How Does a Disciple Grow? | John 15:1–11

Good morning.

My name is Kyle Toddy.

I am one of the pastors here, but just not here.

About three years ago, River Oak Church sent myself and my wife Kim and our kids Lily and Jace to be missionaries in the mountains of Lesotho Africa.

Now, if you've been coming to River Oak for any length of time, you're one of 1% of the country that knows where Lesotho Africa is.

So congratulations.

If you are new, maybe you've just joined us, maybe you're a new member or visitor today.

Lesotho Africa is a tiny little country at the bottom of Africa.

So here on the map you can see, there at the very bottom, in the country of South Africa, lies a little country called Lesotho.

It shares all of its borders with South Africa.

And it's a population of about two million people, a very small country, but very isolated.

We live there in the mountains.

It's a mountain kingdom.

They call it the kingdom in the sky.

It has the lowest high point, if you can think about that for a moment, of any country on earth.

And River Oaks sent myself, my wife Kim, and our kids to go and make disciples and plant churches there in the mountains of Lesotho.

The need for the gospel is great.

The access to the gospel is little.

And so we saw that the need was so great that myself and my family, through prayer and the guidance of this church, were sent out to go live there full time and to make disciples and plant churches.

So if you are aware of our ministry, I just want to stop for a moment and say thank you for being a part of this ministry.

I want you to know that this ministry is not just mine and my wife's, but it's yours as well.

This ministry in the mountains of Lesotho, Africa is all of our responsibility.

We as a church have been called to this place at this time in history to make disciples, to train disciples, and to plant churches.

And so we want to say thank you for your support and sending us out, for your encouragement in loving us from so far away.

And I want to say that we're very, very excited to be with you for just a few weeks during the summer, to see your faces, to have the opportunity to preach and to bring God's word to you.

I would love to spend the whole 40 plus minutes with you this morning, just telling you about Lesotho.

Um, but I have been tasked with preaching the word.

So I want to tell you that if you missed our update that we did a few weeks ago, uh it was recorded, and we can send you that link if you're interested in hearing all about the work that's happening uh there in Lesotho.

So feel free to email me, email SummerMichelson, um, and we can send you that link.

This morning, uh oh, before we continue, I do want to let you know that all of the prayers have been answered for this land that we've been wanting to acquire in Lesotho.

Uh we've been hoping for now almost three years to have a piece of property that would be River Oaks land in Africa where we could build a house, build a training center where we can train pastors and leaders, train disciples, and build short-term housing for when you come to visit us.

You can stay there, right there on the property.

So we have the property we're hopefully going to begin building in September or October of this year.

Um so that's a big point of prayer for uh you as well.

Uh, that you would just join us in praying that the Lord would just make this process smooth and we can get things done as quickly as possible.

Uh, but we're very excited for this opportunity.

Um, so within hopefully a year, you can have a house of your own to come and stay in in the mountains of Lesotho, on the edge of a cliff overlooking a beautiful river.

It's a really nice vacation spot.

If anyone is interested, come join us in the work.

We would love to have you um be a part of what God is doing there.

So this morning, we are gonna be continuing the series on discipleship.

Uh, when Pastor Eric had asked me to preach um a while ago, I thought we were gonna be in an expositional series through a book, um, but it happens to be that we are in a series about discipleship, which is my favorite.

That is the thing that we're thinking about the most as we do ministry in Lesotho.

How can we disciple people well?

How do we see them grow in Christ?

And so that is our question this morning.

How does a disciple grow?

When Pastor Eric asked me to preach this, I thought, this is a very difficult question to answer in 30, 35 minutes.

It's impossible to answer at length.

So we're gonna scratch the surface of this question this morning and hopefully leave you with something to take home and continue studying on your own.

How does a disciple grow?

I will say, I believe that this is the single most important question that you can ask as a follower of Jesus.

If you have committed your life to following him, through faith you've been saved to new life, the greatest question that you can be asking every day of your life, how do I grow in Christ?

How do I grow in Christ?

Every sermon that is preached on this stage, every baptism celebration that we have, every Bible study, every camp student ministry, children's ministry, every program that we offer here is focused and revolves around this question.

How do we grow as disciples of Jesus?

It's the single greatest thing that you can ask every day of your life.

So, what I want to do as we get into this question this morning is I want to start by just thinking simply for a moment and ask you how does anything grow?

Any living thing, how does it grow?

Are there any um gardeners in the room?

Anyone like to garden?

I see a hand pointing to another person.

Not many gardeners, huh?

Okay, a few.

I know we have some farmers in the room who are laughing at us for talking about gardening, but if you've ever tried growing anything in a garden, you know that there are certain things that are required to see growth.

You need to plant the seeds at the right time of year.

They need to be watered, not too much, not too little.

Certain plants want a lot of sun, others want just a little bit of sun.

They're very picky.

There are many things that go into watching a garden grow to produce fruit.

For me personally, before we moved to Lesotho, we had a garden in our yard here in Chesapeake, and it was small, very humble garden, but any amount of gardening that you do, when June hits and it gets to 100 degrees, you realize that any amount of fruit that you are trying to grow just is not worth the effort.

So often when June would come and 100 degrees would hit, I would just look at my garden and say, Good luck.

I hope you do well.

But to watch anything grow in your garden, it takes a lot of effort.

Weeding, pruning.

Anybody in this room, a parent?

Okay, more hands, more parents than gardeners.

How does your child grow?

Some of it's a mystery, we watch it happen before our eyes.

But a lot of it is because we give intentional input into our child's life.

When they're an infant, they're helpless, defenseless on their own.

We need to feed them, change them, take care of them, try to make sure that they're sleeping well and that we're sleeping well.

There's a lot of things that have to be done in order to see our child grow and to grow to a healthy adult.

Thinking about these things, the way God has created his world, will help us understand this question.

How does a disciple grow?

So we're gonna ask and answer three questions this morning.

One of them is, what is a disciple?

So if you were here last Sunday, Pastor Zach preached from the Gospel of Luke on the parable of the sower or the soils.

So if you were here, he answered this question for us.

If you are not here, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to that sermon from last Sunday.

What is a disciple?

And simply put, a disciple is someone who not only hears the words of Jesus, but puts them into practice.

A disciple of Jesus is someone who hears the good news and responds to it in faith, who hears the message of repentance in the kingdom of heaven, and falls on their knees in repentance before Jesus and gives their life to following him in faith.

A disciple is not merely a hearer of the word, but also a doer of the word.

So that is what a disciple is, and now that brings us to our main question this morning.

How does that disciple of Jesus then grow to become more like Jesus?

Much of the New Testament revolves around this question.

Much of the New Testament is spent considering how do we grow in Christ.

So if you have your Bibles this morning, I'd encourage you to open them up to the Gospel of John chapter 15.

John 15 · chapter mention

John chapter 15.

John 15 · chapter mention

So if you have ever read John 15, I would encourage you to go back and read it again this week.

But let me also encourage you to go back and read John 13 through 17.

These five chapters in the Gospel of John are set in one evening with Jesus and his disciples.

It's what we know as the upper room.

They are spending Passover together in this upper room.

So there's no crowds, nothing else happening, none of the chaos that has been taking place, the rest of the gospel.

Jesus is with his closest disciples in a room together, celebrating Passover, just before he will head to the cross.

And in these five chapters, I believe, are some of the most beautiful truths in all of God's Word.

If you have never read these chapters, then I would encourage you to go read them this week.

If you have read them before, I would encourage you to go read them again.

This is something that is worth spending much time on because Jesus spends his whole time in this upper room encouraging his closest disciples on how to follow him after he is gone.

So that brings us to our text this morning here in John 15.

And if we pay close attention, Jesus is going to answer our question for us this morning.

How does a disciple grow?

John 15, starting in verse 1, Jesus says this I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser, or the gardener, your translation might say.

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away.

And every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.

You are already clean or pruned, because of the word which I have spoken to you.

Abide in me and I in you.

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit.

For apart from me, you can do nothing.

If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up.

They gather them and cast them into the fire, where they are burned.

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

Now let me pause here just for a moment.

The context of Scripture is important.

Jesus here is not saying, if you have enough faith, you can ask for a new car and God will give it to you.

That is not what Jesus is saying.

If you ask for that new Mercedes, as long as you have enough faith, that you will receive that new Mercedes.

Please do not be misled by false teachings.

Jesus here is not teaching that if you have enough faith, God will give you whatever you desire.

The context of what he is saying is about spiritual or spiritual life.

He says, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, then they're going to change your heart.

And you're going to ask for things that God wants you to ask for.

You're going to ask for things like patience.

And God will give you the opportunity to practice patience.

You're going to ask for things like peace, maybe in a difficult workplace.

And he's going to give you opportunities to practice peace in a difficult workplace.

So I want you to know that the context of Scripture is very important.

We have to understand what Jesus is saying and why he's saying it.

So he says, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, they're going to change your heart.

They're going to change the way you think about things, they're going to change the way that you carry yourself in your workplace, in your family, in your home.

Ask whatever you wish.

And he's going to change your heart.

Look at verse 8.

My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.

Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you.

Abide in my love.

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

These things I've spoken to you, so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be made full.

They're very difficult to not understand, or they're very difficult to understand if we do not spend time meditating on them.

So I would encourage you later to go back and read this and meditate on this in your own time.

But what I want to see, what I want you to see this morning, is the pattern that Jesus gives us for growing as a disciple.

Because this is very important, and I believe he gives us the formula for our own growth.

If you look back at the beginning of 15, Jesus says that he is the vine and that we are the what?

The branches.

If it's cut off, will it continue to produce?

No.

It just dries up and dies.

Jesus is the vine.

He means that he is the one that is rooted in the ground, bringing nutrients and water up to the rest of the branches.

And if we abide in Jesus, meaning if we have a relationship with him, we've given our lives to him, we're seeking to grow in him, then we are the branches of this vine.

Now we have a very important job as a branch.

We produce the fruit.

The life comes from Jesus, but we produce the fruit.

So he says, I am the vine, you are the branches, and my father is the what?

The gardener.

What does the gardener do?

Prunes the plant, yeah?

So if there's any unhealthy thing on the tree or on the vine, the gardener will come around and prune it, keep it clean.

There's a lot of things that the gardener has to do to tend to the plant to make it healthy.

Jesus is the vine.

We are the branch.

The Father is pruning things out of our lives so that we can bear much fruit.

Now I will tell you that this is a very uncomfortable thing.

When we look to God and we see things in our life that we do not like and that do not conform to the image of Jesus, and we ask God to get rid of those things.

Does it happen overnight?

Of course not.

It takes time.

It takes intentional effort on our part, and it takes the pruning work of the Father.

It's not an easy thing, it's not a comfortable thing often.

But if we are the branch and our job is to produce fruit, then we want to be pruned so that we can bear much fruit to the glory of God.

So how does a disciple grow?

As we read this passage, there's a lot of things that we could say about this, and I'm sure some observations that you're even making that I will not bring up.

But a disciple of Jesus grows by listening to Jesus, by communicating with Jesus, or abiding in him and a relationship, and by obeying Jesus.

As a disciple of Jesus, if you want to grow, to be conformed into his image more and more every day, you must listen to him, communicate with him, and be obedient to his teachings.

There is no other way.

There is no magic thing.

We're not going to just passively become like Christ.

This takes intentional effort on our part to follow him.

What I want you to see in this passage, actually, if you go back to chapter 14, there's a couple things that I want you to notice.

In 14, remember, I said 13 through 17 is one conversation with Jesus and his disciples.

He says something very important that we have to understand in chapter 14, verse 16 through 18.

Jesus speaking to his disciples says this I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper, that he may be with you forever.

The Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it does not see him or know him.

But you know him because he abides with you and will be in you.

I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.

Church, this is the beginning of our life with Jesus.

When we hear the gospel and we make a profession of faith, it's not just something that happens in our mind.

We understand the gospel and it changes our hearts.

So we repent of our sins, we fall down before him, and we give our lives to him in faith.

Now, when that happens, the Bible says, and the promise of God is that his spirit will come and dwell with you.

His spirit will abide with you.

And the Bible calls the Spirit the helper, the comforter.

Without the power of the Spirit, without abiding in Jesus, we cannot walk with him.

It's impossible.

No amount of your trying your hardest to please God will do anything unless you're abiding in Jesus, attached to the vine, and his spirit is indwelling you.

So this is where it begins.

As a follower of Jesus, our growth begins with the Spirit of God, which changes our hearts from the inside.

He continues, he says in chapter 15, verse 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it so that it may bear fruit.

More fruit.

So, how do we grow as a disciple?

By the Spirit of God, which indwells us and allows us to be obedient, and by the pruning work of the Father.

Anything in us that is not pleasing to God, we should be praying that God would cut that out of our life.

And it may take years for some of these things.

And that's okay.

What matters is the intentional effort on our part, asking God to remove those things from us so that we can be more glorifying to Him.

We can become more like the image of Christ today.

And even if it takes a long time, as long as we're being intentional about that process, God promises to prune those things out of our lives.

He says in verse 7, if you abide in me, and my words abide in you.

Now, this is important.

How does a disciple grow?

Through the Spirit, by the work of the Father, and by listening to the words of God.

We have to listen to God's word.

And more than just on Sunday morning.

If this is the only amount of time you're spending in God's word, church, let me tell you, you're probably not growing in Christ very well.

This is an intentional effort on all of our parts to grow in Christ, to seek the life of abundance that Jesus offers by being in his word daily.

We have to listen to him, and his words have to abide in us.

Then he says in verse 8 and 10.

My Father is glorified that you bear much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

So in order to be a disciple of Jesus, we have to bear fruit.

Well, what kind of fruit?

We can't just produce peaches.

The fruit of the Spirit, right?

The fruit of repentance.

God is glorified when we produce fruit.

We prove to be disciples of Christ when we produce the fruit of repentance.

Look at verse 10.

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

We must be obedient to the word of God.

This is a simple formula that Jesus has given us.

Sometimes very difficult to put into practice.

We must be intentionally listening to him through his word.

We must be communicating with him by abiding in him, remaining in him, through prayer, fasting, through his word.

And we must be obedient to his word.

When we are reading his word and we come across something that he says that maybe makes us struggle, we have a decision to make.

Do we be obedient to what we want or obedient to what Jesus is calling us to?

And this is the pattern of growth for a disciple of Jesus.

We choose to be obedient to him.

So how do we grow as a disciple?

It takes intentional effort on our part.

God is pruning, Jesus is giving us life through the Spirit which abides in us.

But it takes intentional effort on our part.

Just like when you're growing a garden and you're trying to produce fruit of the garden, it takes time pulling weeds and sweating a lot and pruning things and making sure the insects aren't eating all of your fruit and whatever it might be.

It takes intentional hard work to see a fruit of harvest.

Just like when you're raising children.

It takes an intentional effort to keep children alive.

We always say our son, by the grace of God, is alive.

Not by our power, but by the grace of God.

It takes intentional effort on our part to make sure our children are growing in a healthy way.

And so we apply that to our spiritual life.

It takes intentional effort on your part, on my part, if I want to grow in Jesus, I have to take steps towards obedience to him.

So how does a disciple grow?

By listening, communicating with, and obeying Jesus.

I have one last question before we get to the end of our service.

If that's how a disciple grows, it's by being in his word, communicating with him, abiding, and being obedient.

Which Jesus says, if you remember the story that he tells about the foundations, he says, anyone who hears my words and obeys them is like a wise man who built his house upon the rock.

When the wind came and the rains and the floods came, the the wind and the waves slammed against the house, but because it was built on the rock, it survived.

He says, But anyone who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like the foolish man who builds his house upon the sand.

The wind comes, the waves slam against it, and it crashes.

And great is its fall.

Church, do not be fooled by false teachings.

They are everywhere in the world.

Jesus is the only true vine.

There is nothing else in this life that is going to bring life to your soul other than Jesus.

Many things are going to claim they'll bring life, but they only bring death.

We must listen to him and be obedient to him.

Now, this begs a question that hopefully we can get through in just a few minutes.

Our last question is how do we measure growth?

You know, obviously when we see our garden growing, we can measure it.

Every day we wake up, there's something new happening, it's growing bigger.

It's very obvious.

With our kids, you know, we can look back at pictures from a year before and say, wow, they've grown a lot in the last year.

It's a little bit slower, but we can see it over time.

But how do we know if we're growing as followers of Jesus?

It's not as easy to discern.

The Bible gives us a way that we can measure our growth as a follower of Jesus.

One simple way to measure how you are growing in Christ is by asking that question.

Every now and then just ask yourself that question.

Do I look more like Jesus today than I did last month?

Six months ago?

A year ago?

I'm not perfect.

You're not going to be perfect until that day.

But do I look more like Jesus today than I did a year ago?

The Apostle Paul, he writes many letters in the New Testament.

Most of his letters, if you go and read them, he's writing in one of two different ways.

And you'll notice this if you go and just read through them.

He's writing in one of two different ways.

One, he's either writing to a church or to an individual, encouraged by their faith and their growth in Christ, or he's writing to them discouraged by their lack of faith and their lack of growth in Christ.

You see this pattern throughout all of his letters.

He's very concerned with our hearts and our obedience to Jesus.

You see this all throughout his letters.

So in just a few minutes, we're going to go through a few passages.

So if you're ready for the Bible drill of the morning, get ready to turn quickly.

If you're not ready, it's too early, you're still drinking coffee.

You can write these down, and I want you to go look at them later.

If you have your Bibles and you want to, turn with me to the book of Philemon.

And some of you are like, I didn't even know that was a book.

What is Philemon?

It is one page in your Bible.

It's a very small letter that Paul writes to this man named Philemon.

There's only one chapter, so we're going to look at verse 10.

And what we're going to see in just these five or six verses we're going to look at is how Paul describes the life stages of a disciple.

He's going to give us a very important tool so that we can measure ourselves in life to see where we are in following Jesus.

So he says this in verse 10.

Very weird language that Paul is using.

Onesimus is a grown man.

And Paul is talking about giving birth to him.

It's very strange unless you understand what Paul is talking about.

Do you remember when John is speaking to Nicodemus in John chapter 3?

John 3 · chapter mention

He tells Nicodemus, You cannot see the kingdom of heaven unless you are born again, right?

And Nicodemus, like some of us, look at Jesus and say, That's not possible.

I'm an old man, I can't, that's that's just not possible.

Jesus says, You're misunderstanding the point.

Paul here is saying, I have begotten Onesimus in my imprisonment.

This is what he means.

He has shared the gospel with this man.

This man was good soil where the seed landed, it grew up and produced fruit.

He repented of his sins, put his faith and trust in Jesus, and is now a new follower of Christ.

Paul describes him as just a little baby in Christ.

He knows nothing.

He's defenseless and helpless on his own.

He needs someone to feed him and take him around, keep him safe.

Watch how Paul describes our life as followers of Jesus.

Turn with me to the book of 1 Corinthians.

1 Corinthians chapter 3.

1 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

Starting in verse 1, he says, And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as men of flesh, as to infants in Christ.

I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you are not able yet to receive it.

Indeed, even now you're not able.

For you are still fleshly.

For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly?

Are you not walking like mere men?

So Paul is writing to this church and says, I want to give you meat, but I hear reports that you're still acting like little babies.

And so let me give you more milk and see if you can grow this time.

So watch how Paul is describing the life stages of a disciple of Jesus.

The same book, 1 Corinthians, chapter 13.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

Verse 11, Paul says this.

When I became a man, I did away with childish things.

He's using the analogy of the life stages of a person to point to our spiritual lives.

We are infants in Christ.

We need to be nourished and brought up to become toddlers.

And then once we're walking around and scaring everybody around us, we eventually figure out how to use our hands and how to do things on our own.

And then we get a little bit older, we become children, and we're learning how to think for ourselves, we become teenagers, and still make really bad choices, but we're starting to understand how to discern good from bad until we mature into mature adults.

He says in verse chapter 14, verse 20 Brethren, do not be children in your thinking, yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature.

This is the last one.

Hebrews chapter five.

Verse 12 through 14.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.

For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.

But solid food is for the mature, who, because of practice, have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

Church, understand how Paul describes our life in Jesus.

When we come to faith in him, we are nothing but little babies.

And that's okay.

That's what you should be.

You need someone to give you milk, to feed you, to take care of you for a time, to walk alongside you and your newfound life in Christ.

But eventually you grow to become a child who can begin to think on their own and do things that you still need help.

You need to, you know, you can't drive a car yet, you need to get in somebody else's car.

You can't do certain things for yourself, you still need help, but you're learning and you're growing to the point where you eventually become a mature adult, able to think for yourself, reason for yourself, discern good and evil, able to make good choices, good relationships.

This is what Paul says.

Our life in Christ can be measured the way we look at children.

So, what I want to do this morning, what I want you to do this morning and myself, this has been a very convicting passage to study and to preach, is I want to challenge you with this as we close.

I want you to think about this constantly.

How do I grow in Christ?

Jesus tells us it's by listening to Him, communicating with Him, and obeying Him.

That's the formula.

There's no secret thing out there, some mystery we don't know yet.

Stop chasing those things.

Run after Jesus, be obedient to Him.

As we grow in Christ, how do we measure our growth?

And we're not measuring our growth for the sake of measuring our growth.

We're not measuring our growth to say, I'm more spiritual than these people over here.

Right?

Because if you talk to any mature believer in this room who's been following Jesus for decades, what they will tell you is they are more humble today than they were 20 years ago.

Because following Jesus brings us to our knees.

It makes us more and more humble as we realize we cannot do anything on our own.

As we realize that He is in control of all things.

So as a way to measure who you are in Jesus and where you are in Jesus, this is my challenge to you.

I want you to think about this last week that you had.

Some of you have had more difficult weeks than others.

Some of you have been more challenged by things than others.

But regardless of what happened, I want you just to think about your last week.

Your week at work, how you handle your time at work?

Do you handle your time at work like a child, a toddler?

Or with maturity, with your coworkers, are you joining in the gossip?

Or are you somebody who people trust because of your character and who you are in Christ?

At work, do you spend time, as little time as possible, doing work so that you can get paid?

I've been guilty.

Or are you a diligent and hard worker unto the Lord?

Where people look at you and say, There's something different about that person.

And your family.

How did your last week go with your family?

With your children, with your wife, with your husband?

Did you act like a little baby sometimes?

I know I do.

And there are places that we all need to grow.

So we need to look at the scriptures, apply them to our lives, and ask the Lord to change our hearts.

In every area of life, may we continue growing in Christ to become more like Him for His glory and for our good until one day we see His face and we are made perfect in Him.

So I want to challenge you to think about it, to process this, to go back and read through John 13 through 17 and think about who you are in Christ and where you need to grow in your walk with Him.

It takes intentional input on your part.

Just like, you know, when you get older, you stop growing up.

Sometimes we start growing out.

If we want to stop growing out, we have to put intentional effort into exercising and eating healthy.

It's the same with our spiritual life.

So I want you to process this.

I want you to think about this this week.

Where is at least one area where you're acting too much like a little child in Christ?

Where you need to begin working on being obedient to the words of Jesus for his glory and his honor.

God, we love you.

We thank you so much for all that you do for us.

God, the way that you lead us as a church, the way that you lead us as individuals, to follow you.

I pray that every follower of Jesus in this room is being changed slowly but surely, including myself.

There are so many places in my life that I need to grow.

God, I ask that you give opportunities for growth.

I pray that you continue to prune things out of me to make me more like Jesus.

I pray that for everyone here.

God, ultimately, that we can understand and experience the great joy and abundant life in Jesus as we are made more like Him to the glory of the Father.

We ask all these things in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Good morning, everyone.

We are glad you were able to join us, and we pray that it was encouraging for you this morning.

We ask you to subscribe, that way you can see all of the sermons.

But we hope to see you in person next week.

God bless.