August 30, 2026 - The Words That Form Us - John 15:1-11

Welcome to the Fort St.

John Alliance Church Sermon Podcast.

I'm Aaron Peters, the Executive Ministry Director.

We're so glad you've joined us today.

Our desire is to become a community of people who practice the way of Jesus together and through the empowering of the Holy Spirit, live on mission to meet the social and spiritual needs of the world around us.

Each week we gather as a community to worship, learn from God's Word, and be encouraged in our walk with Christ.

In this podcast, you'll hear the latest message from our Sunday service.

Whether you're listening from right here in Fort St.

John or from afar, our prayer is that God will speak to your heart and strengthen your faith.

Let's lean in together as we hear today's sermon.

John 15, 1 to 11.

I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser.

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may be that it may bear more fruit.

Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.

Abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

But if any one does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers.

And the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples, as the Father and as the Father has loved me, so I loved you.

Abide in my love.

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love.

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

This is the word of the Lord.

Amen.

You may have a seat.

Well, good morning, everybody.

It's good to be with you today.

I um just a couple things here, or just rather one thing before we get going.

Um just so you're aware, so you may remember if you were at the camp out, uh, Ben and Rachel from the Middle East were with us there.

We had just an awesome time with them that weekend.

They are just such an awesome couple, awesome family.

Um, they are headed back right away to the Middle East.

Um, and um we're actually sending a team there to see them uh at the end of October.

This is something we've been kind of loosely holding on to with everything that's been going on in the region there.

We've just been asking Jesus to say, you know, you you need to lead us in this because it's not super stable as you might know, and you know, as you just I mean, watch the news and these sorts of things.

Um, but I'm excited to tell you that um there is a team going.

Um and in the coming weeks, they're actually uh uh in a few weeks here, we're actually gonna have them on stage so you can just I mean see who they are and um they're gonna share a little bit more about exactly what they're doing.

Um but I love the fact that as a church that we not only want to really be the hands and feet of Jesus here, but the hands and feet of Jesus everywhere.

And so it's just such a beautiful expression of the church that we get to send people there.

And so anyway, um they have lots on the go, lots to plans.

So if you could just, I mean, just um, you know, um when when you pray, uh if you could maybe mention them and just ask for ask for wisdom, ask for guidance, just as they plan and prepare and these sorts of things.

So um I have a question for us as we get started this morning.

Have you ever wanted something so much that when you finally got it, it wasn't what it was cracked up to be?

How many have ever felt that before?

I've I've felt that many times uh in my life.

There's a story of a Hollywood movie uh director that had reached the top of what it meant to be just, I mean, famous and successful.

After spending years in the industry in low-level positions, trying to intern where he could, be an assistant on set stage design, he'd always set his sights on directing, sitting in that chair, getting the notoriety.

When he would look at other directors on set where he worked, everything on the surface might suggest to him that this is the life that he wanted, the one that he was striving for, being successful, popular, wealthy, recognition, status, significance.

It just looked like everything he could ever ask for or imagine.

And after finally getting noticed in his career for writing, his career begins to take off.

People start to notice he's talented, he has so much to offer.

He became so quick to write just, I mean, a script after script for major, major movie studios.

His genius was being seen and noticed.

And so one day he finally got what he had asked for.

After submitting a script, he was invited to direct the movie.

He's finally getting everything he had wanted.

The movie was wildly like it did so well, as was his next movie and the next one, and the next one, and the next one.

It just, he was doing incredibly well for himself.

Movie deals became common, large amounts of money, fame, fortune, all those things had arrived.

And then to celebrate his success, to kind of cap it all off, to say, I have made it to where I am, he decides it is time to do what most big people in Hollywood do.

I need to buy a big home in the Hollywood Hills.

I need to do that.

And so when he got to the day of moving in, he gets the key, he goes to the house, he opens the door, and he stands in this grand entryway with winding, just I mean, you know, two uh winding um uh uh staircases coming down towards the you know kind of lobby area in the house.

Just a beautiful home.

And he just looked around for a moment.

And after looking around for just a few minutes, it dawned on him.

He thought, I'm not any happier.

I'm not any happier having this.

In fact, the more he stood there and thought about it, the more he thought, I'm actually miserable.

You know, I've gotten everything that I've ever wanted, and yet I don't feel like I'm really living the life that I want to live.

He it wasn't really what he needed, it's what he thought he wanted.

It's what he was told is what he wanted.

Now, for most people in the world, that story feels pretty far from what we generally experience in reality.

Most of us don't have that temptation of buying a big home in the Hollywood Hills.

That's not necessarily where most of us are at.

And to be clear, there's nothing inherently wrong, or just, I mean, sinful with wealth or just with just big big homes or anything like that.

Those things can be good and right.

There's nothing wrong with that.

In actually this, I mean used in the right way.

But this story, rather, is an example of something that we all struggle with, that we all internally wrestle with.

We all spend an extraordinary amount of time pursuing what we believe is the good life.

An extraordinary amount of time.

Our desire for pleasure and just, I mean, a gratification is more rampant than we care to admit to.

It's more in our, it is actually more in our lives than we care to say.

And we're told time and time again, from what we just, I mean, watch in the movies, from what we hear in just music, from the books that we read, we hear this mantra over and over that your happiness matters more than anything else.

That you deserve to be happy, you deserve to pursue your dreams, you pursue to just to go after the things that you want, and we have all self-defined our own happiness.

We start saying to ourselves, if I just had that new phone, if I just had that holiday away that has been circled on the calendar, if I just had that friendship, if I just had that spouse, if I just had a little bit more than what I had.

But what's the old saying?

What's enough for you?

Just a little bit more.

Then just maybe, then maybe if I just had some of these things that my heart just longs for and wants, if I just got the things out of life that I feel like could make me happy, then I would finally be happy.

I'd finally be there.

Maybe I'd finally feel satisfied.

Maybe life would feel more complete.

Maybe it would feel like I finally landed and none of those things are necessarily bad.

Hear me out.

There's nothing wrong with the new phone.

There's nothing wrong with the holiday.

There's nothing wrong with any of those things.

But without even realizing that, we can begin asking those things to give us something that they were never meant to give us.

We start to look at them for our joy, for our peace, for our sense of meaning and purpose.

We we look to them as that's where I'm going to find life, is in the things that I deeply want.

And when we finally get what we've wanted, it just looks like a road with a dead end.

It was a beautiful view all the way until you get to the end and you realize there's nowhere to turn now.

It doesn't stack up.

So maybe the question isn't what do I want?

Because we often ask that to ourselves, but just maybe the deeper question is, what do I believe the good life really is?

What am I actually pursuing?

What do I actually long for?

And what am I willing to let go of?

And so this morning, here's what I want to do.

I want us to walk through one of the most deeply forming, just how many passages for me in my life.

We have been in a series all this time in the summer talking about these words that shape and form us.

And these words of Jesus have shaped and formed me in such transformational ways and have challenged me in my own walk with him.

I come back to these words of Jesus more than I come to anything in Scripture.

I sit in these words more than anything else because they still feel so relevant, so sharp, and so invitational into what I really want, into what my heart longs for.

Because what I found is that the way of Jesus offers the path that leads to the life that I ultimately want.

It's more peace, it's more joy, more contentment.

There is not a single person in this room that does not want more joy, more peace, more contentment.

All of us do at the core of ourselves.

And it's found in this simple phrase that we see Jesus say in this passage.

He says, remain in me.

Just remain in me.

If you want peace, remain in me.

If you want contentment, remain in me.

If you want joy, my joy, this overwhelming, unbelievable joy, remain in me.

He says, if you want life and life to the full, remain in me.

This is where he invites us in.

Jesus says, I have come to bring you life to the full.

Life to the full.

Because apart from me, you can do nothing.

Sharp words from Jesus.

But let me be clear.

What I'm not saying is that Jesus is offering you and I a quick fix.

So much of our world is just do something quickly, and then we shift, and the next thing you know, we think we have what we want.

It's all about instant things.

And while Jesus cares about your happiness, believe me, he does.

He cares about your happiness.

However, he is far more interested in the person that you are becoming.

He is far more interested in the things that he is shaping and forming in you.

And sometimes that means delaying instant happiness and gratification and looking to the long-term vision of the joy he sets before you and I.

That you and I would become the kind of people that would look more and more like Jesus in both word and deed, that our inner lives might be formed in such a way that our will increasingly aligns with Jesus.

And so here's my prayer this morning that you would hear Jesus' invitation today, his invitation for what real life is.

And maybe we think we know it, and that's great.

That's awesome.

You will just simply hear it again, because we need reminding.

But that you would respond to it in a fresh way, that you would hear it with fresh eyes, that you would hear it with fresh ears.

So let's pick this up in John 15.

So if you have your Bible, go ahead and turn there.

Now we're gonna start in verse one.

It's the night before Jesus' death, and he's doing something that has been so integral to his ministry.

We see him time and time again.

He is eating.

Jesus came to eat.

He ate a ton, he sat around the table, he enjoyed people, and so he and his just followers sit and lay around this low table, they share food, they share wine.

And Jesus starts sharing with them what is known as his farewell speech, his last discourse, his final teachings before his crucifixion.

If there's ever a moment not to miss a word that he is going to say, it's right now.

Right?

Like if there's ever a time in which you are leaning in just a little bit more, this is it.

Because he has given his final instruction before he goes to the cross.

And after washing their feet and seeing Judas leave the table after Jesus called, that was a betrayal.

Hearing Peter say out loud to everyone, I will never abandon you, Jesus, and Jesus looking back at him and saying, You're actually gonna say you don't know me three times.

The mood you can feel as you're reading just feels heavy.

Like it's just getting weighty.

And the mood gets even heavier as Jesus says, I'm actually leaving, I'm actually going away.

And as much as Jesus is strengthening their hearts and he's trying to encourage them, saying, right, that the Spirit's going to come, which is even better than if I stayed, like he is saying everything they need to hear.

He's saying, I will be with you even when I go.

You have to think, though, that they just felt anxious, right?

That they were just thinking, man, that all sounds good.

I don't know.

I don't know.

They have been with Jesus for three years.

They have been learning from him, they have been watching him, they have been doing everything that he has been doing.

And they have been deeply formed in those three years, right?

These guys are not the same 12 that started out.

They are completely different, they've radically changed.

But what are they gonna do without Jesus?

How is that gonna continue on?

How are they gonna keep going?

Thomas even asked the question, I think, in chapter 14, he says the question that they're all thinking.

He says, Lord, if we don't know where you're going, how can we know the way?

How are we supposed to find out?

Where are we supposed to go?

Where are we supposed to walk?

Like, what's the plan?

What if we get lost along the way?

What if we find ourselves down a road that looks really appealing and just has a dead end?

What if we get distracted with all that the world has around us and we lose sight on you?

Like, what happens to that?

Does that sound familiar?

So many of us feel those same sorts of things.

You know, a common theme that I've seen as a pastor is that for most people, most of the time, one of the primary reasons people pull back on their relationship with Jesus and the church community isn't because of sin.

It's because of distraction.

It's actually because we get so busy with everything else.

And we start thinking, man, this is the good life.

This is what it's all about.

And Jesus says, Oh man, if only you knew.

It's actually not so much sin.

Sometimes it is, but it's more we just get so distracted by all the good things, the good gifts, which can then overwhelm and make us feel so honed in on them.

Other things become more important.

Our hearts get drawn to different things, sometimes even lesser things.

And so you can feel it in the room for these guys.

Before Jesus, their hearts were set on different things, right?

Before he called them and invited them, they had different things in mind: fishing, farming, taxes, going to war against Rome.

They had different ways in which they were being, in which they found life in.

Being comfortable, doing the status quo.

But then Jesus calls them out of all of that.

And so now they are not wanting to go back to who they used to be, but they're anxious, they're nervous.

And with Jesus leaving, where are they supposed to go?

What's next?

What are they supposed to do?

So to answer this deep question, Jesus turns to a parable.

Because Jesus loves to tell story, and Jesus loves to explain it in a way that you and I can grab onto, that we can really hold to.

And so he shares a parable about gardening, something that I don't know a whole lot about.

If you ask my wife, I am not a gardener, I would kill a cactus if I could.

Um it is not for me, but man, it is a beautiful thing how he describes this here.

And so he says this in verse one.

He says, I am the true vine, and my father's the gardener.

It would be exceptionally rare to find someone there in the first century that doesn't understand the reference that Jesus is talking about.

Vineyards were everywhere.

Wine was a drink of choice at every meal, especially special occasions.

It was not, like it was always at the dinner table.

It was exceptionally common.

And for the for the disciples listening, they would also hear this other thing that Jesus is making a statement about himself.

He's moving away from the old I mean a testament, um, just like it's like it's a reference idea to Israel being the vine.

It says this actually in the Psalms, right, that it's the vine.

But Jesus makes this bold statement.

He says, I'm the true vine, meaning that I embody everything that Israel was meant to be, but I do it perfectly.

Right?

Like he is just exactly what everyone, what we need.

It's this dramatic shift in the just, I mean, a covenant promise made to the people of Israel, but now fulfilled in Jesus.

He says, everything that you could ever imagine doesn't come from the land you live in, but it comes from me.

It comes from me.

True life is only found in Jesus, not in your location, not in your home, anything like that.

He says it's found in me.

And like every vine, there are branches.

Branches start to grow off the vine.

So he goes on to say this in verse 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit.

Meaning the Father, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, so that it will be even more fruitful.

By its very nature, a branch is meant to produce fruit.

There's no other reason why the branch would grow off the vine.

It is meant to produce fruit.

There's, as it grows from the vine, it either grows nothing or it grows something, right?

When it grows nothing, it's not doing what it was supposed to be doing.

But when it grows something, the gardener needs to prune.

Pruning is this just a process to make room for the best fruit.

It is making all the room.

Without pruning, the vineyard becomes unproductive.

Right?

Like the branch can't do what it's supposed to do.

It might need to be thin to remove some of the extra leaves or the flowers on the branch that crowd the chance for more fruit, or it might need to be topped where you cut off the top two feet or so so the branch doesn't get too heavy and in the wind, snap off.

It might need to be pinched, which is this, I mean, a process where these weaker shoots can't withstand the wind, and so they need to be snipped off.

They just won't hold.

And talking to those who were there, he says, Because you have heard the words spoken to, right?

You are already clean, meaning you have been and are being continually pruned.

All the things that don't belong are starting to shed away.

When we decide to say yes to Jesus, we are a branch and we are in desperate need of pruning.

Prune of our sin first and foremost.

Those are things that just crowd out fruit immediately.

Secret sin, even that no one knows about, that even maybe to this day no one knows about because you've been too ashamed to share it.

That is overtaking the branch and it's leaving no room for fruit.

It's the pride, even perhaps that grows too big for its own good, and it needs to be brought back down to size because that pride on top will eventually crumble in the wind.

It'll break away.

It's the little shoots that look promising.

It's our own efforts, our own desires, it's our wants, it's the things that we convince ourselves that we need to be happy, things that slowly pull our attention and our affection away from Jesus.

He said, those things need to be pinched.

He said, We have to deal with those.

They can't sit on the branch because they crowd out the fruit.

And maybe that's what part of what makes this so difficult when we're with Jesus is that sometimes God is cutting away the things that are obviously sinful, right?

The things that we know he needs to get rid of.

And yet other times he's dealing with the things that we've started looking towards for life, for happiness, for satisfaction, things that we become convinced we need for our peace, for our joy, for our comfort, for our sense of worth.

Jesus says, I want to rid you of all of the things that look nothing like me.

All of the things that look nothing like me, from the sin that you hide, from all your wants and desires of you building your personal kingdom, for your longing for comfort over the things of God, for all those places we're tempted to look for life instead of him.

He says, I want to prune all of that.

All of it.

Because he loves us so much.

And over the course of these three years, those people in this room they have been pruned.

By no means are they done yet at all.

In fact, we see over the next several days.

They're not done yet.

But they haven't merely heard God's word.

They have done it.

They said yes to it.

They have been doing what He says.

They have been changed and transformed.

These are not the same guys that started out, right?

They are radically different from who they used to be.

Now they didn't always get it right the first time around.

You can read all through the Gospels and understand how many times they were told the same thing over and over again.

It sounds like me.

I have to hear it multiple times sometimes.

But like the parable of the sower, his words did not land on soil filled with thorns or rocky soil, but the soil of their heart was fertile.

They were ready to hear and receive it.

But not just that, but to do it, to put it into practice, just as Jesus says.

And then Jesus says this in verse 4.

He says this, remain in me, and I will remain in you.

No branch can bear fruit by itself.

It must remain in the vine.

Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

In the original language in the Greek, the word is meno, therefore remain, which actually means to stay, to sit, to be, to stay where you are, or my favorite way to put it, to remain as before.

To stay just where you are.

So Jesus is looking to his followers.

They're feeling anxious, they're uncertain, they're not sure.

Where do we go?

What road do we walk down without you here?

And he says, You have heard the word, you've received it, it's planted, it's changing you.

You're doing it.

All of the things that I want for you.

Now he says this.

Now stay here.

Stay in that.

Like don't move from that.

Don't wander from where you currently are.

Remain here.

Keep doing what you've been doing.

He says, stay with me and I'll stay with you.

Stay with me and I'll stay with you.

Listen to me.

You see, Jesus knows how easy we wander, right?

Like sheep.

We are quick to follow whatever looks shiny, whatever gets our attention away.

Thinking maybe that's where we'll experience peace, joy, and contentment.

But think about this.

For any of us who have been in the church for a long time, most of us at one time or another have wandered away from God, whether in action or even somewhere in our hearts that nobody knows.

We thought the grass was greener in a relationship and maybe a life goal that we thought that's worth pursuing.

We lean to our own desire for happiness.

We begin making choices for our life because we care what others think more than God.

We give in to temporal pleasure of sin instead of long-term righteousness.

Can I just say this?

Like, I have been there too.

Don't think just because I'm up here I can't relate.

This is why it speaks to me so deeply, because I can relate just the same way.

Like everyone else in this room, I have found myself wandering, choosing my own thing, finding myself completely distracted with the things that I think make me happy.

Nothing.

Just nothing.

I'm not more peaceful.

I'm more just, I mean, I'm discontent.

I tend to lack more joy.

I don't know if you can relate to that at all.

But Jesus told us that that would happen.

He says, no branch can produce any fruit by itself.

He said, You're not going to experience any of that just doing it on your own.

It's only by remaining, by abiding, by staying put in what you know.

You know how this looks practically?

You know what he's really getting down to?

It means staying put in what he says.

It's in his word.

It's about learning to hear his word, right?

It's about sitting in it, reading it, keeping his word, holding it deep in your heart, knowing it, and doing it.

It's getting it into your bones where it just pours out to the rest of your life.

You know, I believe that in the church there's a lot to learn, I think, from our history of the church.

We haven't always done everything right, but there's also a lot that we can look back to and keep and actually say, man, I wonder if that was something we should hold on to.

In Saint Benedict's rules in the monastic order, monks would keep certain items in their rooms at all times, one of them being scripture.

The idea behind it is to have scripture in your room, wasn't just so it was readily available to read.

Of course, that's a great idea, but they had to read it with intention.

When they approached the word, the idea was to listen when they came.

To listen.

They would ask the question, what is God saying to me in what I'm reading?

How am I being invited to respond?

They would have this practice in Latin, it was called uh uh uh ruminato, meaning to ruminate, right?

To sit in it, or my favorite, to chew on it is a good way to put it.

Just like it says in there in the Psalms that we might meditate on the word.

This wasn't just about knowing the word off by heart.

It wasn't just about making sure that you knew a verse and you could repeat it out loud.

It was about the word of God sinking into the mind and then down to the heart and then out into my life around me.

It was an intentional practice to listen, to keep, and then do.

This is what Jesus is saying.

He says, keep hearing me.

Keep staying in that, remain in my words, remain in what I've said, keep it in your heart, and then do it.

This is what remaining looks like.

He says, Someone who hears my voice and does what I say.

That's what it means to remain.

Can I just say this in love as your pastor?

I've been thinking about this this week.

And if you've maybe just been just just if you have been in the church for a long time, just and just and um and just have been a following Jesus for a long time, and the invitation to remain or to read the word feels basic to you?

Or like something that you've moved beyond, because that can happen sometimes in our faith.

We are full of loads and loads of information.

There is no shortage of books to read on Jesus, there is no shortage of all kinds of things that can help us, what some might say move to the next level of your faith journey.

And so for some, this might feel like just this basic principle, like, oh, I'm I'm doing that, or I, you know, I know that, but what's after that though, right?

What comes after this point?

If this is something where you, even in the moment, are thinking, this just sounds so basic, I actually think, and I want to encourage you, that's something worth paying attention to in the heart, to notice in that.

Because maturity in Jesus doesn't mean we graduate from needing him anymore, that we've moved on from that.

If anything, the longer that we follow him, the more deeply we realize our need for him.

Our need to remain, our need to stay.

Being mature in Christ isn't measured by the sermons you've heard or how many times you've been to church on Sunday, or how many, just how many ministries that you serve in.

It's seen as a growing desire to remain with Jesus, to hear his word, to keep his word, and then to actually do what he says.

Because if he really is divine, if he really is the source of life that we're looking for, then we never outgrow our need to stay connected to him.

We never move past it.

It never becomes this first step in our faith.

It becomes what we continually sit in and remain in.

Jesus says this in verse 5.

He says, I am the vine and you are the branches.

If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers.

Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire, and burned.

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you.

This is to my father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.

Now remain in my love.

If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my father's commands and remain in his love.

See, there's a warning in what Jesus is saying here.

See, a branch cannot have life apart from the vine.

This is true what we actually see in the garden, and this is true in what we see in our own lives.

Apart from staying connected, we actually can't experience the life that we want to.

It can't produce fruit on its own.

It can't produce the peace, the joy, the contentment, even the service and the outworking of our relationship with Jesus cannot be found apart from him.

Eventually being disconnected from the source of life, the branch withers.

And I think we need to hear the weight of that sometimes because Jesus isn't just inviting us to add him onto a life that's already full.

He's not doing that.

He's not saying, just just maybe add me to the side.

You know, I can kind of fit in, you know, just nice and neat where you've got space for me.

He's not saying that he's coming to prune.

He's coming to subtract.

Like he's coming to say there are things that you are currently about, there are things that your heart currently wants that I don't want, and I want to remove those to make more room for the life that I have that I'm offering you.

He's saying, I am the vine and you are the branches.

Life is found in me.

So when we wander from Jesus, when we look for life somewhere else, when we begin to look to success, comfort, relationships, approval, the things we own, even our own ability to give us only what Jesus can give, we shouldn't be surprised when eventually we begin to wither.

When we actually begin to feel disconnected, where we don't feel like ourselves even anymore.

But the opposite is also true.

When we remain in Jesus, something begins to happen in us, fruit starts to produce, fruit starts to grow, our lives begin to look different, our desires begin to change.

The word takes hold of us, and then we begin to want what Jesus wants.

This is what he's getting at.

And that helps us understand what he says next about prayer.

On the surface, it could sound like Jesus is promising to give you anything that you ask for, right?

So just read your Bible, and then anything that you want, he will give you.

He's not a genie.

It's not what he's saying at all.

But rather what he's saying in the context of this passage and all throughout everything he said.

He says, people who are remaining in him, people whose hearts and desires are increasingly being shaped by his words, what he says, they're internalized and they're lived.

The more that we remain there, that we stay there, the more that we begin to want what Jesus wants.

And then he says, When you pray, you'll find you're asking for the things that I want.

He says, So when you pray, ask for anything.

Because it will line up with my heart.

It will line up with the things that I'm already longing for.

If you just lean in, if you just remain in me, stay with me, stay connected to the source of life.

And then he says this at the end here in verse 11.

He says, I have told you this, right?

I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

See, here's the thing, Jesus isn't telling us not to look for joy.

He's not saying that that can't happen, but rather he's just telling us where to find it.

He's telling us where it's available, where it actually is.

Jesus says, if you want to experience my joy, and if you think about what it means to experience the joy of the Lord, think about this.

Everything good and right that has ever brought you joy in the moment, whether it's a, I mean, you know, whether it's you know, I found a relationship or a fun experience or whatever is right, you know, think about every feeling of joy that you have ever had in your life.

Think about this for a moment.

God feels that all the time.

He is always joyful.

Every feeling of joy he embodies completely.

And he says, You can have that if you remain in me.

It's available to you, it's accessible to you.

A joy that goes way beyond our circumstances or anything that might ever happen.

Jesus says, if you want to experience my joy, remain in me.

You know, I get easily distracted with lesser things.

I have found myself at times being gently swayed into believing that if I just had this, if I just had that, then I would be happy.

And like so many people, it's not found in the big things, it's not found in a huge home, it's not found in a bigger car, or it's not found in more in my bank account, or anything like that.

But rather it's found in ordinary things.

It's in the day-to-day that I find my heart wants things that distract me.

I remember a number of years ago going through a really busy season in work.

I remember it was September, and as a youth pastor in September, and I know for Nate he can attest to this, it is a busy time.

There's lots going on in the life of the church, but there's lots going on in your ministry, and there's just so much happening.

And through the course of September, I had three weekends in a row where I was not at home.

Or I was away, where I was either at the church all weekend, or I was away for a conference, or I was away for a retreat.

But on top of that, I couldn't feel like I could make up the time during the week.

So I'm there Monday through Thursday, Friday to Sunday comes my weekend.

I'm that for three weeks.

And I know I'm not the only one in this room that works hard, so I'm not trying to make a statement this is old man, look how much Dan works.

I get that.

But if you've worked that much, you know it's tiring, right?

It's exhausting, right?

And you just want to break.

You just want to say, I just want to put my feet up.

But all throughout that time of long hours, hard conversations, tough ministry moments, tough decisions to be made, the only thing that got me through was staying with Jesus, was just being with him.

I intentionally decided I want this practice of just remaining with him daily and just seeing how that goes.

And I found that I had strength, I had joy, I had purpose, I had the drive, I had the things I needed, just remaining in him.

And yet when I came to the first weekend off in a while, my idea of happiness and my idea of joy and strength shifted in a way.

My idea of being happy, my idea of being joyful was to be alone.

As an introvert, I really thrive on my alone time.

I know there's other introverts that could probably say yes and amen, but you'd never say it out loud.

You would just keep it quiet.

Right?

And so I thought to myself, my idea would be what if I could just be as much by myself as I could all weekend long, culminating with watching a football game of my favorite team on Sunday night.

What a beautiful way to spend a weekend.

Just to relax in that.

Wouldn't you know it?

That weekend we had a student that was in major crisis in their life.

That kept me on the phone until three in the morning on Friday night.

We had unexpected family show up at the house on Saturday.

My mood was sinking.

I could feel everything that I had hoped for and longed for, everything that I had said, oh, this is gonna make me happy, was just being snatched out from under me.

Is it right?

It was just being taken away.

It was bringing tension with me and my kids, with my wife.

I could find myself getting more snappy with her because I'm not getting the things that I think I want, the things I need.

As for the football game on Sunday, my team was completely blown out in a lopsided game.

I already get a little excitable when I watch sports games.

I was just mad by the time I watched that one.

The whole weekend felt like a loss.

Everything that I had wanted didn't happen.

Everything that I thought would be.

I remember going to bed angry.

Because I just thought, man, what was the point of that?

You know, because I didn't get anything that I thought would make me happy.

I didn't get anything I wanted.

And I remember going to bed that Sunday night, angry, upset, a big week of work ahead of me again.

Right back at it on Monday morning.

And as I lay in bed, as I often do, I just have a check-in with Jesus.

Just a moment of examine, just to ask about my day, to see what he thought of it, what he thought of my weekend.

And I remember telling him how disappointed I was that I didn't get to do the things I wanted to do.

I said, I'm just so upset I didn't get the things that I wanted.

And I said, This weekend was awful.

And then I could sense this gentle Holy Spirit nudge in my soul.

And it was like hearing Jesus say to me, He said, Dan, I wonder what your weekend would have looked like if I was your rest the same way I was for the last three weeks, instead of what you thought you wanted.

I wonder how that would have changed.

And it dawned on me after a busy month of leaning into Jesus, knowing that I needed him the whole time, I decided when I finally got my say, I took my joy into my own hands, the things that I wanted and found nothing.

Found disappointment.

Here's what I've come to learn about me, and what I hope you are coming to learn about yourself is that Jesus is inviting you and I to ask a really simple question.

Where am I looking for life?

Where am I finding it?

Where am I looking for joy?

Because everything else will eventually leave us wanting, just a little bit more, leaving us distracted, unfulfilled.

But Jesus says, you don't have to keep searching.

Just stay with me, remain in me.

This is where life is found.

I want to invite the band up at this time here.

As we end here this morning, I want to do a little bit of a practice.

We're gonna actually kind of do it all together in a moment here, but um, I love a good practice.

I love being able to say, Jesus, what do you want me to do as a result of what you're saying?

I think we should all have that kind of posture.

Right?

Then when we read the word, he's asking something of you and I.

It's not just uh, man, that was a good read, but it's how is it shaping and transforming me?

How am I putting the words of Jesus into practice?

And so I have an idea for us this week.

That for just 10 minutes a day, that you might just read three verses.

Maybe you're already in a Bible plan and that's great.

Maybe you're not.

You can start even like in Matthew 5, that's a great place to start in.

Read some excellent words of Jesus that are so convicting.

But but then just to read the passage a few times.

That we might start to practice this idea of what it means to remain, right?

That we might remain, we might read, we might respond, these sorts of things.

And that as you are sitting with Jesus, you might start asking questions about what he's asking of you.

To say, Jesus, what do you want me to notice about your word?

So often we are quick to move through the word like a chore.

I want to encourage you, start to learn to linger, to sit in it, to remain in it.

Because at the end of the day, what you're gonna find is you're not just getting knowledge, you're not walking away with a little bit more than you did before, but the God of the universe is inviting you to be with him.

He is not a means to an end, he is the end.

The greatest joy I have ever experienced and that I have ever known is this deep reality that Jesus loves me and loves to be with me.

Some of you need to take hold of that.

Jesus loves you and longs to be with you.

So he says, remain in me.

Sit with me.

Hear my words, keep them in your heart, and then do them.

Live it out.

Here's how we're gonna end.

I'm gonna pray here.

And I'm gonna lead us through this for just a few minutes here.

That you might sit in just a simple verse today that we've already read, and that you might start to ask Jesus, what do you want me to notice about my own life?

Where are things maybe not in alignment where they ought to be?

What is something that you want to mention to me that I'm not seeing?

But that you would also ask, Lord, how do you want me to respond?

How do you want me to answer what you're asking of me?

So let's pray.

So Lord Jesus, I thank you for your word.

I thank you that it is sharp and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, that it cuts through bone and marrow, right to the deepest spots of our heart.

But Jesus, in that cutting, you are wanting to prune and cut away what does not belong.

But for many in this room, including myself, I don't think there's one person actually that can say we have not wandered towards the things that we want more than what you want.

That we haven't had an idea of what happiness looks like or what joy looks like.

And yet, Jesus, in your kindness, you are invitational in inviting us back to your heart.

That even when we find ourselves after things that do not line up with you, when our hearts want other things more than they want you, you are just there to receive us again, that we can come to you with a heart that is ready, with a heart that is soft, ready to receive the word, that we might ask for you to just, I mean, forgive us for the ways in which we wander away.

So Jesus, even before we just get to the passage here in a moment, Lord, I just invite you now, Lord, by your spirit, that you just might even start to bring to mind for each one of us where we have chosen our own way, where we've chosen our own happiness.

And Lord, for each one in this room that may have something that's I mean coming to mind, Lord, would they just sit with you in that?

Would they just bring that to your feet?

Would they just share that with you and confess that?

And say, Lord, I have done my own way.

I've chosen this instead of you.

Lord Jesus, you say this in verse 5 of John 15.

You say, I am the vine, and you are the branches.

If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit.

But apart from me, you can do nothing.

So Jesus, what are you drawing my attention to?

Lord, how are you asking me to respond to you?

So Lord Jesus, we just humbly ask that you would shape and transform us in order to become the kind of people that lay down what we want so that we might have what you want, so that we might experience deep lasting joy that goes beyond circumstance or any treasure that the world might offer.

That we might see you not as a means to an end, but you are the end.

So we thank you, Lord, that you would invite us in.

That you would choose to sit with us, to be with us, to remain with us.

And Lord, may we remain in you.

May we uh have a growing desire to be with you more and more.

So, Lord Jesus, we love you and we ask these things in your name.

Amen.