Abiding in Christ: The Key to Spiritual Growth

### Bible Study Discussion Guide

#### Bible Reading
- John 15:1-11

#### Observation Questions
1. What metaphor does Jesus use in John 15 to describe our relationship with Him? ([33:29])
2. According to the sermon, what are the roles of God the Father, Jesus, and believers in the parable of the vine? ([36:51])
3. What does Jesus say about the branches that do not bear fruit? ([33:29])
4. How did the pastor describe his personal experience of God revealing Himself? ([42:02])

#### Interpretation Questions
1. What does it mean to "abide in Christ" according to the sermon? How does this concept go beyond just being saved? ([35:02])
2. The pastor mentioned that busyness can be a significant barrier to abiding in Christ. How can good works become a distraction from a personal relationship with Jesus? ([50:42])
3. How does the pastor's testimony about removing idols from his life relate to the concept of abiding in Christ? ([42:36])
4. What are some of the blessings mentioned in the sermon that come from abiding in Christ? How do these blessings manifest in a believer's life? ([59:12])

#### Application Questions
1. Reflect on your own spiritual journey. Have you experienced a drift from Christ similar to what the pastor described? What steps can you take to reconnect and abide in Him? ([31:37])
2. Identify any "idols" or distractions in your life that may be hindering your relationship with Christ. What practical steps can you take to remove these distractions? ([42:36])
3. The pastor emphasized the importance of spending intentional time in prayer and Bible reading. How can you restructure your daily routine to prioritize this time with God? ([50:42])
4. Think about a time when you were busy with good works but felt distant from God. How can you balance your service with maintaining a close fellowship with Jesus? ([50:42])
5. The sermon mentioned that abiding in Christ leads to answered prayers and complete joy. Can you recall a time when you experienced these blessings? How did abiding in Christ play a role in that experience? ([59:12])
6. The pastor shared his supernatural experience of God revealing Himself. Have you had any personal experiences where you felt God's presence in a profound way? How did it impact your faith? ([42:02])
7. What specific action can you take this week to deepen your relationship with Christ and ensure it is not just surface-level? ([55:26])

Day 1: Salvation is the Starting Line
Salvation is Just the Beginning: Our journey with Christ starts with salvation, but it doesn't end there. We must continually seek to grow in our relationship with Him. This involves understanding that salvation is the doorway to a lifelong process of abiding in Christ and experiencing His transformative power. [35:39]

Salvation is the starting point of our Christian journey, not the finish line. When we accept Christ, we are given new life, but this new life requires nurturing and growth. Just as a newborn baby needs care and nourishment to grow, so does our spiritual life. The initial joy and peace of salvation are wonderful, but they are meant to lead us into a deeper, more mature relationship with Christ. This growth happens as we continually abide in Him, seeking His presence and guidance daily.

Abiding in Christ means more than just attending church or reading the Bible occasionally. It involves a daily commitment to seek Him, to listen to His voice, and to follow His lead. This ongoing relationship is what transforms us and helps us to bear fruit in our lives. Without this continual connection to Christ, our spiritual life can become stagnant, and we may find ourselves drifting away from Him.

Colossians 2:6-7 (ESV): "Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving."

Reflection: What steps can you take today to deepen your relationship with Christ beyond your initial salvation experience?


Day 2: The Lifeline of Abiding
The Importance of Abiding in Christ: Abiding in Christ means maintaining a close, personal relationship with Him. This requires intentional time spent in prayer, Bible reading, and being transparent with God about our struggles. Without this connection, our spiritual life becomes barren, and we cannot bear fruit. [47:14]

Abiding in Christ is essential for spiritual growth and fruitfulness. Jesus uses the metaphor of the vine and branches to illustrate this truth. Just as branches cannot bear fruit unless they remain connected to the vine, we cannot bear spiritual fruit unless we remain connected to Christ. This connection is maintained through intentional practices such as prayer, Bible reading, and honest communication with God about our struggles and needs.

When we neglect these practices, our spiritual life becomes barren, and we may find ourselves falling back into old patterns of sin and disconnection from God. Abiding in Christ is not a passive activity; it requires effort and intentionality. It means prioritizing our relationship with Him above all else and making time to seek His presence daily. This ongoing connection is what sustains us and enables us to live a fruitful and fulfilling Christian life.

John 15:4-5 (ESV): "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."

Reflection: How can you create more intentional time in your daily routine to abide in Christ through prayer and Bible reading?


Day 3: Clearing the Path
Removing Idols and Distractions: Just as I had to remove the idols from my life, we must identify and eliminate anything that hinders our relationship with Christ. This could be busyness, material possessions, or even good works that distract us from truly abiding in Him. [42:36]

In our journey to abide in Christ, we must be vigilant about identifying and removing anything that hinders our relationship with Him. Idols are not just physical objects; they can be anything that takes priority over God in our lives. This could be our careers, hobbies, relationships, or even our involvement in good works. While these things are not inherently bad, they become problematic when they distract us from our primary focus on Christ.

Busyness is a common idol in today's fast-paced world. We often fill our schedules with activities and responsibilities, leaving little time for our relationship with God. It's important to regularly evaluate our priorities and make adjustments to ensure that we are not allowing anything to come between us and our Savior. Removing these distractions allows us to fully abide in Christ and experience the fullness of His presence and blessings.

1 John 5:21 (ESV): "Little children, keep yourselves from idols."

Reflection: What are some potential idols or distractions in your life that may be hindering your relationship with Christ? How can you begin to remove them?


Day 4: The Mutual Pursuit
The Two-Way Street of Abiding: Abiding in Christ is a mutual relationship. While the Holy Spirit is always at work within us, we must also actively pursue a close fellowship with Jesus. This involves trusting Him, resting in Him, obeying Him, and savoring our relationship with Him. [56:16]

Abiding in Christ is a dynamic and mutual relationship. While the Holy Spirit is constantly at work within us, drawing us closer to God and transforming us into the image of Christ, we also have a role to play. This relationship requires our active participation and pursuit. Trusting in Christ, resting in His promises, obeying His commands, and savoring our relationship with Him are all essential aspects of abiding.

Trusting Christ means placing our confidence in His character and His promises, even when circumstances are challenging. Resting in Him involves finding peace and contentment in His presence, rather than striving in our own strength. Obeying Him means following His guidance and commands, even when it's difficult. Savoring our relationship with Him means delighting in His presence and cherishing our time with Him. When we actively engage in these practices, we experience the fullness of what it means to abide in Christ.

James 4:8 (ESV): "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded."

Reflection: In what ways can you actively pursue a closer fellowship with Jesus today? What specific steps can you take to trust, rest, obey, and savor your relationship with Him?


Day 5: The Fruit of Abiding
Experiencing the Blessings of Abiding: When we abide in Christ, we experience numerous blessings, including fruitfulness, answered prayers, abounding love, and complete joy. These blessings are stored up for those who take refuge in Him and maintain a close relationship with Him. [59:12]

Abiding in Christ brings a multitude of blessings into our lives. When we remain connected to Him, we experience spiritual fruitfulness, where our lives reflect the character and love of Christ. Our prayers are answered as we align our desires with His will, and we experience a deep sense of love and joy that comes from being in His presence. These blessings are not just for our benefit; they also impact those around us, as they see the evidence of Christ's work in our lives.

The blessings of abiding in Christ are a natural outflow of our relationship with Him. As we draw near to Him and remain in His love, we find that our lives are transformed in ways we could never achieve on our own. This transformation brings a sense of fulfillment and purpose, as we live out the calling that God has placed on our lives. The joy and love we experience in Christ are complete and overflowing, impacting every area of our lives.

Psalm 16:11 (ESV): "You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore."

Reflection: How have you experienced the blessings of abiding in Christ in your own life? What steps can you take to deepen your connection with Him and experience even more of His blessings?

All right, good morning, everyone. Hope you enjoyed the worship. Thank you, worship team. Did a great job this morning. Happy to be with you. Pastor Scott continues to be out of town on vacation, so I know he's going to be listening in to one of the services. So if you're out there, Pastor Scott, we all say hello. And so glad you're here with us, either online or in person this morning.

We are in a series about this verse changed my life. Amen. I think it's just an awesome idea to do because, you know, God's word, it just speaks to us in different phases of our life. And I had a really hard time deciding which verse to speak on because, like I said, so many verses have really made a difference. But John chapter 15, which is what we're going to be looking at, John 15, in the current season I'm in for the past five, six years, has really just made a difference in my life. It's the parable of the vine, and I hope that this will be a blessing to each one of you, and I'll be sharing some of my testimony. So it might be a little different, but hopefully God will bless, and his word will speak to each one of you.

Many of us, many of us in this room have trusted in Jesus to be our Lord and Savior. And I know that to be the case. I've gotten to know so many of you. But after we were saved, maybe your life experience after your salvation didn't quite live up to everything you thought it might be. Maybe your life has not lived up to your initial expectation. And maybe when you were saved, when Jesus forgave your sins, you were just so enthusiastic. You felt that undeniable peace at that time. But as the years went on, you more or less have kind of like, the fires died down to some extent. And maybe you used to share your faith with others, but now you don't do that anymore. Maybe you thought that this far along in your Christian life, your faith would have just grown by leaps and bounds by now. But actually, your trust in God is a little shaky right now. Or maybe even worst case, you find yourself years after your salvation falling back into those same sins that you had before. It can be very discouraging if you're in that situation.

In today's text in John 15, we're going to see if any of those things resonated with you, that the reason is very simple of how this happened. We've drifted away from Christ. We've failed to abide in him. And from the word of God in John chapter 15 and my testimony, I hope to speak to you on how whatever your walk is with God, that you would desire to abide in him, have that fellowship be even more close than it is today.

So I'm going to go ahead and begin reading this parable of the vine. This is in John 15. So if you have your Bible or your sermon notes, you'll see it there. So beginning in verse one, I'll begin reading. Jesus said, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it may bear even more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I've spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine. And neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears."

So let's go ahead and start with a word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, Lord, as we come to this text, Lord, I pray that maybe we've heard it a million times, but Lord, just pray that it would just come alive to us in a fresh way that we would desire to follow you ever so closely in our walk, Lord. And so Lord, I just pray any distractions there might be this morning, Lord, you would just get them out of our mind that we might hear from you and your spirit this morning, Lord. So we just pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, the first thing I would like you to see, and if you're taking notes, point number one from our text is that we realize that salvation is just the beginning. We realize that salvation is just the beginning. So let me take you to this parable because I know sometimes with me, words can kind of become, you know, a word salad and you kind of don't really picture what's going on here. But what's happening here in this text, this is very much at the end of Jesus' ministry. He is up with his disciples in what we all know as the upper room, having that last supper. And at the end of the supper, we all know Judas, the traitor, left. He left the group to basically betray Christ.

So now, at this point, this parable, Jesus leads his disciples down the stairs and very likely that evening, just hours before he is arrested, they very likely pass by a vineyard and Jesus likely sees grapes, he sees vines, and he sees branches and he stops there to share with his disciples this eternal truth by using earth, which is basically items. And so if you have notes, just a few things I want to point out, and this is also in verse number one of our text, the vine dresser, these are the metaphors of the parable, the vine dresser is none other than God the Father. That's stated directly in verse number one. Being that Jesus is speaking, he points to the vine in front of him as his disciples gather and he says, "I am the true vine." And then the branches that come off that are connected to the vine, Jesus likely points to and points to his disciples, these are the branches. So the branches represent believers or in the case that evening was his disciples who the ones there were believers.

So this is the picture. Jesus is using this vineyard to show them some spiritual truths. And being that this is Jesus' last hour, this last hour on earth, it's so critical that he would tell them, you need to know how you can continue to abide in me. And the chapter before he talks about the Holy Spirit, the helper coming to them and he continues that theme here with this absolutely amazing parable. And as he begins the parable, verse number three, Jesus says these words, "Already you are clean." Already you are clean. So he's telling his disciples, I've already done a work in you. I've forgiven your sins. You know I am the Messiah and now you are connected to me, the true vine. And that is us. If we are believers today, we are connected to Jesus, the vine.

And our salvation, that is exactly where we need to begin. If we want to learn to abide in Christ, we have to know what it means to have that salvation, that relationship with Christ. And as I look through this room, I know so many of you have trusted in Jesus and you have a story to go along with that salvation event. As I've shared before to many of you in the past, I became a Christian in my younger 20s. My background is, my parents raised me in a Lutheran church. So I went to Sunday school at a young age. I went through confirmation. Had to go through Luther's Catechism and all of that. And finally was confirmed. But around that age, 16, 17, something clicked in me and I just had no desire to follow God at all with my life. I had no desire to do that.

And so as I was going my own way for many years, one of my big interests of life was music. Music was everything to me. And so I was going my own way for many years. So I was in a band. We would play a lot of clubs. And I lived, I guess, what you would just call a party lifestyle at that point in my life. And like most sin, it's fun for a little while, right? But then the reality kicks in. Meanwhile, I'm doing that. I'm pretty much flunking out of community college. And just kind of, not only know that I was disappointing God, but I was disappointing myself, my family.

And one evening, this is probably a year or two after high school graduation, I remember this day, this evening so clearly. Went to my room on my parents' house and I just had this dark spiritual feeling that I needed to do something with. And what was on my mind that evening was, God, are you really real? God, are you really who you say you are? And that was, honestly, at this low moment of my life, that was consuming me in a big way that evening. So I didn't pray often at that phase of my life, but I prayed that evening, probably a prayer with more intensity and more meaning than any prayer I've ever did. And I just said, God, are you real? Are you really who you say you are?

And it was one of those things, you know, you read in the Bible, people putting out a fleece, wanting God to prove himself. But I believe that when you are really at the end of your rope, God answers you. I think he does. And he spoke to me. And so I prayed that prayer that night. God, are you real? Are you really alive? And so I went to bed that night. And this is kind of the long version of my testimony. The next morning when I woke up, right when I woke up, I looked on the walls and all my posters were tore down off the wall. Um... In my bedroom, I had rock and roll posters, artists that I loved, and they were all over my wall. And when I woke up, I saw my posters were tore down. And at first, for a few moments, I was very confused. And then it occurred to me that somehow in the evening, it was me, I tore them off the wall, although I was not knowing what I was doing. I believe I was in a trance or some sort. It's kind of hard for me to describe what happened.

But all I know is when I woke up, I was 100% sure that God answered my prayer from the evening before. And he was telling me in this unique supernatural experience that, David, I'm real. I'm real. I'm here. I'm alive. And you really need to get your act together. You really need to get your act together. And then there was this... So I immediately knew that. And I think God also had a secondary meaning to what happened that evening. I think he was telling me, David, you need to get... These idols out of your life that you have hanging on your wall. So God was teaching me, I really think, two amazing things. And just trying to... This was so many years ago, but just trying to convey to you the emotion and the feeling I had. If you've ever been just so disappointed and then someone just gives you hope, that's what I felt at that moment. I knew that God was alive.

And I don't know how to explain the feeling that overcame my body. I don't know if it's like shivers or goosebumps, but it was beyond that. And it was just this very peaceful thing that God revealed to me who he was. And to be honest, I was not saved that morning, but I knew God was real. And I knew that I needed a relationship with him. So later that year, I began to know my wife, Julie. We weren't married, obviously, at the time. She took me to a church where I heard, to me, was the first time I heard the gospel clearly presented. I don't know, maybe the gospel was presented to me numerous times and I just wasn't ready to hear it. But that summer, God, through all the messages in the church service, just really changed my heart. And I made that decision that I would trust Jesus. I repented of my sin. And I became a believer in Jesus Christ that summer. And it was really the most amazing thing. I am so thankful for what Jesus did for me on the cross.

And I know all of you have stories as well. And it's great to celebrate that. You know, I don't want to hold back. You know, Pastor Scott says, you can share your testimony. I'm like, yep, I'm going to share it. And I will never turn down that opportunity. And boy, once I was saved, I just saw life in a different way. My whole worldview changed. Music I used to listen to, I just couldn't listen to more. The words of God, the words of God, affected me. Just the things that I said, the things that I did, my walk, just changed, not overnight, but nearly overnight, because God was working on me. And it was... Salvation is a wonderful thing, isn't it? And I just can't say enough of how God reached out to me.

And so a lot of these details may sound a little supernatural, but I just felt the need to share them today with you because life is short, and I just want to tell you what God has done for me. If it'll strengthen your faith this morning, that's why I want to share that with each one of you. Just know from the bottom of my heart, I want you to know God is real. As amazing as our salvation is, the truth is, and really going back to our text now, the truth of the matter, our salvation is just the beginning of our Christian walk. Our salvation is just the beginning of our Christian walk. Paul wrote in Colossians 2:6, and you can see it here on the screen in just a second. There it is. "Therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him." Paul is explaining this truth that the Christian life isn't one and done. It's a lifestyle. It is a constant abiding in Jesus.

Lately, and it really helped me a lot of my time, my sermon prep I've been reading this amazing book that came out in the early 1900s. The author is Andrew Murray, and it's called Abide in Christ. And this quote, I think out of all the whole book, this quote really stuck out to me as really kind of summarizing this issue I think all of us are dealing with as Christians. It says this, "Many come to Jesus as Redeemer, but never go beyond the doorway to abiding in him, and experience the unspeakable joy of dwelling with the King of Kings." See, I think a lot of us were saved, but we have not really truly experienced what it means to be in deep, deep fellowship with Jesus, to abide in him.

So you might be saying, "Dave, I know I'm saved, and I want to know Jesus in that way. David, what do I need to do?" That brings us to point number two that comes out of verse two, verse four, and that is that we need to maintain and prioritize your fellowship with Christ. We need to maintain and prioritize your fellowship with Christ. Verse four has kind of two pieces to it. I want to talk about the negative piece, and that is in verse four it says, "Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself." And I just want to stop there for a second. When we as Christians are not abiding in Christ, the people around us know it. The people around us know it.

When we neglect our fellowship with Christ, first of all, and this is in your notes, our family suffers. You've got someone that's far from God in your home, the family suffers. And it goes beyond just your family unit. When we neglect our fellowship with Christ, all of our relationships suffer. All of our relationships suffer. And the third one, getting to really the core of this parable, when we neglect fellowship with Christ, our testimony, our testimony to the world suffers. We're no good to anyone when we're not in fellowship with Christ. And I really feel that the devil, our enemy, Satan, uses many things to keep us from God. To keep us from fellowship with him. There's many things he does to keep us from fellowship with him.

And I just want to give you my more recent testimony of how God, or how Satan used busyness in my life to keep me from my relationship with Jesus. Busyness. Does anyone here have a busyness issue? About five, six years ago, I was working two jobs, was going full-time to seminary, and was having to prepare two Bible studies per week, and other family things going on at that time. And I'll tell you, it was a very, very intense period of business. Maybe you've been through one of those. After that period was over, terms like PTSD started making sense to me because all you have is adrenaline getting you through those moments. But, the sad thing about that period in my life is I was in the Bible a lot. I was in the Bible to prepare for my Bible studies. I was in the Bible to prepare papers for seminary. I was in the Bible a whole lot, except for one thing, meditating on the Lord, doing devotions and reading to encounter him directly.

It's probably one of the most awful ploys of Satan where he uses our busyness of doing quote-unquote good for God, and he uses it against us. That was what I was dealing with just over five years ago. My Bible reading was purely academic. And when I read scriptures like John 15, where Jesus says, "Abide in me," and then I read scripture like in Matthew, where he says, "Come to me," it made me realize that I'm missing the boat here. That's not what God wants from me. He wants a relationship with me. So if you take a look at your notes, I think this statement kind of summarized my testimony in life. And it is this, that God desires fellowship more than our empty acts of service. God desires fellowship more than our empty acts of service.

And I truly believe God was telling me at that moment in my life, you would be better to give all that up as long as you could just have that relationship with me. And so this verse, the idea behind this verse, it just really made a difference in my life because we can't be Christians and not be connected to the true vine. A lot of attention going on in the world with Paris right now, with the Olympics and everything. Came across this story that was about Paris. So I thought I would share it with you. The character Lawrence of Arabia, you might have heard of him. He made a trip to Paris just after World War I. And he was bringing two Arab friends with him to visit Paris for the very first time. So they made this trip. And when they arrived there, the first thing he wanted to do was to show his friends all the sights in Paris and France.

So they visited that amazing, they visited the tomb of Napoleon and all these things. But the interesting thing was his friends weren't impressed with it. But what is so interesting is when they went back to their hotel room, his friends were most impressed with something on the sink that was a faucet. When they turned the faucet, water comes out. Imagine that. I guess you've got to go back early 1900s. But they've never saw a faucet before. But all the sights of Paris didn't mean anything to them. But that faucet was amazing. So on the trip back, they enjoyed their visit there. And then when they were about to depart Paris and to head back home, so Lawrence, they weren't in the lobby. So Lawrence ended up going to their hotel room and he found his friends with wrenches in their hand and they're trying to disconnect these faucets.

And he's kind of like, "What in the world are you doing?" And then they're like, "In Arabia, it is so dry and it's so hot that we need these faucets so we can have unlimited amounts of water." Can you imagine that? Just the craziest thing. And so he had to stop them. They would probably have a big hotel bill if they stole all the plumbing. But anyway, he had to explain to them that the effectiveness of the faucet, the faucets was all because of the source, which was a very large water reservoir, which in turn was fed by the Alps and rain and snowfall. And without that source, the faucet is useless, right? Interesting story.

But in the same way, I think that's a good example of that us, when we are without Christ, when we are not connected to the vine, we are useless ourselves. Verse five says this, "I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he is it that bears much fruit." And watch this part. "For apart from me, you can do nothing." When we try to act as Christians who are kind of going our own way, solo Christians, maybe we call ourselves like independent contractors of Jesus. I don't know what you would want to call us. I don't know what you would want to call us. We're on retainer, but that's not what he wants. We are to abide in him if we are to be connected.

And sometimes we're walking around as Christians with the appearance of godliness, but we are not connected to the source. And because of that, we have no fruits in our life. We can't be a testimony to the people around us. I don't know what your fellowship with Jesus looks like right now. It's not an easy thing to maintain. But I just want to encourage you that we don't want to settle for surface level Christianity. My desire is for each one of you to have a deep abiding relationship with Christ because that's what he's created us for. That's what the Christian life was meant to be, not a one and done salvation and it just peters out from there. That's not what he wants. He wants us to be in him, with him daily. And that's the vision I want you to see. That's what Jesus was trying to explain to his disciples.

Point number three, and this is kind of the climax of his message, that we need to experience the blessings of abiding in Christ. And there are many blessings we have when we are one with Jesus. One with Jesus. Abiding, some have described abiding as a two-way street. Abiding can be described as a two-way street. On one side is God's side. And God, the moment we're saved, the Holy Spirit takes residence within us, within our soul. And he's with us. The Holy Spirit is with us and always working. The Holy Spirit convicts us. He's a helper to us. And he just guides us throughout our life. And a lot of times we can quench the Holy Spirit. I believe that's what I was doing for much of my Christian life. We quench the Holy Spirit and we're not keeping our side of the bargain up because it requires what the Holy Spirit does and what we do.

And the Holy Spirit does his job perfectly. Every time he's faithful, but we sometimes mess it up because our responsibility, our responsibility is we need to pursue that close fellowship with Jesus. We need to trust him. We need to rest in Jesus. We need to obey Jesus. And most of all, we need to just enjoy and savor our relationship with Jesus. It's that two-way street. And so if you imagine back to Jesus in front of this vine again, the best way to describe it is when we are abiding in Christ and he is abiding in us, imagine that vine, the branch is so strong, so strongly connected to the vine. The branch is getting all the nutrients, the sap, all from the vine is empowering the branch and a branch that was empty and barren now is lush with life and green and eventually yields luscious fruit with our life.

I'm just trying to paint that picture for you of what abiding in Christ is, and when we are by our own, when we're not relying on him and fellowship with him, we are like these sticks that are just useless. And David in Psalm 31:19 talks about when we abide in Christ, the beauty of that. And he said this in the Psalm, "Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and work for those who take refuge in you and the sight of the children of mankind." Now, I'm not a health and wealth preacher. That's not what I do. But the Bible says when we abide in Christ, he has blessings for us. So I'm going to declare that is what God's word says to us today.

And we're going to go through and talk about all those blessings. But I just imagine it, if you have a young child who's about to have a birthday party and all their young friends, their parents, their neighbors, they're all shopping weeks in advance to get the presents. And when that day comes, this kid is all these presents just show up. They've been stored for weeks and weeks. And now the kid is just, "I can't believe all this stuff that I got for my birthday." It is just amazing. And when we are not abiding in Christ, there's this storehouse that's just waiting. We're like, God's like, "Okay, I'm ready. Let's get together. Let me abide in you. And I want to bless you." Just like that. That verse in Psalm 31 talked about.

And there are blessings of abiding. And these were the ones that came right out of this parable. In your notes, I only showed verses one through five. But later on, I encourage you to read all the way through verse 17. And in your notes, you'll see all these verses I want you to check out. Well, we did five as part of it. So fruitfulness is the one blessing. That is really the main point. That we are a blessing to those around us when we abide. But verse seven, answered prayer. This is amazing. "If you abide in me and my words in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you." God has blessings for us when we abide in him. Answered prayer, abounding in love. God has a love for us. He gives us a love for him. And in turn, gives us a love for others because when we abide in Christ, we overflow with love. We're not people ready to explode, ready to just go off on people. We just have love is what we have inside. That's the picture we see here.

And then verse 11. It seems like Jesus in this parable is kind of saying, this is what it's all about. And this isn't in your notes, but let me read it. "These things I've spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full." You may be feeling, having a lot of those negative symptoms I talked about early in my sermon, that when we're apart from Christ, but he promises you, you come back to me and fellowship to me. I will make your joy absolutely complete. So this term, abiding, I had someone after the first service show me a bracelet that said abide. That was their word for the year. Maybe there's others here. But I know sometimes this abiding idea can be a little hard to get your hands around. So I have a graphic that hopefully we can show on the screen. There we go. Practical abiding.

And on the left, I want to talk about those two items, time and transparency. So if you have a pen or a pencil with you, take the word time and underline that for me. Take that same pen or pencil and circle it for me. I'm not going out on a limb. If you have a highlighter, highlight the word time for me. I'm trying to make a point. I'm to make a point for you. The number one thing we can do to get to that point, that fellowship we have with Christ, is through our time. It's through our time. This may be way too obvious for you, but I'm here to remind you that time is the number one thing we can do to learn to abide in Christ.

If you look at your day, we have 24 hours in our day, maybe six, seven, eight hours of sleep. And when you look at your schedule, one of the things we spend a lot of time on is food, right? My wife is Julie. She's up here. Over the last four to six weeks, she's been learning how to cook clean food. So we have no preservatives happening in our house right now. And she cooks very early because it takes a long time to prepare things healthy. And so she spends a lot of time finding new recipes, going to the store, getting the items, and then finally preparing it. A lot of time is invested, and I'm just thankful for her for doing that. And I'm getting to taste a lot of interesting things sometimes. But mostly it's great. And I'm happy she's trying to help me be a little bit more health conscious.

But my point in mentioning that is, just like our eating and our meals are part of our schedule, we need to make daily time with God. It's part of our schedule, right? It's so obvious, but I think we need to put it in our calendar. We need to program it into our day because if we don't, if we're not intentional, it's probably not going to happen. And whatever you're reading in your Bible, just know that when you're in the Bible, eventually the Bible will get into you. It'll change you. The Holy Spirit will illuminate the meaning of the passage, and it will change your heart. It will change your heart as you read it. And not only spend time in the Word, but pray, connect with our living God who wants to hear from you, who wants to commune with you.

And the number one way to do that is through prayer. You might do that through your meditation. You might do that through fasting like our church did not too long ago. And I'll tell you, that fasting, I have not heard of so many breakthroughs because as a church and as individuals, when we fast, God, when we seek after God in communion, He does an amazing thing. And the more we trust in Him, we see God is faithful. So on the graphic, if you want to put that graphic back up one more time. As we spend time with God, as we're transparent with our shortcomings, we go to God, and over time, we build trust in Him. We see Him for who He is. He is trustworthy. He is faithful. And our lives will be transformed. And not only the lives of ourselves, but the lives of the people around us.

This passage really has meant a lot to me, the message behind this passage. And it was a reminder to me that whatever you do, don't let anything come between you and your time with God. And your situation, your situation might be a little bit different. There may be other barriers that the enemy has put in your path. But I would just emphasize to you, seek after Him with your whole heart. You will be so grateful you did. And what a tragedy it would be if we spend all of our life working for God, but never encounter Him and experience Him like Jesus is talking about here. That would be an absolute tragedy.

You see, when we live the Christian life, try to live the Christian life, and we neglect our fellowship with God, we're going to be discouraged, and our faith will be stagnant, and maybe even falling back to our old sins. But when we learn to abide, we'll see God will bless our path we take with Him.

So let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, Lord, we are thankful for Your Word. Lord, 2,000 years ago, You said these words, and Lord, they just inspire us today, Lord, in this. We have the same difficulties maybe the disciples had, Lord, we have here today, Lord. So, Lord, I just pray You would keep any hindrances we have to be with You. You would just encourage us of the many blessings You have, Lord. And I just pray that this text would just make a difference in people's lives this week, this month, years to come, Lord. So we just, we thank You for the truth. We thank You for the way Your Spirit works in us. And I just ask You to bless each person here and everyone online this morning, Lord, we just thank You. We give You the praise in Jesus' name. Amen.

### Quotes for Outreach

1. "Many of us, many of us in this room have trusted in Jesus to be our Lord. Lord and Savior. And I know that to be the case. I've gotten to know so many of you. But after we were saved, maybe your life experience after your salvation didn't quite live up to everything you thought it might be. Maybe your life has not lived up to your initial expectation." [31:37] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




2. "If you look at your day, we have 24 hours in our day, maybe six, seven, eight hours of sleep. And when you look at your schedule, one of the things we spend a lot of time on is food, right? My wife is Julie. She's up here. Over the last four to six weeks, she's been learning how to cook clean food. So we have no preservatives happening in our house right now." [01:02:45] (25 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




3. "And boy, once I was saved, I just saw life in a different way. My whole worldview changed. Music I used to listen to, I just couldn't listen to more. The words of God, the words of God, affected me. Just the things that I said, the things that I did, my walk, just changed, not overnight, but nearly overnight, because God was working on me." [44:27] (21 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




4. "And I just want to encourage you that we don't want to settle for surface level Christianity. My desire is for each one of you to have a deep abiding relationship with Christ because that's what he's created us for. That's what the Christian life was meant to be, not a one and done salvation and it just peters out from there. That's not what he wants. He wants us to be in him, with him daily." [55:26] (29 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




5. "So if you have a pen or a pencil with you, take the word time and underline that for me. Take that same pen or pencil and circle it for me. I'm not going out on a limb. If you have a highlighter, highlight the word time for me. I'm trying to make a point. I'm to make a point for you. The number one thing we can do to get to that point, that fellowship we have with Christ, is through our time. It's through our time." [01:02:03] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




### Quotes for Members

1. "But actually your trust in God is, it's a little shaky right now. Or maybe even worst case, you find yourself years after your salvation falling back into those same sins that you had before. It can be very discouraging if you're in that situation. In today's text in John 15, we're going to see if any of those things resonated with you, that the reason is very simple of how this happened. We've drifted away from Christ. We've failed to abide in him." [32:28] (42 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




2. "When we as Christians, are not abiding in Christ, the people around us know it. The people around us know it. When we neglect our fellowship with Christ, first of all, and this is in your notes, our family suffers. You've got someone that's far from God in your home, the family suffers. And it goes beyond just your family unit. When we neglect our fellowship with Christ, all of our relationship suffers. All of our relationship suffers. All of our relationships suffer." [47:50] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




3. "God desires fellowship more than our empty acts of service. And I truly believe God was telling me at that moment in my life, you would be better to give all that up as long as you could just have that relationship with me. And so this verse, the idea behind this verse, it just really made a difference in my life because we can't be Christians and not be connected to the true vine." [51:18] (31 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




4. "And sometimes we're walking around as Christians with the appearance of godliness, but we are not connected to the source. And because of that, we have no fruits in our life. We can't be a testimony to the people around us. I don't know what your fellowship with Jesus looks like right now. It's not an easy thing to maintain." [54:41] (26 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




5. "And the number one way to do that is through prayer. You might do that through your meditation. You might do that through fasting like our church did not too long ago. And I'll tell you, that fasting, I have not heard of so many breakthroughs because as a church and as individuals, when we fast, God, when we seek after God in communion, He does an amazing thing. And the more we trust in Him, we see God is faithful." [01:04:44] (32 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)