where is the fruit

Rooted in the True Vine: Understanding Genuine Salvation

Bible Passage: Jn 15:1–17

Summary: In John 15:1-17, Jesus describes himself as the true vine and his followers as branches. This metaphor illustrates the vital connection between Christ and believers, emphasizing the necessity of abiding in Him for spiritual fruitfulness, love, and obedience.

Application: This passage encourages Christians to evaluate the depth of their relationship with Christ and highlights the importance of dependence on Him for spiritual growth. It serves as a reminder that genuine salvation produces visible fruit in our lives, shaping how we engage with others and respond to challenges.

Teaching: The sermon teaches that salvation is not merely a one-time event but an ongoing relationship that is contingent upon our connection to Christ. It explores the implications of abiding in Jesus, including the transformative power of His love and our call to bear fruit that reflects that love in the world.

How this passage could point to Christ: In the broader context of Scripture, Jesus as the true vine is the fulfillment of Old Testament imagery of Israel as God's vineyard. It highlights the continuity of God's plan of salvation, emphasizing that Christ is the source of life, sustenance, and purpose for His people throughout history.

Big Idea: Genuine salvation is characterized by a vital and abiding relationship with Christ, resulting in spiritual fruitfulness and expressions of His love in our lives.

Recommended Study: As you prepare for this sermon, consider diving into the historical context of viticulture in Israel to better illustrate Jesus' metaphor. Use your Logos library to explore commentaries that discuss the theological implications of 'abiding' in Christ and examine the Greek terms used for 'fruit' and 'love' to uncover deeper meanings. Also, consider reviewing works that highlight the transition from Old Testament to New Testament understanding of God's people as His vineyard.

The Bible is the authority, the only authority, the only book that God wrote.  It contains 66 books – 39 books in the Old Testament, which is the revelation of God before Christ; 27 books in the New Testament, the revelation of God since the coming of Christ, together makes up the 66 books of the Bible.

In the Bible, God speaks.  It is His Word.  When we come together, we don’t come together to hear men speak, we come to hear God speak.  The responsibility then of the pastor and the preacher is to take the message from God and bring it to the people.  I’ve always seen myself, not as a chef, but as a waiter.  My responsibility is not to create the meal, but try to get it to the table without messing it up.  And that is the responsibility which I try to discharge, as we all do whenever we open Scripture.

So as we come to the 15th chapter of John, like anywhere else in the Bible, we are listening to God.  The writer is the apostle John.  But the writer is also God, the Holy Spirit who inspired every word that John wrote.  Because of this, the Bible is without error, it is accurate, and it is authoritative.  When the Bible speaks, God speaks.  And when God speaks, we listen, because God says to us what we must know.

The Bible should dominate every life and all of human society, for in it is contained all necessary truth for life in time and eternity.  And when a nation or a person rejects the Bible, they have rejected God, and the consequences are dire, dire.  Those who listen to God through His Word are given life and blessing, now and forever.

And so we come to the 15th chapter of John.  Just to set the stage a little bit, starting in chapter 13 and running through chapter 16, we find ourselves on Thursday night of Passion Week, the last week of our Lord’s ministry.  Thursday night was an important night.  He gathered with the 12 disciples to celebrate the Passover on that Thursday night when the Galilean Jews would celebrate it.

They met together in a kind of secret place that we call upper room, and our Lord spent that night telling them many wonderful things, giving them many, many promises.  As that night moved on, our Lord exposed Judas as the traitor, and dismissed him.  And Judas left to go meet the leaders of Israel to arrange for the arrest and subsequent crucifixion of the Lord Jesus.  By the time we come to chapter 15, Judas is gone, and only the 11 are left, and they are true disciples.

But as we come to chapter 15, they’re no longer in the upper room.  It is deep into the dark of night.  But chapter 14 ends with Jesus saying this: “Get up; let us go from here.”  Apparently at that time, they left the upper room, Jesus and the 11, and they began their walk through Jerusalem, headed out the east side of the city to a garden where our Lord would pray in prayer so agonizing that He sweat as it were great drops of blood.  And while He was praying, they would fall asleep.  And into that garden later would come Judas, and the Roman soldiers, and the Jewish leaders to arrest Him.  And there, Judas would kiss him; the betrayal would take place; and the next day, He would be crucified.

As they leave the upper room and walk through the darkness of Jerusalem, our Lord continues to speak to them, and what He says to them is recorded in chapters 15 and 16.  Of all these things that He says, nothing is more definitive than the first eight verses of chapter 15.  Our Lord here give not really a parable – scripture reading

Now it should be pretty obvious from that final sentence 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?

Nothing is more important than this.  Nothing is more important than salvation.  Nothing is more important than eternal life.  Nothing is more important than heaven.  How do you know?  In this word picture, we have everything we need to know.

  What did Jesus have in His mind that night?  They had just left the upper room.  The drama that took place there over Judas, the exposure of Judas, the disciples, when Jesus said, “One of you will betray Me,” they said, “Is it I?  Is it I?  Is it I?” which is to say they had no idea it was Judas.

There was nothing manifestly obvious in the life and character and behavior of Judas that would have distinguished him as a false disciple.  He was visibly attached, and for all intents and purposes, looked like everybody else, did what everybody else did.  But, clearly, there were two kinds of people in that room that night.  There were those who bore fruit and there was that one who did not.  There were those who remained abiding in, remaining in, attached to the vine; and there was that one who’s cut off.

This is the reality of that night, and this has to be what’s behind our Lord’s thinking and speaking here.  He needs to explain to these men Judas.  Wouldn’t it seem natural to you that in this intimate talk with the beloved 11 that are still with Him, that they’re all still trying to process Judas.  He was high profile.  He was the one who carried the money, trusted.  They were trying to figure out just, “How did it happen?  Who is he?  How does he fit?  What’s going on?” and our Lord gives us an explanation.

He says, “There are branches that have an outward appearance of attachment, but bear no fruit.  They’re taken away and they’re burned.”  And He has to be thinking of Judas.  Judas, who was in close connection to Him, has left on his way to eternal hell.  And, in fact, the Bible says he went to his own place.  It says it would have been better for him if he’d never been born, Mark 14.

So our Lord helps us to understand the elements of the parable.  He is the vine, the Father is the vinedresser; the branches that bear fruit are the true disciples; the branch that bears no fruit, cut off and burned, is a false disciple.  That’s the way we understand His words.

There are, in the kingdom of God, possessors of life and professors: “Not everyone that says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into My kingdom,” Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount.  There are people who build a religious house, but they built it on sand, and rather do not build it on rock.  So Jesus really has gathered all the figures in the final night’s drama and formed them into a strong analogy full of meaning.

He chose to see Himself as a vine, to present himself as a vine.  He had earlier, in chapter 10, presented Himself as a shepherd with a flock.  He had earlier presented Himself as light.  He had earlier presented Himself as, through the Holy Spirit, water.  So He drew from familiar analogies.

And you might say, “Well, He referred to Himself as a vine because a vine is lowly, and a vine is in the earth and in lowliness.  The vine, if it weren’t propped up by some kind of wires or something, would just run along the ground, and this speaks of His lowliness.”  It’s a good metaphor to speak of His lowliness.

Somebody else might say it’s a good metaphor because it speaks of union, it speaks of the closeness and communion of those who are Christ’s with Him, the very same life flowing through the vine, flowing through the branches.  Others might say it’s a good symbol, it’s a good word picture because it talks about fruit-bearing, fruitfulness, the result of being in Christ is manifest.  Others would say it illustrates dependence, as our Lord said, “Without Me, you can do nothing.”  It illustrates that kind of dependence.

All the life comes from the vine.  It emphasizes belonging.  If you are connected, you belong.  And I think all of that is true.  But there’s another, much more important reason why He says, “I am the true vine,” and that is because there was a defective vine.

There was a corrupted vine.  There was a degenerate vine.  There was a fruitless vine.  There was an empty vine.  Who?  Israel, Israel.  That’s right.  The covenant people of God, the Jewish people.

Israel is God’s vine in the Old Testament.  In Isaiah 5, Israel as presented as a vine.  God says, “I planted My vine, My vineyard in a very fertile hill,” Isaiah 5.  And that chapter, verses 1-7, goes on to talk about everything God did to give them all that was necessary for them to bring forth grapes.  They produced beushim, sour berries, inedible, useless.  Israel was the vine.  And that metaphor carried through the history of Israel during the Maccabean period between the Old and the New Testament.

The Maccabeans minted coins, and on the coin was a vine illustrating Israel.  And on the very temple, Herod’s massive temple, there was a great vine that literally had been carved and overlaid with gold, speaking of Israel as God’s vine.  God’s life flows through the nation.  That was a symbol of Israel.  There’s much in the Old Testament.  Psalm 80 – sometime you can read Psalm 80 in its fullness – but Psalm 80 tells us the tragedy of Israel’s defection as a vine.

Just listen to a few of the words from Psalm 80: “God removed a vine from Egypt, bringing Israel out of bondage in Egypt.  Drove out the nation’s, planted the vine – ” like Isaiah 5 “ – cleared the ground before it, took deep root, filled the land.  The mountains were covered with its shadow.  The cedars of God with it’s bows, it was sending out its branches.  It shoots to the river.”  Then this: “Why have You broken down its hedges, so that all who pass that way pick its fruit?  A bore from the forest eats it away.  And whatever moves in the field feeds on it.”

God planted Israel and then turned on Israel in judgment.  Psalm 80 then says, “O God of hosts, turn again now, we beseech you.  Look down from heaven and see, and take care of this vine, even the shoot which Your right hand has planted.  It is burned with fire.  It is cut down.”  Yeah, that’s Israel, that’s Israel.  Ezekiel said it is an empty vine, no fruit.  Isaiah says it produces sort of toxic, useless, inedible results.

Israel had been the stock of blessing.  Israel had been planted by God.  His life would come through Israel to all who attached to Israel.  But Israel was unfaithful, idolatrous, immoral, and God brought judgment.  That’s what the Old Testament lays out for us.

The disciples, like all the other Jews, thought, “Hmm, I’m Jewish.  I’m connected to God.”  Israel, the people of God, the Jewish people, are the source of divine blessing: “I am a Jew; I was born a Jew.  I’m the seed of Abraham; I’m connected to God.”  Not so.

Our Lord comes along and says, “If you want to be connected to God, you have to be connected, not to Israel, but to me.  I am the true vine, althinos.  I am the true vine.  I am the perfect vine.  Through Me, the life of God flows.”

1. Stay Rooted in Christ

Jn 15:1–6

In these verses, Jesus begins with the metaphor of the true vine, setting the stage for understanding genuine salvation. As He describes Himself as the Vine and the Father as the gardener, He emphasizes that the branches (believers) must remain in Him to bear fruit. Perhaps you could highlight the importance of maintaining this connection to Christ, suggesting that any disconnection leads to spiritual withering. By staying rooted in Christ, we find the source of life and nourishment necessary for producing spiritual fruit.

2. Abide and Abound in Joy

Jn 15:7–11

In this portion, Jesus underscores the power of abiding in Him through His words. The results of abiding include answered prayers, glorifying the Father, and fullness of joy. Maybe you could explore how believers are called to abide not only by bearing fruit but also through prayer and obedience. By remaining in Christ's love and keeping His commandments, Christians experience profound joy. Encourage the audience to consider their practice of spiritual disciplines as a reflection of their intimacy with Jesus.

3. Embrace Love as Evidence

Jn 15:12–17

Jesus concludes this passage by connecting love with commandment-keeping among His disciples. He commands them to love one another as He has loved them, establishing love as a key fruit of genuine salvation. Perhaps you could emphasize how Jesus' sacrificial love for us transforms our relationships and empowers us to embody this love. Encourage the audience to see their love for others as evidence of their disciple status and as the natural outcome of abiding in the True Vine.