Jesus Christ is dependable for perfect happiness, John 15:1-2.Title: Jesus Christ is dependable for perfect happiness, John 15:1-2.
John 15:1 "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.
We have the present active indicative of eimi – I keep on being, the true vine.
/ ‘true’ is the adjective, a)lhqinoj[alethinos] which means true, trustworthy, faithful, dependable, and genuine. Jesus Christ is the true and dependable source of prosperity/happiness. \
Significant to the use of the vine analogy is wine production which was often associated with happiness in the ancient world, and certainly continues to be so today. A great harvest that produces an exceptional vintage of wine is a source of great joy to the vinedresser, who in this analogy is God the Father.
It is no coincidence that wine production was our Lord’s first miracle, turning water in earthen vessels (representing the word of God in man) to wine in the same vessels (representing perfect happiness in man). When the wine was given to the head waiter he said:
/John 2:10 "Every man serves the good wine first, and when men have drunk freely, then that which is poorer; you have kept the good wine until now." \
There are legalistic denominations that would lead you to believe that this is unfermented. How would that account for the words of the head waiter?
The Father’s joy is our joy. The two go hand in hand. If the Father is pleased the believer is pleased. Such is the privilege of our union with Christ.
/Wine is an analogy for happiness. Jesus Christ is dependable for perfect happiness. The cosmos makes this promise but cannot deliver because it is not the true vine.\
No believer has ever reached spiritual maturity and remained there very long without experiencing something of the great happiness which God provides for anyone who will reach that point.
/Perfect happiness is sharing the happiness of God (PSD#9), which does not depend on people or circumstances.\
The Father is the vinedresser.
/The vinedresser cultivates the soil, prunes the good branches, and removes the worthless branches. He plans, He plants, and He cultivates = Divine Decree.\
John 15:2 "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit.
/ “He takes away” does not refer to loss of salvation but to severance from the source of blessing, which is divine discipline from continued lack of communion with Christ.\
/Divine discipline comes in three stages: Warning (I stand at the door and knock), intensive, and dying discipline. \
Recovery can occur from every stage of divine discipline though it gets harder the longer you stay under it. It is exceedingly difficult to recover from dying the sin unto death. However, it has occurred.
/Hezekiah made a pact with Egypt against the advice of Isaiah the prophet. Isaiah told him that he would die, but he recovered and was given 15 more years, 1Ki 20.\
In that time Hezekiah cleaned Israel of its false God’s and when the king of Assyria came to besiege Jerusalem God struck them with a plague killing 185,000 in a day.
If you want prosperity and victory over your enemies, which in our age fight for control of our souls, then all you have to do is trust in the Lord God.
Back in verse 2, and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit.
/Pruning is suffering for blessing for the advancing believer. This is the cutting away of the excesses or distractions that every positive believer has for the purpose of bearing more fruit.\
The purpose is that we bear more fruit. Pruning cannot be done to the negative believer, for any suffering to him is only disciplinary. This is suffering for blessing. As we advance we still carry arrogance and ignorance within our thinking, which is gently pruned by the Father in His perfect timing.
/What hurts for the moment produces fruit for eternity. 2 Cor 4:17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, \
Pruning is really purging. Each clip of the pruning sheers is a clipping at the shoots of the self life so that all the energy of the believer result in production unto the glory of Christ. This is why you must love Him before this can be accomplished because you will give up much. If you are not truly motivated to do so then you make a mockery out of real Christianity as you attempt to fake it.
What you lose is not a waste, as it may seem at the time, just like the leaves and shoots and branches on the ground of the vineyard may seem like a waste, but at Autumn when the harvest is gathered you will see that whatever loss there was, was more than made up for by such a splendid vintage.
/The pruning sheers are in the hands of God the Father, they are not entrusted to man nor angel, therefore whatever is purged or severed is a part of His perfect will.\
Therefore, we must be very clear on what fruit is in this analogy.
/Fruit is divine good production, which are the works (mental, verbal and overt) of the believer who is motivated by personal love for God, directed by the word of God, and filled with the HS.\
In divine good production there is a lack of MASs and a self-motivation through the believer’s personal love for God that has come from consistent PVTD. It is a willingness to do the will of God before you even know what that will may be. It is divine good works that will be the basis of your evaluation before Christ.
/ “more fruit” – no one ever arrives; never lack the desire to grow more, love more, believe more, or produce more.\
This is why we live one day at a time and each new day brings new potentials and new opportunities for us to fulfill our personal sense of destiny. This is what keeps the Christian way of life alive and exciting and lacking the dullness and mundane nature of the natural or worldly life.
The believer who abides in Christ is constantly on the move to conquer more ground and to follow the standards of doctrine to higher and higher ground. Israel was never done conquering so that she may settle down to some utopian idea of peace. She always had to conquer and defend and she could only do so by submitting to the will of Yahweh, which unfortunately for her and fortunately for us, she did not do with any consistency.
/There is a difference between what you know and what you truly possess. Real happiness and communion with Christ cannot be imitated or simulated.\
And so, we turn again to Israel’s history.
When we look at Israel’s recorded history, we are not looking so much at the individual, but the nation as a whole. Each individual Jew had to make his own decision to believe on the saving work of the Lamb, the Messiah, who would come in the future. Yet as a nation, we are examining Israel’s link to prosperity and happiness.
/No believer in any dispensation can lose his salvation, but he can lose his communion with Christ and therefore lose his only source of true prosperity.\
/Rom 11:21-22 for if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you. Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God's kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. \
So we will look at Israel’s history in increments. Tonight we start with the Exodus that entered the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua, after 40 years in the desert.
/History of Israel part 1.\
This is in no way an exhaustive history, but in generality this will be taught over time so that you will have an idea of the dealing of Israel with God and God with Israel.
THE EARLIEST REFERENCE TO THE ISRAELITES IN ANY RECORD OUTSIDE the Old Testament occurs in an inscription on a pillar set up about 1220 B.C. by Merneptah, king of Egypt, to celebrate several victories won in the course of his reign. Among other claims to have conquered neighboring peoples, he boasts:
/ “Israel is desolate; it has no seed left.” King Merneptah of Egypt, 1220 B.C.\ |