We're in a series of messages
we've called Magnificent Seven. If you're just jumping in now,
you can catch up on the app. We have all the
messages out there, and also like to
say hello to those who will watch these
messages on Fresh Life TV. We're glad to have you
tuning in all over the world, and we're glad that
you're with us. So Magnificent Seven is
all about these seven times in John's gospel
that Jesus tells us who he is, and the truth
is that what you think of when you think of
God is perhaps the most important thing about you. I mean, that is the
most significant thing to how your life's
going to go in the sense that your idea of
who God is informs how you relate to him and then
what you can receive from him. And so it's so important
that we have a proper concept in our heads of who God is,
and Jesus fortunately for us, tells us seven different
times exactly who he is so we can relate
to him in the right way and then be set up
to receive from him all he wants to give us. So this series is seven
different times Jesus says, I am, and then
fill in the blank. And this is the
sixth, and he's going to tell us that he's a vine. He's a vine. Not just any vine, though. He's the true vine. Look at John 15,
starting in verse 1. I am the true vine, and my
Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does
not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch
that bears fruit, he prunes, that it
may bear more fruit. You are already clean
because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can
you unless you abide in me. Now, here is verse 5-- I think just one of the
most beautiful verses maybe in the New Testament. Jesus speaking-- I am the vine. You are the branches. He who abides in
me, and I in him bears much fruit, for without
me, you can do nothing. I'm calling this message
"A More Perfect Union." For one thing, I'll
finally get to put to use the memorization
of the preamble to the Constitution that took
place in my civics class-- promote the general welfare,
provide for the common defense, secure the blessings of liberty. We do ordain and establish this
Constitution-- the whole thing. But I love this. This is how it begins--
we, the people, in order to form a more-- anybody with me? Are you awake today? A more perfect union. That should be what we're after. We, the people, should be
after, in our relationship with God, a more perfect union. I like that language
because it has built into it the idea of,
we're looking for progress, not perfection. It's not ever going to be a
perfect union until Heaven. Our relationship with
God will be perfect when we're with Him face to
face and there's no more sin. But until that day, we
should be striving for, looking to achieve, what
we can never fully get, and that is a more
perfect union. We're never going to have a
perfect union on this Earth because we're going
to make mistakes, and we're going to fall short. But we should be striving
for-- not perfection. What should we be striving for? Movement in the right direction. Now, here's kind of
the big idea today. To the extent that
your relationship, or your connection, with God
is weak, you will be, too. When your connection to God
is weak, you will be, too. So we, the people,
should be focused on a more perfect union. We should be working
towards and looking towards-- our goal
should be to have a more perfect union with God. Now, this will probably
make more sense to you if you can understand
the context in which it was originally said because
John's gospel contains the story of Jesus's life,
and he moves from, of course, the cradle to the grave. He moves from the manger to the
empty grave and then beyond. And so John's
telling this story, and where this particular
statement fits in that story is ultra significant. Why? Because you remember last
time we got together, we talked about Jesus saying,
I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no
one comes to the Father except through me? And we told you
that he said that during the day of the
Last Supper, which is what we know of as
Thursday before Good Friday, and this is still that same day. Only the conversation that
began in the upper room where he washed the disciples
feet and served the bread and the wine,
speaking of his death, speaking of his blood
that was to be shed, he then, after the
meal, took a walk. And I love taking a
walk after a meal. It aids in indigestion. It's good for you, and it allows
you to eat more afterwards. Thanksgiving dinner, take
a little walk, and like, wow, I got my second wind. Let's go have some pie. You know what I'm saying? So they finished
eating, and I just-- I love Jesus the more
I get to know him. When they finish eating, he
says let's go take a walk, and as they take a walk,
he continues the talk. It's a mobile discussion,
a mobile conversation, and what we just
read-- listen to me, it took place somewhere
in between the upper room and the Garden of Gethsemane. The Garden of Gethsemane--
where he prayed, and his sweat became like great
drops of blood. The Garden of Gethsemane-- where
Judas came and betrayed him with a kiss. The Garden of Gethsemane-- where
the soldiers came and arrested him and took him to face his
six trials that would ultimately culminate in him being
flogged with a whip and nailed to that cross, and
then eventually, of course, triumphantly rising
from-- spoiler alert-- from the dead on Easter Sunday. And we're going to get to
that seventh I Am statement and figure out how a guy
like that could just die and then get back
up, and he'll tell us who he is that would allow
him to do such a thing, and how he's willing to
do that for you, too. But along the way he chose to
speak about vineyards and vines and branches, and the tone of
his talk became agricultural. But if you can imagine where
they were where he likely said these words, it makes
all the sense in the world because it was a
roughly one mile walk, and you can today
go to Jerusalem and take this exact walk. We did it at night,
walking from somewhere in the Old City of David in
an upper-- an upper room. In the upper room. Trust me, they wish
they could find it, and they'd have you
taking selfies there. But-- and they'd be
selling tchotchkes from the-- oh, yeah,
Last Supper communion kit from The Upper Room. But some upper room in the
Old City of David, and you can trace the steps
that Jesus likely took to go through
the Kedron Valley and, eventually, to the
base of the Mount of Olives, where we know where the
Garden of Gethsemane is. And it's beautiful. It's significant. It's charged. It's electric and magnetic
to trace those footsteps and think about Jesus
and his band of, now, 11 as they took that fateful walk. You'll pass, on the right hand
side, the terraced hillside. And now there are many graves,
and there are some homes, but on the terraced
hillside in that day, they would have been
filled with vineyards. It would have been just
vineyard after vineyard after vineyard on the
hillside that he would have been walking by on his right. But listen to me,
on his left, there would have been the
gates that would take you into the courtyard of
the Temple Complex, and this temple
had gates that were adorned with a
giant golden vine, a golden vine above the gates. So to pass into the courtyard,
to pass into the temple, you had to walk
under a golden vine. And it was at this
point, perhaps, in the journey that Jesus,
flanked on his right by vineyards and his left
by a giant golden vine-- and in the night light
with torches glowing, it would have been
dazzling above the white limestone gates-- that Jesus turned to
his disciples and said, I am the vine. You are the branches. If you abide in
me, and I in you, you're going to
bear so much fruit. But apart from me,
you can do nothing. You would have been
able to hear a pin drop. But the disciples
would have heard it in a different way than we
here because we're like, oh, that's poetic, and Jesus has
good timing, and great object lesson. No, no, it was so significant,
what he was saying. Why? Because the olive-- or the-- well, the olive, too, but
that's a different sermon. The vine was to the
nation of Israel what the bald eagle
is to America. So you need to
understand, it was a symbol that was, all
throughout the Old Testament, a picture of the nation
of Israel-- the vine. And it was to us what our bald
eagle soaring through the sky is, this ultra patriotic symbol. So Jesus was, essentially,
in saying, I am the vine, he was saying, I am-- if you can receive it, I
am the stars and stripes. I am Uncle Sam, somebody. That's what he was
saying, but times 10,000 because being a part
of the nation of Israel wasn't just something that you
were involved in politically. But it was also your
identity spiritually, for this was a religious
entity and not just a people group that were
involved in a country. You see, your involvement
in this nation gave you salvation spiritually. Your connection to Israel
connected you to God because he was the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that family line is
what led to there being a people of Israel at all. So in the Old
Testament, when someone who was from a different country
or a different background wanted to convert to worship
the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob-- we just keep calling Him
that because they worshiped that God as distinct
from all the other gods. Babylonians and Philistines--
they worshiped the sun. They worshiped the moon. They worshiped the war God. They worshiped Aphrodite. The Romans had so many gods. The Greeks had so many gods. There's a million
gods out there. So which god do you worship? I worship the God
that Abraham worships, the God who created the
heavens and the Earth, and this is the God that we
see revered by this family that grew into this nation of Israel. So when you would convert
to worship that God, you would take on the identity
of being a part of that nation. You would assume
their customs, and you would assume their practices,
which involve dietary things. If you're a dude, it
involved circumcision. It was a whole deal. So you became a part of
this covenant people. So Jesus, in saying
that's what you've known of as being the vine,
being a part of Israel, keeping these laws, not
eating pork, all of the rest, taking a day off one day
a week, all of the laws, all of the promises, all
the covenant that made them distinct people-- that was being a
part of the vine. But guess what, I
am the true vine. I am the vine. It is no longer your being
connected to a people that gives you salvation. It's you knowing a person. He's saying
salvation has a name, and the name is Jesus, that you
can be a part of God's family by being connected to me. You don't have to be
connected nationally. You can now just be
connected relationally. He's saying, I have fulfilled
all of that, and he's saying-- when he tells us he's
the vine, all of that was meant to just introduce
Jesus, who came out of the nation of
Israel, and he's now going to birth something
brand new-- the church. And out of Gentiles
and Jews alike people, all over
the world, whoever would want to come to the
ends of the earth, whoever would look to Jesus,
could be saved and find that life flowing through them. Why? Because a vine sends its
life to its branches. A vine is the trunk, and its
branches receive that life. So Jesus, when he says,
I'm the true vine, he's saying, through me,
the life of God flows. And if you connect
yourself to me, my life will flow through you. No matter who you are, no
matter what you've done, you can bring forth fruit
if you're connected to me. I tell you, there's four
really important things we can learn from the connection
between a branch and the vine, between the branch and
the trunk, that can apply to our relationship with God. Number one-- their
relationship is organic. A vine and branch have
an organic relationship. It's not mechanical. It's not robotic. It's organic. There's the essence
of life in it. It's something that's living. It's something that's dynamic. It's something that grows. And God wants your
relationship with him to be like that, and that
means that there needs to be a spontaneity to it. Yes, there are things
that every plant needs-- sunlight and air,
water, got it-- but you're also just going
to be in tune to its needs. If you were to leave
your kids with a sitter, or if you were to leave your dog
with someone while you went out of town, you would
tell them what you do, but they my text you
and say this has happened, and so you might have to pivot. Oh, that's-- that completely
changes everything. That's happened? OK, now, here's what I
would do in that situation. Oh, yeah, right, I forgot
to tell you, sometimes he does that. Sometimes he swallows LEGOs. Here's what I do when he-- you see what I'm saying? There's-- you're going to pivot. You're going to flip. It's a living thing. So if your relationship with
God is just merely a list of dos and don'ts, if it's
just a religious thing-- I just do this; I just
do that; I just do this; I just do that--
that's not organic. Imagine if you approached
your relationship with your girlfriend
or your relationship with your husband in that way. I merely do this, and
you merely do that. Here are the flowers. Why? Because I'm supposed
to give them to you. Ugh, no, there's got
to be life to it. It's not meant to
be transactional. It's not meant to be robotic. God is not an ATM machine. If I push this series of things
and show up somewhere on Sunday morning, and I
read my two verses, now you're obligated
to give me salvation. That's not loving. That's not life giving. God doesn't want there to
be this sense of, I do this, you do that. He wants it to be a friendship. Is your relationship
with God organic? Is there a friendship to it? Can you feel and sense his
passion, his love for you? You have friends in
your life that you can't wait to tell them things. That should be how it
is with you and God. It should be this idea,
like I want to talk to God. I want to know God. I want my walk with God to grow. I want it to flex. I want it to mature. I want it to deepen. I want it to be something
that's beautiful, something that's organic. There's a second
thing, as we think about this
agricultural metaphor, as Jesus wants you to relate
to him like a branch does to a vine, it should be
exclusive, exclusive. When you think about a
vine that's shooting off these branches, those branches
have a committed relationship with that vine. They're not looking
around, seeing other vines, going you know what, I'm
going to go to that vine. [MAKES SQUEAKING NOISES] Plunk. No, it's committed. It's exclusive. It's not sizing up
other vines, seeing where there's better sunlight. We're committed to the vine, and
this is what Jesus had in his mind when he said-- look at
the language one more time-- I am the true vine. What was he saying? There's a lot of
other vines out there. There's a lot of
other things promising to flow life into you. You can look to a lot
of things in this world to cause your life to be filled
with the essence of life. We could look to our career. We could look to money. We could look to
the party scene. We could look to
doing a lot of things to get our essence of
life from, and Jesus isn't saying there's no other vines. He just said there's
no other true vines. The other vines are false vines. Why? Because they will promise
to put life into you, and they will give you a
good time for a little bit, but then eventually
and ultimately, they will suck the
life out of you. And some day, you're
going to wake up. Some day you're going to look
up and go, wait a minute, I feel withered. I feel dry because the vine that
you've connected yourself to is not the vine that's
putting life into you. It's taking something from you. Isn't this what the
prodigal son discovered? He had it good at home. He's connected to the true vine. But then the
exclusive relationship was broken when he decided
to give into the wanderlust, and he took all the
money, cashed out, and went to a far off city. And there was hookers, and there
was buying rounds for the whole bar, and there was
the party scene, the penthouse at Caesar's. And, man, he had
so many friends. All the other branches were
like [IMITATING CLUB MUSIC].. There are little leaves
fluttering, making it rain, little leaves up in the air. It was crazy. But then, listen,
then eventually, he ran out of money, and
a famine hit the land. And then all of
his friends bolted. I mean, he's texting them. None of them are
writing him back. They're like, new
phone, who dis? No one's responding to him. And what happened next? The Bible says that
he fell on hard times, and he was he was weak,
and he had nothing. And he was so
eventually desperate that he looked for work at
the most unspeakable job a Jewish boy could take-- feeding pigs. And he was so hungry,
he began to eat the food he was serving to the pigs. And he realized how good he
had it back home, so he decided to crawl back to his
father, saying to himself maybe my father will
take me on as a servant. Certainly, I'm not worthy
to be his son anymore. So he-- now this little branch
makes a little long trip home. [MAKES SQUEAKING NOISES]
This is the branch. This is how he crawls. [MAKES SQUEAKING NOISES]
Can you see it? It's kind of like an inch worm. [MAKES SQUEAKING NOISES] And he's thinking,
hanging his head, my father's never
going to love me again. And his father, seeing
him a long way off, he ran to his son. The Bible says that he
scooped this little branch up into his arms and rushed it back
to the greenhouse, connected it back to the vine,
fired up the misters, got shots of chlorophyll for
everybody in the whole place. The Bible says he
struck up the music. What kind of music? Classical music-- that's what
plants like to listen to. And now, everybody's happy
because the prodigal branch had come home. And that's what your
father does when you make the mistake
of trading what should be an exclusive
relationship, and you get tempted
by other vines. We read early in the
passage about how he takes away a
branch that's not bearing fruit, a branch
that's connected to him but just isn't bearing fruit. Why? Maybe it connected
itself to another vine, looking to other things. And I love that the
word "takes away" in the Greek is the
word airo, A-I-R-O. If a branch isn't doing
good, he takes it away, and the definition of that
word is so life giving. It says this-- it means to take
up, to lift up from the ground, or lift with the
intent to carry. Are you weak? Do you feel like you're
not producing fruit? God's heart for you is to
pick you up, to lift you up, to take you up with the
intention to carry you. No one's going to pluck you
from your Father's hands. He wants to restore
you to health, restore you to wellness. Did you barely
get in here today? Are you making so many
mistakes, you're like, man, I don't even know
where to begin? God wants to pick you up and
lift you up and scoop you up and bring you back
tenderly to the vine so you can get back
to growing fruit. But there needs to be, in
your mind, this mentality that says I want to have an
exclusive relationship with Him, not one of robotic compliance,
but life giving romance, of love for my Father. That's kind of a weird
thing to describe. Romance? A little-- I don't know. Well, hold on a second. Being a part of the
church is compared to being the bride of Christ,
and what is a name for someone who tends vines professionally? A husbandman. So there is so many
parallels to how we should approach
a healthy marriage, to how we should think about
our relationship with God. Not a robotic compliance,
but a life giving romance. And then secondly, that
exclusivity, that commitment to Him, and to only
Him will we be loyal. There's a third, and
it's this-- continuous. Our relationship with
Him should be continuous. That's the opposite of sporadic. That's the opposite of
on again, off again. That's the opposite of
here and there, but just a continuous connection. We should fight to foster
continuous connection. Why? Because if our connection to
God gets weak, we will be, too. I think about how it's so
easy to wear out phone cords. Anybody with me? What is it with
these phone cords and their constant breaking? And they seem like they
go through this phase where they sometimes work
before they stop working. Anybody? Anybody? No? It's just me? So you plug it in, and nothing. You're looking for the
lightning bolt, aren't you? You're looking for
that-- nothing-- and that little sound. Beep. You know? And so you turn it over,
and oh, hey, and then it's like, you fool yourself
into thinking, oh, it's fine. It was just a fluke. And you'll go a couple
days, and you'll have to-- anybody with me? You almost get into
wrecks because you're flipping it over, blowing on
it, maybe lick-- don't lick it. That's a mistake. I made that mistake. Cleaning off the connection, and
then you finally know it's time to get rid of it
when you plug it in and it's like bing-ah, bing-ah,
bing-ah, bing-ah, bing-ah, bing-ah, bing-ah. Anybody with me on that? Bing-ah, bing-ah,
bing-ah, bing-ah, bing-ah? You're like, OK, you are gone. You are the weakest
link, goodbye. Because it's not charging
your phone because there's not a continuous connection. There has to be a steady
continuous connection if that power is
going to get through. A branch is merely
a hollow tube. A branch is merely
a hollow tube. It's PVC pipe, and we cannot
have the life of God flowing through us if we're not
connected continuously. So if you keep breaking it off,
bringing it on, breaking it off, and it's just
intermittently, I read the Bible here and
there, I pray here and there-- if there's a sporadic-- sometimes, not so often,
every once in a while. If that characterizes your
relationship with God, he can't get the power
to you that He wants to. Your relationship
needs to be continuous. So here's the goal. The goal is to go as
many days as we can without interrupting
the connection. As many days as
you can in a row. How many days do you think
you could stack together where you-- each of those days have
at least some point in the day where you get quiet
and tell God something, where you get quiet and let
God tell you something. We overcomplicate
the Bible study, making it feel like, oh, I don't
know how to do that on my own. But it's just, at the end of the
day, you telling God something, and then you let God
tell you something. How hard is it to get on
YouTube, throw one good worship song on, to read a
verse, to listen to God tell you something
from scripture, and then just to tell
him, God, stuff's hard? Marriage is hard. God works hard. And if it's hard for you to
pray because you don't really know what to do-- I get on my knees, and-- well,
maybe mix it up and get up and take a walk. If every time you took
your wife on a date night, you took to the
exact same restaurant and wore the exact
same thing and ordered the exact same thing, you'd
have a weird relationship. Mix it up. Come on, Casanova. You know what I'm saying? I tried something
different recently. On our date night,
I ahead of time wrote down some of my
favorite things about my wife, and brought this
journal to the table. And halfway through
just say, hey, I wanted to read some
things I love about you. I had never done that before. It was just-- why? I wanted to mix it up. And she cried. It was awesome. In an Italian restaurant in
Manhattan, she's [FAKE CRYING].. I'm like-- Just mix up your
relationship with God. Take a walk next time you pray. If you always pray walking,
right down your prayer. Mix it up, but keep that
continuous connection. There's this great
YouVersion app. It's for free. Life.church pastor Craig and
Amy Groeschel have given it away to the world-- 300 million downloads. They've given away the
Bible to 300 million people. Unreal, right? Just the best people
that there are. I get choked up if I talk
about how much I love them. But that app has
this cool feature, if you're logged into
it, where it tells you, on the home screen,
how many days in a row you've opened the app. And I just would encourage you,
challenge you, go as many days as you can where you don't
interrupt the flow of power to your life in prayer. How about this one? How many weeks in a row
could you stack it up where you don't miss
gathering together with God's people for
corporate worship, where we gather together, and
we sing our guts out together? And I get to hear
you sing badly, and you get to
hear me sing badly. But fortunately, the
people who sing good is louder than all of us. You know what I'm saying? And we can just be like,
I'm a mess, but I love you. And think of your little arms
as little branches going, I'm connected to you. I love you. I need you. I want you. I'm desperate for you. I can't do anything
without-- that's worship. Worship is just you stretching
your branches out to the vine, so he can flow his
life through you. What about throughout
the day-- little prayers here, little
thoughts there? Let's make it our goal to
never forget about him. You ever remember
that God's there? And you're like, oh,
what have I just-- you take a mental inventory
of the last couple of things you did. You're like, that's the train
wreck, and that's intimidating. But if we're
constant remembering God's always with you-- you
didn't leave Him at church. You didn't leave
Him where you left your journal and your Bible,
and you had your time with Him. He's always with you. So if you walk around
going God's in me, God's with me,
all the time, that changes how you talk to people. That changes how
you spend money. That changes how you dream. That changes how you plan. How long can we go where
we never have to remember God's there because we're always
remembering he's closer to us than our skin--
not with a scowl-- with a smile, wanting to lift
us up, wanting to carry us up, and wanting to grow
delicious fruit through us. Let me tell you something if
your relationship with God is hit and miss, and Easter and
Christmas, and here and there, and just every once in a while,
you'll never going to-- you're never going to
grow any of these. That branch has to be
connected continuously. It's growing, and
doesn't that just make you want to eat grapes? The sales of grapes
in our city's just
[MAKING ROCKET ENGINE NOISE] this week because everyone's
like, I want grapes. I just want-- you can't
walk by a bowl of grapes and not eat them. But if they're soggy, pass. Hard pass. I need crisp grapes. I need them to be almost
like biting into an apple. Who's with me on the crunchy
grapes, no seeds, very crunchy? That's my jam. All right, so if we were going--
if we're going to grow those, we have to be continuous. We have to be exclusive. And there has to be organic. Amen? Amen! I love it because that
leads to our last thing that we learn about our
relationship to the vine, and that is, He intends
for us to be productive. Productive--
productive meaning he wants to produce
fruit through us. There's something He wants
to do as we connect to Him, and this then is a
vital distinction to make on how many days
can you go without missing? How many weeks can you go
without missing church? How many weeks can
you go without not being in a small group? Now, we have to
actually qualify it because this then is the test. The fruit is the test. Are we producing fruit? Let me tell you
something-- there's people who never miss a
Sunday and are cheating on their wives all week long. There's people who never
miss a day's devotions and whose lives are filled
with pornography and hatred. There's people who are
downloading John Piper and Beth Moore sermons like crazy, and
they are a complete and total jerk at work. So the test isn't
just do I take in? It's, is it producing
a life through me? That's how you test the
organic, exclusive, continuous relationship. Is it producing? Producing what exactly? The fruit of the spirit is love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such, there's no law. So now, we get to go, OK,
am I just hearing God's word and deceiving myself? Or as I read the
word, as I attend church, as I get
into a small group, am I actually applying
it in my life? Am I allowing Him to produce
that life through me? I've been asked before,
how much should I read when I have my devotions? And I like how a friend
of mine answered that. He said, you should read
until something convicts you, then immediately close
your Bible, pray about it, and then go do
something about it. Because the moment He
tells you something, that's-- then you've read
all you need to read. Sometimes, it might
be a paragraph. Sometimes, it
might be a chapter. For me, often, it's a sentence. I've had times where
it's literally a word. I'm like, ah, why'd
you have to go there? Fine. You know what I'm--
oh, no, you didn't. You know what I'm saying? Ah, I was just hoping for
you to just encourage me. You actually want me
to be nice to people. That-- that's different
than what I was expecting. Can I just know
things about you? He says, no, I want to
produce my life through you. I want your life
to be something-- as people come around,
I want the reaction to be how you felt
seeing those grapes. That's beautiful. That's wonderful. But not just fruit
of the spirit-- He wants to also produce
your unique fruit. Did you know that the
different regions of grapes produce different
varieties of wine? It's fascinating. And where the vine comes
from impacts the flavor, just as much the soil
in which it's grown. Most of the wine
producing vines in America have actually been
brought over from Europe. They're not American vines. They were bringing vines over. All these ships
coming over-- they're like, what's in your suitcase? From the Mayflower--
it's like, just vines. They could never do that today. You wouldn't get
through customs. What do you have
in your suitcase? Nothing, just vines. But they have vines here that
are growing different varietals of wine with different bouquet,
and I just want to understand, some of you are Zinfandel. Some of you are pinot. Some of you are cav. Some of you, you're a merlot. Meaning there's different things
God's going to bring out in you He didn't put inside me. I just want you to know you're
fearfully and wonderfully made, and the way God's going
to produce life in you, and the inventions in you,
and the dreams in you, and the story in you,
and the song in you, and the poem in you,
and the business in you, and the company in you-- what
He's put in you is different. And just know this-- your
church isn't just interested in you being people who come
and sing songs and leave. We believe in what you're
going to do out there in the world that's going
to change the world. We believe in the medical
breakthrough, the science breakthrough. We believe in the things
you're going to build, the cars you're going to
repair, the innovations, and the way you're going
to use what He put in you. As you connect to
the vine, He's going to give you dreams and
ideas and thoughts and plans and businesses,
and we can't wait to see what different
circumstances are going to bring about the
beautiful fruit in your life that's going to be a blessing
to people all over this world. But we got to keep
the life fresh. So we should call it
Fresh Life, and we did. It's got to be organic. There's got to be a
freshness to the life in us in order for us
to be productive. So what have we learned today? We learned that we,
the people, should be focusing on a
more perfect union because to the degree that
our connection to God is weak, we will be, too. So we should be striving for
organic, continuous, exclusive productivity in our
connection to the vine. But none of it's
possible without pruning. None of it's possible
without the pruning shears. Jesus said the reward for a vine
that bears fruit is pruning. Any branch that bears
fruit, He prunes. In God's economy, get
this, pruning is a reward. You're like, that's sick. That's sick because
I've seen pruning. Yeah, it's terrible. Pruning's terrible. It's cutting-- listen, first of
all, it's cutting things back. And secondly-- so
cutting things back. You can jot that down. It's going to go up right here. Cutting things back. Secondly, it's
cutting things off. Some things in your life
need to be cut back, and other things in your
life need to be cut off. Why? The expert husbandmen, as
he approaches the vine, knows that there
are things that are going to grow on that vine
that need to be cut off-- bugs, diseased
branches, things that are called suckers, which is
unruly growth with no purpose. This thing's going to grow huge. Oh, look at me! It's amazing! And he's like, that is stealing
sap from the flower bud. The ultimate
mechanism of pruning is to steer sap to
where it needs to go. That vine can only
produce so much sap, and he wants to expertly
guide it and direct it exactly into what's going to
produce the grapes. So I'm going to cut off anything
that would get big and unruly, but isn't producing fruit. So some things in your
life need to be cut off, and other things in your life
merely need to be cut back. The good branches
that produce the buds can also get little
flowers on them. And it's pretty,
and it's wonderful, but the producing of
that flower is actually essence of life that should
be going into that bud. So the pruner doesn't
just use the shears. He also uses his fingers. He does something
called pinching. He'll pinch off stuff. He's like, hey, good
job, little branch, and we're like, that's so mean. I worked hard on that flower. He's like, yeah, but
it's not actually going to what I
created you to do. You know that good is the
enemy is of the best, right? And if you say yes
to too many things, you won't be able to say
yes to the ultimate things. It's why one of our values as
a church-- we have core values, and one of them is we
do more by doing less. We focus on a few things, so
we can do them really well, the things God's called
us to do, and not be doing all sorts
of things morally. So we have to employ elimination
and concentration to focus in on what God's called us to do. So what's the Lord trying
to cut off in your life? Things that are never
going to be good for you, never going to take
you to where he wants to go. A good thing to maybe
discuss at the dinner table or with your small
group this week would be, what
needs to be cut off and what merely
needs to be cut back? That is to say, I'm not
cutting this branch off. This is a good one. But something on it
needs to be trimmed back. This is stuff that's
good, but we need to moderate it a little bit. It's a little bit unruly. Yeah, watching TV's great. Seven hours of TV a day? Maybe a little bit less. I'm really trying to focus my
screen time and get it down. I have an app now that
tracks how much time I spend on all my different apps and my
total screen time on my phone, and I'm really going
to try and start focusing in the coming days--
notice how much room I'm giving myself? I'm really going
to, next week, going to be trying to start focusing
on trimming back these things. I'm not to cut it
off, but that's an area where I want
to see it trimmed back. His job is to prune. Your job is to abide. His job is to prune. That is to say, His word and
the leadership in your life-- if you're not under
leadership, you're missing out. What athlete can go
to the highest levels without coaching? If you're not on one
of our impact teams, you don't have someone
coaching you in that way. If you're not under the
authority of your campus pastor and embracing that leadership,
if you're not in a small group, we should all be craving-- I am so grateful for the
voices in my life coaching me. If you're not
responding to the way God works through authority
and through His word and through His
spirit to prune, then you're not going to get
to where you want to go. But your job-- so His
job's the pruning, and you have to
respond to that well. Your job is to abide. It's all over the text. Eight times, he uses the word
abide in just the first opening verses. One example is where it
shows up twice in one verse. He says abide in
me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit
unless it abides in the vine. You're like, what
does it mean to abide? Simply put, it means stay put. Park it here, bubba. I like the message translation
of that verse, where it's put this way-- live in me. Make your home in me
just as I do in you. Is Jesus your home? Is Jesus where you stay put? And that should be our focus. Write that down on the top
of your to-do list tomorrow-- abide. Abide in Jesus. Remain in him. But disclaimer--
it's the hardest to abide when
you're being pruned. Those are the
times-- man, when God starts putting His finger on
different areas of your life, that's when you're going to feel
like bolting because you don't like the sensation and feeling
of Him cutting things back that you wanted to stay, Him
cutting things off that you're content leaving there. Because it doesn't
feel good to be pruned. None of us like it. Look at how great a vine looks
when it's bushy, beautiful, and vibrant. This is right after harvest. This is a shot from Tuscany. Beautiful, I mean look at
all these branches like, yay, look at me! Look what I did! But you can't go into
winter like that. Once the grapes are
cut, you no longer need those branches
to provide shade. You no longer need
all those leaves to make all the chlorophyll. There's nothing happening,
so the husbandman knows that vine needs to
hunker down for a bit. So all those big
old branches that are like, how do you like me
now, started from the bottom, now we're here-- what does he do? Look at this next shot. Hello. OK, whoa, I don't want
anybody to see me like this. I'll lose all my street cred. All my hair's gone. All my life's gone. This little-- these
little branches are like, this is the worst. I don't like this at all. And that's when
the branches are-- that's when we, as
the branches, are most tempted to stop staying put
because God tried to touch something in our life
that was keeping us that was going to keep us back. But we didn't like
how it felt, so we're going to go find a
different vine now that will let us do
what we want to do. We're going to find a different
vine that'll let us be. For I'm going to go find myself. I'm going to live my-- I'm going to disconnect
from this vine. It's the most difficult to
abide when you're being pruned. So here's what you gotta do-- when you feel the steel,
cling to the vine. When you feel his steel coming
out, just tell yourself, I'm staying put. I'm staying put. He knows what he's doing. What am I? I'm a little twig. What am I? I'm just a conduit. What am I? I'm just a PVC pipe. He's got the life. I want it to flow through me. So if he cuts
something back, fine. He knows better than I do. Our mentality should be
what the author of Hebrews said, in Hebrews
chapter 12 verse 1. Let us strip off
everything that hinders us, as well as the sin
which dogs our feet, and let us run the race that
we have to run with patience, our eyes fixed on Jesus the
source and goal of our faith. For he himself endured a
cross and thought nothing of its shame because
of the joy he knew would follow his suffering. Why should you trust your
gardener with those shears when he comes at you,
when he comes at you with his pinching fingers? You like, oh, my gosh, what are
you going to pinch away next? Here's why you should trust
your gardener-- because of what that vine was willing to go
through to get you connected to his life. What was that vine
willing to go through? Let me tell you something--
vines don't grow beautiful grapes on the ground. They grow them on trellises. They grow hoisted up by wires. They grow them-- look
at it-- up in the air. They grow like that. So Jesus says, I am the vine. You are the branches. Why should we trust him? Because he died on
the cross to save us. So whatever he wants to cut off,
whatever he wants to remove, we're good with it, God,
because you are God, and we trust your plans, and
we trust your intentions. Oh, come on. Let God know you trust him. What an incredible message. Thank you so much for joining
us in this teaching from Fresh Life Church. If, during this
message, you felt led to make the decision
to follow Christ, we'd love to send you a
21 day devotional that goes through the book of
John, that pastor Levi wrote, and you can also
register your decision on our website,
freshlife.church. Just click the Know
God tab, and we'd love to get connected with you. If you've been impacted at all
through what God is doing here at Fresh Life Church,
we would absolutely love to hear from you. All you gotta do is click
on the Share Story tab at the top of our
website, or you can email us at
story@freshlife.church and share how God is using
this work to impact your life. And finally, if you'd
like to partner with us financially and
support the things that God is doing in
and through this house, you can text the
word Fresh to 45777. You can click the Give
button at freshlife.church, or you can give via
the Fresh Life app. Thank you so much for watching.
