Abide in the True Vine: Belonging Before Doing

And so the question that I put on the screen here is, and and this is what the text is actually asking, are you connected to the vine right now? Are you connected to the vine right now? Because let let's be honest. Right? There are plenty of vines for us to be attached to. The vine of performance, the vine of religion, the vine of comparison. None of them are the true vine, and there's only one source of life that actually works. And and I suppose here's my point. Jesus is the true source. Everything else everything else fails. [00:38:38] (50 seconds)  #TrueVineSource

your job is to remain, not to produce, just to remain. So if belonging is the destination to belong to Jesus, remaining is how you get there. And if you count in John chapter 15 verses one to 17, you'll see the word remain or abide, or anything or those kinds of words. It appears at least 11 times in that passage. And so you would consider that if it appears 11 times in 17 verses, that it's probably quite important to understand the word abide or belong or to remain. [00:39:39] (48 seconds)  #AbideToBelong

Alright? It's not about trying harder. It's not about doing more. It's about remaining, staying connected, to staying close to Jesus. But there is a verse in this passage, and it's verse five, and it says and Jesus says something that lands very differently depending on where you start from. Because he says this, apart from me, you can do nothing. He doesn't Jesus doesn't say, apart from apart from me, you can do less. Right? No. No. It's not getting harder. It's it's it's nothing. Right? That's the word. Nothing. [00:40:27] (42 seconds)  #ApartFromJesusNothing

And here's what Jesus is saying. If there is any fruit in your life, if there's any love, any obedience, no matter how small it is, that you are in the vine. What you're going through is not the saw to cut you off. It's the secateurs to prune you, and the gardener holding them is preparing you, not punishing you. The question isn't the the question we often ask is why? Why is this happening? Perhaps the question you should be asking is this, and it's the one that Jesus puts in front of us. [00:52:44] (38 seconds)  #PrunedNotPunished

I can tell you what it's not. It's not to produce a better version of yourself. Controversial, maybe. The goal of all of that, the bible reading, the prayer time, all of that is to stay connected to the source of life. That is the goal. The goal of all of that is to stay connected to Jesus. And if you've never been to church or or if this Christian stuff is is sort of newish to you, I think the best this is the best news that you will ever hear today because you don't start by performing. You don't start by going, I will do this. You actually start by staying with god. [00:42:02] (50 seconds)  #BeWithJesusFirst

For anyone who's been carrying the weight of this alone, I believe this is good news because you were never supposed to do this alone. The branch doesn't produce fruit by straining. It produces fruit by staying connected. And you might be asking, well, what does remaining look like for us? If you've been around church for years, this might challenge you. It might challenge how you think about spiritual discipline. If I was to ask you, what is the goal of bible reading? What is the goal of prayer time? What is the goal, for, you know, for these rhythms? [00:41:15] (47 seconds)  #StayDontStrain

In in all the all that I am and the and the workplace that I've been in, it's all about producing. But what does it mean to just be with? Because you can't produce your way into the into a life with god. You can't produce your way into a life with God, but you can stay, and staying changes everything. And so this is what belonging looks like. It's not striving to produce, but staying close to the source. That you are made to belong, and belonging begins right here with remaining. Right? You are made to belong, and it begins by staying connected with Jesus. [00:45:19] (47 seconds)  #BelongByRemaining

Jesus is saying, I am the one that Israel was always pointing to, that I am the one. Everything else was just a a a shadow, a foretaste of of who Jesus would become. And so Jesus embodies this whole picture of what the vine is supposed to be in himself. What God foreshadowed in the nation of Israel, he now does in a person, in Jesus, which means that the only way to be part of the people of God is to be in him, in Jesus. Not in a religion, not in a performance, in Jesus. [00:37:51] (47 seconds)  #InJesusNotReligion