Grafted into the True Vine

This afternoon’s questions and answers are awesome and really worth digging our teeth into. In this single Lord’s Day, two extremes of Christianity are avoided. Legalism on the one hand, and liberalism, or antinomianism on the other hand. Picture the narrow way we talked about this morning. The narrow way is Jesus Christ, and on either side of the narrow path are the ditches of legalism and liberalism. We are constantly being drawn toward either one. So, how do we avoid them? We avoid them by being grafted into the true vine Jesus Christ. But before we dig into that, there are a couple things brought up by the other two questions and answers that we need to address.

Perfect Standard

Question 62 should make everyone pay attention. This gets at the heart of the Pharisees, seen in the attitude Saul had before he was converted to Christ. It is the attitude many Christians have. It is an attitude found in most legalistic churches.

The attitude is that a Christian is able to do good deeds that, if they don’t make us right with God, at least help us get there. Basically, the attitude is this: I need to do something to please God. I need to prove my worthiness to Him. I need to demonstrate my love for Him. I need to prove my dedication to God. I do so by acting and behaving in certain ways. I do so by obeying what my legalistic church says I ought to do.

Now, Jesus puts it very bluntly in our text: “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, neither can you.” No person can bear fruit apart from Christ. We cannot prove ourselves worthy of salvation. We are unable to do anything good. Even those who are unbelievers who demonstrate good living, do so by God’s grace. There is nothing within a human being, born as we are in sin, that enables us to produce good things. I mean it, there’s not one good thing in a sinful human being that enables him or her to do good. The Apostle Paul puts it this way, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find” (Rom. 7:18).

Anyone who does good apart from Christ, does it by Christ’s grace and goodness, it is not of themselves. All good is done by God; God is the overflowing source of all good.

But, let’s for a moment, consider the good that we do. Is it good enough? Is it enough to please God? The simple and truthful answer is no. Not at all. Romans 3:20 says, “Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Or consider Galatians 3:10 “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.’”

Now thinking of that last verse, it is clear: no one has continued in all things which are written in the book of the law. Not me, not you, no one. Therefore, all are cursed. And, no one who is cursed is able to please God. No one who is under the curse of sin is able to be entirely perfect. Indeed, everything we do in this life is imperfect and stained with sin—Just a note, even if, somehow, on our own, we were able to be perfectly good—sin would still stain it, rendering it imperfect.

Heavenly Rewards

So, then, the follow-up question, and the question oft used by legalists to justify their insistence of doing good deeds (to be seen by men, not by God), is this: “Doesn’t God promise to reward our good deeds?” The simple answer is yes. But there’s a significant point to be made.

We do not earn our rewards. I’ll say it again. We do not earn the heavenly rewards that God gives us, even now, but especially when He returns. Matthew 5:12 “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Certainly teaches us that God will reward us in heaven, but these rewards are not a bonus, or a wage for work done well, or even for standing up to persecution.

It is possible to see how people can read that verse in that way, but Jesus is not teaching that, because we endured persecution, we get rewarded. No, quite the opposite: it is because we have already received a reward in heaven, a treasure that cannot be taken, destroyed or tarnished, because we have this treasure already, we can put up with anything here on earth.

Because we are in Christ, because we have already received our reward—everlasting life, we can serve God with total abandon. We don’t have to worry about anything, persecution, finances, COVID-19, cancer, disease, nothing. We know where we’re going. All who trust in Jesus have already received everlasting life! We can go flat out for God in this life, because the future is already written!

Hebrews 11.6 makes this clear: “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is (God), and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” We cannot seek God apart from God first seeking us. Once we are found by God, we become sold out completely for Him.

The rewards in Heaven are God’s awesome gifts to us. He gives them by His grace. No one earns them. All we need to do is simply receive them!

What About Wickedness?

Okay, we’ve established that we can’t please God, and God rewards those who have faith (which is itself a gift of God) with heavenly rewards. So, what’s to stop someone from just living any old way he wants? What’s to stop us from indulging in sin? What’s to motivate us to live for righteousness?

By way of analogy, Jesus compares himself to a vine, and his Father as a vinedresser.

In John 15:2, the answer to “what about wickedness” is bluntly given “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away”. The Father, the vinedresser, takes away the fruitless branches. What is a fruitless branch? It is a branch that isn’t doing what it’s supposed to be doing.

What does a fruitless branch look like? Remember the fig tree on Palm Sunday? It was in full leaf, and from all outward appearances, it should have had figs on its branches. But it did not.

The fig tree represented Israel under the Pharisees and the scribes. They looked like they were doing everything right, but their actions weren’t producing fruit, or real change in anyone. The whole nation was sinning, but thought they were righteous. It’s the same with all human beings who are trying to save themselves. They look healthy, but there’s no fruit of the Spirit in them.

If you claim to be a Christian but live a selfish, self-focussed, sinful, wicked life, you will be cut off by God the Father, and you will wither and die, eternally. Don’t fool yourself. You cannot remain in sin and live in Christ.

Now, don’t get me wrong, in this life we will sin aplenty. But those who are in Christ will always confess and repent, and will strive not to sin. Those who are not in Christ, who enjoy sinning, will be faking it. But as Jesus taught us in the case of the wheat and the weeds, it can be very difficult to tell who is a true Christian and who is not. So, get the log out of your own eye, before turning your attention on others.

Fruits of Gratitude

So, then, what keeps us on the narrow path? What keeps us from turning to sin? The only thing is Christ himself. Jesus is the vine, we are the branches. Unless we are connected to Christ, we will not stay out of the ditches of legalism or liberalism. We will not stay out of the paths of wickedness.

But here’s the good news! If you are guilty of sin, if you realise that you’ve been living wrongly, with wrong beliefs, as long as you have breath in you, you can be grafted into Christ. You can return to the vine, and be grafted in. But if you remain outside the vine until death, until you’ve withered and died, you will be thrown into the fire and burned.

But we are living in God’s grace right now. God will pick us up, when we confess and repent, and will graft us into the true vine. He will enable us to abide in Christ.

Now, to abide in Christ is to be connected to Christ. This means praying. This means Bible reading. This means Bible study with other believers. This means listening to sermons and podcasts. This means attending church, and catechism, and Sunday school, and fellowship groups, and having Christian friends over, and keeping God’s commantments will keep you abiding in the vine.

Now, make no mistake—God does all the heavy lifting. But He gives us responsibilities. He moves in us to grow and change. He he prunes us, through all manner of trials and difficulties in life. And like the saints who recorded their prayers in the Psalms, we cry out to God, we call upon God, we trust in God, we depend upon God in every situation. We are honest and real about life. We take things in stride, and we focus on producing—rather, Christ in us producing fruits of gratitude.

What are fruits of gratitude? They are lovingly keeping Christ’s commandments, abiding in God’s love. They are loving others. Love God, love your neighbour as yourself. It is keeping the Ten Commandments, no other gods, no idols, not taking God’s name in vain, abiding in the completed work of Christ on the cross and not sinning. It is loving neighbour—honouring parents, not thinking hateful thoughts about others, not thinking lustful thoughts about others, not stealing, not bearing false witness and not coveting what others have. It is being content, thanking God for all He’s given you. It is allowing the Holy Spirit to produce the fruit of the Spirit in you, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Remember, Jesus chose the disciples. Jesus chose you. Jesus laid down his life for you. Jesus has made everything we need to know, known. He chose us and appointed us that we should bear fruit. And when we, connected, grafted into Christ, we will desire the things of God, and having asked after such things, God the Father will surely give them to us! All we have to do is love God and love one another. Amen.