Christian-ish: Part 5
JOHN 15, Matthew 7:16-17, Galatians 5:25
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
Well, it was probably about two years ago or so that I started to get into gardening. My wife is way better at it than me and between the two of us we've killed a few plants, let's just be honest. But she's gotten into it and so she has like her different houseplants that are like really cool and I'm like, I'm gonna do something outside, I wanna be really cool too. And so we got a lime tree a couple years ago and you know the ones you walk into Costco, they're on sale, they're like super cheap, you're like sweet, this will be easy. So I bought the lime tree, brought it home, moved it over to like a potted plant in the backyard 'cause I didn't wanna bury it in the ground 'cause like if we move, like I wanna bring this with us, it's like a family lime tree, right? And so I thought, no problem, I'll put it out there, it's a good spot with the sun, I'll give it some water and like boom, I'll have limes, right? No, I quickly learned that is not how gardening works. And so first year, I don't even think we had any limes on this thing, the second year maybe two, and so maybe even that, probably not, I'm getting the no from the back of the room for my wife, so no, a couple years, no limes.
And I thought, oh man, what did I get myself into? Like what's going on? All right, next year, we're gonna make this happen. And so this summer, I really got into gardening. Like I got in, I'm watching YouTube videos, I'm reading blog posts, I'm reading forums, I come home maybe every week with a different fertilizer from Home Depot, I'm at like specialty plant stores, I'm talking to other people who are successful at gardening, I'm like, okay, we're gonna make this happen. And I really got into it, we planted mint, we planted basil, strawberries, blueberries, bell peppers, jalapeños, Italian sweet peppers, and our good old lime tree. And what was the total harvest? Let's just say if our family needed that to survive, we would no longer be here on earth. It was so hard. Like every week I'm out there, I'm even talking to the plants, I'm like, hey guys, how's it going? You guys good? What do you need? Need anything? I can go to Home Depot, I'll get it for you, you name it, I'll get it. And we had this little bell pepper plant, this cute little thing, and it grew like a tiny little bell pepper, and I was so excited. I was like, we have a bell pepper. Lauren's like, that's not a bell pepper. That's like the tiny little peppers, right? It's supposed to be a real bell pepper, it was a baby bell pepper. And so we harvested it, we were all excited, we all had a little bite, it was great. And then another one sprouted, and I was like, yes, here we go. The floodgates have opened, my bell peppers. I'm going to open up a fruit stand somewhere. And this poor little bell pepper didn't even get to be as large as the other tiny one, and it started to mold on the plant. And it was the saddest thing in the world that it didn't even get a chance to grow to a baby bell pepper before it was over, it was gone.
And this got me thinking a lot about the garden and that my garden did not produce any real fruit at all. And that's a lot like sometimes those who call themselves Christians. We're wrapping up a series today called Christian-ish, and for the last four weeks, for the whole month in January, now hello, welcome to February, we've been in this series called Christian-ish. And we kicked it off week one, and we talked about the trap of comfortable Christianity and that God can't stomach Christianity that's just flat. It's undesirable to God, it's intolerable, and the only way to step out of lukewarm Christianity is to every single day take a step of faith. And I challenge you guys in that, that you would take every single day, you would take a step of faith, trusting something in God, whatever that situation was in your life. And then week two, Pastor Lauren, she talked about the small choices that keep us stuck, and that our selective obedience sometimes is a dangerous illusion. That only doing some of what God calls us and commands, thinking, well, this has got to be enough, is really disobedience in disguise. And then Pastor Andre shared with us, he talked about a faith that puts God second, he had all the different chairs, you guys remember that? And talking about how sometimes we need to keep God in the first chair in our lives, but sometimes he kind of gets pushed down the ranks a little bit. And it's most of the time completely unintentional, but the reality is that if God is not in the first chair, he is not first in our life, it is idolatry. And then he shared last week of when God doesn't do what we're asking. He doesn't answer the prayer request. He doesn't do what we're hoping him to do. He doesn't provide or move or work in a way that we're asking him to do it. And how do we respond to that? Because we can get caught up in this idea of living a transactional faith. That if we just do our part and we check the boxes, then God is obligated on his side to do his part, but that's not how it works. So what do we mean by the title Christian-ish?
Well, we have a definition I'd like to put on the screen for us. That Christian-ish is having a half-hearted faith wearing the label of Christianity without truly following Jesus. See, a lot of people in this world and life, they call themselves Christians. Some might even believe in God. Some might even go to church. But just like my tiny little sad garden, the people who call themselves Christian, but they don't produce much fruit. Not only are they not faithful in bearing fruit of what the Bible calls love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, but they don't see the positive fruit in their lives. They see sometimes the opposite, right? People claim to be Christians and yet are rude, are selfish, spiritually arrogant, judgmental, incredibly hypocritical. Many people claim to follow Jesus, but when you get up close to them, they're really nothing but a plant with leaves and no fruit. I don't want to get too personal right now, but probably in our lives, we might know somebody who says they're a Christian, but when you look at their lives, there's no evidence. Anybody know anybody like that in your life? Yeah. Now, if it were a little bit later in the message this morning, I might ask you the question of, do you ever act a little bit like that? But it's way too early. I don't want to get into that yet.
Sometimes we claim Jesus, but we don't truly display the fruits of the Spirit. See, God's word, a living, vibrant, powerful word of God is very clear as disciples of Jesus, we should bear or produce fruit. Not apples and oranges or bananas or limes or bell peppers. What I'm talking about, the Bible says, called spiritual fruit. In John 15, starting in verse five, Jesus says this to us. He says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. This is to my Father's glory that you bear fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” In other words, Jesus is saying, when you actually demonstrate your faithfulness to God, to Jesus, you begin to show spiritual fruit and you are showing that you are a disciple of Jesus when the fruits of the Spirit come out in your life. Jesus goes on to tell us that someone will actually know that you are a committed follower, believer in Jesus by the fruit that you show. He says in Matthew 7:16, it says, “You will know them by their fruits. Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.”
Jesus gives us incredibly powerful metaphor and he says, you are like a tree that produces fruit. And this is how the non-believing world, those who don't know who Jesus is or have no recollection who God is, they will know that you belong to Jesus because of the spiritual fruit that is coming out in your life, not the words you say, but the way that you live. In other words, they won't just know you by what you say, but by how you live your life. Not that we just claim Jesus, but that the fruits, joy, peace, love, all that will be seen to everyone around them. And honestly, a lot of you genuinely live like this. Spring Valley Church has some incredible people who live out the fruits of the Spirit every single day. I see it in conversations. I see it how they treat other people. I see it how they live their lives. And not that anybody is perfect. Nobody is perfect in here by far from that. I am not myself, but that you show the world that you are a clear follower of Jesus by the fruit in your life. But there are others who call themselves Christian, and maybe they can quote the Bible really good. They have knowledge, but they lack integrity. They say one thing, they do another. They say, "Yeah, I'm a Christian." But they're rude. They're harsh. They're selfish. So now we're deep enough in the message for me to ask you that question. When others look to you, what do they see? When others look at your life, how you interact with people in your world, your family, your friends, your coworkers, your neighbors, strangers on the street, random people at a checkout waiting in line for a Costco sample, how do they see you? Is it clear that you are a follower of Jesus? Do they see you're loving, you're patient, you're kind, you're full of joy, or they see my tiny little sad bell pepper that died even before becoming edible? You call yourself a Christian, but you really aren't caring. You don't have a whole lot of time for other people. You're inconsiderate at times. You're unkind.
Well Paul in Galatians chapter 5, he lists nine different fruits of the Spirit. If you guys know those, you want to say those with me? Can we say that together if you know those? It's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are the fruits of the Spirit. If you didn't know them, no worries. I'm going to talk about them here in a moment. But these are the fruits of the Spirit. And these fruits are not just fruits of the Spirit, but they are something that comes from God within us. And you have the fruits of the Spirit, but then you also have what would be called the fruits of the flesh. What do you mean by fruits of the flesh? Well, the reality is that we're at a constant war. We accepted Jesus in our life. He's made us new. He's redeemed us. He's given us a new life. And we are to step in spirit with these fruits of the Spirit and produce in our lives. But we have this constant battle with our flesh. I'm not talking about our body or our skin or our organs or our muscles. I'm talking about what the Greek word says is sarx, which means a fleshly nature that is selfish. A spirit is God-honoring. Our flesh is self-serving. So I want to walk through the fruits of the Spirit here real quick. And I want you to ask yourselves, are you more characterized by fruit of the Spirit or fruit of the flesh? Are you loving? Or is life maybe a little bit more about you? Maybe you tend to lean a little selfish. Are you joyful? Or do you often walk around frustrated with life? Are you peaceful? Or are you like most people living every single day with a living, ongoing world of anxiety? Are you anxious? Are you patient? Or do you find yourself always being rushed with nothing going as you want in your day? Are you kind? Or are you uncaring? You got things to do. You don't have time. Sometimes you come across as uncaring. You full of goodness? Or do you have a bad attitude, bad mouth, bad fruit? Are you faithful? Or do you talk behind people's backs or gossip and such? Are you gentle? You're harsh. Are you self-controlled? Or do you find yourself giving in to the things that you want it when you want them? What would you say? Are you more characterized by the fruit of the Spirit? Or by the fruits of the flesh?
Here's why I want to make just a giant theological mess. That's okay with you guys. I find myself constantly being caught up in both. And it's complicated, right? Life is hard. Sometimes I am really, really, really, really patient. And sometimes I ain't got no time for nobody. Just don't. Other times things are going good. And it's easy to be loving and joyful and peaceful and patient. But sometimes life comes at you hard. And you're just like, "I want nothing to do with nothing. Just want me by myself all alone." But here's what I've noticed about me. Almost every single time in my life I display the fruits of the flesh. Almost every time I start showing bad fruit, I might tell myself I have the greatest excuse. Right? Somebody else's fault. Just got a lot going on right now. I'm under a lot of pressure. You just don't understand my life. I got a lot I'm facing right now. But if you got bad fruit, I tell myself, "You got bad fruit." But I give myself the best excuse in the world why I got bad fruit, right? Even though I see it in other people, I am so quick to tell myself that I've got the best excuse. See, the reality is that if I belong to Jesus and connected to the vine, there is no excuse for bad fruit. Let me say that again. If you belong to Jesus and you are connected to the vine, there is no excuse for bad fruit. See, this is where Jesus kind of gets touchy and pushes things and goes a little bit farther. Because in this text, he talks about people who follow and live lives as sheep, actually as wolves in sheep's clothing. But the reality is, as those wolves in sheep's clothing are trying to fool people, we in our excuses do nothing but fool ourselves. You might say, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I go to church. I do that thing. I'm there once a month, every other month, when I got a free Sunday. I'm Christian-ish." And we like to take our fruits of the flesh and dress them up to try to convince other people. But the reality is that most of us don't have a lot of good fruit. A lot of our fruit is bad fruit. But we try to make it look good.
If you've been around the church long enough, you know that there is a language that Christians speak, right? Coming to church, asking, "Hey, how you doing? Hey, praise the Lord. Doing good, brother. Hallelujah. Amen. Thank you, Jesus. God is good." Right? We speak a language. God is good. Oh, amen. God is good. But the reality is we're trying to take our bad fruit and make it look good. Maybe after a while, your clothes start to change. Maybe you find a couple t-shirts that's got a couple Bible verses on it. Start wearing those around. You start learning the popular songs on Caleb on the radio and you're singing those all the time. You're just covering up bad fruit. Your bio online changes. Follower of Jesus, not of the world. But the reality is that as Pastor Andre talked a couple weeks ago, you got Jesus in the wrong chair in your life. He's not in that first chair. Because the reality is that we and ourself are masters of disguise. We may have actually been changed by Jesus at some point, but our fruit is not good. And we start to disguise it to make it look good. And we are so creative in the church, right? So creative in the church. We can even disguise gossip as a prayer request. Oh, you should hear about Sister So-and-so. Oh, she be needing some Holy Ghost in her life. She be needing some prayer. Let me tell you what she be doing behind a closed door. We disguise our fruit. We get really creative. We turn legalism and say it's holiness. I'm just trying to live a good life, Pastor. But the reality is, is you're trying to live a performance-based life. Not a true reflection of who Jesus is. We can trick ourselves into thinking, "Well, Pastor, it is just a righteous anger of why I called that person out." Nope. That's just good old-fashioned bitterness. Or maybe sometimes you're like, "Hey, I'm on social media so much because I'm just out there letting people know about Jesus." And the more you begin to look at somebody's profile and the videos they're posting and what they're talking about, it's really self-promotion. It's not Jesus' promotion. You guys are kind of quiet today. You're thinking, "Yeah, I probably should have skipped this week." Yeah, it's okay.
Or maybe you're like, "I'm going to let somebody else serve me." When I get to church, I'm going to let somebody else hand me a program or bulletin. I'm going to let somebody else make me a cup of coffee. I'm going to drop my kids off. I'm going to let my kids be watched by somebody else because I'm just, Pastor, I'm just in a real season where I need some self-care. And maybe that is true. Maybe that's true. But maybe the reality is true that you've mastered the art of selfishness. Literally not doing anything for anybody else with no spiritual fruit. We find ourselves dressing up this idea of the flesh, but the reality is that Jesus didn't call us to dress up the flesh but to crucify it. Jesus didn't call us to dress up the flesh but to crucify it. To crucify our flesh and to stick to the vine and to abide in the vine. The fruits of the Spirit then will come out supernaturally. It'd really be easy for you to hear this talk and to think, "I know exactly who should be hearing this sermon right now. I can't wait to send them a YouTube link this week." And it's really hard to say, "Oh, I think I need to hear this." It's really hard to see our own blind spots in the mirror. See our own hypocrisy and really see it.
So I want to ask you a couple questions here and I'm just going to let the Holy Spirit kind of just do what's working in your heart right now, okay? But how pleased do you think God is with the quality of your fruit? Sit for that for a moment. When other people look at you at work, maybe it's somebody who doesn't know you well. Not by the things you say or the clothes you wear or the cross that you have hanging up in your office. But by the way that you live your life or the fruits of the Spirit present. Or would it be a situation where someone would have a conversation with you years after no knowing you and go, "Oh, I didn't know you were a Christian. No idea." People at your school, do they see that you are literally serving others? You put others before your life. You see them as Jesus sees them and you care for them in the same way. Or they look at you and go, "You're just busy. You're always running around. You're kind of selfish. If you serve somebody, maybe that happens, but I've never seen it." How pleased do you think God is with the quality of your fruit?
The second question, similar but a little different. It says, "How pleased do you think God is with the quantity of your fruit?" How pleased do you think God is with the quantity of your fruit? Maybe you're like my little bell pepper plant that produced two peppers this year. One of them so moldy and nasty and it couldn't even be used. How pleased do you think God is with the quantity of your fruit? I don't want to be selectively loving. I want to be overflowing with love. I don't just want this peace that everything is okay when life is good. I'm walking around. I'm fine. I want peace in my life that comes directly from heaven that goes beyond any human ability. So-and-so might be going through a lot right now, but you can see the joy of the Lord in their lives. I want people to say that about me. So ask yourself genuinely of these. If God wants us to bear fruit, if we abide with the vine and we produce fruit, how pleased do you think God is with the quality of the fruit and the quantity of your fruit?
If you're like me, I will admit I'll be the first. I need improvement in both of these in my life. I do. But how do we begin to do that? How do we produce more fruit? For years, I thought it was just have a relationship with Jesus and live for Jesus, and then everything's going to work out. It's really good, but I don't think it's actually everything there. Let me explain this a little bit. We've got to go back to John 15 of what Jesus said. And Jesus is probably very likely walking near a vineyard. He does this where he's near something, and he uses that as illustration. It's perfect like that. I love it. It's amazing. But in John 15:5, Jesus says, "I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you." Who is Jesus? Jesus is the? This is where you're interactive. Jesus is the? Yes, there you go. You're awake. Hey, wake up. Here we go. Come on. We're almost to lunch. Jesus is the vine. And who are we? Branch. Oh, yes. You guys are doing so good. I'm proud of you. Okay. So let's continue on the verse. "I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you are connected." Okay. That's what this verse is telling you right here, that you are connected. You are the branch connected to the vine. And this is amazing because this is a promise. There's a promise here in the scripture. And the promise is you don't have to do anything. You will naturally, actually more accurately, you will supernaturally bear much fruit. Right? "Apart from me, you can do nothing." So if you are disconnected from me, Jesus says, in other words, you can't do anything.
Jesus is the vine. We are the branches. So there's two players in this, right? There's two players in this story right now. I just want to nail this down for us. Okay? The metaphor tells us this. Who is Jesus? Say it with me. Jesus is the vine. Okay. And who are you? You are the branch. Okay. Jesus is the vine. You are the branch. Okay. Make it a little bit more personal. I want us to say this together. Let's say, say, "Jesus is the vine. I am the branch." Okay? So Jesus is the vine. I am the branch. Say that one more time. Say it with me. Jesus is the vine. I am the branch. So what happens when the branch is connected to Jesus the vine? You bear his fruit. Boom. Ah, that's it. You got it. We can pray and we can close, right? No, I'm just kidding. When you are connected to the spiritual source, the spirit produces spiritual fruit in your life. When you're connected to the vine, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, all of that begins to flow out of you. Does the branch have a relationship with the vine? Yes. Branch and the vine. We need the vine to survive as the branch. Can I give a little silly, crazy illustration here? Okay, cool. Because it's already in my notes. I'm going to share it anyway. So imagine you can talk to a baby in the mother's womb. Okay? A baby in the mother's womb. There's life. Mother, baby, dependent. And you ask the baby. I told you this was going to be crazy. You ask the baby, "Do you have a relationship with your mom?" What's the baby going to do? Baby's going to look at you really strange. And the baby's going to say, "Bro." Why does the baby say, "Bro?" Well, the baby says, "Bro," because it's a really smart baby and it's a really cool baby. Okay? Bro. Yes, I have a relationship with my mom. But it's more than a relationship, right? She breathes. I breathe. She eats a milkshake. I get a milkshake. She likes chocolate. Okay? I told you this was a crazy illustration. But I want you guys to get this. The baby cannot survive without the mom. The entire existence of the baby is dependent upon mom.
And that's what Jesus is telling us here. He's telling us, and he uses this word 11 different times in this scripture. In this chapter, he uses the same word 11 times. It's meno. It's Greek. And what it means, it means to remain, abide, dwell, live in, just like the baby that minos in mom. Eleven times, guys. I think Jesus is trying to tell us something here. Let's go to the scripture. Every time this word meno is here, it's underlined. So it says, Jesus says, "Remain in me, and I also meno in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must meno, remain, abide, live inside the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you meno, abide, live in, dwell, be a part of, in, remain, in me." You must remain in him. You must live in him. You must live through him. You must dwell in him. Then what do you do? You live for Jesus. Not exactly. You abide in him, and then if you live for him, the focus is still on you. Your works, your effort. And this is where we get caught up in this world of Christian-ish. We believe in him, but we think it's still about us. I've got to stop sinning. I've got to stop thinking bad thoughts. I've got to stop saying bad words because it's so hard. Have you known people? I've got to produce more spiritual fruit in my life, but I've got kids that drive me.
Jesus is teaching us this. Don't focus on production. Focus on connection. That's what I want you guys to get today. Don't focus on production. Focus on connection. Stay connected to the vine. Abide in the vine. Well in the vine. Have you ever seen a tree trying to produce fruit? I don't think they sit out there and be like, "Ugh!" I never heard my lime tree scream unless it does really late at night when I'm sleeping. "Ugh!" Boop! It doesn't work like that, right? No. Jesus is divine. You are the branch. What is the assignment? Be the branch. That's it. Be the branch. That's all you've got to do. Be the branch. Stay connected to Jesus. Abide in him. So now how do we do that?
We're going to close our application. How do we do that? Two ways. I've got two answers for you. I've got a normal way and I think I've got a better way. A little bit better than a normal way. But a normal way looks like this. And it's a good answer. I think it's a great answer. We should all think about this as our answer. But it starts, abiding in Jesus, we start by doing this. We start by praying. You pray. Of course you would pray. Right? Of course you'd want to pray. You'd want to talk to your heavenly Father because he is relational. We pray. You worship. Of course. Of course. Because he inhabits your worship. He is everything about you in your worship. We read God's word. Yes. Because we know that through God's word he can renew your mind and he is directly changing us as we take steps toward him. Hiding his word in our hearts. Changing who we are. Yes. You obey God's word. Absolutely. You do life together in community. Being present in church every single week. That's why we gather. This isn't for the pastoral staff to remember they have some really cool friends in their lives every single Sunday. It's to gather together to be encouraged. To pray for one another. To help each other. To care for one another. To love one another in this context of a family. Because without it we are vulnerable Christians to the attack of the evil one.
Now this is the normal answer. And I think all of these things are great. And you should all think about this. But I got one that kind of takes it a little bit above. Kind of rises above this one that kind of shimmers down onto all of this stuff. And here is that. Right here after verse 24 in Galatians. After it listed love, joy, peace, patience, all the fruits of the Spirit. Paul writes this. He says this. “Since we live by the Spirit let us keep in step with the Spirit.” Let's say that again. “Since we live by the Spirit let us keep in step with the Spirit.” Because since we are crucifying the flesh so we don't produce bad fruit of the flesh. We're dying to that. We're putting that away. We begin to step in. We abide. And we begin to produce fruits of the Spirit in our lives. We have to keep in step with the Spirit. You have to remain so close to Jesus that every step you take He directs. Every thought you think comes from His heart. You put His Word in your heart so that it transforms us. So that His power and His truth comes out through you in the form of fruits of the Spirit. You keep in step with the Spirit.
For those who may not know, my wife Lauren loves dancing. She loves to dance. She actually in high school and middle school went to a performing arts school and one of her focuses was actually dance. And so she, I think, is a pretty amazing dancer if you ask me. But I am not. That's just kind of not who I am. I have rhythm because I am a bit of a musician. But I am not a dancer per se. She is. And so when we were dating and she would try to teach me some dance. And I wasn't too good. Let's just be honest. But then we got engaged and then I'm thinking about the first dance at the wedding, right? This is coming. I've got to figure this out. I don't want to make her embarrassed by the way that I dance. And so she began to teach me. We began to work on it. She began to show me how to dance. I have a photo of our wedding, our first dance I want to show with you guys. And this is really cool. So I found this thing called Dancing on the Clouds. It was like this cool thing. You put like dry ice and then it kicks out some smoke and it looks like we're dancing on the clouds, right? I'm more romantic. I'm pretty, a little bit of romantic deep inside, okay? But she began to teach me as I would dance that I had to lead her. And it's the most subtle thing. It's a little squeeze of this hand and a leading. It's a little pull on the back to come back and to come over and to dance around. You come back, dance around. Actually people think I was trying to be romantic with the clouds. It was just to cover my feet if I actually stepped on her. It was reality. I don't think I stepped on her. You'll have to ask her. I say I didn't. She might remember differently.
But this is what we do with Jesus and the Holy Spirit in our lives. When we abide in him, he nudges us. He leads us ever so slightly. We talk about, "Oh, I need thunder and lightning from heaven. I need fire. I need this moment, this mountain type earthquake. I need..." that's just not how it works. It's just a subtle, small, little step and move. We have to abide in him. And when we abide in him, when we Nino with him, he produces fruit, spiritual fruit, good fruit, supernatural fruit, God-honoring fruit in our lives. And it's not about being better because that's what I thought when we first started learning how to dance. I was like, "I have to be better. I have to get better." No, no, no. She taught me it's about being closer and listening to each other because it's like just smallest little thing. And that's what God wants in our life. He wants us to be connected to him in a way that is life-sustaining, abiding in him.
I was convicted of this holidays last year, 2025. It was really rough week. I came home and I just, I wasn't myself. Traffic was horrible. It was kind of like this build up, this giant crescendo to me walking into the house. And the kids just wanted me. Lauren wanted to talk to me about her day. And I was just short. I was snappy. I didn't have any patience with the kids. And then God got ahold of me. He said, "What are you doing, Chris?" And the reality was because of the holidays and the busyness of Christmas and Thanksgiving and things in the church, I was working so hard trying to make sure everything was perfect and all the details were taken care of. Every little tiny thing, little dotting the I, a crossing the T, making sure everything was just absolutely perfect. I was so focused on working it out that Jesus said, "What are you doing? I just want to be with you. Your family just wants to abide with you." And I was convicted that I had bad fruit in my life. And God's been working on my heart this year to have this year be better Chris than Chris 2025. To abide more with him. Not to work harder to, "Ugh, you tried to be the tree to produce fruit." But to just be the one in lockstep with him. To be closer to him.
Don't try harder, draw closer. Be the branch. Abide, remain, be faithful to Jesus. Because a faithful life to God is a fruitful life. And if you stay connected to the vine, he will produce fruit through you. Not from you.
Heavenly Father, God, we thank you for the example of Jesus. God of how he lived his life. And I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would only do what only you can do. That is produce fruit through us. God, I thank you for another Sunday to gather together. God, may we reflect on these questions of how pleased are you with the quality of our fruit in our lives. And how pleased are you with the quantity of fruit in our lives. God, I will raise my hand. I will be the first to say, "Jesus, I need help in this in my life." And God, I think there might be a few people in here too that might feel the same. And so, Jesus, I pray that you would guide us in that this week. We wouldn't try to force production, but that we would abide. We would meno with you, Jesus, as our vine and we as the branch. And God, I pray for all of us, we thank you for you as the gift of the vine. Help us each and every day, God, to choose to abide in you. I pray that you would produce some incredibly amazing spiritual fruit through our lives as we show people your amazing love. Jesus, thank you for another Sunday to be together. God, I pray for our lunch that we are about to partake together. God, thank you for the many people who have brought things and made things and are caring for our family, showing spiritual fruit. Jesus, may we spend some time together doing life with one another. We love you, Jesus. And everybody said in Jesus' name, Amen.