Abide in His Love

Redemption Church - Augusta, GA

Sermon notes 👇 …all the noise in our lives...our busyness, our hurry, our filling up the calendar and the day with tasks and meetings, and constantly checking our bank accounts, or calculating for future jobs or relationships or whatever else we find ourselves obsessing over constantly… all that noise is generated from all our doing… And all our doing, all our activity, at its root, usually has something to do with us trying to tell the world who we are. But, who we really are isn’t answered by our doing, it is answered in our being, But we often can’t even see our true reflection for all the commotion in our lives. So, we can’t tell the world who we really are because we can barely remember who we really are. This New Year’s Eve, before we jump into 2024, take a moment to be still. I want to remind you of who you are… At the very root of your existence you are an image bearer of God. You were given life - God formed you and breathed life into you - so that you can make Him known in this world together with others. That is your purpose. And not only are you an image bearer of God, but you are deeply loved by Him. So much so that Jesus, who is God, came and hung on a cross to rescue you from sin and death. And He rose again to restore you to life in Him and with Him. See, you have this intrinsic value, you are a deeply loved image bearer of God, but you probably don’t really know it, you probably forget it, your true reflection fades in the commotion of your life. We must get quiet, and still, and be with God and find again who we are in Him. I can’t think of a better way to end this year or to start a new one. This is the invitation of Jesus back in John 15:3-5 “Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”