John chapter 15, we'll just be looking at the first 11 verses this evening. But if you look back at the end of chapter 14, there's a somewhat confusing statement that I didn't comment on last time. Jesus, after giving this glorious teaching on the Holy Spirit, says, I will no longer talk with you much, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. And then he says, rise, let us go from here. And yet it doesn't appear that they've gone anywhere. And there are various explanations given for this. And I think that probably the most reasonable one is that that was actually a military term. I'm just happy it's not one of mine That that term rise let us go from here that that was actually a military term used in battle Watch you hear Jesus use that again. We hear it in In the Garden of Gethsemane, when after Jesus has prayed three times and he sees Judas and the band coming, he says, rise, let us be going. It's the same term. And so it is very possible that they didn't go anywhere. But what Jesus was saying was, let's get ready. Let's gird up our minds. Let's let's pay attention. Let's turn our attention to this 15th chapter now, the first 11 verses. Again, let's give our careful hearing to the Word of God. 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 does bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this, my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, So I have loved you. Abide in my love. 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. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. Let's pray briefly. Father in heaven, we do again seek your blessing and we seek an outpouring of your spirit as we come to hear your word proclaimed and we seek to hear the voice of our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ. We pray that your spirit would open our minds and our hearts that we might behold the glory of our Savior or that he might give us a zeal to repent of our sin and a zeal to Walk in your ways. Lord, may Christ be lifted up among us this evening. We pray in His name and for His glory. Amen. We know that during this last week of our Lord's earthly life, we know that He and His disciples stayed in Bethany, and each day, Jesus and the disciples traveled into the temple courts where Jesus taught and It seems likely that they would pass through the temple courts one more time on their way to the garden of Gethsemane and That would have meant that each day They would have seen a magnificent sight Each day they would have seen a Over the gate that stood before the holy place in the temple, they would have seen an enormous golden vine. It was a vine that was a symbol of Israel. It was a symbol that every true Israelite was familiar with and embraced. They were God's true vine. And you'll notice I'm not going to read the quote, but I have a quote from the Jewish historian Josephus. He talks a lot about this vine and how wealthy people would make contributions of gold to keep on adding clusters of grapes. And he talks about the magnificence of this golden vine. He talks about how some of these grape clusters were the size of a man. And so it was a glorious and powerful image that would have been in the minds of the disciples. Each day they would have seen this golden vine. And so when Jesus says to them in the upper room, I am the true vine, their minds would have been flooded with the many Old Testament passages that in which God speaks of Israel as His beloved vine. You see, I just have one example in your outline, Psalm 80, verse 8, which we will sing in a few minutes. You brought a vine out of Egypt. Israel was pictured as God's vine that was to bear much fruit. And so in this final I am saying of Jesus Christ, we really see a familiar pattern. Notice what he says. He says, I am the true vine. And if you've been with us for our studies in John's gospel, when we find this word true or the word truth in John's gospel, It's not so much a contrast with what is false, but what seems to be in view is true as in the fulfillment of some great Old Testament image. From the outset of the book, Jesus is presented as the true tabernacle, the true Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and so on. And John is endeavoring to show that he is the fulfillment of all of these things. And it's the same here. It's not that Israel, it's not that God's people weren't the vine. But rather, Jesus in saying that he is the true vine, he is saying, I am the fulfillment of that image. And what he is saying is that if you are going to belong to God and His church, then you need to be connected and rooted in me. You need to be united to me in order that my death for your sins might become your own. You need to be united to me so that the abundant life that was promised in chapter 10 so that that abundant life can be ours. So begins this wonderful language, and it gives us a wonderful picture of what it means to be Christ's disciples. There's much that we could look at and consider, but For the sake of brevity this evening, we'll just think about two things that this image expresses to us, two things it teaches us as Christ's disciples. First of all, we see that this image of Christ as the true vine, that it really expresses the essence of the Christian life. When Jesus says, I am the true vine, He is saying that the very essence of the Christian life is being united by faith to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what it means to be a Christian. Being united by faith to the Lord Himself. This is what is often referred to as union with Christ. We see this expressed in different ways in the New Testament, and it's interesting that if you look at the New Testament and you look at the different terms that are used for someone who is saved, someone who has come to know Christ, we're not called predominantly believers. We're not even predominantly called Christians. In the New Testament, Someone who is saved is someone who is in Christ. That is the predominant term that is used to express the essence of the Christian life. That we are in Christ and he is in us. And it's also expressed in Paul's unique Expression where he often it doesn't come out in our English translations all the time, but he talks about the necessity of believing into Jesus Not just believing in Jesus, but believing into Jesus and That's striking because that kind of language is not found anywhere in the ancient world You believed in the emperor, or you believe something about the emperor, or you believed in a certain false god, but you never believed into the emperor or into that idol. There was never any sharing of life. There was never any union. But with Christ, we are in Him. We believe into Him. You see, Jesus is saying that being His disciples is not a matter of just believing things about Him. That is a necessary part of our salvation, but that's not the end. That the essence of our salvation is a mystical union with Christ Himself. There was an article written a few years ago in Christianity today that called this doctrine of union with Christ the missing heart of the American gospel. The missing heart of the American gospel. You see, what has happened is that modern so-called Christianity has really become indistinguishable from any other false religion of the world. And here's what I mean by that. People talk about, they'll ask, what's your faith? And people will say, well, I'm a Buddhist, or I'm a Jew, or I'm a Muslim. And it's just this external identification. This is what I say I am. This is the set of rules that I follow. And I fear that for much of the church today, that in the minds of professing Christians, that Christianity is nothing more than this. I say, well, I'm a Christian. And it ends there. But Jesus is teaching that the essence of the Christian life is not following a set of rules. It's not a moral code. not claiming a certain identification for yourself, but it's being united to the person of Jesus Christ. It's having a living and active relationship with Him wherein you are in Him and He is in you. And we can see that Jesus' teaching in the upper room is not random. This is why he began to teach on the Spirit first. Because the Spirit is the one who brings this union, who affects this union within us. Congregation, I cannot emphasize to you enough how important it is for us to understand that this is the essence of what it means to be a Christian. This is the heart of the Gospel. That we are united to Christ by faith, and that means that everything that He has is yours. Everything that He has earned is yours. That everywhere Christ has a right to go, you have a right to go. That you have deed and title to heaven because you are in Christ. that even though you are a sinner, you are able to approach the throne of grace with boldness, because you are in Him, and He is in you. Paul talks about this blessed union in Romans chapter 6, and he talks about how Christ's death is our death, and His resurrection is our resurrection. And in verse eight, he says, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with. Union with Christ. This is what Jesus is talking about when he says that he is the vine. And we are the branches. Our salvation is dependent upon our intimate connection to Jesus Christ. We can never be justified, we can never be adopted into the family of God, we can never be sanctified, and we can never be glorified unless we are united by faith to Jesus Christ. And this vital union with Jesus is not only the essence of what it means to be a Christian, but it is also the key to our sanctification. Jesus teaches so clearly in this passage that the key to, using his terminology, the key to bearing fruit in the Christian life, the key to growing, the key to sanctification, is to remain or abide in Christ. He is the source of our growth and holiness. Eleven times Eleven times in this chapter, Jesus uses that word abide. And it means to remain, it means to dwell somewhere, it means to live there. He's saying this is where life is to be found. Your life that you live is lived in Me. Look at verses 4 and 5. Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If you were with us last week, we thought a bit about sanctification. And we did that considering Leviticus chapter 20 and that name of God that he reveals to us, the Lord who sanctifies. And I would submit to you that we see the same truths expressed in this 15th chapter of John. In other words, we might be tempted to say, well, if the key to our sanctification is simply abiding in Christ, Well, then that means we don't have to do anything. And yet, clearly, Jesus is not implying that we are inactive in our sanctification. Interspersed throughout his teaching in the upper room are repeated calls to keep his commandments. Calls to obedience. We see it in verse 10. We see it again in verse 12. This is my commandment, that you love one another. And we see how these two truths are balanced, and I have the passage from last week in your bulletin, where in Leviticus chapter 20 we're given these commands. Consecrate yourselves and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. Keep my statutes and do them. There's that call to be active in our sanctification. Calls that come through in the words of Christ in the upper room. Keep my commandments. And yet the assurance given in Leviticus 20 verse 8, the Lord says, I am the Lord who sanctifies you. That's the abiding. That's the remaining. We remain in Christ. We remain in the Lord who sanctifies us. And we are able to be active in our sanctification because Christ is in us working by His Spirit. So I hope that as we hear Christ call us to keep His commandments, I pray that we would not hear them as we so often do, as, well, you just need to be better, you need to be better, you need to do better. but instead that you would hear that as a gracious call to embrace Christ, to remain in Him, trusting that He will work in you, that He will do in you what He commands you to do. But how do we remain in Christ? How do we abide in Him in order that we might grow and bear fruit. And as we close, I just want to give you four four thoughts to think about. How do we remain in Christ? And they all come out from from the text here. And the first thing is that you need to submit yourself to the vine dressers pruning work. Submit yourselves to the vine dressers pruning work. Notice that one of the first ideas mentioned here is the idea of pruning. Jesus talks about pruning in verse two, and he talks about his father being the vine dresser in verse one. A vine dresser was someone who pruned. And I think sometimes, depending on how interested you are in agriculture and Flowers I know some of you have confessed that you have the black thumb of death when it comes to to plants but if you've ever seen a vineyard I Think whether you're into plants or not You could appreciate the abundant fruitfulness and these vines have these huge clusters of grapes and yet wherever you see a fruitful vineyard if you look on the ground and you will see littered on the ground prunings. Because pruning is necessary for the vine to bear much fruit. Now, let me just mention, there's another kind of pruning mentioned here. Look at verse 2. Jesus talks about the branch that bears no fruit being taken away. Then look at verse six. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. That is the pruning of judgment. It's not the pruning in the life of the believer, but that's when the Lord cuts off a dead branch. And I wonder if the disciples, after the fact, if they realized that just a few minutes before Jesus spoke these words, that He had just cut off a dead branch. Chapter 13, He said to Judas, what you are going to do, do quickly. And he dismissed Judas. He cut off a dead branch. And he did that for the good of his church. I think that's how we could think of church discipline. That's the earthly reflection of this kind of pruning. When someone bears no fruit and they act like an unbeliever by their unrepentance and they are to be cut off from the fellowship only to bring about their repentance, but for the good of the Church. But there is also for us, there is also for believers, this gracious pruning of the vine dresser in our lives. Look at verses 1 and 2. I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. That's the pruning that we need to submit to. This is the Lord cutting away sin in our lives. Maybe even cutting away things that are not necessarily sinful, but that are hindrances to our growth. He prunes us every time we hear the word preached, every time we read the word. He prunes us through our fellowship with other believers. And as we saw this morning in the passage on the four horsemen, He often prunes his people through hard providences, through the tribulations and the trials that he brings to us. He uses those things to prune us that we may bear more fruit. And I think the thing that we should marvel at the most here, and I want you to hear this carefully, that Christ even uses our sin to prune us. That should never be an excuse for us to sin, saying, I'm just going to sin because it will be an opportunity for Christ to prune me. Very often when we fall into sin, our great God and Savior takes that thing that is contrary to His will and He turns it to prune us. And we need to look no further than this upper room and think about These eleven men that were left, Jesus was about to prune them and He was going to do it through their fall into sin. Peter was going to deny Christ. They all were going to forsake Him. And instead of that sin ruining them, Christ used it to prune them. To prune away pride and self-reliance and sin and to cause them to embrace Him more closely and to abide in Him. But we also remain in Christ by remaining intimately connected to the Church. By remaining intimately connected to the Church. It shouldn't escape us that the divine image here has a corporate aspect to it. No true Israelite would ever have thought about the vine without thinking about the people of God. It was a symbol of the ancient church of Israel. And that is reinforced by the fact that in this passage, all of the U's are plural. And so it stands to reason that if the church is where Christ makes his special presence known to us. If the church is where he draws near to us by his spirit, then it follows that we need to remain intimately connected to the church. Intimately connected to our brothers and our sisters. The image of the vine and the branches is not of just one cluster of fruit growing by itself. The many clusters of fruit growing together, being nourished together, being pruned together. There's a saying that lone rangers are dead rangers. We could also say that lone branches are dead branches. We need to remain connected to the body of Christ where He draws near to us, where we may abide in Him. Thirdly, I think we also need to let the mystery of this image disturb us a bit. Here's what I mean by this. If you are united to Christ, if that's the essence of being a Christian, If you are in Him and He is in you, then where does Christ go when you sin? I don't know the answer to that, but it's a question worth pondering. Kids, that's a question for you to think about. If Jesus lives in you by His Spirit, Where does Jesus go when we sin? I think we need to let that image disturb us a bit. And I think we need to let it affect how we look at our sin and cause us to live in light of the fact that we are united to Christ. But finally, we need to understand that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit love you and they are for you in your battle against sin. Do you believe that? The triune God loves you and is for you. He is for you in your sanctification. Our God wants you to succeed. Look at verse 9. as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. What a tender language that is. That isn't the language of someone who is waiting for us to fail. Verse 11, these things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. Christ, is for you. He wants you to succeed in your battle against sin. I think we could all probably think of a time in our life when maybe it was a co-worker, a boss, a teacher, a coach, and you figure out that that person is not for you. And you know that they are just waiting for you to slip up so they can drop the hammer And you know how oppressive that can be. That is not empowering. That doesn't give us any confidence to persevere when we mess up. But on the contrary, I think many of us can testify to a teacher or a co-worker or a coach or someone who you know that they wanted you to succeed. That they were for you. And that when you did mess up, they were there to pat you on the back and encourage you to persevere. And I fear that too often we view our God as someone who is just waiting for us to mess up so He can drop the hammer on us. And the glorious truth is He is for us and He loves us. And even when we sin, He is ready to restore us and to encourage us. And His love for us never changes. And we need to look no further than the cross of Jesus Christ to see that our God is for us. He died to save you. He died to redeem you from the power and the penalty of sin. He is for you and He loves you. So I pray that we might be encouraged as we begin a new week to abide in Christ, to remain in Him, that we might bear much fruit knowing, knowing that His desire, His desire for us is that we grow, that we succeed, that we prosper in Him and become more like Him. Let's pray together.