PBPC Update - Sunday Sermon

Dear PBPC Friends,

Thanks to all of you who joined us for worship and communion this morning on Zoom - it was wonderful to "be together" and see all of your faces!

For those of you who couldn't join us, here is the link to today's sermon:

Have a blessed Sunday!

Pastor Chris



Sermon – "The Pruning Effect," John 15:1-8
May 3, 2020
Chris Coon, PBPC

1'I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. 2He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. 3You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 4Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. 5I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. 6Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. – John 15:1-8
When I was around ten years old, my father gave me my first pair of garden clippers. My father was quite a gardener, and after I had been following him around for a while to watch him at his work, he must have decided to give me a taste of it as well. The first plants he let me go to work on were the "forgiving" plants – ivies, shrubs and the like, those that would grow back even if I massacred them. Only later did he let me touch the useful plants – the fruit trees – and this was when he taught me how to prune.
Bearing Good Fruit
Now the purpose the branches is to bear good fruit. Last week I talked about how the good fruit in our lives is the good works we do for God, but even more so the good fruit is what God is producing in our hearts. This is because the good actions in our lives are produced by what is in our hearts. God is more interested in the person you are becoming than in anything that you might accomplish. His goal for you is that you become more like Jesus. 
The good fruit that is produced in our hearts is called the Fruit of the Spirit. These are described in Galatians 5:22, and we will talk more about them later. Right now I want to point out that this is the Trinity at work in our lives: Jesus is the vine and source of our life, the Holy Spirit is flowing into our lives to produce good fruit, and God the Father is the vinegrower, or gardener. 
So what does the vinegrower do? It is an interesting fact that fruit trees, specifically branches, left to themselves become less and less fruitful over time. If the goal is to produce an abundance of good fruit, then the tree must be tended, or guided, toward this growth and productivity. So it's important for us to remember that we do not produce fruit on our own; and it is also important to remember that God is actively tending to us. And the main word that Jesus uses to describe this tending is pruning.
Pruning
Pruning is the process of cutting away dead or overgrown branches or stems, especially to increase fruitfulness and growth. Every year my father would do a major pruning of that plum tree. It was a shocking thing to see at first, if someone didn't know any better – it looked as if my dad hated that tree and wanted to destroy it. Piles of long branches lay on the ground and tree looked like it might never recover. But of course it did, and new branches grew where the old had been removed, and from all of this flourishing new growth eventually came an abundant harvest of fruit. 
This metaphor of pruning describes the working of God in our lives so that we will experience new growth and produce much good fruit. What does this pruning look like in our lives? Pruning can take place in our circumstances: God might want to direct our energies toward a certain activity, job, or relationship where He wants to produce fruit in our lives. Or He might do a great deal of pruning to our heart as we simply spend time in prayer. In either case, here are three examples of what God might prune from our lives.
Dead and Diseased Branches
Some portions of branches may have died over the course of the year. These are cut off to make room for new growth. New growth is stimulated and occurs at the point just below the cut. Also, sometimes there might be a diseased or dying branch; these are removed to keep the disease from spreading.
Dead and diseased branches are obvious choices for pruning – you want to get rid of them. In the same way, there may be things in our lives that we know need to be cleared away. This includes sin in our lives, whether is be pride, selfishness, greed, smoldering anger and hatred, uncontrolled lust, dishonesty, a vengeful spirit. The Bible describes these things as the forces of death at work in us. When we give our lives to Jesus and start following him, these things have no place in our hearts any longer. God wants to remove these things from our lives.
As Christians, we are not perfect, and from time to time sin will again try to gain a foothold in our lives, just like a blight might infect the branch of a good tree. If allowed to go unchecked it could infect the whole branch, and even spread to other branches. Acknowledging and confessing our sin allows the gardener to prune it away before it does more damage. 
Weak and Unproductive Branches
Often there are lots of little, spindly branches that grow along sides of the main branches. These don't amount to much and don't produce much if any fruit. But all of them taken together take energy to sustain, for very little return. When all of these spindly little branches are removed, the energy flows out to the tips of main branches, where the dramatic new growth and fruit production takes place. 
The weak and unproductive branches might represent the distractions in our lives, the little things that take up our time and energy but do not produce anything good. Not necessarily or obviously bad, but not the good that God wants. What consumes your time, or your thoughts, that produces little good for God's kingdom?
Overgrown Branches
These are most difficult to determine, and the most painful to cut, because they seemed to be healthy branches that were doing what they were supposed to do. But these actively growing branches are actually pulling the energy of the tree away from where it will produce the best and most fruit. 
First, there are the branches growing upward toward the sky, bringing the tree higher and higher. This is truly impressive; each year these branches could grow over six feet in height, and there might be hundreds of them. But they didn't produce any fruit. Each year they had to be removed so that they didn't consume more and more of the tree's energy. To me, these branches represent the major endeavors of our hearts and lives that are not bad in and of themselves, but they do not bear good spiritual fruit. 
Second, there are the branches growing in the wrong place. This could be two branches that are crossing over each other; the gardener wants to make sure that branches aren't competing for space and sunlight, so he will pick what he thinks will be the most healthy and fruitful branch and he will remove the other one. Is there perhaps something in your life that is holding you back from something better? When I was in college, I studied architecture, which was great – I really enjoyed it and seriously considered it as my career. However, there came a point where I felt God leading me into church ministry, and I knew I couldn't do both things. So I felt God removing one thing so that He could focus on the other and produce good fruit that way.
Third, there are the over-extended branches. These are branches that have grown beyond what they can bear, so that they are in danger of breaking. The farmer may cut off a portion of the branch, so that the whole branch isn't lost. This is God's mercy, protecting us from burnout, taking away something that seems good but is too much, and refocusing our energies.
Our Part
Now here is where the metaphor might break down. Jesus tells us to abide in Him that we might bear much fruit; so it appears that the branches have a choice in the matter – we can choose to be connected to Christ or not. In the same way, I believe that we participate in our pruning. To some degree, we can choose to be pruned or not. We can hold onto the dead or diseased growth, or continue to pour our energy into things that do not produce good fruit for the kingdom. 
It is also important to note that pruning can be painful. It involves the removal of stuff that we might be very attached to. Sinful patterns often run very deep in our lives and are not easy to let go of. This is why Jesus describes following Him as dying to ourselves. But there are other, more subtle things that God wants to prune away in our lives: false dreams, false assumptions, and false dependencies – all of the things that the world tells us are important and we should chase after.
The more closely we follow Jesus, the more we are inviting God to shape our lives for His purposes. So we should be warned: it won't always be easy and it could be quite painful. Whenever we pray "Your will be done," we are acknowledging that God has the best plan for our lives, and we are putting our trust in Him. 
Another important question that you might ask: Is this coronavirus experience an example of God pruning us? On one level, I hesitate to say so, because I don't believe that God brings about pain and hardship and even death for some people, in order to bring about good in the lives of other people. At the same time, however, I do believe that God can bring about good in each of our lives through whatever circumstances we face. So it is good for each of us to ask, "God, what do you want to teach me through this experience – about you, about myself? How do you want to shape me and help me to grow and be fruitful in this time? What might you want to prune from my life, and what good fruit might you want to produce in me? How might I emerge from this experience having grown and changed?"
Conclusion
Remember that the purpose of pruning is always so that the life of God can be more fully realized in our lives. God prunes us because He loves us, because He cares about who we are becoming. He wants us to have abundant life, and He wants abundant life to flow through us to others. The process of being shaped and pruned by God might be difficult or even painful, but if we allow God to do this good work, we will see and experience the good fruit of a heart that is more like Jesus and actions that bless those around in ways we can only begin to imagine.