If you have your copy of God's Word with you this morning, please turn with me in the book of John to John chapter 15. Today we are going to be looking at a modified version of what I told you this week. We are not going to look at all the way through verse 17, but we are going to stop at verse 11. So John chapter 15, 1-11 there is simply too much in the first 11 verses for us to quickly skim it. And so we are going to camp out here and then Lord willing next week we will pick up 12-17. Also, as a note this morning we are hearing in John's Gospel, if you've been with us, or if you are visiting, John has a series of statements in his Gospel called the I Am Statements, the I Am's of John. These are declarative statements by Jesus Christ that tie who He is both to the God of the Old Testament using the same word formula, the I Am that God gave to Moses at the burning bush. Also, it ties together a picture or an identity marker for who Jesus is and what He came to do. And this morning we receive the last, the seventh, I am in the Gospel of John. I am the true vine. And this is one that's interesting. I know many of you are gardeners and have a love for plants. So you hear Jesus saying, I am the vine. And especially around where we live here, normally we get rid of those. When you see a vine, you're like, oh no, that doesn't belong here. And we prune it or get rid of it. So you're going to have to think a little differently. And we're going to talk about that this morning, that vines are not bad. at least in Jesus' context. And so we need to see that especially He as the vine is a good thing. But we'll get to that a little more in a moment. But what I do want you to think about is even as we prepare to read the text, what does it mean for Jesus to be the vine, the source, the center, and then we be the branches? What does that mean for us practically today? Before I say more, let us hear from our Lord. I'd like to read beginning in verse one and read through verse 11. I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in 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 in 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 prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have 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 have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. This is the word of the Lord. Would you please bow with me as we go to him now in prayer? Dear Heavenly Father, We come today recognizing our need to be rooted in Jesus Christ. May we see through your word and by the power of your Holy Spirit that we must abide in Christ if we hope to bear fruit in our lives. Lord, may we also see through this text that there are habits, practices, friendships, and often matters in our lives that need to be pruned for they are detrimental and they are harmful to the plant. Father, we thank you for this time to study your word. We ask you give us eyes to see and ears to hear for your glory and for our good this day. We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. When I was a student at Mississippi State, I spent a season in an apartment with four or three of my other friends, one of which being my brother. We lived on the third floor. in a small apartment and we had a tiny balcony. And we're pragmatic guys. We weren't gonna go sit out on that balcony and stare at the parking lot, which is about all you could do out of that balcony. We said, we're gonna maximize our space. We're gonna plant a garden. How do you plant a garden on a third floor balcony? Well, you get creative. You get five gallon buckets and you fill them with soil and then you put plants in the buckets and then you tend to them. We had three tomato plants and one jalapeno plant. Another thing you need to understand about us, we had a propensity, even though we lived in Starkville and grew up in Ackerman, of going home every weekend. In hindsight that was a bit excessive. But I often was a pulpit supply at different churches around Mississippi and Alabama in those days. And so I was off and everybody else would go home. What this meant was that Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and a lot of times, because we had class most of Monday, our plants were left on that balcony. And you can imagine, when we would come back late Monday night, or we'd get there Tuesday morning, a tomato plant, or a jalapeno plant for that matter, that had been neglected for almost four days, looked like it had given up. The leaves were withered, it was turning brown, it was so sad, and it was saying, let me die. But we refused. Those were our plants, and we were gonna care for them, so we watered them, and then we took care of them, and they came back. And we thought we were so clever. We said, you know, we're gonna accept they're not gonna be ideal, but we're growing these plants. Look how industrious we are. Until the fall came, or late summer, when you are to harvest said plants. We learned something about growing plants on a balcony that the floor of it's made of concrete and you put the five gallon buckets on the concrete and the roots are slowly cooked from the bottom and the leaves are slowly cooked from the sun and you deprive them half of the week from water. They don't like to produce fruit because their primary goal is survival. I think even though we gave what we would have said is our best effort, that's laughable now, And I don't know if we picked anything off of those plants. We learned a lot about ourselves. Namely, it's a whole lot cheaper just to go to the store. But if you don't care for a plant, if you don't provide its nutrients and its soil and its sun, and you don't watch over it and protect it from the elements, it will not grow. Well, Christians, I tell you this morning in the same way, you are like those plants. If you are not in the right pot, if you are not receiving the right nutrition, if you are not being appropriately watered, you will not grow. Further, not only will you not grow, you will bear no fruit. And unlike the fruit of our tomatoes, which we could just go to Walmart and pick up, you cannot go to the store and receive spiritual fruit. That fruit comes from one place, that is the Lord. Jesus is telling us here in this passage that he is the vine or the source of our spiritual nutrition and growth. And for any of us to hope to bear good fruit or fruit at all, we must be connected to him. So I really want us just to see two points this morning. We'll save the third for another week, Lord willing. Only those who are connected to Christ will bear fruit. That'll be the bulk of our time this morning in verses 1 through 10. And then in verse 11, we're going to talk about a specific fruit, the fruit of joy. So let's consider our passage. And even before we do that, we need to get a little bit of context. You may find yourself, Jesus, this is a pretty dramatic shift. We've been preparing for your departure. We've been talking about the Holy Spirit. And then all of a sudden you bring up gardening. Why the shift in emphasis? We need to think about a few things. First, if you look at history, and we can go to historians such as Josephus, one of the early church historians, above the temple, the temple entrance in the time of Jesus, was an image of a grape vine with clusters of grapes upon it. And so those preparing to enter the temple would see that imagery and think about all that it meant. If you scan the Old Testament, you realize that God often used this analogy of the vine and the fruit of the vine to refer to Israel. We don't have time to go there, but you could go to Psalm 80, 8-19, Isaiah 5, 1-8, Jeremiah 2-21, Jeremiah 6, 8-9, Ezekiel 17, 6-8, Ezekiel 19, 10-14, Hosea 10, 1-2. Often God referred to Israel as a vine. Unfortunately and sadly, it's often a negative analogy. You are a vine that is not producing fruit. The fruit of your life is indicative of your lack of faith, not a symbol of your abundance of faith. And so when Jesus makes this, or gives this lesson, We don't know exactly where we are, but we believe he's finished because he said, let us go. They've left the upper room and they're on their way to the garden. It's possible that they could have passed the temple on this trek, and so you would see the image that we just talked about. It's also possible as they're going to the garden that you looked out at the vineyards, that you looked out at the fruit of the vine. And so this isn't as out of place as it would seem. This is why Jesus uses this analogy. It's one that they would have understood, although it's maybe a little foreign to us. What does Jesus say? He says, I am the true vine. My father's the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it may bear more. Jesus is making a contrast here with that word true. Israel is the failed vine. It is a vine that is not producing fruit. We look at John's account, we've heard of the Pharisees and their attempts at thwarting Jesus' plans, their denial of Him as Lord, their rejection of Him as leader and master. In fact, where we are in the timeline, their almost completely ready for the arrest of Jesus. We're in the moments preceding the arrest, which will then lead to the trial, which will then lead to the crucifixion. Jesus says, though, while they are the failed vine because they failed to see me as Lord, I, Jesus says, am the true vine. And how do you tell the difference in a true vine and a false vine or a good vine and a bad vine? The fruit, the fruit that it produces. You look at Israel, you look at the Pharisees and you ask, what kind of fruit are you producing? A kind of legalistic, a kind of self-righteous, a type of fruit that is more inward focused and focused on God and focused on others. Look at what Jesus produces. Jesus produces a fruit that loves others. Jesus produces a fruit that is compassionate. Jesus produces a fruit that is outward focused, that is selfless instead of selfish. There's a fun little saying this morning, particularly you young ones, I want you to walk away hearing this. Bad roots will always produce bad fruits. Bad roots will produce bad fruits. If you are not in the right place, if you are not taking in what you need, what you're supposed to have, you will not produce good fruit. And Jesus is saying here, and I know I'm blending analogies, I'm just more familiar with plants than vines, but it works the same way. He is that vine, the source, the center. He is the life. And in him and through him and connected to him, there is the ability to produce. Now, he warns us here, this is not just a promise of blessing, it's also a warning. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. unfortunately in our churches and throughout Church history this has certainly been the case. There have been the branches that looked good, that looked like they would produce, that looked like they were part of the vine, and yet when you see their fruit and see their actions they prove to be false. Even worse they can often be detrimental. Many of you know that you often have to prune your fruit trees or your plants so that the healthiest, the strongest, the most viable branches can grow. And the ones that are just going to suck the life need to be cut out. Jesus most likely has a specific person in mind here, doesn't he? What is Judas doing at this moment? He's conspiring to betray Jesus. He is telling them their plans. He is plotting to have Jesus taken out of the picture. And so Jesus is speaking, although not outwardly yet, the disciples still don't understand that part of it. Jesus is warning them, there will be those that will be pruned, for they are false. But it's important, that we understand, it doesn't just say the bad branches get pruned, does it? It says the ones that are producing fruit are further pruned, that they may bear more fruit. And what does that look like practically? Sometimes God has to prune or remove from our lives certain activities, certain habits, certain friends, Because while they are not, sometimes they're not in and of themselves sinful, they are slowing us down or detracting us from reaching our full potential in Him. Sometimes they are detrimental. They are pet sins and pet projects. They are distractions that keep us from God's Word and God's people. And the Lord says, you don't need that. Now the trouble with that is pruning hurts. Doesn't it? It's not often pleasant. We don't want it. We don't ask for it. But the Lord, who is divine and sees the totality of our life, who sees the scope of what He's doing in us, will say to us, yeah, you may not like this now, but you have to listen to me. In 20 years time, left unchecked, that was gonna destroy you. That was gonna suck so much of your life and attention and happiness and joy that you were gonna be a shell of yourself. I love you so much that I'm gonna cut you now that you may be stronger in the long run. It's not a prayer that we often pray or we like to pray, but I would challenge ourselves to ask the Lord, Lord, where are the areas in our lives that need pruning? Show them to me. And yet Jesus needs to encourage the disciples. He tells them all of this and then tells them almost as a secondary manner, you're clean. Why does he tell them that? Remember, at this point, they still don't know who the betrayer is. They are assuming that Judas is going to get more food or going to give an offering to the poor. They don't understand yet that he's off betraying them. And so they still may be talking and debating amongst themselves, who is it? Who's the betrayer? Who's the one that's, are you a bad branch? Like, are you producing fruit? They're probably doing this in their heads or maybe they're whispering to each other. So Jesus kind of cuts it out and says, guys, y'all are all clean because of what I've taught you. You are good branches. You will produce good fruit in your lives. It's okay. That just shows the love and care of our Savior, that while He's warning them about good fruit and bad fruit in their lives, He also encourages them that you are mine. How do we take advantage of this? If we find ourselves saying, Lord, I want to be a good branch. Lord, I want to produce good fruit. Lord, I want to live a life that is growing and is flourishing and that is moving toward something, holiness, and my walk with you. What does that look like for me? Well, Jesus gives us a practical step-by-step here on how we can produce good fruit. Abide in me and I in 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 in him, he it is that bears much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing. I want you to notice the word choice there. In my ESV, it renders that word abide. If you have a different translation this morning, it might have rendered that word remain. And then my favorite is actually in the King James, which more often than not renders that word tarry. But if we wanted to put it in layman's terms, if we wanted to simplify it down to its base means, that word could be translated as stay put. Abide, stay put. Whoever stays put in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. We need to understand Jesus is not a fast food meal where we get to come by every once in a while, receive some quick cheap nutrition and go on our way and expect our bodies to work at full efficiency. We cannot, we cannot occasionally come to worship. We cannot occasionally study God's word when it's convenient and easy and expect to be yielding good fruit as an outcome. where much like those plants on my balcony, they may look green, but their harvest is weak. Jesus says, if you want good fruit in your life, you have to stay put in me. That means to be there. That means to dwell there. That means to root ourselves. Think about the first Psalm. Where does the Lord put us? By streams of water. Why? Because there you've got grass, you've got water, you've got air, you've got everything you need to be rooted. And the first Psalm contrasts that to the foolish one who is weak. So to grow fruit in the Lord, we have to stay put. We have to dwell in His Word. We have to dwell in fellowship. Jesus says this is glorifying the God, the Father. And in fact, this proves or validates us as disciples as Jesus Christ. A good litmus test for all of us is if it is easy for us to regularly miss church, if it is easy for us to regularly neglect our Bible reading, according to Jesus here, we need to ask, are we his disciples? If it's easy to neglect these things, are they important to us? Do they matter? The very fact that we crave or should crave worship with God demonstrates that we belong to Him. Jesus says it, whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. The contrast, apart from me you can do nothing. And so we're either abiding and bearing fruit or we're not. He doesn't give any alternative here. We're dwelling in Him and we are fruitful or we're not. This is not something to take lightly. Jesus goes on to say, those that are not bearing fruit, they are cut off and thrown into the fire. That being an allusion to eternal judgment. We may claim to be a part of the vine. We may look like we're a part of the vine. We may tell others we're a part of the vine, but if we're not bearing fruit, which comes through a connection and a dwelling with Christ, we are worthless. And I use that carefully, but I use it as it's said here, we are not useful and therefore we are pruned. We're talking about our eternal state here. We're talking about eternity with Christ or eternal suffering in the fiery torment of judgment. Dear Christian, I hope this passage wakes us up this morning. I hope this passage makes us pause and think. I'll be honest, I was talking to fellow pastors this morning and I said, you know Lord, my fellow brothers, my prayer this week is someone leaves the morning service offended. And don't worry, I've stung my own heart, so I got one. We cannot be complacent. We cannot let things just go. We cannot do simply what's easy or what is convenient. We need to check our own hearts. We need to check our own lives. We need to ask ourselves, am I bearing fruit? Well, what does that look like practically? I've made the case that we should bear fruit. What does that look like? Well, Jesus tells us here in the last two verses of this section, as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. And here's the point, the practical point. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I've kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. Jesus is the model. Jesus bore fruit because He stayed rooted, connected in and with the Father. We too as Christians bear fruit when we stay connected in and through Jesus. And what does that mean? It means obedience. Obey what? His Word. Well how do we know His Word? We read it. This is both an easy and a hard thing to say. What does it mean or look like for us to bear fruit? Easy. Just read what Jesus says and do it. What's the hard part in that? The doing it. We're sinners. We're selfish. It's hard. It's not always easy. It's not always pleasant. But the Lord showed me something this week and I really am encouraged by it. And I want to share it with you. Say you get in an argument with someone at work. and you say some unpleasant things to them. You act in anger toward them. The Bible warns us if we have hatred in our heart toward a brother, that is like murder, which is a sin. So we've failed, we missed the mark. But we don't stop there. It's not that Jesus then immediately comes and cuts us off and says, oh, too bad, you messed up. Because what are we to do next? Repentance. We're to go to the Lord, confess our sin. We're to go to that brother and confess our sin and make it right. And guess what? This is the part the Lord showed me this week that really helped me. That is obedience. Do you see how the Lord can even take a failure on your part and use it as an opportunity to grow? because it's one more chance for you then to go and seek Him and seek the other person and do what's right. It's a chance for you to go to them and say, I'm sinful and I messed up and I'm not perfect, God is. There's a witnessing opportunity there. The Lord will take even our failures and give us an opportunity to grow in them as a chance to fulfill what He's saying here. It's a foolproof system. I've found the more I've walked, the longer I've walked with the Lord, I've grown more in my opportunities to repent than I have in my opportunities to obey. Why? Because I have to or should repent more than I'm obeying. And the longer I walk, the more that seems to be the case. And so don't let this be another thing. That's not at all what I want. I don't want you leaving here burdened or weighed down by the pastor just gave me one more thing to do and one more thing to keep up and I'm such a failure and I'm no good and all those things may be true. That's between you and the Lord. That may be indicative of your life. But what is true is the Lord loves you. He says, abide in my love. This is not guilt. This is not a weighted system. This is an opportunity for Jesus to show you how much He loves you. He loves you so much, He's going to give you opportunity to obey Him. And when you fail, He's going to bring that to light. Why? Because He wants you to be better at obeying Him. And when you do, you're going to bear more fruit, which will give you more opportunity to obey Him. I want to talk, at least for a moment, about one specific fruit. The only way we can bear fruit as Christians is to be connected to Christ. But I want to leave us thinking about one specific fruit this morning, and that is the fruit of joy. If you remember back to when we were talking about chapter 14, chapter 14, verse 27, we had a similar conversation. That conversation had to do with how the fruit of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, was peace. And I mentioned, if you're living in a season that lacks peace, go to the Lord and pray, increase my peace. Well, our text this morning says a similar thing, but this time with joy. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. One specific outcome of abiding in Christ is joy. Now, joy is not happiness. Happiness is circumstantial. Happiness is fleeting. Happiness is temporary. I was very blessed this week to celebrate a birthday. And I've had cake the last two days. I had a slice for breakfast. That made me happy. I don't have any cake right now. I'm not happy about the cake at the moment. I was this morning. I'm not now. Happiness is situational, it's momentary, it's fleeting, it can come, it can go. Joy has nothing to do with our circumstances. Joy has nothing to do with what is before us. Joy has everything to do in who we belong to. And what does the text say? If you abide in Christ, who do you belong to? Him. And guess what? I abide in Christ and I belong to Him when I'm healthy. when I'm sick, when I'm rich, when I'm poor, when I'm lost and don't know the way, when I'm in a challenging season, when I don't know what's ahead and I don't know what's next. In all of those circumstances, I still belong to Christ, which means I still should live in joy. Hebrews 12, 2 says, for the joy that was set before Jesus, He endured the cross. Guess what, friends? The cross was not fun. The cross was the most efficient way to torture someone to death ever comprised at that time. And the Romans were pretty good at it. Jesus didn't go to the cross because it was fun. Why did Jesus go to the cross? Hebrews 12, 2 says, for the joy of what would come next. Jesus willingly went to the cross for the joy of knowing that our salvation would be bought and secured by it. Joy is not based on circumstance. Joy is based on who we belong to. So I just, I challenge you this morning, dear Christian, be rooted in Christ. Stay put. Read his word. Fellowship together. Worship with fellow saints. Grow in Him. And I do, I honestly ask you this morning, and maybe you've never prayed this, and maybe you don't want to, but I want to challenge you. Ask the Lord this week to show you in your life areas that need to be pruning. Ask Him to show you habits, circumstances, situations, maybe friendships that are not producing fruit in your life and need to be modified or taken out. And here's the second part to that challenge. Be ready to act when he does. Don't just give, ask him, and then the Lord shows it to you, and you're like, oh, that's great, Lord, yep, you're right. None of that's helping, and then you just live on. When you pray that prayer, and you challenge the Lord in that way, and when he reveals it, follow that up with, Lord, help me work on that. Help me prune that out of my life. This is how we grow, dear Christian. This is how we bear fruit in our lives to abide in Christ. Please bow with me. Dear Heavenly Father, There are so many voices in this world that are telling us how to grow and mature and be good and to be successful and to have meaning and purpose and all of these things. But none of them can give us what you offer. Love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, peace, self-control, the fruit of the Spirit, You offer to us because of who you are, not because of our circumstances, not because of our deserving or not deserving of it, but simply because of who you are and what you have done. That's what we need, Lord. That's what we're craving. I guarantee there's not a one of us in this room that would say to ourselves, we're full on those. What else you got? But we know from the text it says to abide in Christ and to obey. That's hard too, God. It's hard to find the time. It's hard to sacrifice. It's hard to get up early. It's hard to be present in worship. Even when we're here, it's hard to be present in worship. Help us, Lord, as we learned in chapter 14, by the power of your Spirit, help us do these things, that we might be fruitful people, and by our fruit, others might come to see their need for you as well. Again, we thank you for this word, and we thank you for this day. We thank you for this sacrament that we come to prepare here shortly, and its reminder in these things. We ask your blessing upon it, in Christ's name, amen.