P’s and Q’s : John 15
“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.” (verses 1 & 2)
- What does it mean that Jesus is the true vine and God the Father is the vinedresser? What does it mean that God prunes those who are producing fruit? Why does God do this?
“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.” (verses 4 & 5)
- What does it look like to abide in Christ? Why is it that we can do nothing apart from Jesus, that we can bear no fruit?
“If anyone 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.” (verse 6)
- What is the humbling truth of this verse? Why do people of the world not believe this truth?
“Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” (verses 9 -11)
- How do we abide in God’s love? What is joy and how does God make our joy full?
“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” (verses 12 & 13)
- How does God define loving one another? How can you better love your family and friends?
“You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.” (verses 14 & 15)
- What does it mean that you are a friend of God?
“You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.” (verse 16)
- In this verse, what is the truth about God’s love and pursuit of us?
“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.” (verses 18-21)
- Why does the world love you if you are “of the world”? Why does the world hate and persecute you if you abide in Christ?
“If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well. But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’” (verses 22-25)
- Why does no one have an excuse for sin? (Look at Romans 1:18-23) How do you see people of this world hate Jesus?
Three Takeaways:
- God will prune you.
- God will give you full joy.
- God makes you a friend.
