As I often remind you, not only is this God's holy and inspired Word, but in His providence He knows that this will help you today, this passage. And so this is ordained by Him for you to hear and understand for your souls. So John chapter 15, beginning in verse 1. I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit he lifts up, 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. Now, congregation, in the farewell discourse, this probably is the most loved and quoted passage, probably the one verse you've heard the most. But while it's the most loved, it's also maybe the most difficult to understand. Many are not quite sure what to do with these words. For example, what is this fruit that he's talking about? that we are to bear. And what does he mean in verse two there where he says, you can be in him, but then according to the passage, be removed. That sounds like you can lose your salvation. You're a branch connected to the vine, and then you're out. What does that mean? What does it mean when God prunes us? That doesn't sound very pleasant, does it? And what does it mean to abide in Christ? We must abide in him to bear fruit. What does that mean? Well, remember the context that Jesus and his disciples had just left the upper room after dinner and that Jesus answering those three questions. Notice the end of verse 14. He said, rise and let us go from here. So they are taking that rather long walk outside the house through the valley there would be vineyards there and they may have already gotten to the Garden of Gethsemane where there were more vineyards. This time of year, Passover, there would be a full moon. So it was a great time for an illustration that you could actually see. Christ may have actually stopped and drawn their attention to the vineyard or he could have actually picked up a vine and held it in his hand and then said these words. And so he is explaining to them what life will be like after he leaves. Now remember, they're about to scatter because he will be arrested in a few moments after this. And so Jesus will teach them a lesson. The first question we'll answer is, what is this fruit that we bear? And really the Bible answers that question, Galatians 5, of course. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience. Those qualities that God produces in us is the fruit He wants and is looking for. You could say the fruit of the Spirit is the summary of the law we just read, that we love God with our hearts and we love our neighbor as ourselves. That is fruit. Really, you could sum it up with one word, Christlikeness. The fruit is Christ-likeness in our devotion to God, in our holiness, in our love for others. Not that we'll ever be perfectly like Christ, but still the Spirit produces a Christ-likeness in His people. And we see throughout the Bible that that is why God created us, to bear fruit. Adam and Eve should have bore fruit, but they refused to do so. They refused to remain holy to God and to love each other and so they fell. Israel was supposed to bear fruit and we talked about this in Sunday school. Israel is pictured as a garden or a vineyard. God came and looked for spiritual fruit and he saw none. So he allowed it to be shriveled up. And so if you remember that story in the last week where Jesus is with his disciples and he sees a fig tree And he says he looks for fruit and there's no fruit. And what happens to the fig tree? It withers up and dies. And Jesus said, that tree will bear no more fruit. Of course, he's picturing Israel. He came to Israel. He didn't see spiritual fruit. And they will then shrivel up in a sense. There's another way to say that's what judgment is all about. Christ comes back to earth. These are people he created. Now have they borne the fruit he created them for. Do they love him and love others or do they refuse like Adam? Christ looks for fruit at his return. And so Adam and Eve had a free will and they chose not to bear fruit. Israel through the law was to bear fruit and obeying the law. They could not because they were born sinners. They could not obey the law. And notice verse five, can we bear fruit in ourselves? Apart from me, you can do nothing. So the fruit God created us for, now that we're fallen, we can't produce because we are sinners. And so God will have to do something and what he promises here to his disciples and to us is that he will bear the fruit in us. And he will do so by connecting us to the one true giver of life, Jesus. And that's why he starts in verse 1, I am the true vine. True there is not opposed to false. True means effectual, spiritually effectual. A vine can give physical life, natural life to fruit, but I am the true vine that can give you spiritual life, spiritual fruit." Think of when he said, I am the true manna. He didn't mean the manna in the Old Testament wasn't really bread. He means that bread could only feed your body. But I am the true manna that can give you eternal life and feed your soul. Heavenly manna that can help you forever, not just for this life in your body. And then in John 1, he is the true light. Physical light can only help your eyes. He is the true light that can enlighten your soul forever. And in Hebrews, it says Christ was the true tabernacle. Again, the old tabernacle wasn't a lie. It was only provisional and temporary. It couldn't actually save and bring people to God. But Christ is the true tabernacle, the effectual one. And so Jesus says, I am the one who can actually do for you what you cannot do for yourself. I can give you life. You simply need to be connected to me. And we see throughout the Bible that we are connected to him through faith in what he does for us on the cross. Now, Jesus is effectual because he's the only one that can bear fruit. because he himself is the giver of life. But notice the second reason he gives, because his father is the gardener. When God is the gardener, he produces fruit. God will ensure it. And so Jesus will explain first God's responsibility to make sure that you bear fruit and then our responsibility afterwards. So according to verse two, what does God do? to make sure that we bear fruit for Him. Well, He says, every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and I said He lifts up. Some of your translations say what? He removes. Now, this is a very controversial verse. There are three options of what to do with this verse. The first is unacceptable, and the second two are acceptable. The unacceptable one is to say you can lose your salvation. And all those who say you can lose your salvation point to John 15, 2. And what they say is, here you're in Him, but if you do not bear fruit for Him, He will remove you, and you will not be in Him anymore. John Wesley taught this, Charles Finney of the American Revivalists used this verse for that. A movement that started maybe 15 years ago called the Federal Vision teaches something like this. They say that when you're baptized, you're in Him and you are given some saving benefits like temporary forgiveness. But if you don't bear fruit, if you're not faithful, If you don't persevere, He will remove your forgiveness. He will remove your union with Christ, your relationship with God. Like I said, that's an unacceptable answer to that verse because the rest of the Bible teaches the exact opposite. Now, the two acceptable views, the first one is the most common. And that is that the word here, the Greek word is airo and it's translated remove. And so the idea is that you can be in him outwardly, in other words, you can profess to be a Christian and a member of the church, but there's no fruit. Just like Israel said they were God's people, but there is no fruit. And so then they're removed, in other words, they're judged from God's eternal presence. The reason it's acceptable because that in itself is doctrinally true. Look down at verse 6. That's the exact point Christ makes in verse 6 here. When he said, if anyone does not abide in me, then he will be thrown away like a branch that withers. But notice this is somebody not truly connected to the vine, not in him, that they are fake branches and you know if you garden there are branches that aren't really connected that grow among the true branches and you need to remove them. And so that doctrine is true. Not all who are in the church are true believers. That would be the point. And false believers have no fruit. There's no love for God or others. Now, I'm going to suggest a third view. And I'm not the first one to suggest this. And the reason is, this one fits the flow and context better. Because the Greek word airo has two meanings in the Bible. The most common is not remove. The most common is to lift up. And that's why I translated it that way. And so what is happening here is this is not bad news that you see down in verse 6 about fakes. Christ is speaking of what he does to his people who are in him, and he says when he looks down and does not see fruit, the way he enables them to bear fruit is he lifts them up. Now those of you who have been around vineyards, you know exactly what this means, right? that if there are certain branches of the vine that they sag so low, they lay on the ground, and what are they not receiving? Sunlight. And so what the gardener does, and he builds the trellises, you've seen those trellises, he builds trellises and he lifts up those branches and he ties them to the trellis, so they get plenty of sun, so they'll do what? They'll bear fruit. And that is what Christ is explaining here. That this is how the Father ensures that we bear fruit. That at times when we are not, He lifts us up. He does what it takes to make sure we're receiving the proper spiritual nourishment to bear fruit. Now this would apply directly to the disciples because what's going to happen in a few hours? What fruit will Peter be bearing? Peter will be denying the Lord. The other disciples will be doing the same thing, at least in action. They'll be running away. They're not bearing any fruit that night. So what would Christ do to them when he saw that they're not bearing fruit? Would he say, you're not my people anymore? No, what does he do? At the resurrection, afterwards, he comes to them and he lifts them up, doesn't he? He corrects them, he encourages them, he forgives them, and he recommissions them. He puts them right back in their responsibility as apostles. He lifts them up when they were down and not bearing fruit. This is great encouragement for us because there are times in our Christian life that we're not bearing fruit. We may fall into a serious sin and we've done something that puts us far from God. It may be simply spiritual laziness. We lose sight of Christ. We're totally bogged down in our own selves and in our problems. And we lose focus, and we're not bearing fruit. Sometimes we simply lose energy. We're disillusioned. We're full of doubt. We have nothing left. But whatever the case, God has promised that we will bear fruit for Him. So as the gardener, when he sees that we're laying on the ground, what does he do? He comes and He lifts us up and He gives us the spiritual nutrients we need that we do not remain in that state. God will produce fruit in His garden. Even when things look bad for us, even when things are going wrong, He will not let us lay there on the ground to wither and die. God has taken responsibility for His garden. but also the end of verse two, even when we are bearing fruit, we're not in that situation. We are trying to love God and be like Christ. What is he doing to us? He's pruning us. That's humbling, isn't it? Because when you compare yourself to others and think you're doing well, here God says, you're still full of defilement. Because again, going back to the illustration, when you're raising grapes, All kinds of things get into the plants. There's worms, there's parasites. So the gardener has to come and keep picking it out and keep cleaning it so it will bear fruit. So what a great illustration of us. That the word here even in the Greek means to cleanse from defilement. That even in our best moments we have defilement that God needs to work on. We're never at a place where God doesn't see our motives or our tendencies and say, yeah, that needs to be adjusted, that needs to be cleansed, that needs to be fixed. And that is encouraging but also humbling. Now, I don't know if you follow trends in the evangelical world, but one of the most common trends right now is the use of the term transform. And it's the idea in our Christian life that The gospel is always transforming us. And I find that this illustration of pruning is much more biblical and realistic. I mean, when I think of transforming, we just fixed up our house to sell. We didn't transform the house. When I'm watching one of these fix-it shows and you don't recognize the house anymore after three weeks, that house has been transformed. Or when I see the movie Transformers, an old car turns into this mighty robot. That's not really what happens in sanctification, does it? The better picture is pruning. We're branches and we pretty much remain who we are, but God comes and he cleans up a bit where he sees trouble, where he sees problems. He prunes us. It's not that we go through these great transformations in life and when we talk like that, we raise expectations. It sells well, but it's not very realistic, is it? But what is realistic is that God always is pruning and taking away the roughest edges that will get us in trouble where we won't bear any fruit. And so he shines the light through the word. Notice verse three, you are already clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Now, lest they misunderstand, he is not suggesting that bearing fruit is what makes them clean before God. You see, there are two meanings for the word clean in the New Testament. One is that we are positionally clean before God. That's a legal term. That means in God's eyes, once we're forgiven, once we believe in Christ, we're clean. We're fit for heaven. We have no defilement. That is a legal fact. And that never changes, regardless of whatever we're going through. But there's another sense of cleanliness in the Bible, and it's conditional. It's what we're going through that day. Now, you know what that means. If you do something you're ashamed of, how do you feel? Dirty, right? Where does that come from? Because conditionally, you're dirty. You need to be cleaned up. And the way you clean up is to make it right. You confess it before God, and if necessary, before the person. If it's a specific person you sinned against, You're unclean in a conditional sense while being clean eternally before God. And so Christ reminds them, now positionally you're already clean. And that's because of the word or the word of the gospel that I already spoke to you, that you believe. That can never change. But there is a sense in life where we get dirty. And God needs, as the gardener, to clean up the branches, to take away those worst parts. Isn't that wonderful to know that's what God is doing to us? That is sanctification and it's happening all the time and it happens through the Word. That's verse 3. It's the Word of God that the Holy Spirit brings to bear on our lives. That means that as you sit under the preaching of the Word, this is God's chief way, you are being pruned. When you hear about Christ, when you hear the gospel and you're lifted up, when you're reminded of what God wants from us and you confess your sins, you're being pruned by listening to the Word. But it may be in reading the Word. It may be when others correct you and you realize what you've done is not according to the Word, that is God pruning you. Oftentimes it's simply consequences. When the consequences come to bear for what you've said or done, and they're negative, and you realize that it's because you've done something that is not according to the Word, you are being pruned. That awful feeling is actually good, that God is doing something to you to remind you to take away that worst part of you, that you will not continue to do it. And so that is God's responsibility, that when you're down, He lifts you up to encourage you in the gospel. And even when you are not down, He is pruning the worst parts to make sure you still bear fruit. Now, our responsibility is in verses 4 and 5. And it obviously is summarized with one word used four times, abide. Now, you abide in me. Now, what do we typically do with this? We turn this into a work. You have to abide in Christ, and it becomes some sort of activity. As somebody wrote, and many people view this as produce fruit or perish. You know, in the academic world, it's publish or perish. Yeah, sorry. So it's produce or perish, and then it becomes a threat. But abide is not some specific thing you do. Notice verse 9. where Christ says to the disciples, abide in my love. That is not something you do. It's something that you believe. It's remaining in the faith. Remain in the faith, Christ is saying. It also means be dependent. Knowing that you cannot produce anything yourself, remain in the faith and depend upon me, call upon me. Think about it. When you do something, you regret. Usually, why is that? Well, as a Christian, it's because you've forgotten about Christ. You're ignoring Christ. You're ignoring his call to be Christ-like. You're not asking for help. You're just lashing out and doing the first thing that comes to your mind or heart without considering the gospel, without considering the Word. You step out not in faith, not in trust. And then you do something and you realize, that was wrong. What I said was wrong, what I did was wrong. And so what Jesus says then is, if you abide in me, you will produce fruit. If you depend on me, listen to my word, remember the gospel, remember my love, always stay dependent on me. and you will bear fruit." Hudson Taylor was a famous missionary in China and he wrote this concerning that verse. Here I feel is the key, not asking how I am to get sap out of the vine for myself, but remembering that Jesus is the vine and he's also the root, the stem, the branches, the twigs, the leaves. the flowers and all the fruit indeed. I have not got to make myself a branch. The Lord tells me I am a branch. I am part of him and I just have to believe it and then act upon it." And so to summarize here, God created you. The reason you exist as a human being is to produce fruit, to glorify him, to love him and love others. That's why Christ came. Because Adam was given that responsibility and he refused. I don't want to bear fruit. I want to live for myself. Israel was given the responsibility and then given the law. Here's how you bear fruit. Obey this. Israel could not obey the law. And they withered. And so Christ comes and says, I will do for them what they cannot do for themselves. I will die for them, take their sins, be punished for them, declare them clean. And then I will give them my Holy Spirit. And my Holy Spirit will produce fruit. And my Father will make sure that He continues to apply the Word to their souls. That even when they're down, even when they're lying on the ground in sin, I will lift them up. And even when they're doing well, I will continue to prune my garden. We simply need to continue to abide in Christ and depend on Him. And here's the warning, because you can produce nothing in yourselves. Christ is our life and power. But the good news is, is when God says, I will have a garden, and when God says it will produce fruit for me, And when Christ dies for that garden, you can be assured that God will do it. Amen. Let's pray.