The Vine — A lesson

A few weeks ago I went to a Manor house near to where I live. Along one of the walls in the grounds there is a huge vine which was full of fruit, large clusters of grapes hanging off the branches of the vine. And as I looked, my mind was immediately transported to this Scripture in the Bible:

John 15:1–8

“I am a true sprouting vine, and the farmer who tends the vine is my Father. 2 He cares for the branches connected to me by lifting and propping up the fruitless branches and pruning every fruitful branch to yield a greater harvest. 3 The words I have spoken over you have already cleansed you. 4 So you must remain in life-union with me, for I remain in life-union with you. For as a branch severed from the vine will not bear fruit, so your life will be fruitless unless you live your life intimately joined to mine.

5 “I am the sprouting vine and you’re my branches. As you live in union with me as your source, fruitfulness will stream from within you — but when you live separated from me you are powerless. 6 If a person is separated from me, he is discarded; such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire to be burned. 7 But if you live in life-union with me and if my words live powerfully within you — then you can ask whatever you desire and it will be done. 8 When your lives bear abundant fruit, you demonstrate that you are my mature disciples who glorify my Father!”

This is part of Jesus’ last words to His disciples at the last supper, before He was crucified. He knew that this was His last night on earth so this was His last opportunity to give them the most important part of what they should remember.

Jesus says if we are in life-union with Him we will bear fruit. So what does being in ‘life union’ with Him really mean? Some translations of the bible say if you ‘remain’ in me or if you ‘abide’ in me.

It’s all about remaining in Him and letting the words that He said become a lifestyle. In verse 7 it says ‘if my words live powerfully within you’ — in the Aramaic it is translated ‘ if my words take hold or are strong within you’. He had showed them everything that He was assigned to show them and told them everything that they needed to know for the days ahead. When He ascended back to Heaven they would remember all that He had told them and be equipped to spread the Gospel throughout the world.

When we choose to be a follower of Jesus, or a Christian, we begin a relationship with Him in which He, by His spirit, comes to live in our spirit.

When a person goes to study medicine at university, they know very little when they arrive but as the years pass and they study books and attend lectures and do placements in hospitals, they slowly become qualified and can practice as a doctor. It’s much the same with us, when we first make that decision to follow Jesus, we know very little about Him and the ways of God so we need to do study His Word, the bible, we pray, we worship, we spend time with other Christians so that they can guide us and help us on our journey.

It’s difficult in today’s world, let’s be honest, with the dawn of social media and I’ll confess that I spend far too much time on Facebook rather than having my face in HIS BOOK! (See what I did there?) We all fall short when it comes to studying the Bible but when we do read it it restores and renews our soul.

Imagine three test tubes, one represents our body, one our soul and one our spirit. Now when we accept Jesus as our saviour, the one representing our spirit suddenly comes alive with living, sparkling water — In John 7:38, Jesus said ‘Whoever believes in Me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them’ So our spirit is forever alive and is full of living water.

The next test tube is our soul. Our soul is our mind, our will and our emotions or the dictionary definition says ‘the mental abilities of a living being: reason, character, feeling, consciousness, memory, perception, thinking…’

Psalm 23 says

The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
3 HE RESTORES MY SOUL;

This can be applied physically when we go for a walk but it implies here in this Psalm that it is a spiritual thing as well, as we take time to study His word and spend time in His Presence.

He gives us hope in a hopeless world or in a hopeless situation, we don’t have to feel alone… that psalm goes on to say:

Even when I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will not be afraid,
for you are close beside me.
Your rod and your staff
protect and comfort me.

The next test tube represents the body, the flesh that we walk around in.

When Adam, at the very beginning bought sin into the world by disobeying God, the whole of creation fell, not just human beings, but decay entered into the creation, that’s why things die. Our bodies get old, things start to ache, disease sets in. The apostle Paul in Romans 7:24–25 says:

24 What an agonizing situation I am in! So who has the power to rescue this miserable man from the unwelcome intruder of sin and death? 25 I give all my thanks to God, for his mighty power has finally provided a way out through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One! So if left to myself, THE FLESH IS ALIGNED WITH THE LAW OF SIN, but now my renewed mind is fixed on and submitted to God’s righteous principles.

That’s why it was so important for Jesus to give His body on the cross to atone for our sins. At the last supper when Jesus broke the bread into pieces, He said ‘this is my BODY, broken for you’, because when the devil tempted Eve way back in the garden, sin entered into the human genome and now the sin nature is passed on through the male, so it is a physical thing.

Jesus was born of a virgin, born of a woman, that is why he didn’t have a sin nature. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says:

21 For God made the only one who did not know sin to become sin for us, so that we who did not know righteousness might become the righteousness of God through our union with him.

So the next question we must answer is what is the fruit that Jesus says we will produce?

Galatians 5:22–23 says:

22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Or, as the Passion Translation puts it:

22–23 But the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is divine love in all its varied expressions: joy that overflows, peace that subdues, patience that endures, kindness in action, a life full of virtue, faith that prevails, gentleness of heart, and strength of spirit. Never set the law above these qualities, for they are meant to be limitless.

He is the vine and we are the branches, it is only when He becomes part of our lives that the Holy Spirit who lives within us begins to change us. I know what you’re thinking….. but I don’t feel any of this right now! How many of us could do with some peace, some joy, some kindness, some faith, some strength?

Remember what I said earlier, it is a process, it doesn’t happen all at once but keep going, He is so kind and compassionate and knows our human nature only too well. If you forget everything that you’ve read today, remember this: God loves you! He loves you so much that He sent His Son Jesus to die in your place so that you could be reconciled back to your Father and the Creator of everything that exists (imagine that!!)

When I saw this huge grapevine a few weeks ago, it had loads of grapes because now is the season for the vine to yield its fruit but there will come another season where the vine will look dead and fruitless. Just as the vine has different seasons, our lives do too. There can be seasons of life, vitality, success and fruit and there can also be seasons of our lives that can also look dead and fruitless; winter is a season of rest for the vine, fruit will come again, just in a different season. So, in every season we must abide in Jesus and trust Him, in the seasons of fruit and in the seemingly dead seasons of our lives. Philippians 1:6 says:

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

If a child is struggling when he should be still, a parent cannot put his coat on. (We’ve all been there!) If we are struggling when we should be resting, God cannot do what He wants to do in our lives, He has to wait for us to stop struggling.

So if you’ve been struggling on, worrying and stressing then ask God if this is a season of rest, if it is then just rest and He can continue with the good work that He has begun in you. Enjoy your season of rest because, whilst we can’t see it, there will be fruit again. For some of us rest is quite difficult because we like to be always on the go, not wasting a minute and we find it quite difficult to rest. But even God Himself rested on the seventh day after He had created the world, so if He rested, so should we.

We go through seasons where God is preparing us for our next assignment, in those seasons we must listen. We have seasons where we don’t know what in the world is going on, in those seasons, just be quiet and abide in him, He will let you know at the right time what the next step is. He will open the door for us to walk through. Equally He may close doors and finish assignments.

In closing I want to draw our attention to verse 4:

So you must remain in life-union with me, for I remain in life-union with you. For as a branch severed from the vine will not bear fruit, so your life will be fruitless unless you live your life intimately joined to mine.

This is the essence of a relationship with God. Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship with Father God, the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit. It is not boring, it is a fantastic adventure, but the key is intimacy, worship and listening to what the Father wants you to do every day.

Even in the dry seasons, if we will trust Him He will help us to grow into mature sons, He will teach us to be Kingdom builders and not empire builders.

But most of all, He will be close beside us: Deuteronomy 31:6 says:

6 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.’

Hebrews 13:5:

5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’

God loves you, today and every day! So reach out to Him, He will take all of your worry, anxiety, loneliness, hopelessness and He will be your comforter, your guide and your friend from this moment on and into all eternity.

A prayer:

Thank you Father God that you love me so much, thank you that you are there for me in whatever season I am in right now. Hold me close and walk with me through every season, lift up my head when I feel down, help me to produce the fruit of your spirit in my life, come Holy Spirit and flood my life with your joy and peace and take me on into all that you have for me. For I ask it in Jesus’ mighty name

AMEN!

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