Red Letter | A Life Full of Vitality

It is good to see you.

It's good to be back.

Uh my study break was great.

I think I spent most of the time, almost the entire time, just sitting outside with my Bible journal and different books.

I think I actually tracked this the first two weeks.

I averaged about 10 hours a day just sitting on my front porch.

And then when it got too hot, I went inside.

And when the sun went down, I just went back outside.

Man, there was all different things that I prayed during during break.

Like, first of all, God, would you just let me be quiet?

Specifically, my mind.

I just slow my mind down.

Let me be quiet.

Let me experience your presence.

Let me just hear your voice.

And would you give me wisdom, knowledge, understanding?

Just like 2 Chronicles 12 says, that the men of Issachar, they understood the times and they knew what Israel ought to do.

God, would you just let that be true of me?

And then another specific prayer I had was, God, what do you want to do in me?

What do you want from me?

And then, like, where do you want to take our church over the next 12 months?

Where do you want to lead our church?

A study break every year.

It's a different kind of work for me.

It's not me taking time off and just going and hanging out.

No, it's it's separating myself for an extended period of time just so that I can listen and learn.

It's all about inputs for those four weeks, not outputs.

And I am incredibly grateful for that time.

So thank you for giving it to me.

And because of that time, man, I'm pumped to be back.

Like I had to tell myself this morning, pump the brakes, bro.

Easy.

Like, ease yourself into it.

Don't blow them out of the seats, right out of the grate.

Like, calm down.

And I'm pumped for where we're going for the rest of the year.

Like, here's where we're going.

Starting next week, we are going to be in a small series that's focused on your spiritual growth.

And what we're going to do is we're going to look at a particular, I think it might be one of the most overlooked attributes of Jesus.

And looking at that attribute, how does that actually grow us?

Then right after that, in September, we're going to start a series on manhood.

Like, what does it actually mean to be a man?

Because there's a lot of confusion about that right now.

And there are all kinds of bankrupt explanations.

Like this actually has become, it's probably the most common question I hear now.

Like, what does it mean to be a man?

Alright, let's get into it.

The Bible's got a lot to say about that.

So let's talk about what it means to be a man.

And at the same time, ladies, there will be a lot in this series for you.

I'm really looking forward to that.

The end of that series, we're going to do on common.

October 9th and 10th, that Friday night, that Saturday morning.

That's our men's event.

Man, guys, if you've not registered for it, do it now.

Bring your sons, bring your friends.

I am pumped for what's going to happen there.

Like Daniel said, my good friend Clayton.

His church started this.

This conference now takes place all over the country.

I've actually spoken at it four or five different times in different parts of the country, and it's the first time that it's going to be here.

I've seen what has happened.

As a participant and a speaker, I can't wait for it to be at Life Bridge.

So be there on October 9th and 10th.

Make that a priority.

And then right after that, we're going to be in a series where we're just going to walk through Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

And if you know that chapter, it's all about spiritual warfare and the armor of God.

That's going to take us all the way up to Christmas, which is kind of crazy to think about.

That's where we're going for the rest of the year.

But today we're capping off red leather.

How awesome was Daniel, Tim, Justin, and Nate over the last four weeks.

That's so good.

Daniel and Tim are phenomenal.

They're part of us.

And then it's a real privilege, privilege for me to have my friends come out here and speak.

Actually, I had somebody after the 8 o'clock ask me, hey Matt, when are you going to leave again so your friends can come back?

Cool, cool.

No, they're awesome.

I'm not going to bring duds in here.

I love those guys.

And what you saw up here, they're even better off stage.

They're the real deal.

They were fantastic.

And if if you've missed any of this, let me try to catch you up quickly.

Jesus makes seven different I am statements in the Gospel of John.

Now, first, I am, when he says that, that's a reference all the way back to Exodus chapter 3.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

God's talk with Moses, and Moses asks God, hey, you want me to go lead your people out of Egypt?

Cool.

Well, what do I say when they ask me what your name is?

God says, Hey, tell them this.

I am.

I'm not going to unpack all the meaning for that right now, but when Jesus says, I am in the Gospel of John, by the way, he says it seven times.

Seven's the number of perfection and completion.

Jesus is saying, I'm God.

Not only that, but each one of these has a relational description for how Jesus interacts with us, and all seven of them, all seven of them also describe us.

Here's the very last one.

It's John 15.

Jesus says, I'm the true grapevine.

My father's the gardener.

He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn't produce fruit.

And he prunes the branches that do bear fruit, so they produce even more.

You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you.

So remain in me and I will remain in you.

For a branch cannot produce fruit if it's severed from the vine.

And you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.

Yes, I am the vine and you're the branches.

Those who remain in me and I in them will produce much fruit.

For apart from me, you can do nothing.

Alright, let's back up for a second, because we got to get some context.

Because this is it.

This is Thursday night when he says this.

We're just a couple hours away from him being betrayed, arrested, and then crucified.

And Jesus knows it.

Like he knows it's coming.

He knows he only has a few hours left.

If you knew you only had a few hours to live, you would do and say the most important things that you possibly could do.

The first thing that Jesus does in these last hours, he washes his disciples' feet.

Like he's giving you and I an example for what we're supposed to do.

So today we actually have some foot washing stations up front, and in a minute, I'm gonna have you come up and wash people's feet.

I don't know why you're laughing, I'm serious.

I'm kidding, I'm not.

That would be super weird.

It was a cultural thing then, but the principle behind it is still applicable to us.

What Jesus was doing was he was showing us that you and I are meant to voluntarily lower ourselves and serve everybody else.

Then right after that, he says, Hey, I am the way, I am the truth, and I'm the life.

Nobody comes to the Father except by me.

That is the clearest and most exclusive truth claim that there is.

And yet, here's the cool part it's entirely inclusive in that it's for everyone.

You get to choose if you want it or not.

Then right after that, he promises that the Holy Spirit is going to come, God's presence living and residing in anyone who believes and follows Jesus, and then right after that, he gives this very last I am statement.

I am the true vine.

It's a promise of growth and vitality and fruitfulness and productiveness based on your connection.

So Jesus is walking from where they had the Last Supper, and he's walking to the Garden of Gethsemane, where he's going to be betrayed.

Somewhere along that walk, he comes across the grapevine.

He stops at this grapevine to explain all of this.

Grapevines were a big deal in that culture.

If someone owned a vineyard, they would put a rock wall around the entire vineyard to protect it from animals.

The owner of the vineyard would do everything he possibly could to tend it and cultivate it and protect it.

On top of that, vineyards and grapevines really had a they really were a symbol of national life.

There was patriotism attached to it.

In Judea, the way they would have viewed a grapevine is the way you and I would view the stars and stripes.

That's kind of the comparison.

Herod even put a huge golden grapevine on the gates of the temple.

Because Israel was meant to be a vine that produces great fruit.

That was the image of Israel.

That's what they were supposed to do.

So when Jesus stops and grabs this grapevine, and if you go on the Israel trip with us next spring, you're gonna make this walk too.

He grabs this grapevine, and when he makes this illustration, everybody would have known exactly what he was talking about.

He was saying, Hey, yeah, that's all fulfilled in me.

This grapevine, mm-mm, is me.

I am the true vine that produces great fruit.

Like everybody wants vitality in life.

A life with growth and fruit.

You want that?

I want that.

Where your life has vibrance to it, where there's spiritual growth, where you're becoming more and more like Jesus.

You want a life where you're productive to the point where your production actually impacts other people and impacts them eternally.

And Jesus is saying, Yeah, all of that happens if you're connected to me.

Jesus is the source of vitality and fruitfulness.

So how does that actually happen?

Well, first, a branch has got to be connected to a vine, or there's never gonna be any fruit.

And it's got to be connected to the right vine.

Jesus said, I am the key word true vine.

So does that mean there are false vines?

Does that mean there are other vines that produce other kinds of fruit?

Of course there are.

There are all kinds of vines other than the one true vine.

I mean, some of the most popular vines today that you can connect to.

One would be the vine of Western sexual ideology.

The sexual ideology of our day is do whatever you want with whoever you want, whenever you want, as long as there's consent.

You are told that if you connect to this ideology, that you will enjoy a vitality of your life that will allow you to experience what being a human really is and experience who you really are.

In fact, you're also told that if you do not connect to the vine of today's sexual ideology, that you're actually repressing what it means to be a human.

Now, let me just be clear on this.

First of all, not only is that notion just plain stupid, it's also a lie from the pit of hell.

It's meant to promise you heaven on earth, but all it will deliver is hell on earth.

Yeah, sure, there's there's some pleasure in it.

For sure there is.

But eventually, all you're going to experience and have is pain, regret, baggage, and disappointment because you're going to realize the vine lied to you.

Man, I never got the fulfillment I thought I was gonna get from this.

The narrative about sex in our culture, it never played out the way it said it was gonna play out.

I didn't get what I was promised.

Instead, you're gonna realize that you just became an object for other people to consume.

And you end up doing the same thing to other people, you turn them into objects to consume.

It doesn't matter if it's heterosexual or homosexual or transgenderism, the sexual ideology of today does not fulfill humanity.

No, it robs people of their humanity.

Or you can connect to the vine of religions: Islam, Mormonism, Buddhism, doesn't matter.

They're all false vines that will produce fruit that's either deceptive, destructive, or probably both.

Or you can connect to maybe, maybe the most popular religion in our culture, which is humanism.

The religion of self.

And if life is all about you, if life is all about me, if it's about self, if you or if I, if I am my own God, then that's gonna produce a fruit in you that you don't want.

In fact, most of the decay in Western culture comes from the rejection of the one true vine and attaching to the vine of self.

The decay that we see in Western culture, that's fruit from the vine of humanism.

Or you could be connected to the algorithm vine.

Be rooted in that.

Where you're just scrolling all the time.

You're even scrolling without even realizing it.

You look up the clock and you realize, man, I just blew through an hour and 15 minutes, and it felt like five minutes.

And the fruit from the algorithm vine is it's pretty consistent.

Besides being a waste of time, this vine, the fruit of this vine is fear, lust, anger, envy, comparison, consumerism, discouragement.

We could probably go on, couldn't we?

And if you want those things to be growing in you, all right, then the algorithm is your vine.

But there's another option.

Jesus lays it out.

I'm the true grapevine.

And my father is the gardener.

He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn't produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do not bear fruit, so they will produce even more.

Verse 5 Those who remain in me and I in them will produce much fruit.

For apart from me, you can do nothing.

Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers.

Such branches are gathered up into a pile and they're burned.

But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you can ask me anything you want, and it's going to be granted.

When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples.

This brings glory to my Father.

I have loved you even as my Father has loved me, so remain in my love.

When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my father's commandments and remain in his love.

I have told you all of this, all of these things.

Here's why.

So that you will be filled with my joy.

Yes, your joy will overflow.

Throughout Scripture, Old Testament to New Testament, the vine is one of God's favorite images for his people.

You see it come up over and over again.

Now he, God is the true vine dresser, he's the gardener.

He tends the vineyard, he cultivates it, he waters it, he protects it.

God is the one that brings growth.

But when Jesus stops and uses this grapevine as an illustration, he says, two things have got to happen.

If you as a branch are gonna live, let alone have vitality and be fruitfulness.

He says the first thing that has to happen is you gotta remain in me.

Some translations say abide in me, which is not really language that we use very often.

The way we could say it would be, what are you connected to?

The Greek word here is ma.

It means to stay or dwell, remain, make home in.

So really you could say that Jesus is laying it out like this make your home in my presence and never leave.

Throughout the rest of the New Testament, the most common way that mano is used is in reference to a continuation of faith.

So what Jesus is saying is just keep following me in faith.

Make your home in my presence, stay connected to me.

That's what it means to abide, that's what it means to remain.

And that has to happen if you and I ever want to grow.

So how do you do that?

Like, how do you how do you abide?

It's a great question.

First and foremost, obedience.

If you're not obeying Jesus and you're not obeying what God's word says, then you're not abiding in Jesus full stop.

I mean, he says, hey, if you really do love me, you say you love me, if you love me, here's how I'm gonna know you obey my commands.

Then there's repentance.

Like you cannot be connected to Jesus and connected to sin at the same time.

That doesn't work.

Repentance is disconnecting from sin so that you can reconnect to Jesus or connect to him for the very first time.

Then there's following him in faith, even when you don't know, especially when you don't know what's gonna happen next.

But if you follow Jesus in faith when you don't know how it's gonna work out, and even if you do and you don't like it, but you still follow in faith, man, that's abiding.

That's courage, that's faith.

And then there's the connection time.

It is impossible, it's impossible for you to say relationally connected to somebody that you never spend time with.

How do you think it's gonna go if Kelly and I never spend time together?

Me sending her a text that's three lines long every four days, not gonna work out well for our relationship.

The same thing is true with Jesus.

You can't be connected with him if you never spend time with him relationally.

That's being in the word and listening.

That's what I did for four straight weeks.

That's connecting to him in prayer.

That's what it means to be connected to the vine.

To remain in Jesus means that you accept the authority of his authority over your life.

That's what we call lordship.

We had students that got baptized on Wednesday, we got people that are gonna get baptized at the end of this service and next service.

One of the things they're saying is, hey, Jesus, you're my savior.

I accept you to save me from the consequence of my sin and faith.

Also, Jesus, you're my Lord, meaning you're number one in my life, not me anymore.

Remaining in him also means accepting the authority of God's word over your life and then continuing contact with him in prayer.

That's remaining, that's abiding.

Now, if you come up to me and say, Matt, man, I just um I really don't feel like I'm I'm growing in my relationship with Jesus, okay?

The first question I'm gonna ask you is gonna be about abiding.

First one you cannot grow in your relationship with Jesus if you're not connected to him.

And it's it's certainly not a question of desire on his end.

He absolutely wants to be connected to you, but he's not gonna force that, he's gonna let you choose.

If you're not abiding in Jesus, you're not gonna bear any fruits.

And really, the vitality you experience in life is gonna be capped.

You are, and so am I, right now.

You are abiding in someone or something.

What is it?

And what fruit is it producing in you?

Remain in me.

That's step one, and from there, those who learn to abide, they stay put for the pruning.

Because this is the hard part, and this is the second thing that has to happen.

If there's gonna be any growth, this has to happen, but nobody likes this part, and understandably so.

Pruning is not putting a hot towel around your neck and massaging your shoulders.

I mean, that's what I want.

Like, who's not down for that?

God, I want God to massage my shoulders and tell me that I'm awesome, but that's not what God does.

God does not praise the branch that's bearing fruit.

No, he prunes it, he cuts it.

So don't look for praise and recognition if you're growing and bearing fruit.

No, instead, you need to look to be pruned and be encouraged by that.

It's encouraging.

Here's why pruning is a sign of personal growth, it means you have grown.

It's also a sign that God's getting ready to grow you some more.

Think about this, too.

The more people that you serve, the more people you that you have influence with, the more people you lead may mean the need for more pruning so that there's more fruits.

Any fruit that you bear in your life, it's not for you.

Every piece of fruit that you bear in your life, it's meant to bless other people.

Not for you, it's for others.

So the amount of people that you serve, that you lead, that you have influence with is going to determine the quantity of fruit that's needed in your life.

So God is going to prune you to make sure that that fruit grows and to make sure that there's enough fruit that he can do what he wants to do through you.

The reverse is also true of this.

If you are bearing fruit, that means God can trust you with more people to serve, more people to influence, more people to lead, because he knows you are a branch that bears fruit.

He can prune you and bring on even more.

That should encourage you.

But what if there's a feeling like there's no growth?

Man, I don't feel like I'm really growing.

Man, I just feel like I'm kind of stuck.

I feel like I like if I'm being real, it feels like I don't have any purpose.

Or my impact is meaningless.

Is that tied to pruning?

If you're not being pruned, your impact in this world is capped.

Doesn't mean it can be uncapped, but it's capped right now.

Your growth, your purpose is stalled out.

Fruitfulness is directly tied, and it's inevitable, if you're connected to the vine.

If you are connected to Jesus, 100% guarantee you're gonna grow.

So if you're not bearing fruit, what does that say?

It's a hard question to sit with.

But I think we all need to.

I did this week.

That's the one that I wrestled around with the most.

Wednesday I had to come home and I said to Kelly, hey, I need you to be honest with me.

Uh one of the things I'm so blessed by my wife is that she will tell me what I don't want to hear.

Makes her amazing.

It's one of the many things that makes her amazing.

So I knew I could ask this question, and she's gonna be straight up.

I said, Hey, do you do you see fruit in me?

Do you see growth?

And I'm not gonna tell you what she said.

She said good things, but we need to sit with that question.

The proof of discipleship to Jesus is fruit-bearing.

So are you bearing fruit?

And again, nobody likes pruning.

Nobody does.

I hate it.

Pruning's uncomfortable, it's convicting, it costs you something.

It's cutting.

Nobody likes cutting, it's painful, but it's a good thing.

Get this.

I think I think this is super cool.

In a vineyard, there's something that happens with a vine that vineyard workers will call bleeding.

So this happens whenever whenever a vine has been pruned, you'll see.

Clear sap that starts to leak out and drip out of pruning cuts.

It almost looks like the vine is wounded.

Now, this is actually a very good thing.

It's a sign of life in the vine.

So this happens in the spring.

The bleeding will start in the spring, and it's a sign, it's the first sign that dormancy is coming to an end.

It's also a sign to the vineyard workers that the vine is starting to wake up.

A bud is going to break forth, which means new growth and more fruits.

Pretty cool concept.

Bleeding is a good thing.

The same thing is true for you and I.

You might be bleeding right now.

I don't know why, but you might be bleeding from something right now.

All of us have in the past, and all of us will again in the future.

But here's the promise that God makes.

Not only does God promise to heal any cuts that you have, that's just the starting point.

He also promises to bring growth and new fruit through those cuts, through that bleeding.

If you are connected to Jesus, you are not promised immunity to pain, but not at all.

In fact, you're gonna have more of it.

Straight up.

All of the New Testament talks about that.

But the promise you have in Jesus is that your pain will never be in vain.

Never.

So God might be pruning you right now.

He might be pruning you through some kind of pain that you're experiencing.

You're bleeding.

He might prune you through through failure, through loss of an opportunity, through disappointment, through frustrated ambition.

And those are the most common things that have happened with me.

A pruning is not fun, but it's critical because a graveine will never come close to producing its potential without pruning.

So can you and I have the courage just to lean into it?

Man, I don't like it at all.

My natural inclination is to run from pain.

Anyone else with me?

Yeah, every hand should be up.

Thank you for the two courageous people that were truthful.

Yeah, I want to run from pain.

I don't want to feel pain.

I want to be comfortable.

Even though I don't like it, I trust God with it because I've seen what He's done in the past.

I worked in the corporate world before I became a pastor.

I owned my own business for a little while.

In my early 20s, I worked for a company that on the outside looked incredible.

It was awesome.

It was it sounded pretty sweet too.

It was in sports marketing.

I love sports, love, love sports.

Love it.

I got to work with professional teams, athletes, sponsors, travel across the country for different sporting events for work.

And as a guy in his early 20s, that's a pretty cool gig.

When people would ask me what I do, I'd tell them and they would say, Matt, that sounds awesome.

And it did.

It sounded awesome, is far from it.

Because of the leadership in the culture.

The CEO of that company used fear and public humiliation as his motivators.

He was actually really outspoken about this too.

I was in a meeting with him and in a consultant once, and he said, My leadership style is to scare people and humiliate them because that will get results and get people moving.

Straight up said it.

Deadpan.

Example.

I was the target one particular day.

Very beginning of the day, we had a meeting with our entire sales and marketing team.

I'm sitting in the conference room, and he just looks down the conference table, makes eye contact with me, points at me, and says, Hey Matt, you're not worth$8,000.

And just stared at me.

Didn't break eye contact for 30 seconds, complete silence.

He was just trying to get a reaction out of me, and he was trying to shock the room.

He did that stuff all the time.

Randomly would pick someone.

I just happened to be his target that day.

I was also asked to lie.

No, don't lie.

Just don't tell him the whole truth.

That's lying.

I was asked to withhold royalties from people that were owed royalties based on our contracts.

I never went along with any of that stuff.

But I had to gear myself up every single day.

I'm not going to do anything that's going to compromise my character or my relationship with Jesus, but I might get asked today to do that.

I'm not going to do it.

Well, today might be the day I get fired.

I had to gear up emotionally and mentally for that every single day.

You can ask Kelly.

There were days that I came home from work and I wanted to put my fist through a wall, and there were days I came home from work and I was crying.

That went on for three years.

Every day for three years.

So painful, so frustrating, so humiliating, so discouraging.

But what I couldn't see then, I can very clearly see now.

I couldn't see it in the moment.

I can now.

All that was, it was just pruning.

That's all it was.

God was pruning me.

Pruning me for what was next.

Right after that, those three years, the next year, I probably experienced the greatest concentration of spiritual growth in my adult life.

Almost most of the time, if you've grown, you can't see until you look back.

Oh man, I've grown since then.

That particular 12-month period, I could see myself growing in real time.

It was nuts.

But God had to put me through something for three years to prune me to get me ready for growth that He had in me, get me ready for the leadership that he was calling me into.

That CEO to this day has still had more influence on me from a leadership standpoint than any other human being I've ever come in contact with.

Because what I learned was I'm never gonna be that.

I'm gonna be the exact opposite of that.

And I think, I think if you asked our staff, and for you that know me personally, I think, actually, I probably should say I hope, if you disagree with me on this, I need to hear this from you.

I think you would say that I'm a healthy leader that's encouraging and has character.

That's because it's the exact opposite of what I experienced for three years.

I needed to be pruned to get to that.

So as painful as those three years were, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I don't want to go back to it, but I wouldn't trade it.

Because it wasn't about that company, it certainly wasn't about my job.

It was about God pruning me so I could grow and bear fruit.

So think about this.

What if pruning is one of the best things that can ever happen to you?

Like, what if it's one of the best things that can happen to you?

And maybe you're in it right now.

Like you're just in it.

And you've never thought that this might be a pruning season.

This goes for individuals, it goes corporately.

What if you're in some, I don't know what it is, man.

Maybe you're in it right now and you're just ready to throw up your hands.

Don't.

Don't be discouraged.

Maybe God's just getting you ready.

He knows something that's coming, he has something different for you, or he's taking ready for you to take the next step, but he's got to prune you to grow you and get you ready first.

Like whatever it is, it could take three weeks, it could take three years.

But I promise you, please trust me on this.

It's worth it.

Don't tap out.

Don't run from pruning.

I'm not saying you don't get out of a toxic situation, but don't buck away from God trying to prune you.

If you're a follower of Christ, maybe some of the most noble things about you have come from God pruning in your life.

I mean, I'd rather do it on my own.

I would much rather try to prune myself.

God, I got it.

I can take care of it, I'm good.

But you and I can't do that.

Because let's be real, we wouldn't cut what really needs to go.

Like we wouldn't do it.

And maybe that's why you feel stuck with something.

I feel like I'm I'm just hitting a ceiling right here.

Like this particular area of my life, I'm not I'm not growing in.

I'm trying to, but I've not grown in this area for a long time.

Well, maybe it's because you're white-knuckling it and you're trying to prune it yourself.

But the things that are most noble about you, the most attractive about you, the most fruit that's grown in you has come from God cutting what you would have avoided.

Let Him do it.

Jesus said, go back to John 15.

He said, These things I've spoken to you, stay connected to me, be let pruning happen.

I've said these things to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.

A life of vitality.

The end result of you abiding and letting God prune you, the end result is maxed out joy.

That's pretty cool.

James talks about the effects of pruning.

He says, Count it all what?

Joy.

Alright, what do we count joy?

Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters.

When you meet trials of various kinds.

Okay, James, let me hear you out.

When you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

And let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

That's what happens when you're pruned.

Then the fruit?

There's a list in Galatians 5.

Iconic list.

If you spend any time in the Word, you know this list.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, not lust.

Joy, not fear, peace, not anger, patience, not envy, kindness, not consumerism, goodness, not comparison, faithfulness, not discouragement, gentleness, self-control.

That sounds pretty good.

I want that.

There's actually another list of fruit in 2 Peter.

Here's what he said.

Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, steadfastness with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, brotherly affection with love.

For if these qualities, fruits, if these qualities are in you and are increasing, growing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful.

Cool.

You and I cannot cause spiritual growth to happen in ourselves.

We can't do it because we're not the vine dresser.

And this list, both of those will not be true of you, they will not be true of me unless we are connected to Jesus and we let God prune us.

The fruit Jesus is looking for is his own life in you.

That's what he's looking for.

So who or what are you abiding in right now?

I mean, fruit's gonna tell the truth.

Fruit or lack thereof is not gonna lie.

The wrong kind of fruit is gonna come from the wrong kind of vine.

I mean, does though does that list, either one of those lists, does that describe what's growing on you right now?

Or is there some something else?

I mean, have the courage and ask God what what vine am I really connected to?

And then disconnect and connect to the true one.

What are you abiding in?

Or if there's no fruit at all, that should get your attention too.

But those who learn to abide, they stay put for the pruning, even though they don't like it.

And some of you have gone through this.

There, this is one of the things that I love about our church.

Man, we have people, I guarantee, I would bet.

I shouldn't say that.

Yeah, I would bet my car.

I would bet my car.

I don't have a nice car.

It's a 2014 Jeep, it's beat up, so it's not really that great of a bet.

But man, I would bet my car that right now we have people in this room and people online that have never been to church in their life.

That I hear that all the time.

And then also right now in this room, because I'm looking at so many of you, there are people in this church right now that look a whole lot like Jesus because they've been following him in faith and obedience for decades.

Spiritual fruit glore.

Those people that have been following him, the people that have spiritual fruit in this room, you've been through pruning, you know what it's like.

Doesn't feel good.

If you say, Oh, I like to be pruned, I'm like, are you okay?

Like, what's wrong?

Nobody likes it, but you know that it's worth it.

You know that it's worth it.

So, are you trusting the master vine dresser?

He knows what he's doing.

Are you trusting him that he wants you to grow, that he wants you to bear fruit, that he wants your joy maxed out?

He wants that.

Learn to prize a season of pruning, not run away from it.

Our gut reaction is gonna be to run.

No, prize it when you're being pruned.

If you want vitality, if you want fruitfulness in your life, if you're you want your life to produce and have an impact that goes on for eternity, I'm the true vine.

If you're connected to me, you'll bear much fruit.

And the people who are closest in your life are gonna be the ones that benefit from it the most.

All you have to do is remain and let him prune.

Jesus, I mean, you were you were pruning on the cross for us.

Isaiah says that we are healed because of your wounds.

Your blood is what actually saves us, your bleeding has saved us.

Thank you for that.

Jesus, I like I you know that I wrestle with John 15 at times.

Like, what is it?

What does it actually look like?

Am I actually really abiding in you or not?

I pray that every single person in this room, everybody that's joining us online right now, that you would speak to us as individuals, that you would give us clarity and show us what vine we're really connected to.

Whatever it is.

If it's you, let us be encouraged.

If it's not you, let us be clear and convicted to disconnect from that vine and reconnect to you.

Or for somebody who's never put their faith in you and doesn't know you, Jesus, let them connect to you now.

Would you grab a hold of their heart and their mind?

Would you grab a hold of their spirit with yours and draw them to you into a saving relationship?

And all of us that are following you, let us continue to follow in faith and obedience, staying connected to you so that we would, as individuals and families and as a church, bear much fruit.

So northern Colorado and generations are changed by it, and that our joy would be complete.

We believe you when we say that.

So I'm asking with expectance that you will do that for our church right now.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.