Hey, good morning everybody. Good morning. It's great to be with you. I'm really fired up to be talking about these passages and the main reason that I love teaching, you know, what it is, is that I get as much out of it as you do that it takes a clarity of thought to be able to explain passages that sometimes I don't even even know that I have.

And it pushes me to be able to understand it more. So one of the things that's great, and this is just an aside, But one of God's plans for your life is that you would take the things you learn and you would teach them to others, whether that's standing in front of a big group or just doing a small Bible study with somebody else.

And one of the reasons why it's so critical in our spiritual life is because it helps us to understand more deeply what we say we believe. So today we're going to look at a relationship where we're in this series where we're talking about what does it look like to actually pursue and walk in holiness?

How does the gospel intersect with that? And this is an incredibly relevant part of that. We're looking at how do our actions play a role in our, our Walk with God. So I wanna start actually with a passage and Ephesians, this is when you're sharing the gospel, you're, you're saying, okay, what is it that Jesus came to do?

A lot of times this is where you go, right? And when you're talking to someone about the gospel, Certainly when it was first presented to me, one of the first things you have to help people walk away from is this idea that I'm gonna be right by doing good things, that that's how God's gonna love me, right?

I'm gonna have to, if I just try hard enough, if I just do enough good things, then God will approve of me, and Ephesians comes and really sets it clear that that's not how this works. Paul says, for it is by grace. For it is by a gift that you've been saved through faith, through belief. And this is not from yourselves.

It is the what gift. Do we pay for gifts? Do we earn gifts? No, that's the whole point. It is a gift from God, not by works. And he's like, he like, he's like, if it wasn't clear enough when I said it's a gift, I'm gonna say it one more time. It's not by works. So that why? Yeah. So that nobody is gonna get this puffed up idea of themselves that like, well, God really loves me because of how great I am.

Right? But the very next thing Paul says, right after telling us how much, it's not about what we do, right? What is the very next thing he says? He says, for we are God's handiwork. The word in Greek is I think poiema, which means masterpiece. For we're God's masterpiece created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared for us in advance to do.

So Paul's doing two things back to back and it's really significant. He's like, Hey, it's not about what you do, that's not how you're made right with Jesus. Okay? Now that you get that you were created to do good things, that these are both true, it's kind of a tention, isn't it? And that's what we're gonna talk about today, how holiness is actually living in that tension.

That we're not made right by what we do, but it deeply matters what we do. And we're gonna look at three different passages to help us understand how does that tension play out in our life. So the first, actually, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna just pray for us real quick before I jump into the first passage.

Jesus, thank you for this time, and thank you for the opportunity for us to look at your word. And to not just be hearers of your word, but to have it transform our lives. I know, God, that the words that I say cannot change a single person in this room, but I also know that your spirit and your words can transform all of us, and that's why we show up.

That's why we're here on a Sunday morning. Because we want to meet with you and we're asking you, we're giving you this time and our attention and our focus with the ask that you will transform our perspectives, and that it wouldn't just last for today or for this week, but that you would transform our perspectives in a way that can last a lifetime.

And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, first passage we're gonna look at today.

Is James 1 22 through 25. So here's what James says. He says, do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they've heard but doing it, they will be blessed in what they do. The Bible says that it is living and active. The word of God is living and active. One of the reasons why it is so living and active.

One of the reasons that any person throughout history could pick up that book, and it can be living and active in that moment, even though it was written thousands of years ago, is because it's not just words. It's a device, and it is a mirror that when we look at the Bible, when we look at the words, we don't just see the words, but it reflects back to us and we see ourselves.

We get more insight into who we are and it's really powerful in that. But James actually says something that's a little bit concerning and a little bit scary here, which is it is possible for us to interact with that mirror in a way you've never interact with a mirror. So, as an example, who has ever gotten food stuck in their teeth If you haven't, you're a liar. So I want you to imagine, have we ever been in, have you ever been in a situation where like you were around a bunch of people and then later that night you go and you look in the mirror and it's like, oh man, I did not realize I had that zit that had popped up, or, I didn't realize I had that food that was in my teeth.

I really wish I had known that. Has this ever happened, right? James says, here's what it's like. If you open up the word and you look at what it reflects back at you. And you see things that, areas for growth, things you don't like, you see what it's trying to tell you, and then you walk out and you just forget about it and you don't apply it to your life.

That's like walking in, looking in a mirror before you go out and noticing you got a huge piece of like lettuce stuck in your teeth and just, and then just walking out and, and not doing anything about it. Like you would never do that, right? And yet, Often as believers, this can be how we act. We see what the word says and we say That's really good.

And then we go out and we deceive ourselves and don't live in a way that lines up with that. And so what I want to talk about today is I want to talk about how we live our lives in the way that God wants us to. And I think. What the Bible's answer is an answer full of hope. This is not going to be a do better talk.

It won't be because my belief is that the gospel is not a do better gospel. It's gonna be a talk about hope, but yes, it's also a talk about transformation. Because the reality is when the gospel has really taken root in our lives, it sets off a process that inevitably a hundred percent of the time will lead to your life looking different and will lead to change.

So that's what we're gonna look at today. We're gonna look at how we do this. I'm gonna set up, I'm gonna set up this next passage that we look at by, by giving you the setting, Jesus spends his earthly ministry around a core group of people. There are many people around him. There are crowds. There are countless people healed and helped, but there is a core group of the disciples of 12 men that spend their entire lives with him every day.

And when we get to John 15, we are during Passover week. In fact, we are on Thursday night. And functionally what you were reading are some of the very last words that Jesus will ever say to this group as a whole. I want you to imagine your closest friends, and I want you to imagine that you knew you were going to die, but you knew you got to have one more meal with them, right?

You'd be very deliberate about what you would say, wouldn't you? You'd really think it through. You'd wanna make that time count. And that's exactly what we get the opportunity to look at when we look at John 15. This is Jesus with the knowledge that this is it. This is the last time that they're going to be able to eat on this side of the cross.

And he intentionally uses that time to communicate something deeply important and powerful. So I'll read it to us. Jesus says, I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. I wanna pause here and I wanna make one observation as we keep reading cuz it's gonna come up when we do discussion in a section in a second.

Repetition is a way of showing emphasis, okay? And as you're listening to this, I want you to listen for the repetition because it's obvious. Jesus is trying to really emphasize something he says. I'm the true vine and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of me that bears no fruit. While every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes.

So it'll even more fruitful. You're already clean because the word I've spoken to you remain in me as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit Apart from me, you can do nothing.

If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burn. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it'll be dumb for you. This is to my father's glory that you bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples as the father has loved me, so I have loved you.

Now, remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you'll remain in my love. Just as I have kept my father's commands and remain in his love. I've told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this, love each other as I've loved you. Greater love has no one than this to lay down one's life for one's friends.

You are my friends. If you do what I command. I no longer call you servants because a servant doesn't know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends for everything that I've learned from my father, I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, and so that whatever you ask in my name, the father will give you, this is my command.

Love each other before I start to pull apart a couple of the things going on in this final message Jesus gives to the disciples. I want to take a couple minutes at our tables to discuss it so. The the first question instead of, it's interesting cuz when you say, well, what is the command Jesus gives us?

There's kind of a couple things you're gonna see, but the repetition, I think makes it clear what the primary command is. So what is the primary command that Jesus is giving to his disciples and why do you think he emphasizes it so much? I think I counted, I think it's in there 11 or 12 times, right? And then second.

What does Jesus mean when he says to remain in him? What does that look like? So let's discuss that. We'll take three or four minutes and then we'll come back up.

So I'd love to hear a couple of a couple of answer to this. So, what was the word that came up over and over again?  what's the word? Abide. Abide. And, and there's another word that's very similar, which is remain right. It's just over and over again. If you add a abide and remain, it's like that is the theme.

Jesus, in his last meal, he's telling the disciples, you've gotta abide, you've gotta remain. Why? Why do you think he emphasizes this command?

He is preparing them. To walk with him the way that we do today, right? They've experienced, they had the privilege of getting to experience walking with Jesus in a way that we don't get to in this life. But then they spend the rest of their life walking with Jesus exactly the way that you and I do.

And Jesus makes it really clear that what. Is it possible for a branch that is not connected to the source to bear fruit? No. And he's making the same point about you and I that if we're not connected, if we're not abiding, if we're not remaining in him, then our ability to live out these good works that God prepared beforehand for us to do, our ability to produce the fruit of the spirit: we don't have it. What do you think it means when Jesus says to remain in him to remain or abide in Jesus? What does that look like? What does that mean? We're keeping him in our heart and our mind on a daily basis.

What are some of the ways we do that? Practically. Yeah. Meditating on his word day and night. That's right. We read the word and we, and we spend time not just reading it, but meditating on it, thinking about it, what else?

 Looking for him in our daily lives. There's other stuff too, right? Like prayer. Fasting. Fasting, yeah, we could, we could name a lot of what we would call the spiritual disciplines are us aiming towards remaining and abiding. In fact, even when we gather together, you know what we're doing here?

We're trying to remain and abide by gathering together. So Jesus is really clear without connection to him, the kind of transformed life that we all want to experience and that God wants us to have. It's not possible. It's impossible. It's not improbable. That just means it's not likely, it's impossible.

It is not doable, and he wants to make that really clear to us. What Jesus lays out in John 15 is one of the most important concepts in your spiritual life. We all want to experience transformation, but we don't always know how. And what he lays out here is that transformation and real change, lasting change happens inside out.

The approach that we tend to want to take towards being different is, okay, I see this area of my life. That's not good. That's not what God would want. That's not what I want. That's not, I don't see that in the Bible. I'm gonna try really hard. I'm gonna focus, I'm gonna, I'm gonna really pay attention to that.

I'm gonna get a rubber band. I'm gonna put it around my wrist. I'm gonna snap myself every time I see myself doing it, you know, whatever. I'm gonna try hard and I'm gonna see if I can act the right way. And this is actually the entire message of the Bible, is that this is deeply rooted in us. That we want to modify our behavior, we wanna make ourselves better.

When Jesus is laying out is the exact opposite of that, he is saying, you can never change yourself in a lasting way of doing that because even if you change your actions, guess what? Can't change your heart. Here's a question. How good were the Pharisees at Godly behavior? Why are the Pharisees, why do they draw such condemnation from Jesus?

Right? I mean, there's a point where he's like, you know, if you tithe, great. If you're in this room and you ti that's great. The Pharisees would like go around their house and they'd be like, well, I've got, you know, whatever, I've got a hundred grams of steak seasoning. I'm gonna take 10% of that. I'm gonna put it in a little baggie again.

I'm gonna give that away cause I gotta tie 10% of everything I've got. I mean, their attention to detail, right? And the how seriously they took things was just like next level. And yet there is real criticism from Jesus why these people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. No matter how hard you try, when you try to transform yourself from the outside, starting with, I'm gonna change my HA behaviors, I'm gonna get this right, the heart does not get transformed, and it turns out that the heart is what God's after.

And Jesus lays out a model here where he says, you want to have your heart transformed and in turn your life, you start by doing what abiding and remaining in me. There is no other path. There is no other way. This is how we experienced a life that's transformed both in our actions and in our motives, and that is what God has for you.

I'll give you a really simple example with me of how this plays out. I struggled deeply with pride. My sin of choice is pride. I want to think of myself more highly than I ought to, as the Bible would say. Right. And after I became a believer, I was deeply convicted about this. And at first it was like, man, I just gotta be smarter about the things I say.

And like, whenever I find myself thinking, you know, about myself, you know, and kind of puffing myself up, I need to kind of say, stop it, you know? And, and I tried for a while and I didn't make a lot of progress. It turned out, you know, CS Lewis has this great line that nobody knows how bad they are. And until they try really hard to be good.

Right. You actually don't know anything about badness until you really try to be good, and then you realize how deep it runs. And I realized I wasn't getting anywhere I wanted to. I didn't wanna be prideful, but I wasn't getting anywhere. You know how I started to be less prideful? It was actually by looking at Jesus.

You know what will bring humility is when you realize no matter what you do in your life, no matter what you accomplish, That it pales in comparison to a God who loves you and came to earth and suffered for you and died for you. Right? How silly. How silly is it to focus on anything I've done when I look at the cross, right?

And that as I look at Jesus and I look at the cross more, not only do I think about myself less and him more. Which helps drive humility. But I see the wondrous works of God, and I'm no longer fixated on what I've done or what makes me special, but I'm fixated on what he's done and what makes him special.

And you know what happened? Has anybody ever gone through a breakup? Right? How does it feel the day after a breakup? It's terrible, right? And it's like, man, am I ever gonna feel better? And then, you know, a week later you still feel bad, but like maybe there's an hour where you don't think about it. Right?

And then a month later it's like you still feel bad maybe, but there's like chunks of time where you don't, and then there's a day where you wake up and you realize, I haven't even thought about it for a couple of days. I'm actually over it. In a similar way, the way that God transforms us works a little bit like that.

It's not like, okay, not gonna be prideful. I'm gonna read a bunch of scripture right now, and then tomorrow or next week, I'm just, I'm gonna be humble. Doesn't work that way. What happens is as we remain in him and as we abide in him, there is this gradual changing of our heart that's manifesting itself slowly in the external, and every once in a while we look up and we're like, I am not the same person I was six months or three years ago.

Right. We can't force it. We can't put it on our timelines. God alone controls the timeline. But when we remain in him, this is what happens over time, we are transformed. The Bible says it is like we are conformed to the image of Christ, and I love that because I picture a sculpture, I'm going to Italy this summer.

If you think of some of the great sculptures, like it's amazing. They take these huge blocks of marble and they with a million strokes of the hammer, they transform it into something beautiful. This is the way as we remain in Abi Jesus, the way that God transforms us. There are two ditches in the Christian life.

One ditch is lawlessness and an over-emphasis on grace that it doesn't matter what I do at all. Right? And the unbelieving world finds that unbelievable when we act that way. But there is another ditch that we can fall into, and that is the ditch, the Pharisees, that this self dependence and self discipline is where godliness is found.

And it is in between the two remaining in Jesus where godliness is found and where real fruit gets produced. So the first big thing Jesus makes is fruit comes from connection. He makes this point. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

And the second thing that Jesus really emphasizes is that transformation can be painful. And he uses this idea of pruning. He says, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes soul, be even more fruitful. If you are walking with God, if God is producing fruit in your life, I have a promise for you.

God will prune you. So here's what pruning is. I actually have kind of like a, a green thumb. I love the landscape. Here's what pruning looks like. You go to a plant that is healthy and is growing and you notice it would be able to produce even more fruit or even more flowers. It would be able to thrive and grow more if it was a little bit less dense and this branch had more room to kind of grow and expand and you know what you do.

You pull out clippers and you chop off pieces of the plant. So I want you to think about this from the plant's point of view. If you were a plant, you would be convinced that a person pruning you was trying to murder you, right? You just cut off my arm. What are you doing? You would never believe that what the gardener was doing was he was setting up you being able to grow into the best version of yourself.

It would never cross your mind as it's happening, and this is exactly what Jesus is saying, is that God, in order to help you to become more fruitful in order to help you become the person that he created you to be, sometimes he is going to Pune you, and I promise you it will not feel good because pruning doesn't feel good.

What it produces is good. It just doesn't feel good at the time. So a good example for me, you know, I talked about struggling with pride. One of the ways God did that, he had to prune some things outta my life. Some things had to go, I had an over-emphasis on GPA and I had an over-emphasis on winning awards.

I had to stop applying for awards. I had to lay down the 4.0. Right? I had to, I needed to create space for God to work in my heart, and as long as I was holding onto those idols, he could. He, he had to take some relationships in my life and they had to go because, While they were in my life, there wasn't the room that I needed spiritually to be able to grow into who he wanted me to become.

I don't know what that'll look like in your life. I can just promise you, because Jesus says it that it's going to be true.

I wanna make one more point now or one more passage, and the point is just this. That there's a reason why we actually will see this and say, yes, I see that, that's good and still not do it. And the reason is simple. It is slower and it is more painful than trying to modify our behavior. The easiest thing to do is to just try and get the dance steps right.

It's a lot harder to hear the music of the gospel and actually dance to it. It is a lot easier to just fake it, but it's not lasting. And it's not transformative and it certainly won't feel the way that you want it to feel. So James is one of the big most difficult passages in the Bible, but it makes a lot more sense once you've read John 15.

Listen to the words of James. He says, what good is it? My brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds, can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or sisters without clothes and daily food, if one of us says to them, go in peace. Keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?

In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by actions is dead. But someone will say, you have faith, I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds and I'll show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there's one God good? Even the demons believe that and shutter. You foolish person. Do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless was our, not our father?

Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar. You see that his faith and his actions were working together and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness and he was called God's friend.

You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone. So it's interesting cuz it's easy to see that verse and say like, man, does that, does that not rub against what we read at the very beginning? And it's like, no, not at all. Because the reality is real faith. Real abiding in Jesus 100% of the time will lead to what a transformed life 100% of the time.

I'm not telling you it'll be immediate. I'm not telling you it won't be messy because I'd be lying if I said those things, but I am telling you that a hundred percent of the time it leads to transformation.

So the point that James is making here is not, hey, if you're really, you know, if you're screwing up in this area, you know you must not be a Christian. The point he's making is authentic belief radiates out into our life that inevitably. The connection that we have with Jesus can't be contained within us, and our actions and our words are transformed by it.

And that is the thing that an unbelieving world sees and is helplessly drawn towards. It's why the gospel will always be in season no matter what culture, no matter what time.

 I wanna make two more points and then I'm gonna give you guys some action points and, and discussion questions. When we don't see our actions lining up with what we say we believe, what do we do? I don't know if you're like me, but that happens, right? A simple analogy, in our kitchen, we have three appliances sitting side by side.

It's like an air fryer or a blender, and a toaster. And we have two outlets, which means that there's always one of them that's unplugged. And so it's not uncommon for me to go to like the blender and be like, nothing's happening. Right? And you know what? I realize when it doesn't, what do I realize the reason nothing's happening is cuz Why?

Because it's not plugged into the source. Right. This is when we see a disconnect of like, wow, my actions don't seem to be reflecting what scripture says. What do we do? We plug in, we plug back into the power source. We abide and remain in Jesus. And the final point I would make here is that the gospel is about grace.

You will fail here. I fail regularly to remain or abide in Jesus. The Christian life is about when you do fail to do that, realizing it and turning back towards it, right? And what's awesome is that God is a God of grace. He waits with us, not with condemnation, but with open arms. And the maturity in the Christian life isn't that you have less repentance or isn't that you have less moments where you realize, oh, I wasn't really remaining in him.

It's that it takes you less time to realize it when you do get off track and that you're less hesitant to go back to the source and remain in Jesus. Okay, how do we put this in action? Three thoughts, belief. An application go hand in hand. When you say you believe something, but you don't see any of it pulling through to application, that's a red flag.

That should merit just questions, right? Second, change starts internally and inevitably expresses itself externally. You plant a seed in the ground and there's a lot of growth under the ground before you ever see the plant and you ever see the fruit, and that's exactly how it works in our lives. It starts internally and then produces external fruit.

You and I cannot produce any change without Christ's daily working in our lives without remaining and abiding in him. So some questions for discussion. What's an area of your life where God is pruning to create room for more growth right now? Second, and this is a vulnerable question. So if this needs to be rhetorical, it can be what's an area of your life where there's just a gap.

There's a gap between what you believe and what you're doing, and why do you think that is? What's driving that? And then finally, what's an area of your life where you've experienced transformation, whereas you have walked with Jesus and you have abided with him, you've actually seen that manifest itself in your life.

 Let's discuss that for a few minutes in groups.