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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text comes from the Gospel reading. You may be seated. Last Sunday, the relationship that was portrayed for us in the Gospel reading was Jesus being our Good Shepherd, and our relationship to Him was as His beloved sheep. And there were a lot of beautiful facets that Jesus spoke about in that Gospel reading from John chapter 10. This morning, Jesus talks about another relationship that’s very intimate and very clinging, and that is as He is our true vine, we are His branches. And the Father? The Father is the vine dresser.
Now, He uses this comparison to give you confidence. He wants you to make this connection that you and Jesus have a very intimate and connected relationship. He makes it so clear in this morning’s text; there are a couple of statements that I want you to be the foundation of everything else that is spoken about this morning. These two statements that Jesus spoke in this morning’s gospel are the foundation of everything that we’re going to talk about. The first statement says, Jesus said this, “Just like John spoke about in this morning’s Gospel, remember? This is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and gave His Son as a sacrifice for us.” That’s part of the foundation. The second part of the foundation is this: since the branch has its entire existence and life from the vine, the branch cannot bear fruit, Jesus said, by itself unless it abides in the vine. Apart from me, you can do nothing.
No matter how hard you will it, no matter how hard you discipline yourself, no matter how much you teach yourself, you cannot do it unless you are connected to the vine. That’s where the sap comes, the source of your life. That’s why this is foundational. He is why you are cleansed. His word spoken to you and His faith that He gave you is why you are clean and continue to be clean. Secondly, He is why you have an intimate relationship because you’ve been grafted into the vine. You’ve been made into the vine to bear fruit.
Why do branches bear fruit? Because they’re connected to, in a very intimate way, the vine. And the vine is Jesus. Every aspect of this intimate relationship between you and Jesus as vine and branch has its entire source, has its entire essence wrapped up, not in you, the branch, but in the vine, Jesus Christ. That is why Jesus gives you an invitation, an encouragement, and an exhortation in these words that Jesus said in this morning’s text when He said, “…abide in Me.” And I in you. He is saying, daily ground yourself in these foundational truths. Daily ground yourself in these foundational truths.
Your cleanness does not come from within, but from without. From Christ Himself. Your ability to produce fruit does not come from within, but from without. From the vine. Who brings you the fruit to produce? Paul said it another way. He said, we are not our own. We have been bought at a price. It’s the same thing Jesus is saying when He says, you are the vine, I am the branches. Apart from Me, you can do nothing. Now the vinedresser is the Father. And the vinedresser will not tolerate His branches exercising their will apart from the vine.
Such an attitude of exercising our will, not His will, denies the vine… And it denies our identity as branches. It’s actually thinking if we exercise our will outside of Christ, we’re really saying I don’t need the vine for anything except when it suits me, fits me, fulfills what I wish. Out of great love does the vine dresser do any of his work on you. He does not do his work on you to chastise you in meanness, punish you in wrath. He works on you so that you bear more fruit. It’s out of love. It’s out of relationship with you. It’s out of a very intimate connection with you that He does His work in you.
Have you ever seen a wild mustang plant or vine growing around here? Usually they’re in big groves, aren’t they? Why? Because they’re wild! Oh, they produce fruit. Wild mustang grapes, lots of people use them. They produce fruit. But if you compare that vineyard that’s wild, it looks enormous and big, and it’s very appealing to your eyes. The problem is that it doesn’t produce much fruit.
Have you ever seen a cultured vineyard? Go down to Fredericksburg if you haven’t. They’re not much to look at, are they? They’ve been trimmed back. Why? So that they produce more fruit. But how does the world look at a wild grape vineyard? …vineyard compared to a cultivated grape vineyard. If all you’re looking at is bigness, boldness, and brashness, it’s always going to outshadow the cultured grape. But to be a cultivated grape implies something, doesn’t it? It implies you have a relationship with a vine dresser. A wild grape has no relationship, and it just grows as it desires to grow, doesn’t it?
I didn’t grow up around grapes. I grew up, I didn’t say I grew up, but spent a lot of my life in the Kansas City area, and there in the Missouri River Valley, there are tons of apple orchards. And my first experience seeing an apple tree, up close and personal, because where I grew up, we didn’t have them, I was shocked at, they mangle and murder it to make it produce more apples. I mean, when you think of a tree, you think of this round and beautiful thing, and man, you go to a vineyard, they are hacked. So if I were to compare which tree, without it being any kind of blossoms or fruit on it, that would produce more fruit, I would quickly point to the wild one and not the cultured one.
Are you beginning to see a theme here in your life? You are going to appear and be different than the rest of the world. You will always look by the world as if you are less than. You will never look as robust. You will never look as glory-filled. You will never look as big. Kind of like… You’re vine in the world’s eyes. And yet, this trimming that God does to make you bear more fruit, this trimming as God’s loving Father He is to trim you comes through struggles, trials, tribulations, and temptations.
It is in your suffering that that foundational truth, you are already clean because of the word I spoke to you, become more real, doesn’t it? It’s very easy to kind of fluff over it when things are going well, but suffering pushes you and me to ask ourselves why and or to try to figure out the cause or the meaning behind it, and it makes clear to us that foundational truth that Jesus spoke to you. You are already clean because of the word I spoke to you. Do you know the only other place he talks about you being clean? To his disciples? Do you remember where that happened? It was in the upper room. Do you remember what event took place that He said, you are clean, if I’ve already cleaned you, when He washed their feet?
Who’s the actor? Jesus. And who’s the one being acted upon? The apostles. It’s the same here. As a cultivated tree, which is what you are, you see suffering coming through a different set of lens. You see trials, tribulations, and temptations through a different set of lens than the rest of the world does. The rest of the world looks at it as bad karma or whatever other bull they want to call it. You look at it and say, the vinedresser, that’s who is doing this. He loves me, my God. He has His fruit He wishes to produce in me, and this must be why.
If that’s the case… Then really we should be praying to God, “Lord, hoe away! Prune away, Lord! Add all the fertilizer you want to add, Lord! And do your work in me.” Don’t think you’ve been praying that much, have you? Because I don’t either. Because, quite frankly, it’s scary to be pruned like that. Whenever you’re pruned, you realize that your desires have to die. Whenever you’re pruned and suffer, you have to come to terms with the fact that it’s not about you. It’s about your Master, your vine. You’re just a branch.
When you suffer and when the vine dresser prunes you and fertilizes and hoes you, you and I come to terms with the fact it’s not about what I want. It is about what the Father desires to do in me. Through the sap of the vine, Christ Jesus. Remember Joseph, the prophet in the Old Testament, book of Genesis? He had the brothers, the beautiful coat, and was sold into slavery. Remember when his brothers kind of finally figured out that it was Joseph who was communicating to him as Pharaoh’s top dog? And then when Jacob, the father, dies, the brothers were all afear because they’re going, “Oh no, with dad dead, Joseph’s probably going to have us killed.” What does Joseph say to the brothers when this all comes to a head?
Do you remember what he said? He said to his brothers, “As for you, you meant evil to me.” Absolutely they did. Who was in control of the evil that the brothers meant to Joseph? Think about it. Who was in control of the evil the brothers did to Joseph but God the vine dresser? And as a branch, what did Joseph say? “But God meant it for good.” It’s about the fruit God produces in us and through us, not about my will and not about your will.
I mentioned one aspect of the fruit that comes from you and me being sifted, pruned. Another one is, think about what God does; one fruit that He produces by that suffering is that He gives you a more fervent prayer life, doesn’t He? You and I don’t pray nearly as much unless we’re humbled. One of the fruits He produces in you is a fervent prayer life. Another aspect is you and I don’t go back and look at our status in God’s sight more frequently than when we suffer and struggle. Am I in God’s sight a pleasing person? Yes, you are already clean because of the word I spoke to you. You are the branch that I grafted into my Son, the vine. You become more very confident of that fact.
And finally, the part that you and I miss is that is a fruit, a byproduct of God sifting, tempting, and trying you. Christ’s kingdom is expanded in spite of you and me. We want to be the golden child and be the great silver bullet to bring people to Jesus, but God does it through broken people, not through glory-filled hounds. He does it through broken pups with tails between their legs. He did it through Joseph. He did it through Abraham. He did it through David. He did it through Peter. He does it through you. And the pruning hook that the vine dresser loves to use is His holy word, where He reminds you, “You are clean because of the word I spoke to you, and you are in Him, abiding in Him, and He in you.” That’s the pruning hook that the vine dresser uses.
Is it hard to be a branch? Yes. And I know somebody who knows how you feel better than you do. The vine who submitted to the vine dresser so that you would have such comfort in the midst of your suffering that you may be so certain of your standing in God’s sight so that fruit is produced by Him who is your vine. Do you know the areas that He does this in in your life? It starts in you as son or daughter, as husband or as wife, as brother or sister, as father or mother. You want to be a better father? You want to be a better mother? You want to be a better husband? Buckle up and pray.
“Hoe away, Lord. Prune away and fertilize that I may be that.” Ooh, scary indeed to pray such a prayer, but it’s okay. God will do it in spite of you not praying for it. Because He loves you. You are already clean because of the word He spoke to you. At the very end of the text, He makes this very profound statement: “By this, my Father is glorified.” By what? The “this” of which he refers to is your life as the branch. God is glorified in your life.
Well, how can He be glorified? Because I’m not doing anything. Oh, that’s exactly right. He’s glorified because He’s doing it in you by the sap of that vine. You just happen to be glorified—a mere conduit. And He will prune you to bear more fruit that you prove to be His disciples.
Christ is risen. The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
