All right, let's, let's take a big breath, and just let it out, just settle our hearts once again. There's just something so sweet about reading scripture, and just resting, resting in the words of Jesus. So, this is John 15, the vine and the branches. So, feel free to close your eyes if you want to move about the space, that's fine, but just really, really be present in in what Jesus is saying. I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain. in me as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned, if you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father's glory, that you would bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. Yes, as a father has loved you, so I have loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this, so that my joy may be in you, so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: love each other as I have loved you, bra. greater love has no one missed to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I I have called you friends. For everything that I learned from my Father, I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, so that you might go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that whatever you ask in my name, the Father will give you. This is my command: love each other, you. This is the passion I am a true sprouting vine, and the farmer who tends the vine is my father. He cares for the branches connected to me by lifting and propping up the fruitless branches and pruning every fruitful branch to yield a greater harvest. The words I have spoken over you have already cleansed you, so you must remain in life union with me. For I remain in life union with you. For as the branch severed from the vine will not bear fruit, so your life will be fruitless unless you live your life intimately. Join to mine, your life will be fruitless unless you live your life intimately. Join tonight, I am the sprouting vine, and you're my branches as you live in union with me as your source. Fruitfulness will stream. From within you, but when you live separated from me, you are powerless. If a person is separated from me, he is discarded. Such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire to be burned, but if you live in life union with me, and if my words live powerfully within you, then you can ask whatever you desire, and it will be done. When your lives bear abundant fruit, you demonstrate that you are my mature disciples who glorify my Father. I love each of you with the same love. I'm going to say that again. I love each of you. Jesus is saying, I love each of you with the same love that the Father loves me. The same love you must continually let my love nourish your heart. If you keep my commands, you will live in my love, just as I have kept my Father's command. For I continually live nourished and empowered by His love. My purpose for telling you things is that, so is so that the joy that I experience will fill your hearts with overflowing gladness. So this is my command: love each other deeply, as I have left you. For the greatest love of all is the love that sacrifices all, and this great love is demonstrated when a person sacrifices his life for his friends. You know that you are my intimate friends when you obey all that I command you. I have never called you servants, because a master doesn't confide in his servants, and servants don't always understand what the master is doing, but I call you my most intimate and cherished friends, for I reveal to you everything that I've heard from my father, you didn't choose me, but I've chosen and commissioned you to go into the world to bear fruit, and your fruit will last, because whatever you ask of my father for my sake, he will give it to you, whatever you ask of my father for my sake, he will give it to you. So this is my

love one another deeply. so I want to talk a little bit this morning about what does it mean to abide when you guys hear the word abide, what comes to mind? Resting out in the vine. Yeah, and to me. Intimacy, yeah. The word itself means to sojourn, tarry, rest with, or dwell with God. Abiding is being in the presence of God. Yeah, like to walk with to go with that is an old word. So abiding is being in the presence of God, and not, you know, we know it's not just our 30 minutes of quiet time that we, we give to God every day, but it's it's being in the presence of God all the time, when we're washing our dishes, when we're driving our car, when we're, we're talking to our kids, when we're parenting, it's being with Him all of the time. It's coming into this awareness that Christ is in us, and positioning our hearts to this awareness that He's already in us. We're not waiting for Jesus to come to us. He's not waiting to come to us. He's already in us. We are in union with Christ, so we'd like to break up into groups this morning and really just talk about the passages that we read this morning, and I want you to notice a few things. What is Jesus saying, and what does this mean for you? How can you relate to the words of abiding? What does this look like in your life? Because abiding is when we are become aware that we are in Christ, and He is in us. It becomes second nature to live from this place, but sometimes it's easy to forget and step out of that, right? And just kind of feel like, oh, Jesus is off to the side, God is off to the side, and almost living my life, and I'll turn to Him, and I'll go get Him when I need Him. But really, He is in us, and He wants to move through us and speak to us all of the time. I remember when I went to my first A school, and just this place where you kind of learn about Father's love, and people would say, "Just you just have to rest, you just have to receive, and I just thought, if somebody tells me that one more time, I'm going to lose it, like I have four kids, eight years old and under, and what do you mean, like rest and receive? I don't have time for that, right, which is kind of a poverty mindset. I don't have time, but it's coming to this place of rest in your heart, of being in union with Him, that no matter what I'm doing, He is with me, no matter what, where I am, even if my world is blowing up, I can be at rest, I can be at peace, because He is the Prince of Peace. He is so much bigger than my world. I'm so sorry, I'll go just a little bit further. In John 15 two, it says Jesus says that he cuts off every branch of mine that doesn't produce fruit, and then he prunes the branches that do bear fruit, so that they will be, will be able to produce even more. But in order to be pruned, we need to be connected to the source, so and in order to be pruned we need to have a heart that is open, a heart that is teachable, a heart that is willing, being connected to the source is everything, being connected to Father and Jesus and Holy Spirit, because when we're connected, then our hearts change, and when we're connected, then our wounds are healed, and I used to walk in so much shame. I used to joke. I used to be a shame dealer, dealt out shame in myself all day long, and other people, they didn't necessarily know I was dealing them shame, but in my judgment, in my heart, I was shame was the lens through which I looked through life. I'm not good enough, not worthy enough. I don't belong. Everyone has more than I have. And then, in order to cover my shame, of course, the fear propelled me, propelled me to live in control, control the people around me, control my environment, control my behavior, which is all a game of hiding. We can all be so good at hiding, right, hiding behind a perfect facade, praising Jesus, and saying I know Jesus, but not really connected to the true source, because I don't know how to abide, because I don't feel worthy to abide. He died for everyone else, but did he really die? For me, he's blessing everyone else's marriage or family or career or dreams. Is he really going to bless mine? I know what I did. I know what I've done, and yet when I met love, when I encountered love, and became rooted in love, and became aware of love, and was able to abide in love, in his gentleness, he began to prune me, he began to heal me. He'd sound sleep, girl. I see that shame. Can we talk about that? Can I? Can I just cut that away? Can I take that from you at the source? You don't need that anymore. And that idea that you're never enough, you're more than enough, because I created you, and so when, when I began to remain in His love and be connected to the source and abide in the very presence of the one who is in me, I began to step into freedom. Perfect love casts out all fear. Fear began to flee. I and I'm continually being pruned. Oh, and sometimes it's so painful. Sometimes I'm like, yeah, it's like I call it a good hurt, like, oh, there's something good coming on the other side, but it can be painful in the moment, and it's staying connected to the source, even when times are hard, even when I don't get it, even when I don't understand, it's staying rooted and grounded in the source by abiding, it's dwelling in Him. In verse four, it says,"Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. So he's not saying you can be fruitful when you read, you know, the next, you know, the self-help book, 10 steps to a better you, or you come up with a plan, a transformational plan for your life. It's so simple, but yet we overcomplicate it. He's saying just remain in me. What do I need to be fruitful? What do you need to be fruitful? What's that? It's not rhetorical. Remain in him, dwell in him, rest in him, abide in him, because when you remain in him, you cannot help but love the kids on the campus, the people at the grocery store, your neighbor, who's constantly irritated with you, whatever it may be, love will just be become who you are because of who is in you, there's that phrase, like when you squeeze lemon, you get what? Yeah, well, lemonade, when you got sugar, but lemon juice, right? You're not wrong, you're not wrong, Noah. And when we remain and by abiding in God in the Trinity, when we get squeezed. What comes out of us is love, is the fruits of the spirit, right? And David was someone who knew what it was to abide in God. I love David. Does anybody else love David? He's amazing, right? King David, he's so great. In Psalm 16 eight, he says, I have set the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Where was his focus? Who was he abiding in the Lord? Right, so David, who had enemies from the outside and from within his own family, was rooted and grounded in the love of God. Because he knew how to abide, and there's even I won't read the story, but where David destroys the Amalekites, so David was off with his men, and while he was away, all the women and children, they weren't killed, but they were captured and they were taken away, and David and the men came back, and they mourned, and they wept, and they were devastated. They experienced a devastating loss, because the women were gone. And it says David was greatly distressed, because the men were talking of stoning him. Each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters, but David found strength in the Lord his God. So, when times were hard, David knew how to abide. He didn't take matters into his own hands or get the opinions of others around him. He remained in the Lord, he drew strength from God. He drew wisdom from his Father in heaven. And when we look at David, we see a man who is after God's own heart. Through all of David's life, he rested in the Lord. He knew what it meant to dwell, to abide, to not be shaken, because he was with God. They've shared some of our stories from when we were in Europe a while ago, but there were times when we were traveling with our family, for those of you don't know, and it was really hard. It was hard to have a dream for 15 years and feel like it was all being stolen right from you. It was so hard, but there was so much joy in it, because we stayed connected to the source, and so whatever is going on in your life today, I encourage you to stay connected to the source. Does anybody know Brother Lawrence? Yeah, so Brother Lawrence, one of my favorite men of old, he was alive around the 1600s He was a princess, was he from France, monk, I believe, and he was injured in the 30 Years Born, so he, you know, any career that he had was kind of kiboshed, and he went to a monastery, I believe, when he was 26 but because he didn't have any education, he could become a priest, and so he ended up being a dishwasher, and I think later, I think he made sandals, or something like that, but this man, who wasn't scholarly, had a heart for the Lord, he knew what it was to abide in the very presence of God all day. There's one of my favorite things, he said, is that he wouldn't even pick up a blade of grass, except for love for the Lord. He did everything from a posture of being in union with God all of the time, and I think one of the best things he's known for is he just washed dishes with so much joy. He found the presence of God in washing dishes and in gardening and going to market, just as much as he did in prayer and reading scripture and worship, and so when I was a new mom, I used to think if I didn't have my six to 630 slot in the morning with God, then the rest of my day was ruined. Maybe I learned that from somewhere, right? We put so much pressure on you Christians, reach Bible every day. You should get up early, you should do it before the sun is up, because that's when it's most holy, right? God's in that six to 630 window, and so I really would believe that if I didn't have that time in the morning, the rest of my day was ruined, or like, oh, today's hard because I didn't have a quiet time. Today is hard because I did read my Bible. Yes, those are wonderful things. I love reading my Bible. I love worshiping God, but now I worship Him all day, when I'm washing my windows, when I'm talking to my kids, and I'm not standing up here saying, like, oh, look at me, I'm perfect, because I'm definitely, definitely not, but I'm a little bit further than who comes and. My heart's a little bit more aware than it was that I am in union with Christ all of the time, and you are in union with Christ all of the time, and He is speaking to you all of the time, not just in that six to 630 window in the morning. What time are we go to? So, before we break up into groups, Robin is going to come up and check something.

Hi, so thank you for sharing that, Jenna. We break up into groups, and we're gonna.. I'm seeing a couple questions to discuss. If your discussion goes somewhere else, it's totally okay, but it's good to kind of have a starting point, at least. So, couple questions. One, what does abiding mean to you? So, it can be like an example from your life, it can be what abiding is not for you, like what Jenna's Jen has to share, it like I've learned that it's not just that six to 630 window, it's the whole day, right? It's that Brother Lawrence washing dishes and spending time with God. And then just to go delve a little bit deeper into that, is what are your expectations when it comes to abiding God's presence, and these can be good or they can be bad. Like, what do I expect when I was thinking about this couple that kind of came to mind, as far as, like, the probably wrong expectations are that, like, it always feels good being in God's presence just always feels good. It felt really good this morning, but sometimes when there's like little chop chop going on, like God's pruning something out of our lives, it doesn't always feel good. Like the presence of God always brings peace, it brings joy, but sometimes when He's delving into a deep part of our heart, that heart can feel painful, right? And so it doesn't mean that we're like, go away, go get busy, do something else. Sometimes we have to sit in that place and let God, in His loving kindness and His peaceful, loving presence, do little things in our hearts. So even having a discussion around that, the Jenna brought this up. It means like sitting still, maybe not always, maybe like one of the places I love spending time with God is in my garden. I find like I connect with God really well in my garden, and then even like it means that I have to be perfect. Anyone ever gone there? Like, feeling like, in order to spend time with God, I need to first be like, repent, repent, repent, repent, repent. Maybe I'm good enough to talk to you. Like, sometimes it's just not making all the mess and just being like, I'm a mess right now, but I know you'll receive me just how I am. So, just a few things, and then maybe, maybe even to ask each other, like, what are some of the things that we feel like God is wanting to change our perspective on, on how what abiding means, and then if you feel that, pray for each other, pray for those things that come up in your little groups. Yeah, so what size does it matter? Yeah, so just maybe people around you, if there's somebody who's on your car, once across the room, go for it. But just break up into little groups, and is that enough guidance, everyone?