Please turn with me now in your Bible if you will to John chapter 15. We're going to be exploring verses 1 through 17 this morning. This is one of my favorite passages. I feel like I say that every week. My four-year-old comes home from school and she says, Natalie is my new best friend this week. Ava is my new best friend this week. So-and-so is my new best friend. And I feel like that's how I am reading through John's gospel. Every time I come across a passage, I'm like, John chapter 10. This is my favorite passage in the Bible. John 14, this is my favorite passage. John 15, this actually really might be my favorite passage of the whole Bible. My opinion will probably change next week, but for this week it's John 15. So we're going to look at it because in this passage, we discover the basis of so much of our Christian experience and so much of the basis for our spiritual life and vitality. So as we read it, I want to encourage you to read along with me tune into these great words that Jesus has to say here to his disciples from John 15 beginning in verse 1. Jesus says this, I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit, already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches, whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch in withers and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. By this, my father is glorified that you bear much fruit and prove to be my disciples. As the father has loved me, so I have loved you, abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants. For the servant does not know what his master is doing but I have called you friends. For all that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you. 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 and my name he may give it to you. These things I command you so that you will love one another. Amen. This is God's holy word to us this morning. We pray that he would write that word upon all of our hearts. My home state of California is often times ridiculed as being the land of fruits and nuts. That is an accurate assertion of the state of California because when you put 37 million people into one state you are bound to get a few crazies there in the mix. It is the land of fruits and nuts figuratively but it is actually the land of fruits and nuts literally. It is the most productive agricultural state in the world. My hometown is in the most productive agricultural area on the planet. In fact when you go to the grocery store you will notice produce, oranges, nuts, almonds, all these different things that you can get from the produce aisle at the store and most of them come from these little farming communities in central California. Where I grew up in Fresno it is a town of about 800,000 people that looks like it was dropped right into the middle of a whole bunch of vineyards. It is actually bordered by vineyards on every corner of the city and so growing up you just get used to seeing vineyards how they grow and how they are harvested and what happens to them in the winter time. As it gets to be late summer the vineyards become full of leaves. They are beautiful and the grapes on them are stunning. They are big plump grapes and many of them are still hand picked. Most of the wine grapes are still hand picked and all of the raisin grapes are hand picked. But then the late fall comes along and the leaves start to fall off and they start to look a little drab and by January the farm workers have gone out and they have trimmed back the branches on the vine and pinned them back and these vines look like they are absolutely good for nothing. They look like they are dead and just need to be taken down. But sure enough you know after living there for a while and seeing how the crop grows that by spring the leaves come back and by summer again they are big juicy grapes back on the vine and this can happen for over 100 years. There are vineyards that still produce grapes that are over 100 years old. Well that is the image that Jesus is giving to you this morning in John 15. He is saying that he is the vine and that we are the branches. He is trying to get us to picture our lives like that, that our lives are about being intimately connected to him, being nourished by him, being able to grow in and through him. In fact the Apostle Paul when you look at the New Testament he uses the phrase in Christ in some form or another 160 times plus or minus in the New Testament because he is trying to get us to see that our whole life is wrapped up by being in Christ united to him. It is a perfect illustration because the reality is whether you are a Christian or not, you are bound to something, right? You are bound to something. We all bond to someone or something that is intended to give us life meaning hope, a validation for our very existence and in Christianity we actually have a word for this. It is called covenant. We are covenantally bound to someone or something and in the gospel we are covenantally bound to Jesus Christ. He is the one that blesses us. We are united to him. He is the source of our spiritual life. He is the one in whom we not only find ourselves forgiven and reconciled to God through faith but it is also in him alone that we discover meaning and significance and hope and the things that people everywhere no matter who they are or what their background is are longing to know. We find that by being united to Jesus Christ and so what Jesus wants us to see is that he is the true vine and we are the branches but he spells out for us two different types of branches here doesn't he? He says that there are branches that bear fruit and these branches are living, they are healthy, they might have some disease in them and so when there is something wrong with them they are pruned back so that they will produce more fruit. So these are the live branches and then he shows us that they are also dead branches. These are branches that are still connected to the vine but they are dead. There is no life, no nutrients, no nothing of sustenance going through that branch to provide them life and they are dead and so what God does the Father is the vine dresser and he comes and he actually cuts them off and throws them into the fire and they are burned. It is a sober message. It is a sober thing for Jesus to say. I want to look at those branches first, the dead branches. Look at what he says here in verse 6. Verse 6, Jesus says this. He is staring at us in the eye and he is saying this. He is saying if anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and are burned. It is foolish to read something like that out of the mouth of Jesus Christ and just gloss over it and just read that and say that is just a ho-hum thing for Jesus to say because what it does is that at the very least exposes us at the level of our souls. It causes us to look inside of us and see what is really in there, what is going on inside. Am I a living branch or a dead branch? Jesus is saying that you can actually be connected to the vine in some way but you can cease to derive your life from that vine and you are affectionately dead. What Jesus is doing here in your life and in my life is he is confronting a nominal brand of Christianity name and only. He is confronting that I am a Christian in name only. He is confronting nominalism, a shallowness to our Christian faith because he is saying that if you think that you are a Christian, if you just simply call yourself that and yet there is no actual evidence of that in your life, then you are lying to yourself and you are lying to the world and you are a dead branch. There is no life in you and he wants us to look at this. There is no real evidence that we love God. If there is no evidence that we are tuned into his Word, no real deep love for his people and for his church, no deep love for his gospel that other people would come to know him and worship him and delight themselves in him, no serious concern for your own eternal state. No evidence that Jesus Christ is informing what you think and what you say and what you do. If that is part of your life, then you and I need to consider that we might be dead branches. That is a tough thing to say. It is a tough thing to hear. We can call ourselves Christians, but if there is actual grace that has been inputted into our life, there is going to be an output and an output of fruit bearing that Jesus wants us to see. There is going to be an output of obedience. That is a harsh word. It is a harsh word for us to hear. It unsettles me to even say it and to hear it. But you have to remember that Jesus says this in the light of the context in which John writes his entire gospel. When you look at the reason why John wrote this gospel and included this story in it, he included it in it in order that we might have life, in order that we might believe in Jesus Christ and that by believing we might have life in his name. So what Jesus is trying to do here is he's trying to warn us from stepping off the cliff and he's trying to challenge us at the level of our nominal Christianity and cause us to ask the question, are we alive or are we actually dead? He's warning us, but he's showing us the way. He's showing us that life comes through him, vitality comes through him and growth comes through him. So the challenge is to stop seeking some parasitic source of life and begin to abide in him. That's what he wants us to see. All true Christians are going to begin to do this. They're going to begin to abide in Christ. When you look at what he says in verse 6 here, there's a sense in which it makes us tremble. It makes me tremble because we look at our lives. We actually look inward and everyone here can say that there's a measure in which we don't love God. And we don't love his people. We don't love his gospel. We're really flippant about the desire to see other people come to know him. And in so many ways other things affect our ethics rather than Jesus Christ and his gospel to us. And so it is unsettling, and it is troubling, but I want to say this to you. If it troubles you at all, it challenges you at all. Then at the very least, that may mean that God is using this to get you and to get me to repent from our righteousness and our unrighteousness and begin to rest in him. Does that make sense? What he's trying to do is to get us to see our hearts, that there's a darkness in there, that there's a way in which we build our lives upon something else other than him. It takes the form of immorality, it takes the form of rebellion, it takes the form of evil, and it also takes the form of taking deep rest that I've been good enough. And I can take my goodness to Jesus Christ and he'll pat me on the back for it and say, well done, my good and faithful servant. Both are ways to avoid Jesus Christ. Both are ways to completely avoid what Jesus wants us to see is, yes, there are parts of my life where I don't love you. There are areas of my life that have not fully conformed to who you are and what you've done for me in the gospel. And I see that and all I can do is throw my hands in the air and say, Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner. That's what he wants us to do because finding hope, finding life, finding peace and doing whatever you want or by trusting in your own goodness, all of that means is that you're just a dead branch, you're dead branch, and all that awaits you is the flames. It's so hard to hear that, but to know that your misdeeds condemn you and that your good deeds are never enough, but to be driven in light of that to Jesus Christ for grace, that's not only the path of salvation, my friends. That's the path to an abundant, fruit-bearing, joyful, Christ-exalting life. That's the path to what he's created you to be. That's what abiding means. And so if you're a living branch, then what Jesus does is he comes and he prunes us, trims us back. He wants us to turn to him, to rest in him, to believe in him and his promises and so in order to do that, he prunes us back. He doesn't throw off the vines that produce the fruit. He prunes them, pruning a grapevine. That's really the same thing as disciplining it. He's disciplining it. If the leaves are not pruned back, if they're not trimmed back, it's going to grow wild, but it's going to cease to produce abundant fruit. And Jesus sees to it, he desires in us that we produce fruit that makes him look glorious and that brings about joy in us. I think vineyards are beautiful. It was great growing up around all of those vineyards, but when January came along, I can tell you that those vineyards were not particularly beautiful then. They were gray, they were ugly, and if you didn't know any better, you would have thought that they were just absolutely good for nothing. And maybe that describes your life right now. That described pretty much 2009 for me. I felt like my life in many respects was about the most unimpressive life that could ever be imagined. God was using it to discipline me. He was using it to bring me to wean myself off of the security that I had placed in this life and in this world. And in what I had expected of my life, my future, and to begin to rest in him for that. There's a sense in which the Christian life is always looking like that. It's always feeling the pinch of being pruned, of being disciplined. There's always some affliction that you're always going through. There's always some sin that you're battling. There's always something in life springing you back down to earth. But if you look at what the writer of the Hebrew says in Hebrew chapter 12, you start to see why Jesus does this. He disciplines those he loves. He disciplines those he loves because he's always pursuing our good. That's what he's always about. If you look in chapter 12, verse 11 of the book of Hebrews, the writer says that for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. Can we all agree on that? But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. So you know what this means if you're a parent, don't you? Even if you're not a parent, you understand what this means. A loving parent disciplines their children. They don't just let them do as they please. And they don't overshelter their children to keep them from all of the troubles of life. They discipline them because they love them. They discipline their children because they want what's best for them. They discipline their children because they want their children to grow up to be able to make mature wise decisions where they learn to respect and love other people and who are equipped to live wisely and graciously when the troubles of life come along their path. But children don't seem to understand that do they when they're being disciplined. When children are disciplined all they feel is the pinch. All they feel is that their parents are being unfair and unreasonable. And so they go and they have a you know a Bobby Cox moment and pitch a fit and just talk about just how unreasonable their parents are being and how unfair they're being when all the time what their parents are wanting is what's best for them. They're wanting them to grow and they're wanting them to have joy. Well Christian welcome to so much of your Christian experience because your life is going to feel like that a lot. What Jesus wants more than anything else in the world is your closeness to him. He wants your growth, your maturity, your maturation and holiness and grace because that is not only what makes him appears glorious but it's what brings you joy. It's what brings you contentment in this life. See well disciplined children are much happier, much more content and much more full of joy than children whose parents let them eat candy, drink soda and play video games all day long. That's just the truth. And Jesus wants to lovingly discipline us in order that we might have that joy as well by delighting ourselves in him and who he's created us to be. And so what he does is he prunes the branches, the Father prunes the branches, he disciplines those that he loves. He's always taking the initiative in our life to get us to find our delight in him. That's what he does. See there's another side to growth as well, another side to abiding in Christ that Jesus wants us to see here. We always have to have the forefront reminded that Christ is taking the initiative in their lives but Paul also says this. This is the other side of the tension in Philippians chapter 2. He calls us to do what? To work out our own salvation with fear and trembling because it is God who works in us to will and to act according to his good purpose. So he's working in our lives. That's one side of the truth but the other side of the truth is that he's calling us to responsibility as well. We have the Holy Spirit within us and because of that we are empowered to live responsible lives. Obedient lives, faithful lives to him. Christianity is all about Jesus penetrating our lives and grace flavoring it but his grace produces responsibility. It produces obedience and it produces fruit and so that's why Jesus is calling us. He's telling you and he's telling me he's calling us to abide in him. Jesus uses that word abide 11 times in the 17 verses. I get the sense that that's a somewhat important theme that he wants us to zero in on. Abiding in him. That's all we were created for. Knowing him, understanding, knowing and being known, closeness, relational joy. That's what he wants for us. That's what we all want for our lives. Every single one of us wants that. Even if you're the most relationally checked out person, you know that your needs and your wants and your greatest joy is going to be found in the context of relationship and Jesus is saying I'm the relationship in which that needs to be found. The path of blessing, the path of blessing is being authentic to who he has made you to be which means that we abide in him, that we cling to him and hold fast to him and cast all of our weight and our dependence upon him and our burdens upon him. That's what he wants for us. That's what he wants us to do to abide in him. How do we do that? He shows us here in verse seven. He calls us to abide in his words. You know, whoever said sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Whoever said that was a complete idiot. I mean, it's the biggest load of nonsense that I think I've ever heard in my life because we know that that is completely untrue. Words are remarkably powerful. That's why James, Jesus's brother, talks about words are tongues being like a rudder that directs a massive ship. It's this little piece on the ship, but it directs the whole course of the ship's direction. That's what words do. Words have the power to build up or to break down. They have the power to bring joy in life, but they have the power to destroy and bring about evil. They're powerful. Jesus's words are powerful. That's why the psalmist says that they are a lamp and to our feet and a light and to our path. The world is dark. We know not which way to go, and so the word illuminates that path for us, and it's Jesus's word that does that. How are we supposed to know what fruit looks like? How are we supposed to know what our sin is and what direction we ought to take in life? Well, how are we supposed to know any of those things without Jesus Christ and his word speaking into our lives in that way? Part of the difference, my friends, between being a dead branch and a living branch is that a living branch is nourished by the word of Christ. It's nourished by the word of Christ. Jesus says that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word, every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. We need his word to nourish our souls as badly as we need food to nourish our bodies. That's how dependent we are upon it. Let's see, the dead branch doesn't care about that. That's just an irrelevant thing for him, or he just pays lip service to it. It's not important, which is why he or she may show up to church two out of four Sundays out of the month, or she may have a church membership or take great comfort and that that person walked down the aisle, and all the while that person might be bound straight for hell. I don't know how to say it any other way. They might be bound straight for hell because their life never took on the flavor of Christ. There was never the aroma of Christ emanating from their life because Christ was never there in the first place. It was all lip service, it was all of the sod because there was no fruit that was actually being produced. And so friends, this is why we need his word to show us what it means to live in a lot of his lordship. We need him to speak to us so that we'll know what our life is to look like when we really believe and belong to Christ. Jesus wants us to abide in his word. That's not the only thing he wants us to abide. He wants us also to abide in his love. He wants us to abide in his love as sharp and as pointed as Jesus's words are about dead branches. When you look at verse 9, you discover that Jesus's words are words of healing, the words of grace and peace. Look at this. Understand that Jesus is looking at you, Christian. He's looking at you in the eye and this is what he is saying to you. He's saying, as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you a abide in my love. Friends, if you don't remember anything that you've heard this morning passed about 12, 30 this afternoon, I want you to remember those words. Memorize those words. Put them somewhere this week where you can see them where they're always in front of you as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you a abide in my love. Can you even imagine what Jesus is saying there? He's saying that I love you in the same way that the Father loves me. I love you in the same way that the Father loves me. Have you ever or lately thought about your relationship to God like that? That the love that Jesus has for you is the same kind of love that the Father has for him. What can separate the Son from the Father's love? Can the Father condemn the Son? He's done it once before, once only in history. It was done on the cross. When your sin and my sin was poured out upon him and the Father turned his face away from him and the wrath of God of the Father was poured out on the Son. But that's been done. That's been paid for. Jesus is always talking about the love that the Father has for him and that he has for the Father. And in Christ when we stop trusting in ourselves and we begin to trust in Christ we are in Christ and the love that the Father has on the Son is our love as well. That is an abundant love. It is not a wishy-washy love. It's not a love that's just here today, gone tomorrow, mushy kind of feeling type of thing. It is a steadfast love that endures forever. He cannot love you anymore on the basis of what you do and he cannot love you any less on the basis of how you fail because you are clothed in Christ's righteousness. You belong to him. You are in him. His Holy Spirit is in you. We discovered that last week. That is an amazing love, amazing love. How can it be that now my God would die for me? That's what you have my friends. But a lot of you don't believe that and I struggle to believe that a lot. Sometimes I picture Jesus looking at me and maybe you do as well with his toe tapping, kind of a wrinkled forehead, arms crossed to disapproving look on his face. We think that Jesus sees us like that. If that's the case, then you need these words. You need these words. Jesus loves you. Doesn't that just seem so trite and kind of elementary? Jesus loves you. That's what the four-year-old children are being taught right now that Jesus loves them. Doesn't it seem like something for them but not really for us?
Jesus loves you. Is that something that you believe when your life falls apart? When you mess up, when your life is a colossal mess, when you look at your life now and it's nothing like you would imagine it to be, what he wants you to remember and never forget is that Jesus loves you. It's not mushy. It's there forever. There was a theologian, a prominent one. The most prominent one of the 20th century, the German theologian by the name of Karl Barth, had a lot of questionable views but he was asked one time at a conference what his most profound thoughts, his most profound theological discovery was and on this occasion he answered very, very well. He said that his most profound thought was that Jesus loves me. This I know for the Bible tells me so. Do you believe that? On Jonathan Edwards' deathbed, he was surrounded by family and friends who he would want to be surrounded by in his last hours. They know what his last words were. Where is my true and faithful friend, Jesus Christ? See he loves us to the point to where he calls us his friends. He calls you his friend. Tomorrow morning, I am going to Boise, Idaho all places to visit my very best friend. He was a college roommate of mine, my best man in my wedding. We talked probably five or six times a week. Other than Rebecca, he is my very best friend. I can tell anything to him. I could turn up to be an ax murderer and as disappointed and sad as he would be, he would still be there for me through thick and thin and he would not disown me. Jesus is a better friend. He is a more faithful friend and he calls you his friend if you believe in him and if you don't consider that an invitation to do so because he promises that whoever calls upon him he will never cast out and he will call them his friends. Let's think about that now as we go to him and pray.