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Let's pray as we, as we start to look at this wonderful, maybe familiar, maybe unfamiliar passage in John chapter 15. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, help us to hear your words to us tonight as a church. To remain in Jesus the true vine, and to bear fruit for him for your glory. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.

Okay, we're going to start in verse five. If you've got a Bible there, have a look down at verse five. Jesus said, I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in them will bear much fruit. Without me, you can do nothing.

These days, it seems we have to plug everything in. Things that we didn't used to plug in, we now have to plug in. Have you noticed that? At least to charge it up. I bought a camera a couple of years ago.

I have to plug in my camera to charge it up. It's not a camera on a phone, it's just a normal camera and I have to plug it in. You have to plug in your phone, you've got to plug in your laptop, you've got to plug in your tablet. Maybe you have to plug in your car before it goes anywhere. We never used to have to do that, did we?

We have to plug in all sorts of things. And then you go on holiday to another country and what do you need? A special plug to make sure you can plug everything in over there as well. We've got a drawer in the vicarage where we keep all the cables. To be honest, I don't even know what most of these plug into and I suspect that a lot of them we've thrown the gadgets away or they've broken long ago, but we've kept them just in case.

I've actually got a box in my study and it's got a charger, I realise, for. For my first ever mobile phone. Do you remember Motorola? Yeah. With her little aerial and a leather packet it went in.

Yeah. Well, I've still got the charger because maybe one day it will come in useful. Who knows? Things need to be plugged in to work properly, including human beings. Jesus says we need to be plugged in somewhere in order to get life.

Real, true, enduring, spiritual life. We see it all around us actually being plugged in. If you just think about the trees at the moment, the trees, most of them are bare, aren't they? There's not a leaf on them. What's happened?

Well, in autumn, the SAP went down the tree and the leaves didn't have their life and they fell off and they're no longer plugged in to trees. They're dead. And some things can last for a while without being plugged in before they completely die. But they're fading the moment they're no longer plugged in. Think of your mobile phone.

As soon as it's not plugged in, the battery starts to drain, doesn't it? Or think of your Christmas tree. You know, you dig it up from the ground or you chop it off, stick it in a bucket, put tinsel over it, it's lovely. But it's not plugged in. And if it's not plugged in, it's going to be draining of life and eventually dying.

And the Bible says that you and I need to be plugged into Jesus so that we have true, real spiritual life. And our passage tonight doesn't use that phrase plugged in, but it means that it says, remain, Remain in me. Or some of the old translation says, abide, Abide in me. Remain in me. The idea is the same.

Jesus is saying, stay plugged into me. So there are three questions we're going to look at tonight. I'm going to give you the roadmap before we start. Why should we stay plugged into Jesus? What kind of fruit does God want to grow in us if we're plugged into Jesus?

And how do we produce it? Okay, those are the three questions. Why should we stay plugged into Jesus? What kind of fruit does God want to grow in us if we're plugged into Jesus? And how do we produce it?

So why should we stay plugged into Jesus? Tonight we're in John, chapter 15. It's a part of Jesus final words to his disciples before. On the night that he's arrested, before he's crucified. And that's chapters 13 to 17.

And that part of John's gospel is sometimes called the upper room discourse or the farewell discourse. And I suppose we could sort of summarise it like this. Chapter 13. Jesus is saying to his disciples, I'm going to leave you chapter 14, but I'm going to send you my Holy Spirit, chapter 15 and 16, so that you can live fruitful lives loving each other. Chapter 17.

So let me pray for you. That's basically the upper room discourse. And here we are in chapter 15 and we're looking at Jesus. I am saying the last one, and he's saying, I am the true vine. Stay plugged into me.

So have you been to a vineyard? Anyone been to a vineyard? Maybe on holiday? Actually, there's some around here aren't there, you don't have to travel too far. I drove past through Skeynes Hill the other day and I saw a sign to a vineyard.

So maybe you've seen a vineyard. In the Old Testament, God describes Israel, his people, as a vineyard or vine. And a number of times Israel was supposed to be producing fruit, spiritual fruit for the Lord. But as we read the Old Testament, we see that they didn't. They didn't stay plugged in.

And so we come to the New Testament to John, chapter 15, and Jesus says, I am the true vine. I'm the one that you really need to be plugged into if you're going to have life. If you really want to bear fruit, stay plugged into me. Jesus says, and you know, all of us plug into something. Have you ever thought about that?

We all plug into something for life. We plug into food and drink to keep us going day by day, but we plug into other things as well. We plug into different communities, different groups we're part of, and we plug into them for friendship, for our identity, so on. We plug into our families, our friends, school, college, work. They're like vines that we plug into for life.

Music, art, novels, podcasts, sports, travel, they're all great things that God has given to us. And we plug into them and we get a certain amount of life from them. And it's absolutely right, we do. And many of us plug into an online world. Many of us are abiding in the world of social media.

And that produces a kind of fruit as well, doesn't it? And a lot of it is very good fruit. And we're connected more than ever before with people that are maybe a long way away from us. They've been brought close to us. We get information and opportunities like never before.

But some of the fruit maybe isn't so healthy, and we're aware of that as well. If we plug into that a lot, we might find ourselves more anxious, actually, more lonely, isolated, dissatisfied and so on. But we are all plugging into something or different things to try and find life. But Jesus says if you want real, lasting life, real life as it's meant to be, satisfying life, a fruitful life with fruit that will last forever, then you need to be plugged into Jesus.

Outside the vicarage, there's a substation, there's electricity substation. I don't know if you've been to the vicarage recently, but there's a sign on the gate that says danger of death. It's not referring to the vicarage, it's referring to the substation next to the vicarage. And over the last few weeks, the electricity people have been replacing the substation. And last week I came home and a man from the electric company was sitting in his electric car in the drive with his electric iPad on his lap.

And I asked him what he was doing and he showed me on his iPad a map of the network of the electricity. I didn't even know what I'm talking about, to be honest. And he told me that he was directing electricity from other parts of the country to come down to the substation outside the vicarage. I thought that was amazing. Very interesting.

He said, there are 11,000 volts going through that substation and it's much safer now than it used to be. Don't tell me that 11,000 volts sounds a lot to me. I don't know. John 3:34 tells us that Jesus, divine Jesus, has the Holy Spirit without measure, without limit. He has more than enough life to share with you and me, more than enough life than we need for this week ahead, and other things we might plug in to give us a certain amount of life, but it's always draining away.

But if we plug into Jesus, it's like plugging into 11,000 volts of spiritual life. It's more than we need. Jesus says, I am the vine, you are the branches. If a person remains in me and I in them, they will bear much fruit. You can't help it.

Without me, you can do nothing.

Does anybody here like gardening?

Yes. Those of us over 50 are nodding our heads.

There comes a moment in life when you realise you're turning into your own parents. And for us, it was when we moved to the vicarage and inherited a garden and we realised that we actually quite liked gardening. We looked at each other one evening, we're like, we are turning into our parents now. Verse 1. Have a look down.

Jesus says, I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes. So it will be even more fruitful. Fruitful. Now, we've got lots of fruit trees in the garden at the vicarage.

Four or five apple trees, I think. And what is the point of a fruit tree? I mean, yeah, fruit, exactly. Fruit. You might say, well, just give the squirrel something to chew on or whatever.

But no, it's fruit. There's only one thing you want from a fruit tree, it is fruit. And I might think that the most important thing, you know, in my life is What? To be successful, to be comfortable, to have a nice, comfortable life. But you know what the one thing God wants from my life?

Fruit. Fruitfulness. He wants me to be plugged into Jesus so I can be bearing fruit for Him. So why should we stay plugged into Jesus? Well, for a life of fruitfulness, to be fruitful.

So that's our first question. Why should we stay plugged into Jesus? Number two question, what kind of fruit does God want to grow us as we are plugged into Jesus? What kind of fruit? See, we don't know the answer to that, haven't we?

If we don't know what kind of fruit God wants, we're not going to recognise it when it comes. We're not going to be able to nurture it, are we? We have have no hope of pleasing God. So what kind of fruit is it to do with our character becoming more like Jesus? What Paul calls the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians, chapter five, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control.

Is it Christian character? Or is the fruit that Jesus wants from me that I tell people about Jesus and more people become Christians? Is it character or conversions? To put it crudely. What's the fruit?

Well, stay with me for two minutes. We're going to do a deep dive into John 15 to try and understand what kind of fruit the Father wants to produce in us. And then we're going to come back and think about how we produce that fruit. Okay, so what kind of fruit? Have a look down if you've got a Bible or phone there at verses 9 to 17.

So the bit after we read verses 9 to 17, Jesus is describing himself as the pattern that we've got to follow if we're going to bear fruit. And he says that he remained in his Father's love by obeying his Father's commands. He always chose to do what pleased his Father, and he did that because he loved him. And that's the pattern for us. Have a look at verse 10.

He says, if you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love. Now, what are his commands? I mean, maybe we don't even like the word commands. We bristle a bit with that, don't we? We get a bit defensive.

So if that is the case, have a look down at what Jesus says in verse 11. He says, I've told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. He's saying to obey my Commands, Actually, it's not a burdensome thing. That's the way to. To be filled with joy, to be completely filled with joy.

So what is Jesus command that brings joy to us? What does he want us to do? Well, look on to verse 12. My command is this. He tells us, love each other as I have loved you.

Greater love has no one than this to lay down one's life for one's friends. So Jesus is saying because he loved his Father, he did what His Father wanted. He laid down his life for his friends, and that's what he wants us to do. That's his command to us, and that will bring us joy. And what was the fruit of Jesus doing that?

What was the result of Jesus laying down his life on the cross as he was about to do? Well, the answer is the fruit is you and me. You and me. It's the church. It's a community of people that follows Jesus, that obeys his commands to love each other.

It's this people that he has created. So what's the fruit that the Father is looking for in us? Is it character or conversions? Well, we've got to say it's not an either or, it's a both. And both are part of the fruit.

Both are part of what happens if we are plugged in to Jesus.

And what does that mean for us? It means this. I think it means that it doesn't matter really whether I get the right job or not. I can still bear the fruit that Jesus wants. It doesn't matter whether I have the right spouse or not or the right children or the right grandchildren or the right sort of environment around me.

All those things can be good, and they're all part of the mix of life in Christ's world. But the primary purpose of my life, Jesus says here, is to lay my life down for other people so that other people will be drawn to Jesus and become part of his people themselves. And I can do that. Whether I'm married or not married. I can bear that fruit.

Whether I'm in paid employment or working in a voluntary way. I can bear that fruit that the Father wants. Whether I'm living in Linfield or anywhere else. All those circumstances and particulars don't stop me from bearing the fruit that Jesus wants me to bear. In fact, God can actually use all those circumstances in my life to make me more fruitful.

So why stay plugged into Jesus? What kind of fruit does God want to grow in us as we are plugged into Jesus? Number three. And as we come to an End. How do we produce this fruit?

Okay, visual aid number two. I spent a lot of time last week over half term pruning the apple trees in our garden. And the first thing you have to do after you've watched the tutorial on YouTube is you have to cut off the dead branches. Branches that are crossed over. Do you know this?

I don't want to teach you to suck eggs, but I'll give you a lesson in tree pruning tonight. Branches that are crossed over that rub against each other, the bark wears off, the disease gets in, the branch dies and it's rotten. So you cut it off because it's never going to bear fruit. And that's what God does. Says in verse one, I am the true vine.

My father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. And what do you do? You stick them in the green bin and on a Tuesday night you wheel it down the drive. And I don't know what happens after that, but it's not a good thing if you're a branch.

But after you've cut off the dead branches, you cut back the living branches. And apple trees produce a lot of these, literally hundreds on each of our apple trees. So you spend a week up a ladder cutting them all off. These are called water shoots or water sprouts. And you get a lot of them, you cut them back so that the goodness from the tree doesn't go up to growing these things which don't produce any fruit at all.

You want all the goodness to go into producing fruit because what's the point of a fruit tree? Fruit. There we go. I don't know if Phil Hale is here tonight. Phil.

Am I roughly in the right area? Good, Excellent, good. I'll quit while I'm ahead. I think the Bible says that is what God the gardener does in our lives. Have a look down at verse two.

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. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't like being pruned. Pruning can be very painful.

I often think that really what God ought to want is what I want, which is a comfortable life, an easy life, no challenges, a sense of fulfilment and achievement and so on. But God says, do you know? No, actually I want you to be fruitful. That's what I want for you. That's what brings me glory, for you to be really fruitful.

So as I Read my Bible. He points out to me my bad attitudes, my unloving attitudes, the harmful habits, the idols and daydreams that I have, my wrong priorities, my pride, my selfishness, all these things. He points them out to us as we read the Bible, doesn't he? And then often he uses circumstances in our lives and difficulties to cut them out, to prune them. And I know that there are some among us here tonight who are going through very difficult times at the moment.

And if that's you, I wonder whether we just need to remember the gardener. Gardeners love their gardens. They spend a lot of time caring for them. They're committed to them. And they always have an end result in mind.

They always know what the garden is going to look like. Something very beautiful, more wonderful than we could ever imagine. And none of us wants to be pruned. It's painful. And I don't know if you're being pruned at the moment, if you've prayed this as I have sometimes, Lord, this is so painful.

Please may I learn whatever it is you want me to learn in this time, because it's too painful to be wasted. You ever prayed that the Father has something in mind for us? Something so beautiful we can't imagine it. We know he loves us. But pruning can be painful.

Well, maybe you're thinking tonight. Look, I don't feel like I'm bearing a lot of fruit. Look at my own life. I don't feel I'm making much progress as a Christian. So what do I do?

What do I do? Yes, I know God's the gardener and he does the pruning, but what do I do? Have a look down at verse five, then, as we come to an end. Verse five. It's where we started.

Jesus says, if you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. In fact, look along to verse seven, just a verse or two down, he says something similar. If you remain in me and my words remain in you. See that verses 5 and 7 are parallel. For Jesus to remain in us is the same as for his words to remain in us.

It's for us to do what Jesus says so much that his words sort of become part of us. We put them into practise. And what is his word to us? It's that we love each other, that we lay our lives down for each other. And Jesus says that when we do that, and we've made his words so much a part of us, and his priorities are our priorities, then he makes a wonderful promise in Verse seven, that he'll give us whatever we ask in order for us to do that more and more.

And you find you need to do that sometimes, pray for help to love somebody, pray for help to lay your life down because it's hard. We don't want to do that naturally. Well, it's a wonderful prayer and Jesus promises that he will answer that.

Being plugged in to Jesus, it's not a passive thing. Actually, we have to choose to do it every day. It means listening to his word, putting it into practise, praying for his help to love other people. So we're going to do that in just a moment. We're about to start a new week.

We are starting a new week, folks. We're all going to plug into lots of things this week. At school, at college, at work, at home, we have to. And many of them are good things. But let's plug in to Jesus.

Let's plug into him like that 11,000 volt cable. He is full of life, buzzing with life. Everything we need for this week for what lies ahead and more is found in him. Jesus said, I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in them will bear much fruit.

Without me you can do nothing. Shall we pray? And then I think we're going to sing again.

Lord Jesus, we thank you that you laid down your life for us, to make us your people.

Father, you look for that fruit in us as well, of love, of Christlikeness, of a growing people. We pray this week, Lord Jesus Christ, that we would remain in you, plugged into you, every day this week, wherever we find ourselves. Putting your words into practise, day by day and Lord, as you promised, therefore bearing fruit for you, fruit that will last, that will draw others to you and grow your kingdom and Lord, may all the glory and praise and honour and power and majesty be yours now and forever. Amen. Amen.