Stop Striving. Start Abiding. | John 15 | Crossroads Daily

Hey, I'm Chuck. I'm Mish. I'm Debo. I'm Chris. Thanks for being with us. So it's John 15, famous, abide, Jesus talks about the vine and the branches. And his point is to stay connected to the source. So what helps you stay connected to Jesus on a regular basis? What are some of the things that do that for you? Right now, it feels like it's my kids. I feel like I learned something new every day. Honestly, just patience. Kids will teach you that. That's right. Yeah. But I do remember early on for my eldest, my daughter, when it was just her when she was a baby, there was one night she was just screaming and just not going to sleep. It was the middle of the night and holding her and rocking her and then something randomly just pinged me in the middle of that night. It just felt like an honor in that moment to be like, I get to be the dad, the person that gets to hold her. And that's the moment that I think about a lot that just keeps me connected to God. I think because that same type of patience I have to hold with her and that same type of love that I get to caress her with, he holds with us. Wow. Yeah. That's good. That's awesome. Especially if you're stuck on a plane for 10 hours. Yeah, that's a whole nother.

I needed Jesus on that plane this past weekend. Oh my goodness, man. One of the worst plane stories I've ever heard. Sitting on the tarmac for 10 hours. Crazy. Yeah, there were two babies on that plane too. I don't know how those parents did it. Oh wow. Yeah. Wow. Extra dose of patience. That's right. That's right. I feel like having an older presence, like a mentor in my life to help spur me on to Jesus has been crucial. I feel like every season God has blessed me with some person to disciple me in the way that Jesus taught his disciples to disciple people. It just reminds me consistently that I will always need help and that following Jesus is a team sport. I can't do this by myself and I need people who have walked the walk to show me their experience. I'm struck by your two examples have something to do with the father heart of God. I think that's one of the things that I had to learn is what it means to be connected to the source doesn't just mean I do these dutiful things. I read the Bible. I read the, you know, somebody put it really well. I don't read the Bible to get to the Bible. I read the Bible to get to the heart of God. Like the Bible is the vehicle that should be helping me to connect with the heart of the father.

Yeah. Prayer is the vehicle that should help me connect. Church is the vehicle, you know, small groups of the vehicle, all of that. And that was just a really helpful insight for me to know like, yeah, it's, it actually becomes dead religion if it's just like, well, I did the thing and that's it. And it didn't like help me get to the heart of the father. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think of the word abide. Like it just reminds me of this feeling of like resting, like, like you said, not having this like list of things that I need to do to get closer to God. It's just like resting. So that may look different. Like I know for me, there's just times where I'm just sitting and like just thinking like I may be reading the Bible, but then I'll just spend time just like thinking about who God is and that's drawn me closer to him or like the next day will feel different. I'm listening to worship music or, um, I don't know, like it's, it, I'm thankful that it's not something that we have to like check off. It's just like this feeling of resting in who God is and abiding in who he is. Like, yeah. That's it. That's what I'm thinking about. I'm curious. I don't know if I've ever asked someone who leads worship. If you don't know, Debo is one of the people who leads worship at one of our sites. What do you think it is about music that helps us connect to God in a unique way? How would you, how would you unpack that to somebody who's like a scientist sitting on the outside asking the question? Yeah.

I mean, I think music is such a powerful tool and I think everybody on the face of the earth loves music like in some way, whether it's a specific genre, like music is a thing that I think we all connect to, to some degree. And I think when it comes to worship, like it gives us a language and like words to say about God and who God is. And I think it's just this thing that we can like think about and sing and be reminded of who God is and it connects us to him relationally. Like I love seeing people who maybe don't know what words to say and they listen to a song and it's like, oh, this is what I'm, this is what I should be saying to God. It gives them a language to say to God, you know? And so, yeah, it's such a powerful tool and even more powerful when it comes, when it's about God. Yeah. Yeah. Tonality feels like it's like that universal language, right? Like where you might not be able to understand the specific words, but chords like mathematically are able to strike your brain in such a way that it can induce emotion. or whatever. Yeah, super powerful. I love that. I love that. Yeah, I mean, it's one of the things, I was thinking about this in one of our recent weekend experiences. We were singing a song, What a Beautiful Name It Is, a song we sung before. And there's that whole, I guess it's the chorus, no, the bridge, right? You have no rival, you have no equal, now and forever God you reign, all these things about Jesus. And it was like, oh, you know what? This is like a call and response prayer for our church. It's set to music, but it's no different than if you go to church and there was a reader who would give you a line of a prayer and then you have a response. It's the same thing. And yeah, and all of that, again, is about connecting us to the source. That's good. That's good stuff. Yeah. Well, Jesus says the reason to connect, the reason for the source is that we would actually have a life that bears fruit. And I love that in John 15, he talks about the fruit of love, he talks about the fruit of joy, he talks about the fruit of connection to the Father. Play it out for you. What kind of fruit do you hope your life yields? All the fruit, first of all. I mean, all the fruit of the Spirit. And I don't intend for this

to be a long answer or like a way around it, but what strikes me in John 15 also is early, at the very beginning it says, what does not produce fruit, I will cut off. And actually, it says I will cut off in me, which I find really interesting. And what does produce fruit, I will prune. Which is also a cut. Which is also a cut. It's like a refining almost for growth. And so I think for me, I want joy, I want peace, I want patience, I want this for the spirits. I also want to have luxuries in my life and freedom in my life and things for my family, that fruit to exist. I want my friends and family to experience lightness when they're around me. I want that fruit, all that kind of stuff. But I think what I also recognize in that pruning aspect of if I'm bearing fruit, God is pruning me, almost this honing in on his call and his path that he has set me on. What that looks like tangibly, I think it defers and I think I'm more resistant to it because I have my own desires, but I don't know, that's what I hear. This may not make sense, but I would love fruit that just exists because Jesus, that line, I feel like I still get confused every time I read it of apart from me, you can do nothing. And I'm like, literally nothing or figuratively nothing? What does nothing actually mean? But I think I realize there is so much I can do in my life that I think really matters and just isn't changing anything for eternity or really helping people and so much stuff that I put time into that just doesn't matter at the end of the day. And maybe it's just about me feeling good about myself. I'm patting myself on the back like I'm doing a great job and I'm showing people a lot of Chris, but not a lot of Jesus. And that's not going to last. I'm not going to last. No one's going to remember my name, but so am I showing people Jesus and is that my fruit or is it like fruit of myself that is just going to, that's going to be gone way sooner than I think. I think if I had one last encouraging word, it's the beauty of this is that when we abide, fruit is not a hope, it's a promise. Because the vine dresser and the vine, Jesus, know how to produce fruit in our lives. So whatever that looks like for you today, I just pray that you would be able to abide, stay connected to the source, get to the heart of the Father and know that when you do, fruit is a promise.