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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.
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