ABIDING IN THE VINE IV by Stephen Fournier
John 15:4-15:4
ABIDING IN THE VINE IV
Series on John 15 pt. 9
John 15:4
2/11/07
Most of you know that I enjoy hunting. I love to be out in the woods. Part of why I like to be out in the woods is because usually I am the only person around. I enjoy the peace of not having anyone talking to me, no phones, or distractions and taking in the beauty of God’s creation.
What some of you may not know is that when hunting seasons is over I still enjoy being out in the woods. I like to take my camera and go out an hike around. I like to get pictures of different animals and scenes. Some of my scenes you have seen up on the wall. In fact just last week I took a picture of a porcupine that Elphaba had come across and treed.
Some time when I come across fresh deer tracks I like to follow the tracks to get a picture of the deer. But following deer tracks is not as easy as it sounds. They like to go through thick brush, across streams, up steep hills and so forth. I have found that it is not always easy to walk as a deer walks.
That same thing can be said about our walk with the Lord. It is not always easy to walk as Christ walked.
Listen to 1 Peter 2:21; “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:”
Sometimes following our Lord’s steps leads to suffering, to persecution. But we are still called to follow His steps even though it may not be easy.
Another passage I think of when I think of following in Christ’s steps; 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.”
Following in Christ’s footstep involves first a desire of Christ. It involves deny ourselves and putting Christ first. Taking up our cross, that is living selflessly, and follow the steps of Christ. It’s not easy.
This bring us to our passage for today. A passage we began to look at last week. That is 1 John 2:4-6.
“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.”
Just by way of a quick review. Last week we looked at verse 4 & 5. Verse 4 being the famous liar, liar, pants on fire verse. Verse 5 basically stated what verse 4 states in the reverse way. Verse 4 basically states that if you say that you know Christ and do not do what he commands, then you are a liar. Verse 5 basically is saying that we know that we are in Him by keeping His words or commandments. In other words if you talk the talk you must walk the walk.
Verse 6 is the verse we are focusing on. I stated that the Greek words translated “ought” is “OPHEILO” (a-fay-low). It means “to owe”. It is used in the sense to owe a debt to someone. Or to be obliged to do something.
So in verse 6 we do not have a suggestion to walk as Christ walk when we say we abide in Him, but that if we say we abide in Christ, then we are obliged or we owe it to Him to walk as He walked.
We also pointed out some general observations about walking, that is our Christian walk. Walking as we saw denotes progress. Our walk of faith is to be a walk of growing in Christ. Second, we made note that a single step is not a walk. Being a Christian is more that raising our hand, or going forward, or praying the sinners prayer. Being a Christian, abiding in Christ and therefore Christ abiding in you.
Third we saw that walking is not jumping around. Walking denotes a steady action. We are not be jumping around from doctrine to doctrine. Or as the Scripture states, “…tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine.” We are not have inching ears as 2 Tim. 4:3-4 tells us.
And finally to walk like Christ, makes this assumption, you know something about Christ. The only way we can know about Christ is to be in His word.
So those are some general things regarding walking with Christ. Let me read to you from 1 John 2:6 once more; “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.”
Here we are told that to abide in Christ, remember that is what we trying to discover, what it means practically to abide in Christ. We are told here that to abide in Christ is to “walk JUST as He walked.” So let us now look at how it is the Christ walked.
First of all we see that the walk of Christ was a walk of obedience. Everything that Christ did as He walked among men He did in obedience to the Father. Every thought, every action, every prayer, everything Christ did was in accordance with the will of heavenly Father.
I want to make note of a couple of passages of Scripture John 8:28-29 “Then Jesus said to them, "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things. "And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him."”
We see there that Jesus does not act in and of His own will, but that His will is in complete accordance with the will of the Father, and Jesus “ALWAYS” did the things that pleased the Father.
John 6:38 “"For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” The very purpose of the incarnation is that the Son comes down to do the will of the Father.
I do not believe we quite grasp the significance of that. All the Son did, every action, was done in submission to God, and in fact all was done in accordance with the sovereign will and purpose of God.
The first recorded miracle of our Lord, turning water into wine. That was done in accordance with will of God, done because it pleased the Father to be done.
When Jesus healed those folks in Scripture, will of the Father, when He cast out demons, will of the Father, Rebuked the Pharisees, will of the Father.
Our Lord Jesus was certainly tender, and kind, and full of mercy and compassion. But what was it the truly motivated Him to do those things, to be those things, the sovereign will of the Father.
All that Jesus did He did, from being born in the manger, to dying on the cross, to rising again on the third day, He did it all because it pleased the Father.
So I say to you. To walk like Christ is to walk the walk of obedience. To strive to live your live in accordance with the will of God. To walk as Christ is to walk in the will of the Heavenly Father. That is what it is to abide in Christ.
Second, we can see that the walk of Christ, is also a walk of faith. You see when our Lord became a man, when He humbled Himself and took on human flesh, He also took on a life of dependence upon God the Father.
Listen to Heb 2:17 “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”
Or as the ESV states, “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect…” Just like His people, Christ was dependant upon God. As a man He had is Faith in God the Father. He is our example of faith.
It is in Christ alone that we have the perfect example of walking in faith.
The 11th chapter of Hebrews is call the faith chapter. The chapter points to some of the man and women of the Bible as great examples of faith in God. But after giving that list of examples listen to what the Scripture states in the beginning of chapter 12:1-2.
“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of [our] faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
In other words sure we have some great examples, we have a great cloud of witnesses. But notice Jesus is separated from the others, why? Because in Him we have ultimate example of faith. He is author of our faith. That word “finisher” is better translated “perfector”. It can be defined as; “one who has in his own person raised faith to its perfection and so set before us the highest example of faith.”
That describes beautifully what Jesus does. He is the highest example of faith.
While those others in Heb 11 had some aspect of their lives by which their faith in God shown through. Jesus Christ our Lord, demonstrate the fullness of faith in all He did. The fullness of faith in who He was.
As A.W. Pink states, “From Bethlehem to Calvary He had, by faith, unbroken and unclouded fellowship with the Father.”
So then, to abide in Christ, to walk as He walked is to have a walk of faith, a walk by which we are in total dependence to the heavenly Father. It is to have a walk of faith not in just some areas of our lives, but to have the faith permeate every aspect of our lives. Our home life, at work, at school, at play, and so forth. Not an easy thing by any means. But as I stated at the beginning of this message, to walk as Christ walk is not an easy thing to do.
Number three, we can see that Christ’s walk was walk of hope. I believe we can define hope as such. Hope, as far as the Christian walk is concerned is the ability to look beyond the temporal things of the world, and to look to the eternal thing. In others words, hope is to look toward the things that really matter.
Jesus states in John 6:33; “"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."” Jesus had over come the world. Those things which the world temps us with, it’s toys, its pleasures, its meaningless gratifications, they had no sway over the Son of Man. Why? Because He had overcome the world.
What a thing that is. To overcome the world. To live in Hope. To look past the insanity of this world, and to look to heaven. That is what our Saviour did. To quote again from Heb. 12:2 speaking of Jesus; “who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Jesus looked past the pain of the cross and looked in hope to the joy of saving God’s people. He looked past the shame of the cross and looked to the fact that He would sit at the right hand of the Father.
My friends to abide in Christ is to walk the walk of hope. That is the walk we are called to. To walk as Christ walked is to look past all that is in this world, it is to overcome this world. It is to see this world for what it is, passing, fading away. And look to the day when we will reign with Christ in heaven.
To walk the walk of hope is live with Rom 8:18 in mind; “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”
Forth, Christ’s walk was a walk of love. We have touched on this a couple times in our look into what it is to abide in Christ. We have seen that to abide in Christ is to live in the love of God. Finding comfort and peace in the love. And also to abide in Christ is love one another.
So just as Christ walked a walk of love so must we if we are to abide in Him. Christ lived out the love He had for the Father and for us.
I am reminded of what we read in John 15:10 a couple weeks ago; "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
You see, real obedience is nothing more the perfected love. Verse 5 in the passage we have been looking at; “But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him.”
By Christ walk in the perfect will of God, by Him walking in perfect obedience to the Father, Christ demonstrated the fact that His walk was walk of love. That He was indeed abiding perfectly in the love of the Father.
This is further communicated in John 14:31; 31 "But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do.”
So then, to abide in Christ, to walk as Christ walked, means we walk a walk of love. And that love is perfected through us doing the will of God. That is how we display that we love Christ, that we love the Father. So let us walk a walk of love in obedience to God. As Eph 5:2 states; “And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet–smelling aroma.”
The fifth and final way Christ walked is that he walked a walk by which the Father was manifested in Him.
Listen to our Lord’s words in John 14:9 “Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
To see Christ was to see the Father. This goes back to the fact that Christ always and in all things did the perfect will of the Father. Jesus’ walk was one in which you saw God. To see Jesus was to see God as He is God incarnate.
Our walk too must be one the manifests the Son. Listen to a couple of passages; Eph. 5:1 “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children.”
1 Cor. 11:1 “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.”
My friends our walk must be a walk of imitation. Christ must be seen in us. We must reflect the light that is Christ Jesus. If we say we are abiding in Christ, folks must see Christ in us. Our walk must one that manifests Christ.
So we began with question that if abiding in Christ means to walk as walked, as our verse tells us, than how was that Christ walked. We have seen that it was a walk of obedience, a walk of faith, a walk of hope, a walk of love, a walk of manifesting God.
That my friends is way Christ walked, and that is how we must walk if we say that we abiding in Christ. There are no other options.
In conclusion I want to point back to the verse one more time. 1 John 2:6; “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.”
Those words point not to equality, we can never be equal with Christ, but they point to likeness, our duty is to strive to be like Christ. To follow His example. To walk as Christ is the obligation of the Christian, I remind you of that Greek word “OPHEILO” (a-fay-low) translated “ought” in 2:6 and how it means to be indebted to someone.
We owe it to Christ to walk as He walked if we claim to abide in Him and He in us.
The sacrifice on the Cross demands it of us. To walk any other way is to bring dishonor to the name of Christ. And if we truly love Him, truly love Him, it will become for us a great desire.
As we leave here this morning my pray is that each one you have begun that walk with Christ. The walk begins with a profession of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. It begins with a confession that you are a sinner in need of Savior and that Saviour is Jesus Christ.
As that blessed Gospel tells us, the gospel that is the power of God to salvation, Jesus died for our sins, He was buried, and He rose again on the third day. I pray each one you here believes in that gospel. Any questions.
LET US PRAY
