Sermon Tone Analysis

Abiding in the Vine

February 15, 2009

John 15:1 – 8

In Experiencing God Day-by-Day, Henry Blackaby says, we are to be Abiding in the Vine and goes on to quote John 15:5/: // “I am the vine; you are the branches.

The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me.”/

There are those who feel that they must be constantly laboring for the Lord in order to meet God's high standards.

Jesus gave a clear picture of what our relationship to Him ought to be like.

He is the vine, the source of our life.

We are the branches, the place where fruit is produced.

As we receive life from Christ, the natural, inevitable result is that fruit is produced in our lives.

In our zeal to produce “results” for our Lord, we sometimes become so intent on fruit production that we neglect abiding in Christ.

We may feel that “abiding” is not as productive or that it takes too much time away from our fruit production.

Yet Jesus said that it is not our /activity /that produces fruit, it is our /relationship /with Him.

Jesus gave an important warning to His disciples.

He cautioned that if they ever attempted to live their Christian life apart from an intimate relationship with Him, they would discover that they ceased to produce any significant results.

They might exert great effort for the kingdom of God, yet when they stopped to account for their lives, they would find only barrenness.

One of the most dramatic acts Jesus ever performed was cursing a fig tree that had failed to produce fruit (Mark 11:14).

Are you comfortable in abiding, or are you impatient to be engaged in activity?

If you will remain steadfastly in fellowship with Jesus, a great harvest will be the natural by-product.

In our study of the book of John, today’s message is based on my favorite Scripture, John 15:1-8.

Please turn there with me now, and follow as I read.

/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 bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit.

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, so 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, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.

If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch, and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.

By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples./

As this passage encompasses one of the great truths about God – “apart from me you can do nothing,” this statement alone should drive us to pray.

So let’s do that right now – LET’S PRAY  -   Our prayer, Lord is that in 2009 Good Shepherd Community Church will learn from study and experience how those two lines work together—/being attached to the vine and bearing fruit/.

Lord, show us the connection, and reveal to us how they function together to make us a transformed, obedient, faithful people.

The reason prayer has such great potential for changing things is God.

And the reason prayer is surrounded by such difficult problems is God.

If it weren't for the power of God over nature and over the human will, there would be no hope in praying for change in the world or in people or in ourselves!

And it is that very same power and prerogative of God that creates the problems we stumble over in prayer.

Two of the biggest problems are, firstly, that our prayers, even those we have prayed a thousand times, are sometimes not answered as we ask; and secondly, why pray anyway, because if God is sovereign and controls and plans all things, what's the point in praying?

Take the last question first: if God is sovereign and governs the world by his providence, why pray?

Let me read you the answer of Charles Spurgeon, which is exactly what I believe.

This is from a sermon he preached on Luke 11:9, "Ask and it will be given you."

It is our full belief that God has foreknown and predestinated everything that happens in heaven above or in the earth beneath, and that the foreknown station of a reed by the river is as fixed as the station of a king, and "the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as the stars in their courses."

Predestination embraces the great and the little, and reaches to all things; the question is, why pray?

Might it not as logically be asked why breathe, eat, move, or do anything?

We have an answer which satisfies us, namely, that our prayers are in the predestination, and that God has as much ordained His people's prayers as anything else, and when we pray we are producing links in the chain of ordained facts.

Destiny decrees that I should pray—I pray; destiny decrees that I shall be answered, and the answer comes to me.~*   Ask and it will be given you says Matthew 7:7

This is my faith, and it is rooted in the repeated testimony of God in Scripture that he governs all things in the world.

Proverbs 16:33 says, /"The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD."/

And Daniel 2:21 says, "/He removes kings and establishes kings."/

So from the dominion of kings to the roll of the dice, God governs the universe by his wisdom and power—including the prayers of his people.

Our kneeling to pray is no less God's gracious work than the regenerating of our souls: he writes his will on our hearts (Hebrews 8:10) and works in us what is pleasing in his sight (Hebrews 13:21), and we do it—we pray—freely from our own wills because He has grafted us into the Vine.

And He is the Vine, according to our key passage this morning.

But what about the other problem with prayer—that we pray and the answer we long for does not come?

The Bible has several possible answers.

It says we may not be praying according to God's will; 1 John 5:14, /"If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us."/

Or it could be we have cherished sin that we will not let go from our lives; Psalm 66:18, /"If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear."/

It could be that we have man-centered and not God-centered motives; James 4:3, /"You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures."/

Or it may be that we do not believe that God will do it; Mark 11:24, /"All things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they shall be granted you."/

Or it could be that God wants you to persevere, and is testing your obedience to his command in Luke 18:1, "/At all times [you] ought to pray and not to lose heart."/

Or it might be that God is, in fact, doing far more every time you pray than you can imagine and is daily putting in place a part of the mosaic that will in good time be the full answer to your prayer (as in Daniel 10:2,12).

Or could it be that there is a dynamic to prayer that we have not yet learned?

Could it be that this matter of praying is so mysterious and so wonderful that there is a deeper, fuller way of relating to God in prayer that we have not experienced?

Could it be that we are like children who have been told something by our Father, but we just don't get it yet?

And in his wisdom and patience he goes on loving us and teaching us.

Could it be that 2009 would be the year when we get it?

Here are some of my goals for 2009 for Good Shepherd Community Church.

That we would  abide in God the Father and magnify the supremacy of his glory \\ through our Lord Jesus Christ, \\ in the power of the Holy Spirit by \\ treasuring all that God is, \\ loving all whom he loves, \\ /praying for all his purposes,/ \\ /meditating on all his Word,/ \\ sustained by all his grace.

My prayer is that in 2009 Good Shepherd Community Church will abide in the Vine and learn from study and experience how /praying for all his purposes and meditating on all his Word work together/.

What's the connection?

How do praying and meditating function together to make us a transformed, fruit-bearing people?

That’s the question I hope to answer in this message.

The reason the reason praying and meditating on His Word are so crucial for us is given in our text today, especially John 15:7, /"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you."/

Do you see the connection between the Word of God and prayer?

Listen again to John 15:7 in a condensed version /"If my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you."/

Here is a great goal for us in 2009, that we will abide in Christ’s Words and pray his purposes.

What does it mean in experience, not just in talk, but in action and life?

That is what I want us to learn together.

I put it as a question because I am not at all sure I know all this text means—at least not in its fullness.

I have the suspicion that there is a potential here that few, if any, are tapping into.

I don't think I have arrived—perhaps I have barely begun to experience this dynamic of the Word abiding in me and releasing sure answers to prayer.

Do I really know—have I really experienced—what Jesus means by the Word abiding in me?

Do I experience—do you experience—day in and day out the dynamic relationship between the indwelling Word and answers to prayer?

Do you know from experience what this means?

In 1987 a medium-sized American church did a survey, and asked their people, How much time per week do you spend reading the Bible?

255 people took the survey.

21% said fewer than 15 minutes (a week!).

Another 25% said 15-30 minutes a week.

So 46% of their people in 1987 were spending fewer than five minutes a day reading God's Word.

When asked about time spent in focused prayer, 62% said they spent fewer than 30 minutes in prayer each week—fewer than five minutes a day.

Those statistics are twenty years old.

Do you think they’re any better today?

I doubt that the statistics are very different today.

And I would venture to say that many of these people harbor some deep resentments toward God for not answering their prayers.

So the question arises: Is that what God meant by abiding in the Vine – spending five minutes per day in His Word?

In prayer?

Is there anything in our lives—in my life—that corresponds to John 15:7—"If the Word of God abides in you . .

."

I doubt reading the Word of God five minutes a day is what Jesus was referring to when he said, "If my words abide in you"?

How much time do you spend watching television, or reading other books, or with your hobbies or pastimes?

Shouldn’t we, if we’re abiding in Him, be spending more time with Him, in His Word, than we do in any of those activities?

It’s not that we have to!; it’s that we should want to with all of our heart!