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Psalm 22:25-31 25 From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows. 26 The poor will eat and be satisfied; they who seek the LORD will praise him– may your hearts live forever! 27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, 28 for dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations. 29 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him– those who cannot keep themselves alive. 30 Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. 31 They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn– for he has done it.
John 15:1-9 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. 2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. 3 You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. 6 Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.
I Am the True Vine
In Hampton Court over in England, there is a grapevine that is reported to be the largest living vine. It was planted in 1769 and is over 250 years old. This grapevine has only one root and that one root is twelve feet around. Some of the branches are over 120 feet long. Despite its age the vine still produces 500 to 700 bunches which is about 500 to 700 pounds of grapes each year. Although some of the branches are 120 feet from the main root, they still bear the sweet and delicious fruit because they are connected to the vine and allow the life of the vine to flow through them. The same is true of the true vine –Jesus Christ.
This morning we come to the final I Am statement of Jesus. The final metaphor that Jesus used to teach the disciples about who He is. Jesus said, “I am the true vine.” Jesus is the main vine of the vineyard. We are the branches of the vine that grow off of Him. God the Father is the vinegrower. In order to live the branches must remain connected to the vine. As Jesus says if they are cut off they wither and die. Just like the branches we need to remain connected to Jesus if we are to truly live. We are to abide in Jesus as the branches abide in the vine. This is the only way we can produce fruit, by staying connected to the vine.
Jesus describes two types of branches. First, there is the branch that doesn’t bear any fruit. It is thrown away. Verse two says, “He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit.” And verse six says, “Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” When a vinegrower is going through the vineyard, he cuts off any dead branches, since they can damage the vine, they can be a place where bugs and disease grow. When he sees certain branches that never bear fruit, those branches are cut off and thrown in a pile to eventually be burned.
Second, there is the branch that does bear fruit. Jesus said every branch that does bear fruit is pruned so it can bear more fruit. One of the jobs of a vinegrower is to prune the branches on the grapevine. They are trimmed way back and when the trimming is done, there doesn’t seem to be much left of the branch. All this cutting seems so drastic, so extreme, so unnecessary. But the reason the vinegrower does this is so that the branches reach their full potential. Even though the branches look almost dead, months later they produce a very large crop, only because the vinegrower did all that cutting.
Have you ever seen a vineyard or toured a winery? It’s fascinating all that goes into growing grapes. It doesn’t make sense to me that most of the branches are pruned away, I would think the more branches the more grapes but it is actually the opposite. The more branches, the smaller and fewer the grapes. If all the branches are allowed to grow then the strength of the vine goes into growth. It spreads and spreads and fewer and fewer grapes are produced. When the branches are cut then the strength goes into the grapes instead. I remember that when I went to my daughter’s wedding in California we stayed in a house that had been built in the middle of a grape orchard. In every direction you looked from the house all you could see were grape vines. They looked like scrawny things supported on wires, not many leaves but large bunches of grapes. It was an amazing sight. Those vines were obviously well-cared for, healthy vines with healthy branches yielding plentiful fruit.
The branches on the vine are supposed to be fruitful. If they are not fruitful they are pruned away. We aren’t supposed to be branches that produce lots of leaves all green and shiny. This would be using the life in the vine in the wrong way. This is what happens when people seek their own wants and needs first. Sometimes, even without realizing it, we can stop relying on Jesus and His life within us and instead try to produce fruit in our own strength. Some people turn away from God. They stop obeying God; they stop living as Christians. Instead they start talking and acting just like the rest of the unbelieving world. They have disconnected themselves from Jesus, the vine. They are branches that will be removed.
What kind of branch do we want to be? We can be a greedy branch that wants to go our own way, to run wild throughout the vineyard seeking more and more for ourselves. This is the branch that will be pruned by the vinegrower, God the Father. The dead branch that will be thrown into the fire. Or we can be a branch that loves to produce fruit. Our energy that comes from Jesus will be poured into growing juicy grapes, more and more each year.
Do not think of pruning as punishment. God prunes us in ways that make us grow and produce better, juicier fruit. The idea of pruning is that the Father, as the vinegrower, lovingly prunes or disciplines those who are already bearing fruit—not for punishment but for purification. As it says in verse 3 we are “already cleansed because of the word”, but we must continue to be cleansed through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus told the disciples that they had already been pruned by the word He had spoken to them. Listen for His voice speaking in your life. Know that when you are pruned it will improve you.
Each week we have asked ourselves what the I Am statement means to our beliefs, our behavior and our lives. If we believe that Jesus is the vine and we are the branches then it will be vital to us to remain connected with Jesus. A branch that is cut from the vine is dead and so we are dead without our connection to Jesus. If we believe this then we will work to keep that connection alive through prayer and scripture reading, by seeking a deeper relationship with Jesus.
If we believe it is important to remain connected to Jesus then part of that is surrender. Surrendering our will, our wants, even our lives to Jesus allows us to remain connected. We cannot abide in Jesus unless we trust Him and obey Him. Following Jesus is part of being connected; if we are following our own way then we are not connected and will not produce fruit. It is easy to get distracted by the world; it is noisy and clamors for our attention. It promises shiny things to make us happy. The voice of God is a still, small voice; we will only hear it when we abide in Jesus.
If we are the branches then we are to bear fruit. What is the fruit in a Christian’s life? Paul told us in Galatians that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Is this fruit seen in our lives? Are there ways we can grow these characteristics in our lives? We can pray for these to increase in our lives. We can practice them so they become habits. We can ask God to remove anything in our lives that keeps us from bearing fruit.
If we are the branches then we will want to be fertilized by God’s Word. We will want to be watered with the living water that comes only through Jesus. We will want God to prune what is unnecessary from us; things that are unproductive or even destructive in our lives. Addictions, bad habits, areas of sin, anything in our lives that is contrary to the fruit of the Spirit.
The more we abide in Jesus, the Vine, the more fruit we will bear. The more fruit that we bear, the more the Father will prune us, the more he prunes us the greater the quantity and the quality of fruit that is produced in us.
We’re talking a lot about bearing fruit but actually Jesus doesn’t tell us to produce fruit. He tells us to abide in Him. When we abide in Him the fruit will come naturally. It is Jesus who produces the fruit in us. If we abide in Jesus we will bear fruit. This is not something we have to work at; it is not a struggle to produce fruit. Jesus Christ the true living vine brings the fruit about naturally as long as we abide Him, in the vine. When we abide in Christ we stay at the center of God’s will.
Let’s spend a minute on abide. Jesus tells us to abide in Him as He abides in us. Other translations say remain. Whether we use abide or remain they both imply time. Abide requires time. Time and concentration. I spend time with my friend and her grandchildren every year. I remember back when Alex was nine year old and was quite a talker. I realized several times that my attention wandered from what he was saying. It wasn’t deliberate, I wasn’t shutting him out but I wasn’t paying as close attention as I could have. If we want to abide in Jesus we need to concentrate. Otherwise we may miss what He is saying to us just as I missed some of what Alex said to me. We need to make time in our lives, set it aside for God. We can’t come to Jesus with a list of prayers for the day, say amen and go on our merry way. That is not abiding. Abiding means spending unhurried time with our Lord. Quiet time, listening time. We don’t hurry through our devotion so we can check it off our to-do list. We set aside time, we linger in prayer, and we read and reflect on the scripture as we read it.
Let me give a closing illustration. When we moved to our house in Ardmore there were very overgrown grapevines on an arbor in the backyard. We decided to grow our own grapes from the vines. First, we had to prune them way back to the main vines. All the extra branches were cut off so only a very few were left. The vines were carefully watered and fertilized and they produced a wonderful crop of grapes. We made about fifty to sixty gallons of wine from these grapes. It wasn’t very good, I didn’t drink it but I used it to marinate meat and for cooking. After that one harvest we didn’t pay much attention to the vines. We stopped pruning the branches. The branches ran wild. The arbor was covered with leaves and I liked it that way for the privacy. Eventually, the branches grew into the trees and across the garage roof. There were still some grapes but each year there were fewer and fewer. This is what happens when grapevines aren’t pruned; they stop producing. If God didn’t keep pruning us we would stop producing fruit also.
Let us seek to be fruitful. Let us ask God to keep pruning us. May we abide in Christ Jesus, the true vine. Please pray with me.
“None of us,” , “has the breadth of experience, intellectual skill, social sensitivity, or spiritual depth to interpret the Scriptures alone.” Among the many other complicated benefits of Christian community, seeking to understand God’s word together “creates a culture of mutual openness and generosity among us and among our diverse cultural contexts. This in turn creates the kind of spiritual maturity that helps us live with the ambiguity often present in our life together.”
Jesus is painting a picture of people here. There are those who at one time were Christians in their lives. But then something happens to them. They stop producing fruits of faith. They stop obeying God. They stop living and talking in a Christian way. They start living and talking just like the rest of the unbelieving world. They stop producing fruits of faith in their lives.
A missionary in Africa lived in his central mission which had a small generator to supply current for his church and a small rectory.
Some natives from an outlying mission came to visit the pastor. They noticed the electric light hanging from the ceiling of his living room. They watched wide-eyed as he turned the little switch and the light went on. One of the visitors asked if he could have one of the bulbs. The priest, thinking he wanted it for a sort of trinket, gave him one of the extra bulbs.
On his next visit to the outlying mission, the priest stopped at the hut of the man who had asked for the bulb. Imagine his surprise when he saw the bulb hanging from an ordinary string. He had to explain that one needed to have electricity and a wire to bring the current to the bulb.
We may share an understanding smile at the innocence of the African native, but we may not be much better. In our text for today, Jesus tells a story about the importance of our connection to the true source of life. Of the true source of power. Our Lord uses the analogy of the vineyard of the vine and the branches.
Just as the electricity provides the power necessary for the bulb to produce light, So the vine provides the life necessary for the branches to produce fruit.
This pruning is not punishment, it is done so that the vine can be even more productive so that it will be more fruitful. Pruning sounds destructive, but it is actually creative. Sometimes this pruning involves removing sin or other distractions from our lives.
Sometimes God’s pruning is painful, but over time God is changing us to be more like his Son.
Because God loves us, He “prunes” us which allows us to bear more fruit for His glory.
If the branches could speak, ….. I am sure they would confess ….that the pruning process hurts.
Yet I am convinced they would also rejoice ….that they will now be able to produce ….more and better fruit.
Beloved ……hear me on this…. You will never see a branch pruning another branch! (Repeat)
The responsibility of pruning, shaping and trimming the vines is not that of the other branches.
We are not producing fruit to please ourselves It is produced to give to and to serve.. others.
God’s Word is clear …..we are called to be transformed into the image of Jesus, ….and to abide in his love.
The more we abide in the Vine, the more fruit we will bear.
The more fruit that we bear, the more the Father will prune us the more he prunes us the greater the quantity and the quality of fruit is produced In us.
The biblical image of a vine conveys a deep sense of the connectedness of our lives.
The better we are connected the more we are transformed.
And this spiritual transformation comes from connectedness. Not from effort.
The command is not to produce fruit. The command is to abide.
When we are abiding in Christ ….the fruit comes ….. naturally.
God produces the fruit….. in us.
When we abide in Christ, ….He opens our spiritual eyes ….and we see where He is working.
“Apart from Me, (Slow) you can do nothing!”
The gardener also cuts a lot of living branches off the vine. He trims them way back, and by he’s done, there doesn’t seem to be much left of the grapevine. All this cutting seems so drastic, so extreme, so unnecessary. But the reason the gardener does this is so that the branches reach their full potential. Even though the branches look almost dead, months later they produce a very large crop, only because the gardener did all that cutting.
This is what God does to you. He prunes you. He cuts into your life, and removes some things that you might not want removed. He takes things away from you, he changes things around for you, and sometimes, it seems so drastic, so extreme, so unnecessary. When we are being pruned, we ask him, why are you doing this to me, God?
But God cuts into your life for your good. He wants you to reach your full potential as a Christian. He wants you to produce as many fruits of faith as possible. Perhaps some of you are going through the pruning process right now. All of us experience this in our lives. While it happens, we trust that God is in control, because the gardener does know what he is doing.
The goal, is that each of us becomes a fruitful branch, the third of the four branches vines we are looking at this morning. In verse 8, Jesus says, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” The fruitful Christian is one whose life is filled with good works. These good works first of all include obedience to God – doing what God wants, even when the rest of the world is doing something different. Good works include the way you treat other people – the people at home – your family, the people at work, our friends, even total strangers. When you’re around these people, and you ask yourself, how can I serve them? How can I show the love of God to this person? How can I witness Jesus Christ to someone else? “This is to my Father’s glory,” Jesus says, “that you bear much fruit.”
The story is told of a native from a remote mountain village who had the opportunity to visit a large modern city for the first time. He could not bring much home with him, and he had little money. But he was amazed at the electric lights which he saw everywhere. So he bought a sack full of electric lights bulbs and sockets with switches so he could turn them off and on.
Arriving home he hung the light bulbs in front of his home and on his and his neighbor’s trees. Everyone watched him with curiosity and asked him what he was doing, but he just smiled and said, “Just wait until dark–you’ll see.”
When night came he turned on the switches, but nothing happened. No one had told him about electricity. He did not know the light bulbs were useless unless connected to the source of their power.
Jesus tells you, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” He provides the electricity, the power you need in your life to produce fruits of faith.
Left to ourselves we all would remain branches IN CHRIST, but unfruitful because we are growing in the dirt of this world. The life source is within us; God’s Holy spirit is in our lives, but God does more to make us fruitful. God lifts us up; He disciples and trains us in order that we might grow and produce fruit. How does God lift up these fruitless vines?
· He places us in relationship with other believers. We need each other to grow effectively and be fruitful; none of us can make it alone. I believe this is the single most important thing that God does for us. Being a part of a church and sharing in loving relationships with other Christians is vital to your spiritual health.
· He instructs us in His Word. The Holy Spirit is our teacher; through our personal devotions, sermons, teaching and interaction in small groups the Holy Spirit will cleanse and strengthen our lives through the Word of God.
· God renews our minds so that we no longer conform to the ways of this world but pursue His kingdom; He teaches us to hate sin and desire righteousness in our lives. When we have sin in our lives we want to be restored in our relationship with God and He is faithful to forgive us.
If we don’t let God lift us up then we are in danger of becoming a fruitless branch that chooses not to remain in Christ. If we don’t enter into relationships with other believers, if we don’t apply His word to our lives, if we don’t let the Holy Spirit renew our minds, then we are cutting off the flow of Christ’s source of life that He places within us.