Abiding In Christ

0:00 [Music] last week i spoke about the fruit of the spirit and we didn't spend time to go into all the fruit of the spirit and their manifestation but we spoke about them in general today we'll look at how we get to produce the fruit of the spirit so i would do a two-part message that i have titled abiding in christ abiding in christ it is in abiding in christ that we bear the fruit of

0:47 the spirit my opening text would be john's gospel chapter 15 verses 1 to 8 john's gospel chapter 15 verses 1 to 8 these are the words of our lord jesus christ i am the vine and my father is the vine dresser every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away and every branch that bears fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit you are already clean because of the word which i have spoken to you abide in me and i in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine neither can

1:34 you unless you abide in me i am the vine you are the branches he who abides in me and i in him bears much fruit for without me you can do nothing if anyone does not abide in me he's cast out as a branch and is with it and they gathered them and threw them into the fire and they are burned if you abide in me and my words abide in you you ask what you desire and it will be done for you for by this my father is glorified that you bear much fruit so you will be my disciples this is the last of these seven statements jesus i made about

2:23 himself when he uh described himself as the i am i am the bread of life i am the light and so on this is the last where he says i am uh the vine i am the vine and in this teaching jesus is using the an analogy something to compare with uh to to teach about his relationship with us and the analogy he uses is that of the vineyard i know that in ghana we don't grow vineyards here uh but we can imagine another tree in place of a vineyard or a vine and and jesus talks about

3:08 the vine dresser whom he says is his father and then he talks about the vine the true vine which he says is himself and then he talks about the branches which he says are the disciples and then he talks about the fruit which is what we produce now normally when we are looking at the scripture it's important to know that when there is an analogy like this in the bible you don't overstretch its meaning because every analogy is teaching something very very uh specific there is a main truth but you don't try to now try to use every part to become a message now in the eight

3:54 verses i read today the word fruit is used six times in the passage six times and the word abide is used seven times so you can see that fruiting and abiding are very very predominant in what jesus is teaching today so i would want to just define the word abide and then we take it from there so what does it mean to abide when jesus says abide in me it's not a word we frequently use in our normal conversation uh you don't tell your friend abide with me but it's it's it's it's an english

4:41 expression so what does it mean it means first to remain in place to remain in place to stay without departing so our christian life is not an in and out experience is not an off and on experience when we make a commitment to the lord we stay with him so when jesus says abide in me he's saying stay or remain in me without departing once you choose jesus christ as your lord and savior you must abide in him you must remain in him you don't come in one day and next time

5:28 uh you are out there in the world uh doing something totally different from your faith in christ so abide means to remain in place secondly abide means to continue in place to continue to endure to progress to grow so when he says abide in me it's not just staying but also growing maturing becoming better we remain in him and we continue in him we remain in him and we grow in him we stay in him and we mature in him

6:14 so that is what it means to abide to bear christian fruit therefore we must abide in christ and we only bear fruit when we are abiding in christ when we stay in him and when we grow in him when we continue in him because we cannot just hope to be fruitful by getting things our fruitfulness must begin by being more christ-like and bearing fruit for christ we bear christian fruit when we abide in christ now if you look at verses four

7:02 and five of the passage in verse four he says abide in me and i in you abide in me and i in you in verse five he says he who abides in me and i in him so it's a two-way thing it's not just abiding in christ but he also abides in us when we are in him he is in us our relationship with jesus christ therefore is a two-way relationship we live in him and he lives in us in john chapter 14 that's the chapter just before 15 verse 20 jesus says that and that day you will know that i

7:47 am in the father and you in me and i in you so jesus i established the relationship he wants to have with us he wants us to be in him and he wants to be in us of course if if you have a branch of a tree whether it's a vine tree in this instance but since most of us are more comfortable with a mango tree or maybe a an orange tree the branch of the mango tree is in the tree but that is not all there is the tree is also in the branch so there is a relationship that is continuous

8:33 between the tree and its branches the tree flows into the branch and the branch is flowing into the tree and that's how jesus wants us to relate to him i in them and they in me we are in him and he is in us so these are two important thoughts the first one is christ in me christ is in me when we say christ is in us it means that he shares in our life he is present in our lives he's present with us here on earth although jesus is not physically present with us because of our union

9:20 with him he's present in our lives in our earthly work we are never alone we are never christ-less he lives in us he moves in us and we have our being in him he's not a bystander in our lives when we go through the fire he is in us when we go through the storm he is in us when people fight us he is in us he never departs from us christ is in us he's present with us here on earth on earth and not only is he in us we are also in christ i am in christ that means i share in his life

10:05 he shares in my life i share in his life and when we share in his life his strength becomes our strength his ability becomes our ability his wisdom becomes our wisdom whatever he can do he empowers us to do so we are in him but not only that he is also in us and because we are in christ he is present in our lives and we are present with him in heaven we share in his heavenly life

10:52 christ is in us and we are in him that is the truth you must always remember as a christian christ is in me and i am in him he lives in me i live in him he is the vine i am the branch it's not a branch that is outside of him it's a branch that is in him so how do we get to abide in christ how do we get to abide in christ and i'm going to give you four ways in which we abide in christ four ways we abide in christ first by accepting christ

11:40 as our lord and savior that's the first step to abiding in christ first john chapter 4 verse 15 whoever confesses that jesus is the son of god god abides in him and he in god this is where everything starts when we accept jesus christ as our lord and savior and by now you should know that i stepped in jesus christ as your lord and savior is more than going to church it is more than being a good person it is a conscious personal decision every human being must make at one point in their life to accept

12:26 that what jesus did on the cross was for them his death was for them his resurrection was for them in his death we have forgiveness of sins in his resurrection we have new life and when we accept that we have accepted jesus christ then as our lord and personal savior and when we accept christ he comes to live in us to abide in christ we must accept him as our lord and personal savior it's good to go to church it's good to be a nice person but that is not accepting christ as your lord and personal savior you have to accept that his death forgive you of your sins and his resurrection gave you new life and when you accept those two things

13:11 you have him as your lord and your savior so we as abide in christ by accepting him as our lord and savior number two we abide in christ by allowing his teachings to settle in us his teachings to settle in us first john chapter 2 verse 24 therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning if you heard if what you heard from the beginning abides in you you will also abide in the son and in the father accepting christ as lord and savior as the first step but the teachings of christ must abide

13:57 in us and the teachings of christ you find them in the gospels as well as in the epistles that the apostles of christ wrote mostly what we call the new testament his teachings must settle in us his teachings must abide in us so he comes to live in our lives his teachings come into our lives when we read it and we allow it to settle and the reason i say the word of god must settle is it's one thing reading the word of god another thing letting it settle in you that means it must settle all your arguments

14:42 when you are determining what to do the basis for determining what to do should be what christ taught so no matter how angry you are against somebody and how much you want the person out of your life and dead if christ says you must forgive him that word must settle you cannot let your emotions settle your issues if we're going to bear fruit for christ then his word settles our issues whether it is in the way we run our lives the way we run our families the way we run our businesses the word of christ

15:28 settles all arguments for us until we come to that point in our faith we cannot bear fruit for him if you can say well jesus says it but i don't feel like it jesus says it but i don't think that is what i want to do as for this i will think about it when christ speaks we don't think about it we do it so we must accept him as lord and savior his word must settle in our hearts and number three we abide in christ by doing what he commanded us to do first john chapter 3 verse 24 now he who keeps his commandments abides in him and

16:13 he in him and by this we know that he abides in us by the spirit whom he has given to us if we keep his commandments then he abides in us and we abide in him and i know that keeping the commandments of jesus are very difficult it's the most difficult thing in this world is following jesus that's that's very difficult because everything jesus says goes opposite the way we want to live our lives our lives are based

16:58 on selfishness his life is based on selflessness our lives are based on taking his life is based on giving our lives are based on vengeance his life is based on forgiveness our lives are based on doing what pleases us his life is based on not my will but your will be done so when we try to follow jesus it goes against everything about us that is why it's very easy for us to say we are christians but

17:44 never live anywhere near christ but if he's going to abide in us then we must keep his commandments and doing his commandment is difficult the only way we can do the will of christ is to see him as our master and we as his slaves the early apostles under understood that that's why when you read the epistles paul will call himself a born seventh peter would say i'm a servant of christ even james who was a physical brother of jesus called himself a bond servant of the lord jesus christ why did they describe themselves as born sevens as slaves because until you take that posture the

18:32 word of christ cannot be obeyed by you so the question is are you a slave of christ yes we must be as christians because that is the only way we can obey him without question so when he says forgive and everything in you wants to slap the person back you cry cry lord i don't want to forgive but i forgive that is a slave a bond seven i everything in me doesn't want to do it but at your word until christ's word is our command

19:17 and we see ourselves simply as his slaves to do what he says we cannot abide in him and we will not bear fruit so we abide in him by doing what he commands us to do and number four we abide in him by living and walking in god's love first john chapter 4 verse 16 and we have known and believed the love that god has for us god is love and he who abides in love abides in god and god in him jesus clearly taught that walking in love was the mark of

20:04 christendom these days you think that uh other things are the mark of christianity of course people sometimes think that i the power is a mark of christianity but that's not what jesus said jesus said by this day shall know that you are my disciples because of love the life of the believer must be characterized by love at all levels life in church in our marriages in our businesses everything we must walk in love we must love the lord with all that we have we must love other believers as

20:50 brothers and sisters and we must love people with the love of god not long ago christians used to call each other brothers and sisters these days you don't hear much of that we used to call each other brother so and so brothers sister so and so because there was supposed to be love we seem to have moved away from that ethic so the question is if you are married is the love of christ in your marriage you know people teach all kinds of things about marriage

21:35 sexual compatibility mental compatibility and all of that but never the love of god it's not just about compatibility it's about the love of god if you have the love of god there is no way your marriage will not work there is no way the love of god can be present in a marriage and conflict present at the same time the two don't work together no matter all the compatibilities you learn if you don't learn to walk in love the love of god nothing works for us how can people know that we are disciples of jesus because we have loved

22:22 one for another we don't cheat one another we don't defraud one another we don't crook one another the church must be a house of love not each for himself and god for us all and that is how we bear fruit that's that's that's it if you want to be fruitful walk in love obey the commandments of jesus let his word dwell in you and let christ be the lord of your life that's the only way we bear fruit and let me close with john chapter 15 verse 16 jesus says there something very interesting there

23:09 john 15 verse 16 jesus says you did not choose me but i chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain that whatever you ask the father in my name he may give you two things i want to highlight one is that christ chose us and appointed us to be fruitful that's the reason why he chose us that's the reason why we got born again to be fruitful we are appointed to be fruitful fruitfulness is based on fully trusting the lord

23:55 to work out his purposes in our lives but then jesus says something very very radical jesus says that the father answers the prayers of those who are fruitful listen to him again you did not choose me but i chose you that you and i pointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain that whatever you ask the father in my name he may give you that second that means so that whatever you ask the father in my name he will give it to you jesus linked answers to prayer

24:41 to fruitfulness i had never seen it that way it just shocked me and this verse is very pivotal because every promise jesus gave for answered prayer we read everywhere else in the new testament it's conditional on this so if you read for example in matthew 7 verse 8 that says for everyone who has received and he who finds and to him he who seeks fans and to him who knocks it will be open who is the everyone who is there everyone who asked and received does it mean any person at all

25:28 can go and say father do this for me and it will happen that is that how god answers prayer this everyone must be read in the light of john 15 16 whoever bears fruit whatever he as the father will be given in other words everyone who asks and receives is everyone who bears fruit the fruitless christian will not only be fruitless in their relationship with god but their prayer life will also be fruitless when jesus says in mark chapter 11 verse 24 therefore i say to you whatever you ask when you pray believe that you receive

26:15 them and you shall have them does it mean a christian can live anyhow walk anyhow behave anyhow hate people be destructive and then come and say according to mark 11 24 whatever i ask i shall receive no this verse must be translated or interpreted in the light of john 15 16 whoever bears fruit whatever he has the father it shall be given to him the reason why we quote all this prayer answering verses and we don't have answers is because we are fruitless the scripture is not a mechanical tool the principles of god are not mechanical you can't just live anyhow and pray to god and expect him to hear you when jesus

27:04 says in john 16 23 24 in that day you shall ask me nothing muslims surely i say to you whatever you as the father in my name he will give you until now you have asked nothing my name ask and you receive that your job may be full it must be seen in the light of john 15 16 whoever bears fruit so that every whoever that jesus is promising this prayer answer to is not just whoever whoever but the believer who abides in him who is bearing fruit is the one jesus is promising that if you bear fruit if your life reflects me then whatever you ask the father

27:51 he will do it for you so why is that so because praying in the name of jesus is not simply saying the name of jesus it's not just adding the name of jesus to your prayer father i want to travel i want to go to america i want to go to hong kong i want to go to paris i want i want you to promote me i want you to make me the managing director of my company i want you to give me one billion in jesus name and just because you are in jesus name god must is obliged to do your wishes for you is that how prayer works no when we are abided in christ and we are praying in the name of jesus it implies that we have become so

28:37 aligned with christ with his nature with his spirit so that every request we make is in conformity with his will and when we are so much in touch with him that every request we make is in conformity with his will then whatever we ask he will do it for us but you can't live anyhow and use the name of jesus you can't just think that if you can bamboozle your way with god walk up and down enough and talk in enough tongues and cry in enough towns and stamp your feet enough god will be so intimidated he'll answer your prayer no the only way he answers your prayer

29:23 is because you are in the vine and the husband man the vine dresser the father has pruned you and after he has pruned you you bear much fruit anyway that's what i'm preaching tomorrow next week and and because of that he gives you the permission ask whatever you want and i will do it and why does he give you that permission because when you are so in him your whatever you ask for is not selfish it's not self-centered is no vanity whatever you wish for is what christ wishes for and because of that your prayer in his name is guaranteed 100 percent answer

30:11 do you want to have more of your prayer answer abiding christ instead of learning how to pray on a mountain or receive an impartation or receive a mantle or use olive oil and pour oil on yourself abide in christ don't get oil on yourself don't get zoomy on yourself and don't abide in christ if you abide in him he says you will bear fruit and because you bear fruit whenever you ask the father for anything he'll give it to you do you wonder why you pray 100 and

30:59 99 are not answered have you ever wondered you pray pray pray pray they don't get answered pray pray pray pray get up in the morning get up at dawn go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go nothing happens you are not abiding you are not bearing fruit you are trying to arm twist god you are trying to hijack him and some people want to give god threats if you don't do this lord then i'll not worship you again you are no longer jehovah and so it's as if the moment you say that god will say hey hey if i don't answer this guy then i'll

31:45 no longer be god he was god before you were born before your father was born before your mother was born before your grandfather was born before your great-great-grandfather was born he will be god after you die he'll be god in the days of your grandchildren your great-grandchildren you'll be you think you can threaten god to answer your prayer where did you get that idea our prayers are answered because we abide in him and we bear fruit in him and may the lord help each one of us to be abiding christians who are fruit-bearing christians then we will see the father

32:30 answering our prayers so that his name will be glorified not so that we will go and brag to other people but that his name will be glorified let's burn our heads the way to abide in christ is to ask him into your heart and if christ is not in your heart you have to just pray and ask him to come in and so i just want to lead you in a very simple prayer to invite jesus christ into your heart to become your lord and savior wherever you are listening online wherever just put your hand upon your heart and pray the simple prayer with me and say heavenly father

33:16 today i come to you just as i am i am a sinner i cannot save myself i thank you father that jesus died for me on the cross of calvary he took away my sin i believe in him and i accept his forgiveness i thank you father that jesus rose again from the dead and he's alive forevermore to give me new life i believe in him and i accept that and so i proclaim today that jesus christ is my lord and i commit to live all my life

34:01 to serve him to please him and to honor him in jesus name i pray amen and amen if you really meant that prayer in your heart you are now abiding in christ you started the process let his word stay in you obey him bear fruit for him then your prayer will be answered because you bear much fruit [Music]

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