Series Nine: Exercising Spiritual Gifts for the Edification of the Body

The purpose of this session is to lay a foundational understanding of how fruit is the purpose of God for the Christian’s life. The process that God orchestrates is “abiding and pruning,” which every believer must embrace. No one in Christ can be stagnated. God will prune us because He elected us, called us, saved us, and He loves us.

Consider the guarantee in Hebrews 12 that legitimate children of God will be chastened. God disciplines us to share in His holiness. The goal of all discipline is to product fruit. In Galatians 5:22 the fruit of the Spirit is referred to as a package. Paul speaks of the “fruit” of the Spirit and not the “fruits.” Unlike the gifts of the Spirit, which are variously distributed, the fruit of the Spirit comes as a complete package. The package of fruit of the Spirit is the process of conforming of our lives to Christ in the inner and outer man.

In John 15:1–17 Jesus Christ teaches about the abiding and pruning process. The overarching fruit being produced through the pruning and disciplining process is love (v. 10)—love for God and love for others. The highest altitude here is love and Christ ends with a command in verse 17 to love one another. If you love Christ, you will walk in His commandments and the outflow of your love for Christ will be love for one another.

Using the metaphor of the vine and the branches, Christ is focused on the fruit that He is producing through us. In this passage, we see the contrast between unbelievers and believers in reference to their fruit bearing.

Unbelievers Are Destined for Fire

The bulk of John 15:1–17 focuses on the abiding and pruning of believers. However, there is a stark warning for unbelievers, who are also referred to as branches in the metaphor. These are those who associate themselves with Christ, but have no spiritual fruit whatsoever (Gal 5:22–23). These branches are gathered and burned.

1. The vinedresser (God) takes away branches that do not bear fruit (v. 2).
2. Unbelievers are gathered and thrown into the fire (v. 6).
3. God has no use for someone who has attached himself to Christ, but does not bear any Christian fruit.

Believers Are Pruned to Bear Fruit

1. Christ uses the rest of the vine-and-branch metaphor to illustrate pruning in the lives of genuine Christians (vv. 1–17).
   1. Every branch that bears fruit is pruned so that it will bear more fruit. (To bear fruit is to manifest the growing work of God in your life.)
   2. The process includes God taking away areas of your life that do not bear fruit.
   3. He prunes away the excess baggage and trims the junk (cf. Heb 12:1–2).
   4. This work by God then channels the spiritual nutrients to the most needed areas in your life.
2. The Bible defines the fruit; we don’t get to define the fruit which Christ produces (v. 2)
   1. We cannot compare our lives with someone else and think we are fruitful. The standard is always Christ. Do I look like Christ? Is my fruit Christlike?
   2. We lay ourselves open next to Scripture and see if there is biblical fruit.
3. Fruit bearing is not stagnated; it is an ongoing process (v. 2).
   1. We are always in the process of bearing fruit as genuine Christians.
   2. We cannot hope for a stagnant Christian life for comfort’s sake.
   3. Hebrews 12:3–13 bears out that every legitimate son is disciplined, so it is disastrous to desire a stagnant Christian life. You are someone whom He received, so you are scourged.
   4. God’s love drives the pruning. Apart from it we will:
      1. underestimate our need for the pruning.
      2. overestimate the fruit we presently bear.
4. We cannot bear fruit at the highest level without embracing more trials (v. 2).
   1. We need to be weaned off the things that we see and the things we still cannot see.
   2. God brings us to the point of desperation to turn us from autonomy and self-worship.
   3. Paul was a giant in the faith, but he was given a thorn in the flesh to keep him from exalting himself (2 Cor 12:7).
   4. Paul interprets the suffering as a pruning process, and he embraces it.
   5. We must embrace the pruning process: we also will have “thorn-in-the-flesh” processes in our jobs, our health, our relationships, and our families.
      1. How often do we embrace the hemming-in process like Paul and say, “I am being pruned and I joyfully embrace this so that I will not exalt myself”?
      2. So often, wanting the trial to end, we try to slap God’s hand away.
      3. But the vinedresser knows exactly what we need!
5. We are already clean (katharós) because of the word Christ spoke (v. 3).
   1. Fruit cannot be produced apart from the saturation in truth.
   2. Sanctification and pruning is produced by the Word of God.
6. The word for abiding (ménō) is used ten times in the passage; it is an important concept (vv. 4–7, 9–10).
   1. It is a synonym for “stay”/“remain” in Christ’s love. Live, dwell, continue, remain comfortably as your home, happily in Christ’s love (cf. John 12:24, 46; 15:4; Acts 27:31; 1 Cor 7:11, 40; Heb 7:3).
   2. In the context of the vine and the branches, to abide means to remain in the intimacy of Christ.
   3. We must repent of self-trust and entrust ourselves to Him. That is what it means to die to self and abide in Him.
   4. We abide in Christ’s love through a yielded submissiveness to His commandments (vv. 9–10).
   5. Abiding in Christ produces more fruit—and proof that you belong to God (John 15:8).
7. When we see fruit, we must rejoice in God’s work!
   1. It is all of the Spirit ministering to me and through me.
   2. When we get victory, we often don’t rejoice that it is a supernatural work. We are mistaken when we take credit for the victories.
   3. The smallest area of righteousness can be produced only by the Spirit of God.
8. God is exceedingly patient when there is little fruit produced. If you doubt fruit:
   1. Go to the Savior and pray for more fruit!
   2. Ask for more evidence in repentance.
   3. Pray for more love and obedience.

Bearing Fruit Produces Joy

1. John 15:11, then, is an amazing promise from our Lord: Christ’s joy can be ours and our joy is made full.
   1. It is joyful when we abide and become conformed to Christ. God then pours fruitfulness into your life.
   2. A fullness of joy rises from
      1. a clear conscience.
      2. a mind renewed in the things of God.
      3. a right understanding of truth.
      4. the power to believe God.
      5. growing power over sin.
      6. the power to walk in righteousness.
   3. It is the same joy that Jesus had when He obeyed His Father to the last command.
   4. It comes when you conform to Christ and submit your will.
   5. God pours into your heart and mind a freedom, a rest, a steadiness, an unburdened conscience, wisdom, usefulness, fruitfulness, the ability to speak a word of counsel in a moment, etc.
2. Every believer should be experiencing increasing joy due to humble submission to His commands. Not experiencing joy?
   1. If you are new in the Lord, more pruning is necessary, but even new believers should be experiencing some joy.
   2. You may be infantile in your submission to God’s commands.
   3. Are you holding onto a habit, pattern, or sin that you are not willing to give up?
   4. Do you have an idolatry that you refuse to confess and forsake?
   5. Genuine Christians will always be brought to a wall—perhaps a public scandal, the loss of something precious, or a long-term thorn in the flesh—when they are stubborn like a mule.
   6. Many of us have spiritual scars from the pruning, and we warn our brothers. But now, we have joy after coming through the pruning.
   7. Christ’s command to abide in His love is not a grind.
      1. Do you want Jesus’ joy full in your heart? Love Him!
      2. How do you manifest love for Him? Submit to His Word! Yield your donkey-like, stubborn will.
      3. How do you yield your will? Believe God!
3. Jesus wants to fill us with His joy, but this joy is not on my terms.
   1. Joy on Christ’s terms is connected exclusively with righteousness. It is not an emotional joy.
   2. And then, supernaturally your life is infused with the joy of Christ for righteous things.
   3. Some of us have joyless seasons for too long because we compartmentalize our lives and won’t give up something we covet.
   4. We measure our joy based on our obedience:
      1. Do I have humility before the words of Christ?
      2. Am I giving Him my most difficult areas to cultivate the greatest humility?
      3. Have I identified the areas that I compartmentalize?
4. Joy doesn’t come without great difficulty and struggle.
   1. Your fruit depends on it!
   2. We must have our mind on Christ and not on the world (Col 3:1–4).
   3. Our mind must be saturated and filled with truth (Col 3:16).
   4. God will bring things into our lives to prevent greater sin.
   5. God will wean us from the things we don’t want to be weaned from or aren’t even aware of yet.