Address—D. Rule
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#52.
Lord, we are thine.
But by thy blood.
Once the poor, guilty slaves of sin.
But thou redeemest us to God.
And made thy spirit dwell within. And hast our sinful wanderings. Born with love and patience, all divine.
As brands then, from the burning torn, we own that we are fully thine #52.
Let's pray.
You turn with me, please, to John's Gospel Chapter 17.
John's Gospel, chapter 17.
And verse 4.
I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.
And now, O Father, glorify thou me.
With thine own self.
Verse 10.
And all mine. Verse nine I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me. For they are thine, and all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them.
And now I am no more in the world. But these are in the world, and I come.
Today.
Most of us in this room know that this chapter is a prayer.
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Between the Sun, the Lord Jesus Christ and his Father.
And this prayer takes place on the during the end of his life here on earth.
He's returning to the father.
He had come to the earth with the work to do given him by his father, and he could say at this point.
And it includes the cross. But being the Son of God, he could speak the way he does. He could say I have finished the work.
Which thou gavest me to do.
And so his life on Earth had come to its end.
He had been given a place.
And had fulfilled that which was given him to do by his father. And now he was returning, he was leaving the world.
And returning to his father.
But while here in this world.
The father had given to him.
People.
We call them disciples.
And they had accompanied with him.
During particularly the last 3 1/2 years of his life.
And he had imparted to them.
That which his father had given to him in his words.
And now he is preparing them for that period of time in which they would be in the world, but he would not.
And in the few verses that we read here in this chapter.
The point that's important before my soul to bring out in connection with it is this that.
He was placing them.
Before the Father.
In that place which he had enjoyed during his life.
As the father had loved him.
So they were to be the objects of his father's love.
As He had honored and glorified the Father on earth.
So He was placing them in the position of being those who were to honor and glorify the Father on earth and Himself as well.
Those disciples have passed on.
But in this chapter we read that other disciples had been raised up and would believe.
And this afternoon we're going to.
Take off.
Some of the exhortations that he gave them before he left them.
And we're going to take them up as exhortations that he now gives to you.
And to me.
Just as He had placed the disciples at that point in a certain place in this world in relationship to the Father, so He has placed you and me in this world.
In that same way.
And he exhorts or not admonishes, but he exhorts, he encourages, he instructs us.
To carry out.
Those things.
That would honor and glorify the Father as he had done himself.
Turn back now to chapter 14 for really just 4 words out of this chapter.
But perhaps these 4 words form the real basis on which you or I are going to respond this afternoon.
To him.
Not to me, but to him.
I'm not the exhorter here.
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I'm not the one that stands before you to admonish you or to exhort you this afternoon.
If you take it that way.
You're gonna look at your watch and you're gonna at the end say, well, we had another meeting.
Let's see, I have 30 minutes or whatever until the next meeting.
And, uh, you'll put down your Bible and your hymn book and you will maybe say, oh, that was a nice meeting or something like that.
And miss everything.
It's a value to the soul.
And so the four words that we're going to take out of this 14th chapter, and I'm equally the recipient as much as you are.
What said this afternoon has as much application or more to me as it does to you, although I think it's equal to all of us.
Those 4 words are the 1St 4 words of verse 15, John 14, verse 15.
Yes, you love me.
Yes, he loves me.
The Lord Jesus this afternoon puts these words before you.
If.
You love me.
If you love me, you will respond to what I'm going to say to you.
If you love me.
Last night in the Gospel meeting, it was for those who particularly for those although for the benefit of all but the primary purpose.
Was to reach God's message to the last one.
And you will remember several times repeated that the matter was between the Lord and you.
This afternoon.
The message is to believers, children of God. And equally as last night you might have sat there and listened and enjoyed, but had the conscious sense that you weren't directly the object of the message because you had already responded to it and could say yes, Lord Jesus.
But this afternoon, the message is to you.
And it's to you to respond to it.
And the response of your heart is connected with, I believe, these 4 words.
If ye love me.
We had on the table this morning those expressions of His love to us.
Intended to stir our souls to worship and Thanksgiving and praise to Himself.
We sang, Lord, we are thine, holy thine.
Do our lives show it?
Is the present life that I'm living an expression of that truth?
That I am holy his.
Let's turn to Chapter 15.
Chapter 15.
And verse 8.
Herein is my Father glorified.
The E bear much fruit.
So shall you be my disciples.
This chapter has a lot to do with bearing fruit.
And the motivation in the heart of the Lord Jesus was that his Father be glorified in it.
The supreme purpose character of the life of the Lord Jesus on earth.
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Was to glorify God.
That was central, that was the supreme matter before him in his life.
His life here on Earth was to be lived.
Wholly. Completely.
To honor. To glorify God.
He was leaving the earth and returning to the Father's house, but he was leaving disciples on earth.
That there would be those on earth that would continue on with that purpose, the name to glorify God.
That's supreme.
For your life.
When your life is over with this earth.
Will it be that character of life?
That God was glorified.
In that life.
And so.
How was the Father glorified in his life?
By fruit bearing.
He was the corn of wheat.
That fell into the ground and died and bore much fruit.
Souls were blessed through His life and brought to the Father.
In his life he made known to all men.
That is, He presented to all men the Father.
Manifesting God in the world.
And so here in this age, first he says, herein is my father. In this way my Father is glorified. That you bear much fruit.
And in this way you will be my disciples indeed.
We own the claim that we are wholly His, and that makes us disciples.
Those who are followers of himself in our life.
Those who own his claim over us.
And as such.
It says to us.
Bear fruit. Clutch fruit.
For God's glory, the Father's glory.
So in verse chapter 15, verse one, he says I'm the true vine, my father is the husbandman.
Verse 4 Abide in me, and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except to abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. So here we start to learn a little bit about how fruit is born, so that the Father is glorified.
This chapter is primarily one of responsibility from the, can I say human side, Our side, and the Lord generally puts before us our responsibility before He brings before us what God does and what God's side of it is.
So he starts with the three words Abide in me. That's responsibility on our part.
And then God's side comes afterwards when he said in that same verse, and I in you.
God abiding in us as it's presented to us in John and in John's epistles.
It's God's side, it's his prerogative, it's his choice.
To do so.
On his own terms.
As he chooses, but when the Lord Jesus says to us, abide in me.
He's putting if you love me.
Abide in me. He illustrates a little bit what the word abide means when he says I'm a vine. The vine.
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And you're a branch.
And we have some general sense, whether we're young or old, of what it is to.
The role, if you will, of a branch in a tree or in a vine.
We know that the life and the fruitfulness of the branch depends entirely on what it receives from the source Divine.
And if in any way the branch gets disconnected from the vine, it'll be fruitless.
And consequently the Lord was saying, you can't bear any fruit if you're disconnected from me.
You must receive from me.
What I have to give you?
In order to be fruitful.
We have to receive from himself.
The words of the Father, he's the only source of them.
We can't be fruitful if we don't have the mind and heart of God operating operating in US, and the only source of it is from God Himself. And we get it through the Lord Jesus here.
There's no place for independence. There's no place for the branch to say I'll do it my way.
It has to receive, it's dependent upon the vine, and so it has to stay in fellowship with the vine, with the source, and if anything comes in to stop the flow.
Of nourishment from the vine. The branch will be fruitless.
Abide in me.
He on his part.
Will abide in.
When we abide in Him, these are This is a practical side of truth. This isn't the divine side. This is not a subject about having eternal life, really.
And all that goes along with it. In fact, and I won't go into it, but.
When it talks about a branch in the vine being cut off, it's generally been taught that Judas is an example of that.
He didn't bear fruit.
Even though he was in his life, in the vine as a branch.
And he was cut off.
But he says.
Inverse 5.
He's either to send me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit. And so that's where fruit comes from the flow.
That comes from the vine to the branch.
If I could put it this way, the love, the joy, the peace, the long-suffering, the goodness, the gentleness, the faith, the meekness, the temperance, the fruits of the Spirit in the soul have their source in the vine.
And are communicated by the Spirit.
To the vessel.
And that's fruit for God.
What?
He reminds them, as the Lord would remind you this afternoon, you're a branch and is vine. And so he would say to you and to me this afternoon without me.
You can do nothing.
Without me you can do nothing.
Sad, isn't it?
Think of a.
Of a professing.
Branch in this line, but at the end of life.
Is fruitless.
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Empty.
Nothing for the glory of God.
During the life, or that which is for the glory of God, that would remain after life is finished.
Verse 7.
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it will be done unto you.
My words abide in you.
The Lord Jesus in his life with these disciples that are specifically addressed here that were in the room when these words were said physically.
He said to them, My father gave me words.
My father gave his thoughts to me.
And I have given them to you.
Now for us it's the same.
He wants to impart, to share with us his own words, the Father's words.
You don't get them in the newspaper.
You don't get them on the Internet. Yes, I know you can get a Bible on the Internet, but I think you know what I'm saying.
The world's thoughts.
Are not God's thoughts.
And so we have to go to the source.
Which is God himself, who freely, willingly, with desire, wants to give us his words.
What is the consequence of that?
If his words abide in US.
We will.
And feel.
As God thinks and feels.
And as a practical consequence, when we ask of God, we will ask of God according to the way he thinks and feels.
Not hard, really.
But it's important.
If you ask what you will, that shall be done. Why will it be done? Because it will be that which is asked, which is been formed in us by the words that abide in us, that we have received.
From the one who gives.
From the father.
Verse 9 As the Father hath loved me.
So though I loved you.
We appreciate a statement like that, don't we?
We all enjoy being the objects.
Of the Father's love.
But in this chapter.
There's more to it than that.
The Lord was saying those words to remind them, to bring before them something to set the stage for what He's going to say next.
So he says to them.
Continue.
In my love.
Just the practical side of it.
As the Father hath loved me, so thou loved you. That's the statement of fact. But then based on that fact, he goes on then to say, Continue ye and my love.
How do we do that?
How do we do that?
How do we continue in the conscious sense and enjoyment and the fellowship of that love?
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The Lord explains it to his disciples, to you, the disciple.
It says.
If you keep my commandments.
You abide in my love, You continue in it.
Are you continuing? Am I continuing?
Remember if he loves me.
Continue.
Does my heart respond?
In practical sense of it, the response is seen in.
Keep my commandments.
Keep my commandments.
So our natural hearts say, well, Lord, what is the commandments?
What do you mean? What do you want us to do? To continue in your love as you continued. So here he he uses now he uses himself as the example.
It's good, isn't it? Not hard important though.
He so he says, if he converse, 10 If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love. And now he uses himself as an example of it. He says even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.
Look at the life of the Lord Jesus.
Trace his life out.
And you will see a man on earth who kept his father's commandments and lived a life in the enjoyment.
Of his father's love.
Obedient children get the enjoyment of their parents love.
Disobedient children are loved of their parents, but they don't get to enjoy the communion of that love.
I can still feel my spankings.
But that was love, too.
So here he says, as I have kept my father's commandments.
And abide in His love. And so here was the perfect.
Son, the perfect man.
The perfect example for us.
In two things that characterize.
A proper son of God. A proper child in God's family.
Is the verses which precede this one. Show us dependence if you ask.
This verse shows us obedience if you keep my commandments. And so every one of us is a child of God as one who the Lord Jesus wants to be a fruit bearer for the glory of God is given the pattern here of being dependent. Without me you can do nothing.
And obedient.
If you keep my commandments.
Well.
I can't answer for you.
But I can say.
Your fruit bearing is dependent.
On walking with the Lord.
Independence and inoedience.
Verse 11.
These things.
I have spoken unto you.
That my joy may remain in you.
And that your joy.
May be full.
In these final.
Words of the Lord Jesus to his disciples. He brings out three things that he wanted that were his own.
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That he wanted to share.
Lord Jesus wants to share these three things with you.
In chapter 14.
It's my piece.
I give unto you.
It's not peace with God about my sins. He had none. He didn't have any need to have a relationship. Wherefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God. That's for the Sinner.
But in his own life he walked in a way with God that he walked in peace, and he calls it in the 14th chapter of My Peace.
And he wanted the disciples to share in that, to have that same piece for their lives. We don't have time to consider that in this chapter. It's my joy.
Which is also repeated in the 17th chapter.
And also in the 17th chapter. It's my glory.
He wants us to walk with.
In the world, having placed us in that position that He had before the Father, that we might walk before the Father through this world, enjoying the peace he enjoyed in his daily life and the joy which he enjoyed in his daily life.
And when his glory comes, which is still future?
He will share that glory with us.
As we have in Chapter 17.
So here it's these things I have spoken unto you, that my joy.
Might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
He could say.
I delight to do thy will, O my God.
He lived every day of his life as a dependent, obedient man, finding his pleasure, his joy in doing his father's will.
And he says to you and I, I wanna share that with you. I want you to have an experience, the same joy that I lived in and experience in my life.
So if you live.
Independence and obedience.
In fellowship with the Father and the Son in your daily life.
You will share the fullness of joy.
That can't be found any other way. There's no other way to find it.
People live their whole lives seeking some kind of something that they would call joy or pleasure or happiness that will last. God is so created us, so developed us in a way that there are no substitutes for this one, There are no alternatives. This is the one, the only way.
I live a life of joy for a child of God.
And the Lord encouraged his disciples.
To have it.
MMM. So in verse 12 he says this is my commandment.
That you love one another.
As I have loved you.
Before we comment on that verse, or in commenting on the verse, turn to the First Epistle of John.
In the fourth chapter.
First John 4.
And verse 7.
Beloved, let us love one another.
For love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.
Umm for 16 We have known and believe the love that God hath to us. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, in God, in him.
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I want you in your mind to go back to the Sunday school this morning.
And think about the illustration that's given.
There.
In the illustration that was given this morning, there was only one source.
The water. And every time John needed water, he went back to the one and only source.
The water.
There's one and only source of divine love.
God is love, there is no other.
Divine love of that character is not an intrinsic part of our being.
We had in the Bible reading the intrinsic.
Character of God.
All love.
Originates and comes.
From God himself.
Man, naturally.
This darkness when it comes to that love.
He's not a participant in it. He's not a recipient of it in his natural condition.
But when we put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And are born from above, made part of a new creation.
And receive life.
We become a vessel that might receive it.
And so there were cups on the table.
And.
Taking one that was capable of holding the water.
The source poured water into the vessel.
That's how love, divine love, comes into us.
From its source.
We're the best. We'll love it.
It is a display.
That there's life there.
Because God pours into that vessel his own love.
Either is as it said in First John, where we read.
Everyone that loveth is born of God.
Stop being born of God, it's not possible to have it.
And that love of God is.
Put in the vessel.
Verse 16 He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
The cop becomes the recipient and it flows over.
With that in mind, go back to our chapter in the verse that we read in John 15.
He says.
Love one another.
For love is of God.
I pondered.
This quite a bit.
Wondering why does it have to say your brother? Don't we naturally as children of God love each other?
Yesterday in the reading meetings, there were quite a few words.
About proper.
Behavior toward your brother and not talking about him and so on and so forth. Why were there so many words?
Because it's often a problem.
And so in that we and quite a bit of the concentration of the words yesterday.
Was.
The proper way to?
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Love our brother.
But I want to suggest to you that.
Perhaps the greatest.
Challenge and hindrance to loving one another.
Is in ourselves.
Our brothers, the test.
Of whether there's the working of love in US.
Or if there's not, the problem is something in us which is hindering the free flow of the love of God.
And that's the root of the problem.
You have trouble loving your brother.
Sister.
I won't say 100%.
But probably the problem is something in you.
That is hindering the flow of the love of God.
In the best.
That's what needs to be taken care of.
And if that's taken care of, then God is free.
To allow the flow of His love in you, through you to your brother.
And so the Lord exhorted.
Or I wanna say them, but this afternoon. So the Lord exhorts you and I.
Love one another.
How verse 12 as I have loved you.
He puts himself again as the example.
How do what measure do I need to love my brother just like Peter once asked? How much do I have to forgive him?
The Lord here puts before us the necessary example is Himself.
I'm the standard of the character of the love that I expect you as a child, like in God's family, to love.
As I have loved you. And then he says, Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Are you laying down your life?
For your brother.
It's more than.
The thought of dying.
As a martyr or dying in some way to save your brother's life and something like that. But if I could put it this way, are you daily laying down your life?
In love to your brother.
Is your life a living sacrifice to God in love?
And love to your brother.
Verse 15. Verse 14. You're my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you henceforth I call you not servants, for the service knoweth not what is Lord doeth, but I have called you friends for the things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you.
This isn't the Good Samaritan friendship, it's in view here.
Rather, what's before the Lord here in communicating with you and I is, He said. I want you for my friend.
Servants.
They don't know the mind of their Lord or master. They're just obedient. They do what they're told. The master doesn't necessarily tell them why. He doesn't communicate his thoughts, his heart to his servants.
Abraham is called a friend of God.
And because Abraham was the friend of God, God shared with Abraham what was on his mind and in his heart.
And the Lord Jesus is here saying to us, to you.
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I want to share with you in your daily life.
I want to make known to you those things that are taking place as I see them.
Sometimes you can't do it.
You know you share things with a friend on the basis of trust.
And if you can't trust the person, you withhold certain things from them because to share it with them means to broadcast it.
And so it gets broadcast to others and causes harm.
And the Lord Jesus knows the full measure in which He can, with you individually and me, share his thoughts.
Are we trustworthy?
Do we take them from himself in his inner? There were things that the Lord with the disciples told everybody on the streets. But the Gospels make very significant distinctions when it says they went into the house because then they were going to have the the friends together to share certain things that would not be made known outside the house. And so the Lord here says, you're my friends.
Yeah, you do. But I command you, if you'll be obedient, if you'll be trustworthy in them, then I can share with you as I want to, and I will.
Or 16 You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.
Do you appreciate that? Do I?
I'm a chosen 1.
God chose me to glorify His Father on earth.
I didn't choose him.
God has chosen you.
To live in this world.
For the glory of God.
As a servant.
I have chosen you.
And ordained you. I set you apart.
That you should go and bear fruit.
Verse 19 If you were of the world, the world would love his own. But because you are not of the world, I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
Mm-hmm. I have chosen you out of the world.
Where do you live?
Yes, we live in the world, but morally, spiritually.
Inactivity and thought and pattern of life. We've been chosen out of the world.
As he was out of the world.
Again, we're put in the position before the father. That was his position while he was here and he was in the world, but he wasn't of it.
Do we accept it? Do we live it? Lord, we are wholly thine.
If he loved me.
We will respond to this.
He also in connection with it says this.
Verse 23.
He that hateth me, hateth my father also.
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Verse 25, the end of the verse. They hated me without a cause.
Isn't that enough reason for us?
Not to seek the world.
He says to his disciple.
The world hates me.
The world hates my father.
I have chosen you out of it.
He says in another place on the other side of the point is if you love the world.
The love of the Father is not in you.
It's not in you.
The end of his epistle Sean's first epistle he said the whole world lies in the wicked one.
Satan.
To oppose God's desire to glorify His Son.
In the world is that system.
It's fundamentally, basically, and how it operates and what it's interested in is a work of Satan to oppose God in his desire to have his Son honored in it.
And it hates him.
It hates his father.
He chose chooses us out of it.
And says.
Identify with me and you'll expect you'll get the same.
But that's all right. But the point is, do we accept the position? Lord, we are holy thine.
If you love me.
Then you won't love the world.
Time's up, let's pray.