Every Fruit Needs a Relationship

Relationship Goals

Last week I had the privilege of teaching the youth at the 71st National Youth Conference. I champion the Youth Conference because those relationships have helped me maintain an even better relationship with God. At one point in time on the twittersphere there was a very popular hashtag entitled #relationshipgoals. Typically couples such as Barack and Michelle, Jay-Z and Beyonce, Denzel and Pauletta, Courtney B. Vance and Angela Bassett, David and Tamela Mann, Samuel L. and LaTanya Jackson to name a few.

We typically depict them as relationship goals due to their tenure. As we look around our congregation we celebrate marriages every month, and we have couples that have been married for decades and serve as an example of love for the younger people within this congregation and their communities. These relationships may be photographed as these perfect journeys of bliss, but the tenure of any relationship is typically due to the strength of the relationship.

Often times many couples will credit faith, and resilience and most importantly God being the center of their relationship. One of the most relationships we can cultivate is our relationship with Jesus. In John chapter 15 we are given a front row seat to one of Jesus’ “I Am” lectures. He gives this message on the heels of providing us with the promise of the Holy Spirit. Jesus states I am the true vine. Referencing Jeremiah 2:21 “Yet I had planted you a noble vine, a seed of highest quality. How then have you turned before Me Into the degenerate plant of an alien vine?”

Every relationship has a responsibility attached to it. Friendships have responsibilities, marriages have responsibilities, dating has responsibilities, engagements have responsibilities. This relationship is based on the responsibility of Christians abiding in Jesus.

One year the peaches were especially abundant. The fruit was big and juicy, and it was one of the best crops in memory. While harvesting the crop, a picker noticed a limb that had fallen from a tree. Its fruit was rotten and shriveled. Because the limb was detached from the tree, it was no longer producing the good fruit that it should. The same is true of the Christian who ceases to abide in Christ—he ceases to produce good fruit.

Amongst our responsibilities as Christians one of the most important is bearing fruit. Walking in the fruit of the spirit in effort to produce what God has purposed for us to produce.

Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”

Make the Most of Your Connection

As a branch attached to the vine our purpose is to produce fruit. We have to make the most of our connection.

It makes no sense to be connected to the essence of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, self-control and not exude these same characteristics in our everyday life.

Understand that the relationship we should have with Jesus is an ever evolving and lively relationship.

Understand who you are connected to. You are connected to the true vine. Some of us are connected to the wrong things and wonder why we are producing a rotten harvest! The vine reference is a reference of fellowship. If I’m in fellowship with Jesus I should be producing the right fruit! The fruit you are producing is a direct reflection of what you are connected to.

Life gets real confusing when we are upset with our harvest but aren’t humble to admit that we are connected to the wrong source.

James 3:12 “Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.”

Jesus is always going to the be the source, so whether we are not producing fruit or connecting to the wrong source, God has the authority and power to remove us if do not bear fruit. He is the vinedresser, he is the tenant farmer, He is the gardener inspecting the fields of our life to ensure we are yielding the proper outcomes.

2 Peter 1:3 “as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,”

The problem isn’t the resources, God provides the water in our life for us to grow, God provides the good soil for the nutrients we need to grow, God provides the sunshine we need. Typically the problem is we are connected to the wrong source.

Understand that the Relationship can Be Severed

John 15:2 “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”

Understand that our branches go through weak moments, every branch is impacted by storms and other catastrophes but when we are connected to the right vine, the storm doesn’t inhibit the harvest we shall yield.

This living relationship with the true vine has no choice but to be productive. When our lives are not in communion with God and our lives are not pleasing to Him he has the power to cut us away so that the productive vines can have room to produce the best.

Understand that a disconnected branch serves no purpose but to be burnt up. When it seems like life is just burning and collapsing around you, you might want to inspect the vines of life that you are connected to.

Every relationship has responsibilities and expectations. What does this word true imply? The truth of the matter is the fact that this is the reality of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. He is the true vine because He is the true source of life. This statement is not figurative in nature, it’s an illustration of authority. Just because you are connected now doesn’t mean this is something to be taken for granted. Jesus is not just something I connect to when I need a blessing, our spiritual existence is determined on the premise that He is the source but anytime we disconnect ourselves from the source we leave ourselves hanging in the balance of eternal disconnection.

Can I do More?

John 15:2 “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”

Even if we are in a place of fruit bearing the idea shouldn’t be contentment but rather inspiration that I can do more! Whoever bears fruit must ask why can’t I bear more fruit? Why can’t I be more effective in ministry, a good harvest isn’t the time to get relaxed, a good harvest should inspire us to want to do more.

The use of Father in this text is authoritative to God’s position rather than our ability to rely on Him when we are not doing the best we can do. Jesus didn’t get relaxed after He performed miracles, He performed more miracles. He didn’t just find it suffice to die for the world He rose for the world. He didn’t just find it necessary to forgive our sins but also provide us with peace, joy, and grace.

Even when you feel like you are at your limit, understand who you are in Christ. Christ didn’t give you abundance to rest on your laurels! Remember, in effort to do more you must abide in His word. Put roots down in the word of God and commit your life to them. We abide in Him by allowing the word of God to direct our entire lives.

You Did Not of This Alone

John 15:4 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.”

Abide or continue to exist in, my grandmother might say it like “Keep on keeping on”. When life gets tough abide, when finances are low abide, when you lose friends and family abide. Remain in a state of peace by remaining dedicated to God.

No matter how successful you’ve been it’s not because of our skill set, it’s because God has made space for us to bear much fruit!

We hear statements like

I got it out the mud

Started from the bottom now we’re here.

I’m self-made

I’ve been grinding all my life

It’s all me!

Listen, no matter how successful you’ve been, it’s all God. If nothing else he’s made room for you to bear much fruit.

It’s not solely dependent on our self-determination, it’s a true depiction of God’s grace renewing daily in our lives. What do we look like claiming life’s accomplishments to our merit when Jesus doesn’t even do that. Jesus gave himself over to the purpose that God had in His life. Our blessings aren’t are possessions it’s a reflection of the sacrifice that Jesus has been in our life due to the self-abnegation of devoting our life to service!

Understanding that we can do nothing with Jesus isn’t declaring ourselves as incapable but merely an expression of total-reliance and the fact that all glory belongs to the Lord.

We can do everything in our power to live like Christians but if God doesn’t make space for us all of our work is null and void. I remember my Sophomore year at Southwestern Christian College, my roommate and I had stayed up until the early hours of the morning studying for our religious studies final. That night a terrible storm rolled through Terrell and we had a power outage in the dorm. Due to the power outage we woke up late and had missed the exam. It’s still raining we hopped out of bed and found out it was 9:15 and the class had ended at 9. We ran in the rain up the hill and found Dr. Gibbs in his office. His first words were “You gentleman missed the exam, but because you’ve been so dedicated, I have a couple of hours in my schedule this afternoon to allow you to take the exam”. We had studied to a place of mastery, we would have aced that exam but our work didn’t matter in that instance, what mattered was the grace that Dr. Gibbs bestowed to make space for us missing our allotted time. Understand you can do everything you desire, but if God doesn’t make space for you to bear fruit, it’s not going to happen! If God has made space for you, take full advantage of the space he’s made and bear fruit accordingly!

Prior to Jesus there was no space for us, praise God that He saw fit to send His son to make space for us in the Kingdom of God.

So if I’m going to have any relationship goal it should be a goal to be connected to the True Vine that is Jesus Christ.