"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.
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. 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.
Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.
This is all just a rough sketch of some ideas on this passage. Which, by the way, I consider to be a bit more important at the moment than catching up on all the Anglican Communion news and goings on, but I'll get around to that stuff later.
Jesus is telling his disciples a little bit about gardening. After all, a lot of these guys are fishermen, not farmers, so he goes through it slowly and tries to explain a few things to them.
He highlights four things: "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. Jesus is going to talk about these four things: The Vinegrower, the Vine, the Branches, and the Fruit.
The Vinegrower:
First let’s look at the Vinegrower. Jesus says “my Father is the Vinegrower.” God is a gardener. He is interested in planting something and growing something. And he has a purpose in mind – his purpose is that the branches should bear fruit. This gardener is growing a vine – he wants to produce grapes. A vineyard is not usually just something that you grow to look at – you grow it for the fruit it produces. So it is with God the Father. He has planted a Vine, and made a vineyard. And he wants it to produce fruit. That is not so far fetched. After all, that is what the vine and the branches are supposed to do – that is what they are made to do.
Now God is quite an attentive gardener, and he takes this business of producing fruit pretty seriously. Look what Jesus says about the Vinegrower:
“He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”
This Gardener – this Vinegrower – is pretty particular. Unlike many of us who will let things in the garden slide for a while, this gardener stays on top of things. “He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit, and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes to make it bear more fruit.” This gardener has a purpose in mind, and He takes care to make sure the vine and the branches end up the way they are supposed to; doing what they were intended to do.
It takes quite a bit of a plant’s energy to bear fruit. If you notice fruit trees or vineyards, you see that there are flowers, and then there is the fruit. The flowers look nice and smell nice and are all very pretty, but they aren’t very nourishing. But God is not interested in how pretty we look as Christians, or whether we smell nice. He is interested in whether or not we are bearing fruit.
Let’s hope and trust that we are in the second group of branches – not the branches that get cut off, but those that get pruned to bear more fruit Those of us who are attentive gardeners in our own back yards know that sometimes we need to cut branches off in order to make the rest of the plant healthier.
What happens when we start to bear fruit? Well, God is so interested in our spiritual health, and he is such a careful gardener, that he will start to prune any branch which bears fruit. But he does not prune randomly or without any purpose. He will only prune the branch in such a way that it will bear more fruit.
I know what I start to think when I hear Jesus talking about “pruning”. I start thinking little garden pruners with really sharp edges, or I start to think about my garden shears, or worse, I start to picture the new 22 inch gas powered hedge trimmer whizzing through the bushes chopping the top and sides off every shrub in the yard. It’s not a very appealing image – this pruning business. But then again, maybe it isn’t supposed to be. God wants us to grow into healthy branches. Are there parts of us that are spiritually unhealthy, and maybe need a bit of pruning? Are there parts of us where we need a habit pruned away, a bad attitude clipped back? Maybe there is an area of our lives where we are not growing spiritually, and God needs to do a little bit of pruning to get the growth started in the right direction. If we trust the gardener, we will have faith that the end result will be good.
Pruning is done to focus the plant’s energy in the right place – and that is what God wants us to do – focus our energy on the right things.
The True Vine:
15:1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the Vinegrower.”
Jesus qualifies this description of himself as the vine with a small but very important word. He says I am the true vine. Not just any vine, but the true vine. What does that mean? Well, he is saying that He is the real source of life for the branches. He is saying that it is only through him that the Vinegrower will work. And it is only through Jesus, the True Vine, that the branches will be able to grow and bear fruit.
When Jesus says He is the true vine, he is also saying that there must be a few false vines going around the garden. What does a false vine look like? Well, on the surface it might look very much like a true vine. Jesus is saying that there are lots of other things and powers in the world which might promise to help us grow into healthy branches and bear fruit, but they are false vines – there is only one true vine.
What are some false vines? Whatever promises to give life, and safety and fulfillment and happiness, but doesn’t have the power to deliver. My money – maybe I think that finances will be a true vine – that they will be a source of life and happiness for me. My job – maybe I think that it will be a source of security for me. Or I might even think that I am the true vine – that everything I am and everything I have is solely due to my own hard work, good looks, and cleverness. A false vine is anything that promises to deliver what only God can really give. What are you counting on as your vine – is it the True Vine? Jesus says, I am the true vine.
The Branches.
That’s you and me. We are the branches. What does Jesus say to us, to the branches?
15:4 Abide in me as I abide in you.
First Jesus uses this word “abide”. It’s a word that pops up quite a few times today. What does it mean to abide? It means to live as a part of – to be a part of, and to remain a part of.
Jesus tells us how we can be healthy branches. Abide in me as I abide in you. The relationship between the vine and the branches is this: The vine is the source of life and nourishment and strength. The branches are totally dependant on the vine for everything. For a branch to abide in the vine means that the branch gets its life, its energy and its nourishment from the vine. This life flows from the vine into the branches. They are connected. This life and nourishment and energy actually has a name – the Holy Spirit.
Remember that John used this word abide six times in the letter we just read: What does he say?:
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
[4:14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world.
4:15 God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God.
4:16 So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.]
How do we know that we abide in God? God’s own life goes through the vine and out into the branches - “The Holy Spirit”. If we want to bear fruit – if we want to bear the fruit of the Spirit in our own lives and in the lives of others, we need to get the Spirit through the Vine – through Jesus.
“Just 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. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”
Our efforts are nothing unless they are in the vine. Dependence upon the vine for everything.
Here is the basic image – connected to the source of life and growth. When you are cut off from that source, you wither and die.
Here is a branch that is by itself. If you think you can grow and bear fruit apart from Jesus, you are mistaken. What does Jesus tell us? “Apart from me you can do nothing.” Now a branch can be cut from a tree and for a while you can stick it in water and it will look pretty good for a few days maybe. But eventually it will start to turn brown, because it is cut off from the source of its life. That’s what Jesus is telling his disciples. If you cut yourself off from the vine – you might look green and fresh for a while, but do you know what? You will wither spiritually sooner or later. It’s just a matter of time.
Abide in the vine.
We are branches for a purpose – and that purpose is what Jesus calls: the fruit.
The Fruit:
What is this fruit we are supposed to bear – we who are the branches? There are a couple of senses to this word “fruit” as it comes up in Scripture. There is the sense that we have fruit in our own lives – that our own lives and hearts bear fruit. Look at the poster on the side wall of the church. What is the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self control -- these are the things that God is interested in cultivating in our lives. You want joy in your life? Abide in the Vine, and let the vinegrower do the necessary pruning. You want more faith, more love, more kindness? Abide in the Vine, and let the Vinegrower do his work.
Then there is the sense of bearing fruit in terms of the “harvest”. Jesus uses a lot of farming and agricultural images in his teaching. And here he is building on that. Throughout the gospels, Jesus uses this same image to describe evangelism – telling others, whether that is by words or deeds, in big ways or small ways – about the kingdom of God. Bearing fruit means that we are conscious of our task as branches that the plant is supposed to grow outward.
You know, it is not the vine itself that bears the fruit – it is the branches. God has handed this task over to us – all the branches. If we are in the vine, and the life of the vine flows through us, we will bear fruit. How will we do that? Let me give you a couple of simple examples. Invite someone you know to church. We are in a bargain here – It’s your job to get people into the church – and maybe it’s my job to keep them here. Plant a seed – mention something about God in a conversation with someone. Be ready to tell someone what Jesus means to you. Gossip the Gospel. Pick someone you know who is not a Christian and pray for them. Consistently. Show God’s love to someone in some practical way. Bear Fruit.
The fruit is also our relationship with Him:
15:7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
15:8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.
Now we get to God granting our requests. Jesus makes an offer to us. “Ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” What does this mean? Notice that this comes at the end of the discussion, not at the beginning. This is going to be a bit of a wrestling match. It seems to a lot of people these days that there are secret formulas you can use with God to get what you want out of Him. This is not about fulfilling a certain condition so that God will do favors for me. It’s not like I can just go down a checklist and say – “okay, now I’m abiding in Jesus, and now his words are abiding in me, now here’s my list of things I want God to do for me.” This is not about a bargain, it is about a living relationship. A live branch living in a live vine.
So when you are in this living relationship with Jesus, you will know a couple of things. You will know that you are there to bear fruit, and that you are there to become a disciple. And those two things will condition your asking. If you are abiding in Jesus, you will ask for things which will somehow help you in those two areas – bearing fruit and becoming a disciple. And Jesus will grant those requests.
“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, then you can ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” We need to be connected to Jesus, who is the source of all life and power and goodness, before we can have access to the strength that is there.
We need to bear fruit – in our own lives and in the lives of others, and we need to do that by first becoming disciples ourselves. We need to ask for the Holy Spirit. It is an amazing thing. The very same life and power and love of God which flows from the Father to the Son – from the Vinegrower into the Vine – will flow into us – the branches. We will be changed, and so will those around us.
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