I am the Vine Yea are the Branches - Stan Neuenscwhander

Trying to project that on you folks from Oregon. I

don't know what all would have went through your mind.

But Ohio is the heart of the heart of it all,

by the way, so we hold that claim. Some of

you have been there, maybe some of you haven't. If

you haven't been there, you need to come and see

if I know what I'm talking about. But I bring

you greetings from Ohio as well from our congregation there

at Hebron and our friends there. But by all means

greetings in the name of Jesus, the one that is true,

and the one that is brings hope and life into

our lives. May turn in your Bibles to John chapter fifteen,

and I would like to read the first twelve verses.

So I'm gonna ask you as a congregation to stand

as we read the scriptures. And I would like to

read the scriptures together. Shall we stand. I'm gonna get

you started, and then you just keep going and read

the first twelve verses. Okay, are you ready?

I am their fruit is yourself accepted hip, and.

He abide in me. I am the mine, and here

are the branches helie in me, and the same brings

forth much fruit for without me, he can be not

if a man wi nodding me, he is asked forth

as a branch.

And he's good.

And then gathering him and ask the means to the heart,

and they are. If ye abide in me and my

words biden you, you shall ask. He will and it

show you herein my father glorified, and he very much fruit.

So should he be my skills as the father.

And I love you so I love you. Continue in

my love.

If you keep my commands, ye.

Shall abide in my love. He sad at my father's expands.

These things. This is my commandment. Thank you, maybe seated.

These words have been real to me in the last

recent while. Here as I think of the words of

Jesus here in in this this scripture, the scriptures here

in this passage we read. And as I think about

Jesus was coming up to his he was coming up

to this trial, and in preparing to go into the garden,

and and uh in these all this is just a

short section of what he was telling his disciples. And

but I was and as I think of all that,

and I think about myself, and I've been impressed or

convicted challenged greatly. How important the importance of being connected

to the vine and what that all looks like. And

I'm still learning. But so twenty seventy four says one thing,

if I desired of the Lord, that will I seek?

That will I seek. And Jesus is saying here that

he is the vine and we are the branches, and

he is the true vine. And so he's talking representing Jesus.

Christ is talking about the union of him with his followers,

using the parable of the vine and its branches. And

he's saying about fruit, no fruit, much fruit, more fruit,

all expressions of life or no life, and pruning and

so forth. So those are all things I like to

look at this morning. So we all know what a

plant and a vine looks like in it. So I

brought I brought a plant. It's actually an organ. Plant

comes from Oregon. So this is not from Ohio. I

don't know if we grow as beautiful roses in Ohio

as you all do in Oregon. At least when I

was here in eighty seven. I always remember how beautiful

your roses are. And here's another one, small one, but

still really beautiful. But I like to Jesus says in

verse one. Here says, I am the true vine. What

is What is he really trying to say to us?

I believe we look at this flower, this is just

a this is a rose. It's not a vine, but

it's a it's a plant, and it looks pretty healthy.

And but he Jesus, I'm the true vine. And I

believe what we need to understand is that Jesus is

saying that I'm the vine. I'm not just part of

this root structure. I'm just not a part of it.

But I'm the whole vine. I'm the whole vine. I

think we need to, at least for me, I really

need to try to grasp that Jesus is the whole

vine in the sense that because the only thing that

gives makes it vine is his life, that plant would

have would not look like that if there wasn't life there.

Jesus life produces everything, don't it. Everything we see about

this plant, Jesus is the representation of that life produces

everything in the vine. He says. He's saying, I'm the seed.

I'm the seed, I'm the vine, I'm everything. And he's

trying to us, help us understand, help his disciples understand

that in him He's everything, and that we have no

life without him. But he says we are the branches,

which of which part? He's saying, I am the whole?

Which part? I am the whole? And he says that

you are the branches. And when the life of me,

the life is flowing like through this plant, fruit comes.

That's real pretty. And you see these flowers, how beautiful

they are. They obviously are very fulfilled, they're very blooming.

But why are they blooming? They're connected, aren't they Because

they're connected this flow of the flower here, they're not.

There's no stress there, there's no straining to be anything

the flower. These flowers are not trying to please the vine.

But they're beautiful because they're connected. They're not just being

a flower to please the vine. They are a flower

because they're connected, and they're beautiful because they're connected. They're

not trying to make a good impression. This flower here

isn't trying to please the other three. It's just a flower.

There's no uh, nothing. They're not saying anything. If I

put it up to the mic, no, I don't hear anything,

do you. It's quiet. There's no word, no promise. We'll

try to do better. I'm I'm, I know. No, they're

just in the bye connected. You see their sap running

up from the roots. It's running up to the up

to the flower. That's where producing the life. And that's

what's the life of the plant. The sap, the fruit.

The flower is produced not by anything that's doing it.

The flower it can't do anything, can it can't do

a thing. But by remaining in the vine, the sap

flows up to the fruit. And that's what Jesus is

trying to say to us. Don't try to do anything

without me, because you can't, because you can do nothing.

Jesus says, now in John in verse five, you read

it there. It says that I am the vine near

the branches. He that abideth, or he that remains in me,

and I and him the same bringeth forth much fruit.

And now we have what he says for without me,

ye can do what you tell me. Nothing isn't nothing

a zero. It's not a fraction, but it's a zero.

I need to understand that more. Paul says in Philippians

four thirteen. He says, I can do all things through

who Christ, which what strengthens me. Being connected. Now, if

you're not. If you're trying to do things on ourself

by ourself doesn't go well. You can't be kind, you

can't be loving our patient, you can't have this beautiful

fruit here for a part from me, Jesus says, you

can do nothing but just abide. Abide in the vine,

stay connected to the life of the spirit that I

put in you, which is where you get your life. Now,

if I I have a scissors here and talk about well,

we'll talk about pruning here after a bit, but the

I don't know. I guess i'll cut one off, but

I really hate to do it because they're beautiful. But

I'm gonna take this little guy off here. And here

he is, I just cut him off. Now is that flower?

Is that flower dead? Is there life there? It still

looks beautiful, right, But if I let this lay here

to y'all come back the next time a couple of days,

it won't look very nice. So it's dead, right, There's

no life. It's gone. Life has departed, has been cut off,

it's lost its connection. It's only life that was coming

from the vine is gone. There's no sap flowing satan.

He's always trying to draw us away from abiding in Christ.

He always is trying to get us to stop abiding,

stop it being us, from being connected, from trusting Christ,

from leaning on him. He is continually, that is what

he's if he can stop, if he can get us

to stop in biding, it's over. What did do? We

just say? Can do what? Nothing? This flower? I chopped

him off. It can't do anything now, it cannot continue

to bloom. Impossible, it's dead. Jus says in John ten

twenty eight that he gives us eternal life, and they

shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out

of my hand. He doesn't cut us off. He doesn't.

He doesn't. He gives us eternal life. It's given to us.

And but we can, like he's saying, we can choose

not to abide. Well, we as Christians can be like that.

It looks okay, We look okay at first, No one

maybe notices, but sooner or later, sooner then later something

starts to change. Something's wrong. We lose our beauty, and we,

as were his preachers, can be the same just like this.

We can be like that. We can be doing a

lot of good things, say a lot of good things.

Make it I'm gonna put on a good front. But

it's possible for us, just like the rest anyone else,

to not be connected, not be abiding in Christ. Paul says,

after he met Jesus, he says, nevertheless, I live yet

not I, but Christ live within me, in the life

which I now live in the flesh. I live by

the faith of the Son of God, who loved me

and gave himself for me. The life he was getting

was not his own anymore. He was getting it from Christ,

like the sap that's coming out of this into this plant.

In verse five, it says there that will bear much fruit,

not because we can do it, but it says, if

you abide in me, much fruit. But again, without me,

he can do nothing. You know, some of us, the

older we get, we can, we get pretty good at things.

Practicing we can practice. We get pretty good doing some

what we do. And I always have said the order

I get, you can't buy experience, And I think that's

still true. You can't buy experience. But experience doesn't necessarily

guarantee life.

And so.

Again the importance of being connected in the vine. Jesus

is saying, actually, if you abide in Me, if you'll

just abide in me, you'll bear much fruit. Do we

really believe that, just like these flowers, aren't they're just

sitting there blooming because there's connection. They're in the vine.

They're connected, they're blooming. But when we are in the vine,

then many of our worries, our fret our, struggle. Well,

we don't have to do that, because it's not me

that's doing it. It's the life that's coming from that,

from the from his life. And there's a part of

the fact of not abiding in the vine, not abiding

in him, that even the good things, the important things

that we know we should do and still do, like

read your Bible. You can read your Bible and not

be connected to the vine, and it won't do you

a lot of good. Now you didn't hear me say

not read your Bible, please. But the Pharisees they were

they knew the scriptures, they knew the law. It added

a lot, but they knew the law, and yet they

planned the murder of the Son of God. And we

can do the same. We can do a lot of

good things that I'm not saying that we shouldn't do.

But unless we abide in the vine, it's called human effort,

and those flowers won't look Yeah, they just won't look beautiful.

I am hopeless, stan is hopeless to produce fruit on myself.

The only life I have is in Christ. He is

the vine. I am the branch, which he allows me

to be a part of him, in which he is

the hole. It's kind of a mystery, and I'm still

trying to grasp all this. He says, He's chosen us.

You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you

that you should go and bring forth fruit. In that

your fruit should remain in John fifteen and sixteen, that

whatsoever ye shall ask in my Father in my name,

he may give it. You know, that would be quite

another subject about prayer, but again it's it would be

it's about being connected. So how do we abide in Christ? Oh?

How how do we abide in Christ? Well? I believe

first or first, we need to pray every day and

ask God that to teach us. Teach me Lord how

to abide. That's where I am. Teach me God how

to abide in him. David a man after God's own heart.

We see his cry over and over. There's many psalms

in Psalm twenty five to five. It says, lead me

and thy truth, and teach me, Lord, teach me, teach me,

for Thou art the God of my salvation. On the

do I wait all the day? All the day? In

Psalm fifty five seventeen, it says, evening, morning, noon, will

I pray and cry aloud? And he shall hear my voice.

God is so okay with us with our crying out

to him. If you don't, if you wonder, just read

the book of Job and all the discussion was going

on there. At the end God said of Job, and

all this he didn't sin, He said not he Job

says a lot of things well. In Jeremiah seventeen nine,

it says, the heart is he's seitful and desperately wicked.

Who can know it? So we need I need to

taught how that I can abide in him. No one

else can give you that life that Jesus wants to

give you, that is in the vine. No one else

can give us that. No one can give me can

give you life for my dead. So when we abide

in Christ, we just like abiding like this flower and

this plant, we abide in Him, then.

We have.

New desires. The things in Matthew twenty five of the

ones that were going about and helping others and seemed

like they were just living their lives and weren't thinking

that much about it. But Jesus recognized it. God recognized it.

But they the desires that come from life, that look beautiful,

that bless others come from him. When you feel like

praying for someone suddenly and you don't know why that's

not you, that's the life that coming from him, and

that's his spirit speaking to you. Just recently, I had

one of my friends. He lives in a different state.

I'm rarely see him anymore, but uh yeah, we texted

once in a while and back and forth, and I

hadn't talked to him for maybe a month or something

like that. And anyhow, one day I was on the

job and he texted me this song and it was

the song that says you know. Actually, he sent me

a song that I could listen to, and it said

that someday I'll know why my heart is sad, why

I cry at soft nightfall. Someday I'll know that it'll

be worth it all. I'm out there run on the

dosiver night. Here comes a song. I'm like, Wow, how

did he know I needed that? So I told him,

I said, wow, that was thank you for sending that

song and I needed that. He's like, well, must have

been the Lord, Yeah, must have been.

It was.

When we have the life of God and we have

the life is spirit, we are biding in the vine.

The other side of that is when God puts a

thought in your mind, do it. Don't neglect, do what

you know you should do. But it flowing through us

forgiveness mercy. Verse eight says herein here, in is my

father glorified, that he bear much fruit. Oh, God receives

so much glory when we abide in the vine, and

we we we're like, we look like this because it's

not about us, it's about him, and he gets so

much glory. Says here, so much fruit. Here's my father glorified.

Oh does God received glory? Yeah. Well, then it goes

on to say that our father is the husbandman, or

he's the gardener. In verse one, it talks about father

is the husbandman, and it talks about he prunes us

so that we can bear more fruit, not to hurt us,

not too like I don't think he cuts off beautiful

flowers like I did. It says that the branches that

don't bear fruit, like if there's one brown or something,

he trims them off, and pruning is cutting. It's not pleasant.

We can probably all identify with things in our lives

that don't feel very good. And there's many ways that

he prunes us. It might be through his word. We're

reading his word and we come across something and it's like, eh, yeah,

that he wants to he's pruning. Maybe it's circumstances that

you feel are out of control. He wants us to

recognize that, like it talks about in Psalone thirty nine

and in Psalm ninety and all that he wants us

to be something there that needs prune. Maybe it's maybe

it's your husband or your wife. I can prune you,

can't they my wife can prune you when And you

might say, oh, I'll be all kind of rather hear

from Gabriel and I could brag about that, but not

my wife pruning me. Maybe it's some other, even unbeliever

that you don't even God. God is not in a box.

He can use all kinds of ways to prune us,

but it's always far good. You see when he does that,

when he prunes it just because there's something something there

in your in our life that is blocking the flow

of the sap. It's blocking it, and he wants it

needs to cut that out of there so it can

flow again to abide in him. It's so important to

be in the word. I said earlier that you know

you can read the word and you're not do you

much good, But please understand me in that the Word

is where the life is. Diaz says in John six

point sixty three, it says the words that I speak

unto you, they are spirit and they are what life.

They are spirit and they are life right here. And I,

for myself, I find that sometimes I I do have

to just force myself, force feed myself. And it's not

so that in that way when our feelings and our circumstances,

when you're in the Word, no better place than you

can be because that's the life, it's words. So if

you feel like God is pruning us, you me good thing.

So if you're here today, you know, there's things that

we struggle with, and there's things that in my life,

as I hate it, look at him, I think, wow,

why am I still struggling with some of these things?

Maybe you have some besetting sin. It could be pride,

it could be anger, it could there's just a host

of things that you can't shake. You have to abide

in Christ. You can't do it by yourself. Maybe it's pride.

You know, when you abide in Christ, it's impossible to

be rout. Show me someone that's proud and boastful, someone

that's not. I'll show you someone that's not abiding in Christ.

Because God hates pride started with Satan, started with Lucifer.

And Psalmon thirty eight six it says God knows the

proud of far off, so pride and abiding in Christ

don't mix. When we abide in Christ, we also are

sensitive to things that didn't bother us before. When we

abide in Him, we care. It matters how we speak,

who we speak about.

And.

We don't even like to be around someone that is

speaking gossip about someone else because it's not the life

that's coming from him. Because in Glatians, what it says

in Glatians five on the Fruit of the Spirit, the

things that are coming out of abiding Christians look like

this love, joy, peace, long suffering, goodness, gentleness, faith, meekness,

temperance against such there is no law. Then it goes

on to say, all the things that are not beauty,

bitterness and wrath, and so forth, anger, clamor evil speaking.

But be you kind when you are tender hearted, forgets

having one another, as Christ, as God asked for Christ's sake,

hath forgiven you. So the way to have that fruit.

Is not.

To fight it, not to I mean God, We're to

have the armor of God and all that. But to

defeat it on our own is not that we're not

going to defeat it by just fighting it ourselves and

stamp it out. But to abide in Him, because when

we abide in Him are junkcast to go. It's got

to go a sweet smell coming out of our lives

when we abide in Christ. So I challenge you to

continue keep asking, or start asking God to help you

abide in Him. In Matthew seven seven and eight, we

have a promise there of Jesus. It says, there, ask

and it shall be what given, Seek, and ye shall

fine knock and it shall be open. Is that just

a suggestion that Jesus made or is that a promise?

It's a promise if we seek him, if we ask him,

if we seek and if we knock, He's going to

give us that life. Salma says, my my voice, shalt

thou here in the morning, O Lord, in the morning,

will I direct my prayer to THEE? When we'll look up?

So I'm on thirty nine talks about that his thoughts

towards us are more than the sand, and in verse

seventeen and eighteen, I believe it is. He says that

when I awake, I am still with THEE. When you

wake up in the morning, what is your I was

just reading about another writing this morning about how many

times and this is the way I am too many

times is wake up and have anything on my mind

but the life of from God. But I was really

blessed with that verse recently that to think about the

fact that all night long I'm sleeping and you can't

control your dreams and all that when you're sleeping, so things, Yeah,

we wonder what the why did I dream that? Anyhow?

But when I awake the thought that I'm still with

the Father, He's still with me. I don't have to say, God,

where did you go? When I awake, I am still

with THEE. I just love that I stretched my fourth

forth my hands onto the my soul thirst after thee

as a thirsty land. In closing, turned to John seventeen,

just a couple of pages back. He said, my Bible,

and I'm gonn read Versus twenty through twenty three. This

is Jesus prayer right before he went to the garden.

I'm gonna break in here, but I'm gonna break in

I guess at verse twenty and this is his prayer

for them and for us, because all them which also

shall believe. It says, neither pray I for these alone,

but for but for them also, which shall believe on

me through their word, that they all may be one,

as Thou Father art in me and I in thee,

that they also may be one in us. That the

world may believe that thou hast sent me, and the

glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that

they may be one even as we are one, I

in them and thou in me, that they may be

made perfect in one, and that the world may know

that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as

thou hast loved me. I'm gonna read verse twenty four. Yet, Father,

I will that they also, whom thou hast given me,

be with me where I am, that they may that

they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me,

for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world.

I was struck by that. Those few verses there, How,

that explains the life that is in the Father and

in the Son and in us. If we abide in him,

God bless you as a congregation here. And he's he

that hath begun a good work, and you will perform it.

Just keep abiding in Him. I'll turn the time back

over to the