John [chapter 15]

Hello Bethany family!
I pray your midweek is progressing well in the Lord's grace! It's that time again to press on in our journey through the gospel according to John. Believe it or not, we're almost done! Only six more chapter after today. Many of you have been so faithful. Let's get there together! Your endurance of faith is amazing! Recently, God has blessed our community in so many ways - with the family retreat, with new family members, with the vision meeting... let's keep it going! As tonight's lesson is - keep abiding in the true vine!

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*Every Wednesday @ Ezra Chapel, start-time 7:15pm. ​*Every Wednesday from 7:15pm to 8:30pm at Ezra Chapel, come walk with us into the Gospel According to John. Reading through verse-by-verse with reflection. Let's all grow as people of God in the Word of God! Walk into the Word, Walk out to your world! Amen!

​Wednesday Walk into the Word
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN 요한복음:
Abide in Me 내 안에 거하라 [chapter 15]
ABIDE IN THE TRUE VINE (15:1-8)
(Question #1) Having started from chapter 13, Jesus is still teaching His disciples around the table of the last meal. He had washed His disciples’ feet, pointed out His betrayer, gave a new command to love one another as He has done, predicted Peter’s three denials before the rooster’s crow the next morning, encouraged them to not let their hearts be troubled but to trust in Him, declared Himself as the only way to truth and life, and promised the permanent gift of the Holy Spirit. Knowing His time to depart was near, Jesus now uses a portrait of a vine and branch to display how His disciples are to relate to Him when He is gone and not physically present any longer. Who is the true vine, the vinedresser (gardener), and the branch, and what happens to every unfruitful branch in contrast to every fruitful branch (verse 1-2)?
[*REFLECT #1a] Prunning involves trimming or cutting away dead or overgrown branches and stems to increase fruitfulness and growth. How has Jesus doing this in your life, so that you might bear much fruit?
[*REFLECT #1b] What exactly is fruit in your life? See MATTHEW 3:8 and GALATIANS 5:22-24.
[*REFLECT #1c] Because the work of pruning was already happening in the disciples, what does Jesus say they are and why (verse 3)?
[*REFLECT #1d] How are the branch and the vine inseparably connected (verse 4-5)?
[*REFLECT #1e] Abide means to remain fixed in, to stay in, to dwell with continuously, to conform to, to live with daily. How is the confession, “apart from Jesus I can do nothing” helping you to abide in Jesus today?
[*REFLECT #1f] When have we lived like we are the vine while Jesus is the branch?
[*REFLECT #1g] Jesus also says that He abides in us – “whoever abides in me and I [abide] in him.” How have you realized Jesus first abiding in you? How has that caused you to abide in Him?
[*REFLECT #1h] What happens to anyone who does not abide in Jesus daily (verse 6)? Therefore, how serious must we be about abiding in Jesus?
[*REFLECT #1i] What is abiding in Jesus synonymous to abiding in (verse 7)? If we are doing this, what happens in whatever we ask of God?
[*REFLECT #1j] How do we bring glory to the Father and prove to be a disciple of Jesus (verse 8)?
ABIDE IN HIS LOVE (15:9-17)
(Question #2) Whose love are we to abide in and how (verse 9)?
[*REFLECT #2a] How do we visibly and tangibly abide in Jesus’ love for us (verse 10)?
[*REFLECT #2b] What commandments are you keeping to express Jesus’ love for you?
[*REFLECT #2c] Why did Jesus speak this word about the inseparable abiding between vine and branch (verse 11)?
[*REFLECT #2d] How is your joy full as you abide in the Lord over stay apart from Him?
[*REFLECT #2e] How do we become friends of Jesus (verse 12-14)?
[*REFLECT #2f] Loving as Jesus loved means to lay down your life. How are you laying down your life to experience love as Jesus loved?
[*REFLECT #2g] What is the difference between a servant and a friend of Jesus (verse 15)? Are you just a servant, or a friend?
[*REFLECT #2h] We didn’t choose Jesus, but why did Jesus choose us (verse 16-17)?
ABIDE IN BEING HATED BY THE WORLD (15:18-27)
(Question #3) An unavoidable result of Jesus choosing us out of the world will be rejection and even hatred by the world. What must we know when this happens (verse 18-19)?
[*REFLECT #3a] In times of rejection and even hatred from the world, what must we remember (verse 20)?
[*REFLECT #3b] How is the mindset of servanthood before the Master, instead of being our own master expecting to be served, helping us to endure the hardships of abiding in Jesus? How is it encouraging us to keep the Word – who else will keep it with us (ending of verse 20)?
[*REFLECT #3c] Why does the world rejected and even hate Jesus and His followers (verse 21)?
[*REFLECT #3d] Why does the world have no excuse for their rejection and hatred of Jesus and His followers (verse 22-25)?
[*REFLECT #3e] “They hated me without a cause” is a quote from Psalm 69:4. How have we hated without cause?
[*REFLECT #3f] What will happen when Jesus sends the Helper, the Spirit of truth (verse 26-27)?