March 25, 2007 Sermon Notes

March 25, 2007 - - - Pastor Matt Anderson

“I AM ... the Vine”

I AM series, part four

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch that does not produce fruit, and He prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more…Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot bear fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful apart from Me. Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in Me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing.” –John 15:1-5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References:
 John 15:1-8; Genesis 2:7; John 20:22; Isaiah 5:1-7; Galatians 5:22-23

 

 

A morning thought …

 

Now we sense the wonderment the disciples must have had when Jesus, with eigo eimi [I AM] authority, said, “I am the vine.”  He boldly took the place of Israel.  Now faith in Him, not Hebrew blood, was the source of salvation.  In substance He was saying, “the only thin that can give you life and joy is a love relationship with Me.  Your hope is not your heritage, but intimate, living fellowship with Me!”

This is the first of the “these things I have spoken to you” which Jesus meant when He offered fullness of joy.   He is the vine; we are the branches.  Love is the flowing, life-giving sap which surges from the vine to the branch.  And the fruit of that dynamic energy is joy.  The delineation of the fruit of the Spirit is given by Paul in Galatians 5:22-23.

There is a great need for joy today.  It should be the identifiable mark of the Christian and the impelling ingredient of his/her contagion.  The church should be the fellowship of uncontainable joy.  William Barclay was right:  “A gloomy Christian is a contradiction of terms, and nothing in all religious history has done Christianity more harm than its connection with black clothes and long faces.”

-from “The Bush Is Still Burning” by Lloyd John Ogilvie