Abiding in Christ part 1

We will be taking a hard look this week at John’s 15^th Gospel chapter. Some of the most powerful words ever spoken from the mouth of God in the flesh were spoken in this chapter.  What is understood from His teaching here could mean the difference between heaven and hell.

There are many themes in this chapter:

1)   God’s sovereignty is an awesome theme displayed in verse 1 “…my father is the husbandman.”

2)   “Abiding” in Christ is another great theme.  The word is mentioned no less than 6 times in this chapter alone.

3)   The believer’s producing of fruit is another great theme.  Fruit is in fact the evidence of our value to the vine.

But, perhaps the greatest theme in this chapter is the sum total of all three.  In this we find the theme of “our resemblance to Jesus Christ.”  This should be our greatest theme… that we look like Jesus Christ.  You see, bearing much fruit is the natural response of any branch that is abiding in Christ because they look like Jesus Christ.  And as we see in this chapter, any fruit that is born from any branch is a sovereign work of God (vs 5). 

So, in this we see that our being Christ like is the yielding ourselves to God for the purpose looking like His Son, and the means of doing so is abiding in Him and the evidence of that abiding is the production of fruit. 

May we thank God today that He has prepared for us a vine by which to abide… and the evidence of that abiding is the production of much fruit.  And why do we hope to produce fruit?  Verse 8 says, “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.”  So, we bear much fruit that God would be glorified by the branches.

I want to spend this week learning what it is to look like Jesus for the glory of God.  My hope is that you will take just a few moments each day to examine this text in preparation of our Sunday morning gathering.