Remain

Be Fruitful

On the heels of Jesus telling the disciples that if they love him they will keep his commands he gives some further marching orders for his followers.

And in these marching orders he focuses less on them loving him and more on them being fruitful for him.

We talked about last week that those who love Jesus will do what Jesus commands them to do.

Particularly loving God and obeying people.

And we talked a little about what that will look like, but this morning we are going to talk about it further.

Jesus returns to their agricultural understanding to convey a deep and meaningful truth.

A truth that if we truly listen and we truly grasp will have an amazing impact on our lives as followers of Jesus.

Jesus is going to use an extended metaphor to help us see what it looks like for the life of a follower of Jesus.

The follower of Jesus will always bear fruit.

If you belong to Jesus this is your new nature.

You will obey his commandments. You will have the Holy Spirit.

And you will produce much fruit.

John 15:1 CSB

1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.

The Vine

In this extended metaphor, we start off by seeing that Jesus says “I am the True Vine.”

This statement is the 7th of the I am Statements found in John’s Gospel.

Jesus has told those listening to him “I am the bread of Life, I am the light of the world, I am the door, I am the Good Shepherd, I am the resurrection and the Life, I am the way, the truth and the life.”

And here he ends these very definitive statements with “I am the true Vine.”

Obviously with the metaphor that follows we can assess and understand what it is Jesus is saying, but there is something deeper going on here.

If Jesus is the true vine, that means that there is a false vine.

A vine that doesn’t produce godly fruit.

A vine that portrays itself as God’s vine, but isn’t.

Who/What is this vine that Jesus false vine that Jesus is speaking about?

Throughout the OT, Israel is portrayed as the vine.

A vine that the Father planted and wanted to be fruitful.

They were to be a light to the nations, they were supposed to live such holy lives that people were drawn to God.

But Israel turned out to be a corrupt vine.

A vine that produced not good fruit, but failure and rebellion.

Jer 2:21 “21 I planted you, a choice vine from the very best seed. How then could you turn into a degenerate, foreign vine?”

But Jesus is the true vine.

He that Israel pointed to.

Jesus has replaced the fake vine and is the true vine.

That’s one of the things that Jesus is communicating with these “I am” statements.

Everything they have had before was always pointing to him.

And he is the fulfillment of the promises.

Even more, Jesus is better than the things they had recieved.

Not only is he conveying the truth that he is better, but he is also communicating that he is God.

We’ve talked about it before, but just for a refresher, when Jesus says “I Am” he is using the divine name of God that was revealed to Moses at the burning bush in Ex. 3.

So with this simple statement, “I am the true vine” Jesus is stating that he is the new and better Israel and he is the God Almighty in human flesh.

There is only one way to be attached to the true vine and it is through Jesus.

We must be disciples of Jesus if we want to stay in the Father’s Garden.

You see this “I am” statement is also different from all the other ones.

In this “I am” statement notice that it isn’t Jesus alone, but he incorporates the Father with what he is doing.

Jesus is the vine and the Father is the gardener/vinedresser.

And in this I am statement and metaphor we see how Jesus’ and the Father work together for the good of those who love Jesus.

So what we will see in this metaphor is that there are three characters.

Jesus as the vine.

The Father as the gardener.

And People as the branches.

John 15:2–8 CSB

2 Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

The Branches

In these verses, Jesus wants us to see that there are two different types of branches.

And each of these branches has a different destiny.

The branches represent disciples of Jesus.

They are either dead disciples or living disciples.

They will either thrive on the vine or they will be cut off and thrown into the fire.

The dead disciples are cut off from the vine.

What is a dead disciple?

A dead disciple is someone who likes Jesus, but doesn’t thrive on Jesus.

They do the “Christian Things” but they don’t love Jesus.

They don’t obey his commandments.

They don’t live for Jesus.

They want to look like their a part of the vine.

But they are imposters.

In the immediate context, I’m sure the disciples with Jesus are thinking about Judas as the dead and unfruitful branch.

He followed Jesus.

He looked like a disciple.

He was trusted.

He did the right things…until he didn’t.

Until something more appealing, something he desired more came along.

And when he was offered a way out he abandoned Jesus.

Because he didn’t find life in Jesus.

He didn’t find his purpose in Jesus.

He would rather have the things of this world than have Jesus.

So what we have to know is just b/c someone calls themselves a Christian, doesn’t in fact mean that they are.

The test for those that truly love Jesus is do they produce fruit.

The living branch will produce fruit.

The dead branch will not.

So it’s as simple as this.

If you don’t bear fruit it’s b/c you don’t belong to Jesus.

And if you don’t bear fruit, you are removed and thrown into the fire.

Those who don’t actually love Jesus.

That aren’t devoted to Jesus are not going to spend eternity with Jesus.

And the reality is they are only fooling themselves.

They are simply playing the part.

They don’t have life from the vine.

And it breaks my heart to know that there are people out there who have convinced themselves they are safe.

That they are saved. That Jesus loves them, and one day they are going to be thrown into the fire.

B/c they loved the idea of Salvation.

They loved the idea of Heaven.

they loved the idea of Jesus.

But they didn’t love the person of Jesus.

In contrast to the dead branches Jesus tells us about the living branches.

He says that the good and living branches produce fruit.

So the way to tell the difference between a living branch and a dead branch is whether or not they fruit they produce.

So what Fruit is a living branch supposed to produce?

In a simple and easy way to understand it, we are to be producing Spiritual Growth.

And I want to talk about a couple of ways we can do that.

First, as disciples we are supposed to live Godly lives. We should have personal Fruit.

We are to imitate Jesus.

We are grow in our love for him and our love for others.

We are to exhibit the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

We are to grow in our reliance on him. Our dependence on him.

We are hate sin and pursue holiness.

Do you hate your sin?

Are you broken by your rebellion?

Do you hate it when you violate God’s law?

We are to love the things that God loves and hate the things God hates.

We are to respond in obedience to the commands that he has given.

We should grow in our love for prayer and time spent with God.

Our lives should be marked by seeking God’s Glory above our own.

Second, we should be producing Missional Fruit.

That doesn’t mean that you all are called to be ministers in the vocational sense.

Not everyone is called into the ministry that way.

But we are all called to be ministers of the gospel.

We are all called to be disciple makers.

We are all called to tell people about the good news of Jesus Christ.

We are all called to cultivate the kingdom of God where we live, work, and play.

Thirdly, are you producing Communal Fruit?

What I mean by that is are you developing relationships with other believers.

I’m not asking you do you sit with them at church.

Do you cheer with them at football games.

Do you know their history.

Do you work with other Christians.

I’m asking are you trying to have deep, meaningful, and lasting relationships with other Godly people

Someone that you can trust.

Someone who can keep you accountable.

Someone who is going to confront you when you are sinning.

Someone you can confess your sins to.

We grow better when we grow together.

And that’s all good, but how do we do it?

How do we grow Personal and ministerial fruit?

Here’s the good news. We don’t have to do it on our own.

There’s a lot of things at work here so we will look at them individually and systematically.

First, God desires that we grow fruit and to make sure that we are fruitful he prunes us.

He prunes us so that we can produce more fruit.

This is a truth that can be hard to swallow.

God prunes us.

What does it mean for a Gardner to prune?

I’m not a gardener so I looked up what it means to prune.

Pruning is the selective Removal of portions of a plant for the purpose of maintaining size, shape and productivity.

So God, in his goodness and grace removes from us the things that are hindering our growth and productivity.

And when this takes place it can be painful.

We may not even like it.

What kind of thing can God prune away from us?

Relationships-God can remove relationships from us that hinder our growth. I want to be careful here. I don’t want you to believe that God wants to remove a spouse from you. I don’t want you guys to come up to me next week and say “Josh, I believe God wants to prune my wife out of my life.”

That would go against what God has taught in the rest of Scripture.

But God will remove relationships that we hold too closely.

He will remove people that hinder us.

Career-God may have you lose a job or be laid off b/c it will help you grow more in the long run.

Sin-God may prune sin out of your life.

Pride-He may remove your sense of pride by taking your abilities or passions away.

Idols-God may remove those things that you hold most dear in order to spur growth.

But What I want you to know is that when God prunes you.

When he removes something that is unhealthy from your life, it’s not a punishment, its a reward.

It’s a blessing to have God remove things from your life that are causing you to not produce much fruit.

“God’s commitment to your fruit bearing is greater than your commit to comfort. God will do whatever it takes for you to bear fruit.”

Followers of Jesus bear fruit b/c God won’t stop until they do.

Paul plays this out in Eph 2:10 “10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.”

God’s got the good works for you to do and he will make sure that you do them.

And let’s be honest, some of us need more pruning than others do.

So let’s be patient with one another.

Let’s reveal the commandment to love one another by encouraging and aiding one another.

I also want you to see that there is purpose in his pruning, He prunes so that you will produce more fruit. v. 2

Now here’s the best part.

You are empowered to produce fruit if you are connected to the Vine.

Jn 15:4-5 “4 Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.”

We couldn’t produce fruit on our own even if we tried.

Trying in your own power to produce God Honoring fruit would be like walking out to an orange tree and hammering a store bought orange to it.

It may be there, but it doesn’t belong there.

It’s not part of the tree.

But b/c of Jesus’ goodness, we are able to produce fruit.

As those who love and trust Jesus, we have his life flowing through us.

We have his goodness, his righteousness, and his grace freely given to us.

Not only can we not produce fruit without Jesus, we don’t even have life apart from the vine.

So if we want to produce the fruit that honors God.

If we want to produce the fruit that proves that we belong to Jesus, we need to be in continuous dependence on him.

That’s what it means to remain in him.

We don’t try on our own, but we rest in his power and presence.

Knowing that anything I do apart from him doesn’t bring honor to God.

This also helps us to know that God remains with us and his remaining with us renews us.

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I want to be transparent with you for just a minute.

I was convicted this week when reading through this passage.

When I came across the truth that I can do nothing without Jesus.

Without depending on the vine.

It wrecked me.

Do you want to know why?

For far too long I have been relying on my own intellect.

I have been getting by with the information that I have gained over the last several years.

I have been arrogant in believing that I have all this.

I have neglected my prayer life.

I have in my actions said to Jesus come with me. Rather than saying I’m following you.

And to be honest with you, it’s exhausting.

And this week, It really hit me hard.

Jesus was saying why are you doing this life on your own.

How can you lead my people without relying on me.

You cannot continue to act this way and honor the Father.

I want to publically apologize and repent for my arrogance and self-righteousness

I should have relied more on Jesus.

I love you all, I am sorry.

Please Forgive me.

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Like I said earlier, God wants us to produce much fruit.

So how do we produce much fruit?

Through prayer and reliance on the vine.

That’s what verse 7-8 say

John 15:7–8 CSB

7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

These verses are very similar to John 14.14 “14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”

And again this verse has been manipulated so that people believe that whatever they ask they will receive.

But Jesus says here, if you remain in me.

If you are dependent on him.

If you rely on him.

Then what you ask will be done.

So if you you are relying and dependent on him.

If you are in constant communication with him.

Then you will only ask for what he desires.

You will pray for opportunities to be more fruitful.

You will pray for the things that bring glory to God.

You will not pray selfishly.

You will pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

If you remain in Jesus, your prayers will be those that are pleasing to and align with the will of God.

And what God wants from us is for us to produce much fruit.

In fact, Jesus just said that the Father is glorified by our ability to produce fruit.

So if we want to bring glory to God then we should be in prayer and produce fruit.

And by producing fruit we are proving that we are his disciples.

We are demonstrating that we belong to Jesus.

A fruitless disciple is no disciple at all.

In the next few verses, Jesus is going to help us see what fruit disciples produce.

John 15:9–17 CSB

9 “As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 “I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. 12 “This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. 17 “This is what I command you: Love one another.

Be Fruitful

We are going to hit these pretty quickly b/c we have touched on them a little bit earlier.

Jn 15:9-10 “9 “As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.”

The first fruit of the disciple is obedience to Jesus.

Obedience born out of Jesus’ love for us and our love for him.

If we remain in his love, the first fruit that we will have is obedience to his commands.

We talked in depth about this last week, but as a highlight, what this means is that we are going to live a life marked by the character of Jesus.

When we hold fast to the love of Jesus and never let go we will do what he wants us to do.

When we know the reality of the gospel message.

What we have been saved from.

And who we have been saved to.

We will desire to love Jesus.

B/c of his grace and mercy.

Obeying the commands of Jesus aren’t simple suggestions.

They are proof that you belong to him.

And if we obey him because we love him our position changes too.

John 15:14-15 “14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father.”

We are no longer simple servants or slaves we are friends of Jesus.

Now we do have to be careful here, b/c even though we are friends of Jesus he is still Lord over our life.

He still calls the shots, but the difference here between simply being a servant and being a friend is that Jesus reveals to us his purposes.

A servant does what he is told b/c he has to.

But a friend does what he is told b/c he understands the mind of the friend.

And b/c we know the goodness, mercy, and grace of Jesus we obey him as friends.

B/c we delight in him.

So we obey out of delight not duty.

Jesus invites us into his inner circle and shows us what he is doing.

And that is delightful.

Isn’t knowing that what happens in this world is ultimately going to lead to God’s Glory a good thing to know.

It means that this life and the things happening in the world aren’t pointless.

There is purpose behind everything.

Though we may not see it or know how it’s going to work out, we know that God is in control and he is revealing himself and demonstrating his glory throughout the whole world.

Another fruit of the disciple is inexhaustible Joy.

Jn 15:11 “11 “I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.”

Have you ever thought about the fact that Jesus created Joy.

And that b/c he created Joy. That is where the ultimate and best source of Joy comes from.

If we know Jesus, remain in Jesus, and obey Jesus we can’t help but have Joy in our lives.

Now I am not talking about the fleeting feeling of happiness.

Joy is knowing that your life is marked by a confidence that Jesus is greater and more satisfying than anything this world has to offer.

So joy comes through a relationship with Jesus.

Through knowing him and being grown through that knowledge.

But not only that, Joy comes through obedience.

As you follow Jesus and do what he has commanded you get a sense of Joy knowing that you are bringing glory to God.

So if you want to experience extreme and inexhaustible joy you must Trust Jesus, Love Jesus, Listen to Jesus, and obey Jesus.

B/c here’s what happens if we trust, love, and obey Jesus then our will and his will come into alignment.

Our wants and are needs are now met in God.

Our desires and heart are now aligned with God’s desires and heart and he gives us what we need to accomplish his calling.

When our wants and needs align with God then we will experience inexhaustible joy.

The final fruit of a disciple listed here is sacrificial love.

John 15:12-13 “12 “This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.”

John 15:17 “17 “This is what I command you: Love one another.”

For the believer, for the one that produces fruit love for God’s people is not optional.

We are to love one another.

So much so that we imitate Jesus’ love for us.

Where we are willing to lay aside our own lives for another.

The greatest form of love is not romantic love.

It’s sacrificial love.

Jesus modeled sacrificial love for us on the cross.

This type of love isn’t just some idea, but it is an action.

Sacrificial love is something that we can and should live out daily.

With our spouses.

Our kids.

Our co-workers.

And especially with our fellow believers.

So here’s where the rubber meets the road.

Are you producing fruit?

Are you growing in your knowledge of God?

Are you loving your church family?

Are you relying on Jesus to produce fruit in your life?

Are you abiding in the vine?

There may be some of you who don’t have a thriving relationship with Jesus.

You may come to church.

You may do the “right things”

You may look the part, but you don’t know Jesus.

He doesn’t have life in you.

I plead with you at this time to turn to Jesus.

Repent of your sin

And follow after him.

In him you can find inexhaustible joy.

You can have life.

Lord’s Supper

1 Corinthians 11:23–26 CSB

23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.