Abiding in Jesus

Prayer

Jesus Teaches What It Means to be with Him

We’re in week 2 of our Practicing the Way course - we started last week with what this course is all about, following Jesus. Which, as we noted, comes down to the three basic goals that we must organize our lives around if we are going to be disciples of Jesus - must be with him, to become like him, to do the things he did. It’s both that simple and that challenging.

Jesus himself offers us another way to look at what it means to follow him in his teaching found in the gospel of John. This is, I believe for most of you, a familiar passage, and one that’s been an important one for me as I consider my own life as a follower of Jesus.

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. 4 Remain in me, as I also 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 you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 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. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. 9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 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. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.  12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 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. 16 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. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

Now, you may have noticed that there were several words that jump out in this passage because they are repeated over and over again. These words give us a summary of what lies at the heart of what Jesus is teaching here. The words are remain, fruit and love.

The word remain comes from the Greek word, meno. It can also be translated abide, or dwell. Jesus is saying here, over and over again, that we must abide or dwell in him. We are to make our home in him. And to get that point across, he uses the word meno ten times in these 17 verses.

Second word, fruit, Jesus uses seven times. Fruit is part of the overall image that Jesus uses here of branches (you and I) connected to the vine, to Jesus. Fruit, of course, is what is produced - a branch that is part of the grapevine will, if healthy, produce grapes.

Finally, the last word, love. Like meno, remain, it is used ten times. We are to abide in Jesus’ love. We are to love one another as Jesus loved us.

Now, these main themes - abide, fruit, love - relate exactly to what it means to follow Jesus. Jesus is helping us capture that it means to follow him by using this striking image of a branch connected to the vine, and that only a branch that remains in the vine, that stays connected to it, will bear fruit. Otherwise it’s just deadwood that you toss in the burn pile.

That’s the central point. It all begins with abiding in Jesus, being with him, making our home in him. Over and over he drives that point home - if you aren’t with me, if you don’t dwell with me, you can do nothing. Not a thing. It’s impossible for a branch to bear fruit by itself, it must be attached to the vine.

If you are living your life as a Christian, and you aren’t starting by being with Jesus, you’re doing it wrong. You’re doing it on your own. If you’re doing it on your own, you will not bear fruit in your life. You can’t.

It’s important to point out that you actually are bearing fruit, it just may not be the fruit you want, fruit the world needs, the love of Jesus. John Mark Comer makes the point - we’re all becoming someone, we’re all being formed, bearing fruit of some type - the question is what are we being formed into? This is crucial, we want to make sure we’re following Jesus, being with him, so that we are becoming like him, doing the things he did. That’s the fruit we want.

This is exactly what Jesus taught in Matthew 12:33, listen to this: Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. This verse is all about formation - what are we becoming? We’re all abiding in something, and therefore we’ll all being formed into something. The question is what?

Whole point of Jesus’ teaching here in John 15, we must remain in him in order to become a particular kind of tree, that bears the right kind of fruit, fruit of the kingdom, which is love. As we’ve said many times, that is THE mark of spiritual maturity, love. It’s only by abiding in Jesus that we become people capable of being obedient to Jesus’s command, to love one another, and to love them as he has loved us. Jesus loved us by laying down his life for us - there is no higher standard of love, to lay down your life for another, no greater love as Jesus himself tells us.

Just another way to say what we’ve been saying all along - Be with Jesus. Become like Jesus. Do what Jesus did. It always leads to love, that’s what Jesus did, he lived for the good of others - for our good.

This morning - and next Sunday, I want to focus on the first three goals of following Jesus, be with Jesus. Or, as Jesus says, remain in me, and I will remain in you. Because it all starts here. There’s no fruit, no becoming, no doing, if we don’t organize our lives around being with Jesus.

What does that mean? What does it look like, to remain in Jesus? Not really an option for us to do what his original disciples did - actually walking with Jesus, following in his footsteps, eating meals with him, fish and bread. We might be able to do this spiritually, but not physically, as they did. At least not now - someday we will, we will break bread with Jesus in the kingdom of God. So the question remains, how are we to be with Jesus today, abide with him, in the here and now.

John Mark Comer makes the helpful point that all of us are abiding already. Jesus isn’t asking us to do anything we aren’t doing already. As Comer writes, All of us are abiding. The question isn’t, Are you abiding? It’s, What are you abiding in? All of us have a source we are rooted in, a kind of default setting we return to. An emotional home. It’s where our minds go when they’re not busy with tasks, where our feelings go when we need solace, where our bodies go when we have free time, and where our money goes after we pay the bills. We will make our home somewhere, the question is, “Where?”

Comer is making the point that abiding is where our minds go, where we put our attention, things we start thinking about - and the feelings those thoughts generate. Abiding has to do with what we are conscious of. Hugely important, because where we abide, where we set our minds and hearts, will determine the fruit of our lives - all part of that forming process going on in us, for good or for ill - are we becoming a good tree or a bad one?

Comer offers some examples of how this plays out in us: If we are rooted in the infinite scroll of social media, it will form us, likely into people who are angry, anxious, arrogant, simplistic, and distracted. If we are rooted in the endless queues of our streaming platforms of choice, they will form us too, likely into people who are lustful, restless, and bored, never present to what is...If we are rooted in the pursuit of hedonism - another drink, another toke, or another hookup to take the edge off the pain and let us find a moment’s peace - that will form us as well, likely into people who are compulsive, addictive, and running from our pain and simultaneously, our healing.

There’s no end to the examples this may include - if we are rooted in past wounds or present grievances, how we’ve been wronged, if we spend lots of time dwelling on our appearance, scrutinizing ourselves in the mirror, weighing and measuring ourselves, the list goes on. Truth to tell, I can relate in part to all of these examples - when I have abided too much in them, it has formed me for the worse.

So I hope our desire is to abide in Jesus, in the inner life of God himself, that the fruit of the Spirit might be born in us. But, again, how do we abide in Jesus in our modern world? In some form or fashion, this will involve directing our attention to, our thoughts, toward Jesus, until he becomes our home setting. This is a long, slow process of intentionally engaging in the spiritual practices, to make Jesus our default.

Why the spiritual practices are so essential to our training as disciples, it’s in these practices that we learn to abide in Jesus. Which takes a lot of practice. A lot. But it can be done. But it does require that we be intentional about organizing our lives around Jesus, to be with him. I want to walk us through a few of the practices just to give you a sense of how they help us to learn to abide in Jesus.

An obvious one is the practice I hope you’ve all been engaging in this week, the practice for Session 1, daily prayer rhythm. Now it’s helpful to think about prayer in these terms, not as a list of things I’m supposed to pray about, certain words that I should say, something I’m supposed to do as a Christian, but as time to abide with Jesus, coming to be with him, have a conversation. Taking time to listen to him, be present to him. Let him speak his words of comfort, love, or guidance to you, to hear him saying these things TO YOU. Share your heart with him - your pains, your worries, your desires, your love, your obedience. To come to him not only as Lord, but as he invites us in John 15, as friend. We pray because it’s one of the ways we get to be with Jesus, to abide in him.

Another practice is the discipline of silence. I have to be honest, the first time I made a serious attempt at this was part of an introduction class on Spiritual Formation. We engaged in silence for twenty minutes. At the end of it, I was confused. I asked the teacher what the purpose of it was, just sitting in complete silence before God - not praying or reflecting. Sadly, she didn’t have an answer other than to say that if we do it, God will work in us.

My response was forget that! Thankfully, years later I came across writers who could speak more fully to the discipline of silence, so I’ve been practicing it for some time now. Here’s an important lesson I’ve learned - distraction is part of the process. What do I mean by that?

The whole idea of discipline in silence is simply to come and be present to Jesus, abide with him. But, as we all know, you try to be silent and thoughts just keep running through your mind. You can’t turn it off. In silence, you choose a word or phrase, a short prayer to bring your attention back to Jesus. For me, it’s, Jesus, I come. So you begin in silence, in no time at all, a thought comes to mind, that leads to another - goes off like a train on its track. Then you remember that you’re supposed to be silent before Jesus, pray your phrase, coming back to him...until it happens again.

Which may seem kinda silly, except there’s training going on. You begin to become more aware of the thoughts that pervade your mind - and where, if you let them, they take you. There’s so many trains of thought we take that are so natural to us, we’re not aware of them, yet we take them all the time. They are well-established tracks, such as - rehearsing arguments with your spouse (why you were so right and they were so wrong), fantasy of some sort, all the things you’re got to do, and on it goes. But in silence I’m become more aware of them of those trains of thoughts, and as I become more aware of them, I become more able to guide my thoughts toward being present to Jesus, to abiding in him.

Last example - Keeping Sabbath. If you think about the Sabbath, the whole purpose of the Sabbath is to stop. Rest. Not simply for the sake of rest itself (though that’s a wonderful part of it), but in order to abide with Jesus. Twenty four hours of the week to get away from work, from your to-do list, that nagging project that isn’t finished, emails, your cell phone - to lay all of that aside simply to be with Jesus.

Exodus 20:8-10, Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. Notice the language here, we are to remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, which is to say, set apart, distinct. This is not just to be another day of the week, but different in that we stop (which is what the word, Sabaoth means, to stop).

And it is a Sabbath, a stopping - to the Lord your God. In other words, we stop, we set aside everything else in order to be present to the Lord. To abide with Jesus. To have time and space to read, pray, contemplate, delight in his good gifts - and most of all, to delight in him.

The great challenge is to abide in Jesus in the ordinary, day-to-day aspects that make up our lives. To be with Jesus in what Tish Harrison Warren calls, The Liturgy of the Ordinary. After all, if we can’t be with Jesus in our everyday life, how can we be with him (other than, you know, going off to a monastery or a convent)? But Jesus doesn’t just call monks and nuns to follow him, he calls us - so it must be here where we follow him, in our ordinary lives, and therefore, it’s here in our ordinary lives that we learn to be with him, to abide in him - in our waking up in the morning, showering, driving to work, changing diapers, cleaning dishes, watching ballgames, doctors visits, organizing our finances, all of it.

And as far off as it may seem, it is doable. We can learn to abide in Jesus, to keep coming home into the love and goodness and grace of our Jesus, to rest in him. To learn from him. To let him bring healing into our hearts. To delight in him. He is where we are meant to abide.

And Jesus himself is the reward of our abiding. He is the one we are meant to have our home in, because he is the source of all. Our hearts are restless until they rest in Jesus. Because only he can give us the peace, the love, the joy, that we so deeply long for, the things that lie at the heart of all our desires.

As we close this morning, let me remind you of what’s happening here for our second week in Practicing the Way, Session 2, which is part one of Formation.

Again, our small group gatherings on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings - or on your own. Before the small group gathering, be sure to take time to reflect on the experience of Daily Prayer Rhythm (Companion Guide).

If you haven’t completed it, take the Spiritual Health Assessment (website)

Spiritual Practice this week will be a Formation Audit - instead of a daily practice, idea is to take time this week, sit down and reflect on all the things in your life, your habits, relationships, etc. that may be forming you. Again, companion guide.

Reading for the book is pp. 32-63. For the brave and daring, podcast episode #2 was part of Wednesday’s e-newsletter.

Closing Prayer - Abide in Jesus