Jesus Is the True Vine

I’m excited to be with you guys. I appreciate Pastor Al allowing me to come, especially as it lines up on George’s bye week. So I know that he was excited about that. And also, I don’t know if you guys know this or not, but I was actually in a small group, a church group with Jeremy Simmons. And I just want to encourage you guys that there is no higher character in the Lord than Jeremy that you have coming as a gift to your church. And so I’m really excited that he is going to be able to be with you guys.

My wife and children, they’re at Harbor City today. My parents drove me here, not because I can’t drive, but they’re in town. And so I’m excited to be able to spend this morning with you.

Today we’re going to be in John 15. We’re going to be in John 15. And what I’m going to do is I’m going to read the text that we’re going to cover, and then we’re going to jump into the sermon. John 15, verse 1. He says, He says, I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit and that your fruit would remain so that whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he may give to you. This I command you, that you love one another. Amen.

I expect, or I wanna ask this question. How do we grow into who we want to be? Now, I expect when I ask that question, every spouse probably bumped the other and say, hey, it’s time to pay attention. It’s time for us to grow. You see, we all need to grow, right? Like we have many goals. People set goals and they have places that they wanna improve on. Maybe people set up fitness goals, like they wanna run a mile in maybe five to seven minutes. My goal is to get to the fridge and back before the guy on my TV screen runs 100 yards. It’s pretty crazy that he can run 100 yards while people are trying to tackle him. And then before I get from the fridge back to the couch, which is about 10 paces, and with a Coke Zero, he’s already in the end zone. Anybody else reconcile with that?

Maybe you wanna grow in leadership or you wanna grow in your career. Maybe you wanna grow in confidence, that there’s an interaction that makes you so anxious that you wish that you had more confidence to be assured of yourself. You wanna grow maybe as a parent, a spouse, a friend, a roommate. And if you’re here as a Christian today, you wanna grow as a disciple of Christ. Maybe you’re here and you wouldn’t say that you’re a Christian, but you do wanna grow spiritually. And isn’t it frustrating when we can’t, when we feel like we’re struggling with the same thing over and over again? What if we could take this question to Jesus? How do we grow? Well, in John 15, we do, we can.

See, in John 15, this is a part of a discourse that he is having with his disciples. It’s just before he’s gonna go to the garden on the path of the cross. It’s in the middle of this discourse that he then brings this analogy of the vine. And who he’s talking to is his disciples. This is one of the most intimate conversations that is recorded in scripture. As Jesus is about, in a few hours, to pray in the garden, and then be arrested, betrayed, and abandoned. And this is what he does. Verse one, I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser.

When he says this, this is an I am statement from the book of John. The other statements are this, Jesus is the bread of life. He’s the light of the world. He’s the door. He’s the good shepherd. He’s the resurrection and the life. He’s the way, the truth, and the life. And then this, number seven, he is saying that he is the true vine.

My main point today of the sermon is this. Jesus is the true vine, and we are to abide in him.

When Jesus said this statement, that I am the true vine, it would turn a Jewish man’s head for a couple reasons. The first one is this. They were an agrarian society, right? They understood what it meant to grow things. And so this vine illustrated that there was fruit that they needed for the substance of life. But the other reason, and the main reason it would turn their head is because this was a common metaphor used for the Jewish people. Israel is depicted as the vine of God in the Old Testament. However, this depiction is not one of success and not one of pride, but it’s one of failure. Look at Psalm 80. It says, “You brought a vine out of Egypt. You drove out the nations and planted it.” So yes, they’re a vine. But then, “Why have you broken down its walls so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit? The boar from the forest ravages it, and all that move in the field feed on it.” The picture of the vine was a reminder to Israel that they were a failure. They were to be a blessing out of Egypt, but yet they were broken down and plundered because of their disobedience. In Isaiah 5, the prophet teaches this, that if the vine will not be pruned, it is useless. Jeremiah asked in chapter 2 how Israel became a degenerate vine. In Ezekiel, Israel was the vine only fit to be burned and cast off. The vine was supposed to be a sign of life and blessing to the world, yet Israel, because of its failure, it was a sign to them of their own failure. This imagery was a depiction of their failure.

And if we’re honest, we find ourselves in some of the same shoes as the disciples at the thought of the vine. We can look at our biggest mistakes and biggest sins and know that we, at some point, have been complete failures. There was shame for Israel at the failure of being the vine of God. They could not live up. For the failing to be the nation, they, it was their fault. Kind of like this, it’s probably heard a story of a man who was supposed to be excited about Christmas, but all he can remember is the shame he brought on himself because he walked away from his family. Israel walked away from God, and this is the shame from not being the true vine. But what’s amazing about this statement is Jesus doesn’t say to them that they are the vine. Jesus turns the despair around and He says, “You are not the vine, I am.” When He says, “I am,” this is this Yahweh, this name of God that was rendered from Moses, and He’s saying, “I am. I am the vine. I am the true vine.” Everything that was on you, you can now put on Me, and I will represent you to God. Can you imagine Peter, James, and John, and the other disciples feeling the weight lift as the focus of the vine from the shadow of their failure has now moved away from them, and now Jesus is taking it on Himself? This is the gospel. Jesus came to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. Jesus is now the source of life and blessing in the world. Jesus is the true vine, and in that, He came and did everything Israel failed to do. He was perfect. He lived a sinless life. He was the exact representation of God and His righteousness. And Jesus now supersedes Israel as the vine of God. And He fulfills everything that God had intended for Israel. Jesus is saying to His disciples, “I am everything that you could not be.” And because of that, life flows from Me. He is the true vine, the better vine, the blessing to the earth Israel failed to be. And this is good news to the disciples and it’s good news to us. Why? Because the weight of being your own savior, of being good enough, of saving yourself, of self-improvement or even self-help is no longer on you. Even the cause of growth isn’t dependent on you pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. It’s on Jesus Himself and the finished work of Christ at the cross. What was once a symbol of shame that was the vine now became a symbol of hope in Jesus. He is redeeming the analogy by taking His place as the vine of God. Obedience, righteousness, and fruitfulness are no longer left as a weight for Israel or a weight for us to bear because it’s put on the shoulders of Christ. Amen.

If you are here today and you’re tired and you’re found wanting and at the end of yourself because you have a weight that’s not meant for you to take, the gospel says that you don’t have to be good enough. That Jesus is. He is the true vine. And He is where we can find hope, life, and joy. You are not defined by your failures. You are defined by Jesus. And what He says about you reigns true. Jesus enters into your failures and He takes them on to Himself. And He takes that burden from you. And He says, come and lean on Me.

You guys have seen athletes every so often. And what happens when they make this game-changing play is they start to say something. They start almost like pointing down like this and they say, I am Him. Kind of like that. Now, first off, that’s borderline blasphemy. I wouldn’t recommend that if you’re an athlete in the room. Okay? But the other side, what they’re saying is I’m the one that’s made this game-changing play. I am the one that has changed this.

But in this analogy of what Jesus is doing right here, that there was failure, there was hopelessness, that we were going to lose the game of life, that we were losing what God had commanded us to do, that we could not live up and death and sin was going to reign. And then Jesus comes and He says, I am Him. I am the man. I am the vine. And the victory that you could not have is a victory that you will have in Me.

He is the true vine. And what does He ask from us? To abide. Point number one is this. We dwell with Christ for salvation and growth. Verse 4 says, 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 and 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.

I had a question. You guys ever been around a guy, a friend, and he’s just, you just kind of look at him and you’re like, he’s a better Christian than I am. You know? Like, you talk to him, he says, hey man, how you doing? He goes, I’m blessed beyond I can know, you know? You’re like, I don’t, who talks like that? I don’t, I don’t talk like that.

You know, I was going on this fishing trip. We both were going. He went one way on a kayak, I went on another way. I’m only going to be in the water if it’s involved fishing. Otherwise, I do not want to be in the water. But I will love to be in the water if I’m fishing. On this trip, I didn’t really catch much fish. Actually, I lost a $12 lure. I had to come back. I had to paddle all the way across. I come back. Man, gratefulness and thankfulness was not a sign of my heart for the opportunity to be out that day. I really thought about the things that I could lose.

He comes around. He comes around the corner. He didn’t even have a fishing rod. What was he doing out there? He’s got this big smile. Like Moses coming down the mountain kind of look. He comes down the aisle. He looks at me. I was like, man, hey, how was it? Man, I was just abiding. Who are you? Like, what are you talking about? And he said, man, I was on the river and I just saw this eagle graze. And at that point, I just stopped listening to him. I was like, I can’t relate to you right now.

But if I’m honest, it’s that kind of walk with Jesus that I desire. It’s that kind of walk with Jesus that I can simply just sit in the finished work of Jesus. How often do we treat our lives as something that we need to kind of level up in? We treat Christianity as if it’s rungs on a ladder and we just need to climb it. Let’s get the first step is we got to get saved. And then the next step, okay, let’s change our language. Let’s stop cussing. The next step, let’s pray five times a week. And then the next step, we tune our radio to 100.5 FM, his radio. And now we can sing worship songs all the time. And a lot of times, that’s the way we approach Christianity. And as long as we look a certain way, then we are abiding or we’re growing.

That’s not what my friend was doing. That’s not what we do. That’s not how we grow. I want you to imagine my parents came into town. Let’s say they like roses. And I went and I just got this random bush and I took a rose and I came and I stapled the rose on the bush just to make them happy. Do you think that they would be like, wow, you guys really have a great bush there? No, they’d be like, why did you staple that rose? But often, that’s how we do works. Let me staple this to me. Let me staple this to me and let me let everybody see how wonderful I am. Church, that’s the era of the Pharisees in the Gospels. To collect good works to prove themselves from God. But don’t you see the whole purpose of Jesus claiming Himself the vine is to remove the burden of proof of righteousness away from us and onto Him.

Or let me explain it like this. Abide means that we remain. That we dwell. That we are connected to. That we continually receive, believe, and trust that Jesus is everything that we need. That apart from Him, we can’t do anything of eternal value. We allow His Word to fill our minds, direct our wills, and transform our affections. We overcomplicate abiding with work to righteousness as if the fruit is the emphasis. No, the emphasis is not the fruit. The fruit is what naturally is produced. The emphasis is remaining in the finished work of Christ. The emphasis is not to work for our salvation. It’s to come to it and find it from Jesus, the true vine.

Let us see also in this passage, there is a cost to not abiding in Christ. To not be connected to Christ is not to be connected to life. If anyone does not abide in Me, he’s thrown away like a branch and withers. What’s going to happen to that rose that I stapled on the rose bush? It’s not connected to that bush. It’s going to die. I fear that this is a connection all too familiar with us. We want Christ as an accessory to our lives, but not as someone we must trust and dwell in. The Christian life has become a compartment to us, but it’s not something that needs our entire devotion. The sad part is that often a person in our culture is not one who is in full-blown rebellion against God, but one that is simply casual. He does not love sin enough to enjoy its pleasures, and does not love Christ enough to relish in holiness. Coming to church every single week is a burden. The call of Christ is to be all in. And if you’re not all in, then you’re not in at all. Abiding in Christ is to be all in. And stop the need of wanting to perform, but to rest in His finished work.

Do you need to be perfect? No, abiding means that you are repentant. It means that you are dependent on God for salvation and growth. It’s not to say that you won’t stumble. It is to say that when you do, there is genuine remorse for sin and longing for communion and connection with Christ, to root out whatever is trying to kill you. Abiding is reminding ourselves each and every day about the work of Jesus for us and in us. It is remembering our necessary dependence on God for growth and change. Christian maturity is not marked by us sinning less, but it’s that we’re more keenly aware of the sin that’s in our hearts and in that producing more dependence on Christ to save us. It is evidence of the Christian that they should bear fruit.

So what kind of fruit are we talking about? The fruit of the Spirit. That’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. As the fruit grows in our life, we grow more aware of our need for God to produce more. And as He does that, He prunes us to refine our hearts, our character, and to reflect His. Do you guys see the imagery of this chapter? God, the vinedresser, and Jesus, the true vine, reflecting the glory of God. We are to remain, to abide in Him. Jesus is everything we need for life in God. And so, as God prunes the branches, that we grow and become more and more fruitful. What a picture of the Christian life. God is doing all the work. We are abiding. We are remaining. We are resting.

Let’s look down at verse 10. If you keep My commandments, you’ll abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. Wait, doesn’t that go against what we just said? The English rendition can make that a little confusing, seem like works is in opposition. But in fact, remaining and abiding in Jesus is what produces the fruit of obedience. Obedience doesn’t precede remaining in Jesus. We don’t earn our way to God. He has earned His way for us. Jesus, remaining in Him, coming to Him. You guys hear this? Come just as you are. You come just as you are because He is the one that’s going to change you. You don’t change and then come. You remain in Him. Therefore, our obedience comes from abiding in Him. He is saying that if you stay in My love, you will be obedient. You can’t help it. It has to happen. Do you know how that rose actually produces on that rose bush? By being connected to the bush itself, not by being cut off. By remaining in that. You don’t take something and then put it on. You grow it from within. And that is required to that. So it doesn’t change what we’re saying. And then this verse says this. These things I’ve spoken to you that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.

Point number two is this. Abiding produces unexplainable joy. When I talk about joy, I do not mean happiness. Happiness is based on a circumstance where joy moves beyond circumstance. And if I can take a moment to be vulnerable with you, this is an area that I need to grow in. I’m incredibly insecure and often my day can be broken by someone else’s opinion or reaction of me. Do they like me? Do they like what I said? Am I good at what I do? Do they enjoy my sermon? That guy over there just yawned. Should I stop talking right now? Yeah, you see, it’s a myth that being able to do whatever makes you happy is the best way to live. Often we hear this manifested in culture like you do you or follow your heart or do whatever makes you happy. As if happiness is the goal of the fruit of what God wants to produce in us. But what makes me happy is doing whatever I want to do. But we can’t just do that all the time. It’s not about that we can’t be happy at any time. That’s not what I’m saying. When we make our happiness, though, our ultimate, we have missed what God is after in us. God is much more after your holiness than your happiness. He’s after you being conformed to the fruit of His character than He is about you being happy. Because the truth is, is you won’t be happy unless you’re in Him.

In verse 2, John says that those who abide will be pruned. Do you think pruning is a pleasant experience? Pruning has to do with the removal of things sometimes for the purpose of more fruit to be produced. He prunes us to grow us. And while we don’t delight in the pruning, we do learn and grow and delight in remaining in Jesus. A friend of ours went through cancer this past year. Cancer does not make you happy. Many times she had questions. Many times she had doubts. And there were serious questions of whether she would beat it. The person I saw on the other side of those 12 months was not the same person. God produced such a dependence in her life on Him that when she talked about God, it was as if He helped her and held her hand throughout the entire experience. This doesn’t mean that we wish the cancer back for the production of what God produced in her in terms of dependence. But what she wouldn’t trade is that experience for the intimacy that she gained in Christ.

Following Jesus does not always make us healthy. Following Jesus doesn’t even make us wealthy. You are not promised a huge platform because you follow Jesus. The prosperity gospel wants you to believe that if you abide, you are always going to get things that make you happy. As if Jesus is the means to your end. As if Jesus is the means to get to what you want. Jesus is not the means. He’s the end in and of itself. And the prize is Him. So if He is the prize, don’t fall into the heresy of what you get from Jesus as the result of what you need. Jesus Himself is what you need. Jesus Himself is what sustains you. Jesus Himself is who is going to get you through when hard times come. Jesus Himself is the prize. Jesus is eternity. Jesus is the one that we want, not what we get from Him. Look at later in this passage. It says, verse 18, if the world hates you, know that it hates Me and it’s hated Me before it hated you. Following Jesus is foolishness to the world. Often it makes you weird. Even sometimes an enemy to the world. Remember where the discourse is happening in a few hours. Jesus is going to be betrayed and arrested and taken into custody. He’s going to be falsely accused, abandoned and beaten. A crowd will then cry out for a murderer to be released instead of Jesus. In saying these words, Jesus knew that these disciples who were following Him, that they would be killed, crucified, beaten, abandoned. One would get boiled alive and Peter would get crucified upside down. But He said that these things are temporal and the trials are just for a short while. And while this pruning is to produce more fruit for the glory of God. That in the early church it is said that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church.

How can the disciples do these things? Because of joy. Joy that is produced by abiding in Jesus. That the temporary struggle was nothing compared to the sweetness and love that they experienced in Jesus. Notice it says in verse 11 that Jesus’ joy is in us. That our joy is full. That joy comes from abiding. And that joy is so deep that it rings the relationship between God and man that is reminiscent of the garden. Abiding produces joy that is eternal. Meaning that no matter what the world offers, Jesus is better. He is better.

R.C. Sproul says this, that as we know, Jesus was a man of sorrows. He knew pain. Yet beyond the pain, the sorrow, the afflictions, and the humiliation stood one whose life was marked by joy. This too was His legacy to His disciples. We may weep. We may endure pain. We may be crushed by the extencies of life and the afflictions and that we experience in this world. But in the depths of our hearts and souls, there should be a spirit of joy. Guys, hear this. Then He says this. Nothing more clearly marks a Christian than the joy he or she manifests apart from circumstances. Jesus experienced joy when He went to the cross. Not because the cross made Him happy, but because the cross made His joy complete. Because through the cross, He was glorified. Through the cross, He made a way from death to life for each and every one of us. And it was in the cross and because of Jesus that we have life.

Finally, I want to end with this, with the love that comes from abiding in Christ. Verse 12 says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Verse 13, “Greater love has no one than this, than someone who laid down his life for his friends.” 16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide. So that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you so that you will love one another.”

Point number three is this. Abiding produces unparalleled. Abiding in Christ produces Christ-like love. We are to love others the way Christ loved us. And this kind of love is unrivaled and unparalleled. We’ve heard many stories and many songs of what someone who loves someone else would do for them. Who would say that they have too much love? Who would say that Christ can give them too much love? Like Christ wants to love you more and you say, nah, I’m good. No, that’s like saying I don’t want to ride a jet ski. Okay? Nobody says that. Like, of course we want to be loved. Of course we want to feel that love. And our desire is to grow in that love for Christ. So I did. And my prayer for you is that you love one another so much that when anybody walks in this room, they know that Jesus is here. That they know that He is abiding. That you are abiding in Him and He with you and what you have. Even if you have things that are different from the person to the right or to the left. That what is common is this unparalleled love. So much so that in Ephesians it’s a fragrant aroma that when people come, they just know that there is the love of Jesus in this room. And greater love has no one than this. The one who will lay down his life for his friends. Church, that Jesus is about to live out this standard of love in the next 72 hours in this text. He’s about to lay down His freedom, His Dignity, His health, His rights, His strength, His status, and His very life for the men that He is talking to. No greater love will you ever experience than the love of Jesus. He laid down His life for you.

As we round third and head for home, I wanna ask you guys to think about this. We’ve heard love stories where people have crossed oceans, mountains, deserts for the ones they love, but the best stories and the best movies are someone who gives their life for someone that they love. Christ did that for us. And if we abide in Christ, this is not merely a story for us. It’s a reality. We love in light of the gospel and we can put others before ourselves because that’s what Christ did for us. He produces in us a love that lays down our rights, our preferences, and our allegiances.

There is no job, no person, no political affiliation, no amount of success, no pleasure, no experience in this world has to offer you than the greater than the love that is in Jesus.

If you’re here and you’re not a Christian, I wanna say this to you. You are loved more than you could ever know. And the thing that is missing in your life that you are looking for is found in the true vine of Jesus. He has taken your failures, your shortcomings, and your questions. And even when you are an enemy of God, He has made you and called you a friend. He laid down His life for you.

We are to abide so richly in the love of Christ that we are to give of ourselves to one another. Our relationships should begin with Christ and produce selflessness in ourselves towards one another because of the selflessness of Christ. He chose you. He looked at you and He said, “I want you to be in my family. I don’t care what you’ve done. I don’t care what you’ve failed. You are mine.”

Ephesians 2 that said we were the enemies of God, He has made us friends. And get this, to be called a friend of God and to be counted a friend of God, the creator of the universe, to be so personal, it’s something that our minds should fail to comprehend the magnitude of how personal He can be with us. That the cosmic, almighty King of kings and Lord of lords would step down into heaven and call and extend to us friendship by giving Himself to death.

As friends, we’re simply to abide, to stay connected to Christ. Growth doesn’t happen without Him. Joy is not found without Christ. Love is not known without Christ.

Let me get back to this question. How do we grow? We grow by abiding every day, constantly unwavering in Christ. Because apart from Him, we can do nothing.

I’m going to pray. I’m going to ask one of the deacons to come forward. We’re going to have a time of response. And that time of response, if there’s anything that God lays on your heart, that you want to abide more closely with Jesus, that you want to abide maybe for the first time, I would encourage you to come and talk to a member of the church and pray with them. And as we respond, I want you just to reflect. Reflect on what it means to abide or to stay with Christ. That’s not earning your way with Him. He already earned it. It’s resting in His finished work.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for everything that you have given us. Lord, we need you. We’re desperate for you. So Lord, let us continue to move and respond to what you have for us. That you love us more than we could ever ask or imagine. That it’s simple, that we just need to abide. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for who you are. As we reflect and respond, that you would put your word in our hearts.