Through Jesus I Overcome

Through Jesus I Overcome

June 28, 2025 – Elder Jerome Heaven – Through Jesus, I Overcome

I’ll do it one more time. Happy Sabbath, Church! There we go. We sound awake this morning.

I’m excited to share with you what God’s been laying on my heart. He has assuredly taught this to me through personal experience, and I pray that that’s conveyed this morning. But before we get started and pray, I want to kneel and ask God to be with us this morning.

So let’s pray. Our dear Heavenly Father, God, it’s not by might. It’s not by power, but it’s through your Spirit.

So, dear Lord, this morning, I want to be imbued with your Spirit so that you can share a word to your people. Because, Lord, they’ve gone through many a hard week, a difficult challenge. Even if it was a good week, there were things that they wished could be adjusted, I’m sure.

But, Father, you can smooth the way. You can teach us. You can calm our heart.

So, Father, in this morning, I commit myself to you. Speak, Lord, and may your name once again be glorified. Because when you are lifted up, you will draw all men and all women to you.

We thank you and praise you in Jesus’ name. Amen. All right, our sermon this morning is Through Jesus, I Overcome.

And if you guys notice, I think I have the ability to do a little pointer situation. Nah, it doesn’t work. But it’s through Jesus, comma.

A comma indicates a pause, right? So, through Jesus, pause, I overcome. Hopefully, that will make more sense as we go through this sermon this morning. So, I’m starting this thing off with some comments I’ve heard over the years.

How many people have heard this? So, you’re a Christian and… Anybody heard that? Okay. Has anybody heard this one? Are you a good Christian? Are you one of those other ones? Or this? Some of the worst people I have met said they were Christians. I’ve heard that one a lot.

Especially when it comes to business. If I go to a restaurant and I sit down, and they see me pray before my meal, and they ask if I’m a Christian, they expect that there’ll be no tip. I said, ah, Christians, they pray to Jesus, but they’re not a giving bunch, right? So, I ask this question, which basically formed this sermon.

And the question was, why are Christians seen as so bad? Why do Christians get a bad rep, right? If you go, no matter where you go, you can go anywhere around this world, if you talk to someone and say that I’m a Christian, there’s this kind of eerie feeling. You’re a Christian? Are you going to convert me? Is someone going to try to quickly grab me and throw me in their church and take the money out of my pockets? There’s this negative connotation, right? Okay. So, we’re going to be discussing that as we go through this sermon.

So, I did some digging on my end. I wanted to learn. I wanted to study and see why this was happening.

And I looked at a Barna group survey, and this one was from 2023, but I think they did a more recent one in 2025 with similar results. And it says, 85% of non-Christians aged 16 to 29, they said that they view Christianity as hypocritical. What does hypocritical mean? Indeed.

Thanks, Miss Ellie. I’m agreeing with Miss Ellie’s one here. They speak one thing, but they act a different way.

Okay. I was looking at a PRI survey, and I think this is at Texas A&M, and they said something similar. Nearly two-thirds, 66% of unaffiliated Americans.

What country do we live in? Okay. So, this connects with us. We live in America.

Nearly 66% of Americans that do not have a church home say present-day Christianity is judgmental. What does judgmental mean? Okay. They’re critical of others.

We could say that. Everyone agree with that? Okay. So, then I moved to the media, and a columnist but also a speaker, you might see him on news channels, David Brooks, said, in 2019, many people say, I would follow Jesus if his followers were more like Jesus.

Is that a knock to Christians? Are they saying something about us if we call ourselves Christians? So, another question, or another comment, rather. Christians seem to have a character issue. Can we agree? There seems to be something, because we say that we’re Christians, but it seems like, and I’m not saying everybody entirely, right? There could be good ones, ones that don’t struggle with this, but Christians seem to have a character issue that causes them to do these specific things, be hypocritical, be judgmental, and to not represent Jesus.

You guys with me? We’re laying the foundation for the sermon this morning, so stick with me. Okay, so I look to Jesus, because Jesus addresses this direct problem in Luke chapter 6, verses 46 to 49. Jesus says, and these words are written in red, this is Jesus speaking.

He says, and why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Are the people who call themselves Christians, these people who are interviewed, they are saying that Christians are hypocritical, that they’re judgmental, and that they’re not like Jesus. Do they represent Jesus well? Okay, does Jesus teach that? Is it in his doctrine that we should not represent him well, that we should go, and people are afraid to see us, they run the other direction when they see a Christian. Is that what Jesus teaches? Okay, so Jesus is talking to his disciples, saying, why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them.

So there’s three parts there, right? What’s the first part? They come to Jesus, right? The next is they hear Jesus, and the third one is they do it. Okay, there’s three parts, right? So Jesus says, if you come to me, you hear my sayings, and you do them, I will show you what you’re like. I went backwards instead of forwards.

He says, and I believe this is verse 47, he is like a man, and man, that word, I looked it up in the concordance, that word is mankind. It’s not just exclusive to man, right? It’s a man or woman. So he or she is like, or a person, which build a house, and dig deep, and laid the foundation on a rock, that rock is Christ, and when the flood arose, and the streams beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded upon what? A rock, okay, and we know that rock is Christ Jesus.

But the other side, the people who do not hear, and what was the next part? We started at the beginning. I missed the first one. They come to Jesus, and then they hear, and then what do they do? Okay, they do.

So the people who come to Jesus, and they hear, and they do not do, are like people that have no foundation. So let’s look back at the last verse. Stick with me, guys, this morning.

We’re getting somewhere. It says, Jesus is saying, the people who come to me, they hear me, and they do the things that I want them to do, right? They are people that have a foundation that’s laid on what? A rock, right? We know that rock is Christ Jesus, right? Okay, Jesus says there are other people who come to him. Who comes to Jesus? People who usually wanna hear his doctrine, right? They wanna hear the things that he’s saying.

They wanna change, right? Are you guys with me? Usually, if somebody is coming to someone, they’re coming to someone for help because they realize they’re in lack. They wanna develop. There’s a need, right? You guys with me this morning? Okay, we’re going somewhere.

So the second group, they come to him, they hear him, but what happens? They don’t do the things that he says. And then he says, those people are people without a foundation, right? When the stream did beat vehemently, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great. So if you have a bad foundation, what happens? You crumble.

If you have a good foundation, what happens? You stand strong. Okay, all right, I’m just asking Christians here. We’re getting some thoughts here.

So look at that foundation. Does that look like a good foundation? Is that a great building that you would go to for a wedding party? Everybody’s gonna go there and eat after a wedding. Big event, you’re gonna have 1,000 people in that building.

Why? The foundation is crumbly, right? Okay. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 3.11, so this is Paul speaking, he says, for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Christ Jesus. Jesus is a sure foundation.

So if Jesus is your foundation, there is no crumbling because Jesus does not crumble, amen. Okay. My next question is how then did the Christians represented in these studies of all these people, 85%, 66%, people no matter where you go, you go to a gas station, someone has a cigarette in their mouth, you say, hey, do you wanna serve Jesus? And they say, serve Jesus? When did Christians start getting a bad representation? When did they stray from their foundation? All through history.

Okay, but we’re gonna go and let the Scripture guide us because the Bible says in 2 Timothy 3.16 that all Scripture, some Scripture? All Scripture is given by who? Inspiration of God and is profitable for what? What is doctrine? Usually it’s teachings, right? Okay, it’s profitable to teach somebody for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. What is righteousness? Right doing, right? That the man or woman of God may be perfect. Okay.

Thoroughly furnished unto all good works. You guys with me? Okay, we’re laying the foundation here. We’re not starting yet.

It’s just beginning. So, okay, I wanted to start this thing off in Genesis because I don’t know if you guys have noticed, but Genesis is the beginning of my Bible. So that’s where I’m gonna start this thing off.

So in Genesis 1, I kind of marked this down for time, so don’t mind it being small, but Genesis 1, God creates from nothing. Do we agree? Okay. And when God created from nothing, did he say that everything that he created was bad? He said it was good.

Okay. We go to Genesis chapter 2. God talks about the creation of man, I believe, in Genesis 1.26, but in Genesis 2, we see God creates man. Genesis 2, verse 7, one of my favorite verses said, and the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

Creation of man, right? God then takes a rib from man and makes woman, okay? And then what does God do? Does God just create them and just leave them and say, hey guys, just work it all out? He gives them a home, right? Okay. He gives them a job, right? The Bible says if a man doesn’t work, he shouldn’t eat. Have mercy, that’s a strong text.

But understand that God created man and woman in a perfect place, in a perfect garden, we learned it in the Sabbath school lesson, the perfect teaching environment, and when God created them and put them in the garden, it was a place where they would have a home and they would have a job. Genesis chapter three, I call it trouble in paradise. What happens in Genesis chapter three? Satan comes on the scene.

Let’s look into it, I have it on the screen, it’s a little bit small, but I’m gonna read it directly from the screen. So it says, now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, subtle meaning sneaky, than any beast of the field, you can say that, which the Lord God hath made, and he said unto the woman, yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? What would we call that? Is that a surety or is that doubt? Okay, there was a little bit of doubt, right? There’s this doubt, because you see how the question was begun? Have God said, ye shall not eat of every tree? There’s a doubt insinuation, doubting God. Adam and Eve before, had they doubted God? God created them, they spent time with God first, then he put them on a job, then he created the partner, she spent time with him, and then he put her on the job, right? But now someone’s coming and trying to ruin that relationship.

I don’t know if you guys are awake with me. Has someone come in to ruin the relationship between God and man? Who is that person? Satan, okay, it continues. And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest ye die.

And the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die. Was that a truth? Did Adam and Eve end up dying? Okay, so that was a lie. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eye, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband. Did she give her husband a good gift? So it’s natural in human nature, we can see even from this, when we have some good news, or if we have some bad news, we usually share it, right? Maybe that should guide us this week to not share bad news, we should share good news, amen? Okay, so she took this to her husband, and they both ate, and the eyes of them both were open. What were their eyes open to? To sin, right? And when their eyes were open, what did they realize? That they were naked, right? They weren’t clothed, okay? And it says, and they knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

So all of a sudden, let’s really look at this, church, let’s look at this. Genesis chapter one, who created everything? Okay, Genesis chapter two, who created everything? Genesis chapter three, when did the creation start to gain the skill of creating clothing? When Satan came on the scene, right? Because God initially was doing what? He was doing the creating, he was doing the sustaining, right? You guys with me? God was doing the creating, he was doing the sustaining, but then when sin entered in, there was a separation, and then men and women became skilled sewing, what do you call it? Seamstress. All of a sudden, they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons, okay? They heard the voice of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves.

Why would they hide themselves from God? They knew they sinned, right? They knew that there was an issue, there was now a separation, and they said, oh, we don’t want to see him now. Let’s give a case study, an example. If I am dating someone, and then I decide to go on another date, well, I’m still dating that person, and have someone else with me, and my girlfriend sees me in a restaurant eating with someone else, and not just eating, we’re eating spaghetti, and she has one side in her mouth, and I have one side in my mouth, is there a problem? Do I want to see that person? I don’t want to see them.

Why? They’re going to catch me in my sin. Okay? Let’s keep going. And the Lord called unto Adam and said unto him, where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.

So, first, they made themselves aprons. They covered themselves, of their own accord, right? Next, what did they do? They realized that they were naked, and they also hid themselves, not just physically, spiritually naked, so they hid themselves from God. Okay? Next, what did they do? They then became afraid.

Right? What does the Bible say about fear? God hasn’t given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Okay? And he said, because I was naked, I hid myself. And then he continued, God saying to him, who told thee that thou was naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee thou shalt not eat of it? And then the man did what we see happening every day now, the blame game.

The woman, the woman that thou gave me as a free gift, she gave me of the tree, and I ate it. Is that blaming someone else for your own sin? He ignored the fact that he ate the fruit. He just blamed the woman.

Okay? And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent tricked me. Did she say that she, if we went back, it says right here, The serpent said, You shall not surely die. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit.

You see that moment. She had a moment of taking it all in. She was there at the tree.

She heard this doubt about God. I’m sure maybe the temperature was good. She decided to reach and grab the fruit because she saw that it was good, and that it looked attractive, and then she took it to eat of it.

She had some time there. Does sin begin in the action, or does sin begin in the mind? Okay. I’m in a room with Christians.

Praise the Lord. Okay. The Bible continues.

I’m going to continue, I believe, on verse 14 before verse 15. The Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed. So God executes a penalty, right? Above all cattle and above every beast of the field, upon thy belly shalt thou go, and thus shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.

And I will put enmity, the word hatred, right, between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed. When we’re talking about woman, who are we talking about? We’re talking about the church, right? God talks about, he calls his church, or he likens his church as a comely and delicate woman, right? So God is saying he’s putting an intense hatred between the serpent. Was the serpent wrong? Or was the serpent just a tool in this act? He was just a tool, but he had a penalty because the devil was utilizing the serpent.

You guys with me? Okay. So there was a penalty on the serpent. There was a penalty on the woman.

And it says, and between both of their seeds, seeds meaning children, it shall bruise thy head. Does bruising your head hurt? Okay. And thou shalt bruise his heel.

Does bruising your heel hurt? Okay. I had to lay that groundwork, so I spent some time with it, but we’re going to be flying. So, let’s look at the effects of sin.

Just looking at Genesis chapter 3. They had a fall. Many things happened. I kind of labeled it in a group of four.

They stopped depending on God. Could we notice that? Did they become self-sufficient? What’s wrong with being self-sufficient? We don’t see that in Genesis 1. We don’t see that in Genesis 2. When the first line of Genesis 1 says, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, and it was done. Where was man in that process? Nowhere.

Right? Okay, stick with me, guys. In Genesis 2, what do we see with man? Were they just doing things of their own accord? Handling business? No? Was God the one directing? Okay. So, they became self-sufficient.

They lost the unity of mind with God because when God came, where was Adam and Eve? Hiding. They’re not united mentally because if you come home to your spouse and you’re looking forward to seeing your spouse who had been home all day and when you come home, your spouse is hiding from you and it’s not a game, is that a problem? Because I thought we’re united. Why in the world are you in the closet? I didn’t want to see you.

There’s a problem, right? Okay. They lost a covering because they realized they were naked and they covered themselves. And then afterwards, if you notice, God replaced their bad covering with an animal skin, a better covering, a sacrifice.

Amen. Then, they inherited sinful characteristics. Okay.

So, in Genesis 3 verse 15, God promises that there’s going to be a solution to the promise. We know that that solution is a savior, right? And the savior is who? Okay, it’s Jesus. Jesus comes.

Jesus overcomes the devil, right? He overcomes the devil in the desert. He overcomes the devil on the cross, right? Jesus dies on the cross. Did he stay on the cross? Did Jesus wake up after dying? How did he get up? Did somebody come and just say, okay, Jesus, it’s time to get up and they touched him and he… He got up of his own authority, right? Okay.

We’re laying the groundwork here. My question, did Jesus solve the sin problem when he died? Jesus was on the cross. Jesus said, it is finished.

When someone says, it is finished, is it started or is it finished? It’s done. But why do we still struggle with sin? Was sin eliminated? Okay, sin’s not eliminated yet or else he wouldn’t struggle with sin. Okay.

So, when Jesus was on the cross, I did some research on this. This is important to where we’re going to go. But when Jesus was on the cross, these are a couple of things that he did.

He was on the cross to save sinners. He fulfilled the law and the prophets. He called sinners to repentance.

He destroyed the works of the devil and he provided an example of holiness. So, now if we want to look at how do we live as Christians, we look at Jesus, right? Okay. Jesus on the cross at the same time did not fulfill these things yet.

He did not establish his earthly kingdom yet. He did not judge the wicked yet. He did not destroy sin yet.

He did not reign as king over all the nations yet. He did not judge the living and the dead fully yet. He did not defeat Satan finally and fully yet.

So, would that mean that Jesus would need to come again? Is that what our Bible said? That Jesus is coming again? Now we have a better idea if we didn’t realize why. Okay. What does Jesus call us then to do? He gives us a job, right? So, Jesus before he was leaving, he talked to his disciples and we could see it in Matthew 28.

He says, We see in Acts chapter 1, Jesus gives some instructions to the disciples. I want you guys to go here and do this. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, then ends of the earth, right? And then when Jesus is giving them these instructions, he’s taken up out of their sight to heaven.

Okay. So, if Jesus gave instructions to the disciples then, he obviously must be giving instructions to his disciples now. You guys with me? All right.

In Mark chapter 115, Jesus says that he wants us to believe the gospel. As Christians, do we believe the gospel? The good news about Jesus and his soon to be second coming and the fact that through him we could be saved by asking him to take our sins from us. Jesus says he wants us to follow him.

Jesus said he wants us to make disciples. Jesus said he wants us to keep his commandments. If you love me, keep my commandments.

Jesus said he wants us to love him and love others. That’s a touchy one. Love others? I don’t know, God.

Jesus wants us to watch and be ready. Jesus wants us to forgive others. And this is just some of the things Jesus asks us to do.

So, this is the heart of this message. You’ve now made it to the middle. My question when I saw all of this is how? How? How? The word of God says, it’s kind of small, but I think you could read some of it.

In Psalms 51.5, he says, Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Okay. He says, in Romans 3.23, For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

So how do I do this if I’m a sinner? Not everybody at once. If I’m born in sin, sorry, if I’m shapen in iniquity, how in the world am I going to do all this? How am I going to believe the gospel, follow him, make disciples? How am I going to do it? I can’t do it, right? I can’t do it by myself. Anyone else agree? Can we work to do it? How do we do it? If I just try hard enough, if I just grab it and I hold on to the thing, then I could do it.

Doesn’t work that way. Okay. Okay.

So the Bible says, I already went through this, but the Bible then says in Isaiah 59 verse 2, But your iniquities have separated you between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear. Romans 3.10-12, it says, As it is written, there is none righteous. No, not one.

What is righteousness? Doing the right thing. So there’s none that naturally of themselves, of their own power, of their own ability, can be righteous. Okay.

There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way.

They are together being unprofitable. There is none that doeth good. No, not one.

But there is a solution for the sinner. And this has become one of my favorite verses. I’m going to spend a little bit of time here.

But in John 15, this is Jesus writing. This all should be in red. I used a kind of off-red color.

But this is Jesus writing. Our Savior, Jesus. Jesus says, I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

So if Jesus is the true vine. Has anybody seen a vine? Have you seen a vine? We had some hands. So if I am the vine, Jesus says, and His Father is the husbandman.

How is the husbandman connected to the vine? The husbandman works that vine, right? He’s the gardener. So, okay. Jesus is the true vine, not a false vine.

Okay? His Father is the husbandman. Okay. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away.

And every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, like pruning it, that it may bring forth much fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Has anybody noticed right there that third verse? Now ye are clean.

So before it said that there is none righteous, it said that my sins have separated me from God, and it’s caused me to hide my face from God so He couldn’t hear. But in John 15, Jesus says, understanding that He is the true vine, and that His Father is the husbandman, which means husbandman is above the vine, which also means God understands leadership, right? God is above Jesus. Father is bigger, greater than Son.

Amen. Okay. He says, every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away.

And every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth much fruit. Then he says, now ye are clean. Okay.

He then says, I believe that’s verse four, abide in me. What does it mean to abide? Stay with. Okay.

Stay with me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine. No more can ye except ye abide in me. And then Jesus needs to clarify it, because Jerome is so stupid.

And he says, and this is the answer into how we are clean. He says, I am the vine. Ye, my Christian brothers and sisters, are the branches.

He that abideth in me, and I in him, and not just meaning him, him or her, we’re talking about mankind here, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me, ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, or if a woman abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered.

If you separate a branch from a plant, right, from a vine, what happens to that branch? It doesn’t try to grow on its own self? Okay. He is cast forth as a branch, and is withered. And men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples. So let’s look through this thing, where we’ve gone so far.

Because we’ve gone far places, if you guys haven’t noticed. We’ve gone far this morning. In the beginning, we see that there’s an issue.

People don’t like Christian people going to their restaurant to eat, because they don’t want to tip. They have some character issues. They’ve got some character flaws.

People say they’re hypocritical. People say that they’re judgmental. People say that they don’t look like Jesus.

I’d be a Christian if his followers were more like him. We hear those phrases, right? We go through Genesis 3. In Genesis 3, at the beginning of the sin problem, the fall, we see that when Adam and Eve fell, they didn’t fall partly. They didn’t fall kind of.

They didn’t fall where they could do things by themselves. They needed Jesus, right? Jesus became the life source. You guys with me this morning? Jesus became the life source, and then Jesus says, you guys can’t give me anything.

Your righteousness is as filthy rags before me. Don’t even try to bring it to me, because I don’t want it. It’s not good.

The only thing that makes it good is Jesus. Amen. The only thing that can take a bad thing and turn it into a good thing is Jesus.

And then Jesus, because I am so not bright, has to explain it in John 15, and he says, I am the vine. Ye are the branches. Are the branches greater than the vine? The branches need life from the vine.

Okay. He says, He or she that abideth in me and I in them, the same bringeth forth much fruit. When we see the word fruit, it should lead our minds to the fruit of the Spirit.

What are the fruits of the Spirit? Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, self-control, are those things that we naturally have of our own self. Okay. So let’s look at this.

And I’m not going to languish here. We’re already close to the end of the sermon, guys. So stick with me on this, because God has a major point he wants us to understand this Sabbath, where he promises he’s going to give us a special Sabbath blessing.

And I think this is part of it. Jesus is saying that I, Jesus, am the true vine. And my Father is the husband man.

He’s above me. I am submitted to my Father. When Jesus was on earth, he depended on his Father.

God, where should I go today? God, where should I get food today? Where should I be? Okay. Jesus then says, in what is that, 1, 2, 3, 4, I believe that’s verse 5, he says, I am the vine, ye are the branches, my children. If you abide in me, you will bring forth much fruit.

Those fruits of righteousness. Practical case study. I don’t know if I have that up there.

I’m going to skip through that. The devil comes to us, because I know it’s not just me. And he says this phrase, once a sinner, always a sinner.

And then we sit there, and we wallow in our sin, and we take a seat, and we say, you know, God, I’m just so sinful. How dare I come to you? God, how am I going to make this work, because I’m such a sinner, and you are such a great Savior, and I just, what can I do? And it’s the devil putting this dark cloud over us, and then we spend time in that dark cloud, and we just wonder how we’re going to do it, and we try things and fail, same way people try weight loss programs and fail. We do all these things again and again and again and again, and we see no change, right? But Jesus says, in John 15, that if we abide in him, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me.

If you abide in me, you can do everything. There’s no limit. So the limit of a Christian, going back, the limit of a Christian is in their abiding ability.

The limit of the Christian is not in what needs to be done. Like, as Christians, we got baptized, this idea of a works-based religion, which is not biblical, because why in the world would we fall into sin, and as we go through Genesis into the New Testament, where we have all these prophecies about Jesus, how do we think that in there we were able to make it work without God, without Jesus? We get to the New Testament, how can we make it work without God, without Jesus? There’s nothing that we offer God. The only thing that God needs when you look through the scriptures, and he’s been explaining this to me, God just needs a body.

If you are a willing body, God will use you. The Bible talks about God wanting a body. He is actually the head of the body, right? So if I am God’s child, how dare I think that I can lead my own life being departed from the true vine and expect to see success? How? And that is the issue with Christianity across the board.

We try all the different flavors of how I can have Jesus, but how I can have my sin. Oh, you know, I’ll just have a little bit of sin on Monday, and I’ll have Jesus on Wednesday, so it’ll be all right. Monday, Tuesday in sin, Wednesday with Jesus, and then Jesus is going to save me because I deserve it.

I’ve worked so hard for him. He’s known that I could have sinned more, but I just sinned a little bit because they shouldn’t have cut me off. They shouldn’t have did this.

They shouldn’t have allowed me to not become a Christian. So because of that, boom, boom, boom, right? There’s a lot of excuses we make as Christians. And then we think that God’s going to accept our excuses when he’s saying all he wants us to do is abide in him.

If we are connected to the vine, which is simple. This is how easy God made it. Jesus dies on the cross, says it’s finished.

He leaves, and he’s so happy he overcame and left. And he was like, I just want to give you guys the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit isn’t restricted to location.

The Holy Spirit can be everywhere. So if I pray and I say, God, I am a sinner. Help me.

I am in my sin. Lord, I give this sin to you. Work in my life.

God says, thank you, and he comes in. The Holy Spirit already is prompting us to give us the desire that we are in sin. That’s why we feel uncomfortable.

That’s why we try to hide ourselves. That’s why we close the door and say, no one saw me. That’s why when people rob banks, they don’t just go out in the day and walk on the street after they rob the bank and say, oh, I robbed the bank.

Why do they hide? Because they acknowledge that they have committed a sin. The Bible says in the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not steal, and they have stolen. Do you guys see how simple the gospel is? The gospel is just Christians connecting to the power source.

No power source, no Christian. And that’s how you get, I’m going to go right back to the beginning for this, that’s how you get all of these thoughts where people come up and say, oh, you nasty Christians, you. Look at what you’re doing.

You’re so hypocritical. You say one thing and you do another thing. Of course I’m going to say one thing and do another thing because Jesus isn’t leading me.

Where’s Jesus? He’s not here. I’m doing my own thing. You’re so judgmental.

You’re critical. Why am I critical? Because Jesus is not in me. I am not connected to the vine.

Simple. You guys with me? Okay. We’re at the end of the sermon, guys, so I’m going to be close.

But this is one thing that I want you guys to take away. I want a real-life case study. I love those.

So I’m looking at Ellen White’s son. Ellen White’s son, James Edson White. He was a troubled child.

Some of us know troubled childs. Some of us were the troubled child. And James Edson White had a problem.

His parents were part of the founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He grew up being taught, seeing miracles of God, seeing all of the things that God did. He was actually witnessing, I’m sure, to other people about Jesus.

But he writes to his mother in 1893, and if we look, he was born in 1849. So what’s the difference between 1849 and 1893? Was he a young man? He was older. He says to his mother, it all began with a religious awakening on, well, I can skip that part.

Edson White wrote to his mother, I have no religious inclinations now in the least. Later in the same paragraph, he wrote, I am not a Christian yet. He was born in 1849.

This is May 1893. He’s not a young man. Could he die any day? He could die any day.

But he said, knowingly, I have no religious inclinations now in the least. His family had miracles that happened to them. They needed money.

Money was provided. They went on a trip. I was listening recently on a story.

They were in a train, and they were trying to figure out where to sit on the train, and they’re in one car, and they’re like, I don’t feel like this is where God wants us, and they move in the carts further back, further back, further back, and they get in that seat. The train takes off. There’s something in the track.

The train falls over, and all these other carts where they were sitting in initially fall over, but the cart that they’re in was fine. If I see a God, or hear stories of a God that does those things, wouldn’t that move me? Wouldn’t it? Some of us have family members. We have parents.

They’ve showed us Jesus. We’re like, wow, they’re godly people, but that somehow didn’t translate to us. So is this a relational thing? This is relationship, right? So God is saying, I am the true vine.

Ye are the branches. Abide in me. When we abide in Jesus, we bear forth fruit that we don’t normally have.

Our character transforms. So when we see Edson White in 1893, he had no religious inclination. So where was he in connection with the vine? He was disconnected.

Okay? Did his life, based on this, bear fruit? Okay, the story continues. When his mother received his letter that he sent to his mother in New Zealand, so it took a while, she was deeply troubled like any mother would be. She wrote a letter to her son, and she recounted how she saw Edson drowning in an undertow.

When I was observing your peril, I cannot express the feelings I passed through. It seemed that my soul would dissolve. I have not recovered from the impression made on my mind as I cried to you.

She’s seeing this in this dream. I believe it says she wakes up at 1 a.m. because she couldn’t sleep. What mother could sleep when they know that their children are in trouble? Right? What mother could sleep comfortably when they see that their child is in a position where he could tell them, I have no religious inclination.

I am not a Christian yet at age, what, 40? There’s no rest. So she’s having this dream of sorts, and in this dream, she’s seeing that her son is in the water, and he is swimming, and he’s swimming for fun, of all things, trying to show off to other people that he’s swimming and how great a swimmer he is, and as he’s swimming, and as he’s swimming, as he’s swimming, he doesn’t realize that there’s an undertow. What does an undertow do? It pulls you under, right? So what his mother was seeing in this dream is that you don’t realize how close you are to being fully lost.

Without being connected to the vine, we have no idea how close we are from being fully lost. It doesn’t take much to end a life. It doesn’t take much, and these days, we don’t even know.

We could drive, make a turn, we don’t know. As a Christian, we have protection. Without being a Christian, what protection do we have if no one’s praying for us? There’s no protection.

So the devil can feel free to bounce us here and hit us there and do whatever, and we think that we’re doing the right thing. We pay our money to the IRS. We do those things, right? We help somebody every once in a while, but we’re not connected to the true vine, right? So as she continues to write, she understood the undertow to represent Satan’s efforts to destroy her son and appealed to her son to accept Jesus as his savior at, what, 40 years old.

She sealed the letter and mailed it with a prayer. Nothing like a praying mother. It continues.

When he received this letter, and we’re talking United States to New Zealand, and in those days, it took a while, more than it even takes now. Even now it would take a while. A few weeks after receiving his mother’s letter, God was moving.

God answered prayer. Her son said, I have surrendered fully and completely, and I have never enjoyed life before as I am enjoying it now. I have for years been under strain with so much to accomplish, and it stood right in my way.

Now I have left it all with my savior, and the burden does not bear me down any longer. I have no desire for the amusements and the pleasures that made up the sum of my enjoyments before, but have an enjoyment in the meetings with the people of God such as I have never had before. Is that a transformation? So real quick, this is us closing.

This is us closing right now. Jesus tells us, simply, abide in me, and I in you, and I can do marvelous things in your life. I can make you kind.

I can make you patient. I could make you desire holy things when you don’t desire holy things. But he says the only way that’s possible is with Jesus abiding in you.

So family, it’s less of a question now as we close. It’s less of a question about if Jesus can save us. The question is will we let him save us? Amen? All right, everyone.

I just want to pray before we even get to the closing hymn. Let’s just pray and ask Jesus to just be with us. I feel like this is a moment to make a decision.

So let’s pray. Our dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we see what you’re doing in our lives. We see what you’ve done throughout creation.

We see what you’ve done even years ago in Edson’s life. And Lord, we want that in our life. We want to abide in you, but Lord, we can’t do it of ourselves.

So Lord, let your Holy Spirit work in us so that we can abide. We want to abide in Jesus. And Lord, help us to make that decision to be Christians because we know of ourselves it’s not that desire, Lord, because we’re born in sin and shaped in iniquity.

So Jesus, come in and work a miracle, what you do best. Work that miracle so that we can turn around and say, God, through it all, I’ve learned to trust in Jesus. I’ve learned to trust in God.

Help us, Father, because we know without you, we can do nothing. We thank you and praise you. In Jesus’ name, amen.