The Truth of the Vine
CCCAG November 18th, 2018
Scripture- John 15
Intro:
I'm going to start today by asking a question-
How many times have you walked into a completely chaotic situation and wondered- who's in charge around here?
In the fire service, we had this same situation happen to us on a massive scale when the September 11th attacks happened. NYC had fire departments and fire personnel coming in from all over the country.
Each one of these fire departments had their own unique command structures.
Each one of these departments had their own way of communicating that nobody else knew what they meant.
Most of these departments even had different terminology for the kind of vehicles they had parked at their fire station.
So in all these people came together to work at a scene that was being managed by the New York fire Department, it was chaos initially.
What we is emergency services learned from the September 11th attacks was codified into what is now called the National Incident Management system, otherwise known as NIMS. What NIMS does for us is establish is a common language a common command structure and very specifically delineated responsibilities for each command sector. If NIMS is used correctly a firefighter from California should be able to come here to Whitehall and jump right into our system and understand what we're talking about and vice versa.
I can kind of already hear what you're thinking - what does this have to do with John chapter 15 and the video we just watched that depicted this section of scripture?
Today we are going to be exploring how God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit work as one within the church.
It's been a few weeks since we've been in John's Gospel so let me refresh where we are. We are in a section of John's Gospel called the Upper Room discourse. These are a series of teachings that Jesus does immediately before going to the cross. This is the last time that Jesus is going to be able to teach his disciples as a group before he goes to his death.
Jesus is being very specific about what he wants His teachings are be before He leaves his disciples with and one of the most important things that Jesus can bring his disciples to understand is exactly how the Kingdom of God is going to operate given what he is about to do on the cross.
Jesus has to help them unlearn what they think they know.
Remember Old Testament theology has been ingrained in these men. Also remember their belief in Messiah is that of an earthly King that throws out Roman power not of a spiritual Kingdom that comes in and changes the hearts and minds of the people who enter this Kingdom.
So Jesus is using this time to start the processes that will change their thinking from the Old Testament where it's only about God the Father and bringing them into New Testament where they are also going to be talking about how God the Son and how the God The Holy Spirit are going to be involved in this new church.
So we're going to look at John chapter 15 today and see how Jesus is using it to speak prophetically in how this new organization called the church is going to function.
Let's ask God's blessing on our time.
Prayer
We're going to break this down today and you're going to see how Jesus is already looking forward past the cross, past his resurrection, and past his ascension and even past the outpouring of the Holy Spirit coming into the church to give His disciples some basic instruction of how the triune God is going to be intimately involved in this new thing called the church.
I. How the Triune God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit functions in the church
Jesus is laying a foundation here that Paul is going to build on about 20 years after these events. What Jesus gives in brief, Paul expands on later in the bible.
Basis- 1 Cor 12:4-6 (outline briefly)
First Corinthians 12 verse 4- There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.
A. Jesus is the vine
Jesus said in verse 1 of John 15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.
The first thing that Jesus says in this teaching of how the church is going to operate is the different roles that the father and the son are going to play in the church.
Jesus compares himself to a vine and then make several conditional statements about how He relates to us using this word picture.
A conditional statement means that there is something required of us in order for us to be able to gain the benefits of being a follower of Jesus.
1. The first condition- Jesus tells us in verse 4 to remain in him. He then explains why in verse 5 when he says I am the vine you are the branches if you remain in me and I in you will bear much fruit but apart from me you can do nothing.
The condition being set here by Jesus is simply this if he is not the source, if he is not the power behind the labor you're doing for him, and if the end of it is not his glory- then everything you do is a waste of time.
Jesus follows up with telling us what happens to those who try to serve God without HIM- it’s a very fearsome picture that Jesus brings to our minds and that picture is a branch being broken off and thrown into a fire. let me illustrate this
There is a tree out in front of the church and once a year it sprouts beautiful and fragrant purple blossoms. Now imagine That 2 weeks before this tree is going to sprout these beautiful purple blossoms there is a branch on that tree that says my blossoms are so beautiful that I don't really need to even be part of this tree anymore I'm just going to break myself off and let myself be beautiful in my own way.
What's going to happen to that branch? Is it ever going to blossom? No! It has cut itself off from the source of its nourishment the source of the ability to create beauty in this world. What if it blossomed and then broke off- same thing, it’s beauty would quickly fade and decay would set in.
That is why Jesus is telling us that apart from him you and I can do nothing. If we cut ourselves off from the very source of life itself how can we expect to be able to produce life in anyone else?
When our hearts are filled with rebellion or filled with a sense of pride and arrogant thinking that it's all about our talent, our skill, or our effort that's when Jesus says we are broken off from him and fit only for the fire.
Another illustration, this time from the bible-
In Matthew chapter 7 Jesus is talking specifically about false prophets. Within biblical history false prophets were men and women who assumed a false spiritual authority for their own benefit. These were men and women who are never called by God or never used by God, and yet they tried to lead people in their own strength and own ideas. Unfortunately, they led a great many people into a false religion or a false sense of security that they were saved and in God’s favor.
Jesus says this about them in Matthew chapter 7 starting in verse 21
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’
23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
A few years ago we went through the Sermon on the Mount, and I said that it is this scripture that is the most frightening to me personally. It’s sobering to me because it really reveals the heart of everything that I do, or any Christian leader does for the Kingdom.
Speaking just to Pentecostals now- What I have discovered over the years- The scary thing is this- the anointing can be faked. You get a person blessed with natural charisma and a silver tongue and you will watch him or her build a crowd. It will look alive, it might even look spiritual, but in the end, it was never connected to the vine.
This is why I spent so much of my time teaching you the truth Versus preaching you into an emotional frenzy. I do this so you can spot the fake.
Let's look at the next role in the New Testament church which belongs to our Father God.
B. God is the gardener (husbandman)
If you were to ask your average Christian what the role of God the Father is in the New Testament church many Christians would have a hard time explaining it. Some might say that God is taking a back seat to Jesus now. That is not true. God is still God. He is still our Father and is to be the source and direction of our worship. Jesus describes the Fathers function and compares it to that of a gardener. Some of the older translations like the King James uses a word called husbandmen which is essentially the same thing- someone who works the soil to produce a crop. In fact, if you went to the University to get a degree in farming your degree would say a bachelor’s of science in husbandry.
God the Father's job as the gardener is to cut off every branch that bears no fruit and to prune the ones who do bear fruit.
First, let's talk about the pruning. Pruning Is defined as controlling how a plant is going to grow. Even though from the outside this constant trimming and cutting away of parts of the plant looks cruel, it is for the plants own good that it is done so that it can produce a stronger plant which increases the yield or output of whatever that plant is being grown for.
For example, my grandfather used to have a rose bush. Once or twice a week he would go out there and examine all of the various branches within this bush and use his Clippers to strategically snip at branches within the bush that did not look healthy. He told me that if you did this the right way the Rose bush would produce bigger, stronger and more beautiful flowers then if it was just left by itself.
You and I are the same way. God is our gardener and husbandmen who is pruning our spirit and our lives. God is always watching us, and when he sees a sick branch coming out of our spirit he reaches down with his Clippers and clips it so that we grow stronger and produce more beauty to attract others to Jesus.
Our problem is that we keep picking up these things he's clipping off and trying to shove them back into the vine. If you stick enough dead things into an otherwise healthy plant You're going to cause Sickness to the entire plant, which is why it's important that when the father prunes away those things which do not benefit us spiritually, we leave them behind us at the cross.
This pruning will look a little different for everybody. My plan of growth will look nothing like the plan God has for you. You and I aren’t the same kind of plant- this would be a good time to say amen and Thank you Jesus!
Also- we need to trust God in his wisdom that his plan for growth is not only pattern for us as individuals but also for us as the community of believers that we call the local church.
There is a positive side of the pruning but there is also a negative side to it. God is faithful to prune away those things which will ultimately cause us harm on a personal level, but he is also faithful to prune away people who are ultimately be harmful to his church on the corporate level.
This pruning at the church level doesn't necessarily mean that this person is getting thrown into a fire-it could just be that this person has reached the maximum amount of growth that they can within our church family so God needs to move them to another church family where they can continue to grow continue to contribute and continue to bear fruit for the Kingdom.
I Cor 12:18 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.
It's God's prerogative to move people as he sees fit and I just trust that he knows what he's doing and bless those people that God continues to use them to bring glory to his son.
The third thing Jesus talks about in John chapter 15 regarding the way that the Godhead moves in the New Testament church is the role of the Holy Spirit.
C. The Spirit controls the fruit
Briefly going back first Corinthians 12 , the Apostle Paul said
There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them
The holy spirit's role in the New Testament church is to be the conduit of spiritual power in the life of the believer. God the father places within us specific gifts, talents, abilities, and desires that the Spirit then takes and supercharges them for use in the Kingdom of God.
A little bit of a rabbit trail here concerning the Holy Spirit.
A few moments ago, I mentioned that this nebulous term in the Pentecostal church known as the anointing can be faked. Let me define that term anointing.
The anointing as biblically defined is God The father’s personal stamp of approval, pleasure, authority, and power being placed on an individual to enrich the lives of believers in the local church to the glory of Jesus Christ.
True God given anointing will always point the believer to Jesus. Period.
If a person tries to use the Holy Spirit to draw a person or crowd to their own gifting or talent, they should immediately be rejected and removed because they are operating in the flesh or worse manifesting something from the Kingdom of darkness to deceive the people of God.
What is our litmus test to determine what is true anointing? The litmus test is this what are they pointing to who are they glorifying, and does it draw you into a deeper more committed relationship with God or draw you into a deeper fellowship of them.
Exit in the rabbit trail.
Verse 8 of John chapter 15 Jesus describes the benefit of us living within the holy spirit's guidance and it is this Jesus said this is to my father's glory that you bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples. It shows that the entire Godhead is involved in sustaining and growing the local church through both its individuals and as a collective representation of the Kingdom of God.
There is also a second prophetic message with in John chapter 15 that I'm going to briefly touch on this morning and that is
II. Command to Persevere
If we look at versus 9 through 10 and 14 they contain conditional statements. Remember we said that a conditional statement simply means that there is something required for something else to take place. We could say a conditional statement would be it will remain dark in here until we turn on the light. The condition is we need to turn on the light in order to drive away the darkness. Within john's chapter 15 there are several conditional statements.
For example in verse 9 Jesus gives the idea that he wants us to live up to
Jesus said in verse 9 As the father has loved me so I have loved you. Now remain in my love.
Jesus then tells us how to do it and they are all conditions of remaining in his love.
Verse 10 says if you keep my commands you will remain in my love. That is a conditional statement. Jesus is tying our faith in him to our obedience to the moral commands of God. What Jesus is saying is that they are not mutually exclusive.
Our obedience proves our love. It shows the world that what we believe is actually true. To put this in modern terms, too many Christians today are claiming to be Green Bay Packers fans while wearing a Vikings Jersey. What do I mean by that?
It means that you're saying one thing but on the outside, you're showing another. The world can only judge what is on the outside.
You can't tell people of the life changing gospel if you have not allowed that gospel to change your life.
This is how our obedience to the commands of God is tied in with our Salvation. It allows what is happening on the inside of us to be shown also on the outside of us that in every part of our private personal and public life matches what we actually believe.
I had to make this incredibly important point to show you this-
Verse 6 of John 15 says this- if you do not remain in me you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers such branches are picked up and thrown into the fire and burned.
What is Jesus saying here?
It means you can fall away from the gospel. It means if you flirt too long in the enemy's camp he will snare you and you will lose that good deposit that Jesus placed within you. Jesus is speaking prophetically into the hearts of everyone in the sound of my voice right now. You can't play with fire and expect not to be burned.
Common sense tells you that and the Bible proclaims it over and over and over again and even shows us in the lives of the people who have gone before what happens when we try to play in the Kingdom of darkness while proclaiming we're actually in the Kingdom of God.
It will always always always end badly. God will not be mocked what a person sows that they will reap. If you sow to the Kingdom of heaven you will reap blessing and if you sow to the Kingdom of darkness you will reap destruction. It is a binary choice, there is no third way.
That is why throughout the gospels Jesus commands us to persevere. That's why throughout his epistles Paul warns us of those who fall away. And that is why God gave us this book, so we could see both the good and the foolish actions of those who came before so that we could learn from them and avoid their mistakes.
True wisdom can be defined as this -you don't learn from your mistakes you learn from other people's mistakes, so you don't have to go through it. Amen?
I want to leave us this morning with a final thought
A. World’s Reaction to the church (Vs 18-20)
18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you
This sounds like such a downer to end a sermon with. Most of us live our lives in such a way so that people like us. Yet Jesus is insinuating here that no matter how hard you try people are not going to like you if you are a Christian.
The reason is you're a Packers fan, wearing a Packers Jersey in the Vikings stadium during the NFC Championship Game. You're not going to get any love from the people around you are wearing purple.
Let me illustrate this another way-
From the 1950s up until the mid 1990’s there was this thing called the Cold War in which the Soviet bloc was against the entire western world and for decades we all lived on the precipice of world destruction. But it's stressful and bad as the Cold War was it's nothing compared to the war being fought in the spiritual realm between the Kingdom of God in the Kingdom of darkness. The animosity and hatred being shown to us from satan's Kingdom is unparalleled in any human description I can use. If you think there's a divide in this country right now between Republicans and Democrats it ain't nothing compared to the divide between God and Satan.
That's the world we live in and it's a world what that largely follows the Kingdom of darkness. So when you, as a representative of the Kingdom of God, interact with it that is why you get the hatred back.
We are at war.
But, we don't fight this war as the world does.
The Bible says that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal- in other words not of this world but they are mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds.
You ask what are these strongholds?
These strongholds are simply the grip that sin has on the heart of every single human being that hasn't given their life to Christ.
The weapons of our warfare are showing the love of God through Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit that will show a world the way to salvation. Our world desperately needs that, amen?
All rise
We need to introduce them to the God who loves them, died for them, and wants to live in them and give them the true life HE has always wanted for them.
Let's pray
Prayer to be in the vine
Prayer to allow God to prune us
Prayer to use what God has blessed us with to further the Kingdom.
Prayer to be committed to mission
