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| Grow! |
| Written by Pastor Fausel | |
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Grace, Mercy and Peace to you … How can we have a Gospel for this Sunday that speaks about being fruitful … and not talk, at least a little bit about, motherhood … on this Mother’s Day, 2009? And not only is this Mother’s Day … but it’s also a very special day for us as a congregation … as on this day we will witness and celebrate the growth God has given us as a church … as He adds not one … or two … but a total of 5 children to His kingdom today through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism! It all goes to those words in the heart of our Gospel reading for today. “I am the vine; you are the branches.” That’s from verse 5 of John, Chapter 15. In all these verses we have from that Chapter of John … we see Jesus comparing Himself to the vine, the true, the genuine, the authentic vine … which, by analogy, means that HE himself is the true source of the fruit we, the branches, produce … which is an allusion to the glory God receives through our Christian lives. Jesus is the vine … we are the branches. We naturally go together. And the end result is the fruit. But Jesus and you and I aren’t the only actors in this analogy. Enter the vinedresser. Notice that Jesus doesn’t play that role. Who does? God the Father. Jesus says, every branch of mine that does not bear fruit … the vinedresser, God the Father, takes away. Those branches simply don’t belong in the vineyard. Verse six of our reading tells us the severity of God toward those branches he did not plant (read there, “weeds”), and those whom Jesus calls, “every branch of mine that does not bear fruit …” Heaven forbid that any of us should fall under the condemnation of the vinedresser … and be taken away and burned. Our assurance is in our relationship with Jesus … With Jesus as our vine, by faith, we are safe. However … there is one uncomfortable statement we have to deal with here. Jesus says our Heavenly Father will take every branch that does bear fruit and do what? He will prune it. Why? Jesus says, so that it may bear … even more fruit. Ah. Pruning. Pruning doesn’t sound real comfortable does it? We’d much rather hear the news that as we remain in Jesus and He in us …or as we remain in Him by faith … we will bear much fruit. Why then, this necessity of pruning? Well, Jesus tells us so that we will bear even more fruit. What may make us uncomfortable about this is that we learn that our pruning is not Jesus’ job. He’s the vine, source of our faith, He, by His Spirit, is the source of our fruit. As we saw today, He and His spirit work together through water and the Word to instill that faith as we witnessed at the font this morning. No, the pruning Job is, not Jesus’, but the job of our Heavenly Father. Now even so, Human beings are not plants… so, in this analogy, it may be hard for us to imagine what pruning means. What it refers to is the cleansing of those things from our hearts and minds that hinder our ability to live lives that bear abundant Christian fruit. How does God the Father do that; how does He prune us? What do His pruning sheers look like? His sheers are described in the Book of Hebrews … where we read: “For the Word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; (and here comes the most important part) it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” God the Father’s pruning sheers are His Word … it judges the thoughts and attitudes of our hearts … to what end? To prune out those things which hinder our Christian lives. Those pruning Words compel us by the Spirit’s power to put away the things of the devil, the world, and our own flesh … things that would distract us … and deter us from bearing the fruit God designed us to bear … You see, through the power of the Holy Spirit in God’s Word combined with the waters of Holy Baptism … we stand clean … and righteous in God’s eyes … We have been forgiven all of our sins … we have heaven as our inheritance. So …as we are in Christ… we do bear fruit. But then. Comes the pruning. The Word of God speaks to our hearts, not to convert them into Christian hearts … no, that has already occurred … as Jesus says in our Gospel, “you are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.” But now the Heavenly Father is speaking to our hearts to root out those things that prevent us from being even more fruitful than we have in the past. So that we do have more of the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, goodness and self-control. So then, as a branch, in the analogy, we grow … and just naturally produce more fruit. Now. Last week we talked at some length, not about the wonders and the beauty and awesomeness of the resurrection… but about something which Jesus’ resurrection has made possible in our lives. Living our lives in Him, by faith. And in that faith, being faithful Stewards of all His gifts. Yes, last week we did talk about money, our giving back to the Lord a portion of what He has first given us. Giving to the Lord as an act of worship … regularly … proportionally (or in proportion to our income) and with a cheerful heart. Mothers and Fathers … did you know that in the Days of the Old Testament covenant between God and His people … not only was a tithe or ten percent of your goods, or harvest, … given back to the Lord … so was your first male child? As Jesus was the first male child of Mary’s womb, that was the reason Mary and Joseph had to take Jesus and dedicate Him according to the Law at the temple. Now, technically, according to the Law, that was a sacrifice each Hebrew Family was to make … to dedicate their first born male child, or sheep or cattle to the Lord. He was the Lord’s. And yet we see Mary and Joseph take Jesus home with them after His dedication. Why? Well, because God provided that the tribe of Levi was to serve before the Lord’s altar in place of all the first born males of Israel. So every time they saw a priest, every time they offered a sacrifice, they were reminded of God’s right to their first born was being satisfied by the service of the Levi’s. That Reminds us, doesn’t it, of the death of all the first born of Egypt during the first Passover … and the redemption, the satisfaction paid by the blood of the Lamb for all of Israel’s first born who were saved from the angel of death. So Jesus, our vine … is also our substitute under the law … and the sacrificial Lamb of our salvation. And so, what do we rightfully render Him as an act of our worship?? Mothers, Fathers, all of us today are now Israel by faith … God has given you everything. Your very life … And your redemption by His blood. He’s given you your genetic make-up, your innate intelligence, your education, all the opportunities you’ve had to grow in wisdom and in stature. And where and when He has blessed … also your children. He’s also given you your opportunities to serve Him and one another in honest vocation. He’s given you your church … the service of those He has called out of your midst to serve you before His altar … and He’s given you those around you who love both you and God as well. What does He ask of us?? Most of all, faithfulness … which comes through His Word by the Power of His Spirit. And also as we read today, He expects to find Fruit. Fruit as Christian character and also fruit as stewardship of the love He has graciously poured into our lives. One of those gifts of His is the income we make. The material harvests we reap. As we said, in the days of the Old Testament … God expected a tithe, 10%, to be returned by all His faithful. Today … Jesus has fulfilled that requirement of the Law for us. He now says: give “regularly, proportionally, and cheerfully.” And in this church, this congregation, at least … your response to Jesus’ expectation is between you and Him alone. No one sits down with a calculator and computes what proportion of your income you give … and no one measures the cheerfulness of your heart. At the end of the day, the month, the year… that’s all just between you and Jesus. I think most of us would confess … we’d like to give more, sow more into the kingdom … but, then come the excuses. What does that “I’d like to give more, but” mean for you? Tell you a secret. That “but” is what our Heavenly Father goes after with His pruning sheers. He brings His Word to bear on those things in our lives that we hold up as excuses to our growth in faith and in stewardship. But, what we see is that His Word doesn’t cut those excuses out of our lives … His Word causes us to grow instead … to grow in faith … and so … grow out of … our excuses. So … today, this Mother’s Day, this day we recognize and give thanks to God for our growth in wisdom and stature through our mothers … we also recognize our growth in faith through Jesus who is our vine … and in both cases, the key Word is GROW. And as you do grow … you will find that you will bear even more fruit for the kingdom, naturally, in Him. And all God’s people say: Amen. |