Gospel Fruit the Test of Genuine Discipleship

Next Part Gospel Fruit the Test of Genuine Discipleship 2

"Herein is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be My disciples." John 15:8

Why does the farmer, at this season of the year, cast into the bosom of the earth so much valuable corn? That at harvest time he may reap a crop. Why does the gardener now transplant fruit trees, and put them by the side of a sunny wall? That those trees, when their bearing season comes, may produce rich and ripe fruit. If the farmer reap no crop, if the gardener gathers no fruit, each is disappointed, and they would conclude, either that the seed was bad and the tree worthless, or that there was something wrong about the soil. So it is in grace. Why does God sow the seed of His Word in the heart of any? or why does He plant any tree of righteousness in His garden here below? That there may spring from the one a crop which may issue in His glory; and that fruit may be found on the other which shall be acceptable in His sight.

How much and how pointedly does the Lord Jesus Christ in this chapter insist upon fruit as a mark and evidence of true discipleship! With what unsparing hand does He cut off the branches that bear no fruit, and what a fearful doom does He pronounce upon them! And how He brings before our eyes His heavenly Father, investing Him with that striking character of "a husbandman," whose office it is to take away the fruitless and purge the fruit-bearing branches. "I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away, and every branch that bears fruit He purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit." But the Lord seems to sum up the whole in the words before us, in which He speaks as if He would urge the strongest motives upon His followers to induce them to live to His glory. "Herein is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be My disciples."

In speaking from these words, I shall, with God's blessing, endeavor to show—
What it is to bear much fruit.
How God is glorified thereby.
That to bear much fruit is a mark and test of genuine discipleship.

I. What it is to bear much fruit. In looking at our first point, the bearing of much fruit, I shall endeavor mainly to show three things—
1. that this fruit is not found in any heart by nature;
2. the source whence this fruit comes;
3. the nature of the fruit thus produced.

1. This fruit is not found in any heart by nature. Now, upon the first of these points we have not only the unanimous experience of God's people, but the positive assertion of Him who cannot lie, of Him who is Incarnate Truth itself. "Without Me," He says, "you can do nothing." This declaration from the Redeemer's own lips should be decisive; it should stop at once all disputing; and we should bow down to it with hearty assent, as being convinced of it, not only from our own experience, but also from the infallible authority of the Lord Himself. In the margin it reads "severed from Me," that is, disunited from Me; in other words, "without union with Me" you can do nothing. All fruit, therefore, or appearance of fruit, which is not produced by virtue of a living and spiritual union with the Lord Jesus, whatever fair show it may assume, however shapely and beautiful it may look to the eye, is not such as God is glorified by; nor is it that which forms a test of genuine discipleship.

Amid all the wreck and ruin which sin has wrought in this once fair world, amid all the hideous forms of wickedness and selfishness which everywhere meet our eye, we cannot but be struck with the exceeding loveliness of some people, and with the devotedness, self-denial, liberality, and religious zeal of others. It may seem harsh and unwarrantable to throw all this fruit rudely on the ground, and crush it under foot as worthless. But we must not call that gospel fruit which is not produced by the gospel, nor pronounce that spiritual fruit which is not the fruit of the Spirit. Nature can, and indeed does, produce much that wears a very close resemblance to gospel fruit; but it puts me in mind of what one sometimes sees made by the skillful fingers of young ladies—what is called wax fruit. I have seen sometimes under glass shades, fruit so ingeniously made, so artistically shaped, and so beautifully tinted, that at first sight I could scarcely distinguish it from real. But were you closely to examine it, were you to touch it, smell it, and taste it, you would find it destitute of every qualification that constitutes fruit. It never grew on a tree, it possesses no flavor, contains no juice, the sun never ripened it, the dew never mellowed it; human fingers, and human fingers alone, manufactured it. However neatly molded and beautifully colored, it is, after all, but a piece of dead wax, a deceptive imitation, a false appearance, meant merely to catch and please the eye.

So there may be in many people, amid the various sections of the religious world, an appearance of fruit, much that resembles, and even externally surpasses, the fruit which grows upon the gospel tree, as the waxen fruit may to the eye be more beautiful than the real, the choicest fruit alone being imitated; and yet it lacks the gospel flavor, the gospel substance, the gospel reality, and the gospel vitality. It never grew upon the gospel tree, and, with all its outward beauty, is only a wax imitation, wrought by the skillful fingers of the dexterous craftsman, at best a cheat and a sham.

Again, there may be fruit which differs from this imitation fruit in having a certain kind of life in it, but, after all, is only what one may call hedge fruit– crab-apples, only fit for the teeth and stomach of plough-boys. Now, as no one but a plough-boy would presume to say that these products of a wild crab-tree are worthy of the name of fruit, that term being properly reserved for the product of the garden and orchard, so whatever fruit springs out of a man's natural heart, and is produced by mere human exertions, can only be truly characterized as hedge fruit.

This, therefore, we may lay down as a most certain truth, that every product of nature, however wearing the appearance of religion, from the highest Calvinism, the wax imitation, to the most groveling Arminianism, the sour crab-apple, cannot be called gospel fruit. It does not flow from union with Christ; it does not grow in the gospel garden; it is not matured by the dew and rain of the Spirit; and it is not ripened by the Sun of righteousness. It lacks, therefore, every qualification of gospel fruit—the fruit here spoken of whereby God is glorified, and whereby His people are manifested as true disciples of the Lord Jesus.

2. But this leads us to look more closely at the only SOURCE of all gospel fruit. The Lord Himself sets forth this point in a most beautiful and blessed manner. "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abides in the vine, no more can you except you abide in Me." He here declares the original source and continued production of all true fruit. It springs, in the first instance, wholly and solely out of union with Himself, and is maintained by an abiding in Him. The branch cannot bear fruit of itself. No life is in it, no fruit is on it, but as it grows out of and maintains its union with the stem. It has no independent, self-sustained life, sap, or fruitfulness. All these it derives from its union with the stem, living only in its life, and growing only with its strength. The natural vine is a beautiful emblem and representation of this. In the same way, then, as the natural vine pushes forth the bud out of itself, which expands into a branch, upon which branch the grapes grow, deriving all their substance, shape, and flavor from the sap that flows into them from the stem, so all gospel fruit is procured by the spiritual branch having first union with the Lord Jesus Christ, and then receiving out of His fullness those supplies of heavenly grace whereby fruit is borne and matured to His honor and glory.

But before we can realize in our own souls this heavenly union, so as to become by virtue of it gospel fruit bearers, we must be taught and brought to see and feel that without Christ we can do nothing; and the conviction of this must not be a mere matter of doctrine or theory, the easily adopted article of a religious creed, but must be so deeply wrought into our hearts as to become a living part and parcel of our daily experience. Many sighs and cries, groans and desires, must have been elicited from a conviction of our helplessness, barrenness, and unworthiness before we shall realize such a vital union with the Son of God as sensibly to receive out of His fullness. And when we have felt this living union which springs out of a manifestation of Christ and a receiving of Him into the heart by faith and love, we must also, through the operation of the blessed Spirit, receive such continued communications out of His inexhaustible fullness as to maintain the union thus realized. To experience this is to experience the inflowing and incoming of the sap out of the stem into the branch. As, then, out of the stem, by virtue of the sap, the bud was first formed, which became lengthened into the branch, so from the same sap the branch, when grown, pushes forth leaves, flower, and fruit, the latter gradually swelling and ripening until fit for the winepress or the table.

3. But, leaving the natural figure, we will now look a little more closely at the NATURE of the fruit that grows upon the gospel tree, and is produced by virtue of a living union with the Lord Jesus. We may divide gospel fruit into three leading kinds—fruit in the heart, fruit in the lips, and fruit in the life; and these three we will examine separately.

A. The fruit of the HEART is first in origin and first in value. The other two being worthless without it, it justly takes precedence of them. As God looks to and works on the heart, the production of heart fruit is His special prerogative. We therefore read that "He works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure," and declares, "from Me is your fruit found." He it is who by His good and gracious Spirit produces and brings forth every grace in the soul. Some of these we may consider.

1. First, then, there is the fear of God, which in two places of Scripture the blessed Spirit declares to be "the beginning of wisdom." Whatever slavish fears may work in the natural conscience, there is no filial, godly fear in the soul which is not derived from union with Christ, and does not come out of His glorious and inexhaustible fullness. It is, therefore, a new covenant grace, the special implantation of God's own hand. "I will put," the Lord Himself says, "My fear in their heart, that they shall not depart from Me." This fruit being the beginning of wisdom, all other gifts and graces of the Spirit will certainly and necessarily follow.

2. Faith, therefore, that special gift of God and choice grace of the Spirit, is eminently a gospel fruit of the heart. Speaking of faith last Lord's day morning, I called her the queen of graces. We may well say, therefore, that faith is a most excellent fruit of the heart, and assign it a first and foremost place among the fruits that grow on the gospel tree, as springing so eminently out of union with the Lord Jesus, for "with the heart man believes unto righteousness." It is by faith that this union is first experimentally produced, and it is by faith that it is subsequently maintained; for through it as a living channel all sap and virtue flow out of the Lord Jesus Christ into the soul. There is therefore no grace more highly spoken of and commended in both Old and New Testaments.

3. And what shall I say of hope? Is not hope too a fruit of the heart? Does it not grow a fair and goodly fruit on the gospel tree? What "good hope" is there except "through grace" producing union with Christ? and what hope is there which makes not ashamed that does not spring out of the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit? and where but within does hope dwell? Every ray of gospel hope flows out of union with Christ, and is received out of His fullness, as every well-grounded expectation of being with Him in glory springs from some manifestation of His favor and love.

4. Every warm feeling of love towards His name, truth, cause, and people—is not this too another fruit of the heart which flows into the soul from its union with the Lord Jesus? This is the crowning fruit, the richest, choicest, and ripest that is found among the clusters, as well as the highest and most distinguishing mark of true discipleship. "If you love Me keep My commandments." "By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one to another."

So might I run through every inward fruit, such as repentance and godly sorrow for sin, contrition of spirit, humility of mind, prayer, watchfulness, with every grace whereby a Christian is inwardly adorned, and show that they all grow upon the gospel tree, and all spring out of union and communion with the Lord Jesus. May we not say, then, of one who is blessed with the possession of these fruits of the heart, that he resembles the king's daughter, who is "all glorious within," as adorned with every grace of the Spirit, as well as all resplendent without in her "clothing of wrought gold," the righteousness of her spotless Head?

B. Now from fruit in the heart there springs fruit in the LIP, "for with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Rom. 10:10). As faith is heart fruit, so confession is lip fruit, and as the former is unto righteousness, so the latter is unto salvation. But as to believe with a justifying faith is of God, His gift and work, so to confess with a saving confession is of the same divine operation. "I create," He says, "the fruit of the lips." This fruit of the lips we give Him when, in spite of all opposition from without and from within, we confess His holy name before an ungodly world. The order of divine fruitfulness may therefore be thus laid out. The Lord first plants His fear deep in the heart. With this grace He at the same time communicates faith, which, indeed, is the main source and spring of godly fear; and as He draws forth faith into living exercise upon the word of His promise, it credits His testimony concerning Jesus, and thus sets to its seal that God is true. This is heart fruit. But as the Lord proceeds to bless the soul with manifestations of His mercy and goodness, He raises up a spirit of thankfulness and praise, which issue forth from the lips.

1. This is putting a new song into the mouth, as was the case with the children of Israel (Exod. 15), Hannah (1 Sam. 2), David (Ps. 40:3), Hezekiah (Isa. 38), and the Virgin Mary (Luke 1:46); and this song of praise for manifested mercy is the first fruit of the lips which God is said to create.

2. From this secret song of praise flows the second fruit of the lips, which is confession of Him openly before man. This consists in making a public profession, boldly declaring on whose side we stand, in not being ashamed of the Lord Jesus in the face of His scornful and bitter enemies, in bearing His cross, carrying it upon a bold shoulder, and, though sometimes galled with the weight, still to sustain its load, remaining faithful unto death, that we may obtain a crown of life.

3. To speak a word in season to the Lord's tried and tempted family, and out of your own experience, so far as enabled, to bring forward something that He may have done for your soul, is another fruit of the lip, and one whereby the Lord is glorified and His people edified.

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