Jesus Is The True Treasure

Good to see you. And uh I'm gonna officially say it's fall because it hasn't been fall for a few weeks now, but we're waking up last couple of mornings. Nice crisp mornings. Good mornings. Um and so good morning everyone. We're starting a new fall series called Treasure.

And I'm going to explain a little bit of why we are diving into this series uh that we're again calling treasure uh where we're going to spend about six weeks walking through just John 15 um specifically. And and one of the reasons why we're doing it is uh back when we started the church. It was one of the series that we did early on. I want to say it was back in 2017. We walked through John 15 and an abide series is what we called it. And it was still it was one of my favorite series that we've preached on this um or that we've done as a church uh because it is the foundation of where we get the idea of treasuring Jesus.

And so in our mission statement, as many of you know, it says that the district church is a family of believers who treasure Jesus and help others follow him. And so you hear me say that a lot. We treasure Jesus and we help others follow him. And so this series is where treasure comes from. It's it's why we use that language for Jesus in our relationship with him and abiding in him. And one of the things that we've been going really hard at for about the last 18 months or so is the helping others follow him.

And so a lot of our initiatives have been outreach driven. A lot of our initiatives have been events uh that are uh either training you to be able to take the gospel outside of these walls to be able to engage with other people. And one of the things that which is good and that's great and that's necessary. We need to grow in those things and and and um be matured in those things. But at the same time, what's also probably more true is that what you treasure is what you share. What you treasure is what you actually invest in and and then actually want to see grow and mature in.

And so before maybe helping others follow him, we need to dive back into why would we help others follow Jesus? Why is it important for us to share the gospel with other people? Well, it's getting back to Jesus first and foremost to make sure that we treasure him more than anything else because if he is our greatest treasure, then what you do with what you treasure is you go allin with it. So, for example, if you find a meal that you love, you don't only eat it one time. You'll revisit it over and over and over again. It becomes something that you cook weekly or go to and spend money on weekly in order to have more of it because you treasure it.

You love it. Same thing with Jesus is the more we treasure him, the more we will grow in him and want him and spend time with him and pray to him and read about him and learn about him and grow in our relationship with him. And then at the same time, when you do have a meal that is fantastic and wonderful, what do you do? Well, Bri dishes it. You know, she puts it on social media and says, "Everyone, this is what you should uh partake of and enjoy because it's amazing." And so you begin to evangelize the thing that you treasure, the thing that you love, whatever it might be.

When you experience something, you want to share that experience with other people because it was awesome. I mean, already just in the last uh 12 hours, I guess you would say. I've already seen multiple people talk about the fact that Indiana beat a top five team. And it's the first time in how many years uh Ransfer is not in here? It's been a while. Okay.

ever, I think, actually, because they're like 0 and 46 against top five teams. Um, but now they're one in 46, right? So, I'm not even a Hooser fan, but um, but people are sharing it because they love it. They love that this happened. And so, when you love something, you want others in on what that thing is. And here's the issue with Christianity today is what the enemy has done a really good job at is getting Christians to become indifferent or sort of nominal when it comes to the things of Christ and the purposes of God.

If we can just get Christians to view Jesus like they view McDonald's, then we're winning. And what I mean by that is you'll have McDonald's occasionally, but you're not going to treasure it. You're going to invest in it. You're not going to put like you're not going to send people, hey, if you're looking for a good meal, why don't you go get a happy meal? It'll make you happy. No, no, no.

That that's not what we do. We'll we'll have it every once in a while, but it's not going to be the main thing of our life. It's not going to be the main source of nutrition in our life. And so what we end up doing, the reason why we need to come back to this idea of treasuring Jesus is because what we are discipled in by culture and and I think all of us land in this. If I were to let me just ask you a question and I want you to raise your hand. How many of you are busy?

All right. If you're not raising your hand, then you need to share the secret with the rest of us. But we are all busy and we say that. How was your week? It was a busy week. You know, I've tried changing it to just say it was a full week because I don't want to I don't want to air on the side that be busy almost sounds like you don't know how to steward your calendar.

You don't know how to manage your life. You know, you're letting your life dictate you rather than you dictate your life. And so when we say we're busy, we're saying we're out of control. We have no idea what's going on. We're just busy. But full has a bit of intentionality to it.

I have created a full week. I have filled up my week with intent with in with with meetings and intentional um things that I'm doing, intentional moments, intentional um ways that we invest our time. So, it's full. But here's what happens in that when we have a full week or a busy week, it's not that it's driven based on what does Jesus want me to do today? Because if he was our greatest treasure, that's what we would ask. If he's our lord, we would ask him, "You're lord of me.

You are the king of me. You are my savior. You are my master. I am your servant. What do you want me to do today?" If that was the way it truly works and functions, he would be our treasure.

If he's not our treasure, then what we do is is we're Lord of our life. We're the God of our life. We're the king of our kingdom. And so, we're going to schedule out our week, however we want to see fit. And then we'll think, where can I fit Jesus in? So, let me fit him in this 10-minute quiet time.

Let me fit him in this prayer time over here. Let me fit him over here. Oh, man. I just met this person who was like having a really difficult time, but after I left, I then have the afterthought of I should have prayed for them. I should have shared the gospel with them. I should have invited them to church.

like it's so it's an afterthought because Jesus is not the treasure but rather he is just compartmentalized within our life within our busy schedule. And and the enemy wants to keep it that way. Wants to keep it that way. And the purpose of this series is for us to tell the enemy what we think about them and where they can take it and shove it and instead look at Jesus and say, "Jesus, you are the Lord of my life. You are the King of Kings. You are my savior.

You are my master." Which means you rule and reign every thought in my mind, every feeling in my heart. You rule and reign every intentionality that I have in my household. You rule and reign the um career that I am pursuing right now. You rule and reign like everything a part of my life. You rule and reign and you as my master and me as your servant.

You want me to serve you in each of these areas. And so I must consult you as my greatest treasure in all of these things so that I don't seek a life of abundance but I actually have an abundant life. There's a difference there because if we're seeking just life for abundance, that's our treasure. But if we're seeking Jesus as our greatest treasure in the midst of our life, it actually leads to an abundant life regardless of how much abundance is actually there. And so if we're not careful, what we do is we just add Jesus on and we compartmentalize him in our life and we say we're Christian by doing so. But what it actually ma makes is nominal Christians who are not effective in the purposes of God and are always frustrated in this tension that life is not enough and I'm also not getting enough out of Jesus and I'm just frustrated.

And to be honest with you, what ends up happening is it's not my fault, it's the church's fault, it's the pastor's fault. And so you end up emailing me saying things like,"I just not feeling like I'm being fed anymore. I'm not feeling like I'm actually thriving in my relationship with Jesus. I don't feel like I'm growing anymore. So I'm going to go to XYZ church and it's going to happen there." And then the grass is not greener on the other side.

And once you get there, it doesn't work out for them either. And then they get they're not feeding you. And then you move on to the next church. And and the common denominator in all of that is you are not prioritizing your greatest treasure. But you're hoping that other people figure it out for you. And it's never you that's the problem.

It's always someone else. And the most loving thing I can do for you in this moment, not only for us as a church, but also for future churches if you go and complain to them too. I'm not saying no one's actually complaining to me right now. Uh we I just I love you all. You're great. But this is a reality that happens.

And I've seen it now 20 years in ministry. I've seen it play out over and over and over again. Even now to the point that I have, by the grace of God, started receiving communications from people who left saying one thing and then went to another church and then to another church and then to another church and then they shoot me an email five years later saying, "Hey, I want to apologize. I want to apologize." I'm like, "Hey, you you can come back. Door's still open.

But if we can be honest with ourselves for a second, when God is your greatest treasure, it takes all the pressure off of everything. But what we are convinced to do is to be our own gods. Managing our calendars, managing our maturity, managing our relationships. And that fractures every single time. Why? Because you're terrible at being God, right?

If you actually were God, how many people would you have killed in the last 24 hours? And so what we need is to reorient our lives and know who we actually bend our knee to. Who we declare the ruler and reigner of our life, who we declare to be sovereign, who we declare to be king of kings. I mean like when you like that's that's a title that he gave himself that just doesn't just mean that he's looking at you and saying like hey just you know give me the keys to your car give me the keys to your house give me the keys to your heart like it's more than that. He's actually starting from the top down. He's saying wherever you preside there are earthly rulers over you and depending on what you know there are some who you don't get to have by choice communism there are others that you do get to have by choice democracy regardless they're in place under God's sovereignty and he's the king of kings no matter where you are he rules over them ruling over you so when we talk about like there there is no control over our life.

That's actually a good thing. There is no control. You have zero control over your life. That's just true. The control you do have is actually just shipwrecking your life. But as far as the abundant life, Jesus has all control over that.

Over that. And what we're going to see throughout this treasure series is when we orient our lives, reorient our lives so that Jesus is the greatest treasure and we're abiding in him. How that actually leads to us having an abundant life that we then want to share with everyone else because we're now able to finally get to this place where hey, it doesn't matter how much money I have. It doesn't matter how many friends I have. It doesn't matter how much status I have on social media. It doesn't matter how obedient or disobedient my children are.

It doesn't matter all of these things. Now, all those things will be stewarded, but none of those things have anything to do with whether or not I'm satisfied because they are not my treasure. Jesus is my treasure. And therefore, I'm able to now be someone who lives with patience. I'm able to be gentle because it's not up to me whether or not someone acts out in a certain way. I'm not in control over them.

God is. It actually leads us to be people who can live out the fruit of the spirit because we don't have to worry about all these things. We actually get to live out Matthew chapter 6 where he says, "Don't worry about whether uh where you will live. Don't worry about what you will eat. Don't worry about what you will drink. Don't worry about all these things.

God knows that you need these things and he's in control. He rules and reigns. He's the king of the kings and the lord of the lords. He's your master. He knows exactly what you need. Don't worry about those things.

First, seek the kingdom of God and all those things will be given to you. They'll be provided for you. You will never need anything that God will provide for you when it comes to you living out the purposes that God intends for you. Here's what I mean by that specifically. If God calls you to go be a missionary overseas, we just learned about the Ingouch people this morning that are in Western Russia. There's about 500,000 people in that area.

Only 30 Christians who are scattered. They don't have a Bible that's translated in their language. Nor do they have a church. There's 30 people scattered amongst 500,000 people who are who are professing Christians. If God called you to go and bring a Bible translated in their language because you did the work to do that, which is not a light work, and at the same time, you establish a church for Christians to be able to come and grow in the gospel and treasure Jesus and so forth. What God is saying is, I'm going he's going to provide everything you need in order to execute that specific mission and purpose.

He's going to pro provide what you need. In the same way here, whatever it is that he's called you to, and I say that very specifically because pastors aren't the only people called to a profession or a vocation. Okay? If you are a real estate agent, you are called to that for the purposes of God. Not just to build an a wealth or your own little kingdom, but to advance God's kingdom via real estate. If you're a teacher, you're not just teaching kids to learn 2 plus two equals four.

You're teaching them in order to educate them so that it drives them towards who Jesus is. Everything you do is designed for a purpose to ultimately lead people to the greatest treasure, not earthly treasure. Period. And he's going to provide for you whatever you need so that you don't have to worry about those things. All you have to worry about is your treasure, Jesus himself. And so the main idea for today's message as we kick this off is stop chasing junk.

Start treasuring Jesus. Stop chasing junk. Start treasuring Jesus. And I want to give you a little bit of a foundation for what that looks like. Now, over the next three weeks, we're going to be walking through John 15 1-17. And I'm going to give you a challenge.

All right. This is even in addition to the memory verse that's at the bottom of the email that's always in there every month if you ever make it that far. There's a memory verse at the bottom. In addition to that memory verse, I want you to memorize John 15 1-17. You're like, "What? You got six weeks.

That's three verses a week. That's one verse every two days. You can do it. You can do it. I have faith in you. I believe in you.

All right? I don't believe in you as much as I believe in Jesus, but I believe in you. For this morning, I want to give you the foundation. This is and what I mean by foundation. This is before you can build a house, there has to be a foundation or the house is going to fall. This is the foundation that must be in place before you can start abiding and treasuring Jesus.

Okay? So, you got to have this foundation. If you don't have the foundation, the rest of the six weeks do not matter. And the foundation of John 15 1-17 is actually found in John 14. And so turn with me to John chapter 14. We're going to look at verses 1 through 17 actually.

So starting in verse one, it says this. Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. This is Jesus speaking. In my father's house are many rooms.

If I if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? I want you to just underline or highlight whatever you do that uh a place for you right there. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself. I want you to underline that right there. Myself, that where I am, you may also be. And you know the way to where I am going.

Thomas the doubter, Thomas said to him,"Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? Jesus said to him, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me." The way I want to design this this foundation for you is think about like a stool. All right?

So, a stool that has three legs to it or even this. This has three legs to it. So, if one of these legs were gone, this falls over and it doesn't work. So, all three legs have to be in place for the foundation of the stool to be in form. The first leg that is needed is Jesus is the way. Jesus is the treasure.

The Jesus. There's lots of Jesuses that are preached. We're talking about the Jesus, the true Jesus, which we'll actually talk about here in a minute when we get to John 15:1. But Jesus is the way. Here's what he tells his disciples. I go and prepare a place for you.

Thomas goes, "Lord, we don't know where you're going. How do we know the way?" And Jesus says, "I'm the way. I'm the truth. I am the life. And no one comes to the Father except through me."

Now, when Jesus says he's preparing a place, this is why I had you underline it there. He's not talking about a Marriott in heaven with free breakfast. That that's not what he's talking about. That's what we envision because there were so many hymns that were talking about heaven like that back in the day. I just can't wait to go up and be in my mansion. That's not what he's talking about.

Now, will we get mansions? Maybe. I don't know. Possibly. What he's actually talking about is the word used for place is um abode. Abode, which can also be referenced as a dwelling place.

You can see where I'm going here. Abode. Then he says, "How do we get to the abode?" Jesus says, "I'm the way, the truth, and the life." in order to get you to the abode. But later he also says to myself.

So the abode, the place is getting you to get to Jesus where he says you actually come to be in or dwell in myself. So not only is Jesus uh or not only is there a place but Jesus is the place that we are getting to and the only way in which we get to Jesus is through Jesus. the way you can now see where the term abide comes into place. Abiding in Jesus alone is the only way that you actually get to the abode which is the dwelling place of heaven which is Jesus himself. So to get to Jesus for eternity you have to go through Jesus in order to ultimately get there. So that's the first leg is Jesus has to be a part of the equation which is why when you have in apologetics there's the difference between exclusivism or inclusivism and just to be able to share what what that means in reality is there are certain religions who say all roads lead to heaven or all religions uh we accept all religions all pathways in order to get to glory.

Christianity is distinct in the sense that it says we cannot accept that. Now we are inclusive in its fullest meaning that everyone is invited. Everyone is invited. So there's there's nothing that we are excluding. We are including everyone to come. However, whoever comes, we are exclusively saying that the only way to get there is through Jesus Christ.

And here's the reality is that there actually is no true inclusive ideology or religion from a world belief. What I mean by that is if there's any group of people, take um Hindus for example, who say all paths lead to heaven. Buddhists say all paths lead to heaven. If you meet that person and you say you include all pathways to get to heaven, which means you have to include my pathway and my pathway says the only way is Jesus. You now have to exclude us, which means they are no longer inclusive, which is one of those gotcha moments. What you believe actually is not true.

So either you're right and we're wrong, we're right and you're wrong. And we're going to stick with Jesus on this one. Jesus is the way to dwell with God. Look at verses 7-11. Here's the second leg. John 14 7-11.

If you had known me, you would have known my father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. And Philip said to him,"Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." Jesus said to him, "Have I not been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philillip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." How can you say, "Show us the Father?"

Do you not believe? Underline that believe there. Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me, underline that, that I am in the father and the father is in me. Or else believe on account of the works themselves.

The second leg is the way in which we enter the way is by faith. Believing Jesus is who he says he is and he's accomplished what he says he's accomplished. Believing faith is the way in which we enter the way, the truth, and the life. How do you enter this abiding relationship? by salvation. It's through grace.

It's through this gift that we receive and believe it by faith. You believe he's the son of God who lived the perfect life, died the death we deserve, and was and rose from the grave. And and here's the thing, that's the only thing in Christianity that is not conditional. It's not conditional. The only thing that's actually conditional in it is that we're believing in his conditions. We're believing in what he did, not what we do.

We're believing in what he accomplished and who he said he was. And so oftentimes when people look at Christians and just say, "They're just so narrow-minded, bigoted, and whatever." We just say, "Well, then so is our Lord." Because we're believing his words and the message he proclaimed to us, and we are just messengers of it. And so, if you have a problem with us, you have a problem with Jesus. That's actually the problem that you have.

And so don't hate the messenger. Hate the message if you're going to hate it. If you're going to reject it, because that's ultimately what you're doing. We are believing in a message that we are receiving by declaring it's true and everything else is wrong. And so belief, leg two, belief in Jesus brings us into relationship with the father which is our salvation. It's how we get into relationship is through faith.

Believing Jesus is who he says he is and has accomplished what he says he has accomplished for us. And then the third leg, look at verses 12 through 17. Truly, truly I say to you, whoever believes in me, okay, so that you right there, it's got both of the first two legs. Whoever believes, faith in who? Jesus. Whoever believes in me will also do the works.

Underline that. This is the third leg. Will also do the works that I do. And greater works than these will he do because I am going to the father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do that the father may be glorified in the son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

And so if you love me, you will keep my commandments. Again, right there, underline that whole thing. Verse 15. If you love me, which is a form of believing in Jesus, treasuring Jesus, like you you you love what you treasure, right? And you treasure what you love. If you love who?

Jesus, it then produces leads to the third leg. You will keep my commandments. You will do the works he has commanded of us. And then he says, 'I will ask my father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever, the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him for he dwells with you. That's another word that means he abides with you. What's great about that is there it's this like swinging door that we have with Jesus where he is the abode in which we go to abide in but then also he comes and lives inside you and dwells within you to where you become an abode in which he comes to abide in.

And so it's this relationship that flows between the two of us between you and your treasure where you are in him and he is coming to be within you. If we don't have that, those three things, I cannot teach you to treasure Jesus. I cannot teach you to treasure Jesus. But if we have those three things, Jesus, belief in Jesus, and then the confirmation of belief in Jesus, that you are now flowing out and keeping, wanting to be obedient to him, desiring to um both delight in him and desiring to be obedient to him, that forms pursuit. That forms I want to be in this relationship where I go to him and he also comes to me. This is why Romans 8 says things like, "For those who believe in Jesus, they will cry out, "Aba, Father."

They will desire and have a delight in their treasure, their God, their father. Jesus is showing them just how much he loves the Father. Now, because you're in Jesus, you have that same love for the Father. You want to spend time with the Lord. You want more than a 10-minute quiet time. Like 10-minute quiet time, like that's the that should be the floor, not the ceiling of your personal relationship with Jesus.

You delight in the Lord. It's joy. It's affection. It's a son or daughter saying, "My dad is awesome, and I want to go to work with dad as much as possible and do the works that he is doing." I mean, I I see this with with my kids, you know, and and they're gonna they love going to work with dad. They also love doing whatever dad does.

And sometimes that means that they might drive a nail through their hand because, you know, they'll see me doing something like that and they're like, "Can I use the nail gun? Can I drive the screw in?" Or when we go to a coffee shop and they open up their computers and they act like they're working like what I'm working, but they're, you know, just playing a game or something. But they think they're doing what their dad is doing because as of right now, before they become teenagers, they're delighting in me, right? They love to be around me for the most part. I would love to work on the second thing here.

There's a desire for obedience. As Christians, when we see how good our father is, we desire to do whatever it is he commands of us, we desire to be obedient. We desire to want to keep his commands. And because of that, we need to know what those commands are. We need to know what he is requiring of us and what he's calling us into. And listen, remember it is never like heavyhanded.

God is not a God who commands of us no fun. Like do you remember the remember the Titans um scene where the new coach is entering in and he's meeting with the players and the one player's like kind of smiling and laughing and and he goes to him. I think his name is Petey and he's like, "What Pety? What are you laughing?" He's like, "Zero fun." He's like, "Say it again.

Zero fun, sir. And like God's not doing that with us. He's not saying come and follow me and have no fun. He's actually saying come and find life and have it abundant. Come and find joy. Come and be unshakable regardless of the circumstances that happen in your life.

when the worst phone call you could possibly receive lands in your ear, you're able in that moment to have peace and comfort and know that God's still in control regardless of of how awful the situation is. And at the same time, when you get that promotion or you have that child born or you meet the love of your life and it's the greatest day that you've ever experienced and even in that moment, you're able to say, "Man, isn't God so good?" And at the same time, he's greater than this. Than this. Like that's what he's calling us to. We delight in the Lord and we desire to obey whatever it is that he's commanded of us.

Those two things that come from this relationship with him creates what we call pursuit, which is abiding in Jesus. And so here's the stool, the foundation for abiding. Jesus is the way. Believing brings you into the relationship. And that belief produces pursuit. Pursuit.

Relationship where we're getting after him just as much as he's getting after us. Now, that's what creates the opportunity. That's what creates the environment for true treasuring to flourish, to actually happen. So let's look at it in John 15:es 1-3. We're going to jump into the text here. That's not like the intro, okay?

So that's just don't be nervous. He says, "I'm 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 be that it may bear more fruit." He says, "Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you." Jesus begins this whole conversation by saying,"I am the what? True vine."

Meaning in their day, there's other people standing up saying, "I'm the vine. Come follow me. Come get connected to what I'm preaching. Come do what I'm asking you to do." There were multiple vines going on in their day. multiple Messiah figures rising up and declaring themselves to be the next thing that Jesus or that God was bringing to salvation for everyone in the world.

And Jesus is showing up on the scene and saying, "I am the true vine." And here's another thing that you need to know from that is actually there is another group that was considered a vine. Israel. Israel in the Old Testament were called the the vine of God or God's vine, but it always failed to produce the fruit that God called it to produce. It never could produce it. It never it was designed to be the city on a hill so that all other cities, all other nations, all other ethnicities could look at them and say, "This is what it looks like to be in relationship with God and to find favor in God and to be joyful and to be provided for from God."

And so we want that God, not all these other gods and goddesses that we've been following. We want to know the true God and not all the false gods. And so they were supposed to be the vine connected to God in order for others to come and be grafted into it by saying, "Look at how awesome and provided for they are and how they are treasuring their true creator and we're missing out." And Israel over and over and over again was not the city on a hill. They were not showing everyone else what it's like to serve the true God because they kept falling into worshiping other gods. I mean, it still blows my mind that you can walk through the Red Sea.

Like the miracle of the Red Sea, like you could walk through it and get to the other side. like we just came through that on dry land like dry ground like they not a drop and then get to the other side and Moses says all right the God who just did that wants to talk to me on this mountain I'm going to go speak with him I'll be back in about two weeks he goes up on that mountain and receives the Ten Commandments which again are going to help these people who've just witnessed this incredible incredible miracle from God who's creating an opportunity for them to abide with him. Now, he wants to teach them what they are to obey, give them some commands in order for them to be a city on a hill. He comes back down and within two weeks, they've already been convinced by demons to create a golden calf and start worshiping it because they don't want the true God anymore. Within two weeks, how stupid are we?

We're that stupid. Which means for us, like they witnessed it. We're reading about it. It took them two weeks. It probably takes us two minutes if we're being honest with ourselves. Two minutes and we're off creating our own golden calf.

And so Jesus shows up and says, "They were meant to be the vine. They're not. I'm the true vine." those who get connected to me, not connected to Israel, those who get connected to me. So that whether you're Jew or Greek, whether you're free or slave, regardless of who you are, male or female, if you get connected to me, you will be able to produce fruit. Fruit that other people see and get to know the true God because of what's actually being produced in you.

And so where Israel failed, Jesus is saying, "I will succeed in this. You don't have to worry about that." And then he goes on and he says that God is or his father is the vine dresser. That means God's the gardener of your life. God's the gardener of your life. He's the one tending the vine.

He's the one shaping it. He's the one pruning it. He's the one watching over it. He's the one watering it. He's the one giving it growth. He is the vine dresser.

And the next thing that we see here, it says that every well this next part it's both painful and encouraging. Just need to know that it's painful and encouraging. Every branch that does bear fruit, every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. You know what that means? Pruning in your life is proof that you're abiding in Jesus. Pruning in your life is proof that you're abiding in Jesus, that you belong to him, that you're connected to him.

That's an encouraging thing. So, if you're going through a hard season right now, if God's cutting something out of your life right now, some habit, some pride, maybe it's some relationship, it's not because he's angry with you. It's because he's growing you. He's growing you. We have this I call it I mean I planted it so it's not really a wild apple tree but because we are not vine dressers um we've allowed it to just be a wild apple tree in our backyard and last year it produced like probably 15 apples that I would not touch. Um Ransford did.

He ate one but that's everything you need to know about Ransford. Um, this year, again, we haven't touched it. We haven't done anything with it. This year, it literally it produced one apple. Uh, one apple that we actually did slice up. We cut it.

I mean, we were like, we're going all in on this one apple. We're going to try it. All right. Not good. Not good. Would not eat it.

Um, again, when you look at this tree, it needs to be pruned. If it were to be cut back, shaped up, formed up. Maybe maybe it might actually produce some better apples for us. But so often we're okay with just producing one apple. We're okay with producing something that uh you know it it's encouragement that's not that great, right? We're okay with the fruit that comes out, but yeah, it's because we don't want to be pruned.

We don't want God to do that work in our lives. We don't want him to touch our calendar. We don't want him to look at our social habits. We don't want him to look at our social media habits. We don't want him to look at our screen time that populates, you know, probably right before the service began and it says, "You're up 27% this week." And you're like, "No, no, God, don't touch that.

I'm okay with that." But he's pruning you because not just because he wants more out of you, but because he wants you to have more of him. He's pruning you. And pruning also doesn't have to always be negative things or bad things. It absolutely is some of those things. So it's it's if there's a sin in your life, if there's a habit in your life that's not good, whatever it looks like, absolutely those things are going to be cut out.

But it also might be cutting out just things that are like normal things. just common things that you might need to have shaped up a little bit and that's all right. What he says in verse three already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. The word clean is the same Greek word as pruned which is interesting if you never knew that the same word for clean is the same word used for pruned. So there's a cleansing process that's happening when he prunes us as we are already pruned. We are already cleaned basically.

In other words, we use the like theologians talk about this in a concept called already not yet. Which means when you get connected to the vine of Jesus, when you believe in the true like you have the true Jesus, you believe in the true Jesus and you start delighting in pursuing, abiding in the true Jesus, you're saved in that moment. You're already pruned and cleaned for for eternity. What what what that means is there's nothing you can do to separate yourself from Jesus. You're saved. You are considered a a son and daughter of the most high.

You are a child of his. You are adopted by him. You get to come home with him. You have a dwelling place in heaven that is with your name on it for all eternity. You're written in the name the the the lamb's book of life. All access.

You're in. You're already clean when you get saved. Now, between when you get saved and when you actually go into glory, whether that's dying or Jesus comes to return, he's also transforming you to become what you already are. Meaning, just because you get saved doesn't mean you don't struggle with sin anymore. It doesn't mean that you don't still fall and fail at times and fumble through your life. It doesn't mean that you don't get angry at that person who cut you off in traffic.

It doesn't mean that you lose your stuff on your kids because they're not desiring to be obedient and delighting in you. You still mess up. And what he is doing is as we abide in him and treasure him, he is pruning out areas of our life in order to bring in what's already clean and graft it in and say, you know what, you're not patient, but you actually are patient because of Christ who dwells in you. So, let's cut out the impatience and let's get that patience going and let's stir that up because that ingredient's already in your life. This is who you are in Christ. And so, walk in this.

Live this out. Hey, you're uh a bit greedy, but that's who you used to be. It's not who you are anymore. Let's prune that. Cut that out. And you're actually a generous person because Jesus is generous.

And so, let's get that going because that ingredient's already in your life because Jesus dwells in you. That's how he's that's lit. That's disciplehip. Okay? There's a bigger term we use called sanctification. But that's what God is doing.

When he is vindessing your life, when he's pruning you, he's making you what you already are in Jesus. That's what he's doing. And so that means we can then start opening up our lives and saying, "God, what is what do you want to prune in me? What do you want to change in me? What do you want me to be able to experience more of you in and be able to act in a way or um respond in a way? Keeping your commandments, desiring to be obedient, living however you want to me to live.

How can we do that? Because that's actually what we want to do. And so what that might look like, let's just use finances for example. Say you make $100,000 a year. What if you pruned away non-essential expenses and lived off of 75,000 a year? All of a sudden now you have the freedom of taking 25,000 a year and using it at your disposal for whatever purposes of God wants.

It's just reshaping. What if we did that with our time? What if we look at our hours like throughout the week doing a time audit and you say on any given day I see because my phone records it that there's four hours given to social media. What if I prune away two hours of that and all of a sudden now I've bought back two hours that I can Hey God, how do you want me to spend this time? How do you want me to utilize this? What do you want me to do with this?

So pruning leads to it's it's a part of the cleansing that already you are clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Now live out your cleansing. Live out your clean cleanliness. invest it into others. And so, how do we do this? Or what do we do with all of this?

Number one, recognize Jesus as your true treasure. Stop trying to find life in other vines. A life of ease and comfort, whatever it looks like. Again, a life of abundance does not equate to an abundant life. We just need to know that. Again, good gifts, but they're terrible gods.

Number two, submit to the pruning. If God's cutting something out of your life right now, trust that it's for your good. Trust that it's for your good. That might mean he's cutting out abundance in order for you to have an abundant life. That's good. Pruning isn't punishment.

It's preparation. Cancel the right things before the wrong things cancel you. Number three, stay connected to the word and prayer. That's where abiding happens. No shortcuts, no substitutes. If anyone comes to you like if you if I know right now there's so many like Tik Tok pastors and just like you know philosophical podcasts and whatnot who are redefining Christianity and the way you should live Christianity.

If someone says we've figured out the secret to Christianity, unfollow them. comment first and say you're wrong. Then unfollow them because there there's nothing new under the sun, including Christianity for 2,000 years. It's already been figured out because he told us the way that I'm going to communicate with you is I've revealed the word and it is a miracle through 40 different authors over a span of 1500 years that all talk about the same story and the same narrative. It's God's autobiography that he dictated through 40 human authors that are inspired by him to write it down. And it all tells one story with over 63 63,000 cross references referencing the same thing of guys who didn't even know each other.

No other book, no other literary history can do the same thing that the Bible does. It's why we can believe it to be true. And he says, "This is how I'm going to talk to you." So if you walk into the wilderness and you come back and say, "God had a word for me," I'm always going to say, "And what's the Bible verse that confirms it?" Because if it ain't found in the Bible, it ain't the same God. That's how other cults and other religions got started.

We heard a word from the Lord, but it wasn't found in the Bible. He already gave us everything we need to know and he's communicating to it and it's living and active. This ain't a dead word. It's living and active. It's it's it's it's the literary written embodied person of Jesus Christ. That's why John 1 says in the beginning was the word and that word that created everything became flesh and dwelt among us.

And it's that word that inspired all the authors to be able to record the word so that we have access to the word of God aka Jesus. And at the same time, he says, "And you want to talk back to me?" That's why I created prayer. I created prayer. It's access for you to be able to get to the father. And so those are the two things that abiding really, and we'll see that as we go out through the the next weeks.

But if you're not in the word of God and you're not praying, then you're never going to see the true Jesus. Period. Number four, make time for treasure. Don't just fit God in. Build your life around him. Around him.

And then just see what happens. Again, just like you plan your relationship with a spouse, date nights, communication, vacations, etc. , you need to plan your relationship with God. time alone, reading his word and praying, resting in him, all of those things. There needs to be intentionality there because when Jesus becomes your treasure, busyiness turns into purpose. And all of a sudden, now my full calendar becomes a full commission.

My full calendar becomes a full commission because all of it's about the purposes of God. I want to leverage everything on my calendar for the purposes of treasuring Jesus and helping others follow him. And so maybe that's somewhere you can start. Just look at your calendar for the next week and ask the question, how is this treasuring Jesus and helping others follow him? Let's pray. Father, we thank you this morning for just your goodness to us.

God, we are able to come to you because Jesus Christ stepped out of eternity. He stepped into humanity as the second person of the Trinity. And he lived the life we could not live. He died the death that we deserved. He rose on the third day, guaranteeing for us the ability to be resurrected from our lives that were dead in sin, but now are made alive in Jesus Christ. And by believing in him and what he's accomplished, he created a pathway for us to be brought back and reconciled into a relationship with God to be able to dwell in that abode and at the same time have him come and dwell within us.

God, we thank you for that. We thank you for that. Part of treasuring you is just being grateful for you. being thankful for what you accomplished for us that we could not do for ourselves. And Lord, as we begin this treasure journey together, I just want to ask the simple question, are we abiding in you? We don't want to just add you on.

We want to abide in you. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.