God is perfect and righteous. And the only way for imperfect and unrighteous people to be with him was for Jesus to pay the price of sin. To absorb the wrath of God. And for some reason, the world is so twisted that that idea is offensive. That the Lord paid the penalty for our sin so we could be with him. But that’s not good enough. Because that takes the control away from us.
And people hate that idea. We’re fine with the love of God but we are not ok that sin needed to be atoned for.
God is loving. And God is love. And that is important. It is fundamental to his nature. We should talk about that and celebrate that and rejoice in that.
But the sins I’ve heard people try to justify before God because God is loving…
But God is also just! And while God is loving, God doesn’t love sin. In fact, God hates sin. God has wrath towards sin. It’s not that God is uncontrolled and losing his temper. But it is a righteous disapproval and loathing of sin.
But the cross makes no sense without God also being just.
God is God. Couldn’t he just say we were forgiven?
That’s the wrong question.
The real question is, “how bad is sin that Jesus died to rescue from it?” How bad is sin that the cross was the cost of it? How much does God hate sin that His Son, Jesus Christ can to earth and died for it?
And again, we might want to thrash against that. “God made the rules Himself. He didn’t have to pay such a cost.”
Yes he did! Because that was what your sin cost. That was what admission into heaven cost.
To have simply wiped the slate clean would then be to take sin lightly. It would be to say it doesn’t really matter. And that goes against the nature and character of God. It would say that God was apathetic about sin.
Look to the cross. Look to the price that Jesus paid so we could be forgiven of our sin and that shows us just how seriously God takes it.
The theologian Louis Berkhof said, “The fact that God gave up His only begotten Son to bitter sufferings and to a shameful death cannot be explained on the principle of His love only.”
It’s love and justice.
Heaven is a perfect place.
It’s a place none of us deserves.
God is love and we should rejoice that he is love. It’s because God is love and that he is loving that He came into the world and bore our sins for us. Paid the price for us. Took our place for us.
But let us take joy that we have a God who is also just.
John Piper says, “We will never stand in awe of being loved by God until we reckon with the seriousness of our sin and the justice of his wrath against us.”
Maybe sin and wrath aren’t your favorite topics.
My point isn’t to ruin your day.
It is to point to the extreme joy that God wants us to take in his goodness for our forgiveness through the atonement of Jesus.
Our sin was great, but his love was greater.
So in the atonement we see the wrath of God endured by Christ on the cross for all who have faith in him. It is because Jesus endures the wrath of God that he is the only way. No one else was a worthy sacrifice because no one else was God. And no one else was perfect. It is Jesus alone.
Originally published August 24, 2017
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President Biden had wanted to withdraw U.S. troops by September 11. And before we’re even into September, the government of Afghanistan has fallen. In weeks, the Taliban has overtaken the country. The president of Afghanistan has been forced to flee.
I’ve heard that we shouldn’t be nation builders. I’ve heard we shouldn’t have had troops there. I’ve heard that we had accomplished the mission in 2011 when Navy SEALS killed Osama Bin Laden.
This week, we’ve heard comparisons of this war to Vietnam. This wasn’t Vietnam. We had long ago overthrown the government of Afghanistan and there was a certain degree of stability in that country. And all of that has been thrown out the window with our withdraw.
We had heard politicians say that our troops were in harms way and talk about this being a 20 year war.
Things were stable! We had not had an American combat death in Afghanistan since February of 2020. And over the last five years, our deaths in Afghanistan were in the teens (not all of those were even from combat). And people seriously want to compare that to Vietnam?
I hear that we should have gotten out. Because we shouldn’t be “nation building.”
We have troops literally all over the world. We should have gotten them out of Afghanistan when the operations ended? Should we also take our troops out of Japan and Germany, and Italy, whom we beat in World War II? We have over 100,000 service men and women in those countries today.
But we couldn’t keep a few thousand troops in Afghanistan to help maintain stability?
I’ll give a brief aside that if you’re someone who had more of an isolationist view of America in foreign affairs, I can at least appreciate the consistency in thinking we should have been out of Afghanistan.
I would argue that it’s in America’s interest to have a foothold in Afghanistan. We’re likely going to lose logistical advantages of having boots on the ground. Plus we’re turning our backs on women and children who we helped give a greater degree of freedom to than they will have under the iron fist of the Taliban. In America, we like to talk about all of the things we should provide for free to our citizens. We like to talk about all of the things we should have the right to have access to. We were helping provide lives that were just a little bit better for people in a war torn country.
I think about people who worked with us as translators, people who worked with our military over there. Many of them will be slaughtered. They’re in danger. I don’t think it’s right to turn our backs on them. And with all of the platitudes the Biden Administration will say about how they’re working to ensure their security, that will be much harder to achieve in a country that’s ruled by the Taliban. And heaven forbid there be another issue in that country (which is possible), it’s hard not to wonder if the people who had previously helped America will be less likely to help us a second time when we turned our backs on them.
And for what?
Why did we absolutely have to leave a country where we had helped them achieve a certain level of stability? That was surely better than this.
Hindsight is 20/20, but this was an obvious outcome to many who had questioned pulling out of Afghanistan. All you have to do to defeat America is to outlast our attention span.
Twenty years ago next month was the darkest day in modern American history. A generation went to war to avenge those attacks. And a legacy of Joe Biden is that his failures as commander-in-chief rapidly undid so much of what had been accomplished and enabled a hostile group who hates America to easily come back into power.
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Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Justification, peace, hope, suffering, glory, the Holy Spirit. All of those things are in this passage this morning. This 5 verse section is incredibly dense. We obviously will not be able to fully develop every single idea in this passage this morning.
But it’s valuable to see how these verses fit together. Because there is never anything haphazard about the order of scripture. Romans is a very logically ordered book. The ideas build off of each other. But a focus this morning will be on how these various themes all tie in together within this 5 verse section.
To give a little bit of background.
In Romans 4, Paul is talking about Abraham and how it was Abraham’s faith that had justified him before God.
God had made a promise to Abraham of land, offspring, and blessing. (Genesis 12:1-3)
Citing Genesis 15, Abraham believed and it had been counted to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:6)
As Paul winds down Romans 4:
21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” 23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. (Romans 4:21-25)
So he is talking about the death of Jesus. Jesus died so that we could be justified before God.
And then we come to chapter 5.
As a result of this reality, as a result of these facts: Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ
And just to gets all on the same page.
The entry point to salvation is faith in Jesus Christ. It is by faith that you are justified by God, that is, that you are in right legal standing. The righteousness of Jesus is given to you as though it were your own righteousness.
Not only can we be justified by faith, to be justified, you must have faith.
It is that we are not saved by what we do, we are saved by what Christ has done. He pulls us up. Salvation is entirely because of Jesus, through Jesus.
And for the Christian, for the person who has faith in Jesus, which Paul assumes in this passage: “since we have been justified by faith,” Paul gets at part of the result of justification “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Peace, it’s the end of hostility with God. It’s a restoration of harmony with God.
It had been lost due to sin, but we have peace, as the text says: “through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
We have a treaty that we get to enjoy but that we didn’t write, it was written in the blood of Jesus. It was a peace that he had to go to battle and die for us to have.
There is no other way to have peace with God except through Christ. No one else restores that, no other faith gives that, and you can’t bring it about by your own efforts, your own goodness. We are sinful and separated from God, hostile to God.
Ephesians 2:12-13: you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Jesus is the only road, the only way, the only path that leads to God.
Romans 5:2. Verse 2 is continuing to talk about the result of justifying faith.
Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
So we are justified by faith. We also have access to God’s grace as a result of faith. What does that mean? To have access to his grace? It’s the same thing as having access to God.
And again, we have that access through Jesus. To the praise of Jesus that through his life, and his death. His blood that was shed for sin, his body that was broken for sin, the penalty that he bore for sin. All of that so that we could have access to God.
There’s no other way.
Paul says “this grace in which we stand.” It is a reference to our standing before God. The present state of a person who has faith in the gospel.
Because justification happens by faith, Jesus saves you from the sins you have committed, the sins you struggle with today, and you will be saved from your sin in the future, because of Christ.
And so we are enabled to “rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”
We can rejoice that we are justified, that we are forgiven for all the sins we have committed, and because of our justification through faith in Jesus, we have the hope and the assurance that we will be justified in the future hope of glory with God.
You have to have faith to be saved. You cannot earn it, you can’t deserve it on your own. The only way you can have access to God is through believing in the gift of grace that God offers to sinful people. Jesus died on the cross to save sinners. He really died and he really rose from the dead. And because he rose, we can have the confidence of an eternal life with him.
Justification by faith is a fundamental doctrine of Protestantism.
But beginning in verse 3, Paul seems to almost change subjects.
And I want to explain why these ideas are actually related.
Verse 2 end by saying we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Verse 3: Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings,
We rejoice in our sufferings? What does that mean? Why does Paul talk about suffering in a section where he began by talking about justification?
To make the connection between the two, I think it’s important to understand something about faith. A lot of people mock the idea of justification by faith alone.
Non-Christians say “so you can just say you believe and go on doing whatever you want?” It fundamentally misses the point. The faith has to be genuine. And if the faith is genuine, God gives you His Spirit.
And it is through the Spirit that we are sanctified, that we are made Holy. You cannot be a Christian and not have God’s Spirit. There’s no such thing.
Ephesians 1:13-14: In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance
Justification and sanctification go together. You cannot be sanctified if you haven’t first been justified because to be justified is to have the Spirit through which you are sanctified.
Make sense?
But if you haven’t been justified, then you can’t be sanctified because you wouldn’t have the Spirit. So sanctification results from true faith. There are passages in the Bible where we see how sanctification plays out in life. For instance, love for God and love for your neighbor are important ways for a true Christian life to be lived.
In Galatians, Paul. talks about the fruit of the Spirit. And the point of that passage is that for a person who has the Spirit, which is synonymous with a person who has faith, the Spirit of God working in a person produces fruit, virtues like love, joy, peace, patience. (Galatians 5:22-23)
Fruit is necessary.
And in our section this morning, Paul talks about justification and then immediately goes to the subject of suffering, and the reason why he does this is to show us that suffering and suffering well is a part of the process through which God sanctifies us.
Let’s look again at the second part of our passage.
we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
It’s not that we rejoice in suffering for the sake of suffering. Christianity is not a call to be masochistic.
You break your arm, “Yes, I love this.” It’s not that suffering is good in itself. It’s the result of suffering that God works for good.
We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance. and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.
It may seem counterproductive. Rejoicing in suffering. Many people get frustrated with God when they’re struggling, suffering. It can so naturally be this sense of “where are you God?” Or “Why is this happening to me?” “It’s not supposed to be this way.”
Suffering is part of life.
It rains on both the saint and the sinner.
And the Christian life is one that is lived in a fallen world. Where we still sin, and have to deal with the ramifications from that. Where other people still sin, and where we have to deal with the ramifications from that. And where there is still sickness, illness, disease, hurt.
We aren’t in a bubble as Christians where we no longer have those things.
Unfortunately that’s the way many act in our world in the face of suffering. Some people in churches suffer, and it’s almost like they’d rather go it alone than with God.
But there’s something we all have to understand. The Bible doesn’t promise a Christian’s life will be free from suffering. In fact, the Bible literally promises the opposite of that. What Paul is saying here is consistent with the rest of the New Testament. It gets talked about over and over and over again.
James tells us to look at trials as a reason for joy: 2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4).
So in James, the result of trials is that it refines a person. It’s meant for a person to actually be “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
God uses suffering in our lives to help us grow.
Hebrews 12:5-9:
My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.
6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?
The author of Hebrews says in verse 8 that it is because we are children of God that God disciplines us. So it’s not that he’s punishing you. But that God disciplines us BECAUSE we are his children.
Again totally counterintuitive to our mindset today. Would you think a parent was a good parent if their children never had to face adversity, if they were always swooping in, even when the kid made a mistake. If everything were always just smooth sailing and easy, always going our way, we would never grow. We’d never mature in our faith.
We so often think life is all about happiness. It’s not. That is not what the Bible says the Christian life is all about. It’s all about knowing God and serving God.
If life were all about happiness, if this life were all there was, then yes, suffering would interfere with that. But suffering does not interfere with knowing God. And in fact, it can often times enhance our relationship with God.
Some people struggle and suffer, and they turn their back on God.
It’s tragic.
But for others, they grow in a deeper relationship with God than they ever thought possible when going through the greatest challenges and struggles. You name it, people have been able to love and follow God through it.
And again, it’s not that suffering is good for its own sake.
It’s that the result, the strength that comes from the tension, the greater relationship we can have with God is what can often times be the biggest blessing.
A radical idea that is puzzling to our world.
When you lift weights, you don’t get from the workout itself. It’s that when you lift weights, it creates all of these little micro-tears in your muscles. And after you workout, the muscles repair themselves and as a result of that, you’re stronger.
Faith gets strengthened through the heavy lifting. If we never face difficult situations, then we never grow. And different types of workouts work different muscles. Different ways how we’re tested strengthen us in different way. Sometimes it’s not until the dust has settled that we can look back and truly appreciate what God was doing in us.
Sometimes you don’t see the beauty of the journey until you’re on the top of the mountain and are able to see where the difficult path was leading you and to appreciate the beauty that it brought.
I’m sure some of us have experienced things that were extremely difficult at the time, things that were horrible. But things we can look to and as hard as it was at the time,we can see how it helped shape us, how it helped make us into who we are today.
We have different struggles. Different struggles for different people produce different results. But for the person who is in Christ, who is justified by faith in the Lord, it is always for a purpose.
One more scripture on this subject, though there are many more. I think it provides a good illustration.
1 Peter 1:6-7:
you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
It’s under the hottest fire that the metal is refined. Also it’s important that Peter says “you have been grieved by various trials.”
The New Testament uses words like “suffering” and “trials.”
We can acknowledge that things are difficult.
But what these passages tell us is that a good God can use temporary suffering for good purposes.
If you’re going through something right now, I’m not saying, and more importantly this passage is not saying just be stoic about it, just white-knuckle it. Just pretend everything is ok.
But to know that God is at work, even when you’re suffering.
In the good seasons, we should praise the Lord.
And in the times of struggle, we should still praise the Lord.
God isn’t far off.
Commit yourself to turning to God with greater urgency.
Don’t turn your back on God, don’t put your walk with God on hold until things get better.
Don’t give God the silent treatment. Because the only one who loses in that is you.
Run to God!
The author of Hebrews said: all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Do you suffer well?
suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
We grow in endurance through struggles.
Endurance produces character. It produces a greater fortitude in us.
The perspective that this is meant to inspire is meant to influence our Christian character and personal holiness, as we experience God’s grace through our sufferings. Growing in Godliness.
The quality we are as followers of Christ grows when facing tests.
And character produces hope.
It can be really easy for a person to just say they’re a Christian, to just pray some prayer without believing it. And then to get on with your life and not pay much attention to God, not really think about God, not live devoted to God.
Especially in our society where we have so many luxuries, so much to do, so many distractions.
But as we are tested by God, we are enabled to grow in our hope of God. Seeing Christians suffer well is also encouraging to the faith of those around us. Suffering well gives an opportunity to force us to focus on what really matters.
Again, the purpose of life is knowing God. And in the times of the most difficulty, we are forced to realize our need for God in a way that we can never be if life is always smooth sailing. If things are always going well, it’s really easy for us to want to take credit for that, feel like we’ve done that, earned that, we deserve that.
The hope that is produced is a hope in the goodness, and grace, and life that is found with God through the gospel.
It’s not an earthly hope but a heavenly hope.
Perhaps you’ve seen people who seemed at times to have an almost unbelievable faith in God through the more harrowing of trials and circumstances.
“Hope does not put us to shame,” the text says.
In the Old Testament, being “put to shame” is a reference of God’s judgment.
That is not what awaits the people who trust in the Lord. The reason? “Because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
The hope we have, the growth that we experience, it is not something that we do on our own. It is supernatural. God pours his love into our hearts through the Holy spirit.
Again, suffering is part of life.
You can do it well or poorly.
You might be going through some stuff right now.
It can be any number of things. Problems at home, problems with your finances, problems with your health.
Maybe it’s disappointment over something that never happened or a dream you feel never happened.
Maybe it’s something that happened a long time ago and it’s never really been dealt with.
Everyone has a cross to bear.
There is so much darkness, and pain, and hurting in our world.
Pain is painful.
And the Lord is good.
Everyday of our lives, every situation we face, be that something positive or something that’s a struggle is an opportunity to trust the Lord for what he’s doing in your life, an opportunity to praise him for what he has done.
Again, it can be so easy to get disheartened.
But the attitude should be one of gratitude to the Lord who is all loving, all good, all knowing.
Part of the reason that trials and struggles produce these results over the long haul is that people who have had more times where they’ve had to grow with God have also had more opportunities to see God at work in their lives.
Again, it’s encouraging to the soul to see God at work.
Especially in the times when it appears to the rest of the world that there’s no way anything good could possibly come from a circumstance.
Our passage doesn’t say we’re called to tolerate our sufferings. But to rejoice in our sufferings. Because the end result is meant to be hope.
Hope in the goodness of God. Hope in the salvation that comes from the Lord. Hope that we have a future in the presence of the Lord in a place where there is no suffering, where there are no trials, where there is no pain or sickness or death.
But that promise probably doesn’t mean much to you today if you aren’t hopeful.
We have a savior who died so that we, sinful people, could have that.
We have a savior who can personally relate to us in our own suffering.
Jesus also faced trials. He faced temptations. He was betrayed by one of his inner circle. An angry mob demanded Jesus be crucified. The Roman government unjustly allowed for him to be crucified. Jesus knew a thing about suffering. And he knows the areas where you’re suffering today. He knows the areas where we struggle.
He faced the greatest injustice of all.
Trials are not the time to distance yourself from God and His Church. That’s the last thing you should do! It is in the trials that you should more and more be living for God, trusting God, growing with God.
If you’re currently in a difficult season, actively remind yourself that God is working in this. God knows your struggle. God hasn’t forsaken you. God is with you. And while it can be hard to see through the storm, to know that it is an opportunity to grow more and more into the person who God wants you to be.
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 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. 5 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.
Introduction – faith of a dog
We have a dog.
We love our dog.
We’ve never done anything that was not in the ultimate interest of our dog and for the good of our dog.
We want our dog to be taken care of. We want our dog to have a great life. We give our dog many things that are really above and beyond what’s necessary for her to survive, just because we love her.
In spite of all of the nice things we do for our dog, whom we love, there are times when she doesn’t trust us.
I took her to vet last week because she needed one of her shots. When it’s time for her to get onto the table, she goes into dead weight mode.
She weighs like 15 pounds but when she goes limp, she has the density of a concrete block.
When we need her to take medicine. It’s a battle. Even though it’s for her good.
Kari accidentally dropped a Claritin on the floor once and Beasley immediately ate that. She’ll eat the medicine we don’t want her to take. But not her own.
I even once tried dropping one of her pills on the ground and acting like I didn’t want her to take it. She didn’t fall for that.
In the evenings, she almost always seems to be on guard for if she’s getting a bath. She immediately hides under the bed as soon as she hears the shower.
The vet appointments, the pills, the baths. None of them are very pleasant to her but are all for her good.
Because everything we do is for her good. Because we love our dog.
And she loves us.
But sometimes she can struggle to see the big picture of the things that we’re doing for her and how they’re for her ultimate good.
And as people with God, sometimes we’re not all that different.
This morning’s passage is a great passage because it reminds us that we have a good God and that we have a good savior who is full of vibrance and life and who wants us to share in that with him.
Our world often has the wrong image of Jesus and God.
It is not just this strict, stern, anti-fun, anti-enjoying things killjoy. But that he is a personal savior and loving God who points to truth, true life, goodness, and the way to live.
This is a wonderful passage this morning in John 15 where Jesus makes an interesting analogy of his purpose and ministry in comparing himself to a vine, referring to grapevines which are important in the region for consumption and most especially for wine production.
We’re going to focus on three main things this morning as we look at the first 5 verses of this chapter.
Being a branch on the vine
Verse 1 into verse 2:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes,
The first thing to note are the first two words of this passage.
I am.
We’ve talked about this before, but throughout John’s Gospel, we’ve seen Jesus make these “I am” statements.
And the significance of those two words “I am” is that they’re the same words that God uses in Exodus 3:14 to refer to his own divine name when speaking to Moses.
I am.
And in John’s Gospel, we see seven “I am” statements from the Lord Jesus. These statements point to his divinity, and also make allusions to his purpose, ministry, and mission in the world.
Jesus has said:
“I am the bread of life.” Jesus provides the nourishment for the human soul.
“I am the light of the world.” Jesus shines the moral goodness and glory of God in a world which is darkened by sin.
“I am the good shepherd.” Jesus is the one who leads and protects his people.
“I am the gate.” Jesus provides protection for his people.
“I am the resurrection and the life.” Jesus provides the hope of eternal life.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Jesus provides the way to eternal life.
And here we come to the final of the “I am” statements.
I am the true vine.
It’s fitting that this is the last of these statements. And it’s fitting that he says this on the eve of going to the cross.
In saying that he is the true vine, he’s pointing to himself as the one who sustains his people.
Jesus is the vine.
God the Father is the vinedresser or gardener.
Christians are attached to the vine and bear fruit, which refers to good works and to Spiritual growth which is the result of one’s relationship to the vine, to Christ.
A vine branch cannot blossom and produce fruit apart from the vine. A vine branch cannot survive off of the vine.
Neither can a Christian exist apart from Christ.
Jesus talks of two different types of branches in these verses.
There are the branches which do not bear fruit and the branches which do bear fruit.
This is a reference to two different types of people within the church.
People who believe in the gospel and those who do not.
The fruitless branch is someone who goes to church, they know how to speak the churchy lingo. They might say they’re a Christian. They know a little bit about the Bible. But they don’t really believe in Jesus. They don’t truly believe that he’s their Lord and savior.
And because they don’t really believe in Jesus, there’s no fruit.
They never had fruit. It’s not that their production slowed down or that they had a bad week. It’s that they never believed in the first place.
We’re in John 15.
The most obvious example of someone to whom Jesus is referring here is Judas who had been one of the 12 and who had departed from Jesus at the end of chapter 13.
It’s not that Judas was a believer in Jesus who walked away from him. Judas NEVER believed in Jesus in the first place.
Jesus says: I am the true vine.
Not only is Jesus the vine, but he’s the true vine.
But what does that mean?
Like all of the “I am” statements, the metaphor is steeped in Old Testament thought.
Validation – Vine in the Old Testament
In the Old Testament, you see this vine metaphor, especially in the prophetic books.
And within that metaphor, Israel is a grapevine which has not yielded good fruit.
As a result of Israel’s failure to produce fruit, there are consequences for the nation brought forth by God, the vinedresser.
As we begin, let’s look at a couple of these passages.
Jeremiah 2:21 talks of how the vine has grown wild:
Yet I planted you a choice vine,
wholly of pure seed.
How then have you turned degenerate
and become a wild vine?
Psalm 80, where it depicts God as the vinedresser and Israel as the vine who he brought out of Egypt, in obvious reference to the Exodus. As the vinedresser, God has cared for and tended to this vine, but it has not yielded the fruit that it should:
8 You brought a vine out of Egypt;
you drove out the nations and planted it.
9 You cleared the ground for it;
it took deep root and filled the land.
10 The mountains were covered with its shade,
the mighty cedars with its branches.
11 It sent out its branches to the sea
and its shoots to the River.
12 Why then have you broken down its walls,
so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit?
13 The boar from the forest ravages it,
and all that move in the field feed on it.
14 Turn again, O God of hosts!
Look down from heaven, and see;
have regard for this vine,
And one final example, perhaps the most prevalent in the Old Testament. Isaiah 5.
As a brief reminder. A couple of Christmases ago, we spent four weeks in Isaiah 7, 8, and 9, common Christmas passages which talk about the virgin giving birth to Immanuel and of God’s future government brought forth by a “wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, prince of peace.”
But those passages also talk about divine judgment upon Jerusalem and the southern kingdom for their rebellion against God.
Isaiah 5 gives a vision of the destruction of the Lord’s vineyard.
In that passage, we again see Israel depicted as a grapevine which the vinedresser – the Lord – has planted in fertile soil and has tended to the vineyard. The point is that God has made every provision for his vine, yet the grapes its produced are sour, and the vine has become overgrown and wild.
And so the Prophet Isaiah gives a warning of judgment against Israel, this vine.
5 And now I will tell you
what I will do to my vineyard.
I will remove its hedge,
and it shall be devoured;
I will break down its wall,
and it shall be trampled down.
6 I will make it a waste;
it shall not be pruned or hoed,
and briers and thorns shall grow up;
I will also command the clouds
that they rain no rain upon it.
Protection is removed. Provision is withheld. The vine will be allowed to continue to grow out and be subject to the natural elements.
That’s the metaphor.
Throughout the gospels, Jesus uses vineyard metaphors and parables.
Because of the Old Testament background, the vine had become an important symbol in Israel. When the Israelites had a revolt against the Romans a generation after the ministry of Jesus, their coinage sported the image of a vine.
And it’s against that backdrop that on the night before he went to the cross, Jesus said to his disciples I am the true vine.
Not simply, I am the vine.
But he is the true vine that Israel was not.
That Jesus is the true vine who brings forth the true harvest which Israel did not bring.
Here’s something else to consider.
We’re at the beginning of John 15.
Let’s briefly flip the page back to where John 14 ends:
30 I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, 31 but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here (John 14:30-31).”
John 14 ends with Jesus calling upon the disciples to leave.
Jesus is arrested in John 18. Given the geographical markers between the gospels, we know that Jesus and the disciples move west to east and that he’s arrested near the temple.
So in John chapters 15-17, Jesus and the disciples are making their way from the Last Supper to the Garden of Gethsemane, where he was arrested.
Walking by the temple, the entrance of the temple had large decorative vines that had been cast. And it was in the shadow of the temple that in the hours before his death, Jesus said to his disciples I am the true vine.
and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes,
Truly believing in the gospel, truly believing in Jesus, brings life, brings transformation. A byproduct of believing in the gospel is fruit. Fruit is the good works, virtue, and love for God which exists in a believer.
Again, to believe in Jesus is to be part of the true vine. And to truly believe in him, to truly get it, to truly be living for Christ is to have a life that bears fruit.
There is only one vine, the true vine, Christ. There aren’t all sorts of vines. There is one vine, and we are growing on it or we’re not.
For the branches which bear fruit, there is life because the vinedresser prunes and cultivates the branches and that brings us to our second point.
Being pruned by the vinedresser
Let’s look again at verse 2 and finish verse 2.
every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
God is the vinedresser who prunes the grapevine.
Illustration – viticulture
Properly pruning grapevines is essential to maximizing the harvest. Without pruning vines, they can quickly become overgrown and entangled.
Pruning requires cutting off small branches and old branches so that you can make room to support the new year’s grapevines. You wanted the vine to be cut to a certain length. Too long and it’s more susceptible to breaking. Pruning was primarily done twice a year. It would be done in the spring when they planted and again in the fall at harvest to ensure healthy vines.
And that is all important to the metaphor and what the passage is teaching.
Because for the branch the bears good fruit on the vine, God as the master vinedresser, God prunes in order to maximize the harvest.
That’s what a vinedresser does.
They have to cut away at the vine for the good of the vine.
Imagine that you’re a branch on the vine. You might have all of these other branches and shoots that look good and are about to blossom.
And then the vinedresser starts cutting.
It’d seem cruel!
But a good vinedresser knows it’s necessary to get the most fruit out of the vine.
I think of where I began this morning in talking about my dog. Sometimes she doesn’t want things or understand things which are meant for her ultimate good.
We can be short-sighted too. We can miss the big picture too.
God brings about things in our lives sometimes for our growth that can seem painful, that can seem harsh, that can seem unfair.
Yet all of it is meant for ultimate good.
And God has to prune us.
Application – God prunes us
It can be different ways in different seasons of life, but God must use the knife to cut into us.
This calls to mind a passage like Hebrews 12, where God is a loving father who instills discipline in his children.
Hebrews 12:6: the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
Sometimes that’s how God prunes us.
By discipline.
Sometimes it’s through the challenges we face.
James 1:2-4:
2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
James says that we are to count it all joy when we meet trials of various kinds because God uses those trials to work greater results in us.
There’s pruning.
Sometimes it can be through illnesses or life circumstances.
Sometimes God takes things away from us, but for greater purposes.
Sometimes it can be through setbacks.
But God works through those challenges and situations.
In the process, he produces different results.
No two branches are pruned exactly the same.
But to be a Christian is to be part of the vine, and to be part of the vine is to produce fruit. And to be part of the vine is definitely to be pruned. God is a perfecting God.
God is faithful to work in us.
Few weeks ago we had Vacation Bible School.
The key verse for VBS was from Philippians 1:6:
he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
It’s not always through horrible afflictions and difficulties that God works in us.
God can prune us through relationships. People in our family, people in the church, people from work. He can use people to be transformational in our lives. Kari is getting me a pruning knife in October, Lord willing.
He can prune through his word.
2 Timothy 3:16:
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
God can use his word in mighty ways in our lives.
And let us remember that when we read our Bibles. That the Word should challenge us.
We are sinful and imperfect. God’s Word is true and points us to holiness.
It can be challenging to be confronted with the Bible.
You can have weeks or months of reading the Bible and nothing really stands out to you and then you come across a passage that feels like it was written with you in mind.
Because God uses his word to cut us. He uses it to prune us.
Hebrews 4:12 says:
the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
God prunes us with his Word.
God prunes us to produce fruit. God prunes us to teach us. God prunes us to humble us. To make us more joyful. To make us more appreciative. To make us more loving. To make us more trusting and reliant upon him. To make us more holy in living for him.
And in many other ways.
How is God pruning you?
Is there an area of your life where you’re not living up? Where you know you’re not honoring God? Is there an area of sin that you’re struggling with? Is there an idol that you’re holding onto? Is there a person you’re withholding forgiveness from?
The answer for that question will vary from person to person.
But what does not change is that God is working in his people.
You’re not a finished product.
Third point.
Producing fruit through the vine
Verses 3-5:
3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 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. 5 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.
Verse 3, the focus shifts.
Jesus says to the disciples: Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.
That is meant to be an encouragement.
The Word that Jesus has spoken refers to the totality of his teaching. That they have heard the words of Christ and believed and it is because of this that they are made clean.
It is because of the word of the gospel that all of us are made clean.
The disciples heard Jesus.
God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matthew 11:28-29).
whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:14).
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. (John 10:27-28)
And so much more.
Life is in Christ Jesus.
If you have faith in Jesus and believe in him as Lord and savior, there are still struggles that we face, but we can also look to him with hope and expectation that there will be fruit. That he is at work. That God is pruning. That he who began a good work WILL bring it to completion.
We aren’t yet what God will have us be.
Jesus is the vine. We are the branches through which he wants to bring forth great fruit.
4 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.
There are some Bible passages where the metaphor is just so simple that on the one hand, there’s nothing else that needs to be said. It’s self-explanatory. Beautiful simplicity.
Psalm 23 is one of those passages.
Here, Jesus calls us to abide in him.
And as we abide in Jesus, he is in us. He is working in us.
There is no good fruit that we are producing apart from Christ. A branch cannot produce grapes if it’s not attached to the vine.
Jesus says neither can you, unless you abide in me.
As we’ve seen so many other times in this gospel, it’s an absolute statement.
Are there many ways to honor God? Are there many ways to produce the fruits that God desires from his people? Fruits of righteousness and holiness? The fruit of growing in sanctification and in the knowledge of God? The fruit of virtue and living for the glory of God?
Is that through the true vine?
Or is it just some Bible teaching that’s nice and quaint but not really transformational.
5 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.
Again Jesus reminds us that he is the vine.
We produce fruit on the vine and only on the vine.
So far we’ve talked about Jesus being the true vine and what it means to be a branch on the vine. We’ve talked about the pruning that God does.
And this last point points us to the fruit that Jesus bears.
When we talk about pruning, that’s a painful process.
But this is a positive passage. Because the point is about the great fruit that Jesus produces. Jesus is not calling us to misery and drudgery. He wants us to live joyful lives for him and through him.
John 10:10, Jesus says:
I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
He wants us to live abundantly, in him.
He wants us to experience all the fullness of life in him, on the vine.
The fruit is good.
Who doesn’t love grapes? Grapes are good. They’re delicious.
Have you guys tried those new cotton candy grapes?
Jesus isn’t the broccoli plant.
He’s not the true cabbage patch.
He’s the grapevine.
And he wants to produce goodness in you.
Conclusion – abiding in Christ
Jesus calls us to abide in him.
We are to live for him. To walk with him. To follow him. To learn from him.
Because Jesus loves us and he never does anything that is not in our ultimate interest and for our ultimate good.
He wants us to bear fruit, in him. On the vine. And that is a grace that he gives us because he loves us.
Amen.
Communion
We’re going to move right into communion.
I’ve talked about the powerful symbol that the grapevine was in Ancient Israel and in the Old Testament. Obviously we can eat grapes, but the primary purpose for grapes in this time and culture was wine production. It was an important industry.
Archaeologists have unearthed hundreds of winepresses from ancient Israel.
It was important culturally. It was important symbolically. It was important Biblically.
And in this passage, Jesus has said that the symbol is ultimately about him. That the vine ultimately points to him because he is the true vine.
Jesus begins his ministry by turning water into wine. He celebrates the last supper by lifting up a cup of wine and saying “this is my blood.”
And as Jesus walked with his disciples to the place of his death, in the shadow of the temple, Jesus said I am the true vine.
Jesus is the true vine and Jesus gives the true wine.
Bibliography
Carson, D. A. (1991).The Gospel according to John. Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans.
McMillan, R. L. (2016). Vines and Viticulture. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, … W. Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Osborne, G. R. (2018).John: Verse by Verse. (J. Reimer, E. Ritzema, D. Thevenaz, & R. Brant, Eds.) Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Phillips, R. D. (2014).John. (R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & D. M. Doriani, Eds.) (1st ed., Vol. 2). Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.
On the eve of going to the cross, and aware of the horrors which awaited, Jesus turned his focus to the disciples and his provision for them. Jesus promised not to leave them as orphans but would instead come again and would also impart the Holy Spirit to his believers.
