10/08/2023 Church service

周日礼拜

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 Abiding
John 15:1-8

I celebrated another birthday last week. I am so grateful for all of you who made it so special through your gifts and kind words and acknowledgements.

Life is always about change - and I currently find myself rebelling against it. Some of it I just don’t want. So much I want and need to accomplish during my finite earthly existence.

Some things in life just seem unfair… and it is frustrating when you see you’ve lost the ability to control your situation. Do you every feel like that?

We want to be led by God to do what matters most – but how can He lead us if we aren’t really following? How can we follow if we don’t listen?
How can we listen if we aren’t quiet long enough to hear that still, small voice of the Holy Spirit?

One morning as I got in my car to go to work, 6:55am, I heard the end of a Joel Osteen message. Another sermon was just about to start…

John 16 - “Jesus asked, “Do you finally believe? But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when you will be scattered, each one going his own way, leaving me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

Okay - Jesus has overcome the world. Hallelujah.

“What about me? I’m not Jesus. I’m flesh and blood, and even though I often try my hardest, I still struggle in my Christian life.”

? Why did Jesus say, “Take heart” or “Be of good cheer?”

Because He is about to teach you and me how to live the same way.

Hudson Taylor, Christian Missionary (in the 1800’s)

- formed the China Inland Mission in 1865. At his death in 1905, there were 205 missionary stations with 849 missionaries and 125,000 Chinese Christians in the China Inland Mission.

Hudson struggled to serve the Lord and spread the gospel in China.

However, his struggles were also spiritual. Taylor desperately desired to grow in holiness. But he also knew the frustration of failed attempts at living the abundant life. He prayed. He fasted often. By the summer of 1869, his spiritual condition had reached the critical state.

"Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me. I knew that if only I could abide in Christ all would be well, but I could not.
I began the day with prayer, determined not to take my mind off of Him for a moment; but pressure of duties, sometimes very trying, constant interruptions apt to be so wearing, often caused me to forget Him. Each day brought its register of sin and failure, of lack of power. To will was indeed present with me, but how to perform, I found not."

But as Taylor sought the Lord, an answer came in the form of a letter from a friend, John McCarthy.

McCarthy wrote: "I feel as though the first dawning of a glorious day had risen upon me. I hail it with trembling, yet with trust. I seem to have got to the edge only, but of a sea which is boundless; to have sipped only, but of that which fully satisfies. Christ literally all seems to me now the power, the only power for service; the only ground for unchanging joy. May He lead us into the realization of His unfathomable fullness."

“How then, to have our faith increased? Only by thinking of all that Jesus is, and all He is for us: His life, His death, His work, He Himself as revealed to us in the Word, to be the subject of our constant thoughts. Not a striving to have faith, or to increase our faith, but a looking off to the Faithful One seems all we need; a resting in the Loved One entirely, for time and for eternity. It does not appear to me as anything new, only formerly misapprehended."

"As I read [McCarthy's letter] I saw it all! 'If we believe not, He abideth faithful.'

I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed!) that He had said, 'I will never leave you.'
'Ah, there is rest!' I thought. 'I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I'll strive no more. For has He not promised to abide with me—never to leave me, never to fail me? And, dearie, He never will!

"The sweetest part . . . is the rest which full identification with Christ brings. I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize this: for He, I know, is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me, or how.
That is rather for Him to consider than for me; for in the easiest positions He must give me His grace, and in the most difficult His grace is sufficient."

Jesus said: “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you.

For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.
“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted! When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.

Jesus said, “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches.”

He didn’t say, “YOU are the vine.” Nope. We’re the branches.

What is the responsibility of the Vine? To produce fruit.
The branch is just a channel for the Vine to work through.

We know that the Word tells us in Colossians 2 that we are “complete in Him.”

We are complete - “In Him.” Not apart from Him.”
Jesus said, “Apart from Me you can do nothing.”

I realize that much of my own struggle in life comes as a result of me wanting to have control. When I act out of that selfish desire, I am doing everything under my own power and strength - and it is quite limited.

Just like Hudson Taylor, you and I need to understand our identity in Christ.

We are "in Christ" and Christ is "in us."

Once we received Christ as your Savior, you also receive Him as your very life.


Colossians 3: Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.

The Christian life is Jesus living His life through you by His indwelling Holy Spirit.
It is not something you achieve but receive by the same faith you had at salvation.

You do not have to strive to be victorious - You already are victorious in Christ.
You have everything you need in Christ.

Your sin is exchanged for His righteousness, your weakness for His strength, you inadequacy for His adequacy.

Does this mean we sit back and do nothing? No.
Did Jesus sit back and do nothing?
But Jesus did say, “Apart from the father I can do nothing.“

This is not a call to laziness and passivity - no - it is a call to sweet submission to Christ.
Obedience is necessary—but it is a joy, not a duty.

Paul wrote the Galatians: "I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20).

The answer to the struggles comes with these words from Jesus:
“apart from me you can do nothing.”

Can we surrender control and allow Christ to be expressed through us?
To yield to the Vine that provides the power we require?

1 John 4:17 - For just as He (Jesus) is, so also are we in this world. ( )

Jesus (John 14:30) ” The prince of this world is coming. He has no power over me.”

Jesus showed us a simple explanation for living a victorious, harmonious, peaceful and powerful Christian life - the vine and the branch.

Cause and Affect: The Vine and the Fruit.
That’s us in the middle - the branches. The conduit for Christ’s power.

The Holy Spirit has absolute unlimited power - and as we yield, submit and abide, we are equipped for whatever purposes God has for us.

Stop striving - start arriving. “He is able to do…”
We can do “all things through Christ…”

Hillside United Methodist Church
3739 US 80
Phenix City  AL  36870
United States
Pastor: Mike J Koger

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