5/25/25 “A Fruitful Relationship”
“A Fruitful Relationship”
John 15:1-8
If you were told that you had to spend all day (24 hours) in only one room of the house…which room would it be?
For many of you, it might be the living room where you could stretch out on the couch…or the laz-y-boy…and binge watch your favorite television shows.
For others, it might be the kitchen where you could try some new recipes that you’ve been wanting to experiment with for a while.
Maybe some of you fellas would like to hang out in the garage where you could tinker around on vehicles all day long…and – if you’re like me - spend half the day looking for that wrench you just sat down 5 minutes ago.
Those of you who are practical people would most likely choose the bathroom - for obvious reasons. Maybe a 12-hour bubble-bath sounds like your kind of day…no thank you…I have enough wrinkles already…no need to add any more!
Maybe you just want to stay in your cozy bed all day…I know a couple of people - and a handful of cats - who literally could sleep all day.
There’s always the basement if you’re into a subterranean existence of darkness, silence, and a healthy dose of Radon.
Some of you have an office in your home. To be honest, that’s probably where I’d choose to spend my day….maybe write an extra sermon or two.
How about the attic?...anybody want to spend a day with bats, spiders, and hornets digging through grandma & grandpa’s old Sears catalogs from the 50’s?....sign me up! 😊
Maybe you’re a big HVAC fan and you just want to hang out in the utility room all day…you could vent to the furnace about all your frustrations….I’ve noticed that furnaces can be good listeners – but at other times, they just seem to be full of hot air…. 😊
I suppose there might be a few of you who would want to spend all day in the laundry room….you could be on a 24 hour spin cycle.
And Finally…if any of you want to stay in a closet for 24 hours….If that is you this morning…I’m very concerned about your emotional well-being…
So…regardless of what room you would choose…the act of hanging out in one place, or ‘remaining where you are’ is actually the definition of a very important word that we see Jesus using here in our passage for this morning.
…that word is ‘Abide.’
Abiding means to ‘remain where you are’…or to ‘endure in a fixed state’.
…and in the context of today’s scripture, to ‘Abide in Me’ means to ‘Maintain an unbroken communion with Jesus.’
This is the primary lesson behind all 8 of these verses in John chapter 15.
Just as branches of grapes continually depend upon the life-giving nutrients of the vine…so we as believers also must continually depend upon the life-giving power of Jesus in order to produce spiritual fruit in our lives.
Look with me at verse 1 (John 15:1) “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.”
This happens to be the last of 7 “I Am” statements that Jesus is recorded as saying in the gospel of John…all of them pointing in some way to His diety…His divine nature.
I Am:…the bread of life…the light of the world…the door of the sheep…the resurrection and the life…the good shepherd…the way, the truth, and the life…
(and in our passage for today) the true vine.
In what begins like some of the parables we just finished looking at, Jesus defines Himself as the true vine and His Father as the gardener…or vinedresser.
First of all, the imagery of a vine would have been very recognizable to the disciples…
In the Old Testament, the nation of Israel is often portrayed as God’s vine.
Psalm 80:8 says “You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.”
And Jeremiah 2:21 says “I had planted you like a choice vine of sound and reliable stock. How then did you turn against me into a corrupt wild vine?”
Israel was God’s vine – however – Israel proved to be a fruitless, unfaithful vine.
Israel failed at Abiding in the Lord.
The prophet Isaiah laments “What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes why did it yield only bad?” (Isaiah 5:4)
God had given Israel everything she needed to fulfill His commission of revealing the one true God to all mankind…yet Israel chose the way of disobedience…time after time.
She continually chose to worship pagan gods and partake in self-indulgent behavior….rather than living in righteous obedience to Yahweh..
Therefore, a new vine was needed.
I vine that would bear good fruit…
I vine that would reveal the true God to all nations and tribes…
This is why Jesus says in verse 1 (John 15:1) that He is the true vine.
Israel had proven to be a false vine of fruitlessness…
But Jesus – the true vine – would now displace Israel as the focus of God’s plan of salvation…
man would now find everlasting life through one name – the name of Jesus – the true…genuine…perfect vine of redemption and salvation.
In verse 2 (John 15:2) Jesus mentions how the Father – the gardener - will cut off every branch that bears no fruit and prunes back the branches that do bear fruit.
This verse – along with similar wording in verse 6 – have been debated within the church for centuries as to the spiritual status of those individuals represented by branches that bear no fruit.
One way to look at Jesus’ words here about a branch being cut off would be to see these ‘branches’ as people who were genuine believers…but have backslidden – they’ve fallen away –
….fallen away to the point that they no longer have the opportunity to bear fruit and receive the blessing of everlasting life through the life source of the true vine that is Jesus.
Looking at the entirety of scripture, I don’t see that idea being conveyed here.
Verses such as Philippians 1:6 says “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
And John 10:27-28 reads “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.
These verses – and many more like them - clearly teach that a genuine believer need not worry about his or her eternal salvation…You are now God’s child…
…and the perfect Father of righteousness will never send you back to the orphanage of depravity!
So…If Jesus isn’t talking about backsliding Christians here…who is being represented by the fruitless branches?
Personally.…I believe that Jesus is referring to those who profess to be followers of his…but who really aren’t.
Fruitless branches are individuals who claim to be believers, but their lives show no lasting evidence – no fruit – of authentic faith…
no tangible and ongoing evidence of a relationship with the true vine…Jesus Christ.
This makes sense in how Jesus brings forth this illustration.
A branch that doesn’t bear fruit is a branch that simply has no connection to the vine….It is not Abiding in the vine at all.
It’s wood exterior may resemble those branches that are truly connected to the vine, but given a closer look, one notices that they are not producing any fruit.
A couple weeks ago, I bought a petunia from Menards. I took it home where I attempted to re-plant it in a larger base….it did not go well.
In the process of replanting, I managed to accidently snap a few branches off….but because they were all entangled with each other, I wasn’t sure which branches I had snapped off…and which branches were still connected.
But after a week or so, it became very evident which branches were still connected to the main vine…and which were not.
The severed branches were no longer producing any flowers…they were visibly dead.
If you recall in the sermon on the mount, Jesus describes the way in which we are able to distinguish whether or not someone is a true follower of Christ.
In Matthew 7 we read: “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.”
In other words…good fruit is the physical, tangible way to discern those who are in Christ - from those who are not…
…those who are simply playing the game of religion.
…those who – like the Pharisees – try to appear righteous but ultimately show no evidence of having an authentic relationship with Jesus.
I believe it is these professed – but disingenuous - believers that Jesus is referring to here in verse 2 – and verse 6 (John 15:6) when he says, “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.”
In other words, those who pay lip service to Jesus are ultimately no better off than those who openly, publicly deny faith in Christ.
Both are destined for an eternity away from God in a place of physical, emotional, and spiritual pain and anguish.
Hell is not some never-ending ‘party for sinners’ as some want to believe…it is a horrible place of endless regret…
…a place of never-ending remorse over having rejected the offer of salvation through genuine faith in Jesus Christ.
Folks…a lifestyle of sin & disobedience is not something to play with.
It’s promises are counterfeit…..and its wages are death.
Verse 2 (John 15:2) also talks about how those who do bear fruit will eventually need to be pruned by the gardener.
In other words…if you are a genuine believer in Jesus Christ…be prepared to endure seasons of your life that will hurt…badly.
but it will also be these seasons that will bring you into an even closer relationship with the savior….
And – on a personal level - that should be a major goal for each and every one of us here today….to abide more and more in the life-giving vine of Jesus.
I remember some time ago, one of the shrubs around the backside of our house needed to be pruned…
So I grabbed by trimmer and started….well…I got a bit carried away.
By the time I stepped back to assess the shrub…It more resembled a twig coming up from the ground….worse than a Charlie brown Christmas tree.
I thought to myself….”no way is this thing ever coming back from such an act of absolute destruction!”
Well….not only did it come back…it Flourished!
The shrub appeared to have new, vigorous life again!
It was because the dead parts of the plant that were still consuming energy were removed…and by so doing…the healthy parts of the plant became that much healthier…and able to prosper once again.
This is how God grows His children as well.
The spiritual pruning sheers of the gardener…they hurt, right?
…But look at how that season of pruning in your life brought you closer to the Heavenly Father…brought you closer to Jesus…brought you closer to the Holy Spirit.
That addiction that God brought you through…
That serious medical condition that sent you to your knees in prayer…
That wayward son or daughter that caused you to have sleepless nights of reading God’s Word through the tears in your eyes…
The group of friends who no longer invite you to their get-togethers because – as a Christian – you choose not to talk and act like you once did…
These are the moments of pruning in our lives that hurt in the moment…but they have eternal rewards…
These are the moments that refine our faith….that embolden us to stand our ground against the evil one…
…These are the moments that build our trust and dependance upon the savior…
…the moments when we are allowed – be it ever so briefly - to walk on the rising tidewaters of spiritual maturity.
In verse 4 (John 15:4) of our passage, Jesus underscores the importance for genuine believers to remain in a close relationship with him…
….to prioritize Jesus before all else in our lives.
He says that to bear any fruit at all, you must be connected to the vine.
Like we saw before, branches that are disconnected from the vine will simply not produce any fruit whatsoever.
…But if you are connected to the vine, if you are abiding in Jesus, you will produce fruit – there is simply no other option.
Over in North Freedom, just steps from the church I grew up in, there is a train museum….some of you may have been there a time or two.
When I was younger, they still had a steam locomotive pulling the passenger cars from the station to an old quarry and back.
Steam engines basically are driven by high-pressure steam created by boiling water from burning coal…the steam pushes against pistons…and the pistons drive the wheels of the train.
…After the steam has done its job, it is exhausted out the smokestack.
Whenever you have a moving steam locomotive, you will always have exhaust being created and discharged through the smokestack.
…and the faster the train is moving, the more steam will billow out the stack.
So it is with believers.
The more you are connected to Jesus…the more “spiritual smoke” will be visible coming from your ‘stack of fruitfulness’
As a believer….its not a matter of IF you will produce spiritual smoke…just HOW MUCH smoke will you produce?
Or…getting back to the vineyard analogy…How large and delicious will the fruit be coming from your branch?
So…what specifically is this fruit that Jesus speaks of here in John chapter 15?
What exactly does it look like in our lives?
Well…the answer to this question – like everything else – is found in scripture.
Fruit is spiritual…not physical.
Fruit is not worldly success….Fruit is not a fat bank account….Fruit is not a fancy house….Fruit is not family…Fruit is not an occupation…Fruit is not owning a cool vehicle….Fruit is not a good reputation.
Rather…fruit is how the Apostle Paul defines it in Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
9 qualities that all make up spiritual fruit.
…And notice that it’s NOT …. “Fruits”…plural.
it’s fruit…Singular
As a Christ-follower, it’s not like you have only some of these attributes…but not others.
I can’t say “Today I feel like exhibiting a full cup of gentleness, maybe half a cup of patience, and just a dash of love”
That’s just not how it works…these spiritual attributes all blend into each other.
If you have love, you will have joy. If you have joy, you will have peace. If you have peace, you will have patience….and so on.
Think of a cluster of 9 fully ripened grapes on your branch…they will all be about the same size, color, texture, etc.
You won’t have 4 large ones, 3 medium sized, and 2 tiny grapes.
But your fruit cluster’s overall size can vary depending upon how much sap you choose to receive from the vine.
…or to put it in steam-train terminology…how much smoke is coming out of your stack?
Jesus ends our passage for today with these words: “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” (John 15:8)
The reason why we want to bear much fruit isn’t simply to pile up a stack of good deeds that will impress God – or compel Him to let us enter Heaven…
Sadly…There are a lot of people who believe that!
Folks – the Bible clearly says that our good works amount to nothing more – spiritually - than filthy rags!
…And if you amass a mountain of good works…congratulations…you’ve just amassed a mountain of filthy rags!
This may sound harsh, but it’s true.
Don’t get me wrong…our good deeds are beneficial – and they are better than performing bad deeds…
…But no matter how many of them we perform…they will not purchase our justification…they will not buy everlasting life.
Ephesians 2:8-9 remind us of this when we read “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.”
So…why do we perform good works?
…Why do we desire to have full, juicy fruit on our branches?
…Because we want to glorify the God in heaven who sent His Son to earth to die on a cross in our place…amen?
As pastor and commentator John MacArthur puts it: “The greatest theme in the universe is the glory of God, and to live a life that brings God glory is the believer’s highest privilege and duty.”
The next time you have the opportunity to show fruit in your life…do it for the savior who did it all for you.
…Grow in Him…Live for Him…Abide in Him.
Let’s Pray.