In the past month I attended a couple of events that gave me opportunity for reflection.
I attended a WSU football reunion that included a few former NFL players, all who are now physically very far from their prime…and all largely forgotten.
-One well known teammate was honored for his great sports achievements but he wasn’t there because he died several years ago.
Then I attended a promotion for a friend where many current military & political leaders were present.
I remember going to a similar event nearly twenty years ago and the folks on the stage then…are long gone from the stage now, some from the earth.
A young Winston Churchill wrote in a letter to his mom, after taking foolish and risky action in battle to try and win a reputation for courage and hoping to win a medal to boost his career ambitions.
“If I am to avoid doing “unusual” things it is difficult to see what chance I have of being more than an average person.”
Fear of being an average person was the most terrifying of possibilities for young Winston.
I admire Winston Churchill.
I also feel deep sorrow for the emptiness that often drove him
It has been said that famous men are usually the product of unhappy childhoods.
In his seven years while away at boarding school, he wrote his parents 76 times and received 6 letters total from them.
In one of those letters, His father, who was a vain, and often cruel man wrote to young Winston these words, “Because I am certain that if you cannot prevent yourself from leading the idle useless unprofitable life that you have had during your schooldays, you will become a mere social wastrel, and you will degenerate into a shabby, unhappy and futile existence. If that is so you will have to bear all the blame for such misfortunes yourself. Your affectionate father, Randolph
Thirty-seven years later, Churchill could quote that letter in its entirety from memory.
The message of contempt from the man he worshipped seared him and drove him until his death.
Again, I have great respect for the man and how God used him
Yet, being average terrified and drove him…but he died, like all men die.
An average, normal death.
Like the great athlete I played with died.
Like the generals of the recent died.
There is nothing wrong with leading, succeeding, being known.
I am not advocating for a lack of drive and or saying that desire for impact is wrong.
I am advocating for drive and impact that aren’t ultimately…empty.
An impact that remembers who we are and who Jesus is…and that we should measure our lives in terms of that relationship.
We must measure as God does…long-term, faithful obedience is the stuff of a life well lived.
“I have called you friends,(Jesus said) for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.”
Whether you are young or old…To be his friend, to bear fruit that lasts…that is to be your highest ambition.
Jesus’ word prunes us so that we can be fruitful…we must subject our thoughts, attitudes, ambitions and actions to the pruning shear that is his word.
That is why gather, together, under his word, week after week.
That is why we put so much emphasis on reading his word in your private live.
We do not want to live, ultimately fruitless and empty lives…left to our own own wisdom…we will.
At the end of John chapter 14, Jesus had finished dinner with his friends and said,
“Come now, let us leave.” (v.31)
What follows in chapters 15, 16, 17 are the Lord’s final instructions to his disciples before he went to the cross.
They left the place where they were eating, and he continued his conversation with them as they walked the narrow streets of the Old City…perhaps he stopped at the temple and taught for a while.
In chapter 18 he will lead them out of the city to an olive grove where he will be betrayed and captured.
Chapters 15-17 are the Lord’s final teaching to his disciples before the cross.
There will be more instruction from the Lord, given in the 40 days between his resurrection and ascension, but those words are likely recorded in the letters written by his followers in the years to come.
What we have here are the personal words of Jesus…there is an urgency in the words as he is not sitting on a hillside in the sunshine…those days are long gone.
He is walking dark streets towards the cross while Judas is guiding troops his way.
John 15:1-17
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 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. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
This is the last of the seven “I am” sayings in John.
Jesus said I am: The bread of life, light of the world, the door, the good shepherd, resurrection and life, way/truth/life, and finally the true vine.
Why the True vine?
In the OT the vine is a common symbol for Israel, the covenant people of God.
Whenever they are referred to using this figure of speech it is always negative…because they have failed to produce good fruit.
(Ps. 80:9-16, Is. 5:1-7, Jer. 2:21, 12:10, Ezk. 15:1-8, 17:1-21, 19:10-14, Hosea 10:1-2)
Now, in contrast Jesus says, “I am the TRUE vine”, the one to whom Israel pointed, the one who brings good fruit.
We have seen already how Jesus has superseded the temple, the feasts, Moses, and now he does what God’s chosen people could not do…he produces good fruit, because he is the TRUE vine.
God is the heavenly gardener; he prunes every branch of the vine that does not bear fruit…in order that it will bear more fruit.
He also cuts off every branch that bears no fruit…he gets rid of dead wood so the living, fruit bearing branches will be more visible and more fruitful.
The bottom-line purpose of this verse is to show that there are no true Christians without some measure of fruit in their lives…because Jesus is the true vine, and his people get their life from him.
If I were to ask you how does God “prune” his people so they will become more fruitful?
The most common response would be, “Through hard times and suffering.”
In fact, we use “pruning” as an idiom for suffering or trouble.
Of course, God uses difficult times to make us more fruitful but it’s also true that difficult times can make people less fruitful…it depends on how we respond doesn’t it?
Suffering can make you better or bitter, the saying goes.
V.3 gives the indication of how God “prunes us to make us more fruitful”…he uses his word.
His word is the pruning shears…we assume pruning means “hard times” but that is not indicated here.
We tend to think that this fruitful pruning is largely something that is done to us (we are passive in it) rather than being the result, at least partly, of us having God’s word in our minds and responding to it in a way that allows for it to bear fruit.
This becoming more fruitful is not merely passive, it is active on our part…it our response to God’s word.
Just as God’s peace is actively not letting our hearts be troubled but instead believing.
So, this fruit bearing is not merely enduring suffering…it is responding to the Word of God in all aspects of our lives, of course that includes trouble, but not just in trouble.
Look at Hebrews 4.
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 1Hebrews 4:12
And 2 Tim. 3
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Tim. 3:16,17
In those passages you get the idea of how God’s word, when responded to in faith and obedience, “prunes us” and makes us more fruitful.
By themselves, hard times can just make us harder not more fruitful.
But when we have God’s word, giving us God’s mind and purposes and perspective…then suffering can make us fruitful.
But so can all kinds of things…in fact, every aspect of our lives can make us more fruitful as we respond to God’s word in them.
Working jobs, raising kids, prospering, failing, vacations and retirements, difficult people and loving friends…all of this can be a part of becoming more fruitful as God’s word shapes us to be faithful in all aspects of our lives.
So, this is not about suffering as pruning, but God’s word as God’s primary means of making us more fruitful.
It does that by showing us what it means to be faithful to his word…how to obey.
4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
Two questions we will want to ask of this important passage.
- What does it mean to remain (some translations: abide) in Jesus?
- What exactly is the fruit that results?
The purpose of our bearing fruit is given in verse 8…no surprise, it is to glorify God with our lives.
The answers to our two questions are given by Jesus.
In verses 9-16 he unpacks his vine, branch, fruit metaphor.
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
Just as the Father loves Jesus…Jesus says “I have loved you.”
The verb tense “have loved” is a completed thing…Jesus says that his love for them is a “done deal” as he goes to the cross.
“Greater love has no one than to give his life as a ransom for others.”
Jesus love for us is a settled fact, now how do we remain or abide in that great love?
He tells us in verse 10.
If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
We remain in his love just as he remained in his Father’s love…obedience.
So in order for God’s word to have a fruitful effect…we must know it and obey it…remain in it.
There’s the answer to question one, what does it mean to remain(abide)…obey.
But there’s more to obey then we might think.
The obedience of Jesus to his Father is clearly a key theme in John’s gospel: 4:34, 5:19, 6:38, 8:29, 10:17-18, 12:27-28, 14:31
Does this sound dull and uninspiring?
It is disappointing that “abide” isn’t more, well, emotional?
*I mean we sing emotional songs with the word “abide” in them…but this sounds sort of like “commitment”.
Yep, that is what abide or remain means.
I often tell couples that “Commitment keeps love alive, not the other way around.”
That can sound “unromantic”.
“No, I don’t want you to love me out of obligation…I don’t want you to just keep a commitment.”
Oh yes you do, you absolutely do.
I get it, we want to be wanted…not just feel like the obligation of a commitment.
Let me reframe that:
Which sounds more romantic:
“I promise to stay committed to you as long as I am feeling what I feel now.”
Or
“I promise to stay committed to you in sickness and in health, whether we are rich or poor, until I am DEAD.”
That “decided not deciding life”…that is commitment, that is “remain” “abide” and it is powerful.
Mere fickle feelings are not romantic…they are smoke, vapor…compared to this solid, bright thing called commitment.
The young mysterious flake is a common movie/music heart throb…but in real life…that person flake is nothing but heart break
They don’t keep commitments…they only think of self.
Commitment keeps love alive; it doesn’t work the other way around.
Obedience and love are not opposites they are flip sides of a single coin.
John 14:15, “If you love me, you will keep my commands.”
John 14:21, “If you keep my commands, you love me.”
Obedience to Jesus Words…is what it means to remain in him.
And obedience is the pathway to his joy.
11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
Just to make sure we don’t think this turns relationship with God into mere dull duty…Jesus tells us that this is about joy.
In his letter, which is focused on obedience to God revealed in love for others John writes…
“We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” 1 John 1:4
So, John is teaching the church about sacrificial obedience to love another…in order they will live in joy.
Our joy is going to be fickle, flaky, contingent and incomplete…unless it based on something transcendent, something that is above and beyond our emotions and circumstances.
We share the Lord’s joy as we share his obedience.
We share the Lord’s joy as we give our lives away as he did.
There is no joy in selfishness…selfishness will always eat our joy.
There is only joy in laying down our lives for others.
Verse 12
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
Jesus summarizes all his commands under one: Love each other as I have loved you.
He is not saying that love for others exempts us from love for God…but that love for God is manifest in loving others as he has loved us.
Remember from a few weeks ago:
I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. John 13:34
What makes it new is that we are to love others like Jesus loves us.
This is tied together like this:
Obedience to God is love for God…this is what it means to remain in Christ.
Love for God is revealed in loving others like Jesus has loved us.
Love for others is how we access his Joy.
Look at Hebrews 12:1-3
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
We are to actively throw off disobedience (sin) and actively persevere in the race marked out for us (faithful obedience).
With our eyes fixed on Jesus and his joy…a joy that was the result of obedience even to death on a cross.
This joyful obedience is to empower our endurance…so we will not lose heart…endure, remain, keep abiding.
It all works together.
We are building our case for what it means to “remain” and what the “fruit” of this remaining is…so let’s keep going.
14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
Obedience is what makes us “friends” of the Lord.
But this friendship is not purely reciprocal…we can’t turn around and say that Jesus will be our friend if he does what we say.
Abraham and Moses are called friends of God, God was never called their friends.
It was “Moses the friend of God” not “God, the friend of Moses”
Same was true of Lazarus and Jesus.
(The Gospel According to John: DA Carson)
This is not semantics it is an important point to remember.
God can extend friendship to us; we can only respond in obedience and gratitude to him.
There is no mutual, reciprocal friendship like we think of friendships…we have nothing he needs; he has everything we need.
We are his friends if we obey him.
This can sound more like a slave or employee than a friend.
So, Jesus says, look…mere servants are not let in on their master’s mind and heart.
Jesus gives the balance here…”Love for me, requires obedience to me…but you are not mere servants who obey, you enjoy my friendship I give you access to my heart and mind.”
His word is not oppressive…it is him allowing us access to his heart and mind.
Is that how you see the Bible?…access to the heart and mind of Jesus?
You should.
A soldier doesn’t ask his commander when given an order, “Why?”
“Tell me all your plans and I will decide if I want to obey.”
He is told what to do and is obligated to do it.
We have not been told the answer to every question we might have but the Bible is not God’s commands, 1-1000.
His word is full of what, why, and how…it reveals God’s heart through his actions, his commands, his interactions with people.
Jesus, is God incarnate…showing us very intimately the heart of God…his words are the Words of God.
When we see him and hear him, Jesus said, we see and hear God.
So yes, to abide is to obey…but we obey the one who has called us his friend…and let us into his heart.
Now, just to balance the balance he makes sure they don’t think more highly of themselves than they should because of the privilege he offers them.
16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.
I offer you friendship, I choose you to be my friends…you did not choose me.
I choose you so you will bear lasting fruit, and this fruit will be result of ongoing obedience to me (abiding in me)
This relationship is demonstrated by ongoing prayers offered for his sake (in his name).
Okay, what has Jesus told us it means to “abide” or “remain” in him and what does the fruit of that remaining look like?
Abide=obey
But clearly it is NOT merely the obedience of a servant, slave, or anything that looks like dull, loveless duty.
It is the obedience of love, of friendship.
The fruit of that obedience is all that Jesus has shown them and told them.
The fruit of that “remaining” includes the ability to endurance in obedience, having his joy, love for others, the glory of God.
Look at the results of the life of Jesus…and you will see what this fruit of remaining in his words will be like in our lives.
The fruit is to become more like Christ in all aspects of our lives…it is not narrowly…evangelism, or character growth, or impact…it is all that Jesus is and did.
He is the vine, we are the branches…the fruit that grows as we remain is the fruit of Christlikeness in every aspect of our lives.
Conclusion:
When I was in seminary in the eighties I read a number of books on the mystical quality of what called “union with Christ”…some directly tied to this passage and many to some passages in Romans.
They were subjective, but they seemed very deep…in fact it was called “The deeper life movement.”
That rooted in an older movement called the “Keswick movement”…the details are not relevant here.
I read these books over and over and could not figure out what they meant, at least not in any practical sense.
I surmised then that the authors were just farther along than me, they were much deeper than I was…and I just didn’t have the spiritual equipment at the time to understand them.
I prayed, fasted…stayed awake through the night at times…waiting for God to help me understand.
I was serious about this…if I was missing something…I wanted to know it.
But the mystical thing I was trying to capture was not the point of my love relationship with Jesus any more than it is with my wife Christy.
At about the same time all this was going on…I was trying to get to 100% feelings of confidence as to whether should I marry Christy.
I would be sure, then I would not sure…or at least not 100% sure.
I finally realized that I was chasing feelings not facts…I did, in fact, love Christy.
I admired her, liked her, enjoyed her and wanted to marry her…most of the time.
Why was I paying so much attention to the feelings in the small minority of the time?
This mystical union with Christ that I was in search of was mostly in search of an emotion…or experience.
Just as I was in search of some emotional 100% certainty with Christy.
Now I have been overcome with emotion many times…in both my relationship with Christ and with Christy.
I have had in my experience with God…things happen that cannot be explained apart from supernatural interventions by God.
But as I told a young man in a conversation last week after church…we should embrace appropriate emotion, but we should never chase it.
By far, the most powerful experience of God working in and through me was Easter Sunday morning, 2009 in Iraq…the evidence was seen in the lives of people that were there who talked to me about it the weeks to follow.
But as for me…I felt nothing.
I was a dead man talking…when I mean I felt nothing, I mean nothing…I have never before or since, been so void all emotion.
I fact, I was more like an observer to my own life in the moment…I remember thinking “God is moving here”…but no rise in heartbeat, sense of joy or satisfaction.
It was an act of pure obedience…I was not happy about it; it was not joyful obedience…it was “duty”
But it was truly an experience of abiding in Christ…no emotion, but fruit and power.
The mark of union with Christ here and all through Scripture is to obey Christ.
This doesn’t mean that our love relationship with Jesus is reduced to following rules.
His word, that we obey, is after all…his word.
Christy and I, in addition to our vows made another key commitment early in our marriage.
That was, she would change poopy diapers…and I kill spiders.
I’m not kidding.
I did change some nasty diapers and she killed some spiders…but by and large we keep that commitment.
If I asked her, “How can I love you right now.”
And her response would be, “Kill that spider.”
It is truly a win/win arrangement…we both were so happy to make the trade.
If you doubt me…ask her.
I could say, “I do not want to reduce our love to mere rule keeping, please show me how to love you.”
“Killing spiders is not love, it is merely accomplishing some task you want me to do.”
Do you see how silly that is?
When we do what Jesus asks us to do, according to his word…HIS word…we are loving him.
We are in fact abiding in him.
His word is his word…it is who he is, what he wants done, how he wants it done, who he wants us to be…of course to obey is to abide…to remain.
It’s not mystical…any more than killing spiders, or changing diapers is…but it is powerful.
*I want to make sure I’m clear on something.
God has made us emotional beings…our sense of sadness, wonder, devotion, nobility, awe…all that moves us is a gift of God.
I am not advocating for some foolish attempt to discard emotion or to make a love relationship with Jesus and others merely dull duty.
I am advocating for practical, real-life training in godliness.
If emotions catch you as you chase obedience that’s great.
I have found that to be the case more and more in my life.
But if you chase emotions, you will not suddenly catch obedience.
Many married couples mourn the fact that the “feelings” are gone.
This can mean many different things, but it is most often a sign that their thinking is off and needs to be adjusted.
There are chemicals that are released in the brain during the infatuation stage of relationships that lasts 18 to 36 months.
These chemicals create “feelings”, and these feelings can be addictive.
They can come back from time to time.
This is why so many people jump from relationship to relationship every 18 months to three years . This coincides with that infatuation.
For couples who stay together long term they also have a chemical process that develops to form lasting bonds.
This feels different than the infatuation chemical…but for me, its better.
We could call it the “abide chemical” or “remain”
I am not saying that love is merely chemicals.
I am saying that many are searching for essentially a return to a certain chemical response, and they are not even aware this is happening.
The same process can be true for people in their relationship with God.
They believe that certain emotional responses are signs of closeness (abiding) with Christ.
When those emotions are absent, they think something is wrong and go looking for a way to get them back.
This search for feelings can be destructive and can take people off the path of holiness.
Embrace appropriate feelings never chase them.
To chase feelings is foolish and a diversion from long term faithful obedience.
Look at verse 17…it tells us both what it means to remain in Christ and what the fruit of that remaining looks like.
17 This is my command: Love each other.
Love each other is way to abide in Christ
Love for each other is the fruit of abiding in Christ
Wherever your life strays from this, in thoughts, words or actions…let the Word of Christ prune you so you will return to bearing the fruit of love for the glory of God.