Abiding in the Love of Christ

Thank you, Brian. You know, there are some churches in North Carolina where if they were to mention I was a Duke grad, they'd throw me out. So I don't mind a little, a little laughter. It's a joy to be here and share the word with you. I bring you greetings from all the saints in Durham, North Carolina. This is a special pleasure for me because this is my second trip to Charlottesville. I actually first visited before my senior year of high school. I toured UVA. It was a beautiful summer day and I thought, this is the place for me. And in God's providence, I ended up at another ACC school a little south. But it is wonderful to be back. Even more than that, though, it's a joy just to meet with brothers and sisters and enjoy the fellowship we have together in Christ. Well, a few days ago, I was fascinated to read reports that scientists had created the first man-made life form. Two American biologists, Craig Ventner and Hamilton Smith, have reportedly created a single-celled organism with a man-made genetic code. One article I read said, quote, creating life is no longer the prerogative of gods. That's a pretty bold claim. So is it true? Well, I think it certainly overstates the case. These scientists didn't actually create life out of nothing. They just snipped together some genetic code and put it in the hollowed out shell of an existing bacterium. So they didn't really create life, not in the sense that God creates life. That doesn't mean this isn't a remarkable scientific achievement. This new bacterium is a living, reproducing creature with no genetic ancestor. Nothing like this has ever been done. Now, at Duke, I studied history, English, and philosophy, so I've just exhausted my knowledge of genetics in the last five or six sentences. But even if scientists can create life, in a sense, in a lab, and maybe even if school kids are soon going to be doing it on laptops, there's another kind of life that we're not close to being able to manufacture or create. It's what we mean when we talk about the good life or a life worth living. It's life that is joyful, productive and full of love. Genetics isn't going to help us find it. So I put the question to you this morning, where can we get it? How can we live that kind of life? Now, if you're if you're not a Christian and you're here visiting this morning, welcome. I'm a guest myself, but I but I'm glad that you're here. I know that everyone else is as well. I want to give you some questions to be thinking about. As we move on, this morning we're going to be spending a lot of time looking at the Bible. These questions might help shape your thinking as we do it. First, what is a good life? What does a really good life look like? A life that matters? Think about that. Second, where will you get the strength to live that kind of life? I think all of us realize that this world often throws up obstacles and distractions. that can make it difficult to live the kind of life we want to make it difficult to live the kind of life we ought to. And if we're honest, I think we'll admit that we often make foolish and selfish decisions ourselves. Our own hearts lead us astray. The Bible even goes so far as to say the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. How will you overcome the obstacles that the world and your own heart put in your way? Well, if you're a Christian, you're here this morning, the questions are not so different for you. God's word tells us what this good life looks like. It's a life that sets aside sin and embraces wisdom and obedience. It's a life that's full of rejoicing and love. It's a life of worshiping the one true God. But Christians, too, are weak and sinful. How will you get the strength to live this kind of life? Well, in the text we're looking at this morning, Jesus addresses all of these questions. Our passage from the Gospel of John is part of a larger body of teaching that is sometimes called Jesus's farewell discourse. In plainer language, that just means that this is his last sermon before the crucifixion. He has eaten the last supper with his disciples, and he's perhaps even walking along with them, teaching them. And he uses the opportunity to encourage them and also to reinforce some of the essential truths of the faith. and to prepare them for the suffering that awaits them as they see their leader, their teacher, their Messiah, go to the cross. So he's speaking particularly to his 12 disciples. But through them, he's speaking to all of us as well, to everyone else who would become his disciple. He's speaking to you and me. So I think you'll see as we read these chapters that we are sitting at the feet of a master teacher. Jesus has a way of communicating great spiritual truths in just a sentence or two. These are the kind of difficult and deep truths that a very wise man could spend an entire life thinking about and not exhaust. But Jesus isn't speaking only to a spiritual elite. He's speaking to ordinary people like you and me. And so he expresses himself using ordinary language, language that even the simplest of his hearers would have understand. So he routinely teaches using stories. and familiar objects like bread and sheep and water. And here in John 15, Jesus teaches using the metaphor of an ordinary vineyard, a place where grapes are grown to make wine. Let's turn there now. Turn with me to John 15. We'll be looking this morning at John 15, verses one through 17. Listen to what Jesus has to teach us. Listen, as I read John 15, one through 17. Jesus says, I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, and you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. By this, my father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I've spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends for all that I have heard from my father. I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you so that you will love one another. Well, the metaphor Jesus uses, he himself is the vine, the vine that occupies this vineyard. And God, his father in heaven, is the vine dresser or gardener. And we are branches that attach to the vine and and bear fruit. So Jesus uses this ordinary scene to teach us how to live extraordinary lives, lives that are productive, joyful, loving and eternal. This morning, we're going to walk through the elements of this story together. First, we're going to look at Jesus, the life giving vine. Second, we'll look at what God the Father does, the faithful gardener who tends to the branches. And third and finally, we'll look at the branches. That's you and me and see what kind of life Jesus calls us to live. If you're taking notes, that's that's going to be our outline this morning. Well, first, let's look at at Jesus, the life giving vine. Jesus introduces his chief subject immediately right there in chapter 15, verse one, he says, I am the true vine. Again, in verse five, he says, I am the vine, you are the branches. Now, these are just a few of the many I am statements in the Gospel of John. Elsewhere, he says, I am the bread of life. I am the bread that came down from heaven. I am the light of the world. I am the door of the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. And then finally here, I am the true vine. It's clear as we look at those together that Jesus didn't just come to preach a message. He himself is the message. In fact, he says as much in John chapter 80. He says, I am the one who bears witness about myself. Jesus wants us to learn about him. That's why he's teaching. So what exactly does he mean, I am the true vine? Well, it's significant that he says I'm the true vine. Doesn't that at least imply that there are false vines somewhere else? In fact, Jesus is here picking up on some common Old Testament imagery, the imagery of God's people, Israel, as a vine that God has brought out of slavery, slavery in Egypt and planted in the promised land. Now, if you know the story, tragically, that vine only produces sin, bloodshed, idolatry, adultery, murder. Jeremiah 2 actually gives us God's perspective on this vine. He says directly to Israel, he says, Yet I planted you a choice vine, wholly of pure seed. How many of you turn degenerate and become a wild vine? Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me. Israel, this choice vine that God had planted, had rejected him and become wild. God had intended his people to live lives of humble obedience and love. to be witnesses to their neighbors, but instead they turned aside and worshiped false gods. This is not the kind of fruit that God's people were meant to produce. And so God judges them. In Shakespeare's play Macbeth, Lady Macbeth commits murder and after is so wracked by guilt that she imagines bloodstains on her hands that cannot be washed off. So she actually sleepwalks at night and washes her hands in her sleep compulsively. She could see these stains, but no one else could. Well, the situation here is the exact opposite with Israel. Whether Israel can see the blood on her hands, whether we can see the blood on ours, all of God's people are stained and God sees it. We see the same situation described in Psalm 80, this time from the perspective of Israel. Turn there with me now. You can keep a finger on John 15. Turn with me to Psalm 80. If you're new to the Bible, you can just pretty much open the Bible right at the middle and you'll hit the Psalms. Look at Psalm chapter 80, Psalm number 80. Look at verse eight, we'll start in verse eight, Israel has sinned against the Lord. The setting is she's overrun by her enemies now and crying out to the Lord for deliverance. This is what this is what the psalmist says, starting in verse eight. You brought a vine out of Egypt, you drove out the nations and planted it, you cleared the ground for it. It took deep root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches. It sent out its branches to the sea and its shoots to the river. So in Psalm 80, God's people are again described as a vine that God has brought out of Egypt and planted. It's small and unimpressive at first, but God planted it in good soil and it takes deep root. It begins to fill the land. What a beautiful picture this is of God's mercy. Israel was planted in a good land where it could flourish, where it could live. But Israel commits spiritual adultery. Israel worships other gods, and the one true God judges her, gives her over to her enemies. Look now in verse 12. Why then have you broken down its walls, so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit? The boar from the forest ravages it, and all that move in the field feed on it. Turn again, O God of hosts. Look down from heaven and see. Have regard for this vine, the stock that your right hand planted and for the son whom you made strong for yourself. They have burned it with fire. They have cut it down. May they perish at the rebuke of your face. But let your hand be on the man of your right hand, the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself. Then she will not turn back from you. Give us life and we will call upon that upon your name. Did you hear that desperate cry at the end? Give us life. Oh, God, give us life. Because of their great sin, these stains which could not be washed off, Israel had ceased to know God in his loving kindness and were now under his wrath. What a terrible predicament Israel was in. And not just Israel, but but all of humanity. All of us have walked this path of rebellion and found at the end only death. With a psalmist, we must cry, give us life. And so against this background, against this backdrop, Jesus says, I am the true vine. Israel was wild and failed to bring forth the fruit that God required, but but Jesus is the vine that brings forth the fruit of perfect obedience and worship. Did you notice the other way that that Israel was described in Psalm 80? Look at verse 17, but let your hand be on the man of your right hand, the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself. In Psalm 80, Israel is described as God's son. So Jesus could also say, I am the true son. He's the true vine, the true son who obeys the father and worships him as he deserves. Now, because Jesus is that true vine, he can also be our vine. Jesus can be the very source of our life. So when we cry with a psalmist, oh, God, give us life. He answers us in Jesus. Jesus was faithful and obedient, and now he invites all of us to come in and enjoy his abundant life. The vine draws nutrients and moisture from the soil and converts the sunlight to energy. And from that vine sap flows into the branches. Well, in Israel, Israel failed and became a wild vine, but in Israel's place, we would have all failed, too. So Jesus says, come and find life in me. Now, we see in John 15 that the branch cannot live without its connection to the vine. So Jesus says in verse six, look, if anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers. Once the branch is separated from the vine, there is no life in it. But when the branch is united with the vine, when we are united with Christ, we have life. Did you ever wonder at Jesus' statements, I am the resurrection and the life, he says that in John 11, or I am the way, the truth and the life, John 14, 6. If you think about it, these are bold claims, far bolder than any claim to have created life in a laboratory. Jesus is saying that he himself is the very fountain of life. So how is it that Jesus, the vine, can give life to us, the branches? I think we can make a little bit better sense of this if we look at another passage in the book of Colossians. Feel free to turn with me to Colossians 3 or just listen to what I read. This is what Paul writes to the Christians in Colossae. Look at chapter 3, verses 1 through 4. Paul writes, If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Isn't that interesting language? Paul is writing to these Christians in Colossae who are very much alive. They have not died in any physical sense. And he says, you have been raised with Christ. And then you have died. How is that? Well, the glorious teaching at the very heart of the gospel is that through faith, we are united with Christ. He becomes our our head and our representative. And when we're united to him, we come to share in his death. So Paul can say you have died because he is our representative. We were in him when he went to the cross and died. We died in the same way. We were united to him when he rose from the dead. And so Paul can say you were raised. The result of all of this is that we share in the glorious life of Christ. Paul says your life is hidden with Christ. We share the life of the vine because he has overcome death. So we can share in the son's eternal blessed life. Friends, do you understand now why the early Christians chose that Greek word gospel? Good news to describe their message. There can be no better news. But when we delight in the good news of eternal life with Christ, we need to remember that this life, this life is offered to us only because Christ loved us and died for us. Look back at John 15, 13. This is what Jesus says. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, but the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends for all that I've heard from my father. I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide. So whatever you ask the father in my name, he may give it to you. Greater love has no man than this, that someone lay down his life for a friend. The greatest love possible is to set aside your own interests and dies that someone else may live. Now, remember where Jesus is as he sends this. He says this. He's merely hours from his from his torture and execution. He's staring death in the face. And he says, greater love has no man than this, that he laid down his life for a friend. I wonder if you've ever read Charles Dickens novel, A Tale of Two Cities. Maybe you just have bad memories from high school English class, I don't know. But it's a thrilling story. It's set in the middle of the French Revolution and all the carnage that the French Revolution brought. And one of the heroes of the novel is a man named Charles Darnay. And Charles Darnay is a good man. He's an upright man. But he is swept up in the chaos of the revolution, thrown into prison, and then sentenced to death. And the moments before these sentences to be carried out, death and the guillotine, an acquaintance of Darnay's named Sidney Carton visits him in prison. Carton, by contrast, is not a good man. He has led a dissolute and wasted life. But by some coincidence, he looks almost like an identical twin of Darnay's. So Carton visits Darnay in prison and he switches clothing with him, allowing Darnay to walk out of the prison to freedom while he sits awaiting Darnay's sentence. The prison guards are deceived. But as Carton is led out to the guillotine, a young servant girl looks and recognizes what's happened. I think it's one of the most moving scenes in all literature. I want to read to you what Dickens writes. As her patient eyes were lifted to his face, Carton saw a sudden doubt in them and then astonishment. He pressed the work worn, hunger worn young fingers and touched his lips. Are you dying for him, she whispered. and his wife and child. Hush, yes. Oh, you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger. Hush. Yes, my poor sister, to the last. Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend. What does the servant girl do when she realizes what kind of love Carton has shown? She takes his hand. She does what any one of us would do in the presence of that kind of love. She wants to be near it. She wants to touch it. Now, this is a beautiful story, but it does not compare to the true story of Christ's substitution for us. In Dickens version, it's a sinful man who dies for a good one. But on that great and tragic day in Jerusalem, it's the only good man who's ever lived, who dies for sinners like you and me, the very people who had rejected him. And now through him, we have life. Even more than that, Jesus says that we are his friends. All of this is undertaken at Jesus initiative. He reminds his disciples that they didn't choose him, he chose them. In the same way he chooses us, he looks at us covered in stains that no amount of soap can wash off and says, I will die for these ones. There is no greater love than this. Now, let us turn and look at the work of the father. Jesus presents him here as the master of a vineyard, the ESV, which I'm preaching from translates the word here is vine dresser, gardener or just plain farmer would work as well. The father is tirelessly at work in the vineyard, and Jesus draws attention to two of the ways in particular that he works. Look at verse two. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit, he takes away and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes. that it may bear more fruit. You can just picture a farmer bending over a grapevine with a knife in his hand, examining each of the branches. Some of those branches are totally fruitless. They're dead. And so he cuts them off, takes them away, and destroys them. Look at what Jesus says in verse 6. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers. And the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. The gardener, that's God the Father, cuts off the fruitless branches and throws them into the fire. This is a picture of God's judgment on those who reject his authority and refuse to obey him. If you're new to the Bible, and this is not the kind of thing that you would expect Jesus to teach, please know that he teaches about judgment and hell frequently. I'll just take one other example from Luke 13. Jesus tells a parable that has actually a very similar lesson. This is what Jesus says. A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground? And he answered him, sir, let it alone this year also until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good. But if not, you can cut it down. You can see the similarities between Jesus' parable in Luke 13 and his teaching here in John 15. Fruitlessness results in destruction. That's what Jesus taught. If you want to understand him, you need to understand this principle. But notice that that parable in Luke 13 is also a picture of God's patience as well as of his judgment. Even after three years of fruitlessness, the tree is given one more year to produce. And more than that, it's tended to, it's fertilized. The vine dresser digs around it. It's given every opportunity. But God's patience is not meant to allow permanent rebellion. Eventually that tree will be cut down if it bears no fruit. In the same way God cuts off those branches and throws them into the fire, we can say those people who bear no fruit. This is meant to lead us to an important question. What is this fruit and how can I produce it? It's not enough to have your good deeds outweigh your bad. Jesus is here not telling us that God is going to compare the good things we've done with the bad ones and see if they're greater in number or importance. No, look at what he says in verse three. Already you are clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Jesus is speaking to his disciples and he's reminding them that he has preached the good news to them already and they believed it. It's on the basis of that faith that they're clean, that they're accepted by God. Jesus took on human flesh in order to give his life as a ransom for you and me. So through his sacrifice, our sins are paid for and we can be accepted by God. That's what Paul is talking about in Galatians when he says that we're justified by faith and not by works of the law. At the same time, though, true faith never exists apart from the kind of fruit that Jesus expects. So what is that fruit? Well, the fruit Jesus expects of us is the life marked by an enduring communion with him. by abiding in him. So, for example, our text, Jesus talks about obedience to his commands. He talks about abiding in his words or letting his words abide in us. He talks about perfect love. In particular, he highlights the kind of perfect love that he demonstrated in laying down his life for sinners. Friend, if you do not have any of these fruits in your life, the Bible says that you are not a Christian. And so the message of this text for you, Jesus words for you this morning, is to turn away from your life of sin and trust in him, trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. All of us are like reckless individuals who've rung up debts we cannot pay. We're like shoppers who use our credit cards recklessly and don't expect the bill to ever come due. Except the debt we owe isn't money, it's our very lives. The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death. Friends, Jesus' death was sufficient to pay for all your sins. God offers now to wipe away your debts and give you life and even adopt you into his family as his child. All he asks that you would believe his promise and trust in his son, Jesus Christ. Right now, the time of God's patience is the time to turn away from sin and believe the good news that Jesus taught. Well, we can thank God that not every branch is taken and thrown into the fire. Those branches that are already bearing fruit remain attached to the vine, but they are pruned. We know that when we believe the gospel, God gives us new life in Christ, but he doesn't stop there. He's not done with us at that first moment of faith. God works in our life to cut away the sin. And this pruning can be difficult. It can be painful, even traumatic, but it results in spiritual health. The author of the Book of Hebrews thinks about, meditates on this. and mentions that God disciplines the ones he loves in the same way that parents discipline their children, correcting and punishing them when they do wrong. God disciplines his children. So today is Father's Day. Have you ever thought that when you're disciplining your children in love, you're actually imitating your heavenly father, disciplining the way that he disciplines us? Let me encourage you to continue in this loving discipline. But be sure to discipline in the same kind of gentleness and love that God displays when he disciplines us, not in anger, not in a spirit of vengeance. Do it in love, out of a desire to see your children bring forth the fruit of godliness. Of course, we fathers also need to be disciplined. All of us need this discipline. Contrary to what most people believe, we're not basically good. I remember a conversation I had a number of years ago with a non-Christian friend, and I kind of almost casually remarked that if it weren't for Christ, I don't think I'd live a particularly moral life. He was shocked that I would say that. But I know my own heart. The Bible teaches us that even if we look respectable on the outside, our hearts are sinful and deceptive. It's only through the discipline of the vine dresser that sin is cut out from our hearts. He disciplines, he prunes the ones he loves. A number of years ago, I was on a mission trip to Haiti with a medical team from our church. Now, I say this was a medical team. I was on the manual labor team. Remember, I was a history major. While we were there, a beautiful little girl was brought into the clinic we were working at. She lived with her family on one of the outlying islands just off the coast of Haiti. And sometime before, she had fallen while playing and cut her leg badly. Her parents took her to a local witch doctor, and he whipped up some concoction, I don't know what, and packed it into the wound. And not surprisingly, it developed a raging infection. By the time she came into the clinic and the doctors were able to look at her, the only thing that could save her life was amputation. So this beautiful little girl, maybe nine or 10 years old, had her leg amputated below the knee. Now, this is a tragic story, it is. But I think it's important that we locate the tragedy correctly. The tragedy is not the surgery that took her leg. It's the raging infection that threatened her life. The surgery was a gift from God. My Christian brothers and sisters, all of us are going to experience the vine dressers prunings. Sometimes this pruning is going to come in the form of trials and suffering. So locate the tragedy in your suffering correctly. It's not the surgery, but the infection of sin, which requires it. God puts trials into our life in order to teach us to put off the old self and to put on the new. Now, some of these trials will be direct consequences of your sin. It'll be God letting you take the bitter consequences of your sin. But some of these trials, maybe sickness or disappointment, financial pressures, will have no direct connection to your sins, anything you've done, but will simply be God's way of teaching you perseverance and faith. Remember, the point of all this pruning is right there in verse two, that it might bear more fruit. Look now at verse eight. By this, my father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. God's character and majesty shine in the world as we bring forth fruit. God prunes his people for his own glory. But it's not just for his glory. He does it for our happiness as well. Look at verse 11. Jesus says, These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and your joy may be full. God will bring trials into your life to increase your joy. So Hebrews 12, verses 10 and 11 tells us God 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. This is the kind of long term perspective that lies behind the comment we find in James that is puzzling to some that we're to count it all joy when we meet trials of various kinds. For we know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. Only when we see that trials train us up for the fruits of righteousness, perseverance and joy can we patiently endure them now. I wonder, is this how you think about your trials? Do you think about them as discipline from the Lord? Well, I know you don't naturally think that way. None of us do, me included. But ask yourself, how would my experience of trials change if I could trust God's word and see his hand at work? That might be a good thing to think about over lunch or later in the day. Trials in our lives are God's discipline. We can be grateful, I think I am grateful, that trials are not God's only means of discipline. God disciplines in other ways. He disciplines us positively by instructing us in his word so we know how to live. This is the kind of discipline that forms us so that we don't need the kind of discipline that corrects us. God also disciplines and prunes us through the ministry of our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is how the New Testament often instructs us. Think how often the New Testament says something like, watch out for one another. Love one another. Bear one another's burdens. For example, Hebrews 3. Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. The way the New Testament presents it, our walk with Christ is a community project. It's a church-wide project. God wants us to know others and to be known so that we can help one another. That could mean correcting us, correcting someone if they stumble, maybe even using a kind of formal disciplinary processes described in Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5. But it can also mean just the encouragement and mutual instruction of two friends getting together over lunch. If you are a member of this church, God has put you here to be challenged and encouraged, but also to challenge and encourage others. Take that responsibility seriously. God the Father, the great vine dresser, tends to all the branches. He prunes those that bear fruit, and he takes away those that don't. Well, now we've come to the branches. That's you and me. So what are we supposed to do? Well, two things. We're to abide, and we're to bear fruit. But really, these aren't two separate activities. To abide is to bear fruit, and to bear fruit is to abide. They're linked. Look at verse 5. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. Jesus is saying that it is impossible for the man who is abiding in Christ to not bear fruit. The branch that draws sap from the vine will produce fruit. It's just what happens. In the same way, Christians who live in an enduring communion with Christ will bring forth the fruit that Christ expects. Conversely, a person who doesn't abide in Christ can bring forth no good fruit. Jesus says, apart from me, you can do nothing. We are totally dependent on Jesus to bring forth this kind of fruit. Our abiding in him is the only way to produce the life we've been talking about this morning. Well, what then does it look like to abide in Christ? To answer that question fully, I need to cover all of the scriptures. Put your minds at rest. I'm not going to attempt it this morning. If you'd like to think about this a little bit more later on, you can just maybe look up some of the following references. Psalm 1, Psalm 119, the Book of Proverbs, Matthew 5-7, 1 Corinthians 13, Galatians 5, Colossians 3. I'm sure you can probably think of others. For now, let's just look at those aspects that Jesus highlights this morning. See, what does Jesus say here about what it looks like to abide in him? Well, first, relational communion. That really is the essence of what it means to abide, or we can also translate that remain in Christ. Abiding refers to an internal, enduring communion with Christ. You can see how personal this is by looking at verse nine. Jesus says, Abide in my love. Prince, has there ever been a more pleasant commandment? Is there anyone here who doesn't want to obey this one? Anyone who doesn't want a greater experience of Jesus' infinite, overwhelming love? Jesus commands you to experience his love more. Well, how can we do it? I think first we can just pray for the strength to do it. This is what Paul does in Ephesians 3. When he prays for the Ephesians, he says, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Jesus' love is so great that we need supernatural strength to even understand it. We can pray that for ourselves and for others. Second, don't stop learning about the love of Christ. Think about it often. Listen to sermons. Read books. Above all, study scriptures like John 15, which teach us about the love of Christ. And be a church that constantly reminds one another of the love of Christ. As the hymn says, we're prone to wander, prone to leave the one we love. Do whatever you can to anchor yourself in the love of Christ. Well, second, we see in John 15 that abiding in Christ means keeping a firm grip on sound doctrine. Look at verse 7. Jesus says, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. So abiding in Christ means that his words are abiding or remaining in us. Jesus is assuming that if we're abiding in him, we're remembering the things he's taught. Jesus' words here are relational and emotional, but he's not teaching a relationship without truth. To abide in Christ means to hold fast to his words. As Brian mentioned, at First Baptist, I work primarily with college students, and right now in our Sunday school class, we're working our way slowly, verse by verse, through the book of Jude, which has been called the most neglected book in the New Testament. That might be true. I think more than anything I've ever taught to them, they're enjoying this particular series. Now partly, that's because Jude is just filled with wild things. It's like 25 verses, but in that you get angels chained in gloomy darkness, you get Archangel Michael and the devil disputing over Moses' body, all sorts of wild things to talk about. So they enjoy that. I think a lot of what attracts them to this book is the powerful appeal that Jude makes for the importance of sound teaching together with right living. Judah's writing to a church that is troubled by false teachers, and he begins it begins it by urging these Christians to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the Saints. He was assuming that there is this body of doctrine that comes from Christ in John 15 called his words that we are to receive and guard. It was delivered to us. We're not being asked to innovate, but to let his words, meaning I think everything God has spoken that his words abide in us. So keep working with your Bible. Meditate on what it says, you'll find Christ there. Let me also encourage you, as a church, as you look for a pastor, look for someone who will preach the words of Christ to you. Jesus says, apart from me, you can do nothing. That's true of you, it's true of me, it's true of any pastor that you get. Let his words abide in you. Well, third, abiding means obeying Christ's commands. Look at verse 10. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. We've already talked about this a little bit. Just as Jesus' command to abide in his love is not meant to lead us to a truthless sentimentalism, it's not meant to lead us to careless living either. The branch that is drawing life from the vine will produce obedience to God's commandments. So let me ask you, are you currently experiencing the love of Christ? Well, perhaps if the answer is no, it's because you've wandered off into some sin. Let me encourage you to examine your heart according to God's word. to repent, maybe confess to a brother or sister, then see if your love for Christ grows and if your appreciation and experience of his life, of his love for you grows as well. Abiding means obeying Christ's commandments. Fourth, we're to love one another. And Jesus says this directly and clearly. He says, this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. We've already talked about the greatness of the love he showed in offering himself for sinners. Now he asks us to show that same love to others. And this just makes sense. Our life is hidden with him. We've been raised with him. Shouldn't we show that same kind of love? In particular, we're to love our brothers and sisters in our church. It's not always easy. Sometimes you might have to bear with one another and overlook offenses. Trust me, people are bearing with you as well. Love one another like Christ loved the church. Well, fifth and last, abiding in Christ means sharing his love with others. Now, this one isn't quite so obvious, but I think that's what Jesus says. Look at verse 16. Jesus tells his disciples, You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide. So whatever you ask the father in my name, he may give it to you. Jesus says that you should go and bear fruit. He's saying that you should go out into the world and preach the good news and see what fruit comes from it. This is one of the kinds of fruit that he expected his disciples to bear, which we know they did. But I think he expects it of us as well. And look, notice that he promises that God will answer our prayers as we engage in that effort. He's not sending us out alone, but he's promised to be with us even to the end of the age. Let me conclude. I began by asking what the good life looks like and how it can be lived. Well, we have our answer now. It can only be lived by abiding in the vine. Jesus doesn't think you're joyful enough. Jesus doesn't think that you know and experience his love enough. He doesn't think that you're fruitful and obedient enough. He invites you to come to him, draw life from him and know a life of joyful obedience through him. You pray with me. Father, you are the great vine dresser, the gardener that tends to us. Where we see twice in this passage, Jesus promised that we can ask in his name and be confident we'll receive what we ask for. And so we come praying in that name, in the name of Jesus, the true vine. I pray that you would give us the strength to abide in Christ, to know his love. to be filled with joy and to respond with obedience. Lord, prune us that we will bear more fruit and strengthen us to persevere with faith when trials come. We pray all these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.