I AM the Vine

Introduction

Recap Series

I AM the Bread of Life

looking at how Jesus sustains us as the mana from heaven sustained the Israelite during the exodus

I AM the Light of the world

looking how Jesus leads us as the pillar of fire and cloud led the Israelites and directs us where we are to go

I AM the Good Shepherd

The shepherd calls his sheep, protects his sheep and leads them to green pastures

I AM the resurrection and the life

Jesus is the power over our spiritual and physical death

I AM the Way the Truth and the Life

the work of Jesus frees us from our anxiety and trouble, from the requirement of making our way to God

Today - I AM the True Vine

It is so easy for our human hearts to fall for another Gospel

just this week, listening to a group of people speak about a passage and it quickly turned to a prosperity gospel

It is easy to make the gospel and the words of Jesus all about us

we are to be connected to the vine, to our Lord

John 15:1–8 (CSB)

1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.

2 Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit.

3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.

4 Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.

5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.

6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you.

8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

PRAY!

this like last weeks, takes place after the last supper.

they have left the upper room where they ate the meal, have not gotten to the garden where Jesus would get alone and pray.

imagine if you will the things that you might say to those that are important to you when you know that their lives are about to change dramatically

graduates

this is not a last thought,

but yet, Jesus knows what is about to happen to him and he wants the disciples to know that the only way to fulfil all that God has for them is to stay connected to the vine

Our fruit is not our good works, but that the spirit of God produces in us as we stay connected to him, that grows us and glorifies the Father.

Pruning for Fruit

Pruning process - knowing what to get rid of

it is the gardener who prunes the vine

Heather and I are not always the best gardeners…

Jimmy wanted to get Heather a pot for a plant that said something about the place where plants come to die

we recently tried to trim our trees in our front yard…

they didn’t look too bad, until the goat came and took a hunk out of the side of it.

John 15:1–3 (CSB)

1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.

2 Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit.

3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.

True Vine - book of Isaiah,

Israel is the vine, God is the gardener

but even with the best care, they produce bad fruit

we all have things we would like to change about us

maybe it is the way we do something, the way we look, maybe it is our weight

if we would bring somebody in that would change us, we would tell them exactly where and what we want to change about ourselves

so we might say, Not only do I want to lose weight, but I want you to take it from right here

so often, we want changes to certain things but not to others

I want to lose the weight, I want to lose it from right here and I want it without changing anything else

can I still eat when I want, what I want and still make me look the way I want

we laugh at this and might think it sounds great, but we do this with the Lord

He is the gardener in this parable, we do not get to direct how this goes

the branch does not direct the gardener

when to cut

we do not get to tell the Lord when we want to

does this mean that we cannot ignore

does this mean that we cannot say Lord I am ready

but it is the Lord that prunes

where to cut

as we talked about before, we want this removed, we want it shaped like this

but it is the Lord who removes when he wants

how to cut

some are more gentle, some are more painful

we would always take gentle, but if we are honest, some of the biggest lessons learned are from the painful events of our lives

Pruning cleanses us of the parts that are making us sick

prune = to cleanse

this is why Jesus tells the 11 that they are already clean

over the three years they have been with him, he has spoken truth over them and molded them how he wished

He is doing the same with us

through the word the lord

does He use the events of our life, of course

through his providence he uses the good and the bad to grow us

but he cleanses us through the word

this cannot happen simply on a Sunday morning

we must be people of the word

especially if we believe that the world is getting worse

especially knowing that everything we are getting fed is simply trying to get us to believe a certain narrative

Producing Real Fruit

pruned branches produce more fruit

we must understand what fruit is

used 6 times in this passage

noun often used in the NT as a figure of speech to describe the fruitful outcome of righteous actions

John 15:4–5 (CSB)

4 Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.

5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.

we see fruit as simply reproduction

our thinking God will cut out to produce more Christians

I heard an illustration that an apple tree cannot produce oranges

we know that is true

but it leads us to think that our fruit, is to produce more of us

we do not need more of me… I do not know how my wife lives with me now.

maybe you’re thinking we are to produce more christians, Jesus said go make disciples

Jesus loses none the father gives him, none come to the father unless the spirit draws him

we produce nothing

God does use us in the process, but this is not the fruit

Does God care about numbers… sure he wrote an entire book by that name

but he has not given us a quota of disciples that must be made

fruit is not good works

I am going to do this thing, teach this class, evangelize this much

fruit is what God through his word and Holy Spirit are doing to, through and in you

love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, gentleness, kindness, faithfulness, and self control

when the fruit of the spirit are coming out in our lives, then the good works will flow from us as well

This does not mean our works are not important

they come from our fruit and the order is important

works that come from the fruit produced in us is what James wrote about

faith without works is dead

works in attempt to prove ourself is what the evil doers cried about in Matthew 7:22

Matthew 7:22 (CSB)

22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?’

Our good works come from the good fruit that is produced in us by the Lord and when this happens, it is the Lord that will be glorified above all else

Glory From Fruit

Fruit producing branches glorify God

speak about verse 6

John 15:6 CSB

If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

this is not a loss of salvation… but those who were never saved

Judas did not lose his salvation

the seed that had no root did not lose salvation, but was never saved

we do not live with thought of glorifying God enough

in Matt 25, Jesus talks about the sheep and the goats

both of them are given the same situation of being able to feed the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothes for the naked, visiting those in prison

neither of them recognized that it was Jesus they had the opportunity to help

but there were some who simply said where were you…

others that said, if we knew it was you…

for both, it is who they are, it is the fruit produced in them that leads them to do for the least of these

our natural instinct is to glorify ourselves and do when we know it will count for our record

John 15:7–8 (CSB)

7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you.

8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

With twisted idea of fruit we get a twisted idea of glory

look how I am doing things for the Lord

pastors get this wrong a lot, I am one of the worst

how is the church doing, great, here are the list of things we are doing, the number of people coming, ext…

what good is it if we have 150 people in the room and we are not growing into the maturity of christ overall

we think the works are our proof,

we want to see tangible, hard evidence that we are doing good works so that we can point to them

God’s grace is with us growing us to the point we give up and allow his spirit to work in us

this is why it is so important to not live as if the gospel is not for every part of your life

in the same way that he gave the initial grace of your sin when you followed the Lord

he gives us grace when we fall back into the trap of works based salvation

He will give us all that we need to grow fruit

I wish that this verse kind of stood alone, or that we could cut the verse down and simply say, “… Ask whatever you want and it will be done for you.”

if you remain in me and my words remain in you

this means that we must do more than simply read the word of God

I believe simply listening to it is better than nothing, you can do that on our app

but reading it is easier to consume it and digest it

there is a push lately to read it like a story, and that is ok, but we tend to make ourselves the point of the story

study the bible - I like the ransom method

Read - Read the word of God

Ask -

What does this passage tell us about the person and work of God?

What does this passage tell us about human nature and the world we live in?

What commands are explicitly or implicitly given?

What sin is highlighted or condemned?

Is this passage revealing God’s commands or God’s promises?

How does this passage connect to the whole of Scripture?

How does this passage demonstrate the need for a Savior?

How does this passage relate to the person and work of Jesus Christ?

note -

note the main idea, key or repeated words, and prominent doctrines being emphasized.

This will be easier as you work through the answers to the questions you have been asking of the text.

summarize -

At this point in your reading of a passage of Scripture, it is good to summarize the main idea of the passage in your own words.

obey

This is where your study of Scripture gets very personal.

It’s one thing to ask of the passage, “Is there a command to be obeyed, or a sin to be forsaken?”

It is something else to ask yourself what would obedience to this passage look like in your life?

Where do you fall short in what is commanded?

How is the sin depicted here present in your life?

meditate

To meditate on the Scripture is to revisit the passage, your questions, the answers, and the central truths of the passage as you go about your day.

we do not get here by working harder

but by abiding, remaining

allowing the word to cleanse us and mold us, to prune us

Exalting Jesus in John Reflect and Discuss

Reflect and Discuss

1. Why does Jesus call himself the vine and his followers branches?

2. What forms do spiritual fruit take in the life of a believer? What fruit is evident in your life?

3. If Jesus is the true vine, what are false vines?

4. How is Jesus divisive?

5. What should followers of Jesus expect if God’s commitment to our fruit bearing is greater than our commitment to comfort?

6. How might God’s commitment to your fruit bearing change how you respond to different events in your life?

7. How do you “remain” in Jesus?

8. What does your prayer life look like today? Are you praying in confidence of answered prayer? Why or why not?

9. How is prayer a fruit of the Spirit?

10. Describe the difference between obedience to earn love and obedience as evidence of love.