to Colossians chapter number 2, and also John 15, Colossians chapter number 2, and John chapter number 15, two passages of scripture tonight, and of course Colossians will sort of be our jumping off place as we're going to try to couple a couple, join a couple passages together that I believe flow together in Scripture. They have corresponding themes, if you please. And we've had a wonderful year. God has blessed us immensely here at Calvary Baptist Church. We have sought to root ourselves in Christ. We've sought to root ourselves in His Word, in His Church. We want to be a rooted people. God wants you to be a rooted Christian. Can I tell you, the world is forever seeking to uproot God's people. Satan is seeking to uproot your life, your marriage, your family. He wants you to be rootless, so to speak, where you just wither up, you blown around, fickle, not fixed. And God wants you and I to be planted, firmly planted in that that honors Him in our own spiritual lives. And notice if you would, in Colossians chapter 2, beginning in verse number 6, Paul said, As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him. How do you receive the Lord? Well, by faith. He comes into our heart by faith. We receive Him by faith. We enter into relationship with Him by faith. God said that in the same way that we receive Him, that's how we're to walk in Him. I receive Him by faith and I'm to walk in Him by faith. We're to live by a faith principle. And through that faith principle, verse 7, we become rooted. Look what he says. Rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. And so God said, I want you to have a rooted life. I want you to be firmly fixed and planted in that which is right and godly. I want you to be rooted in my Son. And so we find that here in our passage. Rooted in Christ. And then look, if you would, please, John chapter 15. Would you go there, John chapter 15? And we're going to learn something about the rooted life. Notice here you have the parable of the vine and the branches, and the vine is basically a root. And the branches flow out of the vine. The vine is an extended root, so to speak, that comes up out of the ground. And we're in that vine, as believers, the vine and its branches. And he's going to talk about the abiding life. Look what he says in verse number 1. I am the true vine, and my Father is the husband. He's the caretaker of the true vine. Verse 2, Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. And every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now, at this moment, you're clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of its scept, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. 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. Verse 6, If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered. And men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is My Father glorified. Do you want to glorify the Lord? Herein is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit. So shall you be. My disciples." What a rich, rich passage of Scripture given on the way to the Garden of Gethsemane as the Lord would be betrayed. He would then be crucified, rise again. This is on the eve of the crucifixion. He's left the upper room with His disciples. They've made their way to the Mount of Olives. They're passing through the Kidron Valley. They enter into the vineyards there, and the Lord begins to teach them about the abiding life. Can I help you to understand that a rooted life is an abiding life? You and I cannot root ourselves in Christ. We cannot be a rooted Christian unless we are an abiding Christian. I want to remind us of the context of our passage if I could. John 15 is probably the most intensive chapter in the Bible on how to successfully live the Christian life. The thrust of the passage is not salvation. If you read salvation into the passage, you have missed the context, the purpose, and the thrust of why the Lord gave this parable. It is not salvation. It is fruit bearing and discipleship. It's teaching us how to walk in the Lord and to be fruitful for Him. It's interesting. Two key words you're going to find in our text that are very important. The first one is the word fruit. You find it seven times. Success in the Christian life is measured in fruitfulness. Every Christian has the potential to bear fruit. And the question is, are we living up to the potential that we have as fruit-bearing Christians? He gives us a progression. For the sake of us just getting context, I want to go back and grab some stuff we talked about several weeks ago. We thought we'd already be done with this message, and things happened. And so we're back at it, but we want to go back and grab some context. And look if you would, verse 2, he mentions fruit. Then he's going to mention the latter part of verse 2, more fruit. So you go from fruit to more fruit. You go down to verse number 5, and you now have much fruit in the last part of it. Bringeth forth much fruit, for without Me you can do nothing. And then you go down to verse number 16. Look there if you would. You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you. That choosing there is not a choosing unto salvation, but a choosing unto fruitfulness. He said, I have ordained you. What? Go and bring forth fruit. Now watch this next statement. And that your fruit should remain. So we go fruit, more fruit, much fruit, to remaining fruit, lasting fruit. And here's the interesting thing. If you open up any type of fruit, whatever it is, you open it up and inside that are seeds. There is seeds. There is the potential in every cluster of fruit for there to be more fruit. And so we understand that in our lives, as we serve the Lord, as we abide in Him, as our lives begin to bear fruit for the Lord, within that are the seeds to greater fruitfulness in our lives as Christians. And so we're talking about this degree of fruitfulness, and He does so in this parable of the vine and the branches. Now, it reminds you of the components of the parable. The vine is the Lord Jesus. He alone is the true vine. Real, genuine, no counterfeit. The husbandman is God the Father, the heavenly caretaker, the vine dresser, the heavenly caretaker of the vine. The branches are believers. Notice he said, Abide in me and I in you. He's speaking to the disciples. He's talking about believers. There are no unsaved people mentioned in the passage. He's dealing with those who belong to the Lord. And the branch has but one purpose, has one reason to exist. Vine wood is not good for building things. You don't build houses out of it. You don't build furniture out of it. No, it's good for one thing. Vinewood is made to bear fruit. And God has created us in Himself that we might bear fruit for His glory. And if I could please, as we're ending up our theme over this week and next week, could I remind us that a rooted Christian is an abiding Christian, and an abiding Christian is a fruitful Christian. I'm just here to tell you, if you're not rooted and you're not abiding, you're not fruitful. That's not to say that you don't have any semblance of being a Christian. Oh no. I'm not saying that. That's not saying that a person is all the time what they should be because the reality of it is we all know that we can get in modes in our lives where we're lacked spiritually. And the fruitfulness of our life begins to wane. And what God desires is that we don't recede in our fruitfulness, but we progress in our fruitfulness. We grow, that we move from one level of fruit bearing to another in our lives. And that will not happen apart from the abiding life. We talked about how fruit-bearing is the natural result of the branch abiding in the vine. It's not anything that the branch does on its own. The vine possesses all that is necessary for the productivity of the branch. And the secret to fruit-bearing in the Christian life is not struggling and straining and sighing and trying, but abiding. Kind of remind us that our vine is the great I Am. I Am the true vine. The divine statement of deity. The I Am that I Am. God is all that is necessary to our lives. And in our vine, the great I Am is the source of our spiritual life, we're complete in Him. In Him we have all that is necessary to live the Christian life successfully. Remember, Paul put it this way. He said, I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. He's reminding us that fruitful Christian living, that successful Christian living is not so much I or you or me living the Christian life. It is allowing the Lord to live the Christian life through us for His own glory. That's the picture. Another key word is the word abide, because we won't go from more fruit, much fruit, remaining fruit, unless we're abiding. And that word abide is found 12 times in our text. 120 times in the New Testament. It's interesting that John uses this word abide profusely 12 times in John 15. And the word means to remain in, to dwell with, to continue. It is a word of fellowship. of fellowship. For you and I to abide in the Lord is to be in fellowship with the Lord. And God said that we're to be walking in fellowship with Him, a rooted Christian, an abiding Christian, a fruitful Christian, is a Christian who's in fellowship with the Savior. That I'm walking in fellowship with Him day by day, moment by moment. That's what he's talking about. So we're going to learn what it is to be an abiding Christian, and we're going to pick it up real quickly, and I'm going to hit a couple points that we've already talked about, and then we're going to get into the meat of where we want to go. First of all, we found that it is a relational life. It is a relational life. Look again in verse number 2. He said, every branch in me. We need to recognize that in order for a branch to bear fruit, it must be connected to the divine. And the moment we come to know the Lord Jesus as Savior, we are said to be in Him. There is a connection. We're made a part of Christ. Christ is in us. We're brought into a living union with Him. We're implanted in Him, so to speak. We're wholly joined together. We're intimately and vitally connected to the Lord. Hey, thank God that I can't be severed from the Lord. No, no. I'm in Him. Andrew Murray in his book, The Divine, said about this little word, in, there's no deeper word in Scripture. We're in Christ and Christ is in us. Oh, if we could just stop and fathom that. To ponder it. That God, that Christ lives in me. I live in Him. It is a living matter. He goes on to say, Christ is in us. Our life taken up into His. His life received into ours. We may not have understood that. We may not have realized that. We may not have comprehended that. The moment we're saved, but now we understand it. The Lord is telling us that when we come to know Him, that we enter into this living union with Him. And it's a divine reality, Andrew Murray says, that words cannot express. We are in Him and He is in us. in Christ. No other religion in the world. Nowhere does it say that a follower of Buddha is in Buddha, or a follower of Allah is in Allah, or in Muhammad, or of the 500 million gods of the Hindus and the people in the different areas of animism and spiritism in our world. You say, Preacher, do we have that in America? Oh, absolutely! They just translated it in new terms and now it's Mother Earth. And they worship it. But there's no living union there. Only in biblical Christianity are we in Christ. Do we enter into a union with God? That is the uniqueness of biblical Christianity. That's why it's superior to all other religions. Because my God is the living God and I am alive in Him. And He lives in me. It's powerful. Then we realize not only is it relational, but it's responsible life. That there is responsibility on my part. I do nothing to be saved but believe. But in order to grow and to be fruitful in Him, there is responsibility. This word abide that's used twelve times in our text is not a noun. It's a verb. It's a statement of action. That if I'm going to be fruitful as a Christian, I must determine, I must make it my business. that every day of my life that I am abiding in Him, it suggests intimacy and oneness and closeness of relationship. You see, marriages break up because there's no communion within that relationship. And the people that are in that union begin to distance themselves from one another. There becomes a coldness within the relationship. I don't know him anymore. I don't know her anymore. And then it breaks apart. Can I just be honest with you? If you don't make it your business to know the Savior, you will distance yourself from Him. Imagine belonging to my God, but yet being a stranger to my God. Many Christians are strangers to God. They don't know Him the way they should. They're not abiding. Andrew Murray in his book Absolute Surrender said it is a life of absolute dependence, deep restfulness, much fruitfulness, close communion, and absolute surrender. To abide in Christ is to have a close personal relationship with Him. It is to walk with God. It is to develop a growing intimacy, closeness, oneness with the Lord Jesus, and to live in light of that relationship. And notice, if you would please, verse 4, the abiding is mutual. Notice what he says. Abide in me and I in you. The Lord is basically saying here, as I seek to have fellowship with Him, He will have fellowship with me. As James put it this way, draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you. Now watch it. This matter of closeness is up to me. Every Christian in this room, you and I are as close to God as we want to be. There are no limits. If you're distant from God, it's because you've chosen to be. If you're cold on God, it's because you've chosen to be. If you're not drawing close to God, it's because you've chosen to. In our lives tonight as Christians, any failure within us to be close to God is not on God's part. It's on our part. It's a failure to abide. As I abide in fellowship with the Lord, He abides in fellowship with me. As I grow closer to Him, He grows closer to me. I'm not going to spend a lot of time here, but I do want to notice that within our own context of passage, the Lord has given us the keys to the abiding life. Could I share them with you? How about to abide in His Word? Look at verse number 7. He said, if you abide in Me and My words abide in you. So, I cannot abide in the Lord without abiding in Scripture. Can I tell you, we preach on this matter of reading the Bible. We will put out devotionals. We will put out reading schedules. People will make resolutions. and resolve in their heart, I'm going to read my Bible more. I'm just here to tell you, if you don't read your Bible, if you don't abide in His Word, not just reading the Bible to be reading the Bible, but you're reading the Bible for profit, to draw closer to God, to learn of Him, to abide in Him. You cannot abide in Him without abiding in His words. Then prayer. Look what he says in verse 7. You shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you. Do you notice how this matter of abiding in His Word and abiding in prayer is like two sides of the same coin? They go together. And he tells us that herein is my Father glorified. Listen, you cannot abide in the Word and abide in prayer and not show forth fruit or bear fruit to the glory of God and to live a measure of discipleship, verse 8, and as a result of that we glorify Him. You're going to watch our themes dovetail together in about two weeks. We've got one more week of being rooted, and then we move into a new theme. Now listen, that doesn't mean we stop being rooted. Amen? And then He says, not only in His Word and in prayer, but how about love? He talks about joy in verse 11, but look at verse 9. He said, As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in My love. to grow in the love of God, His love for us. The love of Christ constraineth me, the Bible says. It motivates me and moves me, but not just my love for Him, but how about our love for others? Verse 10, If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, and even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love. And then he says in verse number 12, This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you. You cannot be in fellowship with God. You cannot abide in Him if you're not loving your fellow Christian. You can't love God and not love your fellow believer. I just got a problem with them. Well, if that's the case, then you're not abiding very much. Because God said, you can't be in fellowship with Me if you're not in fellowship with your family. They go together. And then we abide in His Spirit. Look over in verse 26, but when the Comforter has come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth forth from the Father, he shall testify of me." And then chapters 14, 15, and 16 will talk about the Spirit-filled life and how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And so there's the matter of abiding in His Word, abiding in prayer, abiding in love, abiding in His joy, verse number 11, and abiding in His Spirit. As I seek to abide in these different facets of the Christian life, I begin to grow closer to the Lord. I abide in Him. I become a rooted Christian. Let's come to the third aspect of our truth today. Not only is it a relational life, not only is it a responsible life, but number three, and very quickly tonight, it is a rewarded life. And a rewarded life. Remember, he says that he's dealing with fruit bearing. He said, every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. Now we're going to expound on that statement next Sunday night. You don't want to miss it. And then every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. In verse 4, Abide in me, and I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. And so he's talking about this matter of being fruitful. Can I tell you that the reward of the abiding life is having a fruitful life. Can I just help us to understand that a tree never bears fruit for itself. You never find a grapevine eating of its grapes. You never find an apple tree eating of its apples. A tree never bears fruit for itself. It always bears fruit for someone else. Can I tell you the fruit that you bear in your life as a Christian is not for you. It's for the Lord and for others. It's not meant so that I can enter into this state of thinking that somehow I'm more spiritual, or I'm better, or somehow that I'm special, or somehow I'm a super Christian, or somehow I live on a different plane. Some people have the idea that they have any semblance of spirituality at all, that somehow or another they're just a little cut above. The moment you get there, you are full of pride, and you're no longer abiding, and you're no longer rooted. Can I tell you that being spiritual is like being humble? The moment you think you are, you're not. It's a very fragile matter. The moment we begin to boast in our spirituality, we just lost our spirituality because now we're rooted in pride. And God resisteth the proud. He gives grace to the humble. Let's talk about fruit very quickly. I won't spend a lot of time here. How about the fruit of the Spirit? Can we just sort of look at some passages and you write them down if you can't find them? I'm going to go fairly quickly tonight. Let's look at Galatians 5. Could we do that? When you come to Galatians 5, it's interesting. He deals with the matter of walking in the Spirit. He talks about the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. Fruit is not manufactured. It's always produced. You cannot manufacture Christian fruit or the fruit of the Spirit. It can only be produced in your life as you're abiding in Christ and yielded to the Spirit of God. Notice what he says in Galatians 5, verse 22, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. It's a nine-fold cluster of fruit that goes together. And he said, "...against such there is no law." Nobody's ever had to pass a law about love and joy and peace and temperance and gentleness and goodness and kindness. And those graces ought to be evident in the life of a growing Christian and a fruitful Christian. He's going to talk about holiness of life in Romans chapter 6 verse 22. Can we go back there and catch it? These are different kinds of fruit that we bear as believers. Romans chapter 6 and look if you would, verse number 22. I trust you'll jot these down. I didn't put them on the screen tonight. I probably should have. Holiness of life. but now being made free from sin, we've been freed from the bondage of sin and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life." Isn't that amazing? Our fruit is unto holiness. An abiding life is a holy life. Can I tell you that that's become taboo in Christian circles today? For some reason we have lost the truth of holiness in our lives as Christians. of being a holy people unto the Lord, of seeking holiness of life. Too often we're wanting to blend with the world, and I'm here to tell you we will never reach the world by being like the world. We must be distinctly different from the world, and we ought to pursue holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Doesn't mean that I won't go to heaven, but as I seek to live a holy life, I see the Savior clearer, because it's the pure in heart that see God. Let me ask you a question. Are you holy? Do you seek to live holy? Holy is not a list of do's and don'ts. That's where our movement for years got caught up. That's why people sort of jumped the train. Because what all these Baptists are about is a bunch of do's and don'ts. And I understand the purpose behind it. It was trying to help people live principle living to have holiness. And then what happens with that after a while, it moves into the realm of pride and Phariseeism that I don't do this, this, this, and this, and I do this, this, and this, and therefore it makes me a good Christian. Can I tell you, holiness is not keeping a list. Holiness is seeking to grow close to God and reflect His holiness to the world and become the person God wants me to be. That's true holiness. How about the people that we influence for heaven? Look with me at Romans chapter 1 and let's find verse number 13. Romans chapter 1 and verse number 13. He says, Now I will not have you ignorant or without knowledge, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, but was let hitherto. That was just a simple way of saying, I was distracted. I couldn't come. That I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles. Did you notice He said, I might have some fruit among you, among the Roman people, that I might reach people there and have fruit. And you know what? Everybody and anybody that belongs to the Lord can influence somebody for heaven. We can. Can I give you just three more real quick and we'll move on? I just want to move quickly. How about your worship? Turn to Hebrews chapter 13. Would you go there? Hebrews chapter 13. I'm just talking about fruit. How do I show forth fruit? Well, my character as a Christian. Showing forth the fruit of the Spirit being displayed in my life as a result of the abiding life and being yielded to the Spirit. Living a life of holiness as I bring myself into alignment with God's will for my life and His Word. Living on His terms and not mine. Those that I influence for heaven and then my worship to the Savior. Look if you would in Hebrews chapter 13 and find if you would verse number, and it says number 10, but that's not the right verse. I'm sure that my computer made a mistake. Look if you would verse number 15. By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. Can I tell you worship's not just a Sunday thing. It's an everyday thing. It is. My worship on Sunday should be fueled by my worship on Monday. But the flip side of that is my worship on Sunday ought to fuel my worship on Monday. They go together. And notice he says, praise to God continually, not just one day, but every day. That is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. That is a simple definition of worship, of showing worth to God, of giving Him the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving from our heart for all that He is to us. All that He is and all that He is to us. I'm going to give you two more real quickly and then I'll move to the last point and we're going to be done. Look at Philippians 4, verse 17. So, the fruit of the Spirit, the character of Christ being displayed in my life, holiness of life, those I influence for heaven, my worship, not just on Sunday, but every day. Listen, you ought to worship God tomorrow. Personally, privately, just you and God. Worship Him. And then, when I give of my resources to the Lord, do you know that that is a form of fruit? It is. Look at verse number 18 of Philippians chapter 4. Paul says, "...but I have all and abound..." Now he's been given a missionary love gift from the Philippian church. "...I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God." Did you notice that? Wow! That's amazing. Look back at verse 17. He's thanking them for it. And I missed this first. Not because I desire a gift, but I desire fruit that may abound to your account. And then he talks about the love gift that is a sweet smell of sacrifice, acceptable, well-pleasing unto God. Do you realize that when we receive an offering on Sunday and we give to the Lord because an Old Testament worshiper never went before God empty-handed. always came into His presence with something in His hand to give to God or her hand to give to God. And so we come to the house of the Lord and we give of our material resources back to the Lord of that which He's given us. And God said that is an act of worship. We miss that. We think that's just the church taking money. It's not. It is God receiving worship from us as we through our giving and giving it back to Him is a sweet smell because I'm honoring God and I'm recognizing His ownership of my life, of all that I am, all that I have. And as I give back a portion of that that He's given to me liberally and generously, God said, that is a sweet smell that's acceptable and well-pleasing unto me. And then out of that flows verse 19, But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. So when I give to God, it's fruit that abounds. Let me give you one more. It's just over one chapter to Colossians chapter 1 and verse number 10. And here it is, our service to the Lord. Our service to the Lord. Serving Him. Do you realize that the fruit that the Lord produces in our lives as we abide in Him is the reward? It's the reward for an abiding life, for a rooted life. Look what he says in verse 10, Acts of service, that you may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. My fruit is every good work when I choose to serve the Lord with my life. And listen, can I tell you, serving God takes place more so outside the walls than it does inside the walls. We don't think that our work for God and our service to the Lord is confined to this building. If that's it, then we're missing out the other six days of the week that I can be bearing fruit for His glory. And maybe it is singing in the choir, or serving in a Sunday school class, or teaching a children's church, or working in the nursery, or being a part of the First Impressions team, or greeting people, or whatever it might be that I do. But what about on Monday when I pray with that co-worker that's broken, or I hand out a track, or I look for someone in need, and I seek to be a blessing in their life. I seek to show the love of Christ. Every good work. It's a rewarded life. And then let's go back to John 15 very quickly, and I'm going to bring it to a close tonight. It is a refined life. A refined life. Sometimes when I talk about the idea of the small orchard of peach trees and pear trees and apple trees and grape vines. We had a cherry tree or two that my grandfather and I And actually, it began with my grandmother's dad, who was the farmer that owned all of that property, and he sectioned off some of it to my grandfather when he married my grandmother back right after World War II. And many of these trees began planted then by my grandfather and his father-in-law, which would be my grandfather, Jake Parsons, that's in heaven. and I had godly great-grandparents that loved the Lord, and they were faithful people. I have a goodly heritage, and I'm so thankful for that. I sure hope I'll leave that kind of heritage to my children. And we had that, and then my grandfather kept that going, and then when I came along and got older, I joined in that with him. And if you're not careful, we romanticized that. It makes it sound so sweet and wonderful. I'm just telling you, sometimes it wasn't very much fun. Because the trees require work. and you're having to prune them. And my granddaddy's up in the tree teaching me how to prune, and guess what my job is? Dragging brush. And when you're 15 years old, you'd much rather be playing with your friends football in the yard than dragging brush with my granddaddy. But there was a process, and my granddaddy always taught me, if you want good fruit, If you want quality fruit, you have to prune the tree. Because what happens is, is all these branches that grow out of the tree, it becomes brushy. And as a result of that, these other branches that are in the tree, some of them growing back into it, some of them that are growing and they're not fruit bearing branches, what they're doing is they're siphoning away the strength of the root. The strength of that root, whether it be the vine, whether it be the apple tree, it's siphoning away strength and it's not going to bear any fruit. It's useless. And so you go in and you prune that out. You take it out of that tree so that that tree has more vitality and the fruit bearing branches get more sap. It gets more strength and the life giving sap. So the fruit is larger, it's juicier, it's better to look at, it's greater quality. And by the way, that's what God's doing in your life. We're refining the tree. And can I tell you, every moment of every day of your life, the heavenly caretaker is pruning the vine. And that means He's pruning on you. He's refining you. It cleanses our lives. Cutting away the branches and removing that that's unproductive that we might be more fruitful. He tells us how He does that. First of all, through the cleansing of the Word. Look at verse number 3. He says, Now you're clean through the Word which I have spoken unto you. Do you realize that the Word of God, whether I'm reading it, hearing it, preached, taught, however, has a cleansing effect upon our lives? If we're not abiding in His Word, then He can't prune us. The Word of God has a cleansing effect, a pruning effect upon our lives. We begin to learn what God desires of our lives and what in our lives shouldn't be there. And as a result of that, we bring our lives in alignment with God. And we begin to take out of our lives that that does not please Him, to put into our lives that that does please Him, that enhances fruitfulness in our life as a cleansing effect. Psalm 119, 9, we've quoted it so many times. Wherewithal shall a young man, we can say any man, cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word. Ephesians 5.26 talks of the washing of the water by the Word. Do you want to be a clean Christian? Do you want to be a fruit-bearing Christian? Do you want to bear fruit to the glory of God? Do you want to refine life? Then as we move into this new year, abide in Him by abiding in His Word because His Word will cleanse you. It will prune you. The seasons of life prune us. James talks about the trials of life. He says, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations or we counter different kinds of trials. God allows us to go through difficulty because that brings about a cleansing effect in our lives. It'll go something like this. We'll go through a difficult time or some whatever. We're maybe having some kind of hardship or whatever, and we'll get up on Sunday morning and we'll look over there at our neighbor and we'll say to ourselves, here I am trying to live for God, I'm trying to do right, I'm trying to serve Him. It doesn't seem like anything's going my way. I don't understand what's going on. God's pruning you. God's bringing to surface things in your life that are not supposed to be there. when we lash out or we respond wrongly or God allows what's in us to come out at times and we see those things in our lives that are hateful to Him or not in alignment with His will. Those are things that God's wanting us to confess and remove from our lives so that He might put into us that that He desires that we might be more fruitful. If we're not careful, we look over there at Joe, and Joe doesn't have a spiritual bone in his body. And I'm not talking about Joe Collins over here. Joe's a good man, okay? I'm not talking about Joe. So everybody's over here looking at Joe, and it's not Joe's fault, okay? But anyway, here's the neighbor pulling out and he got this bass boat on Sunday morning hooked up and the family's getting ready to go to the lake and it looks so wonderful and sweet and it seems like they're just sailing through life and nothing ever goes wrong and what in the world's going on? Well, it might be that Joe doesn't belong to the Lord. He's not connected to the vine and God doesn't prune Joe. Because Joe's not a part of the vine. And this is all of heaven that Joe will ever see. And this is the worst I'm ever going to see it and the worst you're ever going to see it. And God's going to use the seasons of life to prune on us. God's working on you, pruning you, cleansing you, making you productive for Him. And I'm going to give you one last thing and I'm going to close. the chastening hand of the Lord. Just jot down Hebrews chapter 12. The Bible says to despise not the chastening of the Lord. It says the Lord loves them that He chastens. He rebukes every son, daughter that He receives. Do you know that there's times that God's seeking to get our attention and we're hard-headed? Anybody in here that's hard-headed, you don't have to raise your hand. A few of you went ahead and lifted a Bible with you. We're a little hard-headed, you know. And God's got to get our attention. Sometimes we're not listening. God's got to shake up our lives. and bring some little bit more severe trials or whatever it might be in our lives to get our attention. Because there are sinful habits He wants to deal with and attitudes and actions in our lives that are not in alignment with His will. God does this because He loves you. If we had our way, we would destroy ourselves. I'm sure if when my granddaddy and me were up in those trees with our pruning shears and we were cutting stuff, if the tree could feel and it can't, okay? But if it could, if it could, I'm sure if you asked the branches that if the pruning process would hurt, I believe it would probably say, no, I don't want to be cut on to you. It probably wasn't any fun and it won't the caretaker to stop. You know what, there's times that God's pruning on us and we're like, it's not fun, God. I don't like this part. Stop. But see, He knows better than us. And I want to always remind you that in those difficult seasons of life that the caretaker places us in, that our heavenly caretaker places us in to prune us, It's not to hurt us or to make us miserable or to rob us of things in life, but it's to make us more fruitful for Him because He knows what's best for our lives even when we don't understand it. Hebrews tells us that God's chastening, God's pruning in our lives always yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness. So I'm going to boil it down to this. Every one of us as Christians in this room tonight, we're either rooted or we're rootless. We're either fruitful or we're fruitless. We're either productive or we're unproductive. See, branches bear fruit. When we're bearing fruit, we're being and doing what God has designed us to be. when we're unproductive and we're unfruitful, we're not being and doing what God has designed us to be and do. Can I remind us tonight, as we end this year, 2021, that the Christian life is not static. We're either going forward or backward. We're either fruitful or we're not. We're either reaching our potential for Christ. We're either rooted or not. And the secret of fruit bearing, reaching our potential, is not more and more and more activity. but more and more abiding in Him and allowing the activity of our lives to flow out of our walk with God. If I could set something before you as we finish up this year and we begin another, it's this. How is your personal walk with God? Because that's going to tell me whether or not you're rooted. and whether or not you're bearing fruit, and being what God has created you and designed for you to be. And it's not an age matter. A child who's a believer may not bear fruit on the same plane that an adult believer will, but they can still bear fruit. And bearing fruit's not just for older Christians, it's for younger Christians. And serving God's not just for younger Christians, it's for those of us that are maybe further along down the road. There's never a place we stop abiding. And there's never a place we stop being fruitful for the Savior. I just want to ask you the question, and then I'm going to give an invitation. I'm not asking about your wife or your husband. I'm not asking about your children or anybody else in the room. I'm going to ask you this question. I'm praying that the Holy Spirit is asking you this question. How is your walk with God? And then I'm going to ask you to respond to the Lord. Maybe some need to come back to the Lord and bring your life in alignment with Him. Maybe others need to take this matter more seriously. Maybe you need to be more purposeful and intentional in your Christian life. But I can promise you this. If you're not abiding, you're not bearing fruit, and you're not rooted. And somewhere down the line, life's going to blow you away spiritually. It's just going to happen. Let's bow our heads in prayer.