Or, Nothing Is Not Nothing
Scripture: John 15:5-8
Date: October 13, 2013
Speaker: Sean Higgins
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We are all characters. God made us and He made us to do a lot of things, but one thing we cannot do is unmake ourselves. I am a character in God’s theater, you are a character on God’s timeline, and no one can choose to sit out the today’s performance until they get a contract for more money. That person is a character, too.
I’ve been reading Death by Living and our inescapable character-ness goaded me this past week and relates to the sermon this morning.
Your life will contribute to a grand and wonderful story no matter what you do. You have been spoken. You are here, existing, choosing, living, shaping the future and carving the past. Your physical matter and your soul exist, not out of necessity, not voluntarily, and not under their own strength…You aren’t doing anything that makes you be. We aren’t the Author. You and I are spoken…We will contribute to the narrative. But how? (72-73)
We are all branches to boot, at least in the context of Jesus’ metaphor in John 15. We are all branches; no one can be nothing. Some branches embrace their branchness and thrive on the vine for life. Those branches flourish and flower and fruit. Other branches act as if they have no need for the vine. Those branches wither and die in vainglory. Still other branches deny their branchness, or deny the purpose of branches, or desire to be something other than a branch. But that doesn’t make them something other than branches, it just changes what the Vinedresser writes on their charts.
So how about you? Do you love being a branch that bears fruit by derivative? Do you embrace the vine for life? Do you expect juicy fruit in season? Or are you all tangled up in a mess of branches but severed from the source of life? Do you feel the breeze cut across the open laceration? Or are you one of those branches that feels secure hanging out but who believes that other branches can do the fruit-bearing? One more question for now, what do you think God (the Vinedresser) wants from you?
The Father has His fingers all over the illustration that His Son scripts in John 15. The Father as farmer never tires of His role to tend the branches and He never wavers from His end to get AMFAP: as much fruit as possible. Jesus encourages His disciples with this metafruitical message.
Last Lord’s day we took a tour of the vineyard seeing the figure of fruitfulness, the prerequisite to fruitfulness, and the means to it. This morning we’ll consider four additional elements that fill out the first four: the figure of fruitfulness extended, the opposite of it, the desire for it, and the glory of it.
With words so simple that children could sing, Jesus hangs the figurative banner over His disciples.
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5, ESV)
Jesus said, “I am the true vine” in verse one followed by the identity of His Father. Now He identifies the place of His followers. I am the vine; you are the branches .
Speaking to the 11, Jesus said something true. They were branches. But if Judas had been there, wouldn’t the statement still be true? Jesus doesn’t divide the branches and non-branches, He divides the abiding, fruit-bearing branches from the offshoots trying to make a go of it on their own. The problem isn’t being a branch or not, it is being a branch that abides or not. To abide or not to abide, that is the question. Verse 6 foretells the fiery end for the dry independents.
We are, all of us, branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing . As one commentator observed, “The positive implication, therefore, is not: “joined to me you can do at least something.’ We have only two alternatives: much—nothing at all” (Lenski, 1035). “
How-to books on fruit bearing have never grown anything. Harvest method conferences can’t do it. Worship songs and sermons and sacraments unrooted in the vine can’t do it. Fruit grows through the person of Jesus just as sure as water flows from a hose screwed on to a streaming spigot. Augustine “said that Jesus spoke as he did ‘in order to answer the coming Pelagius’” (Lenski, 1036-1037).
Fruitless branches go through a five-step process.
If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. (John 15:6, ESV)
Verse five channeled verse one. Verse six looks back to the initial explanation in verse two. The vinedressing Father does the work and He works so that the fruitful branches will bear more fruit. That’s the who and the why, now the what gets more detail.
If anyone does not abide in me , he can’t bear fruit. This is equal to “every branch that does not bear fruit,” because apart from Jesus no branch can be fruitful. But the opposite of fruitfulness is not barrenness, it is destruction and punishment (similar to the contrast in Psalm 1 between the green, fruitful tree and the chaff).
Step one is that he is thrown away or “taken away.” Step two: he withers . It was barren, now brown and brittle. Step three: the branches are gathered , sometimes into denominations and para-church groups and home groups. Step four: they are thrown into the fire . And step five: they are burned .
It isn’t possible to get out of the scene. Abiders bear much fruit (verse 5), non-abiders burn in judgment (verse 6). It is a life or death issue: production through the vine or punishment by the vinedresser. There is no in-between abiding.
Of all the things to dig up, Jesus unearths the subject of prayer. What does prayer have to do with a branches’ produce? Everything.
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. (John 15:7, ESV)
There are two halves to this verse, an if and a then, and two parts to the if and likewise the then. It’s entirely too much time spent on a subject already discussed in 14:13-14, except that without it, we won’t know abiding.
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you . Jesus presents the condition. If we depend on Jesus like a branch hangs on the vine, and if His words dwell in us like vine sap seeps into branches, then certain things happen. Before the effects can come, the condition must be met. There must be a constant, conscious connection, as if we were delighting in and meditating on the Lord’s word day and night. Our relationship with Him and the revelation of His desires fuses us to a certain course of life. Or, we will be out of fellowship and flittering about a never-ending stream of updates on Facebook.
If…then… ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you . This is a hard word, not because it is hard to understand, but it is hard to will.
The promise oak (better than a ticket oak) extends over the ones from the first half of the verse. Those who are not abiding in Jesus and who do not have His words abiding in them will not receive answers to their requests more than likely because they don’t make any. Why ask the one you’re independent from to do anything for you? You wouldn’t. If you are not abiding then expect both fruitlessness and prayerlessness. You have not because you abide not.
There are others who pray and ask wrongly. They desire things that have nothing to do with the Lord’s character or commands. They are filling out paperwork for a safe deposit box at a funeral home because they are that disconnected. What we pray for connects with what we’re committed to.
However, the hard part and the good part are the same. If we are abiding in Jesus and His words in us, then we will ask for what we will wish , or better, what we “will” (θέλητε). And what will we want if we, as branches, are abiding in the vine? We will want fruit! But before we get too excited about that, remember that fruit involves loving unlovely people and serving them in ways that we deserve to be treated. Fruit means we’ll take up towels to change the world, or at least to wipe the dirty feet of those around our table at home.
We will find all sorts of other things to do than pray, or at least we will fill up our lists of requests with so many other people’s problems. Of course, not asking or asking wrongly is a sign of disconnect. A sign of connectedness is praying to be made like Christ and having some idea of the pruning that’s coming your way.
Believers joke about not praying for patience. It’s really no joke. If you don’t pray for patience, then you’re either perfectly patient or disobedient. And if you do pray, you know that God loves to answer that. What He’ll take away first are all the excuses for impatience you’ve been spreading around as so much fertilizer. Do you want to know God’s Word better? Are you ready for Him to “help” you by putting you in the bullseye of a friend’s betrayal so that you can get your eyes behind the psalmist’s pencil? Do you want to see more life in those around you? Then you will have more chairs to stack and snot to wipe and double-ended candles to burn and deaths to attempt than you knew possible. If you want fruit, ask and it will be done for you.
Maybe you were starting to think that you could go easy on the fruit asking. There’s more to it.
By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. (John 15:8, ESV)
When we abide in the vine then we want fruit. When we want fruit then we pray. When we pray then we bear fruit. When we bear a whole lot of fruit then God gets glory. Jesus says it: By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit .
Should we be ambitious about fruit? Should we want it, badly? Sometimes we say spiritual things about not wanting fruit, instead we want God’s glory and if fruit happens upon us a by-product, that’s up to God. That sounds nice, and it is impossible according to God’s Word. Perhaps if we made the rules and told God how we would give Him glory, then we’d need an adjustment. But God says how it happens. He gets honor by our fruitfulness.
Suppose at the beginning of the school year, you enrolled in a class with your favorite teacher. The superintendent told you that at the end of the year your teacher’s contract would be renewed (or not), and given a raise (or not) based on your grades, especially since you’re the only one in the class. You would not be loving your teacher if you said, “I don’t care about my grades, I care about my teacher’s honor.” Your teacher is honored by your glorious grades.
If you want great glory for God then you must desire much fruit. Much fruit only happens as you abide and are pruned and pray for it. God produces it all; without the vine you can do nothing. If you are in the vine and little-fruited, that says something about the vine. So does being greatly-fruited. The vine and the vinedresser do amazing work.
Much fruit honors the Father and it shows our identity. By this you bear much fruit…and so prove to be my disciples . Rhubarb doesn’t grow on grapevines; grapes do. They will know we are His branches by our successful vine-abiding as seen in boughs a’bending.
We are all branches. We cannot choose not to be. We can abide or not, we will be fruitful or not, we will desire God’s glory or try to exclude ourselves from the equation. Again, God not only writes the equation the way He wants, He wants our fruitfulness. He wants our fruitfulness more than we want it on our best days. He is not writing against us. He is not planning or pruning our purposelessness. He does not expect any more life from us than He provides through His true Vine. In Him we must abide, and why wouldn’t we?
Some moments will slow down so much that you would scream as the skin of fruit starts stretching to hold the growing guts. You will see and sense the skin thin before it thickens again. You may cry, and you will be sad that your fruit wasn’t this big already but you will be most glad that the Vinedresser hasn’t stopped.