Celia Stone: Christians die to live fruitfully for God

Some of the hardest words from Jesus are the ones telling us about our need to die to ourselves in order to live fruitfully for God.

“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” John 12:24-25

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 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.”

“No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 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.” John 15:1-2, 4b-5

The Apostle Paul reiterates Christ’s message. “We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.” 2 Corinthians 4: 8-11

Scottish theologian, author and minister Sinclair Ferguson says, “We come to Christ crucified to be forgiven. We follow Christ crucified to be fruitful.” In his sermon on Paul’s passage above, Ferguson makes many noteworthy points.

“To be a servant of Jesus Christ means that you’re always carrying around in your body the dying of Jesus in order that the resurrection life of Jesus may be seen. We who are alive, we’re always being given over to death, to problems, to burdens, to afflictions, to persecutions, and to perplexities for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

“He is saying that the whole of the Christian life and all Christian service involves the Holy Spirit taking my life and molding that life into the pattern of the dying and the rising the death and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because that’s the pattern that made Lord Jesus so fruitful.

“The only reason in the world you are here today in a Christian church, the only reason there is a Christian church in its mega millions throughout the world, is because God used that pattern of fruitfulness in his well-beloved son, and in every well-beloved son or daughter since, that he has made fruitful,” Ferguson said.

“If you are a Christian, yielded to Jesus Christ, this is the pattern he will use in your life, and you see, it could so easily make you lose heart. You could so easily say, ‘Lord, find another pattern. I don’t fit this pattern. I seem to have to be squeezed into this pattern. I feel as though bits of me are being cut off as I’m molded into the pattern,’ and he says, ‘But my child, watch and I will make you gloriously fruitful.’”

In conclusion, his personal observation should be true for every Christian.

“I know the extent to which I resist that pattern in my life will be the extent to which I am unlikely to bear lasting spiritual fruit in the service of Jesus Christ,” Ferguson said.