SPEAKER_00: What about now?
SPEAKER_00: Cool.
SPEAKER_00: Alright.
SPEAKER_00: Who wants to know what's going on with this guy?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
SPEAKER_00: You guys are too nosy.
SPEAKER_00: We'll get to that later.
SPEAKER_00: Alright.
SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll come back to it.
SPEAKER_00: You'll see, you'll see.
SPEAKER_00: Alright.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, if we haven't met yet, my name is Jack Myrrhose.
SPEAKER_00: I'm our youth minister here at Hickory Grove.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna move this guy back a little bit because I want to see you guys over there.
SPEAKER_00: Um if you haven't noticed yet, today is a little bit different.
SPEAKER_00: This is what we call Youth Takeover Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: It is a blast to get to do this with you guys.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we started this last year as just a way to mix it up a little bit and really accomplish a few things.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is, of course, I know some of you guys are so jealous of all the fun that we get to have downstairs.
SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the youth volunteers in the room are like, oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Um just kidding.
SPEAKER_00: But if you do feel that way, you should probably be a youth volunteer.
SPEAKER_00: You're probably my people, all right?
SPEAKER_00: So talk to me after this and we can go uh we can go get after it, all right?
SPEAKER_00: But we actually do this for a few reasons.
SPEAKER_00: The first of which is that I'm passionate about families worshiping together.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been around the grove for a while, you've probably noticed that we only offer youth small groups at the 9:30 service, at this service, and we do not have those today because we want students to be able to worship with their parents and guardians, their families at times.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so uh we have it set up to where at 9:30, students can be in small groups almost every Sunday, and then during the 11 o'clock, they can be in worship with you or serving somewhere on our campus.
SPEAKER_00: But we know even though uh we have it set up to where that can take place on our end, it can't always happen on your end.
SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes we want to have Sundays like this where you can worship with your students.
SPEAKER_00: The next reason is that our students are not the church of tomorrow, they are the church today.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I've never heard anybody say that students are the church of tomorrow and mean anything but good things.
SPEAKER_00: They're thinking absolutely yes, they're growing, uh, they're getting older, they're getting wiser.
SPEAKER_00: God's using their gifts, preparing them for ministry.
SPEAKER_00: But hopefully you've already seen today that our next generation is capable of uh leading and serving.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh we want to give students every opportunity to see, experience, serve, and lead in every ministry area here at Hickory Grove that is appropriate for them to get to experience.
SPEAKER_00: And then the last thing is that it is edifying for us as adults to spend time with the next generation.
SPEAKER_00: Again, if you don't believe me, go and ask a youth ministry volunteer.
SPEAKER_00: They will let you know just how awesome it is.
SPEAKER_00: And really, if we are called to minister to each other as the family of God, then I believe that age should not be a barrier in this way, and that our students can minister to us and that we should be ministering to them as well.
SPEAKER_00: And so those are some of the reasons that we do this.
SPEAKER_00: But the real priority this morning, hopefully you'll notice, is the same as every Sunday that we gather.
SPEAKER_00: We are here today to glorify God and to equip and build up the body of Christ through worship and through study of God's word this morning.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're with me on that, go ahead and open up your Bibles to John chapter 15 and let's get after it.
SPEAKER_00: As you turn there, let me give you some context to what we're gonna be reading this morning.
SPEAKER_00: John chapters 13 and 14 take place in an upper room of a house where Jesus is teaching his closest disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Then at the end of chapter 14, he says, Let's rise, let's go from here.
SPEAKER_00: And most scholars believe at this point Jesus and his disciples get up and they go out and start walking through a garden.
SPEAKER_00: John 15 through 17 continues to cover what Jesus taught that night.
SPEAKER_00: And as we're going to be in John 15 this morning, reading verses 1 through 8, we'll be covering some of the verses situated right in the middle of what is known as the farewell discourse or the upper room discourse.
SPEAKER_00: Again, these are the teachings of Christ on the night before his eventual arrest, crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: These are some of the final teachings of Jesus to his closest disciples before the most significant series of events in all of history takes place.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully that gives some weight to what we're going to be getting into this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be starting in verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: In the garden, Jesus begins saying, I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser.
SPEAKER_00: Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus starts here saying that he is the true vine, and that his father is the vine dresser or the gardener.
SPEAKER_00: And that's our Father, our Heavenly Father, as the gardener.
SPEAKER_00: God the Father removes branches from the vine that do not produce fruit, and then he prunes branches that do produce fruit, so they will produce more fruit.
SPEAKER_00: So immediately we have this metaphor that Jesus has given us.
SPEAKER_00: And hopefully you know that Jesus is not literally a vine, and God is not literally a gardener, but there's uh, as is most of the time with what Jesus is saying, there's other significance that maybe we miss at first.
SPEAKER_00: So this metaphor holds so much weight because God referred to Israel, his chosen people in the Old Testament as the vineyard of the Lord Almighty, back in Isaiah chapter 5, verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: So as Jesus starts to say this to the disciples, he's immediately getting their attention, letting them know this is going to mean something special.
SPEAKER_00: So over here, I got this beautiful grape plant, grapevine thing.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it kind of looks hideous, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: You can be honest, it's a little crazy.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so uh it's three years old.
SPEAKER_00: I bought a three-year-old grapevine uh on the internet and shipped it here.
SPEAKER_00: And when it came, it was just like three dead sticks tied together, and I thought I got scammed.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I was like, there's just no way this was$25, right?
SPEAKER_00: But it came and this was like a real God thing, you know, one person uh plants, one person waters, God gives the growth, that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: So my wife potted this plant, my mother-in-law, who's here, watered this plant, and God gave the growth.
SPEAKER_00: And now, believe it or not, there I'm gonna take one off.
SPEAKER_00: There's the nastiest little grape you've ever seen.
SPEAKER_00: I will pay somebody to try this later.
SPEAKER_00: It will not be me.
SPEAKER_00: Anyways, this is our little illustration for today to help us kind of see what Jesus is saying here.
SPEAKER_00: He says that he is the vine, that his father is the gardener, that his father has a direct role and job here that he is playing to trim off branches that do not belong on the vine, that aren't truly connected, that aren't healthy.
SPEAKER_00: And then those branches that do produce fruit, there's a pruning process that takes place so that those branches will go on to produce more fruit.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk more about the pruning and cleaning and trimming in just a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: But what we see here is that Jesus is the vine, the main part of this plant, and that you and I are branches, that we're called to be connected to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We're called to be connected to the vine.
SPEAKER_00: We have to be connected to this to have any life at all.
SPEAKER_00: We know in scripture that Jesus says that he comes to give life and life abundantly.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all, there is no life for us apart from being connected to the vine that is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So we know what the branches are, we know who Jesus is, we know who the Father is.
SPEAKER_00: And the last thing we really need to define here is what is this fruit?
SPEAKER_00: Uh hopefully it's not these nasty little grapes.
SPEAKER_00: It's rock solid, guys.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so what is this fruit?
SPEAKER_00: I think our temptation as Christians oftentimes is to start listing uh fruit that's easy to measure.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe how many times we read the Bible a week, how many times we pray, how often do we bring our kids to church, how often are we serving in church?
SPEAKER_00: And we point to these kind of quantitative things and saying, look, this is what I do.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that is what Jesus is encouraging us to examine in these verses.
SPEAKER_00: I think Jesus is pointing us to a deeper, less surface-level fruit, one that doesn't just reflect our religious dedication, but a fruitfulness that has an impact on you and the rest of the vine, which in this metaphor is the rest of the family of God.
SPEAKER_00: You and I are called to bear fruit, and this fruitfulness should be true of the entire plant, the entire family of God.
SPEAKER_00: So, what is this kind of fruit?
SPEAKER_00: Fruit that can only come from God.
SPEAKER_00: It's the fruit of the spirit found in Galatians 5, verses 22 and 23.
SPEAKER_00: And no, I'm not singing the song.
SPEAKER_00: Stop asking, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Just kidding.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully we know those things, and hopefully we notice right away that those things are a lot less measurable than some of the things that I had previously said.
SPEAKER_00: These things are harder to list out and show in our lives than things like scripture reading, prayer, fasting, service at church, taking our family to church, these sorts of things.
SPEAKER_00: And so, right away, our first big point is that we are called to be branches, connected to Christ, bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And that really starts to summarize a lot of what this passage is about.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a lot more depth to this that I want us to get into today.
SPEAKER_00: But right away, know that you are called to be a branch.
SPEAKER_00: What a humble calling that is.
SPEAKER_00: Connected to Christ, bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: There's something that I want to make sure we don't get wrong about this, though.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to notice right away that this is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, not of me or you.
SPEAKER_00: We are called to bear this fruit, but this fruit is a result of what God is already doing in those who are connected to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit indwells the believer.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit comforts the believer, helps them, gives us spiritual gifts, transforms us into a fruitful disciple of Jesus and child of God.
SPEAKER_00: So then we have to know what our responsibility is in this.
SPEAKER_00: How can we be a part of this fruit-bearing process?
SPEAKER_00: It's actually pretty simple.
SPEAKER_00: Your job as a Christian in many ways is to just consistently stay connected to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna see this more in just the next couple of verses.
SPEAKER_00: But we are told to stay connected to Jesus and allow God to work through our lives to produce good fruit.
SPEAKER_00: You and I on our own are not able to produce this fruit, but we are able to partner with God in obedience for this fruit to be cultivated in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We're also able to reject God in disobedience and see this fruit fail to cultivate in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: So if we are called to cultivate, it means that you and I are meant to develop, to nurture, to foster the growth of this fruit in our lives again by partnering with what God is doing in our lives already.
SPEAKER_00: And this sounds like a simple calling, but it doesn't mean that it's not important.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what happens for the branches that do not produce this kind of fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says that the Father removes them.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh it pains me a little bit to start cutting away at this thing, but this guy over here, we got a whole lot of uh branch right here and no health.
SPEAKER_00: And so those branches get trimmed, trimmed off of the tree.
SPEAKER_00: They're not, they look connected to Christ, they're around the family of God, but they are not acting as a part of the family of God.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all, it's important for us to see that we can be near the family of God, but if we do not have a genuine connection to Christ, the Father has a role that he's playing, and it's pretty clear here that those branches are being trimmed.
SPEAKER_00: But the next thing we see is that God prunes.
SPEAKER_00: And this is a really interesting one to me because you get to go up to the top of this plant and see where there are places that look healthy, but it just needs to be cut down a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: And so, as that happens, now this little part that you can probably barely see has a better chance to start growing and being a fruitful part of the plant.
SPEAKER_00: And so, for you and I, what this looks like is God making these little intentional but painful cuts in our lives to help us to grow stronger and to become more and more fruitful.
SPEAKER_00: This looks like us facing hardships, persecution, different trials in life.
SPEAKER_00: And what we see here in John chapter 15 is that God is sovereign over all of those things.
SPEAKER_00: He is in full control and he's using those things to help us grow.
SPEAKER_00: This is a part of what we call sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: This is us becoming holier, us becoming more righteous, us becoming more like the Jesus who we just sang has changed us.
SPEAKER_00: God uses this pruning process that we've all felt in life to help us become healthier Christians that continue to produce and experience more and more fruit of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And we see this in verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: We see the power of being connected to Jesus and experiencing this process.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says that these disciples are already clean, more so that they are clean and continuing to be cleaned.
SPEAKER_00: This is a lifelong process.
SPEAKER_00: They're clean because they've already been connected to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They have been saved, but Jesus is still saving them.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is still doing work in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: The Greek words here in this passage for pruning and cleaning here are so similar.
SPEAKER_00: So what we see is that they are experiencing this process of being cleaned by being pruned by the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And the same thing is true for us who have been connected to Christ by placing our faith in Him.
SPEAKER_00: We are made clean by being connected to Jesus, but we are continuing to be made clean by being a part of this process of growth and pruning and bearing of the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want us to continue on into verses four through eight, and this is where we're going to see some of that continued connectedness come into play.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, Abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.
SPEAKER_00: I am the vine, you are the branches.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
SPEAKER_00: If any one does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.
SPEAKER_00: If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
SPEAKER_00: By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.
SPEAKER_00: The next instruction that Jesus has for us is to remain or abide in him, and that he will remain in us.
SPEAKER_00: And he makes it clear why.
SPEAKER_00: He says that we should remain, we should stay with him, we should not depart or leave, but we should stay with him always, and he will stay with us always, because if we are not, if we are cut off like that sad little branch down there, then there is no life.
SPEAKER_00: A branch that has been separated from the vine cannot bear fruit.
SPEAKER_00: And we see really where Jesus is going with this in one of my favorite verses from the passage, John 15, 5.
SPEAKER_00: I want to read it for you again.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, I am the vine, you are the branches.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.
SPEAKER_00: But listen to this last part.
SPEAKER_00: For apart from me, you can do nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And I think we should read this and take a great sigh of relief.
SPEAKER_00: It is not on us to produce this fruit.
SPEAKER_00: It is not on us to make our life successful or meaningful.
SPEAKER_00: And this leads to our second point.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to live a fruitful life, you must remain in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Really, I almost just want to say all you have to do is remain in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What a peace that is.
SPEAKER_00: But also, there's a hard truth with that.
SPEAKER_00: That means that a non-Christian life is an unfruitful life.
SPEAKER_00: And the only truly Christian, fruit-bearing life is a life lived totally connected to Jesus with total dependence on him.
SPEAKER_00: You can do nothing apart from Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So there's this great sense of peace if you know that you are already with him and dependent on him.
SPEAKER_00: But if you are fighting for control over your own life, then this might be a struggle for you.
SPEAKER_00: This might cause automatic tension of, okay, so then what do I do here?
SPEAKER_00: But listen to why we need to be connected to Christ so desperately.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus re-answers this for us again in verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: He says, If you do not remain in me, you are cut off, thrown aside, gathered up, and burned.
SPEAKER_00: You all, there are two distinct realities before us.
SPEAKER_00: We can live a fruitful, purposeful life filled with purpose, connected to Christ, or we can be totally cut off from God and his people.
SPEAKER_00: That is the picture that Jesus is painting for us here.
SPEAKER_00: You can remain in him, you can abide in him, you can rest and grow and be pruned and be fruitful in Christ, or you can be separated from God and the family of God.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the realities that are before us.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus continues on in verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: Says, If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
SPEAKER_00: This is an interesting one.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it actually points directly to our connection to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This verse isn't telling you, go pray for a million dollars, and as long as you go to church sometimes, Jesus has to give it to you.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully you know that.
SPEAKER_00: This verse is telling us that as we become more and more connected, as our life looks more and more dependent on Christ, our prayers will align with the will of God, and we will start to see that fruitfulness in our life and in the world around us because we are connected to Him and we are being changed and we are bearing the fruit of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So, of course, even our prayers are changing to be more in line with the will of God.
SPEAKER_00: And really, all of this starts building back to this idea that without Christ we can do nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Without Christ, we can do nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And now you might be thinking, I know plenty of people who have done a lot with their lives who are not Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And whether you're a student in the room or an adult, you see some of these things.
SPEAKER_00: You're right, we can go to school, we can do well in school, we can go and play sports, we can have careers, we can buy homes, we can start families, we can do all sorts of things and not be connected to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: What I mean is that we cannot have anything truly spiritually fruitful in our lives without Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There is no reality of spiritual fruitfulness apart from Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you, but I don't want to live a life of external milestones or checking boxes or pointing the world to look at these things that make me look successful.
SPEAKER_00: I love this quote from author and pastor Arkent Hughes.
SPEAKER_00: He says, We can tie fruit onto our lives like ornaments on a Christmas tree, but the real fruit of his character, talking about Jesus, comes from the vine itself.
SPEAKER_00: We can do nothing without him.
SPEAKER_00: Again, I don't know about you all, but I do not want to spend my entire life tying ornaments onto it and saying, Look, God, look, world, look, look, family, look at myself.
SPEAKER_00: Look, look, we look, I have something.
SPEAKER_00: Look, I have these worldly successes, I have external milestones, I have boxes that I've checked and tried to look a certain way or be a certain way.
SPEAKER_00: I only want real, genuine fruit, fruit that can only come from God.
SPEAKER_00: So what do we need?
SPEAKER_00: We need to be connected to Christ that our lives may bear real fruit.
SPEAKER_00: The fruit of the Spirit, fruit that brings glory to our Heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_00: And that takes us to this last verse, John 15, verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, By this my Father is glorified.
SPEAKER_00: So here we have an instruction.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to glorify God, here's what you do: you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to make an argument here that the purpose of our lives is to glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: And if you can get with me on that, I'm gonna have to make this argument quickly.
SPEAKER_00: If you can get with me on that, then this is an instruction for our entire life.
SPEAKER_00: This is an instruction for how to fulfill your greatest calling in life.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, By this my Father is glorified.
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying the purpose of our lives is to glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm pulling that directly from scripture, from Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 10 31 says, No matter whether we eat or drink, we do all for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 5 16 says, To let our lights shine before all so that they may give glory to God.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 6.20 says, We need to give God glory with our bodies.
SPEAKER_00: Colossians 3.17 says, Whatever you do, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 115.1 says that our names are not meant to be glorified, but his name.
SPEAKER_00: I could go on and on.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that scripture is consistently pointing us to this point that we are meant to glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: You are designed, you are called, you are purposed to give God glory with your life.
SPEAKER_00: And we glorify God by bearing the fruit of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And we bear the fruit of the Spirit by staying connected to Christ and walking in obedience to the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It's that clear the way that Jesus lays this out for us.
SPEAKER_00: You and I are called to glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, By this my Father is glorified, that you would go and bear much fruit.
SPEAKER_00: But he says, This cannot happen if we are not connected to him.
SPEAKER_00: And so to put all of this together, if you only remember one thing from today, this summarizes it all.
SPEAKER_00: When we stay connected to Jesus, we cultivate the fruit of the Spirit and therefore, therefore fulfill our calling to glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: John 15, 1 through 8 is actually this beautiful map of what our lives are supposed to look like, you all.
SPEAKER_00: Our lives are found in connectedness to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came to give life and life abundantly.
SPEAKER_00: If we are not with him, there is no life.
SPEAKER_00: The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but life and life abundantly is found in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So we are called to be connected to him.
SPEAKER_00: And through that starts this beautiful process.
SPEAKER_00: Of growing and being pruned by God.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a hard one, but he does it because he loves us.
SPEAKER_00: And then we continue to grow more and more fruit.
SPEAKER_00: And that fruit isn't just to make us feel good.
SPEAKER_00: It's not to tie on ornaments to our tree of life.
SPEAKER_00: It is to bless the family of God and to make an impact on the world that God created.
SPEAKER_00: And we can fulfill our calling to glorify God by being a part of that process.
SPEAKER_00: So now we have to ask, what do we do with this?
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
SPEAKER_00: Our next steps today are found directly in the text.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing is this become connected to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We can never fulfill our calling to glorify God if we have yet to submit to Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to hear that truth for as hard and clear as it can possibly be.
SPEAKER_00: You will never fulfill your calling in life.
SPEAKER_00: What God created you for if you are not first connected to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Our first step will always be to place our faith in Jesus as our Lord through repenting of our sin and turning to Him in faith to save us.
SPEAKER_00: We do this because of the truth of who he is.
SPEAKER_00: We do this as the only right response to the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: I tell students this all the time.
SPEAKER_00: You knowing the gospel is not the goal.
SPEAKER_00: Reciting the gospel is not the goal.
SPEAKER_00: The only right response to the gospel is repentance and faith.
SPEAKER_00: When you understand that God created you, that God loves you, that sin separates you from God and the plan that he has for you, you begin to understand your need for a savior.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is exactly that.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who reconciles us, he is the one who connects us back into the family of God so that you and I can be connected with him, to live in eternity with him, but also to live a life that glorifies him through the fruit of the Spirit, like we have seen today.
SPEAKER_00: The other thing I want to say about becoming connected to Jesus is that we have to remain connected to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that he tells us to be connected and to remain connected, and that our process of abiding, staying with him is just as vital as any other piece of this.
SPEAKER_00: So this is not one-time decisions.
SPEAKER_00: This is not cards in the chairbacks in front of you, although I love them.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a thing that you did at camp when you were younger.
SPEAKER_00: It's none of those things.
SPEAKER_00: It is a daily process of obedience, waking up and abiding, remaining in Christ, so that we would go on to see this second next step take place in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: That you and I would cultivate the fruit of the Spirit in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Now, again, I cannot stress this enough.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, this is his fruit.
SPEAKER_00: It is not yours, but we are called to partner with him in what he is doing in our lives, not to reject this work through disobedience.
SPEAKER_00: So again, part of this remaining, part of this abiding is that we would humbly submit to God in all things through the growth and through the pruning to bear the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite things about student ministry is that I get to see a lot of this.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes Becca, our kids' minister jokes like, yeah, I get to do all these all this hard work and then pass them off to you to get to see all the cool stuff start to happen.
SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe she's right, and I love it, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But sixth through twelfth grade tends to be this really transformative season in a young person's life and especially in their faith, where we get to have this really cool opportunity to again partner with God to see what he's doing in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: We get to see students become connected to Christ for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: We get to teach them how to faithfully and obediently remain and abide in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And then we get to just be there for what God is already doing and cultivating this fruit and teaching them, okay, how can we be a part of this?
SPEAKER_00: How can we partner with God?
SPEAKER_00: How can you nurture and develop and run so hard after Jesus to continue to see this fruit blossom and grow in your life?
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing: this does not just happen from ages eight or 11 to 18.
SPEAKER_00: Part of the reason I wanted to talk about this passage this morning is because this is one of the things that unites us with our students.
SPEAKER_00: They are going through this process.
SPEAKER_00: If you spent uh if you could spend a week at camp, man, you would see all of this.
SPEAKER_00: But I would hope that if if they spent a week in your life, they would see all of this.
SPEAKER_00: That if they look to you, they would see mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, aunt and uncle, cousin, random dude at church.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care who you are.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that they would see, man, they are going through the process of being connected to Christ, remaining in Christ, being pruned no matter how hard that is, and bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And so this process is one of the things that connects us as believers, no matter how old, we are going through this process of being connected to Jesus, to growing, to getting pruned and bearing fruit.
SPEAKER_00: And so I could send you out of here with these next steps, be connected to Christ, cultivate the fruit of the Spirit in your life, and say, go.
SPEAKER_00: But I wanted to invite you to take a small step of faith today.
SPEAKER_00: And as our worship team comes back up to play, one last song for us.
SPEAKER_00: I want to ask you if you would be willing to pray either with your family, if they're with you, pray with the people around you, if you're comfortable with that.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's that you're like, man, I've never talked to this.
SPEAKER_00: We sit by each other every week.
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe, maybe.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna force you to.
SPEAKER_00: But there's five things that I want us to be praying for together today.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, if if you're like, hey, I'm just here today and I I don't know who I have to pray with, that's totally okay.
SPEAKER_00: We have an awesome, amazing team of student ministry volunteers that have offered to be a part of this time of response for us today.
SPEAKER_00: So they're gonna be kind of in these two corners right here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and we should have, you know, somewhere between six and eight student ministry volunteers around that are willing to pray with you for anything.
SPEAKER_00: We have these five prayer points on the screen that I'll go through in just a second, but maybe you just need somebody to pray with you.
SPEAKER_00: I would encourage you, please go and talk to them.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be in the next steps area after this.
SPEAKER_00: Please do not leave this place without being prayed for, praying with somebody.
SPEAKER_00: And especially if you know you have a direct step that you need to take with Jesus, please come and talk to one of us.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the five things we're gonna be praying for this morning.
SPEAKER_00: To stay faithfully connected to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing: first, you have to be connected to Jesus in the first place.
SPEAKER_00: So if you've never taken that step today of repenting and placing your faith in Jesus, please come and talk to me.
SPEAKER_00: But we have to stay faithfully connected to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You and I need to be praying regularly to remain, to abide in the presence of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The next thing we're gonna pray for is for those in your life who are not connected to Jesus yet.
SPEAKER_00: We all know somebody who we want them to know, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you're like, maybe if I just hit them hard enough with a Bible, they'll get it, right?
SPEAKER_00: Probably not, but we can go to the Lord and prayer for them.
SPEAKER_00: The next thing is that we would be praying to bear the fruit of the Spirit in your own life.
SPEAKER_00: Take this seriously.
SPEAKER_00: Go through and see, God, I see how you've given me more of this.
SPEAKER_00: I see how you've given me joy, I've seen how you've given me peace.
SPEAKER_00: But God, I need patience so bad.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm tired of trying to figure out how to get it on my own.
SPEAKER_00: God, I need self-control so bad, and I've tried this and I've tried that.
SPEAKER_00: But God, I haven't been fully dependent on you.
SPEAKER_00: We need to bear the spirit, the fruit of the spirit in our own life.
SPEAKER_00: The next thing for us as families and as the family of God, that we would be focused on the mission of glorifying God in our lives, that we would take that seriously, that our purpose is not just to get through life, to check boxes or to hang ornaments on the tree that is our life, but that we would be on mission to glorify God daily as individuals, as a family, and as the family of God.
SPEAKER_00: And then obviously, I would love for us to take time to pray today for the next generation to be connected to Christ and to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: In just a moment, the worship team's gonna start playing, and they're not gonna start singing right away.
SPEAKER_00: They want to give you time to gather as a family, whether that's uh just two of you, or maybe you got a big old family and you guys are all gonna huddle up together, find some space.
SPEAKER_00: The gym's big enough, or you can go and find a volunteer on the side of the room, find a neighbor, find a friend, whoever.
SPEAKER_00: And as you guys start to pray together, they'll start to lead us in worship.
SPEAKER_00: But I just encourage you to pick either one of these, or maybe you can pick all of these and work through through these this morning as we strive together as a family of God to be connected to Jesus and to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Before we worship, let me voice a prayer for all of us.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for clear instruction on what it looks like for us to live a faithful life.
SPEAKER_00: God, you have called us to just be a branch, a branch that's used by you in so many ways, God, a branch that would receive all of its life from you, that we would understand the importance and the need to be connected to you.
SPEAKER_00: God, that we would pursue fruitfulness in our lives because of the work that you are already doing in and through us.
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that we would be faithfully connected to you.
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that people would become connected to you for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that we would bear the fruit of the Spirit in our own lives, that we would take that seriously, and that we would be focused on this mission of glorifying you, Heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_00: God, of course, I also want to lift up the next generation.
SPEAKER_00: God, there are young people in this community that need you.
SPEAKER_00: So, God, we pray that you would move in this generation, in their lives, in our community, in our families, in our homes, in this church, to continue to reach young people so that they can follow what this thing is for all believers, that we would be connected to your Son Jesus, and that we would bear the fruit of your Holy Spirit, God.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we know that this is for our good.
SPEAKER_00: God, we want this to always be for your glory.
SPEAKER_00: So we pray this in the name of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.