(All my sermons use illustrations found at www.sermoncentral.com and all scripture is NIV unless otherwise noted.)
TO RIDE OR ABIDE?
I am afraid that many people who have sometime in their lives made a promise to God and to Christ, have been taken for a ride. I am certain that many Christians have been offered the ride the world has to offer and have decided that its okay to go for a little trip as long as they are belted in with the safety net of Jesus, and a promise they made to Him many years ago. We must ALL understand that temptation is not from GOD, but from Satan and our own evil desires that attempt to drag us away from the promise we make to Jesus to abide in Him. The lure of the world and the temporary satisfaction it might offer us is sometimes very difficult to resist. Some will rationalize, “Well just this one time won’t hurt anything!” BUT, I am here to tell you folks, it is the start of something that could end up with dire ramifications.
The story is told of a native from a remote mountain village who had the opportunity to visit a large modern city for the first time. He could not bring much home with him, and he had little money. But he was amazed at the
electric lights which he saw everywhere. So he bought a sack full of electric lights bulbs and sockets with switches so he could turn them off and on. Arriving home he hung the light bulbs in front of his home and on his and his neighbor’s trees. Everyone watched him with curiosity and asked him what he was doing, but he just smiled and said, "Just wait until dark--you’ll see." When night came he turned on the switches, but nothing happened. No one had told him about electricity. He did not know the light bulbs were useless unless connected to the source of their power. Jesus said, "Apart from me you can do nothing." There are many people who do not know that the way they are living their lives is useless. They got the education; they got the job; they made the family; and bought the home but when the sunsets and night comes and they reach for the switch nothing happens. They do not know that there is a source, which makes all these things light up.
If you have your Bible with you this morning, please turn with me to the 15th chapter of the Gospel of John, and read along with me this morning.
John 15:5-8 "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
PRAYER
TAKE A RIDE OR ABIDE?
I. STAYED PLUGGED IN!
So many times people get caught up in the excitement of what Jesus can do in their lives and they make a promise to give their lives to Him, and then they forget that part of that promise is to STAY CONNECTED.
I think that one of the first things I learned about repairing household appliances is to always check and see if it is still plugged in. Now, I know that this may sound simplistic, but I bet that many people have made this same mistake. They go to use the washing machine one morning and find that it is not working. The first thing to do is to check and see if the power source is working, if it is not plugged in it won’t work, and then to check and see if the fuse box has tripped. If there is no power going to the washer it won’t work. I no for a fact that many people have called the repair man only to have him make a house call and plug the machine back in.
Perhaps we as Christians should see this as the simplistic lesson of why our walk with Jesus is not working as well. Have we unplugged? Have we walked away from the power source of our Christian walk. Jesus makes it simple for us to understand when He says; “APART FROM ME YOU CAN DO NOTHING”
How we stay connected to God is simply done through prayer and study of His Word. F. Andresh Czonka, an immigrant from Hungary now a naturalized U.S. citizen living in Illinois: Americans are afraid. I see the fear in their eyes; I hear it in their voices. They lock their doors. They lie to protect themselves. I feel so bad for the country. But I feel so bad for the individual people; they seem to hurt so much, to be so alone. My country had problems. But we had an inner strength that is missing here. We had a different group of things we wanted to achieve, different things that we considered important and valuable. I wish this for Americans, to have the inner strength that God can give. When I came to this country, I was excited to be an American and to be with Americans. I looked at your country and felt it was the best in the world. And since my childhood I have believed that your country was blessed because of your faith in God and you’re chasing for the right things in life. But now I think differently. Americans don’t have much real faith in God. This surprised me. I thought when the tough times come; Americans make it okay by praying to God and being connected with Him. But this is not the case. Not many people pray. People here think they can do it by themselves. This saddens me, because I am a man of faith. I know I cannot do it except by the grace and power of God. (If Things Are So Good, Why Do I Feel So Bad? pg. 27, 31 by George Barna)
The truth is that we cannot do anything without God, but with Him all things are possible. Staying connected is the most important thing we can do. Don’t take a ride, simply ABIDE.
II. WARRANTEE NULLIFIED
Have you ever started to fix something and the label says”If you open this product yourself, the warrantee will no longer be in effect?” That is what God is saying to us in the scripture today.
6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
If we venture to “fix” our lives apart from the guidance of God we are no longer given the guarantee of eternal life. It is our task to remain in Him.
We live in a time where we are so disconnected from everything:
You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.
You text your son’s phone to let him know it’s time to eat. He emails you back from his bedroom, "What’s for dinner?"
Your daughter sells Girl Scout Cookies via her web site.
You chat several times a day with a stranger from South Africa, but you haven’t spoken with your next door neighbor this year.
You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn’t have the first 20 or 30 years of your life, is cause for panic and turning around to go get it.
Cleaning up the dining room means getting the fast food bags out of the back seat of your car.
Your reason for not staying in touch with family is that they do not have e-mail addresses.
Your dining room table is now your flat filing cabinet.
You hear most of your jokes via e-mail instead of in person.
You disconnect from the Internet and get this awful feeling, as if you just pulled the plug on a loved one.
You get up in morning and go online before getting your coffee.
You wake up at 2 am to go to the bathroom and check your E-mail on your way back to bed.
A man in North Carolina bought a new car with a voice-warning system. ... At first he was amused to hear the soft female voice gently remind him that his seat belt wasn’t fastened. ... Edwin affectionately called this voice the "little woman."
He soon discovered his little woman was programmed to warn him about his gasoline. "Your fuel level is low," she said one time in her sweet voice. Edwin nodded his head and thanked her. He figured he still had enough to go another fifty miles, so he kept on driving. But a few minutes later, her voice interrupted again with the same warning.
And so it went over and over. Although he knew it was the same recording, Edwin thought her voice sounded harsher each time. Finally, he stopped his car and crawled under the dashboard. After a quick search, he found the appropriate wires and gave them a good yank. So much for the little woman!
He was still smiling to himself a few miles later when his car began sputtering and coughing. He ran out of gas! Somewhere inside the dashboard, Edwin was sure he could hear the little woman laughing.
People like Edwin learn before long that the little voice inside, although ignored or even disconnected, often tells them exactly what they need to know.
“If you love me, you will obey what I command.” We cannot claim to be a Christian if we only claim Christ. The Bible tells us that we must remain in Jesus and the word tells us that we cannot deceive ourselves by merely listening to the WORD.
James 1:22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
We cannot fix our lives on our own, we must stay connected to Christ and allow Him to change us. In the world we live in, we feel alone, BUT WE ARE NOT ALONE. We feel that we have control, But GOD IS IN CONTROL. We feel that we have a plan and if we work the plan we will succeed, nut the wisdom of man is foolishness to God.
Romans 12:2 tells us: Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will.
TRANSFORMED by God by simply renewing our minds that He is in control of our lives and that apart from Him we can do nothing. There is no guarantee for those that simply claim Christ and then strike out on their own to do their own thing. Jesus makes it clear that the man that decides he can do it on his own, will find out that he can not do it on his own. Don’t be taken for a ride, ABIDE.
III. THE LITMUS TEST
7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
Some may ask the question, and I believe it to be a legitimate question, “am I remaining in Christ or being pulled away by the world?” The answer is of course between you and God and never allow someone other than you or God to tell you otherwise. However, the test is in the fruit. We show ourselves as followers of Christ by the abundance of fruit that is displayed in our lives. It is to the glory of God that we bear much fruit, and it shows the world that we are followers of Jesus Christ.
And folks there are no short cuts we can use to show spiritual fruit. It takes time spent with Christ to mature and display the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.
There are no short cuts to maturity.
It takes years for us to grow to adulthood, and it takes a full season for fruit to mature and ripen. The same is true for the fruit of the Spirit. The development of Christlike character cannot be rushed. Spiritual growth, like physical growth, takes time.
When you try to ripen fruit quickly, it loses its flavor. In America, tomatoes are usually picked unripened so they won’t bruise during shipping to the stores. Then, before they are sold, these green tomatoes are sprayed with CO2 gas to turn them red instantly. Gassed tomatoes are edible, but they are no match to the flavor of a vine-ripened tomato that is allowed to mature slowly.
We must understand that this is EXACTLY what Jesus is saying to us in our text today.
John 15:1-4 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
Remain on the vine, allow the Father to make pruning of our lives even more fruitful. Or allow the trials of life to bring Him glory by remaining in Christ when things do not go the way we would like. No one can bear fruit without remaining in the vine! And yet so many try to fake out the world as of they are the ones that are going to judge the living and the dead.
Our world is full of lies, full of fakes, and full of people who are not doing as Christ would have them do.
The Leo Burnett advertising agency did a nationwide telephone survey a few years ago on lying, cataloging when we lie, how we lie, and why we lie.
The results were interesting.
Ninety-one percent of all Americans confessed that they regularly lied. Seventy-nine percent had given out false phone numbers or invented new identities when meeting strangers on airplanes. One out of every five admitted that they couldn't get through even one day without going along with a previously manufactured lie. Guess what the survey revealed that we lie about the most: our income, our weight, or our age? It's our weight! Which is kind of funny, as that's the one truth no lie could ever conceal. In second place was money, and third was our age. There was also a contender that came in fourth: our true hair color.
Now here's what I found most intriguing about the study: People no longer seem to care about lying. We accept it. It doesn't bother us. We don't get upset anymore when someone exaggerates, falsifies, fabricates, or misrepresents the truth. We live in a day when we've been bombarded with erased tapes, tampered evidence, illicit cover-ups, padded resumes, and exaggerated ads to the point that we've pretty much given up on truth being a viable enterprise. The study found that in the past, people thought lying was wrong. Now, almost half of all Americans say it isn't.
Our world has changed, but that does not mean we need to change as they have, it is so important that we ABIDE in Christ and allow Him and the Word of God transform us. This is not always easy, it is not always comfortable, but it is what we are commanded to do.
At the state university , there was a history professor who was a Christian. He would go down to a local nursing home and visit with the elderly men and women there on a weekly basis. Though some were lovingly visited every day by their families – having been sent there because they needed care that couldn’t be provided in a home environment – for many it was a place where they had been dumped so that their children wouldn’t have to bother with them.
They were sad, and they were lonely.
One day, after this professor had made his weekly home visit to those elderly people, a student stopped him and told him how wonderful it was that he had the love and gift for “that sort of thing.”
The professor was taken aback at the compliment. “A love for it? A gift for it? Do you think I enjoy smelling urine, stepping over bedpans, or talking with someone who drifts off into senile daydreams in the middle of a sentence? Enjoy it? You’ve got to be kidding!”
Now was the student’s turn to be stunned. “Then why do you go out there every week?”
“Because,” the professor answered, “that is where Christ would be, and that is what Christ would do. And I am a follower of Christ.”
Folks, this is what it ALL boils down to, to BE WHERE CHRIST WOULD BE.
TO DO WHAT CHRIST WOULD DO.
TO ABIDE IN HIM.
This morning as the musicians come forward, let us ask ourselves are we ABIDING in Christ, or being taken for a ride by the world?
Are you here in need of Jesus?
INVITATION
