Source of Fruitful Living

Transition statement: In our passage tonight we are going to read about what is necessary for spiritual growth and what are some potential challenges to our spiritual growth.

For those who may not have been here the last couple of weeks. We are in the middle of Jesus’ last meal and teaching with the disciples before he is crucified in less than 24 hrs. Last week, we talked about our destination as believers which is in Heaven spending eternity with God and the way to get there which is only by believing in Jesus as your Lord and Savior of your life. Tonight we will be talking about how to experience spiritual growth once we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior as well as how do we deal with persecution from the world for believing in Jesus.

So please open your scripture notebooks with me to John 15. John 15. First let’s look at

How to experience spiritual growth in Jesus.

Read John 15:1-17.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 15

15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

CHRISTLIKE LOVE

9 “As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.

11 “I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.

12 “This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master, is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.

17 “This is what I command you: Love one another.

In this passage we see,

The first step in experiencing spiritual growth is to remain in Christ.

How do we remain in Christ? What does it look like?

Read v. 10- underline this in scripture notebook

John 15:10 CSB

If you keep my commands you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.

Remaining in Christ happens when we obey His commands.

This doesn’t mean we have to live perfect lives and can never sin in order to remain in Christ. But when we do sin, we repent for it and ask for forgiveness. By doing this we also are obeying Christ’s command to repent when we sin.

If you could summarize all the commands in the bible, what would be the two main commands that we can connect all other commands to?

Love God. Love Others.

How do we love God?

Spend time learning about Him. Read your bible. Attending church and Hype.

Spend time talking to Him. Pray. Give thanks.

Glorify Him. Give God praise instead of giving ourselves credit or praise.

Repent when we have sinned and ask for forgiveness

How do we love others?

Encouraging them with our words

Showing respect

Listening to others

Calling out sin in a grace filled manner

Repent when we have sinned and ask for forgiveness

Now if we love God and love others we are following God’s commands. As a result we will remain in Christ.

As a result of remaining in Christ we are told that we will produce fruit. Now this isn’t physical fruit but rather spiritual fruit.

We see what spiritual fruit looks like in Gal. 5.

Galatians 5:22–24 CSB

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Why should we remain in Christ?

Read John 15:10-11. I want to go back and read John 15:10 and then read the next verse after that.

John 15:10–11 CSB

If you keep my commands you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. “I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.

The reason why we should want to remain in Christ is so that Christ’s joy can be in us therefore making our joy complete.

There are many things in the world that will make you depressed and anxious. This is because sin exists on earth. Because of sin we live in a broken world that is filled with illness, disease, wars, and self centered people. I think we can think of multiple examples of our living in a sinful world has affected us in our lifetime.

But we have a promise that if we remain in Christ we can have pure unending joy. This doesn’t mean that we will never face a difficult situation or trial in life. Bur rather it means when we do have a bad day or when we have a difficult season of life, we can still hold on to the fact that God loves you so much that He died for you. If you remain in Christ, He calls you friend. He chose you to love.

We see this in our passage of John 15.

Read John 15:12-16

John 15:12–16 CSB

“This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.

It is these truths that give us hope, that give us joy when we remain in Christ.

To illustrate this I have some flowers here that I gave to Amber for Valentine’s day, about two weeks ago. So the flowers have been removed from their roots, cut off from their source of nutrients for over two weeks.

What do you notice about them?

they don’t look good.

they smell

they look dead

These flowers represent us if we don’t remain in Christ. If we don’t spend time with Christ, if we don’t focus on learning, being relational, talking to Jesus, we are leaving our source of our joy, of our hope, of our spiritual lives and over time we’ll appear as these flowers, stinky, sickly, on the path to death.

In our passage of John 15 if we look again at verse 6 we see what happens to people who do not remain in Christ.

John 15:6 CSB

If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

I hope you see Jesus alluding to the fact that those who don’t remain in Christ that when they die, they will spend eternity burning in Hell.

These flowers are almost dead and the only place these flowers are going to go is in the garbage.

Transition statement: So far we’ve talked about how to experience growth which is by remaining in Christ. We’ve talked about what this looks like, how do this, and why it’s important. Now let’s look at some challenges for growing spiritually.

Challenges to our Spiritual Growth

Read John 15:18-27.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 15

18 “If the world hates you, understand that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you. 20 Remember the word I spoke to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they don’t know the one who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 The one who hates me also hates my Father. 24 If I had not done the works among them that no one else has done, they would not be guilty of sin. Now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But this happened so that the statement written in their law might be fulfilled: They hated me for no reason.,

THE COUNSELOR’S MINISTRY

26 “When the Counselor comes, the one I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father—he will testify about me. 27 You also will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.

The big point from this passage is that,

If you remain in Christ, you will experience persecution from the world.

When we say the word world, we are referring to those who do not believe in Jesus.

The reason why the world persecutes Christians is that those who don’t serve God are serving the devil. Those who are serving the devil will naturally oppose what God is doing on earth. The truth we have to remind ourselves is that in end, we know who has already won. God has already won. Jesus defeated sin and death when He died and arose again three days later. We are told that in the end Jesus will bound up the devil and send him and his followers to hell forever. All that to say,

When we face persecution, when can have hope that we will win in the end.

Even though we may face trials on this earth. We will spend eternity with God in Heaven.