LIVING A FRUITFUL LIFE :1-5

The Puritan, COTTON MATTHER, was consumed with a passion to live a fruitful life. His signet ring had a fruit-bearing tree and the words of Psalm 1:3 inscribed beneath it. As he lay dying, his son and successor asked him for a word to remember when he was dead. MATTHER feebly whispered one word: “Fruitful.” This is the consuming desire of the godly believer and the faithful minister. We are to live and minister to be bear fruit to the glory of God? But how can we ensure that our lives and ministries are fruitful? answers: “ the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.” In John 15:1-11, Jesus describes the Christian life as a branch bearing fruit or being fruitful. But this description is not unique. Through the , living for God, or aspects of it, is described as bearing fruit or being fruitful. • In Matthew 3:8, speaks of true repentance as fruit. • In Matthew 7:16-20, Jesus speaks of the evidences of spiritual authenticity as fruit. • In Romans 1:13, Paul refers to winning converts to as fruit. • In Romans 6:22, he refers to growth in holiness as fruit. • In Romans 15:28, he speaks of the monetary offerings given to meet the needs of others as fruit. • In Galatians 5:22-23, the characteristics of Christlike character are called “the fruit of the Spirit.” • Colossians 1:6 pictures spiritual and numerical growth in the church as fruit. • Colossians 1:10 describes doing good works as fruit. • Hebrews 13:15 calls verbal praise to God as “the fruit of our lips.” The New Testament consistently describes godliness as fruitfulness. But John 15 is the definitive explanation of the process for spiritual fruit bearing. This explanation hinges on the claim Jesus makes for himself: “I am the true vine.” The spiritual implications of this divine claim give us a simple but comprehensive strategy for living a fruitful life.

I. RECOGNIZE THAT GOD IS THE VINE DRESSER.

John’s records seven, self-descriptive statements Jesus makes. :35 says: “I am the bread of life.” :12 says: “I am the .” :9 says: “I am the door.” John 10:11 says: “I am the .” :25 says: “I am the resurrection and the life.” :6 says: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Finally, in John 15:1, Jesus says, “I am the true vine.” This final “I AM” statement is the only one in which Christ makes an explicit part of the . Verse 1 says: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.” A vine or vineyard needs someone to care for it. This is the sovereign role God the Father plays in the spiritual world.

1 • God is the vinedresser. • God is the gardener. • God is the husbandman. • God is the one who owns and operates the land. • God is the one who cultivates the vineyard and cares for the vine. Jesus describes the Father this way to teach two lessons about God’s will for us and work in us.

A. IT IS GOD’S PLAN TO PRODUCE FRUIT IN OUR LIVES.

The plan of God for your life is to make it fruitful for him. John 15:8 says, “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” Colossians 1:10 says that bearing fruit pleases God. In Matthew 21:19, Jesus gives his most severe word of judgment to an unfruitful fig tree. And Matthew 21:43 makes it clear, that the cursing of the fig tree was a declaration that Israel had lost it’s privileges as God’s chosen people, because they were unfruitful. I repeat: God has just one priority for your life: SPIRITUAL FRUIT. Verse 2 tells us what God does with the branch that does not bear fruit: “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away.” Then it tells us what God does with the branch that does bear fruit: “and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” In verse 5, Jesus says: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.” Catch the progression of the text. God wants to move you from bearing no fruit, to bearing fruit. To bearing more fruit, to bearing much fruit. God’s goal for your life is that you will bear actual, added, abundant, and abiding fruit to his glory. God the Gardner is working to make our lives fruitful for him by uniting us to the true vine – the Lord Jesus Christ. We do not and cannot do anything to produce fruit in our lives. Fruitfulness is what God does in us because of our union to Christ. Our lives are fruitful for God only as we let Jesus live in us, just like the branch gets its life from being connected to the vine. Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” What is the eternal purpose for which God causes all things to work for good? Romans 8:29 answers, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” That’s God plan for your life. This is why God sent his Son into the world. This is why God gave us the Holy Spirit to live in us. This is why God has breathed out his word to us. This is why God has left us in the world. It is the will of God to have the Spirit of God use the word of God so that the children of God may look like the Son of God. God is at work to make you and me look like Jesus. Period. • God is not up to three or seven or twenty-five different things in our lives. • Ultimately, God’s purpose is not to make me a better preacher or pastor. • His purpose is not to make you a better mom or dad, husband or wife, son or daughter.

2 • His purpose is not to transform you into the world’s best secretary, teacher, manager, cop, brain surgeon, or whatever you may do. • He is not working to give you health, wealth, and success. God is bending his purpose and will to one purpose – to shape you into the image of his Son. He may be pleased to do these other things. But that is not his ultimate concern. His great objective for your life is to make you more and more like the eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ. He wants your life to bear fruit for this glory.

B. GOD IS AN EXPERT AT PRODUCING FRUIT FROM OUR LIVES.

God the gardener is great at growing grapes. How does he do it? GOD PLANTS US. Acts 17:26 says, “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.” God created us. God determined when we would live. And God established the exact places we would live. There are no accidents in the believer’s life. Nothing happens by fate, chance, of happenstance. God plants us where he knows we will grow the best. It is not always easy for us to understand why God plants us where he plants us. We often don’t like the circumstances he plants us in. Sometimes we find ourselves asking God, “Father, what are you doing in my life? Why have you put me in this situation? If you are really there, why am I really here?” But I have some good news for you: God knows what he’s doing. • What happens to you is not by accident or incident, but providential appointment. • It’s about God, not geography. • It’s about the Lord, not your location. • It’s not about where you are, but whose you are. • It’s not in the land; it’s in the man. • Where God’s finger points his hands protects. • You’ll never find yourself in a situation where God is not. God the gardener knows what he is doing. And he plants us where he knows we can grow the best. Let me put it another way: GOD USES FERTILIZER. It’s stinky. It’s dirty. It’s nasty. But it’s necessary. Without fertilizer – without hard times, painful experiences, and difficult relationships – we won’t grow. God plant us in some mess to get out of us what he has put in us. But the gardener knows what he’s doing.

GOD PRUNES US. Verse 2 says: “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” Not only does God plant, God also prunes us. God purges us. God cleanses us. He cuts back and cuts off the leaves that prevent us from growing sweet fruit. Without going into great detail about this horticultural process, let me tell you three essential facts about the pruning process: It is essential. It is unavoidable. And it hurts! But God knows what he is doing. In his book The Signature of Jesus, BRENNAN MANNING writes: “Christian maturity lies in allowing God the freedom to work his

3 sovereign wisdom in us, neither abandoning a disciplined life of prayer in frustration nor running to the distractions the world affords us.” MANNING then illustrates: “What comes to mind is the image of a branch plunged several times into fire. As the fire scorches the wood, it burns away all the natural saps and juices proper to the wood. At first, the wood is charred and ugly. Each time it is thrust into the fire, the purging process continues. Finally when all the natural juices that have been resisting the action of the fire are burnt away, the wood takes on the qualities of the fire itself and glows.” This is how God works in our lives. Sometimes he has to put us in the fire. But it is not to destroy us, but it is to purge us. By his grace, the fire transforms us so the beautiful qualities of the flame are reflected in our lives.

II. REALIZE THAT JESUS CHRIST IS THE TRUE VINE.

John 15 is a part of what we call THE UPPER ROOM DISCOURSE. It is the final lesson Jesus teaches his disciples before he is betrayed, arrested, tried, condemned, and crucified. During this , Jesus declared that he was going away and that one of them would betray him. In response, Peter said, “Lord, I will go with you.” Jesus responded, “Where I am going, you cannot go right now. But you will go later.” Peter was not down with that. “Why can’t I come with you,” he insisted. “I’ll die with you.” At this point, Jesus deflates Peter’s pride by informing him that he would deny him three times before the rooster crowed the next morning. That’s how ends. But Jesus does not leave Peter there. In John 14:1, Jesus says, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.” The Lord then begins to give his disciples a crash course on faith and ministry. He teaches them how they are to live and labor when he goes away. In John 15 Jesus teaches his disciples about one of the most vital areas of true spirituality: OUR RELATIONSHIPS. • Verses 1-11 teach us how to relate to Christ. • Verses 12-17 teach us how to relate to other believers. • Verses 18-27 teach us how to relate to the world around us. Note the progression of the text. As Christians, we must learn to relate to other believers among us and the world around us. But before we can learn to relate to others, we must learn how to relate to the Lord Jesus Christ. In our text, Jesus pictures our relationship with him to be like the union of the vine and the branch. He says, “I am the true vine.” When Jesus gives himself this Jehovistic title, he makes two important claims.

A. JESUS IS THE CENTER OF THE GARDENER’S PLAN.

When Jesus called himself the true vine, he was drawing a parallel between Israel and himself. Psalm 80:8, Isaiah 5:1-7; Jeremiah 2:21, Ezekiel 19:1-14, Hosea 10:1, and many other passages depict the relationship between God and Israel with the picture of a gardener and a vineyard. In fact, by the time of Christ, the vine had become the national symbol for Israel. A golden vine was

4 engraved over the temple area in . A vine was engraved on the coins minted during the Maccabean revolt. Israel’s “Bald Eagle” was a vine or vineyard. Some commentators suggest that Jesus appropriated this figure from vines that were along the path between the upper room and the Garden of Gethsemane. Maybe. But this is not just a from nature Jesus uses. He is making a direct comparison between himself and Israel. When Jesus called himself the true vine, his disciples would have definitely and immediately associated his statement with Israel. Here’s the catch. Although the Old Testament often speaks of Israel as a vine or vineyard, the image virtually always appears in a negative sense. The nation was a useless vineyard that bore no fruit or a spurious vine that produced sour grapes. Israel was the vine that failed to produce good fruit. Whenever historic Israel is referred to under this figure, it is a statement about the vine’s failure to produce good fruit. And it is accompanied by the threat of God’s judgment on the nation. In stark contrast to Israel’s failure to bear fruit, Jesus claims, “I am the true vine.” It’s emphatic: “I, and only I, am the true vine.” Or as WUEST puts it: “I, in contradistinction to all others, am the true vine.” Jesus is the centerpiece of God’s redemptive plans. He alone is heaven’s wonder, hell’s worry, and humanity’s way out of sin, death, and judgment. Only Jesus can say, “I am the real vine, the genuine vine, the dependable vine, the sho’ nuff vine.”

B. JESUS IS THE SOURCE OF THE BRANCH’S POWER.

A little mouse was crossing a bridge over a very deep ravine on top of an elephant. And as they crossed the bridge, it shook under the weight of the elephant. But when they got to the other side, the mouse looked at his huge companion and said, “Boy, we really shook that bridge, didn’t we?”

That’s how it often feels when you are walking with God – like a mouse with the strength of an elephant. So much so that, after crossing life’s troubled waters, we are tempted to say with the mouse, “God, we really shook that bridge, didn’t we?” But we must not lose sight of the true source of spiritual power. Our lives are fruitful, productive, and God-honoring because of Christ alone. It is no goodness of our own. Isaiah 64:6 teaches that all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. Romans 3:23 teaches that we are all sinners who fallen short of the glory of God. Ephesians 2:1 teaches that without Christ we are dead in sins and trespasses. We cannot produce spiritual fruit on our own. • Our minds are sinful. • Our eyes are lustful. • Our tongues are poisonous. • Our necks are stiff. • Our hearts are cold. • Our hands are bloody. • Our feet run shift to mischief. Without Christ, we are failures, not fruitful. But when you run to the cross, it changes everything. Spiritual fruit will not grow overnight. Fruit-bearing takes time.

5 It doesn’t happen instantly. I know we have a “quick fix” mentality these days. We want everything right now. But you don’t get fruit that way. Christlikeness, spiritual maturity, and God-glorifying ministry takes time. But if you stick with the process, the Lord will transform your life from barrenness to fruitfulness. • He will transform your heart. • He will renew your mind. • He will restore your soul. • He will sanctify your ways. • He will cleanse your hands. • He will change your attitude. • He will alter your lifestyle. When he does, make sure you recognize that the changes in your life are produce by Christ alone – by the true vine.

A.J. GORDON, one of the founders of Gordon-Conwell Divinity School, one day he was out walking and was looking across a field to a house. It was truly a remarkable sight. So Gordon started to walk toward it. As he got closer, he could see that it was not a man at the pump, but a wooden figure painted to look like a man. The arm that was pumping so rapidly was hinged at the elbow and the hand was wired to the pump handle. The water was pouring forth, but not because the figure was pumping it. It was an artesian well, and the water was pumping the man.

When you see a person who is living, working, and producing fruit, you need to recognize that it is the Lord Jesus working in that person through the Holy Spirit. And just as the wooden man was totally yielded to the water pump, so you and I as Christians must submit to the dynamic work of the true vine. And when we submit to Christ’s authority, our lives will bear true and lasting fruit to the glory of God.

III. REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE JUST A BRANCH.

MAX LUCADO wrote a provocative beatitude: “Blessed is the man who knows that there is only one God and stops applying for the position.” Indeed, if you are going to be fruitful, you must stop trying to be the gardener. And you must stop trying to be the vine. We are just branches. I am just a branch. You are just a branch. In John 15:5, Jesus declared, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” I don’t know about you, but I suffer from “TRUE-VINE-WANNA-BE-SYNDROME.” I have accomplished some things in my life and can do a few things moderately well. I have reasonable intelligence, health, and strength, family and friends who love me, and a challenging ministry. But I cannot allow these things to cause me to forget that I can do nothing without Christ. Moreover, I am nothing without Christ. You would think that I understood that pretty well by now. But I have to constantly relearn the utter futility and emptiness of trying to accomplish anything of eternal value in my own goodness, wisdom, or strength. It cannot be done.

6 • If I want to be a godly husband (and I most definitely do); without God’s enabling help, I cannot do it. • If I want to be a God-pleasing father (and I do with all my heart); without the Lord’s help, it just won’t happen. • If want to be a Christlike pastor and a faithful preacher (and the Lord knows that I do); without Christ working in me, you are looking at a man that just can’t get it done. The same is true with you and the spiritual fruit the Lord is calling you to bear. You can do nothing without Christ. But flip the record over and play the other side. With Christ, all things are possible. Ephesians 1:3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Colossians 2:10 says, “And you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.” Without Christ, nothing is impossible.

The reason why we must remember that we are just branches is so that we don’t loose sight of the one who actually produces the fruit. Christ is the true vine. We are the branches. Fruit is produced in us, not by us. The true vine is the one who actually produces the fruit. All the branch does is hold on to the vine. John 15 uses the word meno to speak of the believing branch holding on to the true vine. Meno means “to abide, to remain, or to continue.” It is used of the immutability of God, the fact that God does not change. But it is also used of people abiding, remaining, or dwelling in a certain place. This is how it is used here. Jesus says we must abide in him as he abides in us. Just like the bird is in the air and the air is in the bird, we are to abide in Christ as he abides in us. Just like the fish is in the water and the water is in the fish, we are to abide in Christ as he abides in us. • WE MUST ABIDE IN HIS WORD. In John 15:7, Jesus says, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” • WE MUST ABIDE IN HIS LOVE. In John 15:9, Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” • WE MUST ABIDE IN HIS JOY. In John 15:11, Jesus says, “These things I have spoke to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

I AM THINE, O LORD; I HAVE HEARD THY VOICE AND IT TOLD THY LOVE TO ME BUT I LONG TO RISE IN THE ARMS OF FAITH AND BE CLOSER DRAWN TO THEE

CONSECRATE ME NOW TO THY SERVICE LORD BY THE POWER OF GRACE DIVINE MAY MY SOUL LOOK UP WITH A STEADFAST HOPE AND MAY MY WILL BE LOST IN THINE

DRAW ME NEARER, NEARER BLESSED LORD TO THE CROSS WHERE THOU HAS DIED

7 DRAW ME NEARER, NEARER BLESSED LORD TO THY PRECIOUS BLEEDING SIDE

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