In the Bible Christian Ministry
Sunday 5-24-26 (Fruit Takes Time, Part 1)
  • Worthy of My Praise
  • Victory Chant
  • This is How We Overcome
  • Fill Me Up / Overflow
  • What a Mighty God We Serve
  • Happy
  • Father, Jesus, Spirit
  • I Give Myself Away
  • Shabach
  • We've Come to Worship
  • One Thing Remains
  • I'm Yours
  • You Are Good
  • I Am a Friend of God
  • In the Room
  • I Am Not Alone
  • He Is
  • Freedom
  • I Know Who I Am
  • Trust In God
  • Welcome Holy Spirit
  • Worthy of My Praise
  • Lord I Love You - Todd Galberth
  • My Worship - Phil Thompson
  • Lord I Lift Your Name on High
  • Joy To The World
  • O Come All Ye Faithful
  • Excellent
  • Father, Jesus, Spirit
  • Closer / Wrap Me In Your Arms
  • Lord, I Love You (TGalberth)
  • Let It Rise
  • Lord You're Mighty
  • He is Exalted / Give Him Praise
  • Sing a New Song
  • My Worship
  • Just a Closer Walk with Thee
  • Awesome God - Tammi & Gerald Haddon
  • Fire
  • We Believe
  • Holy Forever
  • Series: Fruit Takes Time (Week 1)
    Sermon Title: Abiding in the Slow Growth
    Primary Text: John 15:1–8
    Supporting Passages: Philippians 1:6–9; Galatians 5:16–18
    Preaching Style: Expository-Narrative (Me-We-God-You)

    I. The Illusion of Center Stage

    We are a society in love with the finished product, but we are absolutely terrified of the process.
    Think about a world-class athlete standing on the Olympic podium. The national anthem is playing, a gold medal is hanging around their neck, and the stadium lights hit their face. Tears are running.
    Or think about a singer whose single note can hold an entire auditorium in dead silence before bringing them to their feet in a huge ovation.
    When they are center stage, everybody wants a piece of the harvest. Everybody applauds the finished product.
    The tears on their face are not just because they won, but the work they put in to get the win paying off.
    But the cameras never capture the silent grit of the gymnasium at 4:00 AM in the dead of winter.
    Nobody records the isolation:
    The voices of cutting discouragement they had to swallow,
    Or the moments in the dark when they wanted to completely walk away because they looked in the mirror and saw absolutely no visible improvement.
    The doubters they fought through
    They were putting in the work, but the crop wasn't showing.
    We have graduates here today.
    Many people come and cheer them across the stage but only a few were there when the tears of I can’t do this hit.
    When parents were encouraging and driving back and forth.
    I know what it’s like to look at an area of my life and wonder if the quiet, unseen labor is paying off.
    We have all stood over the barren plain soil of our life choices, looking at a marriage, a business, a child, or a character flaw, crying out:
    “Lord, I am giving this everything I have.
    Why does the ground still look completely dead?”

    II. The Sickness of the Microwave Mindset

    Our greatest spiritual frustration stems from a single reality: we are a microwave culture trying to read an agricultural Bible.
    We live in a world that sells instant gratification as a birthright.
    If a program doesn't guarantee radical transformation in thirty days, we scroll past it. If an approach doesn't provide immediate relief, we drop it.
    Because we don't understand agriculture today, we approach our relationship with God with a digital mindset.
    We expect to pray a prayer on Monday and reap a full-scale harvest by Tuesday afternoon. And when that breakthrough does not manifest on our schedule, we do what any modern consumer does:
    We assume the system is broken, we look out the window, and we grow bitter.
    We do not understand the sheer patience and absolute trust that ancient people had to have.
    Jesus and Paul did not use agricultural metaphors because they were nice literary illustrations. They used them because if you did not understand the laws of the soil, your family did not survive the winter. Today, food is a drive-thru luxury; to them, food was an absolute matter of life and death.
    Lets look at it today how it was meant to be looked at:

    III. The Architecture of the Vineyard

    John 15:1–8 NIV
    1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
    To understand what Jesus is doing in John 15, we must step out of our hyper-speed world and into the historical landscape of the ancient Mediterranean basin. Agriculture wasn’t a hobby; it was a must. It dictated your family's livelihood, your children’s survival, and the economic stability of the entire society.
    Three historical anchors that completely change how we preach this text:
    The Vulnerability of the Rain: Unlike Egypt, which relied on man-made irrigation channels engineered from the Nile, Israel's agricultural ecosystem was completely dependent on the sovereign timing of the "early and late rains" (Deuteronomy 11:14). The farmer could not manipulate the sky. Growing fruit was a lesson in absolute vulnerability.
    Deuteronomy 11:14 NIV
    14 then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and olive oil.
    2. The Aggressive Long-Term Cost: Roman agricultural historians noted that a newly planted vineyard required three to four years of intense, aggressive pruning and unseen cultivation before it ever produced a single grape suitable for quality vintage.
    3. The Cruel Pressure of the System: Most listeners were tenant farmers (geōrgoi) working under land contracts for a tiny elite class of wealthy, absentee landowners living in distant cities. At harvest time, these landowners extracted up to 50% of the crop, with zero grace for a bad year. A failed harvest meant debt, slavery, and starvation.
    Knowing this lets look at it again.
    Look at how Jesus completely subverts this structural dread in John 15:1:
    “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.”
    Jesus is telling these anxious farmers: “My Father is not a distant, demanding landlord waiting to extract a percentage from your life. He is the Geōrgos.
    He is the hands-on Vine-dresser who walks the rows personally. He is close enough to touch the dirt, intimate enough to bind up your weak shoots, and committed enough to stay in the field with you for the long haul.”
    The care and focus you do for that vine. That is what He is doing. Not just sitting back waiting for the end product.
    Its easy to picture God as this distant figure just waiting for your results. But He is there helping you with your results.

    The Theological Core: Karpos vs. Commodity

    This is why our language matters. When Paul speaks of the "Fruit of the Spirit" in Galatians 5:22, he uses the word Karpos. Karpos doesn't just mean the shiny apple hanging on the branch; it refers to the inner character, the intrinsic nature, and the DNA of the plant itself.
    FRUIT
    Galatians 5:22–23 NIV
    22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
    In a our society, fruit is measured by outward speed, immediately used, and consumer metrics. But karpos is entirely about the nature and character of the plant.
    Look at it again. the character of the spirit is… so now if the character of the plant is this. Then the fruit. The Fruit is just want you SEE!!!
    True fruit cannot be manufactured by human performance. It is an internal, organic overflow of what the branch is because of the root it is tied to.
    The law could only confront a human being from without, demanding compliance by a written letter. But true fruitfulness via the Gospel is inwardly engrafted, livingly incorporated like a fruitful shoot bound to a vine.
    And how does that character develop? Through a word Paul uses in Galatians and James: Makrothumia. We translate it as "patience," but to the first-century mind, makrothumia was an active agricultural idiom meaning "having long patience over the ground." Specifically “patience while actively working.”
    Patience to us is just waiting. Wait on the Lord.
    But Paul says WORK WHILE WAITING.
    Ancient farmers did not sit on porches looking out windows doing nothing.
    They were out in the field, sweating in the dust, clearing heavy stones, and reinforcing terrace walls when there was absolutely no green shoot to validate their labor.
    To an outsider who doesn’t understand agriculture, the farmer looks completely foolish. Why are you sweating over a field of dirt? Because the farmer knows that slow root work is happening where the human eye cannot see.
    So waiting was I’m going to work while I don’t see anything so when something appears it is strong enough to stay.
    Karpos - character of plant
    Makrothumia - Patience over GROUND MACRO

    The Launchpad: From Humility to Abiding

    Our previous study of A Humble Faith. Pride is frantic. Pride demands an immediate stage, an immediate spotlight, and an instant return.
    But a humble faith has the confidence to say, “God, I don't need to see the green shoot today to trust that You are working under the dirt.”
    Those small, daily rhythms we practiced in Rhythms of Renewal—the intentional minutes of prayer, the steady meditation on the Word, the quiet habits of thanksgiving—are like the very breath of a sapling. Every single breath a plant takes adds to its structural depth.
    Look at Jesus' direct command in John 15:4:
    John 15:4 NIV
    4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
    The Greek word for "Abide" is Menō. It is an imperative statement. It means to remain, to lodge permanently, to stay put. But let's be completely honest up in here today: staying in Christ is not as easy as it sounds!
    It is like telling a small child, “Stay right here in this chair until I get back.” You know exactly what happens the moment you walk out of the room. Their legs start twitching. Their eyes start scanning the room. Why? Because staying put is agonizing when instant gratification is calling from the very next room! We are just like those children. God tells us, “Abide. Stay in My presence. Trust My timing.” But the world whispers, “If you take this shortcut, you can perform and get the harvest right now.”

    The Anatomy of the Pruning Shears

    But notice what happens when you try to force growth outside of His pace. You exhaust your soul. I’ll point out a terrifying truth in the textual background: to "prunes" means "cleanses." A master vinedresser prunes the vine in two ways.
    First, he cuts away the completely dead wood that acts as a parasite.
    2. But then, he takes his shears to the fruitful branches. He cuts back the precious shoots that have already produced, cutting them down to what looks like nothing, so that the branch doesn't wastefully sapping its life strength on peripheral foliage.
    He strips the branch so it can build durable structure for the next vintage.
    SO HARD TO CUT THAT GOOD LOOKING BRANCH. But all Short and the longest one can’t grow.
    It’s what I don’t SEE
    But hear the word of the Lord today: Philippians 1:6 reminds us that “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
    Slow growth comes in both breadth and depth. When you put a seed in the ground, things are happening that you cannot see.
    It is building a well-formed, living, durable structure. God invites slow growth into every single area of our lives because quick mass is fragile mass.
    When we grow at Jesus’s pace for us, He ensures that our internal character can actually sustain the external weight of the blessings He wants to give us.
    Why are you cutting that it looks good. Just because it looks good doesn’t mean it is good but can’t go by what you don’t know. The Vinedresser KNOWS.
    Philippians 1:6 NIV
    6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
    Your growth might look completely stalled to a casual observer. It might look too slow to the naked eye. But just like a sapling in winter, there is a massive amount of root work happening under the surface of the soil in your soul!

    The Fire in the Pulpit

    I remember times growing up when the external pressure was high, the sacrifice was heavy, and the visible returns felt incredibly small. I can still hear the exhaustion in my mom’s voice in those seasons, looking at the hardship, looking at the weight we were carrying, asking: “Is all this sacrifice even worth it? Are we ever going to see the fruit of this labor?” I can still hear the voice of my dad calculating the numbers, saying: “Man, I could have saved myself a whole lot of money, and a whole lot of time, if this little bit right here was all I was ever going to get back in return!” Have you ever been there? Have you ever looked at your empty bank account, your broken heart, or your silent room after years of being faithful to God, thinking: “Is this all I get for my obedience? Is this the only return I get for my tithing, my praying, and my serving?”
    But let me tell you what my parents couldn't fully see in that moment, and what you might be completely blind to today: God had an movement going under the dirt that no human eye could see! While human calculation was counting the immediate loss of time and money, the Master Vinedresser was weaving a root system deep into the covenant soil of Christ! He was hammering out an unshakeable foundation! He was carving a character that could not be blown over when the storms of life hit the house! What looked like a completely wasted season was actually a mandatory season of root transformation!

    IV. The Trial of the Chinese Bamboo Tree

    When a farmer plants the seed of a Chinese Bamboo Tree, they must go out to that patch of dirt and water it, fertilize it, and shield it from danger every single day.
    For the first twelve months, nothing breaks the surface. For the second year, absolute silence over the plot. For the third and fourth years, it remains a field of empty, unpromising dust. To a casual observer walking past that field, it looks like a complete joke. It looks like an absolute failure. They would look at the farmer and say, "Why are you wasting your life watering dirt?"
    But in the fifth year, that bamboo seed finally breaks through the topsoil—and it shoots up an astounding 80 feet into the air in just six weeks!
    Let me ask this church the definitive question: Did that tree grow 80 feet in six weeks, or did it take five years?
    It took five years! Because if that farmer had stopped laboring in the dust during year three or year four because he couldn't see the fruit, the seed would have withered and died in the dark.
    You are God's workmanship (Philippians 1:6). If you feel the sharp edge of His chisel hitting the exact same area of your life over and over again, it is not because He is angry with you. It is because He is not making a cheap, temporary piece of performance pop art; He is carving a permanent masterpiece! He is shaping the image of His Son out of the rough block of your life.
    Some of us are praying for a spiritual hothouse of constant comfort and instant validation. But God knows that artificial ease will kill your destiny. Like the exotic larch tree placed in a artificial greenhouse, comfort will make you spindly, weak, and sickly. God allows the biting winds of delay, the cold seasons of hiddenness, and the trials of the unknown to force your roots down deep into the sufficiency of Jesus Christ.
    Stop trying to force the fruit through the works of your flesh, and start committing to the root by walking in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16). Slow growth is not a sign of God's absence; it is the ultimate proof of His meticulous design. Commit to the dirt. Do the work in the dust. Abide in the Vine, trust the Vinedresser, and watch what breaks through the soil in His sovereign time.
    Galatians 5:16 NIV
    16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

      • John 15:1–8NIV2011

      • Deuteronomy 11:14NIV2011

      • Galatians 5:22–23NIV2011

      • John 15:4NIV2011

      • Philippians 1:6NIV2011

      • Galatians 5:16NIV2011

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