Hopefully in front of you you've got a service outline.
If not on your phone, you can see a sermon outline there on the St. Paul's app.
I'm going to pray as we launch into this because John's gospel,
when you start learning the Greek language,
John's gospel is often where you start
because Greek language in John is relatively straightforward.
But the difficulty is while the language might be easier,
Greek language, the ideas in John are very complex.
And so he sort of leads you into thinking the gospel is going to be easy,
but the ideas are quite complex as we launch into this.
Let's pray.
Gracious Father, we pray that you would help us to capture some of the essence
of what the Lord Jesus is requiring of his disciples here.
I pray that you would transform our lives as we remain in Jesus.
Help us to see what you require of us between your first arrival and your second arrival.
Help us to remain in the vine and there bear fruit, fruit that will last.
So help us understand this passage so that we might live lives that glorify you
until you come back.
Amen.
In less than two weeks, James and I are heading to the US.
We're attending a conference, visiting a church and doing some other ministry things.
And it's a trip that I've done a few times.
I've slipped through the departure doors and into customs a number of times.
And I've got to tell you, every time it happens, it never feels, it's never easy.
I never find that journey through two doors that easy.
It's the feeling of leaving behind loved ones.
Whenever Nat and the girls come with me to send me off, I find it particularly difficult.
I hang on this side of the customs doors for as long as I possibly can.
I try to busy myself with paperwork and details.
But I know that at some point real soon, I've got to embrace, I've got to say goodbye, and I've got to depart.
Of course, it's the exact opposite in the experience in the arrivals hall.
You can't wait to get through customs to see your loved ones if they're there.
Hopefully they're not later or something like that.
You just can't wait.
It's a moment of excitement.
It's a moment of joy.
It's not apprehension.
As we pick up John's gospel today, we're in the departure terminal with the disciples of Jesus.
That's where we're sitting.
In John 13, Jesus tells his disciples he's about to depart.
And their world is rocked because they had hopes that Jesus would be the one who would overthrow the occupying Roman Empire and restore the promised land to Israel.
In John 14, what we looked at last week, Jesus comforts his disciples by telling them three things.
Number one, his departure will secure for them an eternal dwelling in the presence of God.
Number two, his departure means that he can send another advocate, one just like him, who will permanently dwell with them.
Not just the presence of God in the future, but the presence of God with them now.
And Jesus says when this other advocate comes, it's going to be better because Jesus is beside them, but the spirit will be in them.
They will even know and experience the father personally in prayer.
Instead of just knowing the father through what Jesus reveals about him.
And number three, Jesus will come back and take them to be with him, with God forever in perfect peace and joy.
So there's a departure and there's a return.
So what happens in the meantime?
What are the disciples to do?
What are they on about?
Do they just sit in the departure lounge or make the way to the arrivals hall upstairs or downstairs or wherever it is and just wait for Jesus to come back?
What are Jesus' plans for his disciples?
Why they wait?
What does he expect of them?
So there's three things I want to draw out from John 15 this morning.
Number one, the necessity of transformation.
Number two, the organic nature of transformation.
And number three, the means of transformation.
In 15 verse one, Jesus says, I am the true vine and my father is the gardener.
And then again in verse five, he says, I am the vine and you are the branches.
Now, all the conversation stopped at this powerful pronouncement.
You see, the force of Jesus' words to his first disciples is something like this.
You know how all of Israel, God's historical people, is pictured as a vine that is meant to produce refreshing fruit.
Well, I, Jesus Christ, am the fulfillment of everything that that symbol suggests.
And the key word here is the word true.
Those who follow Jesus belong to Jesus so that together with him, they become the true vine.
Now, the word true is important because it replaces the old vine.
Israel was the vine that God rescued from Egypt.
Psalm 80 says that they were the root that he planted and grew throughout the land.
But it was a vine that was condemned by God because it produced bad fruit.
As we just saw in Isaiah 5.
Isaiah 5 says that God looked for justice, but saw bloodshed.
He looked for righteousness, but only heard cries of distress.
Jesus Christ was the vine that was condemned by God.
And the point throughout this passage in John 15 is that branches, those who put their trust in the Lord Jesus, must produce good fruit.
Jesus makes it the edifying mark of a true believer.
It is how you identify a true believer.
Not by what they do, not by how successful they are, not by the things they do in the name of Christ, but who they are.
Jesus says, the father who's the gardener, cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit.
If there is no fruit in our life, then we had better reconsider the authenticity of our Christianity.
And the fruits, the fruit that God was looking for in Isaiah 5 were the qualities of justice and righteousness.
And they are both inequalities.
In John 15, the fruit Jesus speaks of is simply the reproduction of the life of the vine in the branch.
Jesus is looking for the fruit of his life in us.
Jesus is looking for change, transformation of our character.
Which is what fruit in the Bible is, and especially so in the New Testament, where it's explicit.
One list of such fruit is Galatians 5.
The fruit, one fruit with a bunch of characteristics.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance.
Which is patience and forgiveness of those who have wronged us.
Kindness, that's unselfishness.
Goodness, which is transparency and integrity.
Faithfulness, which is courage.
Gentleness, which is humility and self-control.
Against such things there is no law.
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
And so what Jesus is saying in John 15 is that my expectation of you is for transformation.
And I, Jesus, am the key to that inner change of your life.
How does the selfish person become unselfish?
How does the controlling, manipulative person become a liberator?
How does the coward become courageous?
How does the whiner become grateful?
How does the taker become a giver?
How does the worrier become a rock?
How does the bigot become understanding?
There is no more relevant question for our society, for our culture.
There's no more relevant question for our city.
There's no more relevant question for your family, for your marriage, for your friendships.
There's no more relevant question for this church as we seek to grow together in humility and unity.
How do you get such transformation?
And when Jesus says, I am the true vine, he's saying I am the key to growth and change for good.
Now, every bookstore in this city is filled with material on how to change and develop your inner potential.
They are mechanical books that give you a technique.
Or they are moral books, morality books, calling you to try a bit harder and be a bit more virtuous.
Or they are magic books telling you how to tap into some kind of power that you currently don't have.
The Bible, Christianity, Jesus offers something different.
It's not a technique.
It's not traditional morality.
It's not new age spirituality either.
Christianity says you need a vital connection with Jesus Christ, the only cosmic and concrete person who ever lived.
Christianity is about a personal relationship with Jesus who is the cosmic Lord of all and drawing on his never-ending pulsating life.
And the promise here from Jesus is that change is actually possible.
Don't you want that when you've been struggling with the same issue for 40 years?
Notice verse 16.
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.
In fact, in Romans 8, we are told the entire work of Jesus in choosing us, in making us right with God,
is so that we would change to be like him.
That's his purpose.
Everything he did.
All of his plans.
All of it.
The loss of his glory.
The coming to be one of us.
His death on the cross.
His resurrection.
Everything he has done is for the purpose of fruit.
His goal in Romans 8 is to change us into his image until we reflect his glory.
His goal is to take us from the squalor of sin and brokenness and make us great in his presence.
His goal is to glorify us and to put his beauty into our lives.
He's committed to taking his life and putting his life into us.
We may be pessimistic about being able to change.
And Jesus Christ says,
I am the one who brought the universe into existence by just by the sound of my voice.
And all of my power is committed to changing you and dealing with every flaw, every problem, every weakness, every sin in your life.
All of my power is directed in dealing with that.
So there's the necessity of transformation because that's what God, that's what Jesus is doing in working in your life.
Secondly, there's the organic nature of transformation.
This is, this is really important.
In the last paragraph where Jesus leaves behind the vine and the branch metaphor,
he says that we need to hear his word and we need to obey his commands.
Now, if we had just got that, if we just got that bit,
you could easily conclude that Christianity was basically a mechanical and a moral thing.
In other words, to be a Christian, you just need to discipline.
You just need the discipline to do a whole bunch of stuff.
And it's just the discipline to be compliant to a whole set of rules.
But the first part says that what Jesus is really after is to hook us into a vital and organic connection with him
so that his life becomes our life.
Jesus is after organic change through a brand new internal dynamic,
not mechanical compliance through external force.
I'll say that again because it's profound.
Jesus is after organic change through a brand new internal dynamic,
not mechanical compliance through external force.
What I mean is this.
Imagine a work colleague.
And maybe we've all dealt with these work colleagues over the years.
A work colleague who isn't, let's say, not committed to their job.
They arrive late.
They leave early.
Anytime there's lots of work on, the team's trying to work together,
this person calls in sick.
They're just not there.
They're constantly undermining members of the team, gossiping about them.
They're constantly complaining about the company, about the systems.
They're constantly looking for pay rises.
And then one day, human resources, call them in and read out the list of you've done this,
you've done this, you've done this, you've done this.
We've got a few issues with you.
We need to...
Unbeknownst to them or maybe known to them,
they have been kind of being performance managed for a bit
and these issues have been raised over some time.
But in this moment in front of human resources and the boss is sitting there,
all of a sudden your colleague realizes for the first time,
these guys actually think my behavior is really bad.
They actually are taking this seriously.
And I am about to lose my job.
And all of a sudden their behavior, they just realize for the first time,
there's consequences here.
And they break down in tears and they're begging for the job.
They're sobbing and they're pleading.
They've got bills to pay.
They've got mouths to feed.
They need this job.
They'll do whatever it takes.
Just give me one more chance.
I'll change.
Just give me one more chance.
So HR are kind and they decide not to fire him in that moment.
And the person just walks out of there going,
wow, I just dodged a bullet.
The crisis has been averted.
What happens now?
They change.
They start to arrive on time.
They leave when others leave.
For a while.
When they think things have settled back down,
they start to slip back into the old habits.
First opportunity to gossip against someone.
Yeah, I'll jump in on that one.
You see, in that moment,
the short-lived changes were mechanical compliance from external force.
They weren't driven by any form of internal change.
The alternative is they don't slip back into the old habits,
but they get more and more unhappy about the mechanical compliance.
And they'll start looking for another job where they can get away with their behavior.
You see, external force can restrain the heart,
but it can't change the heart.
For a short time, it, in fact, might look like real change.
It may look like real change.
But if there's no connection to the vine, to Jesus,
then it will show over time.
So here it is.
It is very typical when you first get into Christianity
that without realizing it,
you move into all sorts of mechanical compliance
instead of organic change.
How does this body, family, this church work?
What do I need to do to fit in?
We often put all of our focus on getting busy serving Jesus
instead of friendship with Jesus.
We put all of our focus on getting busy serving Jesus
instead of friendship with Jesus.
And when you first become a Christian,
you embrace the truth.
You're not saved by good works,
but you're saved by the grace of God
to you in the Lord Jesus.
But that truth is so, so foreign to the human heart,
it is virtually impossible to believe it.
And so we get busy doing Christian things
like helping people, getting involved in the church
and studying lots of stuff about this newfound faith that I have.
You get rid of the obvious ones, the big sins,
the juicy sins in your life.
And if you're not careful,
you can subconsciously start to think,
surely God must love me because I'm doing all this stuff.
I'm making some big changes in my life.
And if you're not careful,
what you're actually doing is you start moving into a pattern
of inferring the love of God
rather than experiencing the love of God.
Surely God must love me.
inferring his love
rather than drawing on his love.
And without really drawing on Jesus' life
and listening to his words
and praying to him and knowing him
and walking with him and spending time with him,
we are really just busy doing stuff for him.
And when you do that,
after a little while,
you start to realize
that you aren't actually really changing much at all.
It's possible to discover
three years, 13 years, 33 years,
down the track, sitting in church,
there's not much...
I'm really not much more loving.
I'm not much more...
I've still got the same passions and desires
that I've had for the last 20 years.
I'm no more joyful.
I'm no more patient.
I'm no more humble.
No better at taking any criticism.
I'm just as sensitive as I've always been.
I'm not overcoming the bad habits.
There is, in fact,
very little ongoing fruit.
Just settle.
Got to a point and just settle there.
Just been sitting there for decades.
Friends, it's essential to keep coming back
to the center of the Christian faith.
The branch is fruitful
because it has the life of the vine.
It doesn't get the life of the vine
because it's fruitful.
We are saved by grace
and without His grace,
we are not capable of producing
the change that God requires.
Without His grace,
without His life,
we can't change.
Jesus says,
without me, you can do nothing.
You can't change on the inside without me.
The Paris Peace Conference,
also known as the Versailles Peace Conference,
was the meeting of the victorious allied powers
following the end of World War I
to set the terms of peace
for the defeated central powers.
The peace conference began in January 1919,
so 100 years ago now,
and it ended a year later.
That's a very long conference.
I suppose they had lots of things to talk about
that were important.
One of the delightful side stories,
which is not recorded,
I mean, the outcomes are recorded
about the Paris Peace Conference.
One of the delightful side stories
from the conference
was about members from the delegation of Arabia.
These delegates,
who were connected with Lawrence of Arabia,
came from a harsh desert environment,
nomadic life,
living in tents,
where, as you can imagine,
food and water were relatively scarce.
They take them from that environment,
and they put them in hotels in Paris
for this conference.
And the biggest thing for them
was that there was running water
in the hotel room.
Never discovered it before,
never seen this before in their life.
And when they vocated their hotel rooms,
the hotel discovered
that instead of taking the soaps
and the pens like the rest of us,
these guys from Arabia
took the taps off the walls
to take them back home.
I think they had the assumption,
they had the vision of running water
in their tents.
Get these taps and put them in the tents,
and we'll have running water.
It's cute.
They didn't know the taps were useless
unless they were attached to the water supply.
And that's what Jesus says in verses 5 and 6,
I am the vine,
you are the branches.
If you remain in me,
and I in you,
you will bear much fruit.
Apart from me,
you can do nothing.
A Christian is someone
for whom Jesus is their life source.
As C.S. Lewis put it perfectly
in his book,
Mere Christianity.
He says,
the Christian way is this,
and he's pushing against
the idea of just mere compliance,
and just obedience to rules,
and little bits of changes in habits.
He says,
you've got it so wrong.
The Christian life is much harder
and easier.
Christ says,
give me your all.
I don't want your time.
I don't want your money.
I don't want your work
so much as I want you.
I've not come
to torment
your ordinary self.
I've come to kill it.
No halfway measure.
Hand over your whole
ordinary self,
both the things you think
are innocent,
as well as the things
you think are wicked.
I will give you
a new self instead.
In fact,
I will give you myself.
My own will
will become yours.
My own life
will become
your life.
So,
how do we get this
vital connection with Jesus
so that his life,
this change from the inside out
is happening in our life?
So,
last point,
the means of transformation.
There are four things
in this passage
and,
frankly,
I could spend
a whole lot of time
on each one of these things.
They're all connected
in one way or another.
And we need
all four of these things
to have a vital connection
and to see character change.
All four of them
are essential.
They're interconnected,
and they're all essential.
Firstly,
verse 2,
there's the knife
of the Lord.
He cuts off
every branch in me
that bears no fruit
while every branch
that does bear fruit
he prunes
so that it will be
even more fruitful.
Secondly,
there's the joy
of the Lord.
In verse 11,
I have told you this
so that my joy
may be in you
and that your joy
may be complete.
Thirdly,
there is the friendship
of the Lord.
In verses 13 to 15,
greater love
has no one than this
to lay down
one's life
for one's friends.
You are my friends
if you do what I command.
I no longer
call you servants
because a servant
does not know
his master's business.
Instead,
I've called you friends.
For everything
that I learned
from my Father,
I have made known
to you.
A really crucial one.
Christianity
is not,
it's about being
friends with Jesus,
it's not about
being servants
of Jesus.
Finally,
for number four,
there is the love
of the Lord.
Verses 9 and 10.
As the Father
has loved me,
so have I loved you.
Now remain
in my love.
If you keep
my commands,
you'll remain
in my love
just as I have
kept my Father's
commands
and remain
in his love.
I love the connection
between commands
and love
and also,
beginning of the passage,
Jesus says,
remain in me.
And then,
here he says,
remain in my love.
So let's just grab
one of them.
One that I think
pushes against
and rubs against
our comfort-loving
culture,
and that is
the knife
of the Lord.
We won't grow
in true
Jesus-like
character
without pruning.
It won't happen
without pruning.
The end of verse 1.
My Father
is the gardener.
He cuts off
every branch
of me
that bears
no fruit,
while every branch
that does bear fruit
he prunes
so it will be
even more fruitful.
Now,
Jesus is making
a remarkable
statement.
He's saying
here
that when
the knife
of the Lord
comes into
our life
and
things
get taken
off,
these are
things that
we love
and hopes
that we
have,
when that
knife comes
into our
life,
we think
it's a waste.
We see
all the prunings
and we go,
that's a
beautiful flower.
That's a
beautiful
looking branch.
What are you
doing
cutting that
one off?
Jesus
says that
God is a
good and
skilled
gardener
and he
knows how
to prune
for our
good.
He's,
I'm not a
skilled and
a good
gardener.
I run
into a
branch,
I'm not
going to
have another
cut,
you're off
branch,
you're gone.
I did
that to
the tree
out here
years ago,
ran into
it,
walking under
there one
night,
bang,
next morning,
not going
to happen
again.
I pruned
a plant in
my garden
about a
month ago,
it's now
dead.
the
secateurs
get brought
out with
a great
deal of
fear and
trepidation.
I'm not
sure if I'm
killing it
or not.
God is
not like
that.
He knows
what to
prune for
our good.
Now,
let me
clarify here,
God isn't
looking out
amongst
people and
asking
himself,
what will
it take
to make
them look
great?
What will
it take to
make them
be great?
I'll
send terrible
things into
their life.
That's not
what's
happening
here.
This is
not what
Jesus is
saying.
What
Jesus is
saying here
is the
knife
comes on
everyone.
For some
it prunes,
for some
it cuts
off,
but the
knife comes
on everyone.
He's
saying the
same knife
is on
every branch.
God's
is the
way.
It's
because we
wrecked the
world at
the beginning
of the
true garden
in the
garden of
Eden when
we decided
to reject
God and
run it
our way.
And because
of that,
this world's
wrecked and
we face the
consequences of
living in a
wrecked world.
because we
don't know how
to run the
world.
In the
same way if I
got the
keys of my
car and
handed them
to a
five-year-old
and said,
there you
go.
It won't
be long
and the
car will
be wrecked.
Not long
at all.
Everyone
faces trouble
and evil
because of
living in a
broken world.
And what
Jesus is
saying here
is that if
we are
hooked into
him,
the same
troubles and
the same
evils,
that happen
to everyone
in this
life,
will make
you soft,
not hard.
They will
make you
more human,
not less
human.
They will
make you
wise,
not stupid.
They will
make you
into a
great person,
not into
a small
person.
That's
what he's
saying.
If
connected to
Jesus,
the knife
will cut
us and
make us
for more
growth and
for more
inner
transformation.
But if
we're not
connected to
Jesus,
the very
same
troubles,
the very
same
evils that
come to
everyone's
life will
cut us
off.
It will
cut us
off if
the things
that are
being cut
off,
the branches
that he's
cutting off
are our
vine.
If those
things are
our life,
if they are
our life
source,
when they're
taken,
they destroy
us.
Like the
person who
must be
married,
when they
finally get
married,
this is my
life source,
and all of a
sudden the
marriage is a
disaster,
and they
grow in
more and
more in
bitterness.
happiness.
It's the
difference
between
enjoying and
feeling the
loss of the
thing that's
been taken
away, and
that thing in
fact being
your joy.
When Jesus
isn't the
vine, but
something else
is, that is
it's your
meaning, it's
your hope, it's
your joy, we
are crushed
when it's
lost.
But if
Jesus is your
life source,
then when you
get pruned,
what you do
in that
moment, like a
plant, when it
gets pruned, it
draws, it
draws on the
life source, it
draws on the
trunk, it
starts to heal
and grow
again.
We draw on
his word, we
draw on his
promises, we
draw on his
commands, you
listen to him
speak to you
through his
word, you
draw on his
love, you
draw on the
friendship that
you have with
God, you
draw on his
joy for you
and over you
and of you, you
see Jesus
Christ was cut
off from God.
See, that's the
thing we've got to
remember here.
When we are in
that furnace, when
we're facing the
knife of the
Lord, we must
see that Jesus
Christ was cut
off from God.
He went to
the cross
cross for us
so that we
only ever have
to face being
cut back from
God, being cut
back by God.
As Isaiah
says, Jesus was
cut off from the
land of the
living.
He was only
ever cut off, he
was cut off so
that we only have
to face being
cut back.
As hard as it
might be for us
at times, it was
infinitely harder
for him.
The more we
think about what
he has done
for us, the
more we're able
to take the
cuts.
Through the
knife of the
Lord, you
draw more and
more on the
love of the
Lord.
recently, I've
got to say
personally, I've
been feeling the
knife of the
Lord in a range
of areas, but
one area
especially that
has been really
challenging me in
terms of the
knife of the
Lord in
difficulty is as
a father.
It's been
particularly tough
lately.
God has been
pushing me to
my limit of
my capacity
and what's
been surfacing
for me is
one of the
controlling idols
of my heart,
which we've all
got them, but
one of the
controlling idols
of my heart,
which is
control.
It's so much
easier when your
kids are one,
two and three,
you just pick
them up and
you can't do
that as they
get older.
And so it
draws up and
it pushes you
to your limit
and draws up
what is
default setting
of how I
would behave.
What I'm
finding at the
moment is that
I'm seeing it
more.
God is bringing
to my life
more.
I'm not liking
it.
I'm confessing.
I'm discovering
more in God's
word about his
control over the
circumstances of
my life and
everything.
I'm finding that
I'm praying more
for his enabling,
for his wisdom,
for his love,
for his joy.
I'm slowly
resting on him
more.
I've just
realized that
what God has
been doing in
my life over
here in
drawing an
idol of my
heart to the
surface through
this circumstance
is absolutely
essential for
St. Paul's
right now as
well.
Isn't it good
the way he
does that?
that this
idol is
not just
about me
being a
dad, but
it's about
me being a
husband, it's
about me being
a man, it's
about me being
the leader of
this church as
well.
See, right
now we are
seeking to
equip leaders
and to push
decision-making
right now.
And an
idol, sorry,
not idol, a
mentor of mine
said some time
ago, one of the
differences
between our
system, the
way we sit,
one of the
things that we
love in
Anglican
churches compared
to his
system, which
is a major
hindrance for
us, is that
we love order
and control.
We love it.
Maybe, you
know, so, and
so I've been
reflecting on
that and God's
been cutting
back, cutting
back, help me
see, you don't
have control.
You think you
do, but you
don't have
control.
You can't
even control
the people you
brought into
this world, for
goodness sake.
You can't
control that.
And so what I'm
realising is the
big thing, the
big desire of my
heart to develop
here in this
church, to see
people in this
church empowered
and released for
ministry, the
hindrances are
not just systems,
systems, they're
not just
structures, but
hearts.
And it
begins with my
heart.
Oh, how
difficult it
was, and yet
how beautiful it
was to, and I'm
grateful for, for a
very quick rebuke
from a brother on
Friday afternoon
that saw this
default setting of
mind come to the
surface.
Just very
quickly, uh-uh-uh.
Not your call,
Steve.
That was so...
the sinful side.
What do you mean
not my call?
I'm the senior
minister of this
church.
Control, Steve.
Holy Spirit,
control, control,
control.
What is it for
you that God
needs to work in
your heart?
C.S. Lewis
writes in
Mere Christianity,
we must not be
surprised if we
are in for a
rough time.
When a person
turns to Christ
and seems to be
getting on pretty
well, he now
thinks it would
be natural if
things now went
on more smoothly.
When troubles
come along,
though, when
troubles come
along, illnesses,
money troubles,
new temptations,
you begin to get
disappointed.
Why is this
happening now?
Didn't I already
give myself to
God?
God.
It's because God
is forcing us
onward and
upward to a
higher level.
He's putting us
into situations
where we have to
be much more
braver, much
more patient,
much more
loving, much
less in control
than we've ever
dreamed before.
It seems
unnecessary to
us.
It's only
because we've
not got the
slightest idea
of the
tremendous thing
that he needs
to make of
us.
Imagine
yourself, he
says, as a
living house.
First, God
comes in to
make some
repairs and you
understand what
he's doing.
He fixes the
drains and the
leaking roof and
you understand,
yeah, that
important work
that needs to
be done.
You're not
surprised.
But then,
he starts
knocking the
house about
in ways that
hurt
abominably,
if I can say
that word.
And it makes
no sense.
What's he up
to?
Then the
explanation
comes that
he's building a
very different
house than the
one that you
thought he was
building.
He's throwing
off a new
wing in this
direction.
He's putting up
a tower there.
Now, he's
making this
courtyard.
You thought
you were being
made into a
decent little
cottage.
He's building
a palace
because he
intends to
live in it.
Jesus said,
I am the
vine, you
are the
branches, I
have appointed
you for
greatness, and
I'm fitting
you out to
live with
me in
greatness
forever.
I'm cutting
you back, not
cutting you
off.
I'm cutting
you off.
I'm cutting
you off.