Abiding in the Christ-Vine, John 15

This past Sunday I had the privilege of bringing the message at South Suburban Christian Church (Littleton, CO) in all three morning services. Wow! I was truly exhausted, I don't know how our pastor does it every week. There are several options for taking in the Word. You can watch the video version below, view a larger version of the video at the Vimeo site, or just download the audio (mp3) file only. The video is not of me actually speaking, but it is the audio with powerpoint slides containing the main points, pictures, as well as the Biblical text and quotes from the sermon to follow along. Comments, questions, stories, and critiques are encouraged. May the Holy Spirit be our Teacher.

CLICK HERE to watch a larger version of the video at the Vimeo website
CLICK HERE to download only the audio (mp3) file

Abiding in the Christ-Vine: Sermon on John 15:1-11 from Aaron Elmore on Vimeo.

The purpose of this blog

My hope is that this blog will serve as:

• A place for people to come and receive solid Christ-centered teaching from the Bible
• Encouragement for the body of Christ
• A catalyst for conversations about theology, biblical doctrines and spiritual formation.
• An environment where people can come who are not Christians, but who are interested in learing more about the Bible and what it means to know God through Jesus Christ.

As you can see from the blog archive, this does not appear to be the first post to this 'new' blog. I decided to copy some of the older posts from my personal blog because they coincide with my vision for this one. However, this post is officially the first. Thus, I felt it was fitting to give a brief summary of my purpose in creating it. This blog will contain primarily my own content, although I may direct readers to other material as I have time.

Please feel free to leave comments or suggestions to help me shape this new environment for spiritual growth.

15 Seconds with God?

A while ago I came across a small Christian devotional called 15 Seconds with God. That's right, I am not making this up. I mention the title of this book, not to recommend it, but because I found it rather disturbing. It was bad enough when they started coming out with five minute bibles and devotionals. These were followed by the one minute Bible and a slew of minute devo's, which were, of course, much more popular than the daunting five minute versions!

But now we are down to 15 seconds with God. Really? That's all we have left. I realize the author of this book probably did not have in mind that readers might only spend 15 seconds with God. However, the title is rather telling of where we are in our culture. We are so busy that we find it hard to fit things into our schedules, even things that we might say are very important to us. Every single one of us gets 86,400 seconds per day. Even if we only spent 1% of our day investing in our relationship with God, that is about 14 minutes. That would be a great start for most people.

What if I told you I wrote a book on how to have a great relationship with your spouse in 15 seconds a day? Or how about a great friendship or relationship with your kids in 15? You would tell me I was crazy. Then why do we expect anything less from our relationship with God? Friends, Jesus Christ is passionately pursuing a relationship with you, he loves you so much that he gave his entire life to demonstrate it, and he wants to have a relationship with you. Relationships take a significant investment, and if there was any relationship worth that effort, this would be it. Jesus is worthy of more than 15 seconds of our time.

I am not suggesting a move towards legalism, or asking you to become a "better" Christian. My purpose it not to make you feel guilty (although conviction is always healthy). I am suggesting that we are guilty of devaluing the worth of our relationship with God. Grace is free, but its not cheap. It came at a high cost. I say again, Jesus is worthy of more than 15 seconds of our day.