Who is God? I Am The Vine Part 2

Transcript: 

Pastor Jeremy:

And hear the word of the Lord from the gospel of John the 15th chapter verses one through four, I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. While every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes. So that will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to. You 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. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated.

Pastor Jonathan:

There are a lot of things that Jesus cares about, the things that we care about. I think to a large extent Jesus cares about this is going to end in disaster. Let me fix this real quick, sorry.

There are a lot of things also that we care about that Jesus probably doesn't care as much about as we do. Perhaps like whether a guitar is working or not. I don't know that Jesus caress too much about that or where we're meeting. I don't know that Jesus caress too much about that because regardless of if a guitar works the way that you want it to or regardless if the building is set up like we want it to or we're able to meet wherever Jesus is always with us and wherever we are, that means Jesus is there. So want to take just a minute this morning and invite God to speak to us. These are our words that we believe God has given us to digest, to chew on, to sit with us and hopefully to bring about some sort of change, some sort of transformation in our lives. So with that in mind, let's offer a prayer together as we start. Jesus, as we know that you are with us, as we sang earlier, you never stop working when we don't see it, you're working. When we do see it, you're working. Jesus, we pray that in this moment as we are settled in this space, at this time

We pray that the work of your Holy Spirit would be to capture our attention with your love, with your joy, with your peace, with your grace,

And that whatever it is that you are calling us to in these moments, that you would make it clear to us and that you would give us the grace to follow wherever you are leading. We ask this today, Jesus, in your name and for your sake, amen. The sharp edge of that table is going to come into contact with my backside if I don't scoot up. So I'm going to do that this morning. Alright, we are wrapping up our series titled Who is God And this series, the purpose of the whole sermon series is for us to determine whether or not God is trustworthy and if we come to the conclusion that God is trustworthy, then to have our trust in God deepened. So today we're going to wrap up this series with a few kind of a recap and a few closing thoughts to help transition us into the next series that we're going to start beginning next week, which we're going to be talking about hearing from God.

So we're talking about trusting God this series next time we're looking at hearing from God. So if we learn to trust God and we know that God speaks, that God works as we were singing about, then we also know that we need to know how exactly we know when it's God spanking or when it's something else. So we need to know how to hear God. That's what we're going to be talking about next week. So during this series on talking about who is God, we've been looking at seven I am statements that Jesus made in the gospel of John, these statements that Jesus began by saying, I am I the bread, I am the gate. I am the good shepherd. I am the way, the truth and the life. I am the resurrection. I am the vine. Jesus made these statements as an invitation to us, to a deepening and expanding trust in God and he's also connecting himself to God who had a long track record, a long history of being trustworthy.

Jesus also is establishing who he is in relationship with these statements to the Israelites. He's establishing who he is to the Roman Empire and to all of the world and who Jesus is is God in the right, Jesus is God. If God had a mirror, Jesus's reflection would be what is looking back at God when God glances into the mirror. And if we can trust God, then we can trust Jesus, which is important for us because Jesus calls us to do things that don't always line up with either the things that we want to do or things that we have been told are the way to go about. So if you could remember back to the beginning of the series, which I know that probably most of us do not, but we began by telling the story of Moses and Moses being sent to set the Israelites free from slavery in Egypt.

So God shows up to Moses in a burning bush. He tells Moses to go back to Egypt where he had to flee to save his life and sends him there for the purpose of telling Pharaoh that he has to let the Israelites go free. And so as Moses is sort of workshopping this thing out with God, he questioned God. In Exodus chapter three, verse 13, Moses says to God, he says, suppose I go to the Israelites and I say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask, what is his name? Then what shall I tell them right now? This is a legitimate question. If you go to somebody to tell them something that's going to challenge them and you're saying that someone sent you their probably first question is going to be, well, who is this someone who sent you?

So God entertains Moses's question and he gives him a response and his response is, I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites, the I am sent me to you. Now this response can help us understand something about God. That is an important thing to understand. God's response to Moses's question is an invitation to Moses. God is inviting Moses on an adventure, on a journey to discover who is God. God is declaring who he is. He is declaring himself as God, but he's also cloaking who he is in mystery because over time God will reveal himself more to Moses. As Moses trust in God expands and God will reveal himself to the Israelites as more as the Israelites trust in God expands and God will reveal himself to us more. As our trust in God expands God's calling to people and God's identity, who God is always an invitation to us.

This is an important distinction for us to recognize because sometimes we operate with God like we're trying to eat an elephant. The task to trust God is just so large. It's so difficult. It's something that we can't even begin to do, but God never asked us to be ready for sainthood from the moment we first decided to trust him. God invites us to a long and slow and deep intentional walk with God as our companion along the way. Now with that said, I do believe that God works miracles and I believe that God can transform a person's life. In an instance, I believe that strongholds which have plagued people for years or decades even can be torn down by the hand of God. But anytime that happens, it is only the beginning of that person's journey with Jesus. Deliverance is powerful, but just as the exodus out of Egypt was the beginning of the story for the Israelites, deliverance is the beginning of our story as well. Journeying with Jesus is a moment by moment daily rhythm of God's grace being imparted to each one of us. One of the most common metaphors in scripture is that of depicting the kingdom of God as a garden and God is the gardener, God is the gardener, and we are the fruit of God's labor. It's interesting then that we try so hard to live according to the ways of Jesus, but the question is, and it's sort of a silly question when you think about it, but does a grape have to try to be a grape?

Does a apple have to try to be an apple? Does a rose have to try to be a rose? Of course, the answer to that is no, right? These fruits are just blossoming, are happening because of what is going on within the plant itself. The grape and the rows and the apple are produced by the hand of the gardener, by the work of the gardener. Our role is not to try as hard as we can to please God, but to spend time being nurtured by God the good gardener. The problem though is that this goes against everything we are taught as Americans in our Western context. We are submersed in the first one in and last to leave culture. We are taught that we need to do all that we can to impress others, that nothing is free and you have to earn everything that you have.

Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps is what we tell each other. And while hard work is important, while diligently pursuing something is important, these values in our society help us achieve success in our context, but they accomplish the exact opposite of that in the kingdom of God. There's no such thing as earning in the kingdom of God. You cannot earn the kingdom of God. Our role in the kingdom of God is consent, consent to God's presence in our lives through the Holy Spirit. Jesus offered his consent to God when he prayed in Matthew 26, verse 39, when he was about to be arrested and tried and sentenced to the cross, he prayed My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me, yet not as I will, but as you will Jesus offering consent to God. Consent is also the spirit in the Lord's prayer as Jesus instructed us to pray, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Not my kingdom come, my will be done, but your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. When we consent, we let go of our urgings to attempt to earn God's favor and seek to allow God to form and shape our lives. As God sees fit, we allow the gardener to cut and as the gardener sees fit, our role is to accept the invitation with consent and to allow God to go to work promoting the healthy parts of our lives and cutting off that which bears no fruit. And the good news about the good gardener God is that God is always faithful to do the good work of the kingdom in our lives.

When you think about the role of a gardener in a garden, the gardener's main task, at least as far as I know it is to tend to the plants and to keep out the weeds, right? You put in things that promote growth and health in vitality, fertilizer, water, nutrients, and you keep out the things that cause the ruin and that take up vital nutrients away from the plants that you are nurturing. In the same way God works in our lives, and this is why it's important for us to trust God with an expanding trust, because pruning can be a painful process. It also requires an effort on our part. We have to posture ourselves in the garden. For many of us, this is the most difficult part of following Jesus is staying put in the garden. I have a friend who I love dearly and he is constantly moving like he's either chewing a piece of gum and not just gently, lovingly chewing a piece of gum but chewing that piece of gum as if it has got to be put out of its misery, right?

If he's not chewing gum, he's shaking his knee or shaking his foot or he's moving around and every time that I'm with him, I am just aware of how much he just is constantly moving around. But so many times that's how our lives are. We are unable to stay put where we need to be. We are unable to have our roots digging deep down into the soil because we constantly want to move from wherever we are to the next thing. But we have to posture ourselves in the garden and we have to allow God to do the work that God wants to do to bring the fruitfulness out of our lives even if it's painful and especially when it requires our patience. Eugene Peterson said that we are to have a long obedience in the same direction. We are never going to be the best versions of ourselves.

We are never going to be able to live fully in the kingdom of God at a moment's notice. It always requires time and effort and there is a cost to it. There is a difficulty to it, but when we are able to trust God enough to be still and silent before God enough, then God is always faithful to cut and prune as God sees fit. And when we allow God to cut and prune as God sees fit, then we will experience a fruitfulness in our life which far exceeds whatever we would be able to achieve on our own.

Have you ever felt like I just want to do more for God or I want to do something great for God? Maybe you've voiced that to somebody or maybe you've said, I wish I could do more. The reality is that there's only one thing that we can do and that is be obedient to whatever God is calling us to. And this moment you can't do something greater than what you are currently doing, right? If you're always focused on doing something greater, then the thing that you're doing that's right in front of you is going to go undone. So we have to discipline ourselves to learn to focus on what is right in front of us and allowing God to dictate what we are about and what we are doing and where we are putting in our efforts. Dallas Willard wrote this as one of my favorite quotes of his.

He wrote, grace is not opposed to effort. It is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action. The way in which we act in the kingdom of God is through what's called the spiritual disciplines. The spiritual disciplines are the shears that God uses to prune and cut our lives to where they need to be, so that which is unfruitful goes away and that which is fruitful has room to blossom. Yesterday, the kids in the evening were out riding their bikes, and I noticed sometimes you get too comfortable and you don't see the things that are out of whack in your life. And probably because it's been so hot, mostly because I've become lazy when it comes to my desire to do the keep up with the gardens at our house. I just kind of let things go a little bit too long.

And so some of the shrubs, they've been growing, but they've been growing in the wrong direction. They've been growing in ways that they weren't supposed to grow. They're growing in ways that I as the gardener did not approve of. And so what did I do? I went and I got my shears and I trimmed them back. I cut off that which I did not want to be there, and that is what the spiritual disciplines do in our lives, in the garden of the kingdom of God. This is the action. This is the effort that Dallas Willard was talking about in that quote that grace is not opposed to effort, it's opposed to earning. The effort that we put forward are the spiritual disciplines. Now, Jesus primarily practiced two spiritual disciplines. Anybody want to take a guess at what those were?

Prayer, solitude is the one and community, and there was prayer in the midst of any of it, in all of it. Prayer actually I think happens in all spiritual disciplines. It's kind of like the underlying posture of all of these disciplines, but prayer or solitude and community are the two that Jesus often sought. Now, the list of what counts as a spiritual discipline is as long as you could possibly make a list, but there are those that are just sort of foundational disciplines that are the disciplines of solitude and community, which are those that Jesus practiced, but also silence, Sabbath, scripture, generosity, service, sharing the good news of Jesus. These are all practices that God uses in our lives to bring about the fruitfulness that God desires for our lives. Having routines which incorporate these disciplines as an everyday part of our lives allows the most opportunity for God to promote flourishing.

When we don't have these postures in our lives or these disciplines in our lives, it's like this summer in Texas as far as the garden of our lives go, right? Everything is dry and falling off and losing its leaves. And when we do practice the spiritual disciplines, when we take time to invest in the kingdom of God, then our lives are like a garden in an oasis, right? That is blooming and beautifully displaying its fruit in Romans 12 verses one through two. I'm going to read this from the message because I think it captures what we're saying very well, but here is what Paul writes in Romans chapter 12. He says, here's what I want you to do. It's a pretty good sign that we should listen, right? Here's what I want you to do with God helping you take your everyday, ordinary life, your sleeping, eating, going to work and walking around life and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing that you can do for him. Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit in to it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what God wants from you and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings out the best in you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

One of the things that I often hear when it comes to the conversation surrounding spiritual disciplines is an objection for lack of time. I wish I had time to pray, but I'm not disciplined enough to do that. Or I wish I had time for Sabbath rest, but I'm too busy, which is kind of an oxymoron, those two things because kind of the purpose of Sabbath rest is to not to be too busy. But the reality is, is that most of us fret when it comes to the idea of anything that requires more of us. We don't have margin to add more things in our lives, but the beauty of the spiritual disciplines and the beauty of the kingdom of God is that the ask isn't for more but less. It's actually moving in the opposite direction of always wanting more. Henry Noun, another person who I quote often, he wrote this, and keep in mind, I think this book was written in the early 1980s, he wrote this, the question that must guide all organizing activity in a church is not how to keep people busy, but how to keep them from being so busy that they can no longer hear the voice of God who speaks in silence.

Now, we did not take Henry Nolan's advice because the church for a long time has been about how we can add to the things, how we can do more, how we can have more, how we can create more, and ultimately the call of following God is about less. Now, what I'm about to say, I'm not passing judgment on anyone, right? I'm simply stating something that I think is true that we need to consider when thinking about pruning and cutting things out of our lives. When you think about it, we regularly find or make time for the disciplines of our world and culture, whether it be checking social media or staying up on the latest news or sports. Most of us have down pat the disciplines of our culture. It is truly remarkable that people who don't consider themselves disciplined at all find a way to be disciplined, to continually check in on the practices of social media and politics and sports.

And the truth is that we all fill our lives so full with these things until there is no margin. And then we wonder why we're so riddled with stress and anxiety. Why do we feel inadequate and overwhelmed? Why do we feel as if we are never enough or can never have enough or do enough? Well, a large reason why so many people feel this way is because the fruits of the discipline of our modern culture are being discontent, comparison more, bigger, better, faster. These fruits move us in the opposite direction of the fruits of the spirit, where the fruits of the spirit allow for you to slow down, to be present, to live content. The fruits of our culture cause stress and overwhelm. When you are stressed and overwhelmed, you don't have the capacity to even consider getting off of the spiraling way, so you just continue living from one emotional high to the next.

Now, in saying that I am not, not even anti-social media. I am for myself because I don't know how to behave properly with social media. I don't know what the situation is for you With that. I am trying to take away other things in my life like I'm trying to watch sports less, trying to pay attention to the news less, at least to the point to where it consumes my thinking. Because what I believe that is true for all of us is that we, whether we recognize it or not, we put way too much trust and time and our best energy into these activities, which ultimately lead us in the opposite direction of the kingdom of God. But there is hope because this is exactly what the pruning work of God accomplishes. Strongholds can be broken, freedom can be found, deliverance is attainable. These are actually the gifts of God, but it isn't a spur of the moment deal, and it isn't a one size fits all thing, and it certainly does not come with instant gratification. But when we are diligent to stay in the garden and allow God to do the pruning work, then these are things that we experience. The phrase that Jesus used to describe this way is Remain in me. Remain in me. That's what Jesus said. So as we bring this to a close, I want you to hear these words from Jesus.

I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener. 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. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to. You 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. Jesus said, you have been made clean. Stop trying to make yourself clean. This happens also with Peter. When Jesus goes to wash his feet, Peter's like Jesus are not washing my feet. Jesus says, Peter, if I don't wash your feet, you can't follow me. And Peter says, okay, well then just wash my whole body, right? It's that fascination we have with doing something great. But what does Jesus say to him is, Peter, your whole body is already clean, right? We've already taken care of that. This is something that has already been done for you, so stop with that. It's time for you to move on from here. It's time for you to move forward from this place. It's time for your roots to go deeper into the soil of God's kingdom. Let's go to work to see how much more fruit can be produced in your life. The fruit of love and joy and peace

Remaining in God is the effort. Relaxing in Jesus is what it is to live in the kingdom of God. So what should I do to expand my trust today? What should I do to expand my trust today? I want to encourage you this week and whatever you need to do to remind yourself, whether it be write this down and stick it on the mirror in your bathroom or change your screen on your phone to have this written on there. So it's the first thing you see in the morning. If you check your phone first thing or write it in lipstick on your spouse's head so that when you roll over, you'll see it there first. Whatever you have to do to remember this, don't do that. That will cause more problems than it's worth. But begin your day by asking this question, what should I do to expand my trust today? What should I do to expand my trust today? And the beauty about this question is that it's actually not. What can you do to expand your trust? It's about what space can you create for God to expand your trust? At our online gathering last week, we encouraged the pruning prayer. The pruning prayer. This is something that we sort of made up from this particular passage of scripture, but the line that we invited the people journey to pray was God, what needs to be pruned from my life?

My suspicion is that if we began our day by praying, what should I do to expand my trust today that the prayer of what needs to be pruned from my life would also be answered? Because a lot of times in the kingdom of God, it's not about doing more. It's actually the opposite. It's about doing less, and the less we do, the more God is able to fill our lives with the fruit of the kingdom. With that in mind, which you pray with me today, Jesus, which a lot of times we get things twisted. A lot of times we get things backwards. We get so caught up and consumed in patterns and ways of life that actually do the opposite of what we think that they do or would hope that they do. But God, you do not leave us alone in that you offer us your care. You offer us your pruning. You offer us if need be to cut things completely out of our lives, and you do it not by giving us willpower to stand against whatever the thing is, but you do it by filling us with your spirit. So Jesus, as we seek to trust you more,

As we seek to have a expanding or a deepening trust in you, would you reveal to us what needs to be pruned in our lives and prune it? What needs to be cut from our lives and cut it that our lives might bear the fruit of your kingdom and your way and your spirit? We ask these things, Jesus, in your name and for your sake, amen.