ABIDING IN THE VINE III
Series on John 15 pt. 8
John 15:4
2/4/07
Many of you I am sure of footage for the 1958 Disney nature documentary White Wilderness, that shows lemmings into jumping off a cliff and into the sea. It has given rise to the believe that lemmings are stupid animals that will follow each other off cliffs, jumping to their deaths. This is also that basis of belief that lemmings commit suicide en masse when their numbers grow too large.
Disney’s White Wilderness was actually filmed in Alberta, Canada, which is not a native habitat for lemmings. Lemmings were imported for use in the film, purchased from Inuit children by the filmmakers. The Arctic rodents were placed on a snow-covered turntable and filmed from various angles to produce a "migration" sequence; afterwards, the helpless creatures were transported to a cliff overlooking a river and herded into the water. White Wilderness does not depict an actual lemming migration — at no time are more than a few dozen lemmings ever shown on the screen at once. The entire sequence was faked using a handful of lemmings deceptively photographed to create the illusion of a large herd of migrating creatures.
Now you know the rest the of the story.
The reason I bring that up is because that while it may be an insult to be called a lemming, insinuating that you will follow blindly, we all in fact follow someone, or some idea, or philosophy. I would further say that we all follow some sort of god. While I would hope you follow the living a true God, the God of the Bible, many folks follow gods that they in fact have created. Even the atheists follows a god. Webster’s defines a god as “the supreme or ultimate reality.” So for the atheist that “supreme or ultimate reality” is themselves. They have made themselves gods of their little worlds.
The point is we all follow something or someone. I will further put forth that to follow is closely associated with abide. Remember to abide means to “dwell with”, or “to remain”. So to follow someone, or some idea, or philosophy, is to abide by that person or thought. To remain in it. We see that they are closely related and in some ways are in fact the same.
We have looking at what it is to abide in Christ as we work our way through John 15, were the main teaching there is that we must abide in Christ. The verse under consideration is John 15:4 “"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.”
We have been looking at some practical ways that we can abide in Christ, ways that can be applied to our lives. Thus far we have seen that to abide in Christ is to bear fruit in our lives, to abide in Christ is to abide in the love of God, to abide in Christ is to obey. Last week we saw that to abide in Christ is to love one another, and to abide in Christ, and show that Christ abides in us, we are to profess that Jesus Christ is indeed the Son of God, and our Lord and Saviour.
Let us turn to the passage of Scripture that we will begin to examine today as we continue to look at how we are to abide in Christ. Practical things for us to apply to our lives.
Please turn with me to 1 John 2:4-6. That is page 1054 in your pew Bibles. We will be focusing on verse 6 but I want to set up the context of the passage so we will be reading verses 4-5 as well;
“He who says, "I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.”
Here I believe we can see the nuts and bolts of what it is to abide in Christ. Specifically in verse 6, “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.”
Before we look at verse 6 I want us to look at vss 4-5 very briefly to set up our understanding of verse 6.
Verse 4 is what I call the liar, liar, pants on fire verse. This is a pretty straight forward verse. A person cannot say “I know Christ”. But not do what He says. I believe this goes back to what we said a couple of weeks ago, you cannot say Christ is your Saviour and not have Him as your Lord. Because to know Christ, to truly know Christ, is to love Him as Saviour and obey Him as Lord.
We could also say that a person cannot say “I abide” in Christ and not obey Him. John point out this very thought in 1 John 3:24; “Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him.”
Isn’t it wonderful how that Bible supports itself. So a person cannot say “Hey I know Christ!, I’m a Christian, I’m a believer, I am a true branch abiding in the True vine”, a person cannot say those things and not obey the commands of Christ.
The verse is clear, if you say those things, and you are not walking in obedience to Christ. The Bible says that you are liar and the truth, that is Christ, for He is the way, the truth, and the life, is not in you. Another way to put that is, you do not abide Christ, and Christ does not abide in you.
Now look at verse 5; “But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.” This reminds me of the passage we looked at last week. Remember 1 John 4:12 where we were told that God’s love is perfected in us through obedience to the command that we love one another.
While 1 John 4:12 deals with the specific command of loving one another, here in verse 5 God’s love being perfected in us is apply to keeping all the commands of Christ.
Notice what the 2nd part of this verse states; “By this we know that we are in Him…” By what? By us keeping the words of Christ. So by us keeping the words of our Saviour and Lord, we know that we are in Him and He is us.
This is the converse of what verse 4 states. Verse 4 tells us that if you do not obey Christ then the truth is not in you, so the converse of that would be that if you do obey Christ then the truth is IN you. So by obedience we know that we are in Christ and Christ in us.
And once more we see that connection that Scripture points to over and over again, that when we abide in Christ He will abide in us, and when He abides in us we will in fact abide in Him.
And to quote 1 John 4:13 “By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.”
Now to verse 6 “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.”
Verse 6 begins with same words as verse 4, “He who says…” Once more this points to, as verse 4 does , backing up what you say by what you do. It points to the need for some sort of evidence to support ones claim to be a Christian. This something we are going to be talking more about in a future sermon.
“He who says he abides in Him (Christ) ought himself also to walk just as He walked.” So the person who says I abide in Christ, once more we see that Greek word MENO, which means to remain or to dwell. So the person who says I dwell with Christ, I remain with Christ, I abide with Christ, ought to follow the example of Christ. Ought to walk the walk that Christ walked.
I want to stop at the word “ought”. Because to us it sounds like a suggestion. That is to say that it is just a suggestion that the person who claims to abide in Christ should walk as He walked. The person ought to do it, not necessary, but there person ought to do it.
Well that is not exactly what the Greek word means there. The Greek words translated “ought” is “OPHEILO”. It means “to owe”. It is used in the sense to owe a debt to someone. Or to be obliged to do something.
This word is used in Matt 18:28 when Jesus tells the parable of the ungrateful servant. “"But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed “OPHEILO” him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe! “OPHEILO.”
By looking at the meaning of this word we can see that this is not a suggestion. It is not a suggestion for a person who says they abide in Christ to walk as He walked. No, that person is obliged to do it. They owe it to Christ to do it.
If you say I abide in Christ you are indebted to walk as He walked. You owe it to Him.
Back to our verse; “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.” We now must look at what it is to walk as Christ walked. If we want to abide in Christ in a practical way, we must know how it is Christ walked and follow that example.
To walk with Christ is to share in His desires, His motives, His principals. The words of Col. 2:6 tell us. “As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,” If Christ is your Lord you will walk as He walked. You cannot receive Christ and not walk in Him.
Another verse I am reminded of when speaking of walking as Christ walked; Is Matt. 16:24; “Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”
To walk after Christ, to follow Him means we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, that is to say be willing to suffer for Christ. To go after Christ, is to follow Christ, it is to walk as He walked as 1 John 2:6 tells us.
Before we speak of the specific things regarding the walk of Christ I want to point out to you some general things regarding walking. Of course we are speaking of our Christian walk.
First, walking denotes progress. It denotes movement. We must never think that God would have us stand still in our faith. That is the sad thing with many Christians, the aren’t walking, they are standing still. They are not growing in the their faith.
Listen to this quote from A.W. Pink, I love this quote;
“If we do not go forward by the strength of grace, we shall go backward by the power of corruption.”
This is true. To walk as Christ walk is to grow in our faith. It is to have deeper understanding of God’s Word. I pray that as a church we would all be moving forward.
There are of course are pitfalls of walking forward and that is sometimes we fall. But to fall into temptation, to backslide, does not mean that we do not get up, let the Lord brush us off, and then begin to walk again.
As Phil 3:12 states “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.” The phrase “press on” literally means to make run. Again, it denotes movement.
So when we do fall we don’t stay there, we get up, we learn from our fall. Our walk becomes more humble, more dependent on God. It makes us more watchful for that which causes us to fall.
Second, let us realize that a single step is not a walk. While we all come to Christ through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, and some times that happens when people are asked to bow the heads and pray with the pastor or speaker. Some folks raise their hands with every eye closed if they want to make a profession faith. Other come forward for an alter call and pray with the minister or someone else up front.
Some of you may wonder why I don’t do those things. I don’t because I am fearful people will think that is all it takes to becoming a Christian. Hey I bowed my head and prayed I must be Christian. I raised my hand, I must be a Christian. I went forward I must be a Christian. They take that one single step and think they are saved.
Now I am not saying if you did one of those things in means you are not saved. Only God knows the heart, and I would never make that assumption. But I personally am not willing to take the chance of someone thinking they are saved because of something they did. Be it raise their hand, or go forward, or what have you.
Being a Christian, abiding in Christ and therefore Christ abiding in you, is more then a step, again it is a walk. Remember our passage 1 John 2:6, “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.”
My friends being a Christian is more then a single moment in time. Sure we are justified in a moment, but we are sanctified over a lifetime. To abide in Him is to walk with Him, and again walking is more then just a single step.
Third. Let us also make note that walking is not jumping around. Walking denotes a steady action. You see some folks jump from doctrine to doctrine. From one fad to the next. They thrive on the latest experience. Swarming to the next preacher who will tell them what they desire to hear;
Eph. 4:14 speaks of those who are jumping and not walking. “that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,”
These are the folks with itchy ears. They need to have then scratched so they jump from one doctrine to the next. As we are told in 2 Tim 4:3-4 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”
No walking here, just jumping around looking to get their ears scratched.
The fourth and final thought, is that to walk like Christ, makes this assumption, you know something about Christ. To say to abide in Christ is to walk just as He walks, is to assume you know Christ.
Remember verse 4 talks about a person saying “I know Him”. Well listen to verse 3; “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.”
To walk like Christ we must have knowledge of Christ. If I tell you to walk like my uncle Bob walked what is the first thing you are going to think about, how does your uncle Bob walk. You do not know my uncle Bob, so you do not know how he walks.
So to walk as Christ walked you have to know Him! Please don’t rely on what the world says about Christ. People have some of the strangest misinformed views of Christ, they are too numerous to get into here.
If want to know Christ, if you want to know how Christ walked, you MUST read His word. You must look to the gospels.
I believe that John would have had this in mind when he wrote 1 John. I believe that he would assumed that these folks he was writing to were familiar with his gospel account of Christ, so when he told them, “To abide in Christ is to walk as He walked.” He would have assumed that they would think, “Hey we know how Christ walked because we have the account of His life.”
If they in fact did not have an account of the life of Christ, then there would have been no way they could have walked as Christ walked because they would not have known what type of walk that was.
So I tell you. If you want to abide in Christ, then walk as He walked. And to know how He walked means that you need to have some knowledge of His word, of His life. So you must look to the Bible to find that out. That is one reason why it is so important of us all to be in the Word.
Next week we will begin to look at some specifics of how Christ walked as we look for practical ways in which we are to abide in Christ.
In closing I want to say once more that to know Christ is to obey Him. And the most basic way in which we obey Him is to believe Him. As our Lord states in John 6:29; “Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent."”
We must believe the one sent by the Father. Jesus further tells us in John 8:24 “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”
To believe in Christ is to believe His gospel. That He died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again on the third day. If you do not believe that, you will die in your sins, forever separated from God.
As we leave today my prayer is that every person here this morning believes in that Gospel. That every person as trusted in Christ as Lord and Saviour, recognizing that you are a sinner, and the Jesus Christ, and Christ alone is Saviour.
If you have any questions regarding your salvation or this message please speak with me.
LET US PRAY
