Our text comes from John 13 - 17, a magnificent unit of scripture which unfolds the actions
and teachings of Jesus on the night before his death. During the pre-Passover supper (John
13: 1), Jesus laid aside his garments, girded himself with a towel, poured water into a basin
and began to wash the disciples' feet (John 13: 4-5).
Later in that same chapter he gave the disciples the new commandment, "Love one another
as I have loved you." (John 13: 34) The next chapter begins with the beloved words of
comfort, "Let not your hearts be troubled...." and continues with the ringing assurance,
"Because I live, you will live also." (John 14: 1, 19) Then comes the promise of the Holy
Spirit, the counselor and comforter and teacher, followed by the great blessing, "Peace I
leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not
your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." (John 14: 25-28)
The chapter ends with Jesus saying, "Rise, let us be on our way." (John 14: 31b) I take this
to mean that at this moment Jesus and the eleven (Judas has left [John 13: 30]) came down
from the upper room and walked around the Temple Mount to the Garden of Gethsemane.
(A. M. Hunter, The Gospel According to John [Cambridge: Cambridge Universe Press]
1965, p. 146)
Since Jesus often used passing objects, arriving persons or interruptions as occasions for
teaching, it is quite likely that when he begins John 15 saying, "I am the vine," he may have
been able to point toward the Temple mount where the great golden vine upon the front of
the Temple gate was bathed in the light of the full Passover moon. (William Barclay, The
Gospel of John, Vol. 2, rev. ed. [Philadelphia: Westminster Press] 1975 p. 172; Hunter, op.
cit., p. 148)
VINE AND BRANCHES - THE PATTERN FOR THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
In this setting so charged with meaning comes John 15: 1ff. with their teaching of the vine
and the branches as the pattern of the Christian believer's life. (Bruce M. Metzger and
Roland E. Murphy, editors, The New Oxford Annotated Bible [New York: Oxford University
Press] 1991, p. 149 nt)
I. THE RELATION TO CHRIST - abide
The vine was a widely recognized symbol for God's people. Passages such as Isaiah 5: 1-7
and Psalm 80: 8ff. come to mind. The vine appears on Maccabean coins to represent Israel.
When Jesus said, "I am the true vine," he was declaring that the personified and embodiedwhat God wanted his people to be. As he spoke of the vine and abiding, he was also
gathering into the consciousness of his followers several other images.
At the Lord's Supper he spoke of "the fruit of the vine" (Matthew 26: 29). He would tap
into the language of abiding in Luke 24: 29. On the road to Emmaus Jesus hears the
gracious invitation, "`Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.' And
he went in to tarry with them." (KJV)
He had used the language of abiding just a few verses before today's text from John 15. In
John 14: 2, 23, "In my Father's house there are many abiding places...Those who love me
will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our
abiding place with them."
Let me explain why I did not read, "In my Father's house are many mansions." "Mansions"
comes straight from William Tyndale's use of Jerome's Latin Vulgate translation. (William
Hull, "John," Broadman Bible Commentary, Vol. 9, Luke-John, edited by Clifton J. Allen
[Nashville: Broadman Press] 1970, p. 333) Jerome used the word mansiones ("In domo
Patris mei mansiones multae sunt..")
The Latin word Jerome used comes from the verb which means "abide" - maneo. The -mn-
root appears in our word "remain." The future active participle of maneo is mansurus
(where else but Woodbrook would you get this?) The root -mns- appears in the word
"mansion."
Now mansiones and "mansion" may have meant "abiding place" to Jerome and Tyndale, but
most of us on hearing about the many mansions in our Father's house incorrectly assumed
that in heaven we would all have a really big house. As a child I pictured homes on
Cherokee Parkway in Louisville, Kentucky, and asked my parents if we would all live in one
of those in heaven. Mother sighed about cleaning and dusting such a place; Dad groaned
about the yard. When I came to this part of the country on a trip at age 12 and saw Mt.
Vernon, I adjusted my eschatology and prepared to move into a Mt. Vernon type mansion in
heaven one day.
But Jesus says it is enough simply to abide, to remain as branches with a vine - a perfect
union which is productive, fruit bearing.
In John 14: 23 Jesus makes it clear that if we keep his word, he and the Father will come
and make their abiding place (or mansion, if you must!) with us. It begins as soon as we
join ourselves to him; we continue to abide in him and to remain with him now and in
eternity. This is the way the believer relates to Christ.
II. THE VOCATION WITH CHRIST - fruit bearing
We need to be clear about the meaning of "fruit bearing." I suspect that in most"conservative, evangelical, Great Commission" settings (pick your label!), the term is
associated with "soul winning" and evangelism. And that is certainly part of fruit
bearing.
But fruit bearing is more than soul winning. Paul makes it clear in Colossians 1: 10 that
bearing fruit involves "every good work." To me that means evangelism, missions,
ministry, education, fellowship, worship - the range of the disciple's life.
Fruit bearing in Galatians 5: 22-23 begins with the Holy Spirit working within us to produce
certain behaviors:
love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Such Spirit-informed action springs from union with Christ through prayer (John 15: 5) and
from cleansing by the word (John 15: 3). We sang Sweet Hour of Prayer this morning
not just because it is cited on the front of the bulletin, but because prayer is always a part of
the Christian's fruit bearing vocation.
In the successful "Together We Build" program, we began with a concentrated time of
prayer. If are to move now from "Together We Build" to "Together We Grow, " that is, "Together We Bear Fruit," then there must be intense, continuing, focused prayer.
III. LOVING OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST - joy
The content of the relationship with Christ is joy flowing from obedience and obedience
flowing from joy. Jesus is not looking for followers who are marked by smug satisfaction in
a quiet religion limited to a self-serving quiet time. Nor does he seek disciples who indulge
in the noisy religion of big-beat ecstasy. He wants people of joy, love and obedience.
"Abide in my love." (John 15: 3) Our behavior is based on love, not fear; love, not duty;
love, not legalism; love, not compulsion. A couple may be faithful to one another because
they fear the emotional, legal, social or financial consequences of infidelity, but the best
reason for marital fidelity is love. Each partner loves the other so much, finds such joy in
the unity with the other that neither would ever do anything to jeopardize the love and joy
that shape the marital behavior.
So it is with our unity with Christ. We abide in him, are one with him, love him, find joy
in him - and this relationship shapes our behavior. God forbid that we would ever do
anything to jeopardize the love and joy that shapes our obedience.
Now let us turn from these three dimensions of the believer's life and talk about fruit bearing
at Woodbrook, first from an institutional and then from a biblical perspective.
WHY WOODBROOK MUST BEAR FRUIT
I. INSTITUTIONALREASONS
A. Tools for Fruit Bearing
We are building a new sanctuary and expanding our current facilities to have a tool for
bearing fruit. We are not building because we have an "edifice complex" but because we
want to grow and understand that our building will be a means to that end through enhanced
worship and educational facilities.
We do not have a Field of Dreams philosophy - "if you build it, they will come" - although
some will come, and we welcome them! We build to fulfill our identity as a worshipping
community, committed to a kind of worship which is ancient and contemporary.
Our building signals these timeless and timely values. A tower with a cross bears witness
that we are church; our contemporary architecture declares that the gospel is fresh and
relevant to our time.
(Our building is neither the red brick colonial architecture of the established church of early
Virginia nor the Gothic architecture of another continent and another time. The powers that
governed in those structures had no use for Baptists. They threw the likes of us into stocks
or jail, drowned or burned our forbears at the stake. Why Baptists would want to build
houses of worship in a colonial or Gothic style is beyond me!)
A son of our church in the ministry, David Denham, in a 125th anniversary sermon called to
our attention how long we have been with inadequate facilities. From March 15, 1961,
when agents of the Baltimore Urban Renewal and Housing Authority accidentally made our
Church House (educational building) unsafe to use, leading to its ultimate demolition, until
we relocated here on Easter Sunday 1969, we were without adequate educational facilities.
From Easter 1969 until we move into our new sanctuary sometime this summer, we will
have been without adequate worship facilities. That's 36 years without the tools we need for
both worship and education, the heart of our church's ministry and identity. I think we have
done a pretty good job of just holding our own under these circumstances. But soon we may
not cite our facilities as an excuse for not bearing fruit. Our joy will be great when the
building program is completed, but our responsibility to bear fruit will be greater. "From
everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom
much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded." (Luke 12: 48)
B. The Curse of Being a Medium Sized Church
When our most recent Future of the Church Committee was gathering resources for our self-study, we read Lyle Shaller's books, and we saw in print what we knew in reality. (LyleShaller, The Local Church Looks to the Future: A Guide to Church Planning [Nashville:
Abingdon Press] 1968) Although we are larger than 50% of Southern Baptist Churches, we
are what is called "a medium sized church." Medium sized churches have expectations for
program and finances which are greater than their human and monetary resources. The
result is overworked leadership and undersubscribed budgets.
So far Woodbrook has managed to cope in spite of living under the curse of being a medium
sized church. We are coping because there are committed but gravely overextended leaders
"hanging in there" to compensate for needs for more people to fill leadership roles. We are
coping because we have a generous endowment which covers our considerable deficit. But
we cannot go on in this manner - eventually the people will burn out, and the money will
run out. There are profoundly serious institutional reasons to bear fruit.
II. BIBLICAL REASONS
Already this morning I have cited Paul on fruit bearing in every good work (Col. 1: 10) and
in the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5: 22-23):
love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Let me conclude by citing from John 15 the reasons for bearing fruit. Today's sermon ends
with no death-bed story, no poem, no illustration, just the words of Jesus in the elegant
simplicity of the 4th gospel.
(I will resist the temptation to steal from the Nike commercials and say, "Just Do It," and
the church will go "swoosh!" That would be tacky, and more is at stake here than athletic
footwear.)
There are substantial reasons for bearing fruit as Jesus gives them in John 15.
(1) The Father removes every branch in Christ which bears no fruit. (v. 2) These branches
get burned. (v. 6) The debate as to where they get burned - hell or somewhere else - is
irrelevant. Who wants to be burned wherever?
(2) If we bear some fruit, we will bear more!
The Father cleanses (prunes) every branch that bears fruit to make it bear more fruit. (v. 2)
The positive cycle of fruit bearing builds on itself, "snowballs," into an ever increasing
harvest.
(3) Bearing fruit gives us strength for intercessory prayer. Jesus says, "If you abide in me,
and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you. By this my
Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit..." (vv. 7-8)
Jesus does not say that we will get whatever we ask; he does teach that when there is the
right kind of abiding, there will be the right kind of praying, the kind of prayers God can
grant, the kind of prayers that glorify the Father, the kind that bear fruit. Ask whatever you
wish with the understanding that union with Christ shapes the wish!
(4) Bearing fruit is a sign of Jesus' presence. If we are bearing fruit, then Jesus surely is
among us, for, as he said, "apart from me you can do nothing" (v. 5). Keeping his
commandments means that we are abiding in his love. (v. 10)
(5) Jesus commanded it (v. 10). We began our service by singing We've A Story to Tell to
the Nations, "a story of peace and light..., to conquer evil and shatter the spear and
sword..., to show that God is love..., that all of the world's great peoples may come to the
truth of God." (Baptist Hymnal, edited by Wesley L. Forbis [Nashville: Convention Press]
1991, H. Ernest Nichol, "We've A Story to Tell to the Nations," No. 586) The commands
of the Son of God who died for us are to be taken seriously and joyfully.
(6) The Father is glorified (v. 8). This motivation was supreme in Jesus' ministry, and it
must be in ours. We are to bear fruit not simply to fill a building, not simply to find relief
for pressing institutional needs, but because Jesus would have us glorify our God of grace
and glory.
CONCLUSION
A Baptist pastor once wrote a hymn for the congregation to sing on its first Sunday in a new
sanctuary. I do not know if Harry Emerson Fosdick had John 15 specifically in mind when
he wrote God of Grace and God of Glory, but he surely incorporated many of its strong
biblical themes. (A New Hymnal for Colleges and Schools edited by Jeffrey Rowthorn and
Russell Schulz-Widmar [New Haven: Yale University Press] 1992, "God of Grace and God
of Glory," No. 544)
The hymn is a prayer to pour power on God's people, a prayer for God to
gird our lives that we may be strengthened with all Christ-like graces, a prayer that the
search for salvation will "be our glory evermore."
