A Branch Can Never Boast Series

Listen to me. I’m convinced the most miserable person on the planet Earth is not a lost person. The most miserable person on the planet Earth is a Christian out of the will of God, a back-slidden, fruitless Christian, because you have a sense of being cut off from God’s fruitfulness. That was Paul’s continual fear, that one day he would do something that would cause him to be disqualified for fruitfulness and usefulness. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 9 (we’re changing metaphors in the middle of the stream here) he uses an athletic metaphor, but the point is the same. He says, “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, I do not run like a man running aimlessly. I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body,” [that means I discipline myself] “and I make it my slave so that after I have preached to others” [here is his fear] “I, myself, will not be disqualified for the prize.” Paul says, “I’m so careful…I don’t want to do anything wrong, I don’t want to say anything wrong, I don’t want to get into the wrong kind of relationship…I want to stay holy and pure so God can use me because my greatest fear is that sometime in the future...chop...I’ll become disqualified for the prize. Not for heaven, that’s not the prize. The prize is the crown God gives out: the usefulness.

Look around you. Oh, they may not be here in this room today. But don’t you know a lot of people–I do–who at one time were serving God, who at one time were faithful for God, who at one time were on fire for God, and now they are just pffft...chopped off...and they are absolutely miserable. God says, “You had better be careful that it doesn’t happen.” There’s his warning.

2. Kindness: Don't neglect your attachment to the root! God's Welcome: Permit my life to flow through you

Secondly, he says, “Consider God’s kindness.” Now, here’s the point. Don’t neglect your attachment to the root. Don’t neglect your attachment to the root. The key to fruitfulness is this. God’s welcome is “Permit my life to flow through you.” Remember I said the sap was the power of God to produce fruit? The key to fruitfulness in the Christian life is allowing the Holy Spirit to flow out of the vine, out of the root and the trunk in and through us. Look what Jesus said in John 15:4, it is the same horticultural analogy. He says, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you.” No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must “stick tightly” in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you “stick tightly,” or “remain” in me.

Now, what is the fruit of the Holy Spirit? Love, joy and peace. Let’s start with those three. The way you don’t live the Christian life is this way. “I’m going to try to be loving today. I’m going to try to be joyful today. I’m going to try to have peace today.” That’s not the way you live the Christian life. The Bible says he says, “Without me, you can do nothing.” Do you know what you do? You make sure you are so closely attached to Jesus Christ and to that connection. That’s what true worship is. That connection is so firm that the life, the character, the inner nature of Jesus Christ flows out through you.