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We’re here to behold the Lord. I want to begin with a verse in 2 Thessalonians 3:5, “May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the steadfastness of Christ.” I chose that verse because we’re going to be looking at the fruit of the Spirit, and we know the fruit of the Spirit is love, and so on. So, may the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God for the fruit of the Spirit.
Heavenly Father, we thank You so much again for Your Life, Your indwelling Life. Thank You for the Holy Spirit that lives in our heart and we know that it’s Your pleasure to point us in a new and a fresh and living way to our Lord Jesus Christ. We commit our little session to You and our meditations, and we thank You for everyone that is here. We pray, Lord, that far beyond any human voice, we might be open to what the Spirit says to the churches. We thank You that You are going to guide us now. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
We welcome you again to our look in the gospel of John. I know it’s been a couple of weeks since I reviewed the theme of John. I’ll quote the verse, John 20:31, “These have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in His name.” This gospel, this wonderful gospel, is designed to show us who Jesus is, and to invite us to trust, and then to enjoy what He calls “abundant life”, to enjoy Him. So, to know Him, to trust Him, and to enjoy Him, that’s why we have the gospel of John.
I’m not going to give a detailed review because I’m a little anxious to get into the new material but let me show you where we are and where we left off. We’re looking at John chapters 13-17. These five chapters, of course, when they were spoken there were not chapter divisions, but these five chapters are addressed to those He calls “His own”. From John’s point of view, His ministry to the world has finished—His teaching, His healing, and so on—and now He turns to His own. This chapter 13 is only hours from His death. So, He’s pouring out His soul, pouring out His burden; He said, “I’m going back to My Father God, and before I go, I know you’ve learned many things in these three and a half years, but I want to communicate before I leave; this is My heart.” And in these five chapters we have the revelation of the Lord Jesus in a wonderful way. He mentions many things in these five chapters, but the big thing, as I understand it, is that He wants to show us how to live the Christian life. We’re calling it the exchanged life. We were created to live that life. Man failed to live that life. Christ came and lived that life and demonstrated that life, and now He invites us to enter in and live that very life.
We’re into the allegory of the vine and the branches; that’s where we left off in John 15. When He lived on the earth and walked among men, He was not the vine. We saw that last time. Then He was the branch. He was depending on His Holy Father God who was living inside of Him, and now He’s the vine and we’re to depend on the One who lives inside of us. He’s just unburdening His heart. John 15:5, “I am the vine, and 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.” As you know in nature, a branch is worthless in isolation. If it loses its attachment to the tree or vine, then it returns to its natural deadness.
As we closed, we were describing what it means to abide in the vine. John 7:37-38, “On the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out saying, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink, and he who believes in Me, as the scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” He took that to show what it means to abide because abiding is coming to Jesus thirsty, and abiding is believing in Jesus. The glorious results of coming to Jesus are a flood of water coming from within us. He doesn’t let us guess at what those waters are. John 7:39, “This He spoke of the Spirit whom those who believed in Him were to receive. The Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.” That’s what we’ve been studying. There’s five times in this scripture where He said that He’s going to send the Holy Spirit. Now the Spirit lives in our life, and the Spirit is flowing. The Spirit is that rivers of living water, and the word “abide” is literally “stay where you are, remain.” Abide means to stay. Wuest translates it, “maintain a living communion.” Abide in the vine means to maintain that living relationship.
In this connection we closed last time with Colossians 2:6, “Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus, so walk in Him.” As/so, as you received Him, so walk in Him. How did you receive Him? How did you receive Him? You came to Him as a helpless sinner; that’s how you received Him. You believed in Him as God’s salvation; that’s how you came. So, walk in Him. If you are a brand-new Christian, you walk the same way you got saved. If you’ve been a Christian for fifty or more years, nothing has changed. The same way you got saved, that’s the way you walk. It will never be more difficult, and it will never be harder than that. You came as a helpless sinner when you got saved. So, now you come as a helpless Christian, now that you’re saved. You believed in Him, and now you believe in Him again. That’s what it means to abide, to come to Him and believe in Him. Every time you come to the Lord, and every time you believe in Him you’re abiding in the Lord.
That brings us to our new material. We’re still discussing the Lord Jesus’ explanation of the exchanged life. Hours before the cross He’s going to the Father, and He says, “You’ve got to know how to live.” We’re going to look at five principles that come out of those five chapters. I’ve told you before, everyone of them is radical. The Christian life is a radical life. If you are going to try to figure it out by human wisdom or by logic, you’ll never understand the Christian life. The Christian life is a revelation from heaven. God has to show you. It’s a radical life.
We’ve already looked at two of the radical principles. The first one was illustrated by the foot washing. The principle is this; if you are going to live the Christian life, you have to forsake forever that idea that you are saved to serve the Lord. You are not saved to serve the Lord. That’s the radical part; you are saved to let Him serve you. He washes your feet; He serves you. He did not come to be ministered unto; He came to minister. Even in heaven He’s going to wear the slave’s apron. That is radical. I can’t say completely that you aren’t saved to serve, but let me say it accurately; you are saved to be served in order to serve. I can’t wash your feet until He washes mine. You can’t refresh me until He refreshes you. That’s the first principle we saw.
How serious is that principle? Remember that the Apostle Peter had a great resistance, “That will never happen; I will not let you serve me. That’s not right. You’re the Creator God; I’ll serve You, but I can’t let You serve me.” Jesus said one of the most radical things He ever said to Christians in John 13:8, “’Never shall You wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.’” He’s not threatening to send Peter to hell; He’s just saying, “If you don’t let Me serve you, you don’t understand the Christian life. If you don’t let Me serve you, you’ll have intimacy, no relationship, no union, no fellowship with Me.” So, you can see that first principle is radical.
The second radical principle had to do, “I am the vine, and you are the branches.” That was radical to Jewish years because for four thousand years they were told that they were the vine, and they thought they were the vine, and they put the big vine over the temple door, and every cluster of grapes was the size of a man, and they put the vine on their coins because they were the vine. Who is the vine? It was Israel, God’s chosen people. Jesus comes along and says, “I’m the true vine and you’re the branch; you can’t produce.” That was radical. That was radical to Jewish ears, and to be quite honest, it’s radical to Christian ears, as well. When you tell some Christians that you cannot please God apart from His life, and that no matter what you do, it’s not going to be pleasing to God, they have a hard time with that. That’s a radical principle. There can be no fruit, zero fruit, apart from His life.
What I’d like to do, since we’re still on this second principle, is to describe two things in our lesson this morning. Notice that I didn’t say define. I’m not going to try to define these things. Some of the theology books, the doctrine books, try to define things. I think it’s a little bit dangerous when you’re looking at spiritual truth, to squash it into a definition, because spiritual truth is so large and so expansive. Sometimes a definition not only limits the truth, but actually destroys the truth. So, Go describes it, He illustrates it, He displays it, but I don’t think He defines it. That’s like if I said to you, “Give me a definition of a sunset. Give me a definition of a sunrise.” You can’t; that can be described but it can’t be defined. Spiritual truth is like that.
Today I’d like to look at the truth of fruit as Jesus explains it, and the truth of pruning as Jesus explained it, and we probably won’t even finish that. These two things I want to describe as we continue our meditation on the allegory of the vine and the branches. John 15:2, “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He’s takes away, and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, so that it may bear more fruit.” I’m calling attention to the word “fruit”. John 15:2, “Any branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that bears fruit He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit.” Fruit: verse 5, “I am the vine, and you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him bears much fruit. Apart from Me you can do nothing.” Verse 16, “You did not choose Me; I chose you and appointed you, that you would go bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain.” All the way through this allegory of the vine and the branches we have, fruit, fruit, more fruit, much fruit, and abiding fruit. A great emphasis is on fruit. What I’d like us to look at is what exactly does this passage mean when it says “fruit”? How do I know when I look in my life if I’m bearing fruit. What is it? What does He say it is?
When I was at Bible school, we had a course on soul winning, and they were pleased to say, “A fruitful Christian will always win souls. That’s what fruit is; it’s soul winning, bringing others to Christ.” Well, I’m not ruling that out. When God used it in Matthew, He talks about a tree that is known by its fruit. You can look if its good fruit and a good tree, and in that context it’s more about behavior. You can see by the life of a person.
Once again, John 7:38, “He who believes in Me, as scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.” Verse 39, “This He spoke of the Spirit.” The Spirit is going to bear fruit, and one expression of it is going to be abundance, rivers of living water. That’s where we are in John 15; the Holy Spirit lives inside of us, and wants to flow through us in rivers of living water to produce what He calls “fruit”. So, I want you to get that picture.
I don’t want you to get lost in my attempted explanation of fruit, so I’m going to tell you right up front the two things fruit is. Fruit is what God does; that’s basic. There’s no fruit in what you do and there’s no fruit that I do; fruit is what God does. A branch, the Bible says, cannot bear fruit of itself. Fruit, then, is what God does. It comes from God; it’s through us but it comes from Him. But fruit is more than what God does; fruit is also what God is, who God is. Fruit is a manifestation of His life. Fruit is what God does, and it’s who He is; it’s a manifestation of His life. I’m going to try to develop that. It’s described, I think, in a wonderful one verse in 2 Corinthians 4:11, “We who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake.” That’s the exchanged life; I die and He lives. We’re being delivered over to death, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. I die to manifest His life; you die to manifest His life.
We know it’s the Holy Spirit, and we know it’s going to end in fruit, and doesn’t that naturally bring us to Galatians 5, “The fruit of the Spirit is…” He’s describing the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5:22, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…” Some people say, “Galatians 5:22 gives the nine fruits of the Spirit.” There are not fruits of the Spirit. There’s only one fruit, and it’s love. That’s the manifestation, but God is love. So, there is one manifestation. It’s God and He comes with this great revelation of love. The others are manifestations of that. You have the same thing in the love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13. I won’t quote it but I’ll describe what it says, “Love is patient, love in kind, love is not jealous, love does not brag, love is not arrogant, love does not act unbecoming, love does not seek its own, love is not provoked, love does not take into account a wrong suffered, love rejoices in truth, love bears all things, love believes all things, love hopes all things, love endures all things, love never fails.” That’s why at the end of these it says, “The greatest of these is love.”
May I suggest that’s rivers of living waters. If all of those l manifestations of love are coming through your life and my life, that’s fruit and that’s a manifestation of His life. No wonder it’s called rivers of living water. I would love to meet a Christian who is so abiding in the vine, that everything I just read about love is evident. They aren’t jealous and are not counting something against you. What a description of love! 1 John 4:8, “Beloved, let us love one another. Love is from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” Can you love apart from the life of the Holy Spirit? The answer is no; this love that God is talking about. Ephesians 3:18&19, “That you may comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, the height and the depth and the length to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God.” How can we define something that he says passes knowledge? You can describe it but you can’t define it.
There’s only three times in the Bible that you read about a cube. The Holy of Holies is a cube. The New Jerusalem is a cube, and here in Ephesians the love of God—the breadth, the height, the depth and the length is a cube. It’s perfect, the love of God. Do you remember when a lawyer came to Jesus and asked, “What is the greatest commandment in the word of God in the Law?” And He answered in Matthew 22, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your heart and all your mind. That’s the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it; you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:40, “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and prophets.” There can be no obedience in my life apart from love, and there can be no love in my life apart from the life of the Holy Spirit. He is the one who enables me to have this manifestation of what He calls love. The apostle Paul said in Romans 13:10, “Love is the fulfillment of the Law.” There is no other way to obey God than by His life. The fruit from the life of the Holy Spirit living in the vine, those living waters is all a manifestation of God who is love, and it’s communicated that way. This is the exchanged life. God so loved the world, John 5:20, “The Father loves the Son..,” John 13:1, “He loved them to the end,” John 14:23, “If anyone loves Me, he’ll keep My word; the Father will love him,” John 15:9, “As the Father loved Me, I have loved you,” John 16:27, “The Father Himself loves you because you have loved Me.” In His prayer to His Father He said, “You loved Me from the foundation of the word.” John 17:26, “The love wherewith you loved Me, that it may be in them and I in them; a new commandment I give to you; that you love one another as I have loved you, that you love one another.” This is all agape love; the life of God coming through, and the manifestation of the Lord Himself. It comes to a climax in John 20 where He said to Peter, “Do you love Me? Do you love Me? Do you love Me?” Anyway, that’s the fruit of the exchanged life; it’s from God and it’s actually the Life of God. 100% everything else in my life, we can call it fruit but it’s not fruit; it’s worthless.
Sometimes Christians think that they produce something that will please God, that doesn’t come from the life of God. That’s not possible. No matter how noble those things are or no matter how effective our works are, or how diligent we do them or how earnest or how many they are, there is no intrinsic value in any work that is not a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Romans 4:2, “If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about,” but before God there is no works whatsoever.
To drive this home, I want to give the illustration Paul gives. The Apostle Paul invented a man that never existed. I’m sure the Holy Spirit gave him this idea, but it was an invention of his own life. He created this perfect Christian, and he described this imaginary person at the beginning of the love chapter number 13. I’m going to read the first three verses, “If I speak with the tongue of men and angels but do not have love, I become a noisy gong or clanging symbol. If a have the gift of prophesy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor and if I surrender my body to be burned, and do not have love, it profits me nothing.” This is an amazing man that Paul created. He has matchless eloquence, the tongue men and the tongue of angels, and I guess he’s talking about smart men, and if I had that, and I didn’t have the life of the Lord, that eloquence means nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:1, it sounds like if I have not love, I become a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. People use big words and they’re excited and they give you definitions of this theology and that theology, they’re just a noise; it’s just a clanging symbol without His Life.
He goes on and he says that this imaginary man not only has matchless eloquence, but he has profound insight. He has all knowledge, and he knows all mysteries (that guy never existed), and he knows everything, but if he doesn’t have love, it means nothing. Then he continues that imaginary person, and he says that this guy has so much faith, literal faith, that he could say to a mountain, “Move,” and that mountain would move. With all of that eloquence and all of that insight and all of that faith, he said, “If he didn’t have the Life of God, it’s nothing; he’s worthless. Then he adds one more description, the utmost sacrifice. If I gave everything I ever owned to feed the poor, and then I gave my body to be burned as a sacrifice, and I don’t have love, it profits nothing. What a waste! All that eloquence and all that knowledge and all that faith and all of that sacrifice and all of that giving and all of that denial, what does it amount to? He says that it’s not fruit; it’s nothing and it’s worthless, and it amounts to nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:3, “If I have not love, it profits nothing.” There’s an awful lot done in Christianity by Christians that looks like fruit, but it’s not fruit, and we need to see the difference between it; God needs to give us insight into this.
I went into a home one time where I was invited, and they said, “Make yourself at home.” Well, they had a dish of grapes on the table, and I made myself at home, but that was a plastic grape, and it was not a real grape, but it looked so real. You’ve seen fruit like that; it looks so real. They can make an apple look so real. There is such a thing as Christmas tree righteousness. Let me tell you what I mean. There can be a fake tree or a real tree cut off from its source; it’s dead. It’s still green, and it looks good, and we can decorate that, but it’s really dead, but it’s highly decorated and we make it look so beautiful. It’s got flashing lights and it’s got candy canes and it’s got snow on there and steamers, and balls of all kinds and they’re painted in different ways, and on the top there is an angel or there is a star. It’s a Christmas tree and it looks beautiful. Someone comes in and says, “What a tree! It looks so beautiful!”
There is Christmas tree righteousness. There are some Christians that do that to their lives. So, they decorate themselves, and they say, “Do you want to see how pretty I am? Look at this. They get up every morning, “And I get up early every morning, and I pray, and I put that on. Then I take communion, and I go to church,” and they have to hang that on there some place. “And I witness and I carry my Bible, and I’m a good Christian, and I have put a semblance of the fruit of the Spirit; there’s joy and there’s love and there’s a candy cane.” That’s Christmas tree righteousness, and the tree is dead. Someone will look at it and say, “Oh, ah, what a Christian! Look at what he does, and look at how beautiful he is!” It’s worthless. We’re talking about fruit, real fruit that comes from the Life of God, the Holy Spirit manifesting Christ, and that’s the only life that pleases God.
In our next radical principle, we’re going to get into what the Bible calls sanctification, and a lot of this will be explained when we look at sanctification—how do I walk with the Lord, how do I obey the Lord, how do I love my brother as Christ loved. We’re going to get into that in the next section, but for now I just want you to see that fruit comes from God, and fruit is the manifestation of His Life. These things are radical; He serves me, and the branch cannot bear fruit unless it abides in the vine.
I told you I wanted to look at two things. In the remaining time I’d like to look very briefly at pruning. Listen to verses 1 &2, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser; 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.” Let me remind you that there are two kinds of branches in this allegory. Wuest calls the vinedresser “the killer of the soil”; the Father is the vinedresser, and He’s the owner of the vineyard, and He oversees the vine. We already dealt with that first kind of branch, John 15:2, “Every branch that does not bear fruit He takes away.” So, there is a branch not abiding in Christ, and as we looked at, he’s worthless as far as bearing fruit is concerned. Verse 6, “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up. They gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” That’s not talking about anybody’s eternal destiny. That’s talking about producing fruit, and you are worthless as far as fruit bearing is concerned.
But there’s another kind of branch that the vinedresser must attend, and it’s in verse 2b, “Every branch that bears fruit he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.” This is not the vinedresser cutting off the fruitless branch. This is a branch that’s doing well; it’s already bearing fruit, and He wants it to bear more fruit. I think it will become more clear when we get into the sanctification, but let me discuss a little about the Lord pruning the fruitful branch. John 15:2, “…that it may bring forth more fruit.” The great principle of pruning can be summarized in these words, “Fruit bearing is redemptive; everything is redemptive in the Christian’s life,” and I’m going to show you how the fruit bearing is first redemptive for the world, and then redemptive for the branch that’s being pruned. It’s redemptive in every way you look at it.
How is the pruned branch fruitful, more fruit, a benefit for the world? It’s because fruit bearing is the manifestation of Christ, and the pruned branch can manifest Christ in a way the unpruned branch can’t. There’s more fruit and a greater manifestation. Let me leave the vine for a moment and talk fruit in terms of the tree. Let’s take an apple tree. There are two things you are never going to see in an apple orchard or hear. You are never going to walk by an apple orchard and say, “What’s that sound? That’s not a bird. It’s not an animal. What is that sound? Oh, it’s an apple tree agonizing to bring forth apples, “Urrrgh..” Apple trees don’t have labor pains. They don’t have to agonize, “I have met so many Christians to bring forth fruit.” If it’s real fruit, you don’t need to agonize to bring it forth. It’s sad to see Christians working so hard to bring forth fruit.
The second thing you’ll never see if you go through an apple orchard is an apple tree eating an apple. The apple tree doesn’t bear apples for itself. No tree bears fruit for itself. Fruit is for somebody else. Fruit is for others; it’s not for the apple tree. God has a worldwide heart. God so loved the world, and God is willing to prune a fruitful branch in His great love for the world, so that pruned branch can manifest Christ in a way that never could be manifested in any other way. Again, I’ll develop that more when we come to sanctification. But pruning, just on the surface implies pain, implies hurt; there’s a cutting; there’s a cutting back. I looked up the tools of a pruner. I was shocked. There was a whole page of tools; there’s an ax and a shovel and a pickax and saws of all kinds, lopping shears and small scissors and knives and all kinds of blades. I’m thinking, “He’s going to use that on me, and use that on you?” There are many tools. But we’re not talking about the chastening that comes to a Christian because of a loving Father. Pruning is not chastening. We are not talking about the refining that comes to a Christian because of something going on in their life by the smelter; that’s not pruning. We are not talking about the separation of the wheat and the chaff that comes to certain Christians on the threshing floor. Those are different principles. We’re talking about pruning.
When the vinedresser decides, “I want more fruit,” he takes a fruitful branch, and he prunes it. God not only allows, but God engineers in our lives suffering, affliction, trouble, trials, hard times, so that you can produce fruit that others can’t. He brings it into your life for the sake of somebody else. In this connection I love Genesis 4 where you have the testimony of Joseph, and he’s telling why he named his second son Ephraim. Genesis 41:52, “He named the second Ephraim for, he said, ‘God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.’” Isn’t that a wonderful verse? “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.” Over and over again, when I see Christians going through hard times and suffering, very often God will bring that person in my mind, and I’ll say, “I’m praying for you that God will make you fruitful in the land of your afflictions,” because if you’re abiding in the vine, that’s what it’s about, that you would bear forth more fruit.
How many times in an abiding Christian’s life has He allowed loss, sickness, disappointment, a storm, a fire, an accident, a setback, a failure, discouragement, and depression in our life? When we’re going through it, we’re just feeling the blades of the pruning shears, but beyond that, God says, “I want to manifest more fruit. I want to use that situation so that others who would not normally see Christ, see it when they see you manifesting love. They’ll look at you, and they’re going to see contentment, and they’re going to see peace.” How can you give thanks at a time like this? How can you give thanks when you had to lay that loved one in the grave? How can you be rejoicing? That’s fruit. They’re going to see that and respond and be attracted to that. God in His wisdom, He knows when to cut, how to cut, and how to prune and at exactly the right angle because He’s reaching out to them, and we are dispensable. He takes no delight in the death of the wicked. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. We are expendable for their sakes, and God prunes us often for that reason.
Pruning is not only for the world, for others, but it’s also redemptive for the Christian, for the branch. It’s redemptive for us, as well. Let me describe the healthy branch, and this is true in nature and it’s true in grace. A wonderful description of this is Isaiah 18:5, “Before the harvest, as soon as the bud blossoms and the flower becomes a ripening grape, then he will cut off the sprigs with pruning knives and remove and cut away the spreading branches. There is interesting truth in that wonderful verse. He cuts away the sprigs and the spreading, wandering branches. A sprig is a small branch, like a tendril. One translation doesn’t say sprig; it says tendril. A tendril is something that attaches itself to something else, a healthy growth. You’ve seen vines that attach themselves to a light pole or something. It will grow up. When God sees that the vine begins to attach itself to something else, it’s time to prune that sprig, that tendril, because He doesn’t want us attached to anything except Him. Sometimes that branch begins to wander, and all of the life goes into the wood and into the leaves, just to make the leaves more attractive. God is not in the business of making me more attractive; He’s in the business of displaying His Son, manifesting Christ.
How is the pruning redemptive to the branch? Here’s the answer; pruning cuts you closer to the vine. That’s the whole point, to get closer to Jesus, to get closer to the vine. Every time God allows something hard in your life, He’s pruning you for others, but He’s also clipping you, so you get to know Jesus more intimately, a richer fellowship; that’s what pruning is for the Christian.
Here is another way it’s redemptive. A pruner prunes and when he prunes you, it automatically sets a new direction for the branch. This is an amazing spiritual truth. “You know, God has called me to this ministry, and I’m going to live here and die here.” Maybe not; if He prunes you, all of a sudden you are going in another direction that you never thought of, you never dreamed of because He wants fruit out there, too. It’s so exciting when God prunes us because it’s something brand new in our life in a direction we’ve never been before, to open doors we never dreamed that God would open. So, it’s redemptive for us because it brings us closer to Christ, and it gives us new privilege and opportunity to go in a new direction where there are people starving for fruit, for the Life of Christ, and He is pleased to use the branch for that.
Before we close, I want to say a word about the vinedresser. The vinedresser is the Father. I described for you some of those instruments—the saws and the lopping shears and the blades and the knives. They even pruned the roots. Pruning is a skill. Verse 2, “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; every branch that bears fruit He prunes it.” The word for “prune”, now I can’t pronounce Greek words, is kathairo. The reason I’m quoting it is because in verse 3, you are already clean because of the word. The word “clean” is kathairo. It’s the same word as prune. In fact, in Wuest’s translation, he doesn’t even use the word prune; he just uses the word clean, “The vinedresser is going to come and clean you and prune you through the word.” I’m calling attention to this because I named all those instruments of pruning; what’s the main instrument? Verse 3, “You are already pruned (clean) because of the word.” The Bible is the great pruning instrument in the hand of God. That’s what He uses. Hebrews 4:12&13, “The word of God is alive and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. There is no creature hidden from His sight. All things are open and laid bare before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” When we get into sanctification, I’ll show you how that’s related to the word, but it’s knowing Christ through the word that is going to be the pruning instrument.
I have a couple of more things and then we’ll close. John 15:11, “I am the vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.” I don’t know much about fruit, but I know from what I’ve read that a lot of damage can be done by someone who tries to prune and doesn’t know how. Does it bless your heart, friends, that your Father is the vinedresser? I’m thankful that the tools are not in your hands; I don’t want you pruning me, and you don’t want me pruning you. But a lot of Christians go around, and they think God has called them to prune others, and I think a lot of damage can be done. We better leave the pruning to the Lord, and not say, “Oh, this person needs to be cut down here and cut down there. You aren’t bearing fruit and here’s why,” and then give them a bunch of rules to do. May God help us and rejoice that our Father is the vinedresser.
Look at verse 7, “If you abide in Me, My words abide in you; ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done to you.” This has a powerful application to pruning. This allegory sheds a lot of light on the topic of prayer. It begins with, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, then ask.” A lot of people like to leave the first part off, “If you abide in Me and I abide in you.” They just like to say, “Ask whatever you want, and it’s going to be done.” No, there’s a condition; if you abide in Me and I abide in you, and we can’t reverse that. The reason I’m bringing that up is because my natural heart when I’m being pruned, I want to ask God not to do that, or to deliver me from that. I don’t understand His reasoning that He’s bringing fruit for others and He’s cutting me close to the vine, and He’s leading me to new pastures. It’s not in my mind. So, if I’m going through a hard time, I not only want to pray against that pruning, but I might even invite you to join me, “I’m going through a hard time, and I’m having this sickness in my life or whatever, please pray that God will remove it.” I know that sometimes the enemy gets in there and we need deliverance, and we need to have wisdom to know which is which, but God is pruning. Don’t pray that God will deliver them from it or you from it. God has His wise purposes in pruning.
I love Romans 8:26, “In the same way the Spirit helps our weakness; we do not know how to pray as we should. The Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. He who searches the heart what is the mind of the Spirit, He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” If you are abiding in the vine, if I’m abiding in the vine, I will not ask God to deliver me from pruning. I will praise God for the privilege of the situation into which He brings me because the Holy Spirit is praying the will of God. When I’m abiding in the vine, I want the will of God. That’s why the prayer will be answered. If you abide in Me and I abide in you, what are you going to ask? You are going to ask, “What is the will of God? What pleases Him?” You’re not going to ask for things that are not the will of God, and the Holy Spirit will pray for you.
I have one final thought. Verse 11, “These things I’ve spoken to you,” this is after the allegory now, “so that My joy may be in you, and your joy may be full.” The entire truth of abiding in Christ with the fruit bearing, with the pruning, with the praying, is designed to fill our hearts with joy. But notice, it’s not a joy He gives; it’s a joy He has. He says, “…that My joy might be in your heart.” This is not our joy; this is His joy. This is what pleases Him; this is what makes Him happy; this is what brings pleasure to Him. If that brings pleasure to Him, then your joy will be made full, and my joy will be made full.
Let me just summarize what is fruit; fruit is what God does, and who God is. It’s a manifestation of the Life of God. What is pruning? Pruning is God’s redemptive work; it’s His redemption for the world, and some people will never turn to Christ unless they see a suffering Christian, unless they see a persecuted Christian, unless they see someone God has called to go through hard times, and they are rejoicing in the Lord. That’s the only fruit that they’ll ever feed on. So, may God help us! If you are going through anything right now, you better thank the Lord because you’re going to know Jesus better. It’s cutting you back to the vine. Let’s pray.
Father, thank You so much for who You are. Thank You for Your word, not what we think it might mean, but what You know it means. Work it in our hearts. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.