The Lord Jesus Christ
Tom Shrader explores Jesus' seven 'I am' statements from John's Gospel, demonstrating how these exclusive claims make Jesus the dividing issue between biblical Christianity and all other religions. He emphasizes that Jesus claimed to be the only way to God, using everyday imagery like bread, light, and gates to communicate spiritual truths. The teaching concludes by addressing the narrow nature of salvation and the fruit that should result from genuine faith.
“Today we're going to talk about the dividing issue, and that dividing issue is Jesus.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Christianity 101 (2014)
Recorded: April 10, 2014
Duration: 38 min
Themes: salvation, truth, exclusivity, identity, faith, fruit, doctrine, sovereignty, new believer, questioning faith, exploring christianity, doubting salvation, interfaith dialogue, defending beliefs, seeking truth, struggling with narrow way
Scripture: John 1:1, John 20:30-31, John 8:56-59, John 10, John 8:10, John 14:6, Matthew 7, Hebrews 13, 1 Peter 5, John 11, Acts 2:22, Acts 4:12, Ephesians 2:8-10, 2 Corinthians 2:14, Galatians 5:22-23
Theological Themes: christology, soteriology, biblical authority, monotheism, trinity, incarnation, exclusive salvation, spiritual fruit
Full Transcript
We are in week four today. Let me get you up to speed. I love the sequencing of this, and maybe it was not as clear when we started, but it should be now.
The first week, we talked about doctrine. We said that's the body of belief that we have, those tenets of our faith. Then we said, all right, the tenets of the faith are important, but where do we get them? That was the second week. We said that's the Bible. For us, as followers of Christ, this becomes the Word of God. So in language we can get our arms around, life is an open book test. Most of the things that you will face in the course of a week, you will either get direct answers or principles from this book that you can apply to the situations that you face.
With those two things in place, now we're ready to attack some of the topics in Christianity 101, the first of which is God. That's what we looked at last week. We said there's some confusion about Him, and I wanted to step back and make one giant point, and that is that God is sovereign.
The Sovereignty of God
There's some confusion about God, because we follow our own hunches, or we create a God in our image. Our language gives that away when we start talking about, "my God would never do this," or "why would a God of love do..." We hear those, and generally there's some confusion about this thing called the sovereignty of God.
The sovereignty of God is what makes God, God. He operates independent from any outside forces, and is restricted only by His character. When we say God can do anything, well is that true? Can God lie? No, God has to act in consistency with His character. It's not an excuse to do nothing, but it's an understanding that we throw the dice, He controls the outcome.
When we talk about God, the Bible teaches us that though we are monotheists, we believe in one God, we believe in one God who manifests Himself in three personalities. To this point in the discussion, we're generally okay.
The Dividing Issue
Here's the dividing issue. If you are with us today for the first time, you picked a strategic day to be here. If you're saying, "I didn't pick it, it just came together," well then God did you a big favor. Because today is what separates us, biblical Christianity, from everything else.
Today we're going to talk about the dividing issue, and that dividing issue is Jesus. You have an outline in front of you, and as you look at the references, seven points, you'll see they're all from the Gospel of John.
Anytime you should have in your Bible on the first page, so John 1:1, usually there's a heading and a little space up there, you should have written there, in that space, John chapter 20 verses 30 and 31, because that's the reason that John tells us he wrote the book.
John's Purpose
John 20:30: "Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, they're not written in this book. But these have been written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name."
I watched an interview one day with four or five biographers, and they were talking about the difficulty in writing a biography. They said generally it's helpful to like the person, but they said the biggest challenge by far is figuring out not what to put in the biography, but what to leave out.
That's what John is saying here. John is not saying this is a complete comprehensive life of Christ. Verse 30, there's a whole bunch of other things that Jesus did, but I included these to drive you to a specific conclusion, and that is that Jesus is the Messiah. My hope is that you'd believe in Him, and when you do you'll have eternal life.
That was my experience. I met with Larry, and I asked him all sorts of what I thought were difficult, profound questions. His bottom line was, "Why don't you read the Gospel of John?"
A Personal Testimony
I did that night, it was March 5th, 1980. It made no sense to me. I read it the next night, and subsequent to that, and each time I could see it more and more. In that time frame God invaded my heart and opened my eyes. Second Corinthians 2:14, a natural man can't understand spiritual things. Well on the 5th of March I had natural eyes, on the 6th of March I had spiritual eyes.
The point I want to make is, the reason Larry said start there, is because he knew the purpose of the book, and he knew my need was to believe. That's the purpose of this book.
Jesus Claims to Be God
We're going to look at seven points. I want to set it up by looking at your outline, the seven claims of Jesus in John chapter 8 verse 56. The audience are the Jews, and they're really the Jewish leaders.
They say to Jesus, "Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing me, He saw it and He was glad." They're going, "Wait, wait, wait, that doesn't make sense, you're not yet 50 years old." Let me just stop there and make a greater point. We know that Jesus was in fact in His early 30s, but they're going for 50, and I would suggest to you that's what ministry does to you.
"You're not yet 50," the Jews said, "and you've seen Abraham?" Jesus said, "I tell you the truth," some of your translations will say "truly, truly," Jesus answered and said, "Before Abraham was, I am."
For us, we're going, "Okay, He's making some sort of claim, I don't know that we understand all of the nuances of it," but they did. All you got to do is look at their reaction in verse 59: "At this, they picked up stones to stone Him, but Jesus hid Himself, slipping away from the temple ground."
Here's what Jesus was saying, and they got it. They got the "I am" complete statement. He's saying, "I am God, I am the I am, I am the Alpha, the Omega, the beginning of the end, I'm way before Abraham." So when your friends are going, "Jesus never claimed to be God," you can look at this situation here in John 8.
In John 10 that's essentially the same, and that is, the Jews respond to killing Him. In John 10 He said, "What good work did I do for what you're killing me?" and they say, "Not any good work, but because you claim to be God." So that's the overarching claim.
Under this, you'll see in your outline, there's seven "I am" statements that Jesus makes in this Gospel of John. I am the bread of life, the light of the world, the gate for the sheep, the Good Shepherd, the resurrection and the life, the way, the truth, the life, I am divine. What's present in each of those is a definite article.
If I say, "Bring me a cup of coffee," it opens the possibility, in a totally general sense, to any cup of coffee. If I say, "Bring me the cup of coffee," we have narrowed it down to a specific. The idea of the definite article takes things from this broad general way to a specific way. In all of these, Jesus is using common, everyday items, not teaching in some esoteric way that only a few would get.
Jesus Uses Everyday Imagery to Reveal Spiritual Truth
For example, in the very first illustration, He said, "I'm the bread of life." Bread was the only staple in most of these people's diet. It was necessary for life. They weren't like maybe you, or at least me, where you're trying to get carbs out of your diet so you don't need them. It was a necessary part of their life. It was part that sustained them. It was something they ate daily. So He said, "I'm the bread of life."
They would at least get some imagery there, but then He expands. He said, "He who comes to me will never go hungry. He who believes in me will never go thirsty." So much like the woman at the well, Jesus is speaking in a spiritual sense, using a physical item. He said, "Listen, if you eat, I'm the bread of life. If you come to me, you'll never go hungry again."
Here's what He's saying. He's not talking about a physical sense. He's talking in a spiritual sense.
Three Kinds of Human Longings
I find this helpful, so my hope is you will too. One author says we have three kinds of longings. And he breaks them down this way: casual, critical, crucial. For sake of time and discussion, he says these casual and critical longings are longings that can be met with a person, place, or thing.
I had a weird day yesterday. I got home last night about 3 in the afternoon and I was very hungry. He would call it a casual longing. So I got a vegetable casserole. That's what I'm eating now, a lot of vegetables. Vegetable casserole and a bottle of water and a bar that would be roughly equivalent to eating this smartphone. That's what I ate. When I was done, that went away. I wasn't hungry anymore. That casual longing was gone.
Now it came right back and then it was met with whatever we had at dinner, a salad of some sort. You're thirsty. You get a drink. You're satisfied momentarily. You need a place to live.
What this author is saying, and Jesus is acknowledging, is that you have needs that a person, place, or thing can meet. I was with a guy years ago. It always sounds like I make these up, but I have a lot of friends who are not Christians and so I have great conversations. It was his 50th birthday. I said, "What are you going to do for your 50th birthday?" And he said, "I need a new wife."
I said, "Really?" And he said, "I need a new wife." So we talked and I said, "Let me give you a little advice. I've seen the new models and they're pretty expensive. Mickey Rooney just died. Did you see that? His estate was valued at what? $18,000. 80 years of show business. Now if you have eight wives, you'll burn through cash pretty fast."
I said, "Man, I just don't." And he said, "I'm miserable. Have you seen her lately?" I said, "No, I haven't." "She's frumpy and dumpy." And I said, "Have you seen yourself lately? Have you? Frumpy and dumpy." He said, "No, I got to get a new wife."
Well, I understand the thought process there. Humanly, I can see where it makes sense. I'll trade this out. I'll bring this in. I'll be happy. But you need to be careful with that. Statistics—these are just raw statistics—are that second marriages fail at a higher rate than first marriages. And third, higher than second.
The Limitations of Person, Place, or Thing
Sandy and I were looking at a new couch the other day and picking out fabric, which is not me at my best, because green looks like brown, looks like red. I said, "I like the green." And she said, "Well, those would be over there." So we picked out a fabric. I said to the guy, "You know, is this going to last? Because I'm hard on this. I mean, I'm laying down." He said, "It has a 30 year lifespan."
So I said to Sandy, "Well, pick out something you like, because I'm clearly not going to be around for most of the lifespan of this couch. So pick out something you and the next guy you think you would like."
The Crucial Longing Only Christ Can Meet
So that's this idea. What this crucial longing is, and this gets in now to the difficulty, is this crucial longing, while the casual longing or critical longing can be met with a person, place, or thing, the crucial longing can only be met with the person of Christ.
Now this is a big point. This explains the ongoing yearning that you have, even as you succeed, because you're asking a person, place, or thing to provide you a sense of satisfaction that only a relationship with Christ can do.
So you just had the NCAA Final Four, UConn wins, the boys and the girls. I guarantee you, the question they're asking, now that it's been settled, and now they're home, and they'll have the parade. Once that's over, they get the coaching staff together and say, "We got to get on the road and recruit. We got to do this again. Now we're held to a higher standard." There is no end to this.
Sandy and I were talking the other day about her first year at school. By the way, there was a list that came out, I don't know if you saw it, came out this week. The smartest colleges in America. Did any of you see that? What do you people do? What possibly could be... Number two is MIT. Number three is Princeton. Number four, Northwestern. Number five, Carnegie
Washington University in St. Louis ranked number one. Number two was Carnegie Mellon. Number six, University of Chicago. Number seven, Rice. Eight, Harvard. Nine, Yale. Ten, Dartmouth. Stanford was 11.
What do you think number one was? Washington University in St. Louis. I happen to know that Sandy got two degrees from there, so this is just separating us even further intellectually. I said, "I know you don't get enough respect for your intellect, but this only confirms it. It's not that you got in there or accepted there, but got two degrees from there."
She was talking about her first experience there and how getting into Wash U was a big deal. For us out here, I don't think most of us understand that, but you could put any of these—take Princeton and put it on there, or Harvard, or any of those. She said in this first class, there were 200 of us in there, and the professor said, "All of you are 4.0 students or valedictorians, but by definition, 90% of you are going to be in the bottom 90% of this class." She said that really hadn't occurred to her until she got in there, and that there were students who were crushed by this.
The Endless Search for Satisfaction
My point is this: if you think it's education—if I can just get into Wash U, Harvard, St. Ambrose, any of those—you get into any of those, all of a sudden you're going, "If I can get a degree..." There's that endless thing where you're looking for a person or place or thing to provide you a satisfaction only God can.
So this can come into anything. It can be running. St. Ambrose was talking about that. She's running a lot, swimming a lot, and we were talking about what's the appropriate amount of that. She was just telling stories of guys and gals and swimming and how swimming is their God. We got a big box of trophies and ribbons that really never mattered to her, but endless, endless achievement.
Here's the deal: "I'm the bread of life. You'll find satisfaction in Me and Me alone."
Jesus as the Light of the World
Here's the second thing Jesus says, and He starts to slam all these doors shut. If you're somebody who's an open-minded person, we're pretty much against open-minded. When it comes to God, closed-minded is a virtue in some cases. Open-minded is not. Jesus is slamming doors shut.
Here's what He said: "I am the light of the world," meaning there is no other. John 8:10, Jesus said, "I'm the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness."
So light has three characteristics that we look at: it's a standard, it reveals, and it energizes. Jesus becomes the standard. Jesus said, "If you want to talk about behavior and measure it, measure it against My standard, My life, which is perfection."
I had this conversation with my girls a thousand times. I'd come in at night, they'd be studying. I'd say, "Why are you studying?" And they'd say, "Test tomorrow." Same thing I would do—that's more than I would do, but test tomorrow. So the next day I'd say, "How was the test?" "Really hard." "How did you do?" "Well, we'll get the grades tomorrow."
So the next day I'd say, "How'd you do on the test?" Here's what they would say—if I had a dollar for every one of these—"Nobody did well on the test." I don't care about nobody. How did you do? "Nobody did well." What do you mean nobody did well? "It wasn't fair."
Okay, did he tell you you were going to have a test? Yes. Did he teach you the material it would be on the test? Yes. Did he give you the test on the day he said he was going to give you the test? Yes. What do you mean it wasn't fair? "Well, nobody did well."
Well, I come down to Jesus, and He said, "Here's the test, it's perfection," and I go, "Well, that's not fair, I can't do it." And He says, "Well, I'm not going to lower the standard, but somebody's met the standard in your place." And that's why Jesus died on the cross. That's what's coming up now on Good Friday and Easter. Christ died in our place.
Light That Reveals Reality
He's the light of the world. He's the standard. He's the one who reveals. When I was in college—we were just talking about this the other day, and her experience is vastly different than mine. I mean, she's at Wash U, and I've had a chance to be there a couple times. It is a cool campus. It's just a cool place.
So she's there studying and working hard. I'm at St. Ambrose College in Davenport, Iowa. Our mascot were the bees. So our student union was called the hive, the beehive. We would sit in the beehive with a bag of Cheetos, four or five nights a week, after lots of beer, and we would say, "What is reality?" And none of us had a clue. As close as we could tell, it was to get somebody else to pay for our college and somehow get a C. That was my reality.
Jesus comes along and says, "I'm the light of the world," and what light does is blow out darkness, and you can see things as they really are. "I'm going to allow you to look through this maze of haze around you and see things as they are." And He becomes the life giver. You and I, according to Ephesians chapter two, are dead in our sins and trespasses, and the one thing a dead man needs is life, and I'm going to come along and I'm going to give it to you. "I am the light of the world."
Jesus as the Gate
It's the third claim. He says, "I am the gate for the sheep," John 10. "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before Me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn't listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through Me will be saved."
What do I need to do to be saved? Well at least part of it is I need to enter through this gate. Now here's the imagery again. As the shepherds would take the sheep out of town, but near town, they would take them out in the morning, they'd bring them back at night, and there would be different pens. A pen would typically be an area, let's say, square.
Jesus is the Exclusive Gate
The sheepfold would be about three feet high and have one opening—one way in, one way out. There's more imagery here. Later, Jesus is going to say, "I'm the shepherd." The shepherd is the one who would monitor that gate. You didn't get in except through the shepherd.
Jesus says, "I am the gate." This is very similar to what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter seven, where He says there's a narrow gate and a wide gate. Through the wide gate, many people travel that heavily traveled road that leads to destruction. There's a narrow gate, sparsely traveled, that leads to life. Jesus is saying here there aren't a lot of ways to be saved—I am the gate.
When people say to you, "Well, that Christian faith is so exclusive and it's so narrow," and then I find people want to defend it—go with it, buddy. Yes, it is exclusive and it is narrow, but I didn't make it that way. You didn't make it that way. Jesus made it that way.
When you get into the conversations—and they're going to get easier and easier to have because more and more of the world is drifting toward this thought that yes, Jesus is really something special, but there are a lot of other ways—what about those people who aren't on this path? Well, as close as I can tell, not based on my judgment but based on what God says, they're on a path to destruction.
That's why the loving thing is to share this faith. If you really love somebody and you really understand these stakes, the loving thing to do is to share with them in a kind way—not in a harsh way—that either you spend eternity in the presence of Christ because of Christ, or you're in hell. Those are the only two options. Who's going to be in heaven? The answer is those who are biblical Christians. I'm giving up the term "Christian" anymore because it means so many different things to so many different people.
The Good Shepherd Who Knows His Sheep
Number four: "I'm the good shepherd." In Hebrews 13, He says, "I'm the great shepherd." First Peter 5, He says, "I'm the chief shepherd." "I'm the good shepherd. My sheep know me, and I know them." He says a little further, "They hear my voice."
This is cool imagery. When they would take their flocks out, there might be five or six shepherds in the city, and during the day they'd commingle their flocks. Then each shepherd at night would go and stand by the gate and call his sheep, and his sheep would know their voice. That's what Jesus is saying—My sheep know me. There's an intimacy here. I'm the good shepherd.
The imagery here is of sheep, not goats. I'm from Iowa, but I don't know anything about agriculture, and so I know a little bit about sheep only from what I've read. Jesus doesn't call us goats. Goats are essentially a little smarter, a little more self-sufficient. Sheep are dumb, needy animals who need a lot of care and a lot of love and a lot of nurturing. They are fundamentally defenseless and will die of thirst with a stream of water right over there, afraid to get in the stream.
As the sheep would come in every night, they would pass under the rod of the shepherd so he could examine them and clean them. If they got over on their back, they would lay there, bloat up, and die. He would say, "I'm the good shepherd. I'm the one who comes along, and I will provide that care, that insight."
The Resurrection and the Life
Number five: He said, "I'm the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even if he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." And He asked the big question: "Do you believe?"
So He said if you believe in me, you will live even though you die. Even though you die physically, you'll live spiritually with me, and you will live and never die. He's not talking in a physical sense—that's where we get confused.
In Acts chapter 2, verse 22, Peter delivers a sermon and says that God raised Jesus from the dead, putting an end to the agony of death. We had a lady in our church, and this was years ago—the first lady that I was ever around, or person that I was ever around, who was dying. Our house was near hers, so I would drive by and see her most days. She'd be out, especially this time of year, planting flowers.
Susan's Story: Victory Over Death's Agony
She got cancer, and they began to try to deal with it. It got worse and a little worse. Then she got better—it's the horrific nature of cancer so often. It goes away but then comes back.
I ran into her one day, and she was out front planting some flowers. I stopped and said, "How are you doing?" She said, "Not well. It's back, and there's nothing they can do. They've asked me to go down to the U of A, to the med center for some experimental treatments. They've told me they don't know, and it's unlikely that it would help me in terms of survival, but it would help them in terms of the experiment. So I'm going to do it."
At the time, I was teaching every Wednesday down in Tucson. So I would go down, and the first time I went to meet her, she was in this room and knew I was coming. She had her wig on just right and some makeup. By the third or fourth time, the wig was gone, and she had just a do-rag on. Pretty soon, that was gone too.
The chemo was eating her from the inside out. Her body was as bright red as you could get. I wanted to hold her hand to provide some comfort because it had to be lonely laying there. Yet I was afraid if I touched her, I would compound her pain, not help it. This was one of those really sweet people.
I remember going back to Acts 2:22, that He died to put an end to the agony of death. He's not talking there about physical agony, though I think He provides comfort in the midst of that. I watched that with Susan. Susan was in extraordinary pain, and yet there was a—I don't really want to say peace—but there was like there was some relief from the pain in the midst of it. What He really provides is not an end to the physical agony of death, but the spiritual agony.
The context here in John 11 is right after Jesus has been told that Lazarus is sick. I don't know if we think of this often, but Jesus was a single man who when He was in Bethany, hung around with single sisters and brothers, Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Lazarus was a guy that Jesus loved a great deal.
The message comes to Jesus that Lazarus is sick, and Jesus has a very strange response. If your phone went off here and somebody wanted something—if I read a text that said, "Tom, this is so-and-so, your mom is sick"—well, I might finish preaching because I have six minutes left. But as soon as I was done, the first call that I would make would be, "How serious is she? Do I need to be there?"
Jesus gets the note that Lazarus is very sick. And He says, "Lazarus is sick, but we're staying." Then He gets the note, "Lazarus is dead." And He says, "Lazarus is dead, and I'm glad." Why? Well, because I'm going to use this to show you something. He sleeps, but he will rise again.
The Resurrection and the Life
And then they have this discussion on the resurrection. Jesus is clarifying things here to say, "Listen, it's a resurrection that I'm going to give you that conquers the grave. I'm the resurrection and the life. And you may die physically, but you'll live spiritually forever." So I don't have to fear death.
The dying process, that's different. I'm not—and again, it could be absolutely false bravado—but I'm not afraid of death. I don't know how I'm going to be with the dying part. But He said, "I'll give you that strength."
Here's the sixth thing. It's John 14, the night before He died. It's the disciples who were talking to Jesus, and Jesus answered them and said, "I'm going to go and I'm going to prepare a place for you. And if I prepare a place for you, I'll come and get you." Thomas said, "We don't know the way."
John 14:6, Jesus said, here's your definite article: "I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
The Exclusive Nature of Faith
So let's step back in the greater context and say, where do these other faiths lead? I don't know, but they don't lead to the Father. Because He's telling you, this is a very exclusive club. I use that term loosely, that this is a very narrow way.
I find this all the time. I'll be talking to somebody and they'll go, "I don't want to believe that." And I go, "Why?" "Well, what about my mom or what about my dad? My mom, good old Nana, she never believed this. If Nana didn't believe this, is Nana in hell?" And so I find myself in that context going, "I don't know Nana, I don't want to talk about Nana. I think it's an extra conversation. The key question is, what about you?"
"Well, what about those poor people who are sincere about their faith?" Well, they've elevated sincerity to a new level. Do you know many people who are sincere about their faith as the guys who piloted those planes into those buildings on 9-11? They're sincere. It's not about how sincere I am. It's about me trusting an object and its capacity to perform the task for which I'm trusting it to do.
And Jesus is saying, "I am the way, the faith." This is very narrow. Peter says in Acts 4:12, "There is no other name by which man can be saved."
The Need for Truth
So we'll go back to the beginning of this. We can talk about God and everybody's okay. I remember the setting. It's back to that Yankee Stadium rally after 9-11 when Oprah was the priestess who was presiding over everything. And I say the phrase all along, that day they did everything but sacrifice a goat. I mean, they had somebody from everything that were reading poetry, doing dances.
Are you telling me all those people are wrong? Yes. Not based on my judgment. It's not something that's judgmental. I mean, I don't know how else you read it. This guy says, "I don't believe Jesus died for my sin. Good teacher." This guy says, "You know, He was a great leader, but I don't think He died for me." This guy said, "He was a political leader and it went south on Him." And we say He was the Messiah that died in our place.
We can't all be right. I guess we could all be wrong, but we can't all be right. And so this becomes the task that we have is number one, understanding it. And then it should create in us some sort of burden.
The Obligation to Share
If you had the cure for cancer, it seemed to me there'd be an obligation, even a desire on your part to get up to Scottsdale Med Center or Mayo or the medical community or something and go, "Here's the cure!" But even if you cured the cancer, something else is going to get you. You have a deeper problem in that you're spiritually dead. And the only thing that can bring you to life is a relationship with Christ. And all you have to do is believe Jesus is who He said He was.
Now, what's the loving thing to do? Is the loving thing to do, keep that to yourself or share that with the people around you?
The True Vine
There's one last point and we close and it leads into next week. He says, "I am the true vine. I'm the true vine, you're the branches. If you remain in Me and I in Him, we'll bear much fruit." He said, "This life was not lived just to get you to heaven."
Ephesians chapter two, verse eight, nine and ten: "For by grace you've been saved through faith, that not of yourself, it's a gift of God so that no one could boast." So let me give you this. When we talk about saved, I'm saved by God. He does it completely beginning to end.
Here's what we don't often get. I'm saved by God from God. From His judgment. I'm saved by God, from God, Ephesians 2:10: "For we are His workmanship to perform tasks that He prepared beforehand." I'm saved by God, from God, for God, that I'll bear fruit.
The Fruit of Connection
What is the fruit? What is the fruit that I'll bear? Now, this is a wonderful discussion because we tend at this point to launch off into activity: Bible study, culture war, prayer, feed hungry. What Paul tells us is, here's the fruit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.
So how do I know if I'm a branch that's connected to the—
In my life, I'm loving the unlovable. There's joy, not happiness. There's joy in the midst of very difficult circumstances. There's a peace, not an absence of turmoil, but the presence of God as all hell's breaking loose around me.
For me, in that discussion, I quickly get this overwhelming sense, I can't do that. And that's good, you can't. But now, the third person of the Trinity, the Spirit comes and gives you the strength to live that way.
So we'll pick up there next time.