Love, Hate, and Gardening

March 20, 2022

John 15:1–16:4 ESV

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another. “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’ “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you. “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you.

Scripture: John 15:1-16:4

Sermon Title: Love, Hate, and Gardening

           We continue to hear these messages that John has included in the time when Jesus was with his disciples before going to Gethsemane. Just to note, the messages and prayers in John 14 through 17 are all unique to John’s Gospel; you won’t find them in the other three. Also, as I’ve said before, there are a number of parts to this that weave in and out of other places in these chapters. So, if there’s something that you’re thinking or hoping I would say more about or give more focus, perhaps I’m saving it for another time in this series. Just a heads up about the flow of the sermon, I’m going to be working backwards from the middle and ending back to the start.

           Brothers and sisters in Christ, it seems with each passing year, my ability to call myself a sports lover and a fan of certain teams decreases more and more. I haven’t been keeping track of the NHL or the Chicago Blackhawks much this year. I rarely watch college basketball, which used to be my favorite sport to watch. Since marriage and kids and ministry, my priorities and what requires my attention has shifted a lot over the last 10 years. That said, I still know it’s tournament time for high school and college basketball, even if I’m not as into March Madness as in the past.

           As I’ve been thinking about this passage and the concepts of love and hate, my sports fanaticism at different points in my life came to mind. When I was growing up, my favorite college basketball team was Duke University. There are plenty of other schools I could have chosen to cheer for that were much closer to where I grew up, but I picked Duke from North Carolina. Typically, they had great teams who were fun to watch, and they won plenty of games. But I was also really drawn to the Cameron Crazies, their student section. I loved how excited they got, and how their energy fed into the teams and the games. I wanted that environment in the schools I went to and the teams I cheered for.

My high school was small and didn’t have a great cheering atmosphere, but I had high hopes when I went to Dordt. I’ll be honest, going to athletic events took a much higher priority than my academic studies and, I think it’s likely true, my spiritual development as well. If they weren’t already, sports became an idol for me. If there was volleyball, football, basketball, or hockey going on, I was there. It was a lot of fun. We had some great athletes and teams during my years. But that level of fanaticism can affect a person—it wasn’t just that I went to games and could be happy or content no matter the outcome. I wasn’t even on these teams, but it left this lasting joy or anger depending on win or loss. Rivalry games were not just intense—no, I hated the other teams, I hated their student fans, I did not have Christian good will and love toward them.

Maybe that sounds silly or ridiculous to some of you—I know it does to my wife who could care less if sports even existed. It’s probably good that she didn’t go to Dordt and that we didn’t meet back then. But that time, that part of my life, shows me in hindsight how easy it can be for people to wrap themselves in groups, or ideas, or something held in common, and because of that community, that association, and how strongly we support it—it can give very clear outlooks on other people. If you’re not with us and for us, you’re against us. If you’re not my friend and in agreement with me, you’re the enemy. The enemy should be despised. It's not worth me getting to know you or show love to you; no, you hate me and I hate you. That is the way of the world.

 Going back to our passage, we’re going to jump in at verse 18—we’ll go back to the beginning in a bit, but our first point brings up the question, does the world really hate Christians? Hear again what Jesus said, “‘If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you…If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also…’” How do you react to that? Are you quick to nod in agreement with it or are you skeptical? Maybe you think Jesus is exaggerating a bit. Those words make sense for him: he was about to die! His disciples would live into a period of time when many of them and other Christians were persecuted even unto death. Is Jesus saying this just to them or is he saying it to all Christians?  

I believe this is for all who believe regardless of time, that the world does hate Christians. It’s easy to make the case for people in parts of the world who are threatened, imprisoned, martyred for their faith and for not giving it up. An email I receive each week encouraging prayer for persecuted believers shared a report on Friday about a church congregation in Yemen. If you don’t know where that is off the top of your head, I had to look it up too—it’s the highlighted country south of Iraq and Saudi Arabia and just east of Africa. It’s a country where nearly everyone is a Muslim; around just 1% are Christians. Recently, a dozen armed men burst into a church with weapons pointed at the pastor and the congregation, they threatened death, and the people prayed. The armed group left, but not before taking “all of the church’s equipment and Bibles.” I can’t imagine how traumatic that must have been, but the pastor reportedly “is happy that, somewhere in Yemen, stacks of Bibles are laying for someone to pick up and learn about Jesus.” He has found one hopeful spot in a terrible encounter.

That’s the kind of situation, we can easily apply Jesus’ statements. According to The Voice of the Martyrs there are at least 60 countries—in whole or in part—where Christians face persecution today, where they are prohibited by law from having a Bible or meeting to worship, or where there is a culture of rejection by those closest to you and you will face harassment or harm. In these places, disciples of Jesus are hated by the world, by people who follow other faiths.

But what about us, what about here, at home? Let’s clarify what “the world” means at this point in John’s Gospel. In John 1:10, the world is that which does not know God. In chapter 7 verse 7, Jesus said at that time, “‘…The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil…’” So, there’s struggle between what’s good and right and what’s sinful and evil. But remember also in chapter 14, how this other Judas asked why Jesus was showing himself to the disciples but not the world, and the world essentially in that case is those who do not love or obey Jesus. Dr. Edwin Blum puts it this way in his commentary on John 15, “The world in John’s Gospel is the system of organized society hostile to God, which is under Satan’s power.”

While we are not being persecuted as harsh physically as Christians elsewhere in the world, we do face attacks in the sense that to follow Christ, to obey his commands and ways, is ridiculed. It’s not widely held at this point. We may not feel hated because we have the freedom in this country to meet safely and to have Bibles and to tell whoever we want about Jesus, but hatred can exist in peace. The hatred I felt about sports rivals did not make me want to attack or inflict bodily pain on them, but it pulled me away from showing the love and compassion I should have shown.

If we accept that the one who currently leads “the world” is the devil, then Satan has been persuasive in leading people, not just astray in what has become acceptable, but leading them against the Lord’s people and his ways. Christian beliefs do not match up with the practices of broader American or Western society. God’s ways are hated. But what does that mean, what does that call for? It calls believers and anyone who would come to know and trust the Lord to repent of their sin, to have their minds captivated by Christ, and remain in him above all other allegiances.  

With that, we move to our second point, which is wonderful and incredible news. If we are saddened by the reality that the world hates us, we take heart in the truth not just that Jesus and the Father love us, but Jesus has so loved his own that he calls us friends. Listen to verses 13 through 15, “‘…Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. 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…’”

In God’s gift of Jesus and what he was sent to do, what he has accomplished, those who believe have been so reconciled with God that we are his friends. That doesn’t first come from us, like when we meet someone that we’re kind of acquainted with but want others to know that we have connections—“Look, I’m friends with Jesus, I’m friends with God.” No, this is Jesus, the Son of God, declaring this, “You are my friends,” no longer are you just servants. Obedience still has a place—throughout this section, love and obedience are linked together repeatedly; it is an expectation. But the relationship is a friendship with love; it’s not a business transaction, it’s not a service industry working off a debt or earning something.

What does that mean? First of all, it means we’re loved which was about to be showcased in Jesus dying for his friends. I know these words about “greater love has no man than to lay down his life” often get applied to soldiers or law enforcement or others who sacrifice themselves in harm’s way so that someone else can be rescued or survive. Love can compel us to do that for other people. But first and foremost, these words summarize the kind of love Jesus has for us. Not just one or two of us, but every wretched sinner who God has chosen to redeem, Jesus has died for the whole lot of us. He has every right to deny us, to hold us down, to cause us to grovel—but he died for us, taking our shame and guilt, and has additionally called us friends; he’s not hanging something over our heads. He has done this; this is what we are.

Secondly, not only should you know what he’s done, but you can know the Father’s business, his plan of redemption. There are certain things that you and I don’t know—we don’t know how God works in his fullness; we don’t know when the second coming of Christ will be. But everything you need to know and believe in order to be saved has been given. The framework for a life lived in gratitude to God has been given. Testimonies of God’s faithfulness, his ceaseless love, and the Holy Spirit counseling and comforting—it has been given. As we heard last time, Jesus wasn’t leaving his disciples, his people as orphans. We aren’t the tenants in the parables whose master goes away, and we’ve got to try and figure things out without any help. No, God is still with us, he is still active, he is still guiding his church. Let us not forget that he is a true friend not just in the past and to come, but right now he is with us.

           That brings us to our final point: remain on the true vine and bear good fruit. Jesus spoke the familiar words, “‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.” Another way of translating that is that the Father is the vinedresser; he’s the pruner. He’s cutting off branches that don’t bear fruit and trimming up those that do in order to make room for those bearing fruit to bear even more. Then we get to verse 5, in which he tells us we are the branches who should bear fruit, “much fruit,” but the only way to do so is to remain in him. Down in verses 8 through 10, we find that we show we are his disciples by bearing fruit, for God’s glory, by loving and obeying his commands.

I’m pretty sure I’ve referenced before how John the Baptist called for those being baptized to “produce fruit in keeping with repentance,” and both he and Jesus spoke similarly about good fruit and bad fruit, with bad trees or bad fruit always being thrown into the fire. Another place we find the word “fruit,” though not in the NIV, is in Romans 6. Here, Paul was recognizing that in our old self, in our flesh, our human nature, we were slaves to sin, but we have been set free in Christ to become slaves of righteousness. He asks in Romans 6:21, “What benefit”—there’s the Greek word that we see show up in John 15 and elsewhere as fruit, “What fruit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit,” the fruit, “you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

When it comes to who is part of the good vine, it’s completely a gift. You and I cannot set ourselves free from our bondage to sin, our enslavement to death. We have been bought with the blood of Jesus, and the result is life with him. Part of the work of the Holy Spirit that’s been given is the sanctification of believers, the making them more and more holy. If we are in the Lord and the Lord is in us, then we shouldn’t squander the gifts we’ve been given. We must not!

The Belgic Confession Article 29, which deals with the marks of the true church, also addresses the distinguishing marks of Christians. It states, “…We can recognize [those who belong to the church]: namely by faith, and by their fleeing from sin and pursuing righteousness, once they have received the one and only Savior, Jesus Christ. They love the true God and their neighbors, without turning to the right or left, and they crucify the flesh and its works. Though great weakness remains in them, they fight against it by the Spirit all the days of their lives, appealing constantly to the blood, suffering, death, and obedience of the Lord Jesus, in whom they have forgiveness of their sins, through faith in him...”

This is our call, if we have been set free, when we know that, remain in Jesus, and bear fruit that corresponds with that reality—however long or short that may be in this life. As we heard in the video at the start of our service, the rich young ruler who came to Jesus wanted to know what he had to do. It might seem like Jesus should have told him, “Remain in me and bear fruit.” Yet this man wasn’t looking for something outside of what he could do to earn eternal life. He wanted to know what act would guarantee, would further cement, his place in God’s kingdom. He loved his things and went away sad.

Yet compare him to that man who some might view as no good, a failure—he may even have thought that about himself—the criminal who hung next to Jesus on the cross, who rebuked the other criminal when he mocked Jesus. All we are told is that he believed that Jesus was innocent. Yet he had to have also believed that he was God, he was the King, because he asked Jesus to remember him in his kingdom. Jesus’ answer for this undeserving man, who had only hours left to live, who couldn’t go down off his cross—Jesus’ answer was grace, giving this man unearned eternal life. All that man could do was live in gratitude and hope in the one suffering next to him.

Brothers and sisters, bear good fruit, not out of attempts to gain righteousness. Bear good fruit because Christ has made you his friend through his love, bear good fruit to the glory of God, bear good fruit in gratitude. While we may be hated, while we may be attacked for our beliefs or persecuted with bodily harm or threats, do good to all. Show Christ’s love to all. Do not respond with hate, but love others as Christ has loved us. Amen.