The Art of Giving: The Fruitful Disciple
John 15: 1-8; Nov. 23/24, 2002
Intro:
How many of you know what you are supposed to do when you get lost in the woods? (answer: remain where you are until somebody comes and finds you). Have any of you ever tried to do that? Can you imagine how difficult that must be? To simply remain in one place, waiting, passive, hoping someone will find you?
Many people don’t remain in one place – instead they decide to try it on their own, to try to find the way back themselves. They get tired of doing nothing, get sick of waiting, they panic and try to get themselves out of the trouble they are in. And they end up making the situation worse – they end up getting even more lost and decreasing the chances of rescuers being able to locate them.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t really like to wait – especially not in traffic. I’d rather pull onto a side street, double back and take a different route even if that ends up taking twice as long as it would have to wait through the traffic jam because then at least I’m moving – I’m in control, I feel like I’m making progress, and at least I’m not sitting in traffic doing nothing. Can you relate?
And yet this idea of remaining (or abiding in the old language) is the key to fruitful discipleship found in John 15:1-8. That is the idea I want to look at today – what does it take to be a fruitful disciple, and how do we do that?
Context:
As you are looking up Jn 15:1-8 in your Bible, let me quickly remind you of where we have been and where we are headed. This fall we’ve begun looking in depth at our vision as a church – to be a hospital (a vision of evangelism), a greenhouse (a vision of discipleship), and a festival (a vision of worship). We have only thus far talked about the hospital portion; with the last couple of weeks continuing a focus on others through our Remembrance Day service concentrating on prayer for the persecuted church, and last week with a fantastic children’s pageant based on Operation Christmas Child with the motto of “We’re blessed, to bless again.” We want to head into the season of Advent and Christmas continuing that focus on others, and reflecting together on the gifts that God has given us through His Son – and on our responsibility to share those with others. After Christmas we’ll resume our detailed look at our vision of the greenhouse and festival.
As we read Jn 15:1-8 together, keep in mind that these are Jesus’ words to His disciples after the Last Supper, before Jesus was arrested and sent to be crucified. So hear these words with the urgency and poignency of that occasion.
READ Jn 15:1-8
The People in the Metaphor:
Jesus uses an extended metaphor here to make His point. The spiritual life is like a vineyard. Any vineyard needs a vine, a gardener, some branches, and ideally some fruit. Jesus explicitly identifies the parts of the metaphor in verses 1 and 5. Jesus is the vine. God the Father is the gardener. And we are the branches. Fairly simple, fairly clear.
The Point of the Metaphor:
What is the central truth Jesus is trying to convey through this metaphor? It is tempting to say that the central truth is that we the branches must produce fruit. But as I read it several times, something else sticks out to me as the main point: we must remain in Christ.
Do you notice how many times the word “remain” is in those eight verses? Seven times (gk). Obviously the goal of the metaphor is the producing of fruit, but the clear emphasis is on the idea of remaining in Christ. Vs 4b: “No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”
I want to explore that idea of “remaining in Christ.” What does that mean? How do we do it? What does this tell us about the Christian life?
The main thing I see in the concept of “remaining” is one of total dependence. If the branch is separated from the vine, it dies. It might look nice for a little while, but it immediately stops growing and starts to die. The branch can’t do it on its own. The same thing is true for us spiritually – unless we remain in Christ, we die spiritually. The life doesn’t come from the branch, from how hard it works or how much it tries to be fruitful – the life comes from the vine. The life in our spirit comes from Jesus, and from our connectedness to Him. And it is only in Him that we will bear fruit for the Kingdom of God.
How dependent are you on God? How much of your daily life have you surrendered to Him in reliance and dependence? Are you trying to be in control, or are you acknowledging that He is in control? Think of what you are missing out on – the life of God flowing through you, the fruit that comes from remaining in the vine, the joy of staying connected. What do you gain by leaving the connectedness to the vine? Nothing but death.
We as people tend to have difficulty with this concept because we want to be in control. But control is largely an illusion. We have no control over the substance of life; only God does. The only real thing we can control is how we respond to the circumstances life brings, what attitude we bring, to whom we turn for help. We hold desperately to what little control we have in the vain hope that if we can keep this part together everything else will work out fine. We are like a branch that is clinging to the trellis with all our might, even though the hand of the gardener has chosen to transplant the vine to a different spot. The result is that in our effort to hold on to the safe trellis, we tear loose from the vine and lose the source of life. Then we die.
But what I really want to tell you is that there is incredible freedom in recognizing that only God is in control. In abandoning our self to Him, with complete dependence. In letting Him have control of our lives, and living by remaining in Him. Let me change the analogy and describe it as the difference between the bird in the cage – surrounded by familiar yet incredibly boring things, a mere subsistence – and the bird that is free to fly, to discover, to interact with other birds, even to face a bit of danger. It is the difference between living life to the full and simply waiting for death.
I think this might be a point of decision for some of you here today. You seem to have life under control, seem to be managing on your own, doing fine by yourself. But let me be blunt – if you are in control and not God, you are not living a full and free life but merely punching a clock until your days are over. Even if you think your life is quite wonderful now, thank you very much, it is nothing compared with the life God desires for you. Jesus came so that we might have life, and have it to the full (Jn 10:10). Now let me be clear – this is not a promise of an easy, pain-free life – but rather the promise of a life connected to the vine, bearing fruit, walking with the power and presence of God every moment. And I can guarantee that once you have tasted that kind of life, you will never want to go back. Any sacrifice will be worth it compared to the return.
Do you need to determine to let your grip loose, to let God sit in the driver’s seat, to become dependant on Him? Is there an area of your life that you are holding tightly to, trying to manage it and fix it and limp through it? Are you holding on to some sin, thinking “I kind of like it here in the bird cage; the food might be tasteless and I can’t fly, but it is familiar…” Jesus says, “remain in me. Give it to me. Let me have the burden and the responsibility and the pain. Give me your sin – I paid the price for it already. Let go of it. Know the freedom of being connected to the Source of Life” Make that choice today.
How do we “remain”?
Once we have made that choice, how do we “remain”? How do we stay connected to the vine and the life that comes from it? Especially when, as the old hymn reminds us, we are “prone to wander, Lord I feel it; prone to leave the God I love.” This is where the things that we normally assume we are “supposed to do” as Christians come in – where reading our Bibles and praying and coming to church to worship and serving others all fit in. Let me describe those activities in this way: these are simply the things that let the Life of God flow into us. We usually think of them as things we have to do, things that are important to do in and of themselves – but that is not where they are powerful or significant. All of those spiritual disciplines exist simply to keep us connected to the Vine – to keep us attached at the source SO THAT the life of God can flow in us. That is why we read, pray, worship, serve – to be connected. To remain. To maintain communication in our relationship with God.
Jesus hints at this in verse 7: “If you remain in me AND MY WORDS REMAIN IN YOU…” Where do we find the Words of Jesus? First and foremost right here, in God’s Word. This is truly an amazing gift to us – the Words of God, full of life and power and everything we need to know how to live. Are you reading it? Meditating on it? Memorizing it? Studying it? Allowing it to flow in you and fill you with life and power? Do you love your Bible – not in an idol-type way but because it communicates God’s very Words to your spirit? Invest your time in God’s Word, and you will find yourself remaining in Him.
I could talk about the other disciplines as well – especially prayer as a means of staying connected to the vine. But most of us don’t need another sermon on these things as much as we need to just dive in and do them. Just get down on our knees and talk to God. Just authentically enter into worship. Just say “yes” to that nagging calling to serve in that area of His Kingdom you’ve been trying to ignore.
Choosing not to leave
If we really boil it down, “remaining” means simply choosing not to leave. To enter God’s presence, and choosing then to go about the activities of the day without ever leaving God’s presence. I think our language confuses us here – we talk about entering God’s presence as if it were an actual place to come into for a little while as we read or pray, and then we leave that place to go about our daily lives. That is counter to the image, and the main point, of Jn 15. There, the key language is remain IN ME. We could easily spend an entire sermon series on the idea of being (and staying) IN CHRIST; for now let me simply describe it as a complete change of spiritual realms of existence – as different as the fish who lives entirely under water from the animal who lives entirely on land. Being in Christ is living on the land, breathing air and running free; not being in Christ is like living under water when you were actually created to be a land creature. They are completely different realms of existence.
Bearing Fruit
The main point of the metaphor is that we remain in Christ. Jesus is pretty clear about the reason for us needing to remain – that we might bear fruit. Verse 5 is the key verse here: “If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” I don’t know how much you’ve thought about fruit, but let me ask you this question: who is the fruit for? Does the branch benefit from the fruit? Does the vine? Both the vine and the branch pour their life into the fruit, but the fruit exists for the gardener. The fruit of our lives is not for us, but for God – and for others as God gives it to them.
I don’t know if you’ve thought of spiritual fruit like that before – as something primarily to nurture others. But that’s what fruit is for – it doesn’t benefit the branch, but it does reproduce the branch. I looked up the botanical definition of a fruit – it is basically the “ripened, seed-bearing part of the plant.” It is the part that is full of the seeds, that is designed for multiplication. I believe that is what Jesus has in mind in choosing this analogy of fruitfulness – that it is meant to be for the multiplication of His Kingdom. The fruit isn’t for the branch to enjoy, it is to nurture and multiply and grow.
I really love how our kids kicked off our Christmas season last week by making the celebration about being others-focused. Throughout the next several weeks, as we look at the gifts God has given us, we will keep a close eye on how we have a responsibility to pass those gifts along – to bear fruit for the nurture of others – to imitate Christ in His self-sacrifice and all He gave up to come to earth to redeem us. “remain in me,” Jesus says, “and you will bear much fruit.” I challenge you even at the beginning of this Christmas season to seek ways for you and your family to make your celebration of Christ’s birth about bearing fruit for the nurture of others.
The Pain in the Metaphor:
This is not simply a nice, pastoral garden scene we find here in Jn 15. Verse 6 is fairly blunt, and painful: “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.” Jesus lays out the alternative to remaining connected to the vine – firewood!
But the part that really stuck out to me as part of the pain of the metaphor is in verse 2: “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.” To put that another way, if you don’t bear fruit, you come under the knife. If you do bear fruit, you come under the knife.
I have a lilac tree in my back yard – beautiful white flowers. Well I decided it needed a little bit of pruning, so I got out some cutters and – well, the truth is I hacked it up. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but it had overgrown my clothes-line and needed to be cut back, and now it looks a little bit funny. Not too bad, but one look and you know it wasn’t pruned by someone who knows what they are doing.
And that’s why the pruning Jesus is talking about isn’t a scary thing. The gardener knows what He is doing. The pruning might still cause us some pain – He might cut off a particular part that we are fond of, a habit we enjoy, something we are proud of. It might be a part of our lives that we think it really important, that we couldn’t live without. But the gardener knows what He is doing. And He prunes with a purpose – that we might be even more fruitful. Trust that He knows what He is doing, and concentrate not on the pain or second guessing that God really does have it under control, but rather concentrate on what Jesus is calling us to do in this passage: remain in Him.
The Promise of the Metaphor:
The last thing I want to point out is the promises that come with remaining in Christ.
Verse 4: “Remain in me, and I will remain in you.” Isn’t that an incredible promise? As we stay close to Jesus, He promises to remain in us. It is the promise of the presence of God with us.
Verse 5: “If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit.” Another incredible promise – a promise of bounty. It might not come without a bit of pain and pruning, but the promise is that the harvest will be bountiful: there WILL BE much fruit.
Conclusion:
So, where are you right now? Are you connected to the vine, feeling the life of God flowing through you as you remain in Him? Or are you disconnected, slowly dying, trying to stay in control of life and manage things in your own strength? Keep in mind that there are seasons of pruning, as we saw in the passage, where even some parts that seemed to be growing are cut off so that other parts can be more fruitful. There are times in our lives where maybe we aren’t seeing the fruit, but we know we are remaining in the vine. If that describes you, remain. Paul would say, stand firm. Hold fast, keep the connection, continue to let Jesus’ words dwell in you, allow the gardener to prune, and cling to the promise that you will bear much fruit.
If you are not connected, I urge you to allow God the master gardener to graft you back into the vine. Return to Him. Surrender yourself to Him – every bit. And let His life fill you.
It is to God’s glory that we bear much fruit, demonstrating that we are His disciples. God’s desire is that we remain in Him, connected, allowing His life to flow in us and to produce fruit for His Kingdom.
