Abide John 15:1-11
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Address heat at the house
We are reading through Jesus’ Farewell Discourse John 14-17. His final instructions of hope and promises for them and us as Jesus was preparing to be to arrested and crucified.
Two weeks ago, we looked the first half John 14 and talked about Jesus went to prepare a dwelling place for us to dwell with our heavenly Father and how Jesus is the only way to the Father. That is why we must become one with Him.
Last week, we talked about how the HS, the Helper, helps us enter into the dwelling place with the Father. He helps us commune with the Father, to hear the Word and remember to obey it. He helps us experience the Godly emotions in His presence of love, joy and peace.
This week we are going to look at what chapter 14 has been leading up to.
Chapter 14 tells us that there is a dwelling place available to us with the Father and how Jesus and the HS make it possible.
John 15:1-11, tells us our part in abiding in the dwelling place.
Our passage this morning tells us why we should want to abide, how to abide, the evidence that we are abiding.
“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 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; 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 have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
First thing to notice in the first 5 words, is Jesus is the TRUE vine.
You know that when the Bible adds the word true as an adjective to a word that it implies that there are false vines.
If Jesus is the true vine then there must be false vines that we can attach ourselves to to try and draw love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and all of the things that the Spirit wants to produce in our lives.
I know we are only 5 minutes in but I might already be stepping on some toes...
How many of us turn to other things because they might give us a couple of minutes of peace?
How many of us turn to certain things or other people because we don’t feel loved in our lives?
Media, tv shows, movies, sports, social media, coffee, alcohol, sleep, human relationships, and list goes on and on.
There are so many false vines out there that we turn to to try and give us something that can be found in abiding with the true vine, Jesus.
I’ll give you an example in my life, 2 weeks ago, I was in the worst tooth pain in my life.
Talk about Youtube over His presence.
Church, there are many, many distractions that are trying to draw our attention away from the true vine of Jesus. They offer temporary reprieve, but I’m here to tell you that Jesus died to provide you with something better, some place better, some ONE better. And we have to believe that it is actually better.
But let me ask you two questions.
Do you want to abide with God?
I want you to ask yourself this honestly. Do you desire in this life to spend time in His presence?
Look I understand when you present the two different locations heaven and hell to someone, especially when they are young, and ask them to decide which one they would rather go to, the choice is pretty obvious!
But other than just not going to hell, do you desire to be with God, your Father?
Is there a yearning inside of you to know Him personally and not just intellectually?
Or is heaven just a better destination than hell and you can take your time getting there because your earthly life is pretty good and you are enjoying it?
Church, if you have no desire at all to be with God, to sit in His Fatherly love, to drink from the infinite well of the qualities and attributes of God, the creator of all things,
then this message is not going to mean a thing to you.
There is nothing that I can say to convince you why you should want to abide with God.
Because the number one reason why we should abide is because you get to BE WITH GOD and if that doesn’t motivate you, excite you, if that doesn’t set off yearning inside of you then I don’t know what to tell you.
You have to figure that out with Him.
You can start by asking Him. You can ask Him to stir up within you a burning desire for Him.
Jesus says in Luke
And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
He says, if you ask, I will send you the Helper!
The Father desires to give you His HS that will fill you and point you to Himself. Oh, how much He desires to give you that and answer that prayer for you!
The second quick question is do you desire to produce fruit?
And before you answer yes, know that this is not just fruit within yourself to make you feel better. That is apart of it, but there is also fruit outside of yourself into the lives of others that the Spirit wants to produce through you!
How many of you would raise your hands if I asked you if you wanted more love in your life, more peace in your life, more joy in your life?
How many of you would equally be able to say that I desire for others to feel more loved because of me, more peace because of me, more joy because of me?
Do you desire to lead others to Christ or are you good just knowing where you are going to go?
Do you desire to see young, immature Christians develop into mature Christians or do you even care about your own maturity?
Do you desire to give of your life in service to others that you might win one more soul to the Lord?
Along with a desire to abide with God has to be the desire to produce fruit not just in your life but also in the lives of others.
Because if you are the question why should I want to abide with God, those are the reason why we should abide!
There is no place I would rather be,
There is no place I would rather be,
than here in your love, here is your love!
So, set a fire down in my soul, that I can’t contain, that I can’t control!
I want more of you God!
I want more of you God!
I want more!
I want more!
I want more!
If you have no desire to abide, then pray for that!
But if you have a desire to abide with the Father and allow Him to produce fruit in you and through you, then listen up!
The last chapter was all about the dwelling place prepared for you and how the HS is our Helper.
This section is how you and I do our part to abide! This is the verb form of the word dwell! Its an action!
There are things that we can do to abide with the Father with the Spirit’s help.
The first is verse 7,
John 15:7 (ESV)
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you,
Abide in His word, church! Dwell with it!
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Get in God’s Word! I can’t stress this enough!
If you want to abide more with the Father, spend more time reading about Him! Whatever time you are spending in the word now, double it!
His Word is life and freedom!
Don’t just read it apply it!
Verse 10 tells us to obey His commands in His Word!
That is another way that we abide with the Father is in obedience!
Last chapter, John 14:21
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
To keep the commands in God’s Word comes with the promise of God manifesting Himself to you!
Do you desire to know Him more?
Do you desire to see God move and experience His presence?
Jesus said, Keep my commands and I will manifest Myself to you!
Henry Blackaby in Experiencing God says, find out where God is working and join Him there! There is no closer and more intimate times with the Lord than when we are walking in obedience to where He is working!
And also in this passage, how we take actions to abide is to pray.
Verse 7 again,
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
Talk to God, bring your concerns to Him.
Just because He knows your thoughts before you think them and knows your words before you speak them, is NOT an excuse not to pray!
God know your desires before you do and yet He tell you to ask Him. Because its not so much about you asking its more about you being with Him!
And if you are filled with doubt about weather He will hear or answer your prayers, pray the prayer that we talked about before and watch Him answer it.
Lord, give me a desire to know you more, to be with you more.
If you ask for that, and it will be given to you, seek Him and you will find Him, knock on the door of the dwelling place and it will be opened to you.
Oh, how much more will your heavenly Father give you His Holy Spirit to you.
If you are filled with doubt about prayer, start there and ask Him to fulfill that promise for you. And you will see His faithfulness!
Those are all ways that we can abide with Him! Those are action that we can take to meet Him there!
Now you might be asking, how can I know that I am abiding with Him?
In this passage is evidence that you are abiding with the Father.
If you want to know if you are attached to the true vine, here is some evidence that you will see if you life to prove that its true.
Jesus says in this passage that if you abide with Him you will produce fruit and if you are pruned, you will produce MORE fruit and then in verse 8 He says that you will produce MUCH fruit and so prove to be my disciple!
Evidence that you are abiding with God is that you will be moving from produce fruit to more fruit to much fruit!
There is no contentment in fruit production! There is only more and much more that God has for you!
The next one is found in verse 2.
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.
Jesus says that every branch that bears fruit, He prunes.
If you abide in Him and He produces fruit in your life and in the lives of those around you, Jesus says that the Father,the vine dresser, will prune you.
There are three ways that you can be pruned.
One is pruning for healthier fruit.
This is also called sanctification.
This is the pruning off of broken or diseased parts that might affect the health of the fruit.
One of the Spirit of Truth’s job is to convict the word of sin. We will see that in chapter 16.
The more that we abide the more sinful things in our lives that need to be pruned will be brought to our attention.
and that is evidence of our abiding.
Another way of pruning is for better fruit.
There is a difference between healthy and better. Healthy is a lack of sickness or a normal fruit.
But have you ever bitten into a honey crisp apple, or an amazing pear?
And you go, that’s better than a normal apple or pear....
There is better more sweater fruit that God wants to produce in your life and that starts with pruning of good things, or distractions in our lives. Things that are not necessarily bad.
When a watermelon vine starts producing a watermelon, you are supposed to go and pluck off the other flowers on that vine so that the vine can invest everything into that fruit and make it better , sweeter.
As we abide with Him more, the desire to do even good things will start to decrease so that your time abiding with Him will be sweeter and better.
You will start to invest more of your time and energy in dwelling with Him. And the time will become better fruit.
The third way that we can be pruned is by pruning to multiply plants.
There are certain plants, tomato plants are one of them that you can cut off a part of the plant and replant it to produce an entirely different plant!
This is a pruning that God does in our lives and in our ministries that take something healthy and fruit producing and say you can go over here and produce a second batch of fruit while this plant here will continue to produce fruit as well!
Its pruning for multiplication!
Paul did this all throughout his ministry. He would plant, it would start producing fruit and then he would leave people in place to continue to produce fruit so that he could start another plant somewhere else!
It is a Biblical principle of pruning like this.
So, yes, pruning is an evidence that you are abiding with God. Because every plant that produces fruit is pruned.
One commentary read,
The greatest judgment God could bring to a believer would be to let him alone, let him have his own way. Because God loves us, He “prunes” us and encourages us to bear more fruit for His glory. If the branches could speak, they would confess that the pruning process hurts; but they would also rejoice that they will be able to produce more and better fruit.
Your Heavenly Father is never nearer to you than when He is pruning you.
Another evidence that you are abiding is that you will experience more of the Father’s love and you will love Him more.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.
The love that the Father has for the Son, that is the kind of love that He has for you. Think about that.
If you are not experiencing at least some level of the Father’s love for you then you need to ask are you truly abiding.
He says abide in my love. Set aside time today and just sit and abide in His love.
Trust me, when you start to experience it more, your love for Him will grow sweeter and richer.
The last two evidences that you are abiding with the Father.
One is that you will experience answers to prayers.
Again verse 7, John 15:7
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
When you are dwelling in the presence of the Father as a child of the King, when you ask the Father for something, He will answer it.
It is the hearth of the Father to answer the prayers of His child. It is who He is.
Fathers, mothers, you know how much you desire to give your kids what they need and what they ask for, how much more does your Father in heaven want to do that for you.
And evidence that you are abiding with Him is that He will answer your prayers.
And the final evidence from these verses that you are abiding with the Father is in verse 11
These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
One of the most honest and obvious evidences or fruit that you will experience if you are abiding is joy.
And not just a sprinkling of joy but that your joy may be full!
I’m sure that we have all met people like this in our lives.
The person that I always think about is June Akers. She was so full of joy! You just knew that that woman spent time with Jesus and it was deep! Because she had an inexpressable joy that filled her up and spilled out into everyone around her!
That is availble to you and to me if we would just abide.
I pray that this morning you have somethings to pray about and ask the Lord for.
I pray that this morning you will have an increased desire to abide with the Father.
The way is provided and the Helper is ready to help.
Are you going to do your part in abiding with Him?
I pray that you will start to see the evidence of your abiding in your lives today.
