In this sermon titled 'Joy Made Full' by Scott Brown, the speaker focuses on John 15:1-11 where Jesus speaks to his disciples about the importance of abiding in Him as the true vine. He explains how God works in our lives, the purpose of pruning, and the joy that comes from being connected to Him. Jesus emphasizes that apart from Him, we can do nothing, and that abiding in Him leads to fruitfulness and fullness of joy. The sermon highlights the care of the Father as the vine dresser, the cleansing through the word of God, and the significance of bearing fruit as a result of abiding in Christ.

Please find John 15 verse 1 and We'll read through verse 11 I Am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away and Every branch that bears fruit he prunes 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 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 bears much fruit for without me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is cast out as a branch and is withered and They gather them and throw them into the fire and they are burned If you abide in me and my words abide in you you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. By this, My Father is glorified that you bear much fruit, so you will be My disciples.

As My Father loved Me, I also have loved you. Abide in My love. If you keep my commandments You will abide in my love Just as I have kept my father command father's commandments and abide in his love These things I have spoken to you that my joy may remain in you and that your joy May be full. Oh Lord we pray that you would take these words move our hearts take us into the beauties of your kingdom into the joys of your everlasting arms That you would teach us what it means to abide in you as you taught your disciples Amen Please be seated Well this section of John Began in verse 13 it's and Runs to chapter 17 this very section here has been called the holy of holies by various theologians and The Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to his disciples. No one else Judas has left the room He is having a laser beam discussion with his disciples.

These are believers. And he uses some of the most amazing words. I remember being very moved many, many, many years ago when I first saw the words Abide in me, and I thought this is just too wonderful Well here. We are we're in this text There are a couple things about this text that I want us to recognize first of all Jesus explains how God works in our lives, and it we really need to be clear about that And it'll be very helpful. I'm sure and then secondly He explains to us why?

He says these things to us so he talks about how We are to live while he is gone and he is gone now and he has sent his Holy Spirit and He's been explaining all along here in the upper room discourse that he and he alone is Sufficient for them. He's all they need from his time of departure to the time of his return and here in this passage the word Abide is the central subject when you're studying the scriptures, and you see a word that's repeated over and over again You have a hermeneutical moment and say how must I interpret this text? Look at the words that are repeated and they are very very helpful to understand What the the author is trying to get across? The word abide appears 15 times in the first 10 verses in This text it appears 40 times in the bin the rest of the Bible and he's Really speaking about what it means to be close in relationship to Jesus Christ and how that closeness is The secret to your fruitfulness and to your joy this dependence the sense of belonging this abiding in him being in him living life in him is Really the whole matter and in this passage.

It's very clear that there are two kinds of people and the and there are the possessors of That abiding and then there are the professor's those who have it and those who pretend about it and and the the professors Are rooted in him and built up in him and established in him as a result of their faith so all of this has to do with what it means to be connected to Jesus Christ and the the unity the security the life-giving nature that There is in knowing Jesus Christ, and so you know you've read the Bible You know there's so many images that God gives to describe our relationships With him you know we are we are living stones we you know we have a head And there's the body there are all these different illustrations of what it means to be in him, but here It's the image of the vine and the branches. It's very beautiful image Jesus Is always talking about nature, and so we'll get a piece of that today But let's get to the main point of these 11 verses the reason that Jesus says all these things is Stated very very clearly and and this is the point look at verse 11 These things I have spoken to you that my joy may remain in you and That your joy may be full This is why Jesus is saying all that he is saying This is why Jesus came to save sinners That their joy might be made full now I've outlined this text with with with seven points and The first is the joy of his care in verses 1 & 2 the second is the joy of his cleansing.

That's verse 3 then there's the joy of Fruit-bearing that's verses 4 & 5 then there's the joy of Distinction that's verse 6, and then there's the joy of conversation with God That's verses 7 & 8 and then there is the joy of his love Verses nine and ten so that's Where we're headed this morning on this So let's begin the first Issue that we encounter is in verses 1 & 2 the joy of his care the joy of his care and We read I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away and every branch that bears fruit he prunes now a couple of things here obviously this is the final I am statement in the Gospel of John and This these I am statements are declarations of His own sufficiency. He says I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world I am the resurrection and the life and he is when Jesus says I am he is saying he is the most important thing in your whole life He is the most important person He is the only one who can satisfy.

He is the only one who can guide He is the only one who can teach you true truth He is the only one who can comfort you the comforts of your spouse Your job your money your security your bank account your insurance policies all these things are nothing compared to him There are lots of vines out there that promise joy, but there's only one that gives true joy. Swing from whatever vine you want. There are hundreds of them to swing from. Entertainments, musics, all kinds of things, occupations, diversions. None of them do what Jesus does.

And so, we're reminded that Jesus here is the life. And so, here in this last I am statement I Am the true vine we find his sufficiency being Declared in earlier in John and John 833 Jesus said unless you believe that I am you cannot become my disciples So it's the key to everything in the midst of all the counterfeit satisfiers. We should always ask yourself What counterfeits am I feeding on now? Because counterfeits matter in this sense they diminish the true joy There's an opportunity cost in everything and if you're feeding on the counterfeits then you lose the read the true and So you lose really? The joy that's what Jesus is saying to feed on the counterfeit Is he to be deprived of a portion of joy that he wanted you to have he says he is the true?

Vine in isaiah 5 and in psalm 80 we find that g that that the Lord speaks of Israel as a vine and they were there were in that vine not True branches, and they were destroyed in those two passages of Scripture the vine imagery appears all through the the Old Testament and in Hosea 10 1 & 2 Israel is a Luxuriant vine very well cared for in Isaiah 5 God says I couldn't have done more for my vine But they rebelled And they sought things that don't satisfy That's the whole point of the Old Testament imagery of of the vine and the branches and so there's this illustration of the vine and the branches note this There's no plant mentioned more in the Bible than the vine So this is important Jesus takes the most often mentioned plant To illustrate who he is and what you can achieve as a result of being in him and You know God has made such a wonderful world and everywhere you look there's an illustration And Whenever you see a vine whenever you see a plant whenever you see a tree whenever you see water whenever you see light anything like That God is drawing your attention to heaven And He's saying that there's there's a life-giving flow that comes Through the through the vine to the branches and Then also notice that the father is the vine dresser.

I think we should just pause on that for a minute. Your Father is the vinedresser. What does that mean? It means there's someone caring for you. There's someone tending to you.

If you're a believer, someone is tending to you. He's attending to you all day long We read earlier in Romans 8 that he's always interceding for you. He's tending to you your father is Taking care of you, And he he distinguishes between those that are not his and those are his but he's taking care of His vine you know if you've ever grown anything you know this It Turns out about as well as you take care of it and You know it's easy to complain about your garden But usually the problem is you didn't take care of it like you ought to have taken care of it And I've got a front row seat on doing that myself But the difference in vines and fields and farms and animals is care. It's attention to the details. And here, we're being told that we're being cared for by a father, by an everlasting father.

And he's watering and he's fertilizing and he is pruning and he's paying attention to the vine he's paying attention to you he is of your vine dresser Did you think of God like that that he's he's caring for you he He's walking. He's walking around you and care and doing what he needs to do for you to be fruitful You know somebody once said that the best fertilizer that you can ever find on a field are the footprints of the farmer. In other words, the farmer has to be present. The farmer has to see what's going on the footprints give the Information to the farmer so that he knows what to do so that he knows how to dress well in our case the vine so but you The Father is taking care of you And he's He's cutting you. He's cutting parts off of you in this illustration He has a hoe and he's digging all around your roots and he's disturbing all that stuff around your roots that you got so used to and he's digging it around and He's going around and he's plucking off things.

You know he's taking things away. He's taking unprofitable leaves and dead parts sticks they know that have gotten On you because you have a father and your father is the vine dresser And You might I was reading Martin Luther, and he said something like she said Lord. Why are you hacking away at me like this? Why are you digging me up? Why are you pulling off all these parts of my life?

Well is because you have a father who cares for you And so you know, God sent his son that they might have life and they might have it more abundantly. And that can only happen when you have a father Who's taking care of you he's a vine dresser and Then there are branches that don't bear fruit. Do you see that? That They're branches that don't bear fruit and and they are taken away And so what he's talking about here is a picture of the people of God who are kind of known as the people of God and there are There are some who are not fruitful, and they're taken away and in verse 6 we learned that they're burned They're part of the vine but they're not connected to the life of the vine. The church will always exist in that state where you have some who are connected and some who are not connected.

Some of you here today are connected, and you know it. Some of you are not connected, and you know it. And I just want you to know today that to what Jesus is saying is that to be connected to the vine? Is to have your joy made fuller than you've ever had it before But it really only comes when you trust in him and believe in him and turn away from your sins and So the church is always a mixed multitude and You know The good thing if you're not connected to the vine the good thing is that you're here now and you're hearing about the goodness of Jesus Christ and To realize you know I've not been born again It's a good thing if you're in that state right now, because you can be born again. Even right now, at this moment, you can be transformed by the power of God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who'll forgive all of your sins, he'll heal all your diseases, And he'll care for you for all eternity And he'll care for you right here.

He'll become a father to you like you never had a father before. But he does want to mess with your life, and he's going to prune. We'll get to that in a minute. So he takes it away, he throws away and burns the false believers. In Job chapter 8 we find a shadow of this, a picture.

Can the papyrus grow without a marsh? Can the reeds flourish without water? While it is yet green and not cut down, it withers before any other plant. So are the paths of all who forget God. And the hope of the hypocrite shall perish, whose confidence shall be cut off, whose trust is in a spider's web.

He leans on his house. It does not stand." Well, this is a picture of the person who's not connected not connected to the water Hebrews chapter 6 verse 4 speaks of this as well. I know some of you are memorizing the book of Hebrews and it was recited to me this week and Hebrews 6 4 was brought up about those who have been in the church, and they were once enlightened in other words They thought well they tasted the heavenly gift they saw the good things of God They saw the work of the Spirit the Spirit of God convicted convicted of their sins They tasted the goodness of the work of God the Word of God They enjoyed learning the Word of God they even try to obey the commandments of God They had Conviction of sin by the way having conviction of sin is not the same thing as being saved Because in Hebrews we learn that they're unsaved who did have a conviction of sin who did see the work of the Holy Spirit Who did partake of the goodness of the Word of God they see the goodness of it all? But they but they weren't saved We have illustrations of this in the Bible.

And then there are the branches that bear fruit. The branches that bear fruit are pruned Every branch in me that bears fruit He prunes that it might bear more fruit That's a real that's a really important statement in this whole section of scripture well the branches that are being pruned are the believers why well we're not perfect we need pruning you know that you know Solomon said a child left to himself is a mess. Well, that's true with us. It's not just true with your children. It's true with all of us.

And we need pruning. We have a, you know, we have a long way to go We aren't everything we ought to be today, and so he prunes us The the the pruning is part of the whole sanctification process What we need to learn how to keep the commandments We need to learn how to walk in his ways and so he prunes us to drive us there And the problem the problem that we have is that pruning Involves cutting it involves hacking it involves pulling It in it involves cutting things off that are in the wrong position Cutting the suckers out of your life. You know what a sucker is you know if you have ever been involved with a With a vine or a de rosebush there are suckers They're these things that just suck the life out of the plant but they don't do anything and they provide no beauty or no no functionality at least no helpful functionality You know I Read this week that vines were usually pruned twice a year right after the harvest and in the spring just before the blooming and The vine dressers are concerned more with quality than quantity.

They sometimes even cut off branches that seem to be full of life, but they're kind of distracting. So the divine dresser is more interested in quality than quantity. And every year, I must prune my rose bushes. I might have 15 of them or something like that, I'm not sure. But you know, you go and you, it seems like I have to remember this every year go and you learn how to trim them back and I mean you know they tell you to trim them back all the way down to almost nothing and you think I'm gonna kill this plant and And every year one of my kids comes around and says I think you're gonna kill that plant But that But it doesn't work out that way.

If you trim it according to the instructions, it'll come back like gangbusters. And it'll look dead, it'll look all torn up, but it's not at all. There's so much life, and it's going to explode in the springtime. You get all the suckers off the graph off that plant and I'm telling you it's gonna it's gonna bloom now let's just think about a moment for the of the context here when did Jesus say these words you know Jesus had said my peace I give unto you not as the world gives give I to you. And then He says, I'm the vine, you're the branches, and I'm going to prune you.

Well, just in a few hours, there's going to be some real live pruning going on and Peter is gonna deny Christ three times and The rest of them are gonna run away There I mean there's pruning happening Right around the corner here People people bear fruit as a result of their greatest times of trial in the midst of the flood in the midst of the fire we walk and And God delivers those trials to us so that we would bear fruit That's why he's doing he gives us trial so that we would be full of joy that our joy would be fuller He would he would maybe Take away the counterfeit joy and replace it with something deeper and better and greater You know The The fruit of trials is that you you cry out to God you're closer to God than ever in your trials And and your your character and your connection your connect characters Tested and how connected you are to the vine is tested and you'll probably see it You know do you respond in bitterness to your trial? Do you fall into a pity party for a month or a year because of your trial and So when you fall into your pity party, then you realize oh lord.

I need you and Then he lifts you out And He gave you more joy than you had before the trial and that's how God works The Apostle Paul speaks of this Peter speaks of it Paul Paul made it really clear that he had a problem and his trial Exposed it Paul Had a problem with self-exaltation and that needed to be pruned You know God often in our trials he's dealing with our conceit How about that any of your trials dealing with your conceit? Your your over grand eyes view of yourself So God sent to Paul because he had a problem with self-exaltation He sent what he calls the thorn in the flesh Paul says in st. Corinthians 12 7 lest I should be exalted above measure By the abundance of revelations in other words. He was he just had an outpouring of grace and he He spoke so beautifully and helpfully to people. He was just amazing.

But a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me and he said to me my grace is sufficient for you For my strength is made perfect in weakness And then he says for when I'm weak then I'm strong You know pruning Is Difficult but boy it delivers you From your self exaltation as it did the Apostle Paul. You know this morning I was thinking of Anne Steele's song come all ye pining hungry poor. We've sung that song here I love that song I bumped into Anne Steele. She was a Puritan 200 years ago her hymns were were sung all the time in churches and This song speaks, I Think it has an illusion of this text And Steele had recurring malaria she had painful Stomach problems her teeth hurt most of her life her health was never good when she was 19 she was thrown from a horse and was an invalid the rest of her life when she was 21 a Man proposed to her in marriage.

They were gonna get married the day before the wedding he was killed and She never married She had lots of proposals after that, never married. She dedicated her whole life to writing about the grace of God. You know, I have several of her books in my library. I love them. She's just one of the great women who used their years to the best advantage for the glory of God.

She's such an inspiring person. And I love the song, Lord, we adore thy boundless grace the heights and depths unknown she's She speaks of the Savior's bounty that we taste. She says, Behold, a never-failing store for every willing guest, dear source of every good. He has unmeasured gifts to give and love that will never die. You can read various biographies.

I'll tell you about them if you want to know about them. An eyewitness described her death. Here's how he described it. Having been confined to her chamber for some nine years, She had long waited with Christian dignity for the hour of her departure. And when the time came, she welcomed its arrival as though her feeble body was excruciating with pain, her mind was perfectly serene.

She took a most affectionate leave of her weeping friends around her and at length the happy moment of her death arriving she closed her eyes and with these words upon her dying lips she said, I know that my Redeemer lives. And then she died. He lives. He lives to pour his joy into his branches So You know how is he pruning you now? How is he removing useless leaves are there any useless leaves that just need to go Dead branches is he throwing manure around you and doesn't you know sometimes the you know the divine needs fertilizer And we know what that's like But don't despise that because there's life-giving Energy in that fertilizer.

You know what suckers is he hacking away? What ground? Beneath your feet is he breaking up. You know the Prophet says break up the fallow ground. You know that's what he's doing With us he's breaking up the fallow ground usually through troubles and And how how are you bearing more fruit as a result?

He says, Jesus says that He prunes so that you'll bear more fruit, not to kill you, but to make you more productive. You know, David said, before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word. Peter speaks of being grieved by various trials. He says, In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials. Why?

That the genuineness of your faith, being more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love, though now you do not see him, yet believing you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory receiving the end of your faith the salvation of your souls that's why the Apostle Paul wrote for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Romans 8 18. So how does God work? Well he works slowly. We grow, we're pruned.

A beautiful life is not a trouble-free life. Well, the apostles were going to see a small army with clubs arresting their master in just a few minutes We want a trouble-free life without irritations without reversals without attacks Without hardship without unfulfilled dreams without disappointments. That's what we're looking for. But let's be really clear. Let's be mature.

Let's be grown-ups and realize that's not the kind of life God has for you. So don't expect it. He has something better. He wants to replace our faulty, unreliable, whimsical joys with His joy. And When you base your joy on your relationship with somebody Maybe it's your husband or your wife or your children or your friend or your pastor or your your deacons, you know, whatever it is, whatever disappointments you might have in any relationships, whatever disappointments you might have in your economic situation, whatever disappointments you might have, recognize God didn't bring you into this world so that you wouldn't experience trouble.

One more thought on pruning. What appears on the surface is not the whole story. What's happening on the surface of your life with the various experiences of pruning, it's not the whole story. There's something going on underneath the surface there's something going on in the spiritual realm there's something happening with the unseen nourishment to the to the branches The cutting the fertilizing the tearing off of the dead leaves You know the the tearing up the ground is for another purpose They only God knows For sure God doesn't want to leave you as you are God doesn't want to leave you being addicted to the joys of this world so that you lose. What is fullness of joy?

You might just ask yourself again You know is there are there any of these counterfeits that I'm finding joy in that It really is taking me in the wrong direction They might get pulled away they might not but You know when When Jesus Christ saves you and maybe you got saved this way maybe you say got saved singing just as I am without one plea And the preacher said he'll take you just as you are And he did he took you just as you are But he's not content to leave you as you are He's looking for more joy, He's looking to satisfy you more than you've ever dreamed. So there's the joy of his care that's point number one Number two The joy of his cleansing That's verse three now These words kind of seem strange when you read the text over and over again. Why did he say this here? He says you are already clean because of the word Which I have spoken to you now the word clean that he uses here is the same word for pruned earlier on and I I just want to suggest that He's just declaring that he's That he's justified them.

They are clean that they Don't need to work for their salvation in that sense Unless they think that they're justified by their works Jesus is reminding them That they're they're they're not clean because They're being pruned. They're clean because he made them clean you are clean and They're cleansed by his suffering and his death having reconciled them as a result of his sacrifice on the cross and He's saying it's it's it's that word that has made you clean you are clean because you've received my word and His words have worked for their justification, and now they're clean. That's hard to understand for us, because we don't really feel very clean, but we ought to learn how to feel clean in that sense. You know, Paul said it very clearly, there's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus And So it's easy for Christians to walk in a spirit of despondency Feeling really bad about how they're doing right now anybody like that. Are you feeling just bad about how you're doing right now?

There's this rain cloud over your head, and it's woe is me and oh my I'm just such a worm and There's lies if there's this You know the shoes gonna drop at any moment You know the the Damocles sword is up there hanging by a thread and it's gonna come down on you Be ended because you're just not everything that you ought to be and I think Jesus is wanting to deliver his disciples from that position and To help them be aware of how great the grace of God is that he has made them Clean they've not made themselves clean. He made them clean They have received his word his word abides in them, and they have no need to fear no need to walk in fear We know we'll learn later That they do need to obey, but that's a whole different issue You know you feel dry you feel parts you're not growing and you say Lord I am such a loser of a Christian But are you you know well you've been cleansed you're clean You know it was last week. I was walking across my yard and I noticed, well there are different kinds of grass in our yard There well I was walking across a piece of a section of Bermuda grass coastal Bermuda and It was so dry and brittle and it reminded me last year That we had a we had a campfire going and a spark jumped and it almost burned our whole front yard because that Because that Bermuda was so dry.

It was so I mean you I reached down last week I just broke it. I thought boy You know that's that that's how fires happen, And that's what happens in the wintertime. It gets very brittle. It looks dead, but in a few months it won't be that way at all. It's going to come back.

Even if you burn it to the ground. In fact, it actually comes back harder with more of a vengeance if you burn it. Well, that's what the rednecks around me say, and they do it all the time. I did it on accident. They do it on purpose.

But in about five months that grass is going to be green and succulent. It's the most... It's... And it's... It actually is the most resilient, strongest, hardest to kill, Most heat resistant grass on my property, and it looks dead for several months.

How about you? How about you? You are clean. You are clean. And then there's the joy of fruit bearing, number three.

So having been cleansed, given the word, they're now in position to bear fruit, verses 4 and 5. This is the joy of the fruit bearing. "'Abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, 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 bears much fruit for without me you can do nothing Now this is the first occurrence of the word abide.

Let me just repeat what J.C. Ryle said to define the word. It's a beautiful word. To abide in Christ means to Keep up a habit of constant close communion with Him. Always be leaning on Him, resting on Him, pouring out your hearts to Him, and using Him as your fountain of life and strength as our chief companion and best friend.

To have his words abiding in us is to keep his sayings and precepts continually before our memories and minds and to make them the guide of our actions and the rule of our daily conduct and behavior Another way of saying that is this truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his son Jesus Christ And then we come to what to me is one of the most helpful Statements in the whole Bible and I think about it all the time It's the most comforting verse to me. It's the most steadying verse At least to me And here it is for apart from me you can do nothing That's so comforting to me I'm telling you I'm so dependent upon him It's a principle for every single moment of our lives. He is the one who works within us. We're often frustrated with ourselves, but the Lord has a timetable. Apart from him, you can do nothing.

So, it really is a very sad state to be living without Christ, to be living on your own, to be the captain of your own salvation, your own reputation, your own success, to be making up your life by your own means as if everything is just up to you now there's nothing in this statement apart from me you can do nothing that endorses laziness or Rejecting the commandments of God and not loving them and keeping them. There's nothing in that statement that contradicts that at all It's a statement of dependence So here Jesus reveals what He is doing with us. And He's pruning us. This is the real Christian life. We've already been cleansed.

Praise God. Oh, we're going to turn to the Lord's Supper in a minute I hope it's the happiest point of your day to recognize that he made you clean. And he tells us why he does all these things. To replace our unprofitable joys With everlasting joy that comes from him so If God is your father you have a vine dresser, and he's cutting off. What's dead and Unprofitable he's digging around your roots.

He's removing unnecessary leaves, and he's putting manure all around you So that the glory of God would be displayed Because He rescued you from an unprofitable life and from sin. It's quite possible that everything that God intends for His people is summed up in that one three-letter word, joy. God already said that We have fullness of joy at His right hand forever. And when you die, when you come to the place that Anne Steele came to at the very end of her life, You'll hear that word again, that little three-letter word. And this summarizes all of God's intentions for us.

All of His commands, all of the trials, all of the rebukes of life, everything that you experience is designed for one thing that you will hear when you die. Enter into the joy of your master. Matthew 25, 21. This is the kingdom of heaven. Righteousness and joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.

Praise God for such a kind Savior for such a good vine dresser. Well, as it turns out, I've only been able to cover three of my seven points, and so we'll be content with that. Would you pray with me? Oh, Lord, we thank you for your boundless grace, your pruning. Father, thank you for being our vinedresser.

Thank you for taking care of us. Thank you for doing everything for our joy. Thank you for weaning us from this world of false joy. Thank you for bringing us into everlasting joy of your kingdom. Thank you for preparing to hear those three words, joy for all eternity.

Amen.