SERIES: The Gospel of John
The Secret of Bearing Fruit
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: During our current exposition of the Gospel of John, which began last September and will temporarily conclude next Sunday (we’ll return to finish the book early next year, Lord willing), we have heard Jesus make six great claims in the form of “I AM” statements.
I am the Bread of Life.
I am the Light of the world.
I am the Door.
I am the Good Shepherd.
I am the Resurrection and the Life.
I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Today we come to the seventh and final of these great “I AM” statements: “I am the True Vine.” This claim was made as He left the Upper Room with His disciples on His way to the Garden of Gethsemane to spend His last night on earth in prayer. It introduces a kind of parable on the absolute necessity for Christians to pursue intentional fellowship and communion with Jesus. What this passage is saying is that coming to personal faith in Christ (being born again, if you will), is not the end of the Christian life—it’s just the beginning. Far too many people think they’ve arrived spiritually when they pray a prayer of commitment. They treat conversion like fire insurance from hell. But Jesus makes it explicitly clear to us here in John 15 (and in many other places, for that matter) that the Christian life is a relationship, not an event, and if we fail to treat it as a relationship there may be some shocking results in store for us.
As we read the text, I encourage you to try to identify the key persons in this parable of God’s vineyard, John 15:1-8:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
The persons of God’s vineyard are identified. (1, 5)
Jesus is the vine. He calls Himself “the true vine,” implying the existence of a vine that has failed to live up to its destiny. As a matter of fact, the nation of Israel is frequently portrayed in the OT as God’s vine or God’s vineyard. For example, in Psalm 80, verse 8, we read,
“You, (O God Almighty), brought a vine out of Egypt (referring to the Exodus); you drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches. It sent out its boughs to the (Mediterranean) Sea, its shoots as far as the River (the Euphrates).”
Isaiah 5 adds, “The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight.” So the vine was well-known as a symbol of Israel. But the amazing thing is that every time Israel is referred to as a vine, it is always in a context of her degeneration rather than her fruitfulness. The point is invariably made that Israel, despite all the care given to her by the divine Gardener, is a vine run wild producing sour grapes or no grapes at all. Listen to the prophet’s evaluation of God’s vineyard, also in Isaiah 5:
“I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.”
(Then God speaks): “Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?”
In contrast to the worthless vine of Israel, Jesus is the true vine—committed to doing His Father’s will and nourishing the grapes that would grow on His branches.
God is the gardener. Jesus states that clearly in verse 1. The gardener or vinedresser is the one who plants the vines, cultivates the ground, fertilizes, prunes, and waters. All these activities demonstrate the sovereign love and care God has for His own.
Believers are the branches. In verse 5 Jesus speaks clearly to His disciples, “I am the vine; you are the branches.” Perhaps I should put “believers” in quotation marks, because there is a lot of debate among Bible teachers as to whether all of these branches, especially the ones who are “cut off,” are true believers, as opposed to being merely professing believers. We will examine this question more closely in a few moments, but at the very least the branches are those who have had some recognized connection with Jesus—they are in the community known as Christians.
Having identified the key persons, Jesus focuses on the branches.
The sole function of the branches in God’s vineyard is bearing fruit. (2, 6)
When people go looking for new furniture or cabinets the most important factor is almost always the kind of wood—mahogany or maple is good, teakwood or oak is better, walnut or cherry is best. Have you ever seen a piece of furniture made out of grapevine? Probably not. Nor do you have a den made of vine paneling. Nor does anyone whittle with vine wood. In fact, no one even goes out and chops up old vines for the fireplace. The reason is that the wood is too soft, too gnarled, too knotty, too brittle, and too quickly burned to be useful for anything constructive, except bearing fruit.
The Jews in ancient times were required to bring a certain amount of wood to the temple for use in the sacrifices, but vine wood was not acceptable. Read Ezekiel 15 sometime—it’s a very brief chapter about vine wood and it sheds considerable light on John 15.
It’s not surprising, then, that Jesus says in verse 2, “He (the divine Gardener) cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit.” Then down in verse 6 this process of getting rid of the dead wood is expanded upon: “If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” It is clear from both these verses that …
Branches that do not bear fruit are cut off and burned. Now immediately the question is raised in most thinking minds, “Who are these branches that are cut off and what is the fire to which they are consigned?” Especially difficult is the phrase “in me” in verse 2: “He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit.” Some would say, “See, these branches are ‘in Christ;’ i.e., they are born again. These are not just hangers-on, not spiritual phonies like Judas. Yet they are cut off and eventually burned. They’ve lost their salvation.”
Others respond that John’s use of “in me” may simply indicate a loose connection with Christ rather than saving faith. And still others suggest that even if the branches are all true believers, the “being cut off and cast into the fire” may not refer to hell but rather to divine discipline. All this raises a very important theological question: Is this treatise on the Vine and the Branches discussing salvation truth, or is this sanctification truth?
Salvation, of course, deals with our becoming children of God. Sanctification, on the other hand, deals with our growth as children of God. Which is Jesus addressing in this parable? The answer we give makes a big difference in how we interpret this passage. If this is salvation truth, then Jesus seems to be saying that everyone who fails to evidence the fruit of salvation is eventually cut off and thrown into the lake of fire at the Great White Throne Judgment. Whether they were once “in Christ,” (as some theologians would allow), or they just appeared to be “in Christ” (like others would suggest, using Judas as an example), these individuals are eventually removed from the church as the tares are removed from the wheat by the angels at the last day.
On the other hand, if this is sanctification truth, Jesus appears to be saying that unproductive Christians will eventually be disciplined by God and will be subjected to the cleansing fire of the Judgment Seat of Christ, which is the judgment for believers (as opposed to the Great White Throne Judgment for unbelievers). If one must decide between these two views, I would lean toward the latter for two reasons.
First, the language of this parable lends itself to the theme of growth much more than salvation. Have you noticed that four categories of people are mentioned: those with no fruit, those with fruit, those with more fruit, and those with much fruit. Regarding salvation, there are only two categories I know anything about—those who are saved and those who are not.
Second, there are other passages of Scripture which say almost the same thing as this one about the judgment of fruit in a believer’s life. Let me mention just one—I Corinthians 3:10-15. In fact, I want you to turn to that passage and examine it with me for a few moments.
“By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss.”
On a surface reading one might say that these individuals who use materials like wood, hay, or straw to build God’s church will eventually experience the fires of hell, but that interpretation is not possible because of the very next phrase: “he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.” The believers Paul has in view here are saved individuals, but something is dreadfully wrong with the way they have lived and served God—so wrong that on the day of judgment they will see all their work destroyed before their very eyes and they will get to Heaven literally by the skin of their teeth.
John 15 may very well be saying the same thing when it refers to branches in Christ that are cut off, picked up, and burned. The message, then, is that God will not tolerate apathy and disobedience and fruitlessness among His people indefinitely. If that is correct, I believe a lot of Christian people in our churches may be playing with fire, for a lot of Christian people are spiritually dry and shriveled.
But, praise God, some branches do bear fruit. And if God disciplines those that don’t, He must just bless the socks off those who do. Well, in a sense, yes, He does. But not if you mean He makes everything easy for them. Look at the middle of verse 2: “Every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”
Branches that bear fruit are pruned so they can bear more fruit. Lareau Lindquist is the President of Barnabas International, a ministry of encouragement to missionaries and pastors around the world. In his May letter to his supporters Lareau, who is an ordained Free Church pastor, writes,
“On a recent trip to Huanaco, Peru, I observed a lesson from an avocado tree. It was in the courtyard of some friends. The tree was large and heavily ladened with big, beautiful avocados. I commented on the bountiful harvest, soon to be ready to eat and enjoy. I was told that this particular tree had not always been so fruitful. My host gave me a short history of that specific tree. He told me that the tree had just recently become fruitful. It had always been a pretty tree … lots of leaves but no fruit.
He went on to explain that a local Quechua Indian told him that the tree needed to be pruned before it would become fruitful. In fact, the Indian offered to prune the tree. One day the Indian brought his machete and started to work on the tree. He beat the tree. He bruised it. He cut it. He slashed it. Soon the tree was really a sad sight … bleeding and pitiful. But eventually … there was a dramatic change. The tree became fruitful. There was fruit … and more fruit … and much fruit.”
Friends, pruning is never a painless process. Just as a surgeon cannot heal without wounding his patient, so God cannot build Christ’s character into our lives without some pain. In fact, Jesus Himself learned obedience, the book of Hebrews tells us, by the things He suffered, and He suffered more than you or I ever will. Some branches in God’s vineyard may be so stubborn that He must beat them, bruise them, cut them, and slash them, leaving them bleeding and pitiful. But I can assure you He will never do that unless it is necessary. God is not a sadist. He loves His children, but He knows that pain, trial, and tribulation are megaphones that sometimes get our attention more quickly than kindness.
Now another theological question arises at this point: Is “fruit” in the believer’s life soul-winning, or is it something else? When I was a kid, Christian leaders almost always talked about bearing fruit as leading people to Christ. If you were sharing your faith and winning souls you were producing fruit; if not, you weren’t. But I ask you, “Where in the context of John 15 is bearing fruit connected with evangelism?” Nowhere, at least directly. In fact, it would be unfair if fruitfulness were tied to a spiritual gift, which evangelism is, because those with the gift would have a much easier time being fruitful, whereas Jesus expects all His disciples to be fruitful.
I believe a fruitful life refers primarily to growth in Christlike character. In fact, the best place to find a description of Christian fruit is Galatians 5:22ff. Listen: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” That perfectly describes the character of Christ, and that is the benchmark by which fruitfulness in our lives is to be judged. Sharing one’s faith will be natural, almost automatic, for someone whose life is characterized by the fruit of the Spirit, but we must not reduce fruitfulness to one activity.
Now let’s move another step forward in our thinking. If bearing fruit is the sole function of the branches in God’s vineyard, so much so that fruitless branches are cut off and fruitbearing branches are pruned to bear even more fruit, isn’t it critical for us to find out what enables some branches to produce fruit while others fail? I’m glad you asked, for it just so happens that our third point is that
Bearing fruit is absolutely dependent upon, and the inevitable result of, remaining connected to the vine. (4-5)
A branch that becomes disconnected cannot bear fruit. In the middle of verse 4 Jesus says, “No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.” I have always enjoyed gardening, though in recent years I have had neither the place nor time to devote to it. But I remember like yesterday the day they passed out little trees on arbor day when I was in the fourth grade at Lockwood School in Webster. I received a blue spruce tree about 12 inches high. I took it home, dug a hole, got some good dirt, and planted that tree. I faithfully watered it every week, pulled the grass around it, and for over a year babied that tree. I was so excited to see new branches come out the second year that I dreamed about being another Johnny Appleseed.
But then one day I noticed that the tree was sick—very sick. The needles had turned yellow, and it was leaning over. I got down on my knees next to that little tree and examined it, only to have it come right out of the ground when I took hold of it. Imagine my surprise to find that it had been cleanly cut about an inch from the ground. I just about lost it, running into the house and demanding to know who had cut down my tree. As it turned out my little sister had been mowing the lawn a couple of days earlier with one of those old push mowers, had gotten too close to the tree, and had cut it in two. Knowing how much it meant to me, she had stuck it back in the ground and had pushed dirt up around the trunk to make it stand up straight, hoping against hope that I wouldn’t notice. Of course, that effort was futile because any tree severed from its roots dies very quickly.
When Jesus says, “No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine,” the application is not left up to our imagination. He concludes verse 4 this way: “Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” In fact, He states the same truth even more strongly at the end of verse 5: “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” There are very few statements in the Bible more important for us as believers to grasp than this one. It doesn’t say, “Apart from Me you cannot do as much as otherwise.” Nor does it say, “Apart from Me you can do only a little.” No, “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” Nothing of value, nothing eternal.
Even great acts of charity are a big zero in God’s ledger if the one doing them is disconnected from Christ. Even noble deeds of courage are a big zero in God’s ledger if the one doing them is disconnected from Christ. Even biblical sermons, well-prepared, are worthless if the one preparing them is disconnected from Christ.
On the other hand…,
A branch that remains in the vine will bear much fruit. Look at verse 5: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit.” Fruitfulness is promised, it is guaranteed to the one who remains connected with the vine, Jesus Christ, which brings us to our final question, “What does it mean to abide in Christ or to remain in Him. How do we stay connected?”
Our fourth point this morning answers this very question:
Remaining connected to the vine involves two primary things—receiving the words of Christ and being disciples of Christ. (7-10)
Of course, it goes without saying that one cannot remain connected to the Vine unless one becomes attached in the first place. In the vineyard business virtually all the grapes are grown on branches that are grafted on to root stock. That’s not a bad analogy to how we become attached to the Vine, Jesus Christ. None of us are His natural children—we are His adopted children. (We are not borninto God’s family; we are born again into His family). Once adopted into His family, however, we maintain connectedness by first …
Receiving the words of Christ. “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit.” The most important thing to note here is that remaining connected to Christ is a two-way affair. We must choose to abide in Him, but His words also must abide in us. Clearly this is a reference to His own teaching, as well as teaching about Him, found in the Bible. This is a clarion call to study the Scriptures and saturate our minds and hearts with it. Some people imagine that they can have the person of Christ without the teaching of Christ. They like the idea of Jesus, but they shy away from the uncompromising nature of His teaching. But that is not possible. We must receive His words if we are to remain connected with Him and bear fruit.
Every one of you has demonstrated at least some interest in the words of Christ just by virtue of your being here this morning, unless you are a visitor and didn’t have any idea what you were getting into. This is what we do every Sunday morning—we examine the Scriptures. But let me ask you a key question, “Do you believe that listening to one 30-minute sermon a week fulfills Jesus’ intention here in verse 7?” I doubt it seriously. It’s helpful, but it is probably not enough to satisfy the phrase, “if my words remain in you.”
However, there are things every one of us can do to ensure that this condition is met in our lives. We can participate in an SCL class or a home fellowship where the Scriptures are studied, discussed, and applied in a practical way. We can get involved in a weekly Bible class like BSF or CBS or Navigators or Salt and Light. We can read good Christian literature. We can get our children into a kid’s club like AWANA, where they regularly memorize Scripture.
But more important than any of those things—we can read and study the Bible daily for ourselves, being sure to apply what we learn. That’s how we remain connected to the vine. It’s also, by the way, one of the keys to answered prayer. Look at verse 7: “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.”
Just two weeks ago we saw in John 14:14 a great promise about prayer: “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” We noted then that an important contingency was attached to that promise—what we pray must be in Jesus’ name, that is it must be in accord with all that He stands for—but here two more contingencies are given. To be assured of answered prayer we must (1) remain in Christ and (2) allow His words to remain in us.
A second important factor involved in abiding in Christ is …
Being disciples of Christ. Look again at verse 8: “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” Jesus here says that the way we remain connected to the vine, and therefore the way we produce fruit, is through being His disciples. A disciple is a learner, a follower, but perhaps the key requirement of a disciple is obedience, and if you look ahead a few verses in John 15 you will note that obedience is a major theme coming up. We simply cannot legitimately claim to be disciples of Jesus Christ if we are not striving to live by His commands and His principles.
Friends, abiding in Christ has been considered by many to be a kind of mystical state of spiritual union. Many have tried to achieve that state through meditation, prayer, spiritual retreats, good works, you name it. Those things are all good, when done for the right reason, but I would suggest to you that abiding in Christ, remaining connected to Him, is not a mystical state available only to monks and hermits and those who imitate them. It is a state available to every one of us who is willing to make the choices necessary to have a vital, loving relationship with another person.
Let’s use an analogy that many here are familiar with—marriage—and those who are not familiar with it by experience are nevertheless certainly familiar with it by observation. A husband and wife can exist in the same house without abiding with one another, without remaining connected. In fact, it’s easy, if we’re not careful, to take one another for granted and pursue one’s own interests or even the kids’ interests. We don’t even have to be angry or at each other’s throats. We just drift apart if we don’t make intentional decisions to prevent it from happening.
The same is true of our relationship with God. We don’t have to get angry with God for something He allows or doesn’t allow. We don’t even have to get involved in some gross sin. We can just pull away and become distant doing the ordinary things of life, taking Him for granted and leaving Him out. Listen to Ray Stedman:
“When our Lord says, ‘Abide in Me,’ He is talking about the will, about the choices, the decisions we make. We must decide to do things which expose ourselves to Him and keep us in contact with Him. We have been placed into Christ by the Holy Spirit. Now we must choose to maintain that relationship by the decisions we make—decisions to expose ourselves to His Word in order to learn about Him, and to relate to Him in prayer.” [i]
Stedman doesn’t mean for a moment that we have to keep ourselves saved, but there is a sense in which we must keep ourselves in fellowship.
Conclusion: Have you stopped to think about the fact that every one of our lives bears fruit? Oh, I know that John 15 speaks of the divine gardener cutting off every branch that bears no fruit, but that obviously refers to the positive spiritual fruit which the entire passage is focused upon. But there’s another sense in which every life bears some kind of fruit. I referred earlier to the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, but in the paragraph immediately preceding that great list there is another list, and it is broken up into several categories. Probably no one is guilty of all of these, but we would do well to examine our own lives as we consider the categories of fruit Paul presents:
“The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery(those generally go together); idolatry and witchcraft; (now here’s a large cluster of grapes that is not unknown in the church:) hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; (finally) drunkenness, orgies, and the like.”
The clear implication of Scripture is that the fruit of the sinful nature and the fruit of the Spirit cannot grow on the same branch. Oh, certainly one who is demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit can have a momentary lapse from time to time, and one can fake the fruit of the Spirit—Judas did it quite well, and many do so regularly in the church today. But one cannot at the same time be living a life of moral impurity, hatred, selfish ambition, or drunkenness and be fruitful for Christ. It is not possible.
I would like to take you back to the 5th chapter of Isaiah, where we earlier read of God’s vineyard, Israel, and how God asked, “What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?” The next two verses tell us what God decided to do with that vineyard: “Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.”
I believe this is the destiny of many branches in God’s vineyard today, sad to say. Perhaps there are some here this morning who have been drying up. But there’s still a bit of sap left, and there’s a desire to again draw life and nourishment from the Vine. If that is your desire, then it’s not too late. Right now, right where you’re sitting, invite Jesus to take full control of your life. Begin today abiding in Him.
DATE: May 23, 1993
Tags:
Fruit
Sanctification
Pruning
Abiding
[i] Ray Stedman, Secrets of the Spirit, 81.