What is... ABIDE?

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So we appreciate your participation and help as we try to do that. We're so thankful to be able to spend time together, to look at God's word, to learn more about him, to love him more, to love each other more.

And we're just, we're overjoyed. We're thankful for the Lord and what he's doing, what's going on.

I'm with Dan again. I'm so thankful that Dan is committing to be with me on Saturday mornings to look at eschatology, to look at end times, end things, also to look at other terms and ideas and thoughts from the scripture so we can see them and understand them biblically and see how

God wants us to apply them to our lives. So I'm thankful for Dan and what he's doing.

Dan, thank you. I appreciate you and your family, how you're helping me. It's my pleasure.

This morning, we're going to look at what is abide. And I want to go ahead and share this, the reason or the where we're coming up with these terms and ideas from.

I want to give credit to where credit is due. My pastor, Pastor Tommy Hullet, you'll see him on the network page sometimes.

If you can read this, this is a little work book that he is putting together. He's completed some of it.

He said it's still a work in progress and he's still working on the rest of it, but it's called Multiply.

And it's a discipleship program that he is, he's putting together, he's writing, and he is also taking us through.

And I'm getting these, these terms from his workbook. And we're kind of following his outline as we do that.

And where he gets his information is really interesting. I was telling

Dan last night that it's, there may be some works out there that I'm unfamiliar with, but what

Pastor Tommy is doing is something that is just logically makes sense and why it's not been done over and over and over again.

I'm not sure and why I'm not seeing it, but what Pastor Tommy is doing is he's taking the great commission,

Matthew chapter 28. And most of us are, if we've been a Christian, if we've been in church for any amount of time, we've heard of a great commission.

We we've heard Matthew 28 before where Jesus says, all authority has been given unto me in heaven and on earth.

Go therefore and preach the gospel, make disciples, baptize, and teach them all that I've commanded you.

And we can't take away anything from his full statement there.

Everything has a purpose, has a meaning, and is important from the top to the bottom where he says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

We can't take that out. We've got to remember that. And that plays, that first part plays a huge role in eschatology and how we understand the end times.

And then this, this latter part, teach them all that I've commanded you.

Well, that's what Pastor Tommy has done. He's taken that command from Christ and he says, well, what has

Christ commanded us? And he's putting together this discipleship program so that we can go through and understand what

Christ has commanded us to do. We've looked at, we've looked at repentance. We've looked at believe.

And this morning we're going to look at abide. What is abide? Do you,

Dan, do you have a quick definition, some, some similar words?

I know when you look up the Greek word, sometimes it'll give you words that mean the same.

Can you give us a quick definition of what abide is before we jump in to the scriptures? Abide has the idea of living somewhere.

No, it's, it's not the idea of living somewhere where you're, well, I live in this house or I live in this apartment.

I'm going to move, no week, two weeks down the road or next month or six months or four years from now.

It's got the idea of putting down roots, of attaching yourself to a place, of setting up shop somewhere and not planning on moving.

In this context, it's got the idea of connecting yourself to Christ. So it's got an idea of an attachment to an, to an area or a thing, or in this case, a source of spiritual power, which would be, um, uh, he says my audio is not working.

I see that. Hmm. I can hear you.

I can hear me too. Huh? Let me,

I've got some headphones here. Let's, uh, try to work out this technical difficulty.

If anybody can, um, hear the audio, leave a comment so that we can continue.

Uh, got it now. Oh, okay. Sweet. Good deal. Oh, we got away.

I tried pulling up Facebook to see how it is. And I've got a lag. You're just now talking about, um, other stuff.

All right, we're good now. Yeah. And as Dan and I were talking about last night, um, abide has a deeper, uh, connotation, a deeper meaning, uh, than, than what, what we may initially think of abide.

Um, to me, when I hear the word abide, I want to think that we are, um, as Dan said, um, living, living somewhere, um, say like in a house where you just, you're, you're fluid from, from room to room.

You're, you're kind of dwelling there. You're living there. But in this context, um, abide has this deeper meaning as, as Dan was trying to explain of an attachment, uh, of taking a root and remaining we're, we're a connectivity that's, that's there.

So we want to dive into that, that connection, that attachment that abide has in scripture.

Um, to start off where pastor Tommy, uh, wanted us to start off here in his workbook.

He wanted to remind us, um, of the gospel. Um, if, if you look in, um,

John chapter six, where Tommy first takes us, um, the question is asked, what must we do to accomplish the, um, accomplish the deeds of God that God requires?

Uh, he gets that from the net Bible. And we learned that when it comes to the gospel, when it comes to salvation and, and what, um, what we do, our part in salvation, we learn from scripture that we, we have no part in salvation.

We have no part in, in, in coming to Christ. It's all of God. And then moving beyond that, um, doing the works of God, um, he takes us to Hebrew chapter 13 verses 20 through 21.

And that reads now the God of peace who brought up, who brought up from the dead, the great shepherd of the sheep, the blood of the eternal covenant, even

Jesus, our Lord equipped you in, in every good thing to do his will working in us, that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever.

And amen. So the questions he asked is, um, exactly where does the power to do as well come from the answer,

Jesus, by what means does God give us this power through the blow of the eternal covenant?

And who was, um, the, the power, the work is through Jesus by God.

It's, it's all of him so that he can get the credit so that he can get the glory. And, and Paul kind of reiterates this, the same idea from Philippians chapter two, verse 13, when he says, it is

God who is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

And so we want to give credit to God. We want to look to him for what he is doing in our life.

So when it comes to this command, uh, to abide in Christ, we want to remember our reliance on God to, to complete this task.

Um, this work that he has taught us to do. So the text that we're going to be in this morning and like normal,

Dan is going to help us walk through, uh, these passages is John chapter 15. So if you have your

Bible, if you want to look in John chapter 15 with us, we're going to walk through the chapter. And typically when you're looking at a bad and what it means and how to apply it, you, you typically just look at verses one through 11.

But, uh, as Dan and I were talking last night and as he was showing me, it's such a wonderful thing to continue on to the rest of the chapter and how the rest of the chapter, uh, adds to the theme of this idea of abide and helps us to understand it in a deeper and greater way.

So, um, let's take it a section at a time. I want, I want to read the section and then we'll go verse by verse.

Um, this first section, um, Jesus is the vine followers are the branches versus one through eight.

And, and Dan kind of titled this, where is your hope? So let me read this.

I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it and it may bear more fruit.

You are already clean because of the word, which I have spoken to you, abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine.

So neither can you, unless you abide in me, I am divine and you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit for apart from me, you can do nothing.

If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away as a branch and it dries up and they gather them and they cast them into the fire and they are burned.

If you abide in me and my words abiding you ask whatever you wish and it shall be done for you.

By this, by this is my father glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

So I want to turn over to you, Dan, if you want to walk us through these verses and I'll interject every now and then.

Sure. This section gives us a wonderful picture of what it looks like to be a part of Christ as a believer, as a church.

It goes right off and says, I am the true vine. If you know anything about vines or plants, there is one main section that grows up out of the ground.

From there, you know, it'd be a trunk on a tree or a main vine going across a grapevine.

So if you think of a grapevine or if you're down south, think of kudzu, that's up everywhere. There's one part that hits the ground.

The rest of it goes up and there's branches that go all over the place. The only place that hits the nutrients, that hits the source of life where everything comes from is the part that hits the ground that is considered the vine.

The rest of it are considered branches. So when he says, I am the vine, he's making a statement that he is the one that touches the ground.

He is the one that, where the nutrients, the good stuff that makes you grow.

That's where it comes from. And it says, next phrase, and my father is the vine dresser.

My father is the gardener. He's the one who takes care of the vine.

He does what he needs to with the branches to make sure that everything grows properly. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away.

There's a sense here where it seems that he's talking about church folks.

There are those who approach Christ who claim to be in him that will either produce fruit or not produce fruit.

There are some that belong on the vine that produce fruit. And we see later in verse 16 that he chose those certain ones in order to produce fruit.

So there are ones that Christ, that he gives them strength. They produce fruit because of that fruit.

They are kept on the vine. But there are those who are in some sort of relationship to Christ who do not produce fruit.

They don't have the fruit of the spirit coming from him. And what it means is that they're not actually utilizing the power of life that comes from the vine, that comes from Jesus himself.

And because they don't bear fruit, it says, does not bear fruit, he takes away.

And that fruit is fruit, as John the Baptist said, that you need to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins and do works in keeping with repentance.

As we turn away from our believers, we don't just turn away from our sin, we turn towards Christ and righteousness.

So we do good works as a response to the salvation that we find.

Those who show up at church every Sunday, who go about living their life however they want to throughout the week, those who approach

God in a false way, those who are false professors, who have no actual change, who do not actually have the life of Christ flowing through them, will one day be broken off.

You can't hide behind what you believe is fruit if it's not fruit.

If it's a thorn, it's going to be proven to be a thorn. And he takes that away.

But at the same time, look at this, it says, every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.

So as we see God going through his vine, he'll cut off branches that produce no fruit, but he'll also go to the ones that do.

And if there's a section of the branch that's not good, like say a section of this branch isn't producing fruit, he'll cut it off, he'll get the bad parts out of there.

So that way more of that life giving power from the vine can get into the branch and they can produce more fruit.

I don't know if you've dealt with apple trees, apple trees especially, well, maybe a little late in the season this year, but early in the season or even after the harvest, if you go into the apple trees, you find the ones that didn't produce fruit the previous year.

The ones that didn't produce fruit at that time, you cut them off, you make, you trim it up.

So that way the next season when it produces fruit again, all of the nutrients, all of the sap, all of the stuff that comes from the soil that gets up to the fruit is able to produce more fruit.

And your tree has bigger, brighter colored apples. Same thing with grapes.

If you take off the ones that aren't producing anything, more of those nutrients, they don't go to growing fruitless leaves and branches, they go to growing fruit.

And then he kind of connects this to the point that he's talking about. You are already clean because of the word which

I have spoken. Now being clean sounds kind of funny coming up in the talk about vines and branches.

He's got this idea of vines and branches, but now he's talking about being clean. So he's introducing the spiritual concept that he's meaning to show by giving us the metaphor of the vines and the branches.

It's about people, it's about doing away with sin, either primarily through salvation or through the pruning of the branches.

He's saying that they are already clean. They are in him because of the word which he has spoken to them.

Those words are all of Christ's teachings, obviously. But if you go back into chapter 14, it gives you a summary.

You see him, you've seen the father, you trust in God, you trust in Christ. Hebrews 1 .3

tells us that Christ is the exact imprint of the father. That's what he means.

If you've seen me, you've seen the father. I don't know if you've ever seen a stamp where somebody will take, they used to actually go in and carve out little pieces and make a relief.

And then when you took that and stamped it down, the exact picture of whatever the stamp was would end up on the paper.

That is what Jesus is getting at there. That when you see Jesus, you're seeing the exact imprint of God, the father that is in heaven because they have the same deity, the same holiness, same glory.

They're distinct in their persons, but all three, father, son, and Holy Spirit are

God. They are perfect. They are holy and yet one

God. So when he's saying, you've seen me, you've seen the father, he's saying, if you've seen me, you know what the father looks like because just like a stamp,

I'm the exact imprint of the father who's in heaven. Right. I think it will dive more into that.

It's interesting that we dive more into that later on in this chapter because as Jesus commands us to abide in him, he also talks about he abiding in us.

And then he talks about how he is abiding with the father. It makes that same comparison.

I want to interject two things before we move on from verses one and two. I think it's important to emphasize the characters in this story.

You have the vine and you have the vine dresser and you have the branches and it's going to come out more and it's going to help paint the bigger picture and help us understand it.

If we remember the story, you've got the true vine, which Dan described, and you've got the vine dresser, the gardener, which is

God, and you have the branches, which is God's people. And so I just wanted to reemphasize that, the players, the characters in this story.

And as Dan was talking about the vine and what it looks like physically, the comment that I made to him last night was, when we look at a tree and we behold its majesty and we look at how beautiful a tree is, that's exactly what we say.

That's a beautiful tree. We don't say, look at those beautiful branches.

We speak of the tree as a whole. And I think that idea kind of develops as the chapter moves on, that it's not about the branches, but it's about the tree as a whole.

And then ultimately it's about the one who is gardening or tending to the tree or the vine.

And then in verse two, I think this is one of those verses that ultimately it's going to take meeting

Christ and say, what did you exactly mean here to fully understand his intention?

And I wanted to throw this out at you. And I think you actually hinted on this when we talked earlier, you brought the verse up out of Matthew.

But when he says every branch in me that does not bear fruit, could

Jesus be, because I think his primary audience in his ministry was the

Jewish people. And you did bring out Matthew chapter three, verse 10, and the ax is already laid at the root of the trees.

Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

And earlier than that in Matthew, Jesus speaks of the tree no longer existing, but yet he is the fulfillment of the root of Jesse.

It's coming from the same source, but that tree is cut down and he is now, he's sprouting up and this new tree is growing.

And so could Jesus be speaking of Israel here? Yeah, I think that that's absolutely part of it.

He's talking to Jewish people in his context.

He's talking to a very religious community. Everybody there knows the temple.

They all know the sacrifices are just supposed to give. They're all in on, it's basically as if the whole, imagine

America and everyone claims that they're a Christian. That's the way you had with Israel back then.

So what he's trying to say is you, who approach God, you have to approach

God through Jesus Christ. You have to be attached to the vine. If you say that you know

God in heaven, and yet you don't believe in what he says, if you don't attach yourself to the vine, which is a weird way of putting it because branches don't attach themselves, but we'll get to that later.

If you're not attached to the vine, if you're not producing fruit, if all you have is your national identity, your physical lineage to Abraham, you don't have what it takes because you're not connected to the source of life.

So fruit is an evidence of which tree you're connected to.

Right. Right. Absolutely. Sorry, sorry to interject there.

I'll let you continue. Oh, you're right. Yeah. So in verse four, he says, abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine.

So neither can you, unless you abide in me. I have several apple trees out back.

If I were to take one of my apple trees that grows fruit and take one of the branches that has nine, 10, 12 apples on it and cut that branch off and throw it out in the yard, it's not going to produce any more fruit.

It's done because it's no longer connected to the tree itself. If I were to take a grape vine and find one with big old clusters of grapes on it and cut that and get it off of the sticks and whatever's holding it up and throw it out in the yard, it's not going to produce any more fruit because it's done being connected to the vine.

In the same way, he's saying, if you're not connected to Christ, if you're not abiding, if you're not living, if you haven't set up shop in trusting in the gospel of Jesus Christ, if that's not your only hope in life and death, then you are not going to produce fruit because there's no power of change outside of the gospel of Christ.

There's no way that we can have actual righteousness. One of the reasons being as it says in Hebrews, without faith, it is impossible to please

God. Without Christ, it is impossible for us to have righteousness in and of ourselves because our righteousness comes from him.

So, if our righteousness is going to come from God, if our goodness is going to come from God, it's going to come from being attached to the one who has righteousness and goodness in himself.

Because we can't produce that on our own. He's getting the idea of reliance upon God.

So, if we're going to be cleansed, we're going to be cleansed through the words of Christ. His promise, his actions that he's going to just to cut a few short chapters later, he's going to undertake to die on the cross for sins, to lay in the grave, to conquer death, to raise up and be in heaven, ascended in heaven.

If we're going to produce fruit or have anything good in us, it's going to be because Christ has placed it there.

Not because we have no roots to grab those good nutrients and nitrates and whatever else from the soil ourselves.

That's all on the work of God. He says it again,

I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit.

For apart from me, you can do nothing. It goes back to that passage in Hebrews that I just quoted.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Without Christ, it is impossible to please God. We have nothing good in and of ourselves.

All of our righteousness comes from Christ. I've heard somebody call it an alien righteousness.

It's almost like it's beamed into us. I don't think that's what they meant by alien, but that's just what pops into my head when

I hear that. It's something that doesn't originate with us. It's something that we gain from Christ.

I think it's interesting, the language that he uses here. Maybe that's not the right term, but it's like there's no middle ground.

If you abide in him, here's the result. The result is you bear much fruit.

And then if you do not abide in him, you can do nothing. We talk about trying to avoid being in one ditch or another, being extremist, trying to take the middle road here.

But in Jesus' words here, this is pretty definite. This is pretty extreme.

If you abide in him, if you are attached, remain rooted in him, then you will bear much fruit.

He doesn't say you will bear fruit. He said you will bear much fruit. And then just the opposite.

If you are not abiding, you are not attached, if you're not in him, he says you can do nothing, not even one little iota of something.

You can't do anything. I think that's a very important thing for us to remember that there's this distinction, and I think the same thing is true, anything that has to do with salvation.

You can't almost get into heaven. You're either in Christ, you're either in him, and you are accepted by God through Jesus Christ, or you're not in him, and you will die in your sins and be punished for your sins, receive the wrath of God because you're not in Christ.

It's either one or the other. And Jesus follows through with that idea here in this idea of bearing fruit.

In him, we bear much fruit. Apart from him, there's nothing that we can do.

I think that's so important for us to remember. Yeah. Have you ever heard of the doctrine of carnal

Christianity? Yeah. Yeah. This is speaking directly to that. That is a terrible doctrine.

If you're unfamiliar with it, basically what it says is that in order to be saved, you have to accept

Christ as your Savior. You have to believe he died on the cross for sins, and then he rose from the grave, and then your sins are forgiven.

But at that point, you can choose to live your life however you want to. You can be a carnal

Christian living in the flesh, but your sins are still forgiven. And then if you want to know a better way to live your life, you can obey the commands of Christ, and you can grow in the fruit of the

Spirit, but you don't have to do that in order to have salvation. This passage right here says otherwise.

It says that if you do not produce fruit, if you do not have Christ as Lord, if you do not see not only the forgiveness of sins, but the killing of sins in your life, then you have every reason to,

I'd say, worry or at least examine yourself hard against Christ's Scriptures, the promise of the gospel, what that means to you.

He says you will produce fruit, and you don't produce fruit because you're producing fruit, but because that fruit is produced in you.

So, if you don't have that fruit produced in you, it means that you're not connected to the vine who gives life and causes fruit to be produced, who has the

Father in heaven, who is orchestrating things to make sure that you are pruned and made right in order to produce fruit.

And He's not here yet, but the Holy Spirit is also given in order to help us produce fruit.

If that's not a reality, then we produce no fruit, even though we go to church all the time or do whatever, we say that we've been baptized, a hundred other things where we say we're a

Christian, if we don't produce fruit, we're lopped off, dried up and thrown in the fire.

So, carnal Christianity is not a thing, it's just a lie.

It's just being carnal and throwing, really, as Hebrew says, trampling on the blood of the covenant by which you were set apart.

You say that you're a part of Christ, but you have no fruit. You are saying that there's no power to change your life in the gospel and that's just blasphemous.

Sorry, I get worked up when I hear that kind of stuff.

I know I brought it up, but I still heard it either way. So, where were we?

Verse six, I believe. Verse six. Yeah. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up.

They're gathered and they are burned. I guess I went ahead and talked about that one before I read it. It kind of all hit at the same time.

But on the other side, in verse seven, if you abide in me, in my words abide in you, there's that idea of words and cleansing.

It's salvation coming through the words of Christ to us. Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

Now, some people think, okay, I'm being a Christian, I'm producing some fruit.

So, I get to ask God whatever I want and now he's going to do it for me. But look real careful what he says.

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, the words of Christ are always perfect, always pure, always true.

When we speak from those words, we'll be praying according to the will of God. Right.

So, when we pray according to the will of God, we're on the right track. We're producing fruit.

When we ask God to do something for us, we're asking in accordance to what

God wants to do already and he will give us those things. And the reason is found in verse eight.

My father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

It was good that you brought up the distinction of the characters earlier because the only one who actually does any active acting is the father.

I mean, obviously, the son is divine, is providing nutrients and providing spiritual growth for those who are his branches.

But the father is the vinedresser. He is the one who's the human actor, so to speak, in this metaphor.

He's also the only one there with a mouth and teeth and a stomach in this metaphor.

He's the one who can eat. The branches do not produce fruit in order to eat the fruit.

The father, the vinedresser, is producing fruit in order to eat the fruit or to be glorified, as it says in verse eight, by the fruit.

What is the purpose of abiding in Christ? It's to produce fruit, to glorify

God in heaven. Now, we know from the book of Galatians, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long -suffering, patience, kindness, faith.

There's other ones. I'm sure it's early. Those things being produced in us are a reflection of God's character.

When we produce fruit as believers, when we are more loving, more kind, more faithful, more patient, as those things are produced in us, we glorify

God by reflecting His character back to Him. We glorify the Father who has worked to produce that fruit in us by sending

His Son to the cross to die to provide us life, that life that produces fruit in us.

It says, improve to be my disciples. This whole idea of if we produce fruit, we will be pruned and cared for by the vine dresser.

If we do not produce fruit, we prove to not be a part, a true branch on the vine, and we're cut off and thrown away.

This whole metaphor is speaking to the plain statement in the

New Testament that we should work out our own salvation in fear and trembling. The way that we do that is by each and every day ensuring that we are believing in the gospel.

We look to Christ as the author and finisher of our faith. That's where we rest. That's where we abide.

That's where we live. There's some ideas out there that, okay,

I've become a Christian. I believe the gospel. Now, I need to move on and go deeper. I'm going to forget about the gospel for a second and go try to learn these principles for my life in order for me to be better.

That's completely backwards. The principles that we learn don't stem from anywhere else except for the gospel.

As we grow in Christianity, we produce the fruits. We don't produce the fruits by going out and trying to be a fruit.

We produce fruits by remaining in Christ. Without Christ, we don't produce fruit.

That's that whole idea of abiding. As he gives us this contrast between those branches that are broken off and burned and those who produce fruit, the difference is where they're connected, where they're settled.

As Christians make a confession of faith, as we believe, the most important thing we can do moving forward is to remember that our identity, our being, our hope, our whole connection to reality flows through the gospel.

It flows through Jesus Christ. We don't approach any part of the world apart from him because apart from him, we cannot produce fruit.

Apart from him, we have no life because he's the only source of life. When it speaks of abiding, it's that sort of living.

It's that sort of being attached to the source, of being rooted and grounded, of being immovably linked to Christ.

I think that brings the whole idea together.

It may give us something to talk about. Right, right. As we wrap up this first section, there may be some folks who just joined us.

I want to restate the definition that we're working with when it comes to abide.

It's more than just this concept of dwelling in the same place that Jesus is.

I get the idea of the picture in my mind of this

Eastern guru -type situation where you have the monk and then you have the student sitting at his feet.

We're abiding in his teaching. We're sitting at his feet and we're basking in his presence or just a close connection with the teacher, with the guru.

Abide here is more than just this close proximity to the teacher.

Abide has this idea of, as Dan has said several times, which

I'm glad because it helps us to understand what abide means. It has this idea of being attached, rooted, remaining, and being attached.

We are a part of. We're not just dwelling in the presence of and enjoying the presence of Jesus, but we are attached to Jesus.

We are attached to the divine. I wanted to make that emphasis as we continue on in John 15.

The things that Dan said in 7 and 8 were so important. In verse 7,

Pastor Tommy makes that distinction as well. Not taking one part of the verse away from the other.

Ask whatever you wish and it shall be done for you, but you got to read it in its context. The, if you abide in me and my words in you, there's a connection there.

Dan so well stated that when

Christ's words are in us, we're going to be thinking right. We're going to be speaking right. We're going to be speaking those teachings.

We're going to be speaking Jesus's words back to him.

We're going to be praying and asking the right things according to the will of God because his words are abiding in us and they're then coming forth from us.

Credit goes to you, Dan, because as we had our discussion outside of the video, it goes to the but as far as the

Lord using you to enlighten me and help me, the emphasis on the characters, and this is where it begins to play out in verse 8.

We want to remember the characters of the story, the true vine, the branches, but yet God is the dresser.

And, and Jesus says by this, my father's glorified. He's not looking.

He's not looking to glorify the fruit. He's not looking to glorify the branch. He's not looking to glorify even himself.

He is looking to glorify the father. And it's interesting. And you alluded to this, that we're going to get to at the end, but you alluded to the spirit and his speaking to the, his audience, the apostles, his disciples, but his audience, the spirit is going to be pointing to Jesus.

But Jesus ultimately here is telling us that he's pointing to the father. He's pointing to the gardener, the vine dresser.

And as you talk about apples, I myself, I'm trying to grow an almond tree out here.

And if I can, if it does succeed and it does produce some almonds, you know,

I'm, I'm going to be so thankful and so proud of this, this almond tree, this, this plant that I helped grow.

And, and now I'm beginning to see the fruits of it. So, and I want to show it all. And that's kind of the idea here.

The, the fruit that's produced, the branches that are attached, this whole idea of, of the, the plant and the fruit that it produces gives glory to the vine dresser, to the gardener, and he enjoys the fruit.

And so, yes, there is, there's repercussions, there's overflow, there's benefits for everyone else.

But ultimately we're pointing back to the father, we're pointing back to him, we're giving him glory.

And I, and that's, that's where Jesus is taking us. And, and we can't,

I think that it's so important that we, we don't under emphasize that.

And we don't miss that, that yes, yes, there's benefit for the fruit benefits, other people, the fruit benefits us.

It's, it does good things, but ultimately as Jesus wants us to understand, it points to the father and it gives, it gives glory to him.

Now we're going to head on to the next section where we look at how, how in a, how an abiding branch lives kind of idea.

So verses eight through 17, let me read that for us. By this is my father, by this is my father glorify that you bear much fruit and prove you're my disciples.

Just as the father has loved me, I have also loved you abiding my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.

Just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full.

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

You are my friends. If you do what I command you, no longer do I call you slaves, but the slave does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends for all things that have,

I have heard from my father. I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain.

And whatever you ask it asked of the father in my name, he will give to you this. I command you that you love one another.

Yeah. This is, this is interesting because this, this touches on a lot of different subjects that people just struggle with.

Yeah. Um, what does it mean to love your neighbor? What does it mean to love God? Right. Love your neighbor as yourself.

Uh, Jesus lays it out plainly here as he does in other places. It, uh, the, the way that we show love is that we keep his commandments.

Uh, God gets to define what love is. He is love. He's the, it says in first John, God is love.

Oh, the, the, his commandments come from, uh, his character. They reflect, uh, who he is morally as a

Holy God. And so as, as we look at these things, he says, if you, uh, just as the father has loved me,

I also loved you abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.

Now that doesn't mean if you keep all of my commandments perfectly, you will have eternal life. It means that, um, what, because you were attached to Christ, abide in me by keeping your, by keeping his commandments, by keeping the commandments of Christ.

Um, just as I've kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. Now it's real interesting that he says that because in just a little bit, he talks about laying down his life, your life for your friends, which is the same love that he is giving to us.

So what he's doing is he's foreshadowing his death on the cross. He's not, he's not looking, uh, at, he's not looking at this death to come as something that is, uh, going to be foisted upon him.

Like he's laying down his life for his friends in order that they may have salvation or that the fruit can be produced in them.

Um, he's obeying the commandments of, of God, of the father, because in eternity past, they decided that this is how the world was going to play out.

This is what they're going to do. And in the salvation of mankind, Christ had certain responsibilities that he, as God was going to fulfill in becoming man.

One of those being that he was going to love the world for God. So love the world that he gave his only son, whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.

If we abide in him, we keep his commandments just as Christ kept his commandments and Christ then abides in us.

And the whole reason we're to keep God's commandments and love one another is not because God is some tyrant ruler from heaven.

It's not because he's angry or because he says, I just don't want you to have fun. It's the exact opposite of that.

It says in verse 11, these things I have spoken to you that my joy, the joy of Jesus may be in you.

It may be in us and that your joy may be full. That is a load off because we don't keep commandments in order to sit right with me.

Oh my goodness. Kids are crazy. We don't keep the commandments of God in order to be in right standing with him.

Jesus has done that for us and he paid for our sins on the cross. We keep the commands of God out of love.

And in doing that, it's a joy to serve God. It's a joy to refrain from drunkenness and not cheat on my wife.

It is a joy to share the gospel with other people. It is a joy to not murder my neighbor or to think about murdering them in my head.

It is a joy to not lie and to not steal. It is a joy to keep God first and to obey his commandments and not take his name in vain.

It's a joy to keep his Sabbath, which I'm sure will be a whole nother episode at some point. It's a joy to do those things because his obedience that led to the cross, his perfect obedience that led to the cross, that he then gave his perfect righteousness to us, is a joy when we keep those commandments in following suit after him.

I got all sorts of jumbled up in what verse we're on. I think I covered all of them, but we'll just move through,

I guess. Do you have anything you want to... Yeah, I think we so easily forget.

There's a way that we can understand this, I think, in my opinion, that we often forget.

I think we're tempted to approach this in our rebellious, sinful flesh and can't make the connection between commandments and love.

How can commandments be loving? How can we put those two together?

It just doesn't make sense because in our rebellious flesh, in our sinful flesh, this is how we view things.

Just as children, we view them as children, our youth. We feel like rules and commandments are someone pushing their thumb down on us, keeping us from fun, as you were talking about, keeping us from having fun, doing the things that we want to do.

They're restrictive. How can there be any relationship between commandments, rules, and love?

It just doesn't make sense. It holds us back. But then we can make that connection when we become parents.

We see that because I love my children, I'm going to have boundaries.

I don't want them injured. I don't want them hurt. I want them to grow up in a certain way, on a certain path, so that they can be successful, so that they can reap the benefits later on in life.

I want to have these boundaries. I want to have these rules. As a parent, I can see the relationship between rules and boundaries, commands, and love, because I love my children.

We're so tempted to forget that relationship. We often don't see it until we become parents.

Then the light bulb goes off. I see it now. I see that relationship. Because I love my children,

I want them to abide in my commandments, so that they are protected, so that they are successful, so that they are not injured.

They're not hurt. They're going on the right path. When they steer off that path, our hearts are broken because they're not abiding in our commands.

But when they're abiding in our commands and our boundaries, there's a favor.

There's a love there. Of course, that's by design.

Just like marriage is by design, the relationship between children and parents is by design. That fruit, as we're talking about, points back to the vine dresser, the gardener, the one who produces the fruit.

Yeah, that's what I saw in those verses. I think you're on 12.

Yeah. Just real quick, all the commands of God are to keep us from sin.

The sin is the thing that we came to Christ to get rid of in the first place. We were seeking joy in Christ when we first came to him to have our sins forgiven and taken away.

So, there is no way that a command to stay away from sin, when followed, can produce anything other than joy, unless you're doing it apart from Christ, in which case you're not really following the command anyway.

Verse 12, this is the that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

Greater love has no one than this, that you lay down his life for his friends.

Jesus was the absolute. He lived this one out in the next few days in this account.

He, by maintaining his righteousness and by looking out for other folks, the best thing for him to do was continue the course and end up dying.

His love, his obedience led him to the point of death. That should be our mindset as well.

Not that we would die. I can't save anyone. You can't either. But neither of us could lay down our lives in order to save someone else.

But our love for other people and our love for God should should take the form that we have a mindset that if our obedience to Christ, if our loving him and keeping his commandments are abiding in him, if that leads us to the point where our life is taken from us, so be it.

If it means that I'm going to preach the gospel to folks and somehow my life is taken from me in the process.

Okay. And what is that? That's love. That you would be so concerned with the truth and the love of God coming to people that you'd be willing to go even to the point of death.

That is love. There's no greater love than that, than you would lay down your life for your friends. Now Jesus did it ultimately in that he died and he took our sins upon himself.

But we can in our frail and feeble state show that same sort of love even though it's not nearly as effective as Christ.

We can show that by being counted worthy to die alongside of him. Like the thief on the cross who rebuked the other thief.

We deserve to be here. He doesn't. He trusted in Christ and he didn't have a choice.

He still laid down his life. With Christ. I think that's such an important point to make and I'm glad you brought up the fruit of the spirit earlier because we need to remember that being fruitful does not mean, does not always, well it doesn't mean improved circumstances.

And Jesus speaks to that here. Following me is a call to lay down your life.

And for him it was his physical life. So bearing fruit, even though a bountiful crop, lots of fruit, beautiful fruit laid out across the table was often the sign of wealth or bounty.

Things are going well. Circumstances are good. We can't take that picture and apply it here.

Bear much fruit does not mean improved circumstances.

We need to look at the fruits of the spirit. It's bearing much fruit in spite or in concert with the circumstances.

So there may be a time of bounty or there may be a time of laying down your life.

In either case, we're bearing fruit, which is the character of God, the reflection of him in that circumstance.

Not the circumstance itself, but the character of God within that circumstance. Right, right.

We may endure a hardship. The way, we're still getting snow some days up here in New York.

A few days ago, we just got snow. It was like 30 degrees. It's miserable. We're starting to get buds on the trees.

Later on in the season, we'll have apples and we may get towards mid -October, we'll start to see snow rarely, but we'll start to see snow or a little bit of ice, a little bit of frost that may weigh down on the fruit and the trees just bear down underneath the weight of the extra ice and stuff that's on top of it.

But we know when that melts and it comes back up, the harvest is coming and those of us who get to eat the fruit are going to enjoy it.

It's the same type of idea. We may endure a hardship in our obedience and in producing fruit.

We may have extra surface area for ice or persecution to come on us.

But in the end, what's going to happen is that there's going to be a bountiful harvest laid out before the wine dresser, before God, because he's producing those fruits in us.

Yeah, it's a great picture. Yeah. And just another title for this section, I remember this as I was reading earlier and as I was looking here now, these next two sections, we're in section two of this chapter and then we'll look at section three.

But in addition to what we gave it, the title we gave it earlier, how does an abiding branch live?

We need to include live among other branches. And then you were bringing up persecution.

That next section is going to be how does an abiding branch live in the world or possible world?

Yep. He ties it back in, this idea of abiding in Christ, remembering that he is the source of everything.

When we get into verses 16 and 17, it says, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit and that your fruit would remain so that whatever you ask of the

Father in my name, he may give to you. This I command you that you love one another.

This is the whole purpose of us being attached and in Christ. Ephesians two,

I believe, yeah, Ephesians two, eight through 10 says the same thing. His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works.

We weren't just saved to sit back with fire insurance. We were saved in order to look like Christ, to have

Christ formed in us. We were, it says, predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

We were made to look like Christ in his love, in his obedience to the Father and in his holiness and righteousness.

And that means as much as we can here with the help of the spirit, growing those things in us. And one day perfectly when sin has been done away with Christ has returned to gather his kingdom and present it to the

Father as a full harvest of wonderfully grown fruit of the vine, which has an idea of feasting anyway.

We're being made into a bunch of wine for the Lord. Yeah. And this idea, everything is such a moneymaking scheme today.

Media and the Western culture America, there's pros and cons to the society that we live in.

And it's been taken advantage of and used wrong. And, and for many, many years now, this idea of jumping on the bandwagon of using this idea that God has a wonderful plan for your life, that he has your, your purpose driven and, and using that as a, as a way to make money, draw you to a certain program or certain church has been taken out of context and used so maliciously outside of how

Christ wanted us to understand it. And here, yes, there, there is a purpose in our choosing and that purpose is that we would bear much fruit.

If you, if you want to know if you are in Christ, then you can, you can look at your life because you were, you were chosen out for a purpose.

And that purpose was to bear fruit. And as we were talking about earlier it is, the sign is not going to be, you know, good circumstances, but that despite your circumstances, it's going to be bearing fruit in those circumstances, character fruit.

Right. Yeah. Jesus does love us and have a wonderful plan for our life. But as Peter and the rest of the apostles show us, that may include martyrdom.

Yeah. His wonderful plan for our life may not look like the cushy, wonderful plan that we have in our minds.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Would you want to move on?

Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. All right. So we're in, we're ready for the next section on. Right.

So verses 18 through 27, 27, this section is going to be how an abiding branch lives, bears fruit in, in the world or with dead branches as this illustrates, or to use the terminology of this, this story, how a disciple or an abiding branch lives in the world.

Verses 18 through 27. If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.

If you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you're not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Remember the word that I said to you, a slave is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.

If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for my namesake, because they do not know the one who sent me.

If I not, if I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin.

He who hates me hates my father also. If I had not done among them the works, which no one else did, they would not have sin.

But now they have both seen and hated me and my father as well. And they have done this in order that the word may be fulfilled that is written in their law.

They hated me without cause. When the helper comes, whom

I send to you from the father, that is the spirit of truth who proceeds from the father.

He who bears witness of me, and you will bear witness also because you have been with me from the beginning.

As you get started, I just, I think it's important to see here, going back to who he's speaking of as far as the branches that are bearing fruit, and then the branches that have been cut off.

When he says they, they, they, well, who are the they? And we were kind of hesitant.

I think we, I would be, I guess I'll speak for myself. You know, we may be kind of hesitant to say, who are the they that he's speaking of?

A certain people group that he tells us in verse 25, who he is speaking to.

And I'm just saying this so that we, as, as Dan walks through the, these last few verses, we remember who he's talking about and who we're dealing with here, who are the characters in the, in the story.

But they have done this in order that the word may be fulfilled that was written in their law.

They hated me without cause. So it's pretty clear who Jesus' audience here is and who he's speaking of.

Yeah. When he's talking about the world here, he's talking about the, the world system. He's talking about those who are only fleshly minded.

Those who are, he's talking to the Jewish context, those who are only the physical descendants of Abraham, the ones that are against God, who do not know the father, who are not accepting the son.

It's those who says that they, if they hate you, it's because they hated me.

The reason why they're attacking you is because you're the thing that they see.

Basically, people who hate a concept don't attack concepts.

They attack the manifestation of that concept. If they hate God and they can't see

God, they're going to attack the ones who represent God or who look to be attached to God.

Even if you, if you think about a tree, if somebody's mad at a tree and they're going to swing a stick at it, they usually don't go for the trunk because they know that the stick's going to break against the trunk and fly back and hit him in the head, but they'll go whack at branches and they'll tear it down and they'll try to make it look funky.

They usually don't do a very good job. That's a bad analogy because people don't beat up trees very well.

I'm glad you brought that up because that was something that you brought up last night in our conversation that when you and I, if we're persecuted or whenever persecution happens, don't take it personally because they're not persecuting the branch.

If you are in Christ, if you are abiding, attached, remaining Him, and you know that because you're bearing much fruit and you're being persecuted, they're not persecuting the branch.

They're persecuting the vine dresser. This is

His work, and so I want to destroy His work. They may be beating on the branches, but it's against the

Father. Right. The apostle Paul, before he got apostolized, he was going around beating

Christians, throwing them in jail. He saw Stephen stoned, and when he was knocked off onto the ground and was blinded, the first thing

Jesus asked wasn't, why are you persecuting my church? It was, why are you persecuting me? His attack on the church was an attack upon God ultimately, so He asked the question.

This is the same thing that Jesus is talking about here. When they come at you, and in fact, He had Paul in mind when he was speaking this, that Paul was going to be doing these things before he was saved.

If they hate you, if they attack you, they're going to do so because they hate me, not because they hate you.

So, what do we do in that instance? Verse 20 says, Remember the word that I said to you, a slave is not greater than his master.

If they persecute me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also.

If you speak the gospel to them, and they are one of mine, they will obey the gospel. If not, they're going to fight against you in some form or fashion.

It may be real small. It may be to the point of death and anywhere in between, but they will resist and persecute you in some way.

But all these things, Jesus says, they will do to you for my name's sake, because they do not know the one who sent me.

He's driving home that point. They're attacking the vine. They do not like grapes.

They do not like the grape vine. And so, they're going to attack the branches because that's what they see. They don't have the power or the ability to cut the root off and to sever it from the ground and to kill it.

So, they're going to attack what they can see. They're going to destroy as much as they feel like they can get away with.

So, they're going to beat on you, kill you, make fun of you, anywhere in between, because they don't have the ability to cut through the root.

They don't have the ability to sever the vine. They tried. Satan had them killed, and still, it was the plan of God.

It was not that Satan was able to do anything apart from the plan of God. Jesus willingly laid down his life, and instead of it being

Satan's greatest victory, it was Christ's greatest victory over Satan. It was Satan's greatest defeat.

He was unable to sever the vine from the ground. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sinned.

Now, that word sin can also mean guilt. They would not have guilt. In other words, Jesus is saying, in the

Jewish context, if they had only had Judaism and I hadn't shown up to show them the error of their ways, they wouldn't be guilty of rejecting me.

But since I've shown up and I've showed them through miracles, through authoritative teaching, through the

Word of God, that I am who I say, or He is who He says He is, that Jesus is

God, that He is the forgiver of sins, they wouldn't have been guilty, because they would have been trusting in the law of Moses.

But as it stands, they have the full revelation of God, and they're rejecting it. He's talking out against the

Jews of the day, even the Jews of today, the same ones who try to follow the law of Moses, who look at the

Old Testament and say, that is our book, that is our God. He's saying, no, I'm not your

God, because you reject Jesus, who is the exact imprint of the

Father. He has come down from the Father to show them who He is. He's done works among them.

He's taught them the correct way to worship God, and they've rejected it. By extension, those who approach

Christ today through the gospel, who are like those, the parable of the seed, that some of it was snatched away by the birds, meaning that they hear it and Satan steals away the

Word. No, they hear the Word preached, they walk out of the service and never think of the sermon again. There are those who are choked out by the cares of this life.

They want money, they want riches, fame, they want something that this world has to offer, and it chokes out and they put away the gospel.

Or those who have a little bit of persecution come, because maybe they are doing something good.

They have some fruit produced a little bit, but then persecution comes and they fold like a cheap suit and they put

Christ away, because the persecution is not worth it. Those things...I

forgot where I was going with this. By extension, the

Jews of the day rejected Christ's teaching. Those who reject Christ's teaching today are going to suffer the same fate, because they reject who

God is. They wouldn't have had that extra guilt thrown upon them if they didn't know who

Christ was. They would have had the guilt of seeing Him in creation, knowing who

He is, and suppressing the truth with their own unrighteousness. But a greater amount of light given to us, if we reject

God after that, will turn into a greater level of punishment in the future.

He's saying it's a terrible thing to know who God is and to reject Him outright. It's terrible to reject

Him anyway, but to see who God is for who He is and then reject God is a terrible thing to do.

And that's why the persecution is so harsh at times, because those who look at God and see

Him for who He is and reject Him have a level of darkness and hatred for God that will lash out in any way that they can, and it will come to His church.

So we should remember that and stay rooted in the gospel, stay rooted in Christ.

Verse 25, but they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their law. They hated me without a cause.

Why do they hate you? Because they do. They have no good reason.

They'll say they have reasons. The Jews of the day, well, they're going to make things difficult for us with the

Romans, or He's blaspheming. These aren't real reasons. He wasn't blaspheming. Jesus was

God, still is living in heaven. Were they going to cause trouble with the

Romans? Yeah, but who cares? Because the Romans were falling away anyway. The Romans fell several hundred years later.

The true king of the world is Jesus. If the earthly government falls, that's okay.

Even Psalm 2 in the Jewish scripture, it said, or 2, said, kiss the son lest he be angry with you.

Serve Christ who has been set up by God to be ruler of this world. Otherwise, you will be put down by Him. So why do people hate us?

They have no good reason. They'll give us reasons. We're being unloving. We're not accepting whatever it is that they want us to accept.

We hate the poor. I hear that one all the time. It's like, no, we just don't want the government to steal our money.

I would be more than happy to give money to a poor person. The government has no right to steal because Christ has spoken on where the government should act, and we should listen to Him.

Verse 26, when the helper comes, who almost sends you from the

Father, that is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about me, and you will testify also because you have been with me from the beginning.

He's talking about the disciples there. They have been with Him from the beginning. They're also going to be sent out as apostles after Christ's death.

But what He's telling them is the reason that they're going to have the power to go out and to work alongside the

Holy Spirit in seeing salvation of people all over the world is because they're, very first off, abiding in the vine.

They have attached themselves to Christ. They are living there. They have no other hope. Anytime something creeps in where they have a different understanding or a different loyalty or a different worldview that takes the center off of Christ just a little bit,

I snap it back. Remember who Christ is. They allow themselves to be pruned and they abide.

They live. They attach. They throw down roots. They're unmovable and shakable.

As it says, I believe somewhere in the Old Testament, anything that can be shaken will be shaken, so that way everything that is false and fake will fall away and only what remains will stand.

It's the same concept. We have to remain in the vine, remain abiding, because there's no other place that we can go to have the forgiveness of sins and to find life.

Everything else is dry and arid. It's hungry.

We starve spiritually away from Christ. That's his meaning of abide.

Stay there. Don't go anywhere else. Christ is the only source of life. That's right.

If you have his life, you'll produce fruit, which gives us joy, which is a great thing in all circumstances.

We love our neighbors. They come after us. We've got joy. We don't like it.

It hurts when you get slapped, but it says, count it all joy when you suffer persecution. It's not because you're happy to get slapped.

That's weird. You have joy because you know Christ has made me one of his.

I am living here. I have all of eternity to spend in eternal bliss, worshiping my

God. Bring it on world. I'm with my

God. I'm here. I'm not moving. I'm not going anywhere. Yeah. And Jesus here helps us to understand that other teaching that you're talking about.

Count it all joy when you're persecuted. Well, why? Because it's not about the circumstance itself.

I must be doing something wrong. Why me? Why did I do this? It's about you as a branch producing fruit in that circumstance to glorify the vine dresser.

And so that's how we can count it all joy. That's how our joy can be made full is because this circumstance,

God has allowed me to be in this circumstance, whatever it may be to produce fruit.

I mean, he's wanting us to produce fruit and we will bear much fruit and it's to bring glory to him.

So I'm in this circumstance for him to bear fruit for him, to show him off, to give him glory.

And as we wrap things up, as we pull John chapter 15 all together,

I wanted to make this comment and reminder that the

Christian life we learn here is not departmentalized.

The Christian life is not a detached life. The Christian life is not a dualistic life.

If we are in Christ, if we're abiding in him, we're attached to him.

And that means, just like we were talking about circumstances, we're not just people who are in the four walls of a church building 24 seven.

We go to church for worship. We gather with other believers, but also we experience the rest that life has to offer.

We are at home. We are at work. We are at the park. We are under persecution. We are at the shopping center.

We're multiple, many other places in our life throughout our lifetime. And if we are, we're not just attached abiding in Christ when we are in the four walls of a church building, gathering together with other believers to worship

God. If we're attached to Christ, if we're abiding in him, we're abiding in him at home.

We're abiding in him at work, at play, at the shopping center, under persecution.

Wherever we are, we're not living a dualistic, detached life where we are in him bearing much fruit in one circumstance.

In another circumstance, we don't reflect the character of God. We're not bearing much fruit.

If we're attached to him, we're attached to him in every circumstance. And God has those circumstances there for us to produce fruit that he may be glorified, that we grow as branches and we produce fruit as branches.

And then it shows off the power and magnificence of God, divine dresser.

And so that's how we can count it all joy. That's how we can know we are in him. This passage just teaches us so many things about Christ, about the father, about our relationship with him.

Any last thoughts before we wrap it up? There's one instance in the

Bible where this kind of comes out big. Joseph was sold into slavery and then from there imprisoned at the very end of everything.

He's on top of the world. At that time, he was like number three in all of Egypt.

Things were going well. His brothers came to him after their father died and said, what are you going to do to us?

And he's like, nothing. He said, you met this for evil. God meant this for good in order that many would be preserved alive.

The reason why God has called us to himself and causes us to produce fruit is because he has a plan and a purpose that is good and glorious.

So even if it looks like Joseph's life, where everything just seems to go bad for most of it, and then your dad dies, then you still know that whatever men meant for evil,

God meant for good. The fruit that was produced through that sort of hardship for him glorified

God. It glorified God because God through him was bringing about the savior of the world.

It was through that nation that was brought down in Egypt that came out. And from those people,

Jesus showed up. We have no idea what God's doing. I mean, we have an idea, but we don't have any idea of the details.

So as we abide in him, we can have complete joy knowing that what men mean for evil,

God means for good. So come what may, we have Christ and we can have complete joy in that.

It is a wonderful, wonderful thing. And this is why the gospel has had so many different faces over the years, quote unquote gospel.

This is why the gospel has changed so often throughout the years.

This is the gospel looks different today in America than it does from scripture.

Because the gospel is not just, I mean, it's extremely offensive because it says that I'm a sinner.

I can't do anything good. I can't do anything apart from Christ. I'm a bad person.

I'm not good. The gospel is offensive in that aspect and extremely offensive to a self -centered, self -righteous, idolatrous individual who only cares about their self.

It's absolutely offensive in that way. But what we learn here, the gospel is offensive in a far greater way in the fact that the gospel is not about us in the first place.

The gospel is about the vine dresser. The gospel is about God and him creating a vine with branches and fruit to bring himself glory.

And that flies completely in the face of us idolatrous, self -righteous sinners, because we want it to be about us.

Look at the fruit that I'm bearing. Look at my fruit. Look at my life. Look at all these wonderful things that's going on that I'm producing.

I've got this mega ministry. I've got this mega business. I've got this great car that I'm so prosperous.

We want it all to be about us, self -focused and everything pointed to us. But the gospel says that we are evil.

Even our righteousness is as filthy rags to God. There's nothing good within us. And then secondly, the gospel is not even about us.

It's about God himself and him building a church, him growing a tree with branches with fruit so that it can point right back to himself and he can show off, look at what a good vine dresser

I am. So the gospel proclamation is we are sinners.

We have disobeyed God's commands. We've rejected them and we reject

Christ by rejecting his commands. And we need that alien righteousness.

There's no way to recover in our state apart from the work of Christ and what he did.

We need his imputed righteousness in us and we need to be forgiven by him.

That's why he commands us to repent, to relinquish everything and turn to him in faith, believing in his work and his righteousness.

That way we can be in this tree, abide in him and produce fruit for the glory of God.

And as we're learning in eschatology, Jesus is this king, he reigns.

And so the call is to submit, submit to his reigning, submit to his lordship, as you spoke of earlier, submit to him as savior, submit to him as Lord, submit to him as king.

That's the gospel. Yep. It involves us as characters in the story, but it's all about God.

It's all about the vine dresser and it's all to give him glory. So Dan and I, we love the

Lord and we love you. We love people and we want to see you in his kingdom.

We want to see you joining us as a part of that vine. So as the scripture commands, we would also command to submit to Christ, repent of your sins and put your faith and trust in him and his work.

And if you've not done that, we would encourage you to do that today. And with that, we'll wrap it up.

And Dan, I'd like to ask you to pray for us as we close. Sure. Right quick though, just one sentence summary of abiding just popped into my head.

If we're going to wrap up everything that we've been saying in the one thing is that our mindset should be this, that when we look at the world, we say,

I have Christ and all this too. Yeah. So that our main focus is

I have Christ and then anything else is just gravy. That's right.

That's what it means to abide in Christ. I have that mindset. Let's pray. Dear heavenly father, thank you for today, for allowing us to record, to look at your word.

We pray that you've been glorified through it and pray that you would work in each and every one of our lives, that you would soften hearts and minds.

You would cause us to love you more and more that you would produce fruit in your people and that you would call people to yourself.

We pray for your glory and your majesty to be known in the entire world. And we pray that you would use us to do that in Jesus name.

We pray. Amen. Amen. Next, next time that we gather, we're going to look at eschatology of hope.

What is the eschatology of hope? And we're going to look at the, the redemption of culture.

I believe it is. So to join us for that, we're going to look at the redemption of culture and what God is doing. If you have any suggestions, any questions, any topic that you would like for us to address, we're totally open to answering questions, looking at other topics, any help that we can be.

We would love to be a help to you. Leave a comment with your questions. Send an email.

The email is going to cross the street screen there. Just get in touch with us and let us know that how we can help you, how we can help you get plugged into a

Bible believing Bible teaching church. I hope you guys have a great day. Remember that Jesus is

King, go live in that victory and let's continue to go out there and proclaim the gospel together.