Abide in Christ

We can glorify God and enjoy him by laying down our lives for others

If you know anything about catechisms, you’ll know there is a famous one known as the Westminster Shorter Catechism. When it poses the question, “What is the chief end of man?” What is the answer it gives? To glorify God and enjoy him forever. Now, a catechism isn’t the Bible of course, but it helps us understand and communicate biblical truths clearly and I think that it captures the main force of our passage tonight. Turn in your Bibles to John 15.

John 15:1–8 NKJV

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.

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I mentioned that catechism. When studying this passage, I have seen this concept come through. The title of this lesson is Abide in Christ. My main thesis is that we can glorify God and enjoy him by laying down our lives for others. If the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, then we have to know how to do that. I think that John as he was writing down Christ’s teaching was showing us how we can do that. I’m going to highlight some theological points, quickly survey the passage, and then give us some points of application.

Theological Points.

God’s Pruning

Our Position

God’s Glory

Our Satisfaction

We read in verse 2 that God prunes the branches that bears fruit. What is this fruit? Verse 8 tells us that our fruit proves we are disciples of Christ. So this fruit is probably repentance and confession of sin, the fruit of the spirit for Christian living, etc. When we bear this fruit, God prunes us so that we bear more fruit. Has anyone here pruned a branch before? Pruning is basically cutting back a branch so that it grows healthier. The thought of being cut back sounds painful, but this is what God does in our lives. As we grow patient, God gives us more to be patient about. As we become more loving, God gives us harder people to love. As we repent from our sin, God either shows us more sin in our lives, or he reveals that the sin we initially repented of is actually deeper than we originally thought and we need to repent of that now. You can probably see this in your own life. Has your life gotten easier or harder as you have grown as a Christian? Or has it stayed the same? So we have God’s pruning.

Positionally, we are declared righteous because of the work Christ accomplished. Verse 3 tells us that we are already clean because of Christ.

Then we have God’s glory. This really should be the first point to highlight, but his pruning is the first to come up in the passage. We are to glorify God with our lives. This is such a Sunday School answer, sometimes we say it without thinking about it, but what is our ultimate purpose in life? What is the chief end of man? If you study catechisms at all, the classic answer to this question is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Funny. These two ideas are mentioned in our passage. So we have God’s glory.

This point is actually found in verse 11, but it’s relevant to our passage tonight. I already mentioned it, but we are to enjoy God forever. Jesus tells us that his purpose in saying this is so that his joy can be in us and our joy can be made full. The joy of Christ caused him to endure the cross. How joyful is Christ? Enough to bear our sins. That’s some intense joy. This is the joy he offers us. I think sometimes we can see God’s glory as a joy sucker that we have to wear in order to really glorify God. I have to be as miserable as I can possibly get, and then God will be the more glorified. John, however, seems to make a connection between God’s glory and our joy. If our hearts are in the right place, we are joyful when God is glorified. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Application.

So now what? The passage as a whole has 17 verses (vv. 1-17). Verse 17 is just a reiteration of the command given earlier (love one another). This is reiterated because this is Jesus’s main command in this discourse (vv. 4, 9). Verses 1-8 according to one commentator is an extended metaphor and verses 9-16 is commentary of that metaphor. Notice I didn’t say translation. Although the division puts exactly eight verses on each side, the commentary in verses 9-16 gives the overall point of verse 1-8, namely, that we are to abide in Christ by obeying his commandment, which is loving one another.

The metaphor is set up in verse 1: the Father is the vinedresser and Jesus is the true vine. These agrarian people would have caught on immediately. Imagine if I said, “I’m Tom and you’re Jerry.” If you have seen that cartoon, you immediately picture the scenes of the show, the cat, the mouse, some of the mischief they get in. By setting up the metaphor this way, Jesus can now use the different aspects of it to solidify his point.

They would have understood that the branch would have bore fruit as long as it was on the vine, and that branches that didn’t bear fruit were broken off and burned because they would have been understood to be bad branches. And this division between being a bad branch and being a good branch was settled by whether or not the branch bore fruit. What I’m saying is that Jesus gave an illustration that would have been normal. They wouldn’t have needed to look up the definition of pruning, or how branches bear fruit. That would have been clear.

What they would have wondered is that if they were the branches, how were they to remain (abide) in Christ and bear fruit? By obeying his commandments (v. 10). So then, what are his commandments? Loving one another (v. 12). How were they to love one another? By laying down their lives for their friends (v. 13). Jesus did this. He abandoned his comfort and ease and ultimately his life for us.

I want to give four ways that we can lay down our lives for our friends. This isn’t exhaustive, but as you’re doing self-counsel, or helping a friend, or maybe doing formalized counseling, hopefully these practical points can stir your own thoughts to apply it in your context:

1. Finances

Financially, we spend so much on ourselves. Much of this is understood. It’s expensive to live. We pour so much of our money on ourselves. How often do we see something on Amazon and buy it within a week? How often do we buy something for ourselves on a road trip? What about food? How much money do we spend on food for ourselves on a weekly basis? Where your treasure is there will your heart be also. Find an opportunity this week and buy a sandwich for a friend. This is something I can practice better too. Bring a cup of coffee from your local coffee store to your friend at work, or at their house. Buy some extra groceries for the lady who keeps complaining about that one bush in your backyard that hangs over their yard. The opportunities are endless.

2. Time

This is probably harder than money. Where your treasure is there will your heart be also. Have someone over for dinner. Mow someone’s yard. Walk someone’s dog. Take time and visit with someone, especially if they are single. Married women, visit your single women friends. Married men, visit your single men friends. We can lay down our lives for others by giving them our time.

3. Gossip

This one is big. How difficult is it to stand up in the midst of a small group of friends who are roasting someone who isn’t there? Fear of man kicks in. We desire their praise, but we need to lay down our lives. What if people are sitting around and belittling your pastors? We can lay down our lives for our friends by being loyal and shutting down gossip. Listen, if you have friends who gossip about others to you, then they probably gossip about you to others. Love the gossiper as well by calling them to repent.

4. Lust

This one plagues many, if not all of us. We can lay down our lives for our friends by having pure thoughts towards them. Our desires are to objectify others into things that please us and use them for comfort and ease. We need to have thoughts of seeing them as brothers or sisters.

Conclusion.

Again, this list isn’t exhaustive. This is a long passage and one could camp here for a while and make a whole series, but I hope that you see that if you love others by laying down your life for them, you will abide in Christ and bring glory to God and joy to yourself. You can fulfill the chief end of man as expressed in this passage. I also hope that this can be somewhat of assistance in your interactions with others by giving them an orienting framework to guide their steps and give them scripture to memorize and have victory over their sin. Let’s pray.