1087. Abiding in Christ for Prevailing Prayer

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Today on The Daily Platform, we're beginning a new study series from a seminary chapel called Abiding in Christ, which is a study from John 15. Today's speaker is seminary professor Dr. Stephen Hankins.

If you want your heart encouraged and strengthened, I direct you to a book by W.M. Douglas, Andrew Murray, one of God's choice saints, which gives you the full story and details of how this chapter worked out. These 16 verses worked out in the life of one man, and he does not stand alone.

You can think of the names of other towering, serving saints through the centuries of the church that certainly were like this and are compelling in their nature and in their character as servants of God. Now, as we look at this passage of Scripture, we're looking at a passage that's part of the upper room discourse given by the Lord Jesus Christ right near the end of his earthly ministry. The Passover had been celebrated in chapter 13. He had washed the disciples' feet. He had given instruction about the relationship of disciples to disciples and disciples to the world as well. We see that in chapters 14 through 16. In 17, he offers this unparalleled high priestly prayer. And then in 18, he's to Gethsemane.

He's arrested. He's tried before the Sanhedrin, before Pilate, before Herod, and then beaten and then crucified. This is a very intense and climactic time in the service of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And the thrust of this last of Jesus' parables presented for us here I think can be summed up in three strong, urgent words. Bear more fruit.

Bear more fruit. This statement just shouts at us in the general words of our Savior as you read through these 16 verses. Bear more fruit by abiding in Christ through the help of the vinekeeper and his care. You know, the New Testament unfolds for us beyond this passage of Scripture, the nature and the character of fruit in the believer's life and experience.

It's described as transformed character in Galatians 5, 22 and 23, the fruit of the Spirit. We see it described also as praise and thanksgiving because this is described as the fruit of our lips offered unto the Lord in Hebrews chapter 13 verse 15. You know, our good works, every good work when done with the right motivation according to Colossians 1-10 is fruit offered unto God for his glory. Even monetary giving as was true of the Gentile churches that gave to help the poor and stressed believers in Jerusalem was described as fruit from them in the Scriptures in Romans 16, 28.

And of course, the results of evangelism as the Lord Jesus presented it, that the reaping of the harvest is fruit that we produce, we gain, we harvest as a result of reaching out to people who don't know Christ. Now, in the first three verses of this chapter which is introducing the rest of what's gonna follow in the messages that come, I think there is a simple but divine and dynamic process compactly presented for us about how to fulfill this command of bear more fruit. And I wanna include with each of the components of this process, what I think is implied here about what our response is to be in each one of those components of this divine process that's presented. Now, this is, fruit bearing is a divine and a dynamically divine process according to what this text of Scripture says to us.

I'm the true vine and my father is the husband. And so, since it is a divine process, the right place to begin with is God. And our response to God's involvement in this process is to be confident in God's work in you to bear fruit. Deeply complex? Hard to arrive at exegetically? No.

Beautifully, it's incredibly straightforward. I'm the vine, the father is the vinekeeper. The father works in us to bear fruit.

Be confident about this. The text says, my father is the husband man. He is the vinekeeper. He is your vinekeeper.

He is your husband man. Think of this, Romans 8 36, for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen. Paul put it this way in 2 Corinthians 4 7 when he said, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. The surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not of us.

As Philippians 2 13 put it, it is God which worketh in you to will and to do of his good pleasure. He's the vinedresser. He's tilling the ground, okay, around your life by providence and by his kindness. He's planted the vine, the Lord Jesus Christ, in his great incarnation work and his abiding intercessory work for us. He treats us as branches on the vine.

He cares for us. He has grafted us all into the vine that we can be fruit bearing. And that remarkable process naturally has occurred in our lives spiritually. When you graft the branch in, the fibers of that grafting actually grow right into the existing vine and those of the vine grow right into the branch and they become one.

That's happened to us. And the vinedresser, the scriptures tell us, prunes the vine, dealing with the old growth, the overgrowth. And I want you to be encouraged about something this morning, today, every morning. Remind yourself of this, of God's constant attention to you. Listen to the words of Psalm 40 verse 5. Many, O Lord, my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done and thy thoughts which are to us-ward. They cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee. If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.

And that's not the last time. That's stated in the Psalms in Psalm 139, 17 and 18. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God. How great is the sum of them. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I awake, I am still with thee.

You know what? God is totally preoccupied with you. God thinks more about you and more often about you and more deeply and thoroughly about your life than you think.

And think about often, you think about yourself. If forever a moment you have a sense of despairing and wondering and as you often see stated in the Psalms, O God, why have you turned your face for me? Why have you forsaken me? Why am I left to myself? Listen, be reassured that God is as invested in you as God can possibly be in every way.

And that is not going to stop. It's interesting that this text also turns our attention to the Son who is the divine vine. Jesus began the statement the parable with, I am the true vine. He's the living vine at the right hand of the Father and the one who by faith is dwelling in our hearts and in our minds. He is the one that's full of grace and truth. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth and obvious grace we have received and grace upon grace and that's to be our life. As 2 Corinthians 9 says, God is able to make all grace abound unto you that ye having all sufficiency in all things may abound unto every good work. He is the one who is the source of grace by his great merits and works for us and he dwells in our hearts by faith.

What does that mean? That means by faith not by sight. He is on our mind. He is present at every decision. He is the object of all of our affections as by faith we reckon on the reality of his presence and his existence for us as the great grace filled one who wishes to empower us that we may be fruit bearing people.

That doesn't stop there. The Spirit is present in us for fruit bearing. So Dr. Hankins, where is that in this short three verses? I don't see a mention of the Spirit. No, it's invisible. Like the Spirit's invisible. But it is in fact here.

It is in fact right in the text. The Lord Jesus more fully than anywhere else in his teaching in the New Testament in the 14th chapter just preceding in this Upper Room Discourse unfolds the reality of the coming and present indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the believer. And just following this instruction as well in chapter 15, again he turns attention back to the promise of the coming of the Spirit to indwell. The Spirit is called the great comforter, the urger, the paracletos. He is the Spirit of truth.

He is the Spirit who will indwell them. I want to suggest to you that where there's mention of Christ the vine and we the branches, there is that life that is flowing from one to the other. And as you read through the pages of the New Testament, you have to conclude by the indwelling of the Spirit what we're experiencing. Is that life flowing through the vine Christ to us? And that life flowing into the branches and helping us bear fruit? And I'm only using the language here and the analogy here of the parable. I mean, no earthly disregard to the Spirit as calling him sap, but let me put it that way. This is the life giving fluid. He is by which we bear fruit.

And to what end again? Well, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man as Ephesians 3 says. Or to be strengthened with all might according to His glorious power as Colossians 1-11 teaches us. Or according to the power that worketh in us, He will do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think according to Ephesians 3-20. This is the power of the resurrection that Paul said that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection in Philippians 3-10. This is what Paul prayed about for the Ephesian believers in 1-18 when he said that they may know the surpassing greatness of the power toward us who believe. Men and women, this is our birthright as believing people as God is in us by His Holy Spirit. An unparalleled inconceivable gift and reality to make us human beings that are entirely other than other human beings.

And why? To what end? That we may bear much fruit. Look at verse 2. It says, you'll notice there, every branch of me that beareth not fruit he taketh away. Every branch that beareth fruit. The end of the verse. Bring forth more fruit.

Look at verse 5. The same bringeth forth much fruit. And verse 16, fruit that remains, that is durable and of great value in its nature. This is the end to which the Spirit's work is operating in us, men and women. That we may see fruit born of every kind in our life and our experience. Fruit, more fruit, much fruit, and fruit that will remain. So now, we have to be confident that God is working in us.

What shall we say then? If God before us, who will be against us? He that delivered up His own Son for us, how shall He not also freely give us all things through Him? This is the promise of God.

Read Romans 8.31, 32 to the conclusion of the chapter. It is a commitment of God. So, when the confidence flags, when you wonder, recognize the nature of God's commitment to you. Let your confidence soar and be strengthened by this. In those weak moments, in those moments when your joy flags, and you're overwhelmed, and you're feeling weak and tired, and all the other things that happen to us in the vicissitudes of life, you know, as we're in the work and in the labor, just know something. There's one person with whom and for whom there is no variation in his thoughts, in his spirit, in his attitude toward you.

You are his, and he will work in you. But now, we have to be clear about something as a second major component here, very clear. And that is that there are two possible outcomes in fruit-bearing presented in these opening verses, particularly in verse 2. And our choosing daily is absolutely critical.

We are responsible. And what we see in verse 2 is talking about believers, not saved people and unsaved people. If you look at verse 2, every branch in me that beareth not fruit.

And then later in the verse, every branch that beareth fruit in me is the implication. There are two choice, there are two opposite outcomes here. Either a life of abundant health and freshness and fruit-bearing or a life of incineration and a life of terrible scorching and waste as we are burned up.

And we'll talk about this. I want us to look first at the undesirable outcome. No fruit resulting in removal is one outcome. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. This presents an abnormal and undesirable case for the believer. I want to suggest to you that we have an allusion to this very thing, very probably in Matthew 13, 22, where the Lord Jesus presented the parable of the soils and the sower of the seed. And he said, he also that receives seed among thorns is he that heareth the word and the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and he becometh unfruitful.

There's a plant there, there's seed that's sown and a plant that grew up, but there is an unfruitfulness. Let me suggest to 1 Corinthians 3.1 where Paul addressed the Corinthian believers and said, and I brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ, fleshly and immature and essentially unproductive, which is certainly the nature of little infants and certainly the nature of a fleshly or carnal believer. In that very chapter, later in the chapter in verses 11 through 15, believers have their works that are performed for the wrong motive or the right motive, assessed or examined at the bema seat of Christ.

And those works done with the wrong motive or in a very poor quality are called wood hay and stubble. And God in his purifying fire at the bema incinerates, vaporizes those, they are gone. And in one sense, that's a positive thing and that it relieves the believer forever of the burden of those unfortunately low quality produced works or works produced with the wrong motive as he enters into eternity.

But there is a loss, the text says. Listen to the verse that climaxes this section of verse 15, if any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. This is God's supernatural ability to refine at that point in eternity as we're entering into our service and rest with the Lord for eternity. But what we're talking in this text about is not an eternal event, we are talking about a temporal current life event.

And that's sobering, isn't it? As you look at this passage. If you look at verse six, there's even a fuller description of this given. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered and men gather them and cast them into fire and they are burned. This is not talking about eternal salvation, but this is talking about enduring profitability of the fruit that is born in the life of the believing person. Now you have to ask this question, is what Jesus is describing in both these cases in verse two and six something permanent or temporary in the Christian life and experience?

Can there be a kind of removing of the unproductive branch for a period of time and then a restoration? Or is this a once for all thing that happens to a believer? That's an important question to answer.

I don't want to answer it by saying this. From Psalm 103, our God crowns your life with loving kindness and tender mercies. He forgives all of your transgression. He heals all of your diseases. He will deliver your life from the pit.

He will renew you as the eagle's feathers. He will separate your sins as far as the east is from the west and he will make your life permanently valuable. Let me tell you something about our God, our Father.

He is one of abundant loving kindness, endless mercy, full forgiveness, and very slow to anger. That is repeated over and over and over again in the Bible. Your Father who is God is not quick tempered, is not rash, is not sudden to cut you off and deliver you to a place of uselessness. But our Father does reprove and discipline us. Hebrews 12 says that. Revelation 2 and 3, those chapters and letters to the churches encourage us about this and warned us about this. And you know what I construe from those texts?

I have to construe this. There are limits to God's patience. Look at Israel. Look what happened.

There is a line that can be crossed and it's better not to get close to it. Men and women, I've watched pastors and evangelists and missionaries descend into non-productivity and I've often wondered, why did that happen? A series of bad life choices, I don't know.

I've watched others suddenly see their life move from abundant fruitfulness to no fruit. I'm holding in my hand a book that has an inscription on it. It's the first book on preaching I ever received. Preaching and Preachers. It was given to me by my pastor after I served an internship just before I came to seminary here at Bob Jones to Steve in appreciation for your ministry and fellowship this summer.

Preach the word and then his name is signed. Six months later, the youth pastor with whom I served that internship made a trip to Greenville and spoke to me about the fact that my pastor made a horrible decision in a moral failure and essentially removed himself from incredible fruitfulness in a church of nearly 2,000 people to a place of little usefulness and fruitfulness in time over a period of years. I could recount other instances like this front page article in the Charlotte Observer that appeared about a pastor of a large, very impactful church. Pastor resigned with admission that he plagiarized and overnight he lost his ministry. The first ministry I served in as an associate pastor on the weekend as a faculty member here. I was there six months as associate pastor. A letter appeared on the desk of the pastor in his study that he had resigned the ministry and gone to look for employment in Florida. He had been engaged in an immoral relationship with the wife of the administrator of the Christian school.

God wonderfully rescued that ministry and protected that ministry and it thrives to this day. But that man, that man lost his productivity and his fruitfulness. Now those are sobering things but there's another positive response, another positive choice here and that is fruit resulting in purging and more fruit.

And this is an incredibly important process. Notice the word purging there in that verse. It says, he beareth fruit, he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit. In other contexts that term is the word to cleanse or cleanses but in a kind of agrarian context like this, talking about vine growing, it would be pruning the vines. It's cutting back previous growth, old growth that there can be new growth, fresh growth. It's cutting back unfruitful branches. It's removing diseased branches or infested branches with insects.

It's getting rid of old growth so there can be new growth. And sometimes there does need to be that in believers' lives. New growth in an area and means of ministry. A new focus in a particular area of spiritual life or new development and use of your gifts. And what's wonderful about that word purgeth is it's a present active indicative and there is enough people here who understand what I mean when I say that, that you can rejoice in it. And for everybody it means the action is ongoing.

It's continual. It's something God is doing all the time in the life of the believer that is appropriately and appropriately choosing to be a person who will bear more fruit. God is at work in you for His glory and He uses the instrument of what?

His word. Jesus says, now you're clean through the words which I have spoken unto you. You are already clean through the word. Disciples, you've experienced this already.

You know by experience what I'm talking about. And He's underscoring and bold printing that this process is going to go on continually. It is the word, Jesus said, Matthew 4. Every word, man shall live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. It is the word, John 6.63, that's the instrument. The words that I give unto you, they are spirit and they are life. It is the word that as we view it with unveiled face beholding us in a glass, we are transformed into the same image from glory unto glory. And in a context that is incredibly important in Hebrews 4, a verse that you can quote from Hebrews 4 and verse 12 where the Bible says of itself that it is like a two-edged sword piercing even the dividing asunder of the joints and the marrow and the soul and the spirit.

It is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Do you know where that appears? That appears right after a long discussion of belief and unbelief, failure to obey and obeying, entering into the true rest of faith with God in service or failing. And then it says it's the word that will show you, reveal to you. Reveal to the one who knows all things and sees all things. And there, what's the climax of that chapter? Let us therefore come boldly under the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. We come to God and ask that the word will open our eyes, open our minds. Now, up to this point and what I've been talking about, there's been a basic assumption.

And it's a huge assumption. It's an assumption that you are a branch abiding in the vine. Do you know in the verses that follow, abiding is mentioned seven times? And now at the very beginning of verse four, it's brought forward, abide in me and I in you. Without it, there is no fruit bearing.

With it, there is much fruit bearing. It means complete dependence. It means confident trust. It means intense focus.

It means submissive obedience. This is abiding in him for abounding fruitfulness. And let me say this, and I know I've gone a few minutes over here.

Thank you for your patience. But every man or woman starting a ministry desires this, hopes for this. And here is the assurance, the way of faith that it can be a reality for you for his glory. You can bear more fruit. You've been listening to a message preached in Seminary Chapel by Dr. Stephen Hankins. Join us again next week as we continue this series on The Daily Platform.