Pastor Jeff on the Radio

Guest (Male): You're listening to Pastor Jeff Ministries, the teaching ministry of Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub. On today's program, Pastor Jeff continues his message, "Abide in Christ," from the series "Designed to Thrive," and shows you why abiding in Jesus, not striving in your own effort, is the key to bearing lasting spiritual fruit.

Our mission is to challenge people like you to respond to the word of God and stand boldly for Jesus Christ in a world drifting further from the truth. We invite you to visit pastorjeff.com where you'll find biblical resources designed to strengthen your faith and encourage your walk with Christ. While you're there, sign up for Pastor Jeff's weekly devotional emails delivered straight to your inbox. Now, let's hear today's message from God's word with Pastor Jeff.

Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub: Salvation is individual. You must individually respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and when you do, God places you in a family and your sanctification happens in community. You cannot grow without God's people. It is an impossibility. That's why Jesus says, "I'm the vine, y'all are the branches." Every time you see the word "you" in this section, it means "y'all." It really means, if you're from the south, "all y'all." It's the plural.

He's not talking about, because we read this section and we think we're Americans, "I'm the vine, Jeff, you're the branch." No. Jeff, I'm the vine, and in my church, everybody who believes in me as Lord is the branch. This is a plurality he's talking about. We don't thrive individually. There is no such thing. You're going to see more of it next week. I've said this before many times: there's no great athlete that's not part of a team. You're not an individual. You have to be part of a team. That's why Jesus says these things.

Trusting in Jesus Christ as Lord is the essence of salvation. God removes the branches that bear no fruit. "The Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish." That's true all throughout scripture. Notice he prunes branches that bear fruit. Trusting in Jesus is the essence of abiding. How do you know if you're being pruned? Sometimes I talk to people and they get frustrated because they feel like they're just sinning. Maybe they're not a Christian anymore. One of the greatest evidences to know you're a Christian is that you're aware of your sin.

Non-believers are blind to their sin. Christians, we become aware of it. Notice this in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 5 and following. It says, "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives." Which means if you're loved by God, you're disciplined by God. God disciplines all his kids. All of God's kids get spanked, every single one of them.

If you would say, "I've been walking with the Lord for a while, he's never really said anything to me, I think he just loves me for who I am," you're not a true child of God because how can God be perfect, holy, infinite, true, and glorious? You're completely depraved through and through. You come onto God's team and everything's fine. What I found is as God welcomes me onto his team, there are things in my life that do not reflect the glory and holiness of who he is. So he's constantly cutting back, constantly disciplining, constantly using things in my life to show me ways that I can do a better job of reflecting his glory. That's true for every single Christian who's ever lived. That's an evidence.

Hebrews 12, verse 7 says, "It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?" God is a loving God; he disciplines all of us. There's nothing wrong happening to you when you read the word or you come to a church service or you're in a prayer group or you're in a small group where you're convicted by your sin, where you feel like, "I'm out of line. I'm not as good of a dad as I thought I needed to be. I could really be a better husband. Maybe my words weren't as good as what I thought they were. I can grow in my understanding of God." All those things are evidences that God is working in our life, telling us not to be complacent or content, but that we can grow in who he is.

Jesus Christ must be the Lord of our life. That's essential. Number one, trusting in Jesus Christ as Lord is the essence of abiding. Number two is this: bearing fruit is the evidence of abiding. How do you know if you're abiding? You're bearing fruit. Every Christian bears fruit. One hundred percent of Christians bear fruit. Here's what he says in John 15, look at verse 2. "Every branch in me that does not bear fruit," those are non-Christians, he takes away, and "every branch that bears fruit," that's Christians, "he prunes it so it may bear even more fruit." If you're a Christian, you're bearing fruit and God's pruning you so that you bear even more fruit.

Notice this verse 3, because you would think that the chapter would start in verse 4 and 5, but verse 3 seems out of place. "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you." Why does that even fit there? What's it doing there? Let me tell you what it's doing there. This is the night that Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot. They have just finished eating supper. Jesus has washed everybody's feet. Jesus has taken the Lord's supper with them. Judas Iscariot is going off to betray him. So who's left? Jesus is standing there talking to the 11. Here's what he tells the 11: "All of you are clean because of the word that I've spoken to you."

When you trust Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, you are already clean. What it means is while you may see sin still in your life, while you still may see areas God's correcting and cutting back, it means that God the Father sees you through the lens of his son and that you're already clean, that you're already pure, that you're already forgiven, that you're already adopted, that you're already loved. There's nothing you can do to make God love you any more. You're not abiding so that God will love you. God already loves you, which is why you're abiding. You see the difference?

This series I titled "Designed to Thrive," I put "being" your best in Christ, not "doing" your best for Christ. We're not human doings, we're human beings. You can come here for the rest of your life and do a lot of good things and do a lot of things for Jesus and not be abiding in him. You're already clean. When Jesus is the Lord of your life, you're already clean. You don't come to church to work on being clean. You're already clean. You come to church to remind yourself of who you are in Christ so you can continue to abide in him.

I don't know if some of you are as excited about this as I am. I know me. I know where I come from, I know the sins that I've sinned. I'm aware of how flawed I am. I come to church knowing that God sees me as perfect through his son. That's good news for me because if I had to come to church to preach really well so that God would love me more, I'd be in big trouble.

Why is it that so many Christians come to church month after month, week after week, looking for what they think they need in their life, when what they need in their life is a relationship with Jesus and being told the truth from God that by believing Jesus died and rose from the dead, you're already clean? You're already cleansed. You already have everything you need for life and godliness. You don't strive for what God has already provided. One of the ways you thrive is by resting in who you already are in Christ. That's what he's saying. He's telling his 11 they're already cleansed.

Why is this important? Because in John's gospel, when we see the words "in me," it's different than what we read in the New Testament "in Christ" in Paul's epistles. In John's gospel, what you have are people who are professing believers who really aren't believers. If you flip back to John chapter 8, verse 30, it says, "As he spoke these things, many came to believe in him." There are believers. Then Jesus says these words in verse 31 of John chapter 8, "So Jesus was saying to the Jews who had believed in him, 'If you continue in my word, then you are truly my disciples.'"

But what does he say down in verse 37? They keep saying, "Well, we're disciples because we're sons of Abraham, we're Jews." What does he say? "I know that you are Abraham's descendants; yet you seek to kill me, because my word has no place in you." In other words, you're saying with your lips you're believing, the evidence that you believe is that you love me and that you keep my word, and yet I know you don't keep my word because you don't love me. There are many people in the first century that were very similar to people in our generation that mouth with their lips, "Oh, I love Jesus. I love Jesus." But in their heart, they're far from him.

In John chapter 6, verse 66, you can look at it. Right after Jesus got done telling his disciples, "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no part of me," from that time on many no longer followed him. Jesus goes on in that section even to say one of you is a devil. Judas Iscariot was a devil. Judas Iscariot was right near Jesus. Judas Iscariot preached on Jesus' behalf. Judas Iscariot presumably cast out demons and healed people like all the other disciples did. Judas Iscariot is for sure in hell. Why? Because he was a devil. He said he believed, but he didn't have a relationship with Jesus.

This is the teaching all throughout the Bible. In Matthew chapter 7, verse 21, we see Jesus talk to people who have been following him. He says, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven will enter heaven." In other words, he says on that day there will be many that will say, "But Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name?" So there are preachers in hell. "Did we not cast out demons in your name?" So there are people that God used deliverance through. "Did we not heal people in your name?" So there are people God heals through.

Then he'll say these words to those people: "Depart from me, you workers of iniquity because I never knew you." You didn't abide in me. I wasn't the Lord of your life. I wasn't bearing my fruit through you. It's not about your work for God that gets you into heaven. It's about God's work in and through you that took place on the cross at Calvary that gets you into heaven. Amen? That's what he's saying.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Pastor Jeff Ministries, and today's message, "Abide in Christ," from the series "Designed to Thrive," shows why abiding in Jesus, not striving in your own effort, is the key to bearing lasting spiritual fruit. We'll continue with Pastor Jeff in just a moment.

But first, this month we're excited to offer you an important resource called "Letter to the American Church" by Eric Metaxas. This powerful book challenges believers to not remain silent while culture drifts further from biblical truth. Instead, it calls the church to stand courageously for righteousness, proclaim the gospel boldly, and engage the spiritual battle with truth, prayer, and sacrificial love. When you give to support Pastor Jeff Ministries, your generosity helps more people hear clear, uncompromising biblical truth through radio, digital outreach, podcasts, and teaching resources around the world. As our thanks for your gift today, we'd love to send you a copy of "Letter to the American Church." Visit pastorjeff.com to give and request your copy today.

Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub: When we become Christians, when we truly profess Jesus Christ as our Lord, there's this divine exchange that takes place. All my sin for all of God's righteousness. Every thing I've done wrong for everything that God is. I'm completely clean because of the word in which he's spoken to me.

Does this mean that we can lose our salvation? No, you cannot. Let me show you from John's gospel because it doesn't matter what I say, it matters what God says. In John's gospel, if you go to John chapter 10, verses 28 and 29, here's what you will read. Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." And what does he do? "And I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand."

What you see is when Jesus Christ grants eternal life, there's this dual grip of the Father and the Son, empowered by the Spirit, says you're not going anywhere. What you see in this text is someone that says, "I'm in the vine," but they're not in the vine. When Jesus Christ is your Lord, you're already clean. You're already in. You're not going anywhere. God's going to prune you, cut you back, clean you, do all the things for you to flourish, but you're his, and he will never ever let you go. That's the teaching of the Bible.

I believe in eternal security because the Bible teaches it for the true believer. I don't believe in eternal security for someone who professes their faith. I don't believe that because the Bible doesn't teach that. The question becomes, have you trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior? If you have, bearing fruit is the evidence that you have done that very thing.

This is what Jesus is talking about. He says, "You are already clean because of the word I've spoken to you." Then he says this, "Abide in me and I in you." Abide simply means to remain, stay rooted in. "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me." The only way to bear fruit is being connected to the vine. A branch bears fruit because it's connected to the vine. That's the only way. You can't cut a branch off and have it bear fruit. It only bears fruit because it's connected to the vine. It's not producing the fruit, the life is not in the branch, the life comes from the vine that is producing the fruit.

Let me tell you this: you can't produce your own fruit. Jesus is the one that produces the fruit in you, which is why the next verse is so telling. Notice what he says, probably the most familiar of all of them. "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit." Apart from Jesus, how much can you do? Nothing. Not a thing. "No, no, I don't need to know Jesus, I can give a lot of money." Yes, you can, and it doesn't count for anything eternally. The only things that count are what God works in and through you. It's the fruit-bearing of Christ.

What's fruit? Galatians 5:22 is just one place in the New Testament you can read about fruit. The fruit of the spirit is love. You cannot have a love for God and a love for other people without Christ. Without Christ being your Lord, you can't do it. When Jesus says love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, you cannot do that if you're a non-believer. You cannot genuinely have love and affection for people that are hurting you. You cannot genuinely pray for them. I'm not talking about praying that God smites them. I'm talking about praying that God puts favor on them. You cannot do that without having the love of God in your heart.

Joy, you can't have joy without the love of God in your heart. Peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. You can't bear that kind of fruit without Jesus Christ being the Lord of your life. But everybody who has Jesus Christ as the Lord of their life, they bear fruit. This section starts off talking about fruit, more fruit, and much fruit. This is the same thing you see all throughout the New Testament. In Matthew's gospel he talks about seed that scatters on the ground. Some falls on hard soil, never gets taken in; they're not connected to the vine. Some falls upon the rocky soil. It grows up with great joy and then falls away. Why? Because it's not connected to the vine. Some in the weeds grows up but the cares of this world choke it all out. Why? Because it's not connected to the vine.

But that seed which gets put in good soil, what does it produce? Fruit. Thirty, 60, or 100 fold every time. Fruit, more fruit, much fruit. You want to bear fruit? You want to bear fruit that will last? You want to make an eternal difference? You want to experience the love of Christ? Abide in him. Let Jesus Christ be the Lord. He will produce fruit. He does it in every single believer. I can't find an example in the New Testament where he's not bearing fruit in a Christian's life.

Thief on the cross, thief on the cross, he didn't live long. The thief on the cross was rebuking another thief who was a non-believer for speaking bad about Jesus. That's fruit. Amen? When you're a believer, you're producing fruit. You may not even know you're producing fruit. Quick word on fruit: who's the fruit for? You ever see a tree eat its own fruit? You ever see an apple tree get hungry and start eating its own apples? Fruit is for others. Fruit is not to be put on display. Because if you put fruit on display for too long, what happens to the fruit? It rots.

Fruit is born so that other people can be nourished from the fruit of Jesus Christ. God does not ask you to bear fruit so that you walk around like, "Look at all my fruit. I'm very fruity." No, that's not why, because if you walk around like that and don't allow others to nourish themselves from the fruit God puts in your life, it will rot. God bears fruit in your life for other people to take. So if you've ever been around other believers and feel like, "They're just taking from me. They're taking this and it's so hard," it's because God's bearing fruit in your life and you're nourishment to them. So praise God that they're pulling things out of you. That's what it means. Amen?

That's bearing fruit. Every Christian has the ability to do that by abiding in Christ. Apart from Jesus, you can do nothing. Apart from Jesus, you're no help to anybody else. Apart from Jesus, there's no nourishment in your life for other people. It's abiding in Christ. It's not doing things for Jesus. It's seeking the Lord, it's submitting to the Lord, it's loving the Lord, it's wanting God to do whatever he wants to do through you, and then letting others, as you bear fruit, do this.

Notice what he says: "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." One of the passages in scripture that Christians like, "Yeah, we believe everything about the Bible but I just really don't believe it practically, it kind of means something metaphorically." No, it actually means what it says. If you abide in Christ and Christ's words abide in you, which means the life of Christ, his desires, what you want, ask whatever you wish, it will be done for you. Ask whatever you wish. "Let your kingdom come, let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

Christians, when you're abiding in Christ, you can ask whatever you wish. Why does God grant us that permission? Because when you're abiding in Christ, you'll want the things that God wants. God's saying if you want what I want, ask for whatever I want, I'll always give you what I want. And there's nothing wrong with bearing more fruit. I've been in churches where people have said, "No, don't tell people to pray for more fruit. Don't tell people to be more fruitful. Don't ask for more of that. That's just being arrogant." No, it's not. Is it arrogant to want more people to be nourished in the body of Christ? Is it arrogant to want more people to know who Christ is? Is it arrogant that we would be a church that would love God more? No. Ask. Ask. I can handle God's nos. But Jesus makes a promise. If it's according to my will and what I want done, I'll do it every single time.

This is what Jesus says: "My Father is glorified by this." Well, I just want to glorify God. I just want to sing songs. Here's how you glorify God: by abiding in him and asking him to do radical things in your life that are directly disproportionate to who you are. "God, if you can use somebody as corrupt and flawed as me and bear fruit in me, I want all you have for me, so when the world looks and says how could God use him?" The only answer I'll have to give is, "That's Jesus." That's Jesus. Amen? That's what he's talking about. God is glorified in that. The Father's glorified when we ask him for more fruit and much fruit. That you bear much fruit and so what? "Prove to be my disciples." The evidence is fruit. No fruit, no faith. You prove that you're a disciple by your fruit.

This is what he's saying. It's the evidence that you are abiding in Christ is that you are producing fruit. God wants all people everywhere to produce fruit. Now, we may not see all of our fruit. So how do I know if I have fruit? Sometimes I go home and don't feel like I'm doing anything. I look in the mirror, I see all my sin, I see this, I see that. You may not even know. Here's the truth: if you abide in Christ, fruit is being produced in your life even if you don't see it.

You ever had a story, Christian, that somebody comes up to you weeks, months, years later and tells you something that you did for them that you had no idea that you even did anything and you may not even remember the situation, the time, or whatever, but they do and it was really significant in their life? Why? Because God was doing something through you and you didn't even know about it. I believe that God hides a lot of our fruit from what we're doing or we would be arrogant about it. God at times gives us glimpses that he's doing some things in us and we need to rest assured in God's word that if we're planted firmly in the vine, that God's going to continue that, but you don't need to be looking around, "How much fruit do I have today? Did I grow another fruit?" You don't need to do that.

Here's how God grows fruit: through everything he sovereignly does. Trials are a great fruit-bearing evidence. Tribulations, troubles. You ever had any of those things go on? That's the farmer, that's the vinedresser cutting back. That's saying, "I'm in control and can you thank me in this circumstance? Can you grow?"

Let me give you a third reason that you know you're abiding: desiring God is the expression of abiding. If you're really abiding in Christ, there will be a hunger for the things of God. You will hunger and thirst for Christ's righteousness. We just got done reading, "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish." That's prayer. That's the word. That's a desire to glorify God. And it's delighting in this. It's delighting in God alone. Even if God doesn't do anything through me as long as I just have a relationship with God, that's all I need. I want God. If Jesus Christ is the Lord of your life, that's an evidence that you're abiding because you just want God.

We run all over the world because we want to make sure that for the things we feel bad about in ourselves, other people can make us feel good. It's just how we're wired. Do you know nobody else can do that for you? With your guilt, your shame, the things that have gone wrong in your life, run to whoever you want, run to the people that know you the most, run to your spouse, your kids, whomever; they can't do for you what only God can do.

The reason we should sprint to God, the reason we should abide in Christ is that I find this: no matter what I've done, no matter how lousy I feel, when I run to my heavenly Father, here's the words I hear: "Jeff, I love you. I already knew that about you when I died on the cross for you. I already knew you were going to do that. I already knew you were that severely flawed. What made you think you were any different? I love you." Everybody's looking for that. That's what it means. Desiring God is the evidence.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening today. That was Pastor Jeff with his message, "Abide in Christ," from the series "Designed to Thrive," showing you why abiding in Jesus, not striving in your own effort, is the key to bearing lasting spiritual fruit.

Thank you for joining us for today's program. Before we go, just a quick reminder: when you give a gift of support to Pastor Jeff Ministries this month, we'll send you "Letter to the American Church" by Eric Metaxas as our thanks. This compelling resource is a powerful call for believers to stand courageously for truth, reject compromise, and faithfully engage the culture for Jesus Christ. Your support today helps more people hear bold biblical truth through the teaching ministry of Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub so they can stand firm in their faith. Request your copy today when you give at pastorjeff.com. That's pastorjeff.com. We'll see you next time.