Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey, New Life Gillette 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.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Good morning, new lives.
Happy to be here this morning.
I don't know if this has ever happened to you, but did you ever wake up one morning and come to find out you have turned into your parents?
Yeah. Happens, happens, right?
Or maybe you're like me and through your parenting journey. I've been parenting for 20 years, and there's been a lot of opportunities where I opened my mouth and my mom came out, right?
I'm very similar to my mom, which is a good thing. I love my mom and we're very much alike. And I have a younger sister who is also very similar. And so when we all get together in the same room, it happens quite frequently that we respond in the same way. We say the exact same thing at the exact same time because we all grew up together, we were surrounded by each other, and so we, we think a lot alike. We say the same things. And then you throw my daughter in the mix who was parented, raised by us and then raised. I parent just like my mom. And so then you have three generations in the same room, and it's just this echo of the same responses saying the same thing.
And it happens so frequently that, you know, when you say the same thing as someone, it's usually like, you, jinx said the same thing.
It happens so frequently. It's the ongoing joke in our family now that when we say the same thing or respond in the same way, we point at them and say, not an original thought. Like, I already had that thought. Come up with something better, right? We've all heard it. We were all thinking that. And we know that that happens because we know who we surround ourselves is who we become.
So I am around my family a lot, and so I'm very similar to my family. You know, this is true because when you have kids, it matters who they spend their time with, their friends, right? You care about their friend group, and you want their friend group to be friends that make good choices and preferably follow Jesus, right? Because they are going to be influencing your child. And so who we surround ourselves with, who we spend time with and influence us. And so how much more if we know that in our physical relationships and in friendships and in our marriages and our families, how much more is it with our heavenly Father? And so as we are talking today as we are always at new life, becoming who God created us to be.
God created us to have a relationship with Him.
We're going to be in John 15 this morning. If you want to open your Bible or your Bible app and go to John 15 while you're going there, I just want to say good morning to everyone joining us online at church307 and to all of our friends over at the prison.
And so we're going to jump in. And we are in John 15. I'm going to read a pretty good chunk this morning just because I really want to get the gist of what Jesus is telling us. And so this is Jesus talking, and this is in the upper room. They have, you know, just done the feet washing and communion, the Last Supper, and he has just told them of the promise that God is gonna send the Holy Spirit. And so that's where we're picking up in this story.
And so 15, verse one. I am the true grapevine, and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that does not produce fruit. And. And he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. 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. Verse 5. Yes. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who remain in me and I in them will produce much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.
Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted when you produce much fruit. You are my true disciples. This brings great glory to your Father. And so you saw a word repeat itself through that a lot, right? Remain, remain, remain. Your translation might say, abide, abide in me. And so abiding, in the very simplest terms is still staying connected to Jesus. Abiding is staying connected to Jesus.
So abiding, remaining, staying. I've heard it say, make a home in.
Linger. Make a home in me, stay connected to me.
And so what does that mean, to stay connected to Christ? If you have decided to follow Jesus and. And you call him your Lord and Savior, you have the opportunity to have a relationship with Him. And so that has maybe felt a little like, mystical to you, like how Do I have a relationship with somebody that I can't see, right? And can't always feel, can't always hear?
So how do I have a relationship with Jesus? And how do I say, stay connected to him? And so we think about our relationships that we do know about. We know with friendships or relationships with our spouse. We know that communication is important. And so obviously the number one way that we communicate with God is through prayer. We can commute. Holy Spirit can communicate through the word of God, through worship, all these different ways, but the primary way is prayer, and we know that communication is important.
My husband was just elk hunting for the past week, and so there wasn't a lot of communication this past week.
And that's normal. There's no cell service up on top of the mountain. And so I'll get like these occasional, maybe a check in, like when you get to the very specific spot on the mountain and you hold your phone just right to get the bars, to get the service. And so, you know, you get those infrequent communications, like, still alive, no elk yet, checking in, you know, and that's fine for short term, but if I were to tell you that I only speak to my husband one time a week on the normal, on the regular, like that's our M.O.
you would think that doesn't sound like a very healthy relationship, right? We know that communication needs to happen if we are going to have a relationship.
And so we treat God like that sometimes, right? And so I have this beautiful plant up here, and the verse was talking about a grapevine. This is obviously not a grapevine, but you get the point.
So Jesus says, I am the vine, you are the branches. And so clearly we can see that if this leaf is going to be removed from the branch, we know that it's not going to survive, it's not gonna thrive, right? Yet this is how we treat our communication with God.
We come to church on Sunday and we're planted, we participate in worship, we feel the presence of God, we hear a word from the preacher, and then we go about our day and we go and do our own thing. And we don't think about God again until next Sunday. And we come back and we just think that this dipping in the soil once a week is going to sustain us, sustain us throughout the week. And that's just not the case. God is calling us. Stay connected to me. Maybe you are just spiritually exhausted and you are just out here exhausted and you are wondering why and you haven't opened your Bible in, in a month.
And he's saying, stay connected to me. You know, we love the verse, come all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. And we're like, yes, I want some rest. But what was the first part of that? Come like we need to stay planted, stay connected to Jesus.
He didn't say occasionally visit me. He didn't say once a week is good. He's saying, remain with me, abide with me, stay connected to me.
And so when we treat our faith like that, we know, we know that that plant, if I just kept it out here and kept dipping it back in the soil and water once a week, we know that it's not going to survive, it's not going to thrive. And if that is our faith, our faith is going to be weak, our faith is not going to be strong. Jesus came to give us life and life abundantly. And this is life. And if we want life abundantly, we need to stay connected to Him.
And so we were made for more than occasional encounters with God. We all have those moments where we really feel God.
And maybe it was a high time or maybe it happened in a church service, but those are just occasional encounters. We were made for more than that. We were made to dwell with in his presence. And we see this all the way out, all the way throughout scripture from Genesis to the Old Testament, New Testament. But in Genesis we see Adam and Eve walked with him in the garden, they talked with him, they had like communication, they communed with him, they were connected to him. And if Adam and Eve were made in the image of God and you and I are made in the image of God and then we are called to abide in him, we can dwell in Him. Not occasionally, always. And so as we are talking about abiding today, there's a few different struggles I think or hang ups that I think people get stuck in. And I'll just be the first to say, you know, every time that I speak up here, usually the topic is chosen for me. And it never fails that it is something that I struggle with. So I'm just preaching to myself like this is just really for me. I hope you get something out of it. But abiding is hard for me. I am the person that is like go, go, go.
I work two jobs. My brain is always like a mile, a million miles an hour. I'm the person that listens to my audio books at two times speed. Anybody else I know, I'm not the only one.
And so like the original is not fast enough. It's like, come on, get to the point, let's get going. I can't listen if you're talking too slow.
And so like, that's how my brain works.
But when I think of abiding, I know that that means to slow down. I know that that means that I can't be busy, I can't be distracted. You know, we live in a hustle culture and so it is the opposite of abiding and remaining. And so it can feel. I can get hung up on that a little bit. And so there's two ways that I think that we get hung up. First is when you think of abide. Maybe you think of like a retreat and going away, going to a time of solitude, away from distractions so that you can hear from God. And I think that's great. Like if you can make that happen, cool. I think there's times for that. I think there's times for like intense prayer and fasting and solitude. But that just doesn't work on the daily. I don't know about you, but I have to go to work and I have to make money to pay bills and you know, the laundry is never ending, all the things, right. And so I can't just always be like, peace out. I'm going to abide and always just go out and just have that time with God. The other side of that that might be a hang up is maybe you grew up with good habits and learning spiritual disciplines. And so you have a good habit of prayer and a good habit of reading God's word.
And so much so that you have begun to think of it as a checklist.
And so when we think of abide, it's not always going off in solitude, but it's also more than a checklist. It's more than one waking up in the morning and saying a two minute prayer. Check.
And then I open the Bible app and read the verse of the day. Check. And then I go about my day, right? Like again, I'm going about my day, check, check, check. And then I'm out here doing my own thing until next morning where I'm like, yes, yes, need to do time with God. Now I'm not saying any of those things are bad. If that's at the spot that you're at, there is no guilt, there's no shame. That is great. God loves that. But as I'm talking about abiding today, as we're talking about staying connected to him, I want you to like broaden the picture a little bit. We are talking about inviting him in to our day today, not just what we say is like quote unquote, spiritual time. We are inviting him into our day. And so this is cultivating like a moment by moment awareness of him. When is the last time you went throughout your day just seeing and feeling and being aware of God's presence? He's not just in the morning devotional time, he is throughout the day.
And so when is the last time you opened your Bible and you lingered in the Word more than just reading one verse or more than just reading your devotional, which I'm not against, those I love, love, love a good devotional, that is great. But when is the last time that you opened your Bible and you said, God, speak to me, Holy Spirit, speak to me through this Word. We know that the word of God is living and active and he can speak to us through it, but it takes time. I can't just be like, da, da, da, check and then on with my day, right? Like, have we lingered in His Word with prayer? When is the last time that you approached prayer and you were just listening?
We do really good at bringing our requests to God, our thanksgiving, our gratitude. When is the last time that you were just silent and just present before God, waiting for him to speak to you?
It's hard and it takes, it's. It I'm. It takes intentionality, right? It's not my natural state. I want to say my prayer and. And we have the opportunity to boldly come before the throne of grace. And so I'm going to take advantage of that, right? Like, Lord, I'm going to tell you like you said I could. And so here it is, here's all the things. And he can take it, that's fine. But when is the last time you just sat in his presence and waited for him to speak to you?
And so as we talk about abide and remaining, we're talking about inviting Jesus into every part of our day. And so as we do that, it is not just knowing about God, we are talking about having a relationship with God. And so the next promise that we saw throughout that scripture that we read is about fruit, right? We saw remain, remain, remain, and then fruit. And if you're anything like me, you are my eyes, like zero in on that. Number one, it says, you will produce fruit. Not you might, you will. And so that's a promise. And so if I am an abiding in Christ, if I am remaining in Christ, I will make fruit. But I'm an achiever and I'm a striver, and so I'm like, let's skip to the good part. I wanna skip to that fruit part. Because it says that by my fruit, it will give God glory. By my fruit, the world will see that I am yours. And so I'm like, let's skip to that fruit part. But that's not what it's about. God is not saying, try harder, work harder, be a better Christian. That's not what he's saying at all. He only had one thing that he said, right, Remain in me. That's it. We don't have to complicate it. We don't have to make all these rules and all these things remain in me. Stay connected to me and you will produce.
This isn't something that I can do on my own. I can't be out here saying, I want to make fruit. I want to give God the glory. I'm doing all of this for God. And then we're disconnected. We're not even connected. And so we have to stay connected if we want to have fruit. And so as we are abiding, as we are learning how to abide, the deeper we abide, the deeper we depend.
And we know this is true. Because if you have had children, you know that children at a young age are very dependent on you.
But our culture is opposite of this. Our culture says if you're going to be mature, if you're going to be healthy, you're going to be independent, right? Our kids are very dependent on us. And then as they grow, they get more and more independent. That's the goal. We want them to be independent. And then maybe if you're like me, you went a little too hard on that. And your daughter decides to go and do study abroad in Spain. And that's like a little too independent for this mama's heart, right?
But we want our kids to be independent. But spiritually speaking, that is not the case. Spiritually speaking, the more mature that we get, the more healthy we get, the more like Christ we get, the more dependent upon him we get. And so the deeper we abide, the deeper we depend.
My life should look different if I am abiding, if I am staying connected to him, my life should look different.
The deeper our relationship is, my life should look different. Our relationship should look different from when I decided to follow God when I was 17 compared to 20 years later, right? That I should have a deeper dependence on God because I have abided in Him, I have stayed connected with Him. I have seen and he has proven that he is good, that he is faithful, that I can trust him, that I can surrender control, that I can trust in him for the outcome, right? And so the deeper we abide, the more we get to know him, the more he shows us who he is, how much he loves us, the deeper we can depend on Him. And so we start to depend on him to sustain us. We're not thinking that a church service is going to sustain us throughout the week. And we're separated. No, we're abiding with him because we're saying, God, I need you. That verse said, apart from you, I can do nothing.
I need you.
And so the deeper we abide, the deeper we depend. And so as we are abiding and trusting in him, that is where the Holy Spirit transforms us. That is where we become more and more like Christ from the inside out. And that is where that fruit is grown, that Holy Spirit fruit. And so I know down in New Life kids, they learned about the fruit of the Spirit over the summer with the at the Movies series. And so maybe they came home singing the Fruit of the Spirit song. It's been stuck in my head a little bit. But the fruits of the Spirit, we all want the fruits of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, gladness, faithfulness, self control, right? We want the fruits of the Spirit, but we have to abide in Him. That is our only job. That is our part of the relationship is to stay connected to Him.
And so when we have that, our life starts to look different when we have the fruits of the Spirit. That's why we can have peace. The Word says that we can have peace that passes understanding, peace that doesn't make sense to the rest of the world, right? Things are chaotic around us, yet we can walk forward with peace because we have stayed connected and we have that fruit spirit. That's why we can have joy in terrible situations, walking through terrible things, and yet we can have joy from the Lord.
That's why we can have love. Love for those that don't love us back.
Love for. Even to the extreme of love for our enemies, God is able to do that for us. The Holy Spirit empowers us to be able to do that when we stay connected to Him.
And so if you want to learn more about abide, maybe you haven't heard of abiding or you haven't started any of those spiritual rhythms. There's a few little takeaways that I'm gonna give you. And one of them is there is a becoming book that is a new life book.
And chapter three is On Abiding. That book is available in the purchase project. If you want, like the physical book, you can get that after service. If you can't afford it, just let them know and you can have one or you can listen to it on Spotify. You can find it on Spotify. It's chapter three.
But more even if you want to go deeper than that, Life groups just started a few weeks ago, and there Paul and Jody are doing one of my favorite, favorite, favorite books about spiritual disciplines and spiritual rhythms. And it's by John Mark Comer. It's called Practicing the Way. And so I invite you if that's a step that you want to take, they have room in their group. And it is such good information and really helped. Even I grew through it.
And they can get you caught up. It's not too late to join. And so if you want to find Pastor Mark after service, he can help you get signed up for that group on Tuesday nights.
So you might be wondering, what does this have to do with hope? We are in this series called While I Breathe I Hope. And so you are thinking we're talking a lot about abiding, but what's that have to do with hope? Well, in Hebrews, let me say it right, Hebrews 6:19, Hope is the anchor of the soul.
Love that verse. You might have seen it, like on Cute Little Art. And it always has like a. A sailboat anchor on it. And so that's what a lot of people think about is a sailboat anchor. But we live in Wyoming. There's not a lot of sailboat or ships or ships. I didn't mean sailboat ships.
And so there's not a lot of water around here. And so I don't really think about an anchor in that way. If you've ever done Bible study with me, I always have talked about how I always feel like tethered to God, but I'm always like, running ahead, but we're tethered.
And so the image that comes to mind when I think of staying connected and Hope being our anchor is a rock climber.
And I just need to preface that I know zero things about rock climbing. Okay. This is just like the picture in my mind and I don't know the words for all the things. I'm sure there's technical terms.
Now. I did a sermon run through earlier this week in front of the pastors and the staff, and they let me know that the picture that I had chosen, which number one, I Googled, rock climber with anchor. So Google led me Astray.
This is not a rock climber. I don't know if you already knew this.
You probably did. I did not know. So I don't want you coming at me after service saying that I am up here.
False teaching. This is repelling. It's different. It's different than rock climbing. I'm still a little hazy on why it's different, but it's different.
And so I appreciate the pastors letting me know so I wasn't acting a fool up here.
But it still works. The picture still works for our analogy. And in fact, it probably works better. I just have to remember to say rappelling and not rock climbing.
So if the plant picture isn't it for you, this is the picture.
Jesus says, I am the vine, we are the branch. So he is the rope, we are the person, right? And so we are staying connected to Him. And if that was me, I'm like holding onto the rope for dear life, right? We are staying connected. And so what I love about this is that if you look up at the top, you can see that the rope is anchored into the rock. It's anchored, and that is our hope. So hope is the anchor of our soul.
And so if we believe that Jesus raised from the dead, is our resurrection, we know that he defeated death. He is our hope. He is our living hope. And that anchor, Hebrews goes on to say, it is secure and steady and trustworthy and steadfast. We can keep our eyes on that hope. And so I love this picture because if you think of a regular anchor, like in a ship, it goes down like the anchor goes down.
I like this better because the anchor is up.
And so as we know, Jesus defeated death. He is our high priest. He is in the holy, holy of holies. And so this reminds me that my hope is in eternity. My hope is in heaven. So I keep my eyes up. I'm keeping my eyes on eternity. And so as I'm staying connected to Jesus, as I am remaining in him, it's all connected. I am remaining connected to Jesus with hope. And so we have hope for the future.
We have hope that as we move on with our life, forward with hope, that we know that we know that this isn't the end, that this is temporary. And as the more that we abide with him, the more that we see that the things of this world are temporary. And I can keep my eyes focused on him. My eyes are up in eternity.
I'm so looking forward to the day where there is no more death, that there is no more Sorrow that there is no more pain. And so I can keep walking forward with my eyes on eternity, with my eyes on hope.
And so our hope is anchored when we remain in Jesus, and this looks different than the world. When we're staying connected to the world, this looks different.
And I know a lot of you in here are walking through situations that feel kind of hopeless, but the promise is there. And he has shown me over and over again that his promises are good and his promises are true.
And so that is why when we are walking through grief, it doesn't look like how the world grieves. We are grieving, but we are hoping. So while I grieve, I hope my hope is in Him.
This is why, when I am praying for a miraculous healing for my friend, I have hope.
And even if that healing doesn't come, I can continue to have hope. The outcome is not always going to be my outcome. But that doesn't waver. That doesn't have. We can have resilient hope in Jesus. And so fill in the blank for you. What are you walking through?
While I walk through a miscarriage, while I walk through an unwanted divorce, while I walk through a diagnosis, while I walk through praying for my prodigal child to come home, whatever the situation is, God wastes nothing.
He doesn't waste anything. He is good and his promises are real and true. And so we can walk forward with hope, knowing that he has the victory.
He has the victory.
And so while we abide, we hope.
And while we hope, we abide, stay connected to him.
While I breathe, I hope. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we just thank you.
We thank you for this opportunity to have a relationship with you.
We thank you for loving us so much. Let us approach our time with you knowing that. That you love us, you delight in us. This isn't about earning your love. You already love us.
You delight in us. You sing over us. God, pray that you would draw us close and that we would notice your presence, not just today, not just now, throughout all of our days, God.
And when the storms come, God, I pray that you would just keep our eyes on eternity, keep our eyes on you.
Help us to stay connected to you.
Pray this in Jesus name, Amen.
