I recently spent some time in central California. The grape vines there had just begun to turn green with leaves, but I did not see one farmer out in the fields saying to his plants: “C’mon, now! Grow some grapes!” Why not? Well, no matter how much a farmer talks to a branch on a grape-vine, no amount of coaxing, pleading or demanding can get it to produce good fruit.

Just as nature does not work this way, so nothing can be done to make us spiritually alive, despite what many religions teach. In other words, you cannot successfully coax, plead or demand that people become good and fruit-producing people. No, something must be done first to make them into good branches that produce good fruit.

Jesus said to His disciples: “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” (John 15:4-5). It is Jesus who does the work of making His people into this kind of fruitful branch, otherwise they have no hope, no matter how many “sinners’ prayers” they say or “decisions for Christ” they have made.

So how are sinners made into good, fruit-bearing branches who give God all the glory? Jesus told His disciples: “You are already clean because of the WORD which I have spoken to you” (John 15:3). It is the Word of God—not the fruits you produce—that makes you ready to be grafted on the Vine and only then to produce those good fruits. The Holy Spirit works through God’s Word to convert you, to make you into new plants which then are grafted into Jesus. Hence we confess in the Small Catechism: “I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord nor come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel.”

When the Holy Spirit unites us with Jesus, we receive from Him the life-giving and life-producing “sap” to grow in faith and life, to grow the good works which reveal how God has saved us and still continues to help us. For the believer, this first happened when he was washed clean with the waters of holy baptism from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit just as St. Paul said (2 Corinthians 7:1). The Holy Spirit continues to work in the believer when his sins are forgiven and when he eats and drinks the body and blood of his crucified and risen Savior Jesus Christ in His holy Supper.

Thus, a church is truly Christian which teaches as we confess in the Augsburg Confession: “But without the grace, help, and activity of the Holy Spirit man is not capable of making himself acceptable to God, of fearing God and believing in God with his whole heart, or of expelling inborn evil lusts from his heart” (Article 18).

Neither the grape branches nor the farmer can produce good fruits by what they desire or demand. In the spiritual realm, the Holy Spirit produces fruit through the message of the Gospel. The Gospel tells you that Jesus has done everything to save you from sin and it gives you the wonderful works of God—faith, forgiveness, joy, and the fruits of faith. It also enables God to work in you both to will and to do of His good will. St. Peter said to the crowd on that first Pentecost, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). Through baptism the Holy Spirit grafted believers on to the “Vine” so that, as Jesus said, “He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit.”

Jim Braun is pastor of Christ Lutheran Church in Klamath Falls, Oregon.