Abiding In Jesus

Noah Sidhom teaches from John 15, emphasizing Jesus’s metaphor of the vine and branches to explain how believers must abide in Christ to bear spiritual fruit. He explores the necessity of depending on Jesus rather than self, practical ways to abide including scripture reading, prayer, receiving God’s love, and obedience, and the fruit that results from a life connected to Christ.

Show Notes

Noah Sidhom continues his series on praying through God's word while he walks through John 15:5, where Jesus compares himself to a vine and his disciples to branches.

What is Chapel Service?

Worship service on Wednesday nights in the Chapel

Well, thank you so much for being here this evening. We're continuing our series on praying God's Word. And last week, we looked at Psalm 5, verse 3, a verse that David was praying and crying out to the Lord. And this week, we're going to jump into John chapter 15. And the goal this semester is not for you to feel like you have to end up praying every single verse that we talk about here. But my goal is just to hand you resources. And in some of these verses, the Lord is going to use to grip your heart. And they'll be great verses for you to pray on a daily basis. And some of them are just going to be great for you to pray a few times and maybe not be part of your daily rotation. But my prayer for you is that as we walk away from this semester that you'll have some tools to be able to strengthen your time with the Lord. Because I don't know about you, but there are many times where I'm praying, and I just don't know what to pray. I don't know how to pray. But when I jump to God's Word and begin praying God's Word, it always kickstarts me and gets me exactly where I need to be and where I need to be going. So I hope that's what the Lord will do with this time on Wednesday nights this semester. Tonight, we're going to be looking at one of the last moments that Jesus had with his disciples prior to his arrest and ultimate death. The account that we have here in John 15 is sandwiched between two very well-known events. We have the upper room where Jesus washed the disciples' feet and had an institute, the Lord's Supper with them as he had that Passover meal with them right before his death. And then the next major story in the life of Jesus that we'll run into in a few chapters down the road is we come to the Garden of Gethsemane. And as Jesus was washing the feet of his disciples, he was trying to prepare them for what was about to come and take place. He had told them that he was going to be betrayed. He had told them that he was going to die. But they were still struggling to understand. They were struggling to believe that that could really be what was next. The Bible says that Jesus finished with his disciples in the upper room, and they sang a hymn together. And they got up, and they left the upper room, and they walked to the Garden of Gethsemane. That would have been most likely about a 15- or 20-minute walk from where they went. And most people believe that John 15, which we'll read from tonight, was what Jesus was teaching them and telling them as they walked from the upper room into the garden. And I imagine that as Jesus is walking to the garden along the way, he passed a vineyard. And Jesus always loved to use the created world as object lessons and to use nature to be able to teach truths of spiritual truths. So I imagine that Jesus might have run across a vineyard on their journey and run his hand along one of the vines as he said these words, I am the true vine. My father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you're 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, neither can you unless you abide in me. I'm 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. Now remember, this conversation that Jesus is having with his disciples is only a couple hours before Jesus's arrest and ultimately not long before Jesus would go to the cross and Jesus would die. And he knew that they needed what he was telling them in this moment. You see, Jesus's disciples were about to face the biggest test of their life, one that they never saw coming. They were about to go into hiding. They were about to be hunted for the fact that they were followers of Jesus Christ. And they were gonna have to do it on their own because Jesus would no longer be with them in that moment. And Jesus knew that if he tried to do it on his own, Jesus knew that if he attempted it in their own strength, that they would have absolutely no chance. But with Jesus, they would have everything that they would need. Now, these disciples, though they were pretty clearly told on multiple occasions, they were struggling to understand and believe, like I said, that Jesus really was going to leave them, that Jesus was going to die, that they were gonna be separated from Jesus. They could not believe that their time, just their three short years with him was actually coming to an end. But even knowing that he was going away, Jesus encouraged them to abide in him. I love this. Jesus says, hey, here's the secret that you're gonna need in the days to come. Abide in me. Now, they had really been doing that. They had lived with him and ministered and learned from him for three, three and a half years up until this point. But he was going away. I love this because Jesus knew that even when he was not physically there, that they could still abide in him. I love that because that means that you and I can abide with him as well. See, Jesus, on several occasions when he would tell them about his eventual departure and he would say, hey, when I leave, the Holy Spirit is going to come and it's actually better for you that I leave. You see, when Jesus was on this earth, the Bible teaches us that he ministered and he saw people, but Jesus also was in a human body and he got tired and Jesus slept and Jesus could only be in one place at one time. And so while the disciples and those that got to hear his teaching got to be close to him, not everybody got to be close to him at all times, but Jesus would say that, hey, a day's coming when all of you everywhere can abide in me at any time, which means you and I can abide in Jesus as well. Now these words of Jesus from John chapter 15, I imagine in the coming days for the disciples, these words must have rang over and over again, repeated in the minds of his disciples as they would watch Jesus die, as they would go into hiding, as eventually Jesus would rise from the dead and ascend and then they would be persecuted. I imagine these words would come into their mind over and over again. And when they would face hardship, they must have meditated on these words and they must have found great comfort in the midst of hardship. At times when they saw a great success and they saw the spirit moving, I'm sure they found these words to bring humility at the same time, knowing it was not of their own doing. And as much as Jesus's disciples needed this reminder, you and I need this reminder as well. It is so easy for us to try to accomplish everything that we want to accomplish in a day or everything we think that we need in our own strength. How often do we think that we have what it takes in order to accomplish something important or bigger or what we need to do? In the face of those moments, and you and I have them every single day where we depend on our own strength, we need to believe and be confronted with the words of Jesus, which I think if at face value, when you're not ready for it, can be one of the most offensive things that Jesus ever said to his disciples. It's right here in John 15. He says, apart from me, you can do nothing. Now you think, well, I can do something. Like, I'm pretty smart. I'm pretty strong. I'm pretty capable. It may not be the absolute best that can be done, but surely on my own, I can bring something to the table. Surely I can do something. But Jesus says, no, apart from me, you can do nothing. Everything that you bring in your own strength, Jesus says, is all just gonna be burned up at the end. It's not gonna matter for anything. The prophet Isaiah said it this way in Isaiah 64, verse six, we have all become like one who is unclean. All of our righteous deeds, the very best moments of our entire life are like a filthy, polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf and our iniquities like the wind take us away. Have you guys ever had a cat that I had? I've had several cats over the years. They've always been outside cats and they would always love catching mice and other stuff and bring it to us as a gift. Have you ever had that happen? Where they drop a dead mouse on your porch for you just to show their appreciation? You see, the most righteous thing that I could bring before the Lord in my own strength is like that. Man, this cat is so proud of what it's bringing and this is the best it has to offer. But that is disgusting and now I've got to deal with it when it's left on my front porch. In the same way, when we bring the best that we have before the Lord, he's not impressed by it. The Lord is not impressed by the righteousness that we bring in our own strength. Outside of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, you and I have nothing to offer. But I'm thankful that when we are in Christ and when we walk with the Lord that we actually get to be part of a lot. And tonight we're gonna look at some of the words of Jesus and see if we can place in our hearts what Jesus was attempting to place in the hearts of his disciples those 2,000 years ago. From here, from John chapter 15, verses four and five. The first thing we learn from this passage is very simple, but a hard thing for us to swallow, a hard pill to swallow at times. The first thing we learn is that you cannot bear fruit by yourself. You cannot.

bear fruit by yourself." This is hard to comprehend and this is hard for us to truly believe and embrace, but the sooner we come to accept this, the better off each of us are. He said in John 15 for 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. This is a powerful picture that that Jesus is painting for his disciples and whether or not they were near a vineyard or not, I guarantee you they all were very familiar with vineyards and would participate in having cared for them and seen them throughout their lives. And Jesus said, I am the vine, you are the branch. I am the source. Everything from life is gonna flow from me through you, not the other way around. And unless we are connected to Jesus, not only can we not bear fruit, but we don't have any life. It's only in Jesus that we have life. I told you last week that I like to go on in the mornings and I when I get up in the morning I read my Bible and then when I pray I go on a walk because it helps me stay awake and helps keep me focused and if I if I sit in a quiet room in the morning with the lights dimmed I'm probably not gonna make it very far in that journey before I fall back asleep. But if I get up and I walk I'm usually up pretty quickly. But every every morning on my walk between my house and the park that I walk at, as I walk there there's a is a tree that gives me a reminder of this verse every single morning. So this tree is dead and I don't know if you can see there but many of these branches and big branches are are hanging in this tree and they have fallen and just being held by some of the other branches and it won't be long before those branches fall. So as me and my family walk under this we always walk around because any moment now those limbs are coming down. But this is such a great picture because you see all around all these trees that are full of life and they are strong and they're they're they're thriving. In the midst of all this life is this tree that has absolutely no life left in it. That is a tree that shows us exactly what our lives look like when we are disconnected from the vine. The best that we have to offer is that dead limb that is falling and will soon be on the ground and worth nothing but being burned up in a fire. But when we are with Jesus and abiding in Jesus we look like those trees all around it full of life and health. When we're connected or disconnected from Jesus the Bible says he is our source of life. We have absolutely no hope in bearing fruit. We do not create life on our own. We are simply the conduit for the life and the fruit of Jesus. The Bible teaches that when we abide in Jesus we get the absolute best that he offers. When we abide in ourselves when we're disconnected from Jesus we get the best that we can offer and as Isaiah said that's not very good. The Apostle Paul speaks very clearly about what it is that you are able to expect when you rely on yourself. You know when you abide in Jesus he bears fruit through us but when you abide outside of Jesus when you rely on your own strength this is exactly what you can expect. When you're familiar with the fruit of the Spirit right before that passage is what what Paul gives as the fruit of the flesh. He goes on and says now the the works of the flesh they're evident, they're obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, on things like these things I warn you as I've warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. If that is is what you're relying on yourself this is exactly what it is that you are going to produce in your life. Do you want to know if you're abiding in Jesus? There's a really really simple test. What kind of fruit are you bearing in your life? As you go throughout your life what does your life look like? What is the fruit that is coming out of your life? It's really easy for us to cast judgment on many of these things and go I would never do that whether it be idolatry or sorcery or sexual immorality or all these other things but he goes on to say strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, and it is rarely a day that one of those things is not at least partially true in one of our lives and we have to while we're in this earth and it's on this on this earth and in this body we've got to continue to to seek to be in the vine and pulling life from Jesus so that he can bear fruit through us and in us and when we start to see these things it's not a reminder that you've got to do better it's not a reminder that that you just need to try a little harder it's a reminder that you need to go back and you need to reconnect to the vine because the fruit that you're seeing in your life does not come from him in those moments. You remember what we said Jesus said earlier that apart from him we can do nothing? He wasn't exaggerating he wasn't being facetious or acute he was serious and he was right. Now he's not advocating that we just sit with Jesus and and just sing songs and pray all day and we have absolutely no work to do in and of ourselves the Bible is very clear that that while we abide in Jesus and he does the work through us that he does work through our hands and through our feet Paul said that this way in 2nd Thessalonians 3 10 if anyone is not willing to work let him not eat in other words we're not supposed to sit around and wait for the coming of the Lord all day and not contribute not do anything but at the same time King Solomon who would be the wisest man other than Jesus to ever walk the earth once said these words unless the Lord builds a house those who build it labor in vain unless the Lord watches over the city the watchman stays awake in vain so he's not advocating that we don't build the house we don't put the labor in to to build the house but we've got to make sure the Lord is the one truly building the house in and through us otherwise what we're doing is in vain he's not saying there is no use for a watchman might as well just go to sleep but he's saying ultimately unless the Lord is the one who guards the city there's nothing that that watchman can do in his own strength we cannot bear fruit by ourselves one of our former pastors here at Bellevue was a man named RG Lee did anybody here ever hear RG Lee preach we have several of you who got to hear him preach he was a pastor here from 1927 to 1960 and went to be with the Lord in the 1970s but as as he was a preacher he was a master of the English language dr. Lee loved to be a wordsmith and to play with words and and to pull the absolute most that he could out of the English language and one time I read how he described our need for Jesus to work in and through us he was talking about the difference between what we bring and what Jesus can bring through us and he said these words in a way that only RG Lee could ever say it moonlight ripens no harvest and what he was saying there is that the the best that you can do is is this faint reflection of the Sun so if you've ever planted a garden you know that unless the Sun shines on it there's no hope that that garden will produce fruit there is no harvest if it's not for the Sun and the same is true for us moonlight is important we need it but it's no substitute for the Sun as Jesus is walking with his disciples he invites them into a deeper relationship he knows he's about to leave them he knows he won't be here very long just a few hours more and they'll be separated and in this moment he says 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 they have a lot coming up in the days to come and they're going to need more than what they could bring in the same way you and I we don't know what tomorrow brings and we will not be able to face tomorrow on our own we need to abide in Jesus we need the fruit and the life of Jesus to work in us and while we cannot bear fruit apart from Jesus I'm grateful he did not stop there we see first that we cannot bear fruit by ourselves but secondly Jesus says that you will when you abide in Jesus you will bear fruit in Jesus he doesn't say it when you abide in me you open the possibility to bear fruit you don't he didn't say there's you might bear fruit he says you abide in me and I in you and you will bear much fruit because it is he that does the bearing of the fruit he says in beginning of verse 5 I am the vine you are the branches whoever abides in me and I in him he it is that bears much fruit Jesus begins this second sentence by reiterating what he's always said she already said Jesus is the vine he is the source we are the branches it's amazing to think about because Jesus doesn't need us Jesus does not need the branches he does not need you and I to accomplish anything that he wants to accomplish but he chooses to use us and that is an incredibly humbling honor that we we take way for granted the idea that we get to be ambassadors for Jesus Christ and that he works in our lives is something that we should never get tired

of. And the Bible says that though Jesus does not need us, he chooses to use us. One of the last things Jesus would say to his disciples before he would ascend after his resurrection were these words we know as the Great Commission. He says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. In other words, Jesus says there's nothing that's outside of my reach, there's nothing I don't have the power to do, there is nothing that is beyond my authority. I can do anything that I want to do. So what does he do with that authority? He looks to his disciples and ultimately to us. He says, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Jesus holds all authority and he says, hey, I'm gonna be with you, but I want you to go out and I want you to do the work that I am calling you to do. He's chosen to deputize each and every one of his followers to work through us. We looked earlier at the type of the fruit that our flesh bears when we are trying to find strength in ourselves. It's the envy, the immorality, the idolatry, the anger, all these other things that come up and he says these things are obvious and all the things just like this. You know what exactly what your life looks like when you're relying on your flesh. I don't have to tell you. Paul doesn't have to put it in the list. You know what your life looks like when you are relying on yourself. But Paul goes on in Galatians with the fruit of the Spirit and he says this is exactly what your life is going to look like. This is the fruit that Jesus will bear. He says, in me you will bear much fruit. What does that fruit look like? It looks like what Paul talks about in Galatians 5 22. He says the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. You'll never get in trouble for these things. And when we abide in Jesus, that's exactly the kind of fruit that he will bear in our lives. And I want to tell you the the word there for fruit, the Greek word, the Greek language has a distinct word, a different word for a singular fruit, like a single piece of fruit, or a lot of fruit. In the English language, fruit could be referring to one banana or it could be referring to a hundred bananas. We don't know. But in this moment, in this word, the Greek, Paul used the singular word for fruit. And what that means is that the the fruit that the Spirit and Jesus ultimately bears in our lives, it's not, oh, one fruit is love and then he also puts some joy and then some peace and patience. Jesus produces a singular fruit in our lives and this is what it looks like. So I want to tell you, if you have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, but you lack self-control, then you do not have the true fruit of the Spirit in your life. It's distorted. It is not what the Holy Spirit is going to produce in your life. And once again, the answer there is not just to try to push a little harder and have more self-control or to have more patience or to have more joy or love. The answer is to go back to the vine and allow Jesus to bear that fruit in your life. Paul understood this concept very clearly about what it means to live and function in the work of Christ and that's why he wrote in Galatians 2 verse 20, I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. What an incredible concept and an incredible way to visualize what it means to abide in Jesus and for him to abide in us. Christ who lives in me. You see, when Jesus lives and operates within each of one of us, it's not just that we have the opportunity to bear fruit, but we will bear fruit. But this leaves one very important question, the last thing we'll look at tonight. Because we see that we cannot bear fruit when we are not abiding in Jesus. We can't bear fruit by ourselves. But when we do abide in Jesus, that we will bear fruit. So how do we abide in Jesus? From just a practical perspective, I know there's a theoretical side of this, but tomorrow morning, how do I start my day and how do I abide in Jesus? First of all, what does it mean to abide? The word there is not a temporary, a quick moment with the Lord. It's not a checking of the box, a few minutes in the morning that you give to the Lord. The word here means to remain, to make yourself at home. Think about the word abode, your home where you live. That is the same concept. This is where we're supposed to live. This is supposed to be not just part of our morning, but part of every moment of our lives. We are meant to abide in Jesus. It's a real relationship. It requires depth. It requires time. It requires intentionality. It's moving your devotion away from the world and to Jesus. It's what the psalmist is talking about when they wrote in Psalm 46 verse 10, be still and know that I am God. It's acknowledging who he is and just resting in the fact of who he is and who you are. Without him you're nothing, but in him you are a child of God and you have all authority that has been given to you through Jesus Christ. He has commissioned you with that. Now that there's several practical ways that this passage gives us, we could go at many spots in Scripture to talk about what it means to abide in Jesus, but right here in John 15, several times he gives keys and hints about what it actually means. What does he mean when he says abide? The first clue he gives us is when he talks in verse 7 that we need to spend time in his Word. If we're going to abide in Jesus, we need to know his Word. We need to know what he says. He says in verse 7, if you abide in me and if my words, he goes on this time to say my words, if my words abide in you. See, the words of Jesus are powerful and they have the ability to transform our lives. It is the very Word of God, and I'm not just talking if you have a red-letter version of the Bible where Jesus' words are in red, it's not just those words. In fact, the Bible says in 2nd Timothy 316 that all Scripture, all Scripture is breathed out, is inspired by God, is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training, and righteousness. Every Old Testament book, every New Testament book, every writing of Paul and of James and Peter and John and Isaiah and Moses and David and so many others, every word that the Holy Spirit inspired came to us, it is breathed out and inspired by God himself. And so if you want to abide with Jesus, you've got to spend time reading his Word. There's no substitute for it. You know, coming here on Wednesday night is great, coming on Sunday mornings and going to a life group and going to a worship service is all great, but if you are not spending time in God's Word, abiding and reading God's Word on your own, then I'm telling you that you're not abiding as closely as you ought to abide. Now I'm not going to tell you that you have to read through the entire Bible every single year. I know a lot of people do that, and I do that some years. This year I'm choosing to go a slower pace. I'm walking through a chapter a day in the New Testament, Monday through Friday, and on the weekends I'm reading through Psalms and Proverbs. It's a lot less reading than I normally do, but it allows me to slow down and spend a little more time in that reading. And so there are times in definite years where I'm going to read through the entire Bible in one year, but sometimes the Lord's gonna want us to slow down and deeper dive in certain areas. So it's not a checklist, it's not just making sure that you pick a plan and you finish it for the year, but are you actually taking time to allow the words of Jesus and the words of God to abide in you? Are you reading God's Word? Are you meditating on God's Word? Are you memorizing God's Word? You may say you're not very good at memorizing, but I guarantee you there's a whole lot of songs that if I started playing right now you'd start singing along. You know the words and you know every tune and you know every drum hit, you know everything in that song. And it might take you a little bit to memorize, and that's fine. You don't have to memorize a verse a day or a verse a week, but I encourage you, take time and be actively trying to memorize God's Word. Psalm 119, 105. Psalm 119 is all about God's Word, and in verse 105 it says, "...your word," talking about the Word of God, "...is a lamp to my feet, and it is a light to my path." Without God's Word, without the Word of Jesus, we are walking in darkness and we will not be able to see what is next. So I encourage you, if you want to abide in Jesus, spend time in His Word. And you say, how much time do I need to spend in His Word? There's no number. I would encourage you, whatever time you spent today, maybe spend an extra minute or two tomorrow. Don't go from wherever you are to a hundred miles an hour in one day, because you'll burn out and you'll never make it at that rate.

But just go a little deeper, just spend a little more time in God's Word tomorrow than you did today, and a little more the next day, and spend time and allow God's Word to live in your life. And that's why I love memorizing scripture, because even when I'm not sitting down and reading the Bible, you can meditate and think on God's Word at any time. So how do we abide in Jesus? He said there in verse seven, by allowing His words to abide in us. Second, we need to spend time in prayer. We spend time in prayer. He says there in verses seven and eight, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this, my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. Jesus says that part of abiding in Him is talking with Him in prayer. It's a real relationship. Jesus says that God is glorified when we pray and when we see God work in our lives, and when God answers our prayers, He is glorified in that. And that's one of the reasons, that verse right there is one of my favorite reasons to pray scripture on a regular basis. He says that when we allow God's Word to abide in us, we can ask whatever we wish, and it will be done for us, and by this, God is glorified. Meditating on scripture, internalizing it, memorizing it, and praying it is a great way for the words of Jesus to abide in us, and then for us to take those prayers back to the Lord. And I have no doubt every time I pray a verse of scripture that I am praying the will of God, because I am praying the Word of God. But the Bible says that prayer is a way that we abide in Jesus, but it's not just about us talking. Prayer is a conversation. It also involves hearing from God. Jesus said these words to His disciples and to you. He says, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. You see, when we are Jesus's sheep, when He is our shepherd, we will hear His voice, and we will recognize His voice. And I wanna tell you, when we walk with the Lord, and when you are clean before the Lord, you can expect, it should not be a strange thing, or an unusual thing, or a supernatural thing, for you to hear the voice of your shepherd. When you walk with the Lord, you should hear from Him on a daily basis. And that doesn't mean that you're going to hear an audible voice. Very few people hear that. But you will know the voice of your shepherd. The Bible says that because of our redemption in Jesus Christ that we have been given the mind of Christ. And what does that mean other than the thoughts that we think when we're walking with Him, when we're truly abiding in Jesus, that the thoughts that we think are coming from the mind of Christ Himself. And we can know the will of God for our lives, and we can hear Him speak. Now, often we try to talk ourselves out of what we hear, and what we know Him be saying to us, because sometimes it's uncomfortable. But the reality is, is that when we abide in Jesus, we will hear His voice. And one of the ways we do that is by spending time in His word, and another way we do it is by spending time in prayer. Third, Jesus says that if you want to abide in Him, you need to receive His love. You need to allow His love to wash over you, and you need to receive that you are loved by God. He said in verse 9, as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. Now, it can be difficult for many of us to accept being loved, especially when it comes to the love of the Lord. The enemy loves to come alongside us and remind us of all the reasons that we are not worthy of the love of God. Our enemy likes to come and remind us of the times that we have made mistakes, and we have voided his ability to love us. But I want to tell you, the enemy is a liar, and that is not true. The Bible says that God loves you so much, He loves the world. Even when the world was turned against Him, God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, and that God demonstrated His love toward us, even while we were still sinners. Even when we were His enemy, He died for us. You see, the Bible says that we love. The only reason that you can love God is because He first loved us. And I want to tell you that when sin is reigning in our hearts, there is nothing, before we come to faith in Christ, there is nothing in us that wants to seek out God's love on our own. But He took the first step. When God so loved the world, He sent Jesus into the world, and by doing so, He has reached out to every single person in this world. And He has extended His arm, His hand of mercy and love to every single person. And it is because of His first act of love and mercy towards us that we are able to respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's not of works. It's nothing that you've done. It's nothing that, in our own strength, that we're able to earn our salvation. But Jesus has offered us, and God demonstrated His love for us, even that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. And He has enabled us to reach out to Him and to accept that love. It's a gift that He gives us, but we have to receive it. And while we are not worthy of God's love because of anything that we have done, we are recipients of it because He has chosen to pursue us and to give us His love. The Bible says that the reason this world is still spinning, the reason that Jesus has not come back yet, is because God has not forgotten His promise. He's not forgotten what He said He was going to do, but He is patient. He's waiting for yet another person to repent. Jesus is waiting and giving more and more time. He has offered His salvation to the world, and He is waiting for one more person to come to faith in Jesus Christ. There's always that next person that He is waiting on to save, because the moment Jesus returns, it's all over. And He knows that the moment of His return, everybody in that moment that is living in their sin and has not repented of their faith and turned to Jesus Christ, repented of their sin and turned in faith to Jesus Christ, everybody in that moment will be lost forever without Him. So that's why He's not come back yet. For 2,000 years, He's been waiting patiently for more and more people to come into the kingdom of God. But a day is coming when He will return. So that should be a whole lot of motivation for us to share the gospel as ambassadors. Like we said, He has commissioned us to go and make disciples of all the nations. But as we come to faith in Jesus Christ and we respond to the love that He has demonstrated towards us, that's not the only love we receive from God. He continues to love us. And we must learn to abide and live in that love. John wrote it this way in 1 John 4. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one's ever seen God. But if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us. By this, we know that we abide in Him. And He is in us because He has given us His spirit. John says, do you want to know if you abide in Jesus and if He's abiding in you? Look at your love. Look at your love for God. Look at your love for others. Because when we abide in Jesus, our heart will start to beat the same way that His heart beats. And the more time we spend with Him, the more we will love what He loves and hate what He hates. And as we spend time with Him, we will receive His love. And that love will then pour out to others. If you want evidence of whether or not you are abiding in Jesus, look at your love. Are you receiving God's love? Is it filling you up and then pouring out to those around you? And the last way we'll look tonight on how we can receive or abide in Jesus is to simply obey Him. Do you obey Jesus? Bible says in John 15, verse 10, he's continuing. And he says, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. Just as I have kept my Father's commandments and I abide in His love. We still don't like talking about this one. Inside every one of us is a little rebellious child that does not like to be told what to do. But the reality is that we cannot abide in Jesus and disobey Him at the same time. You cannot walk with Him and away from Him at the same time. When we talk about the fruit of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, Paul says that the ways of the flesh and the way of the Spirit are completely opposed to one another. They are opposite and that you can never walk in the direction of the flesh and walk towards the Spirit at the same time. Every time we move towards the flesh, we are walking away from the Spirit. Every time we are walking with the Spirit and towards the Spirit, we are walking away from the flesh. In the same way, every time we are obeying Jesus, we are walking closer to Him and we are able to abide in Him. But when we disobey Jesus, we are walking away from Him. And you cannot remain in Him and live within Him if your life is not obedient to Him. Jesus is our example in this. He says, in the same way that I have obeyed and kept my Father's commandments and I abide in His love, two chapters later in John 17, it's called us talking to somebody here earlier about the high priestly prayer. Jesus is praying to the Father in this moment and setting an example for.

relationship that we should have with God, and he says in John 17, verse 4, I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. That should be the aim of our life. We should hope by the end of our life to be able to say, Lord, I glorified you to the best of my ability, and I did everything that you told me to do. Now the relieving thing for us is that Jesus didn't heal every sick person. He didn't raise every person that died from the dead. He did not preach the gospel personally to every person on earth, but he accomplished what God had sent him to accomplish. In the same way, God has something for you to accomplish in this life. It's not gonna be everything. Pastor Steve used to say one of the things that most set me free with how I view my time and commitments and what I'm supposed to do, he says, you'll never have time to do everything that you want to do. You will never have time to do everything everybody else wants you to do, but you will always have time to do what God wants you to do. See, God put us within the 24-hour cycle. He put us in the world. He put us where our bodies need rest, need sleep. He is not going to expect more of you than he permitted you to be able to accomplish in a day, and so we need to go to him. We need to obey him and do what he calls us to do. First John 2 6 says this simply, whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way that he walked. Simple test. Do you want to walk with Jesus? Do you want to abide in him? Do what he tells you to do and do what he did. You cannot abide and disobey at the same time.