Abiding And Producing

INTRO

Good Morning… Blah Blah… talk about something…

We are going to continue our series through John this morning… And i don’t know about you but this has been one of my favorite series that we have done… And if you missed a week you can always go to our website to watch the week you missed, listen to a sermon on our App, or stream our message from your favorite podcast app.

Next week is our last series… You DON’T want to miss it!

Today we are going to look at a passage in which Jesus teach how to be productive, how to bear fruit… Now I think we all want to be productive. We all have a desire to grow, to be successful, to make something of ourselves. What that exactly looks like will differ between all of us… But nobody wants to be failure. But my guess is most of us don’t have an idea how to do that. We don’t really know how to grow, how to accomplish what we want to accomplish…

To illustrate this Jesus is going to use the an illustration of growing… Of gardening.

TENSON

How many of you are gardeners? How many of you kill anything you try to plant?

If you aren’t a good gardener, you are in luck… story about mom and I gardening and how much I know...

I’m going to teach you how to grow an apple tree today.

In fact I’m going to have a full fledged tree here on stage in just a few minutes of work and for just a few dollars…… You ready? (act a little cocky)

Take out fence post, stick in dirt, and nail/duct tape an apple to it.

Have more fun with example... I’m going to show you... my mom was a good gardener... this going to be great…

when it’s done step back a little arrogant.. look at it... it’s pretty great... look at that trunk. Look at the fruit...

Everyone in this room knows this is not an apple tree. It’s a fraud. If you saw this in someone’s yard you would not think this is a healthy growing tree. It’s not even a tree, it’s not every going to produce any fruit because it’s not connected to a source that can feed it.

But this is what we do with our spiritual lives… Compare to our religiosity... this is what we do... in same voice. Read my Bible, made it to church… Look how good i am… Look at this tree I’m growing…

In this tree I see me… I live like this sometimes… I look at my life and think man I’m doing good… I don’t say that many bad words… I’ve read my bible… I go to church all the time… Look at the fruit I got…

Maybe you are like me… Maybe you got some fake fruit too. Maybe you put on a face and pretend to have it all together.

Maybe your tree isn’t exactly like mine… Maybe you've built your tree around money… And you think if you can just get more than you will have a beautiful fruit tree. Maybe your tree is all about success if you can just grow more do more than everybody else then you will be fruitful… Maybe your tree is your looks, how you portray your family, how you are perceived on social media…

You see so many of our lives are like this… We all want to be success we all want to produce something of lasting value, of eternal significance. But so many of us we’ve attached to the wrong source. We think if we just look more religious, have more money, put together the perfect family, get that promotion, attain that status then we will have something of value…

But we, just like this tree… Are attached to the wrong source.

There’s only one way to grow someone of lasting impact, of eternal significance…

And that’s what we are going to look at in todays passage… Jesus is teaching the disciples and he is telling them how they can produce fruit and then what that fruit will do…. And this is a teaching that we should lean in on… It’s one we need to here… So turn to John 15… And let’s see what Jesus says…

TEACHING

“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.(SLIDE)