HoHum:
Struggling church- “God has not called us to be successful. He has just called us to be faithful.”
This one is in the same vein: “God wants faithfulness, not fruitfulness.”
WBTU:
These statements are half true. There is a Yiddish proverb that says: “A half-truth is a whole lie”
God wants both faithfulness and fruitfulness. 3 things to start to bring clarity to this issue:
Faithfulness is the path to fruitfulness. The wording here is slightly off. The wording implies that we have to choose between faithfulness or fruitfulness. This is a false choice and a radical misunderstanding. Fruitfulness comes through the path of faithfulness, and no other way. In this sense, we truly can say “God wants faithfulness only.” We can say that, not because fruitfulness is optional, but because faithfulness necessarily results in fruitfulness.
Faithfulness always results in fruitfulness. The NT has no categories for the unfruitful Christian. The unfruitful Christian simply does not exist. Notice, for example, how Jesus talks in the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30. The two men who doubled the talents the master gave them were called “good and faithful servants.” In other words, they proved their faithfulness by their fruit (5 talents to 10 talents, 2 talents to 4 talents). They were successful at the task that they had been assigned, and they were rewarded by the master. The last servant did nothing with the talent given to him and this brought no fruit. He was called “wicked and lazy” in contrast to the two men called “faithful.” God wants to see results. Our faithfulness is demonstrated by our fruit. God does require fruitfulness. But that fruitfulness is certain to follow if we are faithful. This is, of course, simply the doctrine of justification and good works. We are not justified by our works, but those who have been justified by faith will live a life of good works, good fruit (Ephesians 2:8-10).
Faithfulness is a form of fruitfulness. Faithfulness is one of the “fruits” that God produces in us and requires of us (Galatians 5.22). Faithfulness is a form of fruitfulness. This is an important point not to be overlooked. Related to this, another component of our fruitfulness is our character. Talking about the godly responses to the situations we are in, whatever they may be. This is a form of fruit that is not necessarily visible (like seeing souls come to Christ), but our character matters and is important. If we have poor character drive people away.
Still, the lack of visible fruit is frustrating and discouraging. Look at the first statement, God has not called us to be successful, just faithful. Is it healthy to take our eyes off of the attendance, baptisms and cash? What do we mean by successful? If we mean the Great Commission, then when we see no one coming to Christ, no baptisms, then we have to question ourselves. Jesus has given the church a job to do. We will either succeed or fail at it. Using this definition, every church should want to be successful. What is the alternative? The opposite of success is not faithfulness, but failure.
In John 15, Jesus identified His followers as branches who are expected to bear fruit. It’s disturbing when the branches are bare, when there are no visible results from our labor for God’s kingdom. Are we going to be like the branch “that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned” (John 15:6). Before we go into a spiritual schizophrenia...
Thesis: Examinations for times of unfruitfulness
For instances:
Our spiritual devotion
John 15:3 talks about being clean. Started at our baptism but continues through today. Are we clean with God? Are we confessing our sins to God? “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened;” Psalms 66:18, NIV. “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.” Proverbs 28:13, NIV. Along with this, are we compromising morally? The Lord will not bless those who are doing evil. “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” Matthew 3:8, NIV.
John 15:7 says his words must remain in us. Faithful in feeding on the Word? “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” 1 Peter 2:2, 3 Are we truly abiding in His daily presence? Are we letting His words abide in us? Are we carving out a daily quiet time to pray and hear from God? We can’t abide in Christ without daily meditation on the Word of God and intimate time with Jesus in prayer and solitude.
Bearing fruit comes through our connection and relationship with Jesus, the Vine. We were joined to Jesus at our baptism. We are intimately connected to him and received from him all that we need to sustain our lives. We are connected to him when we come here to worship, and when we hear his Word. It doesn’t matter how much we think we know about the Bible or how many times we have read it, we need the life-giving nourishment that God’s Word offers. As we read it and study it, God’s Word offers us strength in the face of new situations. In communion, the Lord’s Supper, we are refreshed and freed from the guilt of our sin. The Holy Spirit works through these and enables our life in Christ to grow, to be made stronger, and to bear fruit. Without the connection to the vine, the life giving sap and nourishment is unavailable and we slowly start to die. Apart from me you can do nothing!
II. Our pruning
John 15:2
Without pruning a vine will only produce a fraction of its potential harvest. Vineyards have only one purpose: to produce grapes. Energy spent on anything else is wasted. The pruner has 4 things in mind: removing what’s dead or dying; making sure sunlight gets to the fruit bearing branches; increasing the size and quality of the grapes; encouraging new grapes to develop. God’s purpose for our lives requires the cutting away of bad habits and attitudes, wrong relationships, lesser priorities, and anything that distracts us from our highest calling.
C. Pruning helps us be more spiritual.
1. When we came to Christ, many of us brought baggage from our old lives—old habits, attitudes, and ways of thinking about others and ourselves. The Vinedresser set to work cutting away anything that does not look like Christ. Amy Carmichael wrote, “A wise master never wastes his servant’s time.” No matter what happens to us, God is not wasting our time. He is educating us; He is improving us; He is molding us.
Hard times can build good character. Ralph Waldo Emerson was once approached by a concerned and inquiring person who said, “Mr. Emerson, they tell me that the world is coming to an end.” Emerson calmly replied, “Never mind, we can get along without it.” We all need to learn that we can “get along without” the world.
2. Suffering is an effective teacher in the school of life, and some lessons are only learned through it. God uses the furnace of affliction, physical injury, disease, prolonged sickness, difficulty in rearing children or respecting parents, financial problems, or other overwhelming cares to develop spirituality. A young woman was suffering greatly and confided her frustration to an older Christian friend: “If God loves me as you say He does, why did He make me so?”
The older woman replied, “He is making you now.”
D. Pruning tests our faith
It tells whether we are “gold, silver, precious stones” or “wood, hay, stubble” (1 Corinthians 3:12-15). The worthiness of the ship is not determined while it lies in the harbor but when it rides the waves of a storm. Our faith too must be tested during life’s storms.
During the Great Depression a good man lost his job, exhausted his savings, and forfeited his home. His grief was multiplied by the sudden death of his young wife. The only thing he had left was his faith. One day as he combed the neighborhood looking for work he stopped to watch as men did stonework on a church building. One was skillfully chiseling a triangular piece of rock. Not seeing a spot it would fit, he asked. “Where are you going to put that?” The man pointed toward the top of the building and said. “See that little opening up there near the spire? That’s where it goes. I’m shaping it down here so it will fit up there.” Tears filled the hurting man’s eyes as he walked away thinking of the words: “shaping it down here so it will fit up there.”
Our fruit
Fruitfulness is God’s responsibility, not mine. Paul shared the gospel with Lydia, but she didn’t owe her salvation only to Paul’s preaching: “One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.” Acts 16:14, NIV. Though God uses human instruments, fruit bearing requires His intervention.
Look at the differences between Jeremiah and Jonah. Jonah lacked in faithfulness but “The Ninevites believed God.” Jonah 3:5, NIV. Jeremiah was faithful to his calling but even to the end the Israelites “followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts” (Jeremiah 7:24). How do we explain this?
We might be used by God to produce fruit we will never see. Takes time to take a fruit tree from a sapling to a mature, fruit producing tree. Down South, a young man, walking along a dirt path, comes upon an old man bowed to the ground planting pecan trees in a field. He stops and asks the old man, "Why would you plant pecan trees? They'll take so many years to mature that you'll never enjoy the pecans." The old man responds, "I plant these trees because all my life I've eaten pecans from trees I did not plant."
Jesus calls us to bear fruit (John 15:16). However, he intends for us to bear fruit only He can produce. Knowing this, my preoccupation should be on abiding in the Vine (John 15:4), which is the only way to be fruitful. My fruitfulness is out of my hands but my faithfulness is.
