title of the message this morning
is abiding in the vine abiding in the vine the chapter begins
with the last of the seven noted I am statements in the gospel
of john back in chapter six he'd said I am the bread of life in
chapter eight I am light of the world. In chapter 10 verse 9,
I am the door. In chapter 10 and verse 11, I
am the Good Shepherd. In chapter 11 and verse 25, I
am the resurrection and the life. In chapter 14 and verse 6, I
am the way, the truth, and the life. And then the seventh one,
here in chapter 15 in verse one. I am the true vine and my father
is the husband. This passage is so rich. I will but scratch the surface
this morning. But the first thing of importance is who it refers
to. This passage has been used by
many to promote the belief that a child of God can cease to be
a child of God by his or her own behavior. That is, that a
person can lose salvation. And they use specifically, among
other scriptures, in this passage, verse two, every branch in me
that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. They use that. And they also use 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. It may seem to be saying what
they say it's saying, but that's not what it's saying. Christ
is speaking to the 11. Judas Iscariot has already gone
out. He is speaking to the 11 who are all God's children. He said back in chapter 13 in
verse 10, ye are clean, but not all. The reference being to Judas
Iscariot being in the company. But here in chapter 15 in verse
3, He says, now ye are clean through the word which I have
spoken unto you. And the reference is to the effectual
word of the gospel in the heart. Now, knowing that in just a few
hours he will be hanging on a cross, Christ uses this time to convey
The importance of living in close communion and fellowship with
Him. This discourse 13 through 16
is in private given to the disciples. The night before our Lord is
to be put on the cross the next morning. So this is one of the
last subjects that he deals with and teaches them at this specific
time. He's not going to be here in
body. He's going to die, rise from
the dead, walk the earth 40 days, and ascend back into glory. But
he tells them here, I will be here. I will be with you through
another comforter. You see, this passage is right
in the middle of his promises concerning another comforter. God, the Spirit. The Holy Spirit,
the Holy Ghost. Chapter 14 in verse 26. But the comforter. Which is the
Holy Ghost. whom the Father will send in
my name, he shall teach you all things, that is, all things needful
for you in your life of faith, and bring all things to your
remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you." And then in that same chapter back in the
16th verse. And I will pray the father and
he shall give you another comforter that he may abide with you forever.
Even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because
it seeth him not neither knoweth him, but ye know him for he dwelleth
with you and shall be in you I will not leave you comfortless.
I will come to you. And then in the next chapter,
the chapter that we read from this morning, chapter 15 and
verse 26, but when the comforter is come, whom I will send unto
you from the father, even the spirit of truth, which proceeded
from the father, And he shall testify of me, and shall also bear witness,
because ye have been with me from the beginning. And then in chapter 16, verses
13 and 14, Howbeit when he, the Spirit of
truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth, Notice the
Holy Spirit is spoken of as a person. He. He. And unpopular with some folks,
God is not a she. He. The Spirit of truth has come. He will guide you into all truth.
For He shall speak not of Himself, Whatsoever he shall hear, that
shall he speak, and he will show you things to come. He, Christ
said, shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and shall
show it unto you." So he's talking about the blessed
comfort of the Spirit of God that lives in our hearts this
morning. And our trust lives there ungrieved. Now, back to our text, verse
one, there was nothing more familiar to a Jew in New Testament times
than the relationship of husbandman to vineyard. Vine to branches, branches to
fruit. And though a vine and a husbandman, the vine and the vine dresser,
the farmer, they're two different things. It was often said in
common speech that a husbandman and his vineyard were one. I mean, and that's true. The life and
health of the vine was dependent on the husbandman, and the life
of the husbandman was given and devoted to the vine as one. Christ said, I and my Father
are one. I am the true vine, my Father
is the husbandman. Now, these 11 men he's talking
to initially still put great value upon them being Jews, part
of the Old Testament nation of Israel. And these men were familiar with
the many Old Testament references to their nation as a vine or
a vineyard. In Isaiah chapter 5, God called
him his choicest vine, the one he chose of all nations to cultivate,
to care for, to produce fruit. But he said to them, after all
I did, this nation brought forth wild
grapes. In Jeremiah 2.21, He told them,
Yet I planted thee a noble vine, holy a right seed. How then art
thou turned into a degenerate plant of a strange vine unto
me? It's like I've done nothing for
you. In Ezekiel 15, God reminded them of their worthlessness among
the trees of the forest. A vine is too small for saw logs
to make lumber. It's twisted. It's gnarled. It's soft wood. It's too weak
for most any use, fit only to be burned. And even for fuel, The vine could
not be used for the altar fires of the temple in the Old Testament. In Hosea 10.1, he called Israel
an empty vine. In Psalm 80 and 8, he calls Israel
the vine God brought out of Egypt. One of the glories of the temple
in Christ's time was the was the vine sculpture beaten,
made out of gold on the front of the holy place. History says that wealthy men
counted it an honor to give gold to mold another stem or another
leaf or another cluster of grapes to add to the vine. The vine
was Israel's symbol of themselves as God's choice vine they divided
in. They played the fool over and
over through the generations as God knew they would. But that nation was only a type Here in John 15, verse 1, Jesus
tells these eleven the truth. I am the true vine. It's not you. It's me. He'd been called the true light,
and He'd called Himself the true bread. Now He says, I'm the true
vine. Abraham's blood in your veins
is absolutely worthless. I am the true vine. The emphasis
of the passage is that of abiding in the vine. And this is the
Lord's message here to the eleven at this critical hour. And of
course The Bible, we believe to be the holy and era-inspired
Word of God preserved by the Holy Ghost for you and I this
morning. This is God's message to us,
the importance of abiding in the vine. Notice with me the
repetition of the little phrase, in me. Verse 2, every branch in me. Verse 4, abide in me. Again at the end of the verse
4, except ye abide in me. Verse 5, middle of the verse,
he that abideth in me. Verse 6, if a man abide not in
me. And then verse 7, if you abide
in me. This is the vital issue, point,
in Christ. This is what divides God's children,
even today, distinguishes God's children, even today, from their
religious people. Except the branch be in the vine,
It has no life, no life source, has no food source. It has no
fruit. At our house a few weeks ago
had a wind, great wind, and it broke a limb up in a tree about
this high. And for the past few weeks, I've
been looking at it brown. Why? Not green like the rest
of the tree. It was broken, but it just hung
there. So, yesterday, I finally did something I should have done
when I turned and pulled it out. It has no life. It's not going
to be green again. And so it is with the branch,
not in the vine. I want you to get what Christ
is saying to these men. He's saying, I have no problem
with you being Jews. I made you Jews. And I chose you personally and
individually. But being a Jew is not where
your life is, and your life source, and your
life sustaining. It's all in me. This is a real slap in the face
to modern-day easy-believism. Get your ticket to heaven, then
go on in your hellishness, just send us your money. Do as you
please, you got your ticket to heaven. No, Christ is saying to abide in me, to be fruitful. You need a constant abiding,
a constant fellowship, through a life of constant obedience
and prayer and diligence not to grieve the Spirit of God who
lives in you. These guys were so proud of their
Jewish blood. You're proud of what you are,
but don't be too proud You're made out of the same stuff
I am, which gets pretty messy at times. Christ says there's no life in
what you are, in who you think you are. No life, no food, no
fellowship, no fruit. It's only as you abide in the
vine, and I am the true vine. Now for a moment let's deal with
the difficulty here in verse 2. Every branch in me that beareth
not fruit, he taketh away. The Greek word here translated
take it away is spelled A I R O arrow. You can look it up in the Greek
concordance and this word is often translated lifted up. For example, Luke 17, 13, and
they lifted up their voices. That's arrow. John 11, 14, and
Jesus lifted up his eyes, and Jesus arrowed, lifted up his
eyes. Revelation 10, 5, and the angel
which I saw lifted up, arrowed his hand. So the words taketh
away here in verse 2 does not mean cut off, but lifteth up. When a branch, a living branch
in the vine is on the ground and is weak or is diseased and
is not bearing fruit, more susceptible to disease and insects The husbandman
will arrow, lift it up, take it away from the ground, stake
it up, prop it up, purge it, prune it, nurture it to be healthy
and to be fruitful. Six times in these eight verses
we've read, we read the word fruit. And that's the issue. There's bearing fruit. Verse
two, there's more fruit. Verse five, there's much fruit. And then verse six is not an
unbeliever pretending to be a true branch. Neither is it a true
branch being cut off and losing their salvation. It is a true
child of God who is not diligent in obedience and prayer in reading
of God's Word and abiding in divine. He does not say that
God's child is rejected and goes to hell. No, not at all. But
through disobedience and through living for self and living for
pleasure in one's own glory, he says, is as a branch. As a branch that's been cut off
and cast away to be burned. In other words, just as unfruitful as if he or
she were not in the vine. In Christ, we have everlasting
life. He will never leave us, never
forsake us. He in the person of the Holy
Spirit abides in us. And He ain't going nowhere. He sustains the life, the love,
and the openness for fellowship with His child because it is
His child. This is our Lord's place. He never backs off. He never
breaks fellowship with us. It's the other way around. Many
of you this morning have children and grandchildren who are now
grown and are on their own and they don't have much time anymore
for parents or grandparents. But because they're yours, the
door is open. Your heart is open. You'll drop
whatever you're doing and you'll cherish the time they take to
be with you. Christ abides with us and in
us. It is Christ in us, our hope
of glory. But the issue here is our abiding
in Him. We are saved by grace alone forever. That's a blessed truth. But the
Scriptures are full of warnings for us because we neglect our
birthright. of living and walking daily with
the Lord. He warns of unbelief, Hebrews
3, 12 to 14, take heed brethren, lest there be in any of you an
evil heart of unbelief. Take heed brethren. He's talking
to God's children. Lest there be in any of you an
evil heart of unbelief. Any of you know anything about
that? Just 24-7, that's all. in departing from the living
God but exhort one another daily while it is called today lest
any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin the
deceitfulness of sin is you getting the idea that it's not so bad
that you can do something stupid and get by with it that the wages of sin is not
death God said it is. Pray constantly as the man did
in Mark 9 24. Lord I believe help thou mine
unbelief. Probably one of the best descriptions
of us is unbelieving believers. That's what we are. Abiding in
Christ. is the power that overcomes unbelief in the best of believers. Here
in John 15, 10, we're to keep His commandments and abide in
His love, not to major on our supposed
love for Him. and how wonderful you are to
do so much for him, that ain't really going to do nothing for
you, inner man. But major on his love for us,
thus abiding in his love. It includes a constant recommitment
to perseverance. I appreciate all the Lord's people,
appreciate especially those who have a commitment and have it
settled in their heart and life that God comes first. Whatever, whatever. Things happen,
I know. And when things happen, Satan
whispers, If I were you, I believe I'd just quit. I mean, so much
has happened to you. You've had it so much worse than
anybody else. God ain't much of a friend to you. I mean, you've
had it rough. You've got it just backwards.
He's trying to get your attention. Abiding in Christ, abiding in
Christ won't entertain that thought. Hebrews 3, 6, we hold fast the
confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Hebrews 3, 14, we hold the beginning
of our confidence steadfast unto the end. Perseverance. Abiding in Christ includes abiding
in his word. If you have a loved one far away
from home and your heart bleeds for them and you grieve day and
night and you worry about how they're doing and hoping they're
okay and you receive a letter in the mail, you don't just throw
that letter on a garbage can. Oh, I hope they're all right.
No, no, no. You read the report. This is God's report. His Word, abiding in His Word. Verse 7, If ye abide in me, and
my words abide in you. His Word is truth. The Gospel,
the hope, the help, the food for daily living, all His promises,
all His provisions, all His precepts, His mercy, His grace abiding
in Him. It's all in here. It's the Word
of life. It's the seed of life. It is
impossible for anyone to abide in Christ who does not love,
obey, and cherish His Word. You don't have to drive even
a mile up this way till you'll see apple trees. And so it is
throughout the eastern part of this county. And the branch,
remember now, Christ said, I am the vine, you are the branches. The branches on those apple trees, they don't struggle and strain and worry and work to try and
produce fruit. It's not, I've got to come up
with some apples to prove I'm an apple branch. Uh-uh. The branch is content with a
body. Wouldn't it be good if you and
I were content with striving daily to stay close to the Lord
and not grieve His Spirit? You don't have to make anything
happen. You don't have to prove anything to anybody. The branch is content with abiding,
being attached to the tree. It's not the branch that produces
the fruit anyway. It's the sap coming up through
the trunk of the tree, feeding that branch and producing that
fruit. It's a it's a life giving flow
through the branch. In the context of this passage.
We referred to it already, the comforter, the spirit, the Holy
Ghost, chapter 14, 15 and 16. Paul said in Galatians 5, 22
and 23, but the fruit of the Spirit,
not fruits, single fruit of the Spirit is ninefold. Love, joy,
peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. That's the fruit of the Spirit.
And none of it's illegal. Against such there is no law. But we tend to want to work.
Religious works and efforts to be a fruit bearing Christian
that is illegal. Because that's not our business. Just abiding in the vine as a
branch. a lot of years ago. See, the
Holy Spirit living in you will take care of everything. Ephesians 5, 18, be not drunk
with wine. And I've heard many men use that
to preach about alcohol. Well, yeah, that is that. But
I always think of this, and be not drunk with the wine of religion. I know people that are absolutely
sots. on religion. I mean they lay
in the gutter drunk on religion. Be not drunk with wine, but be
you filled with the Spirit who lives in you. I knew a young
man years ago. Well, he wasn't young when I
knew him, but he was young one time from a godly home. He joined the Navy. sailed the high seas, went overseas.
And he said that after several weeks on the ship, they pulled
into a port and went into this town. And all the sailors were
talking, oh boy, I just can't wait to get in there and get
to the bar. And they were all, most of them headed to the bar
to drink. And this man told in later years, He said, as I stood there in
that street, something in here said, Mama wouldn't want you
to go in there. And he said, I didn't go. Well,
Mama didn't know anything about all that. But the Spirit, the Holy Ghost
that lived in Mama, went with that boy. and bore fruit that
Mama didn't know anything about. He'll bear fruit you don't know
anything about, because if you did, you'd claim the glory for
it. When my son was in the Marine
Corps, stationed at a place named 29 Palms out from Camp Pendleton,
San Diego, California, 29 Palms out in the desert. I mean, it's
a despised place, even by all the Marines, because it's a rough,
tough duty. And he would call us just every
week or two when he had a minute. And he called one day and told
his mom that he was desperate. It was so hot, 100 degrees every
day, and not much better at night. And he said, tonight we've got
a special mission. And he said, I'm going to have
to be out there all night. And he said, I'm already so tired
and so weak that I don't know if I can make it. Well, we prayed. But that night,
I confess to you, as I slept, I woke half awake two or three
times And I heard his mother on her knees praying, talking
to the Lord. And the next day he called. And he said, Mom, an amazing
thing happened. It was as bad as I thought it
was going to be. But in the middle of the night,
it came a horrendous sandstorm. Nobody could move, do anything. But the bus came, picked us up,
took us all back to camp, and we rested in our own bunk. And he thanked his mama for praying
for him. We live in a society that that kind of thing is totally
foreign. They don't dream of it, but it's real. It's real. And as God's child this morning,
there is one living in you that can do anything He's pleased
to do for anybody. He's not going to do contrary
to His eternal purpose. And that's why we pray always
not, Lord, heal so and so. We pray, Lord, Thy will be done.
Give grace. And if it's in God's purpose
for your life to fight cancer for nine years,
as my first wife did, Monica's mother, and then leave this world that
way, our prayer is for grace, for grace. If for reasons known only to
God, you have children and grandchildren that play the fool and tear your
heart out, we ask God, oh please, change
their heart. Oh Lord, please draw them to
you. We pray like that. But we also pray, Lord give us
grace to face this day by day and thy will be done, thy will
be done. Victory is not you being able
to make things go your way or impressing God enough to do
it your way. Victory is abiding in Christ. Whatever happens, Say, Lord, you've been too good
to me for me to do otherwise. Verse eight, I'm through here
in here in where here in what? Here in abiding in Christ. Is my father. Glorified. That's how he's glorified. You
mean that all of men's harebrained religious concoctions and all
that's gone into it never glorified God, not one lick. Only that which comes through
your abiding in Christ glorifies Him. What's the result? What's the
value? Verse 8, that ye bear much fruit. You don't produce
it, you just bear it. The branch don't produce apples,
it just bears them. So shall ye be my disciples. You don't need a t-shirt with
some silly saying about you and Jesus. You don't have to hang a sign
around a milk cow to say this is a milk cow. Abide in the vine. You don't need to work at impressing
anyone. All we need is for the sap of
the spirit to flow unhindered, ungrieved, and he produces fruit. Abide in the vine. There's a
little statement at the end of verse five that's very profound
and is also hard on our pride. Christ said, for without me,
you can do nothing. He didn't say without me you
won't do much. Without me you won't do nothing. So you might as well quit hypocriting
to your friends. Quit working at trying to be
a Christian. Work at the business of abiding in Christ. And the Holy Spirit who abides
in you We'll do the rest. Thank you this morning. May the
Lord put this in our hearts for a longing to abide in Him every day and every night that
we live and breathe. Amen.