From first Presbyterian Church of Chattanooga, here's Dr. Michael Milton. Union with Christ is the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation. Union with Jesus Christ is at the core of what it means to be saved. It means that you have been taken out of the world and you have been organically connected. You have been brought into the very body of Christ, Jesus Himself being the head. And you are organically forever connected to Jesus. Union with Christ is what gets you through. You're going to go through some hardships and some of you are going through some hard things today. If you have union with Jesus Christ because you have trusted in Him, you're going to be okay. Because the good shepherd says He will never let you go. You're in the palm of His hand. The Bible declares faith comes from hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ. Welcome to Faith for Living with Dr. Michael Milton, the radio outreach ministry of first Presbyterian Church of Chattanooga. A ministry with one great passion and belief that faith comes from proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ as found in God's Word. And that faith in Jesus Christ is faith for living. This week, Dr. Milton concludes a series, Life on the Vine, with a message entitled, Branching Out. No farmer is satisfied with simply planting his crops. He wants them to grow and produce a bountiful harvest. Well, when the Lord saves and implants new life into a person, he doesn't stop there. He desires each of his children to grow toward maturity in Christ, produce an abundant harvest of spiritual fruit, and play a part in advancing his kingdom throughout the world. Are you withering on the vine or branching out and producing lasting fruit from the glory of God? The Bible text for today is from John chapter 15 verses 9 through 11. Here again is Dr. Mike Milton with today's message entitled Branching Out. Well, today we're coming to the last part of this series that we call Life on the Vine, a study of John 15 verses 1 through 11 where Jesus compares our lives as disciples to branches and compares himself as the vine who gives life to the branches. And then says that his father is the gardener, and today we're going to look at the goals of the gardener for our lives as we complete this study. I have a friend that I've told you about and his name is Ted Mills. He is a retired banker and he certainly was a great banker, and he certainly is a good golfer, but I'll tell you what he's really good at, roses. In fact, he's called the rose doctor, and the reason is he knows a lot about roses. So when I came here, he gave me a gift, and you know what the gift was, he came out to my house. And with his helper, he tilled up a piece of ground and had all the additives there, just the right proper mixture, and then he planted these hybrid roses. And they were just beautiful. And he gave me careful instructions on how to keep those roses. Now he gave me the instructions, but it's very complicated because of Japanese beetles and other things that could attack him. He had to have just right insecticide applied it just the right way. And Ted can do all of this just like second nature. But he said, now if you hang this up in your garage and you follow this and on this date, well the bottom line is he called me next year and said, how are your roses? I said, they're all but dead. He said, I know what happened. You didn't follow those instructions, did you? I said, well, not all of them. Those roses were diseased. There was a lack of obedience on my part, which created their lack of life. Well, as I thought this week about that Rose Bay incidentally, just as a post script, Ted gave me these new knock out roses that it doesn't require care. And they're just blooming and they're doing great. So if you have problems, that's the way Ted remitted mine. He said, here, you probably can't kill these son. Well, you know, that just reminds me of my spiritual life. Someone asked me this week, he's a ministerial intern and he's in another community, but he drove in to talk about the ministry and his future. And he said, pastor, when you were walking away from the Lord because you knew Christ when you were child, you had heard the gospel. When you were walking away from the Lord as a prodigal son, do you think, do you think you were his disciple? Do you think you were saved? I said, well, I said, let's see, I didn't pray. I kept away from church. I went places I shouldn't go. I did things I shouldn't do according to his word, but yes, I knew the Bible could tell you all 66 books of the Bible, but is a disciple one who sits at the feet of the master? Is a disciple one who follows Jesus? What do you think? Well, how about you? How's your spiritual Rose Garden? Jesus wanted to make sure the disciples were healthy and growing. Jesus wanted to make sure that they also understood that the divine gardener's goal for their lives was joy. Now, what we're going to learn today is the pathway to that joy because there's not a person here who doesn't want that joy that Jesus talks about here. It really is amazing. As I've been loved, so you abide in my love. You keep my commandments. You'll abide in my love just as I've kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. And these things, this is kind of a comprehensive statement now, an all-inclusive statement. Everything that he's taught, these things I have spoken to you in this study we've gone through. Jesus says, these things I've spoken to you that my joy may be in you and your joy may be full. There's not a person here who doesn't desire in his own life joy. Now, when I say joy, I do not mean circumstantial happiness. Some of the most joyful, radiant Christians I know have been those who have had to go through circumstantial unhappiness. You understand what I mean? They've had things in their lives which brought unhappiness, but it could not touch the deep, indwelling joy that was placed there through the very things Jesus is talking about in this passage. So it's not circumstantial happiness. It's not a narcissistic joy. Narcissus, your remember, was a mythological figure who looked in the reflecting pool, saw his face and fell in love with himself. And we live in a rather narcissistic society, self-love, self-admiration, self-actualization. So this is not a joy that you can have. Do you think Jesus is saying my father's goal for you is just to be self-realized, is just to have a joy that will finally complete you and that's the end of it? No. This was a joy which was a full assurance of salvation, was a full assurance of Christ-loved, dwelling in them, in order that God's purposes could now be fulfilled. Jesus wanted to keep this group through the trials of his crucifixion and the persecution that would come upon them afterwards. All of his disciples, all of the twelve, would be martyred, saved John. So Jesus is not wishing for them just a happy, care-free life. He is saying that I want you to possess something that is so deep and so rich and so lasting, that whatever you go through, you can fulfill the purposes of my Heavenly Father. After all, Jesus said that He came not to be served but to serve. And is this serving any better than the Master? No. Each and every one of you have been created by God, shaped by God, called by God, equipped by God to fulfill God's purposes in this world and this time right now. Each and every one of you. Well, how do you get there? How do you come to have that joy? There's a few words I want to give you this morning from this passage to help us see how we can get on that pathway to joy. And the first word is union, union with Christ. As the Father has loved me so, if I loved you, abide in my love. If you've been with us through this study, you know that that word of bide shows up time and time again. And it means to remain. It means, as we have seen from Eugene Peterson's paraphrase, to make your home with Jesus Christ and for Jesus to make his home in your life. And that is called union. It is an organic connection between you and Jesus Christ that is fashioned by God Himself, not superficially connected but really connected. Professor John Murray of Westminster Seminary wrote much about union with Christ and I only want to quote one line from one of his books, Redemption Accomplished and Applied. He says this, union with Christ is the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation. Union with Jesus Christ is at the core of what it means to be saved. It means that you have been taken out of the world as we confessed from Scripture and you have been organically connected. You have been brought into the very body of Christ, Jesus Himself being the head and you are organically forever connected to Jesus. Do you have that union this morning? I believe it is not something that you can fashion yourself. Jesus said you must be born again with the spirit blows where it will and by that Jesus meant it is an act of God. Maybe on your heart this morning the Lord is calling you to receive Him. Maybe the wind of the Spirit is blowing your way this morning to rededicate your life to Jesus Christ. Union with Christ is what gets you through. That is what Jesus is saying. You are going to go through some hardships but just know this. If you abide in me I am going to be abiding in you and you are going to make it, you are going to be okay. Some of you are going through some hard things today and as your pastor I want to say to you from the pulpit what I would say to you if I was at your bedside or in the surgical waiting area I would say that if you have union with Jesus Christ because you have trusted in Him you are going to be okay. Because the good shepherd says He will never let you go. You are in the palm of His hand. So that is the first word that is going to lead to that joy. It is the union with Jesus and the knowledge of that leads to blessed assurance. You know on this matter of assurance there are some Christians who go through their lives and don't have assurance. Can you be saved and not have assurance? Sure. It is just a lot better journey if you know you are in Christ hand and He is never going to let you go. It is just a lot happier if you have the knowledge of God that you have union with Jesus Christ by His grace and through faith. But the Bible says that Jesus wants that for you. He wants you to have that because that leads to joy and a joyful strong healthy plant is better equipped to fulfill God's work in the vineyard. That is the first union with Jesus Christ. The second word is love. As the Father has loved me so have I love you abide in my love. If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. So there is lots here about love. In the Greek here it is the familiar word to many of you. It is agape. It is God's love. You can see this kind of love. This is the kind of love that is an energy that is a power that is existing between the triune God. This love is so powerful that when mankind falls it overflows in the sending of Jesus for God so love the world. This is the power of the universe. It is love but it is not a Hollywood love and it is not a love that some of us have that we need to get corrected. You know what a blog is? It is a diary that is electronic. Well I was on a site one site leads to another site and I was studying about love. I got the love and a headline caught me. The headline says high school reunion love story. I said this is going to be wonderful. So it starts out like this. I have finally done it. I have finally broke free of the life of a housewife and stepped out on complete faith. That one made me do a head shake. I left my children's father behind and I have moved to where my parents lived 2,000 miles away. This woman goes on to say that she has a love inside of her for a high school sweetheart called him Ray. She hadn't seen him for years but she is dissatisfied with her life the way it is. She needs to fulfill this love. So she moves across country and she goes to her former flames mother's home and she was close to his mother at one time and she goes in there talking to her about how she has left her husband and moved out back home. And about that time they look out and there is this fellow out on the street. He is on kept and he looks like what you would say pardon me but a street person. And she is surprised when the woman of the house opens the door and actually welcomes this fellow in. And then the woman says now you remember Ray, don't you? And her dream was shattered. That is not the love of Jesus Christ and that is not the love in which we abide. That is not even the love on which we base our marriages. We base our marriages and our relationships based on a love that comes to us from above. It is a love that is demonstrated in servanthood. It is a love which gives, having received, gives back. It is a love that is more concerned about the other than self. It is a love that must find expression in giving more. The third word is obedience and you can see how key that is in this passage. There is a condition again. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. How do you abide in that love, that great power, that unconditional love that is seeking to love others? That just desires more expression of servanthood. How do you get wrapped up into this great movement that is going through history? He says that you keep his commandments. So obedience is a way to joy. Obedience is a pathway, one of the paths that leads to joy. Interestingly enough, you see again that it is like love. Obedience is modeled after the obedience the sun has to the father. Someone might ask a good question. If Jesus and God the father are the same, that is the same in a sense that they are both individual persons of a triune God, why does the sun have to be obedient to the father? The father, since both persons are the one God. Maybe he didn't ask that question. It is a pretty thoughtful question. Why did Jesus have to be obedient? Because even though Jesus was essentially in nature, in attributes, the same as the father, yet in the role relationship between father, son and Holy Spirit, the son was completely submissive to the father. He says, I only do what the father tells me to do. I only reveal what the father wants me to reveal. He was an obedient son all the way to death on the cross which was God's will so that sinners could be saved through the atonement of Jesus Christ. He was obedient unto death. We are told in Scripture. And we are told that our obedience should be like that. Now you ask another question perhaps you say, but we preach so much here and talk so much here about grace. Is there a conflict between law and love, between grace and obedience? Paul heard the Romans asking that question. He responds, what then? Are we to sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin which leads to death or of obedience which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin had become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed and having been set free from sin, listen to this, you have become slaves of righteousness. There is no conflict between the love of God and the law of God as long as love comes first. Obedience then is an act of thanksgiving, it is gratitude, it is the overflow of love again and it produces a new kind of law, a law of willing devoted obedience because love produces a new kind of law. Are you obedient to Jesus Christ? You see, that was the question the seminary was asking me and I said no. Therefore the condition wasn't being met and I was not abiding and the love of Jesus was not obedient. I am not talking about the obedience which wins God's approval, I am talking about the obedience which is the overflow of love which deceits obedience in perfectly sometimes but seeks it. I could say to you that the sin come into your life and you say I hate it, I hate what I've done because I've offended my master and my king that is then a heart of obedience overflowing from love. But at this morning you're like the example of our blogger who's seeking sin and calls it love and has absolutely no concern for God and his word. I would say that you are outside of the pale of faith and that today you need to repent and turn to Jesus Christ and in obedience follow him. Now the last word I want to bring to you this morning is simply the word Jesus, the person of Jesus Christ himself leads to joy. Jesus said these things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and your joy may be full. You see that again? It's my joy, it's the joy of Jesus Christ and that joy was a joy that was in Jesus Christ, a joy that was expressed and giving Himself away for sinners like you and me. He wanted that to be in His disciples. The love, the relationship between Jesus and His disciples would continue, it would just be different. He would be in heaven and the Holy Spirit would be the one. They would still be asking questions just like we ask questions and there will still be answers because He's spoken to us and He speaks to us through the Holy Spirit and not new revelation but He takes His Word and opens it to us and alums our minds and hearts to receive it. Do you perceive Jesus Christ this morning in your life? Are you walking with Him? Jesus said my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one. Now my beloved do we receive the joy just again so we can say well now I'm joyful. There's no purpose in meaning and only that. You have been saved in order to fulfill God's purposes. My son and I had a conversation not too long ago and he had heard me talking about my childhood and the poverty. And we reflected on that and when I say poverty I just I don't mean only money but I mean the conditions in our situation a sort of community ignorance that led to sins and consequences which were horrible and just a cycle if you will of sin and we were talking about that and how the Lord was led me out of that and you know I said education means a lot and hard work means a lot. But what really allowed me to leave the cycle of pain and poverty was aniva and her prayers and she used to tell me son if you can get out that's the condition that she thought we were in. If you can get out take me with you and we did. But then I told my son that we have a responsibility now to go to others and to help them out. That's what Jesus is saying here. He used to be called being blessed to be a blessing. Your joy is full so that you can realize the purposes of God in this world and that is that others experience that joy.
If you believe in Jesus Christ you are a part of the true vine and like a master vine dresser your heavenly father will prune and tend to you so that you'll bear lasting spiritual fruit. Well Mike Milton joins us in the studio right now. Dr. Milton what resources has God given us to help us grow spiritually? Dan that is a question with a classical biblical answer. There are three ways to grow in the Christian life. Now from these three ways that I'm going to say there are many other derivations many other ways to grow through each one of those but essentially there are only three ways. The word that is the Bible the word of God the sacraments the Lord supper and baptism and prayer so word sacrament and prayer. And under word again that would include everything from preaching and teaching a Sunday school class small groups your daily devotional family devotions. So anything that has to do with an in taking of the word of God and the second way is the sacraments not only your baptism but even in observing baptism we again take part in the divine drama of the ages where God himself brings us into his kingdom. And it's his work a work of the Holy Spirit and of course baptism and the Lord supper or outward signs of an invisible reality and when we take the cup and when we take the bread Paul asked do we not participate in Christ and the answer rhetorically of course is yes. So the sacraments themselves become away in which we are drawn back to the essentials of our faith the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and you and I being set free because of what he has done for us. And then finally through prayer we grow through communication with God prayer both in public prayer which would include worship Sunday worship prayer which would include a small group prayer prayer in your Sunday school prayer with other people prayer in your family but also private prayers the daily abiding in Christ through prayer. Well thank you Dr. Milton. Now if you like an audio copy of today's message be sure to call or write and ask for the message branching out. Now this entire series of messages titled Life on the Vine is available as a complete set for gift of $25. We believe this would be a wonderful resource whether you're a new believer or someone who's followed the Lord for many years. And it's one more way that you can help support this radio ministry as we reach out to the world with the gospel each and every week. Again the title of this series is called Life on the Vine and we be glad to send you the complete set on CD for gift of $25. You can write to us at Faith for Living, 554 McCauley Avenue, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 37402 or call 423-648-7914. Now until next time on behalf of Mike Milton and first Presbyterian Church of Chattanooga may you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ with a living faith and a faith for living. I'm Dan Parker and this has been a presentation of first Presbyterian Church of Chattanooga.