Abide in the Vine

ME

I remember when I was little getting in trouble for using a wrench to hammer in some nails and my dad let me know, there was a tool for that… its called a hammer… and that was not made for hammering… and it isn’t that I didn’t know that, I just had no idea where the hammer was and I couldn’t find it so I used the next best thing I could find…

Working with dad when he was working on the car was always a great time… I saw a great meme the other day and it said “You can’t hurt my feelings, I held the flashlight for my dad before…” and some of you feel that to the depths of your soul

WE

Maybe you have never used a wrench to hammer in something but maybe you remember stories similar where a wrong tool was being used for the wrong purpose… and you still have nightmares about it to this day…

And today, the story while similar is much more bleak… today Jesus is going to talk about people who he has saved… who he has paid the price for in the crucifixion and resurrection that are not living for the purpose that he has called them to live… they are living for their own purposes instead of the purpose he has called us… and perhaps this is a warning to all of us…

EXPOSITION

John 15:1 ESV

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

And this is the final I am statement of Jesus

I am the bread of Life

I am the light of the world

I am the door of the sheep

I am the Good Shepherd

I am the resurrection and the life

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

I am the true vine

And they have left the upper room, and in three short chapters He will be arrested and put on trial…

And so they leave dinner and Jesus continues to teach… and he starts to speak about being a true vine and as they left dinner and travelled east toward the garden they would have been able to see the temple mount…and above the entry way into the temple was this large decorative vine above the entrance to the holy place… and people would add jewels and things to it, and according to Josephus some of the grape clusters were the size of a man… and the reason this was there was because the vine was a symbol of the nation of Israel

Psalm 80:8–9 ESV

8 You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. 9 You cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land.

And they would remember themselves as this vine and the idea of the vineyard expressed the idea of God’s labor and care for planting his people in the promise land… and as they travel and see this, Jesus begins to talk about this thing they would have clearly understood and saw.

And it is clear that God’s idea was he was going to plant Israel in the promise land and he wanted them to be fruitful… in fact this was the the plan he had promised Abraham from the beginning in Gen 35:11

Genesis 35:11 ESV

11 And God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body.

So from the very beginning this was the plan… but now, here in the Gospel Jesus is claiming to be the true vine. And we have to remember that Jesus has turned so many things on their head already… he has told them he is the true temple back in chapter 2. He has told them in John 4 that he is the living water that Jacob’s well cannot give, He has told them he is the new Moses that supplies the true bread that came down from heaven…and in 8 and 9 he showed us how he was the true light of the world. and so here when he is talking to them about being the true vine, he is telling them that unlike the people of Israel who are faithless he is exactly what God intended for his people to be…. He will bring forth the fruit that Isreal has failed to produce…

And Jesus goes on to say

John 15:2 ESV

2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

And he has called us to bear fruit…

And its very interesting, because we think what does fruit mean what am I supposed to be producing? and I think the natural thing we like to think of is this story in Matthew 7:15-23 where Jesus is telling a story about people coming to him… didn’t we.. never knew you

And I think that’s the kind of fruit that Jesus wants us to do right there… all these good ministry things… but if he says we can do those things and clearly people would see that, then we can’t judge by those fruits, because even though we see it, we see that those fruits aren’t really what define whether we are in him or not. so what is he talking about?

Easily I think he is talking about the fruit of the spirit… let’s look at it

Galatians 5:22–23 ESV

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

So all of these things are what he is calling us to produce in our lives. And what we see is we aren’t really producing them… the holy spirit being in our lives is what produces this fruit that we are to bear… and he says he prunes us and I think this is a beautiful thing especially if you grow things you will love this, and they were definitely a much more agricultural community..

but here are a couple things

It takes time to grow things. It might not be the moment that you come to Christ that you immediately see all of these things evident. Some things grow slowly, some things grow quickly it all depends on the soil. And that means for some of us it won’t grow at the same rate as it does in others we may get some of those fruits faster or slower… God has to work at the right strength and pace for us.

But hear me clearly this morning, that doesn’t mean that you should have none and not being moving toward them. I heard a good story of a pastor who was talking with a woman in his church and he was talking about how to know you have been saved, and actually walking with God and he used this scripture about producing fruit, and read them off and asked which one was evident in her life, and she said none… and he said then you probably need to give your life to Jesus because he should be producing a good fruit in you… and you can only imagine how well that went over… but it’s true the Lord should be producing a good fruit in us that shows its head in all of these areas… but he has to prune us.

And that pruning is a two step process it seems from this verse. The first thing he tells us is

John 15:2 (ESV)

2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away…

He says if you aren’t bearing fruit he will cut you off and as we will see next week he says after he cuts it off it will be tossed in the fire… an unreal image…

And I know this will be terribly hard for you to believe, but there is a lot of contention about this verse and what it really means… there are those on the eternal salvation side, and those who are not, and so when you get on one side of the fence it changes how you look at this verse because you have some preconceived ideas of what Jesus is talking about.. but lets get down to what I really think Jesus is talking about here…

He mentions two types of branches connected to the vine… those that bear fruit and those that do not… but remember… they are connected to the vine… and so I think the ones he is talking about here in this verse, are those who profess in Jesus, say they believe but there is no evidence of that in their lives… nothing is changing…. and I think a good example in the context of this story would be Judas Iscariot who was walking with him and saying he believed and even following him around, but didn’t truly believe as was evident in his life…

And this is scary, because this is what I talk about so often… come to church years… no real relationship and life change…

I think verse three supports this look at what he says

John 15:3 ESV

3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.

And that goes back all the way to 13:10 where Jesus has told them after the foot washing… you are clean… but not all of you and John explains he was referring to Judas as the unclean one… so he would have been the one that was cut away and cast into the fire…

And this goes along with Matthew 3:10

Matthew 3:10 ESV

10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Where John is telling the Pharisees that just because they are the children of Abraham doesn’t mean they will get into the kingdom withpout bearing fruit

And it goes on with Romans 11 where Paul explains the olive tree as Israel and some branches broken off because of their unbelief…

SO Jesus is saying he is the true vine… and he is going to be the fulfillment of the picture of Israel in the OT… and the branches in him that are cut away are those professing Christians who do not have real life change, but show up every time the door is open.. and if you go back to Matthew… maybe even do some good works…

BUt what about the branches that do bear fruit?

You have to notice the progression in verse 2… first if you don’t bear fruit… you are out… second

John 15:2 (ESV)

2 … and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

So he says if you do bear fruit, he’s going to prune you so you can bear MORE fruit… why? because

John 15:5 (ESV)

5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

If we are in him we have to bear MUCH fruit… it gets to that place…when he prunes us… but why does he have to prune us?

Because listen, he has already cleansed us right… that is what he told us in Verse 3… So in the sense of salvation when we are abiding in him he has cleansed us of our sin, but in the process of sanctification we have to be pruned so we can actually bear fruit. All of us if we are going to bear fruit have to be pruned.

Some of you may know this from a gardening standpoint… and I know there may be some controversy when it comes to tomatoes, but this is the whole reason why when tomatoes are growing we cut off the suckers… and I say that and realize I may have to explain it…

Or when Jenn’s growing zinnias, when the first bud comes you pinch that sucker off so more will grow, you have to prune so you get more… and the same is true… Jesus has to prune out some of the bad stuff in our lives so our energy can go into growing the good stuff so we aren’t wasting resources on things that are no good.

Which brings us to the last verse this morning, Jn 15:4

John 15:4 ESV

4 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.

This abiding means a long term growing relationship… its as if we are sharing a house together and he is living with us and us with him, and we can’t do anything with him there that would make him uncomfortable… He is going to clean the mess out of the garage that we don’t want to handle. He’s going to put order in the junk drawer….

The question is, are you abiding in him, is it evident by the fruit in your life… or are you like that lady in the church we talked about earlier?

YOU

WE