Family Relations

A recent 60 minutes news program featured a choir in Harlem for those age 55 and older a real DMA choir. These are folks however who have lived hard lives and have tragic stories. And so Lady decided to gather folks like this and form a choir which she did and they've done programs there in New York City. They sing together as a choir and then there are several individuals who will tell their story and sing a song that summarizes their life story. It was quite an interesting program and there was one man's story that just gripped my heart. He had been abandoned by his mother in a hallway when he was two weeks old. He was not given a name at birth. In fact they showed his birth certificate and by father the word un-none. By mother the word un-none. By name A1203. Standing for abandoned child number 1203. Yet no name. You might expect he drifted through life with no foundation, no direction. He's been a lot of time in prison where again he was known as a number. When it came time for him to sing his song it was a song he himself had composed and in the song he asked the question who his mother was, where she was and why she left him. This man's 60 years old and still longing, aching for some foundation of family to know that he had a family. As he was telling the interviewer his story he talked about the fact that he realized there may be several reasons why his mother would leave him. Maybe it had to do with finances. Maybe it had to do with some disease that she had and she knew she would never be able to raise him. Maybe she just expected because of her condition that it would be better for both her and him not to raise him. But he ended his story with this sentence and it's what really struck my heart. He said, I only hope. I'll never know why she left me. I only hope it was not because she didn't want me. See your old man still with the ache in his heart of feeling like he had no family. There is nothing more foundational, more impactful, more dear to our hearts and to our identity than family. And so it should come as no surprise that as Jesus is encouraging and comforting his disciples who are distraught and fearful and anxious it should come as no surprise that he will eventually get to the fact that they are in a family. They have a family and in this section in the upper room of comfort and encouragement he reminds them of the fact that they are in a family. God is their father. They are in Christ's family and they have one another as brothers in Christ and so he reminds them of the family relationships with God and with fellow believers. And so doing we draw the same encouragement from these words that Jesus leaves his disciples in John 15. We draw the same encouragement. Christ encourages us with a reminder of family relationships with him and with fellow believers. So it is that family relationship, that relationship with Christ and with others in Christ who that we want to focus on this morning. As we come to John 15, Jesus begins talking about it and we will begin here as well with our relationship with Christ. In the first 11 verses Jesus highlights and explains the relationship that the disciples have with him. That relationship is marked by abiding and fruit bearing. Those are two concepts that come up over and over and over again. Those are the two major threads that go through what Jesus is teaching here. Everything and fruit bearing. That is what marks our relationship with Christ. But as Jesus often does, he taught using figurative language, figurative speech, an analogy, an illustration to get across this truth. Often Jesus would illustrate spiritual truths with objects that were close at hand or things that his hearers would be very familiar with. He has done that a lot in the Gospel of John. In the temple services in John chapter 7 where the high priest is pouring out the water that represents the water from the rock in Israel's wilderness journeys and how God provided for them, Jesus stands up at that very moment and says, if any man thirsts, let him come to me. Later as Jesus walks through the temple courts and those huge candelabras, those huge torches that would light up the whole temple grounds and even through part of Jerusalem for the feast of lights, the feast of Hanukkah. Jesus looks at those and says, I am the light of the world. In John chapter 10, he talks about being the shepherd. His followers are sheep and so he's using a lot of figures of speech, illustrations to get across spiritual truth. He does it here again with the vine and the branches. It is an extended illustration with numerous symbols. This is not a parable. This is not a story that is told that has one main point. This is an illustration and analogy that has lots of different likenesses to who we are in our relationship with Christ. There are numerous symbols. Actually there are nine symbols in this illustration of the vine and the branches. What we need to do is take a closer look at this. You will not understand what Jesus is getting across here about our relationship with him unless you understand the symbols that he uses. I am convinced that much of the confusion on this passage and misunderstanding of it is due to the fact that people don't rightly see what the symbols are and what their representing. We will take some time to look at that this morning. Let's begin there. The first six verses give us the symbols that Jesus uses. I mentioned there are nine of them. I have got them grouped under five categories. The first symbols that Jesus describes for us are the vine, the gardener and the branches. Obviously that is at the core of this symbolism. The vine, the gardener and the branches. Look at verse 1. I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. I am the vine. You are the branches. We have a vine that has branches and a gardener that tins that vine and vine. What does all that represent? Well Jesus tells us he is the true vine. He was choosing an emblem, a symbol that would be very well known to his heirs to these 11 disciples. And really to any other Jew, the vine was a national symbol. There was a vine on their coins that had been there for 160 years. As they are walking by the temple area to go over to the garden of Gethsemaneur, the cross to Kibberen Valley up to the garden of Gethsemaneur, they could have looked back and seen on the gates of the temple a huge gold vine which decorated the entrance to the temple. And today a vine with grapes is the symbol of the tourism department of the Israeli government. I remember when I visited Israel back in 1984 and got off the plane in Tel Aviv, you see this tourism symbol and it is of two of the spies from the Old Testament carrying a huge vine with huge clusters of grapes on it which the book of numbers talks about them and doing, that is the symbol for the national tourism of Israel. So it is a very common symbol back in biblical times and even still today. But when Jesus uses this symbol of the vine, he is not thinking of tourism and he is not thinking of coins, probably not even thinking about the temple. Jesus is going back to the Old Testament because in the Old Testament, Israel was pictured as God's vineyard, God's vine, there is an extended illustration of that in Isaiah 5. But the problem with Israel is she was an unfruitful vine put forth bad grapes that whatever grapes she had and thus because she did not bear the fruit God was looking for, God took Israel into judgment. That is the figure of speech. Isaiah uses. So when Jesus says, I am the true vine, he is distinguishing himself from the bad vine, the false vine of the Old Testament, Israel, Jesus in contrast to Israel is obedient to the Father. Jesus in contrast to Israel will produce fruit through his followers as we shall see. So Jesus is the true vine faithful to the Father, producing fruit. He is to the Father's will, even to the point of death which he will experience the next day. So he is the true vine, the gardener, obviously the Father, Jesus says so in verse 1, the Father, God, is the one who tends the vineyard, who will do the work that we will see being done a little bit later, the pruning and so forth that is done in the garden. That is God, the Father. Then there are the branches. The branches represent anyone who professes faith in Christ, anyone who is somehow connected to Christ. There are two kinds of branches in the illustration, fruitful branches and unfruitful branches or branches that in the illustration have no fruit whatsoever. Now we will show this as we go along, so hang on to this thought, we will try to prove it later, but I believe the fruitful branches are genuinely saved people, believers, and I believe the unfruitful branches are unbelievers, unsaved people. We hope to prove that as we go along. But the basic elements of this illustration, Christ is the vine, the Father is the gardener, there are two different kinds of branches, one genuine one not that are somehow in some way connected with Christ. Then there is the illustration of the fruit. It is a major part of the story, so we have got to understand what Jesus means when he talks about bearing fruit. Look at verse 2. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You can tell this whole thing is about fruit bearing. Verse 3. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you, no branch can bear fruit by itself, it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine. You are the branches if you remain in me and I and you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Let's get down to verse 8, where he makes a very important point. This is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples. We will come back to that in just a moment. Let's talk about what he means by fruit. What is fruit? Well, a lot of people think this is so winning. Fruit is so winning. Winning souls to Christ. It's wonderful fruit and wonderful evidence of one who is truly saved is to be able to lead someone else to Christ. But that's probably not what John is talking about. The word fruit is used 66 times in the New Testament only one time does it clearly refer to soul winning or the winning of souls. That's in John 4 for 36, where Jesus talks about the reaper and the sower and the reaper both bringing in the crop or the fruit of their labors. That's talking about winning souls. But no other place does it clearly refer to that. I believe Jesus has something else in mind here, not winning of souls, although that's very important. But I believe that Jesus here is talking about fruit being the evidence of godly life and Christlike character. That's the fruit in a person's life. Godliness. Christlike character. It's the evidence of the life of the vine flowing through the branches, producing evidence of life, fruit. It's kind of like the fruit of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control. That ninefold cluster of fruit is the evidence of being controlled by the spirit. And the fruit Jesus is talking about here is character qualities, godliness, lightness to Christ. That is the inevitable evidence to some degree of a person who is truly saved. I believe the fruit is character qualities, evidence of genuine life. The Bible has a lot to say about this. James talks about the fact that if you really have faith, it will show itself and works. He says it's dead. In other words, if you are genuinely saved, there will be some evidence of it in your life. Some evidence of the fact that you have a hunger and a thirst for the things of God. You love him. You love his people. You hate sin. And when you fall, you recognize it's wrong and it grieves you. And you don't love the world and this world system that is opposed to Christ and the gospel. In this illustration, every true believer bears fruit, although not as much as we would like or not as much as we could possibly. But every true believer bears some fruit. That's why Jesus speaks of this fruit in three different levels. In verse two, he talks about bearing fruit. In verse two, he also talks about being pruned so that we bear more fruit. In verse five, he says something about bearing much fruit. So there are different levels of fruit bearing. Some of us just have a little bit of fruit, a little bit of evidence. We haven't really grown much. We're not really strong in Christ yet. But we have some fruit. There is some evidence that we've been born again. We've been changed. We have a new life, new direction, new purpose. There's at least some evidence of that. There are others who have more fruit and there are some who are bearing much fruit. It's kind of like Jesus told in another story, back in Matthew 13, the parables of the kingdom. He talked about the sower going forth to sow seed. Seeds the word and the soils are the different kinds of heart attitudes that either respond or don't respond to the word. One soil on which the word falls is good soil, which is soil that the Holy Spirit has tilled and tended as open receptive to the word and responds. It brings forth fruit. The evidence of genuine life. Now he says some 30-fold, some 60-fold, some 100-fold. So even there he talks about different levels of fruit bearing. A lot of us at 30-fold fruit bearing and maybe even lower. We need to move on and grow toward 60, toward 100, toward much fruit, toward more fruit, and more of those kinds of things. We need to be growing toward but every believer has some evidence in your life that you are a new creature in Christ, some evidence of new direction, new longings, new loves, new heart, some evidence of that. We'll truly be there if you're truly saved. That's the fruit that he's talking about. But then he goes on to talk about the fruit less branches and these fruitless branches are cut off and burned. So what's that all about? Who are the fruitless branches and what does it mean for them to be cut off and burned? Well look at verse 2, you see the illustration there. He cuts off that verb could maybe even more clearly be translated takes away. He takes away every branch in me that bears no fruit while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. So he's introduced the idea of some branches that do not bear fruit. They are taken away and in verse 6 this is what he says, if you do not remain in me you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. Now who are these branches? This is probably the part of the illustration that causes the most difficulty for folks. Some people see these branches as people who have come to know Christ, they get saved and then they lose their salvation and they're thrown into the fire, eternal judgment. That cannot be what this means because Jesus himself and John in other parts of this gospel and the writers of other books of Scripture are very clear about the fact that if you trust Christ as your Savior you have eternal life. By definition that means it cannot end eternal life and Jesus himself says they will never perish, John 10, they will never know, never perish. That's every true believer, we'll never perish. So that can't be what this means. There are others who look at this passage and say, well these fruitless branches, they're Christians, it says they're in me, so they've got to be Christians and evidently they're not really living for the Lord and so they're chastened, they're disciplined, maybe even with death, that's how they're separated from the vine and their works are burned at the judgment seat of Christ. But that's not what the text says, it's not what the illustration is about. The illustration says, and Jesus likens us to these things, against not a parable, he says, not saying you're like this, he's saying this is you. If you are a fruitless branch, if you have no fruit on you, you are removed from the vine, you are separated from the life of the vine and it's not the works but it's the branch that's thrown into the fire. Now if the illustration holds any meaning at all, I believe it has to be people who are not genuinely saved. They have some connection with Christ, they have some profession of being, they would call themselves a Christian, they've identified with Christian things or with a church or with Christian people but there's no fruit life, no evidence of life, no fruit at all, not at all. And Jesus says those people are taken away in judgment thrown into the fire. This is already happening with Judas. Judas is a good example of what Jesus is talking about here, he identified himself with disciples, he would have called himself a follower of Christ but he was not saved, he was not genuine and he is one who will be judged in fire. It's already happened back in chapter 6, remember when Jesus fed the multitude with the five loaves and two fishes and the multitude wanted to make him king and he realized that was just a premature desire to make him a political ruler, they had no spiritual interest at heart and so he preaches this hard sermon and in verse 66 of chapter 6 it says many of his disciples left and followed him no more. These people could be called disciples in a loose sense that they were following Jesus around the countryside and listening to him teach but they were not genuine believers and so they left. Now the thing that holds up a lot of people is those two words in me, back in verse 2, every branch in me that bears no fruit and some people say well they are in Christ. To say they are in Christ is to go over to Paul's epistles and use Paul's term for genuine believers and bring it back to what Christ is saying. We are not talking about being in Christ here in the same sense Paul talked about it, to be in Christ in the sense that Paul mentioned it is to be a true believer. Jesus talked about this concept a lot of people who are somehow loosely connected with him but not genuine and thus not real believers in the parables of the kingdom Jesus talked about the seed that's sown in the field and some of it comes up as wheat, some of it comes up as tears. Now the tears look like wheat but they are not wheat, they are not genuine. So there is a lot of counterfeits, a lot of people who would identify themselves as believers who are not believers. Jesus talked about the kingdom of God as like a net that's thrown out into the sea and it gathers a bunch of fish, Matthew 13 verses 47 to 50. He says there are some good fish and there are some bad fish and in the judgment they'll be separated out and it will be clear. It is in that larger kingdom sense that Jesus is still speaking. So yes he can talk about people who are somehow connected to him but in a loose superficial way and they are not genuinely saved. I think the illustration breaks down if you don't see these as unsaved people who are separated from the life of the vine are withered, have no life in them and they are cast into the fire. Here is the question every one of us needs to face. Are you a genuine believer in Christ or are you a pretender, a deceiver, maybe even deceiving yourself in to thinking you're saved. You are identified with believers, you would call yourself a follower of Christ but if you look deeply into your heart and life you would have to say there is really no evidence that I am a new person in Christ. There is really no desire for the things of God. I really don't like what is going on here when I am at church. I come because I am supposed to. I really don't have a hunger and a thirst for the Word of God. I take my Bible home, throw it on the shelf. I never look at it again. Never had a desire to. I have no love for the things of God, no desire to be more Christ like, no desire for holiness. I am full of the philosophy of this world and I am living for this world. You better ask yourself my friend whether or not you are a true believer, whether or not you are a real follower of Christ or whether or not you are just somehow loosely connected to Him and not really a believer, whether you are a tear that looks like the wheat but is not really wheat. You see there are branches that produce no fruit and Jesus says they are separated from they are taken away, they are separated from the life of the vine and thrown into fire. There will be many people Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7 who will cry out to me in that day. Did we not do many miracles in your name? And Jesus will say the part from me I never knew you. If it's possible to do miracles and say that you're doing them in Jesus name and still be an unbeliever then it is very possible to sit in church and not be a true believer. To kind of go along with the show, to kind of do what's expected and not be a true believer. That is the distinction Jesus is making in this passage. Between genuine believers who have some evidence in their life of a changed life of a desire and a hunger for the things of God and those who claim to be followers of Christ but have no heart desire for the things of God and no fruit in their lives, no evidence of any godly character qualities or traits. Those are the fruitless branches. The taking away in the burning I believe refers to eternal judgment in hell in the lake of fire. Then Jesus goes on with the illustration. There's another important part of the illustration and that is the pruning. If you look at verse 2, Jesus says this, he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. What is the pruning? How is it done? What is the instrument God uses to do it? What's this all about? The pruning is the painful but necessary process of the removal of some things in our lives that hinder us from being more like Christ, thus bearing more fruit. Anything in our lives that hinders us from being more like Christ, God goes to work cutting out, cutting that out so that we become more fruitful. We become more like Christ, we become more godly in our character. I'm no gardener, nor the son of a gardener. I know very little about gardening. What I remember is growing up, dusting the bean plants and that kind of thing. I did a little bit of gardening then and we did a little bit in Indiana but I've never gardened much. I've never had a vineyard so I really don't understand all this concept so I had to do a little bit of research this week. I found out that with viticulturalists or great growers, great orchard or vineyard owners there are four kinds of pruning they do. This is a very intentional process. One of the types of pruning that is called pinching, it basically removes a growing tip so that it doesn't grow too rapidly. Dust just the vine is spreading out in all sorts of ways that cannot sustain really good grapes growing on that vine. There's pinching that happens early on. Then there's a second kind of pruning called topping and that's when a foot or two of new growth shoots up. You know like it does on a tree or other plants on a vine. If a foot or two of new growth shoots up all of a sudden they will cut that off. They will top the whole vine in order to feed more of the sap, the life of the vine into the part that will produce grapes better and not put all the life of the vine into just all these little shoots going everywhere. That's a second kind. Third kind of pruning is called thinning and that's when it starts to begin to produce little clusters of grapes they will actually call some of those and thin some of those out so the grapes that remain and are allowed to grow become better, bigger, juicier, more succulent grapes rather than doing a million grapes, all of which are little teeny things that have no taste. You've got a better group of grapes because of this pruning process of thinning. And then there is the cutting away of suckers, those little tendrils that grow out from the vine that really are not going to produce anything that just suck up the life of the vine that cut all those off. So there are lots of different kinds of pruning of vineyards. It was a process that probably everyone in Jesus audience would have understood, would have known, it's a process that maybe some of you do but most of us may not. It's a process that requires some cutting and it is painful. If you were the vine and you're shooted up all these new little tendrils and somebody comes and walks them off, you'd go out, that hurts. That doesn't feel good. Same way with God producing in our lives Godliness and Christian character, Christlike character, the knife is painful. It is a painful process because the things that God is cutting away at in our lives are things like sins, things like moral character flaws that if we don't get over those, if we don't grow in those areas, if we don't get those out of our lives we will never be what God wants us to be to be like Christ. He's cutting away at habits that have come into our lives that have taken over and consumed too much of our attention and our effort that become our central core. He's cutting away, cutting away at those. He's cutting away at pride. He's cutting away at self-reliance. He's cutting away at resentment and bitterness. He's cutting away sometimes activities and interests that hinder us from growing and producing the fruit of Christlikeness like we should. It is a painful process but all of that cutting, all of that whacking away and digging stuff out of our lives is although painful a necessary process of producing fruit, of producing Christlik character, godling the character. It's necessary, C.S. Lewis, as he so often does in his books, The Chronicles of Marnie of Ceres, has a beautiful illustration of this in the story, The Voyage of the Dawn Treter. One of the characters in that book is a young boy by the name of Eustace Scrabbe. He's actually a cousin of the main characters in the series and he is a selfish, immature, wicked little boy that is always out to do something to hurt someone else if it will benefit him. In the book, even more so than in the movie, you see this time where he not only gets captured in a dragon's Larry, he turns into a dragon himself. Lewis is trying to illustrate what we really are like if we just let our flesh, our sinful nature take over and control. He cries to remove the scales himself but he can't do it. So finally, the lion comes to him. The lion, if you're familiar with the series, represents Christ. The lion comes to him and uses this himself in the book, describes what happens next. He says, this is what the lion said but I don't know if he spoke. You will have to let me undress you, talking about taking off the scales and the skin of the dragon. You will have to let me undress you. I was afraid of his claws. I can tell you but I was pretty nearly desperate so I just lay flat on my back and let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right to my heart and when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt more than anything I had ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. He had never been there. Never had that happen to you where God was cutting away some things in your life. It was very painful, very hard and you felt like it was going to the very heart and yet you knew that it would be the way God wanted you to become more like him, more Christ, like bear more fruit. It is important that like Eustace, we let him do his work. David said it this way in Psalm 119, verse 71, it was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees. Affliction is not easy, it is hard, it hurts. But David says it was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees. He is what he is saying is I would not have known the depth of some of your word if I hadn't come to that place where you were pruning cutting off some things in my life. James says it this way in James chapter 1, he says consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds. Now if you can stop long enough just to hear this, it will not feel joyful. So that is why James says you have got to consider it. You have got to weigh the facts and come to a spiritual logical conclusion that this is joyful because it is not going to feel like it. If you go by your feelings in times of trial, you will not get what this passage is talking about. So he says consider it pure joy my brothers and sisters when you face trials of many kinds. And why? Because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And notice what he says next, that perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete not lacking anything. What happens to most of us is when the lion starts digging with his deep claws, when the gardener starts pruning with his shears with his knife, it is uncomfortable it doesn't feel good. And so we squirm out from under it or we always pray for God to get us out from under it. And what James is saying is endure it, endure it, let it finish its work. Because only when the scales are ripped off and the dragon skin is removed and the pruning is done only then will be complete and mature in Christ. And even we will be bearing more fruit and much fruit to be like Christ. That is the pruning, let him do his work. But you say John sometimes, sometimes the knife feels more like a sword and it feels like it's cutting me straight to my heart. You know why it feels that way? Because it is. It is a sword. You know when I think of pruning, Jean and I were working on a rose bush yesterday that gives us all kinds of trouble. And I had to get a little excited to get some of that old thick dead stuff pruned because all I had was some little pruning shears. That doesn't do a lot of deep cutting. But I got myself amped up enough to where I was whacking away at that thing like crazy. Man, it was stuff flying all over the yard. When our gardener does his pruning, he does use a sword. Not a little pruning, it's a sword. Verse 3 may have seemed like it didn't really fit with the gardener image and so forth, but it does. Jesus talks about in verse 2 pruning the fruit bearing branches so they'll be even more fruitful. Jean says, you are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. You see the word clean in verse 3? You see the word prunes in verse 2? I know it doesn't look like it in your English Bible, but they're the same word. Same word. Same root word in the original language. So to be prune is also described as a cleaning process and that process is done because of the word through the word of God. That's the instrument that is used. The sword that is used in our pruning is the word of God. How does God grow us? How does he mature us? How does he do the pruning of cutting off those things in our lives that keep us from bearing more fruit? It is through his word and that's why the word must be central in any church. Must be the word of God that is taught and preached. We live in a day that exalts and glorifies the amazing story. And I love amazing stories. I started the message with one of them, but they cannot become what we depend on. The amazing story is only an illustration of what this book teaches. We live in a day that I believe is very well described by Paul in 2 Timothy 3, where people do not have a heart to listen to the clear teaching of the Bible. But they have itching ears, ears that want to hear something exciting and fantastic that will not produce true growth, lasting growth, lasting Christ's likeness. It is only this book that will do that. I will go to my grave believing that it is the Bible, the teaching and preaching of the word of God that produces Christ's character, that produces growth, that God uses to mature us and shape us. I know that it's not exciting sometimes. I know that it's hard sometimes. I know that sometimes because of the one preaching, it gets boring sometimes. But I also know it is the only instrument God uses to do his surgical work of pruning in us. And that's why the writer of Hebrews would say in Hebrews 4, 12, for the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It, the word of God, penetrates even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joined in. And it's the word of God that is not a little pruning-shear or a little dainty, little knife. It's a sword that cuts deep all the way to the heart, all the way to the inner person and who we really are and what we're really dealing with at a very deep level. It is the word that does that. That's how the pruning takes place. But there's one other figure of speech that we must deal with. Part of this illustration, we talked about the vine, the gardener, the branches, the fruit, the fruit, the branches, the cutting off, the burning and the pruning. There's one other thing that's very important to this story and that's the abiding. What does it mean to abide in Christ? And I'm using the word that the King James uses and the ESV has chosen to use the word abide. The NIV uses the word remain and as we read these verses every time you see the word remain, think of the word abide. I want to use that word because it's the word that has entered our Christian vocabulary and our hymns. To a great degree, it's been misunderstood. Jesus says in verse four, remain or abide in me as I also abide in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must abide in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. If you abide in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. You can do nothing. If you do not remain in me or abide in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. And then in verses nine and ten he talks about it somewhere. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now abide in my love. If you keep my command, you will abide in my love. And by the way, the keeping of commands in John's literature is the evidence of salvation. That's clear in first John. You will abide in my love just as I kept my Father's commands and abide in his love. Now a lot of people look at this abiding and they think of it in terms of fellowship with Christ. Some believers abide and some don't. Some have fellowship with Christ and some don't. And that much is true, but that's not what abiding means. And so that word abiding has come into our popular terminology and even our himnity, himnology, in that sense of having fellowship with Christ. That's not what John means. John himself in his own writings clarifies what he means by abiding in Christ. And he really fleshes it out in first John, his first epistle. Look at these verses in first John 4-12. They're on the screen for you. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us. Okay, see the word lives. Every time you see the word lives in this passage, it's the same word as remains or abides. Trust me, I looked it up. If you want me to show you my Greek text, I'll show you. Every time it's the Greek verb minnow, it's the same word abide, remain. It's translated here in the NIV, lives. So think in terms of abiding, okay? Notice how this is described. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is made complete in us. By the way, in first John, loving the brothers is an evidence of salvation. It's in chapter 2, it's in chapter 3, it's in chapter 4. Okay? So he's talking about the evidence of salvation. He says, this is how we know that we abide in him and he in us, he has given us of his spirit. That's another evidence of a true believer is the ministry of the spirit in the life, convicting of sin and so forth. And he goes on to say, and we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his son, notice this, to be the savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, which is the same thing as saying he's the savior of the world, if anyone acknowledges that, God abides in them and they in God. It's clear that John equates abiding to salvation. He goes on to say, and so we know, and why I love God has for us. One is love, whoever abides in love abides in God and God in them. It's even clearer, back in chapter 3 of 1st John, verses 23 and 24, where he says, and this is his command, to believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ, that's salvation. And to love one another is he commanded us, which again in 1st John is an evidence of salvation. And one who keeps God's commands abides in him and he in them. And this is how we know that he abides in us. We know it by the Spirit he gave us. I believe John uses this term abiding. It's a favorite term of John. He uses it to equate salvation, not fellowship, not something that some believers do and some believers don't. Abiding in Christ, remaining in Christ, living in Christ, is besaved. It is evidenced by the fact that you will love others and you will keep this command, both of those in 1st John or evidences of salvation. And what Jesus is saying here then in John 15 is, you remain in me and I remain in you, verse 4, remain in me and I also, as I also remain in you. That's not a command as much as it is a statement of the way things are for a believer. You remain in me, I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit, lest you remain in me. In other words, you can't produce godliness, you can't produce Christ like character unless you're saved. You can't do that on your own. In verse 5, he says, I'm the vine, you're the branches, if you remain in me, if you're abiding and I'm in you, if there's genuine salvation, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. If you are connected to the vine, if his wife is not flowing through you, if you're not saved, you cannot do anything. So wait a second. Unsafe people can do a lot of things. And they can, they can work their jobs, they can raise a family, they can be generous and kind, decent moral people. But remember what the fruit is? The fruit is godliness and Christ like character and you will never produce that on your own. You cannot do that apart from the vine because it is Christ who produces that through his life flowing through you. Now here's the summary and we're going to have to stop with this. Jesus says, I'm a vine and you are the true branches. My life is flowing through you so as to produce the evidence that you're genuinely saved. Christ like character, godliness, a heart for the things of God. Now some of you just got a little bit of fruit, some of you've got more, some of you've got much. There is a growth process that can be attained within this fruit bearing. But every genuine believer bears some fruit. Now there are other branches that have no fruit whatsoever. They're taken away in judgment. They're withered. They have no life in them. They're picked up, taken away and thrown into eternal fire in judgment. Why? Because they're not genuinely saved. They've looked like it, they've talked like it, they've tried to act like it, but they could not produce any true fruit because they were not connected to the vine. The distinction Jesus is making here is between true believers and people who are not true believers. And so here's what we need to ask ourselves. All of us in this room, including me, we need to ask ourselves, we need to take a good heart inventory just like Paul told the Corinthians Church, examine yourselves to see whether you're in the faith, 2 Corinthians 13 5, just like he told that church, examine yourself, I'm telling us this morning, we need to examine ourselves to see whether or not we're in the faith. Are we genuine believers? Is there some evidence of fruit in your life, some evidence of a heart for the things of God? Is there any desire to be holy? Some desire to love his word and to love his church and to love his people if there is nothing like that in your life. And if your true ambition and desire is all centered around the things of this world, then I would have to say based on the fruit of your life or the lack of spiritual fruit, you're not a believer. You're not saved. You've never been genuinely saved. Don't deceive yourself. You may have grown up in church. You may have made a profession somewhere along the line, but genuine believers have fruit. There is some evidence of new life within. Now, when you have that evidence, you need to be growing in Christ, allowing God to do His pruning work in your heart that will cut away the stuff that will drain fruit bearing out of you and will make you more like Christ. And more godly, there is a growth process, yes, but the real distinction here is whether or not you're genuinely saved. And that's what we need to ask ourselves. That's what I want us to ask ourselves right now. So would you bow with me in prayer? And let's ask ourselves, Lord, we need your help to look deep into our hearts. You've told us your word is the sword that penetrates into our hearts and deserts the thoughts and intents of the heart. You help us understand and see where we really are. What's in our heart? Only you can do that and only you can do it through your word. So I pray that through your word this morning, you would open up all of our hearts and help us to see where we are. Lord, if we are genuinely saved and we can say, Lord, it's not as strong as it should be, but there is evidence of life there, I do love you. I do want to be more like you. I do hurt when I sin and I'm not like you. Lord, there's some evidence of real life there. Lord, if that's the way we would honestly examine ourselves, then help us to desire to bear more fruit and much fruit to be more like Christ. And in that process, Lord, help us to allow you to prune us, to even hurt us so that we might bear better fruit, more fruit. And then Father, I pray that if on careful examination we would have to say, I can never point to a time, even though I may not remember the date, I cannot point to a time where I recognize myself to be a sinner and I trusted Jesus as my Savior. And there really has been no life change. I look deep into my heart and Lord, there's no hunger for the things of God. All I hunger for is position and fame and pleasure, possessions, the things of this world. That's what I live for. And Lord, there's really no heart for you. There's no evidence in my life I'm genuinely saved. And I pray that if that's the conclusion we come to, that we'd be willing to set aside all pride and humble ourselves to come to you. And genuinely be born again. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.