Advance to the Abundant Life
Part 3 - How God Gets Us There
John 15:1-14
Sermon by Rick Crandall
McClendon Baptist Church - Aug. 19, 2007
*It’s back to school time! One of my favorite back-to-school stories came from Pennsylvania mother, Susan Moser. A few weeks into the new school year, Susan asked her son what he thought of first grade. With enthusiasm, he replied, “Oh, I love school. It’s great!”
*Then he paused, and added: “Except for one thing -- I don’t really like it when Mrs. Decker tries to teach us stuff.” (1)
*Life is not always fun -- But in John 10:10, Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” In John 15, God’s Word describes this abundant life as a fruitful life, overflowing with love and joy. So in vs. 8, the Lord said, “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit.” And in vs. 11&12, Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
*How does God get us to a fruitful, joyful, love-filled life? How does He get us to the abundant life? God takes us through a process in which we play a vital part.
1. First, Jesus Christ has to purify you.
*Remember that we can’t have the abundant life until we have God’s eternal life. This is the spiritual life that God calls salvation. We must be saved; we must be born again spiritually. Our sins must be forgiven and washed away.
*There is a whole lot we can understand about salvation in these verses. First, it comes through a person -- Jesus Christ. The only way to be saved is to have a close, personal relationship with Jesus. When we place our trust in Him, we become connected like branches are connected to a vine. As Jesus told His followers in vs. 1&5:
1. “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.
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.”
*Salvation comes through a Person, and it is provided through the Word of God. As Jesus said in vs. 3, “You [who know me and trust in me] are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.”
*Salvation is provided through the Word of God, but it had to be paid for by the Cross of Christ. Jesus spoke these words just hours before He died on the cross. The cross was supremely on His mind as He spoke here, and in vs. 13, Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”
*I want to tell you today that God loves you more than you can imagine. Right now He loves you, just as you are, and He always has -- because He is love.
*Romans 4:5 tells us an amazing thing: God “justifies the ungodly.” This means that no matter what you have done, God loves you and He will forgive you, if you will trust in Him. And we should trust Him, because He loved us enough to die on the cross for our sins!
*Pastor David DeWitt once said:
*The love of Jesus is stronger than any pain you may experience.
-Jesus gives the promise that He will give us comfort in the midst of our deepest pain. He makes it clear that there will never be a time that He is not with us in our times of need.
*The love of Jesus is stronger than any failure you may have committed.
-Jesus loves us in spite of the things that we have done. Jesus not only promises to forgive our sins but He also forgets them. He simply wipes the slate of our lives clean and then refuses to remember what we have done
*The love of Jesus is stronger than any problem you may have to face.
-Jesus said that He will never leave us nor forsake us. He will be there in the midst of our joys. He will stand with us in our sorrows. He gives us confidence when we are strong and courage when we are weak.
*The love of Jesus is stronger than any fault that you may have.
-There is nothing that you can do to make Jesus love you any less. He loves you with an unconditional love. There are no strings attached. There are bargains to be made. He just loves us all the same. (2)
*If you ever doubt it, look back to the cross, where Jesus suffered and died for you.
*During WWII, future President Ronald Reagan had the job of reviewing recommendation letters for military honors. Some of those letters resulted in soldiers receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor. One letter told of a gunner who was trapped in a hole in the bottom of a B-29 bomber, following a crippling attack. The landing gear of the plane was destroyed, and the captain did not know if he could land the plane without the gunner being killed.
*As the plane neared England, the captain realized that they would never reach an airstrip anyway. He ordered everyone to bail out -- But just as the last man stood ready to jump, the captain then took off his parachute. He knelt down beside the gunner still trapped helplessly in the hole and said, “Sergeant, looks like you and I are going to land this thing together.” (3)
*He would not abandon his friend -- even at the cost of his own life. That’s the kind of love that Jesus has for you. That’s the kind of love that took Him to the cross. Jesus never had to die, but He willingly did die so that you could live forever. Put your trust in the Risen Savior! Let Him be your eternal, life-giving vine. Let Jesus save your soul.
2. How do we get to the abundant life? Jesus has to purify you. Then the Heavenly father has to prune you.
*Jesus pointed this out in vs. 1-2, where He said, “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.”
*He prunes us. Ouch, but necessary. Wouldn’t it be great if we never sinned after we trusted in the Lord? But we do sin, and so we need to be pruned. God the Father is the Heavenly Gardener. Christians, He prunes us whenever and wherever we need it. And we need it!
*Steven Pace says:
-Fruitful branches are pruned. All bad spots are removed. Even the strongest Christians have spots in their life that have to be removed. All of us have areas in our lives that we struggle with -- Things that God needs to prune away.
-Some struggle with their thoughts, some with attitude
-Some with commitment, some with relationships
-Some with behavior, some with service
-Some with passion, some with motives, some with willingness.
*The purpose of pruning is to prepare the branch to bear more fruit. The purpose is not to punish, not to hurt and damage the branch. God wants to use us to our full potential -- that is why he prunes the branches.
*Sometime we get so involved in everything that we cannot do anything right. Mediocrity becomes our best, and God wants so much more than that. What are the branches in your life that need to get pruned? (4)
*We all need pruning, and this is an “ouch,” because it cuts. This week someone reminded me of something I heard a preacher say 30 years ago in Warner Robins, Georgia. That pastor said, “The most miserable people in this world are not the lost people. The most miserable people in the world are the Christians living like lost people.” But thank God for that misery, if God uses it to prune away the sinful, hurtful, useless parts of our life.
*Thinking about how God prunes us, Richard Tow asks:
-What does a pruned tree look like? It can look pretty naked. Right after it has been pruned it does not look as good as a tree that has not been pruned. There are seasons in our lives when the fruit just seems to flow. God is blessing. Things are happening. We feel victorious. The devil runs from us in Jesus name. People appreciate us. Lives around us are being changed. People are getting saved and we are having a positive impact.
-And then there are seasons when you feel like a stub. There’s no beautiful green foliage. All that has vanished. People are certainly not impressed with you. You feel like there’s not much left of you. You wonder if you will ever produce anything worthwhile for God. About all you can do is hang in there and know that the Father is really a very capable vinedresser. He is not pruning your life as a rejection or because you are unfruitful. He is working in your life to produce even more fruit. (5)
3. How do we get to the abundant life? The Heavenly father has to prune you, and you have to pursue close fellowship with Christ.
*The Lord made this clear in vs. 4-6, when He said:
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.
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.
6. 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.”
*Abiding in the Lord is tremendously important, but what does it mean? It means to stay, dwell, continue, or remain. The Lord is telling us here that we need to stay close to Him. He wants us to pursue closer and closer fellowship with Him.
*Paul Fritz says, “The best way to allow Jesus to abide in you is by allowing His word to fill your mind, heart, soul and emotions with His perspective.” (6)
*As Paul wrote in Col 3:16, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” But this takes time. And that is a struggle for most of us, living in the fast pace of 2007.
*Dorothy Franklin is a pastor’s wife in York, Nebraska. She tells about the day the worship service was running long. At the end of the service, her preacher husband made this announcement: “In the interest of time which is running short we will only sing one verse of ‘Take Time to Be Holy.” (7)
*Are you taking the time to be holy? John Piper writes, “Several years ago at a North American seminary, fifty students planning to go overseas in ministry for the summer were interviewed for their suitability. Only three (of the 50) could testify to regular quiet times of reading the Bible and devoting themselves to prayer.” (6)
*God help us to start living like that group of three -- Abiding in Him -- Remaining in Him -- Taking the time to pursue closer fellowship with Him.
4. How do we get to the abundant life? You have to pursue close fellowship with Christ, and you have to pray.
*As Jesus said in vs. 7&8, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.”
*“If you remain in Me, and My words remain in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” What a promise! A promise based on the reality that the more we abide in Jesus, the more we will be like Him, and the more we will pray for the things that He longs to see in our world.
*But it is also a promise based on the excellent character of God -- Infinite in goodness and love. William Barclay once said:
-“Any man who prays is bound to want to know to what kind of God he is praying. He wants to know in what kind of atmosphere his prayers will be heard. Is he praying to a grudging God out of whom every gift has to be squeezed and coerced? Is he praying to a mocking God whose gifts may well be double-edged? [Or] is he praying to a God whose heart is so kind that he is more ready to give than we are to ask?” (8)
*We are praying to the only true and living God: The God who cannot sin, the God who is love -- The God who longs to be our Best Friend, and proved it when He died on the Cross for us.
*Friends are great. In the 3rd grade, Zach Smith was my best friend. We caught all the old-west bank robbers together, killed all the bad Indians together, won World War 2 all over again by ourselves, explored the Amazon River in the woods behind my house, and went to the moon on our bicycles.
*We were best friends. But by the grace of God, I have an infinitely Better Friend -- Jesus Christ. You can trust Him.
*I love what Rodney Buchanan said about this:
-“When we are talking about having faith in God, we have to be sure that we are talking about the right God -- the God revealed in the Bible, not one you have been told about or dreamed up in your own mind.
*If you have a concept of a frightening God who loves to find your faults and load you up with guilt, you will have trouble having faith in him. If your concept of God is one who is arbitrary and vengeful, you will not want to have faith in him; you will run from him. If your idea of God is one who is weak, distant or disinterested, how could you trust that kind of God?
*But Jesus came along and gave another picture of God. In Jesus’ stories, God was the Father who longed for the return of his prodigal son. He searched for the lost like a shepherd searched for lost sheep. He forgave the worst of sinners. He fed the multitudes. He wanted to heal people and restore them. He was willing to come in person to tell them that he loved them. Ultimately, he was willing to take their guilt upon himself and die in their place.
*When Jesus corrected their picture of God, faith was restored. People could believe in a God like this. And even though Jesus preached a morality that was even more difficult and demanding than the Old Testament law, people flocked to hear Jesus and be near him. They wanted a relationship with this God of mercy. (9)
*Don’t you? Trust in Jesus Christ to save you. Trust in our Heavenly Father to prune you. Keep pursuing close fellowship with Christ. And pray. Let’s do that right now.
1. Susan P. Moser, Pennsylvania "Small talk," TODAY’S CHRISTIAN WOMAN, Sept./Oct. 1996, p. 41. (Found in christianglobe.com sermon “The Servant-king” by Angela Akers - John 13:1-17)
2. SermonCentral sermon “What A Friend We have in Jesus” by David DeWitt - John 15:13-15 - 10/08/05
3. Found in christianglobe.com sermon “The Awesome Power Of Love” by King Duncan - John 15:1-17
4. Adapted from SermonCentral sermon “Jesus said, ‘I Am’” by Steven Pace - John 15:1-5 - 03/22/03
5. SermonCentral sermon “Just Be a Branch” by Richard Tow - John 15:1-7
6. SermonCentral sermon “Abide In Me” by Paul Fritz - John 15:7
7. Found in christianglobe.com sermon “News from the Vineyard” by King Duncan - John 15:1-17
8. “Ask, Seek, Knock” - sermon by Rodney Buchanan - Matt 7:7-12 - Mulberry St UMC - May 1, 2005
9. “The Gift of Faith” sermon by Rodney Buchanan - Hebrews 11:1-6 - Mulberry St UMC - May 18, 2003
