Discipline, Pruning and the Joy of a Clean Life

Join us as we dive into John 15 and talk about the process of God pruning our lives for the sake of us becoming even more fruitful. 

The Fruit we want is often on the other side of the "Yes" to God's correction in our lives. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:32

I want to talk a little bit about from John chapter fifteen. We're going to talk a little bit about discipline, pruning, and the joy of living a clean life. Okay? John chapter fifteen. Let's read it together. Verse one. I am the true grapevine. This is Jesus speaking. And my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn't produce fruit. And he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so that they will be even more fruitful. You have already been pruned and purified by the message that I'm giving you. What Jesus is saying here is that God does prune our lives. He cuts things out of our lives. And the purpose of Him cutting things out of our lives is so that we would become even more fruitful. Notice He doesn't cut branches that are not connected to the tree. He only cuts branches that are connected to the tree. So if God is pruning your life, it's because you are in the tree. You are part of the family of God. In fact, God's correction is confirmation that you are a child of God. It's confirmation of his great love and care for you. Pruning is the proof that God cares about your life. Now, pruning is not fun, is it? You've ever been through some like pruning season in your life where God's cutting things out of your life, and it's not fun at all. It's not meant to be a fun process, but it is a careful process. God is not a hacker, he's more of a surgeon and he's careful and he has a process, and that process that God has you on is a gracious one. Because I don't know about you, but for me, if God showed me everything that was wrong with me today and said, okay, Luke, we're gonna deal with you, I would kill me. Is that true? Because there's probably there's probably even more things in my heart that that are a problem than even I realize that are a problem. But God in his great grace takes me on this this gracious process of slowly pruning the things out of my life that are harmful so that I will become even more fruitful. We has anyone ever had like a mulberry tree before? Yeah, you so you know you know what these things are like. They're gonna get crazy, and you've got to cut them back so much. And I remember saying to my father back in the day when we'd plant these mulberry trees, when we're cutting them, and I'm saying, Dad, you're gonna kill the tree. And he's like, It won't kill it, you watch. It's gonna come back and it's gonna come back even bigger than it was last year, and it's gonna be have even more fruit. That is the picture of what God does in my life. But here's the thing, guys: God only works with consent. Do you want God to come into your life and change your heart? Do you want that? Are you hungry for that? Because he will do it, he wants to do it. But you've got to invite him in. You've got to invite him. So it's proof that you're in the family. Let me have a look at these couple of these Greek words. I don't know you didn't come here for a for a Greek lesson. But um I think this is careful for us to understand because God is not a hacker, he's a skilled vine dresser. That word that says, I cut off, he cuts off, it's the it's actually the same word that can be also used for lift up. It's a bit like what a vine dresser does when there's floppy branches that need some, like, what do you call that? Um, when you when you tie them up so that they grow the right way. So God restrains it so that it can actually grow further. Is this making sense? That's what a good gardener does. That's what God does in our lives as well. Also says that he prunes. It's this Greek word. Um is there any Greek speakers here today? Um it's this Greek word that I'm I'm gonna butcher, but but it basically means it's a play on words with the next word which Jesus says that you are clean. Okay, it's almost the same word. They come from the same root word, this I am clean and I'm pruned. They're almost the same word. And what and it's an intentional play on words that Jesus is using. It's kind of like a rhyme, a po a poetic rhyme that Jesus is using to get you to understand the connection between you belong, so therefore you are pruned. Does this make sense? I belong means I'm going to be pruned. If I'm being pruned, it means I belong. So if God is correcting you, what He's saying is you are part of the family. I don't correct everyone else's kids when they come over to my house, unless they're gonna ax themselves, you know. But what I do is I correct my kids because they're part of my family. That's my role because I'm their father and I love them. And that's the same thing that God is saying to you. If God is correcting you, it means you're part of the family. And the devil hates you and wants you to constantly question, I don't think I really belong here. That's something that, by the way, the devil tells every single person, even me, right? You don't really belong here. Everyone else has got it together except for you. See all these people in worship, they know what's up. You are confused, you don't know what's going on. That's the voice of the enemy, and that voice needs to not be played with and not to be um, you don't even want to entertain that voice. Give that voice space in your life. If you're here, I want to just say really clearly God has brought you here to belong here, to belong to part of the family of God, not just this church, but the church, you are part of the family of God. Stop being pushed around by the enemy telling you you don't belong. We've got to deal with that. Get a little bit aggressive with that. I do belong because God has brought me in. And God's correcting you is part of the proof that you do belong. So, how does God prune us? The easiest way that God prunes us is through the scriptures, it's through God's word. That's the easiest way, it's the best way. Um God, and and that's why I think it's so important for us to be in the scripture. If you are not reading the scripture, you are going to get pushed around by the enemy. You're gonna get pushed around by culture, you're gonna get pushed around by lies, especially the lies that we believe about ourselves. We need to be in the scripture. I could not be doing what I'm doing today if I wasn't in the scripture. And I don't read the scripture to get messages for you. I read the scripture because I desperately need to know what God says about me. I need that. I spend time in the scripture every day. It some days it's it's short, some days it's like um maybe it's five, ten minutes in the scripture, other days it's longer. It's not so much about the length of time, it's about the consistency. And every day giving God this opportunity to come in and speak to me again, where I present my life before God and I say, God, here I am. What do you want to say to me? Come and change my heart, I'm ready. And every day giving that opportunity to God. Now, some of you are looking a bit condemned because you feel like I haven't been reading the Bible, therefore I've been missing it. And I want to say to you, reading the Bible and guilt don't go together. Okay? Just get rid of that. Just say, don't try to catch up the year. I need to catch up on 300 days of the year. Just forget about all of that and come back to the Bible today. With zero guilt, just come back to the scripture today. I missed a day yesterday, forget about it, come back today. That's the gracious process of the scripture, okay? Because the scriptures, you're not doing it for God, he already knows the Bible, he doesn't need you to read the Bible. You need to read the Bible for you, because you desperately need it. And one of the best things I see is people reading the scripture and then applying it to their life and making changes. I was sitting outside with a young guy just a couple of Sunday nights ago, um, before I left, and we were talking about his relationship with this girl, and basically he was telling me he'd been using this girl physically, and he's a new believer, and he had realized that the way he'd been treating this girl was wrong. And he'd suddenly come to the realize we we read the scripture together. He'd never read 1 Corinthians 6 before. 1 Corinthians 6 is basically uh scriptures about sexual ethics. Okay, he read the scriptures about honoring your body and honoring other people's bodies, and the purpose of that is we are the temple of God. And it was like this light bulb moment came in his head, and he said to me, I didn't say anything, we just read the scripture, and then he said to me, Oh, I know what I need to do. I need to stop treating her like that, and I need to start living the way that God wants me to live, and I need to start respecting this girl. And I thought, that is the power of the scripture. It's not just words on a page, there's something living about the scripture is when I receive it and he's he had a hungry heart for it to follow God, it was like immediately he knew what to do. It's incredible how many times I read the scripture and is it is exactly the thing that I need at this very moment. Does anyone else see that? What I read is exactly what I need. It's amazing how God almost like knows this stuff. That's how God works. That's the best way that God does it. Other ways is, you know, a couple of years ago I was diagnosed with cancer and got quite sick. Well, I was quite sick, okay? And one of the things that people said to me, or asked, one of the questions that came up was, is this God? Just God doing this. Now that's really wacky theology there, right? Um, God is the healer, not the inflictor of disease, okay? Let's just get that clear. But here's what here's what happened previous to that, and here's where the correction of God came in for me. I we I moved to Australia with a brand new baby, newborn, uh, and and my family into a new country. Um, we started a business, we started a church, I started a big project for another company, a multi-year project, and we did two building projects back to back. I was working 24-7, and I was really being quite irresponsible. Um, and and if I'm honest, I was being disobedient to God. Because God kept on telling me, slow down, slow down, slow down, and I was not listening. My wife was telling me and I was not listening. And then I got sick and I got forced into a situation where I could not do anything. Now, did God cause that? No. But did God use that to get me to do the thing that he'd been telling me to do the whole time? Absolutely, he did. God took the craziness of my life and somehow turned that into getting me to go to where he wanted me to get to in a healthy place all along. God used it to help me get to the place where he wanted me to be. That's correct. That's that's some that's some like stuff that I can't work out. But that's the graciousness of God. Are we okay? It's very quiet. So God's God does use the craziness of the world to bring correction in my life. Not that he's causing it, but he will certainly use it. He will certainly use it. So, my I think what what I would like to say is the easiest path to even more fruitful is simply obeying God. Do what he said. What's the last thing God told you to do? Or maybe to change or to give up or to stop. What's the last thing? If I went back to that thing and just simply obeyed God, the result would be even more fruitful. That's what the result is. That's how God leads us. So discipline is proof that you're loved, discipline is evidence that you're a child of God, discipline is training for holiness, which and holiness means a life that's set apart, not a normal life, a life that's set us aside for a special purpose. That's what the word holiness means. Discipline is formation towards fruitfulness, and it's not enjoyable, but it is the path to more fruitfulness. Let's read. Um, well, I'm gonna finish in a moment, but let me read Hebrews chapter 12, verse 5. Have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as his children? And he said, My child, don't make light of the Lord's discipline, and don't give up when he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as a child. The Greek word for this word, punish, is the word for intense training. It's like the same word that they would use for fight camp before a big fight. It's like, this is get ready for hard two weeks because what's coming next is really important, so you better shape up because you wouldn't want to get into that ring unprepared. That's that word. Or it could be like preparing for the Olympics or for a grand final. We're gonna go away to camp and we're gonna really lock in for a certain period of time, and we're gonna voluntarily sign up for some for some hill runs because we know the grand final's coming, and we've got to be prepared. That's what this scripture is. That's what this word is. As you endure his divine discipline, remember that God is treating you like his own children. Who has ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by their father? In our generation, many. If or even maybe didn't even have a father, or maybe had a father that was pretty, maybe too aggressive, or wasn't healthy discipline? We have seen that a lot. Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn't we submit even more to the discipline of the father of our spirits and live forever? For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing what they knew best. They did their best. But God's discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness. No discipline is enjoyable while it's happening, it is painful, but afterwards there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way. And here's the encouragement. Why is Paul saying this? Why is Paul saying this? Because this church is going through massive persecution. They're being booted out of the city, they're being publicly humiliated and insulted, they're being excluded from synagogues, they're economically sidelined for being Christians. There's pressure from their families to come back to Judaism. There's temptation to avoid following Jesus because of the social pain, and their faith is costing them dearly. And Paul's saying this to them in verse 12, it says, So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong. Paul looks at the people going through massive persecution and he doesn't say you guys should give up. He says you guys should get stronger. That's what God's discipline produces. It's not that you get weaker, it is that actually you get fortified and stronger. I think if we're gonna do great things as a church together, we're gonna have to get stronger, guys. We're gonna have to get stronger. There's a lot of areas in our church that we need to get stronger. We need to get stronger in people getting more rooted in the scripture. We need to get stronger in people serving in the church, about serving others, not just themselves. Um, and there's so many people who are doing that. I'm so thankful for you. Um we need to get stronger in prayer. Um we need to get stronger in dealing with offenses, dealing with challenges, um, we need to get stronger in generosity together. There's so many areas that we need to get stronger in. I wonder that today, I wonder for you, what is the one thing that God is putting his finger on in your life and saying, I want to deal with that? What is that? And I wonder if today we could just have an honest moment with God and saying, God, yes. Yes, God. I've been saying no, I've been avoiding, I've been filling my life with other coping mechanisms, but I'm saying today, yes, God, you can come in and deal with that thing. It's time. That could be a moment for some of us today. And the end of this, here's where I'll finish, is joy. The fruit that we're talking about, the even more fruitful, the fruit of the spirit in Galatians chapter 5. We read what that fruit is. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. Tell me if I'm getting this wrong. Faithfulness, self-control, gentleness. That's what I miss. Gentleness. I needed some more of that. Against those things, there's no laws against those things. Who would like more of that list in their life? Anyone here? Want a little bit? Just throw out some of that list in your life. That's a work of the Spirit of God. That's the slow work of the fruit of the Spirit of God being allowed to do what he wants to do in your life. If you say yes to God's correction, that's the fruit. We already know what the fruit of saying no to God constantly is. We already know that. You've experienced that before. You know what that is. That's the fruit I want. So could we pray today? We pray over that. I would love to pray over you. Um, and maybe Lise can come and help me. Because we want to just, I would love to, um, if you would like prayer, I would love to. You can come and I'd love to pray for you. Tim and Nate, um, Dean Domini, we'll we'll pray with you, okay? There's people who would love to pray with you. If there's things in your life where you realize you need to say yes to God about and you would just like prayer, okay? We would love to pray for you. There's not a show, there's nothing to prove to anyone here. This is about do you want to get freedom in your life? Do you want even more fruitful? And maybe if you've been resisting today's time to say, God, I surrender. I surrender to the process of being loved deeply by you. And all that comes with that. Could we stand together? And I promise next week is just gonna be so encouraging, so so nice. Christmas time. I'm just excited for it. It's gonna be great. Thank you, God. Could you reach out your hands to him once again? Can we say yes to you? Don't want to fight against you, God. We want to work with you. And I just thank you, Holy Spirit, for shining a light on the work of the enemy in people's lives. That's been causing them to question who they are, whether they belong. I pray you'd come and fill them with the spirit. That orphan, that orphan mindset, that I don't belong mindset would be would be vanquished, gone. And the spirit of sonship and daughtership would be just come and fill our lives, God. To know that you've you've saved us. So God, whatever we need to do surrender today, God to pray that we would do it. Give us courage. And I'm praying over this church, even more fruitful. I'm praying over this church, get stronger. Stronger. Even in your challenge, get stronger. God's strength is available for you. Thank you, Lord. Amazing.