By choosing that moment, Jesus would have been using the vineyard as an object lesson to teach his disciples that just as branches need to stay connected to the vine if they are going to survive and bear good fruit so his followers were going to need to stay connected to him, to abide in him, if they were going to both survive and bear good fruit. Jesus knew that some difficult days were coming for his disciples and so he tells them that above everything else what they needed to do was remain in him, to rely upon him and to trust him for all that they need.
But what’s interesting to think about is that when Jesus shared this teaching as they left the upper room, one of his disciples was not there. One of Jesus followers had already been cut off. Judas had already made the decision to turn away from Jesus which tells us that he wasn’t really abiding in him at all. Although Judas had been there for all the teaching, all the miracles, all the sharing of faith and power and glory, although Judas just moments earlier had shared in the Passover meal and even had his feet washed by Jesus, he never really abided in Jesus at all. So as Jesus and his disciples walk along the road that night he tells them the importance of staying faithful and connected to him because one of their group had already been cut off. One had already shown that he didn’t really abide in Jesus which means, according to verse 6, that he had been gathered up and thrown into the fire.
Seeing this teaching in its larger context of Judas betrayal shows us that we can attend church our entire lives, but that doesn’t mean we are abiding in Jesus. We can attend worship services and Sunday school every week and go on mission trips every year, but that doesn’t mean we are abiding in Jesus. Judas had done everything right, he attended all the right events and served in all the right ways, in fact he held an office in this new little faith community of disciples; he was their treasurer, but he never really abided in Jesus because we see that in the end he had his heart set on something else.
So the question we have to ask ourselves is: what vine are we abiding in? Where is our heart? Maybe for Judas the vine was wealth or power or maybe it was control – but it wasn’t Jesus. What are the priorities in our life? Is the vine we aide in God or is it our hunger for wealth, power or control? Is the Vine our family, friends or our job? Is the priority that drives us in life simply doing good works, gaining lots of knowledge or amassing the most number of friends we can on facebook? If we are abiding in any vine other than Jesus, if our first priority doesn’t include God than in time we become like Judas, we get cut off from God and then we don’t bear any fruit, or experience any of the fullness of life God offers. So the goal for us is to make sure we are abiding in Jesus.
But what does it mean to abide in Jesus? The word abide means to remain or stay. To abide in Jesus means we endure and wait and live in Him. To abide means we find our strength and our life’s vision and our security in God alone. A great image of what it means to abide comes from Psalm 91:1-2.
We see here that to abide in God means that we find our security in the shelter of God’s presence or under the shadow of God’s wing. Think of the protective wing of a mother bird. It shelters her children, keeps them safe from harm and allows them to grow until they can fly on their own. To abide in Christ means that Jesus is our refuge when we are week and our strength in times of need and a fortress when all around us looks like it is about to give way. To abide in Christ means to trust Jesus and depend upon him for all that we need. It means we place our feet on solid ground when all around us is shifting or sinking sand. It means when nothing in our lives is going right – we still turn to God because we know he is still there to love us, forgive us and just help us to the next day.
Now the challenge for us as we talk about what it means to abide in Jesus is that we can’t turn it into a list of things we should do, because remember, Judas did all the right things but he still wasn’t abiding in Jesus. In college a friend and I talked at length about this passage because I always wanted to figure out HOW to abide in Jesus. I wanted the fruit, I wanted the love, joy and peace, I wanted the assurance that I was with Jesus and that the fullness of life he offered was going to come my way so I kept trying to figure out HOW to do it, and my friend kept telling me that the key wasn’t to do but to abide, to rest in Jesus, to trust that God was working in me. Remember, he would say, the branch doesn’t really do anything; the fruit is simply produced as the branch stays connected to the vine. The key isn’t for us to be doing all the right things; the key is to stay connected to and trust in Jesus. I have to say this is hard for me because I always want to be doing something to grow in my faith, but at times we just need to rest and trust in Jesus.
While all of that is true, I’m a pretty practical person, so on a practical level it’s helpful for me to know how to order my lives in such a way that I am able to draw what I need in life from Jesus. Trust comes as we grow in our relationships, so how do we grow in our relationship with Jesus? How do we stay connected to the vine? How do we abide in Christ? Well if to abide means to stay connected than anything that we do to help us stay connected to Jesus or anything that opens our hearts and minds and lives to the presence of God is going to be helpful. For example, worship is a helpful tool for us if we want to draw our strength and power from God. But by worship we aren’t talking about sitting in the pews and taking up space on a Sunday morning. What we are talking about is an open heart to receive the love and the power God has for us. Worship means opening our ears and minds to hear God’s voice and to be shaped by God’s message for our world. Worship means surrendering ourselves to God so he can shape our motives and our desires.
This was what Judas didn’t do. Judas just sat in church, he listened to the teaching of Jesus but he didn’t allow it to shape him. He heard Jesus pray and even served others the way Jesus taught him, but he didn’t allow the love and grace and message of God to shape his heart. So just being in worship doesn’t mean we are abiding in Jesus, but it is one intentional way we can connect ourselves to God because it is here that we place our selves in the presence of God. The key is for us to allow God to speak to us and shape us and have his way with us during this time.
Actually, any activity through the church can be a way to abide in Christ: worship, small group learning, serving together in Jesus name and prayer are all ways to stay connected to God and to allow God to shape us, but ultimately it is not the activity that connects us, it is the open heart and the surrendered life. The same is true with any personal disciples of faith like prayer, devotions and even fasting and tithing – they can help us get connected or stay connected, but they do not guarantee that we are abiding because abiding isn’t what we do - it is an attitude and state of our heart.
Sometimes it is hard to know if we are abiding in Jesus, but there is one sure way we can determine if we are, we can look at our attitudes and actions and see if we can identify the good fruit that comes when we stay connected to the Vine. Jesus said that if we abide in him we will bear much fruit – good fruit – and this fruit is outlined for us in Galatians 5:22-23. So the good fruit that God produces in us when we are connected to him is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. When we experience this fruit in our lives we know that we are connected to God. When we grow in this fruit, when we feel ourselves become more gentle and patient, more filled with love and joy then we know that we are abiding in Jesus.
But this isn’t the only good fruit we produce, look at Colossians 3:12-17. So compassion and humility are also fruit that is produced as we abide in Jesus. Being willing to forgive others is a sign that we are abiding in Jesus. So there are lots of ways we can evaluate whether or not we are abiding in Jesus, it just takes some honest self reflection, or inviting others to speak to what they see and experience in us.
Now if we aren’t seeing the kind of fruit we want when we evaluate our lives, then our hearts and lives might need to be pruned in order to bear fruit. Now pruning is the act of taking off of a plant the branches that are wasteful or extra. We prune back many plants in our gardens so that they will grow stronger and be healthier in the long run, even if the process itself is painful. The same is true with us. Jesus said that all of us who bear fruit – God will prune (John 15:2). So God will work in all of us to deepen our faith and strengthen our dependence upon him, but the process of God’s pruning is not an easy one, look at James 1:2-4.
The trials we go through and the testing of our faith is part of the pruning process because it is during the difficult times that we learn to trust God more. I had a friend who used to say, Jesus won’t be all you need, until Jesus is all you have. We may not be able to abide in Jesus until every other vine we naturally turn to and trust in has been taken away and while that process can be difficult and painful, if the end result is that we are more firmly abiding in Jesus, more faithfully trusting in him, then we are in a much better place.
Because Jesus chose the walk from the upper room to the garden of Gethsemane to give us the teaching, he shows us what abiding in him looks like and what it doesn’t look like. It doesn’t look like Judas, who although he went through all the right motions, had motives that were far from God. He didn’t bear any good fruit and was cut off from God. Abiding in Jesus does looks like the disciples who in the next few hours went through the most difficult trials of their lives as they watched Jesus arrested and crucified. While they struggled to be faithful and at times failed miserably, they never stopped abiding, because they never stopped trusting. Even during their failure, their hearts never stopped looking to Jesus and through those trials they got stronger and in the end – they produced much good fruit. That’s what abiding looks. We struggle at times, we even fail, but if our hearts keep looking to Jesus and if we keep ordering our lives in a way to stay connected to God – we will grow stronger and in the end we will produce and taste much good fruit.
We are all in different places today as we think about what it means for us to abide in Jesus. Some of us need to stop trying to DO so much and just rest in Jesus. Some of us need to order our lives around God’s presence and word so that we are able to more intentionally draw from the life giving spirit of God. And some of us, in the midst of our trails and failures, need to just turn our eyes to Jesus knowing that He is there.
No… we need to turn our eyes to Jesus knowing that He is HERE. So let us abide in Jesus and find life.
Next Steps
Jesus is the Vine.
What Vine are you abiding in? What are the priorities in your life?
God, Family, Job, TV, Sports, Friends
Good works, Knowledge, Social Media
What 3 practices currently help you abide in Jesus?
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3.
What new practices can help you more fully abide in Jesus this week?
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2.
To abide in Christ often requires pruning (the cutting away of that which is wasteful or not productive). What needs to be pruned from your life so you can more effectively abide in Christ and bear fruit?
We abide in Christ to bear fruit (see Galatians 5:22-23,
1 Corinthians 13, Colossians 3:12-17).
Which fruit do you experience most often in your life?
Which fruit do you most want God to produce?
