You Are the Branches

Introduction

Good evening. Thank you all for being here this evening. I’m going to ask you to turn to John chapter 15. John chapter 15, and we’re going to begin our study there in just one second. John chapter 15. I’ve appreciated being with you and the time that you’ve the elders have allotted to me to deliver lessons and share some of God’s word with you. I wish we had more sessions. And that’s just the scheduling of it didn’t work out. But unfortunately, tonight is the first night we’re skipping one of the chapters of John, and we’re skipping one of my favorite chapters, John 14. Because what Jesus says there and shares there as he’s talking about his famous last words, these last words that he chooses before he dies.

These weighty last words, he tells his apostles to not let their hearts be troubled, to believe in God, and to believe also in him.

Which is so true, right? Because Jesus was never afraid to say the hard things. When somebody comes up to him and says, Hey, are a few people going to heaven? He says, Yes, even though that’s kind of a hard truth. And he says, You can believe it, because I always tell you the truth, even when it’s easier when it’s hard. And we have to skip that lesson to move on to some other lessons. But man, I really wish we could talk about it tonight. But we’re in John 15 instead, talking about what Jesus says here, this metaphor he gives us. You know, Jesus is very fond of metaphors. He uses them all the time in his preaching. He is the good shepherd, and we are the sheep.

He is the bridegroom and we are the bride. He is the light of the world and the bread of life, and his invitation to eternal life is described as an invitation to a wedding feast. But when Jesus is about to leave this world in this last night, his last chance to speak to his disciples before the cross, he picks one final picture. And this is the lasting image that he wants to burn into his disciples’ mind before he leaves them, goes to the cross, and returns to the Father. I am the vine, and you are the branches. That’s his last picture, his last metaphor. And it’s something that his disciples need to hold on to tightly. I am the vine, you are the branches. John 15 and 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 bears fruit, he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 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 who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up, and they gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. Just as the Father has loved me, I have also 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, so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

1. Jesus Bears Fruit Through Me

And as you might expect, there’s a lot of very important truths that are buried in that metaphor. Truths that I want to explore with you this evening. What exactly does Jesus mean? What does he want us to glean from this idea that he is the vine and we are the branches? Well, here are several things that I think are important to take away from that. The first thing is this that means he is the vine, we are the branches. That means that Jesus bears fruit through me. Jesus bears fruit through me. That’s the way it works with living things, any living thing. The vine bears fruit through its branches. And that’s what Jesus does for us, does through us. He bears fruit. And think about what exactly that means.

What does it mean to bear fruit? Well, it means that you produce something, right? It means you accomplish something. You have a product as a result of your labor. But not just that you do something, that you produce something that is good, something that is a blessing to other people. You plant an apple seed in the ground and it grows into an apple tree. And from the roots from the trunk of that apple tree, it branches out and it gives you apples, right? Something good is produced through the vine. And that’s what Jesus is saying about us. I am the vine, you are the branches. In other words, he’s saying, you are the thing I’m going to use to bless the people of this world.

And isn’t that an astounding thought? That the God of heaven, who could by a word from his mouth or a snap from his fingers, do whatever he wants to bless this world. What he does instead is he chooses you and me. He chooses us. He chooses his church, his disciples, and says, the thing I’m going to use to make this world wonderful and awesome is you. I am the vine, you are the branches. We bear his fruit. Isn’t that what Jesus goes on to say in Matthew 5? Verses 13 through 14, he says that we are the salt of the earth and we are the light of the world. The God of heaven uses us. We are his branches, we are his vessels, we are his conduit.

2. Bearing Fruit Is My Purpose

We are the thing he uses to bless the people in this world. Jesus bears fruit through you and me. But not just that, he is the vine, we are the branches, and that means also that bearing fruit is my purpose. To bear fruit for Jesus, to accomplish good things through him and to bless this world. That is my purpose. That is why I’m here. That’s what he made me and what he made you to do. Understand, again, this is the way it works with branches and vines and all this stuff. Branches don’t multitask, do they? You ever seen a branch multitask? You see a branch has got apples on it and grapes on well, grapes wouldn’t come from branches, they come from anyway. Don’t worry about that.

Y’all, the science teacher again can correct that for me later. But branches don’t multitask. Branches do one thing, they produce fruit after their kind. That’s what they do. And we need to appreciate that the same thing is true for us. That this is our entire purpose to bear fruit for Jesus is the reason why I’m here. Jesus, the whole purpose of my life is for me to bless others through Jesus. In Romans chapter six we get this idea Romans chapter 6 beginning in verse 11. I love this passage because it speaks so strongly to what our purpose is here in this earth. Romans chapter 6 and verse 11 Paul says even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness but present yourself to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. He says, your body, what you are, now that you’ve been saved by Christ, baptized in water, and raised to walk in newness of life, you are an instrument of Christ. And that doesn’t mean like a saxophone or a flute. It means you’re a tool. You’re one of the tools in God’s tool shed that He’s going to use to bless this world. That is your purpose. That’s why you’re here. And also because He is the vine and we are the branches.

3. Bearing Fruit Is My Greatest Source of Joy

That means that bearing fruit for Him is my greatest source of joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment. There is nothing that is going to fill me up and make me more happy than when I am fulfilling my purpose and bearing fruit for my master. And I think you can see that in the world. You can see that in the way it works with living things too. There is an undeniable beauty to living things that are bearing fruit. Isn’t there? You can see that when you look out into the world. A plant that is bearing fruit is a beautiful plant. It’s full and verdant and lush and vibrant. You look at a plant that’s that’s flowering or producing what it’s supposed to be producing, and you can see that’s something that’s truly alive.

Can’t you? You know, in the winter, which you know, we all just went through, of course, a little bit less so in the south than in the north, of course. But in the winter, plants go dormant, right? They stop producing. And then in the far north, you have plants, they trees, they drop their leaves and they grow all like sickly and bare, and you look at that thing. You look at a tree that’s lost all of its leaves in the winter when it’s not producing anything, and it’s ugly, right? It is dreadfully ugly. Look at your grass right now. It’s not very pretty, is it? It’s all brown when it’s supposed to be green because it hadn’t quite gotten all, you know, lively and all that stuff yet.

And it’s it’s not what it’s supposed to be, and you can tell. But you find a plant or grass or tree that’s really producing fruit. And it’s something that’s undeniably beautiful, isn’t it? In Florida, we have these trees. They’re called yellow trumpet trees. And they are for the most of the year, they’re totally bare. They got these little leaves on them, and they’re kind of ugly. But for like six weeks in the spring, they’re about to come out. They put off these yellow flowers that are like highlighter yellow, and they just pop. It is one of the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen when one of those yellow trumpet trees is in full bloom. And you look at that and you say, that’s beautiful. It’s fulfilling its purpose.

It’s doing what God created it to do. And I want you to understand the same is true for us. That we’re branches. And that means that bearing fruit is our purpose. And that means that bearing fruit is our ultimate source of joy, fulfillment, and happiness. Bearing fruit is the thing that makes us really alive. It’s the thing that refreshes our souls. It’s the thing that brings us satisfaction and joy. It’s the thing that fills me up and colors my life. Notice what Jesus says, John 15 in verse 11, after he talks about all of this, you know, branches and fruit and trees and all this stuff, he says in verse 11, these things I have spoken to you, so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

And I think that’s an important thing for us to recognize. That the only way for me to have joy and fulfillment in this life is to live a life that glorifies God. And I think it’s important for us to recognize that we are not going to find that joy or fulfillment or happiness anywhere else. You are not going to find it in money or followers on Instagram. You’re not going to find it in friends. You’re not going to find fulfillment in a good reputation before men. You’re not going to find it in praise and recognition from people. You’re not going to find it in sex or travel or experiences. You’re not going to find it in learning and getting a bunch of degrees. You’re not going to find it in sin, certainly.

You’re not even going to find that fulfillment in marriage or parenthood and family. Now, don’t get me wrong, we certainly do bear fruit and have responsibilities when it comes to those things. But don’t think for a second that thing in and of itself is what’s going to fill you up with joy and meaning and purpose. It won’t. You try to make your marriage the purpose of your life. You know what you’ll do? You’ll wreck it. It’s not supposed to be the purpose in you. You try to make your kids the sole source for why you’re alive. You try to make them your everything. What are you going to do? You’re going to break them. Because they’re not supposed to be that. You are not going to find your joy and fulfillment and satisfaction in anything.

4. Pruning Is Necessary

Except using your life to glorify God in living for his purpose. And let me say this fourthly. Because he is the vine and we are the branches, that means that pruning is necessary. This is what Jesus says in John 15, John 15, verses 1 and 2. I am the vine. I am the true vine, my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. And so what Jesus is saying is that sometimes, for those who are bearing fruit and living according to his purpose, there comes a time when it’s necessary for that to be for us to be pruned and cut and adjusted a little bit.

That’s what happens with living things. Again, when you have a tree that’s that’s growing and flowering, sometimes what you do is you get tree trimmers, and sometimes they mutilate your tree and they cut off way more than they should. But if they’re good, right, they trim off the parts that don’t need to be there so that the rest of the tree can grow the way it’s supposed to grow. That’s what you do when you prune something. You cut away things that are going to inhibit the growth of the tree. And that may be painful, and it may not be exactly the nicest or easiest thing in the world, but it’s necessary for the tree to grow. And Jesus says sometimes that’s what’s going to happen to us.

Sometimes what God does is he comes into our lives and he cuts things away. He does things to us that are uncomfortable. He causes us to endure things that aren’t the most fun experiences in the world, but he does that because he knows that going through this and enduring this is going to make us bear more fruit for him. God cuts things out of our lives to promote growth. Sometimes that’s sin, but it’s not always sin. Sometimes God cuts away opportunities. Sometimes God cuts away relationships that we were excited about but didn’t work out the way we wanted them to. Sometimes God just cuts away distractions and other things that aren’t necessarily bad, but they’re distracting us from our true purpose and our focus. And we need to be willing, as branches, to allow God to engage in that pruning process.

5. The Secret to Bearing Fruit Is Connection

He is the vine. We are the branches. And that means that sometimes pruning is necessary. We have to let God cut away in us so that we can bear more fruit for his glory. But I want you to appreciate this finally, because he is the vine and we are the branches, that also means that the secret to bearing fruit is connection. The secret to bearing fruit is connection. I don’t know how many of you guys have been to Temple Terrace, Florida, but one of the most striking aspects of the community is the live oak trees that we have. I know you guys got some oaks here. Y’all have live oaks here. I don’t know. Y’all don’t know. Who knows? But we have these live oaks that they grow and they get huge and they’ve been alive for so many, so many years.

And what they end up doing is they end up sending these branches out in all different directions, and they become these gargantuan trees, right? You got branches that have extended out, and then because it’s so heavy, they start dropping, and then they get parallel to the ground, and then at some point they drop and they hit the ground, then they come back up and they curl around, and it’s like 80 feet long this branch is, and that’s what the live oak tree looks like. But if you find one of those trees and you look at one of those branches that’s like 80 feet extended out there, guess what you’re gonna find at the end of that branch? Leaves. You’re gonna find life. And even though it is so far away from the trunk, it still bears fruit because it’s still connected to the root.

And we need to understand that’s the secret to bearing fruit as disciples of Jesus. That the only way we’re going to bear fruit is by staying connected to him. That’s what Jesus says in John 15, verse 4. He says, 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 who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up, and they gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

I want you to appreciate how powerful those words are. Jesus says, Apart from me, you can do nothing. It’s a humbling and sobering statement, isn’t it? You are a branch. And ultimately, what we have to recognize is branches are powerless, branches are impotent, branches can’t do anything. You cut a branch off of a tree, and instantly what happens to that branch is it begins to dry up and it begins to die. You cut a branch off from a tree and it can’t do anything. It can’t accomplish anything because branches can’t do anything apart from the vine, apart from the root, apart from the trunk. It loses its ability to do anything. And Jesus says the same is true for us. He is the vine, we are the branches, and that means that if we are not connected to him, if we are disconnected from him, we can do nothing.

Nothing. And understand the finality of that, right? He doesn’t say, hey, if you’re disconnected from me, you can’t do as much. If you’re disconnected from me, you’re not going to do as much as you might be able to do. If you are disconnected from me, you can’t do anything. So he says, abide in me. Abide in me. What Jesus is saying here is that you and I, you and I are completely dependent on him. He says that we cannot bless others without him. We cannot bear fruit if we do not abide in him. We cannot have that fullness of joy that he talked about if we are not connected to him. We are utterly bankrupt and empty and dried up and dead unless we abide in him.

So Jesus says Abide in me, because apart from me, you can do nothing. Abide in me. What does that mean? Sounds really nice. We sing the song all the time, right? Well, maybe y’all don’t. Y’all sing lots of new songs. I don’t know them, and they’re wonderful. What does it mean to abide in Jesus? What does it mean for us to be completely dependent on Jesus? And I think depending on who you would ask, you’d get different answers to that question, right? Somebody may say, look, abiding in Jesus means that you really trust him. It means that you’re really assured of your salvation. Or maybe somebody would say, abiding in Jesus means I have a really deep spiritual connection to him. Like deep down within my soul, I just feel like I’m close to Jesus.

That’s what it means to abide in him. Somebody might say, Well, it means that I have a really intense and robust prayer life. I talk to him all the time. I’m abiding in him. And you may listen to that, and you may say, Yeah, that’s what I think too. That’s what it means to abide in Jesus. And if I’m being completely honest, that’s the assumption I brought to this text when I began to prepare the sermon. I actually, I wanted to make that point. And so this is a perfect example of Isegesis in the set of exegesis, right? I wanted to make that point, so I came to this text because I thought it would support that point. But when you really study it, you understand that’s it’s not exactly what Jesus is saying here.

Now, by no means do I intend to lessen the importance of those other things. It’s important to have a robust prayer life. I hope you feel close to Jesus deep within your soul. I agree. But that’s not what Jesus is talking about in this text. That’s not what he says in this text. It means to abide in him. Jesus tells us what it means in John 15, beginning in verse 7. He says, If you abide in me, in my words abide in you. Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. Just as the Father has loved me, I have also 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, so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. You know what Jesus tells us? You know what it means to abide in Jesus? It means to obey Jesus. It means to let his words be in you, to let them influence your life, to let them dictate your behavior. It means that you keep his commandments and thus abide in his love. Abiding in Jesus means obeying Jesus. It means that in my life I diligently seek to know his will. I read his word, I study his word, I do everything I can to understand what exactly it is that God wants from me.

And it means I don’t just do that, but I strive with everything that is in me to keep his will, especially the parts of it that are difficult or hard, that I don’t really like, that kind of cut against my nature or the things that I want to do. It means that we surrender to him completely. And we allow him to take full control of our lives. Like we talked about on Sunday night. Galatians 2.20. I’ve been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. That’s what it means to abide in Jesus. And I think also it means that we do it with a calm assurance. I don’t know about you, but when I hear that word abide, I think about, I think about something being connected.

I think about something, someone staying here without pushback, right? You ask your wife to abide with you, right? She’s not, you don’t got to grab onto her arm and ask her not to run away, right? If she abides with you, she’s staying with you. You don’t have to make her stay, right? She’s there. I should have used kids instead of wife. That would be that would have been a more appropriate metaphor, sorry. Abide with me. You do it with a calm assurance. That when you obey Jesus, you don’t do it with anxiety and fear and dread, and you don’t find yourself constantly kicking against his rules, trying to find a loophole around them. But you understand, you understand and you believe with all your heart that when I follow his will, I’m going to bear much fruit.

We abide in him, we obey him with a calm assurance. Abiding in Jesus means obeying Jesus. And it seems to me that the devil has done a fine job of making obedience seem like an unimportant thing or a lesser thing. In our culture, the word obedience leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. How do you feel about that? That word obedience. Just sounds kind of mean saying it, doesn’t it? Obedience in our culture is seen as low and undignified. Those people who demand obedience are portrayed as oppressive and selfish. And those people who choose to be obedient themselves, they’re seen as lowly and unworthy of respect. People who cherish obedience are viewed as suckers or even unspiritual people. Obedience doesn’t get a good rap. And I want you to appreciate that’s the gambit the devil’s been running from the very beginning.

Isn’t that exactly what he tells Adam and Eve? Don’t listen to God. Don’t be obedient. If you’re obedient, you’re just letting God pull the wool over your eyes, right? If you’re being obedient, you don’t understand. God doesn’t want you to eat from that tree because he knows you’ll be like him, and he doesn’t want what’s best for you. Don’t be a sucker, Eve. Don’t fall for it, Eve. Don’t be obedient. That’s just for people who don’t know better. That’s what he’s always been telling us. Obedience doesn’t get great press. And you know why that is? Because Jesus says, I am the vine and you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.

That’s why the devil wants us to think that obedience is bad. That’s why he wants us to think it’s lowly and undignified, because he knows that when we are disconnected, when we disobey, when we live lives that don’t conform to the will of God, we can do nothing. He knows that without obedience, Jesus cannot bear fruit through you. He knows that if you are without obedience, bearing fruit, well, you’ll never fulfill your purpose. He knows that without obedience, you can never find true joy in fulfillment. He knows that with without obedience, no matter how much God prunes you, it’s not going to do any good because you’re not going to bear any fruit. And he knows that without obedience, you’ll be disconnected from the source of your life.

And you will die. Brothers and sisters, we need to hear what the Spirit says. He says, We are the branches. And that means that Jesus bears fruit through me. It means bearing fruit is my purpose. It is my ultimate source of joy. It means that I need to be connected to him so that I can bear that fruit that he wants me to bear. But if the devil can convince me that obedience is not important, then he’s got everything he’s always wanted as it relates to me. He’ll rob my joy. He will make me impotent and useless in the kingdom. And ultimately, eventually, he’ll kill me. And I think that’s actually one of the reasons why he’s so successful. That word eventually. Because you and I both know that this isn’t something that happens in an instant, is it?

The second you sin, the second you depart from his commands, do you die? No. I want you to appreciate that’s the way it works in the physical world as well. So coming in, I made sure that I stopped by one of your plants and defaced it. So I got a little branch here. He’s a little warm because he’s been in my pocket. How’s this branch look? It looks okay, doesn’t it? It’s still green, it’s still firm, it’s still got nice little lines on it and everything like that. It doesn’t look like it’s dying. But what do you know is going to happen to this in just a little bit? Even though it looks healthy and it looks just like it did when it was on the plant, you know that because it is disconnected from its source of life, eventually, already it’s drying up, it’s dying, it’s going to get brown, it’s going to crinkle, it’s going to fall apart and disintegrate eventually.

That’s the picture of the Christian life when we don’t obey. It doesn’t happen instantly. You don’t fall apart the second you make one bad choice, but eventually, as we are disconnected from the vine, eventually that keeps that catches up with us, and eventually we are ruined. That’s the same point that Jesus makes in Matthew chapter 7 when he talks about the wise and foolish builder, isn’t it? They both build their houses and they both finish their houses, and it’s not like the second the foolish man builds his house, it falls apart. It doesn’t happen until what? Until the storms come. And that’s when you really find out the foundations of that house. And the same thing is true for us. Understand that eventually, if we are disconnected from his commandments in him, everything comes crashing down and falling apart.

Conclusion

It’s only a matter of time. And so, what Jesus says to all of us, what he says to all of us is, abide in me. Abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me. Because if you abide in me, you’ll bear much fruit. But apart from me, you can do nothing. I want to ask you this evening, if you’re abiding in Jesus, are you truly seeking in your life to submit your will to his and follow his commands? And maybe a more fundamental question for some of our, for some of our some of the people in this audience. Maybe you’re not connected to him at all. The Bible says that we can be saved by the blood of Jesus and we can become a child of his.

We can we can have that hope of eternal life in our souls, but if we’ve never done what we need to do to be saved from our sins, we aren’t connected from Him, and we will not be saved in the end. If we believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, if we’re willing to repent of our sins and confess our faith before men, we can be baptized in water to have our sins washed away, and we can be connected to our source of life. We can live with the hope of heaven in our hearts. If we can help you do that, we invite you to come to the front while we stand and while we sing. Amen.