I think one of the most challenging parts of life with God is figuring out what is my responsibility, and what is God’s responsibility.

Do you ever struggle with that question? In my day-to-day life, what does it mean to be “spiritual”? To be “obedient”? To be “dependent”?

What do I do, and what does God do?

Throughout the book of John, Jesus has made a big deal about how he “is in the Father, and the Father is in me.” He’s said again and again that he only says and does what the Father tells him to do. And he now is helping the disciples and us to see that we can live like that too: we can be one with God, obedient and intimate.

Take a look at John 15:5.

“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.”

Jesus is essential to living lives that bear fruit. Apart from him, we can’t do anything. He’s essential.

But at the same time, we have something to do. Our job is to abide, or remain, as some translations say. We do something to keep us drawing life from the vine.

Where is that middle ground? Where is that sweet spot of not trying to live life on our own, and yet also of actively abiding or living in Jesus?

Jesus is trying to communicate something about this with the word picture he uses.

He uses a gardening metaphor, a growing metaphor, an organic metaphor. We’re not used to those pictures much any more.

My wife’s the gardener at our house. My categories for things that grow are pretty simple. It’s either grass, or a flower, or a bush, or a tree. It doesn’t get much more detailed than that.

I know enough to realize that gardening is not a science, but an art. You can’t guarantee anything. There’s a lot of work involved: tilling the soil, fertilizing, planting, weeding, pruning, watering. But none of that work guarantees mouth watering corn or juicy tomatoes.

A late frost can do you in. Gophers can destroy the roots. And nothing about gardening is fast.

Our expectations in life are much different than a gardening metaphor.

We’re used to fast food, we’re used to huge supermarkets with fruit year round. We’re used to a more industrial or mechanical model. If you put this much time or work in, you get this much product.

Those expectations are probably why we struggle, why we get pulled to the extremes. We think on one end of the spectrum that we’ll get out of life what we put into it; the extreme of rugged independence. I control my destiny.

On the other end of the spectrum, we expect to be able to buy grapes and strawberries any time of the year. We don’t think about the farms on the other side of the equator, the workers picking in the fields who don’t earn a livable wage, the ships and trucks that bring the fruit to us. We expect it to just show up at our store, the extreme of having life handed to us on a platter.

The picture of the vine pulls us back into the farmer’s world, the gardener’s world, the world where hard work is balanced with a healthy understanding of dependence on the grace of God.

We don’t control our lives or God; God is the gardener, tending the true vine, Jesus. God is in complete control.

We are the branches, the branches that have no root of our own, the branches that God the gardener prunes and cares for as we draw every bit of nourishment we need from Jesus the vine.

I’m no expert on grapes, but in doing a little research this week, I discovered that the average branch of a grape vine has about 300 buds. If they were all left to grow into grapes, every single one would be sour. The vineyard owner must pluck off and prune those buds to produce a much smaller number of sweet grapes.

That makes for an interesting picture!

No connection to the vine? Death is the result. But a branch that is connected to the vine can’t help but bear a whole lot of fruit. Left on its own, however, the fruit will be sour. It takes a gardener, a vine dresser, to prune and pick the buds to bring about the fruit that is desired.

I feel like this is the constant battle of my life.

I have times where I have such a clear sense of how much I need God, times where I am attentive and obedient to God’s leading in my life. Those times lead to good things, to fruit bearing, to my life changing for the better.

Which leads me to think I’ve got things together pretty well, thank you very much, and just leave my buds alone, God, I’ve got it under control. Just look at how I’m producing! I can do it all!

And then it all goes sour, leading me back to a realization of my need for God.

Does this sound at all familiar?

Ok. Then let’s try to help each other move forward together in this battle.

The key, Jesus says, is to remain or abide in him. If we do that, we will bear much fruit. If we don’t, we die and are cut off.

Remaining and abiding are our choice, within our power, something we choose to do as we follow Jesus. These are the practical steps of learning to draw from the vine, to let God work in and through us.

These actions don’t produce the fruit. God produces the fruit. Jesus gives the nourishment. Our actions put us, the branch, in contact with the right vine, and when we are connected to the right vine, the Father cares for us and prunes us to bear much fruit.

Dallas Willard, in his book the “Spirit of the Disciplines,” outlines many of these practical steps of abiding or remaining in Christ.

These practices, which followers of Jesus have done over the centuries, fit into two major categories.

Some of us are drawing from the wrong vines. Some of us are getting our nourishment from something other than Jesus. One set of practices or disciplines helps us to disengage from the false vines.

The other set of practices or disciplines are the ones which help us really draw from Jesus, the true vine. They help us to engage the true vine.

Let’s start with the second one first.

What are some of the practices that have been helpful to you to engage Jesus? What are actions you choose to put into your life to help you listen to Christ and draw strength from him? [ASK]

Study: intentional meditating and learning what’s in the bible. Reading about it, listening to good teachers. Study!

Worship: singing, telling God what we love about him, “attributing worth” to God. Praise!

Confession: telling God when we recognize we’ve done wrong, admitting it and asking for forgiveness AND the help to change.

Prayer

The other ones might be a little harder.

What are some practices that help you disengage from false vines, from things that have power over you? What are some things you do to help you disconnect from the wrong voices and influences in your life? [ASK]

Solitude: intentionally spending time alone, cutting off the vine of our culture, with its loud values that are so opposed to what God wants to do in our lives.

Fasting: recognizing food can become too important to us, the practice of not eating removes its power as a vine in our lives.

Chastity: choosing to refrain from sexual activity for a time to remove it as a vine of power in our lives.

Frugality: choosing to buy less than you can actually afford.

Regularly practicing these things, specific actions of disengaging from false vines and engaging the true vine, is essential to living as God intends for us to live.

This is how we bear fruit.

Books and books and books have been written about what it means to bear fruit, what the fruit really is. I don’t have time to cover it in detail today, so I’ll give a really simple definition.

The fruit that we bear, the fruit that Jesus makes in our lives, is our life that is changed by God.

Our work of the disciplines mixed with God’s activity in our lives produces fruit-our very lives changed by God.

In a sense, the focus doesn’t have to be on the fruit. We don’t have to grit our teeth and “make” the fruit. Jesus is saying that our focus must be on remaining in the vine. In that sense, it’s a promise: if you remain in me, I will produce fruit in you.

Jesus is very clear about one way we see if our lives are bearing fruit.

The result of being one with Jesus and with God is a life of love.

To truly love, to truly lay down one’s life for a friend, is this wonderfully frustrating mix of God’s work in us and our effort as well.

It’s the mark of those who follow Jesus. When we connect to Jesus, we see others as he sees them, with eyes of love and care. Yet the history of the church shows us that this isn’t automatic. We constantly need the reminder that to love others is Jesus’ command to us.

Choosing to be people who extend God’s love to others is a beautiful thing. Today, we have the chance to commission someone who isn’t doing something special, but who is simply going about her normal life this week.

We want this to become a more regular practice of ours as a church community, to pray for and commission someone to live for Jesus in everyday life. It’s important, because it encourages us to pray for someone to intentionally live everyday as Jesus wants them to live. And it’s a reminder to us that God wants to live in US everyday, too, not just in the big, special events of our lives.

I want to invite Tina Dumonceaux to come up.

I officially met Tina at our church retreat last November, and had a chance to hear more of her heart and calling a week ago. She works at Linfield College in Student Life, and sees her mission as one that fits exactly with John 15: to extend God’s love to those who need it most.

She’ll share with us some of her sense of calling, and then we’ll have the chance to pray for her.