“God the Father – Hands On”

The sermon slides are available here.

John 15:1-11

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. ² 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. ³ Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. ⁴ 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. ⁵ 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. ⁶ 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. ⁷ If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. ⁹ As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. ¹⁰ 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. ¹¹ These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

Transcript:
Due to technical difficulties, we present the sermon already in progress. Thank you.

Pastor Thom Rittichier:

He’s planting a vine, he set this up. His people, in relationship to him, are like a grape vine, a grape vine that grows. And as he describes this vine, he talks about what he did in planting this vine. Psalm 80:7-15, Isaiah 5:1-7, Jeremiah 2:21, Ezekiel 2:21, Hosea 10:1-2 are some very interesting passages on this. God acts every time in these passages. Every time he acts to make this thing good, he takes the choices seeds, the very best buy, good because he made it and and he puts it in place. Isaiah 5:1-7 describes this, they made it into a song so that it will be remembered over and over, what God did with his grapevine, how he took and he cleared the land, he cultivated the ground, he planted this vine, a pure seed, a precious plant. And he set up a watchtower. And he set all of this up for this vine to be fruitful and to grow and to produce these wonderful grapes. And what happened? Isaiah chapter five talks about what happened. It says, starting in verse 2b-4, “look, for it yielded grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?” Do you know what wild grapes are like? Come by my house during the summer, not now, because there’s nothing on the vine right now. If you come by, there’s these little tiny green balls. Not like Concord grapes or those green seedless grapes, white grapes, I guess they call them. But these are just these disliked little tiny balls that are so sour and bitter. They’re sour grapes. They make your your teeth set on edge. That’s what happened in Isaiah, God cultivated this to produce these beautiful grapes. And they produced wild grapes. God says to them, evaluate this look, judge this, this is what I’ve done. And this is the outcome. Jeremiah 2:21 states what happened really concisely. It says, “Yet I planted you a choice vine, completely of pure seed. How then have you turned degenerate and become a wild vine?” It was defective. So God takes another step.

God takes a step in setting up and establishing the true vine. And that’s what Jesus refers to as he paints this picture. He says in John 15:1, “I am the true vine.” And when he talks about true, he’s calling this true in the sense of being genuine. It is the real vine, not the counterfeit, not the defective one, not the one that doesn’t match up to expectations. That’s all included in this word that he uses for true. It’s the genuine, it’s the real, not the counterfeit, not the one that doesn’t match up and is defective. I am the true vine, he says. And then he adds another thing in establishing this vine. This vine is “I AM”, in person. That’s what Jesus refers to here, in the final “I AM” claim that he makes in the book of John. And God’s hand, in setting this up, is that he is giving attention, individually, to each and every branch in this vine. That’s the picture that Jesus paints. God is hands on, as he heads to the cross, saying he’s sending the Spirit. And the Father goes hands on with each and every branch that’s in this vine. Quite a picture. It’s an endearing picture. It’s a wonderful picture. But there are some features to this thing that are really quite frightening and intended to make us sit up and take notice of this.

So we’re going to take a look at that, God’s hand in tending this vine. Notice with me John 15:2, “Every branch”, each and every branch, “in Me”, that’s what he’s referring to and he makes a statement concerning God’s tending, “that does not bear fruit”, then this is how God tends this branch. Notice, “he takes away.” That’s a very interesting word that he uses. Takes away, it means specifically to raise something up. And then to carry it off, to remove it, to separate it. Here’s a branch that’s in me. Every branch in Me, Jesus says, but there’s an issue here with this. You remember the Old Testament ones in Isaiah, they were defective. They were producing sour grapes. Here, a branch in Him. But it’s not producing fruit at all. And how the Father tends to it. He picks it up. And he takes it away. He separates it.

And we have a living example of this, that we saw in John chapter 13. Judas had been around Jesus for a long time. He’d hung out with him. He’d been with him on all kinds of things. He saw miracles, he heard teaching. He was there when the dead were raised. He hung out with Jesus. He was in on this stuff. But this branch, in Him, what fruit did it bear? In John chapter 12, his fruit was very evident. There was a lady who took a vial of Spiknard. The Bible says that it’s very costly. And this vial was sealed. And to open it, you had to break it. It was a pottery kind of thing, and you’d crack the neck of it. And as you cracked the neck, this Spiknard, a very expensive perfume, the aroma of that thing would start to fill the air because it was very aromatic. And that neck was cracked, and this woman is there pouring this over Jesus feet in John chapter 12. And as she does that, Judas pipes up. And he says, Why wasn’t this sold and the money given to the poor! John comments on this, and he says Judas Iscariot did this not because he cared for the poor. But because he kept the money bag, and he used to pilfer, take out of it for himself, what was put in it. Jesus had a thief on his inner circle, that was embezzling all the while. Judas was self seeking. Did Jesus not know it? Jesus says, I know who I have chosen. I know. That is an illustration from when Jesus was there. But there are illustrations of that now, people who hang around the things of Jesus. But there’s no fruit. There’s nothing that comes out of their life. We’re going to talk about what these fruits are in a moment. There’s nothing that’s coming out of their life, that has this production of showing what the Spirit of God does, nothing in their character, nothing in their conduct, other than things that are kind of focused on their interest. Look at the coverstory Judas put on this…Why wasn’t this very costly ointment sold and given to the poor?…Not that he cared for the poor, he cared about himself. Wonder how much I could get out of that. Wonder what’s in it for me?

That is called a sucker branch. It’s just pulling off nutrients from the vine, but produces no fruit, a sucker branch. And every one of those, He lifts up, carries away. Matter of fact, I’m going to give you a little insight on this, because Jesus tells us of God putting his hand in ours, what this really looks like. Slide down with me to verse 6 where he tells us, “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.” All of those sucker branches are picked up and carried away, separate, and they’re thrown into a pile, they’re gathered up and they’re burned. That’s what happens. I want you to know, this is frightening because there are people who hang around the church and name the name of Jesus, but their lives are not productive for him. They’re still like Judas, living for themselves, just hanging out with Jesus. And it’s intended to be a warning. And this isn’t the only place that Jesus said this. He said this also in the book of Luke, Many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and do works in your name. And Jesus said to him, I never knew. You never had that intimate relationship with me. It was all about what you were doing. But it’s what I was doing in your life and through your life. Depart from me, you cursed into everlasting fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels Depart from me, I never knew you. That’s from the Lord. That is the Lord talking. And he’s talking about what the hand of God is doing on this true vine. The true one.

After talking about the no fruit, he says this, if fruit, versus 2b, if fruit. “And every branch”, each and every branch, “that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” Now I’m going to insert something here. I want to insert a picture of a pruned branch. That’s what it looks like. And this is an actual diagram. This is a diagram on something that I don’t do with my grapevine. And that’s cultivated it. I don’t tend it. Although I know this. This is a diagram and this side is before pruning of a grapevine. This is what mine looks like all over, only these are a whole bunch bigger. This is the trunk, a grapevine really isn’t much more than branches. I mean, there’s a trunk and there’s a root, and then there’s the branches. So there’s the trunk. And this is the vine here. And those, coming off the vine, they call them spurs. These are branches, off the main branch there, and these things are what gets cut back. Some of you are gardeners, you’ve done this, you know what’s involved. My mom wasn’t much of a gardener, but she did have flowers. And sometimes I’d see her doing stuff and say, hey, what are you doing, and she’d say, I’m pinching these off so that they’ll bloom more. Sometimes when I’m riding down the highway I look over, especially if it’s an area where I’ve been many times before, and suddenly during the summer, there were these huge trees that are all cut back and what looks like a little ball at the top. And what they’re doing, as they’re cutting these back, I do it myself with my own bushes at home. Matter of fact, I learned some things, you need to really go in and prune them down if you’re wanting to grow out. And so I do that and those bushes, at first, look pretty straggly. But when it starts to come back, it comes back vigorous, comes back controled. That’s what they’re doing here. And this is the picture that Jesus paints of God being hands on with his departure and the coming of the spirit. And God being hands on when fruit begins to be produced in a believers life. God prunes it, he cleans it. He goes through and he removes some of the things that are prohibitive from being a full and very productive bearing fruit.

This is Jesus, by the way. And this is the picture he’s painting with his words. Sometimes we say, Why is this happening to my life? You’d think if I was in Christ, God wouldn’t do this. I remember in my rebellion, saying that. I remember in a time of pruning that seemed to be so deep, that surely this can’t be of God. I remember saying to my wife, If this is the way God treats his servants, then I’m going to reconsider. And as soon as that came out of my mouth, I had to realized just where I was at, a very wicked and rebellious heart. Because sometimes this pruning is hard. It really deals with me. I mean, it’s me that you’re cutting on here, Lord. It’s me that you’re shortening up, Lord. It’s the Father’s hand. And he knows what he’s doing in those things that you go through. I want you to know, that I use this John 15 passage often. I use it often in encouraging folks. I use it often in ministry, I use it often in counseling situations. The picture of this comes across because this isn’t only God’s hand, but God’s hand in your hand comes across. Jesus paints this picture to show God’s hand coming into yours. Do you know how big and strong the hand of God is? He spoke and it’s done. Who can resist his hand? And his hand comes to yours in this process. This is it. This is such a beautiful picture. Let me go on here.

He does this for more fruit, that we would bring forth and bear more fruit. Now I’m going to talk about fruit for a moment. The fruit that the Bible presents to us, the fruit that we bear, is fruit of character. Galatians 5:22-23, describe it this way, “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self control…” This is the fruit of character. There’s the fruit of conduct. Hebrews chapter 12 talks about that we, by the hand of the Lord correcting us and training us, participate in choosing what is right. There’s the fruit…this is one that is really important and it’s really missed right now…it’s the fruit of the chorus of praise. The book of Hebrews talks about giving thanks to his name. Let me ask you, has that fruit been coming out? I know we’re not in church all of the time. But we don’t have to be in church to bring forth choruses of praise. What if I’m not musical, you might ask? Get over it. I know I’m not musical and I’m constantly making you get over it. (laughing) Get over it. Because The Lord looks for this joyful noise. And he inhabits the praises of his people. He goes there. Why? Because he’s on some ego trip? No, because it’s good for us. It is good for us to put him in his rightful place and us in our rightful place. It is the choruses of praise, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. Those are fruits that come out and they come out from the heart. It’s not only character, conduct, continuous praise, concern giving, ongoing service, and converts that we communicate Christ to other people. These are all called fruits. He does this pruning so we will genuinely bring forth more fruit. And eventually, this much more fruit has a result, there’s a process here. In verse 8, he says this, “By this is my Father glorified,” this process, “that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” This process has a result. “By this my Father is glorified.” There’s a good opinion of him spread around. When there’s character and conduct that reflects the fruit of the Spirit, conduct of that reflects concern for making right choices and consideration of other people. It has the Father glorified and you demonstrating that you’re a follower of Jesus, process with a result.

Final thing here this morning, God’s hand in yours. The picture that Jesus paints has a key element. Always, always, God gives our hand a place to join his. Salvation, it’s by grace through faith. God does the work in Christ, all by grace. And by faith, our hand receives it. God has this as a two handed process. Growth. God in our process of growing, accomplishes all of this, and then tells us to work out your own salvation. Work out the nature of it, not to obtain it, but the nature of it, with fear and trembling, with apprehension and deep respect, because it is God who works in you to will and to do for his good pleasure. You work it out. His hand working in you to want to and to accomplish this. And your hand, working it out, working it out. God makes things a two handed process. And here in his husbandry, his vine dressing, he puts your hand to his.

What he calls for is here, Jesus’s directive, verse 4 and 5, Abide in me,” that’s his directive, “abide in me, and I in you.” like he just explained through this spirit, “as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine,”unless it stays connected and plugged in. “Neither can you unless you abide in me.”This is the exact parallel in the allegory. This is the exact point that it has to make in the picture. We need to abide, to settle down and to live interactively, continuously with Jesus. Abide in me, settle down and abide in me, interactively. That’s our hand. A branch that’s not connected, can’t bear fruit by itself. These buds that my mom pulled off and threw in the trash can, we didn’t walk out the next day and, lo and behold, Jack and the Beanstalk, they were reaching up into heaven. Didn’t happen because it can’t do anything on it’s own, neither can you. This is our point, this is our hand going into his, abide in me. How? How do we abide in Christ? How do we do it? First, we definitely have to be in him. Right? You have to have accepted Christ as Savior and your life been changed. And then once you’ve accepted Christ, what next? We have to be in the word. I need to take time to be involved with him and drinking in His Word. That’s part of what this “In the Loop” Bible study livestreaming we’re starting this Tuesday night is about. That we can drink this in and get a picture for our present day, in this present distress, to drink this in. But what do we do sometimes? Okay, got my verse read for today. You know, I got out my devotional book and I looked through it. And the verse for today is, Jesus wept. I memorized it. Good deal, done here. Moving on. You know why that verse is so popular? Because it is the shortest verse in the English Bible, not the shortest verse in the Greek Bible. But in the English Bible, it’s the shortest verse. And that’s kind of the approach that a lot of folks take on this abiding thing. Get in, get it done, move on. And if you do that, the fruit that you get is going to show that, it’ll show. So take time to drink him in.

And the practice of being in prayer. How is your prayer life? What’s it like? You know, just recently I was interacting with somebody over this verse, concerning their life, concerning what was going on in his ministry situation. And I talked to him about how this, abiding with Christ, is going on. And he said, Well, I pray and I pray and I pray. And suddenly he realize this was all a one way conversation. And it’s usually focusing on what he’s going through. Like, God I want you to come in and take care of this for me. There is an interactive thing with God, that’s just a general communication that goes on all the time. It’s called prayer. And I’m just talking, I’m talking when I’m driving the car, I’m talking when I’m running outside, when I’m shoveling the snow, and when I get a matter that I really don’t know what to do with. I’m talking to him about wisdom, the Bible says if you lack wisdom ask, and it will be given to you. I’m just doing this. And then I’m supplicating, I’m listing out, Lord, there’s this person and the concern in their life. And Lord, there’s this person and their needs. Lord, this is going on with my son. And this is going on with my mom. Lord. I’m asking for this, with thanksgiving. And may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard your heart and mind. This thing about prayer is a heart thing. And I’m there with him and I’m experiencing this peace of God there, in that. Is that what you’re getting? Is that what’s going on? That’s the kind of thing about abiding in him. If this doesn’t capture you, your fruit bearing will definitely be affected. It will be. Character, conduct, concerned giving, continuous service, choruses of praise, converts, people’s lives impacted, all of that. That’s the key. Jesus said, abide in me.

And for Jesus’s instructions here, concerning how this takes place, look with me at verse 6, “If anyone does not abide in me, he’s thrown away” You know, this is a very interesting thing here. Because Jesus said if…and it’s no, if someone does not abide in me, he’s taken away. But if, verse 7, and it’s so, he says this, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” The very things we talked about…being in the word, drinking it in, being in prayer, this interacting, asking…and it’s going to be done. There are three results of this, which he tells us in verse 8, about this process of abiding.I want you to know the big deal here is the work that comes from abiding, the fruit that comes from that. It’s not the work that you do…Oh look what I’ve done for you, I did this and that in your name…No, it’s this abiding thing that God then produces through you, “By this my Father is glorified.” The good opinion of him, the recognition of him, “that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” Three results that are given there.

One last thing, Jesus’s appeal. This, hand in hand, comes to us through Jesus, as an appeal. Verse 9, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” This thing is to settle down and live in his love. Live in my love. Live, not in your distress, live in my love. Live in my love, not in your love, live in my love. Live there, settle down and be at home with this love. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”, John 15:13. And you are my friend, follow my directions. He explains in verse 10, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” It’s an outcome of grasping my love. This isn’t to boss you around. This isn’t to frustrate you. It’s to give you directions. Like the Father loved me, I’ve loved him. I’ve loved you. Just like I have kept my Father’s commandments and abided in his love. That is the explanation and then the experience.

I want you to know this experience is so needed. You know, my feet have been really cold the last couple days. How about you? Matter of fact, when I was sitting in the study, I had to wrap them up. It’s been sub freezing for two weeks or longer. It is getting wearisome, the wearisome cold, the wearisome of COVID in the weary winter. Yet here is this, hand in hand, experience. Jesus says in verse 11, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy”, My joy in heart, my happiness in heart. Do you know that Jesus knows where this is going. He knows what’s immediately coming down. He knows as he goes through this…for the joy set before him, he endures the cross…he knows where this is going. And it’s his joy, not concerning what I’ve got to do today. But where this is going, what these things are doing as God prunes and I join him. My joy in you, as a result, your joy is crammed full. What’s life, for you, like right now? Trying, difficult, hard, miserable, I don’t like it. There is a, hand in hand, help here from abiding. And even knowing the cold and COVID and political distress and the way the church is responding and the way the church needs to respond and in the midst of all of this, sometimes I get angry like the world, and my political criticism isn’t much different than the world. All of this gets turned to a joy. Because God is going somewhere with this, and he has chosen you to be in on this right now like it is. My joy in you, your joy crammed full. That’s a promise. And it’s not my promise, it’s the promise of the One who we call Lord and Savior, Boss and rescuer.

This is wonderful, isn’t it. This is wonderful. I think this is wonderful. I’ve got hope. I’ve got vision, I’ve got purpose. And one other thing we get here too, this is so very practical. I can do this. I can raise my hand to God’s hand as He’s tending me. And I can drink in what He tells me, abiding in His Word. I can have these answers to prayer. This is so practicable. Can I share this with you? I knew an older lady who was in ministry. Her name was Mona. And she was such a dear saint. But she said to me one day, Pastor, you know, you’re always talking about being in the word. And I’m just so busy. (She was retired, had been for years.) I’m so busy. And then the other day, I was sitting there, having read the whole morning paper from cover to cover, and I closed it and thought, I’m so busy that I can’t be in the word but I just read this paper from cover to cover. And she realized there’s an issue with my abiding.

Father, you are our everlasting God. And you tend to us and you want to our hand in yours. And as we do this living, pruning and all, the joy of Jesus in us is crammed full. Thank you for being the everlasting, unchanging God. In Jesus name, Amen.

Precious Lord, reveal your heart to me. And he did there. He did. Great thing for us. So a note I would like you to bear in mind, this week we are starting, at seven o’clock, “In the Loop” Bible Study livestream. And so if you could shake yourself loose, it would be an encouraging time to join us there. And so I want to encourage you to do that.