Bro Gary Sunday Morning 1/29/12

Bro Gary Sunday Morning 1/29/12

Joh 15:4  Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

Joh 15:16  Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

Jesus is teaching upon the true vine: He is the true vine; the husbandman is the Father.  The Father takes care of the ground, the vine, and the trees. 

How does one abide in Christ?  There must be a beginning. 

Rev 21: Jesus spoke to John at Patmos of eternal things and of things in the time world: “Behold I make all things new.”  We know and understand the importance of having a new life.  It is nothing that we have done on the outside that gives us a new life.  It is the result of confessing and repenting and being made a new creature in Christ Jesus.

Luk 3:8  Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

We can tell God that we are sorry or wish that we hadn’t done something but unless there are fruits from the repentance, there is not a new life.  Many things people say of their regrets of their past is good.  God wants us to deal with our past and then He wants us to have a new beginning. 

It is fine to use your past as a lamp to guide you but never use it as a hitching post to bind you.  We must repent of our past and have a new beginning. 

Know what the Bible teaches of repentance.

2Co 7:10  For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

We must ask people that we’ve wronged to forgive us, but this is not the most important thing.  Whenever we are the servants of sin, we directly oppose Jesus Christ and it is He that we have sinned against.  If I intentionally harm another, not only have I done them wrong but I’ve also wronged God.

Godly sorrow really makes one uncomfortable.  Many times people block it out of their mind.  If chastisement makes us uncomfortable then scourging will really make us uncomfortable.

Godly Sorrow works repentance to salvation.  God’s plan in dealing with you and me is that we be brought to repentance and to salvation.  Salvation is in the Old Testament and in the New.  In the Old Testament Jesus hadn’t come so there was no full understanding of salvation.  They had a glimpse that the Messiah would come and would deliver them from their sin. 

Salvation means deliverance.  Only through Jesus Christ can we be freed from the bondage of sin. 

Salvation means help.  God is a present help in every time of need.  He is no respecter of persons and He is no respecter of age.  God helps children; He helps young people.  Whatever our age may be, He helps in the most difficult years of life. 

From where ever you are to where you look back to, you may see difficult years.   Some may be experiencing this year as the most difficult year of their life.  There will be hard years and difficult times yet when you have salvation, you have help. 

He doesn’t just help you with your attitude or your garden; He helps with everything.  For you that have children that are little or for you that have children that are aged, God is a wonderful help.

Salvation means safety.  You don’t want to fail God:  “Something within me that holds the reigns.”  We don’t want to fail God; in Him is safety.

Salvation means victory.  You can live a life of overcoming.  “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with Good.”

Salvation means health.  Jesus added this meaning to salvation.  God wants us healthy, physically, spiritually, emotionally, and all ways.

Godly sorrow brings us to confession to God.  There is only one way to have our sins forgiven and that is to confess our sins to God.

1Jn 1:9  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

When we have Godly sorrow and confess, He is faithful and just to forgive.  As uncomfortable as Godly sorrow may be it is wonderful, because it brings us to the place where we confess and are forgiven.

I used to try to sleep off sin; I tried to sleep off conviction.  I found that when I woke up I was just the same man that I was before I went to sleep; it did nothing for me.

Rom 11:17  And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;

Most of us were Gentiles, a wild olive tree.  At that time we were without God and without hope, strangers to the covenant of promise.  God concluded us all in unbelief so that we could be grafted in with the Jews and partakers of the true vine and the true tree.

Joh 15:1  I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

Every one of us needs to receive life from something.  Christ is the source of true life.  He is the source of every good and perfect gift.  God is the Husbandman. 

When we think of the vineyard:  Every branch that beareth fruit…  In a vineyard, the goal is not just to have the plant; the goal is to have the fruit.  This is the reason that Jesus brought us this lesson.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke are full of parables.  This is not a parable.  Jesus was telling a real account. 

Jesus is the vine, we are the branches, and the Father is concerned about the fruit.  It is God’s design that you and I bear fruit.  Every branch that bears fruit He purges.

All of you that are gardeners, grape growers, or have trees know that sometimes it is a little difficult to chop away on the vines.  If we want good fruit, the dead must be taken off and the vine must be purged, cleansing and cutting away that which would hinder or take nourishment from the fruit.

When we get saved we are as a babe.  Life will be a learning process.  Something more than just sweetness comes out of these little children that are here this morning.  They must be trained. 

The deeper meaning to the scripture: everyone that gets saved becomes a babe in Christ and babes must be trained.  We all know the truth to this: we were all a babe in Christ.  I didn’t learn the lesson all the first day. 

I remember the training of my mind.  Phil 4:8 Whatsoever things…think on these things.  God has worked on me on this scripture for years.  The purging doesn’t feel good.  He’ll come by and say, you’re wasting your time thinking vain thoughts.  Thoughts that will not bring forth fruit.  I want you to get rid of that.

If you and I draw back, He will never force you.  He’ll never force you to measure or to think on whatever it might be.  I’m so glad that God is the husbandman; he deals with us real nice. 

There is something about God and you:  If you love to grow tomatoes, you don’t pluck it out of the ground and say, “I’m going to prune you.”  You try to figure just how much you want to take off so that you can have fruit, big ripe tomatoes not just small and green. 

We tell him, “Make me what you want me to be.  Show me all my faults.”  God looks down and smiles at us and says, “If I showed you them all at once it would kill you.”  He begins dealing with us and takes the sword, which is the word of God.  He deals with our tongue, He deals with our attitude. 

He says, “Son or daughter, I want to help you but you have to let me.”  When you look into the Bible, the mirror, you see way too much of self and not enough of Jesus.  You say, “I want self to go.”  He says ok, let it go and then train yourself to not pick it back up.”

Psa 119:9  BETH. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.

 This is the same whether it be a man, woman or boy or girl.  His design is to cleanse and set us apart.

Abide in me.  We were created to desire a true friend.  The scripture says, “There is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.  A friend loves at all times.”  We need friendship and love.  It is a wonderful thing to have someone love you and tell you that they love you. 

Our husband or wife cannot always be there for us.  It doesn’t mean that our love is broken; it means the events of life position us so that we need God.  God, His Son, and the Holy Spirit have no place where they cannot always be.  When you need a friend if you will abide in Him He will always be there.  His word and Spirit will come in the shadow of death and in the valley of weeping.

Paul in the terrible storm: they were going to suffer shipwreck.  The storm was wild.  Paul showed up and told them that one from God stood by him that night and told that there would be no loss of life.  “Be of good cheer.”

We are all going to encounter great storms and it will not always be in the prime of life.  The strong will have storms as will all the rest of us.  Learn your lessons well when you are young.  The storms will continue to come as we go through life in order that we can know that there is still a God on His throne. 

A branch cannot bear fruit of itself.

Joh 15:5  I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

It is wonderful that we can be graft into this vine: the source of strength, wisdom, and counsel.  It is a guide.  Just being the branch gives you a resource of living sap, living water, living nutrients. 

Whatever season of life that you are in, these children that are going to school, we’d tell them to enjoy the good days.  There will be days when it is a hard day: the lesson is hard or things will not go well.  This is the way it is with life, but there is a source. 

The world cannot give you contentment.  As wonderful as the benefits of having a companion and children, having a home, having a little money… it cannot bring contentment.  Remember the story of the rich young ruler, “I’ve done all this, yet what do I lack?”  He felt a void and an emptiness within. 

When we abide in Christ and the life giving sap comes into our earthen vessel it begins to feed the inside.

Rom 6:22  But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.

Gal 5:22  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

Gal 5:23  Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Php 1:9  And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment;

Php 1:10  That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ;

Php 1:11  Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.