The Vine

The Vine

Today we are going to look at a passage in John 15 where Jesus talks about how He is the vine.

I think this message is a great follow up to Dan Seaborn’s message from last week.

John 15:1-6 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.”

I want to talk to you today about the vine.

I want to ask you the question, “Are you in the vine?”

What does that even mean?

What does it look like if I am in the vine?

And how a lot of times we can “think” we are in the vine but we really aren’t.

Grapevines were very common back then so the disciples could understand very easily this grapevine analogy.

In this analogy he talks about bearing fruit.

You’ll notice all through the bible it talks about “bearing fruit.”

Bearing fruit is a BIG DEAL to God.

In Matthew 7 Jesus talks about how you can find out if someone is a false preacher by their FRUIT!

To be honest with you when I read the bible it makes it pretty clear to me that IF you are a TRUE follower of Christ you WILL bear fruit.

Verse 4 says, “Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

What does that word “Remain” mean?

The greek word used there is “Meno”.

It means obviously, to remain or abide. But it also means, “not to depart, to be held, kept, and continually.”

Remaining in Jesus is simple. It’s that you REMAIN IN HIM.

That it’s a CONTINUAL relationship with.

It’s not, “I have a relationship with him at church but not at home.”

Because if you don’t have a continual relationship with Jesus you CAN’T bear fruit!

And here’s the part that I want to focus on with you today.

This is the trap that I fell in.

I THOUGHT I WAS IN THE VINE BECAUSE I WENT TO A CHRISTIAN SCHOOL AND WENT TO CHURCH ALL THE TIME.

But the truth is that has nothing to do with your relationship with Jesus.

Just because you go to church all the time or went to a Christian school doesn’t mean that you have a real CONTINUAL relationship with God.

Head knowledge doesn’t equal relationship.

It’s not enough that you know ABOUT Jesus, the question is DO YOU KNOW JESUS?

The only way to know Him is to abide or remain in Him.

So the question is, “are you really in the vine?”

How do I know if I’m in the Vine?

Do you spend time with the Lord??

Do you talk to God?

Do you spend time learning more about God through his Word?

Or are you too consumed by social media and the news that you just don’t have time to spend with God.

If I’m being honest I can fall into this trap.

It’s so easy to get sucked into what people are saying and posting on social media that we realize we haven’t spent any time with God.

To be honest I think a lot of people would see a HUGE difference in their attitude and outlook if we took a break from social media and just dove into His Word.

Are you living your life for the Lord?

What kind of example are you to those around you?

Are you living a life in obedience to His Word?

John 14:21 “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them."

Anybody here who has grown up in church at all KNOWS His commands, you know what’s right and wrong.

The question is are keeping them? Are you obeying them?

Are you ashamed to show people that you truly love Jesus?

When we are truly in the vine we get to a point where we don’t care what other people think.

All we care about is honoring God and pleasing HIM!

Galatians 1:10 “Obviously, I'm not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ's servant.”

We live in a culture where if you stand up for biblical values you get attacked and called terrible things.

But I will not apologize for standing up for truth.

I will not apologize for standing up against abortion.

I will not apologize for standing up for the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.

These aren’t political issues, these are biblical issues.

And I will have no problem speaking truth IN LOVE!

Matthew 5:16 “In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

The truth of the matter is that YOU CAN’T SHINE UNLESS YOU ARE IN THE VINE!

You see that verse says, “that they may see your good deeds.”

That’s your lifestyle

That’s your FRUIT!

And in John it says that apart from him you can do NOTHING. You can’t produce real fruit.

Now being in the vine doesn’t mean that life is perfect.

It doesn’t mean that we don’t need to make tough sacrifices or that bad things are never going to happen to us because that’s just not the reality of it.

Because in John 15 he says he will cut off every branch that does not bear fruit but every branch that DOES bear fruit he prunes!!

Now when I read that I REALLY wish it just said “he who does bear fruit he blesses!”

Pruning does not sound fun

Pruning can be painful!

Think about when you prune your plants or flowers. What are you doing?

You’re CUTTING things off

Cutting seems so aggressive!

I think about when I prune my bushes and I get my trimmer out.

You see the truth is that we want it to say that he blesses those who bear fruit but in all honesty if you let Him prune you, you WILL be blessed.

You see you prune your plants or trees so they can grow back and produce MORE fruit.

If you don’t you just end up with an overgrown tree

I was looking up how grapevines grow and why you prune them and I came across something that I thought was interesting.

Listen to this description of why you prune grapevines.

Because of the way grapevines grow and produce fruit, growers must prune annually. Fruit is only produced on shoots growing from one-year-old canes. Therefore, healthy new canes must be produced every year to maintain annual production of fruit.

I wish I could have you look at a picture of a grapevine structure

You would see the canes are basically BRANCHES

I love how it says you have to prune it because it can’t produce on older canes. It needs to produce new fresh canes to have the good fruit.

So therefore, you have to PRUNE IT.

Makes me wonder how many of us are trying to produce fruit from God through our old branches/canes?

Instead of letting God PRUNE us and giving us FRESH Revelation and fresh anointing to produce the fruit that He wants from us!

But we can’t do that unless we are in the VINE.

Then He’s able to prune.

And pruning may look different for you than it does for me.

It could be just cutting something out of your life that is hindering your walk with him?

It could be going through a difficult time that will ultimately make us stronger and able to help MORE people in the future?

But we’re not going to be able to see those things unless we are in the vine.

Called Band Up

So my challenge to you today is to ask yourself if you are TRULY in the vine?

What’s your relationship with Jesus REALLY look like?

Have you fallen into the trap of thinking you’re in the vine just because you hear about God all the time?

Listen it’s easy to start drowning out messages like this because we hear over and over again.

But I will continue to preach messages like this because anyone that attends City Church Greenville will never have an excuse of, “I didn’t know I had to actually live out my faith.”