Fruitful Living | John 15

INTRODUCTION

In John 13-17, John records for us the final words of Jesus before his arrest and crucifixion. Jesus spoke to them that they will receive the Holy Spirit in John 14. The Spirit will be their teacher and will maintain His presence with them. But they have a job to do as well. Their job is to remain or abide in him.

John 15:1-8

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ²He 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. ³You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

⁵“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

John 15:16-17

¹⁶You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷This is my command: Love each other.

Father is the farmer.

Jesus is the vine.

The disciples are branches.

Branches are expected to bear fruit.

In this allegory of the vine and its branches, we, the disciples of Jesus are the branches.

What is the purpose of a branch?

The real purpose of the branch of a grapevine is determined by the purpose of the gardener who put it there, the vine dresser.

What is the purpose of a branch from the gardener’s perspective?

The purpose of a branch from the gardener’s perspective is to bear fruit.

These are the chapters that record for us Jesus’ words on the night before his crucifixion. Jesus is suddenly talking about gardening in the midst of this discourse from John chapter 13 to 17. Why talk about a vine and a branch right here at this point? Some scholars have suggested that, there are grapevines all over Israel. Maybe he, being in the upper room at this point is looking out the window where there were clusters of grapes that were over. It is just a speculation.

I think a better explanation, a consistent image all throughout the Bible featured in the OT prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, found in Psalm 80 and many other passages. The vine imagery is also found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and that is where the grape vine is an emblem for the people of God.

One hand it is an encouraging metaphor that reminds us of our specialness in the eyes of God.

We are Special in the Eyes of God.

The vine is a much-beloved item. It was part of the kind of an example of what was so good about the promised land. Remember the spies go in and they bring back a branch, the clusters of the grapes of which took two men to hold. So it is expressive of the blessing of the promised land.

But the way the prophets use the image is to make another point. They spoke about Israel as a vine.

Isaiah 5:1

I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: (Here is the prophet singing about God in his relationship to his vineyard, which is a symbol for the people of God, Israel.) My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.

Isaiah 5:2

He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. (After all the wonderful things the beloved has done for the vineyard, you expect a bumper crop. You don’t get what you expect. John 1 After creating the world, he came to the world and his own did not receive him. They did not want him.) Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.

Jeremiah 2:21

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?

Isaiah 5:3-4

“Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. ⁴What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? (Of course, we could ask that same question about God and his relationship to us. We could say, what more could God have done for us? If what he is after is fruit, and if we’re part of this vine, what more could God possibly do in our lives than he has already done to produce good fruit? Judge between me and the vine, God could say to us.) When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?

Isaiah 5:5-7

⁵Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. ⁶I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.” ⁷The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

God loves you, Isaiah is saying to the people of the Lord in Isaiah chapter 5. You are precious in his sight, but what he blessed you for is fruit. He looked for justice, but he saw bloodshed for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

So you see, Isaiah 5 unpacks it.

We are the vine.

God Expects Fruit from Us.

He wants fruit.

What kind of fruit? We are not talking about money. What we are talking about is justice and righteousness. We are talking about the very characteristics that are representative of God’s own holy character reproduced in us.

Psalm 80 is even more vivid, if possible, as a background to our text:

Psalm 80:7-8

⁷Restore us, God Almighty;

make your face shine on us,

that we may be saved.

⁸You transplanted a vine from Egypt;

you drove out the nations and planted it.

Now, of course, here the psalmist is reminding everyone how Israel was brought up out of Egypt, and so Israel is represented by the vine. You get the metaphor. You brought a vine out of Egypt. You drove out the nations and planted it.” You know, the dispossessing of the Canaanites, and now they’re in the Promised Land.

Psalm 80:9-11

⁹You cleared the ground for it,

and it took root and filled the land.

¹⁰ The mountains were covered with its shade,

the mighty cedars with its branches.

¹¹Its branches reached as far as the Sea,

its shoots as far as the River.

So it went from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. Why then, after all that blessing:

Psalm 80:12-13

¹² Why have you broken down its walls

so that all who pass by pick its grapes?

¹³Boars from the forest ravage it,

and insects from the fields feed on it.

All the Israelite enemies, the Babylonians and Assyrians are having a heyday, ravaging that vine.

Psalm 80:14-15

¹⁴Return to us, God Almighty!

Look down from heaven and see!

Watch over this vine,

¹⁵the root your right hand has planted,

the son you have raised up for yourself.

Now you’ve got a mixed metaphor. It’s a vine, and it’s also the son of God. The vine is the son of God. In the case of the Old Testament, God describes Israel as his son. Out of Egypt, I brought my firstborn son. He said, let my firstborn son go, that he may worship me in Exodus chapter 4. So the vine is the son. The vine is Israel.

Psalm 80:16-17

¹⁶Your vine is cut down,

it is burned with fire;

at your rebuke your people perish.

¹⁷ Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand,

the son of man you have raised up for yourself.

Now here, the son of man, the one at God’s right hand is a reference to the king, the Davidic king, in whom the hope of Israel is to be found, the one who will lead us back into God’s good favour. This ultimate son of man, of course, fulfilled in Christ.

Psalms 80:18

¹⁸ Then we will not turn away from you;

revive us, and we will call on your name.

¹⁹Restore us, Lord God Almighty;

make your face shine on us, that we may be saved.

Psalm 80, it is a wonderful psalm, but you can hear the background of it.

In our text, Jesus is the vine. He is also the son of God. He is the true Israel. Here, he is the one in whom you and I as strangers are engrafted, as branches might be grafted into a plant. The natural branches had no fruit. They were cut off in terms of the imagery of that vine that rejected God in his purpose that never produced fruit, that God cuts it down. Remember, John the Baptist’s message was produce fruits in keeping with righteousness. Even now, God has his axe laid at the root.

Matthew 7:19

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

John the Baptist was warning his contemporaries, his fellow Israelites, his fellow Jews, that their rebellion would be judged and they would forfeit the kingdom promise. They would no longer be the vine of God’s delight bearing fruit because they had refused to bear fruit and had refused the one in whom was to be their hope namely Christ.

Branches Without Fruit are Useless.

Ezekiel 15:2

“Son of man, how is the wood of a vine different from that of a branch from any of the trees in the forest?

It is a sarcastic question. The answer is, it isn’t. Vinewood is crummy wood.

Ezekiel 15:3

Is wood ever taken from it to make anything useful? Do they make pegs from it to hang things on?

Ezekiel asks, jokingly. Vinewood is useless. You may be a branch, and you may be happy just to be wood, but vinewood is useless. You make a peg out of it, and it is like a noodle. It just bends and the coat falls to the floor. It is not useful lumber from which to make let’s say a furniture. It is not like cedar, for example, that has a good strength-to-weight ratio and also resists mildew and other kinds of degrading. It doesn’t have the strength of oak that you could make timbers out of a house or something. It does not have the beauty of olive wood. It is useless. It is useful in fact only to be thrown into the fire, made as just fuel for the fire.

So our text says of God, he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. It is useless in fact it robs the life of the vine and hinders it from being productive at the places where it could be productive that is the purpose of the pruning. What’s the purpose of the pruning?

What’s the purpose of the Christian life?

It’s not just to luxuriate in the privileges that are ours as the people of God to enjoy some kind of life of ease and comfort. If you manage to be having a pretty decent time of it. No, the purpose of our lives is like the purpose of a branch. It is to bear fruit.

Our text has the progression of fruit verse 2, in the beginning of it to more fruit later on in verse 2, to much fruit in verse 5 and 8. You see, God doesn’t leave well enough alone. He is not happy if what you got is one grape coming out of you. He wants a whole cluster, many clusters coming out of you. He wants much fruit.

John 15:5,8

⁵“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

⁸This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

Are you bearing much fruit?

Jesus said this is the purpose of our election. This is why he chose us.

John 15:16

¹⁶You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit fruit that will last and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.

The Apostle Paul puts it in other words, but just so you will see that this is not just here in the Gospel of John. It is all over the New Testament. It is New Testament Christianity.

Of course, we are not into a works religion. Of course we are not saved by works. But Paul says, though we are not saved by works you cannot earn God’s love, you cannot earn your salvation, only Christ can earn it. But we are saved though not by works, we are saved for works.

Ephesians 2:8

⁸For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God ⁹not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

We are not saved by good works, but we are saved for good works. The branch has nothing of which to boast. It only produces the fruit unavoidably if it’s engrafted into the vine. If the nourishment of the vine, the vital relationship to the vine is sustained, then fruit comes forward naturally, irresistibly. It is all to the vine’s credit. None of it to yours or mine.

Colossians 1:10-11

¹⁰so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience,

Without That Fruit, We Only Invite God’s Right and Fair Judgment. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, Jesus says in verse 2.

So yes, within this context we find in this allusion a reminder of the dreadful outcome for Israel in refusing Jesus’ contemporaries, in refusing to acknowledge Him as the one sent of God. You killed the author of life, Peter preached at Pentecost and following in Acts chapter 3. Deserving what? Well, deserving a punishment fit the crime. God’s intention is

Matthew 15:13

He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.

Jesus warned that it’s by their fruit that you shall know them, reminding us that we can’t just pretend that we belong to Him. We’ve got to exhibit the fruits that belong to those who belong to Christ

Matthew 7:16

By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

You can stick fruit on thorns, I suppose, kind of like a Christmas tree, but they don’t grow out of the thorn bush. They’ve got to grow out of a grapevine.

Matthew 7:19-21

¹⁹Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. ²¹“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

This is New Testament Christianity of a kind that we often hide from ourselves and forget. This is the purpose of our lives.

What is that fruit?

The fruit of the Spirit.

It’s described in the book of Galatians, for example.

In John 14, you have Jesus promising the coming of the Holy Spirit. In chapter 16 in John, you have Jesus promising the coming of the Holy Spirit and chapter 15 looks like an interruption. This stuff about vines and fruit. But of course it is no interruption at all. The only way that we can produce fruit is by this mutual indwelling and so that mutual indwelling is accomplished by the Spirit. So Paul talks about it this way

Galatians 5:22-23

²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Are you growing in all those fruits?

How can We Bear Fruit?

Well, there are two obvious requirements that our text emphasizes. There is our responsibility, and then there is God’s.

Our Responsibility: Abide in the Vine.

God’s responsibility: Prune the Vine.

Abide in the Vine

John 15:4

Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

It is sometimes used for when you’re staying at a place, spending the night, or staying for a period of time in Bangalore. You’re abiding or remaining in Bangalore. That’s the sense of the term. Sometimes translating lives. Jesus uses it in John 14:10.

God Living in Us.

John 14:10

Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.

APPLICATION

But the term is wonderful in the sense that it emphasizes that our relationship with Christ is not a part-time affair. Christianity can never be a condiment in your life, you know, kind of spice things up along with your other hobbies. It is continuous, unbroken fellowship that is emphasized by the metaphor.

What happens when a branch is abiding in a vine?

Let’s just say a couple of hours every Sunday. How much fruit will it yield? Jesus said in verse 4 “abide in me, and I will abide in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must abide in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you abide in me.”

Abiding is a term that is picked precisely for the purpose of emphasizing the unbroken nature of this organic union with Christ that is definitional of Christianity. Outsiders may think that you can kind of fulfil your Christian responsibilities in a quiet time, an occasional weekday, a Sunday routine, or maybe in a small group Bible study. Those are all wonderful means of grace, but it’s constant. It’s got to be 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is exactly the problem that the branch has if it ever separates from the vine, suddenly apart from me you can do nothing. In our text, then, emphasizing the impossibility of fulfilling our purpose apart from this unbroken, intimate fellowship with Christ also then kind of teases it out.

Abiding starts with faith in Christ.

1 John 4:15

If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.

So you have got to start, do you acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? You can’t abide in him unless you do. If you really have put your trust in him as the Son of God, you will abide in him and he will in you.

It Is A Constant, Unbroken Relationship With Christ.

Not only do you do this, however, just like one time when you once went forward at a church service and asked to surrender your life to Christ and had a time of prayer at the end of the service. That’s wonderful, but it’s not a one-time decision. You can’t be married just because you had a wedding 30 years ago. It’s a constant relationship that is unbroken that has to be formed in order for this to be fairly described in the way that Jesus is described. You have got to continue in your walk with God, not just have it be once upon a time.

Jude 1:21

keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

2 John 1:8-9

Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. ⁹Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.

Hebrews 3:14

We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.

We’ve got to remain glued to Christ, abiding in Him, sustained by Him, or we will lose the life for which He died to give us that abundant life.

ILLUSTRATION

An article was written on John 15 was written, believe it or not, by Karl Marx, the founder of communism. It is one of the seven published essays that he wrote as part of his graduation requirement, and the title of the paper that he wrote is “The Union of Believers with Christ  according to John 15, verses 1 to 14,” showing its basis and essence, its absolute necessity and its effects. Already in this very early document published by Marx, you find his appreciation for the lessons of history, the lessons that come from the interrelationship with cultures and nations and classes within nations.

If we turn our attention to history, he writes the great teacher of mankind we shall find engraved there that every people, even when it has attained the highest level of civilization, when the greatest men have sprung from its womb, when the arts have blossomed within it in their full radiance, when the sciences have solved the most difficult problems, that when they do not abide in Christ, then they do not rise to the level that they were otherwise meant to in morality, ethics, and breaking loose from the fetters of superstition. This is Karl Marx.

Then he says, “the history of peoples teaches us the necessity of union of Christ, so also our own personal history.” If you’re not too strong in world history, how about just look in the mirror or look in your diaries, think of the times when you were abiding in Christ and think of times when you were not and what the result was in your life. When we consider the history of individuals, when we consider the nature of man, it’s true that we always see a spark of divinity in his breast, a passion for what is good, a striving for knowledge. Maybe he’s a little generous here, but a yearning for truth. But the sparks of the eternal are extinguished by the flames of desire. Enthusiasm for virtue is drowned by the tempting voice of sin. It is scorned as soon as life has made us feel its full power. The striving for knowledge is supplanted by a base striving for worldly goods. The longing for truth is extinguished by the sweetly flattering power of lies. So there stands man, the only being in nature which does not fulfil its purpose, the only member of the totality of creation which is not worthy of the God who created it, unless you abide in Christ. So he concludes with that point, in our hearts, reason, history, the word of Christ, therefore tells us loudly and convincingly that union with Christ is absolutely essential, that without him we cannot fulfil our goal, that without him we would be rejected by God, and that only Christ can redeem us.

Now how could Karl Marx write that? Well, of course, you know Marx’s criticism of religion as the opiate of the masses. He’s actually quite modest in his criticisms of religion. Most of the time what he’s condemning is the use of the upper classes that is made of religion as a means of controlling others. He is a little ambivalent. You don’t really know where he is and unfortunately after writing this he had his faith all messed up by Feuerbach and some of the other German liberal theologians under whom he also subsequently studied. Nevertheless, it’s a reminder to us that you know what? You can know all these things and still not do it.

You can know that your life is meaningless without Christ and still not have Christ. You can understand at some point of insight in your life how you need to abide in Christ and still not do it. You can have done it once and not later in some way, at least from the human perspective. In any case, our Bible, our word here, the Gospel of John reminds us, “if you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you.” Jesus points out that there’s a linkage between abiding in Christ and abiding in his word. He at one point talked about how man cannot live on bread alone, but every word that comes from the mouth of God, it’s not just a once a week thing, it is 24/7. One-tenth of the things that come out of Jesus’ mouth are just quotations of the Old Testament. So much was the word of God just coursing through his veins, providing the foundation for his life, giving him the purpose and agenda for how he should obey, providing the hope, the joy that was set before him.

Then Thirdly:

Prayer

Twice over in our passage, Jesus invites us to pray. He challenges us to ask and it’s always in connection with the fruit. In verse 7, he says, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to me, my disciples.”

You see, if you get your shopping list from this book, if his words are abiding in you, what you’ll be asking for is fruit. That’s the whole point. It is not quite a carte blanche. It’s not that you can ask that, “Oh God, would you please damn all people who believe in you and then expect that he will do it because he said he would do anything you ask.” No, if his word abides in you, that provides the appetite, the understanding of what you want out of life so you won’t settle for less, and so you ask only for the very best, which is in fact, the fruits that God made you to exhibit.

In verse 16, he said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.”

Again, it’s the connection between the life of prayer and asking and fruit. That is our job.

How about God’s job? His job is pruning. “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser, the gardener. 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. He does not give up on us with just one or two fruits. He wants more. It is never good enough. He wants more.

There’s no plant in all of agriculture that requires more continuous intervention than the vine. Right from the get-go planting it the vinedresser has to terrace the field, provide irrigation because of its fussy and very exacting needs of water. As the plant grows, the vinedresser has to intervene constantly, and after the first year of growth the vinedresser as you know cuts more than 90% of the plant away. Those of you who’ve seen Napa Valley, after they have done the pruning, you look at these early plants and you say the vinedresser must hate that vine. Look at it! It’s just a little scrawny stub coming out of the ground. 90% of it gone. Why? Because God loves the fruit that will come only when there is pruning, and every subsequent year, twice a year the vinedresser continues the pruning, severe pruning, cutting back, not allowing too many buds on a branch because that also compromises the quality of the grape. In the ancient world, of course, as the grapes come then the vinedresser also has to intervene by lifting them off the ground or they’ll rot. He has to be very careful about when he harvests them. When they turn the wonderful colour that they are going to purple or yellow or red or green, it’s not good enough. You’ve got to wait until the sugar has matured which is after it may appear to be ripe, because it doesn’t gain more sugar once it’s harvested. He’s got to care for it at every point and then cutting it back so that it will be yet more fruitful.

The pruning. You can’t be a Christian for very long and not experience painful pruning that makes you cry out in self-pity and confusion. “What are you doing to me, O Lord? How is this possible?” What’s the pruning? Well, you name it. It’s adversity, it’s setback, it’s disappointment, it’s heartbreak. For some of you, it’s bereavement, losing a loved one, a child, a parent, a sibling. It’s losing your health. It’s whatever shakes the foundations of your life, and you say, “Why O Lord, would you do this to me? Why don’t you leave well enough alone?” It’s because he wants fruit. Every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

Those of you who know how the vine works, it’s only the first year’s growth that produces the grapes. So old growth has to be all cut back. It will do us no good to maintain it. It will just steal the life of the plant. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace by those who have been trained by it. Are you going through a period of pruning? Or, as the Bible talks about it, refining, the purifying of gold. The same fire that burns the chaff purifies the gold. The Scriptures talk about how we should consider it pure joy then when you face trials of many kinds, because you know the purifying, the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so you can be mature and complete. It is Christ reproducing his character in us.

Psalms 119:71

It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.

Is the vine dresser doing his work in your life? I hope so. If we really believe in the power of prayer, prayer for fruitfulness, perhaps we should take to heart John Stott’s invitation. If we really hunger and thirst after righteousness, may this be our prayer. Father, I am willing for anything, for any suffering, however painful, if only you would use it as a means to make me more like Christ. May God accomplish his purpose in our lives.