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Here now God's Word as it's recorded in the Gospel according to John, the 15th chapter. I begin the reading at the verse numbered 1. Jesus is speaking, "I am the true vine and my father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit he takes away and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes

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that it may bear more fruit. You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you. 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. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he it is that

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bears much fruit for apart from me you can do nothing. If a man does not abide in me he is cast forth as a branch and withers and the branches are gathered thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will and it shall be done for you. By this my father is

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glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the father has loved me so have I loved 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. And these things I have spoken to you that

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my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his word. Pray with me. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. I had a telephone call this last week from one of our radio listeners. She

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called to express her appreciation for last Sunday's sermon. She said she had been attacked much for what she believed and it was strengthening to her to know that Christians went through these kinds of attacks. And as she concluded her conversation she said to me, "You know, it's becoming harder and harder to be

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good in a bad world like this." Well she's absolutely right and that's the reason for this series of sermons, "A Faith for Tough Times." Now last week we talked about putting on the first item of the Christian's armor, the girdle of truth. That means to belt about us the Word of God which holds us together. We are to

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read the word and study the word and learn the word and obey the word. But obeying is the hardest, isn't it? I mean there are many times when we know the Word of God, know exactly what we ought to do and yet fail to do it. That which we are supposed to do we do not and that which we are not supposed to do we do. So

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the question arises, where do we get the strength to obey the Word of God? Well that brings us to the second piece of a Christian's armor, the breastplate of righteousness. Now a breastplate was not what you might think it was. A breastplate covered both the front and the back and it went from the neck to the hips. We

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would probably describe it today as a coat of mail. It was like a vest with bits of metal on the outside to protect the wearer. That's what a breastplate is. Now righteousness means simply right living. So Paul says to us we are to put on the breastplate of righteousness, which means we are to protect ourselves

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with the breastplate of perfect living. Now I don't know if that's much help to you but it certainly isn't very much help to me because the fact of the matter is that I don't live a perfect and a flawless life. I mean it doesn't help me at all to say to me if you want to get along in these tough times you

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have to wear the breastplate of your own perfect righteousness because I don't have any perfect righteousness. Saying that to me is like saying to a drowning person, "Swim fool, swim!" or saying to some pathetic alcoholic, "Stop drinking, just stop drinking!" That kind of counsel really is more discouraging than it is

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encouraging. But wait a moment. Let's look at this a bit more closely in order that we might understand exactly what Paul means by the breastplate of righteousness. For remember, Paul was very much aware of his own sin. Paul was the one who said in the first place, "The good that I want to do I don't do and

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that which I do not want to do I do." Paul was the man who described himself, you will remember, as the chief of sinners. So Paul understood how personal righteousness can mean very, very little. So what did he have in mind when he says put on the breastplate of righteousness, put on the protecting power of a

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flawless life? Well to understand what Paul meant by righteousness you have to look in the third chapter of the book of Philippians where he discusses it in some detail. What he says there is this, "I have as much integrity as the next man and indeed insofar as religious pedigree is concerned my life is more impressive

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than most people's. But I count all of that as dung, as something utterly worthless when compared to my experience of Jesus Christ. There is, Paul writes to the Philippians, no excellence in me. Christ is my hope and Christ is my righteousness." So when Paul talks about putting on the breastplate of

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righteousness, he's not talking about his own righteousness. He's talking about God-made, God-created, God-given righteousness which we receive in Jesus Christ. Now let me put this in pictorial form. Suppose on one side of our picture we have Jesus and he is perfect in every way. The Bible teaches us that he is

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without sin. There is no shadow of iniquity in his life. Now on the other side of the picture, let's put a sinner and let's make this sinner the worst kind of sinner that we can imagine. A moral leper, a person who's ethically perverse, an individual who's all chewed up, eaten up inside by his own greed and

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his own avarice and his own hatred. Make this individual as filthy, morally and ethically speaking, as you can imagine. And he comes to Jesus and he says, "I believe in you, forgive me." Jesus takes off the perfect robe of his righteousness or the perfect breastplate of his righteousness and puts it on to

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the sinner. The sinner's demerits are covered by Christ's merits. The sinner's weaknesses are covered by Christ's strengths. The sinner's defeats are covered by Christ's victories. Now the sinner is still wounded, still has many scars because of the things that have happened in the past, but those things

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are now covered with the righteousness of Christ so that before God and before the angels, this man appears in the robe of righteousness. That's what the scriptures say, "He has clothed me with the robe of righteousness and covered me with the garments of salvation." But I'm sure if you're following me at all that

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you recognize the inadequacy in that picture we've just used. Because the fact of the matter is, a robe or a breastplate is something external. It's something you put on the outside, it doesn't have anything to do with your inside. I mean putting a robe like this on an individual does not make that individual

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a minister, any more than if I were to wear a robe like our choir I would be fit to sing in it. The fact of the matter is that the external does not change the internal. You can use lilies to cover a manure heap or grow lovely ferns in front of a sewer. So our picture does have about it, our illustration has some

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inadequacies, but the fact is still the fact that if a person goes to Christ believing in him and believing also that he rose from the dead, then that person by faith becomes one with Jesus. See, faith has uniting power. A patient who has faith in his doctor is at one with that doctor. A student who has faith in a

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teacher is at one with that teacher. A passenger on an airplane who trusts the pilot is at one with that pilot. Faith has this uniting power. And what happens when the believer comes to Christ is this. Christ, who has no sin, takes upon himself the sin of the sinner and at the same time gives his righteousness to

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that sinner. A few weeks ago I was in the home of one of our members and having a lovely dinner party there and we were commenting on the beautiful flowers and bushes and trees this spring, especially splendid this year. And one of the members at the table said, "Well you know I saw a dogwood tree this last week that

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had both white and pink blossoms. Now the only way in which a dogwood tree could have both colored blossoms would be for some ingrafting to have been done." And this word "ingraft" is another word which the Bible uses to describe the relationship between a sinner and Christ. We are ingrafted into Christ. Now if you

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go to a tree that has just had a branch ingrafted into it, you'll see that that branch is still weak. It's not very strong. But the fact of the matter is it's been cut off from what was before and it has been made the part of a new living tree and the energy, the sap, the power of that tree will be flowing up

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into that new branch. So when we are ingrafted into Christ, the power of Christ not only cuts us off from yesterday, separating us from that previous bush, putting on to us the robe of righteousness, but as long as we are in him, his strength grows in us and we become more powerful in him. In other

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words, our past becomes better because now it's covered by the breastplate which Christ has given to us, but our present and our tomorrow becomes better also because Christ being in our hearts begins to move in us and enable us to grow in the faith. You see, grace is not only imputed to us, which takes care of

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yesterday, but it's also imparted to us so that it takes care of us today and tomorrow. The breastplate covers the scars, but more than that, it protects us from any wounding missiles that are sent our way in the life we're leading today. It's like a seed being planted in our lives, this righteousness of Christ, and

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it takes root and it grows up. Paul talks about this in that same letter to the Philippians we discussed a moment ago. It's in the second chapter. He says we are to work out our own salvation, but then he goes right on to say, "For it is God working in you to do his will and his purpose." Let me give you two biblical

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pictures to illustrate this. The first one is from John 15, the scripture which I read to you just a few minutes ago. Jesus is talking about the vine and the branches. Now in the Holy Land, a vine will grow 12 feet in a year. They grow very rapidly. They're pruned two times each year. The branches that are pruned

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off are worthless. There's nothing you can do with them, so they're thrown into the fire and burnt. The branches that are producing fruit, when they're pruned, produce even more fruit. Now what's the difference between a branch that produces and a branch that doesn't produce? The difference is their

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closeness to the vine. Now Jesus says, "I am the vine and you are the branches. If you stay close to me, even though there will be occasional prunings, you're going to produce more and more fruit. But if you wander away from me, that is, if you take off the breastplate of righteousness, if you separate yourself

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from me, well then you're not going to produce good fruit." Here are two friends, for example. One friend is very weak, falls for everything. The other friend is very strong, is able to resist temptation. Now as long as the weak friend stays with the strong friend, the strong man helps him, enables him to endure,

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encourages him, enables him to be the kind of person he ought to be in Jesus Christ. But if that weak man goes away from his strong friend, it's almost inevitable that he's going to collapse, because when you separate yourself from goodness and loveliness, it's not long until you have fallen far away from

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goodness and loveliness. So what Jesus is saying is, "Stay close to me, abide in me, and my righteousness will abide in you, and you're going to produce much fruit. You're going to get better and better." Now the other biblical picture that I would use is from John chapter 11, and this is that scene where Jesus raises

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his friend Lazarus from the dead. Now on that day that Lazarus was raised, he had two things to be thankful to Jesus for. First, for the gift of life. Jesus said, "Lazarus, come forth," and Lazarus came out of death to life. But secondly, Lazarus also needed to thank Christ for the gift of liberty, because you see, when he came

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forth out of that tomb, he was still bound all about with the grave clothes, and Jesus says, "Loose him and let him go." Now imagine what would have happened if Jesus hadn't said that, that second word. Suppose Lazarus had come out there with that grave cloth across his face, with those tight linen bandages all about him,

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smelling with the smell of death. Suppose he came stumbling out of the black openness of the tomb that way. I mean, people on seeing him would have been startled. They would have reeled back. Who would have wanted to be alone with such a one? I mean, there would have been a terror in the heart of everyone who

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confronted that. Indeed, Lazarus might have found himself being so turned aside by others that he would have been pleased to go back to the grave again, for at least there, there would have been no hideous outcries when he came near. But Jesus doesn't force Lazarus to undergo that kind of thing. He sets him

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free. He says, "Loose him and let him go." Now when Jesus calls us from death to life, "Come forth," that's when he gives us the robe of righteousness, the breastplate of righteousness that separates us from all our past, that takes care of all our yesterdays. Scars are still there, but we are protected. And then Jesus says, "Loose

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him and let him go." And in that, the bond-binding talons of sin are taken away from us, and we are enabled to live freely and to live powerfully in the grace of Jesus Christ. We're set free to become better and better by what he is doing in us. Paul says we're to work out our salvation in fear and trembling. That

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means we have a part of the job. We're to be at work too. Abiding in Christ isn't easy. You know, sometimes you see these advertising phrases, "30 days to a more powerful vocabulary," "Eat everything you want and lose weight," "How to learn a foreign language while asleep." Well, those kind of shortcuts take you to

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places you don't want to go. Those are lies. Anything that's worth something is going to take some effort. And so we have to work at becoming better and better. But we're not working alone, because Jesus' righteousness is in us. You ever seen one of these construction workers high up, maybe nine, ten stories off the

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ground, and they walk from beam to beam. They walk around as if, like we walk around down here. No safety belts, no nets under them. You know how they do that? I've asked them, and they'll tell you. It's a matter of focus. You never look down. You look only at the beam on which you are walking. That's exactly what

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we're called to do. We're not supposed to look at the circumstances that surround us. We're not supposed to look at other people for their guidance. We are to concentrate and discipline ourselves by looking at Jesus. We gird on the belt of truth, which is the Word of God written, the scriptures. This gives us

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what we are to do. And then we put on that breastplate of righteousness, which helps us not only to be rid of yesterday, to be stronger and stronger today. As we grow in righteousness, we discover that it's more less to be holy than it is to be happy. As we grow in righteousness, we become more concerned about honoring

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God than honoring ourselves. We no longer complain about taking up our cross and following him. We begin to see things with God's eyes and not our own. We suddenly discover that it's more important to die right than it is to live wrong. We begin thinking of things in terms of eternity and not in terms of

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time. We begin thinking more about others than we think about ourselves. Christ growing in us enables us to do this. Our efforts and his join together and we grow in righteousness. So in a few minutes you will go forth out into the world and I hope you will go girded with the belt of the Word of God and wearing

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the chain mail of righteousness given to you by Christ. But understand this, when you go out with that breastplate of righteousness on, you're going to be very conspicuous because you see that breastplate shines, it gleams, and people are soon going to discover that you're marching to the beat of a different

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drummer even by the way you look and talk and act. And you have very high goals. Some years ago Wu-Ting Fang, who was one of the great Confucius scholars of the last generation, visited in the United States and he said at that time that he preferred Confucianism over Christianity because he thought

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Christianity was very impractical. It set ideals that were too high. Well he was quite right when he said that the ideals of Christianity are higher than those of Confucianism. Christians are not just called to be good, we're called to be better and we are called in fact to be the best. Jesus says "Be ye therefore

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perfect as my Father in heaven as perfect." Now they will not gain this perfection here on earth. The most grievous sin we can commit here on earth is not to fail but rather not to aim high enough. We're to aim higher and higher and then the time will come when we will go to be with him like our loved

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ones already are and then we will be perfect. That's what we read in 1st John. What a marvelous word. "Beloved, we are God's children now. It does not yet appear what we shall be but we know that we shall be like him and his purity will make us pure." In heaven we'll achieve that perfection toward which we've

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worked with Christ's righteousness in our hearts. Well in this last minute that belongs to us, let me change the metaphor from a military one to a naval one. Some years ago there was a little ship that used to go up along the New England coast. Just a tiny little ship, carried dried apples and kitchen furniture and

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things like that, stopping at every little port. But the captain had a very high view of himself so every time any other vessel would pass he'd always hail that other vessel and one day a great ship came plowing by with acres of white sails and hundreds of seamen swarming over its decks and up in its yards. Sure

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enough this little this little captain climbs up onto his poop deck and he cries out, "Ship ahoy! What ship is that? And whence and whither?" As he did this he could smell the rich perfumes coming from this ship drifting across the water to where he called. And a thunderous voice came back across the water, "I am

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the Begum of Bengal, 123 days out of Pantone and homeward bound. Who are you?" And the little captain replied, "Only the Marianne, six days out of Boston with nothing to speak of. As you go out of here, sailing into whatever walk of life which is yours, whatever seas you have to cross, there will be little ships

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coming to you with little things, petty interruptions. There will be those things that call you to be smaller than you are, that try to drag you down and to defeat you. They'll surround you, this flotilla of the meaningless. When they do, stand tall on your decks with the belt of the Word of God about you and the breastplate

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of Jesus Christ's righteousness upon you. See above you that your sails are filled with the winds of the Holy Spirit of God. And that cargo that you carry is nothing less than the aroma of the presence of the Holy Spirit, the sweet smell of God's goodness, the riches that are beyond measure. And say to them as they come to

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you, "I am the Begum of Bengal, 123 days out of Canton and homeward bound." Let us pray. O God, we thank thee for the righteousness of Christ that does in us what we are not able to do for ourselves. We thank thee for a breastplate that

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covers all the past that enables us to be protected and stronger in the present. And we thank thee that in the end we shall be purified with your own purity and will have all eternity in that home toward which we're bound. We pray our prayer in Jesus' name, amen.

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