Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church

Guest (Female): You are now listening to an inspirational message from the Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church where Dr. Michael W. Wesley Sr. is pastor. Please join the service in progress.

Dr. Michael W. Wesley Sr.: Father, we thank you today for blessing us with your holy presence. Thank you for blessing us over the week that we have traveled through, giving us rest on last evening, and blessing us to rise early this morning and to want to be in the house of prayer. Thank you for the praise. Thank you for the experience.

Pray now for the word that is to come now, that we will be helped and we will be changed as a result. Speak, Lord, your servants are listening. Bless the words in our mouth and the meditations on our heart, that it may be acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Keep us by your power in Jesus' name. Amen.

I want to continue this morning with the Gospel as recorded by St. John, the 15th chapter. We looked there last time. We've been looking at practical applications of the Word of God to make sure that our current generation know what we have and who we are in Christianity. It’s so easy to think that the words of the Bible, because it’s such an ancient book, that it has no application for today. I want to make sure that we understand that these truths are for us.

John’s Gospel, chapter 15. Last time, we looked at verses 1 through 3. We read 1 through 6, but we explained 1 through 3. Today, I want to pick up the reading at verse 4 and go through verse 11, and that will consume our time.

Abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine. No more can ye except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me, ye can do nothing.

If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered. And men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

Herein is my father glorified, that ye bear much fruit. So shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

This is the word of God for the people of God. I want to talk this morning about the benefits that we have for abiding in Christ. Last night, I was looking through the television channels and I came, as I do often, on CNN to keep up on the news. After the newscast was off, there was a documentary that came on in four parts about the last flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia.

Space Shuttle Columbia was the last of the space shuttles and ended in disaster. The crew had trained very well. It was a mixed crew that included an African American man, an Indian woman, and a number of other various representations. It was probably one of the most diverse groups that had ever gone into outer space from the NASA Space Center.

Their mission was to go forward and to take care of scientific experiments and then to re-enter the Earth and to return home. But as you well know from history, that when they attempted to re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, the shuttle exploded and the lives of the crew members were all lost. The debris was scattered all over East Texas.

It was such a devastating experience that NASA had not resumed the Space Shuttle program. It brought it to an end in a real sense. During the takeoff of the space shuttle or the liftoff, it was very clearly noted that there was a piece of foam that came from the large tank and it ultimately struck the wing.

There was an investigation to try to determine what had happened, but that investigation was shut down before it reached its rightful conclusion. Even in the documentary, there was enough blame to go around to say that it was unnecessary loss of life. Had they followed through on it, lives could have been saved.

I set all of that to say that God gives us a warning here in his word that will preserve life if we pay attention to it. He's seeking to keep you from crashing and burning, and he's giving us a word. The word is to stay connected. Abide in Christ. Abide is an old word, but it means stay.

The immediate context of the scripture passage was the night before Jesus was to go to the cross. He had been in the upper room with his disciples, with all 12 of them. They had been inconsiderate of his need or of his heart. They had been arguing among themselves, trying to determine who among them were the greatest and who would have the choice seats, one on the left and one on the right.

It was a difficult night for him because he understood the danger that was lurking. In a little while, the betrayal, one of his very own men who looked like he had been attached, looked just the same as the rest, had been on the same mission with them, had walked with Jesus, talked with him, ate with him, seen the miracles, heard the words, but his heart was dead.

His name was Judas Iscariot. That night, Jesus told Judas, "Go do quickly what you must do." Judas went out to betray him to the religious leaders for 30 pieces of silver. As Jesus and the disciples concluded all that went on in the upper room with the communion and all, they came out of the upper room and began to walk through Jerusalem to the east side, to the Garden of Gethsemane.

As they enter into the garden, he sees a vine and he speaks, "I am the true vine." Israel had been portrayed in the Old Testament as being the vine, the source of blessing. But Jesus wanted them to know, "You don't get your blessing because you are a Jew, you get your blessing because you are related to me."

He says to them, "Stay connected to me, abide in me." He says it ten times in these verses. Abide in me, abide in me, abide in me, abide in me. What he does is to give a practical understanding of the benefits that we have for remaining, for staying attached. We don't want to be a Judas branch.

He made it clear there were four characters here. He says, "I'm the true vine, my Father is the vinedresser, you are the branches." But there were two kinds of branches. One branch that did not produce anything, that was cut off, that was good for nothing then but to be cast into the fire and burned. The other branch were the fruitful ones.

The text really answers a lot of questions. It answers and raises the question: what does it mean to be a true disciple? It also raises and answers the question: how do we explain ourselves in the context to other people who want to know who we are? So, as we look at this scripture passage for the morning, we'll see here that Jesus picks it up and he gives us, in a real sense, six benefits for remaining attached, for staying connected, for keeping ourselves from exploding and burning up and our remains being scattered all over the landscape.

A lot of people who look like they're Christians and they really are not. People who look like they're attached but they really are not. I mean, they couldn't even in Jesus' day, they could not tell who Judas was. He walked with them like everybody else. That night, when Jesus said one of you are going to betray me, they didn't have no idea it was him. They asked themselves, "Lord, is it I?" They looked within their own selves because they know that they all had human weaknesses.

We can't look around at each other and try to decide who's real and who's not. But I am going to give you something that you can know whether or not you are real, whether you're the real deal or not. The first thing he says is, "Abide in me and I in you." What is that benefit? It is the benefit of salvation, of genuine eternal life.

Let's understand. Many people today, you hear people today they talk, you ask them, "Do you have a relationship with God?" They say, "Yeah, I have a personal relationship with God," like they have something that other people can't have. What really are they trying to say? What are people really saying when they say, "I have a personal relationship with the Lord?"

Let me clarify for you and simplify it for you. What it really means is that God lives in me. That's what Jesus said. This is what Jesus said. He said, "Abide in me," that is, "Stay in me and I in you." In another place, over in John 14, he said the same thing. He said, "I'm going to pray to the Father that he'll give you another comforter, and when he comes, he's going to be in you." That is, "He's going to live in you."

So, when God lives in you, you have God the Father inside of you, you have God the Son living inside of you, and you have God the Holy Spirit. You have the triune God taking up residence in you. If that's not salvation, what is it? Salvation is not signing a pledge card. That's what creates defectors. A lot of people sign pledge cards. A lot of people pray prayers.

But what it really means, when it boils down to the end of the day and you can say it for yourself and you can know it's the truth, that Jesus lives in me. He puts it in other places in the Bible in that same way. The Apostle Paul uses other word pictures as illustrations. We are the temple of God, the dwelling place of God. God lives where? In me.

If you want to know whether or not you are a real Christian, the question is: where does God live? God lives in me. He lives in me. Does he live in you? We say all the time, "You know he does, because he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me that I am his own." The joy, wow, that's salvation in its simplest definition.

That's a benefit that you have if you remain, if you stay, if you stay attached. You don't have to worry about life coming to a close and you crashing and burning. Stay in me and you'll be delivered. The second benefit that you get from remaining in Jesus, that's in verse 4, what I just said there. Sanctification is the second benefit.

What is sanctification? There are three words we're using that can be interchangeably used. Sanctification is the set-apart life. That's what it is. It's righteousness, it's right thinking, right behaving, right believing, right understanding. Where do you get that from? You get that from being attached.

When your life is connected, Jesus said, "I am the vine, you are the branches," and if you remain connected in me, what he is saying is, "My life will flow through you, flow from me into you, giving you the eternal life." Then the outward life that you'll live as a result of having me on the inside of you, which is called sanctification, or righteousness, or even for the text, fruit-bearing.

How can you explain who you are to the world in terms of your Christian standard? "I am a fruit-bearer. I bear fruit." So, we then need to understand: what is fruit? What do you mean by fruit-bearer? There are different ways in which the Bible has explained fruit. But fruit is the production that comes in life that is connected to Jesus. Without being connected to Jesus, you cannot bear fruit, just like a branch cannot bear fruit if it is no longer attached to the vine.

You cut a branch off and it's out there by itself. It has no life source going through it, so it cannot be fruitful. But when you remain attached, fruit will come. What is the fruit? First, there's the fruit of repentance. Repentance is an understanding that I have a sin nature, a nature that's alienated from God. It is a natural nature. It's the natural nature that I received because I'm a human being. I received it just as Adam received a nature.

That nature is corrupt. What we have to understand is repentance shouldn't come because I've done something bad and I say, "Oh, I'm sorry for that." That's responding to the sorrow that the sin has produced. But there's a greater sorrow that we ought to have, that is the fruit of repentance. It's when we understand what potentially could go wrong, and we don't like it.

We ask God, "God, save me, help me. If you don't help me, what am I going to do?" That's what Paul writes about in Romans 7. He said, "The good that I would do," he said, "I don't do it." He said, "The bad things that I don't want to do," he said, "I end up doing it." He says, "So, I see a law that's at work in me, that when I desire to do good, evil is always present."

So he cries out, "Oh wretched man that I am! Who can deliver me from this body of death?" Then he says, "I thank God for Jesus." So, see, that's where the repentance is, that's what the fruit is. I realize, look, one day I was born into the world. When I was born into the world, born a natural man, my eyes were covered from spiritual things, I didn't understand it.

I'm trying to live like a human being does on the earth. But then one day I come in contact with this word and I realize through the word that I got something wrong, flawed in me, that could potentially mess me up over and over and over again and ultimately cause my plane to crash and burn. But then I cry out, "Oh wretched man that I am!"

God reaches in and he saves me. What he does, he turns my life around and he puts a bend in me. It doesn't mean that I'm going to live the rest of my days perfectly, but know there is a bend now in me that's toward the Lord, where I want his guidance and his righteousness.

The Pharisee came to John the Baptist when John was out there baptizing, and everybody was being baptized. The Pharisees came and they said, "We want to be baptized." John looked up and he sees them. He said, "Oh generation of vipers, you big snakes, who has warned you to flee from the judgment, from the wrath of God to come?"

They wanted to be baptized. He said, "No, you're going to have to produce fruit of repentance. You're going to have to demonstrate that there's some change in the direction that you want to go in your life." If you want to continue, if you just want water baptism just to say that you got what everybody else got, but there's no different, there's no new direction going in your life, then you're no different.

So we have to have fruit in our life that say that there's something different, that we don't want to be on just the natural path that life will carry us on, but we want to be bent in the direction that lead us in the ways of God. That's fruit of repentance. Are you with me? That's one kind of fruit, but then that's not the only kind of fruit.

The Bible also describes another kind of fruit. The other kind of fruit that he describes is spiritual attitudes, and those spiritual attitudes are called the fruit of the spirit. Paul writes about it in Galatians chapter 5. He said, "The fruit of the spirit are love, joy, peace, goodness, meekness, faith, gentleness, self-control." He said against those there are no laws because those are not behaviors, those are attitudes that live behind and guide the behaviors that come through my life.

If without the Lord, I don't have the Lord, then I don't have no love. God is love. If without God I don't have no joy, I don't have no peace, I don't have no meekness, I don't have no kindness, I don't have no gentleness. I don't have even self-control. But because these spiritual attitudes have now been given to me as fruit based on my attachment to the Lord, see, that's the life that I draw from him.

I draw fruit, it produces supernaturally in me. It's not what I got from momma and them. I get talents and abilities from them, but I get gifts from God. Spiritual enablement, spiritual attitudes that guide how I am to live every day. That's what sanctification is, the set-apart life, the righteous life that comes because a fruit has been produced in me and I'm now a fruit-bearing human being. Are you following me?

How do you know you're a Christian? Because I have the life of God living inside of me and we call it salvation. I have fruit being produced in me because my life has turned and I'm going in a different way with a different bend in my life. I have spiritual attitudes that guide my daily practices: gentleness, and goodness, and meekness, and faith, and self-control, and supernatural abilities to love when I couldn't do it on my own.

But that's not all of the fruit. Abiding in Christ produces another kind of fruit and that is the praise of my lips. Praise and worship come because I have been attached. If you read the Psalms, you read the Old Testament, what they did in Old Testament when they wanted to praise God, or when they praised God, what they did, they rehearsed and repeated the activities that God had done.

The children of Israel never forgot how the Lord sent Moses down and how he defeated Pharaoh, how he brought them out of Egypt, how God opened the Red Sea, how God drowned Pharaoh's army, how God fed them in the wilderness with manna from on high, gave them water to drink from the rock. They never forgot the activities of God and they rehearsed them over and over.

What that is, is called praise. Let me explain it another way. Praise is giving back through the lip what God has done for you in the life. If he never done anything for you, you don't have to say anything. But let the redeemed of the Lord say so. If God has snatched your soul from a burning hell, if he has put confidence and comfort in your heart, if he has stood you up and made you somebody new, you ought to say so.

You ought not to give somebody else the credit for what the Lord had done. God is my refuge and strength, a present help in the time of trouble. The Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. And even if I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me.

I dare you to rehearse what God has done. I dare you to tell somebody in your own human words where you were born and how you got where you are today. Because you didn't get where you are today because of you, you got where you are today because of God. Yes, he might have sent you through a school, but he sent you.

I can tell people, yes, other folk graduated Summa Cum Laude and Cum Laude. I got out of there 'Thank You Lordy'. Because I know what got me out of there. Man, I was too foolish to even understand. And go there because there was a money bank somewhere. Every now and then I'd get a little letter from home and it'll have little crooked little letters on it and I knew where they came from.

Open the envelope and it might be $15, but I praised the Lord for that because I knew she had done the best that she could. Do you understand what I'm talking about? I know today who has brought me. Anybody know how you got here? Anybody know who brought you? Anybody know you could have crashed and burned a long time ago? But it was the grace of God.

So, we are worshippers. We are made to be worshippers. We are made to praise him and to give him the praise of our lips. That's why you can't just sit there and just look. Sometimes you have to say something. If you don't say something, God will get behind you and stick you in the chair, make you say something.

I said I wasn't going to tell nobody. Old Jeremiah said that, did he say it? Jeremiah said, "I wasn't going to tell nobody. I got tired of talking about God. I folded up my hymnbook and my Bible and decided I was going to go home." He said, "But then Monday came and I had to pass by the church." He said, "Tuesday came and I passed by it again. Wednesday I know they was in there in Bible study. Thursday I knew choir rehearsal was there."

But then Sunday came and I just couldn't keep it to myself. It was like fire shut up in my bones. I had to tell somebody. So, we have the benefit of praise and worship because we have been attached and we remain attached. I can't tell it all in one time because he does something new for me every day. Every day his mercies are new. Great is his faithfulness.

What I told you about last week, I can tell you something different because he did something different this week. Can't praise on yesterday waking me up. I woke up this morning! Amen. That's fruit. Fruit also is not only the praise of our lips, it's not only the spiritual attitudes, it's not only repentance, but fruit is the deeds of love that we do for other people.

The Apostle Paul never forgot the people at Philippi. Whenever he sent, they sent him something and they were people who blessed him over and over again. One time he was in prison in Rome. They sent even one of the church members, Epaphroditus. He recalled, "I remember when I was in Thessalonica, you sent to me twice."

He called those deeds of love that they had done for him "fruit". See, you got to understand, you bear fruit when you bless other people. You can bless other people. Sometimes God will make you be the source of somebody else's blessing, just like he causes somebody else to be the source of your blessing.

Has God ever made anybody bless you? Has God ever raised up a situation that you didn't know how it was and all of a sudden God use somebody else to be the answer to your situation? God will make you be the answer to somebody else's situation. When you do, you are producing spiritual fruit. You cannot be a Christian and does not produce fruit.

Look, you're going to have some of this. You're going to have repentance, a different direction in your life. You're going to have the right kind of spiritual attitudes that guide you day in and day out. You're going to have the kind of love in your heart that causes you to look out for others. You're going to have some kind of praise on your lips.

All of that stuff is fruit. What I mean is, it's proof positive that you are who you say you are. That's how you know. You don't know because your name's on the roll. You don't know just because somebody else say, "Oh, you're a Christian" or you sit among Christian people. The devil sit among Christian people too.

But you know you're a child of God because you have the life of God living in you. You know that you're a child of God because you have fruit that is being produced, that sanctifying righteous life that's coming out of you that you know you didn't put in there. It comes from being attached to him who is the vine.

Not only that, fruit also comes from leading people to a relationship with Christ. That's what Paul said. He wrote letters. See, that was before they had text and tweets. That was before they had internet and Zoom calls and all of that. So, he wanted to go to visit the people in Rome and he had never been there.

In his letter, as he's writing to introduce himself, he said, "I want to come to you at Rome because I want to have some fruit among you too." In other words, it's some folk over there that need to be brought into a relationship with Jesus. I know if I share my knowledge of Jesus with you, you're going to come to Christ. I know if you come to Christ as a new convert, you are fruit for me.

Oh God, y'all need to hear me today. You think you're not evangelists? Yes, you are. You are supposed to tell somebody about the goodness of God. Whether it's your child, your grandchild, your great-grandchild, your neighbor, your coworker, you got to tell somebody. When you lead and some people you lead to Christ and not even know you led them to Christ, but when you do, you are producing spiritual fruit. Are you following me?

Look today at your life and understand that you are the real deal. That's the whole point. The whole point is: how do you know that you are a Christian? How do we distinguish between the fruit-bearing trees and the ones who are barren? Because the ones who are bearing fruit, the fruit is evident. Scripture say a tree is known by the fruit it bears, and a good tree can't do but produce good fruit. Corrupt trees can't do but produce corrupt fruit. So, what kind of tree are you? You're a fruit-bearing tree and it's a benefit.

So look at the benefits. I have salvation, I have the life of God living in me. I have sanctification, I have a set-apart life, a righteous life that's being manifested through the fruit that's supernaturally being produced in me every day. Thirdly, I have the benefit of answered prayer. Don't miss the scripture. Don't miss what Jesus says here as he says to these very disciples.

He said, "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you can ask what you will and it'll be done." Now, let me qualify the asking because you know we've made God be a super Santa Claus. We've made God be our personal genie and we pull him out when we want something and we rub on him and we say, "In Jesus' name," and we think he's supposed to come trickling out and do it and we want to obligate God to answer our trivial prayers.

No, no, no. If you abide in me and my word abide in you, if you understand who I am, if you understand what things I'm committed to, the purposes of God, things that bring glory and honor to God, things that bless and expand the kingdom of God, things that glorify and honor my Father which is in heaven, you can ask those things and you can be sure that they're going to be answered.

How easy would life be if we understood that our prayers are going to be answered? And they are. You just don't understand the benefit. They sung a minute ago, "Oh, what needless pains we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer." See, most people think prayer is a monologue where we get down and we say everything. No, prayer is a dialogue where you speak and God speaks back.

How many know God will speak back? Yes, he will. He'll wait till 3:00 in the morning when he got your attention. When everybody else sleeping, you say something woke me up. No, not something, somebody. Not something gave you the answer, somebody gave you the answer. "I found the answer," they used to sing when I was a kid. "I learned to pray," and see, that's when I found the answer, when I learned to talk to God and ask him things about my life.

You think God doesn't want you to be blessed? You are his child. You think God doesn't want you to experience love, and forgiveness, and mercy, and kindness, and all of the blessings? He surely does. You think God doesn't want your needs met? You think God has not been the one who has planned and scheduled every day of your life and he knows that in that scheduling and in that process of sustaining you on the earth, there are physical needs that you have?

So when the disciples looked at Jesus, they said, "Master, teach us to pray." He said, "Alright, when you pray say 'Our Father, who is in heaven, holy is your name, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come.'" Do you ever pray, "Lord, thy will be done in my life, as it already is in heaven"? Do you ever say, "Give me this day my daily bread"?

What is my daily bread? Whatever I need. My supply of wisdom, if that's what I need. My supply of physical strength, if that's what I need. My supply of understanding, my need of favor, my need for a door to be open, my need for my bills to be paid, my need for me to feed my family, whatever is my daily bread. He'll do it. There ought to be somebody here that know he'll do it. He'll do it. He'll supply all.

Then that's where you have to apply the faith. See, when you ask, you have to ask in faith, believing that what you're asking for, you're going to receive it. And the scripture, Jesus in Mark's Gospel 11:24 said, "And you shall have them," but you got to believe it when you ask.

If you came up to me and you said, "Pastor, give me $50," and then I really don't think you're going to do it. Guess what? Right. You know, if you don't believe that I can do it or will do it or going to do it, ain't no need in asking because it's not going to happen. Right? If we can act like that among human beings, why go to God and ask for something you don't believe he can give? But if you know his will and if you know his character and his behavior, you know that he will supply.

So, I know I need to move. Let me give you some more benefits. The fourth benefit that we have beyond answered prayer is assurance. I talk about the difference between assurance is different than insurance. Insurance is what I need to protect me against loss. But assurance is what I need to help my confidence.

To help me know who I am and to remind me of whose I am and to let me know that everything going to be alright. Verse 8 is where it is. "Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so shall you be my disciples." The assurance that I am true blue, that I am his child and his disciple, is there is fruitfulness in my life.

I can look back over my life and, like they used to say, I can see so much that the Lord had done. I can see ways in which God has honestly used this young man, young man, whatever he is. In spite of me, God has blessed. Do you understand, in spite of you, God has blessed. He doesn't bless you because of you. He does, in a sense, because you are his child, he does, but in spite of the fact that you don't always do it the right way, he will still bless you.

So, you have the assurance when you look at your life and you see God brought me through that. He got me out of this trouble. He kept this thing from happening. He kept me in the air when I could have crashed. He allowed my wings to fly. He kept me afloat when I didn't know how I was going to make it.

I must be his child! He protected me from my enemies, he opened doors that I didn't know could be open, he made me behave in ways that I didn't even understand. He made me love and forgive and act godly when I wanted to act. That's assurance! You look at all of the evidence and you have the assurance that you're his child.

Then number five, verse 9 and 10 is "As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love." Listen, what you have, the benefit is the love of God. You have not just a little love, either. You have the lavish love of God.

The thing about a child of God is, a child of God doesn't have to raise his hand and say, "Jesus love me, please, I'm over here." No, he made you. If you survived this side of the birth canal, you were made to be the objects of God's love. Love always has to have an object. You can never just say "I love" and leave it like that. No, something has to follow "love". "I love people. I love music. I love money. I love happiness." Whatever.

God loves you! So you are the objects of God's lavish love. If you remain attached, you haven't seen nothing yet. The best is yet to come! God reserves some blessings for later. Some blessings he gives us on a daily basis, but then he got some special blessings that he's holding just for the right moment.

I don't know how it makes you feel, but I can't wait on something that the Lord has in store. I know it because every now and then, he give me a little peek. Every now and then, he give me a little foretaste of glory divine! When the foretaste come, anybody ever had a foretaste of glory divine? Just a little hint.

When momma used to be cooking, sometimes before the meal was done, she'd let me taste a little bit just to understand that the meal was coming. When it comes in its fullness, it's going to be more than you can handle because it's going to be good. How you know it's going to be good? Because it's going to be God. Anything that's good and anything that's God has got to be awesome.

So, you're going to be the beneficiaries and you will continue to be the beneficiaries of God's love. Think about that space shuttle, man. I just can't shake that thing because I remember when it happened and I remember the events about it. But watching it and watching how the scientists understood that there was a problem that could have perhaps prevented that thing from crashing and human life have been lost.

But it was because of work culture that would not allow them to challenge the authority of supervisors who refused to listen. You got lives that were lost and families that were broken unnecessarily. Listen, God doesn't want anybody to be cut off. God doesn't want anybody to have to spend eternity separated from him.

His plea is, "Continue! Stay!" Don't make Judas' mistake! Stay! So that you can receive the love, so that you can receive the assurance, so that you can receive the answered prayer, so that you can receive the fruit, so that you can receive the salvation. One more thing that he wants you to have and that is joy.

He said, "You stay in me and I in you, my word in you. I speak these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be full." You can walk around and be full of joy. I just want you to understand there's a difference between joy and happiness now. Happiness comes from happenings. Something has to happen to make you full of happiness.

But joy can happen in spite of circumstances. You can have tears in your eyes and be full of joy. You can be having pain in your body and be full of joy. You can have trouble in your home and be full of joy. Trouble in the community, trouble in the world, but you can still be full of joy. "This joy that I have, the world didn't give it to me and the world can't take it from me."

This joy that I have, joy to the world! The Lord has come. Let Earth receive her King. Every heart prepare him room. Heaven and nature sing. I have joy sometimes when nobody's with me. I have joy when my heart is broken. I have joy when I'm broke. I have joy when my pockets are running over. I have joy when I got friends, and I have joy when I'm walking by myself. I have joy when family comes around, and I have joy when nobody comes around. Yes, Jesus loves me! This I know, for the Bible tells me so!

Just want you to know you can have all of these benefits and then some. But you have to stay! Don't make Judas' mistake. Judas left. He became an unfruitful branch and his life was cut off. He ended up busting Hell wide open. That does not have to be for you. You can't lose this once you have this.

I just want to encourage somebody before I go to my seat, that it ain't over until God says it's over. It ain't over until God says it's done. You may be going through a struggle, but it doesn't mean God doesn't care. You may be going through a challenge, but it doesn't mean God's not going to bring you out victorious.

Things could look bad for the home team for a while. But he specializes in snatching victory from sudden defeat. Listen, for years if Alabama could have a Saban on the sideline, if the Lakers could have a LeBron sitting at half-court, if the Warriors could have a Steph Curry, even if Iowa could have a Caitlin. And you and I got a Jesus? Baby, it ain't nothing we can't win. It ain't over!

Somebody touch somebody, just tell them it ain't over! Until God says it's over. It ain't over until God says it's done. Doors of the church are open. Somebody might be here today. Somebody's life can change today. Just listen to the story. Anytime during the song, just walk this way.

I know the odds look back against you. And it seems there's no way out. Odds against you look bad. I know the issue seems unchangeable and that there's no reason to shout. But the impossible is God's chance to work a miracle. A miracle!

So just know it ain't over until God says it's over. It ain't over until God says it's done. No, no, no, no, it ain't over until God says it's over. Keep fighting until your victory is won. He never said it would be easy. It's not going to be easy, but you're a winner in the end.

Jesus defeated all of your enemies. Way, way before the fight began. Before the fight began. But the impossible is God's chance to work a miracle. A miracle! A miracle! So just know it ain't over until God says it's over. It ain't over until God says it's finished, it's done.

It ain't over until God says it's over. Keep fighting until the victory is won. When people say that you can't, remember he can. When you don't know what to do, please remember he has a plan. He will bring you through your sin and give you peace within. So you better hold your head up high. You're going to win! Yes, you're going to win!

It ain't over until God says it's over. It ain't over until he says it's finished, it's done. Oh, it ain't over until God says it's over. He's fighting! He's praying! He's fasting! It ain't over! It ain't over until God says it's over! It ain't over until God says it's finished, it's done!

It ain't over until God says it's over! Keep fighting! Keep praying! He's blessing! He's pressing! It ain't over! He's pressing! He's blessing! Keep on moving! Oh, it ain't over! He's breathing! Interceding! Interceding! He's believing! Oh! It ain't over! It ain't over! It ain't over! Tell them! That it's over! It ain't over! What the devil meant for bad, My God meant it for my good! It ain't over! It ain't over! It ain't over! Keep fighting! Until your victory is won!

Keep fighting until your victory is won. Stay with Jesus. Stay connected. There are these many wonderful benefits that are designed just for you to help you know that you are true. You are a true disciple, you're a true believer because you have the life of God living in you and you have the evidence of fruit in your life, the sanctified life that's coming out of you that you know you didn't put in there.

It comes from being attached to him who is the vine. But then not only that, fruit also comes from leading people to a relationship with Christ. You have answered prayer, you have assurance, you have the lavish love of God, and you have divine joy in your life.

Go out of here today with your head up. Go out of here and face another week fully assured that whatever it is, is not over until God says it's done. Our service ends.

Guest (Female): Hope you enjoyed the broadcast. You have been listening to a message from the Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church where we are reaching the world for Christ. Located at 2135 Jefferson Avenue Southwest, Birmingham, Alabama 35211. For a copy of a CD or DVD, you can reach us at 205-925-5972 or visit us on the web at www.greatershiloh.org for an uplifting message. Please join us for the next broadcast.