John 15:4-11 part 1 Theme: New Covenant Branches

If you will, at this time, take your copy of the scriptures. I might be a little too loud.

Take a copy of the scriptures and please turn with me to John chapter 15.

John chapter 15. We will consider verses 4 through 11.

John chapter 15 verses 4 through 11. Let me open this up in prayer.

Our glorious God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for we gather together to hear from you through the words of Holy Scripture.

For to hear John's account of Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth.

For to hear from the apostle's mouth himself, not from me. For please remove me, but allow me to, by the power of your spirit, to explain this text and feed your people.

We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, through your spirit.

Bless them, Lord. So we're back in this wonderful and glorious text, right?

We took a two -week break from John and now we're back in it today.

And well, today I want to begin where I left off a few weeks ago.

And that is to begin with our Venn diagram. So if you will look on the back of your bulletin, you will see there a

Venn diagram. And in this Venn diagram, we see how a person can be in Christ and not in Christ.

So you can be in Christ, but not truly in the way that this text is explaining and the way that the

Bible explains to us what it means to be in Christ. And the clearest picture of this that we have seen in the

Gospel of John has to do with Judas Iscariot. Judas was a physical descendant of Abraham of the tribe of Judah, who within hours of Jesus speaking, here in chapter 15, had left to betray him.

A follower of Jesus Christ had left to betray him.

And we will see later on, months down the road, I mean later on, right? And he betrays him with a kiss.

One of the most intimate ways that we've ever seen betrayal done is found in Scripture.

Judas was not only an Israelite under the own covenant, but he was a disciple of Jesus.

He was a follower. He was chosen by Jesus. And as I was walking through this,

I mentioned, do we have any followers of Jesus up in here, right? Are we having disciples of Jesus up in here?

So you can be a disciple of Jesus and not be a Christian. You can be a follower of Jesus and not be a

Christian. However, you cannot be a Christian without being those two things, a disciple, someone who learns from Christ, and a follower.

Someone who follows after Christ. So let's not get it twisted up in here, right?

We're Baptists from the Protestant Reformation. So we were born

Baptists. And we believe that when someone is truly born again, when they're a Christian, they cannot lose that salvation they have been given.

Eternal life is just that, eternal, right? It's not something that you get for a moment until you screw up.

It's something that you're given and you have for eternity. So we see this in three stages, right?

So right now, when I believe in Christ, positionally, righteous before God, I have right now eternal life.

And yet I'm going to die. But the Bible tells us in John chapter five, that when

I die, I will escape the judgment and enter into life. My spirit will be in a better place, the place of heaven, the place where the

Father and Christ dwells. And that too is eternal life. And yes, there's something else that I will experience in the future.

And it is when that spirit is reunited back with my body and the resurrection of the dead.

And therefore will be the final result of eternal life. But yet right now, if you're in Christ truly, you can say that you have eternal life.

Man, basically dying is just like, you know, leaving this shell.

I've heard it said going to a better neighborhood, but maybe from the trailer park to Brentwood, right?

I don't know. I haven't been there. I don't know. I just know it's going to be grander than this.

So this eternal life that I'm experiencing right now, it's great because I have Christ in my life, but I'm still suffering with things.

I'd say physical pain like this for the last two weeks, I've been struggling with a sinus infection.

So, you know, if I need to like spit or something, please forgive me. I should have brought like a cup up here.

I didn't want to go shell out. I'm struggling right now, right? In this portion of eternal life,

I'm struggling. But there's coming a day, right? Hallelujah. There's coming a day.

I'm concerned in Jesus. He was a branch that was in Jesus. That was taken away in the inauguration of the new covenant.

It was wind. Well, excuse me. The inauguration of the new covenant was the sin. And it was the knife used by God to remove

Judas as a branch from the true vine, which is Jesus Christ.

We talk about the inauguration of the new covenant. We believe that the kingdom of God is right now.

That when Christ came, he ushered in the kingdom of God that he inaugurated that kingdom.

And the new covenant is basically just the covenant that that governs the kingdom of God.

And yet this kingdom of God is not fully here yet. I'm able to meet once again

Pastor Cal's brother and his lovely wife. They have this newborn baby and correct me if I'm wrong, but the name is

Millennial Reign, right? So right now we are in the millennial reign of Jesus Christ.

That's what we're in right now, because when he first came, he inaugurated the kingdom.

When he comes again, he's going to consummate that kingdom. So right now we're in this kingdom of God.

In this new covenant, it governs that kingdom. And when Christ inaugurated that kingdom, he inaugurated the new covenant that governs the kingdom.

When that happened, all those in the old covenant that were not looking to Jesus Christ, slipped the line.

Look with me at this Venn diagram. I got a bigger copy up here, right?

We see in this Venn diagram, it represents three headings or three sections. If you have the old covenant, the new covenant and the visible church membership.

And notice how you can be in the old covenant, right? As a physical seat of Abraham or across the line.

But you can also in that old covenant be a part of the new covenant. Just like you, if you look over in the visible church membership, we have

Gentiles and physical seat of Abraham. So Jews today, right? The ethnic Jew today.

So they can be a part of a church and that they can be in Christ in the new covenant.

However, but they can also be in those, you can also today be a member of a church and not be in Christ.

To be in Christ means that you have experienced the new birth, you're in the new covenant with true bond, the olive tree.

You're a descendant of Abraham spiritually. We'll get into that a little bit in a minute. And you're in the kingdom of God.

But you can be in these two things without ever experiencing the new birth. Meaning you're not in the kingdom of God.

You're not governed by the new covenant. You're not truly a part of the true bond.

You're not truly a part of the olive tree. And listen to me, you're not a descendant of Abraham. What we see here is that a person can be in the old covenant and get saved through the new covenant by looking forward to the seed, right?

In order, you can be in the old covenant, you have these promises of the Messiah coming.

There were promises given. And then the way that you can be in the old covenant and say it through the new covenant is that as you're hearing these promises, as you're hearing these prophecies of the

Messiah, you believe in them. You're looking to them. You're trusting in these things that are going to be reality one day.

And let your friend like Abraham, if you were looking to these things, even though you were part of the old covenant,

Christ has not come yet, you are saved by the blood of Jesus and you enter into the new covenant when it was inaugurated.

And in the same way, someone can be in the Visible Church membership and be saved by looking back at that promise.

Homesite 2020, looking back at what took place. We have more information than Abraham had.

Abraham was told that a seed would come from him who would keep the covenant, obey the law and inherit the land.

And that would bless the nation. We're looking back at the Christ who hung on the tree, who kept the covenant, who received the world and blesses the nations through the preaching of the gospel.

And we've seen that here in this church.

Recently, we've had members of this church who thought that they were truly

Christian. But under the preaching of the gospel, realized that their profession was false.

And then they were born again. And they brought that to our attention. And we baptized them as believers in Jesus Christ because we're baptized, right?

We've seen them here. We've seen God do things here. And however, one can also be in the old covenant and be attached to the true bond by way of their ethnicity and not be saved and therefore removed from the vine.

Again, in the same way, a person can be in the physical church membership by way of a profession, faith, and not be saved and therefore be removed from the vine.

It is to be connected without a connection.

You can be connected to Christ without the connection. You ever plug something in, whether it's a microwave, a

TV or something, whatever it may be. It happens to me with a phone charger, right? I put my phone charger in and stick it in.

And like an hour, I'm thinking, okay, finally, now I found this charger and I go to look at it and it's still there.

I plugged it in, but it wasn't really plugged in. There wasn't a connection. That's what church membership can be for a lot of people.

I think they're plugged into Christ, but you're only a member of a church. My dear friends, there's gonna be a lot of church members in hell.

You can be connected without having the connection. Point being, someone could, and from the old covenant, excuse me, someone could have been in the old covenant just like someone could have been a church member and not be a

Christian. They're just disciples of Jesus. They're just followers of Jesus through the church.

Now as Baptists, we believe in what's called regenerate church membership.

So Pastor Calvin and myself, we try to, and again, faith can happen, right?

We try our best to make sure that those who apply for membership, that we welcome into membership are

Christians. However, we have to accept people on their profession of faith.

Like I don't have any kind of superpower to root into someone's heart and know what they really believe and know that the transformation has taken place, which is why this

Venn diagram is true. Just because someone is a member of a church doesn't mean they're in the new covenant.

Only those who are truly regenerated, born again, are in what's called the invisible church membership.

Romans chapter eight, verse nine says this. You, speaking to Christians who are part of a church membership, you

Christians, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.

If, shake your hearts people, if in fact the spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

If you do not have the spirit of Christ, like your friends, it doesn't matter if you're a member of the church, you do not belong to Christ.

To be in the new covenant is to belong to Christ. And those that belong to Christ have the

Holy Spirit, they have the spirit of Christ, which is the Holy Spirit, which is the spirit of God.

And we can get on to some deity conversation here, but I digress. This is not what this message is about.

But a future, we'll put a pin right there, right? The new covenant is the covenant, again, that governs the kingdom of God, which no one can see, according to Jesus in John chapter three, they cannot see it or enter into it unless they're born again, unless God supernaturally grants to you repentance and faith to turn from your sins and to trust in Jesus Christ.

You cannot even see it. Amen. I'll be here today, the way these Christians are weird, what are they talking about?

You don't see it? But I was able to see something that I desired more than anything in life.

And then he gave me the ability to enter into it. Unless you're born again, you cannot see it, nor can you enter it.

And I made a statement last week that was spoken about in our discord.

I might've said it a few times, right? Y 'all don't know me at all. And that is that God does not have a bride and a side chick.

He doesn't. There's more people of Christ. And here's why if you look at that diagram, it holds true.

The bride of Christ are those that are in the new covenant, whether it's

Old Covenant Advent Jews looking forward to the seed, which is Christ, or it is those of us who are looking back at the fulfillment of that seed and what

Christ has accomplished. Whether it's those in the

Old Covenant looking forward or us looking back. Those looking forward that believe in the promises of Jesus, that believe, y 'all, we are the bride of Christ.

The invisible church of Old and New Testament is the bride of Christ.

Now our testament there, it just means covenant. God has made

Jew and Gentile woman in Christ, the body of Christ, the church, the bride of Christ.

And according to Ephesians chapter three, I would say it's coming off of 2, 11 onward.

According to Ephesians chapter three, that is the mystery of Christ, hidden from all ages.

That God is going to take the Jew and the Gentile and make them one people in Christ.

So who are God's chosen people? The churches, the Christians, it's those that believe in Jesus Christ.

Other people, I don't know, other friends and Christians, I don't get up here with any boast.

I am a child of God. I am God. I am someone whom

God has chosen before the foundations of the world to be conformed to the image of his son. I pray you are as well.

The people of God are those that believe in Jesus Christ. And if you do not believe in Jesus Christ, you are not the people of God.

A friend of mine from Facebook, I asked for his permission to quote this. Edwin Ramirez, I pray

I'm saying his name correctly. He put this on Facebook, quote, in many ways, the visible church in our day is just like Israel of the old covenant.

She wants a God in her own image and will do all she can to silence the mouth of God's prophets.

A lot of people, especially in the

Bible Belt, say they believe in God. And you have a conversation with them, my dear friends, it's not the

God of the Bible. They don't know anything about God. They don't know anything about Jesus.

And they don't know the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we're supposed to receive them on the profession of their faith.

And they made God to be some magical gene that they can rub and comes out and grants three wishes.

It's a figment of their imagination. You want to know God, it's the

God of the Bible. There's only one. He has made himself evident.

Our theme for this Lord's Day is new covenant branches. And this will be a two -part message as of right now.

I could change next week. But my proposition, this is what I aim to prove throughout this series, that new covenant branches are not old covenant or visible church membership branches.

We're different. We're not special, but we are attached.

We have that connection. We're not just connected. We have the connection to Jesus Christ.

If someone was in the old covenant only, meaning they were not looking to Christ, they were broken off when their new covenant came, meaning that they were connected without a connection.

And in the same way, if you are only in the visible church membership, meaning you are not at this present moment looking for Jesus Christ, you too will be broken off from the true

God, which is Jesus. And to that, I say, take heed to this one.

Repent right now. Repent and believe in Jesus Christ.

He's the only way for the Father. He's the way, He's the truth. He is the life and no one comes to the

Father except through Him. Join me as I read for you our text.

John chapter 15, verses 4 through 11. Jesus speaking,

He says, Abide in me, and I in ye, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine.

Neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches.

Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.

For apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered and thrown to the fire and burned.

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

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

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.

Just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abided in his love, these things

I have spoken to you that my joy may be with you and that your joy may be full.

In our outline today, we're going to see that Jesus tells us how to be branches that bear much fruit.

And we see that it's through abiding in Jesus, through proving we are his disciples, and through being joyful.

Point number one, this is the only point we'll get to today. So if you're like, oh, it's almost 25 minutes in, it's just not getting to this point, this is the only point we're going to get to today.

So rest assured, abiding in Jesus. Point number two, proving we are disciples of Jesus.

And point number three, being joyful in Jesus. And we'll look at those two points next week.

And as we transition, I want to begin by reading the context of verses one through three of our text.

And I may mention that when interpreting this text, we go back to our first message of this.

The direct interpretation, he is only speaking to ethnic

Jews who are in the old covenants, amen. By way of application, he is speaking to church membership.

Direct interpretation, ethnic Jews. His physical descendants, the physical descendants of Abraham who every one of his disciples were.

I also want to say that this word here, abiding, it just means to remain.

Verse one, again, Jesus begins with the I am statement. The text of Rematon basically saying that he is

God. And as God, he is the true vine. I am the true vine.

My father is the vine dresser. Every branch that is in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away.

We'll stop right there for a minute. Jesus and his disciples were in the upper room, this is where he washes the feet of his disciples.

This is where they have the last Passover. Judas leads to betray him.

At the end of this chapter 14, Jesus says these words.

He says, rise, let us go from here. And in doing so, he says, let us go from this upper room.

And their destination was the garden of Gethsemane. And on their way to the garden of Gethsemane, and again, this is something that we have to read into because the text doesn't say these words, right?

But he passes by the temple. And on the temple, Herod had carved out, and it was basically plated in gold.

And as they're going to the garden of Gethsemane, whichever route they took, maybe it was a long distance,

I'm not sure. Jesus says these words, and I don't believe that he just coughs these words up out of nowhere.

He says that he is the true vine. Israel was pronounced as a vine.

Jesus says he is the true vine. He was the true Israel. And that his father is the vine dresser.

He's the gardener. He's the one that's making sure that the vines, that the branches that are connected to the vine are growing.

And that every branch, right? Old covenant church, we'll bring in application, church membership, that does not bear fruit, he takes away.

And every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes. This Greek word here for prunes is kathiro.

And it means, you can basically connect it with sanctification. It means to cleanse of filthy impurities.

To cleanse of filthy impurities. And if you go back to that text, it says every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes.

He wants to, kathiro, he wants to cleanse you of your filthy impurities, that you may bear more fruit.

He says to them, already, so he's speaking to his disciples, already you are clean. And I wanna say that this is not about, already you are born again.

This word clean here is kathiros. I would say that this is talking about justification.

The Greek here is, it basically points to a cleansing by pouring. And I mentioned that you could think about water in a plant.

And the Bible speaks about how some sow and some water. Right, so in the preaching of the gospel, we are sowing seed and we are watering plants.

All right, and the text tells us that it is God that gives the growth. It says already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.

Again, in our justification, we are cleansed by the pouring of the word.

And this takes place in the preaching of the gospel when we undergo the washing of regeneration.

Pauline genesea, right? This is where we get the word born again by the washing of our new birth.

That is when we are justified, made right with God. And in our sanctification, we are cleansed from our filthy impurities, listen, through the washing of the word.

And this takes place when we are under the preaching of God's word. Paul in Ephesians chapter five, verses 25 through 27,

Paul is at the washing of the word. He's speaking to husbands and wives and how they're supposed to treat one another.

And he compares the two with Christ and his church. The bride of Christ, the one people of God, Jew and Gentile.

Verse 25 says, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church.

And now he's gonna get into the church and gave himself up from her. Who did he give himself up for?

The church. That he Christ might sanctify her, speaking of the church, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word.

This washing, this water here is not actually speaking about water.

It's speaking about the word. That he might cleanse her, not by dipping her in water, but by the washing of water with the word so that he might present the church to himself and slender without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.

In our sanctification, God roams in prayer. The Bible says without holiness, no one will see the

Lord. Those that are branches, those that are truly in him, they are justified.

They're being sanctified. And through the sanctification process, he has grown us to the image of Christ.

Thank you, Lord. So that we can see the Lord. We're saved to be saved. We're saved, being saved to be saved.

We are, we're justified. We're being sanctified in order to be glorified. But the right of Christ is sanctified through the washing of the word, which takes place in which we speak about it as the primary, ordinary means of grace.

But for some of y 'all that might not know what that means, is we believe that God uses ordinary things to conform someone to the image of Jesus Christ.

He uses a ordinary person, such as myself and the preacher of the gospel to grant you justification, to give you repentance and faith.

He also uses ordinary people like myself, and the preacher of the gospel to do extraordinary things, right?

So you have, you know, someone like myself who stands up here behind the pulpit, opens the book and explains to you these things.

And God's going to use this message today, I believe to transform you.

This is one of the, what we call the primary ordinary means of grace. Also a primary ordinary means of grace is for those that have been baptized to partake in the

Lord's supper. That's why we have it every week. We do not want to deprive the people of God of an ordinary means of grace that God is going to use to grow you and help you.

My churches do not have this every week, I am baptized. This is something that God uses to take us from A to B.

To take us from being in our sanctification, right? That process of the sanctification is a process, but when you're justified, you now have to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.

Well, how does he do this? Through the ordinary means of grace. He's sitting in the preaching of God's word, and if you're baptized, you partake in the

Lord's supper. Also a means of grace is fellowship. Jay talks about, you know, he's been in churches that, you know, once the singing was over, once church service was over, it was like pulling a drain plug out of the tub.

You got that picture of the water that sucked up out of the system. Then as soon as church service is over, people just head towards the door.

See ya! When fellowshiping with one another is a primary means of grace, it's what

God's going to use to grow us and help us. Not me, I didn't think of that.

God's means is ordinary things. To grow us and help us. And so it's important for us to have fellowship with one another.

However, the pruning can also take place in discipline. And my dear friend, rather than the first through the latter, rather you have to sit here and listen to someone like me, right?

I don't know. Listen. Help us, Lord. Yeah. Listen, there's days I'm like, whoa, man, putting in four credible people, right?

And I have to listen to me. Rather that, than God's strong hand coming against you because you're being disobedient.

Amen. Trust me, I know that strong hand. I'm that hard -headed guy that had to have the strong hand.

Amen. And those of you that know me well would say, like, Red, amen. Red, there was some days you shouldn't amen, brother.

I was talking about myself. If you are in the new covenant, the

Father prunes you for the purpose of bearing much fruit. However, if you're not in the new covenant, the snips and the knife of the

Father will remove you from the new covenant. The same snips and knives that grows us into the image of Jesus Christ will remove you.

And we see this in Matthew when Jesus talks about the sower and the seed, that it's the word of God that actually calls us in the way because of that call on this one.

It's the word of God. The primary means of our sanctification takes place in our gathering together.

Christian, this means that your being here today is extremely important. It's extremely important.

Now, point number one, abiding in Jesus Christ. Again, I said this, we're just gonna do one point.

Here's what it is. We see this in verses four through seven. Let's begin by reading verses four and five.

Jesus says, Abide in me and I in you, as the branches cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

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

For apart from me, you can do nothing. I believe it was week two in this paragraph, which

I think we're in week four of this paragraph, if I'm not mistaken. Week two of this paragraph that we looked at verses four through seven and we saw how it is that we abide in Jesus and how it is that Jesus abides in us and we got that information from 1

John 2. So if you would please turn there. We're looking at this just to bring back to our mind what took place.

If you know them at all, this is some of my favorite portions of scripture. Look at verse three, 1

John chapter two. John says whoever, I mean, excuse me.

John says, and by this we know that we have come to know him. So this is how we know that we are truly his.

We are in the new covenant. If we keep his commandments, whoever says that I know him, but doesn't keep his commandments is a liar.

And the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word in him, truly the love of God is perfected.

By this we know that we are in him. Whoever says, listen, he abides, remain for that,

That word remains to remain. Whoever says that he remains in him, he abides in him, ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

And if that's where we left it, you should be terrified. Turn over to chapter three and look at verse 23.

With this same theme in mind, he says, and this is his commandments, that we believe in the name of the son,

Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.

Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God. What was his commandment?

Believe in Jesus Christ and love one another. Whoever does those two things abides in God and God in him.

And by this we know that he abides in us by the spirit that he has given to us.

In first John, John explains how these two things take place.

We abide in Jesus by keeping his commandments and those commandments are to believe in the name of the son,

Jesus Christ and to love one another. And that he,

Jesus abides in us through the Holy Spirit, which takes us back to Romans chapter eight, verse nine, that any portion of it, anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

But how do you know if you have the spirit of Christ? And you believe in the name of the son,

Jesus Christ, and do you love one another? Do you love your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ?

If you do not have the spirit of Christ, you cannot keep the commandments of Christ.

To belong to Christ is to abide in Christ and for Christ to abide in us, which means you must be born and be birthed.

This is what we call the baptism of the Holy Spirit, where your sins are forgiven. He removes your heart of stone and gives you a heart of flesh.

This is our faith. And through faith we receive the Holy Spirit and through that Holy Spirit, it causes us to keep the commandments of God.

See that connection? We've seen this all throughout this book. This is a repeatable process that it just keeps mentioning.

Now with that in mind, let's look back at our text, verses four and five. Abide in me, remain in me, abide in me, keep my commandments, believe in Jesus and love your neighbors as yourself.

And I in you, speaking of through the Holy Spirit, just calling us to do this thing.

As a branch cannot bear fruit by itself. You see that?

If you didn't have the Holy Spirit, you wouldn't be able to perform these commandments given to you by Jesus because it's his Holy Spirit that's causing us to keep these commandments.

Unless you abide in me, unless you believe in him and love your neighbor, love another.

So unless it abides in the vine, so unless those two things are abiding in the vine, unless they're remaining, neither can you unless you abide in him.

He cannot abide in us unless we're abiding in him. We cannot abide in him unless we have the

Spirit. And then he says, I am the vine, you are the branches.

Whoever abides in me, believing in Jesus, loving one another, and I in him through the

Holy Spirit, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.

Apart from him, the Holy Spirit being with us, we cannot abide in him.

The Bible lays out for us many different kinds of fruits. We'll go over those many different kinds next week.

However, you can just go back and consider the framing of our context, which is in Isaiah chapter five.

And we won't read that again today. But in Isaiah chapter five, that fruit here that Israel was to bear, they were grapes.

And it goes on to tell us that those grapes were to produce fruit. I mean, that those grapes were supposed to be the fruit of justice and righteousness.

Amen. The fruit of justice and righteousness. That's what

Israel was supposed to produce. This is the context that's framed in our portion of scripture today.

We're supposed to produce justice and righteousness. Don't think that you should be scared about it.

You're not gonna get there. But as we looked at last week, we are justified by faith in God.

Amen. We are made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ. And those who have been justified by faith are counted righteous.

He's the one that produced the fruit with His active obedience.

Him living the life that we cannot live. We are given the righteousness of Christ because of what

He has done. Our faith in Him, His righteousness is credited to us.

Thank you, Lord. All they had to do was look to the seed

Messiah that was to come and God would have not uprooted them.

And those who have been given this righteousness of Christ by faith, guess what we do?

We love one another. This takes us back to our abiding in Christ. I want you to see what's going on here.

I mean, we're talking about the ordinary means of grace, right? You go to church praying. He abides in you through the

Holy Spirit so that you can abide in Him, which is believing and loving, believing in Christ and loving

Him. The Bible knows nothing about a

Christian that's not connected into the church. These letters were written to churches.

When we gather together, that God is going to use us to grow us in holiness. He's going to use these things to perfect us to the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

Turn with me to Philippians. Philippians chapter one. I'll read to you verses eight through 11.

Philippians chapter one, verse eight,

Paul speaking. He says, For God is my witness, have I heard for you all with the affections of Jesus Christ.

And it is my prayer that you love, that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and with all discernment, so that you, again, he's writing to the

Philippian church, so that you may approve what is excellent.

And so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

The fruit of righteousness is the fruit of law keeping, which is how we abide in Christ.

And his abiding in us is through the Holy Spirit, which is how we are able to keep that.

Now turn with me to Galatians chapter five. Galatians chapter five, we're gonna read verses 22 through 26.

Galatians chapter five, verses 22 through 26.

Again, Paul writing says, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control against such things, there is no law.

Meaning that these things that he just named, it doesn't go against the law. You read above it, it names off several things that do go against the law.

And it says, and those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, which if you read upwards, it's talking about where they stop doing the fruits of the flesh.

Verse 25, if we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the spirit.

Let us not become conceited, provoking one another in an

Indian one another. For us to bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit, we must walk with the

Holy Spirit. And to walk or to live in the Holy Spirit is to be obedient, is to keep his commandments.

Believe in Jesus and love one another. Ladies and gentlemen, outside of this gathering, how are you gonna love me?

It's hand in hand. It's hand in hand. This is what we have in the local church.

This is why we're coming to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the local church, so that we can perform these commandments.

The collective people who believe in Jesus gather together to love one another. Apart from his

Holy Spirit, apart from Jesus abiding in us through his Holy Spirit, we can do nothing.

We can't even do these things. Yes, you can come and be a part of the church membership, or are you truly believing in Christ?

And if you're not truly believing in Christ, you're not truly loving one another. Now look with me at verses six and seven.

Verses six and seven. You're gonna see some scary verses here.

If anyone does not abide in me, love one another, he's thrown away like a branch and withers.

And the branches are gathered together, thrown into the fire and burn. If anyone abides in me, and my words abide in him, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done.

You remember the message I did not long ago concerning the Lord's Prayer. To approach

God in prayer is to approach him as father, and to approach him as father is a blessing given only to the children of Abraham.

Turn with me to Galatians chapter five. Excuse me,

Galatians chapter three. Galatians chapter three. We're gonna read verses three, no, five through nine.

Let's just go to verse six. Verse six. Just as Abraham believed

God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.

So how is he righteous? How did he keep God's law? He believed in God. It's counted to him as righteousness.

Know that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. Who are the sons of Abraham?

Those of faith. Those who have the faith of Abraham. And the scriptures foreseeing that God would justify the

Gentiles by faith, preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, in you, speaking of that seed, which is

Christ, shall all the nations be blessed. All Abraham had to do was believe that.

He was counted righteous. Amen. So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

Who are the true children of Abraham? Ethnic descendants of him or those who have the faith of him?

Those that have the faith of Abraham. Look down at verse 14. Now let's go to verse 13.

Verse 13 says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

For it is written, curses everyone who is hung on a tree. So this is where that, that he took our sins upon himself and gave us his righteousness and had to do with him being hung on a tree.

Verse 14. So that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the

Gentiles so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith, not of works, but through faith.

Dear friend, if you have faith in Jesus Christ, you are a child of Abraham.

Yes. To approach

God as father is to have the faith of Abraham. And those that have the faith of Abraham are those in the new covenant.

Physical descendants of Abraham, as well as Gentiles. Christ in us and us in Christ means that our will are connected with the connection to God's will.

Meaning that what we ask for in prayer is the will of God. Amen. If you're truly in the will of God.

He said, you know, those are harsh words. I do that and I say, I know.

A lot of people don't like to hear that. God is not everybody's father. Amen. Jesus tells in John chapter eight, to the

Pharisees, who are physical descendants of Abraham, he said, your father is the devil. Your father is the devil.

Your seat of the serpent. Only those that have the faith of Abraham can approach

God and put us father. You want to know what's even harsher words?

It's found in verse six. Go back to verse six of our text. He says, if anyone does not abide in me, remember us believing in Jesus and loving one another.

If we're not doing this, guess what? He is thrown away like a branch and withers and the branches are gathered together and thrown into the fire and burn.

John the Baptist in Matthew chapter three said that every tree that does not bear good fruit, justice and righteousness, believing in Jesus and loving one another is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Allow me to expound on that in just a second. So you'll understand every tree, every person that does not believe in Jesus and love one another is cut down and thrown into the fire.

This fire here is divine judgment. It doesn't matter if you're an ethnic

Jew or a church member or a member of this church. If you're not in Christ, if you're not in the new covenant with the faith of Abraham, you're going to be cut down and thrown into the fire.

Turn with me to Matthew chapter three. And you know that I'm not making anything up.

Matthew chapter three verse one begins with this. So these are Matthew writing, but these are the apostle

Peter's words explaining what took place at the time. So in those days,

John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judah, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

This is where the millennial reign begins, right? Now go down.

For verse three, for this is he who was spoken by the prophet

Isaiah when he said the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the

Lord, make straight this path. John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist.

And his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all

Judea and all the regions about the Jordan were going out to him and they were baptized by him at the river

Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the

Pharisees and Sadducees, the religious leaders coming to his baptism, he said to them, you brood of vipers.

He said, you're a snakes, you sons of the devil, warned you to flee from the wrath to come.

Who wasn't that warning? The prophets. We have the warnings in our own covenant scriptures.

He says, bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Do not pursue to say to yourselves, we have

Abraham as our father, for I tell you, God is able to raise up children from Abraham.

I mean, God is, excuse me, for God is able from these stones, which are us

Gentiles, to raise up children from Abraham. Even now, the ax is laid to the root of the trees and every tree, every person, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire of divine judgment.

I baptize you with water for repentance. For he who is coming after me is my name, and I have been sinned against.

And my word carries, he's speaking about Jesus. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

New birth, born again, and fire of divine judgment. There's only two places, only two baptisms in this situation.

Being born again, birth from the spirit, birth from above, or being consumed with fire, divine judgment.

His will and fork is in his hand, and he will cleanse the threshing floor and gather his wheat into the bar.

That's the believers. That's those who have been born again. But the chaff, those that do not love you, those that do not believe in Jesus, those that do not love one another, will be burned with an unquenchable fire.

The ongoing repentance in the life of a believer is fruit. Like Paul Washer said, it's not a flu shot.

You know, I did that. You've done nothing. Repentance is ongoing. How do you get that ability to do this for repentance?

Snip, snip, pruning. Well, where does that take us at?

I end up preaching on this word. Repentance is the fruit.

Bring this message to a close. That's what makes the New Covenant branches different.

The New Covenant branches will bear the fruits of repentance. You say, why, how? Because we bear the fruit of righteousness.

God has made us right with himself. He has given us the Holy Spirit, which causes us to keep God's law.

We are his, and therefore we walk in his law. Old Covenant branches did not, and church -only membership will not.

The Old Covenant branches, only the Old Covenant -only branches were not broken to the promised seed, which is

Christ. They relied on the law of God for the forgiveness of sin. Not grace.

They nullified the grace of God as if righteousness were through the law. Animal sacrifice after animal sacrifice, lamb after lamb, goat after goat, bull after bull, priest after priest.

Their trust was in a sacrificial system and not Christ. They were trusting that when that priest would sacrifice that animal, it would make them right with God.

They were not looking to the Messiah. Therefore, they were cut off when the New Covenant and the kingdom of God was inaugurated.

And listen to me, church. Listen to me. Christians are those that live their life looking to Jesus Christ, trusting in Jesus Christ.

And we do not nullify the grace of God because Jesus died for a purpose.

And that purpose is to save sinners. We got any sinners up in here? Amen. Jesus came to die for sinners.

The New Covenant branches rely on grace. We rely on God through the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, not in some priest.

Amen. The Old Covenant. But the true high priest after the order of Mechelzadek, who entered in to make a once and for all sacrifice through his life, death, and burial, and resurrection.

My dear friends, that's the gospel. We need a sacrifice. Old Covenant sacrifice was repeated, was a repeatable process that took place sometimes daily, but yes, yearly.

Sacrifice that we look to is the one that the Old Covenant people were to look to as well. Jesus Christ, living his life, the life that we've come up with, making that perfect limb that will be sacrificed on that cross acceptable to God.

It was buried on the third day he rose. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, you must turn from your sins.

You must trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ because the ax is laid to the root of the tree.

And every person that does not bear good faith, believing in Jesus, and loving him, will be cut down and will face divine judgment.

And I ask you this today if they've got a feeling that faith and repentance come often.

We are available to anyone who wants to talk. Let's pray. Our God and Father, for we come to you in the name of Jesus Christ and to the gospel of Jesus Christ, who is life, death, burial, and resurrection while we approach your throne in thanksgiving, thanking you for the body of Christ and what you have placed us in in order to fulfill those commands that you have given to us.

And even our being here is a command for we love you and we thank you for Christ.

And God, I do ask that if there's anyone here that doesn't know you or that you will this day grant them that new birth, that home of innocence, that regeneration, you would give them repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

They will connect with a church where they can corporately believe with one another and love one another more than as we're about to partake in this meal.

God, I ask that there's any here today who have not done that or who might be believers, but they're living in wretched sin.

We ask that you not allow them to partake in this meal. And for those of us who are still sinners, who are in the process of sanctification, that although we've sinned more than you have given us the gift of confession, where we can confess our sin knowing that you are faithful and just and forgive us of our sins, that as we partake, you use this meal to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ.