Pastor Brodie Kalamen | Our Homecoming Journey | February 7th, 2021

Welcome to KCC Church at Home.

We're so glad to be having church with you today.

We'd like to start by just reminding you to go ahead and share this stream.

Go ahead and text someone, wake someone up, get them engaged here.

If you're going to watch together at a time other than Sunday, that's wonderful.

Just watch with someone so you have this feedback opportunity to be able to share what the Word of God is today with each other and be able to have that conversation that's so important.

Today I want to also remind you that we have a kids program happening for our kids during this series called the Quest for Treasure Island.

And the Quest for Treasure Island is a program curriculum for the kids so that they can track along with us and on their own pace, but it allows for daily opportunities for you as parents to be able to engage with your kids.

It's so important that during this time we're helping raise this next generation.

Also, if you're listening today and you've got opportunity to go ahead and comment, we really encourage commenting.

Go ahead, throw your thoughts down, engage with the community that's that's meeting today.

Don't be afraid, don't be shy, let people know that you're online, let people know that you're listening.

It's so important to be able to uh process and move forward together.

And uh we want to say also thank you for faithfully giving.

There's nothing that we could uh be continuing doing continuing in doing without your support, and so don't grow weary in doing good.

Let's go ahead and keep moving forward, making a difference uh for the community that we're a part of as well as for the mission that we're destined for.

Now, today, John chapter 15, verse 5, it's one of my favorite scriptures, and it says this I am the vine, you are the branches.

John 15:5

If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.

But apart from me, you can do nothing.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

Now in our home, when I was growing up, in the Caluman household, uh, every Christmas and Thanksgiving, any special event, we had dinner at a dining room table.

My parents have a dining room.

I know many homes aren't built with those today, but our home has a dining room.

My parents' home had a dining room.

I guess it's still my home in some respect.

But at this table, this table was special.

My mom took very good care of it.

It still remains in meticulous condition.

It actually was a part of my great-grandparents' uh dining room.

And at that table, there were incredible people who've eaten at that table.

People such as the great miracle evangelist Smith Wigglesworth, all these incredible people, as well as all the grandkids, and it just has such a history in our home.

And for years, that table represents like family events and family celebrations.

Well, one year my mom and my dad were uh were busy getting ready for this celebration, and my dad ended up being away.

And so this table has all of these chairs sitting around it.

They're all very hard chairs, you know, with cushy seats, and they're all identical except for the one that sits at the head of the table.

And this chair has something different, and it's got armrests because I guess my dad needs more room to eat his dinner.

But it has armrests and it's a special chair reserved for this head of the table.

And when my dad was away, everyone went to get seated at the table, and no one wanted to sit at that chair.

Everyone just it was a really awkward moment.

We're squeezing all around the table, but no one goes to sit at the head of the table in that chair.

And it wasn't until my mom came in and she said, Okay, everyone, just find a seat and go sit at that chair that we actually ended up moving.

But there was a lesson that I learned at that point.

Where you sit matters.

Where you sit matters.

And we want to be sitting in the right chair.

We want to make sure that we're sitting in the right place around the table.

And for sake of this illustration, in life we see three chairs.

The first chair is the chair in the kingdom of God.

It's where God reigns supreme over your life, over your lifestyle.

Chair number two is where self sits, where I do my best to take charge of my life.

And chair number three is the chair of the world.

Now, most Christians live in chair one and two, where they're on this journey towards living in chair one, where they want the kingdom of God to be present in their life and they want to be led by God every day, by the Father.

And if you're living in chair three, well then we're just separated from connection to God and we're lost, and we need to move chairs.

So chair number two.

Chair number two is this chair of self.

And it's this chair of self is the self that we struggle with.

It's a self that we live with saying, I want to achieve things on my own strength and in my own ability, and I want to do it in my own power.

But we move from chair two to a place where we can find rest in chair one, where God is in control, where we rest in the Father, and we say, Father God, you're the head of this family, you're ahead of my life.

I'm gonna lean 100% in you, and by doing so, you're going to bring peace into my life.

And the scripture says that this chair one living experience is wrapped up.

We read about it in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 13 to 16, where it says that these things we speak not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but with the Holy Spirit teaches, which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.

1 Corinthians 2:13–16

It's where you walk with the mind of Christ.

There's also the scripture in Romans chapter 8, verse 14, it says, when you are led by the Spirit of God, then you are children of God.

Romans 8:14

And if you're children of God, then you don't have to be slaves.

You can act as sons, you can find that rest.

And the Spirit Himself testifies that we, that with our Spirit, that we are God's children.

We live with a lifestyle recognizing that we are children of God.

And when we realize that we're children of God and we're sitting in that chair one, we enjoy the benefits of being the God's kids.

And that means we get to abide.

Now, this word abide, it's a really beautiful word, but it's a really important word.

In John chapter 15, verse 4, it says that Jesus commanded, he said, abide in me and I in you.

John 15:4

Let abiding, let me abide in you, and you abide in me.

So we need to know what that word abide means.

It's really important, it's an essential word.

What does it mean to abide with God?

And what does it mean to have Jesus abide in us?

Now it's a beautiful word, but it represents this two-way relationship: Jesus and me, me and Him.

And there are lots of very uh explanatory words that explain this word abide, often words like rest or remain or yield or trust or security, all these words that were which represent a lack of stress, where you're abiding, resting.

But this word abide is actually deeper.

And it's deeper than a quick catchphrase used to describe it.

So what does it mean to abide?

Jesus, when he used this word abide, he actually used an illustration.

And I love illustrations because I'm a visual picture person.

And when Jesus used this word abide, he used it 11 times to represent our relationship with him.

And Jesus wanted us to understand that this word abide is to rest continually in a permanent state with him, like grapes abide on a vine.

So when we look at grapes and we look at a vineyard and we look at this picture that Jesus is sharing with us, he's saying, look at the grape, look at the vine.

I'm going to explain to you what it means to abide like grapes abide in a vineyard.

And this is really difficult for those people in life who are achievers because they look at the grapes in a vineyard and they go, Well, they just look like they sit there.

They don't look like they're doing anything.

And I want to know about the things I can do and achieve and accomplish and kind of win God's God's approval through works.

But God is speaking to us a different lesson here.

The word abide is different.

I heard of an illustration of a fireman who had been fighting this fire.

And the newspaper article took a picture of him as the city was on, city block was on fire, and firemen were doing all their duties.

And they take a picture of this fireman who's got an oxygen tank on his back and a full gear on and a mask on.

And he's sitting, he had pulled off things that were uh covering his face and his mask, and he was back, he was bending down near a leak in a hose, and he was drinking from the water hose.

And some people would be critical and saying, There's a fire going on.

You've got to like get out there and do what you need to do to stop that fire.

But the the picture was so surreal in that the fireman was doing what he needed to do to rest, to be able to go back to fight the fire.

He was exhausted, he was looking for something to drink, he needed to refresh himself to go back in and do his job.

As believers, we're in the midst of this battle.

And when we think of a battle, we think of the shield and the sword and the helmet and the chest plate and being fitted for battle.

We don't think of grapes sitting on a vine.

We don't think God would tell us, hey, the chair you need to be in is this chair that just rests.

We want to work, and that's where self gets involved.

That's where chair two is.

Where we want to work, we want to achieve, but God's saying to rest.

And in Kelowna, we have so many opportunities throughout the summer to go and visit vineyards and see vineyards.

And if you walk through a vineyard, you'll never see the fruit, the grape's intention.

You'll never see them fighting, you'll never see them complaining or struggling to bear fruit.

They rest in that space because they know that the strength of the grape is in the nutrients that come from the vine.

And there's nothing that they can do, the grape can do externally to achieve maximum fruition.

Instead, they rest in that space, and fruit is the result of that vine.

And the fruit needs to just rest in the vine.

That's the word abide.

Now in John 15, where 11 times Jesus says, abide, abide, abide, abide.

We want to stop and we want to see what does it mean to abide?

So there's six examples here of what it means to abide.

And we're just going to look at them today quickly.

The first experience you'll have when you're abiding is that you'll be fruitful.

You'll experience fruitfulness, you'll bear fruit.

The fruit of the vine is based upon the structure of the root system.

What you see above ground isn't accurate to what's actually going on below the ground.

The ground is what brings the nutrients into the fruit.

And oftentimes when people are buying a vineyard, they're not looking at the view or the landscape or romanticizing the appearance of the vineyard.

But what they're doing is they're testing the soil.

In fact, there's a vineyard in Kelowna, one of the first vineyards that were in Kelowna, or actually Peach Land.

As a German came from Germany, brought over all his equipment to this vineyard, and he planted this vineyard.

And he was a geologist, he knew the soil.

He had checked the glacier melt as where it would have melted into a corner of the Okanagan Lake.

And he planted on that corner.

And those roots don't just go down 10 feet to find water sources and nutrition and nutrients.

It doesn't go down 20 feet or 30 feet or even 100 feet.

Those roots go down 300 feet.

In 1972, he planted and he helped those roots grow and they went down 300 feet.

Now they don't even have to water the vineyard.

It's self-contained in that vineyard.

That root system is so important to our life.

When we're abiding in Christ, we will bear fruit if we go deep, if we allow our roots to grow deep.

Abiding is allowing the roots to go down and not just focusing on the fruit.

Because the fruit will come.

Our fruitfulness comes from our connection to Jesus.

If we're going to bear fruit, we have to abide in the vine and have this relationship and this link with Christ.

And that is what needs to be most important.

Not the work, not the activity, not the achievements, but a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Think of that today.

And I think of our city where our city says, let's be fruitful and multiply.

I want to bear fruit.

And I know what the fruit of the scripture says that there's fruit in salvation, there's fruit in giving, there's fruit in thankfulness, there's fruit in character development.

All that fruit will come to you when you focus on abiding in Christ.

Keeping that relationship with Christ close.

So when you're abiding, you'll experience fruitfulness.

Number two, pruning.

You'll experience pruning if you are abiding in Christ.

Now, as a pruner, it's necessary to be able to go and prune for maximum productivity.

We have, I used to prune our orchard trees or the trees in our yard, apples and cherries and apricots, and we'd see all these fruit trees, and each year they would grow, and each year we would cut them back.

So it looked terrible.

It looked raw, it looked skinny, it looked like we had killed the tree.

But that tree needed the pruning in order to produce again.

So this is the way that God prunes you.

When you're abiding with Him, He'll prune you with the Word of God.

Hebrews 4 12 says that the scripture is like a double-edged sword.

It cuts, it divides, it separates.

It will discern the difference between our thoughts and the intents of our heart.

We need the word of God.

So every day, soak in the word.

God will also prune us through an inner witness of the Holy Spirit.

The inner witness of the Holy Spirit.

God guides us, He leads us, He instructs us, He teaches us.

He says, go, you need to go.

He says, slow, you need to slow.

But we need to wait on the inner witness of the Holy Spirit.

I've moved forward when the Holy Spirit said, don't, and I've regretted it.

It's only best when I look at it and I go, okay, Lord, what are you wanting from me?

And I listen to the Holy Spirit.

God also uses other people, other people in your life to prune you.

Proverbs says, like iron sharpens iron, one man sharpens another man, another woman sharpens another woman.

You sharpen each other through through that sharpening process where there seems to be like friction and sparks that fly.

God will use other people to prune you.

So at times we need to slow down and say, Lord, what are you telling me from the people that are living around me?

Lastly, God will prune you through circumstances.

Circumstances that you're living in, currently even living in right now, ways of life that are squeezing you and making you feel uncomfortable.

God will use circumstances to prune you.

Paul used this as an example himself.

He said, he said, I had this thorn in my side, this circumstance that was going on around me, and I needed to react to it, and I needed to respond to it.

And I knew that God was using it to help me lean on his grace, where his grace would be sufficient for us in circumstances.

I've experienced circumstances, you're experiencing circumstances that you need to address and that you're experiencing right now.

Go ahead and lean on God during that time.

So when you are abiding, you're being pruned.

You're going to experience pruning.

When Jesus said, the number three, total dependence.

When you are abiding with God, you're learning to give total dependence and lean on him fully and completely.

Jesus said this in that scripture as our text.

He said, if you are apart from me, you can do nothing.

Zero.

You can't do anything if you're apart from him.

So we lean on him.

The more we lean on him, the more we're able to accomplish.

And we're more will we're able to bear fruit.

We see many illustrations of this in the scripture.

When people tried to do things on their own, when they tried to run ahead of God and lean on their own dependence, and it ended up teaching them a lesson.

And we read the stories later on where they had to step back and actually lean on God.

Paul, again, in his example, he said, I came to a point of recognizing that in my weakness, God is strong.

And when I'm weak, then I'm strong.

If I'm leaning on God, now I I've been tested in regards to my dependence on God.

This season has tested me.

I haven't been able to lean on systems or structures or buildings or technology that I'm comfortable with or personal relationships that I've leaned on.

And I've had to lean on God.

And because of that, we've seen a door open to people who have never come into the front doors of a church, are opening up every week to see what's going on inside of a church and listen to the message that's happening.

God will use your dependence upon him as to lead you to greater dependence upon him.

And the more we abide, the more we depend on him.

Just like the grape depends on the vine.

Outside of the vine, the grape dries up and becomes a raisin.

But with the vine, connected, strongly connected to the vine, the fruit will come.

Number four, prayer.

Prayer is so important to abiding with God.

And Jesus shared this incredible secret in John.

He said, chapter 14, verse 12.

It says, Whatever you ask for in my name, I will do.

That the Father may be glorified in the Son.

And if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.

This is an incredible witness from Jesus to us saying, Listen, prayer is so important.

When you've got that one line connection, that hot Line to Jesus, that hotline to the Father, then you can ask whatever you need, and God will step in on your behalf.

The Bible says he hears our prayers.

He's not closed to our prayers.

In fact, he listens to what we're saying.

The promise is that Jesus will remain with us.

He'll advocate for us.

He'll counsel us.

He'll comfort us when we have a need.

We can cry out to him, shout out to him, pray out to him, and God will respond to us.

It's what we're able to do, and God gives us permission.

Make a withdrawal, son.

Make a withdrawal.

You've got the resources of heaven behind you.

Make that withdrawal through prayer.

Prayer is so important.

So when we're abiding with Christ, we're living in a place of prayer.

We're finding our source of strength and support through prayer.

Number five, joy.

Now joy is internal.

Happiness is external.

Joy is a choice where happiness is just chance.

It's happenstance.

Whatever happens, you become happy with.

But joy is experienced in a relationship with Jesus.

Happiness is dependent on the things that you're experiencing around the world.

If the economy is good, if my portfolio is good, if my family's doing well, if I'm on holidays, if I'm enjoying my work, if I'm in good physical health, then I'm happy.

But joy comes during even the deep place of mourning.

God can bring joy.

Joy can come in difficult times.

Joy is unspeakable at points where people say, I don't know how you're doing it, but you're able to walk with your head up and your shoulders back, and you're not carrying the weight of the world because joy becomes strength to you.

Like David, who experienced trials, tribulation.

He was being chased in the desert.

People wanted to kill him.

And the Bible said he leaned on Jesus.

He leaned on God.

He said, The joy of the Lord has become my strength.

And he leaned on that joy and he found it.

God's right hand is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore.

There's that joy that was his strength.

So when you're abiding, like the grapes on the vine, when you're abiding, you'll find joy.

Lastly, identity.

When you realize that you're God's Son and not just servant, you'll begin to live and minister differently.

You'll not live and minister from God.

You'll be ministering, or not for God, you'll be ministering from God.

In other words, I'm not going to minister for God, doing it in my own strength.

Instead, I relax and I say, God, you're sufficient for me, and everything that you've given me is enough.

You've provided enough for me.

And because of what you've already provided for me and this place of rest that you've brought me to, I know that I can be a blessing to others.

I don't have to minister for you and achieve something for you.

All I have to do is minister from you.

That grape on the vine, it's abiding.

And it doesn't have to do anything to achieve what it has become.

It just releases its fruit.

And it and those people who come by and take a grape off the vine and experience the flavor and experience the explosion when you put a grape in your mouth and you're like, wow, this is incredible.

It's so sweet, it's so it's so unique, it's so flavorful.

That same flavor comes from us when we identify with who we are, that we are God's Son, not a servant, and that we minister from our position in Him, not for Him.

We live in a place of relax, we live from a place of love, and we live from a place of relaxation and a place of rest.

We're not doing it on our own.

So living from this chair one experience is living from a place of abiding, not striving for position, not pushing or cajoling or competing with others.

It's living from a place of comfort, knowing that God isn't looking at all your work and activity.

He's saying, just be obedient, rest in me, allow me to fill you to overflowing, allow me to have your cup overflow so that you're a blessing to others.

And relax in this time.

If there's something that this season has really taught me, is that there's so many limitations that I have.

And there's so many limitations that even culture puts around me, but my strength comes from the Lord.

My hope comes from the Lord.

My security comes from the Lord.

And when I lean on Him, I won't be put down, I won't be ashamed.

So I have an invitation for you today.

If you're here today and you're like, I want to live from chair one, I want to live from that experience, I want to declare over you that you are a loved son, you are a loved daughter of God, and that you can sit in chair one and you can abide in the presence of God, you can rest and you can relax in God's literal loving arms, where his banner over you is love, and his expression over you is love, and his emotion towards you is love, and you can experience that that rest from being connected to the vine and being able to bear that fruit.

So I'd like to pray with you today, if you could take a moment, just bow your heads with me, and I'm going to pray this prayer that's been written for you, and just believe it, receive it, enjoy it today.

Father, I know you are my father, and I know that you've provided for me a home where I belong, where I can prosper and have a future and a hope.

And I trust you completely.

And I ask you to root out any fear or any selfishness, any shame, any blame that would be in my heart, Lord, so that I can move forward in my relationship with you, and would you replace all those things with your perfect love, embracing me as your son today.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

If you are listening today and you'd like to receive a contact or a call, and you'd like to talk more about this, we welcome you to email us at kcc at kcc.net or phone us at 250-762-9559.

We'd love to talk to you.

Even if you'd like to come by the office, our offices are open Monday through Friday.

Even put a comment on the Facebook chat below or the Google chat below or in our invitation, our comment section online.

We want to connect with you and don't go a moment, if God's stirring in your heart, uh any longer, and allow God to abide with you and enjoy the blessing.

God bless you.