Four Steps To Bearing Fruit

One time on the farm I was sitting on my porch admiring the rose bushes that were in bloom. A couple of weeks prior they had appeared to be dead. They hadn’t been pruned in over two years since my mom passed away. Each bush was a huge mass of dead branches. My wife asked me about them, and I told her that if she would cut off all the branches that appeared to be dead [which was about all of them] that they would begin flourishing again. So, she went to work pruning them with the clippers; and sure enough, they came back and appear to be flourishing.

Those rose bushes relate to what I’m going to share with you this evening. John chapter 15 speaks of “bearing fruit,” which many times we interpret as winning lost souls to Christ. However, winning people to Christ is only one meaning of the word fruit. For example, another biblical reference to fruit can be the “fruit of the Spirit.” We gain yet another understanding of fruit through the eyes of the disciples. As people who lived in an agricultural society, they would have understood that fruit symbolized the best result or sweetest prize in life (Bruce Wilkinson, Secrets of the Vine, p. 20).(1)

In John chapter 15, Jesus isn’t trying to scold His disciples for not winning people to Christ, but He desires to instill within them four keys that will lead to confident godly living and abundance in life. Let’s read John 15:1-6, and see if we can discover what Jesus is trying to tell His disciples; both His disciples then and today.

A Message on Fruit Bearing (John 15:1-6)

1I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

Before we expound on the meaning of this passage we need to look at the context of Jesus’ words. Back in John chapter 14, Jesus had been talking with His disciples in the upper room preparing them for His departure. He said things such as, “You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and coming back to you’,” and “I am going to the Father” (v. 28). Jesus knew that His disciples were heartbroken when they learned that He was to die on the cross, and this is the reason why He told them in John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

After Jesus had finished speaking with His disciples, He said, “Arise, let us go from here” (John 14:31), and they departed the upper room and headed toward the Garden of Gethsemane. You can just picture their journey: “Along the terraces that follow the curve of the valley, they pass through ancient vineyards. They walk in single file between rows of neatly tended grapes, plants that have been bearing fruit for generations . . . Here Jesus stops. Hemmed in by rows of vines, the disciples gather around. Lamps and torches sputter in the night air and flicker in their eyes . . . Jesus reaches for a grape branch. Showing signs of new spring growth, its woody stem lies across His hand in the golden light. Now He begins. ‘I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser’ (15:1)” (p. 13).

In Jesus’ discourse He speaks of a vine that represents Jesus, a vinedresser that represent God the Father, and branches that represent you and I (pp. 18-19). He also speaks of fruit bearing, and of four different types of grape branches. One branch “bears no fruit,” another “bears fruit,” one “bears more fruit,” and yet another “bears much fruit” (pp. 24-25).

The disciples may have been sorrowful, but by the time Jesus had finished speaking with them He had shared some news that would have distracted them from their sorrow and given them hope for the life-journey they were to face ahead. These same words, once understood in their proper context, will also help us in what we may be facing and lead us into a life of significance and bearing fruit.