Midweek Lent 1 Service – Pr. Anderson sermon
John 15:1-11; ELH #331 v. 2 “The Fruit of Thy Salvation”
February 25, 2026 | Christ Lutheran Church
In Nomine Iesu
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Heavenly Father, who created all things in heaven and earth, You look out and see Yourself involved with Your creation. As you look at us, knowing You provide and prune us, may we be reminded of this great care, a great care we do not deserve. As we pray for our growth in this season of renewal, may we be ever reminded that our growth comes from You. You do the pruning, watering, and growing, and through us Your fruit springs out. We pray that we would always be attached to Your vine, abiding in You, until Your final harvest. In Jesus’ name, the Vine we are grafted into. Amen.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. (Rom. 1:7, etc.)
In the upper room, Jesus has been giving His disciples lessons of what was to come, and in those lessons, He greatly stressed how He would comfort them. He was teaching them that what they had been learning for these three years was not learned in vain. And though their lives were going to get harder, because of who the lamb was in front of them, they were going to be just fine, forever. On the surface, this is a message of how the Savior is going to grow them and provide them with comfort. This is our comfort as well, that it is the Lord who grows us. Now go deeper, and as Jesus tells them that He will comfort them, and as the chosen lamb for slaughter, following the Father’s will, He isn’t going to have the same comfort once they leave the upper room. He will be strengthened, and He will drink His Father’s wrath. The wrath all mankind deserves. Before diving into the main texts that Paul Gerhardt uses for this hymn, in stanza two, we shift a little to the lamb’s obedience to His Father. And through His obedience, the fruit of His salvation grows out of us.
With an image that is very fitting for the evening, Jesus teaches about a precious fruit His people will soon know forever. “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 does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.” Jesus is teaching how the Creator and the Redeemer work together with their care for the creation that needs redemption. While there are going to be branches, very visible branches that will work to stop the plan of salvation beginning this night, they miss the work of the vinedresser. I love this translation for this word, “vinedresser.” While working in the profession of a vineyard, taking care of those grapes, this pruning and tender care helps with the overall growth in the vine. The branches need to be dressed, or have something put on them because they can’t do it themselves. The vinedresser dresses His branches with the best and only care that makes the branches clean, the growth of the true vine that will grow to completion on Good Friday.
With being made clean by the vinedresser, Jesus continues, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” As we hear this and it fills our hearts with gladness, we can find ourselves racing to do this with zeal and joy in the beginning. We take off and forget about the before stated work of the vinedresser and the vine. As Jesus gives this command to, “Abide in me,” in a separation of the action, we begin to see the murky waters of how we have done when it comes to, “abiding in Him.” In context, Jesus is giving this command to His disciples who are only hours away from not abiding in Him and leaving Him all alone. If we look at our lives and question our moments of abiding in Christ, the question that might be asked is, how do I do this better? We want our branch to bear fruit.
Well, Jesus says to bear fruit means to stay attached to the vine. We strongly want to say, “well, that is what I am doing. I’m working so hard to abide in Him.” With the command given, the devil is quick to remind us of all the times we have failed to abide in Him. If our branches are not up to the task, the devil magnifies the work of the vinedresser. “If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” As we heard on Sunday with the devil’s temptations and his knowledge of Scripture, he wants us to use pieces of it to excuse when we have failed other parts, to forget about what the vinedresser witnesses, and then the gathering of the bad branches of those who fail. Jesus says, “Abide in me,” we who have failed, and like his enemies, at times have rejected His Word. In our simple instructions to abide in Him, we see the importance of the vinedresser and His work. A stark reminder that we need to daily have contrition and repentance. And in this great struggle where we can ask God to “just make it easier for us to abide in Him”, He says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24)
As the world would say it looks like there is no goodness in this message because of the times we have failed to abide in Christ, this is a message of great comfort. We take the text heard by the disciples in its entirety and find the work of the vine and the vinedresser. The vinedresser who uses the sorrows and trials of life to draw us closer to Him, so that we bear more fruit. The disciples were taught this as they were taught the account of Joseph who told his brothers, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20). With the pruning of the vinedresser, the vine who will soon feel the full effects of how hard and terrible this life is says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” Our comfort is found not in the work of being branches, but in the vine that has us grafted into Him, the vine that produces the fruit.
Jesus then teaches where the power to remain in Him is found. “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I 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, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” The Word incarnate, who knows the Father’s love, the vine who is cared for with great care from the vinedresser, speaks to you His Word of love and joy. In His Word you see what is truly needed for you. You see the Father loving you so much that He taught you His Word to keep it, and though you have failed, reveals to you His Son who has kept it for you. The Son who abides in love, a love that would have Him die.
And with no complaints to produce fruit, and to abide in love, it happens because This Lamb is Christ, the soul’s great Friend, The Lamb of God, our Savior; Him God the Father chose to send To gain for us His favor. “Go forth, My Son,” the Father saith, “And free men from the fear of death, From guilt and condemnation. The wrath and stripes are hard to bear, But by Thy Passion men shall share The fruit of Thy salvation” (ELH #331 v. 2). The wrath and stripes are indeed hard to bear when trying to abide on your own. For your soul’s sake, the Father sends forth His Son, who abides in the Father’s plan of salvation. He bears the wrath and stripes and with His passion on the cross, your branch, grown into this vine bears great fruit. A great witness of how you abide in your Savior and the vinedresser who has cleaned you. Cleaned you with His Son’s blood shed on the cross.
As you gaze on the lamb of God who didn’t complain and perfectly abides in the Father’s will, He did this so you would bear fruit. And in His Word, you can see what that fruit looks like. St. Paul writes, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law (Galatians 5:22). For your comfort in this life, and to know that you truly abide in the vine, the vinedresser in this text is revealing to you true fruit, how you have it, and how it springs forward. In one motion, your vinedresser dresses you into the vine. The vine you are to abide in. The vine, who because of His perfect life and innocent death grafts you in, and produces your fruit to be eaten by all whom you share it with. God’s action for your salvation, for your joy to be full. Amen.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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