Good Morning Beloved Family,
I am so thankful today, thankful for our church, thankful for all of you
Heavenly Father,
We’re so very grateful for the opportunity
to be together today and to worship You.
To fellowship with each other.
Thankful for all You’re doing here,
with this ministry
Thankful for all the truths that
I am honored and privileged to share
I am beyond blessed by Your calling
Lord, I pray that You alone would be exalted
that all who join us may find hope and encouragement
but most importantly, they would find You!
That the wonder, love, and praise, we offer today
will bear much, much fruit, that all would be filled by You
Your Holy Spirit and Your Word
I pray that in the display of our fruitfulness
they would find Your transforming love
that they would receive the astonishing gift
of salvation, that they too may proclaim
"Christ lives In Me!!"
I also pray that as many are struggling today
that would find Your peace, Your comfort
Your joy, that can only be found in a personal relationship with You
Help each Word, each Truth to settle deep within our hearts
And that You alone, would receive the glory and praise
You so deserve.
These things I ask and pray in Your name
for Your glory
Amen
"I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full."
John 15:1-11
Today's Message: Jesus Christ The Indispensable God - Part Five
If you can hear the Word of God and do not allow it alter your behavior, to have a profound affect your heart, to change the way you are living your life, I'm afraid that you are on the Judas Iscariot path. A Judas Iscariot path... I pray that no one ever, under the sound of voice, finds themselves on that path. Yet, there are some in the world today, on a path such as Judas Iscariot found himself.
A path doomed to hell.
It is beyond my level of comprehension, how any Christian, who is sitting in one of the many churches today, where Christ is not constantly exalted, is not glorified, is not preached, can have the utter audacity to call themselves Christians. I simply cannot fathom how they manage to survive the absolute shallowness of their sanctifying experiences.
Fruit comes by abiding. Any and all Christians, true Christians, abide in Christ. And, as we've previously discussed, all who abide have Christ and God and the Spirit abiding in them. Christ lives in them. They, then therefore become bearers of fruit, or fruit-bearing trees. They produce deeds of righteousness, attitudes of righteousness, words of righteousness, and as we have also discussed, not all bear fruit to the same degree, but no less, they bear fruit. The degree depends upon the level of our commitment to Christ, which depends upon our affection for understanding of Christ. Essentially, your commitment, your level of abiding in Christ.
It it also beyond my comprehension, how anyone, having any knowledge of Christ, keeps from becoming in absolute awe of Him, that all sense of self becomes insignificant, utterly fading from view, losing themselves to Christ. We should all such a desire, to lose ourselves in the glory of Christ. I assure you, it's not accomplished by any means of human effort, but all through the Holy Spirit.
The more we focus our lives on Him, we move from one transforming glory to another, and yet another, all by the power of His Holy Spirit.
And that is consistently my prayer, that anyone under the sound of my voice, that they would come away with such an understanding of Him, such a hunger, a thirst, they simply cannot contain their longings to do so. To become lost to Christ. I pray that God will use this ministry, and each of those who are involved it in any capacity, as well as myself, in whatever means He sees fitting, to accomplish His plans for others to see His infinite glory.
I know many of you have been, at least in some capacity, have been following this ministry for a long time. And I am grateful for each and every one of you. I also know, that many of you have walked with the Lord a long time, long time. You’re very knowledgeable in the Scripture, chapter and verse committed to heart and can easily quote any number of passages, in an instant, on a dime.
But for new believers, for those who have just come to know Christ who are just beginning to read and understand the Scripture, and for those maybe on the outside looking in saying, "I’m trying to figure just out what this whole Christianity thing is," this is a very critical portion of Scripture. And so I’ve slowed down the process, the teaching, perhaps too slow for many of you, but in such a way, that even the newest of beginners may come to understand, a little bit more.
Now, before we dive into today's message too much, to start looking further into this section, I'd like to refer back to chapter 13, just for a moment.
It was on that Thursday night before celebrating the Feast of the Passover, Jesus, having known that His hour, which had been quickly approaching, the hour of His death had come. The hour that He would depart from this world, ascending to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, and how He loved them, and He expresses that love in the legacy of promises that He gives them in these subsequent chapters, through chapter 16, and then the prayer to the Father, in chapter 17, which asks the Father to fulfill all the promises that He has made to them. This incredible set of promises, is wrought out of that deep love of Christ for His own.
But then, immediately in the next verse, chapter 13 verse 2,we read,
"During supper, the devil, having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him."
We are just barely one verse into this incredible evening, and we meet Judas, the one who is to betray Him.
Then, in verses 6- 9, the ongoing discussion of washing, in verse 9, Peter asks the Lord a question, about washing. "Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head."
And in verse 10, Jesus says to Peter "Jesus said to him,"He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you." Verse 11, For He knew the one who was betraying Him; for this reason He said, "Not all of you are clean."
The reason that I taken this slowly, is I want you to understand this chapter 15, particularly, these opening 11 verses. This is a very definitive.
And so, down in verse 17, He said, "If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. I do not speak of all of you. I know the ones I have chosen; but it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me." And, here again, Christ refers to Judas, the one who is to betray Him. The betrayer.
Skip down to in verse 26, where Our Lord then answered the question, of "Who is this betrayer?" "Jesus then answered, "This is the one for whom I shall dip the morsel and give it to him." So when he had dipped the morsel, He took and gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. After the morsel, Satan then entered into him. Therefore Jesus said to him, "What you do, do quickly."
Over in verse 30 says, "He received the morsel, went out immediately; and it was night." This is the the background story, I just wanted to make sure everyone understands that so far. This brings us to the 15th chapter. The 15th chapter... So, now let’s begin by looking at the opening 11 verses of chapter 15, and you will see in what our Lord says here: two kinds of branches, two kinds of disciples. Those who remain and bear fruit and those who leave and are burned. And in the background, is Judas.
And that bring us to today's text. It begins with our Lord saying, "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You’re already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you." Jesus could now say that, by the way, because Judas was gone.
And the 11 remaining disciples were clean.
Jesus, then in the following ten verses, instructs them, "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he’s thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full."
As you know, we’re talking about abiding in Christ, and now we’re looking at this very graphic illustration of the metaphor Jesus uses as He likens Himself to a vine, and the Father is the one for cares for the vine. The Father was the one who cared for Jesus. And He certainly cared for Him at the time of His temptation when He sent angels from heaven to minister to Him. But He met His every need through His incarnation and humiliation. Jesus did only and exactly what the Father showed Him to do, and told Him to do. He was completely submitted to the Father. And as read in the Scripture records, the Father cared for Jesus, the true vine.
In the true vine, there are branches, there are branches that bear fruit, and there are branches that do not bear fruit. Branches that bear fruit are purged, pruned to bear much fruit. Branches that do not bear fruit are "thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned."
This leads us to contemplate the prescribed question that is in verse 8, "and so prove to be My disciples." So how do you prove to be a true disciple of Christ? Well, what is the nature of a true relationship to Jesus Christ? How do you define the nature of that? How exactly do you define that? How are we to understand what it means to be so connected to Christ? How are we to understand the spiritual reality of our union with God? What does Scripture say about the Christian’s relationship to the Lord?
Beloved, this is knowledge is imperative. Its critically important, very critically important, because in Matthew chapter 7, Jesus said, "Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’"
And He went on in that Sermon on the Mount to conclude with the parable, "Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall."
Then just a little later, in Matthew chapter 13, Jesus said, "Behold, the sower went out to sow; and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. And others fell on the good soil and *yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear."
Jesus was saying that the seed of the gospel truth will be sown, and some of it will fall into soil that appears to be receiving the seed, but just below, underneath the surface, it’s bed of rock; and thus before it can bear any fruit, it withers and dies. And other seed will fall into soil that is full of weeds, and they will choke out the life before it can bear fruit. So, what our Lord is saying is, you need to come to expect some people to give sort of indication of an initial manifestation, that they receive the gospel truth, and they belong to God and belong to Christ.
And then the Lord said, in Matthew 13, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn." That is to say, there will be, in the kingdom, which will be very difficult to separate them. There will be, in the kingdom, a time when everything in the kingdom is gathered, and then it will be sorted out.
"He presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches." Which is to say the kingdom will be huge, but not necessarily all genuine. Not all will be genuine and therefore will not remain.
In Closing....
Beloved we live in a time when we see that. At the time when our Lord made those statements to the disciples, the church, of course, had not yet even been born. And now here we are today, we live in a time, that when we look at a world where Christianity is massive, at least those who claim to be Christian, is very massive. But make no mistake, there are always going to be false Christians.
So, I want to leave you today, with the burning question:
"How do you prove to be a true disciple?"
"How do others know whether or not you’re a true disciple?"
But more importantly, "How do you know?"
As I stated earlier, this is a critical, very critical question, the most critical of all questions to ask; and one we'll be sure to address the answer to here, next time we meet. We’re going to pick it up there.
Until then...
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
Brian Monzon Ministries