Nothing Beyond Jesus; Abide In Him
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| Painting by: Steven Dawson |
Text: John 15:9-17
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
While you were a helpless
babe (dead in your sin) or when you were rebelling against the Lord later in
life, the Lord hunted you down, grabbed ahold of you, put His name upon you, placed
you in the ark of His Holy Church, and made you His own.
The Lord did this—for you
and to you.
It is He who made you what
you now are, His friends. It is He who declared you righteous, gave you
faith, and placed you in this church; all as complete and total gift. Everything that you are and will do and will
be, originates not with you, but with the gracious Lord who will bring to pass
that which He wills.
It is truly a remarkable
thing that you and I have been chosen by the Lord. It is a marvelous fact that you and I, as
Christians, originate from Christ and that the Lord Jesus will see us through.
Furthermore, to have the Holy Spirit and to be branches connected to the Vine,
by our baptisms, is indeed much.
Without a doubt, it is much
to have the Spirit. To retain the Spirit
though is more. That is to say, many
people begin the Christian life by the Spirit—by abiding in the Lord’s love—but
then end up finishing in the flesh.
This is really the
temptation of all of us. This is the desire
of the evil one as well.
Permit me to explain.
The Holy Spirit through the
Word and Sacraments has placed you in Christ Jesus. Like a dead and helpless branch you were
grafted into the True and Living Vine.
Then once connected to the True Vine, you were called to simply abide in
the Lord’s love.
What does it mean to abide
in the Lord’s love though?
To abide in the Lord’s love
is not for you to cultivate a high degree of morality or to get busy and to do
stuff in order to abide. But rather to
abide in the Lord’s love is to stop trying in your own power. That is to say, to abide is not to get busy
and do stuff, but rather to abide is to simply remain; to trust, believe, stay,
and rest in the Lord’s care. To abide in
the Lord’s love means that the Lord will work in you to strengthen your faith
towards Him and He will work through you to show fervent love towards your
neighbor. To abide is to not leave. To abide is to remain in Jesus, to be in His
church where you are reminded of your baptism, declared to be saints from the
Word, and where you receive the body and blood of the Lord for the forgiveness
of your sins.
But like a dog returning to
its own vomit, we foolishly resist this abiding in the Lord. We abandon the Lord’s care and return to our own
power, our own strength, our own narrative, our own agenda, and our own endeavors. Otherwise stated, “Jesus wants us to have
this mind picture of a branch lovingly grafted into the main vine. If the branch does absolutely nothing, the
main vine will incorporate the branch into itself and the branch will thrive. If the branch tries to contribute anything to
the process, it will mess up the process.
The branch will go into rejection and die.”[1]
There is no doubt about it,
like children, we don’t like to abide, we don’t like staying put. We wiggle.
We squirm. We are antsy. We are always trying to spot the nearest exit
sign to we know our escape route. It
isn’t that we have had too much sugar and that we are ADHD, but rather this
resistance to abiding is due to mainly two reasons.
The first reason is that we
forget that the Lord has chosen us out of sin, death, and damnation unto life;
we begin to believe the idea that ‘we’ were the ones that chose Him. We inflate our abilities, downplay our sinful
condition, and then selfishly take credit for choosing our life of faith. We treat Jesus as if He is just another kid
on the playground lineup for a game of dodgeball, and we did Him a favor in
picking Him. We persuade ourselves into
thinking that we could have done anything, we could’ve chosen any other
religion, but we chose Jesus. The poor
lad is fortunate to have us, since we are so wise. Lucky little fellow! Thus, this whole abiding thing is really not
that serious. Abide in Jesus and His
love? Abide in Jesus by being receptive
and dependent? Nah, that is too
restricting and too overbearing, besides we were the ones that chose Jesus!
As a result of this
mentality, when things are going well we just go on our merry way. We tell ourselves that we are masters and commanders
of our Christian life; therefore, it isn’t so much about us abiding with Jesus,
but rather about Jesus keeping up with us. After all, this mentality sees Jesus as a
needy lap dog trailing behind us biting at our heels from time to time in order
to be noticed.
That being the case, we come
to the conclusion that we really don’t need the church and we don’t need the
Word and Sacraments. Why would we, we
can simply summon Jesus to do our bidding whenever we want. After
all we have created and remade Jesus into the image of a false god, a divine
butler who abides with us when we summon Him to our needs. That is to say, we summon a savior that
doesn’t exist, a savior that we have created in our own minds.
The second reason we resist
abiding and remaining in Jesus is that this becomes too boring for us. We look at our culture and even other
churches and become seduced with the idea that there is more to the Christian
life than simply abiding and remaining in Jesus. We begin to drink the Kool Aid that Jesus is
a means to greater and better things. We
begin to think to ourselves:
“Sure, it is good to simply abide, but wouldn’t it be
better if I moved to a higher spiritual tier?
Wouldn’t I rather move to a more victorious status?”
Our ears are tickled and we
begin to listen to those who say,
“Don’t merely abide in Jesus being a Sunday only
Christian, but be filled by spiritual powers and move to a higher dimension of spiritual
greatness. Simple Word and Sacraments
are great, but look at the bright lights, the prosperity, the spiritual
experiences, the new hot trends, the phenomenal progress, the new programs, the
new methods, and so forth. Move beyond
abiding you naïve trivial Christian!
Step out of your traditions and comfort!
Don’t be a lazy Christian. Move
beyond and upward! There is so much more
waiting for you! Don’t just merely
abide.”
And so, we begin to believe
that Jesus can’t be the end game and that by simply abiding in Jesus’ Word and
Sacraments we are missing out on so much more.
Ever so slightly we end up chasing shallow and empty promises of
greatness. We end up on a wild goose
chase; following a carrot on a stick; looking for the treasure at the end of
the rainbow. After all is said and done
though—after all the chasing and climbing—there is no goose or carrot or
treasure, just us alone abiding in our sin without Jesus, looking into the
great dark abyss of hell and damnation.
Dear friends, “Jesus said,
‘Abide in my love.’ This is the love of
the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep. This is the great love that lays down life
for a friend. This is the love of the
Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is the love of the God-man who stood between
God and us and took the full force of the wrath of God for us. This is the love that bled on the cross and
said, [Luke 23:34] ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ This is the love that rose from the dead and
promises us eternal life.”[2]
Abide in this love—it is for
you.
Abide, remain, and stay in
the Lord’s love for you. Keep your eyes
upon the Word of God spoken to you. Guard
yourself from believing that you are independent and self-sustaining; watch
that you are not seduced away from Christ the living Vine.
Abide in His love.
Baptized, Saints, hear this
today, nowhere in scripture is Jesus spoken of as a starting point, the
beginning, but now you must move beyond Him.
Salvation in Jesus is not a launching pad for greater and better
euphoric mystic experiences or a baseball base that needs to be rounded before
you get to home plate. Jesus is not a
means to another end. No! He is the end. He is the alpha ‘and’ the
omega. You do not move beyond
Jesus. Jesus is the beginning and the
end.
Abide in Him; abide in His
love to and for you.
Dear Baptized Saints, hear
this today, the Lord chose you. You did
not vote on your salvation. You
contributed nothing to your salvation except sin and resistance. And thank God that this is so, for if
anything is left in our hands to enable us to strive after salvation, we would
never have certainty and we would mess it all up.
Dear Baptized Saints, hear
this today, the Lord not only chose you as heirs of His kingdom, but also builds
the kingdom, fills heaven with saints like you, robs hell, hinders death, and
sustains you daily by His Word and Sacraments.
He chose you in order to draw you into His divine life, so that you will
abide in His love forever.
Abide in Him, do not leave; stay
and receive.
Dear Baptized Saints, hear
this today, the Lord did not leave you in your sins and in death, but staked His
life to rescue you. He delivers to you
His purity, holiness, death, resurrection, and Himself in the water, word,
bread, and wine.
Abide and remain in the Lord
where His love may continue to shine upon you and carry out all its saving
purposes for you and through you.
Dear Baptized Saints, abide
in His love to and for you.
The peace of God, which
passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
[1] James T. Batchelor, “Sixth Sunday of Easter
(Confirmation),” LCMS Sermons, http://lcmssermons.com/index.php?sn=1306 (May 8,
2015).
[2] Ibid.
[2] Ibid.
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