CONNECTED To the Vine

We’re in our / / CONNECTED series, and last week we talked about a not so fun topic. Surrender. But man, is it necessary. Jesus said very clearly, if you want to be my follower. If you want to truly be my disciple, one who follows after me, you have to deny yourself. There’s no other way around it. It makes sense, doesn’t it?

I GET IN THE WAY...

We get in the way of ourselves, don’t we?

We get in the way of what we want.

We get in the way of our own dreams sometimes.

We get in the way of truly following Christ.

Why? Because our focus is on our desires.

And we live in a world that is shaped and molded to believe this. You matter most, more than anyone or anything.

Surrender doesn’t come naturally. It’s not easy. It’s not fun.

The world tells us, / / “You need to find YOUR passion.”

The world tells us, / / “You need to pursue YOUR dreams.”

The world tells us, / / “YOU deserve it!”

Jesus tells us, / / “Deny it all, take up our cross and follow me!”

It’s like that classic movie scene when someone runs up to the person in trouble and says, “Do you want to live? Then follow me!!!”

But it doesn’t sound like that always, does it? Denying ourselves, taking up our cross… that’s not easy.

Now, like I said last week, taking up our cross is not carrying a burden in this life that we were never meant to carry. Taking up our cross is fully giving our life over to the rule and authority of Jesus Christ. Jesus carried a roman cross to a roman execution. He was killed under roman authority. We carry a cross under the authority of heaven, under the authority of Jesus Christ. We are entrusting our very lives to His way, to His authority, to His Kingdom.

No one knew this better than Abraham. Do you remember the story? We just read it a couple months ago in Genesis. God tells Abraham he’s going to have a son. Years and years go by and Abraham thinks the promise is dead and gone. It’s not going to happen. He’s old, his wife is super old. And yet, it happens. A miracle. They have this promised child when he’s 100 years old. And then what happens? When the boy is a few years old God tells Abraham to take up the promise and go to a mountain and offer him to God as a sacrifice. Say what?

But see, here’s the thing. When Jesus tells us to take up our cross, the cross of submission, the cross of denial of our selves and embrace of HIS rule in our lives, he ALWAYS has a plan. Abraham didn’t sacrifice his son. He gets to the place of sacrifice, the top of the hill, he’s carried his cross, and God sends an angel who yells, STOP! and there in the bushes an animal is caught…

And when we are willing to give up ourselves, carry the cross of submission, and follow after Him, where he leads us is actually to life.

Today we’re going to continue this look at surrender, of giving ourselves up for something greater.

I would say that surrender usually brings up a pretty / / negative connotation for us. It brings up pictures of an army laying down their guns and becoming prisoners of war. It says we are coming under the punishment of an opposing force. Surrender means we give up ourselves and are at the mercy of someone else. Whether they choose to set us free, send us home, put us in prison, or end our lives. We don’t know, because all we know is that we are no longer opposing them, we are simply putting our lives in their hands.

That’s not comfortable. That’s not easy.

So, surrendering to God can almost feel like I’m giving this up, I’m turning my life over, / / what are you going to do with it?

Today we’re going to read from John 15, Jesus shares a parable of sorts, an allegory about being CONNECTED to him.

/ / “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so that they will produce even more. You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask of anything you want, and it will be granted! When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.

/ / The Vine, The Gardener & The Branches

This is an allegory with deep meaning, Jesus is bringing us deep revelational truths in this sort of parable.

First, He identifies himself as the vine. vs 1. / / I am the true grapevine, and again in vs 5, Yes, I am the vine.

Second, He identifies his Father as the Gardener. vs 1. / / and my Father is the gardener.

Thirdly, He identifies you and I as the branches. vs 5. Yes, / / I am the vine; you are the branches.

Every time Jesus says, “I am this, You are that” he’s about to make a really important connection between the two. We see this in so many of his stories. John 10 he talks about being the Good Shepherd and we are the sheep. But it’s not just a fun little story, he brings in this wonderful truth about hearing the voice of the shepherd and being willing to follow. How the shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. How the sheep know that when they hear someone who isn’t the shepherd, they know to run because it’s not safe.

Whenever you read in the bible that Jesus says, “I am this…You are that”… pay close attention to the connection He is making.

See, this story here isn’t just a cute little story about a grapevine. There’s a deep meaning here in calling himself the vine, his father the gardener and you and I, the branches. And this has got to be probably the greatest, and clearest picture we have of what it truly means to be CONNECTED. Right, that’s the series we are in, CONNECTED. And we’ve been asking the question, what does that look like and how does it happen?

So, two things He’s saying here are:

/ / JESUS IS THE SOURCE OF LIFE

First things first. Let’s just think naturally here, the vine is rooted in the ground where the nutrients come from and the branches are connected to the vine. simple. By calling us a plant, Jesus is saying that by being CONNECTED to him, we are connected to the source of life itself.

This isn’t just a theme to a story, this is over and over again throughout scripture as the very purpose of Jesus coming to earth. He’s said this in many different ways, but John 3:16 sums it up perfectly, / / …so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus did not stay dead in the grave, he rose again, he is alive. We are connected to him in a way that we draw our life from him. That’s what he’s saying, you are now forever connected to me, and from me you receive life.

Without connection to the vine, there is no true life.

A branch separated from the vine will immediately stop producing life, won’t it?

/ / TRUE LIFE REQUIRES DEATH

Oh come on, seriously? Again with the surrender, the dying to self, the carrying our cross. Ya. Because, I don’t mean physical death forever, but this is where we’re continuing the conversation of surrender. This is a voluntary death. And there are two aspects of a voluntary death that Jesus talks about:

/ / PROBLEM BRANCHES: The parts of us that are dead, broken, or diseased.

There are things within us that we just don’t need to hold on to anymore. Our lives would be MUCH better without them. Things like anger, pride, jealousy, resentment, or maybe it’s an addiction of some sore, or a bad habit, or the hurt from a past relationship or situation. Whatever it is, it’s not serving us any good at all, is it?

Now, you would think this would be incredibly easy to hand over, right? But sometimes we don’t realize the impact these things have in our lives. We don’t truly see that our resentment is holding US back rather than effecting the other person like we had hoped. We don’t really understand that holding the pain and wounds of life don’t allow the healer in to heal them, because we are afraid of letting go. Some of these things have become so ingrained in who we are that the thought of being without them is scarier than living with them.

But Jesus says, let my father cut away those things in your life so they don’t effect the branch of who YOU are AND the rest of the plant.

How many know that if a diseased branch is left untreated, it can effect the whole plant?

Think of it in terms of our body. If there’s an infection, and it is left untreated, what happens? It grows, and can impact our whole body. So, a branch that has the potential to not only impact us, but we know that our stuff impacts those around us, don’t we? Even if we don’t want it to, it does. Our anger effects those closest to us. Our resentment doesn’t just continue to effect the relationship it’s about, but it impacts our future relationships as well. Our unwillingness to forgive holds us back in our current relationships AND our future relationships. We carry our pain from one situation to the next. Our addictions lead to death, in us, and we know that addiction affects others.

God wants to cut those things away, BUT, it takes a willingness to say, “ok, I’m done with this, I don’t want it any longer.”

/ / GOOD BRANCHES: The parts of us that are growing well.

Say what? God wants to cut away what’s good in my life? No, but he may prune it. I don’t have much of a green thumb, but what I do know is that when you do well to prune back a plant, it actually grows better and produces more. If you want a plant to do well, we know you need to prune it, especially the healthy parts.

Of course, down here in South Florida we cut back our trees, thin them out so that when the wind and storms come they don’t get knocked over. There’s a word from God for your life in that. Do you hear it?

This is like an invitation to be the best you all the time. You know how when you get a little bit your life gets a little bit bigger, or busier? And when we get a lot, we tend to get a lot busier, don’t we?

Jesus says in Matthew 7:13-14, / / You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.

Keeping things focused, keeping things narrow, that’s the path to life. So, a bit of pruning here, a bit of pruning there.

Again, God never demands surrender, he never demands we give something up, he simply invites us into something greater. And we can easily argue with him on this because some of these things are not easy to give up, and sometimes, it doesn’t make sense to US.

Let me put this in to a bit of perspective for you. Kelley and I have had some pretty big moments of pruning in our lives, and they weren’t bad at all, BUT, in the moment, when you don’t understand it, it can feel pretty painful.

When we first got married we were traveling full time leading worship all around the world. It was an incredible experience. We got to see so much, both in regards to the world itself, the people we’ve met, we have friends everywhere, but also what God was doing in the world. And we had both been doing this for quite a while individually, and then when we got married, together.

We were also living in a little surf town in California, pretty much right across the street from a cliff overlooking the Monterey Bay. We could sit outside at night and hear the waves crashing on the shore. It really was an unbelievable moment in our lives.

The good in our lives was high. Ok, it was fantastic. But, we weren’t growing. We weren’t being challenged. We weren’t advancing in our lives or in our ministry. Then God says to me pick up everything and move to Raleigh, NC and be part of a team planting a church. That took us on a journey over the next few years where the traveling part of our lives was pruned away, and the growth of local church was possible. And at times we fought it. At times we didn’t understand. Why? Because the traveling was fun. It was exciting.

Don’t get me wrong, traveling wasn’t always all fun and games, but you understand what I’m saying. We had a good life.

And as thing shifted we no longer had the travel. We no longer saw our friends. We were making less. things were being pruned. But to truly accomplish in our lives what God wanted for us, our hearts and our desires had to shift. We were never going to accomplish all that God wants for us if we only see traveling as the pinnacle for our lives.

And then we began to see deeper relationships. We saw deeper impact, because we were in the same place all the time.

And eventually that pruning brought is here, where we fell in love with a place so much that we wanted to give our lives to seeing it grow and succeed. We absolutely love Cutler Bay, and we love this church, and for us, that pruning, although it hurt at the time, yes, we were giving up things, it was the best thing we could have ever given up, because it’s brought us MORE life in the end. It prepared us for our lives here. And if we wouldn’t have been prepared, we wouldn’t have been able to embrace all that this LIFE is.

So, Jesus says we are connected to him, he is our life, and then he says, there’s going to be some death, we’re going to remove some things you don’t need that are hurting you, and we’re going to remove some things that even though they are good, they’re holding you back from growing even more.

And then he says, And the key to it all is being CONNECTED.

vs 4 / / Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. vs 5 Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.

And he brings this to an interesting conclusion when he says in verse 9 / / I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: love each other.

/ / The Key to staying CONNECTED is to obey.

To remain in his love, or as some translations say, to abide in him and he abides in us is to be connected, and he says here in vs 9, / / when you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, and again in vs 14, you are my friends if you do what I command.

Wow, so first, surrender, not a word we like, now obedience, that’s not a fun one either, is it?

Or at least not how we usually understand it. But here’s the thing, again, in the way God does this, This is an INVITATION.

From what I’ve read on this verse, “obey” isn’t really the greatest of translations for this word because the greek word really means “to listen, to attend to carefully, to take care of”. And when we think of this in the context of what Jesus has modeled for the disciples, Jesus says in John 5:19, / / I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing.

This is what you and I are being invited into. Jesus says, if you want to abide in me, do everything you hear me saying to you. Follow my way, follow what I speak to you. He’s inviting you into a deep relationship and he’s not about to tell you a whole bunch of stuff that doesn’t make sense, or lead you into a life you don’t want, but he is leading you into a good life. Look at what he said about his relationship with his Father. For the Father LOVES the Son and shows him everything he is doing.

This is an invitation into love.

Abiding is accepting the invitation to have a true relationship with Jesus where he shares his heart with you and leads you.

I think the downfall is that we often read stories like this that Jesus tells and hear, “Oh man, I’ve got to give something up.”, “God wants to TAKE something from me.” But the reality is that this is a true invitation to experience MORE life. And the more you abide, the easier it is to obey, and the more you obey, the easier it is to abide. Why? Because abiding is getting close and asking for his voice, and in hearing his voice and following his direction we grow even closer.

See, the thing is, / / we can actually make choices to keep our branches unproductive. We can actually decide NOT to do this, and then we don’t produce fruit in a way that God wants for our lives. But even then, even when we don’t want to change, even when we don’t want to give up the bad, or prune back the good, the vine is always giving life. The vine is always there. The vine isn’t going anywhere.

We somehow got this idea that if we don’t listen God goes away, and that’s just not true. That’s punishment and 1 John 4:18 says, / / …love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not yet fully experienced his perfect love.

If you’re afraid that God will remove himself because of your mistakes. If you fear losing connecting with God because you make the wrong decision, you simply have not yet experienced his perfect love. It’s as simple as that. And the solution is then the same for all of us. “God, I need to experience your perfect love.”

The bible also says in Romans 8 that there is absolutely nothing that can separate us from the love of God. We either believe that to be true or not. HOWEVER, there is plenty we can do to stop up the flow of God’s purpose for our lives. How? By not listening, by not following directions.

/ / Obedience is listening, for the purpose of following, and the intent of producing fruit.

Free of the fear of failure. Free of the fear of losing God if we don’t succeed, or if we do it wrong. Free of the fear of losing him in some sort of twisted game of silent treatment.

Jesus said You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit… This is his intent, for your life to bear fruit. And as he says in vs 8, / / when you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.

But / / abiding requires a choice.

I CHOOSE to abide.

I CHOOSE to bear fruit by obeying - listening and following. If fruit comes from my listening and following then I must CHOOSE to OBEY.

I CHOOSE to be pruned, to allow God to choose what is BEST for my life, not just what I think is good.

I CHOOSE to allow God to cut away the dead and broken things from my life.

Jesus said in John 14:15, / / If you love me, obey my commandments. and in John 14:23, / / All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them.

Same word for obey as in John 15, listen and respond. I’ve always thought of it this way, this is not a command, If you love me, you better obey me. This is a reality that if we truly love Jesus the response will be to listen and follow. It’s almost automatic, isn’t it? If I love you, I listen to you, and if I love you I do what you ask of me. And the promise is, we will come and make our home with you. If you abide in me, and I abide in you.

Abiding is a constant. This isn’t something we turn on for Sunday morning and turn off the next 6 days.

/ / Abiding isn’t supposed to have an on / off switch.

I was thinking about this for my own personal life:

Why do I wake up early to read the bible?

Why do I make church such a priority in my life? Is it just because that’s how I was raised?

Why do I take communion every morning? Taking the time to remember the life and sacrifice of Jesus.

Why do I worship? Why do I play worship music in our home, in the car?

To abide is to answer the invitation. There’s something constantly active, and yet, very passive about it. What do I mean by that? Well, there’s nothing we can do to make ourselves MORE connected to God, we are connected to the vine. Like I said earlier, we can ignore all he’s saying to us, but that doesn’t mean the vine goes away, we’re still connected to that vine, our source of life.

I do in my life because I make God a priority, but I know that the flow of life from God is entirely on him! He doesn’t love me more because I do certain things. He simply is constantly inviting me into a deeper relationship and a deeper life where I respond to who He is and what He is saying to me. He is constantly leading me into better things, even if there’s some pruning along the way!

God knows best for my life and when I am quiet enough and engaged enough to actually listen for his voice, I can follow and benefit in the ways He intends me to!