“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

John 14 ended on an intense note, with Jesus saying that He wouldn’t speak for much longer, and that thought Satan was coming, the enemy had no power over Him. What was about to happen, His death on the cross was at the commandment of the Father, and was an act of obedience for Jesus, showing His love for the Father and the oneness of their will. Jesus ends the chapter by saying, “Rise, let us go from here” in verse 31. Then we pick up in today’s passage, “I am the true vine…” We don’t actually see any indication that Jesus and His disciples are moving until the start of chapter 18, after the end of the High Priestly Prayer, where verse 1 says,

“When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered.”

There are those who use the transitions from chapters 14 to 15 to attempt to call out a flaw in the chronology, or even the legitimacy of John’s gospel. My ESV study Bible says concerning this, “The transition from 14:31 to 15:1 is at times viewed as a ‘literary seam’ (i.e., an indication that John’s gospel is pieced together from different sources). More likely, John is implying that Jesus and His followers are leaving the upper room, making their way to the Kidron Valley, and arriving at the Garden of Gethsemane (18:1).”

So here we have two thoughts – one, the “literary seam” theory can attempt to question the inerrancy of Scripture, and it just feels lazy. This seems like the easy path for anyone looking to nit pick at the Bible, instead of looking for the truth of what the Text says and the implications It brings. The next option, which is what I thought initially was what my study Bible suggests, this sort of “teaching on the move” idea. This can make sense logistically, as if they left the upper room after Jesus speaks in 14:31, then when 18:1 says, “He went out with His disciples,” the “out” could easily mean out from the city of Jerusalem, then crossing the Valley of Kidron (we’ll talk more about that location when we actually reach chapter 18), which would have lied between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, which held the Garden of Gethsemane at its base. This is a plausible explanation for the transition, and yet I have reservations about it. We’re in the final hours before the crucifixion, Jesus has just shared the final Passover meal with His followers, and His teaching has taken on a certain intensity. He tells them in John 14:29,

“And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe.”

There is no such thing as an unimportant teaching from Jesus, no throwaway lesson, or optional instruction. But it may be fair to say that these words carry a greater importance that some other teachings, or else they put a finer, more defined point on prior teachings. John spends more time on the Passover meal and the hours before the crucifixion than any of the other gospels. What Jesus had to say just before the finish of His work had extreme and extraordinary implications for His followers and for us as Christians today. He was giving the disciples prophecy by which they may know the truth of His words when they came to pass. While I’m not trying to say that Jesus couldn’t impart wise and powerful teaching while on the move, it seems an odd things to do, when so many past teachings were purposeful and face to face. This also means that the High Priestly Prayer of chapter 17 would have been done while traveling, which seems even more out of character. This prayer, which we’ll delve into more deeply in the coming weeks when we arrive at chapter 17, glorifies God and summarizes the past, present, and future hope that God gives to His people through Christ. Jesus teaches in Matthew 6:5–13,

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done,             on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’”

This isn’t a prohibition against public prayer, it’s not telling you that you can’t lavishly glorify God with your words, and it doesn’t mean you can only pray in the format of the Lord’s Prayer (thought it does grant an excellent template and standard for prayer). What this reminds us is that when we speak to the Father, it’s about Him and not anything else. We don’t pray to make ourselves look good, we don’t pray to make ourselves feel righteous, we pray so that we might align ourselves with His will and in doing so glorify Him. We glorify Him in the things we ask for, we glorify Him in the very way we ask – it’s all about God. And so again, while Jesus can absolutely have prayed the High Priestly Prayer while walking from one place to another, it seems more appropriate for this to have taken place before the disciples in the upper room before their departure. So then, how would I suggest establishing continuity between the instruction to rise for departure in John 14:3, and the information that they “went out” in John 18:1. My theory is that everything from John 15:1 on takes place in the upper room, with Jesus and His disciples standing – which has some remarkable powerful symbolism behind it. This may not seem like a big deal to us now. If you’re a practicing Christian, odds are, your church service consists of fair mix of sitting and standing, and you’re probably seated during the sermon while your pastor stands (or jogs laps around the room, depending on what type of church we’re talking about). But the physical positions as it relates to Jewish teaching carried much greater emphasis. Teaching was done with students seated, and with the rabbi teaching them seated as well, commonly with slightly more elevation. When Luke 10:39 mentions Mary (sister to Marth and Lazarus) “sitting at the Lord’s feet and listening to His teaching,” this isn’t just a simple mention of how she was positioned in the room, but calls attention to her as a student learning. Consider also that Jesus and the disciples were not dining as we would today, seated in chairs around a table, would have been lounged out on cushions. By standing Himself, and by having His disciples stand and teaching from this position, breaks the standard practice of the culture, and changes the dynamic between teacher and student. This shift doesn’t diminish the wisdom, power and authority of Jesus, but it does provide a sense of elevation for those He calls His own. Jesus says to them in John 15:14–15,

“You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”

Seeing God made flesh call His servants “friends” shows us the love the Father has for us and the purity we’re given in Jesus. I can also help us see how the picture of the disciples standing around the table gives us a different perspective as Jesus continues to teach, and the implications of what it means to be raised to stand in Christ.

Raised to Stand with the True Vine

1.      Standing in Christ means Bearing Fruit

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

Over the course of John’s gospel are the seven “I am” statements from Jesus, which give us insight to His position and character. “I am the Bread of Live,” “I am the Light of the World,” “I am the Door,” “I am the Good Shepherd,” “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” “I am the Way the Truth and the Life,” and finally in today’s passage, “I am the True Vine.” In seeing who Jesus is, we’re also given a picture of who we are as His followers. We are nourished by God, given sight by God, we’re given a singular path to the Father through Christ, we are watched over and guarded by God. In God we may know victory over death, we’re given structure, clarity, and life in the Spirit over and above the world. But the image of the True Vine, we’re given a different sort of picture of who we’re raised to being in Christ. Jesus is the True Vine, we are the branches. This provides a metaphor that accompanies what Jesus said in John 14:19–21,

“Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

And what He would go on to say in John 17:22–23

“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

This establishes a kind of unity with Christ that no sinner had any right to ever imagine. Paul wrote in Romans 6:4–5,

“We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

There is an invisible line that man has always fought to find – where freewill and God’s will end and begin. There are entire Christian doctrines built around this one principle. The will of God is absolute, and yet based on the simple fact that God does not tempt, and does not cause sin, we can realize that man must have some will of his own. In the matter of the Vine and the branches we can see some degree of how this operates. Jesus is the Vine, and in being anchored to Him, in taking from what He provides and acting in obedience, we bear fruit. Our faith is in the Vine, and the fruit we bear is to the glory of God. James 2:18–24 tells us,

“But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.”

And Ephesians 2:8–9 says,

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

It is by faith that we as branches are grafted to the Vine, and in acting out the faith we produce fruit. Galatians 5:22–23 tells us concerning the fruit we bear,

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

Our salvation does not lie in our works, but the fruit we bear does attest to the legitimacy of our salvation. This can often be identified as someone practicing what they preach, or behaving within the guides and ethics they claim to follow. If I tell you that it’s bitterly cold outside, that it’s raining and sleeting with gusting winds, and it’s only going to get colder, but then I dress in shorts and flip flops to walk out the door, something’s a miss. Romans 10:9 tells us quite simply,

“because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

It is not enough to say it with you mouth, you must believe it with your heart – you must believe it and behave like you believe it. This means behaving in obedience, which means bearing fruit. The idea of works causes many people apprehension and anxiety, because they imagine that they as an individual need to behave righteously, but in this they put the cart before the horse. We are called to live righteously, to act in a way that is pleasing to God. But this isn’t something that accomplished by and through our own will within our flesh, it’s achieved through being a branch attached to the Vine of Christ, strengthened and nourished by Him, tended to by the Vinedresser who is the Father.

2.      Standing in Christ means Obedience

“If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.”

This image of God as the Vinedresser again allows us to see the equality of the Father and Son. Grapes can’t grow without branches, and branches can’t come forth without a vine, yet grapes also can’t grow if the branches are not tended to. They have to have the structure and the nutrients given by the foundation of the vine, but the fruit must also be harvested and the branches pruned. Left unchecked, grapes will spoil and sometimes ferment on the vine. An unpruned branch can develop an excess of leaves, which can block light, steal nutrients from the grapes themselves, and can collect excess moisture, leading to mildew and rot. In time, this overtaxed, diseased branch will become woody, unable to produce new growth and bring forth fruit. A branch only fit to be cut off and burned. Ephesians 2:1–7 shows us both sides, where we came from and where we are raised to,

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

In other words, those who practice a sort of vague human moralism, doing good for the sake of doing good, because they believe they can determine right and wrong without the guidance of God, are actually living in rebellion. They are not grafted to the True Vine and so they cannot bear true fruit – they cannot live obediently to the will of the Vinedresser. The fruit they bear is that of the flesh, and it leads to nothing in the end. It is only by abiding in the True Vine and He in us that we bring forth anything, and in obedience we may be blessed to bring forth an abundance of what gives glory and honor to God. We also see mentioned here, among bearing fruit and glorifying God, Jesus says, “ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” It can be very tempting to focus on just that one line, and in that to treat God as a wish granting genie, asking Him for petty wants. Put what comes before gives context, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you.” This is in step with John 14:13–14,

“Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”

As well as Matthew 7:7–11,

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

All of this, the asking, receiving, and the glorifying God is rooted in obedience, which is affirmed in James 4:2–4,

“You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

When we stand in Christ we do so in the Sprit and power of obedience. It is not in any way about what we want in our flesh, but being delivered and transformed so that we might seek the face of God in all things. As Galatians 2:20 says

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

3.      Standing with Christ Means Eternal Joy

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

Corinthians 5:21 tells us,

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

So that we might become the righteousness of God. What does it mean to go from one learning in the flesh, a student under the Master, raised up, made clean, and called friend? It means transformation. It means bringing forth the fruit of the Spirit. It means living graciously in humble obedience, and it means knowing an incomprehensible, eternal joy. We stand in Christ, stand in the assurance that we are loved by Him. 1 John 3:16–18 gives an image and a standard by which to know this love,

“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”

Likewise we see the love of the Father for us in John 3:16,

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

We are loved sacrificially, loved to the point of His own death by our creator – by the Alpha and Omega, by the I Am, by the King of kings and Lord of Lords – by our Father in heaven. In this we are delivered, raised in wisdom above the flesh, given new life in the Spirit, and grafted onto the True Vine. 1 Corinthians 13:8–12 says,

“Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

In this life we are delivered, standing apart from the world, yet still contending with the flesh. And yet what we’re promised is ultimate deliverance, true and permanent separation from sin, and joyous eternity in the presence of the Living God. Revelation 21:22–27 tells us,

“And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

John’s gospel doesn’t explicitly tell us the location of Jesus and His disciples in the space between John 14:31 and 18:1, however I think the Word gives consideration to this image of the disciples standing in the presence of Jesus, receiving this teaching of who they are made to be in the True Vine of Christ, and being given the Word that imparts the joy of Christ, that their joy – and ours along with them, may be full.

Pastor Chris’s sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYn02Z5dwZ8