A More Perfect Union

MESSAGE TRANSCRIPTION: 

If you’re new around here. My name is Virgil Grant. I’m the senior Pastor. I’m one of the leaders around here. And we’ve been in a sermon series for the last several weeks called The Magnificent Seven. And what we’re doing is that we’re camping out in the book of John, and we’re trying to understand who Jesus is in Jesus his own words. And seven different times in the book of John. Jesus goes, I am. And then he fills in the blank. And today, we’re on the sixth I am statement of Jesus, where he says, I am the true vine. And we’re going to pick up in John chapter 15 and verse number one and read through verse five. And Jesus says,.

John 15:1-5 

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.  Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He [a]takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.  You are already clean because of the words which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

You can do nothing. The title of today’s message is A More Perfect Union. And by that, it means that our relationship with Jesus is one of progression of progress. It’s not one of perfection; it is that we move toward Jesus day after day.

We never reach perfection until we see him face to face, either at death or the second coming, whichever one comes first. And here’s the big ideal for today. It’s to the extent that your relationship or your connection with God is weak. You will be too. In short, your connection with God determines your vitality as a Christian. Are you connected or not connected? Are you sporadic? Hit n miss? We’re going to talk about that and that the connection that you have determines the strength that you have now. I think that you’ll understand. John Chapter 15 is better. If we can get into the context, if we can get into the background, the backdrop of John Chapter 15. Now, John’s gospel covers Jesus’s life from the cradle to the grave and beyond. And so this particular passage happens on the Thursday before Good Friday. It’s Monday and Thursday. And Good Friday is this Friday. And let me just say, somebody, we have two worship services this Good Friday at six and 730. How many of you’ve ever been to one of our Good Friday services? If you haven’t, you need to attend. It is completely different than our weekend services. And let me just say this. We have revamped our Good Friday services. We’ve done the same thing for the last couple of years. We’ve revamped it this year, and it’s completely different than the weekend services. And so here we are. It’s a Thursday before Good Friday. Jesus Disciples, they have had the Last Supper together. Jesus wants to continue the conversation, and he says, okay, guys, let’s go for a walk. Let’s go for a mobile conversation. And so Jesus and the disciples, they leave the upper room, and they make their way to the Garden of Gethsemane.

To the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed with such anxiety, such, Anxst that what happened to him? His sweat turned into what? Into blood as he prayed and poured out his heart. It’s the same garden of Gethsemane. The word Judas betrayed Jesus with the kiss. It’s the same garden of Gethsemane where the soldiers came and arrested Jesus, and they whisked him away and took him to six different trials, where he ended up being flogged by Will and nailed to the cross. And then, on the third day, on Easter Sunday, he rose from the grave. It’s that same garden of Gethsemane that we’re talking about here. Okay. So you have to understand that Jesus and the disciples leave the upper room. Let me just show you a map. Maybe it’d be helpful. Is that somewhere in the old city of Jerusalem? Is the upper room? We have no record of exactly where it was. Because you can imagine if it was the exact upper room, everybody would be doing what? Everybody would be taking selfies right when they go there. But somewhere here in this part of the city. And you’ll notice that when Jesus and his disciples, they left. The upper room is where they made their way to the Mount of Olives, to the base of the mountain where the Garden of Gethsemane was. And there was a mile, roughly a mile journey from here to the garden of Gethsemane that goes through the Kidron Valley in order to get there. Now, as you look at this map, it’s very important for you to understand a couple of things. Number one is over here on the right, is there’s all of this hillside. It was a terrace, hillsides. It was where vineyard after vineyard after vineyard would have been planted.

If you go there today, there are a few vineyards that have left. But mostly, it’s homes. It’s houses. There are some cemeteries there as well. So as Jesus is going on, he’s having this conversation. There are all of the vineyards off to the right. And then you’ll see there’s a gate into the temple, into the outer courtyard of the temple. And so there over the entrance was a big stone entrance. And on the stone was a vine. The you have to realize. This is in the evening, is it? The moon is shining. The disciples are carrying torches. Jesus is talking to the disciples. Vineyards and vines and everything is to the right, there, to the left. There is a stone entrance with a big vine over the top, and their torches are glowing. And it’s there. In that moment, in that conversation with his disciples, Jesus says, I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit for a part for me. You can do nothing. It was in that moment that Jesus made that declaration. Now what you have to understand when Jesus says I’m the true vine, He turned the disciple’s world upside down. Let me tell you what I mean by that is because of the vine. To the nation of Israel is found all the way throughout the Old Testament, and the vine to the nation of Israel is like the bald eagle or the American flag. Too to us here in the United States. It was a sign, a symbolism of nationalism if you will. But it was much more than that for the nation of Israel like ten times more than Jesus was like saying like on the Stars and Stripes.

If you can receive that, but it is ten times greater than 10,000 times greater than because to be a part of the nation of Israel was not only something that Mitt that you belonged to the nation, but it also meant and represented your spiritual salvation. Because you have to understand that in day and age, there are a lot of different gods there. The Greeks and the Romans and the Babylonians, and everyone else, they were worshiping their own gods, whether it was the sun, the moon, the stars, or whatever it may have been. Everybody had their own God. But then, when it came to the nation of Israel, how did the nation of Israel? When you ask a person who’s part of the nation of Israel, hey, who do you worship? And they would declare, Well, we worship the God of what? Of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We worship the God who created the heavens and the earth. Our God is different from all the other gods. And so what happened was, when you became a part of the nation of Israel is that you took on not only spiritual salvation, but you took on all of the traits and the traditions of that nation, which meant that you would take all the dietary laws into place. Not only that, but if you as a male, you would experience circumcision because why? That was the practice. That was the law. You would take a day off, and you would practice the Sabbath because that’s what was taught in the commandments. It was what was taught orally from one generation to the next. And then Jesus comes along, and he says, You know what is Historically, you’ve been connected to the vine, which represents nationally. Now you’re representing the nation of Israel.

But guess what? That vine is no longer relevant. The real true bond is not being connected to a nation, but it’s being connected relationally to a person. And salvation has a name, and his name is Jesus. And I am the true vine. And if you’re connected to me, the life will flow through you. You will have an abundant life. You will have true life. And so Jesus is replacing nationalism as the salvation of the nation of Israel. And so the disciples goes, Wow. Now from that conversation. We can pick up a couple things that relate to our relationship with Jesus. Just like a vine and a branch, there are some characteristics that represent that. There’s some characteristics that represent our relationship with the true vine. Jesus. Number one, if you’re taking notes, is that it’s organic. Is there a relationship with Jesus? It should be organic. In other words, it’s not mechanical, it’s not robotic, it’s organic, it’s living, it’s dynamic. It’s something that grows, that God wants our relationship to be like that. Now, folks, we understand that a vine needs and branches need certain things. It needs water in his fertilizers, in the sunshine. But they’re also when you’re tending to a plant or to something that’s growing, and vegetation is that you have to have some intuition when it comes to that, that plant. Correct. I mean, you can give it all the water, you can give the fertilizers, you give the soil, but there’s some intuition. Let’s see if I can help you to understand this. So you’re going to go away for the weekend. Let me bring it to your family. You’re going to go away for the weekend, and you’re going to leave your kids and your dog with the in-laws or neighbor, or you used to be your best friend, you know, but no longer.

Now, after you know, you you know, I thought it’s kind of funny. But anyway, there’s no humor here. But you pass your kids and your dog off, right? And you say, here’s all the things. Like you write down everything that’s on there, and you give them the list. Here are the dos and don’ts. Here are the things that you need to know. And they go, We got it. And then, Friday night, you’re in Pigeon Forge. I don’t know where you are going these days. I haven’t been to Pigeon Forge in a long time, but maybe you go there. I don’t know. But you go to Pigeon Forge, and it’s Friday night. It’s about 10:00 at night, and your phone goes off, and it’s a text message, and it’s your in-laws or your former best friends, and they’ve sent you a text message, and they say to you, The dog has eaten some Legos. And you go, Oh, no, honey, we forgot to tell them that he does that often, and they don’t know what to do. And so there is this pivot, there’s this turn, there’s this organic thing that must take place, and you text them back. None of it takes too long. You just call them and go, Here’s what we do when the dog eats the Legos. This is what we do. Because why? It’s organic. It’s not robotic. It’s not mechanical. And God’s relationship with you, my friends, is not something that is transactional. It’s not that you go to the ATM machine and you punch in a few numbers, and you read your Bible one day a week, or you go to church one time a month or whatever it is. And God, I’ve done this and this and this. Therefore you got to do this for me.

That’s not how God operates, my friends. God doesn’t want it to be transactional. He wants it to be organic. He wants to be, as Sophie said a few moments ago. He wants it to be a friendship that is cultivated. And my question for you this morning is, is your relationship with God organic? Is he a friend of yours or is everything transactional? Is it robotic? I do this, this, and this. And you don’t do that intentionally. Do you still with a little checkoff box? I think God I did all this. But God didn’t. You didn’t come through for me. So your relationship with God has to be organic. But number two, it needs to be exclusive. It needs to be exclusive in nature. If you’re taking notes now, you need to understand that all of these vines have branches, there’s shooting off, and every branch that shoots off there is that that branch is committed exclusively to that vine. Now, here’s what you need to understand is that branch is not looking around and looking at other vines and going, You know what? That vine has more sunlight, and that bond has more topsoil so that that branch doesn’t go. Everybody do this with me. Everybody does this. The branch doesn’t leave the vine. They go in and plunk down on another vine. That’s not how it happens, you know? But. But that’s kind of what we sometimes do, right? I mean, you and I are is that Jesus says, I am the true vine, which means I have exclusive rights to you. And what we do is that we think, well, there’s that. We go, Well, if there’s only true one, then there’s no other vine. There’s no what Jesus says. Jesus says I’m the true vine.

There are all kinds of other vines. There are all kinds of other false vines that are out there, folks. There’s people there that say that career, that money, that power, the prestige, the pleasure is the vine that will woo you away. And Jesus didn’t say there weren’t other vines. Jesus says I’m the only true vine. And you know of people, and I know of people that are left the true vine. They went into it and plunked down another vine, and it was money. It was a success. It was a job transfer. It was something else. And that whatever they were chasing was supposed to be giving them life, was supposed to give them joy and purpose. And instead, what they found out, it gave them purpose and joy meaning for a few moments. But in the end, what happened was it actually sucked the life out of them. And they woke up one morning, and they said, I feel withered, and I feel dry, and I feel empty. And see, folks, there are all kinds of vines out there that is looking for your attention. But there’s only one true vine. When I think about this exclusivity, I think about the prodigal son. I remember the story of the prodigal son. If you do as you say, Amen. Now see ya. Raise your hand up. Ya thought, monkey see, monkey do. But I was fooling y’all. Now, if you were if you heard the story of the prodigal son say, Man, I remember the prodigal son was connected to the true vine. Now follow the story connected to the true vine. And then one day he goes, You know what? The true vine is not sufficient. And what did the prodigal son do? He cashed out, didn’t he, Brian? He cashed all of his tokens in, and he took them.

What did he do? He went to a far country. And what did he waste his money on? Hookers, parties, buying rounds for everyone. There was a big party at the pithouse. I mean, people were living it up. I mean, everything was great. Then what happened? I remember what happened. There’s an economic downturn, remember? And his money ran out, and he started texting all of his friends. And what were all of his friends doing? They were ghosting him, or they were replying back. My new phone lost my contacts. Who is this? Right. Oh, those are doing that. They were like they were the ghost of them altogether. And he was just reaching out and reaching out. But here he was, this little bitty vine. He was withering up. He was dried out. Because why this life over here? This vine over here was going to promise life. But now he’s withered and dried, and there’s an economic downturn. He has no money. So what does this good Jewish boy do? He takes a job that no Jewish boy would ever take. And why does he go and do it? He goes in To tend to what? To pigs. To hogs. And then he’s so hungry. What does he do? He begins to eat the same food that they’re eating. And then, one day, he has a come to Jesus moment, Right? And he goes, You know what? I can go back to my father’s house. I can go back to the true vine. If I go back to the truth. I will go back as a son. I can just go back as a servant. So he gets himself out of the pig trot or the pig pen. And what does he do? He begins to do what it is he begins to do, you know, just edge it his way back to the true vine.

When the father sees him, what does the father do? Someone tells me. He tell me what he did. He ran out. He picked up that little bitty vine. And what did he do with the vine? He ran to the greenhouse. Exactly right. He connected it, grafted back into the true vine. He turned on the water, the watering system, the Mr. the sprinkler system and began to give it some water. Then he says, a shot of poor feel for everyone. Right. And then he turns on the music. And what kind of music does he turn it on? He turns on classical music because that’s why all plants love to listen to it. Right? And listen to me, my friends. This is exactly what Jesus would do for you because you’ve left the true vine. You’ve been chasing after some false vines, and you’re ready to come home. And this will be God’s response to you if you turn and decide to come home today. So our relationship with the father is organic. This exclusive. But it needs to be continuous. It needs to be continuous is the opposite of sporadic. It’s the opposite of hit-and-miss. It’s the opposite of on again and off again. We should fight to foster a continuous connection. Why? Because the vitality of your life and my life is determined by our connection with the true vision. Now, this is not a trick question. What is this? There’s a phone charger. Now, I don’t know about you, but I mean phone chargers. They quit, like, every other week. And like, do you like when you plug your phone up into the phone charger and you’re waiting for the lightning bolt to come on and wait for the little beep and it doesn’t Come on.

What do you do? Like you unplug it, you flip it over. Put it back in there. Or so that you clean it off. And I don’t know if you know this or not, but phone chargers will quit working and work again, and they’ll complete altogether. Stop. Do you know what I’m talking about? Because here’s what happens. Like, we plug it in. It doesn’t work. No lightning bolt. We clean it off and flip it over. It works. And we go, Oh, it was just using my imagination. It worked. And then you go back a day or two later, and you plug it in. And this time, what happens? I mean, like, you lick on it, you know like you wipe it off, you flip it, you go to another outlet, and then all of a sudden you go. The phone charger is what the cable is. What? It’s dead because it stopped working. It just made you believe that it’s going to work. And then it stopped altogether because why there was not a continuous charge and because there’s not a continuous connection in charge.

Continuous 

There’s no life in your phone. And the same is true for you and me is that when we are sporadic in a relationship with God, we don’t have a continuous connection. And there’s a lack of not having a continuous connection is that we are weak in our faith and a relationship with God. And here’s the practicality of it. How many weeks? How many days? Can you go without missing a devotion? So this is the challenge. How many days can you go in a row? How many days can you stay in a continuous connection with the Heavenly Father by doing a devotion? And though some of you are saying I can see it right now is so hard, Pastor doing a devotion.

It’s just, I mean, I don’t know what to do is, which devotion is right. Devotion. I mean, you know. I mean, how hard is it, my friends, to go to YouTube top in elevation worship, Bethel Music, Jesus Culture, go in and type in Kim Walker-Smith or whoever it is that you like to listen to play the worship song. Open the Bible, read the verse, let God speak to you, and then you turn around and speak to God and say, God, you know what? Marriage is hard. This week, in fact, God, marriage has been hard all month. The kids are driving me crazy. The career, the job. It stinks to high heaven. I don’t know what to do. I mean, folks, I mean, how hard is it to open the Bible to read it and you to talk to God and God talk to you and play a song on YouTube. How many days in a row can you actually do that? I mean, how many days in a row can you go without missing worship? How many Sundays can you make it continuous without missing? Because why is it because every Sunday that you come, you’re staying continually connected to the Heavenly Father? I mean, how many times can you go without missing the life group? I mean, people, they look for an excuse. Every single day to miss life group. Love groups shouldn’t be missed. Friends love group is vital. It’s important to have that continuous connection. But, you know, people, they just like, I don’t like going today, so they just don’t go. It’s the same thing with worship. It’s all of that. But all of that, my friends, is what develops and enhances a continuous connection with the Heavenly Father. We downplay all of that, and we become weak and weaker and weaker.

In our faith. But all of that has to point to something. And the fourth thing, if you’re taking notes, and the last thing. Is this how before we go there. Let me just say this. I just remembered this. If you’re sporadic and if you’re hit and miss, and you’re Christmas and Easter only, you’ll never bear anything that looks like this. This is the reason why you have to be continuously connected. If you’re going to produce something like this, you cannot be hit and miss and sporadic because if it is, you’ll never bear anything that looks like this. And so it’s organic, this exclusive. It is. Just make sure you know where you’re at. Three people got continuous. The fourth one is productive.

Productive. 

It is being productive. Now, let me tell you what I’m talking about. You can do devotions, and you can come to worship. You can go to a life group. But is it making a difference in your life and the way that you’re making a difference in your life? And you know that it’s making a difference in your life? Is that fruit is how we quantify the things that you’re engaging? Fruit is the test. Fruit is the test. Me And as you say, some teach us not to you, but to the church. I know people that never miss a Sunday. They’re here every time the doors are open, But they’re still cheating on their spouse every single week. Because you come to church doesn’t mean that you’re bearing fruit, my friends. You have to be engaged in the activity, but that activity has to actually lead to the fruit. And fruit is the test. I know people who’ll download Andy Stanley, stir sermons like Drew does every week. And people, they’re the women.

They’ll download Beth’s more sermons left and right. Listen to them on the podcast every single day of the week. But they’re still involved in pornography. They’re still involved in hatred and anger, and bitterness. I mean, I know people who do a devotion every single day. Every single day they do their devotion. They go to work, and they go to work, and they’re complete jerks. See friends. The activity should actually produce something. And it’s the fruit that is the test. And you go, What kind of fruit is it? Well, we know exactly what the fruit is because of what the Bible tells us in Galatians chapter five, verses 22 and 23.

Galatians 5:22-23

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”

 Jesus is interested in you producing fruit. But can I just say something to you? Jesus also wants to produce the unique fruit that’s inside of each and every one of us. She says the fruit of the spirit. And then there’s the unique fruit. I’m not much in agriculture. I’m not much into dirt or getting dirty. These hands are pretty soft. I got 57 years with no calluses and no problem getting any anytime soon. But I learned this past week that all the different bonds that we have in America came from Europe. And wherever you plant the vines, you get a different quantity because of the weather and the way that you prune in the way that you grew rumen and all that stuff and all the bonds that we have come from Europe, and there are all kinds of different vines. There’s the cap vine, there’s a chardonnay vine, there’s a Zinfandel, there’s a murlough. And that’s all I know about nine.

So but you like all those different cards is produce. And here’s the thing, is that inside of you, you’re fearfully wonderfully made in the image of God. God has put talents and abilities inside of you. He’s given you a passion. He’s given you a mission. He’s given you a story. He’s given you a song. He’s given you a poem; he’s given you a vision. He’s given you a company. He’s given you the ability to lead other people. And what God wants to do is not only produce the fruit of the spirit in you, but he also wants to produce the unique fruit that he placed inside of you. And that is called stepping into your destiny, into your calling. But can I tell you something? None of that is possible. What we’ve just talked about. Unless. Pruning takes place. Pruning is brutal. And in pruning in God’s economy. I want you to write this down in God’s economy. Pruning is a reward. In God’s economy, pruning is a reward. What is pruning? Pruning is cutting things back. But pruning is also cutting things off. Now there is this thing that will grow on vines. That is called, of all things, a sucker. And this sucker will grow, and it will get big. Well, look at me now, you know, what do you think about me now? It just gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and the vinedresser comes in, and he cuts that off. Because. Why? Because if he does it all, the vine is only can create so much sap if he doesn’t cut the sucker off. Guess what happens to all the sap in the vine? It goes to the sucker. So the ven dresser, his responsibility is to make sure the sap is heading into the right direction.

So he cuts off these suckers, and he casts them away because they take up all the sap. But there’s also this little bug that will little flower that will emerge at the bud. And you go, Oh, man, this is beautiful. There are some vines that are coming. But that little flower is extracting sap from the grapes. And guess what the vinedresser will do? He will not use these. The pruners the cheers to do that. He’ll reach in. And do what? He will use his fingers. And he calls a technique that’s called pinching. He’ll pinch those little flowers off and maybe at the supper table this week. Maybe in your life, fruit this week. Maybe you need to have a conversation about what needs to be cut off and what merely needs to be cut back. So your job is to abide. His job is to prune. I mean, it’s all over the passage. It’s all over where he says, Abide in me and in you. What is the word? A bad means the word A bad means to be still. Stay put, Baba. Don’t move. It’s exactly what it means. It means that you’re to stay put. You’re to stay next to Jesus. But can I just say something to you? It’s the hardest to abide or to or to stay put in Jesus when you’re being pruned. When Jesus is pruning you, he’s cutting back. He’s pinching things off of your life. It’s the hardest to abide when you’re being pruned. I mean, it’s extremely difficult, but your job is just to remain. Your job is just to stay there. Your job. Many of you, you’re experienced pruning right now. Many of you are experiencing pinching. And you’re like, I didn’t want to come to worship this morning.

I don’t want to go to Bible study this week. I don’t want to read my Bible this week. But I read it every day this past week. And you’re like, you’re just having a difficult time. To somehow or another to abide in Jesus when you’re being pruned is difficult. Now, to show you this picture. This is a picture that goes off the Internet, and I don’t know where it’s up from. There’s a picture and but the grapes have been harvested. And because the grapes have been harvested, the vine dress are no longer needs these beautiful, lush, green-flowered vines. So before they go into the winter, what does the vine dress or do? This is what it looks like now, row by row. He cuts it all back. And here is my final principle that I want to give you is that when you feel the steel. When you feel the pruning. Just cling to the vine. Don’t move. Don’t chase false vines. Don’t be running after other vines. Just stay connected to the true vine. Because in your in God’s economy pruning. As a reward. And so I want to help you maybe to start your journey to have a continuous connection, to start your journey, and maybe being a little bit more consistent in your walk. We’re going to on April 17th, we’re going to begin 21 days of prayer. And what I’m going to ask you to do if you want to join us in 21 days of prayer. I want you to text me your name. Don’t just say, Barbara. Linda. We’ve got too many bobs, too, Melinda’s. Just give me your full name, okay? Just say Virgil Grant or Drew months. And this is my cell number. It’s coming straight to my phone, and you just text me, and you just say to me that you will join in on the 21 days of prayer, and you’ll get a Bible verse.

21 Days of Prayer:

Text your NAME to 

859-661-5373

You give a little devotional thought, and then you’ll get a prayer request, and it will all come directly from my phone to you. These are all devotions that I have written just for this time and this specific and specific nature of our church. And so we’ll start after Easter on Monday, April 17th. We’ll go through May the seventh. There’ll be 21 days. I would love for you to join. It will be beneficial, I think, for you to do that. So I’m just gonna ask them to leave it up there for a second. Love for you to be a part of that and be honored if you would do that.