Abiding in the Vine

Well, I don't know about my accent because he was technically American and now it's kind of British, but I don't know. Yeah, well, I'm glad to be here and today I want to share with you a little bit of a friendship with Jesus and his love. So I want to invite you to open your Bible in John 15. It's one of my favorite passages of all Bible. It's so beautiful and I'm going to read as I felt the Holy Spirit ministering my heart and it was so loving and caring.

So it's a little bit, it's a tough passage, but it was so loving and I want to read as I was feeling ministered by him. So Jesus is talking and he's saying like, "I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes. That it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.

Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I am and I in him, he, it is that bear much fruit.

For apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers and the branches are gathered and throw into the fire and burned. If you abide in me and in my word, in my words, abiding you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. By this is my, by this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove, prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.

Abide in my love, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends. For all that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whenever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I commend you, so that you will love one another. Amen.

Yes, Jesus, this is a word for us this morning and I pray and I thank you for your love and I thank you for your sacrifice and I thank you because you call us friends. I pray, Jesus, that in this morning you speak to our hearts and review more about yourself. Amen. So, it's so loving, isn't it? How Jesus calls us friends.

And the first thing that He's calling us and actually commending is to abide in Him. And abide in the Greek, the original Greek, is in the imperative form. So, He is commanding us, commanding us to keep abiding every single day in Him. And this is a constantly, a daily exercise and sometimes it's not that easy. But if we think about a vine and how we are the branches, we understand that actually we cannot leave without Him.

The branch doesn't bear fruit itself, doesn't leave by itself, but we are connected to this precious vine that is constantly nourishing us with food ? He is our source of life. Without Him, there is no life. There is no life without Jesus and we understand this. But sometimes, leaving this, it's complicated because I've realized that sometimes I'm like pushing Him away and trying to leave independently.

Sometimes I am not that connected with the vine and this kills me and this kills my soul. And every single day I have to wake up and choose to abide in Him. And it's interesting that in verse 7, He tells us that if we abide in Him, we can ask whatever we wish. And I was questioning Him about this. And I realized that when we are connected to the vine, we are receiving His nourishment, we are receiving His water, and therefore He is sharing with us who He is and what He wishes.

And actually, when you look to a vine, you're kind of like, consider everything the vine. So the grapes are part of the vine, the branches, everything is connected to the root. And He is our root. And He shares His wishes and His heart with us. And we can be part of this.

This is an invitation to be part of who He is. And of course, He will share things with us and we will like take this as if it is our desire and it becomes our desire. And that's why the God, the Father will grant us our wishes because they are not only our wishes, but they are Jesus' wishes. They are part of this vine. And this is amazing.

And the second point that I love about this is when Jesus says that we are no longer called servants. He is elevating our status in his family and calling us friends. And he's teaching us a new way of being friend because friend is someone who laid down his life. And how are we behaving as his friends? Are we willing to wake up every single day, choose to abide and lay down our life for him?

The reason why he calls us friends, it's because he is sharing his things, the things that are in his heart with us. He says that he doesn't call us servants anymore because servants don't know what their masters are doing, but he is sharing everything that is in God's heart with us. Can you imagine this? Can you conceive all this miracle that the God that created all the nature, all the creation, the animals, us, that created all this world? It's sharing the things that are in his heart with you through Jesus.

And this is a privilege. Every single morning I do this constant exercise of asking God to review something new because he is infinite. He is endless and he has something new to show you and review to you every single morning. We can live our whole lives. I've been a Christian since I was born.

So my mom was baptized by the Holy Spirit when she was pregnant of me. So I joke that I'm like John, you know? Like I received the Holy Spirit and I grew up like Christian and in a very Pentecostal and charismatic church and seeing all the things that the Lord can do. But every single day Lord, the Lord, and Jesus, He amazes me with something new. And when I think I know everything about God, He shows me like this massive field of different flowers and that this is all His nature, like different things that I can taste and I can experiment every single day He has fresh bread for you.

Do not be content by the meal that you ate yesterday. We are constantly hungry and Jesus is this new and fresh bread and He's willing to feed you with something new every single day. And the Lord is saying this about like laying the laying our lives down and I was like wondering like what does it like, what is like to lay down our life for Him and Jesus started talking to me about like how I don't have a life anymore. This is what the Bible said that we are dead and we resurrected in Christ and we live for Him. And this is so, it's amazing how easy our life is now because we don't have to be concerned about anything.

He is our life. He is our vine. We are brinches and we bear the fruits of Him and His work in us and we can live constantly just breathing the Holy Spirit. It's so easy. And sometimes laying down our life is just constantly being faithful. And being faithful is waking up every single day and abiding and choosing Him and choosing to obey Him.

And this can look different for each one of us. For my mother was leaving her job, a really, really great job, and going back home and taking care of us. This was her sacrifice. This was obeying God for her. Was like she was building a really nice career.

She was a federal bank manager. She loved her job. But God called her to lay down her life for him, and she decided to obey. For me was different. For me, I was going to college. I was studying journalism. I had all this path before me, and God called me to follow him to death.

And when you think like following him to death, I would just good think about like being a missionary, you know? And he talked to me about why I am and everything, and I was like, okay, my life is not going to the path. I thought it was going, but I don't have a life anymore, and I want to live the life of Jesus. So I obeyed him. And I don't know what, laying your life for him, I don't know what he's asking you to do, but I can assure you that he is the safest place we could be.

Being part of this massive and beautiful vine is the best place we can live. And what he says that his commandment is, is just loving one another. And I think you guys do a really nice job here, serving the community, serving one another. It's so beautiful to see the heart of God in this place because the heart of God is taking care of orphans and helping the widows and taking care of those who cannot take care for themselves. But we cannot forget that we have to be connected to the vine to bear fruit.

It's quite interesting because I've been reading Isaiah and Jeremiah and in Jeremiah, it's one of my favorite books of the Bible and one of the things that God accuses Israel of doing, it is in Jeremiah 2, I'm reading from verse 12, "Be appalled, O heavens, that this be shocked and utterly desolate," declares the Lord, "for my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and held out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water." We cannot forsake the Lord. We cannot live without being connected to the vine. He is our main reason to breathe.

He is our life. Our lives come from Him. And He is the source of living water. We . We cannot have cisterns outside of Him. The branches they fed from the root of the vine. We cannot live without Him. We cannot live without Him. And you've been listening to all these testimonies and how we've been encountered by this love.

And He is the satisfaction of my life. And when we are hungry, He is the bread of life. When we are thirsty, He is the living water. Jesus is everything we need. He is everything the Father could give us. He is so interesting, like reading the whole Bible and realizing that Jesus is everything.

He is the sacrifice, but He is the God that receives the sacrifice. And He is the High Priest that is like ministering to God. And He is everything we need. And I want to invite you to meditate about this truth, that if you feel thirsty and if you feel hungry, fad Him, fad on Him. I want to say that if you're tired and if you're like exhausted, He is a fresh bread and live in water.

Abide in Him, remain in His love and keep His commandments. This is all that He's asking for us. And obviously if we are trying to do this and live like this, I'll decide of the vine we are going to die. But we can wake up every single morning, just look at God and say to Him, "I choose to abide you." And during the whole day it's like, "I'm abiding in the Lord, I'm abiding in the Lord, I'm abiding in you."

And receive life constantly. Don't be content. Don't fall into contentment of what He's done yesterday. And I'm not saying being not content and like, "Okay, like a spoiled kid, you know, who receives so much and is like, "I want more, I want this new toy." It's not about this, but it's because God is so big, it's so wide, it's so deep, that we can dive in who He is and just receive fresh bread every single day.

He has something new. And because we love Him, we want to know Him better. Our heart has to be in this place. Amen? So, yeah, this is what the Lord shared with me this morning about abiding in Him, about choosing Him, about being fed with this fresh bread and this living water that is Jesus.

He is everything we need. He is everything we can ever ask God. And there is no satisfaction outside of Jesus. Amen?