John's Gospel, Chapter 15. If you want to be turned in there,
John's Gospel, Chapter 15. I just want to read the first
five verses. That is what I will be commenting
on this morning. Maybe at a later date, hopefully
soon, we can begin in verse 6. John chapter 15 and verse 1. I am the vine, and my Father
is the husbandman. 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. Now
you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. 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 ye abide
in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I
in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me ye
can do nothing." The Lord desires that we understand
His Word. He desires to relate to us. And He uses parables like this
and phrases like this that He can relate to us. If He spoke
to us in heavenly language, I doubt any of us could enter into it.
Paul was called up into heaven, and when he came back and he
said, I heard things I can't comment on, I can't explain.
But when the Lord Jesus was here upon this earth, He used such
phrases like this, I am the vine. In another place, He called Himself
the shepherd. I am the good shepherd. He's
the good shepherd that calls His sheep out, and He leads them
along, and protects them, and feeds them, and causes them to
lie down in green pastures. He's not a shepherd. He's not
a literal shepherd, but He's like a shepherd. He's like a
shepherd. Another place, He said, I am
the bread. And you and I know what that
means. We can relate to that statement.
He's the bread of nourishment. He's the bread that we get our
strength from. I am the bread that came down
from heaven. If any man eat of this bread,
he shall live forever. And I think there's not a waking
soul in you this morning but what would say, Lord, give me
this bread. Give me this bread that I can
eat and be strengthened and live forever. Another place, He says,
I am the door. He's the door. What is the door?
We know what that is, don't we? He's the way unto eternal life
and salvation. He's the access that we have
to the Father in heaven and all His blessings of grace and mercy
here and glory hereafter. Another place, He said, I am
the morning star, the bright and morning star. I can understand
what that means. You know, when you go outside
real early in the morning and you see the morning star, a new
day has dawned. And every time we see by the
eye of faith the Lord Jesus revealed in this book, oh, it's a new
day, isn't it? It's a glorious day that we face. And we long by His grace for
that eternal day when the morning star shall arise in our hearts
and we'll never have to go through another night. The paths of the
just rest the shining light that shineth more and more into that
perfect day when Jesus will rise never to set again. And here
He tells us, I am the vine. He says, I am the true vine.
Why does He say true vine? As opposed to others who call
themselves the vine. They profess that in us is life. And in us is nourishment. There's
a lot of people, there's a lot of churches that profess that,
isn't there? We're the vine. The Lord Jesus said, I'm the
only vine. I am the only true vine. And it's only by your union with
me that you can have life and that you can have nourishment
and that you can bring forth fruit. I am the true vine. I mean, Clarence was over at
his sister's the other night, and there's a huge Mormon church
just across the street. And as we were leaving Friday
night, they were filling the parking lot up with people. And
I'm sure that they tell those people, we're the vine. We're
the vine. You come here and we'll give
you nourishment. We'll feed you. You listen and
do what we tell you, and you'll bring forth fruit. The Lord Jesus
said, I am the true vine. It's not so much anymore, but
during Luther's day, the Catholic church said they were the only
vine. And they said, if you're not in the Catholic church, you
can't have any life. There's only life in the church. One of our visitors here last
weekend was telling me that he was raised, the local church
that he was raised in, emphasized to all their people, if you leave
this particular church, there's no salvation out there. Salvation
is in this church. Well, I got news for them and
you have too. Salvation is not in the church. I am not the vine. This church is not the vine.
No other church or any other denomination is the vine. I am
the true vine. And apart from Him, there is
no life, is there? There is no nourishment. There
is no fruit bearing that is acceptable to God Almighty. Here is what
Moses said about these other vines. He said, Their vine is
as the vine of Sodom, and as the fields of Gomorrah. Their
grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter. Their wine
is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps. There is but one true vine, and
all other vines are nothing but poison. There is but one true
vine, and that one He tells us here is the one that the Father
planted. This is the only sap of life
and nourishment and fruit bearing that comes from Him. There is
no other one that you and I can be united to that His life can
flow into us, and we can have growth, spiritual growth. and
bear fruit, that's acceptable to God. But as we're united to
this vine, I am the true vine. Isn't that condescending on the
eternal God's part to call Himself a vine? But then He goes on and
addresses His Father this way, and My Father is the farmer. That's what that word means.
He's the land worker, the vine dresser. The vineyard keeper. My Father. And you know what
He is saying? My Father planted me. That is what He is saying, isn't
it? I am the vine and my Father is the one who planted me. In
this world the Father planted. The Father planted Him in the
womb of a virgin, didn't He? He said, a body hast thou prepared
me. Who is He talking to? His Father. And His Father raised Him up.
And He grew up before His Father as a tender plant. And His Father
nourished Him and watched over Him and protected Him and made
Him strong for Hisself. And I'll tell you what He did
when He died upon Calvary's tree. The Father accepted His sacrifice
for sin. And when they buried Him in the
tomb, the Father raised Him up and set Him on His own right
hand and declares this, My Son, every one that is united to You
will bring forth fruit acceptable in My sight. He is indeed the
Husbandman. I love Acts chapter 3 and verse
25. Listen to this. It talks about
fruit bearing. That is in Jesus Christ. You
are the children of the prophets, Peter said to those Jews, and
the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham,
and in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you, first of all, God,
having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you." There's
that vine. God planted Him in this earth,
and He's the source of God's blessings to us. And by being
united to Him, all the blessings that God has for poor sinners,
as we are, flows to us. through this vibe, this true
vibe. Being united to Christ, being
in union with Him, we are blessed. Now look in verse 2. Look what
he says here. Every branch in me that beareth
not fruit, he taketh away. Every branch in me. Now we can't
establish doctrine by this, can we? Because people are apt to
run here and establish that I told you people can fall away. This
is a parable. And He preaches to us this parable
that you and I may look at it and learn. What happens to a
branch if it's severed from the tree? It wilts, doesn't it? That's
the lesson that He wants us to see. When we look at a branch
coming off of a vine, or limbs coming off the trunk of a fruit
tree, You see branches and limbs that have no fruit. And what
happens to those? Why, the wise husbandman, he
cuts them off, doesn't he? He cuts them off. There are people
who appear to be in Christ, first of all, by association. Then
there are people who appear to be in Christ by an outward profession. And then there are people who
appear to be in Christ by performance of religious duties. Judas was
in Christ by association, wasn't he? He associated with our Master
for three years or more before he betrayed Him and was cut off. Simon the saucer, in Acts chapter
12, professed the Lord Jesus Christ openly by water baptism
before it was revealed that his heart was not right in the sight
of God. But he was in the gall of bitterness
and in the bonds of iniquities. Demas, listen to this, he even
preached Christ for how long we don't know. before it was
revealed that he loved this present evil world and forsook not only
Paul but his profession of the Lord Jesus Christ. So external
and mechanical attachment to Christ will not do, will it? It will not do. There must be
a vital union to the Lord Jesus Christ. Fruitless professors,
no matter how high their profession, will eventually be taken away
by this great husbandman who knows the hearts of all men. Religious association and outward
profession and holding church offices may be good in their
place, but a man can have those. without any true union, spiritual
union, with this vine. True fruit bearing that is approved
of God is that which comes by this vital spiritual union with
the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at the last part of verse
2. Every branch in me that bareth
not fruit, he taketh away. And every branch in me that beareth
fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit."
Those true believers, those branches that are truly in Christ and
bear fruit, what does God do? He prunes it, doesn't He? He prunes it. He prunes away
the dead and fruitless branches so they will bring forth more
fruit. I think all of us, if you've
been around any grape vines or if you've been around any fruit
trees, sometimes you'll see these grape vines growing out and these
little suckers, they call them suckers, comes off of the vine.
And they're fit for nothing. They just take up space and use
up sap. So the gardener knows what he's
doing and he'll take his snips out there and he'll snip those
little suckers off. Funny we call them suckers, actually. But on the apple trees, here's
what I do to my apple trees. They'll get all bushy. And it's
pretty. And you could use it for a shade
tree. But you don't want a fruit tree to use as shade trees. You
want them to bear fruit. They're not always pretty. But
sometimes I'll go down to my apple tree in the spring, and
I've got these little shoots growing straight down towards
the ground. And they never bear any fruit. So what I do, I'll
take my snips and I'll snip them off. If it's not growing up ready
to bear fruit, I'll snip them off. Sometimes you'll see some
damage on your limbs or on your branches. Sometimes they're diseased. So what do you do? You purge
them. You wash them in some kind of
solution and rid them of that disease. And why do you do all
of that? That it may bring forth more
fruit. Every branch in me, that birth fruit, the Father purges
it. He prunes it. How does He do
this? Well, sometimes He does it by
teaching. So often He does it by teaching. You learn more. You are enlightened to the love
of Christ. Oh, you see it in your heart
as you never saw it. His free love for you. Sometimes
it's the freeness of His grace. Sometimes you learn more of the
covenant of mercy. He teaches you, and by teaching
you, He prunes you and purges you. Sometimes it's by chastening,
isn't it? Sometimes it's by affliction.
Sometimes it's by trial. But one of the evidence that
a branch is united to the vine and it is bearing fruit, the
Father has His eye upon that branch. And he constantly checks
it. And he trims away and purges
away that which hinders the growth of that branch. He takes it away
that it may bring forth more fruit. He digs about it. He cuts
the bad limbs off. He purges the disease from the
branch. Well, it's not always pretty,
is it? You see a big pretty apple tree that you could use for shade
tree? That's not the kind of apple tree that they want in
our day. You go to an apple orchard and they're ugly because they
just got the branches on there that will bear fruit. Everything
else is slowly but surely cut away. And that's what God the
Father, the Husband is doing with His children. He has His
eye constantly. upon that vine, upon that branch
that is bearing fruit. I want to show you, I want you
to hold that there, and I want to show you something over in
Luke chapter 13. Look here in verse 6. This shows us here that the Father
in heaven, the one who owns the vineyard, watches over it, the
husband of it, He takes it seriously when someone professes to be
planted in that vineyard. Look here what he says in verse
6. This is the words of our Lord Jesus in another parable. A certain
man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came and
sought fruit thereon and found none. Then said he unto the dresser
of the vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit
on this fig tree, and find none. Cut it down. Why cumber it the
ground? And he answered and said unto
him, Lord, let it alone this year also, that I shall dig about
it and dung it. And if it bear fruit well, if
not, then after that thou shalt cut it down. Now, you see here
how serious God is about the tree or the branch bearing fruit. When someone says, I'm in Christ,
when someone openly professes the Lord Jesus, then what happens? God comes looking for fruit,
doesn't He? He doesn't look for a pretty
tree. He looks for fruit. I think if people realize this,
who quickly made a profession of Jesus Christ, they'd be more
careful. They'd take it more seriously
before they come into the church and said, Would you baptize me?
I'm going to confess Christ as my Lord and my Savior. I'm confessing
that I'm in union with Him. Oh, be careful! Be careful of
that! Because God is looking for fruit! He's looking at the heart and
see if the heart bears any fruit of repentance and faith and humility
and dedication to Himself and His glory. I think if every child
of God would remember this, when the Lord Jesus says here, let
me dig about it, let me dunk it. Now, you start digging around
them roots to find for disease. Bud, that's tough, ain't it?
They used to pull back from the roots so they put certain fertilizers
in there and take those little splinters off the roots. Let
me dig about it and dung it. If you and I realize the labor,
if you will, the trouble, if you will, our Lord goes to in
pruning us, in purging us, And by whatever means, we would be
more patient and we'd be more thankful as He did it. Because why does He do it? Why
does He sometimes afflict you? Why does He put you through the
waters and the floods? He's pruning you. He's purging
you. And why is He doing that? Not
to hurt you. Not because He doesn't love you.
but because he wants more fruit. He wants more fruit. Every branch
in me that beareth fruit, he purchase it, that it may bring
forth more fruit. Now look back over to our text
in chapter 3. This is a wonderful thing the Lord Jesus says here.
In chapter 15 and look in verse 3, Now ye are clean, through
the word which I have spoken unto you." Now, this is a beautiful
description of salvationism. And the reason I say that, this
is the starting point for every believer. Now, you are clean. What some people labor for years
to obtain and never get it, every true believer has at the beginning
of his way. a cleansing, a justification
from all things. There are folks that make restitution
and they fast and they abuse their bodies in so many different
ways. And they work so hard trying
to get rid of the knowledge of sin upon their conscience. And
this is the very thing that the Lord gives to His child at the
beginning of the way. Now you are clean. Luther said he used to lay naked
in the wintertime on cold brick floors to rid his conscience
of his sin. It won't do it, will it? They
labor for something that every little child of God has when
he begins this way. He has the voice of the Master
saying to him, now, right now, You are ready to enter Your way,
He said. You are ready to go out and preach the gospel and
serve Me. This is the beginning. Now you
are clean through the Word which I have spoken unto you. What
did He mean by that? You are clean through the Word
that I have spoken unto you. Well, hold that and look back
over to the 13th chapter, just one chapter back. And look at
this. In chapter 13 and look in verse
6. Look here in verse 6, this is
where the Lord Jesus was washing their feet. And he cometh to
Simon Peter, and Peter said unto him, Lord, do you wash my feet?
Jesus answered and said, What I do thou? What I do thou knowest
not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter said unto him,
Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered, If I wash thee
not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter said unto him, Lord,
not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. And Jesus
said unto him, He that is washed needeth not say to wash his feet,
but is clean every wit, and ye are clean, but not all. You are clean. He says you're
clean through the Word that I've spoken to you. And what's His
meaning? He says you're clean because
I told you you were clean. Now that's amazing, isn't it?
What does it take for a man to be clean? What does it take for
a man to have the assurance of it? Well, this Christ is telling
him, you're clean. Well, if He says you're clean,
Greg, you're clean. He told that man that Brother
Larry is telling us about this morning, Son, your sins are forgiven
you. Was his sins forgiven? Yes! There's a bunch of people sitting
around there saying, No! There's no way! But that man
got up and walked, didn't he? Because Christ had told him,
Your sins be forgiven. He told that woman, Woman, where
are your accusers? Don't anybody condemn you? She
said, No, my Lord. He said, Neither do I condemn
thee. Neither do I condemn thee." Who can lay anything to the charge
of somebody that Christ said, neither do I condemn thee? If
He does not condemn you, you are not condemned. If He justifies
you, nobody can possibly bring anything to charge you with.
You are clean through the Word that I spoke unto you. Paul was
right into those Corinthians, and he said you were fornicators.
You were idolaters. You were adulterers. You were
effeminate. You were abusers of yourself
with mankind. You were thieves. You were covetous.
You were drunkards. You were revilers. You were extortioners. You think the Greeks weren't
bad people? They were bad people. People keep telling us, Boy,
those Greeks were smart. They were real smart. They were
real sinners. They were real sinners. But now,
but now, You are washed. Now you're justified. Now you're
sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit
of our God. This is why you can't go back
in a man's life and bring up his old sins against him. Because
they're gone. They're clean. They're clean. Now you are clean. He may have
been a religious idolater. Or he may have been in an open
and profane adultery. But when the Lord says, now you
are clean, you are clean. You are clean. I don't know what
kind of men these were, these apostles, before the Lord called
them. I don't know what they were.
I know Peter says, the time passed of our life suffers us to have
wrought the will of the Gentiles when we lived in all the lust
and excess of wine. And Paul said we were children
of wrath just like others, didn't he? I don't know what they were. If they were religious fellows
or if they were open and profane, but I know this much. Right now,
the Lord says, you're clean. Here is where you're going to
start your new life, and you start it like this. You're clean. You're clean. And boy, sometimes
we get back out in the world and we get our feet dirty again,
don't we? Aren't you glad that you could come right back and
hear Him say again, now you're clean? If we confess our sins,
He's faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This is the wonderful thing about
serving such a Master as we have. You can get up every morning
and before you leave the house, you can hear Him say as it were,
now you're clean. You can come home that night
from a hard day's work and being around all the ungodliness, and
before you pillow your head, you can hear Him say that night,
Now you're clean. Now you're clean. Oh, He's a
wonderful Savior to serve, isn't He? Because He forgives our sins
daily, and He just keeps on forgiving us and keeps on saying, Now you're
clean. Now you're clean. Why? Because
I said so. I said so. Now he says in verse
4, look in verse 4, chapter 15 verse 4, Abide in me. Abide in me. Now you're clean. Now you're washed. Now you're
justified. So from here on out, abide in
me. You've been put in me. If any
man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Now abide in me. And the word simply means to
stay in me, dwell in me, continue in me as this branch must continue
in the vine to bring forth fruit. Sometimes this is hard to understand
what it means to abide. Let me see if I can explain it
like this, if I don't confuse you. The Apostle Paul said it
like this, As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, Now, how
did we receive Christ Jesus the Lord? We may not have been conscious.
We couldn't have articulated this, but here's the way we received
the Lord Jesus Christ. We received His fullness into
our emptiness. Really, wasn't that what it amounted
to? We received Him as everything into our nothingness. We had
nothing to bring to Him but our emptiness and He had everything
that He required and we needed to fill us up as you have received
Christ Jesus the Lord. What are we now, brothers and
sisters, in and of ourselves? In and of yourself. Separate
yourself from this vine. What are we? We are just as nothing
right now in and of ourselves as we were when we first came
to Him. Aren't we? You separate us from His cleansing
and what are we but foundless? Separate us from His life and
what are we but dead? We need Him just as much now
as we needed Him then. Probably in our consciousness
we are more in need of Him now. than we were then. So Paul goes
on to say this, As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk
ye in Him. Christ said, Abide in me. Paul
said, Walk in Him. That's the same thing, isn't
it? Abiding in Him and walking in Him. He says again, Be ye
followers of God as dear children and walk in love. What does it mean to abide in
Christ? Abide in His love. Walk in love. Listen to this. As you have received of us how
you ought to walk and to please God so you would abound more
and more. Walk in the love of Christ. Walk
in the knowledge of His love for you and walk in your love
for Him. Walk in love. He said here in
verse 10 of chapter 15, if you keep my commandments, you shall
abide in my love. Then he said in another place,
this I say then, walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill
the lusts of the flesh. And he said in another place,
the life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of And in
another place He said, if in this life only we have hope in
Christ, we are of all men most miserable. Our hope in Christ
pertains to this life and in the life to come. What does it mean to abide in
Christ? Here is what it means. To walk
in Him. to take up your cross daily and
follow Him as an obedient child of the Father, to seek in everything
you do and say to be well-pleasing to Him, to love His commandments,
to keep His commandments, to walk in the knowledge of His
love for you and your love for Him, to love His Word, to love
His people. To live every minute of every
hour of every day by faith in Him. We walk by faith, not by
sight. And live every moment as it may
be your last in the lively hope that when you die, you'll go
to heaven to be with Him. This is what it means, a portion
of what it means to abide in Him. Stay in Him. Abide in Him. And we have this
promise here in the last portion of verse 4. Abide in me and this
is the promise. I in you. You abide in me and
you have this promise. I will abide in you. See the union? See the union? Us in Him and He in us. And He says in the last portion
of verse 4, the necessity of this abiding in Him and Him abiding
in us. Because the branch cannot bear
fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine. No more can you,
except you abide in Me." Now listen to this. Abiding in Christ
is difficult for the flesh. It's difficult for the old man.
He has to be put off. The old man has to be put down.
The old man has to be crucified. We cannot abide in Christ and
walk after the old man. If you live after the flesh,
you shall die. But this abiding in Christ is
not grievous to the inner man. It is his joy, even the fullness
of his joy. Living in obedience to Christ
is extremely grievous to the flesh, but it is the delight
of the inner Look in verse 11. These things have I spoken unto
you, that my joy might abide, might remain in you, and that
your joy might be full. How does Christ's joy get in
us? How does His joy get in us and make our joy full? Because
we as a branch are united to the vine. As we abide in Christ,
what before seemed utterly impossible now becomes as easy and as natural
as the branch abiding in the vine and receiving all from this
one source. How in the world can I keep His
commandments? How in the world can I take up
my cross and deny myself and follow Him? How can I love? How, how, how? It's just as natural
as the branch and the vine being in union. All that's needed is
not gotten from the branch. All that's needed for the branch
is gotten from the vine. As we abide in Him, His love,
His grace, His mercy, His strength, His nourishment, His love, all
His saving virtue flows freely unto us as we abide in Him. As the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can except
you abide in Me." Here's what John Gill had to say about this.
He said, and I quote, which strongly expresses the necessity of abiding
in Christ by fresh, repeated acts of faith. And it is easy
to observe that when believers depart from Christ, though it
be but partial and for a time, Well, they cannot finally and
totally depart from Him. What a poor and withered and
fruitless condition they are in, both in their frames of mind
and in their duties. I have seen it in myself and
you have seen it in yourself. When you fail to abide in Christ,
in the sense that we are talking about, you begin to wither, don't
you? I had one of my apple trees that
bloomed out. It had so many blooms on it,
so many apples. One of the big apple, one of the limbs fell
down. It had little apples on it. So
I drug it down and threw it on the brush pile. I was back down
there yesterday looking around. I saw that little apples were
still on that branch. The leaves were all dried up,
and I pulled a little apple off, and it was just as soft. And
I took a bite of it and spit it out. It was the sourest thing
you've ever seen in your life. And I went back up to the tree
it came off of. And I pulled a big apple off
of that and bit it and it was just sweet and juicy. That's
what it is. When we don't abide in Christ,
in this sense, boy, we feel our fruit withering, don't we? Sour,
the leaves and the fruit and the bark, everything begins to
wither. And the Lord Jesus said, listen,
the only way you can bear fruit is to abide in Me. It's not what
you can do in yourself. You can do nothing in yourself.
I don't expect anything from you. If you bear fruit from My
glory and your joy, it must come from abiding in Me. And then he repeats this in verse
5, almost word for word. Look at it. I am the vine and
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." Why does he repeat this? Because it takes
repetition for us to learn. This is a mystery. And it's difficult
even for the Lord Jesus to tell us, so He just keeps telling
us and telling us again to learn it and retain this simple but
profound lesson that we simply and honestly and faithfully abiding
in Jesus Christ, we bring forth fruit. And it's almost spontaneous. It's almost natural to do that. He doesn't explain how it happens,
does He? He just said, Abide in Me, and
it will happen. You'll have fruit. Sever yourself
from me. Don't abide in me. You'll dry
up. You'll dry up. God, give us grace
that the mind of Christ may flow to us, His Spirit, His patience,
His strength, His desires, His joy, His peace, His generosity,
His long-suffering, His kindness. Don't you want to be like the
Master? We're being conformed to His
image, aren't we? And the way we're doing it is
abiding in Him, and all of His flows to us. Lord bless this
word. Let's pray.