Created For Fruitfulness Series

Dr. Bradford Reaves

Crossway Christian Fellowship

Hagerstown, MD, USA

www.mycrossway.org

View this and other messages at: https://mycrossway.churchcenter.com/channels/8118

As we begin this new year of 2022, I wanted to take a few moments as a church and remember some important factors facing the modern church and especially as it relates to us. We the Church are founded on the Cross of Christ. This began from the very opening chapters of Genesis and flows through the Old Testament into the Gospels and beyond.

The Bible is the very Word of God and will often stand in contradiction to the ways of this world As believers living in this fallen world and awaiting our eternal home, we are living in a time faith is not only imperative, but it is a matter of eternal life. This being the case, the Word of God must also be central because this book is the only source of knowing how we may have eternal life.

I have always seen myself as a waiter instead of a chef. When we come together, we don’t come together to hear men speak, we come to hear God speak. The responsibility then of the pastor and the preacher is to take the message from God and bring it to the people. Therefore, the preaching and teaching of the full counsel of the Word of God is a matter of life and death. It is the eternal source of hope for the world. If we as a church diminish the value of this word that we are robbing the world of the hope it needs.

Within this book is the eternal plan of redemption from God for man. But a modern trend in the church is to skip over difficult or controversial parts. Mark Dever said, “A healthy church is a church that hears the Word of God and continues to hear the Word of God. Such a church is composed of individual Christians who hear the Word of God and continue to hear the Word of God, always being refashioned and reshaped by it, constantly being washed in the Word and sanctified by God’s truth.” That must describe CrossWay Christian Fellowship and we as a church must be committed to this being the central hub of who we are at Crossway.

So here we are at the start of 2022 and we must continue to be a church of biblically literate Christians. I fear there are too many in this world that are coming to church or attending church based on their own feelings or agendas and not being fed the bread of life. Today the world is finding a church saturated with entertainment and motivational speakers. In its pursuit of hope, the world turns to the church only to discover nothing more than its own reflection decorated in religion.

Now, I realize this seems overly critical, but I mean it as a word of caution to us, rather than to be demeaning toward others. It is, however, central to our message today and for the next few weeks.

Let me set the scene for you as we take a look at the opening verses of this chapter. John 15 is what is known as the Mount Olive or Farewell Discourse of Jesus to his eleven disciples. It is the night before his crucifixion. They have just finished the Last Supper, Judas has departed to prepare his betrayal, and Jesus and his disciples have left the upper room and are making their way from Jerusalem across the Kidron to the Garden of Gethsemane. From here, Jesus is going to pray under such pressure that he sweats drops of blood. He will be betrayed by Judas. He will be arrested. His disciples will abandon him and ultimately he will go to the Cross.

It is during the walk from Jerusalem to the Garden that he shares with his disciples these words:

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1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. (John 15:1–6)

1. Jesus the True Vine