the plant from which all the nutrients come and all the water flows up through the ground.

The nutrients in the water flow up through the roots, which is Jesus, and through the vine, which is Jesus. And then on that vine, you have some branches, and that's us.

So the first thing we notice is we have to be attached to him. We have to be attached to him if we're going to bear fruit because a branch can't make the fruit, it can only bear it.

So remember there's a difference between holding fruit or making it obvious to the world where it hangs off the branch and the world can see it and use it.

There's a difference between that and producing the fruit, which is not what we do. We bear the fruit.

Jesus produces the fruit. That is so important to remember, especially when so many of us came from fundamentally independent

Baptist churches and Southern Baptists, where it's all about programs and works we have to do.

And if we do enough of these works, we'll build a big church, and we can actually even engineer those programs.

Charlotte, see if you can remember that phrase Rocky put in there about a week ago, and you jotted it down, where he said we've got churches full of mechanics and the pastors, and they prepare a perfect sermon.

What was that phrase he said? You can look it up if you don't remember it. Get it exactly in his words because it was so good.

I want you to hear it. He's talking about the modern church, and remember this is back in the 80s. That's a long time ago now.

To me it doesn't seem like it because I'm old, but it's like yesterday to me. But you guys, it's like a long time ago, especially to Dave Huber.

All right, so what did Rocky say? Did you hear that?

It's possible for a church to excel in mechanics but fail in dynamics.

Dynamics means the power, the dynamo, the dunamis from the

Greek, the power. It comes from the Holy Spirit, not from the mechanics. And we have a lot of churches today that are magnificent machines.

It would embarrass us if we could see what they're doing. That doesn't embarrass me because I've been in those.

One thing I did when Rocky, when I got called to preach, I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know am I supposed to be a pastor, am

I supposed to be an evangelist? So I said, Rocky, let me travel with you. I can at least explore the evangelism side maybe.

I'm supposed to be an evangelist. He didn't want to let me do it because he'd travel alone forever, but he finally let me do it. So I traveled with him for months, went into every kind of church there is because he preached in every kind of church.

He preached in the huge city churches, and he would dress up and look better than their lawyers and doctors and talk with a more educated sound than they had.

And then he'd go into some little country church, about like this one or even smaller, and he wouldn't wear a fancy suit.

He'd be more like a farmer. He'd talk like a farmer. That's how Rocky was. He spoke to whoever was in the crowd.

He spoke where they could understand him. But I've been in these big churches that have the mechanics, and it's amazing.

I mean, the music is amazing. Rocky would sit right there every time before he preached.

Maybe that's why I do it. I don't know, but I would watch him because I'd be sitting usually right about where Dave is so I could see his profile.

I'd be kind of close, but I wanted to see his profile because I'm learning. I'm watching this man. What does he do before he preaches?

And I can't tell you the number of times a music group would come up, and they would be magnificent.

And Rocky would come up, and he would just get up, put his stuff up here, and he would just kind of hold his hands like this and just look down, and it seemed like for an hour, it was probably a minute or two with no, just total silence because he wasn't going to say anything good about that music group because they were carnal.

They were musicians who were very good, but they weren't spiritual people, and he could discern it, and it upset him, and he couldn't preach after hearing stuff like that.

So he would just say nothing for two or three minutes of silence. Then he would pray, and then he would start preaching, but it took him longer to get fired up.

All right, so then we'd go to another church, and it would be somebody would come up, and they would sing, and just like miss a few notes, you know, a little flat here, a little sharp there, just not quite perfect, and they would sit down, and he would come up, and you would think it was an angel that had just sung because he discerned that that person walked with God.

That person was spiritual, and he would talk about that person for three or four minutes, or group, sometimes it was a husband playing the piano and the wife and the teenage kids singing, but he would talk for three minutes about how awesome that was.

It was funny to me, but he could just discern the difference. So I would rather be in a place like this where people doing it are walking with the

Lord, and besides that, it's also you got the mechanics and the dynamics. That's what's pretty cool about Glenda, and of course, you too as a song leader, brother.

It's right there. I do appreciate it, though. I'm not kidding. I appreciate it so much, and, you know,

I, some of you guys looked around, and you said, gosh, there's six people here today. I don't, that doesn't ever enter my mind because what enters my mind is it's our church.

It's where God put us. This is what he wants us to have for whatever reason, and it's awesome.

Have you ever been in one that had a whole bunch of tares and it had a bunch of people, but you had a whole bunch of tares, about half of them? The church

I grew up in, three -fourths of them were tares. Seriously, maybe not tares, but carnal Christians plus tares equal three -fourths or maybe more, and that's why we left that church.

It was terrible, but it was big, big music stuff going on all the time. I picture the early church.

Do you really think the early church had screens with pastors from 40 miles away preaching so they could watch that, and then they got the music and orchestras, and do you really think they had that, or do you think they met in little caves with six or eight of them?

They met in barns with 12 of them, just like this, except this is better than a barn, hallelujah.

So that's my thinking on it. I do wish we could reach more people, but,

I mean, it's not, you know, like I'm talking about this morning. We cannot make the fruit.

We can only bear it. We cannot save the souls. We can only tell the message, right? Something flying around there.

So look at this. Let's continue with this little picture. So here he brings us in on the eighth or the ninth word in the whole passage.

Every branch, that's us. In me is the key there, in Christ. That means attached to the vine, who is also the root, right?

But every branch in me that bears not fruit, the husbandman takes it away.

So now we see a picture of the visible church, not the true church, because the true church, there's not any lost people in it, right?

The true church has saved people. But the visible church has wheat and tares mixed together, doesn't it?

Jesus told us that. And they said, well, should we get rid of the tares? And he said, no, leave them. My angels will separate them at the great resurrection, right?

Because if you try to get rid of them, you might actually hurt one of the wheat trying to get rid of the tares, because you might mess up, and it might actually be a wheat, and you think they're a tare.

So he said, it's not your job to get rid of the tares. So they're there. So the church at large, you have, here he pictures these as things that look like, branches that look like they're attached to the vine, but something has died at the area of attachment where they're not really attached.

There's no nutrients coming to it. And that branch dies, and the husband comes, and he prunes it off, doesn't he?

He cuts it off. So this is a picture of people that aren't really saved, but they are going to church, or they're in our families, or whatever, and they're pretending that they're saved.

Oh, they may be trying to get in, Bill. I locked everything. So every branch in me that beareth not fruit he takes away, and every branch that beareth fruit he purges it.

So now that's an interesting concept. So the ones that are saved, that are bearing fruit, the husbandman does something to those branches too.

He doesn't cut them off and throw them into the fire like the other ones, but he cuts them back.

Now peach trees are great examples. Otis used to use them a lot because when you go and you look at what they do to peach trees in the early spring,

I mean almost like the end of winter when they do it, they cut those things back so far it's like little stubs about this tall sticking up over that tree and you think they killed it.

And it actually makes it come in fuller and bear way more fruit. And that's what this is picturing.

And the Greek word there for purges, kathiro means literally to cleanse or to prune, so he's pruning the branches.

Now these are the branches that are real, the ones that are alive, the ones that are attached to Jesus Christ and to the root, and he wants them to be more fruitful than they currently are, right?

So he prunes them. What do you think the pruning could be a picture of in our lives?

Think it could be trouble? Could it be surgery? Could it be illness?

Could it be discouragement even? Problems, other people treating us as enemies, which is sad.

Everyone's a Christian that does that. It happens sometimes, not so much in our church, but there have been times in our church when it happened.

I won't mention any names, but I can think of some people that could hurt you that have been in this church while we were here, right,

Sharon? Raymond's over there smiling. It's good because it's good we can smile about it, but we remember it.

And the Lord has pruned all that out. So maybe you've got to get it down to eight or ten to do that.

I don't care, but it's worth it, isn't it? It's worth it to have peace. Bill and them have been here when we didn't always have peace.

It's nice now, isn't it? It's very nice, and my mom has too. And she went to the one

I was talking about over in Mahea where three -quarters of it were either lost or carnal

Christians, and it's nice to not be in that. She says a hundred times, I'm so glad I'm in a car with you headed to Corsicana and not going to that church.

Well, yeah, you did. Well, we all did. So he purges it that it may look at this, bring forth more fruit.

More fruit. So you see a process through fruit bearing here. It starts out with fruit. The next stage is more fruit, and the third stage is going to be much fruit, and you're going to see how the

Lord deals with us to get us from fruit to more fruit to much fruit in our lives as we live this life.

What he does to get us from just being saved, anybody that's saved does bear fruit, and we're going to talk about the different kinds of fruit.

I'm beginning to see this is not all going to happen in this one sermon, so it will take more than one, as you probably figured.

But you start out with fruit. How does he get us from there to more fruit?

That's the purging, okay? He prunes us. He cuts back the dead wood.

He makes it possible for us to be a more life that can literally bear more fruit.

So that's where we are here. So now he says in verse 3, Now you are clean through the word which

I have spoken unto you. Now there's another clue about this word for purge in the

Greek. It has two common meanings. One is to prune, like we just looked at.

The other is to cleanse, and you can only tell which it means by the context. What's interesting about this context is it has context that supports both meanings.

So I'm thinking it means both. So the thing when he talks about the pruning of us to make us go from fruit to more fruit, two things are happening.

One is he is bringing trouble to cause us to pray more, like Jonah did in our

Sunday school lesson this morning, and that causes us to be more fruitful. But he's also bringing cleansing, and it's very clear how

Jesus teaches what this is. He says, Now you are clean through the word which

I have spoken unto you. There's the Bible. So now you have two things going on. You have prayer and you have Bible study.

Those are the two things that take you from fruit to more fruit, prayer and Bible study.

How does he get us to do the prayer? Because we don't do it naturally. He brings trouble, difficulty.

Times of trouble is where we really get solid and grow, and then we have times of peace because he'll always bring us through the trouble and out of it.

He always does. We think he's late when he gets there, but he's there right on time because he accomplished the pruning that he needed to accomplish.

Always remember that when it's happening. Don't feel like it on the, I want to caution here.

Don't take it negatively, though. Don't think that pruning sounds like something bad that has to happen.

It's not. Sometimes it is bad stuff happening, but as Otis said so beautifully, he said when it leaves

God's hand, it's meant for good. That's how we should think of it. This is terrible trouble.

I know from if I've lived any time at all with the Lord that he will show up and bring me out of this trouble, and I'll think he's late, but he's not, because he needs to finish this work in me.

Boy, that's helpful if we can think about that when we're under fire. So that's the prayer. It brings us to pray more, and we all know that's true.

We've experienced it. Everybody in this room has experienced it. Secondly, he's cleansing us through the word of God.

So sometimes trouble brings us more into the Bible too, doesn't it? We'll be looking for comfort, and it comes from the

Psalms so often, for me anyway. And so he accomplishes both very easily and very often in the life of his children, doesn't he?

So now he starts giving us some exhortation on how to bear more fruit.

He's still on the more fruit concept, but he's about to move into much fruit. How does he get us to that place?

How does the farmer get us to that place? And remember, the farmer is the father. So think about this.

God the Father is working on you and me through his son who is the vine.

So you have both the father, the farmer, the husbandman who set all this up, and he owns it all.

He's working on us, and he's doing it directly through the vine that he planted here with us, which is a picture of Jesus.

So as Jesus works on us and in us, it's the father who's really doing it because he owns the whole thing.

It's all for him and to him and through him, and then through Christ and then to us as we're attached to Christ.

So here he begins to give us a great secret. He says, Abide in me and I in you.

Now look, he's the vine, you're the branch. Don't ever become one of these that dies on the vine, which is impossible if you're born again.

But you know what? This message is given to the invisible church, which means it has tares in it and it has weed in it.

It's got carnal Christians, spiritual Christians, and he's telling the congregation, Don't die.

Don't ever have a life where you're not attached. That speaks to our responsibility to remain in Christ.

How do we do that? We make a willful choice. We choose to be spirit -filled rather than carnal, right?

That's our choice. We have to make that choice. So that's what he's telling us. It's an exhortation. It's a command almost.

He says, Abide in me. Now this word abide, mino, means to stay, to dwell, or to be centered upon Christ.

It literally means to be attached to him and to dwell with him. As we walk in our life and we live, we need to live an attached life where we're connected to him like the branch is to the vine.

A healthy branch is attached to that vine, and he's telling us as a command to be that way.

What does that tell us? Well, in the spiritual realm, even though we're indwelt by the spirit and our salvation, which connects us to Christ and to the

Father and to each other, permanently, doesn't it? We have the ability and free will choice to not be spirit -filled.

So this is speaking to the spirit -filled aspect, not the indwelling. You can't lose your salvation.

You never lose the presence of the Holy Spirit, but you can lose the power of the Holy Spirit by choosing to not be connected.

So that's why this is given as a command when he says, Abide in me, because you obviously have the choice not to. You can abide in the flesh for a season, can't we?

And then, of course, then he might bring some of the pruning, right? That's when the pruning comes. But we have a responsibility here, which is obvious from the

Greek grammar. To abide is something you're supposed to do. It's in the active tense.

It's not passive. It's not something he does to us. It's something we're supposed to do. It's a responsibility. So abide in me.

And then he says, I will abide in you. Now that's his responsibility as the shepherd, isn't it?

Who has the greater responsibility, by the way? The sheep or the shepherd, as far as keeping that sheep alive?

The shepherd. The shepherd does. The world doesn't understand this. Churches we've all been to don't understand this.

But Jesus bears the huge responsibility of keeping us bearing this fruit. Isn't that wonderful to know?

Wouldn't you hate it if it was you that carried that big responsibility? Now here's what he says.

As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it is connected to and abiding in the vine, no more can you unless you abide in me.

Very clear object lesson. I am the vine. You are the branches. You don't make the fruit.

You just bear the fruit. I am the vine. You are the branches.

He that abides in me, that's our responsibility. He that abides in me and I in him, that's

Jesus' responsibility and is the larger responsibility. The same bringeth forth.

Now look at the phrase. Much fruit. So now we've gone from being saved as a baby

Christian and we're bearing a little fruit to bearing more fruit through purging and study of the word of God to bearing much fruit which comes, look at this, strictly from abiding in Christ, being spirit -filled more minutes of the day than you used to be.

Think about that. Now is that an area? I mean, I think this church, I know our church pretty well.

We've gotten through stage number one. We're saved. We've gotten through stage number two. All of us have gone through trouble and still go through trouble.

And when we do, we pray and we study the word. But I want to ask our church here today, have you passed into the third stage?

Have you passed into the much fruit stage? Because you can't do that until you learn to be spirit -filled more often throughout the day and evening of your life, each 24 -hour period.

Can't do it while you're sleeping, but while you're awake. Do you make the choice? It's obviously a choice.

It's in the active tense. It means you have to make the choice to connect to the one who already lives in you, connect with him, and walk that way more minutes of the day than you bear much fruit.

And I have to say this. As we study the fruit, the huge majority of what

Jesus teaches and Paul teaches about fruit in the Bible is on the inside of us. It's called character fruit.

But there is a whole topic in Scripture that you cannot discount called convert fruit.

Convert. There are only three kinds. You can put them into three groups. Character fruit, conduct fruit, and convert fruit.

Three Cs. Character, conduct, how you live, and convert.

Giving the gospel so much that souls come to Christ as a result of your ministry.

Now that's where we're short in this church. But we're clear on this.

We can't save souls, which we used to be confused about that in most of our lives because of bad preaching.

We're clear on that. But could we witness more? Did it strike you the other day when

I read from Spurgeon, when they asked him, how did you grow this big church of yours? He said, I didn't. He said, my congregation did it.

He said, I started out and only had about 60, which is about what we have. He said, the next Sunday I had 120.

Why? Because they went and said, come to church. You can hear real gospel. You can hear the Bible actually preached and taught here for real.

Down to the word studies. If you want to grow, come here. That's what they did. And the next

Sunday they went from 50 to 100. The next Sunday it was 200. The next Sunday it was 400. And this preacher was 19 years old.

From there to thousands. This building would only hold 8 ,000. And they were waiting outside.

They had to give tickets to let people in, and the members would give their ticket away so new people could come hear him. Now, that's convert fruit.

And it's been recorded that more thousands of people were saved through that church, through Spurgeon's church than any other in church history, because of the congregation.

Now, it's true the man behind the pulpit had to be preaching the word studying. Right? But I think you got that.

Maybe not a Spurgeon, but you got somebody that studies and preaches the word. So I think we could improve on the much fruit area.

Me too. I'm not talking about just you. This is all of us. I'm preaching to all of us. Bring forth much fruit.

How? Spirit filled more often throughout the day and less times carnal.

It's that simple. That's the key. He that abideth, that means being connected to, he that's connected to me and I to him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.

Now, if you had a bunch of people, as many as 10 people doing that, you could have 1 ,000 people here inside a year.

Think about that. That's assuming that the sovereign God is still saving that many people, which he may not be.

Because as we move into the end times, and I'm not trying to throw water on what I just tried to get you to do. I'm just being honest.

As we move into the end times, the Bible tells us that there will be a great apostasy, a falling away from the truth, which means the more that I study and preach this book, the less attractive we will be perhaps.

I don't know. That's part of the equation. But it's a complex equation. I, frankly, have been discouraged.

I don't stay discouraged because I'm married to Charlotte, but I have been discouraged from the time you guys came, the early first year of that, when we thought, man, we've got all these amazing young couples sticking kids in the school and we're going to let them come.

We're going to ask them to come at least every five weeks or so, and surely the

Holy Spirit is going to bring some of those awesome couples here and we're going to see some church growth. That's something we did for a little while, and yet that has completely turned off now.

I know I offended a whole bunch of them one particular night a long time ago, so part of that's on me.

You can't always undo that, but I know that, too, I'm pretty offensive to anybody that's carnal.

So that could be it. I don't know, but I'm discouraged that that didn't happen. I thought it would.

You thought it would. We saw it coming. It still could. Maybe the

Lord is doing some pruning in those very lives, and I'm open to that. So I hope

I can say this, how I'm feeling it in my heart. I don't care if we grow from the point of view of just growth, but I do care if it's because we're not bearing much fruit.

And part of the fruit, just a small part of the fruit, is the converts. That's not the main part of the teaching in the

Bible on fruit -bearing. It is a part of the teaching. So we could at least think about that. Maybe we don't have as many visitors who end up staying because we're not as spirit -filled as often as we should be, even on Sunday morning.

Who knows? I'm just throwing it out there. God's saying it through me. I didn't even have this in the notes. And I don't think the devil would say what

I just said. So I think that was the Lord telling us a message. So look at this. He that abideth in me. There is the key.

So we're not going to focus on church growth. Okay? Are you hearing me? Don't turn me off. We're not going to focus on church growth.

We're not going to focus on mechanics, although we will try as a church. We will try to be organized as we need to and do well in that area as we need to.

But we're not going to focus on that. What we're going to focus on is abiding in Christ more minutes of every day.

How's that for a deal? So that's what I want to see us do. Abide in me, and I am in the vine, and you are the branches.

You abide in me, and I in you. The same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me you can do nothing.

That's why just if all you have is the mechanics, nothing's really happening. I've had this belief for a long time.

Right before World War II when England was chastened so severely by God, almost destroyed, actually.

Most of their whole generation of their young men were killed in that war. Or just before that, they had stopped going to church.

And that's the nation that had Charles Spurgeon. They had stopped going to church. Well, I look at this country and I say, well,

I don't see that. I see big old megachurches everywhere popping up. But I think it's a different ploy of Satan.

I think what you see is a whole bunch of tares and a whole bunch of carnal Christians filling these buildings full of people, but it's not really church.

That's what I see happening. So America, if you really took them out, you might just see a whole bunch of empty churches right now.

And who knows? Who knows? But I'm saying this country can be chastened if England can. Would you agree with that?

This country could be chastened by war if England could be, if we turn away from the gospel, from the true

Bible message. So I'm concerned about this country enough to be making preparations about that.

But if a man abides not in me, previous to that was the warning to the church, the local church is for without me you can do nothing, right?

Mechanics won't do it. It's not that you don't need some, but they won't do it. Now he moves to this. He says, look, let me give you this warning.

If a man or woman abides 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.

So there is a picture of the visible church with tares in it, and carnal

Christians can even be included in that, not that they're burned in hell, but they can go to heaven so as by fire.

You know that, right? So this says men. It doesn't say angels. It says men gather them and burn them.

Well, what happens to, let me ask you this, in this world, what do you think happens to a

Pharisaical Christian or maybe a hypocritical

Christian? What does the world do when their sin is exposed? They just cast them out and make fun of them and just destroy them, don't they?

Well, so that can happen if we don't connect to Christ and live with him because if we get in the flesh, we can make terrible mistakes where the world would just cast us aside, right?

This ministry would be dead, right? So we don't want to do that, but then you could also have people that thought they were attached who really aren't and they fall off and they're collected and burned in the sense of hell eventually.

So it's kind of talking about both, and I'm not sure from the context which is really the most important here, but it's certainly talking about getting across his command where he said,

Abide in me. Be abiding in Christ. That's what we ought to be doing.

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

But if you abide in me, don't you think it's interesting there that he calls us you and he calls them they?

Did you notice that? They will be cast into the fire. You need to abide in me, he says.

So I believe it's talking about false professions of faith. It's talking about tares that are in the church with us, especially if you're in a larger church.

So there he goes, if you, that's talking about the true saved people, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, because that's the cleansing part, right?

Then you can ask what you will, and it shall, it does not say might, it says it shall be done unto you.

Now listen, let's talk about this a minute. Now we have another promise. The first promise we had, if we would abide in Christ more, if we would be connected more throughout the day, is that he will cause us to bear much fruit instead of just some fruit, right?

Now we have a promise that if we abide in him more throughout the day and we walk a spirit -filled life, he will hear our prayers and answer them yes more often.

He can't always answer them yes, because he's our father and he knows best for us. He will answer them yes when it's part of his sovereign will.

We know that. But guess what? Did you know that in Romans chapter 8, one of the greatest teachings on prayer in the whole

Bible is right there, and it says basically that you have the Holy Spirit living in you and he knows the mind of the

Father and he knows your mind and he can go to the Father and see God's mind and bring that to you and put it in your mind so you know what to pray for, and 100 % of those will be answered yes.

Think about that. So would you agree with me if that teaching is true, which we know it is, that the way to access that is by being spirit -filled more often?

So the whole message today is about abiding. What does it mean to abide in me and I in you?

And you'll ask what you will, and it will be done unto you. What if you ask for this church to be filled with people?

What if I ask for this church to be filled with people that need to hear the gospel? If it's your will,

Lord. Do we want them to come if it's not his will? No, because we don't want a bunch of tares, right?

Do we want them to come just so we can build our gym because they bring a bunch of money with them? No, because God can bring that money any number of ways without bringing tares, right?

But what if God wants them here and we're not abiding enough to get them here on the human side of it?

That's the message today. So this is kind of a responsibility message. I'm not trying to leave out God's part because obviously he is the vine, right?

But the more we're connected to those nutrients, the more fruit we bear. That is obviously being taught here.

That involves both the sovereignty of God and the will of man. Both are in this chapter.

They always dwell together anyway, don't they? So we have a strong responsibility passage here.

Jesus says, I'm commanding you as your brother, not as your king, but as your brother.

I'm commanding you to stay attached to me. As your groom, you can look at it that way.

You're the bride. I'm the groom. I want you to come and be with me more often.

All the time. That's what he's saying. When you do, there's a power we have not yet tapped into.

All right, so this prayer is prayer promise.

If you abide in me, attach to me, and my words abide in you, you'll ask what you want. What you will means you will ask what you want.

Not what you need. What you want. That goes way beyond needs. And it shall be done to you.

Why? Because when you're spirit -filled, you're attached straight to the mind of the Father.

And you won't ask for something that's not in his mind, in heart, and will. But you see, that's a level that I think

I've been there a few times in my life, but I don't think I stay there all the time, and I'd like to. So there's the exhortation.

Herein is my Father glorified. So when we get to that state, we bring glory to the Father on this earth.

It doesn't say we do in the previous two states. It doesn't say we don't, though. It doesn't say we don't, because we do.

We bring glory to God even when we're going through spankings, don't we? We do. Even when we're just bearing a little fruit, we bring glory to God.

But when we bear much fruit, we bring much more glory to God. The Bible says that.

So this is a process. This is growth. And it all has to do with the step I think we need.

Of course, I know we always need the Bible study part, because you can't get to much fruit if you don't get to more fruit first. Bible study and prayer.

But then the abiding part, I think, is the great message for us today. When we get to that point, the

Father is glorified that you bear much fruit. Herein is the

Father glorified that you bear much fruit. So shall you be my disciples.

You know, Jesus doesn't even consider us a disciple until we get to that stage. We're a baby. But when we get to that stage, we're a follower who can actually go out and be sent on missions.

Like, go into that town and tell them the gospel, and then come back and we'll talk. You know, that sort of thing. So then it says, as the

Father has loved me. Now, look at the benefit of abiding in Christ.

One is, you start to bear much fruit. You can change the city you live in.

Secondly, you get your prayers answered. That will change the family you live in and the city you live in and the country you live in.

And the world, perhaps. Thirdly, you bring glory to God. And fourth, look at this one.

Maybe this is the best one. As. Now, that word in the Greek means in the same manner.

In the same manner as the Father has loved me, Jesus said. Now, how much do you think the

Father loves Jesus? Somebody give me an adjective. Somebody raise your hand and say, I'll tell you how much

He loves Him. Give me a word. Hmm? Infinite love.

Somebody give me another one. Undying, never -ending love.

Somebody give me another one. Fully present and taking care of us at all times.

That's how much He loved Jesus. This is talking about the Father loving Jesus. So, what's another one? Complete.

There's nothing missing. Unconditional. I like that one.

That's grace. That's the love. That's agape, isn't it? That's the definition of His love.

It's like unconditional agape love. So, that. Now, look, in the same manner that you just told me the

Father loves Jesus, look what it says. As the Father has loved me, so, in like manner as I have also loved you, continue in my love.

Now, that's only said to the much -fruit person. It doesn't mean that He doesn't love all of His kids.

He does. But in this context, He does not say that when you're bearing fruit. He doesn't say it when you're bearing more fruit.

He says it when you're abiding in Him and bearing much fruit, getting your prayers answered, bearing this fruit.

Now, I guess the fourth great benefit is this amazing love that the

Father has for the Son. He has it for us. Now, I would have to say that you can't change

God's love for you by what you do, but you can sure change your awareness of His love for you by what you do.

So when you get into the much -fruit bearing, it means you're spirit -filled throughout the day more often and for more days in a row, and you're dwelling in His love and sensing it more than you ever sensed it.

It's not a problem with Him sending it. It's a problem with us receiving it, you see. And when we're carnal, we don't receive it.

We think about the negative things. Satan influences us, and our flesh influences us, the world influences us. We're not feeling it.

We're not feeling God's love. In fact, we're asking Him, why are you letting this happen to me? But when you're walking in the spirit, in the realm of this, and you're seeing fruit happening inside of you and outside of you and around you, and your prayers are answered, and there's power there, dunamos, power in your life, you know how much

God loves you. He loves you in the same manner as, with the same degree and the same amount as He loves

Jesus. Think about that. Any adjective you could have given me for His love for Jesus is to you now.

Jesus just told us that when you're abiding in Christ. What does that mean? That means when the

Father looks at us, the love and the feelings and the righteousness that He sees in everything towards us is because He sees us attached to Jesus.

Right? He's not pleased with our carnal man, is He? Is He at all ever?

Why do you think He didn't change it, make it work? Because He couldn't. It was desperately wicked.

So He killed it. But what is He pleased with? The new man, which is us attached to Jesus.

So if you want to sense the love of God, reattach. Abide in Christ.

As the Father loved me, so have I loved you. Continue. There's the command.

Do you see the free will side? I started using the phrase free will, even though I don't like it. This church,

I could leave it out easily. I'm talking about responsibility. But I've noticed in reading

Spurgeon, he uses the phrase free will, that we have free will. But he doesn't mean, he's not being technically theological there, he's just talking to huge crowds of people and they understand what he means.

It's not free because we're influenced, right? But what he's talking about is God has given you the ability to make choices.

Would you agree with that? You have an ability to make real choices.

I prefer to call it responsibility, because that's exactly what it is. And I think it's amazing how it keeps popping up in this passage.

Because he says, I've kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love.

He says, if you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love. Now look at this.

Just like the Father loved me, so have I loved you. And then he gives the command, so continue.

How do you continue in my love? He's talking about continuing in the awareness of his love and presence by being spirit filled, connected, being connected to Jesus as we walk throughout the day.

It's so powerful. And then he goes on and says, even as I have kept my

Father's commandments and I abide in His love, he goes on and he says, these things have

I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full.

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than a man lay down his life for his friends.

You are my friends if, there's responsibility, if you do what I command you. What did he just command us to do?

You've got to take it in context. It's not talking about work salvation. It's not talking about going out and doing a bunch of good works.

What did he just command us to do? Two things. Abide in me and love each other. Period. That's it.

That's all he said. Stay attached to me. Enjoy my love, my peace, my power and love each other.

You are my friends if you do that. I'm not your king. I'm your friend. I am your king, but the king is your friend.

That's different than just being some pauper out there, some servant of the king. You're a child of the king living in the court with him and not only are you serving him, but you're his friend if you live this life that he's talking about here.

Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord does.

The lord doesn't ever tell the servants why I want you to go do this. He doesn't tell them why. He just says do it, right?

But us, because we're his family and his friends, he'll tell us here's why I want us to do this. Here's why

I want you to do it. We're doing this together as a family business I like to say. Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth, but I have called you friends for all things that I have heard from my father

I have made known to you when you're connected to me. I added that phrase.

Okay? Now how do you get your prayers answered? Think about that. All things that the father just told me to do in this world

I am telling you. So if you pray that that might happen it will be answered. Do you see how this is working out?

This is so amazing. This is deep Christianity here. All things that I have heard of my father

I have made known to you. You have not chosen me. Yeah, responsibility is important but it can't get you saved.

Can't get you saved. You can't just choose to get saved. Because you didn't choose me but I have chosen you.

Hallelujah. Salvation is of God. Just like Jonah said, Brother Bill. Jonah said it.

Salvation is of God. He knew he couldn't get himself out of that fish's belly, could he? God had to do it.

That's how salvation is. You have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you.

So not only did he save us not only did he foreordain and predestinate us to be saved he also ordained us and predestinated that this would be true.

That you should go and bring forth fruit. Isn't that something? So we will.

And that your fruit would remain. Now that's very important because how many of you have seen people rise up and 20 people get baptized and then a year later they're not even there anymore?

You don't see the fruit remaining, right? Or you see a person rise up and give a great testimony that I got saved but then his character fruit goes away and he goes back to the bar and lives for the devil so that fruit disappeared.

And we're not having time today to talk about the different kinds of fruit so we'll do it next time, Lord willing. All of these different kinds of fruit not just convert fruit all of them convert is the smallest part of what's talked about in the

Bible about fruit. This inside fruit he wants that to remain. He wants the character fruit to remain.

He wants you to walk with him your whole life till the day you die or get raptured. Not to backslide, right?

He wants it to remain. He wants the converts that come to Christ because of your testimony to stay saved, so to speak.

To remain. To serve the Lord. He wants that kind and look what he says. Now here's the promise. You didn't choose me.

I chose you. But when I chose you I didn't just choose to save you. I ordained that you'll be fruitful and your fruit will remain.

Hebrews 10, 38 and 39. You're not of those who fall away into perdition but of those who believe into the saving of the soul, right?

It's all right here. That you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain. That whatsoever you ask of the

Father in my name he may, he is able to, he can give it to you.

These things I command you that you love one another. He ends with that. Wow, what a man.

Myron says something I love. He says, I don't see why all these preachers got to go bring in all these poems and all these poems are okay but I'm saying brings in these poems and brings in these wise sayings and brings in all this and Myron says because the

Bible itself has the message right in it. So really all we did was just read that passage this morning.

That's all we did but it's got a whole bunch of Roman numerals and A, B's and C's in there, doesn't it? Let's pray together.

Stand and have a word of prayer. Lord, we thank you so much for that one little portion of scripture that we looked at this morning and we will never have time on the face of this earth to study every portion like it's due to be studied but we will have all eternity to do that together and Lord, thank you that you bring us to the part you want us to have while we're here in this time and place and you brought us here this morning for a reason.

Help us to learn more what it means to abide in Christ. To see experientially what that can mean.

What it means to bear much fruit rather than a little fruit. What it means to have our prayers answered because we're asking according to your spirit and Lord, to see cities and states and countries and worlds changed because we're here and we're attached to the vine and the root and we're bearing fruit.

Lord, thank you that you ordained that we would bear fruit. You made us responsible but you bear the most responsibility to cause that to happen in our lives and we thank you for that.

Lord, help us be contemplative of this message as we go out today and into the world this week.

Bless our teachers who are not well. Help them to get their strength back and some of the students and some of our members.

Lord, strengthen their bodies. We think of Sharon, Lord. We just pray you're watching over and that everything's healing properly there and Lord, we ask you to go with us into our time of fellowship and we pray in Jesus' name.