Depending on where a speaker puts the emphasis, a sentence can have several meanings.
I love you? can be skepticism, even mockery.
I love you — emphasizes the feelings of the speaker.
I love you — makes the other person the center of attention.
This morning as I read the following verses, I wondered what part of verse 7 did the “by this God is glorified” point back to. Is it the two abidings, or is it the part about prayers being answered?
If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. (John 15:7–8, NKJV)
Many people think that God is most glorified when our prayers are answered. For instance, when someone is sick and we pray for His will, in the back of our minds we are thinking that instant healing will most glorify God. Sometimes it does. However, a story comes to mind . . .
Two alcoholics attended an evangelistic crusade. Both went forward at the invitation and both were saved. Years later, the person who led them to Christ revisited the same two men. One said that since his salvation, he’d lost all desire for alcohol and had never had another drop. The counselor praised God with him.
The second man had a slightly different testimony. He said that since his salvation he had craved alcohol every day, but God gave him grace to say no and he had never had another drop.
Sometimes God is glorified as much or even more when He does not answer our prayers but gives us grace to live with the problem or issue that we are trying to pray out of our lives.
I looked up these verses from John in another Bible. The English Standard Version aims for accuracy to the author’s intent. The difference is slight, but it clarifies the answer to my question.
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. (John 15:7–8, ESV)
Sometimes I pray for what I think is the best thing. To me, it seems that my notion of the answer will most honor God. Yet God shows me how little I know. His ways are not my ways. I look for the spectacular and dramatic. Sometimes that works, but more often He responds by showing me more about abiding and fruit-bearing in my own life. To use another image, instead of removing the rocks from the streams of my life, He makes the water deeper.
I’m learning that God is most glorified when His people abide in Him no matter what He does with our prayers. If I keep praying thirty years for someone’s salvation, my steadfastness can glorify Him just as much as a change in the other person’s life. While I’d rather put my own character development in second place, God says that He is glorified by the fruit of patience and persistence.
Abiding in Jesus means giving up all reliance on other things. Whatever I trust besides Him has to be abandoned, including my own way of doing things. I think life would be much easier for me if God would just answer my requests the way that I pray them. Heal Lyle, save Carla, and so on. Instead, He offers a greater challenge. He asks me to be like Jesus, to rely on His sustaining power and continue to believe that He knows what He is doing — even when His answers do not match my requests.
The crab apple in our farm yard was overgrown and unproductive so we decided to prune it. We removed all dead branches. Then we removed those that rubbed on other branches or were otherwise in odd places. We also trimmed a few more of those inner branches so “a bird could fly through it” and then we waited.
The first year wasn’t hopeful, but the second spring brought a dazzling display of flowers. By fall, we had lots of crab apples. The tree was again producing fruit.
John 15 is one of my favorite passages. My verse for this year is from this chapter. Today, I am again reading it, and being reminded once again the purpose of fruitfulness. “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples” (John 15:8).
Like the crab apple, no one would know what kind of person I am if I didn’t bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit. This identifies me as a branch, a disciple of Christ. However, that is not the main reason He produces love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control through me. The Spirit does it so that the invisible God is seen and glorified.
When I am around a fruit-producing Christian, I sense the presence of the Lord. My heart is warmed, delighted and encouraged. The fruit of the Spirit is often elevated as grand traits that are part of the human ability to be good, but when properly described and biblically understood, there is no way I could be like this apart from the Holy Spirit.
For instance, the love here is not human affection or a do-good love. It is agape, that love that is unconditional and given apart from any deservedness or reward. Agape can love enemies and persevere long after it is appreciated.
Another for instance is self-control. This is not a bite the bullet kind of determination but the sinful and selfish self under the control of the Holy Spirit so that the person who is bearing fruit is almost unaware that they are doing it because they are not thinking about themselves at all.
The first part of John 15 says that those who bear fruit will be pruned so they will bear more. That means God will use the events of life and the power of His Word to lop off the selfishness that is in me. He cannot be glorified as He deserves if I have any desire to have some of that glory for myself.
This chapter says that this kind of fruit only happens when God’s people abide in Him and obey Him. I need to stay close to Jesus and focus on Him. I need to listen to Him and rely on Him for everything that I do and say. This is a spiritual discipline and a necessity, but He is faithful. When I abide, He produces that fruit that is so important.
John 15 also says that the fruit of an abiding Christian will last forever. It has eternal value and gives significance to my life, even though I am merely the bucket that carries it where God wants it used.
Most of all, and more important than all, the fruit produced by a branch that abides in the vine is fruit that shows others what God is like, and by doing that, it glorifies God.
