Mar 7 2021 John 15 - Pruning Produces Fruit

John 15:1 "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. 3 "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

Lord, I ask that You would allow me to step aside – and this passage, that is familiar and yet so amazing could speak to each of our hearts. Thank You for Your transforming power in our lives. Even that song we just sang – we proclaim our belief – and those things that may seem so strange to the world are things that bring us resurrection.

We are looking at the parable or the vine and branches

Jesus is taking something that is common and familiar – vineyards and grapevines would be like tomato plants for us! Grapes were everywhere – so Jesus is taking something they would have understood and revealing hidden spiritual realities that relate to us on a personal level.

The main point is bearing fruit – there are 2 main characters – the vine – OR JESUS – the second is the gardener – or vinedresser – and that represents the FATHER. His role is to do the pruning. In today’s world of YouTube, you can just type in how to prune grapevines and you wouldn’t believe how many videos are out there – not just mom and pop, but colleges and experts – you can become dangerous!

IT is surprising how much wood is removed from the plants.

Pruning can feel at times, to be severe and painful. I know plants don’t have feelings, but we do – and there is a lot of stuff that God needs to remove for us to be fruitful.

In modern day horticulture – there are three types of pruning that must go on.

First – in the winter – and it depends on where you are when it happens, but the first is to remove the dead wood from the plant, and to remove MUCH of the previous year’s growth. The reason they do this – the vine can focus all of its energy on producing fruit – not on producing branches and leaves!

It is about producing fruit, not vines.

I think of it as God removing worthless, negative, bad, and evil stuff out of our lives – removing sin from our lives. They have to do this type of pruning every single winter. We would love it – if God would just take the first couple years and get rid of the evil! That would be nice – but no matter how long we follow the Lord, there is always more stuff that needs to be pruned – until we are in His presence. This process can be painful, but the purpose is to bear fruit.

Second type of pruning – thinning – removing leaves to allow more sunlight to come onto the fruit.

Then they remove some of the grape clusters – and you would think – you want as many as you can get, wouldn’t you?

The vine actually produces more fruit than the vine can support – and some must be removed to improve the quality of that which is there.

And sometimes, God needs to remove EXTRA (not evil) stuff from our lives – not evil – but just distracting – and God has to come in – and usually, it is okay stuff, but it needs to be removed to focus on Him.

Girdling – they take a knife and cut a band – a ¼ to ½ inch – all the bark – and there is this membrane – and they shave all of that off – around the vine – and the reason they do that – the leaves send nutrients down to the root – and those nutrients can’t get to the root and it sends them back to the fruit! This is temporary, and it makes all the nutrients go into the grapes.

Like Paul said – momentary light affliction to produce a weight of glory. Suffering – not stuff that God takes out of us, but more like stuff that is put upon us – and for me, they never feel momentary or light – but in the light of eternal blessing, they are.

I think – not a prophetic word from God – but just from looking around and discerning – I think the church in our country, our city, and the church that meets in this building is being pruned. And I think it is to produce a higher quality of fruit.

I’ll give you three possibilities – I think sometimes God needs to put the church into a consolidation phase – to trim things down – to build a strong base – so that the church can experience a new season of strong growth.

Another one – and this is more extreme – sometimes God needs to cut a church down to minority status – a remnant – throughout the Bible we see this – and through history we see this – where the church just becomes a remnant – and God wants to start fresh. Some believe we are in that time – but I don’t know for sure. We won’t know for 10-20 years – what God is doing.

Like in the girdling phase – there are some extreme cuts being made to create a growth spurt. We won’t know which of these we are in – for some time.

John 15: 4 "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5 "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. 6 "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.

For pruning to work, we must abide in the vine – remain in Jesus – stay connected – to stick to the vine – to stay connected to Jesus.

He is speaking of staying connected relationally. We abide because of His work in the gospel.

Remaining connected is a process – the spiritual disciplines – we talk about those often – but it is our responsibility – we must act! Abide! It is an action! You are doing stuff to remain connected to Christ

The focus of the passage is fruit. What kind of fruit is He talking about?

Is it quality or quantity? Like the grapevine – there is an attempt to have a balance.

SO that when we talk about from a quantitative approach – growing God’s kingdom – people coming to Christ – making disciples – church growth – that is not the majority of what is being spoken of here, but we see it in the parables of the kingdom – and through good deeds and charitable deeds – like Haven of Rest, Urban vision – soup kitchens – help to grow the presence of God in our community –

The second way – and this is more prevalent in the scriptures – the quality of fruit – look at Galatians and the fruit of the spirit –

Those are all qualities that God wants to put in us.

Love the Lord your God with heart, soul, mind, body – those qualities are developed in us.

In the heart – the soul – the controlling center of our lives – that which controls us – our heart, not the organ. Out of a good heart – one transformed by Him – naturally have the fruit of the spirit when the heart has been transformed. It is a natural thing – a heart is compassionate because God has transformed it.

We are patient because God has made us patient.

It is who we are – that kind of a person, because of our hearts. Our speech – only from a good heart – if the speech is evil, the heart is evil.

This is a circular thing – a transformed heart moves the mind and the body – but the mind and the body transform the heart!

Our thoughts – first about God – transform our hearts for good or bad.

Tozer – what you think about when you think about God is the most important thing about you – and I would add – because that is what you will become. You will become what you think about God – obviously slowly over time.

We talk about self- talk.

Next – how we think about our self transforms us – and those things are good – self-help, self-talk, self-identity – all those are found in Christ. When we see ourselves, we must see ourselves in Christ.

This is my beloved son – in whom I am well-pleased – we need to see ourselves that way!

I am God’s beloved child and He is well-pleased with me!

We know that theologically, but we don’t believe it in our hearts.

Maybe a little pleased? No! He is WELL-pleased! Fully pleased!

And the third – part – our body – our strength – it requires action for us to transform our hearts – we need to do things.

I will run the way of your commandments – You will enlarge my heart – the psalmist said.

We just need to do it – even if we aren’t motivated – and then God can step in and change the heart – change the motivation – and it is hard sometimes, to just step out and do it.

John 15:7 7 "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 "My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.

There are two foundational practices – how to bear more fruit – the first – to ask whatever you wish. Yeah, prayer – we need to pray! No question – to pray to bear fruit – what do you pray for? More fruit – it says right there! Then I thought – this goes back to chapter 14 – whatever you ask in my name – so the father will be glorified in the son – sure, we need to pray more – but in both passages, He says – ASK! We need to learn how to ask. We need to become askers! It is really hard to ask! It is hard to ask for directions – or to ask for help at Lowe’s! We want to do it ourselves! I will FIND that if it takes me all day!

Just ask. Be people who will ask!

He just wants us to ask!

We spent time in Columbus with one of our grandkids yesterday – If I am asked, as a grandpa – Oh, okay! (Cindy is more concerned about his health and well-being!)

Jesus is saying – a large part of our relationship with God is built on our ability to ask! That is somewhat stunning! Highly dependent.

"My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.

Proving we are His disciples is the same as praying in His name – we are His representatives. He is representing us in heaven, and we represent Him here on earth – proving to be His disciples.

We’ll look at the second practice next week – but in closing – ask – How well are we representing Him right now? IN this season of our lives?

None of us has arrived.

One of the guys was telling me that at his job – the warehouse is separated from the office and he has to deal with customers – and I go through the plant and ask how people are doing. He is not a manager or anything – but that seems like a small thing – but think of that – he is just representing, in a simple way.

I think it is the small ways of representing that matter the most!

Great opportunities come up once in a while – but most opportunities are simple, common, and turn into the ones that are the most profound.

If we see those as part of the important representation – they will have their impact on people’s lives.

Lord, we thank You. Help us to bear fruit. We are probably all in a bit of a pruning phase – help us to remain in You – to know our desperate need for You more than ever – to abide in You – to bear much fruit – in Your name we pray – amen.