ABSOLUTELY CONNECTED

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 bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear
more fruit. You are already clean because of the word 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. If
anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather
them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in me, and my
words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this
my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be my disciples. As the
Father loved me, I also have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my
commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Fathers
commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy
may remain in you and that your joy may be full.
John 15:1-11

We live in an age in which people will try to tell you that there are no absolutes.
We love to speak of shades of meaning; we discover more and more of what we call
gray areas; we invent new catch-phrases like situational ethics to convince ourselves
that even the most settled truths may change with the situation. And yet we so often find
Jesus speaking in absolute terms. We find a strong example in this passage, which will be
the focus of the Bible study beginning next week at Rehoboth. Jesus instructs His
disciples here in some of His final remarks before following the path to the cross. What
Jesus calls for is radical discipleship and absolute devotion to Him. Lets take a look at
some of the absolutes involved in following Jesus.
He speaks first of all about absolute dependence. He makes one of the most
absolute statements we will find about Himself when He says, Apart from me you can
do nothing. It is a statement that our lives are totally dependent upon Him. After all,
what does the branch have within itself that it has not received from the vine? This goes
against everything we are taught by our culture. There is a humanistic flavor that creeps
into our approach to life, which would tell us that the answer to whatever we face is to be
found within ourselves. And it is taught, knowingly or unknowingly, at the earliest levels
in our development. My kids used to love to watch the show Blues Clues. I was
watching a bit of it with them one day, and I began to wonder what direction it leads, as I
listened to the words of one of the regular song routines: When we use our minds and
take a step at a time, we can do anything that we wanna do.
Now let me say, of course, that I recognize the good in what would be taught, and
it is certainly good to build childrens self-esteem and self-confidence. But I think very
often we allow that pendulum to swing too far from the center, and we develop ways of
thinking that become off-centered because they are self-centered. We as Christians must

learn to discern the point at which we begin to leave God out of the equation and allow
our dependence to become independence.
Jesus also speaks of absolute fellowship: Abide in me, and I in you. This
powerful statement points out to us that the vine and the branches share a COMMON
LIFE. In Christ, we have common intentions, purposes, thought, emotions, and desires.
Paul expressed it this way: I am crucified with Christ, yet I live; but it is no longer I
who live, but CHRIST LIVES IN ME. Are we divine then? There are some who speak
of us being divine, or becoming divine, but the true nature of it would be better described
as sharing in the divine. We must remember that the vine sustains the branches, and not
the other way around. And a vital part of this sustaining fellowship with Christ is a
devoted prayer life, maintaining the channels of communication.
In this life of abiding in Christ there will also be absolute fruitfulness: He who
abides in me, and I in him, bears MUCH FRUIT. In Englands famous Thames River,
there is a place where the river forks temporarily into two channels. In the middle of the
river, on the ground between the two forks, there is a single large grapevine which, each
time it produces, bears over 2,000 clusters of grapes. The secret? It has a never-ending
water source. We have the same picture that comes to us from Psalm 1, and has been
sung about for many years in our churches: Just like a tree thats planted by the waters,
Lord, I shall not be moved. This tree, the Psalmist says, brings forth fruit in its
season. And so we will, if like the image drawn there, we remain close to the source.
The passage speaks of absolute rest: If you abide in me, and my words abide in
you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. The branch does not
have to WORK to produce the fruit; it simply produces fruit as a natural outflow of being
CONNECTED to the vine. For those whose walk with God becomes connected with
doing, this seems to be one of the hardest truths to understand. Things become a bit
easier when we learn to abandon the Martha syndrome and simply sit at the feet of
Jesus and allow ourselves to be filled to overflowing.
The words here also speak to us of absolute love: As the Father loved me, I also
have loved you; ABIDE IN MY LOVE. True love will always reveal itself in the
absence of self-seeking. True love will always be crucified, will always be self-giving.
But we can be crucified and still be self-centered. We can hang onto our own conflicts,
frustrations, and anguish. Thats why this love becomes for us a true matter of choice:
we choose to take the same path that Christ took, and that means self-renouncing love.
Or as Jesus said it, Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Another absolute, and one that many people would prefer had not been included
here, is absolute obedience: If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my
love. There are those who seek to emphasize and protect the divine initiative in
salvation, that it is by grace. Salvation is seen as a permanent change of relationship,
or as the common catch-phrase says it, once saved, always saved. I think this vine
image tends to speak against that belief, because there is another absolute that gets
ignored in making that statement: absolute destruction. Verse 6 says, If anyone does
not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and
throw them into the fire, and they are burned. It escapes me how anyone can miss the
image. Of course, Im not saying that every little sin makes anyone a candidate for the
destruction spoken of here. But to suggest that a willful, persistent pattern can not lead to
that ultimate consequence, is to deny that something does happen each time we remove

ourselves from that life-giving vine. This is very much consistent with the image Jesus
draws here, and with what we know about vines. A twig can be bent to the point of
breaking partially, but not completely, and can yet maintain the flow of life, though
imperfectly. The longer the flow is interrupted, the more likely it is that the branch will
become withered. Yet the branch may also be healed and returned to full health It is an
empty argument also to suggest that this passage does not speak of those who were ever
connected to the vine, or in Christ: to be cast out very clearly implies that in some
way the branch was in; and to be withered very clearly shows that the branch was
receiving life from the vine. To follow this image to its logical conclusions does no
damage to the idea of divine grace. We are still saved by grace, and we are still sustained
by the life-giving grace of the vine. This life must be sustained, though, by continued
connection with the vinethe peril of not doing so is the withering of the soul.
The key to maintaining this vital connection comes down to one thing: absolute
self-surrender. I choose that term carefully, because too often when we speak of
receiving the grace that would lead us to Christ-likeness, it gets interpreted as selfperfection, or self-improvement. Self-perfection fails every time, because it has the
wrong center. Self as the center is truly off-center. But self-surrender to Christ is
centered on the only Perfect One who ever livedand His perfect nature begins to be
manifested in our lives as we follow Him, in proportion to our connection with Him.
We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being
transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord
(2 Cor. 3:18).
Today, as welcome Christ into our midst as we fellowship at His table, let us tear
down the idol of self-improvement, and open our hearts to Him in true self-surrender.