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John 15:1-8
I grew up in East Wenatchee, Washington. Now, the Wenatchee Valley, which like includes towns from Leavenworth to Quincy and up to Chelan, is famous for fruit – mostly apples in my day. However, because of irrigation, you can grow just about any fruit you want. Now days, the orchards are getting smaller and vineyards are springing up all over.
And I talk about this because when you are around orchards/vineyards you will notice during different seasons there comes a time of pruning. And Jesus talks about that here today.
John 15:18- (NIV) “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.
Now – this is one of those famous passages that we tend to have heard preached or studied or taught on so much in the church, that we often times skip over it.
We actually may spend more than one day in this particular passage because there is so much here. Today I want to talk about this aspect of pruning – what does that mean? First – that Jesus is using a vine and branches illustration is actually interesting on another level. In the Prophets – not just one prophecy, but the collective voice of the prophets, they talk about the Messiah being a branch of Jesse – who was…David’s father – King David’s father.
And not only that, but the word for branch is the root word for Nazareth. Nazareth – that’s where Jesus grew up. The Messiah was to be a Nazarene. And remember way back to the beginning of our study, I believe it was Nathanael that asked can anything good come from there? It shows the insignificance of the place where Jesus grew up. Again another fulfillment of prophecy that points us to Jesus as the Messiah.
But that’s not our devotions for today. That’s just some extra something to know. All part of the service you get here with me doing devotions. It’s the trivial pursuit version devotions of the Bible today.
Jesus talks about the vine and branches to show us how we are completely dependent upon Him for our very lives. The branch cannot produce fruit all on it’s own – it must remain in the vine.
And then Jesus talks about pruning. Ah yes – we all love a good pruning don’t we? I would say that at our best when we are being pruned we are viewing the pruning as some kind of loss. However, if you step back a bit and you look at the entire vine, or like I saw growing up with fruit trees, the pruning was actually to encourage growth in the healthy part of the tree. This is the idea that Christ is talking about.
Pruning does a few things. It removes sick or diseased branches. It removes the parts that were once fruitful but are no longer bearing fruit. It removes “sucker” branches, these are branches that grow and take up lots of resources but never bear any fruit. They can also be branches that block sunlight from the fruit bearing branches. Pruning removes the lower branches again that take resources to grow but are to low to the ground to actually grow large enough to bear fruit.
And so Jesus asks us to allow for the painfulness of pruning. But in and around that, he also instructs us to remain in Him. Stay connected to Him. And I believe it to be so that the life giving nourishment we need can be given to us to allow for the fruit to grow in the healthy parts of our lives.
I want you to take a moment and think back of those things you might have counted as loss in your life, but turned out – they weren’t real losses. I want you to reflect on what it means to allow yourself to remain or rest in Him when you experience those times. That’s where our faith in Jesus Christ as the Messiah comes in. We can trust Him to prune away those branches in our lives that will help us to be healthy fruit-bearing disciples.