In the passage that we'll be looking at this morning, John 15
one through 11, you'll see many of the themes that John just
proclaimed to us in this charge. As I read this, it's a very
familiar text that's so rich in terms of the essence of what it
means to be a follower of Christ.
This passage takes place in the midst of Jesus farewell
discourse covered in the Gospel of John.
Again John 15 verse one. You can use the bulletin, but
you're going to need a Bible as well, so you might as well grab
the blue Pew Bible in front of you if you did not bring your
own. Verse 1 John 15 Jesus says I am
the true vine and my father is the vine dresser.
Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away.
In every branch that does bear fruit he prunes that it may bear
more fruit. Already you are clean because of
the word that I have spoken to you.
Abide in me, and I and you. As the branch cannot bear fruit
by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless
you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the
branches. Whoever abides in me, and I and
him he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can
do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me,
He is thrown away like a branch and Withers, and the branches
are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.
If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you
wish, and it will be done for you.
By this My Father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so
proved to be My disciples. As the Father has loved me, so
have I loved you. Abide in My love.
If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I
have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His
love. These things I've spoken to you,
that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Please be seated. And Father, as we open up Your
word, we know that we cannot understand it, apply it, or live
it apart from Christ, apart from the illumination of the Holy
Spirit revealing to us this meaning and showing us where in
our lives you are at work. Oh, we praise you and ask of you
to do it once again. We know You will because You're
faithful to completing that which you have started.
We ask this in Jesus name, Amen. I'm going to focus this morning
with the time we have on verses one through 5.
We'll pick up again next week here and moving forward in the
farewell discourse, but I want to begin this way.
Turn with me once more in your bulletin back to Page 3.
About 40 minutes ago, Tommy stepped up and asked us this
question. What is the chief end of man?
This comes from the Westminster Shorter Catechism, which is
something we often use to disciple our children to help
them understand who God is. Then the question, how do you
glorify God? These questions don't stop being
true and the answers being true when we hit a certain age.
Rob, your chief end every day for the rest of your life is to
bring God glory. It's to bring God glory as you
pastor and shepherd. Your chief end as a husband is
to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
Your chief end is a wife is to glorify God and enjoy Him
forever. Your chief end as a student is
to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
How do we do that? The confession tells us.
How do we glorify God? By loving Him and doing what He
commands. It's what I spoke on last week
from John 14, your chief end Christian, and this is who Jesus
is speaking to your chief in. And everything you do is to
glorify God and enjoy him forever.
And there's only one way you can do that, and that's what Jesus
is saying. If you want a proof text for
these two catechism questions, questions one and five, there is
no better proof text then what Jesus says in John 15/8.
By this my father is glorified that you and remember this is
those who are in Christ. This is who he's speaking to
that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
What an amazing verse. If you want proof as to whether
you're a disciple or not, it's not just in what you say, it's
in the fruit that is in your life.
And the reason why this matters is because every true disciple
of Jesus Christ bears fruit. Fruit is not optional.
Fruit is not something that happens for those luxury version
Christians, those more intentional Christians, those
more intense Christians. Fruit is the reality of a true
disciple of Jesus Christ says it.
It is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit, so proving
to be my disciples. But how do we do that?
In a word, it's abide. Every one of our pastors and
actually every one of our staff in all the job descriptions that
our personnel committee has put together and that women and men
filled in their job description. The very first word is abide.
Why? Because of what Jesus says.
Apart from Him we can do nothing.
Let's go back to the top and verse one as Jesus called them
in to rise and they left from there.
He then says in verse one, I am the true vine and my father is
the vine dresser. What interesting language Jesus
is giving the last of his seven I am statements in the Gospel of
John. All of them are worth deep, deep
study and reflection. This is the last one he gives.
And as he's about to teach on the vine in the branches, he
says I am the true vine. He doesn't say I am a vine.
He doesn't say I am away. He says I'm the true vine and my
Father is the vine dresser. Why does that matter?
Here's why you need a Bible. From the beginning of Genesis to
the end. It's the same story.
It's the story of redemption. The Old Testament isn't just one
part that when Christ then came, it's no longer relevant.
It's all pointing to Jesus at the beginning of Genesis, all
fulfilled at the end of Revelation with the promise of
what is to come. I want you to take your Bible
and I want you to turn to Isaiah and I want you to churn to
Isaiah 5. Israel, the chosen people of
God, was often referred to as the vine.
Israel, often even on coins, would have a vine that
represented who they were. There are so many passages that
speak to Israel being the vine. I want to read just a couple.
Begin with me at verse one of Isaiah 5.
Let me sing for my beloved, my love song concerning his
vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a
very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of
stones and planted with its choice vines.
He built the watchtower in the midst of it, and he hewed out a
wine VAT in it. And he looked for it to yield
grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.
Verse 3. And now, O inhabitants of
Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, between me and my
vineyard, What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have
not done it? When I looked for it to yield
grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?
Now turn over just a few, you know, a chunk of pages, I guess,
to the book of Jeremiah and go to chapter 2, verse 21.
Listen to how Jeremiah records what he was led to write.
Yet I planted you a choice vine wholly of pure seed.
How then have you turned degenerate and become a wild
vine? Now, if you're listening
closely, you're beginning to see something.
Whenever Israel is referenced as a vine, it moves into showing
their unfaithfulness, how they fell short.
To use the strong language from Jeremiah, you turned degenerate
and become a wild vine. It's not just the prophets that
hold this, but it's certainly true in Ezekiel 15, Ezekiel 19,
but also in the Psalms. Turn with me to Psalm 80 and go
with me to verse 10. Psalm 80, verse 10.
Actually, let's go to verse 7. Psalm 80, verse 7 says restore
us. O God of hosts, let your face
shine, that we may be saved. You brought a vine out of Egypt
again. That's the nation of Israel.
You drove out the nations and planted it.
You cleared the ground for it. It took deep root and filled the
land. The mountains were covered with
its shade, the mighty Cedars with its branches.
It sent out its branches to the sea, and it shoots to the river.
Why then have you broken down its walls so that all who pass
along the way pluck its fruit? The boar from the forest ravages
it and all that move in filled feed on it.
Turn again, O God of hosts, look down from heaven and see have
regard for this vine, the stock that your right hand planted and
for the Son whom you made strong for yourself.
This is important. We move back into the Old
Testament to understand why Jesus would say I am the true
vine because the original vine, the people of Israel living
under this image of the vine, we're not faithful.
Passage after passage of the Old Testament reveals this cycle of
sin, oppression, falling away from the Lord and then being
delivered. Here the psalmist is crying out
for that deliverance, and that deliverance is going to come,
but that deliverance is going to come through the 2nd Adam, whose
name is Jesus. And now, just hours before this
man goes to the cross to die for all of his people's sins, the
death we all deserve to die, he says to his disciples back in
John 15, I am the true vine. I am the true vine.
He's the one perfect, essential and enduring vine, before which
all other vines are a shadow. Just like Jesus was greater than
Moses, greater than the angels, Read Hebrews one.
Jesus is not just greater than the vine, He is the Grapevine.
He is the final vine. And here's what's amazing.
He, the vine, is in US. He, through His Spirit lives in
US, enabling us to do what brings the Father glory and that
is to bear much fruit. Jesus says I am the true vine,
and then he says my father is the vine dresser.
Notice how quickly in John's gospel, Jesus says something
about himself and then immediately moves to the Father.
It's because of that union. I am the true vine and my father
is the vine dresser. Now this message was meant to
bring deep encouragement to these disciples who were
struggling. My father is the vine dresser.
Verse 2. Every branch in me that does not
bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear
fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit.
I want you to do something today, maybe every day this
summer. It might be helpful just as a
visual. Notice the crepe myrtles driving
down your block, driving down these streets.
Notice the beauty of the hot pink, the purple, the white, the
scarlet. These crepe myrtles that are
just in full bloom. They're gorgeous.
And remember that God created that tree.
The idea of it was his, but He also created every one of those
trees. They're gorgeous.
The very first tree I ever pruned was a crepe Myrtle.
For seven years in high school and college, I worked at a theme
park called Whitewater in Oklahoma City.
I wasn't a lifeguard, I was a landscaper.
I would arrive at 6:00 in the morning, stayed till 4:00 every
day except Saturday and Sunday. They spent millions of dollars
on their landscaping. And the horticulturist that I
worked for, his name was Ron Hinter, taught me how to prune a
tree and why you would prune a tree.
It's the first time I ever learned to do that.
Our father in this passage is called the vine dresser.
He is the master gardener and there's 2 words to describe what
he's doing. The first one really is to to
lift up. Vines are not meant to grow on
the ground like watermelons or pumpkins or squash.
Those that are on the ground, they're not going to produce
good fruits. So they are to be lifted up.
So see the very posture of the father in this.
He literally touches the vine. You can't prune from a distance,
and He lifts it up. The next word has to do with
pruning. It has to do with cutting, and
cutting is painful. But the Lord cuts because He
loves us. Jesus is offering these words of
encouragement to the disciples because they are going to be
pruned. They are going to be cared for
just as you and I are. To what end?
Verse 8. Once again, by this my Father is
glorified that you bear much fruit, and so proved to be my
disciples. Christians are meant to be
people abiding in Christ with lives that are producing
grapefruit. What is the fruit?
The fruit isn't the multiplication of more
Christians. That's certainly in play, but
it's not the primary focus. The fruit is that Christ like
character. It's the fruit of the Spirit in
Galatians 5. It's any passage that speaks of
the godliness that God has informed us that he wants us to
be about. And that fruit can exist in our
life. God has designed his children to
bear fruit, but it can only exist one way if we are abiding
in Jesus. That word used eight time in
this eight times in the short passage essentially says remain,
stay in you are his and it's through that abiding
relationship with Jesus that is a vital that word matters, vital
to our fruitfulness that we can bear fruit.
Verse 5, Jesus says I am the vine, you are the branches.
Whoever abides in me and I am him.
He it is that bears much fruit for apart from me you can do
nothing. Working at that same water park
for all those years, two years in they made me a team leader.
That was an honor that meant I went from 3:50 an hour to 375 an
hour. That's no lie.
Being the leader of a team, we often got assigned certain parts
of the park and we would be rewarded certain things if the
person of the park we were in charge of as well.
Late 1 spring, the landscape crews divided into two teams.
I LED one, another man LED another.
They gave us about $50,000 to establish a section of the park
and make it beautiful, including new bets.
The competition would be judged by horticulturist team and then
those that were on the winning team would receive a significant
gift. I had a team.
That team included some temporary workers that were just
kind of hired to be there as labor.
I had a design. The design was put in place.
One particular part of the bed was going to have a pine tree.
These pine trees have been purchased by the park many years
ago and actually planted. So in order for them to be moved
from the nursery area, they had to be dug up and brought to the
area and placed. You know what's required there?
You dig around the tree, you dig up the root ball, you carry all
that dirt and then you plant it. Then you water it in.
My bed. Looks spectacular.
No question it was going to win. The five days after we planted
it, just one or two days before the judgement, the pine tree
began to turn very brown. What was wrong?
We watered it well. What was wrong?
Well, it didn't take long to realize what was wrong.
The crew that I had sent to dig that ball around the tree didn't
bring the tree that way back to the bed.
Instead, they took a saw and like a Christmas tree, they cut
it off at the base and brought that to the bed and planted it.
You get it. I didn't win the competition.
It's silly that someone would think that that would work, that
that tree could live. It couldn't, and neither can we
spiritually bear fruit cut off from Christ.
You cannot bear fruit doing it on your own.
The only way you can bear fruit, and that's what the Father wants
in your life, believer, is by remaining in Christ.
And if you're in Christ, he is going to do the work that's
necessary to cause you and to cause me to bear more fruit.
But that pruning is painful. So here's what I want you to do.
I want you to ask today and through this week, Holy Spirit,
where is the Father seeking to prune me?
Every one of us, every one of us, the sight of heaven until he
calls us home or returns, will have branches that need pruned.
And they're painful, often very painful.
Sometimes relationships need to end because they're bearing bad
fruit, they're dying. Sometimes we need to rethink the
priorities of our life. The Holy Spirit will have no
problem through the Word of God and His illumination, showing
you places where you need the Father to lift up, the vine, to
trim, to cut. Maybe it's gossip.
Maybe it's materialism, maybe it's greed.
Maybe it's pornography, maybe it's gluttony, maybe it's anger,
maybe there's twigs of bitterness all over you.
The Holy Spirit, illuminating the Word of God, tells us the
Father is eager to do that pruning work.
But for most of us, this is where we begin to live.
Like the individual who cut down the tree and planted it in good
soil. You can't do it on your own.
Abiding in Christ is the only way.
And this is what Christ has come to do.
This is what the Father desires. Much, much, much, much fruit in
your lives. So pay attention to all that's
blooming around you. Think about the God who made
that, and then think about the God who made that, giving us
everything we need that we could bear fruit in Christ that is so
much more beautiful and awe inspiring than even that which
He has physically made. Friend, take seriously this
challenge and know that the Lord brings it to you because He
loves you. We'll pick up in the same spot
next week. Father in heaven, you're Tinder,
you're just, you're loving, You're full of mercy and grace
and truth. And Lord, we need you to do this
work in our lives. Lift us, O Lord, prune us,
transform us. Help us to remember that the
thing that we've been made for, to bring you glory and the fruit
that's in our lives, you have enabled the only way it can
happen. We praise you for this in Jesus
name, Amen.