1088. Abiding in the Love of Christ Through Obedience

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Today on The Daily Platform, we're continuing a study series from Seminary Chapel called Abiding in Christ, a study from John 15. Today's speaker is Pastor Mark Minick from Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Greenville, South Carolina.

The title of his message is Abiding in the Love of Christ Through Obedience from John 15, 8 through 11. This passage is one of three in the New Testament in which we have analogies for the union of Christ and His people. And each one of them, of course, teaches that that union is one that is living.

That is, it's a vital union. But each one of them teaches a different aspect of that. The analogy that teaches the warm and loving intimacy of that union is the one taught in Ephesians chapter 5, that being united to Christ is like a wife's being united with a husband and his loving care for her. The analogy that teaches us the diversity, the gifted diversity, that those attached to Christ have is the one that is taught primarily in the book of 1 Corinthians, when we are confronted with the teaching of the gifted members of the church, that each of us has something individually that the Spirit of God has given to us to do. And then we have this third analogy of that vital union that we're looking at in this 15th chapter of John. What is the primary thing being taught here?

Not the warm, loving intimacy, or the diversity of the members. What is being taught here? Well, you look at the second verse. Three times, there is language like this. Beareth not fruit, beareth fruit, bring forth more fruit. And of course, this has been the passage for the seminary chapel here this spring.

And we would all say that truly the aspect that is being put before us is this matter of productivity. It's mentioned three times right in the very beginning of the passage. And then of course, three more times in the passage you have that kind of language. But of course, this passage is teaching that there is an indispensable condition to that. And it is in this matter of abiding in Him. And in our Lord's teaching concerning that, the eighth verse that we come to this morning is particularly important because it is in this verse that we're informed of why that fruitfulness is so significant. Let's read that verse together. Herein is my Father glorified. That's of paramount significance when it comes to this issue. Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit.

And then there's also this. So shall ye be my disciples. Or the New American Standard translates that, be proven to be my disciples.

Or the idea being that it's the evidence that you truly are my followers. So here we have in that verse the two major results of this fruitfulness that are immensely significant. That the Father be glorified. That of course is the chief end of all human beings whether they know it or not. It's the chief end of lost people even as it is of the Lord's people. We're all made to glorify God. And this issue then of being fruitful for the Lord's people is critical to the achieving of our end. We go out into the ministry. We're there as individual Christians. This is our end. How much more so when we're actually leaders among the Lord's people.

And there's this second result that's there. And that is that there is through this the evidence that we truly are the Lord's. And that of course is of immense concern to us. Every person who truly is the Lord's child wants assurance that he is. And when we go to our Bibles, God ministers that assurance to us verbally. You have these directives about your faith and then you have promises given to those who believe that they have exercised that faith. So there's this verbal assurance. But folks, isn't this the case that you come to the point in your life, your Christian life, and it may be earlier or later when you want to be certain that those promises in your particular case are true because you're well aware that the tares in the field as well as the wheat assure themselves with those verbal promises. And it's nearly always the case that when you ask someone about the issue of whether or not they truly know the Lord, someone perhaps in your ministry about whom you're deeply concerned, they immediately assure you, oh yes, when I was six, they'll relate to you that they met the condition and therefore in their mind the promises apply to them. That's why the Bible comes back and gives you a second category of assurance.

And it's not verbal, it's experiential. And you know that there are numbers of passages that flesh out that particular kind of assurance. And in this passage, the way it's fleshed out is in these terms. The evidence that you truly are his disciples is your productivity. It is your fruitfulness. In James it's something else. In 1 John it's something else. But right through the New Testament there's this strong accent on the evidences in your life if you're going to apply the verbal assurances to yourself.

It isn't enough to have the word only in your mouth. What you've got to have is, as James puts it, the works that show that that faith is genuine. In this passage that's what you have.

And so the passage just becomes immensely securing, profitable for a believer when he over a period of time can actually say, that's true of me. There is this kind of fruitfulness to my life. Now, folks, that being the case, it just then becomes critical to be sure of what that fruitfulness is. And again, in various passages of scripture, the outgrowth of being a Christian is spoken of in these terms and according to the particular passage there may be a different nuance to what fruit is or actually a different identification from passage to passage.

In John 15, what is the fruitfulness? Well, look at the previous verse. Let's read the seventh verse. If you abide in me, there is the indispensable condition and my words abide in you.

You shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my father glorified that you bear much fruit. You can see, you've got to read right into the eighth verse. You can write it on the seventh verse, keep reading right into the eighth verse. It becomes very clear as to what in this particular passage the fruitfulness is. It's not all that fruitfulness is, but in this passage what it largely is is the matter of answered prayer. And if you drop down to verse 16, you'll see that it's the same thing explained again. Let's read that verse.

This was just up on the screen. You've not chosen me. I've chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain that whatever you shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you. Now, folks, let's really examine ourselves by that this morning. You and I have the evidence in our lives that we get our prayers answered. There are many, many things, of course, that by human contrivance and effort we can produce within a ministry.

You can be a completely lost person as a pastor and raise money, build buildings, start programs. And you could say to yourself, well, I prayed about that and it all happened, so that's the evidence. But the evidence you want is the seeing of things happen that you've prayed about and you had no way of making happen on your own. What you want is the evidence of things like this.

Without me, you can do what? You want to see things happen that you couldn't have done and that in many cases you had nothing to do with except it had been something you had been praying about. And that, folks, typically happens in the area of the hearts of the people to whom you're ministering.

It happens in human beings, not the erection of buildings or the carrying out of a program, but it's the change of the human heart over which you have absolutely no control. I had an illustration of this very recently that really blessed my heart and I think it captures what I'm trying to get at this morning. Someone in our church came to me after a service and related to me their appreciation for the message and then explained why the message had been particularly helpful to them. And they went on to relate a situation just in the previous week where something had happened that had never happened to them before. And it had humbled them. And what I could not say to that person and never would is that since last fall I have prayed several times a week that God would humble that person.

And I walked away after that service just marveling. Because you know how we all are, folks. We're so often like the disciples trying to cast out a demon. It doesn't happen. The Lord does something. We say, Lord, why couldn't I do it?

I mean, the Lord had given them power to cast out demons and they weren't doing it. The Lord said, well, because of your lack of what? And what that evidences is you can be attempting the very thing that you were called to do. In this case, you know what it is as I do, to be praying but not to have very much confidence that it will happen. It's another thing to pray in faith and to do it with great burden and great concern and without the person knowing anything about it or your in any way influencing it, it happens. And truly you realize there is a human inability here and the thing that so points up that it was God, that so glorifies God, is that it was a direct answer to prayer. How important, how vital it is for us to check ourselves through the years in ministry like this.

Do we really see God burdening our hearts and really causing us to review this issue of giving, what would we say, really a paramount importance to what the apostles said that God had set them aside to do, the ministry of the word and the prayer that brings the kinds of answers that are the evidence that it's God who is doing what is happening. I know many of you are familiar with the name Andrew Bonar. Bonar of course in the history of the church is viewed as one of the most inspirations of all figures in the last few centuries and largely through his diary and his life that was edited after his death by his daughter Marjorie.

An associate with Robert Murray McShane, William Chalmers Burns in the early days of those great revivals in Scotland in the 1830s and 1840s. And when you read Bonar's journal it's just remarkable how he keeps bringing himself back to this touchstone of the genuineness of his commitment to the ministry. I've been reading through that journal a few entries a day, started that probably the end of last summer, maybe last fall. And I'm at this point 33 years into his ministry. And I sat down this morning, my normal scripture reading and a few of those entries for inspiration.

I opened that journal to the day's reading, the very first entry at the top of the page reads this way. Bonar is relating the fact, I thought the other night in the quiet that I was bidden to review my ministry and life. He means I felt prompted by God to do this, to look back over 30 years of my ministry and I did it. And one terrible failure confronted me everywhere.

You have asked nothing in my name. Lack of prayer in right measure and manner. Except for this, instead of 30 fold, it might have been a hundred fold in myself personally and in the gathering in of souls.

There might have been a thousand instead of a hundred. What a humiliating, saddening view of myself. It's remarkable that was right at the top of the page this morning. I can tell you I seized that as an answer to prayer that I would have something to make concrete what I'm talking about here. Folks, what's really remarkable about that is when you read through Bonar's journal, he all the time from beginning to end is seeking the Lord in prayer. Years ago I went through that journal from top to bottom. I made a complete list of every reference in that journal to his really driving himself to prayer.

There are scores and scores. There must be over a hundred such entries all the way up until he's in his 80s. He is still after himself. He's still saying, I've got to be more determined to give myself to prayer. That he would 30 years into his ministry chastise himself that he hasn't asked anything in the Lord's name is just remarkable. It is an evidence of the fact that people who really pray are so aware of how much more they ought to pray. What I'm doing is urging us to really make this part of the core of our philosophy of right ministry.

Right ministry is ministry that sees God answer prayer. That is how the Father is greatly glorified. One of the ways that you, not just as a minister but as an individual Christian, are really reassured, I am in the faith and I'm vitally attached to Christ.

It's a living inseparable union. I know it because God does these things in direct response to my praying. It brings us to the question then of just exactly what kind of praying does that. That also is in the seventh verse which you've looked at in this chapel but it's the backdrop to our passage. Look at that seventh verse again, if you abide in me and my words abide in you. You're probably aware of the fact that defining what it means to abide in Christ tends to be a little difficult for everyone who ministers this passage. One of the reasons for that is because within the passage itself the Lord doesn't just clearly and with specificity narrow it down to something so particular that you can walk away with it in your hand. This is probably the closest thing to it.

Certainly up until this point there's been nothing like this. It's when he says if you abide in me and my words abide in you and he's going to say the same kind of thing in verses 9 and 10. So that if I was to ask what does it mean to abide in Christ I would have to deal with this.

There may be other matters involved and probably are but within this passage I do have to deal with this. My abiding is in direct proportion to the degree to which that the words of scripture abide in me. And then when they abide in me you can ask what you will. So if we raise the question what kind of praying does God answer to his own glorification you have to come down to this. It's scripturally informed praying. It's praying in terms of the revealed will of God in scripture. You may have memorized at some point in your life the definition of prayer that was first formulated in the Westminster Shorter Catechism and it's been adopted by Methodists and Baptists and Congregationalists.

Literally millions and millions of children have learned this definition in their catechism through the years. What is prayer? And that definition starts out with prayer is the offering up of our desires unto God for things according to his will.

There is the combination. You may ask what you will as long as my words abide in you. It's the offering up of my desires unto God for things according to his will. And folks when that combination is there that is the kind of praying then that the Lord answers to his own wonderful glorification. You're in the same position that I'm in and we're all in the same position to use a biblical illustration that Elijah was.

Everybody is watching and they're all hesitating between two opinions. And what you so desperately want is what Elijah prayed at the very beginning. Oh Lord let it be known this day. Let it be known this Lord's day as I preach. Let it be known this Tuesday night as our folks go out on visitation. Let it be known in our Vacation Bible School.

Let it be known through our missions program. Lord let it be known this day that you are God and that I am your servant and I've done all these things that your word. And what you so desperately want then to show this is the right God and I truly am his servant and what we're doing is scripturally informed. What you want is for the fire to fall and you want people to cry out the Lord he is God. That is the glorification of God when that happens folks.

You want to be able to pray prayers like that and see God answer. As Spurgeon said the God who answers by fire let him be God. That's what you want to see in your ministry for the glorification of the Lord. There is a fuller statement of that in verses 9 and 10 that is just really important to grasp. Let's read those verses.

It seems to us almost as if there is some kind of abrupt break between verses 8 and 9 but there's not. Let's start back in verse 7 again and read down through. If you abide in me and my words abide in you you're going to pray that way. And you can ask what you will and it will be done unto you and herein is my Father glorified that you bear much fruit in this way. And this will prove you to be my disciples.

Now it seems like there's a big break here but there's not. As the Father hath loved me so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. If I say Lord what does that mean?

How do I continue in your love? If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love. Even as I have kept my Father's commandments and I abide in his love. Now why do those verses follow? You can see folks that those verses continue the same kind of reasoning that the Word of God, the commandments of God are integral to this. All of this has something to do with your praying and your seeing answers to your prayer and your fruitfulness.

Okay, the Word of God, the commandments of God. Why does it continue on in the vein that it does? Let me try to illustrate it this way. It's very important evidently that we understand that we're not working a formula.

This is not like buying seeds and getting advice from the nursery where you bought them as to how to plant those seeds that if you take these seeds and you plant them this way in soil that has this chemistry to it and keep them watered and there's enough sun, guaranteed you're going to have corn. The Lord clearly here is indicating that this whole matter is not a matter of working a formula. It isn't just, here's the Bible, keep the commandments, pray the Bible, it's going to happen. This whole thing is a matter of what? Look at verses 9 and 10 again folks. What's the word that really tips you off?

This is not a formula. What's the repeated word in those verses? Love. This is a matter of relationship. It's a matter of love. The keeping of the commandments, the immersing ourselves in the word until like Spurgeon said, our blood runs bibbling.

You know the word, not just that I hold the word but the word has taken hold of me. This really is a matter of the warmth, the true love of the Lord. And when you ask yourself, Lord help me with that, help me with this thing of okay I keep your commandments and that's abiding in your love. The Lord says it's like this, look at me. I keep my Father's commandments and abide in his love. And in the Gospel of John, that truly is a major emphasis.

He says those kinds of things again and again and again. I won't read these for the sake of time but you know in the fourth chapter he says to the disciples, my need is to do what? The will of him who sent me. John 5 verse 19, the son can do nothing of himself but what he sees the Father do.

In other words, I'm completely subject to what the Father is doing or what I'm doing. 638, I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 829, I do always those things that please him. John 855, I keep his sayings. John 1431, now listen to this one, that the world may know that I love the Father even as the Father gave me commandment I do. And it all is the Lord saying what was prophesied of him in the 40th Psalm when he said sacrifice and offering, thou didst not desire.

Mine ears have you opened. Burnt offering and offering for sin you have not required. But a body you have given to me and lo I come in the volume of the book, it's written of me to do your will oh my God. I delight to do your will, yea your law is written in my heart.

That's what he's talking about. It's that loving relationship. And you know this means for us, we really need to be very, very careful don't we? In all of our thinking about our relationship to the Lord, we need to be very careful about not damping down the issue of obedience.

It isn't enough to be hyped, to feel emotionally. We have to put the premium on the matter of our obeying the commandments of God that the word of God does. And not in the fashion of course of earning something, but clearly in the fashion that it's spelled out here of really demonstrating the nature of that relationship. And when we do to that, verse 11 to close out with this, the whole purpose for that at the end is for our joy. Do you know God really wants you to be happy in the ministry?

He does. And this is the pathway to it. Filling your mind with the Bible. Yielding to what filled your mind. Your prayers informed by that. Then God doing things you never could have done on your own. And the joy that comes in realizing I really am God's child. I really am vitally related to Christ. God really is working through me. There's nothing that can compete with the joy of that. You've been listening to a message preached in Seminary Chapel by Pastor Mark Minnick, which was part of the series Abiding in Christ. Join us again tomorrow as we continue this series on The Daily Platform.