March 20, 2008:Traditions	Just a few more weary days and then... I'll fly away... And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
	December 29, 2007:New Year's 2008
	November 3, 2007:How To Be Successful in Christian Ministry
	October 23, 2007:Salmon

I Am the True Vine William H. Haller

Introduction

As Jesus is on his way to the garden after the Passover meal, he gives another discourse in His "I am" series. In this case, he illustrates His work and purpose in the imagery of a vineyard. As with the other scriptures recording these events, these words were spoken with the knowledge that He was about to die. We should certainly pay attention to everything that Christ says, but we should pay particular attention to those words he spoke to His disciples at the very end. Let's read the first 17 verses of John chapter 15.

The Vineyard

Let's look directly at what He said first, before waxing poetic. Jesus declares several things. He is the vine. The Father is the husbandman or vine dresser or grower, depending on the translation you use. The branches are the believers, according to verse 5. The Father is constantly at work tending the vine.

The branches have no power to produce any fruit on their own. Only by abiding in the vine will they ever produce fruit. However, there is an expectation on the part of the Father that since they are in the vine, they will produce fruit. The Father monitors their progress. The branches that aren't producing fruit are taken away from the vine. The branches that are bearing fruit are purged in order to bring more fruit.

Men who don't abide in Christ (who are pruned from the vine or are never grafted into the vine in the first place) are cast forth and wither. They are gathered up to be used as fuel for a fire.

When you think about what was about to happen, this, coupled with the following verses, was a pretty stern warning to stay true to Christ and to be fruitful. In what ways can bear fruit and in what ways are we actually bearing fruit?

As Individuals

As individuals, there are many ways that we can be fruitful.

• Reading God's Word: When first grafted into the vine, we need to get strength and knowledge before trying to do more for God. Reading and studying the Bible is a good place to start. From the New Testament, we can gain strength concerning how to walk a Christian life. We can see what the future holds by reading Revelation and Daniel. From the Old Testament, we can see the standards of God's Holiness and Mercy toward His people. Throughout, we can see how God's people dealt with adversity and success to get a good example of how we should and should not live. From cover to cover, there is something that can help us grow stronger.
• Prayer: Regardless of your station in life, you can employ prayer both for yourself and for others. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much (Jas 5:16).
• Holy Spirit: We can seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit. There is a direct comparison between this and our story today. What does the vine provide for the branches. Clearly, it hold them up out of the dirt and lifts them up where they can get sunlight. But it also provides living water and nutrients from the ground to the branches. It is this living flow that enables the branch to grow and produce fruit. If you don't have a good steady flow of nutrients, you are not going to produce much fruit. You might stay green, but you won't be rich enough to produce.
• Witnessing: We can tell others of what Christ has done in our lives. The Holy Spirit was given that we would have the strength to witness.

Fulfilling our Place in God's Work

There are many places in God's kingdom where we can do God's work and be fruitful.

• Attending Church: It is becoming more convenient to skip church and just watch religious TV, get involved with Internet ministries, or attend small groups and bypass traditional worship. Everyone needs to know that there are others close we can share our burdens and successes with. It isn't enough to subsist on some remote relationship with Christ's work. How can you be fruitful in such a situation? Do you recruit people to listen to Joel Osteen and call that fruit? Do you recruit people to a website and call that fruit? How do you know if they follow through more than once? All ministries are important, and many people are in fact won to Christ through televised and Internet efforts. But mankind is a gregarious animal. We need each other and the church is God's way of bringing that about. It is important to seek out a place where God can be depended on to be for strength.
• Working in the Church: Any church has a tremendous number of jobs that need filled. These range from very important greeters, to people who do maintenance work, to cleaners, to people hosting fellowship, to the more traditional roles of prayer warriors, musicians, teachers, deacons or elders, to becoming pastors of new churches, or becoming evangelists, missionaries, prophets, or other levels of responsibility. All have a part in producing fruit for the kingdom. Everyone may not fit into one of these roles, and should not try to fit in if they don't feel it is right for them.
• Works: Everyone can do good works and spread Christ's work further through these methods. Almost any church of any size has outreach ministries that always need a helping hand - either physical, financial, or spiritual. There are also many ministries that span wide ranges of churches that need your help. All can produce fruit for the kingdom if we will use our opportunities to witness for Him as the Spirit leads us.
• The Gifts and Fruit of the Spirit: The Holy Spirit provided gifts to those who are filled with the Holy Spirit to carry on the work of Christ. These are not for personal glory. They are used to build the church. When misused, they can destroy God's work. When used correctly and in order, they can allow God to produce extraordinary or miraculous amounts of fruit. Along with the gifts come the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit can likewise do great things in situations to spread Christ's work to new people if we couple it with witnessing when given the opportunity.

Remember that Jesus said that if you were in the vine, you would produce fruit. Some fruit is easier to see than other fruit. Some fruit takes longer to mature than other fruit. But if you are trying to do what God is directing you to do to the best of your ability, the husbandman is pleased. If you life has stagnated and you don't seem to be doing anything for the master, then you need to seek out what the Father wants you to be doing. It may be completely different than what you were doing 10 or 20 years ago because the needs of the field have changed since then. But if you pay attention to what the Father asks you to do, you will be fruitful.

Remember also that the warning was given to the church that Faith without Works is dead. You can't have a church that exists only for its own members. If your church isn't reaching out to the community, helping make life better for those in need, reaching the lost, then you are failing your purpose as a church. It is true that the churches duty is to make disciples and baptize new believers. But first you need to reach the new believers. If you are failing that first step, then you need to reevaluate. The vine wants to supply you with what you need to be fruitful. The Father wants you to succeed. It is up to you to carry out God's plans and make it happen.

The Fruit

What is the measure of the success? What is the fruit?

By almost any standard, I think that the fruit is measured by the increase in the kingdom that comes about due to our particular branch. For some mothers and fathers, that fruit might be simply Godly and God-fearing children who become strong Christians. That, in and of itself today is a mighty fruit. In many cases, particularly with prayer for distant people or other remote work like Internet and TV ministries, we won't know the results until we get to Heaven and hear the word directly from the Father.

It is hard to measure fruit as anything else. It is that good, sweet, produce of the vine that is most desired of the Father. He doesn't care about how big the church is. He doesn't care about how opulent the surroundings are where we worship. None of that will compare to heaven anyway. Indeed, some of the greatest fruit-bearing portions of the vine are in Africa and South America where there is little or no infrastructure that the American church is so proud of today. All they have is a bunch of people who love the Lord and are opening themselves to be used by the Father to reach others who need to hear the Word. God is moving in those places. Miracles are happening. Healings are occurring.

How does that compare to the church in America today? The lesson today says that the Father is cutting off the parts of the vine that don't produce fruit or that is diseased and dried up. The Anglican Communion recently decided to give the Episcopal Church of America a set time to come back in conformance to the Bible and the rest of the Communion. I hope they do for it is always bad to have division in the church. It is always a sad thing to be pruned. Where are we today? Would the Husbandman prune us as an unproductive branch or would He ask to fertilize us and give us another chance - if we don't produce next year then cut us down then? Has the Christian Church in America run out of chances?

It's Not Too Late

In the rest of this lesson, we see that even when the pruning shears are coming close, there is still hope. Christ declares that "If ye abide in me (are Christians), and my words abide in you (you are following the Bible), ye shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you." Why does he make this promise? He makes this promise so that the Father will be glorified and so that we will bear much fruit.

There are a lot of conditions on that promise. In the following verses, we are commanded to continue in Christ's live. We are commanded to keep Christ's commandments. His primary commandment, "That ye love one another, as I have loved you" is seen in verse 12. The extent of the love requested of His disciples is then seen in verse 13. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you." To give up our life can mean a literal death as Christ was about to suffer. It can also mean many other things - putting aside our own desires and wants for the benefit of someone else comes immediately to mind.

But the basic promise doesn't change. If we meet the conditions, we can ask what we will and know that Christ will grant it. We need to abide in the vine. We need to make sure that what we ask doesn't take us out of the vine. It would be hard to ask to be a billionaire and not run the risk of being so full of greed that you are out of the vine. I'm not sure what God's limits are. He is a Father to His adopted children. Fathers enjoy giving everything that they can to their children if they know that it will not hurt their children, if they have the ability to give it, and if their children don't abuse or treat the gift improperly when they receive it. God always has the ability to give the gifts, so this doesn't apply to Him. The only two things that apply to Him and whether He will answer your prayer is whether He feels what you ask for will destroy you or whether He has seen what you have done with the other things He has given you and isn't feeling inclined to give you anything else because you have broken, ignored, or abused what He has given you previously. Sometimes, He will decide to give you a gift even if He knows it will ultimately be bad for you as an object lesson. Sometimes He decided to answer your prayer in a slightly different or better way than we have expected. We need to give Him the glory and accept the gifts He gives no matter how they come.

We frequently pray, nonetheless, not my will but thine be done. When done as an admission that we don't know what is best for us and a prayer that God will look out for us, that is OK. We need to be careful to not use that as a cop out. The Bible has many references where God clearly expresses His desire to do something if we will ask in faith, nothing wavering. This is another instance. "Ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you." Just abide in the vine and have faith. Like most Father, I think He gets tired of hearing us couch our prayers in an "if you really want to you could do this, but if you don't that's OK." He wants the best for us. He wants to heal our hurts to bring glory to the Father through Christ Jesus. He doesn't want His children to suffer. Stand and ask as a child of the king.

Conclusion

When it comes to the vine of this story, we need to ask to be revitalized by the Holy Spirit so we can start producing fruit for the kingdom. Ask what ye will! Ask the Father to change the church for the better. Ask Him to enlarge your field. Ask Him to make your particular state be just as known as a Christian state as the State of Utah is for being a Mormon State.

Pray that He will move in the services. Pray for healings. Pray for miracles. Pray for prophecy for the saved and words in tongues and interpretation for the unsaved. Pray for discerning of spirits and knowledge and wisdom. Pray for faith that all these things will come about.

Pray that the fruit of the Spirit will be evident in your church. Let there be love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance found in your church at all times. Let it be a place where people can come and be refreshed from the troubles, trials, and tribulations of the week. Let it be a place of instruction and learning. Come and feed and be made strong to be ready for the next week.

Don't force the Father to take His pruning shears to you or your church.