John 15:1-17
“Producing Fruit”
There is a story in the Bible where Jesus comes across a fig tree, and He tries to find some fruit on it.
But there is no fruit, and so Jesus curses the fig tree saying, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.”
(pause)
Boy, life is scary crazy, and confusing.
If it’s crazy for us can you imagine what it was like for Jesus’ disciples?
In our Lesson for this morning, Jesus is preparing the disciples for a time when He is no longer going to be with them physically.
But rather than wringing His hands in despair, Jesus is speaking a word of hope and trust.
He says, “I am the Vine, you are the branches…
…Live in me.
Make your home in me just as I do in you.”
For most of us, we don’t have to look too far to find everyday examples that help deepen our understanding of what Jesus is getting at when He compares Himself to a Vine and you and me to the branches.
It almost goes without saying that once a branch is cut off from its life source, it is simply not going to live long, not to mention being at the end of its fruit bearing potential.
A farmer in a rural congregation in South Carolina once planted several acres of watermelons that he had presold to a grocery store chain in New York City.
When the truck got there for the watermelons, though, there was a misunderstanding over who was supposed to harvest the crop.
The deal fell through, the truck left empty, and the farmer gave all the watermelons to a local church Youth Group to sell at a roadside market for missions.
The young people and their parents put on boots and gloves and went out into the fields in search of the melons.
They soon saw that some of the branches had separated from the vine, had turned brown, and had no fruit worth finding.
But the green, living branches were still connected to the vine and had tasty watermelons under their leaves.
So, Jesus uses the metaphor of a vine connected to a branch and a human being connected to Christ as an example of what it means to live a faithful and fruitful life.
And the connection He is talking about isn’t temporary or shallow.
It is abiding, enduring and deep.
It is learning to live lives more and more and more rooted in Jesus.
It is living in Christ in the same way that Christ lives in us, becoming stronger and stronger day after day, year after year…
…producing more and more high quality fruit along the way.
So, let’s ask ourselves this morning: “Are we connected to Christ?”
“Are we rooted in Jesus?”
“Where do we get our nutrients for living?”
“Are we bearing fruit for the Kingdom?”
“Are we making our home in Jesus?”
If we really think about it, this is a difficult question.
I struggle just thinking about it.
The answer should be easy, but if I am honest, I have to admit that a lot of times I don’t live in Christ.
I don’t make my home in Him.
How about you?
Instead, I often live in things that I think I can control, but then those things end up controlling me.
I live in things that require little of me, but they end up taking my soul.
What do you spend your time doing?
What things do you give your life to?
We are constantly living in, taking residence in, affixing ourselves permanently to many things in our world.
And we kid ourselves if we think that those things are not affecting us, shaping us, transforming us.
The proof of what is shaping us is all around us.
That which we value, what we spend our time doing, the activities that we engage in, our attitudes, whether or not we are putting what we claim to believe into practice, whether we are becoming more loving, more altruistic, more like Jesus or more like something else all point to the things that captivate our hearts.
These things are the fruit of our lives.
In verse 9 of Chapter 15 Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.
Now remain in my love.”
And a couple of verses later Jesus says: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”
That’s really what it’s all about, is it not?
Love.
The kind of love that comes from a living, abiding, connected relationship with Jesus Christ.
The kind of love which is the fruit or result of being joined to the Real Vine.
A great preacher was once asked to share about the person who influenced him the most in his life and his call to ministry.
He surprised the audience when he told them the name of someone that no one knew: Miss Emma Sloan.
He explained that Emma Sloan was his Sunday school teacher throughout his childhood and Youth.
She gave him a Bible and taught him to memorize Scripture verses, though she never explained them or interpreted them.
She always told the children: “Just put it in your heart, just put it in your heart.”
The preacher shared with those listening how Miss Emma taught them a Bible verse for each letter of the alphabet, and then ended with these words: “I can’t think of anything, anything in all my life, that has made such a radical difference as those verses.
The Spirit of God brings them to mind time and time again.”
Miss Emma Sloan was teaching this young man what it means to live in God’s Word, to live in Christ as the branch lives by being connected to the vine.
Jesus says, “I am the Vine, you are the branches.
When you are joined with me you will bear much fruit.”
And the fruit we will bear begins inside of us and moves into our families, our towns, wherever our lives touch the lives of others.
And it’s not so much about the words we use; it’s about the love we give.
Fred Craddock, a preacher and teacher, who passed away a few years ago used to tell an amazing story about Albert Schweitzer.
Schweitzer wrote a book that, according to Craddock, was woefully lacking in its understanding of Jesus Christ and what it means to live out the Christian life.
It turns out that Schweitzer was playing an organ concert in Cleveland, Ohio and so Craddock bought a bus ticket to go up there and hear him play.
He thought up a series of stunning, piercing questions to throw at Schweitzer, to call into question his understanding of Jesus.
He wrote them down on a legal pad.
His plan was to catch him in a corner after the concert and engage him in a serious discussion.
After the concert was over, Schweitzer came into the Fellowship Hall to visit with people.
He was white haired, with a bushy mustache and stooped over.
He was a master organist, a medical doctor, a philosopher, a writer, a missionary and a biblical scholar.
He stayed for a short time and then spoke to the crowd.
“You’ve been very warm and hospitable to me,” he said.
“Thank you for it, and I wish I could stay longer among you, but I must go to Africa.
I must go because the people are poor and diseased and hungry and dying and I have to go.
We have a medical station in Africa.
If there is anyone here in this room who has the love of Jesus, would you be prompted by that love to go with me and help me?”
Craddock said that at this point he looked down to his legal pad full of questions, and they were absolutely stupid.
“And I learned again,” Craddock said, “what it means to be a Christian and had hopes that I could be that someday.”
We know it when we see it, don’t we?—a life connected to God.
Someone teaches us by their lives.
We know it when we live it ourselves, don’t we?
But it is impossible for us, on our own, to fend off the host of things that threaten to interfere with our staying alive in Jesus.
Think with me about all those things: temptations and trials, unrealistic hopes and ungrounded fears, undeserved wealth and unjust poverty, talent as well as untapped potential.
Any and all of these things and a thousand more left on their own can easily cut me off from the only source of life that really matters.
And they could do this in a way that I don’t even notice at first…until I start to realize that around the edges I am simply dying—like a branch that is separated from the vine.
Perhaps that is a description that fits your life this morning.
Jesus says to us: “Apart from me you can do nothing.
If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
Last week I was having a conversation with a friend who raised his family about 50 years ago or more.
Things were a lot different then, not always better, but some things may have been a bit better.
One thing is that back then, a lot more people used to be involved in a church.
My friend told me that he was part of a Sunday school class, and it was in that class that he and his wife found their friends.
They would vacation together.
Spend time at one another’s homes.
And their children would play together—grow up together.
And then he looked at me and said, “What do people do these days?”
“I mean, where do children get their moral compass?”
“Perhaps their parents take them to the country club or whatever, but that’s not the same.”
What he was asking was “How do people survive and thrive when they have no connection to the Vine?
How do they find their way in this scary and confusing world?
How do they learn what love is?
How do they learn right from wrong?”
Jesus said, “Remain in me, as I also remain in you.
No branch can produce fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.
Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”
Jesus once said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.
Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
We are to be those workers.
We are to be the ones Jesus uses to bring people into connection with Him.
But we can’t do this unless we are connected to the Vine ourselves.
We can’t bear the fruit of the Kingdom apart from Christ.
Apart from Him we can do nothing!
We have a very important job to do.
The world is counting on us to bear much fruit.
What a sad thing it is when God’s children try and live apart from Jesus.
What a waste.
What a loss for us and for a lost and broken world.
“If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers.”
I can relate to that, how about you?
I can do nothing without Jesus—nothing of value.
We are to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth.
We are to bring glory to God by bringing people to His Son by the way we love.
And, the only way to do this is by staying connected to Jesus—at all times and in all places--staying connected to the One Who laid down His life for His friends.
Let us pray:
Lord, as those who are called to love as you have loved us, we can’t just live for ourselves.
And we can’t love as you love without being connected to You as a branch is connected to the vine.
We can’t fulfill Your calling on our lives, your plan for our lives unless we remain in You.
Lord, let us not stop meeting together as many are now in the habit of doing.
Lord, use us to bring hope, love, and new life to Red Bank, Chattanooga and places beyond.
Take those things in our lives that distract us.
Take those things in our lives that keep us from staying connected to you.
We don’t want to wither and die.
We want to thrive and be alive.
We pray for your love and grace to keep us connected to You.
May we never take our relationship with You and what You have done for us for granted.
In Jesus’ name we pray.
Amen.
