Sunday School Lesson:Jesus is the Vine
Just before the Lord Jesus was betrayed and crucified, He had a long talk with His disciples to prepare them for what was to come. As they walked together one evening out from the city to a quiet garden near by, He called their attention to the trees and vines along the path.
Then He said, “My Father in Heaven is like the gardener. I am the true Vine which He has planted here, and you are like the branches of that vine. If you break off a branch, it will die; for it can only live while the sap the life of the vine, flows into it. So it is only as you trust Me and let My life control yours, will there be spiritual life in you to keep you alive and to grow any fruit on your branches. A dead tree can never bear fruit.”
Jesus used the word abide which means to settle down and stay there. He said, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he that abides in Me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without Me you can do nothing.”
Take a branch from a fruit tree into your class and explain, in the spring the whole tree is covered with beautiful blossoms, and in the autumn it brings forth juicy fruit. I have taken this branch from the fruit tree how soon do you think I can expect to see some fruit? Although this branch looks like the tree its leaves are the same as the leaves on the tree; why will there be no fruit?
There will be no fruit as the branch will die because it has been cut off from the tree. The tree keeps the branches alive. The sap from the tree cannot flow into it to feed it, so it will bear no fruit. More than that it will die. This lesson shows us how Jesus taught His disciples that they were just branches, and that they could not do anything apart from Him.