Latest / Rick Manis Ministries Podcast / From Fruitless to Fruitful

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From Fruitless to Fruitful · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of us heard a gospel that was mixed.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: And 40 years later, we're still wanting to see something that we saw in the beginning.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's what got us into this thing.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of us heard, you know, because of some of the teaching and preaching, we still were sin conscious rather than righteous conscious.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: We still still were self-conscious.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's still, just like Adam and Eve when they fell, it still was more about us, our performance, and what we have to do, what we ought to be doing, what's required of us, us, us, us, us, us.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: What would Jesus do?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I got to do that rather than what did Jesus do?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was what Jesus did do, was caught was what caused you to sing these songs and rejoice that you knew that I once was blind, but I know now I see.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Overcoming temptations.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And they're trying hard, they're sincere, they want to.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: But because of this little leaven that Paul talked about, this little leaven that got in, and the little leaven that leavened the whole lump, he wasn't talking about sin as we know it getting in.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Read the scripture there.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: He was talking about a little bit of teaching that had been coming into that church.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it was messing up everything.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Just a little leaven.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we're seeing, and it's not just right here in this house.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's in places that we see and we go, and it's in places around the world.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're in contact with ministers that are administering a word in this country that's putting everything back on Jesus.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're building this thing on the chief cornerstone, Him, not on us.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to read out of John chapter 15, Judy and I are as we get into this, so if you want to find that and follow with us, we'll tell people things like, just remember where you're at.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just abide in the vine.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Just live in Christ.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Just make it all about him.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Remember you're in the kingdom.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Remember you're in Christ.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about him, it's not about us.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then the questions we get are they like, they're like, but how do we abide in him?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: How do we live in the spirit?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul said, You're not in the flesh, Romans 8, but you're in the spirit if Christ is in you.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: But you say, but how do I live there?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: How do I abide in that?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you this question.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you live in Texas?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: How come none of you ever ask me, how do I live in Texas?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know it.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're aware of it.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to ask people because you know where you're at.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know that you're in Texas.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know you're a resident of Texas, and you just live in Texas however you do it.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's no rules to do it.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: You either do it or you don't.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Huh?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's no how to live there.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're just, if you're there, you're there.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Are you listening to me?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the same way with being in Christ, with being in Him, living in Him, living in the Spirit, living in the kingdom, or living in Jesus.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Either you're living there or you're not.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is, there again, some of this sin consciousness gets in to where you don't know where you're at because you're looking at the wrong thing if you get if you're like that.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Judy and I, because of our travels, like this week, for instance, we will be in a different place almost every single night for the next week.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this happens a lot.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you've ever done this when you've you've traveled somewhere, but I I can get up and it'll still be dark.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I've got to use the bathroom, or maybe it's early in the morning and I get up, and I don't know where I'm at.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I'm somewhere else.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I'm headed to the bedroom door and I walk into a wall because the door's over here.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't even know, I don't remember until I hit that wall, and then I'm like, oh, I'm not where I thought I was.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you can think that you're somewhere else.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: You can think that you're just in yourself.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can think that you're in sin or living in unrighteousness, probably because of what you've seen yourself do.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: But the truth is you're in him.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let's read first, let's read the book of John, chapter 15.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Y'all ready?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is going to be good.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 1, Jesus said, I am the true vine.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: That tells me that there's there's other vines, but he says, I'm the true one, I'm the life-giving vine.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, My father is the vine dresser, or the husbandman, or the gardener, or the farmer.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Every branch in me that does not bear fruit.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: What does your Bible say there?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he does what?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: See, it's it's amazing.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Almost everybody's Bible will say that.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, yours says prunes?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, he takes away or prunes.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Mine says, I'm looking at it, I'm reading out of New King James, says, every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, so that it may bear more fruit.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, once in a while, not that often, but they're there, once in a while there is a gross mistranslation that totally, totally changes the meaning.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and this word takes away.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta give you the answer here because it'll tell you exactly what Jesus is saying, and when you hear this, you'll it'll the whole thing will make much more sense to you.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: For one thing, if it if if he's talking, if he says, every branch in me, every branch in me, in me, talking about a branch abiding in him, right?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the vine, you're the branches, right?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: We all know that.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Every branch that's in me that does not bear fruit, he takes it away.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: What's the picture you get there?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: You get it, you get rejection, right?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: You get a casting out, right?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Cutting off from him.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: No more his.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not bearing fruit, it looks like it's saying, if you're not bearing fruit, he takes it away.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Gonna throw you in the fire.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're not fruitful.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that gets us to thinking, what Jesus is doing is he's expecting something from us.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then it puts it on us again, don't it?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: But then, but if we just uh uh jump up just a little a little bit there in verse 4, he says, Abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: I am the vine, you're the branches.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: For without me you can do nothing.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, are y'all now follow me close here?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: He says, If you abide in me, what happens to you?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: You bear fruit, you bear much fruit.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: If what?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: What's the one condition?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Abide in him.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, then why did there in verse 2, he said, every branch in me that doesn't bear fruit?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: How can it, how can that be?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: How can there be a branch in him not bearing fruit?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because he just said in verse 4 that if you abide in me, you will.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then we always say, well, there's nothing wrong with the vine.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with Jesus, so it must be us.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: So then we try to fix us.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: We try to make ourselves a better branch for that vine.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we don't, then some people say they'll either lose their salvation, or they'll lose their fellowship with God, or they'll lose their blessing, or they'll lose their favor, they might lose heaven, they might lose what they're going to be taken away, and they don't want this.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: So they're afraid, so they try to work, work harder and be better.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: The definition of this word takes away.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just reading it straight out of the uh of the Greek um concord of the concordance here.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not, I didn't find some strange little um definition to make it fit what I wanted it to fit.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: It surprised me when I saw it.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: It says that word for takes away, it literally means, it is the word Iro, which literally means up, sky or heavens.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: It means to lift up, to take up, to raise, to suspend, to expiate sin is how it's how it's how it's um what it's compared to.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: To bear up, to lift up, to take up.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's it makes a makes a give you a whole different kind of picture instead of cutting you off and throwing you away, it's a lifting up.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um let Judy tell you about the grapevine, because that's what he's talking about here.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: When you go to a grapevine and you see the vines uh growing, the vine has the sap in it, right?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's these branches that come out of it.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the whole goal of the husbandman or the or the gardener, he wants fruit to bear.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's his goal.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't want to cut off things, he wants fruit to grow.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: So his goal is to get the sap to come up and up through the branches.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes a branch will fall, and what happens?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: It cuts itself off from the sap.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: So the vine dresser will come and lift up the vine.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: He'll even, you know, uh tie it so that it will get a free flow of that sap up into the branch.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in early spring, a vine dresser or gardener will walk through the vine.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he can tell if a vine is going to produce fruit or a branch is going to produce fruit because he'll see little droplets of sap at the end of certain branches, and he'll know, oh, the sap has gone through.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now, a lot of times there's no harvest in maybe the first two or three years of a grapevine.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: But by the third year, he'll see a little drop of sap at the end.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: That little drop of sap will turn into a blossom.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: And a little while later, that blossom will turn into the beginning of a fruit, and then over time will mature and will come to a point where it's nourishing to eat and healthy to eat for you, for for others.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that fruit comes from inside the line that sap getting up into the end of your of the body.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: So he lifts it up.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's not cutting it off, he lifts it up.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: We we've got a little little young orange tree in our in our backyard, and and I had to do that just just recently.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: We got one of the branches there, and it's it starts hanging low, and you know, and if that if it's hanging on the ground, then the fruit doesn't, it if it produces fruit, it gets rotten.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: The fruit will rot on it.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: So what did I do?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: I took some twine and I took that little branch and I tied it up.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: I lifted it up so that it could be fruitful, because if I didn't lift it up, it wouldn't be fruitful.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that and this is this is what he's saying here.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, he's specifically talking about the grapevine.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: So Judy, I wanted her to help me with this because she's been doing a study on this and understands what they what they do with these specific uh the specific type of crop, the grapevine.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so they they lift that up and it produces like she says.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think too the the the analogy or the the comparison with a believer is you're you're growing in the Lord, and perhaps you look at yourself and you see, oh, I really messed up or whatever.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: You start to look at yourself.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's when your branch falls down.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: And what we think is that the Lord is disappointed with us, we're disappointed with us, and we go down.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: What really actually happens is God swoops in and he pulls that he wants you to get that uh sack to you.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he wants to rescue you.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: So in those moments, those kind of negative, like I'll never change, I'll never get this.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Remember that he is the vine dresser, he wants that fruit to come out and he'll lift you up.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is one of the most profound spiritual moments I've had in my life when I noticed that those negative feelings that visited me every day, when I noticed I had done something really stupid at work.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, really stupid.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I left work and I was driving home and I was just sort of berating myself in my mind, and I stopped and I said, Oh Lord, you're not berating me.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: You you're gonna take care of this, it's gonna be okay.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like this risk that I took to believe him over that I sort of I've been trained my whole life to think negatively about myself.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: So so I took this risk and I just went, okay, I'm not gonna even think of that.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna go there, I'm not gonna go.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it and it dissipated.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: The whole thing, I mean, this was like I want to say, like a$500,000 mistake that I had made.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: It got taken care of, it got figured out.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh my God.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's so much better to remember in that moment where you feel like you have to beat yourself up or you have to be negative, that you don't have to.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: That there there is uh a husband man lifting you out of it.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he's and and like like you said, he's his whole purpose is to bear fruit.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, if we look on down at the at the bottom of the chapter we're gonna read, he says, this is how your father is glorified, that you bear fruit.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: He's not glorified that he cuts you off and burns you and destroys you, punishes you, treats you badly.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: He he lifts you up so that you can that you can bear fruit.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, and every branch, so so and he says, and every branch that bear that does bear fruit, that is bearing fruit, that's fruitful, he says, he prunes it so that it can bear more fruit.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what what's the pruning?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there you know, y'all know what suckers are on a plant, right?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and and and this happens on a on a on a grapevine.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember uh when I was a kid and and uh and uh me and daddy were were were planting a garden.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was about a in the I don't know, I was about seven, eight years old, and he let me uh plant a row and I wanted some corn.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I planted some corn.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well the corn starts coming up and it's all cute and it's all pretty, and it gets gets about yay high.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh and he comes in and he says, You need to cut those off.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, no, that's that's the corn.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: I said, it's looking all pretty.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: He says, no.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: He says, those are suckers, you need to cut them off.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I wouldn't do it.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: I just said, uh-uh, I ain't I ain't I ain't cutting my corner.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so he just he just went down, he just started cutting.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, ow, you know.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but but you know what the suckers are, is they're gonna they're they're just gonna take the life from that thing.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what he's talking about pruning.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: What are the suckers?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: What's the things that that that want it that suck the life from you and will keep you from being fruitful?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's sin consciousness is one of the biggest ones right there.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's why people will sing, I once was blind, but now I see, and then 40 years later they're praying that they can see.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Huh?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: What happened?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Something, some suckers got in and wore them out and made them tired and pay and made them, instead of having a feeling of fullness, I saw the light, no more darkness, no more night.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Forty years later, they're like, Man, I just need to see clearly.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: I just hope God will show me.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: I just need to see the Lord.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: I just need to learn to trust him.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: I just need 40 years of this when it shouldn't have been like that.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: But what happened?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: The suckers.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was ideas.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's teaching.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you don't even have to be taught wrong.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times you just you've got the accuser in your own mind that tells you you're not good enough.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're not the.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And what is that?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's all pointing it back to you.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: This this word on Jesus being the vine and him saying that without me you can do nothing.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: You can't bear fruit.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can't make yourself good enough.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can't make yourself do something that's going to give you favor.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can't go and look at the Old Testament and say, Well, if you do this, you'll be blessed.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, Oh, so I'm going to do that.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: See, that's that's that sucker.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's that little bit of mixture that came in, and it'll it works to make you unfruitful because you put it on you.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: He says very clearly in verse, uh, where he says there in verse 2, he says, Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes that he can bear more fruit.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: The word, when you look that up, it means to purge, to cleanse, to make clean, to expiate.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Which means to atone for or take care of what's wrong.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: So he takes care of that.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 3, he says, But you're already pruned, or you're already clean because of the word.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there again, there's a voice right there that says, You're not a dirty dog as a believer, because you're in the vine.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're not a dirty dog trying to get clean.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're clean because of the word that you heard and believed.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 4.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Abide in me as I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Once you real freedom comes when you realize and accept the fact you can't do this.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot bear fruit of yourself.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: You just can't do it.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's good news.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because all it takes, then the only, because if it's if you have to bear fruit of yourself, then you're going to have to fulfill a lot of requirements to do it.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why people, after 40 years, are saying, open the eyes of the Lord, I want to see you.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're just not able to fill all the requirements and they've been trying for a long time.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: They're still trying to be fruitful.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're still trying to bear the fruit of the Spirit.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Christians, 40 years, where's the fruit of the Spirit?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the joy?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the peace?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the patience and all that?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: After 40 years of hard times and longs and long trials, they're still like, God's teaching me patience.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, it's in the vine.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the vine.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You can't do it, you can't produce patience.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: You can't produce peace.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can't talk yourself into it.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I'll give you a peace.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you a peace that passes all your understanding.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you a peace, not like the world does.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: The world will give you a temporary peace by letting things calm down for a couple of days.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't give you a peace like that.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give you a peace that passes all that.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you a peace that's always coming up, like the sap from the vine.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: It'll always be there.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And this is true.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: As we're abiding in Him, just be aware of the truth, because it's the truth that makes you free.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's what's happening right now, because you're abiding in Him.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know what's happening?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like Judy said, that's that's that sap is flowing.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: That sap is working.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: That sap is happening.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you might be in the springtime of the whole thing, but that sap is happening.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it's and it's what comes from the vine that's working to bring this, they bring this produce, this fruit.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: The other day I was on the phone and I've been working, you know, with with business things.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you're dealing with people that they're just sometimes it's just they're just not doing a very competent job.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: This thing, this guy had this thing dragging out and wasn't getting results for about three months, and it should have taken about two weeks.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and I kept working with it, and you're tempted to not act fruitful in the spirit.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and the temptation is that I've got to do put some pressure on this guy to demand some action.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: But the fruit just kept coming up.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And anyway, after it all got resolved, it finally all got resolved, and we had the last phone call, and finally everything's fine.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he just says, I just got to say this.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I want to thank you for your patience.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: I know we hit a lot of bumps and roadblocks in this, he says, but through this whole thing, you've been very, very patient with me, and I really do appreciate that.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: And after I talked with him, I told Judy, I said, you know, I that's something I do get that a lot when I'm talking with people because uh with with dealing with people like that, because this patience is just a part of me.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, you know what's so good?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: That I can vividly remember a time when there is not a living soul that would have said, Rick Manis is patient.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, sometimes people think I'm making this up.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: People think I was born happy and thinking and born with peace in my heart.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: My goodness.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have it before Jesus, and I didn't have a lot of it for about 20 years in him because of the suckers, because of the sin consciousness I still carry it.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know, I for had forgotten the amazing grace that had made all the difference in the beginning.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, people will say, Griff, you have every right to be angry, frustrated with this person or this company or whatever.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: But when you think about it, okay, so I have a right to be angry and frustrated.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: What does that leave me with negative emotions that you know don't do me any good, don't do them any good.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that's why they get surprised at you because they're expecting the natural response, which would be the customer's frustration, their anger, you know, they have every right.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: But he doesn't take his right.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: He goes for the um, well, you don't even go for it, it just comes.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes natural after a while because it pr it's it produces.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: When you're doing it kind of of yourself, it's not a natural thing.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're you're trying to do it, and sometimes you fail.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Then you feel bad because you're not producing fruit, you know, and you're like, and then you're frustrated because Rick's up here saying, Well, you've got all the fruit of the Spirit.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you're in Christ, you already have peace, you already have love, you already have joy.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's all in you.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Then you're like, Well, why can't I act like it?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: But that makes it even worse because now you're saying, And I got it, and I still can't can't see it produced.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: But the key to it is the awareness of where you're at.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: You are abiding in Texas.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to talk yourself into this.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: The only way that you would have to talk yourself into abiding in Texas is if you think you're an okay and you're not.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody says, thank God for that.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: I do it because I'm an okay.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: I can joke about it.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: But it's just a wrong perception.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: The truth makes you free.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: And when a Christian starts to believe this gospel, you start to get back to this amazing grace, which means it's all about the vine, it's all about him now.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, it's scary to some people, but this is where the freedom is.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's a revolution that's happening right now, and this gospel is getting so pruned and so clear and so so so so clean, and the suckers are being taken off that have made it hard for us, and that only can be made easy when we make it about him.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's when we find rest for our souls.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: The life comes from the vine, not the branch.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here he says, um, if anyone does not abide in me, well then he's cast out like a branch and he's withered, and they gather him and throw him in the fire.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because the branch just dies.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: The branch is dead.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says we were dead in trespasses and sins.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: We were a dead branch.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Why were we dead?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because we weren't in the true vine.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: We were in another one.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Remember the Garden of Eden?
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that tree?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: The tree of knowledge of good and evil that brought death?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Promised life, but brought death?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's where we were living.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: In that.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we were partaking of that.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And all it produced was this, was exactly what God said it would.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: He said, It's gonna be hard.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be on your own.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: This thing's gonna be by the sweat of your brow.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: The world is gonna give grudgingly.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be hard.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna be hard for you until you return to the dust that you came from, all because you're in the wrong tree.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus came along as a tree of life.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I didn't come to condemn the world.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: I came that you might have life.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: How are you gonna have life?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: By him telling you to go try to try to have life, go try to be a better, better person.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: That was the Old Testament.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm just gonna do it all for you.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be your vine.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be your vine.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna identify with you in your death and in your sin.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna raise from the dead.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna live in resurrection life by the power of an endless life.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And how are you gonna get that?
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: What Paul said, I'm gonna graft you in.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna take a branch that was from the wrong tree, and I'm gonna put you into me.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna pick a branch that wasn't fruitful.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: You weren't producing the love, the joy, the peace, the gentleness, the goodness, kindness.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: You were living a hell on earth instead of a heaven on earth, as it as which was the will of God on earth as it is in heaven.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus came to become that vine for us, he knew what he was doing.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm gonna provide the life for you, and the Father, will the will of the Father will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: We rejoice.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: The thing that can give us some sense of joy when we lose someone that we love very much, and their body dies, is at least we have some solace in knowing that they're not in pain, and they're in the presence of the Father, and they have fullness of joy, and they're at peace, and they're rest and they're at rest in their soul, and they've got no more of this ugly old world to deal with.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, on earth as it is in heaven, we can rejoice now because we're at peace, we're at rest, we're at we're in joy.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: We have all those of the fruits simply because of what we've been grafted into.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when you get grafted in, you know, there's there's a guy named uh Sam Van Aken who who actually, you can look it up, look up, you know, just Google 40 fruits.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and and this guy has produced he's an artist.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: He's not a botanist or a horticulturist, he's he's an artist, and he just wanted to produce a tree that had lots of different blossoms on it.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: But he he does no farming because he was he was he was raised Pennsylvania Dutch, so he does no farming, but anyway, he he ends up he has produced a tree that bears 40 different kinds of fruit.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you can even buy them, they're very expensive.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's only a few of them.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: But he but he uh he's he they they produce 40 different kinds of they're all stone fruit, they're apricots and peaches and almonds and uh things, but they're all 40 different varieties, all in one tree.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because it didn't matter where it came from, it got the life from the trunk of that tree, whatever the trunk was that the trunk was produced in the life.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now they were different kinds of of branches, just like we're all individuals and we're all different in so many ways, and some of us have had different paths, and some of us were born poor and rich, and some of us were born in good into good families, and some of us were born in hellacious uh situations, but it doesn't matter where we came from, if we all we can all get into that same trunk, get all get grafted into that same trunk, we all produce our fruit.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not about the branch, it's not about what you, it's not about what you can do, how weak you are, how hurt you've been.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because the life comes from the trunk.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: It can take every kind of branch.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Are y'all seeing this?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that that proves to you, that proves to you that it's not about the branch.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: All those different branches had to do was get into the right trunk that would give them life.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, Jesus, more Jesus.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: A couple years ago, or years ago, before I met Rick, I uh I had um a couple problems.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like I had a frog in my throat, and then I'd gone to several specialists, and they they couldn't explain why.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I had two um, my big toes had black fungus on them, both of them.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: And in Florida, you wear flip-flops every day, like so everybody sees your ugly feet, you know.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Mushroom toes.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: And my my attention, of course, is drawn to that and it's drawn to my throat.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like just it's just very in my face that these are issues or problems I have.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you had a broken heart.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and the third one was I had a relationship not work out, and my heart was broken.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so I went to the Lord and I said, I have these three illnesses or health issues where my heart's broken, my toenails are ugly, and my throat, I can't clear my throat.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I decided that I was just going to focus on um, I was gonna have communion with the Lord every day.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I was gonna focus on his sacrifice for me and for my health.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not offering it as a formula, like this isn't a formula, it's just something that I felt like I'm gonna just turn my attention away from my ugly toes to the Lord.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I began to just think about I would, I mean, maybe five, ten minutes a day.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: I would think about in in um Leviticus, it said, the life is in the blood.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then I would think about the communion, you know, that his blood was shed for me.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, so that blood, Jesus' blood, was really pouring into my toes, into my throat, into my heart.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I would just think about those things.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know how long I did it, probably for a couple months, maybe.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: But one day I noticed that my toes were were fine and my my throat had cleared up.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: And this is how it's always happened to me in this regard.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in the natural, you work on something, you work on something, and then you see the result.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: For me, in the in God, in the spiritual, it seems like you know how you have like a tree that produces fruit, and one day there's no fruit on it, and then like a couple days later, you're like, there's an orange on the tree.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's how it's always been for me.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: That my attention is really on the Lord, and somehow it lifts off myself, and then one day I don't know how or when or how it happens.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's just all of a sudden, then it's there.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, I think that's sort of a key.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I went to the grocery store a couple weeks ago and I had an issue, a problem that I've been dealing with, and I was praying, and I said, Lord, tell me what I need to do.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me what do I am I not doing enough?
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: Do I need to do something else?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: You just tell me what to do.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden it hit me.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm focused on me.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what can I do?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: And and Jesus said, He would take care of us.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm just gonna go ahead and give it to him, you know.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: And the problem didn't get resolved, but it got set over here, and I knew that my job was the next thing.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Go to the grocery store, get groceries, go home.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like that was just what I was just gonna do the rest of my day.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: The problem, I'm no longer trying to figure it out because I've it's over here, and I he said he'd take care of it.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's been years, it hasn't been in here in my mind, but one more day, I'm just gonna let him take care of it, and I do the next thing.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's why it surprises us when it does get resolved because you're just doing the next right thing that you know that you're is in your day, and then it it it gets resolved outside of your focus on it, you're trying to solve it.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: You notice that it's the it's the sap from the vine that's doing the work.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's producing the fruit.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that produces comes from him.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta finish this up where he says, he says in verse uh seven now, he says, now if you abide in me and my words abide in you, now this is good, this is powerful, then you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done for you.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, really?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: He says, All you gotta do is abide.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you get this, why?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because faith opens up.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know him, you know his goodness, you know he loves you, you even see his will in this, and you can receive anything from God.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: But when there's suckers and when you've got sin consciousness, when you think it's about you, you can find a lot of reasons why you can't get it.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just not there yet.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't have that kind of faith.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just not strong enough.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't have that much willpower.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: I just, I, I, I, I.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: You see what happens when we make it about the branch?
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is why Romans 8 said that what could could what the what the old covenant could not do because our flesh was too weak, the branch couldn't do it.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: God did.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: The vine did.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: By sending his son in the likeness of us, and so that the righteous requirement, get this, Romans 8, 3, so that the righteous requirement would be fulfilled for us.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: So the branch doesn't have to do anything, the vine does it all.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says this, and by this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: So shall you be my disciples.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is what it's all about.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: What does he want?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: He came to give us life.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: What's life?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: What's the heaven on earth?
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: What's the kingdom of God?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: You don't get it, you don't earn it, you don't get good enough.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: He provides the whole thing.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't just do it one time at the altar when you get saved, he provides it day by day, year by year, throughout all eternity.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: The sap will always flow from that vine because Hebrews says that he is the power of an everlasting life.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: Almost done.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 9, last verse.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Abide in my love.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you're still saying so, how do I do it, Rick?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Abide in his love.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Just believe that he loves you unconditionally without any requirements at all.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: He'll love you.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you sin, you gotta know this.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I ain't telling you, go out and sin.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know that.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: I hate sin.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's ugly, it hurts you, it hurts people.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: There, case close.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: But he will still love you.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: He'll still love you, and if you can abide in that love, his life will flow into your life and it'll take care of that issue.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: It'll take care of that sin thing.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: It'll take care of that thing that's that's hurting you.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's all in him.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Stand up, guys.