John 15:1-8

Fruit – The Beautiful Outcome

Trip to Michigan apple orchard….drinking cider…

  • Something deeply spiritual
  • Something tangible
  • Something clearly discernible

Some Pain Involved

15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 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. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.

Illus.: Tom Tellez, NCAA championships 1982.

Attachment to Jesus is Necessary

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.

Def.: Meno / To stay, to tarry, to hang around.

Note the Judgment

6 If 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.

What makes sense in farming, Jesus is saying, makes sense in judgment. Fruit is critical to the judgment seat of the Lord.

The Keys to Remaining in Jesus

  1. The means of grace – works of piety, mercy. It is powerful stuff…consider what happens from simply exposure to the Bible…
    Power of 4 – study of 400,000 Christians between 8-80 from 24 countries.
    Exposure to Word of God 4x (or more) a week looks radically different than from someone who does not. 59% less likely to view porn. 30% less likely to struggle with loneliness, 74% less likely to gamble, 407% more likely to memorize scripture, 228% more likely to share faith with others, 231% more likely to disciple others.
    Another study – More likely to love your friends, wife, children, enemies.
    More likely to be addicted to nothing other than Jesus. More likely to be a giver rather than a taker. More likely to bring peace to chaos. More likely to know joy. More likely to go to heaven, rather than hell. (that study comes from the Bible itself).
  2. Activation of the lessons
  3. The practice of the Presence.

The Reward – Power, Influence

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. 7 If you remain in me and my words  remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

The American missionary Adoniram Judson arrived in Burma, or Myanmar, in 1812, and died there thirty-eight years later in 1850. During that time, he suffered much for the cause of the gospel. He was imprisoned, tortured, and kept in shackles. After the death of his first wife, Ann, to whom he was devoted, for several months he was so depressed that he sat daily beside her tomb. Three years later, he wrote: God is to me the Great Unknown. I believe in him, but I cannot find him.

But Adoniram’s faith sustained him, and he threw himself into the tasks to which he believed God had called him. He worked feverishly on his translation of the Bible. The New Testament had now been printed, and he finished the Old Testament in early 1834.

Statistics are unclear, but there were only somewhere between twelve and twenty-five professing Christians in the country when he died, and there were not churches to speak

At the 150th anniversary of the translation of the Bible into the Burmese language, Paul Borthwick was addressing a group that was celebrating Judson’s work. Just before he got up to speak, he noticed in small print on the first page the words: “Translated by Rev. A. Judson.” So Borthwick turned to his interpreter, a Burmese man named Matthew Hia Win, and asked him, “Matthew, what do you know of this man?” Matthew began to weep as he said,

We know him—we know how he loved the Burmese people, how he suffered for the gospel because of us, out of love for us. He died a pauper, but left the Bible for us. When he died, there were few believers, but today there are over 600,000 of us, and every single one of us traces our spiritual heritage to one man: the Rev. Adoniram Judson.

But Adoniram Judson never saw it!

And that will be the case for some of us. We may be called to invest our lives in ministries for which we do not see much immediate fruit, trusting that the God of all grace who oversees our work will ensure that our labor is not in vain. Source: Adapted from Julia Cameron, editor, Christ Our Reconciler (InterVarsity Press, 2012), pp. 200-201

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Fruit is a non-negotiable. You are fruitful when you remain in Him. Remaining in Him takes some work. Are you open to the work?