I Am the Vine

Good morning. Greetings from the saints of many churches in Lusaka, Zambia. It was an honor to be sent by you all to go and minister with the brothers and sisters there and to serve a number of churches. And it is an honor to come back and send greetings to you. As I came back, one of the things I was eager to see and to look at was my garden. I was away for 12 days, and it was mysterious. What was I going to come back to? And I even thought there would be good meditation for the vine imagery, to go in the garden and see what kind of fruit I have. And as I went in, I found one cucumber. Now there's a bunch of sunflowers. They're growing tall, but we don't eat those. So the abundance of the very large garden that I have is one cucumber now. Now I'd love to blame a number of things. It's been really wet. A deer got into it. I have a rabbit living in the garden. All these things are not helpful for a garden. But here's the main point. I have completely neglected that garden. I have completely neglected. Before I even left for Zambia for 12 days or 11 days, I wasn't showing it any attention. I wasn't weeding. I wasn't caring. And that's what happens to a garden when there isn't a careful, faithful pruner, vine dresser. You have neglect. You have a lack of fruit. This morning our passage, as you just heard it read, is about a vine. How fruit abounds on that vine, because the source of that vine is God himself, Jesus Christ. And there's a lot of attention to that vine, because the Father himself is the vinedresser, pruning perfectly to bring about an abundance of fruit. Speaking of us, individually and as a church. So we're going to be encouraged this morning, I hope, that the one true God, who is Father, Son, and Spirit, is at work to bring about a good fruit in us. And I also want us to hear that there's a warning. That a fruitless vine is thrown away. It withers and is burned. Our passage this morning falls in the middle of the final discourse. John is the only gospel that actually records these particular teachings in this way. The final discourse is what Jesus, he's come into Jerusalem, he's gathered disciples, and these are his final teachings to his disciples to prepare them for what's going to happen. His death, his resurrection, his ascension, and ascending the Holy Spirit. These are the final instructions. And I want you to see, this is our last of the I am statements. We've been walking through these. There are seven of them. Specifically, we've been studying. And this one is I am the true Vine. If you look in your bulletin on page 10, you see there a basic sermon outline, hoping to give you something to hang many of our points upon. If you just study the most basic elements of this teaching, the word abide is used 11 times. Abide is used 11 times. The idea of abide is alluded to more than that with the idea of being in Christ, united with Him. The word love is referenced nine times, specifically at the end of the teaching. And the word fruit, well it begins and ends the entire teaching. What we're going to see here is union with Christ is essential for the Christian life. That's verses 1 to 6. Then we're going to see verses 7 to 11, really the explanation or the clear teaching on what it means to be united with Christ. And then we're going to see Jesus making his command clear. Love one another. Let us begin with Jesus' exhortation. Jesus' exhortation. This is verses 1 to 6. He exhorts us, bear fruit by abiding in Christ because the Father prunes. Now that's fairly clunky, but that's me trying to summarize those very rich six verses. We are to bear fruit by abiding in Christ because the Father prunes. This passage has captured that metaphor of vine branches, vine dresser. I want you to look at verse 1. Jesus begins by teaching us specifically about himself. I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser. Let's focus on this one verse for a little while. There's three truths that we need to pull away. First, by saying, I am. Jesus is identifying himself with Yahweh, the covenant-making God of the Old Testament. Yahweh had revealed this name to Moses, to Abraham. He declares, I am with you. I am for you. It is the promised covenant name of God. And Jesus is identifying himself with that covenant-making God. We've seen this throughout the whole series. That's what's tied it together. More specifically, he says here, I am the vine. Now, if we look back to I am the shepherd, the good shepherd, Jesus is picking up on, on imagery from previous Old Testament passages. Specifically Ezekiel 34, when God himself says, your priests, your kings, they're, they're not feeding you. They're feeding themselves. They're abusing the sheep, so I, I myself, God says, will go down and be their shepherd. And Jesus, when he picks up that theme, I am the good shepherd, he's saying, I'm the fulfillment of that promise. I'm not only the promise-making God I am, I am the fulfillment of the promise. I am the vine works very similarly. Isaiah 5, which Dennis read earlier, points to this image that's used throughout the Old Testament of Israel. There's supposed to be a vine that grows and spreads and bears fruit to demonstrate to the nations the glory of the one true God. It's an image used throughout the Old Testament where Israel was supposed to be a vine that bore the fruit of godliness and true worship of the one true God. But every time it's used in the Old Testament, it's always used as a judgment. Israel, you're full of theft, greed, malice, murder, adultery, idolatry. When God lists out the different fruits of the vine of Israel, it's always declaring a judgment that you, Israel, be cut off. And what Jesus is saying, where Israel failed to produce that kind of fruit, I have come to be the source of good fruit for all who abide in me. He's saying he's the one true source of God's truth, God's love. Finally we see the other, the third aspect of this verse. The Father is the fine dresser. Specifically he says, my Father. Now we have to appreciate that the Apostle, or the disciples of this time, they don't really have a fully fleshed out doctrine of the Trinity. To call God his own father led to Pharisees and scribes to pick up stones back in chapter 8. It's very clear what he's saying here. I'm God's son. Equal in deity. We, we can see this now looking back after the Resurrection. But, but here this would be a very challenging passage. My father. God Almighty. He is actively involved. He's pruning to promote more growth. He's bringing judgment to cut off the branches that do not have growth and fruit. What we see here is a unique relationship between the Father and the Son, in that they're working together for one purpose, the church, to care for us. Now as we meditate upon this passage, I want us to see two things. It is supposed to be both comforting and confrontational. It is a very comforting passage. There is a glorious invitation, come and abide in me and you'll bear fruit. And there is a great confrontation, a warning. If you do not bear fruit, you'll be cut off. It's a simple promise. Abide in me, you'll bear fruit. A simple warning. If you do not bear fruit, you will be cut off. The simple challenge for us today is to recognize that if we try to live out in our own strength, outside of Christ, we will not bear the kind of fruit that brings glory to Him and will be cut off. The simple invitation is to recognize if we do abide in Christ, then He will produce the kind of growth and fruit we should have. So as we look more into this passage, a few questions to just ask yourself, to prepare yourself to hear the rest of this passage. What kind of life am I leading? What kind of fruit am I bearing? What is the production of my life? How am I affecting others? What kind of disciples am I making? And I want to make that very clear. If you're working and living and engaging with others, you're making disciples of some sort of everyone. Are we making more disciples of Christ or disciples of something else? Let's look first at the comforting aspect of this passage. It is the call to abide. Notice here, it's very clear. We see the warning and the invitation in verse two. Every branch in me 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 a branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you unless you abide in me. 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. So what does this mean to abide? This is the, the key invitation. Many translations would actually take it to, to mean remain. Remain in Christ. It can be translated as, interpreted as, resting in Christ. Finding Him to be the source of your identity, the source of your strength, the source of your purpose and principles. Abiding in Christ is trusting Him. This is the invitation today. Verse four. Abide in the One who is holy and perfect. The One who created you. The One who came down to save you. The One who gives you a new life. To abide in Jesus means we are an outgrowth of His life and His work. Abiding in Jesus means we are tied to and united with Him by faith. There's a glorious doctrine of union with Christ here. When we are united with Christ, just like we studied back in Ephesians 1, when you are united with Christ, all the spiritual blessings of the heavenly realm are ours. We're redeemed. Adopted. Forgiven. chosen, predestined. When we abide with Christ, it means everything Christ came to accomplish is accomplished for us, and it means everything that He did is counted towards us. It's a glorious grace. Here, the focus is, we are called to be united with Christ so that we bear fruit. Again, this is the word that actually connects all of this together. You see it in verse 2. We see it in verse 16. Abiding in Christ, which means we're united in him by faith so that everything he has done is accomplished for us. Abiding is tied to bearing fruit. Well if you look here, fruit is simply obeying his commandments. The fruit that Jesus Christ is talking about is simply obeying his commandments. Specifically the one commandment, love. one another. Now, if we backed out a little bit more and considered all the things Jesus taught, to bear fruit means we deny ourselves, we take up our cross, we follow him. There's two parts of bearing fruit. It means vice is cut off and virtue is added on to. Again, we could go back to numerous passages. Ephesians 4, you put off sin. You put on Christian virtue. Now, my garden is not attractive right now. I want to go back to the shame of my vine dressing. It looks gross. Weeds are taller than me, maybe taller than Ben. Ben's six foot six, for those who don't know Ben. It's embarrassing. But here's the question. What usually makes a garden very attractive? It's what's not there. The lack of weeds. It is, of course, what's there, that there's actually good plants growing with flowers and fruit. But the hard work of what makes a good, attractive garden is what's taken away from it. The unattractive weeds. I want to say this is very much like our own lives. What makes a Christian life attractive is actually the sin being taken away, the sin that's put off, the disgusting sin that that causes bad fruit. There's something else here about bearing fruit. It's one thing to quit sinful actions. It's a whole other thing to actually have a heart change. It's one of the things to stop having the inappropriate relationships. It's one thing to stop having the foul language. It's one thing to stop stealing. It's a whole other thing to realize the depth of lust that resides in the heart. Another thing to realize, the depth of anger that spews out in that foul language. Another thing to realize, the greed that leads to stealing. What Christ has come to die for is not that we would just change our behavior, but we would actually have true heart change. That we would grow in Christian virtue and character and bearing fruit in our actions and our words comes right through heart change. This is what's amazing about this invitation. We can live a life that's better than the one we're trying to live for our own glory. Notice what Jesus says twice. Apart from me, you can do nothing. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself. This kind of reminds me of the Romans 7 situation. I believe that Romans 7 is referring to a believer, but I think the main point of Romans 7 is to show how when we try to keep the God's law in our own strength outside of walking in the Spirit in Christ, we get frustrated. We get exhausted. Here, Jesus is teaching us something very similar. When you try to obey, when you try to bear fruit, when you try to live a life outside of Christ without relying upon what He's done in His own strength, We can't do it. A very important truth here. Something very explicit Jesus is teaching. If you are truly in Christ, you will bear fruit. The other option is we cut off. A Christian who confesses Christ will have a conduct that matches that confession. Now we're, We're all growing up into Christ. It doesn't mean everything is perfect. It doesn't mean we all of a sudden become sinless. But it does mean there is a progression of growing more and more and more fruitful. What we have to see here is the clear teaching. Being fruitful is not optional. You know, it'd be kind of like if I decided to start wearing a big buckle and cowboy boots. and going around telling everyone I'm a cowboy? Walking around saying I'm a cowboy and looking like a cowboy doesn't make someone a cowboy. I've never lassoed anything. You can't go around pretending to be something you're not without the actual fruit of what it looks like and what it is. Here Jesus Christ is saying, you cannot say you're my disciple if you're not bearing fruit, which is obeying his commandments. Now let's hear the warning. If we do not bear fruit, we are cut off, gathered, and burned. That is actually the end emphasis of the metaphor. Verse 6. And notice, it's the Father doing this. I don't believe He's saying you'll lose your salvation. I believe He's saying those who are among you, they were never with you. And in the context, what's happening here is, remember in John, he keeps getting a big crowd, and then his teaching will get more and more difficult. You have to eat my body. You have to drink my blood. And those who were following Him stopped following Him. It's a warning not to fall away from the very difficult, demanding teachings of Jesus. The main warning here is not to trust in ourselves. Not to flee Christ. I'm not even sure this is actually a warning not to be apostate. I believe here it's a warning not to just fall into this easy pattern of finding something more comfortable. We're all good at this, coming up with some excuse as to why we have exceptions from certain commands of Jesus. Or maybe I'm just good at that. Right? I always come up with some kind of way of thinking, all right, here's my exception for why I don't have to obey that commandment at this time and this way. It's because somebody else did something. No. We're supposed to bear fruit so that we might bear more fruit. Our actions demonstrate where we abide. Our behavior proves what kind of disciples we are. And this is good news. I want you to see here, the Father. God the Father is actively focused in on us. Those of you who have been called to Christ. And He's actively focused on the church. I think we need to think about this both individually and corporately. The Father cares about our purity. our character, so that we grow it up to be more like Christ. And he cares about the church and its purity, so that we are truly united in the gospel and not something else. Two basic applications before we move on to our next section. Christian, long for growth and purity in your own life. Long to be corrected. Long to see where you can actually have more fruit. Because here's the truth of this. Most likely that pruning, that's like the Father disciplining. Right? He disciplines those He loves. He, He, He actually, the cutting off that is, that brings about more fruit, that is not ever a pleasant experience. It means there's conviction of sin. It means there's a confrontation of sins. And it oftentimes means there's suffering through. the consequences of our sin. Prayerfully seek out, God, how would you have me change? Our song to end the service today is actually that very prayer. Lord, I pray that I might change. And it leads us through suffering. So long for growth, for purity in your own life. Long for purity in our church, members of Jeffersonport. Long for purity in ourselves means we hope that we would be corrected. Longing for purity in our church means that we all would long to be corrected together for our corporate witness of Jesus Christ. Let's look to our second point. Jesus's explanation. His explanation. Here the heading, the blessings of abiding in Jesus. The blessings of abiding in Jesus. As often when Jesus gives a parable or a metaphor, He then has to explain it. And here I believe He's explaining what He just taught with a little more detail, with a little more focus. The first thing we see in verse 7 is the blessing of prayer. The blessing of prayer. If you abide in me, if you are united with me and continue to grow in trust with me and do not flee, and my words abide in you, not just me but what I have said, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. That's quite a promise. It's also quite a qualification. If you abide in Me and My Word, then when you ask, you'll be asking according to My Word and My will, and it will be done for you. Christian, prayer is one of the sweetest and most precious gifts Christ died for to give us. You do realize that when Christ taught us how to pray in the Sermon on the Mount, teaching us to pray to Father. That is a unique privilege that we have to go to the one holy true God and go to Him in such an intimate way to call Him Father. Because He adopted us as His own sons and daughters. This is a unique privilege. Are we experiencing the blessing of regularly speaking with God Almighty in a personal way? Our prayer is marked with thankfulness, praise, confession, and supplication. That's the full prayer life. Learning how to pray is hard. Learning how to be faithful in prayer is difficult. And this is why I want to encourage you. Pray together. That the best way to learn how to pray is to pray with other Christians. That's why we do it on Sunday night. But, but, but pray together in, in, in different groups and whenever you see each other. Praying together is how we learn how to pray. Praying together is how we teach each other to pray. I am convinced of something, that we really only pray, I'll just make it personal, I only pray when I am faced with something that feels greater than me. I rarely will pray unless I'm actually focused and realize there's something greater than me. And this can lead to a pattern where it's just kind of like the sporadic Superman prayer. Right? There's something significant right in front of me, so I need to pray because this thing that's significant right in front of me needs to be removed. That's an unhealthy Christian prayer life, when we only have the sporadic Superman prayer. God, I need a super change. Would you change this? So if we only pray, if you're like me, and you only pray when there's something greater than ourselves, I think the Christian would be praying constantly if he was so focused on growing up in Christ, because when we seek to grow up in Christ, we're convinced that our sin is such a significant problem. It overcomes us, it enslaves us, it overpowers us. We constantly go to Christ saying, would you please heal me? Deliver me from this sin that so easily entangles me so that I might live the life that bears fruit. Are we walking in Christ and His Word prayerfully. Going to Him who's the one true source who can actually help us with that great problem. Or are we comfortable with where we are in our growth and our fruit? Do not forsake the privilege of communing with the one God who loves you. The second blessing, verse eight. The blessing of worship. The blessing of worship. Jesus connects this together. By this my Father is glorified. There you see the worship aspect. He is lifted up and glorified that you bear much fruit. And so prove to be my disciples. Our fruit continues to be so important. We do not bear fruit so that God would save us. We bear fruit so that we might glorify the God who has saved us. We live out our love for God. I believe this is very much like James 2, where we actually demonstrate we're His disciples. We're not declared righteous because we've worked at it. No, we prove we've been declared righteous with our works. When we think about worship, we shouldn't just think about the time of singing in a worship service. We've gathered corporately to worship by reading God's Word together, praying His Word together, singing His Word together. And right now we can be worshiping if, if our hearts are lifted up to Christ and rejoicing in Him. And when you leave you'll be worshiping when you eat lunch, or when you eat dinner, or when you come back, or when you go to work tomorrow. Our fruit should be in every aspect of our life. There should not be some place where we decide, I'm not going to live like a Christian there. Everywhere we go, we should be seeking to live out the life that Christ has purchased for us. The third blessing. The blessing of love. And I want you to hear the comparison language is so essential to understanding what Jesus is saying. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. The Father and the Son have had a perfect, eternal love. Unbroken, except for one moment. perfect eternal love broken except for that one moment when Jesus Christ cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Because at that moment he and the Father had a broken relationship because the Father had to treat him like we deserve as sinners removed from his love. But now Jesus says that he's died in our place to take upon the wrath of God and satisfy it. He is now risen and he's going to love us. It's not a generic love. It's a true, perfect, eternal love. I am going to love you as the Father has loved me. And then there's a command. Abide in my love. Verse 10, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as, again, there's a comparative language, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. Now, I want to make it very clear, we do not keep His commandments so that we will be loved. We keep His commandments because we have been loved. We also wanna get very clear, the law is good. The law was never intended to save us. The law was intended to warn us to our sins so that we can then go to God and ask for grace, and then the law serves as a means by which we can obey God after he saved us for his glory. We're not antinomians. That's a fancy word for against the law. No. Grace has abounded so that we can now obey what Christ has commanded. And if you think commandment is not essential to love, notice how Jesus qualifies his own love. I love my Father by obeying his commandments. That's how you're going to love me. We're not greater than Jesus. The way He's given us His love is the love from His Father. The way He expects us to remain in His love is the same way He loves His Father, by obeying His commandments. Now let's make it very clear, love here is not some kind of a sentiment. It's not merely a feeling. It's a promise. Love is a promise. Love is a commitment that's intentional, that actually has action. You see, we can't be like the person who says they love their wife once a week, and yet looks at pornography every night. That's not loving his wife. That's lying that he loves his wife. You can't be like a parent who says they love their children, but they're never giving them any time. They're a cats in the cradle kind of parent. They're always too busy. No, that's a lie. Love that is genuine focuses on the recipient and decides to do what's best in their interest. This is the kind of love that God has given us. This is the kind of love God expects from us. Finally, the blessing of joy. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. Here's kind of the summary of this teaching and exhortation before he gets in this last section. And this is such good news. Jesus did not die and rise again and send his Holy Spirit so that we could be miserable, melancholy Christians. Amen. He sent his Spirit that applies everything he accomplished for us so that we could actually have a foreign joy. Notice, notice the joy that we have. It's my joy, Jesus says. My joy. Jesus' joy is summarized in delighting in the Word of God. Delighting in the will of God. Seeking to do what, and being so satisfied in the righteousness of God. That is his joy. And it's a perfect internal joy. And he gives it to us. It's a foreign joy. And the outcome of that is that our joy may be full. Being a miserable, complaining, never happy Christian is contrary to everything Jesus taught and did for us. Be overwhelmed. God is with us. God is for us. Yes, there can be dark nights of the soul. Yes, there are difficult trials. But our joy can always be full when it is tied specifically and explicitly to Jesus, whose joy has been given to us. And it's perfect. As we conclude, our last point. Jesus's expectation. His expectation. Love one another because Jesus is our friend. A simple observation of the text, verses 12 to 17, their bookends. He begins this section with love one another. He ends the section with love one another. And what the focus is in the middle is that we love one another because Jesus has shown us love as a friend. Now, now, let's, let's focus. He's commanded us to obey if we're in his love. And now he's specifically focused on this one command of many. Love one another. He mentioned that horizontal heavenly love. The Father loved me. That's how I loved you. And now he speaks of the earthly horizontal love. Love one another. Now, qualifications in the Bible are key. Love one another. It's always helpful when someone qualifies a command like this so that we know exactly what it means. For instance, Jesus says, love your neighbor as yourself. That's a different kind of object of love, a different kind of person, and a different rule, a different measure. Here, Jesus says, love one another. Speaking of fellow Christians, Love one another as I have loved you. Love one another as I have loved you. We don't actually get to define our own means, measure, or rule for how Christ, or how we love one another. Christ has done that. Verse 13 defines how he loved us. It's the greatest love. He laid down his life for us. It's a sacrificial love. He could go to Philippians 2. He considered us more important than himself. He considered others more important, others' interests more important than his own. To love one another as Christians, brothers and sisters. It's a sacrificial, intentional, strong love. Now here's the natural response to this command. That I'll be walked over. I'll be taken advantage of. I'll not be loved back. I'll be trampled upon. This does not feel safe. And if you are trying to do it in your own strength, that is absolutely correct. If you're not abiding in Christ, trying to love one another as Christ loved us, that is absolutely true. Loving others is risky. It is not safe. To love makes us vulnerable. This is why it's so important to be overwhelmed. That Christ loved us. Christ laid down His own life for us. He was mocked, spat upon, crucified out of His love for us. He had to die to remove our guilt so that we could be loved. It's amazing how we as Christians build up so many walls and obstacles to say, I, I love that person, but I'm not going to actually show the love. I'm going to, to resist. I'm going to keep a stiff arm. I'm going to keep an obstacle between us because it's, it doesn't feel safe. The most important thing we remember, if we're really going to keep this commandment, the only way I'm going to love one another as Christ loved me is to constantly remember how hard I am to love. Jesus had to die for God to love me. That the only way we'll actually truly love others as Christ loved us is if we realize how hard we are to love, and that puts how hard others are to love in a good gospel perspective. Otherwise we're going to feel the riskiness, the lack of safety, the vulnerability, and we're going to do what we naturally do, and we're going to build up walls and obstacles. Now the encouraging emphasis here is he, he lays down his life for us as his friends. He, he calls us a friend. And here we, we see an echo of what God said to Abraham. Now verse 14 I find very curious. You are my friends if you do what I command you. Now how many of you, if I went out right now and said, if, I'll be your friend if you do what I tell you to do? Like who's going to sign up for that? That doesn't sound like friendship as we normally think about friendship. It sounds like slavery. Yeah, it sounds like, I want you to be my servant, and I'm going to call you my friend so that it sounds better. But look, this is our Lord and Savior. He's laying down His life for us so we are His friends, and then He actually contrasts it with a servant. You are my friends if you do what I command you. Verse 15, no longer do I call you servants. You hear this glorious change in the way we can relate to God. For the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I've called you friends for all that I've heard from my father I've made known to you. We see here that essential relationship that he mentions in John 5. What I hear the father say, I'm saying. What I see the father doing, I'm doing. I am letting you in on the family truths, principles, and purpose. St. Louis, he defines friends as two people who necessarily have to be virtuous. You have to have two people who have a character. And they're two friends that they decide they're going to walk together, side by side, following the same principles, seeking to accomplish the same purpose. Now if you think about that in a generic sense, if me and my friend Bill want to be better basketball players, we can have the principle we're going to work hard, we're going to practice, we're going to be better basketball players. We're friends to make each other better basketball players. That's the kind of discipleship the friendship has. Jesus invites us to be his friend, to walk side by side with him. to come alongside of Him who knows the Father, who knows this world, who knows us, who knows what love is, who knows what life is, and desires to give it to us, desires to share with us everything God has. The Fathers told him. He invites us to walk alongside of Him so that we would have the same principles, purpose, and share in His identity. What an invitation. God Almighty, our Creator, says come and walk with me, I will tell you everything my Father is saying. Yes, it requires obedience, but it's not blind obedience like a servant. It's obedience that's, that's, that's caught up in the personal loving relationship. If you're not a Christian this morning, I do have to share with you this difficult truth. But it is the difficult truth that leads to the good news. If you're not a believer, you're not friends with God, you're an enemy of God. That is how God defines the relationship. You see, outside of Christ, we rebel, we ignore God, we actually hate Him, apart from the grace that grace gives us. We are only friends with God when our sin has been punished on Christ and the cross, and He's risen again to give us new life. Then our sin debt is paid for. We're welcomed in to know Him. I met a Christian this morning. That warning of being cut off, judged, treated like an enemy, that's real. And the number one thing we want you to hear this morning is that's not the way it has to be. You can turn from your sin. You can turn to Christ, confess your sins to Him, and ask for forgiveness. And you will be brought into the friendship with Christ. Look at verse 16. Jesus continues this declaration. 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 in my name, he may give it to you. Now we see there the importance of prayer. We're praying to the Father in the name of the Son, and we're praying according to Christ and his word. But let's look at this language of choosing me and appointing. Jesus says, I chose you and I appointed you. It's very important that we realize this is a very privileged act of grace that God gives to those whom He gives it, to be chosen. We sing a song, I did not choose you, you choose me, because I would not choose you. I love my sin too much. But all I want us to see here is a privileged position, but it has tied to it always the ideas of election, predestination, chosen. Those truths of Scripture that are great blessings, they always have tied to them purpose. You're not chosen just to sit there and reflect upon being chosen. No, look, you're chosen and appointed that you should bear fruit. You're chosen and appointed so that you would have a mission. The whole point of being chosen is that you would glory in the doctrines of grace, and that would be lived out in the way we talk, we treat one another, we confess our sin, we worship God. He then ends with that same commandment. These things I command you, Jesus says. that you love one another. Let's again remember how this unit all comes together. Verses one to six. There's a call to abide. A call and an invitation. Come and rest in me. Come and find your source of life in me, the vine. Then you, the branch, will bear fruit. Jesus is God Almighty who is the perfect source of life. He invites you. Come abide. Verses 7 to 11 explains all the blessings of abiding. That we, we know a perfect eternal love. We, we have a full joy. We, we get to talk to God in prayer, and we get to worship. And then verses 12 to 17. That, that final command Jesus emphasizes. Love one another. Well we see how important we are for our own abiding in Christ. The fruit of the Christian life should be first and foremost lived out in the church. where we love one another. Let us pursue these things. Let us pray for God to show us where do we need to cast off sin so that we might bear more fruit? Where do we need to grow, not only individually, but as a church? We can rejoice. Jesus says, everything the Father has told me, I'm gonna tell you. We don't do this trying to figure out the mystery. No, we do this trusting what God has said is good. We do this knowing that we can go to the Father and say, in the name of Jesus Christ, our prayers will be heard. Will you pray with me?