Date: August 03, 2025
Series: Fruit bearing
I want to quickly further share with us on fruit bearing. We have been looking at the need for us to bear fruit. And that is because it is the will of God for us to do so. It pleases God when his children bear much fruit. Then we looked at the nature of fruit God wants us to bear.
And from what we see in scriptures, He wants us to bear the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, faithfulness, self-control, meekness, gentleness, humility, brotherly kindness. God wants us to bring forth these things as fruits. And we can bring forth these things as fruit because of our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember that He tells us that He is the vine and we are the branches. Because of that, we can bring forth fruits that are consistent with His character, fruits that are consistent with His nature.
But then, as I pointed out to us, bringing forth fruit in this sense is not something that we should struggle to do. When we struggle to bring forth the kind of fruit God wants us to bring forth, we show that we do not understand how to do so. We should not struggle to love. We should not struggle to be patient. We should not struggle to be humble, kind, gentle, self-controlled. We shouldn’t struggle to be any of these things. That’s because we were created to be these things. But as I said, we’re going to struggle, if we do not know how. So, we must know how.
Now, of course, it’s not enough to know how. We must apply the knowledge that we possess. Knowledge that is not utilized is useless. People often say knowledge is power. But that is only true to the extent that knowledge is appropriately and adequately applied. Of course, it also depends on the kind of knowledge you are dealing with. But knowledge in itself will not produce power. Knowledge in itself will not change anybody’s life. It has to be appropriately and adequately utilized.
So, as we hear the word of God, we must make up our minds to appropriately and adequately utilize what we are hearing. It is something that our hearts must be after doing. Otherwise, the knowledge of the word of God that we are receiving will prove to be useless to us, even though it is not meant to be.Well, on bringing forth fruit, our Lord Jesus Christ makes it abundantly clear to us that apart from Him it is impossible for us to do so.
Let’s go back to St. John’s Gospel, chapter 15. I’ll read the passage to you again very quickly, that is, from verse 1:“I am the true vine, and 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 so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will 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. “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.” (John 15:1-5NIV)
You can see that how to bear fruit is plainly stated here. We must abide in Him. We must remain in Him, that is, in the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? The reason is that He is our source. He is the source of everything God wants us to be. He is the source of the fruit that our lives are expected to bear.
Everything is coming to us from him.Remember I read to you from 2 Corinthians 5, verse 18, the other time. There Paul says all things are of God, the God who reconciled us to Himself in Christ Jesus. Everything, everything that we need is from Him. And we must receive it from Him. If we will not receive from Him, we will not be able to live the kind of life He wants us to live; we will not be able to do the things He wants us to do.
So, Jesus here says you have to abide in me. We are going to later look at how to abide in Him or what it means to abide in Him. But first, we must keep it in mind that we must abide in Him, if we are going to bring forth the kind of fruit He wants our lives to bring forth.Then He goes on to say how important it is for us to abide in him. He says apart from me you can do nothing. You can’t.
It is impossible. You may try to be the person God wants you to be apart from Him. But you can only fail. And this is one of the reasons we must take Him very seriously; we must take our relationship with Him very seriously.Now, of course, we must understand that this is how Jesus Christ Himself functioned when He was here on earth. Jesus knew that God was His source and that apart from Him there was nothing He could do. So, He totally relied on God to be the person He was meant to be.
We read scriptures, and we admire the life that Jesus lived. We read scriptures and we get to admire the way He talked, the way He answered questions, the way He preached, the way He ministered to people. But how was Jesus able to live like that? How was he able to live a life that won God’s approval? God, at least, as we have recorded in Scriptures, twice testified about Him, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” God was utterly pleased with Jesus. He was pleased with the life that Jesus lived. That means everything He did pleased God. So, Jesus Christ stands before us as a perfect example of man as God would want man to be. Jesus did not walk the face of this earth living as God.
Of course, He is fully God, just as He is fully man. But He did not walk the face of the earth to live as God. Rather He walked the face of the earth to live as man. Truly He came to show us who God is. But in living, He lived as man. He showed us man as God would want man to be. How was he able to do that? He was able to do that by drawing from God.
Look at St. John’s Gospel, chapter 5, Verse 19: “Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does, the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.”” (John 5:19-20NIV)
The first thing Jesus says here, responding to what the Jews were saying about him, is that the Son can do nothing by Himself, except what He sees His Father doing. This is Jesus’ own testimony: I can do nothing by myself; I do only what I see my Father doing. So, Jesus Christ was drawing from the Father. The life that He lived, He lived it on the basis of His relationship with the Father. He said, “The Father loves the Son and shows Him what He does.
So, He’s saying, “God is teaching me how to live; God is teaching me how to walk. The things I’m doing, I’m not doing them because I just want to do them. They are the things that I learnt from my Father.” Think about that. That’s powerful.The point is that Jesus learnt how to love from the Father. He learnt patience from the Father. He learnt perseverance from the Father. He learnt humility from the Father.
Self-control, He learnt it from Him. All the things He did, He learnt them from the Father. The healing of the sick, the raising of the dead, He learnt these things from the Father. He says, “The Father is working. He’s showing me how to do these things. So, I’m doing what I see Him do.” In fact, He goes on to say, “Just as the Father gives life to the dead, the Son also gives life to the dead.” That was how he functioned.
So, we admire His life. Now if we also will be able to function the same way, we must adopt the same approach. And He’s already told us, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” So, if you’re going to be the person God wants you to be, you must take your connection, your relationship with Him very seriously; you must see Him as your source. And you don’t just see Him as your source, you must be willing to draw from Him; you must be willing to learn from Him.Are you even interested in that? Because it begins with interest.
Are you interested in being the person He wants you to be? Are you interested in living the life that He wants you to live? Are you? You have to be interested. Then you have to be determined. But then, you must understand, it goes beyond being interested and being determined. He has to furnish you with all that you need to live the life that He wants you to live.