“I Am the True Vine”
John 15:1-17
In the Old Testament, God uses the metaphor of a vineyard to describe Israel. He brought a sapling, the Israelites, out of slavery in Egypt and planted them in the Promised Land. In the middle of this arid and dusty desert thrives a lush and green vineyard with many varieties of juicy vegetables and fruits — cucumbers, tomatoes and grapes. The metaphor communicated God’s providence and faithfulness.
Amid their trials and tribulations (like a treacherous desert), the Israelites must cling to God and worship Him, and He will bless them with the good fruit of life. When Jesus shares that He is the true vine, He means that He is the sapling that brings forth a fruitful vineyard. If we want to bear fruit, He commands us to live in Him. Apart from Him, we cannot bear fruit. If we do not live in Him, we are pruned out because of our fruitlessness.
What kind of fruit does your life bear? To answer this, we must ask another question: where do we live? And I don’t mean our bodies, but our souls. Many times, our souls live in desert places. It might be a desert that produces fruit such as anxiety and worry, judgmentalism and anger, ingratitude and entitlement, self-absorption and pride or impatience and frustration. Of course, none of these things come from God. However, it is only when we live in Christ, that we can bear the fruit of His character: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23, NRSV).
Living in Christ looks like the daily setting aside of negative thoughts, words and deeds, while simultaneously practicing Christlikeness by the power of the Holy Spirit. Living in Christ means confessing a negative thought to Him right away, guarding our words and, if we let an un-Christlike word spill out, confessing to God and our neighbor that we have not loved them as we should. In this way, we can abide in Him and bear fruit that glorifies the true vine, Jesus Christ.
