Month: March 2021

John 15.18-23

‘It was a day like any other for Peninah in Kenya. She went to the market, leaving her phone behind, not expecting any calls. But then she returned home. And everything changed. Peninah’s phone was full of missed calls. Her husband, Paul, a lorry driver’s assistant, was on his way home from the Somali border when the lorry was stopped by al-Shabaab militants. They lined up everyone from the lorry and demanded that each person recite the Shahada, an Islamic creed. Paul didn’t know it and, as Peninah relates, he ‘told them he could not deny Jesus’. “If you want to kill me, I’ll remain in Jesus,” Paul told the attackers. “And if you let me go, I’ll still remain in Jesus.” He was shot dead.’ (Full story https://www.opendoorsuk.org/news/latest-news/violence-world-watch-list/ )

Jesus had just spoken about how he and the Father loved his disciples with a love greater than all others when out he comes with these words, like a punch to the jaw. ‘If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.’ ^v18 One can imagine some of the disciples taking a deep breath and thinking, “Wow! I am not sure that I signed up to be hated. I thought we had a message of love.” Jesus here sets a clear example of how the Christian church should be up front about the costs and consequences of discipleship. Jesus knew it was not fair to leave them with the mission to take the good news of Jesus to the world without warning them of the level of opposition they will face. Jesus himself had faced continuous opposition from the moment of his birth until he was finally cruelly falsely accused, tortured and then brutally executed. The accusations made against Jesus were: he broke the Sabbath, he blasphemed, he deceived people, he was demon possessed, of illegitimate birth, an apostate, a sinner, he was mad, a criminal, a Royal Pretender and a political threat. (NIV Study Bible page 2167) John was the only apostle thought to have not died for his faith in Jesus although at the time of writing Revelation he had been banished to the Island of Patmos.

Jesus was primarily addressing his particular disciples at the time in the context of his imminent execution and his subsequent resurrection followed by the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  However, all that he said then applies to his disciples now. There are Christians who try to live in both camps, attempting to conform to the Kingdom of God without giving up the ways of the world. This may arise from a lack of understanding of Jesus’ teaching but it may also be because they do not want to change or be different from the world surrounding them. Jesus draws a much sharper distinction. The world he says should not consider you as one of their own because, ‘I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.’ ^v19

Loving and obeying Jesus will cause you at times to be hated and that is likely to be an uncomfortable and unpleasant experience. If we have never experienced that then it may raise questions as to whether we are loving and obeying Jesus.

Jesus sums up the reason for this, ‘A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecute me, they will persecute you also. When we read Acts and the epistles we see the truth of Jesus’ words. Just as Jesus did they taught, healed the sick, lived their lives in humble community and befriended sinners and unclean foreigners. For this they were ridiculed, faced court hearings, were put in prison, were attacked by mobs and at various times killed. At no time did they politically oppose the authorities. But they did boldly preach the gospel.

This is the lived experience of many today. The evil one will oppose the gospel in all societies in many subtle and explicit ways. However, there will be those who if we teach what Jesus taught they will obey and respond to the gospel, believe and trust in him. ‘If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.’ ^v23

Do we down play the cost of being chosen out of the world? ^{John 15.23}

If so, what do you think are the consequences of teaching that discipleship is only ever positive or easy?

Trust & Obey – Chelsea Moon w/ the Franz Brothers

John 15.17

After Jesus has emphasized the importance of remaining in him and his words remaining in his disciples so that they are enabled to live a fruitful life, Jesus then continues with the instruction to remain in his love. This is a three step love, the Father loves Jesus, Jesus loves his disciples and his disciples are to love each other. ^{vv 9,12} There is something similar to the conservation of energy about this love in that it does not lose any of its force when transferred from one to another. Jesus loves his disciples to the same extent and in the same way as the Father loves him. The disciples then are to love each other in just the same way. ‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.’ ^v9 ‘My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.’ ^v12

The implications of Jesus’ statement are a lot to take in. God the Father’s love for Jesus cannot be surpassed, it is eternal in nature and is expressed through his pleasure in him. ^{Math 3.17} It is a sacrificial love unto death. ^v13 It is not self centred, it considers the other first and it is reciprocal love. Which is why Jesus says, ‘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.^{’ V10} His is not the love of an abuser who is making his love conditional. It is a love where Jesus was obedient because he was filled with love for his Father and obedience was his desire.

This is love intended to bring great joy. ^v11 Why joy and not happiness? It is joy because it is eternal and not transient. It is a love that brings purpose and peace and is not subject to circumstances. It is a love that does not rely on the fickleness of humans because its source is God the Father. It is a love that is open and explained and so each party is able to trust one another. Jesus has raised his disciples to the status of friends. ‘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.’ ^v15 Jesus has made known to his disciples God’s full intentions and what has been made possible for them through Jesus’ death and resurrection. He has explained how he has equipped them for their mission in the world. They have the security that it was Jesus who chose them, and not the other way round, even if it seemed like it at the time. ^v16 If Jesus has chosen you, why would you have anything else to fear? He has provided each Christian with a community to belong to, to be loved by and to love.

Have you taken time to absorb the love of Jesus for you personally?

Love Divine All Loves Excelling – The All Souls Orchestra

John 15.1-8

Most of us want to succeed. The things we may want to succeed in will vary but the notion of success applies to all areas of our life. Parents want to be good parents and want their children to do well. If we are in business then we want our business to thrive to support not only ourselves but benefit others as well. It is unusual not to want to be socially successful even if that is the modest ambition of having a few good friends. When we marry we go into marriage with the intention of it lasting, giving us happiness and if we are Christians of it enhancing our Christian lives.  Jesus though redefines the nature of success through the metaphor of the vine.

In our individualistic age we would naturally think of ourselves being the one who produces the fruit of our lives and it is up to us to independently strive for success. Jesus makes clear that in the Christian life it is him that produces success through us. Observable success in whatever walk of life we are on is measured in how we show the character of Christ. He is the source of Christian success, only through close relationship with him is success, Godly success, achievable. So close is this relationship that is that he speaks of it as, ‘Remain in me, as I also remain in you.’ ^v4 Before Jesus talks of success in terms of achievements such as teaching, healing and acts of service he addresses holiness.

When one first believes in Jesus we are forgiven and cleansed by him in the sight of the Father. ‘You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.’ ^v5 However that does not mean that our life will then continue in a God pleasing way. In fact, he says it will not unless we continue to remain in him and he in us. Otherwise we are like a branch removed from the vine which is naturally incapable of producing fruit. Whatever our plans for achievement through the church or our own lives unless we pay close attention to maintaining our daily relationship with him they will be in vain. We need to constantly seek his strength and Spirit to overcome our desires to sin.

The responsibility is on the Christian to remain in Christ. He makes that clear with the use of the word “if”. ‘If you remain in me’, in verse 5 and ‘If you do not remain in me’, verse 6. Jesus also says that Christian lives that drift away from him and sever their contact will be subject to the Father’s judgement at the end. ‘If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown in the fire and burned.’ ^v6

What then if we feel that describes us now? We have indeed drifted away from Jesus and persistent sin still in part controls our life. Is all lost? Certainly not. Jesus’ immense love is shown in the following section. We need to subject ourselves to the Father’s pruning secateurs and have him cut away that controlling impulse. How is this achieved? By our own confession of our need and incapability of changing on our own. We need to apply ourselves to his word and let his word change our lives. ‘If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.’ ^{v7 ]} The regular reading and application of God’s word (the bible) is a vital part of a fruitful Christian life. He then by his Spirit will enable the Christian to overcome and be fruitful. Much like the vine sends its sap into the branches to bring life to apparently dead branches in the spring.

It is Jesus’ greatest desire that his disciples’ lives should be fruitful, he will not give up on us. ‘This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.’ ^v8

How do you ensure that following your first confession of Christ that you are remaining in him?

What fruit in your life are you praying for?

Abide with me – Keith and Kristyn Getty

John 15.1

‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.’

2020 during lockdown saw many people spending more time in the garden, physically connecting with life processes, literally from the ground up. I was one of those and I have always loved growing produce but often because other demands in life have taken me away I frequently missed a crucial time. In five years I had not eaten a ripe gooseberry from my three bushes, the blackbirds have always beaten me to the harvest. Last year I was determined to win the gooseberry wars. I cleared the ground, fed the bushes with copious manure, cut out dead wood, and covered them with a net fruit cage. Following a delicate afternoon of carefully picking fruit around the thorns we froze a bumper harvest and are still enjoying gooseberries through the winter.

To be successful in the kitchen garden one has to spend time learning how to create the right environment for each fruit and vegetable, what to do and when. The excitement of bringing in the first strawberry or bowlful of raspberries surely gives us an insight into the Lord’s excitement at seeing a new Christian’s life starting to reflect Christ-like changes in their lives. Jesus chose metaphors and allegories from the natural world firstly because his creation speaks of the Creator, secondly because his immediate audience would have had detailed understanding of the agrarian processes and thirdly because they are not limited by culture and history and so are just as powerful an image now two thousand years later.

Jesus powerfully applied the repeated Old Testament image of Israel being God’s vine to himself. Israel was chosen to be fruitful but had in large part failed and become dead wood. ^{Psalm 80.8-15} This is the last of Jesus’ “I am” sayings. Jesus is now announcing that, “he is the reality of which Israel was but the type.” (New Bible Commentary) Jesus himself is the source of fruitfulness and the nature of fruitfulness. If the Christian or the church are the branches they can only produce fruit when attached to the root stock of Jesus himself. Detached from Jesus the Christian and the church simply become fruitless dead wood. However, when connected, grafted into Jesus, the Christian and the Church can produce a bumper harvest.

God the Father is pictured as the gardener tending to the vine. Once again Jesus is evoking a Trinitarian image of the whole Godhead causing his church or disciples to flourish. If the Father is the gardener it would not be unreasonable to imagine the Holy Spirit as the sap bringing strength and goodness to the whole vine.

Are we prepared to pay as much attention to our Christian lives and the life of our church as the good gardener would to his garden?

Do we have periods when we neglect our Christian lives and the life of the church and allow our lives to become fruitless?

Lord of all hopefulness

John 14.27

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. Not as the world gives do I give peace to you.’

What did Jesus mean by the peace the world gives? There are short and long answers to this question that go to the heart of the conversion experience to Christianity. By the “world” Jesus is meaning all those who do not believe and trust in him, those who have other gods they worship, whether or not they are termed gods by those who have placed them on the throne of their lives. In Jesus’ time many of the Jewish leaders said and thought they believed in Yahweh and had him on the throne of their lives but in reality did not. This is evidenced by their own behaviour and response to Jesus where they plotted and eventually did have Jesus killed. On the throne of their lives was their own status, their self-interest, their love of rules without the spirit of the rule. Pharisees added to the law of God excluding others from faith, placing religious ritual where love of the Lord and love of others should have been in their hearts. The Jewish leaders’ faith at that time was racist, looking down on all other people groups and believing that they were condemned by God simply by their birth as we see in their attitude to their immediate neighbours the Samaritans. This went against God’s purposes for the Israelites to be a light to the world revealing the Lord to them.

The Roman world was a world where multiple gods were worshiped, each deity was considered to have specific limited control over aspects of human life. People were free to choose the deities they worshiped. This seems a long way from modern western civilization dominated by materialism. Jesus’ teaching did address the modern world because he addressed the issue of the human heart. For many peace comes from financial security with the belief that the more wealth one has the greater the peace and the more one can relax and enjoy life. The parable of the rich fool ^{Luke 12.13-21} warns against a reliance on material wealth. For others in modern life peace is pursued through a range of what the bible terms sins. However, Jesus’ challenge goes deeper than overt sin, his challenge is to whatever is placed on the throne of our heart that is not the love of God. Even though there is nothing wrong in themselves with many of these things. The peace Jesus gives is not a peace limited by circumstances.

There is nothing wrong with having a pension and financial security in one’s old age, or enjoying the love of one’s family, these are good and sensible things. Grieving for the loss of loved and good people and circumstances is normal and healthy. Jesus himself grieved over the loss of people he lost and was about to enter a period of mental and spiritual agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Our peace comes from who and what is ultimately on the throne of our hearts.

Jesus calls his disciples to have the same life attitudes as he has. He summed this up with his words,

‘And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.’ ^Luke9.23-24

Who or what is on the throne of our life?

Before the throne of God Above