Well, what do you think about that miracle-working God that we have?
You guys, we have had 2 miracles so far in this conference.
Last night, John MacLeod was in a— what could have been a
very tragic accident where a car hit him while he was riding a
bike, and he survived. And,
and here's the thing, I go over to him last night, he's sitting over there.
There's so many things you can say in that moment. And he says to
me, "Pastor Kevin, I really think the Lord's trying to teach
me," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. My
goodness, my word. And then a baby has life.
We sang this morning, "Waymaker,
miracle worker." Do you believe in a miracle-working God?
He is a miracle-working God. Are you paying attention that He
loves us so much that He would connect the dots of the thread of
what He's doing? And He's going to continue to do it this
morning as we bring bring up our next speaker, somebody
who I would— I don't use this word lightly, and I have assigned this word
to under 10 people in this house, but I believe that
Rhonda Frazier is a pillar of Sarna Assembly
Springhouse Church. Her consistency, her faithfulness in the
Lord has helped cultivate the longevity of
this house and what the Lord's doing. Would you guys please welcome my friend Rhonda
Frazier.
Pastor, thank you, Pastor. Oh, good morning. Did Vonda take us to
church? All right, well, in,
um, uh, y'all, if we haven't memorized John 15:1 by now, you
don't need the slides for what— I mean, you know, let's just— we'll just see
about that in a minute. Also, I have some books. One of the
books has a, a— it was written in the 1800s,
so that's a long time ago. And so, people back then were
trying to figure out how to abide in Christ. And so, Andrew Murray wrote some
words about that to try to help them figure that out, and
we're gonna talk a little bit about that today. And in the,
you know, there's— this is not a Scripture, but it's
kind of a proverb or an adage, "Variety is the spice of life."
And now, for something completely different.
Would you roll that beautiful cheese footage?
All right, so I'm just gonna be honest with you and say that
when I read John 15, sometimes, and we've read it a lot,
I can feel like that. I can feel like that scene,
and it goes something like this. The mom,
"Follow Christ." "Oh, I've already done that. What number are
we on?" "I don't know, it's your Bible. Try to
keep up." "Oh, okay, the next step, abide in me." abide in the
vine. What does that mean? What does
abide in the vine mean? You abide in the
vine. Well, I understand that, but how?
How do you abide in the vine? What do you do? David, I cannot show
you everything. Can you show me one thing?
You just, you just, here's what you do. You just
abide in. Okay, I don't know
how to do that. And I don't know how to be any clearer.
You just take this thing and you, if you say
abide one more time,
it says abide.
Abide. It says abide. I also just think
of the Princess Bride and that the
Inigo Montoya, you keep using that word. I do not think it means what
you think it means.
So my assignment this morning is to talk to us and to think
about what it means to abide while
being a human. And my question to
my leadership is, do we have another option?
Is there a way to do this without being human? I don't think
so. So I want us to start
I want us to start just a minute with what the
humans that were walking with Jesus in chapter 15, so we
are gonna be in John 15, and what they might have
been experiencing. So all the
disciples had heard at some point those beautiful
two words, "Follow me."
And sometimes it was literally, "James!" "Follow me,
John, follow me." And other times it also could have been, especially
like if you're, you know, if you watch "The Chosen," it could have been like,
"Hey, Andrew, keep up, follow me." It was repeated
more than 20 times in the gospels, "Follow me, follow me."
And it was a recurring phrase. And when the disciples were called, either
in small groups or individually, it's, "Follow me."
Rhonda, in Matthew 16:24, we've already heard it this morning, that
says, "Take up your cross and follow me."
He says, "Follow me and walk in the light," in John 8:12.
And to Peter, oh Peter, over in John
21:22, it's really like Jesus is saying,
"Peter, worry about yourself and follow me."
The disciples were used to that call. It was familiar.
But Jesus had also just said to them,
like in John 14, 13, 14,
"I'm going away and you will not be able
to follow me." Earlier that evening he
had said, "My children, I will be with you only a little
while longer. Where I am going you cannot come." And they
clearly did not understand what he meant. He encourages
them and he promises to send them a helper, the Holy Spirit.
He promises to give them peace. And in the last verse of
John, 14, Jesus says, "I will no longer
talk with you much 'cause I've gotta go do what
the Father has commanded me so the world may know
that I love the Father. Rise up,
let's go from this place." And it's not recorded in
Scripture, but there was an understood, "Follow
me." This leads us to the chapter break and
we get into John 15, and this is the passage that we've
been living in, and dare I say it, abiding in
for this time. Jesus and the disciples were on
the move to the garden. Now, Pastor Kevin alluded to this 2
weeks ago when he brought our attention to Old Testament
passages that refer to Israel as the vine and
God as the vinekeeper. And here in John
15, we hear Jesus say, can we say it all
together? Now, this is from the NIV, so, Vine dresser, gardener, it's
okay. All right, "I am the true
vine and my Father is the
gardener." Some scholars say that since the
disciples were on a walk, in transit,
that it is possible that Jesus was talking
to them in the temple courtyard in
sight of a huge carved
golden vine. This
vine was the national symbol of Israel. Think
Stars and Stripes. Some scholars wonder if Jesus'
statement, "I am the true
vine," might have been made in sight
of that carved vine. And even if it didn't happen like that,
there is no doubt that the disciples knew the
imagery and the pride of the symbol. They would
recall hearing the readings from Isaiah and
Ezekiel where the vine imagery is strong.
In Old Testament passages, Israel is described as a
vine. Israel was to be the channel through which the
blessings of God would flow to the whole world.
That promise was repeated over and over in the Old
Testament. God's life and love and justice and
righteousness were supposed to flow to all the earth through
Israel. But the vine of Israel
repeatedly fails to bear the fruit that God
intended. And now here is Jesus with
all of that strong vine imagery layered in
their songs and their poetry and the prophecy of
the ages saying to the disciples, "I
am the true vine."
David Platt says of this scene, "It's like Jesus was saying to them, 'You thought
it was Israel, but no, it's me. I'm the vine.
I will be the channel through which the fruit of God will flow.
Jesus is proclaiming, 'What I am, what Israel
never could be. Life, love, power,
and goodness will flow to the nations through me.'"
And then Jesus says something so incredibly hopeful to the
disciples, 'cause if you hear that your nation is not the
vine, vine, then where does that place you? He says to
them, "But you have a place. You have a purchase,
a purpose. You are the branches. Your place
in the vine is secured. You are attached to me. You are
mine, joined to me. If you stay here and abide in me,
you will experience my life flowing through you
always." That same declaration is made
to you and me. Jesus says to you and me,
the humans reading this text, "Abide
in me." But how?
How do we abide? How do we fold it in?
This brokenness that we're left with, what does that look like?
We have to remember that we need rest.
Come to me and find rest. This came up on Thursday night when the
leadership gathered. Matthew 11:28-30,
come to me, all you who labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke
upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle
and lowly in heart, and you will find rest
for your souls. For my yoke is easy
my burden is light. And isn't it
just like Jesus to marry the
language of rest with the language of
work? To marry the language of rest
with the language of learning? You are
laboring and carrying a heavy load.
How does it get better? Come, come, come shoulder to
shoulder with me. "Come shoulder to me. Come
be my student. Learn from me. Yoke yourself up
to me. Yield yourself to my words and my ways. Come
in step with me and let your life, all of it,
be synced up." In other words,
"Abide in me." But
this takes surrender.
Surrender of our will, surrender of our pride and our
independence. This yoking up and abiding
requires acknowledgement that we can't do the work without
Jesus. In 1882, Andrew Murray
says, "It's not the yoke, but the resistance to the
yoke that causes the difficulty." Well, that'll preach
on Twitter or X or whatever it is. I don't even know. Okay, that could
be a meme. That could be a meme today, all right? What an incredible
thing to know that when we come to Jesus, we have
access to the Almighty One, and
he will teach us all day and keep
us all day, 'cause he's always speaking, for he has
promised he will do it. And what does
that abandon and surrender to the yoke bring?
Rest. I will give you
rest. You will find rest for your souls. Stay
here, dwell here, live here, shoulder
up here, abide here, come to me. Come to me and find
rest. Finding a posture of spiritual rest
in Christ is life-giving and empowering.
Abiding results in work that
brings rest.
For humans to abide, we have to
recognize that we are needy.
Humans, we are needy, but we don't wanna be,
and that's the rub of it all. Our neediness, guess
where it echoes? All the way back to the garden
where Vonda took us. All the
way back to the garden. Adam, in the
perfection of Eden, needed
a companion like himself.
I heard a teacher once, and this was a teaching on the differences
in male and female, and she was saying that she
envisioned when God put Adam to the work
of naming the animals, that part of the process that Adam might have
been doing was, "Giraffe, not like me.
Not like me. Not like me. Not like me." And then,
When Eve is presented, like me,
like me, this is what I need. Adam
needed Eve before the fall.
Being needy is a part of being truly human. It's a part of
our— it's not a part of our brokenness or fallen nature. God
gave the good gift of Eve to Adam before
the fall and before they decided
that the gardener was wrong.
But sin entered the picture and it entered us, and we no
longer understand our neediness correctly. We don't see it
as a strength that keeps us in community and
interconnected. We jockey for position and power.
We grasp instead of help. We lash out instead of
latching on, and we independently reject that we are
truly needy. We forget that
we need the vine. We don't want to need the
vine. We forget that Acts 17:28
applies to us. "In him we live and
move and have our being." Or as
Jesus says to the disciples on this walk to Gethsemane,
"Apart from me you can do nothing." Nothing of
real glorifying value for the kingdom can be
accomplished without abiding in
the vine. And what a thing for Him to say, "Apart from
me you can't do nothing," when He just said, "I'm gonna be out of here
and you can't come with me."
I was listening to a podcast this week and Jackie Hill Perry
referenced an exposition that John Piper had done on
2 Corinthians 4:16-18.
And that passage says, "Therefore do not
lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet
inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us
an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So fix
your eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen.
For what is seen is temporary, "but what is
unseen is eternal." So I looked up
that sermon from Piper, and he goes on to say that
what Paul writes here should give us great hope, that
we are renewed day by day.
That is a hopeful idea. Piper says that when we live our, these are
his words, he says we live our life and we leak and we
fade and we must be renewed day by day because, his words,
we can't run on yesterday's gas. And that's
what abiding is. New mercies every
morning. Getting filled up daily.
We see this gift of daily manna to the children. We
see it in that, and for the children of Israel. We well know, we
know the story. They had to get that provision every day, and that's what
Jesus said too in his prayer when he taught us how to pray, "Give
me my daily bread." This act of daily
gathering was a physical reminder that they were
needy, but their needs were met.
The same is true for us. The call to abide in the vine
is a daily call, a constant call, an ever-present
recognition that the source of our very life is the
vine himself. Everything else is
powerless, gloryless, and a dim shadow of
what could be. But in our
humanity, we, like Eve,
stand in front of the vine and say, "I won't
die apart from you. I know better than you.
I can sustain myself. This knowledge won't hurt
me. This fruit is for me. It is mine to take."
And we don't believe the truth about the vine.
It's because we can't fathom his love for us. We don't understand
the heart of the vinedresser. We don't believe
what the gardener says is true.
Abide in the vine is the purest picture of our need for
Jesus to sustain and keep
us. And the good news is,
he promised to do that. That he would do it. He
will sustain us. Now, at this point, with all this
abiding and all this spiritual stuff that maybe we're trying to tap into,
one might pose the question that Johnny Cash proffered in
the lyrics of his song "No Earthly Good" back in
1977 when this maybe hit the airwaves, because it probably was on the B-side of
that album. Uh, come heed me, my brothers, come heed me
one and all. Don't brag about yourself or surely you'll fall.
You're shining your light, and shine it you should, but you're
so heavenly minded, you're no earthly good. Now, there's some
scriptures referenced in there, right? There's some scriptures in there,
right? Come, come, listen up, right? He who has ears to
hear, let him hear. Don't brag about standing, or surely you'll fall.
Pride goes before a fall. That's scriptural. You're shining your light, and
surely you should. You're a city on a hill, right? Don't
hide it under a bushel, no. Right?
I can remember my grandmother saying about some people, "They're
so heavenly minded, they're no earthly good." I didn't know she listened to Johnny Cash,
'cause she didn't— Maw
Maw Farley, I don't know, but that's not Scripture.
That's not Scripture. I mean, that's a good lyric in a country song, but
that's not Scripture. Because one could kind
of think like Cash, "All this abiding in the vine will
make me of no value to the people around me. I'll be
so caught up in spiritual things, I can't accomplish this thing
because I'm so busy abiding."
I don't know about you, but that never personally has been my experience about myself.
It is only when I abide that I can be of even the
smallest good to anyone
or myself or any situation. Lazarus'
sister Martha would likely have joined in Cash's chorus and
heartily sang it in pointed direction to
Mary.
In her latest book, Upon Waking, Jackie Hill Perry writes that
Mary was distracted by much serving. She
was anxious— not, sorry, Martha. Martha was distracted by much serving.
She was anxious but still doing something good. No,
hospitality's a good thing. To Jesus, Martha asked,
"Don't you care?" He cares and he loves, and Martha comes to
him not in intimacy, but in accusation. And she says to
Jesus, "Tell her to help me."
And Jackie writes, "When we are
distracted, it shapes the things that we ask God for.
God has to reorient our petitions and
reshape our thinking to let us know what it is that we
really need. You think you need something you don't actually need.
Martha thinks she needs her sister's help, but she actually
needs Jesus to sit at his
feet. She thinks her anxiety and trouble will
be fixed if Mary just scoots on up and helps her. It's reasonable
in human sense, but Jesus says your
anxiety and distraction will not be fixed even
if Mary helps. Sit down next to your
sister and then you can serve without distraction.
Oh, Father, help us to stop asking
for a thing when what we really need is
to be asking for you. And
isn't that what the need to abide is?
Replacing the need for a thing and reaching
in prayer and meditation to the God of the
universe who is the source He's the source of everything we
actually need. When
humans abide, there will be fruit.
And we know there's going to be fruit on the branches because Jesus
says there will be fruit. And this fruit is
evidence of abiding in the vine. It's the
logical, irresistible outcome of being in the flow
of the life-giving, character-changing power of the
vine. John 15 is a rhythm
of abide in the vine, bear fruit, receive the vinedresser's
pruning, bear fruit, abide, bear much
fruit, back and forth, abide, bear, abide, bear, prune,
bear. If there's any formula, that's it.
When the branches, you and me, get busy abiding,
the fruit will come because the vine
the gardener say it will come and
send it. When we are in the vine,
growth and change toward Christ-likeness is
infinitely possible. So many times you and I,
we buy into the babble of the world's phrases like, "People don't
change," or, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them,"
or if you've ever seen any episode of Oprah— of Friends,
"Once a cheater, always a cheater." I mean, you know, there's just those things. This
mindset It is incompatible with being a believer.
It's bad theology. This
is unrepentant, unredeemed world speak.
You and I are described in scripture like
putty. We are clay in the
potter's hands. We can change. Only
God does not change. Only God is
immutable. You and me, we change. Thank
God we can be changed. Tim Keller
rolled off this list when speaking about the enormous potential for change that you
and I have when the Holy Spirit is at work in us. And I'm insane,
when the Holy Spirit is at work in us. And he's
reflecting on Galatians 5 where the scripture of the list of the fruit of
the Spirit lives. And he says, this is his list.
The selfish person becomes generous. The controlling
person, a liberator. The cowardly person,
courageous. The worrier becomes a rock.
He continues, the world, I love this phrase, the world
can only offer weak morality, magic,
self-help, and try-hard. But the Word of God
offers us something that transcends all of that.
We get Jesus!
Jesus, real and concrete. We are drawing from
His pulsating life like a branch draws from the
vine, and that's the secret. If we
are connected to Jesus, abiding in the vine, the hard
things that come to everyone
don't break us. They don't make us
hard. They soften us.
They make us more human.
The internal, abiding work of the Holy Spirit
brings fruit. What's
the purpose of this fruit? Look at me, I got
a lot of things on my branches. No, John 15:8
spells it out, "This is to my Father's glory
that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples." His disciples.
Glory? Proof of discipleship?
Fruit is the evidence of abiding. A branch
isolated or removed from the branch will never
bear fruit. In the world of botany— okay, let's go
to school for a minute. I mean, a different school. Different— okay. In the world
of botany, there are a lot of elements that come into play
for a vine to bear fruit. There are going to be seasonal temperature changes,
water, hours of sunlight, pollination. It's a complicated
business to grow a cluster of There is
only one component required for you to bear spiritual fruit.
Abide in the vine. Abide. Fruit's been
promised. I cannot manufacture it. I cannot muster it
up. I cannot strive for it as hard as I
want to. Love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
thanksgiving, Faithfulness, gentleness, self-control do not
come by the sheer willing them into
existence. We abide and fruit
will come. But I don't see it yet. Stay put.
Fruit will come. Dwell.
Remain rooted, grounded in the
vine. Fruit will come. Amen. Jen
Wilkin gave this encouragement a couple of weeks ago on the Knowing
Faith podcast. And this season on that podcast, they've been tackling
tricky questions that some believers have, and some of them have been quite
funny, like, will pets be in heaven? It's been a real fun ride. But
this particular one, and maybe you should listen to that one, it was fun.
They had different opinions about that. So,
on this question, it was like, how can I know I am saved??
And I don't know about you, but I grew up in a tradition where that
was a question I was asking all the time, 'cause I did not grow up
in a Reformed congregation, as much as I quote Tim Keller
and John Piper. That was not my experience. I think
I'm enjoying that as an adult because I didn't grow up with that. I mean,
you know, so it was like ride the altar rail to, you know,
to heaven. And we used to laugh. I think somebody said this, I
think maybe at my mom's funeral, that we were, and this is really not as
bad as it was, and I think I've said this here before, I'm pretty sure
we thought we were a white lie and a car wreck away from busting the
gates of hell wide open, right? You know, so insecure
was my hold on my faith.
Hey, I didn't know the vine was strong
enough. I didn't know. I didn't know that
he had me instead of me having
him. So she gives this encouragement that maybe, and for this
conference, like, how do I know I'm saved? Like, how do I know I'm in
the vine, right? It was a great theological discussion. She gave
this suggestion. What if our prayer
journals became not so much a laundry list
of things we want God to do for us? Not maybe
that those are bad things. John Piper says that even unbelievers pray those
prayers. But our prayer journal became a
chronicle of our asking God for the things he
has already promised he would give
us. That prayer book then would become a
biography of the spiritual growth that we are experiencing, the evidence
of abiding faith, of being in the vine. Do you know
what prayers would never be out of God's will for you
to pray? Expand my heart.
Give me more love. Increase my joy. Give
me discernment. I need wisdom. Glorify your
name. Righteousness be exalted. Bring
peace. These are the promises of the
vine. When these show up, they are evidence that
in our lives that we are
abiding. C.S. Lewis describes the life of a believer as one of undulations,
and if that's not a word you— it's ups and downs, right? And
in vine speak, that would be like noting seasons,
right? There are seasons of fruitfulness and seasons
of waiting and dormancy. Now, the
real human temptation is to try to pretend that we
have fruit when there is little to
none. Today, work in plastics and fabrics have improved
so much that faux plants have reached new levels in
their mimicry of the real thing. But
haven't we all seen the garish look that fake flowers
and greenery have when they've been exposed to too
much sunlight over time? While real
plants can't survive without sunlight, Fake plants
become cartoonish with prolonged
exposure. What once at a distance could pass for a real
blossom or an edible piece of fruit or a lovely fiddly
fig are easy to spot as counterfeit
on closer inspection.
Manufactured pseudo fruit does not bring glory to the vine
or meet the desires of the vinedresser. And that
is the purpose of fruit, to bring glory to God, not to the
branch. Who are we trying to fool? Fruit is not for
decoration of the
branch. Stay abiding, and water, the life of water is
flowing to us, 'cause developing fruit has to have
water. And typically, plants only get their water from
their roots.
The life-giving flow of water is upwards
against the pull of gravity. That doesn't make
sense. While rain and dew fall on the leaves, that
water does not benefit the leaf directly. In
fact, most leaves have a waxy coating, a cuticle,
that protects them from that water. The water drips
off, goes into the soil, gets back to the roots,
comes up through the vine, and then then
is able to bring life to the
branch. Now, there are some plants that in times of drought have
a special mechanism whereby they can absorb water from
dew on their leaves. This is actually a design feature by our
good Creator that allows these plants to survive the harshest
of conditions for short periods of
time. But I think that you and
I try to do the same thing. We
perceive that we are in a drought. We perceive that God
is silent. And when in fact, there is not a
time that the vine is not sending up water. There is not a
time when the voice of God is not
speaking. The living water that we long for is
there. But in this perceived drought, brought about
by any number of external circumstances or internal struggles,
we think that the flow of life-giving water from the vine has been
cut off and strangled, 'cause we feel
parched. And instead of remaining and
tapping deeper into the vine, abiding
here, we grasp for drops of water around
us, lapping up mist and fog, when all the
time the vine has roots that are
reaching down to artesian wells of
refreshing. And we think these surface little
dribbles are gonna satisfy the deep longings that we have,
but in fact, they foster the growth of mold
and mildew and rot.
We only have to look to Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan
woman. She's a great example of someone who's with who was looking for what she
thought she needed in the wrong places. After asking her
for a drink and being rebuffed, John 14:10 says,
"Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of
God and who it is that asked you for a drink, you would
have said, give me living water.'" And he goes on to
tell her that drinking this water means you'll never be thirsty again. It
means access to so much water that that springs well up.
That sounds like abiding. That sounds like
fruitful. So we're doing this, but we're
human. 'Cause that vine analogy, you know, that don't play too good on
a Monday morning sometimes. This abiding, it seems
daunting, it seems impossible. No matter how much we think that
we can hold two thoughts at once, we actually can't. Thus
the phrase, "You can't walk and chew gum." Now, there are some, right? You can
do some, you can have a conversation and walk. In fact, they say walking, or
running, or having a conversation with someone is good for your older brain. So,
you know, take that for, I have an older brain. So, you
know, so we can do things like that, but holding two thoughts at the same
time. So how do we manage
this abiding all the time, and being
cognizant of our Creator, and being in the vine, yet But we still
have to do things like take out the trash, and wipe
a snotty nose, and pick up car line, and cook,
and clean, and place a Walmart order. You know,
there's all the things that we have to
do. Vonda hit this too. There are big
times that we label as, "Oh, we're abiding," right? And those
are the spiritual disciplines of prayer, and Bible reading,
and fasting, and study, and meditation on the
Word, generosity, worship, gathering with believers, and
more. Those abiding times are easy to identify
and label, 'cause— and we go, "Oh yeah, we're connected. We're in
the vine. We're here." Those are as important to
our relationship with Christ as long conversations with a
friend to catch up, or a regularly scheduled date night, or
a game night with the family, the things that we plan to
do. But let me tell you, if you have anybody in your family
that you love, you know that they are never not far from
your mind. It's just
one little thing and you can be like— and if you've lost someone that you
love, even a smell can like bring back to you
like a conversation that you had, or a way that you loved
them, and it is very present of mind. So how
do we have that presence of mind while
still doing the dishes and the trash and the taxes and the things
and the money and all the things that we are required to do
to also be human. Andrew Murray describes
it as kind of an undercurrent of our life because apparently
in 1884 he would not have known to use the phrase background
music or soundtrack. I don't know about
that. Or maybe there's just not a good translation from Dutch
into I'm sorry. Murray writes, "Even when
our attention shifts to the demands of the
day, your fellowship with Christ does not
subside because Christ himself is
maintaining the fellowship."
Christ himself is doing it. The
thing for
us. How do we know? How do we know that's what's
happening? It's in Romans 8. Romans 8:38,
"For I am convinced that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor demons, nor
present or future, nor any powers, neither height nor
depth, nor anything in all creation, "Will be able
to separate me from the love of God that is in
Christ Jesus our Lord." That is abiding. That is
the power that our abiding comes from. So, we
can sing then and celebrate the song of
Isaiah 27:22 and 23. Sing about a
fruitful vine. Sing about a fruitful vineyard, 'cause
I, the Lord, watch over it. I water it
continually. I guard it day and night so that no one may harm
it. What a song! So if
abiding is like music, a
soundtrack that's playing, sometimes we hardly notice it.
There's music like all around and you don't notice it
until, well, maybe there's a shift in the melody or there's a
new harmony. They hear, "Oh, I didn't know. Oh, that
chord." That kind. There's something in the refrain and it catches our attention
and in that moment we can lock in
and praise or prayer or
both, worship are on our lips.
It's the easy and natural, "I
love you, Lord," that breathes out of us when we're
just doing the next thing. It's the hearty
and "Thank you, Jesus," when hearing good
news. It's "God is good" at the sight of something
beautiful, or a trembling "Help me, Father"
in moments of weakness or despair. It is the silent
cry for wisdom, hopefully before we open
our mouths. It's Barbie's
"Ah, Jesus," when there are
not other words to say.
These prayers and petitions and little
acknowledgments grow from abiding, and they remind
us constantly that we are in Christ. They remind
us that He is right
here always. We are
in the vine no matter where we are or
what is happening around us. But again, we might come back
to how, how the children of Israel could
not do this, and they were experiencing, they
experienced powerful deliverance and visual and verbal
daily manifestations of God's presence.
Manna, cloud, pillar of fire, and they couldn't
do it. How can
we? Because their measure was the law, And
our measure is love. Jesus
said, "As the Father has loved
me, so have I loved you.
Now remain in my
love. If you obey my commands, you'll remain in my love, just as
I have obeyed the Father's commands and remain
in his love." And he goes on, Why am I telling you
this? So that you can have
joy. And what was that command He mentioned? Love
each other. Dear sweet
branch, that's fruit. All
this is possible, all of this, even in
our humanness, being able to acknowledge and know that we are in
the vine and fruit will come and trust it. It's all
possible when Jesus says back in verse
4, "Remain in me and I
will remain in
you. If you remain in me and my words remain in you,
God gets the glory." See, sometimes we are so focused
on I remaining that we forget he
is
remaining. He calls and we come and
rest. He sustains and we admit that we need
him. He prunes and we bear
fruit. He pours out love and
we get joy. He
loves us and we get to love
others. He abides so we
can abide, all to the glory
of God. So I'm
feeling that some of this is
about— Vonda gave us some things about
distractions and listening, active listening. And I feel
like a word that could kind of sum it up is,
is noticing. We notice. That's
actually a little term that's come up in some gentle parenting
circles about helping your kids notice things. Instead of telling them to do things, you
help them to notice it, right? So if they notice it, then maybe they'll do
it of their own volition. I don't know. We try that with middle schoolers sometimes
at school, and they don't notice that they are made of paper and pencils, and
by the end of the day, all of it has leaked out of their lockers
and their themselves, and so, you know, the area in front of their lockers is
just trashed. And we have a proverb
at school, "Don't walk by a piece of trash without picking it up."
They have not
noticed. They have not noticed that a semester
worth of papers is now, you know,
right? Noticing. What are we
noticing? What is God drawing our attention to? And you may
say, "That seems little. That seems
dumb." Notice, and
then notice what happens after you
acknowledge and notice. God
is so good. His love is
unfailing, and he is He does the keeping of
the vine. God is more gracious to
us than we could ever be faithful to
him. Let's
pray. Heavenly
Father, would you cause our eyes and our ears and our
hearts to notice the things that you are
doing. Would you help us more and more that as we
stay in you, abide in you, that we
see the work. May our prayers become things that
we're asking you to grow in
us. Father, we give our surrender
to you. And we say, "Oh Lord, we cannot
do it." If you don't keep the vine,
there is no keeping. So do what
only you can do as you mold us and shape
us more into your image. And would you cause
us to be
fruitful? In Christ's name we pray,
amen. Amen. What are
you noticing? What do we need to see,
Lord, in this leaning into that posture? Would you guys show
your appreciation for
Rhonda and her word? Somebody said, I didn't know it was going to be this
good. But don't we just sow when we're— when we, when we don't
pay attention to the vine? It is so much
better than we can ever imagine. And
we're plugged in. We are going to take a lunch break, and then
we're going to come back to some phenomenal
workshop sessions, 2:00 and
3:30. So we have Pastor Sherri and Pastor Wayne,
and we have Pastor Will, and we have Josh McLeod that will all be
doing workshops. And I pray that you're going to be here. Now, if you've got
friends that are like, I decided to stay home on the couch today, and you
see how good it's been, they have time to get here for these workshops. So
text them and say, you need to get
here and, and, and see, taste and see that the Lord's good. Amen. All
right. There are food trucks. Are they
here? They're here and they open at 12. Okay, so by the time you hit
the restroom and make your way out there, they're going to be open out there.
Uh, if you do decide to go elsewhere, which we encourage you to stay and
hang out, but if you do go elsewhere, come back and be a part of
the workshops, uh, at, uh, at 2
o'clock. Okay, does that sound good? All right, bless you, and we will see you
at 2 o'clock.