Remain in Him – Stay Connected To The Vine – EP40

Pastor Jeffrey BrandtOne Thing Audio, Pastors Corner

John 15:5
“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."




Stay Connected To The Vine

Stay connected to the vineHello, and welcome back to the One Thing Podcast. Today I would like to share with you a verse coming from a sermon that was preached this past week. It's in the book of John chapter 15 verse 5 and it says, “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.” And this last section of the verse “apart for Me you could do nothing” is something I was really reflecting on today.

"May we not settle to have a little bit of time with God and call it a day."
And so this is Jesus speaking to his disciples and He's saying, ‘Listen if you remain in Me, if I am your everything if you are seeking Me with all of your heart to be close with me, to feed from me literally in your soul, you know you're going to bear fruit. But if you decide to live apart from me you can do nothing.’

So as I thought about this: What does it mean that we can do nothing? Does it mean that if we're not in communion with Christ or close to Him that we literally can do nothing? We can't get out of bed? We can't drive our car? No, we know that we can still function, you know, on a worldly level per se. We can still do our jobs, we could still get our education, but we know that this is not what God is speaking about.

"...without the Lord Jesus Christ, none of it means a thing... it is nothing."
But He's saying that, 'Apart from Me you can live your life, you can go about, you can work and look to build up all your possessions and your accomplishments. But you know what, without the Lord Jesus Christ, none of it means a thing... it is nothing.'

Simply because one day we will all stand before God and He's gonna look at us and say: ‘Have you borne fruit not for yourself, but fruit of My Kingdom?' You see, when we remain in Christ, we're walking with Him, we make a difference for God, we make a difference for His kingdom. Although we're in our classroom, in the classroom we’re bringing light, we're bringing others to Christ, we are praying, we're conquering and taking literally land and overcoming and doing something for His kingdom!

"...He's [God] going to simply see and look and measure what we have done in His kingdom."
So, you know, we either are doing nothing or we are doing something for the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so to remain with Him makes a tremendous difference and one day again, as I said, we will stand before God and He's not going to say, ‘Your education was great so everything is well.’ He's not going to say, ‘Well you saved up a lot of money and you were really good at your job.’ No, He's going to simply see and look and measure what we have done in His kingdom.

Did we submit to Him? Did we love Him with all of our hearts? Did we not allow other gods: sports, money, things, to be before Him, people? Did we seek Him with all of our heart? Do we seek to remain with Him so that we would bear much fruit for the sake of His glory?

Hallelujah! Today, if you realize that you've done maybe...nothing. Hallelujah! Today, if you realize thinking, ‘You know what, there has not been much fruit, you know I've lived for myself, I have not lived with Christ in communion.’ Then praise God we can turn from our sin, we can turn from our empty lives and now begin to do something and that something flows from faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

That those who turn to Him shall be saved and not just saved and set apart for heaven, but literally saved from the craziness of this world. Saved from doing nothing and brought into the kingdom even now to bear fruit for the glory of God and for the glory of His name.

So may we look to remain in the Lord today. May we not settle to just have a little bit of time with Him and call it a day. May we not settle just to read a verse or two and just say, ‘Well I guess that's enough.’ May we go deep with God, even as we’re working, may our minds just be set apart and set on the things of heaven, as Paul says.

Even as we're doing our sport, even as we may be in our school, wherever it may be, at home with our family, may we be just be seeking the Lord saying, ‘Lord let me be close with You. Lord Jesus, I wanna remain with You. I want to be with You for You are everything!’

Church, we are called to bear much fruit and we are called not to do nothing, but to do everything in the kingdom.