The Vine and the branches
The Gospel of John • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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WELCOME:
Good morning church.
SCRIPTURE READING:
In that day the Lord will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, With His fierce and great and mighty sword, Even Leviathan the twisted serpent; And He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea. In that day, “A vineyard of wine, sing of it! “I, the Lord, am its keeper; I water it every moment. So that no one will damage it, I guard it night and day. “I have no wrath. Should someone give Me briars and thorns in battle, Then I would step on them, I would burn them completely. “Or let him rely on My protection, Let him make peace with Me, Let him make peace with Me.” In the days to come Jacob will take root, Israel will blossom and sprout, And they will fill the whole world with fruit.
LET US STAND AND WORSHIP!
“The Goodness of God”
Words and Music by Hillsong’
PRAYER OF PRAISE FOR WHO GOD IS
Lord, thank you for your constancy. For never turning Your back on us, for never getting frustrated with us, for forgiving our sins, for allowing us to be part of Your plan. We ask that You would look down upon this gathering of people and fill our hearts with great joy today as we focus on You. Amen!
“What a beautiful Name”
Words and Music by Hillsong
“What a beautiful Name”
Words and Music by Hillsong
PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION TO OPEN OUR HEARTS
Lord, give us ears to hear Your voice and eyes to see Your glory. Would you this morning illuminate Your Word and make it known to us? Help us no to make application to others peoples’ lives, but to apply every Word to our own lives. Amen
SERMON
INTRODUCTION:
Jesus is the master teacher. The way He taught was so memorable, clear, and revealed great truth in ways we could understand it. One of the reasons his teachings were so impactful and memorable was because He used real life illustrations or stories to communicate deep spiritual truth. That is no less true of our passage of Scripture today titled: “The Vine and the Branches”.
The lesson Jesus is giving to His disciples (and us) is about how live fruitful lives that bring glory to God. It is tempting to think this is all dependent upon human effort: read more Scripture, be more disciplined, do more works…and that is part of it, but before any of that we must understand that any fruit produced in our lives is a work of God, it comes from God, and it is produced by God working in us and through us.
I have divided this sermon up into the different roles each part of vine and how they play a part in the production of fruit in our lives. There is the role of Jesus. There is the role of the Father. There is the role of the disciples, and then there is the role of the fruit itself
~PRAYER~
The Role of the Vine
The Role of the Vine
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.
Lets begin by identifying all the parts in this illustration:
The true Vine: Jesus says very plainly that He is the true vine. The word “vine” means “grapevine”. If you’ve ever seen a grapevine, they come out of the ground in one big stalk and then branches off into small branches that hold the grapes. The vine supply all the nutrients needed for the branches to produce grapes.
The Vinedresser: Jesus tells us that this is the Father. The vinedresser is the farmer who tends to his grapevine. He is the one who would come out, cut away the dead branches, train the other branches to receive sunlight, and at the end of season he would be the one who collects the grapes for His enjoyment.
The branches: Jesus tells us in verse 5 that the disciples are the branches. They are the ones who are connected to vine and they are the ones who will produce the fruit for the farmer.
What does Jesus mean when He says He is “the true Vine”
Now by saying He is the true vine, he is not saying there is a false vine, but a failed vine. And in order for us to undertsand this we must look back into the OT.
This vine or vineyard metaphor Jesus uses stems all the way back into the OT.
Israel was referred to as God’s choice vine or vineyard.
Let me sing now for my well-beloved A song of my beloved concerning His vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill.
The nation of Israel was referred to God’s vineyard. God chose this nation, brought them u- out of Egypt, took them through the wilderness, planted them in the promise Land, and gave them everything they needed to reflect His glory to the nations around them.
But thats not what happened
He dug it all around, removed its stones, And planted it with the choicest vine. And He built a tower in the middle of it And also hewed out a wine vat in it; Then He expected it to produce good grapes, But it produced only worthless ones.
Just like any Farmer that plants a vineyard, they are looking for fruit. No one plants a vineyard without expecting to get some kind of return. And no farmer plants a vineyard and is satisfied with rotten fruit. They are looking for good fruit.
The same was true for Israel. They were not chosen to just exist and have God’s blessing upon them, they were planted by God to produce good fruit, but instead Isaiah says they only produced worthless grapes.
The question then is what is this fruit God that God expected?
Isaiah goes on to help us in verse 7:
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel And the men of Judah His delightful plant. Thus He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; For righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.
What God expected from Israel was righteousness, godliness, brotherly love, the very character of God reflected to the world around them. When the world saw Israel, they were supposed to get a hint at who God was.
But instead of justice, he saw blood shed, instead of righteousness, He saw a cry of distress.
Now in light of that background of God’s vineyard, Jesus says He is the true vine or the true vineyard.
He is the true vine in the sense that He is perfect, that He is faithful, that He fruitful, He is righteous, He is the One who produces what God expects.
Just as God expected good fruit from Israel, God does receive good fruit from Jesus.
What does this have to do with Jesus’ role?
I want you to jump down to John 15:4 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.”
The role of Jesus as the Vine is that it is the source of fruit for the disciples. Just like a vine would supply everything that the branch needs to be healthy, so Jesus is the source that provides everything that the disciples need to become fruitful.
Notice the emphasis in these verses is that the branches must “abide” or “remain” in the vine of they will bear no fruit.
Now from a horticulture standpoint, the point is obvious. You remove a branch from the vine and the branch becomes fruitless and withers and dies.
The branch gets all of its nutrients from the vine. The sap needed for the branch to produce fruit is supplied by the vine. The water comes from the vine. The nutrients from the soil is su-plied by the vine. Everything that branch needs to become fruitful is given to it from the vine.
Jesus says, so it is in Christianity. For followers of Jesus to become fruitful, they must be connected to Jesus.
Without Jesus, no fruit! No matter how much we study, no matter how hard we true, no matter what we do, without the vine, we will never produce anything pleasing to God.
The Role of the Vinedresser
The Role of the Vinedresser
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
There are two things that the Father does in with the branches:
He takes away the branches that do not bear fruit
Like any good vinedresser, the dead branches, those that do not produce fruit will be “taken away” from the vine. Why? because the entire purpose of the grapevine is to produce grapes for the farmer! And there is no need to keep dead branches attached to the living vine. They occupy space where other branches may grow.
Now what happens to those branches? Well down in verse 6 it says those dead branches are thrown into the fire to be burned.
It doesn’t take much imagination to see what Jesus is saying. Those who become followers of Jesus but never produce any fruit are dead branches attached to the Vine.
The fire is a representation of the final judgment when those people whose names who are not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life are thrown into the Lake of Fire. Literally it is a description of hell.
What is Jesus’ point?
Fruit is the evidence of salvation. Fruit is the product of a Christian life just as grapes are the product of a grape vine. You know it is a grape vine because it produces grapes!
Fruit is not a requirement of Christianity, it is the evidence that one is genuinely a Christian.
What is Christian fruit?
Here are just a few from Scripture:
righteous living (we saw this in the fruit God expected from Israel)
Christian character: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control (Gal. 5:22–23),
Good works: (Col. 1:10)
witnessing to others (Rom. 1:13)
Sharing our things to meet the needs of others (Rom. 15:25–28)
Praising God (Heb. 13:15)
abundant joy (v 11)
obedience to Jesus’ commands (v 10)
And there certainly is more, but these are just a few examples for us to get an understanding of the fruit of Christianity.
The Vinedresser prunes the branches that DO bear fruit so that they will bear more fruit
Not only does the Father remove dead branches from the vine, but he also prunes the branches that do bear fruit so that they will bear even more fruit.
Ashley has several fruit trees in our yard. Peach, cherry plum, apple, and even a few grapevines. Every year she takes her cutters out there, and she starts trimming pieces off of those trees. cutting some branches back here and there. Adjusting those so that they get the maximum amount of light and are in an environment that will produce to greatest and sweetest fruit.
The word prune (καθαίρω) means literally to “make clean” from dirt or from stains.
The wording Jesus uses pictures God cutting away and removing things from the disciple’s lives that are hindering growth. Dirt or sin can stunt this growth, so God takes action and prunes those fruitful branches to become more fruitful.
Pruning can be painful at times very similar to how a farmer cuts back portions of the branch so that new growth can happen. For a grapevine to produce a good crop of fruit, the farmer would often train the branches to get the maximum amount of growth. In the same way, God puts guardrails up in our lives to train us and keep us on the right course so that we will become more fruitful.
God intervenes in our lives, in circumstances, sometimes painful at times because He is trimming away the things that do not need to be there and setting up our lives to become more fruitful.
As one cannot bear fruit apart from Christ, more fruit is produced by the involvement of God.
(v 3) Jesus says, “you are already clean because of the word which I had spoken to you”
Application:
The cleansing Jesus is speaking of here is justification. They have had their sins washed away by Jesus, because they believed in Him.
But this does not mean that they can be exempt from the pruning/cleansing that must continue from the Father throughout their life
If you are attached to the vine, God is working. You may not be able to see much growth or any growth at all, but make no mistake, God is at work.
Fruit take time
Ashley has a few grapevines begins the house and when they were planted, they began to grow up the trellis and looked healthy but did not produce any grapes that first year.
As that vine grew, she would train it to grow up over that trellis and take care of it promoting growth, and still no fruit.
It took a few years before her grape vines ever began to produce any fruit.
And sometimes it is like that in our lives. Don’t be discouraged if you’re just starting out and not seeing much or any fruit. Sometimes fruit takes time, sometimes years before it really begins to produce.
The Role of the branches
The Role of the branches
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so 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 bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
(v 4) “Abide in Me, and I in you”
So the role of the branches is just to abide in the Vine and then fruit will come.
The word “abide” means “to remain” or “to stay” or my favorite translation from Bruner: “to stick with”.
Now remember that Jesus is the Vine and the only one who can produce good fruit. He is it. He is the only source available.
And so the point is that the only way we will ever be people who produce good fruit is to become permanently connected to Jesus. To stick with Jesus. To be united, grafted into Jesus, drawing everything we need from Jesus. To be united with Him. To remain in Him. To stick it with Jesus..
The question then is how do we do that? I mean how do you become united with Jesus who has left this world and been seated with the Father?
There are two things in these verses:
verse 7: “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you”
If we abide in Him, His Words abide in us. That is we live by them. We hold to them. We depend upon them. We read the Word of God not as a duty, not as a source of knowledge or curriculum, BUT AS A SOURCE OF LIFE!
We depend upon what Jesu says, and not just to know it but to do it! It has to be our guide in life, it has to be our go to counselor, our go to Guide, what reprograms the mind.
And then just like a branch depends upon the vine for everything it needs, so we too must depend upon Jesus by trusting and doing everything He tells us to do.
But there is one more: To stick with Jesus
Remember the meaning of the word abide is to remain, to stay, to stick with
Now how or why would anyone not stick with Jesus? Because the road to follow Jesus is difficult. It is not easy. It sometimes feels almost impossible.
It can be taxing. It can be costly. It can at times call us to give up things in our life that we may be holding near and dear and the vinedresser moves into our lives and says this idol has got to go! This sin has got to go! This dirt in your life has got to go!
And the call of the branch is to not get weary and fall away, or offended and leave, or lazy and quit! It is to stick with Jesus until the day He receives us in glory!
We abide with Jesus when we see Him as our source our life. And if we lose the vine, we lose everything no matter what we gain! Oh, but if we stick with the Vine, we will be saved in the end.
We must look to Christ not as an option, but as life itself. We must hang on every word even if it costs us everything, no matter how painful it may be at times.
Never fall away from the vine
And notice the promise if we abide in Christ: verse 11: ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you
“You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.
Now this sounds like a blank check. I mean does Jesus really mean that whatever we want God will give us IF we ask in Jesus’ name?
No…what He is saying is that when you abide in Jesus, and His words abide in you, then whatever Jesus wants, is what you will want. His desires will become your desires. His will then becomes your will.
And when you pray, you will pray for just what Jesus wants for your life. And the Bible says, if we pray anything according to God’s will, we will have the requests we have asked for
This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.
The Role of the Fruit
The Role of the Fruit
“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.
Explanation:
Jesus brings everything together in a concluding statement in verse 8. The fruit that is produced in the believer’s life is for the purpose of bringing glory to the Father.
Just imagine planting a garden yourself or a vineyard. Now you plant the plants, you do all the work. You have to till the ground, train the vines, prune the vines, and it is an ongoing process.
Now when those plants begin to produce a nice crop, who do the people praise? Do they say, man those sure were some good plants you bought there. Man those grapes really took good care of themselves and did a good job making some good fruit.
No, they look the Farmer, to the gardener, and they say, wow, you are pretty awesome. I am amazed that you did all of this and made this crop happen.
The life of the believer is to become fruitful so that it brings glory to God. Fruit is not produced for personal merit or bragging rights, but f that we can say we have really worked hard to become godly, or any kind of human acheivement. Fruit it there for the Vinedresser.
Do you know what God’s plan is for your life?
God wants people to look at your life and say the person you have become can only be explained by the work of a great God! No one can do what has happened to you. It must be God, and that results in praise of God.
CONCLUSION
Now I want you to take a look at your own life. I want you to think about the kind of fruit that you are producing
Matthew 7:17–20 ““So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “So then, you will know them by their fruits.”
When the world sees your fruit, do they give glory to God, or do they see what they see in themselves?
“Jesus said apart from Me, you can do nothing”
Thats the key. Total dependance upon Jesus. Be aware of how desperately we are in need of Jesus. All self sufficiency must go. All the confidence we have in our selves must go! We must see Him as everything and our only hope.
You base your life upon it! You depend upon it. And then ultimately, you become dependent upon Jesus.
Is there an area that you are holding back from Him?
~PRAYER~
