Remain.Love.Become.

A Discipleship Journey through John’s Gospel

Pt. 3

Sunday September
12th, 19th, & 26th @at 9am
 Background on John’s Gospel
• Not a “Synoptic”
No parables and lots of
analogies.
• Not primarily Chronological,
but is selective history of
Jesus (20:31)
• Emphasizes Jesus’
replacement of the Temple
and the Sacred Feasts of
Judaism.
• Likely written in Ephesus by
John or is a collection of
“Johannine” teachings on
Jesus (80-90AD).1
A LEAF OF JOHN’S GOSPEL IS
THE EARLIEST NT MANUSCRIPT
IN EXISTENCE. SCHOLARS
REFER TO THIS FRAGMENT AS
PAPYRUS #52. IT CONTAINS 5
VERSES FROM JOHN
1. Andreas Kostenberger, “John,” in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary, vol. 2, ed. Clinton E. Arnold
(Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 2002), 4-12.
2. Kostenberger, “John,” 22.
Structure of John2
The Prologue (1:1-18) Jesus is the Word,
the Light, and the Life - full of Grace and Truth.
Ancient biography introduced themes at beginning…
For example, Cornelius Nepos lived in the 1st century
B.C. Is the earliest.
Plutarch in the 40’s-50’s AD, and Imperial biographies of
Galba and Otho.
The Book of 7 Signs (1:19-12:50) He
changes water to wine, prophetically
“cleanses” the Temple, heals the nobleman’s
son, heals the lame, feeds the multitude, heals
the blind, raises Lazarus to life again - finally,
Jesus the Messiah is rejected by the Jewish
community (12:37-50).
It is interesting that John records several stories from the
Synoptics that he doesn’t actually tell. The assumption is
that his readers already have access to them. One notable
account is John 1:42. John records a pre-conversion
interaction between the disciples and Jesus.
The Book of His Glory: Jesus prepares
to suffer and prepares his disciples for his
departure (13:1-20). The New Covenant
people are “cleansed” and instructed, the
Messiah must suffer and be glorified, the
resurrected Jesus must reveal himself to his
disciples and they must witness his signs.
Epilogue (21)
Recap: We’ve established so far, that true believers are disciples. True disciples are evidenced by
choosing to remain in Jesus’ redemptive teaching. Disciples know the truth and the truth sets them
free. False disciples on the other hand are marked by a shallow, superficial commitment that is
easily offended and discarded when confronted with Jesus’ truth.

In week two, we discovered that the central ethic of Kingdom life is sacrificial love. God loved the
world, sent his Son, and the Son loved his followers and sends them to the world armed with this
same Love.

In week three, we are going to examine what it means to “become” a disciple of Jesus. This is
concept is taken from John 15:8, where Jesus states, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear
much fruit and become my disciples.”3

1. The Father prepares disciples for productive lives.

John 15:2
He removes every branch in me that
bears no fruit. Every branch that
bears fruit he prunes to make it
bear more fruit.

How are the branches pruned?

U N F R U I T F U L D I S C I P L E S A R E R E M OV E D
• (15:2) - Dead branches hinder the productivity of the living ones. False disciples
will impede the growth and yield of faithful followers of Jesus.

PRODUCTIVE DISCIPLES EXPERIENCE A KIND OF “ FI T N ES S

MAXIMIZATION ”
• Jesus says that the fruitful disciple must experience constriction before
construction. He must be “pruned.” Let’s press Jesus’ analogy for a moment.
Pruning was a familiar horticultural analogy - selectively removing branches or buds
for the purpose of improving growth.

3. Michael Wilkins, Following the Master: A Biblical Theology of Discipleship (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 233.
 2. True disciples cannot live productively apart from
the Master.

John 15:4
Abide in me as I abide in you.
Just as the branch cannot bear
fruit by itself unless it abides
in the vine, neither can you
unless you abide in me.

Why a Disciple cannot bear fruit alone:

BEC AUSE JESUS IS THE S O U R C E OF OUR NEW LIFE

• (15:5) - “those who remain in me and I in them bear much fruit. Apart from me you
can do nothing.”

BEC AUSE JESUS IS THE S U B S TA N C E OF OUR MINISTRY

• (14:6) - “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No once comes
to the Father except through me.”
• (15:26) - “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. 27 You also are to testify
because you have been with me from the beginning.”

BEC AUSE JESUS IS THE S OV E R E I G N LORD OF THE HARVEST

• (4:35) - “Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you,
look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.”
• (Mt 9:37) - Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are
few; 38 therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

The “fruit” that the disciples will bear is the fruit of remaining in Jesus, his teaching, and loving
one another sacrificially. Ultimately, this cultivated life of discipleship is missional in scope. As
D.A. Carson has noted, “That is why the union of love that joins believers with Jesus can never
become a comfortable, exclusivistic huddle that only they can share. Doubtless it is a unique
union, an extension of the union of the Godhead; but by its very nature, it is a union, an
intimacy, which, by the necessity of its own constitution, seeks to bring others into its orb.”4

4. D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 523-524.


 3. True disciples bring glory to the Father by becoming
disciples.

John 15:8
My Father is glorified by this, that
you bear much fruit and become my
disciples.

How do disciples “become” disciples?

TO “S EE” IS TO BELIEVE
• Jesus is the incarnate Son of God (Jn 9:24-41). The blind man becomes a lightning
rod for Jesus’ confrontation with those who could not “see” who he really was.
Jesus charges them with spiritual blindness. Since they claimed to see then their
sin remained. Like the blind man who realized Jesus’ true identity, when we see
who Jesus truly is - we believe and become his disciples.

TO BE LIE VE I S TO R E M A I N
• True “believers” continue in Jesus’ teachings (Jn 8:31-59) - the term believe
occurs some 98 times in the Gospel (3rd in frequency to “Jesus” and the
“Father”).5 In 8:31ff. Jesus challenges the “believers” to remain in his
teaching. The ensuing narrative shows that the Jews were not true believers
because they failed to remain in Jesus.

“True discipleship, true belief, will be evidenced by abiding in Jesus’ words. The evidence of
true belief is seen in disciples who cling to Jesus’ word as the truth for ever area of life. As
they hear the truth, they live it out (abide), which will eventually be evidenced in their lives.
True disciples are free from bondage to sin through Jesus’ liberating Word.”6 - Michael Wilkins

5. Kostenberger, “John,” 56.

6. Michael Wilkins, Following the Master: A Biblical Theology of Discipleship (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 236.
 How disciples “become” disciples cont...

TO RE MAI N I S TO L OV E

“Love is both the fruit of remaining
in Jesus (15:8) and the
commandment that functions as
the condition for remaining in Jesus
(15:10, 12). The close connection
between the fruit and the
commandment suggests that in
Johannine as well as Pauline
theology, essential works for
“staying in” are simply the fruit of
genuinely being in and continuing
to depend (“believe”) as one did to
“get in” (cf. Gal 5:22-23).” 7
• Jn 15:9 - “Just as the Father has
loved me, I have also loved you;
remain in my love. 10 If you obey my
commandments, you will remain in
my love, just as I have obeyed my
Father’s commandments and remain
in his love.”
TO L OV E I S TO O B E Y

“Christians must remember that • A Spirit filled “walk” of obedience to

Jesus’ word produces the Kingdom’s fruit
the fruit that issues out of their
(Jn 14:24). Jesus stated that “whoever does
obedient faith-union with Christ
not love me does not keep my commands.”
lies at the heart of how Jesus
Choosing to obey Jesus’ word and his
brings glory to his Father. Those
command to love others is the way we stay in
who are contemplating the claims
him - connected to the Vine.
of the Gospel, like John’s readers,
must reckon with the fact that
failure to honour (sic) the Son is
failure to honour God (5:23).
Fruitlessness not only threatens TO OBEY I S TO BECOME
fire (15:6), but robs God of the Jn 15:8 - My Father is glorified by this,
glory that is rightly his.”8 that you bear much fruit and become
my disciples.” As we live a life of faithful
obedience to Jesus’ life giving Word, the
Father shapes us and we become the
disciples that He envisions us to be.

Though it may seem counter-intuitive to us to ask “how does a disciple become a disciple?”, this
question was not at all foreign to John or his readers. True believers show themselves to be disciples
as they continue in the faith they’ve professed, and as they continually “become” fruit bearing
followers of Christ. Though our status as disciples is never in question, we are continually becoming
the very thing we have been declared by faith. Thus, Paul can say “live up to that which you have
already attained” and “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”

7. Keener, The Gospel of John (Peabody Mass: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003), 1002-1003.

8. Carson, John, 518.
 Going Deeper
1. Read Gal 5:22-26. What are the characteristics of genuine discipleship?9
What are these character traits dependent on? In other words, based on 5:18-20, how does Paul state a
believer comes to exhibit these qualities?

In your opinion, do you think we should focus our efforts on trying to exhibit this character
“fruit,” or do you feel that we should focus on being filled with the Spirit, which will result in
these qualities being expressed in our lives?

2. Read John 4:34-38. What is the “food” Jesus speaks of in these verses? Based on John 3:16-17, what is the
work of the Father that Jesus is completing? In reference to Jesus’ statement about food in John 4:34, Craig
Keener says: “Jesus here challenges his disciples just as he had challenged the woman earlier in the
narrative: he invited her to embrace a gift of water she did not understand (4:10), and now informs his
disciples of spiritual food they do not understand (4:32).”

When Jesus speaks of “spiritual food,” he is talking about having a priority that goes beyond mere daily life.
What kind of priority are followers of Jesus to have in regards to being harvesters?

Read John 15:18. Have you ever thought of taking part in completing God’s work as bearing fruit? Why
would taking part in completing God’s work be part of bearing the fruit Jesus talks about his followers
bearing? Based on what you discussed in the first question, and what we read in this John passage, in your
opinion, do you think the work of reaping the harvest is something we accomplish on our own, or are we
empowered to do it?

3. Read Philippians 1:11, and Colossians 1:10. What fruit does the Apostle Paul talk about Christ
followers bearing in these verses?
The theologian N.T. Wright defines God’s righteousness as his covenant faithfulness; that is as God’s
faithfulness to carry out what he has promised to carry out. Bounce the Philippians verse and the
Colossians verse off of each other. If N.T. Wright is correct in that God’s righteousness is him carrying out
his promises and living out the covenant he has made with his people, what does it mean for you to be
righteous?

In remembering what you discussed with your group in question 1, what do you think is the
source of this “fruit of righteousness”?
What implications does this have for you in your life and walk with Jesus?

9. Michael Wilkins, Following the Master, 238.