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;”.
In other words, true belief bring about abiding in Christ, and abiding in Christ demonstrates true belief, which is evidenced by bearing fruit. To abide in Christ it to believe in Christ.
The Word abide in John 15 is the Greek word “MENO”. It has a sense of dwelling somewhere, of residing, to remain. So true believe is characterized by us dwelling with Christ, residing with Him, remaining with Him.
We will be getting deeper into what it is to abide with Christ in a later sermon. But I just want us to understand that by taking the view that Christ here in John 15:2 is not speaking of genuine Christians preserves the relationship found throughout Scriptures between believing and abiding. Because if you hold to the other views you have to say that one can abide in Christ, yet not bear fruit or have eternal life.
One cannot abide in Christ and then not abide in Christ. Because when you abide in Christ, Christ abides in you, it is an eternal thing. As verse 4 in our passage states; "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.”
John further tells us in 2 John 1:2 “because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever:” That truth of course is Christ. He abides in us forever.
So if Jesus is speaking of genuine believers here losing there salvation and being cast away, then you have to come to the conclusion that we can abide in Christ, and He in us, and then somehow reverse that process, yet that would contradict the clear teaching of Scripture that Christ will abide in us forever.
If you hold to the other view that Jesus in John 15:2 is speaking of genuine Christians and that He is speaking of discipline when He speaks of being taken away, you are left with the taking the view that one can abide/truly believe in Christ yet not bear fruit.
This bring me to our seventh reason why I believe that Jesus is not speaking of genuine believers in John 15:2 when He speaks of those who are taken away and that the indwelling Christ, The Lord who is said to abide with those that abide in Him, will bring about fruit in the live of the believer. To say otherwise is a denial of the not only the Lordship of Christ, but in the end it is a denial of the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Here is what I mean when I say that. Note again John 15:1-2; “"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.”
From that passage we can safely deduct that it is the will of the Father in heaven that we, that is the branches that abide in Christ, bear fruit. The very purpose of the Father pruning the branches is that they bear fruit. That is clear.
Now I want us to listen to a couple of verses; John 4:34 “Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.”
John 5:30 "I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.”
John 6:38 "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.”
One more, now look closely at this; John 8:29 "And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him."
There are two Greek words I want to point out in John 8:29, the first is “MONOS” which means “alone (without a companion),” or “one”. The second word is “PANTOTE” That words means “at all times”, “Always”.
What that verse tells us is this, is that Jesus’ actions and words can alone do one thing, that is please the Father. Jesus can only do those things which please the Father, and those are the things He always does.
To put that another way, Jesus ALWAYS does the will of the Father.
Why? Because He and the Father are one, They along with the Holy Spirit are God.
Now I want us to look at verse John 15:16. remember this is still in the context of John 15 and Jesus talking with His disciples just prior to Him being crucified. Notice what He says there;
"You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.”
The passage tells us that Jesus has appointed us to bear fruit. We see an action done by the Lord Jesus. He appoints. That word “should” actually denotes Jesus leading us to bear fruit. It carries the sense of Jesus Leading us to bear fruit, more then a suggestion by Jesus for us to bear fruit.
So what verse 16 is saying that Jesus ordains us to bear fruit, He leads us to bear fruit, and that action of Jesus leading us to bear fruit, appointing us to bear fruit, is the will of the Father, and it pleases the Father.
So what am I saying? This. Because Jesus ALWAYS does the will of Father, and it is the will of the Father that true Christians bear fruit, it is the will of the Father that Christ lead them to bear fruit, ordains them to bear, then genuine Christians MUST bear fruit, or Jesus fails to always do the will of the Father.
Then the snowball starts to roll. If Jesus fails to always do the will of the Father then He and the Father are not always one. Which means Jesus is not God, which means He cannot be our perfect Saviour, which means the Bible cannot be the Word of God, which means we are still lose in our sin without any hope of Salvation.
You see my friends, the fact that true Christians will ALWAYS bear fruit is bound up in the fact that our Lord Jesus ALWAYS does the will of Father, which is that Christians ALWAYS bear fruit.
When we begin to tinker with what the Lord clearly is telling us in John 15, we have a huge domino effect. These folks mentioned in John 15:2 cannot in fact be genuine Christians because genuine Christians will always bear fruit.
Which bring us to the last reason I will give for holding the view that Jesus is not speaking of genuine believers in John 15:2, that is it takes away from the very purpose of the passage, that purpose being to state the truth that no true Christian, no person abiding in Christ, will live a fruitless live.
I believe that when you read John 15:1-8, 16, the whole point of the Lord is you must abide in Him, why? To bear fruit. Because those who truly abide in Christ, will bear fruit.
That fact is plainly stated in verse 5 "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.”
When you abide in Christ, and He abides in you, you WILL bear fruit. Fruit in a person’s life is a mark of true faith in Christ, a mark of a true disciple of Christ.
One of the things that marked me as someone from south eastern CT was how it said “idear”. I have an “idear”. That marked me as someone who was not originally from this area. People know I was different in that regard.
Fruit in our lives, (and I know I keep using that term, and you may be wondering what this is fruit is, and we will get to that), but fruit in our lives marks us as Christians. This fruit that Christ talks of here marks us as being His true disciples.
You see this fruit denotes live in us. That life being Christ. No fruit is a sign of deadness, of dead wood. The point of the metaphor is that those abiding in Christ have life, they produce fruit through that life. Those branches that do not produce fruit are dead branches. That is why God cuts them off. There is no sense in pruning dead branches. You see if they had produced fruit, any fruit, God would prune them, not cut them out. But we all know that you cut off dead branches, you gather them up and get rid of them.
These branches are part of the true vine. The true vine that will produce fruit through its branches, it cannot be any other way.
So in conclusion I believe we have seen quite clear, over the course of these last three sermons that John 15:2 and following does not in fact teach that truly regenerate, born again Christians can lose their salvation because they do not produce fruit. It does not teach divine discipline, or that God lifts up dead unfruitful branches.
What it is teaching us is that first of all it is impossible for us to bear fruit apart from us abiding in a life-giving relationship with Christ as the vine, vs. 4, “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” Also that it is impossible for us NOT to bear fruit if we do have the relationship, vs. 5, "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit;…”
This passage ought to make each one us pause and examine our own lives. Are we producing fruit? Am I abiding in the true vine? We will being to answer the questions of what is fruit, and what is it to abide in Christ?
As I states earlier, basically abiding in believing. Do you believe in Christ? Have you placing your faith in Him has Lord and Saviour. Have you believed in the blessed Gospel of Christ that tells us that He died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again on the Third day, and sits at the right hand of the Father.
My friend that is the gospel, the ONLY gospel that brings eternal life. As Rom 1:16 states, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.”
I pray that every person here has believed in that powerful gospel.
