John 15:1-8. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, January 30, 2022.
What does God really want from me? We are answering this question in a series of sermons of which this is the third.
Our last two sermons focused on God’s desire for us to connect to Jesus through whole life Worship and to connect to his people through authentic relationships. Everything starts there. Without a real connection to Jesus, we will not be able to connect to His people. These other purposes then become a lifeless exercise of a moral do-gooder, as they say.
So now, we move to the next purpose that God has for us, spiritual growth. God wants us to grow spiritually through intentionally becoming like Jesus.
Similar to how connecting had an individual aspect and a corporate aspect to it, so too, there is a personal and group dynamic to our spiritual growth.
Also, don’t forget that at the heart of each of these purposes is the demonstration that Jesus is worthy of our whole life. The way I connect spiritually and grow spiritually either tells God that He is worthy, or it tells Him that I’m only interested in doing it my way. Thus, it is not merely a box to check off of a list.
We are going to see in our passage that a true living connection will always create true growth. Let’s look at John 15:1-8.
Jesus shared this analogy with his disciples depicting spiritual growth. This vine imagery is used of Israel by the prophets, so it would have been very familiar to the disciples. Here are some examples: Psalm 80:15; Isaiah 5; Jeremiah 12:10f; and Malachi 4:1-2. In this analogy, Jesus explains what the important elements are portraying right up front.
First of all, Jesus is the true vine. The use of the adjective “true” should not be overlooked. There is a true vine, but there are also false fines in this world. Those false vines beckon for us to connect to them. Deuteronomy 32:32-33 calls it a Vine of Sodom.
32 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom and of the fields of Gomorrah;
Their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter.
33 Their wine is the poison of serpents, and the cruel venom of cobras.
This is the vine that we were tied into before we came to Jesus. It promises life, but, in the end, it sucks the life out of you. There is no vine like Jesus. He gives true life, and enables us to bear true fruit.
This vine imagery is mixed with another agricultural metaphor, the fruit tree. God warned with the prophets that the fruit tree of Israel would be chopped down, but out of the stump a branch from the root of Jesse would grow up and become bigger than the original tree. This is true also of the vineyard. God spoke of Israel as His vineyard. The vineyard has gone bad and sour, but a branch or a vine will grow up from the Lord to rebuild the vineyard.
Next in verse 1, we are told that the Father is the pruner. There is a contrast between the word for “takes away” in verse 2 and “prune” in that same verse. They both involve cutting, but one is a lopping off of the whole branch, whereas the second, is to cut out smaller parts of the branch so that it can be fruitful. God is not quick on the trigger of lopping people off of the true vine, but He will if He has to do so for the sake of the other branches.
Another important point is that the word for “prune” in verse 2 and “clean” in verse 3 is the same word. It essentially means to clean. Thus, pruning was seen as cleaning a branch. You remove the dead stuff, and make room for growth by also getting rid of perfectly good parts of the branch so that oxygen and sunlight can reach the fruit well.
This shows us a distinction in the work of the Son and the Father. The Son’s job is to make a connection with us so life can flow into us. The Father’s job is to maintenance the vine and everything connected to it.
The disciples of Jesus are, of course, the branches in this analogy. In fact, anyone who believes today is a branch on the true vine of Jesus. The analogy is showing that we are intended to be fruitful for The One who owns the vineyard. Now, can you see why connection is so important? It is what enables us to grow.
Now that we have all of the important elements of this analogy, let’s look at the teaching that Jesus gives us about spiritual growth.
There are many people who become disciples of Jesus, but that doesn’t mean that they are truly disciples of Jesus. The truth is that there are fruitful and unfruitful disciples of Jesus.
We can be tempted to think of this as being about people who are strong and can “get it done,” versus people who are weak and don’t. However, Jesus points to something more fundamental that just production.
Perhaps first, we should ask ourselves what is meant by “fruitful.” It would be easy to only think of this as bringing other people to Christ. This would be fruitful. However, it is far more likely that Jesus sees fruitfulness here as being transformed by our living connection to him. Over time a believer that has a living connection to Jesus will become more like Jesus. Of course, this is not a mystical thing. Jesus explains to us exactly why some disciples fail to become like him, and others do.
Twice in a row, in verses 4 and 5, Jesus tells them that they must “abide” in him, or “remain” in him in order to be fruitful. At first, it just looks like God is getting rid of dead wood. However, Jesus then explains that if you are really connected to him, you will bear fruit. Thus, we are left with only one reason why the “lopped off” branches were unfruitful. They lacked a real living connection to Jesus.
We can try and blame things on God, but that is a no-win game. Jesus really is life, and if you really connect to him, his life will really flow into you. The life that is within Jesus will flow into your life and it cannot help but make a change.
Jesus tells them that they are “clean,” or pruned, because of the word that he has spoken to them. Of course, for us, it is the Bible, which is their accurate account of all that Jesus taught. I must stay connected to the life of Jesus by daily taking in his word, and listening to the leading of the Holy Spirit. As we hear the Word, and then do it, we are pruning off things like sin, and lazy habits, that keep us from being fruitful. These for sure have to be cut out. However, sometimes God prunes off things in our life that aren’t necessarily bad. Just like a pruner removes good branches so that oxygen and sunlight can reach the fruit, so God calls us to remove things that are getting in the way of good growth.
Sometimes people act like they don’t have time to read the Bible, or join a Bible Study. Most likely, they have things in their life that are crowding out God’s word.
Ask yourself, what is more important? Nothing is more important than the word of God. It is eternal life.
Let’s close by looking at verse 8. Those who maintain a living connection to Jesus will glorify the Father. Bearing fruit becomes another litmus test in the will of God. Jesus is the first litmus test to those who claim to love God. The real One True God sent Jesus. If you really love God, then you will love Jesus. Similarly, spiritual growth is the litmus test of whether or not I am truly connected to Christ. You can try and fake it by making surface changes, but those changes will not be living changes, nor will they last.
The greatest way to show God the Father that He is the most important thing to you in the universe is to become like His Son, Jesus. It is to say, “Yes,” to a life of discipleship. If you are going to become like Jesus it will take a lot of repenting, a lot of studying God’s Word, a lot of introspection concerning what needs to change, and lastly perseverance, that is, not giving up.
The alternative is nothing to desire. God is not playing games. It is not enough to be in the right place and say the right things. We must have a real living connection to Jesus by the Spirit of God and The Word. Our life must really be that courageous life of fighting those battles, one by one. Perhaps, we may lose one here or there. Yet, always we will be helped by the God who loves us.