Latest / Reformed Thinking / Apart from Me, Nothing: Abiding in Christ for Much Fruit (John 15:5)

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Apart from Me, Nothing: Abiding in Christ for Much Fruit (John 15:5) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome back to the show. We are calling this Reformed
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  Thinking and if you are a regular listener, well, you know
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  the drill. You know what we do here?
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  Right. We take a huge stack of sources,
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  sermons, heavy theological commentaries, essays, and we try
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  to wring them out like a wet towel.
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  Just to get every single drop of insight we can.
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  Yeah, we aren't here to just skim the surface.
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  We want to understand what is actually going on in the text.
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  And we have a pretty heavy 1 today.
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  We really do. We are taking a deep dive into
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  John chapter 15, verse 5. I am the vine, you are the
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  branches. A classic.
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  It is, and I have to admit when I first saw this on the
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  schedule, I thought, OK, this is the nice comforting verse.
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  You know, coffee mug verse. Right with the one my
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  grandmother had cross stitched and hung up in her kitchen.
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  It feels very safe. Yeah, very pastoral.
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  It definitely feels that way on the surface, but the sources we
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  are looking at today take a very different.
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  Angle A much sharper angle. Yeah, they argue that this isn't
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  just a comforting pastoral image.
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  It is actually a verdict. It is a gavel coming down on the
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  human ego. A verdict.
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  I mean, that is a really strong word to use for a verse about
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  gardening. It is the only word that fits
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  once you look at the context. If you really read what Jesus is
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  saying here, he is completely dismantling the way we naturally
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  think about ourselves. He is taking the modern world
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  view and flipping it upside down.
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  And flipping it on its head. So let's start right there,
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  because we live in a culture that has a very specific script
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  for how life works. I was I was walking through an
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  airport bookstore the other day and I stopped to look at the
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  business and self help section. I can only imagine the titles.
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  Oh, they were all saying the exact same thing.
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  Unleash the giant within the champion in you.
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  Manifest your destiny. Is the air we breathe in our
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  culture? It really is.
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  I even saw an ad for a fitness app that literally said
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  everything you need is already inside you.
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  Which sounds great. It does.
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  It feels good, makes me feel capable and strong.
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  So why is that such a problem? Well, it is a problem because it
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  is a lie. A very flattering lie, but still
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  a lie. Sociologists call it expressive
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  individualism. Right, but theologically it is
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  just the ancient era of self-reliance.
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  The underlying idea is that the human self is a battery.
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  OK, a battery. Yeah, like you come into the
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  world charged up, or maybe you have a generator humming inside
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  you, and if you just crank it hard enough, if you just dig
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  deep enough into your own soul, you can produce the life you
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  want. So when I hit a wall, the
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  cultural advice is always just try harder.
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  Try harder or look within. Look to your own truth.
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  But what happens when you look within and you just find fear or
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  you find weakness? Or you find that you actually do
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  not have the resources to handle the cancer diagnosis.
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  Or the divorce, or some massive moral failure.
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  That is the exact moment the self help gospel completely
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  collapses it. Crushes you.
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  Because it tells you that you are God and frankly, you make a
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  terrible. God, and that is the setup for
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  John 15. That is the core conflict.
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  We really have to set the scene here, because this isn't Jesus
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  giving a pleasant daytime seminar on a sunny Tuesday
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  afternoon. This is the upper room.
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  Or maybe they have just left the room and are walking through the
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  dark toward the Garden of Gethsemane.
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  But either way, it is the night before he dies.
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  The atmosphere must have been incredibly tense.
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  Tense does not even begin to cover it.
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  Jesus knows everything that is coming.
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  He knows Judas has already sold him out.
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  Right. He knows Peter, bold, loud,
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  confident Peter is going to deny him before the sun even comes
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  up. And he knows the rest of the
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  disciples are just going to scatter.
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  Like frighten children into the night.
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  So if you are a leader in that situation, what do you naturally
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  do? Conventionalism says.
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  You give a pep talk, you build them up.
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  You say guys, I know it looks bad right now, but I believe in
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  you. You have what it takes to get
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  through this. Dig deep.
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  You are strong, you are capable. Don't give up.
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  But Jesus does the exact opposite of that.
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  He looks at these men whose courage is about to completely
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  evaporate, and he gives them a brutal reality check.
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  He says I am the vine, you are the branches.
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  Apart from me, you can do nothing.
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  Nothing. He strips them of their autonomy
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  right there on the spot. He tells them.
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  Essentially, you think you have a tank of gas inside you.
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  You do not. You don't even have an engine.
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  You are a branch, and a branch that isn't connected to the
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  trunk is just a dead stick on the ground.
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  That is genuinely offensive. I mean, nobody likes to be told
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  they're completely helpless. It goes against everything.
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  From kindergarten up, we are taught you can be whatever you
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  want to be. It insults our pride and that is
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  why the gospel is always offensive before it is
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  comforting. We always want to bring
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  something to the table. We want to be partners with God.
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  The mindset is God does his part and I do my part.
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  We split the work. But this text says no.
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  This is about union with Christ, union with.
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  Christ, that is the center of the target here.
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  It is a heavy theological term. It is, but it is vital.
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  The sources we are using today are very aligned with the
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  Westminster Confession, which points out that our
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  sanctification, our growth and holiness isn't us getting
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  stronger and needing Jesus less over time.
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  It is the opposite. It is US realizing we never had
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  any strength to begin with. So the gold isn't to eventually
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  graduate from the vine, The goal is to get stuck to it.
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  Permanently grafted to it. That is literally the only hope
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  we have. OK, I want to dig into the
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  imagery itself because Jesus didn't just pick a vine at
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  random. No, he didn't.
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  He didn't look out the window, spot a plant and say, oh, look,
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  a vine. That works for an analogy.
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  He is speaking to Jewish men who knew their Bible inside and out.
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  So when he says I am the vine, that had to trigger something
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  very specific for them. It triggered 1000 years of
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  National History. You have to understand the vine
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  wasn't just an agricultural crop for Angel Israel.
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  It was their national symbol. It was like the American eagle
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  or the British lion. He was actually stamped on their
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  coins, wasn't? It it was everywhere.
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  In fact, Josephus, the 1st century Jewish historian, tells
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  us that on the front of the Herodian Temple, which was
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  standing right there in Jerusalem at that moment,
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  there's a massive solid gold vine.
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  The golden vine over the temple doors.
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  Huge. It was an absolute marvel of the
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  ancient world. People would donate pure gold
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  just to add a single leaf or a little cluster of grapes to it.
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  Wow. It represented Israel's identity
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  as God's chosen people. The mindset was we are the vine
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  that God himself planted. So they looked at that golden
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  vine and felt pride. Security.
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  Ultimate security. We are the people, We have the
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  law, we have the temple, we are the planting of the Lord.
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  But there is a dark side to this imagery in the Old Testament
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  too, and the disciples would have definitely known this.
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  You were talking about the prophets Isaiah.
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  Five. Isaiah 5.
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  Psalm 80. Jeremiah 2.
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  The prophets keep bringing up this vine imagery, but it is
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  never a happy story when they do.
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  No, it is a tragedy. And Isaiah 5, God sings a song
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  about his vineyard. He says I dug it up.
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  I cleared the stones. I planted the choicest vine.
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  I built a watchtower. He did everything right.
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  He cultivated it perfectly. He gave them every possible
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  advantage. Proximity, privilege, Divine
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  revelation. And then he says, I looked for
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  it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.
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  Now wild grapes sounds almost romantic, like rustic and
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  natural. The Hebrew word there is much
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  harsher. It is closer to stinking things.
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  Stinking things. Putrid, rotten berries, Sour,
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  totally inedible fruit. God is saying I gave you
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  absolutely everything and you gave me injustice in return.
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  You gave me idolatry. You gave me empty, dead
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  religion. So the history of Israel is
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  essentially the history of a failed vine.
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  That is right, it is a vine that turned degenerate.
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  Jeremiah chapter 2 literally calls them a degenerate wild
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  vine. So let's Fast forward to the
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  night before the crucifixion. Jesus stands there, maybe even
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  walking past the shadow of that very temple with the massive
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  golden vine, and he says I am the true vine.
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  The Greek word there is alathinos, right?
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  Philothenos. Yes, it means genuine, real, the
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  actual substance. The reality instead of the
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  shadow. He is saying Israel was the
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  shadow. I am the reality.
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  Israel totally failed to produce fruit.
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  I will succeed where they failed.
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  That is a massive theological claim.
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  He is basically replacing the entire nation with himself.
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  He is completely re centering the people of God.
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  This is a monumental shift in redemptive history.
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  Up until this specific moment, if you wanted to be right with
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  God, you had to be part of the nation of Israel.
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  You had to be connected to the land, you needed the temple, you
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  needed the ethnic heritage. You had to be a branch on the
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  Israel vine. Right.
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  But Jesus is announcing that old Vine is withered.
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  It is done. I am the new living source of
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  Covenant life. So geography doesn't matter
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  anymore. Ethnicity doesn't matter at all.
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  Only connection to Him matters now.
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  The location of God's people is no longer on a map, it is a
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  person. If you're in him, you are in the
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  vine. If you are not in him, it does
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  not matter if you have the literal blood of Abraham in your
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  veins. It does not matter if your
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  grandfather was a famous preacher.
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  You are a dead stick. You are cut off.
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  That brings up a crucial distinction from our sources,
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  the difference between external association and organic union.
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  Organic Union. That is the key phrase we need
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  to grasp. Explain how that works with the
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  branches. Well, you can take a dead branch
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  off the ground and physically tie it to a living vine with a
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  piece of twine. It might look like it belongs
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  there from a distance. It might hang in the right spot
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  on the trellis, but there is 0 actual life flowing into it.
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  That is, the person who goes to church every Sunday, sits in the
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  usual Pew, sings the familiar hymns, but has no actual heart
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  connection to Christ. They are tied on, but they
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  aren't grafted in, and because they aren't grafted in, there is
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  no SAP flowing into them. And no SAP means zero fruit.
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  None. Which brings us right to the
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  core command of this passage. Because if the connection is
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  everything, then maintaining that connection is the only
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  thing that actually matters. Jesus says abide in me.
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  The Greek word is meno. Let's talk about that word meno,
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  because abide is one of those words that sounds very churchy.
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  It is a stained glass word. It sounds like something you do
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  while wearing a monk's robe in a monastery.
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  What does it actually mean in plain language?
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  It is a very humble, concrete word in Greek.
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  It just means to remain, to stay put, to dwell, to take up
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  permanent residence. It is the complete opposite of
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  just visiting. Right.
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  It is not a weekend trip to a hotel.
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  It is a marriage. It is a settled address where
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  you live your life. But we need to be careful here,
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  because people tend to pour their own modern meanings into
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  this word. They really do, and the sources
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  we reviewed are very helpful in defining what abiding is not.
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  Let's run through the negatives first.
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  What is it not? First off, it is not mysticism.
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  OK, define that because I think a lot of listeners here abide in
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  me and they immediately picture sitting in a dark quiet room
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  emptying their mind and just waiting for a spiritual shiver.
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  Right. They are essentially chasing an
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  impression, a subjective feeling.
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  They say things like I really felt God today, which.
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  Is fine, but. It is fine, but feelings are
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  completely volatile. They go up and down depending on
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  your blood sugar or how much sleep you got last night or
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  traffic. If abiding depends on you
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  feeling a spiritual buzz, then you are going to be in and out
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  of the vine 10 times a day. Exactly.
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  Jesus is not commanding a mood. He is not commanding a mood.
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  He is commanding a position you stay put regardless of how you
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  happen to feel on a Tuesday morning.
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  OK, so it isn't mysticism. What is the second error?
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  The second error is passivity. Is this the whole let go and let
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  God idea? Yes, that is a very popular
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  bumper sticker slogan. Just let go and let God.
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  It sounds very pious. Very humble.
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  It sounds like you are surrendering, but if you take it
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  literally as a theology, it is total poison.
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  Why is it poison? Because it implies that you
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  shouldn't actually do anything, that human effort is somehow
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  fleshly or bad. But just look at the
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  agricultural metaphor Jesus is using.
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  Does a branch just hang there doing nothing?
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  No, it pushes out leaves. It pushes out heavy grapes.
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  There is intense biological activity happening.
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  So the Christian life involves real effort.
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  Massive, strenuous effort. We strive, we run the race, we
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  fight the good fight. But, and this is the vital
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  distinction, the source of the energy for that effort is not
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  us. It is the SAP.
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  The branch works, but it works only because the life of the
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  vine is driving it from the inside out.
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  It is dependent effort. I think Dallas Willard said
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  something like grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed
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  to earning. That is a brilliant way to
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  phrase it. So I work hard, yeah, but I
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  don't work to create these spiritual life.
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  I work because I already have the life flowing into me.
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  Right, you are operating from life, not for life.
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  And that leads to the third error, which is perfectionism.
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  Perfectionism, right? This is for the person listening
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  right now who thinks I lost my temper with my kids this morning
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  so I must not be abiding. I have totally severed the
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  connection. We have I all felt that shame,
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  the voice that says I blew it, I failed, so I need to hide from
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  God until I clean myself up. But abiding actually means the
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  opposite of hiding. It means when you blow it, you
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  don't run away, you run to the vine.
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  You don't make peace with the sin.
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  No, you bring the sin directly to the vine for cleansing and
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  forgiveness. A branch might get battered by a
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  severe storm, it might get bent or twisted by the wind, but it
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  holds onto the trunk. It doesn't detach itself just
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  because it took a hit. That is right.
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  So if abiding isn't sitting in the dark, and it isn't doing
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  nothing, and it isn't being completely flawless, how do we
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  actually do it? What are the practical mechanics
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  of a dieting? Jesus gives us the clear answer
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  just a couple of verses later in verse 7 He says if you abide in
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  me and my words, abide in you. My words, the word.
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  It is word shaped. Yeah.
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  This is where the Reformed tradition is so incredibly
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  helpful. We talk a lot about the ordinary
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  means of grace. We don't need to invent new
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  spiritual technologies or flashy programs.
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  We abide by letting the Scriptures dwell in US richly.
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  So when I sit down and open my Bible in the morning, even if I
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  am exhausted, even if I don't feel any kind of emotional ZAP,
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  I am actively abiding. You are in taking the mind of
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  Christ. That is the connection point and
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  that intake naturally leads to prayer.
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  Jesus. This follows up by saying ask
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  whatever you wish and it will be done for you.
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  Now hold on a second. That sounds like a blank check.
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  Ask whatever you wish. Can I ask for a Ferrari?
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  Can I ask for my favorite team to win the championship?
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  You can physically say the words, but if you are truly
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  abiding, you probably won't ask for those things.
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  Why not? Because the condition for that
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  promise is if my words abide in you, If the Word of Christ is
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  completely saturating your mind and your heart, it fundamentally
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  changes what you want. Your desires shift.
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  You stop wanting the Ferrari and you start wanting patience.
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  You start wanting the ability to love your difficult neighbor.
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  You start wanting the things that God himself wants.
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  So the prayer just becomes an echo of God's own heart back to
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  Him. It aligns your will with His
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  will perfectly overtime. And then flowing right out of
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  that there is obedience. Jesus says if you keep my
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  commandments, you will abide in my love.
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  That sounds a bit like a transaction though, doesn't it?
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  If you obey, then I will love you.
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  It is not a condition for the relationship to exist in the 1st
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  place. It is a condition for the
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  enjoyment of the relationship. OK, I'm back then.
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  Think about a human marriage. If I completely ignore my wife,
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  if I am consistently rude to her, if I never listen to a word
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  she says, am I still married to her?
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  Legally, yes. Legally, the covenant is still
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  intact, but am I abiding in her love?
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  Am I enjoying the warmth and intimacy of that union?
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  No, you are living like a hostile stranger in your own
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  house. Precisely so.
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  Obedience is how we experience the closeness of Christ.
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  It is how we stay in the active flow of His love.
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  Theologians refer to this as the third use of the law.
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  The moral law guides our gratitude.
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  We obey because we are already deeply loved, not to convince
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  God to love us. That makes perfect sense.
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  So we have the vine. We have the command to abide.
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  Now let's talk about the result of all this, the output.
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  Jesus says he it is that bears much fruit.
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  Much fruit. It is an absolute expectation of
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  abundance. I have to play devil's advocate
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  here again, because in the modern church world, especially
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  in the West, when we hear the word fruit, we immediately think
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  of numbers. We think of measurable success.
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  The industrial model how many people are in the seats on
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  Sunday? How many podcast downloads?
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  How many converts this month? Metrics.
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  Right. So if I'm a pastor and my church
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  attendance isn't growing, am I not abiding?
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  If I have a Christian businessman and my company goes
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  bankrupt, is that a lack of fruit?
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  That is a very dangerous, pragmatic way to read the Bible
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  because you can acquire all of those things, crowds, money,
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  massive cultural influence without Jesus A.
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  Secular tech corporation can have explosive growth.
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  Can have explosive growth. You can build a massive
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  religious organization relying entirely on human charisma,
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  slick marketing, and really good coffee.
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  But that is not the fruit Jesus is talking about.
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  Not at all. The theological sources are
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  humanimous here. Fruit is character.
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  It is the moral profile of Jesus Christ reproduced in the life of
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  the believer. We are talking about Galatians
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  5. Lovejoy, peace, patience,
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  kindness, goodness, faithfulness.
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  Look at the immediate context of John 15.
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  Jesus talks my joy being in you. He talks about loving one
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  another. He talks about laying down one's
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  life for his friends. So true fruit is internal before
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  it is ever external. It is inevitably external
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  because love acts, but it starts with who you actually are.
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  You can be a high performing leader who is arrogant, harsh
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  and utterly impatient. You might have results, but you
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  don't have fruit. You have what one of the sources
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  called plastic grapes tape to a dead branch.
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  Plastic grapes tape to a dead branch.
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  That is a haunting image. It should keep us awake at
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  night. We desperately need to
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  distinguish between spiritual gifts and spiritual fruit.
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  Gifts versus. Fruit.
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  A man can have an incredible gift for public preaching.
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  He can have a natural gift for visionary leadership.
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  Those things are given by the Spirit for the functional sake
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  of the Church, but a man can exercise those public gifts
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  while his private heart is miles away from God.
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  We see it all the time, sadly, the scandal of the celebrity
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  pastor who suddenly falls. He had massive gifts.
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  He didn't have any fruit. And real fruit takes time to
• 18:37
  grow, doesn't it? That is the whole nature of the
• 18:39
  agricultural metaphor. You can build a brick wall in a
• 18:42
  single afternoon. You cannot force a grape to
• 18:45
  ripen in a day. It requires changing seasons.
• 18:47
  It requires rain, it requires the hot sun, and it requires the
• 18:52
  active work of the vine dresser. Let's talk about him, the
• 18:55
  father, because his role in this analogy is, well, it is sharp.
• 18:59
  He is holding a knife. Every branch that bears fruit,
• 19:03
  he prunes that it may bear more fruit.
• 19:06
  That is the part nobody puts on the inspirational coffee mug.
• 19:09
  God wants to cut you. But we have to understand the
• 19:12
  vast difference between the two types of cutting happening in
• 19:15
  this passage. OK, what are the two types?
• 19:17
  There is the cutting off of the completely dead branch in verse
• 19:21
  6. That is divine judgement.
• 19:23
  That is the fire. That is the stinking grapes from
• 19:25
  Isaiah 5 being dealt with. Right, but then there is the
• 19:29
  cutting of the living food bearing branch that is pruning,
• 19:33
  and the motivation behind that blade is completely different.
• 19:36
  It feels exactly the same to the branch, though pain is pain.
• 19:40
  It feels the same in the moment, sure, but the intent is pure
• 19:43
  love. Pruning is not punishment.
• 19:46
  I really need you to say that again.
• 19:47
  Yeah, because when I am going through a season of suffering,
• 19:49
  my default setting is always God is mad at me.
• 19:53
  What did I do wrong to deserve this?
• 19:55
  That is the voice of karma talking.
• 19:57
  It is not the voice of the gospel.
• 19:59
  If you are genuinely in Christ, God's righteous anger was
• 20:02
  completely exhausted on the cross.
• 20:05
  There is 0 punishment left for you.
• 20:07
  So what is actually happening when the knife cuts?
• 20:09
  The vine dresser is cultivating you.
• 20:11
  Why does he have to cut though? Why can't he just let us grow
• 20:15
  wild and free? Have you ever actually seen a
• 20:17
  wild, unpruned Grapevine? I can't say that I have.
• 20:21
  It is an absolute mess. It grows these long spindly
• 20:25
  runner shoots in every direction.
• 20:26
  It produces a massive amount of big green leafy foliage.
• 20:30
  So it looks lush. It looks very impressive from
• 20:33
  the road, but the actual grapes are tiny, bitter and sour.
• 20:37
  Why? Because the life energy of the
• 20:39
  plant is being entirely wasted on the foliage.
• 20:41
  It is focused on outward appearance, not actual fruit.
• 20:44
  Spot on. So the expert mind dresser comes
• 20:46
  along and he aggressively cuts back.
• 20:49
  The sucker shoots. He cuts back all the useless
• 20:51
  overgrowth. He removes the things that are
• 20:53
  draining the life SAP. In our daily lives, what does
• 20:56
  that pruning actually look like? It might be a career ambition
• 20:59
  that has slowly turned into an idol.
• 21:01
  You are pouring all your mental and emotional energy into
• 21:04
  climbing the ladder and God says this is stealing your heart from
• 21:07
  me and he cuts it. Maybe you get passed over for
• 21:11
  the promotion or you lose the job entirely.
• 21:14
  Or maybe it is a relationship that is subtly pulling you away
• 21:17
  from him. Or maybe it is just your
• 21:18
  physical health. He removes your illusion of
• 21:21
  self-sufficiency so that you are forced to rely entirely on the
• 21:25
  SAP. So the pain of pruning is
• 21:27
  actually a compliment from God. It is a supreme sign of value.
• 21:30
  You don't bother pruning a random weed in the ditch.
• 21:32
  You prune a prize winning rose Bush.
• 21:35
  You prune A valuable vineyard. The fact that he is actively
• 21:38
  working on you means he expects to harvest from you.
• 21:42
  It totally reframes our suffering.
• 21:44
  It is an abandonment. It is careful preparation.
• 21:47
  It is intimate, fatherly care. Yes, a little pivot now to the
• 21:50
  second-half of verse 5, because we have talked about the vine
• 21:54
  and the fruit and the pruning process, but then Jesus just
• 21:57
  drops the hammer. This is the phrase that always
• 22:00
  stops me dead in my tracks. Apart from me, you can do
• 22:02
  nothing. The anatomy of Nothing.
• 22:05
  Now I have to be the skeptic here again.
• 22:08
  Nothing really, because I look around the world and I see
• 22:12
  people who want absolutely nothing to do with Jesus doing
• 22:16
  some pretty amazing things. Sure they are.
• 22:17
  I mean look at Elon Musk, he is building rockets that literally
• 22:21
  land themselves back on the launchpad.
• 22:23
  It isn't nothing. No, it is incredible
• 22:25
  engineering. Look at a.
• 22:26
  Brilliant surgeon who happens to be a staunch atheist.
• 22:29
  She walks into an operating room, meticulously repairs a
• 22:32
  human heart valve, and saves a life that is a tangible,
• 22:36
  beautiful something. It is a wonderful something.
• 22:39
  So is Jesus just exaggerating here?
• 22:42
  Is he using hyperbole to make a spiritual point?
• 22:45
  Like you can't do much or you'll have a really hard time without
• 22:47
  me. No, he means literally nothing,
• 22:50
  but we have to define our terms carefully here.
• 22:53
  If we don't, we end up in this weird fundamentalist space where
• 22:56
  we just deny observable reality. So how do the sources handle
• 22:59
  this? They make a vital distinction
• 23:01
  between what the Reformers called civil good and spiritual
• 23:04
  fruit. OK, break that distinction down
• 23:06
  for us. Civil good is purely horizontal.
• 23:09
  It is righteousness measured before other men.
• 23:12
  Can an atheist engineer build a suspension bridge that doesn't
• 23:15
  fall down? Yes.
• 23:17
  Can an unbeliever love his kids and provide for his family?
• 23:21
  Yes. Can someone who hates God write
• 23:24
  a breathtaking Symphony? Yes.
• 23:26
  And how is that possible if they are totally depraved?
• 23:29
  Because of common grace. They are still made in the image
• 23:32
  of God. That is right.
• 23:34
  They have a functioning brain. They have logic, they have deep
• 23:37
  creativity. God generously gives those
• 23:39
  natural gifts to both the just and the unjust.
• 23:41
  But, and this is the massive theological but those civil
• 23:45
  works have absolutely no eternal value in the Kingdom of God.
• 23:49
  They don't count at. All they do not count as
• 23:51
  righteousness before the throne of God.
• 23:52
  They don't please God in any kind of saving or relational
• 23:55
  sense. Why not?
• 23:55
  The bridge stays up, the heart valve works.
• 23:58
  Because they aren't done for His ultimate glory, and they aren't
• 24:00
  done in conscious reliance on Him.
• 24:03
  So the atheist surgeon saves the physical life.
• 24:05
  But if she does it for her own professional glory, or for a
• 24:08
  massive paycheck, or just out of humanitarian pride while
• 24:12
  actively rejecting her creator, the ACT is socially useful.
• 24:15
  We are all very glad she did it. But spiritually?
• 24:18
  Spiritually, it is a dead work. It isn't fruit because it didn't
• 24:22
  grow from the vine. That is a very heavy
• 24:24
  distinction. It is the exact difference
• 24:26
  between a plastic apple and a real apple.
• 24:29
  A plastic apple can look completely perfect.
• 24:31
  It can sit in a nice bowl and decorate a dining room
• 24:34
  beautifully. But you can't eat it.
• 24:37
  It has zero actual life inside it.
• 24:40
  Jesus is talking exclusively about works that possess eternal
• 24:44
  life. The Greek syntax in this phrase
• 24:46
  is pretty emphatic, isn't? It it is incredibly strong
• 24:48
  course MMO few apart from me and then Jesus uses a double
• 24:52
  negative. Oh Dinas, they plan Udin.
• 24:55
  Which translates literally as. You are not able to do not one
• 24:58
  thing. No one single thing.
• 25:00
  It is an absolute, unyielding verdict of human inability, and
• 25:03
  this connects directly back to the Reformed doctrine of total
• 25:06
  depravity. I know that is a scary term for
• 25:08
  a lot of people to hear. It is widely misunderstood.
• 25:11
  People hear total depravity and they instinctively think it
• 25:16
  means every human being is as bad as they could possibly be.
• 25:18
  Like everyone is secretly a serial killer.
• 25:21
  But clearly we aren't all as bad as we could be.
• 25:24
  Right. Total depravity does not mean we
• 25:26
  are as bad as possible. It means the corruption of sin
• 25:29
  is total in its extent. It infects every single part of
• 25:33
  us, our mind, our will, our emotions, our desires.
• 25:37
  The whole system is compromised. And it means we are totally,
• 25:40
  completely unable to restore ourselves to spiritual life.
• 25:43
  One of the sources use the battery versus branch analogy
• 25:47
  and I thought that was incredibly helpful for
• 25:49
  visualizing. This it is the best way to
• 25:51
  picture it. We constantly tend to live like
• 25:53
  batteries. We think, OK, I will go to
• 25:55
  church on Sunday morning, sing some songs, listen to the
• 25:58
  sermon, get fully charged up, and then I will run on that
• 26:01
  spiritual charge for the rest of the week at work.
• 26:03
  God, just give me a quick boost. Give me strength to handle this
• 26:06
  annoying meeting on Tuesday. Give me patience for my
• 26:09
  toddlers. We treat God like a gas station
• 26:12
  and ourselves like the car. We want Him to fill our tank
• 26:15
  tank so we can drive away and do our own thing.
• 26:17
  But a branch does not work like a car or a battery.
• 26:20
  A branch has 0 storage capacity, None whatsoever.
• 26:25
  You cannot fill a branch with SAP, cut it off from the trunk,
• 26:28
  put it on a shelf and expect it to stay alive.
• 26:31
  It requires A continuous moment by moment flow of life from the
• 26:35
  trunk. So the very moment the
• 26:37
  connection is severed. The life stops instantly.
• 26:40
  It might stay green for a day or two.
• 26:42
  And honestly, that is the most terrifying part.
• 26:44
  You can coast on past momentum. You can coast on your religious
• 26:47
  background or your vocabulary. But internally, spiritually, you
• 26:51
  are already dead with. Completely dead.
• 26:53
  This really destroys the whole self-made man myth that we love
• 26:56
  so much. It totally incinerates it.
• 26:58
  There is simply no such thing as a self-made Christian.
• 27:01
  If you have any genuine love for God today, any slight desire to
• 27:04
  pray, any real kindness in your heart toward an enemy, you did
• 27:08
  not generate that yourself. You didn't manufacture it in
• 27:11
  your own little spiritual factory.
• 27:12
  It came directly from the SAP. It is foreign righteousness
• 27:15
  working its way through you. It creates a really profound
• 27:18
  sense of humility. Doesn't.
• 27:19
  It you cannot boast about anything the apostle Paul says,
• 27:22
  what do you have that you did not receive?
• 27:26
  If I am a fruitful branch, I can't look over at a barren
• 27:29
  branch and say, well I guess I just tried a lot harder than you
• 27:32
  did. No, you just stayed connected.
• 27:34
  That is it. That is your only claim.
• 27:37
  And there is a warning here that we absolutely cannot skip over
• 27:40
  verse 6. If anyone does not abide in me,
• 27:43
  he's thrown away like a branch and Withers, and the branches
• 27:46
  are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.
• 27:49
  The fire of divine judgement. This is a diagnostic first,
• 27:52
  isn't? It it is a severe diagnostic.
• 27:54
  It warns US against the danger of a false profession of faith.
• 27:58
  There are people, we all know them, and maybe at times we have
• 28:00
  even been them, who look like they belong to the Vine.
• 28:04
  They are listed in the church directory.
• 28:05
  They know all the right theological lingo.
• 28:07
  They are tied on with the twine of cultural Christianity.
• 28:11
  But there is no actual fruit. No internal change in character,
• 28:15
  no growing love for Christ, no real hatred of their own sin.
• 28:20
  Eventually the Deadwood is revealed for what it is, and
• 28:24
  Jesus says the ultimate destiny of the Deadwood is the fire.
• 28:27
  It is a sobering warning to examine our own hearts.
• 28:30
  Are we just hanging around near the vine, or are we organically
• 28:34
  in the vine? We have to ask ourselves that
• 28:36
  question. So we have covered this
• 28:37
  incredibly high theology union with Christ, total inability,
• 28:41
  the absolute necessity of the vine.
• 28:43
  It is rigorous. It is a heavy theological
• 28:45
  lifting, but I really want to land the plane on practical
• 28:48
  application. How does this actually help the
• 28:51
  normal person listening right now?
• 28:52
  Let's talk directly to the Weary St.
• 28:54
  I really love that phrase the weary St. because there are a
• 28:57
  lot of people listening right now who are just bone tired.
• 29:00
  They're exhausted. They're trying so hard to be
• 29:02
  good Christians. They are volunteering at church,
• 29:05
  They're reading all the right books.
• 29:06
  They're trying to raise godly kids in a culture that feels
• 29:09
  like it has gone crazy and they just feel weak.
• 29:12
  They feel like they are constantly failing.
• 29:15
  John 15 is the absolute best news in the world for that
• 29:18
  specific person because notice very carefully what Jesus does
• 29:22
  not command here. He does not look at us and say
• 29:25
  be strong like a vine. Wow, that is a massive relief.
• 29:29
  He says you are a branch. Think about the physical nature
• 29:33
  of a branch. It is thin.
• 29:35
  It is woody. It is incredibly fragile.
• 29:37
  If you step on a branch, it snaps in half.
• 29:40
  It cannot even support its own weight, let alone the weight of
• 29:42
  a massive cluster of fruits. So Jesus actually expects us to
• 29:46
  be weak. He designed us to be weak that.
• 29:48
  Is the whole point of the metaphor.
• 29:50
  He isn't looking for you to be a spiritual powerhouse, He is the
• 29:53
  powerhouse. He is looking right at you and
• 29:55
  saying I know you are totally empty.
• 29:57
  I know you are exhausted. That is exactly why I'm here.
• 30:01
  I don't need your strength, I need your connection.
• 30:03
  It takes all the crushing pressure of religious
• 30:05
  performance right off your shoulders.
• 30:07
  You do not have to manufacture the life, you just have to sit
• 30:10
  there and receive it. It's like yelling at a swimmer
• 30:13
  who is drowning in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
• 30:16
  You don't say swim harder. You say stop trying to swim to
• 30:20
  shore, just grab the life raft and hold on for dear life.
• 30:24
  So our daily prayer changes drastically instead of waking up
• 30:27
  and saying God please make me strong enough to handle
• 30:30
  everything today. It becomes God.
• 30:32
  I absolutely cannot do this today.
• 30:34
  You have to do it through me, flow through me.
• 30:36
  That is the honest prayer of the branch, yes.
• 30:39
  Now. What about the corporate church?
• 30:41
  We talked briefly about the industrial model earlier, but if
• 30:45
  we take John 15 seriously as congregations, how does it
• 30:49
  change the way we actually do church on a Sunday?
• 30:52
  It demands A radical return to simplicity.
• 30:55
  The sources we looked at are highly critical of the seeker
• 30:58
  sensitive movement and the entertainment model of modern
• 31:01
  church. The fog machines, the laser
• 31:03
  lights, the concert atmosphere. We have convinced ourselves that
• 31:06
  if we just create the perfect sensory atmosphere, if we market
• 31:09
  the sermon series correctly, we can somehow create spiritual
• 31:12
  life in the room. But we are just taping more
• 31:15
  plastic grapes onto dead branches.
• 31:17
  It looks fantastic from a distance, the parking lot is
• 31:20
  full, but it does not feed a single soul.
• 31:23
  One of the old preachers used to say you can entertain a goat
• 31:26
  with a light show, but you can only feed a sheep with the pure
• 31:29
  word of God. So the call is to abandon the
• 31:31
  gimmicks and go back to the ordinary means.
• 31:33
  Word, sacrament and prayer. It isn't flashy.
• 31:37
  It isn't going to win any cultural awards for innovation,
• 31:41
  but it is the literal channel where the SAP flows.
• 31:44
  The Lord's Supper fits so perfectly right here.
• 31:47
  It is the ultimate visual aid for John 15.
• 31:50
  Why do we physically eat bread and drink wine?
• 31:52
  We are physically acting out the spiritual reality that we have
• 31:55
  zero life in ourselves. We have to take life in from the
• 31:58
  outside. We have to feed on Christ.
• 32:00
  We consume him by faith. It is a visible, tangible word
• 32:04
  of total dependence. Spot on.
• 32:07
  A church that fiercely centers on these simple things,
• 32:09
  preaching the text of the Bible, praying desperately together,
• 32:12
  taking the sacraments, is a church that is actually setting
• 32:15
  itself up for real, lasting fruit.
• 32:18
  It might grow a lot slower than the mega church down the street
• 32:20
  giving away free iPads to first time visitors.
• 32:23
  It probably will grow slower, but the fruit will remain.
• 32:28
  That is the key phrase, isn't it?
• 32:30
  Fruit that remains. Not a superficial flash in the
• 32:32
  pan. Not an emotional high that fades
• 32:34
  by Tuesday, but enduring rock solid character.
• 32:39
  So as we start to wrap this deep dive up, let's synthesize
• 32:42
  everything we've talked about. The mission today was to look at
• 32:46
  John 15 verse 5 not as a cute coffee mug verse, but as a sober
• 32:51
  verdict on reality. And the final verdict is simply
• 32:53
  this. You are not the source, you are
• 32:56
  only the channel. The nothing in apart from me you
• 32:59
  can do nothing is absolute. There are no exceptions, but it
• 33:02
  is meant to paralyze us in fear. No, it is meant to drive us into
• 33:05
  his arms. Think of it like the physical
• 33:08
  law of gravity. You don't sit around complaining
• 33:10
  about gravity, you align your life with it.
• 33:11
  You respect it. Once you finally accept the
• 33:13
  reality that you can do absolutely nothing on your own,
• 33:16
  you can finally stop trying to be your own savior.
• 33:19
  You stop pretending to be the vine.
• 33:20
  You finally rest in the one who can actually do everything.
• 33:23
  That is the freedom of the gospel.
• 33:25
  I want to leave our listeners with a final concluding thought,
• 33:28
  Something to really chew on as you drive to work today or fold
• 33:32
  the laundry. Here's what I would say to you.
• 33:34
  The world is constantly screaming at you to prove
• 33:37
  yourself. Every television advertisement,
• 33:39
  every demanding boss, every single social media post is
• 33:43
  loudly whispering. Justify your existence by your
• 33:46
  output. Show us what you can produce.
• 33:49
  It is an utterly exhausting way to live.
• 33:51
  But Christ makes a completely different promise to you.
• 33:54
  He does not stand over you and say prove yourself.
• 33:56
  He simply says, abide in me. And if you do that, He promises
• 34:00
  to prove his own life through you.
• 34:03
  He takes the entire burden of proof onto himself.
• 34:06
  Your only job is just to stay put.
• 34:08
  That is a tremendous word of hope.
• 34:10
  Thank you for walking through that with us.
• 34:12
  And thank you all for listening to this deep dive on reformed
• 34:14
  thinking. We sincerely hope this
• 34:16
  discussion helps you stop striving in your own strength
• 34:18
  and start abiding in his. Until next time.