Dannah Gresh: If you’re a Christian, people around you will start to see it in your life. Here’s how Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth explains it.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: The expectation of Jesus is that those who are in Him, those who belong to Him, those who have believed on Him will produce fruit—good fruit, spiritual fruit, the fruit of Jesus!

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast for December 1, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh, and our host is the author of Surrender: The Heart God Controls, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy: This past fall we had a landscaper come over to our house, just to walk through our property and assess what things need to be done. I’ve been in that home for over thirty years, and there are just some things that need to be trimmed back and some plants that had started out small but have grown to be gargantuan!

I just said, “Dan, can you come over and take a look and let us know what needs to be done? I wasn’t there when he left. He texted me back his report and he said, “There are a number of older pines that are dead standing. I am planning to fell them when I return.”

The text kind of made me smile. I know what he’s talking about. There are some old trees in the woods next to our house that are dead, standing, as Dan said. And then I just thought it was so quaint for him to say, “I am planning to fell them when I return.” 

What’s he’s saying? “They’re gettin’ out. We don’t need those anymore! They’re coming out.” Well, things and people that have life in them are fruitful, and things that don’t have life cannot possibly bear fruit and end up just taking up space. They’re worthless; there’s no reason to hang on to them.

We see this concept illustrated in a poignant passage in Isaiah 5 that has sometimes been called The Song of the Vineyard. I want you to see it with your own eyes, so open if you would to Isaiah chapter 5 and let me read the beginning of that passage. Isaiah says,

I will sing about the one I love,

a song about my loved one’s vineyard: (v. 1)

Now, we’re going to see that Isaiah is speaking about the Lord, Yaweh, the One he loves, the One he serves, and about a vineyard that belongs to the Lord (“my loved One, my loved One’s vineyard). He goes on to say:

The one I love had a vineyard

on a very fertile hill.

He broke up the soil, cleared it of stones,

and planted it with the finest vines.

He built a tower in the middle of it

and even dug out a winepress there. 

So here you have this descriptive language of a fertile setting and an owner who carefully prepares the ground, plants a vineyard, cultivates the vineyard. And, after all this time and effort, what would you expect the outcome to be?

Well, the passage goes on to tell us in verse 2 what the owner of this vineyard expected. It says, 

He expected it to yield good grapes, 

but [contrary to his expectation] it yielded worthless grapes.

Now your translation may say, “it yielded wild grapes;” another translation says, “it yielded bad fruit.” The concept here is that this fruit, these grapes that were produced, were sour; they were wild; they were inedible . . . and they were useless!

So then as we come to verse 3, now it’s no longer Isaiah talking about this vineyard of the One he loves, of God, the Owner of the vineyard. Now God is speaking, and He says to His people, basically, “I’m the vineyard owner and you are My vineyard, and I’m talking about you!” So look at verse 3:

So now, residents of Jerusalem

and men of Judah,

please judge between me

and my vineyard.

What more could I have done for my vineyard

than I did?

Why, when I expected a yield of good grapes,

did it yield worthless grapes?

Now I will tell you

what I am about to do to my vineyard:

I will remove its hedge,

and it will be consumed;

I will tear down its wall,

and it will be trampled.

I will make it a wasteland.

It will not be pruned or weeded;

thorns and briers will grow up.

I will also give orders to the clouds

that rain should not fall on it. (vv. 3–6)

That’s a tragic picture!

Here was a vineyard that had been carefully cultivated, the land was fertile. The owner had done everything He could to make sure that this vineyard would bear fruit. But the vineyard in this parable had not borne the fruit it was intended to bear. 

It had borne fruit, but it was the wrong kind of fruit. It wasn’t fruit you could eat or use or enjoy. It wasn’t satisfactory to anybody. It was worth nothing except to be thrown out! So now that vineyard, cared for so lovingly and wisely by its Owner, would become barren, fruitless, useless.

And in case there’s any doubt whom God, the vineyard Owner, is talking about, look at verse 7: 

For the vineyard of the LORD of Armies

is the house of Israel,

and the men of Judah,

the plant he delighted in.

He expected justice but saw injustice,

he expected righteousness but heard cries of despair. 

As we often say at Revive Our Hearts, “Take it home and make it personal!” And that’s exactly what’s happening here. Isaiah and God are having a dialog, and God is having a dialog with His people. He’s saying [to them,] “This is you! The house of Israel, the men of Judah: you were the plant God delighted in, but God expected the fruit of justice!” Instead He saw injustice! Your translation may say “bloodshed,” another translation says, “oppression.” 

He didn’t get the justice He expected as the fruit of His efforts and His labors. He expected justice—that’s the good fruit—but He saw the bad fruit of injustice.

He expected righteousness—that’s the good fruit God as the vineyard Owner expected—He expected them to live righteous and holy lives, but instead He heard “cries of despair.” Or as some translations say, “a cry for help” by people who were being overrun by these unjust Israelites. 

So here, God created and cultivated His people that they might bear good fruit: justice, righteousness, fruit that reflected His character and His heart. But Israel in the Old Testament never produced the kind of fruit God was looking for. They didn’t produce the fruit of justice, the fruit of righteousness, the fruit of compassion, the fruit of holiness.

They produced just the opposite: wild grapes, sour fruit—inedible, worthless. And when they failed to produce good fruit, it wasn’t God’s fault. But God took matters into His own hands and eventually He judged them and He sent them into exile.

He sent them out of the land of Promise, the land flowing with milk and honey. This was to be a good land. They were to be fruitful; they were to be productive; they were to be a light and a blessing to the rest of the world.

But they failed at that. They did not fulfill the purpose for which God had put them in the land. They were blessed, but they turned that blessing on themselves, they followed after idols instead of following after the God who had blessed them.

They were not fruitful. Well, they were fruitful, but they produced the wrong kind of fruit! They produced the fruit of sinfulness and injustice and agony and oppression in others’ lives. So eventually God said, “That’s it!” He threw them out of that land where He had intended to bless them.

If we’re not fruitful where God places us, God may in His wisdom and sovereignty discipline us, chastise us, put us in a harder place so that we can be brought to a place of repentance and become fruitful as He intended for us.

Thankfully this parable in Isaiah 5 is not the end of the story for Israel! The day will come, Scripture teaches us, when the true Israel of God will repent and will fulfill its God-given calling. This will be a day of redemption, a day of restoration. 

Theologians debate about exactly when that will happen or how it will happen, but we get that truth in the Scripture: that this vine planted by God will once again be fruitful. We see that, for example, later in the book of Isaiah, in chapter 27. In verse 6 it says, 

In days to come,

Jacob will take root.

Israel will blossom and bloom

and fill the whole world with fruit. 

That was God’s purpose for them in the first place! They never needed to go into that place of exile, that place of discipline and chastisement.

But when they weren’t fruitful, when they didn’t follow after God, when they didn’t give the fruit of justice and righteousness, but instead they gave oppression and injustice, God sent them away. But He said, “One day I will give them a new heart. I will bring Jews among them to a place of repentance. They will trust in Christ, and they will once again bloom and blossom and fill the whole world with fruit!” 

Israel was blessed by God to be a blessing to the world, to be fruitful. So it is with us as the people of God.

And you see this in the opening pages of the New Testament, in Matthew chapter 3, where John the Baptist, the last prophet of the Old Testament—the forerunner bringing the news of Jesus coming to bring salvation—said to the Pharisees who were acting so religious and like, “Why do we need your message?”. . . John the Baptist says, “Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance” (Matt. 3:1). “If you think you’re God’s chosen ones, if you think you’re special, if you think you deserve God’s blessing, then produce fruit that is consistent with repentance!” 

Here’s the point: if you’ve truly repented of your sin, there will be evidence, there will be fruit! The profession of faith like the Pharisees had—“Oh, we’re believers, oh we believe in God, oh yes we’re children of God, oh yes we’re blessed by God!”—must be accompanied by the fruits of faith and repentance.

Don’t say, “I’m a child of God,” if there’s no evidence in your life that you’ve ever repented and turned from your own way and turned from your own idols and are a worshiper of God and producing fruit consistent with repentance.

The absence of that kind of fruit means that our profession is not genuine; it’s hypocritical! And sad to say, I think many of our churches are filled with men and women who make a profession of faith, but who give no evidence of producing fruit consistent with repentance.

There’s no evidence that they have believed in Christ, that they have turned to Him from themselves for salvation, that they have repented of their sin. The expectation of Jesus is that those who are in Him—those who belong to Him, those who have believed on Him—will produce fruit . . . good fruit, spiritual fruit, the fruit of Jesus!

We see Jesus’ expectation along this line in John chapter 15, a passage that’s familiar to many of us, where Jesus says, beginning in verse 1, “I am the true vine . . .” Now, the Jews who were listening to this would have thought back to Isaiah 5. There was a vineyard with vines in it. And Jesus is saying, 

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. [He’s the owner of this vineyard.] Every branch in me that does not [what?] produce fruit he removes. (vv. 1–2) 

I’m thinking about our landscaper saying, “There are some dead trees standing. When I return, I shall fell them.”

That’s what Jesus is saying: “Every branch in me that does not produce fruit, it’s dead!” He removes it. When Dan, our landscaper, was over here in the fall, as he was doing his walkaround, I saw hanging from one of our tall pine trees. 

We have some beautiful pine trees surrounding our home, and hanging very high from one of those was this long limb that was clearly dead. There was no life on it! I texted Dan before he got here and I said, “Dan, could you please take down that dead limb?” 

It’s not good for anything! It’s not ever going to produce fruit. It’s not ever going to produce leaves or be green again. It’s worth nothing, but to be removed. And that’s what Jesus said: “Every branch who professes to be in me, who acts like they’re in me, but they don’t produce fruit, I’m going to remove them, because they’re not really part of the vine!”

Now, what about branches that do produce fruit? Jesus goes on to say that the gardener “prunes every branch” that produces fruit, so that it will produce more fruit: multiplying, fertile, fruitful abounding fruit. He’s going to prune the branches (see John 15:2).

When we prune the branches at our home, and we go through our garden and our home and bushes and things that have grown up too much, we prune them back so that they can be healthy again and can produce more fruit. That’s what God does with us. Jesus said: 

I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit. . . . I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain. (John 15:1, 16)

Things that are alive produce fruit, they produce after their own kind, they have the seeds of life in them. And they produce fruit so more fruit can be produced, so more fruit can be produced. I’m not just talking about fruit like bananas and apples. I’m talking about the result of life giving more life, being productive.

The kind of fruit is going to be a giveaway as to what kind of fruit tree it came from. So if I look at a tree in our yard and I say, “That’s a lemon tree,” and then I pick off the fruit of that tree and it’s got apples on it, the fruit is a dead giveaway to what kind of tree it is. 

I may think it’s a lemon tree. I may have thought forever that it is a lemon tree. Somebody may have told me that it’s a lemon tree. But it’s not a lemon tree if it’s producing apples! The kind of fruit we produce tells what kind of life there is within us.

You see this concept in James chapter 3, where James says, “Can a fig tree produce olives, my brothers and sisters [answer obviously is no] or a grapevine produce figs? [obviously no] Neither can a saltwater spring yield fresh water” (v. 12). The kind of life we have in us is going to dictate what kind of fruit we produce.

Those who are in Christ the True Vine, who are united with Him through faith and repentance, will produce fruit. So, what kind of fruit will they produce? In the Old Testament the fruit being talked about were mostly land and crops and physical children. Those were an evidence of God’s blessing in people’s lives.

But as New Testament believers, what kind of fruit? Does that mean if I’m fruitful? God will give me a bigger piece of property or a bigger house or more things or more children? Well, here’s the kind of fruit the Scripture talks about in the New Testament. 

First of all is Christ-like character and attitudes and behavior, the fruit of Christ-likeness! Some of the most familiar verses in Scripture about fruit are found in Galatians 5:22–23, “The fruit of the Spirit is . . .” What? More children, more land, more property? No. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” 

Who is that a picture of? Right, Jesus! When we have Jesus living in us, He will produce His fruit in and through us: His heart, His character, His attitudes, and His behavior. In Colossians 1:9–12, Paul says, “We pray for you believers . . .” What do we pray for you? That you will have more money, that you will have a better job, that you will have less pain? 

No, he says that “[we pray] that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work” (v. 10). James 3:17 says it this way: “The wisdom from above is first pure, then peace-loving, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and [what?] good fruits.”

“The wisdom that is from above . . .” Jesus is the wisdom of God. When He lives in us and He fills us, He will produce good fruit, the fruit of righteousness in and through our lives! Hebrews 13:15 talks about another kind of fruit.

It says, “Through [Jesus] let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that [acknowledge] his name.” Praise—true, wholehearted, full-throated praise—is a fruit of being connected to Christ, of being in Him. The fruit of praise.

And then, the fruit of bearing spiritual children. Things and people reproduce after their kind. People who reproduce have babies, they have children. They don’t produce monkeys or apples. The kind of fruit we’re talking about produces “fruit after its kind.”

So if we are walking with Christ, if we are filled with His Spirit, we will produce after our kind. We will produce spiritual fruit. What does that look like? We will be always pointing others to Jesus and bringing them into relationship with Him.

Now the fruitfulness of God’s people—your fruitfulness, my fruitfulness—is tied to our relationship with God. Listen to an Old Testament passage that makes that clear, and then I’ll give you a couple New Testament ones.

Deuteronomy chapter 11, beginning in verse 13, God said: 

If you carefully obey my commands I am giving you today, to love the LORD your God and worship him with all your heart and all your soul . . . 

If you love God, if you worship Him, if you obey Him, what’s going to happen? You’re going to become fruitful. Next verses:

I will provide rain for your land in the proper time, the autumn and spring rains, and you will harvest your grain, new wine, and fresh oil. I will provide grass in your fields for your livestock. You will eat and be satisfied. (vv.14–15)

You walk with God, you’re in union and communion with Him, and God says, “I will make you fruitful.” But then He goes on to say in Deuteronomy 11:16: 

[But] be careful that you are not enticed to turn aside, serve, and bow in worship to other gods. (v. 16 )

What happens if you forsake the Lord and follow after other gods? You got it! You will become unfruitful. God says, 

Then the LORD’s anger will burn against you. He will shut the sky, and there will be no rain; the land will not yield its produce, and you will perish quickly from the good land the LORD is giving you. (v. 17)

Do you feel like your life is not bearing fruit? Then take a heart check and see: 

• Is your life in union and communion with the Lord? 
• Are you walking with Him? 
• Are you living in His Word? 
• Are you letting Him speak to you and letting Him teach you and disciple you and cultivate the soil of your heart? 

If you are, then He will produce fruit in and through you.

That means that anything that competes with our relationship with God threatens our fruitfulness. Jesus talked about this in a parable in Mark 4:19, and He said: 

The worries of this age, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word [that has been sown in our lives] and it becomes unfruitful.

When we let stuff, things, priorities other than God; when we let the cares of this world and riches and longings and affections for other things; when we let those pile in on us, they’re going to choke out the Word of God in our lives, and it is not going to bear good fruit.

But anything that deepens and strengthens our relationship with God will ensure and increase our fruitfulness. You see this in 2 Peter 1:8, 

If you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

These qualities that he outlines in 2 Peter 1 that we’re to add to our faith, Peter said if we keep increasing in those, you keep growing in those, they will keep you from being unfruitful and useless spiritually. 

I want to point you to one more verse that I came across recently as I was meditating on the book of Jude, that one-page epistle toward the end of the New Testament. Jude is speaking of those who come into the church, they act like they’re a part of the church, but they are bringing false teaching. They are not of God, they’re deceptive.

He said, “These people,” and then he uses this metaphor for what they are like:

They are . . . trees in late autumn—fruitless, twice dead and uprooted. . . for whom the blackness of darkness is reserved forever. (vv. 12–13)

That says to me that there are some people mingling in our churches who claim to be in Christ, who claim to be teaching truth, but who actually are working against the truth. They do not bear spiritual fruit, their lives are fruitless, and that gives evidence that they are not true believers in Christ. They will ultimately fall under the wrath and judgment of God.

So this thing about being fruitful is really important! It matters. Not that we generate or make our own fruit, but that we let Christ within us make His fruit, produce His fruit in and through our lives.

Now, I want to leave you with one more verse as we think about this overview of fruitfulness in the Scripture. It’s in the last chapter of the Bible, and it reminds us that in the New Heaven and the New Earth yet to come. In the redeemed earth there will be unimaginable fruitfulness—not just for a short time, but for all eternity!

In the New Jerusalem, John saw:.

The river of the water of life . . . flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the city’s main street. The tree of life was on each side of the river, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations. (Rev. 22:1–2)

I love this picture of the Tree of Life. You saw it first in the book of Genesis. In fact, in our dining room at home, we have a tapestry hanging of The Tree of Life. Not long ago as somebody was in our home actually hanging that tapestry and pounding holes in the wall so we could hang it up . . .

This was a young man who doesn’t have any spiritual background or church background that I know of. He’s not a believer as far as I know. But I said to him, “Do you know what that picture is?” He didn’t know. I said, “That’s called The Tree of Life.”

And in two minutes or less I gave him, from Genesis to Revelation, the story of the tree of life: how it was in the garden and the man and woman were able to eat from it freely, to be blessed by its fruit, but then they sinned.

And I said, “You know what that is? That’s what got this world in this whole mess! They were banished from the garden. They couldn’t eat from that Tree of Life—from its fruit—anymore. I said to him, “When we come to the last chapter of the Bible, we see the Tree of Life again. And the people who have believed in Christ, who have trusted Him for their salvation, to forgive them of their sins, they are able to eat from the fruit of that tree, the Tree of Life, and to be blessed by it for all eternity!”

Well he looked at me with this fast little Bible lesson like, “What in the world are you talking about?” I don’t know if he had any clue. But you know a seed was planted there, and I’m going to trust and pray that the Spirit of God will water that seed and one day produce spiritual fruit in the life of that young man.

Of course we know that the Tree of Life points to Christ. He is the ultimate Tree of Life who gave His life on a tree called Calvary so that we could have life and then He was raised from the dead. Now He is the Tree of Life, and we partake of His fruit. We eat of Him, we live by faith in Him, and He produces His fruit in and through us so we can become a tree of life and fruitfulness in the lives of others.

Dannah: What a wonderful study on fruitfulness from our host, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. She’s going to be right back to pray. 

Well, I don’t know about you, but I sure want my life to be a life of fruitfulness—not dead, not useless. I want to be fruitful for the Lord!

One evidence of a transformed heart is that we hold less tightly to the things of this world. When we love Jesus with all we are, then our stuff, our money, even our relationships, they become less important to us than God and His kingdom agenda.

If you’re looking for somewhere to invest your time or your money in kingdom priorities, I have some suggestions for you. First, a powerful way to give of your time is by spending it in prayer! Ask God to intervene in someone’s life. And while you’re there, pray for Revive Our Hearts, because we cannot continue on without your prayers!

And secondly, give. Give to your church, give to the needy, give to organizations like Revive Our Hearts. One exciting thing for this month is that your donation to Revive Our Hearts will be matched dollar for dollar by some friends of the ministry.

You know, almost half of our income for the year comes in each December, so this is a crucial time for us and for other ministries like Revive Our Hearts. So don’t take away from your regular giving to your church or missionaries, but as the Lord prompts you and if you’re able, we’d love to hear from you.

To make a donation, head to ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. Thank you so much! Nancy?

Nancy: During the month of December we’re going to be returning to this theme of Fruitfulness, starting next week with a study of Psalm 92. It’s a beautiful passage that I’ve been meditating on for the past several months, a passage about fruitfulness in every season of life. 

I hope you’ll take time to read that passage, Psalm 92, between now and then—maybe several times. As you do, ask yourself these two questions: 

1. What are the keys to a life of fruitfulness? 
2. How can I prepare now to be fruitful in future seasons of my life? 

We’ll talk about all of that and more when we start into our study of Psalm 92 next week. Let me pray for you.

O Lord, we think about that vineyard that You planted and expected good fruit to come from it, but it just produced wild berries, useless, inedible, worthless. We think how the nation of Israel didn’t bear the fruit You intended them to, so You sent them into exile. You disciplined them. You chastened them. You’ve promised that one day You will bring them back to repentance, and the true Israel of God will believe in Christ and will be fruitful and will fill the earth with the fruit of Your glory.

And Lord, that’s just a picture of the fruit that You expect from us as Your people, today. You want our lives to be fruitful, and as we abide in Christ, as we remain in You, as we remain in Your Word and Your Word remains in us, we will be fruitful.

So I pray for my friend listening today. May You produce in him or her the fruit that You intend. May You produce that in me. And Lord, may our lives fulfill the purpose for which You created them.

Work in us in times of adversity and good times, in every season of our lives. May our lives point people to Jesus, the Tree of Life, that people may come and eat of His fruit and believe and be saved and become fruitful themselves. We love You, we bless You. In Jesus’ name, amen!

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is calling you away from fruitlessness and toward freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the CSB.