Episode Transcript
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Hello, I'm Josh.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: And I'm Gabriel.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: And today on reading the Gospel, we are studying the event the true vine. This is found in John, chapter 15, verse 1 through 17. Follow along with us as we read.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.
Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.
I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.
If everyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers. And the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.
If you abide in Me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.
By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you. That my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment. That you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one in this than someone lay down his life for his friend.
You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servant, for the servant does not know what his Master is doing. But I have called you friends.
For all that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, that your fruit should abide. So that whatever you ask in the Father's name, he may give it to you.
These things I command you so that you will love one another.
We've talked about different events in the past that are very similar to this, but I wanted to start out talking about fruit. Jesus says, if we, as branches, are not connected to the vine, we're not going to bear fruit.
So oftentimes I hear people who say, oh, I'm good. There's good in me. Who I am is good.
But in all honesty, if they're not connected to Jesus, they're not bearing the fruit. Right.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: There is a verse in the book of Romans that says whatever does not come from faith, that is our trust based relationship with God is sin.
[00:03:48] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: And this verse is kind of hard to take, especially for Christians, because if we are not connected with Christ for a while, at least at the surface, we can do some good stuff. But that is always tainted or motivated by selfish, sometimes even corrupted purposes or goals.
[00:04:16] Speaker A: Yeah, and then there's that, that verse that says all our goodness is as filthy rags, you know, and as good as we can be when we're on ourselves. Like you said, selfish motivations or reasons behind it. We need to be connected to Christ to bear true good fruit.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: So humanism, this worldview that does not take God into consideration and is focusing on what the human being can do, good humanism has some value, especially in the society, in a country that is not based on the principles of, of the kingdom of God. But we cannot import it into the Church for a short while, it can produce some good results, but long term, it corrupts our human being, different aspects of it and including the motivation and the ulterior motives.
[00:05:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: And so we are invited to abide in Christ and he then does good things through us. He changes who we are. And so any goodness that we do, we have to glorify God in heaven because it is because of him that we do these.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: That's the wonderful thing about Christianity for me is we're saved by the gift of Jesus. We're saved, we're given that, not because of how good we are, but because of who we are and because we accepted that gift. And then God does all the rest of the work. As long as we keep surrendering, as long as we abide in God, he continues to change us each and every day to make us more and more like Jesus so that we can bear more fruit.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: What you just said is the core of this teaching. Because in the beginning, Jesus Christ presents this reality as either or so verse two, every branch that in me. Very interesting.
[00:06:26] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: Still connected with Christ. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, it will be removed.
On the other side, those branches which bear fruit, Jesus Christ, as you said, will work with them to be transformed, to be changed. And how is going to do that? By pruning.
And pruning is kind of painful. It is cutting something that we feel that defines us. Right. Pruning includes trimming and sometimes pruning includes removing a branch that, you know, it's taking too many resources, and the other nearby branches don't have enough light and nutrients to grow.
So pruning is a very painful process.
And the Lord does not prune those who do not bear fruit.
[00:07:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: He prunes only those who bear some fruit. Why? Because his purpose is to help us bring much fruit.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: I think of the pruning process as humility. You know, so often we start growing in Christ and we start seeing fruit, and we can start thinking, oh, look at what I'm doing. I'm getting big. I'm important.
You know, we've got so many people watching our podcasts or whatever, and then God comes along and trims off a little. No, it's not you.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: It is like Peter who started walking on the water.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: And, wow, nobody did it before he looked back to the boat to see, do they get it? Do they realize what's going on? And by the time he wanted to look back towards Jesus Christ and, you know, to move forward, he started sinking.
[00:08:23] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: And that was, as you suggested, one way of pruning our selfishness, our pride, our arrogance.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: The other thing, when it comes to this metaphor, and we can take this metaphor probably way too far and dive into the weeds, but a branch is really just a conduit.
That's all it's doing is it's shuttling nutrients from the trunk, or the vine, in this case, to the fruit and helping the fruit to grow.
It doesn't have power in itself to give life to the fruit and to help the fruit to grow. The leaves are the ones that are shuttling the water into the system.
[00:09:12] Speaker B: And branches still are a support system for fruits, right?
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: They have to grow strong to, you know, provide support and. But essentially they are just a channel of communication. And this is who we are. Yes, we are a channel through whom God is sending the everlasting life and his love towards people around us.
This story, this parable, is pointing towards our most important responsibility that we have to be channel of God's light and love and power and hope for the people around us.
[00:09:55] Speaker A: So in verse nine, we get into this transition, or deeper explanation, I guess you can say, where we're tying the keeping of commandments to abiding in love and throughout the Bible. I don't think you can read the Bible and come away with the thought that the commandments are not important, because from the very beginning, all the way down to the end, we hear about obeying God and keeping his commandments. And so verse 10 says, if you keep my commandments you will abide in my love.
So often we want to do away with things that take our joy away.
Oh, this is inhibiting my freedom. I don't want to do these things because it's not who I am. God will love me for who I am. He created me this way. And we start excusing habits and things that we know are wrong, we know the Bible says are wrong, but we're trying to make way for them so we don't have to give them up in our lives.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: I was listening to a podcast the other day about dopamine. It's world leading researcher in dopamine from Stanford University.
And this lady said that the main problem with dopamine today is that there is so much abundance and you can get it from anywhere. And the counterbalance to dopamine, that is pain, it's not there anymore. And if there is something that we want to get rid of to get away from here in America, it's pain.
Or God designed that pain and dopamine to be in a balance. If I apply that reality to our spiritual journey with God, you know, trimming is the counterbalance to bearing much fruit.
And more trimming leads to bringing even more fruits. Yeah, fruit in abundance. And this balance between joy in the Lord on one side, developing a character of love and service and sharing everything that God gave us, right being good channels, good branches, it is counterbalanced by some trials and tribulations and temptations that we have, which we are called to overcome by the power of God that comes from above. So this is why the next episode, Jesus Christ talks exactly about that. The other side of the story. How is he trimming us?
[00:12:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: For me, though, when I was a new Christian, it was. I saw the commandments as an annoyance. You know, I wanted to follow God, I love God. But these things really interfered with what I wanted to do. And was I really ready to change my character, change who I was to do these things? Or does God love me, who. How I am, and is he okay with me not changing?
So as I've grown, though, as I've abided in Christ, my greatest joy comes in keeping the commandments. You know, I look forward to doing the things that God wants me to do. Not. Not always. I'm not perfect. I mess up sometimes. But, you know, I think a very obvious one in my life is. Is keeping the Sabbath.
[00:13:37] Speaker C: Mm.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: It's that daily rest on. On Saturday, the seventh day of the week. And I look forward to that time. I'm. I'm waiting for that day to spend that day with God, my family and my community.
And so God does this in us. He. He brings joy in our lives, joy for keeping his commandments.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: It is like that guy, his name is Jim I met in a sauna some years ago who looked at me and out of the blue said, I have so much fun.
And I saw that on his face and I asked him, what is it about? I got to the point in life when I can live only on the tithe and return to God the nine tenths time making. And he looked at me and kept saying, I have so much fun doing this. And this is how keeping the commandments are just an expression of God's love that was planted in us, that we have been abiding and connected with a fountain of love.
[00:14:46] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: And just think if everyone gave 9/10, how much we could use that money to show love to others, to feed the homeless, to clothe, to house, to care for the community around us. And so as we love doing God's commandments, we then love serving other people. It's a natural consequence. Just like Christ says that if he abides in us, we will love other people. Let's pray. Father God, we want to abide in, in Christ. We want to be part of that vine and we want to bear fruit. Not just a little bit of fruit, but much fruit. And so I pray that you will prune, that you will shape and mold, and that we can love doing your will and we can love our neighbors, that we can love like you love and we can put others first. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: Amen.
