Seeking once again the Lord's
help, I would like you to turn with me to the chapter that we
read together in the Gospel according to John and chapter 15. And the
text you'll find in verse 1. Jesus said, I am the true vine,
and my Father is the husbandman. In verse 5 also he repeats the
same phrase but adds about the branches, I am the vine, ye are
the branches, he that abideth in me and I in him, the same
bringeth forth much fruit, for without me ye can do nothing. This I Am of the Lord Jesus Christ
is the last I Am in the series that we have been looking at. And as we've seen over the weeks,
the I Ams of Christ are often taken back or taken from illustrations
in the Old Testament. that Christ is the fulfilment
of what they experience and we saw as he is the bread of life
and the manna that came down from heaven, the true manna.
He is the light, he is the life, he is the door, he is the good
shepherd, he is the way, the truth and the life and he is
also the true vine. Throughout the Old Testament
Israel was referred to as the vine of God, as a vineyard planted
and as the Lord Jesus Christ begins his exposition or his parable, he
is speaking to those who would be fully acquainted with the
Old Testament. They would have known what the
Lord Jesus Christ was talking about. They would have known
the illustrations used through the Old Testament and the way
in which the prophets prophesied regarding the vine of God and
the lack of fruit and the destruction of that vine. And so they were being spoken
to that the Christ, the one who stood before them, was the true
vine. That he was the true Israel. That he is the complete fulfilment
of the vine of God where Israel failed. where they were drawn
aside and did not bear fruit to the honour and glory of God.
Christ has come, the true and living God, the Messiah, the
Anointed One has come as the true vine to fulfil all of what
God required of the people of Israel, to bear fruit, the fruit
of justice and the fruit of righteousness for God. And so as he declares
to his disciples, I am the true vine and my father is the husband
man, their minds would be flashing back to the Old Testament, understanding
that Israel was the vine and God was the husband man or God
was the vine dresser or the farmer. And so Christ here is declaring
to these apostles, I am. the true vine. My father is God. I am the true chosen one, the
one that has come to bear that fruit for the honour and glory
of the father. And not only that then does he
he accompanies that statement with another I am that he is
the vine and that his people are the branches and that his
people exist as being attached to him to bear fruit. Not for themselves but to bear
fruit for the honour and glory of the husband man or the farmer
which is God. And so Christ uses that illustration
from the Old Testament of this wonderful vine that existed to
bear fruit for the farmer He now brings it into the New Covenant,
the New Testament and says, I am the vine and that all of my people,
they are in me. They are drawing nourishment
from myself and they exist for the honour and glory of God
to bear fruit for the husband man. And so their minds would
have gone back over the Old Testament and remembered all the teachings,
all the prophecies regarding the vine of Israel. Psalm 80 was a psalm that was
recited every morning by the Jews as they sat around their
breakfast table. It was a psalm that was chosen
to be recited to remind them of the goodness of God and that
they were the Lord's people. And it's a prayer. It starts
off as the shepherd of Israel but it goes on to declare what
God had done to the people of Israel in the illustration of
a vine. Verse 7 says, Turn us again O
God of hosts and cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved. I was brought a vine out of Egypt.
I was cast out, the heathen, and planted it. I prepared a
room before it. I did cause it to take deep root,
and it filled the land. The hills were covered with the
shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs unto
the sea and her branches unto the rivers. Why hast thou then
broken down her hedges so that they All they which pass by the
way do pluck her. The boar out of the wood doth
waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it. Return, we beseech thee, O God
of hosts. Look down from heaven, and behold,
and visit this vine, and the vineyard which thy right hand
hath planted, and the branch that thou madest strong for thyself. So it is a prayer for the Lord
to return to Israel, to return to this vine that he took out
of Egypt. We know that the Lord took the
people of Israel out of Egypt, brought them through the wilderness
and placed them into the promised land. He drove out all the nations
that were before them and he planted Israel there and established
them there. and he says I took you as a good
vine and I planted you there and it was a prayer for the Lord
to come again as they looked around about them and they saw
it's all broken down, it's all falling apart. We're experiencing
the judgments of God. What has happened to us? Why have we become like this?
And so it's a prayer that God would return unto the vine and
begin to prune it and to build up the walls and to protect it.
What a good way to start the day. To ask the Lord for his
help, for his protection, for his building up, for his reviving
through the day. A prayer to the Lord to go before
and to establish us and to build us up again. To be reminded of
the goodness of God. He took them from Egypt. He cared
for them. A vine is a plant that needs
or a vine that needs a lot of care. It can't just be left and
abandoned. It has to be worked on and dealt
with. And so the Lord looked after
the people of Israel as a vine dresser looks after the vine. He cared for them and they prospered. anyone who has any form of apple
tree or orange tree or any vine, you have it for a reason. You
have it because you want some return from it. Not just to look
at the pretty blossoms and the flowers but you know that when
you see those blossoms and those flowers you're expecting something,
you're expecting some fruit. You're expecting a harvest. And
God expected a harvest from the people of Israel. He expected
them to bear fruit. Fruits of righteousness. Fruits
of justice. Fruits of godliness. And as he looked at
them he didn't find what he was expecting. They prospered. And as they prospered they were
drawn after other gods. Their money became their god,
their success became their god and they abandoned the true and
living God and they went after gods of stone and wood that could
not see and could not hear and they worshipped them. They were
contaminated by the nations that were round about them. They married
off their daughters to the nations. They brought women from the nations
to their son. And so this beautiful vine that
the Lord planted and desired that they would flourish and
prosper became contaminated. And Isaiah says in chapter five,
my well beloved has a vineyard in a very fruitful hill. and
he fenced it and gathered out the stones thereof and planted
it with a choice vine and built a tower in the midst of it and
also made a winepress therein and he looked that it should
bring forth grapes and it brought forth wild grapes. And he goes on and he speaks
about the way in which this vineyard that God expected to bear good
fruit Now is bringing forth wild grapes. And he says this is what I will
do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof
and it shall be eaten up and break down the wall thereof and
it shall be trodden down and I will lay it waste. It shall
not be pruned nor digged but there shall come up birds and
thorns and I will also command the clouds that they rain no
rain upon it for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house
of Israel and the men of Judah his pleasant plant and he looked
for judgment but behold oppression for righteousness but behold
a cry And so the fruits that God looked for from his people,
he had given them his holy law. He'd given them the laws by which
they could govern their land. He gave them the Ten Commandments. He gave them ceremonial laws
in which they knew exactly how they were to behave and to govern
Israel. But as they prospered, they began
to oppress the poor. that God always required that
the poor of the land should be taken care of but as they grew
and as they multiplied as the rich became richer and more powerful
they began to oppress the poor. Man's heart by nature is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. You would think that
as people become more wealthy then they will have a greater
concern for the poor but it doesn't work like that. James tells us
behold do not rich men oppress you. I mean where in Kenya our
area and the coastal areas as it comes inland a bit would go
into severe drought and because our Those tribes are cattle herders. They would move their cattle
from place to place. And sometimes they could have
20, 30, even 100 cows and goats. And as the famine grew worse,
they begin to die. Had no food, no water. And so
people would come from upcountry, what they called upcountry, in
the highlands, in big cattle lorries. And they would buy these
cows for pence. And the people would sell them
because they are desperate. They had nothing. And so they
would sell all of their cows for pennies. And so the rich
get richer and the poor get poorer. And it's oppression. That's what was happening in
Israel. The rich became richer. And as they looked, instead of
following the laws of God, they went their own way. And God looked
at his nation, that he had designed their laws for judgment and righteousness. And he saw that that fruit was
not manifesting itself, that that behavior was not manifesting
itself. Their hearts were not changed. They were still hard hearted.
Yes, they were Jews, but they had no true heart of God. They had no true mind of God.
And God looked for that fruit that he desired and he didn't
find it. And he says, I'm going to waste
it. I'm going to put it down. And he gives them these five
woes. A woe is the opposite of a blessing,
almost like a curse. And if you read through them,
you'll find that these things are still found today. They were selfish. They were
drunkards. They were pursuing pleasure. They were self-satisfied. They didn't need God. They were
self-reliant. They had a corrupt way, a perverted
way of thinking. They called good evil and evil
good. The darkness for light and light
for darkness. They completely overthrew or
overturned the ways of God and they had a corrupt and a reprobate
way of thinking. God looked for fruit. He says,
did not I plant a good vine in the land of in the land of Israel? And I look and I find wild grapes. Good, evil and evil, good. They were arrogant. And in their
justice, they were corrupt. This is what we see today, isn't
it? evil thinking, drunkenness, selfishness,
a pursuit of pleasure and self-satisfaction and an abandonment of God, an
abandonment of what God has said is truth and light and overthrowing
it and saying that it is darkness, it is for narrow-minded people, for
ignorant people. There's no such thing as God
and so there's this complete overthrowing of the truths of
God. And so Israel was the vine planted. God looked for fruit and he found
none. Jesus tells a parable in Matthew
21 explaining how God dealt with these people of Israel. Matthew
21 verse 33 it says, Here another parable. There was a certain
householder which planted a vineyard and hedged it round about and
digged a winepress in it and built a tower and let it out
to husbandmen and he went into a far country. And when the time
of the fruit drew near, he sent servants to the husbandmen, that
they might receive the fruits of it. And the husbandmen took
his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.
Again he sent another servant more than the first, and they
did unto them likewise. But last of all, he sent unto
them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. when the husbandmen
saw the son they said among themselves this is the heir come let us
kill him let us seize on his inheritance and they caught him
and cast him out of the vineyard and slew him when the lord thereof
of the vineyard cometh what will he do unto these those husbandmen
So the illustration is of Israel, the vine of God planted. God sent his prophets to them
to warn them of the wrath to come, to challenge them on their
behaviour, to communicate with them and they beat some, they
killed others but at last he says I will send my son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, the true vine. If you remember, those who should
have known better were the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes. They were the ones who should
have been explaining to the people of the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ. They were the ones that should
have been teaching the Old Testament to the people. They were the
ones who who in the Old Testament moved the people to reject the
messages. And as Israel received woe after
woe after woe because of their sinful behaviour, so Jesus comes
and he speaks to these scribes and these Pharisees and he gives
them also eight woes. Matthew 23. Woe unto you scribes
and pharisees hypocrites. Woe unto you scribes and pharisees
hypocrites. Woe unto you ye blind guides
which say whatsoever he goes on. Woe unto you scribes and
pharisees hypocrites. Woe unto you scribes and pharisees
hypocrites. Woe unto you scribes and pharisees
hypocrites. For you are like white sepulchres
which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full
of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also
outward appear righteous unto men, but within are full of hypocrisy
and iniquity. Woe unto scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites. And so the harshest words that
the Lord Jesus Christ spoke, except as he spoke to Peter,
get behind me, Satan, but these direct Woes were spoken to the
leaders of Israel, those ones who should have been teaching
and directing the people, yet they themselves were classed
as whitewashed sepulchres. They were clean on the outside,
but inside they are dead men's bones. They were full of hypocrisy
and iniquity. He came for fruit and he found none. He came to examine the grapes
and he found wild grapes that were useless. So he says I'll
send my son the true vine and in him there will be perfection. In him all of my law will be
satisfied. In him he will bear that fruit
that I so require. that fruit of justice and righteousness
and godliness. And so Christ says, I am the
true vine and my father is the husband man. You remember we
looked in the book of Matthew and it says, out of Egypt shall
I bring my son. Lord Jesus Christ moving from
Bethlehem to Egypt, from Egypt to Nazareth, the Son of God. People of Israel were the firstborn
of God brought out of Egypt. They are the vine of God brought
out of Egypt. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
true vine of God brought out of Egypt and planted in this
world. He is the true Israel. He is the true bread that came
down from heaven. He is the true light. He is the
true life. And he bore true fruit. and his fruit will remain. His people, who he has redeemed
for himself, they are the product of his righteous work, his perfect
sacrifice. They are the branches that have
been grafted in to him, both Jew and Gentile. Those that were dead were made
alive again. Jesus says, except we abide in
him, we cannot bear fruit. Verse six, if a man abide not
in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered. Our men gather
them and cast them into the fire and are burned. By our nature,
that is how we were. We were as a branch, withered
and dead, fit for only the fire. But God in his mercy is able
to breathe life into the spiritually dead. He is able to raise the
dead. I am the resurrection and the life. And so those branches
that were for the burning are taken and grafted into the Lord
Jesus Christ. And as they are grafted into
Christ, they are given life. They are nourished and satisfied
in Him. In John 5, it tells us that the
Son has life in Himself. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the
voice of the Son of God, and they that hear it shall live.
Those branches that are dead and withered, they will hear
the voice of God, and they will live. That lost sheep he will
place on his shoulders and he will bring it back. That dead
branch he will speak and the life will enter into it and it
will be grafted to his son the Lord Jesus. For as the father
has life in himself so has he given unto the son to have life
in himself. And so those branches that are
abiding in Christ. They are living branches. They
are drawing nutrients, living nutrients from the vine, from
the beloved sun. And they are alive. And they are drawing it. As a branch draws the sap So
the believer draws that living virtue from the Lord Jesus Christ
and they live. I am the true vine and my father
is the husband man. I am the vine and ye are the
branches. And so those branches that are
attached to Christ They are drawing strength from him. If you take paper, blotting paper. How many children don't know
what blotting paper is? In the olden days, when you had a fountain
pen, you would touch your fountain pen on this blotting paper and
it would draw out the ink from your pen to get it flowing. It
has a drawing effect. That ink is removed from the
pen into the paper. Sometimes if you plant flowers
into a, or you put flowers into water that has color in it, a
white flower, and you put it into that water, you'll see that
the petals begin to change color. Maybe you've got white petals,
you put it into pink water, you will see that the petals begin
to turn pink. it is drawing up that water that
is in the vase to itself and so the believer draws up strength
from the Lord Jesus Christ, it draws up wisdom and ability He
draws up that desire to have a pure and a holy life and to
bear fruit for the honor and glory of God. He has a growing
effect upon them. But as God came to Israel and
he says, I thought I planted a good vine here. Why now is
it bearing wild grapes? His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
planted the good vine, the true vine. His people are grafted
in. God the Father still looks for,
as the husband man, he still looks for the fruit of his labours. All his people were given to
the Son. The Son redeemed them, bought
them, sanctified them, saved them. Why? So that the son may be glorified. Can he be glorified through a
sinful life? Can he be glorified through an
ungodly life? Or is he glorified through a
holy and a sanctified life? They beheld them that they had
been with Jesus. God is glorified in the lives
of believers when they live godly, when they live righteous, when
they act in a right way. As they draw that strength from
the Lord Jesus Christ, he enables them to pursue after those things. If you remember The Fruit of the Spirit, we've seen that the Holy Spirit
of God lives in the believer. We saw on Wednesday, John says, I must decrease, he
must increase. And the way in which the spirit
of God is seen greatly in the life of a Christian as if they
themselves are decreased, they are crucified, their flesh is
put to death and the greater evidences of Christ's spirit
is seen. And this fruit of the spirit
is not different fruits but it's one fruit. like an orange. It is one fruit with different
segments to it. But the fruit of the spirit, this is what God is looking for
in our lives if we are believers. This is the fruit that he expects
to see from those who he has grafted into his son, who are
drawing that nutrients from the son, that strength from the son. This is what he expects to see. evidences of his Son in them. For the fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance, or restraint. Against such there is no law. So as God walks into, as it were,
his vineyard the church. And he looks at the vine, he
sees a perfect vine digging deep into the ground with its roots,
drawing everything from the nutrients from the soil and he sees these
branches. And he's looking at the end of
the branches, he's looking for some fruit, some grapes. What does he come to when he
sees our branch? James Gudgeon. withered wild
grapes? Or does he see the evidences
of his Son? Does he see as it were a mirror,
a reflection? Are we truly grafted into this
true vine abiding in faith to the Lord Jesus every hour of
every day as we live our lives? Every provision has been made
for us to bear fruit. Every provision. If we don't
bear fruit, it's not the fault of God. It is the fault of ourselves. He has given us his spirit. He
has given us his word. He gives us his strength, ability
and desires. A new heart will I give you,
he says. I'll write my laws upon your heart. There's no excuse. But sin affects our growth. Sin
stumps our fruitfulness. You may have heard David, he
often prays about keeping the foxes, the little foxes that
spoil the vines. he's getting that from the Song
of Solomon. The Song of Solomon chapter 2
they're speaking of their love to each other the bride and groom
or the husband and wife or Christ and the church and they're worried
that that love may be damaged by external influences I wonder
how often we think about that. How often do we think that our
love is in danger of being broken or being damaged by external
influences. Sin affects our spiritual growth.
Sin affects our fruitfulness to God. Sin affects our testimony. And it should be a concern to
us. that our love can be spoiled by external things. Solomon says, verse 14, O my
dove, thou art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places
of the stairs. Let me see thy countenance, let
me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice and thy countenance
is comely. Take us the foxes, the little
foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes. We have Christ as the vine. We
are the branches that bear fruit. There are those external influences
that can damage our tender grapes. The little foxes can break into
the vineyard and destroy the vine by scratching and by biting
and playing around the area. And so in our lives, little foxes
can come in, little things creep into our lives and we accept
them. They get bigger and bigger and bigger until they become
out of control. they spoil the vine, they make
us cold, they make us unfruitful, they cause us to drift from the
main stem of the vine itself the Lord Jesus Christ and so
sin affects us. Now for some who are in the vine
they are not true believers and they are snapped off and cast
into the fire. They are those who are false
professors of Christ and they are snapped off. There are some
whose grapes, whose fruit has been damaged, that their heavenly
father comes and instead of snapping them off he cuts them back They have grown long. We could
say they've become proud. They've become distant from him. They've become unfruitful. And instead of snapping them
off and casting them away, he cuts them back. That they may
be closer to the main vine. They may, as it were, live more
closely. He prunes them. He cuts them
back, not to destroy them, but to make them bear more fruit. Hebrews tells us that that cutting back is a process
of discipline. Hebrews 12. from verse 10. For they very
for a few days chasten us after their own pleasure but he for
our profit. So the pruning process of this
vine is for the profit of the branches and ultimately for God
that those who are cut back may be able to bear more fruit and
be able to glorify the Father in a greater way. But he for
our profit that we may be partakers of his holiness I know chastening
for the present seems to be joyous but grievous nevertheless afterward
it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which
are exercised whereby the peaceable fruit of righteousness that's
the desire of God for the pruning process of his people that they
may bear this fruit of righteousness, of godliness, of holiness, of
joy, peace and the fruit of the Spirit. And so Jesus says, I am the true
vine. The Israel failed. They were
contaminated by the world in their prosperity. They were they
forgot the poor and they drifted off away from the true and living
God. But Christ comes out of Egypt. I called my son out of
Egypt, a true vine planted. Whose father was whose whose
farmer was God, whose father was the husband man. and his
people who were dead have been grafted in and are now living.
And they're living for the honour and glory of God the Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ to bring glory to the Son. But he watches
over his vine. He watches over his people. He checks them and examines them
to see how they are bearing. And if a need be he cuts them
back. so that they bear much fruit
and maybe experience through this coming year is maybe you
are anxious about the future remember that if you are Christ's
you're grafted in Your strength does not come from yourself.
It is drawn from Christ. As you come to him in prayer,
as you meditate and read the word of God, you are drawing
strength from him. As you meditate on the promises
that God has given to his people, you are gaining strength and
faith in his word that enables you to go on. and you will come
to the end of another day. He will strengthen you by the
day and should he need be he takes you to be with himself
then you will be with the farmer you'll be with this vine forever
and ever and ever and my father is the husband man and I am the
true vine. May the Lord help us then through
this year to draw of that strength of Christ, that wisdom of Christ,
that ability of Christ and may we be able to bear those fruits
of godliness for his honour and for his glory. Amen. Closing hymn is hymn number 187
from Gadsby's. Jesus draws the chosen race by
his sweet resistless grace, causing them to hear his call and before
his power to fall. Hymn number 187 to the tune 463. And we forgive those who trespass
against us. ? Is now frozen to its tender breast
? ? Let me find the gospel breast ? ? And I'll be healing her ? ? In the happy
place of love ? Peace which is a sacred word. When the Lord appears in pure,
Out in seats and all is new, Love divine offers a song. Dear Lord and Almighty God, we
do thank Thee for Thy Word and for the I Ams of the Lord Jesus
Christ and we pray that each of us here may be taken from
the woodpile and be grafted into Thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
that we may receive that living virtue, that sap to nourish and
strengthen us to persevere through this another year ahead of us. We pray for thy blessing now
and do dismiss us with thy blessing and do be with us in the interval
of the service and do grant us that ability to worship thee
again in spirit and in truth. And now by the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, with the fellowship
and the communion of the Holy Spirit, to be with us each now
and for evermore. Amen.