‘I am the
true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that
bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it
will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have
spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also 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.
‘I am the
vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear
much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you
are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up,
thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in
you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory,
that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
‘As the
Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.’
Once again
Jesus uses a picture from everyday life as a metaphor for His life and our life
in Him … that is the invitation of the gospel, for us to enter into Him and He
into us … an invitation into His life. When we looked at “I Am the Good
Shepherd” we saw Jesus’ mission statement:
I have come
that they may have life, and have it to the full.
That is your
birth right as a Christian … abundant life … in this life. And you don’t have
to live another moment from this one without the abundant life of Christ
overflowing from you. This life flows from the very well-springs Christ Himself
and Jesus tells us in this reading how that works, how that life flows to us
and what we need to do to “go with the flow”.
What do we need
to do?
‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also 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.
‘I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.’
What do we need
to do in order to receive from the Father every good thing that he longs to
pour into us? What do the branches of the vine do in order to receive
everything the vine wants to pour into them?
They remain
in the vine.
We must
remain in Christ.
Hear this,
because this is where so many of us stumble …. This remaining does not come naturally or easily. From the moment you
decide that you want to be a branch in this life-giving vine … forces are
unleashed to try and separate you from this vine. Family, friends, schoolmates,
workmates, society will question your decision, perhaps mock you for your
decision, sometimes even find ways to persecute you for your decision … and if
you persist in your decision to be in Christ you will find yourself told “Well,
you’re not allowed to share your faith in this family, school, workplace.” This
remaining in Him does not come naturally or easily. It is a daily process, as
someone far wiser than me has put it:
And so
Jesus, because He knew that this Way and this Truth and this Life would face
terrible opposition in every age … because
He knew this, because He knows this,
He implores us, begs us:
‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also 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.
‘I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.’
Remain in me
… Remain in me … Remain in me … Remain in me … Which begs the question:
How? How do
I remain in Him?
Now, our
reading doesn’t answer that question because Jesus has taught the answer
previously … so we have to go elsewhere to answer the How do I make sure I remain in Him and we will, but we must finish
with our reading first.
You see, the
question arising from this I AM statement isn’t just How do I remain in Him, it is also:
Why should I remain in Him … and in this reading, why does Jesus
want us to remain in Him? Why must the branches remain in the vine? What does
the vine want from the branches? We should more accurately ask what does the
gardener want, actually demand, from the branches in this reading?
‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also 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.
‘I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.’
Why does
Jesus say we must remain in Him? … to
bear fruit. Throughout the gospels, Jesus is very big on fruit … not on
vegetables, mind you … big on fruit. In a lived out parable He once cursed a
fig tree to death because it had no fruit; later in John’s gospel he says: You did not choose
me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear
fruit – fruit that will last Jn 15:16.
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus
says that if you want to know who the Christians are: “By their fruit you will recognise them”
… in other words, “What do their lives produce?” Jesus is big on fruit, so near
the end of His ministry He gives more good news: “Remain in me and you will
bear much fruit.” Still it begs the question: “So, how do I remain in Him?” “How
can I be sure I am remaining in Him?”
You and I
are invited into the abundant life of Christ … this is what is implied in the
different words Scripture uses: eg we are invited to “follow Jesus” … “to be born again” … “to be saved” … “to put
on Christ” to become Christians … these are all invitations into His abundant,
full life … and in the picture before us today Jesus says that is like being a
branch in a vine … you become connected … you become united … you become one …
with the vine … with Christ. Now, this is really the message of evangelism and
this particular reading isn’t really about evangelism … it doesn’t tell us “how
to become a branch” … This reading is about discipleship, it assumes you are
already a branch, you are saved, you are born again, you are a Christian. This
reading is all about why, out of His deep love, Jesus saves you, why He calls
you, why you are made part of His body, which here is called a vine, why He wants to fill you with His
abundant life … it is so that His life flows into and then from your life, His
fruit from your life … that’s discipleship
This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
So, in this
reading the language changes to and fro between the literal and the
metaphorical in a way which would be bewildering, if we, the readers are not
conscious all the way through that all the statements made really refer to
Christ and his disciples, under the symbol of a vine and its branches. These
verses are not about the keeping of vines.
Now I said
earlier that we have to go to the rest of Scripture to answer the question: How
do I remain in the vine? As I said earlier, this is an ongoing decision, which
is why Jesus repeats it and repeats it and repeats it. An ongoing decision to
remain in Jesus, otherwise, the branch withers, becomes fruitless and is cast
away. Remember, these are branches, disciples, that are being spoken of. How do
we remain in Christ?
If we study
the Scriptures, we will see that through the Old and New Testaments we can
identify some common features of the life that remains in God. I could give you
3, I could give you 5, I could give you 12 features of how folk have remained
in God … all of them manifested in the life of Christ.
I’ll give
you 5 … one for each finger. PSSFF
People who
remain in Christ are people who PRAY
People who
remain in Christ are people who read and study SCRIPTURE
People who
remain in Christ are people who receive the SACRAMENT of Holy Communion
People who
remain in Christ are people who FELLOWSHIP with fellow believers
People who
remain in Christ are people who FAST
People
committed to these disciplines (which comes from the same word as disciple)
seem to remain in Him more than people who aren’t committed to these
disciplines. Do not see this as a legalistic list to tick off so that you can
say: Right, well I’m in Him.
Let me take
you to the extreme: “Cedric, I want to remain in Him, I want to be a Christian,
but I will not pray, read the Scriptures, receive Communion, I won’t
fellowship, if that means going to church and mixing with other Christians, and
as for fasting, if you mean denying myself …. Really.”
The chances
are that such a person might well become a Christian, but will struggle to
remain in Christ … I’m not saying will not remain in Christ, but I would be
very surprised if this person was experiencing an abundant life which was laden
with good fruit.
I hope you
appreciate there is much, much more to say on this subject … and I don’t doubt
that there are people who perhaps embrace all of these disciplines but who are
not as close to Christ as others who embrace only some of these disciplines.
You have a chance to discuss this more in the home-group material.
Jesus is
offering you life in His vine this morning. It is life as you’ve never known,
best described as full and abundant. I haven’t had a chance to talk about the
Cross where Jesus died and the tomb from which He rose again … but I invite you
to believe by faith that Jesus dealt with your and my life of sin and
disobedience which leads to a life that is anything but full and abundant … He
dealt with those things, forgave those things and in taking them into Himself
now wants to pour into you His amazing life. To take the metaphor further, He
wants to graft you into the vine this morning … if you want to respond to that
invitation you just need to confess your need for His forgiveness, decide to
turn from life without Christ to life with Christ and ask Him into yourself. He
responds by taking you with open arms into Himself. That’s His offer of
salvation.
To all of us
this morning, Jesus is saying “Remain in me” but you might hear that as “Return
to me, my dear child” or “Draw even closer to me, my beloved” …. You might even
hear it as the sound of pruning shears approaching (you know what needs
removing from your life right now and casting into the fire, don’t you)
And in a few
moments now, I invite you to talk to Him about what it means for you today to "Remain in Him."
