John 15:1-11 | What's a lesson for the original audience?

As the lesson of the disciples not being able to do anything to please God in it of themselves, Jesus is showing them how to become pleasing to the Lord. In modern audiences, we have this strange belief that we simply cannot be pleasing to the Lord. This was not the case for the original audience. They not only believed they should be pleasing to God. They believed they could. So it was a two-fold lesson for the original audience to learn that they could not do so on their own efforts, but only in abiding in Him.

A branch cannot bear fruit of itself. Man cannot produce the righteousness the Lord desires to see on their own volition. In a world where they lived under the law, it was each man's own responsibility to make themselves pleasing to the Lord. To find that to be insufficient would be a wake up call. As mankind, we like to trust in ourselves. But just as the prophet Jeremiah says, "Cursed is the man who trusts in man." Fortunately, they learn that the condition of them being pleasing to God is dependent on the most righteous Man who ever lived, Jesus Christ.

To us, the works that are produced may look like good fruit. But it is like an ornamental orange. It appears to be a lush fruit, but the rind is thick and the fruit within is bitter. The fruit that is produced from this vine is nutrient-rich fruit that the Lord delights in. So what is the lesson that the original audience must take? They must abide. They must belong to the vine. They cannot depart from it nor detach themselves at any point. They must glean from the Lord that sustenance that supplies everything needed for life and godliness.

What lesson are you seeing for the original audience?