I.      Introduction

Diane is a wonderful gardener.  Our backyard is an oasis – flowers grow everywhere.  She tends the roses and the hibiscus, which she calls her “biscuits,” and she prunes them faithfully.  And sometimes, she’ll cut an especially beautiful flower and put it in a vase in the kitchen. 

And here’s the thing about that kitchen flower – it’s already dead.  It was dead the moment it was cut.  The water in the vase just slows down the news.  Now, I don’t have a green thumb, but I don’t think the kitchen flower dies because of me.  No matter how beautiful it looks on the counter, a flower cannot live apart from its root.  In a week or so, the petals droop, the water turns cloudy, and out it goes. 

Hold that thought.  We’ll come back to it. 

We’ve been going through the seven “I AM” statements of Jesus –

1. I AM the Bread of Life
2. I AM the Light of the World
3. I AM the Door
4. I AM the Good Shepherd
5. I AM the Resurrection and the Life
6. I AM the Way and the Truth and the Life
7. I AM the True Vine

During the first six, Jesus gave these “I AM” statements to explain His relationship with the Father and His relationship with us. These metaphors—Bread, Light, Door, Shepherd, Resurrection, Way—were chosen by Jesus not just for their imagery, but because each one had special meaning to the Jews. The Bread reminded them of God’s provision of manna, the Door reminded them of the sacrificial blood over the door prior to the Exodus, and so on. Jesus has spoken to the Jews, the Pharisees, believers and unbelievers, and even Gentiles. And now we come to the seventh and final “I AM.”

This “I AM” statement is different.  John places it during Passover week, on the night before the cross.  Jesus is saying goodbye to the remaining eleven disciples.  Judas has already left to betray the Lord for 30 pieces of silver, and Jesus knows He will soon be arrested, tried unfairly, scourged and crucified in accordance with Scripture. 

Jesus and the remaining disciples have left the Upper Room in Jerusalem and are walking together through the Kidron Valley toward the Garden of Gethsemane near the Mount of Olives.  That might sound like a lot of walking, but it’s not.  Here’s a photo from the Jerusalem walls near the East Gate where you can see all three locations.

Did the disciples understand Jesus’ impending death?  I’m not sure they fully understood.  All through the Upper Room Discourse in John 14, Jesus says He’s going away and then coming back.  He has to go away so the Holy Spirit will come.  Thomas then says, “Lord we don’t know where you’re going.”  Jesus gives them comforting words, and ends John 14 with essentially saying, “let’s go for a walk.”

Remember, just hours earlier in the Upper Room, Jesus had lifted the cup – the fruit of the vine, He called it in Matthew 26:29 – and shared it with them.  Now, walking out into the Passover night, He gives them the seventh and final “I AM” in John 15:1-11 –

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.  You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.  Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.  If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.  If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.  If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.  I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

For Discussion What is something that can look healthy on the outside for a while, even after it has been cut off from its source of life?

II.      The True Vine

When Jesus speaks these words, He isn’t speaking to Pharisees or Jews or Gentiles.  He’s speaking to His followers.  I mean literally His followers.  Jesus said, “Let’s go for a walk” and they followed.

The words Jesus speaks to them are words of comfort and hope and how to live while we wait for His return.  And as always, Jesus chooses a metaphor that has great significance when He called Himself the True Vine. 

The disciples would have understood this vine a little differently.  Imagery of the vine, the vineyard, its relationship to the nation of Israel was used throughout Scripture.  In fact, during this walk through the valley of Kidron, they probably had a view of the temple and the gold vines decorating it.  I’ve seen some estimates that the gold used for the vine was worth as much as $12 million in today’s money.  I went looking for a picture of these gold vines to show you…

… but then I remembered the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D.  Duh.  In fact, the amount of gold on the temple may have been a motivation for the Roman soldiers to not leave one stone unturned, also in fulfillment of Scripture.  So here instead is a model representation of what it may have looked like –

But why “the True Vine?”  Is it in comparison to something else?  Scripture like this one from Isaiah 5:1-2,7 shows the vine is a metaphor for Israel –

My loved one had a vineyard
    on a fertile hillside.
He dg it up and cleared it of stones
    and planted it with the choicest vines…
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,
    but it yielded only bad fruit.
The vineyard of the Lord Almighty
    is the nation of Israel…
And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
    for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

So this is the message the disciples understood.  The vine was Israel and despite everything the Lord did for the vine, it yielded only bad grapes.

William Barclay observes that the vine was a familiar Jewish symbol—Israel was God’s vine. But he points out that in the Old Testament, whenever the vine pictures Israel, it is almost always tied to disappointment, failure, or degeneration. Isaiah says God planted a vineyard and looked for good grapes, but it produced wild grapes. Jeremiah says Israel became a wild vine. Hosea says Israel was a luxuriant vine, but it bore fruit for itself.

So when Jesus says, “I am the true vine,” He is not just giving us a pleasant gardening illustration. He is saying, “Israel failed to be the fruitful vine God intended. But I am the true vine. I am the real vine. I am everything Israel was supposed to be.”

And that means our hope is not that we are better branches than Israel. Our hope is that we are attached to a better Vine.

But it’s not just Israel that has fallen short – Romans 3:9 –

What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin.

So it’s not just Israel that yielded bad grapes. Israel failed. Gentiles failed. All of man’s attempts at his own religion failed. It will take God Himself to succeed where man fails. That’s why Jesus is the true vine. The Greek word translated “true” is alethinos. It means true, genuine, the real thing—not merely something that has the name or appearance, but the reality itself.

For Discussion Why is it comforting that our hope is not that we are better branches, but that we are attached to a better Vine?

III.      Bear Fruit

Let’s look at our Scripture again, this time focusing on verses 4 and 5 –

“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.  I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

There’s some repetition throughout this whole passage.  Let’s begin with the words “bear fruit” which is repeated six times. 

Now this is not bear fruit.  This is a bear, and this is some fruit.

Now, I’ve sat in on several lessons over the year that focused on the phrase “bear fruit.”  Sometimes it was used to emphasize the need to make disciples.  Other times it emphasized the need to do good works.  But I finally realized while studying for this lesson why those lessons didn’t resonate with me, and let me explain.

A few years ago—more than a few now—Diane asked for a Methley plum tree for her birthday. It’s grown nicely, probably 25 feet tall or more by now.

There’s still no ripe plums on it, though.  For years I tried shouting at it, “bear fruit!”  But it was still just a tree.  A tree without fruit.  These days, the tree has finally started setting fruit—small, green, immature plums.  And then, every year so far, they drop off before they ever ripen.  Fruit that doesn’t remain.  In John 15:16, Jesus says He chose us to bear “fruit that will last”—and the Greek word there is the same word translated “remain” all through our passage.  We remain hopeful for this year.  So here’s my point: I cannot command the tree to bear fruit.  The tree will bear fruit in season and when the time is right.  That’s what the tree’s purpose is.  It’s made for bearing fruit when the conditions are right.  As you can see in this picture from a few years back, the grapefruit tree right next to it was bearing quite a lot of fruit—until the 2021 ice storm cut it down.  It grew back from the ground for a while, but it never bore fruit again, and it has since died.  We’ve planted flowers over the spot now, almost like flowers at a gravesite.  I miss those grapefruits.  But that tree bore its fruit in its season, and its season ended.

There’s a Psalm that sounds like an echo of what Jesus is saying here – or rather, Jesus sounds like the fulfillment of it.  It’s Psalm 1, and its placement is no accident.  Before a single song of praise or sorrow, before any of the 150 Psalms that follow, the book opens with instruction: here are two ways to live, and here is the one that leads to life.  Delight in the word first, and a fruitful life follows.  Listen –

Blessed is the one
    who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
    or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
    which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
    whatever they do prospers.

“Planted by streams of water.”  Not a cut flower in a vase, not a branch lying on the ground – planted, with its roots down in the stream.  And the word “planted” is passive.  Even the image is passive. The tree didn’t plant itself; Somebody planted it there, by the water, on purpose.  That’s John 15:16 – “You did not choose me, but I chose you.”  We are planted by Another.

And the planted tree “yields its fruit in season.”  There’s my plum tree again – not fruit on command, not fruit by shouting, but fruit in season, because the roots are in the right place.  “Whose leaf does not wither” – the opposite of the kitchen flower, the opposite of the branch thrown on the ground.  The abiding tree doesn’t wither, because it never left the water.  And notice why it’s rooted: its “delight is in the law of the Lord,” meditating on it day and night.  Jesus says the same thing – “If you remain in me and my words remain in you.”  Delight in the word, roots in the stream, fruit in season.

Psalm 1 opens the songbook the same way Jesus opens the life of a disciple: with instruction.  Delight in the word, and then live the fruitful life that grows out of it.

No doubt Jesus wants us to bear fruit – verse 8 says

This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

I realized, studying for this lesson, that this verse is not written as a command. Jesus doesn’t say, “Now get your lazy rear ends off that sofa and go bear me some fruit.” But if and when we bear fruit as His disciples, that fruit will bring glory to God.

But “bear fruit” isn’t the only repeated phrase – “remain” or “remain in me” shows up eleven times!  Remain, remain, remain in me, remain in me.  Without remaining in or abiding in Jesus, there can be no fruit.  Jesus desires communion, fellowship, to be united with Him.  The life of the Vine will flow through us, and then we have fruit.

So the reason previous lessons where I was told to get up off my lazy rear end and go “bear fruit” didn’t resonate with me is that I don’t believe that’s what Jesus was emphasizing. Abiding in Him is what He is emphasizing. Abide in Him, and we will bear fruit. Then and only then are the conditions right. We were made for bearing fruit, and we bear fruit naturally when the conditions are right.

So what kind of fruit are we talking about?  Not bear fruit, we already talked about that.

But your Christian character is fruit.  In Galatians 5:22-23,

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

When you are abiding in Him, this fruit grows naturally in the right conditions.  If you do a self-examination and discover you are missing fruit – say, forbearance or patience, then the solution is not to try harder to be patient.  The solution is to abide in Him.

Your love and righteousness is fruit, Philippians 1:9-11 –

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

This is righteous love.  Some love isn’t love, it just masquerades as love.  If a child says, “I want to play in traffic!”, is it love to say, “ok, dear, whatever you want, you can have.”  I think the word love is misused in the news media when they really mean self-indulgence.  It’s not the same thing as practical, righteous love. 

And you’ve heard me say that good works are not necessary for your salvation, and it’s true.  Your salvation is 100% based on just trusting in Christ Jesus and what He has done for you.  But… good works are fruit in that belief, Colossians 1:9b-11 –

We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience.

Your good works which spring out of your faith in Jesus bring glory to God.  Good works are good fruit. 

And also just being thankful to God is good fruit, Hebrews 13:15-16,

Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.  And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

God loves it when you thank Him and praise Him, because He knows that you know He deserves praise.

For Discussion Where are you most tempted to produce fruit on your own instead of remaining in Christ?

IV.      The Gardener

This good fruit does not come naturally.  It comes supernaturally.  Our sinful nature remains when we give our lives to Christ.  The difference now is that we have the ability to say no to sin, if we abide in Him.

We don’t do this on our own.  Verses 1&2,

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

Verse 1 says that Jesus is the vine, and His Father is the gardener.  I don’t know about you, but I have some reservations if I’m going to be pruned.  I’ve watched Diane prune her roses and her biscuits – snip, snip – and the bush always looks worse before it looks better.  But she knows what she’s doing, and they always come back fuller, with more blooms than before. 

I looked up some information on growing a vineyard and taking care of grape vines.  Turned out to be pretty complicated.  Here’s some information from the Texas AgriLife Extension and Elton Vineyards –

Dormant pruning is a critical component of the grape production system. It provides the mechanism to maintain the training system, allows one to select the fruiting wood, and to manipulate the potential quantity of fruit produced. Because of the way grapevines grow and produce fruit, growers must prune annually. Fruit is only produced on shoots growing from one-year-old canes. Therefore, healthy new canes must be produced every year to maintain annual production of fruit.

Turns out if you don’t prune enough, wild growths sprout, cause excessive shade for other sprouts, and the amount of fruit is greatly diminished.  The idea of pruning includes allowing some but not too many sprouts for this year, and allowing just enough new sprouts to be productive next year.

Our lives have a lot of these wild shoots.  Our efforts on our own become distracted and wild and they take up a lot of time.  We grow a lot of branches, but those branches just provide shade. No fruit. 

When we abide in Jesus, the Father is the gardener that prunes.  How much pruning in a vineyard is an art.  But one of the things I read about pruning a vineyard is that a lot of pruning yields the best results.  Sometimes pruning 90% of the wild growths is necessary.

The Father’s ways of pruning us are innumerable. They may be through issues with a job, or health, a parent or a child.  The pruning never seems easy or comfortable, does it?  Sometimes God is cutting away useless branches, but much of the time pruning the vineyard involves removing branches that were productive last year.  I discovered that once a branch has borne fruit, a new branch with new buds is needed for next year’s fruit.

I don’t know how much to read into this or try to explain.  I think the Father’s pruning for each of us is personal.  He knows us, He knows what must be removed.  He knows what must be encouraged, and He knows what has already borne fruit and is past its time.

I think of the major changes in my life.  Some of them might be self-inflicted as I tried to prune myself.  But some of the others were definitely the work of the Father.  My mother passed away six years ago now.  I still think of how much life was in her and how much passion she had for her children. 

I don’t pretend to understand all of God’s timing. But I do know this: her life bore fruit, and much of that fruit is still growing in the lives of the people she touched. 

Was it necessary? Was the time right? Sometimes I still get the idea that I could have come up with a better plan, that maybe she should still be with us a little longer. But I abide in Jesus, and I trust in Him. And through the pruning, I learn more of God’s character. Hebrews 12:11 puts it this way –

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

I take consolation in that there is a purpose, an eternal purpose, for all things, and God causes all things to work together for good for those that love Him.  All things.  The branches that remain, the branches that are pruned.  If I trust in Him, there is a harvest of righteousness and peace.

For Discussion What is one kind of pruning that is painful in the moment but may produce fruit later?

  V.      Branches of Nothing

But what about the branches that don’t abide in Jesus?  In John 15:5-6,

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.  If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.”

We are dependent on Jesus, He is the vine.  Jesus says the branch alone does not bear fruit, and neither do you or I.  Remember Diane’s kitchen flower from the beginning of our lesson?  A branch severed from the vine is just like it – beautiful for a little while, but cut off from its source of life and already withering.  Apart from me, He says, we can do nothing.

Wait.  What does He mean by nothing?  Aren’t there lots of people that accomplish stuff, and some or even most of them do it without Christ, don’t they?  We build large cities and skyscrapers, we build cars that go fast and rockets that go even faster.  We travel to space and to the bottom of the ocean.  Isn’t that something?

But Jesus says that apart from Him we can do nothing. The Greek word translated “nothing” is ouden. It’s an absolute negative—nothing, not anything at all. I didn’t misunderstand Jesus. But He doesn’t mean we can’t stay busy. He doesn’t mean we can’t build, travel, invent, organize, earn, or accomplish things that impress other people. He means that apart from Him, we can do nothing of eternal value. Nothing that bears lasting fruit. Nothing that brings glory to the Father. Our earthly accomplishments, detached from Christ, are dust in the wind.

This is a statue, or what’s left of a statue, called Ozymandias in Egypt. Originally, archaeologists believe it stood 62 feet tall—nearly six stories. This is all that’s left, and the poet Percy Shelley wrote a poem that ended like this –

And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Earthly works are no more than Ozymandias. Nothing remains. We are called to do more. We are called to eternal works. Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 –

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care.  For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.  If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work.  If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward.  If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

Now, what does Jesus mean by branches that are burned?  Many Christians do not have a firm grasp of our eternal life, believing that somehow we show up at the throne and God evaluates us on some sort of bell curve, giving rewards to some and punishments to others.  But that’s not it.

Others believe that Christians aren’t judged at all, believing that Christ paid the price for our sins.  But that’s not accurate either.  Now, some teachers understand the burned branches in verse 6 as people who were outwardly connected to Jesus but never truly belonged to Him – like Judas, who had just left the room.  Others understand it as a warning to believers about a wasted, fruitless life.  I don’t want to press the picture further than Jesus intended, but either way the warning is serious: a life not abiding in Christ produces nothing that lasts.

Here’s where it gets encouraging.  If we have faith in Jesus Christ, our names are written in the book of life, and there is no condemnation. Romans 14:10 and 2 Corinthians 5:10 both speak of standing before the “judgment seat” of Christ. The Greek word there is bema, a raised platform where an official rendered judgment. In the athletic games, it was also the place where victorious athletes received their crowns. So for the believer, this judgment is not a criminal trial to determine whether we are saved. Christ already settled that. No condemnation does not mean no evaluation. The bema tests the quality of what we built with the life He gave us. Some works endure and are rewarded. Some works burn up and are lost. The builder is still saved, but not every work survives the fire.

So take the believer who spends his life chasing pleasure, lust, self-indulgence, anything that doesn’t bring glory to God. Like the warning image in John 15:6, and like the burned-up works in 1 Corinthians 3, that effort does not last.  It was worthless.  He doesn’t lose his salvation – he’s still saved – but he stands at the bema with nothing to show for it.  The Christian is still saved, but the smell of smoke lingers in his hair.

A life abiding in Christ is a life of gold and silver and precious stone.  A life attached to the true vine produces fruit that brings glory to God.  Without Christ, our earthly works have no meaning.  They are just burned up and forgotten.

The world teaches differently.  We have our bread and circuses, we have our show and tells, but without Christ, it’s all a mirage.  What lasts are the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of righteousness, the lovingkindness we show to one another in Christ’s name, and the thanks we give God for His many blessings.  That’s what lasts for eternity.

For Discussion What kinds of accomplishments impress the world but may not last into eternity?

VI.      Conclusion

So one day, your life and my life will pass through the fire of judgment, to test the quality of our work.  I don’t know exactly what these rewards are, but I know if the Lord Jesus is giving special rewards, I want to be in that line. 

When Jesus says He is the True Vine, we should remember He encourages His followers to

• Abide.  Fellowship, trust, love.
• In Him.  It’s all about Jesus, not us.
• Bear Fruit.  Fruit of character, changed life, good works, and thankfulness that brings glory to God.  A natural production of fruit that grows with pruning and under the right conditions.

Through this series we’ve seen the Bread that sustains us, the Light that guides us, the Door that admits us, the Shepherd that protects us, the Resurrection that raises us, and the Way that leads us home.  And now the Vine shows us how to live in Him until He returns.  It’s what we were made for.  To know God and make God known.  To abide in the True Vine and bear fruit that brings glory to God.  Ephesians 5:8b-10 –

Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.

That’s good fruit.

To God be the glory.