THE PRUNING PROCESS
Lent Week 2: Stripping Away (Self-Denial and Surrender) | Day 11
INTRODUCTION: THE GARDENER'S SHARP BLADE
John 15:1-2 (KJV) "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit."
I want you to close your eyes for just a second. Picture a garden. A real one. The kind where the roses are full and the air smells like something holy. It's peaceful. It's beautiful.
Now I want you to hear something.
The sound of shears.
Sharp. Cutting. Final.
You open your eyes and the gardener is cutting back the very branches you thought were the most alive. And if you didn't know better, you'd run over and say, "Stop! You're going to ruin it!"
But the gardener knows something you don't know.
This is your word this morning. God is not ruining you. God is reading you for what's next.
Look at your neighbor and say, "The Gardener knows what He's doing."
Now, the word Jesus uses in John 15:2, in the original Greek, is a word called "kathairo." It means to cleanse. To purge. To remove what is dirty or what is draining. It's not a punishment word. It's a preparation word.
Write that down. Pruning is preparation.
And for those of you walking through Lent this season, I need you to shift your thinking right now. Lent is not a religious chore where you give up chocolate and call it consecration. Lent is a strategic stripping away. God is not asking you to give up the bad stuff. He's asking you to give up the good stuff. Because the good stuff is taking up space where the Glory wants to live.
If God is cutting, it is because He is about to increase your capacity.
1. SUBMITTING TO THE VINEDRESSER (THE ALTAR OF SURRENDER)
Isaiah 64:8 (KJV): "But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand."
Romans 12:1 (KJV): "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."
Here's something nobody tells you about pruning.
A branch cannot prune itself.
You know why? Because when you try to cut yourself, you don't cut clean. You leave a jagged edge. And a jagged edge on a vine is an open door for infection. For disease. For death.
That's what happens when we try to fix ourselves in our own strength. We don't cut clean. We leave ragged wounds that get infected with shame, and pride, and bitterness.
God has to do the cutting.
The word "husbandman" in John 15 means a farmer. A vinedresser. Not a beginner. Not someone figuring it out. An expert who has worked the vine long enough to know exactly where the dead weight is hiding.
He knows.
He knows the friendship that looks alive but is pulling you away from purpose.
He knows the habit you've dressed up in discipline that's really just distraction.
He knows the version of yourself you've been protecting that God never asked you to be.
Look at your neighbor and say, "He knows where the dead weight is."
Now here's the hard part.
Some of you have a secret garden. A place in your heart you have fenced off and told God, "Not this. Anything but this." You'll fast your food. You'll give your money. But you will not let Him touch that one thing.
And until you open that gate, the pruning cannot finish.
Total surrender is the only requirement for total transformation.
Say that again with me. Total surrender is the only requirement for total transformation.
Romans 12:1 says present your bodies a living sacrifice. Notice it says living. A dead sacrifice doesn't struggle. A living sacrifice keeps trying to crawl off the altar. Every morning you have to make a choice to stay on the altar.
This morning, will you stay?
2. ENDURING THE PAIN OF THE CUT (THE OIL OF THE CRUSHING)
Psalm 119:67 (KJV): "Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word."
Job 5:17-18 (KJV): "Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty: For he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole."
I'm going to be honest with you this morning.
It hurts.
I'm not going to stand up here and give you a hyper-spiritual answer that skips past the pain. When God starts cutting, when He removes a relationship you depended on, when He closes a door you had already decorated in your mind, when He strips away an identity you had built your whole life around...
It hurts.
And it is okay to say it hurts.
But I need you to know what the hurt means.
In viticulture, which is the science of growing vines, there is something called "sucker growth." A sucker is a shoot that grows off the vine and it looks green. It looks alive. It looks like fruit is coming. But it produces nothing. It pulls nutrients and energy from the vine without ever producing a single grape.
And the vinedresser cuts it every single time.
Because it looks like life but it is draining life.
Can I talk to somebody this morning? God is cutting your sucker growth. The thing that looks like progress but is pulling you away from the vine. The thing that looks like community but is draining your spiritual energy. The thing that looks like ambition but is actually eating up your prayer life.
He's cutting it.
And the wound, I want you to hear this, the wound is the entry point for the new wine.
The olive has to be crushed to produce the oil. The grape has to be pressed to become the wine. The branch has to be cut before the sap flows stronger.
No crushing, no oil.
No pruning, no power.
Somebody shout "No pruning, no power!"
Psalm 119:67 says, "Before I was afflicted I went astray." The psalmist is not complaining about the affliction. He is thanking God for it. Because the affliction was the thing that brought him back to the Word. Back to the vine.
Your pain has a purpose.
Your loss has a direction.
Your grief has a graduation date.
Job 5:18 says He woundeth and His hands make whole. The same hands that cut are the hands that heal. You are not being abandoned in this season. You are being attended to. The Surgeon is still in the room.
Look at your neighbor one more time and say, "The Surgeon is still in the room."
3. ABIDING TO BEAR MUCH FRUIT (THE SECRET OF THE FLOW)
John 15:4-5 (KJV): "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing."
Galatians 5:22-23 (KJV): "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."
Now we move from the cut to the connection.
Because the pruning is not the end of the story. The pruning is the preparation for the abiding.
The word "abide" in Greek is "meno." It means to remain. To stay. To settle in and not move. It is not a Sunday morning word. It is a 24/7 word.
Abiding is not your quiet time. Though you need your quiet time.
Abiding is not your church attendance. Though you need your church.
Abiding is a continuous, moment-by-moment connection to the vine where the sap of the Holy Spirit flows uninterrupted from the root into the branch into the fruit.
You don't produce fruit by trying harder. You produce fruit by staying connected.
Say it with me. "I don't produce fruit by trying harder. I produce fruit by staying connected."
Here is the evidence that the pruning is working. Galatians 5:22. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.
Notice that list. Not power. Not miracles. Not influence.
Character.
God is after your character before He gives you your platform.
He wants you to look like Jesus. And if your fruit doesn't look like that list, the pruning isn't finished yet. Not because God gave up on you. Because the vinedresser is still working. Because the harvest He has planned for you is too important to rush.
When the world looks at your life, do they see love? Do they see peace? Do they see faith that doesn't flinch when the shears come out?
That's the evidence. That's the fruit.
CONCLUSION AND ALTAR CALL: THE HARVEST OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
Hebrews 12:11 (KJV): "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby."
I want you to look at that one word.
Afterward.
Hebrews 12:11 doesn't deny the pain. It says the chastening is grievous. It is not fun. It does not seem joyous in the present.
But afterward...
Afterward there is peaceable fruit.
Afterward there is righteousness.
Afterward, what the vinedresser was doing in the dark, in the quiet, in the cutting season, makes sense.
Your afterward is coming.
The cutting is temporary. The harvest is eternal.
Maybe this morning you walked in here carrying the weight of a season that felt like loss. A relationship God removed. A door He closed. A version of yourself that He is not allowing you to go back to. And you've been grieving it. And you've been confused by it.
I'm here to tell you this morning, that was the shears.
That was the Father working.
And He is not done.
But He needs something from you today. He needs surrender. He needs you to open that fenced-off garden and say, "Lord, I trust You with this."
If that's you, I want you to come.
Come to this altar.
Come as you are, with your questions, with your grief, with your stubbornness, with your fear.
Come and surrender it.
We're going to pray what I call a prayer of Holy Resignation. Not giving up. Giving over.
Pray this with me:
Father, I trust You. I trust the shears in Your hand. Cut away anything in me that doesn't look like You. Remove the sucker growth. Remove the dead weight. Remove the version of me that I built for myself. I surrender my secret garden. I open every gate. Do what only You know how to do. I want the fruit. I want the character. I want the harvest. And I will stay on the vine to get it. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
The vinedresser is working. And what He starts, He finishes.
You are not dying. You are being prepared.
Your afterward is closer than you think.
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Blessings,
Pastor JM Raja Lawrence
Andaman & Nicobar Islands
email: lawrencejmr@gmail.com
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