Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program. I'm glad
you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to continue preaching in the book
of John, the gospel of John chapter 15. Last week I spoke on Christ,
the true vine, the vine and the branches. And I'm going to continue
that in this message. The title is abiding in Christ. abiding in Christ, and it begins
at verse four, but I wanna go back up and just read the first
three verses to keep this in the context. This is where Christ
tells his disciples. He says in verse one, I am the
true vine, and my father is the husbandman. Christ is the vine,
he's the life giver. He's the author and giver of
all life, physical life, but especially, and this is what
he's talking about here, spiritual life. eternal life. He's the author of it. He's the
giver of it. He's the finisher of it. He's
all of it. And so God the Father is the
vine dresser. He's the one representing the
authority, the sovereignty of the Godhead. He chose a people
before the foundation of the world and gave those people to
Christ. They're called the elect of God.
And people don't like that, that God just chose a remnant, he
calls it a remnant according to the election of grace. But
you have to realize, number one, that God's in control here. God
is the, he is the, the Bible calls him the one who is in control
and who is sovereign. He's the creator. He's the one
who makes the clay pots. You see, he's the potter, we're
the clay. And so if God had not chosen a people to save, no one
would be saved. The whole world would perish.
But election is the doctrine of grace. It's called the election
of grace. And that election was the choice
of a people in Christ. And what you're to be concerned
with and what I'm to be concerned with is, do I want to be in Christ? Now that's the key. It's not
your business to say, well, I don't know if I'm elect or who's elect.
That's not your business. That's God's business. The Lord
knoweth them that are His. So our business is to read the
Bible and see the revealed things that God has put down in His
Word. And here's what He tells you,
and here's what He tells me, that outside of Christ, there's
nothing but death and hell. Outside of Christ, there's no
love from God outside of Christ. When God said, Jacob have I loved,
Esau have I hated, what was the problem? Jacob was a sinner saved
by grace, chosen of God, justified, redeemed by the blood of Christ.
Esau was left in his unbelief, and he insisted on that. And
he said, and it's not, that doesn't mean that God says, Jacob have
I loved, Esau have I loved less. Preachers who tell you that are
just lying, or they're ignorant, but it's still a lie. But when
he says I'm the true vine, he's the author, the giver, and the
finisher of eternal life. The father is the husbandman.
He chose the people, gave them to Christ, put all of their salvation
upon the shoulders of Christ. And in order to save them, and
Christ agreed, the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God,
agreed to be their surety, having their sins imputed to Him, agreed
to be their substitute, to come to earth and unite with sinless
human flesh, created for Him in the womb of the Virgin by
the Spirit, and He agreed to obey the law unto death, even
the death of the cross, to satisfy the justice of God, to pay their
sin debt, and to establish a perfect righteousness whereby God could
justify them, the imputed righteousness of Christ. Romans 4 and verse
6, the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness
without works. And so he says in verse two,
every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away, talking
about false professors. And every branch that beareth
fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit, talking
about his true children. whom he's given the fruit of
faith and repentance and perseverance, the obedience of faith, and he
purges them by chastisements, by their experiences, all through
life, he's got his hand of power and grace and goodness upon his
people. He won't let us go, I'm gonna
talk about that. and he purges them, he prunes
them. That's what life experience of
a believer, a child of God is. It's a pruning, it's a purging
that brings us more and more to see the glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ, draws us closer to him. helps us to grow
in grace and in knowledge, not in order to be saved, and not
in order to earn our rewards in heaven, but because we already
are saved by His grace, kept by His grace, and our reward
is Christ. Our reward is eternal life because
Christ earned it for us. And then he says in verse three,
now you are clean through the word which I've spoken unto you.
Christ had brought these disciples to be cleansed by the washing
of water by the word. And I made the distinction last
week about how the Bible speaks of the cleansing, there's a cleansing
by the blood of Christ, that's our legal cleansing when he put
the sins away by paying the sin debt, satisfying justice, and
we are cleansed by the blood of Christ. The blood of Jesus
Christ cleanses us from all sin. But this is talking about the
new birth. You're clean through the word, the regeneration and
conversion of a sinner by the power of the spirit under the
preaching of the gospel, where he brings us out of the kingdom
of darkness and deception and unbelief into the kingdom of
light and truth and faith. And so now he says, this is our
text now, verse four. He says, abide in me and I in
you. Now this is a term, this abide
in me and I in you, that's what salvation by the grace of God
is. It's a sinner who cannot save him or herself being brought
into a saving union with Christ. And again, we can talk about
that union, that's a whole subject in and of itself. When we're
talking about in Christ, he says, abide in me. Not just abide now,
the word abide means to continue. It means to stay put, as we might
say. It means to persevere in Christ. Cling to Christ, don't let go. As one preacher said, hold on
for dear life, because he is life. And he says, and I in you. Christ abides within his people. We sing a hymn called Christ
liveth in me. Now, how does he live within
his people? Two ways, by the Holy Spirit who abides within
God's people and by the word written on their hearts. When
the Holy Spirit brings a sinner into the new birth, There's an
act of providence first. And what is that act of providence?
It's bringing them in contact or in communication with the
gospel message. The gospel message has to be
communicated to them, the preaching of the gospel, or else they won't
believe. It's the way God brings people
into the kingdom. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching. If you look over in Romans chapter
six, Look at verse 17 of Romans chapter six. And he says, but
God be thanked that you were the servants of sin. Now a servant
of sin, understand this now, a servant of sin is an unbeliever.
We are all sinners. There's only two types of people
on this earth. There's sinners lost in their
sins and sinners saved by grace through Christ. A servant of
sin here in the context is a sinner who is lost in their sins. They're
in unbelief, they're unregenerate. They've not been born again.
So he says, but God bethink that as you were servants of sin,
but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine,
which was delivered you. Now that last phrase is interesting.
He says, which was delivered you. Well, the doctrine that
he's talking about is the gospel, the teachings of truth, who God
is. God is holy and just, and he
must punish sin. He cannot just overlook it. And
the truth about ourselves, we are sinners. We are spiritually
dead and depraved. We have no righteousness of our
own. We cannot do anything to work righteousness. That's why
salvation is not by works. And then who Christ is in the
salvation of sinners by God's grace. He's God and man in one
person. He died on the cross to save
his people from their sins and he saved every one of them. He
redeemed them by his blood. He established righteousness.
The gospel is the revelation of the righteousness of God.
That's the righteousness of Christ, the merit of His obedience unto
death as the surety, the substitute, the redeemer of His people. The
merit of His righteousness imputed to His people, that's the ground
of salvation. God made Him to be sin, Christ
who knew no sin, for us that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. Okay, that form of doctrine,
And he says, you've obeyed it from the heart. Now, the heart
there is the new heart given in the new birth. God said, I'll
give them a new heart. I'll create a new spirit within
them. They'll know me, he says. And he says that form of doctrine,
which was delivered you in the original language, it would read
like this. you have obeyed from the heart
that form of doctrine which you, where to you were delivered.
In other words, this particular words order would be saying this,
it wouldn't be saying the doctrine that was delivered to you. Now
understand now the doctrine is delivered to you under preaching
of the gospel. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. Other verses tell us that. We're
begotten again by the word of truth and the preaching, you
know, we preach Christ crucified. But this verse is telling us
this, you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine, which
you were delivered to. God delivered you to the gospel.
He brought you under the preaching of the gospel, whether it was
in a church setting or on a recording or in a book, he brought you
under the gospel. Okay, and then he says in verse
18 of Romans 6, being then made free from sin, that word free
there is liberated. Now that doesn't mean you stop
sinning, but you're liberated from the power of sin to condemn
you, the power of sin to deceive you, the power of sin to keep
you under darkness and unbelief. And you became the servants of
righteousness, which is the servants of Christ. So to abide in Him
and Him to abide in us, go back to John 15, four, our text. Abide
in me and I in you. That means He brings us to the
gospel in the new birth. He gives us spiritual life from
the dead. and he gives us the gifts of
faith and repentance and perseverance and we look to Christ and live
our lives looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our
faith. Now that doesn't mean that we're not going to mess
up, we will. Doesn't mean we're not going to stray. We can stray. We have that in the Bible. Some
of the choice saints that are recorded in God's Word, He doesn't
hold back. He doesn't hide their sins. You
can think about Abraham, you can think about Noah, you can
think about David, all of them. They messed up a lot, and we'll
mess up a lot. But He will not allow us to totally
apostatize from Him. Look over in 1 John chapter three. Now 1 John chapter 3 is a difficult
passage if you don't understand where John was inspired by the
Spirit to go with this. But he had started out over in
1 John 2 talking about false professors. And you remember
that's quite in line with our text here in John 15 because
he said those who bear not fruit I take away. In 1 John 2, he made the statement,
he said that there were some who claimed to be saved and claimed
to believe the true doctrine of Christ, the gospel, the true
gospel, but they left it. They went out from us. Look over
at 1 John 2 first, verse 19. It says, they went out from us,
but they were not of us. They weren't truly of us. They
weren't truly united with us. For if they had been of us, they
would no doubt have continued with us. They would have abided.
They would have continued with us. But they went out, that they
might be made manifest, might be made known, that they were
not all of us. In other words, those who claim
to be saved and seem to the people of God to be brethren or sisters
in Christ, If they totally leave it, that's talking about apostasy
now. It's not talking about straying
away. A believer who strays can be called back unto repentance. You understand that? That's another
subject all in itself. But these who went out from us,
they totally fell away to the point of calling Christ accursed.
Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10 talks about that. And he says, they
didn't lose their salvation. They never were of us. So they
couldn't abide in Christ because they never were truly in Christ
spiritually. Verse 20 of 1 John 2, he says,
but you have an unction, an anointing from the Holy One, from Christ,
and you know all things. You have a knowledge that cannot
be taken away. When the Holy Spirit in the new
birth brings a sinner to know Christ and to truly believe in
Him, There are three things that cannot happen. You cannot ignore
it, you cannot deny it, and you cannot leave it. Do you understand
that? If the Spirit, now if you've
made a false profession of truth, then you can at some point ignore
it, deny it, or leave it. But if the Holy Spirit has convinced
you, convicted you, and brought you spiritually in Christ, a
union with Christ, that union cannot be broken. And you cannot
ignore it, you cannot deny it, you cannot leave it. That's the
case. So look over at 1 John 3 9. Now
this verse is butchered by so many people. But you gotta keep
it in the context, and I can't read all these verses in between
what I just read in 1 John 2, because we don't have time. But
look at this, he says in verse nine of 1 John 3, whosoever is
born of God, if you're born of God, if you're born again from
above by the power of the Spirit through the Word, doth not commit
sin. Now a lot of translations say
that, well, they don't practice sin. And they say that means,
well, they cannot live a life of immorality. No, wait a minute.
That's not what it's saying. That's not the context. The sin
they cannot commit is apostasy. That's what John is talking about
in this passage. Keep it in the context. And what
he's saying is this, whosoever is born of God doth not fall
away, doth not apostatize. You cannot ignore it, you cannot
deny it, and you cannot leave it. Now why? It says, for his
seed remaineth in him. That's the seed there is the
children of God, the seed of Christ. And they remain in him,
they abide in him. And it says, because he is born
of God. You cannot leave him. Go back
to first John 15. Abide in me and I in you. If
you're born of God, you abide in Christ, and here's the main
thing. Here's the ground and the power of it. Christ abides
in you. If I'm a true believer, really
a sinner saved by grace, Christ abides in me by His Spirit and
His Word and He'll never leave me. He'll never leave me. All the promises of God in Christ
are yea and amen, they're sure and certain. He'll never leave
His people. His sheep have gone astray, that's
their natural state, but He finds them and He brings them into
the fold and He won't let them stray again. Now they may mess
up, like I said, but what I'm saying when they won't let him
stray, he won't let them totally leave the flock and perish. Now go back to verse four of
John 15. Abide in me, and I in you, as
the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in
the vine, no more can ye except you abide in me. There's no fruit. that we produce. I said this
last week, we don't produce fruit. Christ is the fruit producer. We bear the fruit, but we cannot
bear fruit without the vine. We cannot bear the fruit of faith
without the vine. We cannot bear the fruit of repentance.
We cannot bear the fruit of perseverance. You see, the vine is everything.
The fruit is the result. Christ is the ground, the source,
the source of life everlasting, the source of righteousness,
the source of forgiveness, the source of perseverance. He preserves
His people. Over in John 10, we read it several
weeks and several months ago, that those who are in Christ,
He won't let us go. No man, no one, nothing can take
them out of my Father's hand, He said. He keeps us. And that's what Paul said, I
know whom I have believed. And I know that he is able to
keep that which I've committed unto him against that day, the
day of trial, and especially the day of judgment. When I stand
before God at judgment, I'll stand there because Christ kept
me, preserved me. I did persevere in him. But my
perseverance was not the source or the cause or the ground of
my salvation. My perseverance is the fruit
of the vine, the fruit of salvation. So look at verse five. He says
in verse five, I am the vine, you are the branches. He that
abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit,
for without me you can do nothing. Now, you've heard that phrase
quoted quite a bit. You say, without Christ, you
can do nothing. And preachers will misuse it
a lot of times. They'll say, well, with Christ,
you can do everything. Well, what are they talking about?
A lot of them, they're talking about, well, you can make money,
you can be healthy and all of that. It's not what he's talking
about. Now, if God decides to make you
healthy or if God decides to make you rich, that's up to Him.
But not all believers are healthy and not all believers are rich
in material goods. But I'll tell you what all believers
are. They're rich in the grace of God. They're healthy. in eternal
life and in the Spirit. Because the Bible says that in
Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and you
are complete in Him. Colossians 2 and verse 9. Think about that. He's the vine. We're the branches. We abide
in Him. Without Christ, we're nothing.
Without Christ, There's no salvation, there's no righteousness, there's
no forgiveness. Without him, we can do nothing.
In verse six, he says, if a man abideth not in me, he's cast
forth as a branch and is withered, and men gather them and cast
them into the fire and they're burned. False professors, even
those who at one time may, you know, a person who claims to
be a Christian but who denies the truth of the Bible as to
the gospel. In other words, they believe
salvation conditioned on sinners and not on Christ alone. And
they measure righteousness and holiness on a sliding scale.
Those who do that, they don't even give the semblance of being
a true Christian according to the Bible. They don't appear
to be Christian to true Christians. But even if a person gives mental
assent to the truth, but it's a false profession, it's not
real, it's not by being convinced by the Holy Spirit, and they
leave it, this is what he's talking about. If a man abide not in
me, he doesn't continue in Christ, he goes off on to other things. You know, in the book of Galatians,
Paul deals with this. Here he had gone into the area
of Galatia, he had preached the gospel, and the Lord had established
churches, and there were true believers there, but also there
were false professors, and false Judaizers, legalists, came in
saying that if you're really going to be saved, you've got
to keep the law, you've got to be circumcised, you've got to
do that. Paul told him, he said, listen, if righteousness come
by the law, then Christ died in vain. If you be circumcised,
then you're denying Christ. All right. Well, some of them
may have gone off with these legalists, forsaken the gospel. They didn't abide in Christ.
Well, they're cast forth as a branch. They claim to be a branch, but
they weren't. and they're withered, they'll die, die on the vine,
but not on the vine Christ Jesus. And men gather them and cast
them into the fire and they'll burn. In verse seven, he says,
if you abide in me and my words abide in you, now notice this,
to abide in Christ is to abide in his word, okay? And if you don't abide in his
word, what the word says about him, who he is and what he accomplished,
why he did it and where he is now, He did it for the glory
of God and he's seated at the right hand of the Father, ever
living to make intercession for us. He says, if you abide in
me and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will and
it shall be done unto you. Now he's talking about salvation
and the things of spiritual life. He's not talking about that he's
a genie in a bottle and you can ask anything you want, he'll
give it to you. That's not what he's saying. And he says, hearing
as my father glorified that you bear much fruit, so shall you
be my disciples. Abiding in Christ by the power,
the goodness, and the grace of almighty God. That's the only
way of salvation. Thank God for his grace, his
abiding grace. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
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today and may the Lord be with you.