Abide in Me

John 15:1–17 – That You May Believe
Sixth Sunday in Eastertide  – May 25, 2025 (am)     

Jean & I often sit down at the end of a busy day and enjoy the diversion, or stimulation, of a good movie. Sometimes that means viewing something new and highly acclaimed by respected friends. Other times it means returning to an old familiar film that shows us again something we’ve appreciated in the past. And every once in a while we run across a movie that’s worth watching yet again, and again.

Some passages of Scripture are like that—favorites that God seems to have put in His Word just for us! Others bless us as well, clearly. But some texts have come to mean so much to us that we almost view them as ours. Joh.15 is such a passage for me, especially vv.1-17. God uses it faithfully to reorient my thinking back to where it belongs—to the basics of walking with Him attentively and well and fruitfully.

But at its heart, it can be quite challenging to understand exactly what this passage teaching us! We can see that Jesus is the true vine (1), the better vine, replacing Israel, the original vine that God planted and protected but it yielded only wild grapes, so He vowed to make it a waste (Isa.5:1-7). So far in John’s Gospel, Jesus has already [surpassed] the temple, the Jewish feasts, Moses, and [some other things] (Carson 1991 533). Now He’s the true/life-giving vine, succeeding where Israel failed.

This is a beautiful image. But can any of you give me quickly a single-word synonym for abide? Can you give me a simple, one-sentence description of what it means? We know that if we abide in Christ, we’ll bear much fruit (5); we’ll receive answers to prayer (7); we’ll obey (10); we’ll love one another (17). But what does it mean to abide? That’s a pretty important question to answer, isn’t it?

Let’s make it our aim today to come away with an answer to that simple question—What does it mean to abide in Christ?—so that we’ll enjoy (cf. 11), enter into, all the blessings that result. Let’s draw out three simple truths from Jesus’ words here that will help us hear what He’s teaching about abiding.

Abiding in Christ is necessary to live a fruitful Christian life. 1-8

We can hear that: to bear fruit we must abide in Christ. 5 … Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit…. In fact, fruit-bearing is how we prove to be [His] disciples (8). And conversely, if we don’t abide in Him, 5 … [we] can do nothing. We just read that in the previous verse: 4 … As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. All of our spiritual productivity, all that’s good, results from abiding in Jesus. Anything we do that has genuine value, that pleases God, happens as a result of our abiding in Him. That’s a clear picture, isn’t it? If a branch remains connected to the vine, it will bear fruit. If it’s cut off, it won’t. Jesus said: 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers…. It’s just the same in our Christian lives: to prove to be [Jesus’] disciples, to bear fruit, we must abide in the vine, abide in Christ.

But what, then, does it mean to abide in Christ? How do we do it? And how can we know we’re doing it?

Obeying Christ’s commands is how we abide in Him. 9-11

Before we get this clear answer, though, Jesus introduces a new category. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. So, is He saying something new here, or is He saying the same thing with new words? I think He’s saying the same thing but with new words/depth/texture: abide in me (3) and abide in my love (9) aren’t distinct charges so much as the same charge with this present and growing theme of love folded in, this new commandment to love one another (13:34) that He’ll be returning to again very shortly.

But He also doesn’t move away from the subject of obedience that He first suggested back in v.7. He’s just moving both love and obedience to center stage at the same time, and the result is that we’ll see a pretty strong link between them. 10 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. Wow, we’ve seen this with Jesus and the Father, and that’s now the pattern of how it should work for Jesus and His disciples. Obedience comes in strongly at the start of His statement, but love enters just as conspicuously as He finishes. Taken together, they recall of something Jesus said earlier in this dialogue: 14:15 If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Here, He just reverses the order, putting obedience up front as the condition for abiding: 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love…. Still, love and obedience are linked together here, and strongly. The closer we look the more seamless they appear, like they just spiral together in a way that makes it hard to tell them apart.

But we’ll get back to that in a few moments. For now, this leads us right into the last of our three truths.

Loving one another is how we begin to obey Christ’s commands. 12-17

Or turn it around: we obey Jesus as we love one another. There are many other ways to obey Him, but love gets top billing. Jesus Himself set this up for us. 12 This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. He’s spotlighting the visible side of the great commandment (Mat.22:37-39). And again, He’ll model it for us (13, cf. 10). He’ll use His own pending death to illustrate what it means to love, to identify the core quality of love as a self-denying guarding of the beloved’s best interest (13), or a joyful pursuit of the beloved’s highest joy (11). Love is the willingness to surrender that which has value for our own life, to enrich the life of another (Dodd in Stott 145).

Jesus is telling His disciples He’ll be giving them everything they need to obey Him, to love one another as [He] has loved [them] (12). 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends—just what He’s about to do for them, and just what He’s been pointing toward since He washed their feet a bit earlier this same evening (13:1-14). As they’ll learn in the days ahead, if they abide in Him in this death He’s about to die, they’ll be enabled by the Father, by the Spirit He’ll give (14:16-17), to lay down their own lives in in like fashion and love one another with self-denying love just as He’s commanding (10, cf.17), just as He’ll be modeling (13).

We’re back to that spiral of obedience and love once again, the one we saw earlier. We’re not yet ready to address it any further, but we need to note that it’s a pretty prominent theme in this passage, and one we’re going to want to understand more fully as we finish.

First, though, as John closes this section, He makes it clear that all this is God’s plan for His people. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit. There’s a purpose to this fruit-bearing beyond just the full joy of His disciples. They’re appointed to go and bear fruit!

What we’re hearing here is more about those greater works that [they’ll] do because [Jesus is returning] to the Father (14:12). He’s preparing His disciples for their mission here (Carson 1991 318). He’ll be sending them (cf. 20:21), so He’s getting them ready to go—to pursue fruit that should abide (16), the fruit of their own abiding, 16 … so that whatever [they] ask the Father in [His] name, he may give it to [them]. As in 14:13-14, this promise of answered prayer is linked to being on-mission with Jesus. And as they’re pursuing fruit that will abide, He’ll be there with them answering their prayers, supplying their needs.

So, their fruit-bearing isn’t just about personal growth in their relationship with Jesus. It’s also about bearing fruit on-mission with Him, fulfilling their calling (20:21), realizing His purpose for their appointment (16). And that’s not just captured in their general walk of obedience day-to-day: 17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another. He’s talking about the nature of the expression of their obedience—as love, love for one another that extends to this world, demonstrating of the fact that God so loved the world! (3:16) We’ve already heard that their love for one another will be their most effective tool for proclaiming God’s love for the world; right on the heels of His new commandment (13:34), Jesus said: 13:35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. Now He tells them His intention is for them to take that love out into the world, to go and bear fruit that [will] abide (16), even though this world won’t love them in return (18ff.). But that’s for next week.

Today we just want a clear and simple answer to our question. All that we’ve seen from fruit-bearing to obedience and love to answered prayer to worldwide mission is all tied into abiding. So, what does it mean to abide in Christ?

The vine imagery is helpful. A branch that’s connected to the vine is literally living in continuous dependence on [that] vine, constant reliance upon [it], persistent [physical] imbibing of [its] life (Carson 1991 516). A branch that’s disconnected from the vine is dead. It’s worthless. Abiding is believing in Jesus just like He called for as He began this teaching: 14:1 … Believe in God; believe also in me. Abiding is trusting Jesus as Savior. It’s also entrusting ourselves to Him in order to walk with Him by faith, to love and to obey Him, to go with Him on mission. Abiding in Him means we have life, just as not abiding means we’re dead, spiritually speaking—we’re disconnected from the One Who said: I am the life (14:6, cf. 11:25).

When we were studying Romans we encountered the phrase, the obedience of faith (Rom.1:5; 16:26). We said it means we trust in Jesus so confidently that it changes the way we live. We cling to Him by the faith He’s granted such that all we want is to walk with Him in obedience. Weaving together the varied themes in Joh.15:1-17 suggests that we could call abiding, the obedience of love. We cling to Jesus in the love He’s granted such that all we want is to walk with Him in obedience, just as He has done with the Father. We love Him so deeply that it changes the way we live.

I believe that’s what it means to abide in Christ. It covers the gamut of genuine relationship with Jesus, all the way from trusting Him as Savior to walking with in obedience that motivated by a love for Him that shows itself as a love for others, present and distant, with great joy. Abiding in Christ is talking about genuine, vibrant life in Christ.

Conclusion

And I believe John himself all but confirmed this definition when he wrote to his flock some years later. Listen for all the words from Joh.15: abide, love, keep [his] commandments, even new commandment (c.13): 1Jo.2:3 … by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. 7 Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. 8 At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. 9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

Friends, let’s hear Jesus’ call and abide in [Him] in the way He teaches here, receiving the life and relationship only He can give then living it fully for Him.

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Resources

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         , gen. ed. 1988. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Vol. 19, The Letters of John, by John R. W. Stott. Downers Grove: InterVarsity.

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NEXT SUNDAY: John 15:18–16:4, Kipp Soncek