At 3 a.m. I didn't think I was
going to make it, so I'm glad that I could. And I echo what
Brad said. This chapter does give us pause,
doesn't it? When you read in verse 2, where
Jesus said, 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. It's
an intimidating thing, isn't it, to think that the Lord would
take us someone away and for not bearing fruit. And so we
immediately can become concerned about the entire chapter and
we can really miss, we can really miss by doing that the extreme
comfort that these words were intended to give. And I think
that that is perhaps the difficult part of this chapter is that
we know we're sinners. We know that God is holy and
his word is true. And so when we read about being
taken away, the natural response of the faintful and troubled
heart is to think that would be me, that would be me. And
so we ask, like Brad said, Lord help, Lord help. And there's
a scripture that I'm fond of in Psalm 94. If I get the scripture
text reference right, Psalm chapter 94, let me find it and I'll tell
you what verse it is. In Psalm chapter 94 and verse
17, I could read the whole Psalm. We haven't gotten to this point
in our Bible study, but notice how it says here in Psalm 94. He says in verse 14, for the
Lord will not cast off his people. That's a promise. That's a truth.
That's a fact. God will not cast off his people. Neither will he forsake his inheritance. He's taking his people to himself. He has put his name upon them. He has staked himself to their
eternal salvation and to give them an inheritance. And he has
told them that he himself is their shield and their reward. He's not going to fail. If the
Lord, as we saw last week, if the Lord failed to fulfill His
promises, then He would not be God. And He would lose a lot
more than we would lose if He lost His name, if He lost His
character. But here he says in verse 15,
but judgment shall return unto righteousness, and all the upright
in heart shall follow it. Who will rise up for me against
the evildoers? Or who will stand up for me against
the workers of iniquity? Verse 17, unless the Lord had
been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence. In the multitude
of my thoughts within, I'm sorry, verse 18, when I said, my foot
slippeth, thy mercy, O Lord, held me up. There you go. That's
my verse. My foot slips, Lord. His mercy
held me up. That's the promise. Isn't that
a wonderful promise? So when we look at John 15, those
kinds of things come to my mind. Don't let me be unfruitful. So there's many questions. Many
questions that come to our mind when we read these verses in
John 15. First of all, let's observe that
in the context, this was about the time of the Lord's Supper.
It was about the time when the 12 apostles were with the Lord
and Judas went out to betray him. In John 13, Jesus told his
disciples that they were all clean, except Judas. He had chosen them, but not Judas. And so that context is still
here. When the Lord said, every branch
in me that beareth not fruit, obviously Judas was a branch
like that. And what was the result? The
father took him away. How does God take away a branch?
He leaves the branch to himself. When the Lord needed to harden
Pharaoh's heart, all he had to do was withdraw his hand, his
restraint. And Pharaoh thought everything
according to his sinful, proud, and greedy heart. his idolatrous
heart, and he rose up in the hatred of his own mind to oppose
God in all of his word. And that's all God has to do,
is to leave us to ourselves. And so, when we say, my foot
slippeth, we say, Lord, do not leave me to myself. Don't let
me be as a branch severed from Christ. Because a severed branch
cannot live, no more can anyone who is not in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Who Christ also is in, as he
says here in these verses. In verse 5, I am the vine, you
are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in
him, the same brings forth fruit. Notice that union here. There's
an intimacy of our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ that's
expressed by this similitude, this emblem of the vine and the
branches. And so that's why I find it very
comforting in the very first verse. Look at this. He says,
I am the true vine, and my father is the husbandman. Notice who
is being spoken of in verse one, the Lord Jesus Christ. and God
the Father. This is so significant. The first
thing that the Lord tells his disciples in order to comfort
them, in order to teach them, in order to direct them to the
truth, is to himself and to his Father. If we lose sight of that,
then we've missed the message of this chapter, haven't we?
It's God the Father. The vine is His. The farm, the
land is His. The branches in the vine are
His. And the fruit is His. The work is His. The purpose
for the vine, for planting it, is His purpose. And the glory
that He gets from the fruit is His glory. In verse 8, He says,
herein is my Father glorified. that you bear much fruit. So
we see that if there's not much fruit produced by the vine and
the branches, God won't get the glory. Can that happen? No. God will be glorified. He will be glorified. And we
can be certain of that. And so we see that God's purpose
is here. The father, he's the husbandman,
the vine dresser, the owner of the field, and the one who tends
to the vine, the one who planted the vine, the one who brings
forth the best fruit from the vine, an abundance of fruit.
It's the father's work. And how does he do that? He does
it by the vine, the Lord Jesus Christ. In the vine, all of the
life, all of the nourishment to the branches and the fruit
come from Christ. And that's what this first verse
introduces us to. He calls himself the true vine. In the Old Testament, God referred
to the nation of Israel as a vine. He says in Psalm 80, thou hast
taken a vine out of Egypt, for example. And he's speaking about
the fact that In that Old Testament typical history that the nation
of Israel typified, they prefigured, they foreshadowed the fact that
the church of God would be joined to Christ, individual believers
would be in Christ, and he himself would be the true vine. and the
fruit that would bring glory to God would be produced by that
union which God would make. Look at 1 Corinthians 1, if you
would, please, just for a moment, to underscore this work of God
the Father and how that Christ himself is our all in this matter
of bearing fruit. He says in verse In verse 30,
but of him, of God, of God the Father, of him are you in Christ
Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written,
in Jeremiah, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. You
see, our boasting is not in ourselves. It's in the vine dresser, and
it's in the vine. It's in the Lord who is our wisdom. It's in Christ who is our righteousness,
our sanctification, and our redemption. Never think of having virtue
in yourself. Remember that all of the virtue,
all of the life, is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, in John 15,
Jesus opens with this admonition in verse 2. Every branch in me,
it's not an admonition, it's just a declaration of fact. Every
branch in me that bears fruit, bears not fruit, he takes away. The vine dresser, the Father,
takes them away. Why does the Lord start that
way? Why does the Lord start with this kind of austere, concern
that he has, I mean, that we have, isn't it to create in us
the anxiety that drives us to the Lord Jesus Christ? That we
would find ourselves, in these words, fleeing all confidence
in self and finding all in Christ? Isn't that what it's intended
to do? Isn't it to strip us of everything that we would think
as something that would require our performance or bring recognition
from God or from others to ourselves? It's the complete cutting down
of self is what this is saying here. Every branch in me that
bears not fruit, he takes away. No one can produce fruit. We can't produce fruit. God produces
the fruit. Fruit is a result of God's work. And so we see that since it is
God's work and we can't produce it, then unless the Lord does
this, it won't get done. I wanna also turn with you to
a couple of scriptures and look at them together. Verse Philippians
chapter 1. Philippians chapter 1. I want
you to see here that the work is God's work. The work of our
fruit bearing is God's work. Verse 6 of Philippians 1. He
says, being confident of this very thing that he which hath
begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus
Christ. Notice. He has begun a good work
in you. Who started the work? The Lord
Jesus Christ. God the Father. Through Him,
the Spirit of God, He began this work. And since He began the
work, He's going to finish it. That's what this verse is saying.
He's going to perform it. He's going to bring it to fruition,
to consummation, to perfection. Look at verse 11. being filled
with all the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto
the glory and praise of God. You see? Fruit is to the glory
and praise of God. If we produced it, then we would
get the glory. But since we cannot produce it,
it's by Jesus Christ, therefore it's to the glory and praise
of God. You see? And these are fruits of righteousness.
Look at chapter 2 of Philippians. Philippians 2 verse 12, he says,
Wherefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in
my presence only, which is a test of genuineness, not in my presence
only, but now, much more in my absence, work out your own salvation
with fear and trembling. That's what verse 2 of John 15
does, doesn't it? For it is God which worketh in
you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. You see that?
It's God who does the work. Look at Ephesians chapter 2.
Ephesians chapter 2. This is God's work. And so we need to understand
that these texts of scripture are pointing us back to the Lord
Jesus Christ and to God the Father. who performs all of the work
by his son. He says in Ephesians chapter
2 in verse 1, for example, he says, you hath he quickened,
made alive, given life to you from the dead. You who were dead
in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked, This
was your manner of life. You walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
which is Satan, the spirit that now works in the children of
disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation,
our lifestyle, in times past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others. God, who is rich in mercy
for his great love, for with he loved us even when we were
dead in sins, hath made us alive, quickened us together with Christ,
for by grace you are saved. Now that, that's really a statement
that is undeniable. It's all of God's grace. Life
from the dead when we were in sins, God loved us and that's
why he gave us life. It's for His great love wherewith
He loved us, His rich mercy. God is rich in mercy. And notice,
keep going, he says in verse six, and he has raised us up
together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. There's the in again, in Christ.
That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of
his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For
by grace are you saved. through faith, and that, that
faith, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. It's the
gift of God. It's clear that faith is the
gift spoken of here, because he says in verse four, that it
was by his rich mercy and great love when we were dead and sinned,
he gave us life, by grace you're saved, and here he shows that
it was through this gift of faith in verse eight. How do we know
we're saved? We believe Christ. We've been
given faith. It's not of ourselves. God did
it. It's his gift. It's out of his grace. Now look
at verse 9. He reiterates it in the negative. Not of works,
lest any man should boast. Notice verse 10. This is where
I was going. For we are his workmanship. The father is the vine dresser.
He's the farmer. He's the owner and the land keeper. He's the vine dresser and he
takes care of the branches. And that's what he's saying here.
We are his workmanship. How did we get into Christ? Created
in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. And you know if God ordained
it, it's going to happen. How? by abiding in the vine,
by trusting Christ. And now look at just a couple
more scriptures, because I think you need to have these, because
this text of scripture in John 15 is meant for our comfort and
our strengthening. Look at 1 Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians
in chapter 5. He says in verse 16, rejoice
evermore. The Lord has told us to rejoice.
It means there's a solid ground for rejoicing. It means that
we should be able to genuinely rejoice because of this faith
that he has given to us. He has taught us the basis of
our rejoicing, and then he has told us, you have the liberty
now to rejoice. Rejoice. Christ has put away
your sins. Christ has clothed you in his
own righteousness. Christ is seated at the right
hand of God, making intercession for you. God has justified you. The Spirit of God has taught
you and showed you and given you life, the things of Christ.
He's enabled you and persuaded you to trust him. And now you
find you're all in Christ according to the revelation of God's holy
word. Rejoice and, verse 17, pray without
ceasing. Endless prayer, continuously.
Don't stop this. Abide in this. Pray without ceasing. In everything, give thanks for
this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Whatever
it is, give thanks to God for it because it's working together
according to God's promise and according to His almighty power
and His sovereign will for your good and His glory. So in everything,
give thanks. This is the will of God in Christ
Jesus concerning you. Quench not the spirit. A spirit
of God points us to Christ. Don't leave him. The spirit of
God teaches us to love. The end of the commandment is
love out of a pure heart, and he teaches us that. Don't quench
the spirit. Despise not prophesying or preaching. Prove all things. Hold fast that
which is good. Abstain from all appearance of
evil. And the very God of peace, notice
what he's going to do. The very God of peace sanctify
you wholly, entirely. I pray God your whole spirit
and soul and body be preserved unto the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. That's God's work to do to answer
that prayer. And notice in verse 24. Faithful
is he that calleth you, who also will do it. Brethren, pray for
us. Pray for us. Look at Hebrews
chapter 13. This is God's Word. This is what
God has said. These are His promises. And I
am fully persuaded, as Abraham, that what God promised, He is
able also to perform. Hebrews 13. Hebrews 13, he says, now, in verse 20, Hebrews 13,
20, Now the God of peace, God provided for Himself in the blood
of His Son to make peace with us who had sinned against Him
so egregiously that we earned from Him eternal damnation. and
fell so hard and so far that we could produce nothing good
and we could keep no part of his holy law. And he made peace
in the blood of his son between us and himself. He reconciled
us to himself. All things are of God. So he
says this, verse 20, Now the God of peace that brought again
from the dead our Lord Jesus This was obviously his will that
he be put to death. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him, but it also pleased him to raise him up from the dead
and justify him with his people. He that brought again from the
dead the Lord Jesus, our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of
the sheep through the blood, of the everlasting covenant.
Jesus said when he gave the cup to his disciples at the last
supper, this blood is the new testament in my blood. Or this
cup is the new testament in my blood. The blood of the everlasting
covenant, it made the covenant, it fulfilled the conditions of
it. Everything God requires of his
people has been fulfilled in the blood of his son. And therefore,
according to that same covenant made in the blood of Christ,
this God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord
Jesus and fulfilled His everlasting covenant in the blood of His
Son, that God make you perfect in every good work to do His
will. Do you think He'll do it? Do
you think he's able? Do you think he's faithful? Do
you think in his wisdom he foresaw what was necessary to remove
our sins from us? To cleanse us from our sins?
It cost the blood of his son. To fulfill his own law and magnify
it, it cost the obedience of his son unto death. And to bring
us to glory, it cost him faithfulness and almighty power. And to do
it according to his holiness, It cost him the blood of his
son. He's going to do it. His glory is staked upon it.
All right. Now, the Lord Jesus, back in
John chapter 15, he says this to his disciples. After Judas
was left, he had left them. He says, every branch in me,
verse two, that beareth not fruit he takes away, and every branch
that beareth fruit he purges it, that it may bring forth more
fruit. To purge means to prune. That's
what it means in branches. But what does it mean? Well,
he goes on. Now you are clean through the
word which I have spoken to you. Why does he say you're clean
in the context of branches and pruning? Well, the word here,
purgeth, is the same as the word clean. So when you take a branch
of a vine, and I'm not a vine dresser, I don't know about these
things, but I'm told that you need to remove the parts that
don't produce fruit by purging or cleaning the branch through
cutting. And that's exactly what Jesus
is saying in verse 3. to explain the meaning of the
symbolism of the vine and the branches and the purging, the
pruning, he says, now you are clean through the word which
I've spoken to you. You see, how is it that they
became purged in the beginning? Through the word of Christ. The
Word cleansed them, and that's the work of the Father, to purge
his people, the true branches, in order that they might bring
forth fruit. Okay, so what we have here is the picture of the
vine and the branches, and he explains the picture in verse
three by saying the cleaning or the symbolic purging is done
through the Word, the Word of God. Let the word of God dwell
in you richly, he says. In Ephesians chapter 4, I think. Let it dwell in you richly. And
so that's what the word of God does. It points us to Christ
in the context of our sin and helplessness. And in directing
us to him, what does it do? It purges us. It brings affliction
by revealing to us our sinfulness and our helplessness. And our
own, you know, like David said, I've sinned against God. I've
sinned against you. And then he asked the Lord to
take away his sin. And that's what, that's what
we need. And so the word of God does that.
And he says in verse four, abide in me and I in you. Now, to abide, what does that
mean? We don't say, I mean, if you
run around saying, brother, we need to abide here or something
like that, they'll know that you're a believer. Because they
don't use that kind of language at work, do they? Just abide
right there while I go over here and fetch something, and I'll
come back and see you, and I'll tell you what to do from there.
No, just abide right there. What? What is this word abide?
It's not complicated. It means to stay, remain. Continue. Don't leave. Don't
depart. Don't go beyond. It means to
stay right here. Now, how can you stay where you're
not? If you're not in Christ, you can't stay in Christ, can
you? You cannot remain there. You can't continue in Christ. You can't avoid departing from
Christ. You can't go beyond Him unless
you're in Him. So we first have to be in Christ,
and then we have to continue. And this shows us the very plain
and simple truth that is so comforting and so wonderful and delivered
to us by the gospel is that we are given life by the gospel
to trust Christ, to believe on him. This is the work of the
Spirit of God. The Spirit of God, through the
preaching of the gospel, applies the truth of it to us when we
first believed. Jesus said, the flesh profits
nothing. Nothing. Your flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you,
they are spirit, they are life, you see. It's the Spirit of God
who comes in the preaching of Christ and gives us spiritual
life, eternal life. The two are synonymous. And that
has to happen before we can remain. But once we first believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, then we are to continue believing on
Him. And so this matter of continuing
is present in the word abide. to abide, to continue, to remain. Look at a few verses along these
lines, abiding and continuing in this. Look at the second epistle
of John, which is 1st John, 2nd John, 3rd John, near the end
before the book of Revelation. 1st John, 2nd John, look at 2nd
John. There's only one chapter, verse
7. 2nd John, The one chapter, verse seven,
he says, for many deceivers are entered into the world, deceivers,
who confess not that Jesus has come in the flesh. Now, there's
much to be said about that. If Christ came in the flesh,
then he was before he came. And if he came, if he was before
he came and came in the flesh, then he was God incarnate. when
he came, but they deny that. They don't confess that. And
he says, this is a deceiver and an antichrist. And by the way,
if he came in the flesh and rose again, then he accomplished what
he came to do. He was successful. And so in
verse eight, look to yourselves that we lose not those things
which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. Don't
lose it. Verse 9, for whosoever transgresseth,
and you can think of a border or a boundary around the property.
To transgress means to go outside of the boundaries. You've crossed
the line. Whoever goes beyond and abideth
not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. Now that's exactly
what he's saying in John 15. Every branch in me that beareth
not fruit, he takes away. They don't abide in the doctrine
of Christ. They're not abiding in Christ
because they never were in Christ, so they depart from his doctrine. He that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ, he has both the Father and the Son, you see. So there's
one, look back at 1 John. 1 John chapter 2. He says in 1 John chapter 2 and
verse 24, let that therefore abide in you which you have heard
from the beginning. If that which you have heard
from the beginning shall remain in you, you also shall continue
in the Son and in the Father." Do you see? So abiding in Christ
is to abide in the faith of the Gospel. Isn't it? That's what
it means, to abide. It means... And what is it to
be in the faith of the Gospel? When we first believed on the
Lord Jesus Christ, what was our frame of mind? Well, first of
all, before the gospel came to us by the will of God in power,
we were in darkness. We were serving ourselves. And
we served our own pride, our own lust, we were idolaters.
Because we put ourselves on the throne of all of our decisions.
And that ourselves on the throne and all of the things that we
would use to decide whether it's true or good or bad or otherwise.
We were the center. We had both thumbs pointing towards
us. That's what it means to be full
of self. That's idolatry. That's pride.
That's what we were. But then the gospel came and
God convinced us of our sin. He told us that we were guilty. He told us that we had fallen
short of glorifying God and that we were absolutely unable to
keep His law, unable to fulfill the requirements that God had
placed upon us. We were under the sentence of
condemnation. We faced eternal death. And by God's grace in
the gospel, He might have left us for a long time in that way.
He might have left us to struggle and to try to find our way, to
try to produce the obedience that God required. And we found
over and over again, we failed, we failed, we failed. And this
was a pattern. And we wondered, is there any
hope? And when we were in utter despair, then the gospel came
to us and said, you see, you were never meant to fulfill the
law in your own person. This can only be done by the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God in the nature of man. The
end of the law for righteousness is Christ, and therefore it could
only be Christ. If there had been a law which
could have given life verily, righteousness should have been
by the law. But there was no law that could do that. Therefore,
righteousness comes by the death of Christ. Justification comes
by his blood, his obedience unto death. not by our strivings. We have failed, and we'll continue
to fail. And we must know this, and we
must become obedient in submission to the obedience of faith, trusting
Christ as all of our righteousness. And that's a humbling place,
and yet it's a good place. Because to leave everything that
has to do with our flesh is not a loss to us, is it? Anymore. No, to leave all that belongs
to our flesh is good riddance. It's getting rid of what is nauseating
and repugnant and revolting. It's called dung righteousness. And the Apostle Paul says, I
count everything but loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord by whom I have suffered the loss of all
things and do count them but dung that I might win Christ
and be found in him not having my own righteousness. You see,
that's the issue and this is the way God first taught us. When we had nothing, he taught
us Christ is everything. When we were unfaithful, he said
Christ is faithful. When we were full of darkness
and deceit, He said, Christ is the truth. When we didn't know
how we would ever answer God in judgment, He said, Christ
is your advocate and He has answered with Himself in everything God
requires, completely, perfectly. And God has received His people
in His Son. And we believed and we were never
so happy. And the Lord says, abide, stay
there, don't go beyond it. Don't go beyond the Lord Jesus
Christ. You stay right there. Look at
Hebrews chapter 3. Hebrews chapter 3. This was the
issue in the wilderness. This is always the issue. It's
important that we understand this. Hebrews chapter 3. The book of Hebrews talks about
the fulfillment of the Old Testament in the work of Christ and in
his person as Christ, our prophet, our priest, and our king. And
the book of Hebrews exhorts us to believe him. He says in chapter
3 and verse Verse six, Christ, he contrasts
him, I should just read the first six verses. He says, wherefore,
holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, God called
you and it was a holy calling and a heavenly calling. Consider
the apostle, the sent one, and the high priest of our profession,
Christ Jesus. You look to him, you consider
him who was faithful to him that appointed him as father, as also
Moses was faithful in all his house. For this man, Christ,
was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who
has built the house has more honor than the house. For every
house is built by some man, but he that built all things is God.
Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant for
a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after. But
Christ as a son over his own house, whose house are we, if
we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm
unto the end. I know our first thought is,
well, what about me? What if I don't hold fast? That's the problem with our faith.
We think of faith as our own work, don't we? We think of faith
as something we're going to generate and produce in order to make
it happen. In order for God to attract God's
attention, to motivate Him to do something for us. But that
is not at all what faith is. Faith, as we saw last week, is
believing His ability. It's believing Him who promised
is faithful and able to do all that He promised. It's for His
namesake that He does this. And so this attitude of faith
is an attitude of helplessness. It's an attitude of denouncing
all that I am, and finding all that God is in the Lord Jesus
Christ, and all that God is, He is for me in Christ. A sinner,
I am a sinner with nothing but what I have in Christ. He says,
continue there, rejoice there, and don't let that go, you see. Give attention to it, and how
does this come to us? It's through the word, through
the word. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. Now
you are clean through the word which I've spoken to you back
in John 15. Abide, he says in verse four,
abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can you except
you abide in me." He's saying, all of the sap that flows from
the vine to the branch to produce the fruit, so all of the life,
all of the virtue, all of God's purpose, can only be fulfilled
to His glory as you, looking to Christ, stay right there,
through His Word, holding fast, with confidence in Christ, and
looking nowhere else. Not looking beyond, not looking
for someone else or something else. And certainly not looking
for yourself to provide what God requires. But coming to Him
with this attitude, Christ is all and I am nothing and it's
a good thing. It's a good thing. If God's glory
is at stake, you do not want to be a dependent in that chain. You want God to do it all, otherwise
you're going to fail. I'm going to fail. We all already
failed. And so this is intended for us
to take the greatest comfort and find the greatest confidence
and assurance that Christ is the vine and his father, the
vine dresser, and he will make sure that we produce the fruit
that brings glory to him. So that's what it means to abide,
to look to Christ, to stay there, to hold His truth in His gospel
as the only truth by which I can be saved, and to call on Him,
and to not go anywhere else. And when we feel ourselves shaking
in our boots because of what God says to us, we say, Lord,
my foot slippeth. Hold me up, and I shall be safe. As he says in Psalm 119 verse
117. Now what is this fruit? Does
that question come to your mind? What is this fruit? We saw the
faith. He exhorts us to faith through
his word. We saw that how he applied the
gospel in the first is how he continues to apply the gospel
as he purges us and washes and cleanses us. And in our walk,
the just shall live by faith, not just once, but throughout
their lives. As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk
ye in him. The fullness of the Godhead dwells
in him bodily, and you're complete in him. Stay there. What else do you need? What else
do you want? Someone once asked a preacher,
I love this question and answer, is Christ really enough? Is he
really enough for me? Well, the preacher said, he is
if he's all you got. If he's all you got. He's all I have. He's all every
believing sinner has. So what is this fruit that we
must bear, and how can it be produced? Well, we already saw
how it's only produced by abiding in Christ. But here in the context,
we see two more things, and I'll just touch on them briefly. And
maybe we'll get to more of it later next week. Notice here
in verse 9, As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Now that's immeasurably incomprehensible. The Father loved Christ from
everlasting. The Father loved Christ with
a love that could not be greater than the love of Almighty God,
Eternal God. As the Father has loved me, so
have I loved you. Continue ye in my love." Be persuaded
of it. Stand upon it. Like Joseph said
in Genesis 39 verse 9, when Potiphar's wife tried to tempt him, he said,
what? The Master has given me everything
that's in his house except you, and how shall I sin against God
and do this thing? That's what Joseph said to Potiphar's
wife when she tempted him. And so the Lord says here, continue
ye in my love. You hold this fast. You meditate on it. You take
it to your heart and hold it in your breast and you pray it.
You breathe this in and out. This is your life. The love of
God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. To the glory of God,
all by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ brought to us in pure
grace. And he says, continue ye in my
love. If you keep my commandments,
you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments
and abide in His love. You see how there's this comparison
between the love of the Father towards His Son and the love
of Christ towards His people, and the work God gave His Father,
His Father gave Him to do, and what the Lord Jesus Christ is
going to give His disciples to do. Those who are already clean,
This is a message to believers who are already clean. Abide. Abide in my love. Verse 11. These
things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you
and that your joy might be full. I'm not telling you this so you'll
go around, oh no, oh no, because that's the way I think. No, so
that your joy might be full. How can your joy be full? If
everything that God requires of me, He looks to His Son for,
and gives me the grace of faith also to look to Him for, and
find it too. Verse 12, this is my commandment,
now notice, to you who believe, you who abide. This is the fruit. that you love one another as
I have loved you. See the motive here? Love one
another as I have loved you. And he expounds it. Greater love
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends. You see?
It's not an if as if maybe so, but it's a since. This is going
to flow from this. You will do whatsoever I command
you. You'll trust Christ. You'll love
Him. It's the Father's work. It's
the produce of the Word of God operating in us by the Spirit
of God. This is God's work. The love
of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which
is given to us. Romans 5, verse 5. How does He
do that? When we were yet without strength
in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. That's the love
of God, shed abroad in our hearts. And he goes on and on, in verse
10 of Romans 5 he says, for if when we were enemies we were
reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more being reconciled
we shall be saved by his life. There is an unbroken chain that
depends upon the love of God in Christ, the work of God in
Christ, the character of God, the glory of God, nothing can
fail. He says, continue in my love,
continue in that. These things I've spoken that
your joy might be full. Love one another as I've loved
you. Give of yourself as the Lord
Jesus gave himself for us. Is that going to cause me to
lose something? It will cause you to lose what
your flesh loves, but losing your flesh is not a loss. To
lose anything for Christ is only gain. It's only to lose what
is horrible and awful. And it's only to be brought to
a place of the greatest privilege, which is to live upon Christ
by faith alone and to love one another as he has loved us. Let's
pray. Father, we pray for this great
gift of your grace in your son, the life, eternal life that is
in your son, the word of the gospel given to us by your son,
cause us to trust him, Lord, and love him, and to seek his
glory in all that we do, and to find him glorified in all
that he did, and also in his work in us. Bring us, Lord, conform
us to the image of your dear Son, according to your will and
to your word, for your glory. Bring us to see the Lord Jesus
Christ, now by faith and in eternity. With eyes renewed, we pray for
this grace, according to your word, by your promises. In Jesus'
name, amen.