Word of Salvation – Vol.26b No.49 – September 1981

 

God’s Expectations

 

Sermon by Rev. W. Wiersma on John 15:1 & 2

Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 7:1–20.

Psalter Hymnal 51; 329; 146; 319; 231

 

Dear Congregation,

God has no time for hangers-on.  The Lord has no use for unproductive dead wood.  Picture the scene:- There is a man with a vineyard or an orchard.  Whether he keeps it for business or pleasure, the owner expects crops.  One doesn’t keep fruit trees for show.  He works in his orchard clearing, preparing, planting, watering, fertilising, spraying and pruning with one thing in mind: the fruit.

A good orchardist does not spare any effort as he works towards a maximum crop.  He does not spare the trees or vines either.  He gives them time to grow and develop, but dead branches are cut away, and healthy branches are pruned so that the strength of the plant will go into producing fruit rather than useless wood.

This is the picture the Lord Jesus uses to describe the relationship between God and the Church.  It is the relationship between the vinedresser and the vine, of the orchardist to the orchard.  God has planted the church.  He has cared for it.  He expects results – fruits.

Here we are taught why the church exists.  It is important that we pay close attention to what Jesus has to say about the raison d’etre of the church.  Have you thought carefully about that question?  Why does the church exist?  What is the reason for the existence of the church, including all the individual churches and congregations in this world?

Why are we here today?  Is it mainly for our benefit?  Is it for our pleasure, so that if we don’t feel like we need the church, we can stay away?

What would YOU say is the main reason for the existence of the church?  Just one other point we should consider.  The Lord Jesus gives us a fundamental definition of the church.  What is the church?  It is the vine of which Jesus is the stock and believers are the branches.  The church is Christ and those who are united to Him by faith.

And the Church exists to produce fruit for God who has brought it into existence.  The church exists mainly for God’s benefit and pleasure.  We are joined to Christ; we are grafted into Him so that by His life (by His power and Spirit) we may live lives that are pleasing to God.  We are saved for a purpose.  God expects to benefit from His care and effort on His vine.  God expects pleasure from His orchard.  God expects a crop of fruit.

The Bible leaves us in no doubt as to what kind of fruit God expects.  In Galatians 5 we read about the fruit of the Spirit.  When any one is united to Christ by faith, when you have the Spirit of Christ (and these two are inseparable; if you do not have the spirit of Christ you do not belong to Christ, Rom 8), so if you have the spirit of Christ, you will bring forth things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc.  The Lord Jesus speaks about letting your light so shine that men seeing your works, shall give praise to God, your Father in heaven.  In Ephesians 5 Paul talks about being imitators of God, showing yourself to be a child of God.

In Hebrews we are told of the fruit of lips that confess the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The fruit which is a sacrifice of praise is to be continually offered to God.  That fruit is a product or result of the believer’s union with Christ.  Through faith in Christ and in our union with Him God gives us everything He has given to Christ.  That is the amazing promise of the Gospel.  When we are joined to Christ by faith we come to share in his life and fortune.  What belongs to Christ belongs to the church which is His body.

The existence, the future and the welfare of the church is inseparably linked with Jesus Christ.  Said Jesus, “I am the vine, you are the branches, without me you cannot do anything.”  So abide, stay in Me.  Keep believing in Christ; draw your life and strength from Him.  Our strength to produce fruit pleasing to God can only come from Christ.  The fruit of the Spirit can only come through faith in Jesus.  That’s why Jesus urges us to keep the closest possible contact with Him.

He calls us to pray; “Ask and you shall receive.”  He calls us to listen and to learn, “If you love me you will keep my commandments.”  (Is it really possible to believe in Jesus Christ and not love Him ?)  Jesus said to His disciples, “You are already clean by the Word I have spoken to you.  You are ready to bear fruit.”

Jesus also promised that the Holy Spirit would teach His disciples all things and remind them of everything that Jesus had said to them.  The Spirit is in the believers, as Paul writes in Philippians, the Spirit is at work in the believers to will and to do what is pleasing to God.  The Spirit does that by bringing to mind all that Jesus has done and taught.  That is why Jesus urges us to give our continued and wholehearted attention to His teachings.  It is for this reason that we listen to and meditate on the Word of Christ at home and in the church, that we may be taught and instructed by Christ, and that through faith we might be filled with His Spirit.  When we love Christ we wish to live in closest contact with Him and so produce the fruit God desires.  It has always been the clear teaching of Scripture and of our churches that salvation through faith in Christ does not make anyone careless about the will and pleasure of God.

We know we are saved to serve the living God.  As Jesus says in verse 8, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves (or thereby proving yourselves) to be my disciples.”  Faith (the living bond with Christ) will be evident from works.

Now, if the works are not forthcoming, if there is no evidence of love or joy peace or patience, then God takes the appropriate action.  He takes the kind of action that a vinedresser or orchardist takes.  The useless branch is cut away.  It withers and is thrown into the fire.  The Lord Jesus is often quite blunt.  He did not hesitate to speak about everlasting condemnation, death or hell.

Do we still believe in eternal punishment?  Do we still value salvation and life?  God is the vinedresser.  He cuts and prunes.  Some are cut off completely.

Others are cut back.

Our Lord teaches us that in the church which we see, in the covenant community, there are two kinds of people.  On the vine there are two kinds of branches.  There are branches that bear fruit.  And there are branches that bear no fruit.  There are those who have the Spirit of Christ and there are those that don’t.  There are those who belong to Christ, and there are those who in reality do not belong to Him.  In the Christian community there are people who appear to be members of Christ, but who aren’t.

Now I want to be very careful here.  There are in the Christian Church many who are genuinely concerned to produce the fruit which God expects.  It grieves them that so little of that fruit is evident in their lives.  They may even wonder about themselves.  They wonder whether they are really children of God.  To them Jesus says, Ask.  Keep looking to me.  I am the vine.  I am the source of life and strength.  I am the source of love and joy, of peace and kindness and self-control.  Keep asking me for the Holy Spirit.  He will be given you in greater measure, so that you may bring forth fruits of thankfulness.  The Gospel assurance is always for the humble.  How often God’s children need reassuring!  How often Christ’s branches need reminding that Christ is the vine, that He carries them and not vice versa.  When Jesus says that God is the vinedresser, is He not saying that God will continue the work He has begun.  God will continue to prune the fruit-bearing branches so that they shall produce more for His honour and glory.

Pruning is a painful business.  It is humbling to be cut back and clipped.  It means repenting of wild growth, and bringing forth fruit befitting repentance.  God disciplines his children in various ways.

Sometimes He disciplines through His word and sometimes He disciplines through their own weakness and folly.  Think of Peter.  Think how God cut his pride, but also how Christ kept and reinstated this branch of His.  Think of the apostle Paul.  God kept Him small to remind him and us all that we live only by the grace of God, and produce fruit only for God by His Spirit.

In the church there are also the proud, the hypocrites, the unbelievers who produce no fruit at all.  They are nominal Christians.  Church members they are in name, but not in heart.  They are people who in their heart of hearts worship other gods.  They are the ones who live for their own desires rather than for the pleasure of God.  These fruitless branches are like the people of Jeremiah’s day who boasted about going to the temple, but who in their daily life went their own merry way, baking cakes to the queen of heaven (some heathen deity) setting up idols in the house of God and sacrificing their sons and daughters in the fire.

Yes we can have our names on the church roll; put in an occasional or even regular appearance, and yet live an idolatrous life and sacrifice our children to our idols.

Jesus calls us all to take a hard critical look at ourselves.  Who are we living for?  What fruit are we producing for God?  What is our connection with Christ the Vine?

[OPTIONAL]

Next week we hope to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.  One of the questions we are asked to answer in preparation for the celebration is, whether we truly desire to live a life of thankfulness to God.

It seems strange that many say a hearty yes to that question by coming to the table in the morning, but refuse to give thanks when it comes to the evening service.  God expects fruits.  The vine exists for Him.  May it become our highest pleasure to please our God and Saviour.

Amen.