January 13, 2025 • 35 mins
Pastor of Formation & Mission Benjamin Kandt continues out January vision series, preaching from John 15:1-11, to reveal how abiding in Jesus is fundamental to bearing fruit and expanding God's kingdom right here in Orlando. Pastor Ben also draws on rich biblical metaphors that illustrate the union between Christ and the church, with special attention to the imagery of a bride and bridegroom in Ephesians 5. He also reflects on the extraordinary exchange between Jesus and the church, where burdens are lifted, and divine riches are shared. This marriage-like union exemplifies how Jesus embraces us with grace and love, inviting us to share in His rights and to entrust Him with our trials—a theme that resonates deeply within our journey of faith.
Pastor Ben concludes by encouraging us to embrace the transformative power of abiding in Jesus's love and work in our daily lives. Drawing on theologian John Owen and the wisdom of John 5 and 15, he discusses how communion with Jesus is an ever-evolving dance of grace, presence, and action, shaping our spiritual life. He invites us to explore how this divine connection offers strength and peace, leading us to rely on God's love, inspired by the love shared within the Trinity.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello everyone.
This is Pastor Damien.
You're listening to SermonAudio from New City.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Orlando At New City we believe.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
All of us need all of Jesus for all of life.
For more resources, visit ourwebsite at newcityorlandocom.
Thanks for listening.
Good morning, hello, hello,good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Please pray this prayer of illumination with me.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Holy.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Spirit, open our hearts to hear your word and,
through your word, create in ourhearts a home for your presence
that we might live for theglory of the.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Father and the kingdom of his beloved Son
Through Jesus Christ.
We pray Amen.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Our scripture reading today comes from John 15, 1-11.
I am the true vine and myFather is the vinedresser.
Every branch in me that doesnot bear fruit he takes away,
and every branch that does bearfruit he prunes that it may be
more, that it may bear morefruit Already.
(01:14):
You are clean because of theword that I have spoken to you.
Abide in me and I in you, asthe branch cannot bear fruit by
itself unless it abides in thevine.
Neither can you unless youabide in me.
I am the vine, you are thebranches.
(01:36):
Whoever abides in me and I inhim, he it is that bears much
fruit, for apart from me, youcan do nothing.
If anyone does not abide in me,he is thrown away like a branch
and withers and the branchesare gathered, thrown into the
(01:57):
fire and burned.
If you abide in me and my wordsabide in you, ask whatever you
wish, and it will be done foryou.
By this my Father is glorified.
That you bear much fruit and soprove to be my disciples.
As the Father has loved me, sohave I loved you.
(02:19):
Abide in my love.
If you keep my commandments,you will abide in my love.
If you keep my commandments,you will abide in my love, just
as I have kept my father'scommandments and abide in his
love.
These things I have spoken toyou that my joy may be in you
and that your joy may be full.
(02:42):
This is God's word.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Thanks be to God.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
You may be seated.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
For decades, the ecosystem of Yellowstone
National Park was out of balanceuntil in 1995, wolves were
reintroduced and somethingremarkable happened the land
began to heal.
Remarkable happened the landbegan to heal, and what they
(03:09):
realized was going on is thatwithout wolves, the deer and the
elk populations grew too muchand so, because of that, they
grazed too much and they ate upa lot of the various plants and
things like that that were meantto hold the soil in place, so
rivers couldn't erode it andbasically enabled the whole
place to be fruitful, and sotrees couldn't grow, streams
(03:30):
eroded the land and otherspecies suffered as a result.
But when they reintroducedthese wolves, they started
eating elk and deer, so therewas fewer grazing animals, and
so trees began to flourish andflowers began to blossom.
You began to see how birdswould come back and nest in ways
they weren't.
Beavers were building dams,ponds were beginning to flourish
(03:54):
with fish and amphibians.
In other words, the wolvesbrought new life back to
Yellowstone National Park.
Now ecologists studying thishave a term for what wolves are
to the Yellowstone National Park.
They call them a keystonespecies.
A keystone species.
(04:15):
Well, at New City we believethat disciples of Jesus are a
keystone species in whateverenvironment they're in.
That is why we give ourselvesto calling, forming, sending
disciples who can make disciples.
That's why we believe that ifwe were to fill the homes and
the workplaces and therecreation locations and the
(04:36):
schools of Orlando withdisciples of Jesus, that there
would be flourishing as thekingdom comes in new and fresh
ways.
That's how our vision to seethe Father answer the Lord's
prayer and our mission to callfor and send disciple makers
works together.
We really believe that theseare connected in a meaningful
way and so as we, a community ofdisciples, seek to expand the
(05:00):
reign of God in our city onearth through the reproduction
of disciples, we really believethat flourishing will come
wherever you go.
So this month is a visionseries where we're asking and
answering the question what is adisciple of Jesus?
What is a disciple of Jesus?
There's actually a lot of ways,very biblical ways, you could
(05:22):
define that or answer thatquestion.
But yesterweek I gave you kindof the big picture on how it is
the call of every disciple to beabout making disciples, and
this week and the next two, sothese three weeks in a row,
we're going to double click onour definition of a disciple.
We're going to look at itsection by section as we go
through.
So what is our biblical robust,simple, reproducible and
(05:47):
compelling definition of adisciple of Jesus?
We believe that disciples areunited to Jesus in communion
with God, community with oneanother and co-mission for the
world.
That's what we're givingourselves to.
If we can make mature andmultiply more of those we
believe the Father, we will seethe Father increasingly answer
(06:07):
the Lord's prayer.
We'll see kingdom come inOrlando, on earth as it is in
heaven, in new and fresh ways.
So with that, I want to look atthe first two parts of this
definition.
I want to look at what it meansto be united to Jesus in
communion with God, and we'regoing to do that by looking at
John 15 together.
So if you have a Bible ordevice, get John 15 in front of
you and open so we can look atthe text together and we're
(06:30):
going to see what it means to beunited to Jesus and what it
means to experience communionwith God.
This is like a preacher'sparadise, this text, which
actually makes it really hard.
You never feel like you can dojustice to a passage as good as
John 15.
This was a harder sermon for meto prep, because I rewrote it
once because I realized that Iwanted to do something different
(06:51):
than where I started.
But that's just the beauty ofthis.
So, if you're like, you didn'ttalk about this, you're right.
I'm sorry, I'm trying to cutthe length of my sermons down.
Okay, look with me at John 15,verse 5.
It says this Jesus is talking.
He says I am the vine, you arethe branches.
Whoever abides in me and I inhim, he it is that bears much
fruit, for apart from me, youcan do nothing.
(07:14):
You see, what Jesus is doinghere is he wants to get at this
deep, settled conviction thatshapes our moment-by-moment,
daily existence, which is apartfrom me, you can do nothing.
He's trying to get at thisinnate allergy that each of us
has to dependence on Jesus inthe daily realities of our life.
(07:37):
This independence ordisconnection from Jesus leads
to, I believe, most of theanxiety and anger, most of the
meaninglessness and joylessnessthat we experience in our lives.
And so Jesus is loving us herewhen he says apart from me, you
can do nothing.
Really, jesus, nothing, nothingLike that seems a little bit of
(08:01):
an overstatement, right?
And so you might be thinkingwell, yeah, but Jesus just means
my spiritual life, right?
Well, I don't think so, becauseI don't think Jesus would
concede that you have aspiritual life and any other
life.
I think Jesus would agree withMary Oliver that you have one
wild and precious life, that'sit, and that all of life matters
(08:24):
to Jesus and that Jesus mattersto all of life.
So I don't think he's justsaying, yeah, just in your
spiritual life you need Jesus.
I think he's saying in all oflife you need Jesus.
You can do nothing apart fromhim in all of life.
But isn't it true that we cando some things Like?
Yes, functionally, that's true,you can build a career,
(08:45):
accomplish tasks, achieve goals.
You can do those things.
But here's what Jesus is tryingto do.
He's trying to help you withthe math.
He's trying to help youunderstand that if you add up a
lifetime of efforts apart fromJesus, in the end the sum will
equal zero.
It will equal zero and youdon't have to trust me, trust
(09:05):
Jim Carrey.
This is what Jim Carrey, youknow the pet detective.
Listen to what he said.
He spent a lifetime trying toquote, make it as an actor and
once he had arrived and becomefamous and wealthy and popular
and all these things.
This is what he said.
He said that somewhere in themiddle of absolute confusion,
absolute disappointment, thefruition of all my dreams.
(09:27):
Notice that word in the middleof absolute confusion, absolute
disappointment, the fruition ofall my dreams.
Notice that word the fruition,the fruitfulness of all of my
dreams, standing there witheverything anybody else had ever
dreamed about having.
And I was still unhappy.
Did you catch that?
Did you see?
Jim Carrey just said he gavehimself to something that was
fruitless in the end because hedid it apart from Jesus.
(09:48):
I don't know if Jim Carrey knowsJesus, but that's my assumption
.
He goes on to say this I thinkeverybody should get rich and
famous and do everything theyever dreamed of, so that they
can see that it's not the answer.
You see, listen, jesus, andimare trying to love you right now
.
When he says, apart from me,you can do nothing, you can do
(10:12):
nothing.
It's a, it's a strong statement.
So what do we do?
What's the answer?
Well, jesus has an answer forus in verse five.
He says this us, in verse 5, hesays this I am the vine, you
are the branches.
Whoever abides in me and I inhim, he it is that bears much
(10:36):
fruit, for apart from me, youcan do nothing.
You see, jesus is helping uswith the question like do you
want your life to matter, do youwant to have a meaningful
existence, do you want it tocount for something in the long
run?
What Jesus does is he drawsyour attention to all the sticks
laying in your yard after awindy week.
That's what he's doing, like.
I walked around yesterdaypicking up dead, lifeless
brittle branches with brownleaves from my yard and realized
(10:58):
this is what Jesus is talkingabout here Now.
The wind didn't cause most ofthose branches to die.
They were already dead.
The wind just revealed theirdeadness.
That's a similar thing, becausea branch and a human are
similar in that the source fromwhich you draw life is the most
important thing about you.
And so Jesus is trying to askand answer a question for you
(11:19):
what is your source?
What is your source?
Is it your energy, yourcharisma, your dreams, your
willpower, your motivation, yourstory?
Like?
Is it all of those things?
Because you can expect thatyou'll have a life of
fruitlessness.
If that's the case, jesus isdrawing you.
(11:41):
He's saying apart from me, youcan do nothing.
You see, in John's gospel themost repeated theme is life,
what John calls eternal life.
And so Jesus is regularly inthe gospel of John, trying to
(12:03):
help you find the false sourcesof life that you turn to and
draw your attention to the truesources of life so you can
derive a true, meaningful life.
Now, according to scripture,there's really only two kinds,
two types, two ways todifferentiate human beings.
This is the fundamentaldifferentiation.
There are those who are bynature.
All humans are separated fromGod by sin, that's one group.
(12:27):
But by grace, some humans areunited to Jesus by faith, that's
another group.
That's it, that's all.
Humans are in one of those twocategories, and Jesus is trying
to help us understand what itlooks like to move from here to
here, to draw life from source,from not separation from God,
but union with Jesus.
(12:50):
So what does that look like?
Well, the Bible believes thatone of your most important
faculties is your imagination,and so it's constantly trying to
baptize your imagination withvarious pictures and images and
metaphors.
And so if you read thescriptures, you see that union
with Jesus, union with Christ,has multiple metaphors to help
(13:10):
you understand the state of theunion, if you will, and so I'm
not going to take the time now,but maybe over the next few
weeks we'll unpack temple andthe stones, or the champion and
the people, or the body and thehead.
These are all metaphors, but Ijust want to look at two.
The first one I want to payattention to here is in
(13:30):
Ephesians 5, paul talks abouthow our relationship with Jesus,
our union with Christ, is likea bride and her bridegroom.
And so he says this.
In Ephesians 5, 31 through 32,paul quotes Genesis to say that
marriage between a man and awoman quote refers to Christ and
his church.
This union between a man and awoman is a picture.
(13:51):
It's actually an image of whatJesus and the church look like
when they're united together.
Now, I've been a bicyclecommuter on and off for over a
decade now, and this week was atough one for me.
And this week was a tough onefor me, and the reason why is
because I've studied enoughpsychology to understand that
(14:12):
freely chosen, harmless pain isreally good for you what Andrew
Huberman calls micro sucks.
And so when I woke up in themorning and saw that it was 37
degrees, I'm still going to sendit right Like I'm here for it.
There's nothing I can do but gofor it.
So I climbed up into the atticafter Monday and Tuesday and
(14:34):
learned from my mistakes.
Climb up in the attic onWednesday and I'm looking for my
snowboard gear, which belongsin the attic in Orlando.
And I get up there and I lookat my nice fancy snowboard bag,
unzip it, open it up to find allof Alana's snow clothes in
there.
I'm thinking this is weird,where are my things?
So I'm looking through theattic and I find this like
(14:56):
tattered trash bag and I open itup and there's my parka and
gloves and boots.
And so I dig through it, findmy gloves.
And then I'm a little bit putoff.
I'm like how did this happen?
How did my stuff get out of mybag and Alana's stuff get in my
bag?
And then I remembered that we'reone flesh and what's mine is
(15:21):
hers and what's hers is mine,and that the vows that I lead
young lovely people through whenthey get married is that, with
all that I am and all the vowsthat I lead young lovely people
through when they get married,is that, with all that I am and
all that I have, I honor thee.
And and I'm thinking aboutthese things she's not even here
.
She's in city kids right now.
But, babe, like you can haveany attic container receptacle
for whatever you want it's.
If it's mine, it's yours, yougot it.
(15:43):
But.
But seriously though, unlike me,jesus is a good king and a good
lover to his bride.
He doesn't get upset when wetake his things and put our
things where his belong.
In fact, the image that Jesusgives us of him as a groom and
the church as his bride isalmost like a great king who
(16:03):
decides to marry a slave woman.
And in marrying this slavewoman, all of her debt becomes
his and all of his riches becomehers.
Her servitude is absorbed byhis magnitude.
His freedom becomes her liberty.
You see, all of your wrongsbecome Jesus' responsibility and
(16:25):
all of Jesus' rights becomeyour rights.
This is union with Christ asyour groom, as the bridegroom,
as we are collectively, thechurch, his bride.
It's a beautiful reality,because all that is his become
ours and all that is oursbecomes his Now.
But listen for a moment.
Some of you are trying to signa prenup with Jesus, his Now.
(16:48):
But listen for a moment.
Some of you are trying to signa prenup with Jesus.
It doesn't work that way.
Like you can't outline yourassets as you enter into this
relationship with him.
It's intimate and total.
It's all or nothing.
This is the way that union withJesus works, and it's actually
good news.
This is why the Song of Songssays it like this, in chapter 6,
verse 3, I am my beloved's andmy beloved is mine.
(17:09):
Can you say that about Jesusfrom the heart?
I am my beloved's and mybeloved is mine.
That is the picture of unionwith Christ as a bride and a
bridegroom.
Now there's a preacher story.
I don't know if it's true, butthat doesn't stop preachers
oftentimes from telling a goodstory.
And so the story goes like thisthere was an elder that was
(17:30):
interviewing a child formembership, and usually at New
City, when we interview childrenfor membership to come to the
Lord's table, we're asking tomake sure they understand how
the gospel, what the gospel isand how salvation works, these
kind of things.
And so the elder asked thequestion something like hey, how
does someone get right with God?
To which the child replied I domy part and God does his part.
(17:54):
The elder got a littleconcerned and asked okay, and
what is that?
And the child said I bring thesin, he brings the salvation.
You see the beauty of that, thesimplicity of childlike faith
is all that it takes to bring usinto a transforming union with
Jesus.
That's good news for us, and so, as disciples are united to
(18:19):
Jesus, it's actually incommunion with God, and that's
the second thing I want to lookat is our communion with God.
That's the emphasis of John 15.
It's what Jesus calls abidinghere in our text, what I'm
calling communion.
I'm using those termssynonymously.
Okay, in these 11 verses thatwe read, the word abide shows up
(18:41):
10 times 10 times in 11 verses.
That helps you sometimes, ifyou're reading scripture, to
understand what is this passageabout.
It's about abiding, and I'msaying abiding and communion are
synonyms.
So Jesus wants to teach youwhat it looks like to draw life
from your union with him.
In verse 5, I am the vine, youare the branches.
(19:01):
That's about union with Jesus.
But in verse 4, when he says,abide in me, that's about
communion with God.
I'm going to draw a distinctionhere between union and communion
.
I get that from a theologiannamed John Owen in maybe the
best book that you'll probablynever read, called Communion
with the Triune God.
It's thick and amazing andglorious, but hard to read at
(19:22):
times, but it's an incredibleread.
But he draws this distinctionand shows the relationship
between union and communion.
And it's actually reallyimportant to get this.
If you can internalize therelationship between union and
communion, it will change yourlife.
I assure you of that.
Now, what do I mean?
The word communion is justsimply calm union with union and
(19:45):
it's when you, it flows fromour union with Jesus, but it's
making our union with Jesus, ouroneness with him, an
experiential reality in ourlives.
But you have to understandsomething here Union is the
power train of the Christianlife, but communion is like the
hub that connects to that powertrain, displaces the power
through the wheels, so the thingcan actually roll and do
(20:07):
something.
Union is our unchanging onenesswith Jesus, established by
grace, through faith.
Communion is the dynamic, livedexperience of that oneness with
him by grace and effort.
Union is objective and secureand complete.
Communion is subjective, lively, interactive enjoyment of that
(20:32):
union with Jesus.
Union is a never-changing,all-of-grace fixed-reality
contingent on God alone.
Communion can ebb and flow withour trust, our sins, our moods,
our circumstances and ouractive engagement with God in
(20:52):
our experience of our union withJesus.
You see, this is important Ifyou had a straight, flat line.
I don't mean in the sense oflike death, but just a straight,
flat line.
That's our union with Christ.
It's unchanging.
It's not contingent upon you inany way, shape or form.
That's our union with Christ.
It's unchanging.
It's not contingent upon you inany way, shape or form.
It's all of grace, it's thegift of God.
(21:13):
But our experience of that, ourcommunion, can ebb and flow.
It can have highs and lows,peaks and valleys.
This is really important to getthis for the Christian life to
live fruitfully as a disciple ofJesus.
And so what's the answer to amore fruitful life, what's the
answer to more enjoyment of God,for a more lived experience of
New Testament reality?
It's returning to your onenesswith Jesus in moment-by-moment
(21:36):
daily life, so that you can drawlife from him.
This is really significant toeverything that it means to be
Christian.
I'm convinced union andcommunion is the centerpiece of
all of Christianity.
It's all about this Union withJesus, communion with the triune
God.
If you get those I don't justmean intellectually, like if
(21:57):
that gets into your bones, intoyour soul you begin to live out
of this.
This is the Christian liferight here.
So how do we commune with God?
How?
How do we abide in Jesus?
Disciples are united to Jesusin communion with God, through
receiving and responding.
This is my updated languagefrom John Owen.
(22:17):
It's simply receiving all thatGod is for us and responding
with all that we have to offerback to him.
It's this back and forth,dialogical, interactive
relationship with God that wehave Now.
If I were to give those twowords, phrases or questions, I
would say we are receiving whatGod is saying and doing and
we're responding with, given whoyou are, what will I do?
(22:39):
What will you do?
Okay, that's this receiving andresponding, this back and forth
.
Now, this is based on theassumption that God is always at
work in and around you, thatGod is pursuing a real, personal
, interactive love relationshipwith you.
Right now he's pursuing that,and that God wants to invite you
(23:00):
into and get you involved inthe work that he's up to in the
world around you.
That that's actually a constantinvitation.
He's just he's beckoning youJoin me, come, do this thing
with me.
I'm about a lot of things goingon in the world.
I want you in on this.
And so we receive thatinvitation.
We respond with our willingnessto join in and enter in, and so
(23:23):
what does that actually looklike in practice?
I want to take the rest of thesermon just simply to equip you
to receive and respond.
Now in January, many of usstart reengaging our scripture
plans.
We're doing the McShane planhere with New City.
I want you to see what does itlook like to receive and respond
as we engage a scripturepassage?
(23:43):
Jesus said in John 5, a fewchapters before ours.
He talked about the Phariseesof his day and he said you
search the scriptures becauseyou think that in them you have
life, but it's they that bearwitness about me.
Yet you refuse to come to me.
I take Jesus' reading ofscripture to mean that the Bible
is a means to an end.
(24:04):
The Bible is a means to come toJesus through the scriptures.
One of the reasons whyscripture feels so dead and dry
and lifeless is because youdon't come to Jesus through the
Bible.
You search the scripturesbecause you think that in them
you have life, but it's theythat bear witness to Jesus.
And so the scriptures are signs, they're witnesses that point
(24:24):
to Jesus so we can come to himin communion, receiving and
responding to him.
So just look at John 15 with mefor a moment.
We've already talked about this.
Jesus is the true vine, verse 5.
We receive that.
That's union with him, and thenwe abide in him as our response
.
That's our communion right.
Or in verse 2, it says that theFather is the vine dresser
(24:49):
communion right.
Or in verse 2, it says that theFather is the vine dresser.
If the Father is the vinedresser, we receive that.
We say this is who you are, god.
I receive that and I respond byparticipating in the pruning
shaping work that you're doingin my life.
Or Jesus says in verse 7, ifyou abide in me and my words
abide in you, that's receiving.
If you receive the words ofJesus, you take them into you,
(25:11):
you internalize them, what Psalm1 calls meditation.
If you're willing to receivethem, then the response is verse
7, ask whatever you wish and itwill be done to you.
Do you see this Like?
If you're willing to receive mywords and respond with your
words, you're going to see somefruitfulness start showing up in
your life.
Jesus is practically invitingyou into what it means to
(25:33):
commune with him.
It's not surprising thatreceiving his words, responding
with our words, which you couldjust call communication is core
to our life with God.
Is core to our life with Godthat we internalize God's words
and we respond with our wordsthrough word and prayer, this
back and forth dialogue with God.
That's what we're being invitedinto as we commune with God
(25:57):
through communicating with God.
Okay, so some of you might gookay, that's in scripture, but
you said a little bit ago thatthis is supposed to be for all
of life.
Yes, absolutely.
One of the reasons I rewrotethis sermon is because my aim is
for you to take John Owen intothe marketplace, like I don't
want it, just being in yourquiet time quote unquote or like
in that comfy chair with yourcoffee in the morning and then
(26:17):
you go to work and it's nothing.
I want you to take this intothe wild.
I think communing, receivingand responding to Jesus in
everyday, moment-by-momentrealities is essential.
It's core to what it means tobe fruitful.
Dallas Willard said it likethis the kingdom of God is what
(26:40):
God is doing.
That's important Simpledefinition the kingdom of God is
what God is doing.
So how do you seek first thekingdom of God?
Well, you try to find out whatGod is doing and get involved
with it.
God is doing things in yourneighborhood.
God is doing things among yourfamily and friends.
God is doing things in yourworkplace.
God is doing things, he'salways on the move.
Jesus says in John 5, I amworking and my Father's working
(27:03):
Present tense, ongoing.
God is just working, he's up tosomething in the world, and so
to seek first the kingdom meansto get in on it with him.
God, you're at work, I want toreceive whatever it is that
you're saying and doing, and Iwant to respond by giving who I
am.
I'm going to show up and joinyou in it.
And so, god, what does it meanfor us to actually engage in
(27:24):
this in real life?
I sent a text to a friend, amember here at New City, because
I had a hunch that he wouldknow what this is like.
What does it mean to abide inJesus, to commune with Jesus in
business?
This guy's in business in hiswork life, and so I asked him
this question and this was theresponse.
I'm just going to read it.
It says this quote when I thinkabout abiding in my work life,
(27:53):
my mind goes to three phases ofthe day before work, during work
and after work.
Before work, during.
He tells a story.
He says during a businessdrought, he felt his heart
starting to grow with anxiety,self-pressure and grasping for
control.
Anybody else.
He goes on.
He says so.
I did the best thing I could doin that moment.
I brought my heart to the LordOn an early morning bike ride.
I just poured out my heart tohim.
As I was praying, a prospectiveclient came to my mind and the
(28:16):
Lord was leading me to call him.
This person laughed becausethis client is notoriously hard
to get a hold of, but he pressed.
Notoriously hard to get a holdof, but he pressed and he
trusted that this was reallyfrom the Lord.
And so he said quote the Lordknows the clients I am to serve.
I need to just abide and trustin his leading timing and
(28:38):
provision.
And so he called this clientthat morning.
They connected and shortlyafter he became a client.
Now, during work this is what hesays there have been moments
when I've been in a complexsituation and needed the Lord's
help to solve the issues.
In coming to him in prayer andwith a heart that is leaning and
walking with him, he gives mehis I love this language his
creative ability, peace and thewords to say.
(29:00):
This has happened so many times.
Many times I've asked pleasegive me the words to say.
And he answers that prayerbecause he promises to.
Third, after work, we processthe day together.
I have many similar stories ofbeing crossed or hurt or
betrayed, etc.
But God is faithful and thereto meet me.
He invites me to share thestory with him, connect with him
(29:23):
in my emotions and desires,comfort me and help me to
recover.
And it is connect with him inmy emotions and desires, comfort
me and help me to recover, andit is so loving of him to do
this so that I can love myfamily well when I get home.
There are many stories of God'sfaithfulness.
This is how he ends.
There are many stories of God'sfaithfulness, especially in work
.
The main thing is he is alwaysthere, he is willing and
available.
(29:44):
The question is will I abide?
Will I accept his invitation?
Will I connect with him?
Will I trust him?
Will I work with him inpartnership?
I told him nothing about thissermon other than it was on John
15.
And so you can see how thisperson is a keystone species in
their business.
They bring life and flourishingand joy, not anxiety and
(30:07):
competition and ruthlessness,because they are walking into
their workplace in communionwith the triune god as they go
about their business.
So as we close, leslie newbeginsays that it is the life of
Jesus himself reproduced in thelives of the disciples, in the
(30:28):
midst of the life of the world,the life of Jesus in the midst
of the life of the world beingreproduced in all of your lives.
That's the vision of John 15,right there.
But there's a verse in herethat I think might be the most
breathtaking, astounding here.
(30:49):
That I think might be the mostbreathtaking, astounding,
mind-blowing.
Few words in the entire Bible.
Is that superlative enough?
Look with me at John 15, verse9.
John 15, verse 9 says this asthe Father has loved me, so have
I loved you.
Abide in my love.
We break it down into communionlanguage receiving as the
Father has loved me, so have Iloved you.
(31:10):
Responding abiding in that love.
Now listen for a moment.
The Father's love for Jesus.
Jesus has for you.
That's what he's saying here.
The intra-Trinitarian enjoyment, delight and bliss that's been
happening between the Father andthe Son and the Spirit for all
eternity is poured out on yourhead, it's poured out into your
(31:34):
life, it's given freely to you.
The delight of the Father forhis Son is the delight of the
Son for you.
That's unbelievable and wordsfail me.
I feel that I feel the povertyof human speech to articulate
what Jesus is saying here, andso all that I can really hope
for is John 5, 5, where the loveof God is poured out by the
(31:57):
Spirit into our hearts.
It's the only thing I can askfor in a moment like this.
And so Jesus is genius.
He knows that you have to beloved well before you can love
well.
A quote from John Owen's book.
He says this communion with theFather, son and Spirit begins
with God's love for us and endsin our love for God.
You see, we give as much ofourselves.
(32:19):
This is just.
This is kind of factual.
You'll understand this in yourlife.
You will only give as much ofyourself to Jesus as you believe
Jesus has given to you.
Now I don't mean intellectually, I mean like a settled
confidence.
Jesus has given me his all.
Now I can give him my all.
And so, because of that, jesusis inviting you to take a moment
(32:41):
to consider that the source,that the standard of his love
for you is the Trinitarian loveof the Father for his own Son,
utterly non-contingent upon whoyou are or what you do, or who
you aren't, or what you don't do.
This is life-changing, if wecan receive this and respond to
(33:02):
this.
But you might be like me andsay that sounds staggering.
But I don't feel that love.
I don't experience that on thedaily.
I get it, I really do.
And the invitation of union andcommunion is to return to your
oneness with Jesus, to look tohim, especially on the cross, to
see the love of the Father foryou.
You see, I'm not a vintner.
(33:25):
I think that's somebody who hasa vineyard.
I'm not even much of a gardeneranymore.
But what I understand is thatthe only way that a branch can
be grafted into a vine is iffirst that vine is wounded to
create a place for that branchto be grafted in.
You see, grafting is notpossible unless the vine is
(33:47):
willing to be laid bare andopened up so that the inner life
of the tree can be received bythe branch.
It's only through such awounding that this access into
the fellowship of the sap andthe growth and the life of the
vine can actually be attained.
And so in the death of the of jthe cross, christ himself was
wounded and in his open woundshe prepared a place for us to be
(34:10):
grafted in so that we coulddraw on the love of the Father,
son and Holy Spirit throughJesus into our lives in real
time.
And as we return repeatedlyback to that, we can take up
Jesus's words that aretrustworthy and true, which say
as the Father has loved me, evenso, I love you, abide in my
love.
This is why Henry Nowlin saysthat life is just a little
(34:35):
opportunity during a few yearsto say to God I love you too.
Now, as we pray, I'm gonnainvite us to do a practice, just
to close out here, that Ilearned from the Chinese house
church, which enabled them toendure persecution.
They get on their knees.
I put my hand on my heartbecause, as Romans 5 says,
(34:58):
that's where the spirit poursout the love of God, and so I
put my hand over my heart and Ipray like this, and so I'm going
to invite you to join me inthis prayer.
Lord, there is no righteousnesswithin me, but you are my
righteousness.
I am afraid, but you are mypeace.
I want to flee, but you remainsteadfast.
I am small, but you are great.
(35:19):
I am poor, but you are rich.
I am weak, but you are strong.
Thank you for all that you'vedone to make us one.
It's in your beautiful name Ipray Amen.
Hello everyone.
This is Pastor Damien.
You're listening to SermonAudio from New City.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Orlando At New City we believe.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
All of us need all of Jesus for all of life.
For more resources, visit ourwebsite at newcityorlandocom.
Thanks for listening.
Good morning, hello, hello,good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Please pray this prayer of illumination with me.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Holy.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Spirit, open our hearts to hear your word and,
through your word, create in ourhearts a home for your presence
that we might live for theglory of the.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Father and the kingdom of his beloved Son
Through Jesus Christ.
We pray Amen.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Our scripture reading today comes from John 15, 1-11.
I am the true vine and myFather is the vinedresser.
Every branch in me that doesnot bear fruit he takes away,
and every branch that does bearfruit he prunes that it may be
more, that it may bear morefruit Already.
(01:14):
You are clean because of theword that I have spoken to you.
Abide in me and I in you, asthe branch cannot bear fruit by
itself unless it abides in thevine.
Neither can you unless youabide in me.
I am the vine, you are thebranches.
(01:36):
Whoever abides in me and I inhim, he it is that bears much
fruit, for apart from me, youcan do nothing.
If anyone does not abide in me,he is thrown away like a branch
and withers and the branchesare gathered, thrown into the
(01:57):
fire and burned.
If you abide in me and my wordsabide in you, ask whatever you
wish, and it will be done foryou.
By this my Father is glorified.
That you bear much fruit and soprove to be my disciples.
As the Father has loved me, sohave I loved you.
(02:19):
Abide in my love.
If you keep my commandments,you will abide in my love.
If you keep my commandments,you will abide in my love, just
as I have kept my father'scommandments and abide in his
love.
These things I have spoken toyou that my joy may be in you
and that your joy may be full.
(02:42):
This is God's word.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Thanks be to God.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
You may be seated.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
For decades, the ecosystem of Yellowstone
National Park was out of balanceuntil in 1995, wolves were
reintroduced and somethingremarkable happened the land
began to heal.
Remarkable happened the landbegan to heal, and what they
(03:09):
realized was going on is thatwithout wolves, the deer and the
elk populations grew too muchand so, because of that, they
grazed too much and they ate upa lot of the various plants and
things like that that were meantto hold the soil in place, so
rivers couldn't erode it andbasically enabled the whole
place to be fruitful, and sotrees couldn't grow, streams
(03:30):
eroded the land and otherspecies suffered as a result.
But when they reintroducedthese wolves, they started
eating elk and deer, so therewas fewer grazing animals, and
so trees began to flourish andflowers began to blossom.
You began to see how birdswould come back and nest in ways
they weren't.
Beavers were building dams,ponds were beginning to flourish
(03:54):
with fish and amphibians.
In other words, the wolvesbrought new life back to
Yellowstone National Park.
Now ecologists studying thishave a term for what wolves are
to the Yellowstone National Park.
They call them a keystonespecies.
A keystone species.
(04:15):
Well, at New City we believethat disciples of Jesus are a
keystone species in whateverenvironment they're in.
That is why we give ourselvesto calling, forming, sending
disciples who can make disciples.
That's why we believe that ifwe were to fill the homes and
the workplaces and therecreation locations and the
(04:36):
schools of Orlando withdisciples of Jesus, that there
would be flourishing as thekingdom comes in new and fresh
ways.
That's how our vision to seethe Father answer the Lord's
prayer and our mission to callfor and send disciple makers
works together.
We really believe that theseare connected in a meaningful
way and so as we, a community ofdisciples, seek to expand the
(05:00):
reign of God in our city onearth through the reproduction
of disciples, we really believethat flourishing will come
wherever you go.
So this month is a visionseries where we're asking and
answering the question what is adisciple of Jesus?
What is a disciple of Jesus?
There's actually a lot of ways,very biblical ways, you could
(05:22):
define that or answer thatquestion.
But yesterweek I gave you kindof the big picture on how it is
the call of every disciple to beabout making disciples, and
this week and the next two, sothese three weeks in a row,
we're going to double click onour definition of a disciple.
We're going to look at itsection by section as we go
through.
So what is our biblical robust,simple, reproducible and
(05:47):
compelling definition of adisciple of Jesus?
We believe that disciples areunited to Jesus in communion
with God, community with oneanother and co-mission for the
world.
That's what we're givingourselves to.
If we can make mature andmultiply more of those we
believe the Father, we will seethe Father increasingly answer
(06:07):
the Lord's prayer.
We'll see kingdom come inOrlando, on earth as it is in
heaven, in new and fresh ways.
So with that, I want to look atthe first two parts of this
definition.
I want to look at what it meansto be united to Jesus in
communion with God, and we'regoing to do that by looking at
John 15 together.
So if you have a Bible ordevice, get John 15 in front of
you and open so we can look atthe text together and we're
(06:30):
going to see what it means to beunited to Jesus and what it
means to experience communionwith God.
This is like a preacher'sparadise, this text, which
actually makes it really hard.
You never feel like you can dojustice to a passage as good as
John 15.
This was a harder sermon for meto prep, because I rewrote it
once because I realized that Iwanted to do something different
(06:51):
than where I started.
But that's just the beauty ofthis.
So, if you're like, you didn'ttalk about this, you're right.
I'm sorry, I'm trying to cutthe length of my sermons down.
Okay, look with me at John 15,verse 5.
It says this Jesus is talking.
He says I am the vine, you arethe branches.
Whoever abides in me and I inhim, he it is that bears much
fruit, for apart from me, youcan do nothing.
(07:14):
You see, what Jesus is doinghere is he wants to get at this
deep, settled conviction thatshapes our moment-by-moment,
daily existence, which is apartfrom me, you can do nothing.
He's trying to get at thisinnate allergy that each of us
has to dependence on Jesus inthe daily realities of our life.
(07:37):
This independence ordisconnection from Jesus leads
to, I believe, most of theanxiety and anger, most of the
meaninglessness and joylessnessthat we experience in our lives.
And so Jesus is loving us herewhen he says apart from me, you
can do nothing.
Really, jesus, nothing, nothingLike that seems a little bit of
(08:01):
an overstatement, right?
And so you might be thinkingwell, yeah, but Jesus just means
my spiritual life, right?
Well, I don't think so, becauseI don't think Jesus would
concede that you have aspiritual life and any other
life.
I think Jesus would agree withMary Oliver that you have one
wild and precious life, that'sit, and that all of life matters
(08:24):
to Jesus and that Jesus mattersto all of life.
So I don't think he's justsaying, yeah, just in your
spiritual life you need Jesus.
I think he's saying in all oflife you need Jesus.
You can do nothing apart fromhim in all of life.
But isn't it true that we cando some things Like?
Yes, functionally, that's true,you can build a career,
(08:45):
accomplish tasks, achieve goals.
You can do those things.
But here's what Jesus is tryingto do.
He's trying to help you withthe math.
He's trying to help youunderstand that if you add up a
lifetime of efforts apart fromJesus, in the end the sum will
equal zero.
It will equal zero and youdon't have to trust me, trust
(09:05):
Jim Carrey.
This is what Jim Carrey, youknow the pet detective.
Listen to what he said.
He spent a lifetime trying toquote, make it as an actor and
once he had arrived and becomefamous and wealthy and popular
and all these things.
This is what he said.
He said that somewhere in themiddle of absolute confusion,
absolute disappointment, thefruition of all my dreams.
(09:27):
Notice that word in the middleof absolute confusion, absolute
disappointment, the fruition ofall my dreams.
Notice that word the fruition,the fruitfulness of all of my
dreams, standing there witheverything anybody else had ever
dreamed about having.
And I was still unhappy.
Did you catch that?
Did you see?
Jim Carrey just said he gavehimself to something that was
fruitless in the end because hedid it apart from Jesus.
(09:48):
I don't know if Jim Carrey knowsJesus, but that's my assumption
.
He goes on to say this I thinkeverybody should get rich and
famous and do everything theyever dreamed of, so that they
can see that it's not the answer.
You see, listen, jesus, andimare trying to love you right now
.
When he says, apart from me,you can do nothing, you can do
(10:12):
nothing.
It's a, it's a strong statement.
So what do we do?
What's the answer?
Well, jesus has an answer forus in verse five.
He says this us, in verse 5, hesays this I am the vine, you
are the branches.
Whoever abides in me and I inhim, he it is that bears much
(10:36):
fruit, for apart from me, youcan do nothing.
You see, jesus is helping uswith the question like do you
want your life to matter, do youwant to have a meaningful
existence, do you want it tocount for something in the long
run?
What Jesus does is he drawsyour attention to all the sticks
laying in your yard after awindy week.
That's what he's doing, like.
I walked around yesterdaypicking up dead, lifeless
brittle branches with brownleaves from my yard and realized
(10:58):
this is what Jesus is talkingabout here Now.
The wind didn't cause most ofthose branches to die.
They were already dead.
The wind just revealed theirdeadness.
That's a similar thing, becausea branch and a human are
similar in that the source fromwhich you draw life is the most
important thing about you.
And so Jesus is trying to askand answer a question for you
(11:19):
what is your source?
What is your source?
Is it your energy, yourcharisma, your dreams, your
willpower, your motivation, yourstory?
Like?
Is it all of those things?
Because you can expect thatyou'll have a life of
fruitlessness.
If that's the case, jesus isdrawing you.
(11:41):
He's saying apart from me, youcan do nothing.
You see, in John's gospel themost repeated theme is life,
what John calls eternal life.
And so Jesus is regularly inthe gospel of John, trying to
(12:03):
help you find the false sourcesof life that you turn to and
draw your attention to the truesources of life so you can
derive a true, meaningful life.
Now, according to scripture,there's really only two kinds,
two types, two ways todifferentiate human beings.
This is the fundamentaldifferentiation.
There are those who are bynature.
All humans are separated fromGod by sin, that's one group.
(12:27):
But by grace, some humans areunited to Jesus by faith, that's
another group.
That's it, that's all.
Humans are in one of those twocategories, and Jesus is trying
to help us understand what itlooks like to move from here to
here, to draw life from source,from not separation from God,
but union with Jesus.
(12:50):
So what does that look like?
Well, the Bible believes thatone of your most important
faculties is your imagination,and so it's constantly trying to
baptize your imagination withvarious pictures and images and
metaphors.
And so if you read thescriptures, you see that union
with Jesus, union with Christ,has multiple metaphors to help
(13:10):
you understand the state of theunion, if you will, and so I'm
not going to take the time now,but maybe over the next few
weeks we'll unpack temple andthe stones, or the champion and
the people, or the body and thehead.
These are all metaphors, but Ijust want to look at two.
The first one I want to payattention to here is in
(13:30):
Ephesians 5, paul talks abouthow our relationship with Jesus,
our union with Christ, is likea bride and her bridegroom.
And so he says this.
In Ephesians 5, 31 through 32,paul quotes Genesis to say that
marriage between a man and awoman quote refers to Christ and
his church.
This union between a man and awoman is a picture.
(13:51):
It's actually an image of whatJesus and the church look like
when they're united together.
Now, I've been a bicyclecommuter on and off for over a
decade now, and this week was atough one for me.
And this week was a tough onefor me, and the reason why is
because I've studied enoughpsychology to understand that
(14:12):
freely chosen, harmless pain isreally good for you what Andrew
Huberman calls micro sucks.
And so when I woke up in themorning and saw that it was 37
degrees, I'm still going to sendit right Like I'm here for it.
There's nothing I can do but gofor it.
So I climbed up into the atticafter Monday and Tuesday and
(14:34):
learned from my mistakes.
Climb up in the attic onWednesday and I'm looking for my
snowboard gear, which belongsin the attic in Orlando.
And I get up there and I lookat my nice fancy snowboard bag,
unzip it, open it up to find allof Alana's snow clothes in
there.
I'm thinking this is weird,where are my things?
So I'm looking through theattic and I find this like
(14:56):
tattered trash bag and I open itup and there's my parka and
gloves and boots.
And so I dig through it, findmy gloves.
And then I'm a little bit putoff.
I'm like how did this happen?
How did my stuff get out of mybag and Alana's stuff get in my
bag?
And then I remembered that we'reone flesh and what's mine is
(15:21):
hers and what's hers is mine,and that the vows that I lead
young lovely people through whenthey get married is that, with
all that I am and all the vowsthat I lead young lovely people
through when they get married,is that, with all that I am and
all that I have, I honor thee.
And and I'm thinking aboutthese things she's not even here
.
She's in city kids right now.
But, babe, like you can haveany attic container receptacle
for whatever you want it's.
If it's mine, it's yours, yougot it.
(15:43):
But.
But seriously though, unlike me,jesus is a good king and a good
lover to his bride.
He doesn't get upset when wetake his things and put our
things where his belong.
In fact, the image that Jesusgives us of him as a groom and
the church as his bride isalmost like a great king who
(16:03):
decides to marry a slave woman.
And in marrying this slavewoman, all of her debt becomes
his and all of his riches becomehers.
Her servitude is absorbed byhis magnitude.
His freedom becomes her liberty.
You see, all of your wrongsbecome Jesus' responsibility and
(16:25):
all of Jesus' rights becomeyour rights.
This is union with Christ asyour groom, as the bridegroom,
as we are collectively, thechurch, his bride.
It's a beautiful reality,because all that is his become
ours and all that is oursbecomes his Now.
But listen for a moment.
Some of you are trying to signa prenup with Jesus, his Now.
(16:48):
But listen for a moment.
Some of you are trying to signa prenup with Jesus.
It doesn't work that way.
Like you can't outline yourassets as you enter into this
relationship with him.
It's intimate and total.
It's all or nothing.
This is the way that union withJesus works, and it's actually
good news.
This is why the Song of Songssays it like this, in chapter 6,
verse 3, I am my beloved's andmy beloved is mine.
(17:09):
Can you say that about Jesusfrom the heart?
I am my beloved's and mybeloved is mine.
That is the picture of unionwith Christ as a bride and a
bridegroom.
Now there's a preacher story.
I don't know if it's true, butthat doesn't stop preachers
oftentimes from telling a goodstory.
And so the story goes like thisthere was an elder that was
(17:30):
interviewing a child formembership, and usually at New
City, when we interview childrenfor membership to come to the
Lord's table, we're asking tomake sure they understand how
the gospel, what the gospel isand how salvation works, these
kind of things.
And so the elder asked thequestion something like hey, how
does someone get right with God?
To which the child replied I domy part and God does his part.
(17:54):
The elder got a littleconcerned and asked okay, and
what is that?
And the child said I bring thesin, he brings the salvation.
You see the beauty of that, thesimplicity of childlike faith
is all that it takes to bring usinto a transforming union with
Jesus.
That's good news for us, and so, as disciples are united to
(18:19):
Jesus, it's actually incommunion with God, and that's
the second thing I want to lookat is our communion with God.
That's the emphasis of John 15.
It's what Jesus calls abidinghere in our text, what I'm
calling communion.
I'm using those termssynonymously.
Okay, in these 11 verses thatwe read, the word abide shows up
(18:41):
10 times 10 times in 11 verses.
That helps you sometimes, ifyou're reading scripture, to
understand what is this passageabout.
It's about abiding, and I'msaying abiding and communion are
synonyms.
So Jesus wants to teach youwhat it looks like to draw life
from your union with him.
In verse 5, I am the vine, youare the branches.
(19:01):
That's about union with Jesus.
But in verse 4, when he says,abide in me, that's about
communion with God.
I'm going to draw a distinctionhere between union and communion
.
I get that from a theologiannamed John Owen in maybe the
best book that you'll probablynever read, called Communion
with the Triune God.
It's thick and amazing andglorious, but hard to read at
(19:22):
times, but it's an incredibleread.
But he draws this distinctionand shows the relationship
between union and communion.
And it's actually reallyimportant to get this.
If you can internalize therelationship between union and
communion, it will change yourlife.
I assure you of that.
Now, what do I mean?
The word communion is justsimply calm union with union and
(19:45):
it's when you, it flows fromour union with Jesus, but it's
making our union with Jesus, ouroneness with him, an
experiential reality in ourlives.
But you have to understandsomething here Union is the
power train of the Christianlife, but communion is like the
hub that connects to that powertrain, displaces the power
through the wheels, so the thingcan actually roll and do
(20:07):
something.
Union is our unchanging onenesswith Jesus, established by
grace, through faith.
Communion is the dynamic, livedexperience of that oneness with
him by grace and effort.
Union is objective and secureand complete.
Communion is subjective, lively, interactive enjoyment of that
(20:32):
union with Jesus.
Union is a never-changing,all-of-grace fixed-reality
contingent on God alone.
Communion can ebb and flow withour trust, our sins, our moods,
our circumstances and ouractive engagement with God in
(20:52):
our experience of our union withJesus.
You see, this is important Ifyou had a straight, flat line.
I don't mean in the sense oflike death, but just a straight,
flat line.
That's our union with Christ.
It's unchanging.
It's not contingent upon you inany way, shape or form.
That's our union with Christ.
It's unchanging.
It's not contingent upon you inany way, shape or form.
It's all of grace, it's thegift of God.
(21:13):
But our experience of that, ourcommunion, can ebb and flow.
It can have highs and lows,peaks and valleys.
This is really important to getthis for the Christian life to
live fruitfully as a disciple ofJesus.
And so what's the answer to amore fruitful life, what's the
answer to more enjoyment of God,for a more lived experience of
New Testament reality?
It's returning to your onenesswith Jesus in moment-by-moment
(21:36):
daily life, so that you can drawlife from him.
This is really significant toeverything that it means to be
Christian.
I'm convinced union andcommunion is the centerpiece of
all of Christianity.
It's all about this Union withJesus, communion with the triune
God.
If you get those I don't justmean intellectually, like if
(21:57):
that gets into your bones, intoyour soul you begin to live out
of this.
This is the Christian liferight here.
So how do we commune with God?
How?
How do we abide in Jesus?
Disciples are united to Jesusin communion with God, through
receiving and responding.
This is my updated languagefrom John Owen.
(22:17):
It's simply receiving all thatGod is for us and responding
with all that we have to offerback to him.
It's this back and forth,dialogical, interactive
relationship with God that wehave Now.
If I were to give those twowords, phrases or questions, I
would say we are receiving whatGod is saying and doing and
we're responding with, given whoyou are, what will I do?
(22:39):
What will you do?
Okay, that's this receiving andresponding, this back and forth
.
Now, this is based on theassumption that God is always at
work in and around you, thatGod is pursuing a real, personal
, interactive love relationshipwith you.
Right now he's pursuing that,and that God wants to invite you
(23:00):
into and get you involved inthe work that he's up to in the
world around you.
That that's actually a constantinvitation.
He's just he's beckoning youJoin me, come, do this thing
with me.
I'm about a lot of things goingon in the world.
I want you in on this.
And so we receive thatinvitation.
We respond with our willingnessto join in and enter in, and so
(23:23):
what does that actually looklike in practice?
I want to take the rest of thesermon just simply to equip you
to receive and respond.
Now in January, many of usstart reengaging our scripture
plans.
We're doing the McShane planhere with New City.
I want you to see what does itlook like to receive and respond
as we engage a scripturepassage?
(23:43):
Jesus said in John 5, a fewchapters before ours.
He talked about the Phariseesof his day and he said you
search the scriptures becauseyou think that in them you have
life, but it's they that bearwitness about me.
Yet you refuse to come to me.
I take Jesus' reading ofscripture to mean that the Bible
is a means to an end.
(24:04):
The Bible is a means to come toJesus through the scriptures.
One of the reasons whyscripture feels so dead and dry
and lifeless is because youdon't come to Jesus through the
Bible.
You search the scripturesbecause you think that in them
you have life, but it's theythat bear witness to Jesus.
And so the scriptures are signs, they're witnesses that point
(24:24):
to Jesus so we can come to himin communion, receiving and
responding to him.
So just look at John 15 with mefor a moment.
We've already talked about this.
Jesus is the true vine, verse 5.
We receive that.
That's union with him, and thenwe abide in him as our response
.
That's our communion right.
Or in verse 2, it says that theFather is the vine dresser
(24:49):
communion right.
Or in verse 2, it says that theFather is the vine dresser.
If the Father is the vinedresser, we receive that.
We say this is who you are, god.
I receive that and I respond byparticipating in the pruning
shaping work that you're doingin my life.
Or Jesus says in verse 7, ifyou abide in me and my words
abide in you, that's receiving.
If you receive the words ofJesus, you take them into you,
(25:11):
you internalize them, what Psalm1 calls meditation.
If you're willing to receivethem, then the response is verse
7, ask whatever you wish and itwill be done to you.
Do you see this Like?
If you're willing to receive mywords and respond with your
words, you're going to see somefruitfulness start showing up in
your life.
Jesus is practically invitingyou into what it means to
(25:33):
commune with him.
It's not surprising thatreceiving his words, responding
with our words, which you couldjust call communication is core
to our life with God.
Is core to our life with Godthat we internalize God's words
and we respond with our wordsthrough word and prayer, this
back and forth dialogue with God.
That's what we're being invitedinto as we commune with God
(25:57):
through communicating with God.
Okay, so some of you might gookay, that's in scripture, but
you said a little bit ago thatthis is supposed to be for all
of life.
Yes, absolutely.
One of the reasons I rewrotethis sermon is because my aim is
for you to take John Owen intothe marketplace, like I don't
want it, just being in yourquiet time quote unquote or like
in that comfy chair with yourcoffee in the morning and then
(26:17):
you go to work and it's nothing.
I want you to take this intothe wild.
I think communing, receivingand responding to Jesus in
everyday, moment-by-momentrealities is essential.
It's core to what it means tobe fruitful.
Dallas Willard said it likethis the kingdom of God is what
(26:40):
God is doing.
That's important Simpledefinition the kingdom of God is
what God is doing.
So how do you seek first thekingdom of God?
Well, you try to find out whatGod is doing and get involved
with it.
God is doing things in yourneighborhood.
God is doing things among yourfamily and friends.
God is doing things in yourworkplace.
God is doing things, he'salways on the move.
Jesus says in John 5, I amworking and my Father's working
(27:03):
Present tense, ongoing.
God is just working, he's up tosomething in the world, and so
to seek first the kingdom meansto get in on it with him.
God, you're at work, I want toreceive whatever it is that
you're saying and doing, and Iwant to respond by giving who I
am.
I'm going to show up and joinyou in it.
And so, god, what does it meanfor us to actually engage in
(27:24):
this in real life?
I sent a text to a friend, amember here at New City, because
I had a hunch that he wouldknow what this is like.
What does it mean to abide inJesus, to commune with Jesus in
business?
This guy's in business in hiswork life, and so I asked him
this question and this was theresponse.
I'm just going to read it.
It says this quote when I thinkabout abiding in my work life,
(27:53):
my mind goes to three phases ofthe day before work, during work
and after work.
Before work, during.
He tells a story.
He says during a businessdrought, he felt his heart
starting to grow with anxiety,self-pressure and grasping for
control.
Anybody else.
He goes on.
He says so.
I did the best thing I could doin that moment.
I brought my heart to the LordOn an early morning bike ride.
I just poured out my heart tohim.
As I was praying, a prospectiveclient came to my mind and the
(28:16):
Lord was leading me to call him.
This person laughed becausethis client is notoriously hard
to get a hold of, but he pressed.
Notoriously hard to get a holdof, but he pressed and he
trusted that this was reallyfrom the Lord.
And so he said quote the Lordknows the clients I am to serve.
I need to just abide and trustin his leading timing and
(28:38):
provision.
And so he called this clientthat morning.
They connected and shortlyafter he became a client.
Now, during work this is what hesays there have been moments
when I've been in a complexsituation and needed the Lord's
help to solve the issues.
In coming to him in prayer andwith a heart that is leaning and
walking with him, he gives mehis I love this language his
creative ability, peace and thewords to say.
(29:00):
This has happened so many times.
Many times I've asked pleasegive me the words to say.
And he answers that prayerbecause he promises to.
Third, after work, we processthe day together.
I have many similar stories ofbeing crossed or hurt or
betrayed, etc.
But God is faithful and thereto meet me.
He invites me to share thestory with him, connect with him
(29:23):
in my emotions and desires,comfort me and help me to
recover.
And it is connect with him inmy emotions and desires, comfort
me and help me to recover, andit is so loving of him to do
this so that I can love myfamily well when I get home.
There are many stories of God'sfaithfulness.
This is how he ends.
There are many stories of God'sfaithfulness, especially in work
.
The main thing is he is alwaysthere, he is willing and
available.
(29:44):
The question is will I abide?
Will I accept his invitation?
Will I connect with him?
Will I trust him?
Will I work with him inpartnership?
I told him nothing about thissermon other than it was on John
15.
And so you can see how thisperson is a keystone species in
their business.
They bring life and flourishingand joy, not anxiety and
(30:07):
competition and ruthlessness,because they are walking into
their workplace in communionwith the triune god as they go
about their business.
So as we close, leslie newbeginsays that it is the life of
Jesus himself reproduced in thelives of the disciples, in the
(30:28):
midst of the life of the world,the life of Jesus in the midst
of the life of the world beingreproduced in all of your lives.
That's the vision of John 15,right there.
But there's a verse in herethat I think might be the most
breathtaking, astounding here.
(30:49):
That I think might be the mostbreathtaking, astounding,
mind-blowing.
Few words in the entire Bible.
Is that superlative enough?
Look with me at John 15, verse9.
John 15, verse 9 says this asthe Father has loved me, so have
I loved you.
Abide in my love.
We break it down into communionlanguage receiving as the
Father has loved me, so have Iloved you.
(31:10):
Responding abiding in that love.
Now listen for a moment.
The Father's love for Jesus.
Jesus has for you.
That's what he's saying here.
The intra-Trinitarian enjoyment, delight and bliss that's been
happening between the Father andthe Son and the Spirit for all
eternity is poured out on yourhead, it's poured out into your
(31:34):
life, it's given freely to you.
The delight of the Father forhis Son is the delight of the
Son for you.
That's unbelievable and wordsfail me.
I feel that I feel the povertyof human speech to articulate
what Jesus is saying here, andso all that I can really hope
for is John 5, 5, where the loveof God is poured out by the
(31:57):
Spirit into our hearts.
It's the only thing I can askfor in a moment like this.
And so Jesus is genius.
He knows that you have to beloved well before you can love
well.
A quote from John Owen's book.
He says this communion with theFather, son and Spirit begins
with God's love for us and endsin our love for God.
You see, we give as much ofourselves.
(32:19):
This is just.
This is kind of factual.
You'll understand this in yourlife.
You will only give as much ofyourself to Jesus as you believe
Jesus has given to you.
Now I don't mean intellectually, I mean like a settled
confidence.
Jesus has given me his all.
Now I can give him my all.
And so, because of that, jesusis inviting you to take a moment
(32:41):
to consider that the source,that the standard of his love
for you is the Trinitarian loveof the Father for his own Son,
utterly non-contingent upon whoyou are or what you do, or who
you aren't, or what you don't do.
This is life-changing, if wecan receive this and respond to
(33:02):
this.
But you might be like me andsay that sounds staggering.
But I don't feel that love.
I don't experience that on thedaily.
I get it, I really do.
And the invitation of union andcommunion is to return to your
oneness with Jesus, to look tohim, especially on the cross, to
see the love of the Father foryou.
You see, I'm not a vintner.
(33:25):
I think that's somebody who hasa vineyard.
I'm not even much of a gardeneranymore.
But what I understand is thatthe only way that a branch can
be grafted into a vine is iffirst that vine is wounded to
create a place for that branchto be grafted in.
You see, grafting is notpossible unless the vine is
(33:47):
willing to be laid bare andopened up so that the inner life
of the tree can be received bythe branch.
It's only through such awounding that this access into
the fellowship of the sap andthe growth and the life of the
vine can actually be attained.
And so in the death of the of jthe cross, christ himself was
wounded and in his open woundshe prepared a place for us to be
(34:10):
grafted in so that we coulddraw on the love of the Father,
son and Holy Spirit throughJesus into our lives in real
time.
And as we return repeatedlyback to that, we can take up
Jesus's words that aretrustworthy and true, which say
as the Father has loved me, evenso, I love you, abide in my
love.
This is why Henry Nowlin saysthat life is just a little
(34:35):
opportunity during a few yearsto say to God I love you too.
Now, as we pray, I'm gonnainvite us to do a practice, just
to close out here, that Ilearned from the Chinese house
church, which enabled them toendure persecution.
They get on their knees.
I put my hand on my heartbecause, as Romans 5 says,
(34:58):
that's where the spirit poursout the love of God, and so I
put my hand over my heart and Ipray like this, and so I'm going
to invite you to join me inthis prayer.
Lord, there is no righteousnesswithin me, but you are my
righteousness.
I am afraid, but you are mypeace.
I want to flee, but you remainsteadfast.
I am small, but you are great.
(35:19):
I am poor, but you are rich.
I am weak, but you are strong.
Thank you for all that you'vedone to make us one.
It's in your beautiful name Ipray Amen.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.