I want to bring another message
in these first few verses of John 15. A dear, perhaps the dearest,
pastor friend that I have told me one time, you shouldn't repeat
yourself, but I You know, I can't not be me. I can't be somebody
else. So I will repeat myself from
time to time, and probably will frequently. Forgive me if I do. The apostle Paul says, to say
the same things unto you is not grievous to me, but for you it
is safe. And I pray that it would be safe
for you for that reason, that it's the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I want to point out something
that I read in the study of this that is kind of an aside. It wouldn't be the first thing
that I realized by reading this. chapter here, but it was pointed
out first to me by Don Fortner, and then I knew that Don read
a lot of John Gill, so I went back and I looked to see what
John Gill had to say about it, and I confirmed that Don had
gotten it from him. But this is a dear thing. It
doesn't matter who it came from. It really came from the Lord.
So hold your place in John 15 and turn to the Song of Solomon.
Song of Solomon. And I'll give you some time because
it's kind of hard to find. I'll tell you what page it's
on when I get there, but it won't be the same as yours. It's before
Isaiah. If you have trouble finding Song
of Solomon, it's before Isaiah. And in verse 14 of the Song of
Solomon, Song of Solomon is obviously meant to be an example, a picture,
a shadow, foreshadowing of the Lord Jesus Christ and his people. In this book, Song of Solomon,
It is about the beloved, which is Christ, and the one who is
beloved, the wife or the bride, which is the church, every believer. But in verse 14 of the first
chapter, Song of Solomon 1 verse 14, it says, my beloved is unto
me as a cluster of camphor in the vineyards of En-Jedi. I would
read that and not have any idea what it meant. But it turns out
that the secret is in the word cluster here. cluster. Now, if you look at this word,
and John Gill was a doctor, if you want to call it that, he
understood the Hebrew language and the Greek language, and he
was an expert in these things, and he cited many, many people
in his defense of this claim so that you can understand the
history of it as well as the The use of the term would fit
this. So the word clusters here, and
it says the clusters of camphor in the vineyards of Njedi, it
has not so much to do with an herb as much as it does a cluster
of grapes. And the one speaking is here
calling my beloved as a cluster of grapes in the vineyards of
Njedi. So the word clusters, according
to John Gill, means a man that has all things in him. And specifically,
a man who has all things in him because of his atonement. It has to do with clusters as
one who has a tone for all things, and therefore has all things
in him. Now, I love that explanation. It turns out that's the gospel,
isn't it? That all that we have, we have
in the Lord Jesus Christ. As believers, we have nothing
but what we have in Him, and we're glad that it is that way.
And here the church and every believer joins in this endearing
expression of love toward the Lord Jesus Christ and says, he
is unto me as one who is all things because of his sin atoning,
his work of propitiation to remove all my sins. And so I wanted
to mention that to you before we get into John chapter 15 because
I want you to see in this chapter here today that what the Lord
Jesus Christ tells us to do, we have a tendency to look at ourselves in order
to fulfill what the Lord tells us to do. And I want to show
you that how the gospel does the opposite. It directs us always
and ever to, not to us, but to the one who commands us. So in
John chapter 15, he says, again, in verse 1, I am the true vine,
and my father is the husbandman, the one who tends to the field,
the one who tends to the vine, the one who does everything to
make sure the vine produces fruit on its branches. So from this description here,
as I mentioned last week, God our Father, the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, is the one we must attribute, we
must credit and give all of the credit to Him for producing the
fruit that is brought forth from the vine to His glory. So that's
the first thing. We see this. My father is the
husbandman. And the second thing is that
all of the fruit comes from the vine. Sap flows one way. It doesn't go back and forth.
We receive from Christ life, virtue, the vigor, the strength,
all grace in order to produce this fruit. And so you can say
it this way in the first verse is that all of the fruit on the
vine is God's doing. And we as the branches in the
vine, as we're going to read here in a minute, we as the branches
bearing the fruit are, as you might describe it, as the weakest
part in the link, because the virtue and the vitality, the
life comes from the vine. And it's by the skill, the wisdom,
the carefulness, the faithfulness of the vine dresser, the God
our Father, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who
produces this fruit. And then he says in verse two,
and this comes to us, as I said last time, it makes us apprehensive. When we read things like this,
if you're anything like me, you have a tendency to want to just
read over it or to go somewhere else because it's too unsettling. He says, every branch in me that
beareth not fruit, he taketh away. And every branch that beareth
fruit, he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit. Now,
to take away means literally to cut off from the vine. And this is a parable. It's a
comparison. And so in these comparisons of
scripture, There is a main teaching, and that main teaching is what's
important. And if you try to divide every
part of a parable, you can get tangled up around the axle, as
it is said sometimes, and you'll get off in the weeds. And that's
not the point. The point is to stay focused
on the main message of the parable. Christ is the true vine. We, he says, are the branches. And so the fruit is produced
because we are grafted into Christ. And this is the work of God the
Father. And that's the main message here. Our union with Christ is
the result of God's work. The fruit that is produced by
the vine on the branches is again the result of God's work. the
father and the son. And so this is the main teaching
of this parable here. And so we wanna look at this
though from the perspective of those who would naturally be
intimidated. The Lord speaks here, he says,
if you don't bear fruit, you're gonna be taken away. If you do
bear fruit, you're gonna be purged to bring forth more fruit. And
growing up, even in my adult life, even after becoming a believer,
when I would read these things, it would bother me because I
would see here a condition. And we understand that the gospel
is the declaration that all that God requires of us, He Himself
has provided. And not just outside here by
creating a tree or a mountain or an ocean, but by providing
it in the blood of His own Son. Whatever He required, He provided
for Himself. And He did it at the highest
cost, the blood of His own Son. And this is God's work. This is the Gospel. And so when
he talks here about branches being taken away because they
don't bear fruit and other branches which do bear fruit are purged
by the vine dresser or the husbandman, then we naturally lean towards
this intimidation with this feeling of that we now need to be busy
producing the fruit. otherwise we're going to be taken
away. We might even think, as it has been explained, that believers
can be in Christ and be unfruitful and God will just take them away.
When I was younger, it was explained that if you're not serving the
Lord, the Lord is going to kill you. He's going to do something
terrible to you. He's going to take your truck.
He's going to take your car. He might even take your wife
and your life. And so, you know, you run around
in fear. Or, on the other hand, if you
do what's right, then you're going to be rewarded. You're
going to have a happy life, a happy wife, and everything. And so
it becomes a fear and a rewards-based system. The gospel is not that. The gospel doesn't put upon us
conditions which if we meet then result in blessings. The gospel
declares to us that all the conditions and the requirements that God
has placed on us, we have failed, utterly failed. And it was all
our fault and we did it willfully. And when the truth was declared
to us, we didn't care about it. We didn't want it because we
weren't looking that way. And God had to shine the light
into our darkness and to lift us up. He had to raise us from
death to life to show us the truth of the gospel. And then,
by God's grace, so seeing Christ as our all, then we fell in love
with this great and glorious news, because God is the one
who is great and glorious, who did all of this out of his own
heart, out of his own cost, and he did it in his Son. Now, that's
the truth of the gospel. How does that fit here? Well,
it turns out here, every branch in me that beareth not fruit,
he taketh away. Let's start right there. We understand
that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true vine, and the Father
is the husbandman, his Father, our God and Father. And so, every
branch in me that beareth not fruit, he takes away. We naturally
think, as I have, and explained it last week, that this refers
to those who, like Judas, did not have faith. When we're given
grace, when we're given life, When we're given this life that
brings forth faith in Christ, this life is eternal life. It's eternal, and by eternal,
I mean a never-ending life. Once given, it never ends. So Jesus said this in John 5,
24, verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word
and believeth on him that sent me has everlasting life and shall
not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. So the one hearing and believing
already has everlasting life. He shall not come into condemnation. He has already passed from death
to life. That's true of every believer,
according to John 5, 24. And we could go to many verses
to prove that, but let's use that one to be sufficient for
that, to prove that. Life is given by God's will. We do not demand it. We don't
motivate God to give it. We don't do something by fulfilling
a condition. We are dead in our trespasses
and sins. And so life has to come from
God. And it has to come from him of his own will. And all of the power to produce
life has to come from God. In fact, he gives the word And
by his spirit applies that word, and therefore he gives us life.
Jesus said, the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak
unto you, they are spirit, they are life. So it's obviously coming
from Christ. His word, his spirit giving us
life by his will, by his power. And so when we read here, every
branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. By nature,
what are we? By nature, well, by nature, we're
sinners. By nature, all have sinned. We've
all come short of the glory of God. The one thing we must do
is glorify God, and we failed. The first and most important
commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart,
all your soul, all your mind and strength, and we failed.
And we fail to do every other commandment too, not just outwardly,
because the first commandment is a heart matter. And the second
is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. We failed at that
too. And so all these things that
follow in our failure, our miserable failure, we fail to glorify God.
We have failed to give honor to him who is only good and to
his law, which is also holy and good. And so when God's law comes
to us, it just exposes our sin. And our sinful nature is made
to appear exceeding sinful because by that holy law, we actually,
our sin is discovered to be worse than we ever realized. So by
nature, what are we? We're dead in sins. We do not
produce fruit. And what's the result of that?
We're taken away. We have to be taken away. And
then he says, in the next part of verse 2, and every branch
that beareth fruit. Now here's a branch, unlike the
first, that actually produces fruit. And it says he purges
it. And the word purge means to prune,
to cut, that it may bring forth more
fruit. We have the branches, like we
are by nature, who do not produce fruit. And then we have another
branch. And this branch produces fruit.
How? Well, because it's overseen,
it's brought up, it's planted, it's put there by the Father.
How can that be? Well, how does this branch produce
fruit? Well, we have to see this from
the scripture now. I want you to turn to Isaiah
and chapter 53, Isaiah chapter 53. And this is such an important
chapter of scripture that we have to keep it ever in the focus
of our thoughts and our faith. Never lose sight of Christ and
him crucified, Isaiah 53. Verse 1, who hath believed our
report? The report of the prophet, which
in the New Testament, in Romans chapter 10 and verse 16, he says,
he quotes this, who has believed our report? And then he goes
on to call the report the gospel. The gospel. Who hath believed
our report? And to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed? The power of God. For he shall
grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a
dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness. You know, vines are not a pretty
thing. When they grow up, they're not pretty. The fruit is what
looks nice. He says he hath no form nor comeliness. And when we shall see him, there
is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected
of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. I wonder
why. We hid, as it were, our faces
from Him. He was despised and we esteemed
Him not. He should have been esteemed.
We should have esteemed Him very highly, but we despised and rejected
Him. Surely, this is why He has borne
our griefs, and it means our sicknesses, and He has carried
our sorrows, Yet we did esteem him stricken and smitten of God
and afflicted. It was because we, looking upon
him and his affliction, we said, it must be his fault. It must be because he deserves
it. Verse 5, but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was
bruised for our iniquities. And the beating for our peace,
the chastisement for our peace was upon him. And with his stripes
we are healed. These are the words of the gospel,
aren't they? All we, like sheep, have gone
astray. Not one of us failed to go astray. We all went astray. We have turned
everyone to his own way. Each one of us has a unique bent
toward evil. And the Lord hath laid upon him
the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth. He didn't complain. He submitted. It was his obedience. He is brought
as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers
is dumb, not saying anything. So he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and
from judgment. Who shall declare his generation,
for he was cut off out of the land of the living? For the transgression
of my people was he stricken. You see here? You see that we
were like branches not producing fruit, unable to produce fruit
to God, the Lord Jesus Christ. bore our sins, and He was cut
off for them. We should have been taken away.
How was it that God grafted us then into the Lord Jesus Christ?
Before time began, He chose us in Him, that we should be holy
and without blame, before Him in love. Because of our union
with Christ, established by God the Father, before time began,
an everlasting union, made by God. Therefore, our transgressions
were laid upon Him, and He was cut off, and therefore we were
grafted in. You see? It says in verse 9, and he made
his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, because
he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth,
yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He has made, he has put
him to grief when thou shalt make his soul an offering for
sin. You see what God did for God? He did this for his glory. It
was for the Lord's sake that he was bruised. It pleased the
Lord. It seemed good to him from whom are all things, of whom
are all things, and from whom are all things, and by whom are
all things, to bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain
of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Hebrews 2 verse 10. And here he says it. It pleased
the Lord to bruise him. He put him to grief. When thou
may, thou shall make his soul an offering for sin. And then
this is the result. He shall see his seed. He shall
prolong his days and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
his hand. You know what that means? There's
fruit. There's a result. The God's purpose prospered in
his hand. Look at John chapter 12. John
chapter 12. And verse 23, he says, and Jesus
answered them. This is at the time when, if
you read up just a couple verses in verse 20, there were certain
Greeks, Gentiles, that had come to worship at the feast there. And they came to Philip and they
said, we want to see Jesus. And Philip told Andrew, and Andrew
and Philip came to Jesus, and this is what Jesus said. Now
these were Gentiles coming to see Jesus, and this is what Jesus
said. Jesus answered them saying, the
hour is come. This is the hour. This is the
hour. This is why he came into the
world. The hour is come that the Son
of Man should be glorified. How? Look at verse 24. Verily, verily I say to you,
except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth
alone. But if it die, it brings forth much fruit. You and I who believe on Christ
owe our life to his death. Because the Lord Jesus Christ
bore our sins and was cut off out of the land of the living,
we live because we're in him. He goes on in John 12. He that
loveth his life shall lose it, but he that hateth his life in
this world shall keep it until life eternal. If any man serve
me, let him follow me. Where I am, there shall also
my servant be. If any man serve me, him will
my father honor. Now is my soul troubled, and
what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour,
but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, Notice his
prayer. Glorify thy name. Make your glory openly manifested. Then came their voice from heaven.
Here's the vine dresser. I have both glorified it and
I will glorify it again in the death of his son and in the fruit
that would produce. The people, therefore, that stood
by and heard it said that it thundered. Others said an angel
spoke to him. Jesus answered and said, this
voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. Now, now
is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this
world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from
the earth, will draw him into me. He's talking about the cross,
because in verse 33, this he said signifying what death he
should die. All right, so there you have
it. This is the one. This is the one, the vine, the
true vine, who for our sakes was cut off in order that he
might produce fruit, not only a little, but much fruit to God. In verse 8 of John 15, herein
is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, so shall
you be my disciples. So the fruit borne by the true
vine was the result of him being cut off because he bore our sins. There is no fruit, there is no
life unless the Lord Jesus Christ becomes the resurrection and
the life. He had power to give life to
whom he will, and he had life in himself, but he had to lay
down his life for the sheep according to his father's commandment,
and then take up his life again in order to give that life to
his people. And this is why he speaks here
of our union with him in John 15. So now when we read it now,
in verse 2, every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh
away. Every branch that beareth fruit,
he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Christ was
purged. He was cut off that we might
be clean, which is the same word here as purge, in order that
we might be purged from our sins, that our sins might be removed
and cleansed from us. And this, we become, in this,
we become the fruit of Christ's death. And because God put us
into Christ, he goes on to talk about our being cleaned through
the word which he has spoken to us. Alright, so I want you
to see that in these chapters, in the last part of the book
of John, the Lord Jesus Christ now walking with his disciples,
perhaps walking to Gethsemane with them as he speaks these
words, or perhaps while he's in the upper room, I'm not sure
where it was, But it seems as if he was on his way to Gethsemane
when he gives them this. And notice how often in these
chapters from 13 through 17, and even 18, he speaks of his
death which he must accomplish. Look at verse 13 of John 15.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his
life for his friends. See what he's doing here? He's
bringing them back to what he accomplished. He is the true
vine. He is the one who brings forth
fruit. And that fruit comes and is put upon His people because
it's flowing from His death. His life flows to His people.
His resurrection and His life flows to them. And that life
flows to us through His word. Look at a couple of scriptures
about that. In Titus chapter 3. Titus. Chapter three, how this comes
to us, this virtue, this vigor, this life, this strength, this
fruit-producing grace that comes to believers, and why it comes. In Titus chapter three, he says
in verse three, we ourselves also were sometimes foolish. That's me. Disobedient, that's
also me. Deceived, also me. serving divers'
loss and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and
hating one another. You couldn't really get uglier
than that, but that's exactly what I am. But after that, the
kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared. Notice
what produced this. It was the kindness and love
of God our Savior toward man. When that appeared, not by works
of righteousness which we have done, we didn't produce this,
we didn't bring it forth, but according to His mercy, He saved
us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. Here we have the purging, the
cleansing of the branches. How does it come? Through the
Word. And how is that word, this appearing
of the love of God our Savior toward man through the word,
it teaches us that it's not by our works, but it's by what Christ
has done, and this flows to us by the Holy Spirit, washing us
with the word, purging our conscience, giving us faith towards Christ.
Look at verse six. This purging, this regeneration,
this renewing, it's a constant thing. First regeneration, then
a constant renewal. Because in our lives, we need
to be renewed all of the time, continuously. Verse 6, which
He shed on us, this renewing, this regeneration. He shed this
on us abundantly. How? Through Jesus Christ, our
Savior. That being justified by His grace,
we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
This all flows to us because of the blood of Christ. The Spirit
of God is given to us because Christ bore our sins. He bore the curse of the law
and redeemed us from the curse in order that the promise God
made to Abraham of the Spirit would be given to us. And so
first comes the blood of Christ, and then the righteousness and
the justification because of that blood. And that righteousness
leads to life, which is given to us by the Spirit of God. And
then we realize it in our own experience, through the application,
through His Word, when we hear the gospel of Christ doing His
sacrifice, and we see, ah, yes, it's not anything I can do to
produce this fruit. It's what God did in Christ.
He did it in the blood of His own Son. He laid His life down
that I might be raised to life. Because He lives, I live in Him.
And the life I live is not my life, it's Him living in me.
And now I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and
gave Himself for me." You see the life, the sap of the vine
flowing through Christ to His branches. How did we get into
Him? How did we get into this vine,
this true vine? Look at 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians,
I already read to you, or quoted to you from Ephesians. We were
chosen in Him, God the Father chose us in Christ. So when God
the Father chooses us, When he has a will, then his will is
as good as done. It's accomplished already. It
can't be unfulfilled or God would cease to be God. So here in 1
Corinthians chapter 1, notice what it says here. He says in
verse 17, Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the
gospel. It's not baptism that saves a
man, nor is it being baptized that causes us to believe. We
must believe before we're baptized. But it's the preaching of the
gospel. It's the gospel that is the power of God to salvation.
And what is that? He says, the cross of Christ. He sent me to preach the gospel,
not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be
made of none effect. Here's the interesting thing
about the gospel of Christ. It absolutely obliterates everything
else. It obliterates man's wisdom.
It obliterates man's wealth. It obliterates man's strength.
It obliterates man's morality. Man's sorrow, everything that
can be attributed to a person is taken away in the cross. It's
all seen in the Lord Jesus Christ. In Galatians 2.21, the Apostle
Paul says, if righteousness could come by the law or came by the
law, then Christ died in vain for nothing. But we know that's
the most impossible thing that could ever happen, therefore
righteousness did come by the death of Christ. And that's what
he's saying here. The preaching of the cross is
to them that perish foolishness, but to us which are saved it
is the power of God. You see where the power of God
is? In the cross. In the preaching of it. It is,
for it is written, verse 19, I will destroy the wisdom of
the wise, and I will bring to nothing the understanding of
the prudent." Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is
the disputer of this world? You can read all about people
arguing. Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews
require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach
Christ crucified. To the Jews, a stumbling block.
To the Greeks, foolishness. But to them which are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom
of God. Do you see what the gospel does
to the believing sinner? It removes everything else and
exalts Christ alone. as everything, and if it doesn't
do that, then it is false doctrine. That's the way you know whether
it's true or not. Does it exalt Christ alone? He says here in
verse 25, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, the
weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling,
brethren, How that not many wise after the flesh, that would be
me. Not many mighty, that also would
be me. And not many noble, that would
be all of us. But God has chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise, and God has chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which
are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are
despised, hath God chosen? Yea, and things which are not
to bring to nothing are not things that are, that no flesh should
glory in his presence. That's the purpose of the cross.
That's the only thing God could do as a result of our sinful
condition and His righteous character and requirements. He had to do
it Himself. But verse 30 is where we're getting
to. How do we get into Christ? How do we get grafted into this
vine? How are we in the vine? Because the way we get into the
vine is going to be the way we stay in the vine. But of him
are you in Christ Jesus. How did Noah and his family get
in the ark? God put him in the ark. Of him
are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, or holiness, and redemption,
that according as it is written, Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24, he that
glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. You see, that's the gospel. It obliterates everything that
we are in ourselves, but it raises Christ alone for our view to
the highest possible level. God did this. He put us into
Christ. Look at Romans chapter 11. In
Romans chapter 11, we see something about this grafting, only there
it's into an olive tree. but the same principle holds
true. Romans chapter 11, and look at verse... Romans chapter 11, and I want
to give you the context here. Romans 11 is about the people
within the nation of Israel who, in their unbelief, refused to
believe Christ. And they were left in their unbelief. And even though they outwardly
were part of the nation of Israel, they could say that we are descendants
physically to Abraham, yet they were not true children of Abraham. And they were in unbelief, and
they died in unbelief, and God cut them off. That's what he's
saying here. And so at the cross, what happened
is the Jews, their rejection of Christ rose to a pinnacle.
And then even after the cross, after his resurrection, they
opposed the preaching of the gospel. And they remained, it
says in Romans chapter 10, they refused to submit to God's righteousness. And the Apostle Paul, he was
sorry. He said, I could wish myself
a curse from Christ for my brethren unto the flesh. But here he's
talking about that situation. And he goes on in verse 15 of Romans 11. If the
casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, see the Jews as
a nation, as a people outwardly, identified with and given the
name as God's people, God said, no more. If the casting away
of them be the reconciling of the world, what happened at the
cross? The Gentiles were brought in. The much fruit, because of
Christ's death, they were brought in. Then what shall the receiving
of them be but life from the dead? This is the end of time
when the Lord raises up his people. Life from the dead. For if the
first fruit be holy, Christ is the first fruit. The lump is
also holy. And if the root be holy, so are
the branches. Christ is the root, we're the
branches. If some of the branches be broken off, and thou being
a wild olive tree were grafting among them, and with them partakest
of the root and fatness of the olive tree, boast not against
the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest
not the root, but the root thee. Know this, that your branch,
the root, in the case of the vine, the vine is supporting
you. You are not supporting the vine. Thou wilt say then, the
branches were broken off that I might be grafted in. Talking
about the Gentiles who look at the Jews who were unbelieving
and say, yeah, they were cut off so that I might be brought
in by God, grafted in. Well, because of unbelief, they
were broken off. And thou standest by faith. Be
not high-minded, but fear. All right, so this is a very
intimidating thing again. But he's talking about the fact
that those who did not believe Christ were cut off out of the
nation of Israel. The point I wanted to bring up
here is that they were broken off because of unbelief. We were
like that. Notice verse 32. God has concluded
them all in unbelief that he might have mercy upon all. About
all the true Israel is what he's speaking of here. And so we see
here that in this same manner, God is showing that he puts us
in Christ. The result of God putting us
in Christ is that being in Christ, the life of Christ flows to us. And because God did that work,
then he continues to do that work, and that life continues
to flow to us. And we, therefore, not only first
believe, but we continue to believe so that faith in Christ is the
evidence of this life. Look at 1 Peter 1. In 1 Peter 1, he's talking about
a similar kind of thing, about us being in Christ and how we
stay in Him, how we abide in Him, as the Lord says in John
15, 1 Peter 1. He says in 1 Peter 1, Peter is writing to these different
people, these believers scattered through all these places. In
verse 1, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers
scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and
Bithynia, elect according to the full knowledge of God the
Father. There's God the Father's work, elect. according to His
foreknowledge, not ours, His. He knew us, He loved us in Christ.
Through sanctification of the Spirit, that's the regenerating
work of God the Holy Spirit, because of the righteousness
of Christ. Unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus
Christ, the work of the Spirit in the heart of his people produces
faith in Christ. It's applied to our conscience,
as Hebrews 9.14 says. Grace to you and peace be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, notice what he did, which according
to his abundant mercy has begotten us again, he birthed us. to a
lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
It was because of Christ putting away our sins that God the Father
gave us life from the dead. and birthed us, verse 4, to an
inheritance incorruptible, because we're children of God, the inheritance
we're given is an incorruptible, eternal one, undefiled, it's
holy, and it fades not away, reserved in heaven for you. Notice,
you who were born of God, chosen of God, born of God, the sprinkling
of Christ's blood to your conscience was applied by the Spirit of
God. He says, who are kept, who are kept by the power of God. You see that? How did we get
in Christ? God did it. How are we abiding
in Him? By the power of God. We're kept
by Him. through faith unto salvation,
ready to be revealed in the last time. That being kept by God's
power is that constant supply of Christ's life in us, producing
faith in Christ and him crucified. And this is the ongoing work
of God in the hearts of his people. It's the evidence of their being
in Christ by his work. And the result is that their
salvation will be revealed in the last time. What's the result
of all this? That abiding in Christ is God's
work. And what we see then is that
when God describes, when the Lord describes this to us back
in John 15, he says in verse 3, now you are clean through
the word which I've spoken to you so that the word has come
to you who believe. And that word having been spoken
to you has purged, has made you clean from your sins, has made
you fit to produce fruit, to bear fruit, Christ produces it.
And he says this in verse 4, abide in me and I in you. Now, how can we make Christ abide
in us? And how can we make ourselves
abide in him? We have to look to Him, don't
we? We have to see this is God's work. And this is the nature
of the gospel and faith. He always comes to us by telling
us what we must be and what we must do, but it's always as a
result of His own grace and power and life. And that flows to us
because of Christ and Him crucified. And so we see that the sufficiency,
all of the ability to accomplish what the Lord tells us here,
flows to us from Christ by the will of God the Father. And the
result of this is that each of us, upon hearing this then, see
these words not as a conditional warning, but as a promise fulfilled
consistent with the work of God by His eternal will to save His
people from their sins in Christ. We can't make Christ dwell in
our hearts. God has to give this to us. We
can't stay in Him. God had to put us. We can't stay
where we weren't put. We can't put ourselves there.
We certainly can't keep ourselves there. but we have to look to
the one in whom we are and through whom all of our life is, he is
our life. And that's why the apostle Paul
says, the life that I live in the flesh, I live by the faith
of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And
so one more verse and then I'll stop today. In Colossians chapter
two, I gotta bring this in because this is an unassailable comfort
to the fretful and weary and helpless believer who says, how
can I abide in Christ? Notice in Colossians chapter
2. He says in verse one, for I would
that you knew what great conflict I have for you and for them at
Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the
flesh, that their hearts might be comforted. Notice, being knit
together in love, knit together. That means sewn together, bound
together by this glue, this thread, this cords of love. That's what
holds us to Christ. His love for us holds us fast
to Him. Nothing can separate us from
the love of Christ. the love of God which is in Christ.
So he says, be knit together in love and into all riches of
the full assurance of understanding, because that's what, when we
understand what God has done, where our salvation is, it gives
us assurance to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of
the Father and of Christ, the Trinity. And verse three, in
whom, in Christ, are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing
words, thinking that there's wisdom and treasures somewhere
else than Christ. For though I be absent in the
flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding
your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. That
steadfastness, by the way, is a result of Christ's sap, his
life flowing to the branches. As you have received Christ Jesus
the Lord, so walk ye in him. That's the abiding. Rooted and
built up in him. You see that reference to being
rooted in him. Established in the faith as you
have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest
any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit. I'm glad he
said that, because I don't like philosophy in school. I did not
do well in it. after the tradition of men, after
the rudiments of the world. These are the things that men
do in order to prove themselves to be religious and to give themselves
confidence before God. No, and not after Christ. For in Him, in Christ, the true
vine dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. There
is absolutely nothing left. He's complete. He's the fullness
of God. and you are complete in him,
which is the head of all principality and power." And he goes on to
say, everything that he's done for us as the true vine, we're
circumcised by in his circumcision when he died on the cross, buried
with him in baptism, raised with him through the operation of
God, amazing grace, amazing grace. Grace is not expected. Grace is not predictable. Grace
is not something we can produce. It's not a principle that we
can make happen. Grace is God flowing life from
Christ out of His death to us in spite of our sins. causing
us to look to Christ and trust Him and then causing us to joy.
His joy is in us and our joy is full because of these things. And in this chapter, He teaches
us to ask Him to do for us what He alone must do to cause us
to bear this fruit. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one in whom we have
been put by your grace, by your eternal electing grace, given
life in Him because of His redeeming blood, and His life, His risen
life, now is our life by your Spirit living in us, giving us
His grace of faith to trust Him, see our all in Him, to find the
very fullness of the Godhead in Him by faith, and to realize
that being in Him We are perfectly complete. Nothing can be added
because Christ is our all and he is everything. What amazing
grace. This is what we understand by
abiding in him. To see that you did the work,
you do the work, it's all in him and he is our life. Help
us to continue in this. The word you've given to us by
the gospel has purged us. in this gift of faith to take
it to ourselves, to lay hold on it, and to call Christ our
own. We as sinners have nothing, but
we see that he's everything. Therefore, we have no reason,
but for full assurance of faith. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
All right. Brother Phil, would you come
now and lead us in our last hymn? you'll stand with