John 15, Traditions (3)
First B Jackson
2013-03-03

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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When I was studying this week and I was getting ready, going forward, moving towards John 15. And because we were in John 14 last week and we've got a certain amount of time before we get to the cross at Easter. So I'm running along in a clip and I hit John 15 and I've heard this message before. That's what I thought in my mind. I've heard this message before.

I'm the vine. You're the branches. I'm the true vine. I've heard it. I've heard it and I've heard and I've it and I've talked...

They talked about abide. Those who abide in me, those who remain in me and I thought, I want I want to preach that message but I think there's more here than that and then I heard my preaching instructor from seminary's voice in my head who was saying, Ray, make sure that you don't have too much what for the win. That's not a comforting thought. And then I thought of another preaching professor and I said, how long should a sermon be? And he said, long enough to do honor to God's word and short enough to do honor to God's people.

And it turns out this one is a lot shorter than most of mine, but it has a lot more information. It's mostly Bible. Thank goodness. No opinion or agenda to sneak in a hope, but I wanna start with old testament background. So John 15, we know what's happening around April, March, April of thirty three AD.

I'm gonna start in Isaiah five. Isaiah's song of the vineyard in Isaiah chapter five was written between 732 and seven forty eight BC. So we're going back a pretty good ways before. It had been on Jesus... In Jesus' time and John the Baptist's time, it had been four hundred and thirty something years since the last prophet had spoken from God.

And with that long and intertestamental, we call it silence from God, things tend to stray. Have you all ever watched the show Hoarders on television? Hoarders? Yes. There's there's a hand.

I see that hand. Hoarders is mostly the reason we watch this because it's gross and disgusting. Honestly, that's the reason we mostly watch it because it's gross and disgusting. It doesn't matter what it is they're hoarding, it's gross and disgusting. I preached this this morning without pointing it out ahead of time.

Hoarding the blessing of God is gross and disgusting. So I wanna walk you through several passages and bring you up into the New Testament. We'll get to the true vine, but about half the sermon's gonna be an Old Testament background. So Isaiah five through one through six. Now let me sing to my well beloved, a song of my beloved regarding his vineyard.

If you look at the well beloved, the beloved, and the his, they're all capitalized. And that capital signifies deity, respect for God. So this is speaking of well beloved, beloved, and his vineyard. It's speaking of deity. My well beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill.

He dug it up, capital h, even if it wasn't at the Prophesians that would have a capital h. He dug it up and cleared out its stones, planted it with the choice of spines. He built a tower in its midst and also made a wine press in it. So he expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes. The wild there is a euphemism.

The word stinking rotten is what it means. Bob's translation says stinking. Yes. Bob... Bob's...

Stinking. Bob. Bob. Sorry about that, Bob. But it brought forth stinking rotten grapes.

And now, oh, inhabitants of Jerusalem, the very fruitful hill. Oh, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge please between me, capital m, and my vineyard. What more could have been done to my vineyard that I have not done it? Why then when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, did it bring forth stinking, rotten grapes? And now please, let me tell you what I will do to my vineyard.

I will take away its heads and it shall be burned and break down its wall and it shall be trampled. I will lay it waste. It shall not be pruned or dug, but there shall come up briars and thorns, and I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it. Is that the saddest thing you've ever heard? Nope.

It's not. Let's go back two hundred and fifty more years. Thousand years between 900 and a thousand BC. This is obvious who this is, I think. You have brought a vine out of Egypt.

You have cast out the nations and planted it. You prepared room for it and caused it to take deep root and it filled the land. The hills were covered with its shadow and the mighty cedars with its vows. She sent out her vows to the sea, that's the Mediterranean Sea, and her branches to the river, the Euphrates River. Why have you, capital y, you, why have you, God, broken down her hedges so that all who pass by the way pluck her fruit?

The boar out of the woods uproots it, and the wild beast of the field devours Return, we beseech you, oh God, of hosts. Look down from heaven and sea and visit this vine. This is a Psalm of Asaph. He's one of David's chief musicians. Return, we beseech you, oh God of hosts.

Look down from heaven and see and visit this vine. And the vineyard which your right hand has planted and the branch you made strong for yourself. It is burned with fire. It is cut down. They perish at the rebuke of your countenance.

Your countenance is the face. The look on God's face causes them to perish. He is disappointed and upset. So let's go further back. A thousand more years back.

God's promise to Abram. Should say Abram, not Abraham because when he promised that he was able, God's promised Abraham. Now the Lord had said to Abram, get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you, and in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And look at that line three again. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Do you notice how God's taken responsibility for doing the cursing there?

It's not up to us to do the cursing. He's gonna bless the people that that bless us and he is gonna curse the ones who curse us but it's not up to us to do the cursing of those people. And then I wanna pay particular attention to this. And in you, Abraham, and your seed, it says later on in chapter 15 of Genesis, and in you all the families, nations, peoples, tribes, people groups. That's what that word means.

Nations, peoples, tribes, people groups. Anyone who self identifies as a segment that is who he's talking about, the families of the earth shall be blessed. So through you Abraham and Paul would say, Abraham believes God, it's credited to him as righteousness and that we should walk by faith not by sight, just like Abraham. This is the way that God spreads. It is through people who know him to people who don't.

And here's another. You know, Egypt had tons and tons of gods. Right? They had all God of this, God of that. If you look at the plagues that God visited upon Egypt, each one of those plagues was representative of one of their poly and one of their gods.

Everything. The God of the river, he turns the river to blood. The God of this, the God of that, he shows them that he is the all powerful one. And why does he do it? About 17 times to my count but sometimes that's hard to count.

Almost a dozen and a half times God's reason is given so that the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord. I am. Covenant name of God. I am the God who may be known. I am the self existent one.

I am that I am. Tell him I am sent you. And last week, we're talking about the Yokiero Taco Bell. You remember that? The I am statements of Jesus.

I am the true vine in John 15 is the seventh of those statements. He is definitely calling back to this. So let's don't stop there. We'll just keep on rolling with the Old Testament background. Mosaic legislation on the sojourner and the partner, the outsider.

You shall neither mistreat a stranger nor oppress him for you are strangers in the land of Egypt. That's Exodus. Leviticus says, and if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. Numbers, and it's again in Exodus says almost the same thing. And if a stranger dwells among you and would keep the Lord's Passover, he must do so according to the rite of the Passover just like everybody else.

And according to its ceremony, you shall have one ordinance both for the stranger and the native of the land. He was saying to include the outsider in your midst. This is what God's saying. The first temple, Solomon, you know, David didn't get to build the temple because he was seen as a man of war. God said, you're after my own heart, but you're a man of war.

There's too much blood on your hands. So Solomon gets to build the temple. Solomon builds the temple and during the dedication prayer at the first temple, he says, moreover, concerning a foreigner who is not of your people Israel, he's speaking to God, but has come from a far country for your name's sake. And then a parenthetic expression. For they will hear of your great name and your strong hand and your outstretched arm.

How are they gonna hear it? How are they gonna hear it? He told them to proclaim it. Israel was to be a light to the nations. They were to be set apart and there were times where God said, do things a certain way that don't make sense to us today.

Going in and taking the land. Had brought the vine out of Egypt and he planted it and he got rid of the briars and thorns before he planted it. So they will hear your great name and your strong hand and your outstretched arm. They'll hear it because we'll be telling them. When he comes and prays toward this temple here in heaven, your dwelling place and do according to all for which the foreigner calls you to do.

Does that sound familiar? Do what he asked upon upon you to do. Doesn't sound kinda like Jesus saying whatever you ask in my name, that's in John fifteen two. Here in heaven, your dwelling place, do according to all for which the foreigner calls you to do, that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you as do your people Israel, the Israel of God, and that they may know that this temple which I built is called by your name. He's not trying to take any glory.

He's trying to give God all the glory for this glorious temple. Let's go back to this. And that you, through this line, all of the families, nations, peoples, tribes, people groups of theirs shall be blessed. Now, I said all that Old Testament stuff, but let's not forget this. I'll swipe this slide from last week.

Let's not forget that Jesus said outright, before Abraham was, I am. I mentioned this. Brad Brad Cummings right here has written a book about Yahweh in the Old Testament being the the God that you know, the covenant name of God is Yahweh. And we sang a song this morning in the first service. It was Yahweh Yahweh.

I love to call your name, oh Lord. It is the covenant name for the people who know God. He is the God who may be known and Jesus in the Old Testament everywhere where we would see Yahweh when it's transferred to the New Testament is lord with a capital l and then smaller capital o r d. Jesus is referred to all the time as Lord that way. It's a good way of looking at scripture.

I think it's a really really good way because Jesus was present at all these times. He knew what was supposed to be happening in this temple. The first temple, he knew what was supposed to be happening. He was the one that made that call to Abraham. He was the one that was in the Isaiah when Isaiah was called.

He was the one that he saw high and lifted up. But things got turned on their side. By the time of Jesus' earthly life in the first century Mhmm. We have this. This is one of the stones from the temple.

You remember the temple was destroyed seventy AD so that no one stone was stacked on top of another. This is one of those stones that wasn't stacked on top of another. There are just a few of these left intact. There are couple of them that are still whole and a couple... Most of them are broken.

They're fragments. And it has... This one's written in Greek. Around the balustrade of the temple, they had one written in Greek, one written in another language Hebrew or Roman, I'm sorry, Latin, and then one in Greek, one in Latin. So all around, they're written in different languages so that nobody could say they didn't know.

This is what it says. No foreigner, outsider, nation, people of the nation, tribe, people group, except for the Jews. No foreigner may pass within the lattice and wall around the sanctuary. Whoever is caught the guilt for the death, which will follow will be his own. It's a forewarning.

Now God has said in Mosaic legislation, he has said it through Solomon's temple. He had said all this that the outsiders should not be treated with contempt. They certainly shouldn't be excluded. There should be one ordinance for the both. And he said, I want the Egyptians to know who I am.

Do you remember Daniel and the three Hebrew children that were thrown into the fire? Darius' decree, Cyrus the greatest decree, all of those are, let it be known that in Israel, there is a god. This is him. He's the one that can be known. This is all throughout Old Testament.

God had ignition and it was that Israel be a light to the nations. Now, when Paul says that through his seed, capital s, the seed of Abraham, the seed of woman, all of those seeds coming together in Christ. That's true. Christ was ultimately the fulfillment of that, but they were to be a life for the nations. So that brings us up to John 15.

Remember again that our context wise, the last verse of chapter 14 says that Jesus suggested that they get up and go, and I I believe that his beloved disciples, that's what they did. Fourteen thirty one says, arise, let us go from here. And then we get into chapter 15 and he says, I am the true vine. The I am is that ego and me we're talking about last week. It's a very strong statement of deity.

And it's the first time that he follows it up with, and my father is the vine dresser. He'd never followed any of those other statements with anybody else, but he included it. There's a relationship with him. I'm the true vine. My father is the vine dresser.

So he talks about relationship and this chapter is all about relationships, the whole chapter. Usually, when we talk about this and when I've heard it preached, it's usually there's so much there in the abiding Christ section that we stop there and we concentrate on that. I wanna look at it where the abiding in Christ is the basis upon which we do the next set of relationships and we can stand the next set of relationships. So I wanna consider again geography. I think it's really, really important.

If you consider where the upper room would have been, could have been just about anywhere in Jerusalem. But most tradition holds as to where it was. If you... If they left from the upper room where people think that it was, most scholars believe it was, they would have had to walk past the temple. It was the prominent feature in the Jerusalem landscape.

It would have been a normal place to be. It's Passover time. There's a full moon on Passover every year. That's the... That's how you know it's Passover.

And they're gonna walk past the temple where those stones say, outsiders, basically, get out. We don't want you here. We don't want you to have anything to do with. It didn't even mention God. The stone just said, stay out.

You can stay in the court of the Gentiles. You know when Jesus cleansed the temple? You know what he cleansed? The court of the Gentiles because it has become a place of commerce rather than calling the Gentiles in. Above the gates of the temple, this is a model.

It's a mock up, just a model of it. Of course, it was destroyed, this was all plundered and carried off and this is all gold. This is the the door at the temple and it's not just those columns, it's not just the golden vines, it's not just the great clusters or that shell shaped thing there or the doors that are covered in gold. The whole front facade of this building and it's enormous, you can get the dimensions for it. Joe Cephas in his antiquities gives us dimension, he looked up, it's pretty easy to find on the internet.

50 cubits wide, 50 cubits high and 90 cubits this. It's huge. It's all covered in gold. Above the gate of the temple were golden vines and great clusters as large as a man. You see the little guy standing out at the bottom and the guy climbing up the ladder?

That gives you an idea for scale. This would have been visible walking by in the full moonlight and seeing that when Jesus says, I am the true vine. So the relationships. There are three distinct relationships that Jesus is talking about and he mentions them in order. I'm quite certain.

This is his tutorial for how life's gonna be without me physically present here with you. This is what you need to concentrate on. Your relationships, disciple to Jesus. This is how we should relate. Disciples to one another and disciples to the world.

It'll come back up in a few minutes. A disciple to Jesus. Let's read that first section, and I'm just gonna read down through it. But I am the true vine, and my father is a vinedresser. That signifies a relationship, vine and vinedresser.

Right? Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes that it may bear fruit the more. You are already clean. He says this. He states this.

You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine. You are the branches.

He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit. For without me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he's cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. That sounds sort of like that prayer that Solomon was praying for the outsider

That they'd be able

to pray directly to God and God be able to do what it is that they've asked for their hearts in line with his. By this my father is glorified that you bear much fruit. So you will be my disciples. As the father has loved me, I have also loved you. Abide in my love.

So it's about abiding. We have all heard that sermon. If we've been in church a whole lot, you've heard about abiding. We've got it printed on the wall downstairs. I'm the vine.

You're the branches. You see it on t shirts. You see it on bumper stickers and it's really, really, really good stuff. Abide in him. The first part of that has sparked so much theological controversy that we go back and try to argue our side as far as eternal security versus the possibility of forfeiting your salvation because of the every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away.

I'm gonna I'm gonna speak to two things about that. First of all, who he's speaking to when he says it. I I agree that it extends to us, but they had been 12 for three... Two and a half, three years. They've been 12 people following this guy and all of a sudden they're 11.

He just left the room thirty minutes ago and he's speaking to them and he's saying, everyone that abides in me and you're you're them. You're the guys. He's not persevering to the end. He's been dismissed. He never knew me in the first place.

You know, I've got 12 of you and want to use the devil. He said that earlier, right? So when he's saying that, I don't think it's the theological in me like union with Christ that can be dismissed. I actually really strongly believe that you can go lots of different places in the Bible and know that no one can pluck you out of the hand of God when you're there, you're there. But he also does say, he who perseveres to the end by the blood of the lamb and the word of his testimony.

He will continue. Those who are saints will persevere until the end. So I think we can I think we can get over that, but I I did want to mention that about Judas and Laban and these guys sitting there listening to what he's saying? The other thing is, and this is a... This is almost the opposite argument and I'll admit that to you but I want you to hear both sides.

He says, he who does... Who is in me and doesn't bear fruit. If you take that to mean he who is a true Christian and does not bear fruit, he will... The verb there is two... It it can mean two things.

The primary definition is he will be lifted up. The way that they used to run vineyards back in those days is they had them running along the ground and they would stack stones up underneath them. The way that we put them on poles and then draw wires between that's... They didn't have wire of the same sort. And so getting wires to pull between things was a little bit more difficult.

What they do is stack the vines up on stones and where between the stacks of stones, if something got down to the ground, was resting on the ground, it's not gonna produce grapes right there. That branch will not produce grapes. The primary definition of the word is to lift up. So it makes sense in context since there's that disjunctive in there that says everyone who does not bear fruit this, everyone who does bear fruit he's gonna prune. It's...

It can be taken both ways. I'll let you decide. I'm just presenting both. So it's either I will lift him up like off the ground or get him out of the muck so that he may bear fruit or it is taken away. Down below that, he talks about the ones who are not bearing fruit, who are not about again, who are cut off from him.

They will be burned up and we saw that in some of that old testament background. There's plenty of backing for that and that is ultimately what will happen

but those are not for the

ones who are in Christ, who are saved people, Christians. Alright. So that's the first part. And I think we have to spend more time on this one than I'll spend on the other culture. He gives us the reason, the way to abide in him.

Abide in me just as I abide in you. If you are a Christian, you have accepted him, you have prayed for him to be your lord and savior. He wants you to continually be looking towards him. He will be with you forever. He says, love, I'm with you always.

Even to the end of the age, I will not leave you. I will not forsake you. I'm in there. I'm abiding in you. I want for you and your thoughts and in your prayers and in your consciousness to be conscious of me and always looking to me.

And then it gets into other relationships. If you abide in me the way that I abide in you, the disciples to one another, this is the next relationship that's built on that foundation. Love for God, love for God, Jesus' abiding love in us allows us to love one another as his followers, as Christians. So love one another. He says this, this is God that's speaking.

He's given us the 10 commandments in the Old Testament and then we add it to them and add it to them and add add it to them it to And to get to the point where it's going against the very things that he's told us to do. Our traditions get in the way. So where was I? 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. So he's equating our relationship with him to his relationship with the father.

And in the seventeenth chapter of John, he goes into a high priestly prayer and he prays for us to be one just as I and my heavenly father are one. So our unity is very, very important to Christ. These things I've spoken to you that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full and then he gives us the eleventh commandment straight from the mouth of God. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Simple as that.

I could stop reading right there. There'd be enough of a message. Love one another just as I have loved you. Greater love, I'm not gonna stop though. Y'all know better than that.

Greater love has no one than this than to lay down one's life for his friends. He was about to do that. He had told them over and over they still didn't believe it. You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I've called you friends.

For all things that I heard from my father, I've made known to you. He has an open and transparent relationship with us just as he does with his father. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that your fruit... That you should bear fruit and that your fruit should remain whatever you ask the father in my name, he may give you. These things I command you that you love one another.

That section, there's no doubt about it. That relationship is disciples one to another. Love one another just as he has loved you. So we should be loving each other with the same kind of sacrificial love that Christ loved us with. With that forbearance, with grace, with mercy.

In that... Well, I'll get to this in the next section. Next relationship. If we could do that well, oh, that we could do that well. If we love Christ as he loved us and we love one another as he loved us, abiding love, this part would be a lot easier.

This is about how we relate to the world. It's not necessarily screaming out how we should do the relating in this section. It's saying our relationship to the world is one of enmity. They will hate you. If you are abiding in my love and you are loving one another the way that I've loved you, they will hate you.

Ain't that terrible? Ain't that sad? It's true though. It's extremely attractive once they get over that precipice. But until then, it's the same way.

Let me just read what Jesus had to say because it's better than what I have to say. These things I command you that you love one another and then the next eighteenth verse says, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, then the world would love its own. Yet because you're 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. He just said this a few minutes ago. If they persecuted me, they'll also persecute you. If they kept my word, they would keep your word also.

And you know, some people did. Some people, Jesus had an effect on. He says, if they kept my word, they'll keep your word. He also had just said to these guys just before this that greater things than I have done will you do. He did not yet perform that sacrificial death on the cross, but he had spoken truth into people's lives and it caused a difference.

We can do that. He says, if they listen to me, they'll listen to you. If it didn't listen to me and they hate my guts, they're not gonna listen to you, you know, they're gonna hate your guts too. But he's warning us. It's a warning.

They will hate you. But again, he qualifies it just as they hated me. Take comfort in that. In the sixteenth chapter, he'll say that I've overcome the world. Take heart because I've overcome the world.

It's in the same speech but it's next chapter. They will hate you just as they hated me but he says, but take heart. I've overcome the world. So as disciples to the world, it's mentioned their relationship to us. They hate us.

But if we take all that old testament background that I believe Jesus was pointing back to, we should still be... Bear witness to them. When Jesus says that we should love our enemies and do good to those who persecute you, he means it. He really means it. You should bear witness to the truth that you know of Jesus.

Remember the blind man? I said, he just told just what he knew. Just his simple testimony. Just as Christ revealed God to us, we should bear witness to them, telling them what it is that God has done for us by our actions and by our words. Romans five eight seems to fit so naturally right here because it's easy to get the mentality.

It's easy to build up this state like Israel had gotten to that state like the temple. They got to that place they had turned so inward that they were actually excluding people. I mean, on every other stone, they're excluding everybody in different languages. Every tribe, tongue, and nation, it's the opposite of that is what we're supposed to be doing. God demonstrated his own love toward us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

So that's the way that we should relate to the world, the positive way that we should relate to the world. Not the negative hate way that they hate us to stand up and say, well, they hate us because so and so and just hate them back. That's what they expect. They love it when that happens. If you can take that and then still love them back, that's very, very attractive.

That's what Christ did. That's how we that are Christians came to be Christians. And that while we were sinners, he died for us. So the relationships is a disciple to Jesus, disciples to one another, and disciples to the world. I was gonna say, I think that's all.

That's the point. That's what the whole chapter says. That you did not choose me, but I chose you. That's another one that theological ramifications of that. People preach on that a lot.

They think on that a lot, and it bothers a lot of people. But I want you to take comfort in it to know that Christ chose you. But he chose you the same way he chose Abraham. He choose... Chose Abraham and he said, I will bless those that bless you and I, not you, I will curse those who curse you.

It's not you. It's not about you. It is about the way you relate to everyone else though. You didn't choose me but I chose you. There's a great comfort in that.

Judas actually did choose Jesus. I I believe. I believe. This is not something that says chapter and verse. You can't point it out through tradition and through figuring everything the way that we figure.

The little comments that John makes the other disciples make. Judas had chosen his horse. He chose the one he thought was going to win. He picked the guy that he thought could do it. Judas picked Jesus to be the one that help overthrow Rome that could bring about the kingdom, the messianic kingdom on Earth.

He chose Jesus and then he he got weary and he ran from it. That's the end. And he betrayed him. Ultimately, the whole issue of the sovereignty of God and the free will of man comes up several times in this chapter. But the truth is, God is completely sovereign and in his sovereignty, he has given us complete free will.

It doesn't make any sense. Don't try to figure it out. It will warp your brain. Logically, it doesn't make sense but scripture presents both as true. God is completely sovereign.

And so in Judas' free will to betray Christ, God's complete sovereignty made that the ultimate act whereby Christ perfectly lived life, ended in sacrificial death, a perfect life well lived, given for our sake so that we may be right... Made right with God, so that we may abide in Christ, so that we may love one another, so that we may love the world even when they hate us. So, I'll ask Jennifer if you would come forward. I'm gonna pray and then we're gonna sing one more song. Scott, do you wanna jump up here?

We're gonna sing God will take care of you. I know that this message today is primarily for those of you who have called Christ your own and realize that he has chosen you. It may seem like I was really really preaching at the choir today and wagging my finger. This is Jesus's words to prepare us for just the way life is. So people take care of us.

Let's let's sing that. And if you'd like to come forward, the altar is open for prayer. And if you'd like to come forward and talk to me, I'll turn the microphone up.