Bill Johnson - How God's Word Is Refining You and Bearing Fruit in Your Life
Well, good morning! Nice to see you. Morning it is, still beautiful. When you are dead, you do not know you’re dead; all the pain is felt by others. The same thing happens when you’re stupid. That was good! The Flat Earth Society has members all around the globe. First woman in space: Houston, we have a problem. What? Never mind, what’s the problem? Nothing. Please tell us. I’m fine. I asked my grandpa, «After 65 years, you still call Grandma darling, beautiful, and honey. What’s the secret?» Grandpa responds, «I forgot her name five years ago; I’m scared to ask.» All right, last one: a pastor had dinner at the home of a couple in his church. After he left, the wife said to the husband, «I think he stole our spoon.» That bothered her for a whole year. A year later, the couple had the pastor for dinner again; unable to resist, the wife asked, «Did you steal our spoon last year?» The pastor replied, «No, I put it inside your Bible.» Well, that just felt good to read! I’m edified just reading that one.
Anyone who has what seems to be an impossible health condition, financial condition, or relational condition—church family, you guys know what to do by now. These people need your prayer. Find out if it’s one of the three or all three, whatever it might be, and then just begin to pray. I want you to ask the Lord to release a spirit of breakthrough upon them. If you’re sitting down, those who are standing, I want you to go to them, lay a hand on them, and begin to pray that a spirit of breakthrough would come upon them. Please don’t leave anyone standing by themselves.
Those of you who are watching, our Bethel family at home, just make agreement with us for the ones here in the room but also for your household, your entire family line. We just call right now for a great harvest of souls in family members, that revival would spread from family to family as people are restored to Jesus. The financial breakthrough would come, supernatural supply, but also wisdom and favor for increase of income. God, we call for a spirit of breakthrough in the whole area of health. Just declare over them, «Divine health is your portion! Divine health is your portion! Divine health is your portion!» Now I want you just to confess this over them as we pray: «I bless you in the name of the Lord! Bless you in the name of… I call for a spirit of breakthrough to rest upon you, to rest upon your health, your family, your money. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Hug them, do something nice, then be seated. Love, love, love it!
All right, if you’d grab your Bible, please, and open to the Gospel of John, chapter 15. This chapter is famous for two primary reasons: one is this is the chapter where Jesus says to his disciples, „I no longer call you servants; I call you friends.“ This is the chapter where he unveils that. But the other is the first eight verses, which deal with a metaphor, an illustration—not a parable—of the nature of a believer and our relationship with God. He uses the terminology: the vine dresser, the vine, the branches, and fruit. We’ll read it in a moment, but the vine dresser—the one who owns the vineyard—is the heavenly Father; Jesus himself is the vine; the people, you and me, are the branches, and the fruit is that which is naturally produced because of our connection to Jesus. No fruit tree, no vegetable garden, no vineyard groans and travails to bring forth fruit; it bears fruit naturally if it is fed well, watered well, and pruned correctly. God rewards all growth with pruning.
So good! He rewards all growth with pruning. Pruning in the kingdom is not punishment. People look at the discipline of God and often assume that the discipline of the Lord, the pruning of the Lord, has to do with punishment. I say no, that’s not really right; that’s not true. Well, what about Jonah in the whale? Jonah ran into the whale when he was running from the Word of God. The Word of God is what prunes us now; the voice of the Lord is what prunes. Let’s go and read all eight verses, and then we’ll back up and try to go a verse at a time.
All right, verse one: „I am the true vine; my Father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away; and every branch that bears fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.“ He rewards all growth with pruning. „You are clean already because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing.“ If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit. So you will be my disciples.»
I don’t know if this is just a portion of scripture I ever get tired of; it seems to be this invitation into fruitfulness. Do you remember the story? Jesus used a parable, actually, of the landowner who gave his ten servants each a mina. A mina is a sum of money. Then there’s another story of three servants that received talents. A talent is not an ability to play the piano; a talent also was a sum of money. In each case, they were to invest that money to make a profit to give back to the landowner.
What I want you to see is that from the beginning to the end, God created everything to be productive. Everything is to bear fruit by nature; everything about our lives is to be productive and fruit-bearing. God is actually glorified by a system he created where a peach tree will grow peaches. You eat the fruit, you plant the seed, and it grows another tree that brings more peaches. That cycle of life, of seed, fruit-bearing, of increase and productivity, is the cycle in which God made everything. His economy is linked directly to his voice, which is not only all-powerful; it is creative in nature. God spoke, «Let there be light,» and there was light. He spoke things into being; we know that.
Excuse me! When he speaks to us today, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. So his design is that everything would happen through the voice of his Word. In John 16, the very next chapter, Jesus describes how he has, because he forfeited everything as God to become a man. Now, he’s still 100% God, so some people misunderstand me at this point. He’s entirely God, but he takes on flesh and chooses to live with the restrictions of a human being. Although he’s eternally God, in that position as a man, now he re-inherits—he’s our elder brother—and he now gets to include us in the inheritance. In John 16, he says, «Jesus announces, all that the Father has is mine.»
Now listen carefully: «And the Holy Spirit will take what is mine and declare it to you.» He’s not merely making an announcement; he’s not just showing off what he owns. He is transferring resource from a heavenly account into an earthly account, and the transfer takes place whenever he speaks. Not only does God create, not only does he transfer resource through his decree and declaration, but the Bible says every molecule is held in place by his voice, by his Word. Everything is defined; everything is empowered; everything is created; everything is sustained through his Word.
So when we come to this story, this illustration of us being a vine, we have the Father God as the vine dresser (verse one), verse two: «Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away; and every branch that bears fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.» Once again, he rewards all growth with pruning. «You are already clean,» (verse three) «because of the word I have spoken to you.» Think through this: you are already clean. So he’s announcing to the guys, «Listen, when you bear fruit, I got to prune it, and I’m going to prune it, because that way we’ll get more fruit.» So you’ve got to see that the Lord does everything for the purpose of increase. The Father is extremely focused on increase. The stories of the talents and the minas were always about increase. The minimum level of profit allowed in those two stories was 100% per year.
I’m just quoting Scripture now: the person in each story who stood before the Lord in judgment was the one who buried what they had, and the Lord said if they only would have put it in the bank, they would have at least gotten interest. The whole point was, I want you to see how God thinks. He thinks in terms of increase; he thinks in terms of things working to bring increase, to be productive. The sun gives light, gives heat; the leaves of the trees give oxygen; plants give seed to reproduce over and over; animals the same thing. God has created this cycle of increase and productivity and has brought you and me into that life cycle of God himself, with supernatural increase and supernatural supply.
So he has positioned us, and he requires us to bring increase, but not increase that somehow we have to drum up. It’s simply increase that comes by staying attached to the vine. Come on, it’s normal; he’ll do the pruning; you just stay attached. Good! You don’t have to claim grapes; you don’t have to say, «I claim grapes! I’m confessing grapes right now; grapes are now going to grow! I claim the grapes!» You don’t have to do it; you just have to stay connected! It’s the natural product; he’ll do the pruning; you stay connected, and you will bear fruit. We’re going to look at part of what that fruit is.
So he says, «You are clean already because of the Word I spoke to you.» The word «clean» there and the word «prune» are basically the same word. So when he says to his disciples, «But you are clean already,» he is saying, «I’ve already pruned you.» How did he prune them? By the word I have spoken to you. The pruning wasn’t with a hand; it was with the mouth; it wasn’t yelling and screaming; it was adjusting values so they could be more fruitful—pruning their value system, their interpretation of things.
For example, Luke chapter 9 is one of my favorite chapters for many reasons. Jesus sends the disciples out in ministry, and they are very productive. They come back with stories of breakthroughs; they saw miracles happen they had never seen except with Jesus but never with them, and now they actually saw it through their hands, through their words, and they’re beside themselves with excitement. So they come back and they’re very enthused. The very next moment, you find them in a group without Jesus there. He walks upon the group and he says, «What are you guys talking about?» He already knew what they were talking about; they were arguing as to who was the greatest. Some things that are in your heart will not be dialed up with failure and weakness; it will only be dialed up through success.
Wow! I remind you that the hardest place to minister is at home, and so Jesus sent them home to minister because a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown. If you can minister at home, you’ll learn to do ministry out of obedience instead of for applause. So Jesus sends them home, and they got breakthrough, and they bring their reports back, and the very next scene they’re arguing as to who is the greatest. Why? Because of their success! It wasn’t failure in ministry that caused that problem; it was the fact that they were fruitful! They had stuff happen; they didn’t think it happened to any other disciple because it was so significant through them. It was hard for them to imagine John going, «I have my doubts; Peter saw what I saw happen in my town,» because they had this success; it dialed something up.
So what does Jesus do? He talks to them about what greatness is. What’s the point? People who hung out with Jesus began to dream of personal significance in ways they never thought of before. So good! There’s something about being with people that believe in you, and Jesus—how much did he trust them? He trusted them enough to turn them loose on their own cities. Having somebody believe in them stirred something up that was powerful and right; it was a sense of personal significance, and what happened? They bore fruit! What was the fruit? They had the miracles; they had the healings, the deliverances; they had these things; and there was accurate representation of Jesus in those towns even though Jesus didn’t go there. That’s good fruit! They came back together and argued as to who’s the greatest. That’s not so good fruit!
What do you got? You’ve got a big bunch of grapes here and you’ve got a branch, and this branch is starting to grow where only leaves are going to be produced—not grapes! They’re about to develop only in the look—good looks—"Look at me! Look at my leaves! Look how good I look on the outside!"—kind of a ministry when Jesus wants them to be productive. And so he rewards the growth with pruning. But here’s what he does: he points to what is developing in them that’s not healthy. Does that make sense to you? Every one of us has gifts that, under the lordship of Jesus, bring him great glory; outside of the lordship of Jesus, that causes us great problems. Take Peter: his boldness, foot-in-mouth disease all the time—talking at the wrong time, interrupting God, all kinds of rebuking Jesus! That was my favorite one—rebuking Jesus, because he realized he thought for sure he should not be going to the cross. This is a bad idea, so he rebukes the Son of God. That’s classic! And yet that same Peter, when it’s under the lordship of Jesus, stands before a crowd of thousands mocking the outpouring of the Spirit, and the end result is 3,000 people come to Christ. That boldness outside of the lordship of Jesus caused him problems; that boldness in the lordship of Jesus brought fruit.
Wow! So Jesus says, «All right, you’ve got a branch that’s grown here way past your ability to bear fruit; we’re going to cut that back.» And he says, «You see this? Child, that is significance; that’s greatness in the kingdom.» And he prunes the branch. The very next scene, the disciples are talking to Jesus, and they said, «We saw this group over here, and they were trying to cast out demons in your name; we told them to knock it off.» Huh? Huh? «Do you see our wisdom? Of course you see our loyalty to the group, right? Right? It’s us 12 and you; we will change the world—just 13 of us right here—just don’t die!» Their loyalty to the group was healthy in a sense; it was right; it was good, that sense of loyalty; but loyalty to one in the kingdom never requires disloyalty to another. That’s carnal and natural loyalty; that is humanistic loyalty; that is not kingdom.
That’s good! And so when they said, «We told them to knock it off,» Jesus says, «No, guys, listen, if they’re not against us, they’re for us.» Well, that was a whole new concept! If they’re not against us, they’re for us! So what did Jesus do? He says, «All right, this loyalty thing is good; you bore good fruit; we got good grapes growing here, but this little branch deal you got going over here is going to draw a lot of attention to yourself, and it’s going to create an atmosphere of loyalty that is not kingdom of God at all. So we’re going to prune this thing right here.» And he says, «If they’re not against us, they’re for us,» and he prunes the branch. He sets them up to bring tremendous increase.
The next story is my favorite, though. James and John had a brilliant idea. They and the guys tried to pass through a certain town in the city of the Samaritans. Samaritans did not want these guys in their town and wouldn’t let them come through, and John comes to Jesus and he says, «Now, you know John is coming to Jesus because he thinks Jesus is going to like the idea.» You with me on this? He’s thinking he’s going to be impressed with my zeal; he’s going to love my zeal and my intensity and my focus. «I’m about to bless Jesus!»
So he comes to Jesus and he says, «Some of us have been talking, and if you just give us permission, we would love to just call down fire on this entire city and kill everybody in Jesus' name, of course we’ll give you all the glory!» Well, it sounds so funny to say it that way, but that’s what they’re asking. They’re actually calling down wanting to call down fire to kill a whole city! So I’ve got to ask myself the question: What kind of meetings did they have in their hometown to think they could pull this off? I mean, what in the world happened when they preached in their own communities to think all Jesus has to do is say, «Good idea; I’m with you?» That they thought they could actually call down fire and swallow up an entire city? I don’t know what kind of meetings they had, but it must have been something!
But Jesus looks at them and he says, «You don’t get it! I’m not here to take life; I’m here to give life!» What is he doing here? Their sense of passion and zeal is good; it’s just misdirected. So what does he do? He says, «This branch has grown way too far in the wrong direction,» and he says, «Here, we’re going to need some real tight snippers on this one,» and he cuts it back by saying, «I didn’t come to destroy life; I came to give life.» He just positioned them for increase of fruit. They had the right zeal; they had a sense of significance; they were committed to the journey; they made a lot of mistakes, but they were still saying yes.
A lot of leaders that see this kind of dilemma when they empower people, and they make such a mess, just want to never empower anyone again. The very first verse of chapter 10—that’s the end of chapter 9—the very first verse of chapter 10 says, «And Jesus gathered together seventy others also, and empowered them to do the same.» Now that’s divine humor right there! I don’t know if you got it or not, but that’s divine humor! What would have made every one of us in the room nervous with the twelve, Jesus said, «Man, this is working so good; let’s add seventy more to the mix!» So good!
The whole point was he was willing to make them successful to dial up issues that only he could take care of through pruning. He didn’t lower them; he didn’t belittle them; he didn’t punish them; he instead spoke to the issue. And as long as we are hearers of the Word, as long as we are willing for God to speak change into our life—of course, it’s true he can add whatever circumstance to our life he wants to; he’s God—but the point is he puts us in position so that we’ll listen!
In the belly of a whale, it was a good place to listen; you don’t have a lot to do but hang out. Wisdom just kicked in.
I just remembered a joke, but I’m fighting the temptation! Yeah, but it’s good! Well, what do you do if you’re swallowed by an elephant? You walk around till you’re pooped! All right, wisdom just vanished; it just vanished! Awesome! Right on, you heard it first right here!
All right, let’s move on. Hurry before I lose it altogether! Good! On to verse five: «I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in me, I in him, bears much fruit; without me, you can do nothing.» Now, Jesus announces to you and to me that we can’t do anything without him, but ten chapters earlier, he announced he couldn’t do anything without the Father. All he’s done is trying to bring us into the same place of dependency he lives in. He has set the example; he has modeled the lifestyle, the value system, and he’s just working from day one to bring us into the same place of dependency. Because in the same way he could do nothing without the Father, that’s how much he emptied himself. He’s still eternally God, but he emptied himself to function as a human being dependent on the Father. In doing so, he set an example and passed it off, announcing this to you and me: now you can do nothing!
What’s that for? He puts you in a position where you can do nothing and then requires everything! Which means we’re going to have to learn dependency to pull this off, because he’s expecting fruitfulness. So what is my responsibility? Abide! Stay connected! Just keep the protection of the connection! What about the fruit bearing? Don’t worry about it; he’ll prune you! Just listen! Listen to what he says; the fruit bearing will be natural!
All right, move on quickly, and we’ll try to wrap this up. «Anyone who does not abide in me,» (verse six) «he is cast out as a branch and is withered. They gather them and throw them into the fire.» Who is not abiding? See, it’s a branch, all right? When the branch is no longer connected, it’s just a stick; it is no longer a fruit-bearing branch, so it has no value. It just gets put into a fire. Verse seven: «If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it will be done for you.»
When Mary, the mother of Jesus, heard of the angel’s message over her son, when the wise men came concerning what they had heard regarding the star in the east, when they heard the prophetic words from Anna and Simeon, she heard all these different words from God about her son. The Bible says she pondered these things in her heart. What it means is she took these words, she put them in a safe place, and then would bring them out to reexamine and then return them to a safe place. It’s a valuable thing to me when God speaks; I don’t paint it on the walls of my house; I protect the word because it’s got to be nurtured in a safe place. It’s got to be nurtured in the womb of my heart, where I remember what God has said, and I bring it out and look at it.
I have things that God has spoken to me 30 and 40 years ago; I still bring them out and re-examine them. Now, put them in the safe place! What did Jesus say? He says, «If you abide in me, maintain the connection,» relationally and the connection with his heart and his mind! You will naturally pray for things that the Father will want to respond to, and by those answers, he is glorified because he created a system whereby you can be eternally productive.
He is glorified through fruit, and in this particular verse, the fruit is answers to prayer, but he’s not answering any whim because he refuses to answer any prayer that undermines my purpose. I’ve also noticed the Lord will actually answer the desire of an unbeliever before the carnal desire of a believer. Because the desire of an unbeliever can woo them into a relationship with him, but if he emphasizes the carnality of a believer, he emphasizes that which separates their heart from his.
He’s looking for the relational journey where when he says «Amen» to the cry of our heart, that relationship is strengthened; it is enhanced. What’s supposed to happen in this walk with the Lord is that desires are formed in us as the offspring of our walk with God—that dreams and desires would form because of our time spent, not just with the shopping list, but spent with sharing the heart of God.
That’s the context of friends. He says, «I no longer call you servants; I call you friends.» Why? Because the servant doesn’t know what the master is doing; the servant doesn’t get a picture of the behind-the-scenes, «This is what moves me; this is what marks me; this is my value system.» The servant doesn’t get access to that, but the friend does!
The friend gets to see what moves him, so we pray out of an understanding of his heart. We pray out of this great privilege to make cries in the earth that represent his heart. Well, the word here, «anything you desire,» is two words in the New Testament for the will of God, and one is that which is concrete—it’s established. You can vote yes or no; it doesn’t matter; it’s going to happen anyway!
It’s like Jesus is coming back. Well, I don’t believe it—doesn’t matter! You don’t get to vote! Your prayer has nothing to do with it; he’s just decided he’s going to do it—period. It’s going to be done! That’s the will of God! But there’s another whole part of the will of God that is actually one of the ways it could be described. It’s a dream or desire, a wish of God. You say, «Well, he can pull off anything he wants; he can force anything into being that he wants to, but his dream is not the outcome; his dream is the journey with yielded people that help to bring about the desired outcome.»
He values the journey above the destination! So he brings us into this relationship where we have the privilege of lifting up the cry of our heart—the will of God, that which is set in concrete. Then there’s the dream, the wish. You know, remember what we call the Lord’s Prayer—the really the disciples' prayer? Because in it is the confession of sin, and Jesus didn’t have any. In that prayer, «Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be Your Name; Your kingdom come, Your will be done.» That word «will"—it’s dream; it’s wish!
It’s a prayer of God: «We want your dreams! Come on! We want your dreams to happen here just like they do in heaven. There’s no hindrance to your dream there, but there is here! It’s called the will of man that you empowered.»
And so it’s a mirroring of the heart of God! I tell people half humorously all the time, «Listen, you tell me God doesn’t hear you when you pray? Well, talk to him about what he wants to talk about! It’s really good! It’s better than you thought it was! It was really good! Talk to him about it—he really loves the nations! Talk to him about it! Tell him his dream is your dream!»
See, that’s the whole point: the interaction continues until we pick up his heart; we begin to mirror back to him—not as robots programmed to pray for specific things, but as sons and daughters that learn what our destiny is all about, and we lift up the cries of the heart, representing his heart. And there’s something happening in that merging of hearts, the marriage of hearts, where the Father becomes glorified because he delighted in your cry, and he answers, and it says all of creation celebrates!
That God created a system whereby a covenant people can make a difference in the course of world history—a covenant people can have prayers answered, and it is his delight to do so! Wow! It’s this, «By this, my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit,» and in this context, the fruit is answers to prayer.
Verse 16 says, «You didn’t choose me; I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.» Interesting! You’ve been appointed to bear fruit; me too! And that fruit should remain. Listen to this: «Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give you.» What’s the point? The point is he’s trying to co-create the relational connection between a yielded heart and a generous heart so that his purposes will be fully realized in the earth, and all creation will celebrate!
His plan worked! His plan worked! Broken, destroyed, hell-bent humanity redeemed, and now they’re making a difference in the course of world history. We never thought it could work, but it’s working! Look, they were forgiven, and now they look so much like Jesus! This is amazing! It’s working!
All of creation groans and travails for the sons and daughters of God to realize who they are and take their rightful place. That is his purpose! This prayer, Heaven is waiting to celebrate the answers to prayer, but as a result, not of a request, but as the result of a yes to a journey! May that increase on us a hundredfold beyond what we’ve ever imagined, or thought of, or heard of before!
I want to give one opportunity here. If there’s a chance when there’s a crowd this size that there are people here that don’t know what it is to actually walk with God as a son or a daughter, to God don’t know what it is to be forgiven, don’t know what it is to have said yes to follow Jesus as Lord and Master. You don’t know what it is to be forgiven. And yet I want to give you the opportunity before we do anything else. If you’d say, «Bill, I don’t want to leave until I know I’m at peace with God. I’m right with God. Till I know that I’ve been forgiven, I turn my life completely to Jesus to follow him.» If that’s you, if you’re in that place today, and you’d say, «Bill, I don’t want to leave until I know I’m right with God,» put a hand up right where you are.
See, we’re going to pray right down here. Wonderful! Anybody else? Right over here’s another one! Beautiful! Every year, anybody else? Wave your hand at me; you say, «I don’t want to leave until I know I’m right with God.» Is that a hand back here? We’ve got so many worshippers I can’t tell you know who’s getting saved and who’s right! One last crack at it! Anyone that I missed put a hand up, because I want to make sure that every person I see—I saw you right here! Oh, there’s one right over here; I missed you! Wonderful! Another one there! Thank you, Lord! So wonderful!
I want to ask all of you to stand, but hold your places, please. We’ve got a freedom banner over here. All of you that raised your hands—this is not about Bethel; it’s not about joining any church in town; it is about a personal relationship with Jesus, to know what it is to be forgiven. And I’m going to ask every person that just raised your hand, please come quickly right now! Right over to my left to a trusted group of friends who want to talk and pray with you. I would like ministry team people to come to the front quickly as well. I want you to be able to come. God bless you, sir! Bless, bless you, bless you! Bless you right over here!