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. I'd like to welcome you to our
program this morning. I'm glad you could join us. If
you'd like to follow along in your Bibles, I'm going to be
preaching from the Gospel of John in the New Testament, John
chapter 15. And I'm going to preach in this
chapter on this subject, the vine and the branches. The vine and the branches. Now
the Lord Jesus Christ, when he taught his disciples, he often
used symbols, metaphors, to describe the whole realm of salvation,
who he is and what he accomplished for the salvation of his people.
He used metaphors and parables, symbols to illustrate his relationship
to his people. And one of the most beautiful
metaphors, symbols, is in John 15 on Christ is the vine and
his disciples, his true people, are the branches. And that the
fact that the life, spiritual life, eternal life, salvation
itself, is in the vine. Christ is the source and power
of life for his disciples. Their salvation comes because
of the vine, because of what Christ accomplished. And their
life is from the vine, and they bear fruit. And that's the fruit
of faith, the fruit of repentance, the fruit of godliness, the fruit
of the Spirit. because of the life of the vine. In other words, what he's teaching
in passages like this is that the ground of salvation and the
power of salvation is not in us, but in him. And the source
and the power of a godly life, Christian life, faith and repentance,
perseverance, is not because of our own power or our own goodness
or our own will, it's because of His power, His goodness, and
His will. And you often hear me speak of
the term righteousness, and the gospel is the preaching of the
righteousness of God, which is the merit, the worthiness, the
value of the work that Christ accomplished as the surety, the
substitute, and the redeemer of his people. We have no righteousness. We're sinners. We fell in Adam. And we were born dead in trespasses
and sins. And we don't have the spiritual
life and the capacity to believe and love and serve God. That
has to be given as a gift. And it comes from God by His
grace through Christ. And it's based upon the righteousness
that Christ accomplished in His obedience unto death as the surety,
the substitute, and the redeemer of His people. Romans 5.21, I quote quite often,
that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign
through righteousness unto. eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. Well, Christ's righteousness,
how is it applied to God's people? Well, it's imputed to them. That's
a scriptural term where righteousness is imputed. Romans 4 and verse
6 says, blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness
without works. And that word impute means that
God legally charges it to the account of His people so that
I stand before God righteous in His sight, not by my works,
not by my efforts, not even by my decision. but by what Christ
did as put to my account. He paid my debt and my account's
clear and he gave me the blessings of eternal life. And so my sins
were charged to him and he died, paid the debt, his righteousness
is charged to me. Now that righteousness imputed
is the ground of my right standing with God. It's the ground of
my whole salvation. But it's also the source and
the power of spiritual life. If I have faith, it came from
Christ, who is my righteousness. My faith does not make me righteous. Christ did. But my faith drives
me to Christ. and to lean on Him and to trust
Him for all righteousness. You see what I'm saying? So faith
and the spiritual life and all that comes with it, faith, repentance,
perseverance. The source of all that is Christ,
who is the Lord my righteousness. And that's what it is when He
says He's the vine. Look at John 15 one. He says,
I am the true vine. Now there's only one true vine.
That vine, that vine from whom comes life, spiritual life, to
raise me from my spiritual death. That's what Christ meant when
he said, you must be born again. You must be quickened, given
life. We don't have it naturally. As
we're born naturally, we're born dead. Spiritually now, we're
alive physically, We have a mind, affection, and will, but we have
no spiritual knowledge or capacity or desire for the things that
glorify God. That's why the Bible says, no
man can come to me except the Father which has sent me draw
him. And so Christ is the true vine. He is the source of life, spiritual
life. It comes from the vine. And there's
only one true vine. That vine is not Buddha. That
vine is not other gods. It's not Allah. That vine is
Christ. It's the Lord God in Christ who
is God in human flesh. God and man. And that life comes
by virtue of what He accomplished on Calvary in His death, and
it's evidenced by His resurrection from the dead. You see, sin demands
death. Righteousness demands life. When
sin was imputed, charged to Christ, he died. But in his death, he
did what we could not do, even in our death. We cannot pay the
penalty in full. We cannot satisfy the justice
of God. But Christ did, and He established
everlasting righteousness, and therefore He was raised from
the dead. And the Bible says He's the firstfruits of His people. In other words, if He was raised
from the dead, Him being the source and the power of life,
then you can be assured that all for whom He died and was
buried and arose again will be raised from the dead. That's
what Christ said in John 6. And so he says, I am the true
vine. Now, any other person who claims
to be able to save sinners is a false vine. It's a fake, a
false prophet. But Christ said, I am the true
vine. And look at verse one, he says, and my father is the
husbandman. A husbandman is like a farmer
who has a farm. And he prepares all the field
and plants the crops, waters it, fertilizes it, causes it
to grow. So that's what he's saying. Salvation
is of the Lord. The farm is his church, his people. Not just the whole world, but
all of his people. So Christ is the vine sent forth
from the Father, who is the husbandman. Galatians 4 and verse 4 says
that in the fullness of the time, God sent forth His Son made of
a woman, that's the humanity of Christ, God in human flesh,
made under the law, that's the fact that all of salvation was
conditioned on Him and the sins of His people, which the law
imputed sin to him, it was imputed to Christ, that he was made under
the law to redeem them that were under the law, that they might
receive the adoption of sons. So Christ sent forth from the
Father. There is a distinction of persons
in the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but it's one
God. It's not three gods, as some accuse us of preaching.
One God in three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And that's a mind-boggling truth. It's something we cannot explain
in human terms. We can't even illustrate it,
even though people try. Let me tell you something about
the Trinity. When people try to illustrate it with earthly
terms, forget it. You can't do it. This is one
of those points of mystery, which is just mind boggling. God is
so high above us. But here he says he sent forth
from the Father. So look at verse one again, John
15. I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Now
look at verse two. Every branch in me that beareth
not fruit, he taketh away. Now, the branch here is speaking
of his children, sinners saved by the grace of God. Look at
verse two again. 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. So Christ is the vine,
his father is the husbandman, and he has branches in the vine,
it's like a grape vine, and these bear fruit, and when they stop
bearing fruit, he takes them away, and that's what he's talking
about there is when he's finished with them here on earth, his
people, you know what he does? He takes them away, and that
means take them up. That doesn't mean throw them
out as trash when he says he takes them away. That word means
he bears them up. In other words, when he's finished
with me, he'll bear me up. I'll die, and I'll leave this
body, and I'll go to be with him. That's what that means. But as long as he keeps me here
on earth, he says, he'll, it says here, he purges it. Now
that means he prunes it, like the vine needs pruning. Now some
of you farmers and some of you yard people, you go out and you
prune the shrubs and you prune your azaleas, you prune the crepe
myrtles and they bear more flowers and they bear more fruit. And
that's what he's saying here. As long as his people are here
on this earth, He's going to purge them. He's going to cleanse
them. He's going to prune them. And that pruning can come in
a lot of different forms. It can simply come through studying
and prayer. It can come through trials that
we go through. But his idea there is not to
destroy his people, but that they learn and they grow and
they bear fruit. Now that fruit is fruit unto
God over in the book of Romans chapter seven. He speaks of bearing
fruit unto God. Look at Romans 7 and verse 4.
Romans 7 and verse 4. He says, wherefore my brethren,
you also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ. Now to be dead to the law means
simply this, that the law cannot impute or charge you with sin
and the law cannot condemn you for sin. Now, that's what it
means to be dead to the law. The law cannot condemn me. The
law cannot charge me with sin. Even though I'm a sinner now,
this is not fake stuff. This is a legal truth. And how
did I become that way? It says by the body of Christ. I didn't become that way because
I became a better person or turned over a new leaf. And listen to
me now. I didn't become that way because
I gave my heart to Jesus. No. How did you become dead to
the law? By the body of Christ. Now what
is the body? That's his death. You see, the
fact that I'm righteous in God's sight, and that my sin, even
though they're ever present in me, and always with me, they
cannot be charged to me, is because Christ died in my stead. And therefore over in Romans
8 33 it says, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
You can't be charged if you're in Christ because he was charged
in your stead as your substitute. So who shall lay anything to
the charge of God's elect? It's God that justified. It's
God who forgave me on the just ground of the blood of Christ.
It's God who declares me righteous as I stand before him in Christ. And then he goes on in verse
34, he says, Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died. Yea,
rather, is risen again and seated at the right hand of the Father,
ever living to make intercession for us, for his people, pleading
the merits of his blood and his righteousness. So back in Romans
7 and verse 4 now, Wherefore, my brethren, you also become
dead to the law by the body of Christ, and here's the fruit
of it, that you should be married to another, married to Christ,
even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring
forth fruit unto God. So the ground is the righteousness
of Christ imputed. And as a result, the fruit that
comes out of that is we're married to Christ, we're united to him
by faith, and we bring forth fruit unto God. We don't produce
fruit, now this is important, Christ is the vine. His people
are the branches. And remember what he said over
here in John 15, in verse two, every branch in me that beareth
not fruit, he taketh away. In other words, as long as we're
in this world, we'll bear fruit. Now we'll bear fruit in glory
too, but he's talking about disciples here on earth. And he says, in
every branch that beareth fruit, he purges, he prunes it, that
it may bring forth more fruit. And that's what happens. And
we bring forth fruit unto God. Now before we're married to Christ
by God-given faith in the new birth, all we can bring forth
is fruit unto death. That's what he says there in
Romans 7 and verse 5. Listen to this. He says, for
when we were in the flesh, that is when we were unregenerate,
when we were unbelievers, the motions or passions of sins which
were by the law did work in our members to bring forth fruit
unto death. Now, an unbeliever can bring
forth fruit, but it's not fruit unto God. It's not the fruit
from the vine who is Christ. It's fruit from his natural self-righteousness,
self-love, and self-will. It's fruit unto death. And it may be religious fruit.
It may be a moral fruit, as men judge morality. It may be a person
trying to be the best they can be in this life. And yet, without
Christ, without being married to Christ, without being attached
to the vine, that's what he's gonna talk about in chapter 15
of the book of John. Without being vitally and permanently
attached to the vine, to Christ, it's all fruit unto death. But
now, when you're attached to Christ in the vine, By faith
in Him, you bring forth fruit unto God. And that doesn't mean
you never sin. Everything we do is not fruit
unto God, is not the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of the
vine. Because we still sin, but we do bring forth fruit. And
that's the fruit of faith, the fruit of repentance. And understand
now, repentance is not just feeling sorry for your sin. We all should
feel sorry for our sin, more sorrier than we are. Repentance
is a change of mind. Whereas we're going one direction,
we are turned around by God to go the opposite. Whereas before
I was trying to establish my own righteousness before God,
but now I repent of that, that's dead works, and I look to Christ
for righteousness. So he says, and let's look back,
John 15, two again, every branch in me, now that's key, in me,
in Christ, without Christ, This means nothing, but every branch
in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. Those who are
not bearing fruit here on earth, he's taken them away. They've
died and they've gone to be with him. And every branch that beareth
fruit, he purges, he pruning you. He's pruning his people. And it'll be through different
ways of grace that God in his power works for his people and
through his people. So we look to Christ and to Him
alone for this purging, even the life that comes from the
vine, and even the purging that comes from God through Christ.
And it'll be knowledge given, it'll be faith increased and
strengthened. It may be through a trial, may
be through a hard trial. It may be through God letting
us go out on our own for a while, but He'll always bring us back.
But this pruning is not for their punishment as far as paying for
their sins. This pruning is for their good,
for their learning to bring forth much fruit, bear fruit. And again,
let me emphasize, we don't produce fruit, we bear that fruit. And that fruit is produced by
the vine, Christ. Well, look at verse three of
John 15. He says, now you are clean through the word which
I have spoken unto you. Clean through the word. What's
he talking about? Cleansing by the word of God.
Psalm 119 and verse nine says this, wherewith shall a young
man cleanse his way? By taking heed to thy word, to
God's word. Listening and hearing God's word. Now the Word of God is a cleansing
element as it is empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring a sinner
to see his or her sins, her depravity, his depravity, the inability
and the impossibility of salvation by my works. And that same word
drives me to Christ and brings me to faith in Him where my heart
is cleansed by His blood. That's what it's talking about.
Now you are clean. That doesn't mean you're sinlessly
perfect. It means that the Holy Spirit
has used the Word of God, the Gospel, to drive you away from
yourself and drive you to Christ for salvation, for forgiveness,
for righteousness, for eternal life, and for glory. Cleansed
by His blood through the Word. And so he says in verse four,
abide in me, continue in me. and I in you. Now, the only way
that I'm going to continue in Him is if He continues in me. And He says of His people, He'll
never leave them. He'll never forsake them. 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. Without the
vine, without Christ, without the life, righteousness that
He has, We can't do anything. He says in verse 5, He says,
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 that's what that verse means.
You've heard that phrase, without me you can do nothing. That's
what it means. You can't bear fruit. The fruit of faith, the
fruit of repentance, the fruit of perseverance, the fruit of
the Spirit that's listed in Galatians chapter 5, love and faithfulness,
all of that. You can't do it without Christ
because He's the life. Without Christ, we stand before
God condemned. Without Christ, we are in a state
of spiritual death. And all we can do is bring forth
fruit unto death. But in Christ, he says in verse
six, if a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch
and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire
and they are burned. Now what's he talking about there?
He's talking about false disciples here. A false disciple is one
who may give At one time, he may give a profession that he
knows and loves and believes in Christ, but he doesn't stay
with it. He doesn't abide in Christ. It
doesn't mean that he loses his salvation. Look in verse 6 again.
If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch. It means he appeared to be a
branch, but he wasn't. And he said he's withered and
men gather them and they're cast into the fire and they're burned.
They're not taken up like these back here in verse two, you say,
but they're cast off. They're false disciples. The
Bible teaches that those who are saved by the grace of God
in Christ shall remain so by the grace of God in Christ. They
abide in him because he abides in them and he will not let them
go. First John chapter two, verse 19 speaks of that. He said, those
who went out from us, they never were of us. If they had been
of us, they would have remained, but they went out so they may
be made manifest. So verse seven, 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, the if there is not
a conditional if, it's an evidential if. If you do this, you give
evidence that you are in Christ, that you're bringing forth fruit
unto God, and he says, you ask what you will. Now, he's not
talking about just some kind of a blanket toy shop, you know, where you
go in, or a grocery store, and you go in, and you can get anything
you want. You ask whatever you, some people, we ask, the Bible
says, we're to ask according to the will of God. Thy will
be done. But mainly what he's talking about there are things
that are related to salvation and the perseverance of a sinner
in Christ. Lord, keep me. Lord, forgive
me. When we ask for those things
that are related to salvation by the grace of God according
to his will, we'll have them. Doesn't mean if I get on my knees
and pray for a million dollars that God's always gonna give
me a million dollars. It doesn't mean that if I get
sick physically that I pray for physical healing, God's always
gonna do that. These false preachers who tell you, well, if you ask
in faith, you'll get it, but if you don't, in other words,
if you don't have enough faith, you won't get it, they're lying
to you. This is talking about salvation. It's not talking about
some kind of a God who is a Santa Claus. You give him your wish
list and it appears under the tree. But he said, it shall be
done unto you. Verse eight, he says, hearing
as my father glorified that you bear much fruit. See, that's
what he's talking about. I wanna bear fruit. I wanna live
a God-honoring life, Christ-honoring life. And I'm gonna ask for the
things that'll promote that in me. Now, if me winning a million
dollars wouldn't promote that, I'll tell you right now, I'm
not gonna get it. And God hasn't given it to me yet, so He knows
what I can handle. He knows better than me what
I need. So we bear that fruit. In verse nine he says, as the
Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue in my love. In verse 10 he says, if you keep
my commandments. Now again, that if there is not
a conditional if, it's an evidential if. The commandments he's talking
about is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, repent of your
dead works, and follow him. That's what he's talking about.
He's not talking about keeping 10 commandments or certain ones. We're to try to keep all of God's
word. But he's talking about believing. He says, 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. And that's what he's talking
about. Abiding in his love, knowing that I'm a sinner saved by grace,
knowing that I don't deserve salvation, I've never earned
it, none of the blessings of life have I earned. I'm all,
it's all in Christ, the vine. 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
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2-3. Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia
31707. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.theletterofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.