Beginning: The Branches

This morning we have the invitation to see ourselves as the branches. Jesus says in John 15:1-2 NLT, “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.”

As a branch, we encounter the ways of the Father. Can you see how active and engaged God is in our growth? He desires to restore us to connection with him, but it is not just a task to set and forget. It is a relationship where God is invested in making sure you and I produce as much fruit as possible. Of course, life with God is not for the faint of heart. Jesus called us to take up our cross and lose our life. The everyday reality of surrender is the gardener’s pruning (more on this tomorrow). It is painful, but it is productive. Far more favorable than being cut off, for it is impossible to produce fruit if we are severed from the vine.

I want to emphasize that God is not challenging us to be our own little trees that he inspects. Many have tried this, perhaps finding false soil to root in and leading others astray with a counterfeit gospel. No, God is invested in Christ, the grapevine, and God’s people are connected to this vine as branches, not their own vines.

This means that our assignment to produce fruit is not about striving but about surrender and positioning. We cannot even produce godly fruit on our own, but we can abide. Herein is the call to abiding daily. To stay connected to the vine.

Have you been practicing a faith that looks more like becoming your own vine and less like abiding as a branch of Christ the vine?

This simple shift makes all the difference. No matter what we do, we have the choice to either try and plant ourselves or stay in the vine. Planting ourselves means that we are doing works to try and show God we are good Christians. Remaining in the vine means showing up to be with God because we need him.

I get it. So many believers have been trained to operate in self-sufficiency (being self-planted) that when God begins to uproot you to graft you into the vine, it feels unstable and scary. Even if we are a withered, dried-out, rotting plant, it takes faith that we may not have to rely on the vine to supply all that we need.

Yet this is the miracle of the gospel. God takes dead vines and grafts them into the living vine. How marvelous is it when the fruit begins to bud in the life of a newly restored believer?! This is the journey we are on together.

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