During Lent we have been looking at what Jesus said about himself not what other people think, but what he actually said according to an eye witness his disciple John. Specifically, these are Jesus’ seven “I am” statements. Through each statement Jesus revealed a little more about who he really was, what his purpose was on earth, and how we are supposed to respond to him.
Last week we focused on Jesus’ statement, “I am the Light of the world” and how he is God’s very presence in our dark world. We need to let the light of Jesus Christ enter every dark area of our life. I had us imagine our life without Christ is like a house with many rooms in pitch blackness with the lights turned off. Jesus is on the front porch knocking on the door, desiring to come into our darkness, into our life. It is our choice to let him in, but what Jesus really wants is to allow his light to infiltrate every room in the house, every area of our life. Expose the darkness of our sin and past skeletons so we can seek forgiveness and experience true healing.
1. Jesus is the True Vine
For this weeks message I am going to assume we have allowed Jesus into our life, into every room or every area of our life, and has exposed some of those dark corners so we can confess them, ask God’s forgiveness, and begin the process of healing. We may be tempted to believe this is the goal of the Christian life, to experience this healing in our life, in our relationship with God, in our relationship with others, but actually it is only the beginning of God’s work within us. God has more in store for us. This is why Jesus said to his disciples, “I am the true vine.” Jesus used a common agricultural sight in Jerusalem, the grape vine because he wanted to illustrate what life with Jesus is meant to be like.
2. We Should Naturally Produce Fruit
In other words a life in Jesus is meant to produce fruit. God created the grape vine to produce what? Grapes. Its purpose is not to produce a lot of leaves to look pretty. As people who have invited Jesus into our life our purpose is the same, we are designed to produce fruit. The evidence of our relationship with Jesus is not only the healing we receive in our life, but also the fruit we bear.
A. Consequences of not bearing fruit
In fact Jesus said those who did not produce fruit would be cut off from the vine, and thrown into the fire because it was obvious there was something wrong with the branch, perhaps it was diseased, or perhaps it had begun pulling away from the vine. Curiously, a grapevine branch can survive and produce foliage for a while after it has been severed, but it cannot produce fruit unless it remains connected to the vine.
What are the fruits we are meant to produce?
B. Fruit of others getting to know Jesus
One type of fruit the Scriptures indicate we are meant to produce is spreading the Good News of Jesus to others, helping others get to know Jesus. Jesus used other agricultural ideas for this too such as scattering and planting seeds.
C. Fruit of godly character
But the primary imagery of fruit in this chapter of John, is that our lives should produce qualities of God’s character, the two specifically mentioned here are love and joy. The Apostle Paul referred to these qualities as the fruits of the Spirit mentioned in Gal. 5:22-23:
Gal. 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
These are the measurements of fruitfulness in our life. Fruitfulness is not measured by how many times I have been to church in the last month, how many passages of Scripture I have memorized, if I read the Bible all the way through last year, or if can I find the book of Habakkuk in 5 seconds or less. Don’t get me wrong I think worship and reading and memorizing scripture are very important parts of a Christian life, but they are not God’s measurement of a fruitful life. Unfortunately, Christians have become good at judging other Christians based on worship attendance or scripture knowledge while God is measuring our fruitfulness, how much we reflect His characteristics in our life, with love being the most important thing. In verse 12 of our passage Jesus said, “Love each other as I have loved you.” He concludes our passage this morning by saying “16 I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit-- fruit that will last…17 This is my command: Love each other.” The evidence of our relationship with Christ is how much we love others. Jesus set the standard by demonstrating his love for you and me by dying for us, taking our sin upon himself. Jesus said the greatest example of love is when we lay our life down for another (15:13). Likewise Jesus said, in him, we have joy and our joy has been made complete (v. 11).
Let’s measure ourselves. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest, how would you grade yourself in loving others as Christ loves them? How would you rate yourself on having abundant joy? We could rate ourselves for all of the Fruits of the Spirit: peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. [Have a scale in the outline for rating from 1-10]
If you gave yourself a consistently low rating, we should ask ourselves why? Why are we bearing little fruit or no fruit at all?
In order to answer this, let’s go back to the grape vine illustration, and let me ask you this. On a grape vine does a branch have to labor to produce lots of fruit? No, the branch doesn’t have to work hard to produce its own fruit. As long as the branch is healthy, and firmly attached to the vine (and pruned properly) it just naturally produces fruit. It doesn’t have to make itself produce.
The same is true in our relationship with Christ. When we are in Christ, God is the one who produces the fruit in us. We don’t labor to produce the fruit. The Apostle Peter pointed this out when he said, “My job was to plant the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God, not we, who made it grow (NLT 1 Corinthians 3:6).” God makes the fruit of our life grow, we cannot make it happen. We cannot make ourselves be more loving people, or to have more joy, it is a gift which God works in our heart. The same is true of the amount of fruit we bear, and what type of fruit we bear is not up to us either, it is up to God.
If we are not bearing much fruit, is it God’s fault because there is nothing we can do? As Jesus reminds us the reason we are not bearing fruit is either one of two things, 1) either we are not abiding in Christ, we are not firmly attached to the vine, or 2) we are not allowing God to prune us.
3. We Must Remain/Abide in Jesus
The key to bearing fruits of God’s character such as love and joy is by abiding in Jesus. He is the source of the nourishment we must receive to produce bountiful fruit. Jesus said in v. 4 “Remain in me, and I will 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.”
How do we abide in Jesus?
A. Prayer
To abide or remain means to dwell, to stay. Having lived in Kentucky for a few years, I get the image of Jesus and me sitting on the front porch on a hot summer day drinking lemonade or sweet tea and sharing our hearts with each other. For us this means prayer, as we spend time with Jesus, we are abiding in Jesus, learning what is on his heart. Jesus said in v. 7 “If you remain in me and I in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you.”
The more time I am with Jesus, the more I love the things he loves. If you have trouble loving difficult people perhaps the trouble isn’t in how hard you try, perhaps the problem is that you are not spending time with him. The longer we spend with him, the more we are able to ask Jesus for whatever we wish, because we wish for the very thing that is on Jesus’ heart.
B. Doing what God says, following his commands
10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
Does Not Practice Sin
Sin becomes like a disease which prevents the branch from producing fruit. Obedience to the Savior likewise produces freedom from the domination of sin. “No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him” (1 Jn. 3:6). Phillips renders this verse, “The man who lives ‘in Christ’ does not habitually sin. The regular sinner has never seen or known him.” And v. 9 he renders, “The man who is really God’s son does not practice sin, for God’s nature is in him, for good, and such a heredity is incapable of sin.”
Fruitfulness, the fullness of the Spirit, and freedom from the domination of sin make us ready for His return: “And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming” (1 Jn. 2:28).
C. Relating in love to the community of believers, Christ’s body (John 15:12)
The greatest commandment of Jesus’ is to love others. As we make the effort to love people, God produces that fruit in our heart.
4. Pruning
There may be another reason we produce little fruit. We are not allowing God, the gardener, to prune us. A grape vine if left untended will produce more and more foliage (leaves and runners) and less and less fruit. Pretty soon the nutrients of the plant go into the leaves and not into producing fruit. There may be activities in our life which are good, they look nice, but they do not help us produce fruit.
In these cases God may need to prune us back. The act of pruning appears harsh.
Two weeks ago I went out and cut off probably ¼ of the branches in our apple tree, and Amy thought I went a little overboard it was too harsh, but it is necessary for the best fruit to grow. Although our tree had produced many apples this past year, the apples were very small, and we couldn’t use them for much. By trimming the tree, I hope to get larger apples either this year or next year.
God’s pruning of our life can be painful. He may limit or remove achievements, objects, abilities, or even people because they are preventing us from being fruitful. We must not resent God’s pruning. Instead, God’s discipline should cause us to turn to him with renewed desire to be productive.
[One kind of fruit we bear is sharing the Good News. You may be wondering why you have a leaf in your hand. We invite you to write the names of friends, family members, co-workers, neighbors who are not abiding in Jesus, perhaps they are not Christians yet, or they have wandered away from the faith, or they are not producing fruit. These people will be areas of prayer focus as we approach Easter in two weeks. Place these leaves on the tree with the twisty tie on your way up. Please make a commitment to pray for these persons every day for the next two weeks until Easter].
