Our discussion on abiding in Christ has led us to John 15:9.  Knowing that you are loved like that will cause you to trust the One who loves you.  Jerry Bridges tells the story of sitting in a doctor’s waiting room and seeing a picture of a man being sculpted.  The sculpture was complete down to about mid-thigh.  The man was very muscular, but what was striking was the painter painted the hammer and chisel into the hands of the man being sculpted.

Isn’t that how many people try to live their Christian lives?  They try to sculpt themselves into Christ-like specimens when the work of sculpting belongs to God himself.  Our joy, our holiness, our very lives depend upon us giving the hammer and chisel back to the One who created us and allowing Him to mold us into His image.

When we see the great love of God that has been lavished upon us we are enabled to trust the pruning—the hammer and chisel—and we will find joy unspeakable dwelling within us—joy that is not based on your circumstances; rather, joy that is based on the One who lives in you.

        So, how do we abide in His love—since school started this week and we were always taught the three R’s—reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic—let me give you the three R’s of abiding in His love.

First, Remember His love.  I find it interesting that when John saw the glorified Jesus in heaven he said, “I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain…”  For all of eternity we will see Jesus’ marks of crucifixion and remember His great love for us.  Look at the cross and remember His great love for you.

Second, Rest in His love.  You do not have to earn it—you do not have to seek it—you do not have to qualify for it—you already have it.  Rest in that and take comfort and be encouraged.  You are loved perfectly.

Finally, Respond to His love.  When you see that great love—respond in worship and adoration.  How can you do anything else?  Respond in obedience and with love of your own.

Yesterday we continued our discussion of abiding in Christ by looking at John 15:9.  I gave you several verses that describe the depth of God’s love for His children.  The truth is there is nothing you can do to make Him love you more and there is nothing you can do to make Him love you less. His love for you is perfect.  You are loved perfectly and Jesus says, “Now,” now that you know that apart from me you can do nothing, now that you know that I love you perfectly, now that you know that I want to live in you, “abide in my love.” 

Satan wants you to abide in guilt, fear, and doubt, but Jesus says, “Abide in my love.”  You might say, I want to believe this, but I just don’t feel loved—how can I really know that He loves me like this.  Listen to 1 John 3:16, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us…”  Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son and when the moment came for him to take the final step God stopped him and basically said, “Abraham, now I know that you love me.”  Abraham could walk across the eons of time and come to that same mountain top and point to the cross and say, “God, now I know that you love me.”  Just look at the cross and see the depth of love He has displayed and continues to display to you.

Seeing the love of God changes everything.  Let me take you back to 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.  And he died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and was raised again.”  Here we see the secret to abiding in Christ’s love—the word compel means to surround or hold as prisoner, is also means to hem in and to control.  When we come to an understanding of the love of Christ—that relationship will control us—it will govern us.  The love of Christ experienced will keep us from acting with self in mind.  The love of Christ lived out in our lives will demand that we live for the glory of Christ.  The love of Christ understood will bring obedience.  Why?  Because immersing ourselves in the love of Christ will cause us to live a life that worships every moment. 

We don’t obey to earn God’s love or favor—we obey because we are loved by God.  The love of Christ will coerce, it will press in upon us, it will impel us to that division of soul and spirit and bone and marrow.  We won’t get over it—it won’t be a part of the latest fad.  We won’t get beyond it—it is eternal.  When we see it, then and only then, we will understand what it means to be able to say, “To live is Christ and to die is gain.”  Then and only then we will be able to understand what it means to rejoice when we are persecuted.  Then and only then will we understand what John meant when he said, “This is love for God; to obey his commands.  And his commands are not burdensome…”  Encountering the love of God changes us.  When we see the love of God we will stop coming by to visit Him for a while and simply take up residence in Him because we just don’t want to leave His presence. 

You see, it was because God loved you that He approached a sinful people and it is because He approached a sinful people that you and I are able to approach a holy God—not just approach Him, but live in Him.  All of this is possible because He loved you.  Even if you don’t feel love you cannot argue with the evidence—God became a man, died on the cross enduring the scorn and wrath that we deserved, rose from the grave, ascended to the throne, and now calls you to come and live in Him.  That is love—“not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” That is the love that you and I can live in.

For the last few days we have been talking about abiding in Jesus.  He promises us that if we abide in Him—He will abide in us and the result will be much fruit.  As we continue in this passage let me remind you of three characteristics of fruit.  First, fruit reflects the nature of the vine or tree of which it is a part.  You simply don’t get grapes from an apple tree and you don’t get apples from a grape vine—if you are a child of God the natural byproduct of abiding in Jesus will be godly fruit.  Second, fruit is always visible.  You don’t grow invisible apples, grapes, or oranges.  If you can’t see the fruit—it isn’t there.  That is why Jesus spoke of “showing ourselves to be my disciples.”  And third, the fruit always grows for the benefit of someone else.  Have you ever witnesses an apple tree eating its own apples?  No, someone else benefits from the fruit.  Last week we discovered that our fruit glorifies our Father. (Characteristics from Tony Evans, Who is this King of Glory?)

We must continue to abide in the Vine because He said, “Apart from me you can do nothing.”  I want you to consider something—fruit isn’t attached from the outside.  Fruit is the organic product and evidence of the inner life.  We are prone to try to skip the relational aspect of our walk with God by trying to paste our good works on the outside for others to see.  We can do our works to be seen by others and find that those works are nothing more than the byproduct of our fleshly talents—the Bible tells us that God sums all of that up as “nothing.”  But if we will abide in Him we will bear genuine fruit—fruit that will last, fruit that flows from the life source that comes from within.  What is that life source?  Jesus tells us in our text today.

John 15:9 simply floors me.  On July 27, 05 I entered this into my journal—“I can’t get over verse nine—‘As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.’  That is perfect love and you love me like that!”  Now, I have no problem seeing that the Father loves the Son.  There is a perfect relationship within the Trinity—it is an eternal relationship, but for Jesus to love us like the Father loves Him—that just blows me away. 

I started to think about that—how can we describe the love of the Father?  Let me take you through whirlwind tour of several passages of scripture to describe it.

Exodus 15:13—his love is unfailing, 20:6, His love is demonstrated to a thousand generations…, 34:6, His love is abounding.  In Deuteronomy 7:13 we find that his love is a covenant and that it comes with blessings.  In 2 Chronicles 5:13, and in numerous other passages, His love endures forever—it is eternal.  In Psalm 25:6 His love is great and is associated with mercy and in verse 10 all the ways of the Lord are loving.  In 32:10 His love is unfailing and it surrounds those who trust in Him, in 33:18 is unfailing and associated with hope, in 36:5 it reaches to the heavens, in 57:10 it is great and reaches to the heavens and his faithfulness to the skies, in 63:3 God’s love is described as better than life and in 89:33 God tells us that He will not take His love from us, in 103:4 we are told that we are crowned with love and compassion, and in 119:64 we see that the entire earth is filled with His love.  Jeremiah 31:3 tells us that God has loved us with an everlasting love.  And in Zephaniah 3:17 we are told that God rejoices over us in singing and that He quiets us with His love. 

John tells us that God so loved the world that He gave His only son and we are told that the Father loves the Son and has placed everything in His hands.  In Galatians we are reminded that God loved us and gave himself for us.  Romans 5:5 tells us that God poured His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit and in 1 Corinthians 13 Paul takes up John’s idea that God is love and personifies love.  He tells us that love is patient, kind, does not boast, is not proud, is not rude, self-seeking, easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth, always protects, trusts, hopes and perseveres—love never fails.  In 2 Corinthians 5:14 Christ’s love is so strong that it compels us and in Ephesians we are told that we are predestined and adopted in love, made alive when we were dead in our sins due to His love, and we find Paul praying that we would have the power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and that we would know this love which surpasses knowledge and be filled to the full measure of the fullness of God.  He tells us that Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering, and we are told to love our wives as Christ loved the Church—that is the depth of intimacy we can have in His love!

In 1 John we are told that God’s love is made complete in those who obey His Word, that His love is lavished upon us, and that God is love.  Jude tells us to keep ourselves in God’s love as we wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring us to eternal life and speaking of eternal life we find the culmination of His love in Revelation as we sit down for the Wedding Supper of the Lamb and worship Him for eternity.  That is the love by which the Father loves the Son and in return the Son loves you.

Yesterday we saw the negative reason we are called to abide in Christ—“Apart from me I can do nothing…,” (John 15:5b) but today I will give you the positive reason to abide.  Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches.  Whoever abides in me and I in him, he is it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”  Did you see it?  “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit.”

When you do abide in Jesus you find fruit coming from you that you cannot explain.  Suddenly you rest in Him and find that doing less actually brings more.  You start doing what you were created to do and you bring glory to your Creator.  When you live like that you find joy—joy as we will see in the next few weeks that is complete.  Please hear me—this is the definitive statement of what it means to live the Christian life—I can do nothing on my own, but there is nothing that He cannot do through me.

That is the negative and the positive reason to abide, but me close by showing you the results of abiding and not abiding.  If we do not abide Jesus says we are “like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such braches are picked up and burned.”  Some take this verse to be a description of those who are in the church but lost.  They see it as someone who has the appearance of being saved, but in reality they believed the facts without ever believing in the Person of Jesus.  They may be members of the church, but they are not members of the Body of Christ and will be judged and spend eternity in hell.  Now I want you to understand that every bit of that is taught in the Gospels, but I do not think that is what Jesus is saying in this particular verse.

I think Jesus is talking about Christians who continue to try to live their lives in their own power.  When we refuse to abide, when we refuse to respond the discipline and pruning of God we dry up spiritually and we are simply worthless to the Kingdom of God.  What happens?  Listen to Paul, “By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it.  But each one should be careful how he builds.  For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.  If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light.  It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work.  It what he has built survives, he will receive his reward.  If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the fire.” (1 C 3:10-15)

You and I have been grafted into the vine and we cannot lose that relationship, but if we choose to abide in self rather than in Christ we will find that all we do in the name of God on our own will be burned up—oh, you’ll make it to heaven, but you’ll spend an eternity in heaven without the rewards you could have it you have chosen to remain in Him—not to mention the abundant life you missed while living on earth!

That is what happens if you take the low road of self reliance, but let me close by showing you the high road of abiding in Christ.  Jesus said, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given you.”  Now the name it and claim it boys and girls take this verse completely out of context.  You cannot separate the truth of verse seven from the truth of verses one through eight.  You must abide in Him and if you do—He will not withhold one thing from you.  Not one thing—there are no limitations.  If you abide in Him He will give you whatever you ask.  Talk about the abundant life—you put away the desire for self glory—you abide in Jesus and live for His glory and as you remain, cling, stay, abide in Him you find life that is to the full!

Yesterday I ended our discussion of abiding in Christ with a quote from JC Ryle who said, “Abide in me, cling to me, stick fact to me, live the life of close and intimate communion with me, get nearer and nearer to me, roll every burden on me, cast your whole weight on me, never let go your hold on me for a moment.”  The question we might want to ask today is why should we abide?  Jesus gives us the reason in both a positive and a negative way.  Let me start with the negative reason—“Apart from me you can do nothing.”  You must abide because you can’t do anything without Jesus.  Now take that truth and let it sink in for a while.  Listen to what Jesus said in John 5:19, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself…”  Now you can’t separate that from the incarnation—that is the depth of Jesus’ humiliation, but you have to walk away saying, “If Jesus, God in the flesh, couldn’t do anything apart from the Father—what can we do?”  Just so we will get the answer right Jesus gives it to us—we can do nothing!

What do I do with that?  First I must believe it.  Take a trip back to the Garden.  What did Satan do to Adam and Eve?  “Did God really say…”  “You will not surely die…”  He led them to doubt God and he is doing the same thing today.  God didn’t really say, “You can’t do anything…He just meant the big stuff, the church stuff, you know the God stuff…”  Stop right there—if you are separating your everyday life from the God stuff you are living in defeat.  Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing.”  I must believe that truth.  I must reject the lie of self-reliance; the lie of self-empowerment; the lie of self period.  I must start my day and live my day with a “God I can’t do anything apart from you” confession.

I must believe it, but then I must also give into it.  It is one thing to say I can’t do anything and then go out and do everything you can in your own power to accomplish something.  No matter how hard you work it will be nothing!  It is one thing to believe it, but it is quite another to actually believe it and give in to God in terms of relying on Him for everything.

We are so prone to lie down on the altar and give it all to God, but because we are living sacrifices we don’t like to stay on the altar.  We like to get back up and take it all with us.  We must believe it, give up and totally rest in His power.  Apart from Him we cannot do anything.

The moment I not only believe it, but give into it and live it I will live the life that I have always dreamed of—in fact I will live the life beyond anything I have ever dreamed of, but I must abide in Him.  When I believe that I can do nothing and give up trying to do something and give myself over to His power I suddenly find the truth of what Jesus said through Paul—“I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”

Do you see it?  I can do nothing apart from Him, but in Him I can do anything because it is no longer me doing it—He does it through me.  The negative reason—“Apart from me I can do nothing…,” tomorrow I will give you the positive reason to abide.

Last week I took you to Galatians 2:20 and talked about the Christ life—that is the life Christ wants to live in and through you.  From the moment we are saved we are encouraged to work.  We are told that we must do great things for God.  The idea that is branded in our minds early on is simply—the more you do for God the more God will love you.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The secret to the abiding/abundant life is not in what you do.  It is not in what you can do.  It is not in what you have done.  It is not in what you will do.  It is not found in what you declare, it is not found in what you visualize, and it is not found in what you claim in faith—fact is it isn’t about you at all.  The secret is found in what Jesus has already done.  All that is necessary for you to live the abundant life has already been done.  Everything that you are called to do is done through the relationship started at the cross.  The Christian life is not about doing at all—the Christian live is about abiding.

Think back to the creation.  For five days God created all that we know of as our universe.  On the sixth day God created the animals and then said, “Let us make man in our image…So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”  Then the Bible says, “At the end of the sixth day God saw all that He had made and it was very good.” 

So here we find a summary of God’s creation—he creates us and then sends us out to work for Him, right?  No, we are created on the sixth day and on the seventh day God rested.  Man’s first day of life was spent resting in God.  We didn’t work to rest—we worked from our rest.  What we find here is an important principle—God created us to abide in Him and from that we do what He has called us to do.  We often get that backwards.

You and I were created for intimacy.  We were created for union with our Creator, but Satan stepped in and caused a wall of division between us.  We needed someone to break down that wall of sin—we needed our relationship to be restored—we needed to be brought back to a place where we could live out our very reason for existence. 

Jesus came to the earth to do just that!  Jesus came to tear down the wall that kept us from the presence of God and He did what was necessary for you and I to walk with Him as Adam and Eve did in the Garden before the fall.  Jesus came to the earth calling us to an intimacy that is beyond our imagination.  He calls us to a relationship with Him and with one another that is so intertwined that we are compared to the relationship of a vine and a branch.  It is so deep that you can’t tell where the vine stops and the branch begins.  That is what Jesus offers us.

We are called to abide in Him.  JC Ryle gives us an understanding of what Jesus means—“Abide in me, cling to me, stick fact to me, live the life of close and intimate communion with me, get nearer and nearer to me, roll every burden on me, cast your whole weight on me, never let go your hold on me for a moment.”  When we approach our relationship with Jesus like that—He in turn promises to abide in us, cling to us, stick fast to us, live a life of close and intimate communion with us, to get near and nearer to us, and to take all of our burdens because His burden is light, and He will never let go of us for a moment—that is true even if we do let go!  That is what is available to every single child of God.

Yesterday I wrote about Galatians 2:20…let me finish the discussion on that great verse.  Paul’s former life was lived with a total trust in his own ability to keep the law, but now he lives totally dependent upon Christ living in Him.  His focus isn’t the law or works that he can do—he is now driven by one thing. “I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”  The life Paul used to live in the flesh was works based and performance driven, but now his life is lived with an eye to an event—an event that was the most radical event known to man.

When Paul said, “Who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  Two things I see in this passage.  First, Paul is talking about a specific event—the Cross.  The greatest demonstration of love known to man was that “while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”  Paul never got over the love that was displayed to Him.  Have you gotten over it?  If you have you never got under it—you’ve never been crucified with Him. 

Second, Paul is talking about a personal event.  “Who loved me.”  We can talk about “For God so loved the world…” and that is certainly true, but you can also take the word world out of that passage in just insert your name.   His love isn’t just generic—it is specific and personal.  That was Paul’s motivation—God so loved me that He gave Himself for me—what more can I add to that?

As long as you are out there trying to do better for God you will never live the Christian life.  The Christian life isn’t a “self-improvement program.  It isn’t reformation project.  It is resurrection!  It is new life!  And it is expressed in terms of total exchange of identity.  Jesus Christ indentified Himself with us in our death in order that we might be indentified with Him in His resurrection.  We give Christ all that we were—spiritually dead, guilty sinners—and Christ gives us all that He is—resurrected life, forgiveness, righteousness, acceptance.”  (Timothy George) 

The only thing left for you to do is to believe that God’s word is true and to allow Him to live through you.  Just abide in Him like a branch hanging on to the vine and let Him produce fruit though you. 

• Realize the old you is dead—“I have been crucified with Christ.”
• Realize there is a new you—“It is not longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
• Trust in Jesus for everything—your salvation, your soul, your family, your work, your day-to-day decisions… “The live I now live, I live by faith…”
• Set your eyes on Jesus—“Who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  When you see His beauty everything that you struggle with in terms of temptation pales in comparison.

For the last few days I’ve been thinking about Galatians 2:20…especially where Paul says, “And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God.”  Walk through it with me—“And the life I now live”—God is concerned with your present life.  Far too many people accept Jesus and trust Him to save them for their eternity, but eternity for them is something in the sweet by and by, but we are in the midst of eternity.  Paul said, “And the life I now live.”  He is talking about your life right here right now.

The life you live in the here and now can be lived in one of two places—you can live it in the Spirit and in doing so not gratify the desires of the flesh, but live with the Fruit of the Spirit, or you can live it in the body of sin.  Romans 6:6 tells us we were crucified with Christ in order that the “body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.”  As a child of God you do not have to live in the body of sin, you do not have to walk in defeat—you can walk in victory over sin by living in the Spirit.

With that said we have to notice what else he says about your life right now—it is a life lived in the flesh.  The word flesh can refer to one of two things—(1) the body and (2) the old sinful life.  In this passage, Paul is speaking of the life we live in the body—the body of flesh and bones.  Religion deals with things on the outside—it leads you to clean the outside of the cup and to do things that make you look good to others, but grace cleans the inside for us.  It starts with the inside and naturally flows to the outside.  Christianity isn’t a pie in the sky religion—it deals with the nitty gritty, everyday life, of the here and now.  It isn’t some mystic secret that you have to discover—it is lived in right here in the midst of our flesh and bones, but how do we live it?

“And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God.”  It is interesting to see how we are supposed to live our lives in the flesh—we are to live it by faith or even more literally, “I live in faith in the Son of God.”   Paul lived in the realm of faith—he was saved by grace through faith and he still lives by grace through faith.  The word “Live” is in the perfect tense which means something happened in the past that has a continuing impact today.  Faith in Jesus Christ isn’t a onetime thing—you are saved the moment you possess faith, but that faith continues throughout your life.  To live by faith is to live totally dependent upon the Son of God.  “It is no longer I who live…”  It is to come to the place that you realize you cannot do it and that if you are going to live in a way that brings glory to God you will have to let him live it through you.  Not just the church stuff, but your family life, your business life, your recreational life—your relationships, your emotions, your thinking, everything must come under Him and in Him.

While we are here on this earth, the Christian life takes place in the flesh, but it is lived in faith.  Faith is a living dynamic reality whose object is Jesus.  You see, every moment of your life can be lived in one of two places—it can be lived in the power of self which is performance driven and works based.  Or it can be lived in the power of the Spirit which is faith driven and grace based.

When it comes to preaching I have one vision—I want to preach book-by-book, chapter-by-chapter, verse-by-verse, and word-by-word through the Bible.  I’m constantly aware that I just don’t have enough time to finish that task…there just aren’t enough years, but I’m committed to doing all I can while I can.

We are currently going through 2 Corinthians on Sunday mornings.  This past Sunday I covered 2 Corinthians 1:20 and at the conclusion I read “Divine Promises” from The Valley of Vision.  There was one line in that prayer that really spoke to me.  The writer said,

“Grant me a distinct advance in the divine life;

May I reach a higher platform,

Leave the mists of doubt and fear in the valley,

And climb to hill-tops of eternal security in Christ

By simply believing he cannot lie,

Or turn from his purpose.”

 I love the idea of leaving the mists of doubt and fear and climbing to hill-tops of eternal security in Christ.  Have you climbed that hill-top?

I am not sure how many times I’ve read the Bible through, but I know I read it at least once each year and have been doing so for a long time.  I think, if we are honest, we would all admit that there are some passages that grab our attention more than others, but Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3:16 that “All Scripture is breathed out by God…”  I came across a great reminder of that last week in the Desiring God Blog.

J. G. Millar speaks about our need to know the Old Testament in order to know the gospel. He mentions Deuteronomy in particular, but what he says applies to the whole Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible):

“Much of the theological framework needed to understand the significance of Jesus’ coming, life and death was put in place by Moses in his writing, and perhaps above all in Deuteronomy. For it is here that the theology of blessing and curse which lies at the heart of Jesus’ sin-bearing work is first articulated. It is here that the hopelessness of humanity trapped in sin, even when chosen by God, is exposed. It is here that the prospect of a divine intervention so radical that it changes people at the very core of their being first appears.”  (New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, pp. 164-165)

So as you read through the Bible this year look for the beauty of Jesus–It all points to Him!