The Branches Iii Series

THE BRANCHES III

Series on John 15 pt. 4

John 15:2

1/7/07

I awoke on Monday, which was News Years day, and got up and went into the bath room. As I looked out the window I could see something down the road in the little pond that forms down there when it rains. It appeared to be white and black. I tried to focus on it, but you know how it is when you first get up your eyes don’t work quite right.

Well I went back into the bed and got my binoculars to have a look. I was excited to see a bald eagle taking a bath in the water. I went back into my bedroom to get my camera, but apparently the bird did want to be photographed taking a bath, so by the time I got back to the window it was gone.

As I told Darleen what I had seen, she said, “that was good way to start the New Year.” And she was right. Beside the blessing of waking up in the morning, God has seen fit to bless me with a view of one of His most majestic creations taking a bath. So my year started off with a blessing from God that I will remember for quite some time.

I pray that your year is also filled with Blessings from God. I also pray that has we continue our study into John 15 it will give you tools that you can use to examine your life this coming year. I can tell you this. As we seek to examine our life and make changes in our lives toward more obedience to God blessing will come. As we seek to bear fruit for Christ, a result of that will be God will be glorified, and there is no greater blessing for a Christian than to have God glorified in your live.

So let us continue in our study of John 15. Please turn with me to that passage of Scripture.

We will be reading verse 1-6, but our focus will be one verse 2; “"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, 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, 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, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.”

As I have said through out our look at this passage there is one main truth that Jesus is declaring in these verses, and that is we must ABIDE IN CHRIST. We must abide in Christ, the true vine, in order that we might produce fruit, .

We also can see that our Lord Jesus Christ also presents us with two man groups within this passage. First branches that bear fruit, and branches that do not bear fruit.

We also see the results of this fruit bearing or lack there of. Fruit bearing branches are pruned. Fruitless branches are cast out of the vine, gathered up and burned.

This brings us to the question that we began to answer last week, “Who are these fruitless branches?”

We pointed out that there are three main views of who these branches are; Two of those views teach that Jesus is speaking of true Christians. One view saying that true Christians can lose their salvation, this view can be rejected because of the testimony of the rest of Scripture that declares that we are secure in Christ, He is a perfect Saviour.

The second view has to do with true Christians being disciplined. Once more we say that this view cannot be sustained by looking at the rest of Scripture.

As I have stated I believe that there are eight reasons why we ought to hold to the that view that Jesus here is not speaking of genuine Christians in verse 2. We have looked at five of them up to this point, today we will look at the remaining three.

I am not going to review the five we have examined already. If you are interested in listening to those sermons we have them on a CD if you wish to hear them.

Let us now look at the 6th reason why I hold to the that view that Jesus is not speaking of genuine Christians in verse 2. This view best takes into account John’s usage of the terms “abiding” and “believing”. We must understand that when true saving faith is granted by the Father, it bring with it an abiding in Christ. And if we are truly abiding in Christ, we as John 15 tells us will not be cast out, and will as verse 5 states, “He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit;”.