August 5, 2007
John 15:1-8
I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
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Some of the most amazing times in our lives, occur when we experience a deep connection to someone. It may come because of an event we are participating in, a life situation we are celebrating or struggling with. When that connection occurs, we are filled with amazing joy, peace and contentment.
This happened to me this past week when I was visiting with Don McClead. Jan gave me permission to share this with you. Don was in occupational therapy and I went into the therapy area, and he and I began to talk to one another. Then it hit Don who I was. He got this big smile on his face and grabbed me and hugged me. It was a great time of connecting with Don.
If we were to be really honest, these points of connection don’t happen all of the time. Do they? We seem to pass through days and weeks before they occur. We look at family members we live with, but often times we don’t connect with them. We’re like ships passing in the night.
As much as we crave this connection with one another, the deepest connection we have in life is with God. God has created a vacuum in our souls, a vacuum which leads us to have a desire for a relationship with Him, a relationship which leads us to this amazingly strong connection with the God of all creation. If we are not connected to God, then life will always seem less than, instead of more than. So, let’s take a look at how we do that, and what it means.
In John 15, Jesus claimed “I am the True Vine,” the vine which brings life to each branch. The purpose of the vine is to bring nourishment to the branches so they might produce fruit. When separated from the vine the branches wither and die. The vitality of our spiritual life is dependent upon our connection to Christ the “true vine.”
Each of us must answer two questions this morning. First, are we connected to the vine, or is the life of Christ flowing within us? Secondly, if we are connected to the vine and we are joined to Christ, then how much fruit are we producing; no fruit, some fruit, or an abundance of fruit?
Have you ever wondered why Jesus told His disciples, “I am the true vine.” Let’s look at what was happening in Jesus’ life at that moment.
It was the night of Jesus’ betrayal, but before that happens Jesus and the disciples have celebrated Passover, they ate together, Jesus washed the disciples feet, and He spoke to them about His betrayal and departure. At the end of His discussion (John 14), Jesus told the disciples “Come now; let us leave.”
Another one of the disciples, Matthew, tells us that following the Passover meal Jesus and the disciples sang a hymn and then went to the Mount of Olives (Matthew 26:30). As Jesus and the disciples are walking to the Mount of Olives and eventually the Garden of Gethsemane, He continued to instruct these men who had walked with Him for the past 3 years.
Jesus was a master teacher. He didn’t waste any opportunities to teach. He used everyday things to help people understand who God is. So as they were walking they passed something familiar to everyone in Jerusalem – a grapevine.
Jesus used something they were familiar with and could understand. And Jesus proclaimed to the disciples ‘I am the true vine.’ They understood that life flowed from the vine into the branches.
Jesus was showing His disciples and us that He is the source of all true life, and if we want to live a fruitful spiritual life, we must be connected to Jesus.
The first and the non-negotiable step is to have a relationship with Jesus. If you want to be connected to Jesus, you must make the proclamation that Jesus is your Lord and Savior. As your Lord, Jesus has ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY over you. He is your ruler, and you seek to follow His ways. As your Savior, He is the one who saves you from your sinfulness and offers you forgiveness of sins.
There is nothing you can do to earn this other than to honestly and sincerely state as Paul said in Romans 10:9-10 ~ “9 if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”
When you do this you gain this connection to Jesus. Once you have it, nothing can take it away. Sometimes we move away from Jesus. That is our doing, but Jesus will never walk away from you . . . never.
In today’s scripture, Jesus is calling us to action, and that action is — —
TO REMAIN IN JESUS. 8 times in this small section Jesus repeats REMAIN . . . REMAIN . . . REMAIN . . . in me. It means we are to stay, or to wait, or as the KJV puts it, we are to abide.
Now if I was having a conversation with you, and I repeated myself, you would get the point that what I am really trying to tell you is important. You may become a little frustrated listening to me repeat myself, but you would get the point . . . I hope. Remember when Jesus asked Peter 3 times in John 21 ‘if Peter loved Jesus,’ Peter was getting a little perturbed. Tell your kids the same thing 2 or 3 times in a row, and you know they don’t like it.
Jesus wants us to get this very, very, very, very important point. You see, if we don’t remain in Jesus, we end up dying spiritually, we can’t sustain ourselves, we can’t do it on our own, we never will. That is why Jesus is so adamant about this.
If you look at this branch, I cut it off of our tree yesterday. It has already withered and has become useless, that is the picture Jesus gives us . . . if we don’t remain in Him, we can do nothing. We wither away and are spiritually useless.
The main thing I see in the concept of “remaining” is one of total dependence. We are dependent upon Jesus for our life nourishment. Just as a new born baby is totally dependent upon his / her parents for life, we are totally dependent upon Jesus for our spiritual nourishment. If the branch is separated from the vine, it dies, period. The branch can’t do it on its own. The same thing is true for us spiritually – unless we remain in Christ, we die spiritually. True life does not start in the branch, it starts in the vine. The life in our spirit comes from Jesus, from our connectedness to Him. And it is only in Him that we will bear fruit for the Kingdom of God.
How dependent are you on God? How much of your daily life have you surrendered to Him in reliance and dependence? Are you trying to be in control, or are you acknowledging that He is in control?
Once we have made that choice, how do we “remain?” How do we stay connected to the vine and the life that comes from it? This is where the things that we normally assume we are “supposed to do” as Christians come in – where reading our Bibles, praying, coming to worship, hanging out with other believers, and serving fits in. We usually think of them as things we have to do, we may look at prayer or Bible reading, serving, helping out, even attending worship as a drudgery, boring, menial work. And we believe we have to do it, but we often don’t do it willingly.
That kind of thinking is what gets us in trouble, because we eventually stop practicing these spiritual disciplines. You see, I believe these spiritual disciplines exist to keep us connected to the Vine – to keep us attached at the source SO THAT the life of God can flow in us. That is why we read, pray, worship, serve – to be connected. To remain in Him, and He in us.
Have you ever thought of it that way? We don’t read the Bible simply for knowledge as we would read a history book, we read the Bible because we believe it is the word of God, and it draws us closer to God, who is our life source. We pray, so we can connect with God in the deepest of ways. We worship God because we are thankful for God’s blessings in our lives, or we are seeking God’s presence or understanding, so we come into this building and surround ourselves with other people who seek connection and we end up CONNECTING with God and one another.
At this point, I would like to listen to a song, so I am just going to turn on the Boom box. But there is a problem, it’s not working. Any ideas why not? It’s not plugged in.
Notice what Jesus said, 8 times in this passage He said REMAIN with me, REMAIN with me, or maybe it was REMAIN by me, or REMAIN near me. . .
NO . . . NO . . . NO . . . every time Jesus said REMAIN IN ME! Note the preposition is IN, it is not good enough to be next to Jesus or near Jesus, we must be IN Jesus. Only when we are in Jesus do we gain our spiritual strength and vitality. Only then can we begin to bear much fruit.
In John 15:5, Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
Think about Jesus call in our lives. He is so clear about what He wants from us. He is the vine, He is the life source, the root of our lives, we are the branches, if we remain in Him, we will bear much fruit, however, when we are not connected to Him, we can do nothing of any spiritual good.
We must be connected to Jesus to do spiritual good. If we are not, we are thrown away, discarded as useless. But we are not useless, are we? God created us with a purpose and a design, and it is part of our mission to discover what God wants us to do. It is part of my purpose and goal at First Baptist Church to help each person come to Jesus, to know Him and to experience His presence and grace, to know without a doubt what Jesus wants you to be doing in your life.
We can only do that when we are connected to Him, then connected to one another. The call is to bear fruit, not just some, but much fruit, I have seen this church in action and we are a fruit bearing church, and we have the potential to grow beyond our wildest dreams as fruit bearers.
And I am probably sounding redundant, but to do that, we must be connected to Jesus. Are you?!
