The Church of Eleven22 - A Disciple Deepens in Their Faith - Follow Me - Wk 6

Episode Date: June 1, 2025

How do you deepen your relationship with Jesus? In this sermon, we dive into John 15 to explore what it means to abide in Christ—the key to spiritual growth, lasting joy, and bearing fruit that lasts. Learn how spiritual disciplines, pruning, and drawing near to God are essential for every disciple of Jesus.  • A Marriage Redeemed - The Jester's Story    • Abiding in Christ - Deepen with Pastor Job...     The Church of Eleven22® is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. Eleven22 is led by Pastor Joby Martin and based in Jacksonville, Florida, with multiple campuses throughout Jacksonville and the surrounding areas. To support this ministry and help us continue to reach people all around the world, click here: http://coe22.com/donate

Amen and amen and amen. How we doing church? Doing good. You look great. If you got your Bibles, then I hope you do. Grab them. We're going to be in John Chapter 15. John Chapter 15.

I want to welcome everybody that's here. Those of you here with me at all of our campuses, those of you worshiping online, especially a couple campuses that want to point out, those of you that are at our St. John's campus. Guess what? This is your last day in the gym. As those of us, the rest of us,

they don't know. They meet at Creekside High School Gym. And so next week, you get to move across the street to the campus that we built there. I promise you two things. There's more seats. There's comfortable seats. And it does not smell like sweaty teenage boy. So praise God for that. So thank you for enduring that smell that you've had to endure for all those years. And then also we've opened a new campus in Palacca. So all of you worshiped in Palacca with us. Praise God. Amen. My people down in Palacca. Let's go. Made fun of them for so years. We put a church there. Isn't that cool? Hey, we're in the six week of this series called Follow Me. And the reason it's called Follow Me is because we're not in the crowd business.

even though there's a big old crowd, all up from, you know, Orlando to Jessup. But we're not in the crowd business. We're in the disciple-making business. That when Jesus gave the great commission, he said, therefore, go and make disciples. That's what we're about. And so the reason it's called Follow Me is the very first thing that Jesus said to the very first disciples was that. They said, follow me. And he didn't even tell them where they were going because it wasn't necessarily a destination.

He said, follow me, and I'm going to make you something that you're not. I'm going to make you fishers of men. and what we are to do is that we are to take footsteps in the direction of the good shepherd. And if you stop taking steps, then by definition you are no longer following. And so we have talked about this discipleship journey and what it means to follow after Jesus. Let me ask you this question, okay? Those of you that are money people, like investment kind of people, all right? What if I gave you this offer?

Just imagine this. It's not true, but just imagine. What if I made you this offer and I said, if you will make an investment, into this deal I've got for you, I promise you that you will double or triple or even 10x the investment that you make. Would you take it? Or maybe some of you fitness people, all right? Some of you fitness people.

Like if you're trying to get into shape, I know everybody's in some sort of shape, but imagine you wanted to get into a different shape, all right? And by the way, let me give you an over 40 Florida fitness tip. TAN fat equals muscle. There you go, write that down. Now, but imagine, imagine, especially if you're 50 and up like me, and the things that used to work don't work anymore. Remember that?

Remember your 20s? Remember you could just switch from sweet tea to unsweet tea for three days? I lost eight pounds. Those were glorious. Okay, whatever. But if I could give you a pill, and I'm like, if you will just take this one supplement, then you will achieve all of your fitness goals. Would you take it?

Mamas, imagine this. Imagine if I gave you a formula, and I just said, if you say these words in the morning, your children will obey you every single day. Would you sign up? Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? Well, it is. But did you know? In the Bible is an offer that is greater than any financial reward that you could ever have.

It's greater than any kind of physique that you can ever achieve. It's greater than any kind of personal relationship that you could ever have. There is a promise. There is an offer of God in the Bible that he says you can count on this 100% and his name is the name that backs it. and it's this in James chapter 4 verse 8 James who by the way is the biological brother of Jesus and so I've told you this before if you're kind of on the fence about this whole Jesus thing like you're new to Bible study and you're like I don't know about the

claims of Christ the brother of Jesus believed that his brother was the son of God let that sink in for a second it was the resurrection of Jesus that assured James that his brother is who he says he is I've told you this before anybody got a brother, if you got a brother, raise your hand? Okay, good. What would it take for you to be convinced that your brother is the son of God? I got a brother. He goes to the St. John's campus. And if he were to come to me and be like, behold, I'm the son of God. I'm like, you're the son of something. It ain't God. We grew up together. Understand? And yet, the brother of Jesus says this. In James 4, verse 8, he says this. This is an offer of the living God. He says, draw near to God,

and he will draw near to you. That the cosmic king of the universe says, I got a deal for you. If you would just lean in my direction, if you would just take a step in my direction, then I promise you, you draw near to me and I will draw near to you. And so for five weeks so far in this Follow Me series,

every single week I have had like a program for you to sign up for, like to take a step that we provide. Like to serve or join a group or to get saved and get baptized, like to share your faith with anyone more, to bring your first and best. And praise God, you have been taking steps. I mean, this is pretty cool.

Just in the last five weeks of church, 202 people have stepped over the line and claimed Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior for the very first time. Praise God. That at Beach baptism, 1,958 people got baptized. In addition to that,

five seniors at our senior living communities have been baptized. 34 people yesterday at my hunting class. Club got baptized. At Marion Correctional, we're going to baptize 50 inmates and the warden next month. We're baptized in 12 at Union Work Camp and 8 at Baker. Praise God for that. Those are steps. That 315 of you have completed growth track. Way to go. Over a thousand of you have joined disciple groups. Praise God. 35 disciple groups have been launched. Almost 400 people have signed up to serve. Almost 800 people have trusted God with their finances for the very first time in their

life through 1122, and we have had seven long-term missionaries put in applications to be sent to the ends of the earth through being missionaries through 1122. Praise God. Steps on steps, on steps, on steps. That's all awesome. That's all awesome. But today's a little bit different because I don't have necessarily a particular step for you. As you see, the discipleship journey that we've got up here, you'll see down in that bottom right corner, it says a disciple deepens their relationship with Jesus by deepening their faith. This one is a little bit custom to you. Because what I need for you to do is to do whatever it takes in your own personal life

to deepen your relationship with Jesus. If you're kind of long in the tooth around here, you might write the word spiritual disciplines. That's what we're talking about, okay? There are some things that you put these habits and practices in your life and they will help you deepen your relationship with Jesus. And we're going to see it right here in John chapter 15. And if you've done one of those other steps, like join a group or serve or whatever, those things are going to do this. These things are going to help you deepen your relationship with Jesus Christ.

And we never graduate from being a disciple and from deepening our relationship with Jesus. In John chapter 15, Jesus is having a conversation with his disciples. This is called the farewell discourse. This is after the upper room. This is after they have had the Lord's Supper. This is before he gets arrested in the Garden of Githemite. And how many of you know, parents, you know this. Oftentimes your last words to your kids are the most important, right?

Like you're about to drop them off and you're like, change your underwear, right? Whatever it is. Brush your teeth. Whatever. The thing you need them to know. Well, this is the thing. The very first thing he said was follow me. We all follow something.

This final discourse, he's going to continue in that same thing. continue to follow me. John chapter 15 starts out this way. I am the true vine. Now, we root through that in English and we just kind of go right by it. I'm the true vine. But man, if you grew up a first century Jewish person and you studied the scripture and you had memorized the whole bunch of the Old Testament, you would realize that when Jesus says I am in the gospel of John, Jesus makes seven I am statements. I am is the covenant name of God that all the way back in Exodus chapter three Moses, he thinks God's done with him. He's like 80 years old.

He's working for his father-in-law, so you know he's outside of the will of God. And he's just like, he's tending the sheep. And then he sees a bush that's on fire, but it's not being consumed. He's confused. He walks up to it. And God speaks through the bush and says, take off your shoes because you're on holy ground. Moses, I want you to go to the Pharaoh and say, let my people go. And after eventually, he's like, all right.

But if they say, who sent me? Who should I say sent me? What's your name? And God said, here's my name. He says, in English we translated, I am that I am. The Hebrew is just four letters. It's called the tetagram. In English, it's just Y-H-W-H.

We pronounce it, Yahweh. In Hebrew, it's supposed to sound like breathing. Like the name of God is Yahweh, to breathe in, to breathe out. That God Almighty is as close as your next breath. That there's no past, present, and future, that he is the great I am. In John, seven times. Jesus says, you're looking for God? We'll look no further because I am.

Now, if you've ever seen those little YouTube clips where people are like, nowhere in the Bible does Jesus claim to be God, those people are dumb and can't read words. Okay, they just don't understand. Seven times is the number of completion in Hebrew. So seven times Jesus claims to be God, he is saying, I am completely God. Look no further because here I am.

And in this instance, he says, I am the true vine. Now again, if you grew up as the first century, a Jewish person, you'd be like, what? Are you even serious right now? Because in the old covenant, in the Old Testament, one of the things that the nation of Israel is called is that Israel is called the vine. Now, usually when God called them that, they were in trouble because they weren't producing the right kind of fruit.

But here's what Jesus is saying. He says, in the old covenant, if you wanted to be connected to God, you had to be connected to the sacrificial system that happened amongst the Jewish people. But now guess what? If you want to know God, you don't have to kill a goat in downtown Jerusalem anymore, but I am the Lamb of God who's come to take away the sin of the world. And so if you want to be connected to God, the Father, then you be connected to me, and that's how you'll be connected. He says, I am the true vine.

And my father is the vine dresser, or my father is the gardener. So he's going to use this garden language. This isn't really a parable because he doesn't tell a story. This is a word picture. And oftentimes when the Bible talks about a garden that is a picture of a relationship, and this is what Jesus is talking about. Jesus is saying, I did not come so that you would just participate in religious obligation. I came so that we could have a relationship.

And here's how I need you to think about it. I am the vine. If you want to be connected to the father, you've got to be connected to me. And my father is like the gardener. Verse two. In every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away. and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit.

Now, let me be clear about this. I'll probably say this 10 times because I don't want you to get confused here. What Jesus is going to say over and over and over is that when you're a Christian, there's a lot of work that you do. But the work that you do does not make you a Christian. The finished work of Christ on the cross

is what makes you a Christian. That salvation is something that has received, it's not achieved. And so he wants you to know, though, that it's not that you're going to do these things so that God loves you, but because God already does love you and he demonstrated it on the cross,

therefore we do a whole bunch of things to create the kind of environment where our relationship with God can flourish. Like, have you ever tried to grow a garden? It's a lot of work. You don't just throw seeds out there, come back in a month, I'll be like, hey, look, toss salad, worked out good.

That's not how it works. And he says, so it starts with it. There's going to be branches in your life. There's a couple of kind of branches. You got some stuff in your life, and it's producing no fruit. It's actually bad for you, and you've got to cut some of that stuff off and throw it away so the good stuff can grow. And then you've got some stuff that's doing good, and my father is going to prune it. Some things you cut off and some things you cut back so that they grow to be even more healthy.

Have you ever been pruned in your life? You ever been disciplined by God? How about this way? Anybody grow up in the 70s and 80s with a Southern dad? You know what pruning is. Right? My dad would tell me I'm doing this for your own benefit. That Indiana Jones thing.

And he would prune me because he loves me. And I don't have time to get in. I know some of you people that move from up north here. You hit your kids. There's a reason you had to move from it. Anyway, I don't have time. Anyway, so here we go. But what he's saying is there's some things you've got to cut out.

And then there's some things you got to fertilize. This is what it is to have a garden. Now, again, here's the warning. The gospel is not anti-effort. It's anti-earning. It's simple to become a Christian. You receive Christ. It's not easy.

It takes the rest of your life to take up your cross and follow him. The writer of Hebrews says it this way in Hebrews chapter 12. It comes off of Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11 is known as the Hall of Faith. There's a whole bunch of people listed in the Old Testament that had faith in God. And then based on that, he says this, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of Witnesses, that's Hebrews 11, let us also do a few things. Let us lay aside every weight and sin that clings so closely, and let us run with endurance

the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfective of our faith. He's like, we've all been called to run a race that Jesus has called us to. But in order to run the race that Jesus has called us to, there's three things that need to be going on consistently in your life. And again, John's going to use pruning language. and the writer of Hebrew says, you got to do this. One, there's some sin in your life,

you've got to cut it out. There's some other things that entangle you, you've got to lay them aside. And then you've got to fix your eyes on Jesus. Here's what this means. The old school Puritans would call this mortification and vivification. First of all, it's this. There is some sin in your life that you've got to kill

or it's going to kill you. That sin is not something that you pet, it's not something that you tame, it's not something that you just keep up in the cage in the bedroom and feed you a little while because it's cute and you think you got it. That is an apex predator that one day, when you're not paying attention, is going to kill you. There's some things in your life that you have to put away the sin in your life.

You've got to get it out of your life. And the moment you think, I got this, you're a dead man because you ain't got this. You'd be killing sin or it'll be killing you. That's what Jonathan Edwards says. And it's absolutely right. And too many times, especially in America, we think, well, nobody's perfect. It's just this little thing. It's like this, man, it's like, you ever watch on the news?

Florida man? And they're like, Florida man, killed by a pet bear. Who knew? I knew. I just knew. Or a guy gets a pet wolf. And then sure enough, it eats his face off. Like, I didn't see it coming.

I fed it as a puppy. I named it fluffy. Well, that's adorable. But guess what? That's an apex predator. and you're a walking corn dog. Eventually you're going to die. That is sin in our life.

Either you're killing it or it's killing you. And you think it's not a big deal. It's the biggest deal in the world. You got to get that out of your life. The sin that clings so closely needs to be put to death. That's one. The second thing you've got to do is that there are some other things that aren't in and of themselves sin, but they entangle you and hinder you from walking with Jesus.

The Bible says let us lay aside every weight. the translation lay aside because it sounds like, it sounds like you're doing laundry, you know, like you just kind of go, let me put that over there. No, no, no, no. This is like, this is that, get off me, you know that kind of thing?

My friend Leonce Crump says, don't ever buy a suit that you can't fight in. I love that so much, that should be in the Proverbs. This is fighting words. You ever bump into somebody, they go, pardon me, that's cool, but if they're like, get off me. You know what, that means, uh-oh. There's some things in your life

that though in and of themselves, they're not sin, you gotta be like, get off me because it's hindering you from following after Jesus. It could be some dumb hobby. There's nothing wrong with hobbies. If you're married with kids, you need one hobby. But you only get one. Choose wisely.

But if it's consuming all of your time and all of your effort and all of your energy, I'll give you one, and I'm going to pick on this one because I don't love it a lot. Golf. Is anything wrong with it? No, it's fine. It's fine. But if you're a liar and a cusser and a drunk and a fighter every time you do it and you're spending more time in that than you are with your family and in the word,

you should probably lay it aside for a while because it's hindering your role with Jesus. I'll give you one from my own life. There's a few times every year I just have to take Instagram off my phone. Not because I'm looking at anything inappropriate. I got all kind of guardrails for that. It's because I will find myself spending an inappropriate amount of time on some stupid stuff. Like I've tried to work the algorithm so I get hunting 1122 in Georgia football. That's all I want to see.

But bro, I'll do 45 minutes on people falling up as school. escalators. And you know what I'm talking about? Because you send me into dumb videos. And I just get wrapped up in the vortex of ski lifts going wrong. And then at the end of, I haven't done anything necessarily wrong, but it's just stupid. What a way? I don't have time for that kind of stuff.

So I have to go, boom, I'm going to lay you aside for a while. What are the things in your life that are shrinking your relationship with Jesus? Cut them out. And then the third thing you've got to do is you've got to look to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith. You've got to fill yourself up with the kind of things that stir your affections for the Lord. You're doing it right now. Congratulations. You're at church.

But it's these kind of things. But if you're only going to do this like once every eight weeks or so and you wonder why you don't have this growing affection for the Lord, then that's why. because you're never going to just accidentally find yourself in this deep abiding relationship with Christ. You ever see those old couples, like real old couples, like at Cracker Barrel? And you're like, I want to be like that when I grow up. You know what I'm saying? Like they're out there and the rocking chairs, they're staring at the time, they get together, they share plate, they share teeth. And you're like, that's what I don't want to be.

It does not happen by accident. That has been cultivated over decades and decades and decades and decades. They did not ignore themselves into this kind of growing relationship. The same thing is true with your relationship with Jesus. And it takes work. It takes work. Again, again, we live in a culture that has a relentless pursuit for comfort. And if you want to be comfortable, Christianity ain't for you.

It is a constant life of taking up the cross and following after Jesus. Now there is peace that transcends understanding, but if you want to gain life, you lay it down. and I'm telling you, you constantly cultivate this relationship with Jesus by cutting some things out and getting your eyes fixed and focused on him. And too many times we are in the pursuit of comfort at the expense of our walk with Jesus. Let me tell you, I was coaching Providence football a couple years ago, okay? And I'm in the wait room with them, and they made me mad. It doesn't take much. But this day was just, see, everybody wants to win the championship, right?

And I don't know. Some of you know this. you don't win it on the field. That's where the field just exposes what you've been doing all summer. You win it in the weight room. And it's hot, and everybody's probably got tetanus in there, you know, it's grimy.

And what everybody wants to do does everybody's got their little selfie stick and they want to do curls. This ain't a football move, man. You can pick the ball up. If you want to win championships, you've got to lower your base, you've got to drive somebody,

you've got to hit them into heaven, you know what I mean? Well, the way you do that is you stack big weights on your back, and you deadlift, and you're power clean, and you've got to do things that make you strong. And it's hard. to get strong. And I got real wrong. I'm yelling to everybody as they're looking at themselves

and being stupid because they care more about what they look like on the beats and how they play on the field. And I just said at the top of my lungs, everybody wants to be strong. Nobody wants to be sore. Then I thought about the average American Christian. Everybody wants to be strong. Everybody wants to have this deep abiding relationship with Jesus. But they're not willing to do some of the work that God has called you to. In fact, one of the craziest things is, it's often in the toughest times that God shapes us to be more like his son. Amen? You know that up here and then what do we do? We pray that God would take us out of the circumstances that maybe he has us in so that we would know what it's like to know the peace of Christ

even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. We're asking him to take us out of the gym that he put us in so that we could get two more reps so that we could be prepared for what he has a store for us. This is what Jesus is talking about with this garden analysis. You want to know what the will of God for your life is? I got it. It is the will of God to use the word of God by the power of the Spirit of God to conform the children of God into the image of the Son of God. That's what God wants to do with you. And so sometimes, up front especially, it takes discipline.

But here's what's great, man. You only need discipline until it becomes a habit in your life and you see the payoff. Like, I've been working out a long time. You don't have to make me go anymore. I like it. It's just a part of who I am. Just like this. When I first became a Christian early on, I had to be disciplined to read the Word of God.

Nobody's got to make me read the Word of God anymore. You know why? Because I love it so much. In fact, I'm kind of confused when you tell me it's hard to read the Bible. I just want to punch you in the face. I'm like, what are you doing? Are you kidding me? This is God's revealed word to us.

And again, so at first, at first, it may feel like a discipline, but then over time it goes from half to to get to. this is what Jesus is saying. Back to John chapter 15. And again, I think Jesus, I mean, he's the greatest teacher of all time and he's God, so he knows our heart. And he knows that we can have a danger, especially in a sermon like this, because I'm going to talk a lot about activity. And he's going to remind us that identity precedes activity.

And he knows that we can be tempted to trade in abiding for achieving. So before he gets into what to do, he just reminds us already, you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. So the reason that you know Jesus is because he died on the cross and you put your faith in him and you believe that when he died on the cross, it counted for me. And so that grace should drive us then to cultivate a relationship with him. Again, grace is not anti-effort, it's just anti-earning.

So then with that in mind, here's what Jesus invites us to. Here's the deal that Jesus offers you and me. It's an invitation. The invitation is this. Abide in me and I and you. Now, we don't use that word abide much, but a very, like, low-brow-brow definition would be this. Just stay close.

Just be with me and I'll be with you. Stay close to me. I'll stay close to you. I'm not here just to make sure you check the boxes of religious obligation. No, no, no, no, no. I want a relationship with you. I want you to lean into me. And listen, man, we take this for granted.

Granted, because we're post-resurrection, New Testament people. Remembering the Old Testament? Moses, he's a good guy. He went up on the Mount Sinai. He saw the presence of God. He received the Ten Commandments. He stood in front of the Red Sea and lifted up his staff and that thing parted and he walked through on dry ground. He did some cool stuff, right?

And he gets to the point where he says, God, show me your glory. I want to see you face to face. And the Lord's like, hold up, Scooter. You can't handle my glory. You'll burn up like a piece of toilet paper and a campfire. This is not an exact translation, but this is what he's saying. I haven't sent the propitiation for your sin yet, so you can't handle it. So here's what I'll do, bro.

I'll put you here in the cleft of the rock, and I'll cover you up, and I'm just going to cruise on by, and you'll kind of get to see the afterglow. Moses is like, I'll take it. And it was so powerful that when Moses came out of the mountain, his face was glowing. And yet Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, he looks at me and you, and he goes, come here, I want you to be close to me. And I'm going to be close to you. This is about deepening a relationship with Jesus Christ. Then he says, as a branch cannot bear fruit by itself. If you ever see a branch on the ground, it's only future as firewood, right? Unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. Stay close to Jesus. He says, I am the vine, you are the

branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit for a part. from me, you can do nothing. You see, one of the things, church people get so confused about this, so many times we try to manufacture moral behavior, and that's different than bearing fruit by abiding in Jesus. Like, have you noticed, if you go buy fruit at the grocery store, it's in the produce section, not the manufactured section, because you can't manufacture fruit. It is produced from the inside out. Have you ever seen a tree trying to manufacture something?

You ever see just, what are you doing? Peaches. No. The branch just abides into the tree and peaches come out of it because peaches are in it. And if I take a bunch of oranges and just nail them to a two by four, it does not make it an orange tree. And too many times, listen, I didn't really grow up in chariots, but when I went, the message I heard over and over and over was just about morality. I heard this all the time. God is good.

You're bad. Try harder. See you next week. And I would try so hard for many, many hours after church. And Jesus is like, I'm talking about something different. I'm talking about when you get close to me, I'm going to begin to do things from the inside out because I am in you. And this is called the fruit of the spirit.

Galatians 5 defines it this way. The fruit, singular, of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness. gentleness, self-control. You ever seen somebody just try to be more patient? How silly is that? I just can't be more patient. It won't come fast enough. You idiot.

Listen, what you got to do is you get close to Jesus, and Jesus stuff will start flowing out of you. This is very, hey, you had marriage issues. You're like, uh-huh. Instead, it ain't just tips and tricks, man. You get Jesus in the middle. You will bide in Jesus and guess what's going to come out of you? You love, joy, peace, and patience?

You think, it's not just, just communication tactics is going to fix your marriage. You get Jesus in the middle and you act like it. The closer you get to him, the more Jesus you act from the inside out. This is what he's talking about here. This is not external. This is inside out. It's called progressive sanctification. I hope if you've been walking with the Lord a little bit, you've recognized this in you. You'll be surprised by your own reactions sometimes? Like you're on the highway and somebody cut you off and you don't even cuss and you're like, oh my gosh, it's happening. That's right. That's Christ that you ever step on a Lego not want to murder a child?

You're like, oh my gosh, this is happening. That is exactly right. Over time, not overnight, Christ is conforming you into the image and likeness of him as you stay close to him. Verse 6, he says, if anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered thrown into the fire and burned. I think he's talking about two things. Jesus is the master teacher Judas has just betrayed Jesus

and everybody knows it and I think one of the things that he's doing is he's explaining what happened to Judas he's like please don't miss me you could be around me you could hear all the sermons you could follow around but not know me as Lord and Savior

and you're not connected to me I also think he's talking about how to abide so Jesus gives you this incredible invitation hey abiding me and I will abide in you And if you were to say, all right, Jesus, how do we abide? I want to stay close to you.

How do I stay close to you? In this text, we're going to see in a minute that Jesus is going to give us a couple of prescriptive things so that we do these things in order that we can abide in him. Now, a couple of warnings. One, I'm going to talk about some specific activities, but what you've got to understand is don't confuse the watering schedule with the fruit. that there's all kinds of different ways you can water that relationship that produce the fruit. And don't get those things confused, okay?

There's a lot of connection between physical health and spiritual health. So I work out at the gym right here across the street, and if you were to show up there tomorrow and you say, I want to get in shape. Like whatever shape you are, you were looking for another shape. You're going to run into my guy named Dave, and you'll see him because you walk in and he's as big as the building. Like he doesn't have a neck. He's just like, hey, what's up? Okay?

And you might not want to look like him, but you don't want to look like you, and so you're going to go to Dave. And I don't know how he brushes his teeth. I think he just puts it on the longus in the morning because he can't, right? He was here at 9 o'clock. He's swollen up, right? And so if you want into Dave, you're like,

I need you to train me. There's three areas of your life that Dave's going to tell you you need to take a look at. And the first thing, if you want to get into any kind of physical shape, the first thing he's talking about is diet. How many of you know? You can't out train your fork. Can I get a witness? You got to change what's going in.

Your mama was right. What you are is, I mean, you are what you eat. And if you eat twinkies, you're going to look like a twinkies. That's just what it is. And so he's going to say, we've got to change your diet, okay? And then he's going to say, and then you've got to do some kind of exercise. Everybody doesn't have to do the same. There's got to be some kind of resistant, some kind of cardio, okay?

And then there's got to be rest. Because even if you eat right and train right, if you don't get the proper kind of rest, eventually you'll burn out, get hurt, and you can't do it anymore. And what's interesting is the same God that created your body, created your soul. And similarly, if you want to abide in Christ, you've got to look at diet, exercise, and rest. First you've got to look at diet. You've got to get on a healthy diet of the truth of the Word of God. That's through sermons.

That's also through reading it yourself. That's through sitting in groups and talking about the Bible. If the primary diet that you have going into your mind is the life. lies of TikTok, that tick-tock is the ticking bomb that your life is going to blow up because you're believing the lies of the world. Listen, I hate to call my man out, but my boy Timmy's right over here. Did you see him on Sean Ryan? Did you see how much scripture leaked out of my brother?

He didn't memorize that while he was waiting in the waiting room. And did you hear the story of what his parents had him do before he played every game? There was all kinds of scripture memory that he had to do. So now as a grown man and like a real grown man, when you squeeze him, scripture comes out. Why? Because scripture is in there because he's been an unhealthy diet of the word of God for year after year after year.

You've got to change your diet. And then there's also got to be exercise that it's not enough that we just like me and Jesus are tight and I feel all the feels. But the reason that he has called us is to be about the great commission. So we serve the least of these. our neighbors and to the ends of the nations. And we share the good news of the gospel. You know, you know what happens to a sponge that just soaks and soaks and soaks?

It sours and gets nasty. And so does the Christian just soaks and soaks and soaks. In order for a sponge to be used right, it's got to constantly be squeezed out and then filled back up. And then we also rest. And a part of what it means to rest is that we, that's worship and prayer. A part of the Sabbath principle is that we rest and find our, identity in Christ first and foremost. I mean, that's what we do here. When we come to church together, a part of what we do is we are resting in the promises and in the presence of God. Think about

this, the very first human beings on the planet, Adam and Eve. The first full day of their life, they wake up. Adam's thinking, this is going to be a good day, because every other time I've woken up, it's going good. First day I woke up, there's God Almighty. And then he says, It's not good for man to be alone. Gave me a nap. Woke up, there's my naked wife. So I don't know what's happening tomorrow, but it's going to be good. He wakes up the first full day of his life.

He's like, all right, boss, what are we doing today? Because we got a lot to do. I mean, we've got to subdue and cultivate. We've got to be fruitful and multiply. We've got to be fruitful and multiply. What are we going to do, boss? And God goes, here's what we're going to do. We're going to rest.

Adam's like, I ain't even tired. I just got here. He said, no, no, you're not resting from work. You're resting for work. because what I need you to do is I need you to orient your life in such a way that I am first in your life because if I'm not first I don't care how you how you order your life your whole life is going to be out of order. And so we do this with worship and prayer. This is what we do. So I don't care who you are, what country you're fun.

If you walk with Jesus, generally speaking, in order for you to embody it in Christ to grow in your faith, to deepen your relationship with Jesus, there's got to be some ingredients of God's word, God's people, and God's presence. Now, there's a lot of leeway in there, but it's got to be there. Now, there are some classical spiritual disciplines, okay? Probably the most famous book written on this is Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline. And it's awesome. And he says there are 12 primary disciplines. He says there's meditation, prayer, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship, guidance, celebration. If you're like, I didn't have time to write this down.

Cool. Watch it on YouTube. Pause it. Write it down. And then he puts those into three categories, interdiscipline, outer discipline, and corporate disciplines. That's fine. but it's not a magic formula. The idea here is,

what are the things that you need to cut out of your life that are shrinking your heart for the Lord? And what are the disciplines around God's word, God's people, and God's presence that you need to add into your life? And again, like I said, it's not a formula. You've got to figure out this for you.

I'll give you an example. I'll give you just one example. One of the things that has meant a whole lot to a whole bunch of people for a whole bunch of years is journaling. There's lots of really, really solid Christians that I look up to like crazy that journal. And so I thought because they did it, and I'll look at them, that I need to be a journaler

in order to be a good Christian. And so I have about 40 journals in my office with one and one half page filled out. I have nice leather-bound ones. I have ones from Israel. I've got cool pictures. I mean, whatever. And then I just can't, like, I don't know what to do. I'm just sitting there. I'm like, hey, like, it's me again. I got to, is this prayer? Like, I don't know what I'm doing. Okay, so I don't do a journal. but there are some keys that Jesus says better be in your life. Back to John 15, he says this, verse 7. He says, if you abide in me and my words abide in you.

This is about diet, okay? You want to walk close with you with Jesus? Not only do you have to get in the word of God, you've got to give the word of God in you. I've told you this before, man. You ever try to make somebody love something that you love? You can't make them do it, right? So I don't know how to do this, but I want you to love the Word of God.

And the reason I want you to love the Word of God is because I want you to love the author of this book. And I do not know the human being that walks in a deep and abiding relationship with the Lord that does not have a deep abiding relationship with the Word of God. And if you come to the Church of 1122, I just need you know, this is what we are going to do week after week after week. My little dumb stories from Dylan are only going to be to try to help illustrate what is authoritative in our life. Not my opinion, not my experience, but the Word of God. And there's no way you will be able to neglect the Word of God and then be able to be the kind of believer that you want to believe. This was happening in the early church.

The writer of Hebrews, chapter 5, verse 11, says this. And I think he's a little bit mad. At least I am when I read it. So I'm just going to read it into this. You ready? He says, about this, we have much to see. and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers,

you need someone to teach you, again, the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness as he is a child. But solid food is for the mature for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Okay, so let me explain what this means. Here at 1122, we are going to teach the Word of God. And we are a movement for all people.

So we got all kind of people here. Some of you, maybe have never been to church. And I go, turn to John, and you're like, hey, are you John? Okay. So what I'm going to try to do is for you, we're going to go applesauce. I'm going to get it and be like, here it comes. I'm going to explain all the words. I'm going to put together all the things.

And I go, open wide, right? And like moms, you do that for your little kids, amen. But if you spoon-fee your children until they're teenagers, that's not good. That is not good. So what we're going to do is we're going to graduate from the milk, and we go in steak and potatoes every single week. Now, I'm going to chop it up into little pieces, but this ain't just going to spoon-futting you. Some of you, the moment I said, John 15, you're like, vine and branches. Like, you already know where we're going.

I mean, picking home again, Mr. Bob Tebow is sitting right over here. He is exponentially, has more knowledge about the scriptures than I do. It's intimidating. He brings this Greek and Hebrew Bible and reads it in that. What am I going to teach that man? But here's what I am going to do. You know who the real teacher here is? It's the Spirit of God.

I can expose you to the Word, but only the Spirit of God can expose the Word to you. And so every single week, what we're going to do is we're going to chop up the Word of God and we are going to stand on and under its authority because this is what is going to make the difference. And listen, man, if you don't prioritize the Word of God, you're going to be a rough shape. and we do all kind of things around here to help you every single sermon again verse by verse big old passages so that you can know so that you can ingest the meat and potatoes of the word of god also after every weekend we do the deepened podcast where we just sit down and just chop up the word of god and you could join a disciple group you want to feast on some steak and potatoes of the word go to disciple group hot and fresh every week man there it is and I do the daily blade five days a week, me and Kyle, you can get five minutes,

just in the morning, just get it in your head. And, now this is, I don't know if you've ever realized this, and you can read it. In any translation, you can read it on your phone, you're reading it here, you have somebody else to you, pick whatever accent you want, you can read it. Because what I don't want to do is just be a big, fat baby Christian. It happens all the time, especially in this consumeristic society that we live in. You begin to go to church and not see it as a gym, like I got some work to do in here, but you see it like the mall, like what's this going to give me?

Then I can't, I don't hear it much around here, but sometimes people will show up and just be like, well, I'm just not getting fed. You sound like a big fat baby, like a big fat, milk-crusted baby diaper full of crap, swinging your umbilical going on, feed me, feed me, feed me. Look you fat worthless, baby. Pick up the Word of God and go to work and eat, man. This is what God has for you. And again, I'm happy to spoon.

feed you for a minute, but then we grow up. So first, it's the diet of the Word of God. It's going to help you abide in Him. So where do you need to add that in your life? And you feel like, I don't have time. You're a liar. You're a liar. There's time in your life. You'll always have time for the priorities in your life. Prioritize the Word of God. And then when you do this, he says, ask whatever you wish, and it'll be done for you. What you wish for will change when you have a diet of the Word of God. He says, by this, my father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I loved you, abided my love. So he says, if you want to abide in me, step one, abide in my word. Step two, abide in my love.

How do we do this? This is what worship is about. It's worship and prayer that we abide in the presence of God. Do you know why we make such a big deal about the gathering of the saints? because God meets us here. Listen, this is not Christian karaoke in a TED talk. That's not what this is. This is us glorifying God in worship and word so that we can encounter the living God. You probably don't need more information.

What we need is a divine revelation and experience with the living God and he meets his people when his people want to meet him. This is what the church fathers would call the thin place when we gather together. God says he inhabits the praises of his people. Listen, man, I've seen miracles in this place. I've seen marriages restored.

I've seen bodies healed. I've seen addictions broken. I've seen prodigals come home. And the greatest miracle of all, I have some people that were lost get transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his marvelous light. This is a really big deal

when we bask in the love and the presence of God. Praise God. Make it a priority. And what's crazy is that when Jesus Christ died on the cross and he pushes up on his nail-pierced feet and says, it is finished. An earthquake cracks right through the middle of Jerusalem and it tears the curtain

in the temple that separated the presence of God from the people of God from the top to the bottom as an invitation where God Almighty says, now through the blood of Jesus Christ, the only mediator, we, sinful man, because of God's redemption through Jesus Christ, we can march right into the king's chambers, sit on the king of king's lap because he's our heavenly father

and we can say, Dad, I need your help. And we do this through personal prayer. This is a part of it. Abide in his love. Worship and prayer, make it a significant part of your life. And then he says, 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 that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. And then he gives us a third ingredient to abiding.

And this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. You've got to exercise your faith. Faith is like a muscle. It grows with exercise. Do you know the Dead Sea is the deadest place on the world because all it has is inputs and no outputs? that is the Christian that just sits and soaks all the time, that we have been called to love one another. We have been called to fight for the most vulnerable in the world,

the least of these. That we are called to share the good news of the gospel with people that don't know Jesus. We have been called to put our faith to action to serve. And these things, again, it's not a formula, I don't think formula, but just think, where in my life, am I abiding in God's word, in God's presence and God's people. I need to add those things to my life.

And then Jesus says, His greater love has no one than this. Does someone lay down his life for his friends? Then he says, you are my friends. If you do what I command you. We take this for granted. We take it for granted. In the first century, people are like, wait, what?

The almighty sovereign king of the world calls me friend. I don't know if you've read, to the end of the book, but Jesus is coming back. And he's not coming back as a Swedish model. That's not what he's coming back as. I don't know if you read it. He's a little intense. Don't think chosen.

That's not, that he came the first time, meek and mild, lowly. Yep. When he comes back next time, it's intense. Trumpets going to blast. The heavens are going to be rend open. He's coming back on a horse, dressed in white. Who wears white to a fight? The person that knows, I'm a win and it ain't going to take long.

Praise God. Dipped in blood. He's got fire in his eyes, got a sword coming out of his mouth, got tattoos on his quads. And don't email me. The Bible doesn't say tattoos. It says written. You think he's sharp being, Lord of Lord? I don't think so.

He's coming back to judge the quick end the dead. And all nations, every tribe tongue of the nation, on heaven, on earth, and under the earth are going to fall down and tremble. And that king of the universe is going to look at you in the face and call you his friend. this is what he has invited us into. He says, you are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you service for the servant doesn't know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends for all that I have heard

from my father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you. You see, some of you don't think that God wants you and you're wrong. Some of you think that there's something that happened to you in your past or that you did in your past that would disqualify you. and I'm here to tell you that there is more grace than Jesus than sin in you.

Whether you did it or it happened to you. And you think that that thing in your past is the worst thing or the greatest thing that has ever happened to you. And Jesus is saying, listen, I am so big. A part of the reason I'm choosing you is I want to take that area of your life where the enemy tried to mess you up forever and I'm going to use it. It's going to be the greatest message of all time. I knew exactly who I was choosing when I chose you and he called you by name. And he knew exactly what he was getting.

And he has never regretted his decision forever that he wants you. He says, you didn't choose me. I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide. He's like, I called you to be a part. The moment Jesus rescues us, we become a part of his rescue mission. I'm going to tell you that one of the greatest ways for you to deepen your relationship with Jesus is you get real serious. You get on mission to help other people discover theirs. He says, so that whatever you ask, the Father in my name,

He may give it to you. These things I command you so that you will love one and I. Do you want to deepen your relationship with Jesus? You need God's word, need God's presence, you need God's people. Get into it. It can play many different ways in your life, but you've got to have those things. But it'll never be enough if you just have those things. Let me ask it to you this way.

Do you love him? I mean, do you love him? and I assume right now, because I'm preaching so much that I'm sweating, that you're feeling the fields, right? That's great. There's nothing wrong with that. We're supposed to love the Lord our God with all of our heart and mind and soul and strength. But does your life look like you love him? Do you love him? You see, it's not enough to just know about him. I don't understand the person that plays church that just shows up sometimes and knows all the information, but you don't love him. that would be like me social media stalking my wife. She's leading a women's trip right now in Wyoming.

And so I can follow her pictures and like what she's doing. I don't want to know about Gretchen. I want to know her. I mean like biblically, no, she's been away for a few days. I really miss her. I want to know that girl. I want to know what she smells like. I want to know what makes her laugh.

You understand what I'm saying? I just want to be around her. I got the love language of proximity. I just feel better if she's, if I can just, if I know she's over there, man, I just feel better. And Christ invites us into that kind of relationship. Do you love him? You know what's crazy is in the Bible, the preeminent screw up of all the disciples is Peter.

And every time I pick on Peter a little bit, some ex-Catholics like, why do you hate Peter? I love him. I don't hate him. You're hearing it wrong. He gives me hope for my own discipleship because he screwed up everything. And God didn't put him on a performance plan. He put him in charge. So there's hope for me too.

Well, Peter, you ever get over your skis? Do you ever, like, make a promise you don't really live up to? Remember saturated? Coming to church every week. Yeah, right. Okay, so. And then you screw up. I'm talking about after you're a Christian.

And you screw up to the point where you're like, am I even in? Peter promises at the Last Supper, Jesus, I love you more than everybody else. And if all these other cracker jacks leave you, I would never leave you. I would never forsake you. I would die for you. And Jesus is like, nope. Before the alarm clock goes off, bro, you're going to tip down to me three times.

He's like, yep, you're wrong again. Not me. Sure enough, that night, Jesus gets arrested three times. Peter says, I don't know him, I don't know him, I don't know him. I don't know. The third one, he makes, he's in the presence of Jesus outside of Caius's house. Peter realizes he's screwed up, he cries. He returns to his old lifestyle, goes back home to the Sea of Galilee.

He's fishing again. That was his original occupation. And what does Jesus do? Jesus is not sit in Jerusalem and wait on Peter to get his act together. He chases him down. And when he finds him out there fishing, he calls him to himself. And Jesus has recreated this charcoal fire, so it looks and smells like the same kind of place where Peter denied Jesus.

And he gets Peter over there after breakfast, and he says this, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? You know what he doesn't ask? You're going to do better? You're going to try harder? Are you sure I can trust you?

This is so convicting as a parent and as a boss. Because most of the time, that's my questions are about activity. Jesus' question is not. His question is this, do you love me? Peter says, you know all things. You know that I love you. He goes, all right, Peter, then I'm not done with you. I want you to feed my sheep.

I want you to stay close to me. I'm going to put my spirit in you. And you're not disqualified. I'm going to do work through you. And that is going to be the thing that draws you closer and closer to me. So I'm going to ask you, do you love him? If you love him, you got to change your diet. You've got to get some word in you.

There's lots of ways to do it. Sermons, small group, read it yourself, all kind of things that we put out there. You've got to prioritize the presence of God, personally in prayer, corporately in worship. And then you've got to be on mission for Jesus. And again, right now, I bet you feel all the fields. I bet you're making promises to yourself. I hope so. I hope so.

But the key is to draw near to him. Let me tell you two things that could take you out. This is all the way back to the very beginning. You've got two kind of branches in your life. Some of them just need to be cut off and thrown away. And some of them need to be pruned. One, when you get apathetic towards your relationship with Jesus, it's only a matter of time until it's over.

It happened to the entire church of Ephesus. When Jesus sends letters to the churches in the book of Revelation, there's a church in Ephesus, and he goes, hey man, I love what you believe. I love what you're doing. It's only one problem. Your heart has grown cold towards me. You have abandoned your first love. And so if you've got lazy in your walk with Jesus, then this is me saying, wake up, wake up, do the things that you used to do. Get prioritized your walk with Jesus. Because I'm telling you, if the enemy attacked you with a demon, you'd probably get real spiritual and go to war. And he doesn't want to do that.

Instead, what he wants to do is loll you to sleep with another Netflix show. So you just forget that we're in a war. So wake up. And then the other one that will absolutely kill you is this, is some of you have secret sin in your life right now that's lurking. And you think it's hidden away in some dark corner in a closet and nobody knows about it. The devil knows about it. You know about it.

The Lord knows about it. And that kind of secret sin is going to kill you. It may not keep you out of heaven, but it will keep you from walking in the freedom that Christ has for you. You think your porn problem is not a big deal. I'm telling you, it's the biggest deal in the world. You've got to do something about it. You think talking to that person at work that's not your spouse, you think, I can handle this. You can't handle this.

You need to repent and confess that thing. You know that that pill or that bottle has a hold on you, but you're trying to claim I'm walking into freedom. And actually what's happening is the devil himself is breadcrimming you to death and destruction. and you're keeping it in the dark. And gross things grow in the dark. And Jesus shows up and said, come here. Bring it all. I know about it.

I know about the pill and I know about the online thing. I know about it all. Bring it all to me. And we're going to shine some light on that. And what you are going to see is that addictions can be broken. And that wherever the light is, the darkness has to flee. And perfect love drives out fear. And you're so afraid to actually admit

that you're a sinner in need of a Savior. And so just a second, we're going to close like we do. And I'm not trying to beat up on you, except I'm about to beat up on you. Just a little bit. All right, we're going to bring our first and best. We're going to bring our ties and offerings because we're going to look at, because some of us, man, part of our secret sin is we're greedy. And we're going to go, nope.

It's all yours, Lord. So I'm going to bring my first and best to you. Because wherever my treasure is, there my heart will be also. And I want to constantly give my heart to you. And we're going to sing. And some of you know this is the part where you rush out first to get your kids first, that you can get on to whatever. And you're missing one of the most important parts of you abiding in Christ.

We're going to sing a song that our crew wrote, called abide. It's just the text that we just read. And don't miss it, man. Don't miss it. You see, it's not enough you just hear the words that I say. The reason that we close, the way we close is so the Spirit of God will minister to you. will seal up some self where he has called you. And we're going to pray.

And I know you can pray back there. I get it. But there's just something about humbling yourself and getting down here and posturing your body in a position that you want your heart to be where you say, God, I need you. And let the Spirit of God minister to you. Experience some of that abiding. So please stand. I'm going to pray. And then we're going to respond.

Our good and grace is heavenly father. God, we love you more than anything because you first loved us. And Jesus, I thank you that you came on this. rescue mission and you were pleased to rescue us and then you were pleased to put your spirit in us and then you were pleased to send us on mission to be a part of the rescue team so god would you make it so clear in our lives right now what is the secret sin that we need to take out behind the barn and put a bullet in his head today to come to the altar and confess it and leave it here forever and claim the blood of jesus over it and god what is the the stuff in our life it

might not be sin. It's just stupid. It's just entangling us and keeping us from you. And God, what are the things in our life that we need to put into our life to keep our eyes focused on you? God, would you help us with that? God, we love you and we thank you for the invitation that if we draw near to you, you will draw near to us. And so, God, we want to draw near. And we know that you're always faithful to do what you say you're going to do. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. So we're going to sing. We're going to sing about abiding. I want you to do. I want you to do. abide in the presence of God. And we're going to bring our first and best, and we're going to pray. So I invite you to sprint down here and let the Spirit of God minister to you as you abide in Christ.

Let's respond.