John 15

Tonight, we are going to be back in the book of John chapter 15 and continuing our series on looking at the book of John. One thing that we notice throughout what we are going to look at tonight and the last few weeks, we know that Jesus is in His last few days here on this earth. We know that a lot of things are getting ready to come. But there's still a lot of wisdom, a lot of good teachings that Jesus has imparted to us thus far. And just because His physical time on this earth will soon be over, doesn't mean that we can neglect what he says here.

It starts off, let's look at John chapter 15 verses 1 through 6. “It says, 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 it so 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, so 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, he bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up. And they gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned."

So a few things that I want to mention about these verses real quick. First of all, we have to understand that Christ is the vine. He is the true vine. He is the one whom we all come from. He's the Creator. You know, we talked last week about the Trinity, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, how God is one God, but in three different essences, three different meanings here. But Christ is saying He is the vine. His Father is the vine dresser. Every branch that does not bear fruit is taken away." Now I want you to think about something here.

First of all, this is the last I am statement in the book of John. This is what Jesus is talking about here is Himself and His role and the Father's role as well. But I want you to think about this. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, He takes it away. Every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. So what are we talking about here? We're talking about people. We're talking about people being pruned. We're talking about people being broken away and thrown away. Verse 5 says, And I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he bears much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up. They gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned.

Now a lot of times when we look at these verses, we talk about once saved, always saved. And the reason is because there is a big group of people who do not believe that you can lose your salvation. And that always brings up the question, can we lose our salvation? Well, I have said this many times before, saying that we lose our salvation is kind of a little strange question from the start, because if we're saved, we know where Christ is. We know where our salvation is, without a doubt. If we're saved, we know that forever. So, to say that we lose our salvation, if we lose our car keys, we don't know where they are. We don't know how to get back to them. If we did, we'd go get them and they wouldn't be lost.

But we can give up our salvation. We can denounce our belief in God. That's very possible and I think that's what John is talking about here. People who are at one time with God, because it's talking about a branch. A branch that was taken off of the vine. Now to take a branch off the vine, you had to be on the vine to begin with. You had to be there. There are several verses that talk about this, and I've debated this with many, many people, on the topic of losing your salvation. But it's obvious if we look at Scripture what takes place. So, if you do not abide in Him, you are thrown away. The branch is thrown away. It dries up. Because if you cut a branch off of a tree, we know that it dries up. It no longer gets the nutrients. It no longer gets everything that it needs. So it dries up. It becomes dead. They gather them. They cast them into the fire. They are burned.

I want to touch on something else for just a second. Every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. Now fruit, what we are talking about here is the fruits of our lives. What fruit are we producing? Are we producing good fruit? Are we producing the fruit that we need to be. Are we making disciples? Are we out there spreading God's Word? Are we doing something? That's what we're talking about here. And to say that He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit, it's kind of like pruning a tree. You take away the bad spots, don't you? If you prune an apple tree, if you prune a grapevine, you take away the bad spots. You take that away so that there is room for the good to come in. Same thing with our lives. If we are bearing fruit, if we are with God, if we are abiding in Him, if we are saved, He may take some things out of our lives that are holding us back. He may prune some things out of our lives that are keeping us from being where we truly need to be. Now that may make us upset. We may not want to get rid of those things. They may be people. They may be things that we do. They may be habits in our lives. They may be terrible things in our lives that we need to get rid of. In order to grow, in order to get to where we need to be, these things might have to be taken out. We need to let God work in our lives. Let Him do what He does best.

When God takes something out of our lives, we need to realize it. Let Him take it away and then replace it with things of God. Replace it with good, godly things. So I want to ask you, what fruit are we producing? Is it good fruit? Is it bad fruit?

Another thing I want to touch on here real quick, abiding in Christ is a daily event. This is not something that we can just do Sunday morning from 11 to 12 and Wednesday night from 6 to 7. This is not something we can just do for a couple of hours a week. Abiding in Christ is a daily event. A daily event of prayer, Scripture reading, obedience. We'll talk about obedience again here in just a minute or two in some other verses that we're going to look at, but we can't neglect obedience. The things that we need to be doing, the things that He tells us in His Word to do or not to do, follow God's Word. Move down and look at John 15, verses 7 through 11. It says, “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. Just as the Father has loved me, I have also 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 so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full."

So what are we talking about here? First of all, we're talking about prayer. You know, we can't talk about prayer too often. I know I've said that a couple of times here lately. But prayer is so important. It's so important to be in constant communication with God. Pray multiple, multiple times a day. Not just once, not just twice. Pray multiple times a day. Also, a couple things that we're talking about here, continuing to talk about bearing fruit.

And it even says there in verse 8, it says, that you bear much fruit and prove to be my disciples. Bearing fruit is important. Being a follower of Christ is important. Creating disciples is important. Kind of like that book, Four-Chair Discipleship. What chair are we in? We haven't been through that book in a long time. We may need to do that again. Which chair are we in? Are we to the point that we are developing disciples, that we're making other ones? Or are we just kind of hanging out by ourselves? What are we going to do? You know, he also talks about here, keeping His commandments.

I don't know how many times that we can talk about keeping His commandments, how important it is to keep His commandments. He wouldn’t have told us them if He didn’t want us to follow them. He wouldn't have wasted His time if He didn't want us to follow Him. But we wouldn't have the Bible, we wouldn't have all the tools that we have today to study God's Word, to read God's Word, to know God's Word, if He didn't want us to follow His commands.

You know, I was thinking as I was preparing this message, and I was going through these scriptures and studying and praying and going through these things. Our relationship with Christ is a mutual relationship. It involves love. It involves commitment, abiding in Him. That's what we're talking about here. Love, commitment, obedience. These are all things that we should be doing every single day, that I wonder if we really are. Are we just playing a Christian? Are we just calling ourselves a Christian because we attend church? Are we calling ourselves a follower of Christ because we say we believe in Him, but we don't do anything else. We need to make sure that we are true Christians, that we are abiding in God, that we are obedient to God, that we have deep love for God.

Now God keeps His end of the promise. He keeps His end of the deal. He loves us. He loves us so much that He laid down on a cross and died for us. Do we love Him that much? Do we love Him enough that we would keep His commands? Do we love Him enough that we would help others, that we would serve God? Do we keep up our end of the deal? That's just something I want us to think about.

Let's move down. Let's look at verses 12 through 17. It says, “This is my commandment that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, to lay down his life for his friends. If you are my friends, if you do what I commanded you, no longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends. For all things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I choose you, and appointed you so that you would go and bear fruit and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in my name He may give to you. This I command you, that you love one another."

Now, it's very important that we love one another, just as Jesus is talking about His disciples here. You know that first verse, we looked at verse 12, it said, "...this is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you." We talked about love for God just a second ago, but do we love each other? And that includes everybody, not just the people we like, not just the people that we get along with, not just the people that we share everything in common with.

Do we love everybody? If we don't, that's what we need to do. Now, especially for those of us that are Christians in this room together, we need to love each other because there is a mission field out there that needs work. There's a mission field out there. There are people out there who need to know Christ. There's work to do. There's jobs to do. There's everything for us to do. We can't fight amongst ourselves. I heard somebody say one time, and I agree with this 100%, Christians are the only soldiers who kill their own. How often do we see each other fighting amongst each other? How often do we as Christians fight amongst our churches? There is no unity here. We all want to preach unity. We want to talk about unity, but we don't want to do it because unity takes a little bit of sacrifice.

Even in our church, even here at New Hope, to be unified takes a little bit of sacrifice. Even with our elders and deacons, you know, there are many times that we all don't agree. If we all did agree, somebody would probably be lying, because we are all different people. There are times that we all don't agree on something. We are all different people. We all have our own viewpoints. We all have our own things in our mind that we think should be the way to go. But it takes a little bit of sacrifice. Now there are some things you can't sacrifice. You can't sacrifice doctrine. We can't sacrifice something that goes against or for God's Word. We can't sacrifice this book. But now there are some things that we can sacrifice. I'm sure everybody in this church that are members of this church, that attend this church, don't agree and don't really like everything that we do, me included. But that's the beauty of being our own individual person. That's the beauty of sacrifice.

And that's where sometimes it takes a little bit of sacrifice. But we need to realize we can't fight each other and still go out and do God's work. Because we spend more time fighting with each other, we spend more time bickering and arguing with each other than we do spreading the gospel. There we've got a problem. And we can't sit here and say that it's not a problem, because it is a problem throughout churches and all across the world today. Especially, it seems like, here in the United States. We need to make sure that we are keeping the main thing, the main thing. I know Bill always said that, but it's very true. We need to keep our main priorities right. But that's one thing that I think Jesus is trying to get across to His disciples. Love one another. Help one another. Be there for one another. We need to do that as well. Now Jesus also talks about self-sacrifice here.

Now we use this verse 13 a lot of times when we talk about a soldier, when we talk about a police officer, a firefighter, EMS, somebody who has laid down his life for other people. We know how special that is, the love that it would take. Just like the love that it took for Christ to lay down His life for us. People who He knew would fail Him. People who He knew would go against His Word. He still loved us enough that He would do that. Think about that.

All right, let's move down. Look at John 15 verses 18 through 27. Let's finish up this chapter.

It says, If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you are not of this world, but I choose you out of the world because of this world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a slave is no greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept my word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for my name's sake, because they do not know the One who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin, but now they have both seen and hated me and my Father as well. But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their law. They hated me without a cause. When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about me. And you will testify also because you have been with me from the beginning."

So finishing up this chapter, you know, we looked at the disciples' relationship with each other there in the last set of verses, and now we're looking at the disciples' relationship to the world. Because we cannot forget our relationship with the world. And the world is our mission field. That's where we need to be out there spreading the Gospel, telling people about Christ. Now, the world might be against us. There's a pretty good chance that it will be, especially in our world today.

There's a lot of times in our world today that it seems like and it feels like the world is completely against us. It seems like the world is doing everything that they can to keep us from worshiping, to keep us from spreading the gospel. That has always been the case, even from the beginning. Jesus even says here, now if you notice, you've got a red-lined Bible, these words are in red. Everything we're reading is in red. Pay attention, it's important here. Just because the world has come against us as Christians, doesn't mean that we need to stop sharing the Gospel. It doesn't mean that we need to stop doing God's work. You know, the disciples at the time could expect to be treated similar to the way they treated Jesus. All because they followed Him. All because they served Him and they did what He told them to do. Now, to an extent, the same thing could be said for us today.

There could be times, depending on our area, depending on where we are, that we could be persecuted for being a follower of Christ. Don't let that stop you. Don't let it stop you from spreading God's Word. Don't let it stop you from being that follower of Christ, from telling people about Jesus. Don't let it stop you from inviting someone to church. Don't let it stop you from loving people. Because in our world today, in our society today, loving people is something that is a rarity. In our world today, we want to hate people. We want to condemn people. We want to do everything harmful to someone else that we could possibly think of, and I don't know why. I don't know why our world has shifted from love to hate. If you had asked me to put something on that as a reason, it would be the devil. He gets into our life and he just goes rampant. And it shows. We need to bring back love. We need to love one another.

So the question that I want to leave you with tonight, as we have looked at this chapter, John chapter 15, what are some practical ways that we can show God's love to the world? How can we do that? How can people tell that we're a Christian by our actions? How can we love people? How can we show love to someone in Walmart? How can we show love to someone here in church? How can we do it online, on social media? How can we do it online, on social media? How is there ways that we can show our love to others?