What I Would Do Differently
Sermon 1: Communion with God Made Possible”
(John 15:1-11; 17:1-3) Introduction
What if God made it possible for his beloved people to have intimate fellowship with him, whereby they would know him, love him, enjoy him, depend upon him, take strength in him, and learn to be like him?
Furthermore, what if God accomplished the greatest of all victories in order to make such priceless fellowship possible—a victory that would come at the expense of his own Son?
And what if God provided certain means (ways, methods) for his people to regularly enjoy fellowship with him.
And what if they lived in ignorance towards those means?
This sermon series seeks to not only combat that ignorance but also to train Christians in how to practice ongoing, intimate fellowship with God.
The aim of this series is to “equip you to practice communion with God through the God- given means of Bible meditation and prayer.”
Let me define communion with God for us:
“Communion with God is receiving God’s loving communication to us while joyfully responding through our union with Jesus.”
Often, this word “communion” is used interchangeably with words like
“fellowship” & “relationship.”
John Owen (17th century Puritan) wrote,
“Our communion…with God consisteth in his communication of himself to us, with our returnal unto him of that which he requireth and accepteth, flowing from that union which in Jesus Christ we have with him.”
What Owen means is that communion with God includes two components:
First, it includes God’s loving expression of himself to us (which is his revelation of himself to us and his gracious willingness to engage us in a close relationship).
Second, it includes our return to him through both a loving,
communicative response and worship (and all this is made possible through God’s Son Jesus).
This week, I spent over 26 hours in a car with several other men who love the Lord, and then I spent many more hours fellowshipping with those same men as we attended a wonderful conference together in Kentucky.
We had sweet fellowship, or communion together.
And this is like the Christian’s communion with God, but communion with God is something far more: it is the Maker himself willingly condescending in such a way that he makes himself knowable and enjoyable to human beings who are then allowed to respond to him with love, relationship, and praise.
Communion with God is the sweetest of all communions.
Goals of this series:
#1 Increase your knowledge of communion with God through Bible meditation and prayer.
#2 Equip you to practice communion with God through Bible meditation and prayer.
These goals will be accomplished, Lord willing, through six sermons over the next six weeks.
Big Idea: God has made joyful communion with him possible for believers in Christ.
Two ways this is true:
#1 Believers are redeemed through Christ’s death on the cross which removes the relational barrier between God and sinners.
Eph. 2:16 And might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
#2 God made it possible for believers to have an ongoing, intimate relationship with him through Christ.
This is the heart of this series and this project: that God has provided the means for believers to have soul-satisfying, life-transforming communion with him each and every day.
Today, two passages from the Gospel of John will confirm for us that God has made joyful communion with him possible for Christians:
Passage #1: John 15:1-11
Christ’s metaphorical language here reveals the tight connection formed between his followers and himself.
Notice (vv. 1-2): Jesus is the Vine, and his followers are the branches.
According to v. 4, these branches are to abide in (“remain with”) the Vine.
This communicates a spiritual union wherein each Christian has become intimately connected to Jesus himself and must continue to recognize their need of ongoing connection to Jesus.
As branches, they are connected to the Vine, and they must constantly recognize their need for the Vine in order to have life and growth.
The word “dependence” perhaps best communicates the believer’s vital connection to Jesus in this passage.
The branches (Christians) are entirely dependent upon the Vine (Christ) for all good progress in the faith.
Example: Spiritual fruitfulness (or life transformation) – if a Christian is to grow, experience life change, and become increasingly holier both in action and word, then they must abide in the Vine.
v. 4 “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.”
Every Christian is entirely dependent upon Jesus the Vine, each and every day, to accomplish what God intends for them—which is to have lives transformed for his glory.
However, notice that the Lord Jesus makes clear here that his true followers are already a part of the Vine and that it should simply be their ongoing desire to now abide in him (or remain with him, sticking close to him).
v. 3 “Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.”
The “word” that Jesus had spoken to them was undoubtably the teachings surrounding his gospel.
The book of John’s primary message is the good news about Jesus:
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that