Unfruitful Branches Removed (John 15:1-6)

I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesnt produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. Jesus Last week, we looked at what it means to be pruned, or cleansed, by the Father, through the Word of God. But Jesus said something else here, something a little bit scary. He says the Father cuts off every branch in Jesus that does not produce fruit. These are harsh words to accept, but not particularly difficult to understand. The word cuts off in Greek is simply remove. The Father removes from Jesus, those who bear no fruit. My temptation at this point is to ask, What does he mean by that? But the issue is not really lack of understanding. The words are pretty clear. But lets trust the Lord to speak to us through these words right now. There are some principles in operation here that are wiser than my mind, and deeper than my own heart. Lets examine these words closely. One issue, is that this statement by Jesus brings us into the heart of a debate that Christians have had for centuries, and one which we are unlikely to resolve; but we need to at least acknowledge that the debate is there. It sounds like Jesus is saying that some people will be removed from Gods kingdom. Some Christians say that once you are in Jesus, you can never lose your salvation. Others say that even a true believer can end up in hell, if she doesnt persist in faith. Both sides of this debate can quote scriptures and Biblical principles to support their position. My approach is this. There is a good side, and an unhelpful side, to both ways of looking at the issue. If you believe that you can lose your salvation, you may live in fear, always wondering if you are doing enough. You might also believe the lie that God will only transform you after you die, and that you dont really truly have a new and Holy inner-person, given to you by God, right now. Your relationship with God can become based upon your efforts to sustain it, rather than based upon your trust in receiving what God is doing in you and through you. On the other hand, if you believe you can never lose your salvation, you might treat the whole thing as ticket to heaven. You got saved you got your ticket and now you can go off and live your life however you want, because no matter what you do, youll never lose salvation. This can lead to a life full of sin, self and unfruitfulness. It would be like a man who gets married, and then leaves his wife a few days later, spending most his life living like a single person apart from her; and then when she dies, he comes

to claim her inheritance. If anyone puts up a fuss, hell say She vowed to love me and be my wife. I have the marriage license to prove it. That brings us to positive side of believing that your salvation can be thrown away. It can keep you from treating salvation like a ticket to heaven that can be used apart from a living relationship with Jesus. It can motivate you to stay close to Jesus, and continue on in love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:2325). This belief can help you to take the practical living-out of your faith seriously, as a matter of eternal significance. Clearly the Lord does want us to continue on in faith and bear fruit for him, and to understand that our ongoing, daily relationship with Him is the most significant reality in our lives. There is also tremendous comfort in believing that you can never lose your salvation. You can absorb the truth that in Christ, you really are a new creation, right now. You can begin to live your eternal life right now. You can know for sure that God loves you, that it is His grace (and not your effort), that makes you, secure. You can truly know that you will have eternal life with the Lord and others who know Him. And those things are also clearly the Lords desire. If you havent figured it out, Im not going to try and resolve the debate. I say, lets hold on the good parts of both views. Lets take comfort in knowing that God loves us, and that our relationship with Him is based upon his grace, not our works. Lets begin living as a new creation right now, and trust that we do have a new, holy inner nature through Jesus. Lets also view our salvation as a daily relationship with Jesus, a relationship that needs ongoing interaction to remain healthy. Lets understand that this relationship needs to be the most significant thing in our lives, and lets actually live that way. With that attitude, what can we learn from Jesus words here? First, I have found that it helps to understand this harsh action of removing an unfruitful branch, is consequence rather than a punishment. If there is branch on a grape vine that is not bearing fruit, something is wrong. The whole purpose of a cultivated vine is to bear fruit. Wild vines may or may not produce fruit, and no one really cares. But a cultivated vine exists only to produce grapes. If there is a branch on the vine that is not bearing any fruit, it means two things to the gardener: 1) Somehow, there is something wrong with the connection between the branch and the vine. The branch is not functioning like a cultivated branch. Thus internally, the branch has already separated itself from the vine, though externally it looks connected. A lack of fruit leads to removal simply because it indicates that internally, the branch has already removed of itself. 2) The branch is now using up resources that

ought to go into producing fruit, so it must be removed before it affects the rest of the vine. It would be so much more comfortable to say that God is just sad when we bear no fruit, however, scripture here is teaching that in fact, He removes the fruitless branch. If we look at this as the gardener looks at the grape vine, we can see that it comes about when the branch refuses to respond to careful loving cultivation. We can be sure that God removes no person until all hope is completely gone. We can be sure also that when God removes someone from connection to Jesus, it is because that person has already removed himself/herself (or, if you prefer, because that person never was connected). This thought scares me a bit, because at times, I dont think Im bearing much fruit. However, I am comforted by three things: 1) In Luke 13:6-9, Jesus offers a similar analogy about an unfruitful fig tree. A man planted a fig tree in his garden and came again and again to see if there was any fruit on it, but he was always disappointed. Finally, he said to his gardener, Ive waited three years, and there hasnt been a single fig! Cut it down. Its just taking up space in the garden. "The gardener answered, Sir, give it one more chance. Leave it another year, and Ill give it special attention and plenty of fertilizer. If we get figs next year, fine. If not, then you can cut it down." In his parable, Jesus indicates patience and gentleness in the process of trying to get an individual to bear fruit. Every means is undertaken to give the plant a chance to be fruitful. The gardener pleads to delay destruction of the tree, and in the meantime digs around it and fertilizes it. Here, the gardener is giving it everything it needs to bear fruit. I believe in the same way that He will surely provide everything I need to become fruitful, and He will be patient, giving me plenty of opportunity. My fruitfulness is not dependent on my efforts, but simply my response to Jesus efforts (i.e. faith and trust). 2)The nature of the fruit we are talking about. It seems that there are two kinds of fruit: inward fruit (that which directly affects your character) and outward fruit (that which affects other people). The inward fruit is described in Galatians 5:22-23: The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Thus one fruit of being in Jesus, is a character that is developing these properties, through the power of the Holy Spirit. This type of fruit is usually hard for us to see in ourselves. The second kind of fruit of someone who is remaining in Jesus, is about how we bless the lives of others. 3) I cant see the fruit I am bearing as well as God can. I tend to attribute my own goodness to myself (if I am prideful) or to luck (if I am cynical) but I

often fail to see how God is at work to bring inward fruit to my character. He sees fruit in me, long before I do: Man judges the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart, (1 Samuel 16:7). Even other people see God at work in me long before I am willing to acknowledge it. The same is true of outward fruit. The words I say and actions I take affect people more deeply than I realize sometimes. There was once a missionary to the Congo region of West Africa, who spent the better part of his life trying to tell a certain people group about Jesus. Before he died, he succeeded in introducing only one old lady to Jesus. He died in the Congo, and it was perhaps 20 or thirty years before missionaries came again to the region. When they arrived they found a thriving Church of twenty thousand believers all because of the old lady who was the first missionarys only visible success. The missionary had probably thought that he was a failure, but actually, he bore much fruit he just didnt see it in this life. There is another important distinction that must be made about this teaching of scripture: Bearing fruit is not something we must do in order to remain in Jesus. Instead, it is something that happens only when we already are in Jesus. If we truly are be-ing in Jesus, if we consent for Him to hold us there, the result will inevitably be fruit. It is not a condition for, but rather a result of, remaining in Jesus. Fruitfulness is not something I undertake for myself; rather, it is the result of accepting what Jesus has undertaken for me already. I wrote it on the last page, and I will write it again: My fruitfulness is not dependent on my efforts, but simply my response to Jesus efforts (i.e. faith and trust). Elsewhere in scripture, it is summed up like this: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that one can boast. For we are Gods workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:8-10) The challenge here is to start looking at our lives differently. Do we exist to bear fruit, or is it a kind of side mission to our real ambitions in life? This passage challenges me to take it seriously. As we do take it seriously, here are a few questions you might want to consider: Have you been trying to bear fruit through your own efforts, rather than trusting Jesus efforts? Internally, are you connected to Jesus, or disconnected? How can you tell? What does the Bible say about this (1 John 5:11-12)? How can you continue to remain in Him and respond to Him, so that you bear fruit?

How do you respond to Jesus efforts to make you fruitful? Are you willing to be fruitful, even if it means change or discomfort? Consider the words of Paul (as given to us by Eugene Petersen, The Message) So heres what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Dont become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. Youll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (Romans 12:1-2)