Harvest and Judgment: Assurance Through Knowing Christ

And Jesus said, you can do nothing apart from me. This this changed my life. Maybe this will change your life. Jesus never asked you to do anything for him. He asked you to let him do something in you. And you only get that when you abide in him. But if you abide in him, things change. Jesus says, you know, apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone abides in me, and I I am the vine and you are the branches. And if you abide in me, you will bear much fruit and so glorify my father and prove yourself to be my disciples. [00:56:33] (41 seconds)  #AbideInChrist

And so Jesus says, judgment is like that. That they gather wrath grapes, but they're tread in the winepress of wrath. That this is where God treads them. This is this is what it means in that battle hymn of the republic. He has trampled out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. The picture here is of this, the grape giving up its life. It's dying in this sort of way. It's it's crushed and and out comes this this juice that that so much resembles blood. [00:48:29] (42 seconds)  #WinepressOfWrath

Maybe sometimes we think the more we know about God or the more we know about God, better we are. But what Jesus says is you need to know me. You you see, when you and I really know Jesus, we wanna do the things Jesus wants. We can look at the Bible and we can say, well, well the Bible says do this and the Bible says don't do that. And we'll create a to do list of the things we should do and the things we shouldn't do and we'll just keep those. And in the end, here's what we're hoping. We got more stuff checked off our list than we don't and God will grade on a curve and we'll get in because of what we did. [00:55:05] (36 seconds)  #KnowJesusNotChecklist

That when we look at heaven, we see all these amazing things, but at the heart of it all is Jesus. And what ought to captivate us is this, that's who I've always wanted to be with anyway. And there, it'll be better than it is here. Here, I just focus on him, and whatever he ask, I do. And if I enter into his presence, and he says, why should I let you into my heaven? The answer is this, because you died for my sins, and all I want is to be with you. [01:00:41] (37 seconds)  #JesusIsOurHeaven

Nobody gets into heaven because of what they did. People get into heaven because of who they know. Now if you know Jesus, you wanna honor him. If you know Jesus, you wanna represent him. If you know Jesus, you wanna please him. If you're in love with Jesus, you wanna do everything you can that honors him and glorifies him. [00:55:41] (21 seconds)  #RelationshipNotWorks

But here's the picture that John's really giving us. Judgment is coming. So it brings us back to the original question. How do you and I know that when judgment comes, we're ready for judgment? How do you and I know that when when God says the earth is ripe, we know we're in the right place? What do we do with something like Billy Graham who says, maybe 60% of people are deceived and believe they're saved but they're not. How do we know that? [00:51:39] (37 seconds)  #ReadyForJudgment

Jesus says, if if you wanna abide in me, you'll produce the things I produce. You you live apart from me, you're not gonna produce the things I produce. So the secret is abiding in him, and that that's where it comes from. What Billy Graham was talking about, what others have talked about is this idea that, well, I'll join a church and and that'll get me into heaven. No. [00:58:06] (25 seconds)  #AbideAndProduce

And so you produce stuff, but it's not to get into heaven. It's just the result of a relationship with Jesus. Jesus said this. He said that, I am the vine, you are the branches, and apart from me, you can do nothing. So everybody who comes and says, I did something for you Jesus. Says, look at what I did apart from you Jesus. Now aren't you proud of me? [00:56:02] (30 seconds)  #FruitOfRelationship