The Secret Of Church Life Is Fruit-bearing

“I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. I am the vine; you are the branches.  If a man remains [abides] in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.  I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”                                                                 John 15:1,5,11

Many years ago, I heard a thought-provoking sermon from the one-and-only Warren Wiersbe, former pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, Covington, Kentucky, Moody Memorial Church in Chicago and teacher on the Back To The Bible radio broadcast from 1980-1992.  Dr. Wiersbe was a fine pastor and an even better Bible teacher and preacher.  His series of “Giants” books made a huge impact on me as a young pastor.

The Wiersbe sermon that left me thinking and rethinking the Christian life was on John 15:1-17, the great “vine and branches” passage.  Though I haven’t been able to track down a copy of the sermon, I believe that the title was “The Secret Of Life” and the outline – the only “borrowed” sermon outline I’ve ever preached – was as follows:

1. The secret of life is fruit-bearing. John 15:11
2. The secret of fruit-bearing is abiding (“remaining,” in the NIV). Vss. 4,5,6,7,9,10
3. The secret of abiding is obeying. Vss. 10,12,14
4. The secret of obeying is loving. Vss. 14,15
5. The secret of loving is knowing. Vss. 14-17

Here – in one paragraph – is the life which I believed the preacher was describing:

The secret to having a truly joyful life, the most joyful life possible, is bearing much fruit for God (“fruit” is that which God does miraculously, through us: transformed character, transformed conduct and transformed people, i.e., converts). We bear much fruit by abiding, clinging to, staying in fellowship with Christ and practicing the presence of God, even while being “pruned” by the Father. Abiding is accomplished by continuous, dependent obedience, doing the will of God in the power of the Spirit of God. It is clinging to the Father whom we truly love, not just dutifully seeking to please Him, that moves us to practice this dependent obedience, and it is knowing Him well that leads us to increasingly love and trust Him.

I loved the sermon.  I haven’t always lived it, but I’ve thought about it for decades.

For the last few years, I’ve been thinking about how this might apply to churches.  After all, here in the West we’ve “individualized” so many teachings that the writers of scripture were originally proclaiming to groups of persons – churches, in New Testament times. So it stands to reason that Jesus meant this to apply to churches, as well as individual disciples.

What if the “secret of life” for individuals is actually the same secret of life for churches?

I don’t have this fully worked out yet; I’m not ready to write a book about it.  Maybe YOU will be the one to do that.  But it is just possible that:

(1) The secret of congregational life is fruit-bearing – It’s not what we do that matters as much as what God is able to do through us. I’ve known this regarding preaching for many years: what I do matters; what God does matters much, much more. Isn’t this what gives us maximum joy, seeing God do miracles through our hands and voices (John 15:11)?

(2) The secret of congregational fruit-bearing is abiding – Again, clinging to Christ; praying as if our lives and the lives of others depended upon God answering our prayers in powerful ways.

(3) The secret of congregational abiding is obeying – Practicing desperate dependence, not because we fear God’s wrath but because we long to see the abundant fruit that brings Him the glory (vs. 8) which He deserves.

(4) The secret of congregational obeying is loving – We love Him because we have an earth-shaking, life-transforming understanding of the gospel itself and the love that birthed it (see Paul’s prayers in Ephesians 1:15-23 and 3:14-21 regarding the profound effect of grasping the love of God for us).

(5) The secret of congregational loving is knowing – We love Him because we know Him and because we have seen Him through the Scriptures and through His interventions in our individual lives and our church life.

So returning to my summary paragraph above, when applied to our churches it might sound like this:

The secret to having a truly joyful congregational life, the most joyful church life possible, is bearing much fruit for God (“fruit” is that which God does miraculously, through us: transformed character, transformed conduct and transformed people, i.e., converts). We bear much fruit as a congregation by abiding, clinging to, staying in fellowship with Christ, practicing the presence of God, even while being “pruned” by the Father. Abiding is accomplished by continuous, dependent obedience, doing the will of God in the power of the Spirit of God. It is clinging to the Father whom we truly love, not just dutifully seeking to please Him, that moves us to practice this dependent obedience, and it is knowing Him well that leads us to increasingly love and trust Him.

 I think that this is what our hearts truly long for, isn’t it?

You know that I believe in good leadership and good management and intentionality and evangelism strategies and disciple-making processes and leadership pipelines and all that “good stuff” that I write about often, but I think that this is the heart of what we really long for: the supernatural fruit that only God Himself can produce.

 Our success isn’t enough. Our pumped-up emotions and imitation Holy smoke don’t cut it. Our effectiveness is missing the point. Our complete joy comes with the fruit-bearing that leaves us speechless and gives God glory.