"Spiritual Growth, Part 5" by Romans:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy21vd6jSps
This is the Fifth Installment of our Series on Spiritual Growth. As with the previous installments of this series, I will be basing tonight's Discussion on the Notes found in the back of Max Lucado's Devotional Bible. Far from taking undeserved credit for their work, I give full credit to that publication for the main trunk of thought that went into what we will cover tonight. However, as I have been doing, I will also be adding some Spiritual branches and leaves of my own to what they have provided in their Notes. Having said all of that... let's begin.
Spiritual Growth is manifested in Bearing Fruit:
John 15:5 and 8: "I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing... Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples."
John Gill writes, “John 15:5: I am the vine, ye are the branches,.... Christ here repeats what he said of himself, "the vine", for the sake of the application of "the branches" to his disciples: which expresses their sameness of nature with Christ; their strict and close union to him; and the communication of life and grace, holiness and fruitfulness, of support and strength, and of perseverance in grace and holiness to the end from him:
he that abideth in me, and I in him; which is the case of all that are once in Christ, and he in them:
the same bringeth forth much fruit; in the exercise of grace, and performance of good works; and continues to do so as long as he lives, not by virtue of his own free will, power, and strength, but by grace continually received from Christ:
for without me ye can do nothing; nothing that is spiritually good; no, not anything at all, be it little or great, easy or difficult to be performed; cannot think a good thought, speak a good word, or do a good action; can neither begin one, nor, when it is begun, perfect it. Nothing is to be done "without Christ"; without his Spirit, grace, strength, and presence; or as "separate from" him.
Were it possible for the branches that are truly in him, to be removed from him, they could bring forth no fruits of good works, any more than a branch separated from the vine can bring forth grapes; so that all the fruitfulness of a believer is to be ascribed to Christ, and his grace, and not to the free will and power of man...
Herein is my Father glorified,.... This does not so much refer to what goes before, concerning the disciples abiding in Christ, and he and his words abiding in them, and doing for them whatever they ask, though by all this God is glorified; as to what follows, the fruitfulness of the disciples:
that ye bear much fruit; of doctrine, grace, and good works, which show them to be trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, and the work of his hands; wherein the glory of his power, grace, and mercy, is greatly displayed. All the fruits of righteousness, with which they were filled by Christ, were by him to the praise and glory of God;
yea, by the fruitfulness of grace, and of life and conversation, by the lively exercise of grace, and conscientious discharge of duty, as well by light of doctrine, and usefulness in the ministration of the Gospel, the disciples and servants of Christ not only glorify God themselves, but are the means of others glorifying him. It follows,
so shall ye be my disciples; or "disciples to me"; to my honour and glory also, as well as to my Father's; not that their fruitfulness made them the disciples of Christ, but made them appear to be so, or made them honourable ones. Just as good fruit does not make the tree good; the tree is first good, and therefore it brings forth good fruit; but shows it to be good: as by continuing in his word, abiding by his Gospel they appeared to be "disciples indeed,” really and truly such; and as by loving one another, so by other fruits of righteousness, other men, all men know that they are the disciples of Christ.
Alexander MacClaren writes, “John 15:5-8: THE TRUE BRANCHES OF THE TRUE VINE: No wise teacher is ever afraid of repeating himself. The average mind requires the reiteration of truth before it can make that truth its own. One coat of paint is not enough, it soon rubs off. Especially is this true in regard to lofty spiritual and religious truth, remote from men’s ordinary thinkings, and in some senses unwelcome to them.
So our Lord, the great Teacher, never shrank from repeating His lessons when He saw that they were but partially apprehended. It was not grievous to Him to ‘say the same things,’ because for them it was safe. He broke the bread of life into small pieces, and fed them little and often.
So here, in the verses that we have to consider now, we have the repetition, and yet not the mere repetition, of the great parable of the vine, as teaching the union of Christians with Christ, and their consequent fruitfulness. He saw, no doubt, that the truth was but partially dawning upon His disciples’ minds.
Therefore He said it all over again, with deepened meaning, following it out into new applications, presenting further consequences, and, above all, giving it a more sharp and definite personal application.
Are we any swifter scholars than these first ones were? Have we absorbed into our own thinking this truth so thoroughly and constantly, and wrought it out in our lives so completely, that we do not need to be reminded of it any more? Shall we not be wise if we faithfully listen to His repeated teachings?
The verses which I have read give us four aspects of this great truth of union with Jesus Christ; or of its converse, separation from Him. There is, first, the fruitfulness of union; second, the withering and destruction of separation; third, the satisfaction of desire which comes from abiding in Christ; and, lastly, the great, noble issue of fruitfulness, in God’s glory, and our own increasing discipleship. Now let me touch upon these briefly.
I. First, then, our Lord sets forth, with no mere repetition, the same broad idea which He has already been insisting upon-viz., that union with Him is sure to issue in fruitfulness.
He repeats the theme, ‘I am the Vine’; but He points its application by the next clause, ‘Ye are the branches.’ That had been implied before, but it needed to be said more definitely. For are we not all too apt to think of religious truth as swinging in vacuo as it were, with no personal application to ourselves, and is not the one thing needful in regard to the truths which are most familiar to us, to bring them into close connection with our own personal life and experience?
‘I am the Vine’ is a general truth, with no clear personal application. ‘Ye are the branches’ brings each individual listener into connection with it. How many of us there are, as there are in every so-called Christian communion, that listen pleasedly, and, in a fitful sort of languid way, interestedly, to the most glorious and most solemn words that come from a preacher’s lips, and never dream that what he has been saying has any bearing upon themselves!
And the one thing that is most of all needed with people like some of you, who have been listening to the truth all your days, is that it should be sharpened to a point, and the conviction driven into you, that you have some personal concern in this great message. ‘Ye are the branches’ is the one side of that sharpening and making definite of the truth in its personal application, and the other side is, ‘Thou art the man.’
All preaching and religious teaching is toothless generality, utterly useless, unless we can manage somehow or other to force it through the wall of indifference and vague assent to a general proposition, with which ‘Gospel-hardened hearers’ surround themselves, and make them feel that the thing has got a point, and that the point is touching their own consciousness. ‘Ye are the branches.’
Note next the great promise of fruitfulness. ‘He that abideth in Me, and I in Him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.’ I need not repeat what I have said in former sermons as to the plain, practical duties which are included in that abiding in Christ, and Christ’s consequent abiding in us. It means, on the part of professedly Christian people, a temper and tone of mind very far remote from the noisy, bustling distractions too common in our present Christianity.
We want quiet, patient waiting within the veil. We want stillness of heart, brought about by our own distinct effort to put away from ourselves the strife of tongues and the pride of life. We want activity, no doubt, but we want a wise passiveness as its foundation.
Get away into the ‘secret place of the Most High,’ and rise into a higher altitude and atmosphere than the region of work and effort; and sitting still with Christ, let His love and His power pour themselves into your hearts. ‘Come, My people, enter thou into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee.’
Get away from the jangling of politics, and empty controversies and busy distractions of daily duty. The harder our toil necessarily is, the more let us see to it that we keep a little cell within the central life where in silence we hold communion with the Master. ‘Abide in Me and I in you.’
That is the way to be fruitful, rather than by efforts after individual acts of conformity and obedience, howsoever needful and precious these are. There is a deeper thing wanted than these. The best way to secure Christian conduct is to cultivate communion with Christ.
It is better to work at the increase of the central force than at the improvement of the circumferential manifestations of it. Get more of the sap into the branch, and there will be more fruit. Have more of the life of Christ in the soul, and the conduct and the speech will be more Christlike. We may cultivate individual graces at the expense of the harmony and beauty of the whole character.
We may grow them artificially and they will be of little worth-by imitation of others, by special efforts after special excellence, rather than by general effort after the central improvement of our nature and therefore of our life. But the true way to influence conduct is to influence the springs of conduct; and to make a man’s life better, the true way is to make the man better.
First of all be, and then do; first of all receive, and then give forth; first of all draw near to Christ, and then there will be fruit to His praise. That is the Christian way of mending men, not tinkering at this, that, and the other individual excellence, but grasping the secret of total excellence in communion with Him.
Our Lord is here not merely laying down a law, but giving a promise, and putting his veracity into pawn for the fulfilment of it. ‘If a man will keep near Me,’ He says, ‘he shall bear fruit.’ Notice that little word which now appears for the first time. ‘He shall bear much fruit.’
We are not to be content with a little fruit; a poor shrivelled bunch of grapes that are more like marbles than grapes, here and there, upon the half-nourished stem. The abiding in Him will produce a character rich in manifold graces. ‘A little fruit’ is not contemplated by Christ at all.
God forbid that I should say that there is no possibility of union with Christ and a little fruit. Little union will have little fruit; but I would have you notice that the only two alternatives which come into Christ’s view here are, on the one hand, ‘no fruit,’ and on the other hand, ‘much fruit.’
And I would ask why it is that the average Christian man of this generation bears only a berry or two here and there, like such as are left upon the vines after the vintage, when the promise is that if he will abide in Christ, he will bear much fruit?
This verse, setting forth the fruitfulness of union with Jesus, ends with the brief, solemn statement of the converse-the barrenness of separation-’Apart from Me’ (not merely ‘without,’ as the Authorised Version has it) ‘ye can do nothing.’
There is the condemnation of all the busy life of men which is not lived in union with Jesus Christ.
It is a long row of figures which, like some other long rows of algebraic symbols added up, amount just to zero. ‘Without me, nothing.’ All your busy life, when you come to sum it up, is made up of plus and minus quantities, which precisely balance each other, and the net result, unless you are in Christ, is just nothing;
and on your gravestones the only right epitaph is a great round cypher. ‘He did not do anything. There is nothing left of his toil; the whole thing has evaporated and disappeared.’ That is life apart from Jesus Christ. The last thought that is here is that this union and fruitfulness lead to the noble ends of glorifying God and increasing discipleship.
‘Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.’ Christ’s life was all for the glorifying of God. The lives which are ours in name-but being drawn from Him, in their depths are much rather the life of Christ in us than our lives-will have the same end and the same issue.
Ah, dear brethren, we come here to a very sharp test for us all. I wonder how many of us there are, on whom men looking think more loftily of God and love Him better, and are drawn to Him by strange longings. How many of us are there about whom people will say, ‘There must be something in the religion that makes a man like that’? How many of us are there, to look upon whom suggests to men that God, who can make such a man, must be infinitely sweet and lovely?
And yet that is what we should all be-mirrors of the divine radiance, on which some eyes, that are too dim and sore to bear the light as it streams from the Sun, may look, and, beholding the reflection, may learn to love. Does God so shine in me that I lead men to magnify His name?
If I am dwelling with Christ it will be so. I shall not know it. ‘Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone’; but, in meek unconsciousness of the glory that rays from us, we may walk the earth, reflecting the light and making God known to our fellows.
And if thus we abide in Him and bear fruit we shall ‘be’ or (as the word might more accurately be rendered), we shall ‘become His disciples.’ The end of our discipleship is never reached on earth: we never so much are as we are in the process of becoming, His true followers and servants.
If we bear fruit because we are knit to Him, the fruit itself will help us to get nearer Him, and so to be more His disciples and more fruitful. Character produces conduct, but conduct rests on character, and strengthens the impulses from which it springs.
And thus our action as Christian men and women will tell upon our inward lives as Christians, and the more our outward conduct is conformed to the pattern of Jesus Christ, the more shall we love Him in our inmost hearts. We ourselves shall eat of the fruit which we ourselves have borne to Him.”
Let's look at our next verse that teaches us about Spiritual Growth and bearing Fruit: John 15:16: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.”
The Preacher's Homiletical says, “Chosen and appointed.—Jesus chose His disciples from among the multitudes of the people whom He came to save, for a special purpose and a divine end. And no doubt the words of our Lord referred especially to these disciples—to His choice of them as appointed instruments in doing His work in the world. But the words were not recorded for an historical purpose merely.
They were spoken to the disciples as representing the whole Church as already constituted and yet to be extended, just as the promise of the Comforter was not confined to the eleven, but was meant for all the members of the Church. Thus the words apply to all true disciples, to all living branches of the true Vine.
I. The divine choice.—1. From a human point of view the choice of His disciples by our Lord was not what men would have looked for—at least, so it seems at first view. He passed by the men in position, the learned, the rich, the influential, and chose those fishermen of Galilee. He did not regard their humble position, their want of culture, and even their spiritual obtuseness; but called them graciously and freely to be His ministers and disciples, nay, to be His friends.
2. This choice was of grace; and yet when we consider it, it will be found to have been dictated by highest wisdom. The divine choice does not entirely ignore fitness for service. God chooses the instruments best fitted for His purpose, even when He takes the weak things of the world to confound the mighty.
And certainly some of those men were weak in faith, and in the hour of trial “all forsook Him and fled.” And yet through grace they were made foundation-stones in the great spiritual building.
3. And how graciously did the Saviour, when He had chosen, prepare those men for their work and ministry. How patiently He bore with their faults and follies, never wearying in instructing them, comforting them, strengthening their faith.
And how tenderly in this parting discourse did He speak to them, further fitting them for their work by showing His confidence in them, in that He desired that they should no longer regard Him with the spirit of the servant or slave, but should rise into fellowship with Him as His friends! He had won them to Himself and His service. He had chosen them not only in the outward call, but had won their hearts to Himself.
4. To all true disciples Jesus can say, “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you.” The beginning of true discipleship and friendship is with Christ. By nature men are not attracted to Him. But there are those who, when His grace touches them, respond to the call and “follow Him.”
It is first from Him; it is to His call that the soul responds. But here is the mystery of divine grace, that the call and the response of His chosen are, so to speak, simultaneous. The divine choice is met by the human response. The divine inworking is met by the human effort. His chosen choose Him.
II. The divine appointment and its purpose.—1. The divine choice and appointment are not without a special end. It may be said of all men indeed that God works out His purposes in their lives. But in the special appointment by Jesus of His disciples there was a definite and blessed purpose in view.
2. They were to obey and serve. It is here that the divine wisdom of the choice of Jesus is seen. Those disciples had consecrated themselves to Him, to do His will and finish His work. They were resolved—although they did not know how weak they were then—to follow Him. In this resolve they would be strengthened. Such is the character of true ministers of Christ: they “go forth” gladly, as His friends, when He calls and where He appoints.
3. We know how the apostles “went forth”: the missionary labours of the apostolic Church have here their spring. And so too all true disciples who realise that Christ has laid His hand on them and appointed them to membership in His Church feel the call in some way to “go forth” for Him, as His servants and friends, into the highways and byways of the world.
4. “That ye should bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” It is not to be a fruitless activity or “going forth,” but a fruitful {“going forth.”}. Although the reference is to fruit of effort, yet it must not be forgotten that personal fruit-bearing, the growing of the character and life spiritually toward Christ, is essential to the fruit of effort.
5. So too now, the only “fruit” that remains, the only work that bears the stamp of eternity, is work done in and for Christ.
First character, then fruitful effort. And those disciples did “bring forth fruit,” and their fruit remains. It is the product of the “incorruptible seed” sown in their own hearts, and by them through the Spirit’s power in the hearts of others.
III. The promise to those going forth as Christ’s chosen and appointed ones.—1. Christ does not send His disciples on a warfare “at their own charges.” The divine grace and blessing are ever needed, and therefore our Lord repeats the blessed promise already given, that to His chosen the infinite, divine fulness is opened to believing prayer.
2. His friends will have free access to the source of all grace; limitless riches are open to them. There is but one condition as to the asking. We are to ask in Christ’s name, i.e. we are to ask as His friends, as filled with His Spirit. Therefore we shall ask in accordance with His will, guided by His Spirit.
And surely this is reasonable. Our heavenly Friend is infinitely wise, good, gracious. And when we learn to desire what is in accordance with His will, nothing that is good will be withheld from us.”
John Gill writes, “John 15:16: Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,.... Not but that they had made choice of him as their Lord and Master, Saviour and Redeemer; but not first, he was before hand with them; he chose them, before they chose him; so that his choice of them was entirely free, did not arise from any character, motive, or condition in them:
the allusion is to a custom of the Jews, the reverse of which Christ acted; with whom it was usual for disciples to choose their own masters, and not masters their disciples: hence that advice of R. Joshuah ben Perachiah, said to be the master of Jesus of Nazareth, עשה לך רב.
This may be understood both of election to salvation, and of choice to the office of apostleship; in both which Christ was first, or chose them before they chose him, that good part, which shall never be taken away; for as they were chosen in him, so by him, before the foundation of the world; being as early loved by him, as by his Father;
and in consequence thereof, were chosen by him, for his people and peculiar treasure; he first chose and called them to be his disciples and apostles, to follow him, preach his Gospel, and become fishers of men; and clothed them with full power and authority to exercise their high office.
and ordained you; which may design either ordination to eternal life, or apostleship, before the world began; as Jeremiah was ordained to be a prophet, before he was born; or else the investiture of them with that office, and with all gifts and graces necessary for the discharge of it;
for when he called and sent forth his disciples to preach the Gospel, he is said to "ordain" them; and the rather this may be meant here, because the former is designed by his choosing them; or he set them, or planted them in himself, a fruitful soil, that they might shoot up and bear much fruit, as it follows:
that ye should go and bring forth fruit; go first into Judea, and then into all the world; and brings forth the fruits of righteousness and holiness in themselves, and be the happy means of the conversion, and so of bringing in a large harvest of souls to Jesus Christ: and that your fruit should remain; as it has done;
for they not only persevered themselves in faith and holiness, in preaching the Gospel, and living according to it, but the persons whose conversion they were instruments of, continued steadfastly in their doctrine, and in the fellowship of the saints; and the Gospel which was preached by them, has remained, though not always in the same place, yet in the world ever since:
that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. This is added, to encourage their perseverance in the work he chose and called them to, which would be attended with many difficulties and discouragements; wherefore as they would stand in need of divine assistance, they might assure themselves of it;
for be it what it would they should ask of his Father, making mention of his name and righteousness; whether for a sufficiency of gifts and grace in the discharge of their duty; or for success in it; or for the confirmation of the truths delivered by them; or for liberty and boldness to speak in vindication of themselves, when called to it before kings and governors, it should be given them.” Ganz Tzemach David, fol. 24. 2. (s) Pirke Abot, c. 1. sect. 6. (t) Zohar in Exod. Fol. 9. 1.
We did not choose to live as Christians. We could not live as Christians if it were our choice. Rather we are drawn to Christ by the Spirit of the Father, and we are chosen by Christ to live godly lives, growing Spiritually by abiding in Him as branches in the Vine, bearing fruit to the Glory and Honor of Almighty God.
There is more to Spiritual Growth to review and examine. God willing, I will continue this Series next week. I invite all of you who are hearing or reading my words to join me in reviewing, understanding and applying to our lives this vital aspect of living as fruit-bearing Christians, “that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15).
This concludes this evening's Discussion, "Spiritual Growth, Part 5."
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on February 15th, 2023.
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