Abiding | Becoming | Week 3

[00:00:00] Foreign church. We are thrilled you decided to listen to our teaching on your favorite podcast app. If you made a decision to follow Christ today, would you let us know by visiting yes.newlife Gillette.com Here is this week's teaching. [00:00:27] Let me say welcome to those of you who are watching online, to the guys over at the prison, to our friends at the jail, and those of you who are here in the room. I'm looking around the room and I'm seeing quite a few of you that got baptized last Sunday. And one thing that we have seen, yep, one thing that we have seen is that often we hear from people who get baptized that that next week is a little difficult for them. And we've seen this pattern of Satan really attacking people when they take steps in their spiritual journey. When they grow closer to God, the Satan is threatened and attacks. And so maybe you experienced something like that this week. Maybe a bad temptation reared its ugly head again. Maybe an addiction of some kind or a bad relationship kind of derailed the plans that you had made. And today, what I want to give to you is what I think is a good habit, a good tool that you can use in your life to help you kind of those seasons are gonna come, those attacks are gonna come. The question is, how do we respond to them? How do we weather those storms? And what we're talking about today, I believe, is a tool that is best used to weather those storms. We are in week three of this Becoming series. We're going through the Becoming Book. If you don't have the Becoming Book, you can grab one in the Purchase project on your way out today. It will get much more practical than I'm gonna get in today. But this week three is all about abiding. [00:01:59] Abiding Christians have this habit of spending time alone with God. We call them quiet time or devotions, whatever you, whatever that habit is for you, just to spend relational time with God on a regular basis is what we're talking about today. How many married people we have in the room. [00:02:21] The question is, do you go on more dates now or before you were married? [00:02:29] Way more before you were married. [00:02:32] Because before you were married, you didn't even have to be like a chore, right? You didn't have to go out of your way. You were looking for an excuse to get together. The fleeing, the excitement, the energy of the new relationship really made you want to engage and you want to be with her and you want to make sure that you're as close to her as you can possibly be. And so dating wasn't even really a hard thing to do. It just kind of came naturally. But then you got married and you got lazy, right? And it just became, we gotta do this, like, I don't want to get childcare and we got to figure out a habit for all this dating things. I read a study recently that said, done by the Wheatley Institute, that said that married couples who have a habit of going on dates are more likely to stay married for their whole lives. [00:03:21] And they have better sex lives, they just have better relationships. And I'm reading this study and the whole way through I'm like, duh. Like, you just assume that, right? I don't know if it's causation, correlation thing, but if a couple is going on more dates and they got more intimacy and all that stuff, you would assume that their marriage is more healthy. And you also have seen the opposite, right? [00:03:46] A couple where it just seems like there's a lot of space between them. [00:03:50] Maybe there's times throughout their days where they actually don't know where the other one is or what the other one is doing. [00:03:57] They're keeping secrets, maybe their finances are separate. So there's not much transparency there. [00:04:05] And you know, couples like this and what ends up happening is they just keep drifting farther and farther apart. [00:04:11] And this is when sin temptation comes in. The temptation to cheat, the temptation to hide things from each other grows. [00:04:21] And so what's the solution for a marriage? Well, the solution is we need to come back together. [00:04:28] We need to rekindle. [00:04:30] We need to come back together and abide with each other. We need more transparency. We need more vulnerability. [00:04:38] We need tracking apps on our phones. We know each other at all times, right? Whatever practical steps you need, you need less secrets, less hiding, less division between you and your spouse. And I would say the same thing is true in our relationship with God. [00:04:57] What we all need is not just some kind of like legalistic, dogmatic, I've got to do this checklist and try to make sure that I'm earning my way to heaven. The goal is that you have a personal, intimate, transparent, conversational relationship with God. [00:05:18] Because a lot of times we talk, we think that the church's job is to get us all to the place where we just sin less. [00:05:26] Like, I've gotten rid of all the bad habits and I've adopted all the good habits and now I sin less and now I'm a good person. [00:05:33] That's such a dumbed down, weak religious version of what Jesus wants for us. He wants something so much Greater for us. In fact, I think an intimate relationship can take us beyond all of that conversation, and it can take us to the place where not just our habits change, but our motivations change, our hearts change. [00:05:55] Not just that I'm doing less sinning, but that I want to do less sinning. [00:06:00] Not just that I can avoid temptation, but that I experience less temptation, because temptation is just kind of a reality of life. But when your heart is centered on Jesus, when you are pursuing Jesus, when the intimacy with Jesus is there, he has this way of kind of building in us a desire to grow, to become, and to get to know him more. So there are a lot of benefits that come from a relationship with Jesus. [00:06:31] We talk about peace that passes understanding. [00:06:34] Like, you know that Christian who has this intimate relationship with God, and it's like, even when terrible things happen, they just have peace, right? We all want to be that. I want to have that kind of peace. [00:06:45] I want to have that ability that when somebody hurts me, like Erica, Erica Kirk, I can forgive. [00:06:51] Like, I can have that. That kind of generosity and kindness and love for other people, right? [00:06:57] You know, somebody who just seems to kind of have hope, it's like even if everything is falling apart, they can just say, you know what? I trust God. I believe good things are coming. You can give me all the conspiracy theories and talk to me about how terrible things are, but I believe I have faith in God. I trust that he has good things in store. And so there are a lot of. We say that Jesus makes our lives better, and he makes us better at life. That is a natural outcome of a healthy relationship with God. [00:07:31] But the benefit of a relationship with God that I want to talk about today is one that probably you don't think about immediately when you think about a relationship with Him. And that is because when Jesus talks about abiding or intimacy with him, what he points it towards is one key benefit, and that's reproduction. [00:07:49] One key benefit of spreading the faith, of sharing our faith with others, of having an influence in our world. And so why Jesus picked that benefit over all the other ones I've just talked about, I don't know. But that's the one he pointed to. And so that's the one I'm going to talk about today. [00:08:07] There's this promise in Scripture and kind of makes us uncomfortable sometimes, that if you are a follower of Christ, then you will produce good fruit or good things will come as a result of the way you live your life. [00:08:21] Jesus said it like this. He says, a good tree cannot Bear bad fruit. [00:08:28] So fruit here is a metaphor for good things. [00:08:31] Now wait a minute, is this true? [00:08:36] A good tree cannot bear bad fruit? [00:08:41] Because I think about this and I'm like, I want to think I'm a good tree, but I definitely do bad things. [00:08:50] Does that mean I'm not? Then I start to get insecure. [00:08:53] Is there something wrong with me? [00:08:56] Well, yes. [00:08:58] And everything that's wrong with me produces bad fruit. [00:09:01] When I was a kid, we would grow up going to my grandma's house. My grandma lived downtown Oklahoma City in this teeny tiny, like two bedroom, one bath house, downtown Oklahoma house, downtown Oklahoma City. [00:09:13] And grandpa was a janitor at an elementary school and grandma was a volunteer preacher. So like they didn't have any money. So they found every way they could to save money. And one of the ways that they did that was in their backyard. They raised chickens. [00:09:27] Downtown Oklahoma City, they had a garden in their backyard. And then they had fruit trees. [00:09:35] And the healthiest, the best of the fruit trees that they had was this apricot tree. And so we would grow up going down to grandma's house and she would teach us about the apricot trees. To this day, I think apricots are the best fruit on planet Earth. Just, I think it's just a nostalgia thing. I don't know. But I love apricots. And she would teach us how to take care of this fruit tree. And the truth is, not every apricot on that good tree was a great apricot. Sometimes the starches or the sugars would be off or there'd be some kind of genetic problem with the fruit. And so she would teach us. Here's how you tell the good ones from the bad ones. We need to get the good ones out of the way so that the good or the bad ones out of the way so the good ones can grow more. And we would take care of this tree. [00:10:23] So is Jesus saying that this was not a good apricot tree because every once in a while it produces a bad apricot? I don't think that's what he's saying. And you'll learn if you read the teachings of Jesus. Sometimes he uses a little hyperbole. [00:10:37] That's like the literary way of saying exaggerate, like, not lie, exaggerate a little bit. [00:10:43] And then he says this. He says, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. [00:10:49] Is this one true? [00:10:51] Well, kinda like if it's a totally dead tree, then it can't produce any good fruit. I've never seen a dead Apricot tree produce a healthy apricot. [00:11:02] But this does not mean that you have to be a Christian to do anything good. [00:11:08] We've all seen people who are not Christians do good things in the world. An atheist can do good things in the world. So he's not just talking about what I can and cannot do. All throughout Scripture, fruit is used as a metaphor for good things. But I think here Jesus is not just talking about any random good thing. [00:11:29] I think the reason why Jesus is able to use this extreme language is because Jesus is talking here about some specific kind of good and bad fruit. He's not just talking about you're kind to somebody every once in a while. He's talking about the good things that last eternally, the good things that, like, change the direction that the trajectory of somebody's life. He's talking about sharing your faith. [00:12:00] He's talking about evangelism. [00:12:03] The fruit Jesus is talking about are getting good kingdom growth results. [00:12:09] And the reason why I know that this is what Jesus is talking about is context. [00:12:14] If you read John 15, you recognize that right before this, Jesus was talking about how he is doing the will of his Father, who by bringing the kingdom of God to earth. And then he starts talking about the wide gate and the narrow gate and how we can enter into eternal life, how we can spend eternity with God in heaven. And so when you read it in context, you realize that the good fruit he's talking about is, how can I live my life on the Christian mission? [00:12:43] Because when you listen to Jesus, you realize that Christianity is not just some religion. [00:12:49] You realize that Christianity is a mission, it's a movement. And if you are a Christian, you are a part of the army of God that is bringing this movement. You are on this mission, and you can do your job well or you can do it poorly. But if you want to produce the good fruit, this missional fruit that Jesus is talking to, he says, you need to be a good tree. [00:13:14] A good tree produces good fruit. It's a question of whether or not you are doing what you were created to do. And a good apricot tree is created to produce good apricots. [00:13:27] And then Jesus says this. He says, and every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. [00:13:37] Therefore, by their fruits, you will know them. [00:13:41] The bottom line, you will know who the Christians are by the way they spread God's love around the world. [00:13:52] Are you bearing good fruit? [00:13:56] I'm not asking you this so that you feel guilty and so that you start doubting your salvation. [00:14:02] I think what we should recognize here is this is a good promise. [00:14:07] This is a gift to us. [00:14:09] Do you realize you have the opportunity to have a personal relationship with the Creator of the universe? [00:14:16] Jesus died on the cross so that your sins would no longer separate you from him. [00:14:22] And if you have received the forgiveness of God, you now have the opportunity of a relationship with Him. [00:14:30] And he promises that a relationship with him will produce good fruit. [00:14:35] Not because you can produce good fruit, but because he can produce good fruit. [00:14:40] Because he, through you, will produce good fruit. [00:14:46] So let's jump into John 15. Jesus is talking to his disciples in the upper room. You remember the upper room. This is where communion happens. And this is where Jesus is kind of telling his disciples the last things that he wants to tell them before he goes and is killed, right before Jesus is crucified. And this is what he says. He says, I am the true grape vines. We're not talking about apricots anymore. We're talking about grapevines. [00:15:11] And my father is the gardener. [00:15:15] He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn't produce fruit. And he prunes the branches that do not bear fruit so they will produce even or that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. [00:15:30] Why does an arborist prune a tree so that it produces more fruit and better fruit. [00:15:40] If you've got a bunch of unproductive branches in the way on a tree, then the healthy branches cannot produce healthy fruit. So you've got to remove those unhealthy branches so that good fruit can be produced. Let's go back to my grandma's tree. [00:15:57] These are two apricot tree. This one over here has been pruned. Fewer branches, less fruit, but more healthy fruit. This one over here, more branches, more full, smaller, less healthy apricots. The truth is, if you hold a healthy apricot next to an unhealthy apricot, one has a lot like the healthy one has a lot of meat on it. [00:16:19] You got the seed in the middle of it. So now that apricot can produce more offspring. [00:16:26] The unhealthy one, it still has the big seed in the middle, but there's just very little fruit. It's unhealthy. So what do you got to do? Well, like Grandma said, you got to pull off the unhealthy fruit even before the sprouts turn into fruit. You got to pull them out of the way so that the healthy fruit can grow. Well. Scripture teaches us a little bit of a difficult truth. [00:16:49] God is sovereign, and there are Times that a branch gets in the way of the growth of other branches. [00:16:58] And God says, hey, if you're not going to do the things that I put you in this world to do, if you're not going to step up and produce the fruit that I'm asking you to produce, then I've got to remove you from, put somebody else in its place. Again, this is not meant to cause you to doubt your salvation. [00:17:18] This is meant to inspire you to become the fruit producing branch that God wants you to be. [00:17:26] But so many of us, we kind of want the benefits of Christianity without actually investing in a relationship with God. [00:17:36] The temptation is just to kind of like do the one foot in the church and one foot in the world thing. And it's like, well, in these situations, I'm going to be a Christian. In these situations I'm going to pretend like I'm not. And we just kind of like, where's my loyalty here? I'm divided. [00:17:52] I'm being pulled in two directions. [00:17:55] And what Scripture teaches us regularly is that if you try to do that, then you're going to be pulled away from God. [00:18:04] Scripture says we cannot serve two masters. [00:18:08] Eventually your flesh will combine with the temptations of this world and it will pull you away from God. [00:18:16] So you need to give yourself fully, fully surrender to God, not part in, part out. [00:18:23] Jesus's brother took it even one step further and he said this. [00:18:27] Don't you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? [00:18:34] I say it again. [00:18:35] If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. Maybe a little hyperbole here, but you get the point. If you try to maintain a relationship with the world and with God at the same time. There's a word for that. Let's go back to our marriage analogy. That's called adultery. [00:19:00] Loyalty to two not fully committed. [00:19:07] Scripture says that's grounds for divorce. [00:19:11] That's not what we want in our relationship with God. [00:19:13] We want full loyalty. [00:19:17] There's a conversation here to be had about whether or not we have decided in our hearts that we will follow God no matter where he takes us, no matter what he calls us to, no matter what uncomfortable things we will have to do. I've picked a side. [00:19:35] I've made him my Lord. [00:19:37] He is my King. And I obey the King no matter where he leads me. [00:19:44] And then Jesus says this to his disciples. [00:19:47] So they've been following him. They've gone through this difficult pruning process. And he says, you have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. [00:19:57] Remain in me. This is another translation says, abide with me. This is the analogy here. Remain in me and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine. And you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. If you want to produce fruit that. Good things, good outcomes. You have to be connected to Jesus. [00:20:23] Does it help for a branch to be close to the vine? [00:20:28] No, it's got to be connected to the vine. It just can't. It can't be in the proximity. Next screen, please. [00:20:35] It can't just be in the proximity of the vine. It needs to be connected to the vine. I say this to say, a lot of us, I think, have just settled for being in the proximity of Jesus. [00:20:47] I was like, I'll come to church. [00:20:49] I kind of like how it makes me feel sometimes. [00:20:52] Every once in a while, the band hits a note just right and I get the chills and it makes me feel good. [00:20:56] I'll come and enjoy the shade of the tree. [00:21:01] But we don't actually connect. [00:21:04] The invitation here is not coming to. Don't get me wrong. Like, I think you need to be in church every week, but that's kind of proximity. [00:21:13] Jesus is like, if you really want the full benefits of a relationship with him, you need a relationship with Him. [00:21:20] Like, outside of this time, you need to go and spend time alone, talking to him, get to know him, tell him all the deep, dark secrets, your biggest frustrations, your biggest fears, the things that make you angry about God. Go to him, talk to him about them. [00:21:41] Because sometimes if we just get the benefit, like, that's kind of the American Christianity thing. Like, we get the benefits of Christian morals, but we don't actually want to surrender to the King. [00:21:53] We like the feeling of the supportive community that the church is for us. [00:21:59] But what God wants for us is for us to connect with him for devotion, not just for emotion. [00:22:07] There are emotional benefits, but that's not the ultimate goal. [00:22:12] There is a difference between church activity and being connected to Jesus. You can do a lot of good things without ever actually building an intimate relationship with Jesus. Abiding in Jesus means talking to him, listening to him, reading his letter to you, the Bible. [00:22:33] That's what a devotional life looks like. Daily devoting ourselves to prayer and the study of the Bible and getting to know our Creator. [00:22:44] I think if you really want to get the full benefits of this type of intimate relationship, you just, like a married couple needs to make a dating habit I think we all need a. A habit of daily reading the Bible. [00:23:00] A habit of reading. And maybe you're not a reader. And this is the conversation that I have. Every time I say, you need to be reading the Bible to people who are not, they say, well, I'm not a reader. That's fine. [00:23:11] Listen to it. In fact, Scripture talks very highly about listening to the word being spoken, being read. [00:23:20] And so the Bible applies. [00:23:22] Download the YouVersion Bible app. It's got listening options. Listen to the Bible. Maybe on your way to work or on your way to school. Every day, listen to the Bible. [00:23:33] Because a lot of people just want it. They're like, I like what's in here. I just don't want to know what's in here. [00:23:40] Right. Or maybe you've just got more a random reading style. Maybe you open up the Bible app and you're like, I'll read the verse of the day and just hope that one applies. [00:23:48] Maybe you do the point and shoot method where you're like, God, I need a word. [00:23:55] I'm struggling right now. I need a word. [00:23:58] So then you're like, I'm trusting you, God, what word do you got for me? [00:24:04] And Judas hanged himself. [00:24:09] God, that wasn't the word. I'm gonna just, I'm gonna try a different word. What word you got for me? [00:24:16] Go and do likewise. This is not working. [00:24:21] No, I need some kind of ongoing habit where I'm not just getting these snippets, where I'm getting the full picture. [00:24:28] Because the truth is we are all part of God's big story. We are part of this story. [00:24:33] And if you want to know the story that you're a part of, you're going to have to read the story. [00:24:37] You need to get to know the story. [00:24:40] Watch the Chosen or whatever. Like, get to know the story. [00:24:47] What are your Bible reading habits? [00:24:50] Need something. [00:24:52] And he continues. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine. And you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. [00:25:02] If it sounds like Jesus is getting repetitive, who. Which he does sometimes. If ever Jesus gets repetitive. He's like, I need to make sure you get it. So I'm just going to keep saying it over and over and again until you get it. So I brought. I brought a branch. [00:25:17] Actually, I forgot the branch. So C.J. ran to his house and grabbed a branch. We're going to pretend like this is an apple tree branch. [00:25:24] And I got a question. [00:25:25] What if we, everybody in here put all of our energy together and we were going to Try to get this branch to produce an apple. [00:25:38] What could we do for it? [00:25:40] Could we, could we all like gather around and get really positive and say positive, uplifting things to it? [00:25:50] Could our positivity help this thing? Maybe if we all sing it some songs and give it all that we get the feels on it, like, come on, produce. What does this branch need in order to produce? [00:26:05] We could all tape apples on this branch. [00:26:11] I think that's like the American Christianity thing. Like we do a lot of pretending to have a relationship with God. [00:26:17] Like I'm in the proximity, look, I've got this fruit on me, check it out. [00:26:22] But it's actually dead, not actually connect. This branch isn't actually what's producing the fruit. [00:26:29] I think what God is asking us to do is we need, we need to bring life to this branch. The only way for this branch to produce fruit is for it to be grafted back into the tree. [00:26:43] Jesus says, yes, I am the vine, you are the branches. [00:26:47] Those who remain in me and I in them will produce much, will produce. [00:26:53] Now we've got a guarantee if you stay connected to Jesus, if we abide in Jesus, we will produce fruit. If I stay connected to Jesus, I will become more like him. I will become the person I was created to be and it will have a positive impact on the world around me. It means that the ultimate outcome of my life will be a fruitful outcome. [00:27:18] And now the amount of fruit we produce will be different. [00:27:22] The type of fruit we produce. We are all going to play different roles, but God will use us if we remain connected to Him. He says, for apart from me, you can do nothing. [00:27:37] You can do a lot of pretending, a lot of branches with taped apples. [00:27:43] We want the real thing. [00:27:45] Think about the person that you know that does the most good for the world around them in terms of bringing Christ to people, sharing their faith with people. I guarantee you the person you're thinking about has at least some kind of prayer and Bible reading habit in their lives. [00:28:03] I want to say something to everybody here who might feel guilty right now. Jesus did not say that if we bear fruit then we can be connected to him. [00:28:16] That if we are good, then we can have a relationship with Him. That's not what he said. This is the way the world does religion. It's like if you do some good things. [00:28:27] Next slide. [00:28:29] The world says if you do some good things, if you produce fruit, then you'll have God's approval. [00:28:35] Jesus does it opposite. [00:28:37] Jesus says, nuh, you got to get connected to him. First step One and then I will produce fruit in your lives. [00:28:46] This is the big argument between Christianity and all other religion. And I'm talking about all the religions like politics and all of them. [00:28:56] I'm saying what Jesus is telling us is that your only hope to become the person to be sanctified, to become the person you were created to be, is to be connected with him. [00:29:07] So maybe you need to get up 15 minutes earlier and pray for me. I'll be honest with you, this is not easy for me. [00:29:17] I'm kind of a constantly go doer type guy. Praying does not come naturally to me. [00:29:24] So I've had to be. For some people, I think it comes more naturally. I've had to be regimented with it. [00:29:29] I've had to figure out what are some things that I do every single day that I could add prayer to. [00:29:34] So for me, every morning on the way to the gym is prayer time. For me, every night when I'm putting my kids to bed, we get together and we pray. [00:29:45] We've decided what are some things we do every day and how can we add prayer to that Habit? Because it's the only way that I'm going to keep doing it regularly. And I need that in my life. And there will be some times when it feels more routine and mundane and not that cool. [00:29:58] But I can look back at every big breakthrough moment in my faith and I can point to some kind of intimate moment that I had with God. [00:30:08] Usually it's a little emotional. [00:30:10] Some of the times I'm screaming at God. That's our type of conversations. [00:30:15] But if I've experienced breakthroughs in my faith and in my relationship with God, there was some kind of intimate moment. This is true about your relationship with your spouse and this will be true about your relationship with God. [00:30:28] It can't just be surface. [00:30:31] It's got to be intimate between you and God. So here's something practical. We've talked about this a lot. If you've not yet done the psa, now's a great time to do the psa. Scan this QR code. It's just a few questions. It's going to ask you about your daily habits with God. And then you're going to be assigned to an assessor or an advisor and this advisor is going to look over the results from your assessment and they're going to pray over it. They're going to ask God to lead them and they're going to give you some advice about some next steps that you can take in your life. And so please go do this even if you've done this before and it's been a while, like, go take this assessment. You will be assigned to a wise advisor in our church who's going to love you and going to send you an email with some next steps that you should take in your faith. If you can't get the QR code now, you can go to newlife2light.com PSA@ and do it later if you'd like to. Or just come up to me and I'll help you get connected to it. There's other people in the room today who are like, you know what? I don't know if I have a personal relationship with God. [00:31:32] I think I believe the stuff. [00:31:35] I think the Bible is right, but I don't know if I have a personal relationship with God. [00:31:41] And to you, I would say again, do the psa, but also would you let us know that that's where you are in your faith by filling out the card and the chair in front of you and say that today you are ready. There's a card in the chair in front of you that says Next Steps Church 307. Or sorry, next Steps card. If you're watching online, you go to nextsteps.church307.com and let us know that today you're ready to begin a relationship with Jesus Christ because we're going to send you some material and give you some next steps and kind of help you move in that direction. Don't let today just be another day where you just move on. You just go back to the normal habits. If you just keep doing what you've always done, you're going to keep getting what you've always gotten. If you want to see some new fruit, if you want to see some good results, today's the day to say, okay, I'm starting over today, or I'm developing a habit today. [00:32:29] Have a conversation with God and figure out what that looks like in your life. God, I thank you that you have called each of us to something different, to something unique, that the fruit in my life will not look like the fruit in the lives of other people here. I pray that you would show each of us the benefits of an intimate relationship with you and that your Holy Spirit would speak to people in ways that I cannot love you and thank you in Jesus name. Amen.