Stay Close To Me

Jn 15:5-8

It was a day in which I wasn’t sure if I wanted to kill my children or hug them and never let them go. It started off innocuously enough. Daddy, can we ride our bikes? I told them sure, but stay around the house. Somehow stay around the house was translated into crossing Main Street during busy daytime traffic and visit our old babysitter. When I received the call of where they were, I had been going all over our neighborhood in a desperate search for them. Our neighbors were looking and I was about 2 minutes from calling the police. I went to the home got the children and their bikes and brought them home in silence. I didn’t know which emotion was going to win the battle in my mind, relief or unbelievable anger. I was more upset than I think I had ever been.

Let’s just say I impressed upon them the importance of staying close to me when I say stay close to me! That was about 2 years ago. So far that message has seemed to stick in their minds.

I wonder if Jesus was going through the same emotions when he talked to the disciples that last evening. In this passage, he says, “remain in me” six times! Do you think he was already worried about the fact that they would be wandering off and not realizing the dangers of doing so?

PRAYER

I. Remain In Me Because I Am the True Vine

A. Ancient metaphor

1. Jesus calls up an image that the Jews had been familiar with for several centuries.

2. He talked about the vine of Israel and that he was the true vine.

3. I wondered if he gestured to the wine they were drinking or maybe stood by a window and played with a vine growing up by it.

4. However it happened, he helped them see the connection that he was the true vine of Israel.

B. false vine

1. Israel had a long relationship of being close to and rejecting God.

2. So often they rejected him for false vine of unfaithfulness.

a) Every time it seemed like everything was going well in this covenant relationship, they drifted away.

b) They were the epitome of Hosea and Gomer.

3. Our unfaithfulness

a) We have our own false vines today.

b) Money, power, pleasure or fame

c) And they seem so sweet.

d) But, no matter how sweet they seem, all these vines are planted in a soil that will cause death, not life.

e) We need to seek the true vine of God.

f) That is sometimes hard as some of these false vines are even found in religion

g) Jesus is the true vine.

II. Remain in Me Because My Father Is the Gardener

A. Land of vineyards

1. not only was the spiritual image easy to see, but so was the physical image.

2. Israel was and still is a land of vineyards

3. So when Jesus said “my father is the gardener” it was easy to see what he was talking about.

a) This is what is so hard about being a Western culture 2000 years later.

b) We don’t think the same as they did and miss the obvious word pictures that they were so familiar with.

4. Gardener in those days mean the owner/operator of the vineyard.

a) They weren’t hired hand, they had a deep personal investment in the success of the vineyard.

b) So every day they would take their knife and prune the vines to give optimal fruit.

c) If a vine was dead or dying, he would cut it off so the others would thrive better.

B. Pruning is necessary

1. For the vines to produce better fruit it was important to prune the vine.

2. By taking away part of the vine, more nutrients went where they were needed.

3. Like it or not, we need pruning as Christians

a) It might be the trial of severe loss

b) It might be the pain of loss

c) or the frustration of unfulfilled dreams

d) In the end of all of it, we come out better people, better Christians.

C. So is cutting off dead vines

1. pruning is only one aspect of the gardener’s knife

2. The other is cutting off dead branches

3. If the branch isn’t producing fruit, it is useless and even harmful to the rest of the vine’s fruit.

4. We had better wake up to that reality

a) God expects us to produce Christian fruit just like a gardener expects the branches to produce fruit.

b) If we don’t produce fruit, we are useless to the kingdom and may even harm the fruit of other branches.

c) God won’t allow that.

d) If we don’t produce, we don’t stay on the vine.

e) understand, this isn’t pruning. It isn’t a matter of making us better.

f) This is cutting off dead branches that are not producing.

g) How many of us are sitting in this auditorium today who are really dead branches?

h) It scares me to consider that point.

i) the fear of hell exists for a very real reason.

j) That is the fire that dead branches will be thrown into.

III. Remain in Me Because You Can’t Bear Fruit Alone

A. We live in a do it yourself world

1. If something is wrong, we’ll fix it.

2. If there is social injustice, we’ll pass civil rights laws

3. If there are gang problems, we’ll make special school and build bigger juvenile facilities.

4. If there is unrest in the world, we’ll go in and make it better.

B. But we aren’t really fixing it.

1. The problem is that no matter what we do, we aren’t fixing the problems of the world.

a) There are still evil leaders

b) There are still hunger, pain, and crime.

c) We can’t really fix the problems.

d) As much as we want to say what Alexander the Great said, we cannot say, “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

e) We can only say I sorta got a little done.

2. Jesus wants us to realize we need Him to be fruitful.

C. Christian Fruitfulness

1. There is a constant struggle with many of us with a mentality that if I do enough things, I’ll be connected to Chirst.

a) If I do these things enough, I’ll be right.

b) Then all of a sudden we find ourselves spiritually dry and burned out and angry with God.

c) I did all these things, how dare you leave me barren!

2. We got it backwards

a) READ Jn 15:5

b) Instead of figuring out all the works we need to do to be right with Christ, we need to make sure we are connected to Christ.

c) If I am connected with Christ, I am going to do good works and it will be fulfilling and exhilarating.

d) It’s an expression of returned love to the gardener who prepared us to give an excellent harvest of fruit.

IV.Conclusion

A. Are you remaining in the vine?

B. Are you bearing fruit?

C. Live a life where the gardener only prunes you to bear even more fruit.

D. I hope no one here will be cut off the vine because they have become a dead branch.