Abiding In Christ

Dwight Wood

1 John 4:13-18, John 15:1-8 • Sermon • Submitted 6 years ago

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Introduction

If you remember last week, which was the fifth Sunday of Easter, I told you it was traditional for the church to focus on Jesus being the Good Shepherd. So the Gospel passage was in which Jesus spoke his sixth “I am” passage, “I am the Good Shepherd.” Well this week, which is the sixth Sunday of Easter, our Gospel reading contained the seventh, and the last “I am” passage in the Gospel of John: “I am the true Vine.”

The image of Jesus being the True Vine congers up all sorts of important aspects of our relationship with Jesus. And in John’s Gospel, this passage is a part of what is referred to as Jesus’ farewell discourse. Jesus is saying good by to his disciples and his concern is what will happen to that relationship once he is no longer physically present.

I want you to consider some of those important aspects of our relationship with Jesus and how the imagery of the vine and the branch speaks to us.

Our Unity with Christ

One of those aspects is unity. When we think of a vine or a tree, we might think of all its parts. We even label each of the parts: the trunk, the branch, the leaves, the roots. But when we speak of a tree, we usually think of all those parts as a single image: a tree.

So it is with us and Christ. Christ was very concerning in us having a unity, a oneness with him. In his prayer for both his disciples with him and with us who would believe upon him through their words, Jesus prayed for our unity.

For his immediate disciples he prayed: “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.” (, NIV)

And for us he prayed: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (, NIV)

After God had given Moses the Ten Commandments

Our Inter-dependency upon Him

Another important aspect of our relationship with Jesus we see in the vine and branches is our inter-dependency upon Christ.

Now that Spring has finally arrived, before we can cut our lawns for the first time this year, we have to go around and pick up all the branches that have fallen from the trees. Those branches no longer have the ability to produce leaves or flowers or fruit because their connection to the tree has been broken. They are fit only to be burned on the wood pile or used as kindling in our fireplace this winter.

Those branches no longer have the ability to produce leaves or flowers or fruit because their connection to the tree has been broken.

While in High School, Kristi was in a play titled Les Miserables. In a nut shell, the plot of the play is an ex-convict, spends his remaining life trying to make a positive impact on the world around him, but his past always followed. The last line of the play, a piece called the Finale, says, “To love another person is to see the face of God.”

That is how it is when our relationship with Christ is severed. Christ is the True Vine. Our power, strength, endurance are all lost when we don’t remain connected to the vine.

Our Intimacy with Christ

But the Good is that we have that connection, that relationship with Jesus because of God. That is where our passage from 1 John comes in.

John said, “This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.” (13) When we came to Christ at our baptism, the promise we were given is that we would have the forgiveness of our sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. God gave us the Spirit as a pledge or a testimony of our relationship with him.

That is why the Father sent his Son. “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. and so we know and rely on the love God has for us.” (15) Because of that love and the Holy Spirit within us, we have no fear of judgement. “Perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.” (18)

As long as we continue to put our trust in God and love him, he is in us and we are in him. We abide in one another, just as the branch and the vine abide in one another.

Conclusion

So our goal is to continue in his love, to continue in our relationship with the Father and the Son. Through our reading of the Word, our prayers and devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ, we can maintain that relationship with God. And the love of God that fills our hearts through the Holy Spirit can pour forth through us into the lives of other.

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