John 15 - Part 2

Read John 15

What do we do as the body of Christ?

We proclaim good news.  We are on a mission to connect the disconnected.  We strive to follow the teachings of our Lord.  Jesus said that he followed the teachings of his Father.  We are to follow his teachings. We love one another with everything we have.

That’s the foremost command by which we are called to live our lives.

God will bless you for staying connected to Jesus every day and in everything you do.  We are blessed to live as his servant and as his friend.  We are blessed.

OBTW—we will also be hated because Jesus is our Lord and Master and Friend.  The world will hate us.

The world won’t hate you if you are a friend of the world.  But you have chosen to remain faithful to Christ Jesus. He chose you to be his out of the world, but we choose to remain in him to abide in him and his teachings.

We are his and the world will hate you for it. 

Jesus said that no servant is greater than his master.  The world hated Jesus and it will hate you because of him.  Expect nothing less.

The world that hates you has no excuse because Jesus came and was rejected by the same world that persecutes you.  When the world rejected Jesus, they rejected his Father in heaven as well. 

Understand that people may hate you for no reason but that does not excuse them.  They are without excuse but they will hate you anyway.  There is no logic or reason to be applied.  Hate is not bound to abide by rational thought.

There is hate in this world and some of it will be sent your way.  There need be no logical reason.  Hate does not abide in logic but in the depravity of the human heart.

Perhaps, we are sheltered somewhat because of where we live, but you have a target on your head because you follow Jesus.  Living in these parts where many proclaim Jesus as Lord makes it a little easier, but we are not exempt from the world’s hatred.

Most of the time in our ministry, we deal with apathy and ambivalence when it comes to sharing the love of God.  So many are content in the world and its ways.

But some will hate you because you follow Christ Jesus.  You have done nothing but to offer abundant and eternal life in our Lord, but some will hate you for it.

Some will hate you for this.

What is our response?

We go into this hateful world with the message of God’s love that we know in Christ Jesus.  We go equipped with the Holy Spirit.  The hatred of the world does not change our mission.

The world’s hatred does not change our mission.

Sometimes, ok often, I am accused of having some screwball thinking.  I’m usually convicted of the accusations on all counts, but here is one more.

I don’t want to get out of this life without being hated by the world at least a few or a few dozen or a few hundred times.  I don’t want to go to my grave without receiving significant hate from the world.

I want to be known by my love and as a disciple of Christ Jesus.  I want to be known so well as one who follows him that the world hates me for it.

I don’t want the world to look at me and say, “well maybe he follows Jesus.”  I want them to know and the affirmation that the world knows that I don’t belong to it but do belong to Christ Jesus will be its hatred towards me.

If you haven’t noticed the battle of good and evil that has been fought in the spiritual realm for so long has manifested itself into our physical world. 

It seems like everyone has a cause with which they want you or the church to jump onboard.  They want to incorporate the church into their cause.

They want to subordinate Jesus to their cause.

My message today to the world is to bring on your hate, because Jesus will be subordinated to no person or no cause.  Jesus is Lord and we are to follow him as his disciples.

Now, are there problems in the world that we who follow Jesus should apply our gifts and talents?  Of course, there are.  As far as problems in the world that you use our help, it’s a target rich environment.  The Spirit that lives within you will tell you when and where you are called to help in such efforts.

We are always called to share the truth of how much God loves us.  We are called to proclaim, “Repent and believe the good news.”  We are called to be known by our love.

We are not called to blend in with the world so the world doesn’t hate us. 

In the first part of this chapter, Jesus talked about the vine and the branches.  We must stay connected to the true vine which is Jesus.  We can only produce fruit through our connections with our Lord.  We will only bring glory to God by letting his light shine through us.

And the world will hate us and I am just fine with that. 

It wasn’t too long ago as we made our way through James that we noted to be a friend of the world is to be an enemy of God.

Expect the challenges ahead of us to be subtle at first.  Going along with the world won’t seem too bad in some cases.  Jesus will understand.  A little compromise never hurt anyone. What’s the big deal?

It’s the frog in boiling water example that I have used for 40 years and that others used long before that.  I think as long as there have been frogs and boiling water, someone must have used this analogy.

 If you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will jump out.  It does not pause to do a cost-benefit analysis.  It does not consider various courses of action.  That sucker is out of there.

If you put another frog—you are not catching that first frog again—into a pot of room temperature water and turn up the temperature one degree every couple of minutes, it doesn’t take long before the frog is relaxed, then too weak to jump out.  A short time later, you have boiled frog.

The water has been room temperature for most of our lives, but over the past couple of decades, it’s been turned up a few degrees. 

Did you notice?

There was a time when you could say praise the Lord and you wouldn’t get a look from the pit of hell that came from someone offended that you were allowed to say that out loud.  Back in the day, someone might respond with amen or pass the ammunition, but you knew you were in good company.

Back in the day, you could teach that all life is precious without it starting an argument and you being declared ignorant and a hater. 

Back in the day, a prayer was always appropriate for a group, a gathering, or just you alone on a park bench.  That was back in the day.

The temperature has gone up a few degrees since then.  Some of you may be too young to know anything but the present disdain for God and his people.

The typical response is to say that the world is going to hell in a handbasket—a metaphor that I never fully understood but get the general gist.

My charge to you is this.  Expect the world to hate you.  Do the work that the Lord gave you anyway.

There is a movie—a documentary—that I am sure no one here has watched.  It’s called To the Shores of Guadalcanal.  There’s some combat footage but mostly it’s interviews with crusty old Marines.

In this one interview, this very old Marine recounted a certain hill in the jungle that the Marines fought for and took.  It was a costly battle.  Then the Japanese took it back.  Seven times the Marines took the hill.  Seven times the Japanese took it back.

Seven times we took it.  Seven times they ran us off.

This old Leatherneck had only one more comment.  We came back eight.

Expect the world to hate you.  Expect to be opposed.  Expect considerable resistance as believers in an unbelieving world.  Do the work that the Lord gave you anyway.

Take the hill.  Do his work in spite of whomever and whatever is against you.

The world will hate you.  Love anyway.

The world will hate you.  Proclaim freedom from sin and death anyway.

The world will hate you.  Never deny your Lord.  Be faithful to him and abide in his commands.

The world will hate you.  You are in good company.  It hated the prophets.  It hated Jesus.  It hates you.  You are in good company.

I have seen much of the world and am blessed because of it.  Some were unique.  Some were picturesque.   Some were surely the armpit of the earth, but it didn’t matter because when I was in those places, I was in good company.

I was in good company.  When the world hates you, you are in good company.

Does God love you?  Yes, you know he does.

Is God faithful?  To all generations!

Is God forgiving of us?  You know that he is faithful and just to forgive.

Doesn’t he know that we have trouble in this world?  Yes, he told us that we would and to take courage that he had overcome the world.

Does he know that the world hates us?  Indeed, he does.  He warned us that the world would hate us because of him. 

So, here’s one of those closings where some of you might be trying to discern a basic dichotomy.  Should we send Tom to a psychiatrist or to a team of them?

What?  Why?

Because, I am telling to be glad when the world hates you.  Rejoice when the world thinks you a stranger.  Put a smile on your face when someone hates you because they can tell you follow Jesus.

When the world hates you because it can tell you follow Jesus, know that you are in good company.

You are in good company.

Amen.

John 15 - Part 1

Read John 15

Warning!  Chapter 15 is 100% red letters.  Jesus does all the talking.

At the end of the last chapter, Jesus said, “Let’s go.”  John doesn’t tell us where they went but it was likely Gethsemane.  Perhaps along the way, there was a vineyard.  In any case, Jesus made his next analogy.

I am the vine.  You are the branches.

Before that, Jesus said he was the true vine.  His Father in heaven was the Gardener and pruned away anything that would not bear fruit.  The Father and Son had the relationship that Jesus wanted for his disciples.

Get rid of anything that hinders.  Prune away that which will not bear good fruit.  Where do we go for pruning?  It’s mostly from God’s word.  

Sometimes the Spirit will speak to you but it will be in accord with God’s word.

Then Jesus told his disciples that apart from him, they were nothing.  They must remain in him as the branches must remain in the vine.  Whoever was not in him would wither and die.

Jesus was once again teaching connection and relationship.  If you ever wondered why I am such a stick in the mud about not being transactional in our ministries but insisting on transformational, think to the words of Jesus in this chapter.

If you ever get tired of me saying connect the disconnected, understand that Jesus taught his disciples how important it was to remain connected to him.

Apart from him, we will wither.  We will produce no fruit.  We will be a worthless branch at best good for a little kindling for the fire.

No branch can produce fruit by itself, but understand that this teaching is not about the fruit.  Fruit is evidence of the connection, the relationship, the fellowship with Christ.  It’s not about the fruit.  It’s about our discipleship.

Are we in fellowship with Christ and each other?

Jesus had just told these men that he was the way, the truth, and the life.  Now he reinforces the necessity of remaining in him—connected to him as a branch is to the main vine.

Jesus told his followers that he had to go away.  Now he tells them to remain in him.  His followers were yet to understand that their connection to their Teacher and Lord would go far beyond following him through Samaria and Galilee. 

This was really not new ground.  I am in the Father.  The Father is in me.  Let’s have the same relationship.

Next, we have the drinking from the firehose section.  Each statement of Jesus is packed to the brim.  Here are ten statements that came in rapid succession.

1.    As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.

2.    Now remain in my love.

3.     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.

4.    I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

5.    My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

6.    Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

7.    You are my friends if you do what I command.

8.    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.

9.    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.

And finally, number 10.  This is my command:  Love each other. 

Much of this should sound familiar.  Love one another. Produce good fruit.  Obey my commands.

Some of it took the disciples to another level.  You are more than servants.  You are my friends.

One of these statements was about Jesus going to the cross; yet was a model for all of us.  Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Do you remember the new command?  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  Jesus laid down is life for us.  That’s how much he loved us.  Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

It was a good thing that the Holy Spirit would come and dwell in these men at Pentecost for what they had just heard from their Teacher who was soon to go to the cross was more than most people could handle in a single dose.

What should you take away?  Remain in Christ as the branch remains in the vine.  Remain in him by remaining in his love and obeying his command to love others with everything we have.

Be know by your love if you want to remain in Christ.

Amen.

Love One Another

Read John 15

Think on these three words: 

Connection-Inclusion-Fellowship

Someone, sometime ago put together a list of government rules for riding a dead horse.  They were written to show the absurdity of continuing to do things that don’t work.  These tongue-in-cheek rules were devised long before the internet was the ubiquitous form for such distribution, but we are blessed that the list survived, and these golden nuggets are available online.  Here is:

Beating a Dead Horse

Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.

However, government bureaucracies often try other strategies with dead horses, including the following:

1. Buying a stronger whip.

2. Changing riders.

3. Saying things like "This is the way we always have ridden this horse."

4. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.

5. Increasing the standards to ride dead horses.

6. Appointing a committee to study the dead horse.

7. Waiting for the horse's condition to improve from this temporary downturn.

8. Providing additional training to increase riding ability.

9. Passing legislation declaring "This horse is not dead."

10. Blaming the horse's parents.

11. Acquiring additional dead horses for increased speed.

12. Declaring that "No horse is too dead to beat."

13. Providing additional funding to increase the horse's performance.

14. Commissioning a study to see if private contractors can ride it cheaper.

15. Removing all obstacles in the dead horse's path.

16. Taking bids for a state-of-the-art dead horse.

17. Declaring the horse is "better, faster and cheaper" dead.

18. Revising the performance requirements for horses.

19. Saying the horse was procured with cost as an independent variable.

20. Raising taxes (any excuse will do).

And if all else fails:

21. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position

If you have ever worked with federal regulations and standards, some of these might have brought back bad memories that you had suppressed until today.

You might be thinking, this goes beyond the subtle, dry humor that I normally sneak into the week’s message.  You would be right, but the point is valid.  Look at it this way.

God has put on your heart that you are to give most of your garden space this year to tomatoes.  You like tomatoes, but you are sure that squash would do better this year.  So you make a token effort with a couple tomato plants and use every other square foot for squash—some yellow and some zucchini.  You can almost taste them before they even sprout.

You water and fertilize and weed and do all the good gardening stuff that you know to do.  You even pray to God to bless your crop.

The garden grows and then one day you notice that your squash doesn’t look so good.  You notice that there are squash bugs all over your plants.  You wanted to go all organic and so you bought some lady bugs, but the squash bugs came anyway.

So, you resort to chemical warfare and spray and kill the squash bugs.  Then one morning you walk out to the garden to see most every squash plant eaten by grasshoppers.  Many of the grasshoppers are dead from the poison residue, but the second and third wave wiped out your squash crop completely.

You look to the heavens and ask, “God, why did you do this?  I asked you to bless my crops.”

Then you glace at the two tomato plants that you stuck in the ground several weeks ago and then pretty much forgot about.  They are blooming and producing fruit.  In fact, there are some tomatoes that are ready to eat right off the vine tomatoes that might not make it back to the house. 

Of course, there are only 2 tomato plants.  Your garden consists of two thriving tomato plants and a bunch of dead squash plants.

“God, why would you do this to me?”

Then you remember that small voice that spoke to you several weeks ago that said, plant tomatoes. 

The proverbs are full of reminders that there is God’s way and there is everything else.  Blessed are those who seek after and receive God’s wisdom.  They say do it God’s way.

We are blessed when we do things God’s way.  Life is not a series of trick questions, well, at least if you are living it God’s way.  So, what is God’s way in this post-modern world?

Family—it’s not a new concept.  Family is God’s design.  We have our nuclear, biological families and we are blessed to keep them together.  We are blessed to be bonded by our blood.

We also have a family of faith.  These are blood relatives as well, but we are related by the blood of Jesus.  We are blessed to be bonded by his blood as well.

We are all connected.  God the Father is in Jesus the Son.  Jesus is in his Father.  We are in Jesus and he is in us.   The Spirit dwells within us and walks beside us.  We are connected to God in every form and he is connected to us.

We are included in his family.  In fact, we are brothers and sisters to Christ Jesus.  This family comes with an eternal inheritance, so it goes into the cool beans category.

We are also included into a family called the Body of Christ.  We are connected and included in this family.  It is the way we are to live.

Because we are connected with God and with each other and included in this divine family, we enjoy this thing called fellowship—communion—koinonia. 

That’s the way that we are to live.  Vine and branches are a good metaphor.  No branch is out doing it’s own thing apart from the vine.  When we are cut off, we wither and dry.  When we live the way that we are designed to live, we produce fruit.

Sometimes, we want to live the way that we think is best.  Yes, recite Proverbs 3:5-6 in your mind.  Maybe, we think that God hasn’t been keeping up with current trends, that he has overlooked us—he does have a lot going on—and we need to take care of ourselves, or sometimes we just want to do our own thing.

God has designed the family for us so when we stray from that divine model and ask God to bless us, we get squash bugs and grasshoppers.  When we keep doing things our way instead of God’s way, it is called beating a dead horse.

We do a good job of connecting with people.  We meet them where they are.  We do that, but sometimes we fall short of inclusion.  Connection is a first step.  Inclusion is the next. 

But, not everyone wants to be included.  We are inviting people who don’t want to come and be a part of this wonderful family.  They want independence when God has prescribed family.  They want squash when God has prescribed tomatoes.

So what are we who live in the family to do?  Well, let’s just throw in the towel and take care of ourselves.  We will have more room to sit at fellowship meals.

Doing that is known as making funeral arrangements for your local church.  The church is made for mission.  We are always making connections and seeking inclusion.

People say they know God and have received Jesus as their Savior but want to do their own thing.  They are not ready to receive Jesus as Lord.  They still want to do their own thing.  The problem is that God said, “Let’s do family.”

When you do your own thing, you might have salvation, but you miss out on abundance.  You produce no fruit. You miss out on so much that God has in store for you.  You miss out on what God has designed for you as part of this wonderful family.

You miss out on fellowship.  The Greeks called it Koinonia.  It’s real communion.  It’s family enjoying being family, and, in our case, the family belongs to God.

That’s a diverse family.  Yes, I know that we are all made in God’s image, but that’s still a lot of diversity.  How can you keep such a family together?

Love.  The family not only survives but thrives because of love, especially, the love we have for one another. 

Love one another is the binding fiber of God’s family.  Too often we see fighting and bickering and quarrels and dissension within the family of faith.  If we see those things in people without Christ, we should not batt an eye.  They don’t get it.

Does this mean that we never disagree or have disputes?  No, but it does mean that we value family over selfish desires and we move to reconciliation with all deliberate speed.  Being right is less important that being love and loving one another.

But we do get it, or at least we should.  We should get it when it comes to this love one another stuff.  We are all connected and included.  Why not enjoy the fellowship by doing things God’s way?

Love one another.

I would like to make a special prayer request.  It’s a little on the odd side, but appropriate.  I pray and hope that you will join me, that God engraves three words on our hearts and minds in exchange for removing three others.

Obviously, love one another are the three words that we want etched on our hard drives.  What three do we need removed?

This first word is but and the next two are if only.  These three words have disrupted fellowship more than any others I can think of.

Oh, I would share my love with her, but…

I would help them on Saturday, but…

I would go sit with him, but…

I would reconcile with her, but…

If only she was a little nicer, then I would…

If only he would show a little initiative, then I would…

If only the world revolved around me, then I would…

I will read verse 17 of chapter 15 in John’s gospel once again.

This is my command: Love each other.

I know a little about commands.  I have given and received them, and I will tell you with certainty, the words but and if only are not welcome anywhere around a command.

We need to understand something about our family.  Jesus is our Lord and Savior and Master; yet he has called us friend. 

I have been a man under authority.  When I gave orders, I expected then carried out.  When I received them, they were executed.  Many with whom I gave and received orders were also my friends, but orders—commands if you will—are still orders.

Jesus said:  This is my command—love one another.

This command is the glue that binds our connections and inclusion within the family of faith so that we may know fellowship.  Living out this command to love one another brings us communion that the world does not and cannot know.

This command to love one another is why we are not an exclusive club but an inclusive family.

It is not enough just to connect and invite.  We must have a heart for the disconnected.  We must pray for those who do not know what we know. 

The world thinks that it’s all about money and stuff.  The world has a lot of disciples but does not know the truth.

We know life because we know the truth.  We know fellowship because we live in the truth.  We long for inclusion of those who fight so hard to stay away because we have been commanded by our Lord and our Friend to love one another.

I am tired of giving out food and forsaking fellowship.  I am sick of handing out gospels so long as we remain in the safety of our comfort zone.  I am frustrated with a world full of apathy and ambivalence. 

Yes, you might think with good cause, “You’ve got issues.”

No! I have been given a command—to love one another.  I see so many on the outside of fellowship.  I see so many who resist inclusion.  I see so many that dodge connection because it might lead to inclusion and to fellowship.  That might just destroy the false premises that keep so many away.

So, my prayer for us today is that the Holy Spirit walks before us in the days ahead and softens hearts that need to be fully broken.

My prayer is that we start a conversation, not about going to church, but about knowing life and the one who gives it.

My petition is that God sends us those who are through fellowshipping with the things of this world and that we receive them into the fellowship of believers.

You might nod your head in agreement, but understand that I am praying that we are ready to receive the broken and bitter and hopeless and sometimes helpless who live all around us.  It is important that you understand what I am asking God to do—send us broken people.

Our part is to receive them into our family—really it’s God’s family—with love and inclusion.

We practice love when we reach out and connect.  We practice love when we invite.  We practice love when we help people.  But we don’t have fellowship with those who are on our hearts and minds until we receive them into this family where we can love one another.

Until love is the singular currency, we don’t produce much fruit.

We do a good job of loving one another within this family that we know.  We do a good job reaching out and connecting.  I am praying that we are ready to also love those who have never known true love or fellowship.  I am praying that we graduate to inclusion for the heartbroken, destitute, sick, and those who are now blinded by the god of this age.

I am praying that those on the outside of the fellowship come in, not to pick up some food and go.  Not to just get help with a bill and disappear.  Not to just check out VBS or the Easter Egg Hunt and wait for the next cool thing on the menu, but to become part of the family—to share in the fellowship—to know real communion.

To go from connection to inclusion to fellowship, we must learn to obey one simple command.  That’s our part.  God’s Spirit will send the lost, the discouraged, and broken-hearted to us.  They are coming.

Love one another.

Amen.