If you read throughout the Old Testament, you will find that Israel is often referred to as a vine. They are symbolized as the vine, no doubt showing the life that is in them because of God’s grace to them. Psalm 80:7-8, for example, says, “Restore us, O God Almighty; make your face shine upon us that we may be saved. You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.” The Israelites saw themselves as this vine that God had planted and was allowing to grow by his grace.
However, at the same time, we see foreshadowing of a deeper revelation of what this vine really was. In fact, later in that Psalm, the psalmist writes, “Return to us, O God Almighty! Look down from heaven and see! Watch over this vine, the root your right hand has planted, [which seems very similar to the above statement, but now note the change] the son you have raised up for yourself. Your vine is cut down it is burned with fire; at your rebuke your people perish. Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand, the son of man you have raised up for yourself” (Psalm 80:14-17).
It seems that the Israelites were realizing even then that there must be another who would allow them to have life. They looked for another whom they could identify themselves with and be saved from their sins.
Therefore, when Jesus comes along in John 15 and says, “I am the true vine,” he is making a daunting proclamation that he is the Messiah. He is the very one whom they were waiting for, in whom they could have life.
But with this announcement in John 15, we see not only the importance of being connected to that vine but how we can know that we are, and in doing so, how we can fulfill the ultimate purpose for which we were created.
That is what I want us to see this morning. And more particularly, as we began this short series on the word of God last week, I want us to see how the word allows us to fulfill the purpose for which we were created, namely, to reflect the glory of God in our lives.
Let me show you this by first showing other basic teachings that will lead us to understanding just how crucial the word is in our lives.
After Jesus reveals to us that he is the vine and his Father is the vinedresser in verse 1, he makes a startling statement in verse 2. He says, “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, [the Father] takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it, that it may bear more fruit.” Therefore, the obvious point of this verse is to assure us that there is no such thing as a true believer without some measure of fruit. That is why we have been saying in the last few weeks that sanctification is a necessary process in salvation. God will produce fruit (and more and more fruit) in the lives of his children.
Therefore, if there is not fruit in your life, if there is not some growing degree of holiness in your life, then pay close attention to what Jesus says of these kinds of branches. “Every branch that does not bear fruit, he takes away … and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned” (v. 2, 6). Jesus seems to be saying here then, “If you want to look into the unseen heart to find genuine, saving faith, then look at what you can see (externally) and find obedience.”
Salvation will always follow the path of at least some measure of fruit in one’s life. Sanctification is a means for God working your final salvation. In 2 Thessalonians 2:13, Paul writes, “But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.” Again, do you see the means through which we are saved? It is “through sanctification .. by … faith.” That is just what we looked at a few weeks ago in Galatians 2, and it is what Jesus confirms in John 15. All true believers will bear some degree of fruit.
If someone is not a believer, it will be shown in his or her life, and God will cast them into everlasting fire. And I do not think that this passage encourages the thought that one can be a genuine believer and then be cast into the fire. The reason is because it is not consistent with other scripture that speaks against this (Romans 8:29-30, John 4:13-14; 6:37-40, Matthew 7:23 (note “never knew”) for a few). But even this passage speaks against such an interpretation. After all, if one is truly a good tree, he will bear good fruit (Matt. 7:15-23), and what does God say that he will do once we bear good fruit? He says that he will prune the tree that it might bear more fruit. God does not allow those branches that are truly given life ever to be crowded out or stunted and die. He prunes them, and they bear more fruit. Therefore, if one were ever to bear the fruit of genuine, saving faith, then he would not take it away, but prune it. That is why discipline is a mark of “sonship” as William pointed out a while back from Hebrews 12:10. If you are not pruned, and you die off, it is confirmation that although there may have been a degree of connection with Christ and his church, you never truly exercised genuine faith (e.g. Mt. 13:18-23, 24:12; Jn. 8:31ff; Heb. 3:14-19; 1 Jn. 2:19; 2 Jn. 9). Fruitfulness is an infallible mark in a true believer and an absence of fruit is a mark of dead faith.
But are these fruits something that we can produce on our own? Out of ourselves can we produce, for example, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? Can a branch by itself produce fruit? No! That is why fruit will only be produced in our life as God produces it through us.
So what is our responsibility?
Jesus says in Verses 4-5, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he would abides in me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from me you can do nothing.”
Our responsibility is to abide in Christ daily, trusting by faith in his grace to do so in us.
Our utter dependence is in Christ for life and fruitfulness to be shown in us. Do you wake up every day thinking this? Do you realize the magnitude of what it means to abide in Christ? Do you think to yourself as you meet with him that you are abiding in that which without you could not even live? That is how we need to begin to think if we do not right now.
But how is it that we are to abide in Christ? I mean, isn’t that kind of an ambiguous phrase that we think might mean prayer, or meditation, but we are not really sure?
I think this passage shows us that abiding in Christ is practically synonymous with abiding in his word. Jesus seems to parallel “the word” in verse 3 with the life of the vine shown in the passage. D.A. Carson has written, “The cleansing power of the word Jesus has spoken to his disciples, then, is equivalent to the life of the vine pulsating throughout the branches” (see note 1). And Jesus shows this even deeper saying in verse 4, “Abide in me, and I in you,” while saying in verse 7, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you …”
The parallel he makes between abiding in Christ, him abiding in us, and his word abiding in us is quite clear. Therefore, I believe one could say from this passage that to allow his word to abide in you (seeping deep into your heart, and moving your heart to deep affection for him) is possibly the most crucial element as we abide in Christ daily. Jesus, therefore, can say in John 6:63, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” That is why he can say to Satan in Matthew 4:4, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” The word is life to us. To abide in Christ and allow him to abide in you is to allow his word to abide in you. The word provides the foundation and content of living the Christian life. This is the main thing I want you to see today.
Our passage ends in verses 7-8 with Jesus saying, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.”
These verses even show us how to pray. Our prayers should stem out of allowing his word to abide in us.
As we hear his word in our hearts, by the Spirit, it produces prayer out of our hearts, and God answers such prayer for he has spoken it into your heart through his word. I believe that to be the meaning of verse 7. It is not simply a blanket statement that everything we think would be good and ask in prayer will happen. Rather, it is an assurance that as God plants his desires in your heart, through his word, that you can pray in great confidence concerning those things that he has put there.
And what will we be praying? Our prayers will be filled with requests to do that which we are unable to do in our own strength, namely, bear fruit. Again, God commands what we are unable to make ourselves do. For example, in Psalm 37:4 we are commanded to delight in him. You cannot make yourself do this in and of yourself. If so, then I would delight in jogging, or broccoli, or shredded wheat because it is good for me. In Matthew 22:37-39 we are commanded to love God and our neighbor. Now, if you believe love is more than carrying out some kind of loyalty without real affection, then such a commandment is possible, but if you believe it requires an affection from the heart (1 Cor. 13:3), then you cannot produce that in and of yourself if it is absent. He also tells sinners in James 4:9, “Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy to gloom.” Again, you cannot just turn on sorrow for sin. These commandments seem much like a mother telling her son to apologize to his sister. He may say it, but that does not mean that he feels it.
However, God commands such things because he is able and willing to work them in us. Such as telling us that we are in trouble if we do not have fruit and then telling us that unless he works in us, we will have no fruit. Therefore, as he works in us, the prayers that he has planted in our hearts produce fruit in our lives, and it brings glory to him because we are obviously unable to produce fruit on our own, as we are simply branches. That is why Jesus can say in verse 8, “By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and prove to be my disciples.”
That is why to try to go through our day and to try to do good things apart from him is worthless. It is like trying to drive your car without any gas. We are missing the very life that draws men to us.
So to bear no fruit in your life is actually quite worthy of being taken away and cast into the fire. Why? Because since the fruit of a believer is something that only comes through the believer’s attachment to the Son and his response to their prayers, and this is the way the Son brings glory to his Father, we actually rob God of his glory by not to abiding in his word and not asking him to produce fruit in us, and then bearing that fruit in our lives.
God is glorified in working through us. Such is why Peter says in 1 Peter 4:11, “Whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” It is the same in Revelation 22:3 where we are depicted in heaven as serving God while Luke 12:37 depicts the scene as the Son of God serving us. These are not contradictory when you understand that even as we serve Christ, it is he who is serving in and through us. Do you see the sequence there as well?
We serve by allowing God to strengthen and serve us so that God may be glorified through his Son who is working this very strength in our lives.
And all of this cycle begins with allowing his word to abide in our hearts.
Therefore, the pattern for us every day should be to begin with allowing his word to abide in our hearts, then allow his word to move our hearts to a desire for conformity to him, then voice that prayer to God (which he planted in your heart through his word) asking him to produce the fruit of holiness in your life, and finally walk throughout the day by faith in the life and strength which God has given as you abide in him and reflect his glory throughout all the earth.
That cycle begins with the word. It begins with allowing his word to abide in your heart and ends with your life reflecting his glory. That is why I say that the word of God is crucial in enabling us to fulfill our ultimate purpose in life. It is what births a God-glorifying life within us that can then flow out of us. It is the bread which we must have to live. It is our life.
May his grace be with us as we abide in him, his word abides in us, and he glorifies his name. Amen.