North Center Baptist Church
Brooklyn Park, Minnesota
A diverse church for all ages
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January 10, 2010 John 15 by Pastor Stan Audio INTRODUCTION The vision that God has given us here at North Center is to make disciples. We want to do everything we can to help whoever God enables us to reach to become growing, maturing disciples. So we’re starting off this New Year with a discipleship emphasis on “The Call to Follow Christ.” What we’re doing in this 7-week campaign is showing you how to lay a solid foundation for growth as a disciple in the year ahead. As we saw last week, many have the mistaken idea that disciples are a select group of high-achieving Christians, which implies that not all believers are disciples. The Bible, however, makes no distinction between being a Christian and being a disciple. What we find in the Bible is that all Christians are disciples. The term “disciple” refers to a learner; a disciple is someone who has come to faith in Christ and is learning to follow Him. All those who are called to know Christ are also called to follow Him. I. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE, A CHRIST-CENTERED LIFE Something that can help us to understand what it means to be disciple who is following Christ is a diagram called “The Disciple’s Cross.” Notice that the center of the Cross is a circle saying “Christ.” Being a Christian means having a life-transforming relationship with Christ. Being a disciple means living a Christ-centered life. Your relationship with Christ isn’t limited to Sunday mornings or this church building. Being a Christian isn’t restricted to “religious” activities such as going to church or praying or reading the Bible. If you’re a Christian, your relationship with Christ is connected to every aspect of your life—to your family life, your dating life, your job life, your educational life, your entertainment life, your social life, your financial life, everything. Christ is to be at the center of everything you are and everything you do. II. THE IMAGE ILLUSTRATING THIS LIFE (JOHN 15) The NT uses many images and analogies to illustrate this relationship between Christ and His followers: there’s the image of a Shepherd and sheep, or a Master and slaves, or a Husband and bride, or a Head and body. One of my favorite images, is the one Jesus gives in the fifteenth chapter of John’s Gospel—the image of the Vine and branches. Cf., John 15:1-5 For those who are doing the daily devotional reading in the workbook, the key verses and memory verses for this week are verses 4-5. A. THE VINE Jesus says, “I am the vine.” 1. Not His Teachings But Jesus Himself The vine is the source of life for the branch. The vine is not Jesus’ teachings or His example—as important as those are. The vine is Jesus Himself. What we believe is, of course, critically important. Christianity, however, is not primarily a belief in certain doctrines, but a relationship and fellowship with the person of Christ. Several years back I read about an article in a London newspaper called The Daily Mail that reported that Dr. Alice Chase, a nutritionist and author who wrote Nutrition for Health, had died. The cause of death according to the article—malnutrition. It’s possible for us to have a lot of knowledge but fail to let that knowledge impact our lives. You can know lots of Christian doctrine and go to all kinds of Bible studies and still be spiritually malnourished. Spiritual health requires more than knowledge; spiritual health requires an intimate relationship with Christ. 2. Jesus Is the “True Vine.” In verse one Jesus says, “I am the true vine,” implying that there are false vines, vines that promise the good life but can’t deliver on that promise. Some of you might remember a television series called Battlestar Galactica, a science fiction series that featured the adventures of a crew of space warriors in the future. The original series aired from 1978-79 and was then reincarnated on the Sci-Fi channel in 2005. The original series was extremely popular with teen boys, but the overall ratings were low, and the series was cancelled. After the |
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