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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/ea-johnston/the-vine-and-me/
I've preached out of John chapter 15 countless times through the years, but I'll never forget the Monday evening school of preaching at the Stephen Offord Institute in Memphis, Tennessee, where I was addressing a group of pastors on the subject of revival.
I had brought along with me two men that night, two men I was discipling at the time, and I told them to sit at the back of the room and pray. Their job was not to listen to me speak that night, but to pray the entire time and to ask God to go to work.
This they did, and about halfway through my message, as I was describing John chapter 15 as the pruning chapter, where God takes out his divine pruning knife on us to make us more useful to him, and as I elaborated upon my theme of how God will strip us and purge us and prune us, the atmosphere of the room became very solemn, and the faces of the pastors became altered with looks of alarm, and it was evident that God was at work in the hearts of those pastors that night.
And when I finished speaking, a line formed to speak to me, and standing there was a well-dressed elderly black pastor who threw his arms around me, and he hugged me hard, and with tears in his eyes, he said, I want you to know that I've been a pastor for nearly 50 years, but tonight I'm going home, and when I get there, I'm going to get down by my bed, and I'm going to ask God to get out his pruning knife on me and my ministry.
Well that man was serious with God, and I believe God gets serious with those who get serious with him. In John chapter 15, we see the union between Christ and his church under the parable of a vine, but the theme of John chapter 15 is one word, service, service in our obedience to God, service in our faithfulness to God, service in our prayer life, service in our fruitfulness to God, in a life of usefulness to him, all for his glory.
The best way to understand John chapter 15 is to read Isaiah chapter 5, where the prophet speaks of the parable of the vineyard. Let us turn there now, friends, to get a better sense of how God gives spiritual understanding as to the means and ways of the Lord in dealing with his people.
We will read Isaiah 5, verses 1 and 2. Here now is the word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord attend the reading of his holy word. Now will I sing to my well beloved a song of my beloved, touching his vineyard, my well beloved, hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill, and he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein, and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.
I will stop there, friends. The imagery here is of a husbandman tending his vineyard. He exercises great care over it, makes a great investment in it. We see his great love for it, and he has great expectations from it.
But in the end, it turns out to be a great disappointment to him. He laments, he looked for grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes. Well, let's go back now over to John chapter 15 again, as we study this remarkable passage of scripture in a message I have entitled, The Vine and Me.
For John chapter 15 is very personal. It's between us and the Lord. He has a great investment in us, and a great love toward us, purchasing us by his own blood. Should he not expect great things from us?
Will he not look for fruit in our lives? He will look for grapes, but will he find only wild grapes in the end? I remember a time in my life years ago when I was a successful businessman, and I was pouring myself into my career and still trying to serve God at the same time, and I was plum worn out.
It was two o 'clock in the morning, and I couldn't sleep. I couldn't breathe. In fact, I felt like I was dying. I got up from bed and slowly walked into my study and sat down before my open Bible, and I told God that I was tired, that I was so weary, I was ready to come home to him.
And I heard a voice ask me a question, not an audible voice, but a real voice. Nonetheless, the question was, what do you do for a living? I answered, investments. And he said, I have an investment in you, and I will receive the dividends from my investment.
Well I went back to bed, and I am still here these many years later, still laboring for him. I want us to read John chapter 15 now, friends. We won't read all of it, but we will get a good sense of it.
There is much dispute among scholars over where this discourse took place. Some suggest that the discourse took place while Jesus and his men were still in the upper room, and the vine spoken of is the vine of the cup which they were drinking, as the illustration used.
Others say, perhaps a tendril of creeping vine came up the trellis by the open window where they sat, and this was the reference made to the vine. While other Bible scholars point to John 14, 31, where Jesus says to his disciples, arise, let us go hence, inferring that they had left the upper room while this discourse was made along the way to Gethsemane, where as they crossed the brook Kidron, they saw the bright fires lighting up the nighttime sky from the vine cuttings which were burned.
Either way, it's striking imagery, isn't it? I like to think this discourse occurred while they were walking along in their little band with Jesus, with Jesus leading the way and the disciples keeping up with him and hanging on every word that dropped from his lips as they made their way to Gethsemane, where once there Jesus would be taken from them, and they would each flee like cowards before the arresting officers.
Jesus wants to impart to them some vital truths which will get them through this trying and difficult time where their world, as they know it, comes crashing down at Calvary. Let us now read verses 1 -5.
I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine. No more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches, he that abideth in me, and I in him.
The same bringeth forth much fruit, for without me ye can do nothing. I will stop there. Verse 1 of chapter 15 is very interesting in the Greek language where Jesus says, I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
In the Greek it reads, I, in contradistinction to anyone else, am the genuine vine, meaning no one else is quite like him, his ways are not our ways, he is the genuine article, all others are fakes and frauds compared to him, he alone is the genuine vine, he alone is the one true God.
Now notice what Jesus says about the Father, for it is here where we will travel the rest of this sermon. He states, my Father is the husbandman. In the Greek it reads, and my Father is the tiller of the soil.
This brings to mind our text in Isaiah chapter 5 about the care of the tiller of the soil over his choice vineyard, how he planted it and watered it and cared for it with the expectation of a harvest of rich fruit.
In John chapter 15 we see God as the husbandman, the tiller of the soil, who is intricately involved in the lives of his children, he is building faith in them through trial and adversity, he is teaching them obedience by the things which they suffer, he is caring for them and moving in them by the sanctifying work of his Spirit so they can better serve him and be more like Jesus, be more useful to him, more fruitful for him.
The entire passage speaks of agriculture and farming, growth and fruit production. It is God himself who holds the divine pruning knife in his skilled hands as he performs his masterful work on the branch, on you, on me.
The relationship between the vine and me is everything in the Christian life. Abide in the Greek is the word meno and it means to dwell, to remain, to remain under. Our daily walk with God, friends, is the mainspring of our fruit production.
We can do nothing apart from him, nothing impacting or lasting for eternity. God is continually at work in the life of a believer, stripping and purging and pruning and decreasing. God will reduce you before he increases you.
He will prune you for sure with his divine pruning knife as he looks for the dividends from his investment in you. But the most frightening verse to me in John 15 is verse 2. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away.
Let's camp out here, friends, as this pertains to us. I'm afraid there are individuals in every congregation that are saved but useless. They come every Sunday to sit and soak but don't want to serve.
God has exercised great care and expense over them with the price of his son's blood, but they don't want to get involved. They refuse to witness to others. They neglect the work of the gospel. They seldom pray unless it is for them and the needs of their family.
They want all the benefits of sitting at a great banquet table without any contribution on their part. And God, as the tiller of the soil, is looking for grapes. But what he finds, to his great disappointment, is nothing but wild grapes.
And our Lord declares that every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. Well, what does this mean? One has to look away to the judgment for believers to the beam of sea to get a true sense of this.
In 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 15, we read, for other foundation can no man lay, than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. I believe this pertains to the fruitless branch that he takes away, that the person who lives their life unto themselves and ignores eternity will suffer loss as Christ takes away what rewards he wanted to bestow upon them.
How would it be when we stand before Christ, who saved us by his own blood, when our life is reviewed before him on that day with his eyes of fire? Will we stand there with the gold, silver, and precious stones of a life lived unto him, a life of fruitfulness, or will we stand there knee deep in the ashes of a wasted life as we bend down to scoop up those ashes and place them in his nail-pierced hands?
I looked for grapes, but found wild grapes.