Ron Dunn Podcast - Fruitbearing

Episode Date: November 16, 2016

Ron Dunn preaches a message on John 15:1-8, 16

You are listening to the Ron Dunn Podcast. Ron Dunn is a well-known author and was one of the most in-demand preachers during the latter part of the 20th century. He led Bible studies all over the United States, Europe, and South Africa. For more information and resources from Ron Dunn, please visit rondunn.com. The Gospel of John, chapter 15, verses 1 through 8, and then we'll drop down and read verse 16. These are normally called, these chapters 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17, are part of what is normally called the Upper Room Disc discourse, especially 14, 15, and 16.

The words that Jesus spoke to his disciples before he went to the cross, they are, I think, some of the richest, if not the most rich chapters in all the Bible. They contend with Romans 8, I think, for the greatness of the teaching. And they are the last words of Jesus before he went to the cross. And so they are extremely important. And Jesus says in verse 1 of chapter 15, I am the true vine. My Father is the vine grower.

He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit because apart from me you can do nothing

whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers such branches are gathered thrown into the fire and burned if you abide in me and my words abide in you ask for whatever you wish and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. Excuse me. And then in verse 16. You did not choose me, but I chose you, and I appointed you to go and bear fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Now, when Kay and I were younger, we, and we still do, but not as zealously as we did when we were younger, but we loved

to go to the Southern Baptist Convention wherever it met that year. And that was a great highlight of our year. We loved to go to a convention. One year, I think it was in 1973, I believe, the convention met in Portland, Oregon. And so when it was over, well, we weren't ready to go home. We had a few days left. And so I saw in the newspaper where the FPA was meeting, that's the Fruit Pickers of America, were having their annual convention. And so I thought, well, it would be interesting to go over there and sit in on their convention.

And what was so interesting in theirs was so much like ours. I mean, they had their exhibits, you know, and their booths, and they had their seminars on how to pick fruit and how to increase your fruit picking. And they had inspirational speakers, you know. I remember they had the man there that picked more fruit than anybody else in the convention last year. They had him giving inspirational speech. I particularly like the one on fruit picking burnout that they gave. But after this one man spoke, a man who led the convention in fruit picking the year before, I mean, he was so dynamic and so enthusiastic, he had those

people charged up, you know, beyond their ability, they were inspired. And so he charged them and challenged them to go out and pick fruit. And so they all grabbed their baskets, the latest style of baskets and the latest style of fruit picking equipment and they ran out and they spent the afternoon picking fruit. And so Kay and I hung around to see what the result would be. And when they all came back,

they came back with empty baskets. And it was a perplexing thing that they had gone out with all of this training with all this enthusiasm and the latest equipment and know-how and not anybody had filled a basket with fruit so they did as all good conventions do, they appointed a committee to study why they had not been successful in fruit picking. Now Kay and I didn't have time to hang around for that, but I read about the report of that committee some few months later, and the conclusion that the committee came to was that they had given all their emphasis on fruit picking and had forgotten that before you can pick fruit, you must bear fruit. And that their emphasis should have been more on fruit bearing than fruit picking.

I wonder if that sounds familiar to any of us. Jesus here in this passage is talking about fruit-bearing. the most intense union that he can with us when he says, I am the vine, the true vine, the real vine. You are the branches. I am the vine and you are the branches. And it is my will and my Father's will that you bear fruit that you bear much fruit and that you bear fruit that will last fruit that will last and you notice an interesting statement he makes in verse 8. He says, by bearing much fruit, my Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

Actually, the word is, and show yourselves to be my disciples. He says, my Father is glorified when you bear much fruit. And it is in this way that you show yourselves to be my disciples. So I want to talk to you tonight about fruit bearing, which ought to be the goal of every one of us who claims to be in Christ tonight. Bearing fruit. Before you can pick fruit, you have to bear fruit.

And we are fruit bearers. Personally, I like to think of the Spirit as the fruit picker. We're the ones who bear the fruit, and the Holy Spirit picks it. So let me just share three things with you tonight. Number one, fruitfulness is proof of our union with Christ. Fruitfulness is proof of our union with Christ. Look back at verse 1 where Jesus says, I am the vine, the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower or the vine dresser. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it

to make it bear more fruit. You have a contrast there between removing a branch and pruning the branch. And every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he removes it. He removes it. Now, this does not teach that you can be saved and lost. This branch never had any vital union with the vine to begin with, or else it would have produced fruit. The very fact that it was bearing no fruit was evidence that it had only a superficial attachment to Jesus. Before he went to be with the Lord, I had a very good friend who was an expert vine keeper and vine dresser. And I was talking to

him about this passage of scripture, looking for some additional light on it. And I was talking to him about this passage of Scripture, looking for some additional light on it. And he said, oh yes, he said, that's easily understood. He said, in every vine, he said, occasionally you'll find a branch that is attached to that vine, but only is attached by the skin, only by the skin of that vine. it has no vital attachment to that vine therefore none of the life of the vine ever gets into that branch but it is just superficially attached there by the what we might call the bark or by the skin of that and he said if you want to

remove it you just need to take a pen knife and it's very easy. You just cut that outer skin and the branch falls away. It looks like it's a part of the vine. Just from looking at it, you would say, yes, that is a true branch because it is united in the vine. But he says, after a while while you see that it produces leaves, but it produces no fruit. And therefore you, after a while, therefore you know that that vine, that branch is not really united with the vine. And so you cut it away and sure enough you find it has merely a superficial attachment to the vine. Every branch in me that bears not fruit, he removes it.

He doesn't prune it. He removes it, gets rid of it. Why? Because it has no vital union with that vine. Therefore, it produces no fruit. You see, fruit is the proof that I'm in Christ and Christ is in me. That's the proof of it. Now, I think it would be good at this point to define what I mean by fruit.

Now, when we talk about bearing fruit, we can talk about the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5.22. Many times we talk about winning people to Christ, that that is bearing fruit, and it is. But let me give you my definition of fruit that you won't find in any theological book, but I think it's a true definition. Fruit is the outward expression of the inward nature. Wouldn't you agree with me on that? That covers it all, doesn't it? Fruit is the outward expression, the outward manifestation of the inward nature.

Now, if I see a tree bearing apples, I say to myself, that's an apple tree. How do I know? Well, I'm not one of those guys who can look at a bark or look at the shape of a leaf and tell you what kind of tree it is. I've got to see the fruit first. And so when I see a tree bearing apples, I say, that's an apple tree. Why? Because that is the outward expression of the inward nature. When I see a tree bearing peaches, I say, that is a peach tree.

Why? Because it's bearing peaches I say that is a peach tree why because it's bearing peaches that's the outward expression of the inward nature when I see a tree bearing spaghetti I say that is a spaghetti tree well I tell you some years ago the British did a documentary on harvesting spaghetti. And they had me convinced. And they had attached spaghetti to trees and they were harvesting it. And all of a sudden I got to thinking, well, where does spaghetti come from?

Anyway. The outward manifestation of the inward nature. Now, when I was a boy, we moved into a house that had a little grapevine thing back in the back, and nobody had really taken care of it. We didn't know how, and we didn't bother to take care of it much. It just grew on its own. But every season, it would produce little old grapes.

I mean, they were more like raisins than they were grapes. Little old hard, very untasty, you know. But they were outward expressions of the inward nature. I knew it was a fruit tree. I knew it was a grapevine. Why?

Well, the fruit might not have been much to talk about, but there was some semblance there of the inner nature manifesting itself. May not have been much, but there was some there. And I want to tell you, if you are in Jesus Christ, I mean, if you are in him, you may not be bearing a bumper crop, but friend, there'll be some semblance somewhere, some semblance in your life of Christ. And if there is none,

then you don't belong to Him. You don't belong to Him. Every branch that does not bear fruit, He removes it. He removes it. Why? Well, because apart from fruit bearing, the wood is useless. I mean, the only thing that the wood of the vine is good for

is to bear fruit. Apart from that, it's absolutely useless. You go back to the Old Testament, and there they prescribe the kind of wood that you can bring to the fire to offer your sacrifices, and they specifically say you cannot bring the wood of the vine. The wood of the vine is ugly. The wood of the vine is too supple to build with or to do anything with.

The only thing you can do with it is to just burn it. There's only one thing that the vine is good for, and that's bearing fruit. And what Jesus is saying is the only way you and I can justify our existence as Christ is if we bear fruit. That's the only thing you're good for. It's bearing fruit. You know what you are? You're just a fruit branch. That's all. You're just a fruit rack for God to hang fruit on. That's all I'm for. That's all you're for.

Just a fruit rack, a grape rack for God to hang his fruit on. And apart from that, you and I cannot justify our existence because the wood of the vine is useless for everything except one thing and that is bearing fruit. All right, not only is fruitfulness

a proof of our union with Christ, but it is produced by our union with Christ. It is produced by that union with Christ. Look at verse 4. Abide in me as 4 abide in me as I abide in you just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself now this is so important

there's nothing the fruit can do to bear fruit of itself now remember folks you and I do not produce the fruit the fruit is produced by Jesus. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

Without me, you can do absolutely nothing. The only way that you and I can bear fruit is by what? Abiding in the vine. That's it. Abiding in the vine. Resting in the vine. Being available to the vine.

That's the way we bear fruit. There's nothing I can do in and of myself to make grapes appear on my life. There's nothing I can do to produce. That has to be done by the Lord Jesus. And as I abide in Him, His life flows through me. And it is that life flowing through me that produces the fruit in my life. But you see, I can't do that of myself.

That is something only that the Lord Jesus Christ can do. And so I am to abide in Christ. Now, when I say abiding in Christ, I'm not talking about idling in Christ. I don't mean that we don't do anything, just sit around all day with our arms folded and say, well, I'm just abiding. Well, that's not really what it means. What it means is that I'm available to Christ. I make myself available to Him and rest in Him, and I trust in Him to produce whatever needs to be produced in my life and in my ministry. I've come across recently a verse of Scripture that I keep coming back to time and time again.

It's in Isaiah chapter 30, and I'm not going to be able to find it here. See that right now. Yeah, I found it. Isaiah chapter 30 and verse 15. He says, For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. Now, if you go back and read the whole of

chapter 30 you'll find that the israelites scared to death and they're running down to egypt boring the chariots and the horses of egypt and they're filled with frantic busy activity and god says hey that's not the way to do it in returning to me and resting shall be your salvation in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength just abide in me if you want to see victory it is to be found not in all of your frenzied activity and all of your attempts to re-fortify yourself. It is to be found in returning and rest in quietness and confidence. And notice what the prophet says,

but you refused and said, no, we will flee upon horses. That sounds pretty much like most of us. God says, you're not going to produce fruit. By all of your frenzied activity. You produce it, you bear it by abiding in me. In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.

Have you ever watched a branch? It's pretty dull. All it does is sit there I remember I was speaking at a conference once and we were supposed to be speaking on prayer and fasting and deepening the spiritual life and one Christian work came up to me and said I really don't have time to be here I said said, why that? I said, well, I've got so much to do out there for the Lord, I don't have time to be there. I said, you know, you sound to me like a branch saying to the vine, I don't have time to abide in you to produce fruit. Oh,

the vine has to take time. It just abides there. That's pretty dull to watch and just abiding just resting in the Lord obeying Him doing what He says to do making myself available to Him and in the process

He's able to make that life flow through me and produce fruit. I remember a while back I was walking through the kitchen and I looked at my water faucet and it was looking pretty low, pretty down in the dumps. If you've never seen a depressed water faucet

you just it's a moving thing and so I stopped and I said water faucet you look kind of low look kind of down kind of depressed what's the problem water faucet said oh I'm down

tonight master because have failed you today. I haven't served you today. I said, well, tell me, how have you failed me? He said, well, I've seen you come by here a dozen times, and I've never once washed your hands, or I've never once quenched your thirst. I tried to squeeze out some water, tried to turn myself on, just squeezed out a couple of drops, didn't amount to much, but I just haven't done anything for you today.

I'm feeling low. I said to that water faucet, you're a pretty dumb water faucet. I said, I have passed you by a dozen times a day, and every time I've passed by here, I've seen you. I knew that if I wanted to wash my hands or quench my thirst, that all I had to do was touch you and you'd turn on. I said, I don't want you turning your cell phone. You'll just make a mess and waste a lot of water. He said, I just want you to be available so that when I touch you, you will respond. And you have not let me down today.

You have been everything I wanted you to be today because you have been available. And I knew that all I had to do was touch you and you would turn on for me. Now I don't know if that conversation helped that water faucet much, but it really helped me a great deal. Because like most people, I just feel like you know, boy, you've got to be doing something and I need to be able to rack up the statistics, you know. But what the Lord wants

for me above and beyond everything else is just availability you just be there and I just want to know that if there's a situation in which I want to use you or turn you on all I have to do just touch you lay my hand on and you'll be there ready and available see that's abiding in Christ well our proof our fruitfulness is proof of our union with Christ it's produced by our union with Christ but there's one other thing we need to notice

and it is this it progresses by our union with Christ. It progresses. Now, I think there is a subtle procession, progression in this passage that we must not overlook. In verse 2, you have a branch that bears no fruit. And then you have a branch that bears fruit, and then you have a branch that bears much fruit, more fruit, and then you have a branch that bears much fruit. Do you see it? Verse 2, he removes every branch in me

that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes to make it bear more fruit. And then in verse 5, those who abide in me and I and them bear much fruit. So you have the no fruit, the fruit, the more fruit, and the much fruit. And it is when we come to the much fruit in verse 8 that the Father is glorified and we show ourselves to be disciples, His disciples. Now how does that fruitfulness progress?

You say, I want to be more fruitful than I am. That ought to be the prayer, the desire of every one of us, of course. I want to be more fruitful than I am. You never want to be satisfied with where you are and what you've accomplished in the Lord. You say, I want to be satisfied with where you are and what you've accomplished in the Lord. You say, I want to be more fruitful.

God, bless me, make me more fruitful. How does he do that? He does it by what? Pruning. He does it by pruning. Now, you know, it's so different

from the way we do it. We say, man, we need to bear more fruit, so what we do is let's add more branches. Let's add more branches. If we want to bear more fruit, we need to add more branches. And so we go out here and pick up these programs

and this program and this clinic and this thing and this thing and this thing, and we just overload the vine until it's hanging down, touching the ground. We've overloaded it with branches, and yet we're not bearing more fruit. You don't bear more fruit by adding more branches. You bear more fruit by making the branches you have healthier. That's how you do it. We don't need more branches. We need healthier

branches. Of course, we'll take a new branch every once in a while. I mean, you know, we're not against that. But friend, merely adding branches is not going to add to your fruitfulness. It's the healthy branches that we need, you see. And so here you are. You say, man, I want to bear more fruit. So here you are and you're in the vineyard. And one day you hear heavy footsteps enter the vineyard, and he's carrying a big pair of shears. And you begin to tremble, and suddenly he's standing in front of you.

And you see those shears gleam. Oh, no, Lord, not me, no. And he comes down here and he, oh, no, not that one, Lord. And he prunes off, cuts off a branch. Oh, Lord, not that hurt thing. And then he comes over here and he, oh, that's my favorite branch there Lord

you just don't realize how long I took to produce that thing there it's got such symmetry to it it's the prettiest one in the bunch and he takes it and without mercy he cuts it off what's he doing

making you healthier I want to tell you what the Lord does when he prunes. He removes everything in your life that is drawing energy and resources from the main thing. See, you got all these branches down here. There's nothing wrong with them. But they're not healthy branches they're not producing much they're producing those

little raisin like things now they may look good and they may look attractive and the more you have on them have you ever seen a tree that's just been really pruned I mean it looks sick. I think the tree is saying to the fellow, you're killing me, you're killing me. No, I'm helping you so that you can grow more bountifully than ever before. But it's painful, you see. And it clips away everything in our life

that drains our energy from doing the main thing. Now, the trouble with us today is that our lives are filled with good things. We are the busiest people in our generation. We got so many time-saving devices we don't have time to use them and our lives are cluttered with many things that are not bad in themselves, but they do drain off the energy and the resources that keep us from doing the main thing. In other words, Jesus says,

I'm going to get rid of everything in your life that's not bearing fruit. It'd be interesting for a church to do that on an annual basis or biannual basis. Let's sit down and look at every program we have and let's see what's producing and what isn't. And everything in the life of our church that's just an ornament

is not bearing fruit, not bringing any glory to God. Let's get rid of it, see if we can live without it. Of course, we won't do that. But if we won't do it in the church, we need to do it in the individual. Everything in my life, I'm not bearing fruit. Everything in my life

does not tend to the full intention of God in my life. He prunes away. By the way, He is the pruner, not you. Don't you go trying to prunes away. By the way, he is the pruner, not you. Don't you go trying to prune yourself. You'll cut off something good. You say, what must I do?

Just abide, just be available to him, and I guarantee you, of his own accord, he'll walk through your life, and he'll say, ah, there's something that needs to go, and he'll clip it, and it may hurt for a while, and you walk through your life and he'll say, ah, there's something that needs to go, and he'll clip it. And it may hurt for a while, and you may think God is punishing me, but he is not. He is pruning you

so that you can come to the place where you bear much fruit. And therein he says, is my Father glorified. This man I was talking to you about a while ago, he, oh, he was proud of his vines. And about every season he'd give me a call

and he'd say, Brother Don, he's talked a lot like Havner, and he'd say, Brother Don, he said, I want you to come over and look at my vines. And he just lived about 20 minutes from us and I'd drive over there and he'd show me out there. I want to tell you something. He was way behind before his time. He did a lot of this organic stuff and everything. And I tell you folks, he had grapes on there big as golf balls.

I mean, it was something. And he'd always load me up with a big basket of them. I tell you, I never will forget the pride that he had in his vineyard. He called people over and said, look here, look what I've produced. Pride. He was glorified in that vineyard because it bore much fruit. And in the same way, God is glorified in us

when we bear much fruit. Would you pray with me now for a moment? We're going to have a word of prayer and then we'll stand and have a couple of verses of a hymn of invitation to give you an opportunity to do whatever God has been speaking to

in your life. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you tonight that it is not up to us to produce fruit. We try mighty hard. But really, all you ask of us, and it's taught just not here but throughout the Scripture, is that we just make ourselves available to you. Just to be available.

And that as we make ourselves available to you, you'll use us as you see fit. And we will exert so much less effort. Here we are out here flailing around, trying to bury ourselves in busyness and activity, thinking the more we do, the more we'll produce. And so much of that is just wasted activity. No wonder we get weary in well-doing.

Help us, Lord, just to trust you and to realize that in returning in rest is our salvation and in quietness and confidence shall be our strength. And I pray that we'll not tremble nor shrink when the vine dresser walks through and he begins to prune away some of our favorite branches. May we know that he's simply doing it so that in the future we'll be that much more fruitful

brain for the harvest in which he can be glorified. And so I pray that you'd have your way with us tonight. Those that need to make decisions to come to Christ, to join the church, whatever it may be, I pray that you'll lay that upon their hearts and give them the divine direction and give them the grace that will enable them to obey. For we ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Ron Dunn's podcast is available only for personal edification, not to be duplicated, uploaded to the web, or resold without prior written consent. It is managed and operated by

Sherwood Baptist Church. For more Ron Dunn materials, sermon outlines, devotions, and scanned pages from his study Bible, please visit rondunn.com.