Readings: John 15: 1-7 (NIVUK)
Where: St Stephens, Wai-iti Road, 14 Jan 2018
Minister: Brent Richardson
Growing in God pt 3- the plant
The vine and the branches
15 ‘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[a] 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.
Recap: (P)
Over the past two weeks we’ve been looking at how we grow in God and using a house plant as a metaphor for this. So, this morning, I’m going to see if you’ve been paying attention.
Who can tell me what the pot represents?
What about the soil?
Today we are looking at the plant and on the recommendation of Sharon Gudsell I’ve chosen a Fiscus. These are a pretty hardy plant so I have great hopes that it will survive the care and attention it may or may not receive!
(plant in container)
(P) In various places in scripture the people of God are described using the metaphor of plants. For example, Israel is described as God’s grape vine (Ps 80). The righteous are described as trees planted by streams of living water (Ps 1). The gentile believers are described as wild olive shoots grafted onto a cultivated tree (Rom 11). And as we heard in our reading from John 15 and the children’s story The gardener and the vine, we have this wonderful imagery of Jesus as the vine and his followers are its branches.
“I am the true vine” he declares. This is the final ‘I am’ statement in John’s gospel and it’s addressed to those who have accepted his invitation to come to him issued in the other ‘I am’ statements (eg Jhn 6:35 “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry”). It’s very significant that he calls himself the true vine as he is saying that national Israel is no longer the vine because in him is the fulfillment of all that Israel was promised and all that it was to deliver.
(P)The point Jesus stresses in his discourse to the disciples, the thing God is looking for the most, is fruit. This is what Israel failed to deliver but what Jesus was able to do through his life which flows to all who are grafted into him. But what does he mean by fruit? What are we supposed to produce?
It can mean the fruit of our witness for Christ- the fruit of evangelism. Namely new believers. It’s not uncommon to have a ripple effect when someone comes to faith so that their friends and family also come to faith when the see the change in them and they bear fruit immediately in others. Of course, someone may have a tremendous conversion experience yet the impact on their circle is minimal. Does that make them fruitless?
It can also be mean the ethical virtues expected in the Christian life. The obvious connection here is with Galatians 5, the fruit of the Spirit; love joy peace patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. You could add honesty and integrity to the list as well. These are the qualities that should flow out of someone who is connected to Christ in the same way a branch is part of the vine.
But Jesus has something a bit more fundamental in mind when he talks about fruitfulness here; something that creates a foundation for all other expressions of fruitfulness. And that is divine life which is expressed in the knowledge of God and his chief characteristic- love. Love is the defining characteristic of the true Christian: “By this will everyone know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jhn 13:35).
This is not something we generate ourselves but it comes from being in Christ. This is why it’s so transformative. The gang member, wife basher, bar brawler encounters Christ, hands over his life to God and is transformed by love and transforms into someone now capable of showing love. Sometimes we are skeptical of these conversion stories but often genuine and lasting change takes place. This is the effect of the life-giving sap that flows through the vine.
Plants are a rich metaphor for the Christian life. One of the first things that comes to my mind is the huge diversity of plants in the world. There are around 391,000 species of vascular plants on the planet! That’s a lot of variety.
(P) Likewise, there are many different kinds of people that form the church. People from every walk of life, ethnicity, language etc make up the church worldwide. God loves variety! It is a travesty when we try to make people the same as us in order to have them fit in.
We recently conducted a survey of our St Stephen’s congregation to get feed-back on how we are doing and one question asked was What is something we could add to our worship services? A few answered “more people” which is a good answer and I think we will attract more people as we go along. But be prepared for people that may not be like you. Or that you may not like. We need to embrace the variety of folk who are seeking God and a place to grow in him. They may look different, speak different and perhaps have different values and outlooks but like new plants in a garden we need to make room for them.
It seems to me also that all plants serve a purpose of some sort. They all occupy a space in the ecosystem and contribute to that system. Oxygen, removal of C02, food, shelter, warmth, beauty, stability, healing…. In the same way all Christians have purpose in God. No one is redundant or surplus (even though we sometimes act like they are). A metaphor Paul used often to describe the church was that of a human body. Made up of many parts doing different things yet seen by God as a whole, complete unit that would not function fully without all the members playing their part.
It’s perhaps here that our metaphor about growing in God being like a house plant falls down a bit. You see as Christians we were never designed to grow singularly in our own pot, isolated from other plants. (P) A better metaphor might be the NZ native bush. There are multitudes of species making up the bush and many symbiotic relationships keep it all going.
There is something glorious about the bush. When I look at a plantation forest I see an economic resource- timber to be traded. But when I look at the bush I see something different. I see the landscape as it was meant to be before it was cleared and farmed. I see belonging (and you can easily spot the exotic plant that doesn’t belong). I see a unity and harmony in the midst of all that diversity. I see the glory of God displayed in unabashed splendour.
This is how the church is to be.; displaying God’s glory for all to see. Our fruitfulness comes from being in the true vine, Jesus. Did you notice in our story of the gardener and the vine that in order for Basil the branch to grafted in, the vine needed to be cut? An allusion to the whipping and beating Jesus underwent for us so that we may be included in his vine. ‘By his wounds, we are healed’ (1 Pet 2:24).
Growing in God and bearing fruit comes down to one little word: if. “If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit” (v5). As we come around the Lord’s table this morning I invite you to consider your relationship with Christ. Are you firmly grafted into the vine so that his life flows into you, sustaining you and producing the fruit of love in you? Or are you out on a limb or even distant from him? If implies we have some choice in this. We can choose to move into contact with the vine and to remain there.
Determine in your heart today as we remember the sacrifice he made to draw near through faith and receive his life.
Amen
