Weekly Bulletin

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.  If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.  If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples….. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.  This is my command: Love each other.        

 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law.  Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.  Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.         Galatians 5:22-25

 

 

I have written in the past about a long-ago friend in Kansas whose farming operation was a blessing and a spiritual witness to his community for decades.  He and his wife were deeply committed followers of Christ who sought to be obedient to the Spirit’s leading in every aspect of their lives – their farm, their family, and their work in the church.  We knew them at a time when many of their neighbors lost part or all of their farms because they took on “easy” speculative debt in an effort to expand their holdings too quickly.  In contrast, our friend contentedly cared for and farmed the land he had with the machinery he had.  In the good years, he upgraded equipment and buildings as needed, but he also saved part of the income to help get them through the lean years he knew would come.  His goal was not to become as wealthy as possible as quickly as possible, but rather to produce food for as many people as possible while providing for his family, being a good steward of the land he had, and participating fully in his church’s ministries.  When the farm economy “tanked” a few years later, many farmers – despite their agribusiness degrees and their shiny new machinery — had to sell land and equipment to settle debt, and many left farming altogether.  Our friend kept right on producing crops to help feed the nation until age and health concerns finally necessitated his retirement. 

 

Those friends’ witness has always been for Pam and me an example of the principle Jesus taught the disciples in John 15 as he prepared them to carry on his work after his departure.  He wanted them to know that their most important task in life was to remain – to abide – in a living, interactive relationship with him through his Holy Spirit whom he would give them (John 14:16,17).  He likened that relationship to a grapevine and the new branches it puts out each spring.  So long as nothing is allowed to disrupt the flow of life-giving sap from the source vine into the new branches, blossoms and then grapes will begin appearing on those branches.  When the fruit has ripened, it provides nourishment to those who harvest and eat it, and its seeds (at least until modern seedless hybrids were developed) assure continuation of the cycle into the future.  Jesus clearly had eternity, not grapes, in mind when he instructed the disciples to “go and bear fruit that will last.”  Those words were not exclusively for his followers gathered at that Last Supper.  If we want to be his disciples today, they apply to us, too.

 

Abiding in Christ       If abiding or remaining in Christ is our most important task in life, surely we need to know what Jesus meant by that phrase so we can faithfully carry it out.  Some modern translations of scripture prefer “remain” in John 15:4, but for me, “abide” better conveys the depth and devotion of the relationship to which Jesus was referring.  In these times, a lot of people’s names “remain” on church lists despite the fact that they are rarely seen or heard from at their faith community’s gatherings.  To “abide” carries a connotation of quality, enduring investment of self in the relationship being abided in.  For me, that means welcoming Jesus to enter my life and make himself at home, to take up residence there, and to “rearrange the furniture and décor” however necessary to allow him to be fully himself within me and through me.  That in essence is what happens when we invite Christ’s Spirit to fill us.  The place where our eternal soul abides becomes his home where he abides too.  It is not a physical place, but a spiritual union.
             It is important to understand that Christ will never force his way into anyone’s life.  John 15:16 says he already has chosen and appointed us to be his productive disciples.  Verses 5 and 7, however, note that if we abide in him and allow him to abide in us, he will help us bear spiritual fruit that will last.  He can abide within us only at our invitation.  That doesn’t mean he otherwise is absent from us.  Revelation 3:20 indicates that the Spirit is always present, standing at the door of our souls and knocking, waiting for our invitation to enter and abide there. 

 

A First Step of Abiding in Christ       As just stated, an abiding relationship with the Lord will not get underway until we invite him to take up residence within us.  One of the first things to happen after that is what Jesus spoke of in verses 2 and 3 of his John 15 vineyard analogy as pruning the branches.  When Christ is welcomed to move into a soul, he very probably finds behaviors, attitudes, habits, priorities, and other traits which directly conflict with his created purpose for that person’s life — to reflect Christ’s presence and to bear eternal spiritual fruit.  Like the bugs and microbes that destroy grapevine branches, God’s enemy will constantly attempt to block the flow of life-giving sap from the Vine to the branches where the spiritual fruit is produced.  If our invitation to the Lord was sincere, we will be glad to let him prune those things away so they won’t obstruct our opportunity to know and serve him.  He may also find in us an accumulation of basically good things which nevertheless become a distraction or hindrance to our full partnership with him in our life’s intended purpose.    Those things too may need to be trimmed back or set aside for the sake of fruitful discipleship.

 

An Essential Second Step of Abiding      Four times in John 15:4-9, Jesus urged the disciples to “remain in me.”  In 15:4, he states emphatically that “no branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.”  A vital inward spiritual life is absolutely essential for accomplishing outward spiritual work.  Attempting outward spiritual work without the Spirit’s inward leading and empowering may yield people’s applause, but it won’t produce eternal results.  Many years ago when I was an EMT, we were trained to address “the ABCs” of emergency response to an unconscious patient – assure an open airway, determine whether there is breathing and provide it if necessary (that protocol has now changed for untrained responders), and check the pulse for blood circulation and provide chest compressions if needed.  I similarly think of four basic essentials of sustaining spiritual life, of “remaining in the vine.”  For me, the first is contemplative, listening prayer, accepting by faith that Christ my Teacher is speaking and wants me to listen and learn.  The second essential is a growing understanding of God, his character and his desires, through the consistent study of the scriptures.  A third essential is the fellowship, shared worship and learning, and compassionate accompaniment of a genuine faith community.  And the fourth essential is to take action on what Christ has taught me, through humble obedience and service.  To close his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:24ff), Jesus said similarly that people who heard his words and put them into practice were wisely abiding on the eternal rock, not foolishly abiding on the world’s shifting sand.

 

A Third Step of Abiding focuses on those first two essentials (in the previous paragraph) of sustaining spiritual life.  Jesus said in John 15:7 that if we will abide in him and allow his words to abide in us, we can “ask God for whatever we wish and it will be given.”  That might sound like winning a lottery, but it’s not.  It really means that if we listen devotedly enough to God in prayer and in careful study to get to know his heart and his desires, then we will learn to pray unselfishly in agreement with what God already wants to do (James 4:2,3).  From an eternal perspective, those things will be far greater and more life-giving than lottery winnings.  That is the same principle Jesus taught in John 10 using the analogy of sheep and their shepherd.  Because they abide with him, they know his voice, trust his care and leading, and know he desires nothing but what is the very best for them.

 

A Fourth Step of Abiding      Jesus’ promise is that, if we abide in him and allow him to abide in us, we will “bear much fruit” for his kingdom.  In John 15:8, Jesus said that when that happens, his Father is glorified (not us), and we are recognized as Christ’s disciples.  If we truly are abiding in Christ, that will be all the recognition we ever need.  The flip-side of that is also rather important.  If people hear us bragging about good works we have done for Jesus, they likely will sense that we don’t actually abide in him but desire credit for ourselves.  The hymn of Christ’s abode is “To God Be the Glory.” 

 

And a Fifth Step of Abiding in Christ — perhaps the most important of all — is Jesus’ repeated word in John 15:9-17 that abiding in him means abiding in love.  He was not talking about the warm fuzzy emotion we usually think of as love.  He meant the selfless, sacrificial love which he expressed for us when he chose to surrender his life to prove once and for all by his resurrection that God has eternal power over sin and death.  In his love for us, he chooses to forgive our sins, redeem our lives, and empower us to live free of both sin’s penalty and his enemy’s power.  Jesus made that sacrifice with joy because he loves what God created (Hebrews 12:2), and he invites us to abide in his love and share in his joy every day we spend on this planet, no matter what opposition or hardships we might face.  As he said to the disciples, there is no greater love than his, and he welcomes us to make it our eternal home.

 

For the next few weeks, we will look at the abundant, eternal spiritual fruit Jesus sends his disciples out to bear in our lives as his disciples.  I believe that we as individuals and as a faith community sincerely want to be effective bearers of Christ’s spiritual fruit in our lives, to genuinely make a difference in 2026.   It will be important for us to remember the “if” in John 15:5,7,10.  Our capacity to bear that fruit depends upon our faithfulness daily to abide in his presence and in his joyful love.  From contemplation and lived experience, I’m pretty sure there is a direct linkage between doing that abiding and bearing that fruit.  I pray we will all commit to let God teach us that abiding.  Let’s be his Friends.

 

 

 Queries for Worship-Sharing and Reflection

 

1)  What is the “lasting spiritual fruit” Jesus instructed his disciples to “bear”?

2)  What needs to be true in order for us to “ask whatever we wish” (John 15:7) and have it given to us by God?

3)  What are the best ways we can evaluate whether our discipleship for Jesus is fruitful or not?

4)  Why is pruning such an important part of bearing fruit for Christ?  Why is it so hard for us to welcome it?