The Vine No.1 The Vine

Chapter 15, then, of John's Gospel, in verse 1. Come now, let us leave. 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, and I will 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 a man remains in me, and I in him, he will bear much fruit.

Apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is 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 given 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. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my father's commands, and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

My command is this, love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do what I command.

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends. For everything that I learned from my father, I have made known to you.

You did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. Then the father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command, love each other.

Pray that the Lord will bless that reading to us. Now let's turn to the Word of God, to that passage which was read to us earlier, from the 15th chapter of John's Gospel. We've been looking into what is sometimes known as the Paschal Sermon, the Passover Sermon, of our Lord Jesus, which commences in the 14th chapter of this fourth story of the life of our Saviour, and goes through way into the 17th chapter.

And there's hardly anything in Scripture that really measures up to this for pure, downright, blessed teaching. Nothing more wonderful than what's found within these chapters. I wonder if you believe that.

David did well in praying before the reading, because this is God's Holy Word, you see. It's not to be taken lightly. It's to be taken thoughtfully.

It's to be taken with humility. Will you humble yourself before this book? You see, that's the authority in this church, the authority of Scripture and God's Spirit as He applies Scripture to our hearts. And if you come here and you reckon yourself to be a Christian and you're not submissive to this Word, then you are not a Christian in the biblical sense that God wants you to be.

We put great emphasis on Scripture. That's why there's no altar in the tabernacle. Did you ever ask yourself why not? There's no cross here.

All that we have are Scriptures over the pulpit area and an open Bible here. Here is the authority of this church, and if anyone comes into this pulpit and they say anything that is contrary to Scripture, then don't believe what they say. Always come back to Scripture, because Scripture is the inerrant Word of God.

Well, here is, as I say, concentrated teaching, good stuff given by our Lord Jesus to His disciples and by extension to the likes of you and me as we try to make our way through the 20th century. Our Savior has given the first part of His discourse in the confines of the upper room, with 11 remaining disciples. And then you recall from last week how I told you that He breaks off.

He leaves the upper room and He moves out into the cold but still fairly mild night air, it being Passover time. And illuminated by the light of the full moon, He makes His way out of the city, through one of the gates, down the Kidron Valley, and ultimately across the brook and into the garden of Gethsemane. That is the scenery, if you like, in which this particular address continues.

Our Lord Jesus has given His peace to His disciples. You recall that? The basis of the peace that Jesus Christ can offer has been symbolically portrayed in front of them. They'd had bread, they'd had wine.

The 14th chapter anticipates His death. It speaks of salvation. And yet when in the authorized version at the end of the chapter it says, Arise, let us go hence, one could almost take it metaphorically as indicating something of what is going to follow as far as the disciples are concerned in the resurrection of our Savior.

You see, in the 14th chapter, He's preparing them for His death, right? In the 15th chapter, we're really on resurrection ground. And the 14th chapter, He's been preparing them for being taken away from them. In the 15th chapter, He's indicating what life will be like when He is away.

The 14th chapter, He's been talking about the coming of the Holy Spirit. The 15th chapter, He's working out the consequences of that coming. The 14th chapter, He's been telling them what to do.

The 15th chapter will indicate how they are to do it. And they will discover that in a very wonderful way, though the Savior is not visibly with them, spiritually He is. Though they can't go to Him and receive bread, food, physically, they can go to Him spiritually and receive all the nourishment that they require for their souls.

This is what our Savior is teaching them then. This is what He teaches us. The opening verses, the 17 verses that have already been rehearsed in front of us, they speak of fruit and fruitfulness.

Many, many times the word fruit occurs, as though the Lord is setting up a picture of what your life and my life is to be like as Christian people. It's John Stott who says, the Christian should resemble a fruit tree and not a Christmas tree. There's all the difference in the world, is there not? Between the artificial Christmas tree, which is festooned with trinkets and ornaments and so forth, that is not basic to the tree itself.

The fruit tree is different. The fruit tree draws life from the root. The fruit draws life from the tree.

Well, the Christian, this is what our Savior is going to tell us, is to be like this. He is to be a person who draws life from the Savior himself. The Christian is the fruit.

Our Lord Jesus is the tree, the root and the stem and so forth. Here then in this chapter is good teaching concerning Christian fertility. Is that your problem? You say, well, I'm saved.

I've been saved for years. But if you had to ask me what I show in my life in terms of a radical difference between myself and anyone else, well, I would be hard-pressed to give you an example. And maybe people who live alongside you will be equally hard-pressed.

Maybe this is your problem. Not so much salvation, but sanctification. And that's a great difference, if you please, between the first part of our Savior's discourse in the 14th chapter and this part.

He's very concerned now that the disciples exhibit those qualities which will delineate, which will mark them off from ordinary people who do not belong to the Lord Jesus. So I say, if this is your problem, the problem of fruitfulness, the problem of a life that seems to, yes, be rooted in the Lord as far as salvation is concerned, but is not fruited by the Lord, then this is your chapter. It's one that you need to read submissively.

I come back to that word, I ask you once again. You see, what almost gives me nightmares, I'm not really exaggerating, sometimes keeps me awake, is the thought that folks may come here Sunday by Sunday just to listen to an address, but never submit to that address. Never submit to the authority of God's Word.

If that's the reason you're coming, you're neither honoring me nor are you honoring God, and the best thing is not to come. You say, well, that's blunt. Well, yes, I'm mute here, I am blunt.

There's a reason to be blunt, you see. Because to expose yourself before the authority of God's Word and to refuse to give the submission that the Word of God requires from you is to make your spiritual condition that much worse. But you say your obedience is not a response that is hard for you to bring, provided you have come this morning wanting to learn and submit your life, not to the authority of the preacher, but to the authority of the Word that comes through the mouth of the preacher, assuming that he is being led by the Spirit of God.

Well then, let's go to our task. Here is our Savior, and He is engaging in His delightful way of tuition in which He seizes upon parabolic expressions and will use visual aids. Never understood people who seem to be so proud these days that a visual aid is something they can't cope with in the pulpit.

You wouldn't have liked the teaching technique of Jesus Christ. He uses visual aids. Sometimes it's a sower who points in the distance out to the disciples.

Now, it's a vine. It's a vine that He espies and He makes this declaration, I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. Then He repeats with a slight modification in the fifth verse, I am the vine, you are the branches.

Now, I will be content this morning if all I do is merely to introduce the subject of the vine to you. There's so much stuff here that we're going to have to come back to it for two or three weeks. And to prise open the meaning of these twin statements, which are almost identical, I want to bring three words.

I want to bring the word redundant. I want to bring the word confident. And I want to bring the word expectant.

And you'll see how I use these words to lever open my text so that it yields the meaning that I believe is in the mind of our Lord Jesus. Our Saviour says, I am the true vine. And I say that immediately smacks of the word redundant in regard to Israel.

You say, what do you mean? All right, we've just been through an election. If I were to ask you what the emblem of the Labour Party was, you would say a rose. They took it from Lancashire.

And alas, it's looking a little withered at the moment. It's not exactly lived up. At least the election has not lived up to their expectations.

But the rose is the emblem of the Socialist Party. The Union Jack, it seems, has been taken over as the emblem of the Conservative Party. Now, in the day when our Lord Jesus was addressing the disciples, the emblem of the Jewish nation was the vine.

Now, he's moving down the alley between the upper room and what other houses were on the opposite side. And he moves down this roughly constructed road and out towards the temple area. And that great temple has on one of its doors emblazoned in gold the national emblem of the Jewish nation.

Many a wealthy Jew would have gladly given money to ensure that a new golden bunch of grapes were added to that emblazoned symbol. Because the Jews were a people who drew strength economically from the fact that they could grow vines. In the days of the Maccabees, that is the time between the Old Testament and the New Testament, the inscription on the Jewish shackle was the vine.

And if you look in the Old Testament, you'll find very, very often God refers to the nation in terms of the vine that he has planted. Let me give you an example of that. Let's go to the book of Psalms and to the 80th Psalm.

And here the Psalmist speaking the word of God to Israel makes this reference in the eighth and ninth verses. You brought a vine out of Egypt. You drove out the nations and planted it.

You cleared the ground for it. And it took root and filled the land. Psalm 80 verses eight and nine.

The vine, it was an indication of what the nation should have been. Do you recall when Jacob is on his deathbed? He has his sons in front of him and he gives them a blessing. And when Joseph comes in front, the words that fall from the mouth of Jacob, his old father, are these.

You are a fruitful vine. You draw your strength from a stream and you will spread over the wall. You ought to remember that benediction because George Duncan, who I gather is celebrating his 50th year in the ministry today, he preached a most remarkable sermon on that text while I was in South Africa and I enjoyed listening to it on my return.

This you see adumbrated, encapsulated in the words of Jacob is what the nation is to be like, the nation of Israel. Like a vine drawing strength from the stream, from the well near which its roots have been planted and the vine spreads over the wall. That's what the nation should have been like.

But unfortunately, there's a distinction between what the nation should have been and what the nation became. Let's go to Jeremiah chapter 2 and verse 21. And here you will find a contrasting observation and later on in this prophecy.

Jeremiah chapter 2 and verse 21. If I had planted you like a choice vine of sound and reliable stock, how then did you turn against me into a corrupt wild vine? Why was it that the Jewish nation turned against the very principles that God wanted them to illustrate to the rest of the countries surrounding them? Instead of being a luxuriant vine, to quote another description in the Old Testament, they became an empty vine. Instead of being a cultivated, mature vine, they became a wild vine.

The growth was rapid. The fruitage was little. And as a result of that, you discover our Lord Jesus in a parable in Matthew's gospel in the 21st chapter, referring to the way that God has turned away from the Jewish nation and given his vineyard to others.

Now, you see the point. When our Lord Jesus Christ, here in John's gospel, says, I am the true vine and my father is the gardener, he is speaking of himself in contrast with the Jews as they should have been. There's that temple with its golden gate.

There is the golden sign of the Jewish national emblem, the vine, standing for all the purposes of God, all that he wanted to do through the descendants of Abraham. But they rebelled against God. The vine became uncontrolled in its growth.

It went here, it went there, but it did not submit to the cultivation of the Lord. And as a result, Jesus says in this particular chapter, Israel is no longer God's vine. The vine reminds us of what Israel should have been, but was not, redundant.

Now, my friend, forget Israel for a moment. What about yourself? What about what you should be? What about what you are? Is there a difference? Is there a distinction? Do you have a problem coming back to my opening observation of being fruitful in the service of God? If so, you see, Israel will speak to you inasmuch as it didn't do for the Lord what he wanted. Now, if you're in that condition, maybe our Lord Jesus has more to teach you from this great passage of scripture.

I am the vine. I am the true vine, says our Lord. And first of all, we deduce it speaks of redundancy.

Israel did not fulfill the purposes of God as a nation. But then if I can continue with this simple declaration from our Lord, I bring to it the word confident. I am the true vine.

Here is the Savior speaking. He's speaking of himself. And he is with great confidence saying that what Israel was not, he is.

Now, in John's gospel, on several occasions, we come across our Lord making these declarations, do we not? I am the light of the world. I am the bread of life. And here I am the vine.

But those of you who have a good, precise knowledge of scripture will recall that our Lord does not only say, I am the bread. He says, I am the true bread. He doesn't just say, I am the light.

He says, I am the true light. And here, holding trust Christ with what he has said before, we discover his declaration. I am the true vine.

Now, you've not got to use that word true or see that word true as though our Lord was saying everything else was false. Rather, he is saying everything that a vine should be in an absolute ideal sense is illustrated by his life. I am the true vine.

This is what Israel should be like. These are what you disciples, this is what you disciples ought to be like. I am God's vine.

I give my life in creating fruit for that is what a vine exists for. There's very little in the way of flowering with a vine in Palestine. The vine in and of itself is quite an ugly plant.

What gives the vine its usefulness is the fruit that it makes. It spends its life being fruitful. Why did the Lord Jesus come into the world? The 14th chapter tells you I come to do the works of my Father, to be fruitful in His service.

Israel never was. Many Christians never are. They've drawn the succor of salvation but they know very little of the fruit of sanctification.

So, our Lord comes along with great confidence and he says, I am the vine, the true. This is how you ought to model your life. On me, the vine of Judaism had withered away through its sin and its selfishness, pursuing its own interests.

And our Lord, seemingly, if I have got the geographical situation right, stimulated by the sight of the vine on the temple gate, stands there, so to speak, amongst the ruin of the vine as far as God was concerned, as far as the nation was concerned, and he excommunicates the Jews from the position of privilege and responsibility which they have held. And yet he says, God has not failed. The purposes of God are not abandoned.

He who created a vine to bring forth fruit is not defeated. I am the vine. What God could not achieve through the Jewish nation because of its self-seeking, I will achieve.

I am the vine, the true. What a man. Don't forget all that he's come from and all that he's moving towards.

He's come from the treachery of one of his disciples. He's come from the squabbling that there was two or three hours ago amongst the close group of faithful men. He's moved out into the darkness of the night and each hour brings him nearer to Kidron and ultimately to Gethsemane and beyond that to Calvary.

There's the conniving of the Jews. There's the obduracy of Pilate. All hell waits to be let loose against this man.

And yet he can say, speaking within the confines of the temple area, I am the true vine. The purposes of God will be worked out through me. I say again, what a man.

What a remarkable proclamation. How he is able to perceive clearly what his objectives are and against all the odds to gamble his own life as being the one through which the purposes of the Almighty shall be achieved. With a background of a redundant Judaism, I am the true vine.

You see, stimulating our Savior was the prophetic word of God. In the Old Testament, in the authorized version of Ezekiel 34, 29, you discover this text. I will raise up for them a plant of renown.

When Judaism has fallen, when its corruption is obvious, God says I will raise up a plant of renown. Here is our Savior, the vine, the unlovely vine. He had no beauty, no comeliness.

When we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire from him. Why? Because our Lord Jesus in his death will go through such terrible pain and terrible shame and yet he remains. The unlovely in one sense, vine of God who will fruit with salvation and the potential of sanctification for all those who will draw sap from him.

He grew up before him, says Scripture, the prophetic word, speaking of our Lord Jesus. He grew up before him as a shoot out of a dry ground. I am the true vine, my father is the gardener, he's the husbandman.

You see, I've no need to be aware, afraid of Herod and Pilate and all the rest, no more than when an infant I needed if I'd have had the knowledge to have been afraid of Herod the Great and his conniving against me. Why? Well, my father, my father looks after me as a tender vine, as a tender plant. He can keep Herod at bay.

He can move my guardian Joseph so that he takes me as an infant from the confines of Bethlehem to Egypt. How wonderful was the husbandry of the father was he related and directed his love towards the son. I am the true vine.

I can rest in the confidence of father. I have no undue anxiety. I can speak to you disciples, let not your heart be troubled because mine's not troubled.

I'm the true vine and father is the gardener. He has the prophetic word. He has knowledge of the paternal care.

His father will never leave him. His father will never forsake him. You see, chapter 14 speaks of father and me all the time, doesn't it? Father, father, father.

It's there in the 14th chapter. My friend, if you have an inadequate understanding of the fatherhood of God, you will never have a basic grasp of the truth of Christianity. For Christianity does not just preach Jesus Christ crucified, though that summarizes the message of salvation.

Christianity teaches of this great heavenly father who had an infinite concern for the life of his son when he comes on earth. And don't you see father has a concern for you? You have the prophetic word. I'll never leave you.

I'll never forsake you. You have paternal care which is directed towards you because as father loved the son, so father loves all to whom, all that have been given to the son by him and that includes yourself. So our savior says, I am the true vine and it speaks, I say, of the redundant Israel.

I am the true vine. It speaks of the confident savior. And what's more? I am the true vine.

You are the branches. It speaks of the expectant disciples. You are the branches.

You know, our savior had amazing trust, didn't he? Do you ever wonder why God places you in the place where he has? Some of you who work full time in Christian organizations, do you wonder why the Lord has you there? Would you say with me without a blush on your face of an attempt of false piety, you wonder why God ever made you the leader of that outfit, the pastor of that church, the leader of that organization, the head of this family. Do you wonder? I am the vine, the true vine. All the purposes of God are encapsuled in me and you, Peter, John, Matthew, Thomas, you are the branches.

A redundant Judaism. I accept the purposes of my father. They will be fulfilled in me and through me they will be fulfilled in you.

The Lord Jesus Christ is going to gamble the future of the purposes of his father amongst these eleven men. As I speak reverently and thoughtfully, he gambles the purposes of God in the 1980s here in this coastal town by involving you in them. Now the only thing that keeps me sane as a Christian leader is to realize that the analogy of the vine and the branches speaks of this, that the branch does not have life in itself.

It rather draws life from the vine. You see my problems are always duplicated in the tabernacle when I confuse the distinction between being the vine and being the branch. It's part of the weakness of my character to think I'm the vine.

Not that I want to be in charge, but I forget that within the omnipotence of God, he's got a great deal more in terms of reserves that he can bring into play in the creation, the bringing to pass of his will. I'm only a branch. The Lord Jesus is the vine.

My Christian brother in full-time service or my sister in full-time service, if you've got the wrong idea as I sometimes have, then get comfort from this. You as a branch are to draw strength from him who is the vine. The branch exists for three things.

First of all, it exists to conform to the branch, to the vine. You see, the branch of the vine is a duplicate of the vine itself. It's thinner, it's slender, and it has no life in itself, but it is a duplicate.

And this, my friend, is what this teaching is all about. Peter, Thomas, the whole of the bunch, no, they can't possibly achieve the purposes of God in and of themselves as lopped-off branches, but they're not lopped-off branches. They're part of the vine.

They draw sap, they draw strength from the one who is the true vine. This is why it's so important that I preach time and time again, ad infinitum, I and I'll risk it ad nauseam, that it is not sufficient, my friend, for you to be convinced as to the truth of Christianity in your mind alone. I'm against an arid theology that speaks only in terms of word and is devoid of experience.

I must draw life from the vine, and that is not just an intellectual thing, it is an emotional thing. It affects my total personality. It's what is meant by drawing life from the Spirit, being overwhelmed by the Spirit, being baptized by the Spirit.

All that our Lord sets up in the 14th chapter, He anticipates in the 15th. And if you'll never live in the 15th and only live in the 14th, then that's the reason, my friend, why there's foliage but no fruit, why there isn't the replica of the vine within you as the branch. You're to conform to He who is the vine.

You are to remain in Him. The old-fashioned word is the best one in the Avey, abide in Him, make your dwelling in Him. He who remains in me, he who abides in me shall glorify my Father, remaining, conforming.

Finally, I'll take this up next week. Cleansing, constantly being cleansed by Him who is the vine, or rather by Him who is the husbandman, the gardener of the vine. Jesus says, verse 3, you are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.

A vine is a very, very sensitive plant. You see, you wash vines, at least you do in Palestine, you lift up the leaves, you get behind the foliage, you take out the insects, you take out everything that's grown that is extraneous to the vine, which will prevent its growth. It's not so much pruning.

I think the NIV and the Avey have got it wrong. It's cleansing. The NIV note in the margin is best.

The cleansing of the vine is basic to your growth. Now, don't you understand, that was the reason 25 minutes ago I said, are you prepared to submit to the authority of Scripture? Because submitting to the authority of Scripture is letting the Holy Spirit lift the leaves of your personality and take away the insects that have grown there, the moss or whatever that is not vital to your growth, indeed will prevent your fruitage. Now, some people don't like this sort of ministry.

I can understand it. It's painful. It's painful to me to preach it, let alone for you to listen to it.

But if you will not take from the Word of God what are instructions for your life, for your spiritual growth, if you will not bring yourself under its authority, then no wonder there is a lack of fertility and a lack of assurance. It's bound to follow, you see. So this is what our Savior has been teaching His disciples in this magnificent second part of His discourse.

I am the vine, the true vine, and with a breaking heart He would have told you of the redundance of Israel. How oft would I have gathered you under my wings as a hen gathered her chicks, but you wouldn't. He speaks with great confidence.

I am the vine, the absolute. The purposes of God will be worked out through me. I am the vine.

You are the branches. He speaks with an expectant heart as to what these men, embryonic, symbolic of the church will be as they draw sap from He who remains ever. God's renowned plant.

God's vine through whom His eternal purposes shall be worked out in our world. More next week. He is the vine, the true vine.

embryonic, symbolic of the church will be as they draw sap from He who remains ever. God's renowned plant. God's vine through whom His eternal purposes shall be worked out in our world.

God's vine through whom His eternal purposes shall be worked out in our world. May His beauty threshold keep the lost away See Him In a few moments our service comes to another of its climaxes as we come around the table of God the table of the Lord. I invite you to participate if you confess the Lord Jesus as your saviour.

This evening a colleague of mine a senior colleague, Bob Stokes, will be bringing the ministry. I would encourage as many as you can to hear this man who's done some remarkable work for God in the decades of the life that God has granted him. Father, teach us always the difference between being a fruit tree and a Christmas tree.

Amen.