Fruit Of The Branches Ii Series

FRUIT OF THE BRANCHES II

Series on John 15 pt. 11

John 15:4

3/04/07

There is a story about a man who pulled up behind a car at stop light. The man notices a bumper sticker on the back of the mans car that read “Honk if you know Jesus”. The man thought it was a cute bumper sticker so he honked his horn, expecting to get a friendly wave. Much to his surprise that man rolled down his window and yelled back to him. “What are blowing are blankety-blank horn for, can’t you see the light’s red?!”

I am sure that many of you have been in similar situations. We see someone with a fish on their car that cuts someone off, or gives an inappropriate hand gesture. Or perhaps you have been on the other side. Maybe you have the fish or something like that and you cut someone off, or do something maybe you should not have done. I know I have been in that seat.

The point is this, if someone claims to be a Christian, be it through a bumper sticker, a fish on their car, a t-shirt or what have you, we expect certain behavior from that person. I would hope that none of would expect perfection. But we do expect certain behavior. We would expect them to exhibit some sort of fruit that would demonstrate that they are indeed Christians.

Please turn with me to our passage for today. We have been looking at John 15:4, that is page 935 in your pew Bible. I want to read vs. 4 along with verses 2,3,5.

“"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. "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. "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. "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.”

Last week we began to talk about fruit. And as I pointed out it is clear that unless you have an understanding of what the fruit is that is spoken of here, you cannot fully understand what God is saying in John 15.

I want to read to you once more the definition of fruit, which is the Greek word “KARPOS”, that is found in Vine Expository Dictionary of NT Words. Keep in mind that we are obviously defining this word in it’s metaphorical sense.

"fruit" being the visible expression of power working inwardly and invisibly, the character of the "fruit" being evidence of the character of the power producing it,”

As I stated last week. Fruit, that is good fruit, is a test as to whether we are true Christians. Fruit is what demonstrates what power is at work in us. Be it the power of Christ, or the power of our flesh nature.

What we need to make sure we understand is that fruit does not make us a Christians, but it shows that we one. We are not saved by our works, but our works demonstrate that we are saved.

Last week we pointed out some general things regarding fruit. This week I want to begin to get into so specifics regarding fruit that we, if we claim to be Christians, ought to have in our lives.

I want to give you some things that you can look to and say, Ok is that going in on my life? I want to give you some insights by which you can measure you life. Because it is vitally important for you to examine your life for fruits, because as we have seen, and I will continue to remind you of this, the fruit you bear, be it good our bad, determines what power is working in you.

However what we also need to see is that there is a difference between doing something the world calls good, and good fruit. Giving your money to charity is not necessarily good fruit. Building a hospital for the poor in some third world country, while it may be looked at as good work among men, it may not be good fruit before God. It may in fact be bad fruit.

You see fruit can look real good on the outside. You can have a nice apple and take a bite out of it only to discover that while that outside looked good the inside was bad.

So it is true with good works. They can look good on the outside. They can look good to our fellow man, but God sees what’s going inside. He sees the worm in the apple.