Sermon Manuscript051406
Sermon Manuscript – 5/14/2006 Robert Hutcherson, Jr.
Sermon: “Abide With Me”
TEXT
John 15:1-8
The picture in our text for today is of the vinedresser (i.e., the Father) getting rid of extra growth so that the living, fruit bearing branches may be sharply distinguished. God removes all things in the believer’s life that would hinder fruit-bearing, i.e., he chastises to cut away sin and hindrances that would drain spiritual life just as the farmer removes anything on the branches that keep them from bearing maximum fruit.
We have roses in our back yard next to the deck– growing up and along an arched frame they tell me is called a trellis. Well they began to overgrow the trellis, reaching onto the deck and the patio chairs, so Mom decided they needed a little bit of pruning, so I got out some cutters and – well, the truth is I hacked them up. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but they had overgrown the trellis and needed to be cut back, and now they look a little bit funny. Not too bad, but take one look up close and you know they weren’t pruned by someone who knows what they are doing. You’ll say “Brother Robert must have done this ALL by himself.”
But that’s why the pruning Jesus is talks about isn’t a scary thing. The gardener knows what He is doing. The pruning might still cause us some pain – He might cut off a particular part that we are fond of, a habit we enjoy, something we are proud of. It might be a part of our lives that we think is really important, that we couldn’t live without. But the gardener knows what He is doing. And He prunes with a purpose – that we might be even more fruitful.
Many of my co-workers grow tomatoes. They tell me that when they are transplanted you need to nip off the lowest leaves and plant them in deep. As they grow, the little suckers that grow at the junction of the main branches and the stem need to be taken off. A tomato plant really likes to grow branches and leaves. They would never get around to setting fruit if they had a chance. Bushy leaves may look good, but there would be few tomatoes. They must be pruned of almost all the green leaving a bare stem with tomatoes hanging from them. And sure enough, when the boxes of tomatoes are gathered at the end, the boxes will hold a lot more tomatoes.
Someone once said that the secret of pruning is to trick the plant into thinking that it is dying so it will produce great amounts of fruit. This is language that we know, it is the language of faith. We are to “die to self”, “those who love their life will lose it”. This is the language of baptism. “Our Father liberates us from sin and death by joining us to the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
It is the language of funerals, “When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death. We were buried, therefore with him by baptism into death . . .” Like a plant, we are reminded over and over again in worship that we are dying, that the time of pruning, the time to bear fruit is now. We know the language.
Sometime we’re like the tomato plant, we want to send out a lot of branches that make us look good but do very little if anything to achieve the purpose for which we are created, to bear fruit. The main stalk gets over-burdened with branches and leaves and the fruit loses out. Over and over again in our text for today we hear the word “abide”. Our life comes as we are connected to the vine, Jesus Christ. All the rest is show if it does not connect us to the vine and help to bear fruit. This fruit is love. Over and over again in 1 John we read the word ‘love’. This is how we know we are connected to the true vine, as God abides in us and we in God. Love flows to all those around. For love we are created, in love we find our purpose and joy.
The word "abide" means to remain or stay around. The "remaining" is evidence that salvation has already taken place and not vice versa. The fruit or evidence of salvation is continuance in service to Him and in His teaching. The abiding believer is the only legitimate believer. Abiding and believing actually are addressing the same issue of genuine salvation. True believers obey the Lord’s commands, submitting to His Word. Because of their commitment to God’s Word, they are devoted to God’s Will, thus their prayers are fruitful, showing results, which in turn put God’s glory on display as He answers.
If we were to be pruned today, what would be cut off? What looks good in our lives but does nothing to contribute to our ability or willingness to love? What are the basic essentials of our lives that help us to love and what gets in the way? Our basic needs are food, shelter, clothing and transportation. Once those are achieved, we have all we need. The rest is foliage that either contributes to our ability to love or is fair game for the pruner’s knife. Let me ask you this today: If you were pruned right now, what would go and what would stay? Jesus makes it clear that the measure is love. Anything that helps us love God and others will stay, and all that detracts from our love for others can go.
The hymn we sang earlier, “Abide with Me” speaks of some of the pruning that happens in our lives.
Abide with me;
Fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide!
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.
It uses the word, ‘abide’ drawing us to the center of our being, drawing us to the main vine, pulling the life energy away from the extremities and concentrating it in the main vine. “Abide with me fast falls the eventide”. As life draws to a close, darkness closing in around us we need Jesus to abide with us, so much that means so little falls away. “When other helpers fail and comforts flee”. When the other things we have looked to that WE think give life meaning show for what they truly are, we need Jesus to abide with us. “Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day; Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away.” What seemed so important but isn’t becomes clear at the end of our lives. Oh, if we could only see it when we are young? The hope in the hymn comes with a question and an answer. “Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if thou abide with me.”
One thing we can be sure of, Jesus abides with us. God’s love is assured for all of us if only we are open to it. If we seek to abide in Jesus, to seek to be connected to the main vine, to allow pruning, to aid in the pruning, cutting out all that does not help us bear fruit, we know of what the hymn speaks. We know that death has no victory, life has purpose and meaning. The victory and meaning is reflected in God’s love for us and our love for God and one another. We live in a spiritual world with people asking all sorts of spiritual questions. Lately our news is filled with all the discussion on “The DaVinci Code” and the spiritual questions it raises. But with all our dialogue and would-be intellectual discussion Henry Wieman has said, “Across culture this is the religious question, “What transforms us as we cannot transform ourselves, to save us from self-destructive tendencies and to bring us to the highest good of which we are capable? The answer is God.”
There is much in this world that would have us grow all sorts of foliage, all sorts of places to soak up our energies, in the false assumption that here is the answer to that great religious question. Reports from the census regarding religion came out recently. Yes, we may be a religious nation, but where is the energy going? As an example, some 20,000 people have declared themselves to be followers of the religion of the Jedi, worshiping Yoda, the guardian of peace and justice in the Star Wars movies.
How can we transform? We must be connected to the vine. A writer, Elton Trueblood, once said that we are a “cut-flower civilization”, we look good for a while but without roots, we soon wither and die. To abide in Jesus is to have roots. To abide in Jesus is to allow the life to flow from the roots to our lives. To abide in Jesus is to tend the connection, to weed and remove all that would hinder that connection.
First we know that the connection has been created by God, there is nothing we can do to make God love us or to give us life. This connection is part of who we are, this connection is for US to nurture. We do this as we worship, as we baptize our children, as we nurture their faith and life in their baptism, as we seek to discover what OUR baptism means to us every day.
Our life as a congregation is part of our connection to the vine. We come together to worship, to taste and see the vine. We come together to make our confessions of all the ways in which we’ve lived contrary to the life in the vine and ..Praise God!..we hear words of forgiveness. We come together to open ourselves to the pruning that God would do in our lives. We organize ourselves so that we can live out the fruit of love to those both inside AND outside of these walls. We commit ourselves to the life of this congregation because without it, a lot of foliage can develop which have nothing to do with the fruit we are created to produce. We hear and meditate on the Word of God in Scripture, hymns and preaching, and we discover the parts of our lives that need to change.
You may have noticed that we seem to be hearing more and more talk about Stewardship these days. This is to help us nurture our connection with the true vine. Stewardship is the pruning that we do to recognize that all we have is a gift from God, to remind us of all the things that blind us to that fact. We need to be reminded because the truth of the matter is, a lot of “stuff” gets in the way and we struggle to find the money to make our congregation effective. These issues, this “stuff”, is an example of foliage, or extra growth, that gets in the way of our bearing fruit.
I am in a season where the Lord is trying to teach me how to prune the vine of my life. Quite frankly, I’m finding it to be a difficult process, determining from a lot of things that I have held so long and so dear what should stay and what needs to be pruned. I know it will require faith to cut so drastically, but those with experience tell me it is necessary. Please pray for me, as the Lord brings me to mind, that as I learn to prune my little vine, that I learn about life as well. It is true that to produce love often requires drastic pruning, may each of us have the courage to allow it to happen in our lives as part of the true vine. To allow it to transform us as we cannot transform ourselves, to save us from our own self-destructive tendencies and to bring us to the highest good of which we are capable, that highest good for which we were created, where God abides in us and we in God, we triumph still…and Love flows to all those around. Let us pray…
How are you doing today? Do you feel the Lord abiding in you right now, or do you feel “cluttered” and “choked” by all the extra foliage in your life that prevents you from producing the fruit of love? Our Heavenly Gardener stands ready and waiting to lovingly help you prune…to be one with Him. Will you let Him help today?
