John 15 Jimmy Draper

Jimmy Draper discusses the importance of the disciples' responsibility and personal relationship with Jesus. He mentions the parable of the vine and branches, emphasizing the need for believers to bear fruit. He clarifies that pruning does not refer to losing salvation but rather to becoming unfruitful. He also mentions the importance of the Word of God and the role of the Holy Spirit in the believer's life. He concludes by discussing the possibility of believers becoming unfruitful and the concept of a sin unto death mentioned in 1 John. Well, good morning. Good morning. Y'all doing okay? Good. Carol Ann is not here. I know you've noticed that. You know, I have this ailment that the first thing people ask me when Carol Ann's not with me is, where's Carol Ann? So, she woke up Thursday with fever and coughing and sore throat. And then we went to the doctor and they checked her for flu and COVID. And she had neither one of those, so that's good. But she does have a upper respiratory infection. And the doctor told her, said, you don't need to talk. And she can't. I guess I had my foot on that. It's tilting toward me, so I'll try to do that. Now, I'm going to move this back. I can't hop like Brother Jack can. So, Bob, if you'll help me out here, that'll be great. So, anyway, she... You've got to get the picture. She talks like this. Well, I can't hear her sometimes when she talks regularly. So, what do you do when you don't understand what your wife says? What did you say? She says, I can't talk. Anyway, Carol Ann never complains. One time she complained when we were in Dallas and called the doctor and he didn't even ask any questions. He just put her in the hospital because she never complains. But she woke up with a sore throat and just said, I don't feel good. Now, we've been blessed. I know not everybody is like we. We've always felt good. I mean, we haven't just been okay. I mean, we have felt good, positively good. And so when she says, I just don't feel good, that's saying a whole lot of things. Anyway, she's not here and sends her love. You pray for her. Okay, we're in John chapter 15. And next week, we'll do 16. And Brother Jack will be back, I guess. Jack, are you going to teach after this? Okay, 17. Don't miss 17. It may be one of the best chapters. It's actually the Lord's Prayer. What we call the Lord's Prayer is the model prayer. But the Lord's Prayer, John 17, is a great, great passage. And the passage we're in today is really at the heart of everything John's talking about. Now remember, Jack reminds us periodically that the Bible was not divided up into chapters and verses for many years. So it's important for us to look at the last verse again in the 14th chapter. Jesus said, get up, let's leave this place. So we know that they're not wherever they were at that time where whatever had been going on now is about to change. And they're on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane. By the way, about 30% of the Gospel of John deals with one night. And it's amazing. The last week is wrapped up through there. But the one night must be an important night. And this is the night that begins His journey to the cross in a very special way. So what we read in John 15 is what Jesus told the disciples as they were walking to Gethsemane. Now if you've ever been to Jerusalem, how many of you have been to Jerusalem? Well, you know, when you're standing on the Temple Mount, you just look right over at the Mount of Olives. But it's not easy to get there because you go down into a deep valley and back up again into the Garden of Gethsemane. So it's not a quick trip even though distance-wise it's not very far over there. And so Jesus is going to talk to His disciples and tell them more about what's happening when He leaves this earth, when He is crucified. He reminds them again of all the things that are going to be taking place. In the previous two chapters, Jesus taught the disciples what He would be doing for them and for all believers while He was away. When He's not here, He's going to be doing some things. He's seated at the right hand of the Father. He's interceding for us. He is our Mediator and Great High Priest. He will return in the fullness of time. And until He returns, He sent the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is to abide with us and provide for all of our needs while He is absent from us. Now in this chapter, we're going to learn what we're supposed to do for Jesus while He's gone. We've seen what He's going to do for us while He's gone. We need to know now what is our responsibility. And so we're going to see here what we are to be for Christ while He's absent and how vital our personal relationship is with Him. Now, I'm going to give you... I may chase some rabbits today. And we've got some points that I want to be sure we cover, so we may skip around a little bit. But it's very important that we understand the role of the Holy Spirit. Now, the Holy Spirit is God. Jesus is God. God is God. Three Persons, one God. Now, you can't imagine that. You can say, well, I believe it. Well, I believe it. I don't understand it. I have no point of reference. How can there be three Persons and one God? But I'm about to finish my book I told you I was going to write on. It's not rocket science. That's what I'm going to call it. I've got a good rough draft of it now. Now I'm just trying to go back through it and spit the bones out and leave the meat. But anyway, it's just not rocket science. God didn't give us the Great Commission and then tell us to go figure out how to do it. Now, I can't tell you how many think tanks and planning conferences there have been on how to fulfill the Great Commission. There's a think tank guy in California that I met when we were both teenagers, Bill Wagner, a foreign missionary from Southern Bavaria, Spelunkum. He's got a think tank going right now all over the world, people all over the world on how we're going to fulfill the Great Commission. Now, that's not our problem. God never told us to go figure out how to do the Great Commission. Jesus made it very clear, and He talks about it here, and this whole main concept in this chapter of abiding or remaining in Him is what I'm talking about. When we got saved, God put the Holy Spirit in us. God put Himself in us. And what He wants us to do is to honor His presence, maintain a strong relationship with Him, pay attention, and be obedient. It's not rocket science. It is not up to us. There's absolutely nothing we can do to be saved except receive it. When someone gives you a gift, you have to receive it. That's our part. We receive the gift of eternal life. But the Christian life is not difficult. It's impossible. I mean, if abiding by the Ten Commandments is all we needed, then that's all we'd have. But we have yet to keep the Ten Commandments. If the Sermon on the Mount was to be realized, then that would be one thing. But we can't even live with the Sermon on the Mount. But that's all right because even though it's impossible, God put the Holy Spirit in us. And there's nothing we can do to please God except obey Him. God wants us in this vital relationship to listen to what He has to say and then to be obedient. Now, there are two parables that John uses in the book of John. And you have the statement... This chapter deals with the parable Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. And that is the vital relationship that we have to have with God. This chapter is remarkably simple and profoundly difficult. I mean, it's easy, but it's difficult. It's impossible. And so Jesus in this chapter, there are basically three parts. The parable of Jesus is the vine and the disciples are the branches. By the way, this is the only place that Jesus is referred to as the vine in the Gospels. The synoptics do not mention this. And then the second thing is doctrinal statements about the primary responsibility of the disciples and believers. And then concluding a portion dealing with how the world is going to react to the disciples and to the Gospels. And here it is in a very simple sentence. In this chapter, Jesus tells us that our responsibility as believers, verse 2, bear fruit. Also in verse 2, bear more fruit. And in verse 5 and 8, bear much fruit. We are to bear fruit, bear more fruit, bear much fruit. And it is a remarkable parable we have. The other parable is in chapter 10, the parable of the Good Shepherd. And this chapter is at the heart of the Gospel. And it is one of the most significant passages that you could possibly have. It adds meaning to the I am's of Jesus. It starts off, I am the true vine. Now, every time Jesus is mentioned as whatever characteristic, He is the true vine. He's not just the vine. He's the true vine. In John 1, He is called the true light. John 6, He is called the true bread. And in Hebrews 8, He's called the true tabernacle. He is the true one. He's the faithful one. And only He can produce true fruit. So when you go to Galatians and talk about the fruit of the Spirit, which by the way, that's singular, the fruit of the Spirit simply describes Christian character. And you're not going to have one or two of those. If you're going to have the character God wants you to have, you're going to have all of these. And the gifts of the Spirit are also the gifts of the Spirit. The gifts of the Spirit are up to the Holy Spirit. He's the one who gives them. He doesn't give everybody the same gift necessarily. He doesn't do it in the same way. But it's His gift. You can't learn how to do it. He gifts you. And then He gives you the ability through His presence within us to exercise those gifts. They're equipping gifts for the saints. And so the only purpose of the vine is to bear fruit. No other reason. Bear fruit. Now if we don't bear fruit, we'll lose our rewards. We're not talking about salvation here. This kind of raises some sticky questions because He tells us in this chapter that if you don't bear fruit, God's going to prune you. Now He's talking to His disciples. In fact, in verse 5, He says, you are the branches. Hard not to misunderstand that. He's talking to His disciples. And so He's talking about believers. And He says that if you're unfruitful, then God is going to take that away. And what does that mean? How does God prune a believer? Oh, the good news is that it's not all suffering. Pruning also is translated cleansing. And so we're cleansed by the Holy Spirit. We're pruned. It doesn't necessarily mean suffering. It can mean the cleansing of the Word. That's why it's so important that we saturate our lives with the Word of God. And the truth is, remember verse 5, Jesus said without Me you can do nothing. You know, I remember vividly when I was in the fifth grade. A lot of things about that grade I remember. But I had a Big Chief tablet. Do you all use Big Chief tablets? And I started on the top and I put zeros all the way across the top. And then I followed it all the way to the bottom of the page and drew a line and added them up. Do you know what? Zero plus zero is zero. That's what Jesus is telling us. Without Me you can do nothing. He didn't say you can do something. He said you can do nothing. Which means that unless the Holy Spirit is working through us, whatever we do is not satisfactory. We can't please God by what we do. It's by who we are. What we do is the result of who we are. And this chapter is going to bear that. The idea of abiding or remaining is not an option. This is not a suggestion. It is in the imperative mood. It is a command. So all the way through here, you're going to see that Jesus is commanding, demanding that we bear fruit. And that only comes when we abide or when we remain in Him. Now, the relationship between the vine and the branches is very, very significant. As I said, the fruit of the Spirit. That comes out of that relationship. God the Father is seen as the gardener here or the vinekeeper. And He's the one who takes tender care of the vine and the branches. And He continually watches and prunes and fertilizes and cares for the branches. And He's always bringing fruit, much fruit, more fruit, to His glory. Now again, it begins with another I am saying of Jesus. Now, this one is different than the others. In the others, Jesus is talking about Himself. Only Himself. This one, He's talking about Himself and God the Father. So there's a little different impact here. And by the way, there's no danger here to the one who is the vine because Jesus is divine. We'll see how Israel is also referred to as a vine in the Old Testament, but they didn't make the grade. It was above their pay grade. They failed in that thing. And in verse 3, by the way, Jesus tells the disciples, You are clean. So the word purge again may mean something painful or surgical, but it can mean cleansing. And we are cleansed by the Word of God. We are the spiritual branches on the vine and we are commanded to study the Word, desire the sincere milk of the Word, feed on the bread of the Word, quench our thirst through the water of the Word, and walk by the light of the Word. That's how we are cleansed. By the way, this purging does not make us fit for heaven. We already have that. We are fit for heaven because of our relationship with Jesus Christ. But this purging makes us fit for earth where God can get the glory through what He does through us. And in 1 John 1, 5-7, John says, This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you, God is light and there is absolutely no darkness in Him. If we say we have fellowship with Him, and yet walk in darkness, we are lying and not practicing, not doing the truth. If we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another in the blood of Jesus. His Son cleanses us from all sin. Now in 1 John, and here in this chapter, in this Gospel, John talks about doing the truth. Now my translation says practice the truth. But both times, it's a little Greek word called poieo. It's a simple word. It just means to do anything. To do a thing. So what we find out is truth is not just something we believe, but we believe it is something we do. If we believe it, we're going to do it. And so that's why you'll find, like my translation talks about, you're to live by the truth. Well, that means we're going to do the truth. And so he emphasizes that here, the importance of the Word of God because we do the truth as we come to understand the truth. And by the way, for us to be filled with the Spirit as we're often told to do, we have to be emptied first. You can't fill it up if it's already full. Now that can be a very painful process. We're all full of ourselves. I mean, I can't imagine the world without me. If we're going to be filled with something, we have to be emptied. So this idea of being filled is that we're so focused on God in this relationship that He fills our lives. And so it's natural that whatever He fills us with is going to spill out of us. And that's the whole essence of this matter of the vine and the branches. There's no way to overestimate the importance of the Word of God. Paul said in Romans and Ephesians, we're saved by grace through faith. And faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Peter says we are born again through the Word of God. And then again, he says, we grow in grace by feeding on the Word of God. John 15 here says we're cleansed by the Word of God. Ephesians 5 says we're sanctified by the Word of God. No wonder Satan hates the Word of God. He hates it. Now, the pruning, I want to say several times, and I want you to pay close attention because I'm going to say a couple of things here in a few minutes that you may not have heard before, but you need to hear it. The pruning has nothing to do with eternal separation from God. We're not talking about losing your salvation. That is not the case. The pruning is speaking of believers. They are described in this passage as being in the true vine or being, Jesus says, in me. And then verse 5, He specifically says you are the branches. So we're not talking about some false believers. We're talking about genuine believers. And the branches mentioned here apparently are branches that once bore fruit and then stopped bearing fruit. We can identify with that. You remember probably how excited you were about being saved. What happened? You got used to it. You stopped being so excited about it. And the reason that we need to stay abiding in Him is we'll never lose the wonder. I got saved. I remember it. Never have gotten over it. Don't plan to. It's as fresh in my mind as it was over 80 years ago when I received Christ as my Savior. We are in Him. We are to abide in Him. And for us to become unfruitful, well, here's what Peter says. 2 Peter 1. Make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Titus. Paul said to Titus in Titus 3. Let our people learn to devote themselves to good works for pressing needs so that they will not be unfruitful. It's possible for one who has been a fruitful believer to become an unfruitful believer. The task of the gardener who is God is to determine which branches are productive. Manly Beasley. Many of you remember Manly. He was a member here many years. He used to say some Christians seem to mistake dust for smoke. Now, think about that a minute. We get so wrapped up in doing things and stirring up a lot of things that we mistake it for fire. God didn't want us to wear ourselves out just doing stuff. He wanted to see what the Holy Spirit could do through us as we remained in Him, as we abided in Him, and He worked through us. It is sad when believers do not bear fruit. Paul expressed concern about that himself. He said in 1 Corinthians 9.27, I discipline my body and bring it under strict control so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified. Well, that word disqualified means disapproved. It doesn't mean that his soul is lost. He's talking about service, not salvation. And he makes that abundantly clear in 1 Corinthians 3.11-15. He says no one can lay any other foundation than what has been laid. That foundation is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on the foundation of gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one's work will become obvious. For the day, the day of judgment, will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire. The fires will test the quality of each person's work. If anyone's work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will experience loss. But he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. There's one verse in the Bible over in 1 John that makes a simple statement. There is a sin unto death. Now, what on earth is that? Unless you were members here when I preached a sermon on that, you won't know what that is. There is a time when a fruitful believer can become unfruitful. We all know that. We all have backslidden at some time. Gotten away from our walk with the Lord. So we understand that can happen. But what is this about loss and fire? Now, let me confuse you a little more. In Hebrews 4-6, this is what the writer of Hebrews says. It is impossible to renew to repentance. Renew. It's impossible to bring someone to repentance who were once enlightened and tasted the heavenly gift, who shared in the Holy Spirit, who tasted God's good Word and the powers of the coming age, and who have fallen away. This is because to their own harm they are recrucifying the Son of God and holding Him up to contempt. Now, he's talking about... Look at this. He says, who were once enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift. You taste something, it becomes part of you, doesn't it? Tasted the heavenly gift. Who shared in the Holy Spirit. Who tasted God's good Word. And the powers of the coming age. Participated in the power that brings. The coming age. It's going to be revealed more. Who have fallen away. Now, he didn't say they fell out of. But they fell away. Okay. Now look at Hebrews 10. 26 and 27, then 29 and 31. For if we deliberately go on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, in other words, the word knowledge there is the Greek word epinosis. The word for knowledge is gnosis. Epi is a preposition affixed to it. And you can have a false gnosis, but you can't have a false epinosis. Epinosis speaks of the real thing. The real truth. So after sinning and receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. Now, he's following up on what he just said in Hebrews 6. But a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries. How much worse punishment do you think one will deserve who has trampled on the Son of God, who has regarded as profane the blood of the covenant by which He was sanctified, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know the one who has said vengeance belongs to me. I will repay again and again. The Lord will judge His people. And in Jonathan Edwards' famous text on his sermon back in the time of the Great Awakening, it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. He's talking about believers. Now, think with me for a moment. If a believer is going to fall into the hands of an angry God, how can he do it? There is a sin unto death. Now, I have no ability nor would I attempt to explain what that means except that the Bible indicates that a believer who becomes one who has stepped away from grace, become dominated by the powers of the earth and not by the Holy Spirit, is a serious thing. I believe that the sin of death includes either he'll kill you or the sin that you commit is so heinous that you will live with the consequences and never recover from the consequences. Bear in mind that when we sin, the sin can be forgiven. The consequences are still going to happen. So you can be forgiven the sin, but you're not likely to avoid the consequences of your sin. Now, I'll give an illustration, and this may not be accurate. I think it is, but bear in mind this is not one of those times I say in my humble but accurate opinion. I don't know this. But it seems to me that King David committed the sin unto death because from the time of his murder of Uriah and his infidelity with Bathsheba, his family and his life was filled with nothing but pain and disappointment and brokenness. His own son rebelled against him. He ran and hid from his own son Absalom and so tore him up when word came of Absalom's death. He broke into that incredible cry, O Absalom, my son, would God I have died for you. Mourning for the dead. His life was filled with consequences because of what he had done. Now, in my judgment, the sin of the death means God will take your life or He'll make you live with the terrible consequences of whatever you've done for the rest of your life. Now, I don't tell you that to tell you that I think any of us have done that. I just think God is warning us of how serious our relationship with Him is. We're going to see here in this chapter, He's going to make a remarkable statement. And I'm getting away from everything, so we'll quit on time here. He makes a statement in this chapter that He said, I'm not going to call you servants anymore. I'm going to call you friends. Do you know how many people in the Old Testament God called friend? One. And Isaiah is the one who made the statement that it was Abraham. Now, only one man in the Old Testament God called friend. But here, Jesus tells these motley disciples, these men who were scared of their own shadow after the cross, hid from the authorities, denied Him. They all denied Him, Scripture says. Peter cursed and denied Him and cursed and said He didn't even know Him. Those guys. Jesus said of them, I'm not going to call you servants anymore because servant doesn't know what his master is thinking. Even what he does. But you know because I've told you everything God told me to tell you. You know. And I call you not servants, but friends. Now, what does that mean? Now, just think about that. We've got a wonderful little course that we sing that's a contemporary thing about God being our friend. Well, let's say, what is a friend? It's not necessarily someone who's your buddy. You may have a lot of acquaintances you're familiar with, but they're not many friends. What is a friend? A friend's not someone you just have a good time with. It's someone you know will be there if you need him. I have a lifelong friend. We're both in our 80's. We see each other occasionally. We email or call occasionally. Carol Ann and I got to have lunch with him and his wife recently. They live in another city. He called me one night speaking barely above a whisper to tell me that he needed help. I said, I've got to have help. What it was doesn't matter. He took a leave of absence from his church, and I preached for him in his absence at his church. Connected him with a wonderful Christian counselor who had a conference here at our church while I was pastor. He called me not to enjoy our friendship, but to ask for help. That's what friends do. Larry Walker was an evangelist. His dad was a preacher. We were friends from our teenage years until he died a few years ago. But he was a wonderful poet, and he wrote a poem about friendship. He talked about friendship, and I wish I had thought to bring it this morning because it's such a short deal. But he said, you know, it doesn't matter whether you love me or not. I'll love you enough for both of us. Friends are just there. And Jesus said, you're My friends. It doesn't mean He'll never be your pal. He'll be your friend. You don't worship your pal. You worship your friend with a capital F. You'll be My friends. Now, we're in rare error here. God only called one person His friend in the Old Testament. He only mentioned this to 11 guys whom He knew were about to forsake Him and deny Him. But He was their friend. And they were His friends. Jeremiah 9 puts it this way. It says, you know, don't let the wealthy boast in his wealth or the wise man in his wisdom, but let him boast if he boasts that he knows Me and that I know him. That's what being a friend with God is. I know Him. Oh, He knows me and loves me anyway. None of us deserve love of God. I mean, it is a miracle of divine character. And love is not something God does. It is something God is. God is love. And He tells these disciples in this chapter that you're going to be My friends. And it's a little scary. You'll have to deal with chapter 17 here in a couple of weeks. But Jesus, when He talks about the relationship that He has with us, prays to the Father seven times in that chapter. And He says He prays that we will be one as He and God are one. Now, just think about that. Now, would Jesus pray a prayer that couldn't be answered? Now, be careful. How can we be one as He and God are one? I don't know the answer to that, but I do know this, back to the foundation of what I started with. God planted Himself in us when we were saved. And He wants us to be in a union with Him. The union with God is everlasting. It is unending. It can never be changed. They can never have a disagreement. Obviously, we don't measure up real good. But He says, I'm praying that you will have a relationship with Me like I have with God the Father. Do you realize that when Christianity appeared in the first century and began its trek through the Roman Empire, that it was the only religion in the world at that time that talked about knowing God? Islam never talked about knowing Muhammad. Buddha never talked about knowing Buddha. The Christians, the reason they got in so much trouble so fast was they were unique in the ancient world in their view of God. Three Persons. One God. The unknown. Whatever God may be in the minds of many, they know Him. And He's the only way. If you're going to find hope and future, this is it. Christ is the way. I am the truth. The way and the truth and the life, Jesus said. There's no other way. Imagine, that's kind of hard today. People feel like that's so presumptuous. Think about what it was like in the first century. No wonder the early church was so persecuted. It all started with Saul of Tarsus when he began to persecute the believers of Christ. And he had permission from the Sanhedrin on his body when he went to Damascus for the sole purpose of finding believers and bringing them back for either execution or whatever because someone spending years in prison didn't happen in the pagan world. You either got released from prison or they killed you. So he was going to bring them back, probably to death. And it was an amazing thing that he became, in the Damascus Road experience, Saul of Tarsus became Paul the Apostle. And when he became the chief spokesperson for the gospel through what was Roman Asia and the Mediterranean world, it was a new thing, a strange new thing. And the Romans insisted that you worship one of the Caesars. And the Christians got in trouble because they would not even say Caesar is Lord. Well, Rome was not pleased with that. And if the Christians would not compromise that, then you see the persecution that followed. It started with Saul and it would clear up into the 4th century. Hundreds of years. Just think about this for a minute. The very best that those disciples could promise someone who was lost if they got saved was persecution, persecution, or death. It would make it kind of difficult to be saved. Oh, it did guarantee a regenerate membership because not just anybody was going to do that. But this was a unique thing and the persecution was stout. And the Roman Empire tried over and over to kill this new cult they called it. And it refused to die. They couldn't shut it up. They couldn't defeat it. They couldn't annihilate it. It just kept growing bigger and bigger and bigger and then a strange thing happened. A Roman emperor named Constantine in 312 A.D. embraced Christianity and said he got saved. In 325, the Council of Nicaea, and I know this is boring to you, but it is a point. The Council of Nicaea which formed and approved the doctrinal basis for the Christian faith in 325 was presided over by Constantine. Which W.O. Carver who wrote The Course of Christian Missions said, and I'm going to paraphrase him because I can do it simpler than he did. He said that was the worst thing that ever happened to believers. Because up until that time, 325, the driving force of the Christian movement was the Holy Spirit. Read it in history. I have a seven-volume set of the history of Christianity by Kenneth Scott Lederet. While he was a missionary's kid and a professed believer, he writes very objectively and sometimes too objectively in my opinion. But through it all, he talked about the presence of the Holy Spirit in those early years. But when 325 came, Constantine removed the restrictions on the Christian church. They were illegal up until that point. They could not worship publicly. There were many religious movements. The mystery religions in that time. They had the same restrictions on them. So in 325 A.D., Constantine removed all those restrictions. He did not make Christianity at that time the official religion of the Roman Empire. That happened in 380 some years later, nearly 50 years later. It officially became the official religion of the Roman Empire. And oh, by the way, before that was over with, because the emphasis of the church became linked with the government or with the state at that time, and 20 other countries in the Mediterranean world adopted Christianity as the official religion of their countries. And with that, with 325, it was the worst thing that happened because it meant that the church turned from being led by the Holy Spirit to be influenced and dominated by the state. And that still happens today sometimes. We try too hard. Listen, God's will and God's purposes are not going to be restricted to the White House or to the U.N. venue. It's not. We're reaping the harvest still of the decision made by the early Christians to move from trusting the Holy Spirit to trusting the emperor or the powers of the government. We don't need to go any further down that. But nevertheless, it's a sad thing because nothing is nothing. Jesus said, without Me, you can do nothing. And we need to realize that and realize that our hope and our life is wrapped up in our relationship with Jesus Christ. Well, another thing He says here after He says, I'm going to call you not servants but friends, He said, you didn't choose Me. I chose you. That's unique in itself. Every devout Jew had a favorite rabbi. But the devout Jew chose his rabbi. Jesus said, you didn't choose Me. I chose you. What an amazing thing. There's that one passage in Mark's Gospel where it says that He chose twelve and that they could be with Him. And He called them to come up into the mountain. Jesus took the initiative. And oh, by the way, you can't get saved anytime you get ready. You can only be saved when the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin and calls you to repentance. And that's God's... I visited with a man in Kansas City. His wife came, and he came every Sunday to our church. She was a member. And I visited him at home and I shared the Gospel with him. He said, I wish I could accept that. He said, there was a time when I wanted that. And I would have responded to that. But he said, I no longer feel any need to be saved. I no longer have any inclination toward becoming a Christian. He wasn't antagonistic to it. He just had missed the time. And the Holy Spirit says enough is enough. Now, I don't understand what I just told you, but I do know this. God saves those whom the Holy Spirit convicts of sin. And they respond because God is a God of grace who sent His Son to die on the cross for us to be saved. Now, we can debate all you want to about sovereignty of God and the free will of man. And by the way, that controversy goes way back over 1,500 years. Do I need to say we're not going to stop it now? It's important for us to believe and to have conclusions about what we believe. It's not appropriate for us to split fellowship over it. If two people agreed on everything, it would be a dull friendship. If a husband and wife agreed on everything, it would be a dull wife and a dull husband. So God is the One who brings people into conviction and then He plants in us the Holy Spirit who leads us to be fruitful. God doesn't want us to try to please Him. He wants us to know Him, to relate to Him, and then to let Him live His life through us. Now, that's a mystic concept. It's hard to nail down. John Bassanio used to say it's like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree. It's very difficult. But it's a mystical thing that God is in us when we're saved, and our job is to maintain that relationship with Him. So, we're going to quit. I didn't do what I thought I would do today, but I do have a question for you. How long has it been since God spoke to you? God speaks to us. He speaks to us through the Word. He speaks to us through friends. How long has it been since He spoke to you? Oh, how long has it been since you spoke to Him? He is our friend in that He gave His life for us. He lives within us. We can trust Him. He'll never fail us. He's not my chummy buddy-buddy. He's not the man upstairs. He dwells within us. And will work through us if we will build that relationship. It takes time. You say, I don't have enough time. Oh, you have 1,440 minutes every day. And nobody else has any more than you do. If you don't make time, you will not have time. If you don't manage your time, it will manage you. So it takes time. Meditate. Remain. Abide in Him. That's our assignment. Oh, and then pay attention and be obedient. Father, bless us with the ability to not only hear Your voice and to know Your voice, but to obey Your voice. Thank You for Your Word that gives us such clear direction. But Lord, there's things in the Word that sometimes just don't make sense. But the Holy Spirit lives in us. And thank You that You gave Him, and He will guide us into all truth. He will tell us everything that Jesus wants us to know, and He will magnify Christ. And we thank You for that. Thank You for God, three Persons, one God, Who loves us. Who provides for us what we can't provide for ourselves. And we thank You in Jesus' name, Amen.