Divine Viticulture - [John 15:1-8]

I want to invite you to take a Bible and open it to John chapter 15 as we start a new chapter in the

Gospel of John. You know, I recently watched, I confess, I recently watched

TV. I was watching a TV special about one of my childhood, not really childhood, young adult basketball heroes.

And you know, what the, the gist of this TV show is they bring objects to the people and then they have them comment on them, objects that meant something to them.

And at one point during this show, they brought, should I say his name, Magic Johnson, a

Bible. And they said, and it's got his name right on the front, which isn't magic, by the way. They brought this

Bible to him and they said, what does this mean to you? And he said, well,

I grew up in the church, you know, we were in church every week. It was very important to our family.

And he said he and his wife attend church every week now. And I thought, Hmm, interesting.

As the special went on, he talked about his grown homosexual son, how he likes to go out and hang out with him and do different things with him.

And I said, interesting. Then he's asked about periods of his life where he and his wife are separated and the things that are going on during that while he's living this obviously morally indulgent lifestyle.

And he laughs and says that he had a lot of fun. Interesting.

And then he cracks some coarse jokes. And I thought, okay. And then he he's brought another artifact and he says that one of the highlights of his life was when he met the founder of Playboy magazine and got to hang out at the

Playboy mansion. And all I could do was keep going back to, you know, this

Bible is very important to me. Going to church is very important to me. And I thought, well, what does it mean?

What does it mean to have a Bible? What does it mean to go to church? What does it mean to say that you're a

Christian and then actually laugh as you recount the sinful activities of your past and the pain that you inflicted on your wife?

What does that mean? What does that say? Is that consistent with a

Christian profession? We heard professions of faith today. Listen, none of us are perfect, but we ought not to think that sin is something to laugh about.

Because as we were saying there earlier, as we think about our sin, what did our sin do? It put

Jesus up on the cross. He paid for our sin. And the things that this man and others laugh about are not funny when you think about the suffering that our savior went through for them.

And when we come to John chapter 15, we're going to see that there's really not only nothing funny about it, but we're going to see that there's a real issue here.

A real issue, a division as it were, between professing believers, those who say that they're

Christians, and those who actually are Christians. John chapter 15, our

Lord Jesus Christ speaking, and 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 does not bear fruit, he prunes that it may, or I'm sorry, 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 is thrown away like a branch and withers.

And the branches are gathered and 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.

Now, I'm going to tell you up front, we're not going to get through all this this morning. I'm just going to be clear about that.

Now John, the beloved apostle, wrote a biography. That's what a gospel is. A gospel is a biography of Jesus Christ so that when you read it, you get the good news.

That is to say that Jesus Christ saves sinners. That he is fully God, fully man.

And that he lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death, and was raised on the third day.

So when we read this gospel of John, as I like to call him his best friend on earth, we would see the focus on him as truly

God, as Jesus as truly God, and that faith in him is the only way that we can have eternal life.

And we're studying the last evening of Jesus' earthly ministry. That is to say we're at the

Last Supper, the upper room discourse, the dinner that kicks off the

Passover celebration. And last week we concluded looking at chapter 14.

And if you recall chapter 14, it started with Jesus urging his 11 disciples, because Judas is gone, not to be troubled.

Judas is gone because he's gone to betray Jesus. Also in chapter 14,

Jesus answers questions from Thomas, doubting Thomas, from Philip, and from Judas, not

Iscariot. That really should be a last name, not Iscariot. With each answer,

Jesus encouraged his disciples to believe in him, to trust in him, to not be troubled.

He wanted to encourage them to bolster them because what he's about to do to leave them, to die on the cross, and to basically turn over the ministry to them is going to be quite challenging.

They don't understand all this yet, but they will. But last week we looked at the four perfections of Jesus, his perfect humility, his perfect love, his perfect humanity, and his perfect obedience.

This morning we're going to study several elements, probably three elements of what

I'm calling divine viticulture. And Patty said, viticulture, well that'll be fun because I have no idea what it means.

Viticulture means the studying of, or the study of cultivating grape vines, grape plants, vines, in order to grow grapes.

It's a study of how to increase production and how to produce grapes of a certain type or quality.

You want to get more, and even if you don't necessarily want more, you want to get the right kind of quality because typically you're growing them for wine or some specific product.

Well divine viticulture simply means that it is God who's producing the fruit. He's producing the grapes.

If you love the Lord Jesus, this text will tell you, you are a grape bearer, a fruit producer.

There is fruit coming from your life. If you love the Lord Jesus Christ, the

Father is at work in you and he is making it happen. And that's what we're going to see this morning.

We're going to see three elements of this divine viticulture. Now first let me just talk about,

Jesus says, I am the vine. This is the seventh of the seven

I am statements in the Gospel of John. There was that I am the bread of life.

I am the light of the world. I am the door, the door of the sheep. I am the good shepherd.

I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

And all of these are prefaced with these two words, ego and me.

Now in the Greek, not that that particularly helps you, but in the

Greek you could just say a me, meaning I am. That's the verb. It just means I am.

When he puts ego or I in front of it, he's putting the pronoun in front of it. What he's saying is

I, even I. He's emphasizing that he is the singular one. There is no one like him.

And it hearkens back to Exodus 3 .14. Moses says, you know, who shall

I say is sending me? And what does God say? Yahweh says to him, Moses, don't worry your pretty little head about it.

You tell him I am sent you. That's my name. I am. I am that I am.

Well, what does that mean? It means that he's always existent. He's self -existent. There is nothing.

He's unlike every other God. Unlike gods that men make and fall down to worship.

They carve them out of stone or they carve them out of wood and they worship them. Or maybe they make some giant sphinx or some other, you know, giant statue and worship that.

Unlike those things that are created by men or unlike the figments of men's imaginations.

This is the God who exists, who created time, who created everything that is.

So when Jesus says, a go a me, he is saying, I am

God. I am the same God that talked to Moses way back when. And this morning he says,

I am. I am God. I am God. The true vine. What's an odd thing to say?

If you take it literally, he's not a vine. It's a metaphor. And metaphors are often used in the

Bible. Metaphors are used to help us understand complex truths by giving us ordinary illustrations to make it clearer to us.

So, for example, when Martin Luther wrote a mighty fortress, a mighty fortress is our

God. You know, we sing that song. We love that song. We don't think to ourselves, well, God is a stone castle that we can all get in and hide behind and shoot our arrows out.

God is not literally a fortress. Just means that he's strong.

That means he's our protector. It means that nothing can happen to us outside of the will of God because he is absolutely sovereign.

When Jesus says he's the good shepherd, well, what does he mean by that? He means this.

Two things. One is that there were bad shepherds that went before him, right? Shepherds who didn't care about the sheep.

And that he cares. He's the good shepherd. He cares intensely about the sheep so much so that he'll do what?

Lay down his life for the sheep. So these metaphors kind of help us to understand the point that he's making.

And as with the good shepherd, this vine imagery is helpful to the people he's talking to because they lived in an agrarian society unlike ours.

I mean, some of us, maybe Vincent, you know, are farmers or want to be farmers.

But we were kind of removed from all the farming things.

We live at grocery stores and we live lives that are pretty easy. Well, for these people, if you weren't a farmer, right?

Jesus was a carpenter. But if you weren't a farmer, you knew somebody who was. So all these farming agrarian kind of illustrations work for them because this is the world that they lived in.

When Jesus says in verse one, I am the true vine, he's using imagery that they would understand because the world around them.

But they would also understand from the Old Testament. For just a moment, I want you to go to Jeremiah, chapter two.

Jeremiah, chapter two, verses 19 and 21. And here we see

Yahweh chastising Israel because of its faithlessness.

And just listen to the words. And we'll go back to Jeremiah two later also, because it really is.

It's such an echo of what he. Well, it's a foretaste of what he's going to talk about in John, chapter one.

He says, beginning of verse 19, he says, your evil will chastise you and your apostasy will reprove you.

Know and see it is evil and bitter for you to forsake Yahweh, your God. The fear of me is not in you, declares the

Lord God of hosts. For long ago, I broke your yoke and burst your bonds.

But you said, I will not serve. In other words, he set them free from what? From Egypt.

But you said, I will not serve. Yes, on every high hill and every under every green tree, you bow down like a whore.

Yet I planted you a choice vine, wholly of pure seed.

How then have you turned degenerate and become a wild vine? Here's the picture.

Whenever the Bible Old Testament talks about high places, it's talking about places where you would have to exert yourself to get up to worship.

And those places are always false places of worship. And he says, you know, you went up on every high hill and below every green tree, you bowed down.

What is he saying? He's saying they worshiped false gods. And he says,

I planted you a choice vine. In other words, Israel, I gave you every advantage. I used the best seed.

It was pure seed. I cultivated you. I took care of you. And yet you turned degenerate and became a wild vine.

A wild vine is really the word there means foreign or alien.

He's not talking about from outer space. But what he's talking about is essentially they became treacherous.

They were traitors. They turned against God. And that's we would see that imagery frequently that the idea of worshiping foreign gods is to betray

Yahweh. Why? Because Yahweh is the national God of Israel there to obey him, to worship him alone.

And yet what do they do all the time? Turn and serve foreign gods, gods that had not saved them out of Egypt.

They bowed and worshiped idols. So back to John chapter 15.

Unlike Israel, which he called a wild vine, a foreign or alien vine, a treacherous vine, a traitorous vine.

Jesus is the true vine. Think about what message does it send when someone says they're a

Christian and yet laughs about their sin? What message does it send when somebody says they're a

Christian, but they say something like, well, you know what? There are many ways to heaven.

Christ isn't the only way. Well, the message

Israel was sending to the world is that unfaithfulness to God was just fine.

Worshiping other gods was just fine. One God is just as good as another. It's that kind of syncretistic worldview that we see today.

If you deny the fact that there are many great religions, you are unloving.

You are unkind. You know, you're a fundamentalist. But look what

Jesus said, or you don't have to turn there, but just listen to what he said at the very end. Well, in fact, you're probably there.

Of John chapter 14. I do as the Father has commanded me so that the world may know that I love the

Father. See the contrast between what Israel was doing. They didn't do what God had commanded them.

They wouldn't see, the world wouldn't see that Israel loved Yahweh. Why? Because she was chasing after foreign gods.

But Jesus says, I perfectly obey the Father. Why? Because I want the world to know that I love him.

Israel failed to obey. Jesus obeyed perfectly. And there's a message in that.

He says all the time, what? If you love me, keep my commandments. If you love me, keep my word.

Obedience is love. Now, we're not going to perfectly obey, but we ought to obey.

Just as Jesus did. Jesus obeyed the Father, we should obey too. But what is a vine?

Why the image of the vine? Well, because he then talks about the branches. What does it mean to be attached to a vine for a grape branch?

It doesn't take long to figure out. Well, that's life, right? It's physical life. But union with the true vine does not represent mere physical life, mere mortal life.

Those who are in union with him, who are joined to him, who belong to him, who are loved by him, and are sustained by him have eternal life in him.

So that's the true vine. Let's talk about the vine dresser and his work, our second element. The vine dresser and his work.

Again, verse 1, And my father is the vine dresser. Now, could there be, if you were a vine and you were speaking, could there be a closer relationship to express than that of the vine dresser?

And the answer is no. By the way, in case you were wondering. The word translated vine dresser is often translated farmer.

And it means one who works the ground. And this is not a new metaphor, by the way, this vine dresser, vine metaphor.

You don't have to turn there, but I'm going to read Isaiah chapter 5. And again, listen to how Yahweh talks about the things he does for Israel.

Isaiah chapter 5 verses 1 to 4. Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard.

My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines.

He built a watchtower in the midst of it and hewed out a wine vat in it. And he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

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

What more was there for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?

And again, the picture here is that God did everything for Israel. He cleared out every obstacle to stop it from producing excellent grapes, excellent fruit, faithfulness.

And instead, what did it do? It yielded wild grapes. Wild grapes are kind of like the small little grapes.

You see them sometimes on vines and you just go, well, what am I... Are those things going to grow? Well, they don't grow.

They're just small and bitter and useless. You can't do anything with them. They're nasty to eat. They don't make good juice.

You can't make wine out of them. They are absolutely useless. Yahweh had done everything for Israel and she failed to obey him.

And so he pronounces judgment upon her. But now the

Father, the vine dresser, is working with the true vine, the one who always obeys him. The Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, as Jesus will make plain, are not going to see their efforts go for naught.

They're not going to be in vain. So what does the vine dresser do? He does two things.

One is he removes the fruitless vines, the fruitless branches, and two, he prunes the fruit bearing.

First notice he removes the fruitless branches. Verse 2, In viticulture, that is to say, again, growing grapes, making sure that you get the best grapes possible, a vine dresser removes branches that bear no grapes.

Why does he do that? Because they are sapping energy. They're drawing energy out of the vine.

And they're doing nothing. They're accomplishing nothing. So it's better to cut them off so the vine can produce fruit somewhere else.

Now it's kind of a flawed analogy. Why? Because you don't take energy out of Jesus. But the point is, there's no purpose in leaving a fruitless branch attached to the vine.

Now, you may be thinking for a minute, if you're really sharp and really paying attention to the words, you might say, well, wait a second, hold on.

The text says that the branch is in me, that is to say, in Christ. How can a branch that is in Christ not produce fruit?

Well, a couple points on that. One is, let's just think about the immediate context. We're still in the upper room discourse.

We're still at that last supper, the table. And if you ask yourself this, who would have appeared to be more of a disciple, in other words, more in Christ than Judas Iscariot?

And the answer is, nobody would have appeared to be more in Christ, in me, as verse 2 says there, than Judas.

In fact, when Judas is announced as, well, he's not really announced when he's kind of identified, but only to John, the beloved apostle, and maybe

Peter also got the hint what was going on. But they were, when they find out later, they couldn't believe it.

They were all aghast. They were shocked. This isn't like some kind of bad movie mystery, murder mystery where the detective says, and now

I reveal the murderer, and everybody in the room turns and looks at the one suspect that they all know. It is nothing like that.

Nobody knew that Judas was the bad guy. Judas was a trusted friend. He was in charge of the finances.

No one suspected him. And just like every one of the 12, Judas had given up everything to follow

Jesus. So there was no reason to suspect him. But, in fact, he was a fruitless branch.

He had proximity to Jesus, but he was not attached to him.

He had no genuine love, no saving faith. So Judas was removed. So that's the immediate context.

But let's think a little bit more broadly here. There are people who say that they are in Christ, but they aren't.

Maybe they've made a profession of faith. They got baptized. They joined a church. They attend.

They give. Maybe they serve. In fact, here's a shocker for you. They'll go on Facebook and Twitter and profess faith in Christ.

That's how serious they are. But they're not attached to the life -giving vine.

On the outside, they seem like they're Christians, like they're following him, like they're disciples.

Well, on the outside, so did Judas Iscariot. It's not what's on the outside that matters.

It's what's on the inside. External appearances don't make you a Christian. It's what God has done and is doing on the inside that matters.

What we heard today, that conviction of sin, that turning away from sin, and that can only be done by God.

Now, this is also not an indication that true believers can fall away. In fact, we're going to see that they absolutely cannot fall away.

But the Father takes away those branches who don't produce fruits. Well, where do they go?

What happens to them? We'll see that next week. Cliffhanger. So, the

Father, the vine dresser, removes those who don't bear fruit. But notice also in verse 2 that he prunes the fruit bearing.

In verse 2, and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruits.

Well, there's more to caring for a vine than just removing lifeless branches. I found, you know, on the

Internet you can find all kinds of things. I found there's actually a company that you can hire to come in and manage your vineyard for you.

Listen to this. It says, Our consulting services put a wealth of expertise and experience at your fingertips.

When you need it at any time, we will help you stay on top of the details that maximize the quality of your grapes while improving the efficiency of your operations.

We quickly identify and resolve potential problems, enabling you to farm with confidence and peace of mind.

Who knew? But it's no wonder. Vineyards are difficult.

I mean, I learned more about vineyards this week than I've ever known in my life. When I grew up around grapes, we had red and white grapes in our backyard that would grow up all over the place.

Sometimes we'd be given away literally trash barrels full of grapes. But they're subject to mold and disease.

Animals eating on them, of course, because they're easily reached. Flooding. And there are all sorts of things.

I'm reading about all these things that can happen in vineyards, and I'm like, these things are a lot of work. Now about pruning.

Another website, I found this. Pruning is an art of delicate balance.

Too much will cause small, uneconomical crops. Too little will cause overcropping and low -quality fruit.

Pruning also facilitates cultivation, disease control, and harvesting. When the vines are trained to grow in a particular shape, and this is a skill that requires experience and judgment, and listen, and cannot be done by machine.

You need expertise to do this. So how much does your

Father in Heaven care for you more than a human vine dresser cares for his grapes?

Obviously, quite a bit. And he knows the true disciples. He knows the believers.

He knows those who bear fruit because they are attached to the true vine. He knows because he's done that.

He's put them in Christ. After all, he gives them to the Son, we would read in John 6.

He draws them. He justifies them, meaning he declares them righteous on the basis of the finished work of his

Son. He knows those who are his own. So let's talk a moment for what spiritual fruit looks like.

In other words, he knows who the branches are that are actually attached to the vine, the true vine.

What does spiritual fruit look like? Well, it looks like a changed life. Matthew 3, verses 8 to 10, we would read this.

John the Baptist says this. He says, Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Right?

That change of mind. I used to rely on myself, even as we were hearing this morning. But now

I know that there's no good thing in me. I'm trusting alone in Christ. Verse 9, And do not presume to say to yourselves,

We have Abraham as our father. For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Again, the same kind of imagery. If you're not producing fruit, you're cut down and thrown into the fire.

So a changed life would be one evidence of fruit. How about cheerful giving to gospel work?

Listen to what Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 9. He who supplies, talking about God.

He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.

You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.

This is a supernatural event. Supernatural thing that takes place in you where you long to give to the work of God.

And of course, Galatians 5, verses 22 and 23. But the fruit of the spirit, in other words, what does the

Holy Spirit produce in us? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control.

When you look at your life, do you say, well, this is the mark of my life. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control.

We could look at the qualifications for a deacon or an elder and we would see these same kind of things that God produces in us.

God is sovereign, but we are responsible. God works in us and as we grow, as we grow in sanctification, as we grow in our knowledge of the word, then these fruits become more evident, become more abundant.

Now, let's talk about pruning. I mean, can you imagine God like taking pruning shears to you?

That sounds horrible. But again, this is a metaphor. But it may not be painless.

It could be emotionally painful. Talking about divine discipline,

Hebrews 12, 11. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields, listen, the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Well, why discipline? Why would the Lord bring discipline into the life of a believer? To remove obstacles, to remove things in your life that are keeping you from bearing more fruits.

The father, the vine dresser, ceaselessly works over Christians in order to produce more fruit for his glory.

This is the sovereign work of God. He does as he wills in his people. And ultimately, can we look and say, you know what,

I see the fruits of the spirit and I am doing great. It's me, it's me, me, me, me, me, no.

It's sovereign work of God. There is no room for boasting. He is the vine dresser.

We are the branches. He produces the fruits. Our third element this morning, the work of the vine.

And this will be a little brief here. The work of the vine. Verse three, already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.

Kind of breaks out of the metaphor for a moment. What does he mean?

He means this. You're already clean. Refers to moral purity, a purity that believers cannot earn.

They can only have it imputed to them, granted to them. If we flip back to John chapter 13, when

Jesus is, he announces he's going to wash the feet of his disciples.

And if you remember Peter complaining and then Jesus saying, if you don't let me do this, you'll have no part of me.

And then in verse 10 of chapter 13, Jesus said to him, the one who has bathed does not need to wash except for his feet.

And if you recall what we were talking about is there are, you are clean. You are, you've had that righteousness imputed to you.

You've been declared. You've been justified. You've been declared innocent. But he says you still need to wash your feet.

Well, why? Because there are sins that we commit that need to be confessed. We have this ongoing sin that we need to confess.

The one who has bathed does not need to wash except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.

And keep in mind what's happened here. Verse 11, for he knew who was to betray him.

That was why he said, not all of you are clean. Judas was not clean and Judas was still with them.

All of them had been justified. That is declared righteous by God, except for Judas Iscariot.

There was a physical cleansing, but it was a symbol of the spiritual work that had gone on inside of them.

Okay. Back in our context, the 11 are told that they are clean, that they've been justified.

And so the process of sanctification is underway. So the pruning, all these things mean something to them.

Why? Because God is at work in them. He is removing the things that prevent them from producing more fruits.

They are declared righteous. Why? Because of the word I have spoken to you.

Well, if he just said things to them, and that's why they were declared righteous, well then Judas Iscariot would have been declared righteous too.

They were declared righteous because they believed. Again, compare what

Jesus says to the disciples with what the Lord said to Israel in Jeremiah chapter 2.

You don't have to turn there, but verses 22 and 23, same context we were in before, tells

Israel this, though you wash yourself, after he talks about their adultery, or spiritual adultery, though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap.

In other words, you're just scrubbing like crazy trying to get this spiritual stain off of you. The stain of your guilt is still before me, declares the

Lord God. How can you say I am not unclean? I have not gone after the bales.

Look at your own, or look at your way in the valley. Know what you have done. A restless young camel running here and there.

The picture again is of worshipping all these different idols, worshipping these false gods.

Their washing was vigorous, but it was external. You can't scrub sin off of you.

It's got to be done inside. The washing that Jesus performed was internal, eradicating their moral guilt.

Keep in mind, again, Jesus' goal here is to encourage the disciples. They should not conclude that they were unattached to the vine, that they were these dead branches.

They should see themselves as being those that were producing fruit, and were going to be pruned by the

Father. We're going to be overseen by the Father. We see there that salvation from beginning to end is a work of God.

He creates the faith in us, and then he prunes and nurtures it and keeps us.

I want to read something from Spurgeon, just talking about how the Trinity works together in our salvation, because I found it very helpful.

He says, Mark the union of the divine persons in all their gracious acts.

How unwisely do those believers talk who make preferences in the persons of the

Trinity, who think of Jesus as if he were the embodiment of everything lovely and gracious, while the

Father they regard as severely just, but destitute of kindness.

Equally wrong are those who magnify the decree of the Father and the atonement of the

Son so as to depreciate the work of the Spirit. In deeds of grace, none of the persons of the

Trinity act apart from the rest. They are as united in their deeds as in their essence.

In their love toward the chosen, they are one. And in the actions which flow from that great central source, they are still undivided.

In other words, Jesus is describing, when he talks about him being the true vine and his father being the vine dresser, he's not talking about the

Spirit in this context, but his point, what he wants to illustrate, is how closely they work together for the good of their people, for the good of the people of God.

How they carefully nurture and cause growth in those who love

Jesus. If, like my basketball hero, we were to do an interview with you about your life, would you laugh at your past sins?

Or do you think about the pain you caused your Savior, and even the pain it caused other people? Would you cite sinful influences on your life as your own personal idols, people that you really looked up to?

Is your testimony in conflict with your life? We listened to those young ones today, and for the most part,

I would guess that their testimony is in harmony with their life. I would like to encourage us all to just kind of inspect our lives and get back to our first love, to loving

Jesus Christ. You know, you hear from time to time, people say, well, what are you, some kind of fruit inspector?

Well, this passage here, it doesn't call us to inspect the fruit of other people, right? But I think it's pretty clear that we should see fruit in our own lives, and if we don't, we ought to be concerned.

Are we those branches that are going to be taken away? But if God is at work in you, there is fruit being produced, maybe not as much as you'd like.

You ever ask yourself if there's some pruning that needs to be done, some obstacles in your life that need to be removed?

Jesus is the only way. He is fully God and fully man. It is only by trusting in his life, believing that he lived a perfect life, that he died for you and was raised on the third day that you may be saved.

You must trust him fully. And if you believe in him, he is at work in you, the

Father is at work in you, and the Holy Spirit is at work in you. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, even as we think of this magnificent metaphor, we think about the true vine,

Jesus Christ being fully God, his claim to divinity right there. We think about the life -giving properties of the vine to the branches.

And then we think about the vine dresser, the Father, caring, watching over us, removing things and people that cause us not to bear fruit so that we'll bear more fruit.

Why? For his glory. Father, it is magnificent to think that you would care so much for us.

Lord, for anyone here who doesn't know you today, I pray that even today would be the day that you would grant them a new heart, new desires, repentance, a change of mind, a desire to follow you, to love the

Son, to be fully invested in him, to confess with their mouth and believe in their hearts that you raise

Jesus from the dead. Father, we're in awe, we thank you, we praise you, and we ask for these things in Jesus' name.