Gooding, David: 9 - The Upper Room Ministry

Concept of a believer's relationship to Christ being like that of a branch in a, a vine. There's no denying that the relationship between a believer and Christ, being expressed in terms of Christ dwelling in him, must sound very mysterious and mystical. And so, in a sense, it is. But on the other hand, we should notice that when our Lord, in chapter fifteen of the gospel, elaborates in detail what it means. The picture he paints is exceedingly practical. There is very little mysterious or mystical about it. Now, as we move yet further in this next session to explore what the practical implications of this matter are, we shall find our Lord talking in terms that are very real and true to life, very practical indeed. He's going to tell us about our need to abide in his love, and how that abiding is achieved, and what kind of things they are that will prevent that abiding. First, let us, however, take two remarks that he made about himself, because they will help us see, uh, how this whole thing functions. And he, in our his turn, will become an example to us. He says, for instance, in verse nine, even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. And then he says at the end of verse fifteen, for all the things that I heard from my father I have made known unto you. How marvelously he himself functioned as a vine. First of all, in the transmitting of the love of God. As my father has loved me, so have I loved you. That is an extraordinarily marvelous statement. God loved him, of course, and he enjoyed that love. But as he enjoyed that love, he passed it on completely, in the same amount. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. There was no blockage in him and in his personality, no part of him that tried to absorb that love and keep it to itself as a dead end that didn't go on any further. But all the love of God that he himself realized, that whole amount, without any diminution, he passed on to his disciples. Very frequently, our trouble is that we're not prepared to do that. Like little children, we like to feel ourselves somewhat special. And there is a pocket within us, or a number of pockets of self-love, where we want to feel that God loves us more than the other fellow. We're not prepared to pass on all the love of God that we get through the other fellow. Christ here, then, is our example of what it means to be in a vine. Not going without the love of God, enjoying the love of God to the full, but prepared to pass that on without any selfishness to others. And not only the love of the Father, but then what the Father had made known to him. All things that I have heard from the Father, I have, uh, made known unto you. I haven't kept anything back. I have treated you completely as my friends and shared everything I had with you. How lovely that is too. I've known some preachers that wouldn't even give you their notes after they had preached their sermon. It was kind of copyright stuff, you see. Uh, they were afraid that you might go off with their sermon notes and preach them, and whatever would happen to them if they came along. Now you've stolen their sermons, you see, and you've told the people about God when they wanted to tell the people about God, and what a disaster it was, because they would have got the kudos of doing it, you see. Oh, what narrow little hearts we've got. All that the Father has made known to me, I have made known to you, says Christ. Without any impediment, without any blockage, he transmits perfectly what he himself receives. And that has to be our function too, as branches in that vine. Experiencing the love of God, experiencing the communications of God, and then passing them on. We cannot live as dead ends. If there is one certain way to dry up our own spiritual experience as Christians, it is by trying to live as if we were dead ends. Receiving the love of God without passing it on. Learning about God in his word with no attempt to pass it on. If we would keep ourselves vigorous and virile and green, so to speak, and healthy, we must be prepared to see that in practical terms we are required ourselves to pass on to others what we have ourselves received. And so in verse ten, our Lord gives us some examples of this. 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. These things have I spoken unto you that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be fulfilled. This is my commandment, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you. Here is the principle of passing on. You love one another as I have loved you. How then am I to keep the channels open? Well, on the Godward side, I must keep his commandments. For if he keep my commandments, he shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. Now, it is exceedingly important that we notice exactly what Christ is saying. He doesn't say, if you keep my commandments, I shall love you, but, um, if you don't keep my commandments, I shan't love you. Not at all. We must remember ever the nature of Christ's love towards us. He loved us while we were yet sinners. While we were yet enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son. For God commends his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That is the quality of his love. He loved us even when we were then his enemies. And if as believers we are disobedient, he doesn't cease to love us. He loves us still. But what we are talking about here is a believer abiding in the love of Christ. That is to say, remaining with a conscious sense of the love of Christ towards him, enjoying that love. How is that done? Well, that can only be done by keeping Christ's commandments. Let's take the particular commandment he specifies here. We are to love our brethren as he has loved us. Now, suppose, uh, a man, uh, injures me, sins against me in some way. In the first place, a- as a Christian, I am to be patient with him. I'm not to take the absurd view that it doesn't matter. I am not required to forgive him before he repents. But that would be positively immoral, wouldn't it? A man runs off with your wife, if you have one, or your husband, if you have one. You don't forgive him before he repents, because that would be to condone adultery. But you have to be patient with him and merciful with him or her, as the case may be. And should the offending party repent, we have to forgive the offending party. But suppose I say, but I'm not prepared to forgive him or her. The injury is too large. I cannot, I will not forgive. Now see what is happening. How did Christ treat us? Oh, while we were sinners, he still loved us. And when we came in repentance and faith to him, he forgave us freely. Suppose he had said, oh, but no, no, I'm sorry, I can't forgive this, this is too much. You spiked my hands and feet, that's cruel. No, I can't forgive that. Well, then we must have perished forever. Our enjoyment of the love of Christ, uh, is that while we were sinners, he died for us, and when we trusted him, he saved us and forgave us frankly and freely, and guarantees he will never reject us. But would I enjoy that love of Christ to me? And then turn around and say, but I'm not prepared to show that love to somebody else. Oh, so there's become a blockage, has there? Well, now if we do that kind of thing, we shall find that our own enjoyment of the love of Christ towards ourselves vanishes. The only way a branch in a vine can remain even healthy is to let the natural goodness of the vine constantly stream through it. If you tie the branch tight and strangle it so no goodness can come through, the branch itself will begin to wither. We must therefore be prepared to let the love of Christ come through us and pass on. We cannot do it in our own strength, this man that has offended us, this man that always rubs us up the wrong way. No, we haven't got the strength ourselves to love him. Christ, who loved us, has by definition the strength to love that man, and he will and is able to love that man through us. We must be prepared to let Christ do that. For after all, consider again what is the function of a branch in a vine. Not just to be a branch. To be a branch in a vine is to be a thing that is meant to grow grapes on the end. To let the juice of the vine come through the branch until it comes out into the grapes so other folks can come and take the grapes and cart off with them. And then the process has to go on again, hasn't it? More strength from the vine through the branch, more grapes, and the grapes taken away. The branch exists to grow grapes for other people. That is our technique. And it is a tremendous step forward in our Christian lives when we ourselves no longer are content like children just to receive everything that's come our way in terms of the blessings of God, but wake up to our privilege and responsibility and basic function to be those who are channels of the grace of God to others. It is in that very exercise that we shall find strength to grow ourselves. And then our Lord extends this lesson. He begins to talk of friendship. Greater love hath no man than this, than that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends if you do the things which I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth, but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. Yes, it is the fact... uh, that, uh, at the heart of friendship lies this willingness to lay down your life for your friend. Of course, the extreme, in one sense, is to be found in laying down your life physically, dying for him if need be. But sometimes it's harder to lay down your life in the sense of living for him. Some of us might welcome the chance of having a martyr's crown. That would mean a little pain for one few short period, a few hours one Friday afternoon. But to have to live with a man, with a person, with other folks all life through and bear their oddities and quirks and mannerisms and all the other oddities that they have, harder sometimes to lay your life down for them in that sense. To lay your life down for some great cause, fighting cancer or taking the gospel to the Auca Indians. Marvelous, isn't it? To lay your life down for your awkward teenager, your husband even, maybe for your loved ones, sometimes can be a far more exacting thing, and there isn't any kudos, and there isn't any great romance about it, is there? But this is the nature of friendship, to be prepared to lay our lives down for others. Now you are my friends, says Christ. I have treated you as friends, certainly. I've not treated you as servants. Yes, in some sense we are servants of Christ, his to command, ours to perform, and if need be, there will arise situations when ours not to question why, ours but to do and die. If God so choose to treat us like servants, and he just tells us that we are to do this and doesn't necessarily explain why. But it is a wonderful thing about Christ that he prefers to treat us not as servants, but as friends, sharing all that God has told him, sharing it with us, giving to know the whys and the wherefores of his dealings, and taking us into the secret of his purposes and his ways. So that, uh, we are not unintelligent. We know what he's going to do in broad outline. Uh, we have his prophetic word. We know what his stat- strategy is and what his tactics are. He has treated us like friends. Oh yes, but friendship is a two-way thing, isn't it? And therefore he says to us, you are my friends if you do the things which I command you. Again, let us notice what that means. It doesn't mean that Christ is only prepared to love us if we do what he says. It doesn't mean that Christ is not willing to be a friend to us unless we do what he says. You will remember the gospels report, and they report it with tremendous pride, that our Lord was a friend of publicans and sinners. They weren't his friends, he was their friend. He treated them like friends. Ah, but now there's another side to it, isn't there? He has treated us like friends, will never cease to treat us like friends. Even were we unconverted folks, he would still treat us like friends. But what he is looking for in the believer is some return on this principle, that we shall start acting as friends of his. You are my friends if you do what I command you, even though it costs you something to do it, even if it goes against your, uh, uh, your preferences. Why, if I come to your house, as I do into many houses, and generally I'm very well received and kindly entertained. And suppose my hostess says to me, as I arrive, uh, uh, now, um, Dog's body, is there anything by way of food that you don't like? You're going to be with us a week or so, uh, uh, are there any dishes that you find difficult? Well, I shall say, yes, there are. I don't like pancakes. Uh, they test my grish- Christian grace sorely. I mean the kind of pancakes that start off by being Yorkshire puddings and some way go wrong in the middle and end up as a sweet with lemon and sugar on them. I cannot abide the things. Yes, if you put them in front of me, I shall try to screw myself up and eat them and and be grateful for your intention. But suppose my hostess says to me now, oh, uh, is there anything you don't like? And I say, yes, pancakes. Oh, right, good. And the next day I came down to lunch, and hey, presto, pancakes. Well, I should think now that's a little bit funny. And she's eating them with obvious relish, and she says, aren't these pancakes beautiful? I love pancakes myself. I say, yes, good for you. But suppose tomorrow it's pancakes again, then it's going to make conversation across the table extraordinarily difficult. And Christ is saying, yes, I've been friends to you. I came alongside of you when you were still in your sins and unconverted and uncleansed, and your ways were very trying. He came alongside the tax gatherer, the harlot, in all the ugliness of the way they lived, he put up with them in order to reach them and gave himself to them, a friend even of publicans and sinners. He doesn't expect us, now that we've trusted him, to behave like that and insist on having our preferences. If we're really going to be his friends, we shall study his desires, his commandments, and even if they go against our own preferences, we shall be prepared, so to speak, to lay down our life for him. It is, after all, a two-way principle. And therefore, he says, I'm giving you these commandments that your joy be fulfilled. It is the function of a vine, isn't it, to produce wine, and as the Old Testament re- reminds us, wine at the physical level to produce joy and good cheer. And at the spiritual less- level, these his commandments are given us, this relationship set up in which we are branches in him, so to speak, that our joy might be fulfilled. But let us always remember that it isn't just us. It's a two-way thing. And he says to us in verse eleven, these things have I spoken unto you that my joy may be in you. He wants to have pleasure of us, as well as we having pleasure and joy through him. But while we're on this topic of friendship, let us hear the last word from our Lord. It comes in verse sixteen. Ye did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide, that whatsoever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it you. It is the wonderful fact in all this, that in this friendship, he took the initiative. It isn't somehow that we decided that we would like him to be our friend, and therefore we started to behave to try and prevail upon him, uh, to accept our friendship. The initiative came from him. We did not choose him. He chose us. Therein is the marvel of the thing that he should have wanted us as friends. He chose us, and we may rely upon that friendship. The fact that he chose us, uh, will abide eternally. His friendship does not blow hot one day and cold the next. His friendship is perfectly consistent. It is he that chose us, and not we chose him. And secondly, we may rest back in this confidence, that this idea that this relationship should be created, that we should be branches in a vine, members of his very body, this too is a design that he himself designed. He ordained it. I have chosen you and appointed you that ye should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide. It is a happy Christian in whom God has developed that sense, that in the last analysis, the believer, honestly seeking the will of God, may know that he is in the position where God Almighty designed he should be, and for those purposes that God Almighty himself initiated and designed, and which God Almighty has determined shall be. I have ordained you, appointed you, that you should go forth and bear fruit, and your fruit should abide. You will notice how often the verb abide recurs in this chapter, to remain. This sense of permanence, this abiding relationship, and then in the end, fruit that abides. There are many things we produce in life that are but temporary. The great artist, as he acts upon the stage, produces an impression upon his audience. Maybe it will serve them a lifetime. The doctor in his work heals a patient. What a wonderful thing to see that patient walking around who might have been now in his grave, but for the doctor's skill. What a tremendously satisfying thing. A mother watching her s- son, now grown up to manhood, holding a tremendously important position in society, and she trained him. And the teacher that took the infant and trained it, and now he's prime minister. Let's hope she's proud of him. She can receive at least some of the results of her work. We are thinking now in terms of producing fruit that shall abide not merely for this life, but eternally. All flesh is as grass. The glory of it, the glory of like the flower of the field, beautiful in its day, but so fragile and so perishable. But those who are begotten of the word of God and are led into living relationship with Christ, in whom the Holy Spirit works out a Christian character, that character that is worked out is an eternal character. The fruit abides. And they who have been brought to, uh, into contact with them in this life, and through contact with them, observing their behavior, listening to their speech, have begun to taste something of the wonder of God, have come to know God as someone marvelously exciting, and have been led- led into a personal relationship with God through faith in Christ, those results, that fruit, likewise will abide, and abide eternally. I marvel at the condescension of our Lord, but thus it is. He says, you did not choose me, but I chose you, and I appointed you that you should go and bear fruit. And then, says he, your fruit should remain. My fruit? Did I produce it then? Well, in one sense, no. Without him, I could have done nothing. He had to supply all the wherewithal. He had to maintain me. It was the Father who was the husbandman. They did eat all, and yet when the result is accomplished, he genuinely deigns to call it our fruit. For this process is not one that swamps our personality. We are not just impersonal branches, pipes, channels in which some almighty being pours out his, uh, blessings. We are personalities that, though joined to Christ, retain their personality. Indeed, in being joined to Christ, develop our personality as God who designed it and knows its potentials, um, developing it to the full. And the fruit that is the result, though Christ was its source, is genuinely described as our fruit, and we shall see it and we enjoy the sight of it eternally.