November 4, 2007 – John 15 ‘The Vine and the Branches’
Gardening, it’s something many people like to do, especially here in Victoria where you can usually do it year round. How many folks here are the ‘garden variety’, green-thumb, can make anything grow, win a prize at the Saanich Fair kind of people? There are so many different kinds of gardens. Flower gardens, vegetable gardens, gardens for display, gardens for food. Some may be as small as a window planter, and others are huge farms that cover hundreds, maybe thousands of acres. When we drove down to California, we saw mile after mile of farms and plantations growing everything from tomatoes to oranges. One of the most well-known things from California, besides oranges, are the vineyards. Ah yes, California wines. There are over 4400 wine-grape growers in California. The state is the world’s 4th largest wine producer behind Italy, France and Spain, shipping over half a billion gallons of wine a year. But whatever the size of your garden, the one thing they all have in common is their need for care. And vineyards need a lot of care. I found a list of areas that need specific attention when caring for a vineyard. They include:
Pruning
Canopy Management
Vine Nutrition
Irrigation
Fruit Ripening
Cold Hardiness
Disease Management
Insect Management
Weed Management
At the top of that list is pruning, cutting parts off. But what do you cut? Give me a pair of shears and I could do some serious hacking! But what would result is probably a dead plant. It takes skill to do it right, otherwise you are likely to hurt the vine rather than help it.
And that’s what we’re going to look at tonight in our scripture form the Gospel of John, chapter 15. This passage was the very first one that I gave a message from. Back in 1989 when I was in Mexico with YWAM, I spoke on this passage in a little church in the middle of Monterey, in an area hit hard from the hurricane that came through the previous fall. I didn’t dig out those notes, but I’m sure God has something to say to us here tonight as we look into His word.
John 15: The Vine and the Branches
1"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes [Greek - cleans] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
1) Jesus is the TRUE vine. It’s not clearly defined where Jesus and his disciples were when he taught them these things. Perhaps as they were leaving the upper room they passed by a vineyard, and Jesus used it as a spiritual illustration. He says that he is the TRUE vine. That would suggest that there are FALSE vines out there as well. Jesus is genuine. He’s no fake. He’s not a plastic imitation or silk look-alike. He’s the real deal. True life is found only in Him!
There’s nothing like the real thing! Imitations may look like the actual, but that’s where the similarities end. In Isaiah Chapter 5, you can read about how God calls Israel the vineyard of the Lord Almighty. Jesus may be referencing this passage in Isaiah, now naming Himself as the Vine, the One from whom the Kingdom of God grows, the only source of real fruit.
2) God the Father is the gardener. He’s the owner. He owns the land, He owns the Vine, He owns it all. And He is the one who looks after the garden. In our gardens, someone has to plant the seed, water it, fertilize it, make sure it gets enough light, harvest the fruit, and keep the plants well trimmed so they produce as much fruit as possible. One of the key things to looking after a vine, or any climbing plant or flower, is to prune it. And this is what Jesus says the Father does. He prunes the branches. I found some info on the web about what needs to be done when pruning a vine. Listen to this: (from Brooklyn Botanical Gardens)
Once vines have developed adequate roots, most just keep on growing above ground. To keep a vigorous climber healthy, you must do the following:
• Remove any dead, damaged, diseased, or unproductive stems.
• Remove overly tangled stems.
• Remove errant stems, especially those growing away from the support.
• Direct its growth.
• Limit its growth.
Does that sound like what Jesus says the Father does with us? He is the Vine, we are the branches. What do you do with branches that don’t bear fruit? You cut them off from the vine because they are of no use. What does God do with unfruitful branches? He cuts them off. In any business or organization, if it wants to truly flourish, it will focus on strengths and areas in which it is already doing well. Those areas that aren’t in line with the goals of the group, are best gotten rid of, because they only drag the business down. With vines, if you don’t remove the unproductive parts, not only won’t they bear fruit, but the whole vine will suffer with having these unproductive branches hanging on.
We need to be pruned so that we produce fruit, lots of fruit. God wants an abundant harvest. If there are areas in our lives that are unfruitful, they need to be pruned away, removed, cut-off. Colossians chapter 3 tells us to put to death and to get rid of all the things that belong to our earthly nature. 5Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. These are all things that must NOT exist in the Christian’s life.
But if we ARE bearing fruit in our lives, God prunes, or cleans us, so that we bear even more fruit. Bearing just a bit of fruit is great, but God wants a bumper crop from us! So He cleans us up so we can bear even more fruit for Him. What kind of fruit are we talking about anyway? Fruit is the way a plant multiplies. Fruit contains seed, and seed grows into new plant, which produce fruit/seed and the process continues. If we are to produce fruit, fruit that will last, we are to in essence reproduce ourselves. To see people give their lives to Christ and become his disciples is what we are called to do. We are called to go into all the world and make disciples (great commission). We are not to just keep our salvation to ourselves, but to share it everywhere we go. Our lives are to be testimonies of God working in and through us. That fruit will also appear in the way we live our lives. Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These are the evidences that Christ is in you and you are in Christ. Without fruit in our lives, with no growth, with no reproduction, we must question whether we are truly connected to the Vine, to Christ.
And our lives will be like that, bearing fruit, as long as we do remain in Him. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. If a branch is removed from the vine, what happens? Sap, the lifeblood of the plant, stops flowing into the branch. It withers, and will die because it has no source of nourishment. It is the same with Christ. We MUST remain in Him. We must continually be fed from Him, his word. We have to have that relationship with Christ. On our own we can do nothing. Pulling away from Christ and thinking we can make it on our own does not work. We won’t accomplish anything for the Kingdom that will last. If we don’t remain in Christ, our faith withers up, our prayer life withers up, our worship withers up, our desire to serve God withers up, our relationships in the church wither up, our very soul can wither up. And then we’re no good to God anymore, we’re no good for bearing fruit. We MUST stay connected! That means we long to be filled with the goodness that comes from God’s word, fellowship with other believers, the joy that comes from serving Him, the assurance of eternal that comes from knowing Him, the acceptance that comes through the blood of Jesus, the peace that passes all understanding, and seeing the fruit of God manifest through my life. That’s the kind of life I want to have. That’s the connection that I need to have. This is how the world knows that we are Christ’s disciples, that we bear much fruit.
And the other benefit of being connected to the Vine is this. Read verse 7 again. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. What a promise! But get it straight. Simply asking God for anything does not mean you will get it. You have to qualify that with those first 5 words…if you remain in me. We have to stick with God. We can’t just come to Him when it’s convenient for us. We can’t just come when we feel we need something. We can’t just be a part-time Christian. We need to be fully connected, so that our desires, the things we want from God, will align with His will for our lives. Our wants will be His wants. Our values will mirror His values. What He desires for us to do will be the things we want to do for Him. If we have that kind of connection to God, we will know what His will for our lives is. No questions as to ‘what is my purpose in life?’ God will make that clear to you and me.
I’d like to read you the rest of this passage, to show us all how much Jesus, God, loves us.
9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17This is my command: Love each other.
So, in closing, the question is simply this: Am I connected to the Vine? If not, I need to be re-connected. One of the coolest things with plants is that you can graft a branch that has been removed from the vine back into it, and will re-attach, grow, and bear fruit. It’s the same with us. If we find that we are no longer firmly attached to Christ, disconnected from the church, out of a proper relationship with God, there’s still hope. We are not lost to the fire. We must re-connect with God though. Come to him humbly asking for his forgiveness, and re-commit our lives to Him. Then do that. Live for him, feed from his word, and bear fruit for him so that a bumper harvest is raised for hid glory!
Close in prayer.
