I am the vine (7 of 7)
Series: Who Do You Say that I Am?
Dave Gustavsen
John 15:1-11
Jesus once asked his disciples, ''Who do you say that I am?'' And like a lot of things in the Bible, that question wasn't just intended for the immediate audience; it's intended for everyone. So the purpose of this series is to help us answer that question honestly. And we're doing that by looking at the seven places in the Gospel of John where Jesus described himself beginning with the phrase ''I am.'' So today we finish the series by looking at the place where Jesus said, ''I am the vine.''
Last fall we had a guest speaker with us named Seth Haines. He was a successful attorney in Little Rock, Arkansas. And in response to a family crisis he started drinking...and he found that he couldn't stop. So he wrote a book called Coming Clean, which is really his journal of becoming sober. So when he was here, a group of us went to dinner and Seth shared his story a little more in-depth. He said he grew up in a very conservative, Christian church. Everyone knew the Bible inside and out; they were very focused on having correct doctrine. But he said, ''One thing my church did not offer was any kind of experience of God. It was all head knowledge.'' And I'm paraphrasing him here, but he said something like, ''When I started drinking, it was an experience. I felt something; my emotions and my body were involved; I was carried out of the ordinary into another realm. And even though I knew it was destructive, there was something so compelling about the experience.'' And so for him, part of his sobriety was learning to move beyond the dry, cerebral faith he'd been brought up in, and learning what it means to experience an actual relationship with God.
Can you relate to that story? Some of you came from a very formal church, and the concept of a ''relationship with God'' wasn't even mentioned. It was all about ritual and tradition. Some of you grew up in a less formal church-maybe a ...
Series: Who Do You Say that I Am?
Dave Gustavsen
John 15:1-11
Jesus once asked his disciples, ''Who do you say that I am?'' And like a lot of things in the Bible, that question wasn't just intended for the immediate audience; it's intended for everyone. So the purpose of this series is to help us answer that question honestly. And we're doing that by looking at the seven places in the Gospel of John where Jesus described himself beginning with the phrase ''I am.'' So today we finish the series by looking at the place where Jesus said, ''I am the vine.''
Last fall we had a guest speaker with us named Seth Haines. He was a successful attorney in Little Rock, Arkansas. And in response to a family crisis he started drinking...and he found that he couldn't stop. So he wrote a book called Coming Clean, which is really his journal of becoming sober. So when he was here, a group of us went to dinner and Seth shared his story a little more in-depth. He said he grew up in a very conservative, Christian church. Everyone knew the Bible inside and out; they were very focused on having correct doctrine. But he said, ''One thing my church did not offer was any kind of experience of God. It was all head knowledge.'' And I'm paraphrasing him here, but he said something like, ''When I started drinking, it was an experience. I felt something; my emotions and my body were involved; I was carried out of the ordinary into another realm. And even though I knew it was destructive, there was something so compelling about the experience.'' And so for him, part of his sobriety was learning to move beyond the dry, cerebral faith he'd been brought up in, and learning what it means to experience an actual relationship with God.
Can you relate to that story? Some of you came from a very formal church, and the concept of a ''relationship with God'' wasn't even mentioned. It was all about ritual and tradition. Some of you grew up in a less formal church-maybe a ...
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