In John 15, Jesus spoke to His disciples about being The Vine. If we remain in Him and He in us we will bear fruit. I would like to focus on one verse from that passage.
"By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.”
John 15:8
For most of my Christian life, I believed that the goal of preaching is to make the hearers believers or to convert them. Much later did I understand that believing is only the starting point. Jesus commanded His disciples to go into all the world and make disciples. The verse we read earlier provides one definition of being a disciple: one who bears much fruit.
Jesus didn't come into the world to make people believers. He came to save us from our sin and to make us a part of His kingdom.
Jesus came into this world and initiated a kingdom. Kingdom that is very different from the kingdoms of this world. A kingdom has a king, a dominion or a territory, subjects, and rules.
The kingdom of God also has all of them:
Our King is God in heaven.
The dominion or territory of God's kingdom is spiritual, and does not have physical boundaries. It's in fact beyond time as well.
Its subjects, and are disciples. So wherever you live on the Earth, you are subjects of His kingdom if we are His disciples. Again, not believers (who are in the periphery), but according to John 15:8, we become disciples by bearing fruit.
Laws: God's word written in our heart is the law of this kingdom, but the central commandment that encompasses everything is love.
We often focus on getting the theology correct, and the experience correct, but we get the life wrong. God is not pleased by perfect theology or amazing experiences. He is pleased when our lives reflect His glory by bearing fruit and we thereby become His disciples.
Jesus often spoke to his disciples in parables. Parables are simple stories with common elements familiar to the audience and present a moral message.
In the parable of the sower, Jesus spoke about a sower sowing seed that falls on four different types of soil. He speaks about what happens to each batch of seed.
The wayside: Some of the seed fell by the wayside. The seed was eaten by birds, so they never grew. Jesus explains and says that this seed is snatched away by the devil. The easiest way in which the devil can prevent the word from bearing fruit is by snatching it away before it bears fruit. We need to make sure that the word we hear and read is not lost by treating it with reverence and humility.
Rocky ground: the next type of ground we are here about is rocky ground. There is no room for roots to grow. When they receive the word, they receive it with great joy. However, when affliction or persecution comes on account of the word, they just fall away. The Bible says that it is because they did not have any root in themselves. We can rely on another persons experience or faith to carry us through the times of testing that will invariably come. Our pastor, elders, our family, our friends cannot carry us through situations for which we need our faith to overcome.
Among thorns: the third type of soil that we hear about had thorns growing in them. Jesus described three types of thorns: the worries of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things. These are so common in our life, and Jesus warns that they have the ability to choke the word such that the word does not bear fruit. If we look around and into our own lives, we might notice that this could be the most common type of soil. So often, the pressures of this world prevent us from the word bearing fruit in our lives.
The worries of this world. It is a certainty that there will be problems in our life. But let us not focus on our problems so much that they become a source for worry. We need to always have our focus on God Himself. Whatever we focus on we elevate. Sometimes we face a problem in life, we feel that the problem being removed by a supernatural act is what bearing fruit really is. Let us look at our Lord Jesus who is our example. Hebrews says that He was perfected by the things He suffered. ("For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. Heb 2:10) It does not mean that Jesus was less than perfect and became perfect. But that in each situation, from His childhood to the time of His death, in every situation, His response to every trouble, every temptation, every suffering was perfect in the eyes of God. When we face situations in life, that is how God wants us to bear fruit: respond in a way that is pleasing in the eyes of the Lord. That is bearing fruit.
Deceitfulness of Riches. Riches are deceitful because they deceive us when we think it gives us security, when we think that we have mastery over them and really do not, or when we think that if we accumulate enough we will be satisfied. The richest people in the world with obscene amounts of riches still don't think they have enough. It's a curse. Paul writes in 1 Tim 6:9-10, "Those who want to be rich, however, fall into temptation and become ensnared by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. By craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows." This is strict word of caution. We can observe that those that seek to become wealthy will be overcome by that desire and they will rarely be able to bear fruit. Paul, in multiple epistles, equated covetousness with idolatry. Wealth takes the place of God and becomes the object of our worship!
Desires for Other Things. In the verses preceding the ones quoted about in 1 Tim 6, Paul does tell that that we ought to be content having food and clothing. In Matthew 6, Jesus tells us that it is the gentiles that seek after food and clothes and we should only seek God's kingdom and His righteousness. Paul gives us a little bit of extra leeway allowing us to seek food and clothing! Before this, Paul does tell that that we ought to be content having food and clothing. In Matthew 6, Jesus tells us that it is the gentiles that seek after food and clothes and we should only seek God's kingdom and His righteousness. Paul gives us a little bit of extra leeway allowing us to seek food and clothing!
Good Soil: The fourth batch of seed fell on good soil, where it had good root, and the thorns were not present to choke the fruit. So the seed bore a thirty, sixty, and a hundred fold of crop. We ought to bear good fruit pleasing to the Master. We do that by doing the following
Making sure that the devil does not snatch away the word that is planted in our hearts
Making sure that we dig deep roots through our devotion to God, fellowship, worship, and sharing our faith
Making sure that the worries of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and desires for other things do not choke the fruit in our lives.
Let us bear much fruit for God's glory so that we might become the disciples of Christ indeed!