Christians can spend a lot of energy trying to become more fruitful. We try harder to be patient. We try harder to serve. We try harder to share our faith, become better people, overcome bad habits, and accomplish something meaningful for God. Eventually, all that striving can leave us tired and wondering why the Christian life sometimes feels more exhausting than joyful.
Jesus described a different way to live.
In John 15, He compared our relationship with Him to a grapevine. Jesus is the vine, His followers are the branches, and the Father is the gardener. A branch does not strain to manufacture grapes. It bears fruit because it remains connected to the vine.
That distinction has become increasingly important to me. We want to be fruitful Christians. We want God’s best for our lives. We want to accomplish what He has called us to do. But sometimes we become so focused on producing something for God that we neglect the relationship with Christ from which genuine spiritual fruit grows.
“When maybe if we were just abiding, maybe we’d do better.”
The primary emphasis of John 15 is not striving to produce fruit. It is abiding in Christ. Jesus says, “Remain in me, as I also remain in you” (John 15:4). When we remain connected to Jesus, He produces in us what we could never manufacture on our own.
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1. The Father Is the Gardener
Jesus begins John 15 with a simple picture: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.” God is not a distant observer waiting to see whether we can make something useful out of our lives. He is actively caring for the vineyard.
A gardener determines where a vine will grow. He waters it, feeds it, trains it, protects it, and prunes it. The branch’s responsibility is different. Its life comes from remaining connected to the vine.
This means that God is more invested in our spiritual growth than we are. He sees what He is developing in us even when we cannot see it ourselves.
I once visited a church in South America that had grapevines growing in its courtyard. There were actual grapes hanging there. I remember thinking how beautiful it was. But healthy vines do not happen accidentally. They require continual care.
Our spiritual lives are similar. God knows where growth is needed, where support is needed, and where something needs to change.
2. Pruning Can Feel Destructive While Producing Something Better
Jesus continues, “Every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful” (John 15:2).
Pruning is an interesting process because, to an inexperienced observer, it can look destructive. You cut away part of a healthy plant in order to improve its future growth.
Living in Minnesota, we understand that timing matters when pruning trees. Some trees should not receive major pruning during the warm growing season. There are seasons for directing growth and seasons for more significant cutting.
Life has seasons too. Sometimes God seems to be lifting us up, redirecting us, and helping us grow where we are. At other times, He allows significant changes. A responsibility ends. A relationship changes. A ministry season closes. Something that once received a great deal of our attention may no longer belong in the next season.
Those changes can hurt, but pruning is not necessarily evidence that the gardener has abandoned the plant. In fact, the opposite may be true. The gardener prunes because he cares about what the plant can become.
“The vine dresser is never nearer the branches than when he is pruning them.”
David Jeremiah
There may be areas of our thoughts, attitudes, commitments, behaviors, relationships, passions, or motives that God wants to prune. Sometimes the problem is not that everything we are doing is bad. We may simply be going in too many directions to become effective in the areas where God most wants us to grow.
When God Pruned Something From My Own Life
I remember a season when I was in high school and became convinced that I should stop listening to secular rock radio and listen to Christian radio instead. I am not suggesting that every Christian must make that exact decision. This was something I believed God was asking of me at that particular point in my life.
Christian music was different then. Some of it was pretty hard for a teenager who liked rock music to listen to. But the radio station also exposed me to Christian teaching. I listened to Chuck Swindoll, Focus on the Family, and other programs that helped me grow spiritually.
Looking back, that decision was about more than changing radio stations. God was getting my attention. Something was being removed so something else could grow.
There are times when God may put His finger on something in our lives and say, “I want your attention here.” Obedience may initially feel like giving something up, but sometimes what looks like loss is actually preparation for greater fruitfulness.
3. Branches Cannot Produce Fruit Disconnected From the Vine
Jesus makes the central point unmistakable:
“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me” (John 15:4).
The older King James Version uses the word abide. To abide means to remain, dwell, continue, or stay. It describes an ongoing relationship rather than an occasional spiritual experience.
Jesus then says, “I am the vine; you are the branches…. Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
That confronts our natural tendency toward self-sufficiency. We can become very busy doing Christian things while becoming spiritually disconnected from Christ. We can serve, teach, organize, lead, volunteer, and accomplish tasks while neglecting prayer, Scripture, worship, and fellowship with Jesus.
Eventually we wonder why we are exhausted.
“Some people are tired and burned out because they’re trying to do all this work for God instead of resting in God.”
Jesus does not say, “Produce more fruit so that you can become a better branch.” He tells the branch to remain connected to Him.
Abiding includes worship, prayer, meditation on God’s Word, obedience, service, and participation in the body of Christ. These are not techniques for earning God’s favor. They are ways we remain close to the One from whom our spiritual life comes.
What Does Spiritual Fruit Look Like?
Fruitfulness is bigger than visible ministry success. Scripture describes several kinds of fruit that should increasingly characterize a life connected to Christ.
There is the fruit of helping others come to Christ. Paul spoke in Romans 1:13 of wanting to see spiritual fruit among the Gentiles. Jesus told His disciples in John 4 to look at fields that were already ripe for harvest. God allows us to participate in helping people hear and respond to the gospel.
There is the fruit of holiness. Romans 6:22 connects our new life in Christ with sanctification. As we walk with Jesus, He changes our character.
There is the fruit of good works. Colossians 1:10 speaks of “bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.” We are not saved by good works, but salvation should produce a life that increasingly does good.
There is the fruit of praise. Hebrews 13:15 calls our praise “the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.”
And Galatians 5:22–23 describes the familiar fruit produced by the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Notice who produces that fruit. Paul calls it the fruit of the Spirit. It is not the fruit of human determination.
That does not mean Christians become passive. We obey, serve, sacrifice, pray, study Scripture, and make difficult decisions. But we do those things from a relationship with Christ rather than attempting to manufacture spiritual life independently of Him.
4. Fruitlessness Is a Serious Warning
John 15 also contains a difficult warning. Jesus says that a branch that does not remain in Him is like a branch that withers and is thrown away.
We should take that warning seriously without forcing every detail of the vine metaphor to answer questions it was not intended to answer. The central point is clear: a branch disconnected from the source of its life cannot remain fruitful.
Jesus repeatedly gives believers strong assurance. In John 10:27–28 He says His sheep hear His voice and follow Him, and that He gives them eternal life and they will never perish. First John 5:11–12 says that God has given us eternal life and that this life is in His Son.
At the same time, Scripture never treats a fruitless Christian life as something insignificant. First Corinthians 3:10–15 warns believers that the quality of our work will eventually be tested. Some things we spend our lives building will have eternal value. Other things will not.
That should cause us to ask what we are building with the life God has given us.
5. The Connected Get What They Need
Jesus makes an extraordinary promise in John 15:7: “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
This is not a blank check promising that God will satisfy every desire we happen to have. Notice the condition: Christ’s words are remaining in us.
The longer we abide in Christ, the more our thinking begins to change. His priorities increasingly become our priorities. His Word shapes what we value, what we desire, and consequently what we ask God to do.
Psalm 37:4 says, “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” As we delight in God, He shapes the desires themselves.
We begin asking for things consistent with His purposes because we increasingly want what He wants.
6. Obedience Demonstrates Our Love for Jesus
Abiding is not merely having warm feelings about Jesus. Jesus connects love with obedience.
“If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love,” He says in John 15:10. A chapter earlier He had said, “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me” (John 14:21).
Obedience does not purchase God’s love. We obey because we have received His love.
That means we should begin with the things Jesus has already clearly told us to do. Forgive. Love others. Tell the truth. Serve. Share the gospel. Gather with believers. Follow Him publicly.
One example is believer’s baptism. Jesus was baptized, and He commanded His followers to make disciples and baptize them. Sometimes people postpone baptism because they are uncomfortable getting in front of people or simply never get around to it. But if Jesus has clearly asked us to do something, obedience is an expression of trust and love.
Jesus then connects obedience with something many people desperately want: joy.
“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11).
Following Jesus is not intended to produce a joyless life of religious obligation. As His love fills us, it begins overflowing toward other people.
We Cannot Love Like Jesus Without Jesus
Jesus commands us to “love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12). That is an impossible standard if we attempt it in our own strength.
We naturally protect ourselves, focus on our own problems, become irritated with difficult people, and put our desires first. Jesus calls us to a love willing to sacrifice for someone else.
We need His life within us to love that way.
The Holy Spirit frees us from being consumed with ourselves. He comforts us, changes our priorities, restrains selfish desires, and gives us opportunities to demonstrate Christ’s love to other people.
Again, the branch produces what comes from the vine.
7. You Are Chosen to Bear Fruit That Lasts
Jesus concludes this section with an amazing statement to His disciples:
“I no longer call you servants…. Instead, I have called you friends” (John 15:15).
Then He says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit, fruit that will last” (John 15:16).
God did not save us merely so we could survive this life and eventually arrive in heaven. He has given us opportunities to participate in work that has eternal significance.
People matter eternally. Sharing Christ matters. Discipling someone matters. Serving someone in Jesus’ name matters. Raising children to know God’s Word matters. Encouraging a discouraged believer matters. Generosity matters. Prayer matters. Loving people matters.
Much of what occupies our lives will eventually disappear. Jesus invites us to invest ourselves in fruit that lasts.
Stop Striving and Start Abiding
There is an important difference between working hard and striving independently of Christ. Christianity does not teach laziness. Following Jesus sometimes requires tremendous effort, discipline, sacrifice, and perseverance. But our effort is supposed to flow from dependence upon Christ rather than replace it.
If your Christian life has become exhausting, perhaps the first question is not, “What else should I be doing?”
Maybe the better question is, “Am I abiding in Jesus?”
Are you spending time in His Word? Are you talking with Him in prayer? Are you obeying what He has already shown you? Are you allowing Him to prune things that interfere with your spiritual growth? Are you depending upon the Holy Spirit, or are you attempting to produce spiritual results through your own determination?
“We aren’t told that we need to make the fruit. We’re told that we remain in Christ and we will be fruitful.”
The answer to spiritual exhaustion is not always doing less, although sometimes God may indeed prune our schedules. The deeper answer is learning where our strength comes from.
A branch cannot produce life. It receives life.
Stay close to Jesus. Let His Word remain in you. Obey what He teaches. Allow the Father to prune what needs to change. Depend upon the Holy Spirit instead of your own strength. Then trust God with the fruit.
Do You Know the True Vine?
Abiding begins with belonging to Christ. Christianity is not simply adopting better habits or trying to become a more spiritual person. We need a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Jesus said in John 5:24, “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.” John 1:12 says that those who receive Christ and believe in His name are given the right to become children of God.
We have all sinned and cannot make ourselves right with God through religious effort or good works. Jesus came to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. He died on the cross for our sins and rose again. Eternal life is God’s gift to everyone who places their faith in Him.
If you have never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you can turn to Him today. Acknowledge your sin and your need for Him. Believe that Jesus died and rose again. Ask Him to forgive you and lead your life.
Then learn what it means to remain in Him.
You do not have to spend the Christian life desperately trying to manufacture spiritual fruit. Jesus is the vine. We are the branches. Our calling is to stay close to Him, receive our strength from Him, and allow His life to produce fruit through ours.