Dr. Richard L. Strauss
April 18, 1982
Could you possibly count the number of times since you've been a Christian that some preacher or teacher has told you that you ought to be a fruitful Christian? Probably there are more than you can number. And I would imagine you would like to be, wouldn't you? I think many, if not most, true believers would like to have the character of Christ being expressed in their lives. They would like to have the praise of the Lord in their hearts and on their lips. They would like to feel the kind of love that would make them want to reach out to others to minister to their needs and to help them and to show them the kindness of the Savior. They want to be able to share their faith in Christ with unbelievers spontaneously and naturally and effectively.
That is what the New Testament describes as fruit. Isn't that what you want? That's certainly what I want from my life and I think probably most of you do the same. Jesus tells us how to have it.
It all depends on where you live. There's a right place and a wrong place for the Christian to live. There's a right side of town and a wrong side of town for the believer's home.
You see, the first time the author of this book of John met Jesus, the first thing he said to Him, the first thing that ever came out of his mouth and his conversation with Jesus Christ, was, "Rabbi, where do You live?" That's what he asked Jesus. "Where do You live?"
Now the Lord Jesus takes that same word that John used when he said, "Where do You live?," and He tells us where we need to live if we want to be fruitful Christians.
"Abide in Me" (John 15:4a, NASB).
It's the same word John used when he asked Jesus, "Where do You live?" "Abide in Me; live in Me," Jesus said. Dwell in Me, remain in Me, stay in Me. Let's see what that means tonight.
Let's see first of all in verse 4 an explanation of abiding in Christ. Then in verse 5 the variations of abiding in Christ. And then in verse 6, the consequences of not abiding in Christ.
1. An Explanation of Abiding in Christ
"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" (John 15:4, NASB).
Now this word translated abide or live is a popular word in the New Testament. It occurs some 120 times in the pages of the New Testament. It's translated by English words such as dwell, tarry, remain, continue.
I'd like you to hold your place in John 15, and look at two occurrences of the word in John's first epistle—1 John 4—because looking at it there is going to help us understand it in its context in John 15.
"By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit" (1 John 4:13).
That's the same word: abide, live, stay, remain, continue.
Now every Christian has the Holy Spirit living in him. We discussed that this morning. Romans 8:9 is very clear, not contradicting.
"But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him" (Romans 8:9b).
So obviously, every Christian abides in Christ, at least to some degree. because it says right there in 1 John.
"By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit" (1 John 4:13). The Spirit lives in us.
Look at verse 15.
"Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God" (1 John 4:15).
Do you confess that Jesus is the Son of God? Why, if you're Christian you do. Every Christian confesses that Jesus is the Son of God. You couldn't be a Christian without confessing Jesus is the Son of God, and if you do, then God dwells in you and you in Him. You abide in Him if you confess that Jesus is the Son of God. Every Christian does that, so every Christian abides in Him.
You see in one sense, abiding in God or abiding in Christ simply means being a Christian. It means being connected to the vine. It means being united with Jesus Christ. Every true Christian abides in Christ and will continue to abide in Christ as long as he lives in time, and then throughout eternity. He will abide because that's what it means to be a Christian. In other words, there is a positional aspect to abiding, and positional truth in the Bible is unchanging. It is what God does for us and it's totally up to Him. Once we trust Christ as our Savior, there are some 35 to 50 things in the New Testament that God does for us. One thing He does is maintain our position in Jesus Christ. We abide in Him. If we ever truly did abide in Christ, then we always will abide in Him.
And yet we go back to John 15:4 and Jesus says, "Abide in Me." It's a command. The Lord Jesus never gave us a command unless we can obey that command by an act of our will, depending upon the power of the Holy Spirit. But it's up to us. In one case we see that abiding is something that's up to God, but we turn right around and see that abiding is something that is up to us.
Positionally, abiding is something God does for us; He maintains it. But practically, in everyday living, it's something we ourselves do. It has to do with our will, our choices, our decisions. It is choosing to live our lives in fellowship with Jesus Christ.
Now don't let that confuse you or disturb you. There are a number of doctrines in the Bible where there is both a positional and a practical aspect. For instance, the doctrine of sanctification. Hebrews 10:10 says we are forever perfected and sanctified, yet we turn over to 1 Peter 1:15-16, he says, "Be holy." The same root word. Be sanctified. In one case God says we are sanctified. In the other case, He says be sanctified. One is positional the other is practical. One depends on God, the other depends on us. It happens throughout the Scriptures.
So we are told to abide and it has to do with where we live, because that's what the word abide means. Live, continue to live, close to Me, Jesus is saying. Abide in Me.
Now we could illustrate that in human realm. You might say to a grown young single, 'Are you living at home?” Now there's no question about whether or not he's the son or daughter of his parents. That is not really the issue. What we're asking when we ask a question like that is, what is the hub of your life? Where do you go after work, generally speaking? Where do you take most of your meals? Where do you hang your clothes? (I'm assuming you hang your clothes; that happens in our house sometimes and sometimes it doesn't.) Where do you sleep at night? Where do you spend a number of your leisure hours? That's what we mean when we say, "Where do you live? Are you living with your folks?"
See, there's no question about a true believer being a child of God, being in the family, being a branch in the vine, being inseparably united with Jesus Christ. In that sense, every believer abides in Him. The question is, what is the hub of your life? Where do you spend most of your time? What do you spend most of your time thinking about? What does your mind turn to when it's not occupied with the business at hand? Where do you get your emotional and spiritual sustenance? That's where you live, spiritually speaking.
Jesus says, live in Me. Dwell in Me. Let Me be the center of your life and the source of your strength and the hub of all that you do. Let your mind turn to Me in those idle moments. In every situation in life, think of Me first.
Dr. James Rosscup, of Talbot Theological Seminary, suggest three R's to help us understand what is involved in abiding. I like this so I share it with you. Three R's:
- Relating
- Rejecting
- Receiving
Let me explain to you what he means.
a. Abiding: Relating All of Life Around Christ
First of all, relating. Relating ourselves to the Person and purposes of Jesus Christ. That is, spending time with Him through Bible study and through prayer, getting to know Him more intimately, being conscious of His presence, learning to enjoy His presence moment by moment in our lives, learning His purposes and then patterning our lives according to His purposes. In other words, obeying His Word.
Go back again to 1 John. Now we are talking about the practical aspect of abiding in Him.
"The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him" (1 John 3:24a).
The one who keeps His commandments. You see, that's patterning our lives after the purposes of the Lord. That's relating ourselves to the Person and purposes of Jesus Christ. That's making Christ the center of our lives, as the Apostle Paul did when he said, "For me, living is Christ" (Philippians 1:21). That's abiding in Him.
Is the Lord Jesus that important to you? Do you live in Him? Is He the hub of your life, the center of all that you do? If you're abiding in Him in a practical everyday sense, He is.
b. Abiding: Rejecting All That Christ Cannot Share
The second R is rejecting. Rejecting attitudes words actions or interests which Christ cannot share. He reveals in His Word certain things that are detrimental to fruit-bearing and He wants us to reject them, to put them away from our lives, to get rid of them. Some Christians don't like that. They like to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. They don't like to talk about the don'ts of the Christian life. But there are some, dear Christian friend. There are some. The Bible has some don'ts in it and we can't entirely eliminate the negative. There are things we need to reject in everyday living and there are things we need to reject spiritually. There's certain things you don't do; you make it a point not to do that—like walk across the freeway blindfolded. You don't do that, do you? That's something you reject. Like drinking a bottle of Liquid Plumr: you don't do that, do you?
You see, there's some don'ts in everyday living and there are some don'ts in the Christian life. There are some things we must reject, spiritually speaking, if we want to be fruitful Christians. It's what the Bible calls sin. Abiding in Christ involves confessing and forsaking sin.
Now rejecting what displeases the Lord might involve something else as well, and that is being sensitive to the Lord's pruning work in our lives. In the first three verses [of John 15] two weeks ago, we studied God's pruning work: cutting away those sucker shoots that that are sapping off the life of the vine and keeping us from being productive and fruitful Christians. God wants us to be sensitive to His pruning work in our lives.
For example, some trial may invade our lives—some problem that is beyond our personal ability to control. Maybe our spouse is getting moody these days and that's becoming a source of a problem in our relationship. Or maybe our kids are failing at school, or a business is going downhill, or some serious illness strikes our lives or someone we love. What are we going to do about it? Well, we can fuss, we can fret and complain, and we can get irritable and cranky. We can accuse God of not caring. Or we can thank God for the opportunity to grow. We can look for the lessons He might want us to learn through that experience or look for those--as we pointed out last time—sucker shoots that He might want to be pruning away from our lives. Things He might want to cut away, that He might want us to get rid of. Reject what does not contribute to fruitfulness.
Abiding means relating ourselves to the Person and purposes of Christ, and rejecting attitudes words actions and interests that Christ cannot share.
c. Abiding: Receiving Our Adequacy from Christ
Third, abiding involves receiving the essence of Christ's life. I think this is the emphasis of the next clause. Jesus says, "Abide in Me, and I in you." In other words, let Me abide in you. Now, He already does live in us. Every Christian is indwelled by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Without fail.
"But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him" (Romans 8:9b).
I don't want to wear that verse out, but Romans 8:9 is a very important doctrinal verse. So Christ does live in us. What does He mean then when He says, "Abide in Me and let Me abide in you"? He does indwell us but there is more. He's really saying let me live my life through you. Sure, I indwell you, now lean on Me, learn to let Me express My life through you. See, this is drawing on His strength. This is depending on His power. This is letting Him operate through us.
Let's face it, if we were honest tonight, many of us would admit that we operate our lives pretty much the way we want to operate them. We do pretty much what we want to do. We lay our plans, we lay out what we want to do in life, and where we want to go, and what kind of work we want to do, and who we want to marry, and we pretty much lay our own plans and then oftentimes ask God to bless them. Sometimes we do that even when doing God's work. We can do that in the operation of a church. The leadership of a church can do that—lay their plans, then say, "Now, God, we've made these plans and we want You to bless this" rather than first of all asking God to make us usable. That's the key. And then ask Him to show us what He wants us to do, and then to do it with prayerful dependence—conscious prayerful dependence—upon Him.
That's abiding in Him. It's not only being conscious of His presence but being dependent on His power. It's refusing to depend on our own adequacy but being receptive toward Christ’s adequacy, drawing on His strength.
Now there are the three R's of abiding: relating all of life around Jesus Christ, rejecting all that He cannot share, receiving our adequacy and our strength from Him. That is abiding in Christ. That's where we ought to be living as believers.
Jesus says in verse 4:
"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" (John 15:4).
There is no fruitfulness outside of abiding in Jesus Christ. There there's no more possibility of us being fruitful Christians apart from abiding in Him than it is for a great branch to bear grapes after it's been torn out of the vine. You know it can't be done. Neither can we be fruitful outside of abiding in Him. We've got to live in the right place, you see. We've got to get on the right side of town.
The right place is where the believer is in conscious, intimate fellowship with the Person of Jesus Christ. The question before us tonight, dear Christian friend, is this: Where do you live? Where do you live? Maybe we need to move a little closer to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's abiding in Him. That's the key to fruitfulness.
But does every Christian abide to the same degree? That may be a question in your mind. It may have been a question in the disciples’ minds and the Lord Jesus is going to address that question in verse 5. Let's talk about the variations of abiding.
2. The Variations of Abiding in Christ
After this explanation in verse 4, verse 5 reveals the differing degrees of abiding among different Christians, or the different degrees of abiding in our lives at different times in our Christian experience. Jesus says:
"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" (John 15:5).
Now, first the Lord Jesus reaffirms the figure He introduced in verse 1. "I am the vine, you are the branches." Then He repeats the truth of verse 4: Abiding in Him as the only means to fruitfulness. But did you notice the description of the fruit here?
He says, "He bears much fruit." Don’t miss that. I think it's significant.
It's interesting to compare the four degrees of fruit bearing in this passage. I would imagine the passage has never been preached without this being pointed out, so you've seen it before, but look at it again, will you?
Three of them are in verse 2. "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away." That's degree number one: no fruit.
"And every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it..." Degree number two: fruit.
"...So that it may bear more fruit." There's the third degree: more fruit.
We get down to verse 5 and He says, "He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit." That's degree number 4. We had more fruit, and now we have much fruit.
So there we have the four degrees of fruit bearing:
- No fruit
- Fruit
- More fruit
- Much fruit
I think this teaching can be comparable to Christ's parable of the sower and the soils. You remember that story (Matthew 13:3-23). The seed was thrown on four different types of soil. There was the wayside soil; there was the rocky soil; there was the thorny soil. None of them brought forth any fruit. And I've become convinced as a result of my study of John 15, that none of those three are true believers in that parable of the sower and the soils. There is no fruit.
Every true believer has some fruit.
1 Corinthians 4:5 says, "Then shall every man [every true believer, in this context] have his praise from God."
That's the description of the judgment seat of Christ. True believers will have some praise from God. There is some fruit in the life of every true believer.
The first three have no fruit in that parable, so they're not true believers.
The last brings forth fruit—the good soil. But there's different degrees of fruit. Remember?
"And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty" (Matthew 13:8).
There's 30% fruit; that's just plain fruit. There's 60%; that's more fruit. There's 100%; that's much fruit.
Now, since fruitfulness depends on abiding, different degrees of fruitfulness would indicate different degrees of abiding.
As we've seen, there is a sense in which every Christian abides in Christ: positional truth. There is another sense which every Christian abides to a different degree. (We touched on that this morning, too. Different degrees of spirituality.) Different degrees of fruitfulness.
Branches depend on the vine to a different degree, drawing a different amount of life and energy from the vine. There may be a great deal of difference in the quality of each Christian's abiding. Some may be barely drawing on Christ's life and strength and power. The result is they look half-dead. There are just a few pieces of shriveled up fruit on the tree.
But then there are others who are enjoying a deepening and enriching relationship with the Savior, getting to know Him better, spending more and more time with Him, appropriating more of His Word, desiring to please Him evermore, consulting Him first about our plans, depending on Him as we carry those plans out. Their spiritual lives are maturing—these believers who are abiding in Him more and more. The Lord Jesus is making a difference in many more areas of their lives and they're blossoming out with greater consistency and greater intimacy in their relationship with the Lord. And as a result, their fruit is increasing. They're becoming more fruitful Christians. Their fruit production is growing. They're getting a better crop day by day, month by month, year by year. Their crop is improving, and they are growing in their abiding and in their fruitfulness.
There is more fruit and then there is much fruit. If the Lord asked you tonight, "Would you rate the degree of the quality and quantity of the fruit in your life, from A/good to F/failing?," how would you rate it? How would you grade your fruit? Oh dear Christian, learn to abide and watch the quantity and the quality of the fruit improve.
Now, the Lord reminds us again at the end of the verse that is impossible to bear fruit apart from Him. He says, "Apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5b).
Nothing means nothing of eternal value. Obviously we can do something apart from Christ. I would imagine people walked into this church tonight without consciously thinking about the Lord Jesus. They did it apart from Him; some may not even be saved, they don't even know Christ as their Savior, so obviously you can do things.
You can maintain a marriage apart from Christ. A lot of unbelievers do. You can raise a family apart from Christ. You can run a business apart from Christ. You can get involved in good and beneficial community activities apart from Christ. You can teach a Sunday School apart from Christ. You can even pastor a church apart from Jesus Christ.
There are a lot of things you can do but the result won't be fruit. You will only be a phony imitation, like wax fruit. Did you ever bite into a piece of wax fruit? I never have; but I'm never going to if I can help it, because I don't think it'll be very pleasant. It might look very good, delicious, but when you bite into it you find out in a hurry it isn't real. And the phony imitations of spirituality, of abiding and of fruitfulness, are dull and mechanical and unsatisfying. They dishonor the Lord and they drive people away from Jesus Christ. We don't need any phony imitations. We want the real thing because the phony imitations are worth nothing in the end. That's what Jesus said: "For without Me you can do nothing."
Don't miss it, please. Nothing. I think many of us have the idea that without Him we could do a little bit good, you know a little bit of spiritual value. We can do a little bit profitable with our own abilities in our own strength, with our own natural resources. We can do it. No. Jesus said we can do nothing. Oh, if only we could see that and do everything God leads us to do in the power of His Spirit, conscious of His presence, consciously depending upon Him. Abide in Him and He will turn that nothing into something real and wonderful.
Now, I'm afraid there are some who profess to know Jesus Christ who may totally ignore what Jesus is saying this passage of Scripture about fruitfulness. What about them? Let's look at the consequences of not abiding, in verse 6.
3. The Consequences of Not Abiding in Christ
In our last time together I tried to share with you my reasons for believing that a person who bears no fruit is not a true believer. Not that fruit saves; it has nothing to do with salvation whatsoever.
"By grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).
But the very next verse in Ephesians says:
"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works" (Ephesians 2:10a).
If the good works aren't there, then it's obvious that God has never done a work of grace in the life of that person—he's never truly trusted Jesus Christ as a Savior. It's true all the way through the Bible—it's not an isolated doctrine. A person who bears no fruit never did truly abide in the vine. And Christ wants to talk about him for a moment.
The change of person indicates He's turning from true believers who abide in Christ and bear fruit to some degree, as every believer does, to unbelievers who do not abide in Christ and who do not bear fruit. He's going back to the people of verse 2, when He said, "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away."
He's been addressing the disciples primarily as "you." Now He changes in verse 6 to any man: "he," "them." He's talking about somebody different, you see. And they are personal pronouns. This could not, I don't believe, refer to taking away the testimony of a church as we find in our Lord's letters to the churches in Revelation. This is talking about people.
"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" (John 15:6).
If a man does not abide in Christ, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered. And men gather them (these people) and cast them into the fire and they are burned. You see what the Lord is saying. If a branch never bears fruit, it's obvious that the life of the vine never really did flow through it. It's dead. It might as well be thrown away. In verse 2, the Lord Jesus used the word "take away."
"Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away" (John 15:2a).
The root idea of that word means removal. When that word is used, the basic idea in it is removal. He removes it. But here, He says:
"If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch..." (John 15:6a).
Thrown away. Cast forth. Same idea: removed.
"...and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned" (John 15:6b).
Then he is withered, dried up. Any appearance of life soon disappears. He's good for nothing but the bonfire. I'm told that grape wood is so soft and so gnarled, it is useless for anything but burning. And so the dead branches are gathered up and cast into the fire. I can't help but think Jesus had Judas in His mind when He said this. There was the appearance of faith but he was lost.
We see the parallel to this in Christ’s parable of the wheat and tares in Matthew chapter 13. You remember this story (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43), don’t you? Where the wheat and the tares grow together through this age and then they’re separated to the end of the age.
Jesus explains:
"So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age" (Matthew 13:40).
Then the tares are "thrown into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13:42).
Thrown into the fire. Cast forth.
Then there's the parable of the dragnet in that same chapter, in Matthew 13:47-50. There are good fish and bad fish in the net. Then we learn what happens to the bad fish:
"So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13:49-50).
Many of them may profess faith in Christ, but it says they're cast into a furnace of fire where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Jesus introduced the same ideas early as the Sermon on the Mount back in Matthew chapter 7. Look at it, please. It's the same truth. I don't know why when we get to John 15, we have to try to make it mean something different. It's the same truth.
"Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire" (Matthew 7:19).
The same truth: thrown into the fire.
And look at verse 21:
"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness'" (Matthew 7:21-23).
It's the same truth that the Gospel of John is concerned with all the way through: those people who were walking with Jesus and called themselves His disciples but weren't bearing fruit. Many of them, when His teaching got too tough, turned away. They weren't true believers. Here are people who performed miracles in the name of Jesus Christ. Jesus says, "Depart from Me, I never knew you." Never knew you. It isn't that I knew you one time and I don't know you anymore. I never knew you. That's what Jesus is talking about in John 15.
Now those who believe the whole chapter has to do with Christians and that unbelievers are not here anywhere, tell us that verse 6 has to do with believer's works. Frankly dear friends, I don't see how you can introduce that into the verse conscientiously. It isn't there. It's not talking about works. It's talking about people.
"If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch" (John 15:6a, KJV).
Not works. People. And I don't know how we can get the judgment seat of Christ in that context. It's nowhere there. It foists something on the text of Scripture. The Lord Jesus is concerned about people who appear to be Christians. And they may be scattered around our own church–only God knows. But if there is no fruit, they aren't abiding in Him. This is a very serious warning folks, a very serious warning.
It's the same warning the Apostle Paul gave to the Corinthians. He said, "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith" (2 Corinthians 13:5a, NIV). It's the very same warning.
It's exactly the same warning that the Apostle Peter gave to the people he wrote to. "Give diligence to make your calling and election sure" (2 Peter 1:10a, KJV).
Let's see the fruit! That's the message of John chapter 15.
We don't want the fruit to be tied on to us. We don't want any phony fruit; no imitations. Abide in Christ. By that abiding in Him, the fruit will come. Don't fake it.
Trusting Jesus as Your Savior
If you have any doubt about your salvation, trust Jesus Christ as your Savior. If you know you've done it you don't ever need to do it again. Just get on the right side of town. Get close to the Lord Jesus.
Abide in Him. Get to know Him, spend time in His presence. Relate all of life to Him. Reject all that displeases Him. Receive your strength and your adequacy from Him. And the fruit will grow. People will know you belong to Jesus Christ and God will be glorified! Dear Christian, abide in Him!
Let's pray.
Closing Prayer
Father, it is a serious warning and I pray that You will help us to heed it. It occurs so often through the Bible, Lord, You must want us to sit up and take notice. Help us to get close to You and demonstrate to the world around us that we are branches in the vine, abiding in You, allowing You to bear your fruit in us and through us. God, make us fruitful Christians, we pray for Jesus sake. Amen.
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