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DYING WORDS TO DESTROY DOUBT AND DESPAIR: JOHN 15: 1-16 INTRODUCTION Over the years as I have talked with people it seems to me that everyone has a need to know that their life has meaning. We all want to know that it matters that we are alive. We are happier when we know that we are engaged in activity that is making a difference in the world. We are frustrated and depressed when we sense that our lives are making no difference in the world. All of us either consciously or unconsciously adopt a purpose for living. Some make raising children their purpose. Others give themselves to a political cause. Still others aim to be the best in their profession or in their hobby. There are hundreds and thousands of purposes that people give themselves to. The difficulty all of us face is determining whether the purpose we've adopted really matters. Jesus' disciples are no different than us. They have become his followers because they are convinced that he is the one who is going to establish God's kingdom on earth. They are persuaded that they have given themselves to a very worthwhile purpose; helping Jesus set up God's kingdom on earth. The trouble they are about to experience however is the same one we experience. The purpose they have adopted is not the purpose God has for their lives. Therefore, they are about to be severely disappointed, just like us when we discover that the thing we were living for really doesn't matter. In this passage Jesus seeks to show the disciples and us that God wants us to live a joyful and fruitful life, a life of meaning and influence. However, what that life looks like is radically different from what most of us envision. MAIN POINT I. He is the true vine (vv. 1-8) God the Father is the gardener who cares for this vine that is Jesus. He takes care of the vine by cutting off all the dead, fruitless branches and by cleansing all the branches that bear fruit so that they will bear more fruit. Like a meticulous gardener, God takes special care of all those branches in Jesus that bear fruit by cleansing them so they will bear more fruit. How does God cleanse them? In v. 3 Jesus tells these 11 disciples that they are already clean by the word he has spoken to them. God uses his word, the Word of Christ, to cleanse us so that we will bear more fruit. For example, a Christian may be struggling with giving money to support his church or a missionary and then he reads Matthew 6:33 that says, "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you as well." He discovers that the fear or greed that was keeping him from being generous is gone as he trusts that promise and so he is able to give what God wants him to give. Another person might be having a hard time forgiving a person that offended her at work. She reads Eph. 5: 32, "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you." As she considers how God has forgiven her in Christ she is able to forgive the other person and to treat that person with kindness rather than with the cold shoulder. God uses his word to cleanse us from the things that hinder fruitfulness in our lives. The big idea in this metaphor though is in vv. 4-6. Jesus is the true vine, therefore he is the source of life and fruitfulness. It is an automatic thing, when a branch is attached to the vine, the vine produces fruit through the branch because the life is in the vine. Note, the branch "bears" the fruit, it doesn’t produce the fruit. It is also equally true that if a branch is not connected to the vine, it cannot bear fruit. We have again, as in chapter 14, two kinds of people in the world. There are those who are firmly connected to the vine and so are bearing much fruit and there are those who are not connected to the vine and so dry up and are gathered up and burned. If a person is not connected to Jesus it is impossible for that person to bear fruit and it is absolutely certain that he or she will be burned up in God’s judgement. If a person is vitally connected to Jesus he or she will bear much fruit and enjoy the life of Christ forever. There is a very significant question that must be answered before we can move on. How do I obey the command to remain in Jesus? If you are going to bear fruit and escape being burned up you have to bear fruit. You only bear fruit by remaining in Jesus. How do we do that? Consider how a branch is connected to a vine. There is a structural connection and there is an organic connection. I have several trees in my back yard. There are many branches that are connected to the trees but they are completely dead as no leaves or acorns grow on them. The life of the tree does not flow through these branches. So it is possible for a branch to be structurally connected but not organically connected. These are the kind of people that God cuts off in v. 2 and burns in the fire in v. 6. It is not possible for a branch to be organically connected, that is, to have the life of the vine flowing in it, without also being structurally connected. I need to be both structurally connected to Jesus and organically connected to him. What does it mean to be structurally connected to Jesus? It means to believe the truth about Jesus and to belong to his physical presence on the earth, the church. How do I know this? Turn to 1 John 2: 18-24 on page 862 (read them). Here is what happened in this church. John preached the gospel and all of these people professed faith in Christ and were baptized and joined themselves together into a church. Some time later a group within the church began to teach that Jesus is not the Messiah. Eventually they left the original church and formed their own church, claiming they were the true church. John says that this group showed by leaving that they never really were part of the church. This group of people, who he does not hesitate to call antichrists, were at one time structurally remaining in Christ but they never were organically connected. Eventually they revealed that they were not organically connected by severing themselves from Christ by teaching false doctrine and leaving the visible church. Notice that John commands those who remained in the church to remain in the true teaching about Jesus and in this way they would remain in the Son and the Father. So part of the way that you obey the command to remain in Jesus is by believing the truth about Jesus and by belonging to his church. If you refuse to believe what God reveals about himself in the Bible and/or if you refuse to fellowship with a local church you are not remaining in Christ and you will be gathered up and burned in the fire of God’s judgement, no matter what you claim to have experienced with Jesus. But it is possible to believe the truth about Jesus and to belong to the church and yet to not be remaining in Christ organically. Verse 2 and verse 6 tell us that. Judas is the prime example. What else must I do to dwell in Jesus? I think vv. 7-8 give us part of the answer. Jesus tells us that we need to remain in him and his words need to remain in us. The words of Jesus need to be ringing in our ears at all times. You cannot remain in Jesus if this word does not live in you. Do specific promises and commands from God’s word come to your mind throughout the day? Do you get up each day and go to this word to find promises to hold on to through the day? Can you honestly say with the Psalmist, "The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver?" You are not abiding in Christ if this word is not abiding in you. I experienced this during this past week. Last Sunday, I got to sit where you sit as my friend, Mark Werner preached. He asked us to imagine coming to Jesus and having him ask us, "What do you want me to do for you?" That question has been in my mind all week and has been an enormous motivation in my praying and in my confidence that God has heard my prayers. Second, notice that the chief characteristic of the person who is living in Jesus and in whom Jesus’ word is living is that they ask for whatever they want and they receive it. We abide in Christ by asking Christ to do what his word promises us he is going to do. How else could Jesus write such a blank check? He can make such an astounding promise, "Whatever you want, ask and it will come to you", because those to whom he makes it are vitally connected to him. Their minds are saturated with what he says. In other words, they want what he wants. John Calvin is so right when he says, "God has promised us nothing in his word that he has not also commanded us to ask of him in prayer." Do you go through your day asking God to do that which he has promised to do in his word? When you ask God for things do you know that you are asking him to do things that he wants to do? What would it mean if one of my children began asking me for things like this after church today? "Dad, could you go buy me some marijuana, I’ve always wanted to get high. Dad, could you go buy me a pack of cigarettes and a "Playboy" magazine? Dad, could you take me over to the Moslem mosque, I’d like to become a Moslem." If my child asks me for these kinds of things it means that he either doesn’t know me at all or that he is mocking me and trying to hurt me. Frankly, this is how most of us pray. We ask God to give us things we love but that he hates. To abide in Christ is to love him and trust him and to so cherish his word that his will becomes your will and you ask whatever you want and he gives it to you, because what you want is what he wants. Look at the three results for the person who remains in Christ in this way. When you are trusting and loving Christ and his word is ringing in your ear and you are responding to his word by asking him to do all he promises, then God is shown to be great in the answers you receive. You bear much fruit as a result of your prayer and in this way you show that you are a Christ follower, a learner of Jesus. Do you want God’s greatness to be revealed through your life? Do you want to bear fruit for God? Do you want to be a follower of Christ? If you do, then live in vital union with the true vine by allowing his word to live in you and by asking him to do all his word commands & promises. A joyful and fruitful life only comes from living in vital union with Jesus because…
II. He loves us as the Father loves him (vv. 9-12) How does the Father love the Son? The Father loves the Son eternally. He has always loved the Son and he will never stop loving the Son. The Father loves the Son perfectly. He always wants what is best for the Son and he always does what is best for the Son. The Father loves the Son passionately. He is wholehearted in his affection for the Son. He thinks of his Son always and yearns for his Sons happiness. The Father loves the Son joyfully. His love is not coerced or manipulated but free and full and happy. He is pleased with the Son and happy to be his Father. He delights in his Son. The Father loves the Son intimately. He is pleased to know his Son’s innermost thoughts and desires. Jonathon Edwards said it this way, "The infinite happiness of the Father consists in the enjoyment of his Son." In this same way the Son loves those whom the Father has given him. He loves his chosen ones eternally, perfectly, passionately, joyfully and intimately. Jesus does not love his people because of anything they have done but his love for us does require a response from us. We are to remain in Jesus’ love by obeying his command in the same way that he remained in his Father’s love by obeying his commands. Does my obedience to Christ’s commands earn his love or obligate him to love me? We answer that question by asking it of Jesus’ obedience to his Father’s commands. The obvious answer is no, the obedience of Jesus did not earn his Father’s love but rather it is the only fitting and appropriate response of the Son to the Father. If Jesus did not obey the Father he would not be his Son and the Father would not have loved him. Is it necessary for Jesus to obey the Father? Yes, but only because that is what perfect sons do with perfect fathers, not in order to earn the Father’s love. In v. 11 Jesus says that the reason he wants us to remain in his love by obeying his commands is so that our joy may be full. When I tell one of my children to do the dishes, do they respond by sincerely saying, "Nothing would make me happier than doing the dishes because you said so"? When I tell them to turn off the TV and go to bed do they all break out in joyous laughter as they happily make their way up the stairs to bed? No. Most of the time, commands, even from people who love us, do not make us happy. Commands usually feel like a burden, an infringement upon our happiness, not what makes us happy. Yet in v. 11 Jesus says that the reason he has told us that we are to remain in his love by obeying his commands is so that his joy might be in us and that our joy might be full. What is the joy of Jesus? Jesus is about to go through the most horrible suffering imaginable and he knows it and yet he has such an abundance of joy that he wants his disciples to experience it. Based on John 14: 28 and 31 it seems to me that the joy of Jesus is his happiness in showing off the greatness of God through his suffering love, his death on the cross. He wants us to experience the joy of delighting in God and delighting to obey God to so fill us that our joy is as full as it can be. His joy is the joy of sharing the abundance of the Father’s love with us. Another way to think of this joy is to consider what commands from me would make my children happy. When I come home from Dairy Queen with ice cream treats I give my children this command, "Kids, come here and get your "Blizzard". Do they happily obey my command? You bet, they are very happy to obey me. This is how it is with the commands of Jesus. When we are abiding in him his commands are not a burden but a delight. The miracle of being a Christian is that what my heart delights in is what Jesus commands me to do. What is that thing that we want to do that Jesus commands us to do? "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you." Don’t miss this. The way that we remain in the love of Jesus is by loving other believers in the same way that Jesus loves us. If you claim to be a Christian and therefore loved by Jesus as the Father loves him, then you are obligated to love and you want to love each believer in this room in the same way that Jesus loves you. If you will do this you will remain in his love and your joy will be full. If you will not do this, you will not remain in his love and you will have no joy and will be burned up. Most of us believe that what will make us happy is if others will love us. Jesus says the opposite. If you want to experience his joy, remain in his love by obeying his command to love other Christians the way he loved you. There is a river of love flowing from the Father towards the Son. The Son rejoices in the love of the Father and delights to pour forth that love towards us. We in turn are swept up in the current of his love and rejoice in it and delight to pour that love forth in love for other believers. It is inevitable that a person who remains in Jesus will love others. A joyful and fruitful life only comes from living in vital union with Jesus because…
III. He chose us and calls us his friends (vv. 13-16) The greatest act of love a person can do for their friend is to die for them. That is exactly what Jesus did for Christians and that is how we are to love each other. You don’t die for your friend unless your death secures their safety. You don’t die for a friend just to show them you love them. That’s insane. You only die if there is no other way to preserve their life. Jesus thus shows that his death is substitutionary. His dying preserves our lives. If I might say it this way, he takes a bullet meant for us and thus secures the safety of his friends. He takes upon himself the fire of God’s wrath so that his friends will not have to endure it. Who are the friends for whom he dies? V. 14 tells us that the friends he gives his life for are those who obey his commands. Again, we are not earning his death by our obedience nor do we obligate him to die by our obedience. Rather, if we are the friend of the king then we delight to obey that king. This is the way we must think of it. This is not a reciprocal friendship between equals. Who would ever require his friend to obey his commands? Could you imagine me saying to Dave Cullum, "You’re my friend if you do what I command." The only people that can make that kind of statement are those who have legitimate authority over others. King Jesus gives his life for his friends and his friends are all those who obey his commands. Not only does Jesus give his life for his friends but he also reveals his plans to his friends. See his logic? Slaves do not know why they are being told to do what they do. Slaves are mere instruments, subject to their master’s desires with no knowledge of what their master is planning. That is not the case with us. We are friends of the king and as his friends we are told what he is doing and how our actions fit into the overall plan. We know how the kingdom works and we are given important assignments in the kingdom. While we have commands to obey, yet we know why we are doing what we are doing because the king reveals his plans and strategies to us. Jesus does this through his Word and by his Spirit. Paul says it this way, "We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God that we may understand what God has freely given us." We can be joyful in our obedience because we are not like ignorant slaves but like friends of the king appointed to significant service in the kingdom. But, lest we begin to boast of our importance, Jesus quickly reminds us that we did not volunteer for these positions. We did not become friends with this great king because we were smarter than others or more spiritual or in some way worthy of his friendship. Rather we are his friends because he chose us. King Jesus reminds us at the end of a passage that is full of commands to obey and to remain that the initiative in this entire project is his. We are branches, we are loved, we are friends because he chose us, not because we chose him. Therefore there is no cause for boasting except in what he has done because as v. 5 says, "apart from him we can do nothing." Verse 16 ends by telling us that Jesus chose us and appointed us for four purposes.. A literal translation would say this: "You did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you so that you would go, so that you would bear fruit, so that your fruit would remain and so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give to you." Jesus ends by expanding our understanding of a fruitful life to not only include answered prayer and obedient love but also other people becoming Christians and remaining in Christ forever along with us. Don’t you want your life to count for something? Don’t you want to know at the end of your life that your life showed off the greatness of God? Don’t you want to know that your life accomplished something that is going to matter 1000 years from now? You can live a life that reveals the greatness of God and so persuades others to give themselves to him. The way to do this is profoundly simple and profoundly difficult. It means acknowledging your complete helplessness, "apart from him you can do nothing". It means living in vital union with Jesus by trusting him, allowing his word to live in you, asking him whatever you want and obeying his command to love other believers. A joyful and fruitful life only comes from living in vital union with Jesus because…
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