Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

As we begin this new year of 2022, I wanted to take a few moments as a church and remember some important factors facing the modern church and especially as it relates to us.

We the Church are founded on the Cross of Christ.

This began from the very opening chapters of Genesis and flows through the Old Testament into the Gospels and beyond.

The Bible is the very Word of God and will often stand in contradiction to the ways of this world As believers living in this fallen world and awaiting our eternal home, we are living in a time faith is not only imperative, but it is a matter of eternal life.

This being the case, the Word of God must also be central because this book is the only source of knowing how we may have eternal life.

I have always seen myself as a waiter instead of a chef.

When we come together, we don’t come together to hear men speak, we come to hear God speak.

The responsibility then of the pastor and the preacher is to take the message from God and bring it to the people.

Therefore, the preaching and teaching of the full counsel of the Word of God is a matter of life and death.

It is the eternal source of hope for the world.

If we as a church diminish the value of this word that we are robbing the world of the hope it needs.

Within this book is the eternal plan of redemption from God for man.

But a modern trend in the church is to skip over difficult or controversial parts.

Mark Dever said, “A healthy church is a church that hears the Word of God and continues to hear the Word of God.

Such a church is composed of individual Christians who hear the Word of God and continue to hear the Word of God, always being refashioned and reshaped by it, constantly being washed in the Word and sanctified by God’s truth.”

That must describe CrossWay Christian Fellowship and we as a church must be committed to this being the central hub of who we are at Crossway.

So here we are at the start of 2022 and we must continue to be a church of biblically literate Christians.

I fear there are too many in this world that are coming to church or attending church based on their own feelings or agendas and not being fed the bread of life.

Today the world is finding a church saturated with entertainment and motivational speakers.

In its pursuit of hope, the world turns to the church only to discover nothing more than its own reflection decorated in religion.

Now, I realize this seems overly critical, but I mean it as a word of caution to us, rather than to be demeaning toward others.

It is, however, central to our message today and the next few weeks.

Let me set the scene for you as we take a look at the opening verses of this chapter.

John 15 is what is known as the Mount Olive or Farewell Discourse of Jesus to his eleven disciples.

It is the night before his crucifixion.

They have just finished the Last Supper, Judas has departed to prepare his betrayal, and Jesus and his disciples have left the upper room and are making their way from Jerusalem across the Kidron to the Garden of Gethsemane.

From here, Jesus is going to pray under such pressure that he sweats drops of blood.

He will be betrayed by Judas.

He will be arrested.

His disciples will abandon him and ultimately he will go to the Cross.

It is during the walk from Jerusalem to the Garden that he shares with his disciples these words:

Jesus the True Vine

John 15:1 “1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.”

In the Gospel of John there are 7 “I AM” statements made by Jesus.

This is the last of the 7 statements:

I am the Bread of Like (John 6:48)

I am the Light of the World (John 8:12)

I am the door (John 10:9)

I am the Good Shepherd (John 10:11)

I am the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25)

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6)

I am the true Vine (John 15: 1)

If you were to go back to Exodus 3:14 you find here the root of these statements.

As Moses is standing before the burning bush, God tells Moses to go to Pharoah and demand God release the people of Israel.

When Moses asks for God’s name, he tells Moses, I AM that I AM.

This name, the Tetragrammaton, meaning the One who was, who is, and who is to come, is as much a part of the Divine nature of Jesus who unmistakably declares himself Holy.

In fact, when Jesus is arrested, the soldiers come looking for him and tell him they are looking for Jesus to which he declares “I AM” (John 18:5).

John 10:38 “...the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

John 5:18 “This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.”

Over and over again, Jesus not only declare himself Holy Divine, he proves it in word and deed.

So coming to John 15 we have a serious matter of eternal life and a grave issue of salvation.

His words are a picture of the life of the disciple and expressly clear that if you are living in faith that Jesus is Lord, then you are in danger of eternity in hell.

The image of a vine is part of Israel’s identity.

Psalm 80 is one of many Old Testament references to Israel being God’s vine.

But they were surrogate vine to point the world to God until Jesus came.

The problem was that Israel never produced the fruit that God desired.

That was the point of Israel, to bear fruit for God to the world.

A missionary in Africa lived in his central mission which had a small generator to supply current for his church and a small rectory.

Some natives from an outlying mission came to visit the pastor.

They noticed the electric light hanging from the ceiling of his living room.

They watched wide-eyed as he turned the little switch and the light went on.

One of the visitors asked if he could have one of the bulbs.

The priest, thinking he wanted it for a sort of trinket, gave him one of the extra bulbs.

On his next visit to the outlying mission, the priest stopped at the hut of the man who had asked for the bulb.

Imagine his surprise when he saw the bulb hanging from an ordinary string.

He had to explain that one needed to have electricity and a wire to bring the current to the bulb.

We may share an understanding smile at the innocence of the African native, but we may not be much better.

In our text for today, Jesus tells a story about the importance of our connection to the true source of life.

Of the true source of power.

Our Lord uses the analogy of the vineyard of the vine and the branches.

Just as the electricity provides the power necessary for the bulb to produce light, So the vine provides the life necessary for the branches to produce fruit.

The same is true of the true vine\.

Jesus is here and he tells his disciples that he is the True Vine.

The vine is the main branch of the grape plant that supplies everything to the branches.

Without the vine the branches cannot exist.

There is no life.

There is no fruit.

The Father is the Vinedresser

I don’t know much about growing grapes, but from what I hear, growing a vineyard requires a great deal of tending, care, and careful cultivation in order for there to be a large yield of grapes.

Jesus depicts the Father’s personal activity in tending his cherished vine.

This description emphasizes the Father’s personal and protective care.

He diligently watches over the daily condition of each branch.

He is involved and caring for the vine.

(Phillips) A. W. Pink comments, “He does not allot to others the task of caring for the vine and its branches, and this assures us of the widest, most tender and most faithful care of it.”

The vineyard is the world and God is vinedresser.

The vinedresser is the owner and caretaker of the vineyard.

His purpose is to cultivate a healthy and fertile vineyard and he is to care for the vine.

This is not an easy job and requires careful and expert attention.

This is a great description of our Heavenly Father.

He created this world that we live in today and even though the corruption of sin has ruined his perfect creation, He tends to the vineyard and to the vine and branches.

In Hampton Court near London, there is a grapevine under glass; it is about 1,000 years old and has but one root which is at least two feet thick.

Some of the branches are 200 feet long.

Because of skillful cutting and pruning, the vine produces several tons of grapes each year.

Even though some of the smaller branches are 200 feet from the main stem, they bear much fruit because they are joined to the vine and allow the life of the vine to flow through them.

Without the vinedresser the vine and the vineyard would be fruitless and eventually die.

The work of the vinedresser is to keep the vine healthy and strong.

Often this requires pruning, tying the branches up, and getting rid of dead limbs.

Branches are pruned back each year in order to cleanse them.

That is, a vine produces certain shoots (called "sucker" shoots) which start to grow where the branch joins the stem.