So, with every new year that rolls around, there are always uh New Year’s kind of idealists and New Year’s realists. And for the idealists, there we go. Adam’s getting it up. For the idealists, every new year is ripe with potential uh and new beginnings. The story that idealists tell themselves is that change is entirely possible. And this year, I’m really going to make it happen. This is the year. going to eat differently and I’m going to drink differently and I’m going to work out, read more books and turn over a new leaf in my marriage and get hold of my finances and get involved with people in the church and uh be be part of a small group. Maybe your resolution is to read through the Bible in a year or pray every day or try to share your faith with uh with others around you. And every year there’s this plethora of self-help books that are published and they’re eagerly consumed, tell us that we have great potential to change and we’ll make wonderful strides if we just apply ourselves a little bit. So the idealists think we’re eggs that are just set to hatch and we’re we’re buds that are ready to bloom. There’s so much more to me than uh than meets the eye. There’s a powerful new and efficient me inside that’s just ready to come out. So idealists are they’re encouraged always by the testimonies of other people who seem to have been able to successfully reinvent themselves and they see change at their fingertips. This is the year it’s really going to happen. Now for the realist uh they see New Year’s differently. If you’re a seasoned veteran, you have ample experience in breaking your resolutions and seeing your bestlaid plans crash to the ground by midFebruary because you know that making changes, significant changes in life that go beyond the superficial is exceedingly difficult and we’re all stuck in our ruts. We’re pretty addicted to who we are today. Are big changes even possible? The realist asks himself. Can a selfish person become unselfish? Can someone who tries to control everything start letting things go? Can a frugal person become generous? Can a person who’s full of self-pity suddenly start leaning into the needs of others? Can a hardened person get softer? Can an insecure person get bold? Can an anxious, obsessive person resolve to become a little more calm and placid? See, it’s only January 4th, but New Year’s realists are already already resigned to the fact that by this time next year, they’re essentially going to be the same person they are today, just a little bit older. So, the passage we’re looking at in the Gospel of John this morning, John 15, contains a very well-known New Testament metaphor. It’s a teaching from Jesus that really challenges both the idealists and the realists. Jesus teaching offers a path for change that goes beyond just naive optimism and beyond resigned pessimism. It’s not a simple effortless path. There’s some work involved, but it’s a path that Jesus says his followers can successfully navigate. So, we’ll we’ll briefly look first of all at some of the strong promises and potential for growth that God offers to his followers. And then we’ll look at that specific metaphor of Jesus that shows us how that growth occurs. So if you look through the Bible, just scan through the New Testament particularly, we find many passages that speak to growth and development as followers of Christ. Deep substantial changes available that reach far beyond any of the superficial adjustments that you and I are going to make this year. The way the Bible talks about the potential for Christian growth and Christian development, it really it kind of takes our breath away. And you’ll notice when I go through this list how often knowledge is addressed and how that knowledge bleeds into and impacts changes in our character. So Paul prayed for the Colossians that they would bear fruit in every good work and grow in the knowledge of God. He said to them, “Just as you receive Jesus Christ as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him.” Colossians 3, you have taken off your old self and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge. Philippians 1, uh, that the that your love may abound more and more again in knowledge and depth of insight. Second Peter, Peter writes, “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 4:15, “Grow up in every way into him who is the head, Christ.” Romans 12, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Romans 5 talks about how suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance brings character. Character brings hope. There’s all this deep character stuff happening in us. 2 Corinthians 3 says that even now we all reflect God’s glory to some extent yet we are being transformed into his likeness with everinccreasing glory and our growth and our ability to bear fruit it doesn’t need to slow down or diminish as we age as we get older Psalm 92 speaks of the righteous who flourish like a palm tree still bearing fruit in their old age or Proverbs 4:18 the path of the righteous is like the morning sun shining ever brighter till the full light of day. Now, we just can’t come away from verses like that real thinking that our without realizing that our journey in the Christian life is meant to be one of growth and of change and of substantial transformation on a scale that reaches deeply into our inner world and our inner character. If it talks about casting off our old self and putting on a new self, this is pretty substantial change. no room really in the Christian life for throwing up our hands and saying, “I’m just not getting anywhere. I’m never going to get anywhere. I’ll be a spiritual loser the rest of my life. I’m not growing.” That kind of selft talk just ignores who God says we are and ignores the potential that he’s given us for really deep change. There’s a there’s an energizing hope planted in the lives of believers that may not reside in the hearts of unbelievers. David Deno is a research psychologist, teaches at Northeastern University. He studies particularly religious belief and practice and he sees hope in pretty short supply among his fellow Americans. Surveys show that 80% of adults not don’t expect their children’s lives to be any better than their own. And more than half of them fear that we’re never going to make uh substantial progress in the next few decades in some of the major global challenges such as climate change. He writes, “This lack of hope is ominous. Hope drives us to improve our lives and the world around us. When it’s extinguished, despair and paralysis fill the gap, making progress even less likely.” He says, “Modern conceptions of hope are fairly flawed because in the modern view, hoping for something implies that you really think it’s achievable.” Deno likens that to the language of of self-help gurus like Tony Robbins who say hope is a start but determined action requires certainty that you’re going to achieve your goals. Denel’s pretty blunt when he says but of course on our own none of us can solve the climate crisis or heal political divisions even when we come together in groups trying to change the world can seem naive and quicksotic. So he says to protect one’s self-esteem and reduce stress, we can always just dial down our hopes, minimize them as a way of trying to avoid disappointment. But dampening hope as a survival technique is a wrong turn. He goes on to open up the true meaning of hope. He says, “Fortunately, an an alternative conception of hope exists, one that throughout history has helped ward off despair and motivate action even in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges. It’s the hope, he says, that emerges from religion. And this is a guy who studies faith and religion for a living. He says, “Hope is a virtue to be practiced. It’s not an aspiration to be managed. It’s unwa it’s unwise to base hope on the belief that if we just work hard enough, we can reach our goal.” Denno writes, “For spiritual traditions, the recognition of our inadequacy isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. It doesn’t reduce hope. that redefineses hope by freeing us from the burden of thinking that our goals are entirely our responsible to our responsibility to achieve. We have to recognize how limited we really are. And this kind of hope we can still pursue goals with some urgency but without the fear that if we don’t reach those hopes then we failed. It’s not our responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world but we’re not free either to stop trying. So he closes with this. Research shows that the religious among us possess a greater sense of hope in the future. Not because religion attracts people who are more optimistic in general, but because the practice of faith gives rise to hope. Studies following tens of thousands of people for many years as they either adopted or disavowed faith showed that religion clearly boosted hope. The more people engaged with their faith, the more helpful they felt about their future. When they disengaged, a greater sense of despair followed. He says, Carl Marx argued that religion is the opium of the people, that it leads people to take their hands off the wheels of society and the expectation that God will cure all. But that’s never been the case. People who make religion part of their lives are not not only more hopeful for a better future, they’re also more actively engaged in bringing it about. Religion at its best serves as a constant reminder that life is not about any of us. We’re all part of something bigger. And the same is true for hope. Freeing hope from our egos frees us from despair. To hope is to do good without expectation that we can make it so. It is simply to resist the darkness daily, whatever may come. I like I think there’s a lot of wisdom in there about hope for change among among people like us, Christian people. The truths of scripture confirmed again by psychological research say yet we do have great hope for substantial change in our personal lives in our world so long as we realize that change is not something we’re ever going to accomplish on our own. God’s working in us. He’s working through us. He’s working with us. He’s motivating us. He’s using our efforts. But in the end, change and growth is always God’s work. And that leads really nicely into the metaphor of Jesus in John 15. beautifully organic metaphor. This is the last of the seven great I am statements that Jesus makes in the Gospel of John. Previously he referred to himself as the bread of life and the light of the world, the gate, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life, the way, the truth and the life. And now as his teaching ministry was coming to a close that night in the upper room with his 11 closest followers, Jesus said, “I am the true vine.” And then he expanded on that metaphor. Says, “I’m the true vine. My father’s the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. While every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” You are already clean because of the word I’ve spoken to you. Remain in me. I’ll remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I’m the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he’ll bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. So that’s our astonishing potential for really fruitful change. If a man remains in me and I in him, he’ll bear much fruit. And along with that is the ego dampening warning that we’re not going to be able to accomplish anything any significant change on our own. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me because apart from me you can do nothing. So here it is. This is the essence of the Christian life. We’re branches who are connected to the true vine and we’re meant to bear good fruit. And when Jesus refers to himself as the true vine, he’s really contrasting himself with the false unproductive vine that people were leaning into which was the children of Israel, the nation of Israel. The Old Testament, uh, Israel is frequently referred to as a grape vine with Psalm 80 declaring that God brought a vine out of Egypt and he planted it and he cleared the ground for it. It took root. It thrived for a time. But the psalmist bemons the fact that that vineyard, that vine is a ravaged wreck. Its walls are broken down. Anyone who passes by can pluck its grapes. He says, “Wild boars from the forests can eat their fill.” The psalmist cries out to God to restore that vine to health and prophesies exactly where that restoration will come from. An amazing prophecy in Psalm uh 80 about Jesus. The psalmist prays, “But let your hand be on the man of your right hand, the son of man whom you made strong for yourself. Then she will not then we we shall not turn back from you. Give us life. We will call upon your name.” Nation of Israel could never serve as the true vine. Only Jesus could. And whenever the nation of Israel is referred to as a vine, what’s emphasized is its failure to produce good fruit. Isaiah chapter 5 says, “God’s beloved vineyard so carefully planted, it yielded only wild grapes. They were lousy to eat.” And we read, “And now I’ll tell you what I’ll do to my vineyard. I’ll remove its hedge. It shall be devoured. I’ll break down its wall. It shall be trampled down. I’ll make it a waste. It shall be pruned. It shall not be pruned or hoed, and briars and thorns shall grow up. I’ll also command the clouds that they re rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel. Men of Judah are his pleasant planting. He looked for justice, but behold bloodshed. Looked for righteousness, but behold an outcry. So the nation of Israel, no nation on earth today can ever be trusted to provide the nourishment to produce good grapes. nationalism. It’s always a false move because a people can never be sustained by something as weightless as a mere nation. Isaiah 40 says that all the nations of the earth together on of all the nations of the world are as weightless as dust on the scales. They don’t even register as uh having any real meaning to God together. They don’t register a grams worth of weight. and about their rulers and their leaders and their politicians. Psalm Isaiah 40 says, “Scarcely are they planted. Scarcely do they take root, but God blows on them and they wither and the storm carries them away like stubble.” So Jesus is the only true vine where sustaining nourishment can be drawn from. Enough nourishment to produce good fruit and very good fruit in our lives. One sobering reality in Jesus’ metaphor is that there are some branches, and this is troubling that are connected to the vine only formally, but they’re not connected um connected vitally. They look like they’re attached, but they’re really dead branches. They’re deadwood, and they need to be cut off to make room for the living, productive branches. Jesus says that his father, the gardener, cuts off every branch that bears no fruit. They’re not connected. They’re not drawing nourishment from the vine. And Jesus declares, “If anyone does not remain in me, he’s like a branch that’s thrown away and withers.” Such branches are picked up. They’re thrown into the fire and they’re burned. Several examples in the Gospel of John of deadwood, of people who are hangers on to Jesus, but they haven’t been made alive in him. In John 2, we read about those who are really attracted to Jesus. says they believe in him because of his miracles, the signs he’s doing. But it says that Jesus did not entrust himself to them because he knew their hearts. He knew what was going on inside them. They weren’t vitally attached to him by faith. And in John 6, Jesus declared to his many of his people called his disciples a very hard teaching about Jesus being the bread of life. They couldn’t take it. And we read in John 6 that from that day many of his disciples turned away from him and no longer followed him. Our most flagrant example of deadwood in the gospel of John was Judas who must have looked like a living branch for a long time three years with Jesus and with the others but then he betrayed the vine and he really cut himself off uh from Jesus altogether. There are always people who might attach themselves to Christianity, maybe even attach themselves deeply into a church, but who have only a formal relationship with Jesus and not a vital one. You longtime outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins made something of a curious admission about a year ago. He said, “I call myself a cultural Christian. I’m not a believer, but there’s a distinction between being a believing Christian and being a cultural Christian. I love hymns and Christmas carols. I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. We in the UK are a Christian country in that sense. I like to live in a culturally Christian country, even if I don’t believe a single word of the Christian faith. Now, in response to Dawkins, one prominent British political commentator tweeted, “This is bizarre from Dawkins because he wrote a book called The God Delusion that claimed that all religion was a deeply malevolent dividing force in the world.” Historian Tom Holland also noted what uh what Dawkins said and and he said, you know, his militant atheism set alongside his preference for Christian culture leaves him sitting on the branch that he’s been sawing through and gazing nervously at the ground. Murray Campbell wrote, “Richard Dawkins wants to keep the fruit of Christianity while rejecting the beliefs of Christianity. He’s admiring and happily tasting the sweetness and embracing the aromomas, feeling the textures of the fruit. But he still denies the reality of the living tree from which that fruit has grown. The tree is no more dead or invisible than is the fruit we eat. We can only eat the fruit of Christianity for so long before that season runs out. then we’ll either go hungry and starve or we’ll repent and return to the source and cry out to God for food to eat and enjoy. Now, it’s important for us to know that Jesus in this metaphor, he’s not pointing his fingers at any one of us and and uh wanting to leave his followers and his disciples anxious and insecure about whether or not they have a vital relationship with him, whether we’re in or out, whether we might be one of those pieces of deadwood that the father cuts out. Jesus knew that the men in in that upper room with him that night were vitally connected with him by faith and they were going to desert him and deny him later that evening. But no matter, they were still vitally connected with him by faith. Horrible corruption of the gospel to live wondering whether or not we’re actually connected to Jesus. You know, we think, “Oh, I just don’t feel as connected right now as I used to. I’d better work harder and hope that I don’t become deadwood. Maybe it’s too late. Maybe I’ve always been deadwood and the father always planned to cut me out. Thinking like that just denies everything Jesus said about coming to him in faith. Nothing to show for ourselves, receiving his sacrifice on the cross on our behalf, knowing that we can’t contribute anything to our salvation, to what he has done for us. All we can do is rest in it and trust it and embrace Jesus by faith. Although our Christian lives are meant to be lives of growth, one thing we can never ever grow in is how loved we are by God. The moment we put our faith and trust in Jesus alone for our salvation, our branch becomes cemented to the vine. As a result, we are as loved by God that day, we’re as fully pardoned that day, we’re as delighted in by our father that day as you and I are ever going to be. God’s love for us, there’s no increase or decrease in it. In Christ, we’re made perfect in God’s sight. God’s love for us doesn’t grow at all. Although our awareness of his love might fluctuate a little bit through our lives, but God’s love never increases or decreases. It’s always the same for us. Another part of Jesus’ metaphor explains, none of us are ever let off the hook when it comes to the knife of the father. We’re all going to feel the knife. The deadwood, he’ll cut away, he’ll cut off, and he’ll haul away. But the rest of us who are connected vitally to Jesus, to the vine, we’re still going to endure the pain and humiliation of pruning. The gardener sees us bearing fruit, but he knows that if he cuts us back and hacks off some of our twigs, we’ll be able to bear much better fruit and much more fruit. So, the knife comes out for us. Some of our twigs are getting too long. They’re too thick. They’re in danger of becoming as thick as our real stem, the thing that’s connecting us to the vine. So, the knife is needed to take out the twigs that might get mistaken for the stem. Something extending out of out of our branch that’s become too important to us. It’s drawing too much nourishment from the vine. Maybe it’s a relationship or a job or money or status or leisure, our bodies, our looks, our pride. Those things may need to be cut back so they don’t entangle and enslave us. They’re taking up far too much of the uh of our resources. So, ouch, you know, the knife comes out and the pruning always feels painful and always feels severe. Yeah. I I think of wintry seasons in my own life where it seemed like God just cut me back to nothing and I was never going to bear any fruit again. And uh I know from experience how humbling that is, humiliating. It can make us very discouraged. It can make us uh feeling leaving leave us feeling pretty sorry for ourselves. But winter’s come to an end. Spring always seems to follow. And one day when pruning season has uh been worked out in us, suddenly we see some clusters of grapes start poking out of our arms and hanging down from our legs. And the pruning of the gardener has done its job. We’re poised now for a new season of fruit bearing. So if you’re going through a time of pruning right now, or maybe sometime this year, you’ll know that you’re going through a time of deep pruning. Two things can help. I think one is just to trust the gardener. Trust that your heavenly father knows what he’s doing with you. His delight with you hasn’t subsided. I can picture the father, the gardener, whistling and singing while he hacks away at us. He knows how much fruit we can bear once he’s through his job. And second, no matter how much it hurts, keep clinging to the vine. Think Jesus, talk about Jesus, talk to Jesus, sing Jesus. Your pruning is a time of loving attention from the father. So as you endure it, continue to deeply value and draw nourishment from your connection with his son. So we’ve seen that Christian life is a life of hope. It’s a life of change, being transformed from one glory to another glory. That path of transformation comes via our connection as branches to the true vine. There are some branches that are deadwood. They’re formally connected. They’re not vitally connected. and those the Father will cut and clear away. Then he’ll take the same knife to us, not to cut us off, but to make us better. And lastly, when Jesus talks about us abiding in him, and that apart from him, we can do nothing, he’s fairly specific about what that abiding entails, he tells his disciples they’re already clean because of the word he has spoken to them. And that if they remain in him and his words remain in us, that opens up great fruitbearing prayer in our lives. He says, and look at this closely, if you remain in me, my words remain in you. Just ask whatever you wish, it will be given you. This is to my father’s glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. So abiding in Jesus, it’s not some abstract mystical contemplative attachment where we sit cross-legged on our carpet and we repeat a certain phrase. I mean, if you sit cross-legged on your carpet, that’s fine. But know that abiding in God’s words involve attentiveness and obedience to what he’s saying. Grow. Remember those verses that talked about growth in knowledge being the pathway to real change. hearing and abiding in Jesus’ words. It it probably involves more than simply reading our Bibles, but it will never involve less than reading our Bibles and remaining in God in in Jesus’ words those that way. If our goal is to abide in Jesus’s year and experience an abundance in our prayer life, then starting with the Bible, very good place to begin. If you remain in me, my words remain in you. Ask whatever you wish will be done for you. Now, for many of us Christians, our year does start with a renewed commitment to dive into scripture, dive into our Bibles, be more disciplined in reading the word. And our passage doesn’t discourage that at all. It just tells us that Bible reading is not a goal or an end in itself. It’s a channel for the sap of the grapevine to get into us, to get inside us, the life of the grapevine to come inside us. So let’s be thoughtful in the way we approach the Bible so that Jesus’ words remain in us. Few months ago, author theologian Trven Wax was asked by a friend about his own Bible reading and prayer habits. He says his friend was surprised to learn that he didn’t read through the Bible every year and that he’d really only completed that journey uh a few times in his life. He offers some experience and four pieces of advice for us to consider. He says, ‘Yes, over the years, I’ve recommended all sorts of Bible reading plans. My church is walking together through the whole Bible this year. This is a practice I appreciate. I commend it. But I have to admit, reading the entire Bible in a year isn’t my usual rhythm for a few reasons. One reason he gives is just the pressure he feels to keep up. He feel if I try layering the Bible in a year over top of some of my normal Bible reading, it’s like I’m always in helicopter mode. I’m just hovering over the landscape of scripture. I’m getting a good view of the overall picture, the grand narrative, but at the expense of meditation. I don’t land enough to walk the terrain and to take in the textures and details, lingering in slow and significant contemplation. Second, he says, some of those reading plans press me into unhealthy places. My personality is the overachiever who loves to cross things off my to-do list. When I try an annual plan and inevitably fall behind at some point, I feel like the Marvel fan who missed the last couple of movies or TV series. I’m out of the loop. It’s all getting away from me. I just won’t be able to catch up. I should just throw up my hands as I fail yet again. On and on it goes,” he says. Or worse, to avoid that frustration, I’m tempted to rush through the readings, to skim the surface just to move the bookmark when it’s my heart that really needs moving. Again, that’s not a flaw in the plan. That’s a flaw in me. Third, he says, “The way some plans are arranged can make these struggles worse. I appreciate the structure of chronological reading plans that give a broad overview of the Bible storyline, but I find it hard to go 40 weeks before stepping into the Gospels. I can’t go every year until October without the story of Jesus.” Lastly, he says, “It needs to be said, reading through the Bible in a year, it’s not a badge of honor or a sign of spiritual maturity. For most of church history, private Bible reading wasn’t even possible. Christians heard the scriptures in church, recited them from memory, they sang them in worship. Access to a Bible, much less the ability to read it, was a very rare privilege. And even in the post-reformation era when Bibles were more available, pastors were most likely to recommend attentive active reading of smaller portions of scripture, maybe a chapter a day, with a spirit of thoughtful meditation oriented toward personal application. So he concludes, “No, I don’t read the entire Bible every year, but I do have a plan. I want the scriptures in front of me every day. I want a rhythm. I want a cadence. I want a habit for life. I’ll continue to cheer on anyone who reads the Bible in a year. But if you’re someone who starts strong and feels discouraged by February, or if your heart longs to go deeper, not just faster, then let me remind you, God’s word is not a race to be won. It’s a feast to be savored. Don’t just aim to finish a plan. Aim to be formed by the word. Not just to get through the Bible, but for the Bible to get through to you. Now, take what you will from his Trevan Wax’s experience and the advice he has there. I think there’s some really good advice there. But whatever we do, let’s just make a commitment to abide in Jesus, to remain in his word, and just watch what that does to our prayer lives as our prayer lives become uh inc increasingly fruitful. And also, if the pruning comes this year, and it’s probably going to come in all of our lives, we need to know it’s going to make us better in the end. It’s not God. It’s not that God’s mad at us. It’s not that he wants to destroy us and devour us. He wants to make us more fruitful. Our hope is not based on thinking that we can change the world or even that we can really do significant things in our own lives this year. Our hope for change isn’t based on any of those things at all. Remember that uh reminder from David Deno, our inadequacy is a feature, not a bug. Our inadequacy doesn’t reduce hope. It redefineses hope by freeing us from the burden of thinking that our goals are entirely our responsibility to achieve. So change surely change is going to come to all of us this year. It’s going to come to us. It’s going to come in us. If our commitment is simply to abide in Jesus, remain in his word, receive his pruning, we’ll watch as some fresh clusters of grapes begin to grow on us this year. And that’s our prayer and that’s our hope. So, I think we should pray some of those things together and just you might want to take a time in the next few moments just to thank God that he does make deep and lasting change available to you and just pray for a heart and discipline to abide in Jesus this year to abide remain in his words and thank the father that his pruning in our lives it’s always to make us better and more fruitful pray for the grace that uh to endure it as well. This is just your time with God. Take a few moments just to express your heart to him.