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The official audio library of sermons preached at Kingstree Church in Sabina, Ohio.
Everyone has a Jesus to proclaim. The Mormons have Jesus the divine being. Muslims will preach Jesus as a prophet. There's the social revolutionary Jesus who's proclaimed by those with various causes. There's the teacher Jesus who's proclaimed by those who say just follow his way, follow what he does, do what he does.
Christopher:There's the Jesus who accepts and affirms everyone just the way they are without calling for repentance, without calling for reconciliation or change. There's the Jesus who conveniently seems to agree with me on everything actually. The Jesus who always leads me in exactly the ways I would have hoped to go in the first place. There's all these different Jesuses. And John here says in the face of Antichrist, it's not just have Jesus abiding in you, it's have Jesus as preached by his spirit filled apostles abiding in you.
Christopher:Have Jesus, the crucified one who is risen as Lord and God abiding in you. And we find that Jesus in this book. That very Jesus who's to be abiding in us is found here supremely.
Caleb:The following message was recorded at King's Tree Church. May the spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
Christopher:Well, this morning, we are going to be in first John. And again, being family Sunday, children are welcome to stay up and to listen to the service. And I pray that they'd be able to take something from it. Sean and I were talking about how we always we didn't have kids church growing up. We just sat there and listened the whole time.
Christopher:And you picked up certain things, but the main thing you picked up was these adults believe this stuff. They actually think this matters. And that is itself something important for a child to pick up, to see adults take something that is serious, seriously, and that is joyful to rejoice in. So may that be part of the effect this morning. Returning to first John, last week we had pastor Sean, giving us the first look at resurrection in first Corinthians, and he'll be returning to that later this month.
Christopher:But now we're going back to first John as we're working our way through it. And if you can cast your mind back, last time we were in this book, we looked at the concept of the antichrist. And specifically, that the Antichrist, rather than being a particular individual, the emphasis John places on this term is that it is it is the spirit beneath and motivating the world manifest in many different individuals. And then finally, in a single one. But his emphasis is on there's a there's a spirit of Antichrist that expresses itself in many individuals, many places all around us.
Christopher:And that spirit is defined by denying that the crucified man, Jesus of Nazareth, is the risen Christ. Denying that this Jesus we proclaim as crucified is Lord and God. Holding those two things together, the spirit of antichrist breaks those apart. Denies those. Denies that confession that Jesus is the Christ.
Christopher:This week, what I want us to look at is the response that John calls his readers to and us to. How do you respond if, as it says in first John five nineteen, the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. If the whole world around us is reclining as it were in the arms of Satan, how do you live? How do you respond to a world that is motivated by the mind of antichrist? Denial of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christopher:How do you live in such a world? How do you respond? Do you pull back from culture and say, I'm just not gonna have anything to do with it? Do you get angry and defensive? Do you see a demon hiding behind every illness and every news story and every current event?
Christopher:What do you do? John's answer to us is summed up in a single word. I'd suggest that the one word response John gives to how do you respond to antichrist in the world is abide. Abide. We're gonna see that that's central to John's thinking.
Christopher:Abide in, remain in, hold fast to, feed on, drink from something. And abiding is the response that John calls for in the face of Antichrist. So look at first John chapter two. Starting in verse 18, John warns that it's the last hour because many antichrists have come. And he talks about that down through verse 21.
Christopher:And then in verse 22, he's gonna give more definition of antichrist. That's where I wanna start reading. Verse 22 of chapter two. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist.
Christopher:He who denies the father and the son. So that's what we looked at last week. The antichrist is supremely the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ and so denies the father and the son. Cuts themself off from God. Not last week, two weeks ago, last time we were in John.
Christopher:Then he goes on, no one who denies the son has the father. Whoever confesses the son has the father also. So that's what we saw last week that's kind of this warning about the presence of the Antichrist. And now, John goes into the response that we're to have. Look at verse 24.
Christopher:Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the father and in abide in the son and in the father. And this is the promise that he made to us, eternal life. So right after coming off saying the antichrist is in the world, the antichrist is the one who denies Christ, this is the spirit around you right now, He then goes to say, abide. Abide.
Christopher:Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. And if it does, you too will abide in the father and in the son. So it's this concept of abiding that I wanna look at today. Specifically as our response to a world given over to the spirit of anti Christ, opposition to God in Christ. Specifically, what does it mean to abide and what is to be abiding where?
Christopher:That's what I wanna look at this morning. And this is our life. This is not a theological, you know, dividing of hairs and saying, let's look at the theological concept of abide and see if that's helpful. This is life. This is what the Christian life is to be, an abiding.
Christopher:And so, looking at the concept of abiding is looking at what it means to live as a Christian in the midst of all the things that come upon us. All the hard things, all the joyful things, all the difficult things. And John says, our eternal life hangs upon this concept. This is the promise he has made to us, eternal life. So let's pray and then we'll look at this together.
Christopher:Father, your word is living and active, sharper than a two edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of mind and soul, dividing all the way down to the very roots of who we are. And I pray that that would be the effect today, father. I'm I'm especially conscious this morning that my own words and my own experience and my own study cannot bring the balm of healing needed for your people today. It can't bring the hope needed. It can't bring the the freedom needed.
Christopher:It can't bring the conviction needed. I cannot reach the need of your people. But you are able to, Father, and you are the only one who can. And your words can. And so I pray that your Holy Spirit would be upon this moment now to make my words the bearers of Christ.
Christopher:To make my words a means of giving Christ to your people. And that through this, father, you would work in this congregation as is needful. Building up, tearing down, lifting heads, opening eyes, breaking bonds, and bringing all to yourself for the glory of your name. Father, we commit now our ways to you. In Jesus name, amen.
Christopher:So the first question we have to ask is what did they hear from the beginning? John says, let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. You're looking out at the world, you see it's in the power of Antichrist, you're seeing even people leave from the midst of your congregation. What do you do? And John says, let what you heard from the beginning abide in you.
Christopher:That's what you do. That's your response in the face of this difficulty. And our question is, what did we hear from the beginning? What is it that was heard from the beginning that needs to be abiding in us? Now, answer you might think is, well, it's the command to love.
Christopher:Because as we saw earlier a few months ago, John does say the command to love is the command that you heard from the beginning. So maybe we think, okay, he's talking about the love command. Not I don't think exactly one to one that's what he has in mind. We'll come back to that in a moment. But if we look at the context of this passage here where he says, let what you heard from the beginning dwell in you.
Christopher:The context is, remember, a denial. A denial that the man Jesus is the Christ. That's what he's talking about. The context here is someone is denying that the crucified and risen one is Lord and God. And so, in response to that, John says, let what you heard from the beginning abide in you, which seems to indicate what you heard from the beginning is is something about Jesus.
Christopher:It's some kind of proclamation about who Jesus is. And that fits with what we saw all the way back in the very first sermon of this series, which I'm sure you all remember, but I'll refresh your mind on it. Back in chapter one verse one, John said this, that which was from the beginning. Okay. There we go.
Christopher:He's he's giving us an answer. That which was from the beginning. What what was it, John? Which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. This life was made manifest and we have seen it, and we've testified to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the father and was made manifest to us.
Christopher:Now if you can if you remember, I'm not gonna go through all the defense of this again, you can look at the first sermon. But what we said is that the tangibility that John highlights there, we saw it with our eyes, we heard it with our ears, we touched it with our hands. That tangibility is evoking, it's reminding us of the resurrection appearances of Christ. Where he said, touch my hands, look at me, see, see that I am the crucified one who is raised. And so when John here is talking about the one, that which was from the beginning, he ultimately has in mind Christ himself.
Christopher:Jesus himself crucified for us in our place, raised up again, and so revealed as Lord and God. Touched, seen, heard as the slain and risen one. He is the one who is from the beginning. So most essentially, if we're gonna pair it down to its most essentials, what is what we have heard from the beginning? Most essentially, it's the crucified and risen Jesus himself.
Christopher:The one whom the apostles saw and heard and touched, raised from the dead, revealed as Lord and God. This man Jesus who is Lord and God is the one from the beginning. But then he says, he doesn't just say, let that which is from the beginning abide in you. But in the text we're looking at today, he says, let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. So to hear Jesus, the crucified and risen one, to know about him, he needs to be proclaimed to us.
Christopher:We need to hear of him because you and I haven't seen and heard and touched this Christ. We receive him by him being proclaimed, declared. And that's what John says, let abide in you. He doesn't just say, let Jesus abide in you. He says, let the Jesus proclaimed to you abide in you.
Christopher:Let the crucified and risen one, the apostles have declared to you. Let him be dwelling in you. Let him be living in you. And that that's critical to see. Okay?
Christopher:It's not just, hey, be with Jesus. You know, Jesus is gonna be fine. Jesus is your helper. Jesus is your friend. It is the Jesus proclaimed.
Christopher:The Jesus the apostles proclaimed. He's the one by that apostolic word who is to be abiding inside us, who is to be dwelling in us. And this is important to get. Look at verse three. I'll read it for you, don't need to turn here.
Christopher:Verse three of chapter one. That which we have seen and heard, the flesh of the risen Christ, that's what's in view there. That which we have seen and heard, we also proclaimed to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed our fellowship is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ. So John is saying, let the proclaimed Christ, the apostolically proclaimed Christ abide in you.
Christopher:Now this is critical because the false teachers in John's churches would have said, we proclaim Christ. We proclaim him from the scriptures. We proclaim Christ from the old testament. We proclaim Christ. But the thing is they don't proclaim Christ as the apostles did.
Christopher:They don't proclaim him as those who were given to preach him proclaimed him. And that's where the trouble comes in. Because everyone has a Jesus to proclaim. Everyone has a Jesus to give you as their Jesus. And this is more true than ever today.
Christopher:The Mormons have Jesus the divine being. They call him the son of God, and he died for all this stuff. He's a divine being. But press them on it. He's not the uncreated God in the flesh who is crucified and raised.
Christopher:He's They they don't have a category for that. The the Muslims will preach Jesus as a prophet. They say peace be upon him, they honor him. He's a prophet. But he's not this Jesus.
Christopher:He's not the Jesus proclaimed by the apostles. There's the social revolutionary Jesus who's proclaimed by those with various causes that Jesus seems to fit in with. There's the teacher Jesus who's proclaimed by those who say, just follow his way, follow what he does, do what he does. That's part of it, but that's not all of it. He's not just the teacher Jesus.
Christopher:There's the Jesus who accepts and affirms everyone just the way they are without calling for repentance, without calling for reconciliation or change. There's that Jesus that is proclaimed. There's the Jesus who conveniently seems to agree with me on everything, actually. The Jesus who always leads me in exactly the ways I would have hoped to go in the first place. How amazing.
Christopher:How well I fit together with this Jesus. But it's because he's a creation of my own mind. So there's all these different Jesuses. And John here says, in the face of Antichrist, it's not just have Jesus abiding in you. It's have Jesus as preached by his spirit filled apostles abiding in you.
Christopher:Have Jesus, the crucified one who is risen as Lord and God abiding in you. And we find that Jesus in this book. That very Jesus who's to be abiding in us is found here supremely. Here in this deposit of inspired writings, we meet and see the face of the living Jesus Christ. His spirit gives us these words and by his spirit we find him in this book.
Christopher:But we also find him in this book as expounded, as proclaimed by the through line of his church since the beginning. It's not just, oh, I go here and find whatever I like. There there there are many differences in the in the body of Christ across time and across space right now. You could go to another church and you find all kinds of differences differences differences all over the place. But by the grace of God, flowing like a main artery down the center, flowing like a clear river down the center is a proclamation that we've heard from the beginning.
Christopher:There's a proclamation of Christ that flows down the center of the church and it's that to which we're called to listen. It's that to which we're to have abiding in us. And one way this has been expressed now for seventeen hundred years is in what's called the the confession of Nicaea or the Nicene confession. This is 1,700 years old now in 2025. This is the Jesus proclaimed by the apostles.
Christopher:Listen to this. I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, born of the father before all ages. God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the father. Through him, all things were made. For us men and for our salvation, for us humans and for our salvation, he came down from heaven and by the holy spirit was incarnate of the virgin Mary and became man.
Christopher:For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate. He suffered death and was buried and rose again on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end. That's one way the church has proclaimed this Christ from what is essentially the beginning.
Christopher:And John says, let him, let that, what I just said, as it's drawn from here, let that abide in you. Let that be in you. Let this Christ revealed in this book proclaimed by his apostles live in you. That's how you respond to anti Christ in the world around us. Now before we move on to look at what abiding means, let me make a quick point.
Christopher:What about when John says, what we heard from the beginning is the command to love? How's that work? I just say this. Think about the proclamation. I'm not gonna do this.
Christopher:This is not serious. Think about the proclamation of fire in the midst of a building filled with people. The proclamation of saying fire bears in itself the command, get out. Okay? When I proclaim fire, I'm also commanding get out.
Christopher:So too, when you proclaim this Christ, slain and risen, Lord and God, you proclaim him, you're also commanding be conformed to him. Love as he's loved. So the proclamation of this Christ is not different than the call to love, which is why John can say you've heard that command to love from the beginning as well. Now, just that's just a parenthesis. Moving on to this central question, what does it mean to abide?
Christopher:This is what is to be abiding in us, this Christ as he's proclaimed. What does it mean for him to abide in us? One of the best ways to find this, one of the best places to find this is in John 15. So we always wanna say, yeah, want the word abiding in me. I want Jesus abiding me.
Christopher:I wanna abide in Jesus. What does it mean? What does it mean? Well, Jesus gives us a picture of what it means in John 15. Let me read it for you.
Christopher:Just this passage here. John 15 verses four to 11. Jesus says this, abide in me, and listen to abide as I read it. That's what we're looking for. Abide in me and I in you.
Christopher: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. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers and the branches are gathered and thrown into the fire and burned.
Christopher:If you abide in me and my words abide in you, now notice, he doesn't say if you abide in me and I abide in you, he's changed it now to his words, because his word in us is how he abides in us. If you abide in me and my word abides in you, I lost my place. Word abides 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.
Christopher:As the father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, will abide in my love. And just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.
Christopher:So, what is abiding? Jesus does not give us a definition of abiding to memorize. Rather, he gives us an image of abiding to contemplate. We say, typically with our way of thinking, give me a definition, tell me what it is, I'll do it. And he says, no, I'm gonna give you a picture to consider, to contemplate, to work through.
Christopher:And in doing that, he's actually saying to us something about the nature of abiding. Because abiding itself is not something I can just check off the box and say I did it. It's not something I can master. I can just get my hands around. It's not a switch I can flip.
Christopher:It's not an equation to memorize. Abiding is a life that we have to live. And that's that can be tricky because we're conditioned for productivity, pragmatism, make it work. Just tell me what I need to do to make it work. I'll make it Yeah.
Christopher:That's kind of a little bit what America's built on. But this is not going this will never be like that. Abiding is a life we're called into. And just like you figure out life one moment at a time, and it's painful and confusing and difficult, but slowly but surely you realize, I guess I'm living. That's how we're called to abide.
Christopher:We're we live in Christ. That's what we're called to hear. Now, the image of the vine in the branches makes that clear to us. Because think about it, the way the vine dwells in the branch, we're thinking about how Christ dwells in us. So how does the vine dwell in the branch?
Christopher:It interpenetrates the branch. It sends its fibers into the branch. It bleeds its own life into the branch. And John says, Christ proclaimed by the apostles is to be that in us. Inter penetrating, placing the fibers of his presence into us, bleeding his life into us.
Christopher:That's the kind of connection we're supposed to have. So what is abiding from this passage? I just said it doesn't give a definition, it doesn't. But if if we try to get our hands around it in some way, abiding in this passage could be presented this way. It's continual, intimate, life giving union.
Christopher:That's abiding, I think, from here. Continual, intimate, life giving union. At least, that's what it is. That is how the slain and risen Christ is to dwell in us continually, intimately, life givingly. So let's look at those each in turn.
Christopher:Because the main thing John's focusing on in our text today is Christ abiding in us. We abide in him, we'll see that at the very, very end, but Christ abiding in us. So let's ask, how does he as a vine abide in us as branches? First, continually. Continually.
Christopher:The the vine is continually in the branch. So too, Christ proclaimed by the apostles is to be continually in us. In us. What does that mean practically? Well, at the very least, it means that we need to be, you and I, Christian, need to be taking in Christ daily.
Christopher:At the very least, we need to be taking in Christ daily. Musing on him daily. Every day. And if you think, that's that's extreme. You can say that as a pastor, but that's a little extreme.
Christopher:Well, think. We eat every day. We breathe every day, many times. Probably most of you use a phone every day. You look at a screen every day.
Christopher:At the very least then, if we confess Christ as Lord and God, we ought to receive him every day, abiding in us. A daily intake of Christ. And the analogy of food is really a helpful one here, and we're gonna return to that at the end. But think about eating. How often every day does food come to our mind?
Christopher:By the schedules that we have, right? The rhythms that we have. Our own body brings to our mind multiple times a day food. Even if you're fasting, the hunger is going to say food. You we cannot go through a day without being reminded of eating.
Christopher:And that's because eating itself is a parable built into our flesh of our need for Christ. Just as food is a parable of Christ himself built into the world. We just as we eat daily, it's brought to mind daily. The rhythm of our life is built largely around eating. So too continually Christ is to be brought to mind, taken in for the Christian.
Christopher:Now this is gonna look different for each one of us. I don't have what it looks like a program for you. It might be reading Scripture, it ought to be in some way taking in Scripture, but it might be singing hymns, it might be listening to things that are edifying that bring Christ to our mind, it might be praying the Psalms or praying with others, It might be conversations with believers. Who knows? Many different things.
Christopher:But Christ abiding in us, as John calls us to here, means at least a continually, continual dwelling of him in us. Also, that dwelling is not just to be continual, but intimate. Intimate. Look at the branch and the vine again. The branch doesn't receive life from the vine if it's just near the vine.
Christopher:Here's the vine, here's the branch. Okay. It's not. No life is flowing. Nothing's coming from one to the other.
Christopher:The branch doesn't receive life from the vine if it just touches the vine every week. Sunday for an hour, I'll touch the vine. Okay. That's good. Right?
Christopher:No. That branch is not going to be living if it just does this. Even if the branch is on top of the vine, it's just sitting on top of the vine, that's that's not gonna do it. The vine needs to be woven into the deepest places of the branch. That's how it works.
Christopher:Woven into the deepest places of the branch, penetrating into the core of the branch, bleeding its life into the branch as the branches own life. That's how the vine is in the branch. And that's what we're called to for Christ to be in us like that. Jesus Christ crucified for you, for us, for the world. Raised up again as our joy and life and invincible hope.
Christopher:Proclaimed as not just a good man or a king, but God. He is to not just be for us a new paint job on our life. Oh, yeah. I'm a Christian now. New paint job on the surface.
Christopher:No. He's not to be just one of our hobbies, even our biggest hobby. You know, I do this, this, this, and I'm big into theology too, or I'm big into this. He's not just to be one of our hobbies. He's not just to be a feature of our well balanced American life.
Christopher:You know, I've got a good family, I've got a good job, I take care of, you know, I'm I'm moral, and I go to church, and it was just this well rounded life, and of course Christ is part of that because he has to be. He is not just a piece of the clean well rounded life. He must be our life. When you trust Christ, you die. I die.
Christopher:We die. Our life is gone, and we are now raised in him. He becomes our life. Now he lives through you, and so all your particularities are going to find various expressions, but the the old life is dead. He now is our life.
Christopher:He has to be in the deepest place of our soul. One way to think about this is that the crucified and risen Jesus, for him to abide in us means that he is at home in every facet of our existence. It means there's no awkward place for Jesus in my life. There's nowhere that it's awkward for him to be. There's nowhere in my existence that it is awkward for Jesus to be because he is in me as a vine in the branch, intimately, deeply in me.
Christopher:There ought to be no dimension of my life, may it be so, externally in my hobbies, in my particular friends, in the certain things I do with my time when it's you know just my time. There should be no place in my life where Christ is not at home. There should be no place within me. Certain hobbies I have or certain pursuits I have, hidden places in my heart. Secret vices, walled off rooms where only I go.
Christopher:There should be no places like that. And in truth, there are no places like that. Christ ought to be welcome everywhere in his people. There's no awkward place for the Lord of our life to be with us. So he's not just continually in us, but he ought to be intimately in us.
Christopher:And if there are places that you think, I can't open that to him, it's too messy, I can't bring him in there, it's too dirty, I'll be ashamed. Look at his hands. Why are they pierced? Look at his side. Why is his side pierced?
Christopher:Why has he bled his life out? To wash that, to clean that, to make you his, to make every facet of your being his. Open every door, throw open every window, open everything to him. Because he knows it all. He's born it all.
Christopher:He's washed it all. He's healed it all. He's not ashamed by any of it. He's not ashamed by anything you've done or you are. Because he's born it all in himself.
Christopher:And so there's nothing to keep you from him, and there's nothing to keep him from entering in. He's not gonna come in and say, what a mess. He's gonna come in and bring you to himself, and say as it were, my child, I died to make this moment possible. I died to enter into this place and love you here, and save you here, and be with you here. There's no place that he ought not to be welcomed in.
Christopher:May it be so. Third, continually, intimately, and life givingly. So he is to dwell in us life givingly. Look at how the vine is in the branch. The branches whole life is drawn from the vine.
Christopher:Everything in the branch is coming from the vine. There's no vitality or growth or fruitfulness in the branch apart from the vines presence in that branch. So too, the word about Christ who he is proclaimed by his spirit filled apostles as we find it here in this word and as it is witnessed through that central artery of the church, he is to be our source of life. And I don't just mean spiritually. Spiritually is true.
Christopher:We're reconciled to God in him. We live because of him. Absolutely. But often what's forgotten and so I wanna emphasize it here is he genuinely becomes the place from which we draw grace for every day. Every day life is drawing upon this Christ for the Christian.
Christopher:Every day life is to be drawing our life from him. We hope in the face of hardship because he is risen and we're drawing upon the wells of hope carved out through his death and resurrection. That's why we keep hoping. Not because, oh, it's gonna be alright. Who says it's gonna be?
Christopher:If Christ isn't risen, it's not gonna be alright. We hope because he's risen. We're drawing that upon from him. We forgive when we are wronged because we're drawing mercy from the presence of the risen Christ. If I don't forgive, unforgiveness, Christian, held on to bitterness, if I refuse to do that, I am not believing the gospel.
Christopher:I'm I'm not trusting Christ in that in that refusing to forgive. Forgiveness doesn't mean welcome back and say everything's fine, nothing's wrong, you didn't do anything wrong, everything's the same. That's not what forgiveness means. But it does mean, I'm letting you go. I'm not gonna hold you in bitterness anymore.
Christopher:I'm letting you go because Christ has released me. And Christian, we're called to do that because he has forgiven us. He's forgiven us, so we forgive. We deal differently with disappointments and interruptions and losses because of who he is. Who he is changes not only who we are, but what we do, how we live.
Christopher:So for him to abide in us means our life is actually drawing upon him. Our actions are drawing upon him. We breathe the truth of God revealed at the love of the at the love of Christ in the cross. We breathe that like people gasping for air. We drink the truth of the resurrection like a parched land.
Christopher:We feed on the beauty of the slain and risen Jesus like a starving soul. And that brings us to the last analogy I wanna give you for abiding. Not only the branch and the vine, but feeding upon. That's what that's an analogy Jesus uses. Feeding on him, returning this idea of food and its central place in our life.
Christopher:In John six fifty six, which is a jarring passage and Jesus means it to be so, he says this, John six fifty six, whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides, there's our word, abides in me, and I in him. So Jesus says, the way you abide in him and he in you is by feeding upon him. Flesh and blood here ultimately means himself crucified. Flesh and blood, crucified, and raised up again. Flesh and blood, when he says you must feed on my flesh and blood, ultimately he means me proclaimed in the gospel.
Christopher:Proclaimed crucified. Proclaimed risen. Proclaimed as Lord and God and the truth who turns your death to life and your exile to homecoming and your sorrow to joy. That Christ is the food and drink upon whom we are to feed. And the feeding in view, if the flesh and blood is himself proclaimed, the feeding in view is the faith that takes him in, receives him, keeps him not just to arm's length and says, yeah, guess I can intellectually agree with that.
Christopher:Takes him in as our life. Feeding upon this one to feast our soul on this person. That is what abiding is. That's what we're called to do daily, continually, intimately as a source of our life. And John says, Antichrist has come.
Christopher:Antichrist is in the world. And response to him, the way you respond to him Christian, it's not figure out the right strategy or identify their antichrist and warn other people quickly or be scared about everything that's going on or pull back or get angry. The answer is let the message of this Christ and in fact, this Christ through his word, let him abide in you continually, intimately, and as your source of life. Let him abide in you, and you in him. There's many good and necessary responses to a world that is out of control.
Christopher:There's many good and necessary responses to the evil in the world around us. So I'm not saying those are illegitimate. But what John says here is that all of these responses flow from one place. Holding to, trusting in, drinking from, feasting on the crucified and risen Jesus as he's witnessed in this book and has he's proclaimed in his people throughout the history of his bride on this earth. So listen to Jesus' words one more time from John 15 as we're wrapping up.
Christopher:He says, oh, just hear the seriousness of what he says here. John 15 verse five. 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.
Christopher:Apart from Christ, we can do nothing of lasting value. Apart from Christ, we can do nothing of final good. We can do a lot. A lot can be done apart from Christ, but it all burns up finally like chaff in the last day. The Lord uses it for his purposes, but as far as fruit born in your life, it cannot happen apart from abiding in Christ.
Christopher:Every good and lasting work of parenting, of discipling our children, or the people the Lord's put around you, of changes in your family and in its culture and in what you're doing. Every good and lasting work in our communities, in our world, every good and lasting work of opposition to evil around us, opposition to the antichrist, every good and lasting work flows from this one source. Jesus Christ abiding in us through the word of the gospel. And then very quickly at the end, I need to just touch on this. John says, if that word is abiding in you, you are abiding in God.
Christopher:You are abiding in God. So feeding upon Christ as he's declared by his apostles, Christian, you, Kingstree, members right here, as you are feeding on Christ in his word through preaching, through teaching, through discussion and prayer, as you're saying, Lord, give me Christ, as he's dwelling in you by his word, that becomes the means by which you are dwelling in God. We together, because this happens together, we are dwelling in God. As he is in us, we dwell in him. What which means right now, in all the unglamorous monotony of life, we are actually beginning to live the life of the age to come.
Christopher:We're actually beginning to taste the feast that the Lord has set before his people. And I read this passage a lot, but it's beautiful and fitting and I'm going to read it again now. It says in Psalm thirty six eight, three six seven, how precious is your steadfast love, oh God. The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house and you're already feasting on that abundance as you are continually laying hold of Christ, crucified and risen for you.
Christopher:They feast on the abundance of your house. You give them drink from the river of your delights and you're already drinking from that river as you receive Christ proclaimed in scripture and delight in the crucified one who is risen forevermore. You give them you feed them on the abundance of your house, you give them drink from the river of your delights for with you is the fountain of life. In your light do we see light. So Christian, the eating and the drinking of God in Christ by faith now that you are doing as you're receiving him, as you're holding to him, as you're living upon what he says is so, that is the first course of the banquet that will continue for eternity.
Christopher:The banquet whose table is the whole redeemed cosmos. The banquet whose fullness is the triune God himself. And the banquet whose presiding host is the slain and risen lamb. Let me pray for us. Father, may it be so.
Christopher:May it be so that what we've heard from the beginning, this awesome message of the crucified one who is risen, this awesome message of God become man, that humans, that we might be raised up to you. Father, may this abide in us. May Christ abide in us continually, intimately, and as our source of life. Father, I pray that your spirit would work this in us even now. Lord Jesus Christ, you who are present here by your Holy Spirit, come and dwell in us.
Christopher:May every door be opened. May every room be opened. May every hesitancy be mercifully overcome. And would you dwell as the vine in the branch pouring your life into us, even as we dwell as the branch in the vine receiving all from you. May it be so today and ever increasingly, Lord, unto the ages of ages, we pray.
Christopher:In Jesus' name, amen.
Caleb:Thank you for listening to this message from King's Tree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org