Designed to Flourish!

Sermon Summary:

In this powerful Palm Sunday reflection, we explore one of Jesus’ most radical declarations: ‘I am the true vine.’ While this statement may sound gentle to our modern ears, it represented a revolutionary shift in first-century Jewish understanding. The imagery of the vine was deeply woven into Israel’s national identity—they believed themselves to be God’s chosen vine planted in the promised land. Yet Jesus boldly proclaimed that He, not the nation of Israel, is the true vine, and that connection to God now comes exclusively through relationship with Him. This teaching confronts us with a profound truth: Christianity is not primarily about reflecting on doctrines or following religious rituals, but about being attached to a person—Jesus Christ Himself. The heart of our faith is this divine connection, this abiding relationship where His life flows through us like sap through branches. When we remain in Him, something miraculous happens: we bear fruit. Not the fruit of our own striving or productivity, but the supernatural fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These qualities are not natural equipment we’re born with; they’re the evidence of Christ’s transforming work within us. As we walk with Jesus daily, reading His Word, praying, and allowing Him to prune away what hinders our growth, we discover the difference between merely being productive and truly being fruitful. We were designed to flourish in connection with our Creator, and only through abiding in Christ can we fulfill God’s original design for our lives.

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Sermon Points:

THEOLOGY: This section of John is rich in theological truth and imagery. Jesus used the familiar imagery of the vine/vineyard to convey the profound theological truth that He is now The True Vine and His Father is the Divine Gardener!

OLD TESTAMENT CONTEXT: For background on this prophetic claim from Jesus – refer to passages like: Psalm 80:8-16; Isaiah 5:1-7; 27:2-6; Jeremiah 2:21; Ezekiel 15; 19:10-14; Hosea 10:1.

INAUGURATED ESCHATOLOGY: Jesus established The Age to Come on earth. In this new era, people no longer are called to join Israel in its privileged position —— but all people are invited to join the new Messianic Community created by Jesus Himself!

PERSONAL: This text is rich in personal application for all followers of Jesus.

What does it mean to be truly human?

Our deepest human needs regarding attachment are met in our life with Jesus!

How can we answer the fundamental desire to be productive?

In our life with Jesus, we can discover the beauty of a fruitful life.

Jesus offers us the only path to fulfill God’s original design for us.

Key Takeaways:

• Jesus’s claim “I am the true vine” was one of His most radical statements, challenging Jewish identity that viewed Israel as God’s vine
• Christianity is fundamentally about relationship with a person (Jesus), not just reflecting on truth or behaving correctly
• Human beings are created with souls bearing God’s thumbprint, with a deep longing for connection with their Creator
• There is a crucial difference between being productive and being fruitful; productivity focuses on accomplishments, while fruitfulness reveals connection to the vine
• Spiritual fruit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control) is not natural human equipment but comes from abiding in Jesus
• Remaining in Christ means daily walking with Him, reading Scripture, praying, and allowing Him to transform us from the inside out
• God prunes believers for their good and His glory, knowing exactly how to cultivate spiritual growth
• Prayers are answered when we abide closely enough to Jesus that His will becomes our will
• Following the Jesus way leads to flourishing rather than famishing

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Scripture References:

Sermon Transcript:

All right. Wow. What a great. What a great Palm Sunday. Welcome to Palm Sunday at First Baptist Arlington.

We’re glad you’re here today and grateful for this season of the year. Obviously, we begin the week that we call Holy today, so we’ll join hands with believers all over the world and celebrate Holy Week. And we’ll make our way to Easter Sunday. As Tanner said, we’ll gather here for Good Friday at 6:30 for a very powerful time of worship. And I hope you’ll be here for that.

So with that said, our theme for this season, the Lenten Easter season, is the good Shepherd. And what we’ve been doing is in our time of worship together on Sunday mornings, what we’ve been doing in our pastor’s Bible study on Wednesdays, what we’ve been doing in our daily Bible readings, we have been using the Gospel of John to guide us. And we’ll continue to read through John till this season ends. I will be teaching through John this entire year in the pastor’s Bible study because we’re going verse by verse. It’ll take a while.

But what’s happened on Sunday mornings is we have been learning together about Jesus being the good shepherd and how is he shepherding us. And we have primarily focused on the I am statements in. In the Gospel of John. We haven’t covered all of them. There are seven of them where Jesus says, I am the bread of life, I am the light of the world.

I am the door to the sheepfold. I am the good shepherd, I’m the resurrection and the life. I’m the way, the truth and the life. And today we’re going to look at the last one in John’s gospel. And that is, I am the true vine.

And as we have made our way through those on Sunday mornings, we are learning how he is shepherding us in our lives as followers of Jesus. So today we will spend time gathered around a very radical statement from Jesus that doesn’t sound that radical to our ears. I’m the true vine. But it’s one of the most radical things he ever said in his earthly ministry. And we’ll look at that here in just a minute.

But as we have been focusing on Jesus being the good shepherd, we have Each Sunday morning in this season, taking the time to read the 23rd Psalm out loud together. So I want to invite you to do that with me. Psalm 23. We have been using the Authorized Version, sometimes known as the King James Version. So we’ll put it on the screen for you and we can read that out loud together.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. As I’ve shared with you all already, it’s my hope that that is not just a passage of scripture that we read together, but it’s actually your testimony that’s what we desire. So with that said, let’s look at our text for today. If you have your copy of the New Testament, John 15 will serve as our text. And I’ve entitled the message designed to flourish when you come to John 15 in the story.

We are in the final week of the life of Jesus. As matter of fact, when we get to John 15, we’re on the final night of the earthly life of Jesus. It’s Thursday evening in Jerusalem and this has been a very pivotal week for Jesus. As a matter of fact, this has been a pivotal day for Jesus. Thursday.

Jesus has washed the disciples feet. He has celebrated the Passover. He’s instituted what you and I today call the Lord’s Supper. Judas has left and gone out into the night.

Peter has declared that he would die for Jesus. And Jesus tells him, before this night is over, you’ll deny you even knew me. And so this is, this has been a very pivotal, jam packed evening for Jesus. It also was filled with teachings from Jesus. So the good news is we have an eyewitness who was there, John.

And he has recorded much of what Jesus said that night for us. And we’re grateful for that. This is one of the passages that John’s recorded for us. So I want us to look at John 15 and you know it’s our custom to stand and honor the Lord Jesus when we have a reading of the Gospel. So let’s stand if you’re able, and hear these words from the Gospel of John.

I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. It sounds a little odd. That statement does a little out of context.

But if you were reading this in Greek, you would know that the word clean is connected to that word prune. They’re very similar words in Greek, so it’s kind of a play on words. And it would make much more sense in the Greek text. Verse 4. Remain in me, as I also remain in you.

No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit apart from me.

You can do nothing if you do not remain in me. You are like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you. Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

This is to my Father’s glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I’ve kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I’ve told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

My command is this. Love each other as I’ve loved you. Greater love has no one than this to lay down one’s life for one’s. Friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.

I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I’ve called you friends. For everything that I’ve learned from my Father, I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit and fruit that will last. And so that whatever you ask in my name, the Father will give you.

This is my command. Love each other. Thank you. May be seated?

Okay, y’, all, there’s just too much in this text to talk about this morning. Okay? I can’t cover all of it. It is just full of all kinds of insight. I just wanted to read that section for you and give you a chance to spend some time with it yourself.

So here’s what I’d like to do. I want to just focus on a small part of this text. But before I do that, let me just make sure that I lay the groundwork. So let’s start with the theology of this text. Because this section of John is just rich in theological truth and imagery.

There’s going to be an extended metaphor in this text. And so Jesus used this familiar imagery of the vine, the vineyard, if you will, to convey the profound theological truth that he is now the true vine and his father is the divine gardener. And as I mentioned earlier, when we read that phrase, I am the true vine. That does not sound at all controversial to us. It, it sounds very normative.

It sounds like Jesus just giving us some practical instruction, which he is doing. And we’ll talk about that in a minute. But what I would submit to you all today is this was perhaps one of the most radical things he ever said during his earthly ministry. The reason for that is that in the Jewish understanding of their identity, woven into the theological DNA, the national identity of Judaism at this point in history, they all believed that Israel was the vine and God had planted Israel as a vine in what you and I today would call the Promised land. And so the idea that if you wanted to be a part of what God was doing, according to their understanding, theologically, their self identity as Jews, if you wanted to be in on what God was doing, then you had to join Israel.

It is divine. And as a matter of fact, we don’t know everything about the temple that was built by Zerubbabel and it was expanded upon by King Herod, the temple that was standing in the day of Jesus, because the Romans burned it to the ground and pillaged Jerusalem in AD 70. So we don’t know everything, but we do have some descriptions of that temple that would have been standing when Jesus was alive. It was the most prominent structure in all of Israel. And we do know that there were places in the temple where gold was used decoratively.

We don’t know exactly how much. It depends on which particular author you would agree with. Josephus paints an incredible portrait, if you will, of the temple in Jerusalem at this time. But other writers, even Tacitus, Roman writers, written about it. But here’s what we think to be true, that there were places where the temple was adorned with some type of gold decoration.

But the principal one, according to what some people have told us, is there was a huge vine adorned the entry to the holy place, and it fell down the columns that supported the holy place. And so that imagery was on display at the temple. But even more importantly than that, it was woven into the fabric of the identity of the Jews. They believed they were the vine. Now why do they believe that?

Well, because of what the, the Bible said. You and I would refer to it as the Old Testament, the Old Testament context, if you will. I just placed some, some passages in your outline today. You can go look them up and read them and you’ll see why the Jews had this view of themselves. Psalm 80, for example, the poem in Isaiah 5, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, as a matter of fact.

Let me just, let me just read a little bit from Psalm 80. Psalm 80, verse 8 says, you transplanted a vine from Egypt. You drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches.

The branches reached as far as the sea, its shoots as far as the river. So the psalmist is saying, all over the holy land is this vine, and that vine is Israel. And so it was planted by God, watered by God, nurtured by God, and it now offers life to all the nations. And then Jesus comes along and he confronts that particular view as the Messiah and Jesus, in his entire ministry, particularly as John portrays it, Jesus is going to engage rituals, traditions, institutions of Judaism and demonstrate his messianic fulfillment of all of them. This is one example.

So what do we say about it? Well, I would call it inaugurated eschatology. You know, that is one of my convictions about the teaching of the New Testament. Jesus established the age to come on earth. It’s not fully consummated yet.

Obviously, we still have to deal with this present evil age, but the age to come is already here. The kingdom of God has been established by Jesus on earth. Here’s what’s radical that Jesus taught them. In this new era, people are no longer called to join Israel in its privileged position. But all people are invited now to join this new messianic community created by Jesus himself.

That’s the radical teaching. This is what Jesus did over and over. It is prophecy and fulfillment. It is Jesus embracing the prophecies of the Messiah and fulfilling them. And he did it over and over.

For example, in John 2, he went into the temple and he cleansed it. He established his authority over the priesthood, the temple in Jerusalem, and drove people out of the temple. Do you remember that story? And they said, who are you? And by what authority do you do these things?

And Jesus says, I’ll tell you what, this temple, I’ll destroy it. I mean, it’ll be destroyed in three days. I’ll rebuild it. And they were like this. This has taken decades to build, and you’re going to rebuild it in three days.

And then Jesus healed on the Sabbath and established himself as Lord of the Sabbath. So early in his ministry, he establishes himself as the Lord over the temple and the Lord over the Sabbath. Now, if you want to strike at the heart of first century Israel, why don’t you deal with the temple and the Sabbath, which is what Jesus did. Jesus addressed the empty ritualism of Judaism in the first century. The miracle of the wedding at Cana.

He took those stone jars. They weren’t filled with drinking water, they were filled with purification water. And Jesus turned them into wine and gave them to the people to drink, symbolizing the joy that he was bringing and the emptiness of the ritual, if you will. Jesus stood at one of the passovers celebrating it in Capernaum. And he said, God gave Moses manna in the wilderness.

I’m the bread that’s come down from heaven. Eat this bread, you’ll never be hungry again. Jesus stood at the feast of the Purification, when all that water was being poured out and said, are you still thirsty? Well, I’m the water of life. And now y’, all, this is the most radical one.

Jesus says, I am the new vine. I’m the true. Fine. If you want to be a part of God’s work on this earth, you don’t join Israel any longer. You join me.

You may remember old Nicodemus came to see Jesus at night. Remember that story we talked about in our Bible study on Wednesday? And Nicodemus said, he’s a rabbi, he was a Pharisee, he was a teacher. And he said to Jesus, obviously you’ve come from God. Nobody could do the things you’re doing unless you came from God.

And Jesus said, you need to be born again if you want to see the kingdom of God. This is not John Doe. This is Nicodemus. As far as Nicodemus knew, he was in charge of the kingdom of God. And Jesus basically said to him, you’re on the outside looking in.

If you want to be in the kingdom of God, you’ve got to get attached to me, not to Israel. Then he makes it even more explicit in this text. I am the true vine. If you want to be in on what God is doing, then you’ve got to join me. These are Radical teachings in the first century.

Powerful insight from Jesus. So let’s just say this text is full of theological truth. Okay? But here’s what I really want to do this morning. I want us to bring this down to a more personal level.

Can we do that? I want to talk about what this really means to me and you in our everyday life, because this text to me is rich in personal application. I don’t want you to miss it. For all of us who follow Jesus, there’s so much to say from this text. There’s so much I could teach on today.

But this is where I really want to focus my attention. It’s on the personal application about your relationship with Jesus. Because, you see, to be a Christian and to live as a Christian doesn’t mean that we simply reflect on truth. We do that. But the heart of Christianity, y’, all, is a relationship with a person, and we cannot miss that.

And that’s what Jesus is teaching in this text. In fact, Jesus is addressing what it actually just means to be a human being. So let’s start with that. What does it mean to be truly human? I think that’s a profound question right now because we live in an era.

I don’t know if y’ all have heard of this yet or not, but there’s this thing going around called artificial intelligence. Have y’ all heard of it? This AI thing? Have you heard of it? ChatGPT.

All the artificial intelligence, this technology that’s developing at a very rapid rate. I don’t know if you saw this or not this week, but I saw the first lady was hosting a group in the East Room at the White House, and she’s. I watched the video. She’s walking down the red carpet to that room. And adjacent to her, walking next to her is a humanoid robot built here in the United States.

Walking with her stride per stride. They get into the room, and she pauses in front of the table where she was going to be seated. The humanoid turned and went around the table, came all the way around. Any of y’ all see it? Came all the way around to the front and then looked at the crowd and introduced itself.

And this humanoid just began speaking in Perfect English. I’m figure 03. I was invented here in the United States and built here and welcomed everybody to the event in 10 different languages and basically representing a technology that is at work right now crafting these kinds of entities that supposedly are supposed to act like humans, do things that humans do. Now, that has led people, in my world, those of us who are Theologians who are pastors who deal with the things that are spiritual. To ask the question then, what does it mean to be human?

What are the things that only human beings do when we look at all this technology and the continued development, if you will, of this robotic technology in particular? So I’ve given a lot of thought to that. There’s a lot I could say about it today. A lot you could probably add to it as well. You think about being a human.

A human being is conscious. A human being is aware of its own existence. We have this interesting gift of awareness, if you will. We’re curious because of the fact that we’re conscious. And here’s the thing about humanity.

Human beings have intrinsic value even if we don’t do anything. You don’t have to do anything to be valuable as a human being. Just by being, you’re intrinsically valuable. You know why? Because God has created us in his image.

And God has given to us something that no one else in creation has, no other part of creation has, and no invention that human beings will ever invent will ever have. He has given us this mysterious gift. We have a hard time knowing what to call it. It’s hard to identify, it’s hard to define. But we all have it.

Perhaps the best way to put it is we have this thing called the soul.

It’s deep inside of every one of you. And if you evaluate it enough, and you think about it enough, and you research it enough, here’s what you’ll discover. Inside of every human being is a soul. And if you look closely enough, it’ll bear the thumbprint of God himself. Because God has created that soul.

He has breathed into me and you the breath of life. No one else has it. And I’ve watched it play out across the lives of human beings that I’ve known all of my life. You know, human beings are interesting. We ponder.

You ever notice that? We ponder. You know, the rest of creation doesn’t ponder. AI doesn’t ponder. We do, but we can’t help it.

You know, for about 30 years, we had weenie dogs. I love weenie dogs. I’m just telling y’, all, they’re the coolest dogs on the planet. They think they’re Doberman. That’s what I love about them.

They have territory. Do not mess with a weenie dog. I’m just telling you, we loved our weenie dogs, Blackie and Annika. They never pondered.

They just lived. They didn’t ponder the deep things of the universe. I’ve been all over the World. I’ve been in deep, remote villages in Africa. I’ve been in densely populated cities in Asia, across Europe, here in the us Everywhere I’ve ever been.

You know what human beings do? They ponder. They wonder why. Why am I here? What is all this?

What is the meaning of all of this? There’s something inside of us. And there’s a deep desire we all have as humans. I’ve given a lot of thought to it. One of the things that human beings deeply need.

Connection. And there’s something deep inside of us that longs to be attached to whoever left that thumbprint on us. And you can’t escape it. It’s a deep longing. Everybody in this room has it.

Every human being you’ll ever meet has it. They don’t just ponder. They long. They long to be connected. And so our deepest needs as humans regarding attachment are met in our life with Jesus.

That’s what I love about this teaching and this text. I just don’t want you to miss it. Because you know what Jesus says in this text over and over and over? Did you hear it? Remain in me.

Remain in me. Abide in me. Remain in me. That deepest part of us. That deepest part of us.

That’s what Jesus says. He says, I want you to get attached to me. I want you to notice. He doesn’t say, I want you to become a Calvinist. I hope you’ll be Arminian.

My greatest hope is that you’ll be post millennial. He never says that. He says, if you want to live, it’s one thing to believe, we all need to. It’s one thing to behave, we all should behave. But there’s something else about belonging to Him.

See, that’s. That’s the deepest thing about all of this. Are y’ all still with me? Because this is what really matters.

Being attached to Jesus. That’s what this is all about. That’s the heart of Christianity. Because, you see, there’s this inner life in us, every one of us. It is where we relate to Jesus.

It’s where we walk with him, we pray, we live with him, we listen to him, and here’s what he’s doing. Once you become a Christian, something happens to you that can’t happen to you in any other world religion. This is the only one that offers this. This isn’t just about what you believe. This isn’t about reflecting on some truth.

This isn’t about behaving in a certain way. This isn’t about earning your status. That’s not what any of this is this is the grace of God at work in your life, offering you the opportunity of eternity. And that is for you to be connected to the God who designed you in the first place. And it will change.

You See, Jesus starts transforming you from the inside out. That’s real transformation. That’s real change. That is the heart of Christianity. That’s what this is all about.

It’s about you being connected to Jesus. And this attachment that we have with Jesus, this one, it forms and shapes and contextualizes all other attachments. Everything else is secondary to this. This is the primary thing about us as humans. That is to be attached to Jesus because Jesus is going to address the deepest things in us.

You know, another thing about being human, we want to be productive. I’m just telling you. We just do. We want to do stuff. We just do.

We want to create things. We want accomplishments. We want to do something that matters. We want to put our hand to something. And we want to say, I did that right there, and feel good about it.

That’s why I like to wash and dry clothes at my house. So, you know, tell you. Cause, you know, you do what I do for a living. You do what I do for a living. Your work’s never done.

I’m going to preach today. Guess what next week’s going to have. I’m telling y’ all right now. I’ve been doing this a long time. Did y’ all know there’s a Sunday in every week?

Did y’ all know that? I’m already working on a sermon for next week. Have to. I’m already working on sermons for the rest of the year because they’re never done. I never finish a sermon Sunday.

Just shows up.

One of my brother’s good friends is a furniture builder in Virginia. He has a sign on his furniture store that says, antiques Made Daily.

He builds furniture to last. I was there one day when somebody was coming by to pick up a rocking chair he had built. Handmade, beautiful. He was kind of messing with it. They showed up, backed the trailer up, took it off.

And I asked him, I said, hey, Tom, how long does it take you to finish one of those rocking chairs? He said, I don’t know. I never finished one. They just come get it. That’s how I feel about sermons.

I’ve never finished one. Y’ all just show up. So I give you what I got. There’s always more. It’s never done.

But I’m going to tell you what. You wash a load of clothes, get them dried, fold them, put them Up. I love to go. Got it. I did it.

Feel a sense of accomplishment. You know why? Because I want to be productive. I want to do something that matters. So do you.

But here’s what I want to share with y’ all this morning. And please don’t miss this. Jesus offers you something even deeper than being productive. Because here’s what we’ve discovered. Here’s what Jesus teaches us in our life.

With Jesus, we can discover the beauty of a fruitful life. And I want to make sure you and I understand there’s a difference between a fruitful life and a productive life. You can be productive and bear no fruit, but if you have a fruitful life, you’ll be productive. This is fundamental, what it means to be a Christian, because I get it. We want to accomplish things.

But y’, all, here’s what Jesus is after. I hope you noticed it. He wants you to be fruitful. It’s right here in this text. Look at verse 2.

Want you to be more fruitful. Look at verse 4. Bear fruit. Verse 5. Much fruit.

Verse 8. This is to my Father’s glory. You bear much fruit. Verse 16. I’ve chosen you so that you’ll bear more fruit.

Over and over and over. Fruit that lasts. He says, fruitful. What does that mean? Well, sometimes people look at it and say, well, maybe it’s evangelism.

You’re leading people to Christ, or maybe it’s the good works you do. Those are some evidences of fruit. But that’s not really what I believe this text is teaching. This text is about something way more fundamental than that. Fruit is an expression of life.

Fruit shows that you’re connected to the vine. That’s the only way a branch bears fruit is connected to the vine. And you and I have got to stay connected to the vine. Well, what is the vine? Jesus.

We remain in him, we abide in him. And his life flows through us. And guess what he does? He changes us. He conforms us so that we start to look like him the inside.

That’s what this is all about. Here’s the challenge, though. Me and you, we’re sinners and we’re broken and we face temptation. And there are times, y’, all, when Jesus is at work in me. He’s at work in you and me.

And you are fighting against it. We’re fighting against everything that he wants to produce. He’s trying to produce this fruit in me and in you. And we’re battling with him sometimes. You know why?

Because we’re sinners and we’ve got to learn that his way’s better than ours. And this fruit that he’s going to produce in us is so much better than anything we’ll ever produce on our own. But we have to learn that over time. And so what’s it look like? What’s the fruit?

Well, I believe the Bible’s pretty clear about that. I think the fruit is this. It’s love, it’s joy, it’s peace, it’s patience, it’s kindness, it’s goodness, it’s faithfulness, it’s gentleness, it’s self control. Come on, y’. All.

Does that sound like Jesus? Jesus just chose one of them. The rest of the text, he just chose love. He could have chosen any of them. He decided to choose love.

He said, I’m going to give you this command this Thursday night of Holy Week. That word command in Latin is mondum. We get our English word mandate from it. We also get the word Maundy from it. What is Maundy?

Thursday. It’s the night Jesus gave the mandate. Love each other. Jesus said, you want to remain in me? Then here’s what you’ll do.

You’ll remain in my love. You’re going to remain in my peace. You’re going to remain in my joy. I’m going to give you that joy. You’re going to remain in my gentleness, in my patience, in my goodness, in my self control.

All of that’s going to become a part of who you are. And what I’m telling y’ all is, none of that is natural equipment you show up with. None of it. Y’ all ever brought a little kid home from the hospital? You give them enough time and I’m going to tell you right now, you ain’t going to see any fruit of the Spirit.

You just not. They ain’t patient. They ain’t kind. They’re not. This world is there.

That right there is mine. And I want it right now. Feed me right now. I’ll cry and drive you crazy. I’ll keep you up all night.

What’s the deal? You know, other humans. But buddy, let me tell you what. You introduce that child to Jesus and a massive transformation can take place. That’s why I love to hang out with our old people in our church.

They’ve been doing this a long time. They may look broken down on the outside, but don’t let that fool you. Don’t let it fool you for a minute. Because there are so many of them that are bearing so much fruit on the inside, they Got so much wisdom, so much joy, so much love. They’ve loved people longer than you’ve been alive.

They’ve managed situations way more complex than anything you’re dealing with. They’ve grown to be patient because they’ve been following Jesus a long time. Aren’t you glad we got him in our church? We are, y’. All.

This right here, this is the best thing I know. Knowing Jesus, I want to encourage you to remain in him, live with him, let him lead you. Let him guide you. Every day they say, man, I gotta read my Bible today. No, you don’t got to read your Bible.

You get to read your Bible, man. You get to hear from Jesus today. Every day you do, you get to pray. And you know what happens to you? You get connected to Jesus.

You’re not gonna believe this, but your prayers start getting answered. That’s what Jesus says. Ask it in my name. You know why? You know why your prayers get answered?

Because you get close enough to Jesus and you let him start changing you on the inside. And you let him start nurturing you and teaching you. Guess what happens? You start asking for the right things. All of a sudden, what’s important to him becomes important to you.

His will looks so much better than yours because you start walking with him and you’re letting him nurture you and change you. Jesus says, abide in me and let me change you. Let me show you how this actually works. Now I’m going to tell you. It’s not easy.

He’ll prune you. I hate pruning. I’m just going to be honest with y’. All. I’m not a great gardener.

Cindy can tell you, sometimes I’ll just start pruning stuff at home. And she’s like, what? What? What are you doing? And I go, I don’t know.

I’m just getting rid of stuff. I don’t. I just sit in my way. I have absolutely no strategy. I do not know what I’m doing.

We had a little kind of bush, tree, whatever it’s called, in front of our house. I told Cindy the other day, I’m pruning this thing. And she was like, I got all my stuff out there, my clippers, saw. And Cindy said, honey. And I know that tone.

Honey, why don’t you let somebody who actually knows what they’re doing do this? And guess what? I did. Finally, the guy that works at our house cleans. I mean, he does the yard and all that.

I tell him, I said, hey, man, I want to prune this tree. He said. I said, here’s my suggestion. And he looked at me and said, why don’t you let me go ahead and just kind of prune it the way it ought to be pruned? I said, why don’t you do that?

Looks pretty good. You think God doesn’t know how to prune you? You think he’s got any experience gardening? You know where this whole thing started? In a garden.

You know where it’s going to end up? In a garden. You think he knows anything about gardening? Let him prune you. He’s doing it for your good.

And guess what? His glory. That’s what it says. So here’s what I know. Jesus offers us the only path to fulfill God’s original design for us.

There’s no other path because there’s no other thumbprint on your soul. Nobody else has laid claim to you. Only God, our Father. And he has sent His Son to show you how to live. And he’s offering you a life.

He’s offering you a fruitful life. Because, you see, if you choose your own way and feed those natural desires, you know what? You’ll be famished. And I’ve lived this life long enough to know the difference between famishing and flourishing. They’re two very different things.

What does the Lord want for you? He wants you to flourish. He wants you to be fruitful. And the only way to do it is to follow the Jesus way. So let me encourage you today, every day, let’s follow the Jesus way.

As a matter of fact, let’s follow him all the way home to his glory. Let’s pray together.

Father, we love you. We thank you for your love for us. Lord, we want to be fruitful. Sometimes we just. Sometimes we fight against it.

We’re honest enough to say we do. And so, God, I just pray for those within the sound of my voice today that they will experience the beauty of walking the Jesus way, bearing fruit for your glory. Because, Lord, that fruit, it’s attractive. It’s evangelistic. People are drawn to it.

So I just ask, Lord, that you would lead us in that life for your glory and for Jesus sake. Amen.