Warning: This Post Will Be Long! I taught last night on the vine and the branches and now since they have heard what I had been led to say, I will express my words to the world. I am not completely sure how the whole thing went but I must say, for the one or two people that expressed their gratitude, I am content with the words that I said because the Holy Spirit spoke through me to at least one person. With that being said I do not want to sound like I am putting myself on a pedestal; I am simply giving God the credit for the words he allowed to be spoken through me. Anytime I seem to be bragging, though sometimes I do and do not mean to, I am actually trying to give God the credit because I can do nothing without Him. Just for the Record I recommend you reading John 15:1-17.
John chapter 15: 1-4 summed up is: Jesus is the vine, God is the gardener. For those who have never done a lick of gardening in your life, me, I did some research on how you are actually suppose to grow, prune, and keep a grapevine alive.(Jesus refers to himself in this passage as the “true grapevine”) Most videos and articles I read helped me out to spiritually understand this concept. When you think about it, Jesus knows everything and to fully understand his parable of the grapevine we must know about the earth and how it works. When we understand the earth we can grasp further the fullness of God. The videos and articles said the best way to grow a grapevine is to have a wire running parallel to the ground above the vine for it to grasp on to for strength. After the vine reaches the wire it grows along the wire stay off of the ground. The vine has branches that branch from it, hence the name branches. The branches are you and I. We grow from the vine and, as said in the scripture, cannot grow apart from the vine.
Lets get a mental picture going here; picture a vine growing from the earth, up to a wire, across the wire, and then branching out down toward the earth. Now picture the wire being heaven, where God “is.” The earth is still earth, the vine is still Jesus, and the branches are still us. The vine is the connection between heaven and earth, God and us. Jesus is God in the flesh, God here on earth. We are to remain in Jesus to remain in his love. I went to a summer camp this summer and one of the days’ themes was REMAIN. I did not actually fully grasp the whole concept of remain until I dove down deep into these verses. We are to remain in Him, Him being God/Jesus. How could we expect to remain in Him if we are not remaining in his word, his teaching to us. Every single thing we need to know is in the Bible and it is just sitting there for the taking. It literally wants to be read because It is the Word of God. It is one with God. God wants us to know him more, the only way we can do that is through his word.
In the next section of the passage, Vs 5-8, we go a bit deeper. Yet still not as deep as we will by the time I conclude. Just as a reminder, Jesus- Vine, Us- branches. One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is the fruit we are to be producing. I looked up the definition of fruit and got several answers but a few stuck out to me the most. Fruit- 1: Ripened, seed bearing part of the plant when fleshy and edible; 2: Fleshy material covering seeds; 3: ripened reproductive body of a seed plant. As I read these things I began to understand more and more about this “fruit” I am to produce with my life. Jesus said if we remain in him we will bear much fruit. This basically means that to benefit anything from Jesus we have to remain in him. Remaining in him is obeying his commands and staying in his word. If, and only if, we remain in Him we can bear fruit. I know by this point you are probably wondering why I haven’t really told you what fruit actually means, spiritually. I could tell you now but I think it is better saved for the end of my “sermon.” Again, in order to remain in Him we must remain in his word. His word is His communication with us. How can we expect to know Jesus if we don’t even know his word?
Remain is hammered into my mind again when this passage talks about how a branch severed from the tree cannot grow. It says that the branches that have been cut off are gathered up and thrown into a fire. Last night as I taught about this story I read part of Ezekiel 15. The first 4 verses of this chapter is talking about branches of a vine being cut off and asking what they are good for. In 4 verses the root word “use” is used 4 times in several different ways: useful, useless, used. The main point here is that the branches cut from a vine are completely useless and are not good for even fueling a fire for more than a minute or two. The branches that are cut off are our sins. God does not cut us from the vine He cuts our sin. To grow again we must start over with repentance. When you cut a dead branch from a vine, or tree for that matter, you make sure you cut all of the dead stuff off. God cutting off the branch is Him cutting off our sins, throwing our sins into the fire where they belong. Our sins are absolutely useless and God removes them when we ask for forgiveness to allow us to grow again. Still following me? I hope so! I know, I know- I told you it was going to be long, stay with me though it’ll be worth it.
So what have we learned so far? God is the gardener, Jesus is the vine, we are the branches, and the dead branches are our sin. Our sin gets cut off to allow us to grow. That’s the basics of what I have discussed. Now we will talk about the pruning. Pruning is when you cut off some of the good parts of the plant in order to yield bigger parts of the plant when harvest time comes. In other words, cutting off good stuff so that you get more good stuff. I was going to wait and see how long I could keep the meaning of fruit from you in order to tie it in at the end with a bang, but now seems like it will be a good place. Fruit is our usefulness to God. Fruit is what we do for the kingdom. Using what He gave us to further his kingdom. To get lots of fruit on a plant, sometimes you have to cut off some to get more. If I fully explain the whole process of pruning I will not only confuse you I will confuse myself, as well as make this go a lot longer than it actually should. For that matter I will just explain it like this: when you cut off some of the good stuff to get better good stuff you are really just cutting a place the plant is giving nutrients in order for it to spread the nutrients to the rest of the plant, making fruits in that part of the plant bigger. (hope that made sense)
With all that being said we are now moving on to my favorite part of the message Jesus spoke when he told about the vine and the branches, Vs 9-17. Here Jesus drives in REMAIN more and more. I love it! He starts off by saying that He loves us as much as God loves Him. Pretty self explanatory, huh? Well just incase you don’t fully have this in your head- God loves us as much as he loves his son! I don’t have kids but I could image how much I would love them, God’s love for Jesus is infinite times more than that. And if you could come up with a number there then that is how much God loves us as well. It truly is amazing. Jesus again says to remain. He says if we obey his commandments we will remain in his love. He obeys his father’s commandments and so should we. Obedience is the key to remaining in his love. He tells us these things so that we can know how to receive his joy. This joy is beyond no other and can only be found through him.
Jesus then goes as deep into love as anyone ever could. This is when he makes his command for us to love each other. Jesus says there is no greater love than to lay down your life for a friend. Think about it for a second. There is no greater love than for your friend to lay down his/her life for you. How would you feel if your best friend jumped in front of a bus or even took a bullet for you? (I hope these things never happen to you by the way) I know Jesus knew what he was doing when he worded his speech. He said that to then tell us that we are not slaves to God, but we are friends of God. A slave doesn’t know everything about its master, but God told us everything he knows-making us friends of him. When Jesus was talking about “no greater love” he was alluding to his own death. For those of you who are Christians or either simply know either Old Testament prophesies or Biblical literature, you probably know that was crucified on the cross. But, do you know why he died on the cross? Not legally why, but spiritually why? He died to save us from our sins. He was sent as the Lamb of God to die for us, HIS FRIENDS! He died for his friends, to save us from the penalty of our sins.
Jesus told us to then go out and produce lasting fruit. What is fruit? It is usefulness to the kingdom of God. Our fruit is what plants the seeds of Christianity into the hearts of non-believers. Our fruit puts what God wants into others hearts through us. (if that even makes sense to you) Jesus said that whatever we ask in his name will be given to us. This is where some people begin to doubt faith and God al together. They see this verse and say, “well I want a new BMW”, and when they don’t get it they think God isn’t listening or simply is not there. There are two things being done the wrong way here. First, the Bible says not to test God. Second, if we are really asking for something in His name we won’t be asking for something foolish like a new luxury car. We will be asking for something to further his kingdom, because, if you haven’t found out by now, is the only thing on this earth that matters. King Solomon was talking to God one day, in 2 Chronicles 1, and God asked him what he wanted. Anything he asked for would be given to him,. Solomon asked God for wisdom and knowledge so that he could govern God’s people correctly. Solomon told God he realizes that no one on earth is actually qualified to lead God’s people, but with God’s help with wisdom and knowledge he could do it a lot better than he could on his own. God gave him what he asked for and also gave him many worldly things because he was so selfless with his wants. We should be like Solomon and ask God for things we can use to further his kingdom, not further our pockets/closets/etc.
I know right now it probably seems like I am far from the branches and vine. Really Jesus wanted us to see much more than just the illustration of the vine. He wanted us to think about it and apply it to our lives. When we understand how gardening is done and how plants grow we begin to understand a bit more about how big and awesome God is. He knows how the plants grow that how he was able to compare our lives in Him to something as overlooked as a vine. Many times we overlook Him in the world and don’t pay much attention to Him, but regardless he is always there; always there to help us through our every need. All we have to do to receive his blessings is to remain in his love. To remain in his love we have to love each other. Loving each other is the key to remaining. He remains in us, his friends, by loving us unconditionally(all the time, no matter what!!!). If we love him we must love each other because he loves us all. So, remain in God and he will remain in you. Bottom line: remain! God Bless!
p.s.- I hope there are not many grammatical errors or anything confusing in this. If so, like every other post, you can contact me on here if you need to.
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