“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vineyard keeper. 2 He removes any of my branches that don’t produce fruit, and he trims any branch that produces fruit so that it will produce even more fruit. 3 You are already trimmed because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. A branch can’t produce fruit by itself, but must remain in the vine. Likewise, you can’t produce fruit unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, then you will produce much fruit. Without me, you can’t do anything. 6 If you don’t remain in me, you will be like a branch that is thrown out and dries up. Those branches are gathered up, thrown into a fire, and burned.”
– John 15: 1-6
It was great to be together for church this past Sunday. Hopefully you had a chance to join us in person or online, or watch the livestream recording from last weekend. Personally, from the moment that worship began, I sensed a strong presence of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God with us. I think it’s a blessing to have the opportunity to gather weekly to worship, but of course the greatest blessing is God’s presence with us and among us.
This week, I had a chance to speak from John 15:1-6. John 15 is part of a longer section of the Gospel of John (John 13 to 17) where Jesus is speaking to his disciples in the upper room. John 13 to 17 is like Jesus’s farewell speech, as after John 17 the gospel story moves from Jesus teaching his disciples to Jesus’s betrayal and crucifixion. John 15:1-6 is part of Jesus’s farewell words to his disciples where he teaches them some of the most important things to remember.
One of the key words in John 15:1-6 is to “remain.” Jesus tells his disciples that they need to remain in him like a branch needs to remain connected to the vine. For the disciples who were listening, they would have been familiar with vineyards and how important the vine is. In a grape vine, what the vine provides for the branches is sap. When a branch is connected to the vine, it’s able to receive the lifegiving and rich sap from the vine that allows it to produce the sweetest fruit.
For us, staying connected to God means staying connected to the source of “sap” for our lives. What I’ve been learning is that one of the key elements in this life-giving sap is the grace of God. I think one of the best definitions of grace is given in one of our memory verses, Ephesians 2:8-9.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.”
Grace is a gift from God. It’s something that we cannot buy, we cannot earn, and we can’t get apart from faith. Yet grace is one of the most powerful forces on earth. Grace is powerful because it has the ability to defy every odd and overcome every human limitation, so that the will of God is done. There is no circumstance that is too difficult or problem that is too challenging that the grace of God cannot address. What is humanly impossible becomes possible by God’s grace.
This is why grace is the most powerful and important thing on earth when we face the greatest challenges of our lives. It is at the height of our challenges – the height of our stress, our anxiety, our failures, our sin – that grace becomes important. It is during the most difficult parts of our lives that we need the grace of God. And this grace is the “sap” from the vine that comes from being connected to God.
This year, our theme has been patient endurance. But the point of patient endurance is not that we would simply survive through the difficult parts of our lives. The point of patient endurance is that we would grow in faith. What we need in the face of difficulties is faithful endurance. And this faithful endurance only comes through grace, a grace that comes through staying connected to the life-giving vine.
I pray this week that we would remember to put God first in all things, being sure to tend to our connection to the vine. Invest in time with God, in listening prayer, in reading and memorizing scripture, in worship, in Christian community. And in that, we will receive the grace of God that allows us to faithfully endure every challenge that comes our way.