God Lets Us Bear Fruit
Because of sin, the relationship between God and people has been disrupted. But because of grace and faith in Jesus Christ, we are called to a deep relationship with God. God wants this relationship to bear fruit.
Let us read John 15:1-5 first.
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:1-5 (NIV)
In this passage, we can pick up on three different ways in which the Lord lets us bear fruit.
We bear fruit because God gives us Jesus’ life (verse 4)
In the first verse, we read that God Himself is the gardener. He takes good care of the vines and checks the branches regularly, to see if they bear fruit. If there is no fruit on a branch, He will cut it off. A branch always bears fruit, except when it is dead. Dead branches will be cut off from the vine, from Jesus Christ.
The branches that do bear fruit, are handled with great care, no matter how small it is. But even when the branch bears great fruit, the gardener will still cut some parts of it away (verse 2). This is called pruning. It is painful when the Lord touches parts of our lives and cuts it away. However, the purpose of this pruning is that there will be more fruit. Whenever God works in our lives, and we let Him, it always has a positive outcome. We must learn to trust Him in that.
One way God prunes is clearly stated in verse 3. It is through His Word that He acts and cuts parts of our lives away. If we are (consistently) disobedient, we will die, and we will no longer bear fruit. When this happens, God will have to cut us off. But if we allow Him to take care of us, by being obedient to Him, we will bear fruit and He will prune us. God’s Word, therefore, can be painful.
The first thing that God does to let us bear fruit is to prune us, how does the fruit grow after that?
We dragen vrucht doordat God ons het Leven van Jezus geeft (vers 4)
In the fourth verse, we read that a branch will not bear fruit if it is not attached to the vine. Only when a branch is in the vine, it can bear fruit. This is because the vine holds everything that the branch needs, like water and nutrition. When we belong to Jesus Christ, we are grafted in Jesus.
Romans 11:17b (NIV)
Because of the fact that Christians have been grafted in, streams of Living Water from the olive root also flow through us, this can only be found in Him. God gives us Jesus’ Life.
We bear fruit because God attaches us to Jesus (verse 5)
This is the promise in verse 5: “If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit”. God attaches us to Jesus, as it were. It is in our nature to go our own way, but when we can see that we cannot function without Jesus, we can understand why we have to be attached to Him. It is not an iron chain or a strict obligation that binds us, but rather His love for us, and our love for Him, since we have been called to be unified with Him.
So, we cannot bear fruit by trying hard, fruit just grows; by itself. That is, if the branches are attached to the vine, from which we receive Life.
