The Blank Space - Finding and Spending Time With Jesus

Welcome‌

Thank you music team. Well done this morning.

Well, good morning Church! Good morning to those of you joining on the LIVE stream. We are glad you can be with us this morning.

Before we go any further I want to wish all of our moms a very happy Mother’s Day. On special days like this I know a lot of Preachers prepare special messages for the occasion. Today being Mother’s day, there are preachers all across the country preaching Mother’s Day Messages. There will be none of that here today!

Well, actually, I hope today’s message will bless our moms. I can really think of no better Mother’s Day gift than the subject matter for today, which is finding and spending time with Jesus. Amen?

I would however like to recognize all of our Mom’s today so if you are a Mother would you please stand.

If you are a Grandmother or Great Grand Mother remain standing.

If you are Great Grand Mother remain standing.

Great Great Grandmother?

Thank you ladies. We love you here and we Honor you today.

Introduction

Well we are in the fourth installment of our series we are calling “Disciple”

Now if you have been with us so far you know that we have spent some time looking at the cost of discipleship, the importance of counting the cost involved in being an apprentice to Jesus Christ and we have considered some questions that might help us determine if we are indeed disciples or not.

Last week we talked about just who is this jesus that we are being called to follow. And I challenged you all to think about and answer the question that Jesus posed to His original disciples, “Who do YOU say that I am?”

I also warned about the danger of following a Jesus of our own making, which often resemble ourselves, and encouraged you to go to the scriptures and look to what they say about Jesus and the claims He made about Himself.

This morning’s message title is” “The Blank Space - Finding and Spending Time With Jesus"

What I want to do this morning is answer two questions.

#1. Where do we go in the day and age in which we live, to find Jesus.

#2. How do we go about seeing Him, spending time with Him, being WITH Him.

We talk a lot about following Jesus. Last week we talked about BEHOLDING Jesus. We talk of seeking the face of Jesus and spending time with Jesus all of which can be problematic, given the fact the Jesus is no longer here in physical form.

We cannot book a flight to Tel-Aviv and then meet with Jesus. My wife Donna was just in Isreal last fall, many of you have been to Isreal and I will bet none of you actually saw Jesus in the flesh.

In the first chapter of the book of Acts we are told that as His disciples looked on, Jesus was lifted up and a cloud took Him out of their site. And that was the last time anyone saw Jesus upon the earth in physical form.

He was seen in dreams and visions and Paul saw Him in a light from heaven, but never on the earth in a physical body. Jesus left some 2000 years ago with the promise that one day, he will return for His church and then to establish His Kingdom on Earth.

So, How in the world are we going to “spend time with Jesus” How are we to seek His face” How are we to Follow a Jesus that is not here in the physical form?

And where do we get this idea that as Christians, in the day and age in which we live, that we should walk and spend time with this Jesus who is no longer physically in our midst. Well we get that idea from Jesus Himself. I want to begin this morning in John Chapter 15. The 15th chapter of John. We are going to be jumping a bit between the 14th. 15th and 16th chapters so got to chapter 15 and you will be in the general vicinity of of our texts today.

Now before we get to the text, I think it is important to say that when Jesus told Peter to “follow Him” it wasn’t quite the word picture it is for us today. Jesus told Peter to follow Him and Peter literally dropped his fishing nets and began to follow Jesus around the countryside.

Jesus command for His disciples to follow Him is of course more of a word picture for us because He is not actually here. But even though it is a word picture, there is solid theology behind the idea of modern day disciples of Jesus ACTUALLY following Him, spending time with Him.

One other thing before we get into the text that will be very important for us to keep in mind.

I had you turn to John 15, if you go back to John 14 we see Jesus say something that is very critical to our success in following Him today.

Back in chapter 14, Jesus speaks of a Helper that would come after Him. The Greek Word Parakletos, which means advocate, intercessor or defense attorney. What Jesus was telling His disciples was after I leave I will send “another one of me” or “one just like me” to help you. But here is where it gets interesting. Not only is this promised helper coming, but he will be something far beyond a physical presence.

Look at 14:16.

Jhn 14:16-17 ESV - 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and here it is... will be IN you.

So I want you to think about all the imagery surrounding the ancient Jewish Temple. So it started out as an elaborate mobile tent structure in the Wilderness and eventually became a stationary building in Jerusalem. It was this sort of overlap place between heave and earth, it was the earthly dwelling place of God and if you wanted to be around God you would go to the temple.

Then Jesus comes and He begins to describe Himself, that is His physical body as the temple and starts to use language like if you destroy this temple in 3 days I will rebuild it. A reference of course to His death on the cross, and subsequent resurrection. There is this idea that Jesus “tabernacled” with us, that now HE was the overlap between heaven and earth.

And then we see this taken even further after Jesus death, in the New Testament where Paul refers to the Church as the Body of Christ and then in passages like we just saw in our last series, Paul begins to say that our actual physical bodies have become the temple. If you were here during our series in 1 Corinthians you may recall...

1Co 6:19-20 ESV - 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

And this is where we are today. Our physical bodes have now become the dwelling place of God on earth. We, BECAUSE we are in-dwelled by the Holy Spirit are now that overlap between heaven and earth. This is incredible!

So not only will this spirit of Jesus be WITH us but His existence, His abode, His dwelling place, His house if you will, will be inside us. This is an incredible truth that helps answer our first question this morning, “Where do I go to find Jesus Today? If you are a born again believer in Jesus Christ then you need look no further than your own body. He dwells deep within you. So today, God is closer to you than you are!

All of this tells us that those of us who seek to follow Christ as disciples today, are NOT at a disadvantage over those who followed Him in person 2000 years ago. In fact, Jesus Himself said it would be better this way.

Jhn 16:7 ESV - 7... I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.

and in verse 13...

Jhn 16:13-15 ESV - 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

So the reality is for those of us who are in Christ today, we have the great advantage of bypassing the temple, bypassing the veil of separation that once stood between God and His people, and enter directly into the very throne room of God and meet with Him anytime, any day, any where and we are assured here that what the Spirit who dwells inside of us will speak to us comes directly from the Father, to the Son and delivered by the Spirit!

Do you understand that means we have unfettered access to the creator of the universe! Stop moping brother and sister. We are a priviledged people indeed!

Now. That is where we find His Spirit, our helper, living or dwelling within us. The next question is,

How do we go about seeing Him, spending time with Him, being WITH Him?

That’s what I want to spend the remainder of our time together considering.

And I want to begin in John chapter 15. Yep we finally made it there. Look with me if you will at john 15 and verse 1.

Jhn 15:1-6 ESV - 1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, (That will hurt, that will sometimes be painful) that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 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. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone 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.

I want to draw your attention this morning to the word “Abide” It appears 5 times in 3 verses here and 10 times in this passage. It is translated from the Greek word “meno” which is a root word that means to remain, to NOT depart, to continue to be present.

So, we have established that the very Spirit of God is closer to you that even you are. And Jesus has called is to abide, to continue to be present with His Spirit.

Now I don’t know about you, but simply knowing that truth, does not automatically cause me to do that. To be in a constant state of awareness to the One Who dwells within the deepest part of my being.

That is, I want to say, “God I believe in that fundamental reality of truth is that you are closer to me than my own breath, but my awareness of that truth is wavering all the time.” So then maybe I should pray, “God help me to get in touch with the deepest reality that is within me”.

The Word for Spirit is translated from the Hebrew word Ruach which roughly translated means “God’s breath in our lungs”.

In the Greek it is from the Word Pneuma, which means, guess what? Breath! So when you think about your breathing, I am no doctor but if I understand and remember my High School biology, then when we breath in oxygen, that oxygen then makes its way into our bloodstream which in turn makes its way into every nook and cranny of our bodies. That is the picture of how permeated we are with the Spirit of God and so we have to learn to abide, to be present with that reality.

So in that passage we just read, Jesus is saying to His disciples, abide in me and I am going to abide in you, and the way I am going to do that is through the Spirit, the breath of God in you.

So it occurs to me that the most important and most frequent prayer we should be praying is that of the Psalmist who wrote...Awake, my soul! Awake, God make me aware your abiding presence inside me so that I can make a habit of abiding, meno, in You.

So again, practically how do we do it? How do we abide with this Spirit of Jesus that is within us. Well Jesus gives us a hint right here in John 15. And not only that, He indicates here another way that we can prove we are indeed His disciples. Listen…Jesus says...

Jhn 15:7-8 ESV - 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

Here is what I think Jesus is telling us. When He calls us to abide, I believe He is talking very simply and clearly about our consciousness. Now stay with me. I am not getting all new agey on you. Consciousness is simply that which we are aware of in the present moment.

So my hope right now is that you are conscious. That is a good starting place. That you are conscious and aware of your surroundings. My hop is that you are tuning into the things I am saying. That you are present in this moment in this place. And I feel like I am doing a good thing because using scripture and my own words I hope to make you more aware of the Spirit within you. THAT is what Jesus is asking us to do when He asks us to abide with Him. Be aware, keep on being aware and responsive to His presence in you. I tis nothing mysterious.

Now just to be clear. Jesus is not calling us to do something that we are not already doing. The truth is, we are all abiding right now. All of us are making a mental home somewhere. The question is, is it in Jesus and the Words of Jesus? Because that is what He said here. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you.

The truth is, most of us are abiding in fear, anger, materialism, greed, lust. This is what we are abiding in. These are the places we are choosing to spend the majority of our time living. These are the words and the ideas and the perceptions that pass through our minds. These are the thoughts and the feelings and the desires, the seductions, the entertainment and sexualization, success fantasies, revenge, hurt, woundedness, bitterness, it’s guilt and shame. We are abiding in this all day long. Our consciousness is abiding in these places constantly and without relent.

This is why Jesus word picture of the vine and the branches is so powerful. What you abide in, what you give your attention to, is in fact what you become. What you are consciously abiding in will set the trajectory of your spiritual formation.

So when you say, that person is really anxious, what we mean is their mind is abiding in and grounding them in fear producing thoughts. Their mindstream is just FULL of fear producing thoughts. Or that person is really angry. Their conscious is just full of anger and resentment and bitterness. That is where they abide. And make NO mistake about this beloved. Where you abide IS a choice, that YOU make. This is NOT rocket science. This is very very practical. And Jesus is simply calling us to replace all those things with an awareness of Him.

So I submit to you this morning that much of this abiding, much of being with Jesus is about learning to aim our consciousness or in a more Christian language, aim our affection at Jesus Himself all through the day. It is something we must practice. So it is the idea of replacing your focus, attention and awareness from one thing or another. And here is the difficulty we run into.

I read an article about the human brain and talked about this thing called neuroplasticity. The idea is that every time you have a thought, it leaves a track across your mind. and if you think it again, the same track gets deeper. Its like ruts in a dirt road. The more times a vehicle travels down that dirt road the deeper the ruts get. Same with our mind. And so if we have deep ruts, it takes some considerable effort and practice to get out of those ruts and make a new track. If that New track is a focus on Jesus and His words then deep ruts become a good thing!

This is what id behind the theology we saw in Paul’s writing in the NT talking about the renewal of the mind, and taking every though captive. There is really a one sentence summary of spiritual formation is found in Romans 12:2

Romans 12:2 (ESV) - Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed How? by the renewal of your mind,...

So abiding in Him. being with Him comes down to learning to aim our consciousness at Jesus, on His Word, His person, his beauty, his love and his goodness all through the day is I think, at the core of what Jesus means when He calls us to abide in Him.

One of my favorite writers, AW Tozer called it “Habitual Conscious Communion” and said , “At the heart of the Christina message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push into conscious awareness of His presence.”

My favorite comes from a monk named brother Lawrence who called this abiding that jesus calls us to, “Practicing the Presence of God”

Now, please understand that I am not suggesting that abiding is purely a cognitive thing where it is ONLY about using our minds because I believe that there is a much deeper relational communion with God, like maybe the one Abraham had with Him. But I think learning to focus our attention on Jesus and His words is the best starting place that will move us into that deeper place.

So Jesus says abide in me and let my words abide in you and then He says something that gets taken out of context a lot and i want to touch on this and see if we can’t clear it up. He says...

Jhn 15:7-8 ESV - 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

Oh that sounds like a pretty sweet deal doesn’t it? Ask whatever we want and the genie will grant it. You think I got that wrong don’t you?

And one of the things about prayer is we often think about the reward of a life of prayer is being answered prayers. Those are the stories we often celebrate right? “I prayed for this and saw God do this.” And in fact that does happen sometimes. But not every time does it?

Let me share an observation with you. Over the years as I have learned to become more of a praying person, not that I take every opportunity to pray out loud corporately. But when I think about abiding, part of that has to be conversation I am having with Jesus. You know…prayer. Now I have a pretty consistent habit of making my first thought in the morning of Him and thanking Him for another day breathing, and then making my last thoughts at night focused on Him as well. What I don’t do very well is mange what I call the blank spots all through my day.

Here is an example. I’m at Safeway the other day standing in one of the normal 5 mile long checkout lines. And what does everybody do when they are standing in line waiting? Pull out a screen. And here is the thing about that. Most people, when their mind is idol, it goes to negative places. in fact some Psychologist said, “The unaided mind tends toward chaos.” in other words, if you have nothing to focus on then your mind will naturally leap to fear, anger, regret, rumination, or shame. And depending of your personality in those blank spots, your mind will leap to the future or leap to the past. And at best, it robs you of the present, at worst it takes you to a dark negative place.

Ack! I have that presentation to make tomorrow and I haven’t even started yet. Or, Ack that presentation went so badly yesterday I am not sure how I will ever recover. Ans so what we do, it is really kind of crazy, what we do to distract ourselves from those negative thoughts, we pull out the one medium that we know will end up leading us to negative thoughts, our phone. It is like a guy being lost on a deserted island, dying of thirst starts guzzling salt water. It feels like it is helping but is actually killing him!

So what I am learning is that the more times I use those blank spots, to talk to Him, or think about Him or just enjoy the solitude of the moment without jamming some phone, or blaring radio into it, the more often I tend to go there rather than to my phone or some other negative thought.

So, in those little moments throughout the day, waiting in line at the grocery store, sitting in line at Starbucks or Dutch bros or the Human Bean. Sitting down to a meal. Where does your mind fall, without thinking about it. Let’s be honest. I bet it isn’t to Jesus.

We live in a time when distraction is literally at our fingertips. it is easy to keep our minds busy. But busy with what? I can assure you that if the distraction is your phone, there is zero value in that in terms of your spiritual formation. Unless all you are doing is reading the Words of Christ in your Bible App. Yeah that si probably NOT what’s happening.

Listen to this quote from Dallas Willard. I think this is helpful.

“the first and most basic thing we can and must do is to keep God before our minds…This is THE fundamental secret of caring for our souls. Our part in thus practicing the presence of God is to direct and redirect our minds constantly to Him. In the early time of our practicing, we may well be challenged by our burdonsome habits of dwelling on things less than God [that is, we willl be constantly distracted by a million other things]. But these are habits — not the law of grsavity —and can be broken. A new, grace-filled habit will replace the former ones as we take intentional steps toward keeping God before us. Soon our minds will return to God as the needle of a compass returns to the north…If God is the great longing of our souls, He will become the polestar of our inward beings.”

With practice it gets better. I am no way perfect in this yet but what I am learning is that the reward of prayer is not answered prayer, but meno. Abiding in a quiet and safe place, if even for a moment, in the midst of what is otherwise pretty chaotic. So I find that I am not having to distract myself from the negative thoughts as much because they don’t have as much of a hold on me as they did. Make sense? It is a slow process, it has taken me years to even get where I am but I can see progress.

Folks, the greatest freedom we have as human beings is what we do with our minds. Again I don’t want to imply that we can control everything with our minds, but certainly we can all agree that what we think about and what we allow into our minds has a tremendous impact on the kind of life we live.

And if we focus our attention on Jesus first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and in all of the blank spots throughout the day, then what we wish and what we ask for will most certainly be those things the Father wants to lavishly pour out on us.

Back to John 15...

Jhn 15:7-8 ESV - 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. Then Jesus says...8 By this my Father is glorified, By what? that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

So it seems that Jesus is saying that true disciples of His will as he puts it “Bear Much Fruit” and when they do bear fruit, the Father is glorified. What does it mean to bear fruit? Does that me we get everything we want? It does not mean that.

Fruit is the direct result of whatever controls our hearts and minds. Jesus did not say good fruit or bad fruit here but good fruit is implied for sure. We know from our study of scripture that the fruit of a life not abiding in Jesus includes “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage,” etc, etc. But fruit that comes from a life that is led, LED by the spirit of Jesus within is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23).

So this is pretty simple. We prove we are HIS disciples when the fruit we bear is in line with the fruit of the Spirit Himself. But here’s the thing. The fruit we bear will be a direct result of the abiding we do. I will say that again, The fruit we bear will be a direct result of the abiding we do.

Abide in the Spirit of Jesus, good fruit. Abide in all the million other things we usually abide in, fear, anger, anxiety, shame, bitterness…bad fruit.

As i said earlier, there is a a deeper place we can and should go with God that is not about our conscious thought patterns and habits. But it is this practicing the presence of God that will take us there. Do you have a yearning to be more in tune and in touch with God? Does your heart ache for more than you are experiencing right now? Is your heart waking up?

Then as I close this morning I want to encourage you to walk out of here today committed to three areas of abiding.

First thing in the morning, abide in Him and let His words abide in you. Don’t let your phone be the first thing you reach for when you wake up. Reach for Jesus.

Last thing at the end of the day, abide in Him and let His words abide in you. Drift off quietly communing with the One who loves you most.

And perhaps most importantly, the one that will be the hardest to do, break out of the ruts that have been formed in your mind by your constant negative thinking, and the continuous input of non-productive though patterns, and work on the habit of abiding in those blank spaces throughout the day. Standing in line. Sitting at a traffic light. Instead of pulling out your screen, talk to Him. Commune with Him. Just sit quietly with Him. Looking at him with love looking at you with love. Learn to be comfortable in the silence. Learn to abide.

Listen to me beloved. The reward for following Jesus is Jesus Himself. he is right there bidding you to come follow Him. To come make your home with Him. To abide with Him.

Amen?

Let’s pray...