…parts of our education. We are being ripped off because secularism refuses to acknowledge the biblical basis of truth. It refuses, refuses to acknowledge the fact that metaphors make zero sense in a non-Christian environment. So in John 15 we have two things in this metaphor.
Number 1 is you have to believe in the biblical view of reality. The biblical view of reality means it’s stable. It means it’s designed. It means that it is part of general revelation; and it means that when God created the grapevine, He created it knowing what He was going to use it for. So He deliberately created grapevines and sheep with this particular structure. This particular structure is the vehicle of general revelation. All the metaphors in the Bible mean nothing unless you have this view of reality.
The second truth out of metaphors is language is designed by God such that our minds have correspondence with the external reality. If our minds don’t think in a way compatible with external reality, we’re just feeling brain waves. That’s all. All we’re getting is brain waves.
So the point we’re saying here is that before we go into the theology of this whole thing, we need to start and as mature believers we want to have a mature idea of the tools we’re using. The two things we’re talking about in summary here is that reality is designed by God in advance so it can reveal truths that He wants to reveal.
The second thing we’ve learned about metaphors is that they’re dependent on the biblical view of language.
Now let’s think about language just a minute here because we want to incorporate this. In biblical view of language, what biblically is true of language that can’t be true of the secular view of language? In your thinking go all the way back to creation. When did language begin?
Comment At creation God…
Right. Who taught Adam to speak? The reason we know somebody had to teach Adam is we know this – that no human being ever has ever learned language without another language speaking person nearby. Babies do not learn language other than through a human being being there speaking a language. All they can do is grunt. They cannot articulate. They can make noises. They can make all kinds of noises, but a language with grammar and syntax has to come from a teacher.
In Adam’s case, Adam was taught by God. You can see it in Genesis 1. Here’s why. If you look at the first 3 or 4 days, God is describing to Adam how He created. In those 3 or 4 days as He’s creating, He labels and He names things; but toward the end He doesn’t name any more. The next time you talk about naming He’s in the garden and says, “Okay Adam, you start naming.” So clearly Adam had linguistic capability.
On a secular basis, language is just a legacy of an evolutionary thing of animal signal systems; but it’s not a human language. It’s not a basis for language. Okay, so much for that.
I had a slide here; but we’re not able have it I guess. What I’m going to describe is what’s on the slides. The first one is the truths that we learned from John 15. One of the truths that we learned is - who is the vinedresser? Of the members of the trinity in John 15, who is in charge of the vine? God the Father. Who is the vine? Jesus Christ, God the Son. Okay. So we have God the Father and God the Son. Those are two truths that we’re learning out of John 15.
The next truth we learned about in John 15 is that en, the preposition en. As it is used by John refers to fellowship, believers in fellowship with God. It’s not talking about justification. It’s talking about relationship. How do we know that? How do we pick up on the fact that the preposition en as John uses it - not how Paul uses it, but as John uses it - how John uses it how do we pickup on that? Well, we go back to John’s writings.
When John is describing Jesus and Jesus says, “The Father is in Me and I am in the Father,” can that be justification? How can that be justification? Do the Father and Son need to be saved? So clearly the preposition en as John’s using it does not refers to justification. The preposition en refers to relationship. Okay.
Now the 3 branches… I’m going through all this because out of all this stuff with the metaphor and the vine and everything else, John is going to capture one verb out of all that. That’s the verb abide or continue. This is going to be again and again repeated in the epistle. So before we even get there, we want to be sure we get the flavor of what’s going on with this verb abide.
Father is the vinedresser; Jesus is the vine. En means personal relationship, as it exists within the trinity.
NKJ John 17:21 "… as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us…
Now the 3 branches. Remember the 3 branches. The first branch was:
NKJ John 15:2 "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit
What does He do? What does the vinedresser do?
I showed you the pictures. What did the Furches’ do? First they lift the branch up and that’s to give it exposure. To support that branch, they lift up.
Now if a branch that is in Me that does not bear fruit, the Father lifts up - what’s that a picture of? Let’s run that metaphor – make sure we get it. Here’s a branch in Me, in Me that doesn’t bear fruit. What could that refer to? Well, let’s go back to en? A branch in Me, what’s that a picture of? Relationship with Christ, in fellowship. Okay. Here’s a branch. Here’s a believer in fellowship, but fruitless. What is that talking about there? Probably, a young believer that hasn’t grown. What’s the baby branch in the vine that Mike used to put up or support in the wire? It’s going to produce fruit; but it hasn’t yet. So that’s the young believer. So the first branch:
NKJ John 15:2 "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit…
…the Father lifts up so that it can bear fruit.
Now what do you suppose are ways the Father lifts us up to put us in a position where we bear fruit in our early life as a Christian? The picture of lifting up the branches is a picture of support.
How does the Father arrange support of new believers? Other Christians helping. It could be some mild tests, but not heavy-duty stuff. The young branch is not pruned like the branch that bears fruit. It’s not the stressing of the vine; but it’s support of the vine. That’s the support of a young believer.
This also is another thing that Paul brings to Timothy. What do you don’t do with a new believer? You don’t put them in positions of leadership responsibility. That is a stress on new believers that shouldn’t be there. New believers should be allowed to grow. What often happens in evangelical - it happens less now than it did back in the 60’s and 70’s. What used to happen in the height of the Jesus Movement is that some Hollywood person would become a Christian and then the Christian organization that was doing the evangelizing needed to raise money so they plopped this person’s testimony out on some publications splattered all over creation. Then because the person is a young believer, they’d mess up and so now what happens? That’s not wise. That’s not supporting a new believer. That’s branch #1.
Branch #2 is:
NKJ John 15:2 "Every branch in Me
What’s in Me? Relationship
…every branch that bears fruit
What does the Father do?
He prunes.
All right. So if He prunes, what is the pruning? Remember when I brought this up Joel was sitting in class. He raised his hand, and he said the act of pruning the branch stresses the plant. It’s a stress on that plant because the plant all of a sudden you’re cutting tissue away from the plant. I mean try cutting tissue away from yourself and see what kind of a stress it is. It’s a stressful thing that happens.
Now what would be ways in which God stresses us to produce fruit? Testing, adversities, pressures, trials, tribulations - like we don’t have… But the picture of the stresses and the strains in terms of this metaphor is to help us produce fruit. I think that truth that we’re getting at in this text helps us orient to trials and testings. They’re not just random accidents. They’re not that God hates us. In this case it’s the branch in Me. It’s in fellowship. It’s not being disciplined because it’s out of fellowship. It’s in fellowship. It’s in the vine. It’s producing fruit. It’s great. Well then, why is there stress? Here’s a believer that’s grown. All of a sudden a disaster hits, some adversity hits.
Go back to the metaphor. Why do these stresses happen? Because the Father wants to produce fruit.
I’m sure many of us had the situation – “Could you produce fruit somehow in another way? Produce your fruit on some of the other branches, please. Don’t do it with me.”
But that’s God’s purpose which gets us to the third branch.
In the third branch - now here’s another truth of metaphors. Metaphors can’t be exhaustively used. Metaphors are limited in the sense that you may have ten different things that correspond but maybe the user only uses items 1, 3 and 5. In other words, the user of the metaphor will pick out among the correspondences the truths that he wants to bring. Here’s where the metaphor breaks. The third branch refuses to abide in the vine. Why is that a violation of the metaphor? Why is that using a truth now that’s not really a metaphor? The third branch, the third branch refuses to abide in Me. Why is that not part of the botanical metaphor? The branch doesn’t have volition and says, “I’m going to depart from the vine now.” Real branches don’t do that. So here’s an example of where Jesus, using the metaphor up to a point - now He’s introducing the fact that we are creatures of volition. We have choices. Plants in that sense don’t have choices although plants are remarkably well designed if you’ve ever seen a root that figures out where the most fruitful soil is.
Or as the poster in the hardware store down in Bellaire used to say, “All you need to grow grass is a crack in your sidewalk.”
The point is that plants, if you think about it, think about this design. In those roots are chemical sensors. That little root hair is sniffing the chemicals in the soil. It sends out information to someplace in that plant where a decision is made about growth direction. So now you have a root hair. It senses chemicals positive over here, not so – the concentration is greater over here. The signal is transmitted down in to the plant system. A decision is preprogrammed into the plant to respond to that chemical and not that one. So the motion is turned and the root goes in this direction. Now that is in the design. Of course it all happens by sheer chance.
The third branch refuses to abide in the vine. Therefore - it’s an action that’s repeated. Therefore what happens to it? It’s discarded. Same as the salt Jesus is talking about, the salt lost it’s savor does what? You throw it out.
What Jesus is teaching is this. What is the casting off, throwing out? What is he saying about the usefulness of the branch? It’s useless. If we’re not going to abide in Christ, we are useless. We’re wasting time in history. This is a pretty strong truth here about maintaining fellowship.
Today we have communion. We always read 1 Corinthians 11, don’t we? 1 Corinthians 11 says judge not that you be not judged. It’s not talking about unbelievers here. It is talking about believers. So we have communion as an opportunity to think about - is the Holy Spirit bringing to my mind a confessable truth? That’s 1 John 1:9
NKJ 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins...
You can’t confess something that’s a feeling. The Holy Spirit doesn’t confess by feelings. The feeling may be directing us to a truth but in order to confess I have to know some specific thing or I can’t confess it. So that’s why Paul says examine your hearts. You’re looking for some feedback from the Holy Spirit of something that He’s not pleased with, how we’ve been grieving him. We deal with that in 1 John 1:9 so we can abide in Christ.
Are there any question now on the metaphor of John 15 because the verb abide now is the branch in the vine. All of 1 John 3 now depends on understanding that.
Yes
Comment I was thinking about pruning…so I’m thinking that a Christian as he matures he’s an example to those around as he goes through hard times. It increases his experience levels so that he can become a more wise person. His advice is more valuable because it’s experiential. It shapes him in his personae. It is a good thing to be pruned. We had grapevines for a short time… If you don’t prune it will put out a 20 foot vine but not a single grape so you have to decide where you want these grapes to grow. When you cut that off, light or the juice of the plant put leaves out begins to make grapes. It makes a whole lot of sense to me.
So we’re in agreement pretty much. The whole idea of this metaphor is it shows you what God is interested in. From our point of view as believers, we’re obviously interested in salvation. We’re interested in a relationship with the Lord. But the Lord, He’s interested in the relationship; but He’s interested in using us to be fruitful.
NKJ Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness…
Witnessing, leading other people to Christ is a result, impact on the culture
When we think of in the past, there was a tremendous amount of impact by a small number of believers in the history of our country. You know, July 4th we have to kind of remember the background history. Most of the Founding Fathers were a mishmash of a little bit of Christianity and a little bit of the Enlightenment. There were outstanding believers that prior to that generation of the revolution had so influenced the culture that the unbelievers were thinking in terms biblically without even thinking about what they were thinking about.
Today the reaction last week or this past week to the Hobby Lobby decision of the Supreme Court - just the utter frustration and anger by the secularist over this decision shows you the fact they haven’t thought through the issue. They think of a religion as some sort of private thing that should remain inside the four walls of the church but not out in the public square. Well, sorry pal. Read the history of Christianity.
So let’s turn to 1 John 3 and we want to get into the first few verses. Now again because we don’t have the slides here this morning – we didn’t have a chance to get those set up. So let me describe what’s on slide #2. Slide #2 we showed you before which was frequency graph of the word love. I pointed out on that frequency - remember the vertical bars and the different sections of 1 John – the little bars. There was one big bar there. The verb love now occurs very frequently from this point on in the epistle. That tips you off. Word frequencies tip you off when you’re reading the text because it tells you if the author is repeating, repeating, repeating – what is that telling you? He’s doing what? He emphasizing. This is the subject of the whole thing.
Then slide #3 I said was again a vertical bar and this was the verb to show or manifest. That was high frequency. So this is interesting. Two emphases here now. This is not subjective. This is objective. It’s the statistics of the passage. The verb love and the verb show manifests or make clear. Those two go together here. Remember in the hand out which we also don’t have this morning – yeah, we’re in great shape this morning. In 2:29 to 3:10 I said it’s distinguishing the work of God in believers as a basis for loving them. Now this verb love as John uses it - you’ve got to be careful. You’ve got to be careful here. John has a special use of love. He’s not talking about sex. He’s not talking about loving your neighbor. Very interesting. Loving your neighbor is fine. Sex is part of reality. The way John uses love is it is confined to other believers.
It discriminates. Now here’s another little word that secularists don’t like - discrimination. Of course we discriminate. How do you use a noun without discriminating? Show me. A noun means this; it doesn’t mean this. Isn’t that the definition of a noun? Then aren’t you discriminating? Well, of course you are. You have to discriminate. You can’t use nouns without discriminating. Laws discriminate don’t they? Don’t they discriminate between the one who obeys the law and the one who violates the law? Tell it to a judge that it doesn’t discriminate. What a silly idea that we’re going to use this word discriminate. It’s just a buzzword that propagandists use. They never refer to the dictionary to understand what word it is they’re trying to use. So John uses love in a discriminatory fashion reserved for believers.
Now let’s go back to the trinity – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father is the vinedresser. The Son is the vine. What is the Spirit doing? Making fruit. Exactly. Now when John uses the word love, and it’s directed to believers; what is the real object of that love? Believers just because they’re walking around as half sanctified idiots. Why does God tell us to love? It’s a response to what in believers? The Holy Spirit’s working. Exactly. So keep that in mind. Now watch what happens in John 3:1,2,3.
NKJ 1 John 3:1 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!
Right away remember I said high frequency in the verb manifest. So we behold manifest what manner of love the Father has bestowed. That word behold means study. It’s not the usual word we see for behold like we see so often in Scripture. That’s a verb commanding attention, thought, observation.
NKJ 1 John 3:1 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!
What is true of the kind of love that the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called? What’s the word? It begins with g. What kind of love? Gracious love. That’s the manner of love the Father has bestowed on us.
that we should be called children of God!
Then it says:
Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him
Why does – what is he talking about here? You mean the world doesn’t see us? The world sees us. What’s John’s point?
Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him
How would you kind of explain that to someone? Notice the “therefore.”
…the world does not know us, because it did not know Him
Okay, let’s take this apart. The last part of that sentence…
it did not know Him
How did the world not know Jesus?
Comment
They knew of Him, didn’t they?. They saw Him. Did they not see Him? Was He invisible? They saw Him. Did they hear Him? You better believe they heard Him. They picked up rocks and to throw at him. So what’s the problem? They didn’t accept the truthfulness of His message and what else about that?
Comment
They said they had no idea.
Comment
They didn’t understand – self-induced ignorance.
Comment
Because in John 3, what does he say? Why don’t men come to the light? Because they love darkness. Why do they love darkness? Their deeds are evil. This is not some innocent ignorance going on here. This is a deliberate sinful suppression of the truth.
Literally Pilate asked, “What is truth?” It was standing in front of Him about 4 feet away. That’s what truth is.
So in this situation, the world did not know Jesus. They did not recognize who He was. They were alienated by His message. Why is some issues? Why is it that they - what particular features of Jesus didn’t they like?
Comment Holiness
His holiness convicted them. Politically why didn’t they like Him? Why was Jesus not acceptable politically?
Comment
All right. He broke some of their regulations. The Pharisees were sort of analogous to the Environmental Protection Agency today - trying to… You know – you have a puddle on your property and somehow that’s the property of the EPA - silly rules made by bureaucrats who have nothing else to do all week. So we have these innumerable regulations.
Jesus freely broke them. It’s sort of hilarious. On Sabbath His disciples walked through and they’re going like this to the grain and they’re eating.
“Ah, you can’t do that. That’s a violation of regulations.”
What kind of regulation? What’s the basis of that regulation?
“Well, that’s the Sabbath grass.”
Really? Who was it that ordained the Sabbath at Mt. Sinai? You’re talking to Him pal. Jesus is the Son of God. He was the one that spoke at Sinai. He’s the one that decreed the Sabbath in the beginning. You’re talking to the guy who sat up the Sabbath and you’re saying He violated your regulation that you as a regulator made up because you thought that reflected the Sabbath? Nonsense. Okay. So the world knew Jesus in the sense they heard Him; they saw Him. They did not recognize who He was.
Said another way, let’s tie it now to the first part verse.
Therefore the world does not know us.
What is it about Jesus’ life that is sort of parallel in context to believers’ lives here? This is fundamental so you have to get a hold of this or otherwise you’ll be confused when you hit verse 9.
Comment They wanted people to be subject to them We’re not subject to them… purposes…so we’re always going to be in conflict. We’re not going to lie down and let them be in charge of everything. We hold God to be in charge. We’re the ones to lie down before Him, not the government.
Paul is bringing out that one of the offenses Jesus wrought was that Jesus claimed to be the ultimate authority. In politics, in any particular society, Christians are always… They always have been. This is not new. This is going on in China today. This is going on in North Korea today. This is going on in Iraq today. This is going on in Iran today. This is going on in Jordan, in Syria today. The people who own Hobby Lobby… We Christians adhere to a transcendent standard.
What do we mean by a transcendent standard and why is that politically explosive? What is it in collision with?
Comment
What does a government that does not accept a transcendental standard become?
Comment Dictatorship
Dictatorship.
Comment …they think they can change the definition of marriage.
If the government truly is the final authority – and this is not new. What was Pharaoh? Let’s go back – what - 3,400 years ago. What was the Exodus all about? God versus Pharaoh, wasn’t it? Why did God pick on Pharaoh? What do we know about Egyptian history?
Comment He was god and king
He was god and king. Remember I showed you several times the pillar with pharaoh’s name and up at the top was the symbol of heaven. Down below was earth. What is that saying? Pharaoh was the mediator between heaven and earth. It was known. It was part of Egyptian art work, part of ancient history.
Nebuchadnezzar – what we’re going to find… What’s going to happen in Daniel 3 to Daniel’s three friends? He’s going to make them hamburgers – he thinks – because they will not adhere finally. Now this doesn’t mean being nasty, being just deliberate, intransient, and so on people – nasty people. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about a transcendental standard. If it’s transcendental, we can’t compromise. We can’t compromise. To that’s one thing Paul brought out.
Now in the remaining minutes let’s go on to something else. What did branches produce – the grapevine? Fruit. What is offensive about the fruit? Remember now Jesus perfectly manifested the fruit of the Spirit. All right. Perfectly. That was offensive. Believers who are in the vine now, not talking about believers out of the vine. Lots of believers suffer because we’re out of the vine. Like 1 Peter 3 says we suffer not enough for iniquity. But if we’re in the vine, producing fruit what is inherently offensive about that to society at large?
Comment
What is it?
Comment The contrast between believers and unbelievers - it makes the conscience fire up and genders jealousy and envy and those that aren’t exhibiting the fruits stand out.
The fruit makes a contrast. Our time is almost up but look in the text at verse 12. John is going to bring this up later in the flow of revelation here. In verse 12,
NKJ 1 John 3:12 not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother.
Now look at the next sentence – first homicide in history which was fratricide.
By the way this is another violation or challenge to the liberal enlightenment. Why is this report of the first homicide something that liberalism, modern liberalism, does not like to hear about? This is the first family in history. Already, what do you see? First homicide. Is this a functional family? Is this civilization getting off to a roaring start? What is this saying? What is the D word that we used to describe humanity? Depravity. No liberal can accept that. The Enlightenment thinkers turned against that idea.
“Humanity is not depraved.”
Who can look at 20th century history and not believe in depravity? And yet we have politicians trying to still bring in the kingdom with un-depraved humanity.
Look here what it says.
NKJ 1 John 3:12 not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother.
Why did he murder him? Because what?
Comment
Contrast. See how the fruit of the Holy Spirit alienates people. It angers people. Why was Cain angry at Abel?
Abel’s works are righteous; but what do you suppose if we had Cain here and we asked him, “What was going through your mind when you decided to take that knife and slice your brother’s throat? Why were you angry about what he did? Why were you taking this out on him?”
Comment
God he knew was not pleased with him. He couldn’t get back at God. How are you going to kill God?
“But I can do one thing. I can destroy His representatives. Okay. I can’t get back at you. I’ll kill this person. You love this person? Watch what I do to him.”
That’s the anger; and that anger permeates this world. Just understand that. That’s why John advises the end of this.
NKJ 1 John 3:1 …Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
You’ll notice that in verse 13. Look at verse 13, right after verse 12, talk about Cain and Abel. What again did John say in verse 13?
NKJ 1 John 3:13 Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world
Does what?
hates you.
John isn’t getting at personalities here. This is not a question of personality. This is a question of the fruit, the manifestation of Jesus Christ’s nature. We’re going to end here in a minute but this is what’s going to happen. This is object of all these verses now as we get into this first chunk of ten verses. It’s the manifestation – when in fellowship - that John is talking about.
(Closing prayer)