Intro to John 15:1-11

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/11/2016 8:51 PM

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus:  Intro to John 15:1-11

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  John 15:1-11

            Message of the verses:  “1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2  "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. 3 “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 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. 5 “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. 6  "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. 7 “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.

    “9 "Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. 10 “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. 11 “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.”

            As we begin to look at this passage we see another analogy that depicts God’s relationship to His people.  There are many others that I will not name at this time, but we will be concentrating on God as the Vine and we as the branches.  When we think about a grape vine and the branches which the fruit hangs on we know that the branches get what they need to produce the fruit through the vine as the roots of the vine go into the soil to get the needed nutrients and water to feed the branches as they come up through the vine.  The branches can do nothing without the vine as we can do nothing in the way we serve the Lord without His power, we cannot bear fruit on our own, but only as the vine gives us the things we need to produce the fruit that God wants us to produce.  We produce fruit because we are connected to the vine.

            Now I want to remind you that in the later part of chapter 13 we found out that Jesus was a traitor to Jesus and after he was found out he left to meet with the Jewish leaders to hand Jesus over to them.  After he left Jesus began to teach His disciples which goes from the last part of chapter 13 to the end of chapter 16 and we are in the middle of these lessons that Jesus is teaching His disciples, and they are some very important for them and for us too.  Let us look at the last phrase from chapter fourteen “Get up, let us go from here.”  We mentioned in our last SD that Jesus and His disciples left the upper room and were on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus would continue to teach them on the way there and then pray for them later on, praying that they would understand the things He was teaching them.

            John MacArthur said the following in a sermon on this section given last year:  “Of all these things that He says, nothing is more definitive that the first eight verses of chapter 15.”  (The sermon was not on all eleven verses.)  What Jesus is using to talk to His disciples is not really a parable; it is really a word picture, a metaphor, a simile. 

            MacArthur writes the following from his commentary:  “The central truth the Lord wanted to communicate in this symbol is the importance of abiding in Him (vv. 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10).  In the most basis sense, whether or not a person abides in Christ reveals whether they are saved (vv. 2, 6).  It must be noted that this simple and, I think, obvious premise rescues the text from many unnecessary misinterpretations.  And it is only to the degree the redeemed abide in Christ that they can bear spiritual fruit.  Those principles will be more fully developed in the exposition that follows.

            “Meno ( ‘abide’) describes something that remains where it is, continues in a fixed state, or endures.  In this context the word refers to maintaining an unbroken communion with Jesus Christ.  The Lord’s command ‘Abide in Me’ (v. 4) is primarily a plea to fals disciples of Christ to repent and express true faith in Him.  It also serves to encourage genuine believers to abide in Him in the fullest, deepest, most complete sense.”

            Jesus it the Master storyteller of all time, for the things that He tells are all true even though at times we may have a difficult time in understanding all of His stories, but remember all believers have the Holy Spirit in them to help them understand these truths, along with comparing Scripture with Scripture, and the listening to good solid Bible preachers. 

            Now I am going to give you a little assignment before I give the answer to the following question that has to do with the first line of chapter fifteen:  “I am the true vine.”  Who do you believe the false vine would be?

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  Jericho” (Joshua 2:1).

Today’s Bible question:  “Who did God direct David to choose to be king after his death?”

Answer in our next SD.

12/11/2016 9:21 PM