This is a post related to our teaching series on Christian habits: the practices of discovering God in our everyday lives that transform us. If you’ve been around the church for a bit, you may have heard the term Christian disciplines: reading the Bible, praying, giving, things like that. I think what we hear when we say “Christian disciplines” is like a doctor to a patient: “you have to go to the gym.” You don’t want to, but if there’s enough guilt placed on you, maybe you will.
The disciplines suffer from some bad marketing, I think. Because how God has called us to live, what they do is open our lives to a source of life. A forgotten river underneath our feet. The practices of our faith: they aren’t just something we have to do, but they are what we get to do.
Mayfield Depot Park after being developed
Have you been to Mayfield Depot in Manchester recently? Right now, it's a brilliant place—an outdoor play area with a cool slide that goes over a river, near Projekts skatepark and some excellent music venues and food spots. Just a few years ago, it was derelict. A brownfield site that was essentially a waste of space, right in the centre of Manchester.
When that space was developed, something remarkable was uncovered: a hidden river. The River Medlock, underneath all the muck and forgotten rubble, had always been there. Only when the area was regenerated was the river properly uncovered. Now it's beautiful, and the river is giving life to new things.
Before, people didn't want to be there. Now, it's a destination. Through the process of development, the area has been transformed, and a river is no longer overlooked but celebrated.
Streams in the Wasteland
Isaiah 43:18-19 says: "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."
Water in a wasteland brings life to where it struggled before. A new thing requires a new way of being. In Isaiah 43, God is trying to wake His people up.
Just a few verses later, God says: look, I'm doing this thing, and you aren't calling on me. You haven't brought me your worship. But you have brought me something—you've brought me your sin.
My question to us: What works of God are we overlooking because we aren't digging? What are we missing because we don't have our lives organised around God and His work in this world?
There are rivers of life flowing, waiting to be unveiled through the transformational process of spiritual development.
The Practices That Transform Us
The thing about habits is that we choose what habits we want, and when we follow through with them, they end up changing us. Bad habits can be wildly destructive. Habits are practices that transform us. Sometimes physically, sometimes financially...but what about spiritually?
If we want to grow in our spiritual lives, a new thing requires living in new ways. We don't want to overlook that beautiful river just beneath our feet. We need to uncover it and experience God's purpose and beauty in our lives.
This is what Jesus wants us to understand when He says: "I am the true vine." If that's true—if He's not lying—that means our life is directly connected to His. The more we grasp that, through abiding with Him, living with Him in close relationship, the more of His life will be at work in ours.
At our church in Manchester, we're discovering together what it means to live connected to this source of life, rather than merely going through religious motions.
The True Vine
Who Jesus Claims to Be
Jesus starts by telling us who He is: "I am the true vine." This is the most important part, and if it's not true, then none of this matters or is worth listening to.
Jesus is the true vine. He's saying He is the source of life. He is the origin of our passions, loves, and meaning in life. If we miss Him, we can have everything else in the world and we will miss out.
In John's Gospel, Jesus also says He is the Bread of Life, the light of the world, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life. Jesus has said many, many times that He is God. You can't see Jesus as merely a teacher because the main thing He taught is that He is God.
And what does God want? He wants us to have life—and all of it! The only way we can have it is if we are connected to Him. It's an inclusive invitation to an exclusive relationship.
Inclusive invitation: to everyone! But an invitation not just to do whatever or live however—an invitation to something specific: a relationship with Jesus on His terms, not ours. Understanding what it means to be a Christian helps clarify what this relationship entails.
Beware of Imposter Vines
Now, if Jesus isn't lying here, and He is the true vine, that means everything else that claims to be a true vine—a true connection to life—is an imposter. Everything else is masquerading as the true connection to life and not actually able to follow through.
There are many imposter vines out there. We will literally make anything else other than Jesus a true vine:
Our careers
Money
Friendship
Sexuality
Alcohol and drug addiction
Families
Some of these are good, some aren't, but none of them are the true vine. Only Jesus has what we need at a fundamental level.
The Branches: Who We Are
Disconnected Branches
We are the branches. By themselves, branches die. In fact, as soon as they're cut off from the vine, they're technically dead.
Branches on their own are really only worth being burned in a fire. It's like a Christmas tree at the end of January! And that's what Jesus says in verse 6: "If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned."
Try as we might, without being connected to the true vine, what can branches do? Jesus says "nothing": "...apart from me you can do nothing."
This should really confront our own inflated sense of self. You could be amazing—in fact, you are amazing. But disconnected from Jesus? Fodder for the fire. When Jesus says fire, it's a scary thing. The stakes are high here.
Branches disconnected from their home are worthless, burned up. If you're disconnected from Jesus, life could go well on the outside, but there will always be a part of you that is frustrated and disconnected. The end for a disconnected branch is fire.
Connected Branches
So: I don't want to waste my life, I don't want the fire to be where I'm going. What's the other option?
A branch connected to the true vine is an extension of all that the vine has—not just for the branch, but for others as well.
To be fully alive, to have a purpose, to be connected to life (instead of disconnected), to produce fruit. That means more beauty in the world because of you, more love in the world because of you, more people alive in this world because of you.
Jesus is the vine; we're the branches. He isn't going anywhere. He will always be the firm, permanent God that we can always be connected to, regardless of whatever this world throws at us.
Two Crucial Questions
So: Jesus is the true vine. You are a branch.
Two questions:
First: Are you connected to Jesus? Or disconnected? If you are a follower of Jesus, you're connected. If not, you aren't connected to Him yet.
Second, to those who do follow Jesus and are connected: how closely are you connected to Him? Just barely hanging on by a thread? Or firmly rooted together?
Everyone here should know: anyone can be connected to Jesus. If you find yourself disconnected, either in whole or in part, the reason Jesus is saying these words to you today is so that you would get more connected.
Remain: The Practice of Abiding
What It Means to Remain
Jesus tells us branches to remain in various ways: Remain in me, remain in my love, and remain in my words.
All the vine has belongs to the branches—all of it! All that Jesus has belongs to us! All that Jesus has, all His love, His power, His purpose—none of that is for Himself. He loves to give it to us.
When we refuse to enter into the practices Jesus Himself commands, we miss out on what He has for us. This is what it means to remain in Jesus, to abide. To abide means living with Jesus in close relationship, so that more of His life will be at work in ours.
We do this through hearing His words to us and praying our words to Him.
It's very simple: reading the Bible and praying.
The Word: Hearing God Speak
Jesus here in John 15 commands us to remain in His words. How can you remain in His words if you keep your Bible shut? We keep God's mouth shut when we keep our Bibles shut. How ridiculous to have a relationship with someone and say, "Oh yeah, I like you, I just don't want to hear you talk." Crazy, right? Proof that you don't really love someone, right?
Conversations are important. And not just where you talk at them all the time. The Bible is God's Word to us. If we don't listen to it, don't care to build our lives around it, don't take time to investigate it, we are nothing but disconnected branches.
In the Old Testament, we read what God told Joshua: "Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful" (Joshua 1:8).
This is God talking about His Word. Day and night, study, reckon with it, be careful to follow everything—not just the easy parts that you already agree with.
When Jesus says difficult things that cause others to walk away or not follow Him, if we choose this practice and have it transform us, we can say with Peter: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68).
One good aspect of this is it prevents us from making a Jesus of our own image. When we come to the Bible, come to faith, we all have an idea of who God ought to be. But God tells us who He really is. Jesus tells us who He really is. We ought to expect a disconnect between what we think He is versus who He really is. Actually, if Jesus doesn't throw you for a loop, you've probably made Him into something you imagine. A little pet Jesus—"Aw, isn't he cute, he's exactly what I've made Him to be!"
But the reality is the opposite! We are called to surrender to who He is, who He really is. Even, especially, when we find it difficult.
Exploring resources like the Read the Bible course can help develop this vital practice.
Prayer: Speaking to God
Which is why we pray.
There's remaining in God's words, and if there is a relationship, it means we have words for God. That's called prayer.
When we come into contact with God's words, we talk to Him about it. We ask Him to work His life in us. We ask Him to help us in our doubts and unbelief. We ask to understand these words.
Then when we are in contact with God's world, we talk to Him about it. Struggles we go through, hopes we have, people we love. Everything from the annoying thing at your job during the week to the dreams and pain that you have in your heart—we get to bring all of it to God. He has all we need!
One of the reasons we do this is because He is near; He is already next to you. How rude to ignore Him! You wouldn't do that to a friend, yet we think it's acceptable to do this to God, don't we?
"What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him?" (Deuteronomy 4:7).
What a resource! Why would we overlook this?
The habits of the Christian life are not just practices we are required to do, as if we're ticking a box, but they transform us for the better because they help us abide with Jesus, the true vine. They help us uncover that river of life flowing beneath our feet.
Exploring resources like the Prayer course can help develop this vital practice.
Choosing Transformative Habits
The more we lean into these practices, the more we find our hearts get changed, the more our desires change.
We choose our habits, and they end up transforming us. So let's pick the practices that will give us life instead of stealing it from us.
Reading one chapter of the Bible is better than getting those extra 15 minutes of sleep.
Spending 10 minutes in prayer as you eat lunch is better than doom scrolling.
If you want to have a deeper relationship with God, spend more time with Him. It's not complex! If you aren't spending time with Him, maybe you think your relationship with God is good, but God says it's not. If you aren't in the Word and in prayer with God consistently, you don't have a good relationship with God.
Everyone is in different places with these practices, and that's fine. What do you want for the next 12 months?
A good start, if you're a Christian and aren't doing this, should be your goal:
Every day: Read one chapter of the Bible and take 5-10 minutes to pray afterwards.
It's not much—that's easily less than 30 minutes. This is like the bare minimum for having a relationship with God. If you aren't a Christian, do that and your life will change. Don't do this unless you want to be part of this life-giving vine; it will radically change your life!
We want as many people as possible doing this. We've created resources to help you with this, they are all up on our Habits page.
And if all of this is new to you, the best next step you can take is to take our Alpha course. Six sessions where we bring up different aspects of Christianity and discuss them. It's the best way to make sure you don't have a life that misses out on Jesus.
The Result of Remaining
A Fruitful Life
What is the result of this practice of abiding?
A life of abiding with Christ leads to a fruitful life. A fruitful life is a life well-lived—filled with joy, with love, with peace, with gentleness, with kindness, with patience, with self-control. It's all the things our heart desires. It's the kind of life that money can't buy. The kind of life that effort alone in our lives can't accomplish.
It's not first about trying hard that gets you there. It's how connected you, a branch, are to the life-giving vine that is Jesus.
How do you get connected to life? Jesus tells us: being in the Bible and praying are fundamental. If you aren't, you're missing out on this river of life, of joy, of love, of everything that is good.
Actually, what Jesus is saying here is that you can't have real peace, real love, real joy—like God-level love, peace, and joy—unless you are connected to Him. Discovering how to have a meaningful life begins with this connection.
There is the first step in being connected to Him, in coming to Jesus, deciding to follow Him. That first step becomes part of a longer journey of many steps. As we continue to abide, growing deeper with Him. Nobody ever arrives; everyone can grow deeper. Where is Jesus inviting you to abide more in Him? The result is nothing but good—for you and for others in your life.
Practice Keeps a Promise
The practices of reading and prayer keep a promise. Practice keeps a promise.
The only way we can do anything is because of the true vine. No amount of passion, of work, of intelligence can get you what you need.
What you need, what we all need, is the true vine at work in our lives. The branch can be good because of the work of the vine.
The Work of the Vine
Jesus, the true vine, died, rose again, has ascended, and is now in power over all things. The work of the vine is what gives us life, which is why, even in talking about our practices—what we do—we must come back to the work of the vine. Without it, we're nothing. With it, we have everything.
Jesus, our true vine, took on the death that us dead branches had within us. He did that so that we could be grafted into life, so that we wouldn't stay dead, fodder for a fire.
By ourselves, we're nothing. With Him, we have everything. Let's discover more of how this river of life is flowing. Let's discover more of this "new thing" God is doing, and let's do that together.
Redeemer is a church in Manchester and we are committed to helping one another develop these life-giving practices—not as religious obligations, but as the means by which we discover the river of life that flows beneath our feet, waiting to be uncovered and celebrated.