John 15-1-4 pruning (9-15-02
The Pruning
9/15/02
John 15: 1-4
Intro.
In ancient Rome, when the scaffolding was removed from a completed Roman arch, the law read that the Roman engineer who built the arch had to stand beneath it. The point was, if it wasn’t built right, he would be the first to know. As a result, the Roman engineer knew that the quality of his work would have a direct personal impact on his life. And therefore it's not surprising to find that so many Roman arches have survived through history.
I wish that we would take the same care in building our spiritual lives. Because when the scaffolding is taken away, we have the privilege of standing in position to see if the life was built well.
We should take our spiritual development before God much more seriously than the building of an arch. Too many lives of well-intentioned Christians and Christian leaders are coming crashing down on their heads these days.
We live in a world that is focused on functionalism. “How to…this” and “How to …that” and the less glorious work of inner spiritual development has fallen into neglect. In those matters of the heart, the development of the spiritual life, there has entered in a lack of authenticity, integrity and understanding.
(turn to John 15: 1-4)
Even though this seems to be characteristic of our times, this is not unique to our times.
ill. Study done by Dr. Robert Clinton;
He studied 300 leaders mentioned in the Scriptures...men and women who started strong for God. Only 1 in 4 finished well. Three out of four either proved unfaithful or didn't finish the course.
I am convinced that one of the biggest factors contributing to this is the failure to develop with integrity in our inner person. A large part of this comes from confusion over what God is seeking to do in us.
(Read Jn. 15:1-4)
Raising a vineyard was serious business in ancient Israel. If you had planted a vineyard and had not yet been taking fruit from it, and the nation went to war, you were to stay by your vineyard.
ill. A good vineyard keeper would prune the branches in the spring and would cut the branches way back till it looked like a bunch of bleeding stumps. But, this is done because he knows that if he doesn't, there will be a lot of leaves, but no fruit.
How does God prune His vineyard?
Theologians, pastors and devotional writers who write about the spiritual life have given consistent evidence of a spiritual developmental process. The Holy Spirit is on a journey with the human spirit. At OBC, we call it a “spiritual growth path”. We have sought to provide some structured growth opportunities. Steps in a process.
Ill. Scaffolding: it is not the structure itself
· “Orientation Series”
-Discovery OBC offered each Sunday Warehouse lounge @10:30
What we believe, history, vision and bit of thinking on ministry
-Discover Life sign up on the next step insert
4 weeks – basics of the Christian faith – practice of prayer, the place of the Bible in spiritual growth, role of the Holy Spirit in your life, etc.
(you never grow beyond these) radical truths
-required for membership – 5 G’s of what a membership level commitment looks like – Grace- Growth– Groups- Gifts- Going
-Discover Gifts sign up for it
4 weeks – finding direction for a life of serving God on the basis of His design of you – you are accountable for it, we want to help
-Branches of specialization (children’s, youth, adult spiritual formation, outreach, missions, worship, etc.) Thank you for responding to our children – Awana (350 children) parents stepped forward as servants and teachers
·Leadership Development
2-3 Year process (theology of leaders, church dynamics, church leadership, church mission)
grid to examine issues and ourselves through: grasp the issue – study the Scriptures – consult other sources -form a response – discuss the issue – take steps to obey
That is all scaffolding. It is not the structure of the life itself.
What does this journey of the Holy Spirit with the human spirit look like? What shape do the inner dynamics take?
(turn to 1 John 1: 12-14)
It is a wonderful mystery, yet one that can be recognized in a very general way.
12 I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake.
13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I have written to you, children, because you know the Father.
14 I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.
I John 2:12-14
We wish we had more commentary from John on these stages or seasons of life. “Fill in the gaps for us.” These comments are a bit cryptic. I am not comfortable trying to pin down exact understandings of what John is saying. What is clear is that John had in mind at least three developmental stages: spiritual children, spiritual adolescents, and spiritual adults.
Three Stages of Spiritual Development:
·The first stage (spiritual children) is characterized by a sense of forgiveness of sin and of knowing God. This points to a personal spiritual awakening in which there is a feel of freedom and personal relationship.
·The second stage (spiritual adolescence) has a different texture than the first. This stage appears to be characterized by a sense of struggle, a sense of wrestling with the evil one.
The Word of God is not merely something to which one joyfully assents: rather, it abides in or is integrated in one’s person, with the result of overcoming spiritual adversity.
·The third stage (spiritual maturity) is the most cryptic of all. John merely says that the spiritual father has come to know Him who is from the beginning.
Dr. Earl Bland brought us an article by a Biola University professor, John Coe interacting with St. John of the Cross, a 16th century Spanish writer on the spiritual life.[1] He writes concerning patterns of understanding that have been recognized by spiritual men and women across the centuries.
“…they noticed that the middle stage appeared to be a transitioning period of wrestling and struggling, which is clearly distinguished from the beginning excitement and joy and from the later sense of spiritual confidence that comes from a life of trials and walking with God. Writers over the centuries, from Augustine of the 5th century to St. Bernard of Clairvaux of the 12th century, the concept of a dark night of the soul had emerged in the literature, culminating with the thoughts of St. John of the Cross in the 16th century.”
Three Types of love for God:
·Purgation: The love of God for pleasure’s sake
(a) the beginner
(b) the spiritual sins of the beginner
(c) the dark night of the senses
·Illumination: the love of God for love’s sake
·Union: the love of God for God’s sake
·Purgation: The love of God for pleasure’s sake
The beginner - (St. John of the cross does not necessarily think of the beginner as a new convert, but one who is going through a period in which faith comes alive).
Ill. My experience at Liberty University
I felt alive… (no dating, sports, -only communion with God)
“Amazing grace” (sung hundreds of times) had never been felt by me before.
Sorry for my peers who had gone off to the college party. They had no idea what they were missing. They tried to create it with drugs and full-blown immoral lives.
Coe writes, “The beginner seems to be in the Apostle John’s first stage (spiritual children), a time of personal awakening to feeling the forgiveness of one’s sins, a time when Christianity does not feel like a religion but an exciting relationship. This spiritual awakening is characterized as a love of God for pleasure’s sake, a spirituality characterized by pleasure.”
It is all good!! Unbroken fellowship sweeter than honey in the honeycomb. The grass is green, the sky is blue and God reigns in the heavens. It will be like this forever.
But, it isn’t like that forever. God has to prune because all of us bring certain character habits with us into Christianity.
Spiritual sins of the beginner
God provides spiritual beginners with pleasure regarding spiritual things to get us growing.
Ill. Like a mother giving milk to a baby, God gives the beginner the bottle of spiritual pleasure without any labor on their part. It is satisfying. But, my love for God is really a love of pleasure and not a mature love of God.
A. In terms of character development, nothing has really changed. I wanted pleasure before I was journeying with Christ and I still do. It is still about my pleasure. It is about me.
I have just changed an immoral source of pleasure for a godly source of pleasure. That is a good thing; but the source of pleasure is still the focus.
My infant heart is still governed by pleasure and self-love that only time and submission to the Spirit will transform. The Lord must prune my heart.
B. A beginner can become deluded into thinking that they are centrally responsible for making the changes. The experience of being close to God is the result of their acts of obedience and energy in the spiritual disciplines.
Ill. “Rex Righteous”
You are a slacker. Give up dating and sports and get on fire for God. You just don’t want it bad enough. My diligence has made the difference. If you would just do the disciplines correctly, God will feel close.
God must prune.
The infant must grow up. God usually brings seasons of dryness. The experience of dryness is actually a sign that God believes one is ready to have the bottle of pleasure taken away and move into a deeper place of growth and love by means of a dark night.
I have a decision to make. Will I cooperate with the Holy Spirit or refuse to grow.
Do I want the spiritual zest and feeling that I receive when God is felt as relationally close, or do I want the relationship with God even if it may not feel so good, even if it involves seeing myself as I really am?
Ill. Like every marriage - a day comes when every couple will be confronted with the truth about their love: do they want the pleasure of the relationship, or do they want the relationship itself?
A lot of marriages end in immaturity right there.
In the process of pruning, God brings…
Dark night of the senses
In this stage of development, God is growing spiritual beginners away from mere love of God for pleasure’s sake to love of God for love’s sake, a relationship involving the real self and not merely a love for pleasure in the relationship.
“In a dark night, it is not the believer turning away from God. Rather, it is God turning away from merely giving infant-grace from the bottle as a sign of his presence and moving to provide the love and grace that comes from filling the believer with his very presence.
…the experience of the dark night will be one of spiritual confusion and dryness.”
Sometimes, I hear Christians who fail to understand how God prunes us, making big directional mistakes. “I just need a change. I am going for a different style of worship, preaching, charismatic experiences. I am going to explore other spiritualities.”
“God who is everywhere, never leaves us. Yet He seems sometimes to be present, sometimes absent. If we do not know Him well, we do not realize that He may be more present to us when He is absent that when He is present.”
(Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island)
How to cooperate with the pruning knife of God.
…the spiritual disciplines have changed in terms of their purpose or function in the believer’s life during a dark night. For beginners, the disciplines were felt as nourishment. However, the disciplines in a dark night become a mirror into the reality of the heart for the purposes of character transformation in the Spirit. At this point, the disciplines do not feel good; rather, they point to the truth of oneself and one’s need for God. As with all exercise and disciplines, be it mental, physical, or spiritual, beginners will experience those disciplines where they are at. For some, the spiritual disciplines may be joyful, for others agonizing, or even boring. The important thing is to cooperate with and be open to what the Spirit is doing in the disciplines (Coe 2000,304).
Movement through this dark night is punctuated by moments of spiritual pleasure to encourage the beginner, followed by moments of dryness and, as the pruning action takes effect, by illumination in the Spirit.
·Illumination: the love of God for love’s sake
You love God, not for what you can get out of Him. But just because you love Him. The Spirit causes you to journey into a more mature love. This is a love experienced, not by the senses, but by faith as an experience of person -to-Person interaction in the depths of one’s soul.
It is a filling of the Spirit that pushes out the fear of God’s absence in the darkness and dryness of the pruning process.
You have grown from love for pleasure - to love on the principle of love - to deep love for God as a Person. You have come to know Him who was from the beginning.
In order to cooperate with the pruning knife of God, we need to learn to wait, to watch, to listen , to be honest, to be open in all things. As v.4 says, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me.”
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[1] (Coe, J.H. (2000) Musings on the dark night of the soul: Insights from St. John of the Cross on a developmental spiritual,Jounral of Psychology and Theology, 28, 293-307).