THURSDAY 20th
John 15:1-8
NIV (v1) – ‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.’
ESV (v1) – ‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.’
We come today to the last ‘I am’ statement that Jesus made, ‘I am the true vine’.
Within these verses Jesus portrays a picture of a vineyard, where he himself is the vine, his Father is the vinedresser, or gardener and those who have come to faith and become his disciples are the branches. It illustrates for us that the ‘born-again’ experience not only cleanses us from sin and redeems us, but that it also brings us into union or into a connection to the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as a branch is connected to the trunk of a tree, so we as believers are connected to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is through this connection that we derive our life, which is abundant and eternal, it is through this connection that we derive our spiritual strength and sustenance and it is also through this connection that we bear fruit as his disciples.
Fruit bearing is essential for a fruit bearing tree! I grew up on a farm with an orchard, we had in my childhood opinion too many fruit trees, because the fruit all needed harvesting, and as kids we all knew how we were going to be spending the October half-term, harvesting the remaining fruit! But it also had its advantages, we had access to as many apples, plums, or pears that we wanted. There was a particular Victoria plum tree that I enjoyed and a Worcester apple tree, and if the crop on either of these trees was poor one year I would be very disappointed, but what would cause more disappointment was if a tree ceased to bear any fruit, it would be time to prune or even cut down! In fact, looking back I can see that there was not sufficient pruning done in the orchard and eventually a lot of the trees just became useless except for firewood.
Jesus in this portion of Scripture makes it clear that he expects his disciples to be fruitful, and if we bear fruit the vinedresser will prune us so that we can bear more fruit, if we do not bear fruit he will cut away. Pruning is essential to boost fruitfulness, I was helping some gardening to be done on one occasion, and suggested that the apple tree need to be pruned right back as it was getting out of hand, it caused a lot of consternation as those around thought it would ruin the tree and no longer be of any use, but I insisted that it be cut back, pruned and that eventually they would see the benefit of doing it, we as the disciples of Jesus need to be fruitful, but we also need to be willing to allow the vinedresser to prune us so that we can become more fruitful. But as essential as pruning is, it is more essential first to be connected to the Vine, for without that connection, pruning will achieve nothing. V4 says, that ‘the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.’ If we feel that we are not being fruitful or fruit bearing in our Christian walk, then we need to check our connection to the true Vine, we need to ensure that we are in connection with him through our regular practise of prayer, Bible reading and fellowship, it is only this way that we can draw the spiritual sap we need to be fruitful in our discipleship and Christian walk.