Thank you for listening to the media ministry of the Puritan Reformed Presbyterian Church in San Diego, California. If you are blessed by what you hear and would like to help keep our little church going as a ministry partner with your cheerful gifts, please listen for instructions at the end of this message. So we give our attention to John 15 in the Gospels this evening. I'm going to look at verses 4 and 5 with you, but I will be looking at a number of other verses in this chapter, as well as in the Gospel of John. So I just want to give you a heads up that I'm going to encourage you to do a little bit of looking at some other pages, some other sections of the scriptures with me. I encourage you to keep it open for your convenience. But John 15, verses 4 and 5 is our theme text for this evening. Hear now the word of the Lord. Jesus says, abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself 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. Let me read that once more. Abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, 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. Seems to me there's an emphasis here to understand who we are and who we are not. And that we are the branches and we are not the vine. Jesus is the vine. Maybe similarly to we need to understand from Psalm 23 who we are and what that means about us and who we are not. We are the sheep. Jesus is the shepherd. And there's a significant distinction to understand who's who, that we would survive in both scenarios. Here tonight again, Jesus gives us this illustration of the vine and branches. We are the branches. He is the vine. And understanding that and what that needs to look like for our survival is the emphasis here. It's going to be tested in a sense and seen and the fruit that should be produced from something like having this correctly being in the vine. You see, vines, almost like a tree trunk, you know, similarly they can look like that. Some things that get bigger. They provide the nutrients to the branches. They provide the water to the branches. The vine continues if the branch is cut off of the vine. It can grow other vines. But the branch is not so. The branch is cut off of the vine, they die. They cannot live without the vine. Even though their leaves, in terms of photosynthesis, things we might know with modern science, produce something, they can't produce anything of themselves. The branch can't even do anything with those leaves without the vine. If it's cut off, if it's broken off, their life source is simply gone. And so it's vital that they stay grafted into the vine. Christians keep their way and witness with fruitful works by remaining in close, continual, life-flowing fellowship with Jesus Christ through his means of grace. I give that to you tonight as the main idea of our text. Christians keep their way and witness with fruitful works by remaining in close, continual, life-flowing fellowship with Jesus Christ through His means of grace. Again, Jesus says you are the branches and He is the vine. And so to stay alive and produce fruit, abide in Christ. That's the message for you this evening from the text. And as we'll see, it's just the natural thing to say from it, abide in Christ. If you don't abide in Christ, you will dry up and die and produce nothing fruitful. A hose produces no water to irrigate the crops. It must be tapped into the faucet for the source of water. Or you look at that hose lying on the ground, if it's not attached to the faucet and the faucet's not on, it doesn't do anything. It's limp, and it doesn't produce anything for anything else. It's not going to contribute to the growth of the flowers, to the growth of the crops. And so the branches that are not connected to the vine lose their life source flow and thus they lose their ability to provide and produce. They produce nothing. They provide nothing and they die off. Not only do they not produce any fruit, they themselves will wither and die. You can think about that any time you might do some cutting off of the branches, whatever's cut off, and go around the vines here. The leaves that are left, the pieces of those vines that are left on the ground, it's not long before the leaves are all shriveled up. and the branches become brown and they need to be raked and thrown into the garbage. They're doing nothing. They need to be gotten rid of. That's the same if we are severed from the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is the image that Jesus gives in verses 4 and 5 negatively. Most of the text is negatively, though there's a positive impact or frankly a call to taking a positive action here, but most of it is the warning of what could happen negatively. The lack of abiding in Jesus as the source of life and sustenance, salvation, and sanctification. Apart from Jesus, one can do nothing real and not really live because He alone is the source of eternal life and abundant living. And we can be in great danger of kind of forgetting that and think we'll go about our emotions and be more about behaviorism than life in Christ, abiding in and with Christ, and we can stray and be in danger of cutting off the flow from Jesus. Look at verse 1, I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman. I am the true vine, my father is the husbandman. That idea of the father being the husbandman, we'll look at what that means in a little bit in terms of the activity. But we want to see here, Jesus is the vine, we're the branches. If we're not connected to Jesus or if there's something that in some way kind of kinks from the source of Jesus directly, we're going to suffer and we're in danger of Suffocating to death. He is the source of all life. Look with me back to John chapter 1. Verse 4. In him, speaking of Jesus, in him was life and the life was the light of men. Life is in Christ who is divine. The branches don't have any life. The branches only come to life as they're grafted into the vine. Look ahead to chapter 5 verse 26. Jesus says, for as the father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the son to have life in himself. He is the source of life. He says, I am the way, the truth, the life. He is life itself. He is therefore the source of life. We have to be grafted into him, the vine, to have any life, let alone be able to produce any fruit. Look ahead to chapter six with me, verse 57, John six, verse 57. As the Living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." Now before we continue to another section of John, then we'll come back to 15, consider the context of John 6. Many people are following Jesus because they want the free food. That's why lots of people come to churches, for the free food. But he says, you're only following me for the free food. And there's thousands of people following him. And when he starts to say these words about himself, you need to eat my body, you need to drink my blood, you need to sustain yourself on me that this food represents, or you're going to die. Everybody left, like everybody left, except his disciples. So you can see all those folks severed, who knows where they ended up. Hopefully some came back around and trusted in him, but that food and drink they were getting literally wasn't going to sustain them for eternal life. They needed to eat and drink of Christ. He speaks that way about himself metaphorically, but it's truly spiritually that we need to live on Christ. We cannot live without him. Turn to chapter 17. So we'll come back to 15, but look ahead to chapter 17, verse 2. as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. Now this is the high priestly prayer of Jesus to the Father, and he's praying on behalf of his disciples, but all those who would believe on him by their word including you, which includes his prayer for you that you would be sanctified by the truth. God's word is truth. But right here, he's talking about wanting to show his glory, praying for them to be sustained by keeping in union with him before he returns, because he's getting ready to go to the cross. And until he comes back at the last great day, he's praying for the survival of his people, and that is they need to remain in him. As thou hast given him power, the son speaking to the father, as thou hast given him, that is speaking of himself, Jesus, given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. Jesus is the one who gives eternal life to whoever believes in him. He's the vine. He's the way. Anyone comes alive is born again from above. And he's the way that anyone remains alive in him here on earth below. So let me ask you this. Maybe what's a test if you are in the vine? Maybe some practical ideas here. As we think, first of all, the negative aspect of if you are not in the vine, if you're broken off, or if you seem to be, but you're not producing, so there must be something that severed that connection to the vine, you're going to be burned up. You're going to be taken off and burn up and go away. But generally, what might be a good test that you are in a vine? Well, what do vines look like? We can look right out here, a bunch of vines, right? What do vines look like? They have lots of branches. So one thing you can do is look around yourself. Are there other branches? 1 Corinthians 12 says that you can't say that you don't need the other members of the body. And with a different figurative image, all the different members, all the different people of the church are members of one body, Christ is the head. We can't look around and say, I don't need the foot, I don't need that, I'm not interested in body life, I don't care about the church, and say that we are in Christ and that we're abiding in Him. That's not where He abides. He abides with His people. The people are the temple of the Holy Spirit. This is particularly to be seen in corporate worship and formal fellowship on the Lord's Day, in covenant with Christ and one another. But another thing you can think about, are there any branches next to you? Do you see any branches? And, of course, you're going to particularly see them as you gather in the church together. 1 John 4, 20-21 says, you cannot say that you love God the Father if you do not love the brethren. And that love of the brethren is not always easy, remember. Love is hard work. Love is a commitment. Love is a working with one another to develop. And you can't say that you've had it with God's people and don't want to be part of his church and think that you're abiding in the vine in Christ. Also, we should keep in mind that a fellowship in remaining and abiding with others, not in Christ, isn't fellowship with Jesus. Not directly. It shouldn't be sacrificed. So look around you, but look also at yourself to see if you think you are a branch of the vine. More importantly, that you're a branch in the vine of Christ. Look at yourself. Are you lacking fruit? Is there no fruit? Are you waning in fruit? Does the fruit seem to not be ripening? Is it falling off prematurely? Or is it rotten fruit altogether and not fruit of the Spirit? Here's the kind of fruit to look at to know whether you are a branch connected into the vine of Jesus Christ. Because the Spirit of Christ will bear this kind of fruit in its branches. Galatians 5, 22-23. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness. temperance against such there is no law now don't let that rhetorical question cause you to fear or lack assurance of salvation the Lord uses means it could be that you know there's some of those fruits that I'm I mean none of us produce those fruits perfectly or completely but you know there should be a concern that's a couple of those fruits that that barely that barely is identified with me then you should be concerned about that and you should be looking around are you with other branches or are you on an entirely different bush that produces thorns and thistles and rotten, deadly fruit. Because these are the kinds of fruits that we should be expecting to see and looking to grow if we are walking in the Spirit. If we're living in the Spirit and also walking in the Spirit, these are the fruits of the Spirit. And the Spirit is the one who works the life-giving flow of Christ into his branches. Here's another test if you are in the vine or not. 1 John 2.15, do you love the world? Because there it is said, if you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you. And that's impossible to be grafted in Christ if that's the case. If you really don't have interest in the church, if you don't have interest in the fruit of the Spirit, and you really do love the world and the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and pride of life, then you're not likely abiding in the vine. Now, certainly there are degrees of growth of a branch and the kind of fruit it produces. If you watch certain vines over time, they're much more thick and growing, and the branches thereof. But there's still an aspect of overall, if there's just a love of the world, perhaps you're not abiding in the vine. But here's the main thing to really take away. You cannot do it alone. You have no life. You have no strength. You have no sap in yourself. And you and I need to be constantly reminded of that. You might make use of one of the means of grace without the other. You might be about reading the Word of God, but not praying that the Lord would open your eyes to behold what it says, and give us light that you would see the light within. You might be about reading the word and lots of prayer, but almost always in isolation and barely ever show up for the fellowship of believers. Miss the means of grace, such as the Lord's Supper. I mean, there are just a balanced diet, you might say. These different aspects of being grafted into the Lord and growing in Him. And if you rely only on yourself or your version of whatever Jesus says to do, and it's not literally really relying on him, you will dry up and you will die. And whatever fruit you do produce will prove to be counterfeit. One might take a bite and immediately spit it out. If they were to swallow it, they'd likely soon be vomiting it out. Just as Christ warns in Revelation, he might vomit an entire church out of his body if they aren't really growing in grace with him. Are you seeking to be independent or trusting in the Lord alone? Remember this morning's sermon text, Psalm 71 verse 1, O Lord, in thee I place my trust. And heed the warning of verses 2 and 6 in our text, back in John 15, verse 2. Heed the warning of Jesus as well. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. Now who's the he? The husbandman. Who's that? The Father. God the Father, verse 1. If the branches in the vine of Christ are not bearing fruit, God the Father will break them off. Because they're already obviously not connected in some way. 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. Look also at 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. You know, the ultimate concern and warning is, make sure you really abide in Christ. Because if you're not, at the end, there will be a reckoning. there will be a removal of the dead branches. And that's the greatest concern here. We could be faking it, Christians. We could be keeping up appearances. We could be looking like we're tapped in, but really not. I mean, there's a warning in verse two that the Father may break you off. You ever see that? You go around trees, and it's not so much just the pruning of living vines, but there's an aspect of, oh, that branch is dead. It's like not safe. We've got to cut that thing off. It's going to fall in a storm, hit somebody on the head. That happened to me once. Rachel can tell you about it. at a lake in Pennsylvania when a storm came through. And the branches that are dead, they can't handle anything. They'll break off. They could hurt somebody. And there's a point where they just need to be cut off. There's no point in even keeping the dead branch on the vine. It's not producing. It's clearly dead. There's no reason to keep it there. We need to take it off. But whether it's taken off because it's not connected to the vine, though it's hanging there, or it has already fallen off, the end of it is to be burned forever in hell. This is the warning Jesus is giving us. We want to make sure that we truly have his life in us. And that's maintained by abiding in him. It's the means he uses. Now by his grace, he enables us to respond and abide in him. But he uses these kinds of warnings and scriptures to be the means of that happening. You could be faking it, and you'll be cut off, even from spiritual samples. People like to come and dabble and take little tastes, and it's a common operation of the spirit, as our standards speak of, but it isn't actually a saving movement of the spirit. And there's some benefit, and people like the word, especially the ones that are the happy ones, and maybe just some of the Proverbs, not all of them, but maybe some about this or that. But we actually don't like a lot of it. We kind of dabble with church and pretend we love Jesus, but at the end of the day, when we hear him say something we don't like, we're like the masses in John 6, we're gone. When we actually hear something that convicts us, that challenges us, without idols in our life, we're gone. That's the danger. We're not necessarily truly abiding. That being said, there is an encouragement in verse 2, not just a warning, but also an encouragement. The pruning produces more growth by strengthening the link to the vine. So there is an aspect of pruning vines. It's not severing them off at the meeting of the vine and the branch. It's a pruning back of the vine, which helps it grow and strengthen and grow better and come back the next season and produce more fruit. So we don't want to think that all difficult things and feelings and experiences or the cutting by the Lord is always a severing of the entire branch. It's cutting back the branch to produce more. It's really making it live more off the vine and grow. Because abiding in Christ is the way you will stay fresh and lively and grow holy, useful fruit. If you don't abide in Christ, you will dry up and die and produce nothing fruitful. But by abiding in Christ, you will stay fresh and lively and grow holy, useful fruit. If you lose your Wi-Fi connection in our day, You have no access to the internet, and let's rule out your cell phones and go just with your computers for now, or laptops especially, but even your phones if your cellular access is limited, and all of the sudden you have no access to your life, right? Especially now with clouds and just about everything that's out there somewhere. You lose Wi-Fi access, you lose access to everything else. You lose access to your life, so to speak. You need to stay connected to your life in Jesus Christ. Abide. Abide. And this is the positive aspect of what Jesus is saying. Abide. Abide. If you don't abide, you're gone. Abide. Abide and have life and grow. Abide. The Greek for abide, you could translate it as remain or stay. It's interesting to look at the Portuguese and the Spanish, similar words. Forgive my mispronunciation, I'm sure, but permanecer or permanecer. And of course, what do you see there? The root of our English word permanency. That is, Christ is calling upon you to have a constant communing with him by the means he provides. He wants you to be involved in regular relations, which is what a real relationship has. Verse four, you abide in me, I in you. Verse five, the one who is abiding in me. Abiding is how you suck the sap of the Savior, not only for salvation, but working out your salvation by producing light, by producing salt. How do you abide? I'd like to make some suggestions for you, mostly from the text. Okay, I get the concept of abiding. Yeah, I have to stay in Christ, I have to remain in Christ, I have to abide in Christ. I get it. If I don't, I can't survive, I won't produce fruit. Okay, but let's think about, all right, how are we gonna do that? How are we gonna actually do that? Yes, by God's grace and his work and his spirit. How are you and I going to abide in Christ? Well, the first thing I would say is fellowship of the spirit. We're told elsewhere, don't quench the spirit, don't grieve the spirit. The life of Christ is by the spirit that fills, regenerates, sanctifies. It isn't that we can lose our salvation, but again, Jesus uses these illustrations, this idea as a means of graceful maintenance. And those who truly have ears to hear what the Spirit has to say, we're going to respond to that. He's going to make use of it that we do carefully abide. Those who are not going to be with the Lord or truly not with the Lord, they're not listening. They're already like, what's for dinner? What's on TV tonight? We don't need to fear that this is going to change somebody and they can lose their salvation. This is a means of how the Lord helps you work out your salvation, with fear and trembling, knowing it's His work within you. But fellowship in the Spirit, so that you abide, and again, as the temple of the Holy Spirit, as the church. Psalm 91 verse 1, He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." And that's the sense of just running to the Lord and staying close to the Lord and relying on the Lord and taking refuge in the Lord. Fellowship in the Spirit, who is our counselor and comforter, whom we are to listen to, as we know from Revelation, who is our counselor And prayer, very much related. How are we going to abide prayer? Nothing I share with you tonight is going to be so, wow, I never thought of that before. It's just you and I need to be reminded about these things. And we neglect these things, and we're in danger of being cut off. Prayer, talking with the Father through the Son who mediates for you. Fellowship fills up, and we know how that is in general. We need to have talking with God. That's what prayer is. And the less we talk with God in our own personal time, as a family, in fellowship with others, the less abiding is there, and therefore the less fruit. And I see in the broader evangelical community, very often there's less inclination even to pray to thank the Lord for a meal. Such a simple thing, whether you eat or drink, whatsoever you do, do all the glory of God. And yet the idea to stop and pray, especially if it's in a public setting, is surprisingly limited And it's not surprising to me often that the fruit seen in such communities is also limited. Prayer. But let's go back to ourselves, particularly. How much time are we giving in prayer? And is it only in the 11th hour? The Lord can answer those prayers, but the abiding fellowship isn't the same, right? If you only have someone knock on your door when they need something and they never seem to want to talk to you when they seem to have what they need, it's not really the same kind of fellowship, is it? And it's not the same kind of relations that you can provide if you have a friendship growing and fellowship of prayer. Sing the Psalms. The Word of God, we'll look at that more later. But how to abide with the Lord? Sing the Psalms. God wrote them. They are about Jesus, Luke 24, 44. By the way, remember that when people say, I don't want to sing the Psalms, they don't say anything about Jesus. That's not what Jesus says. Jesus says in Luke 24, 44 that all the Psalms are written about Jesus, as well as the Law of Moses and the prophets. Oh, we gotta learn and grow and feed ourselves with how to see and understand that and see it unpacked and given especially to us in the New Testament, how that is. Remember, the Psalms are the number one quoted Old Testament scripture in the New Testament about Jesus Christ. Psalm 110 in particular, according to R.C. Sproul. Sing the Psalms, Psalm 71 this morning. Lord, my only hope and confidence is placed in you alone. Give yourselves to those things. Let them be your words for you for prayer. And when you sing God's word, you fill your body even as you breathe them out spiritually. Communion. taking of communion together. Now, naturally, so much of this should be particularly applied in the communion of the saints and corporate worship on the Lord's Day. But think about communion in particular, the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And I share with you this small phrase that I will often speak in preparing us for the Lord's Supper, which I borrow from directories of worship, namely our own Westminster Standards and the old directory of public worship. And here's one of the phrases. Our Lord Jesus Christ instituted the Lord's Supper as an ordinance to be observed by his church until he comes again to signify our abiding spiritual union with him. As we partake together in the supper, we are abiding in him and together all the branches in and around the vine. Now Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 11, you might be partaking of the Lord's Supper in a way that will bring down judgment on you rather than fellowship and growth. But even that is to remind you to repent and change and partake. The Lord's Supper touches your senses to help sensitize your soul by the spirit and his word. It is itself communal. It is itself an expression of our abiding union with Jesus Christ, one on one and together as the brines of him, the vines, excuse me, the branches of him, the one vine. How else can you abide in the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, I've been touching on it, but I wanna say it a little bit more, fellowship in the church and in worship. I give you here, thinking of what's already been said, Psalm 61 verses 4 to 7. I will abide in thy tabernacle forever. I will trust in the covert of thy wings, say law. For thou, O God, hast heard my vows. Thou hast given me the heritage of those that fear thy name. Thou wilt prolong the king's life and his years as many generations he shall abide before God forever. O prepare mercy and truth which may preserve him." This abiding in the tabernacle, the precursor to the temple, the idea of the corporate worship of God with his people according to what he has said, how he wants to be worshipped, there's an abiding aspect of that. There's a fellowship, and I would argue the main means of abiding fellowship. Everything else is preparing for that, especially as it's with the rest of the branches. Last thing I'd like to list for you of the way to abide, and actually I've saved the best of the most important and the most relevant in the text itself for last. And again, it's no surprise, but it is the kind of thing we so easily neglect. And we wonder why we're not producing more fruit and not growing in sanctification. Now again, praying over it, all these other things, but it's simply God's word. The primary way we abide in the Lord is the way He reveals Himself to us. His Word. John 1 verse 1. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was God. And that is Jesus it's speaking about. He is the Word. First of all, read God's Word to abide in Jesus. Look what He says in verse 3 and 7. Now ye are clean through the Word which I have spoken unto you. Verse 7, if ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. We need his word to cleanse us, and we need his word abiding in us if we are to abide in him. You might say it's like when we've gotten some good advice from someone or, you know, I don't remember exactly what you said, but it's kind of lingering and I want to get that back in the front of my brain and be thinking and applying it better. What's that thing you said? What's that quote you made? And we want to be having the voice of the Lord Jesus in our heart and mind as we have read his word and we keep going back to it. I mean, unless you have the Gospel of John memorized alone, let alone the whole Bible. Anyone? I don't think, right? And even though we've read something, how quickly in two days? Oh, yeah, I was going to memorize that and I plumb forgot. Or I've been studying it, but now I forgot some of what it said. Well, what's the answer? Keep going back to it. Keep coming back for your feeding, so to speak, our feeding on the Lord's Day. You know, we just need to keep coming back. We may not remember all the details, but it feeds us. I want to remind you of Psalm 119, 105 again that we looked at last week. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. The point of the text I gave you was this. God's word guides your present situation and your future destination. and direction. And the sermon point was this, walk safely in the light of God's word and Jesus is the light and he is the word. Now it isn't just that you need to be reading and hearing God's word and especially preached. We know our larger catechism emphasizes especially the preaching of God's word that is a means of salvation and encourage you to be listening to sermons throughout the week And certainly, I'm not trying to say they just need to be from this church. There's many good sermons. There's many good resources. I encourage you to think about, be careful how much you might listen to something else. By the way, I make good use of different podcasts, not all Christians, some very good learning things. But I'm always careful to primarily give myself to podcasts and listening to sermons, refnet.fm with Ligonier, things that will just, or the local Christian radio, especially 9, 10 AM, just Well, I need to keep getting that Word. I just need that to keep me abiding close to Christ. But it isn't just the reading of it. It's the doing of it. It's the doing of God's Word that is also how you abide with Him. Verses 9-12, Jesus says this very thing. Verse 9, as the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. And we know from elsewhere that keeping of his commandments is to love him. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you." So you even see again that loving one another probably should have thought to put that in the section on the communion of the saints. But notice overall this idea of keeping his commands is not only an expression of God's love, but it's your expression of your love for God. There is an abiding a growing in the relationship by keeping His commands. So one could say if you are not interested in keeping the commands of Christ, you don't love Him, and you're not abiding in Him. And you're going to die outside of Him. It's just simply that simple. I give you also the same writer, 1 John 2, verses 24 and 27 to 28. Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you. And that translation remain is the same Greek word for abide. So if God's word that you've heard abides in you, that's how you'll abide. He goes on to say, ye also shall continue in the Son. How are you going to continue in your abiding in the Son? By having his word abiding in you. And in the Father you'll continue. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you, but as the same anointing teaching you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. And now, little children, abide in him, that when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming. How are you gonna recognize Jesus at his coming, abiding in his word and knows what he is and what he's like and what his coming back's gonna be like? And you're watching for him and anticipating it is because his word that he speaks and the spirit has written to give to you and works within you is his means. The primary means of abiding in Jesus is having his word abiding in you. in the hearing of it and in the doing of it. Remembering that James 1, 22 to 23 says, be a doer of the word, not a hearer only deceiving yourself. That's another test. Are you a doer of the word? If not, you're probably not really a hearer of it. You're not likely abiding with Jesus. This is just tests. Now I want to encourage you to remember what you saw by mistake this morning when we were getting ready to watch the Sabbath class video with Westminster Seminary, California. And this advertisement came on. And I said, oh, I won't use it in a sermon now. But I couldn't resist. It seemed apropos. And frankly, you just saw it. So it might be more effective to think about it here. But there's that elderly lady in the kayak advertisement, which is entitled, Don't Do It Yourself. That's the name of the advertisement. I'm going to kind of keep it general in terms of how I speak about some of it. I'm not quoting at all. But I feel like I should be mentioning who wrote the ad. But if you're not familiar, it's one of those different companies where you can be searching all these different things online to try to find your best deal and your best opportunity for a plane ticket, or for the car rental, or for a hotel rental, that kind of thing. And she's so mad at me. I'm not going to use that. I don't need that. as she talks to her rooster in the barn, stuffing herself with hay. I don't need that. And she's angry and she says she would not use a search engine company to find a vacation spot. Why would I use that? I like doing things myself, she says. I can't trust anything else to do the job right, she says, as she's marching over to the scarecrow pole and mounts herself up upon it, draping her arms over its rail to be her own scarecrow in the middle of a cornfield and then howls at the crows while they fly over her. Don't do it yourself. Maybe she scared the crows for a bit. But they'll be back, and she can't hang there and scream forever, and she can't take them all on herself. And she won't till the garden and produce fruit like that. Meanwhile, her only fruit is her nasty scowl and isolation, hanging there on a pole, screaming into an old, empty cornfield with no one listening. Christ needs to have hung on the pole for you and scream with his mighty voice at the demons flying over tormenting you and save you from yourself and your loneliness and trying to do it all alone. You'll starve there. You'll dehydrate. You'll die. And you won't recognize that you're not even living at the moment. You won't sanctify yourself on your own. And you won't feed the faith of your brethren like that, nor witness to the world. You need to abide in Jesus as explained above. And here's one last nugget from the text I want to draw to your attention. The word abide, remain, stay, be permanent in relations, making use of all those things of the how. The word abide in verses four through ten occurs seven times. Abide, abide, abide. Verses 4 and 10, the word abide is used twice. And the word abide is used once in each of verses 5 through 7. Seven times. But even this, verse 11, remain. And that is the same Greek root as the other verses, so you could argue eight times. Clearly, the main idea is to remain in Christ, to stay in Jesus. to walk in the spirit of Christ, praying without ceasing, to be quickened according to God's word, and to fellowship with Christ's body in an ongoing relational aspect of what a relationship is. Simply put, what Christ the Vine emphasizes to you, the branches, is this, abide in me. Thus, beloved, have ears to hear and abide in Christ. That's the message for you this evening. You might recall what we read in God's providence for our reading through the scriptures earlier. Same idea with the fig tree. Bear fruit. How is that fruit going to be born? By being born again. How are you born again? By the Holy Spirit from above. And how do you grow in grace? By the Holy Spirit producing his fruit in you. And that fruit comes from the spirit of Christ, from Christ himself. The word wrote, the spirit wrote the word. He helps you know and love the word, which is all about Christ. Abide in Christ. Apart from him, you can do nothing, he says. and you'll die. Abiding in Him, remaining in Him, you can produce much fruit. Let us pray. Oh Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for this call upon us to recognize the way that you will help us abide in you. I pray if there be any here tonight who are not abiding in you truly, that you convict them and you convert them and you save their souls and you cause them to be feeding on you the bread of life, the manna from heaven, growing in you who give the water of life by the Holy Spirit. You who are the way, the truth, the light, the life, the resurrection. And we ask, O Lord God, that you would bless us to make use of the means of grace, of prayer, of the communion of saints, of corporate worship, and especially by giving ourselves to your Word in our hearts, hearing it, hearing it preached and taught to understand it, and doing it. making application of it, that we would abide in you and more deeply in fellowship, growing closer to you. And indeed, purge we the branches, Lord, but protect us from having to be cut off. And let us indeed grow, sucking the sap of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Lord, bless us to produce much fruit, keeping with repentance. and the fruit that will draw the attention of the world to you and be a blessed fellowship and sustenance to our brethren, let alone ourselves. Oh Lord, help us by this use right now. May we be truly abiding in you right now and may we be seeking to grow in how we abide with you. Let us be concerned not just to try not to do some bad fruit. Let us be concerned to grow in producing holy, godly fruit for your glory and our good. And we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and all your people said, amen. Thanks again for listening to the media ministry of the Puritan Reformed Presbyterian Church in San Diego, California. If you are blessed by our sermons and would like to help keep our little church going as a ministry partner with your cheerful gifts, please click on the Give button at the top of any of our sermon audio pages to support us with your online donation. 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