Last week in our sermon series, “εγώ είμαι”, we saw that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. In that saying, we saw the truth and power of the Gospel, that we are dead in our sins, but through faith in Jesus, we can be accepted by God and be brought from death into life through Jesus Christ alone. But as we have seen time and time again throughout this sermon series, salvation is just the beginning of our relationship and new life with Jesus, our Good Shepherd. In Jesus' final “I AM” saying, we see what that life looks like and what some of the earmarks of a life with Jesus are. So if you have your Bibles, turn with me to John 15:1-6 as we look at this very last “I AM” statement. This “I AM” statement is very unique in several ways, two of those being that it’s the only one that has a predicated statement about the role of another part of the Trinity included in it and just as important as the “I AM” statement itself, the other is that this passage is built upon some word play that that is totally lost in the English and because of it, these handful of verses can seem a little out of order for the English reader and Western logic. So, I want to read our entire passage first and then revisit the verses out of order to understand what a life of walking with Jesus looks like.
John 15:1-6
“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.”
Every “I AM” statement that Jesus made was definitive, leaving no room for doubt that He was claiming that He was God. He didn’t say He was “A” bread of life or “A” way, “A” truth, or “A” life, every time He speaks with authority declaring He is “THE” Great I AM. This same power and authority are seen here as well as Jesus declares, “I AM the true grapevine”, but there is also an adjective here that is very important, the word true. This tells us that there are fake vines in the vineyard as well, and there are some branches that are attached to those fake vines. But when it comes to telling the true branches apart from the fake ones, there is one way Jesus shares with us. It’s a way that He specifically talks about in Matthew 7:16 as well, you will know the true vines by their fruits. Only those connected to the true vine will produce real fruit, which is part of their new life that only comes from Christ. So let’s begin with those branches that do not produce any fruit.
In October of 2017, a massive wildfire swept through the Napa Valley region of California, destroying many of its world-famous vineyards in the process. For many who lived there, it seemed as though everything was lost, but the owners of these vineyards noticed. something. Those branches that were connected to strong and deeply rooted vines and had been well cared for were the only ones to survive and continue to bear fruit. The difference wasn’t the fire they were affected by, the climate in which they were planted, or the soil in which they were planted. The difference was the connection between the branches, their vine, and the one who cared for them. This idea is one we see in this “I AM” statement of Jesus. There are many branches around, they all have gone through suffering; sometimes it’s the same type, sometimes it’s different, but it’s all because we live in a broken world. But some of the branches around are dead and do not produce true fruit. These branches are dealt with harshly; they are cut off and thrown into the fire. Now there is a tendency to think that Jesus is telling us that these branches that do not bear fruit were once saved and a part of the vine, but have somehow lost their salvation or forfeited it, and will be cast into the fire, but that’s not what Jesus is saying at all. This passage is a perfect example of why you cannot base your beliefs or theology on a single passage or verse in Scripture, but rather you must use the entire counsel of God’s Word to develop your beliefs. Let me briefly address this: when we put our faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, there are many things that are promised in Scripture that happen to us. Jesus says in John 5:24 that He brings us from death into life, 1 Peter 1:18–19 tells us that we redeemed at that moment or that we have been bought with a price, John 14:16-17 promises that the Holy Spirit dwells in us from that moment on and will not leave us, in Ephesians we see that when we are saved we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and we are sealed to the day of redemption and this is just the beginning. So you see that for us to lose our Salvation, God would have to be a liar, we would somehow remove the new life we have in Jesus, we would have to un-redeem ourselves by revoking the payment made on our behalf by the blood of Jesus and while we are speaking about the blood of the lamb, we would have to find fault in it because it would not be the sacrifice that was made once and for all according to Hebrews 10:10, and you are going to also have to break the seal of the Holy Spirit. These are just a handful of the many promises that we have when we are saved, but if you are still not convinced. Let me read two verses to you, to help you understand that you cannot lose your salvation. The first is found in 1 John 5:11-13, where it says, “And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life. I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may KNOW you have eternal life.” The word “know” is very important because if we could lose our salvation, how would we ever be able to KNOW we have eternal life? We would always be wondering if we have it or not, but praise God, our Salvation had nothing to do with us, and the ability to lose it has nothing to do with us; it is an act of Jesus’ mighty grace alone. If Salvation depended upon our righteousness, we would never have earned it, and if we did somehow, we would never be able to hold on to it. But praise God, He who has begun a good work in you will complete it. The other verse is one I always love to go back to, no matter what is going on in my life, but it speaks to assurance of salvation as well, and it's found in Romans 8:38-39, “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, NOTHING in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That word “nothing” is wonderful, because I might struggle and may even doubt and I go back here and I think, “What if I….” and God speaks to me through His word and I’m reminded “Nothing can separate us”. Then I think and ask, “How about when …” and I’m reminded again “Nothing can separate us”. So if Jesus is not talking about those who have lost their salvation here, who is He talking about? These branches are like those people He spoke of in one of the scariest verses in all of scripture, Matthew 7:21-23 - “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. On judgment day, many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’” These people in Matthew 7, as well as the false branches mentioned here in John, are people who hang around the true branches, but were never a part of the true vine. 1 John 2:19 tells us this about these people, “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.” Anyone can sing in worship, give an offering, answer questions in a small group, or do any number of things in church to look like the true branches, but these are the types of fruit Jesus is speaking of here; only those who are connected to the true vine will be able to produce the appropriate types of fruit. Those who do not abide with the true vine are just pretending and are dead and will one day be cast into the fire. This is a very harsh statement, but it is something that scripture talks about again: Jesus will never coddle false disciples. So we must make sure we are not just going through the motions in our relationship with Jesus, but that we are truly connected to Jesus by faith alone. That we had a moment where we repented of our sins, surrendered all to Him by trusting in Him as Lord and Savior. True branches will always produce true fruit, but what does that fruit look like?
Fruits can be deceptive because even dead branches or false disciples can produce a type of fruit; the problem is that all the fruit they produce is going to be produced by themselves by the branch itself and not the vine or root that they are connected to. The branches that are connected to the true vine will produce a fruit that is different because the fruit is produced by the Holy Spirit that lives within us once we experience salvation. As Jesus said, you will know them by their fruits, and these fruits look like many different things according to scripture. All the fruit falls under one of nine categories that are called the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23; those categories are “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” More specifically, we see one of these fruits given by the Holy Spirit in Acts 1:8 when Jesus promises, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witness, telling people about me everywhere…” One of the fruits that we produce is having Gospel Conversations, these are times when we share the Gospel of Jesus with people and then testify to what Jesus has done in our own lives, more importantly, when He brought us out of death and into life. When we are faithful and obedient to this, we see the Holy Spirit work in the lives of others, and we see people saved. Seeing people saved is another fruit that the branches on the true vine produce according to Paul in Romans 1:13. Jesus also gives a list of what this fruit looks like as He continues in John Chapter 15. In verse 10, we see that obedient love is a fruit that the branches will bear as they abide in Christ. In verse 11, it tells us that some fruit is inexhaustible joy, and in verse 13, we see that some fruit is that of sacrificial love. All believers will show the attributes mentioned in Galatians 5 to some extent because of the Holy Spirit that lives inside of them, but the amount is always going to be increasing, because the Father always prunes the branches that produce fruit so they will produce more fruit.
God is determined to make you into something more beautiful than you are right now. Yes, He loves you right now where you are, but He refuses to leave you in that state because He knows what is best, and it’s best to look more like Jesus every day. One of the ways that God does this is through the pruning process in our lives. There are things we have in our lives that we pursue, focus on, or obsess over that are not conducive to the fruit-bearing that God wants from the lives of those who are connected to the True Vine, so He prunes those things in our lives to remove them and help us to produce more good fruit that pleases and glorifies Him. Sometimes these pruning sessions are simple, and other times they are difficult for us because we try to hold on to those things. In Hebrews 12:6, we are told that “God disciplines those whom He loves.” This is the same principle as pruning. A vine left to itself will produce a good amount of unproductive growth, and unproductive growth is not desired in a vineyard. Producing good fruit is more than desirable in a vineyard; it’s imperative, it’s the entire point of the vineyard. So when we have things in our life like, selfish ambitions, unconfessed sin, careless disregard for God’s truth, bitter & unforgiving spirit, religious performance over true worship, pride, that list could go on and on, but they are all things that are either flat out sins, or they are things that will hinder our lives from producing the fruit that God requires of His children. But how does God prune those things from our lives? Jesus tells us here in verse 3 that we are pruned by His Word. God’s Word isn’t just something to read to make us feel better or give us knowledge. It is the truth, the standard by which we compare our lives, and when we see something in our life that does not line up with scripture, we must repent that sin. When we don’t coddle it, we do not ignore it, but rather (as according to 1 John 1:9) we confess it to God, we repent of it, and we are promised that God will forgive and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This word cleanse in 1 John is the same word in the Greek that is interpreted as “prune” in John 15:1. When we ignore the truth, we see God’s word; sometimes God must be harsher to cleanse us of the things in our lives that we hold tightly to but are not of Him. I’m sure we can all think of times when the Good Shepherd had to use the rod instead of the staff to bring us back to where we can produce fruit. Jonah comes to mind here. All he had to do was preach, but he was bitter at God because he wanted to save the lost, so God had to prune him in a very unusual way, not only the entire fish thing, but also the fact that Jonah was a married man; he was going to have to explain where he was all this time. I say that tongue in cheek, but the face remains. Those who have the Holy Spirit will produce fruit, and God will continue to prune their lives, removing the things that do not need to be there for them to produce increasingly and look more like Jesus in the process.
All the “I AM” sayings of Jesus had many things in common when it comes to applying their truths to our lives, but that just shows how important they are for all of us. This last “I AM” saying of Jesus is one of the hardest to apply to our lives because we must look honestly at ourselves, and that is difficult, if not impossible at times, but we must if we are to live abiding in Christ. We first need to see if we are connected to the true vine, or if we are just going through the religious motions in our lives. If God were to allow us to look at the churches in America that are meeting today and to see them as dead branches or branches that are living through the True Vine, what do you think we would see? I think we would see a lot of dead branches, and those branches have no idea that they are dead, which is why we need to examine the fruits in our lives. I’m not saying we will ever be perfect, but there will be fruit from the Spirit in our lives. When we don’t see it, we need to be honest with ourselves and call upon the Lord for Salvation with faith and repentance. But if we have, we need to understand God wants more fruit from our lives, and that only comes from pruning things from our lives that are limiting that. So this morning, I want us to look at our fruit and if we do have the Fruit of the Spirit present in our lives, pray and ask God what needs to be pruned from our lives, what things, what relationships, what pursuits need to be cut away from our lives to produce more and more fruit.
