Preached at Markham Baptist Church, February 25, 2001

Do you remember the first car you purchased off the lot? I remember my first car - a red Ford Escort, hatchback, standard, four on the floor, two door. It was a beauty. I bought it from the Ford dealer in Richmond Hill. They gave me a good deal - I don't remember the exact sales pitch that they gave me but I can imagine that the salesman there told me that this car had everything I needed. It had four good tires; it had a specially engineered design. It was compact yet had space to carry luggage and passengers. Fuel efficient yet peppy. Above all, a state of the art engine. Now, I'm clueless when it comes to mechanics, so I just nodded knowingly as the salesman explained the intricacies of the Ford Escort Engine. And that salesman probably concluded his talk with the words, "this car has everything you need."

This is what we've been learning during these last number of weeks as we have studied Christ's words in John 15, "I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing." We have seen how Christianity is all about being in a relationship with Jesus Christ. He is everything that we need for salvation and for the living of a Christ-like life. So he invites us to rest in him, trust him, and depend on him. He is to be our all in all.

Now this brings us to the next wonderful truth in the passage - and it is this: I think you've got the message that Christianity is all about being in relationship with Jesus Christ. It is essential, foundational. But the next wonderful truth is this: Christianity is about being in a relationship with Jesus Christ so that we may have a Christ-like character. Or as the text says, bear fruit.

We've examined the three individuals in this passage, the vine, who is Jesus our Lord, the Vinegrower, who is God the Father, and the branches, you and me. The result of this relationship is fruit. The result of abiding in Christ is Christ like fruit. The result of yieldedness is fruitfulness.

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my diciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 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. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete."
(John 15:1-11) (NRSV)

What is this fruit that Jesus is talking about here? Well, as we read through Scripture we get a clue. You are of course familiar with Galatians 5:22 that reads; "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." What is this? This is a list of qualities that are now in you as a result of Christ taking up residence in your life. He is the vine; he now lives in you and this is the fruit that the vine will produce in your life. In Philippians 1:11, this whole list is condensed into one phrase, "the fruit of righteousness." The fruit that Jesus is seeking to bring about in your life and in my life is his character. That is the result of Christ living in you, of you abiding in Christ.

When we abide in Christ, the evidence is seen in the character - what Jesus calls fruit.

Now listen carefully - I have stressed during these last two weeks our inability to do anything apart from Christ. We cannot be saved without Christ; we cannot produce the character of Christ without Christ in us. We need to depend on him fully. I have pushed the pendulum of dependence as far as I can to free you from seeking to fulfill rules and regulations - to get you to shift your focus from busyness for Christ to abiding in Christ - to hopefully create in you a hunger and thirst for a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. He is the source of the Christian life.

I pray that as we have thought about these words of Jesus in John 15 that you have tasted a new freedom in your faith. We are in Christ, just as a branch is in the vine, therefore we are free from the burden of fulfilling rituals in order to please God.

So please, if you miss worship one week, please don't beat yourself up saying, "oh, I missed worship last week; I feel so awful. What will God think?" I hope you do feel awful, because you missed the chance to express with your brothers and sisters in Christ your love and praise for your Father in Heaven who loves you. I hope you do feel awful that you have missed the opportunity to grow in your faith and love for Jesus Christ.

But don't feel awful because you think God is up in heaven with a checklist, and he's checking it twice to see who is naughty and nice. He's not keeping track of how many times you've been to church or how many times you've prayed.

Read the book of Galatians when you get home, for this is the very trap they fell into and Paul says, "who tricked you?" We're free from all that - and he says in Galatians 2:21, "if a right standing before God could be gained through keeping rituals, through ceremonies, then Christ died for nothing." We are free.

And I pray that you have discovered a new vibrancy to your faith. For if your faith consists of saying the right prayers and performing the right rituals, and knowing the right people, and going to the right church - it will get stale pretty fast. But if your faith is focused on the person of Jesus Christ - well that's a relationship and a relationship is dynamic. It's alive and grows and is nurtured and you are continually making new discoveries about the other person in a relationship. There are always new elements of the other person to discover - this is especially true of Jesus Christ - who was, who is, and is to come. You can delve in the depths of Christ and you will ever be discovering wonder upon wonder and every wonder true. Paul knew that the Christian faith wasn't an act to be performed but a Saviour to be followed and adored. So he writes to the Philippians, "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him." (Philippians 3:8)

Then I pray that you have found a new steadfastness in your faith. You see, if my salvation depended on me I'd be in bad shape. If my development of a Christ-like character depended on me I'd be in bad shape. I can't do it. You might as well sit me down at a piano and tell me to play like Beethoven or Bach. All that would come out is that annoying tune - chop sticks. But if you put the spirit of Bach in me - then I could play like Bach.

This is what has happened to you and to me. When you accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, he took up residence in you; he now lives in you. Even as you are in Him, so he is in you. So we have this steadfastness to our faith; we have this anchor - or as Paul says, this confidence, "that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:6) So our faith is steadfastly anchored to Jesus Christ, not our performance or our feelings.

So I have pushed the pendulum way over in dependence.

But please don't misunderstand that this means that nothing is asked of you, so that you can sit back and say "this is the life; I don't have to do anything. Nothing is required of me." You see, abiding in Christ suggests certain attitudes which we must have, attitudes that we examined last week: resting, trusting and depending. But abiding in Christ also suggests that we practice certain disciplines. Without the practice of these disciplines we cannot produce the fruit.

You see some Christians stress dependence upon Christ but they don't bother with the disciplines. They just go around on automatic pilot. They just seem to float around and expect God to open every door for them, speak audibly to them, give them direction, and mystically produce a Christ-like character in them. But they are seldom willing to practice the disciplines that help make God's leading plain, and nurture His character in their lives.

This is dependence without discipline.

It was Charles, Price of Capernwray England, who pictured this relationship clearly for me when he said, "your car has an engine and if the engine of your car could speak it would say, 'without me you could do nothing.'" Right? If you haven't got an engine under the hood what is the car good for? Nothing. You can't go anywhere. Without me you can do nothing. But we all have cars outside in the parking lot doing nothing. Why? Well, the car has everything it needs to get down the road - but it also needs the discipline of getting into the car, turning on the engine, putting it into gear, pressing down the gas pedal, steering it down the road. And as your car goes down Markham road and hits the 407 at 100 kilometers and hour, what's making the car go? Is it the engine or the driver? Both are needed, right? The engine under the hood is the power that takes the car, what the driver is doing is simply enabling the power of the engine to reach the wheels and turn the vehicle down the road.

There are two aspects of the Christian life. You've got to know that there's an engine under the hood - it's Christ in you. But you've got to learn to drive - that's discipline." (1)

So what is this discipline? Well there are many, enabling the life of Christ to bear the fruit in us. These disciplines are numerous - but three specifically are suggested by our passage. The first one is prayer. This is suggested by verse 7, "if you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you." Now this verse points to the result of abiding, and I'll talk about that in a moment, but it also presupposes that we are practicing prayer in our lives. My friends, prayer is the gift that God has given to us to communicate with Him. It is as we spend time in prayer that He is able to speak to us, that he is able to direct and guide us. It is as we spend time in prayer that we cultivate that all-important relationship.

Can you imagine what kind of relationship I would have with any of you if I never spoke to you? What would you say? You would say, "that pastor isn't interested in me, doesn't care about me, he never talks to me."

So our relationship with God in Christ. We must be a praying people for the fruit of a Christ-like character to be developed in us.

The second discipline is reading the Bible. Again, verse 7 suggests this, "if you remain in me and MY WORDS remain in you ask for whatever you wish and it will be given to you." Jesus says, "if my words remain in you." That is, let the word of God remain, dwell, be allowed to reside in you. We have got to read the word of God to know the mind of God. He has revealed his will to you - it's all right here. He has revealed his purposes for you - it's all right here. We've got to read it, and in the words of David, treasure the words in our heart. This is his love letter to you; this is plan for the future; this is His instrument of his power; this is his primary means to communicate with you. We need to take time to read it.

Listen carefully, there is no short cut to having a Christ-like character grow up within you. It takes time. Unfortunately many Christian books and hymns have conveyed the idea that a relationship with Christ can be cultivated in a minute. We have books entitled, "A minute with God." We have hymns entitled, "A little talk with Jesus." We have devotional material printed in a booklet this big (very small). Listen, if you are satisfied to give God only a minute, or to have a little talk with Jesus, the result is that you will bear fruit that is scrawny, malnourished, with no vibrancy.

There is no short-cut to developing a Christ-like character. It takes time to read and pray. A thousand distractions come our way - but nothing is more important than your relationship with Jesus Christ.

There is a third discipline suggested here in verse 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." This third discipline is obedience. My friends, God is looking for a people who will obey him, who will listen to his word and willingly follow Him wherever he may lead.

During the last three weeks we have examined our relationship with Jesus Christ, how it is the foundational element of the Christian faith. We have seen how to develop it - through dependence upon him and discipline. The result of all this? There is, as I said, the development of a Christ-like character, but look at what our Lord promises.

He says as we abide in him our prayers will be answered. This is what Jesus says in verse 7. "Ask for whatever you wish and it will be done for you." How can he guarantee this? It is because as he dwells within us; as we are tuned to his voice through prayer; as we are ready to obey his word - our prayers begin to reflect his own character. Our prayers become echoes of the Son himself asking the Father; we find ourselves praying asking the same things the son would ask the Father. So our prayers are answered because we are praying in the will, in the name of Jesus himself.

And then in verse 8, Jesus tells us that all of this glorifies God. This is how God is pleased - not through programs, or keeping a set of rules, but through reproducing his character in us. He is glorified as he sees his own nature reflected in us.

And finally this result - the end of verse 8, "my father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples." That means that not only is our heavenly father glorified by our bearing much fruit, but it is the best evidence to those around us that we are disciples of Jesus Christ. It is as the character of Christ is shown in our lives, in our habits, in our temper, in our words, and in our works that the world sees that Christ is real.

You all know the name Charles Colson. Charles Colson was in the inner circle of Richard Nixon's presidency. Colson was known as the hatchet man. He was a ruthless politician, willing to go to any lengths and any extreme to keep the power. He was of course caught up in Watergate and sentenced to jail. There he gave himself to Christ and began to live his life for Christ.

On the anniversary of Watergate, Morley Safer of 60 minutes interviewed Chuck Colson. The interview was conducted against the back drop of a beautiful clear blue sky, majestic trees and gorgeous flower gardens. And during the interview - Chuck Colson, who is totally sold out to Christ, noted Morley Safer was not a believer. He is an atheist. Does not believe there is a God. And Charles Colson said to Morley Safer "I do not know how you can hang on to your atheism while we look at this beauty in creation."

And Morley Safer replied. "I'm having difficulty hanging on to my athiesm while looking at you."

Isn't that beautiful? O that people would look at us, our spouse, our children, our work mates, our neighbours and say I know God is real because I see His character in your life, in my life.

So, dependency and discipline. We live in dependency upon Christ living in us so that everyday we wake up and say, "Lord Jesus thank you; there is nothing that will happen today that will take you by surprise. There is nothing in this day for which you are not sufficient Lord Jesus. There is nothing for which your wisdom will not be adequate. There is nothing for which your indwelling presence will not be sufficient. Thank you. I trust you. I depend on you. Now, what is it you want me to do?"

That is life in the Vine.