SPEAKER_00: We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel, and it's my great joy and privilege to be walking us through Advent studies each of these four Sundays leading up to Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: But Advent isn't just the on-ramp leading up to Christmas, it is its own thing as well.
SPEAKER_00: Churches all over the world will be reflecting backward in time to the first appearance of Jesus, the first coming or arrival of Jesus, and at the same time looking forward in time, anticipating with great eagerness the second appearance or the second arrival or coming of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, the term Advent means arrival or appearance.
SPEAKER_00: And because Advent begins in the shadowlands of winter, we can trust that the Bible does not ignore or trivialize the darkness that is in this world.
SPEAKER_00: No, the Bible teaches that it's precisely that darkness that God has responded to in sending his son Jesus Christ into the world as the light of the world to dispel the darkness, to bring God's salvation to God's people.
SPEAKER_00: And it is those who belong to him who can trust and rest in the fact that he will hold us fast and he will accomplish his good purposes in this world, in between his once and future comings.
SPEAKER_00: Advent is a season of holy reflection, repentance, preparation, faithfully serving, eagerly and expectantly waiting for the second appearance of Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Our Advent themes for this year will be these: TBC's Advent themes, Advent love, Advent Joy, Advent Hope, and Advent peace.
SPEAKER_00: Now we've done this before using these four words, sometimes other words, because we find an amazing variety of images throughout the scriptures, actually, that describe the arrival or appearance of Messiah or Christ into the world.
SPEAKER_00: There's so many different ways that he's described.
SPEAKER_00: So what you find is in different churches they might focus on different themes or in a different sequence.
SPEAKER_00: But what's important is not the sequence itself, but who they all point to, who all of these symbols point to.
SPEAKER_00: So for today, Advent Joy, and I'd like for you to turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 15, and we're going to look at what Jesus, or one of the times Jesus talked about joy, and see what we can learn from him about it.
SPEAKER_00: It goes like this 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.
SPEAKER_00: And every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it, that it may bear more fruit.
SPEAKER_00: You are already clean because of the word which I've spoken to you.
SPEAKER_00: And he's talking now to his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: This is on the night that he'll be betrayed.
SPEAKER_00: This is also on the night of the last Passover, the Last Supper, as we've called it so often.
SPEAKER_00: It's also the night that he establishes this beautiful sacrament we call communion or the Eucharist, the giving of thanks to Christ for his body broken, his blood shed on behalf of us.
SPEAKER_00: But in between all of that, as you close out chapter 14 of John's Gospel, you see that they actually arise and they leave what we typically think of as the upper room, wherever that may have been in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And they're, so you want to imagine them probably walking out of Jerusalem, down across the Kidron Valley, and starting to ascend up on the Mount of Olives.
SPEAKER_00: The Garden of Gethsemane is in the lower section of the Mount of Olives.
SPEAKER_00: Those of us who have been there have visited that same garden.
SPEAKER_00: There are some olive trees that are there that are quite old, date back as much as 1500, 2000 years.
SPEAKER_00: And here is where Jesus says, I'm the true vine.
SPEAKER_00: 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 bears fruit, he prunes it that it may bear more fruit.
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk more about exactly what that might mean in a second.
SPEAKER_00: You are already clean because of the word which I've spoken to you.
SPEAKER_00: Again, talking to his disciples, those who are in him, in Christ, as the Apostle Paul would later say.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 4, abide in me.
SPEAKER_00: Now he uses this word abide.
SPEAKER_00: John records Jesus as using the word abide, I think it's 10 times in this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: And you get the idea, don't you, when he uses a word that often, that that's kind of the whole point of the chapter, or the whole point of this pericope, this 11 verses that we're going to look at.
SPEAKER_00: Abide in me and I in you.
SPEAKER_00: So there's uh there's something going on there where we find our life in him and he's given his life to us.
SPEAKER_00: There's a dwelling, there's an abiding, if you will, that's going both ways.
SPEAKER_00: Uh abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me.
SPEAKER_00: And so we see fruitfulness is going to be an important theme as well as abiding.
SPEAKER_00: I am the vine, verse 5 says, You are the branches.
SPEAKER_00: He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit.
SPEAKER_00: For apart from me, you can do nothing.
SPEAKER_00: That's a big bold statement, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And I love that, of course, the I am the vine, you are the branches.
SPEAKER_00: And the those of you like puns, I remember the old uh uh Keith Green song where he said uh that Christ is divine and we are de-branches.
SPEAKER_00: Um but the idea is that as branches, we can't really exist unless we're in the vine.
SPEAKER_00: We draw our life from the vine.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we've we we are uh sustained by the vine, and we we bear fruit because of the nourishment that comes to us from the vine.
SPEAKER_00: Apart from me, you can do nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're we we would be like a cut flower faith, uh, which is it can be pretty for it, it can be nice and evase for a little while.
SPEAKER_00: A cut flower can be, but eventually it wilts because it's no longer attached to its stem and its roots and the in the in the dirt and in the ground where it can draw sustenance.
SPEAKER_00: So too, branches must be attached to the vine.
SPEAKER_00: It must be abiding in the vine.
SPEAKER_00: Verse six, if anyone does not abide in me, he's thrown away as a branch and dries up.
SPEAKER_00: And they gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
SPEAKER_00: If, verse seven, if you abide in me, and my words abide in you, and those are two conditional statements there, if you abide in me, if my words abide in you.
SPEAKER_00: That is, if my words, my commandments, dwell richly in you.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, they are at home in you, not at odds with you, and you're not at odds with them.
SPEAKER_00: But if you abide in him and his words abide in you, and then he says, Ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.
SPEAKER_00: And I know some people will take this and try to use this as a uh sort of a uh justification for, hey, we can go to God and and just demand anything we want.
SPEAKER_00: It's like us being handed, you know, Jesus handing us his Platinum American Express card and say, go get something you want, anything you want.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the case at all because the conditional statements precede that we can ask whatever you wish.
SPEAKER_00: Those conditional statements are, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, then you can ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we'll be asking according to his word.
SPEAKER_00: We'll be asking according to his will.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see that he's the source of life and wisdom we are not, and so we'll always be resolved to his will.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 8 By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus talking to his disciples and us by extension.
SPEAKER_00: This is how God can be glorified, that we bear much fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And so prove to be my disciples.
SPEAKER_00: So there is a result of being a disciple of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It results in fruitful life in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
SPEAKER_00: Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you.
SPEAKER_00: Abide in my love.
SPEAKER_00: And here it is again, the word abide over and over, ten times in these 11 verses.
SPEAKER_00: Just as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you.
SPEAKER_00: Abide in my love.
SPEAKER_00: And I know for some of us, we don't, we'll run right past that and not think about it.
SPEAKER_00: Um but as one of my old mentors in Bible teaching and preaching, a guy named Steve Brown used to say, a lot of us go to the cross to get saved, but we don't hang around there and under to understand that it's at the cross where the love of God was on full display as well.
SPEAKER_00: We need to go to the cross to get saved, yes.
SPEAKER_00: We also need to go to the cross and experience Christ's love for us.
SPEAKER_00: That's the length to which Christ has gone because he loves you and because he loves me.
SPEAKER_00: And the idea is that we can abide in that or live in that or rest and dwell in that.
SPEAKER_00: And I hope that you've discovered that too.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that if you haven't, I hope that this becomes a surprising truth for you, that you will learn to abide in his love.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's the evidence of real faith, the evidence of abiding in the love of Jesus is that it begins to transform us, and we begin to take his word seriously, his commandments seriously.
SPEAKER_00: And then we we see that it issues forth in a transformed life, a reordering of our priorities, a redirecting of our misdirected affections.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, we're thinking the way Jesus thinks about things.
SPEAKER_00: We're seeing what Jesus sees.
SPEAKER_00: We're wanting what Jesus wants.
SPEAKER_00: And this is really important.
SPEAKER_00: That's the whole idea of being a Christian, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: That we would become little Christs, or that we would become like Jesus in the way that we think and the way that we act and the way we treat others, and the way that we love and the way that we manage our relationships, all of that.
SPEAKER_00: And then here's why I chose this passage for this week when we're looking at Advent joy.
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting to me that after this parable, if you will, or this extended metaphor of vine branches, uh God the Father being the husbandman or the vine dresser that comes along to prune and create healthy branches.
SPEAKER_00: Um, after all of that, here's what Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: He tells them why he just told them this parable.
SPEAKER_00: These things I have spoken to you.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, I just told you this parable for a reason, verse 11, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: So all of that abiding, all of that talk about being fruitful, all of that talk about the relationship between vine and branches, and even the pruning process and the vine dresser's care for the vineyard, if you will, all of that was for a purpose, that we might actually have the joy of Jesus in us, and that our joy might be made full.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's where I want to stop.
SPEAKER_00: And uh as I say, I think this was probably uh spoken, this teaching was probably given to the disciples as they are leaving the upper room and as they're going over to the Mount of Olives, to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus knows he's gonna be arrested because Judas has betrayed him.
SPEAKER_00: Judas is gonna bring all these soldiers to come and arrest him.
SPEAKER_00: And isn't it profoundly amazing when you think about it that Jesus, knowing that he was just hours away from arrest, from the brutal scourging he would go through, this horrible torture, and then ultimately the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Right before all of that, what is he thinking about?
SPEAKER_00: He's thinking about his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: What an amazing leader, what an amazing savior, what an amazing redeemer he is.
SPEAKER_00: To be even thinking of us and those disciples in that moment.
SPEAKER_00: I'd be thinking about how afraid I was of what I was going to face.
SPEAKER_00: I don't even like the drive to the dentist office.
SPEAKER_00: You probably don't either.
SPEAKER_00: What's going to happen?
SPEAKER_00: How painful is it gonna be?
SPEAKER_00: Here's Jesus about to take on the sins of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of you, when you first heard verse 11 this morning and you saw that today's study was gonna be about Advent joy, some of you, your first thought was, man, I could use a little bit more joy.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to have some more of that.
SPEAKER_00: And so you're kind of leaning forward and wanting to know what this is all about.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm also aware of the fact that some of you might think that given the past year, or given the way that circumstances in your life are currently going, that you might be thinking that the possibility of finding joy and experiencing joy has already passed you by.
SPEAKER_00: That it's just too late for joy in your life right now.
SPEAKER_00: Well, at the risk of sounding like a fool, and that's a risk I take frequently, uh, I seek to persuade you that properly understood there is a deep and biblical joy, and it is an inexhaustible joy, and it's because it's on offer to us as a gift, as opposed to being something that we have to muster up.
SPEAKER_00: It is something that we receive.
SPEAKER_00: It is something that Jesus intended to give to his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted his joy to be in them so that their joy could be full.
SPEAKER_00: You see, I think what's being implied there is that I often seek joy in the wrong direction.
SPEAKER_00: I'm often seeking fulfillment in the wrong direction.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I I've got a uh a heart full of idols, and my my uh my heart and our hearts are idol factories.
SPEAKER_00: We're creating them all the time, and we set our affections in the wrong direction all the time.
SPEAKER_00: All different forms of money or pleasure or power become the center for us.
SPEAKER_00: And those idols constantly fail us and turn in on us and actually steal our joy because they fail us.
SPEAKER_00: And we find ourselves chronically disappointed, chronically unsatisfied in life.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we're looking for joy or for soul flourishment in the wrong kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: And here Jesus comes and says, I want my joy to be in you, because I want your joy to be full.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is one of the most amazing things that Jesus claimed about himself.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna put up on the screen for you right now the seven I am statements of Jesus in John's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I am the bread of life.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I am the light of the world, I am the door or the gate, if you will, I am the good shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm the resurrection and the life.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm the way, I am the truth, not a truth, but the truth, and I am the life.
SPEAKER_00: And then here, the last of the seven I am statements.
SPEAKER_00: I am the true vine.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if these claims made by Jesus are false, it would mean that he is the world's worst, most uh wretched, megalomaniac that ever existed.
SPEAKER_00: Deluded, um, uh narcissistic, and in every way a guy we should just completely ignore, burn every book ever written about him, and and and turn our backs on any sense of paying attention to him, but that's not what's happened in this world, is it?
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, the life of this first century Jewish man, Jesus of Nazareth, is the most scrutinized life that is there's ever been.
SPEAKER_00: He's the most written about, the most movies made about.
SPEAKER_00: He is the most talked-about person the world has ever known.
SPEAKER_00: Um, he is sui generis, he is one of a kind.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a reason for that, you see.
SPEAKER_00: And that's because I would I I seek to persuade you, it's because all seven of those things are true.
SPEAKER_00: He indeed is the bread of life, the light of the world, the door or the gate, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: He's the good shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: He's the only one qualified to be the good shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: Every other shepherd is going to disappoint us.
SPEAKER_00: Every other shepherd wants to exploit us or use us or is a corrupt shepherd in some way.
SPEAKER_00: He's the good shepherd, the one we can really trust.
SPEAKER_00: He's the resurrection and the life.
SPEAKER_00: He's the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_00: And he here presents himself as the true vine.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is why it's such great news and such a great thing for us to do every single year, to turn our attention to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And here at the village chapel, of course, since we study through books of the Bible, we're turning our attention to Jesus virtually every week.
SPEAKER_00: We think the entire scripture, not just the Gospel of John, but from Genesis to Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: You can you can pull a thread in Genesis and uh from the book of Revelation, and the whole Bible crinkles.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because there's this one thread that runs through it all.
SPEAKER_00: God's plan to redeem sinners such as we are, such as you are as well.
SPEAKER_00: And it's all found in its fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What did he mean when he said, I'm the true vine?
SPEAKER_00: What why would that be so true?
SPEAKER_00: Because most of us don't have a vineyard in our backyard.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us don't even live in an agricultural community or an agricultural uh economy.
SPEAKER_00: But they did, and it helps us, I think, to understand just a little bit about the image of the vine as it runs through Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: For instance, in Psalm 80, verses 8 through 9, you brought a vine out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the psalmist speaking to God, of course.
SPEAKER_00: You brought a vine, and there's an image there that's being used for Israel.
SPEAKER_00: You drove out the nations and planted it.
SPEAKER_00: So brought them into the promised land, drove out the nations that occupied it, and you planted your vineyard there, Israel.
SPEAKER_00: You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land.
SPEAKER_00: Another example is found in the book of Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: And so there, uh, the prophet of Isaiah says, My loved one had a vineyard in a fertile hillside.
SPEAKER_00: He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines.
SPEAKER_00: You see the role of the vine dresser there, and the same kind of image for God that Jesus used in John chapter 15.
SPEAKER_00: Built a watchtower in it, cut out a wine press as well, looked for a crop of good grapes, and again, the idea of fruitfulness being very important when it comes to Israel, the vineyard of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: God is looking for fruitfulness from his people.
SPEAKER_00: And yet it yielded only bad fruit, Isaiah says.
SPEAKER_00: Will.
SPEAKER_00: And it really thrives and flourishes there.
SPEAKER_00: It's peaceful and consistent conditions because the vine needs that sort of constant care and husbandry if they're going to be able to set sink their roots deep and develop and bear good fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Constant pruning, though, of the branches is necessary if the grapes are going to grow to full maturity.
SPEAKER_00: The vine was also, though, in the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy chapter 32, a sign of God's judgment, where the spiritually faithless and corrupt Israel is compared to a vine whose fruit was bitter and poisonous.
SPEAKER_00: And so here comes Jesus saying, I'm the true vine.
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying that to a bunch of his disciples who are Jewish.
SPEAKER_00: And they would have known this image very well, this image that Israel evidently isn't the true vine.
SPEAKER_00: It has failed in being God's true vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is saying, I am the true vine.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've ever felt like you had that kind of cut flower faith, that kind of faded beauty, that sort of sense in which your spiritual life was doing great for a while, but then it kind of wilted, kind of faded.
SPEAKER_00: I've had that same kind of feeling before.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have too.
SPEAKER_00: What is it that we need so desperately?
SPEAKER_00: What is it that Israel needed so desperately back then?
SPEAKER_00: And what is it that Jesus came to be?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came to be what I can't be.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came to be what Israel couldn't be.
SPEAKER_00: He came to be the true vine.
SPEAKER_00: And then he came to offer his life, which includes his joy, to us.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what is mind-blowing about this multifaceted jewel, this diamond that we call the gospel of God's grace in the person and work of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: In John 15, Jesus is making the point that the vine of Israel was not bearing fruit.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I'm not bearing fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes maybe you sense that you're not bearing fruit either, or that the circumstances around you.
SPEAKER_00: And I love that parable of the four soils that we read about in the Gospels as well.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the rocky soil, sometimes the hardened path, sometimes the soil that's filled with weeds.
SPEAKER_00: And so the good seed of the Word of God is sown there, and it is unable.
SPEAKER_00: It's for one reason or another, one of those different reasons, it doesn't seem to find life and take root, or it withers up and or it's stolen by the birds of the air.
SPEAKER_00: And we're called to Christ to realize what he really wants from us as the vine dresser.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to churn up the soil, he's going to churn it up a little bit, remove those rocks, remove those weeds.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to turn it over, and that's disruptive to us in some ways, that's true, but it's for our ultimate good, that we might become good soil for the good seed of the Word of God, that we might become the vineyard of the Lord, that as branches we would find our life in Jesus, who is the true vine that we can't be for ourselves, that Israel couldn't be for itself.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's Jesus coming and bringing the kind of life that we can't find our own.
SPEAKER_00: We can't earn it ourselves, we can't muster it up ourselves, bringing us that kind of joy.
SPEAKER_00: As branches, we find our life, our identity, even, our um uh our strength, our ability to bear fruit.
SPEAKER_00: We find all of that in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And that's how we get to a place where no matter what the circumstances are going on in and around the vineyard of the Lord, we rest in his love.
SPEAKER_00: We rest because he holds us fast.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about us holding on to him, it's about him holding on to us.
SPEAKER_00: And so this isn't about squeezing God into our agenda or squeezing ourselves into some kind of list of rules to follow.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about us in some way getting angry at God and telling God, well, we could do it better, and if you'd only do it this way, and if the outcomes would have only been this, then I'd be joyful.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: We get that wrong all the time.
SPEAKER_00: We we kind of think that our joy is determined by outcomes, but it's not.
SPEAKER_00: Our joy is about us abiding in the vine who is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And listen, he didn't just come to be an example, he came to be the source of life.
SPEAKER_00: He came to be the source not only of our eternal life, but our life now, right here, right now.
SPEAKER_00: And so we turn to him in faith, believing.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what it means to abide in the vine, to find our life, to find our identity, to have all of who we are surrendered to him, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna just put up on the screen for you some just a little bit of summary, what I draw from this parable for us as we think about Advent joy.
SPEAKER_00: Fullness of joy cannot be acquired for its own sake.
SPEAKER_00: I I remember uh back in the days when I was uh much younger in uh the summer I actually met Kim.
SPEAKER_00: We were at River Valley Ranch in Millers, Maryland, and uh I was a lifeguard there.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the games that we would play at the pool would be to take some Crisco, and that's that's a real kind of oily kind of substance that people used to cook with.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if they use it anymore or not, but we would uh smoosh it and smear it all over a watermelon, throw it into the pool, and then the the goal was everybody jump in the water and try and get that greased watermelon, and if you could hold on to it, it was yours, you know?
SPEAKER_00: And of course, everybody grab it, the minute they grab it to pop right away from.
SPEAKER_00: And joy is kind of like that.
SPEAKER_00: If you fixate on joy, if you think it's the end itself, then you'll never be able to catch it.
SPEAKER_00: But it comes to you freely as a gift as you rest in the faithfulness of Jesus, as you rest in the love of God, the joy of Jesus, the hope and the peace, which we'll also study during this Advent season.
SPEAKER_00: So here, fullness of joy is the result of, from John 15, 1 through 11, four things.
SPEAKER_00: One, knowing who Christ is.
SPEAKER_00: He's the true vine.
SPEAKER_00: That's wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: He makes it very clear.
SPEAKER_00: And when we do Bible studies, that's one of the questions that we always uh ask.
SPEAKER_00: There are about three or four of them.
SPEAKER_00: We always ask of a passage.
SPEAKER_00: How does God reveal himself in this passage?
SPEAKER_00: Well, here it's very clear.
SPEAKER_00: God is revealing himself as the vine.
SPEAKER_00: And how does the second question I always ask of a passage is how does God in this passage um uh show us or reveal to us who we are, uh our vulnerabilities, our weaknesses, our needs, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: We're the branches, okay, in this particular case.
SPEAKER_00: We're branches, and branches must have vines.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, to live, to grow, to be fruitful, to exist, to not become deadwood that gets discarded.
SPEAKER_00: And so our lives to have meaning, to have joy, we must be abiding in the vine.
SPEAKER_00: And the third question we always ask in Bible study is how's the gospel portrayed here?
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's so obvious and so clear that that Christ has come to be what Israel could not be, that Christ has come to be what I can't be and what you can't be.
SPEAKER_00: He's the true vine.
SPEAKER_00: And and you and I, we've we've all turned in many different directions to try and find a vine that we can find life from.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the question is, are we turning to him?
SPEAKER_00: He's the true vine.
SPEAKER_00: He remains the true vine, the only source of joy inexhaustible.
SPEAKER_00: And then that last question that we always ask a Bible study is not only how does God reveal himself, not only how does God reveal our human weaknesses, not only how is the gospel portrayed in this passage, but fourthly, what faith response is God looking for here in this passage?
SPEAKER_00: And here, oh, the beautiful thing is, the faith response is that we would abide in Him, that we would bear fruit, and all to the glory of God, you see.
SPEAKER_00: So fulfilling our ultimate purpose and mission is the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: We were created and designed for that.
SPEAKER_00: You were created and designed for that.
SPEAKER_00: Even if you don't even believe in God, this is the case with humanity, with human life.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see that when we study the book of Genesis together, as we see God creating humanity to bear his image, to represent the glory, the beautiful wisdom and the creativity of God, his image imprinted in human life.
SPEAKER_00: And that's just a wonderful thing.
SPEAKER_00: What is our perspective on who God is, who Jesus is, and the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives?
SPEAKER_00: This is really important for us.
SPEAKER_00: What is our view of what it means to be a human being, an image-bearer of God Himself in this world, so filled with darkness, so filled with people in pursuit of other vines that will only leave their lives fruitless and despairing?
SPEAKER_00: What is our view of the flourishing life and where joy can be found?
SPEAKER_00: What is the best pathway that we can travel to experience this fullness of joy as Jesus put it?
SPEAKER_00: Let me throw a few quotes up as we close out our Bible study today.
SPEAKER_00: C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis in the Weight of Glory, by the way, which is probably one of the greatest sermons ever preached.
SPEAKER_00: He says, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak.
SPEAKER_00: We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.
SPEAKER_00: Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.
SPEAKER_00: We are far too easily pleased.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, get a copy of The Weight of Glory and read that.
SPEAKER_00: He's so right.
SPEAKER_00: Infinite joy is on offer to you.
SPEAKER_00: Inexhaustible joys on offer to you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not silly.
SPEAKER_00: It's not this trivial kind of just happy slappy kind of Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: It's that deep abiding sense, a quiet confidence that God is sovereign and that he's in charge ultimately of all of the outcomes, including the eternal destiny of me, my life, and your life.
SPEAKER_00: We lean, we count on him, we abide in him as we trust him and as we believe and hope in him.
SPEAKER_00: Again, I seek to persuade you that joy cannot be pursued on its own, just for its own sake.
SPEAKER_00: It comes as a byproduct of our trusting in Christ, of our abiding in the vine, who is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Dallas Willard does a book called Renovation of the Heart.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have read that.
SPEAKER_00: It's a great book.
SPEAKER_00: I highly recommend it to you.
SPEAKER_00: And I was reminded of it past couple weeks when one of our brothers told me he's doing a book club on renovation of the heart with some folks long distance, which is great.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a quote from Renovation of the Heart.
SPEAKER_00: Joy is a pervasive sense, not just a thought, of well-being, of overall and ultimate well-being.
SPEAKER_00: Its primary feeling component is delight in an encompassing good well-secured.
SPEAKER_00: There's an encompassing good that has been well-secured by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And the feeling component is delight, not mere happiness.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm not opposed to happiness.
SPEAKER_00: We love happiness around here, but happiness is often dependent on happenings.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the happenings that are going on around us aren't to our, you know, they're not the ones that we would desire.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the way we wish things would come out.
SPEAKER_00: So if we're dependent on happenings, our happiness will undulate, it will come and go, and some of the troths that we will find ourselves in will be quite deep and despairing.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, what's on offer to you and what's on offer to me is the fullness of joy that we can find in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Abiding in the vine.
SPEAKER_00: We the branches, abiding in Jesus the vine.
SPEAKER_00: Here is this quiet, humble confidence in the providential care of a sovereign king who loves you and has your best interests in mind.
SPEAKER_00: David Brooks is an author some of you will be familiar with, has a book called Second Mountain.
SPEAKER_00: He says, happiness tends to be individual.
SPEAKER_00: We measure it by asking, are you happy?
SPEAKER_00: Joy tends to be self-transcending.
SPEAKER_00: Happiness is something you pursue.
SPEAKER_00: Joy is something that rises up unexpectedly and sweeps over you.
SPEAKER_00: Happiness comes from accomplishments.
SPEAKER_00: Joy comes from offering gifts.
SPEAKER_00: Happiness fades.
SPEAKER_00: We get used to the things that used to make us happy.
SPEAKER_00: Joy doesn't fade.
SPEAKER_00: And Brooks, I think in Second Mountain we see his turn toward faith.
SPEAKER_00: But this is a man who's a cultural observer.
SPEAKER_00: He's a great writer.
SPEAKER_00: He's well respected in the world of not only books, but in articles that he's written, that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: So if we're interested in abiding in Christ, if we desire to know his advent joy, what is the faith response that is called for here?
SPEAKER_00: Sinclair Ferguson, in a nutshell, abiding in Christ means allowing his word to fill our minds, direct our wills, and transform our affections.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, our relationship to Christ is intimately connected to what we do with our Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: And so, man, I just want to encourage you not only study through books of the Bible with us here at the Village Chapel, but I hope you're reading the Bible yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps this coming year, 2021, will be a great time for you to start with a one-year Bible reading program.
SPEAKER_00: And they're everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: You can even get a free one online if you want, but be in the Word.
SPEAKER_00: Um, do it daily.
SPEAKER_00: I've got a uh a daily devotional I do on YouTube.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are following along with me on that as you're taking a walk or as you're driving to school or to work or whatever it is.
SPEAKER_00: And every single day we're talking about something from God's Word, from a variety of different uh classic devotional books.
SPEAKER_00: But it's important for us to regularly be abiding, if you will, in the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: And lastly, from James Hudson Taylor, who was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China, founder of the China Inland Mission.
SPEAKER_00: This is not the James Taylor that's saying you've got a friend or fire and rain.
SPEAKER_00: This is the original James Taylor before that.
SPEAKER_00: He spent 51 years in China and quite a man, quite a quite a man of God.
SPEAKER_00: He said, the branch of the vine does not worry and toil, and rush here to seek for sunshine, and there to find rain.
SPEAKER_00: No, it rests in union and communion with the vine.
SPEAKER_00: And at the right time, and in the right way, is the right fruit found on it.
SPEAKER_00: Let us so abide in the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, he is the true vine.
SPEAKER_00: Let's abide in him.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.