Glory of God Part 4: Fruit-bearing — Bruce Rodgers

Glorying in the Lord Rather Than Human Strength

Now let's look tonight back in the book of Jeremiah to start with, Jeremiah chapter 9. I hope to be able to look this evening in John chapter 15 at the vine and the branches, which is why I chose that hymn to sing.

So what I want to look at in the initial part of the meeting is a little bit about the idea of glorying, and what hinders us from experiencing the blessing that God has intended for us. Jeremiah chapter 9 verse 23 says, Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might.

Let not the rich man glory in his riches, but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord, which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.

For in these things I delight, saith the Lord. Now that's an interesting little section that is taken up in the New Testament in 1st Corinthians chapter 1, and maybe we'll look at that in a few moments.

But you'll notice here that this passage is reminding us that what we are and what we have is not ours in an absolute sense. If God has granted to us wisdom, it is that we might be beneficial to other people.

It is that we might glorify God, because God is wise. He is the source of wisdom, and he confers wisdom according to his own sovereignty. When it comes to might, whether that's talking about physical strength or a position of power, again, it's something that he confers as a stewardship.

It's ours as a stewardship, not an absolute possession. And the same thing with wealth. Whatever he has bestowed upon us is ours to enjoy, to use, and to be useful in using. And so what he says here is that instead of us being preoccupied with our blessings and letting them go to our head and to think we are somehow better or greater than someone else, to recognize it as a responsibility, as a stewardship from God.

But then it says, he that glories, let him glory in this. If you want to have something to be excited about, to exult in, to glory in, to boast in, make this your glory. And in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 it says, let him that glorieth glory in the Lord.

He is so great. He is so wonderful in all his ways that if we could just give ourselves a break and stop thinking about ourselves and think about the Lord, we would be really benefited. Because he could fill our minds, he could fill our hearts with healthy occupation, beneficial occupation.

And here's what he says really impresses him. Loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness. These are the things that delight him, that cause him joy. And so that is what he wants to see in our lives.

Pride and the Linen Girdle of Jeremiah 13

Now chapter 13, there's a bit of a strange story here. The Lord sometimes asks his servants to do some odd things. And Jeremiah, when you get to this part of Jeremiah, he acts out a number of parables that are meant to teach lessons to the people of Israel.

And this is one about pride. At the beginning of the chapter, he tells him to go and get himself some clothing. And it's a linen girdle, which is a kind of a belt or a sash that they would wear around their robe.

And sometimes they were quite ornamented. And so he used to get this new belt. And then after a while, after he's wearing it for a while, he's supposed to make a trip way over to the Euphrates River, off by Babylon, and go and bury it.

And then again after a long time, he's sent back to go and dig it up. And when he digs it up, well of course it's all rotted, it's filthy, it's no good for anything. So here's what, again, the Lord picks up the meaning of it in verse 8.

Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Thus saith the Lord, After this manner will I mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods to serve them and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing.

For as the girdle cleaves to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel, and the whole house of Judah, saith the Lord, that they might be unto me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory.

But they would not hear. Now what is the lesson? Well, it's an interesting parable about clothing. I don't know if that's a safe topic to get onto or not. What you wear reflects on you. It reveals various things about you.

It sometimes reveals personality. It can reveal your moral principles. It reveals character. We dress in certain ways to portray, to impress in a certain way. Now some of us will have to claim exemption from that because we're clothed by someone else who has pity on us.

I haven't bought very many pieces of clothing for a long time because my wife takes care of me. So you can't always know for sure if what that person is wearing really reflects their personality or not.

But in many ways it does. But the point of this story is simply this. What we wear reflects on us. It tells something about us. And God is saying that he has chosen us. He's talking about Israel here in this instance, but we can apply it to ourselves.

He has chosen us to cleave to him, to be wrapped around him, so that we might reflect on him. What you are, how you live, reflects upon your God. Now I remember hearing an interesting story about a missionary who was over in...

I just forget what country it was in. It seems to me it was... Oh, it might have been in Yugoslavia, in one of those areas. And this Christian was trying to reach the people of that area and he visited this older man.

And the older man didn't want anything to do with the Gospel. He said, religion has no interest for me. I forget all the details of what he had that he had against religion, against God. But basically it was that the church robbed him of this and of that and oppressed him and so on.

He said, I have no use for religion, the Bible. I have no use for it. And this Christian tried to reach him, patiently work with him. Finally he used an illustration to try to get through to the man. He said, imagine now if someone stole your coat and your hat and then went downtown and went into a store or into a bank and committed a robbery.

And then took off and that person was spotted. And they identified who it was by the coat and the hat. And so the police come to your place and they want to question you and they're accusing you of theft.

What would you think of that? Well, they said, it wasn't me. Yes, but that was you, your coat. We know it was you. Well, he got the message. He understood that what the missionary was trying to tell him was this.

There are people who represent God falsely. There are people who do not reflect upon God as God really is. And this is what God is charging Israel with here. How are we doing? And what he's getting at particularly here is this.

Is that the people of Israel, instead of realizing that their true value depended upon them honoring God, they thought they could live for themselves. And the Lord said, okay, you don't want to be my glory.

You want to live for your own glory. Well, I'll take you away and let you rot. And then we'll see what you're really worth. You know, none of us are worth very much without God. It doesn't matter how long we've been saved.

If we get out of touch with God, our spirituality nosedives. Our strength to live as a Christian, our strength to maintain the virtues that make us something for God quickly deteriorate. We need God. We need to be in close relationship with God.

We need to cleave to him in order to have our true value and our true duty. And that's the lesson of the passage. Now let's come to the New Testament where the Lord Jesus picks up somewhat of a similar kind of illustration in the Gospel of John, Chapter 15.

The Indwelling Spirit and the Christian Life

Now what we are trying to follow here is the truth that God is a God of glory. And if we are going to reflect upon him, if we are going to honor him, we are going to have to be in touch with him. Now I'm going to read a few verses in Chapter 14 where the Lord Jesus is really expressing the beauty of the New Testament relationship.

He says in verse 16 of Chapter 4, I will pray the Father and he shall give you another comforter that he may abide with you forever, even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but you know him, for he dwells with you and shall be in you.

I will not leave you comfortless or as orphans. I will come to you yet a little while, and the world sees me no more, but ye see me, because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

He that has my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me, and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him. Now there's a beautiful relationship emphasized here of an indwelling.

We are not expected or asked to live the Christian life on our own steam. He is telling us that there is a spiritual divine source of life that is imparted to us as our companion, our comforter, our guide, and our inner life that we can live for God.

Now let's come down to the end of the chapter. Verse 31, he says, But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence. Now the context of this section is just before the Lord is going to Calvary, before Gethsemane, and he is preparing his disciples for his departure from among them.

Christ the True Vine and the Call to Abide

Now let's read a few verses in John chapter 15. Verse 1, I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman, or the farmer or the gardener. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me.

I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.

Continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love. Even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love, these things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

Henceforth I call you not servants or slaves, for the bond-servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth, but I have called you friends. For all things that I have heard of or from my Father I have made known unto you.

You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained or appointed you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

These things I command you, that ye love one another. Now, there's a lot in this passage, and it links with so many other sections of the New Testament. How important is it that we abide in Christ, that we have a living connection with him, and that we keep in touch with him?

Well, this chapter outlines its importance. Now, if you were thinking of a tree, what kind of a tree would you think of, that you would think of as a beautiful tree? Well, it wouldn't very likely be a vine, would it?

There's nothing very beautiful about a vine of itself. You might think of a beautiful oak tree, or a cedar, or some majestic tree. But it's interesting that the Lord, in looking at this picture, this analogy that he uses of the Christian life, he deliberately chooses something that is not that beautiful in itself, but it produces something beautiful, something valuable.

And so one of the first lessons that we see in this, and it's picking up from what I've already touched on, about the problem of pride, and the fact that pride hinders what God wants to do in our lives.

In fact, pride might be the greatest hindrance of what God wants to do in our lives. What we have in the idea of the vine and the branches is that the character of the life that God is interested in is a life that is self-effacing.

Self-effacing humility and self-sacrificing love are the keys to this life. Now, there's a lot of background to this. God, in the Old Testament, referred to Israel as a vine. Isaiah chapter 5 takes up the imagery of a vineyard.

The fact that God had devoted a tremendous amount of care to the nation of Israel in order that they would be fruitful. But instead of producing the kind of fruit that He was interested in, love and kindness, righteousness, judgment, justice, as we read of in Jeremiah 9, He says, you produced wild grapes.

Oppression, wickedness. The kind of life was not of God. Now the Lord Jesus is saying, I am the vine. Now there's a very important change that is indicated in this. Israel is about to reject the Savior.

They are about to cast Him out to abhor Him. But He is saying, I am the true vine. My Father is the gardener. If you want to be part of God's blessing, you have to be attached to me. Not to Israel, not to some particular group of people, but to the Lord Jesus directly and personally.

And that is the big change that would be seen from Old Testament viewpoint. I am the true vine. My Father is the gardener. So what I want to try to do in looking at this is to help you to see that our Christian experience is to be lived out in relationship to the Father and what the Father desires to see produced.

The Father's Work in the Four Kinds of Branches

What is the gardener trying to do? Well, he's trying to produce a crop, a fruit. The character of the life is determined by the vine, but it is manifested in the branches. And over and over again in the New Testament, there are many verses that we could look at, but I'm going to try to just refer to a few.

So I want you to think now, in the imagery of this passage, that we have the picture of a farmer, and this is our Father, God Himself, with a branch in His hand. So we have the Father looking at us. He's evaluating us.

And there are four possible conditions that are implied in the passage. There is, first of all, what we could call a barren branch. A branch that bears not fruit. Now, in verse 2, it says, Every branch in me that bears not fruit, He takes away.

That translation, that's one possible meaning of it. The same word, to take away, can also be translated as to lift up. To bear, to lift up. And I can't, from my own knowledge, tell you which it should be, but there are those who, in studying this kind of agriculture, suggest that the proper intended meaning here would be a branch that's being lifted up.

It's a branch that has grown down along the dirt. And so it's not producing any fruit because it's in the dirt. And so the necessity is that it be lifted up out of the dirt and cleaned. And then it can begin to bear fruit.

It's still attached to the vine, but it's dirty, it's defiled. And that will give us one imagery. And then it says, Every branch that bears fruit, He purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit. So here you have a branch that has some fruit on it, but he's going to cut it back in order that it might become more fruitful.

And then he speaks about abiding in him and he and me and I and you, and he says, He that abides in me and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit. And here is a branch that is very fruitful, and he is evaluating it and contemplating it.

And then there is finally, in verse 6, If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch. Here is a broken branch that is not going to be reattached. It is going to be thrown away. Now, what meaning do we derive from that?

There's a larger context here, and you could even think of Judas as an example of that branch that is severed from the vine. Someone who accompanied with the Lord, but he didn't continue with him. And the New Testament envisages that possibility, that there would be those who out of Israel would come to Christ and would follow him for a time, and then they would remove themselves from association with him.

Now, as far as a true Christian today, we know that a true Christian cannot be severed from Christ. But there is a larger context that this also embraces. So I'm just including that in that idea. So you have, first of all, the Father looking at a branch in his hand.

The Father's Longing for Christlike Fruit

But then I want you to think about the Father's longing. The Father's longing for our lives. Do you know what God wants for you? Do you know what he longs for your life? I'm going to suggest that there are two basic aspects.

One is the inner life, and the other is the outward activities of life. And as far as the inner life, there are a number of verses that we could quote at least, if we don't turn to them all. We already saw it a little bit in chapter 14, as well as later in chapter 15 here, where he talks about love.

In Ephesians, he talks about the Spirit of God strengthening us, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, that ye being rooted and grounded in love. In Galatians chapter 5, I mean where we have the fruit of the Spirit.

Again, it begins with love, joy, and peace. The inner life is actually the life of Christ. Galatians chapter 2, verse 20, where Paul says, I've been crucified with Christ, yet I live. Yet not I, but Christ lives in me.

So there is a life that God is longing to see reproduced within us. It's the life of his Son. That is the life, essentially, that is this fruit that he wants to produce. But of course, that will also show itself out in a whole range of activities of goodness, of kindness, of care, spiritual gifts, and so on.

So there's a whole range of Christian activity that flows out from that life. And if we were to go into other passages, it talks about us being not barren nor unfruitful in the Lord Jesus. So there's an inner life and there's an activity outwardly that corresponds to that.

The Father's Loving Discipline Against Defilement

Now, how is he going to accomplish it? You have the Father looking at us. You have his longing for us. But we also learn here the Father's love in action in our lives. What will the Father's love look like in our lives?

Well, I'm going to look at it briefly in connection with these four different possibilities, really three relating to us as Christians in our lives. What about the barren branch? What's wrong with that barren branch?

Well, as suggested, if it means the branch down in the dirt, that would correspond to a Christian whose life is unsuitable because sin is in control. And what will that mean? Well, let's look at a couple of passages.

2 Peter mentions one here. 2 Peter 1. It gives a whole list of virtues from verse 5. Again, you could follow right down through this passage and see that this is really talking about the same kind of subject that we are now partakers of the divine nature.

In verse 4, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And then verse 5 to verse 7 gives a list of virtues that would reflect the kind of life. It says in verse 8,. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off, and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. So here you get that idea of being purged again, of being cleaned from. See, the Lord demands holiness.

He demands righteousness in our lives. And another passage that would give us a little more extensive coverage would be Hebrews chapter 12. And I'll just refer to a couple of verses in here as well. Hebrews chapter 12.

He speaks about the Father's discipline. And there's different levels of discipline touched on in the passage. Verse 4 says,. You have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin, and you have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children,.

My son, despise not thou the chastening or the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him for whom the Lord loves he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives. Verse 9 says,.

Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh who corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection under the father of spirits and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.

Now no chastening or discipline for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them who are exercised thereby. So what we have in this passage is the recognition that the father in his love to us as his sons cannot allow us to continue in sin.

He must discipline. He must deal with us. And so we have the father's hand in our lives, and you have it in different levels of discipline. There is rebuke. There is chastening. There is scourging. Have you ever had his hand on your life?

We all have if we're his sons. If we are his, every one of us have experienced his care, his correction, his reproof, his exhortation. Why? Because he cannot permit unholiness and unrighteousness to dominate our lives.

So we can be grateful for that. We're usually grateful afterwards. It's never pleasant at the time. He wants to develop in us what corresponds to his own nature. And this is a bottom line with God. So we have to accept this, that God is at work in our lives, and if we're down in the dirt, if we are defiled, I hope you know the difference in your own mind and heart when you're defiled and when you're not.

When we are defiled, reading and praying is very difficult if it exists at all. We do not have an attraction to the word of God when we are defiled. That makes it difficult because when we need his word the most, we want it the least.

And sometimes he has to use somebody else to get through to us because we're blocking him directly in our own spirits. And so you have the Father in his interest in us, he must move us out from what defiles us.

Now that is a tremendous challenge today. The sources of defilement are so pervasive, it's almost impossible to look at anything that isn't defiling. It's everywhere. There is unrighteousness in so many ways.

And so it is something that we must take seriously. But, that's just one aspect. According to John 15, if we're applying this correctly, defilement prevents fruitfulness. So it should matter to us. But then he looks at another aspect of life.

Pruning Away Legitimate Distractions

Here's a branch that is bearing fruit. Well then, shouldn't he be satisfied? Isn't that good enough that there is some fruit there that he can appreciate and enjoy? Well he knows as he looks at that branch that that branch is growing far too many leaves, far too much stem.

He needs to cut it back. Now what does that correspond to? Not now necessarily to defiling influences that need to be removed from us, but what we could call distracting influences. And that can be totally legitimate things.

Now there are so many passages that would be good to look at. I'll look at a couple briefly. 1 Corinthians chapter 7 and 1 Corinthians chapter 7 talks about relationships, marriage relationships, family, completely normal, legitimate aspects of life.

But here's what he says in verse 29. But this I say, brethren, the time is short. It remains that both they that have wives be as though they had none. They that weep as though they wept not. They that rejoice as though they rejoiced not.

They that buy as though they possessed not. They that use this world as not abusing it. For the fashion of this world passes away. But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried cares for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord.

He that is married cares for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. And he says the same thing for the women folk too. So what is he getting at here? He's not talking about good and evil, as we were looking at in the previous example.

But now what is spiritual and what is natural. Now, this is a problem of priorities. If you take this just sort of at face value, it can look like a very extreme, unbalanced and and wrong kind of language.

Now, whenever whenever would you tell a husband to live as though he's not married? You don't normally give anybody that kind of advice. You know, just forget about your wife. What is he getting at? He is not giving this as some kind of an absolute statement that you just ignore your family responsibilities.

It is rather being given as a balancing truth. A balancing to what is natural to us. It is so natural that we become preoccupied with our family, our work, taking care of things. All those things are necessary and it does consume a lot of our occupation.

But if that controls us, then we have no time left, no energy left, no interest left for his things. Now, he does intend that in our families, in our work, that we manifest his character. And in that sense there is fruit being produced no matter what we are doing, where we are, and so on.

That is very vital. But at the same time, it's very, very possible that our lives have too much of one and not of the other. Because it pushes out the interest and ability to focus upon his things. So there are things that will distract us from fulfilling spiritual purposes of life.

Trials as the Father's Pruning

Now, how does the Lord work at times in our lives? By trials. Trials tend to prune off the things that are unnecessary in our lives. And trials can be of many different kinds. They can be financial hardships, they can be health problems, they can be anything that is naturally difficult, hard for us, but God uses those things to redirect our energy, our thinking, our motivations into what is of God, what is spiritual.

And there are many verses which actually reflect that. And I'll give you a couple of them. 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 7, he's speaking about the future in verse 6 and he says, wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness, through manifold temptations or trials, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

The book of James also picks up that thought in the first 12 verses of James chapter 1. And he says, brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials. Now there's not very many of us are at that stage of spirituality that we actually rejoice when we come into trial.

Most of the time we are happy enough to get out of it, to have it over with, to have more comfortable circumstances again. But the emphasis that is given in James chapter 1 is somewhat parallel to Peter here, where he emphasizes that through those trials God is perfecting us.

He is bringing us to maturity, to completeness of spiritual quality that is fruit that pleases him. And so there is discipline of sin in the first case, which he must do to turn us away from everything that is defiling so that we can produce what is pleasing to him.

But there's a whole host of things in life that we may be legitimately occupied with and no one can come along and say you shouldn't be doing that, that's not right. But spiritually it may not be beneficial for you to be occupied in it.

Abiding in Christ Through Obedience

Or you may need to cut it back and allow more of his work to have a part in your life and there will be more fruit. Now, let me try to get to the fruitful one, the one that is abiding in him. And there's so many here, I'm just going to give you a few of them.

Let's go back to chapter 15 of John because some of them are right in the chapter. John chapter 15. He emphasizes the importance of abiding in him. Now, this is one expression in the New Testament that is actually very difficult to define.

What it means to abide in him. Because it is also translated as continue, dwell, remain. All those different terms are using exactly the same original word. And it can be in the sense of our whole Christian life as being saved, that we are abiding in him.

But I want to think of it in the sense of our connection with him day by day. How well does your computer work if there's something wrong with the connection? Well, all the hardware is there, everything is there, but nothing moves, nothing happens.

It's very frustrating when something isn't connecting properly. Spiritually, a lot suffers because of faulty connection with the Lord in our lives. So try to keep the connection alive. Be conscious of your direct, personal relationship with Christ.

In fact, I think it would be right to say that our whole Christian life is really the outflow of that relationship directly with him personally. Nothing else really works right unless we are enjoying him.

So you notice what it says in the passage in verse 9, As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. Well, how do you do that? Well, it puts a very simple connection here. He says, If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love.

Obedience is essential in the Christian life. Obeying what you know of him, obeying his will to you, is essential to being in touch with him and experiencing his power in your life. So let me just give you what I see at least partly in this chapter.

Devotion to Christ and Responding to His Love

First of all, devotion to Christ. That is, responding to his love. He has manifested his love to us. And devotion to him is very clearly in this passage. Continue ye in my love, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.