Remaining Fruitful
John 15:1-17
Cascades Fellowship CRC, JX MI
May 11, 2008
Creation, Fall, Redemption, Consummation
Rich Ratts, former pastor of Grace Community Church here in Jackson and a now a church planter in Traverse City once spoke at a pastor’s appreciation breakfast I attended. He began by talking about a cheery orchard outside his window. One night when he couldn’t go to sleep right away and he lay there listening to the rush of blood through the capillaries in his ears, something dawned on him – he didn’t hear any signs of a struggle. He didn’t hear any grunting or groaning, he didn’t hear any creaking or cracking – he didn’t hear anything but his own pulse and the sound of his wife breathing. And he found that odd because he knew right outside his window was a cherry orchard with living trees that were growing. Where were the signs of a struggle?
You see, the Christian life is often compared to a tree or a vine or some other form of plant life, yet we also talk about the struggle of growing in our Christian faith. So if it is such a struggle to grow, he reasoned, how come I don’t hear the trees straining to reach for the sun? How come I don’t see their leaves trembling under the exertion of stretching skyward? Why can’t he see the tree’s trunk heaving with the effort to produce fruit? (1)
His point, I think, is well taken. When a tree or a plant – well, since Rev. Ratts was talking about cherry trees, let’s stick with those for the moment. When a cherry tree is receiving proper treatment – planted in fertile soil that is properly watered, pruned under the careful eye of the farmer to promote the right kind of growth, the right portions of sun and carbon dioxide – when the conditions are right, the tree will grow effortlessly and produce abundant fruit; it’s not a struggle. You see, that’s the nature of a tree – to grow and produce, it is what it does, why it exists. So if all is as it should be, the tree will grow, naturally – that’s what it’s supposed to do.
The same can be said of the Christian life – if all is as it should be, then we grow, producing much fruit. That’s what we’re supposed to do – Jesus tells us this in v.16 of our text this morning.
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.
If that’s the case, then why does it seem that growing in our Christian life is such an uphill battle? I mean, let’s face it – sometimes we look back on our lives and we realize that we simply have not grown much, particularly in our walk with Christ. We seem to be going over the same territory again and again; the same questions plague us, the same sin dogs our steps, the same fears, the same doubts, the same aggravations, the same concerns, same, same, same, same. Is there no end?
Paul tells us that we are nearer to our salvation than when we first believed, but we don’t feel closer. In fact, we might even feel farther away. Yet, we see people all the time who are talking about their lives in Christ, how intimate and how deep they are. We hear stories about experiencing God’s nearness, about hearing his voice, about knowing his will for our lives and we ask ourselves, “What am I missing?”
This question, along with the others we voice to the darkness when no one else is listening have profound implications for our lives. Jesus tells us in our text for this morning to abide in him, but how do we do that?
Last week, we jumped ahead in John’s Gospel in honor of Pentecost and spoke about Jesus’ teaching on the Holy Spirit in John 16. This week we jump back to John 15 and pick up on the preparations Jesus is making with his disciples for life without him there.
Now, maybe you remember the circumstances. The Last Supper is finished, Judas has gone over to the chief priests and religious leaders as an inside informant on the movements of Jesus and his little band of “merry men.” And Jesus has told his disciples that two things are going to happen – he’s going to be betrayed by one of their own and it’s time for him to go away. The disciples are naturally a little upset by this. Oh, and let’s not forget, Jesus has also told Peter that he will deny Jesus three times in the next 12 hours or so.
This is definitely a buzz-kill moment. All the heady ideas of setting up a kingdom, or leading a revolution, or being on the ground floor of the Zionist movement that would finally shake off the shackles of Rome get lost in the overwhelming tide of sorrow stirred up by thoughts of betrayal, denial and departure. Even the euphoria of a full stomach and a celebration of God’s deliverance cannot stem the onrushing current of fear created by Jesus’ comments.
Just try and put yourself in their sandals for a moment. For three years, they have been continually amazed at the depth of Jesus’ wisdom. They have watched him make fools of the religious elite. Because of him, this rag tag band of fishermen, tax collectors, and others who shuffled at his heels were winners – had purpose and status. People actually listened when they spoke, they’d cast out demons, they had been witnesses to some of the most extraordinary miracles ever recorded – as if miracles could be mundane.
And now it was all coming to a crashing halt! Why? Because Jesus was going away. The man they loved more than life and the one who empowered them to do such remarkable things was soon to be taken from them and he was taking all the jazz with him. They probably felt a little like the Pop Warner football team that has that one freak of nature – the LaBron James’ of the world – and who wins every game because of this exceptionally gifted, exceptionally big player on their team and then gets to the championship game only to learn that he can’t play because he twisted his ankle earlier that week. How can you win without your star player?
But Jesus understands. We talked about that last week when we discussed the role of the Holy Spirit in the world and in the life of the believer. To prepare his disciples for the day they won’t be able to come and sit down with him in a hillside and plug him with questions about God, about the universe, about the inner life of faith Jesus draws a mental picture for them using the image of a grapevine.
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 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. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 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.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 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.
Now what you need to know is that Jesus was talking in terms that his listeners would have been familiar with and more than just because they were an agrarian society. Yes, it is true that they would have connected with the image of a grapevine because planting and pruning were part of every day life. But they would have also been familiar with the image because God, speaking through the prophets, had often referred to Israel as a vine that he’d planted in the fertile soil of Canaan. But rather than becoming productive, they grew wild, resisting the efforts of the Gardener to prune and shape them for maximum production.
So when Jesus comes along and talks about being the “true vine,” he’s invoking the words of the prophet. He’s telling his disciples that God is planting a new vineyard and this time he’s got a prize vine – Jesus Christ, a vine that grows in the way the Gardener, the Father, wants him to grow. It is from this vine that the fruit of God’s glory will be reckoned.
Now, a moment of honesty – the church has long wrestled with what Jesus means when he tells the disciples to abide in him as the true vine. Troubling the counsels of those commenting on this passage is the imagery of pruning and burning branches. So for me to suggest that I am going to solve all the conundrums in this text would be arrogance at its highest. But I am going to suggest that in terms of big picture – what the passage is primarily about – the central theme is rather easy to grasp.
It has been my experience that when people talk about or counsel others to “abide in Christ” with that all-wise, all-knowing demeanor, they typically have in mind this sort of mystical, hyper-spiritual idea of what it means to “abide.” They are typically espousing some sort of experientially-rooted idea that involves fasting and prayer, silence and solitude – things that are nice to have when providence hands us one of those rare unclaimed moments, but are nonetheless rare. Within the typical American household, trying to claim more than 30-40 minutes for face-time with God usually runs afoul of the urgent demands of the two-year old or the teenager – or the spouse who still thinks they are a teenager. In other words, if that is what it means to abide in Christ – moments where we get really quiet before God for extended periods, then the 21st century American doesn’t stand a chance. We might as well set ourselves on fire.
But that’s not how Jesus describes abiding in him. Look with me at vv. 7-10 of our text for today.
“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, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 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.”
Remain in my words – that’s how Jesus defines abiding, remaining in him. Elsewhere Jesus says, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.” And it right after he makes this statement that Jesus talks about the coming of the Holy Spirit for the first time. Our part of abiding, of remaining in Jesus, in the True Vine, is obeying his command, following his teaching, remaining in his words. Live your life according to the command and teachings of Jesus and the reward is abundant fruit. It really is that simple.
But if it is that simple, how come it seems so hard to grow? Where’s the fruit? Ah, there is the rub. Let’s take another look at the image of the vine.
Jesus says that he is the vine and we are the branches, so I guess the question is what does it mean for a branch to abide in, to remain in, to hang out and grow on the vine? A.B. Bruce, a 19th Century Scottish divine in the Presbyterian church once said that there were two ways for a branch to abide in the vine; vitally and structurally. By structurally, what Dr. Bruce has in mind is the organic connection with the vine; that the branch literally grows out of the vine. And by vitally, he means that the branch literally draws its life from the vine, tapping the vines sap for the nutrients it needs to grow and produce fruit. (2)
So what is our organic connection to Christ? By grace through faith we have been born again into Christ – literally, our life is drawn from him. This connection is secured for us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit indwelling us. The Spirit uses our baptism – the sign of God’s covenant grace and the symbol of our union with Christ in his death – to unite us, to graft us into Christ so that our life is hid or better stated, is found in him. That is why Paul talks about our lives being gone and the life we live now as Jesus’ life.
So how do we draw that life, that vitality from our connection with Jesus? We’ve already spoken about how the Holy Spirit joins us with Christ, but he also quickens to us God’s Word – Christ’s teaching and commands – to us. As the vine pushes sap into the branch to encourage growth, so the Holy Spirit nourishes our spirits on the sap of God’s Word, pressing into every corner of our heart, exposing that which would weaken our connection with Christ and strengthening the ties that bind.
The reason it seems so hard for us to grow is because we keep disrupting the conditions that promote growth. We pick and choose what commandments, what teachings we will accept or obey. We compromise, promising we will only go so far but when we get there we still want to stick our toe across the line. We look to other things to satisfy us and spend our time pursuing them – power, possessions, pleasure – these are the appetites that we try to mediate. But even something as wholesome as family or as worthwhile as ministry or as winsome as romance can become a false source of satisfaction – a source that will ultimately fail us. Trying to draw life from these things, to find meaning in them is kind of like the branch breaking away from the vine and connecting to the post that holds the vine – the post may prop us for a while, but in itself, it is lifeless.
We also disrupt the conditions that promote growth by failing to draw from the abundant source of sap we find in the pages of Scripture. We try to draw our vitality from other sources – television, novels, movies, radio, magazines, the internet. Like the person whose diet consists of fast food and twinkies and then sits around wondering why they have no energy, when we fill our minds and spirits with so much junk, is it anyone wonder we feel lifeless and growth is an uphill battle?
Here’s what it boils down to – what kind of life do you want to live? If you want real life – a life of intimate friendship with God – then do the things that will promote that sort of life. Abide in the vine! Live as Christ commands you to live. Seek out what that life looks like in the place where he has recorded it for you – in Scripture. This is something that can fit easily into the busy American life, you just have to be willing to make it a priority.
Look, there’s no magic bullet for your relationship with God, anymore than there is one for your marriage or any other significant relationship. There are no rituals or processes you can go through and have immediate intimacy with God. To experience God – to know him intimately – your life has to grow from his, the way the branch grows from the vine. He must be the source, the center of your life; trying to deal with God as one more spoke that attaches to the hub of your life, one more entry in your day-timer or calendar, will only lead to frustration and the question “What am I missing?”
Growth isn’t hard – it is a natural process. If everything is as it should be, growth happens. If you are not growing, if you are not seeing fruit, maybe everything isn’t as it should be. Abide in the vine and the fruit will come. It’s natural, that’s what we’re supposed to do – remain fruitful.
(1) The essential details of this illustration are accurate, although I have embellished somewhat. The breakfast was about three years ago so producing a word-by-word account is not possible.
(2) A.B. Bruce The Training of the Twelve Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, MI 1984 p. 414-415.
