As Father tending tender plant

John 15:1: [1] I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

“That’s an interesting verse because you need to kind of appreciate what He’s saying. When He says He’s the true vine, if you go back to chapter one, He talks about how John was a light but ‘I’m the true light.’ In chapter six He says that Moses gave the manna, the bread from heaven, but ‘I’m the true bread.’

“He’s not saying, ‘There’s the false one and I’m the correct one.’ He’s saying, ‘I’m the authentic REAL one. I’m the ultimate enduring reality. I’m what everything else pointed to and looked at. I’m the real deal and where the real vine is, is me.’

“The vine tree in Scripture is one of four distinct trees used to represent the life of the nation Israel in four distinct ways. The vine tree looks at the nation as an earthly nation.

“The reason He used that here, I suppose, is exactly the point I’ve been trying to make, which is He’s now focusing on the disciples: ‘I’m going away! I’m leaving you here on the earth and you’re going to be my nation in the earth. But it’s not just any nation. I’m the true nation. You have to be in me to be the real Israel of God. I’m the true vine. My Father is the husbandman.’

“Husbandry has to do with gardening. It’s interesting that God would use that terminology of a husband to describe the role that we ascribe to a husband. But a husbandman in the Scripture is someone who cultivates and cares for a garden. Sort of the caretaker. When I read this verse and I just, I was thinking this afternoon, you know . . .

“That’s saying that God the Father was the caretaker for the Lord Jesus Christ. When He’s the husbandman of the vine and Jesus said, ‘I’m the vine,’ Christ’s literally saying, ‘You know, I’m doing this stuff to do what my Father gave me to do. He gave me a commandment. And my Father is the one who is taking care of me, who’s jealous over watching over me and my development; my growth.’

“Now there’s a passage back in Isaiah 53 that kind of alerts you to that:

[1] Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
[2] For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
[3] He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

“The Messiah’s going to grow up before Him. That is, He’s as a tender plant and as a root out of the dry ground.

"There’s that horticulture terminology. There’s the husbandman. And what’s the Father do? He’s overseeing; He’s tending. He’s watching out for Him and He watches out for His development.”