Sunday, May 19- I Am The Vine
2024-05-19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEKZ-rvB4jw

Amen. Amen.

How about that? Is it coming through now, Greg? So we have been, see, I can get it right after enough instruction. We have been talking about Jesus and what he has to say about himself in the Gospel of John. And this morning, we'll be hearing what Jesus says in the 15th chapter of the book of John when he says, "I am the truth." Just read together with me. "Abide in me, unless it abides in the vine." "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." This is the word of the Lord. And as we worship this morning, we want to focus not on our strength or our goodness, but on the goodness and the strength and the power of God. So would you join me?

And He died, and He rose. Those walls are rubble now. Remember those dyes we call death and grave? They were like mountains that stood in our way. But He came, and He died, and He died.

This is our God. This is who He is and serves us. This is our God. This is what He does. He saves us. He bore the cross, beat the grave. Let heaven and earth proclaim. This is our God, King Jesus.

Remember that fear that took us from the dead. We were able to pray for a week that we could barely pray. But He was able to pray for a week that we could barely pray. But He was able to pray for a week that we could barely pray. But He was able to pray for a week that we could barely pray. Tell the story of His faithfulness. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Who pulled me out of that pit He did, he did Who paid for all of our sins Nobody but Jesus Who pulled me out of that pit He did, he did Who paid for all of our sins Nobody but Jesus Who rescued me from that grave Yahweh, Yahweh Who gets the glory and praise Nobody but him This is our God This is who he is He loves us This is our God This is what he does He saves us He bore the cross Beat the grave Let heaven and earth proclaim This is our God King Jesus He bore the cross Beat the grave Let heaven and earth proclaim This is our God King Jesus

I was buried beneath my shame Who could carry that kind of weight It was my turn Till I met you I was breathing but not alive All my failures I tried to hide You called my name And I ran out of that grave Out of the darkness Into your glorious day You called my name And I ran out of that grave Out of the darkness Into your glorious day You called my name And I ran out of that grave Out of the darkness Into your glorious day You called my name And I ran out of that grave He has saved my soul You called my name And I ran out of that grave Out of the darkness Into your glorious day You called my name And I ran out of that grave Out of the darkness Into your glorious day

I needed rescue My sin was heavy The chains break at the weight of your glory I needed shelter I wasn't open Now you call me Citizen of Heaven When I was broken You were my healing Now your love is the air that I'm breathing I have a future My eyes are open Cause when you call my name I ran out of that grave Out of the darkness Into your glorious day You call my name And I ran out of that grave Out of the darkness To your glorious day All right, you may be seated. You may be seated. You may be seated. You may be seated. Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Let's pray. As we prepare to come to the table this morning, we're going to sing "Man of Sorrows." Man of sorrows, Lamb of God By His own betrayed The sin of man and broth of God Has been on Jesus' name Silent as He stood accused Feeds in mocked and scorned Bowing to the Father's will He took a crown of thorns Oh, that rugged cross My salvation Where your love poured out over me Now my soul cries out Hallelujah Praise and honor Run to Thee Send of heaven God's own Son To purchase and Redeemed And reconcile The very ones Who nailed him to That tree Oh that rugged cross My salvation Where your love poured out Over me Now my soul Cries out Hallelujah Praise and honor Unto me Now my debt Is paid It is paid in full

By the precious Blood That my Jesus Spilled Now the curse Has no hold On me The sun sets free Oh, is free It is paid It is paid In full By the precious Blood Now the curse Of sin Has no hold On me The sun sets free Oh, is free Indeed That rugged Is my salvation Where your love Poured out Over me Now my soul Cries out Hallelujah Praise and all Who are To Thee See The stone Is rolled away Behold The empty tomb Hallelujah God Be praised He's risen From the grave Oh, that rugged Cross My salvation Where your love Poured out Over me Now my soul Oh, Christ Hallelujah Praise and honor To Thee Praise and honor To Thee Praise and honor To Thee We, as people, we like to try to deserve or earn

the things we have We like to be strong enough to get what we want We want to be good enough We want to earn or deserve In fact, many of the things that we encounter in this life That's our argument I deserve this I earned this But when we see our brokenness and our sin and our shame and our fear and our guilt we find that no matter what we do and no matter how hard we work and no matter how strong we make ourselves we can never get ourselves far enough away from all of that And in Romans, the fifth chapter, Paul writes this For while we were still weak at the right time Christ died for the ungodly For one will scarcely die for a righteous person Though perhaps for a good person

one would dare even to die but God shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us Since therefore we now have been justified by His blood How much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son How much more, now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by His life More than that we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received reconciliation And Paul in these short verses begins to unpack a earth-shattering truth about our weakness and the goodness of God. Notice he says that we're not strong enough that while we were still weak, Christ died for us that we are love

because while we are yet sinners Jesus died for us and that we were enemies from God and we have these three things that we're weak we're sinful and we're God's enemies but the one who was strong Jesus takes our weakness and dies for us the one who had no sin takes our sin at the cross so that in him we might be righteous the one that we had wronged and had become his enemy dies in love for his enemies so that we can be restored you see the cross is a testament to the goodness of God for broken hurting sorrowful separated sinners and as we come to the cross this morning we come with this bread and this cup that remind us that we are loved that we are saved and that we are reconciled to God

through the death of his son let's pray Father in heaven I thank you for Jesus and for grace and I thank you that while we were weak not when we had cleaned ourselves up or fixed everything in our life but while we were broken and your enemies your son came and he took our place in the cross remind us of your love and your goodness and your patience with us may we see your mercy and grace as we partake of this bread and this cup it's in Jesus name we pray Amen if you would take the bread with me as Jesus did with his disciples and he tells them this is my body which is for you just in remembrance of me and in the same way after they finish eating he takes the cup

which in the Passover symbolizes the redemption of God's people from Israel but for us symbolizes the redemption from sin and death that is accomplished through Jesus let's remember Jesus and partake and this is not simply a remembrance or an encouragement it is also for us a call to proclaim the good news about Jesus until he comes again before we dive into John the 15th chapter we sang it last week but Ezra and I had a talk this morning and we decided we're going to sing the hippopotamus song again so let's go ahead and stand up and for the kids get our wiggles out and for the adults get our wiggles out as well so let's go ahead and

the mountains up so high on the very top he placed as God God's fingerprints are everywhere just to show how much he cares in between he had loads up but he made a hippo who weighs a ton hip hip hip hip a pot of us hip hip hooray God made all of us hip hip hip hip a pot of us hip hip hooray he made us so everybody sing hip hip hip hip hip a pot of us hip hip hooray God made all of us hip hip hip hip hip a pot of us hip hip hooray he made us hip hip hooray he made us Alright, you may be seated. We are going into the Gospel of John the 15th chapter you can follow along if you want the verses will be on the screen or they'll be

in the handout or there are black Bibles in the seats if you would like to follow along. As we dive into this I just want to make a couple of say a couple of things before we read this text and pray but starting with this text which probably for some of us if you've been around church before you have heard these words. We read them at the beginning of our service this morning where Jesus will say, "I am the vine." And this text begins this morning with an illustration of vines specifically grape vines and vineyards and it's one of those texts that like we're familiar with the idea of a vineyard or a grapevine but we may not necessarily be familiar with the practice of taking care of grapes or taking care of vines and this picture is not a

new picture for the Bible and through the entirety of the Bible this picture of vines and grapes is used in a lot of different ways in the Old Testament one of the ways that grapevines were used was as a blessing because in order to get grapes from a grapevine you have to be established you have to have time to work the vines to take care for them. Time has to pass and in the Old Testament likely that was about four years from the time you established your grapevine until the time you had fruit and so when you hear about God promising his people that they're going to have vines and harvest what you have is not just a picture of grapes but a picture of peace and the ability to spend time taking care of these vines

and so we have this picture of a vine which is both positive but it's also a little frightening because there's pruning and there's chopping occasionally in this text you'll find stuff about throwing things into the fire and this text as we read it I want you to listen to it it can seem like it's a little bit maybe repetitive or sort of convoluted it's like who abides, whoever abides if you don't abide and so one of the things we want to do is we want to sort of read it through slowly and carefully to hear what is happening and so before I read through this text I want to give you just a little bit of an overview so as you hear these words you can try to put them together this text begins with a picture

of Jesus saying I am the vine and my father is the gardener and he cares for this vineyard and there's the results of the care and he's going to sort of keep this in the back of our understanding this picture of vines and a gardener and the care for a vineyard for the next 16 verses we're only going to read 11 of them but understand he's not necessarily going to continually refer back to that picture it's sort of the backdrop like the back of a slide that we have with information on with vines and grapes this is the backdrop to all the things that Jesus is saying and it sort of winds its way like a vine through this text and it all sort of fits together and as a result can take a little bit of

untangling and so I want you to be aware of context as we come to this. First of all this picture of a vine throughout the Old Testament the cultural context for Israel as they would have looked and seen vineyards and vines we see more and more of that in our area but for us it's not nearly as common as it would have been for them, but also the immediate context of this is Jesus is about to go to the cross. These are some of the last words that he will say to the disciples. He's going to speak here in John 15 and in John 16 some more John 17 he's going to pray for them and then he will be betrayed and arrested go through the trials be beaten and be crucified. And so these are

some of the last words Jesus says to his disciples. So as we read them, understand this is a picture that runs through the Bible, through the first century cultural context, and is deeply important because these are some of the last things that Jesus says to his disciples. So I'm going to read verses 1 through 11 and then we will pray. I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser or gardener. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away. And every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it might 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 is thrown away like a branch and withers and the branches are gathered and thrown into the fire and burned. And 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 prove to be my disciples. As the Father 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 that I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for Jesus. Help us this morning as we walk through this vine that nourishes us, that sustains us, that brings us to bear fruit. That you would help us to see your goodness for your people unpacked in this text. That you would nourish us in your son. That if we this morning are in this place where we are looking elsewhere for our happiness and our joy and our grace, may you bring our hearts to Jesus, the true vine, who truly nourishes and who truly transforms. It is in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So, in this text we began with this idea of

good news. And right, we're familiar with somebody coming, and for us maybe a little bit culturally conditioned for when somebody says, right, I have good news, you're also expecting them to say what? Well, I also have bad news. And most of us have a preference, one way or another. Do we want to hear the good news first, or the bad news first? Are we hoping the good news is bigger than the bad news, or the good news impacts the bad news in some ways? But I'll tell you this, with Jesus, for those who are searching and hurting and in desperate need of a transformation of their life, there is good news. And it's not good news with an asterisk or with a footnote. It's simply good news. And this text begins right away. There is good news. And if we're going to understand

what Jesus is saying, we need just a little bit of cultural context. And if you're Jewish in the first century, this picture of vines and gardens and walled gardens filled with grapes would be a familiar one. And this vine, as we said, can represent the blessings of God. But also there's another picture that it represents. The vine is common symbolism in the Old Testament for God's people. Specifically, the nation of Israel. And here's what the vine represents throughout the Old Testament. The symbolism of God's people as this vine is not a good one in the Old Testament. Right? It's not a joyful picture. It's not an encouraging picture. In fact, every time in the Old Testament where you see God refer to His people as vines or a vineyard, it's always in judgment over their turning their backs to

Him. The vine is a common symbol for God's people in the Old Testament and it's not a positive one. It's always a vineyard that's not bearing fruit or bearing fruit that is bad. And in fact, in Isaiah chapter 5, in the first 7 verses, there is such a picture. And I'm not going to read it, but to summarize Isaiah chapter 5, God says, "I have taken this beautiful fertile land on top of a hill, and I've built a wall around it, and I have planted vines and grapes, and it is a beautiful vineyard." And He's talking specifically about Israel. He says, "It doesn't sound so bad, but it turns out Israel in their pride and rebellion turned their backs on God, and they're not producing fruit." They're producing what's called wild grapes, bitter and full of rebellion

and anger, and so God's response is essentially, "I'm showing up with a bulldozer and a weed whacker." And this is common picture of the vineyard in the Old Testament. That there is rebellion, there is brokenness, and the gardener comes to remove those plants that no longer are bearing fruit. But this text is different. This text turns all of that on its head, because for Jesus' disciples, when they heard Jesus' "I am the vine, and you are the branches," the Old Testament context would have been one of fear and judgment, but Jesus is bringing us hope and light and joy by saying this. Look at what Jesus says, the very first verse. Just so simply, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser." Do you know what Jesus is saying? All those

Old Testament pictures where you are the vine and you're bearing wild grapes and bitter grapes and the fruit of rebellion and idolatry. Jesus is saying, "I am being what you could never be, and I am doing what you were never able to do." That I am the good vine that bears good fruit. And what Jesus is saying is, "I am taking all of that Old Testament brokenness, all of your sin and your rebellion, and I'm turning it upside down. That all of your hurts and your guilt and all of that brokenness, I am turning into something good." Right? These words are not words of condemnation. They are words that are filled with promise and hope for God's people. That there is a good vine. And Jesus is saying, "I am the true vine." And He goes on later to say

that you are the branches. That those who are in Christ, what He is saying is, "I am your strength." And when you look at Jesus and say, "I'm not strong enough." He goes, "I know, but I am." And when you say, "I don't know that I can hold up to this." Jesus says, "I know, but I can." And when you say, "I don't think I'm good enough." Jesus says, "I know, but I am." You say, "I don't think I can bear fruit." And Jesus says, "I know, but I will nourish you to do that." Right? These words, "I am the true vine." It's beautiful, and it's wonderful, and it brings us hope because Jesus comes to a broken vineyard filled with rebellious people with the fruit of their life being brokenness and separation from God. And He says, "I am the true vine."

And if you are in Me, that brokenness is turned upside down. And what Jesus says in this text as we walk through it, He'll say next that this is where you belong. Look at John 15:4. And there is so much in this text. But in John 15:4, He says, "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." That word abide, Jesus really loves in this place. It's used nine times, nine separate verses in the book of John. Seven of those verses are in this section, and several of those verses, Jesus uses it more than once. Here, for example, He says it three times, right? "Abide in Me, unless it abides in the vine, unless you abide

in Me." This word abide, most of us today don't abide very much, right? We don't think about abiding. It means to stay, it means to remain, and it means in this context to lodge or to place your dwelling in a place, right? This is where I live now, that I am attached to the vine. It is a picture of our relationship with Christ. And here's the thing that happens in our life. We're constantly moving around to try to find something that we need. So it might be in terms of our work. Well, if I can move from this where I'm dissatisfied to there, to that job, or that company, or that new career path, maybe I will find that peace I'm looking for. Sometimes our moving isn't just maybe in our vocation, but maybe it's in our relationships,

right? If I can have these friends, my life will change. If I can leave these people behind, then my life will change. If I can cut them out of my life and add them in, maybe it's in relationships romantically, that if I can have this, or do this, or be with them, I'll be happy. And sometimes it's with physical locations, right? We'll say, "Well, you know, this house doesn't really meet my needs, so I'll go move over there, and there's a bigger yard, and there's a pool, and there's more room for the kids." And we get there, and we go, "Well, I don't like this." And so we if I move there, we as people are constantly moving around to try to find a place that meets all our needs. And we do it in a million different

areas in our life, from our physical location, to our relationships, to our vocation, to our hobbies, to our entertainment, trying to find a place where we can live where the needs of our souls are met. And Jesus says, "It's in me." That you don't have to keep running here or there to find a place where you will find hope. It is in me. Abide in me. Abiding with Jesus brings us joyful good news. It means that you belong. That there, first of all, there is room for you. Have you ever had that experience where you went in and it just was so crowded, you didn't know if there was room for you? A few weeks ago, Rachel and I went to see a friend's play, and it was a very small theater kind of in

downtown Winchester, and we walked in, and we'd never been there before, and because of the busyness of the day, we walked in just right before it starts, and we walk into this room and there was maybe like, I don't know, eight or ten chairs on either side, and we look around, and there's like one chair here, one chair there, and it's like, is there room for us? Like, they sold us a ticket, so I hope there is room. Turns out there was two seats in the back corner, and I used the word "seat" generously, because the chairs were from like 1945, and if you've sat on a hard wooden chair from 1945, they're like a quarter of the size of one of these chairs, right? And I'm not a small guy, right? I need like three of these chairs,

and we're sitting there like, I'm like an old grumpy man. It's like, my legs are numb, my back hurts, I just, you know, and it just felt like there wasn't room. And here's the good news. When you come to Jesus, he's not like, well, I might have a seat for you over there, or I might have... He says that there's room. The second thing Jesus says to us is not just that you belong, this is a place that is peace, there is room, but you are wanted, right? Abide with me that you are not a burden. You are not a problem, and you are not too much for God. When we begin to see this picture of abiding, Jesus says, "This is where you belong." You're not a burden, you're not a struggle, you're not too broken.

And one of the good news about being called to abide in Jesus, to hear that we belong and we're wanted, it fixes one of the greatest problems we have in life. Right? So when sin enters the world, in Genesis chapter 3, there's sort of three standard responses to this. We've talked about this before. One of the standard responses to sin is we break something and we try to fix it. That's why Adam and Eve in the garden, they go, "Let's make some clothes out of leaves." They're trying to fix the problem. The third way we respond to sin is by making and blaming other people. That's what they do at the end. But in the middle, they do something that we're all really good at. They hide and they seek to avoid the one that they have wronged.

That's God. Right? We understand this because this is our habit, right? When there is a break in our relationship with somebody where we have sinned against them or they have sinned against us, what do we do? We don't want to be near them. Any time that a relationship breaks, we separate from them. We try to get as far away from them as possible. When I was in college, I talked to Rachel about this morning. She said it was fine to share this story. When I was in college, I had dated this girl in the last couple years of high school and a year or so in college and eventually we broke up and I did it like a guy who's really mature and who's dated a girl for like three years. I just called her and told her I didn't want to date her

anymore. It was great. It worked out well. I was back on a break from college and I was with my cousin and he had a job delivering milk and cereal. Think of a UPS truck that's refrigerated. Same kind of look. We were trying to go to a movie and I said, "Hey, I'll come work with you and speed it up so we can get out of here until we don't have to watch a movie at like 11 o'clock at night." We had worked through the day. We're down to our last couple stops and we were kind of coming back into the area where we lived and I was in the back packing up the last couple orders and I look out the front window and he's driving down her road and like, "I didn't want this. I didn't want to be anywhere near

there." And I look at him and I was like, "What are you doing?" He's like, "It's the shortcut." I was like, "Drive! Drive!" So he steps on the gas being silly like you do. And at this moment, as we're going by her house, the back wheels on the one side of the milk truck just come off. Not like off rolling down the road, but like think of a UPS truck with the back dueled wheels just sticking out the side. And there we are, broke down on the side of the road, directly in front of her house, and she knows my cousin, and she knows that I'm likely with him, and so I'm in the back trying to build myself a fort out of milk crates because I just don't want to be anywhere near this situation.

And this is what happens when you and I wrong God. Right? We're doing everything in our power to try to hide from Him, to avoid the confrontation, to not be, and here's the thing, just like Brandon in the milk truck, it doesn't work. Like, you know milk crates have holes, and you can see through them, so even if you're in your little milk crate fort, like your ex-girlfriend can still see you? Like, and it's ridiculous. You say, "Why would he ever do that?" It's like, "Why do we run from the Almighty God who can see and know everything?" It's because we're ashamed, and that relationship is broken. And in these verses, when Jesus says, "I am the vine, and you can abide in me, and I in you, and you will bear fruit," he's saying

that that separation and that desire, you don't have to hide anymore. You don't have to run. You don't have to, like, head for the hills that there is a place that you belong. There is a way to be made clean and new and brought into the vineyard through the reality of who Jesus is and what he has done. This is what it means in verse 3 when he says, "Because of the word I have spoken to you, I've made you clean." Because of who Jesus is and what he has done, you can be made clean. There's a place for you filled with mercy and with grace, and God is joyful at your presence, and God is at work in your life. So here we are dwelling. How do you know that you're really dwelling in the vine?

It's because you're bearing fruit. And this is not fruit that comes from your effort, but it is fruit that is brought about by the transformation and the nourishment brought in Jesus. Look at what he says in verse 5. "I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, it is he that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing." Right? If you are in Christ, there will be fruit in your life. If you are truly connected to Jesus. Right? Apart from me, you can do nothing. And so if you are in Christ, there will be fruit in your life. If you are truly connected to Jesus. And then in verse 15-2, John will say this. It says there's two kind of branches. One that is there, but dead.

Every branch of me that does not bear fruit he takes away. It's dead. It's not taking any nourishment from the vine. And then here's what he says to us who are in the vine. Every branch that does bear fruit he prunes. That it may bear more fruit. The picture here is not just that we bear fruit, but that God is continually at work in our lives to prune us. You know what pruning means? It means trimming and cutting to encourage and spur on growth. That as we are in Christ and bearing fruit, like it's not just here you are, stay here and be satisfied, but that God is continually at work to improve and to bring you closer to him to bear more fruit. It's not that life will be easy or simple. It's that God is at work even in difficult ways

to make us stronger. Look at this in Galatians 5:22 and 23. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law." Notice here, first of all, the fruit is singular. These are not individual fruits, but it's a list of one fruit with different characteristics. And this is not some kind of weird personality test where somebody goes, "I'm really good at loving because I'm an apple," and somebody goes, "Well, I'm really good at faithfulness because I'm an orange." Right? And the orange goes, "Well, I don't have to be self-controlled because that's not what an orange does." An orange is faithful. This is not a bunch of individual fruits that you get to pick. This is not a menu. This is one fruit that is brought about

in all of these characteristics in our life. And the remarkable thing is they are woven together. That if I'm not loving, it's going to be real hard for me to be patient with people. Patient can mean long-suffering, putting up with people, especially when they're difficult. If I don't love them, I'm going to struggle to be patient. And if I'm not patient, I'm going to struggle to be kind. And if my hope isn't in Jesus, in the love, joy, and peace, and patience that's found in Him, I'm going to have it so hard to be faithful. Right? You find that these are not just individual characteristics, but they're all together. And they all work together, and they're woven together. And you might say, "Well, what does that have to do with pruning?" If I'm to bear fruit and increase in the

fruit in my life, what needs to happen? God's got to work on these areas in my life. If I am not patient, maybe it's that He needs to increase my love. Or maybe He needs to put me in situations that practice that patience. Or maybe it's peace that I struggle with, and God puts me in a place where I have to find my peace and hope in Him, not in me, that God will work in our life to prod and to remove things that are keeping us from bearing fruit. I don't just need nourishment, but I need those things taken away that are distracting and moving away. So the question here is, are we bearing fruit? I'm not a big vine guy, but growing up we had a whole bunch of apple trees. Actually, 500 apple trees

until Dad bought a chainsaw. And then we slowly decreased until I think there were ultimately no apple trees. But when we were trying to have apples on those apple trees, one of the things that happened every winter is you went through and there are branches that will bear fruit and those will not. And in the winter you go through and you cut off the branches that do not bear fruit. And I know this because our job as kids was to pick up those branches and put them all in a pile. There are a lot of people who if asked would say, "I'm a Christian." Simply hearing that Jesus is, is not being attached to the vine. Being in proximity to people who love Jesus that's not being attached to the vine. Even making ourselves through external

righteousness. What I mean external righteousness is righteousness that your heart is not in. So as a kid, we would go to somebody's house, and my parents would say, "Be on your best behavior." And I'm on my best behavior not because I want to be on my best behavior, right? But because I'm worried about what happens if I don't be on my best behavior. That's external righteousness. Righteousness that our heart is not in. So what makes you a Christian and not just a dead branch? It's abiding in the vine. Not just close. Not just trying to make yourself look like you're a part of it, but actually being there. Taking your nourishment from Jesus, and through his strength, bearing fruit. And notice that this is the work of God in this text. This is not because you're good or strong.

It's because Jesus is good and strong. And you see the transforming power of love. "As the Father loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love, and 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." And when we hear this, oftentimes I think our attention goes right to the middle of this section. "Keep my commandments, and you abide in my love." And if we hear that, and it says, "Keep my commandments, and you'll abide in my love," it sounds a little bit like through keeping commandments, we somehow bring ourselves into the love of God. It's a little bit, it seems like, saying if you do this, I'll love you. That's not what Jesus is saying, and we know it's not what Jesus is saying,

because He says this first, "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love." And what He's saying is that the obedience to keep the commandments comes first of all from abiding in our love. And as we abide in the love, and we are obedient, then we're going to keep those commandments, and it's going to make our love even stronger, and hold us even closer. It's about the source of the love that comes first from Jesus. Jesus says, "I love you. You live and dwell and abide in my house in love." And that changes how we think about commandments, right? They go from obligations to joy. Last week was Rachel's birthday, and there was something I had my eye on for a while that I wanted to buy her, and I ended up ordering it

thankfully early enough that it got there right before her birthday because if I get stuff too early, I'll give it to her as soon as it arrives, so I'm so excited about it. And I didn't buy her a birthday gift because I was like, you know what? If I get her a good gift, maybe she'll love me, right? I bought her a good gift because I love her. And my buying this was a reaction because of the love that's in my heart. The same is true with obedience to the commands of love. It's not just external effort, I gotta do this, but rather it's the love that comes from God into our hearts and pours back out through listening to what He has to say. One of the realizations I've had about my parents now that I've had kids,

my parents' commands, and this is gonna probably explode their minds, they weren't there to steal my joy. The commands my dad and mom gave me weren't there just to do this or don't do this, although they probably had to do a whole lot more of the second one, don't do this. It wasn't to steal my joy, right? It was to keep me safe, to increase my joy, and probably in my case, keep me out of jail, right? They weren't there saying, "Do this because we want to make you miserable." They're saying, "We do this because we know and have a bigger perspective about what is good for me." Those commands were an outpouring of love. As a kid, it's hard to see that, but as an adult, you realize that. And then when you realize that commands are an outpouring

of love, it ceases to become an obedience of duty and becomes one of love. So here we see Jesus, the true vine, the source, the power, the support, abiding in Him. He's at work in us transforming Him, and it's love and obedience. It's not a burden, but a joy. But this obedience also drives us deeper into love. That's what he says, "Abide in my love." You're going to keep my commandments out of love, but as you keep those commandments, it's going to abide you in love. It's like, it's going to draw you deeper and deeper into the love of God. Obedience strengthens our love. And this leads us all to a very simple question: Where are we dwelling? Where are you abiding? It's no accident that Jesus begins this text by saying, "I am the true vine."

Jesus doesn't have to specify that He is the true vine if there are no false vines. What Jesus is saying is there's a lot of places you can abide, a lot of places that you can see your hope and your nourishment in, but there's only one that will transform you and satisfy your soul. Maybe hear words of judgment in this, and it's uncomfortable. When Jesus talks about that, He's not trying to belittle or threaten us. He's doing so for our joy. In the same way we might tell a child, "Don't eat gum off the ground because it's going to hurt you." When Jesus talks to us in these commands, He's not doing so to rob you of something good, but to give you something better. All we have in this, ultimately, is Jesus. You can put your hope in so

many things in this world, and they will wither and they will fade. But in Jesus, if your hope is in Him, and you abide in Him, there's a place for you, and He loves you, and He will nourish you, and you will bear fruit, and you will grow deeper in love. There's a place for you, Jesus says. It's a place that's rooms, and filled with joy, and there's hope. In this text, there is this question: Where am I dwelling? Where am I living? As Christians, right, it's easy to look at other things, to get distracted from Jesus, and this text is a call to fix our eyes upon Him. And if you're not a Christian, maybe you've walked away after one of those distractions. Jesus is calling you back, and He's calling you home. If you have questions about

that, and want to know more about it, I'd love to talk to you. There's others who would, too, to know that Jesus is the one source of hope that we have. Let's pray. Father in Heaven, bring us to Jesus, and we dwell in Him, and abide in Him. Thank you that we don't have to hide, or run, or pretend, but in Jesus there is hope, and peace, and joy. Direct us to Him. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We're going to stand, and we're singing, "All I have is Christ."

I once was lost in darkest night. Yet thought I knew the way. The sin that promised joy in life had led me to the grave. I had no hope that you would own a rebel to your will. And if you had not loved me first, I would refuse you still. But as I ran my hell-bound race, indifferent to the cross, you looked upon my helplessness and led me to the grave. And I beheld God's love displayed. You suffered in my place. You bore the wrath reserved for me. Now all I know is grace. All I have is Christ. Hallelujah. Jesus is my light. Hallelujah. All I have is Christ. Hallelujah. Jesus is my light.

See, the strength you fought for your commands could never come from me. Oh, Father, use my ransom light in any way you would choose. Oh, Father, use my ransom light in any way you would choose. If I let my soul forever be my only prostitute. Hallelujah. All I have is grace. Hallelujah. Jesus is my life. Hallelujah. All I have is grace. Hallelujah. Jesus is my life. Jesus is my life. I want to thank you for joining us this morning. We are so glad that you are here. We are back Wednesday night for our Wednesday evening Bible study. That is at 6:00 PM. We spend a little bit of time in prayer, and then we just simply spend some time together studying the Bible. At 6:00 PM. Also, I think that's most of our announcements for this week. We are starting, not next week, but the first Sunday in June. We're going to spend the summer in the first few chapters of the book of Samuel, seeing both the power of God and the goodness of God, and it acts as this wonderful bridge between the law from

Moses and to the promise of Jesus through David. So we're going to spend about six or eight weeks in the book of Samuel through the summertime, and I'm excited to do that. I've never preached out of the book of Samuel. I don't know even that I've referenced it very much, but starting the first Sunday in June, that's where we're going to be. We're going to pray, and I'll read a Scripture, and we'll sing the doxology. Father in heaven, thank you for Jesus and grace. Thank you that we can be found in Him through your Son. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. John ends his first letter like this, "And we know that the Son of God has come and given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true, and we are in Him who is true, in His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life."

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him, above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Praise God, Son, and Holy Ghost. Praise God, Son, and Holy Ghost.