©2003 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

08/10/03

Abide

John 15:1-10

8/10/03 Abide

This morning I want us to finish up

what has turned out to be a three week series

on the connection between our performance

and our relationship with Jesus Christ.

This whole thing started as a result of a statement made by Paul about the work of Christ,

a statement found in Ephesians 2:17 where Paul says,

And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near...

To help us better understand what that peace really involves

I offered this little chart

to illustrate the separation that exists between our performance

and our relationship with God

once we enter into union with God through faith in Christ.

As a result of the work of the Spirit of God within us

we do see changes taking place in our lives.

Sometimes we are keenly aware of that process,

clearly seeing changes taking place,

changes that we could never have accomplished on our own.

We see what Christ described as “a hunger and a thirst” for righteousness deep within us,

giving us a longing to live a life that honors our Lord -

not just guilt or shame over our immorality,

but a true love for righteousness.

We see the power of sin addictions being broken,

and a whole new awareness of what it really means for us to love those that God has placed in our lives.

But this changing process within us

is certainly not a constant unbroken upward movement.

All true growth takes a great deal of unlearning

and then relearning under the leadership of the Spirit of God.

And there are times in all of our lives

when we lapse back into old behavior patterns,

or when we have grown to the point where our Lord

is able to bring to light some previously hidden issues that need to be addressed

and, when they come to light,

it actually seems as though we’re going backward rather than forward.

And never in this life do we ever even remotely attain a level of performance

that is perfect or flawless.

We change.

We grow.

We learn.

But as long as we are in these physical bodies,

bodies that have been trained in rebellion against God,

we will continue to fight what Paul calls “the evil within our members”.

In other words,

that changing growth process never ends this side of the grave.

I like the way Paul expressed it in Philippians 3:12-14.

Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

That is healthy Christian living.

That is the approach we are called to each day.

“Hey Lord! By Your grace I am not what I once was, but neither am I what I long to be. Once again this day I choose to reenter the battle You have called me to, the battle for greater conformity to the image of my Lord Jesus Christ. You alone can fight that battle within me. You alone can give me eyes to see what I need to see. I thank you, my King, that once again this day I can enter that battle knowing that it is always, only Your grace in which I stand.”

I do love the way Paul so perfectly balances

his comments about practical growth

with the truth about our true identity in Christ.

Immediately after he offers these words in Philippians

describing this beautiful growth mentality,

do you know what he says?

He takes us right back to the truth about our true identity in Christ.

He says,

PHI 3:15 Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude...

Perfect!

He is talking, of course,

about our spirits,

recreated by God in absolute perfection at the time we came to Him through faith in Christ.

A perfect diamond

buried in a pile of dung.

Is that too offensive?

That’s they way I see it sometimes.

By the grace of my great God

there is now within me a perfect spirit that is the true Larry.

It is the spirit that will live with God forever,

in perfect union with my Creator,

a spirit that longs only for Him and His life and His righteousness.

But that spirit is now temporarily buried under a pile of dung,

and all too often

when people look at me,

or when I look at myself,

what they and I see

is not the spirit

but the other stuff,

all those goals,

and need-meeting techniques,

and things I cling to for a sense of security and identity,

all my chronic fears

and all those flesh-based responses that I programed into myself

back in those years before I knew Him,

before I knew His love,

back when I believed He was the great enemy of happiness.

And my point here is simply this -

the presence of Christ within us

does indeed bring about changes in our lives,

but it is not those changes

that provide the foundation upon which we live with our God.

From the day we enter His family through faith in Christ

our performance ceases to be the basis upon which we relate to God

or He relates to us.

And we now live with our Lord

on the basis of His having forever removed from us

all of our sins, all of our failures, all of our flawed performance,

and placed it all onto the account of Christ Himself

who then paid the price for it all through His death.

And that is why on that graph,

though our performance may fluctuate all over the place,

yet our relationship with our God remains at a perfect 10.

OK, that’s where we were a few weeks ago.

But then we moved on to talk more about the performance thing -

what is it that brings about those changes in our lives

that we find this new spirit within us longing for?

And the last time I taught

we looked at several passages in which Paul told us

that the only adequate motivation for those changes

is our discovery of

and then response to the love of God for us.

In just a few minutes

we are going to look at a passage in the Gospel of John

in which Christ talks with us about what it is that brings about a productive Christian life.

But before we go to that passage

I need to prepare us a little more for what we’re going to find there.

I have been observing the body of Christ for more than 35 years now.

In that time I have encountered a remarkable range of different types of Christians.

I have encountered and frequently been touched deeply by Christians

whose lives seem to radiate the reality of their Lord,

Christians whose greatest joy in life

seems to be the discovery and fulfillment of the will of their Lord in their lives.

And I’ve also seen Christians whose lives seem to be little more than the perpetuation of religious games.

These dear folks

live with a highly refined religious system

and they are forever measuring themselves and those around them

on the basis of that system.

They are, quite honestly, rather unpleasant people to be around

because of the critical eye and judgmental spirit they bring to every encounter.

I never feel loved by them.

I only feel either included in their little club or excluded from it

on the basis of how well I have met their religious criteria.

I’ve also seen Christians whose lives never seem to change.

They are frequently fiercely loyal to their doctrine and their beliefs,

but there is no apparent hunger for their God,

no urgency in their walk with Him,

no delight in His presence or His Word or His will.

And with all of my observation,

the one question that fascinates me the most

is that of trying to understand what makes the difference.

Why do some Christians seem to live with such a hunger for their Lord

and a longing to grow in their relationship with Him,

while others spend endless years

stuck in a religious routine

or an external facade that goes nowhere?

Now, I’m certainly not claiming that what I’m about to share with you

is some kind of all-inclusive answer to that question,

but I will say that I have seen one universal characteristic

in the lives of those who are moving forward in their walk with the Lord.

There has been one common denominator,

one thing that has always been present

in those whose lives truly communicate the reality of their King.

And before I share with you what it is,

I’ll tell you what it’s not.

It is not related to the type of problems they have been called to wrestle with in life.

Some have had relatively smooth lives

with few apparent major problems to deal with,

while others have faced tremendous turmoil or adversity.

And remarkably,

it also doesn’t seem to be related to their doctrinal systems,

or their church heritage,

or with any type of shared spiritual experiences,

or with a similarity of spiritual gifts,

or with the discovery of certain doctrinal principles of truths.

But with every Christian I have ever met

whose life has touched me deeply

there has always been one shared characteristic among them all.

Every one of them has discovered in a deeply personal way

that their God really, truly does love them,

and that discovery has formed the motivational foundation

for their entire Christian walk.

When I encounter a Christian

whose Christian life is stagnate,

who appears to be going nowhere in his or her interaction with their Creator,

do you know what I want to say?

I never do, of course,

because it would sound condemning

and it wouldn’t change anything in their life,

but what I want to say is, “You don’t like your God very much, do you?

You don’t think He’s very nice.

You don’t like being with Him.

You haven’t yet discovered

that He really does love you.”

When I see a Christian

who has sold himself out to some sin bondage

I want to say the same thing.

When I find a Christian

who has immersed himself

in the frantic pursuit of greater “spiritual knowledge”

or spiritual experiences

I want to say the same thing.

“You’re still afraid of your God, aren’t you?

You’re still looking for something

that will bring you peace with Him,

something that will make you feel accepted by Him,

something you can finally offer Him

that will allow you to relax in His presence.

You still haven’t discovered the only truth that really matters in life -

the truth that your God loves you right where you are,

with nothing to offer Him

except your willingness to let Him love you.”

It’s all so very different than I use to think it was, folks.

I use to think it was all about getting people saved,

and getting their doctrine correct,

and finding and then refining the right system of beliefs.

I use to think what God was seeking to do among us

was to reveal His truths to us

so that we would then live in harmony with those truths.

But for much of my life

I have been confusing the means with the goal.

From the very beginning of all that is

there has only been one supreme goal in God’s agenda for us, His creation -

that we would come to understand

the true nature and depth of the love of our God for us.

It is a remarkable thing, yet true

that Adam did not know the love of his God for him.

He walked with God in the garden.

He lived surrounded by a perfect creation

designed just for him

and given to him by His God.

And yet he did not know the love of his God for him.

How do I know that?

How can I say that?

Because Adam could not have known the heart of his God

and still doubted and then violated the words spoken to him by that God.

“Don’t eat from this tree.”

You see, the only way we could ever discover the truth

about the heart of our God for us

is through our seeing His response to us

in the face of our rebellion against Him.

ROM 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

We can hear the words

but discovering the truth of them is not so easy.

We begin by believing that God is just like dad, only lots bigger.

And if dad was selfish,

or severe,

or really big on DISCIPLINE without kindness, or compassion, or gentleness, or warmth,

or if he wasn’t there,

or didn’t really care,

or was incapable of entering into our world,

then we must fight through all of those lies about our God

before we can come to the truth.

And the only truth that matters,

the only one that has the power to alter our lives forever,

the only one that has the ability to become the driving motivation for life itself

is the truth that our God loves us.

Certainly He works to bring about our salvation.

Certainly He longs for each of us to discover the freedom from sin

that can come only through our faith in Jesus Christ.

But He longs for that

not as an end in itself,

but rather as the first great step toward our personal discovery of His heart of love for us.

Now, I bring all of this up

before I take us to that passage in the Gospel of John

because without our personal understanding of His love

what He calls us to in this passage

will be an impossibility.

And with that

let me read the passage and show you what I mean.

It’s found in John 15:1-10, a passage that records words spoken by Christ Himself to His disciples.

It begins with Christ creating for us an analogy

designed to help us to better understand

the kind of relationship He has established between Himself and His people.

He says, JOH 15:1 "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.

He describes Himself as a grape vine,

with God the Father being the One who cares for the vine

and keeps it fruitful and productive.

Then, having established the analogy, He goes on.

JOH 15:2 "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit.

Now, He comes back to that first statement a few verses later,

so we’ll leave it alone until we get to verse 6,

but the second half of the verse contains a critical principle in God’s dealings with us as His children.

He tells us that every truly productive child of God will be pruned.

And this is where the vine illustration becomes so helpful to us

in our understanding of the basics of our relationship with our Lord.

You see, the pruning process in a vine

is not a process in which the gardener removes deadwood,

it is the process in which the gardener removes healthy, growing, productive parts of the plant

so that the energy of the plant

can then be poured into the production of a few great fruits

rather than a bunch of mediocre ones.

We have developed a religious world

in which we have convinced ourselves that more is better

and busy is good.

I have no idea how God will apply this principle in your own life,

but I can tell you with certainty that it is true.

If you honestly hunger for a productive walk with the King,

He will prune you.

There will be times when He will take what is good away from you

so that what is best can grow.

And at the time it will hurt.

At the time it will seem like a great loss to you.

At the time it may even cause you to turn to your God and say,

“I don’t understand! You have taken from me

that which was so obviously good.”

It is a process that every truly productive believer will undergo at times.

Then, before He says any more about this productivity thing

the Lord makes a critical distinction,

the same distinction we have been talking about for three weeks now,

the distinction between acceptance and productivity.

He says, JOH 15:3 "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

And with that statement

He wants to be sure we understand

that He is not talking here

about our earning our way into God’s acceptance.

We are already clean, pure, holy in spirit because of our faith in the word spoken to us by our God.

But then He goes on to explain the critical principle He’s trying to communicate.

JOH 15:4 "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me.

JOH 15:5 "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.

And I’ll tell you right now

that there is a critical word used by Christ in this passage,

in fact it is used nine times by Him in these few verses.

It is the word “abide”.

It is a word carefully designed

to describe for us that one special unique aspect of the God/man relationship

that has the ability to result in a truly productive life.

He doesn’t say “obey”,

He doesn’t say “submit”

He doesn’t even say “trust” or “believe”.

He says “abide”.

And this is why I spent so much time

talking about that essential process of us coming into an awareness of the love of God for us.

You see, we simply will not abide in a God we do not love,

or God whose love for us we doubt.

Do you know what it means for us to abide in Christ?

It means we allow our spirit to rest in Him.

It means we utterly relax in Him,

and in His oversight in our lives,

and in His ability to do in us and through us whatever needs to be done.

It means we reach the point where we are at peace with the knowledge

that anything of value that comes out of our lives

will exist because He has produced it in us.

Then, from there, the Lord continues His vine analogy by saying,

JOH 15:6 "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 let me tell you what He is not saying there.

He is not saying that those who do not abide will be ripped out of the body Christ and condemned.

We know that because He has just assured us

that our acceptability to Him is not and never will be dependant upon our productivity...

JOH 15:3 "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

 But what He is saying

is that frantic religious activity is not fruit,

it is not true productivity.

And the only way for true fruit to develop in our lives

is through our first hand discovery of the personal love of our Lord for us

in a way that draws us into a relationship with Him

in which we abide in His love.

And then He makes us a promise.

JOH 15:7 "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.

Then, in verse nine,

He states clearly what He’s talking about with this whole business of abiding.

JOH 15:9 "Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.

He then concludes his vine illustration

with one final statement.

JOH 15:10 "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.

And here again, let me state first of all what He is not saying.

He is not saying that abiding in Christ means we keep the commandments.

The religious world around us

is filled with people who keep the commandments out of fear of the wrath of God.

Remember those words of the elder brother when the prodigal son returned?

LUK 15:29 "But he answered and said to his father, 'Look! For so many years I have been serving you, and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given me a kid, that I might be merry with my friends;

He lived in the same house as his father,

but he certainly didn’t abide in His love.

In truth, he knew nothing of his father’s heart.

What the Lord is saying

is that it is impossible to abide in His love

and not trust what He has said to us about morality.

John said it so well in his first letter.

1JO 2:4-6 The one who says, "I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.

So, there we are -

there is an absolute separation between our performance and our acceptance by God.

We are accepted by Him absolutely

because the death of Christ has removed all sin from us forever.

And yet,

as we discover more and more of the true heart of our God,

and the true nature of His love for us,

as we abide in Him in response to that love,

we will find a transformation taking place within us

that will result in our lives being truly productive by His standards.