Turn with me if you would to
John chapter 15. The name of the message is vital
union. Vital union. Now we must be born
again. The scripture declares that. The Lord said to Nicodemus, you
must be born again. And we're going to see here that
we have a vital union with Christ. Because without our King, we
can't do anything. You know, he takes care of us
even before we're saved and watches over us. And then we find out
after he saves us that without him we can do nothing, just like
he says in John chapter 15. And we who are the redeemed of
the Lord, we who are the people of God, we who are washed in
the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have a vital
union with Christ. He is the head of the church.
And we are the body. We are the body. And without
him, we can't do nothing. And you know what? For a long
time when I was in religion, I didn't know this. But by the
grace and mercy of God, he taught me that without him, I can't
do anything. I can't preach without him. I
find that we can't live without him, can we? He's everything
to us. He gives us the very breath we
breathe, beloved, the very air we breathe. It's wonderful. He's such a wonderful, merciful
Savior. So let's turn to John chapter
15. He gives us an illustration here.
We all have trees in our yards, and some people have vines, grapevines. But I look at this, I see the
apple trees here, and I think of this. Look at this. He says, I am the true vine.
So think of the trunk of a tree. The true vine. And my father
is the husbandman. He's the gardener. Every branch
of me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. In every branch
that beareth fruit, he purchased it, that it may bring forth more
fruit. So just as we If you have plants,
or the apple trees here, and a branch is dead, you cut that
branch off, and then you prune the other branches, and it produces
more fruit. And all that fruit comes from
the vine. The leaves, the blossoms, they
all come as a result of nourishment coming up through the vine, and
without the vine, there would be no fruit. There would be no
leaves. There'd be no blossoms, beloved.
Nothing. Think of when you have a tomato
plant. You break off what they call sucker branches to give
the other branches more nutrients. He says, he purges it that it
may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the
word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. Look at this. There's a branch.
Look at how plain and clear this is. As the branch cannot bear
fruit of itself. See, when I was in religion,
beloved, I kept trying to make fruit. I kept trying to think,
oh, I can produce fruit. Look what this verse says. As
the branch cannot bear fruit of itself. That's why it's called
the fruit of the spirit. Joy, peace, love. He works it
in us. The Holy Spirit works it in us,
beloved. And how do we become more joyful? Look to Christ.
Listen to the gospel. Oh my, look for Christ when you're
reading the scriptures. Just keep your eye upon him.
It's beautiful. Look at this, and it even tells
us, abide in me and I in you. Look to Christ. Paul tells us
in Colossians, set your mind on things above. We get off and
looking at people, looking at circumstances, we get all messed
up, can't we? I know I can. I have to keep
reminding myself. I have to keep listening to messages
to keep my eyes on Christ. And the preacher says, look to
Christ. Oh, praise his mighty name. Abide in me and I in you, as
the branch cannot bear, look at that, cannot. A whole bunch
of religious people trying to bear fruit by something they
do. And look what the, it cannot, the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself, except it abide in the vine. You must be born again,
you must be in Christ. No more can ye except you abide
in me." So he's using an illustration that we see in this world, beloved. And I love how the Lord does
that. He says, I'm the door, I'm the shepherd of the sheep.
He uses all these illustrations that the people during this time,
and us even now after we've been given eyes to see can understand
this. And notice, when our Lord speaks,
he doesn't speak in big words. He speaks in one and two syllable
words, three syllable words. He speaks common language, beloved. It's absolutely amazing. Look, he says, as the branch
cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine,
no more can ye except you abide in me. That's clear, isn't it? And then look at this. Now he's
going to give us an answer to the illustration. I am the vine.
There's one of the I am statements. He's the vine. He's the great
I am. Ye are the branches. So what
has he told us right before that? He told us that the branch cannot
bear fruit of itself. And yet religious people are
trying to bear fruit. And you know what? They're doing
nothing but work to the flesh. That's why we say flee to Christ,
rest in Christ, look to Christ. He finished the work of salvation. He accomplished salvation. And
without Him, look at what it says, I am the vine, ye are the
branches. He that abides in me and I in
him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me ye
can do nothing. Do you see the vital union here,
beloved? Do you see the vital union that's set forth before
us? Without Christ, we cannot do anything. It's absolutely
amazing. Now there's two things that every
believer wants above all else. Number one, we want to be delivered
from the guilt and curse of sin. And we want to live in Christ,
don't we? We desire that. We desire to
live in Christ. And then we want deliverance
from the power and practice of sin. We want to walk in the spirit. I don't know any believer who
doesn't want that. We desire that, don't we? So
marvel, beloved of God, that a saving interest in Christ is
the living union with Christ. And in Christ, both those things
are accomplished. Isn't that amazing? We want deliverance
from the guilt and curse of sin. We have that in Christ. We want
deliverance from the power and practice of sin. We have that
in Christ. We want to live for God in Christ. We have that in Christ. We want
to walk in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit's in us. So rejoice. Do you know what
we are? We're called prisoners of hope, beloved. We're prisoners
of hope. And what a hope we have. His
name is the Lord Jesus Christ, God in the first, who saved us
from our sins by the shedding of his precious blood. He redeemed
us. He purchased us from the slave
block of sin, beloved. Oh, my. And we're freed. We're free from the curse of
the law. We're free from the curse of sin. Christ has made
a curse for us. We're free from the guilt of
sin through his obedience and sacrifice and by his redeeming
blood. And so there's therefore now
no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the spirit. Who shall lay any
charge to God's elect? It's God that justifies. Marvel,
beloved God, we've been justified by God himself. Do you know in
Christ we honored the law? He did it all for us. Do you
know in Christ we satisfy God's justice? In all his work, he
did it all. Do you know we're complete in
Christ? And do you know We're perfect
in him, although we're yet sinners still upon this earth. Now marvel
at that. Scripture says we're already
seated with him in heavenly places. I can't grasp all that, but I
believe it, because the word of God says it. And it makes
it so because God says it, not just because I believe it. Right? Oh, my. In Christ, He magnified the law
of God. He made it honorable by His obedience
in death as our substitute, so that nothing can be more blessedly
comforting than beholding the Son of God by faith, God-given
faith. as our law-surety, the fulfiller
of the law of God in our room and place, and as our law-fulfiller. He's our law-surety, and He's
our law-fulfiller, beloved. Praise the name of Jesus. And
He's also called the Lord our righteousness. We're clothed
in His righteousness, beloved. And marvel at this. This is what
God says. Paul wrote these words by inspiration
of the Holy Spirit of God. He is the end of the law for
righteousness. Now that's marvelous. That's
absolutely marvelous to everyone that believeth. Now let me be
perfectly clear, God's people do not in any way despise or
disregard God's holy law, not at all. No, we rejoice. We rejoice in the fact that Christ
fulfilled it in our room and place, and we rejoice that we're
free from the law, don't we? Oh, what a happy condition. Free
from the law because of the work of Christ in him alone. And the
scriptures plainly declare that believers are not under the law.
Listen to this. In Romans 6, verses 14 to 15,
it says, for sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are
not under the law, but under grace. And it says, what then? Shall we sin? So when Paul made
that statement, he, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God, see,
the Holy Spirit of God knew right away that people were going to
say, well, then I can just do whatever I want. So Ed Paul penned these words
following that. What then? Shall we sin because
we are not under the law but under grace? God forbid. No. We sin more than we want to.
Paul says, God forbid. My, we don't want to be like
we were before because we're new creatures in Christ. We're
born again. But praise God, the scripture
says, for ye are not under the law, but under grace. And we
say, hallelujah, what a savior is Jesus Christ our Lord. Wow,
my, we have no curse from the law. Christ became a curse for
us. We have no covenant with the
law. We're not under the law. We're under grace. We're not
constrained by the law, yet every believer loves the law of God.
Every believer loves the God and delights in God's holy law.
The law is God's measure, the only measure of right and wrong.
The law shows men that their sin and their need of, it shows
us our sin, it shows us our desperate state before God, and it also
shows us our need for a redeemer, beloved. and the Savior. Think of this, the law restrains
wicked men from the wickedness that is in them. Now we who are the born again
blood-washed believers, we who are in Christ by grace, we are
now by the power of the Spirit, we walk by faith. We walk not
after the flesh, we walk by faith. We walk after the Spirit, and
we mind the things of Christ, don't we? There was a time when
we didn't mind the things of Christ, now we do. Oh my. That is, we do love the commandments
of God, we do love the doctrines, we do love all things that pertain
to the kingdom of the Lord, but we also rejoice that we're not
under the law, we're under grace. My. We're concerned with God's
glory, aren't we? Our thoughts are occupied with
our relationship with Christ, all because we now have a vital
union with him. Before we were born again, we
didn't even think of him hardly, except when we were in trouble.
And our affection now is set upon things above, not on the
things of this world. And we are to set our minds on
things above. We're to set our minds on Christ.
in whom we have the forgiveness of all our sins. We are the redeemed of the Lord. We're married to another now.
We're married to Christ, beloved. And we're now dead to the law.
in Christ. Listen to this, Romans 7, 4.
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by
the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to
him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit
unto God. We're dead to the old husband
who restrained us and held us captive. We're married to Christ. Now we serve him. And We're not under obligation or
we're not under obedience to written laws and regulations,
but in newness of life and love, we walk in the spirit. We walk
in Christ. This forced obedience of a man
under the law is the obedience of a slave, beloved. The obedience
of a son or a wife is the obedience of love. For the love of Christ
constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all,
then we're all dead. We who are the people of God
have a vital union with the Lord Jesus Christ, beloved. And without
him, we saw in our text, we can do nothing. And we're motivated
not by duty, but we're motivated by the love of Christ. and by
what he's done for us, redeeming us with his precious blood, giving
his life for us. And we love him because he first
loved us. It's not the fear of hell or desire for rewards nor
concern for acceptance that excite believers to serve Christ. It's
Christ's eternal love. It's Christ's eternal love which
led him to redeem us. from this world of sin and death,
to redeem our eternal souls. And now we have the love of God
shed abroad in our hearts. And God's everlasting, unchanging
love for us is the chief motive for serving Christ. For we know
that if he died, then we were all dead in trespasses and sins.
If we had not been dead spiritually, he would not have had to die.
Also, if he died for us, we died in him, beloved. I'm crucified
with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. In the life that I now live,
in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me. We're dead. We've died to the
world, beloved. We died to the claims and curse
of the law, and we died to ourselves. Praise be to God, our great God.
Without Him, we can do nothing. He saved our eternal souls. And
He saves all who come to Him. Praise His mighty name. Amen
and amen.