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Abiding in Christ
John 15: 1-17
Would you be interested if I could take twenty-one minutes of your time
to study seventeen verses of Scripture with you that could:
(1) Show you God's vision for your life;
(2) Tell you how to achieve that vision;
(3) And describe the results you can expect once that vision is
fulfilled?
All of that in 21 minutes is a big promise, so let's get started. Read
with me John 15:1 - 17. (Read text, pray.)
God's vision is for your life to bear much fruit.
That exactly what Jesus says in verse 8. But what does that mean? How do
we go about bearing fruit? Whatever it is it must be very important to
God. Vs. 2 says that if we don't do it we are cut off from Christ. "He
cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit."
In Jesus' analogy, God is a gardener. He inspects the branches of the
vine to see if they are living up to their potential. If they are not
producing fruit he cuts them off of the vine. For people who lived in an
agrarian culture no explanation was needed. They knew why a gardener
would prune a fruitless branch.
Instead of being a channel to deliver nutrients to produce fruit,
fruitless branches divert all the water and minerals of the soil to
themselves. They just become bigger branches, sapping more and more from
the vine but producing nothing but fat wood. In that culture there was
no use for the wood of a grape vine.
You couldn't build furniture out of it. You couldn't use it to make
tools. They didn't decorate with it like we do. So the only thing it was
good for was fuel for a fire. And in Jesus' parable, that's where it
wound up.
Before we discover just what it means to bear fruit, we need to make
another observation about it. It is important to God that we do it. It
is his vision for our lives. And it is something that we cannot do
alone. We read, "If anyone remains in me and I in him, he will bear much
fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."
Bearing fruit, whatever it is, is a God thing. It is something that
doesn't come naturally to human beings. Unless we are connected to
Christ we have neither the will nor the power to do it.
Again, it is just like a vine and its branches. If the branches are
connected to the vine, they will produce fruit. But if they are cut off
from the vine they won't. They may stay green for days or weeks. They
may even sprout pale, green leaves. But they won't grow fruit. Fruit
grows only on branches that are connected to the vine. Only Christians
who are connected to Jesus are going to produce fruit.
One more observation. Whatever it means, bearing fruit illustrates our
discipleship to Jesus. Once again in verse 8. "This is to my Father's
glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."
If you see grapes hanging off the end of a vine, you don't have to be a
botanist to classify it as a grape vine. If you see apples growing on a
tree you don't have to be a horticulturist to know that you are looking
at an apple tree. And if you see a human producing fruit, you don't have
to be a theologian to know that they are connected to Jesus.
So what does it mean to bear fruit? Perhaps you've always heard that
bearing fruit as a Christian means producing other Christians. The logic
goes like this. Apple trees produce more apple trees. Pine trees produce
more pine trees. Begonias beget more begonias. So Christians create more
Christians. Some churches go so far as to say that if you don't
personally lead someone to the baptistery you are not a real Christian.
In order to be considered a true disciple you have to carve some notches
in your belt, so to speak. That sounds logical. It sounds right. But,
you know, that isn't said anywhere in this passage. If bearing fruit is
God's vision for your life, if he will cut you off for failure to do it,
if it can only be done when we are closely connected to Jesus, you'd
think he'd come right out and say it.
There are some clues, though, to what it means to bear fruit. Jesus
says, "This is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit." That's
God's vision for your life. Then He talks about love. The love talk
climaxes in verses 12 - 13. "My command is this; Love each other as I
have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his
life for his friends."
Since bearing fruit and loving each other are so closely connected in
the passage, it makes you wonder if God's vision for your life doesn't
have something to do with loving others. And there is something familiar
sounding about verse 8, especially the last phrase. "This is to my
Father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my
disciples."
We've heard something like that before in John's gospel. We've heard
that from the lips of Jesus. In John 13:35 Jesus said, "By this all win
know that you are my disciples; if you love one another."
"Bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples." "By this all
will know you are my disciples if you love one another." In John 15
people will know you are a disciple by the fruit you bear. In John 13
people will know you are disciple of Christ if you love others. Bearing
fruit means loving others. God's vision for your life is love.
Apple trees don't produce apples trees. They produce apples. Pine trees
don't produce more pine trees. They produce pine cones. Orange trees
produce oranges.
Apple seeds produce apple trees. Orange seeds produce orange trees.
Christians don't produce Christians. They produce love. And love is the
seed that produces other Christians. God's vision for your life is love.
Now I told you about seven minutes ago that this passage not only
reveals what God's vision for our lives is, but that it also tells us
how to achieve it. How do we do that? Eight times in these verses we are
told to remain in Christ or to remain in his love. Unless we remain in
Christ we cannot bear fruit – or put another way we cannot achieve God's
vision for our lives of being people who love each other.
To achieve the vision of love we must remain in Christ. And to remain in
Christ we must obey his commands. Verse 10, "If you obey my commands you
will remain in my love."
Let me say two things about this remaining in the love of Christ.
First, it is possible for Christians to drift beyond the borders of
Christ's love.
Why else would he say, "Remain in my love," if we cannot drift beyond
the border?
God never stops loving us, but if we consistently reject his love he
will not force it on us. God doesn't do dysfunctional relationships. He
isn't going to make us love him and so become to us a manipulator or
controller. He isn't going to live in denial, pretending that we love
him when we don't, and so become to us an enabler of our sinful
behavior. God wants a healthy relationship, one in which we freely
choose to love him.
Some Christians believe that once you are saved you are always saved.
There's one little word that appears in many verses of the Bible that
confronts that doctrine. The word, "if." As in, "If you remain in my
love," and, "If we walk in the light. " We can drift and some of us know
that from personal experience.
That leads to the second thing we need notice about remaining in Christ;
you cannot claim a relationship with Jesus without obedience to his
commands.
Obedience to Jesus simply means that we take seriously those things that
he takes seriously. I can't claim that I love him if I am not moved by
what moves him. I cannot claim a relationship with Christ if I am not
offended by what offends him. I cannot honestly say that I follow him if
I do not walk the path he walked or live the way he lived.
Now this is a good place to pause and ask a very important question.
Some of us in this room claim to love Jesus. You say with your words
that you have a relationship with him. Yet you know in your heart that
you have drifted. Though you once did, you no longer take seriously the
things he takes seriously. He still loves you. He always will. But
whether anyone else knows it or not, both you and Jesus know that the
relationship you once shared is no longer healthy, no longer whole.
If we are to remain in him we must obey him. And the only way we are
every going to achieve the vision of becoming loving people is by
staying connected to Christ. Something happens to us when we remain in
Christ. We learn how to love. That is exactly what He says in verse 9,
"As the father has loved me, so I have loved you."
Jesus learned to love from God. Then in vs. 12 he says, "Love each other
as I have loved you." We learn to love from him.
By nature human beings are selfish and self-centered. By nature we
choose not what is best for others, but what is best for ourselves. But
when we remain in Christ, God prunes away the selfishness. He cuts off
the self-centeredness. He cleans up our hearts the way a gardener cleans
the vegetable row of weeds.
When I was a kid my parents took us to Mississippi for our vacations. We
would go to our Grandparents farm and learn what it was like to work the
ground. We would put up hay, worm cattle, and always end up in the
garden. The number one job in hat garden for my cousins, my brother and
I was to get up weeds. My Maw hated weeds in her garden and every
morning we would get the ones that sprouted over night and in the
afternoon we would get the ones that came up during the day. Maw would
constantly remind us, Get the roots boys, get the roots.
That's sort of how God is. He hates the weeds that prevent us from
bearing the fruit of love. And if we stay connected to Christ, if we
remain in Christ, if obey Christ, God pulls the weeds up by their roots.
We hold onto a terrible misconception about obedience. We resist
obedience like we are all locked in perpetual spiritual adolescence. But
when you really begin to pay attention to the commands of Christ you
realize that they are not arbitrary laws created to hem us in and stifle
our freedom. They are intended to make us loving people. Did you ever
notice that most of the commands of Christ are relationship centered?
Don't gossip about your neighbor. Don't lie. Do unto others as you would
have them do unto you. Love one another. Give to those who ask. Forgive
each other as I have forgiven you. Don't commit adultery. Don't even
lust. Don't steal. Don't even covet. Don't murder. Don't even hate. Be
kind and compassionate to one another. Pray. Lots. Don't judge other
people. Don't worry. Don't be anxious. Don't selfishly pile up
possessions.
What's so oppressive about those commands? All of them, and most of his
others, are aimed at helping us live into the vision God has for us; to
become people of love.
What results can we expect if we remain in Christ and live into God's
vision for our lives?
First, we will indeed become loving people. "If a man remains in me and
I in him, he will bear much fruit."
The longer you walk with Christ, the more loving you become. And if you
aren't becoming more loving, you aren't walking with Christ. The result
of remaining in Christ is not that we get all our doctrines carefully
worked out. It is important to love God with all our minds so we want to
be as right as we can be. But that isn't why Jesus died on a cross. He
died, in part, to make us loving people. Salvation doesn't just mean
being saved from the guilt of sin. It also means being saved from the
hateful power of sin. He saved us from a hateful existence. If we stay
close to him we will learn to love as he did.
Secondly verse 7 says, "If you remain in me and my words remain in you,
ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you." Answered prayers
are a result of remaining in Christ.
That doesn't mean that if I want a Ferrari so I can spread the gospel
faster Jesus will give me one. Something happens to people who remain in
Christ. They begin to want and to ask for different things. Our hearts
become more like his so our prayers reflect the will of God. And, this
is my opinion, but I think God begins to trust us more. When we ask He
is more willing to grant us our prayers because he knows they are coming
from hearts that have been molded by his love and shaped by his son.
Finally verse 11 tells us the third result. "I have told you this so
that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete."
When we remain in Christ and become people of love, we finally, fully
experience true joy.
Not the giddy, bubbly kind of pseudo-happiness our culture craves, but
deep, glorious satisfaction with live. Nothing can take it away. Nothing
can diminish it. Nothing can add to it. It is present in sorrow or
happiness, pleasure or pain, strength or weakness. It is the comforting
knowledge that we are not alone, that all we see isn't all there is, and
that we are cared for and loved not just by those brothers and sisters
who we can see and touch, but by Jesus himself. Do you know that? If you
abide in Jesus you do.
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