John 15:8-9 Now Available feat. Taylor Armstrong

John

Jun 7

John 15:8-9 is now available on all streaming platforms!

The Verse

[8] By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. [9] As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

Imagine you inherit a vineyard. As you consider its future and its laden potential, what would your greatest hopes for it be? At a minimum, it would produce delicious clusters of grapes and wine. Here in John 15:8-9, we get some of Jesus’ closing thoughts about the vine and the branches and in particular, some of the Father’s longings for His vineyard. We’ll focus on two things we see in these verses:

First, fruit is the glory.

In the same way a vineyard brings glory to its vinedresser (aka gardener, vineyard cultivator) when it lives up to all its potential and bears the sorts of grapes it was intended to create, so disciples bring glory to God when they too bear much fruit. Like each branch was created to produce a particular kind of grape, we too were created to image and reflect God in the ways we live our lives. While the world might define a life as fruitful if it’s outwardly successful, God defines fruitfulness as someone being obedient to Him and the leading of the Holy Spirit! St. Irenaeus said, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” In the case of John 15, Jesus might have stated it this way: “The glory of the Father is a branch fully fruitful.” When He comes to examine the vineyard, He longs to find it doing and being what it was created to be. We’re told that in doing so, the branches are proving to be disciples of Jesus. Disciples by definition are fruit-producing branches!

Second, abiding is the means.

This is where it gets good! Jesus tells us that as the Father has loved Him, so He has loved us. Think about this: John 15 invites us into an eternal Trinitarian love. The love that was before the world was created, that existed between the Father and the Son, is the same love that we are loved by in Jesus! What’s our response to this love? To abide in it and never stray from it. Because the branches have zero control over how much fruit they produce and when that fruit is produced, our call as disciples is a simple one: to abide in this love of Jesus. So often it can be tempting to look for particular outcomes or fruit in life or compare our lives to the branches around us and whatever fruit they happen to be producing at the time. That’s not our call! Rather, it’s to abide. As we abide, naturally we will produce fruit and bring glory to the Father, but that’s not where our main attention should lie. Let our obsession be in the abiding and not the production. What a liberating thought! It’s precisely as we stop stressing out about fruit and output and begin to zero in on Jesus’ love for us and live a life in response to that love that true fruit is birthed in our lives. Fruit flows out of branches that know they’re loved! A fruitful branch is an abiding branch, and an abiding branch is a fruitful branch. Show me fruit, and I will show you a branch that has learned to abide in the Vine. Allow God to grow the fruit of the Spirit in you as He sees best fit as you abide in Him!

What are some ways you can abide in His love today? Perhaps it’s better to even start by thanking Jesus for His intense love for you right now! Sing through the song for this passage, and zero in on the line: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you…” Picture Jesus Himself declaring and singing this over you. What a beautiful truth to linger on and abide in! Pray for a life that abides in Him through thick and thin, in every season. Finally, trust that spiritual fruit will come organically at the right time in the right way as His beloved branches and disciples!

The Song + The Artist

Written by Joel Limpic. He shared some thoughts about this song:

I loved getting to work with Taylor on this song! I’ve enjoyed his songwriting and production over the years, and to hear him bring his own take and voice to this passage was powerful… He brought a tenderness to the delivery of this song, in particular to the chorus, that was incredibly moving. I hope that as you listen and sing along, you hear the invitation of God to abide in His love again today.

Produced, performed, and recorded by Taylor Armstrong.
Mixed by Michael Keith Lewis.
Mastered by Thiago Silva Gomes.