Beacon Sunday Service January 28, 2024

Grace and peace to you indeed. Um let's just uh begin this morning with just a reminder of what we were uh taught last week. Uh just that uh in Christ we have just exceeding joy. Um the world, Satan may try to take those things away from us, take that joy away from us, but if we put our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we will have uh joy, not happiness, but joy. And so, as we're reminded of that, may we also confess that truth. If you all rise with me for our call to worship this morning, it comes from Psalm thirty three and thirty five. I'll just read it for us this morning. It says, shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous, praise befits the upright. Let those who delight in his righteousness shout for joy and be glad and say evermore, great is the Lord who delights in the welfare of his servants.

Amen. And that's uh what God calls us to, which is joy to have joy in him because of what he has done. May we just confess that truth today as we sing this first song together this morning. Uh let us lift up uh praises that uh to the Lord.

No the voice will define me because I belong to you. I belong to you, know the enemy can take what I have, change you I am I belong to you, know the enemy can take what I have, change you I am I belong to you by your blood I've been taking on your name, and I need to be here to you, know the enemy can take what I have.

Change you I am I belong to you, yeah.

Take what I have.

I belong to you. Greater are you, greater are using me than he using the world. The words you have spoken are stronger than the curse. Greater are using me than the world. The words you have spoken are stronger than stronger than the girl.

Take what I have. Change you I am, I belong to you.

Change you, I belong to you, yes. Know the enemy.

Change you I belong to you, yeah. No the enemy can take what I have. Change who I am, I belong to you.

Wonders of wonders, what love is this Christ would die for me? His goodness is merit, his righteousness, the sinners only. Oh foolish pride, be crucified, the work is all my boasts in Jesus, all my hope is his love, and I will glory forever in what the cross has done. Now fully forgiven my life is filled with graces and deserved for mercy that flow down this sacred hill. Let praise is now returned. Rise up, rise up my soul, and bless the Lord, who else is worthy, all my boasts in Jesus, all my hope is his love, and I will glory forever in what the cross has done.

Oh praise the one blessed him alone, my door, and I will boast in nothing less than the love of Christ my Lord, you know, praise the one. Oh, praise the one blessed him alone, and I will burst in nothing less than the love of Christ my Lord.

I boast not in riches in strength or mind, but in the grace of God, I glory in weakness to live is Christ in plenty or in one that I may know and all might see all my boasts in Jesus, all my hope is his love, and I will glory forever in what the cross has done. Now I said, And now I stand in his dream, ransom clean in his eye, and I cannot be ashamed, for my boast is Jesus Christ, my post is Jesus Christ, forever my boast is Jesus Christ.

Amen. All our boasts is in Jesus Christ. Our faith using the New City Catechism. In this question and answer, we will confess how God's grace enables us to obey him. And here's the question. Since we are redeemed by grace alone, through Christ alone, must we still do good works and obey God's word? And together. Yes, because Christ, having redeemed us by his blood, also renews us by his spirit, so that our lives may show love and gratitude to God, so that we may be assured of our faith by the fruits, and so that by our godly behavior, others may be one to Christ. Amen. Absolutely.

For patience and peace to shape all my name. Your grace in my past.

Your ways are dwelling. And the harvest of life is grow. For you renew. For you we are master and maker. Establish love.

May we live. We live the gospel of your grace. Serve your purpose and our day. Then our lives will be turned all praise. And our glory to your and our glory. Amen. Praise God. Morning, church. At this time we're going to have our corporate confession of faith. Please take this opportunity just to be forthcoming and honest to our Lord. The transparency that we bring him is just required for us to live lives without the heaviness of guilt on us because we know that our Lord and Savior has already taken that burden from us.

So together, let us read.

You are immortal and you dwell in unapproachable light. Forgive us for dwelling the darkness of our sins. We have acted contrary to your perfect law of liberty. We now bow down and surrender ourselves to you. May you continue building your kingdom within us and in the world. Amen. Please be seated. Let us now take in a time of private confession of sin.

As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust. Today's prayer topic is uh for the Peg family. Our sister Tammy is expected to deliver this Friday. Um so in lieu of that, um, let's pray for a safe and healthy delivery and with no complications for both mother and child. Uh for God to watch over the health of baby Penny and Tammy's recovery. Uh and and even just pray for the feedings to start well and for them to continue from that point. Um let's pray for also pray for our brother Daniel to be the support Tammy needs and for he himself to have strength and alertness during that time. Uh so let's lift up the Peck family.

Lord, what a blessing it is that we would be able to bear children and to to grow our families, and um Lord, we just lift up the Peck family up to you, knowing that that's about to happen this week. Um we pray and we um just ask for protection over Tammy as she delivers baby Penny on Friday, but maybe earlier, and we ask that you watch over her and guide her and bless her, um, that the delivery would be smooth with no complications for her, and that her recovery would um go well and be quick. Uh we pray for her postpartum as well, and we know that um just that you would um bless her and guide her um through maybe uh after delivery, just emotional and and and and mental um uh just um comfort that she needs, Father, and we pray, Father, um, for baby Penny too, that as she um lives her first few days, um that you would just bless her, keep her healthy, that um that you would help her to feed well and get good rest, um, and just that um Daniel also would be able to be there with in strength and support, um and that you would give him um just the guidance he needs to be uh to make the right decisions and to be alert uh and live for uh in support of his family.

Uh we pray for also um Iris too, and that as you are helping her uh become accustomed to being a bigger sister, that she would be have a lot of grace in her in her little heart and her understanding of the situation, and that um that they would be a cohesive family uh from the beginning, and and that just um a lot of uh love and patience would be there uh in the first few days together. I just want to lift them up, Lord. We love them so much. We know that you're watching over them and that your hand of healing and protection will be over them this week. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Uh, children, you're dismissed for Sunday school. You're gonna be with teacher Tiffany today. As the children are being dismissed, uh, I'm gonna go over a few announcements that we have.

Uh, Super Bowl Sunday is in two weeks. So uh February eleventh. Um, our uh our family, the the Limp family is going to be hosting the uh the party at their house. Uh it's most likely gonna be a potluck, and so more details to come with that. Uh, but there's also gonna be uh payment of uh punishment uh for brothers for losing uh fantasy football this year. So if you want to be entertained, please come. Um today is communion Sunday, so uh please keep that in your mind um as you listen to today's sermon and even as you've been worshiping today, uh, just to prepare yourself um for communion after service and per usual our offering options are Zel Venmo Cash and Czech. Uh please give according to the Lord has blessed you.

Uh with that, let's welcome our brother Pastor D. Madison. Fellowship with you each week like this. Um today we wanna uh look at uh the vine and the branches in John 15 and uh just be reminded of what Jesus really had had had taught us about this, but I'm gonna ask you uh to just stand and uh for the reading of God's word. Would you just stand? He says, I am the true vine, my father is the gardener. Every branch in me that does not produce fruit, he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I am you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself, unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.

I am the vine. You are the branches. The one who remains in me, and I in him produces much fruit because you can do nothing without me. If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch, and he withers.

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

That you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

But I chose you.

And that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. This is the word of the Lord. Amen. You may be seated. Do you remember uh a lot about where you grew up? Just think about it for a moment. Think about the house you grew up in. Can you picture the front door? How you came in the house? Was it a hallway? And everything about that, the house I grew up in. Um I grew up in a very poor family. And the house I grew up in, um, it was it was just kind of a broken down house. And it uh but it had love. And I could remember, even though it was a you know, aspetch as uh asbestos shingles, asbestos sighting, you know.

I should be dead by now. I you know, all the all the asbestos and stuff, and my folks, my dad bought it when he uh was coming out of World War II. They paid $3,500 for the house. And that was in 1945. My brother was born in 1946. I was born in 1948. They sold it in 1998. We lived there. I hadn't lived there all this years because I moved away. But they lived and owned that house from 1945 to about 1998. Paid 3,500 for it when they bought it. And when they sold it in 1998, it sold for 4500. One of a thousand dollars in value. But that's the kind of house I grew up in. I can remember all those kind of details.

One of the details I remember because our family didn't have much money on that kind of stuff, is on Saturdays in September, late September and October, we would go over to the vineyards nearby. This is in western New York.

And it was they had they had great vineyards. It looked like uh this in the vineyards. Uh it was easy for me to somewhat understand when Jesus said, I'm the vine. You are the branches. It was somewhat easy for me to understand kind of what he was saying, because I'd worked around them. And what we would do as a family is we would go over to the vineyards, and they would pay people to pick the grapes. Actually, you clipped them off. And so what you had is this little cart that went right down, uh a row is about as wide as this aisle right here. And so one row would be here, and one row would be here, and you just had this cart that you lifted up, had a wheel on the front and two little legs in the back, and the uh the little basket or little thing you put the grapes in was right about this wide, about this high, and so you were assigned a row, and you go down that row and you clip and put it in, clip it, put it in, and then when it's filled, you'd set it down on the ground, and then you'd put another empty one on there, and you got paid by how many boxes you filled that day.

Now, as a kid I probably ate more grapes than I put in the box, but we had it was a good time, and our family did that uh to raise money to have anything that was necessary. What's interesting about that place? It was in we I grew up in a little little town called Sherman, New York. 500 people in the town, so it's a small town, farming town, and the next town over where we would go to pick the grapes was Westfield, New York. You probably know about Westfield, New York, and don't even know that you know about Westfield, New York. Westfield, New York is where Welch's grape juice was started, and Welch's grape juice was started by a believing man who decided that for communion, he didn't want to have alcohol, but he wanted to have the fruit of the vine, so he developed Welch's grapefruit, and that's what we have for communion even today, and in many churches.

Matter of fact, the church that I started in Palmdale, we we have the Welch's grape juice. We did that because there are people who come who have been alcoholics, and you don't want to put any alcohol in them. But that's where that's kind of the thing I grew up with. So you know a little bit about me. So when I read, I am the true vine, my father's the gardener, I go, oh, yeah, I I kind of get that. So look at this text for a moment. Here's the text I read to you earlier. It only has nine verses. Verses 1 through eight, and then I dropped down and did verse 16. And I want you to think about what the focus. When you open up a passage of Scripture, you always want to look at what the focus is.

So you're looking for things that he's giving as a theme for those few verses. Look at the screen. Here's the theme of this. What do you think the theme is? Count them. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight times in nine verses. What's he talking about? Fruit. And he's saying, look, I want you to, I want you to be able to have fruit. And, oh, by the way, let me just put this on the screen. It's about fruit. It's not about salvation. Do you get that? Because there are people that look at this passage of Scripture and think, oh, oh my goodness, I can lose my salvation. Because some of the branches get cut off and thrown away and burned. What's that sound like? That almost sounds like hell, doesn't it?

You're cast aside and it's no longer there. Oh, okay. But this passage is not about salvation. Not once does the word salvation even occur. Not even the plan of salvation, how to get saved, let alone lose your salvation. So it's about, oh, I guess if I just looked at the focus and the amount of times he uses the word carpos, which is the Greek word for fruit, he says, I want you to bear fruit. Watch out of fruit. In God's word, we're never taught in this passage. What is that fruit? It's just fruit. We're supposed to have fruit. I would want you to understand that there are multiple types of fruit in God's word. One time it's talked about, it's talked about if we go wayward, if we fall into sin, and we want to get right before God, we produce fruit in keeping with repentance.

So that's that's a fruit. And people that come to know Christ ought to have fruits in keeping with repentance. What do I mean by that? You don't have to teach somebody that knows they're in sin, that they're in sin. And you don't have to teach them, we teach little kids. Hey, go ask for forgiveness. Go ask, hey, you need to apologize. But once you come to know Christ, and you have some kind of an adult understanding of that, when you do wrong and you do and you're going to sin, you know what you're supposed to do. You say, well, what am I doing? I shouldn't be doing this. Oh, God, really. And what do we do in confession right here this morning? Nobody's nobody said, okay, I'm gonna pray, and you pray this prayer after me.

Repentance, fruits of repentance come from your life. Because God, the Holy Spirit, wants to convict us of sin. And when we get convicted of sin, we say, Oh, Father, I see my sin. And you're holy, holy, holy. It's the only, it's the only picture of the Lord that's given three times in scripture. He's not said to be love, love, love. But he is said to be holy, holy, holy. And that's what they cry before him constantly in heaven, that he's holy. And what does Isaiah say? Wow, I'm a man of unclean lips. I don't deserve you. Because out of his natural love for Christ and his view of sin, he has fruits in keeping with repentance. Nobody had to teach him that. It just came out. So I don't know if that's the fruit, because he doesn't tell you what the fruit is here.

Okay, there's also another kind of fruit. The fruit of the Holy Spirit. Right? You know that one. That Galatians 5, 22, and the love, the joy, the peace, the patience, the kindness. You know. And as believers, we ought to have fruit. There is no such thing as a believer that doesn't have fruit. The fruit of repentance, the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Well, there's another fruit. I'll throw it in at the end, but let me just throw it right now. When you work to serve the Lord, it is said to be fruit. And sometimes he says that your fruit, that what you have done, is no longer carpas. Let me let me use that Greek word. Carpas. Okay. He said, your fruit is not carpas. It is a carpas.

You know what? You know what I just put in front of that carpas? I put the Greek letter, just one letter, alpha. We would say it a in English. And you put an A in front of Karpas, and you are a Karpas. You are unfruitful. We use that word. We use it all the time. Let me say it this way. Somebody's a theist, they believe in what? God. If they are an aist, what do they believe? No God. If they're a Gnostic, that means they understand. There's about knowledge. If they're an agnostic, they say, oh, you can't know. Gnostic is knowledge. Agnostic means you can't have knowledge. We use it. Let me give you one that your kids would understand. They want to go to Disneyland. You ever been to Disneyland?

It's supposed to be an amusement park. Right? I laughed when we take, we took our kids in the past. I'm not a great fan of Disney. But I said, this is a day at this, look at me. This is a day at Disneyland.

You know? And kids want to go there because it's fun. Now, it's an amusement park. Let me tell you what the English word to think is. It's muse. When the guy's like this. He's musing. He's thinking. When you don't think, you go to an amusement park. That means you don't think there. God. So carpas is fruit. A carpas means you're unfruitful. But God's saying, look, I want you to, I want you to bear fruit. The question I have for you is, do you see that fruit in your life? That fruit that where you're convicted of sin and you have fruits of repentance. Or fruits of the Spirit. You want to know whether you have fruits of the Spirit? Man, when you get upset and you're driving on the road and somebody cuts in front of you and you want to hit the horn, and you're not patient.

Guess who's not in control? And you don't have the fruit of the spirit. And so, do you have that fruit of the spirit? Now let's look at John 15, 1 and 2. He said that this way, I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener. Every branch in me that does not produce fruit, he removes. And he prunes every branch that produces fruit. Now he's going to tell you why. Why does he do what he does? So that. Got it. He prunes every branch, third line. He prunes every branch that produces fruit. So that it will produce what? More fruit. See that wonderful? I love it when God's word tells you. Watch it now. Here's why I'm writing this. So that. And then he tells you why. Verse 8 says it a little differently.

My father is glorified by this. Now, did you know the purpose of the beacon? One of the purposes of the beacon is to glorify God. And you ought to repeat that multiple times. So that even when new people come in, they know what the purpose of this church is. It's not just a social gathering. The purpose of this church is to praise and glorify God. What's the chief end of man? To praise and glorify God and join forever. My father is glorified by this. Now he's going to tell you what God is glorified by. That you look at the screen. That you produce what? Much fruit. So do you get where he's going here? He starts out with fruit. And in your Christian life, what does he want? Fruit. Fruits of repentance, the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of good godly works.

He says, and I want you to bear fruit. And not just fruit, but more fruit. And not more fruit, but much fruit. So what's the focus of this passage? Man, it's it's about fruit. As in, as we open John 15, we must keep in mind that Jesus is not talking to unbelievers. Who's he talking to? His disciples. In chapters 13, all the way up to 18, it's kind of just one week in the life of Christ. You have more information about Jesus in those four or five passages, the chapters, than almost any other one concentrated week in the life of Christ. What do you know in chapter 13? In chapter 13, he's talking to all the disciples. Who's there? Everyone, including Judas. And Judas is going to betray him. Judas leaves at the end of chapter 13.

What you're going to do? Do quickly. Remember? That passage. So now he's talking to the disciples that are really solid with him. He's talking, he's not talking to unbelievers, but to 11 remaining disciples. He's not dealing with salvation, but with bearing fruit. Something that believers are to do, not unbelievers. Got it. So let's, if we're going to interpret this passage, again, there are people that think that they can lose their salvation based on this passage. But the central theme is not salvation. It's not about how we obtained it or the danger of losing it. This passage is about bearing fruit. If we listen to me, if you could lose your salvation by not producing fruit, it would mean that our salvation is based on our works.

Did you get that? So he's not going to lop you off because you don't have fruit. Because you didn't get saved by having fruit. You didn't get saved by works. Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. So it's right from the start. Our works have a part of it. You know, down the road we're going to look at the book of James in the future. And it's about, you know, the faith without works is what? Dead. But here, let's stay with the passage. When you look at a passage, you don't, you don't isolate it. You say, this verse fits in this text, fits in this book, fits in this New Testament. Let's put it all in the place where it belongs. Not isolate it and say, oh, look, he's going to lop off some branches and they're going to be set aside and they're going to be burned and you're going to lose your salvation.

No, that's not what this passage is about. It's about bearing fruit. Never about getting saved. So, John 15. Uh I love this. Now we're gonna put it in his context. Okay, I gave you the eight verses, but now let's put it in its in its chapter. Oh, and by the way, you need to know this. There weren't any chapters when the Bible was written. There weren't any verses. Later on, guys went and said, okay, let's break it down here so that I can tell you to turn to maybe this section and this verse. But otherwise, you you always had the flow of it. It was like a book. John chapter 15 has three relationships. Okay, the first relationship is our relationship with Christ. I need to know what my relationship with Christ ought to be.

In verses 1 through 11, he's talking about that. And here's the relationship. I am the vine, you are the branches. So what's the relationship? The relationship is I need him. Because a branch that is not attached to the vine is dead. A branch that's not attached to the vine can't ever produce fruit. What's that relationship? That relationship then is I'm dependent on him. But this is this is the first part of chapter 15. The second part is my relationship with other believers. And so in verses 12 to 17, he says, Here's your relationship with the Lord. Now here's your relationship with the church, other believers. And here's how it's worded. This is my commandment, love one another as I have loved you.

He starts with that in this second section in verse 12. And he ends with that in verse 17. That you love one another.

Because I have a relationship with the Father, and then I have a relationship with you, and then I have a relationship with those who are non-believers. Those who are outside. What am I to do? What's my relationship with them? Look at this. If the world hates you, understand that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world what you world hates you. Yeah, I'm gonna blank the screen so I can get your attention for a second, okay? The world hates you. Listen, we live in California. Liberal, liberal, liberal state. They don't like it if you stand up and say, God's word says that the LGBTQ community is against God's plan.

God is really clear on it. I mean, from Leviticus in the Old Testament to Romans and the New Testament, many passages are out there that homosexuality is a sin. They don't want you proclaiming the truth of God's word. They like Christians, and I'll put those in quotes. They like Christians who are tolerant. What's interesting to me is they don't want to be tolerant of what God's word says. God's word is so clear, and yet they don't want to tolerate that. So whether it's the LGBT community, or whether it's uh the abortion group, listen, who put that life in that woman? God was able to oversee that child. Psalm 139 says, I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. You saw my parts when they were yet unformed.

So if I, you know what they would do in the Old Testament? If if a if a steer would gourd a woman and she were to die and the child is to die, man, they killed that animal. You know what's interesting about our society is when it comes to abortion and those kind of rites, you know, it's it's not a person, they say. But as soon as somebody kills a pregnant mother, how many cases of murder are they put up for? Two. Wait a minute. I thought this wasn't a child, that wasn't a person. So even our society doesn't go along with what they're saying. So what does what does the world think? I'll come back here. The world thinks, hey, they hate us. Listen, we don't hate them. If somebody wants to live in sin, hey, their eternal destiny is at stake.

I couldn't care about them as a person. I'm gonna hate their sin. Did you catch that? You cannot love darkness and light at the same time. You cannot love righteousness and ungodliness at the same time. You want to know if you love God? The way you really understand your love of God is if you hate sin the way he hates sin. And listen to me carefully. If you hate sin in your life the way he hates sin in your life. You see, he said, if I weep, blessed are they they who mourn, for they shall be comforted. What that's talking about is if you learn to mourn over your sin, the way God mourns over your sin, you're gonna be comforted. Our problem is we don't mourn over our sin like God mourns over our sin.

So let me take you back here. The relationship with Christ becomes evident by the fruit of my life. Matthew chapter 7, verse 20, he says this. So you will recognize them what? By their fruit. So I'm wanting you, I'm wanting you to ask your own selves. Do you recognize you're a believer by the fruit you have? So that when you sin, do you really understand that God is grieved by that and you just grave the heart of God? It's where I went with my son. I I told you a few weeks back when I uh when I would teach them going through the book of Proverbs, and I told you that my son had memorized Proverbs 10, 1. A wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother. When he got so he can understand that, I told you, when he did what was right, I said, hey, you just give me a glad heart.

When he did what was wrong, I said, you just gave your mom a heavy heart. A wise son maketh a glad father. A foolish son is the heaviness of his mother. So when he did wrong, when he started to be grieved, he had fruits of repentance. He wanted to get it right with his mom, or with me, or with his sister. You'll know them by their fruits, is what Jesus said. And he says that a couple of times. By the way, the New Testament has how many books? 27. Okay. How many in the Old Testament? 39. I'm gonna give you away quickly. This is this is extra, it's not part of the sermon, okay. Write the word old, O L D and Testament. How many letters are in old? Three. How many letters are in Testament? Nine.

How many books are in the Old Testament? 39. Okay? Okay, now, how about the New Testament? Oh, yeah, now we got a problem. How many letters are in new? How many? How many letters are in the word new? Three. How many in Testament? Nine. So the way to get the answer to the books in the New Testament is Jesus multiplied the bread. And three times nine is twenty-seven books. Okay? So just give that to your kids. So they begin to grasp that. Of the 27 books in the New Testament, fully 24 of them talk about fruit. Believers having some kind of behavior or fruit. Okay. The Lord. So if somebody asks you, hey, what did Pastor Madison talk about today? Here's what I talk about. If your pastor, as you look for your future pastor, if somebody, if you get the, so you're up here preaching, I want you to reduce the sermon to a sentence.

So people can walk away. What do you talk about today? The Lord expects fruit from our lives. That can be fruits of repentance, that can be fruits of the Spirit, that can be fruits of good works. God, the Lord expects fruit in our lives. Okay.

So that will bear fruit. Okay? Because it's about bearing fruit. The first thing he does, he removes what doesn't produce fruit. He's doing this so that you can produce fruit. But the first thing he has to do is get rid of stuff that doesn't produce. Okay? Let me show it to you here in the verse. I'm the true vine, and my father is the gardener. Every branch in me that does not produce fruit, he does what? He removes.

But this work that he does and the pruning that he does, both of them remove something. You got it? That's why it's not when he removes a branch here, you're not, he's not removing you, lopping you out, throwing you into hell. Because it's about bearing fruit. And so the first thing he does, he says, okay, this branch didn't bear any fruit. So he's looking at things in your life and mine that are not producing anything. Let me ask you this. If you made a list of what you did this past week, how many of those things produced nothing? You know? Just a waste of time. Something that was worthless.

I want to be able to just get them out of your life. Verse five, verse six is one that people then misinterpret for salvation. If anyone does not remain in me, he's thrown aside like a branch. And he withers. They gather them and do what? Throw them where? Into the fire, and they're burned. Let me put this on the screen. The emphasis of Jesus' teaching is about fruit, not about salvation. The word salvation doesn't even appear once in this passage. So how can you make it say salvation when he's not even talking about salvation? He's talking about, listen, bearing fruit. He does three works in our lives. He removes some things. He prunes some things. He cleanses you. And we do one thing. One thing in this passage.

What do you think it is? If we abide in him. That's what we do. We just abide in him. As a matter of fact, let me even say it this way. I hate the fact. I love the fact that we have a lot of different translations out there so people can kind of resonate and read them. And then I hate the fact that there are a lot of translations out there. Okay. Because like this translation that I'm using today, the Christian standard Bible, it was put out, and they wanted to be so literal. Words keep changing in our language. And that's why new translations. That's why uh Dr. MacArthur and their group came out with an updated New American standard, uh, the legacy for because our language changes. You know, uh years ago, when you said, Oh man, hey, that's cool.

We used to think cool mean meant cold. It's cool. It's cool out, you know. Or, or how about this? We say, Oh man, you really look sharp today. Uh, let's see, I thought sharp was a knife, uh, not a look. Or how about if we say, Wow, that that cheese is really a sharp cheese? Or that copier, it was put out by sharp. What do we mean when we all those different words? How do we translate them? You look sharp, or or maybe that's enough, you know. You you get the idea. Language changes. And so we attempt to interpret it. That's why, as much as possible, if you get a pastor here, you want him to be able to uh be able to go back into the Hebrew or the Greek and say, okay, what is this really say? Now let me tell you what I don't like about the passage today.

The temp the passage says, if you remain in me and my words remain in you. Okay, that's the the the word the old King James word was abide, but what does it mean to abide? It's it means to be, you know, just I'm gonna spend that focus and that time, and I'm gonna live around the Lord. If I use the word remain, it sounds like well, I might not remain in him. But if I remain in him, then I'm safe. But if I don't remain in him, that's not what the text is saying. Got it? So you want to really just focus on the emphasis is not about salvation. Isn't it encouraging to know that the Lord will remove from our lives the things that will keep us from producing fruit? I don't like it when the Lord takes some things out of my life.

I want to do that! Lord, what are you doing? And the Lord says, uh, let me just and so he takes some things out of my life. Isn't that encouraging that he's willing to do that? Even though you fight him. Listen to me, the Lord expects fruit in our lives, and he's gonna do a work on your life to do that. The first thing he's going to do is he's going to remove. Got it? I need to watch the time here. He needs to remove the things I'm gonna put on here. He removes. The second thing is he prunes. Okay, he prunes what does produce fruit. What on earth do I mean he prunes what does produce fruit? Because I'm telling you, and I'm gonna show you here in a second. In both cases, parts are being removed from the vine.

In both cases. So in the first one, he removes stuff that doesn't produce. The second one, he takes off stuff that does produce. Why would you do that? Here's what the text says. I'm the true vine, and my father's the gardener. Every branch in me that does not produce fruit, he removes. And he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. Okay. Here's what a vineyard looks like. What's interesting is I I don't I've never been to a vineyard in California, so I don't know. But this is a vineyard uh near my hometown. Okay. This would be, I don't know if we uh we don't get much snow out here, so I don't know. But where I grew up, we we could get three feet of snow at a time.

And we would get over a hundred and ten inches of snow during the winter months. So this is what it looks like. And during February and March, this is the first thing. Look at how gangly this looks. And by the way, this is a young vineyard here. And how do we know that? Because the main uh vine, as it gets older, gets to be three or four inches thick. See how spindly the main vine looks on this one? This is only uh uh a couple years old. As a matter of fact, I I grew a vine in my backyard, okay? And when I grew a vine in my backyard, uh man, it became a mess because I didn't have the wires to you know get put it in the right place, and I wasn't cutting it back. But what I did learn is when you plant and you start to grow a vine, it doesn't produce fruit for the first three years.

And what happens when a when somebody gets saved? Do we put them up to be a pastor right away or an elder right away? No, because they're not gonna produce in their early novice believers' life. The fruits that you need to have as an older person in the Lord. So look at, I want you to see this. I'm gonna point it out here, okay? Look, here's one row going down here, and you see the other row over there, and look in between the two rows, and uh it's not gonna show I I can't do my laser here, but right between the two rows, you see all the dead branches. Okay, that's what they do. They go through and remove everything, everything from the last year's grapes. The average vineyard, and this is what it looks like when they're done.

They're starting to just get the arms out and the shoots out, not much left. Because now it's ready for a new new shoots to come out. You and I don't know much about vineyards. The average vineyard in America is only 30 acres. That's not much. In w in the church of the pastor for 34 years, I have a wonderful friend who grows cattle here in California. He he goes uh two to four hundred. They range from that, depending on whether he sold some out and brought some in. Two to four hundred. Do you know how many acres he needs to take care of cattle? Two to four hundred cattle. He has a three thousand acre range. The average vineyard, thirty acres. Hi, I'm Stephano Watson, owner of Avio Vineyards in Sutter Creek, California.

Uh this time of year, we're busy pruning the vineyard. And uh, in terms of wine making, the pruning really is the most important part of the wine-making process. Because what we do in the vineyard here at the beginning of the year is huge ramifications on the quality of the wine that we're making. Did you catch what he just said? The most important part is what? The pruning. And what does God say he's gonna do with us? He's gonna prune us. He's gonna remove the stuff that's not doing anything, and even the stuff that's doing good stuff, producing fruit, he's gonna go back and prune. But let me show you. And so what we're doing now is grapes only come off of second year wood, we call it. So we have to prune prune back.

Last year's wood, so we can get new grapes on this right now. Okay, listen to me. That's why it's so important for a church to do fresh food. It's not about what happened here last year. Not what happened ten years ago. Yeah, as important as history is.

That's why you have it up there, so it's a symbol of that. But you need to live today producing fruit. And so he's saying, look, here's what happened. Now he's gonna show you how to do it. Alright, so here's the spur. And so from last year, this is last year's wood. Or the year before last. And then when we pruned, we wound up getting one cane coming off of here, which was originally a bud, and then this one here. So this year we want to go down to one cane. We prune there, and there's one bud at the base and one bud here, and we prune here. Then this bud will turn out to be a brand new cane for this year, and one will come off here at the base and come on up, and each cane will produce two clusters of grapes.

You're gonna get two clusters of grape off that one, too. You know, sometimes we think, man, you ought to have a all sorts of fruit. Listen, God knows that you only have time in your life for so much. And so let's do what produces fruit and not have everything going all the time, and really not bearing fruit, or if you have fruit, you know you've eaten some fruit that you buy at the market, and it doesn't taste very good. And I'll show you why.

Uh and you can see it takes a little bit of thought and a little bit of process to get it done. It takes on average about 500 man hours to prune the entire vineyard.

Five hundred man hours to produce to prune 38 years. And we think, oh, I spent 15 minutes with a heart today. God's wanting to do stuff in your life and mine. Let me show you one other thing, okay? This uh this is a strawberry area. Okay. And uh I pastored two churches in my life, I only wanted to pastor one, but I I ended up pastoring two, one for ten years, and then I came out here and started a church, and pastoring for uh thirty-four years at that church, okay. When I was in Michigan City, Indiana, uh a family in our church planted a strawberry patch. That's what this is. Strawberries. They planted 15,000 strawberry plants. All by hand, all by hand.

That's a lot of time. And you know what they did the very first year, the strawberries were gonna start to grow. They went through and picked every one of the blossoms off. Can you imagine how many blossoms are on 15,000 strawberries, strawberry plants? Because every blossom becomes a strawberry. And so they're plucking off every one of them the first year. Why did they do that? So that the plant would be more healthy and ready to really produce grapefruit, good berries the next year. They pruned it. They took the good stuff and got rid of it. Sometimes you need to in your life, God is wanting to get rid of someone even the good stuff, so that the best stuff can come out. You see, God, Satan tempts us to bring out the worst.

God tests us to bring out the best. Did you hear the difference? Do I need to say it again, we got it. Okay. I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener. Every branch in me that produced that does not produce fruit, he removes. And he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. And that's what he's wanting to do. My father is glorified by this that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples. Listen, the Lord expects fruit. One sentence. A pastor ought to spend time during the week to take and say, okay, what can I reduce this down to so that people walk away and say, what does God want to do in my life based on those verses? The Lord expects fruit in my life.

I know that from this text.

And thirdly, he's going to cleanse those attached to the vine. This it might seem weird. Let me give you the text first. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. It's the word. Ephesians 5 says that you wash one another with a word. The word becomes like water and it washes us. You know, it it sounds so weird that why would a farmer wash the vines and the branches. We think it's weird because today we fly over with a plane and drops and such a site on it. Or we drive down the middle in the middle of the thing, and it has a sprayer here and a sprayer here, and you just drive down the middle and you go and you spray because you're trying to get rid of the in the insects and all the bad stuff, the parasites.

But they didn't have that. And so how they got rid of it is they just took water and washed with water so that it would get rid of that. So he's gonna cleanse us by the word. And I just told you, you know, so the cleansing and washing was done to remove insects and moths and other what? Parasites. What gets rid of the sin in your life and mine? The word. The Lord just says, Look, I want to throw light on your path. I want to be a lamp to your path. I want you to be renewed by God's word. Let's put it in this context now. Chapters 13 to 18. Who's he been talking to? His disciples. Chapter 13, though, Judas leaves. But he's already talked to them about washing, right?

What happened in chapter 13? He did what? He washed the disciples what? Feet. And so he says, one who has bathed, Jesus told him, doesn't need to wash anything except his feet. But he is completely clean. You are clean. But not all of you. Judas wasn't. And then Judas leaves at the end of chapter 13. And now, let's put it in context. You're up to chapter 15, and he's saying, You're cleansed by the word. And so what does he want to do? Listen, for he knew who would betray him. This is why he said, You are not all clean. So you're putting it in that book context now. Not just chapter 15, but you're dropping back to chapter 13 and saying, what's going on with the water of the word? So here's what he's saying.

I'm the vine, you are the branches. The one who remains. Remember, that's the word I didn't like? The one who remains in me. Greek word is meno. You would write it M-E-N-O-M-O to abide, to spend time, to love on him, to live with this one. I said, right?

And lastly, Titus three fourteen says, and our people must also learn to devote themselves to good works.

So that they will just fruit.

Again, I told you.

And what?

What did we say John 15 was all about? What does he say is going to help you before? Self-control. Goodness.

So I don't think I'll like question this.

Let's all rise in response and respond to sing together. I am not my business.

The one who made the heavens made my heart and so I drew our breath. I was loved and know. I am his creation, the makers, masterpiece, and though I designs will be done in Body's a temple.

As I bear his image, only I not prove the holiness I hold in his name. I belong, I belong to the Lord. Oh I am not my own. I belong to the Lord. I am not my own.

For this I know I belong to the Lord. I am not he has redeemed, and if he has redeemed, I am not my own.

He declares my standing, and he declares my state. So I will know myself by the name.

So Lord, I need my life in your love.

I am not I will honor him for this I know I belong to the Lord. I am honor him for this.

At this time we're gonna be uh partaking in communion. Uh a few things that I would want you to consider and foremost is in order to take communion, you must be born again. You must be a professing believer of Christ, meaning that Christ is your Lord and Savior, that he died and rose again, and that you believe he conquered death on behalf of yourself, of the sins that you have that you are born with. Um, if that is not the case, we ask that you refrain from taking. If you are unsure if you are saved, we ask that you refrain from taking today as well. Um, if you are a child, uh, meaning that if you are under uh fifteen or sixteen, we ask that you refrain from taking today as well. Um, most of these things we would be happily happy to talk to you after service if you want to confirm your faith.

Um, and as a child, we want to vet uh properly um before you come of age in order to take communion. So those are the things that we are asking you to consider. Um, before you come up and uh receive uh the body broken and the blood shed, we ask that you take some time and reflection uh before you come up, and please come at your own timing. Uh, we will be taking the sacraments together as as a uh as a congregation. Uh so please refrain from taking until uh the time comes. With that said, please take some time a moment of silence and reflection.

Is there anyone who's not received the sacraments? For I received from the Lord what I delivered, also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given things, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Let's take together. In the same way, he also, in the same way, also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is a new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

And to see your love for Christ. It's truly amazing. And I pray with you, as God leaves the next pastor here to permanently to fellowship with you, that uh he'll have the same focus. And I know he will, because you your elders or deacons will see to it, but that he'll have the same focus that you already have. Let's close in prayer, shall we? Father, I just pray in the name of the Lord that your face would shine upon these people this week. That you who are able to keep them from falling would resent them faultless before the Father. Take us this week to serve you. We invite you to return this week. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Grace and peace to you as you leave it.