Abide in Me

Abide in Me (the means of)

Do you remember the illustration I used last week about Winston Churchill finding a safe retreat after escaping prison in Africa? After the service Charles Van Dyke told me he had just read that story that morning from a book given him for Christmas.

And here’s the rest of the story. It was a mining area. All the homes housed miners, Dutch descendants. They were sympathizers with the enemy. Only one was an Englishman, and that was the home of the mine superintendent, where Churchill showed up that night.

This man hid Churchill, helped him get out of the country, and because Churchill was the only man to safely escape the prison at Pretoria, he became a legend in England and ultimately Prime Minister.

All because he followed God!

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So we have talked about coming to Jesus, the purpose being our initial relationship with Him (salvation), and the permanence of it (abiding). Last week we uncovered the results or benefits of following Jesus. It is that Jesus will make us whatever He wants us to be. “Follow Me, and I will make you…”

Now we turn to the issue of abiding. (John 15:1-10)

Here’s the picture:

There is a vine.

There are branches.

And there is a vinedresser.

Jesus is the vine, the true vine. He is the genuine article. We are compared to the branches. God is the vinedresser, the husbandmen, the owner and operator. He tends the branches like a gardener.

We are not dealing with salvation here, but bearing fruit. This passage is talking about people who are “in Christ” and their fellowship with Christ.

The Father works in us to bear fruit. Fruit is a natural produce of a living organism. Spiritual fruit is the spiritual product of a spiritual union.

Fruit is the result of a process. That process is called abiding.

Abide means to depend. When we depend on Christ, His power and Spirit flow through us. When a branch is attached to a vine in a healthy manner then the life juices of nature flow through the vine to the branch to produce fruit.

What are the implications?

• Jesus is the vine.
• We are the branches.
• Without abiding in Him with bear “no fruit.” Nothing!
• We are useless without fruit.
• It is not just fruit, nor is it more fruit. It is much fruit.

Branches that don’t produce, those that are withered or dried up, are removed from the vine. This is not a picture of salvation lost, but works being judged (1 Corinthians 3:12-15).

Abiding is the issue, and it is the reason for the call to come in the first place.

We might ask ourselves, “can I?” Is a life of unbroken fellowship with Christ possible?

The answer is sure, for Billy Graham, A.W. Tozer, Charles Stanley, Martin Luther or Brother Lawrence.

But not for me! I’m too weak, and I have so much to do just to survive in life. There’s my job, my family, and my livelihood.

We might logically also ask, “How do you abide?” We will find that it happens when in our weakness we entrust ourselves to the Mighty One.

• It is the unfaithful one casting himself on He who is faithful.
• Abiding is not our work. It is our consent.
• We give Jesus Christ permission to do for us, in us, and through us.
• Our part is simply to yield, to trust, and to wait for His activity.

Our invitation is not to abide with Christ but to abide in Him. The Thesaurus suggests that “in” means inside, within, into, the opposite of outside, whereas “with” suggests in the company of, among, in the midst of, or together with.

Andrew Murray says God’s invitation to “come” drew us to Jesus, but the invitation to “abide” is glue that binds us to Him and His promise to “keep us.”

The Apostle Paul asked the Roman believers a profound question: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?”

We have been placed in Christ, immersed into the Son of God.

We are branches engrafted into the Vine.

We are sons and daughters adopted into the Family of God.

We are not on the outside looking in.

We are in.

We are in the house.

We are in the know.

We are in the game.

We are in His purpose.

We are on His mind.

We are rolling around in the “Fort Knox” of the King.

We aren’t just playing with it.

It is ours.

And we are His.

You have four ways to deal with Jesus.

• Ignore Him.
• Follow Him.
• Walk hand in hand with Him.
• Or jump up in His arms and let Him carry you.

Which do you choose?

Like a son or daughter who climbs up high and then asks daddy to catch them. My reply is, “Jesus, here I come, ready or not, sink of swim, live or die, I am leaping out in faith. Catch me or I’m done for.”

Is Jesus ready?

Does He want us?

Is He capable?

Then let’s give Him the opportunity. Let’s abide!

Paul wrote, “I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12) Or as the KJV puts it, “apprehend that for which I also am apprehended.”

Fix your eyes on the what – what God had in mind. What was it? A life of intimate relationship with Him!

• A life of abiding!
• Unbroken fellowship!
• Everything about the Christian life leads up to this.

The issue here is our union with Christ. We are united.

The nature of our union is a living one. It is not external, nor is it temporary. It is not our work, but God’s. The life, the sap, the fatness, and the fruitfulness of the vine works itself upward and outward into the branch. The same is true in our relationship with Jesus Christ. It is not of our doing. God did it.

“…God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts…” (Galatians 4:6)

This union between you and Christ is complete. So integrated is this union that neither can do anything without the other. Mind-boggling! But awesome!

That is right, isn’t it? Without the vine the branch can do nothing. Without your union in Christ you can do nothing.

What you accomplish in your own strength is worthless. It is trash. But what you do by the power of the indwelling Christ is fruit that pleases and glorifies the Father.

Likewise, without the branch the vine can do nothing. I found that out a couple of years ago when I pruned back two of our pomegranate trees way too far. They didn’t produce anything the next year. No branches, no fruit!

And that is the predicament in which God has chosen to put Himself. If we do not properly relate to Jesus, just as the branch must properly relate to the vine, then production is halted. God has chosen to dispense His blessings to the world through us, which makes us valuable. Big shots! Indispensable!

All the vine possesses belongs to the branches. The vine absorbs everything from the ground, water, and sun to benefit the branches. All it has is at the disposal of the branches. All Jesus has is at your disposal and mine.

Likewise all the branch possess belongs to the vine. The branch does not exist for itself, but to bear fruit. Fruit, by the way, on any tree, always proclaims the quality of the tree – the vine. Just so we are there for Jesus. We are an advertisement for God. Most places have a neon sign designed to get the world’s attention. A better advertisement is how many vehicles are in the parking lot. But the best is what is experienced when eating there.

We can proclaim we are Christians. That is like the advertisement. But what we produce – the fruit we bear – that is the proof of the pudding. That is what gets the attention of a lost world. Not primarily what we say, but what we do.

So the truth is, the vine needs branches. Branches need the vine. We need Jesus. Jesus needs us.

We come to abide. We abide to bear fruit. In the process a beautiful intimate relationship is produced.

Let me give you a different picture. It is like a computer network. There is a CPU, that’s the thing that does the stuff – calculations, instructions. Operations. But on a computer network you have multiple computers, plus printers, scanners, monitor, etc. If the monitor is not connected (abiding) you won’t see what the CPU is doing. If the printer is not connected (communicating) then what is on the screen will not be printed. So we have to maintain the connection (our relationship).

I have a computer network at home – my desktop, Shirley’s desktop, and my laptop. This morning I copied my powerpoints to my laptop from my desktop via the network. If my laptop was off, no copying. In fact, if my laptop was on, but asleep, also no copying.

So I guess the question is, are you on line with Jesus. Are you drawing on His resources. Are you obeying His commands? Are you doing what He wants.

How critical is this message of abiding? Here’s the setting:

Jesus and the disciples have completed the Lord’s Supper. Judas Iscariot has already disappeared into the night. Jesus is headed to Gethsemane to pray. In less than 36 hours Jesus would be hanging on the cross.

And abiding was the subject of Jesus just prior. It was His last meal.

Wait a minute, pastor. What do you mean, “this was His last meal.”

Do you remember Jesus and the Samaritan woman? The disciples encouraged Him to eat. Jesus replied, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” Explaining, Jesus added, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to do His work.”

So, what subject did Jesus discuss with His disciples as He headed toward Calvary? Abiding! It was His last meal. So important to Him was the work of explaining abiding to the disciples that it became His food, a last mean for a condemned man.

That is why we need to heed Jesus’ invitation, “Abide in Me