Abide in Christ

Read: John 15:1-4

To bring forth fruit in our lives we have to Abide in Christ

To Abide in Christ means to continue to stay.

Three things I see in this passage that we need to stay in order to abide and bring fruit

Stay Clean

Stay Connected

Stay Charged

1. Be Clean

Jesus says in John 15:3 ye are clean “You are already clean”

They have been pruned.

They were cleaned by the Word - If we don’t stay in God’s Word we cannot expect to stay clean!!!

We will have to let Him have His way with us

Be completely and recklessly abandoned to Him

Not only are we to be clean but to Abide in Christ we have to stay connected -

2. Stay Connected

In order to gain any benefit from an experience with Christ we have to stay connected.

Now I see in scripture that getting saved, or born again, converted is not so much a position, but a relationship.

We are in Christ.

But we have to remember what it takes to get saved is what it takes to stay saved -

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:” (Ephesians 2:8, KJV 1900)

This isn’t a one time things - this is an all day everyday thing.

We are saved by grace - but that grace is only appropriated by faith - faith is what connects us to God through Christ.

We have to stay connected

Sometimes we feel (remember we live by faith not feeling) like God is far away.

John Newton describes it well in one of my favorite Newton Hymns:

How tedious and tasteless the hours,

When Jesus no longer I see!

Sweet prospects, sweet birds, and sweet flow’rs,

Have lost all their sweetness to me.

The mid-summer sun shines but dim,

The fields strive in vain to look gay;

But when I am happy in Him,

December’s as pleasant as May.

Paul Eckert, Steve Green's MIDI Hymnal : A Complete Toolkit for Personal Devotions and Corporate Worship., Electronic ed. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1998).

The Xylem Pull Process - 

There is a fantastic process in botany called the Xylem Pull. This is a process by which plants take in and release water. 

In the middle of the plant from the root all the way up through the leaves is a tremendous vascular system.

The root absorbs water and then it is channeled through the vascular system up through the plant.

What is most interesting about this to me is that it works like a chain. Every water molecule is connected to another water molecule in a gigantic chain up through the plant. 

So as one water evaporates out the leaf of the plant through the stomata, another molecule is absorbed through the root. So on and so forth.

Now my point in all of this - in order for a leaf or branch to stay alive and watered, it has to stay connected to the supply chain from the root. 

This is what Jesus is talking about in John 15

If we want to bear fruit, if we are going to stay in a relationship with Christ we are going to have to Abide in HIM!!!

We will need to stay connected so the spiritual xylem pull can take place.

Not only do we need to stay connected - but we must stay charged.

2. Stay Charged -

When my boys were younger they used to have a special saying about my phone. When the battery would get low it gets a red mark in the battery notification area. They didn't know how to say the battery was low - so they would simply say, "Your phone is on the no-no thing."

Now cell phones and other electronics were not made to be continously attached to a cord - they have batteries that store up energy and then use that energy to work.

Some people utilize this method - Remember the parable Jesus told of the five wise and five foolish virgins?

The wise one had oil in their lamps and took extra oil with them.

The foolish ones had oil in their lamps and with a prayer and a lick thought that would be good enough.

But lo and behold when the call came at midnight - "Behold the bridegroom cometh"

There were some who had some oil to keep their lamps burning

But the other's had let their's stay on the "no-no thing' too long.

I’m afraid too many Christians are living on the “no-no thing”

Living on the ‘no-no thing’ is living dangerously!!!

If you leave the cell phone on the “no-no thing” too long without plugging it in what happens - it shuts down.

Jesus says if you aren’t connected to the energy source you will be barren and be plucked off.

I pray tonight you are staying clean, staying connected and staying charged up.