Abiding in Christ: Scripture | John 15:1-11
Brian Hedges | January 8, 2023
Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles this morning to John 15. We’ll be reading verses 1-11 here in a moment.
I’ve often thought that our relationship with the Word of God is both a thermometer and a thermostat in our spiritual lives. You know the difference between those two instruments? A thermometer measures the temperature in a room, whereas a thermostat controls the temperature.
On one hand, we could say that our relationship with God’s word is something of a thermometer in the spiritual life. If you want to know whether you’re thriving spiritually, if you want to know how vibrant your relationship with God is, your relationship with Jesus, one diagnostic tool you can use is simply to look at your devotional life, look at your relationship to God’s Word.
Are you feeding on God’s word? Are you reading and meditating on God’s word? Are you obeying God’s word? Do you love the word of God, the words, the teachings of Jesus? Are you putting those into practice in your life? To the degree that you love God’s word, to that degree you are spiritually healthy. To whatever degree your love for the word of God has grown cold, to the same degree your love for God himself has begun to grow cold. It’s a thermometer that measures our spiritual vitality.
But it’s also a thermostat. A thermostat controls the temperature in a room. If you want to turn the heat up in a room, you turn up the thermostat; if you want it to be a little more chilly, you turn it down. In the same way, in your spiritual life if you want to turn the heat up in your spiritual life, one way to do that, very practically, is to give yourself to a more devoted relationship to God’s word. Spend more time in reading and study and meditation on Scripture. There will be a direct relationship between the time and attention and obedience that you give to Scripture and the quality of your relationship with God himself.
This morning I want us to think about our relationship with God’s word. We’re continuing a series that we began last week called “Abide: Spiritual Practices for the Christian Life.” Brad introduced the series last week talking about fruitfulness and the need to abide in Christ in order to bear fruit in our relationships with God.
What we’re going to be doing for about five weeks is just looking at different aspects of this abiding relationship. How do we thrive? How do we flourish? How do we bear fruit in our spiritual lives? It’s an important thing for us to consider here at the beginning of the new year.
Today our focus is going to be specifically on the word of God and how the word of God helps us in our spiritual lives.
I want us to begin by reading John 15:1-11. As I read, I want you to notice not only the attention Jesus gives to abiding in this imagery of the branch abiding in the vain in order to bear fruit, but also the things that Jesus says about his words or his commands. We’ll see how those connect to this idea of abiding.
John 15, beginning in verse 1. Jesus here is speaking, and he says:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 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. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 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 have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”
This is God’s word.
I very simply want to look at three things this morning, three things to consider.
1. How Abiding in Christ Relates to Abiding in His Word
2. How Abiding in the Word Leads to Fruitfulness
3. How to Cultivate the Practice of Abiding in the Word
We’re going to end with some practical application, and I’m going to give you a five-fold approach to abiding in the word.
1. How Abiding in Christ Relates to Abiding in His Word
First of all, let’s consider how abiding in Christ relates to abiding in his word. The focus of this passage, of course, is abiding in Christ. As the branch must abide in the vine in order to bear fruit, so must we abide in Jesus if we are to bear fruit.
I love what the old Dutch Reformed pastor who lived in South Africa, Andrew Murray, wrote in his devotional classic Abide in Christ. It’s a wonderful book; I recommend it to you. Andrew Murray said, “The great secret of abiding in Christ is the deep conviction that we are nothing and he is everything.”
That’s the secret, right there. That’s the thing that you have to be absolutely convinced of: that apart from Christ you can do nothing. You are absolutely dependent on him. Your life comes from Christ. He is the vine, you are the branch. If you are cut off from Jesus, the vine, you will not bear fruit. You must be absolutely convinced of this, that we are nothing and he is everything.
I just want to begin by asking you that. Do you believe that? Do you believe that Jesus is the way, that Jesus is the truth, that Jesus is the life, that Jesus is everything; that he is the way to life and to joy and peace and to the satisfaction of our deepest heart desires; that Jesus is the way to the Father, a relationship with God, and to salvation; and that salvation is to be found only in him and nowhere else? Not only that, that Jesus is the doorway into true life and into fullness of life and a flourishing life? The best possible life you could live is the life you live in union with and in ongoing dependence upon Jesus. He’s the one who shows us what it means to be fully and truly human and to bear the image of God and to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
If you believe that—if you believe that Jesus is the way, and that apart from him you can do nothing—that’s going to be the secret, the motivating power to abiding in Christ in your life.
But here’s what I want you to see: when you look at this passage and you see how Jesus talks about abiding, you’re going to see that the word of Jesus plays a very key role. We see verses 4-5, which I’ve already read and summarized, where Jesus is essentially saying that “apart from me you can do nothing. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit apart from the vine, so you can do nothing unless you abide in me.”
Then look at verse 7, where Jesus says, “If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” So now there’s this new thought. It’s not only us abiding in Christ, it’s the words of Jesus abiding in us. Then notice what he says a few chapters back in John 8:31-32. He uses the same word for “abide.” Jesus there says to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word you are truly my disciples, and you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
So John 8 says, “If you abide in my word you are truly my disciples,” John 15 talks about his words abiding in us, and he’s using the same word that’s used for abiding in him. I think what all of that means is simply this, that to abide in Christ is to abide in his word and let his words abide in us. The way in which you abide in Jesus is by abiding in his word and letting his words abide in you.
Now, that raises a question, doesn’t it? What do we mean by Jesus’ word? What is the word in which we are to abide?
I think we need to ask that because there can be some misconceptions about this. Some people, I think, when they think about the word of God they think about the Bible, but they think about the Bible in almost a superstitious way, like the Bible is some artefact. They think of it as a holy book, a book that is to be reverenced, the physical object. So, for example, some people will tell the truth if they swear on the Bible—they may not tell the truth any other time, but if they swear on the Bible they’re going to tell the truth. They’re not going to set another object on top of the Bible. They’re not going to do anything to disrespect the Bible, because the Bible’s a holy book. But they may never read the Bible. They may not know what the Bible actually says.
To abide in the Bible, to abide in the word, is not simply to have reverence for the book, the pages between two covers of leather. It’s not simply that, but it is to actually pay attention to the word, the content that is in that book.
For some people, when they read Jesus say, “If my words abide in you and you abide in my word,” they may think, “Well, that’s speaking only about the words that Jesus actually said.” These are the so-called “red-letter Christians.” They like what Jesus says—they like the ethical teaching of Jesus, they want to try to live by the Sermon on the Mount, they want to be peacemakers, they want to love their neighbors, and so on—but they don’t really want to pay much attention to the Old Testament, and they sure don’t like the apostle Paul! After all, he’s dogmatic, and he’s giving us doctrine and talking about judgment and all these kinds of things. So they set the words of Jesus against the Old Testament on one hand and the apostle Paul and the apostles on the other.
I think we have to beware of that whole approach. When we talk about abiding in Jesus’ word, I think it means three things. These are the three layers, we might say, of meaning to Jesus’ word, the word in which we are to abide.
(1) It is, first of all, his message and his teaching. It is what Jesus himself actually taught. This would include the gospel, the good news of the kingdom of God, the saving reign of God that is brought to earth through the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s the good news. We are to abide in that good news. But it’s also the teaching of Jesus, the ethical teaching of Jesus; Jesus’ teaching about money and greed, Jesus’ teaching about marriage and sexuality, Jesus’ teaching about love and vengeance and the way we treat our enemies. All of that is included in the teaching of Jesus.
In fact, in 2 John 9 the apostle John says, “Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.”
So, abiding in Jesus’ word means continuing in—remaining in, abiding in—Jesus’ basic message and his teaching.
(2) But it also includes, secondly, Jesus’ own reverence for, submission to, and interpretation of the Old Testament Scriptures. I’m not going to take the time to make the case for it this morning, but if you read your Gospels carefully what you will see again and again and again is that Jesus quoted the Old Testament. Jesus’ Bible was the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures. You find Jesus quoting from Moses, quoting from the Torah. You see Jesus quoting from the Psalms, quoting from the prophets, quoting from the prophet Isaiah. Again and again and again Jesus is showing his own reverence for and submission to the Old Testament.
Now, to be sure, he says without any doubt at all that “all of this pointed to me.” So Jesus interprets the Old Testament for us, and Jesus has come in his new covenant ministry to do something that is new, but it doesn’t do away with the Old Testament, it gives us a new set of lenses for understanding the Old Testament and how the Old Testament is both fulfilled in Jesus and now applies to our lives. But we cannot do away with the Old Testament Scriptures. That’s part of the word in which we are to abide.
(3) The third layer to Jesus’ word is the apostolic word, the word that Jesus gave to his apostles and to the church through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. You remember that Jesus himself had said this would happen. In John 16 he talks about how the Spirit of truth would come and would lead his disciples into all truth. That was fulfilled when the Spirit was given to the church, and the Spirit led the apostles and their associates to write down the words and the life and the teachings of Jesus. In fact—get this—the only access we have to Jesus is the access we have to Jesus through the apostolic word. That’s how we get to know Jesus. The Gospels were written by the apostles and their associates; the New Testament letters were written by the apostles and their associates; and that’s how we know who Jesus is, what Jesus did, and what Jesus said.
When we’re talking about abiding in the word of Jesus, it includes the whole Bible. It includes the Old Testament that Jesus read, it includes the teachings of Jesus that are recorded for us in the Gospels, and it includes the apostolic word that gives us the life of Jesus in the Gospels as well as the rest of the New Testament.
Now, all of this is simply to say that, just as Andrew Murray said that the great secret to abiding in Christ is the deep conviction that we are nothing and he is everything, if what Jesus is saying here about abiding in his word is true (and hopefully you can see the connections) it means that the great secret to abiding in Christ is the deep conviction that we are nothing and his word is everything. His word is everything because his word is how we get to Jesus. We get to Jesus through the word.
I’m going to talk in a few minutes about the practical disciplines you and I need in order to abide in the word, but let me just make this really clear. The point is not for you to merely have a strong devotional life where you’re reading so many chapters of the Bible. The point is certainly not to earn anything by doing good, religious things. The point, rather, is connection to Jesus. You need Jesus, but the way you get connected to Jesus is through his word, and as we’ll see next week through prayer. So, you need the word of Jesus in order to be in close relationship with Jesus, because Jesus himself says that we are to abide in his word, his words are to abide in us; and when you put all the pieces together it becomes pretty clear that the way we abide in Jesus himself is by abiding in his word and letting his words abide in us.
2. How Abiding in the Word Leads to Fruitfulness
That leads to fruitfulness in our lives. That’s the second point, is just to see how abiding in the word leads to fruitfulness in our lives.
Now, what is fruitfulness? Let me quote a great theologian; this one is not dead, he’s living. He’s actually sitting somewhere here in the room. I don’t know where Brad went, but here he is on the screen. This was Brad’s definition of fruitfulness from last week. This is a good definition; that’s why I’m reading it again. Fruitfulness is “all of the actions, affections, and outcomes that result from knowing and loving God and living in accordance with his character and will.”
That’s a good definition, and you probably don’t know how long it took Brad to come up with that, okay? That’s very carefully thought through, because it includes our behaviors, actions, that are fruits; but it also includes affections, the desires, and the dispositions and the attitudes of our hearts. That’s part of the fruit. But it also includes the outcome of these actions and affections in the lives of others. So, when you lead someone to Christ, when you’re discipling another Christian, when you are nurturing your own family, your own children, in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, when you are serving faithfully as a member of the church—all of that is fruit, but it’s fruit that flows out of the heart that has been changed through abiding in Jesus.
Brad last week invited us to try to picture what this might look like for us in 2023. Hopefully you did that this week. Hopefully you sat down, worked through that application question, and just tried to imagine, “What would fruitfulness look like in my life this year?” Here are some of the things that Brad suggested to us.
It could be a rich devotional life, where your times with the Lord in his word and in prayer are not dry, boring times where you’re just kind of going through the motions of reading through Scripture, but they’re rather vibrant, joyful times where you are in fellowship with Jesus, where you are actively learning from him and from his teachings and you are seeking to bring your life more and more into conformity to the image of Christ and to the teachings of his word. This relationship with God cultivated in the word is keeping you centered and grounded and connected to the Lord in a spiritually thriving, vital relationship; a rich, warm walk with God in your devotional life.
It might mean—I think it would mean—giving Jesus and the kingdom of Jesus first place in your life. Jesus said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Putting Jesus first.
That would mean that, however many things are demanding your time and attention, however many plates you’re trying to keep spinning, however many irons you have in the fire, the one thing that you don’t cut out is the kingdom of God. The one thing that you don’t drop is your relationship with Christ in his word and with his people.
Fruitfulness in your life would look like the outworking of all of this in your relationships—your relationships at home with your spouse if you’re married and with your children, if they’re still at home, or with your adult children if they’ve moved away, or maybe with your grandchildren—so that in all of these relationships you are modeling the character of Christ, you are loving with the love of Christ, you are pointing people to Christ, you’re seeking to disciple others in the way of Jesus, you’re seeking to point others to Christ, you’re maybe winning others to faith in Jesus Christ. Whatever your relationships are, whether you’re married or single, you’re thinking about your circle, your sphere of family relationships or people that you live with or people that you live near. You’re thinking about your small group relationships, the people you are in fellowship with. You’re thinking about your coworkers. Every one of those relationships you are seeing as divine opportunities for spreading the fragrance and the aroma of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can be an influence for good in his world as you live in connection with Jesus and help others live in connection with Jesus.
Fruitfulness in 2023 can be increased victory over besetting sins, so that you are growing in holiness, you are growing in sanctification, you are becoming more like Jesus, you’re having more victories than defeats. You’re putting sin to death and you’re seeking to die to sin and live to righteousness, and you’re doing it in the strength and in the power of the Spirit, and you’re doing it in deep dependence on the cleansing word of God.
All of that is fruitfulness. All of that is what we’re after. It’s more joy, more peace, more love, more holiness, thriving relationships with God and others, effectiveness in ministry, in service. This is the life we want. It’s a fruitful life.
What I want you to see here is that abiding in the word is what leads to that kind of life.
Let me just show you a few texts to put a little flesh on this.
John 8:31-32—I’ve already read it, but now notice the end of this verse. Jesus says, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” So Jesus is saying that abiding in the word leads to freedom.
Let me just ask you this morning, where are you not free? Where are you battling compulsive behavior? Maybe it’s a secret addiction. Maybe it is compulsive anxiety and worry. Maybe it’s the presence of unrestrained, uncontrolled desires and appetites and emotions in your life. Do you want freedom? Jesus offers freedom, and he says the way to freedom is to know the truth, to abide in his word, to be his disciple. The truth will bring you freedom; the truth will make you free.
Look at John 15:11. “These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.” This is telling us that abiding in the word brings fullness of joy. This is such a simple verse, those are simple words, but don’t miss the profound implications of what Jesus is saying here. I think there was never a person who walked the face of the earth who had more joy than Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the perfect man. Here was someone who knew what it was to be fully satisfied in God. He was a joyful man! Jesus says, “I’m saying these things to you not so you’ll just have enough joy to get you by, not just so you’ll have enough joy to kind of counterbalance the trials and the sorrows of life, but so that my joy will be in you and so that your joy will be full.”
Anybody here want to be happy? You want joy? Jesus says the way to joy is to abide in him and let his words abide in you.
Here’s another passage: 1 John 2:14. John says, “I write to you, young men, because you are strong and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.”
Do you want spiritual strength? Do you want victory in your battles against the evil one? Here’s the way to get it: for the word of God to abide in you.
Here’s one more passage. This one doesn’t use the word “abiding,” but conceptually it’s related. Paul, talking about transformation in Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
The renewal of your mind. The image that I have here is the image of renovation or remodeling. Have you ever been through a home remodel, or maybe a portion of your home has been remodeled? We kind of had an unexpected, unplanned-for kitchen remodel a couple of years ago. We had a leak in our kitchen sink, and it wasn’t a drip, you couldn’t hear it; it was a mist. But we started noticing that tiles were breaking and things didn’t seem like they were right. We had somebody look at it, and sure enough, there was a mist back behind the kitchen sink. We had not noticed, and we had water damage. It was extensive. It meant a rotting floor under the tile, broken tiles, mold, and so for six weeks we’re shut out of the kitchen, and you know what’s going on? First of all, demolition. Things are being torn out and then drying out and then being rebuilt with new materials. We got a new kitchen out of it, and insurance paid for most of it, so I guess it was worth it in the long run.
But here’s the deal. This is the illustration I want you to get. Your life needs to be remodeled. Your mind, Paul says, needs to be remodeled. It’s a renovation of the mind and of the heart, and it happens in this process of inside-out transformation, as the old is being torn out. The parts of you that have been damaged by sin are being torn out and cleaned out and dried out, and new stuff is being put in. It’s the renewal of the mind. It’s a new way of thinking, a new way of desiring, a new way of loving, a new way of behaving. It’s new habits, new thought patterns, a new framework, a new view of the world; and it all comes through the renewal of your mind. How does your mind get renewed? Your mind gets renewed through the power of the Spirit of God and the word of God.
That’s what we need. We need this fruitfulness in all of its dimensions of freedom and joy and victory and transformation. My guess is that there’s nobody here in this room who doesn’t want that in some measure, but the way to get it is through the word.
3. How to Cultivate the Practice of Abiding in the Word
So, how then do you cultivate the practice of abiding in the word? This is the last point. Let me give you five things, and I’m drawing this from a prayer from the very first Book of Common Prayer, the “Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent,” by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. This is kind of a famous statement now for those who know their church history. Thomas Cranmer was the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury and was also one of the great martyrs in the Protestant Reformation in the Church of England. He said this prayer, and I want to pull something out of the middle of this prayer that gives us direction for how to abide in the word. This is very helpful. He said,
Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ.
I just want you to note that series of verbs in the middle: hear, read, mark, learn, inwardly digest. Those are the five disciplines for abiding in the word. Let’s think about each one of those practically for a moment.
(1) First of all, hear the word. The word is spoken to us; God himself has spoken his word. One of the primary ways you and I receive the word is through the hearing of the word. It’s what we’re doing right now; it’s part of corporate worship, is the hearing of the word. Paul says, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” You and I need to hear the word, and it’s a great privilege for us to hear the word.
Here’s what I want to invite you to do. One of your practical disciplines for abiding in the word in 2023 is commit yourself and your family to hearing the word in weekly worship. What I mean is don’t miss. Unless you’re sick or out of town, don’t miss. Make Sundays a priority for you and for your family. If you’re only twice a month right now, move it up to every week. Commit yourself to weekly receiving the word through the hearing of the word. If you do have to miss, the simple thing to do is to gather your family together on Sunday evening or on Monday evening and watch the livestream. The video is right there, so you don’t miss out on the hearing of the word.
For those of you who are parents of teenagers, this is one of the most formative, crucial practices for your family and for helping your children to remain in the faith. Show them that church and God and Jesus Christ and the word are not secondary to anything else; they’re primary. This comes first. Hear the word.
(2) Second habit: read the word. By this I mean develop the practice of regularly reading the Scriptures for yourself. Now, many of you have this. Many of you have been regularly reading the Scriptures for years. Some of you are on a regular plan where you read through the whole Bible every year. That’s wonderful; I don’t want to disrupt anything that you are doing that’s working for you.
But some of you are doing this in fits and starts. You start a plan, you drop off. You try it for a while, you lose steam when you get to Leviticus, and it’s all done from there. You never get to the end of the Bible. You don’t know where to start, and you open up the Bible and you read part of it and it doesn’t make any sense, and it just doesn’t take long to get discouraged. “Man, this book is hard to understand!”
Let me suggest another way to be reading the word. Here’s a simple thing you can do: take one book of the Bible at a time, read through the book at the rate of one chapter a day, and along with the book you’re reading read a simple guide, a Bible study guide or commentary, which would essentially be like reading a chapter a day, that will help you understand what you’re reading. That is a very effective way to get the word i you and to get yourself in the word.
This is actually my plan this year. My plan this year—or part of my plan this year—is to take books of the Bible and read through a book of the Bible with a commentary to help me understand books that I don’t understand as well. I’m doing 1 Kings right now. Just a chapter a time, working through, trying to understand 1 Kings.
I’m not doing that so that I can preach it this year. I’m just doing that so that I can understand it better, so that I can apply it, so that I can hear and receive what God says in his word in that part of the Old Testament Scriptures. After I do 1 Kings, I’ll do something else.
That’s a way for you to do it. If you want some help on that, if you will email us, info@redeemer.ch, I promise that I will personally respond to every request for book recommendations for how to get started in studying the Bible in that way. But find a plan, commit yourself to regularly reading the Scriptures, and reading for understanding—not just trying to get through a Bible reading plan, though that can be wonderful if that’s working for you. But what I want is for you to read and understand what you’re reading.
(3) Number three, mark the word. By “mark” Thomas Cranmer probably meant not mark it up, but take note of, like, “Mark my words.” “Mark this.” It’s mark the word; that’s what he says. But I want to extend the meaning of mark the word to get yourself some highlighters and some pens and pencils and a Bible that you don’t mind marking up, and become an engaged, active reader of the Bible, utilizing the tools and the skills that will help you to grow.
Here’s another method for you. I did this a number of years ago. I decided to read through the letters of the New Testament with an orange highlighter, and every time I came across anything that had to do with prayer I highlighted that in orange. It’s actually this Bible, my preaching Bible now. This Bible, every time I see orange in the New Testament, that’s prayer. Or every time I see it in the epistles.
You could do that with anything. You could take any theological topic or practical topic; you could take something like holiness, and every time you see a reference to holiness or sanctification or living a holy life you highlight that in yellow. Do that in the epistles. Or take the kingdom of God, and you read through the gospels, and every time you see the word “kingdom” you highlight that.
What happens is as soon as you start looking for something particular, a part of your brain gets engaged and you start noticing things that you weren’t noticing before. You do that over and over and over again, and you mark up your Bible, so that you are engaged, you become an active reader of the Bible, a student, instead of just eyes passively going over the words on the page, and you get to the end of the page and somebody interrupts you and you look up, and when you look down you can’t remember where you were. Has that ever happened to you? I mean, that happens to me; that happens to everybody. The way to combat that is to become more active and engaged in your reading of the Bible; to mark.
Listen, I would suggest to you that two or three chapters a week carefully read and marked will do you more good than four or five chapters a day read and forgotten. Learn the word by marking it.
(4) That leads to the fourth thing, which is learn. Hear, read, mark, learn, inwardly digest. By “learn the word” I’m talking now about study. Most of what I’ve said so far has to do with private study, but here’s a little push for getting involved in a regular inductive Bible study with other people. One of the ways that you can abide in the word is to grow in your understanding of the word as you do that interactively with other people.
The primary way to do that is with your small group, so that your small group is getting into the word together and everybody in the group is sharing and discussing and you’re helping one another to apply the word. But there are several ways you could do that here at Redeemer. If you’re not in a small group, here are some things to consider.
If you’re a male member of our church or a male attender, come to our Wednesday night men’s Bible study, Intentional Men. This week we’re starting the Gospel of John. We’re starting John 1 on Wednesday night. This is an ongoing, interactive, discussion-based study of the Bible. We just finished Hebrews, now we’re doing John. Listen, it ends up being close to an hour and a half discussion, and it’s a vigorous discussion. There’s debate, sometimes there’s even argument. Can you believe that? We all walk out friends, but we are debating and discussing what the passage means and how it applies.
It has become one of the most invigorating, enjoyable experiences of my week, to meet with about a dozen men to study the Bible in this kind of way. We have open seats; we’d love for some other men to join us.
If you’re a woman in our church, there are a couple of options for you as well. The second and the fourth Saturdays of each month, beginning here in January, a women’s Bible study group is studying the Gospel of Matthew. They’re taking a chapter at a time to get through the whole Gospel of Matthew in about fourteen months, so a little over a year. Or there’s a Wednesday night women’s Bible study, and they’re going to be studying together the Sermon on the Mount. Listen, childcare is provided for both of those options, so don’t let having kids keep you from getting engaged. Those are two ways that you can be involved.
Here’s one more, really quickly: In February we are beginning a Sunday evening class that is going to meet for just six weeks. It’s a six-week class that’s going to be called “The Word Made Clear: A Six-Week Course on Understanding the Whole of Scripture.” That will run from February 26 through March 2. This is a class that we’re asking people to sign up for. It’s going to involve discussion groups and homework. If you want to take it up a notch and get equipped for reading and understanding the Bible and interpreting the Bible, this class will help you do that, and a lot of work is going into preparing that class. I would encourage you if you’re interested to sign up. There will be details about that forthcoming.
All of these are ways to learn the word. Bible study with other people
(5) Here’s the last thing: inwardly digest. You know that when we eat food the food has to be digested, and the way that happens is you ingest the food and the food then gets broken down into smaller parts, right, smaller molecules, so that your body can then begin to absorb the nutrients from that food. In the same way, it’s not enough for you to just get the word into your brain, it has to be broken down and digested into your heart and into your life. That happens through application. It happens through obedience. It happens through intentionally thinking through what this passage means and how it needs to apply, what needs to change in my life.
Jesus says if we keep his commandments we will abide in his love. 1 John 3:24 says whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. So, obedience, keeping God’s commands.
This is essential. In fact, we can’t really say that we are abiding in the word until it gets to this level. James says, “Be doers of the word and not hearers only.” You have to put it into practice.
Here’s the simple rule of thumb: every single time you spend time in the word of God, look for at least one application from your time in Scripture. At least one application. It may be a promise to believe, a sin to confess, a command to obey, an example to follow. It may be some precious truth about Jesus and the gospel to hold fast to your heart and to meditate on, some aspect of the character of God for you to offer worship to him for, but you’re looking for some specific thing that you can put into immediate practice in your life. When you do that, you’ll inwardly digest the word.
I know I’m out of time, but let me just end with a personal example. A little over two years ago now my grandfather, A.W. Hedges, passed away, in 2020. You can see a picture of him here. When I was working on this message I thought of this picture and I thought of him. It’s this picture of him reading his Bbile in that familiar living room chair. He was in his 90s when he passed away, and I was asked to do his funeral service.
As I was praying and thinking and talking to family members about his life, the passage that came to mind for me for his service was Jeremiah 16:7-8, which says, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green and it is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
I thought of that passage because this was my grandfather: a man with deep trust in the Lord, a man who walked with Jesus throughout all the years that I knew him and many years before, and who did not cease to bear fruit.
I think it’s a wonderful example, because he wasn’t a theologian. He probably had never heard of Thomas Cranmer. He wasn’t a theologian; he was a simple man. He was a farmer in West Texas, and a businessman, and a deacon in his church, but here’s a man of integrity. Seventy-six years of marriage. He was perhaps the most joyful and certainly one of the most generous people I’ve ever met, faithful to one church for decade after decade after decade, always loving, always kind, always interested in whoever was right there in front of him. He was a man who was a lot like Jesus. I want to be like him when I grow up—my grandfather.
I hold him out as an example because here’s someone who, even in his 90s, was still getting up in the morning and reading his Bible. He was just reading the King James Bible; he was just reading it over and over and over again. I don’t even know how many times he read it through over the years.
That’s the model, friends. You don’t have to be a profound theologian to understand the Bible, but what you do have to do is give yourself the time and the attention, the focus, to get in the word and start learning and growing. As you do that, you too can be a person whose leaves remain green in the year of drought and who does not cease to bear fruit.
Let’s do this together, shall we, in 2023? Let’s abide in Jesus by abiding in his word. Let’s pray together.
Lord, we thank you that you are a God who speaks, and that you have spoken to us through the prophets and supremely through your Son, Jesus Christ, and that even today you speak to your church through the Spirit, through the words of Scripture. We thank you that you are a God who communicates to us. We thank you that you have given us access to your word. We pray that you would give us hearts to love it, to delight in it, to abide in it. We pray that you would give us the practical disciplines to actually set aside time to read, to study, to learn. We pray that you would help us to put it into practcie in our lives, so that it becomes transforming for us and leads to the kind of spiritual vitality and fruit that we all long for. We pray that you would do something unique and special and precious in our lives here at Redeemer Church in this year of 2023, as we together pursue a deeper, closer walk with you through a deeper devotion to your word.
Lord, we’re dependent on your Spirit to both create and to sustain such desires in our lives, so we ask you to do that now. We pray that the result would be fruit that glorifies you, our God, fruit that benefits the people around us—our family members, our neighbors, our friends, our community—fruit that leads to a greater flourishing of the kingdom of God in our community and in our world.
We ask you to meet us now as we come to the Lord’s table. May we come to feed not just on the elements of bread and juice but on Jesus Christ, who is the bread of life. May we come with faith and with hope in our hearts. We pray this in Jesus’ name and for his sake, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
