The Constant Gardener - [John 15:1-6]

Well, good morning everyone. I don't want to clear my throat, but I feel like I should.

It's great to see everybody here this morning. I'm especially thankful to have our WPI student family starting to gather back, even some from as far away as Shanghai, China.

So it's a blessing to see everybody here this morning. Also, I was talking to my dad this week and was just reminded that Janet and I are blessed to be here because of the nice warm weather in Los Angeles this week.

It got down to, in Woodland Hills, just outside of LA, 16 degrees overnight.

And I thought, you know, they're shutting down, state of emergency and all that stuff, and we're enjoying great weather here.

Well, let me ask you a question, and I think everybody can answer this question. Do you ever get distracted?

Does that ever happen to you? And I'm talking about besides during football games.

Do you ever get distracted? Do you ever find yourself drifting away from what you're supposed to be doing?

Does that ever happen at work, maybe? Your boss gives you a task, you start doing it, and then somewhere along the line you go, yeah,

I was supposed to do this, that, or the other thing. Your parents ask you to do something, you start diligently to do it, and then somehow, somewhere along the line, it just kind of falls by the wayside.

While you're praying, all of a sudden you start thinking about bills. Does that ever happen?

If it hasn't happened to you while you're praying, one of two things is going on. Either you have a great prayer life or you don't pray long enough.

When you're at school, for you WPI people going back to school this week, do you find yourself in class and all of a sudden going, now, what did he say?

What was it I was supposed to write down because I've forgotten it entirely? This morning we're going to look at a passage that is a great reminder of how our

God does not slumber, sleep, lose attention, doesn't lose his focus for a single moment.

I would invite you to open your Bibles to John 15, 1 to 6 for yet another reminder of how

God is not like us. John 15, and I'm going to read verses 1 to 6, our text this morning.

I, this is Jesus speaking, he says, 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 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 me and 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.

Now this morning, I would ask each of you to take an inventory of your life.

What sort of branch are you? One that produces fruit? And if not, why not?

Our passage this morning is a challenge to you to live more fully for the purposes of God.

Now, if you are not one of his, if you are not one of his children, as we talked about last week, this morning's message is a sobering one.

It's a wake -up call because you are in great peril. First, let's look at the true vine.

Jesus says, I am the true vine. Kind of an odd thing to call yourself.

But this is the last of the seven I am statements by Jesus, where he identifies himself in different ways.

But at the heart of each one, this I am, in the Greek, ego eimi, it just simply means

I am, but it carries a much more profound sense. In John 8, 58, when

Jesus says to the Jews, he says, before Abraham was I am, he was saying that he was

God, that he was preexistent, that he existed even before Abraham. And so in each one of these

I am statements, we have a recaption of that. But in addition, he identifies himself in different ways, trying to explain exactly who he was.

Now, it's a pretty difficult concept to grasp when God in human flesh appears to you, and you follow him daily as the disciples did, and yet you don't really grasp it.

It's not easy. No one had ever met anyone like Jesus before, and it wasn't easy, and he tries multiple ways of explaining it.

Now, what is the significance of Jesus being the true vine?

Is it Jesus is the true vine as opposed to all the false vines? I don't think so.

The point here is that he was the fulfillment as the true vine. He was the fulfillment of all that Israel was supposed to be.

The Old Testament is filled, has a lot of references that picture

Israel, the country of Israel, God's chosen people as a vine. The entire culture, the

Jewish culture, was saturated with symbols of the vineyard and of grapes. In fact, as James Montgomery Boyce noted, in the

Old Testament, the image of the vine to represent Israel was used often, but it was always, it's a negative, it was always brought forward as a symbol of Israel's degeneration rather than her fruitfulness.

In other words, Israel was never presented as this great vine that produced all this great fruit and that did the word of God.

Historically, after the revolt of the Maccabees, which led to, for those of you who don't know, and I'm not going to do a

Hanukkah lesson this morning, but this led to the holiday of Hanukkah, but after the revolt of the

Maccabees against the successor of Alexander the Great, the Maccabees put grape vines on their coins to represent the nation of Israel.

This was, the vine was a national symbol, a means of identity.

Of course, they weren't going to use any kind of animal or anything like that. Why? Because that would be idolatry. So the vine became central to the

Jewish way of thinking. One of the ways that one could prove his devotion to God was to help decorate the

Herodian Temple, the second temple, the temple that existed in Jesus' day. The historian

Josephus wrote that one of the features of the temple was a cluster of grapes made of gold.

Wealthy Jews would donate vine and vines and various kind of grapey things, clusters of grapes, so that the edging of the temple became quite extensive.

The temple was just laden with gold. In fact, there was so much gold that when the temple was sacked in 70

AD and the Romans hauled off all this gold, it depressed the price of gold.

They created a glut on the market, so the price went down. But there was such an identity with this vine in the minds of Israel, in the national identity of Israel.

So how does this all work out when he says that he's a true vine? Let's look, keep your fingers in John 15, let's look at Isaiah 5 for a picture of that.

There are several we could go to, but let's go to Isaiah 5 and I'm going to read verses 1 to 7.

A parable in the Old Testament. I thought Jesus was the only one who told parables. Well, here the prophet

Isaiah tells one. Let me sing now for my well -beloved a song of my beloved concerning his vineyard.

My well -beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. He dug it all around, removed its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine.

And he built a tower in the middle of it and also hewed out a wine vat in it.

Then he expected it to produce good grapes, but it produced only worthless ones.

And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.

What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? Why, when

I expected it to produce good grapes, did it produce worthless ones? So now let me tell you what

I'm going to do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge and it will be consumed.

I will break down its wall and it will become trampled ground. I will lay it waste.

It will not be pruned or hoed, but briars and thorns will come up.

I will also charge the clouds to rain no rain on it. For the vineyard of the

Lord of hosts is the house of Israel and the men of Judah his delightful plant. Thus he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed.

For righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress."

Pretty shocking view of a vine that disappointed the Lord. This is a parable from the prophet of Isaiah and it has one startling point.

In spite of all the care that God lavished upon Israel, she has not produced the fruit he had the right to expect.

God took great care in digging it, preparing the soil, and he chose the best possible plant.

The Hebrew would tell us that this vineyard was placed in the absolute best prime piece of agriculturally desirable real estate.

He built a tower in the middle of it to protect this vineyard. He put a wall around it to protect it from anything getting in there, any wild animals or anything.

Yet with the loving care of Yahweh, the covenant

God of Israel, Israel produced in the Hebrew literally stinking things, putrid, rotten grapes.

So did God fail? Were God's efforts insufficient? No, it wasn't

God who failed. It was the nation of Israel that failed. She did not live up to the care that Yahweh lavished on her.

So he pronounced judgment upon her. Destruction. So when

Jesus says he is the true vine, we should understand it in this way.

He did everything that Israel was supposed to do but never did. He did everything that Israel was commanded to do but failed to do.

Where they sinned and consistently disobeyed the will of God, Jesus never sinned and submitted himself entirely to the will of the

Father. What did he say? I've come here not to do my own will but the will of the

Father. So now we meet, now that we've met the true vine, we meet the gardener.

Again, verse 1, I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. The vine dresser, according to Freyberg, is literally one who tills the soil, a farmer, a vineyard keeper or a gardener.

What we have here is a picture of two persons of the Trinity. Working in complete harmony.

The Lord Jesus is portrayed as the vine. The Father is the gardener. The one who tins the vine.

Now let me be clear. The son, the vine, the true vine in this metaphor, is not the one who needs care.

It is the branches that grow off the vine that the gardener cares for.

And without proper care, the branches will not produce good grapes.

They just can't. They cannot do it. Let's look at the work of the gardener.

Verse 2, 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.

Now I have a true confession for you guys. I am not a master gardener.

You don't have to take my word for it. Ask my wife. She'll tell you. As a child though, we did have some vines in our backyard.

Of course, we don't have in California backyards like you have here. We might have had a serious vineyard, but we did have some vines.

And what I can remember most about those grape vines was that it seemed to me like it happened all the time, but I'm sure it was just once a year, that we would literally, we would go to the donut shop, and they had these kind of like trash cans that they would fill with lard.

And then once the lard or animal fat or whatever it was, was empty, they would give these cans away.

So we would go down, and we would get these cans, and we would fill them with grapes and give them to people because we had so many grapes that we didn't know what to do with.

But over the years, we lost interest in those vines.

And guess what happened? They stopped producing grapes. That's what happens.

Good grapes require work. And that's the fruit that John mentions.

When he talks about fruit, he's talking about these grapes from the vineyard. But does he mean literal fruit of the vine?

Is he talking about literal grapes? No, of course, it's spiritual fruit. What sort of spiritual fruit?

Well, throughout the Gospels, the Lord stresses what? Obedience, love for the brethren, love for the

Lord himself. If you love me, these are the things that you'll do. If you love your mother, father, sister, brother, more than me, you're not worthy to be my disciple.

He stresses living a life free of hypocrisy, living for the glory of God. And there are many other fruits that he teaches and stresses.

And how are those brought forth? By self -will, by our work, only by the power and the grace of God.

By this constant gardener working and shaping on us the branches in Christ.

Now, there are two categories of branches here. They're pretty easy to break down.

There are branches that don't bear fruit, and there are branches that do. It's not really super technical. But first, let's look at the branches that do not bear fruit.

So how is it possible that a branch in Christ, that's what the text says, in Christ can bear no fruit?

And this is the part of this passage that I struggled with the most. Because good men, different commentators took different views, and it was difficult to wade through them and to figure it out.

Some say these are believers who are unfruitful. And then they have to change the meaning of some of the verbs.

There are good arguments, though. I mean, if you read them all, you'd go, oh, that's good. I like that. But some say they are unbelievers.

Some say they are believers who are unfruitful. And some say that Judas was among those addressed here.

Some say that he left in chapter 13. And there are arguments against that, including at the end of John chapter 14,

Jesus says, come, let us go up from here. And so 15 starts a whole other discourse, and we don't really know where it took place.

So the question is whether or not it could be rewards that are in view, rewards that are possibly going to be burned up, and not salvation.

In other words, could Jesus simply be saying that those who aren't pure in their motivations will have their rewards burned up?

And I think the answer is an emphatic no. The picture here is of branches that are like Judas Iscariot.

They give every appearance of being in Christ. They are attached to Christ, as it were.

How? Well, they go to church. There's a whole list of things that they do and don't do.

Outwardly, they don't do things that would identify themselves as not saved. But inwardly, they are not sustained by Christ.

They are not nourished by Christ. They are not attached in a way that they are receiving the lifeblood, the spiritual energy they need to produce spiritual fruit.

They are not tended to by the Father. They are not cared for by the constant gardener.

They are therefore spiritually dead and cannot produce spiritual fruit.

How is it possible that they could produce fruit without connection to the source of all spiritual life?

Impossible. It can't be done. The second category of branch is the branches that bear fruit.

Now, as I said last week, I love John. I love reading John because John is such a consistent and thorough theologian.

He gives us pictures over and over again. And, of course, he's writing down the words of Jesus, so why shouldn't he be a great theologian?

But in verse 2, we have a great picture of the sovereignty of God in sanctification. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.

Why would the Father prune a branch that bears fruit? Why would he cut and work on a branch that already bears fruit?

Well, the image here is not of one being cut off, but it is of the

Father, as I call him here, the constant gardener, stripping away everything that prevents a believer from bearing more fruit.

A vine dresser, a gardener, would remove everything, insects, less productive little sprouts, fungus, whatever would be on a branch that would inhibit the growth of grapes.

He would take great care in that. Why? Because he wants the best possible crop. You can't just, as I was saying earlier in our backyard, we couldn't just leave those vines alone year after year after year and expect them to keep cranking out grapes.

It just wasn't going to happen. For another picture of how God works in the lives of believers,

I would invite you to look at Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12, verses 6 -11.

Hebrews 12, verses 6 -11. For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives.

It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as sons.

For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

If you don't receive the discipline of the Lord, if he does not discipline you, you are not a legitimate child of God.

Verse 9. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them.

Shall we not much rather be subject to the father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our own good, so that we may share his holiness.

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful. Yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

God disciplines us. Why? Why? Just like our fathers and mothers discipline us when we're younger, they do, though, what seems best to them, and they could be wrong.

But God does it so that we may share in his holiness. In the hand of God, its discipline may seem, our text tells us here, sorrowful for a while.

But once we understand the purpose of God, that his purpose is for our benefit, that his purpose is for our holiness, that his purpose is that he might conform us into the image of his

Son, what's the result? The peaceful fruit of righteousness.

Peaceful fruit of righteousness. When we act rightly before God, is our conscience at peace or at war with us?

Peace. When we do what is right, we have a peace that cannot be disturbed.

God disciplines us so that we'll do what is right, so that we can have peace. Back to chapter 15 in John, the pruning of God, the pruning, the work of the constant gardener, the

Father, in our lives, may involve discipline. It may involve discipline.

But it also may involve taking various things. Just like the gardener would remove various things off the vine,

God sometimes will take various things out of our lives. Some examples. He might take some people out of our lives.

He might move us. He might move them. For whatever reason, we might become estranged.

But God takes people out of our lives who might have a negative influence on us. He takes things out of our lives.

Stuff that stuff, that we might place a great value on. But those things can rob us of valuable time with the

Lord. And God might just say, you know what? Enough of that hobby. Enough of this. You're done with that.

How about this? God might take a job out of your life. Everybody needs a job.

All men need to support their families. But what if your job inhibits your spiritual growth because of the schedule?

Because of the overall atmosphere? What if it's an atmosphere that you're not equipped to deal with?

What about the things that otherwise might be associated with the job? God might just move you somewhere else.

Activities. Things that we really like to do. God might say, you know what?

Enough of that. He might physically remove it from you. Like let's say you love to play basketball.

You spend too much time playing basketball and then you get old. There may be activities that would inhibit our growth and God can prune those out of our lives.

And pruning, as we saw there in Hebrews, can be painful.

It can be painful. It can be emotionally difficult when we lose friends. When we lose things that we've invested a lot of money and time in.

When we have to change careers. Different things come up and we think,

I didn't want that to happen. God did not cease being your father because you lost something out of your life.

In fact, it's because he is your father that something left your life. Pruning can be painful.

But God sovereignly adds and takes things out of our lives because he hates us and wants us to be miserable.

No, it's because he loves us. It's because he loves us. Now what should our response be to that?

Well, it should not be disappointment. It should not be complaining. But let me ask you a question to kind of get it back on the

God loves us track. Do you do with your own time, with your own energy, with your own thinking, do you do always what is in your best spiritual interest?

All the time? Without fail? No. No, you don't.

God loves you more than you love yourself.

In this sense, he is willing to remove those things that prevent you from producing the fruit that he desires.

You may not be willing, but he is willing because he loves your spiritual benefit, your spiritual growth more than you do.

He prunes some branches that are producing some fruit so that they produce more fruit.

The picture is of the constant attention and care of a loving, kind, disciplining gardener, father, one who hovers over the branches, caring for them.

Now, let me just give you a little caution. Sometimes, what we deem, what we believe to be the pruning of God in our lives may not be what the

Father has in mind for others. In other words, our process of sanctification may not be what

God wants for everybody else. He doesn't make one mold. In other words, what

I'm trying to get at is the things that God takes out of our lives, other people might not be at the same point we are.

We can fall into a real rut of legalism if we compare our own walk with somebody else and say,

I thank you, Lord, that I am not like so -and -so, or so -and -so, why don't you give that up?

I did, and it sure worked out great for me. That's not our place. That's not our place.

We are not the Father. We are not hovering over the branches. Now, in cases of clear sin, that's one issue, but in cases where it's not a clear sin, we are not the

Holy Spirit, we're not God the Son, and we're not God the Father. Now, we've seen the work of the constant gardener.

Let's look at the work of the Word. Verse 3. You are already clean because of the word which

I have spoken to you. The Greek word translated clean here is katharos, from which we get the

English word catharsis. What does it mean to have a cathartic experience?

It is a complete transformation. We talk about catharsis being from a caterpillar to a butterfly.

I was so worried that I was going to say it the other way, butterfly to a caterpillar. It's a complete change.

The dictionary defines it this way, this Greek word, it pertains to being clean or free of adulterating matter, pure, when it talks about being clean.

Now, when we think of what any follower of Christ, any branch in the true vine was before salvation, what was he?

What was she? She wasn't clean. She wasn't pure. It is indeed a radical transformation.

Jesus says that if you're in Christ, you are clean by virtue of the word.

And that is not what you were before. Now, also note in that verse that the word because is in there.

And in this case, it's a preposition that shows the cause of something.

In other words, sometimes we'll say, well, you know, so -and -so went to church because they got a ride or whatever.

But this is the actual, this is the means of, by which we are clean.

And it says the work of, it says, it talks about his word, the word of Christ. And what does that mean?

It's talking about, well, what are the words of Christ? Are they the red letters? We know better. We know better.

The words of Christ are essentially the whole scripture.

Why? Because there's nothing in here that Jesus doesn't want in here. So the words of Christ, the entire

Bible, are cathartic. They are cleansing. They are life -altering. And here's the truth.

Our need for the word never diminishes. Our need for the word never diminishes.

Can you get to a point in your walk with Christ where you say, you know what? I think I pretty much know all the

Bible I need to know. I've got it all right here. You can just ask me. No.

In fact, you could easily argue that as we grow in sanctification, our need for the word increases.

Why? Because even just a little variation off where we want to be needs to be pushed back, pushed back against.

We need that constant reminder of where we are and who we need to be.

Now, in verse 4, we're going to see that you must, in fact, bear fruit.

You must bear fruit. And there are two keys to bearing fruit. First, you must remain or abide in Christ.

Jesus says, abide in me and I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me.

To abide, as I said, is to remain. One commentator says, the most basic point of the imagery is the obvious dependence of branches on the vine for their continued life.

What could be more clear than that? Branches detached from the vine are dead.

Separation from the true vine, the Lord, is the equivalent of spiritual death.

And you may well be thinking, well, I would never choose to separate myself from Christ. I hope you're thinking that.

But how often do you recognize something as sinful, a choice as wrong, but you do it anyway?

You ignore your conscience and you do something. In a sense, not in a permanent sense, but in a sense, you are separating yourself from Christ.

How often do you have that sense of, that tug of conscience, and you command your conscience to be quiet?

The Lord Jesus here commands his followers, and if you know the

Lord Jesus Christ, that is you, to abide in him, to remain in him. Now, last week

I noted that we don't necessarily have the ability to do everything that Scripture commands us to do.

Sometimes we are given a command and we don't have the ability to do it. For example, I give the example of being perfect.

I'm still waiting to get the email that says, you know, pastor, you're wrong, I am perfect. But I haven't gotten that email yet.

But the Lord here indicates that by virtue of the cleansing that has already taken place in the lives of believers, that they are able to abide, they are able to remain, they have been given spiritual life so that they can remain in Christ.

So they are able, they do have the capacity to do that. Now, it's not...

Jesus doesn't say, approach, come near, get close to me.

He says, remain, stay, abide in me. God is sovereign in salvation.

He is sovereign in sanctification. But man is responsible.

The spirit regenerates. The son cleanses. The father prunes.

But believers are responsible. We must make a conscious decision, an effort to remain in Christ.

Ray Steadman says this, we have been placed into Christ by the Holy Spirit. Now, we must choose to maintain that relationship by the decisions we make.

Decisions to expose ourselves to his word in order to learn about him and to relate to him in prayer wherein we converse with him and to relate to his body, the church.

God gives faith without which you cannot believe, but you are responsible to believe.

Right? Ephesians 2 would tell us that the gift of God is faith.

We have to have faith. But we are still responsible to believe. The Holy Spirit sanctifies you, but you are responsible to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

The father, the constant gardener, ever taking care of you, produces fruit in your life, but you are responsible to abide or remain in Christ, to stay in him.

The commentator says, to expect that fruit bearing would be possible for the man who does not remain in Christ is even more foolish than to expect that a branch that has been severed from the vine can bring forth grapes.

Imagine that. You break off a branch from the grape vine. You throw it on the ground and you say, Grapes! You can do whatever you want to that thing, but it is not going to grow.

It's not going to produce any fruit at all. And that's the picture here. So how do we remain in him?

Some ways, studying his word, reading good books other than the

Bible from gifted men on the Bible, hearing his word, listening to sermons, fellowship with his body, working within the body of Christ, relying on the gifts that God has given to others, prayer, seeking after him, having that relationship with him.

Also, embracing the pruning of the Father. Trust that he knows what he is doing and that his love for you is best.

Seeking activities and companions that will aid our walk with Christ or at least not be a detriment.

One thing I remember one of my high school teachers saying was, when you're where you're not supposed to be, when you're not supposed to be there, with whom you ought not to be with, bad things are going to happen.

There are moments in life where you hear somebody's story and you know tragedy is at the end, but you just go, what were you thinking?

What did you expect was going to happen? We have a responsibility not to put ourselves in those kind of situations.

You must remain in Christ and you must also rely on Christ. Verse 5,

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.

Now as a new believer, I'd have to say this was my favorite verse in the whole New Testament. Why? Because as somebody who had come out of a religion of works,

I understood one thing, that apart from Jesus Christ I could do nothing because I'd spent my whole life doing nothing.

Believers are completely and entirely dependent upon Christ. Apart from me you can do nothing.

Now one of the things that drives me nuts is I see this on the jerseys of football players after games or whatever.

This is not about football, baseball or acting in a movie. This is about a spiritual endeavor.

This is about spiritual life. This is about producing spiritual fruit. Not about getting up out of bed in the morning.

Not about going to work. These are things that you can do whether you're a pagan or whether you're the most

God -fearing man or woman on the face of the planet. Apart from Christ, you cannot produce spiritual fruit.

My question for you this morning is, are you abiding in Christ? Are you resting entirely in him?

Are you receiving with joy the constant tender loving care, sometimes not so tender care, of the constant gardener, the

Father? Now finally, let's look at verse 6. And the destiny of non -fruit bearing branches.

And I have to tell you, even as I was studying this week, this verse made me very emotional, very sad.

I don't usually cry during my preparation for sermons. This verse did that.

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.

This is not talking about believers losing their salvation.

Believers are not separated from the love of God and Christ. We know that. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God and Christ.

There is nothing that can snatch us out of the hand of God. This is referring to those branches that appear to be in Christ.

Those branches that look like they are attached to the source of all spiritual fruits, but they aren't.

Henrikson points out that there are five aspects of punishment for those who do not bear fruit.

Again, this is on believers. Believers bear fruit to differing degrees.

No one perfectly. But believers bear fruit. If there is no fruit in your life, that is a question for you to answer.

If there is no change, I had a young man call me on Friday wanting to know about assurance of salvation, wanting to know how to measure whether or not a person is saved.

I said, listen, if you can look at your life now and say, you know what, on the day

I believed and right now there is absolutely no difference in my life, then

I don't know if you really believed. I can't say that you didn't, but let's say you've been a believer five years and there is not one thing in your life that is different than the day you got saved.

I don't know what Christ is doing. I don't know what the constant gardener, the Father, is doing in your life.

But again, Hedrickson points out there are five aspects of punishment for those who do not bear fruit.

First, unbelievers. He is thrown away as a branch. He is cast out.

John 3 .18 tells us that this person has already been condemned.

They have not been redeemed. And what else is there? There is only condemnation. Unbelievers thrown away as a branch.

What happens to branches? Secondly, the branch dries up.

This unbeliever dries up or withers. Now this, the picture here is of a person without joy.

And what joy can there be apart from Christ? You see, I know plenty of happy unbelievers.

I know unbelievers who can have fun. I know unbelievers who have moments of exhilaration.

I know unbelievers who have seasons of happiness. I don't know unbelievers with contentment.

I don't know unbelievers that have peace. Can there be peace without salvation?

Can there be hope without redemption? I don't care how much your unbelieving friends want to debate or if they want to stand up on their rooftops and shout how happy they are.

Theirs is an existence without meaning, without hope. And it will end, it will culminate in a moment of stark terror when they take their last breath and realize that in the next moment they will appear before the creator of the universe.

And if that doesn't give you a sense of urgency when you're talking to them, I don't know what will. These cast off, dried up branches are then gathered together thirdly.

The true branches of Christ, those who remained in him, will live with him forever in heaven.

Those who were not in him will be gathered together for judgment. Fourthly, the gathered, dried out branches are cast into the fire.

This fire, the dictionary tells us, the Greek dictionary tells us, is a fire that is of heavenly origin and nature.

This is no natural fire. But think about it. In fact, I read about this, that if a grapevine died, if they took the branches of a grapevine and they cut them off and they piled them up, the problem with using them for a fire is they burn too quickly.

They burn like that. They're great for starting a fire but not for keeping a fire going. But what do we know about this heavenly fire, this eternal fire, that they burn but they are not consumed, they're not annihilated, they're forever tormented with an unquenchable fire in which the worm does not die.

It's a grim picture and one that calls for somber, thoughtful consideration and reflection.

Again, I ask, are you remaining, abiding in Christ? Is the

Father constantly pruning you? Are you in the habit of examining your life and seeing if you are in the faith, not relying on your one -time professional experience or even on a list of good works, but on your love for Christ, on your decision on a daily basis to remain in Him?

Are you yielding yourself to the work of the triune God in your life? Are you bringing forth ever -increasing fruit?

Do you say, you know what? Five years ago I wouldn't have done this, but today I can do this by the grace of God. The great care that the

Father lavishes on those branches who remain in the true vine, the constant gardener.

Now if you do not know the Lord, if you have not been saved from the terrible wrath of Almighty God, then may

I urge you today to surrender to Christ. If it was in my power this morning,

I would make sure that every single person was in Christ. I would make sure that every single person understood that there was a holy

God who hates sin and whom every single person will stand before someday.

I would make sure that every person knew that they were a sinner, that apart from Christ they have no hope, that they would always fall short of the perfect glory of God.

I would urge every single person here, and if I could I would ensure that every single person here today understood that there was only one means for being seen right, for being declared not guilty before the throne of God, and that is by believing in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

His death on a cross and His resurrection is only by belief in Christ, by being in Christ that we can be right, that we will be tended to by the

Father, that we will be indwelt by the Holy Spirit, that we will be regenerated, that we will be on the road that leads to heaven.

Friends, today is the day to repent. Don't leave here if you don't know

Christ. Don't leave here. I beg of you.

Let's pray. Lord, these are both words of great comfort and words of great terror.

Comfort to know that you so care for us, are so taken with the work of pruning us, of shaping us, of disciplining us, that we can trust you.

Words of caution, Lord, of our own responsibility to remain in Christ, to seek your work in our lives, to accept and rejoice of the work that you do in our lives.

And Lord, words of terror when we think of those who would reject your son, of those who would not abide in Christ, those who will one day stand before you and be gathered up and burned.

Lord, I would pray that you would work in each heart here today for the believer to examine themselves, to see the things that we engage in that we ought not to do.

How by our own refusal to submit to your word, we keep ourselves from blessing.

Father, for those who don't know you, would you open their hearts this morning? Would you reveal to them their sinful state, their need of a savior?

Lord, that they might know the peace that surpasses understanding, that they might have peace with you.

Lord, would you so work in our congregation that we would be so motivated by the thought of those branches being gathered up and thrown in the fire, that we would proclaim the excellencies of Christ, the good news of the gospel, that we would be anxious to bear testimony of the great work of God in salvation.