Grace Bible Church
Pastor-Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
Wednesday,
January 22, 2020
God promises to bless us for obeying Him.
The “vinedresser” metaphor portrays God the Father as the author of the predesigned plan of God.
God also promises to bless us for obeying Him and doing things we love to do especially for Him.
How can anyone of us really describe the privileges and blessings that we receive from Him as a result of serving Him with sincerity and truth as we are blessed by association with Him through His own obedience; HEB 5:8.
HEB 5:8 Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.
As we continue to focus in on these Divine Commands given to every Church-age Believer, we also need to get a picture of the two different manifestations that we call the Doctrine of Divine Justice and Divine Righteousness.
JOS 24:14 “Now, therefore, fear or respect the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods [false religions] which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt and serve the Lord.
The “vinedresser” metaphor portrays God the Father as the author of the predesigned plan that God created just for man accompanied by a personal sense of destiny that He created just for you.
The “vine” metaphor portrays the humanity of Jesus Christ during the dispensation of the Hypostatic Union with Undiminished Deity and True Humanity indwelling one person forever and ever.
Fruit from the branch is a metaphor or a symbol for the Church-age believer who produces divine good not human good.
No fruit (or production) can be any better than the vine that produces it.
Its life changing because it gets our eyes off ourselves and puts them right where they belong — upon our Lord.
Positional = our place before God as He looks down upon us and sees us totally complete with the finished work for salvation being the ultimate reward in action, even though experientially, there is still a lot more work for Him to do.
Sanctification = to be set apart as Holy, and in positional sanctification, God sees us as being positionally perfect and holy because of what He has done for us.
EPH 5:27 He died just for you and me that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless.
COL 1:21 And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, {engaged} in evil deeds,
COL 1:22 yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.
Because of positional sanctification (which points to our union with Christ) and the grace provision of the filling of the Spirit, it is possible for the believer to produce divine good which is the only good that God accepts; Mat 5:48.
The “First Set of Works or Deeds” that will be judged and evaluated is for believers who will either receive divine blessings or lose what the Lord had provided just for them; 1Co 3:11-15; 2Co 5:10.
2Co 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
Good is the Greek adjective agathos which refers to divine good or the production of the fruit of the Spirit in the life of a believer.
Bad is the Greek adjective phaulos which refers to evil and human good as stated in Isa 64, the righteousness from phaulos is disgusting to God; Isa 64:6.
The Second set of works or good deeds of human good that will be judged and evaluated is for unbelievers whose good deeds are less than perfect and are not good enough to get them to heaven on their own; Joh 5:28-29; Rev 20:11-15.
JOH 5:28 “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs shall hear His voice,
JOH 5:29 and shall come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.
- Dead branches represent dead works or production skills minus spiritual skills and therefore God classifies these principles as “Dead Works.”
Production skills = there are times we automatically produce good deeds or good works, but we do with the production skills from the flesh that have been developed in the Old Sin Nature.
And not the spiritual skills that have been graciously given to us from God the Holy Spirit for the purpose of producing the fruit of the Spirit.
The production skills try to accomplish God’s plan with man’s power, whereas the spiritual skills will enable us to produce Divine Good from the skills of the Lord to us.
- Live branches representing divine good, with spiritual skills as the basis for production skills.
The spiritual skills, like Eph 5:18; Gal 5:16; Heb 4:12; Act 1:8, must come before the production skills.
The branch who is “in Christ” but does not bear fruit represents the believer who does please God experientially because of the lack of use in their spiritual skills.
Dead works do not bear fruit and are punishable by divine discipline in one of three phrases, (1) Warning; (2) Intensive; (3) Dying.
Corrective Suffering:
a. The law of volitional responsibility, which produces a tremendous amount of self-induced misery.
b. Divine discipline.
Pruning has a great application to properly redistribute the “spiritual energy” that we all need for production.
No matter what we see, the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit is God the Father’s down payment on His promises to man for his obedience.
No matter what we see, the royal family of God is said to be partakers of the promises of the divine nature of God in Christ Jesus.
No matter what we see or what we hear, in Heb 10:23, He who promised is faithful.
No matter what we see or what we hear, God’s promises are unfailing and will always be available to us as long as we stay in the PPOG.
No matter what one sees, His promises are always assured by divine ability.
Psa 37:3 Trust in the Lord, and produce divine good, and you will receive all the logistics needed.
No matter who we think is a spiritual giant or a wimpy coward, Unlimited blessings are promised to those who stick with the plan and execute it as they believe; MAR 9:23.
Mar 9:23 And Jesus said to him, “‘If You can!’ All things are possible to him who believes.”
Answers to prayers are promised; Mar 11:24, I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they shall be granted you.
No matter how big or how deep or how long some major obstacles are, removal of obstacles is promised to those who have faith as a tiny grain of mustard seed; Luk 17:6.