The Functioning Vineyard

God’s people would once again
take their Bibles and turn back to John, chapter 15, John 15. If it’s like my Bible, it probably
falls right open to the page because we have been there for
so many weeks. But it has been good, and rich,
and challenging, and encouraging, and I pray that it will continue
so even this morning. We are in the midst of what has
been called a parable or an allegory. It’s an allegory of the Christian
life and it’s a beautiful story. I entitled it Divine Acres because
essentially what God has done here is bidden us to draw near
to his own beautiful great orchard. And he has called us near to
come to the wall and to look over the wall and to view all
that there is to see in a typical orchard. It is a parable. It’s an allegory. We don’t press
every single detail to its furthest degree. But we do take in and
imbibe the general lessons that are projected here in this parable. It’s a parable of life. It’s a parable of spiritual life. And if you would, I want to go
back again to verse 1, and we’ll take it in full. 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 bears fruit,
he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean
because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me and
I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself, so neither can you unless you abide in me. I am
the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in
him, he bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do
nothing. If anyone does not abide in me,
he is thrown away as a branch and dries up. And they gather
them and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide
in me, and my words abide in you. Ask whatever you wish and
it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this,
that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” Jesus began this allegory, this
short little parable by declaring that He was divine. And as we
are bitten near the wall to this beautiful orchard, and as we
looked, we saw that orchards, even in Christ’s day, were owned
by wealthy people. And so imagine the superlative
nature of this particular orchard, because it’s owned by Almighty
God. This is the finest orchard in
the land. And as we’re asked to come near,
He is describing or allowing us to see a variety of features
in this orchard. And the first thing that we see
in this beautiful orchard, none can even compare to God’s orchard. The first thing that we see is
the choice vine. And as we looked, ponder that
statement when Jesus said, I am the true vine. Jesus Christ is
not the illustration of a grapevine. Jesus Christ is the source and
supply of all humanity and so that the grapevine becomes an
apt illustration of Him. We saw that there were really
two things there in play, that not only is Jesus Christ a true
vine as opposed to all other images of vines, whether it’s
a statue or whether it’s an actual vine full of grapes, Jesus Christ
is the true vine. But there were two things that
we noticed about that statement. Not only is Jesus Christ the
true vine, He is a vine. He is the source of all life. And as we began to look, we looked
at a full page of things that Jesus is as described and proclaimed
in the Scriptures. He is our Savior. He is our Creator. He is the
image of God. He is our friend and example.
He is our mediator. He is our God. Jesus Christ is
everything. He is not just any old vine. He is everything. to the child
of God. He is as an heirloom vine. He is a special and precious
vine that produces only the best grapes. But we saw the vine. And then we looked and saw further
that not only is there a vine and not only is this vine a choice
vine, but it has a caretaker. And still in verse 1, Jesus said,
my father is the vine dresser. My father is the one tending
to this vine, the most skilled craftsman, the one that knows
the vine and knows the process and knows the plant better than
anyone and wants to make it most productive and most fruitful. meticulous grower’s skills that
are in view here at the end of verse 1, that there’s going to
be a variety of crop production in any vineyard, but the father
wants to maximize the fruitfulness of his orchard. These, after
all, are the choicest grapes. This is the best vine that money
can buy. And the vinedresser wants to
maximize that, and so he comes and he applies His skill to that
vine. That’s what we see. As we look,
we see the Father at work. We know what His potential is.
We know that He’s the vine dresser. He’s the one in charge. But verse
2 and 3 tell us about the Father’s work. Every branch in me that
does not bear fruit, He takes away. He comes along, and for
those branches that were damaged, perhaps by the wind, or perhaps
by someone brushing by, The father prunes that branch. He clips
it off. He takes it away. And there are
other branches. There are other branches that
have already borne fruit. They’re strong. They’re vigorous. They’re not diseased in any way,
not damaged. And yet he comes along and he
prunes them, perhaps prunes off buds and shoots that would only
draw away from the production of fruit. Remember the whole
goal. There’s a vital clarification that Jesus utters here in this
context. He is still in the midst of His
parable. He hasn’t stepped outside of
it, but He turns to His disciples and says in verse 3, look, you
are already clean. He isn’t talking about some kind
of spiritual cleansing. He isn’t talking about some moral
purity here. Those things are all true. He
certainly isn’t talking about them having been baptized. He’s
not talking about cleanness in that sense. The word that he
uses here is the same exact word that he uses in verse 2 of being
pruned, of being pared back for greater fruitfulness. And he
tells the disciples, look, it’s not that you have to drum up
works on your own. I have already seen your works,
I have affirmed your works, and I have pruned your life and will
continue to do so for the greatest fruitfulness. And so we have
seen the choice vine. We see it growing on the wall.
We see it’s not only the vine, but it’s many branches. We see
the vine dresser hard at work. And then we came last Lord’s
Day to begin to look at the functioning vineyard. We want to see the
vineyard in action. And so we linger at the wall,
peering over it, taking in all of this property and watching
the Father hard at work in this vineyard. We saw, beginning last
week, the fruit-bearing branch. Look at verse 4, where we are
reminded that Jesus says, Abide in Me and I in you. told you
that there is an implied verb there in the second portion of
that sentence and both of them are imperatives. You abide in
me and see to it that I abide in you. We are to remain in Christ. We
are to long for Christ even as we just read about the Galatians.
They began well, they started in Christ and then they immediately
began to look for other means of their own salvation. They
didn’t want to abide in Christ. Jesus says, abide in me and I
in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides
on the vine. There’s one of the very difficult
but very crucial lessons that you learn from having a garden.
Stay out. Stay out. Plant the garden, water
the garden, but stay out of the garden. Because invariably, as
you rustle through the various plants, you are actually helping
to spread whatever diseases and viruses are in the garden. If
disease doesn’t get spread, the insects tend to scatter, particularly
on vining plants. There is a bug called the squash
bug, and they don’t like people. And so when they see you coming,
they essentially scurry to all points of the garden. You’re
actually spreading the damage that they bring. But there’s
another very common occurrence in the garden. And it usually,
for me, comes with a pumpkin. And every year, I set out to
grow the grand champion, you know, the one that they’re going
to need a trailer to get to the fair. And every year, it seems
that some way, somehow, as I’m positioning the pumpkin, as it’s
beginning to grow in size, I just hear that familiar snap. And
as soon as you hear that familiar snap, there are times you can
reposition the pumpkin and it can reattach to the vine, but
it’s rare. It’s rare. And once it’s severed
from the vine, guess what happens to the pumpkin? It doesn’t even
get orange. It dies. It’s utterly worthless. Jesus says the branch cannot
bear fruit. The branch is utterly worthless
apart from the vine unless it’s drawing on the vine and drawing
on the sap, drawing on the very purpose of the vine. It cannot
bear fruit. It can’t do anything on its own.
So neither can you bear fruit unless you abide in me. Everything
we saw, everything we ever hoped to accomplish growing in grace,
becoming more Christ-like, telling people about Christ, bearing
fruit in that regard, becoming as we ought to be, serving Christ
as we ought to do. We can’t do anything unless we abide in Christ, unless
we tie into Christ and we We abide in Him by means of prayer. We abide in Him by means of His
Word, by means of fellowship with other believers. Unless
we abide, we can do nothing. That’s what Jesus says again
even more strongly in verse 5, I am the vine, you are the branches.
He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit. And that’s what we want. That’s
what this whole parable has been about. And we noticed last week
a progression. Not only fruit, but more fruit,
and here, much fruit. That’s the goal. We want to be
maximized in our usefulness for Christ. We want to do as much
as is humanly possible in God’s grace for Christ. You know, I wonder, For how many
of us is that true? For how many of us do we wake
up and wonder how can I be used to the maximum potential today? Am I as Christ-like as I ought
to be today? Am I growing in grace? Am I fruitful in every area of
my life? And then Jesus utters that, fully understandable clarification,
apart from me you can do nothing. It’s crucial. It’s crucial even as we’ll see
this morning and yet Christians by the droves have this tendency
to do what they do without prayer, to do what they do without God’s
Word, to do what they do without fellowship, to do what they do
without the church, to do whatever it is they do on their own. So as we look at the functioning
vineyard. We noticed the father tending to the vine and we noticed
these abundantly fruit bearing branches. That are vigorous and
they’re productive and they’re beautiful. because they’re still
on the vine. That’s the bottom line of this
parable. But as we look, we can’t help
but notice. As we ponder this incredibly
beautiful vineyard with the choice vine and the most careful caretaker,
the very purpose of which is to bear and bring fruit, we can’t
help but notice that There’s not only a fruit bearing branch,
but there are a pile of sticks, severed branches. We come to the severed branch
in verse six. If anyone does not abide in me,
he is thrown away as a branch and dries up and they gather
them and cast them into the fire and they are burned. Now perhaps
if we’re looking over the wall, for the first time we are shocked
at the drastic measures taken in the vineyard. We saw how beautiful
it is. We saw how carefully manicured
these vines are. We saw how meticulous the artist
is as he attends to every single twig. We notice the soil and
how it’s tilled. We notice the vines and how well
watered and manicured and fertilized they are. But now we notice something
that to the eye is ugly. It’s a pile of sticks, branches. that once were on the vine and
had the desired purpose of being fruitful branches themselves. That was their God-given purpose. And yet now, they are no more
than sticks. The bottom line here is the grapes,
or the branch rather, that does not bear grapes, that does not
produce fruit, ultimately is cast out. And I take that to
mean cast out even of the vineyard. The burning is done outside of
the vineyard for the sake of the vineyard, for the sake of
the vine dresser, for the sake of those laboring in the vineyard,
for the sake of the guests in the vineyard. The branches are
carried on outside and they’re ultimately burned. This is a stark image that we
take in. And as we begin to digest it
and begin to try and decipher it, begin to understand it or
interpret it, there are some pitfalls. And there are many
who, because of other similar passages in the New Testament,
I always want to point this back to the Jewish nation and say that, you know, this
vine is an image of the Jewish nation which was clipped off
and cast aside once and for all. I don’t think so. I don’t think
that’s true here. He’s talking about fruitless
branches. And so, historically, there have
been really three sustained views of these branches. If you would
look back at verse 2, there’s a problem that comes in as we
pointed out. Every branch in me that does
not bear fruit, He takes away. These are the same branches here
in verse 6. And so there have been three
views throughout history that have primarily been promoted. One view is that these are true
Christians that ultimately perish. In other
words, they lose their Christianity. They fall away completely. They
once were really in Christ, and yet they were trimmed off, cut
off. Well, from the teaching of the
entire New Testament, we know that cannot possibly be true.
Christians do not fall away fully and finally from Christ. They
do not become severed from Christ. It is not possible for a Christian
to lose his salvation. If he has placed his faith in
Christ, it’s not we who are hanging on to God’s hand, God is hanging
on to us. And He will not let go. We cannot
be pried from the Father’s hand. This is Romans 8. And so there’s another view. Not only the view that Christians,
these are speaking of Christians that ultimately perish, lose
their salvation. The second view is that these
here are true Christians who are taken up to heaven by physical
death as a discipline. Now I want you to know this is
entirely possible. Scripture does speak of such.
First Corinthians 11 talks about those. If you’re not careful
about how you participate in the Lord’s table, there are some
who sleep. He’s not talking about a nap.
There are those who did not repent of their sin, who treat holy
things indelicately, and ultimately they are taken. And so while
I say that this is entirely possible, I don’t think that’s what’s being
spoken of here at all. Because what you would have to
conclude is that this is then a fruitless Christian. And we
just talked about this last week. There’s no such thing as a fruitless
Christian. If you are on the vine, you will
bear fruit. If you have placed your faith
in Christ and if you are growing in grace, if you are abiding
on the vine, you will bear fruit. Your life will slowly be transformed
by the same God that saved you. You will tell others about Christ,
fruit in that sense. You will serve Christ. You will
want to serve Christ. You will only lament that you
couldn’t do more for Christ. You will bear fruit. There’s
no such thing as a fruitless Christian. These are those, I think, and
the third, the only other option there is, really the only other
reasonable option there is, is that these are just professing
believers. In some sense, churchgoers, those
who kind of come around and hang around and, you know, profess
Christ and say they love Christ, But they don’t abide with Christ,
not unlike the Galatians about whom we just read. They don’t
pray to Christ. They don’t long for Christ. They
don’t long to serve Christ. They don’t want to be fruitful
for Christ. They don’t want their lives changed. These are those that just simply,
like verse 2 says, just do not bear fruit. They do not bear
fruit because they do not abide. And it points at the very minimum
as we saw. At the very minimum it points
to the fruit of the Spirit. How do you know if you’re abiding
on the vine? How do you know if you’re a fruit-bearing Christian?
Is there any fruit in your life? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Are those things
being not produced by you not produced by your own goodness,
is the Spirit producing those things in your life. That’s fruit. We saw over and over again how
replete Scripture is in urging, in urging the importance of fruit
bearing, examining your life, and if the fruit isn’t there,
go again on your knees to Christ and plead for salvation. Matthew 7, you will know them
by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from
thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? And so as we saw in
2 Peter 1, if those things are yours and they’re growing, if
they’re flourishing, if you’re more like Christ now than you
were 10 years ago, then they’re a sign of life. If you’re convicted
of your sin now, there’s sign of life. If you desire to serve
Christ more and you lament that you cannot or have not done more,
that’s a sign of life. It’s when you don’t care. It’s
when you don’t care that you are in the process of being severed
from the vine. Hebrews 12 talks about the peaceful
fruit of righteousness. James 3.18, the seed whose fruit
is righteousness. Those are all the gifts of God,
the pouring out of a change of life, issuing forth in Christ-likeness. That’s the fruit. And so you say, well, what is
this exactly pointing to then? It’s the professing believer.
It’s the person who says that they love Christ. in whom we
can find absolutely no proof of that statement. Now you think
of the most immediate example and the one that had to have
come to the apostles’ minds, Judas. He was with them and walked
with them and allegedly served with them for three years. And yet in the end was able to
just walk away. There was no fruit in his life.
There was no proof of abiding on the vine. Outwardly, he was
professing as such, and outwardly, many people profess such. But the closer we look, the closer
we look at Judas’ life, we couldn’t even distinguish.
In fact, remember, Remember the night when Jesus first, remember
the shock, the bewilderment. One of you is going to betray
me and they all start to look around. They couldn’t tell it
was Judas. They didn’t know. They had no
idea who it was. Such is the case in this world.
You can fool a lot of people for a long time. You can look
like a Christian. talk like a Christian and act
like a Christian. But if there’s no fruit in your
life, the reality is you’re not on
the vine. As one pastor said, unregenerate,
false branches from their superficial attachment to the vine bear no
fruit. And in reality, they’re not Christians. And what the rest of this passage
goes on to point out, described, if you will, under six verbs,
is basically the consequence of not abiding in Christ, refusing,
really, to be what we’re called and made to be. This vine, this vine is supposed
to produce the finest grapes in the land. It is an heirloom
vine and it has the greatest and most careful attendant, the
best soil, the perfect amount of water, the perfect fertilizers. There’s no reason that this vine
won’t produce grapes and the best grapes in all the land.
The only reason is if a branch gets broken or severed. Look
at the six verbs. First of all, this is the branch
that does not abide. We talked about abiding. Abiding
in prayer, abiding in God’s Word, abiding in what God’s Word teaches,
abiding with the saints. I can’t remember whether I quoted
it or not, but there’s an old quote by John Calvin that says,
they therefore are insane that think that they can live this
Christian life without the fellowship of God’s people. And yet you
get this every week I hear it from different professing Christians
that, you know, they can go worship in the mountains for all they
care. Abiding is fleshing out every
means of staying close to Christ. Now, I said there were six verbs,
but let me prefigure, if you will, a seventh. This branch
that does not abide, we’ve already been told in verse 2, is cut
off. That’s how the process began.
It’s described in verse 2, but it’s assumed here because he
goes on to say that it’s just thrown away. Well, it has to
be cut off first. Verse 2 says, every branch in
me that does not bear fruit, he takes it away. And we know
that this is a skilled craftsman. This is the vine dresser. He
prunes it with a pruning knife. And it’s thrown away. The very
purpose of that which is implied in verse 2. Obviously, we’re
not going to drop the branch at the feet of the vine. It’s
trimmed, it’s cut off, and it’s cast aside. And it dries up. Have you ever burned green wood
in a campfire? You see, this vine, if we were
to throw it on the fire just now, it would produce smoke and
burn everyone’s eyes. And yet, a few days, weeks, months
on the pile, it dries up and becomes utterly worthless. This is exactly the word that
Jesus used in the parable of the soils. Just listen quickly. We know that there were four
soils. The sower went out to sow and he used to reach in his
bag and cast it to the wind, and the wind would take the seed
everywhere. Some of the seed fell beside
the road. The birds came and ate them up. That one you remember. Others fell on the rocky places
where they didn’t have much soil, and immediately they sprang up,
but because they had no depth of soil, they died out. When the sun was risen, they
were scorched because they had no root, and they withered away.
Same word. They dried up, utterly worthless. In other words, their whole reason
for existence, their whole reason for being brought into this vineyard
and being attached and having grown from this vine, their whole
purpose of existence is over and finished. They are gathered Verb number four, they are gathered.
And it isn’t even important by whom. There were those that wanted
to press this so far that the angels come down and they gather
up all these. It isn’t even important. It isn’t
addressed. Jesus didn’t find it important
enough to address it, neither should we. They’re gathered and
they’re cast into the fire. Now, I’ll just tell you, there
is no more uncomfortable doctrine than this. The doctrine of hell. Remember a couple years ago the
book was something to the title of whatever happened to hell.
Because we’ve reasoned it right out of existence. Do you know
that that is the first theological controversy that this church
faced? The suggestion that hell had
been done away with and now we are just annihilated. That when
we die we are just like so many plants and we just wither and
we just are no more. We’ve reasoned away the doctrine of hell. Not God, not Christ. Would you turn to Matthew 13? In Matthew chapter 13, he’s in
the midst of, this is one of the heaviest concentrations of
the parables in Christ’s parables. in all of the Gospels, but in
Matthew 13, he tells this story about tares. We don’t call them
that anymore. They’re weeds. Purposeless plants. I mean, no purpose. Look at verse
24 of chapter 13. Jesus presented another parable
in addition to the parable of the soils. The kingdom of heaven
may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field.
But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares
among the wheat and went away. But when the tares were sprouted
and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. And now
there are these worthless plants interspersed in the midst of
this otherwise beautiful and productive field.” The slaves
of the land over. owner came and said to him, sir,
did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it
have tares? And he said to them, an enemy
has done this. The slaves said to him, do you want us then to
go and gather them up? Want us to go in and glean the
fields and pluck the weeds? But he said, no. For while you’re
gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until
the harvest. And in the time of the harvest,
I will say to the reapers, first gather up the tares and bind
them up into bundles and burn them up, but gather the wheat
into my barn. So that’s the parable. And you
know, this parable really, it really resonated with his disciples.
It really bothered them because they knew that in some sense
they were like the servants wanting to go in and reap all the weeds,
weed all the tears out of the field. And so they came to Him. They were bothered by this. And the disciples came, jumped
down to verse 36, they came to Him and they said, explain to
us, Can you just hear him asking, Jesus, could you explain to us
the parable of the tares of the field? And he said, the one who
sows the good seed is the son of man, and the field is the
world. And as for the good seed, these
are the sons of the kingdom. And the tares are the sons of
the evil one. And the enemy who has sown them
is the devil. And the harvest is the end of
the age. And the reapers are the angels. So just as the tares
are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end
of the age. The Son of Man will send forth
His angels that will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling
blocks and all those who commit lawlessness and will throw them
into the furnace of fire in that place there will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine
forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father. He who has ears,
let him hear.” Now you would think, I mean in a parable that
profound, that astounding, that clear, Jesus explains it. He’s not done. Look at verse
47. Again, The kingdom of heaven
is like a dragnet cast into the sea, gathering fish of every
kind. And when it was filled, they drew up on the beach and
they sat down and gathered the food, good fish into containers,
but the bad they threw away. So it will be. at the end of
the age. The angels will come forth and
take out the wicked from among the righteous. They will throw
them into the furnace of fire. In that place there will be weeping
and gnashing of teeth.” This is one of the most horrible doctrines
in all of Scripture, but it’s absolutely true. And we cannot
reason it away. We cannot brush it aside. We
can’t wish it away. It’s the truth. So the final I said there were
six directly attached in this verse. The final verb, not only
does he not abide thrown away, dries up, gathered, cast into
the fire, ultimately burned. And by burned there, it is the
burning of judgment that is total destruction. Ezekiel 15 paints
the picture. But you know what the horrible
thing here? The horrible thing here is not really that these
branches are burned, or that they are cast into the
fire. Those are horrible things, but
that’s not the worst. Or that they’re gathered as so
many sticks into a pile and dried out, or that they are so completely
dried that they could never be reinvigorated, never serve their
purpose. or even that they are thrown
away, the tragedy, the real tragedy is that they did not abide on
the vine. They did not come to Christ and
cling to Christ. They did not take Christ and
receive Him as all important. Those six verbs that are used
to describe these branches in verse 6 by far are the worst.
is the first. They didn’t abide. They didn’t
stay with Christ. Christ wasn’t good enough. Christ
wasn’t desired above all things. They didn’t long for Christ as
their Savior. They didn’t submit to Christ
as their Lord. They didn’t come to Christ for
righteousness. They didn’t long for Christ And
for His glory, Christ was nothing to them. And so what is painted here is
a picture of judgment for those who did not abide in Christ,
the future judgment. which one described, stresses
the responsibility of each individual, every person in this room who
is brought into contact with Christ and His gospel. If you’ve
ever heard the gospel, remember I said God’s Word must liven
or it must deaden. You are more culpable this day
having heard this truth from God’s Word than you were before
you walked in this morning. It’s the responsibility of each
individual who is brought into close contact with Christ in
his gospel. If he rejects him, there will
come a time when all further work in him as an individual
ceases. There will come a pruning. He is regarded simply as one
of the mass who are rejected and ultimately cast into hell. And his horrid as utterly shocking
as it is for us, peering over the wall and seeing this pile
of sticks and then realizing the horror that those dead branches
once were on the vine. We can’t even fixate on that
because at the same moment our eye catches yet another image
in the vineyard. It’s the image of a flourishing
branch And her eyes dart back and forth from these dead branches
back to the vine and back to these flourishing branches. Look
at verse 7. If you abide in me and my words
abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for
you. It’s an abrupt transition. that even as we’re glancing and
seeing these dead branches, we’re reminded, yes, but there are
fruitful branches and there’s a means of fruit bearing. There
is hope. There is hope yet. If there is any question at all,
there’s hope to go back and examine our hearts and our lives and
see to it that we are those who abide on the branch. generally speaking of this entire
verse, you’ll notice we’ve been here before. In chapter 14, verse
13, it said, whatever you ask in my name, that I will do. And
I told you then, this isn’t some kind of Vendo Messiah. This isn’t, you know, where we
go to Jesus and we plunk down our demands and our requests. We claim it. That’s not at all
what he’s talking about here. This is just as comprehensive
as what he said in verse 13, whatever you ask in my name,
that I will do so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. This has that same
comprehensiveness. Come to me and ask me anything. And yet, and yet there is a clause here
that we cannot ignore. Just as there was a clause in
chapter 14, whatever you ask in my name that I will do. If you ask anything in my name,
I will do it. And that same thought is here
as well. If you abide in me, if you abide
in me and my words abide in you, then ask whatever you wish. You see, in the Gospels, there
is this repeated appeal to pray in faith. Mark 11, I say to you,
all things for which you pray and ask and believe, there is
this urge, this plea for us to have faith when we pray. Luke
17, if you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry
tree, be uprooted and be planted in the sea and it would obey
you. The gospels urge faith, but in John’s gospel, there’s
a little bit different twist. In John’s gospel, it’s not just
faith. And it’s not even just faith
in Christ, but it’s an abiding. It’s an utter dependence upon
Christ so that whoever abides in Christ
He can’t even pray a wrong prayer because he’s so in tune with
his Savior. If you abide in me and my words
abide in you, then ultimately this prayer is going to be absolutely
in line with what Christ’s desires are and Christ we know are already
aligned with God’s. How can God say no? And so when we come, we talked
about this a few moments ago, when we come to the throne of
grace, we’re actually invited, we’re commanded to come to the
throne of grace. And so we come to the throne
of grace and we know that we need some kind of grace. We know
that we’re in the midst of a struggle. We have already acknowledged
we cannot do this on our own. I need your help. And God says,
I’ve got it. I have plenty of grace for that
particular struggle or trial. And so when we come, we can ask
whatever we wish, whatever struggle, whatever challenge we’re facing.
We come to the one who knows us intimately and is willing
to provide whatever we need. So these prayers, these appeals
to God, they literally become almost reflections of His words
abiding in us. I want you to live a righteous
life.” Well, God, I’m struggling in that department. Can you help
me? Absolutely I can. Lord, I don’t have any interaction
with unbelievers. I don’t have any fruit in that
regard. I don’t have any gospel opportunities. Can you help me?
I can. Lord, I don’t even know what
my gifts are. How do I serve you? How do I
serve Christ? Can you help me? I absolutely
can. So as we come to Christ, we ask
as Christ would ask, not for some kind of vending machine
God who gives us whatever our little sin-sick hearts want. We want what God wants. And when
we ask what God wants, He readily gives to us freely and openly. So our prayer becomes essentially
a reflection of what Christ has taught and what he pours into
us, what he tells us to do and to be. One faithful commentary,
commentator said this. It is in the constant remembrance
and habitual meditation upon His words, that is Christ’s words,
which is the condition on which He will be able to continually
make His strength dwell in them and act through them. I know
this is archaic language. What He’s saying is this, that
the more we remember that Jesus has told us to come The more
we remember what Jesus has taught us to be, the more we’re inclined
to go to Him and to pray first. He would supply the grace needed
to do what He has asked us to do. In that case, the disciple
will not only begin by acting, but simply by asking. Did you
hear the difference? Because we have it upside down
most times. We begin by acting. We’re doers, especially us men.
You know, we want to charge to the hill. But that’s not what’s being urged
here. And that’s not what this commentator is even suggesting.
He says we begin by asking, not acting. There’s a famous exchange. Some of you are probably familiar
with it. Augustine was known for a frequent
phrase that he uttered, grant what thou commandest and command
what thou dost desire. You tell me to do whatever you
want me to do, but I’m going to need the grace to do it. And
he said it essentially upside down. Give me the grace and then
you can tell me whatever you want me to do. Well, for those
of you who know the story, another guy heard this. A guy named Pelagius
caught wind of it. He didn’t like this idea. He
didn’t like the prayer. He didn’t like the doctrine behind
the prayer. What do you mean? What do you
mean, give me the grace first and then tell me what to do?
Because we have full ability. You see, Pelagius hated Augustine’s
doctrine of spiritual inability. He believed that we were basically
good and that all we needed to know is what to do and then all
we would have to do is do it. It was a matter of faithfulness. He denied the effects of Adam’s
fall, the ones that we’ve even reviewed in recent weeks, that
we are inherently sinful from the moment that we begin to walk
and talk on the face of this earth, we are living in sin,
the effects of sin. Original sin, it’s not just that
it was committed by Adam and Eve, it taints every portion
of his creation. Pelagius hated that thought.
He hated that doctrine. He didn’t believe that we were
all affected by Adam’s fall. And so even though he said it was possible
for him to sin. It wasn’t possible to have his
nature debased by Adam’s sin. That was Adam’s fault. That’s
Adam’s moral failure. So he said, why would I need
grace to obey? But Augustine countered that
argument and reminded that The fall of Adam affected every person
ever born. And that it not only tainted,
it ruined our ability to do good. We can do absolutely no good. You remember when Jesus said,
apart from him, you can do nothing? That’s where Augustine got this
doctrine. It’s complete inability to do
any good outside of Christ so that the only way that we can
even ever begin to bear fruit in any degree, whether it’s just
moral character, or whether it’s telling others about Christ,
or whether it’s serving Christ to the glory of God, we can’t
do anything without crying on God first for grace. Augustine was right. Pelagius
was wrong. And ultimately, the church said
he was wrong and condemned him. What a beautiful vineyard. It’s
a choice vine. There’s this meticulous grower
attending to this heirloom vine. The grapes that are produced
are the finest in the land. And there are not only these
very fruitful branches, but we notice that the meticulous grower
is pruning off those that are not bearing fruit. But for those
that are healthy and wholesome and productive, they have access
to the vine, the very nature of Christ. What’s the purpose? We talked
about this at the outset. Is it just to produce the finest
wine in the land? It is a vineyard that’s being
pictured here. The ultimate purpose is not bottling
some particular vintage. The ultimate purpose is stated
in verse 8 with all clarity. It’s a glorious purpose. My father
is glorified, the vine dresser, the one who cares for the vine,
my father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit. And
there again is that little phrase, much fruit. And so prove to be
my disciples. We just celebrated the 500th
anniversary of the Reformation, where those truths were rediscovered,
the solas of the Reformation. And if Soli Deo Gloria wasn’t
one of the original five, we know that the reformers rediscovered
that truth. It may not have been put down
on every possible juncture, but in time they realized that all
is to God’s glory and all is supposed to be to God’s glory,
not the least of which is the Christian’s life. They applied
this soli deo gloria to God’s glory alone. They applied this
many different ways. They applied it to their worship.
So much so that Handel and others would put just those simple little
initials at the end of their work, SDG, to God’s glory alone. They applied it to salvation,
much like Paul does in Ephesians chapter one over and over again
where he declares to God’s glory alone. To the glory of God alone,
solely dear Gloria, They applied it to the gospel. This is not
by any chance a humanly contrived gospel, one that strips away
all of our pride, one that declares us as utter sinners, one that
tells us that our only hope is faith alone in Christ alone.
God’s glorified in the gospel, but He’s also glorified in believers’
lives. as we grow in grace and we bear
fruit and we live more and more like Christ and for Christ. Paul ends that incredible chapter,
that incredible section in Romans, O the depth of the riches both
of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His
judgments and unfathomable His ways. Who has known the mind
of the Lord? Who has become His counselor? Who has first given to Him that
it might be paid back to Him again for from Him and through
Him and to Him are all things to Him. Be the glory forever
and ever. Amen. But can I ask you, can you say
that of your own life? That you’re living a life that gives God all the glory? Are you living a fruitful life? Examine your life in light of
scripture. Are you living a life that tells
others about Christ? Are you living a life that is
more Christ-like every day? One pastor said, it is to have
gone a long way in the Christian course to be able to appropriate
the promise of verse 7, that the final cause of such progress
is that fruit may appear. Not in service only, but in the
development of character to the glory of God. The highest aspiration
of all is to become a disciple, which has hardly begun. until
the earthly life is near its end and the fruit hangs thick
and ripe upon the branches of the vine. Would you examine your
life before Him? O merciful God, we know that
You are the Vinedresser and You are tending to this beautiful
and perfect and most excellent vine. of Christ. And we are,
as so many appendages, either just by the profession of our
mouth or as we have actually begun to feel the sap, the grace
of Christ flowing in us and using us for your glory. Lord God,
we plead with you that you would show us the distinction. Show
us whether we are living or not. Show us whether we are abiding
in Christ or not. Show us whether there is some
thing that you look to prune from us that would make us to
be more fruitful for the glory of God. Show us, Father, we pray. For believers, we pray that you
would make them to be more fruitful. For those who do not know Christ,
we pray that they would turn even this day in faith to the
Savior. Place themselves on the vine
by your grace. Begin to draw on your grace to
the glory of God. We thank you and we praise you
and we pray all of these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.