There is always a right way and
a wrong way to approach the Word of God, and the right way is
always found in understanding that the Word of God is speaking
to us through itself. That I'm not teaching you that
which God cannot teach you. I'm not showing you that which
God cannot show you. And only if the Lord shows you
and teaches you will what I say every single week have substance
and have efficacy and work in every aspect of your life. It
is coupled through the discipline led by the Holy Spirit that you
are in the Word of God, that you are in the Word of God. For
it's very easy for us to feel the pressures of life and the
pressures of frustration and just our internal warfare, it's
easy for it to flee when we're together on Sundays. It feels
good sometimes when we're together midweek and we're going through
doctrinal studies and we're looking at the letters and when we're
all praying, singing together, it sort of just like disappears.
But beloved, that is mostly the fact that we are spending, it's
not something that happens that is permanent, but it happens
because we are focusing on worshiping the Lord. We are putting our
mind on the Lord's Day in His Word, hearing His Word, putting
our ears in His Word, we're putting our eyes on His Word, and we
are soaking in the power of Christ through the Scripture. That's
the reason that we sing songs that are doctrinal. That's why so many times when
we see our brothers and sisters around who have told us through
the years, well, I remember feeling so intimate with God through
certain songs that I sang. But after the music was over,
I really just didn't feel like church was doing anything for
me. You ever said that yourself?
You ever felt that way yourself? And I'm not gonna lie, when you're
at a conference or you're speaking at a conference or you're attending
a conference and there's thousands of people singing together, they
could just be singing a C scale warmup and it's moving. I mean, imagine the liturgical
essence of some of the singing of antiquity. I mean, you know,
it's like, okay, that's a little corny, but put a thousand voices
to it in harmony. It's eerily majestic. And we can do the same thing
with the Word of God. We could have, we could have, you know, an incredible
vocal performer read the Bible in such a great voice, you know,
get real close to the microphone so it sounds real deep. And the
Lord said unto Moses, I mean, you know, it's like, well, I
really thought God was talking this morning in the service. You get what's the Darth Vader
voice, James Earl Jones. And we could we could get caught
up into how it feels, but what really makes the difference in
our lives, beloved, while we are commanded to gather together,
is that when we put all of our senses on Christ together for
the sake of one another, The world passes away for that fleeting
moment. It passes away. That's why I
am so adamant that when we are together as the body, that we
focus on that which teaches us the glories of Christ. Whether
we sing it or hear it or see it or speak it, it must be biblical. When we leave here, it's up to
you. Tomorrow, it's going to be up to you to be disciplined
to stay in the same word, to be connected in relationship
with Christ, to be prayerfully focused on praying for one another,
knowing that the power of Christ that raised him from the dead
rests in you. It's about our knowledge. It's about the renewal
of our minds. But the point in all this is that where Jesus
goes now in his dialogue in John's gospel is directly and perfectly
illustrating what I just said. But unfortunately, the way we
have been taught to understand Scripture is that we find this
passage and we build upon it. Well, beloved, if I wanted to
build a case for racism, bigotry, misogyny, genocide, maniacalism,
and all these other things. I could go and find any particular
passage, especially in the Old Testament, I could find a narrative
that tells the truth about something that the people experienced,
and I could twist it in such a way to make it seem as though
it's teaching something. But if I read to you the context
of Scripture, I cannot butcher the text. I cannot hoodwink you. But even if I did, if you were
reading the Bible, I could not deceive you. I couldn't deceive
you. Philosophical theology sort of
runs them up today. And those of you who have been
on our midweek, we close out Romans this Wednesday, and we're
going to do some doctrinal studies, and then we're going to get into
Galatians sometime in the near future. But we look at what Paul
teaches just in his writing, just in the closing of his letters.
And what we see every time that he starts and ends a letter,
he's talking to individuals, he's talking of groups of people,
he's showing that what he's about to teach is for their good and
for their benefit and that what he's saying to them and the grace
of God to them is directly given to them by the words that he
wrote to them. So it's no different than with John's gospel. And
most of us live our lives thinking, man, if I could just feel or
experience the focus that I have spiritually on Monday that I
did yesterday on Sunday. If Sunday morning could be my
daily routine, then I probably would have a better life. I mean,
don't we all feel that way? Don't we feel by Friday, except
that it is Friday and maybe we're having some time off work, don't
we feel that by Friday we can't wait for Sunday? I pray that's
the way you feel. That it's been so long, we've
been with the saints, it's been so long, but beloved, you don't
have to wait. You have to wait till we can get together and
experience this as a body, but we can experience Christ by being
in his word. And there have been many, many
books. I don't want to try to say how
many in my hyperbolic way, billions of books. Billions and billions
of books written about how to stay focused in the faith. About
how to find your purpose in the Lord. About how to live a life
that's glorious. About how to stay solid. About
how to be a good wife. About how to be a good husband
in Christ. How to be a great parent. How much money has been
made in publishing about how to be a Christian parent. And
if you were like me and you looked years ago, 21 years ago, to make
sure you had all the resources and you bought books seven, eight
at a time, you realize that if you buy seven books, you've got
seven theories. You've got seven different approaches
or principles to which you could be a godly dad. I've read books on how to make
sure my children were believers. You believe that? And I'm going,
this is not, this is garbage. I can't make sure that my children
are believers. What am I going to do, give them
the Jesus shot when they're eight? Well, you got Jesus now, buddy.
That's what it means when I indwell my people. Because if that were the case,
the children would run, run, run. You know, we'd drive past
the daughter's office and our children always have screamed.
I learned that Jacob had Spider-Man talent when he was four years
old, taking them to get inoculations. He realized what we were doing,
and he attached his toes and his feet to the inside of the
minivan wall. And I couldn't get him out. He
was screaming bloody murder. People were calling the cops, and I'm
like, just get back in the van. We're not getting shots today. So if that's what
it was about, to get Christ to be a good parent, I mean, we
can go find books to teach us everything. Most of us feel like,
well, we're not walking with the Lord the way we ought to
be. Great, we're probably not, but are we in the word of God?
Then we're walking with the Lord. Are we just looking for the next
Google answer? Are we looking for that next opportunity to find
some type of resource that gives us that, like you've heard me
say, the vitamin box theology that we walk around with, oh,
I got the little depression pill going on. Nope, the Lord is mine.
Shepherd, I shall not want. And I'm not making fun of that
type of thing. I'm just saying, as for me, it doesn't work. You
take the same pill every day, but you're not experiencing Christ.
You're wanting Christ to be the genie in the bottle, but bing,
and did his little magic wand over your life to take away the
problems in your life. It's not gonna happen. And so we find
ourselves more and more and more wishing that we could be closer
to the Lord, thinking that maybe we're drifting away, and our
flesh presents all sorts of opportunities. Remember last week when I talked
about how our flesh tries to find the answers to problems?
And when it doesn't work, we find someone else to see if their
flesh can find the answer. Okay, if you weren't here last
week, go listen to last week's message. Jesus tells his disciples what
is the answer to their concerns. What the answer is concerning
their fear that they would be by themselves. What they're supposed
to understand when Jesus says to love one another as I have
loved you, which is the context of this whole dialogue. And they're
thinking, how are we supposed to do that? Because it wasn't a lack of zeal.
It wasn't a lack of enthusiasm. It wasn't a lack of knowledge.
They knew enough to go out and preach. They'd been preaching
for three years. They were willing to die for Jesus. Thomas was
willing to die for Jesus. Peter was willing to die for
Jesus. Andrew was willing to die for Jesus. Everybody was
willing to die for Jesus. But ultimately we need to recognize
that in the Christian life, though we are willing to lay down our
lives for the cause of Christ, the bottom line in Christian
living is that we live for Christ and live with Christ and live
with Christ's people. We don't worry about what we
should be doing or where we're supposed to be going. We don't
look at the goal of tomorrow. We stand in the presence of today
and say, where am I with the Lord today? And our hope is found
in the gospel of free and sovereign grace. We know that the truth
of the scripture teaches us that Christ has purchased us with
his blood. And that what Christ has purchased can never be cast
away. And that Christ has paid for the sins of his people. And
as the Spirit of God, God, the Spirit wishes, he will cause
his elect to come to faith. And he will cause them to believe
what was done on their behalf. And they will be secure and confident,
but it will not be an easy ride, will it? Friends, we are so inundated,
I myself am so inundated. with so many false propositions
concerning the Christian life that it's so easy for me to see. It's like we talked about several
weeks ago in chapter 14, verse 15. If you love me, you'll obey
my commandments. And we automatically think, well, if I'm not obeying
the Lord right, I must be lost. But he doesn't talk about being
lost. And he's not talking about every commandment that we can
muster out of the mouth of Moses. He's talking about loving one
another. If you love me, you'll love one another. And the way
that works is, if you remember, as you love one another, you're
loving me. Has nothing to do with our justification.
Nothing. Whatsoever. But that's what we
hear in our culture, isn't it? Because we are mostly a works-based,
free-will type culture when it comes to religion. I must do,
I must make, I must become, so that God will then, instead we
put the condition on us, But the condition has been met in
Christ, and Christ is the one who died. Christ is the one who
is propitiation for our sins. So therefore, we then, by faith,
trust in the finished work of Jesus that has done on our account. The work of redemption is complete. And God, through his word, shows
us that. So our loving, our physical and spiritual act of love is
through the renewing of our mind on the truth of the gospel and
seeing the command of Christ, which you'll get into right now
in chapter 15 very clearly. Is loving him. And I think, how
do I stay close to Christ? Christ has already said, the
ruler of this world has no claim on me, but I'm doing as the Father
commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.
You see, Jesus is not saying anything that He's not also displaying.
I love the Father because I'm going to do what the Father called
me to do. I love the Father, therefore I'm going to do what
the Father's called me to do. And in the same way I do what the
Father's called me to do, I would like for you to show your love
for me in doing what I've called you to do. I mean, it's a very
simple process. It doesn't remove our sonship,
our daughtership. It doesn't remove us from adoption
when we're not loving Christ. Now, there are some popular pastors
throughout my lifetime who have really pressed on this, and they
would take this opportunity in this section of John's Gospel
and really just beat you up to a pulp and ask you what you love
more. Jesus or your children. That's a tough one, isn't it,
moms? Dad's not so hard. Depends on what day of the week
it is and what time of the morning. Or evening. What about your spouse? Same
thing. Sometimes it can be hard, but
I love my spouse more than Jesus, and sometimes you're like, don't
even come close. That's not the point, is it?
The point is not to press and make sure that everything in
the world, including yourself, is hated to the point of... I
don't know, I don't need to get any more, hated beyond measure
so that Jesus is the most treasured thing that you have. That's good
for your joy if Jesus is your highest treasure. But that flows
and ebbs and changes. It's drastically sufficient one
day and then the other day you feel as though, where is my spiritual
barometer? Is it broken? Where's my spiritual
fire? Has it been put out? What about
those seasons when you will not read the Word of God? Are you
lost? No. And people who say those things
are lying with the devil's tongue. I love saying stuff like that.
Sounds so archaic. But they are lying. And the father
of lies is the devil. So as Jesus says, you speak the
words of your father, the devil, and I speak the words of my father
to the Pharisees, It's congruent with the teaching of scripture
to say that. When people tell you that your election, that
your salvation, that your redemption rests in how you feel about Jesus
and how you act around Jesus and around Jesus' people, they're
lying to you. And yet we see Jesus, though
He holds fast that He and His washing and His redemptive work
and His atonement is all that's necessary unto salvation, what
does He then say? Then love each other like I'm
commanding you to do. Because I have loved you, I command you
to love one another. And every one of the New Testament
epistles, every one of them continue to teach the same thing. Beloved
because of Christ, I urge you, I implore you, I exhort you,
I encourage you to love each other. So there's no condition
on that. And there's no promise to it.
Sometimes we just don't feel very loving. Sometimes we don't
feel very intimate. Sometimes we don't feel very
spiritual. Sometimes we don't feel extremely connected to the
Spirit. But we haven't changed. And God's
love for us hasn't changed. And His work of redemption hasn't
changed. So how do we remain close, intimate, and loving.
That's the question I'm going to answer today. The first seven
verses of chapter 15. Let's read together. I am the
true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in
me that does not bear fruit, He takes away, and every branch
that does bear fruit, He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
Already you are clean. Thank you, Jesus. Because of
the word that I have spoken to you, Abide in Me and I in you,
as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in
the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine,
you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in
him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you
can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me,
he is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches
are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned." And that's
all I'm going to do today. just those six. Now there is an instrumental
promise and teaching in the midst of this little dialogue in the
midst of this short phraseology that gives me great hope. And
you heard my semi doxological expression when I read it is
that you are clean already. So this means not only have we
already heard it all for the last 115 sermons, we've come
to this knowing that the gospel is the work of God and that when
Jesus teaches to his people, he is not teaching conditions
to remain saved. He's teaching for our joy. He's
teaching for our growth. He's teaching for our intimacy.
He's teaching for the sake of the witness of his glory, that
we live together in such a way that brings honor and glory to
his name. And then he makes himself the
empowerment thereof. So he says, you've been told
to do these things. You cannot do them. But if you
ask me to help you, I will. And even though I'm not going
to be here, I'm going to send someone else that can walk alongside
you. the pediclete, the helper, the
spirit, God, the spirit, and He will do these things. Question from this past week
about prayer. In Romans 8, it talks about praying. See, I've
heard sermons on prayer that talk about, well, if you don't
pray this way, if you don't pray that way, don't pray this way, don't pray that way.
And how many of us have read books on prayer? Just raise your
hand, I'm just interested. Most of us. I know my grandmother
had an entire shelf of how to pray. Power of the praying wife,
power of the praying cat, power of the praying elephant. I mean,
you know, how to pray when you're at the zoo, how to pray when
you're at Disneyland, how to pray when you're at the shopping
mall. I mean, you see it. It's out there. The prayer of
Jabez, the prayer of Jehoshaphat, and so on. I've even seen books,
the prayer of Jesus. How do you write 700 pages on
three sentences? Jesus teaches people the model
in which we should pray, the mindset. But what do we do? We
go and we read all that stuff. We think, how can I abide in
prayer? This must be the prescription, whether it be the sticker on
the car window, hiding the toothbrush and not getting our toothbrush
until we open up our prayer book. Oh, I remember my toothbrush
is in my prayer book. I'm praying while I'm brushing. I mean, the
little tactics that have been given throughout my lifetime
are absurd. And yet, when we can't pray,
what does the scripture say? The point I've just made before
that is what? Jesus said he's going to send a helper that will
produce these things in us as we need them. When we cannot
pray, God the Holy Spirit prays for us, Romans 8. So in the same
way, Jesus is now telling his disciples with a picture that
they can fully grasp, that they could probably walk outside right
where they were and visualize what he's saying as an object
lesson. That's what Jesus is doing. He's
teaching about himself in an object lesson. in an agrarian
society where they had a primary market economy was growing things. Growing things. And grapes for
the production of wine was one of their primary commodities. And so they were very, very,
very versed in knowing what a vine was. I don't know about you,
But I've had to tear out vines before. And that's a very difficult
thing to do. Vines, when they come up and
they're cute and they're pretty and they're running normal on
a little trellis or something of that nature, you're thinking,
wow, look at this beautiful vine. And you go inside and you come
back out and the whole house is covered. And the vine itself, you start
to cut away, and you start to cut away. You think, oh, this
is not a problem. This is not a problem. And then the yard is filled with
branches. And then you get to the vine,
and you're going, this thing's alive. It starts to talk to you. It starts to hit back. Tears
your chainsaw up. Tears your laser cannon up. Tears
your Tannerite up. You blow the house away, vine's
still there. I mean, it's tough. It's hard to defeat. So you think,
I'm going to pull it out of the ground. And your foundation comes
loose. And you've pulled it out 40 feet,
yet it's still deep in the dirt. It is tough. You've cut all those
things away. And I'm not kidding you, a good
rain and it's like it grows 20% overnight. These people knew
what it was like to prune a vine, to prune a vineyard. They knew
it. They grew up around it. They saw it. They understood
it very clearly that it was the vine, it was the vine that you
took care of. If you want to be able to use
it, you take and you shear things away, you prune things away.
And Jesus is saying, listen, envision that. I want you to
envision that for just a moment. Most of us believe that we're
the vine, that we've got our foot stuck in the soil of nutrient,
which is our discipline to be in the Bible. And we've got our
feet planted and that Christ will grow us as a vine. And then
we'll have a lot of fruit, and we'll produce a lot of branches,
and these branches are our spiritual children, and our mentoring relationships,
and our discipleship relationships, and our ministry reach, and our
prayer life, and all these things, and that's how we envision ourselves.
But Jesus says it's the exact opposite. You cut the branches
off of a vine, what happens to the branches? They die. But what happens next? The vine
grows more branches. You trim a branch, It grows even
thicker. And that's what he's talking
about. Sermon over. Let's go on. How does that apply to you? First, I want you to see that
Jesus makes that very bold, I am statement. I am the true vine. So within this statement, Jesus
is speaking from a divine point of view. He is, I am, he is.
The self-existing one. He is truth. He's already said
that. He's the way, the truth, and
the life. Jesus is the truth. And not only that, he is the
true vine. That means the vine is the root, is the source, is
the mother, father, source of everything that grows from it.
And if the vine is healthy, it will produce everything it is
intended to produce. Jesus is the vine. Jesus is the
source of truth. Jesus is the God of heaven. Jesus
is eternal life. See how that picture plays? I
just want to be with Christ. Christ is going away. He's going
to send a helper. But how do I abide in you if you're not
here? How do I hold fast in you if I can't see you? How do I
deal with wanting to be close to you, Jesus, when I don't feel
like it? You hear these words. That's
what you do. I am the true vine and my Father who sent me is
the vine dresser. He is the one who prunes. Now
this is, you might have missed it. Did you miss it? He's the
one who prunes. He's the one who produces. He's
the one who builds. He's the one who matures. He's
the one who does everything that the vine does. He's the effectual
power behind the vine. That's what Jesus is illustrating
there. He's saying, I'm the vine and
everything that comes out of me, everyone that comes to me,
everyone that gets life from my source, the Father has done
it. The Father's done it. That's
not new, is it? It's not new. It's not the first
time we've heard that. We've heard it in John 6. We've heard
it in John 10. We've seen it throughout. We've seen it in
John 3. We've seen it in many different
places. We've seen the reality of that when people were brought
to life through the spirit. The father gives us to the son
that he causes us to be born again, Paul would say. Peter
would say the same thing. So in all of this, the father
and the son are the giver of life and they work to bring the
true branches. Fruitfulness, life, hope, and
abiding. But now there's something strange
about verse two. Because if we're not careful
to remember what we just learned, that's reiterated in verse one,
we'll see verse two in this way. Every branch in me that does
not bear fruit, he takes away. Now there's a question on hand,
isn't it? What is the fruit? What is the fruit? Okay, so I
can understand that abiding in Christ is the source. Christ
is the source. The Father is the one who brings me to divine
and I'm put into Christ. I'm grafted in or I'm sprouting
from. And there's your answer to verse
two, right? Who were the ones who claimed to have sprouted
from Christ? The Jews. And those Jews that did not believe
Even though they were from the root of Jesse, from the root
of Abraham, from the lineage of Christ, God the Father snipped
them off and threw them away. Because they did not produce
fruit. What was the fruit of the life of the religious? What
does a Pharisee's life look like? Paul says it in Philippians,
doesn't he? My mom and daddy named me Saul. The Jewish of
all Jewish names. The first king of Israel. I have
that name. Honoring the Lord God in all
of his provision to create a people for himself and set us apart.
I am Saul of Tarsus. I mean, that sounds cool, doesn't
it? Hello, I'm James of Claxton. I mean, it's like, don't tell
anybody, you know, but Saul of Tarsus, that sounds awesome.
I mean, that's just amazing. And it's so spiritual. It's so
historical. Thousands of years after Abraham,
here's Saul of Tarsus. And my parents on the eighth
day circumcised me unto the Lord. So even mom and daddy were spiritual.
They named me spiritually. They produced in me the sign
of the covenant. of redemption, the circumcision
of the flesh, where God takes away the sinfulness of the heart,
gives me a new heart. And I was circumcised beyond
my ability. It wasn't my decision. I walked
since birth, I've walked in the ways of God. I was zealous for
the word of God. This is the this is the resume
of a Pharisee. According to the law, what does
he say? Blameless. Blameless. That means he was
above reproach in every aspect of cultural understanding of
perfection and holiness and righteousness and that his obedience as a human
being was so amazing that the powers that be that ruled the
people of God saw him as a what? As an example. As inspiration. He did not violate the law. He
did not covet. He did not murder. He did not
commit adultery. He did not lie. He did not steal. He honored his parents. He loved
the Lord. He had no other gods before him.
And the list goes on and on and on. And Paul would say, I am
blameless. Every branch in me that does
not bear fruit. If that was the fruit that the scripture is talking
of, We're all in trouble. God cut the Pharisees off. And
this is a figure of speech. It's a metaphor in that sense.
They weren't saved and lost. They were by what? Designed,
by purpose, in the lineage of Christ, in blood. But John has
dealt that blow from the very first chapter, not by the will
of man, the decision of the flesh or of blood, but by the will
of God. The fruit that we bear when we're
in Christ is that we believe that His vine and His nutrient
and His source of life is our only hope, beloved. That's it. Christ is our hope
when we're living well and when we're not. And I would say that it's more
important for us to remember that when we are living well.
Because it is so easy to become a Pharisee when all the sins
that sort of tripped us up a good bit seem to be no more. Because every branch in me that
does not bear fruit. He takes away. So the fruit here
is indeed believing in the proclamation of Christ concerning himself,
believing in the revelation of God concerning the son, believing
in the redemption, the promise of eternal life found only in
Jesus Christ. This is the fruit. And that belief is a is a confidence. It is a saving faith in that
it does not change no matter how weak it is. Ever wondered
about that? I know many of you look at me
as I stand up here an hour and you think, what a spiritual man.
If I just had the faith of James. You don't want my faith. You ever try to stand on marbles?
That's how I feel most days. barefooted so it hurts and I'm
about to fall on my butt. That's as strong as my faith
gets. I'm standing on marbles and I'm just wondering when I'm going to fall
and tear something else up, hit my head. And in the midst of
all that, the problem is when we think we can stand on our
own two feet, it's got, oh, and in the midst of all that, what
happens? It's only about you, Lord. It's only about the gospel.
It's only about Christ. Christ, if you don't hold me
upright by your promise, you can see that I'm deserving of
judgment. That's it. So in the smallest
sense, the mustard seed size faith, that means that it's not
even visible. But then in that, if it's truly
faith in Christ alone, it is faith. When that seems to not be found,
just bite down, you'll find the mustard seed. Your teeth don't
crush them too easily. It's there. It's there because
God has attached you to the vine and he produces the fruit of
faith. He produces a conviction. He produces an understanding.
He produces everything that is required. He produces it in you. And it's not the way you live
your life. Is the way you live your life important? Yes. Is
the way you speak important? Yes. You are part of the vine. And if the vine is to produce
grapes, saving faith, it will produce it. You are part of the
vineyard. You are part of the Father. You
are righteous before God because of Christ's obedience. Walk in
a manner worthy of that. Put away these sins. Don't speak
that way. Look to this. But it's not about
those things that cause you to have assurance. If our hope is ever bound up
in our fruitfulness of our lifestyles, woe be to us when we get to the
place of going, I have arrived. Because the only example that
we see of people like that, they are condemned. So the Father takes away those
who do not believe in me. And every branch that does believe
in me, he prunes. He prunes. And now there's a
twofold meaning here all of a sudden. Because there's more fruit, we
can say more faith, but now that there is the outcome of the spiritual
fruit of faith, the obedience of faith, which is what we're
going to talk about this coming Wednesday, the obedience of faith. We're going to see that now the
Father is the one that prunes the ones who are actually alive.
Only the living branches are a living. The ones who are connected
to the vine are alive. And the ones who are alive, they
do what? They do mature. They do grow. But most importantly,
they abide. They stay. And the Father will
prune them and they will bear more fruit. This includes the
strengthening of our faith. And beloved, our faith is strengthened
in several ways congruently. Our faith is strengthened in
the assembly. Today. When we're together with the
word of God, with all of our senses, we're in encountering
the true and living Christ together. And then we pray for one another
and we're praying for one another out of our assembly together
with one another. When we know what's happening,
when we see each other face to face. We grow, we mature in that way,
our faith is strengthened in abiding in the word of God, as
we'll see When we're disciplined to be in the Bible, even when
it sometimes doesn't make a lot of sense. And in all of these things. Our
faith is strengthened. With one extra. Typically, when
we see sin in our lives. We see sin in our life, we see
problems in our life, we see calamity in our life, we see
stress in our life, we see trials in our life. Every time the apostles
write about growing in faith, it's always coupled with, excuse
me, let's say it better, it's always the result of suffering. Because when we are strong in
our flesh, we don't really need Jesus in our minds, do we? We're
not thinking about it. We might be praising him like
every religious zealot in America. Praise the Lord. Why are you
praising the Lord? Lovebugs are gone. Is that really why you're excited
and praising the Lord? Lovebugs are gone. Because the guy who
owns the car wash is sad. He praises the Lord when the
lovebugs are gone. Praise the Lord! Why? Because lovebugs are
here. I'm making a killing. Anybody can do that. Anybody
can say that. But our worship, just like Job as the example,
God did what he did for Job to show us what he can do for us. And to teach us that even in
the midst of greatest loss, the praise of his glory flows from
the lips of his people in their weakest moments. And that's because
He has attached us to the Son who is divine. And we are the
branches and we bear much fruit. And that verse 1 and 2 scares
people to death. who have been born of God, who
have been established in the faith by the Spirit, who are
absolutely certain that they are in Christ. And then they
hear someone read those two verses and they go, am I bearing fruit?
Am I going to be cut off from Christ? Am I going to be thrown
in the fire? Am I going to be dead? Am I alive? What did I do? What
did I do wrong? Am I living correctly? Am I not
living correctly? Oh no! Where is that? Bring that
to the altar of God. Can you praise Him with that
mindset? Well, I just don't know, Lord. I mean, you sound like
you're auctioning yourself off to the highest bidder. Sold! Sender number three. There
you go. We're looking for an enemy of
the new superheroes. You'd be a good villain. That's
not it. That's not what cries out of
our mouths. Oh, God, who saved me in his
mercy. Oh, Father, thank you for your
Son, thank You for Your kindness. Thank You for Your love. A wretch
like me has been found and now I see. Lead me not into temptation,
Father. Please help me to walk in a manner
worthy because You have saved me with such a great salvation.
And when I do, I praise You with my lips. And when I don't, I
cry out to You with my heart. Bow before your throne of grace
that I may continually always bear the fruit of righteousness
who is Jesus Christ my Lord. Romans 6, 7, 8. It's a 42nd sermon of those three
chapters. So verse 3 gets that monkey off
our back. Already you are clean. You're already clean, beloved.
You're already clean. Let me tell you that right now.
You're already clean, no matter how good your life is or how
bad your life is. No matter when you have seasons
of great, sincere, good works. They're only good because they're
by faith. And when you have severe seasons
of temptation and failure, you're clean. You're clean because of
Christ. You're attached to him. He paid
the penalty. The vine is the living water
that washes away your guilt. The vine is the living bread
who gives sustenance of life in the wilderness of sin. The
wilderness is rebellion, y'all. Unbelief. That's what it's for. That's why God did it. That's
why he put generations of people through the wilderness for 40
years and they died because they would not believe to show us
this truth. You are clean. But he's not saying you're clean
because of you, does he? Look at the second part of that
sentence. You are clean because of the word that I have spoken
to you. Now, the direct relationship
between that phrase and John's gospel has to build everything
that Jesus has spoken to them. But in the immediate context,
we see that Jesus has told them He is the way, the truth, and
the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through
Him. And from now on, you do know the Father. And from now
on, you do know Me. And they say, well, how do we
know? Just show us. Do you see that? Even when our flesh is befuddled
with these spiritual realities, God who resides in us, establishes
in us, sometimes a childlike faith that goes, I just believe in what the Bible
has taught me concerning Christ's work for me. Your claim clause of the word
that I've spoken to you. because of what I've declared
over you, because of what I have taught you, because of what I
have shown you, because of what I have done for you, and what
I am about to do for you. That is why you're clean. I am
the way. That is how you get to life.
That is how you get to the Father. That is how you stand as part
of the vine. I am the way. and many things
that you will read and contemplate and think and hear and learn
from many other sources in this life. Jesus would say they will
try to rearrange your understanding of my way as myself. But I am the truth. Don't listen
to them. Listen to me. Listen to me. I am the truth. I am the one who speaks the oracles
of God. I am the one who speaks with
the very voice of God. I am before Abraham was. I am. I am. And because of these
things, as they are true before you this day, I am the truth.
I am the life. I'm the life. And without me, there is no life.
Without me, there is no hope. Without me, there is no faith.
Without me, there is no. There's nothing, as you'll say
in a minute. No matter what you accomplish, it is nothing. Legacy
in this life is garbage. If it is not a legacy of faith
in Christ. Was it all just washes away? So I've spoken to you the words
that are eternal life. And then the command, verse four,
abide in me. Now see, this gives the idea,
that first half of that sentence, that it's something for us to
do. Yeah, something for us to strive
for, something for us to labor over, absolutely. But look at
that, and I in you. Abide in Me and I in you. How do you keep Christ in you?
You don't. He keeps Himself in you. And because of that, He won't
cast you out. So you will abide in Him. This is a promise more
than it is a command. This is a declaration of what
this doctrine, this theology is showing. And He explains it
as The simile here, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself,
you cannot bear fruit unless you abide in Me. A branch cannot
bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine. Neither can
you unless you abide in Me. So Jesus is saying something
that's very true, but He's not putting the onus and the power
and the probability on us as the branches to remain to the
vine. Who keeps us on the vine? Christ
does. Who prunes us on the vine? The
father does. Who takes us away from the vine?
The father does. John six, all who come to me,
all the father give me will come to me and I'll come to me. I
will never cast away. I will never cut off. Who are
the ones that are cut off? The ones who don't hold to Jesus.
and the gospel of free and sovereign grace, the ones who believe that
their doing, listen to this, that any of their doing affects
their salvation. Faith is believing that Christ
has done all the doing. All the doing. And completed
all the work. And He is the One, and the Father
is the One, and the Spirit is the One. We are the One. Notice
that, triune. We are the One who keep you. Does Peter come to mind? What
does 1 Peter 1 say? In his divine power, what does
he say? You are kept in heaven who you
being kept in heaven are guarded by his divine power. You are
being kept in heaven by the power of God. That means your eternal
hope and everything that you have in Christ is kept by God. The seal, as Paul would say to
the Ephesians, is the Holy Spirit within you that Jesus says will
be yours, is yours. I have a question about the Holy
Spirit tonight. about when He indwells us. Neither can you unless you abide
in Me. Verse 5, I am the vine, you are the branches. See, doesn't that settle it?
Isn't it amazing that we actually don't have to go through all
this logical thinking to actually get the answers, but we have
to be open to seeing what the Scripture actually says. So here
Jesus declares Stay with me, the Father's gonna cut you off
if you don't have faith. And the ones who do have faith
are in me and they will produce all sorts of fruits, the fruit
of faith. But we don't put our assurance
in the fruit of faith, we put our assurance in Jesus. Because the fruit of faith can
wane, can be good and not so good. But this proclamation, You better abide in me. Everyone
who abides in me, they bear fruit. Because a branch
can't bear fruit without the vine. And you will not have faked
without me. And here's the proclamation.
I'm the vine. We got that, Jesus. Can you imagine
teaching our children this way? The recapitulation? We get it,
we get it. We Googled it yesterday, we know.
Because they've got all the data. but they don't get it. We can have all the data, but
we don't necessarily get it. Jesus says we'll get it by hearing
it, and we'll hear it by the Spirit. He declares, I'm the
vine, alright? No question about that. Then
He declares, you're the branches. not you're the ones to be cut
off, not you that you cut off, that I'm the vine and you're
the branches. Get the picture. There you are. Produce. What
is the production that Jesus is looking for in this context? Well, he doesn't necessarily
answer that until verse nine, but we're not going to talk about
that today, but I'll tell you what it is. You believe in me. And what is the revelation of
the gospel of free and sovereign grace except the love of God for his
people? except the love of God for the Savior, y'all listen
to this, for the Savior, for his own, that he gave himself
as a ransom for his people, that they are alive in him. This is
what Jesus is focusing on here. The gospel is the love of God
for you. That's why it cannot be universal. That's why we cannot preach and
say that God has a special place in his heart for every single
person in the world. He may. if there's a place in
his heart for reprobation and judgment. And I think there is.
But when it comes to the love of God, it is only in the finished
work of Christ. And the finished work of Christ
is only for his people. And his people only are the branches
attached to the true vine. And those who try to come in
and say they're part of the vine, when they don't believe what
I just said, they're cut off and thrown away. But whatever, Christ is calling
us to do. First and foremost is to believe.
Whoever abides in me, look at the latter part of verse 5, in
me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. He it is that bears much fruit.
For apart from me you can do nothing. Apart from me you can do nothing. I remember as a kid being told
I couldn't do something. My mother will attest to this.
I would always say, well, yes, I can, but I shouldn't or won't,
and then I'd be in trouble. You can't do that. Well, I can. It's not may I, can I. Can I
go to the store? You can, but you don't have my
permission. So very technically, I stayed in trouble. I was an exegete from a young
age. Apart from me, you can do nothing. But there are a lot
of people who can do something, right? There are a lot of people
who aren't in Christ who reject Him. There are a lot of religious
people who've never even considered the gospel. There are a lot of
people who hate the idea of God. There are a lot of agnostics
and atheists and everybody in between. There are a lot of evangelicals,
and they do all sorts of things, so to say they can do nothing,
it's almost like saying, well, watch me, God. I can do something.
Watch me. I can do missions. Watch me.
I can preach. Watch me. I can teach Sunday
school. Watch me. I can pray. Watch me. I can nae nae. I mean, you know. I know it's an old reference. Just watch. I can do something.
And then all of that something, all of that doing, all of that
ministry, all of that life, all of that benevolence, all of that
stuff that we see going on in our culture is nothing! Nothing! We don't applaud it,
we don't praise it, we don't look at it and go, wow, look
at all these great Christians! They don't believe in Christ!
They're not in Christ. And it is the majority of the
world in which we live. Why are you mad? I'm not mad.
That just deserves emphasis. It deserves emphasis. Apart from
me, you can't do nothing. You can act lovingly, you can
have a faith in something you've done, you can put me as a part
of it. You can have the free and sovereign grace plus a bag
of potato chips and you're condemned and that's nothing. You can add baptism, that's nothing.
You can add missions, that's nothing. You can add Bible translation,
that's nothing. Paul's association with being
cut off was directly in opposition to the circumcision, the practice
of circumcision in the region of Galatia. However, it fits
so well here, doesn't it? When we are not in Christ alone, we're doing nothing. Dead works,
dead, I don't even want to say that, dead works and unbelief.
Got to stop saying dead faith in reference to unbelief because
they're two different things. James chapter two is not talking
about unbelief whatsoever. Never has, never will. Unbelief
and dead works are identical. In the wilderness, those people
who grumbled against God made idols of gold, all sorts of things. He killed them in the desert
for 40 years. And we see the apostolic authority
to interpret the theology of the Old Testament when Paul and
Jude and the rest of them very clearly state what? Their disobedience
is unbelief. So they were condemned. The fruit
of true branches connected to the true vine is faith in the
vine alone and nothing else. And the fruitfulness of that
connection gives the ability for God to then say, now love
one another. And that's what we'll show next
week. It's all about giving glory to
God. That is why Matthew 18, in the
idea of discipline from personal sins, what happens when we sin
personally against each other? It divides us. That's why people
who aren't loving enough to forgive when someone else has made amends
are sinning. But we don't abuse that. Don't
listen, don't say, don't hear what I'm not saying. I had to
say that in a while. If anyone does not abide in me, he's thrown
away like a branch and withers. And when the branch is gathered,
it's thrown into the fire and burned. Paul gives the same argument
and admonishment in Hebrews chapter 6, speaking to his elect brothers
and sisters who are of the people of Israel. And he says, there
are many of them who will come alongside the brethren, and they
will experience the hearing of the apostles' teaching. They
will see and experience the power and the presence of God the Holy
Spirit. And they will walk for a while with these brothers and
sisters, but they will eventually part ways, and they will go back
into sin in this way. that they will no longer desire
intimacy with the body of Christ because the body of Christ will
hold to the free and sovereign grace of God as its effectual
hope in Christ. And those who do not or have
not been born of God will diverge from that. And in that little fork in the
road, they will get further and further away to the point they
will neglect the assembly. And then it's a warning sign
that something's wrong. We call them to confess what
they believe and they will not confess Christ. They will confess
all sorts of things. Maybe one day I'll write a book
about the false confessions of the church because I've heard
them all. And I've heard every excuse in
the book. I've heard every claim of hypocrisy. I've heard every
iteration of how things ought to be and how other people ought
to be rather than how they should be and how they should believe. We don't get to stand before
God one day and tell him about how wrong everybody else was.
Paul says that the whole world's mouth will be shut up. Isn't
that strong? That's one of the strongest phrases
you can use in English. Shut up. Isn't that? It's just
so rude. So harsh. It actually makes people
hush. And then they get real mad, and
then they don't stop talking. And it's not something we've
ever allowed our children. We let them slide with a minor explicative
before we let them say shut up. What'd you just say? Well, don't
say shut up again. I'm surprised my daughter hasn't
said something wrong. But no one's going to be able
to argue with God. No one! Our mouths will be shut. And those who are laying over
there, withered away, not connected, no matter how much good and religious
and cultural American Christianity they've got, they will be gathered
up and they will be destroyed in an everlasting fire. But we
who are connected to the vine, the vine will not burn itself.
The vine will not destroy itself, thus it will not destroy its
own branches. We are the body of Christ. He
is our head, our Andros, our husband. He is our king. He is our ruler. He is our Lord.
He is our savior. He is our lamb. He is our peace. He is our hope. He's our creator. And when we are in him, when
we are in him, we have everything we need in
Christ. We have everything we need in spiritual sense. We have
everything we need for everything that we've been called to do
in life. And beloved, I pray that not
only would you internalize this and hold and focus to this, but
you would understand that the only way that you will hold fast
to this truth in a real and present way is by the power of God. And
the only way you're going to be encouraged in this truth to
hold fast is by the word of God. And next week we will see that
this intimacy with Christ in His body, which is really what
this title should be, ushers in a new understanding
of how God has really made us His own. We're just not a collected
people over here that God has gathered in a box and says, look
at my collection. He's made us the body of His
living and loving Son. And I pray you would teach your
children that. And I pray you would teach your neighbors that.
I pray you would teach your family that. And I pray you would learn
it more and more and more. And trust in the Lord's Word
to do its work. We don't have to debate it for
it to be effectual. Because Christ has said, you
are already clean because of the words I have spoken to you. Let's pray. We thank you, Father,
for your word, for the gospel of John and for everything that
it is, everything that you've revealed to us. Father, I pray
that as we take your table and we remember how we are clean,
that we can remember that by being attached to the vine, we
have all the benefits of the body and the blood of Christ.
We've been given to the sun. We've been purchased and nothing
will separate us from your love, not even our sin. For you have
caused us to believe. You have granted us repentance,
gifted us faith. And Father, in your mercy throughout
this life, you will encourage us and empower us to love one
another as we wait for the day when we will fully love without
fail when we see you face to face. In Jesus' name, amen.