Sermon Tone Analysis

John 15:1 (ESV)

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.

Vineyard

Abide in Christ

4 Abide in me, and I in you.

As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.

To abide in Christ:

To remain connected to Him.

To stay in an intimate connection with Him.

Many of you have had a deep connection with God.

I think often times God brings us to a place where we feel so connected to Him.

A conference, a camp, a time alone in His Word, a time of hardship when you just got alone with Him.

His presence is so real to you in that moment.

But then you leave.

You go back to business as usual.

You don’t stay.

I think, to abide in Him is to stay constantly connected to Him in our everyday lives.

To try and carry that intimacy into our day.

This is why we need a refresher every morning by spending time in His Word and prayer.

“In order to form a habit of communing with God continually and committing everything we do to Him, we must at first make a special effort.

After a while we find that His love inwardly inspires us to do all things for Him effortlessly.”

-Brother Lawrence

The Example of Hudson Taylor

““How, then, shall a Christian bear fruit?

By efforts and struggles to obtain that which is freely given; by meditations on watchfulness, on prayer, on action, on temptation, and on dangers?

No: there must be a full concentration of the thoughts and affections on Christ; a complete surrender of the whole being to Him; a constant looking to Him for grace.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

The results of abiding in Christ:

You will bear fruit John 15:5

The Father will prune you John 15:2

You will have power in prayer John 15:7

You will avoid wasting your life John 15:6

God will be glorified John 15:8

Obedience to Christ and abiding in Him go hand in hand John 15:10

Jesus is for your joy

“This often causes such joys and raptures inwardly, and sometimes also outwardly, that I am forced to make an effort to moderate them to prevent their appearance to others.”

-Brother Lawrence

“Right now, make a binding and sacred resolution never to willfully forget Him again.

Spend the rest of your life in His sacred presence, even if loving Him means to be deprived of all other comforts.”

-Brother Lawrence

Notes for further study and preahing

John 15:1 We usually think of branches as bigger than vines, but this is different for a grapevine.

“his disciples are the branches (klēma; the word is particularly used of vine tendrils”

John 15:2 What is meant by αιρω in verse 2? Lifted up or taken away?

What does it mean to prune?

The transparent purpose of the verse is to insist that there are no true Christians without some measure of fruit

The Father is a loving vinedresser.

While pruning is painful, he does it so that we will bear even more fruit.

Heb.

12:11.

John 15:3 What does it mean to be “clean” because of a word that was spoken?

John 15:4 What does it mean to “abide?”

The Christian or Christian organization that expands by external accretion, that merely apes Christian conduct and witness, but is not impelled by life within, brings forth dead crystals, not fruit.

John 15:5 Why does he say, You can do nothing?

Obviously people who don’t even know Jesus do some things.

The branch’s purpose is to bear much fruit (v.

5), but the next verses show that this fruit is the consequence of prayer in Jesus’ name, and is to the Father’s glory (vv.

7, 8, 16).

This suggests that the ‘fruit’ in the vine imagery represents everything that is the product of effective prayer in Jesus’ name, including obedience to Jesus’ commands (v.

10), experience of Jesus’ joy (v.

11–as earlier his peace, 14:27), love for one another (v.

12), and witness to the world (vv.

16, 27).

This fruit is nothing less than the outcome of persevering dependence on the vine, driven by faith, embracing all of the believer’s life and the product of his witness.

John 15:6 isn’t this a little harsh?

Jesus alludes to Ezk. 15:1-8.

John 15:8 What is the proof of being a disciple of Christ? to bear fruit for him.

John 15:10 The simplist way to abide in Christ is to obey him.

John 14:21 speaks to this

Jesus’ words (rhēmata) are all the individual utterances that together constitute Jesus’ ‘word’ (v.

3; logos).

Such words must so lodge in the disciple’s mind and heart that conformity to Christ, obedience to Christ, is the most natural (supernatural?) thing in the world.

This does not mean that the mutual indwelling is reduced to obedience.

Rather, ‘Jesus and his revelation are virtually interchangeable, for he is incarnate revelation’ (Brown, 2. 662).

Conformity in one area ensures conformity in the other; a test in the observable area of obedience to Christ is a test of the unseen area of genuine spiritual vitality.

John 15:11 - How is it that “your joy may be full?”

What is presupposed is that human joy in a fallen world will at best be ephemeral, shallow, incomplete, until human existence is overtaken by an experience of the love of God in Christ Jesus, the love for which we were created, a mutual love that issues in obedience without reserve.

The Theme of the vine in the OT.

God’s people were often referred to as “a vine” (Ps 80).

But in this case, Jesus is now identifying himself as the True Vine.