THE MYSTERY OF THE UNFRUITFUL BRANCH

John 15:1-8 is a powerful portion of Scripture. I find something both appealing and comforting in the picture that Jesus painted in this passage. His Father is the husbandman/vinedresser, Jesus is the vine, we are the branches, and the vineyard is the Kingdom of God.

I must admit, however, that a couple of things Jesus had to say in the first three verses were a mystery to me. One statement seemed to be contradictory and harsh and the other did not seem to fit in the flow of the passage. So, like any good Spirit-filled believer, I just ignored those statements and pretended they were not there!

The first statement that bothered me was in verse two: “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away.” I cannot begin to count the number of times I have heard preachers say that this is God’s purging of unfruitful branches—that if you do not bear fruit, He will cut you off! I find this thinking to be contradictory to verse five: “He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit.” How can one verse say that a branch in Him that does not bear fruit will get cut off and another say, categorically, if you are in Him you will bear fruit? To take both of those statements at face value could cause me to be more schizophrenic than I already am!

The second thing that troubled me was verse three, which to me seemed like it was a parenthetical statement. The verse says, “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” This is a powerful statement but what does it have to do with an unfruitful branch of the previous verse? It seemed to me that this very clear and strong word just somehow did not belong in this passage.

Let’s see if we can unravel this mystery!

Bruce Wilkinson, founder of Walk Thru the Bible Ministries, is probably best known for his very popular book The Prayer of Jabez. In one of his other writings, Wilkinson tells the story of being at a pastors’ conference on the West Coast. After one of the sessions, he was approached by a man who had a question for him: “Do you understand John 15?” Bruce responded, “Not completely.” The man then told him, “I own a large vineyard in Northern California and I think I may have some insights that would be helpful.” The two men arranged a time to meet and talk.

Sitting at a table in a nearby restaurant, Wilkinson and the man began to converse about the life of a grower and the work involved. The vineyard owner explained, “New branches have a tendency to trail downward and grow along the ground but they do not bear fruit down there. Instead, they get covered in dust and dirt, and if it rains they get muddy and often become mildewed. Also, these ‘on the ground’ branches become sickly and useless.”

“What do you do then?” Wilkinson asked. “Do you prune them, cut them off and throw them away?”

“Oh, no, these branches are much too valuable for that,” the owner explained. “We are constantly in the vineyard looking for branches that have grown down and are trailing along the ground. When we find one, we lift it up, take clean water and wash it off and then secure it back up on the trellis. Before long the branch is growing and bearing fruit again.”

As I read this account, I had a “revelatory moment.” Suddenly I understood verses two and three of John 15 in a brand-new way. Isn’t that just like the Father and the Son to say to us, “You have been growing along the ground and gotten dusty, dirty and covered with mildew. I will pick you up, clean you off, and put you back where you belong! It won’t be long before you are fruitful because Life will be flowing through you!”

The old English phrase, “He takes away,” does not carry well into the 21st century. The original language for this phrase means “to lift up, to elevate, to move from where it was” and does not refer to pruning or purging. Jesus does go on in verse two to say that He will prune branches that are not bearing fruit. He will cut off old growth that is now dead, so that the branches can again bear fruit. We must never be afraid of letting Him remove “old, dead growth” so that we can be more fruitful.

In verse three Jesus says, “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” The word clean used here is the root word for cleansed as it is used in 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Cleanse means to be free from the defilement of sin, faults and wickedness.

God is the Lord of the vineyard. Not only is He the owner, but He is an active owner, the husbandman/caretaker. He is personally extending care to us; He lifts us up when we have fallen; and He restores us so that we can again be fruitful!

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

THE ABUNDANT LIFE

 “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

The tenth chapter of John is about Jesus, the Good Shepherd. A shepherd is one who cares for and watches over his sheep to protect, feed and guide. In this chapter Jesus contrasts His purpose in life and ministry with that of our enemy, the devil. He calls the devil a thief whose sole purpose is to rob, steal and destroy. In contrast, Jesus says that His purpose is to make provision for those who follow Him to have “life” and to have it “more abundantly.”

The word “thief” means embezzler, pilferer, and the picture that emerges is that our enemy operates in the shadows, in the dark. Those who embezzle do so very quietly, in secret. A few years ago I was helping a church in Alabama conduct an outreach program and while I was there the pastor discovered that his secretary had embezzled thousands of dollars from the church. She took a few hundred dollars at a time by taking advantage of the trust and confidence of the leadership. She used a check request system to her personal advantage and no one noticed for many months. The devil is an embezzler, a pilferer. His most devastating work in the life of a believer is not pornography or promiscuity (as bad as they are) but it is stealing away truth, stealing away our dreams and promises, stealing away the abundant life that God has given us. All of a sudden we realize that our dreams and promises are gone—a robbery has taken place and we weren’t paying attention.

A shepherd is one who tends, guides, cherishes, feeds and protects his flock. The shepherd watches over the “life” of his sheep, every part of it. I don’t know much about shepherding but I’ve attempted to understand Jesus’ frequent references to being a shepherd. I have done a lot of reading and research in an attempt to get a grasp on the meaning of the word “shepherd” as it’s used in the Bible. One of the things I learned is that Holy Land shepherds often constructed hut-like buildings where they put the sheep at night for protection. In John 10:1 Jesus refers to this as the sheepfold. Once the sheep were inside and settled down, the shepherd closed the door and made his bed right inside, across the threshold. No intruder could get at the sheep without first going through the shepherd.

When we stay tightly connected to the Shepherd of our life, the enemy is not going to be able to steal away our “abundant life.” It is His pleasure to protect the door of our life and not allow the thief to enter. When our life in Him is casual, the door is open to the enemy’s pilfering.

In verse 10, Jesus says that He has come that we might have a real, genuine, full life. He then goes on to say about this life, “That they may have it more abundantly.” It has taken me a while to understand that the life Jesus was referring to was more about me than it was about the circumstances of my life. Our world is conditioned to perceive “abundant life” as being made up of things: possessions, money, position, even our physical appearance and health. The truth is that these are blessings but they are not life; they are the cosmetics rather than the substance of the “abundant life.” A person who has life and has learned to live it abundantly is a person who has learned to live the life God has given him or her to the fullest extent possible. Some of the most “abundant lifers” in Christ have very little in the way of possessions; others have tremendous physical struggles but they have learned to live life fully and completely in the Lord and they are happy and fulfilled people. I recently read Philip Yancey’s book Where is God When it Hurts? and I was very inspired and moved by his chapter on Joni Eareckson Tada. In spite of her extreme physical limitations, Joni lives out, very clearly, the abundant life Jesus was talking about.

Speaking to the Pharisees about a life bearing good or bad fruit, Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34, NKJV). The original word here for abundance and the word abundant in John 10:10 both come from the same Greek root word meaning “to be furnished so richly that the person has an overflow.” That’s the life Christ wants for us and has provided for us—and it is the one the enemy wants to steal. The abundant life’s dwelling place is in the heart and that is what we are to guard and nurture; everything else, such as money, possessions and position, are just peripheral and cosmetic.

I choose to live the abundant life in Christ. I don’t have a lot of things but I have a full and peaceful heart centered in Christ. Also, my life is filled with family and friends I dearly love, so what more could I ask? My life truly is full and abundant!

A KEY TO LIVING IN THE BLESSING OF GOD

I want to share a brief excerpt from a book by Pastor Claude Houde, who is the pastor of New Life Church in Montreal. This portion of Canada has been difficult for Protestant Christianity to penetrate as Quebec is predominately Roman Catholic. The average Protestant church in Quebec has a very small attendance and most towns might have only one Protestant church. Pastor Claude’s church is one of the most successful evangelical churches in Quebec with a weekly attendance over 3500.

In 1985, prior to starting his church in Montreal, Pastor Claude became friends with David Wilkerson, whom he later assisted as an interpreter when Wilkerson conducted crusades or pastors’ conferences in the French-speaking world.

Read the following story carefully and I believe you will discover, as Pastor Claude did, one of the keys to living in the blessing of God. 

Here’s the story from Claude Houde’s book, Increase Our Faith.

" I had just shared the Word at Times Square Church. Pastor David Wilkerson and I had eaten supper together. It is always an honor to have these moments with him. It was late and we were walking back together. I remember that it was several months before our church was to open and I wanted to ask him for counsel. Pastor David is the author of more than forty books; his written testimony, The Cross and the Switchblade, has been, for over thirty years, one of the most-read Christian books in the world, having been translated into dozens of languages. The Teen Challenge Centers he founded are bringing freedom to addicts all over the world. The church he pioneered in Manhattan serves over 8,000 members and every year reaches out to millions through the Internet. Brother Dave is the founder of World Challenge, a Christian organization supporting missions around the world, as well as countless other ministries, touching millions. In his latter years, he has spoken in conferences to thousands of pastors face to face and is considered to be one of the men who truly marked our generation for God.

I was a bit nervous. Pastor Wilkerson is a very humble man, nice, kind and considerate, yet he is also extremely serious and very intense. I love, respect and admire him and am so grateful for all he has done for me and the work of God in the French world. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. I knew what he thought of quick-fix methodologies for church growth. He doesn’t care for 7 keys to this, 8 steps to that, 9 guaranteed secrets to . . . etc. He has prayed, listened to God and served Him, seeking to please Him for more than 50 years and has built ministries that have touched the world. As I was walking with him through the crowded streets of New York, lit as brightly as if it were day, I suddenly got up the courage and blurted out, “Pastor Dave, we are soon going to begin our church. Do you have a key, a piece of advice you would like to share with me? What I’m trying to say is, if there was one thing that I should do or that I should know, what would you say it is?”

I was astounded by his answer. He stopped dead in his tracks and began to say with amazing intensity and a burning passion, “You want to know what the key is? Do you really want to know? There’ve been others who have asked me the same question. They didn’t believe me. Oh, they listened, but they never put it into practice. Some even tried a little bit and then got discouraged. Do you really want to know?”

I have to admit that at that point, I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to know after all! But it was too late, so I answered him in a faltering voice, “Yes sir, I really would like to know.” All of a sudden, his expression and his tone of voice changed. His entire face lit up. Like a child who knows a secret, he said, “Find the poor! Give to the poor! Help the poor! Put your heart and your passion to helping people who will never be able to pay you back or do anything for you.” Then he paused for a second and with absolute joy, he added, “And then watch God bless you!” ”

What Pastor Claude learned that day from David Wilkerson became a guiding principle for the new church he was about to plant in Montreal and the same principle continues to guide the church today! I know this will be a blessing to those who will hear and do!

Blessed is the one who considers [is kind to] the poor!
    In the day of trouble the Lord delivers him;
² the Lord protects him and keeps him alive;
    he is called blessed in the land;
    you do not give him up to the will of his enemies.
³ The Lord sustains him on his sickbed;
    in his illness you restore him to full health. (Psalm 41:1-3, ESV)