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I AM, Part 7
The True Vine
John 15
Bruce A. Hess
If you would, please take out the word of God and turn in it to the gospel of John, and chapter number 15.
In 1965, Bill Bright wrote a booklet called, ‘The Four Spiritual Laws.’ Maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe you haven’t heard of it, but particularly I want to focus on law number one in The Four Spiritual Laws. This is law number one: God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. From my viewpoint today, that statement is one of the most understated assertions ever. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.
Some of you know my story. You know that when I was in mid-semester of my freshman year in college. I was a baby believer and this gentleman, whose name was Dean, came by my tenth-floor dormitory room and told me that he wanted to disciple me, to develop me spiritually. And, my immediate reaction was, ‘Oh my goodness, there is a spiritual fanatic loose in my room!’
On purpose I avoided Dean for a very long time, but he kept pursuing me. Why did I have that reaction? Well, part of my problem was: I believed wrongly, that the Bible was a boring book. The other part of my problem was: I did not believe law number one. I did not believe that God loves you and has—particularly the last part of it—a wonderful plan for your life. Of course I was totally wrong on both of those accounts.
Over time I learned the value of God’s Word. As it says in Psalm 19, His word enlightens the eyes; His word restores the soul; His word rejoices the heart. I also learned over time that indeed, Bruce, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. He, men and women, desires to meet the deepest needs of your soul. He desires to give to you the most fruitful life possible. He desires to use you in ways that you have never imagined.
Do you believe that?
Do you believe that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life?
Do you believe that He wants to meet the deepest needs of your soul?
Do you believe that He wants you to have the most fruitful life possible?
Do you believe that He wants to use you in ways that you never imagined?
Well, beyond trusting in Christ as our Rescuer from sin and judgment, how does that happen? That is why we’ve come to John 15, verses 1-5.
I would like to read those verses from my Bible and invite you to follow along as I read from John 15, beginning with verse 1. Jesus says,
“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 it so 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, so 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, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
Today, we are concluding a series of messages that we have entitled, “I AM,” where we are unpacking who Jesus really is. We’ve built this around what are called the I AM statements of Jesus, where He says, “Ego Eimi, I AM.” Anytime He puts that structure together He is making a declaration of His deity. But He doesn’t just say ”I AM”; He fills in the blanks and we’ve been looking at that over the last number of weeks. We’ve seen Jesus say:
I AM the Bread of life. I am the satisfier of your soul.
He said, I AM the Light of the world. I am the illuminator of your heart.
He said, I AM the Good Shepherd. I am the caretaker of your life.
I AM the Resurrection and the Life; I am the ultimate life-giver.
I AM the Door of the sheep. I am your spiritual provider and protector.
Then, last time we saw where He says, I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We saw there that He says, I am the unique mediator.
Today, we come to the final one we are going to examine and that is where He says, “I AM the True Vine.” I am the source of spiritual vitality.
As we come to this section of the gospel of John, where these verses are in chapter 15, there is quite a bit of breadth to this passage. In fact, you almost feel like once you dip your toes in it that you need to swim the length of the pool. So, we are going to have to cover a lot of information this morning. We are going to have to move quickly. I want you to know, we are actually going to cover this morning, five things.
We are going to look at some background on the imagery of a vine; a grapevine is what He is speaking of.
We are going to look at the secret to fullness of life.
We are going to look at some needed clarifications from John 15.
We are going to look at two core keys.
Then, we are going to look at the fruit of abiding.
So, hang on to your hat [get ready for what’s coming], here we go. Let’s begin by looking at some background on the imagery of a vine, a grape vine. It has Old Testament roots to it. The nation of Israel was pictured in the Old Testament as a vine, as a grapevine. I’ll give you some verses.
Psalm 80, verse 8, speaking of them coming out of Egypt, then going into the Promised Land. It says, “You removed a vine from Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.”
Then, in Isaiah, chapter 5, verse 7, it identifies who the vine is, “The vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel and the men of Judah His delightful plant.”
Then, in Jeremiah, chapter 2, verse 21, where God says to the nation, “I planted you like a choice vine,” one that should have been fruitful, “How then have you turned against Me into a corrupt, wild vine?”
See, the plan of God in developing them as this grapevine was: He wanted the nation to display the fruit of righteousness. But we know the history of Israel in the Old Testament, right? They tended rather to be marked by disobedience and sin and idolatry.
So, with that as a background we can understand why Jesus says in verse 1, of John 15, “I AM, (Ego Eimi) the true vine.” I’m not like Israel. I am going to produce righteousness, I will display love, I will display faithfulness. When we know Jesus, we have a connection to the true vine. Really, what Jesus is saying, when He says, “I AM the true vine,” is He is saying, ‘I am going to be very different from the nation of Israel.’
I want your eyes to go down to verse 4. He says, in verse 4, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.”
Verse 5, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit.” What question is He really addressing, Jesus here? Here is the question I think He is addressing: How can you, and how can I, effectively be fruitful for God’s glory? He is sharing this first with the disciples, but it was designed also for you and for me. How can you and I effectively be fruitful for God’s glory? And the answer is, through a living, ongoing connection with Jesus.
So, with all of that as some background, let’s look at the secret to fullness of life. That secret is found largely in the verses that we read, verse 4 and verse 5. It is important that we note two things as we zoom in on these verses, very important. The first thing we need to note is that these words are addressed to individuals who know Jesus, to individuals who are believers who are followers of Jesus. You might remember that he is in the Upper Room with the disciples, and Jesus is giving them some final teaching before He heads to His arrest and cross and crucifixion.
When we come to John 15 Judas is gone. He was the one who was not a true believer and not a true follower. He disappears from the group in chapter 13 and verse 30. So, all we have left are the eleven who are the true believers and the true followers of Jesus. He emphasizes this in verse 3, when He says to them, “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” These are the true followers, the true believers of Christ.
Then, He also says, in verse 2, “Every branch in Me”… key phrase. Most theologians believe it is a pre-cursor to the phrase, ‘being in Christ,’ in the Epistles. So, it is important that we understand who the audience is here. It is those who knew Jesus, those who are believers, those who are followers of Jesus. The other thing I want to remind you of –and we talked about this a little bit last week—is the disciples were in a mindset right at this point of anxiety and fear. Remember how Jesus had told them, ‘I’m leaving you can’t follow me right now?’ Jesus had told them there would be a traitor in their midst. Jesus had told them their emotional leader, Peter, was going to deny that he even knew Christ, three times!!
So, as we get the feel for all this context, you can see that the disciples are in need of encouragement. They are in need of assurance. They are in need of direction from Jesus. That is the first thing we need to observe as we move into these verses: these are instructions that are given to those who are true followers of Christ.
The second thing I want you to note as we look at these verses is, when it comes to effectively being fruitful for God’s glory, it is not automatic. It’s not an automatic thing for a follower of Jesus; because there are certain choices and decisions that everybody must make. Remember, there is going to be a need for the decision ‘to abide in Him.’ At the end of verse 4, “…cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.” In other words, there is an implication, you have a choice to make, you have decisions to make.
So, what is the secret to being effectively fruitful for God’s glory? Well, it is found in that idea, ‘abide in Me.’ The verb occurs three times in verse 4. It occurs again in verse 5, and it occurs again in verse 7 where He talks about, “If you abide in Me.” See how there is a decision and a choice to be made!
The word, ‘abide’ in the original language, is the verb, ‘meno.’ (m-e-n-o). Meno means ‘To remain with, to continue with, to dwell with, to stay connected to.’ I want you to understand that meno is a relationship word. He is talking to those with whom He has a relationship. He said, ‘It is important that you abide with Me.’ I like to use the phrase, ‘depend on Me.’ I think it is a parallel concept that He is communicating. So, when you look at chapter 15, and verse 4, when He says, “Abide in Me,” depend on Me, the idea being is you can then bear fruit.
Verse 5, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me,” (depends on Me) and of course He is always going to be depending on and abiding in us, “he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
You know, the illustration of marriage, I think, helps here quite a bit. When I am often leading a marriage ceremony, I will say, ‘Every marriage day something new is created, a ‘he’ and a ‘she’ becomes a ‘we.’ Right? What happens on a marriage day is there is a new union. But those of you who are married understand that ‘union’ is not ‘communion.’ You can be a new union, but in order to be fruitful in your marriage relationship you must keep your relationship a priority. See, being a union is the foundation, but communion is how you build on that foundation. In very much the same way, we have our relationship with Jesus. By the way, this is what I did not “get” for years and years! I was clear on the union part of it, the foundation part, but I didn’t understand the communion part, how to build on that foundation.
This whole idea of abiding is a picture of His life at work—now get this word: inside us. Inside us. The vitality of the branches comes from the vine. It is almost startling—even though sometimes we know this up in our head—the living God lives inside me. Wow!
1 John, chapter 5, verse 12, we’ve talked about this before, “He who has the Son has the life.” What is this life that we have? His life is inside of us!
Paul extrapolates on this in Galatians 2:20, when he says, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith,” there is that idea of dependence, “in the Son of God.”
Colossians 1, verse 29, Paul writing, he says, “For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power.” There is the dependence element: “which mightily works within me.” It is His life inside of me.
Then, one of my favorite verses, Ephesians, chapter 3, verse 20, “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works, (where?) inside of us.” His life inside of us. His life is at work inside of us. Now, that is revolutionary.
That explains why Jesus said, in John 14:12, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do.” Not greater in degree, but greater in extent. I mean, think about it, when Jesus was present on the planet His life was wherever He was standing. Now, when we are in union with Him, His life is inside of us, His life is inside of tens of thousands of tens of thousands of hundreds of thousands all around the planet.
When I go and do a Weekend to Remember (marriage getaway) which I am getting ready to do in Florida this next weekend, one of the things I do at the Weekend to Remember is I share a little something. I am going to be doing it again. It goes something like this, you look around and you see young love, oh, young love is so cool. This is what I go on to say: while I think young love, indeed, is cool, I think seasoned love is even better.
I use the illustration of Gordon and Norman Yeager. Gordon, 94, and Norma, 90, were married for 72 years. They are out driving together and they are in a very serious car accident and they both end up in the hospital in very, very critical condition. Gordon, at 94, and Norman, at 90, married 72 years, died within minutes of each other, holding hands. Wow, what a picture that is of seasoned love.
But there is a little additional point of information that I want to bring out about this story. Gordon stopped breathing first, still holding hands with his bride. The family that was gathered there noticed something, they were looking at their dad’s heart monitor and there still showed a heartbeat. They are saying, ‘What? How is that possible?’ So, they ask the nurse, ‘What is going on?’ They said, ‘Well, your dad’s heart monitor is picking up your mom’s heartbeat as they are holding hands.’
Men and women, that’s a great picture of the way that this works. You see, His pulse is actually ours. His heartbeat is inside of us! The living God is inside of a human being. And He says we need to be abiding, we need to be reliant on His life being at work inside of us. In other words, abiding is essential to fruitfulness, to be all that we can be.
Notice again, verse 4, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so 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, (which He always does) he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” Now, that is a rather startling statement to see at the end of verse 5: “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” What does that mean?
Does that mean I can’t drive a car apart from Him?
I can’t eat apart from Him?
I can’t teach a class apart from Him?
I can’t preach a sermon apart from Him?
What does He mean when He says that? He is basically saying this, apart from Me you cannot be truly fruitful.
Now, notice He does not say, ‘Apart from Me, you’re greatly handicapped when it comes to being fruitful.’ He doesn’t say, ‘Apart from Me, you are greatly disadvantaged when it comes to being fruitful.’ He is saying, ‘You have total inability to be fruitful apart from Me.’
You might have heard it said over the years that Christian life is more than difficult, it is impossible without Christ. That is what Jesus is really saying. We need to be energized by Him. What we need is a 3D response. What do I mean by that? What we need is desperate dependence daily.
In order to be fruitful, in order to be all that we can be, we need desperate dependence daily. It is the same idea that Paul communicates, a little different imagery, in Galatians, chapter 5, when he says, “Walk by the Spirit.” It’s the same picture of being dependent on the Spirit. “Walk by the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” Walk by the Spirit and guess what comes out of your life? It is a word that begins with “F.” Fruit comes out of our life when we walk by the Spirit…that daily regular dependence. That is the same concept, in John 15, of abiding.
Now, we need to pause for a moment and make some needed clarifications here, especially as it relates to verse 2 and verse 6, that we haven’t read. This is part of what I mean, you dip your toes in and then pretty soon you feel like you have to swim the length of the pool.
Look at verse 2 again, “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.” Look at verse 6, “If anyone does not abide in Me, (what happens?) he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned.”
Again, we have limited time today, but I just want us to understand something here. As interpreters come to verse 2 and verse 6, they fall into three possible camps.
Interpreters number one would say this about the branches that are mentioned in verse 2 and verse 6. They would say these are false professors, false followers of Jesus. They would say what happens is, when they are taken away and thrown into the fire, it is taking someone who is a false professor, a false follower and throwing them into Hell. There are some interpreters who would understand verses 2 and 6 that way.
I cannot go there. Primarily because of the context again. To whom is He speaking? Remember, He talks about every branch in Me. He is talking about true followers. Six times, in this section, He talks about bearing fruit. This is about fruitfulness and bearing fruit as a follower of Jesus, in my opinion.
The second group of interpreters would say this when you look at verse 2 and you look at verse 6 especially: it is referring to those who lose their salvation due to unfaithfulness in their life. They had it, they lose it. Now, we spent some time in John, chapter 10 and verse 28, where it says that no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. We are secure. When you have eternal life, you have eternal life! Sometimes people say, ‘Well, one might not be able to snatch you out of His hand, but you can jump out of His hand.’ Listen, if the worst enemy can’t grab you out of His hand, you’re not jumping out. When we know Him, we know Him. When we have eternal life, we have eternal life.
The third group of interpreters would say this about verse 2 and verse 6: these refer to lessons for true followers of Jesus, lessons that they should heed. So, let’s try to understand. Let’s go to verse 2 first. It is important to understand that the activity described in verse 2 is activity that would happen in a vine growing arena early in the growing season. Very early in the growing season two things would happen. Look at verse 2 again, it says, “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away.” The verb that is translated ‘takes away,’ is a verb in the original that is ‘airo’ (a-i-r-o). It can mean one of two things depending upon the context. It can mean ‘to lift up, to take up’ or it can mean ‘to take away and remove.’ By the way, it is used both ways in the gospel of John.
What is He really trying to talk about here? What is He picturing? When He talks about ‘every branch in Me that does not bear fruit’ who do you think that would be descriptive of? Think about what is going on; think about what is going to happen when Jesus gets arrested, when Jesus gets crucified. What do the eleven do? Were they bearing a lot of fruit? Initially, no. That is certainly true of Peter who was swearing that he never even knew who Jesus was. What happens with every branch that does not bear fruit? What would Jesus do? He was very tender with the disciples, wasn’t He?
What vine growers would do if there was a branch that did not bear fruit: what would happen early on in the growing season is you would have a branch from the vine and it would be laying down on the ground. One thing a vine dresser would do is he would pick it up off the ground and prop it up. He wanted that branch to avoid mold. He wanted to give it the air to grow. He wanted to position it so it would start to bear fruit. That is the first thing they did at the beginning of the growing season.
The second thing they would do is: those vines that were already bearing fruit, they would prune so they would bear more fruit. Ever been pruned by God? Almost everybody is going, Yep! Yep! What the vine dresser would do is: he would target the weak and unwanted parts of the plant and he would prune them out so that the plant would be more healthy and more fruitful, because he wanted the plant to be all that it could be.
That is what He does with us. The pruner of the plant would have the end in sight. Not just the comfort of the moment for the plant. The same thing is true with us and God. He has the end in sight, and the end in sight is that we would be more like Christ. He’s not just so concerned about the comfort of the moment, so sometimes He prunes. You see how this fits, you see how it fits contextually?
Let’s go down to verse 6. “If anyone does not abide in Me.” Again, if we are talking about true followers in Christ, this is a true possibility for a follower in Christ, whatever He is describing in verse 6 is a true possibility. “If he does not abide in Me, He is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned.”
I don’t understand this just because I’ve studied it personally, but I’ve learned from people who know about it. When a vine dresser would handle vine branches he always handled them one of three ways. At the beginning of the season, as we’ve said, he would take the ones on the ground, he would lift them up, set them up, so that they might begin to bear fruit. The second thing he would do at the beginning of the season is: he would prune away, remove the amount that was unwanted, so that even though it was bearing some fruit, it could bear more fruit. The third way that a vine dresser would handle vine branches wasn’t at the beginning of the season, it was at the end of the season. If there was a branch that was not bearing fruit, it was considered to be useless, and it was taken away and thrown into the fire.
You say, ‘Bruce, what does that mean then in verse 6?’ Well, I tell you what my understanding of this is. I don’t think the fire in verse 6 is hell. He is talking here about secure believers in Christ. I think it points, perhaps, to spiritual discipline. He disciplines every child of His, Hebrews, chapter 12. Or, perhaps, more logically, it points to the judgment seat of Christ, which comes at the end of a believer’s life.
You can jot down the passage – 1 Corinthians, chapter 3, verses 10-16. Go there, look at it, because it tells us there, it uses the imagery of a building and it says there is already no more foundation that you can lay than is laid in Christ Jesus. He is the foundation. But how are we going to build on that with my life? What are the choices I’m going to make in my life?
He goes on to say in that 1 Corinthians 3 passage that if you build with the right materials, there is going to come the test of fire, and if your work remains, you receive a reward. Not just you go to Heaven, you receive reward. If your work is burned up, if it was worthless, it is just burned up, it is gone. Yet, it goes on to say at the end of that section, you will still be saved. You will still be delivered.
So, the idea is, there is a foundation. We build on the foundation with certain materials. It will be tested by fire, some of which will remain which gives us reward; some of which will just be burned up. That seems to me to be the most consistent way to understand what is going on in verse 6. The words He is saying, ‘If you fail to abide, if you fail to depend, if you fail to have a 3D response of desperate dependence daily: you will end up expending your earthly life, rather than investing your earthly life.’
That was true of me for many years. I was just expending my earthly life, not really investing my earthly life. Yet, even if we expend our earthly life, we still have eternal life. It just means we’re not spiritually healthy.
One of the core keys: we want to be abiding, we want to be fruitful. One of the two core keys is, the first one we’ve already looked at, and that is dependence. Desperate dependence daily. If we are going to abide, that is what it takes.
Then, the second key is: obedience. Obedience. If we want to abide, the first core key is dependence, the second one is obedience. Look at verse 10. Isn’t this pretty straight forward? He says, “If you keep My commandments, (what will happen? what does it say?) you will abide in My love.”
That is why our time in God’s word is so vital. It is vital to our spiritual survival. That is why we need to be in it individually, and why we spend time at Wildwood opening up the word of God and teaching the word of God and we do it in every dimension of what we do at Wildwood. Because, the first key is dependence, desperate dependence daily. The second key is obedience.
I want you to look at those two keys for a moment: dependence and obedience. When we trip up…how many people have tripped up in the last month? Let me see some hands. I only have two hands for me personally to raise. When we trip up—I want you to notice something—it is always due to one of those or the other or both…every single time. When we trip up it is either a problem with dependence or a problem with obedience or a problem with both.
What is the fruit of abiding? Why is He so exhorting us? Why does He want us to have a wonderful life? Well, it is the fruit of abiding…we are going to talk about these very quickly. The first fruit of abiding is: special answers to prayer. We see that in verse 7. The second fruit of abiding: are manifestations of His love. It talks about that in verse 9, verse 10, verse 12.
What are the manifestations of His love? Well, part of it is the fruit of Godly character that we develop, Galatians 5:22-23. Another manifestation of His love is the fruit of good works toward other people, Colossians, chapter 1, verse 10. Another manifestation of His love is the fruit of lives being changed, Romans, chapter 1, verse 13. Another manifestation of His love is the fruit of generous investing in eternity.
What is the fruit of abiding? Special answers to prayer; manifestations of His love. How about this one—deep joy. Anybody want to experience that in their life? Look at verse 11, “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” Part of the fruit of abiding is we have a deep joy that goes beyond the circumstances that we are experiencing.
Not only special answers to prayer, and manifestations of His love with various fruit displayed, not only deep joy, but another fruit of abiding is: God is glorified. Look at verse 8, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” Ultimately, He gets the honor, He is the true vine. It is His life at work inside of mine.
Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in me,” (which is a daily decision we have to make) and I in him, (because He is always there for us) that person bears much fruit.” That is His aim for every single follower of Jesus.
Warren Wiersbe, I think, pulls this all together. I want you to see this quote that he makes. He says, ‘”To put it another way, the better we know Jesus, the more we will love Him. The more we love Him, the more we will obey Him, and the more we obey Him, the more we will abide in Him. The more we abide in Him, the more fruit we will bear; and the more fruit we bear, the more we will experience life overflowing.” He says, “It’s somewhat of a spiritual chain reaction.” I really like that.
The first law of the four spiritual laws: God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. One of the most understated assertions ever. Ever.
What should our response be? Well, the first one I would say is: if you don’t yet know Him as your Rescuer from sin and judgment, run to Him as your Savior. By faith, turn to Christ. He died for you, He was raised again for you, and He wants to live inside of you. I will say this, I want you to know: He will never disappoint you. It is truly a cool thing: that the great I AM changes who I am. So, if you haven’t yet done it, run to Him as your Savior.
Secondly, I would say by way of response, depend on Him as the great I AM. Trust in Him, rely on Him daily. I will say this to you: you will never regret it. Never, ever regret it.
Let’s pray together. Father, we thank You again for Your word. We thank You for how powerful it is, we thank You for Jesus who is the great I AM. Lord, may we as men and women never get over the truth—so startling to me—that the living God lives inside of me when I know Him! What we are called to do is not only stand on our union with Him, but to continue to develop our communion with Him so that we can be all that He designed us to be. What an amazing truth it is and we thank You about these things, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Questions for Reflection
I am the True Vine
John 15:1-5
1. Bruce began his message with reference to the first of the Four Spiritual Laws: God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life (he wants to meet the deepest needs of our soul and lead us into the most fruitful life possible)—one of the most understated assertions ever! Why do people struggle at times embracing that principle?
2. The Heavenly Father is the gardener in each of our lives (see John 15:1). Part of His plan is to prune us from time to time so we can be more fruitful and more like Christ. Share a time in your life where you had the sense that God was pruning you.
3. What does it mean to abide? How would you explain it to a new follower of Christ?
4. Bruce stated that living a life that is effectively fruitful is NOT automatic–choices and decisions are involved. What are some of those choices?
5. Name at least two passages that emphasize how Jesus’ life is at work inside of us. What would everyday applications of those passages look like for a follower of Christ?
6. Bruce mentions 2 core keys to abiding, what were they?
(Hint; both words end with “-ence.”)
7. Who is Jesus? He says I AM
The Bread of Life, the satisfier of your soul
The Light of the World, the illuminator of your heart
The Good Shepherd, the caretaker of your life
The Resurrection and the Life, the ultimate life giver
The Door of the Sheep, your spiritual provider and protector
The Way, the Truth, and the Life, the unique mediator between God and men
The True Vine, our source of spiritual vitality
Take a few moments to give Him praise for who He is!