STAY WITH ME | JOHN 15:1-11 | Pastor John Anderson | 9.27.26

Hello, this is Pastor Ryan Gerlock and Pastor John Anderson.

Welcome to the Resurrection Church Podcast.

Each week we bring you Sunday's message from Resurrection Church right here in Racine, Wisconsin.

So whether you're listening on a walk, driving to work, or just folding some laundry, or avoiding folding laundry, we hope this encourages your faith, challenges your perspective, and reminds you that resurrection isn't just something that happened.

It's something God is still doing.

Enjoy this week's message.

Good morning.

A reading from the Gospel of John, chapter 15, verses one through eleven.

John 15 · chapter mention

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

He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit.

Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes to make it bear more fruit.

You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.

Abide in me as I abide in you.

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

I am the vine, you are the branches.

Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers.

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

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

My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

As the Father has loved me, so I have 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.

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

The Gospel of Our Lord.

Thank you, Sarah.

Well, good morning, everybody.

My name is John.

I'm one of the pastors here at Resurrection.

If you have your Bibles with you this morning, we're going to be in John 15, the Gospel of John, the 15th chapter, this great section where Jesus spends the night with his disciples before he is handed over.

If you are visiting today or if you're new with us, we have been in a new series, The Way of Jesus.

And last week we talked about what it meant to follow Christ.

We were reminded by Pastor Furtick that Jesus does not call us to figure it out, he calls us to follow.

And this week we're going to talk about what it means to abide, to stay with Jesus.

The hope in this series for Pastor Ryan and I is that we would, as a community of followers of Christ, commit to following Christ in every area of our life.

Not just in the moments where it's easy, not just here today, but when we walk out these doors, that we would follow Christ.

And so today we're going to talk about, I think, one of the greatest gifts that our Savior gives us, the abiding that we are not alone, that our God is with us.

And I try with different images to think of what this feels like.

And last night uh my boys had a football game uh in Waterford, and they, my twins, the eighth graders, they've been waiting for a long time for this.

It's kind of a rite of passage in our youth program.

They get to play under the lights on the high school field.

And my my family and friends came out and watched them.

Um Pastor Ryan was on the field taking video and uh didn't get hurt.

Uh, was very happy about that.

Um and we we had a blast.

But at the end of the game, uh I I asked my boys, how was it?

You know, they won by the way, the last few seconds they kicked a field goal to win.

How exciting is that?

Uh go ahead.

Yeah, it's really, yeah.

God doesn't care.

But but it was a lot of fun.

And I realized also in that moment that they've already surpassed me in every single athletic endeavor they've ever um my uncle's visiting, and I told him last night that I was 100% receiving, and he doesn't know the end of that story like the rest of you.

And I think for a brief moment he was impressed, uh, and then quickly learned that I was one for one on a running play.

Uh, but uh but they caught it.

And after the game, I asked him, I said, How are you feeling?

How how was it?

And my son Owen, uh, who's a little newer to football, he he's he broke up this pass right at the end of halftime to stop him from scoring.

And he said, Daddy, he said it was it was crazy.

He said, two players on the team, they they grabbed me and they gave me a huge hug and they picked me up and they said, I love you.

I love you, Owen.

And Johnny said, Owen, that's crazy.

At the end of the game, another one of the players ran up to him and grabbed him and picked him up and said, Johnny, I love you.

And I was thinking about how that's just a glimmer, a glimpse of that feeling that Christ isn't that that emotion, that that promise, that comfort, that that rock, that steadfastness that Jesus is trying to teach us today.

But I think every day that is available to us that we would abide in Christ and that we would just feel that embrace.

I think of my wife holding my youngest son on those nights when he's afraid.

That's the posture I think that our Lord wants us to assume, that we will be held, that we would only go to him for comfort, that we would only go to him with joy and celebration.

And so we're gonna unpack that a little bit today.

And as we do so, I invite you to pray with me.

God, you are so good.

And God, if anything else today, I hope that you are praised, that your name is lifted high, that you are glorified in our words and in our actions.

God, thank you for your patience with us.

Thank you for your mercy.

Help us, God, to abide in you, only with you, oh God.

And as always, I pray the meditations of my heart and the words that pass through my lips are yours.

Holy Spirit, lead, we pray.

In Christ's name.

Amen.

As we journeyed these past few weeks, we were introduced to the story of Jesus again, how he appears and calls people to him, is always seeking and bringing in.

You think about Zacchaeus, who was invited to supper before he even knew he belonged or believed the right things.

Jesus is always coming towards us.

Come and see, you belong, follow me.

But today we're talking about abiding.

I don't know about you, but every relationship reaches a point, I think, where we're staying can sometimes become hard.

Maybe the excitement wears off or the road gets difficult, and we're confronted with this moment where we can be selfish or selfless, and the best parents I ever met are the most selfless people.

And I think there's there's something about faith in that too.

I think there's moments when prayer doesn't seem to work as we understand it, right?

I still, the idea that we go to God with our list, and then when when God doesn't get the list right, we we think, God, you did you not see the list?

This idea that we would approach God in that posture.

Instead, we are called to be a people that pray and trust that God receives our prayer.

What about those moments when you have a hard time understanding the world?

Anybody else struggling to understand the world right now?

What about when that diagnosis comes or that relationship falls apart or when your kid is hurting and you can't fix it?

These are real moments.

They're not the easy moments here on a Sunday morning.

Those real moments.

And then the question is, where do you go?

Who do you draw upon?

Who do you rest with?

Who do you sit with?

Who do you follow?

Jesus says, I am the true vine, and my father is the vine grower.

Abide in me as what I abide in you.

And there's a word here that's so important: abide, meno or meno.

Say, say meno.

Like now we all speak Greek together.

But like many words in scripture, it has so much more depth than just stay.

And in fact, in scripture, this word translated means to remain, to dwell, to literally, literally make your home, to make your home here.

And Jesus uses this word over and over again in this passage, and by the way, throughout the Gospel of John, stay, remain, stay with me, remain.

Because when things get difficult, we sometimes run.

And when prayer feels empty, we sometimes stop praying.

And when the church lets you down, you become disconnected.

And you begin to look for something else to offer you comfort or to abide in.

But oftentimes it's temporary and fleeting and disappears so quickly, and you're left longing for something.

Pastor Ryan calls it that God-shaped hole.

So we're called to abide.

And don't forget where Jesus is saying these things.

As many of you know, I love the Gospel of John.

And in the Gospel of John, we get five chapters in the Gospel of John dedicated to this last night that Jesus is with his disciples.

And he begins by talking to them about love.

Well, in fact, he begins by washing their feet, modeling service, and then talking to them about love, but not some pie in the sky love, but unconditional love, a love that works hard, a love that is always active.

And then as he sits at this table and he looks at those who are going to betray him, those who are going to deny him three times.

The same one in that same night that said, No, not me, O Lord.

Wash me, wash my whole body, oh God.

I'll never deny you.

And the others who would scatter.

He's telling this to them: Abide, stay with me, stay with me when it's tough.

Trust, trust me.

The great love the Father has given me, I am giving to you, the great theologian John Houghton reminded me last night that we are given the great gift of the mind of Christ and the heart of the Father.

That we would rest in knowing that our holy parent holds us now and always, that we would trust that that is true.

And so he tells this to the disciples.

Does anybody uh know Henry Nowen?

Not personally, uh, but uh he's no longer with us.

But Henry Nowen was a uh a Dutch uh priest, he was a theologian, he was a poet, uh, he was a writer, he was many things.

Later in his life, uh he became attached to this uh trapeze group, this group of trapeze artists.

Um they were called the Flying Rodleys.

I don't know if anybody's heard of them before.

Um I hadn't.

He wrote a great book about this, by the way, uh Catching Grace, Catching Faith.

And he and he talks about something fascinating in this group.

So here's a priest, a theologian, and he's fascinated by this.

And if you don't know what a trapeze is, we're gonna actually practice this out in the gathering area here, but it's it's the metal bar with with the long uh metal rod, and it swings back and forth.

It's a giant swing, and and you'll you'll jump off and someone will catch you.

And so he's watching this and he's fascinated by this trust.

And so we asked one of the acrobats, you know, what is the the one flying through the air do?

Are they looking to grab something?

Are they supposed to move their body in a certain way?

And and he learns something profound.

They said, no, no, no, no.

No, the person that lets go just simply needs to extend their arms and wait.

I don't know about you, uh, as someone who recently fell off a ladder.

Uh that's terrifying.

The gentleman went on to say, in fact, if they move, if they try to grab or do it themselves, they're gonna complicate the whole thing.

And there's a good chance they're gonna fall.

And Henry Nowin, maybe you're getting there already before me, Henry Nowin said, That is faith.

How often we are called just to trust, and we go, but I'm gonna trust, but I'm gonna hold on to this too.

I'm gonna trust God, but I don't want to release these things.

Or I'm gonna trust God, but let me try it my way.

No, he says the idea here is that we would trust.

The catcher does the catching.

We're not called to panic, we're simply called to trust, and that is faith.

And I think Jesus is saying the same thing to us today.

Stop trying harder, stop believing harder, praying harder, serving harder.

All these things that you think are gonna get you closer on your own.

Strength will just wear you out.

I think about a season of ministry many years ago in Kenosha.

My boys, all three of them are born.

They have this happy house, two kids, three kids in two years.

Uh, the ministry I'm a part of is growing, God is moving, families are coming in.

And I remember in that season feeling so spiritually dry.

I was working so hard, I was doing all these things, and and sometimes I was making sure people saw me do all the things.

And I realized I hadn't prayed.

I was in the Bible every day, I was writing talks, I was leading worship, but my prayer life was non-existent, and I realized I was just doing it all on my own.

I remember sitting with a brother of mine, a brother in Christ, and he said, Brother, he said, You got to give some of this to God.

You are not the great I am.

How many of us just need to abide to remain and stay?

That's what Christ wants, so that from us, through us, fruit will appear naturally, not by our own effort.

And that's a different kind of Christianity.

We become so busy working for Jesus that we forget to simply be with Jesus.

And this is not new language to those that would have heard it, by the way.

These these disciples sitting there would have heard this language before.

Psalm 80 says, You brought a vine out of Egypt.

You drove out the nations and you planted it.

In Jeremiah, we read, yet I planted you as a choice vine.

In Hosea we read, Israel is a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit.

But then Isaiah, and Isaiah is my favorite, Isaiah says, For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of God.

And the people of Judah are his cherished garden.

Isaiah goes on to describe God as the ultimate gardener, clearing the ground, removing stone, planting choice vines.

It even says that he he he created a tower to watch over the vineyard.

But but he said the vineyard produced wild grapes.

So generations later, when Jesus says, I am the true vine, these words carry a brand new weight for those that are listening.

Jesus is locating himself right into the middle of the story, and he is saying, I am the true vine.

Life comes through me, not your religious performance or your goodness or how much Bible you know, but through me.

The source is always Jesus.

Amen.

Always Jesus.

And we can take comfort in that.

We can we can have hope in that, as we just sang, because our Savior, our Savior would go to the cross and then burst forth from that tomb.

Now you remember the disciples?

He calls them to abide.

He spends the evening with them.

And there's so much.

Go read John 13 through John 17.

Really, I'm encouraging you when you go home.

Go read.

I'll take you about 10 minutes and listen to our Savior.

Speak with so much love.

He goes on here in John 15.

This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.

No one has greater love than this to lay down one's life for one's friends.

You are my friends.

If you do what I command you.

But what do the disciples do?

Do you remember?

They scattered.

Peter denied him three times.

Judas betrayed him.

After they had heard this, after they had sat with him.

But here's the good news, Church.

What does Jesus do when he bursts forth from the tomb?

He pursues him.

He finds Peter.

Peter, do you love me?

Peter, will you lead my church?

He goes and he finds the disciples.

He literally walks through doors and says, Here am I.

We have a Savior who knows there will be moments in our lives when we struggle, when we choose to abide in something other than the only source of life, and our God is saying that will never yield fruit because we can't ignore the reality of the scripture.

There is a pruning and there is a casting off and a throwing away and a burning.

And our Savior is calling believers and unbelievers to recognize that following Christ, abiding in Christ, will result in the tearing down or the tearing away of some things.

How many of us need to leave some things here today?

How many of us in confession are replaying the same record that we play every week?

Abide in me, our Savior says.

Not with judgment, not with heavy-handedness, though our God could.

But with a love that surpasses understanding, a love that I really didn't understand until I spent some time with my mom in her final days.

So many stories have been shared.

I remember we're back home, she's on hospice, we got a few days, they're winding down.

And I remember talking about abiding, and um, and this song that we're about to sing here in a minute.

Actually, I'll invite the band to come on up.

Um, this song that we're gonna offer up to God in a moment, Abide, Abide in Me, was a song that I had on repeat after my mom passed because I remember sitting there with her, and we're all scared and angry and confused and all the things, and she wasn't, and it irritated me.

I asked her, How aren't you scared?

Well, of course I'm scared, but God is sovereign.

Aren't you worried?

Of course I am, but but I am in Christ and Christ is in me.

She didn't waver in her witness, and oh God, that I would that I would testify that way at the end of my days.

Church, the world is lying to you.

Churches are probably lying to you.

I hope we're not.

The only source of life is Christ.

Abide in me, our Savior says, so that fruit will then naturally grow.

And Paul gives us these fruits, doesn't he?

We're told the fruits of the Spirit will be a gift to us, that we will be a peaceful people, a faithful people, a generous people, a gentle people, people of self-control and humility and kindness.

Not that we would do it by our own effort, but that we will be so imbued that we will be so embodied that we will be so in Christ.

That's the only way we could respond to a world that desperately needs to see Christ.

Church, there are many things I get wrong, but one thing I will hang on is that there is nothing else offered to me in this world that I desire but Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen, church.

Abide in Christ.

Know that you have a savior who calls you home.

Not when you're perfect, not when you think you're ready, but right now.

Let us pray.

God, we thank you that for some reason, in your mercy, you came to us, died, and defeated death for us, erased the separation that we had from you and your love, oh God, and that you invite us into this relationship.

Holy Spirit, remind us daily that we are called to abide.

Give us the heart of the Father, give us the mind of Christ.

Let us be a people that pursue you.

Not a denomination, not a church, not even a nation, God, but you first.

Help us to abide.

And God also, God, help us as a church to walk alongside those who are who are heavy.

And you need to be reminded that you and only you are the one we are to abide in.

Help us to produce fruit, God, that honors you.

We pray this in Christ's name always.

As all God's people said.

Amen.