So last week, I married to the mission. I just want to read a few things that Pastor Seth said, and just kind of go off of that. He said, you are Heaven's delivery system. You're Heaven's delivery system.
God's not looking for perfection, but He's looking for participation. That if God is going to deliver from Heaven to Earth what He intends to do here, He does that through people. And He's not looking for you to be perfect. We know that we're perfect in Christ, but obviously we have issues we're working through that He's conforming us to the image of Jesus, but He's not looking for perfection.
He's looking for participation. It's not for us to try harder, but it is for us to draw closer. Intimacy leads to action. And if it's not moving you into mission, then it might just be emotionalism.
I like that. If it's not moving you into mission, then it might be emotionalism. And so today I want to talk about, I know this looks like a fruitful marriage. I taught it on a little bit on marriage Thursday night from the marriage of a husband and wife that reflects the relationship we have with Christ, but today I want to talk about a different marriage and one that relates to this mission that Pastor Seth talked about last week.
So two main texts today, Romans 7 verses 1 through 6. And then also we're going to look at abiding in Christ and John 15. And we'll look at John 15, 1 through 8, and also verse 16. And so I want to end up today.
I want to start and kind of launch today's message from Romans 7, specifically verse 4, but I want to read the first six verses just for context and context. I got the infastus on the wrong syllable there. Sorry about that. You guys awake?
Did you ever hear anybody get the infastus on the wrong syllable? I said, what did I say? Context. I was thinking of textual, but I said context instead of context.
But three things that I really want to hone in on abiding in the Christ, and I'll give them to you now. Number one is you need to encounter the Holy Spirit. You need to encounter the Holy Spirit. Number two, you need to embrace the Word of God.
You need to encounter the Holy Spirit. You need to embrace the Word, and you need to engage the Father in prayer. You need to encounter the Holy Spirit. You need to embrace the Word.
And you need to engage the Father when it comes to prayer. Father, we ask today that your word would go forth with power, with authority, with understanding. God, I pray that as revelation and knowledge is released today, that growth would be the result. Fruitfulness would be the result.
God, I thank you that we are connected to you. And because of that connection, fruitfulness is the result. Lord, we pray for more fruit today. In Jesus name.
Amen. Romans 7 verse 4 says this. It says that you may be married to another. If I'm married to another, what does that imply that I was what?
Married to somebody else. This is a remarriage. It's a second marriage. At one time I was married to somebody else.
We're going to see who that is and why it matters. It says so that you may be married to another, to him, who was raised from the dead. So who is that? Jesus Christ.
So the marriage that we have now, our second marriage, is the marriage that we have to Jesus. And it says that you may be married to another, to whom was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. See being married to Jesus does not automatically produce fruit. It gives you the possibility and the potential of bearing fruit.
It gives you the ability to now bear what he produces. But it doesn't function automatically. He made a pathway for us to be married to him and the result of that marriage is fruitfulness. Where last week, Pastor says that intimacy leads to action.
I like to think of it this way. Fruitfulness is the result of intimacy. Fruitfulness is the result of intimacy. It's the natural byproduct.
If you, in the context of a, and we're going to keep this healthy, in the context of a marriage, if I'm married to my spouse, but we sleep in separate rooms every night, there'll be no fruit. Children are referred to as fruit of the womb. But eventually, if we spend every night in bed together, fruit will be the result. Bear in this was part of the curse.
Fruitfulness is part of the blessing. God provides for us to be fruitful. God expects fruitfulness. But fruitfulness becomes the natural, bright product of intimacy.
And when I think about it, the reason I see a lot of believers with less fruitfulness than they should have in their life, is because they look at Jesus as more of a Sunday morning hookup than an everyday lover. See, if you're coming to church on Sunday morning to connect with Jesus, you're treating Jesus like a Sunday morning hookup. Jesus isn't interested in being your booty call. What Jesus wants, He wants to be your bed partner.
He wants to be intimate with you. He wants you to be intimate with Him. And through intimacy, fruit will be the natural byproduct. See, and we'll get to it later, as the branch abides in the vine, the branch does not produce fruit.
But fruit is the result of the connection to the branch. And so as you're intimate with Jesus, fruit will happen. And so we're going to talk about today what that looks like. Let's start in Romans 7.
I want to read these verses because just because. Not because they're important. Let me get to it. Romans 7, and this is really a pick-off of chapter 6, which I'm not going to go back to just for sake of time.
But it says verse 1, do you not know brethren? Remember, Paul is writing to saints in Rome. You can go back to Romans 1 and see that. So he's writing to believers here.
Do you not know brethren, for I speak to those who know the law, that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulterous.
But if her husband dies, she is free from the law so that she is no adulterous, though she has married another man. So the first three verses, what Paul does, he goes back to the old covenant. And I'm not going to teach on this today, but on Thursday, and I talked about when the Pharisees came to Jesus and said, why did Moses command us to divorce our wife? Jesus says, Moses didn't command it.
He permitted it because of the hardness of your heart, but from the beginning it wasn't so. So in the mind of God, when God puts together a man and woman, it wasn't for the purpose of divorce, but it was for the purpose of till death to us part. But because of the hardness of man's heart, Moses and the law permitted divorce. This isn't a message for against divorce, I'm not talking about that.
But here's what it was. This was kind of not fair because only the man was permitted to divorce the wife. The wife had no way to divorce her husband no matter how bad the situation was. The wife's only chance of getting away from the man that she didn't like was for him to die.
So if the guy didn't like the wife, for whatever reason he could make up a number of reasons, he could write up a divorce decree and be divorced from her. But she could not do that. So the only way she could be free from her old man was for that old man to die. And so I'm going to tell you this, that when before you accept Jesus, you were married to the old man.
You were married to the old man. He was your partner. He was your husband. And because Jesus is not into adultery, because what does it say as long as the man is alive, the woman, if she marries somebody else, she's what?
An adultress. But if the husband be dead, then she is free to marry another. And so since Jesus does not believe in adultery, therefore he's not going to marry somebody while they're still married to somebody else. Nor does Jesus believe in polygamy.
He's not going to marry somebody while they're still married. We're not going to have like a sister or a sister, brother, husband. Maybe instead of sister wives. You guys don't watch that junk, do you?
It's kind of like it sucks you in. No, but Jesus doesn't believe in that. Therefore in order for him to do things properly, in order for you to be married to him, now the one that you previously were married to has to be dead. And so what Paul does, he takes this analogy in the natural and now applies it to spiritual terms.
And now in verses 4 through 6 it says this. It says, therefore my brethren, you have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another, to him who was raised from the dead that we should bear fruit to God. So here's what Jesus did. When Jesus went to the cross, he took your old man with him.
And that old man died. When Christ died, the old man died. But when Christ rose again, the old man didn't come with him. The old man stayed dead.
And so now Jesus has freed you through his resurrection from the law that obligates you to be married to the old man. And you're now free. So I don't think we're free to go day to round. I'm free to play the field.
But Jesus freed you in order to get married to him. And verse 5 says this, it says, when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law, we're at work in our members to bear, look at this, bear fruit to what? Death. See, you'll always bear fruit to something.
You'll either bear fruit unto God, or you'll bear fruit unto death. It depends on who your partner is. See what happens a lot of times, let me finish verse 6 here. It says, but now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
See what happens a lot of times, think about this. I'll see. Let me see what's happening. Come here.
There's no good way to do this. So, Evie, we're just going to assume this is your old man, not your new man. Actually, let's get some. Curtis, I'm going to let you be the old man.
Yeah. Yeah, come on. You're the old man. Let's go.
Yeah, yeah. So, here's Evie, and she is married to the old man. This old man mistreats her. Now, not old as an age, but like your old nature, your old self.
This would be her, what we would call the sin nature. This is her old man. And what happens as she's married to the old man, although she can't stand him, she develops certain habits in her life that are the result of being married to him. And so, sometimes even when he's gone, I did this the other day, I went to put my hands on my wife to hug her.
She did this. I'm like, what's wrong with you? She's like, well, I thought you were going to put cold hands on me. I'm like, no, I'm giving you a hug.
Like the old man would have put cold hands on. The new man is giving you a hug, but you flinched because your mind was wired a certain way. And that's what happens when we're married to the old man, even when he's gone, the mind still has to be renewed because the way we live is from here. So, here's what Jesus doesn't do.
He doesn't come over and have brother-husbands. Right? There's not this. Because Jesus does not believe in polygamy.
But here's the error of a lot of Bible teachers, and you have to be careful. It's a disservice that people teach erroneous doctrine on this. They will teach you that you have two natures simultaneously. They will teach you that even when the old man, let's just say the old man is dead, he's gone.
Jesus left him in the grave, and now Evie's remarried. People, yeah, he's faced up. People will teach that you have an old sin nature and a new nature at the same time. That's not true.
Because if it was true, then Jesus would be committing adultery and actually causing Evie to commit adultery. And he won't do that. And so in order for him to keep the law, remember Jesus kept the law but kept it perfectly? He fulfilled it.
And therefore, if he fulfilled it, he fulfilled it by that guy being dead and him being alive. And here's the thing. Jesus never dies. And so the only way she can ever be free from the one she's married to is for him to die, and Jesus never dies.
Guess who she's hooked to free eternity? Jesus. But what happens a lot of times, even when we think and we don't discern and we don't appropriate this relationship, we produce fruit unto death because we still think that the old man has access to my life when he doesn't. You don't.
You have no access. The only access you have is the access that we permit you to have, which is zero. All right. All right.
Thank you guys. So that's the illustration. You have a new nature. You're married to Jesus, and when you're married to Jesus, the intimacy that you have with him out of that, produces fruit.
The possibility exists to be productive. All right. John, John chapter 15. So I just kind of wanted to use that as a ground work, theologically for where we're going today.
John 15 verses one through eight and also verse 16. I encourage you to read the whole passage later. Jesus says this, this is all part of the upper room discourse. He says, I am the true vine.
If Jesus is the true vine, what does that imply? There's false vines, right? You could literally be connected to the wrong vine. On the true vine, my father is the vine dresser.
Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that bears fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. You're already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. So here's what happens.
Jesus says he's the vine. He says my father is the vine dresser, he's the husband man. He's the guy that comes around and does the pruning. He takes care of the vine and the branches and all that.
He's the farmer. And he says that we're the branch. The branch, what happens, the reason we exist and have a lot of time stress in our lives is because we're trying to do the job of the vine. The vine is the supplier.
The vine is the one that supplies the sap, the nutrients, the producer. This week I told Seth I woke up on Friday morning and I was stressed because I didn't have a message for today. But Thursday night I went to bed, I'm like, oh my goodness, I woke up in an old night and God said, I'm the vine, you're the branch. I'm like, why are you using scripture against me?
But that's what he does. He had to remind me because I got such an attissive about it and stressed out and worried, I forgot the very thing that I'm preparing for for today. And so sometimes we try to be the vine. Other times we try to do the job of the father and be the vine dresser.
Did you ever see somebody that's got that hair that sticks out of their eyebrow like this? Like you're probably not pruning vines, but did you ever see that hair? Now if you're married, it's your spouse's job to tell you about that one that grew out overnight. Like these things come like, how did I grow in a one inch hair overnight?
Did nobody see this? But what we want to do, we want to be the one that goes, hey, let me trim that hair for you. But that's not our job, that's the father's job. The father's the pruner.
But so often when we see wild hairs in people's life, we want to be the one to do the pruning instead of bringing the one that brings the word which eventually does the pruning. But if you see me with a big haircut, please let me know. I've got this birthmark on my eyebrow and they'll like tend to do this. So I've got to keep up on them.
I don't even know where I'm at right now. Verse three, you're clean because of the word which I've spoken to you. Verse four, buying me and I and you is the branch cannot bear fruit of itself. Unless it abides the vine, neither can you unless you abide me.
It says like you can't do anything unless you abide me. Verse five, I'm the vine. You're the branches. He who abides in me and I am bears much fruit without me.
You can do nothing. See, but we're never without him. Apart from me, you can do nothing. But there's never a time if you're in Christ that you're apart from him.
Jesus said in Hebrews 13, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Philippians 4, 13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. See, the problem is not so much that apart from me, you can do nothing. The problem is that we've got too comfortable being with him and doing nothing.
See that we get so comfortable in the relationship, we're just content to be married but sleep in separate bedrooms. And that's the existence of many believers today. That you're never apart from him spiritually but relationally you live like you were. And we get too comfortable doing nothing when all along we could have been doing anything.
Verse six, if anyone does not abide in me, he's cast out as a branch and is withered, they gather and throw them in the fire and they are burned. Verse seven, if you abide in me, my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. By this my father is glorified that you bear much fruit, so you will be my disciples. In context here, I don't want to go this direction today but in context John 15 is really talking about supernatural works.
Jesus said earlier, he said, the works I do, you'll do also and greater than these you'll do. And so in context of the whole discourse, he's really not so much talking about the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5, but really supernatural gifts of the Spirit, the supernatural. And he says by this, my father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so you'll be my disciples. See, a lot of times we think when the supernatural is at work in our life, it's a validation of me.
Bearing more fruit, doing the supernatural is not my validation but it's for the Father's glorification. See, it's not that, oh I did this, look at me, it's, oh look what the Father did. What did Jesus say in Matthew? He said, you are the light of the world, Matthew 7, 7.
A city that's set on a hill cannot be hid. Do you light a lamp to put it under a basket? Or do you set it so everybody in the house can see light? Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and do what?
Glorify the Father. See, the works are not for your validation. The works are to bring him glory because he's like, you're just a branch. I like to say like this, you're the man in Brown, the UPS guy, right?
All you get to do is you're wearing the UPS uniform and you get to carry the present and the package to the house. When the FedEx guy comes to my house and brings me something that somebody sent me, I got a package this week from our friends in California. And when the FedEx guy comes up, I didn't go, oh my gosh, thank you. You're the best guy in the world.
No, because he's just the delivery guy. The glory and the thanks goes to the one that sent it. And no matter what God does through you, you didn't produce it. As Seth said, you're the channel through which God delivers heaven to earth.
Verse 16 says this, and you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you. That you should go and bear fruit that your fruit should remain. And whatever you ask my Father's name, he may give it to you. Okay, three things.
So I really want to talk to you about today. Let's talk about this abiding because abiding, a lot of times, so it's the Greek word may know, emino, means to dwell, it means to inhabit. It means to not depart, to continue to be present, to stay in a given place, state, relation or expectancy. Think about that, to continue to be present.
Now I'm going to say, I'm going to tell you a little bit about, have you ever had your wife say to you when you're on your phone or wives? Have you ever had your husband say to you when you're on your phone, hey, you're just not present yesterday, this morning. Sometimes we can get so dialed into things we can even be married. We can be in the same bed, but not be present.
And I believe the same thing is true in the spiritual realm is that we can be married to Christ, we can be intimate with Him, but oh, it's time for me to have fellowship with Jesus, and it's me, Jesus and my cell phone. It's me, Jesus and Facebook. Those things aren't wrong, but there's a time and a place. Like when I'm intimate with my wife, I'm not like this.
I thought of an old Seinfeld episode, I'm not going to go there, it's terrible. My mind just went down the tubes. So I want to give you today three keys. Here's how it's abiding.
Abiding applies more than just being in Christ or married to Christ. Abiding is the active remaining in a continuous, active, state of close and intimate relationship with Him. Next slide. Here's the thing.
Because of our union, because of the new covenant, because we have union where one with Christ spiritually, eternally, positionally, everybody abides in Christ. You're in Him. That's what the Holy Spirit does when you get saved, He places you in Christ. So positionally, you're abiding in Him.
But the challenge here, the call to action here is that your daily experience of abiding in Him mirrors your eternal position of abiding in Him. That the way you are eternally positioned in Him is experienced in the way you live your life out every day with Him. See, it's one thing I can walk around with a wedding ring and yeah, I'm married. But it's a completely different thing that the way I act on a day to day basis and I'm intimate with my wife.
Two different things. I'm always married to her, but I'm not always actively engaging. I'm not always actively present. But it should be.
And that's the part of our lives that we want to work on today. So today, what I want to do is I want to give you three keys from this passage, three keys to abiding in Christ. Three keys, one. I told you earlier, encountering the Holy Spirit.
You've got to encounter the Holy Spirit. You've got to embrace the Word and you've engaged the Father with prayer. It's number one. You need to encounter the Holy Spirit.
Now I'm going to have to take a minute to get there because it's not evident when we read John 15 verse 2 because it says, every branch, think about this, every branch that is where? In me. Alright, so the branch is already in Christ, right? The branch is in Christ.
Every branch that is in me that does not bear fruit, he does what? He takes away. So what on first blush, what that looks like is that if you're in Christ and you're not producing fruit, he removes you. Well, I have a theological problem with that.
There's a dilemma with that because I don't believe Jesus is into self-mutilation. I don't believe that he takes parts of his body that are in him and cuts them off. But when you read that, it looks like it, he takes you away. Well, the word take away is the Greek word, Iro, A-R-I-O, Iro.
It also means to pick up, lift up, or to carry. If you think of Jesus said, if you want to follow him, let him deny himself, take up what? His cross and follow me. That doesn't mean you're getting rid of your cross.
When the four guys brought the paraplegic man to Jesus, do you remember they took him on the roof? They tore the roof open and let him down in the midst of Jesus? It says that the paraplegic was carried by four men. That's the same word.
They carried him. When Jesus multiplied the fishes and the loaves and he fed 5,000 people, how many basketfuls did they pick up? 12. It says the disciples picked up, same word, Iro.
They picked up 12 basketballs. They didn't get rid of them. They picked them up. When Jesus in John chapter 5, he goes to the guy at the pull of Bethesda when he heals the man, who'd been laying for 38 years.
He says, pick up your mat and walk. Pick it up. And so what happens when we go with the translation that translates this as takes away, it gives a completely different connotation. I can tell you this, that at that time they still do, they produce a lot of grapes, that produce a lot of wine.
I've been in Napa Valley, California. I've been in Mendoza, Argentina. I've been in Tuscany, Italy. I've visited vineyards.
And one thing that's true of every vineyard I've ever been to is that the vines do not grow on the ground. The vines are lifted. See what happens is if you would plant the vine and allow it to grow on the ground, at that time in Judean history, in southern Israel, where this takes place, there's warm days and cool nights, produces a lot of moisture. There's the wind that blows from the Mediterranean Sea that carries a lot of moisture.
And what happens when the vines are on the ground, the fungus and bacteria and mold and all those things that are created because of water infect the vines. And so the vines actually won't produce when they're laying on the ground. And if a vine is not producing, what they do is they put a rock under it, and then they pull it up and they attach it to, at that time they'd use a Y-shaped stick. Today we'd call it a trellis.
So they'd get the vines going up. And by pulling the vine up and lifting the vine up, it allows the wind and proper aeration to flow through and dry out the very thing that would have brought damage to the vine. The passion translation, like it or not, actually properly translates this verse. He cares for the branches connected to me by lifting and propping up the fruitless vine.
The Father does not remove you, he raises you. See, he raises you for the purpose of an encounter with the Holy Spirit who is also known as the wind. See, when you're down in the dirt, you need brought up so that you can be filled. You need an encounter with the very power of God to enable you to do the things that he's calling you to do.
If you're not producing fruit, the first thing you need in life is an encounter with the Holy Spirit. When Pastor Seth talked last week, he talked from John 20. Jesus said to his disciples, he's in its resurrection day. He says, as the Father has sent me, so send I you.
And then it says, he breathed on them and said, what? Receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus, now I got to believe when Jesus breathes in you and says, receive the Holy Spirit, you receive the Holy Spirit. See what Jesus was doing in this moment was this.
He's reenacting creation. He's reenacting the moment that God forms Adam of the dust of the ground. And he's a lifeless slab of flesh. And then it says, God breathed into Adam and man became a living being.
He breathed life into him. See, at the moment Jesus breathed life into them, they were now in Christ. But they were a fruitless vine in Christ. Not a single miracle happened, at least not that was recorded.
Nothing supernatural took place from resurrection day to the day of Pentecost. 50 days did the apostles, the disciples, the 120 were fruitless vines. Because they needed an encounter with the Holy Spirit. Jesus didn't say, okay, now you're in Christ.
You've received the Holy Spirit, now go do it. Now he said, I want you to remain in Jerusalem until you are in dude with power from on high. See, you're never going to be able to do the supernatural works that Jesus did unless you have a genuine encounter with the Spirit of God. And he lifts you from a place of fruitlessness and he raises you and he elevates you to a place where he can fill you with his Holy Spirit.
And it says in Acts chapter 2 verse 4, it says this, or 1, it says when the day of Pentecost, 50 days later when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all together with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came, what, a sound. There came a sound as that of a what? Rushing, mighty, wind.
And it filled a place where they were all sitting. See, God had to get them in this place. He said, I want you to wait. The great news is we don't have to wait today.
You can have an encounter with the Holy Spirit today. The waiting is over. But if you have fruitlessness in your life, he's not throwing you to the curb. But he's calling you to a higher plan to a place that says you need the power.
You need an encounter with the Holy Spirit. See, even Jesus never did a miraculous thing without the Holy Spirit. He lived 30 years on the earth. Let's say this.
I think Jesus was saved, right? He was, I don't know, but he was in Christ. He was Christ, but he was in Christ. And he was sinless.
But being sinless didn't allow him to do the miraculous. It wasn't until he had an encounter with the Spirit of God that he moved in all the things that God called him to do. And when Jesus said, as the Father sent me, so send I you. And if Jesus needed an encounter with the Holy Spirit, you think we don't?
We do. Number two, you need to embrace the Word of God. So you're going to see the Trinity at work in this abiding. You have an encounter with the Holy Spirit, but we need to embrace the Word.
And when I talk about the Word, I'm not just talking about this. We've taught on this before. This is a record of things that Jesus and God said over thousands of years. But this is not the eternal Word of God.
Jesus Christ was the Word of God and eternity past. He'll be the Word of God and eternity future. He's the Word of God that was made flesh. And so you need to embrace.
You need to welcome. You need to welcome the Word of God. And this is the Word, but eternally he's the Word. It says in John 15, next slide, it says, every branch that bears fruit, he prunes.
You know, the reward for fruitfulness. Isn't that great? Does anybody like getting pruned? I don't.
I don't like getting pruned. But see what happens as we begin to grow in the Lord, we get to a place where we kind of hit our capacity. See, even grapes that are designed to produce wine don't produce grapes that are wine worthy for three years. The first year there's nothing produced.
It's just that the vine works on developing its root system. Year two, they'll produce a couple grapes, small clusters, but they're actually sour. They're not good for anything. And it takes three full years of all these things going into it to actually produce something that's worthy of making wine out of.
But for some reason, we expect new baby believers to produce fruit that's actually wine worthy in year one. Not that you can't, and not that God can't fast forward that season in your life, but the natural process of growth takes time. And so when people mess up, when people make mistakes, when people have things in their life that God needs to prune, hey, we saw a little fruit, but all of a sudden they get too far afield. Remember what we talked about Peter a couple weeks ago?
It's a revelation from God that you were the Christ, the Son of the living gods. He says, bless the Lord, I'll sign in the Bible, and then reveal it to you about my father was in heaven. And then a few minutes later, he's rebuking Jesus. Like, he grows beyond his fruitfulness.
He's like, oh, I'm now the anointed prophet of the disciples. I'm that guy. I'm so good, I can even tell Jesus what he's not going to do. And so the thing that was fruit in his life needed, and Jesus had to say, get behind me Satan, because you're mindful of the things of man, not the things of God.
See, the great thing is God prunes us with the word. He uses the word. And what happens a lot of times we read the word and God begins to speak to us and what is it like, whoa, I don't want to prune that area. I'm very comfortable in my little cluster of grapes over here because I don't want to go through that.
I don't want to deal with that issue. But if you want to grow to a greater place of fruitfulness, you'll never go from fruit to more fruit unless you allow God to prune you with the word. It says in Ephesians 5 verses 24 and 25, or 5 and 6 says, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse. Depruin actually means to cleanse.
It's the same word. Depruin means to cleanse, to purify. That he might cleanse her with the washing of the water, by what? The word.
See, when he washes us, he cleanses us with the word. I think it's interesting in Hebrews, chapter 10. I don't think I have it up there for you. But it says the law was a shadow of things to come.
And it talks about that if the sacrifices were never able to make people perfect, right? The Old Testament sacrifices. And it says, because if they were able to make people perfect, Hebrews 10, too, then there would have no longer been a consciousness of sin. It says, once they were purged, the word purged only used twice in the Bible.
John 15 and Hebrews 10, too. It says once purged, they would have had no more consciousness of sin. See, a lot of times the reason we're not fruitful is because we're too sin conscious instead of Christ conscious. And we have to allow the word to begin to work on us, to show us who we are in Christ, not who we once were, because when we live in who we once were, we produce fruit unto death, as we talked about earlier.
But when I begin to have Christ consciousness instead of sin consciousness, because I've allowed the word to cleanse me, all of a sudden I'm producing fruit in the God. He cleanses us with his word. He prunes us with his word. Think about the disciples.
So in Luke 9, he sends the disciples out. So in Luke 9, he sends the 12 out. In Luke 10, he sends another, I think, 70 out. But in Luke 9, he sends the disciples out.
And after they go out, he gives them power and authority over all the power of the enemy. He gives them everything. They're actually operating under the umbrella of Jesus' anointing and power at the time. They didn't have their own.
They go out and they see all kinds of miraculous. And then they're walking back and they're discussing on the road, who's the greatest? I'm sure they're like, man, did you see that demon? I cast out?
Oh, yeah, but did you see that cripple? I healed? Oh, yeah, but, you know, they're talking about who's the greatest. And Jesus, over here, now, it was great that they walked in the miraculous, but the fruit grew to a place of unfruitfulness.
And Jesus had to clip it. And he said, what were you guys talking about? They're what we're talking about who would be the greatest. And he says, if you want to be great in the kingdom, you need to be last.
He, the greatest, needs to be the servant of all. And so Jesus never corrected them for wanting to be great. Because if you're around Jesus long enough, he should inspire you to do more. Jesus will inspire you to greatness.
So the fact that they wanted to be great was not wrong, but the way that they were trying to get there was. And he says that what you're sensing, what you're growing in is right, but you need a little pruning so that it goes in the right direction and not the wrong direction because it's not right. And so it's not wrong direction because it's going to turn into arrogance and pride instead of fruitfulness and benefit somebody else. And so I got to clip it.
A little bit later, John says this, he says, Luke, check for 90 at the door, and he says, Jesus, we saw some people casting out demons in your name. But we stopped them because they didn't follow us. Imagine that. We saw people casting out demons in your name, but we stopped them because they weren't part of our tribe.
They didn't go to our church. They weren't part of our denomination. They attended the church across the street, but they were casting out demons in your name, but because they weren't part of the city reach, we told them you better stop. And Jesus said, I like what you think, but you need a little prune here.
Because he said this, he said, do not forbid them because if they are not against us, they're with us. See the ministry across the street, across town, is not our competition. We're part of the same team. We have the same goals, at least we should.
But see their desire to cast out demons and walk in the supernatural got to a place where it grew beyond what God intended for it because they thought it was exclusive to them. And he said, I like where you're going, but you need a snip. I think one of the best ones, even after that, Jesus sends them, it says, he said his face like Flint to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead to go into the cities of Samaria and prepare a place for him.
It said, but they wouldn't receive the disciples to do it. And so Peter and John said this, they said, Jesus, do you want us to call down fire from heaven like Elijah did and smite him? Again, Jesus, it's like I like the way you think. I like that you even think that you can call down fire from heaven.
That's good. But he said, we need to prune your enthusiasm a little bit because here's the pruning. He says, you do not know what manner of spirit you speak of. For the Son of Man did not come into the world to destroy lives but to save them.
And so he said, I'd like that you want to and can walk in the power of God, but you need to use it with a new covenant mindset. But I'm not here to bring judgment. I'm here to bring salvation. I'm not here to destroy lives.
I'm here to save them. And so as we begin to produce fruit, we have to give the Father time as the vine-dresser to prune those things in people's lives to a place where they're going the right way. They produce fruit, but now we need to give them time and grace to get to that place of more fruitfulness. But that won't happen if you don't embrace the word of God spoken to you.
You have to really embrace it. Number three is this. You need to engage with the Father specifically in prayer. You need to encounter with the Holy Spirit.
You need to engage the Word of God written and spoken. And you need to engage the Father in prayer. Jesus says this. John 15, he says, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, you'll ask what you desire.
Imagine that. He says, and it will what? Be done for you. But look at the content.
This is conditional. If you abide in me. Now we know from earlier that we're eternally positioned in the place of abiding. But that's not what we're talking about here.
If you live from an active place of continual intimacy with me. If you'll do that. And if what? My words.
See, if you don't embrace the Word, if you don't welcome the pruning, then forget about asking as you desire. Because here's what happens. If you abide in him and you allow his Word to prune you, all of a sudden your desires will begin to align with his desires. You'll begin to ask for the very things that he would want you to ask for.
Even the desires that you have in you that you think are really supernatural, that the things that he's placed in you to do, the dreams, the visions, the thoughts and all the things that God wants to answer those. But he says, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, then you shall ask what you desire and it will be done. You did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit. Your fruit should remain whatever you ask.
The Father in my name he may give it to you. We can live from a place of whatever. I don't like whatever sometimes. If you're arguing with your spouse, did you ever get a whatever?
That depends on how you say it. If I make this great point and we're arguing, I used to want to be an attorney. I feel like I probably could have been one. I make this great point and my wife's return will be whatever.
Whatever. That's not the whatever we're talking about. This is whatever you desire. If God is placed in you and you're abiding in him, and the Word has pruned you to a place of greater fruitfulness, whatever you desire, if you ask the Father in Jesus name.
See when I ask in Jesus name, it's not like putting abracadabra at the end of a prayer. Father, I ask for dah dah dah dah dah one two three four five six and Jesus name amen. Abracadabra one two three, walla kazoom. It's not some magical incantation.
We're actually asking the Father based on the authority of the name of Jesus. That Jesus, the Savior of the world that paid for all sin sickness, depression, strongholds everything in his name. I can ask and I can be confident. See sometimes we don't have what says James says you have not because you don't ask.
And sometimes you ask but you ask that you may consume it upon your lust. You ask but you got the wrong motive. I can assure you if you abide in Christ your motives will be right. You'll have right motives.
You'll ask the right petitions for the right reasons. It's not going to be selfish. It's going to be that I want to do this because I want to bring glory to your name. In December I had an encounter with the Holy Spirit that's probably one of the top two in my life.
I encountered all three of these in a period of five minutes. Prayer with the Father and encounter with the Holy Spirit and pruning of the Word of God. I was reading the story of Solomon becoming king after David. You remember when Solomon said the Lord appeared to him and said what do you want?
And I've been praying for wisdom for quite some time. I was God I want wisdom. I need wisdom. I want wisdom.
But as I'm reading that I realized Solomon's request for wisdom had a purpose attached to people. He said God grant me wisdom that I may judge and rule his people righteously. And as I said Father I ask that you would give me the wisdom of Jesus Christ that I can judge and lead people righteously. And the Spirit of God hit me.
I almost fell out of my seat on the airplane. I was on an airplane. Christ doesn't look over at me. I'm like weeping.
It felt like a lightning bolt went through my innards. And I can't even describe it. I couldn't even speak. We get to the hotel and I said let me tell you what happened on the airplane.
And so I began to retell the story and I almost fell on the floor. It hit me again. And I just wept. But just because you've had one encounter with God doesn't mean there's not more.
That wasn't my first encounter. It won't be my last. See sometimes God takes all three of these and encounter with the Holy Spirit the pruning of the word. He said you're asking for wisdom but you're doing it for the wrong reason.
And when my desires align with his and I asked in the name of Jesus, he answered. And I'm going to tell you this, my understanding of scripture since then just in the last four months is crazy. God has it for you. Ask and it will be given to you.
Seek and you will find knocking and it will be open to you. Everyone that asks what receives. Everyone who seeks find in him and knocks it will be open. It's a promise.
If you ask in his name for the right reason, not selfish, he'll do it. First John 514 and 15 say this, this is the confidence we have in him. That if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if he hears us, we have the petitions asked or desired or required required of him.
Like it's confidence. The confidence is not in my ability to pray. The confidence is not in my knowledge of scripture. The confidence is not in my study of the word.
My confidence is in Jesus Christ because I'm connected to divine. And because of intimacy with him, fruit will happen. And as I allow the Holy Spirit to work in my life, as I allow the word to work in my life, as I engage in prayer with a father, great things begin to happen in my life. And I begin to fulfill the call that he's put on my life.
You'll fulfill the call he's put on your life. I'll close with his last verse from Colossians chapter 1 verse 10 and then we're finished. I want you to begin just as we read this. I want you to begin to ask the Holy Spirit.
God, give me grace to be fruitful. Father, give me an openness to your Holy Spirit. Maybe I've been scared of the Holy Spirit. Let me tell you this.
Just like Jesus is gentle. He says the Holy Spirit. He's a gentleman. He's gentle.
He's kind. Maybe you God's spoken things to you through his word that you just don't want to receive. Bless you. Maybe you've been reading the scripture and God's been dealing with an area in your life that's just a shriveled up cluster of grapes.
But see, God doesn't see the shriveled up cluster of grapes. He sees a bountiful cluster of grapes. Because he sees what is. He calls the thing that be not as though it were.
And he knows that if you'll allow the word to do this, that you can become the thing that he sees in your life. So maybe you just need to open up and receive what he's been speaking to you. See, a lot of times we're asking God for a new word and he's saying you haven't fulfilled the word that I gave you. Well, I want to leave that one in the dust.
I want a new one. Well, you need to steward the one I've already given you. Because I want you to grow in that area. Don't you think the vine-dresseder knows better what cluster of grapes need to grow in your life than you do?
If he thought this cluster needed prune, he would have prune this cluster. But for some reason, he pruned this one. And then we're waiting for him to do something else. He said, I want you to steward the word.
I already gave you. Paul says this to the church at Colossae. He says, walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. So it's not talking about being worthy.
You're worthy because Jesus made you worthy. But he says, I want you to live your life in a worthy manner. Look at this, fully pleasing to him bearing fruit in every good work and increasing the knowledge of God. Really spoke to me this week.
Because what that says to me that, if I can do a lot of good works, but if I'm not fruitful in the good work, I'm not fully pleasing the Father. A lot of times we can get distracted because something's good. But there was a guy that wrote a book a few years ago, it's been a while now, but it was called from good to great. And he says, the good is the enemy of great.
Because a lot of times we can get so focused on doing what's good that we miss doing something that's great. And I think greatness is being fruitful in a good work, but a lot of times we just do good works, but there's no fruit. And if there's no fruit in the work that you're doing, then you're actually living below the standard that God has for your life. See, activity is misleading.
I can sit in a rocking chair and I can rock till the cows come home. I can be active all day long, but go nowhere. See, a lot of times we live our Christian life that way. We're just sitting there in a rocking chair doing this flurry of activity, but I've never seen fruit come out of a rocking chair.
You get up an hour later, you're still in the same place that when you sat down. And that's not how God wants you to live your life. He's got great plans for you. He sees.
Like, when he looks at you, God just give me this thought. I'm going to take it. Do you remember when they came out of the Canaan land when he sent the spies? The Joshua sent 12 spies in the land and it said they came back with a cluster of grapes strung between guys on a stick.
The cluster of grapes was so big they had to put it on a big wooden rod to carry it. I think when God looks at your life, that's what he sees. He actually sees a cluster of grapes that's so big that you couldn't actually carry it by hand. But for some reason we settle for this little cluster we can buy at Martins and hold like this and think that that's something.
And we just get comfortable and satisfied with this. When God's thoughts are like this. No wonder Isaiah says my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are your ways. My thoughts are higher than the heavens and my way.
It's no wonder God thinks so big about you. Don't limit yourself to what God can do through you. He wants to do amazing things. Let's pray.