So this is our fourth and final Sunday in our series on the I Am statements that Jesus makes in the book of John. We have talked about Jesus saying, “I am the bread of life, the light of the world, and the gate for my sheep,” and today we read in John chapter 15 that Jesus says, “I am the true vine.”

So as this passage was being read for us, did you notice there was one word that kept popping up. 10 times in these 11 verses the word “abide” comes up. That’s not a word that we use too much any more, but it means to stay with, to be a part of, to be surrounded by. It is the root for the word “abode,” which is like your home, the place you dwell, the place you live. And Jesus just says over and over in this passage, “abide in me as I abide in you.” Essentially, he wants us to make our home in him, just as he has made his home in and among us.

And that’s interesting to me. The idea of living in and among Christ. I think there’s a reason that he wants us to live in him, and it’s a truth that I think we all know. That truth is where you live, the environment you are surrounded by, the place that you call home has a lot to say about who you are and who you become. It’s the whole nature versus nurture debate, right? We’ve all heard about this: am I who I am because it’s just the way I was born, the way I was wired, or am I the way I am because I was influenced by my surroundings and the people around me?

And I think that pretty much the answer that most people agree on is that it is a little bit of both. You know, there’s no denying that some people are just born with natural musical ability. Their parents may have no musical talent whatsoever, but their kids are like prodigies, right? You’ve seen this before? Or some people it seems are just born really inquisitive. Or really outgoing. It’s how they’ve always been. Parents and siblings may be the complete opposite. So maybe nature is a part of who we are.

But I think there is no doubt that nurture is also a part of who we are. If we didn’t believe that, we wouldn’t have schools. We want our kids to be in our schools because we think that those surroundings, the people and the activities, will eventually mold them into a better person, a more educated person, right?

But we also know things about how where we live – like the city or the country, or what part of the world we live in, they will have a lot to say about who we are and what we become. Today, people who live in Boston are cheering for the Patriots and people who live in New York or New Jersey are cheering for the Giants.

During the college football championship game between Ohio State and LSU, the Courier ran an interesting article about searching for LSU fans in this area. They are few and far between. Not too many people around here grow up cheering for the LSU Tigers, right? I’m an Ohio State Buckeye fan. Why? Because my parents are. Because my friends were. So because of the way I was nurtured, because of who I hung around, my actions were shaped. Because of the way I was nurtured, I spend Saturdays in the fall glued to the television dressed in scarlet and gray.

Now just because I live in Ohio and was raised by a family of Buckeye fans, it didn’t make me one. I still somewhat choose that. And you can live somewhere totally different and be a Buckeye fan. But I’ll be you anything that if you look on a map that would show you where the largest concentration of Buckeye fans live, the vast majority would live in Ohio. Why? Because where we live, where we abide, says something about who we become. What we do, what we surround ourselves with, has a profound influence on the kind of person that we are.

There was a song I used to sing in church when I was a little kid called the computer song. And the chorus said, “Input, output. What comes in is what goes out.” And I think that is so true. You know I know so many Christians who just fill their lives with garbage: the people they hang out with, the junk they watch on TV, the general filth they let into their lives, and then they get all upset when the wisdom of Solomon doesn’t come out of their mouths. They get so frustrated when it seems like they haven’t gone any deeper in their walk with Christ and they can’t figure out why. Why does this seem so hard? How’s come…I’ve been a Christian for years now and I don’t feel any different than I did the first day.

Well, if you haven’t put anything Christ-like, anything to help you to grow towards Christ in your life, if you aren’t abiding in him, surrounding yourself with him, allowing his thoughts and his teachings and his lifestyle to enter your life, then why would you expect to be able to produce a Christ-like life? It’s not possible.

Jesus says that we must abide in him, just as he abides in us. He has made us his life. Do you hear that? He has made us his life. Everything he does, every thought, every prayer, every action of Christ is centered around us. So when he says that we are to abide in him just as he abides in us, it is his way of saying, I want you to be as crazy about me as I am about you. He is crazy about us. His deepest desire is that we come to grow closer to him, and he wants our lives to be full. In John 15:11 Jesus says, “I have said these things that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”

He wants us to be happy, and he wants us to have fruitful lives. And this is where his I AM statement comes in where he says, “I am the true vine.” And look at verse 4 of chapter 15. It says, “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.”

He’s saying, “Look, I know you all want happy, full lives. I know you all want to have the best life possible. But to have the best life possible, you are going to have to let me be a part of it.” Jesus is the thing that makes life worth living. How many branches have tried to detach themselves from the vine and still have fruitful lives? How many people have started out with Christ, but have grown themselves to the point where they feel like they don’t need the vine anymore. I’ve gone deep enough. Time to set the cruise control. Forget bearing fruit, I’m going to sow some oats!

So somehow, slowly, we detach ourselves from the vine. Life will be better when I’m not stuck to this thing that tells me how to live my life. So we slowly stop coming to church. Or we limit our involvement. Or we set our Bible on the bottom shelf of the nightstand, and start stacking magazines on top of it. We fully intend to pick it all back up later, but right now, we just need a break from Jesus. I’ve got too much other stuff going on. Life is busy. I’ll come back to the vine later, I fully intend on producing good fruit for you, Jesus, but after the kids move out. After I retire. After I’m out of debt. I just need some time off from you to get my life back in order.

We do that, don’t we? We try to take time away from Jesus, away from the church, away from growing in our walk with him, in order to get ourselves straightened out. You know to people who didn’t grow up in the church, when life is hectic and chaotic, that’s the time to come to the church. That’s the time to turn it over to God and say I can’t do this by myself. But for people who have grown up in the church, that’s when we say, “I just need a break from the church for a while. I’ll come back to the church after I’ve got life straightened back out. When I’m able to get things slowed down.”

I want you to hear John 15:5-7 again. Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”

We had some really strong winds last Tuesday night, right? Early Wednesday morning. And there were some branches that maybe saw the storm coming. Maybe they saw the tree sway. And to protect themselves, to save themselves, they let go of the tree, thinking they were better off on their own. Today, those branches are dead and dying, and the trees are still standing.

Jesus has made us a promise in this passage. He says, “If you abide in me, you will be much fruit.” I think that means you will have a fruitful Christian life, growing closer to God and leading others to him, as well as a fruitful life in general. Life attached to the vine, attached to Jesus is good.

And he makes a really big promise, when he says, “If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you.” Man, does that promise sound good! Anything you want, you can have! Jesus promised!

But did you notice the first part, “If you abide in me…”, ok, so I have to grow closer to Jesus, then I’ll get a new car. No problem, right? “and my words abide in you.” His teachings abide in you. You have taken in what he has said, the way he taught, the lifestyle he lived and made it your own. If you’ve done that, I can guarantee the thing that you ask God for will probably not be a new car. The thing you will want, after having a taste of Jesus, is more Jesus. For others to know the joy of living in Jesus. The joy of being attached to the vine. If you are abiding in Jesus, and his words are abiding in you, if you have engrained them in your heart, if you have let them become a part of what has nurtured you and helped you to become who it is you are today, then the things you will want will be the same as the things that Jesus wants. And what does he want? He wants more people to abide in him. And fewer branches to detach themselves from him.

So the question is, what do you want? What is your deepest desire? If the thing you want the most is just that, a thing, stuff, more. To live a life like the Jones’ down the street, then I think you need to check your priorities. If you aren’t sure what your priorities are, what you really want, what the focus of your life is, let me see your checkbook and your calendar, and I’ll show you. Because where we spend our time and our money says a lot about what is important to us.

If what you want seems to really line up with what Jesus wants, then I challenge you to go even deeper into that. There’s a story told about a pastor in England who had a really strong heart for the lost. And other pastors and prominent Christians one day called him into a meeting to ask him how it was that he felt so strongly about reaching the lost for Jesus. And he called them over to the window and from the third story they looked down on a park full of people. He asked them, “What do you see?” They all said they saw trees, busses, mothers, children, men, lamp posts, and buildings. He looked at them, and he was crying, and through his tears he said, “I see thousands of lost souls who are going to spend eternity apart from God unless we tell them about Jesus.”

I pray that we would all gain that heart, the heart of Christ. But we can only do so if we abide in him, spend time in his presence, and allow his words to come into our lives on a constant basis. We cannot do this apart from Christ. You cannot grow like Christ apart from Christ. We must abide in him. We’ve got to be as crazy about him as he is about us. Amen.

Van Buren United Methodist Church

Van Buren, Ohio

Pastor Dan Metzger