Corbin District Cluster Groups
I Am the True Vine
By: Wade Arp, Pastor
London First UMC
London, Kentucky



Every Wednesday night at 7:00 PM, First United Methodist Church offers a mid-week adult Bible. And to begin the New Year of 2004, we began a new series: The "I Am" sayings of Jesus. The New Testament records Jesus saying "I Am" several times. You might recall Jesus saying:

John 15: 1-2 records Jesus saying, "I Am the True Vine, and my Father is the Vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, He takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit." This is a beautiful image. And it is a sobering image. On the one hand we are intimately connected to Christ, just like a branch is intimately connected to the vine. And the good branches are tended and pruned so that they will be more fruitful. And on the other hand non-producing branches will be carried off.

We immediately wonder, "How can we be a branch that gets pruned and grows and bears fruit (because we don't want to be that branch that gets cut off altogether and thrown by the wayside)?" While there are probably many answers to this question, John 15:1-11 gives us a great hint. Jesus shares with us a special word. It appears ten times in eleven verses. Let that sink in: 10 times in 11 verses. Jesus is sharing a word of great significance here. The word is "Abide". (Some versions of the Bible use the words "Stay" or "Remain".) Jesus tells us that the key to being a healthy branch that produces good fruit is to be a branch that abides in Jesus.

But what does that mean? Abide is not a word that we use all that often. What does it mean to abide in Christ? Let me share a couple of images that help me to understand the meaning of abiding.

Have you ever seen a dog waiting for its master to return? Maybe you have seen a faithful dog pacing around the porch waiting and watching for his master to return. Maybe you have seen a dog scanning the horizon looking for the one he loves. Maybe you have seen a dog standing in the back of a pickup truck eagerly waiting for the master to return so that they can drive off and continue their journey together. To me this is one picture of abiding. The idea is that we are actively waiting for our master. We are actively remaining for our master to come and encounter us and lead us on a great adventure with him.

How about another image?

Have you ever seen someone waiting by the bedside of a loved one? Maybe you have been that person, waiting at the bedside of someone who is near and dear to your heart. Maybe it's a parent or a friend or your child. But you stay right there with them for hours. Or even days. Or even weeks. Or even months. Out of your love for that person, you commit yourself to remaining by the bedside. And even though this takes a tremendous amount of your time and energy, there is no other place that you'd rather be. Why? Because of your love for that person.

Do you begin to see a picture of what it means to abide? Abiding incorporates elements of patience, expectation, intentionality, longing, and faithfulness. And the motivation to abide is not fear or desperation, but love for another. Jesus wants his disciples to abide in Him. That means that He wants us to demonstrate patience, expectation, intentionality, longing, and faithfulness in our devotion to Him. And the motivation for this is our pure love for Him.

As you look at your life, are you "abiding" in Christ? The Master invites all of us to be in relationship with Him. He invites us to be connected to Him. He invites us to be permanently attached to Him. But to do that, we must abide. "I Am the True Vine, and my Father is the Vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, He takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit."

Faithfully,

Rev. Wade Arp
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