The Pruning Knife

The pruning of a vineyard is the most important aspect of producing quality wine from grapes. What transpires in the pruning process will determine the quality of the wine. Jesus often used striking imagery from nature, and in John chapter 15, Jesus talks about the pruning process in the life of a believer.

In the opening of chapter 15, Jesus makes a startling statement. I am the true vine, and my father is the husbandman. In the original Greek language, the sense is more powerful as seen in the following words.

In contradistinction to anyone else, I am the genuine vine. Here Jesus declares his uniqueness. He is unlike any other.

All else are frauds, fakes, or poor imitations, compared to him, the genuine vine. And then he says of his father, and my father is the tiller of the soil. And it is here, friends, I want us to linger in these first two verses of John chapter 15 this evening, until we get a true sense of just what Jesus is really saying here in regard to the heavenly father being the tiller of the soil.

You may as well replace the letter I in that last word and insert an O there and restate it. My father is the tiller of the soil. The striking imagery here, friends, is of a gardener keeping a garden with divine care and intense interest in how the crop will turn out.

Like the owner of a vineyard would take immense pains in the pruning of his vineyard, knowing full well that it is here, in the pruning process, that determines the quality of the harvest. So, too, God has a minute interest in each of us, friends, and how we will turn out for him in regard to our fruitfulness to him and our usefulness to others. I cannot underscore this principle of spiritual development any better than from the following story.

Many years ago I was preaching the Monday evening class of the School of Preaching for the Stephen Oldford Institute in Memphis, Tennessee, the same institution where I myself learned how to preach. With that particular evening, as I addressed a roomful of local pastors, my text that evening was from John chapter 15, and I was hitting it pretty hard on this aspect of pruning. My message that evening centered in the activity of the Father, who holds a divine pruning knife in his hand, and how he fully intends to use it.

I talked about how sharp he kept that knife with his whetting stone, and how deep it can cut, and for what purposes God takes that knife out on us as his followers. What that group of pastors didn't know that evening was I had brought with me to that meeting two men who I made sit on the back row in silence. They were two men I was discipling at the time, and I had invested a great deal of time in these two Christian men, and before that meeting began I told these two men I needed them at a meeting with me, and I was bringing them along for one purpose, and one purpose only.

Their job was to be in constant prayer to God in heaven. Well, I addressed those pastors there that night. I told them, don't pay any attention to what I'm saying.

I want you both to be absorbed in the activity of prayer for that hour or so. These men were choice men, and they were praying men, and they went to praying while I went to preaching out of my text from John chapter 15, and by the time I got to the second verse and I read it, every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and when I said those words the faces of those pastors changed from smiles to intense solemnity. A couple of them even physically moved to the edge of their seat with alarm in their eyes.

Then I gave out the rest of the verse, and every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit, and I told that group of pastors that if they truly wanted more usefulness to God than a knife would have to fall on them and their ministry. I believe that group of pastors got serious with God that night, and God got serious with them. For when the meeting was over, and as a line had formed to talk to me, I spoke with those men one on one, and I saw they were intent on being more useful to God.

One man stands out in my memory, an elderly black man who was well-dressed in a immaculate suit. He waited his turn to talk to me, and when it was his time, he threw his arms around me, and with tears in his eyes, this is what he said. I've been a pastor now these last 40 years, but after what happened here tonight, I want you to know I'm gonna go home, and when I get there, I'm gonna go kneel by my bed and ask God to get out his pruning knife on me and my ministry.

I believe that man got serious with God that evening, friends. How about you? Do you hunger for greater usefulness to God for his glory? Are you willing to submit to the sharp cutting edge of that divine pruning knife? Are you ready for God, brother pastor, to use you as an instrument of revival in your church and your community? The degree of the cutting will determine the quality of the degrees of fruitfulness of that harvest. I believe, friends, we have a God who gets serious with those who get serious with him.

Let us pray.