Transcript

024 - Joy · True Vine

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Speaker 1: Chapter twenty three, Joy from the True Vine by Andrew Murray.
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Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
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Speaker 1: phil Snyder Joy. These things have I spoken unto you,
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Speaker 1: that my joy may be in you, and that your
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Speaker 1: joy may be fulfilled. John fifteen eleven. If any one
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Speaker 1: asks the question how can I be a happy Christian?
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Speaker 1: Our Lord's answer is very simple. These things about the
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Speaker 1: vine and the branches. I have spoken to you that
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Speaker 1: my joy may be in you, and that your joy
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Speaker 1: may be fulfilled. You cannot have my joy without my life.
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Speaker 1: Abide in me, and let me abide in you, and
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Speaker 1: my joy will be in you. All healthy life is
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Speaker 1: a thing of joy and beauty. Live undividedly the branch life.
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Speaker 1: You will have His joy in full measure. To many Christians,
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Speaker 1: the thought of a life holy, a biding in Christ,
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Speaker 1: is one of strain and painful effort. They cannot see
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Speaker 1: that the strain and effort only come as long as
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Speaker 1: we do not yield ourselves unreservedly to the life of
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Speaker 1: Christ in us. The very first words of the Parable
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Speaker 1: are not yet opened up to them. I am the
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Speaker 1: True Vine, I undertake all and provide for all. I
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Speaker 1: ask nothing of the branch, but that it yields wholly
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Speaker 1: to me and allows me to do all I engage,
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Speaker 1: to make and keep the branch all that it ought
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Speaker 1: to be. Ought it not to be an infinite and
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Speaker 1: unceasing joy to have the vine thus work all, and
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Speaker 1: to know that it is none the less than the
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Speaker 1: blessed Son of God, in his love, who is each
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Speaker 1: moment bearing us and maintaining our life. That my joy
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Speaker 1: may be in you. We are to have Christ's own
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Speaker 1: joy in us. And what is Christ's own joy? There
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Speaker 1: is no joy like love. There is no joy but love.
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Speaker 1: Christ had just spoken of the Father's love and his
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Speaker 1: own abiding in it, and of his having loved us
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Speaker 1: with that same love. His joy is nothing but the
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Speaker 1: joy of love, of being loved and of loving. It
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Speaker 1: was the joy of receiving his Father's love and abiding
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Speaker 1: in it, and then the joy of passing on that
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Speaker 1: love and pouring it out on sinners. It is this
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Speaker 1: joy he wants us to share, the joy of being
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Speaker 1: loved of the Father and of him, the joy of
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Speaker 1: in our turn, loving and living for those around us.
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Speaker 1: This is just the joy of being truly branches, abiding
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Speaker 1: in His love and then giving up ourselves in love
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Speaker 1: to bear fruit for others. Let us accept His life
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Speaker 1: as he gives it in us as divine, His joy
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Speaker 1: will be ours, the joy of abiding in his love,
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Speaker 1: the joy of loving life like him, of loving with
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Speaker 1: his love, And that your joy may be fulfilled, that
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Speaker 1: it may be complete, that you may be filled with it.
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Speaker 1: How sad that we should so need to be reminded that,
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Speaker 1: as God alone is the fountain of all joy, God
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Speaker 1: our exceeding joy. The only way to be perfectly happy
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Speaker 1: is to have as much of God, as much of
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Speaker 1: His will and fellowship as possible. Religion is meant to be,
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Speaker 1: in everyday life a thing of unspeakable joy. And why
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Speaker 1: do so many complain that it is not so? Because
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Speaker 1: they do not believe that there is no joy like
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Speaker 1: the joy of abiding in Christ and in His love,
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Speaker 1: and being branches through whom He can pour out his
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Speaker 1: love on a dying world. Oh, that Christ's voice might
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Speaker 1: reach the heart of every young Christian and persuade him
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Speaker 1: to believe that his joy is the only true joy,
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Speaker 1: that his joy can become ours and truly fill us,
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Speaker 1: and that the sure and simple way of living in
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Speaker 1: it is only this to abide as branches in him,
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Speaker 1: our heavenly vine. Let the truth enter deep into us.
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Speaker 1: As long as our joy is not full, it is
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Speaker 1: a sign that we do not yet know our heavenly
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Speaker 1: vine aright. And every desire for a fuller joy must
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Speaker 1: only urge us to abide more simply and more fully
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Speaker 1: in His love, My joy, your joy. In this too,
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Speaker 1: it is as the vine, so the branch, all the vine.
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Speaker 1: In the branch. Thy joy is our joy, thy joy
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Speaker 1: in us and our joy fulfilled, blessed Lord. Fill me
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Speaker 1: with thy joy, the joy of being loved and blessed
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Speaker 1: with a divine love, the joy of loving and blessing others.
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Speaker 1: End Chapter twenty three,