John 15:1–5
I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser.
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.
Well,
good morning, and welcome to the weekend here at Christ Community Chapel.
My name is Zach and one of the pastors here, and I'm so glad
that we get to be part of your weekend.
Let me start with this.
For the last couple of years, I have been on a journey.
You know, Ahab had his white whale,
Don Quixote, maybe more appropriately, had his windmills.
For me, it's been trying to learn how to play golf.
Well, I did not grow up playing golf,
but since I've moved, to this area, a lot of you play golf
so I've tried to learn to spend time with you, and it has been a real struggle.
I realize that that's probably because golf goes against my nature.
Like,
like I am a presser, you know, a doer, an achiever.
If something doesn't work, I just try harder
and harder and harder, which is great.
When I was growing up playing sports.
But the problem is, in golf, the harder you try, like the harder
you grip the club, the harder you swing, the worse things get.
Which is really put me in some tough positions.
I can't tell you how many times I spent an hour
at the driving range, like at the end, dripping in sweat.
Sores on my hands. And I've gotten worse.
And I'm muttering to
myself saying, this is a stupid game, and anyone who likes this game is stupid.
And I hate them all.
And, you know, I get I get go to some pretty dark places, right?
Just because just because I, I don't know if there are many feelings in life
lonelier than to try so hard
at something and and get no results.
To try so hard and feel like you're getting worse, to be exhausted
and to have nothing to show for it.
That, by the way, is not just a golf feeling, right?
That that feeling can exist in other areas.
It's also a spiritual reality.
I wonder if at times that's not how some of us feel like
we're we're trying hard, you know, we're we're gripping the club.
We're swinging hard.
We're trying to change.
We're trying to change our habits.
We're trying to be obedient.
We're trying to to live life on mission, to be what we think a Christian
ought to be.
We are giving it everything we got and we're getting nowhere.
We're sweating, were exhausted, we're sore,
and we don't feel any closer to God.
We don't look any more like him.
And I wonder if you've ever had that moment where you're muttering to yourself
and you're saying, maybe I ought to just give this up.
Maybe I ought to just stop.
If you know that feeling,
and especially if you're feeling it right now,
I can't think of a better passage of scripture
for us to spend time in than John chapter 15.
So if you have a Bible, would you take it out and open it to John
chapter 15?
Of course, you don't have to. It'll be on the screen behind me.
But if you want to hold a Bible in your hands in the back of the pew,
in front of you, or in the back of East Hall, you'll find one of the Bibles
that I'm using.
And the great thing about that is I can tell you John 15 is on page 859.
However you're going to get there, though,
let me hold out to you the outline I'm going to use to guide our time together.
Three points. Very simple.
I want to show you healthy things, grow.
Growth is
not your job and this is your verb.
Healthy things grow. Growth is not your job.
And this is your verb.
All right.
Let's just start with this.
Healthy things grow.
That's a life principle, isn't it?
Healthy things grow.
That's how you know something's healthy is it's growing.
That's true of a lot of things like let's just let's start with kids, healthy kids
grow.
Just this Friday, I took my oldest son
to go visit the college that he's going to attend this fall.
And when you think about your kids going to college, that's sad.
But it's also good, right?
Healthy things grow.
It's good that he's going to be leaving the house.
It's good that he's going to college.
Even Friday.
We got to the college at 830 in the morning.
He connected with his friends
and I didn't see him again until 2:00 in the afternoon.
I spent the whole day my wife said, do you like the campus?
I said, I spent the whole day working in the library.
It was totally pointless for me to be there.
But even that is good.
It's good that he's connecting with his friends.
It's good that he didn't need his dad like a security blanket hanging around.
Healthy things grow.
That's true of marriages, right?
It should be that the longer you're married, the closer
you get to friendships.
The longer you've been friends, the better you understand each other.
It's true.
In business, if you start a company, you're working in a company.
Over time, you want everything to be up and to the right.
Healthy things grow. It's true of churches.
Healthy churches grow.
You know, this last weekend we had a record crowd here.
But that's not even the coolest number. You know what the coolest number is?
Upward City Church, one of our church plants in Ravenna.
Pastor Chad Young, his wife Shanna, they when they launched,
were averaging around 40 people a week, which is pretty normal for a church plant.
On Easter, they had 165 people.
They baptized nine nine on Easter Sunday.
And that's
not surprising to me because healthy things grow.
We we know this. Well.
Did you know that's a spiritual principle to healthy Christians grow.
That's what Jesus says.
John chapter 15, verses one through five.
Let me read it to you. Notice the growth language. Here's what he says.
I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser.
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 like that plant
language of I'm the vine, you're the branch.
Whoever is in me will bear fruit.
How do you know a plant is healthy?
It bears fruit, right?
By the way, this concept of thinking about the Christian life
like a healthy plant that just grows, it
just bears fruit, is not unique to Jesus.
The Bible does this all the time.
Compares people who are following God to healthy plants.
Listen to Psalm one, the very first psalm in the book of Psalms.
Psalm one says this blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel
of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is listen like a tree planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf
does not wither in all that he does, he prospers.
Healthy things grow, healthy Christians grow.
And you might be thinking, well, what does that mean?
How do they grow? In what ways do they grow?
Well, the Apostle
Paul answers that question in Galatians chapter five when he says this, listen.
But the fruit of the spirit
is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Against such things, there is no law here.
Here's what the Bible is teaching us.
What Jesus is saying is that healthy Christians grow.
How do they grow? They grow in love. They grow in joy.
They grow in peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control.
How do you know a Christian is healthy?
He or she is growing in these things?
How do you know they're not healthy?
They're not growing in these things.
Healthy things grow.
Now let's stop for a second.
Here's what you just heard me say.
Why aren't you doing better?
You should be doing better.
Why aren't you changing?
Why aren't you growing?
But that's not what I said.
I just said healthy things grow.
And to help you understand.
That's not what I said. Here's my second point. You're ready.
Healthy things grow.
A second point. Growth is not your job.
It's not your job.
Do you think what I'm telling you to do is grip the club tighter,
swing a little harder.
But that's not what I'm saying. Like, let's just start this way.
Did you notice when we read the passage how many times Jesus says
you can't do anything?
Like if he says at one time he says it five times.
Frankly, it's a little insulting.
I mean, he says over and over again, you can't do it.
You're not going to get it done.
You can't count on yourself apart from me.
You can do nothing.
He works really hard to make sure we understand.
He's not telling us.
Grip the club harder, swing harder, sweat a little more, try a little more.
He's saying you can't do it.
Healthy things grow.
Growth is not your job.
Even think about Psalm one and Psalm one.
He says the righteous man is like a tree planted by streams of water.
But who planted the tree?
This is my point.
The tree doesn't plant itself
by streams of water and even a tree like I understand, plant people.
It's your season, it's spring.
You're probably feeling yourself a little bit.
I don't know anything about plants that's going to come through okay.
I understand when I stand next to a tree that is healthy, it's doing some things.
Photosynthesis.
That's the only word I know. But,
but, but when you stand by a tree that's growing,
it's not like the tree is sweating. Do you know what I mean?
It's not efforting.
It's not pushing.
It just happens. Sun, water, rain.
It just happens. Healthy things grow.
Jesus isn't calling us to try more or to do more.
In fact, he's teaching us two really important things.
The first is that he's teaching us that that all that God is,
is aimed at our growth.
Now, here's what I mean by that.
The Bible teaches a really important concept called the Trinity.
The Bible teaches that God is one, one God, only one God, but he exists
in three persons father, son, and spirit, three persons, but only one God.
Okay.
And if you think, well, that's crazy, what is that like?
The answer is it's not like anything.
It's not like anything.
You can't make any metaphors, you can't explain it.
And by the way, I'll just add this.
If there is a God, that's what you should imagine would be true of him.
He isn't like anything else.
He isn't like anyone else.
One God in three persons.
And what this passage is teaching us is that all of God,
father, son and spirit is aimed at our growth.
Look with me at John chapter 15, verse one.
Here's what Jesus says
I am the true vine
and my father is the vine dresser.
Jesus says, you're the branch, I'm the vine.
What he's saying is that I, God, the Son,
am the source of all that you'll need to grow.
You're going to get it from me.
The nutrients, the the, all the things that the branch needs
come through the vine.
Jesus says, I am the source of all that you'll need.
And then he says, God the Father is the gardener.
If you read the passage, it's God the Father who's who's pruning and,
you know, checking for weeds and making sure that the process is going
well, the Holy Spirit, if you remember, let's just read Galatians five again.
Listen to this.
But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, generous self-control.
So here you go.
You got God the Father doing the gardening.
God the son is the source.
God the spirit is the one bearing the fruit.
Father, Son and spirit, working on your growth.
Now here's a question for you.
If it's a group project, what do you bring to the table that they don't have?
What deficiency
in God do you fill?
The answer, of course, is nothing.
When the father, the son in the spirit collaborate together,
pretty great things happen.
Let me give you their resume, okay?
Their first project. You might have heard of it.
Their first project together was they created the universe.
Father, son and spirit.
Little Colab create the universe, right?
Their second project.
You're probably familiar with saving your soul.
The father planning the son, executing the spirit,
working it out into your heart and your mind. Here.
Here's my point.
When the father, the son in the spirit, work together
in unison to accomplish something, they're pretty successful.
Universes get created souls get saved.
That same team
is working for your growth.
Now, the second thing I want you to see here is if you read this passage,
you won't read it again.
But if you read the passage, what you'll see is God's doing all the activity.
He's doing it all.
He is the one doing all the work.
Jesus, in other words, isn't saying you should grow.
He's saying, basically you should let growth happen.
Healthy things grow.
God does the growing.
Let me let me put it to you this way.
I put it this way.
Have you ever seen someone
who's really good at golf swing a club?
It's obnoxious.
We have a couple guys here on staff that are really good golfers,
and unfortunately they're also friends of mine,
which means sometimes we play golf together.
And here's what I don't understand.
I watch them swing and they don't swing as hard as I do.
They don't try as hard as I do.
Like they could just be talking to you, you know, like, oh, that's interesting.
We don't grow. We don't know God does growth.
And they're not even looking 300 yards down the fairway.
Right.
And when they turn their back to me I got to be honest.
I say mean things to them
when they're back.
I mean, there's one guy on staff I'm good friends with. He's a really good golfer.
I tell him all the time, it's good
that you're nice, or it would be very easy for me to hate you.
Okay.
It looks if I could describe a great golf swing in one word,
you know what word I would use?
Effortless.
I know it's not effortless. It just looks effortless.
That kind of effortless growth is what Jesus is talking about.
Healthy things grow.
God does the growing.
By the way, if you're here and you're a Christian,
I know at this point you're probably struggling.
You're like, that just doesn't that doesn't seem right.
You know, it seems like I gotta try harder.
I gotta, I gotta grip the clubs, I gotta swing harder.
But just consider this.
When you became a Christian,
who did that?
Isn't
the starting point of our faith to quote the hymn?
Nothing in my hands I bring simply to thy cross I cling naked.
Come to thee for dress helpless.
Come to thee for grace foul II.
To the fountain fly.
Wash me, Savior, or I die.
That's the beginning point of our faith, right? Okay.
What's the ending point of our faith? It's heaven. Right?
Did you build heaven?
Was that you?
Know he did that.
So let me get this straight.
The beginning point of our faith is we come with nothing
and he does all the work.
The ending point of our faith is we live in a kingdom forever
that he built, that we didn't contribute to at all.
But we're so convinced that the interlude between that starting point
and that finish point is nothing but gripping the club hard,
swinging harder and putting forth the effort.
Does that make sense to you?
And I know, I
know you're going, but I gotta do something.
The Bible's full of do something, Zach, isn't it?
What do I do? I knew you were going to ask that.
That's why my third point.
You're ready is this is your verb?
Yeah, I know you need a verb. You need a verb.
I'm going to give you a verb.
Now, you know, if it's been a long time, maybe for some of us, since English class.
What makes a verb a verb is?
It's an action word, right?
It's a word that describes action.
Jump is a verb.
Run is a verb.
God help me. Swing is a verb.
Okay, so. So you need a verb.
Jesus gives us a verb. Look at verse four.
This is your verb. This is what he wants you to do.
All right, here's what he says. Verse four.
Abide in me
and I in you.
Abide. It's interesting.
That's not an English word we use very often. Right.
So the Greek word behind it is the verb mino.
And what, what mino.
It's an interesting it's an action word technically, but.
But what it really means is, is to stay,
to remain,
to sit in.
In other words, what Jesus is saying is that healthy things grow.
God does the growth. You go, what do I do? What do I do?
Jesus is literally saying,
sit with me.
Sit with me.
You see, Jesus is telling us that Christians don't grow by gripping.
Gripping the club harder or swinging harder
by sweating, by clenching our teeth, by our effort.
He's saying, this is how you grow.
Just be in my presence
to sit in my presence.
Just remain with me. Do you?
What Jesus is saying is, I'm so wonderful, so powerful, so capable,
that if you just sit in my presence, you're going to change.
After all, consider this the fruit of the spirit.
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control.
Who do those attributes remind you of?
Those are literally the attributes of Jesus.
What Jesus is saying is just sit, just stay,
just remain and let me work.
Now you might say, that's it.
It's not as easy as it sounds, right?
In a world of distraction, in a world of anxiety,
there's so many things that want to take me out of the presence
of Jesus, including my own effort.
Jesus is just sit with me.
Listen, friends.
This means if if the pathway to growth is to just be in relationship with Jesus.
By the way, if you're not a Christian, this is why we say
all the time it's not about religion, it's about a relationship.
Because Christianity begins with us saying, I can't do anything.
Jesus saying I can't.
It ends with us saying we can't do anything.
Jesus saying I can't.
And in between that we say, I can't do anything.
And Jesus says, I can't. We sit at his feet.
He does the changing.
But friends, if that's true, that means the most spiritually damaging
thing in your life might just be your smartphone.
Because is it not a constant just
pull your way.
Jesus.
Sit in my presence.
Your verb is to stay with me.
Look at me, be in relationship with me, sit with me.
And I know, I know, I know. If you're like me, you grew up in church is so hard.
You like you, me, you got to do some stuff.
What about prayer?
What am I reading? The Bible.
What about fasting?
What about journaling? What about the spiritual disciplines?
Zach.
Great. Great point.
Good job. Great question.
Let me use a metaphor.
I one of my favorite things to do is to go on a date night with my wife.
I love we love to go to new restaurants. Okay, I love to eat.
I love my wife.
Put those things together. That's great.
Okay, now we have a rule that we've adopted over time
that when we go on a date, Zack's phone goes in Amy's purse.
That's because I also like to work.
So it goes in.
The purse has to go in her purse. Right?
Let me just free marriage advice. Men.
Let me understand. Let me help you out with something.
I contact
leads to other contact
free marriage advice.
Be present.
So? So my wife says, look, we're on a date.
I want I want you with me.
You're here with me.
Don't check your email. Don't take your phone. Beer with me.
But ever since we adopted that rule, when we go to dinner, I look around.
I'm telling you, at least half the couples there are on their phone.
And many.
Again, it's not a marriage sermon.
You lead, put your phone away.
But listen.
Technically, listen, technically,
we're all engaging in the same activity, right?
We're all on a date night with our spouse.
Technically, we will show up to work on Monday and say, how is your weekend?
We will both say, I was good.
I went to dinner with my wife.
Do you think we're both growing in our marriage?
You see, my point?
You see prayer,
Bible reading, journaling, fasting.
They're not the point.
What Jesus is saying when he says
Menno Abide is he's saying, listen, this is why I want you to pray.
I want you to sit in my presence and pour out your heart to me.
I want you to sit in my presence and believe that I want good for you.
I have good for you.
This is why I want you to read the scriptures,
because I want you to sit in my presence,
and I want to pour out my wisdom into you.
This is why I want you to fast.
Because in fasting, you're going to be reminded that I'm all you need.
This is why I want you to journal.
Because when you journal, you'll look back on a year and go look at all
the growth God has produced in me.
You see, those things are not the point abiding,
staying, remaining, sitting with Jesus.
That's the point.
That's how we grow.
You can do those things and be on a date night on your phone and Miss
Jesus entirely.
Look, if you doubt this, consider this
I bet just 20 years of pastoral experience.
Let me guess.
It's something that the period
of greatest growth in your relationship with Jesus was the beginning.
Do you know why?
Do you know why that is?
Think about it.
What did you know then?
What did you know to do?
How good of you were you at prayer?
Reading the Bible, right?
You knew nothing except for this.
You wanted to be with him.
That's it.
You wanted to be with him.
That period of growth that you experienced,
the beginning of your faith, is the life you're meant to know.
But somewhere
along the way, someone got in your ear and said,
grip the grip the club a little tighter.
Keep your head down,
swing a little harder.
And that's why we're so tired.
Healthy things grow.
You're meant to grow.
Growth is not your job.
Your job is to sit at the feet
of the Son of God, who is your source of God the Father,
who's your gardener of God, the spirit who will produce fruit in your life.
Let me pray for you, father God, thank you so much for meadow.
What a verb.
God, we want to earn.
We want to achieve some of us.
And this is the hardest thing you could say to us.
You could ask us to do anything and we would do it.
But to ask us to stop doing us so hard.
Others of us, we're so tired.
We're so exhausted.
We're like, they're like me at the driving range.
They're sweating. Their their hands are hurting.
They just want to give this stupid thing up.
Wherever we find ourselves on that continuum.
Holy spirit, would you show us the beauty of Jesus?
Would you root in our hearts the truth of the old hymn which said,
turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face,
and the things of this earth will grow strangely dim,
and the light of his glory and grace.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.