John 15:1-17 “A Fruitful Life for God’s Glory”

1:11Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? So every healthy tree bears good fruit, and the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear Good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits. That's pretty straightforward, right? You can recognize a tree by its fruit. Check. Healthy trees bear good fruit. Check.

1:50Bad trees make good firewood. Check. Today in John 15, Jesus is going to employ the imagery of a fruit-bearing vine and branches. And we're going to do something a bit unusual for us here at New Life today. I normally walk straight through a passage of scripture verse by verse, but I think that the best way for me to preach this text and the way to help you best understand and apply this text is to work through it logically rather than linearly.

2:20So we're going to be bouncing around through the verses this morning, so stay nimble in your seats so we get ready to walk through this longer text today. Here's what we're going to learn. Christians glorify God by bearing lasting fruit. Christians glorify God by bearing lasting fruit. So I want to start in verse 8, right in the middle of this text, because this verse, I think, is Jesus' thesis statement for this section. Take a look at verse 8. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.

2:59Now, here Essentially, he repeats that thesis at the very end of the passage. Look at verse 16. Go down to the very end. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide. According to Jesus, when we bear abiding fruit, that is, fruit that lasts, when we bear abiding fruit, God is glorified and we prove ourselves to be Jesus' disciples. He says, This is why he chose the disciples, and this is why he chose you and me to bear lasting fruit that glorifies God.

3:41To illustrate this truth, Jesus employs the imagery of a vine, a fruit-bearing vine, and branches. And many fruit-bearing vines, like grapevines, if you've ever seen one of those or if you can picture it, they also have flowers. But fruit-bearing vines do not exist to bear flowers. No farmer plants fruit-bearing vines for the flowers. They plant them and they tend them to enjoy the fruit of the vine. And so, church, this is the central point that Jesus is making in this section. He did not choose and appoint us to look pretty, to have nice clothes, fancy cars, big houses, to check things off. Of a bucket list. That is not why he chose and appointed us. He chose and appointed us to bear fruit and to bear fruit that lasts.

4:40That's what he says. A vine does not exist to look pretty. The branches on the vine don't exist to look pretty. It exists to bear fruit. And when you think about it, this is pretty much the consistent message of the entire Bible. Think about where we started the Bible reading program and our memory program back in January of this year. Look on the screen at Genesis 1:27. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

5:23But sadly, God's chosen and appointed people rebelled. And so he judged the earth with a flood. And right after the flood, when the water subsided, he spoke to Noah in Genesis 9:1 and said, Be fruitful, fill the earth, and multiply. Be fruitful. But again, Noah and his descendants rebelled. They became idolaters. They ended up building the Tower of Babel so that they would disobey God's command to multiply and fill the earth. And so God chose a man named Abram, a man that was not seeking him and promised to make Make a nation out of him and bless the whole earth through him, though he and his wife, Sarah, were old and childless.

6:07In other words, God said, I will make you fruitful. I will make you a blessing, although you have been unable to be fruitful on your own. I will make you fruitful so that it will be obvious to you and everyone else that I have done this. It's my work. His grandson Jacob was renamed Israel, and Israel's 12 sons became the 12 tribes of Israel who were enslaved for 400 years in Egypt. Now, I want to go back to the call to worship passage in Psalm 80 and remind you again what we heard this morning. Look at Psalm 80, verses 8 and 9.

6:43He says, You brought a vine out of Egypt. You drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it. It took deep root and filled the land. But unfortunately, God's vine, just like all the people before them, rebelled against God and disobeyed. And so finally, God promised to discipline his people for their unrepentant sin and their idolatry. And so at the time of Isaiah, the nation of Israel was about to be conquered and exiled. And here's what the prophet Isaiah says. This is a little bit of a longer passage, but it's really important for understanding this morning's text.

7:24Isaiah prophesies and says, Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his Vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines. He built a watchtower in the midst of it and hewed out a wine vat in it. And he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?

8:00When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured. I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste, it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briars and thorns shall grow up. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

8:26For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting. And he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed, for righteousness, but behold, an outcry. So, friends, the consistent message of Scripture is that God created us in his image and likeness to be fruitful and multiply. But his people, his vineyard, failed to do that. And instead of producing the good fruit of obedience to God, carrying his Name to the end of the earth, we produce the bad fruit of disobedience, rebellion, and idolatry.

9:07And so God disciplined his people. He sent Babylon to break down their walls and trample them and carry them off into exile. And just like in Egypt, their physical slavery to Babylon became a picture of their spiritual slavery to sin and idolatry. Round and round Israel went, promising every time to try harder to do better to obey God's commands, but they just could not do it. And so God promised to send a Savior for his people. So I want you to look at John 15, verse 1. Look at what Jesus says in light of all that we've just read.

9:45I am the true vine. I am the true vine. This is the seventh time in John's Gospel that Jesus takes the name of God for himself, I am. He says, I am the true vine. Well, as we saw this morning, Israel was supposed to be God's vineyard, bearing good fruit for him, but they failed. They bore wild fruit instead, and they bore wild fruit because the vine itself was diseased and sick with sin. So Jesus comes along and he says, I am the true vine. He was sent to be that true vine who bore good fruit, perfect fruit every day. Of his life. He said, Do not think that I came to abolish the law and the prophets. I haven't come to abolish them. I have come to fulfill them.

10:40He did fulfill God's law perfectly and completely every day of his life. And through faith in him, we are forgiven and reconciled to God through his sinless life, his death, and his resurrection in our place. Through faith, we are grafted into Jesus, the true vine. My senior year, I took horticulture at AM because I needed another science and I was told there would be no math. I learned that grafting is where you take two plants and you actually join them together. You take the bottom of one plant and the top of another plant and you actually join them together. And it's crazy. It really works. Who would have thought such a thing? If you do it right, it works. And before long, the scion, the top parts that you've just joined to the bottom part, it begins to actually bear fruit.

11:33And in verses 4 and 5, Jesus says that the branch cannot bear fruit by itself. It's got to be connected to the vine. And then and only then will it bear much fruit. But, friends, that is what we are seeing in the new covenant. Jesus is the true vine. We are grafted onto the true vine through faith in him. And we bear fruit through that faith. And so, obviously. Obviously, a key component of this text, and one of the most important points to understand, is that word fruit. We have to define that word before we move on and understand anything else in the rest of the passage. So let's define that word. In Scripture, the word fruit is used to refer to several different concepts. So, what I want to do is highlight a few different verses that kind of get the general picture of how the word fruit is used in Scripture. Take a look at Matthew chapter 3. John the Baptist is preaching, and he says, bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

12:35Well, since repentance is turning away from sin to God and faith, we can say that fruit is obedience to God. Fruit is obedience to God. Look at Galatians chapter 5, 22 and 23. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things, there is no law. Paul says, the fruit of the Spirit, the evidence that the Holy Spirit lives inside of you, is that your life is characterized by holiness rather than sin.

13:20So we can say that fruit is holiness. And then look at Philippians 1:21 and 22. Paul says, for to me, To live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose, I cannot tell. Here in this passage, Paul is referring to his ministry of preaching the gospel, that as long as he remains on earth, that's what he wants to do: to proclaim the gospel so that others can come to know Jesus and make him known. And so he talks about his fruitful labor. So we can say that fruit is disciple-making.

14:05So bringing those verses together, we can define fruit in the Christian life as obedience, holiness, and disciple-making. Those are the three broad categories of producing fruit in the Christian life: obedience, holiness, and disciple-making. Christians bear the good fruit of obeying God's commands, living holy lives, and making disciples of Jesus, who can make more disciples of Jesus. That's the picture that we get of fruit in Scripture. So, the question now is: how do we bear the fruit of obedience, holiness, and disciple-making? Let's look at verse 4.

14:47Jesus says, Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me, you can do nothing. So here, Jesus says that the key to bearing fruit is abiding or remaining in him. And that makes sense, doesn't it? If we are the scion, if we are the top part of that plant that came from somewhere else and was grafted onto Jesus, the true vine, through faith, then the only way that we can bear fruit is by remaining connected to the true vine.

15:38If we are removed from the true vine, or if somehow we remove ourselves from the true vine, we cannot bear fruit anymore. As soon as you cut a branch off the tree, it begins to die. It will no longer bear flowers. It will no longer bear fruit. The moment that it's removed from the rest of the tree, it begins to die. And so if we want to bear fruit, which is what we've been chosen and appointed to do, then we have to remain in him. We've got to abide in Jesus.

16:12But how do we do that? How do we abide or remain in Christ? Let's skip down to verse 9. Verse 9, Jesus says, As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. Church, this verse is absolutely critical to understand. Not just at the level of our heads, but at the level of our hearts. This verse is so important to understand. Let's look at it again. Verse 9: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

17:00Brothers and sisters, Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you. The eternal, perfect Son of God loves you. He doesn't tolerate you. He doesn't put up with you. He doesn't go around each day with a low-grade anger towards you because of your performance. He's not disappointed in you. He loves you. Jesus loves you. And it's important to understand that, not just at the level of our heads, but at the level of our hearts. How do we know that Jesus loves us? Look at verse 13.

17:51Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. There is no Greater expression of love than to die for someone else. What more could you give than your very life? And I think that the reason says that Jesus says there's no greater love than to lay down your life for your friends is because that's the highest form of love that a fallen human being can show for someone else. The highest form of love that a fallen human being can show for someone else is to lay down his life for his friends. But that is not the highest form of love. Paul says that very thing in Romans chapter 5. Take a look on the screen.

18:37For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The highest form of love that we can show to one another is to die for a friend, because who would die for an enemy? Only the perfect, eternal Son of God would lay down his life for sinners, would lay down his life for his enemies, so that through faith we could become his eternal friends.

19:24There is no greater love than that. And how has Jesus loved us? Back up to verse 17. Verse 9, as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. God is perfect, and he loves perfectly. And when Jesus was baptized, the Father spoke, and he said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. It is very important to remember that the Father spoke these words before Jesus began his earthly ministry. Before Jesus had ever done anything in his earthly ministry, the Father said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. There are no greater words to hear than your father or your mother, your parents are well pleased with you. There's nothing greater than we could hear. So God was not telling Jesus, I love you because of all that you've done for me.

20:31He said, I love you because you are my son. You are mine. Before he'd ever done anything, he said that to him. And as a father, I'm always telling my kids, I love you always and forever, no matter what. I'm trying to drive that truth into their heads and into their hearts so that they never come away thinking that my love for them is dependent on what they have done or what they will do one day.

21:00And that is how the heavenly Father has treated us. That is how Jesus has loved us, just as the Father loved him. This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. He looks at you, Christian, and says, my son, my daughter, well pleased. We have to get that at the heart level and not just at the head level. And so here's the command: the command is: abide in my love. Jesus loves us. We need to meditate on that truth. We need to turn it over and over again in our heads and our hearts. We need to gather together regularly for worship. We need to gather regularly together in smaller groups. We need to meet up together to pray so that we can remind each other that the Father loves us and our lives need to be lived out of that love.

21:57We are never going to be a motivated people to share the good news of Jesus Christ and to make disciples of all nations if, in the back of our minds, we really believe that the Father does not love us, that Jesus does not love us, that he is disappointed with us and frustrated with us every day of the week. This is critical to understand. So we have been chosen and appointed to bear much fruit. To do that, we have to abide in Jesus, and that starts with abiding or remaining in his love. Which is the same love that the Father has for him. So now, how do we abide in his love? Verse 10.

22:40If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. Now, on the face, that seems contradictory. I mean, didn't we just say that the Father said that he was pleased with the Son before he had ever done anything in his earthly ministry? We did, and it's true, but we have to remember that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. So from conception, he never sinned, never did anything wrong, was always obedient to every command of God the Father. He never sinned in thought, word, or deed. And so if you go back to what we learned in chapter 14, we learned that love and obedience are inseparable. Remember all that Jesus said? If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Whoever has and keeps my commandments, he it is who loves me. If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. To love is to obey, and to obey is to love. Love and obedience are inseparable. There's no separation. The two. So Jesus says here, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. So let's look again at verse 14.

24:11He says, You are my friends if you do what I command you. So the way to remain in friendship with Jesus, the way to remain in his love, the love that he proved by laying down his life for us, the way to abide in his love is to keep his commandments. And friends, what Jesus is doing is he's pulling the idea of love out of the clouds, out of the level of theory, and he's helping us to remember that love is not primarily a feeling. Love is primarily a choice. Love is primarily an action.

24:54And we find that in the scripture all over the place. Look at this quote from Bruce Milne. I think this is helpful in understanding this section. He says, abiding or remaining in Christ must not be reduced to a subjective, mystical inner state. The mark of an abiding heart is not only, or even principally, a sense of inward serenity, but a conscience clear before God and man. Love of God is seen and demonstrated. In obedience to God. If we love him, we will keep his commands.

25:37And Jesus highlights a very particular command in this section. Look at verse 12. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. Skip all the way down to verse 17, the last verse. These things I command you, so that you will love one another. So we abide in Jesus by obeying his commands. And the command that he highlights particularly in this section is loving one another, loving our brothers and sisters in Christ just as he has loved us. Again, love is not primarily a feeling, love is a choice, love is an action to do what is best for someone else, even at great cost to yourself.

26:33We are called to demonstrate love for one another by sacrificing for each other over and over again, just as Jesus perfectly demonstrated his love for us by the greatest sacrifice of laying his life down for us once and for all. John, when he writes towards the end of his life, has these words to say in 1 John chapter 3. Take a look. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth.

27:25Not word or talk, but deed and truth. And friends, there are so many professing Christians in our community that say the right words about the church. I'm not talking about the building. I'm not talking about the institution. I'm talking about us, the people. They say the right words about the church. But that's all it is. It's words and talk. It's not deed and truth. It's not laying down life day after day. It's not sacrificing for our brothers and sisters, asking not what I can get from a church, but how can I lay down my life for the brothers, for the sisters? How can I show that I love God by loving these people made in his image, chosen and appointed to bear fruit? If I say that I love God, but I don't demonstrate that with my life with specific fallen, difficult people in the local church, how can I be assured that I love God at all?

28:27He's commanded us that if we love him, we will live. Love one another. And love for one another is not this ethereal concept up in the clouds. It is daily sacrifice and dying to self for the good of other men and women, that they might grow in holiness and faith and obedience to the Lord, that they might grow as disciples of Jesus. So, friends, this is his command to love each other. But as we saw last week, God's commands are not burdensome. If any of that sounds burdensome to you, look at verse 11.

29:02These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. Why has Jesus said all of these things? Why has he given us these commands? Not to rob us of joy, but to give us his joy, to give us the fullness of joy. Submitting to and obeying Jesus is never meant to be drudgery. It's meant to bring us fullness of joy. And yes, it is true that obeying God will not always make us happy in the moment. Doing the works of love to one another will not always make us feel good because happiness is a feeling that comes and goes.

29:48And you rarely feel happy when you're sacrificing. When you're sacrificing money or time, when you're sacrificing energy to minister to Somebody that's in a hard season, when somebody has a tragedy in their life and you have to drop everything that you're doing, all of your plans for the weekend, your plans for that evening, and you've got to go and serve in real, practical ways, that's rarely a thing that's going to make you feel happy. But joy is what we've been promised, and joy can't be taken away regardless of our circumstances. Lasting joy comes from living the way that God has designed and called us to live because that's what leads to blessing and to flourishing.

30:37And so we need to really do a self-evaluation and see what we're living for. Are we living for that lasting joy that Jesus promises us and seeking to grasp hold of that joy through obedience? Or, like so many people in our country, have we made the highest goal happiness, comfort, leisure, the American dream? And have we said, I'm not going to let anything get in the way of that because that's my highest goal? Friends, Jesus wants something better for you. He wants lasting joy. He wants you to flourish and he wants the people around you to flourish. But that doesn't come at a small price. That comes at a high price, the high price of obedience and sacrifice.

31:30So we've been chosen and appointed to bear fruit, and we bear fruit by abiding in Christ. We abide in Christ by remaining in his love. We remain in his love through obedience, especially obeying his command to love one another as he has loved us. But I want you to remember the thesis statement, verse 8. By this my father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. So here's the next question. How do we become more fruitful? How do we bear much fruit? Two ways, pruning and prayer. Let's take a look at pruning first. Go back to verse one.

32:13Jesus says, I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Now, when I was a young homeowner, I was very skeptical of pruning. Our little trees didn't have a lot of growth already, and I was supposed to cut some of that off. I was very skeptical of that. But about five or six years ago, I became convinced that our trees would be healthier if, in fact, I did what every tree person in the world and what the Bible actually says and pruned them. And so I started doing that. And wouldn't you know it, the Bible is right.

33:00The growth has been unbelievable. Probably every tree in our backyard has doubled in size, no exaggeration, has doubled in size over the last five to six years. With more air flowing through the trees and less branches to support, every part of the tree is more fruitful. And that is exactly what Jesus says. He says that the Father prunes every branch that it may bear more fruit. I want you to think about that principle as it pertains to our lives. What Jesus is saying is that our Heavenly Father prunes us. He deliberately cuts off healthy growth. He deliberately cuts off healthy shoots so that we'll be more fruitful. So that our lives will be more obedient, more holy, and more effective in disciple making. Now, that is counterintuitive. Why would God do that? Why would He bother trimming off healthy stuff? I think a lot of us look at our lives and we're like, there's not a ton of fruit there already. Why would he cut any of that off?

34:03But again, verse 8: By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. Friends, God's ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts, and His standards are not our standards. We are too easily pleased with a little fruit in our lives. For a lot of us, we feel like if there is a little obedience, A little holiness, a little disciple making, we are doing pretty good. But that is not what Jesus says. He says that God is glorified when we bear much fruit. But to get to the point where we bear much fruit, he's got to prune us. He's got to clean out a lot of the good fruit so that we can produce more fruit and better fruit in our lives.

34:56I want to highlight three ways that God prunes us briefly. Scripture, trials, and discipline. Scripture, trials, and discipline. Look at verse 3. Jesus says, already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Now, in verse 2, the word translated prunes is the same root word that is translated clean in verse 3. Pruning cleans up a tree. It gets rid of all of those little shoots and all that little healthy growth that is sucking up nutrients and water and sunlight from the rest of the tree, making the rest of the tree less fruitful.

35:43So in verse 3, Jesus says the disciples have already been cleaned. They've already been pruned by the word that he spoke to them. That is the function of the word of God in our lives. The word of God prunes us, it cleans out our lives. So that we can be more fruitful. So God prunes us through Scripture. Second, God prunes us through trials. Take a look at the screen at 1 Peter 1. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

36:35Now I realize we are switching analogies here, but this is an important principle just the same. Peter says that trials test our faith in the same way that fire tests and refines gold. The reason you put precious metals into fire is to burn out all of the impurities so that you've got a higher quality precious metal in the end. And if we go back to the pruning analogy, God uses trials to cut things out of our lives that may be good things.

37:12It's not even that he's always burning out sin and disobedience. They may be good things, but those things cost us money and time and energy, and therefore they render us less obedient, less holy, and less effective at disciple making. And so God prunes us through trials that he brings into our lives. And then third and finally, discipline. Take a look on the screen at Hebrews 12. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

37:53It is very important to separate out trials and discipline, friends, because those are not the same thing. Every trial in your life is not God disciplining you for something. Trials in your life are put there to burn away impurity and to make you a holier person. Discipline is corrective in nature. God is a good father, and we are the children that he loves. And because he loves us, he disciplines us for our good. Now, no child likes to be disciplined. The author says it's all painful rather than pleasant at the moment. But discipline is good for us because later on it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. So sometimes the discipline is in the form of persecution, which is the exact context of Hebrews 12. But sometimes discipline comes in the form of consequences or lost blessings when we sin against the Lord. But it is never a form of punishment, and it's always for our good. So he prunes us through discipline. Pruning makes us more faithful. Fruitful Christians. He does it through scripture, through trials, and through discipline. But he also does it through prayer. God makes us more fruitful through prayer. Look at verse 7.

39:14If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. Go all the way down to verse 16. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide. Listen to this, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. Now, you may recall back in chapter 14, Jesus said that we could ask anything in his name, and the Father would do it for us, so that the Father would be glorified in the Son.

39:51And here in chapter 15, Jesus is repeating that idea that as long as we abide in him, we can ask the Father for anything, and the Father will give it to us. Because we've been chosen and appointed to go and bear much fruit, which glorifies God. So throughout his ministry, Jesus taught, ask and you will receive. Friends, as long as we ask according to God's will, we will receive. That's why James 4:2 is so convicting. It says, you do not have because you do not ask.

40:29You do not have. Because you do not ask. Why is it that we don't see more of our friends and family members coming to faith in Jesus? Why is it that we don't see our coworkers and classmates coming to faith in Jesus? Why don't we see more baptisms? Why don't we see more obedience, holiness, disciple-making going on in the church? You do not have because you do not ask. Brothers and sisters, I believe that we want to be more fruitful, that we want to bear much fruit and glorify our Father in heaven. God is pruning us, He is doing His part, so to speak. But are we doing our part?

41:18Are we praying? Are we a prayerful people pleading with God to bear much fruit in our lives? Or are we content with a little fruit? A little obedience, a little holiness, a little disciple-making, and a little harvest. The question comes back to us: God is pruning us to make us more fruitful. Are we praying that He would make us more fruitful? Let's develop a holy discontentment, church, where we are no longer satisfied, no longer willing to settle for a small crop. Year after year. Let's ask God for a great harvest because He is glorified when we bear much fruit.

42:11As we conclude today, there is a very important question that we haven't addressed yet, but it is very plain here in the text. And that is this: What happens to those who don't bear fruit? Let's pick up in verse 2: Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. Go down to verse 6. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.

42:56Friends, there is no misunderstanding Jesus' teaching here. He says that every branch that remains in him will bear fruit, and he prunes it so that it will bear more fruit. But every branch that bears no fruit is taken away. They are gathered up, thrown into the fire, and burned. It is an unmistakable picture of judgment. I want you to remember the thesis: By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be. My disciples. How do we know if someone is a disciple, if they belong to Christ?

43:38The plain answer from this text is: you bear much fruit. Your life is marked by obedience and holiness and disciple-making. If you belong to Jesus, you will bear fruit. That's what you were chosen and appointed to do. And that's what you will do because you're a branch connected to the true vine, Jesus. So, friends, be very careful. Be very careful. I don't want you to assume that you are a fruitful branch because you are surrounded by fruitful branches.

44:22It never fails. Every year, after I get done pruning the trees in the backyard, I gather everything up, I take it out for large trash disposal, and I go back in the yard, I start walking around and looking at my work. And it never fails. I find branches that I've missed. There are dead branches still on every single tree, and I missed them because they were surrounded by fruitful branches. Branches that were filled with leaves and flowers and whatever else.

44:55And I'm concerned today that some of you may conclude that you are fruitful. because you've been surrounded by fruitful branches your whole life. And maybe even now. The question is not, are you a decent person? Of course you are. By human standards, of course you're a decent person. But the question is not from Scripture, are you a decent person? The question from Scripture is, are you a perfect person? Have you obeyed God's law perfectly and completely every day of your life without fail? That is what God requires. You have not. Your life has not produced the good fruit of obedience. It has produced wild grapes.

45:47And that's because the root of your life, your heart, is dead in sin. There's no fruit on the branch because there's no life in the root. And so today, what you must do is you must turn to the true vine, Jesus Christ. When you turn to him in faith, when you confess with your mouth that he is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you who are a part of the different plant is cut off and you are grafted onto Jesus through faith. Immediately, you will start bearing fruit because you are now connected to the true vine. That fruit may be small, that fruit may not be increased. Great quality, but you will start bearing fruit right away because that's what branches do that are connected to the true vine, Jesus. So, friends, today, if you examine your life and you don't see any fruit on your branch, do not despair.

46:49Instead, turn to Jesus. Repent of your sin, believe in Him, be forgiven and reconciled to God, and enjoy the fruit that comes from being grafted onto the true vine, Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, I want to begin by praying for those who may be under the conviction of the Holy Spirit because they look at their lives and there's no fruit. The fruit of obedience and holiness and disciple-making is not present. I pray that they would not be deceived into thinking that because they're around fruitful branches, that they are connected to the true vine, Jesus.

48:15Would you draw them to yourself today? Would you grant repentance and saving faith that they may begin to bear fruit and find that abundant and fullness of joy that you talk about in this passage? God, for those of us who are Christians, I pray that we would not be content with a small harvest, that we would not be okay with empty seats on Sunday morning, empty space in the living room and life group, the waters of baptism not being stirred, our children not professing faith in Christ and walking in the truth, our friends and co-workers, our colleagues, our classmates, we would not be okay.

49:30Having superficial small talk conversation about football and the weather and everything else, but never mentioning the person and work of Jesus Christ. God, would you give us a holy discontentment? Where we pray and plead with you because you say that all we have to do is ask in your name according to your will and you will grant it. So we pray that revival would start this morning with us. Would you set our hearts on fire? And through us, would you begin a revival in our church and in our community?

50:16That every healthy church would be filled to overflowing on Sunday mornings. That new churches would have to be planted every month because of the growth of the gospel in this community. Would we have so many baptisms that we have to stay for an hour after service each week just to baptize everyone that's come forward? God, we want to see a great move of the Spirit. We do not want to be content with going along to get along until we go to heaven.

50:55But we can't conjure up that desire, that hope, that. Faith, we need you. And so we pray, Holy Spirit, that you would do that great work in our hearts. May it start with the household of God. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.