Faith and Works (HC 61-65)

John 15:1-17 “Faith and Works”

Last time we concluded with the question:

61. Q. Why do you say that you are righteous only by faith?
A. Not that I am acceptable to God on account of the worthiness of my faith, for only the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ is my righteousness before God. I can receive this righteousness and make it my own by faith only.

We looked at Abraham,

and we saw that Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

But it is appropriate at this point to then ask:

62. Q. But why can our good works not be our righteousness before God, or at least a part of it?

Why should we not say that our righteousness before God is partly faith and partly works?

The answer the Heidelberg Catechism gives is:

A. Because the righteousness which can stand before God's judgment must be absolutely perfect and in complete agreement with the law of God, whereas even our best works in this life are all imperfect and defiled with sin.

Isaiah spoke of this when he stood before God in Isaiah 6.

When he saw the glory of the Lord,

his response was to fall before the throne of God and say,

“Woe is me, for I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips,

and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips,

and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5)

Only the fire from the altar could purify the lips of Isaiah –

only the blood of Christ can cleanse our hearts from the stain of sin.

When it comes to our standing before God,

there is nothing that we can do to be made right.

Question 63 asks this explicitly:

63. Q. But do our good works earn nothing, even though God promises to reward them in this life and the next?
A. This reward is not earned; it is a gift of grace.

We talked about this last time when we talked about Abraham from Romans 3-4.

Paul says that “to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.”

Certainly God promises to reward our good works, both in this life and the next,

but the reward is not something that we can earn.

It is rather an inheritance that we receive by the grace of our heavenly Father.

64. Q. Does this teaching not make people careless and wicked?
A. No. It is impossible that those grafted into Christ by true faith should not bring forth fruits of thankfulness.

This is where our passage tonight from John 15 focuses.

There was once a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

The owner went out and carefully, painstakingly, prepared the soil,

planted the finest vines,

and looked for it to produce fine fruit.

But it yielded stink fruit.

Isaiah 5 tells us that this was a picture of the house of Israel.

God had carefully planted Judah on his holy hill,

but they had not produced good fruit,

instead they had rebelled against him,

entered foreign alliances,

worshiped other gods,

and had oppressed the poor and the helpless.

Therefore God declares that he will trample down his vineyard, and make it a waste.

Briers and thorns will overrun the vineyard.

But as you go further into Isaiah’s prophecy you hear of a branch

growing out of the stump of Jesse.

In Isaiah 27, Isaiah speaks of “a pleasant vineyard” where Jacob will take root,

and Israel “shall fill the whole world with fruit.”

With all this in view,

Jesus says “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.”

There is no clearer way for Jesus to say, “I am the true Israel.”

Jesus is the one who produces good fruit,

and fills the whole world with that fruit.

He explains this by saying, “I am the vine; you are the branches.”

Isaiah had spoken of the people of God as the vine,

but the people of God had failed miserably.

So Jesus takes this familiar image, and redefines it.

All that the prophets had said about Israel as the vineyard is about me.

But this does not mean that you and I have no place in God’s vineyard.

It simply means that we are not the vine.

We are but the branches.

Jesus encourages us to think about the image of the vine in more detail.

If you take a vine without any branches, how much fruit do you get?

None.

Jesus has just said, “whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do;

and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.”

(John 14:12)

Jesus will do his greatest works through his church.

Without the church, Jesus is like a vine without branches.

His fruit is borne in us and through us.

He is the head–we are the body.

A head without a body won’t get very far!

He is the bridegroom–we are the bride.

A husband without a wife won’t have very many children!

But of course, without Jesus, the church is like branches without a vine.

What is a branch without a vine?

Dead.

The life of the branch flows through the vine.

Indeed, the life of the branch is nothing more or less than the life of the vine.

He is our life.

It is not simply that we have life because of him,

but rather that we have life in him.

Branches do not live independently of the vine.

Branches live only because of their vital union to the vine.

So it is Christ’s life in you that gives you life.

I am the vine; you are the branches.

This is why Jesus speaks of the Father as the vinedresser.

If a branch connected to the vine does not bear fruit,

then the vinedresser takes it away–hacks off the whole thing.

In other words, if the life of the vine is not manifest in the branch,

then the branch is cut off, thrown away and burned.

In our baptism, we are united to Christ and his church.

But if that union is not a vital union.

In other words, if that union is only an external joining of the branch to the vine,

then the branch will not bear fruit, but will be cut off, and destroyed.

But if you are vitally united to Christ, then you will bear fruit!

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself,

unless it abides in the vine,

neither can you,

unless you abide in me.”

Whoever abides in Jesus will bear much fruit.

What is the fruit of which Jesus speaks?

Remember Isaiah 5?

God looked for justice and righteousness, but found only bloodshed and an outcry.

What was Jesus been talking about in chapter 14?

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (14:15)

“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word.” (14:23)

Abiding in Christ means to find the source of life,

your power for living, in Jesus.

And bearing fruit means doing what he says.

The problem in Isaiah 5 is that Israel has an insufficient power supply.

Israel cannot be the vine.

They do not have life in themselves.

But Jesus tells us in John 5:26–the Father has given the Son to have life in himself.

And because he has life in himself,

he has the power to give life to his people.

This is why it is so necessary for you to despair of your own power!

Your life is but a feeble flicker in the corridors of time.

You do not have the power to bear fruit in the service of Christ.

Therefore you must abide in Christ.

He is the light of the world who came to give life to his people.

(Verse 7) If you abide in me, and my words abide in you,

ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

The one who abides in Jesus, whose life flows from the exalted Savior,

may indeed ask for whatever he wishes!

Psalm 37:4 speaks of this: “Delight yourself in the LORD,

and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

Later in verse 31, the Psalmist adds, “the law of God is in his heart,

His steps do not slip.”

The one who abides in Christ has the words of God engraven on his heart,

which means that your desires are conformed to his.

And so of course, whatever you ask is yours–

because you will only ask for that which is good and right!

I know that this has been the cause of much soul-searching for many people.

How do I know what to ask for?

How do I know when I am in the “will of God”?

But those are the wrong questions.

It’s putting the cart before the horse.

The focus of Jesus’ remarks is on the abiding–not the asking.

If you are abiding in Christ, then ask for whatever you wish!

So rather than figure out what we can ask for,

we should seek with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength,

to love the Lord our God.

We must bear fruit.

This may bring discouragement to some of you.

You may look at your life and say “but I’m not bearing much fruit.”

I’m not loving the Lord my God very well,

and I’m not doing a good job of loving my neighbor either!

But remember Jesus’s words:

“By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.”

How do we bear “much fruit”?

Go back to verse 2.

The vinedresser, after all, not only cuts off the branches that bear no fruit,

but also prunes the fruitful branches

so that they might become more fruitful.

The Father wants you to bear much fruit.

So he will prune you.

Anything that gets in the way of bearing fruit will be pruned!

But who does this?

Does the branch prune itself?

No!

Pruning is an artificial method of increasing natural production.

The vinedresser prunes the branch,

so that the branch might naturally produce more fruit.

The life of the vine is your life.

The life of Christ course through your veins through the grace of the Holy Spirit.

And the Father prunes away all that belongs to your old man,

so that the new life in you

might come to fuller expression each day.

In other words, Jesus is saying the same thing that Paul will later say:

“Work out your salvation with fear and trembling,

because it is God who is at work in you

both to will and to do for his good pleasure!” (Phil 2)

God is the one who will prune away all that gets in the way of your bearing fruit.

You are called simply to abide in Christ,

to live your life as one who has been grafted into the true vine,

who draws life and nourishment from him.

Jesus then turns to the source of this life: (verses 9-11)

We are called to imitate Christ.

He abides in his Father’s love, and kept his Father’s commands.

Now we are to imitate him, by abiding in his love and keeping his commands.

Of course, imitating Christ is impossible–in one sense.

We have already seen that we lack the power and strength to obey God.

But, if it is Christ himself who is in us–if we are abiding in him–

then imitation of Christ is rooted in participation in Christ.

We imitate him by abiding in him.

Jesus then tells us how far we are to go in imitating him.

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

They don’t understand yet how radical that is,

but Jesus explains it.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.

Do you want to know how to abide in Christ?

Do you want to know how to love him?

Then lay down your life for one another.

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit

and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name,

he may give it to you.

These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

Israel failed to live as the elect people of God.

Israel had produced stink fruit.

Injustice, oppression, and all sorts of wickedness.

They did not abide in God’s ways,

and they did not love one another.

But now Jesus has come as the true vine–the elect one.

He has done all that he heard from his Father.

And now he has chosen us to bear fruit for his glory.

The goal of election is good works.

As Paul put it in Ephesians 2:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not your own doing;

it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,

which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

65. Q. Since then faith alone makes us share in Christ and all His benefits, where does this faith come from?
A. From the Holy Spirit, who works it in our hearts by the preaching of the gospel, and strengthens it by the use of the sacraments.

The Holy Spirit is the one who works faith in our hearts.

But the Spirit works through means.

And the primary means used by the Spirit is the preaching of the gospel.

As Paul says in Romans 10:17

“faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

The preaching of the Word is the primary means that the Spirit uses to work faith in us.

Do you believe that?

Then invite your friends to come and hear the preaching of the Word.

Preaching seems foolish –

especially in this day of fancy gizmos and gadgets –

and nifty evangelistic techniques.

But as has been said so often,

what you win them with is what you will win them to.

If you bring people in with fancy shows,

then you have converted them to an entertainment style.

What was it that held the apostles to Jesus when all others had left?

“To whom shall we go? You, Lord, have the words of eternal life!”

And this faith is also strengthened by the use of the sacraments.

Paul speaks of this in 1 Corinthians 10 and 12,

as he speaks of how we are baptized into one body by one Spirit,

and of how we participate in the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper.

We’ll talk more about the sacraments next time,

but for now, let me ask you:

62. Q. But why can our good works not be our righteousness before God, or at least a part of it?
A. Because the righteousness which can stand before God's judgment must be absolutely perfect and in complete agreement with the law of God, whereas even our best works in this life are all imperfect and defiled with sin.

63. Q. But do our good works earn nothing, even though God promises to reward them in this life and the next?
A. This reward is not earned; it is a gift of grace.

64. Q. Does this teaching not make people careless and wicked?
A. No. It is impossible that those grafted into Christ by true faith should not bring forth fruits of thankfulness.