Stick with Jesus

[Below is the text prepared for my sermon delivered this past Sunday, April 28, during worship with the people and guests of Emma Anderson Memorial Chapel in Topsail, North Carolina. The chapel is a nondenominational ministry. Here is its website. And here is a link to the entire service from this past Sunday.]

John 15:1-8

Jesus tells us today, “I am the true vine…” (John 15:1)

But what does this mean?

In the Old Testament, God’s people, the descendants of Abraham, ancient Israel, are sometimes referred to as “the vine” or “vineyard.” The prophet Isaiah sings about God and His vineyard Israel: “Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes…” (Isaiah 5:1-2)

God called His Old Testament people into being so that a people saved by God’s undeserved grace would “bear fruit.”

They would be counted righteous by God NOT on the basis of anything they did, but solely because they trusted in and remained connected to the God Who chose them to be HIS.

And as God’s people, they would bear fruit: God’s life would spring from them for all the world to see. “I am the Lord,” God tells Abraham’s descendants in Isaiah 42:6,  “I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations…”

Ancient Israel was to be God’s vine or vineyard in the world and through it, others would encounter and know the God of the universe who gives new and everlasting life to all who repent and believe in Him. 

But the Old Testament tells us how God’s people rebelled against God, falling into idolatry, the lie of self-sufficiency, and inevitably, treating others with injustice. These are the things that happen when people sever their connections to God.

But, unlike ancient Israel, Jesus is the true vine. Jesus is Israel as Israel was meant to be.

Jesus obeys God’s Law perfectly as ancient Israel was meant to do.

Jesus loves God and loves neighbors, as ancient Israel was meant to do.

Jesus is the light to the nations, as ancient Israel was meant to be.

Because He is the true vine, the true Israel, in Jesus, Who is truly God and truly man, the whole world can see, know, receive faith in, and be connected with God. As Jesus told the apostle Philip, “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14:7)

Now, after identifying Himself as the true vine–the faithful Israel, Jesus tells us: “Every branch in me [that is, everyone who believes in Jesus and draws life from Him. Every branch in me] that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes [literally, the word Jesus uses here is cleanses], that it may bear more fruit. [And then He speaks this Gospel promise TO YOU…] Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.” (John 15:2-3)

There’s been a lot of mischief done with the words of Jesus in today’s lesson. Preachers–and I’ve been guilty of this too–read this passage and ask their congregations, “Are you bearing good fruit?” Then they’ll ask things like: “How many people have you shared the Gospel with in the past week?” “How many poor people have you helped?” “Have you been kind to everyone?” Then the preachers will tell their churches, “Bear good fruit! Amen.”

Those are all good and important things, of course. But none of it is what Jesus is talking about in today’s lesson. Let’s see what He actually does say.

But first, let’s stipulate that we all can confess with King David: “I have been evil from the day I was born; from the time I was conceived, I have been sinful.” (Psalm 51:5, GNT) We’re born sinners, unworthy of life with God.

The good news is that if, by the power of Jesus’ Word given to you through the work of the Holy Spirit, you and I are able to confess the truth that we are sinners AND our faith in Jesus Who died for our sins, then we know that we have passed ALREADY from death into life with God that cannot be taken from us.

If, because of His Gospel Word, you can confess Jesus is your Lord, you can know that you are already made clean by God.

Your death sentence has been commuted and you walk as a free child of God!

Saving faith in Jesus is made possible by the power of the Word from Jesus that He has given to His Church to declare to all the world. And this is the summary of that Word: Jesus Christ has already destroyed the power of sin and death over your life. He did that at the cross and as He did it for the whole world, He did it for you.

In Jesus Christ, all your sins are forgiven.

Fully.

Completely.

This is the Word that cleanses you, that cleans away the impurities of your life, that purges death, that makes you a branch heavy with fruit from Jesus.

In Jesus Christ, you can trust that you are forgiven and free.

Amen?

So, what is Jesus telling you today? Just this. You are not saved by the fruit you bear. But those who are saved will bear fruit.

Jesus doesn’t call you into some holy self-help program in which you bear good fruit to prove yourself righteous and holy. In your own power, you and I could never produce good fruit. Not even moderately OK fruit will sprout from dead branches disconnected from the true vine. Jesus says, “Without Me, you can do nothing.”

The imperative Jesus gives us in today’s lesson is not, “bear fruit,” but, “Abide in me…” Abide in Me.

In the Greek in which John wrote his gospel, the word translated as abide is menein. It means to stick to, hold onto, grasp hold of, never let go.

Jesus promises that if we will hold onto Him, He will flood us with forgiveness, grace, life, and peace, both in the days of this imperfect and fallen world in which bad things happen and in eternity, where we will live in the new heaven and the new earth that Jesus has set aside for all who believe in Him.

And, as we abide in Him, His life and His gospel will flow out from us into the world. We will do the good works He has created for us to do in our everyday lives as parents, grandparents, children, friends, bosses, employees, neighbors.

By the power of Christ’s Gospel Word living in us, we will be a light to the nations.

We will bear His fruit. 

But how do we abide in Jesus and so bear fruit? We abide in Jesus when we show up any time He says, “Come and get my Grace!”

We abide in Jesus when we receive His Word, worship with His people, receive His forgiveness as we confess our sins, and receive His body and blood.

We abide in Jesus when we hold onto Him in hard times and, what may be more difficult, in easy times.

As we receive Jesus’ gifts of Himself, of forgiveness and of new life, we bear fruit. We bear fruit because of Jesus, not because of us. 

How does Jesus’ Word cause good fruit in us? Let me give you an example.

In 2017, a friend of mine, a journalist, gave my name and contact information to another journalist in Washington. The journalist was doing a story and wanted to talk with a cross-section of pastors from around the country. I was nervous during and after the interview and was sure that I had rambled incoherently. But the journalist and I have maintained contact in the succeeding years. Recently, the journalist published a book and I’ve been reading it. In the book, the journalist tells about a past decision made after praying about it, getting good advice, and reading God’s Word, but still not being sure of what to do. The journalist concluded that under such circumstances, if we’re not out to glorify ourselves or harm others or sin in some other way, and if we’re clinging to Him, God will still claim us as His own. After reading that, I wrote a note to say how impressed I was with that statement. The journalist wrote back, “Thank you, Mark! It’s something I think about a lot and I think we talked about it when I interviewed you: not substituting my will for God’s will.”

Friends, I don’t remember saying anything about that in the interview done with me seven years ago, although I know that the journalist kept notes to prove I did. I’m glad that in my basically unconscious state, God caused me to say something helpful.

The point is that, before that interview, I did just what I do whenever I prepare to preach, teach, lead worship, visit a hospital or nursing home, or…talk to a journalist. I connect–I stick to–Jesus and I pray, “Lord, take over. Grant that in all I say and I do and am You will be honored and glorified and that I will do nothing to bring dishonor to Your name.”

Remain in Jesus, friends.

Remain in the true vine Who forgives your sins and has opened life with God and life from God to you.

And if you remain in Jesus, the true vine,…if you hold onto Him, no matter what, you needn’t worry about whether you’re bearing good fruit. Jesus will lead you to where you need to be and to what you need to do.

Hold onto Jesus, turning to Him daily as your God and Savior, and, because of Him, you will bear good fruit. Amen

 

The Gospel of John, July 23, 2023

The adult Sunday School class of Living Water Lutheran Church started a study of the Gospel of John today.

Tonight's Weeknight Study of the Gospel of John, Chapter 20

The Word

[This is the journal entry for my quiet time with God yesterday, December 26.]

Look: “Jesus answered, ‘It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4)

Jesus, famished after forty days in the wilderness, gives this reply from the book of Deuteronomy after the devil suggests He turn some stones into bread.

It’s remarkable that Jesus here, as at His trial and execution, refuses to exploit His power as God in a self-interested way, even if the world might consider miraculously feeding Himself would not be an act of selfishness on the order of, say, whipping up a Mercedes-Benz to take him from preaching stop to preaching stop.

Jesus refuses to act in a self-interested way, ever. His sinlessness is precisely what gives His death on a cross the power to save a self-interested sinner like me.

Listen: But the question Jesus’ citation of Deuteronomy raises for me is where the Word of God fits into my life. Jesus is saying that God’s Word is more fundamental to our living than food, oxygen, or water, that if you don’t have the Word of God pulsing through your mind, body, and soul, you’re dead.

To not take in this Word, Jesus is saying, is to be starving to death. And Jesus would rather have physically starved to death in the wilderness than not rely on God’s Word.

On the other hand, Jesus, because He knew His Father’s faithfulness, also knew that if He “stayed the course,” turning back the temptations of the devil, the Father would find some way to take care of Him. (Which is what happened, once the devil had temporarily given up on tempting Him.) 

Jesus then doesn’t have some death wish and He doesn’t commend recklessness as a way of life to His disciples. (For example, in a later temptation, He refuses to jump off the temple mount, as the devil wants Him to do, because it’s wrong to “tempt the Lord your God,” to presume that if I act in a stupidly sinful way, God is obligated to protect me from my stupidity.)

Quite simply, Jesus trusts His Father and He tells us to do the same, even if it entails adversity. It’s “the one who stands firm to the end [who] will be saved,” Jesus says in Matthew 24:13.

This means turning to the Father when the devil, the world, and everything within us says to do what we want to do, to act self-interestedly to fill a present urge rather than relying on God for the life that only He can give.

Respond: Lord, help me today to consciously and consistently turn to You, rather than to my own thoughts or “wisdom” or to the world for the right path in my decision-making. You alone have the words of life. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

The Word Made Flesh

[This was shared today during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]

John 1:1-18
One of my favorite parts of the Christmas Candlelight Worship Service each year happens when the lights are dimmed, we hold our lit candles aloft, and listen again to the opening verses—the prologue—to John’s Gospel.

Like the familiar opening chapters of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, these words too, tell the story of Christmas. But in them you’ll find no inn or manger, no shepherds or wise men, no star or shepherds. John’s account of the first Christmas, comprised of the first eighteen verses of his gospel, is told in more abstract terms and it goes way back even before the universe was created.

Back then, John says, in the time before time, when God was all there was, there was the Word, the Second Person of the Triune God composed of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. John’s use of the term The Word for the One you and I know as Jesus Christ was no accident. The Word—ho logos in the original Greek of the New Testament--was a Greek philosophical term used for the creating agent of the universe.

But that term—The Word—would have also been meaningful to the Jews who were among the first to hear and read the Gospel of John. The Jews had a deep reverence for the Word of God. God spoke His Word, the Old Testament tells us, and creation came into being. By God’s Word, Israel came into being, was set free from slavery in Egypt, was called to obedience when it strayed, was guided, was punished when it sinned, was soothed and reassured when it repented and walked with God, and was promised a Savior. The Word of God, they knew (and know) is a powerful thing!

On hearing the prologue to John’s Gospel, first century Jews and non-Jews alike would have immediately understood what was being said about Jesus. They might not have liked it that John was saying that Jesus was God in the flesh. That, they may have thought was foolish or scandalous. But they wouldn’t have misunderstood him at all.

We don’t always have or take the opportunity to look at John’s prologue on Christmas Eve. We usually consider Matthew's or Luke's narratives of Jesus' birth. And so this morning, the Second Sunday of Christmas, I want to talk about three passages within the prologue.

The first is John's telling of the Christmas story itself. It's one of the most joyful passages in the entire Bible: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us…” God, the Creator of the universe, came into our world, still God, but shrunk, if you will, to human size, born in a cave. Why did God do that?

Journalist Philip Yancey says that he began to understand why the Word became flesh when, as a kid, he got an aquarium. He learned that managing a marine aquarium is a lot of work. He writes, “I had to run a portable chemical laboratory to monitor the nitrate levels and the ammonia content. I pumped vitamins and antibiotics and sulfa drugs and enough enzymes to make a rock grow. I filtered the water through glass fibers and charcoal, and exposed it to ultraviolet light.”

He goes on: “You would think, in view of all the [work I did]…on their behalf, that my fish would at least be grateful. Not so. Every time my shadow loomed above the tank they dove for cover into the nearest shell…Although I opened the lid and dropped in food on a regular schedule…they responded to each visit as a sure sign of my designs to torture them. I could not convince them of my true concern…”

The young Yancey came to believe that the only way to reach these fish he cared so much about would be to become one of them. He thought, “I would have to become a fish and ‘speak’ to them in a language they could understand.”

The Word—God the Great Communicator—became flesh and communicated His love to us through His words and His actions, including sacrificing Himself on a cross.

This has great practical significance for us. The God Who refused to stand off from us, wants us to do more than sit on the sidelines in life or in the Church: The Word made flesh calls His people to put flesh and bone behind our belief that He is Lord of all.

Unfortunately, most churches seem afflicted with living by the 80/20 Rule. You know what that is. It's the observation that in most organizations, including the Church, twenty percent of the people do eighty percent of the work while eighty percent of the people do twenty percent of the work. Twenty percent give eighty percent of the money and eighty percent give twenty percent of the money.

Often, particularly in small towns where people have known one another their whole lives, there can be great fear about trying to break out of that eighty percent pack and taking on a ministry. We can become paralyzed by the fear that we'll be criticized. Martin Luther has advice for us. Luther said whenever we were unclear about our what to do, we should pray about, consult with Christian friends, and read Scripture. If, after all of that, we remain unclear about our course of action, we should "sin boldly," doing what we think will honor God and do right by our neighbor.

Chances are that whenever we try to do something for the cause of Christ, we will be criticized. The only people who are never criticized are the people who do nothing. But if we're intent on being true to the Word made flesh, enacting Christ's love in the world, doing nothing is not an option. We need to be involved in ministry, service in Christ's Name!

Another passage in John’s Gospel is among the saddest in the Bible. It’s this: “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.”

God wants to help us. God wants to love us. God wants to be in our lives. But even when He comes to us, communicating all of His grace and His truth, we want to spurn God.

We know, in the words from Micah, that God has shown us what the He expects of us, “to do justice,…to love kindness, and to walk humbly with…God.” But we prefer looking out for number one.

We know that we’re to worship only God and yet we find millions of other things that we hold in higher esteem than God—from pleasure and ease to hard work that crowds out our relationships, from children we indulge to cold hard cash, from being thought of as important by the people in our community to whatever our drug of choice may be.

We know that we’re to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. But we love the sense of superiority we get when we gossip about and put others down.

We know that “a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh,” but we prefer making up on our own rules about sexuality.

In these ways and countless others, we, like the people who encountered Jesus back during His time on earth, often refuse to know Him or accept Him, rejecting His authority over our lives.

Fortunately, God is a stubborn lover. He’s like the guy I know who, without any planning or forethought, found himself one night telling a woman he had known for eight years, but only dated for a few weeks, “I love you.” At first, she said nothing in response to his declaration of love. She wasn’t sure that she loved this fellow, so quick to speak his mind and heart. Besides, she’d been hurt before. She didn’t know whether she wanted to risk loving someone else. But he was stubborn. Not certain that it would make any difference to the young woman, he kept insisting for several weeks that he loved her, that he wanted to spend his life with her. Then, one night, she embraced the man and said, “I love you.” She could have said no. But instead, Ann said yes to my love. January 11, will mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of our first date and August 2, will bring our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. I am blessed because Ann returned my stubborn love.

Now, there’s no comparing my imperfect, human love to the love that God offers to us through Christ. But, just as Ann could have said no to me, God lets us say no to Christ, the Word made flesh. But God is so stubborn in love for us that even when we do say no, He won’t give up on us.

In the prologue to his Gospel, John observes of some who encountered Jesus during his time on earth: “to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.”

In Christ, God makes us His children.

In Christ, God stands with us, no matter what.

In Christ, God gives us an eternal inheritance that nothing and nobody can steal that from us.

No matter what you face in 2009, know that you are a child of God. The Word of God has come to you and to all who receive Him, who receive Hiis judgment and His grace, this is His simple message, “You are mine.”