This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. If you have your scriptures, would you open to John chapter 15, please? John 15, starting in verse 1. This is the Word of God. I am the true vine, and my father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that 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. Amen. Would you pray with me? Our Lord, be here with us, we pray. Be here for the speaking of your words. Be here for the hearing of your words. For apart from you, the speaker is nothing. For apart from you, the hearers are nothing. We pray that you would be here with us and work wonderful fruit among us. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. So, we get to continue on into this just rich, rich stuff in the gospel of John here. And Jesus starts, he really starts by setting the context for how this entire section, really one through about what, 20, or excuse me, 17, is going to be framed by this parable of the true vine, of the vine dresser, and so on like that. So he starts out, and let me just build you sort of the ingredients, then I'll show you then what he does with them, what Jesus does with them. He starts out with just a simple comment. Jesus is the true vine, he says. Not just a vine, the true vine. Now, what you have here is you have two pictures, really. You have the most immediately sort of impactful one, and then you have a broader picture. The immediate one is pretty clear. Jesus presents himself as the source of life, as the source of vitality. It comes from Jesus. Now that much is clear and he's going to keep taking that one forward. Big picture though, something you might not realize is that this is a picture drawing on the Old Testament. This is a picture drawing on how God has spoken to his people throughout redemptive history, the vine, as it turned out, was a symbol for Israel. Regularly used as a symbol for Israel. The kicker though, I suppose, is that this wasn't just some neutral image. By and large, this is an image when God was condemning Israel. This was an image when God would say, Israel, you have not borne fruit like you were supposed to. You have not done the things you were supposed to. And so God's judgment was hanging over them in those times. Generally, when you see the vine imagery, the vine imagery, you see a God who's condemning how Israel has conducted themselves, how they have behaved. In other words, the vine is almost always, it seems like, pointing to Israel's failure. So then, You come here and you have Jesus, which just seems like just such a simple comment, such a passing comment. But he says, I am the true vine. I am the true vine. The people of God throughout the Old Testament were pointing not to themselves. They were not the end, the big deal all by themselves. They were pointing to Christ. Christ is the true vine. Christ, by the work of his gospel, by his death and by his resurrection, he bought a people and he united them with himself. Christ and all those in him, they are the true people of God. This is what the true vine looks like. In Christ, there are no failures worthy to be judged. There is no judgment outstanding. There is no condemnation anymore for those in Christ Jesus. Jesus says, I am the true vine. And my father, my father, he is the vine dresser. What you have here is this vine dresser idea is like a farmer, a gardener, the one attending to all these things. You have the feel of oversight, right? Of guidance. That's what his father is doing here. He tends both the branches that are fruitful And he tends to the ones that are not as well. This is what the father is doing in this vineyard. The branches on the one hand that are bearing fruit, well, these are the ones the scriptures say he prunes. He prunes them. Last time I made any illustration about yard work, I was informed that that was a young person's job and all of you experienced parents don't do yard work anymore. But you know what pruning is like. You go around and the idea is you need to trim the bushes, you need to trim the trees, you need to guide them so that they are healthier, so that they bear fruit. Well, that's all good and well with a plant, right? You take it to a human being though, and we start cringing just a little bit. I think our ideal is that, hey God, if I'm bearing fruit for you, leave me alone. I'm doing okay, right? Just let me do my thing. If I'm doing okay by you, let me do my thing, right? Because pruning a human being is not an image that we love. It sounds painful. It sounds hard in some ways. But it turns out actually that those who are bearing fruit, it's almost like they encourage God's attention. The branch that is bearing fruit is almost crying out to God, God, I'm bearing fruit. Do you think I could do more? And God prunes the ones that are bearing fruit for the purpose of having them bear more fruit. See, we might not like the process. It might not be what we would call pleasant, but it is God's act of love. It is God saying, I will make you even more fruitful. You know, the fleshly side of us might not like it in the moment. In the big picture of the Christian walk, we would say, amen, make me more fruitful. Make me as fruitful as you would have me be. This is an act of God's love, much like God's discipline. We've talked about the God's discipline is not a condemnation. It is not something he does for those who he does not care about. God's discipline is reserved for those he loves. And I think likewise for his pruning. This is an act of love. God himself, our father, he will make sure we bear fruit and he will help us to bear even more fruit in the spiritual walk we are on. He will tend to us. Now, on the other hand, there is the other kind of branch, isn't there? There's the branch that does not bear fruit. Verses two and verses six describe these branches as basically being considered useless. These are branches that aren't doing anything for the vine. They're not bearing fruit. And if you think about a vine whose really purpose is to bear fruit, you say, well, what do I do with the branches that don't do anything? I'll remove them. That's a gardening kind of straightforward idea, right? God removes the branches that aren't bearing fruit and says, well, then I guess you're good for firewood. He throws them in the fire and they're burned. Now you might hear that and you might be tempted to read into this questions that I don't think it's trying to answer. Because the question that will come up is when the scriptures talk about that these branches are in Christ and that they are not bearing fruit and then they're removed and thrown into a fire. The question that worries people is, are these believers? Were these true believers who failed and then, you know, bore hellfire as a result? They bore damnation as their judgment. Are we talking about apostate Christians here? Well, I don't think Jesus' teaching lets us go there. Because Jesus' teaching, you realize, is more than the eight verses we're on right now. There's a whole gospel, and there's a whole series of gospels, and there's apostles thereafter. And just in this gospel by itself, in John 6 and in John 10, Jesus' teaching doesn't really allow us to think that he is going to lose anyone who's been given to him. He says that very clearly. So when we go asking questions like that, I think we have to realize that not every parable is meant to answer every question. We have to be actually very careful about how we mine the metaphors that Jesus is giving us, how deeply we go into them. Because sometimes we'll start asking questions that it becomes very clear, this is not what the parable is trying to teach. I could look at this very parable and I could say, okay, so we've got, you know, the gardener, we've got the vine, we've got branches, who's the soil? Who's the soil? There's soil in gardens. Is the soil the Holy Spirit? I don't get it. I don't see how that works into the order of salvation. The parable's not trying to answer that question. The parable's not trying to answer if there's soil involved or what kind of weather conditions we're facing. And likewise, it's not trying to tell you apostate Christians are out there and, you know, they didn't bear enough fruit. God condemned them and threw them into hell. I want to settle consciences because I think that's out there. The clear point of the parable is right there for the taking. It's right there and it's well tested throughout scripture. And it's just this, a true follower of Christ will bear fruit. You hear that and you say, oh yeah, you could probably give me a dozen verses on where that is. A true follower of Jesus Christ will bear fruit. That is the emphasis here. Now, I will go and infer just one point. One point here that I think is worth making. I think there's an implicit warning here. There's an implicit warning that you do not get to go halfway with Jesus. Does that make sense? You do not get to be those who are interested in Jesus and have that count. You do not get to be those who appreciate Jesus's teaching and how they've affected, you know, Judeo-Christian culture and have that count. That is not a category that is allowed here. You're either in the vine or you're not. We're not talking about liking and interests. We're talking about loving and trusting. That is the picture that we're going for. Do not be one of those in our culture who is just, we'll leave it at, yeah, Jesus was a really important figure. And I even think Jesus existed. Or hey, I even think he lived, died for our sins and rose from the grave, but nothing more. That is a halfway kind of answer. And that is not allowed here. So Jesus continues here. And he continues in verse three in a moment that might puzzle some of you. puzzled me at the very first. In verse 3, so he transitions out of here talking about that his father will prune the, you know, the branches. And then he says, already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. I looked at that, and I think you might as well, and you think, I just don't see the transition here. Well, that was until I was looking at the Greek, and there are times that the Greek is just a home run of a moment, because you don't always get these things when you're just looking at English. When he says, already you are clean, that's a word he's used very recently twice. In 1310, when he's washing the feet of the disciples, he says, and you are clean, right? But not all of you, he says, recognizing that Judas was among them. But even more important here, is actually, you are clean, is just the adjective form of, and the father prunes those he's gonna make bear more fruit. It's not the language we would use, but you could actually say, him looking at his disciples, and you are pruned. I have pruned you by the word I have spoken. And then you say, oh, I see what you did there, Jesus, right? But you can miss it otherwise. This transition makes complete sense. And you, you are clean because of the word I've spoken to you. You are those in whom my teachings live. My teachings have pruned you, have cleaned you. You are those who are fruitful and will be made even more so. You are clean. And so having given the context, the broader picture of this illustration, Jesus now starts taking it and driving it home. He starts applying it a bit more. Verse four. Abide in me. Abide in me. Abide is not language we use a lot, besides for the dude, right? Abiding is not something we use a lot, but he talks about it with, it's in terms of staying, remaining. That might help us a little bit more since abide is not a real common word in our language. Stay in me, remain in me. See, Christians, they're called to bear fruit. They absolutely are. But they can only bear fruit as much as they are depending on Christ, as much as they are remaining in Christ, as much as they are depending on Christ. That's the only way there is to bear fruit. In the picture that he's giving of a vine that has branches coming off of it, it makes all the sense in the world that you say, well, if you were to cut off the vine, all the branches would die. Or if you just cut off a branch, it couldn't live by itself. The branches need the vine. Believers need Christ. And this is not some advanced requirement of Christianity. This is the basics. This is the foundation. Christ, just before this, he told them, he told them that he would dwell in them, that he'd be united with them. He just said that in 1423. And in other words, I would take that as saying, he's done the heavy lifting already. Keep that in context. He's done the heavy lifting, but believers, you need to cling to this relationship as well. It is given to you to cling to your Savior, to abide in your Savior, to remain with your Savior. I think what's interesting about the word abide is it's almost a command that demands an action, right? It says, don't do what you were going to do, as in go somewhere else. Stay right there. Stay right there in Jesus Christ. That's where you're meant to be. Jesus says, abide in me. Cling to this relationship that I have formed for you. And so then when we abide, what happens? What happens? Jesus goes on to say, you know what happens when you abide in me? We hitting again this theme that he's already laid out about the vines that bear much fruit. He says, you will bear much fruit. You abide in me. You who abide in Jesus Christ, you will abide or you will bear much fruit. It's actually, it's very straightforward what he's going for here, right? You need Jesus. And if you will depend on Jesus, you will bear fruit. Jesus is a very straightforward that way. It's nice sometimes. So you want a recipe for bearing much fruit in the spiritual walk that you're on? Be close to Christ. That's just as easy as that. You want a recipe for bearing much fruit? Be close to Christ. On the other hand, do you want a recipe for bearing no fruit? Well then go somewhere else. Be far from Christ. Jesus really drives this point home when he then goes on to say, apart from me, you can do nothing. Apart from me, you can do nothing. We can mind that one for a long time. We can mind that for a long time. Let that truth sink into your heart. Apart from Jesus Christ, you can do nothing. We try so often, so, so often to just do things on our own. It's just what comes naturally to us, right? And so what you end up having is a Christian who's too busy to depend on Christ. They've got to get things done today, and they're in a hurry. and they do not have time to depend on Jesus Christ. Does that sound like anyone else besides me? You're so busy wanting to do the Lord's things that you want to do them without him. And it's an attitude then that goes and permeates all the things we do from there on out. From the mundane, just everyday kind of work, to the things that are just so obviously spiritual, you know, just waging war against your sin, we try to go it alone. Why do we do that, right? So what you end up having is you have Christians who are trying to parent their kids without Christ. You have employees who are trying to work their jobs faithfully without Christ. You have all of us trying to love our neighbor without Christ. You have us trying to grow in Christ without Christ. And that's when you have us, you know, just scarfing down the word of God with not an ounce of reflection or meditation or prayer. We would even try and grow in Christ without Christ. That is just how faulty our thinking and our being is. And then we do all these things by ourselves and we wonder, why isn't anything happening? Why isn't any fruit coming of this? We are such silly creatures sometimes. Jesus makes it so clear. He makes it so clear. You want to bear fruit, then keep your roots right here. Your roots need to be in Jesus Christ. Yet he gives us that. He puts it there right at the front. And we still try and go off some other way. We still try and take a shortcut around the very first step of the process. to bearing fruit, right? And we try and go our own way. And you just think, why? Why do we try and do these things this way? I mean, really, we are just silly, stupid creatures sometimes, aren't we? He gives us the most obvious step-by-step kind of thing, and we want to do it another way. I mean, if you looked at this in the abstract, it'd just be totally ridiculous. Take this for just a parallel. I mean, imagine that you needed to vacuum your whole home. And you go around and you do the whole thing, and you get there at the end, and you say, wait a minute, I forgot to plug the thing in. Well, of course, nothing got cleaned up, right? It would be ridiculous. And forgive me that that's actually a fairly crass illustration of what Jesus does in his followers, but you get the point. We cannot just jettison our foundation in Christ and expect good things to happen. That's not how it works. Jesus gave us no reason to think it would work like that. the beginning and the end of the Christian life, it is depending on Christ. Let that sink in. The whole of your Christian life, it is depending on Jesus Christ. This is what it looks like to abide in Christ. Our dependence, it is a way of life. It is ongoing, it is never ceasing. That is abiding in Christ. And so Jesus continues. We're on about verse seven now. Jesus continues. He says, if you abide in me, he's fleshing out the abiding language still. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. So what you have here says, and if my teachings are in you, are living in you, are cemented in you, and that's where they should be. The teachings of Christ, the word of Christ, the gospel of Christ should be cemented in us. We should be saturated in it. It should be everywhere in our lives and in our thoughts and in our dreams. It should be everywhere in our lives. And then, then when his teachings are abiding in us, when his word is abiding in us, he says, you know what, then your prayers are basically guaranteed. Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. I mean, man, a million dollars, Jesus, boom. No, that's not what he says, is it? And he's never given us the idea that we should pray like that. We actually talked about this already back in chapter 14. What we have here is not envisioned, you know, a genie, a genie at our beck and call. If I, pray hard enough, or just write to Jesus, all of a sudden, you know, just gold starts pouring down from the sky. We've never been given a reason to think prayer works like that. James, actually, in chapter four, he has just a great commentary on our prayer lives. And this is in verses two and three, and I'll just read it for you. He talks about, he says, well, you know what? You don't have, why? Because you don't even ask, right? So right there, you have sort of your first principle. You're not even praying. But then he goes on, so when you do ask, when you are praying, you know what you're doing? You're not receiving anything because you're asking wrongly. Just suspend it on your own passions, he says. And that's so much what we want to do with our prayer. We see that, we think Jesus gave us that blank check and we want to just go running with it. What can I go get for myself? But that's not the picture here. The picture earlier in the chapter and then also here, Our prayer life, the ideal is that us abiding in Christ, his word and us, that our mind is just so closely transformed to our saviors, that our prayers and his will are basically identical. That'd be a dream right there. It turns out our prayers are not just for ourselves. And some of us might actually think, wait, that's the only thing I pray for. No, our prayers are not just for us. It's a matter here of him abiding in us, us abiding in him, us being transformed to him and praying prayers that are about his glory. They're all about his glory. That is the picture of prayer that Jesus talks about. So great though, right? We always talk about these beautiful theological ideas. What do I do with it? What does abiding in Christ look like to you and in your daily life? How are you supposed to do this? I think first off, really important, first off, you recognize this whole idea of abiding, it is a result of believing the gospel. It is a result of believing the gospel, of being united to Christ. There's this danger when you get to a verse like this that we get so practical that we up and destroy the foundation we're supposed to be standing on. We end up destroying Christ's work so we can go contribute something ourselves. And that's not how it's supposed to be at all. We are supposed to be standing on the foundation of Christ's work before we ever consider any of this. That said, believing the gospel, trusting in his work to have united us to him, what's it look like? I mean, well, clearly it's purposeful. It is a purposeful thing to be abiding in Christ. You will not accidentally depend on Christ. Does that make sense? Right? We don't accidentally do almost anything in our lives. We don't accidentally love our families. We do not accidentally do a good job at our work. We do not accidentally study for the test faithfully. No, none of those are accidents. They're all purposeful. And just the same way here, it is a purposeful thing. Depending on Christ, It is a choice you will need to make, and it is a choice you will need to be making constantly. Day in and day out, you will have the choice to go your own way or to abide in Christ, to stand firm in Christ, to put your roots down even deeper in Christ. Remember, if we're going to go our own way, we're going to go the wrong way. We're going to go the way our deceitful and deceived hearts are going to lead us. Christ calls us to abide in him. Depending on him will be a choice. And in some moments, it's going to be a battle, outright warfare to say, no, I stand here in Jesus Christ. I do not go my own impatient way. I do not go the way the world would ask me to go or tell me to go. No, I stand here in Jesus Christ. That will be a choice. And it will be a choice as well to be planting the word of God deep down in us. It will be a choice to plant the gospel of Christ deep in our hearts. Because it will be the gospel at the end of the day that will be both our motivation, our inspiration on the one hand, and it will also be our conviction, the thing spurring us on as well. I mean, you take your day-to-day life and ask yourself, I mean, for example, how is it that I'm supposed to handle my child's rebellion? Now, I think most of us will just ask that question, period, or question mark, you know, end of sentence. But try it this way. How should I handle my child's rebellion in light of the gospel? Well, that just changes things altogether, right? How am I supposed to handle a rebellious child? How are you supposed to handle your rebellious children? Not that any of them are in this room. In light of a gospel that is true and that is saving. A gospel that came for sinners who could not save themselves. I think you recognize just from the get-go, with my son, for example, I'm dealing with a sinner. With a sinner's heart. whose greatest need is not just correction, but transformation. I'm dealing with a sinner who does in fact need to be given wisdom, does in fact need to be given correction, but needs the gospel far more than that. And as I deal with a child who just drives me crazy sometimes, talking about your kids, not mine. But as I do that, I also need to deal with them according to the grace my heavenly father showed me. That's the convicting part sometimes, right? You start having this short fuse with your kid and then you think, oh man, God was never like that with me. Praise God he was never like that with me. You can deal with your kids in light of the gospel. You can deal with your job in light of the gospel. I mean, think about it this way. So many people will look at their jobs as just this slavish, punch in, punch out kind of thing, right? If I didn't have to be here, I wouldn't kind of idea. But the gospel reality is that your work is dedicated to Christ, not to your customer, not to your boss. Because you are a child of the gospel, your work is dedicated to your savior, and that will change everything. How should I love my neighbor in light of Christ's gospel? What we end up doing then is we are reflecting the love that was shown us. When you just don't feel like putting up with people, with their drama, with their inconvenience, ask yourself if that looks anything like the love you have been shown in Jesus Christ. We love our neighbors just reflecting the love of Jesus Christ that was shown us. Abiding in Christ will always demand that we start with Christ. Christ is not an afterthought. Christ is not a magic ingredient. Jesus Christ is our foundation. That is where we start. Our thoughts will be transformed. Our actions will be transformed. Our motivations will be transformed when all of these things start. with Jesus Christ, that is abiding in Christ. And then as we abide in Christ, what comes of it? Fruit, spiritual fruit, bearing fruit, the kind that God wants to see in his children. And that, verse eight, is how our Father is glorified. Abiding the fruit is not just something cold, something distant, something aloft. Sometimes we think it's just something, oh yeah, I should bear fruit. No, but we bear fruit and we do it and we glorify God. That is what is resulting of this for you. Bearing fruit is our means to glorify God. Sometimes we'll look around and we'll wonder, ooh, what's my big way? What's the way that really matters for me to glorify God, for me to honor God? And what we seem to be thinking by and large is what is the way that a lot of people will either notice or see or be affected by, right? What's the big way for me to be a servant of God? It's nothing like that. It might be, but a lot more often than not, it's just gonna be abiding in his son. bearing fruit according to that, that's honoring your God. That is glorifying your God. Showing yourself to be a disciple of Christ, that is honoring God. That is glorifying God. And that is our life's purpose. Not for the big and the flashy and the go down in the history books, but no, show yourself to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. That is a life's purpose. Don't overlook what feels small. Don't overlook what feels insignificant. A guy, he once told me that he had basically lost motivation in his Christian life because he felt like all it added up to was showing up on Sunday and setting up chairs. This was such a mistake, such a mistake of perspective for this guy, because what he was doing is he was trying to define the whole of his discipleship in Christ by this one duty he fulfilled. By this one formal duty, by this one worldly role, not worldly in a sinful sense, but just in a, you know, temporary of the world kind of sense. It is such a mistake for us to define our discipleship by just these specific roles we play. These are not the whole of our Christian life. The ways that you go live and you serve your day-to-day, it is not everything about your discipleship in Christ. It is not the whole of your walk in Christ. You know what you should aspire to? Aspire to be a disciple of Christ, not some just temporary worldly role. Aspire to be a disciple of Christ. This is the most lofty. This is the most ambitious goal you could have for yourself. Be a faithful disciple of Christ. That part hit me. Studying the scriptures and certain parts hit you and that part hit me. Because what I realized, if I can flesh this out for you using my own life, what I realize is I'm not just supposed to aspire, for example, to be a good pastor. I'm not just supposed to aspire to be a good pastor. I need to aspire to be much more than that. I need to aspire to be a faithful disciple of Christ. That is much more than being just a pastor. And I cannot possibly hope to be a good pastor if I'm not first aspiring to be a faithful disciple of Christ. Do you see how that works? Do you see what it looks like to start with Jesus Christ? Don't start with just your worldly roles. Because the reality is our worldly roles, they shift, they change. And so many of them are just temporary. Our discipleship is not. Abiding in Christ is not something temporary. I may not always be a pastor. I will always be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Your life's calling is not just to some worldly role. Your life's calling is in fact, not just to be a mother, a father, an employee, or a student, or whatever it is. That is not your biggest role. being a disciple of Christ, showing yourself to be a disciple of Christ, abiding, clinging to your savior. That is your biggest role. Your worldly roles are an outlet for that central role. You are a disciple first and foremost, and you will live that out by being a mother, by being a father, by being an employee, by being a student, by being a pastor. That is not how you might live out your discipleship, but your discipleship precedes those things. It comes first. You are first and foremost called to be an everyday, average, ordinary disciple of Christ. That, that is how you will glorify your God. So then cling, cling to your Savior, depend on him, and you will live a fruitful life worth living. And as we're turning now to the Lord's Supper, my prayer for you is this. Return to the one with whom there is life and with whom there is rest. Find that in the table. And if you feel the conviction of sin as you're examining yourself today, don't repent in fear. Repent in faith, recognizing that it is your Father who prunes you, and he does so in love. Let's pray. Our Father, we pray that we would indeed show ourselves to be disciples of your Son. Forgive us for all the ways that we've sought to go about it our own way. Forgive us that we skipped step one and we jumped to whatever it is we want to do. Forgive us that we are too busy to depend on our Savior. Right now, may this mark a moment of total and utter dependence on our part. May we cling to the Savior who bought us. May we cling to the Savior who united us with him and with you. Help us to persevere in these things, and we pray, Lord, that you would bear much fruit through us. May we have the joy of seeing many good things come through your work in us. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.