start there, but we're going to end up in John 15. So we've looked at chapter 14 verses 15 to 31. We talked about the Lord needing to shift the paradigm, the way his disciples thought. They were used to Jesus being with them all the time, teaching them and so on and so forth. Jesus says, I'm leaving. And the paradigm shift is, I'm gonna be absent, but my spirit is gonna be dwelling within you. All right, well in the course of that, verse 15, Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commandments. Some translations put it, you will keep my commandments. But the point is, loving Christ is connected to keeping his commandments. Now in the context of this night, this is the last supper night. There are two specific commandments that Jesus gave to his disciples, and I want you to notice what they are. In chapter 14, verse 1, what's the commandment? Don't let your heart be troubled. But why? Believe in God. Okay, yeah, believe in me. All right, so don't let your heart be troubled. Here's the commandment, believe in me. That's gonna be the key to not having your heart troubled. Verse 11, same idea, right? Believe me, believe me. All right, so one commandment is to believe in him. Now look back at chapter 13, verses 34 and 35. What's the commandment? Love one another. That's not everything that Jesus told his disciples to do, that doesn't encompass all the commandments that Jesus ever gave. But on this particular night, those are the two things that he emphasized. Putting your faith in him and loving one another, okay? Now regarding obedience to those commands, what Jesus pointed out here is that if you're not going to do that, if you're not gonna believe him, and you're not gonna love one another, as he says, then look at chapter 14, verses 23 and 24. He says, if you're not gonna obey me, these two commandments, then you cannot claim that you love me, right? Jesus said, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My father will love him and he will come to him we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words. All right, so he makes that point, and the concluding, the conclusion of that challenge, if you will, is seen in verse 27. It's intimated in verse 27. He says, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you, let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. So there that don't let your heart be troubled, have peace within your heart is connected to obedience to him which is connected to love for him. Love me, obey me will be the outflow, obey me by believing in me, loving one another, and the result is peace. My peace I will give to you, all right? So that's the emphasis in chapter 14. Here's how you can have peace, if you will. I'm giving you some insight in having peace. Now, let's look at chapter 15. And chapter 15, let's read verses one to 11. And then I want you to figure out what is the end of what he's saying? What's the ultimate goal? What's the climax of what he's saying? Jesus gives this analogy. By the way, when we talk about analogies, in an analogy, not everything is a one-to-one correspondence. There's a point to the analogy and that's what you want to get, sort of like parables. You can't take every detail of a parable and try to make some kind of significant point out of every detail. There's a big picture, all right? So there's a big picture in this analogy. Jesus says, I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you, as a branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit, so will you be my disciples. As the Father loved me, I also 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. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full. All right, so why did Jesus give this analogy? What's his purpose in giving the analogy? What's he saying, Jeanne? Well, that he wants us to abide in him. Okay, but to what end? To what goal? What's the ultimate outcome that he's driving for? Fruit. Fruit? Okay, fruit's necessary. Fruit's gonna be the byproduct of abiding in him. Fullness of joy. Fullness of joy, right? Look, verse 11, he tells us. This is why I'm telling you these things so that my joy may remain in you and your joy may be full. That's the experiential, there's the word I'm looking for, the experiential goal of this. If the experiential goal, to use that same idea, if the experiential goal of Loving me, keeping my commandments, believing in me, loving one another is peace in your heart. Then he's saying in chapter 15, the experiential goal of abiding in me and being fruit producers is going to be your joy. You will experience the joy that I have and that you can have as well and have in fullness. All right, now verse 11 gives us that potential. Jesus establishes the potential for joy. He doesn't say everybody that's a branch is going to know my joy, but he does establish the potential for joy. And so clearly what he says is that you and I, followers of Jesus, can know the joy of Christ. These things have I spoken to you that my joy may remain in you, may abide in you. The word remain means to dwell in. And the question is, what kind of joy is Jesus's joy? He's talking about my joy. that the joy that I have may remain in you. Let me suggest three ideas. This joy is, first of all, a spiritual joy, a spiritual joy. In other words, it's not tied to physical circumstances, material possessions and things of that nature. material prosperity or lack thereof, it's not tied to the physical, it's a spiritual joy. It's tied to that which is permanent as opposed to that which is temporary and illusory. So for example, the other night we heard through a variety of sources, Mike included, that The northern lights were going to be visible in our area. We'd seen all these, Chris had seen all these pictures. It's been her long time desire to see the northern lights. In fact, one time I thought, is there any way we could afford to take a trip to like northern Canada in the winter or to Iceland or one of those places. I quickly concluded no, but so she can see the northern lights, one of those bucket list experiences. So anyway, it was Thursday night, she's making chili for Friday night in the evening and she got her pajamas on, I was downstairs reading, she comes downstairs and she looks at her phone and Facebook and she sees these people posting pictures of the Northern Whites and she finally shuts her phone off and says that doesn't, I'm going to go out and look to see if I can see these things. So we changed our clothes and we drove out north up toward the Hemmings house up on Hoover Road, found a place to turn off. We could see, Mike had sent us some pictures of a very faint green in the sky and I'm wondering, is that worth it? I mean, you can go out and do a big deal, right? So anyway, I said, okay. And she had also seen, somebody had posted, how to set your Android camera so that you can pick up the experience of the Northern Lights. So I figured out how to do that. We went up Hoover Road, found a turnoff, it's totally dark, and look up and you could see some pink in the sky and you could see some green in the sky. And then I got my phone and I got the camera settings where it should be and I started taking some pictures. Those are incredible. There's nothing like what you can actually see, but the pictures were incredible. And that's, all these pictures you might see on Facebook or wherever you see them, that's what they're doing. They're taking them through their phone, which is picking up all kinds of stuff that your naked eye can't see. But anyway, it was such a joyful, satisfying experience for Chris to finally be able to see Northern Lights. Now, it would have been better if you could just see it that way with the naked eye, but still, there it is, and she's got the pictures to prove it. All right, that's an illusory joy. That's a temporary joy, right? It's tied to an individual given experience. That's not the kind of thing Jesus is talking about here. He's talking about a spiritual joy that is also a long-term joy. Remember Hebrews 12.2 talks about looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame. He had this long-term look at this long-term joy that fully enabled him to endure the cross. Also, I don't know if I have this on your handout, It's a salvation-focused joy. A salvation-focused joy. And where I get that is from Zechariah 3. Zechariah 3 and verse 17. It's not right. Zephaniah. Zephaniah 3. Verse 17. which says, the Lord your God in your midst, the mighty one will save you. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing. All right, this is the Lord who will save rejoices over you with gladness. All right, so the joy that Jesus has is a spiritual joy, a long-term joy, a salvation-focused joy. And he says to us, You can know my joy. And he says, you can know the fullness of it. The fullness of it. Now, what would that mean? The fullness of joy. If, okay, this bottle is not full. Okay, so it has room for more stuff, right? I could take the lid off. I could throw some pebbles in there until it fills up. I could throw sand in there. I could just leave the air that's in there. But because it is not full, there's room for other stuff that, you know, can affect the water and ruin it so that I wouldn't want to drink it, potentially. So when Jesus talks about having the fullness of his joy, he's talking about a kind of joy that knows no alloy, that knows no mixture that ruins it. So for example, let's look at a couple of illustrations. In Philippians chapter two, in Philippians chapter two, Where is Paul when he writes the book of Philippians? In prison, okay? He's in prison. And chapter one, he talks about, even in his imprisonment, there were some jealous, people jealous of him who were going out preaching to try to add to his affliction. So this prison experience is not like, oh, I'm going to Disney World, you know? It's not like, oh, I finally get to see the Northern Lights. This is not a pleasant thing. But in chapter two, verse 17, he speaks of his ministry suffering experience as being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith. But look at what he says at the end of verse 17. I am glad and rejoice with you all for the same reason you also be glad and rejoice with me. Point, in other words, the point is that we can know the joy of Christ even in sacrificial service that's hard and demanding and may involve some suffering. And Peter brings out the same idea. Look at 1 Peter 1 and verses six through eight. How does verse six begin? In this you what? Greatly rejoice. In this, You greatly rejoice in what? He's obviously pointing to what he's just talked about, right? What has he just talked about? Being kept by the power of God through faith for salvation. Okay, so yeah, you can go all the way back to verse three, right? And he says, blessed be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, according to his abundant mercy, he has begotten us again, okay? The new birth. The new birth to what? To what end? Begotten us again to a living hope. What hope? The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Unto what? What is the believer who has been born again, what is the ultimate outcome of that faith in Christ? And inheritance, verse four, incorruptible, undefiled, it doesn't fade away, reserved in heaven for you. And to make sure that you actually receive that inheritance, God, in his gracious power, is keeping you through that faith that he's given to you for salvation, and that salvation, it's not talking about the day you got saved, he's talking about that umbrella concept of salvation, from regeneration to glorification, the whole thing, to that salvation ready to be revealed at the last time, in the last time. All right, so this is big stuff that Peter's talking about. And then he says, in this, in this big umbrella experience of salvation, from regeneration to glorification, with the inheritance and everything else, in this, you greatly rejoice, even though, what? Verse six. What's happening? Even though you are experiencing grief through various trials, And I think the point is, when Jesus says you can know my joy in fullness, he's saying that even the natural experience of grievous trials cannot destroy, mar, ruin, cause to leak out my joy. My joy fills you so that these things don't ruin you, don't bring you down, don't destroy you. Does that, you follow that? So Jesus says, this is the potential. This is the potential. Ah, but back in chapter 15 of John, there are conditions to this joy. Because in verse 11 again, Jesus says, I've spoken this to you so that my joy may remain in you. So there's a potential for joy, but there are conditions to the experience and the knowing of that joy. Now before we look at those conditions, Let's get an understanding. How would the, okay, Jesus is taking his disciples from the upper room. This is one interpretation of what's happening here. At the end of chapter 14, Jesus says, let's go from here. So they go from the upper room. They're making their way to the Mount of Olives where Jesus is gonna pray in the garden. And as they're going, they go by the temple. And at the temple, there is the temple vine. And on that temple vine are all kinds of people who have attached, I think of it like Christmas ornaments, attached fruit to express their desires or their prayers or whatever. And so Jesus sees this and it causes him to use this analogy. But as he talks about the vine and the branches and the fruit, these men are all Jews and they're going to hear this analogy from the Jewish concept and the Jewish perspective. So we wanna know, what is that Jewish context of the vine branches analogy? Let's go back to Psalm 80. bookmark there in John 15, Psalm 80. And when you look at verses eight and nine, who is the vine? Israel, you have brought a vine out of Egypt, okay? What is the vineyard? Yeah, a promised land, right? You brought the vine out of Egypt and you have planted it. Well, where did God plant the vine? in the promised land, okay? Now, verses 10 and 11, this may take a little more thought, but in verses 10 and 11, who are the branches? The tribes, or the Jews themselves. So the vine is planted in the vineyard, which is the promised land, and the branches of that vine are the tribes, the people that make up those different tribes. They're sent out to the sea, or branches to the river, okay? So the Jews are the branches. Now, turn to Isaiah 5. Again, we're looking at this analogy and trying to discern, to think about it from the standpoint of the disciples who are hearing Jesus telling us. They think of the vine as Israel. They think of the vineyard as the promised land. They think of the branches as Jews. And then in chapter 5 of Isaiah, verses 1 and 2, what is God looking for? Yeah, especially in the verse two, right? So he expected it, expected what? He expected the vine to bring forth good grapes. Now you know the history of Israel and the disciples certainly knew the history of Israel and they know it brought forth wild grapes, bad fruit in other words. Israel is the vine, the promised land is the vineyard, the Jews are the branches, and from the branches God is looking for good fruit. Now, what is the New Testament refinement of that understanding of the analogy here, the vine and the branches? Jesus is going to explain it further, but look at Matthew, Matthew chapter 20, what is the vineyard? Verse one. No? You're looking at Matthew 20 verse one? He says, the kingdom of heaven is like this, okay, so what, to what does he, to what, what is the connection? The kingdom of heaven is what? The landowner who hired laborers for what? His vineyard, for his vineyard, okay. The vineyard, what is the vineyard in Jesus' parable here? The vineyard is the kingdom of God, okay? The vineyard is the kingdom of God. Now, come to chapter 15, verse one, the vineyard, okay, in the Jewish context, the vineyard was the promised land or the land of the kingdom, the kingdom of Israel, the land over which the Davidic king would rule and so on and so forth. The New Testament concept of the vineyard is it's not the nation of Israel, the promised land, the kingdom of Israel. The New Testament concept of the vineyard is it is the kingdom of God. All right, now in the kingdom of God, what is the vine? It would have to be Jesus. Jesus, this is what Jesus says in chapter 15, verse one. I am the true vine. So the Old Testament concept, the vine was Israel, the nation. Jesus expands and clarifies and says, I am the true vine. And by the way, this is the culmination of the seven I am's in John's gospel where Jesus says I am. He says, excuse me, man. Jesus says I am the bread of life, I am the eternal one, I am the light of the world, I am the door to life, I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the true vine, which of course is a source of life. So notice all of those I am's are in some way or another connected to life, okay? So Jesus says, I am the true vine. The vineyard, the kingdom of God. The vine, Christ. All right, now let's look at the application of this analogy. And what Jesus is doing here, let's step back. What night is this? The night of betrayal. What has recently happened? Judas has left them. Prior to Judas leaving, what did Jesus tell all of us, the 12, what did he tell them? One of you is going to betray me. All right, so this is all fresh on the minds of the disciples, that here they've been in this upper room, they've enjoyed the Passover meal together, Jesus drops this bombshell. One of you is gonna betray me. Those 12 men reclining around that table would have thought, to use the analogy, every one of us around this table is a fruitful, productive branch attached to the vine. And Jesus comes to them now in this, giving this analogy, and he says, I wanna clarify some things for you. And in doing so, what he's actually doing is contrasting Judas with the 11. He's contrasting Judas with the 11. All right, let's see what he does. In verse five, he says, in the first place, to apply this analogy, you need to actually be a branch. Now, how would you define a branch? And let's be careful here, because like I said, in an analogy, not everything is a one-to-one correspondence. So, we might be inclined to think that a branch is a true Christian, because The branch, Jesus says, every branch in me that does not bear fruit and so forth. That's how we would think of the branch. It's gotta be a true Christian, which is why some of our Arminian friends believe that you can lose your salvation because there are people who are Christians who attach to the vine but then they lose their salvation, they're cast away. But that would be an improper conclusion based on what an analogy is. What Jesus is simply saying here is that a branch is anyone that is interested in Christ at some level and makes, and we'll see this in a minute, they make some kind of connection to Christ. They may not actually be converted All right, remember what Jesus is doing, contrasting Judas with the 11 disciples. Was Judas a converted man? No. Was he a branch? Jesus is saying yes. That's what he's trying to help them to see. Judas was a branch. He was interested in Christ at some level. Second point, you need to be connected to the vine. connected to the vine, this is what he says in verses one and two. I'm the vine, my father's the vine dresser, every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, every branch bears fruit he prunes, okay? And then in verse six, if anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, all right? So there's a connection, branches are connected to vines, and that Connection can be simply nothing more than a degree of a commitment to follow Jesus. But somebody who is interested in Jesus and makes some level of commitment to follow Jesus may not be converted. I mean, church history tells that out. And modern church history bears that out. People who come to church, interested in church, profess to be believers, join the church, but then in time they just walk away from it all and demonstrate that they were never converted in the first place, they were never truly born again. So you need to be a branch, there needs to be a connection to the vine, but the third point of application in this analogy is you need to remain connected to the vine. Brings us out three times, multiple times. The repeated phrase, abide in me. Verse four, abide in me. Verse five, he who abides in me. Verse seven, if you abide in me. The word abide simply means to remain in. He who remains in me. Contrast that with the end of verse five, where he says, for without me you can do nothing. That could be more helpfully translated in a literal way, severed from me you can do nothing. Severed from me, or independent of me, You can do nothing. All right, you need to be a branch, you need to be connected to the branch, you need to remain connected to the vine, and here we go, fourth point, application of the analogy, you need to bear fruit. You need to bear fruit. Notice several things about this fruit bearing. One of them is that it depends upon pruning, verses two and three. in the Christian life, the truly converted Christian's life, where does fruit bearing begin? Salvation. It's salvation, yeah, yeah. The person is regenerated, expresses faith in Christ, and is justified. He's saved, all right? The beginning of fruit bearing is at salvation. Now, look at verse three. Verse three is a reference to salvation. Does that verse remind you of anything else that was said earlier that night? You are all clean, but not all. Yes, exactly. Back when he was washing the disciples' feet, remember this? And Peter objected, but he finally, you know, Peter finally is acquiesced and so forth. But Jesus said, back in chapter 13 and verse 10, says, he who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, you plural. You disciples are clean, but not all of you. Who is he talking about? He said not all of you. Judas, yeah, Judas. All right, so he says you are clean to the 11 who don't betray him. You are not clean, you who are going to betray me. So when he talks about this cleansing, he's talking about salvation, that pruning begins at salvation and it continues, the pruning continues through the Christian life, through what we call sanctification. The end of verse two. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. may bear more fruit, continues through sanctification. And that's what Jesus was talking about back in chapter 13 verse 10 when he says, he who has bathed needs only to wash his feet.