Abiding in Jesus
Is everyone still keeping their New Year’s resolutions? Did you even make any resolutions?
Anyway, Valentine’s day is almost here so I wanted to bring a sort of Valentine’s day message. Of course I’m weird so I didn’t choose 1 Corinthians 13 - the love chapter, nor did I choose some other typical love verses. Instead, I chose John 15 because it shows a unique relationship that we must maintain between us and Jesus.
John 15:1-9 - The true vine and the branches
15 “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 bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself but must remain in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown away like a branch and dries up; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you remain in Me, and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. 9 Just as the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you; remain in My love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love. 11 These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.
1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.
V1. Jesus is the true vine - the Father is the vinedresser
2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.
v2 . We are the branches and our job is to bear fruit!
He prunes us so that we may bear more fruit.
Have you ever seen a pruned plant? It looks horrible, right?
Don’t be upset when you are pruned. He’s doing it to help you be a better fruit bearer!
3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
V3. Talking to saved people - you are already clean. You are not a branch if you are not saved. Get saved first.
Trust in Jesus without any works. You can not earn.
Eph 2:8-10 - Not by works - appointed to good works
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and [l]this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Do you believe in what God has revealed?
You must believe that He is.
Commandment that you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s a command!
Being justified by faith, we have peace with God.
A total dependence on Christ.
Accept Him as Savior, Lord, and master! First in every area of your life!
4 Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself but must remain in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
V4-v5. Remain in me - and I in you - You can’t bear fruit without the vine!
V5 If you remain in Jesus you will bear much fruit. (flip side, if you don’t remain in Him, you won’t bear much fruit) - You will know them by their fruits!
Abide in me, Stay in me, Remain in me. The branch can not bear fruit by itself unless it abides in Me. Neither can you.
We must have contact everyday. We must abide in Him.
Without Him we can not bear supernatural fruit. You will know them by their fruit.
Matthew 7:15-20 - you will know them by their fruits
15 “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? 17 So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 So then, you will know them by their fruits.
What are these supernatural fruits that you keep talking about?
Galatians 5:22 - fruit of the spirit
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Are you bearing these spiritual fruit - love, joy peace…? Or are you bearing the fruit of the devil? Hopefully not!
Galatians 5:19-21 - fruit of the flesh
19 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: sexual immorality, impurity, indecent behavior, 20 idolatry, witchcraft, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, 21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
There are so many factions these days and tribalism and strife. If that’s you, reconsider your ways and instead turn to Jesus’ ways by bearing the fruit of the spirit. I love that it says against the fruit of the spirit there are no laws made. That can’t be said about the fruit of the flesh. There’s laws against those evil behaviors but no laws against the spiritual fruit, the loving behavior that God wants to see in us.
Without Me, you can do nothing!
Quick Sermon using a power strip
When you give a power strip to a kid, they try it all out. They will plug it into everything. They will plug things into it. They will even plug it to itself.
So what do you get from that?
Well, you don’t get any power unless you have the strip plugged into the mains power.
Things plugged into it won’t work unless the strip is plugged in. - like bearing fruit!
You can’t get power from yourself - don’t be plugged into yourself.
So you must be plugged into the power source and you must share that power with the appliances.
Similarly, you must abide in Jesus and you must abide in Him to produce fruit!
6 If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown away like a branch and dries up; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
V6 Consequences of not remaining in him - he dries up, withers, and then gets incinerated. Many have fallen asleep… (not talking about losing your salvation, just talking about consequences that you’ll die apart from Him).
The branch that bears no fruit must be cut off so that the rest may be preserved.
Are you one of the fruitless branches that need to be cut off? Please don’t be that way. Be one of those good healthy branches abiding in Jesus that is bearing lots of beautiful fruit.
Mark 11:12-14 - Jesus curses the fig tree! eek!
12 The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. 13 Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. 14 Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it.
A difference between losing salvation and losing a blessing. This is not losing salvation.
7 If you remain in Me, and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
V7 There are blessings remaining in Jesus and He will grant what you ask!
8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.
V8 When you bear much fruit, it Glorifies the Father and you show yourself to be a disciple. Again, you will know them by their fruit!
Bear much fruit! Not just a little.
I remember we had a peach tree that would bear so much fruit that its limbs would sag! It was crazy, that thing bore like too much fruit! THAT’S HOW YOU NEED TO BE! Don’t be satisfied with bearing one tiny little bitty fruit. Be fruit all over to the point of sagging and more!!!
9 Just as the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you; remain in My love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love.
V9,v10. The Father loves Jesus, and Jesus loves us, we are to show our love to Him back by abiding in Him and keeping His commandments.
If you love Me, keep my commandments.
People have all sorts of love languages. Some think they are loved if they get gifts, others when someone tells them they love them, others when they snuggle, etc.
Jesus shares how to love him back. Keep His commandments and abide in Him!
11 These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.
V11 He wanted us to know these things! It seems like common sense but ya know common sense isn’t always common is it? You think people should know to abide in Jesus but instead all we like sheep have gone astray! Sadly our sin nature is tempted by the sinful world and we stray away from Jesus. We have to make a conscious effort to abide in Jesus - it doesn’t always happen naturally. You have to strive to keep in the Word. You have to strive to pray every day. You have to strive to be loving and kind. You have to make a conscious effort to do these things or else If you don’t do this striving and abiding in these things, you just stop being that way. They say how do you make things a habit? By making them a habit. To abide in Jesus, you have to make it a habit. To show yourself a loving person, you have to make a conscious effort to be a loving person. You have to teach yourself to be that way. I remember my mom telling me that children have to be taught to go kiss their mother first thing when they get home. They don’t know how to do it naturally. When you make it a habit, you made it a habit.
Without faith it is impossible to please Him!
Jesus is divine… and we are da branches. (Jesus is the vine, we are the branches)
Opossum story:
We found a baby possum in our bedroom! That was different!
Now Opossums are America’s only native marsupial.
The babies cling to the mother and she takes good care of them.
This baby, tho, somehow got away from its mother and into our bedroom.
So I scooped it up and set it outside.
Sad thing is that without finding the mother, this baby’s chances of living are slim.
I’m sort of sad about that. I mean I suppose I could take it as a pet, try to feed it, raise it and whatnot. Teresa was like, she didn’t even want to see it and could even sleep in the bedroom after that! So keeping it wasn’t going to happen.
So yeah, I’m telling you all of this because baby Opossum must cling to their mom or it’s over for them.
Same it is with you and Jesus. You must abide with Jesus or it’s not going to go well for you!
Do you realize that all around you is a spiritual battle going on and the devil wants nothing more than to get at you and make your life bad?
Not only that but your spiritual growth and spiritual health all depend on abiding with Jesus!
If you’re not abiding with Jesus your chances of having that abundant life He speaks of is slim!
Luke 13:4 - Jerusalem unwilling to abide with Jesus
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who have been sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her young under her wings, and you were unwilling!
Are you willing to Abide in Jesus, to remain in Him, to Stay in Him, to learn from Him to Be like Him to Do like Him (What would Jesus do?)? So many turn to the world's ways and live the world’s evil ways. Turn to Jesus and Abide in Him, learn from Him and be good like Him.
When you go to do something for God, do you remember to include Him?
Zechariah 7:5 - did you do it for me?
“Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years, was it actually for Me that you fasted?
Mary and Joseph had this problem. We went and left and then realized that they didn’t have Jesus with them! He was still back at the Synagogue!!!
Remember to take Jesus with you always!
Many lost people don’t understand this verse in Revelation, so it takes a bit of Christian discernment. Repent, don’t live the world’s ways, turn to Jesus’ loving way!
Rev 3:17-19 - Repent - change your ways before He comes!
17 Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, 18 I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.
Abide in Jesus and follow Him faithfully!
