JOHN - Chapter 15 - ABIDNG IN THE LOVE OF CHRIST

Chapter 15 – ABIDING IN THE LOVE OF CHRIST

Tuesday Morning Bible Study 7/25/17, the Year of Our Lord

Pastor Carolyn Sissom

Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus continues to reveal who He is by the miracles he performs and what is written about Him in the Scriptures.  He is the Word made flesh, Son of God, Bread of Life, Light of the World, Door of the sheepfold, Good Shepherd, Lamb of God, Resurrection and Life, Way, Truth and Life, Testator of the New Covenant,  and now we meet Him as The Vine.  Jesus wills to us abiding love that we may ask whatever we will in His name, if we love Him, obey His commandments and love one another.

15: 9-10:  As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you; abide you in my love.  If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love; even as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.

15: 1-3:  I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman.  Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit.  Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

 Whoever does not bear spiritual fruit is cut off from communion with Christ.  The fruitless branch the Father cuts off.

Gal. 5:23:  The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance; against such there is no law.

Eph. 5:9: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth); proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.

As for the branch that does bear fruit, it is pruned by the Father.  A highly virtuous man/woman needs the care of God, the husbandman (farmer).  The fruitful branch, the Father rends it even more productive by cutting and pruning.  The Lord explains to the disciples and to us that if we endure these tribulations patiently we will become stronger and bear spiritual fruit.

15:4-6: Abide in Me, and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in Me.  I am the vine, you are the branches.  He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.  If a man does not abide in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

Vine Dictionary: Fruit is that which is produced by the inherent energy of a living organism; the visible expression of power working inwardly and visibly.  The character of the fruit is evidence of the character of the power producing it.

Mt. 7: 16-17:  You shall know them by their fruits.  Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?  Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit…

James 5:7:  Be patient brethren unto the coming of the Lord.  Behold the husbandman waits for the precious fruit of the earth, and has long patience for it, until He receives the early and latter rain.

Those who are full of good fruit are full of His life and wisdom.  We were picked out to be picked on.  [The River of Life] in the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 

He, who does not abide in Christ, will whither and is stripped of whatever spiritual grace he/she had.  That one is cast into the fire and burned. 

15:7-8: If you abide in me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you.  Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be My disciples.

Everyone who leads a God-pleasing life has been chosen to abide in Christ Jesus; he is joined to Him by love and by observing the commandments.  We cleave to His Word by the power of the Holy Spirit. All our acts, words and action should glorify the Father. 

Lord Jesus teach us to abide in your love and to love one another.

15: 9-10:  As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you; abide you in my love.  If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love; even as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.

The Lord wants heart obedience based on love.  We must have a joyous submission to His word.  Love obedience is not conformity to a set of rules.  It is absurd to think the lawgiver of the universe is Himself subject to any law.  This love obedience is because a man wants to, not because he has to.  Our obedience to Him is to be like His to His Father, loving, voluntary and hearty. (Col. 3: 17; 23)

15: 11-13: These things I have spoken to you that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.  This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you.  Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 

Earlier in this message to his disciples, he told them he was giving them His peace. (14:27). Now he is giving them the fullness of joy, His joy.   He has cleansed them by His Word (righteousness).  This is the Kingdom of God, Joy, Peace and Righteousness in the Holy Ghost. 

Recently the Lord spoke to me that laughter is a realm of the Spirit.   Laughing in the Spirit is an overflow of joy, deliverance and warfare. 

Love one another as I have loved you.  The root hindrance and/or stumbling block to agape love whether in marriages, families, churches, communities or nations are selfishness and pride.  With either of these active in our life, we are not humble and meek.  Without true humility, we will not experience true Love.  We must lay down our lives for one another.  Christ physically laid down His life.  He asks us to lay down our self-righteousness, righteous indignation, and rights preferring one another.  However, we must not enter into false-humility and deny who we are in His Kingdom.

15: 14-16:  You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you.  From now onward, I do not call you servants; for the servant does not know what his lord does; but I call you friends; for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known to you.  You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and appointed you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, that your fruit should remain; that whatever you shall ask of the Father in My name, I will give it to you.

When the LORD called me into full time ministry, He spoke this scripture to me.

You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and appointed you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, that your fruit should remain; that whatever you shall ask of the Father in My name, I will give it to you.

You will see it hanging as a plaque on the wall of my house and in my office book shelves.  I have pondered this verse many ways; counted the cost of the pruning, and said Yes Lord!  I chose Him as My Savior.  I had no clue that He had chosen me.

God’s chosen ones are His sons.  Ro. 8:14:  For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.

Eph. 1:4: According as He has chosen us in Him…  It is only in Him that we can bear His fruit.  Jesus was “in” the Father---the Father was the environment or world in which the Son lived.  Likewise, as believers, we are “in” Christ; and shows a locative of sphere, denoting nature.  Christ lives in our environment through us as we should live in His environment through Him.

Like our Elder Brother, as beloved sons, we are marked for change, and transformation.   From the foundation of the world, we who were “in” the pre-incarnate Word were chosen “out of” the Word, predestined by the Lord for Himself, out of Himself!  As He is the Son of His Father’s love, so we are sons of His love.  Our selection is not based on the things we have done, but upon the nature of His glorious love for us.

Before we had done one good work, His choice was made.

Rom. 8:33a: Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect?

The only condition for this great blessing is to be “in the Vine” or “in Christ”.

If we are “in” Him, we shall be like Him and our hearts will be clean and we will not ask amiss.

  James 4:3: You ask, and receive not because you ask amiss.

15: 17-19:  These things I command you, that you love one another.  If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.  If you were of the world, the world would love his own; but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

If we love the Lord, the world/kosmos will hate us.  Do not grieve because the world hates you.  If evil men did not hate you, that would mean you have come into agreement with their wickedness.  Rejoice I say that evil men hate you.  The world advocates ego-exaltation, condones greed, and approves selfish ambition.  Since we are as He was in this world, we shall fellowship in His sufferings.

15: 20-21:  Remember the word that I said to you.  The servant is not greater than his lord.  If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept My sayings, they will keep yours also.  But all these things will they do unto you for My Name’s sake, because they know not Him who sent Me.

One of the words given to Bobby Connor in his 2016 visitation on Yon Kippur was “The Spirit of Truth will unmask many who are walking in deception.  God will remove these masks of deception from many faces.  God will help you see their true colors.  Remember, the hypocrite will have his place in the lake of fire.” Shepherd’s Rod 2017.

All believers who are “in” Christ have full, legal, redemptive, gospel, blood bought, promised and family rights to use the name of Jesus in:

1. Salvation
2. Baptism
3. Fellowship
4. Worship
5. Good deeds
6. Combat
7. Preaching
8. Healing
9. Judgment
10. Prayer
11. Praise
12. All things
13. Receiving the Holy Spirit
14. Doing the works of Christ.

In John 14: 12-15, free, unlimited, and unqualified use of His Name is the church’s deposit.  Checks will be honored in the amount signed with a steady and unwavering hand. Do not be afraid to ask---simply ask in faith and you shall receive.  Asking is not limited to salvation, but “whatsoever,” “anything” and “all things” will be given in His Name.

15: 22-25: If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no covering for their sin.  He who hates Me hates My Father also.  If I had not done among them the works which no one else has every done, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father.  But this comes to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause’ (Ps. 69:4). This is the 10^th O.T. prophecy fulfilled in John.

I believe all those who are chosen by God will experience being hated without a cause.  It is due to jealousy.  The more goodness seen in you, the more a jealous person will hate you.  God’s gift of love, life and light to His people is Jesus Christ and His brethren.  The Jews then and religious spirits today will disavow Him and those who reveal the glory of the Father.

15: 26-27:  But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He shall testify of Me, and you also shall bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.  

The Book of John reveals twelve (12) offices of the Holy Spirit:

1. Begetter of the new birth.
2. Life-giver
3. Imparter of power
4. Eternal Comforter or Helper
5. Teacher of Truth.
6. Reminder of all Truth
7. Guide into all Truth
8. Revealer of Christ
9. Revealer of events
10. Glorifier of Christ
11. Chief Witness of Christ
12. Convincer of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

Carolyn Sissom, Pastor

Eastgate Ministries Church

www.eastgateministries.com

Scripture from K.J.V. – I entered into the labors of Blessed Theophylact, The Gospel of John; Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible; quote by Bobby Connor, Shepherd’s Rod, 2017. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of those who I entered into their labors.