Transcription
Welcome to this present time. [Music] So today, I want to do a teaching in a short time. Today, I want to talk to you about how to bear much fruit. We are in August, and we are heading for December. How to bear much fruit? And I want to encourage you. Some people may be here today, and they are counting the months and they say, "We're already in August. What can we achieve between August and December?" I bring you a word of encouragement that God will never leave any of his children in the negative. That no matter what the circumstance may be, no matter how difficult it may appear, the more the odds are mounted against you, the more you are candidate for a miracle.
And I want you to look at Romans. Put for me on the board, on the screen, Romans chapter 15, verse 12 to 13, the NLT version. And in another place, Isaiah said, "The heir to David's throne will come, that's Jesus, and he will rule over the Gentiles. They will place their hope on him." Next verse. "I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit." Please go back to 12. This is one of my favorite scriptures. I want you to know that God is a God of hope, so you must keep hope alive. And you will see in verse 13 that he's not expecting you to kindle the fire of hope yourself. He says, "The Holy Spirit will help you." So I will begin my sermon by praying for people to have hope. God is a God of hope, so we must never get to the place where we feel totally hopeless. Whether it's a situation concerning your child, your marriage, your nieces, your nephew, your career. It's when people are hopeless that they attempt to commit suicide. It's when people are hopeless that the enemy comes in with great discouragement and depression and oppression, and then he opens up the doorway for thoughts that perplex you, thoughts that confuse you. But the Bible says, "You have the mind of Christ," and I believe that. I'm talking to somebody here. God wants you to know that He is a God of hope, and that He will fill you today with joy and peace as you stand trusting in Him, that you may abound. The Amplified version says, "That you may bubble over with hope by the power of your Holy Spirit."
I want you to put your eyes on the Lord, and I will pray with you. Lord God, we pray this morning for people who, whether watching online or in this auditorium, who have a sense of hopelessness. People whose hearts are broken, people who've been bereaved, people who feel perplexed and don't know what the next step should be. Oh Lord, I pray that by the power of the Holy Spirit, that You, who is a God of hope, will renew hope. That You will minister to them this morning Yourself, and You will free them from that bondage of depression and oppression, in the name of Jesus.
Why do we need Jesus and why do we need to bear fruit? I want you to stay with me because sometimes that teaching is not very exciting, but if we get the points, it would change and transform your life and give you the tools you need to work out your Christianity. Because the Bible says, "God has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness." So as you sit in this place today, God has given you everything you need to live life and live it more abundantly, and that position is found in Christ.
Now turn with me to Hebrews chapter 2, verse 10 to 18. "God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many children into glory." Many children, everybody here. And it was only right that He should make Jesus, through His suffering, a perfect leader, fit to bring all these children here into their salvation. So now, Jesus and the ones He makes holy have the same Father. I want to show you your identity, because when you know your identity, it doesn't matter how crushed you are, you are still the same person. We always give a demonstration or an analogy and we'll ask people, if I take a 1,000 naira note, and I squeeze it and squeeze it and squeeze it, and I put it on the floor and crush it, and then I lift it up again and spread it out, does it change? Is it? Does it become a 50 naira note? So no matter what life wraps against you, you are precious to God.
So now, Jesus and the ones He makes holy have the same Father. Can you imagine what Jesus is? What the Bible is saying here, that you and the Lord Jesus Christ have the same Father. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call you His brothers and sisters. For He said, "To God, I will proclaim Your name to my brothers and sisters. I will praise You among Your assembled people." He also said, "I will put my trust in Him." That is, "I and the children God has given me." He also refers to you, brothers, sisters, and children, because God's children are human beings made of flesh and blood. The Son, Jesus, also became flesh and blood. So sometimes I wonder why the Lord had to send Jesus to die. When you think of self-worth, when you think of identity, it doesn't depend on the husband, it doesn't depend on a wife, it doesn't depend on whether you have children or you don't have children, it doesn't depend on the car you drive, it doesn't depend on your social status. You are who you are by virtue of what Jesus did on the cross. Are you here with me? Just lift up your hands and say, "Thank you Jesus. Thank you Lord." For only as a human being could He die, and He had to die. God didn't send an angel to redeem you. Jesus had to come as a human being to die, and only by dying could He break the power of the devil over your life. So you're sitting here, and the enemy is deceiving you. No, the power was broken on the cross. And only by dying, why? Because Jesus had to die to break that power because Adam gave it to the devil. And that's why Jesus is referred to as a second Adam. And only, you know, we teach these things in discipleship classes, but everybody here doesn't go to a discipleship class. So sometimes I feel that we must go back to basic scriptures and to encourage you to read the Bible. He deceives because you don't know the word. And only by dying could Jesus break the power of the devil, who had the power of death through Adam. Only in this way could He set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying. We also know that the Son did not come to help angels. He came to help the descendants of Abraham. That is so deep. You know, when God, God had a covenant with Abraham, He saw Himself, what He was saying was, "I will cease to be God if I don't honor what I've said to you, Abraham." That's another reason why Jesus came. So He said, Jesus didn't come to help angels, He came to help the descendants of Abraham. And you know, in the New Testament, in the book of Galatians, He tells us that we are the descendants of Abraham, but under the New Covenant. Are you here with me? That's why when Jesus saw the woman bent over, He called on that covenant. He said, "Ought not this daughter of Abraham to be set free?" Doesn't by the covenant, this is a daughter of Abraham, she ought not to be in this state. The woman didn't even know her identity, but Jesus called on that covenant. And so God had to send Jesus to keep His promise to you, the descendants of Abraham. I mean, that makes me feel really special. Therefore, it was necessary for Jesus to be made in every respect like us, His brothers and sisters, so that He could be a merciful and faithful high priest before God. You know, this is not really my message, but if this is all you take away, it's fine. In the Old Testament, the high priest could only go into the Holy of Holies once a year, and he went in with certain prescribed mode of dressing and sacrifices, and he had to have a rope tied to him because if he offered a sacrifice that was straight, he would die, and nobody could go into the Holy of Holies to pull him to bring him out. You'll die too, because when you understand the severity of God's rules and prescription for holiness, then you would appreciate the mercy that came through Jesus, and why Jesus is called the High Priest. So they would, if they didn't hear from the High Priest, they'll pull him out through the rope, by the rope, because nobody could go into the Holy of Holies. But when the veil, when Christ died on the cross, the veil was torn in two in the temple, and what that signified was everybody could come in, and it meant that Jesus had come, the High Priest of our confession, the eternal High Priest. That's why the Bible says He forever lives to make intercession on your behalf. That's why we are still existing, because every time the Father wants to judge, Jesus stands up, the High Priest who paid the price, and the Father forgives all of us. So it says, "Then He could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people." So when you go anywhere and they ask you to bring a sacrifice, it makes it attempts, the sacrifice is a counterfeit. The tokens and sacrifices we make here are counterfeit, and they offend, and because they cannot diminish what Jesus did, it's offensive because Jesus, that's why He said, "It is finished." It's finished with the covenants that they tell you in the village. As long as you understand who you are, you're a child of God, you're coming to His DNA, He's your High Priest, He forever lives to make intercession. That's why when we sing songs that lift up the name of Jesus, when you understand, you don't need the choir to say, "Stand up and sing." He's our all in all. We wouldn't be here. The gospel wouldn't be if He died. Since He Himself has gone through suffering and testing, He is able to help us when we are being tested. So when we talk about living righteously and returning to Him, we are not called to do it in our strengths. For every temptation, for every trial that I may face, if I can only call upon Jesus, who sent the Holy Spirit to help us, I will have the strength supernaturally to go through it.
And then Jesus, now let's go to my text for the day. So why do you need Jesus? You need Him because He's the High Priest. You don't need a pastor, you don't need a bishop, you don't need an archbishop. You need Jesus. Jesus. And He is just as close to you as the person who sits next to you. So today, I want you to know that Jesus is real. Go with me to John chapter 15. "I am the True Vine, and My Father is a vine dresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away, and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which God has spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you abide in Me." We're going to be talking about bearing fruit in our personal lives, in our ministries, and in our workplace. So please don't sleep. "I am the Vine, and you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit. But without Me, you can do nothing." Do you see why sometimes we, of course, you see why sometimes we may not bear as much fruit as He wants us to? "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned." "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it will be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, so you will be My disciples."
Let's talk about that for a few minutes. I want to draw, give you some points. The first point I want to make is in verse 1. Jesus referred to Himself as the True Vine. That tells me something, that there is a defective or there's a counterfeit vine. Now, who is the counterfeit vine? If you look at Isaiah chapter 5, verse 7, only Isaiah chapter 5, verse 7, in the NLT, "The nation of Israel is a vineyard of the Lord of Heaven's Armies. The people of Judah are His pleasant garden. He expected a crop of justice, but instead He found oppression. He expected to find righteousness, but instead He heard cries of violence." So that tells you that the covenant, the whole covenant, was defective under Israel, and Israel was the false vine. So Jesus refers to Himself here as the true vine, and the Father is a vine dresser. So we are in chapter 15, but chapter 14. In 14, Jesus was talking about He's going to the cross. They've been through Passover. He was encouraging His disciples. He was emphasizing His divinity, and He made, He encouraged them. He told them not to be afraid, not to be anxious. By this time, Judas had been identified as the betrayer, and Jesus had talked about the post, the certainty of Peter denying Him. So He set the tone as He was now leaving for His last journey towards Gethsemane. So when you are going on your last journey, you speak of things that are very crucial. So He was telling His disciples what to do in His absence.
Number three, verse 2. He says, "Every branch in Me that doesn't bear fruit." That tells me that all of us in Him are expected to bear fruit. But however, there will be some in Him in the church who will not bear fruit. So He says, "Every branch in Me is expected to bear fruit, but there will be some who will not bear fruit." But it is the Father's desire that every branch in Him will bear fruit. He says, "The ones who don't." So you are called, child of God, to bear fruit. You are not called to be stagnant. If you have a shop that has five people, you should always aim for higher. If you are in a company and you're the manager, you must keep aiming higher. If you are in ministry and you have a thousand people, you have 10 people, you have 15, you are expected by the first command in Genesis to multiply, to increase, to subdue, to have dominion. So He says, "When you don't bear fruit, we cut you and we take you away." Now, I garden, and when I go to a plant and it's not bearing fruit, it's very irritating because I have expectations of that plant. But when you see a plant that is bearing fruit, you prune the plant so that it can bear more fruit. What does it mean to prune? We are first pruned by the word of God. So every time you hear the word, like today, it's a pruning because the word is a cleanser. What does it mean? The word just comes and tells you, look and call you. As you read the word, you behold my glory and you're more conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Simply, not mysteriously. When you read the word, the verses point to you what the adjustments you need to make. That's the pruning. And why do I say so? Look at verse 3. Verse 3, Jesus says, "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you." So it's the word that cleanses you. Do you see why we need to stay in the word? Because the word is Christ. Because the Bible says the word is alive, it is sharper than the two-edged sword, it prunes. So when I go around life, when I read the word of God, I'll just give you an example. If I am always shouting at a maid in my house and being really, really wicked, it doesn't mean you can't discipline, but there's a difference between discipline and inhuman behavior. So one day I go to my devotion, and as I'm reflecting and praying, I find the scripture that talks about love, and that scripture just comes alive to me, and I know that the Holy Spirit is speaking to me, and immediately I'm convicted, and I no longer do what I was doing. That's pruning. God also, when we don't learn obedience by the word, then we learn it by the things we suffer, because He will want to prune. So you can then go through a trial that draws your attention to God. Are you with me? So God allows trials and tribulations because He knows us. He knows that sometimes we will not come willingly to the altar of sacrifice. So I have learned something, that it's better for me to learn obedience by the word than by a trial. So He prunes.
Verse 4. He says, "Abide in Me, and I in you." Abide means to stay, to remain, to dwell, to take root. Now, then I said to myself, "Oh, so when I come to fellowship with God, He's not expecting me to come one day and run away for five days and come back for one day and run away for two?" No. I keep saying that a young lady asked me, "Aunty, why must we pray every day?" And my simple answer was, "How many times do you eat in a week?" She said, "I must have a meal at least two meals a day." Said, "That's the same thing. The flesh profits nothing, but the spirit is what we grow." And the spirit, the same way your body is fed and nourished, it's the way also your spirit must be fed, and that is from plugging into the vine. One Sunday, if I have the time and remember, I'll teach you how to pray for an hour without speaking in tongues, how to fellowship with God. So anybody here, regardless of whether you've been baptized in the Holy Spirit or not, can spend an hour with God and be refreshed.
So verse 4 says, "Abide in Me, and I in you." Can you imagine God calling you? His clarion call is, "Come and stay with Me. Come and abide. Come and dwell in Me, and I will dwell in you." That's awesome. That's why Jesus said, Martha and Mary. Martha did the right thing, she wanted to be hospitable, but Mary, He said, did the better thing. And when Lazarus died, the person who had more strength, if you go back and check, and who provoked a reaction from Jesus was Mary, because she knew Him, she was sensitive enough to say, "I know what You need is for me to sit down and hear Your heartbeat." He didn't make all of us have a Mary and Martha dimension, but God wants us, your Mary dimension to be higher than your Martha dimension. Are you here with me? So that's what it means to abide, to have your fellowship time undisturbed, uninterrupted. And when you fellowship with one hand and you have the mobile phone with the other one, you're not abiding. I'm very sorry to tell you, you will get the measure of attention you put in. Because I ask people very simply, if you went to see the President or the Governor, and you have a very important meeting that would yield some financial gratification, you wouldn't dare be talking to someone or fiddling on your mobile phone while you're addressing that dignity. No. So why do we accord to people, male human beings, yet today gone tomorrow, and then to God, we rush in and rush out? And because you don't see Him, it doesn't mean that there is no protocol. So first of all, He's not going to kill you because you're on your mobile phone, but you would be, you would be distracting yourself also from hearing Him.
Verse 5. "I am the vine, and you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit." So sometimes we're running helter-skelter, and all He's saying is, if they'll only abide in Me, to seek Me, My righteous, My kingdom, My righteousness, and all else will be added. If He would find us abiding, do you know He would whisper to you what your next step should be? So He says, "If they could only abide in Me, they will bear much." So, and you're bearing fruit, what I want to challenge you today is to go into the place where you can bear much fruit. So the average Christian will bear fruit, but what you bear, I call mercy drops. But when you abide in Him, and He finds you there, you bear much fruit, showers of blessings. And please, showers of blessings doesn't necessarily mean money, far from it. But when you have that, it will translate into earthly riches, and then it will stay for the blessings of God make it rich, they had no sorrow, neither does toiling. You're not called to toil, but you're called to glean harvest by working hard. Okay.
But let's go to verse 6. "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned." Of course, you're not going into a physical fire, except ultimately people who don't have Christ will go into the eternal fire. But it's possible to keep living life not knowing that you're not bearing fruit. You know, Samson was like that. Samson kept wanting to go to war, not realizing that what made him a Nazarite, separated to God, had been taken away from him. So he would struggle and get up thinking God was with him, but God wasn't. It's kind of like a fan, you know, if you switch off a fan, it doesn't go off immediately, it just circulates slowly, slowly. That's what happened to Israel in the wilderness. They just roamed around, roamed around until their time was up. So when we have a semblance of artificial attachment, and now I can describe that, he's coming to church, which is good, doing the works even in church, which is good, but neglecting our personal altars before God, then we could be like fans that are gradually, gradually going off.
Verse 7. "Abide in Me, and My words abide in you." You see verse 3 and you see verse 7. "You will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you." Do you know this is a short way to a shortcut to pray? When you abide in God and He abides in you, there is a unity, there is a joining, and He says, "When you abide in Me, and My word abides in you, you will actually know what prayer to ask, what request to ask." So you are even praying, the Holy Spirit will actually tell you what the Father wants to do. That's why Jesus said, "What I do, I do because I have a signal from above." School for your child, you have a business decision to make, you want to employ someone, because you are in His word already, you will know, and the word is Christ, you will know, you'll be sensitive to know what to look out for. He says, "So you won't be asking amiss, you'll be asking according to the will of God." And where you can't vocalize the will in English, the Holy Spirit will pray the will of the Father through you. Are you with me? If you're with me, just raise and say, "Thank you Jesus." Oh, your hands look so beautiful, Lord. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We are rounding up. "You will ask what you desire." In other words, "Will become my, your, my desire would be your desire." And that's where prayer is answered speedily. "By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, so you will be known as My disciples." So when we don't bear fruit, God is not glorified.
So let me break it down to practical terms. Where do we need to bear fruit? One, in my workplace. First, in my family. So Pastor Tony always taught us in the workers' group, then God first, family next, work or ministry third. God first. So God, from whom all blessings flow. The next level, family. The third level, work and ministry. So that means God wants to be glorified in our lives. And if I follow that, let me go to family. Do you know that if God, we God helps us and our families, one of the things that the enemy attacks so much is family life, whether pastors, whether bishops, he's tried to attack that. Says something that we are in a world that is looking so much out, looking out for families that work, because it's us. We, the Bible compares marriage to Christ and the church. So every time a marriage doesn't work, it's an affront to that pronouncement. That's why the enemy attacks marriage. And another reason why he does is, if any two shall agree as touching anything, if a husband and wife before God agree, it will work, because that's a compounding of covenant power. That's why he doesn't want you to get along with your wife, and he doesn't want the wife to get along with the husband. So you, you, we live with just a measure of God's, God's fruitfulness, and then in that confusion, children are just left to fend for themselves, in a manner of speaking. So God wants us as Christian families to bear fruit that glorifies Him, and people would look and say, "Oh wow, there goes the household of Abraham." And when I say these things, there's no condemnation for those who are here in troubled marriages. We can bring it back to Jesus. For those who are here and feel they've gone beyond the place of redemption, God is still calling you to Himself.
And then the next place where we want to bear fruit is our work. If you are in any corporate organization, the confidence that the place will prosper because you are there, and you should have that. It's not arrogance. A friend of mine said, "A lion doesn't eat grass, not because it's proud, but because it just doesn't, it wasn't created to eat grass." Did you get that? A lion is who it is, the animal it is, it's territorial, it has dominion. That's why Jesus is called the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. That's the DNA you carry. You should be confident in God to know to be able to say, "If I step out of this place, you go down, except I did wrong here." So I wouldn't bow because I'm a lion, I don't eat grass. And that's what God wants you to know who you are. So you get to the point where you say, "I wouldn't do this because it's just a matter of a few more clothes and a few more shoes. I'd rather be who I am and have power." Are you here with me? That's the DNA you carry. So I want you to leave this place knowing who you are, so you don't join the counsel of the ungodly, but you just say, "My access doesn't come from the earth, because I know who I am. I'd rather not touch iniquity and stuff. I'd rather leave the place bearing fruit for God." And that bearing fruit for God is a testimony. I leave.
And then the last place is in ministry. Whether you're in the house group, or in Be One, or in City Church, or in a large church, or in DTI, or in another church and you're visiting. If your pastor gives you a group of 50, they are not supposed to dwindle to 10. I gave someone in an office that I'm associated with, I said, "Your assignment is to sell this boss." He says, "Ma, I put it on all the..." I said, "Well, I can't get..." I said, "You know what you're going to do? Because this assignment is going to open more doors, so you better fast and pray, even though it's just a boss, because I know that he will." That's for him, his own pruning, so that he will bear much fruit. I say, "Do this assignment well, and it will lead you to a door that would help you, but don't come back to me, go and ask the Lord what to do." So God wants everyone here to bear not only fruit, but bear much fruit.
And then in closing, what is the reward? What is the blessing that comes to me when I bear much fruit? And that's where we close. And so, just also, if you use the platform of your office, your shop, or your restaurant to glorify God. Sometimes I go into places, and this place is supposedly owned by Christians, but they are not bearing fruit. Why? Simply, does the atmosphere lend itself to people knowing the Lord? What are you using your TVs in your restaurants, the TVs in your offices, in your waiting rooms? Why can't I go to a salon where I have my nails done and my hair, and as soon as she has Christian music playing, and a place is so full that you have to kill for an appointment, but she doesn't compromise? And that's actually what the people enjoy. Because the lady said to me, "When I go in there, I have such peace. That music, that Christian music is just playing in the background, non-stop." What is the blessing that comes to me when I bear much fruit? Go to verse 9. "I have loved you even as the Father has loved Me. Remain in My love." So God wants the families, individuals, everybody here to know that He loves you, and He wants you to remain in His love. I loved my earthly father so much that I just forgot that he will die, and then I just wanted to obey him just out of love because I didn't want him to be disappointed in me. That's what He means. "I love you. I love, I have loved you while I've been on earth, even as the Father has loved Me. Remain in this love." That's what He was telling His disciples. Just stay basking in the beauty of this love. You're special.
9, 10. "When you obey My commandments, you remain in My love." So He tells them, "Stay in My love." Then He tells them the key to staying in His love, very simple, obey My commandments, and then you are in My love automatically. You remain in My love, just as I obey My Father's commandments and remain in His love. Next. "I have told you these things so that you will be filled with My joy." That means if you stay in His love, which means staying in His commandments, you automatically have joy. So the reverse is when you don't stay in His love, when you don't obey His commandments, you're not in His love, and you don't have joy. So we can come here sometimes, and we pray and fast for joy, and I tell people, it's not as difficult as that. They are just some laws of harvest. So if I want joy, I bear fruit, I stay in His love by obeying His commandments, and then I'm filled with joy. So that you will be filled, yes, your joy would overflow. Rise up with me, and let us pray. [Music]