The second question for walking in faith: who are you in Christ? Using John 15's vine-and-branches image, the host explains believers are grafted into Christ, called kings and priests, and members of one body with diverse functions. The Father prunes branches to increase fruitfulness.
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Welcome to episode 323. I'm going to continue to talk about the 3 questions that we must answer before we can truly walk in faith, and I believe these are important questions. And I just want to summarize real quick. The first question I answered in the previous episode was, who is Father God? The second question, which I'm going to answer in this episode, is, who am I, or who are you, in Christ? And then the next and last episode is going to answer the question, how can I bring glory to God? But before we answer the question in today's episode, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, this is a Bible study and we get involved in the word of God, and this is going to be no different. We are going to start in John 15. I love John 15. This talks about the vine We're going to read John 15:1-5. I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 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. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. And so to answer who we are in Christ, the first question, who is God, we have to understand who Father God is. And Jesus makes it pretty clear Jesus is God, but Father God is also outside of Jesus. I don't claim to understand all of it, but there is Father God, there is Jesus his Son, and there is the Holy Spirit. Three different persons, one God. So we're not going to talk about the Trinity in this episode, but we need to picture this, that God is huge. He's massive. He holds the whole universe in his hand. So we're not talking about a small God, we are talking about a huge God. We have got to get that right. But he's also perfect. And he is the vine, that is Jesus. We are the branches, so we are in Christ when we are saved. We've talked about this multiple times, but I've got to picture everything, and I see the Holy Spirit when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. I see the Holy Spirit baptizing us into his body. We're going to talk about the body of Christ next, but he baptizes us into Christ and and we become part of Jesus' body. Before Jesus' crucifixion, he illustrated this with the vine and the branches. We are not the vine. We are in the vine. We are the branches. And Father God is looking after us. He's the vinedresser. He's the one that clips and prunes and trims. He's the one that corrects us. He's gonna— and unfortunately, Father God corrects me more than he gives me an attaboy. I get the attaboy in his word. I look into the word of God and I see myself reflected in some of the words. And then when I get way out of control, the Holy Spirit or Father God, I don't know, somebody says, Greg, what are you doing? So anyway, that's a whole different topic, a whole different rabbit we're not going to chase on this video. And the next thing, the next picture I need you to see is that we are kings and priests. Jesus said that we are kings and priests. We're going to see that in Revelation. Peter also alludes to that. I want to get us this picture. We are in this vine. We've got to abide in Jesus, but we also have a job description, or a couple of them really. We are kings and priests, and we've talked about this before, that Jesus is the King of Kings, but he's also the High Priest. But we are priests, and we are to give glory to God. We are to worship and praise God. That's part of our job description. We have to be priests. We give God the glory. We praise and worship God. Let's go to Revelation 1:4-6. 1 John 1:6. John, to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Christ Jesus, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. 2 To him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and has made us kings and priests to his God and Father. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. And again, that's Revelation 1:4-6. This was John declaring that we were kings and priests, that we are kings and priests. And we're going to go to 1 Peter 2:9-10. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. And again, I know I have superior reading skills, and I know you love it when I read to you, but we have got to get this picture. A royal priesthood is kings and priests. And in Revelation 1 it calls us directly kings and priests. We have got to get this right before we can start taking steps of faith. We got to know who we are in Christ. We've got to know that Father God is God. He is the one true God. But we also need to know our place in the body of Christ. And one more scripture I want to get to is 1 Corinthians 12:12-14 and 18. For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body. So also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many. And now we're going to skip down to 18. But now God has set the members, each one of them in the body just as he pleased. And this one last point I want to make: we are all members of the body of Christ. We are in the body. Jesus is the head. We didn't talk about that, but that's what the Bible says. But we are all different parts of the same body. So that's why we can all be different but the same. We are to be Christ's body. We are to be his hands and feet. You probably heard people say that before. We are to go and do what Jesus has called us to do. We're gonna get to that in the next episode. I wanna talk to you about this body, that we are all part of the body of Christ. That's so cool because we can all be different, but all be doing the same thing. We can all be kings and priests. I just wanna pull all this together because we can all be different parts of the same body. We have similar things that we need to accomplish as we are different parts of the same body. We are all kings and priests, and we're all branches in the vine. We are to bear fruit, and the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Those are the fruits that we are to grow as the body. And as we grow those fruits, Father God, as the vinedresser, looks down on us and he says, ooh, I need to trim this up, ooh, I need to tighten this up, so that we will bear more fruit. And if we're not bearing fruit, Father God just clips us right off. We don't want that. So we're just going to dig in. I just want you to think about this. This is an important topic, but we've got to get this right. We've got to know who Father God is, and we got to know who we are. And we got— in order to take these steps— and then the last question that we're going to answer is in the next episode, and how can we bring glory to God? We're going to get to that. But before we go, let's pray. God, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you that you have placed me in the body as you have seen fit. Lord, you've placed this listener in the body. You are not going to pull us out and put us in a different spot. Lord, where you put us, that's where we stay. We need to learn where we are and what we can do for you. God, we thank you. We love you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodbonlybelieve.com. Www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com
