A Fruitful Heart Part 1

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. As we run the race of life, Jesus wants us to know where the real power comes from.

His disciples were people of the land. They understood a word picture about fruit. Today, let's all learn a lesson on fruit bearing from a vine and its branches.

Stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, fruit is a word with deep implications for believers, isn't it? And Dave, the reason for that is because fruit is something that is produced.

It is very different from works. Fruit is a result of the vine and the branches. We know, of course, the illustration that Jesus Christ used. It is the natural growth that we have when we abide in Jesus Christ. I love this passage. It's been a means of blessing for people throughout the centuries. Watson Taylor, of course, refers to it as a transforming message for him when he began to realize that he was a part of Christ, united with Christ, and that he didn't have to bear the fruit. He had to be available for Christ to bear the fruit through him. You know, we here at Running to Win are so pleased with the fact that there are so many who support this ministry. Would you consider becoming an endurance partner? That's someone who stands with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts.

In a sense, I always like to think of it as they becoming a part of the Running to Win family. Of course, you need more info. Here's what you can do. Go to RTWOffer.com.

That's RTWOffer.com, and of course, when you're there, click on the endurance partner button, or if you prefer, call us at 1-888-218-9337. Thanks in advance for your help. Thanks for thinking and praying for us, and now let us listen to the words of Jesus. Let me introduce you to Linda. Met her this past week, 37 years old. Two children, husband and cocaine addict whom she divorced. Lonely, trying to earn a living for herself and her two sons.

One is a teenager, one is eight. Linda loves the Lord, but was also lonely, had a boyfriend, had an abortion two years ago. And so she looks into my eyes and asks this question with all of this that is going on and all the difficulties in her life, because she is a Christian. She says, what really does God want? That's a good question. What does God want?

It's not the only time I've been asked that question. I was asked it in the life of a family that had experienced a windstorm that blew down some of their buildings, a disabled child, the man lost his job, deaths in the family, everything seemingly falling apart, the end of the day, what does God want? I want you to keep that question in the back of your mind, and then I want you to keep another one in the back of your mind. What do you want? Let's suppose I were to come to you and ask you that question, what do you really want out of life? What would your answer be? Pleasure, money, some of you say joy, fulfillment, family, long life, whatever. Have you ever felt the tension and the diversion between those two questions? What does God want?

What do I want? Today we're going to find an answer to both of those questions. I'm so glad that you joined us. The passage of scripture is the 15th chapter of John. We're doing a series on the upper room discourse. In John 15, Jesus is saying goodbye to his disciples and gives us some of the richest truths anywhere in scripture. And in John 15 verse 1 he says, I am the true vine. It's the last and the seventh of the I ams of the book of John. I am the true vine in contradistinction to Israel, which was the false vine. You can read about this in the book of Isaiah chapter 5 where God says, I had this vineyard, I planted it, but it brought forth wild grapes, the wrong kind of fruit.

So Jesus says, Israel did not bear good fruit, but I am the true vine. Now what I want us to do today is to take our cameras. I hope you brought one. You need a Polaroid, will do. You need only three pictures left on your film. And what we'd like to do is to give three portraits of this wonderful extended metaphor as we go through the passage. And I want you to be able to leave with those three portraits firmly entrenched upon your imagination and your mind.

The first portrait is this. Notice that the father is the gardener. I'm picking it up there in verse 1. I am the true vine. 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 it so that it will be even more fruitful.

What does the father do? He is the gardener. Well, let's walk through this vineyard and let us see.

Now we come to the most difficult interpretive part of this metaphor. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, Jesus says, he cuts down. Later on in verse 6, it says that the branches that are worthless, they are cast into the fire and they are burned.

Who are these branches? Some people say, well, these are Christians who know the Lord and they're a part of Jesus and then they don't bear fruit and God cuts them off and so they lose their salvation. The problem is if you have a high view of scripture, that's difficult because there are so many other passages that talk about our security and God's ability to take his own children all the way up to heaven.

So that does not seem like a likely interpretation. And furthermore, you wouldn't take a metaphor like this and use it to build such a theological doctrine in light of the fact that there's so much other scripture that is really specifically doctrinally based. Well, others say that these are Christians who perhaps are fruitless Christians and when it says that the father cuts them off, my translation says they bear no fruit and you'll notice it says he cuts off every branch and later on, verse 6, they're cast into the fire and they are burned. And so many people say this fire is the fire of the judgment seat of Christ. Just because the word fire occurs, that doesn't mean that you should read hell into it and that's a possibility too.

And I used to hold that interpretation but you know as I wrestled with this this past week, I think perhaps there may be another explanation. Maybe these branches are not true Christians at all. That's why they are cut off and cast into the fire and burned. Now I know it says that every branch in me that bears no fruit but maybe Jesus wants us to understand that there are branches that appear to abide in him.

There are branches that appear to be connected to the vine but they aren't. There are some people you know who are, what shall we say, they seem to be in Christ on Sunday but they're in the world during the week and so really they are spurious. They aren't real Christians at all. I think for example of Judas who had the conduct apparently of a saint but the heart of a devil.

There are Christians like that or I should say there are people like that who aren't real Christians and the father, the father cuts them off and they cast them into the fire. You say well why isn't the wood used for something? Well the wood is really not wood at all from these branches. We think of a branch of a tree. These are branches of grapes.

Here's what you do this week. You go into Dominic's and buy some grapes and when you buy them in clusters those branches that hold the grapes together those are the branches that Jesus is talking about. They are thin, they are spindly. A good translation is that they are twigs. They're not strong enough for anything. All that they can do is to be cast into the fire, withered and burned.

They are good for nothing. So that's the first category of people that Jesus is talking about here that the father prunes and by the way I know that you brought your cameras but I'm going to tell you specifically when the pictures should be taken so you hang on here. There's a second category of people and that is much easier to interpret. He says while every branch that bears fruit he prunes it so that it bears more fruit. So what you have is first of all the father purging some of the branches. Now I need to tell you that those folks who grow vineyards in Israel will tell you that a good gardener will recognize almost immediately that there are some vines that bear fruit and some that never will. So those are the ones that are cut off as we mentioned a moment ago. But who are these that they bear fruit but he prunes them that they may bear more fruit.

That of course is believers that's you and me who have trusted Christ as Savior. We are fruit bearing Christians but he prunes us. Now what do gardeners do? They'll go through the vineyard and they will cut off these branches. They'll cut off the leaves and the little twigs so that the branches the real branches that are connected to the vine so that they do two things. First that they don't dissipate their energy by bearing all these leaves and secondly that they might further engraft their relationship to the vine. That they might become more firmly rooted into the vine and and because of that you find that the gardener prunes these branches.

Now it's time to take your camera and take the first picture and I want you to see what you're taking a picture of. Let's visualize a vineyard that has just been pruned all over. You have various piles of branches that are lying there and they are very green but as you look at their at their roots at the cut where the cut was made it seems to have wounded them so deeply.

They almost seem to be bleeding and crying up in pain. That's the first thing that we notice. The second is it seems to be so random. To us it looks as if a gardener just came in there and and lopped things off.

My friend it's not random. Did you know that you had to work for at least two years as an apprentice before you could be a gardener because it is not only where you cut but even the direction of the knife becomes important to do the pruning properly. Now that's what the father does to you and me.

Why? Because the scripture says in verse 8 the father is glorified when we bear fruit. He wants us to bear fruit and as a result of that every stroke of his knife is carefully calculated and has a reason. It is done scientifically. It's like someone says there's not a single branch that is cut off but that there is a gain in having it cut off.

It is not random. To the untrained eye it is but to the eye of God who knows what he wants to produce everything is done carefully, systematically. That's why no trial comes to us except that it has come through the hands of our Heavenly Father because the gardener knows what he wants. He wants us to bear fruit and he knows what you and I have to go through to bear it.

Now my friend today do not miss the major point. If you are not a fruit-bearing Christian, if you are not a fruit-bearing person, to God you are worthless. You're worthless. Now that doesn't mean that you are worthless as a person. We all have value no matter whether we believe in Jesus or don't believe in Jesus. Every human being has value but so far as God is concerned the glory that he delights in to receive fruit and to have us bear fruit we are worthless to him in that respect. And that's why he says that if you're not fruit-bearing you're cast into the fire and you're burned. That's the only value you have.

Why? This is a gardener folks who longs for fruit. That's what he's thinking all the time. Fruit, fruit, fruit, fruit. That's what it says in verse 8. He is glorified when we bear much fruit. Your first picture is that of a vineyard with heaps of cut branches done lovingly by the gardener who knows what he is doing. Let's go on to a second picture here in the passage and that is of course the picture of the vine the sun. You'll notice it I should have commented on verse 3.

You are already clean because of the word I've spoken to you. Yes I do need to add something here because one of the questions we ask is what kind of a knife does he use? Well he uses people both those who irritate us and those who bless us to prune us. He uses circumstances most assuredly that prunes us doesn't it? If you've ever been sick and laid aside for a couple of months in bed that's a means of cutting us back and pruning us so that we develop a closer relationship with him.

Most assuredly he uses that too but my dear friend he always uses his word. Don't miss the connection between verses 2 and 3 because he says now you are clean. Catharai from which we get the word catharsis. You are cleansed by the word that I've spoken out to you. Listen this comes to you today from my heart to you.

There is no such thing as pruning without purifying. That's what God wants and so our Lord takes us through these difficult circumstances and he uses his word to cleanse us. Part of the answer to the question of what does God want is a clean heart. Keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life.

Why? Because you are clean through the word that I've spoken out to you. You can't be a fruit-bearing Christian apart from being in the word. But we've got our first photograph let's go to the second and that is the son who is the vine. I'm picking it up here in verse 5. 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. It's the responsibility of the gardener to do the pruning because he wants fruit but it's the responsibility of the vine to bear the life. Now you look at a vine it is much thicker than a branch thicker than these twigs that we've talked about and that vine is willing to go into the heart of the earth I'm told perhaps dozens of feet to get to the water. Now nobody expects the twig to do that. The twig does not have the ability.

The twig does not have the resources. One of the great lessons in the Christian life is to be able to distinguish between that which Jesus can do and that which we can do. Most of the times we are filled with anxiety because we are bearing upon ourselves responsibilities that fall upon the vine that you and I can't do. All that we can do as we'll see in a moment is to abide but it is the responsibility of the vine to bear the life and to be able to energize and the nutrients and the sap and all that is needed for life and all that is needed for those lush grapes that does not come from the twigs my friend. That comes from the vine. It's a responsibility also of the vine to stay connected to the branches. Now we have a responsibility too to remain and to abide and we'll get to that in a moment but as I see it the vine grows and out of the vine the branches come and it's the connectedness that gives the energy to those twigs because eventually they are going to bear the fruit. Now if you've ever seen a vineyard my eyes at least my untrained eyes go immediately to the grapes. I see the grapes. But the simple fact is folks that oftentimes we don't even see the connection really between the vine and the branches.

It's just like people today where you are working in your bank and in your hospital or wherever you find yourself people don't see Jesus do they? I mean Jesus is in heaven his body is in heaven his spirit indwells us so he's with all of us but Jesus himself is not seen but they see us they see the grapes they see the fruit and that should lead them to the recognition that there must be a vine somewhere. So I want you to take a second picture with your camera and that is the picture of the vine going deep into the soil that strong vine that goes and provides everything that is needed and I mean everything for the life of those branches. Let's go on to a third figure here and that is of course now the believer the branches and I'm going to be rereading some of the text here. I am the vine you are the branches verse five if a man remains in me and I in him he will bear much fruit apart from me you can't do much.

Is that what your Bible says or am I reading from the reversed vision? Apart from me you can do nothing. What is a twig? A twig essentially is a grape rack.

What can those twigs do apart from the vine cut off from the vine? Absolutely nothing we've already learned that they're to be cast into the fire and burned because they're totally worthless. How much can you and I do without Jesus? You say well you know without Jesus I can do good things. Yes you can there are people who don't know Jesus at all and they're doing good things.

They are doing good works no question about it there is a sense of compassion there's a sense of helpfulness that can take place and many of those things but one thing you can't do without Jesus is to bear fruit that is impossible the fruit that the Father wants. You see you can't manufacture fruit. Some of you who are scientists and here at the Moody Church we have more people in research than sometimes we realize when we wanted to have some information researched we were delighted to find the number of people that are. Some of you bright lights who are into research why don't you go into the laboratory sometime and spend an afternoon we'll give you a whole afternoon but go ahead make an orange. Just go there and make one just say you know I mean well you say we can't well why can't you? What are the ingredients can't you put it together? And the answer is no you can't put it together because fruit can only be grown. It can only you see be grown in a certain context and without Jesus we cannot have one little centilica of the fruit that the gardener wants to see.

None without me you can do nothing. Well it's time for us to define I think what this fruit means. The fruit you see is the expression of the inner nature. I think we call them horticulturalists but they can walk through a forest and they can see that that tree is going to bear that kind of fruit and that tree is going to do this and have that kind of leaves simply because they can look at the tree they can see it by the bark by its shape. I can't do that but you know one time I was in Florida and I will never forget the first time I saw oranges grow on trees. Now I was born in the north where we were always told oranges grow on trees that's where they come from and we believe that and we saw pictures of that as children but the first time I saw it I was I was astounded I said they really do grow on trees and I looked at that at those oranges and I deduced you have to understand this takes a keen intellect but I deduced the fact I said that must be an orange tree. Yes my friend fruit is the expression of the inner nature and all of us desire that we be like Jesus Christ and if we abide in him that is to say rest in his promises in his greatness and his power that fruit begins to manifest itself. We recognize that he's the one with the power and the ability to create fruit in our hearts when we do that we actually bear good fruit and the bible even defines the fruit of the spirit love joy peace and so forth.

I trust today that we are growing in fruit bearing. I want to thank the many of you who support the ministry of running to win. You might not realize but actually this ministry is in 20 different countries of the world. I have in my hands a letter from someone in Nigeria one of our listeners speaking about our program says it's a guide to the right path for me the messages are explained very simply for anyone to understand.

I have to tell you that that actually is high praise because my desire is that the gospel of Jesus Christ and its implications be told in such a way that even young people can understand it whether young or old we want to minister to all. Would you consider becoming an endurance partner? Endurance partners are those who stand with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts of course the amount that you give every month is totally your choice and here's the way you can get some info go to rtwoffer.com that's rtwoffer.com and when you're there click on the endurance partner button or if you prefer you can call us at 1-888-218-9337 that's rtwoffer.com click on the endurance partner button or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

You can write to us at running to win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard Chicago, Illinois 60614. For a believer running life's race means bearing fruit by abiding in Jesus the vine. The resulting fruit gladdens the heart of the father who tends his garden carefully to maximize the harvest. So how much fruit are you bearing?

How much am I bearing? Next time join us for more insights on bearing the kind of fruit that pleases Jesus. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.