We all need more personal contact with the Lord Himself. In this message I would like to share with you how to carry this on in a daily way. We shall consider again this familiar chapter, John 15.
The Gospel of John is a book on life. Even our physical life, not to mention the divine life, is mysterious. Though what he is dealing with is mysterious, abstract, and profound, John’s words are very simple: “In the beginning was the Word...and the Word was God....In Him was life, and the life was the light of men....And the Word became flesh...full of grace and reality” (1:1, 4, 14). Then in chapter fifteen this One who was the Word, the very God, in whom were life and light, and with whom were grace and reality, declared that He was the true vine, His Father the husbandman, and His disciples the branches.
The Bible covers many different topics in its more than one thousand pages, but in this chapter, John 15, is the focus of what God is doing. Here the Father is a husbandman, a farmer, cultivating the true vine, Christ, with its branches, the believers in Christ. To see this is to see God’s economy, what God is doing in this universe. God is growing Christ, and all of us are branches in this vine. In chapter one we can see how Christ, the true vine, began attracting some of God’s chosen people to Himself (vv. 35-50). Eventually, in chapter fifteen, there was a group of New Testament believers around Him; to these followers He said that He was the vine and that they were branches.
We are here branching out this vine. A vine is mainly made up of its branches. In contrast, the tall pine trees have quite short branches. But if the branches of a vine are cut off, there is very little left of the vine. Do you realize that you are one of the branches of this universal vine cultivated by God the Father? Are you clear that God is doing nothing in this universe except tending this vine?
What do the branches of a vine do? They do not do anything! They have no work. They have no activities. Their living is just to live, grow, and produce the vine. We, as the branches of the true vine, must see that the Father, the husbandman, does not want us to do any work. All He wants is that we live, grow, and produce Christ.
Just two or three weeks ago the Lord burdened me afresh with this vision. “Where,” He asked, “among all the Christian works, is there a work that satisfies Me? I do not want works. I want Myself, lived out of My people. Has there ever been such a people throughout all these centuries who would live Me out? Where is there such a people on the earth today?” In spite of the countless good, even prevailing, Christian works, the Lord’s heart is still not satisfied.
I remind you again that in this universe God is a farmer occupied with nothing else but the growth of this vine and its branches. If you see this vision of God’s heart desire, you will say, “Lord, rescue me from everything other than this. I have been doing many things. I have been making many plans. But this is not what You are doing. Lord, rescue me.”
Years ago I saw this vision and lived according to it, but in these last six years I have unconsciously and unintentionally left the mountaintop and come downhill. I regret that many of you who have come into the Lord’s recovery have not been clearly shown what God’s economy is. We have been distracted by other things. The result has been dissension among us. May this vision bring us all back to what God wants. I do not trust in my words. Human words are vain. But I surely trust in the revealing Spirit that He would impress you that you are nothing but branches of the vine, and that all God wants of you is to live, grow, and produce this vine.
In Philippians 2:2 Paul exhorted the Philippians to think the one thing. (This is the proper rendering of the phrase “of one mind.”) For us to think the one thing we must see the vision. Otherwise we shall be distracted by talk, works, or meetings. We shall be saved many times from thinking or speaking something other than the one thing if we see that God is only cultivating this vine. We are not workers, not laborers, but branches.
God is only growing Christ, but we are busy in many other things. They may be scriptural things, considered good or even spiritual by us, but they are not what God is doing.
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