With / In - Part 5

Nov 19

November 19th 2023,

KEY VERSE:

Galatians 2:20 (NASB) - I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

We’ve defined WITH as being “unified, unity, along side, having the same experience…” We’ve defined IN as meaning “position, instrumentation, rights & facts that we have/own”

And for the last few weeks we’ve been circling around this idea of accepting by faith the fact that we’ve been CRUCIFIED WITH Christ…but still struggling with the PRACTICAL side of LIVING IN Christ.

Romans 6 :

● v6 : “6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with”

● v8 : “8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ” ● v11 : and we MAY have even ‘come to grips with the fact’ that we can ...“... count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

● Then last week we did a pretty deep WORD STUDY on what it means to OFFER OURSELVES “... offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. ”

SINCE you KNOW you’re dead, and you BELIEVE you’re made alive again and you’ve COME TO GRIPS/COUNTED/RECKONED yourself dead & alive…THEREFORE (v12) … OFFER YOURSELF.

παρίστημι paristēmi, v. to put at disposal;

So we’re PUTTING OURSELVES at Jesus’ disposal… giving God the right to do with us what he wants.

Tonight we’re going to explore this same topic a bit more – this topic of what does it mean to live IN CHRIST? – and explore the idea that many places in the NT call “abiding in Christ”. Let’s read from John 15

John 15:1-11 “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.

Several things I want to point out about this scripture & how it applies to us.

First: Let’s define a few things that are obvious but need repeating. Jesus is the vine, we are the branches, the Father is the gardner/vinedresser.

Second: Let’s make sure we define properly the POINT of the vine, branches & vine-dresser. Question: what’s the point of a grape vine? GRAPES. No grapes grow directly on the vine, they grow from the branches… the point of all of this is fruit. (v2 says “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” … v4 says, “the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you…” … v5 “he who abides in Me …bears much fruit” the thing that keeps being repeated here makes it seem like the point is the fruit. The point of this illustration Jesus is using isn’t the branch, the leaves, the soil or the fertilizer but ‘producing fruit’.

Third...and perhaps even more proof of the point we just made about the fruit: V1 says that God the Father is the “vinedresser” not the “branch-dresser” … I’m aware that it DOES SAY in v2 that “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” … but the work that the Father does is for the sake of the VINE, not the branch. The proof of that is the fruit: The BRANCH cannot produce fruit that doesn’t come from the VINE… can’t get RED grapes from a GREEN grape vine. Saying that the ‘point of this passage’ is the fruit is in NO WAY saying that the point is producing YOUR OWN FRUIT … but producing fruit that you received from the vine. Jesus said, “the branch cannot bear fruit of itself” it’s not possible for YOU to produce fruit that you didn’t get from the Vine itself… The branch is not the point: the fruit is. The fruit only comes from the vine. The VINE gets the nutrients and as long as the branch stays connected, the branch bears the fruit.

Fourth: the Branch does not “work” to bear fruit… it just bears fruit by abiding. We don’t have to struggle to ‘get into Christ’, we aren’t told to ‘try and get into”, we’re told to REMAIN where we have been placed.

Back to some of the ideas we’ve already studied: the idea of living IN Christ is the PRINCIPLE of POSITION… you ARE what God says you are, you can DO what God says you can do, you are IN Christ because God has placed you IN Him.

Ephesians 2:5 & 10 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,... 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

We’ve been PLACED in Christ by God, we didn’t have to work to get there & we don’t have to work to stay… we must simply “abide”.

Let’s look at that word for a minute: “ABIDE in me as I ABIDE in you…” other translations say “REMAIN in me…” others?

It’s the word “menō” means to CONTINUE, DWELL, ENDURE, REMAIN, STAND, TARRY.

1 John 2:5-6 (ESV) 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

John 6:56 - He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.

1 John 4:15 - Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

All of these scriptures use the same word, “menō” and have this idea of ‘dwelling’, remaining, enduring IN Christ… and of course our passage in John 15 is talking about “remaining connected” to the vine.

So HOW do we remain connected to Jesus, the Vine? TWO very practical points from scripture & we’ll wrap up:

FIRST: Let’s look at ANOTHER passage from John…

John 8:31-32 - 31 So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Same word is used here, “if you menō [abide, remain, continue, dwell] in My Word…”

There’s no separation between Jesus and His Word. If we REMAIN, DWELL, CONTINUE, ABIDE in the WORD, then we’ll REMAIN, DWELL, CONTINUE, ABIDE in Christ. One more passage to solidify this point:

I cannot stress enough how important the connection is between abiding, remaining, continuing, dwelling] In God’s WORD and abiding, remaining, continuing, dwelling in Christ.

And doesn’t that make sense??? If John 1 says, “in the beginning was the WORD and the WORD was with God…” and it’s talking about Jesus… and if John 15:7 that we read tonight says… “7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you,” then if we “menō” in the Word, then we will “menō” in Christ.

1 Peter 1:22-25 - 22 Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, 23 for you have been born again not of seed which isperishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For, “All flesh is like grass, And all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, And the flower falls off, 25 But the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word which was preached to you.

SECOND: Let’s look at John 14… just ONE chapter prior to our main passage from earlier:

John 14:10-1710 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. 11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. 12 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.

So here is THE WORD, Jesus, saying “The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works” He’s saying, “I’m not even living on my own… the FATHER is IN ME, and I’m IN HIM. And if YOU are IN ME…then the same works I do, you will do even greater works than these!”

Then let’s finish up this passage for one more mention of the “menō” word…

15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. 16 I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.

So the first point about how to “dwell, abide, continue, remain” in Christ is to “abide, dwell, continue & remain” in the Word. There is no separation between Jesus & His Word. We ABIDE in the Word when we are continually staying in Scripture for our sustenance. Daily Bible reading, memorization, Ephesians 5 calls it being cleansed “by the washing of water with the word”. So First point is “ABIDE” in the Word.

This SECOND point is this: Let the Holy Spirit “ABIDE” in you. When we ‘abide’ in the Word & the Holy Spirit ‘abides’ in us, then we can truly say that we are ‘ABIDING IN CHRIST’

Let’s go back to John 15 and apply all our new knowledge about ‘abiding’ to this:

Let’s “abide” in Christ… and when we do, he says our “joy will be full”

Chad Smith

With / In - Part 5

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