ABIDE While Being Human

Well, what do you think about that miracle-working God that we have?

You guys, we have had 2 miracles so far in this conference.

Last night, John MacLeod was in a— what could have been a

very tragic accident where a car hit him while he was riding a

bike, and he survived. And,

and here's the thing, I go over to him last night, he's sitting over there.

There's so many things you can say in that moment. And he says to

me, "Pastor Kevin, I really think the Lord's trying to teach

me," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. My

goodness, my word. And then a baby has life.

We sang this morning, "Waymaker,

miracle worker." Do you believe in a miracle-working God?

He is a miracle-working God. Are you paying attention that He

loves us so much that He would connect the dots of the thread of

what He's doing? And He's going to continue to do it this

morning as we bring bring up our next speaker, somebody

who I would— I don't use this word lightly, and I have assigned this word

to under 10 people in this house, but I believe that

Rhonda Frazier is a pillar of Sarna Assembly

Springhouse Church. Her consistency, her faithfulness in the

Lord has helped cultivate the longevity of

this house and what the Lord's doing. Would you guys please welcome my friend Rhonda

Frazier.

Pastor, thank you, Pastor. Oh, good morning. Did Vonda take us to

church? All right, well, in,

um, uh, y'all, if we haven't memorized John 15:1 by now, you

John 15:1

don't need the slides for what— I mean, you know, let's just— we'll just see

about that in a minute. Also, I have some books. One of the

books has a, a— it was written in the 1800s,

so that's a long time ago. And so, people back then were

trying to figure out how to abide in Christ. And so, Andrew Murray wrote some

words about that to try to help them figure that out, and

we're gonna talk a little bit about that today. And in the,

you know, there's— this is not a Scripture, but it's

kind of a proverb or an adage, "Variety is the spice of life."

And now, for something completely different.

Would you roll that beautiful cheese footage?

All right, so I'm just gonna be honest with you and say that

when I read John 15, sometimes, and we've read it a lot,

I can feel like that. I can feel like that scene,

and it goes something like this. The mom,

"Follow Christ." "Oh, I've already done that. What number are

we on?" "I don't know, it's your Bible. Try to

keep up." "Oh, okay, the next step, abide in me." abide in the

vine. What does that mean? What does

abide in the vine mean? You abide in the

vine. Well, I understand that, but how?

How do you abide in the vine? What do you do? David, I cannot show

you everything. Can you show me one thing?

You just, you just, here's what you do. You just

abide in. Okay, I don't know

how to do that. And I don't know how to be any clearer.

You just take this thing and you, if you say

abide one more time,

it says abide.

Abide. It says abide. I also just think

of the Princess Bride and that the

Inigo Montoya, you keep using that word. I do not think it means what

you think it means.

So my assignment this morning is to talk to us and to think

about what it means to abide while

being a human. And my question to

my leadership is, do we have another option?

Is there a way to do this without being human? I don't think

so. So I want us to start

I want us to start just a minute with what the

humans that were walking with Jesus in chapter 15, so we

are gonna be in John 15, and what they might have

been experiencing. So all the

disciples had heard at some point those beautiful

two words, "Follow me."

And sometimes it was literally, "James!" "Follow me,

John, follow me." And other times it also could have been, especially

like if you're, you know, if you watch "The Chosen," it could have been like,

"Hey, Andrew, keep up, follow me." It was repeated

more than 20 times in the gospels, "Follow me, follow me."

And it was a recurring phrase. And when the disciples were called, either

in small groups or individually, it's, "Follow me."

Rhonda, in Matthew 16:24, we've already heard it this morning, that

Matthew 16:24

says, "Take up your cross and follow me."

He says, "Follow me and walk in the light," in John 8:12.

John 8:12

And to Peter, oh Peter, over in John

John 21:22

21:22, it's really like Jesus is saying,

"Peter, worry about yourself and follow me."

The disciples were used to that call. It was familiar.

But Jesus had also just said to them,

like in John 14, 13, 14,

"I'm going away and you will not be able

to follow me." Earlier that evening he

had said, "My children, I will be with you only a little

while longer. Where I am going you cannot come." And they

clearly did not understand what he meant. He encourages

them and he promises to send them a helper, the Holy Spirit.

He promises to give them peace. And in the last verse of

John, 14, Jesus says, "I will no longer

talk with you much 'cause I've gotta go do what

the Father has commanded me so the world may know

that I love the Father. Rise up,

let's go from this place." And it's not recorded in

Scripture, but there was an understood, "Follow

me." This leads us to the chapter break and

we get into John 15, and this is the passage that we've

been living in, and dare I say it, abiding in

for this time. Jesus and the disciples were on

the move to the garden. Now, Pastor Kevin alluded to this 2

weeks ago when he brought our attention to Old Testament

passages that refer to Israel as the vine and

God as the vinekeeper. And here in John

15, we hear Jesus say, can we say it all

together? Now, this is from the NIV, so, Vine dresser, gardener, it's

okay. All right, "I am the true

vine and my Father is the

gardener." Some scholars say that since the

disciples were on a walk, in transit,

that it is possible that Jesus was talking

to them in the temple courtyard in

sight of a huge carved

golden vine. This

vine was the national symbol of Israel. Think

Stars and Stripes. Some scholars wonder if Jesus'

statement, "I am the true

vine," might have been made in sight

of that carved vine. And even if it didn't happen like that,

there is no doubt that the disciples knew the

imagery and the pride of the symbol. They would

recall hearing the readings from Isaiah and

Ezekiel where the vine imagery is strong.

In Old Testament passages, Israel is described as a

vine. Israel was to be the channel through which the

blessings of God would flow to the whole world.

That promise was repeated over and over in the Old

Testament. God's life and love and justice and

righteousness were supposed to flow to all the earth through

Israel. But the vine of Israel

repeatedly fails to bear the fruit that God

intended. And now here is Jesus with

all of that strong vine imagery layered in

their songs and their poetry and the prophecy of

the ages saying to the disciples, "I

am the true vine."

David Platt says of this scene, "It's like Jesus was saying to them, 'You thought

it was Israel, but no, it's me. I'm the vine.

I will be the channel through which the fruit of God will flow.

Jesus is proclaiming, 'What I am, what Israel

never could be. Life, love, power,

and goodness will flow to the nations through me.'"

And then Jesus says something so incredibly hopeful to the

disciples, 'cause if you hear that your nation is not the

vine, vine, then where does that place you? He says to

them, "But you have a place. You have a purchase,

a purpose. You are the branches. Your place

in the vine is secured. You are attached to me. You are

mine, joined to me. If you stay here and abide in me,

you will experience my life flowing through you

always." That same declaration is made

to you and me. Jesus says to you and me,

the humans reading this text, "Abide

in me." But how?

How do we abide? How do we fold it in?

This brokenness that we're left with, what does that look like?

We have to remember that we need rest.

Come to me and find rest. This came up on Thursday night when the

leadership gathered. Matthew 11:28-30,

Matthew 11:28–30

come to me, all you who labor and are heavy

laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke

upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle

and lowly in heart, and you will find rest

for your souls. For my yoke is easy

my burden is light. And isn't it

just like Jesus to marry the

language of rest with the language of

work? To marry the language of rest

with the language of learning? You are

laboring and carrying a heavy load.

How does it get better? Come, come, come shoulder to

shoulder with me. "Come shoulder to me. Come

be my student. Learn from me. Yoke yourself up

to me. Yield yourself to my words and my ways. Come

in step with me and let your life, all of it,

be synced up." In other words,

"Abide in me." But

this takes surrender.

Surrender of our will, surrender of our pride and our

independence. This yoking up and abiding

requires acknowledgement that we can't do the work without

Jesus. In 1882, Andrew Murray

says, "It's not the yoke, but the resistance to the

yoke that causes the difficulty." Well, that'll preach

on Twitter or X or whatever it is. I don't even know. Okay, that could

be a meme. That could be a meme today, all right? What an incredible

thing to know that when we come to Jesus, we have

access to the Almighty One, and

he will teach us all day and keep

us all day, 'cause he's always speaking, for he has

promised he will do it. And what does

that abandon and surrender to the yoke bring?

Rest. I will give you

rest. You will find rest for your souls. Stay

here, dwell here, live here, shoulder

up here, abide here, come to me. Come to me and find

rest. Finding a posture of spiritual rest

in Christ is life-giving and empowering.

Abiding results in work that

brings rest.

For humans to abide, we have to

recognize that we are needy.

Humans, we are needy, but we don't wanna be,

and that's the rub of it all. Our neediness, guess

where it echoes? All the way back to the garden

where Vonda took us. All the

way back to the garden. Adam, in the

perfection of Eden, needed

a companion like himself.

I heard a teacher once, and this was a teaching on the differences

in male and female, and she was saying that she

envisioned when God put Adam to the work

of naming the animals, that part of the process that Adam might have

been doing was, "Giraffe, not like me.

Not like me. Not like me. Not like me." And then,

When Eve is presented, like me,

like me, this is what I need. Adam

needed Eve before the fall.

Being needy is a part of being truly human. It's a part of

our— it's not a part of our brokenness or fallen nature. God

gave the good gift of Eve to Adam before

the fall and before they decided

that the gardener was wrong.

But sin entered the picture and it entered us, and we no

longer understand our neediness correctly. We don't see it

as a strength that keeps us in community and

interconnected. We jockey for position and power.

We grasp instead of help. We lash out instead of

latching on, and we independently reject that we are

truly needy. We forget that

we need the vine. We don't want to need the

vine. We forget that Acts 17:28

Acts 17:28

applies to us. "In him we live and

move and have our being." Or as

Jesus says to the disciples on this walk to Gethsemane,

"Apart from me you can do nothing." Nothing of

real glorifying value for the kingdom can be

accomplished without abiding in

the vine. And what a thing for Him to say, "Apart from

me you can't do nothing," when He just said, "I'm gonna be out of here

and you can't come with me."

I was listening to a podcast this week and Jackie Hill Perry

referenced an exposition that John Piper had done on

2 Corinthians 4:16-18.

2 Corinthians 4:16–18

And that passage says, "Therefore do not

lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet

inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us

an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So fix

your eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen.

For what is seen is temporary, "but what is

unseen is eternal." So I looked up

that sermon from Piper, and he goes on to say that

what Paul writes here should give us great hope, that

we are renewed day by day.

That is a hopeful idea. Piper says that when we live our, these are

his words, he says we live our life and we leak and we

fade and we must be renewed day by day because, his words,

we can't run on yesterday's gas. And that's

what abiding is. New mercies every

morning. Getting filled up daily.

We see this gift of daily manna to the children. We

see it in that, and for the children of Israel. We well know, we

know the story. They had to get that provision every day, and that's what

Jesus said too in his prayer when he taught us how to pray, "Give

me my daily bread." This act of daily

gathering was a physical reminder that they were

needy, but their needs were met.

The same is true for us. The call to abide in the vine

is a daily call, a constant call, an ever-present

recognition that the source of our very life is the

vine himself. Everything else is

powerless, gloryless, and a dim shadow of

what could be. But in our

humanity, we, like Eve,

stand in front of the vine and say, "I won't

die apart from you. I know better than you.

I can sustain myself. This knowledge won't hurt

me. This fruit is for me. It is mine to take."

And we don't believe the truth about the vine.

It's because we can't fathom his love for us. We don't understand

the heart of the vinedresser. We don't believe

what the gardener says is true.

Abide in the vine is the purest picture of our need for

Jesus to sustain and keep

us. And the good news is,

he promised to do that. That he would do it. He

will sustain us. Now, at this point, with all this

abiding and all this spiritual stuff that maybe we're trying to tap into,

one might pose the question that Johnny Cash proffered in

the lyrics of his song "No Earthly Good" back in

1977 when this maybe hit the airwaves, because it probably was on the B-side of

that album. Uh, come heed me, my brothers, come heed me

one and all. Don't brag about yourself or surely you'll fall.

You're shining your light, and shine it you should, but you're

so heavenly minded, you're no earthly good. Now, there's some

scriptures referenced in there, right? There's some scriptures in there,

right? Come, come, listen up, right? He who has ears to

hear, let him hear. Don't brag about standing, or surely you'll fall.

Pride goes before a fall. That's scriptural. You're shining your light, and

surely you should. You're a city on a hill, right? Don't

hide it under a bushel, no. Right?

I can remember my grandmother saying about some people, "They're

so heavenly minded, they're no earthly good." I didn't know she listened to Johnny Cash,

'cause she didn't— Maw

Maw Farley, I don't know, but that's not Scripture.

That's not Scripture. I mean, that's a good lyric in a country song, but

that's not Scripture. Because one could kind

of think like Cash, "All this abiding in the vine will

make me of no value to the people around me. I'll be

so caught up in spiritual things, I can't accomplish this thing

because I'm so busy abiding."

I don't know about you, but that never personally has been my experience about myself.

It is only when I abide that I can be of even the

smallest good to anyone

or myself or any situation. Lazarus'

sister Martha would likely have joined in Cash's chorus and

heartily sang it in pointed direction to

Mary.

In her latest book, Upon Waking, Jackie Hill Perry writes that

Mary was distracted by much serving. She

was anxious— not, sorry, Martha. Martha was distracted by much serving.

She was anxious but still doing something good. No,

hospitality's a good thing. To Jesus, Martha asked,

"Don't you care?" He cares and he loves, and Martha comes to

him not in intimacy, but in accusation. And she says to

Jesus, "Tell her to help me."

And Jackie writes, "When we are

distracted, it shapes the things that we ask God for.

God has to reorient our petitions and

reshape our thinking to let us know what it is that we

really need. You think you need something you don't actually need.

Martha thinks she needs her sister's help, but she actually

needs Jesus to sit at his

feet. She thinks her anxiety and trouble will

be fixed if Mary just scoots on up and helps her. It's reasonable

in human sense, but Jesus says your

anxiety and distraction will not be fixed even

if Mary helps. Sit down next to your

sister and then you can serve without distraction.

Oh, Father, help us to stop asking

for a thing when what we really need is

to be asking for you. And

isn't that what the need to abide is?

Replacing the need for a thing and reaching

in prayer and meditation to the God of the

universe who is the source He's the source of everything we

actually need. When

humans abide, there will be fruit.

And we know there's going to be fruit on the branches because Jesus

says there will be fruit. And this fruit is

evidence of abiding in the vine. It's the

logical, irresistible outcome of being in the flow

of the life-giving, character-changing power of the

vine. John 15 is a rhythm

of abide in the vine, bear fruit, receive the vinedresser's

pruning, bear fruit, abide, bear much

fruit, back and forth, abide, bear, abide, bear, prune,

bear. If there's any formula, that's it.

When the branches, you and me, get busy abiding,

the fruit will come because the vine

the gardener say it will come and

send it. When we are in the vine,

growth and change toward Christ-likeness is

infinitely possible. So many times you and I,

we buy into the babble of the world's phrases like, "People don't

change," or, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them,"

or if you've ever seen any episode of Oprah— of Friends,

"Once a cheater, always a cheater." I mean, you know, there's just those things. This

mindset It is incompatible with being a believer.

It's bad theology. This

is unrepentant, unredeemed world speak.

You and I are described in scripture like

putty. We are clay in the

potter's hands. We can change. Only

God does not change. Only God is

immutable. You and me, we change. Thank

God we can be changed. Tim Keller

rolled off this list when speaking about the enormous potential for change that you

and I have when the Holy Spirit is at work in us. And I'm insane,

when the Holy Spirit is at work in us. And he's

reflecting on Galatians 5 where the scripture of the list of the fruit of

the Spirit lives. And he says, this is his list.

The selfish person becomes generous. The controlling

person, a liberator. The cowardly person,

courageous. The worrier becomes a rock.

He continues, the world, I love this phrase, the world

can only offer weak morality, magic,

self-help, and try-hard. But the Word of God

offers us something that transcends all of that.

We get Jesus!

Jesus, real and concrete. We are drawing from

His pulsating life like a branch draws from the

vine, and that's the secret. If we

are connected to Jesus, abiding in the vine, the hard

things that come to everyone

don't break us. They don't make us

hard. They soften us.

They make us more human.

The internal, abiding work of the Holy Spirit

brings fruit. What's

the purpose of this fruit? Look at me, I got

a lot of things on my branches. No, John 15:8

John 15:8

spells it out, "This is to my Father's glory

that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples." His disciples.

Glory? Proof of discipleship?

Fruit is the evidence of abiding. A branch

isolated or removed from the branch will never

bear fruit. In the world of botany— okay, let's go

to school for a minute. I mean, a different school. Different— okay. In the world

of botany, there are a lot of elements that come into play

for a vine to bear fruit. There are going to be seasonal temperature changes,

water, hours of sunlight, pollination. It's a complicated

business to grow a cluster of There is

only one component required for you to bear spiritual fruit.

Abide in the vine. Abide. Fruit's been

promised. I cannot manufacture it. I cannot muster it

up. I cannot strive for it as hard as I

want to. Love, joy,

peace, patience, kindness, goodness,

thanksgiving, Faithfulness, gentleness, self-control do not

come by the sheer willing them into

existence. We abide and fruit

will come. But I don't see it yet. Stay put.

Fruit will come. Dwell.

Remain rooted, grounded in the

vine. Fruit will come. Amen. Jen

Wilkin gave this encouragement a couple of weeks ago on the Knowing

Faith podcast. And this season on that podcast, they've been tackling

tricky questions that some believers have, and some of them have been quite

funny, like, will pets be in heaven? It's been a real fun ride. But

this particular one, and maybe you should listen to that one, it was fun.

They had different opinions about that. So,

on this question, it was like, how can I know I am saved??

And I don't know about you, but I grew up in a tradition where that

was a question I was asking all the time, 'cause I did not grow up

in a Reformed congregation, as much as I quote Tim Keller

and John Piper. That was not my experience. I think

I'm enjoying that as an adult because I didn't grow up with that. I mean,

you know, so it was like ride the altar rail to, you know,

to heaven. And we used to laugh. I think somebody said this, I

think maybe at my mom's funeral, that we were, and this is really not as

bad as it was, and I think I've said this here before, I'm pretty sure

we thought we were a white lie and a car wreck away from busting the

gates of hell wide open, right? You know, so insecure

was my hold on my faith.

Hey, I didn't know the vine was strong

enough. I didn't know. I didn't know that

he had me instead of me having

him. So she gives this encouragement that maybe, and for this

conference, like, how do I know I'm saved? Like, how do I know I'm in

the vine, right? It was a great theological discussion. She gave

this suggestion. What if our prayer

journals became not so much a laundry list

of things we want God to do for us? Not maybe

that those are bad things. John Piper says that even unbelievers pray those

prayers. But our prayer journal became a

chronicle of our asking God for the things he

has already promised he would give

us. That prayer book then would become a

biography of the spiritual growth that we are experiencing, the evidence

of abiding faith, of being in the vine. Do you know

what prayers would never be out of God's will for you

to pray? Expand my heart.

Give me more love. Increase my joy. Give

me discernment. I need wisdom. Glorify your

name. Righteousness be exalted. Bring

peace. These are the promises of the

vine. When these show up, they are evidence that

in our lives that we are

abiding. C.S. Lewis describes the life of a believer as one of undulations,

and if that's not a word you— it's ups and downs, right? And

in vine speak, that would be like noting seasons,

right? There are seasons of fruitfulness and seasons

of waiting and dormancy. Now, the

real human temptation is to try to pretend that we

have fruit when there is little to

none. Today, work in plastics and fabrics have improved

so much that faux plants have reached new levels in

their mimicry of the real thing. But

haven't we all seen the garish look that fake flowers

and greenery have when they've been exposed to too

much sunlight over time? While real

plants can't survive without sunlight, Fake plants

become cartoonish with prolonged

exposure. What once at a distance could pass for a real

blossom or an edible piece of fruit or a lovely fiddly

fig are easy to spot as counterfeit

on closer inspection.

Manufactured pseudo fruit does not bring glory to the vine

or meet the desires of the vinedresser. And that

is the purpose of fruit, to bring glory to God, not to the

branch. Who are we trying to fool? Fruit is not for

decoration of the

branch. Stay abiding, and water, the life of water is

flowing to us, 'cause developing fruit has to have

water. And typically, plants only get their water from

their roots.

The life-giving flow of water is upwards

against the pull of gravity. That doesn't make

sense. While rain and dew fall on the leaves, that

water does not benefit the leaf directly. In

fact, most leaves have a waxy coating, a cuticle,

that protects them from that water. The water drips

off, goes into the soil, gets back to the roots,

comes up through the vine, and then then

is able to bring life to the

branch. Now, there are some plants that in times of drought have

a special mechanism whereby they can absorb water from

dew on their leaves. This is actually a design feature by our

good Creator that allows these plants to survive the harshest

of conditions for short periods of

time. But I think that you and

I try to do the same thing. We

perceive that we are in a drought. We perceive that God

is silent. And when in fact, there is not a

time that the vine is not sending up water. There is not a

time when the voice of God is not

speaking. The living water that we long for is

there. But in this perceived drought, brought about

by any number of external circumstances or internal struggles,

we think that the flow of life-giving water from the vine has been

cut off and strangled, 'cause we feel

parched. And instead of remaining and

tapping deeper into the vine, abiding

here, we grasp for drops of water around

us, lapping up mist and fog, when all the

time the vine has roots that are

reaching down to artesian wells of

refreshing. And we think these surface little

dribbles are gonna satisfy the deep longings that we have,

but in fact, they foster the growth of mold

and mildew and rot.

We only have to look to Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan

woman. She's a great example of someone who's with who was looking for what she

thought she needed in the wrong places. After asking her

for a drink and being rebuffed, John 14:10 says,

John 14:10

"Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of

God and who it is that asked you for a drink, you would

have said, give me living water.'" And he goes on to

tell her that drinking this water means you'll never be thirsty again. It

means access to so much water that that springs well up.

That sounds like abiding. That sounds like

fruitful. So we're doing this, but we're

human. 'Cause that vine analogy, you know, that don't play too good on

a Monday morning sometimes. This abiding, it seems

daunting, it seems impossible. No matter how much we think that

we can hold two thoughts at once, we actually can't. Thus

the phrase, "You can't walk and chew gum." Now, there are some, right? You can

do some, you can have a conversation and walk. In fact, they say walking, or

running, or having a conversation with someone is good for your older brain. So,

you know, take that for, I have an older brain. So, you

know, so we can do things like that, but holding two thoughts at the same

time. So how do we manage

this abiding all the time, and being

cognizant of our Creator, and being in the vine, yet But we still

have to do things like take out the trash, and wipe

a snotty nose, and pick up car line, and cook,

and clean, and place a Walmart order. You know,

there's all the things that we have to

do. Vonda hit this too. There are big

times that we label as, "Oh, we're abiding," right? And those

are the spiritual disciplines of prayer, and Bible reading,

and fasting, and study, and meditation on the

Word, generosity, worship, gathering with believers, and

more. Those abiding times are easy to identify

and label, 'cause— and we go, "Oh yeah, we're connected. We're in

the vine. We're here." Those are as important to

our relationship with Christ as long conversations with a

friend to catch up, or a regularly scheduled date night, or

a game night with the family, the things that we plan to

do. But let me tell you, if you have anybody in your family

that you love, you know that they are never not far from

your mind. It's just

one little thing and you can be like— and if you've lost someone that you

love, even a smell can like bring back to you

like a conversation that you had, or a way that you loved

them, and it is very present of mind. So how

do we have that presence of mind while

still doing the dishes and the trash and the taxes and the things

and the money and all the things that we are required to do

to also be human. Andrew Murray describes

it as kind of an undercurrent of our life because apparently

in 1884 he would not have known to use the phrase background

music or soundtrack. I don't know about

that. Or maybe there's just not a good translation from Dutch

into I'm sorry. Murray writes, "Even when

our attention shifts to the demands of the

day, your fellowship with Christ does not

subside because Christ himself is

maintaining the fellowship."

Christ himself is doing it. The

thing for

us. How do we know? How do we know that's what's

happening? It's in Romans 8. Romans 8:38,

Romans 8:38

"For I am convinced that neither

death, nor life, nor angels, nor demons, nor

present or future, nor any powers, neither height nor

depth, nor anything in all creation, "Will be able

to separate me from the love of God that is in

Christ Jesus our Lord." That is abiding. That is

the power that our abiding comes from. So, we

can sing then and celebrate the song of

Isaiah 27:22 and 23. Sing about a

fruitful vine. Sing about a fruitful vineyard, 'cause

I, the Lord, watch over it. I water it

continually. I guard it day and night so that no one may harm

it. What a song! So if

abiding is like music, a

soundtrack that's playing, sometimes we hardly notice it.

There's music like all around and you don't notice it

until, well, maybe there's a shift in the melody or there's a

new harmony. They hear, "Oh, I didn't know. Oh, that

chord." That kind. There's something in the refrain and it catches our attention

and in that moment we can lock in

and praise or prayer or

both, worship are on our lips.

It's the easy and natural, "I

love you, Lord," that breathes out of us when we're

just doing the next thing. It's the hearty

and "Thank you, Jesus," when hearing good

news. It's "God is good" at the sight of something

beautiful, or a trembling "Help me, Father"

in moments of weakness or despair. It is the silent

cry for wisdom, hopefully before we open

our mouths. It's Barbie's

"Ah, Jesus," when there are

not other words to say.

These prayers and petitions and little

acknowledgments grow from abiding, and they remind

us constantly that we are in Christ. They remind

us that He is right

here always. We are

in the vine no matter where we are or

what is happening around us. But again, we might come back

to how, how the children of Israel could

not do this, and they were experiencing, they

experienced powerful deliverance and visual and verbal

daily manifestations of God's presence.

Manna, cloud, pillar of fire, and they couldn't

do it. How can

we? Because their measure was the law, And

our measure is love. Jesus

said, "As the Father has loved

me, so have I loved you.

Now remain in my

love. If you obey my commands, you'll remain in my love, just as

I have obeyed the Father's commands and remain

in his love." And he goes on, Why am I telling you

this? So that you can have

joy. And what was that command He mentioned? Love

each other. Dear sweet

branch, that's fruit. All

this is possible, all of this, even in

our humanness, being able to acknowledge and know that we are in

the vine and fruit will come and trust it. It's all

possible when Jesus says back in verse

4, "Remain in me and I

will remain in

you. If you remain in me and my words remain in you,

God gets the glory." See, sometimes we are so focused

on I remaining that we forget he

is

remaining. He calls and we come and

rest. He sustains and we admit that we need

him. He prunes and we bear

fruit. He pours out love and

we get joy. He

loves us and we get to love

others. He abides so we

can abide, all to the glory

of God. So I'm

feeling that some of this is

about— Vonda gave us some things about

distractions and listening, active listening. And I feel

like a word that could kind of sum it up is,

is noticing. We notice. That's

actually a little term that's come up in some gentle parenting

circles about helping your kids notice things. Instead of telling them to do things, you

help them to notice it, right? So if they notice it, then maybe they'll do

it of their own volition. I don't know. We try that with middle schoolers sometimes

at school, and they don't notice that they are made of paper and pencils, and

by the end of the day, all of it has leaked out of their lockers

and their themselves, and so, you know, the area in front of their lockers is

just trashed. And we have a proverb

at school, "Don't walk by a piece of trash without picking it up."

They have not

noticed. They have not noticed that a semester

worth of papers is now, you know,

right? Noticing. What are we

noticing? What is God drawing our attention to? And you may

say, "That seems little. That seems

dumb." Notice, and

then notice what happens after you

acknowledge and notice. God

is so good. His love is

unfailing, and he is He does the keeping of

the vine. God is more gracious to

us than we could ever be faithful to

him. Let's

pray. Heavenly

Father, would you cause our eyes and our ears and our

hearts to notice the things that you are

doing. Would you help us more and more that as we

stay in you, abide in you, that we

see the work. May our prayers become things that

we're asking you to grow in

us. Father, we give our surrender

to you. And we say, "Oh Lord, we cannot

do it." If you don't keep the vine,

there is no keeping. So do what

only you can do as you mold us and shape

us more into your image. And would you cause

us to be

fruitful? In Christ's name we pray,

amen. Amen. What are

you noticing? What do we need to see,

Lord, in this leaning into that posture? Would you guys show

your appreciation for

Rhonda and her word? Somebody said, I didn't know it was going to be this

good. But don't we just sow when we're— when we, when we don't

pay attention to the vine? It is so much

better than we can ever imagine. And

we're plugged in. We are going to take a lunch break, and then

we're going to come back to some phenomenal

workshop sessions, 2:00 and

3:30. So we have Pastor Sherri and Pastor Wayne,

and we have Pastor Will, and we have Josh McLeod that will all be

doing workshops. And I pray that you're going to be here. Now, if you've got

friends that are like, I decided to stay home on the couch today, and you

see how good it's been, they have time to get here for these workshops. So

text them and say, you need to get

here and, and, and see, taste and see that the Lord's good. Amen. All

right. There are food trucks. Are they

here? They're here and they open at 12. Okay, so by the time you hit

the restroom and make your way out there, they're going to be open out there.

Uh, if you do decide to go elsewhere, which we encourage you to stay and

hang out, but if you do go elsewhere, come back and be a part of

the workshops, uh, at, uh, at 2

o'clock. Okay, does that sound good? All right, bless you, and we will see you

at 2 o'clock.