Divine Viticulture (part 2) - [John 15:1-8]

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Has anyone ever accused you of being maybe a little bit too black and white, you know, not having enough gray in your life, being too picky?

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I think as we come to the text this morning, and I got a short intro because I'm going to elongate the recap a little bit, but I think we're going to see in the words of Jesus, a lot of black and white language, not a lot of gray.

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John 15, and I'm going to start in verse one. I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser.

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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.

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Already you are clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you.

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As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

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I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.

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For apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers.

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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.

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By this my father is glorified that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.

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Here we are again in the upper room, sitting as it were around the table with Jesus and the disciples at the

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Last Supper. And we're just hours away from his arrest, the sham trial, and the crucifixion.

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Last week we looked at the first elements of what I call Divine Viticulture. And this morning we're going to see additional elements, we'll see how far we get, several

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I hope. I hope we're going to finish this morning. We're going to see additional elements of Divine Viticulture, and in them we will see the very difference between eternal life and eternity in hell.

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These are sobering words indeed, and again, no gray spaces.

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So why Divine Viticulture? Because viticulture, as I mentioned last week, is the study of how you prune and grow and care for grapevines so that they produce the desired results.

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A lot of grapes, and hopefully high quality grapes, that they will be useful for the purpose of whatever the vine is going to do.

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I was looking at, whatever you grew the vine for, I was looking at Amazon, and you know there's a book called

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How to Grow Grapes, and I looked at it and I was like, it's $80. Man oh man, that did not come out of my book allowance,

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I didn't buy it, that just wasn't happening. It's a big deal, it's a major study.

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In fact, it is, I also found this on Google, Google's really fun. Grapes, grapes are the number one fresh fruit product in terms of value in the whole world.

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So there you go, write that down. But Divine Viticulture means this, that it is

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God who is producing the fruits, the grapes, and if you love the Lord Jesus, we're going to see this morning, you are a grape bearer, you are a fruit bearer, as the text says here.

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So, review. The first element of Divine Viticulture is the vine.

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Jesus says, Ego eimi, which refers to Exodus 3 .14, has to do with his self -existence.

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He emphatically says, I am the true vine. It's a claim to deity, but it's also a claim to exclusivity, right?

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He's saying he is the only true vine. There is no other way to heaven. Just as with the other

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I am statements, when he said, I am the bread of life. In Jesus alone is there spiritual satisfaction.

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In Jesus alone is there the sustenance necessary for spiritual life.

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When he said, I am the light of the world in John 8 .12, he said, whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

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What did he mean? That there is no other means of knowing the truth, or of having eternal life.

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When he said, I am the door, apart from Jesus, no one will be saved.

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Only the sheep go through the door, and the only door is Jesus Christ. When he said,

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I am the good shepherd, he is the only one who never fails, who never loses a sheep, and he's the only one who lays down his life for the sheep.

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When he said, I am the resurrection and the life, he is the only one who has power over life and death.

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Again, he is God. In our pluralistic age, in other words, this age where seemingly there is no absolute truth, these are the claims, you can't know that.

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My opinion is just as valuable as your opinion. Everyone is supposed to approve of everyone's, not only their lifestyle, but also of their faith.

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How dare you say something against my faith? Jesus' words cut through all of that.

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He is very non -politically correct. He doesn't give multiple choice kind of answers.

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He doesn't talk in terms of gray. The words of Jesus convey absolute authority.

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They leave no doubt that he is God and that trusting him, following him, and believing in him is the only way to heaven.

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So when he says in verse one, I am the true vine, he is using imagery that would be familiar to the disciples, not only in his claim to deity, but when he talks about true vine, it's an agrarian society.

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People would be very familiar with farming and with taking care of orchards or vines.

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When he says he's the true vine, they would think, well, what? That there must be false vines, right?

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Those false vines, well, for them, it might be even looking back to Israel.

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And we talked about it last week, about how Israel sent a message to the world.

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And that message was syncretism, that one God is as good as another because they worshiped all these false gods in the

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Old Testament. But Jesus is the only means of spiritual life and sustenance.

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That's why the imagery of the vine and the branches, if you're in him, you have life.

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If you're not in him, you don't have life. So that's the first element of divine viticulture was the vine.

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The second one was the vine dresser and his work. Again, in verse one, my father is the vine dresser.

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Vine dresser, the picture here is just that the father superintends the vine and the branches.

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Specifically, what does he do? We talked about it last week. Number one, he removes the fruitless branches. And number two, he prunes the fruit bearing branches.

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He removes the fruitless branches because in viticulture, the goal again is to produce the maximum amount of grapes and the best quality of grapes.

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And if you have dead branches, they're just taking energy off the vine and doing nothing. So you cut them off so that the producing grapes will produce more.

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Secondly, he also prunes or cuts back the fruit bearing.

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That's a verse two. And every branch that does not bear fruit or that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit.

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As I said last week, pruning may not be painless, right? But when God decides that someone is going to bear fruit, they're going to bear fruit.

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And I was just sitting here thinking, I thought there probably isn't a better example in all the

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Bible of somebody who had no interest in being fruit bearing.

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But wound up producing great fruit than the Apostle Paul. He's on the road to Damascus.

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And what's he doing? He's persecuting the church. He wants to put Christians in jail. And Jesus appears to him and says,

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Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Transforms his life. And what does the apostle do for the rest of his life?

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He's preaching Jesus Christ. He's preaching him and him crucified. He's writing all these epistles.

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And does he bear fruit? Absolutely. Because the ultimate fruit is what?

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The ultimate fruit that we are to bear, as we're going to see this morning, is believers, disciples, converts.

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Did Paul see that? Yes, he did. Was it painful? Yes, it was.

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He was beaten. He was shipwrecked. All these other things that he talks about. Running for his life.

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We don't suffer like that. But the father, the vine dresser, prunes those vines, the branches that bear fruit so that they may bear more fruit.

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Third element of divine viticulture. The work of the vine. Verse three, already you are clean because the word

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I have spoken to you. Clean just means moral purity. It means that they had been justified by believing in the words of Jesus.

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Again, showing that salvation is by faith, not by works. But also showing the efficacy of the words of Jesus Christ.

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By faith, they are brought in to the vine. And by faith, they are delivered from their sins.

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They are justified, declared righteous by the father. And again, we have to think about the overall context.

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In John 14, he says that he doesn't want them to be troubled. He doesn't want them to be worried.

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Why? Because he's leaving. He's told them he's leaving, and they're downcast. He's trying to encourage them, and he's doing this by giving them this picture.

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Look, you guys, and here's what's going to happen in the next few hours even. They're going to leave

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Jesus, right? He's going to be taken. He's going to be arrested. And they're going to go into basically panic mode.

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What's going to happen after that is, you know, the women are going to go find the empty tomb, and they're going to meet where Jesus tells them to meet.

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And he's going to appear to them and then encourage them. But all these things are going to be brought back to their memory in spite of their panic and everything else because of the work of the

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Holy Spirit. So the big picture is, I'm going to encourage you because I'm going to tell you the Spirit's going to bring these things back to your mind.

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I'm going to encourage you by telling you that you need to hold fast to my words. And I'm going to encourage you by telling you that the

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Father is superintending the whole process of your sanctification.

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He's going to be working in you even if things get ugly, and they're going to.

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Even if you try to separate yourself from me.

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Even if you, like Peter, say, you know what, I don't even know that man. God is going to, the

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Father is going to so work in you that you are going to be fruit bearers. You're going to produce fruit of the

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Spirit. You're going to produce disciples. You're going to produce a lot of things that you can't even imagine right now.

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The fourth element of divine viticulture, and it's found in verse four, what

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I'm calling the work of the living branches, the work of living branches. And it's really not a work that we do by ourselves because there really is no work that we do by ourselves, but we have a responsibility.

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And we're going to see that now. It's abide in me and I in you. Now, this word abide is, or remain, is one that would be very familiar to us.

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It's the Greek word meno. It's a verb. And it occurs 10 times.

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I mean, this is like red flag. It occurs 10 times in the next seven verses. For verses four to 10, that's seven verses, 10 minus four plus one, seven.

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It occurs 10 times. And so when we see a word, any word being used over and over and over again, it's kind of the point, right?

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He's making a point. More so when it's the verb. This is the heart of what he is stressing to the disciples.

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What is, so what does it mean to abide, to remain in Christ? Well, if we look back at verse three, the ending of verse three, think about this.

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He says, because of the word that I have spoken to you, right?

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You're clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. There are, there's an import in that to this abiding.

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You're clean now because the words that I've spoken to you abide in me. The words matter.

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Christians do what? They believe his word. They focus on his word. We believe what

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God has said. That's why we're Christians. And when we look around evangelicalism,

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Christianity today, we find a lot of emotionalism. We find a lot of mysticism.

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In the last couple of weeks, there's been this great big. Well, let's see, what should

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I call it? Over one particular pastor, because he said things like, you know what?

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If you're praying and you see pirate ships and you see cannons, maybe you see sharks, you know, in your head, these things mean something and you need to go to people and tell them about it.

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What? I remember, and I've told this story before years ago, you know, a group of, from time to time there would be in the jail, there would be, well,

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I would be working in different areas. And one day I was working in this place where the inmates sowed. And what they would do, you know, to get more inmates on, get them work credits.

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So they get out of jail earlier as they would sort of overcrowd the working areas. So there might be more workers in there than there was actual work to do.

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So there's a small group of these guys and they're over in this little janitor's closet and they've got

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Bibles open. Okay. So I just kind of walked by and, you know, I listened to him for a minute and they're talking about dreams.

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You know, what did so -and -so dream last night and what does it mean or whatever? And I'm like, okay, you guys have your

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Bibles open and you're talking about dreams. You know, this is like, why are we talking about practice? We had to be done.

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Why are we talking about dreams? We've got the revealed word of God. And then you want to focus on whether or not, you know, some bad mayonnaise you had last night or something that kept you up is important.

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Well, of course it's not. But there's this movement now, you know, that emotionalism, mysticism, our feelings, our thoughts, our dreams, whatever, are as important as the word of God.

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Trying to divine these things is not abiding in Jesus. Pseudo -prophecy and pseudo -prophets, that's not abiding in Jesus.

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Turning social issues into gospel issues is not abiding in Jesus. Abiding in Jesus is akin to having the mind of Jesus trying to think what he thinks because we're so full of his word.

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We're so influenced by what scripture says that when something comes along, we examine it like Jesus would examine it.

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You know, what would Jesus do? Everything perfectly all the time. But if we have the influence of the

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Holy Spirit, the influence of the Bible to sort through the issues of life, we'll do much better.

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Abide in Christ. There's also, when we think about abiding in Christ, there's a focus on obedience.

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If we just skip ahead to verse 10, look at verse 10 for a moment of John 15.

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He says, 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.

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It's pretty hard to separate abiding in Christ, right?

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Having that mind that is so filled with a love for Christ and a love for his word and trying to please him and everything that we're doing and saying.

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It's pretty hard to separate that from obedience because what we believe influences what we do.

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What we're thinking about influences how we respond to things. Now, if I can encourage you this way, just as the disciples failed, so will you.

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Is that encouraging? So why are commands like this here?

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Abide in Christ. Well, you know what? Right now, I'm not abiding. I'm worried about this. I'm thinking about that. I didn't respond well to that.

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Well, why are these things here? Just like in Hebrews, from time to time, there are warning passages for us, right?

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There are things that seem, they are encouraging, but they're also like, well, you know what? You're not going to do this perfectly.

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But these are warnings to watch over our lives, our thinking, and our doctrine, and to not pay attention to our dreams and myths and all these other things.

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Scripture warns us against these things, and yet people do them anyway. What you believe affects how you behave.

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There's no way of getting around that. But notice also in this scripture that there is a mutual abiding.

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Jesus says he will abide in his disciples. Abide in me and I in you. We have to, again, keep in mind the metaphor that Jesus is the vine and the believers are the disciples, and we are his disciples too.

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Believers are the branches. What is this meant to kind of underline, to underscore, to really emphasize to us?

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How is this even an encouragement to them? Well, think about it this way. If you know, first of all, that the

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Father is superintending this process, but also when you think about a vine and the branches, you think about the closeness of that relationship.

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That's encouraging. It's encouraging just like when we think about Jesus being the good shepherd and we are his sheep.

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That's encouraging because it means he intimately knows us. Here, it's this intimate closeness, this relationship that we have.

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But unlike us, when we're commanded to abide, well, sometimes we will and sometimes we won't.

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But Jesus always abides in the branches. He's always faithful.

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Believers don't have the power in and of themselves to abide in Christ, right? It's the indwelling of the

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Holy Spirit. It's the abiding presence of the Lord and even the abiding presence of the

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Father, which keeps us on track. But God is sovereign and we are responsible.

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So we get commands like this. But we must never confuse faith with faithfulness, right?

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We are not going to be fully faithful. That doesn't relieve us of the responsibility of striving for faithfulness, but it doesn't undermine our salvation when we fail.

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We're not kept by our own strength. We are pruned and cared for and overseen by the

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Father. He's keeping us. No one can take us out of the Father's hand. Nobody can remove us from the vine.

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God is sovereign, but we are responsible. Now, again, big picture, theological picture.

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What we're talking about here is a doctrine called the perseverance or the preservation of the saints.

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How do we know that we won't finally and fully fall away from Christ? How do we know that we won't, you know, by failing to abide in Jesus, how do we know that we won't just depart entirely?

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Again, it's because of God, because of his power, because of the vine dresser.

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Look at it this way. You know, again, we're promised the indwelling power and presence of the

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Holy Spirit. Well, when exactly does the Holy Spirit get evicted? Once he takes up residence within you, what would cause him to leave?

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And the answer is nothing. Now, there may come up a message from, you know, the

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Holy Spirit to the vine dresser. He may say, Father, this person needs some pruning.

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You need to do some work here. But again, the branches are to produce fruit.

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Look at verse four again, the second half of it. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

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And here it's clear that we don't do works on our own, right? Neither can you unless you abide in me.

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Well, how could we do works of our own? How could we do righteous works on our own strength?

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The metaphor of the vine and the branches helps us to see our dependence upon Jesus. Our work is to produce fruit, but we can only do it through the strength that he supplies.

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Not only should branches produce fruit, but the fruit should be abundant. Look at verse five. I am the vine, you are the branches.

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Whoever abides in me and I in him, right? Almost a direct repetition of everything that we've just read.

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He it is that bears much fruit. Now, here's a challenge.

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If you are attached to the vine, if you are in Christ, that is to say, are you bearing much fruit?

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And isn't that what he says here? Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, a lot of fruit.

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Now, let's just put that thought aside for a moment. Let's just think about this. There are two extremes kind of in Christianity.

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One is I have absolute freedom, what I like to call freedomism. I'm free.

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That is a Christian who could do as he or she pleases. The other one, kind of law keepers.

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Give me a series of rules. Christianity is a series of rules and I want to live by those rules.

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One of the reasons I think that some people wind up in Protestant Christianity and eventually wind up converting to Catholicism is that.

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Give me rules. Give me things that I can do where I can know that I am holy, that I can know that I'm doing what

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I'm supposed to do. And I think most Christians, if we were honest, if we could, you know,

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I don't know, do some sort of lie detector test or, you know, like Scientology.

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I don't know. You don't need to know that much about Scientology. But suffice it to say, when you join Scientology, they have you basically do a confession of your whole life, everything that you've ever done.

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And they record it all too, which is great for blackmail purposes. But here's the point of that.

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We, as human beings, like to think that we are contributing somehow to our salvation, to our being made right.

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We like rules. We like laws, for the most part.

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And then there are some who just say, I'm in Christ. I can do as I please. But both errors indicate, or can indicate, a lack of salvation.

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And why? It's right here in our text. Because when we think about the repeated claims that Jesus says, where he is

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God, ego eimi, to abide in him, to be a branch of the vine, means that Jesus is also abiding in you, which necessarily results in the production of much fruit.

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So you have to ask yourself this. If Jesus says his function is to work through you by the guidance of the

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Father to produce much fruit, how can he fail to accomplish that?

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How can God, who is self -existent, which is what Jesus is saying, fail to produce what he wants to?

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He won't. Because he will provide the grace to lead you through life and thus produce fruit.

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So we find ourselves in situations where we have trials in our life. We lose a job.

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We have difficulty in our family life. We have difficulty with our health.

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All these things. And we think, well, why, Lord? Show me the reason why. And I will just gladly submit to it.

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Sometimes we don't get the why. Here's what we get. I'm going to produce fruit through you.

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The Father is going to prune you. And sometimes the pruning is not going to be easy. Sometimes it's not going to be simple.

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But I am going to work my will through you. I am going to produce fruit. Look at verse 5 again.

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Second part of it, he says, For apart from me you can do nothing. You know, when I got saved, this is one of my favorite verses.

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Because I used to think, and I still do think, it's true, right? Apart from Jesus, I can't do anything.

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Now, that doesn't apply to, you know, like, getting up and going and getting a glass of milk. Of course, I can do that, usually.

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But we see a reason here. Why some people who profess Christ never make any spiritual progress.

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Look again at the text. Apart from me. What does it say?

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Apart from me, you can do nothing. Now, the Greek phrase there, you can do nothing, could be phrased this way.

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You can do nothing at all. He could have been more blunt. He could have said, you can do zip, zero, zilch, nada.

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And what he's talking about is not the mundane things of life. He's talking about spiritual fruit, right?

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If in your life there is nothing to indicate that you're a Christian, apart from me, you can do nothing.

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Well, if I'm not doing anything, maybe it's because I am apart from Jesus.

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Maybe I'm not attached to the vine. Maybe the vine dresser isn't so working in my life to create that fruit.

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It's pretty frightening. Branches separated from the vine produce nothing.

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But it also means that even works that might appear to be good, if they're not attached to the vine, in other words, that these branches that are producing this work, they're worthless.

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Here's a question. How do I know? How can I say that there are zero non -Christians, unbelievers, there are no unbelievers who are going to heaven?

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Because apart from me, you can do nothing. Nothing pleasing to God.

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No fruits that are in keeping with repentance. There's no evidence of a saved or changed life.

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On Judgment Day, some who say that they are Christians, some who just say that they're good or moral, some who say that they were faithful Buddhists or Muslims or Christian scientists or Mormons or Roman Catholics.

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And even those who say they were born again will hear these words. Depart from me.

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Why? Because you were never in me. You were never attached to the vine.

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Now, what can an unsaved person do to draw closer to God, to draw closer to Christ?

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Let me read it again. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Absolutely nothing.

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Sobering indeed. The fifth element of divine viticulture, the end of the dead branches.

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In other words, those branches that are, they may appear to be very close to the vine, but they're not attached to the vine.

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What happens to them? Verse six tells us, 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.

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Now, here's a little bit of a tricky bit, because it seems to indicate that someone can be abiding in Christ and then stop abiding.

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And as we did last week, it's helpful for us to think about the immediate context, right? We're at the last supper.

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We're at this, still at this table, getting ready to leave, but we haven't left yet. Well, Judas has just left.

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Judas was a branch. Now, let's ask ourselves, was he a branch attached to the vine or was he a dead branch?

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Let's turn for a moment to Matthew 26. Matthew 26. And we're going to read verses 24 and 25.

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And again, the setting here is the same evening, that same meal. We're just backing up a little bit.

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I don't know exactly how long, but to just before Judas left. Matthew 26 verses 24 and 25.

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The son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the son of man is betrayed.

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It would have been better for that man if he had not been born. Judas, who would betray him, answered.

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Is it I, rabbi? He said to him that as Jesus said to Judas, you have said so.

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Now we know from reading John that the other disciples, you can go back to John, the other disciples apparently didn't hear what

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Judas has said, or there would have been no kind of puzzlement about who it was. But look at what

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Jesus says about him. It would have been better for him to never have been born. Not, you know, try a little harder,

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Judas. Repent, be baptized. It would have been better that you had never been born.

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That could never be said of a believer ever. No one can ever look at a believer and say it would be better for you to never have been born.

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Because no matter how bad your life is now. Eternity in the presence of Christ and the absence of everything that afflicts you now awaits you in heaven.

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So for the believer, everything, everything that God has, all the riches of God in Christ Jesus are going to be yours.

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But for an unbeliever, it is better if you had never been born. It's stunning the emphasis we put on the things of this life.

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And I, you know, I'm as guilty as anybody. I love the things of this life. I can't believe the way that the

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Lord has blessed me. But these things are all going to go. There isn't one thing.

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I can't even take one of my grandkids with me, right? I can't, I don't even get to take them through the gates of heaven.

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They're going to have to do that on their own by the grace of God. But this idea of burning, it's presented.

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And I'm not going to go there for the sake of time. And Ezekiel 15, when he's talking about Jerusalem and how

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Jerusalem had failed and how they were being judged. And he said he was going to basically burn them.

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They were useless wood, useless branches. They're going to be consumed because that's all they're good for.

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If we think about Psalm 1, what does he say? He talks about how believers are, how everything is done for them.

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How they are like this tree and there's a canal dug for them. And all these wonderful things happen to them, but not so the wicked.

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The wicked are not so. They are like the chaff, right? And what is chaff?

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What's done to chaff? It is burned. Black and white, no gray.

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There's no purgatory. There's heaven and hell and nothing in between. For those who've never given any indication of love for Christ, their fate is sealed.

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They may, well, I don't even want to say indication. If they've never actually been used of God, if they've never actually produced any fruit, if they've never actually been attached to the vine, there's no hope.

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There are many in evangelicalism today who think that by walking an aisle, by praying a prayer, by joining a church, by reading the

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Bible, by doing something, they are in Christ. But the question is, did they love him?

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Were they attached to him? Did he love them? Was he attached to them? Was the father superintending this process?

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Were they indwelt by the Holy Spirit? If so, they would produce fruit. There are two groups laid out for us in Scripture.

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There are the elect and the non -elect. You can call them goats and sheep. Here he calls them branches that bear fruit and branches that don't.

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But the end of the dead branches is hell. They are gathered and thrown into the fire.

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And apart from the work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that would be the fate of every person in this room.

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Now the final element of divine viticulture, his care, is the end of the fruitful branches.

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The end of the fruitful branches. Look at verse 7, and we're going to see the promise of answered prayer. Again, keep in mind he's talking to the disciples, but these things apply to us as well.

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If you abide in me, if you remain in me, if the Holy Spirit has taken up residency in you, if my words, as he's going to say, abide in you, right?

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Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. When the words of Christ abide in his disciples, he will answer all their requests, all their desires.

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Now we see this abused in many circles. You know, I want cancer cured.

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You know, I want to be able to heal people. I want a billion dollars. I want a new personal jet.

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You know, whatever. You know, I'm just going to pray in faith and believe this, and because I'm in Christ, I get it because he said so.

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But those kind of prayers skip over the prerequisite. Look again, that the words of Christ, that my words abide in you.

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If that has happened, then you have, as I've said, in effect, the mind of Christ. You won't pray these kind of prayers.

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Oh, you might. It's not wrong to pray for cure for cancer, but if you're afflicted with cancer, you're more likely to pray.

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Father, I don't understand this. Teach me, shape me, prune me through this.

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Use it for your glory. You may not pray for a billion dollars, but you could pray something like this.

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Lord, thank you for providing for my needs. Help me to be generous with those who have less than I do.

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I don't need a jet, but I thank you for the transportation that I have. I thank you for the ability I have to work all these things.

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How about this one? Lord, I want to proclaim the truth to unbelievers today.

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I want to tell people about Jesus. I want to see fruit in my life.

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I want to see spiritual fruit in my life. Lord, prune me, shape me, work on me.

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When we align our will with his will, as we have the words of Christ abiding in us, he will answer our prayers.

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Charles Spurgeon said, Christ delights in his people. You may not feel delightful, but Christ delights in his people.

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His bride, his glory and joy and crown. He who knows them best says of them, in whom is all my delight.

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They count themselves to be less than nothing. And yet he makes much of them and sets his heart towards them.

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This is our savior. This is the vine that we are in. We're nothing apart from Christ, but as he works in us, and as we dutifully pursue him by the spirit sustaining power, we experienced the joy of answered prayer.

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And look at the purpose of answered prayer in verse eight. By this, my father is glorified that you bear much fruit.

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And so prove to be my disciples. Hmm. When our prayers are answered, the father is glorified.

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That's fascinating, right? We see answered prayer. We're happy about it. And it says here,

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Jesus says the father is glorified by that. And what do you suppose happens when you, well, if you've experienced answered prayer, what happens?

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That joy spills out into your life, right? You tell people about Jesus. He uses that exuberance, that joy, that zeal to preach the gospel to bring people to him.

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You know, sometimes we think, well, you know what? I'm not equipped to be evangelist. I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to do that.

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And I say this often, if you know the gospel, which you must know in order to be saved, right?

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Then you know enough to tell people. It's not the great evangelist. Not everybody's going to be saved by listening to Ray Comfort or Billy Graham or somebody like that.

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They're not going to be saved by Pastor Mike. Sometimes it's just that person in the pew who gets on a bus and just says, do you know about Jesus?

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Do you know where you're going if you die today? And if we think about this again, getting back to the context of John chapter 15, the disciples are going to scatter.

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There's going to be 40 days after the resurrection where they're together with Jesus and he's going to talk to them and they're going to see him.

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Then he ascends. Then what happens after the ascension? The day of Pentecost and Peter, this absolute, if I could say this, loser, okay?

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Who boasts about his faithfulness and all the things that he's going to do and then abandons

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Christ, denies him, abandons him. Peter on the day of Pentecost preaches and thousands believe bearing much fruit.

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Why? Because he was a true vine. He was attached to the vine. He was a branch attached to the true vine.

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God used him. And then who gets the glory? Is it Peter? It's God.

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God gets the glory. The father gets the glory. As we dwell on scripture and are sanctified, we can like look for the promises that apply to us or we can think, you know what?

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I want to see the loss come to faith. I want to see much fruit. I want to see that kind of fruit.

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I want to see souls saved because there's nothing, you know, if my needs are being met, that's great.

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But if others are being reached, if others are being pulled out of this fire, how much better?

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We need to be compassionate. We need to be consumed by thinking about Christ, about his concern for the lost.

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We need to reflect that kind of compassion when we go out among the unbelieving world.

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But being compassionate doesn't mean that we have to obscure the truth. The gospel is not gray, right?

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It's not like, well, you know, I'm not really sure about these things. There might be other ways to God than Jesus Christ.

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No. If you think about sin, is sin gray? It's black.

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But God requires sinless perfection in order to get to heaven and we can never do that.

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We have no means to remove, even as Isaiah says, you know, these scarlet stains from our robes in order to enter into heaven.

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Only Jesus, truly God and truly man. Only Jesus willingly laid down his life to be the payment for our sins, thus removing our guiltiness.

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We still lack one thing and that's that righteousness. It's one thing to have your sins removed. It's another thing to have the righteousness, the righteous robes, as it were, that you need to enter into heaven.

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When Jesus rose from the dead, that righteousness was transferred to all who would ever believe.

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Was acceptable payment and that righteousness was imputed to all who would ever believe on the cross.

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He took our sins. Friends, we ought not to be deceived.

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God is not mocked. He knows those who are in Christ. He knows those who are branches attached to the true and living vine.

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Let's pray. Father in heaven, for any who are here today who are not sure, that they're in Christ Jesus or who know that they're not.

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Father, I pray the imagery of burning branches might drive that home. Eternity in hell.

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Eternity apart from the grace and the love and the joy of Christ.

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That's what awaits those, for those who reject you, who don't believe in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Who don't bow the knee. Who don't flee to the cross.

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Lord, we will pray for your spirit to convict of sin, to work in the lives of those who don't know you.

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We would also pray for him to work in the lives who do know you. Father, make us eager to bear fruit.

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Eager to even be pruned, to suffer, to be afflicted.

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If it might bring glory to you and souls transferred from darkness to light.

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Grant us fruit Lord. Grant us the joy of knowing you and in all of its fullness that we might remain in you, be focused on you and serving you.