Flow Through

Nathan Adams · Tidal Church Moncton · November 13, 2022 · INdependence series

Nathan Adams explores John 15 and Jesus' image of the vine and branches, inviting listeners to make their home in Him. As we stay connected through Scripture, prayer and obedience, the Holy Spirit flows through us like a river, bringing transformation, love and joy.

More from Nathan Adams · The INdependence series

Topics: Prayer, Holy Spirit, Discipleship

Transcript

[0:00] If you have your Bible with you, you could turn to John chapter 15. I love this. This passage to me. It's the heart of the Gospel of John. in terms of teaching and just, I'm excited to get into it with you today. It's such an intimate passage. I want to say hi to those that are with us online. I want to say hello to my friend Marc. And excited for the people that are with us in that way as well. If you can turn to John chapter 15, we're going to read the first 10 or so verses, but I want to zero in just on one verse right now. So we get the basic idea. It's a verse 5, and Jesus says, I am the vine.

[0:48] 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 I want to read it one more time in another translation. That one was from the New International Version. I am the vine. You are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. So these words that we're looking at, at the very end, apart from me, you can do nothing. If you've been with us here this fall, it might remind you of something that we looked at during the Celebrate Recovery service that we had. And in that we looked at Jesus saying the Son can do nothing by Himself.

[1:39] John 5:17. So Jesus lived and ministered in a relationship of complete dependence upon the Father. And so when He says to us, apart from me, you can do nothing, He's only telling us to be like Him, to live in complete dependence upon the Father. You know, by the way, at that Celebrate Recovery service a few weeks ago, there was a lot of courage. Adam shared his testimony and Lana shared other people's things and, you know, 56 people came down to the front and got chips to say they want to start a journey of recovery. The next couple weeks at Celebrate Recovery, there's 15 new people each time. Someone became a Christian last Tuesday night, and I just want to thank God for His faithfulness to those people and to that ministry.

[2:34] And I want to remind you, if you took a chip, you should show up. This image that Jesus uses for dependence is so vivid. I am the vine, you are the branches. It speaks to us about a vine that's rooted in the earth, and it's drawing all the water and all the nutrients up for the branches. The branches are supported by the vine and fed by the vine. You can chop a branch off, or many branches off a vine, and the vine remains, but you take a branch away from the vine and you set it aside and it becomes kindling. This is the type of intimacy, though, that Jesus has for us, an intimacy so direct that His very life and presence flows into us. He says branches are meant to bear fruit.

[3:23] And the Bible uses the metaphor fruit in two ways. The first way it uses it is of spiritual transformation. We can see that in Galatians chapter 5, verse 22: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. So that's the spiritual transformation, the spiritual fruit that Christ produces in us. But the Bible also uses this metaphor fruit to describe making disciples of Jesus. We can see it in John 15:16, which is really part of the passage we're going to look at. Jesus said to His disciples, He said, I chose you and I appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit that will last. This reminds me of something else.

[4:11] Jesus said, the Great Commission, go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them and baptizing them. So we can get the sense there that the idea is make disciples, and you really can't have one without the other. If you don't have spiritual transformation in your own life, what are you selling? But when we have both together, the spiritual transformation is not something that we can really contain within ourselves. It spills out in all kinds of different ways, and it is God's pleasure to use us in ministry. So Jesus says that if we remain in Him, His very person, love, and power will flow into us and through us to others. But this is a little bit tricky. We have to look at an original language here, because the NIV says remain in me. Jesus says remain in me.

[5:07] But other translations, such as the ESV or King James, say abide in me. Abide is actually the correct translation. The only problem with abide is we don't use that word anymore. I don't say to you, I made my abode in Montreal for the span of two years, and henceforth I shall abide in Shediac Bridge. Okay, we just don't talk like that. So there's a modern word, remain, but the problem with the modern word is it's only capturing about half of the original meaning of the Greek word. So the Greek word is meno, and it means to remain living somewhere. Okay, the opposite is when I'm couch surfing, or when I'm living in a hotel room after another, or I'm just not certain that I have a place to call home.

[5:55] And so when Jesus says remain in me, He says, make me your home. And so we're going to read this passage together. I'll read it, but I need you to help me with the translation. I'm going to read from the NIV, which uses the word remain, but every time it says remain, I want you to say living. Okay, because that's the fullest translation of the word remain: living in me. That's your home. I am the true vine, said Jesus, 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've spoken to you. Remain living in me, as I also remain living in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain living in the vine.

[6:56] Neither can you bear fruit by yourself unless you remain living in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain living in me, I got you on that one. If you remain living in me, and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain living in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers, and such branches are picked up and thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain living in me and my words remain living 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.

[7:43] As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain living in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain living in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands, and I remain living in His love. I have told you this so that your joy... So spread me. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete, that my joy. That's a lot of joy. Now, verses 12 to 17, we could keep reading, but they kind of keep extrapolating and providing more information to go with these basic themes that we've seen here in these first 11 verses.

[8:28] Obviously, the overall picture is clear. It is of a mutual indwelling, as Jesus said, "Remain living in me, and I also in you." This is something that we see all through the New Testament, is not just in the Gospel of John. There's this phrase that says that as Christians we're in Christ. That means we're in Him, and He's in us. We're spiritually connected. We're indwelt. In Galatians 2:20, the apostle Paul said, "Hey guys, it's no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me." So many people say they know who God is. But I'm going to ask you, is Christ living in you? Do you have an intimacy with God that is personal and real and has gone beyond mere religion into relationship with God as your friend and Father? That is the invitation. That is what Jesus is trying to communicate to us. And if we look at this passage, I want to pull out just six things really quickly.

[9:36] It's not a six-point sermon, don't worry. That happens when we have this indwelling, when we're connected to Jesus and His life is flowing into us like sap to a vine. The first thing is that God removes the things in our lives that are dead ends. And He opens us up completely to the spiritual flow. And that's so. John 15:2, every branch that does bear fruit. So it's already doing what it's supposed to do. He prunes it so that will do it even better. Be even more fruitful. There are many things in our lives that are not actually wrong or right in and of themselves, but they can be things that God has to take away so that we are doing exactly what He created us to do.

[10:24] If God gifted you to be something for His glory, He doesn't want you to waste your time doing something else. He'll prune that and focus you. Number two, reading and meditating upon Scripture is a means to encouraging the spiritual flow. In verse 7, if you remain in me and my words remain in you. The things that we do as Christians are not primarily obligations or duties. The duty and obligation is just there to kick us in the behind when we start to get out of line a little bit, but it's not our actual motivation. We should be motivated to open the Word of God that we may have communion with Jesus Christ, that He would speak to us and make our spirits live on His words. And that goes into the third point about prayer. Prayer is not a duty primarily. It is a means of this spiritual flow to go through us to others.

[11:25] Jesus said, "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, remain living, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit." And then down in verse 16, which we didn't read, Jesus says, "I chose you and I appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that whatever you ask in my name, the Father will give to you." Prayer is so amazingly powerful. I'm thankful, and I think you are thankful, for the great teaching by Pastor Austin two weeks ago, as he broke prayer down for us and made it accessible. If you want to learn more about prayer, you can just go back two weeks and watch that message.

[12:11] Prayer. Without prayer, close the doors of the church. Without prayer, why are you getting out of bed in the morning? Because prayer unleashes the power of God in our lives. He is literally waiting for you to ask, and then saying, when you ask, it will be done for you. There's a time of my life when I would pray, and I said it like a wish. But there came a time later on in my life when I began to pray, and when I prayed, I knew God was going to do something. That wasn't magic. I couldn't and make it happen that moment, necessarily. But a time came where I finally realized, wow, God has invited me to speak to Him, and He will actually act if I ask Him.

[13:07] Oh my goodness, this is amazing. This is powerful. And so, church, in two weeks on Sunday night, we're gonna have another night of prayer and worship. We had one just five weeks ago, or four weeks ago, but people were so hungry for that presence and power of God. We had a couple hundred people come out, and they said, "When can we do this again?" Well, I tell you what, we're going to do it in two weeks because we're going to attempt to do something this Christmas that you can't do unless God moves. We are attempting to have a Christmas of salvation for our family and our friends and other people that God puts in our path. And if there isn't a miracle of some kind that happens that touches their heart, if God doesn't reach out and speak to someone, you can talk to them all you want about the eternal invisible God, and they're like, "No connection. I don't see it."

[14:09] But when God begins to move, people begin to pop up in our path that are hungry. They say things like, "What's the meaning of life? What's different about you? I don't know where to turn anymore." And they start opening their soul to you like you're some sort of counselor. That's the Holy Spirit prompting them to know their need and prompting them to see that there's something different in you. But it takes a miracle, and God will not do the miracle until we ask. And so we're going to ask. We're gonna have these little boxes and we're gonna actually put some names in those boxes of people we're going to pray for. And we'll have a copy of the names. We'll put a copy in the box, then we'll bring all the boxes to the front. And then you can come get someone else's box.

[14:56] We're going to be praying for one another's loved ones and friends this Christmas. And I just guarantee you that if you pray, God shows up. So would you come? Not this Sunday night, not next, the next. I want to show you a little promo video that we have for the Christmas series. And as we show you the video, I want you to think about who you're going to be praying for.

[15:45] Here.

[16:38] I sure, I'm excited about that. Well, I was in the middle of six points somewhere. First was God removes the things in our life that are dead ends. Reading and meditating upon Scripture is a means to encouraging the spiritual flow. The third one is prayer is a means of the spiritual flow going through us to others. And the fourth is that obedience to God's commands keeps the spiritual flow from being blocked. Jesus said, if you keep My commands, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commands and remain in His love. That was verse 10, and down in verse 14. Which we didn't read. You are My friends, He said to the disciples. You are My friends if you do what I command.

[17:26] I don't even want to extrapolate on this point. I just want to say that. We need to be obedient. If there is deadness and dryness in your spiritual life, the very first thing you need to look at is, is there an area where I am violating the Word of God? Number five, the flow is seen in a life of sacrificial love for others. My command is this, says Jesus. Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. And in verse 17, this is My command: love each other. Of course, this is in our mission statement: God's love in us to the world, right?

[18:18] And number six, the uninhibited flow of the Holy Spirit through us results in personal joy. I've told you this so that My joy might be in you and that your joy may be complete, said Jesus. There is no greater joy, actually, than when your life gets to be part of truly changing someone else's life. You could live your whole life, but if there's one person you know that God used you to touch, it's not a waste. I had a guy talk to me, sharing some troubles, some alcoholism that he was going through, and he said, I don't know why I'm bothering you about this. I don't mean to be a burden on you. I said, oh no, no, you're giving meaning to my life because I'm getting to help you.

[19:07] The crazy thing about us though is that we have this ridiculous tendency to separate ourselves from this flow of God's life and love into us. We resist that, God's pruning of the things in our lives that are dead ends. We neglect to meditate upon Scripture, preferring our own opinions. We don't pray and instead try to do things in our own strength. We think somehow God's commandments don't apply in our very unique situation. And sacrificial love is often replaced by self-protection, and our joy dries up, and then we blame God. And how do I know this? Because it happens to me all the time.

[19:54] I, it's so easy just to separate. Can you imagine actually seeing a tree and a branch just pops off, this falls off, severs itself? This is a weird thing, just walks away. I'm going to try it on my own. But yet this is where the metaphor breaks down, because in a vine and a branch that never happens, right? Someone could cut off a branch, but only in a relationship with God do you actually get to cut yourself off from God. And this is why Jesus pounds it away in that passage, and He says, meno, meno, meno: remain living in Me. I'm just gonna run through it quickly.

[20:45] Stay connected. Hunger for spiritual communion with Me. Because verse 4a says remain living in Me; verse 4b, remain living in the vine; verse 4c, remain living in Me; verse 5, remain living in Me and I in you; verse 6, if you do not remain living in Me, you wither; verse 7, remain living in Me; verse 9, remain living in My love. Because He needs to tell us over and over and over again, this is your source. This is your go-to. And some days it is so wonderful and easy and natural to start in prayer, in God's Word, to feel His presence, and then to go into that day expectant and saying, God, who do you have for me to meet today? Who do you have for me to love? And it's wonderful.

[21:39] But many days it's hard. Many days I'm the branch that separates. I'm the guy that didn't pray and tried to do it on my own strength. I'm the guy that forgot to purify his mind and then finds all kinds of stupid attitudes coming up that are very worldly. My resistant heart has to be dragged back to God by His Holy Spirit in surrender again, and reliance, and before Him in prayer and worship. My mind clears, my anxiety goes down, and I feel the renewal of my spirit, and then I go out in that day and most of the things I was worried about, God just takes care of.

[22:25] And again, I feel Him flow through me again. I'm a slow learner. Are you? But I'm learning to see the signs more quickly. I'm learning to go, not today, Satan. Not today. I literally was on a trip in Haiti one time, and the wheel fell off the bus, and no one, and then they ran around, couldn't find a wheel, and then someone goes, we didn't pray. We prayed, and the wheel was just fixed, and off we went. And I realized, don't start another day without prayer. You see, this is a beautiful metaphor that Jesus uses. I am the vine, you are the branches, but like all metaphors, it has its limits.

[23:11] For instance, we might think that the Spirit of Christ is very unexciting, like sap going through the vine, a few grapes. Who cares? I don't want to put down the metaphor because it's super intimate, but I want to combine it with another metaphor that Jesus used in the book of John. In John 7:37, it says, Jesus stood up and cried out, if anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scriptures have said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Now He said this about the Spirit. That's an interesting image, isn't it? Another metaphor. Not just a flow like sap into a vine, but a flow like a river.

[23:56] This is something that we see in Ezekiel 47 in the Old Testament. It describes the Holy Spirit like a mighty river flowing into a desert, and wherever it goes, all of a sudden life flourishes, trees come up, and it's full of life. What a beautiful thing. At the end of the Bible, the last chapter of the Bible, we see this image of the throne of God, the Father and Son sit upon it, and the river of life flows out, the Holy Spirit. I wonder, have you ever stood underneath a waterfall? If you haven't done that yet, I suggest you do it once in your life. You find a stream or a spot in a river, and you just let that water come down on you.

[24:41] It's amazing, the pound and the roar. Maybe you haven't done that. Maybe you went to Niagara Falls and you went out on the Maid of the Mist and got right up next to that great big pounding wonder of the world as the flood waters went over. Can you feel the freshness and power of that water coming down upon you? There's a lot of power in water, isn't there? Now, a person might think they have power in a car. If they've got, say, 300 horsepower. You've got 300 horsepower. Can you raise your hand? No, it's okay. It's okay. I'm not gonna make funny or anything. Good for you, anyone. There's no one with a 300 horse cabin. Come on. All right. Thank you. All right. And that's fun, but then someone comes along and they have a muscle car with 500 horsepower, or maybe a Hellcat with 700 horsepower.

[25:33] And just when that guy's feeling like the biggest person on the block, someone shows up with a true supercar with, you know, a thousand horsepower. But if you want to see real power, you just go up to Fredericton and follow the river until you get to the Mactaquac Dam, where you will see 900,000 horsepower coming from that dam. Kilowatts, you converted over. It's about 900,000 horsepower. As the waters are collected up there, they flow into something that's kind of a secret, almost. You're probably used to the image of a dam with the spillway.

[26:23] Now, that's the water running through that. They're not doing anything with it, actually. That's just being, that's just a flow of the river. But look in this picture to the side. You can see where there's a solid part of the dam. Well, there's something going on inside in the solid part of the dam. That's where the power is. Inside that dam there are several big tunnels, like you, so big you could probably drive a truck down these tunnels. And there's a gate at the top. The gate opens and the water flows into this tunnel with the force of gravity, driving it down. And then it hits a chamber that makes the water swirl, and in the middle of the chamber there's a turbine, and it spins that massive turbine, which is connected to a generator.

[27:12] And, magic, whack, gives enough power for the city of Fredericton to do everything they need to do. If one city was to get all the power. You see, got guys. God's Spirit's a lot like that diagram we're looking at. You've got this unlimited, renewable resource, and it just needs that door to slide open, and the Holy Spirit courses into our lives, hits the turbine of our souls, and powers us for everything that God intended us to be. I once, actually, I didn't realize I believed it, but I once thought of the power of God like the good angel and Satan like the bad angel, and they're roughly equal in power. Man, you open that gate and let the water come in, whoosh.

[28:08] Goodbye, Pat and bad angel. There's no contest here. And if that power is allowed to course into your life, you will find spiritual transformation occur in areas of your life that you thought were a permanent negative part of your personality, that you thought you'd never be free from. But you have to open that door at the top, the control door. Much, so many of us are wired, all of us are wired by sin to be closed to God, but you just open a little, the water begins to flow. As Peter Moore shared last week, sometimes the most difficult time to open to God is when we're going through a season of disillusionment, loss, or discouragement.

[28:54] And he showed us how we can actually start opening to God by yelling at Him, by crying out, by voicing our complaints, but honestly communicating with the Father, and then praying again and watching that door open, and the power starting to come in and the renewal starting to happen. Jesus said to the woman at the well, using a very similar metaphor, He said, "Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." And my question is very simple, first thing: Are you a whoever?

[29:39] Yeah, we're all whoever. Because sometimes when we talk about spiritual things, we think, "Well, that's not for me. That's for so-and-so that seems to have experiences with God. That's for somebody else. It's not for me. It was for that woman at the well." It's for whoever, and it's for you, and it's not going to look the same for you as it's going to look for someone else. It won't even feel the same. How God uses you will not be the same as someone else. He will use you in the unique way that He designed you to reflect His own beauty. When you open to the flow of God's Spirit into your life, the lights come on. Who you were meant to be emerges.

[30:24] And people begin to be touched by your life. Perhaps you're going to be one of those people, and not all Christians are like this, but perhaps if one of those people that just glows a little bit, and people are attracted to that, and they want to talk to you. They want to be around you. Perhaps you're a person that has done all kinds of different things in your life. But as you open fully to the flow of God's Spirit through your life, God will knit those things together into a purpose and a plan, where you go, "Oh my goodness, God, I thought I was wasting my life and doing a bunch of detours. You just pulled it all together into one amazing thing. Thank you, God." Maybe you'll be a person that has the flow of God's Spirit becomes regular in your life, that you become a true rock for your family. You become that person that just doesn't seem to run out of love, doesn't seem to run under forgiveness and understanding, and holds a family together.

[31:24] And you will see God transform your family tree. From the people that came before you, the people that are beside you, and the people that are not yet born will be impacted by the flow of God's Spirit that is happening in your life. Perhaps as the river of God's love begins to flow through your life, you'll begin to realize how ridiculous some of this accumulation is that we do in this world. Begin to realize that we kind of live selfish lives, and God will fill you with such a generosity, and you'll begin to say, "God, here's what I've got. How can You use it?" And you'll become a generous, compassionate person, and there will be many, many opportunities for you to serve and be used.

[32:12] Every day is not going to be perfect. Some days that door will be stuck. Sometimes you get in the water, it feels too cold, and you want to get out. And sometimes you'll fail, you will fail. But even in your failing, you're going to learn something. "Oh yeah, I can do nothing without Him." And you're going to establish a new go-to, a new instinct: I need to connect with God. How can I start this day without connecting to God? How can I begin this new job without connecting to God? How can I look at this new year without asking God's blessing and a real dependence on God will occur. I want you to picture right now this flow of God's love and power.

[33:04] You can use the metaphor, the vine and the branch, as you can just picture that vine nurturing, fueling and feeding you as the branch. Or maybe you're going to picture that flow of God's love and power like a waterfall, and you're standing under it and it's just washing you clean. Or maybe you're gonna picture it like that tunnel opening to this immense power of God, opening that gate and God rushing in. But the real you, the you that God created you to be, is found in that relationship. The real you is found as that water cascades down over you.

[33:53] You are that man. You are that girl that knew they were alive when the Spirit of God came upon them. And it's there that we must find our center again. We're gonna take our time with this last song, because, like reading God's Word, like prayer, worship is nothing more than an opening to the flow of God's Spirit. And we're going to stand in a minute, and I'm going to ask you to do something that makes you uncomfortable, and you can say no if you want to. But in the Bible, the most common posture for worship was this. I lift my hands to the Lord.

[34:40] Now, I'm genetically wired to be like this. I think my ancestors were military or something. It feels hard to move my arms. How about this? You can maybe do that. And if you can't do that, close your eyes and picture. But I invite you now to open. And rather than running right into it, I'm wondering if we can sing a few, just a verse or two of "Holy Spirit, You're Welcome Here." And I just want to have a moment of quiet. So if the worship team can come forward.

[35:30] And maybe we can just sing a couple verses. And let's just be open to God for a moment.