[Transcript represents full sermon's text]

       John chapter 15, starting in verse 1: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 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” (ESV).

       We come today to the fifteenth chapter of John, which, probably is among our favorite chapters in this Gospel. Jesus’ conversation that takes place is an interesting one—and one that seems to reach out and focus more on the future.

       Set before us is the imagery of a vine and a vinedresser. It’s safe to say that, contextually, those who believe are the believing Jews. We know that many Jewish persons have not believed in Jesus up and to this point. The chief of those, whom Jesus undoubtedly has in mind, is Judas Iscariot. He is the chief since he is the one currently in the process of betraying Jesus, and really all the other disciples as well. It’s not just Jesus that he is betraying. In effect, all of what Jesus is stating about the vine and vinedresser is another way of stating that the Jews need to believe in the One whom God has sent into the world. Every Jewish person who doesn’t believe is one who does not bear fruit. What is a branch called that doesn’t bear fruit? A dead branch. It’s a common experience in dealing with trees. If a branch isn’t bearing fruit, it’s cut off. That’s because we don’t want it wearing down the rest of the tree. The speaker himself has had experience with this from time to time when dealing with trees growing up. In this case, God is the One who cuts off the branch. In contrast to Judas, the other Eleven are to “abide in [Christ].” That’s the only way to the Father. That’s the only way to know the true God of the Universe, the only way to “bear” fruit.

       Verse 5: “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, thrown into the fire, and burned” (ESV).

       The clarity in that there are two ways is presented before the Jews—two choices to pick from. One can either choose to believe in Jesus, to believe in the One whom God has sent, or can choose not to believe in him. The One who chooses to believe is one who “bears much fruit.” That’s true of anyone who believes in him. It’s not that stronger belief or more dedicated belief leads to bearing more fruit, but we know that anyone, really, who chooses to believe in Christ will automatically bear a lot of fruit. Even for a person who believes right at the end of their life, they, at the very least, will bear a lot of fruit in the afterlife—in the next life—since they know God. Just knowing God means that One will be with God forever, and be with all the brothers and sisters in Jesus forever. We cannot have that experience without Christ—as he warns in the passage. He says, “for apart from me you can do nothing.” We, in and of ourselves, cannot save ourselves. We cannot meet God’s righteous standard by ourselves. A lot of people think they are good in and of themselves, and that’s true in the basic sense—in that they were created in the image of God and that God loves them. But that doesn’t mean they are morally good, and have lived up to God’s standard. Everyone needs to be made right with God; we aren’t in our default position right with God. That’s important. That’s the difference between our position in Christ and everyone else’s position.

       What happens to a person who isn’t counting on Christ’s righteousness? Do they just automatically get into Heaven when they die? Do they get a free pass? Well, what does Jesus say in the verses we just read? He said, “If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” That doesn’t sound good. That sounds like a problem. That explains why later on, after his resurrection, he’s going to make those statements that we call The Great Commission. Jesus wants all of the Jewish people to be saved, and really, he wants everyone to be saved. As an unsaved person gets older and older, that person withers away. They are dead. Eventually, all those dead branches, in the life after this one, are going to be gathered together. And because they are dead, they aren’t going to be able to ‘live’ eternal life. Something that is dead cannot live. Rather, on the other hand, Jesus notes they are going to be “thrown into the fire, and burned.” That’s not a place anyone of us wants to find ourselves in. Yet, there is a solution, the one he’s being telling us about. The solution is deciding to abide in him rather than to decide to abide as a dead branch and to continue to wither away.

       Verse 7: “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” (ESV).

       In order to understand what Jesus has spoken referring to asking and receiving, it is good for us to consider the verse that comes just after that. The asking is so that the disciples will “bear much fruit.” The implication is that the asking and receiving has to do with God’s works, the work of ministry, and not simply whatever they want in life. Not that God doesn’t care about those things as well, though the disciples were called to a higher calling than all of us, but it appears to be the context of it. Jesus is eventually going to give these fellows the great commission, and this is something God wants to happen. He desires for his message about Jesus to spread everywhere, even around the entire world. And we also remember that he even tells Peter how things are going to end for him, and we’ll get into that later when we are wrapping up the series. But it’s just important to bring to mind the context of this asking and receiving. Easy, it can be, to pull that verse out of context, and think that whatever we want is ours. It seems reasonable to presume that we can probably even find a few teachers who will tell us that’s what it says. Care needs to be taken with that, and not to mention that God himself is bound by the world, the free-wills of people, and even at times by what Satan and his demons are up to.

       Verse 9: “As the Father has loved me, so have I 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” (ESV).

       Really verse 9 is a gigantic verse and one that we probably often read over pretty fast. But to stop and think about it, to consider that just as God the Father loved God the Son, so Jesus loves those who are his. He loved the disciples back then, and he loves each one of us today with that kind of love. That’s a deep love that we can count on for the rest of our lives. It’s not a conditional love, but an unconditional love. Read the verse incorrectly and it would seem that it’s referring to conditional love. If in fact we read the verse in such a way as to think that Jesus is stating he will only love his disciples if they do what he says in a day to day stream, then that means he only loves us based on our performance, and the minute our performance gets less than perfect, eventually he won’t love us anymore. That betrays the truth as the Apostle John told us earlier “For God so loved the world.” Notice that God loves the world without them loving him. The truth is, and a lot of people don’t get this, but the truth is that God loves everyone in the world before they even become a Christian. And even if they don’t ever become a Christian God still loved them. God loved the world so much that he sent his Son into the world to die for our sins so that he could make all of us right with him. It’s not that God says, “Ah, you accepted Jesus so now I can love you.” That’s not the way it works. Sure, he can show greater love toward us in that case because our sin problem has been dealt with and we have freely chosen him, but he still loved us beforehand.

       Anyhow, the realization that God loves us brings us joy in our lives, and full joy at that. What exactly is joy? How can we define joy? A good way it seems to define joy is by saying it is our underlying trust in God regardless of our circumstances. Our underlying trust in God regardless of our circumstances. Joy isn’t the same as peace, for they are listed separately in the Fruit of the Spirit, remember, that which the Apostle Paul discusses in Galatians 5. It isn’t necessarily happiness since we can be joyful but not particularly happy. But like happiness, joy is a choice that we make, a mindset, inside of ourselves by trusting in God’s character, in his actions toward us. It is that calm and stability that we have even when things outside of ourselves aren’t going too good. When people or events are bothering to us in the external, we know we can be calm and stable on the internal. And that’s because we know God. That’s because we have a relationship with God. It is what Jesus is talking about here in knowing him, just like he says the disciples do.

       Verse 12: “This is my commandment, that you 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 does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (ESV).

       For starters, we see that Christ wants his disciples to love each other. It is very basic, and we are probably immune to it at this point. It’s an important thing said, though. The Apostle John will reiterate this point multiple times in his first epistle, some 60 years after this scene. In chapter 4, he said, “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:20, 21, ESV). What’s interesting as regards this verse is that John, in the scene were currently in, actually saw God with his own eyes in the Person of Jesus. He saw him right there. The significance is that loving our brothers and sisters in Christ is actually easier than loving God himself as we can actually see our brothers and sisters right in front of us. If we can’t love them, we certainly can’t love God since it takes more careful observation of our own-selves do be doing what is pleasing to the Father. The truth is, though, that if we are in relationship with God we will automatically display love toward him and others. We know that because it is one of the Fruit of the Spirit, in fact, the chief fruit. Love is the first fruit. If the Holy Spirit indwells us, and we believe he indwells each and every believer, than it’s pretty much a certain thing that we are going to demonstrate an attitude of love.

       Christ shows the ultimate love, then, that a person can show, and he is about to lay down his life for his disciples, his friends, and for all of us as well. It doesn’t seem that we really understand this. It’s more likely that we are immune to what it is actually saying when we read it. Jesus is actually going to go through an excruciating death on a Roman cross, a Roman execution, which will include being whipped as well, for our sake. It’s a terrible thing he’s about to face. This isn’t a quick, simple, thirty-second death. This is going to be many, many hours of first psychological warfare, and then the physicality of it all. Like Peter said a little while ago, we can all think that we will lay down our lives for our friends. The Apostle Paul noted that, “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 still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:7, 8, ESV). This is the reality of the situation. The truth is, we really don’t know what we would do until we faced that kind of situation. Hopefully we would do the right thing, whatever we decided that right thing was to do. But what Christ is about to do is the ultimate love toward us, and one that most of us probably couldn’t replicate for our own friends. It shows that God is truly giving us everything, holding nothing back. This shows how great the Father’s love is for us.

       We observe next the famous verse where Jesus calls his disciples his friends. This is an important verse as it goes go to show the actual status of our relationship. It’s not one we might expect, wherein we are not in a traditional relationship, or worldly one, as Jesus would probably put it. We actually are his friends. Remember, the Apostle Paul noted this. He said, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29, ESV). We are brothers and sisters with Christ, friends; note it’s not that he is our superior in the sense of relationship. That’s not how we wants to relate to us. And he’s told us everything we need to live a righteous life—including that which has come after him, in the rest of the New Testament. He hasn’t held anything back so that he has the superior knowledge, even though he does obviously know more than us.

       Verse 16: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that 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” (ESV).

       Obviously, this verse regarding who choose who can be one of great debate. Contextually, Jesus seems to be referring to the fact he choose these specific disciples to be his disciples, and even assigned a work for them. We need to remember that many of them, if not all of them, were already looking for the Messiah. They were already Jewish, and practicing the Jewish religion. It’s not that he simply walked up to random people on the street who had random backgrounds and said, “You, follow me.” That’s not the way it worked in this case. To try to say that God always chooses those who will be his without their free-choice is to lead into error. That’s not the way love works, and that’s not the way God works. That’s forceful; that’s authoritarian. It can’t be that because even the secular person can recognize that’s not how love works. Anyone of any society or religion can recognize that (unless perhaps they’re part of an authoritarian religion, like some type of fundamentalist Mormon or even Shia Muslims perhaps). In a basic sense, everyone who hears the Gospel of Jesus Christ is chosen by God, since, in reality, God wants everyone to come into personal relationship with him, the real God. Remember, this was how Paul put it. He said, “What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him” (Acts 17:23-27, ESV). And he continues on after that. But that’s the point.

       Verse 18: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me” (ESV).

       What is said by Jesus relates to what he had just been telling his disciples, and that is, as they go about and try to bear fruit, they are going to come into confrontation with people in the world. The positive thing, first, is that not everyone hated Christ. Not everyone was against his message, and even those who were against it, perhaps not all of them wanted to see him die. Yet, in all of that, there were a large amount of people who didn’t like him, who didn’t like his message, and who did indeed want him to die. They hated him. And Jesus is warning his disciples that it will be the same for them. That people won’t like them is a statement of fact. But it’s not meant to be universal. Even the people who are of the world know how to love—it’s just not a perfect love. Jesus made that point elsewhere. Everyone has the sin-nature, but they are not the worst they could possible be. Most will probably agree with that, though, some persons obviously practice some pretty bad things. Jesus is telling the disciples that the opposition he experienced will also be experienced by them as well. It wasn’t that it was specially set aside for him only. It’s the message that a lot of individuals don’t like. Some people don’t like to be told they don’t serve the true God, or even that their religion is false, not based in the truth. Some people won’t care, but many people will. Some, of course, will seek to make correction based on what they say.

       Indeed, some will listen, respond, and change their ways. That’s the encouragement. That’s always the encouragement. There’s almost always some. It might be tempting to think that no one wants to follow Christianity, to have a personal relationship with God, or to follow good principles, but there are always persons who will see the truth, see the light, and choose to follow that truth. Notice Jesus says “they will also keep yours [their word].” If God was automatically causing this, then it seems everyone would keep it, since God wants everyone to be saved. The passage shows, though, very simply, that people either choose to keep the word or choose not to. It’s up to them. All the disciple of Jesus can do is present truth. Individuals choose whether they will follow it or not. The disciple is not responsible for their decision. Yet, God shows his love to people who oftentimes don’t love him in return, just like he instructed for us to do in the Sermon on the Mount. Even love for people won’t always cause them to change.

       Verse 22: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: They hated me without a cause’” (ESV).

       The fundamental problem facing the Jews is that they had rebelled against their only hope of being saved from their sins. Outside of Christ, there was no hope for them. With God himself appearing before them and speaking with them, there would be absolutely nothing they could say to try to excuse their sin—or to try to claim ignorance, that the way they were living was without knowing. In truth, they had rejected the greatest commandant. They hadn’t loved God—they hadn’t shown love for God. They showed they were love-less, which, is similar to another being that exists in the world, whom we know as Satan. Satan is a being who has no love residing in him, and now the Israelites were acting just like him. It was the grossest of sins—for many of them hated the Christ. They hated God. And what was worst is, and Jesus quoted a psalm of David at the end of this section, but there was no reason for them to hate Jesus. He hadn’t done anything against them, nor tried to sway them in a way that was outrageous or a way that was even absurd. He proclaimed love to them, and they rejected it with hate. Perhaps some people from other religions or other people groups might hate Jesus, but they would say it’s because he isn’t doing what they feel is right. But Jesus was part of their own religion, and they didn’t accept him.

       Verse 26: “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning” (ESV).

       Within these verses is a good summary of how the sharing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ works—the inner-workings of the process. Notice that it’s the Holy Spirit, who is from God, who is the One who shines in individuals’ hearts. He witnesses the truth to people, setting it before them, perhaps helping them to see the light were they even cannot see. If their eyes are darkened, blinded we might say, perhaps he makes it possible for them to see. And this, of course, is in cooperation with the second part of the text, where ministers of the Gospel preach and teach the truth so that people can believe. In this case, it’s going to be the Eleven disciples tasked as the first to do that, even though others besides them have already been doing it. Many others will do it like them in the future. Some even in one-on-one witnessing. But it’s this bearing witness to the truth, to Jesus, in corporation with the first part, the part of the Spirit of God, that allows persons to believe if they choose to. If people simply believed based on the Spirit of God’s part, then the second part wouldn’t even be necessary. Jesus, though, lists the Spirit’s part first, before even the witnessing of the truth. That’s interesting. The suggestion appears to be that the Spirit works on people’s hearts beforehand, before they even hear the message. It also disproves that the Spirit is responsible for automatically drawing a person to God, for it is really a three-fold process. The Spirit enables individuals to see the truth, the preacher bears witness, and finally, the person believes. This is the way it works. It’s not that the Spirit does everything, but he is the One who starts the process.

- Daniel Litton