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October 5, 2003
17th Sunday of Pentecost
John 15:1-8
Pastor David Wenzel

Remain in Christ

1. Planted in Christ
2. Pruned by Christ
3. Productive through Christ

(John 15:1-8) 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, and I will 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. I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my word remains in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

Dear friends of our Savior,

A little over a year ago my family and I moved to our house here on Doris Lane across from the soccer field. One of the many things we've appreciated about our new house is that it has a larger yard…a yard complete with grass…a yard with green grass. Of course, there's a downside to having a nice big yard, and that's the challenge of keeping it nice. In one year I've spent more money on crab grass preventer, fertilizer, weed'n'feed, and Scott's winterizer than I did in all 10 years at our old house. And of course, the more we fertilize, the more the grass grows, so the more we mow it. And then during the dry spell in August and September, the more we had to water it.

Is all that work and expense growing a lawn worth it, or is it a waste of time and money? That's a matter of opinion. In our text this morning, Jesus talks about growth that's not optional whether we are married or single, young or old, parent or grandparent, student or adult; and he's referring to a growing season that never ends. Jesus is talking about spiritual growth…about growing as a child of God, growing as a Christian spouse, a Christian family, growing as part of God's kingdom. And just like you can buy a 3 or 4 or 5 step lawn care program from Scotts or Chemlawn or Tru-green, this morning Jesus offers us a 3 step program directly from God's Word:

Remain in Christ

1. Planted in Christ
2. Pruned by Christ
3. Productive through Christ

Remain planted in Christ. The setting for our text is the upper room on Maundy Thursday. These are the last hours he has with his earthly family, his disciples, before his death. He says: I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. When Jesus says he is the true vine, he wasn't referring to the thin green stem of a house plant. He was referring to the thick base of the plant, what we today would call the trunk: the source of the plant's life, the source of its strength, the source of its success. In the days of Jesus there were a lot of other vines-other religious voices and preachers in Jesus' day-voices that were offering alternate keys to success, messages that were producing their own types of fruit.

You can roam the aisles of any Christian book store today and you'll find a volumes of advice on how to have a strong marriage, how to build a strong family, how to be a successful Christian. But unfortunately, there's often something missing from many Christian marriage/parenting books today. Many of these books will hold up Jesus' love for children as a great example for parents to follow. They'll use Jesus' love for his people as a wonderful example for husbands and wives to follow. They'll point out Jesus' perfect obedience of his Father's will and obeying Mary & Joseph as an example of how Christian children should obey their parents. But while there are lots of Scriptural examples and references to God's commands, there's no true source of strength or power, no evidence of the one thing that can offer true success to a Christian marriage, a Christian family, to any Christian relationship.

In Jesus we have more than just a great example of perfect obedience. Obeying God didn't plant us in Christ. Remember what Jesus says in our text: My Father is the gardener. The fact my four children obey me more often than they ignore me doesn't make them part of Christ. Jesus' death and the miracle of baptism make them children of God. The fact that I try hard to be a good husband and father and pastor and coach doesn't plant me as a child of God, the fact that we are members of Mt. Olive and come to church doesn't plant us a children of God. That same miracle of baptism is what sowed a living faith in me and in you. The Holy Spirit is the creator of our faith and our Savior is the object of our faith.

This seems so basic, but what's the first step in understanding the key to your success as a spouse, parent or grandparent, brother or sister, son or daughter? It's to remember this: The primary reason God sent Jesus to earth wasn't to guarantee me that I could be a perfect husband and father and raise a perfect family. It wasn't to guarantee you that you could have a perfect marriage, or be a perfect son or daughter, or be a perfect member of Mt. Olive, or have a perfect career. God never guarantees ANY of his children a perfect marriage, home, family or job. God sent Jesus to earth because he knew I wouldn't be a perfect dad, husband or pastor, that I won't raise a perfect family, because he knew you wouldn't be the perfect spouse or child or teenager, because he knew we wouldn't always give back to him what he rightly deserves, because he knew there were times when we'd resent the fact that his plan for our lives doesn't match our agenda. God sent Jesus to earth not to guarantee us perfect homes here on earth, but rather to guarantee us a perfect home in heaven. Remain in Christ? Since the day of your baptism, you have been firmly planted in Christ.

II: Of course, being planted in Christ offers no guarantee that we'll successfully remain in Christ. That's why Jesus says God "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." A Christian isn't just planted in Christ on the day of his baptism and then ignored by God until the day he enters heaven. A Christian remains in Christ by also being pruned by Christ: "every branch that does bear fruit he prunes."

We are those branches. How does God nurture and prune us? In a number of ways. First of all, since the day of our baptism, God has fed us with the bread of life and nurtured us with the living water of his Word. God 's law shows me my sin, but God's law also shows me God's will for my life. God makes me a better husband when he feeds and prunes me through today's Old Testament lesson, where I'm reminded that marriage was instituted by God and a blessing from God. I'm fed and pruned by the New Testament lesson from Ephesians…a reading that is so politically incorrect today that many Christian churches want to ignore it. In doing so, they may avoid the controversy of "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church," but they miss God's greater demand on husbands: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." There is perhaps no more important passage in the Bible for Christian husbands and wives who want to remain in Christ and want a successful, God-pleasing marriage. When husband seeks to love his wife with the same selfless, self-sacrificing love Jesus showed for us, then his wife will have little difficulty recognizing him as the head of the household. Being pruned by God's Word means a Christian husband won't look at his wife and say, "God, make my wife a better spouse, make her more understanding of me, help her understand the stress I'm under, help her realize I just need some time for myself." Instead, he will look in the mirror and pray, "God, please will make me a better husband." In the same way, a son or daughter will want to pray not that God gives them more understanding parents who didn't just crawl out of the Dark Ages, but rather that God make them more understanding and respectful of their parents, even when they don't agree with them.

Of course, to apply what God has to say to us we have to know what God says to us in his Word. God nurtures us through Sunday schools, Christian day schools and high schools, through pastors and teachers. Unfortunately, the people primarily responsible for this nurturing often drop the ball. What would happen if you'd hire Chemlawn to come 4 times a year to treat your lawn, and in between you'd do nothing. No mowing, no watering, no nothing. What if you'd say, "That's their job…I have enough other things to worry about"? What would be the result? You'd have either a dead lawn or a lawn that would be out of control.

Unfortunately, it's all too easy for me to give more attention to the front yard of my house than the front yard of my soul. It's too easy for me to figure that it's up to Pastors Raasch, Berger and Zank to feed me spiritually. Even worse, I can fall into the trap of believing I've taken care of the spiritual welfare of my children by sending them to Mt. Olive Sunday School and Lutheran grade school. It's one thing to delegate some of the responsibility for my family's spiritual growth, but it's entirely another thing to abdicate the responsibility and completely put it in the hands of others.

If a husband and wife never think about God except on Sunday mornings, or if children never hear Jesus' name mentioned at home except when it's taken in vain while dad is watching a Packer game or when he can't get the oil filter off the car, then Jesus would say that his words "Remain in me" aren't being taken seriously. When parents teach children that the most important lesson to learn about sin is to avoid the earthly consequences, when they tell their kids to practice safe sex to avoid pregnancy, then those parents aren't taking Jesus' words to heart. When parents say they want only the best for their children but then are more concerned about their children's accomplishments in school and sports than their children's spiritual welfare, then God would say those parents have not only failed to properly train their children in the "way they should go," but they've also sinned.

And so what happens when I as a husband and father and member of God's church realize how quickly my priorities get messed up? What happens when I realize that all too often I spend more time worrying about my children's earthly success than their spiritual success? What happens when I realize how for 4 months of every year it's so easy it is for me to allow my responsibility as a coach of a basketball team to supercede my responsibility as a dad leading family devotions? What happens? I'm overwhelmed with guilt.

But then Jesus leads me by the hand, and takes me back to that upper room on Maundy Thursday, and says again, "You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you." I am already clean. I am forgiven. You are forgiven. We all are forgiven…because God is the perfect Father, and Jesus is the perfect Son, and we have a perfect Savior who accepted the responsibility for our lack of responsibility, a Savior who always keeps us as his #1 priority even when we forget our #1 priority, a Savior who in a few minutes will say, "Take, eat and drink, this is my body and blood, given for you for the forgiveness of sins."

III. Remain in Christ: Planted in him through baptism, pruned by him through his means of grace, and productive through the work of his Holy Spirit. "I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing."

We will bear much fruit. We will live a life of good works. As Lutherans, we always stress the fact that we're saved by faith in what God has done for us, not by what we do for God. But because of that very fact, I think it's important to understand the importance Jesus places on our good fruit…our lives of good works. What is this good fruit we bear? Everything we do out of faith and love for God. Every branch in Jesus bears good fruit. Every one of us is productive, in spite of our weaknesses, in spite of our failings. In just a few minutes God is going to take your offering envelope and accept it as a true sign of your love for him and use it for the good of his kingdom. That is a fruit of your faith. When later this week your spouse snaps at you for no reason at all and instead of retaliating you are extra considerate, that is a fruit of your faith. When instead of rolling your eyes at your parents you actually try to talk with them, that is a fruit of your faith. When your friends try to convince you that disobeying the your parents, your school and the government is an acceptable part of growing up, especially during Homecoming, and you walk away and do what God wants, that's a fruit of your faith. When you have some great gossip on someone who is really obnoxious, and yet you bite your lip, that is a fruit of your faith.

If Chemlawn offered a year's worth of lawn treatment free, most people would jump at the offer. Jesus offers us his plan for spiritual growth. It's expensive…unbelievably expensive…it cost him his life. But his offer is free. Because we have, use and cherish this Word, we are in Christ. Through water and this Word we have been planted, through Word and the Lord's Supper we are pruned and nourished, and through this Word the Holy Spirit makes us productive. As families under God and as part of the family of God, we are in Christ, and this Word will keep us there: secure in our forgiveness and productive in our faith. Amen