Untitled Sermon

Notes for “The True Vine”

John 15:1-11

Introduction

As we come to the hour to dig deep into God’s Word, I want to take us into an intentional direction…

As we know, the “Easter” season is upon us. Resurrection Sunday is on April 20th. This means we have 6 Sundays leading up to that special day when we celebrate collectively and uniquely the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

With that said, I’d like to take the time, if I’m able, to prepare our hearts for that day through the preaching. And nothing will prepare our hearts better for that day than to walk very intimately with Jesus through His final days.

John has 21 chapters, and nearly half of it is devoted to the final days of our Lord’s life.

Beginning in John 13, we see the “Upper Room” discourse, where Jesus has a time of intimacy and closeness with His disciples prior to going to Calvary. This is where we get the Last Supper, the washing of the feet, the accusation of Judas, etc. 

We don’t have time to go all the way back to 13, but we will sorta jump into that most precious time in the Upper Room, and listen to the heart of our Savior in chapter 15.

So, let us read us read our text this morning -

John 15:1–8 KJV 1900

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.

Notice with me those first two words… “I AM”: a very interesting statement, spoken by the most influential and significant person who has ever lived. Even secular scholars and historians will tell you that there has lived no person in history who has had more of an impact on the world than Jesus.

We wage wars over Him, we divide the way we count time and years based on Him, we build churches with Him as the epicenter. So, the question, the most important question ever asked, is this, “Who is Jesus?”

Eternity hangs on how you and I answer that question; we are about to celebrate Easter… whether that day is a commemoration of the life of a good person who lived and died or if that day signifies the only time in history when someone rose again from the dead on His own volition hangs on that question, “Who is Jesus?”

For two-thousand years, humanity has wrestled with this question, although the answer is very simple. Yet, for the sake of the question’s importance, let’s explore it.

We are forced to deal with it, because there is no arguing that Jesus existed, said many controversial things, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate just as the Scriptures say. One way we know that is from the Scriptures themselves. Many skeptics want to disregard the NT by saying its just a book written by men and it contains flaws because men are flawed. However, did you know that there is no work of antiquity that has even close to the amount of corroboration as the NT? Thousands upon thousands of manuscripts that all say the same things, and are written hundreds of years apart, in vastly different areas of the world. - We couldn’t even put a sentence together, pass it around the room, and have the same thing that we started with. The fact that the NT you hold in your hand this morning says virtually the same exact thing to a 99.999% accuracy to what John wrote down is evidence that it is divinely inspired. Scholars cannot give an answer for the supernatural preservation of God’s Word down through the years. No other work even comes close.

Yet, even if we looked outside of Scripture, we would find the same thing. People who weren’t Christians at the time Jesus lived recorded His existence and execution as part of the history of their time. (Tacitus)

So, we know He existed, we know He claimed to be God, we know He claimed He was the way, the truth, and the life, we know these things happened - no question.

Now, we have to ask, “Who was He” or “Is He who He said He is?”

Christian writer, CS Lewis, sought to map out a way to answer this question in his book, Mere Christianity. You may have heard it, in the book he gives a theory, he states that Jesus can be only one of the three things, Liar, Lunatic, or Lord.

In this theory, Lewis posits that Jesus either knew He wasn’t God, and lied. Or He believed He was God, and He was wrong. OR He believed He was God and it was/is true. Let’s explore:

Was Jesus a Liar? - Did He knowingly deceive His disciples, and by extension billions of people by telling them He was God when He was not? No, Jesus’s life bears record that every thing He did and said contained zero contradiction within itself. His disciples spent every waking moment with Him, and never once accused Him of a lie or contradiction. Don’t believe them? “John Stuart Mill, a philosopher, skeptic, and antagonist of Christianity, admitted that Jesus was a first-rate ethicist supremely worthy of our attention and emulation: “When this pre-eminent genius is combined with the qualities of probably the greatest moral reformer, and martyr to that mission, who ever existed upon earth, religion cannot be said to have made a bad choice in pitching on this man as the ideal representative and guide of humanity; nor, even now, would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, than to endeavor so to live that Christ would approve our life.”

Was Jesus a Lunatic? - Did He believe He was God, but was just crazy. No, it would be impossible. From the time of Jesus, every word He ever spoke as been catalogued and used as the height and pinnacle of human intellect. Frederic Nietzsche, the atheist philosopher, even said this: “The Sermon on the Mount given by Jesus Christ is the greatest material ever contributed to the topics of morality and ethics. So much so that every single contribution to the conversation of ethics outside of Jesus’s words is but a footnote on His mastery.”

Was Jesus Lord? - Now THIS is where I wanted to get to… He’s not a liar, He wasn’t a crazy person, therefore He has to be Lord, right? Well, let’s take the next few weeks and find out for ourselves, shall we?

Now, we can circle back to our text… Now it should be pretty obvious from that final sentence in v.8 what the point of this analogy is. This is about a vine and branches and fruit-bearing that proves someone to be a true disciple. This then is about the nature of genuine salvation. This is about the nature of genuine salvation. This is a concern to our Lord, a concern to all the Bible writers, and a concern to all faithful Christians, and has been through history. How does one know that one is a true disciple? How does one know that one is genuinely headed to heaven? How does one know that he or she will escape hell? How do we know?

However, before we tackle the salvation issue, we see Jesus claim, yet again, to be God. How? In the first two words, “I am...”

This is callback, and the disciples would know full well, to Exodus 3 when Moses meets God for the first time and God tells him, “I AM THAT I AM” - This is THE Jewish name for God, the name God gave Himself. (Yahweh)

Jesus did this over and over again in His ministry. People like to say, “Well Jesus never claimed to be God, that's just something Christians added in later...” No, by virtue of all Christ did and said, He claimed to be God countless times and in countless ways.

There’s a series of those claims throughout the gospel of John. He says, “I am the Bread of Life. I am the Living Bread that came down from heaven. I am the Light of the World. I am the Door, I am the Shepherd, the Good Shepherd. I am the Resurrection and the Life. I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” And then He makes the stunning, inescapable claim, chapter 8, verse 58, “Before Abraham was born, I am eternally existing.”

There is no greater “I AM” statement than the one found in John 8:24 “I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”” - Is that clear enough? If you do not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ, if you believe He is anything other than God incarnate, you will die in your sins. That is not my stance, or the stance of this Church, or the stance of the Baptist denomination. That is the stance of Jesus Christ Himself.

Now, this final “I am” statement found in John’s Gospel is this, “I am the true vine...” Now, we have a good picture of the characters in this analogy or parable that Jesus is about to tell. He is the vine, His father is the vine-dresser, the one who owns and is over the vineyard, and people, souls of men, are the branches.

This statement, “I am the true vine” carries a lot of weight. For us, we look at it and say, “well He’s the vine because he has life flowing through Him to the branches.” and that is true. However, there is a much more significant reason why Jesus chooses this illustration for this lesson. & it can only be found by looking at the Jews.

Notice He says “I am the true vine.” He emphasizes true, why? Because there was a corrupted vine, a fruitless vine, and empty vine… the Children of Israel. Isa 5:1

Isaiah 5:1 ESV

Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

Psalm 80:8 ESV

You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.

They were called a vine because they were attached to God by His covenants with them. The Jewish people were the avenue to God, the pathway to God. They were attached to God. Yet, they bore no fruit, they sinned, they rejected Him. Therefore, God cut them off. In doing so, He gave us His Son, who is the TRUE vine. The TRUE way to God. The One who was able to fulfill all the Israel faltered on.

Now, here’s the first point Jesus is making in this parable… The Jews thought, “I am an Israelite, therefore I am the vine of God. Therefore, I am connected to God just by virtue of being connected to Israel.” Do you see that?

“I am a Jew, I’m the seed of Abraham, therefore I’m connected to God.” - But then Jesus comes along as says, “Not so, if you want to be connected to God you will have to be connected not to Israel, but to ME.”: