Let's open our Bibles to the 15th chapter of John's Gospel. Gospel by John, chapter 15. As we turn there, I'd like to take a moment and describe for you what we're going to be doing. Because for me, growing up basically in the middle of a farm, not really on a farm with animals all around in the middle of a 25-acre wheat field and with all of my parents' agricultural pursuits, goats and animals and horses and raising St. Bernard's and rabbits and anything else that was alive and able to be cultivated, we had it. But one part of our home was the constant grape Arbor, my folks called a grape vine, or it was a vineyard. Although my parents, as well as our family, were not alcohol consumers at all. Once my alcoholic parents got saved, they stopped. But they raised grapes anyway, because they loved the grapes, the grape juice, the jams, and the jellies. But for most people, what I'm talking about, you probably don't know anything about grapes. And to enter into the 15th chapter of the Gospel by John, if you don't understand grapes, you get all mixed up. You start thinking either people are losing their salvation, or people that are getting pruned aren't saved, and all these things. So just in your mind, put this together. First of all, in the Bible, starting with the departure of Judas in chapter 13, all the way through the next four chapters, Jesus is talking to Christians. particularly his disciples. It's his legacy. Fourteen, they're going to heaven, and the Comforter is coming in between. Fifteen, they're in his vineyard, and he's going to be working on them and pruning them. And on through again about the Comforter. Sixteen, about the ministry of the Holy Spirit and his conviction of the world. And all that was going to happen, including the inspiration of the Word, is he'd bring everything to remembrance. And then seventeen is great prayer. So, this is Christ's legacy to believers. So, chapter 15, verses 1 through 8, number 1, is absolutely all Christian. There are no lost people in chapter 15, 1 through 8. So, in your mind, start thinking about that. To understand that, you have to understand Jesus' metaphor, His allegory, as it will. Jesus takes them into, literally, what would be an allegory. He says, I, this person standing by you, am like this vine. Now, we don't know just how He did it. Some commentators have suggested they left the upper room and walked. That's very possible. Vines would have been growing all around the city. It could be they walked by the temple, and there was a massive golden vine representing the nation of Israel that Herod had constructed out of solid gold in the temple. Others say that growing around the upper room, which was common, was a grapevine which people still have in their courtyards growing overhead. In fact, you can eat. in Arab or Israeli houses and in their courtyards. In fact, this February of this year, we were in the courtyard of a home, my children, John and Estelle and I, and there were growing overhead the beginning of the, you could just see the beginning of the sprouts of the grapevines. And probably if you'd have been there in the fall, they'd have been hanging down. And so this idea is there, but what I want you to think about is this, because growing up in my family, I just witnessed this. Grapevines, grow out of a central, like a stump. And it grows up about 26 to 42 inches high, big roots underground. And the ideal thing to do is cut the whole thing back to just that. And you just cut that thing down so it looks dead. And then in the spring, all over that thing come these little buds, and those buds form branches, and those branches start going madly in every direction. If you don't trim them, The vine or the stalk producing these branches feeds them to go in every direction and they'll make a hedge. But at the end of the year, there'll be nothing but leaves and branches. But if you cut them, very, very carefully and very planned in planned ways and shorten their growth. So they aren't going off in every direction, winding around trees and trailing along the ground. And some of them get all buried in the leaves and out of the sunlight and they are unproductive. If you trim them so that there's a lot of light coming in and few branches going out. You can have what it talks about in the Bible. Do you remember when the spies came back from Canaan, one cluster of grapes took two men on a pole to carry it? That is not exaggeration. That thing was probably five feet of solid, huge, one clump of grapes. That's the potential of what a grapevine can do. Now Jesus, walking through this vineyard or pointing to one, starts telling them that they, as Christians, are like those branches. Now, if you understand branches, a branch starts at the stump and it grows outward and it can go 50 feet or a hundred and it's not supposed to. And so you can cut great lengths of it off and you haven't destroyed the branch. You've cut off all this dead wood that doesn't need to be bearing. It's supposed to be putting all that energy into what? Grapes. So with that in mind, I want you to think about this is we're gonna read it in just a minute. But the reason I'm telling you that is this is a spiritual lesson. This wasn't Jesus doing, you know, agrarian economics 101 for his men to learn how to prune vines. He's talking about spiritual things. And for us, we need to consider whether we need pruning and where we are in this process because we can do a self-checkup of our spiritual health this morning. And I just want to ask you a few questions, just for you, not for the person next to you. Don't bump them. Think about it yourself. Do you feel a little distant from God this morning? I'm not talking about, I know you're here, but I mean really, on the inside. I mean, when you picked up your Bible, whenever the last time was you picked up, maybe on your way over here today, did it feel like lead? I mean, the last time you tried to read it, did you say, I know I'm supposed to get something out of this, but I never do, wish I could. I know I'm supposed to be growing spiritually, but I don't feel I am. Do you ever feel that way? How about when you pray? I mean, after the first 30 seconds, it's like, what else is there to do? What else should I say? And you just feel like there's no purpose in it. Can you hardly remember the last time that you were really bearing fruit that would honor the name of the eternal God of the universe, that you're actually bearing attitude or action fruit that would glorify the name of God? I mean, do you feel far from joy and peace in your life? Is victory and blessing kind of a remote thing? Do you hope that no one got too close to you or will get too close to you this morning and ask you some personal questions while you're here? Because you don't want anybody to get very close to you because if they got up close, they find there's really nothing there in your life. Do my challenges for you to jump in and serve and speak up for Christ make you back up and kind of push you away? I mean, when you see a need, do you go toward it or do you back away from it? When you see an opportunity to serve or to speak for Christ or to minister, to sacrifice, do you look for those or do you try to not see them and try and get away from them? That's a gauge of your spiritual condition. Do sometimes you wonder if you'll get any reward in heaven at all? In fact, sometimes do you hope you even make it? Because it doesn't seem like you're even going that way. Has the zeal you once knew dried up and become a far off memory? Well, if these or a myriad of other telltale signs of spiritual listlessness and barrenness have cast their shadow across your path, then this morning in John 15, Jesus Christ invites you to his spiritual gardening clinic. He's going to talk about how he can change that in our lives. As we come to the vineyard, we learn this morning, listening to Jesus as he introduces us to what God has promised he's going to do in our lives as his children. And remember, he's speaking to his children this morning. Jesus is talking grapes. And nothing was clear in the first century in Judea and in Samaria and in the Shomron and all the other places, as they call it, Yesha in Israel. Those people lived every day, walked every day, slept every day, and ate often under the very shadow of grape vines. It was kind of like lawns in suburbia America. We see grass, we mow it, we do stuff to it, we sprinkle it. It's everywhere. That's how grape vines were to them. And the seasons of each Israelite's life was marked and counted out by the cycle of the vine. Remember, the vine was emblematic of the nation of Israel. That's why they made a giant one in the temple. That's why in the Old Testament, God compared them to wild and unfruitful grapes that wouldn't respond to his pruning. So it's not a new thing, what Jesus is talking about. In the economy of Israel, in the fall, the heavy clusters of grapes would form. And there would be the joyful harvest time. And the people would collect them, and carry them, and press them, and put them through all the settling ponds till the dregs, all the junk, the sediments were off. And they would keep pouring it off until finally they had the grape juice. And most grape juice wasn't. consumed in the manner which we consume it today. In fact, probably 95% of all Israelis never drink anything comparable to our beer this day. The alcohol level, they always diluted it. And I won't even get into God's laws of alcohol consumption in Christians. But I'll tell you what, for you to take Jesus making wine and take that as an opportunity to drink is a far fetch. It'd be kind of like Jesus made my body so I can have sex any time I want. Both are far fetched. God said that you're not supposed to get drunk, so they didn't, and they diluted it and all that. They would have the joy of the harvest. Then when winter came, there was this radical pruning of this vine. As I said, at home ours was about 25 or 30 feet long. At the end of the summer that thing was just from, I mean it went the entire length and six feet high. What if my dad was allowed near it? He pruned each stalk like every Israelite did, down to just it looked like a baseball bat. That's all that was left, an old gnarled baseball bat sticking out of the ground. If my mom was there, my mom never liked to trim the grapes. And she would take the trimmers, the clippers, away from my dad. She would hide them. She would watch out the window. She'd open the window and say, stop that. Don't trim my things. And what would happen is every time my mom prevailed or prevailed, my dad wouldn't get to trim. And so a large harvest that last year, the next year would be almost a nonexistent harvest. What we would end up with is a six foot high, 30 foot long, three foot thick hedge. had big leaves, beautiful, glistening, luxurious, no grapes. My mom never quite connected that. And my dad would sneak out again. He'd cut it all down, usually around Christmas time. The problem was that my mom would see it because of the snow and everything. And he'd try and burn the evidence. But she'd catch him. And we'd go through this cycle. Well, Jesus talked about that because That's the cycle of Israel. Big luxurious grapes, cut them to nothing. If you don't, you won't get grapes the next year. Then in the spring, you find this incredible rapid growth. I mean, those things, you can almost see them grow. When they start coming out in the spring, they explode and just go outward. And then, if you carefully prune that new growth, not just the old growth, the new growth, you can't have a 50-foot branch and a big cluster of grapes. You have to have, three foot or a two foot branch or a four foot with several clusters and so there is a constant cutting of that branch and What happens when you cut that branch? Everything from where you cut it off withers. That's what he's talking about in verse 6 He's not throwing somebody some Christian into hell and in verse 2 he's not cutting off unbelievers and as we'll see in just a moment. So that's the concept. And then again, the fall harvest. Well, the vine was emblematic of their nation. The grapevine was never far from their mind or sight. We're so distant from the world of scriptures, and the land that the book was written in is so distant, and it's such a hazy place in our mind. These lessons just fly right by us. And what we get embroiled in is a theological discussion of our position in Christ and of whether or not we have a secure salvation in chapter 15. And there's nothing in chapter 15 about the security of the saint or even about salvation. There's one thing 15.1-8 is about. And it's whether or not you're going to cooperate with God's plans for your fruitfulness, or whether you're going to painfully allow God to proceed with his plans for your fruitfulness and mine. That's what chapter 15 is about. Well, in the Bible, we find a book with Christ's lessons in his word, which are tied to real places. And those places supported real people who lived with real problems. And those real people found real answers in a real place called Israel, as Jesus Christ taught them, how God wants to limit our propensity to grow wider and wider territorial parts of our life by spreading our branches everywhere we can. And we are so busy spreading our branches in every direction and winding around everything in life that we never bear fruit. You know, the grape's biggest problem is itself. It would rather grow and lengthen than bear fruit. And God says, you're just like the vine. You're just like those branches. And I want to teach you a lesson. Well, as we read through the eight verses, I want you to be listening to the gardener. He's talking about walking down the rows of vines. And sometimes he takes, and by the way, a curious thing about vines is, remember they're long and they're unsupported and they drop down if they're not cared for. And they actually grow along the ground. And if they're on the ground and dirt gets on top of them or leaves get on top of them, those vines get stunted and even can become sick and have a leaf rot or it can even kill a section of that branch going off if it's allowed. And so part of what every Middle Eastern at least and even California vine grower does is they're constantly lifting the vines to keep them from the dirt. If the branch or the leaves get covered and coated with dirt, they cannot process and have photosynthetic reaction with the sun. They don't want those leaves down in the mud. They don't want them coated with dirt. They don't want them dragging in the dirt. Part of what the good gardener does, is he walks down the rows of vines and finds a listless empty branch, and lifts it up and puts it up where it belongs, up in the sun, out of the dirt. We need to follow Christ's eyes as He examines each branch to see where it's headed, where it's growing toward, how it's doing, what needs to be done to improve the singular focus of the gardener. Jesus only wants one thing from our lives, fruit. In fact, in verse 16, we'll see in a little while, He says, that's the whole reason I saved you. I didn't save you to sit, I saved you not just to be active in service, but to actually bear fruit. And that is the measure of our lives for eternity. We need to trace where the gardener's hands go as he skillfully, lovingly lifts up branches that have grown along the ground far from the light of his presence. We need to watch him as he inspects the leaves caked with soil and earth and clips and cuts and disposes of whatever has been paralyzed, cleanses what is salvageable, weaves back up again into the trellis or onto the wire for fruitfulness to restore that branch. to bear fruit, always to bear fruit. We need to then ponder with amazement that every time the gardener goes through his vineyard, there's a pile of wilting branches. That's in verse 6. You notice verse 6, if you've never noticed this before, it says, he cuts the branch and it's withered. It withers after it's cut. It wasn't dead to start with. It was quite alive. You know, a lot of what we do in our life is very vibrant. But God cuts it off. He says, you don't need 50 foot of woody life. You need short fruitfulness. And we need to think about that. He wants, as he passes through the rows, to cut off anything extraneous. Tonight, as we look at the crowns, we're going to feel the heat of the flames of that useless growth. What do you think burns at the judgment seat of Christ? God lets us see our whole life. He was busily cutting off stuff and saying, man, you don't need to be involved in that. You don't need to be involved in that. You don't need to be involved in that. And that huge pile of stuff is what is going to be all the wood, hay, and stubble, the soot and ashes of the judgment seat of Christ. As we look at our lives. as God had to cut off so much that we wanted to enlarge our spiritual vine territory. And God says, you're not supposed to be spreading, you're supposed to be bearing fruit. Well, let's read that in chapter 15, verses 1 through 8. And let's stand together as we read John 15, 1 through 8, and watch the goal of the gardener. His supreme goal is to give rid of anything that impedes the fruitfulness of us his branches. Jesus said to his disciples, I'm the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. Interesting metaphor. It's God the Father who's got the clippers in his hand. Okay? Every branch in me. By the way, I read this thing through and read this thing through and read this thing through and read all 30 or 40 commentaries that I read on this and you know what? You, from the verse 2 on, you get all bazoom and mixed up if you don't catch those two little words. Jesus is talking singularly about one thing. He talks about it 27 times in this book. And every single time he says those two words, in me, in the book of John, it's a little code. Every time he's talking about believers. Every branch that's coming off me as the trunk, that doesn't bear fruit, he, that's the father, the gardener, takes away. Now, that's a terrible translation. That word never is translated that way in any other place. It's just some, I don't know why. That word, if you have a marginal note, as my Bible, New King James says, it says lifts up. Ah, that immediately solves. We're not talking about him getting rid of a branch. We're talking about one that's grown into the dirt and into the ground and has become listless, barren, and fruitless. And he reaches down and picks that thing up and clips whatever is not functioning off, but he weaves that branch back in. See that verse 2 is not a lost, unfruitful, unsaved person that was faking it. No, they are in me. and they're not bearing fruit. So that means, and I think all of us would confess, there's been a moment, or a day, or a week, or a month, or for some of you, years in your life that would be fruitless, barren of fruit. God doesn't like that. That's why the Bible feels heavy. That's why prayers feel empty. That's why you back away from every chance to serve. That's why you think the church is always talking about money. is you are far away from God. And that's what he's talking about. And he says, you know what I'm going to do to you? I'm going to lift you up. And then I'm going to prune. He says, in every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it that it may bear more fruit. So there are branches that at a certain point in time are not bearing fruit. There are branches that are bearing fruit, but not enough. So he trims them. And continue reading. You are already clean, because the word which I have spoken to you, verse 3, abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you, unless you abide in me. What he's saying is cooperate with this thing. Stop trying to grow in every direction. Stop getting down in the dirt. See, it's a choice we're making. Abiding is a choice, by the way. It's not some mystical, strange, ethereal. I mean, I read so many books that at the end of reading all 300 pages, I thought, what are they talking about? You know, it's so vague and so... You know what Jesus says? You cooperate. Choose. Be. In concert with what I'm doing. Look at verse 5. I'm the vine and you're the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit. There's his goal. He wants much from your life and my life. Not none, few, little, kind of some. If anyone does not abide in me, If you're not cooperating, if you spend your whole life growing a 120-foot branch, the Lord's going to clip that thing off. Clip you off? Send you to hell? No. There's no unbelievers in these eight verses. He's going to clip that off. And when He clips it, look what happens. And casts out that branch that He clipped off. It withers. Yeah, because He had to cut it off. There is something that's going to burn at the judgment seat of Christ. And it's going to cause us to lose. It doesn't mean our salvation. It means our opportunity for reward and fruitfulness. And he casts them in the fire, and they're burned. And we'll see that in a moment in 1 Corinthians 3. But if you abide in me, verse 7, and my words abide in you, you'll ask what you desire, and it shall be done. Look at this. Here's the whole goal of the gardener and of the vineyard and of the vine. By this, my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit. If you want to know your marching orders, what God wants, He wants you and me to bear much fruit. Let's bow before Him and ask Him to open our hearts. This Father in Heaven, these few moments we have, I pray we'd learn the lessons of your vine, of you as the vine dresser, of us as your branches, and of the fruit that you created us to bear. We pray in the name of Jesus and for His sake. Amen. You may be seated. And as you're seated, I want to give you 27 reasons why I believe chapter 15 is all about Christians and not about these fakes or about people who lose their salvation. Turn back to chapter 6, and you might want to get your pen, because I want you to do a word study with me. And that word study is every time in this book that Jesus says, in me, he's talking about believers. And I'm going to go real fast, and I'll show you what I mean. John 6 and verse 35, Jesus said, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger. And he who believes in me, You caught that little two-word study there? Shall never, never thirst. What is that talking about? Talking about a Christian, right? No doubt that's a Christian. Look at verse 56, same chapter. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me. And he uses the same word for abide from chapter 15. He's talking about Christians, believers. and he said you are in me and I in him now look at chapter 7 in verse 38 he who believes in me as the scripture says out of his heart will flow rivers of living water that's talking about the Holy Spirit in believers okay turn over now to chapter 10 and verse 9 I'm the door if anyone enters same word ice is the Greek word we get in from. It's a little Greek preposition. It's interesting that the translators here use the word by, but it's the same construction. It's the exact same two words, in me. So anybody that enters in me will be saved. Hey, there's the clearest one. Jesus said, if you're in me, you're what? Saved. That's who he's talking to as he speaks here. Look at verse 38, same chapter, 10 verse 38. But if I, though you do not believe me, believe the works, But if I do, though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in me." Now he's talking about the whole mystery of our salvation, the inner Trinitarian relationship of the co-substantial nature of our God and the fact that the Father has given to the Son, the Son is purchased for the Father. And he's talking about, again, the mystery of our salvation. But again, we don't have any lost people there. Look at chapter 11, verses 25 and 26, two of the most precious verses for us. who are believers. It says, Jesus said, I am the resurrection, the life, he who believes in me. Who's he talking to? Believers. Though he may die, he actually lived. Verse 26, and whoever lives and believes in me. Every time he says those two little words in this book, he's talking about salvation, saved people, believers, and the concept of those who are partakers of him. Look at chapter 12. He does the same thing, starting in verse 44. And Jesus cried out and said, he who believes in me believes not in me, but in him who sent me. And he's talking about that mysterious interrelationship that the Father, we are in Christ, and Christ is held by the Father's hand, and the Spirit is within us. And it's this multi-layer protection of our salvation. But again, he's talking about salvation, saved believers. Verse 46, I have come, same chapter, 12, verse 46, as a light into the world that whoever believes in me should not abide in darkness. Again, a believer. a saved person, a born-again person, is in me. Look at chapter 14. Now he started after the departure of Judas. The unclean one, the unredeemed one, the fake, he starts dealing with believers, his disciples. And his first lesson is in verse 1. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. He says, you believe into this relationship that I have with you, into your salvation. You need to respond to this. And he describes it as in me. He goes on in verse 10. Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The mystery of salvation. Verse 11. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me. He states it again. But look at verse 12. Most assuredly I say to you that he who believes in me, Again, describing a believer's life. Verse 20, On that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you. Continuing to verse 30, he says it again, I will no longer talk much with you, for the rule of this world is coming. For he has nothing in me. Now there is a contrast. There's a great one to see. He says the devil and the earthlings and the lost are according to the rule of this world, but mine are in me. See, every time, every time, it's in me. Now, chapter 15, we'll just skip right over and go to chapter 16, verse 33. These things have I spoken to you that in me you may have peace. Again, he's talking to believers. Chapter 17, two more times, verse 21, that they may be one as you, Father, are in me and I in you. He's talking about us. It's his legacy to believers. And we have that oneness and we're in him. Verse 23, his last time. He says, I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfect in one, and that the world may know that you have sent me, and have loved me, and that you have loved them as you have loved me. Now let's go back to chapter 15. If you see a track, if you see one author recording one person's words, and every single time those words are used, it means just one thing. Now, when you come to another selection of that person's words in chapter 15, you find that it's very hard to change, all of a sudden, the communication. Look at verse 2, every branch in me, he says. Verse 4, abide in me. Unless you abide in me, verse 4 ends. Verse 5, I am the vine. You're the branches. He who abides in me. He's continuing the thought of this living relationship. And if you want to understand the 15th chapter, you have to listen to Jesus say, in me, and you have to understand the whole vineyard concept. It's an allegory about a vineyard, and Jesus is talking to Christians. And that solves all the disputes about, did they lose their salvation? Did he throw them out? Why did they get lost? How did they lose their salvation? He's not talking about salvation in here. And so that's the concept. What does in me mean? It unlocks the truth that all these verses are for every believer. You can be and I can be fruitless at times, but not for long. The Lord stops by and starts lifting you up out of whatever sin has soiled and stopped your fruit bearing. As you get back into production of fruit, He continues. You know, a lot of Christians get all mixed up because they say, I repented of my sin and now why am I still having trouble in my life? It's not trouble. God's saying, you're growing that branch off that way too far again. I don't want you to do that. You're going to get all enmeshed in that, and you're not going to be fruitful for me. And the only reason I left you here is to bear fruit, not to grow wood. You're not an oak. You're a grape. And that's the idea. Why does God take so much effort pruning us? Well, the fact is that we are like the grape. The greatest enemy of the grape is itself. Grapes love to grow and expand their territory. They love to do everything but bear fruit. And the only way a grape, when I was growing up, ever bore fruit other than little tiny ones that look like BBs. I mean, they were just nothing. And there's just like a skin on the seed. The only way you get out of that is to very vigorously cut them back. And then you get the nice grapes that you can squash and strain and do something with. We're so much like the grapevines, Tennessee. We love to grow vigorously in every direction. We are like the grapevines. We have a lot of non-fruitful wood in our lives. And the Lord wants to come in and cut that away on a regular basis. We, like the grapevines, can become so dense in all our external leafy productions By the way, I can still remember, I can still see it in my mind because this was my job. The canopy of the grape arbor, these vines would get so thick that they would shade and actually block all the light from getting down below. And so when you would get under and look there, there was just absolutely nothing there. Nothing was even growing there, because it was so totally shaded, there was no light for growth to occur. And that can happen in our lives. We can get so dense in everything we're doing, our ministry, our work, our family, our athletics, our amusements, our investments, our busyness, our stress, our anxieties, and our sins, that the Son, as in the Son of God, never gets a chance to reach that part of our life. We're saying, wait a minute, Lord, I'm so busy serving you, I can't stop to obey you and bear fruit in my life. Left to ourselves, we're just like the grape plant. We always favor a new expansion of our territory over more grapes being fruitful for God. What's the spiritual result of not cooperating with the pruning process? From a distance, our life will look incredibly green and healthy. We'll look like we're filled with long branches full of luxurious growth and impressive achievements. But to the Lord, who gets up close and examines us, he finds we have a very underwhelming harvest. No grapes, just growth. Well, Jesus is drawing a picture for us. He's drawing a picture that wood was not profitable to him, just fruit was. And one of the reasons I love to read the Old Testament, it's the explanation of all this. Did you know in the temple and the tabernacle, God specifically commanded them they could not bring the wood from the vine to burn the sacrifices? Why? Because God compared the branches of the grapevine to the lives of people. And he said, you shouldn't have all that growth, a branch. You're supposed to be making grapes. And so when the people would cut off and trim their vineyards, God says specifically in the Old Testament, you may not bring the wood from the grape to the altar. I don't want it. You see, God was very consistent in his analogy. And the wood of the vine, has the curious characteristic that it's good for nothing. It's too soft for any building construction. And at certain times of the year when the people brought offerings of wood to the temple for the altar fires, the wood of the vine couldn't be brought. The only thing that could be done with the wood as it was pruned from the vine was to make a bonfire out of it on the spot and destroy it. And this adds to the picture Jesus draws. God wants to be glorified when we bear much fruit, when we show ourselves to be his disciples. And the greatest glory of our life is our life in conduct bears fruit for him. How important and valuable is fruit bearing? Look at verse 16 of chapter 15. Jesus puts it in a very clear verse. And I meet people, and they come to our missions conference, and as soon as I say, let's turn to the Great Commission, they don't turn there. Because they say, I'm not a missionary, and I'm not in vocational Christian service, and so that's not me, and I don't have to worry about that. Well, then here's one you can't escape. Chapter 15, verse 16. Jesus said, you didn't choose me, I chose you. And I appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain." Huh. Remember, he already said in verse 7, by this, or verse 8, my Father is glorified when you bear much fruit. You want to know what you and I were called to do? We were not called to grow branches. We were called to live connected to Christ our vine and to want Him to cut anything off of our life that is not fruitful for his kingdom. You want to know what makes people regret their lives at the end? That they grew a lot of branches. Philanthropic and civic and community and academic and scientific and cultural vines in every direction. But when Jesus pulls back the leaves at the end of their life, He finds a bunch of seeds covered with skin. No real much-fruitedness in their lives. Why? Fruit is our only permanent deposit in heaven. Real fruit that Christ produces always lasts. You say, how do you know? Well, look, just a couple of verses. Look at Ephesians 2. Let's look at even why we were saved, okay? Ephesians chapter 2. We all know verses 8 and 9. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves is the gift of God. Why did he do all that? Why did he save us in this gracious way without works on our part being a part of the equation? So that, verse 10 would take place. He saved us graciously apart from our merit and our works so that, verse 10 of Ephesians 2, so that we would realize, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for the purpose of good works. Hey, there's a fruit. That's not a Boy Scout verse, you know, do your good deed for the day. That's not a Roman Catholic verse, do enough good works to weigh the balance, you know, and have a life that... No, that's a Christian verse. That is for every born-again person. You and I were created for one purpose, to live lives of good works in the name of Christ, in the power of Christ, through the Spirit of Christ, to have eternal treasure that glorifies God. Amazing what Jesus tells us. Well, what are the lessons from the vine? Let's go back to chapter 15 of John's Gospel. And I'll just run through these real quick. And we're going to work them into our crown study tonight and rewards. If left untrimmed, a grape vine will use every available energy only to grow long, woody branches and extend its territory, while producing along the way a few meager bunches of grapes. Winemakers learned early on that grapes could be tamed only by vigilant pruning. That's what God wants to do in our lives. When the trimming was done, the vine is forced to redirect its life-giving sap into the production of grapes. I mean, if the long 50-footer winding around everything gets cut off, then all that sap that was going to go out to the furthest end has to go somewhere. And that energy goes into fruit bearing. And then God is glorified. But as the farmer snips off those old branches, he hauls them away and burns them so that the vines will grow unhindered and the stump will mature more each year. Effective vine dressing required that the farmer continue to prune throughout the growing season to keep the vines' energy focused on a limited number of clusters. Caleb and Joshua's spy group, how did they come back with that stick with a five-foot cluster of grapes on it? Even the Philistines and the Amorites knew you had to cut those things back to make them productive. Christ's central theme in John 15, 1 through 8 is not salvation. How it is to be obtained or the danger of losing it Instead, the great theme of this eight-verse section is fruit-bearing and the conditions for fertility. Fruit occurs eight times in this chapter. And as you know, when Noah came out of the flood, the Hebrews, whenever they heard the number eight, they always thought of a resurrection number. It's the number of new beginning, new creation. And that's why the word abide is found 15 times in these first 10 verses. And abiding always refers to fellowship. And only those who have been born again are capable of fellowship. And so this abiding chapter is to believers and how to increase our fruitfulness. What does the Lord do when He prunes us? Sometimes He uses the Word to convict and cleanse us. In fact, if you look at chapter 15, verse 2, He says, Now you are already clean. That's the same word as Ephesians 5. We're sanctified and cleansed by the washing of the Word. Sometimes He chastens us. Tonight I'm going to talk about chastisement. I'm going to talk about the difference between chastening and pruning. Chastening is spanking and rebuking, and it's a very grievous thing. It's when the vine has grown into the dirt, and the dirt is totally defiling and killing the growth and the leaves. And there's a radical lifting up and cutting deeply. Pruning is a more loving, working to make that cluster of grapes get bigger and bigger and bigger. A lot of Christians think when God is pruning them, that He's chastening them. And they say, what have I done? What sin have I done? It's not like that. That's why this chapter is so important to understand. We must remember that the branches don't eat the fruit. Others do. We're not producing fruit to please ourselves, but to serve others. And there are at least six kinds of spiritual fruit that the Bible mentions. And tonight we'll look at these. One, you know. We win people to Christ, Romans 1.13. We grow in holiness, Romans 6.22. We give our lives and our money back to God, which is Romans 15. We have the ninefold fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5. We serve others with good works, Colossians 1. And Hebrews 13 says, even this morning, if you were engaged in listening and actually not just going through the motions, but if those words on the screen came from your heart and you were giving them to the Lord, that's a good work. That's a fruit. That offers glory to his name. But all of those things, God counts. And God wants to encourage us. What the Lord is telling us is this, that we in our lives, and let me get, we have one minute and I've got to get to it. We, when the Lord tells us to abide in Him, He's talking about our will, He's talking about our choices, He's talking about the decisions we make. We must decide to do things which expose ourselves to Him, which keeps ourselves in contact with Him, and that means we abide in Him. We have been placed into Christ by the Holy Spirit. Now we must choose to maintain that relationship by the decisions we make. by the decisions of what we expose ourselves to in His Word, how we relate to Him in prayer, how we converse with Him through our daily lives, decisions that relate to how we relate to other believers in the body, and how we experience bearing one another's burdens, confessing our faults, sharing our fellowship with one another. If we do that, we're fulfilling this active, necessary decision to do the will of obeying His Word as He says. abiding in Him, responding to His pruning, and bearing much fruit.