Sermon Tone Analysis

In AWANA, the children often play a game of tag where the doors, in the Sunday School area,  are the safe areas.

Any child who is “it” cannot touch the others while they are on the safe areas, that is, while they are touching the doors.

And so it goes, the one who is it chases the others and tries to touch them before they touch a door.

They sure have a wonderful time.

Now, we adult Christians play a similar game of tag with Jesus and Satan.

When we try to play this game, we will get hurt every time.

This game is a dangerous game of tag, in which we will lose unless we play with the right rules.

And, of course, the best is not to play at all, but many of us will play anyway; and that is what we will be illustrating today.

Turn to John 15:1-5.

John 15:1-5 (NASB95) \\ 1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.

2 “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away (lifts up); and every /branch /that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.

3 “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

 4 “Abide in Me, and I in you.

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither /can/ you unless you abide in Me. 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

This passage is talking to Christians – those who are in Christ and Christ is in them (verse 3); they have been cleansed by Christ’s word.

For Christians, we are already clean, but we have the responsibility, from our side, of abiding, or living in Christ.

In verse 2, we see the Christian who needs to be lifted up.

The Father never discards us, because we are not bearing fruit.

He does whatever it takes so that His fruit will come out of our lives.

The Father then prunes us so we become more like His Son.

He exposes sin in our lives.

He helps us to become humble, and obedient to His will.

Verse 4 gives us the secret to a successful life in Christ.

Verse 5 states that we can do nothing without Jesus Christ.

Imagine that this pulpit is Christ and I am a Christian.

Every time I stay in touch with Jesus, Satan cannot touch me.

I am safe.

I am secure in the arms of Jesus.

But what happens when I sin?

When I sin and the Holy Spirit, or another Christian confronts me; if I become proud (fold arms), belligerent or arrogant, then I stand in defiance.

Now I am vulnerable.

Now!

Satan can have his way with me.

This is a very dangerous tag game.

This is a tag game that you cannot win.

If you do confess your sin, Jesus is faithful to forgive you of that sin and cleanse you from all unrighteousness (1 Jn 1:9).

In other words, Jesus is telling us to keep short accounts when it comes to sin in our lives.

John 15:1-5 Without Christ you can do nothing.

We need to declare our Dependence.

Verse 6 tells us what will happen if we do not abide in Jesus.

John 15:6 (NASB95) \\ 6 “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.

Yes, if we do not abide in Jesus, we will become dried up, lose our joy, become lifeless.

Verses 10, 12, 14, 16-17 tell us how to abide in Christ.

John 15:10-17 (NASB95) \\ 10 “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.

11 “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and /that /your joy may be made full.

12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

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

14 “You are My friends if you do what I command you.

15 “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

16 “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and /that /your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.

17 “This I command you, that you love one another.

1 Cor 13

 

The only way to abide in Jesus is to obey His commands.

The one command that He gives here is to love the brothers and sisters in the faith.

As soon as we do not obey Jesus, we jeopardize our fellowship with our Lord.

As soon as you or I sin and take up our defensive position, we take a step away from Jesus and into danger.

You begin to stubbornly evaluate “hey this isn’t so bad”, but you have not realized that you are falling from Grace.

You are not lost - because God is still faithful to His Word and if you are saved you are still saved; but you have harmed your relationship with God.

You become like the frog that was put in warm water and became comfortable to the temperature.

As the water temperature was raised slightly, the frog did not think much of it, until it was too late and the water temperature was high enough to cook him.

This is the same way sin works in the Christian’s life.

You become used to the temperature of your surroundings and think you have gotten away with that sin.

Then before you know it, the sin is ruling over you.

You are cooked; you are fallen from grace.

Now, you are capable of doing the worst evil that you can imagine.

You have 2 choices.

You can repent of your sin as God tells us in 1 John 1:9, or you can take  another step away from your Savior.

If you take another step, you are putting yourself into even more spiritual danger.

You need to make a Declaration of Dependence.

We need to get back to Jesus and state our dependence upon Him.

We need to verbalize John 15:5 - Jesus I can’t do anything in my Christian walk, without You.

I need to dwell in you.

I need you Holy Spirit to guide me.

I need to listen to You.

When you take those steps away from your Savior, Satan begins to blind your eyes (John 12:40).

Satan is the great deceiver.

Then when he gets you away from your Savior, he attacks you until you fall deeper into sin; then he becomes your Accuser.

Your only recourse is to repent (name the sin as sin and turn away from it) and to get back to your Savior, but for most of us, we need to get to the end of ourselves and have no where to turn before we come back to our Savior.

Satan tempts you, then convinces you that you are alright, then becomes your accuser.

Yes, Satan is the great Accuser of all who are righteous in God’s eyes.

Illustration #2: Don’t become an accuser.

Don’t act like Satan.

Matthew 25:40 (NASB95) \\ 40 “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, /even /the least /of them, /you did it to Me.’

 

Let’s say that you are abiding in Christ; you see a brother or sister involved in sin; and you begin to accuse them in prayer to Jesus.

Your Savior will say (pull that hand back.

They already have an accuser.

They need prayer.

I showed you their sin, in order for you to have compassion on your brother~/sister and that your heart would break like Mine).

Yes, you are being transformed into the image of the Son.

Galatians 6:1 tells us to be humble and help those Christians that have fallen into sin, with a humble spirit, less we too become entangled in sin and fall ourselves.

A humble Christian will weep over a fallen brother~/sister and help them to climb out of the sin they are stuck in.

A proud Christian will condemn a fallen brother~/sister and will become an accuser, causing division in Christ’s Church.

But God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.

God asks us to pray for all the saints.

They need prayer for power to live the Christian life and prayer to fight off the temptations of Satan.

Leave spiritual discipline to those who are called to that position – the elders of the church.

Parents, you are to discipline your children.

Gal 5:16 we need to walk in the Spirit, so we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

Jesus walked on the earth, full of the Holy Spirit.

A humble Christian is a strong Christian who will walk in the Spirit, abiding in Christ and showing the weak brother~/sister how to live victorious in Christ.