The True Vine | Pastor Trea Sanders | The Church at CW

Well, good morning, CCW.

Thank you for the one woo-hoo.

I appreciate that.

I'm not Pastor Rick.

My name is Trey.

I'm one of the pastors here at CCW.

My wife, she's the kids director here.

And I do a thousand little things around here.

I'm the guy running around sometimes in the background trying to fix some things, but I'm honored to be here.

Pastor Rick asked me a couple months ago if I would have an opportunity to preach.

Would I take it?

And I said, absolutely.

I told Pastor Rick years ago when we started attending that whatever he needed for me, my answer was a yes.

And so, Pastor Rick, I know you're watching online, but thank you for what you've done for me and my family.

And I'll share some stories of that here in a minute.

But uh Pastor Rick, he's been on a week of vacation.

I know a lot of people just expect pastors to preach and be busy, but how many of you know your pastor needs a break?

Amen?

He's doing a lot.

Come on, give him Pastor Rick and head in the family.

It is not an easy job.

If it was easy, there wouldn't be so many churches hiring senior pastors.

I promise you.

And if you think it's easy, I challenge you to go do it.

It's not an easy job.

Um, there's plenty of signups online.

You can go find one.

Uh, but he is getting some good rest, and uh, he's reached out to me a couple times this week, even on vacation when he didn't have to.

So I definitely appreciate that.

And he's been somebody really good as we're growing as a church.

There's a lot of vision happening.

I know if you're a member here, there's a lot of things that we're looking over in the fall.

Connect groups are about to start back.

Uh, we got a lot of good things happening, and so just stay connected, stay plugged in.

I know you hear Benji talk about it and the staff talk about it, but go on the church app, go on the website, you will see everything that is happening.

Uh so today we're gonna be talking about the I am statement that I am the true vine and you are the branch, Jesus' words here.

But before I get into it, uh I told my wife, I don't think a lot of people even know who we are.

I'm just some guy that plays piano and guitar every once in a while.

So I wanted to introduce myself.

Um so I got a picture of my wife, if you want to throw it up on the screen in the back.

There it goes.

This is us over the last couple years, even in high school.

We were not even dating, but we somehow managed to take pictures all in high school as if we were a couple, um, thanks to my mom always taking pictures of us.

Uh, and we grew up in youth group together.

Uh we actually, the first time we led worship together, we were 16 at a uh food bank, and we led worship on Saturdays, and so uh uh some people say it's meant to be.

So after that, I went to I actually went to Highlands College down the road, and I actually, this is crazy.

I'm from Jemison, I'm not even from here.

I got to lead a youth group in Chelsea like 10 years ago.

How crazy is that?

And I I get I get to stay connected with a lot of them.

So that was my first youth group I led.

I'm the guy in all blue in a Chelsea jersey.

It's a soccer jersey.

I don't even like soccer, don't even know where I got it from.

Sorry, are you soccer fans?

But that was a really fun group to be part of.

After I graduated um uh college, I actually went to Texas for a little bit at a church called Hope City, and it'll be the next slide here.

And this was all the youth leaders there, and we had a blast, and um me and Anna were long distance dating.

So if you've ever long distance dating, it is hard.

But I spent around seven to eight months in Houston, Texas, and I paid 80 bucks a month to drive because that's how Houston is.

Uh but there at Hope City, I got to do all this stuff with youth ministry and some Sunday experience stuff, and I am a lot skinnier in that photo.

Nobody say it, but I will say it.

Uh, after that, I got to come back home and work at a church near where I grew up, and Anna will end up being on staff as well at a church called New Life.

Uh, I got a couple photos there.

Um, and this is honestly some of the sweetest moments of mine and Anna's life was being in being over kids' ministry.

Uh, you can go to the next photo.

Uh being in kids' ministry, being in student ministry.

We were just crazy.

Um, I don't know, there's some kid wearing a Santa Claus six-pack shirt on the bottom left.

It was funny.

But we just had a good time.

You can go to the next couple photos, and the entire time, like we just went to kids' camp with uh with Anna, and I told her, I said, I love camp, so we used to go to the beach every summer.

Um, I have a mustache somewhere in that photo.

Uh, I retired it.

I'm not bringing it back.

Um, but we used to live on the beach, and it just honestly, like, that was one of my favorite pictures, and it wasn't it for me, it was a reminder of what the Lord had called me to do.

It's just loving people and praying over people, and and just at that moment, the Lord got to use our family in so many good ways.

And so that was our background.

We were in full-time ministry for six, seven years, and then there was a season.

Honestly, this message correlates exactly to where we've been walking, it's a pruning season.

So we were on staff together, and the Lord drew us out, and we went to a secular job, and it was like, hey Lord, what are you doing?

And we've been walking through a honestly three years of pruning.

Uh, and so this message that Pastor Rick put in front of me to preach on was something that was very dear and near to my heart.

And so I do hope you know I'm gonna preach with conviction, but also not something that it's at you, but I'm preaching with you.

We're together on this, that I'm a walk daily and every season of the Lord is pruning our family and me as a husband, as a man, and as a father.

Um, and so I'm gonna pray real quick and then we're gonna dive into the scripture.

Father, we thank you so much for today.

Thank you for CCW and just the vision here, Lord, and what you've called us to do here in the Chelsea area, Father.

And I pray that, God, that today, Father, it's not my words, let it be your words that penetrates the heart of everyone here, Lord.

And I pray that today when we leave, we'll understand that God, you are the source of life.

And God, we are just the branch that is being used.

And Father, we cannot strive to do anything greater other than just abiding in you.

It's when you're holding a prayer, and everybody said, Amen.

So uh as I preach, I'm a uh interactive preacher, so sometimes I'm gonna say something, you can shout something back to me.

Um, so I just I don't like silence.

Uh my wife's laughing, so uh, if I if I if I ask you a question, you've got to answer it back.

Everybody say, Yep.

Thank you.

This is perfect.

So we're gonna start in John chapter 15.

John 15 · chapter mention

If you have your Bibles, turn to John chapter 15, verses 1 through 11.

John 15:1–11

If you want to take notes, it is on the app.

We do not have the paper copies I was told this morning.

So if you want to take notes, it is on the church app.

If you don't have it downloaded, it's probably too late to download it.

All right, starting in verse 1.

This is Jesus in just a little context.

He is standing in front of the temple of Jerusalem, and he's actually standing in front of a golden vine that was hanging over the entrance of the temple.

There's some symbolism there we'll get into in a second.

But Jesus is doing his I am statements, and he happens to be standing in front of a golden vine, and he says these words I am the true grapevine, and my father is the gardener.

He cuts off every branch of mine that does not produce fruit.

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

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

And he says this in verse 4 remain in me.

Some versions say abide.

So abide in me, and I will abide in you.

For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.

We'll read the rest here in a second.

So today we're gonna talk about in the story the idea of the divine.

Everybody say divine.

A plus.

We're already at we're hey, 100%.

Everybody passed the test.

So we're gonna be talking about the divine and some points about who Jesus is in this story.

And so we're looking at this, we'll read verses, we just read the verses one through four, and we look at this passage, and the first thing we hear is cutoff, pruning.

I'm sure that hurts, but there's some deeper messaging here for us as Christians, as even non-believers in the room, but even seasoned Christians.

If you've been here, you some of you may have been Christians for 70 years, maybe you've been a Christian for 15 minutes, but there are a lot of principles in this story that applies to everyone in this room.

So we're gonna be talking about the divine.

And you see, the word divine, it refers to God Himself, his nature, his power, and his active presence.

The word active presence.

So life in the spirit, it originates with God, not with us.

So in the story, Jesus is saying this, he's standing in the front of the temple.

And so picture this the entire life of the disciples and all that he's speaking to, who did they refer to as the vine in the Old Testament?

Anyone know?

Israel.

Israel was the vine in the Old Testament.

Isaiah talks about it, uh in Psalm David, King David talks about it, that Israel was the vine, and then God took them out of captivity out of Egypt, and they referred to themselves, the state of Israel, the nation of Israel, as the vine, and the people were the branch.

And so there was a there's a system of people were following just Israel, but what happened continual after continual with Israel?

There began to be bad fruits, sour fruits.

There was some growth, there were some great things.

He brought them out of the promised land.

So Jesus is now standing at the temple, challenging the traditions of religion of where he's fulfilling.

We hear the words that he came to fulfill the law, not replace it, not override it, not overtake it, but to fulfill it.

So Jesus stands on the temple in front of a golden vine and says, I am the vine.

Not Israel, not the state, not the temple.

And he's foreshadowing what's to come with the cross.

You following church?

Everybody following?

And he's telling them, the state of Israel, the nation of Israel is not the vine I am.

They are not the source of life.

The temple is not the source of life, I am.

Amen.

And it was a shift, and Jesus is making a point.

You know, we talk about Jesus, well, people talk about Jesus in the Bible that he was rude.

Jesus was just smart.

He knew what he was doing.

He wasn't a jerk.

Now, some things may have come across like kind of like, wow, he said that.

You know, but think about Jesus standing in front of it and he's proving a point.

He's breaking down thousands of years of tradition to let them know something new is coming.

And he says, I am.

I am the vine.

So I want you to think through the story that he's breaking down traditions of religion, of traditions to bring in what is the new covenant himself.

And so Egypt, Israel is almost like this failed vine, almost you could say.

Uh and now he's replacing it with himself.

And in as a vine dresser, you know, he says, God is the gardener, the vine dresser.

He puts the vine where he needs to go.

God ordained and directed Jesus where he should be at, and then now we are the branches.

And he sets this story up for us as a church.

And so I got four points today, and we're gonna go and dive into the first the first one.

The first one is that the divine identity.

So we're looking at this I am story of the vine, and we're gonna talk about the divine identity.

See, Jesus, he is the ultimate life source.

And in the very first verse, he says, I am the true grape vine, and my father is the vine dresser, the gardener.

See, there's this there's a shift, just like he's standing in front of the temple, from the system to, wait a minute, I don't need to just follow a random set of rules that I've been reading or I've been passed down.

I have to follow a person.

He's teaching them something that the power of life, of death and life, it now flows like a living water through Jesus and Jesus alone.

And so here he talks about, even in Colossians, you read that Jesus, he existed and God existed before anything else, and he holds all of creation together, and that's where our identity comes from.

So when we picture a vine and a branch, you have the vine and the gardener, he's tending to it.

Sometimes they have the actual, they'll have wood in the ground to guide it, and the vines on the vines holding up, and now the branches start growing off of it.

And there's a sap, you know, we can view that as blood, the blood of the tree itself, or water, but it is the sap is the source of life that allows a branch to grow.

Without the sap coming from the vine to the branch, there is no branch to live.

It will sever, it will die, it will weather, it will produce sour fruit.

And so what I want us to understand today is that this divine identity, it is our source of life.

I know that seems very elementary, but I want you to know there is no way to heaven except through the Father, amen?

There is no way, I don't care how long you've been coming to church, I don't care your Sunday school class, your attendance, I don't care if you've been here for a thousand years, if you are not connected to the source, you will not make it to heaven, amen?

And Jesus is saying, I am the vine, not your own strength, not your own power, not your knowledge, but Jesus Himself is the source of life.

And no one can go to the Father except through who?

Jesus.

That's real.

I get excited about that.

You see, your spiritual security, it isn't tied to a system, a set of circumstances, it's tied to your personal Savior who died on the cross for you over 2,000 years ago.

Amen?

That is the source of life.

You see, the Holy Spirit, we look at the spiritual sap from this branch.

You see, our lives, we live our life and we wonder why things are not, things are dry.

Why is my life stale?

And there can be a lot of different things, but I challenge you, when you're looking at yourself as a Christian, let me speak to the Christians in the room for a second.

If something's going wrong in our life, we've got to ask ourselves, are we connected to the source?

Have I veered off the path a little bit?

Since the path is narrow, right?

But a lot of us we like to find the shortcuts in life.

Well, I'll get there, or Jesus will find me.

While that's true, why would you shoot yourself in the foot and just go to him directly?

You see, there's no shortcuts to Christianity.

If it was easy, everybody would do it.

If it was common sense, the whole world would be saved, right?

But it takes a little faith, it takes a little hardship to go through and trust Jesus.

And even when it gets hard, that we still understand who is the source of life, who is my source of life.

A lot of us, our source of life is not Jesus, it's the idea of Jesus, it's the idea of Christianity, it's our jobs, it's our family.

Maybe I tell my boys this all the time.

Now, this may offend some people, but this is my household.

I I jokingly tell my boys, but I do mean this.

It's it's God, my wife, Anna.

And I was like, boys, you're number three on the list.

I said, No, you're only number three because I love number two.

You know, that's what I tell them.

And they they'll get that one day.

You know, some of you didn't get that, but about one o'clock, you're like, oh, that made sense.

You know, there that there's a few more, a few more.

You'll get it about point four.

But I tell them that because I want them to know that my what I pull my source of life from every day.

I can't be the best husband unless I'm pulling from the source of life.

Everything else will fade and wither, and we'll get into that.

And those there's pruning, there's cutting off of a branch, but I have to be connected to the source.

Get involved in your church, get accountability.

Accountability hurts.

True biblical discipline and accountability is not fun, but get get find somebody to hold you accountable.

Get involved with your pastors and let them pastor you.

A lot of times, as a church, as Christians, we figured it out.

I don't need pastored, I figured it out.

I'm telling you, sometimes we veer off the path and we're not on the source.

Church, the divine identity is Jesus Himself and nothing else.

Not you, not your works, not how strong you are.

Everybody say point number two.

The divine process.

There's a process to this.

Jesus says, I am.

In verse 2 to 3, he says, He cuts off every branch of mine that does not produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit, so they will produce even more.

When you're when we're reading the scripture, and Jesus is giving this visual of the vine and the branch where an actual gardener, there's a process to this.

So a lot of a lot of vines, a lot of branches, they'll fall in the dirt, they'll get dirty, they'll get disgusting.

And when dirt gets on a vine on a branch, it begins to wither.

It can't fully get life to it.

Sometimes the sap will stop flowing to the vine, it will lose its life.

And so when a vine dresser or a gardener, what God does to us is says they'll go and they'll pick up the branch off the ground, they'll clean off the branch, they'll use water, they'll clean it off, and then they'll put it right back with the rest of the branches along the vine.

So there's a part of this where we just read cut off, we're cut off.

But really, what the Lord's doing is he's taking us, he's cleansing us, and he's putting us right back where we need to be.

There's a process, it's a divine process from Jesus that once we're connected, we still have to follow the process, church.

Now, I listen, I can't give you a four-step program to get to become a better Christian.

But what I mean, but Jesus here maps out a pretty good roadmap that get connected, now follow the process.

There's a process to it.

And sometimes it's not fun.

So he'll pick us up out of the dirt, he'll clean us off.

He says he'll lift us out of the mud when it gets stuck from rain, from flooding, from life.

How many of you can relate to that in our life?

Hey, I'm connected to the source, but let me tell you something.

Life hits hard.

And when it rains, it I y'all must feel that because I've I have felt that over my last few years of my life.

That when it rains, it pours.

And sometimes you feel like you can't get out of the mud, and that's where in the story, Jesus says, divine judgment, he'll cut you off, but he'll also, he'll pick you up, he'll lift you, he'll cleanse you, and put you right back where you need to be at.

Church, how many times, including myself, have we been not where we're supposed to be at, spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally, as a father, as a husband, as a wife?

And the Lord has to tell us, hey, get back on track.

Think about your own life.

I don't I don't want you to think about your husband, your spouse, my kids, anybody else.

Think about yourself.

Have I been off track and has the Lord had to realign me back to his purpose?

Am I off track right now?

Am I veering?

And maybe that's conviction setting in.

But am I off track?

Am I in the mud?

Maybe I've just had a really hard year.

Maybe there's been deaths in your family.

Maybe you've walked through something that you say, Trey, you don't understand, and I may not understand, but there's a personal Savior who does, and he wants to get you out of the mud and put you right back on the branch where it's supposed to be at.

Amen?

He's trying to give you life and to preserve life in you.

There's a second part of this scripture where he says, He prunes the branches that do bear fruits, so they will produce even more.

You see, pruning, it looks pretty aggressive.

They go in and you look at this greenery and it looks great, right?

And the vine dresser goes and starts cutting things off.

And you're thinking, why would you cut off something good?

And some of this even has fruit, y'all.

It's not like a vine just, or this branch is just not producing any fruit.

A vine dresser will prune fruit that isn't how it's supposed to be.

Even if it has some fruit, it may be a little sour, maybe a little bitter tasting, it may be withered, it may not be the correct color, and the vine dresser prunes it.

You see, the Lord, we I feel like over my life I have viewed pruning as a punishment, right?

We've got to cut off all the bad stuff.

But sometimes the Lord, I tell people this a lot, and this has been heavy in my life.

What got me to 2026 is not necessarily going to carry me to 2028, 2029, 2022.

That doesn't mean changing my source of life, but it means there's things inside of me the Lord has to prune.

There may be good things in my life that has produced fruit.

And our time of ministry, I feel like the Lord did produce a lot of good fruit through me and Anna, but the Lord still has had to prune things in my life.

Pruning isn't a bad thing, church, it is preparation for where the Lord is leading you.

So you've got to know your divine identity, who you draw life from, the source, but there's this aspect that we look at pruning as just punishment, and we get upset and we we don't like discipline, church.

Listen, I'm gonna get on a soapbox here for a second.

We as a church, and I'm not talking about CCW, I'm talking about as a big C church, we have learned to just avoid accountability and avoid church discipline.

And it puts men in leadership that shouldn't be in leadership, it puts people in positions that shouldn't be there, it creates a bitter body that there's a divide between leadership and the Christians, and now it's church versus church, city versus city, denomination versus denomination.

Do you think that's good fruit or bad fruit?

I mean, I I would say bad fruit, yeah.

There's a divide happening, and so my soapbox today is that we do not allow the Lord to prune our churches and our people correctly.

See, we put up shields, we figured it out.

This is our structure, don't touch it.

This is our this is our golden calf of our church.

This is our golden calf of the Chelsea Westover area, this is how we do it in Shelby County, this is how we do it in the Bible Belt.

I've lived outside the Bible Belt and I've lived inside it my entire life.

I'm telling you, every church, every denomination has their golden calves, and it limits us from being pruned by God.

You see, the God is the gardener, he's the vine dresser, and we get our source of life from Jesus, and he's trying to prune us.

He's trying to get rid of things to take us to the next level as a church.

You see, we pray, I want my family saved, I want my city saved, I want my friends to know Jesus.

We want revival in our church, but we won't allow the Lord to actually prune us and remove the things that need to be removed.

We'll we'll scream and shout for change until the Lord says, Well, change it.

Wait a minute, that's how we've always done it.

I've been using this room for 13 years.

This is my chair.

Anybody grew up in a church where people had chairs?

I uh when I was 16 years old, y'all are gonna laugh at this.

Um, this is the most me thing ever.

Me and our youth group, Anna, was with us.

We went to a friend's church and they had an old school revival.

Who remembers the three or four nights?

You start on a Sunday, you end on a Wednesday.

Anybody remember?

Yeah, and I I have memories.

In the Alabama National Championship in high school because my mama took me to a revival and I sat there with no cell phone service in a metal building, mad, furious, and I had it on DVR through Dish, and I had to watch it, and I have my phone off.

Nobody text me, nobody called me, and then somebody ruined it at the church.

We lost.

But I remember going to this revival at this, it was this little old Methodist church, and my church didn't have a sign seating.

It was just, you know, some bright blue chairs.

Um, but there was no like pillows and anything, and I I never forget on a Monday, I went to this revival with all of her friends, and I was like, you know, I'm I'm I was young, I felt called to ministry.

I'm like 16, 17.

I'm sitting on the front row.

That was not my chair.

And somebody let me know very ugly, it was her chair, and then she began to worship and to shout and holler and scream.

I'm like, you just practically chewed me out for sitting next to your pillow.

Like, anyways, it was just it was a learning moment for me.

I should have asked whose pillow it was.

But, you know, there's a there's a story in every story, you know.

I should have asked, but it reminds me in this moment that like we we hold on to things of I I will hurt somebody.

Now I wasn't hurt, but I will hurt somebody, I will say something out of what I think is righteous, and I will still hurt some people.

Church, we have to be pruned.

Remove the things, it may be good, but is it great?

It may be good for you, but is that what God's calling you to live your life like?

That and I'm not just using examples of jobs, it could be jobs, it could be hobbies, it could be anything, it could be your mindset, but we have to be pruned, church.

You see, pruning, it says in Hebrews 2, it talks about that pruning is it's hurt, it hurts.

It's discipline.

So listen, church, pruning is not a punishment, it's just preparation.

And there's actually a moment in a vine, they call it weeping.

Anybody anybody ever heard of this?

A vine, a branch will actually weep.

And so after it gets pruned in the winter, it's getting it's prepping for the next season.

And we're gonna talk about the fruit here in a second, but it's preparing for a season.

And you see, we we get mad when we get pruned, like God, why me?

Who's ever said that?

Anybody?

Just raise your hand.

Some of us need to put two hands up, you know, and a leg.

Why me, God?

And we we whine about it, we complain to the Lord.

Listen, the Lord's heard more complaints from me than all y'all probably combined.

Like I I I the Lord has to tell me to hush sometimes.

I stop talking.

I'm trying to do something.

But we you have the you have the branch, and when they prune it, and the vine dresser prunes it, there's a there's a moment where from the outside it looks scary, it looks like it's dead.

From the outside, from the church, from people, they look at a a branch that once had fruit, now it's cut completely down to the very bottom.

And not only that, it says a branch will begin to weep, and the sap that flows from the vine will begin to come out of it, and it almost looks like it's not supposed to.

And church, how many times do we look at somebody, or somebody may look at us, we're worried, I'm broken, or that you know, there's things going on in our life.

We're the weeping branch, church.

The Lord's pruning us, and there's things that may not look okay from the outside.

People may look at us and go, I don't know what's going on, but I promise you, the Lord is preparing you for something.

Amen.

And that may be for your family, it may be for your future family, it may be for your church, it may be for ministry, wherever that may be.

And ministry is not just a paid full-time, 40-hour week gig.

Ministry is wherever you go.

But listen, church, when you get pruned, it may not look pretty from the outside.

And people can think what they want, but listen, uh, it does not matter what people think.

And I gotta say that with a caveat because there you should care to an extent.

But when it comes to the Lord's calling on your life and the burden, especially as men, as we carry for our families and even for the church, and for your all these families, this burden we carry, it should not care about what it looks like on the outside.

It may look ugly for a season, it may not be pretty, it may be sap-flowing, and we don't understand why we've been pruned so down below.

Like we maybe feel like that's just not working for us, but the Lord's doing something in our life, even through the weeping.

And so everybody say point number three the divine connection.

So this is a really good important point here that I want to really kind of settle in for a moment.

John, you know in John, he says this abide in me, and I will abide in you.

For apart from me, you can do nothing.

And we're gonna talk about the fruit here, but you you see Jesus is giving this picture in the story that he is the vine and that he's the source, but a lot of us, again, we begin to get disconnected.

And then we have to figure things out on our own.

We try to figure out our own strength, all right, what's going on?

You see, but Galatians says this, but the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

You see, fruit isn't something you produce by working harder, church.

You can't just show up and work harder.

I'm gonna be a better Christian today.

Like, what does that mean?

Like, what does it mean to be a better Christian?

But it's what happens when you abide in Christ, when you stay connected.

You see, a lot of us, we met Jesus, we got saved, he moved in our life, and then we put him on a shelf.

He's there for us, he's waiting to be in.

You accepted him to your heart, you have salvation, but then you put him right back on a shelf.

Okay, I did my ABC's, I did the Romans Road, I took the Sunday school class, I read the book.

We have a book, by the way, that Pastor Barry wrote that is on salvation.

But if that's the only thing you read and stop, right, Barry, that's it.

Like you've missed out on so much more with the Lord.

And a lot of us were praying for fruit in our life, but yet we got the source and then we put them on a shelf.

That's all I need.

Everything else is scary.

You see, faith is scary, church.

Anybody had anybody ever had to step on faith when it didn't make sense?

The bank account was in the negatives, and you're like, how am I gonna make it to Friday?

Right?

Or what church am I gonna go to?

I just left my church, I don't know what's next for my family.

Maybe it's a job, maybe it's a career path or you're for your family, maybe you know you're figuring things out, but every single time when we're staying connected to the Lord, there's provision.

And fruit comes from that.

You see, church, we try to work harder, we try to we try to take the most notes, we want to come to the most classes, we want to do the most for a church, and those things are great, but if you're not truly spiritually connected to Jesus, it doesn't matter.

And even Paul talks about there's you know, people can yell and scream and shout, but they may not even know Jesus.

You know, me and Anna, we've had the conversation that a lot of people you know, you have people come pray for you, especially when you go to other churches, and there's a season where we were just visiting friends' churches for a while, and that was fun.

You know, I have all these ministry friends from college and we just got to go hang out at different churches for a couple months.

But even me and Anna, you know, we're very weird of who would just let lay hands on us and pray for us.

Because I don't know your walk.

And that's just that's a spiritual protection for us.

I don't let anybody just lay hands on me and pray for me.

You can pray for me from a distance.

But if I don't know you and I don't see fruit from your life, that's beyond a loud noise in a microphone, I don't care what your title is.

I we're very protective of our family of who prays for us and our boys.

And and a lot of that is just from identifying, you know, it says you can judge a tree by the fruit it bears.

You know, the statement, you can't judge, it's a sin.

Pastor Rick talked about this, I think, a couple months ago.

Uh we always hear, don't judge, don't judge.

But listen, as Christians, there is a slight judgment from the inside from a church disciplined accountability that when somebody's bearing bad fruit, it is our responsibility as a church to come together and help the bad fruit.

See, God does the pruning, but sometimes the Lord uses his church to help with that.

And so there's a lot of times in our life that we'll look and I can, it's just for me, it's a it's I call it spiritual discernments.

Is that person walking in bad fruit?

That's not my job to just go from the from the branches and start yelling at everybody, bad fruit, he's got bad fruit.

Like that, that's called a jerk.

That's that's that's what that's called.

Um, that's not spiritual discernment, that's just your rude.

Uh, but there is a way to walk through that, and that comes with accountability.

That comes from being in a small group of somebody.

Like once you're in a connect group with somebody and there's a relationship and there's fellowship, you can walk along somebody and say, hey man, you sure about that?

Anybody ever been hit with that?

Like, are you sure you should have said that?

My wife tells me that once a week.

Are you sure you should have said it that way?

And I'm like, yes, babe.

She's like, that's an opinion.

And I'm like, oh, so passive aggressive, Anna.

Uh not her, never, never.

Right, right, man?

Wives are never passive aggressive.

But a lot of times in my life, I've got men who sharpen me.

I've got pastors who sharpen me.

That way I can be prepared for the pruning from God.

See, as Christians, we should be producing fruit.

And if we're not connected to the vine, if we're not staying connected daily, you will not produce the fruit the Lord's trying to do.

It will be sour, it will be bitter.

There's a lot of sour and bitter Christians in today's world.

There's a lot of Christians living for something more than just the Bible itself.

See, Christianity is not to uplift anything else other than itself, the Bible, Jesus.

My Christianity should not be put on a platform to push other politics.

It should not be put to push your school systems or anything.

Your Christianity, this Bible right here, is meant to reach the lost and disciple those once they're in this building.

And you see, we we go around telling sinners they got bad fruit.

I'm about to preach church.

We walk around telling everybody in Chelsea Westover, you've got bad fruit.

We'll go on Facebook, you've all got bad fruit.

But church, I there's a lot of bad fruit in this room right now.

And there's there's something in me the Lord's still pruning.

And a lot of times we like, well, I gotta go reach the lost.

But what that looks like is it looks like you go out and you scream at people and you yell and you're blasting people on Facebook and you can't control yourself.

You see, last time I checked, a fruit of the spirit is what?

Self-control.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control.

You see, these things will reach the lost and it will renew something inside of you as you do it, but you cannot produce those things if you are not connected.

And our job as Christians in this church is to uphold that in this room.

Go reach the lost, but let God do the pruning inside here.

Your job's not to, you are not the vine dresser, church.

It is not your job to go to downtown Birmingham and start pruning vines.

Because I promise you, if we would work on this room right here, we would have revival in Chelsea Westover.

We pray for it, but we won't let the Lord prune us.

Listen, church, there are there are fruit that the Lord is trying to produce inside this church through our pastors, through our council, through the deacons, through the body, through kids' ministry, through youth ministry, through young adults.

But church, we have to allow God to prune us and we've got to stay connected so that way we can see the fruit.

Amen?

Listen, I'm telling you, we have to be pruned daily, church.

It's our job to abide daily.

Without Jesus, we can do nothing.

We cannot do nothing.

We cannot work harder.

We cannot produce our own fruits.

We cannot make things happen for ourselves or for this church.

I can come up here and preach the hardest I can.

Pastor Rick can be the best preacher in the world, but as a pastor called to lead the church, and the council is called to lead the church, if they are not abiding in Christ, they will be like a vision.

And church, let me tell you something, I do see vision at CCW.

As a body, if all we do is complain, but we don't submit to the vision of God through our leadership, there's not gonna be fruit from that.

You see, church, we have a role.

Paul talks about there are roles in the body, and you've got to ask yourself, what role am I playing?

Am I producing good fruit or not?

Have I stayed connected to the vine or am I doing my own thing?

I'm telling you, church, the Lord has something for us as individuals, as men, as women, as families, as a church in this community, and until we begin to walk in the Lord's path, not ours, not what we think was right, not what people told us generations ago, but until we walk what the Lord's calling us in this moment, on August 9th, 2026, we will miss it.

I promise you.

We can have church every Sunday and still miss it.

You can be in every Sunday school class and still miss it.

My last point, and I'm getting ready to close uh so we can all eat at an early lunch today.

Um I'm not preaching an hour and a half.

Um the divine purpose.

We're connected to the life source, right?

There's sap flowing through the vine to the branch.

There's some pruning, there's cutting.

Then there's a requirement of us to stay and abide and continual stay in connection as we're growing.

And we get cut, we grow again.

It's a process, season after season.

And then he ends in he ends in scripture with this.

He says, starting in verse 8, this is what he says right here.

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

This brings great glory to my father.

And then verse 9, I have loved you even as the Father has loved me, remain in my love.

When you obey my commands, you remain in my love.

Just as I obey my father's commandments and remain in his love, I have told you these things so that you will be filled with joy.

Yes, your joy, it will overflow.

See, church, the purpose of, no, this is as we're closing, the purpose of the vine and the branch is reaching the lowest.

But honestly, as a Christian, there's a joy that comes with that.

And that joy doesn't have to mean your world's perfect.

You can have joy while your world is completely torn down.

Your family could be in shambles.

You can be walking through the hardest thing right now in your life, and you can still have joy from the Lord.

You see, the disciples are preparing to become the apostles and go launch the church in Acts.

And Jesus is teaching them every day.

And he's breaking down religion again, he's breaking down the traditions like Israel's not divine, I'm divine.

He's preparing them to go start the church.

And he ends with, You will be my true disciples.

You abide in me, my love will be in you.

You will have eternal joy, an overflowing joy.

See, church, he didn't tell the disciples, he actually told the disciples, some of you are gonna die.

At the end of John, he tells them, we studied it in young adults.

There's a plug there.

In two weeks, we start young adults back here at the church every Sunday.

Um, but we studied this where at the end of John, Jesus tells his disciples, he's preparing them, he's giving them just these ideas at the Last Supper.

He tells them, Some of you are going to die.

Blessed are you.

And they're like, What?

And he tells them multiple times, you will die.

He started with you're going to die, you could die, too, you're gonna die.

And then you read, then you actually go through church history, and the majority of them did die.

And they died for a cause, but yet he tells them here, my true disciples, you will have overflow and joy.

You're gonna die, but you're gonna have joy.

Like that's a mystery I will never understand, Lord.

And I will ask him one day in heaven, right?

I just never will understand that.

But in the hardest moments, when you're living your life, when you're abiding in the vine, there's a sap flowing through you, the blood of Jesus is in your life, he's covered your sins, and every single day when it doesn't make sense, I promise you you will have joy.

I can't explain it, I don't have a process for it.

All I can tell you is try it.

Try it.

In the hardest moments, when you stay connected to Jesus, that means whether it's 5 a.m.

in the morning and you're not on Facebook, but you're on your knees in your bedroom, maybe it's in your car on the way to work.

Some of you have drive times, utilize that time.

But when your life is full of fruit, even though it may be hard, even though the pruning hurts, I promise you there's a joy that I just can't explain.

I have I don't have a special word for it.

I ain't got a Greek or a Hebrew word for it.

It's just try Jesus.

I promise you.

Lean on the Holy Spirit.

See, Jesus, he literally sent his Holy Spirit, a helper, a friend in a time of need to be with us as Jesus goes back to the right hand of the Father.

He left us the Holy Spirit to accompany us, to give us peace and joy every single day.

See, even in 1 Peter, we hear you love even though you have never seen him.

You trust and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.

Even David, as he was being sought after, as King Saul was mad and trying to kill him, and he was searching through the caves and David was hiding.

David still had a joy of the Lord.

And we know David, he had his wrongs, he had his issues, but there was a lot of fruit produced from David.

David was running for his life, and the Lord still chose to produce fruit and give him joy.

Church, we gotta stay connected to the vine.

We gotta be pruned.

A lot of us, there's things we gotta prune ourselves, we gotta cut some things out of our life, and we gotta allow the Lord to cut us down.

It's humbling.

Then, after the pruning, the fruit comes.

You don't see fruit unless there's a pruning.

The order is very important.

See, a dry, joyous faith, a dry, joyless faith isn't just a holy life, it's a severed connection.

Church, today, my my question is are we severed?

And I do want to share, I want to share a story as we're about to close and pray and go to an altar time.

And thank you for having me this morning.

I do appreciate it.

And you get to hear me preach, and I and I am I am humbled to be up here.

There was a season when we left ministry for me and Anna.

Uh Levi was what, six months old, maybe?

Like maybe even then.

We just went on our last youth camp.

We knew we were leaving.

We had you know, I had like I gave like a month notice, and when we left, the Lord had guided us to leave, and it was really hard.

I mean, we had some very close, I mean, I'd call them family friends, right?

I mean, we were we'd people at our house every night, and it was just the church was our life.

And we both worked there, like we we would ride to work together, we'd get lunch together, it was just it was great, you know?

And Judah would run around the church.

We actually, at the same time CCW was being built, we were building a building.

So I used to come over here with Benji and some of the guys, we did a tour, and Benji actually came over to our church, and we got he got to walk.

He actually helped a lot of stuff, and I'll never forget that, that Thursday night.

And uh, but we left and it felt like the Lord was punching us.

But I didn't.

I know what the Lord's called us to do as a family one day.

That's for me and the Lord and my family.

Pastor Rick's aware.

I do feel like there's a future for us, but there was so much the Lord had to work on in Trey.

I would say my family, but I'm gonna speak to myself for me.

And there was fruit in these seasons of six to seven years of working at different churches, and felt like I would never leave there, and then all of a sudden God asked you to leave, and you're like, why?

I'm comfortable here.

This is where my family and my friends are here.

It's five minutes from my house.

That was great, y'all.

Five minutes.

And and we left that season feeling punished.

We went to working nine to five secular jobs.

How am I supposed to do ministry?

I don't have a title, I don't have this or that.

And that's not the conversations we were having, but that's where your heart goes of like, what do I do?

Like, am I not called Lord?

Like, am I not worthy?

Like, did I do something wrong?

Am I living in sin?

And so I began this process.

I almost felt like it was between the Old Testament and New Testament of just nothing.

Like, Lord, I've been hearing your voice for years.

I, you know, the Bible says in Hebrews when the word of God is living and active, and it's sharper than any double-edged sword.

Now was I would read the Bible, I would I've always felt the Lord drawing things to me and speaking to me, and all of a sudden, nothing.

And I'm and I I began to walk in this path of the Lord.

What did I do?

And I began to, I tell people, me and the Lord wrestled hard.

Now, did I win?

No.

He beat me up many times spiritually.

But I wrestled with God for years.

And so the last two or three years, let me tell you something, church.

There were things in me I had no idea.

Stuff that wasn't necessarily bad, but the Lord was preparing, it's still preparing me.

I have no idea what that looks like.

But the Lord is preparing me and Anna and our boys and our future boy.

Uh we're gonna have a baby on the way due to November, and it's the Lord's doing something in our family, but he had to take us out of a season to prepare us for our next.

And that hurt.

We lost family friends, we lost people that we'll never speak to again.

And I didn't understand it, and and honestly, me and Anna were talking about last night, it's probably one of the most isolating seasons of our life.

Even before we got to CCW, we were like, we just felt like we were lost.

And even I would say the first year, I was still helping Benji, but we felt so lost spiritually, and we didn't know, like I'm Lord, I'm praying as hard as I can.

I'm trying to do all these things correctly, I'm trying as hard as I can.

But what I didn't realize was the Lord was cutting so many things deep down inside my heart.

As a man, I and I will I will publicly say this, I've said it before.

You see, my love had been Jesus, the church, then my family.

Ministry, then my family.

And so for me, I had to walk in a very hard path of realigning my family.

As a man, it was humbling, it was hurtful.

The Lord put me in some of the darkest times at the like to feel humiliated almost, and that's what the Lord had to do for me.

But I'm still walking through pruning, I'm still having things cut off of my life.

But church, let me tell you something.

It hurt, it felt like punishments, but over the last year, even Pastor Rick's been really encouraging me, he's preparing you.

I don't know what it's for, but he's preparing you, church.

A lot of us, we've walked through hard seasons, we've lost everything, we've changed jobs, we don't know what tomorrow looks like.

Maybe you just have no idea what's going on, and you feel maybe it's depression.

See, I walked through a season of depression, church.

I I was I was crying out to the Lord and didn't know what tomorrow would look like.

And the Lord had to really do some things in my heart.

He brought men alongside of me to encourage me, to speak life into me, to help me, to pastor me.

And day by day, it you know, the Lord began to prune.

He began to cut things away from my life.

And I'm gonna tell you something, church, I'm still getting pruned every day.

Amen.

As we all should be.

There's another season for my life.

I don't know what that looks like.

There's another season for all of your life.

There's a next spring.

A lot of us, the winter is hard, but spring is coming.

And when the springtime comes, are you gonna be pruned and ready to grow and produce fruits?

Or are you gonna be a dry, sour grape?

You're gonna be withered, or you're gonna be dirty, stuck in the mud, not allowing the Lord to help you.

And I will say this for even me and Anna.

In the midst of some of the hardest things I think we've ever walked through in our life, we've got pastors who've walked with us through things.

Let me tell you something, we've had more joy the last year than we think we've ever had.

Now, do I think the Lord's gonna continue growing that?

Absolutely, church.

Two years ago, I don't think I was in a place spiritually to get back on the stage and preach.

I was so angry.

Every, you know, you talk about the in Galatians, there's also a part where he says, Don't do these things.

And I was like, Chuck, that's that's I'm angry.

Chuck, that's me.

And the Lord had to refine me.

So, church, I want to I want to tell you this.

You as an individual, whether, whether, no matter what your position is, as a father, as a husband, as a wife, as a mom, maybe just as a friend, but as a Christian, the Lord has a lot of pruning to do in all of us.

He says, I'm the vine, you are the branch.

And apart from him, we can do nothing, church.

A lot of us we're looking at the next season of our life and we're wondering why right now hurts so much.

Pruning does hurt.

It's not fun.

A lot of us we're not even aware of the pruning.

A lot of us we're blind to that.

It's kind of like having the dog blind smell in your house.

You go on vacation, you come back, and you're like, wow, my house does smell like doll.

A lot of us have blind spots, church.

We don't realize, yeah, I've done that.

Um, church.

Plug.

Um, but a lot of us we have blind spots and we don't even realize we need pruning.

That's where church accountability and discipline comes.

Church, abide in the Lord, get pruned, and I promise you the fruit will come.

So just real quick, everybody just go ahead and stand.

Just stand with me.

We're gonna close out.

You can go ahead and close your eyes, bow your head.

I'm gonna ask a few questions, and then we're gonna pray in the altar.