Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church I Am bearing the fruit of obedience john 14:15-31; 15:1-4 03/18/2018 Main Point If we love Him, we will keep His commandments. Introduction As your group time begins, use this section to introduce the topic of discussion. How well do you handle having a boss? What qualities make up a good boss? Can you relate to a time when you did less than your best for a boss you didn t like? What qualities about a bad boss might make you perform more poorly? Having a good boss is like having a good sports coach. Good bosses know how to motivate people, they understand how to build a team, and they share credit for success in the office. Such people are a pleasure to work for and can teach us what it means to be good leaders. Bad bosses produce just the opposite effect on our attitude and our work performance. Bad bosses can ruin morale, take away incentive for hard work, and they might even gobble up all the credit when they have put in little effort themselves. These are the kinds of bosses that cause us to freshen up our resume at best and really hate life at worst. We know that Jesus isn t just our boss, He is our Lord. If we love Him, it will be a pleasure to serve Him and keep His commandments. If we love Him, Jesus will give us whatever we need for the job that He has for us to accomplish. Understanding Unpack the biblical text to discover what the Scripture says or means about a particular topic. Ask a Volunteer to read John 14:15-18. Why does Jesus have to give us another Counselor to help us keep His commands? How does the Holy Spirit help us? 1 of 5
Jesus knows that on our own, we will fail to keep His commandments. We are sinful, and even when we try to obey the Lord, we are often not wise enough to know exactly what to do to please the Lord in a situation. Therefore, the Lord Jesus didn t leave us alone; He sent us the Holy Spirit to indwell us. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will glorify me, because He will take from what is Mine and declare it to you (John 16:14). The Holy Spirit knows the mind of Christ because He, like Jesus, is fully God. The Holy Spirit ministers to us by reminding us of the teachings of Christ, by convicting us of our sins, and by guiding us through the Word so we will know how to respond to everyday situations. Ask a Volunteer to read John 14:23-25. If you love Jesus, what can you expect from God? What will happen to you if you love Jesus? Who sends the Holy Spirit to us? We have seen that if we love Christ, the Lord Jesus will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor. Here, Jesus promises that not only will the Holy Spirit abide with us, but also the Father will love him, and We [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] will come to him and make Our home with him (John 14:23). In 1 John 2:23, John teaches that no one who denies the Son can have the Father; he who confesses the Son has the Father also. If we love Jesus, we are in fellowship with the entire Trinity of God. The Lord Jesus asks the Father, and the Father sends to us the Holy Spirit on behalf of Jesus Christ. This gracious action of our Lord ensures that will receive the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, Abba, Father! (Romans 8:15). The Holy Spirit confirms to us that we are God s children, and because of this, we have the ability and boldness to live as Christ calls us to live. Ask a Volunteer to read John 15:1-4. What does it mean to remain in Christ? What does it mean for us to be pruned by God? What sort of fruit is the Lord looking for? We have seen that the Lord will send the Holy Spirit to indwell us, but in this passage, the Lord encourages us to abide in Him. We are called to have a relationship with God, and if we walk with the Lord, then we will bear fruit. The fruit that Jesus is looking for is obedience to His Word. The apostle Paul teaches us that if we remain in Christ, the fruits of the Spirit will be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control.... Since we live by the Spirit, we must also follow the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23, 25). Our obedience flows from a heart that is inhabited by the Holy Spirit, and He affects our attitudes and our actions as we abide in Christ and His Word. Application Help your group identify how the truths from the Scripture passage apply directly to their lives. How does the Holy Spirit influence us to bear fruit for Christ? How might attending our small group help us know the mind of the Holy Spirit? 2 of 5
What difference will Bible Study, prayer, and accountability make toward our actions? Pray In a time of group prayer, thank the Father for sending us the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth. Pray that our gratitude and love for Christ will compel us to do good works to glorify His name. Pray that we will continue to be convicted of our sins and encouraged in righteousness through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Commentary john 14:15-31 14:15 18. How do people know that they are Christians? How do you and I gain confidence that we are born again by the regenerating power of God s Holy Spirit? The world cannot know because the world cannot accept the Holy Spirit. But the disciples were told that the Holy Spirit lives with you and will be in you. Pentecost was still in their future, so at the present time the Holy Spirit was constantly with them. But after Pentecost, he would actually be in them and in every other believer since that day. Consequently, they were identifiable (as we are) as God s children, not orphans. What did Jesus mean by the promise at the end of verse 18: I will come to you? Some interpreters suggest this refers to the resurrection, while others see another promise of the second coming. But in the context of these verses, it surely means the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Jesus lives in us through the person and power of the Holy Spirit. 14:19 21. How well we remember the song that states, Because he lives, I can face tomorrow; because he lives, all fears are gone. Perhaps the idea for the lyrics had its birth in John 14:19. When did the disciples (later called the apostles) realize that Jesus was in the Father and that they dwelt in Him? Did they have to wait for the second coming for that? Of course not. The reference to that day must refer to the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. That frightened, hesitant group of believers huddled in an upper room knew the power of the Holy Spirit broke forth upon them because it literally blasted them around the city, around the country and around their world. 14:22 24. The Holy Spirit lives actively in us all the time; we do not need to pray for him to come to a certain meeting, or a certain occasion, or at a certain time. He is not some kind of theological or spiritual helicopter looking for a place to land. The disciples always wanted to know why Jesus treated them differently than he did the world, and we find that question again in verse 22. But the answer is always the same. Jesus reveals himself to people he knows will respond to him and obey his teaching. The key word of these three verses is obey. Again the Lord linked himself with the Father and indicated that the Father and the Son through the Spirit take up residence in the lives of believers. 14:25-26. The Holy Spirit reminds us of truth that Jesus taught. In the case of the disciples, it was an immediate application to their spiritual memories. In our case, it is assistance in understanding and applying the Word of God. In their lives and ours, constant awareness of the Spirit s presence is a daily practicality. 3 of 5
14:27 The expression peace (Hb shalom) could serve as a greeting or announce blessing upon those who enjoyed a right relationship with God (Num 6:24-26; cp. Ps 29:11; Hag 2:9). The OT prophesied a period of peace following Messiah s coming, for He is the Prince of Peace (Isa 9:6), who would proclaim peace to the nations (Zech 9:10; cp. 9:9). There would be tidings of peace and salvation (Isa 52:7; cp. 54:13; 57:19), and God would establish an everlasting covenant of peace with His people (Ezek 37:26). Jesus parting encouragement for His followers not to be troubled or fearful echoes Moses parting counsel (Dt 31:6,8). 14:31. Some scholars view the transition between 14:31 to 15:1 as a literary seam, which would indicate that John s Gospel was pieced together from different sources (one ending at 14:31; another beginning at 15:1). More likely, John is simply describing Jesus transition (Get up; let s leave this place) from the upper room to the garden of Gethsemane, where He arrived in 18:1. john 15:1-4 15:1. Though this section of our study is only two paragraphs, it is impossible to separate the components of the analogy that our Lord put forth. They appear as contrasting couplets throughout the passage. First we have the vine and the branches. This was imagery that every Jew would understand. In the Old Testament the vine appeared regularly as a symbol of Israel (Ps. 80:8 10; Isa. 5:1 2, 7; Jer. 2:21). The Father owns the garden, Jesus is the vine, and his followers are the branches. Christ and not the church is the true vine. Branches placed anywhere else are false branches. The word for gardener is georgos, the common word for farmer, a role retained by the Father himself. The vine with which these disciples would have been familiar was Israel, described in some detail in Psalm 80. There the psalmist prayed, Return to us, O God Almighty! Look down from heaven and see! Watch over this vine, the root your right hand has planted, the son you have raised up for yourself (Ps. 80:14 15). 15:2. Three types of believers are named or inferred in this first part of the chapter: those who bear no fruit, those who bear some fruit and, later in verse 5, those who bear much fruit. The fruit-bearing branches, it would appear from the text of this verse, represent true believers. But to whom does the text refer when it says, he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit? This passage is capable of dangerous interpretation, especially when the idea of fruit-bearing centers in evangelism. Some people teach that those who do not win others to Christ will themselves be snatched out of the vine. Such an idea is alien to the teaching of the New Testament. Perhaps Galatians 5:22 23 helps us here: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 15:3. The disciples, however, needed neither cutting off nor trimming clean because they had already been cleansed by the Lord s word. One thing is clear at the outset of the chapter: this is not a passage on salvation, a topic John covered in earlier chapters. Here he dealt with requirements for a fruitful life on the part of believers. 15:4-6. Another key here is the word remain (abide) which appears no fewer than eleven times in the passage. It seems to suggest an effortless resting in the Lord, confident in the promised union between the vine and the true branches. 4 of 5
Furthermore, John used the word remain forty times in his Gospel and twenty-seven more times in his epistles. In the context of this passage, it seems to emphasize an ongoing faith and loving obedience to the Father and the Son that results in fruit. The fruit in this passage seems to focus on spirit-generated behavior of Christians, though again this is not the only interpretation. Many sermons have been preached on emphasizing fruit as other people who have been influenced by the gospel. 5 of 5