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What We Believe and Why - Vol. II
Written by Dr. Lester Hutson

Copyright - Lester Hutson - 1982
This material is copyrighted and may not be copied or reproduced without the express written permission of Dr. Lester Hutson.

Chapter Thirty Nine
God Working in You
Part III
"You Can Be a Fruitful Bough"

INTRODUCTION: TEXT: Genesis 49:22-26

Today we want to look at the results of being yielded to God so that He works in you "both to will and to do of his good pleasure," as Philippians 2:13 affirms He will.

I. IT IS GOD'S WILL THAT EVERY CHILD OF HIS BE FRUITFUL IN HIS SERVICE.

A. The first commission God ever gave to man is found in Genesis 1:28 and says, "Be fruitful and multiply." Although it was a command for physical reproduction, it also bears a strong spiritual weight, as Philippians 1:11 verifies by saying, "be filled with the fruits of righteousness."

B. Paul wrote to the Colossian saints and said, "For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, BEING FRUITFUL IN EVERY GOOD WORK, and increasing in the knowledge of God." (Colossians 1:9-10)

C. Remember that we are specially designed workmanships of God, whose designed purpose is that we should "walk" in good works. (Ephesians 2:10)

D. Jesus said, "I have chosen you and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain." (John 15:16) He said in verse 8, "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit." (John 15:8)

E. Romans 7:4 gives us these words, "Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, THAT WE SHOULD BRING FORTH FRUIT UNTO GOD."

F. We may not think we have any responsibility to be fruitful, but God thinks we do. You can be sure that if you are not fruitful in God's service as His child, you are not serving your purpose for being in life, for the thing that honors God is fruitfulness in you.

G. The scriptures tell you what God's attitude is toward those who are stubborn and unyielded to His will and thus are fruitless.

1. Isaiah 5:1-6 is a passage that likens Israel, and by prophetic foretype every child of God, to the vineyard of an husbandman. Read these verses.

a. The husbandman worked to make that vineyard fruitful with good quality fruit. He put it on a fruitful hill, fenced it, removed the stones, put the choicest vine therein, and built a tower in it.

b. And he expected grapes. He "looked that it should bring forth grapes," and put a winepress therein. His hopes for grapes was certainly a reasonable expectation.

c. That vineyard brought forth wild grapes.

d. The result of such fruitlessness is well pointed forth in verses 5 and 6.

2. Once Jesus was hungry. He passed by a fig tree. Listen to the narrative in scripture, "And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon (like far too many Christians) but leaves only, and he said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away." (Matthew 21:19) The message is loud and clear: our God does not like fruitlessness.

3. In John 15 Jesus shows us to be branches in the vine, and Jesus said unfruitful branches are good for nothing except to be cast into the fire and burned. (verses 5,6)

4. Listen to Jesus' parable of the fig tree found in Luke 13:6-9.

a. The whole gist is that it bear fruit as Jesus said, "If it bear fruit, well." (verse 9)

b. But if it be fruitless, He said, "cut it down," for "why cumbereth it the ground?" (verses 9,7)

c. The Lord seeks fruit on every one of us, and after a reasonable length of time He has a right to expect it. (verse 6)

H. Fellow Christian, God wants fruit off you. He has designed you to be fruitful, and He works to make you fruitful every day. He doesn't think it is an unreasonable thing to ask that you yield yourself to Him and let fruits be produced in your life. He says you should "present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God," and when you do, that will be your "reasonable service." (Romans 12:1)

II. ONCE YOU, BY FAITH, YIELD YOURSELF HUMBLY TO THE WILL OF GOD, HE WILL WORK IN YOU TO PRODUCE AN ABUNDANCE OF GOOD FRUITS.

A. Jesus made this promise in John 15:5, "He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit." In other words, when you are yielded and letting God work through you, fruit that honors God is a NATURAL result.

B. Listen again to how the scriptures speak of those who surrender themselves to the workings of God. "Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, MAKE YOU PERFECT IN EVERY GOOD WORK TO DO HIS WILL, WORKING IN YOU THAT WHICH IS WELL-PLEASING IN HIS SIGHT, through Jesus Christ..." (Hebrews 13:20-21) Note well that He will make you perfect in EVERY GOOD WORK. And the works He does in you will be WELL-PLEASING IN HIS SIGHT.

C. Consider how David put this truth in Psalm 1:1-3, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD: and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." Here is pictured the man whose will is subjected to God's will, which is set forth in God's Word, and the result is stated in the third verse. Season after season he brings forth fruit and prospers continually in the Lord. The fact that his leaf does not wither is indicative of the fact that he never has an off season. He must be an EVERGREEN in the work of God.

D. A parallel passage to this is Jeremiah 17:7-9, "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit." Again notice the evergreen qualities of this type of Christian. Even when "heat cometh," and it surely will, he continues right on, lush and very fruitful.

E. Consider Joseph, who God called "a fruitful bough" in Genesis 49:22.

1. His own envious, greedy brothers threatened to kill him and did sell him into slavery. (Genesis 37:18-28) He was just a seventeen year old boy at heart. (Genesis 42:21)

2. Separated from his loved ones and in a foreign land, Joseph was lied on and falsely thrown into a harsh prison. (Genesis 39:11-20) In that prison dungeon, the people he helped forgot him. (Genesis 40:15,23)

3. Yet, Joseph was never bitter and rebellious against God's workings in his life. In fact he was submitted to whatever God's will was for him and recognized that what happened to him was God's doing. As he told his brothers in Genesis 45:7-8, "And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God."

4. And for this man of God, who was so yielded and submitted to the will of God, our God exalted him above all those of that day, and indeed made him a "fruitful bough."

a. No sooner had he arrived as a servant in Egypt than Genesis 39:2 says, "The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man." He became a servant of Potiphar, and Genesis 39:5 says, "The Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake."

b. Even in the Egyptian prison, "The Lord was with Joseph, and showed him mercy, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison." (Genesis 39:21) "The Lord was with him, and that which he did, the Lord made it to prosper." (Genesis 39:23)

c. The day even came when the Pharaoh of Egypt could say, "Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is?" (Genesis 41:38) He exalted Joseph and made him second in command in the Kingdom of Egypt with a great honoring ceremony. (Genesis 41:40-45) During the centuries that have followed, God has made the name of Joseph not second to, but far greater than that of, Pharaoh.

d. God gave Joseph honor double that of either of his brothers. He was only one of Jacob's sons, yet whereas the others received one portion of the inheritance in Canaan, Joseph received two. Both Ephraim and Manasseh, two sons of Joseph, became numbered as a full tribe each among the twelve tribes of Israel. (Genesis 48:21-22)

F. There is not a child of God who cannot be a fruitful bough, even as Joseph was.

1. It was not Joseph's strength that made him great and fruitful. It was the Spirit of God in him, to whom Joseph was yielded.

2. You may not have much of a voice to sing or speak. You may not be pretty or athletic. You may be poor and unknown. But God can make you fruitful, if you will let Him.

3. He took Moses' common ordinary shepherd's rod and rolled back the waters of the Red Sea. (Exodus 14:16, 21) He took the new jawbone of an ass and used Samson to slay a thousand Philistines. (Judges 15:15) He took a little lad's lunch of five loaves and two small fishes and fed 5,000 men, plus women and children. (John 6:5-14)

4. The same God who could do these things is also thoroughly capable of taking you and using you effectively and fruitfully in His work. Remember that it is Him in you, not you in you, that makes you useful and effective in His service. That being true, it matters not how much or how little you have or are. What does matter is whether or not you are yielded to His control. When you are, just remember, "There is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few." (Isaiah 14:6)

5. Above all, know, Oh Christian, that you, too, can be a fruitful bough.

III. THOUGH GOD IS THE ONE WHO WILL CAUSE THE FRUIT TO ABOUND IN YOU, HE WILL CREDIT THAT FRUIT TO YOUR ACCOUNT.

A. As Jesus makes clear in His discussion of the vine in John 15:1-6, all that is necessary to the production of fruit on the branches comes from the vine. That illustrates so well how that all that is necessary to the production of fruit in our lives as Christians comes from God, who is in us working His will. In a very true sense we only bear the fruit that God produces in us. Thus, God should rightfully receive all the glory and credit for all good things that come from our lives. (John 15:8; Matthew 5:16; James 1:17)

B. Yet, in spite of this truth, God credits the good fruits He produces in us to our account.

1. Paul, who instructed the Philippians to let God live and work through their lives, said the resulting works of God would be "fruit that may abound to your account." (Philippians 4:17)

2. Fellow Christian, every good work you let God perform through you is like "gold, silver, and precious stones," and is "treasure" laid up "in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal." (Matthew 6:20)

C. You can see then how this is a continuation of the substitutionary work of Christ in us.

1. He substituted Himself in our place on the cross and took our condemnation upon Himself and satisfied the demands of God against us.

2. Now He wills and performs goodness through us and substitutes all the credit for these good things to our account.

3. What we need to learn, dear Christian, is that, just as we submitted ourselves to God, through faith, to save us from sin's penalty, likewise, should we submit our lives, by faith, to Him that He might perform the second aspect of His great substitutionary work in us, that of living and working good in our stead. This is a matter of living day by day by faith as Romans 1:17 says we should. this is what the Apostle Paul was speaking about when he said, "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him." (Colossians 2:6)

D. It is good to be fruitful, and you can be fruitful. Whether or not you are will depend upon whether or not you yield yourself to Him. If you do, He will laden you down with good fruits. If you don't, you will forever be barren of fruits.

"It Does Make a Difference What You Believe"