028 - Remain

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there something here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink.

Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages. Welcome to More Than Ink. Hey, have you ever been fooled by a bowl of fake fruit?

Oh yeah. And then you get close to it and you go, oh, I don't want to eat this. It looks really good until you pick it up and go, hmm, not good. We know what real fruit is. Yeah, we know what real fruit is, but you know what?

Today in John 15, Jesus is going to tell us what real fruit is. Stay with us on More Than Ink. Well, good morning. Hi there. We're glad you're with us. This is Jim.

And I'm Dorothy. And we continue as we look through the Word here. You know, we are just so amazed that you've stuck with us this far. We're kind of amazed at ourselves.

But it is very much for us an adventure to go back through the book of John. I mean, it's just really an extraordinary thing. And what we're doing is we're looking at it ourselves, collecting together a lifetime of stuff we've noticed we've gone through. And we just want to sit down with you at our table and say, hey, have you ever thought about this? Have you seen this?

So we're hoping that sets for you kind of a model in a way about how you handle the Word, how you look at the Word and how accessible the Word is. I mean, this is, you can get this. Well, and that is always fresh. It's never stale. Yeah, this is not an old thing to us.

Because we have been studying this Word for 50 years. And even just as we come afresh to this passage, we're like, oh, oh, yeah, oh, and seeing fresh insights. The Lord just always continues to open His Word. That's the amazing thing. There's more there than meets the eye. So we are back here.

So we're hoping you're doing this as well. We're going into John 15 today. What's the narrative context where we are in John 15?

I mean, what's going on on the streets? They've been actually in the upper room. They shared their Passover supper. And at the end of that conversation, Jesus says, okay, it's time to get up. Let's go out. It's time to go to the campsite. Time to go across the valley to the garden.

And the last thing He said as they were apparently getting up and going out the door is John 14, 31. But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let's go from here.

Let's go. You know, that statement, so that the world may know how much I love the Father or the way in which I love the Father. I do what the Father commands me. And that's kind of the foundation from which He launches into this next section about us abiding in His Word and so doing His Word. Yeah.

So this is our love. This is, you know, you think about if you imagine your mind's eye, they're coming out of the upper room. They're kind of crossing across town. They're going to leave the walled city. They're going to go down to the Kidron Valley, cross the Kidron River.

It's more like a creek. And then go to where the praying is going to take place right there in the Garden of Gethsemane. So, you know, this is the last chance Jesus has to really speak to them at depth. And they're doing it in transit as they're walking out that way. Well, and they're walking through gardens, through vineyards.

It's dark, it's night. They've had a full meal. They've been talking a while. He washed their feet. They've had some pretty intense conversation already. Heavy evening, yeah.

He said, you know, you're not greater than your master. So if I've done this, you will be blessed if you do also about washing your feet. So they've had a lot to think about already and here they are walking. And one thing to remember, too, they're still reeling under the emotional reaction to Jesus' announcement that He's going to be leaving them back in 13. However, He has moderated that some, in fact, a lot in 14 when He's talking about the fact that, you know, the Comforter's going to come, the Holy Spirit's going to come.

So there really isn't a separation issue, although the separation troubled their hearts. But He's going to continue that idea about, well, if indeed physically I'm going away, you know, what do you do, right? And what do you do in the interim? And what you've done for the last three years is you've woken up every morning.

We've had breakfast together. And then I go to a village and you listen to me do stuff and that's going to stop. So what's going to be different now? And that's where He introduced the Holy Spirit. A lot of this is just trying to figure out what goes on. So really in the back of their mind, even as they're walking out of town at night here and going to the gardeners, they think, oh, yeah, but still, what do we do tomorrow?

What do we do? And so Jesus will address a lot of that stuff. Well, and He had said to them, you know, I'm going away, but I'm going to send you a helper. And my Father and I will come and make our abode in you.

And the helper will come and make his abode in you. So now He's going to illustrate that in this very familiar way. Yeah, very familiar way.

Everybody understands the relationship between vines and branches. Right, right. So as they're worrying about how do we follow you, He's saying, don't sweat it. We're coming to you and more. And here's the picture.

And here's the picture. So this is, as we start into 15, this is a great example of what you do after that point. So do we just want to dive in and start reading?

Oh, let's just start reading. We're going to run out of time on this because this is one of the best parts of all of John. It's right here in John 15, first part. Why don't you start, verse 1. I am the true vine and my Father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, He takes away. And every branch that does bear fruit, He prunes that it may bear more fruit.

Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.

For apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he's thrown away like a branch and withers and the branches are gathered and thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. We need to stop there. Let's just hold that thought for a minute.

That's already too much. I know, I should have stopped sooner. But you see how it kind of draws you in and he's just embroidering on, amplifying this relationship between the vine and the branches. And suddenly it's making sense, oh there is this life juice that flows from the vine out to the branches. And if you cut a branch off, well of course it withers and dies.

Yeah, in fact I did that on a youth group trip once before we took off on this two-week youth group trip. I remember that. I went in the backyard, we had a lot of grape vines back there and I clipped off about a two-foot length of the end of one. And it actually had smaller clusters of grapes on it.

It was early, it was June, so they were just little BBs, you know. But I stuck that in a one-gallon Ziploc bag and every day I'd pull it out and I'd say, how does this look? And they'd go, huh, it's not going to be good. Looking worse, looking bad. And I'd say over and over every day, so what's the fundamental problem here?

Well you chopped it off from the vine and it gets everything it needs for life from that vine. You go, oh, yeah. So this is what he's talking about. This is common knowledge to them. And interestingly enough in their questioning about what do we do now that you're leaving physically, okay the Holy Spirit's coming, what do we do? Jesus is basically saying, if you really simplify it, I'm going but you need to abide. When you look at the word abide, it really means to remain. It always says abide in me. In me, yeah. So I'm going but you need to abide in me.

Well, what? Well he'd already told them, I'm going to abide in you. The Father and I will come and make our abode. It's the same word. It's the same word.

I'll make our abode in you. So it seems very, as you do just fundamental Bible study, you see words show up a lot. And the word here is abide.

It's like all over the place. Which we don't use every day. No, we don't use that very much.

You hear it a lot in church, but we don't use it in our everyday conversation. Yeah, and the illustration I always use to kind of come back to what this word means, you remember that big land rush we had in the United States and people would go out west and if you just stuck your stake in the ground you'd say, I'm going to put a farm right here. Remember they had that land rush and they all lined up on the east coast with their wagons and they took off to the west. Well, they would keep moving around day by day by day by day until they found exactly the right spot and they'd say, we're done moving around. This is where we're going to stay. We're going to abide here. Yeah, that's what this word abide means.

It literally means to stop moving around. You've chosen to remain in this. So it's not come to this place, it's now that you're at this place, stay there. And make home. And make a home there. Make home. And the longer you live in a place, archaeologists will tell you this, the longer people abide in a place, the more evidence it is that they were there.

Right, the size of the stuff they can dig up, the size of the garbage piles, the evidence of human habitation, of abiding stays. Yeah, so how do you put the rubber to the road on this then? If Jesus says you need to abide, in fact the first time you see it in this is verse 4, abide in me and I in you. It's a mutual abide. It's a mutual remain.

It's a mutual stay. What does that actually mean in reality? I mean, what's that all about? Well, what has he said about the branches? He said a disconnected branch doesn't bear fruit, but a healthy branch that is drawing the life juice out of the vine does bear fruit but requires pruning. So I mean he's setting up this whole big picture and then he says the branches can't bear fruit by themselves unless they stay connected to the vine. So you can't either. He's saying just like that. And you know they're walking through a vineyard so they're looking at or a garden or planted stuff, they're making this connection simply by observing God's design of the way plants grow. Yeah, but this is common knowledge to them. I mean they're struggling with so what does that mean for tomorrow for me? I mean what do I do to abide?

How do I do that? And you get more clues as you just keep jumping from abide to abide in all of this because in fact we know the consequences of not abiding for a branch in a vine. So that's common. We get that. You're not fruitful and we're going to have to come back to what fruitful means. But he starts to give us more understanding when you get to like the fourth time the word shows up in verse seven. If you abide in me and my words abide in you.

So there's still something here he mentioned in the last chapter about our relationship with what he has said. He's the word and his words are important. So there's something about abiding that has to do with our relationship with his word.

Okay, his words. And I looked at this earlier that in our New Testament very often when the word, when Jesus is talking when the word word is translated simply word, it's the Greek word logos. But if he's talking about the reality of what that word communicates then the word is rhema.

So it's the larger concrete reality behind the actual specific term. And so he says if my words abide in you, right, the reality of what I've said, who I am, what we've talked about. And that set me thinking about what he had said back in chapter six when he said my words are spirit and life. And when he asked Peter, you know, are you guys going to go away too? Peter says, well, Lord, where else should we go? You have the words, the reality, the content of eternal life.

So if that reality, that content is abiding in you, then ask whatever you ask. Well, it's a natural follow on. He's kind of letting that sink in.

It's a natural follow on from last week too. We talked about this word keep, which is a treasuring, an attentiveness too. Well, that's going to show up again. Yeah, and so he's really saying your relationship with what I've said, what I've always been saying, and what you'll continue to remember of what I've said through the Holy Spirit, you need to stay attentive to that and you need to remain in that.

That's the abide. In the reality of it and what it really means, because we all know people and maybe we ourselves have been those people who could rattle off a lot of Bible verses, but devoid of real understanding. You can know a lot of stuff and understand very little. And Jesus is talking about that deep understanding of the reality here of what he has said. Yeah, so if you look at the narrative of what's going to happen after this, even after Jesus is dead and buried and raised again and Pentecost happens, and then these guys end up being sprinkled all over the world to tell what's going on, to produce fruit in the places they're going.

I'm sure that all the time they would say, hey, you remember when he said this? And that literally influenced what they said to those they were talking to, and in a sense they bore fruit because they just carried through their branches what they had heard from the vine. Okay, and the question comes up then, what is the fruit?

What is the fruit? Because he immediately is going to start talking about love and let your mind go for a minute and think about, well, the first thing on the list of the fruits of the Spirit is love. So we kind of tend to sometimes short circuit, oh, there's going to be fruit. That means there's going to be a lot of converts. Well, not necessarily.

He had just told them earlier in the evening, they're going to know your mind by the way you love one another. So that is the first and the foremost fruit. Or another way to look at it is a vine and a branch has a single purpose.

Okay. To bear fruit. To produce fruit. So if you go back to the vine part that's supplying all the branches, what is it that the vine Jesus, what was his purpose? And if his purpose was indeed to glorify who God was and one part of that, a large part of that was really how he loved.

To express the love of God in a way that human beings could grasp. So if God himself is love, like John is convinced of, then Jesus is, I mean, I wouldn't be reverent, but in a sense he's a conduit to explain and to model what the love of God looks like so you can understand who God is. Well, John had said that actually back in chapter one.

He did. He's the one who has come, the word of God made flesh and we saw his glory full of grace and truth. A little bit later on he says, and he explained him, no man has seen the Father, but this word in the flesh has fully and completely declared who the Father is. Yeah, so what we talked about glorifying the Father, which is just to make known in a very public way who God is. The love of God that's his nature, the words of God, all these things are of what comes through the vine, Jesus, and now is going to be carried through the branches. So we really have the same purpose and the same fruitfulness in a sense and it has nothing to do about us.

It has nothing to do with glorifying and making known who God is and primarily through what he has said and how he loved and how we loved. Let's stay with the fruit for just a second because I'm a gardener and when I go looking for fruit, what is the fruit of a vine? Well the fruit, first of all, carries forward the seed of the next generation, right?

The fruit also nourishes you if you eat it, but the fruit also tells you what kind of plant you've got, right? So all of those things are true of us as believers. We do carry a seed of the next generation of believers. We do nourish those around us on the Word of God and we do demonstrate the kind of plant we come from. If we are genuinely abiding, we will be bearing the kind of fruit that Jesus bore, which is that self-sacrificing love.

It should look like Jesus. Isn't that pretty simple? Because it's the same purpose, the vine and the branches have the same purpose and the same fruit and we're just continuing that on.

Well look, that's where he's going. Well I was just going to say, you know that example I used about carrying that baggie full of that disconnected vine? It becomes very apparent that what we do in terms of providing fruit for the Kingdom of God has nothing to do with what we generate. Indeed, we don't provide the fruit, we just are the producer, we're just the conduit. We are conduits of that. So we always in everything we do point back to, look this is not my words, this is what Jesus is saying. This love isn't something I'm generating, this fruit is something that God's doing through me and represents who he is.

So it's a very selfless kind of thing to be this kind of a branch conduit. Well and it is a very natural product. Fruit simply happens on a healthy plant.

The plant doesn't squeeze the fruit out by its hard effort. But I want to emphasize the fact that many times Christians wrongly think that the Christian life is all about imitating Jesus. So I look at what Jesus was like and now I have to go tomorrow and be like him.

And impose that for the outside. No, it's not that at all. It's not about trying to imitate, it's actually based on him living through us. So the life juices of the vine, his love, his words come through us and it's not about us trying to figure out how to imitate it. It's the genuine product coming through us by the Holy Spirit. Radically different. I mean it radically changes what our responsibilities and our purposes are as believers. We're not trying to replicate what he's done, we're actually continuing to let that flow through us, through his Holy Spirit. It's a rather different kind of idea.

So all of that is pictured in this vine and branches picture and so much more. We are really swimming in the deep water here. Yeah and we're just glossing over the top.

We're paddling around on the surface. We need to finish reading that little section because we didn't get to the end of that. Where did you stop? I stopped at the end of verse 8. But Jesus goes on and says, As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. Okay, so sometimes the significance of that relationship that he's just compared escapes us, right? He says, If you keep my commandments, you'll abide in my love, in the same way as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.

So he's saying you can have the same kind of relationship with the Heavenly Father as I have through abiding in the life that he pours through you. Right. And remaining in that. You can't be there.

Rather than trying to copy it. Right. Camp there. Live there. Live there. Let that become your source of life. Don't wander away from that. And I'm telling you this so that you can understand the joy of it.

So my joy can be full in you. He says, I rejoice in that relationship and you can too. Yeah. Yeah. And it's actually when he talks about joy, he's talking about not just that it's happy happy.

No. But that it's deeply fulfilling and proper and right. And profound well-being.

Yeah. And so this comes back again to purpose. A lot of people near the end of their lives say, you know, why was I here?

What was this all about? And here you can look and say, well my purpose has always been as a branch with the purpose of Jesus was. Which is to glorify the Father. And so, and I'm just a conduit of that. I'm not a replicator or a copier of that.

I'm a conduit of that. So I always used to get a little miffed when people would, you know, remember those bracelets that had W.W.J.D. What would Jesus do? Right. What would Jesus do? Like if, you know, you need to copy, you need to replicate what Jesus would do. And I would say, no, you need to just allow Jesus to work through you because we have an active conduit kind of relationship. We have an active abiding in him and as a branch now he can live through us in his spirit. But that's rooted in that concrete reality and understanding letting the reality of who he is work through us. And so sometimes we just function on what we think we know instead of the real reality of his spirit.

And we try and second guess what he would have done. So when I see those letters I just re-translate them instead of what would Jesus do I say what will Jesus do in the next second because he's in you. Here's what Jesus will do. He'll love.

Yeah, exactly. Because that's what the next section says. This is my commandment. This is the one I want you to abide in. Love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants for the servant doesn't know what his master is doing. But I've called you friends for all that I've heard from my Father I've made known to you.

Okay, I want to stop there for a second. You're my friends because you understand my purpose. I came to pour myself out in love and now you get it. And you're going to see that what that looks like played out real shortly. In terms of love sacrificially demonstrated.

Love sacrificially demonstrated. Yeah. Yeah.

So this is bearing fruit on a big scale. But he makes these even as statements just like I have done something or been something so will you do something or be something and that will be the evidence of abiding that you're going to love like I love. Yeah, so the life of Jesus is not coming to an end even though he says he's leaving for now. It's actually continuing through the Holy Spirit that is abiding in them. This is the means by which it must continue.

Right. And so the same degree that you saw Jesus loving we will see the apostles love. So he says that's my big commandment here guys, verse 12, is that you love one another as I've loved you. Because that's if you're my disciples and I'm the master that's the way it works, right?

And even more than that you'll do it because we're friends. Because we actually share a common love for this fruit. And we share a common purpose.

Exactly a common purpose, yeah. So let's just finish up this portion and then we're running out of time. We'll revisit this little section of this next week. But in verse 16 he says you did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask in my name he may give it to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give it to you. These things I command you so that you will love one another. Okay, so we have not touched at all on that asking the Father and receiving what we ask for.

So we'll pick that up next week. But it is interesting, we talk about the common purpose between the vine and the branches and that that purpose remains as long as you stay remaining in the vine, that purpose is the same. And then he makes this gigantic purpose statement right there. He says, you know, that's the purpose that's going on. That's why I chose you so that you would bear fruit, this kind of fruit.

And so you need to remain in me. But interestingly enough this fruit that we're talking about will never spoil, it itself will remain. Which is fascinating because when you look historically at what happened with the apostles that went across the world, that fruit did remain.

So what they're going to do. So it's a fascinating thing and we are just like running out of time. We have skimmed over the top of this part of John 15 like a rock on the water.

It's just skipping across. But again, I might just emphasize that what Jesus is talking about, what do we do now that you're physically leaving? He says what you need to do is remain in me. And so many people will leave a religion or leave following someone, they'll say, well, that's the end of that.

He's gone now. Jesus, no, this is just the big beginning. You need to remain in me, in my love, in my words, and I'll remain in you, I'll abide. Fascinating. And this idea of abiding in him and his word is not new on this particular conversation.

No. Just one place where he said it is back in chapter eight, verses 31 and 32, he says, if you abide in my word, then you're truly disciples of mine and then you'll know the truth and the truth will make you free. So there's that long-term effect, the evidence of abiding in his word is there will be freedom. There will be an understanding of truth, but it comes from being deeply rooted in the reality of his word. And stop popping around looking for an alternative word, remain in this word, and then you also need to keep it, you need to treasure it, you need to be attentive to it. So the task that's put in front of the apostles as Jesus is physically getting ready to leave is be attentive to my word and also rest and remain in my word, don't go looking somewhere else and guess what, in that process, I will be in you and you will be in me. So this mutual in-ness. I mean this is blowing their minds, I think, at this point in the discussion. Something is radically changing and what's going to make it possible is the Holy Spirit.

Fascinating stuff. Oh, our time is gone. Our time is gone.

Well we're so glad you're with us. You need to look at this before we come back. You need to read through John 15 and read forward into the end of the chapter because this is deep stuff, but the more you come back to this, like we are right now, the more amazed I am at what little I thought I knew.

It's deeper than I ever thought. I'd encourage you to even write down what Jesus says about abiding. Just make a list of those statements. And how does abiding relate to keeping? How does abiding relate to loving?

Start writing those things down so that it goes through your brain, out your hand onto the paper and you can consider it. And how remarkably key it is that our relationship with Jesus is centered on his word. And that's why we're here.

So we're done. We're glad you joined with us. I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we would love to hear you and be with you next week.

Pull up a chair and we'll see you then. This is More Than Ink. More Than Ink is a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City and is solely responsible for its content. To contact us with your questions or comments, just go to our website, morethanink.org. That's a big question. Yeah, that's not where I want to go either.