Abide in the Vine
The Gospel of John • Sermon • Submitted
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John 15:1-11
(vv.4-5) Abide in the Vine
Abide in Him
Abide-
Remain
Reside
Endure
Abiding is mutual
If you abide in Him, He will abide in you
Abiding is conditional
If you do not abide in Him, He will not abide in you
Either both happen or neither happen
Abiding produces fruit
Faith never stays alone
Abiding is what true faith does
Faith produces fruit
Therefore, abiding produces the good fruit of faith
Matthew 7:16-20- You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
What kind?
The internal fruit of the heart
Galatians 5:22-23- But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Philippians 1:11- Filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Matthew 3:8- Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
The external fruit of actions
Colossians 1:10- So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;
Hebrews 13:15- Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.
The Father prunes the fruitful branches to increase their fruit
Hebrews 12:9-11- Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Apart from Him you can do nothing
You can do alot of things apart from him
Millions of people do a combined billions of things every day
You can do nothing pleasing to God
No gospel fruit will happen apart from Him
(vv.7-10) What it means to abide in the Vine
Abide in His Word
It is His Word which cleanses us
This means that we are cleansed by the blood of Christ when we believe what He has reveals about Christ
It is what guides us
It is the tool God uses to sanctify us
Abide in His Love
His love precedes ours
1 John 4:7-10- Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Keep His commandments
1 John 2:3-6- And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
Always done by the power of God
Prayer is central to the fruit-bearing
“Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you”
The way that we bear fruit is by: gospel-grounded, Spirit-empowered, faith-filled vitality in relationship to Jesus that issues in dependant prayer
The inadequacy of the typical modern gospel presentation
The gospel message is not merely “accept/acknowledge Jesus as your Savior”
It is also extremely unhelpful to give instant assurance of salvation to anyone who prays a prayer makes a profession of faith
The gospel’s call beckons sinners to repent and believe in Jesus Christ as Lord, Savior, and the most lovely and delightful being in the universe
(vv.2,6) The barren will burn
The fruitless branches are cut off
There are no fruitless branches on the omnipotent vine of God
No dead branch may remain
The fruitless branches do not fool God
The fruitless branches are thrown away
They do not receive the benefits of the living branches
They are separated from the living ones and thrown away
These fruitless branches are apostate and superficial Christians
The fruitless branches are burned
Every dead branch is thrown into the fire
Every unbelieving and impentitent sinner is cast into hell
(vv. 8,11) The result of abiding
The confidence of faith
If you see the fruit of faith in your life, you can have confidence in the genuineness of the faith
This passage is not to put a burden on you
It is to free you from doubt and enliven you to love
The glory of God
God is glorified when His people abide in Him and bear much fruit
The joy of your soul
As you abide in Jesus, you will experience the joy for which you were made
Manuscript
Last week we beheld Jesus as the true Vine. He is the one from whom we find life and by whom we are sustained in life. But there is a command in this passage. We are commanded to abide in the Vine.
(vv.4-5) Abide in the Vine
What does it mean to abide? It is a word that we rarely use in our time, but yet it carried with it some of the most staggering truth in the Bible. Abide simple means to remain (this is how the NIV translates it), or to reside, or even to endure. It elicits the picture of someone taking up residence in a place in a stayed way. It is not discontented or looking for the next best thing. It is contentment-filled enduring residence. This abiding that we are speaking of is not some vague or general abiding. It is gospel abiding. It is remaining and residing and enduring in Jesus. It is faith-filled abiding. This is something profoundly Christian. No unbeliever knows anything of what Jesus is referring to.
According to Jesus, true abiding is mutual. It is not merely one sided or one directional. He says that if you abide in Him, He will abide in you. It’s your abiding in Him as your Lord, your God, your Savior, your friend, and your greatest treasure. But this means also that abiding is conditional. If you do not abide in Him, He will not abide in you. It’s not as though He will abide in you but you want nothing to do with abiding in Him. Either both happen or neither happen.
Abiding produces fruit. This is the central point of the entire passage. He is calling His disciples to abide in Him, and He is asserting that their abiding will, with certainty, produce fruit. Now, I should say at this point that He never gives an exact amount. Some will produce much fruit and some produce less fruit. This is according to the varied grace of God (we know this from the Apostle Paul). However, faith never stands alone. Perhaps it would be helpful to state the flow of thought here in three consecutive statements. 1) True faith never stands alone, but always produces fruit. 2) Abiding is what true faith does. 3) Therefore, abiding produces the good fruit of faith. This is exactly what Jesus means in Matthew 7:16-20- You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
But the question that might be in your mind at this point is this: what kind of fruit? It is one thing to talk about fruit in general, but what fruit specifically does abiding in Jesus reap? There seems to be two general kinds of fruit that Jesus has in mind here. First, is the internal fruit of the heart. We see these fruits in Galatians 5:22-23- But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. These are all internal fruits that are given by the Spirit of God, and begin to renovate the heart. The heart is indwelt by the Spirit and day by day a little more love begins to flow where hate used to be, a little more kindness begins to flow where selfishness used to be, a little more gentleness used to flow where there was harshness. Paul also says in Philippians 1:11- Filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. Righteousness of heart and mind is a fruit of saving faith, and the more deeply you abide in Jesus the more that righteousness will be cultivated in your heart and mind. Finally, one last example of an internal fruit is found in Matthew 3:8- Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. There is planty more to say about the meaning of this statement, but I’ll just point out that the central focus of the fruit here is repentance. Faith brings a hatred of sin and heartfelt repentance for sin.
There is however, a second kind of fruit: the external fruit of actions. These are directly connected to and flow from the internal fruit of the heart because internal fruit doesn’t merely stay internal. In the midst of Paul’s exaltation of Jesus in Colossians 1, he says this in verse 10: So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. He points out, not the internal fruit of the Spirit, but the external fruit of good works. This is what the fruit of the Spirit inevitably lead to. Hebrews 13:15 also says- Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. The things that we say pour from our lips from the heart, because from the abundance of the heart does the mouth speak. And this fruit of lips ought to acknowledge the name of Jesus in such a way that He is worshiped. We ought to use our mouths for the praise of God and the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Jesus points out, in verse 2, that the Father prunes the fruitful branches to increase their fruit. This is not pleasant and it is not that which makes us “feel good”. God’s providence for our good often is painful and uncomfortable. He is faithful to teach us and correct us and discipline us because He is our perfect caring Father. Hebrews 12:9-11 says- Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. He prunes us in order that we might bear more fruit of righteousness and peace, and this fruit leads us home to Jesus.
Finally, Jesus says that apart from Him you can do nothing. We must be careful here, because you might mistake what He means and become confused. He is not saying that you can’t go to work or drive your car or watch the Super Bowl apart from Him. In one sense this is true because He sustains your life, but this is not how He means to be understood here. You can do alot of things apart from him. In fact, billions of unbelieving people do a combined billions upon billions of things every day. His point is that you can do nothing pleasing to God, and even more specifically, you can produce no gospel fruit apart from Him. If you don’t abide in Jesus, you will never produce any fruit that accords with faith because faith is not present if abiding isn’t active.
(vv.7-10) What it means to abide in the Vine
Having established the groundwork for abiding and built up to the fruit that it produces, I want to focus on what it means to abide. No only what it is or what it produces, but also what it means. In what ways do we abide in Him?
First, if we are to abide in Jesus, then we must abide in His Word (verse 7). According to verse 3, it is His Word which cleanses us. What does that even mean? It means that we are cleansed by the blood of Christ when we believe what He has reveals about Christ. It is through the Word that we know the gospel and it is through the gospel that we receive Christ and it is through receiving Christ that we are cleansed and it is only the cleansed branches who remain in the perfect vine. After we begin to abide in Him, it is then this same Word which guides us. It is the lamp to our feet and the light to our path (Psalm 119:105). It is the tool God uses to sanctify us, because it is the sword of the Spirit which He wields in our lives to do His work in our hearts.
To abide is also to remain and to dwell in His Love. His love precedes ours just like we read in 1 John 4:7-10- Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. He gives us His love by His amazing grace, and it is only in that freely given love that we love Him. This is how the mutual abiding happens. His love poured into our hearts and then our love given back to Him for all that He is for us and to us. It is in this love relationship that every Christian abides.
To abide is also to keep His commandments according to verse 10. This may sound repulsive to you, but it ought not to cause us to respond in disgust. Instead, we ought to remember what John says in 1 John 2:3-6- And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. To abide in Him by keeping His commandments is not legalism. Legalism doesn’t abide, it only works. To abide in His commands is to live according to Truth of God that you know and the affections of your heart toward Christ. It is outrageous for someone to make the claim that they love God and then rebel against what He has commanded for our good.
Let us briefly remind ourselves that this is always done by the power of God. We are not self-dependant people. We are endlessly dependant on the grace and power of God to work these things in us. This is why prayer is central to the fruit-bearing of this passage. Jesus says “ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.” He wants us to see the connection between your humble prayers of dependance and His faithfulness to give us all that we ask in accordance to His will, and, to be sure, all of the fruits of abiding are His will for us. The way that we bear fruit is by: gospel-grounded, Spirit-empowered, faith-filled vitality in relationship to Jesus that issues in dependant prayer
This reveals the inadequacy of the typical modern gospel presentation. The gospel message is not merely “accept/acknowledge Jesus as your Savior.” It is also extremely unhelpful to give instant assurance of salvation to anyone who prays a prayer makes a profession of faith. It is not because there is no assurance of salvation, but rather that the salvation might not be genuine in the first place. Only God knows the hearts, and for us, the fruit of faith is what grounds our confidence in faith. Rather, the gospel’s call beckons sinners to repent and believe in Jesus Christ as Lord, Savior, and the most lovely and delightful being in the universe. And it is the fruit that springs up from this faith that gives confidence in the genuineness of the faith.
(vv.2,6) The barren will burn
There is a somber note struck in this passage. The fruitless branches are cut off. These are not once-saved people who lost their salvation like many would like to assert. These are the branches which once professed faith, but laster fell away and proved to be imposert branches that only had a superficial appearance of life. There are no fruitless branches that will remain on the omnipotent vine of God. The fruitless branches do not fool God. He knows the heart, and He will deal with every one according to the genuine reality of faith or unbelief.
Then, these fruitless branches are thrown away. They do not receive the benefits of the living branches, although perhaps for a time it seems like they do. They are separated from the living branches and thrown away.
Finally, the fruitless branches are burned. Every dead branch is thrown into the fire without exception. Every unbelieving and impentitent sinner is cast into hell forever, where the fire does not consume and the worm does not destroy. The fruitless unbelief of rebellious sinners will be paid for, either by the blood of Jesus on the cross through faith, or in hell forever and ever. May you tremble at this truth brothers and sisters. And unbeliever, may you respond in faith this morning. Turn from sin and cast yourself on Jesus in faith. Abide in Him and in all that He promises to be for you.
(vv. 8,11) The result of abiding
As we begin to draw this passage to its close, it is worth mentioning the grand result of abiding in Christ. First, abiding reaps the confidence of faith. If you see the fruit of faith in your life, you can have confidence in the genuineness of the faith. This passage is not to put a burden on you, it is to free you from doubt and enliven you to love! Second, abiding in Christ results in the glory of God. God is glorified when His people abide in Him, love Him, and bear much fruit. And finally, abiding reaps the harvest of the joy of your soul. As you abide in Jesus, you will experience the joy for which you were made.
Abide in Jesus brothers and sisters. He is the vine and we are the branches. May you remain in Him and He in you, and may you yield the fruit of faith that flows from the heart of affection for Jesus.