Abiding in Christ
John 15:4-7
Life can be chaotic
This notice appeared in the window of a coat store in Nottingham, England:
"We have been established for over 100 years and have been pleasing and displeasing customers ever since. We have made money and lost money, suffered the effects of coal nationalization, coat rationing, government control and bad payers. We have been cussed and discussed, messed about, lied to, held up, robbed and swindled. The only reason we stay in business is to see what happens next."
John 15:4-7
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Prayer
Jesus reveals to us, we the vine produce fruit because, we are grafted in the root system
Which gives us life. We flourish spiritually when grafted into the fullness of God.
[Abide in me] Remain united to me by a living faith. Live a life of dependence on me, and obey my doctrines, imitate my example, and constantly exercise faith in me.
[And I in you] That is, if you remain attached to me, I will remain with you, and will teach, guide, and comfort you.
Abide for Victory
Corrie Ten Boom
Connected with Him in His love, I am more than conqueror; without Him, I am nothing. Like some railway tickets in America, I am “Not good if detached.”
Corrie Ten Boom
If Jesus were born one thousand times in Bethlehem and not in me, then I would still be lost.
Spiritual presence abides
After the Crusades, Western Europe received a number of supposed holy relics, including a tooth of Goliath, a tip of the devil’s tail, and a bottle that held the breath of Christ. Of course, no one today takes such relics seriously. If we did have the breath of Christ in a bottle, what would it mean? Nothing. It is the spiritual presence of Christ in the life of a believer that counts.
To Abide means we gain by what we put into living for God.
It was many centuries ago in a remote village in India. Word began to spread that something was about to happen that no one had seen in there lifetime the prince was coming to visit their forgotten little village.
Everyone was excited but no one was more excited than the village beggar. Every day he eked out another day by sitting by the road with his little cup, hoping to get enough money to buy the rice to live one more day. He actually had two cups one for collecting money and one for his few grains of rice. But now the prince was coming the wealthy prince! When the prince finally arrived, the beggar mustered his most impassioned appeal - Alms! Alms for the poor! And the prince stopped. The beggar’s heart was pounding furiously.
Give me your cup of rice. That was all the prince said. The beggar slumped down in disbelief. Here was the wealthiest man in the land, asking for his lousy little cup of rice. The beggar was about to refuse, but instead he reached in and he put three grains of rice in the prince’s hand. The prince turned to his servant and said, Bring me the bag of gold. The beggar could hardly contain himself as he eagerly stretched out his empty collection cup. The prince reached into his bag and placed three grains of gold in the beggar’s cup. And then he disappeared, never to return but leaving the beggar to wonder for the rest of his life . . . what would have happened if I had given him my whole cup of rice?
Jesus, the Prince of Heaven, may be passing your way today with so much to give you. The forgiveness of every sin you’ve ever committed . . . a new beginning . . . the peace that has eluded you your whole lifetime . . . eternity with Him in heaven. He wants to make you spiritually rich. In fact, it was very expensive for Him to be able to offer you the heaven you don’t deserve instead of the death penalty your sin does deserve. In our word for today from the Word of God, God describes the unspeakable sacrifice Jesus made to rescue you.
II Corinthians 8:9 says, You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ (that’s undeserved love), that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich. When God’s Son, Prince of Heaven, is hanging on that blood-stained cross, He is totally impoverishing Himself so you can have God’s love, God’s resources, God’s heaven. It’s hard for us to see that we are the beggar but the Bible says we’re spiritually bankrupt because our running of our own life, and that has cut us off from our Creator. Only Jesus can bring us back. God says, When we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
Your life is as big as you can make it and it’s nowhere near enough, is it? Jesus is passing by you today, asking you to turn over to Him the life He died for. If you’re ready to trade what you have for what Jesus has, tell Him you’re putting all your trust in Him today. Don’t make the eternal mistake of hanging onto your little cup of rice, and missing Jesus’ bag of gold.
Hindrances to abiding with Christ
A beggar lived near the king’s palace. One day he saw a proclamation posted outside the palace gate. The king was giving a great dinner. Anyone dressed in royal garments was invited to the party. The beggar went on his way. He looked at the rags he was wearing and sighed. Surely only kings and their families wore royal robes, he thought. Slowly an idea crept into his mind. The audacity of it made him tremble. Would he dare?
He made his way back to the palace. He approached the guard at the gate. "Please, sire, I would like to speak to the king." "Wait here," the guard replied. In a few minutes, he was back. "His majesty will see you," he said, and led the beggar into the palace.
"You wish to see me?" asked the king. "Yes, your majesty. I want so much to attend the banquet, but I have no royal robes to wear. Please, sir, if I may be so bold, may I have one of your old garments so that I, too, may come to the banquet?"
The beggar shook so hard that he could not see the faint smile that was on the king’s face. "You have been wise in coming to me," the king said. He called to his son, the young prince. "Take this man to your room and array him in some of your clothes."
The prince did as he was told and soon the beggar was standing before a mirror, clothed in garments for which he had never dared hope. You are now eligible to attend the king’s banquet tomorrow night," said the prince. "But even more important, you will never need any other clothes. These garments will last forever." The beggar dropped to his knees. "Oh, thank you," he cried.
But as he started to leave, he looked back at his pile of dirty rags on the floor. He hesitated. What if the prince was wrong? What if he would need his old clothes again. Quickly he gathered them up. The banquet was far greater than he had ever imagined, but he could not enjoy himself. He had made a small bundle of his old rags and it kept falling off his lap. The food was passed quickly and the beggar missed some of the greatest delicacies.
Time proved that the prince was right. The clothes lasted forever. Still the poor beggar grew fonder and fonder of his old rags. As time passed people seemed to forget the royal robes he was wearing. They saw only the little bundle of filthy rags that he clung to wherever he went. They even spoke of him as the old man with the rags. One day as he lay dying, the king visited him. The beggar saw the sad look on the king’s face when he looked at the small bundle of rags by the bed. Suddenly the beggar remembered the prince’s words and he realized that his bundle of rags had cost him a lifetime of true royalty. He wept bitterly at his folly.
And the king wept with him.
We have been invited into a Royal Family, The Family of God. To feast at God’s Dinner Table, all we have to do is shed our old rags and put on the "New Clothes" of faith, which are provided by God’s Son, Jesus Christ.
But we cannot hold onto our old rags. When we put our faith in Christ, we must let go of the sin in our life, and our old ways of living. Those things must be discarded if we are to experience true royalty and abundant life in Christ. "Behold, the old is passed away; the new has come!" (2nd Corinthians 5:17)
Called to leave the comfort zone
If we would be enlarged, we must accept all that God sends us to develop and expand our spiritual life. We are so content to abide at the old level that God often has to compel us to rise higher by bringing us face to face with situations that we cannot meet without much greater measures of His grace. It is as though He had to send a tidal wave to flood the lowlands where we dwell to compel us to move into the hills beyond. God, like the mother bird, sometimes has to break up the comfortable, downy nest, letting us drop into empty space. There we must either learn to use an entirely new and higher method of support or sink into failure and loss. We must do or die, fly or fall to our destruction.
Abiding with increases our value.
I know that I have to move from speaking about Jesus to letting him speak within me, from thinking about Jesus to letting him think within me, from acting for and with Jesus to letting him act through me. I know the only way for me to see the world is to see it through his eyes.
Abiding increases our witness for God, we act as channels for his love; they are branches who must abide in the vine if they are to have that love (John 15:1-11).
Application for our lives
Our culture sees asking for help as a sign of weakness, but it’s not. It’s a sign of strength.
John 15: 7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Billy Graham.
Heaven is full of answers to prayers for which no one ever bothered to ask.
Our communion with Christ is maintained-by prayer:
It is awesome to realize that at the end of our lives we will be the sum total of our responses to God’s answers to our prayers, for God has chosen to be limited in His next action by our response to His previous answer. The final outcome of our lives is decided by a life-long series of responses of God’s answers to our prayers. The way we respond to God and then He, in turn, to us actually determines the direction our lives will take.
He who has influence upon the heart of God rules the world.
Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest.
Think of the last thing you prayed about--were you devoted to your desire or to God? Determined to get some gift of the Spirit or to get at God? "Your Father knows what you need before you ask him." The point of asking is that you may get to know God better. "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart." Keep praying in order to get a perfect understanding of God Himself.
Self induced Poverty
We may have as much of God as we will. Christ puts the key of the treasure-chamber into our hand, and bids us take all that we want. If a man is admitted into the bullion vault of a bank, and told to help himself, and comes out with one cent, whose fault is it that he is poor? Whose fault is it that Christian people generally have such scanty portions of the free riches of God?
Give me a pure heart-that I may see thee,
A humble heart-that I may hear thee,
A heart of love-that I may serve thee,
A heart of faith-that I may abide in thee.
