INVITATIONS: BE FRUITFUL!

2026-03-15

Matt Willmington

 

You have 3 WAYS you can go through 2026

1. BUSY = energy / time on activity today. “Burnout”
2. PRODUCTIVE = project completion for week/month “Success”
3. FRUITFUL = life giving goals for generations. “Growth”

Genesis 1:28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.” 

Invitation – “Come be FRUITFUL”

• Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control…
• Psalm 128:3 Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house, your children, like young olive trees around your table.

• “Seeds” for fruitfulness: John 17
• “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 

1. Father gardens, Jesus nourishes

2 Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.  

6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

2. He PRUNES so you’ll PRODUCE.

Four Branches (Dr. Henry Cloud)

1. 1. 1. Healthy = best fruit
      2. Good but not vital – sapping nourish to the best
      3. Sick – isn’t going to improve
      4. Dead – taking up space

What needs to be PRUNED in you?

4 Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me. 

3. Remain to Reproduce

You in Jesus (4, 4, 5, 6, 7)Words in us (7)Christ in Fathers love (10)Christ in us (4, 5)You in his love (9, 10)

7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

4. Fruit PROVES discipleship and GLORIFIES the Father. 

• What does your fruit PROVE? GLORIFY?

9 “As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 “I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.12 “This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. 17 “This is what I command you: Love one another.

5. PERSONAL fruit results in MINISTRY fruit. 

Colossians 1:6 The gospel is “bearing fruit and growing all over the world”

Colossians 1:10 “fruit in every good work”

Romans 1:13, Philippians 1:22 “fruitful ministry”