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Sometimes holiday weekends are kind of hard to pull all the ends together.

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And tonight was an example of that, and I had a personal example of it this morning.

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I don't know if you noticed the name of my sermon this morning or not,

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but it was entitled Some Things to Remember, right?

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Well, I walked out of the house without my sermon notes.

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And so about 20 minutes after 9, I'm sitting back here getting myself ready to come out here,

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and I open my Bible and it's empty, where I keep my notes at least.

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And so that's the reason if you were in the first service,

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that Mark walked out about 10 minutes into the service and handed me something.

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It was my sermon for this morning.

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So holiday weekends are just sort of that nature, aren't they?

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Would you open your Bible with me please this evening to Romans chapter 7?

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We're going to read verses 4, 5, and 6, and then depart to another text.

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We want to speak this evening regarding the fact that we are free,

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free from the law, but free to be fruitful.

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Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ,

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that you might be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead,

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that we might bear fruit for God.

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For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law

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were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.

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But now we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound,

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so that we serve in newness of the Spirit, not in oldness of the letter.

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When I was living in Chicago as a student, there was a period of several months

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when one of my Christian work assignments was to go to the Cook County Jail each week.

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On the afternoon that was appointed, I would go to a particular office at the Institute

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and would pick up a film, would travel for about 30 minutes on the bus to get to the Cook County Jail.

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And there I would go to a room, get the projector and other equipment together,

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and would go to one of the cell blocks in order to show the prisoners a film.

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I was always treated well by the prisoners because for them this was a little bit of break

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in their somewhat dull routine.

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It was a great opportunity to get to know a few of them very casually.

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And as we talked, a strange thing occurred to me over the period of time,

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and that was that in all the prisoners that I got to know there,

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there was not one who was in there for a crime he had committed.

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Everyone was there unjustly, you see.

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He had been framed or the system had failed, but none was willing to admit the fact

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that he was there in Cook County Jail because he had broken the law.

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Well, it may be in fact that there were some of them who were failed by the system

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or who were framed unjustly, but the fact is also that most of them were there

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because they were guilty of a crime that a jury had convicted them of.

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They had to be there for a period of time and then they would be released,

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whether it be months or years.

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The point is that they had broken the law and they had to pay the price for breaking the law.

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I always went away from there grateful that I could walk away,

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that I was free to do that, it was not incarcerated.

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If you've ever been in a prison or a jail, it is a bit of an eerie feeling to hear the doors slam shut

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behind you as you enter in.

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You feel just a little bit caged at that point, although you may not be worried about staying there.

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There is something that is confining about that sound of the metal doors clanging shut behind you

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and something that is very warm and inviting about those doors opening up.

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And you inevitably smile at the guards as you walk out

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because you appreciate the fact that actually you're free.

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The Bible tells us that as sinners we have broken the law of God.

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And as lawbreakers we must pay the price, which the Bible clearly defines,

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and that is the price of death.

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Not just physical death, but spiritual death, which is separation from God.

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We are all born into the world with a nature that is sinful.

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And as soon as we are able to express our own nature, that sin is very clearly in evidence.

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From our earliest childhood we are under the law.

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And the law's penalty for breaking it is death.

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And if one dies as a lawbreaker, dies physically I mean,

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then that spiritual death becomes a permanent state.

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That separation from God then is a state that exists forever.

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And it is carried out in the prison, which the Bible calls hell.

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How glad we can be that as we who have come to faith in Jesus Christ

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that we are no longer under the law.

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Because those who are under the law are condemned by it.

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But we, through our union with Jesus Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection,

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have been freed from the law, the sphere of the law.

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We have been now identified with Jesus Christ in grace.

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Though we were sinners, we have been forgiven and no longer stand guilty before God.

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No longer does the law demand our death, our condemnation,

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because Jesus Christ took upon Himself the full penalty for our offense.

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The law has been satisfied with regards to us who have trusted Christ.

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And all of the penalty and all of the condemnation which the law spoke toward us in our sinfulness

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was taken out upon the Savior at the cross.

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Now that we have trusted Him, we are free from its penalty, no longer under the law.

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Before we bore fruit, the apostle says in verse 5, it was fruit for death.

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It was the fruit of sin.

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But now we have been freed from the law and we bear a different kind of fruit.

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Now being under grace, being united with Jesus Christ, we have a new fruit that we bear.

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It is called in verse 4, fruit for God. Fruit for God.

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God desires, God has planned indeed for our lives to bear fruit which honors Him.

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There is probably no more chapter in all of the Bible that teaches about the fruit than John 15.

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And I'd like for you to turn there with me this evening as we think about this fact that we are free to be fruitful.

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John chapter 15.

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Let's think for a moment about the background of this chapter on fruit bearing.

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Viticulture or the raising of grapes is quite common in Palestine.

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The climate there in that part of the world is particularly adapted to the growing of grapes.

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There is an abundance of sunshine with heavy dew, dews that are present in the late summer.

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The vineyards that Israel enjoyed in that day were already established when Israel conquered Canaan.

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Even at that time back under the leadership of Joshua, viticulture was very common in that part of the world.

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And it continued of course with ancient Israel and until the days of Jesus and still today.

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Grapes are often grown on the gently sloping hillsides as well as in the valleys of Palestine.

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It is because of the commonness of the raising of grapes, of vineyards,

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that a vineyard is used in the Bible in a number of cases symbolically.

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I can only mention it in passing, but for example in Isaiah chapter 5,

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Isaiah compares ancient Israel to a vineyard which God had planted.

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What the tragedy was, says Isaiah, that the fruit that was brought forth by this vineyard was not good fruit.

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And therefore God allowed the vineyard to be torn up.

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Isaiah was speaking that in a parable as it were warning Israel about what judgment was coming upon them

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because of the fact that as God's vineyard they were producing not righteousness, but wickedness and idolatry.

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And then again the similar figures used in Psalm 80.

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Jesus then built some of his teaching upon this familiar imagery.

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For example in Matthew 21 he spoke a couple of parables based upon the vineyard.

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This discourse in John chapter 15 was delivered by our Lord to the 11 disciples,

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who remember Judas had already departed by this time to work with the Pharisees and Sadducees for the betrayal of Jesus.

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As our Lord walked with the 11 disciples from the upper room out to the Garden of Gethsemane where they prayed,

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they perhaps passed through a vineyard.

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And as they did so, our Lord used that vineyard as an illustration of what he wanted to tell them.

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It may have been too that they went through the temple area as they passed from one place to the other.

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Josephus tells us that part of the ornamentation on the outer gates of the temple involved vines

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with gold grape clusters hanging from them, which were as tall as a man.

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These gates were left open during the Passover season, which is the time when this occurred in John 15.

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And so it may have been that our Lord passed by those gates into the temple and pointed toward the ornamentation on those gates.

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Whatever, Jesus said to them as he passed by and pointed to this imagery,

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I am the vine, the true one, in contrast to the people of Israel who had proved to be a false vine for Jehovah.

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He says, I am the vine, the true one.

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He, the true vine, was in contrast to all that had passed before this.

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And it goes on to say, My Father is the vine dresser, verse 1.

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Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit he prunes it that it may bear more fruit.

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You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken unto you.

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Abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine.

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So neither can you unless you abide in me.

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I am the vine, you are the branches.

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He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

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What is the point in Jesus' teaching here in this illustration or parable?

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Well, the purpose of a branch is to extend the life of the vine.

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Jesus is saying, I am the vine, but you are the branches.

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He, the vine, is no longer visible.

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He has already expressed to them in chapters 13 and 14 that he is going away

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so that the vine itself would not be visible to the world.

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But he says, you are the branches and you will bear fruit.

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The implication, of course, being you will bear fruit in the world.

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In chapters 13 and 14 he expresses to them what he will do while away from them.

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He tells them that he will keep them in communion with himself

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through a continual cleansing process, a washing, as the washing of feet.

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He says to them that he will prepare a place for them so that he can come and take them to that place.

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He tells them that he will be, by the Holy Spirit, supplying the needs of his own.

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And then in chapter 15 he tells the disciples and us what we are to be doing while he is away.

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And that is, we are to be bearing fruit.

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The purpose of branches is to bear fruit, to bear fruit for the vine, to express the life of the vine.

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Please keep in mind that in John chapter 15 we are not studying in context of salvation.

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We are talking about fellowship.

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There are those who misread this chapter, thinking that it speaks about salvation and they come to certain verses.

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And the only way that they can understand that verse is to say, well it must mean then that one loses salvation.

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But the context is not salvation, it is fellowship.

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It is not relationship, it is the supernatural life that the Lord produces through those who are in fellowship with him.

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Now I'd like to look at this chapter this evening for the remaining minutes and discover with you

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the kinds of fruit that our Lord says should be characterized by us, the branches, who are abiding in the vine.

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We see the first example in verse 7 where he says, if you abide in me and my words abide in you,

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ask whatever you wish and it shall be done for you.

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Again in verse 16 he says, you did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you.

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That you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain,

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that whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

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It seems to me that the first fruit that our Lord suggests in this teaching is the fruit of prayer that is answered.

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As we talk about being free to be fruitful, the first fruit that our Lord suggests is the fruit of prayer that is answered.

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Jesus is building upon some things he's already said to his disciples.

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For example, back in chapter 14 and verse 14 it's recorded that he said to them,

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if you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

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So he has already talked to them about the prayer privilege that they will enjoy while he is away.

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He has given to them the privilege of acting as it were with the power of attorney.

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He gives to them the privilege, indeed the responsibility to use his name in prayer.

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He says, you may ask the Father and then apply my name to this as though I myself were asking it.

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And God will hear and will answer that prayer.

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G. Campbell Morgan takes this so strongly that he makes the statement,

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demand as you do whatever you are inclined to.

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Now on the day in which we live I have to be careful with a statement like that

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because there are those who have pressed this all out of shape in a name it and claim it kind of theology.

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Saying that all you have to do is name it and claim it and God must give it to you.

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That of course is a part of the prosperity theology which we believe is heretical,

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it is not biblical and has led a good many people astray.

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Jesus is not saying here that every whim that we have will be granted if we simply pray it in his name.

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What he is saying is that as we pray we are to be so conscious of what we are asking of the Father

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that we can in good conscience say I know this is what Jesus would want.

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This is what Jesus would ask for.

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And it is with that understanding and that discernment of our prayer life

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that he says we can come to God and pray in his name and God will answer that prayer.

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Now of course we know that prayer has some other conditions involved with it.

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We can ask amiss or selfishly and consequently God is not obligated to answer.

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We can ask with iniquity in our hearts, with sin in our lives that is unconfessed,

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God is not obligated to answer.

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So there are some other conditions involved that our Lord here wants to encourage us.

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He says understand the privilege that you have in prayer now.

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He says as I go away you may come directly to the Father and use my name.

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Use my authority in praying and say Father this is what I believe Jesus would ask for

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and the Father will hear you and will answer your prayer.

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One fruit that Jesus tells us that we can anticipate as we abide in the vine

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is the fruit of prayer that is answered.

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Secondly he says that fruit is joy that is full.

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Verse 11, these things I have spoken to you, our Lord says, that my joy may be in you

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and that your joy may be made full.

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Notice my and your.

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Jesus is suggesting to us here that his joy becomes our joy.

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He says that my joy may be in you and as his joy is in us it becomes our joy.

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And he says that your joy then may be made full.

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That there may be a wholeness, a well-roundedness about it, a completeness,

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a fullness in the joy that you have as you abide in me, joy that is fulfilled.

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We have to ask the question what was the joy of Jesus?

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He says that my joy may be in you.

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Well one aspect of his joy certainly and he suggests it here in the previous verse

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was his obedience.

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It was his joy to obey the Father.

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And he says as he does in verse 10, if you keep my commandments you will abide in my love

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just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.

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Obedience and joy, my friend, go together.

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Where there is not obedience to the Lord there cannot be joy.

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Where there is obedience to the Lord there will be his joy which becomes our joy

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and which will be fulfilled, well-rounded.

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Meryl Tenney said Jesus intended that the disciples' lives should be both spontaneous

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and happy rather than burdensome and boring.

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What is your joy tonight?

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What is it that becomes the delight of your inner person?

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O may it be obeying the Lord and abiding in fellowship with him.

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Joy that is full is another fruit that we are free to bear.

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And then in verses 12 and 13 and again in verse 17, Jesus tells us that the fruit that we are free to bear

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is love that is sacrificial.

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This is my commandment that you love one another just as I have loved you.

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Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

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Then in verse 17, this I command you that you love one another.

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Love that is sacrificial is a fruit that the child of God who is abiding in Christ will manifest.

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Oh, sometimes we say, oh yes, I would gladly lay down my life for another. I would do that.

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But we know that the likelihood of that actually happening is rather remote,

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at least right now, the way we're living.

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So let's back off from that extreme expression of love and talk about

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whether we're willing to give up some luxury.

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If we're willing to lay aside some comfort in order to meet the needs of another.

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If we're willing to spend time listening to a hurting person.

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If we're willing to reach out our hand, roll up our sleeves, and get involved in helping,

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doing something practical to help another.

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That's love that's sacrificial.

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It is laying down a piece of your life, if not the whole of it.

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Our Lord says, this is my commandment, that you love each other just as I have loved you.

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I think it's good for us to stop and ask ourselves,

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what have we sacrificed lately for the good of another?

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When was the last time we spent that time or extended that practical help?

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Well, we actually gave up that luxury or that comfort or that thing that we wanted

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in order to participate in meeting another's needs.

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When do we really pay a cost to love another person?

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Jesus says that we are free to be fruitful,

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and part of that fruit is a love that is sacrificial.

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Folks, let's ask God this week to bring across our path someone

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to whom we can show this kind of love.

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Someone who can't even pay us back,

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who won't be able in some way to show a return kindness to us,

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but to whom, for Jesus' sake, we can reach out sacrificially.

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And meet their need.

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We are free to be fruitful in another sense, verses 14 and 15.

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Part of the fruit that we can enjoy is the fruit of understanding that is intimate.

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That is understanding what our Lord is doing.

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Look at these verses.

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You are my friends if you do what I command you.

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No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing.

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But I have called you friends for all things that I have heard from my Father

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I have made known to you.

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One who is an employee is not obligated to be told what's going on in the company.

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All he has to know is what his job is and what he needs to do to do it well.

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Now it may be that the supervisor or the president of the company

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or the board of directors will choose to inform all of the employees of what's going on.

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But there's no obligation there at all.

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The obligation simply is to do the job.

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But Jesus says I'm taking you as my associates beyond that.

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He says I don't want you to consider yourselves to be just servants.

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He says I want you to see yourselves in the role of friends.

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And I want you to know that that is an intimate relationship with me.

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And because of that I have told you everything that I have heard from my Father.

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I have made that known to you.

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I don't want you simply to know what you're supposed to do,

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but I want you to know what I am doing.

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And I want you to know why I am doing it.

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I want you to have the whole picture.

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And so we have that beloved in the Word.

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God has given to us in the Word insight into the events around us,

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insight into people, into our age,

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so that we have some understanding not only of events,

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but of what's going on behind the scenes.

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The average person in the world may be able to read the events in the newspaper,

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but he doesn't understand the background.

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He doesn't understand what's happening that produces that in a spiritual sense.

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We who are in the vine have that kind of intimate understanding,

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what wonderful fruit that is, that we can know what our Lord is doing.

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Then let's move ahead to verses 18 to 25,

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where we have perhaps a less popular fruit that we are free to bear.

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This is the fruit of persecution that is unjustified.

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Jesus says, If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.

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If you were of the world, the world would love its own.

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Because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

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Remember the word that I said to you, a slave is not greater than his master.

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If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.

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If they kept my word, they will keep yours also.

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But all these things will they do to you for my name's sake,

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because they do not know the one who sent me.

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If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, that is awareness of it.

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But now they have no excuse for their sin.

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He who hates me hates my father also.

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If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin,

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that is not knowledge of it.

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But now they have both seen and hated me and my father as well.

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But they have done this in order that the word may be fulfilled that is written in their law.

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They hated me without a cause.

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Jesus is saying here that his pressure of suffering and persecution is coming to him unjustified.

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There is a hatred that existed between Jesus and the world system,

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which included the religious system of that day.

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Now why was that hatred there?

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Because Jesus by his teaching and by his life, his works, exposed sin in the world.

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And the world does not like sin exposed.

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Call it anything else, call it a disease, call it a weakness, call it a propensity,

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call it a lifestyle, but don't call it sin.

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But Jesus called it what it was.

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Because of that there was hatred from the world toward himself.

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And it was culminated in his death on the cross.

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And what he says here is that you and I can expect the same thing.

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You and I can expect that if we choose to live godly in Christ Jesus, we will suffer persecution.

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And we can avoid that, we can avoid it by not living godly in Christ Jesus.

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But then we lose all of the blessings that he's talking about in this chapter to higher price.

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If we want the blessings, we get the blessings by abiding in the vine in obedience.

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A part of the blessing that comes to us is suffering with Christ.

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Experiencing the fellowship of his sufferings.

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Persecution that is unjustified.

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Jesus said, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

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Is that a fruit that you're willing to experience in your life?

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Now let's face it, there are times that you and I go through suffering or tribulation or affliction because we deserve it.

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It's justified. I mean we have done something to create it.

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The point here is that when you and I live righteously, when we have done what is right before God,

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when we have been sincere and honest and blameless before God in our motives and our deeds,

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and then we are persecuted and we experience suffering, then we enter into the fruit,

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this special fruit that the branches will bear because the branches abide in the vine, the true one.

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And then finally let me point you to verses 26 and 27 where he says that another fruit we are free to bear is witness.

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Witness that is Spirit-empowered.

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When the helper comes, that's the Holy Spirit, he says, whom I will send to you from the Father,

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that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness of me.

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And you will bear witness also because you have been with me from the beginning.

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Here is fruit for God that we bear.

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Jesus said the Spirit will come and he will bear witness.

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How will the Spirit do that in you?

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You and I have the joy of bearing fruit in a witness that is Spirit-empowered.

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The Spirit of God enables us even in the face of hatred, in the face of suffering,

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in the face of rejection to bear fruit of a witness that may not be appreciated, at the moment at least,

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may even be rejected or scorned or as we said this morning mocked.

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But you and I have the joy of bearing witness to the vine as the Spirit of God empowers us.

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We have died to the law, no longer are we under that system. Praise God for that.

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That's why I can go on to say as he does in Romans 8-1,

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there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,

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because we are not under the law with condemnation.

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No longer do we have relationship to it.

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We've died to that with Christ and we've been raised with Christ.

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We are united to him now that we might bear fruit for God.

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In this marvelous chapter, Jesus explains to us what kind of fruit that is.

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Are you a fruit-bearing branch?

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Is there evidence of the supernatural in your life?

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Now that doesn't mean that we're going to go around doing miracles every day.

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That's not what I mean by the supernatural.

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What I mean is just the fruit that we've talked about.

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Answered prayer. Hey, that's pretty supernatural.

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Joy that is fulfilled. That's supernatural.

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Love that is sacrificial.

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Only the supernatural Spirit of God can motivate us to sacrifice for another person.

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In ourselves, we are tremendously selfish people,

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but the Spirit of God enables us to bear fruit of sacrificial love.

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Understanding that is intimate.

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The Spirit of the Lord gives us insight and discernment.

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Persecution that is unjustified.

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Oh, the Spirit will enable us and strengthen us through that.

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Witness that will be effective.

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It's the Spirit who does that.

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This is supernatural fruit.

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May God help us as his people, as his branches, to bear fruit this week.

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That we are abiding in the vine.

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They can't see the vine.

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He's in heaven.

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But those branches come out of heaven all the way down here to the earth.

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We are those branches and the world sees us.

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And may the fruit prove that we are abiding in him.

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Let's pray.

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Lord, thank you for this joyous privilege of abiding in the true vine

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and bearing fruit that is supernatural.

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I pray that we as branches will not only bear fruit,

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but that we might bear much fruit that would remain.

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That's why you've chosen us.

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Grant that this week, as we go about the routine of life,

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our course of responsibilities, that this fruit of the Spirit

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will be evident in our lives and Jesus, the true vine, will thus be glorified.

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We pray in his name, amen.