The Vine No.3 The Secret of Fruitfulness

I have the joy to, this is the first church in Britain that I've spoken in to bring the good news of the tremendous answer to prayer that we had in Malaysia. I've just come via Karachi from Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. I was four and a half months battling away in Malaysia for government permission for the Dulos to make a visit to seven ports in Malaysia and I might say it was a very difficult assignment.

I am actually now the purser on the Logos and I was down there in Latin America and after three attempts I responded to the invitation for me to go out there to Malaysia. I thought someone else could do the job equally as well as I. Anyway, I eventually agreed to go there and I'm glad I did because once again I saw the hand of the living God doing something that no human being could have done to help us. After four and a half months the ship sailed from India and I still did not have that permission from the Ministry of Home Affairs.

I had every other permission from the state governments, I had met chief ministers, state secretaries, all of the people but there was a great kind of fear in people when they heard that we were being blocked at the Ministry of Home Affairs. That's where it all happens and where the final signature comes and the Lord's people, anyone here that were praying for us to get into Malaysia, is there anyone here? I want to say what a tremendous answer to prayer. There was no human being that anyone could recommend to help me.

It was as if the Lord was saying now be still and see the hand of the Lord really working here. You can't do anything else to advance this permission and in an absolutely amazing way this permission came two days after the ship had left India. I do wish I had the time to share about that answer to prayer.

I've been doing this job for many years and when you see God moving like that the greatest joy you have is to tell his people that our God reigns. You know I'm a human being, I am a clay pot, a very cracked one sometimes, a leaky old clay pot and when the strain comes on of the uncertainties of these things I don't know if anyone claims to be a giant of faith. I am no giant of faith I tell you but I tremble as I wait upon the Lord to see him working because there was no one ahead of the ship only me and six months is planned in Malaysia.

You know little doubts come into your mind in the middle of the night sometimes but what a wonderful thing to see God answering that prayer. Now the ship is there in Port Klang which is the port city for Kuala Lumpur. There have been many attempts to blacken us to get the ship to leave.

There are conditions in our permission and people have been putting things in newspapers. We've been front page headlines in the national newspapers nearly every day for a week. People accusing us of all kinds of things of which we're not guilty even government ministers telling lies but you know God is sovereign.

The ship is there having a tremendous ministry. The conferences are all fully subscribed. There are thousands.

This publicity I think Romans 8 28 must be our verse for this because the ship is about 15 kilometers from the nearest house as it were miles and miles from civilization and thousands of people are coming. Last weekend I think on Saturday and just Sunday afternoon and evening they saw about 30,000 people and the Lord is blessing the ministry. It's a great joy for me to share that with you this morning.

I'm just back in the UK after being away two years. We'll be taking a break until the end of July and then I go back to my first love which is after the Lord Jesus the ship Logos. Thank you for that.

So our reading this morning is from the Gospel of John chapter 15. The first eight verses where the Lord Jesus is referring to the vine and the branches beginning at verse one. I'm reading from the NIV.

I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit while every branch that does bear fruit he trims clean so it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.

Remain in me and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruits unless you remain in me.

I am the vine you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him he will bear much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing.

If anyone does not remain in me he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up thrown into the fire and burned. 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 be my disciples. We are the branches. Keep us abiding in you.

Our bibles at that reading again which we've now heard twice once spoken and and secondly in song. John chapter 15 and we come back for the third in our meditations from these verses and the eighth in my addresses from the paschal discourse of our Lord Jesus. I am the true vine verse one and my father is 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. Verse eight this is to my father's glory that you bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples. You know generally speaking the words of a man or a woman when they're at the point of death have even greater significance than anything they had to say in their earthly life and in one sense you have here in this Passover sermon of our Lord Jesus something that is so wonderful that you would be foolish not to cling on to it.

This was his last address to those who had been with him for some three years. I tell you it was directed to just believers. Our Lord has weeded out so to speak anyone who was not with him.

Judas has been dispatched. Now Savior has stepped out from the upper room where he commenced this address and now he's walking with his disciples in the confines of Jerusalem and ultimately down the valley to the Garden of Gethsemane. It's nighttime and our Savior perhaps stimulated by the gold and vine on the temple court on its doorway or perhaps by seeing some of the fires of the literal vines whose wood was being burnt in the Kidron Valley puts out this remarkable teaching.

You know our Savior right at the beginning of his ministry did something wonderful. I refer to the account in John's Gospel. He's at the wedding of Cana at Galilee and there he performs a miracle and they say to him those who benefited by his blessings as a result of his supernatural intervention.

It's normal to keep the poorest wine until the end but you have given the best wine at the end. The words were directed to the manager the governor of the feast but the one who was the benefactor was our Lord Jesus. Now in one sense it's perhaps true to say and I say this advisedly that here is even of our Lord's teaching which was always of such tremendous quality.

Here is the best wine. It's kept right until the end and coincidentally it's teaching on the vine and the fruit of the vine that occupies his attention during these verses. You remember how he has declared to his disciples here that the continuation of his work on earth is very much dependent on them.

I am the vine, you are the branches. The vine stood historically for Israel but the people of Israel they had not done what God wanted. His purposes would have been frustrated if left to the ethnic descendants of Abraham.

So Jesus says no I am the vine. All that God the father wants to bring about in this world will come as a result of me and you for you are the branches. Now that was a mind-blowing comment for him to make.

The responsibilities that he was investing in his disciples and by extension in ourselves. Do you realize my friend whether you're 80 or 18, whether you were college educated or not, whether you're an artisan or an accountant because you belong to the Lord, you're a part of the vine, the purposes of God for the 20th century are to be worked out in part through your life. Do you really believe that? That's what this teaching is all about.

I'm the vine, you're the branches, you come under the supervision of father. My father is the gardener. You are to, you remember my point from last week, you are to exhibit cooperation with me for it's my purpose to empower you for service.

Now the last thing that you are to even contemplate is that your life's work shall be ineffective, fit only for incineration, fit only to be thrown away. How terrible to be saved but to be saved as by fire with nothing to show for it. You see this is the direction of our Lord's teaching.

There is no unbeliever I repeat present. He's weeded them out so to speak and he's talking to the church, he's talking to you and me and he puts before you tremendous potentialities, tremendous possibilities for you to in some measure duplicate him and continue the work that he commenced. So I want coming to these verses again with the same burden as last week in mind to address you on the secret of fruitfulness.

The secret of fruitfulness is your problem that you're a barren Christian. It's not that you don't belong to the Lord Jesus, you're in Christ but there seems to be little even by your own estimation to show for it. Now if that's your condition well thank God for your honesty and let me try pastorally to treat it from scripture and so we come back to these verses as I highlight our Lord's burden once again.

First of all I want to speak to you about realizing your capacity, realizing your capacity. You see our Lord predicts that the disciples will have verse five much fruit. He will bear much fruit if that disciple abides in me.

In the eighth verse he makes reference to much fruit once again. This is to my father's glory that you bear much fruit and the father wants the fruit bearing disciple, the one who's successful in some degree to improve upon what he's been producing to that point. So in the second verse he says that father prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

You see this is what I mean by realizing your capacity. Do you appreciate as I told you a moment or so ago that in the purposes of God even in this sleepy little town of Worthing there is something important for you to perform, for you to be in terms of bringing fruit for the heavenly father, realizing your capacity. Jesus always addresses a man or a woman in terms of what he can be and why he can be what he could be.

Our Lord when he meets with Peter, you remember the initial experience, Peter's just a fisherman. He got no inclination towards the ministry. In fact the option wasn't even open in those days, not for an ordinary working class man like Peter.

And when Jesus accosts Peter he says you are but you shall be. You are Simon but you shall be Cephas. Jesus always recognizes the potential that is in a person.

I am the vine and I see you fellows potentially as branches. Now what great faith our Lord had. Could you imagine Thomas being a good strong branch? Could you imagine Peter? These men had been interrogating Jesus in the previous chapter, indicating their basic lack of grasp as to what he'd been teaching for the last three years.

But Jesus, I speak again somewhat maybe unwisely at this point, he gambles the whole future of the kingdom on these men and yet it's no real gamble because our Lord has intuition, he has discernment, he knows what is innate within these men as he knows what is innate within you. I think that one of the main messages that needs preaching to the Christian community today is not to devalue yourself. Sometimes as Christians we have such low esteem.

In one sense that is right, before the cross I am a wretch but having had applied to me the benefits of Calvary I am a prince, a priest unto God and there is a great deal of potential locked up in me because of his gracious activity in my life. What you can be, who would have thought that the Apostle Paul having been on horse on the Damascus road would become one of the greatest ambassadors of all time but God saw it and maybe he's seeing some elderly friend here or some young fellow and saying yes though you're 70 there's still potential within you and as you're 17 there's a life span that can unfold in front of you to be used effectively for me. Realizing your capacity, what you can be and why you can be it, well you can be this because my father is the gardener or as the authorized version puts it as I reminded you last week my father is the husbandman.

The only time in scripture that that sort of metaphor is ever attributed to the to the father. Blessed father, blessed husbandman who has as his sole objective to make me a better fruit-bearing Christian. That's why he involves himself in my life.

He wants to wash me clean by the word. Now I am clean because the blood of Jesus Christ God's Son has cleansed me from all sin yet I need to have constant cleansing because I'm making my pilgrimage through the world and there's blight, there are insects, there is dirt there and I need to constantly be coming before the word. That's why our Lord speaks so of the word in the third verse.

Father applies the word to you to cleanse you. Oh my friend, is one of the most important duties on a Sunday to come before the word of God really for you or do you take any excuse perhaps not to be present before a bible-based ministry. If you're careless in these areas then what you are basically doing is not insulting the preacher but offending father.

Blessed father, concerned for me to be fruitful. Blessed shears, secateurs that he sometimes has as he nips back in my life and takes out that which will prevent me from being even more fruitful. I am the vine, father is the gardener.

Put those things together and my problem is this, why am I so fruitless very often? You see the environment couldn't be better could it? Father's the gardener, the son is the vine. I've got such tremendous help to make me to be a fruitful christian. It's not the environment that's wrong if I'm not fruitful because father, son and holy spirit have combined in a ministry to ensure that I shall be in this world a fruitful disciple of Jesus Christ.

It's in him you see, in our lord Jesus that we live and move and have our being. That's what Paul is saying in Acts 17. Now when he uses the metaphor he says that the lord Jesus is the vine and we are in him see.

So we we draw from him, we are in Christ. You can't change that. That was a gift that will never be forfeited because the gifts and callings of God are without repentance.

He doesn't take back what he's given. You are in Christ, you're in the vine, you're part of that vast innumerable company for whom Jesus died but that my friend is not the end of the matter. It is the beginning.

You're in Christ but now you have to abide so that that relationship with the father, son and spirit continues in an unbroken fashion. So that the sap from the vine can flow through the branch. So that you dwelling in the life of Christ can exhibit the graces of the lord Jesus here on this earth.

I wonder if you're understanding me. Sometimes I think maybe I talk too quickly and perhaps talk too much. I really have got a burden to get this message into your mind so that no one will ever eradicate it.

Rub it out. Realizing your capacity. Oh my friend, are you in Christ on a Sunday morning and that's it? But you're in the world on a Sunday afternoon and a Sunday evening.

You're by the box, you're in your books. Similarly on a Monday and a Tuesday and a Wednesday. Don't misunderstand me.

I'm not saying that to be in Christ you've got to be in church. Some people have been in church and they've never been in Christ. That's a terrible thing but it happens.

But being in Christ is a condition that is possible from Monday through to Saturday and you get a recharge of the batteries if I can mix the metaphors. When you come with God's children around his word on a Sunday. The secret of fruitfulness, realizing your capacity.

And then secondly as I bring to the four verses that I've not had opportunity to comment on thus far, recognizing the reality. Recognizing the reality. The reality of what? Well the reality of the fruit.

You see the reason for the vine's existence is not really the delicate little flower that it bears. That doesn't last for very long and it's certainly not the wood. You couldn't do a thing with the wood.

I've got friends who join us. They're experts with the wood but I defy anyone to do anything with the wood of the vine. In fact the temple priests used to prohibit the pilgrims from bringing the wood of the vine to the temple because it wasn't even suitable for kindling the offerings that were burnt on the altars.

It was useless. You see the only thing that gives the vine any credibility at all is the fruit that it bears. Well isn't that in one sense true of you? The only real purpose in living is to bring fruit to honor Jesus Christ.

Only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. Okay the poetry wouldn't exactly get the prizes at the Welsh Stedford but nonetheless the point is good.

Only one life. You see it's not the wood. Your own physical body is in a state of decay.

I don't want to remind you and make it too painful but it is so. We're not here forever. Not our bodies.

One day we'll have a body that will last forever. It'll be like the glorious body of our Lord Jesus but not now. You see the body is very much like the wood of the vine.

It has an importance of course but it's not the essential importance. What is the essential importance? To produce fruit. That was the thing about our Lord Jesus.

He was the vine that produced fruit par excellence for the glory of God and we have been grafted into him. Well what is this fruit? Well if you like it's actualizing Christ in my life and it has an internal and an external aspect about it and the former is more important. Internal.

You see there may be some dear friend here and because we evangelicals are always tending to emphasize the external. You know be in our track distributing group. Be a Sunday school teacher.

Be down on the precinct evangelizing. This sort of thing. Now it may well be that this is impossible for you.

So my older friends it would perhaps even be unwise though not necessarily for all of them. But you see what is the most important here in terms of recognizing the reality of the fruit? To appreciate that this is basically an internal thing. It's our union with Christ.

The fruit of the spirit. That which marks you out as being different from everyone else. You see in one sense if you claim the gifts of the spirit without the fruit of the spirit then you're trading in something that's not quite biblical.

Because the one should lead to the other. Be related to the other. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Says Paul right into the Galatians chapter 5 and verse 22. Now are those things in your life? Can you really say that? Control? Meekness? Are you really meek my friends? Downstairs? Upstairs? Are you really a meek person? The gentleness there in your spirit? Are you quick to retaliate? Do you take what is best from a church service and think on that? Or is it the perhaps a tittle tattle at the end of a service that doesn't exactly help you towards holiness that stays in your mind? God forbid that it ever should and I'm not using that as a harsh comparison because I don't believe it is here amongst us in the tab. But I want to differentiate between what is real fruit and what is not.

The fruit of the spirit. Do we see it friends? Let the Holy Spirit just lift the leaves for a moment because the leaves can cover fruit or the leaves can be a camouflage for an area where there is no fruit and you can be in church without being in Christ bearing fruit. That's the whole import of the teaching you see.

There were those branches that were burned at the end. Why? They had no value whatsoever. There are Christians like that in Christ but they've never known what it is to abide in Christ.

So I put the question to you. Have you got this internal fruit if you like in your character? So you're an old person. Well listen.

The righteous will flourish like a palm tree. They will grow like a cedar of Lebanon planted in the house of the Lord. They will flourish in the courts of our God.

They will still bear fruit in old age. They will stay fresh and clean or as the authorised puts it, they will be fat and flourishing. Maybe you'd rather stick with the NIV for that translation at any rate.

Bearing fruit in old age. I thank God and I tell you this from the depths of my heart, not in a sentimental fashion. For some old folks who've ministered to my life, you know it's a benediction to know them.

You see that ninefold fruit of the Spirit. You see the gentleness, the self-control, the patience, the kindness, the goodness and you know that this dear person has drawn the sap from the Lord. It doesn't always work like that but thank God that it does in many cases.

Here is the reality of the fruit. A Christ-like life. Actualising Jesus in my life.

So that you see the joy that I have is his joy. You see this fruit of the Spirit, it comes from the Lord Jesus because he's the vine who sends the sap through. So we talk about joy and he tells us in John's gospel, my joy shall be complete in you.

He talks about peace and he says my peace. You see it always comes back to him. Meekness and gentleness are referred to in second Corinthians but it's the meekness and gentleness of Christ.

Paul has done well has he not as a Christian and yet he says by the grace of God I am what I am. See this is the experimental activity of the Spirit working itself out, himself out in our characters. So there's something different but if you are that much better it's got nothing to do with you.

The fact of the matter is that you're in the vine, you're drawing from the vine and of course there are the externals as the Apostle Paul makes reference. He talks about having fruit in Rome. He means he wants converts there.

He talks about the people in Philippi being his fruit because there he's preached the gospel. There are the internals and the externals. Now test yourself to what degree is there this fruit in your life, the secret of fruitfulness.

I say it revolves around realizing your capacity and recognizing the reality but finally and briefly releasing the vitality, releasing the vitality. We're to be actively involved you see. This is a spiritual experience or experiences for which you strive.

There are some experiences you can't strive after. They're very much in the sovereignty of God but being filled with the Spirit is not one of those experiences. It's very much in the sovereignty of God.

Being filled with the Spirit, this is something I strive after. Thomas Goodwin, a Puritan preacher, he used to talk about suing the Lord to know the overwhelmings of the Spirit in his life. Charles Simeon in whose church I was preaching in Cambridge not so long ago.

He used to speak on the indwelling Spirit to his congregation downstairs in their church and then at eight o'clock he says, now you've heard the theology, come with me to the upper room and let's work out the experience. See abiding, wanting to remain in Christ. In the 14th chapter our Lord emphasizes himself, what he is doing.

Trust also in me, in my Father's house. No one comes to the Father except through me and so on and so forth. But when you move into the 15th chapter he's dealing with you.

22 times the pronoun you comes in. What you are to be doing. Realizing the vitality of abiding that comes through abiding or remaining in Christ.

Charles Spurgeon puts it like this, it means livingly knit to Jesus. Livingly knit to Jesus. How do you do it? To abide in Christ means that, well you've got to constantly realize the benefits of his death haven't you? I mean you can't abide in Christ if you're not to the fullest extent if you're slacking your attendance around the Lord's table.

I really do mean that. Our Lord Jesus talked about us feeding on him. Do you remember? John's Gospel chapter 6 and the 26th verse, Jesus answered, I tell you the truth you're looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.

Do not work for food that spoils but for food that endures to eternal life which the Son of Man will give you. Verse 35, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry and he who believes in me shall never be thirsty.

Verse 55, for my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains, abides in me and I in him. Do you do that? Remember always the benefits of the death of our Lord Jesus.

That's part of abiding in him and then your determination to depend on him in every area of your life. I am the branch, you're the branches. Apart from I am the vine, you are the branches.

Apart from me you can't do anything. I'll tell you something, I think I'm arriving at the point in my spiritual experience where I want to say Lord apart from you I don't want to do anything. I really don't.

To abide in Christ is to know his companionship every end, every turn of the way, realizing the benefits of his death, determining to depend on him always and then constantly benefiting from his fullness. You see the branch does not produce fruit, it bears fruit and it gets the fruit by the sap that comes from the stem. So why is it important for you to be fruitful? Well, three very quick reasons.

First of all, it invigorates prayer. It invigorates prayer. If you remain in me, my word remain in you.

Ask whatever you wish and it will be given you. All right? Verse seven, what's more it initiates honor. This is to my father's glory that you bear much fruit.

And then thirdly, it indicates discipleship, showing yourselves to be my disciples. My friend, is this really what you want to be? Let's not beat around the bush. So you've come here for 30 years, I'm not really bothered though I'm glad to have had your company but that is not in any way exempting you from the gist of my message right now.

Do you, forget the other 400, 500 people are here, do you really want to be more fruitful in your life? Do you really want to be? You're in the vine, thank God for that. But what about this business of abiding? Is there a transformation in your character? Now don't do yourself down. If there is, thank God for it.

It's part of the benefits of being in the vine. It's to the glory of God that there is transformation. But if there's not, are you really worried about it? If there are no external indications that you really have confessed Jesus as Lord, are you coming to the Lord and asking him for greater empowering? Are you suing him for it? Or does it satisfy your spiritual palate to come to a place like this and hear some fellow carry on for 30 minutes every Sunday morning and that's the end of the matter? God forbid.

I hold it on account that there was a time when I told you at the tabernacle that that was not in and of itself sufficient. It's good as far as it goes, but it's beyond the preacher's words that you need to travel, my friend. It's not just to ensure that you're in the vine, that you know the theology of salvation, but rather that you're abiding, that you know the theology of sanctification.

Not enough, I tell you a thousand times, to defend the faith, but to exhibit the fruit of the faith. And that's possible, whether you're 17 or 70. But the responsibility is yours.

The Father is there as the gardener. The Son is there as the vine. But you must cooperate, as people cooperated to make this tab so full of colour yesterday at the wedding service which would have done justice to the Chelsea Flower Show.

Those bridesmaids were sweet. The flowers compensated the floral display you see here. But it didn't happen overnight.

It needed hours of preparation. When you see a lovely bouquet, time and planning and expertise and sacrifice has gone into it. When you see a lovely life, time and sacrifice and planning and expertise has gone into it.

And these are the things that God asks of you to give to him, cooperating, that you might be as a branch to the vine, showing the same fruit that the Lord Jesus showed when he was on earth. For it is he who tells us, I am the vine and ye are the branches, the secret of fruitfulness. Let's sing a song.

A song I think which is more appropriate than the hymn I've selected. We may have that in a moment or two. Let's go to 21 in Songs of Fellowship.

As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after you. The metaphor is slightly different. The principle is the same.

You alone are my strength, my shield. To you alone may my spirit yield. You alone are my heart's desire and I long to worship you.

Sing this in a response to what I've tried to share from the pulpit. Stand and sing. Father, for what you've taught thus far, we thank you.

Enable us to continue to make response. In the blessed name of Jesus, we'll be with my brothers and sisters here who have to go and bless us who continue to come before you. Help us to abide more in you and to draw more strength from you.

In the name of the Saviour. Amen.