CHRISTIAN PRIORITIES 2. John 15 - The Vine
We now come to John 15, the story of the vine. This continues the same theme. Jesus is leaving the world and is concerned that the world will know the good news.
“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his masters business.” 15:15
We do know his business -
“God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
“The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10)
Why did Jesus go on to say,
“Everything I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15:15
if it was not that they should also pass this knowledge on to others? The next verse makes this abundantly clear,
“I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit –fruit that will last.” 15:16
As would be expected from the context of Jesus’ imminent departure, these chapters are all ‘mission minded’.
When Jesus uses an illustration to make a point he very often takes an idea used in the Old Testament. The illustration of the vine is used at least 7 times in the Old Testament. In every instance it refers to God’s people. It is particularly striking however that every time it is used it refers to a people who have failed, in some respect, to fulfil what God intended. (See Isaiah 5, 27:2, Psalm 80:8-16, Jeremiah 2:21, Ezekiel 15, 19:10, Hosea 10:1) The vine referred to the people that God had called out to be his people but who had not been faithful.
The idea of ‘the vine’ in John 15 is very similar to the section in Isaiah 27 where a ‘fruitful vineyard’ (v. 2) is discussed. In verse 6 it says,
“In days to come Jacob will take root, Israel will bud and blossom and fill all the world with fruit.” Isaiah 27:6
There is no doubt that God’s people are meant to pass on God’s message to the world where it will be received by some but rejected by others. As is described in the previous chapter it is possible to have the appearance of being productive but not to achieve God’s ends.
“We were with child, we writhed in pain, but we gave birth to wind. We have not brought salvation to the earth; we have not given birth to people of the world.” Isaiah 26:18
In John 15 there are several key words.
Fruit
What does bearing fruit refer to here? If you are anything like me you may immediately think of the ‘Fruit of the Spirit’ passage.
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Gal 5:22
We must however be careful about taking the meaning of a word from one context and applying the same meaning elsewhere. For example, what does the word ‘lion’ associate with in the New Testament? In Revelation it refers to Jesus himself, the ‘Lion of the tribe of Judah” (Rev 5:5). However Peter uses the word to refer to the devil himself, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8)
In John’s gospel the word has been used earlier and here the meaning is clearly to do with evangelism.
“Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop (Gk fruit) for eternal life.” John 4:35-36
In John 15 the context also makes the meaning of the word clear – bearing fruit is to continue the work of Jesus. God wants fruitful Christians, people whose lives are not just respected (literally meaning that people ‘look again’ at them) but whose lives reflect their Saviour, the Lord Jesus.
If you meet people who seem to say, “I want my character to become like Jesus but not my lips or feet”, beware. Such a distinction was never in the mind of Jesus. Lives consecrated to Jesus will and must include lips that speak out about Jesus. The Bible is very clear about this; an inward faith must be associated with going and telling, both are necessary..
“If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved.”
“For it is with you heart you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” Romans 10:9,10
This is what every Christian must be about today – living that the Lord Jesus may be known about, so that the world may be saved.
What prevents this? Is it the changing theological perspectives? Perhaps, but I suspect that these new perspectives have a common root with the real problem, the ‘S’ word, that we don’t like to talk about. That word is ‘sin’.
Sin
Sin is ultimately the downgrading of Jesus. In the next chapter the work of God’s Spirit is again discussed. “He will convict the world” (note again God’s great concern) “in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me.”
Sin is to reject the Lord Jesus, the Son of Almighty God. It is sinful for us not to acknowledge the absolute necessity for all people to believe in Jesus. Do we tend to fail in this?
All too often we see sin in terms of its symptoms, sex outside marriage, voyeurism, violence, lying, drunkenness and the like. Voyeurism is a common effect of sin in Christians. We love to watch others doing wrong things, whether in films or in magazines or in books. And deep down we enjoy these things. They are all symptoms of a drift from the Lord Jesus
The epistle to the Romans reminds us that Jews and Gentiles are all under sin.
“There is no-one righteous, not even one, there is no-one who understands, no-one who seeks God.” Romans 3:9
Paul goes on to describe the symptoms of rejecting God in terms of people’s speech (verses 13-14) and their actions (verses 15-18). This second section is striking as it starts,
“Their feet are swift to shed blood . . . ” v. 15
Feet are very important. It ends,
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.” v. 18
The only remedy is described in verse 22.
“This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.”
We remain sinners even though we have been forgiven and the process of sanctification, becoming more like Jesus, is occurring.
Many have been duped into thinking that it is nice respectable people that God wants; and we overlook the horrendous eternal consequences of sin, a rejection of Jesus, God’s only Son.
Dag Hammarskjold, once General Secretary of the United Nations, was a deeply committed public servant. The writer, W.H.Auden, described him as a “great , good and lovable man”. But Dag knew what he was really like and bemoaned “that dark counter-centre of evil in our nature” and in particular he worried over the perversion that “makes our unselfish service of others the foundation of our own self esteem.”
Sin is placing ourselves at the centre of our lives when Jesus belongs there. Susannah Wesley, used to say to her son John Wesley,
“Whatever cools your love for Christ, that for thee is sin.”
Anything that dethrones Jesus is sin and we Christians can so easily fall for it. We are meant to live for the “glory of his name”. Do you remember the verse in Psalm 23 that goes?
“He guides me in paths of righteousness for his names sake.” Psalm 23:5
Our lives are meant to be lived for the honour of the Lord Jesus and not ourselves.
I will never forget a famous Senior Consultant, who was on the Council of Reference for the Christian Medical Fellowship, who said to me,
“My medicine has become my Christian service now. This does mean however that I am too busy to go to church much now.”
The doctrines were still there but I never heard him talk about the Lord Jesus to others. The prime concern to live for Jesus seemed to have vaporised. The only explanation is that sin has found a foothold. After a while other symptoms of sin will often become apparent. The joy of being in Christ vanishes.
A godly bishop once visited our church. After the morning service he went into the hall to talk with the children in the Sunday School. He sat on the floor and talked about the joy Christians should have. The children had to guess what the letters of JOY stood for.
They got the J for Jesus and Y for Yourself quickly but they got the O wrong. It does not stand for ‘Others next’ the bishop said. No, the way to have real joy is to put Jesus first, yourself last and have nothing in between him and you.
“Whatever cools you love for Christ, that for thee is sin.”
This is very clear from John 15. Jesus tells three things we must do to produce fruit.
1. Remain in Jesus
The word ‘remain’ comes 11 times between verses 4 and 10. Jesus knows that the first aim of Satan, the liar, will be to cause us to drift away from Jesus. Note whose responsibility this is. As a preacher once said,
“If Jesus seems a long way off, who do you think moved?”
The place where we are to remain is not primarily in the church, but in Jesus. This whole passage is incredibly egocentric. It begins with Jesus saying, “I am the true vine.” In the Greek this is “ego eimi”, the “I am” title of God. After this, Jesus uses the words “I”, “me” and “my” 36 times in this passage. We are to remain close to him, not in good activities and not in religion.
I recently received an unsolicited e-mail. The heading was “For Christians Only”.
“We are now providing this unique opportunity for Christians all over the world to purchase Holy Water from the most prestigious of all pilgrim centres. Direct from Lourdes. You can use it for yourself or you can also use it as great gifts to your loved ones and family.”
Then, in red, it said,
“Click here to place your order today. Hurry, supplies are limited.”
This is rather different from what Jesus said about himself to the woman at the well in Samaria. He emphasised that it was he himself who was the water.
“Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed the water I give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The great missionary to China, Hudson Taylor, once said,
“The Lord Jesus received is holiness begun, the Lord Jesus cherished is holiness advancing and the Lord Jesus counted upon as never absent and always Lord would be holiness complete.”
There are great similarities between this last words of Jesus to his disciples and the last words of Moses to God’s people in Deuteronomy 32. There, at one point, he sarcastically calls God’s people ‘Jeshurun’ which literally means “The Upright One”.
“Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; filled with food, he became heavy and sleek. He abandoned the God who made him and rejected the Rock his Saviour. . . . You deserted the Rock who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.” Deut 32:15, 18
Some may be thinking that this is in the Old Testament, and we have God’s Spirit now and so we shouldn’t be talking like this. 1 Corinthians 10 reminds Christians why these Old Testament warnings were given; they were to be warnings for us,
“These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us on whom the fulfilment of the ages has come. So if you think you are standing firm be careful that you don’t fall” 1 Corinthians 10:11-12
It is unfortunately all too easy to get immersed in Christian activity and find that the relationship with Jesus quietly gets colder. After I became a Christian, I became active in the Christian Unions at both my university and my medical school in London. I was a member of a thrilling church where the Bible teaching was exceptionally good. I was elected President of the Christian Union and we saw some remarkable things happen. A friend and I then went to Uganda to help with work in a mission hospital in Uganda. We were well taught and felt we had a lot to offer. One afternoon my friend and I were strolling up Namirembe hill, in the centre of Kampala, when we met a Ugandan Christian coming down on the other side of the road. He had a broad smile with bright teeth, and a very deep dog collar round his neck. "Hello," he called. We crossed over the road and started talking.
"What are you doing in Uganda?" he asked.
"We are working in Mengo Mission Hospital."
"Oh, that's lovely. Does that mean that you are Christians then?"
"Yes, we both are," we replied.
"That's good, but tell me, how are you getting on with Jesus?"
I had never been asked a question like that before, but gave a typical English reply,
"Very well, thank you, and you?"
We may have blushed but somehow the Ugandan minister must have seen our embarrassment because he switched the conversation to himself, still with that open smile on his face, and said:
"I became a Christian when I was 29 years old and was working as a schoolmaster. I became very active in my church, but somehow, in spite of all my Christian activities, my walk with the Lord was cold. Then I learnt what the problem with me was. I was active for God but he was not closely involved in what I was doing. I then learnt to keep Jesus busy in all I was doing. If I failed him, I learnt to say sorry quickly; when everything was going well I learnt to keep thanking him; when there were problems I learnt to involve Jesus at the beginning. That's the secret, I have learnt to keep Jesus busy. I must go now, but please don't forget, keep Jesus busy."
He then disappeared down the hill. I have no idea who that Christian was, but one day in heaven I will thank him from the bottom of my heart for giving me those five minutes. That is the secret, it is not just obedience that God wants; above all, he longs for a close friendship with each of us.
2. Remain in His word
It may seem superfluous to say this, but to remain in Jesus must mean to remain in what he teaches. It is amazing how some modern churchmen want to dissociate the two. The word ‘Command’ or ‘Word’ comes seven times in this passage.
“If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love.” John 15:10
We must remain true to the teaching of Jesus if we are to remain true to him. Moses made the same point in his last words to God’s people.
“Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you - they are your life.” Deut 32:46-47
A sure sign that someone has God’s Spirit in them is that they are regularly imbibing God’s words and are doing what God says.
In medicine ‘audit’ is the in thing. The way to audit whether we really believe the Bible to be the word of God is to note how we feed on it, how often and with what quality do we study it. Individual study of God’s word has always been seen to be important. All the kings of Israel were expected to write out all that they had of the Bible in their own handwriting and then to study this individually every day.
“When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Deut 17:18-20
Perhaps one of the greatest needs in the church today is for more amateur Bible teachers. I use amateur in its original meaning. Amateur is derived from ‘amare’ – to love. How we need more people, both paid and unpaid, who will teach the word of God to others with enthusiasm, out of love.
3. Remain in His Church
The Christian faith is a corporate faith.
“Love one another.” John 15:12
We do need the love of other Christians to encourage us. We may not see when an individual’s private walk is drifting away from Jesus. We may not see when their Reading of the Bible is tailing off. But this last stage of decline, not meeting with other Christians, is apparent to all. If you see this happening, do something urgently as it is already serious. Visit them, invite them for meals or some other activity. It is very serious when Christians stop meeting together. Prevention however is much better than cure. Let us keep on finding ways to encourageg each other in our walk with and service for Jesus.
Dissent amongst Christians also impoverishes our witness. The story of the relationship between Lot and Abram is told in considerable detail. At one point,
“Quarrelling arose between Abram’s herdsmen and the herdsmen of Lot.”
The writer then puts in an interesting sentence;
“The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time.”
He then continues,
“So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarrelling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine.”” Genesis 13:7
Surely the reason for this insert is to remind readers that others are watching us all the time. Loss of love between God’s people will weaken us as well as our witness for Christ.
Don’t forget the example of the church in Ephesus. Paul himself had taught there for about two and a half years. They had been sent the glorious ‘Letter to the Ephesians’. Yet within one generation God, through John, has to rebuke them sternly.
“I know your deeds, your hard work and perseverance. Yet I have this against you. You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen. Repent and do the things you did at first.” Revelation 2:4-5
The temptation we have is the same as is ‘common to man’. If we are not careful we will all drift from our love for and close walk with Jesus. We must all endeavour to do the things we did at first. Pray and study the Bible daily, stay close to God’s people and especially stay close to Jesus himself. Don’t allow sin to have its way. Let us all determine to train ourselves to be conduits for the gospel.
A previous Archbishop of Canterbury visited Uganda. Erica Sabiti, the Archbishop of Uganda, met him at Entebbe airport. As they walked from the aeroplane, arm in arm, Erica asked the Senior Primate of the Anglican Church,
“Tell me, how are you getting on with Jesus?”
Are we bearing fruit for Jesus, making him known to the world? Let me ask you,
“Tell me, how are you getting on with Jesus?”
