The True Vine | Tim Henderson

Jesus said, 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 does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he's thrown away like a branch and withers and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. By this, my father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

The gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Alright. So, I would like to run a little experiment and I'll ask you to play along with me as I do. Okay? Repeat after me. I am the true vine. I am the true vine. I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. We're halfway done, stay with me. I'm the true vine and my father is the gardener, he cuts off every branch in me. I the true vine, my father is the gardener, he cuts off every branch in me. I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit.

So I begin like that as a suggestion and a demonstration. The suggestion is that you memorize John 15. The demonstration is that you can. Absolutely. Clause by clause, short phrase by short phrase, repeated endlessly with monkish repetition. You can absolutely store this thing in your head and I recommend that you do because 15 is a treasure worth possessing. You guys, John 15 is holy ground.

This morning, I wanna begin a process here, it'll be this week and then we skip a week for compassion and the week after that, Sloop will finish it up or at least continue it. You guys, John 15 is filled with treasures, it is filled with gems. And what I wanna try to do this morning is give you just a little bit of a survey, we're gonna walk through, I'm gonna show you some things that I hope might as you memorize it, as you ruminate on it, as you come to treasure it, that you will find that it is just full of things that will be supremely helpful to you.

As we read through it, there's a bunch of things we'll observe. I wanna start at the top, we're just gonna walk our way through it. And I hope these things might serve as like anchor points as you memorize it this week, okay?

The True Vine

First thing that Jesus says is, I am the true vine. Now down to verse five, he's gonna say something similar. He's gonna say, I am the vine. But here the first time he does it, he says, I'm the true vine. And I wonder when you hear that, if it occurs to you that he's actually contrasting himself to something else. He's not just a vine, he's not just the vine, he is the true vine. So what is the false vine or the fake vine or the faithless vine to which he is or against which he's contrasting himself. Do you have any idea? Because there's an answer to this. What is he saying he is the true vine in contrast to? Do you know?

The Old Testament, there is frequently mention of a particular vine and it is the nation of Israel. One of the primary metaphor descriptors of Israel is that of a vine or a vineyard. And generally speaking you guys, it is a disappointing vine. It is a fruitless vine. It's a faithless vine. Isaiah five, I think is probably the quintessential example of this. Listen to Isaiah five.

I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard. My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choices vines. He built a watchtower in it and he cut out a wine press as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes but he yielded only bad fruit. Now, you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? Now I will tell you what I'm going to do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge and it will be destroyed. I will break down its wall and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland neither pruned nor cultivated and briars and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it. The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in. — Isaiah 5

And he looked for justice but saw bloodshed, for righteousness but heard cries of distress. You guys, it is specifically in contrast to that, that Jesus is saying, I am the true vine, my father is the gardener.

There are multiple times, multiple different ways that Jesus demonstrates that he is the better and truer version of something that the Old Testament had pictured. There was some person that was obligated to be something, or to do something, and they didn't do it. They wouldn't be it. And then Jesus shows up and he reads their script. He lives their life. He does what they were supposed to do. He is constantly what others were obligated to be, but failed to be. He is, was, remains.

So for instance, he is the true and better Adam. Jesus is the faithful king and priest who in the garden protected his bride, loved her well, and in fact, gave life to all those who are in him. Point for point, that was Adam's job and he blew it. Jesus is the true and better son of God. Israel is described as God's disobedient son. They're sent to Egypt for refuge and then called out of Egypt. They entered into the wilderness, but when they got into the wilderness, they rebelled and they disobeyed. And point for point, Jesus sent to Egypt for refuge, was called out of Egypt, went into the wilderness, but when he got to the wilderness, he obeyed. He did well what Israel did poorly. He is the one who has come to faithfully be what the people of God and people in general are supposed to be, but never are.

And in this instance, John 15, he is the true vine. He will be fruitful and he will bear good fruit. Now, notice to whom the vine belongs.

I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. — John 15:1

What that means you guys, is that the vine belongs to the father. The branches belong to the Father. And for our purposes this morning, the fruit belongs to the Father. I have a very small garden and I grow one thing in it, tomatoes. And do you know to whom those tomatoes belong? They belong to me. They are my fruit. They do not belong to the stems. They do not belong to the branches, and they do not belong to the deer and the rabbits. Those tomatoes are mine because I'm the gardener.

You guys, do you know who owns the fruit of your life? It is not me. It's not me—I don't own any of it. It belongs to the father. He's the gardener and it's his fruit. It is all for him. Even my tomatoes are his tomatoes. Although I think that our lives are supposed to produce better fruit than mere tomatoes. You guys, the father likes his fruit. He wants you to be fruitful. He is determined to make you fruitful.

Two Ways the Father Produces Fruit

And so, in pursuit of maximizing the fruitfulness of his vines, Jesus says the Father does two things. And at first glance, they might look like the same thing, it might actually be a little bit confusing, but these are actually radically different things. They're found in verse two.

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. — John 15:2

This could be confusing because one branch he prunes and one branch he cuts, but pruning is cutting and cutting is pruning. So it seems like, what are you saying? So let's just pull these things apart.

In one scenario, you've got a branch that's fruitless and a fruitless branch gets cut off and that piece falls to the ground, one day picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. That's what it means to be cut off.

But there's a different thing. It's not that all the branches get cut off—the other option is the branches get pruned. Here's the thing: that branch is fruitful. So we're not gonna cut it off, but we want it to be even more fruitful than it is. So, rather than cutting it off at the base, the Father just trims the tips. And the purpose of that is not to kill it, it's to make it more fruitful. When the father finds a branch that's fruitful, he doesn't remove it, he just removes parts of it to make it more fruitful. It stimulates it, it trims it.

That branch, I'm gonna guess, does not enjoy being pruned. Pruning isn't any fun. But if you've been alive for any length of time, I would guess that you could look back and admit that yeah, yeah, yeah. It was the seasons of pruning that made you more fruitful. It is a good thing even if it's a painful thing to be pruned. You should want to be pruned.

What you don't want, what you absolutely do not want is to be cut off. To be cut off is a bad thing. It's the most undesirable thing possible. It is terrible to be cut off, thrown into the fire, and burned.

So those two verses—Jesus has already explained—he's the true vine, he's the real one, right?

That the vine belongs to the Father, the branches belong to the Father, the fruit belongs to the Father. And he's told us what the Father is gonna do to maximize fruitfulness. He's gonna cut some, the fruitless, and he will prune others, the fruitful.

And then having said that, Jesus is now going to repeat himself about 10,000 times. He's gonna repeat two key concepts over and over and over again. If you take me up on my invitation and you memorize John 15, there's gonna be a couple of recurring phrases you're gonna say a thousand times, which can kind of be helpful, but honestly, it can kind of be complicated because you're like, oh, is this this version of that or is it that version of that? Because he's gonna keep saying the same thing over and over again. It takes a little bit of effort to sort it all out and to get it.

Remain in Me

The first big idea that Jesus will repeat over and over and over and over again is, remain in me. Remain in me, remain in me, remain in me. You guys, this is probably the single greatest imperative in human existence. And I'm not being hyperbolic here. Remain in me. Some translations will say, abide in me. Fine. Same thing, abide in me. Remain in me. Remain in me. Abide in me.

Here's how it sounds on Jesus' lips:

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.

He'll go on to say:

I'm the vine, you're the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he'll bear much fruit, apart from me he can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he's like a branch that's thrown away and withers, such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. But if you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given you.

You guys, the imperative is remain in me. And it's a metaphor, right? You're not literally a branch, right? He's not literally a vine, so what does it mean?

To remain in him, for us to remain in him, for him to remain in us, for his word to remain in us. These are all figurative ways for Jesus to say that our lives must remain, must be vitally connected to him. It means that we are to be ever near him, ever mindful of him. It means that we don't ditch him so we can go do something that we wouldn't be comfortable doing if we were conscious of his presence. It means that we don't seek sources of life apart from him. We don't be like, hey, gonna cut this off and go graft myself into that other thing that I think might work better. Don't do that.

It means that we remind ourselves of his beauty. We remind ourselves of his words. It means that we're frequently checking in with him. Am I where you want me to be? Am I doing what you want me to do? Am I functioning the way that you want me to be? Am I where you are? It means that all day, every day, we're reviewing what's important to him. We are reviewing what's actually true of us and we're checking for incongruence. Am I with you? Am I in step with you? Has my life drifted? Have I fallen out of alignment?

I've heard, I don't know if it's true, but I've heard that the Golden Gate Bridge is always being painted. You start at one end of that sucker and you paint it, and by the time you get done, it's time to paint it, right? You're just never done. I don't know if that's literally the case, but I do know that it is the case for me, right? There's never a moment that I don't need to be corrected, realigned, remembering to abide in him, to remain in him.

If I am reading through the Gospels, if I'm studying through the New Testament, if I'm walking through the Old Testament in a year, whatever it is, right? What I want to be doing is carefully attending to make sure that I am still in conformity with his wishes, that I am still believing his promises, that I am still obeying his commands, that I am still putting all of my hope in him. And by the time I get to the end of it, it is time to start again because I have already begun to slip in some area.

We are like that hymn:

Prone to wander Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Take my heart, oh, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.

And I think that the most important thing that we can do to remain in him is to want to remain in him. I don't know if you've figured this out or not, but you cannot, you will not, you never have acted against your desires. Never. You only ever do at any given moment whatever you want to do and you cannot escape it. We are a desire driven people. You only and always do what you want to do.

But you can adjust what you desire incrementally, bit by bit, by degrees. Your options at any given time may be constrained. Maybe you've got just a couple of options. You gotta choose between two terrible options, you will always pull the least terrible lever as you see it. Or two great options, you will always pursue the greater as you see it, right?

You cannot do otherwise. The secret to the whole game is shaping what you want. Changing incrementally what you want. We come to want him, you guys, by experiencing more of him, which is how you come to want everything that you come to want. You can feed your desire for him, just like you feed your desire for any other thing.

I want to play you guys two minutes of a song. I love this song. Andrew Peterson—many of us have enjoyed Andrew Peterson's music. We actually had him come here. Were you guys here when we had Andrew Peterson come? This was a while ago, 2018, so it's been a while. He's phenomenal. He wrote a song called The Sower's Song, and I'm going to only play two minutes of it, so if you like it, too bad, it's going to end. But I want you to hear this because what he captures in this song that I think is so beautiful is this wanting to remain in him, wanting to abide in him. I asked Caleb to make us a lyric video of this song and I think he crushed it. So I want you to hear the song and enjoy it, but listen for the longing and ask: Is this what I want?

I know that to be healed, that I must be broken first. I am making for the yield that you'll harvest from this herd. Abide in me. Let these branches bear your fruit. Abide in me, Lord, as I abide in you. So I kneel at the bright edge of the garden.

Isn't that pretty? So good. My goodness. Caleb, thank you for that.

Are you aching for the yield? Do you want to bear him fruit? Is his fruit? Cultivating a desire for him is crucial. You will abide in him if you want to. You have the opportunity to orient yourself so that Jesus will increase in your desires and all the false vines will decrease, become lesser to you than the other things. And that simple step day by day to decide to cultivate your desire is crucial for the whole thing.

Remain in me, remain in me, remain in me, says Jesus.

Bear Fruit

Here's the other idea: do you know what it is? Did you pick it up already? Bear fruit. The vine exists to bear fruit.

I'm the true vine, my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of me that bears no fruit. Well, every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it'll be even more fruitful. You're already clean because the word I've spoken to you.

By the way, when he says clean, that word is pruned. He says, you're already pruned because of the word I've spoken to you.

Remain in me and I'll 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'm the vine, you're the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from me, he can do nothing. This is to my father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

Now, remaining in him is a metaphor, we talked about that. Bearing fruit, obviously, is also a metaphor. Verses one to eight, this is the closest that Jesus gets in John's Gospel to giving a parable. And it's not a parable. He has no parables. They're all in the synoptics. Matthew, Mark and Luke get all the stories. John doesn't do it. This is as close as he gets. It's more of an extended metaphor. There's no story arc to it. But the language of bearing fruit is meant to be—it's an image, it's a metaphor. And we are not, obviously, we're not a grape vine. He is the vine, we are the branches, and we don't have grapes popping off our fingertips. The question is: What is the fruit? If we're not a grape vine, what kind of a vine are we?

Verses one to eight are the metaphor. Verses nine to 17—nine to 20, if you want to take it that far—is him unpacking the metaphor, explaining what it is that he just said.

Now, one of my very favorite things to do in all the world is to explain things. I love taking something that somebody doesn't understand and making it clear, unlocking a mystery. Taking the obscure and laying it out—that's fun for me. But I'm not going to do it. I'm going to resist the temptation to do that because I think we have something better to offer you, namely an invitation to figure that out on your own.

In fact, this week, I'm generally pretty terrible at offering application when I'm teaching. I'm more interested in changing the way you think and then seeing what happens. But I am going to do a better job this morning and offer you three very specific assignments.

Number one, my invitation to you: memorize John 15. Maybe you memorize the first five verses, maybe you memorize the first eight. Go to 17, go crazy. You can do this. Little short phrases, like you're building a train, like a little car.

I am the true vine, my father is a gardener. He cuts off every branch of me that bears no fruit. Right? Little bit at a time, just repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. You can load this thing up, and you will, if you want to, load this thing in your head, you'll have it forever and that would be an incredibly valuable thing to do. Phrase by phrase, loads of repetition.

Three Assignments

Number two, your second assignment. Ask yourself, what are you doing to cultivate desire? What small decisions are you making on any given day, throughout the day that whets your appetite for him? Or negatively, what are you doing that fills your mouth with competing flavors? As I said, you have no choice but to do what you want to do. You have enormous choice to influence what you want. What decisions are you making that shape the desires that will determine the course of your life.

And then number three, discover what the fruit is. Take some time, take a quiet time this week, and compare the first paragraph to the second paragraph. Go through, read as you're memorizing it. Read verses one to eight, get the metaphor, and then take a look at nine to 17 and kind of like fill it back in. According to the second paragraph, what is the fruit of the first paragraph? And if you will take the time and do that and then come back, next week is compassion Sunday, it's gonna be amazing, you're gonna wanna be here for that. The week after that, Sloop's gonna pick it up and he's gonna walk through this next chunk of John 15, and he will be able to tell you what he and I think the fruit is. But it will be more fun for you if you figure it out yourself first.

So, consider, memorize John 15, five verses, eight verses, 17 verses, go crazy. Number two, pay attention. How are you shaping your own desires? Are you nurturing yourself so that you want to abide in him, remain in him? And then number three, go on a little journey. What's the fruit? It's not grapes, we can rule that out, but it is something. What is the fruit that he is producing?

The Passage

Jesus said, "I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of 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 the word I've 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'm the vine," says Jesus. "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, it's like a branch that's thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you remain in me and I remain in you, my word remains 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." — John 15:1-8

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus, what could we possibly want more than to remain in you, to abide in you? Lord, the answer of course is many things. So many things that draw us away from you. Would you convince us, would you persuade us, would you win us that we would really believe that apart from you, we can do nothing. And Lord, we pray especially for the wood that is dead, for the fruitless branches. Not that you would be hasty in cutting them off, but in your love and in your mercy, you would bring life out of death. It is the best thing you do and you do it in a way that no one else possibly can. Lord, where there is death, bring life that we might be fruitful and pleasing to you. We love you, love you, love you. Bless your holy name. Amen.