The Remarkable Church: Part 4
Since the beginning of the year, we have been examining what it is to be remarkable. Being an unremarkable church is not a goal for a church. There are many unremarkable churches around us. This is the reason so many people have given up on church. They have found judgment, power struggles, and self-serving people instead of finding what Christ wanted people to find in church: A place of encouragement, belonging, accountability, and unconditional love. We have looked at several biblical examples of how a church can be remarkable. We saw that the church at Laodicea was like so many churches today— lukewarm, going through the motions. We also saw an example of unremarkable religion, when two religious leaders passed by a badly beaten man, but a social and religious outcast, a Samaritan, had compassion and helped him. What message would a church have whose leaders would walk by a hurting, beaten man? The message would not be consistent with the actions, so it would be unremarkable, ineffective, and fruitless. That is something that we will explore this morning.
We looked a couple of weeks ago at how the church of the New Testament was a body. Individual parts that came together to form something that worked together in an amazing way. I believe that a church today with passion, not lukewarm, who cared for the disadvantaged, a church who valued the individuals as a body values the individual parts, would be so remarkable and powerful that it would set the world on fire. No marketing, programs, or gimmicks could do what being a church like Jesus designed us to be would do. A church like that would be a blessing to its people and a radically bright light to the darkness around it. But this would be the case if this “body” was under the power and direction of the right life-giving source. That is what we will be looking at today.
Colossians 1:7 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
Have you ever seen at a fair or carnival the headless frame where you stand behind it and someone takes your picture? There might be a body builder, a ballerina, or a clown body on the frame. This is funniest when you get a little girl to stand behind the strongman cutout or a bearded gruff guy to stand behind the ballerina. What turns these things into humorous photos is that the head does not fit the body.
This is also why the church is losing its influence in our culture; people do not see the head, Christ, as fitting the body, the church. They see it as a mismatch. It becomes comical to people. Or even worse, they might even think that Christ is like the clown shown in the body. The failure of the church and religion ends up actually turning people not only against the church, but against Jesus.
Today we are going to look at another analogy, used by Christ to describe His relationship to the church, that of the vine and the branches.
John 15 The Vine and the Branches
1"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 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. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 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.
5"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. 6 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. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
Passage in context
When Jesus chose to use the symbolism of the vine, it was very powerful to his audience. Most of us do not think about vineyards and grapes, but in Israel at the time of Christ, grapes were an important industry. For one thing, the drinking water was not pure. If we were heading there at that time, our friends would tell us, “Don’t drink the water.” It was common to mix wine with water at that time so that the alcohol would kill the bacteria and impurities. Pretty much everyone knew about grapes, so Jesus was using an analogy very familiar to His disciples. That is what a good analogy is all about. Taking something you are trying to explain and using something very familiar as a picture of it. And Jesus picked amazing, rich analogies to teach. He used the relationship between a grape vines, branches, and grapes to symbolize the complex relationship between God and us.
What even made the grapevine a more powerful symbol was that Israel was represented as a grapevine in the book of Isaiah and in some of the Psalms. Even on the coinage of Israel, a vine was used to represent Israel. So this was the perfect picture or analogy to use.
I am
1"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.
In the book of Exodus, Moses ask God what his name is:
Exodus 3:13 Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?"14 God said to Moses, "I am who I am . This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.
When Jesus uses the phrase I Am, it is one of the ways he declares that he is God. Jesus said I am: the bread of life, the light of the world, the gate, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life, the way the truth and the life. Here he says I am the true vine. I am God and I am your source of life.
Jesus also goes on to say that God the father is the gardener. So, God the Son is the true vine, and God the Father is the gardener. This is a strong claim that Jesus makes in this single verse. He makes the implication that he is God, as the Father is God. And that He is the true vine, the true head of Israel and the church.
Jesus also explains who we are— branches. Verse 2 says that there are specifically two types of branches, those that bear fruit and those that do not. And as the skillful and loving gardener, God prunes.
Remain in me
To have direction:
2 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. 4 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.
There is a huge grape vine near London in Hampton Court. It is a tourist attraction because of its size and age. The “Great Vine” is several hundred years old and 120 feet long. The skillful gardeners prune and shape and lift and support this massive vine. Today the vine is about 10 ft around at the base. Imagine a vine with branches 120 ft long. Even century-old branches more than 100 feet from the base of the vine produce fruit. Many hundreds of pounds of grapes are harvested each year.
Source ~http://europeforvisitors.com/london/articles/hampton-court-palace-the-gardens.htm
You see, it doesn’t matter which direction, how old, or how far the branches grow, it only matters that they remain attached to the vine, the source of life.
In his book, Experiencing God, Henry Blackaby gave a great analogy about the importance of remaining in Jesus. He told of a farmer who invited him to come out to his farm and he gave him some directions: Go 1/4 mile past the edge of town, and you will see a big red barn on your left, after that take the next road on the left. Take that road for about 3/4 mile and you will see an enormous willow tree, turn right on the next road. Go about 4 miles and you will see a big rock. He never found the farmer’s house.
The next time he tried to go to the farmer’s house, the farmer was with him. Since there was more than one way to get to the farmer’s house, he could have taken him any way he wanted to. All he had to do was listen to him and obey his instructions. The farmer was his “map.” It is the same with Jesus, He is our way, he doesn’t tell us the way, and he doesn’t give us directions. He said to remain in Him and he would take us where we are going.
The source of power:
5"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.
Jesus is the source of life and power. The branches have no power when they are not connected to the vine. They cannot produce fruit, but they can bear fruit if they are connected.
I came across the story of a native from a remote mountain village who had the opportunity to visit a large modern city for the first time. He could not bring much home with him, and he had little money, but he was amazed at the electric lights which he saw everywhere. So, he bought a sack full of electric lights bulbs and sockets with switches so he could turn them off and on.
Arriving home, he hung the light bulbs in front of his home and on his and his neighbor’s trees. Everyone watched him with curiosity and asked him what he was doing, but he just smiled and said, "Just wait until dark—you’ll see." When night came he turned on the switches, but nothing happened. No one had told him about electricity. He did not know the light bulbs were useless unless connected to the source of their power.
Jesus tells you, "Apart from me you can do nothing." He provides the electricity, the power you need in your life to produce fruits of faith.
~http://meditationsandmemories.blogspot.com/
It’s about the fruit:
7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
Jesus said that we were branches. How many of you just love to eat branches from a grapevine? Or go to a vineyard to sample wines made from grape branches? Being a branch doesn’t sound very glamorous, so what is Jesus talking about here? Well, I have something to break to you that might come as a shock. Are you ready for this? It is not about you. Just like the first words from Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life. It isn’t about you, it is about the fruit.
We are just branches. And there are two types of branches: one that bears fruit and one that does not. Why would someone choose to be a branch that doesn’t bear fruit? That seems kind of dumb.
The problem? We are increasingly a society of people who value independence. We want to have the answers. We don’t want to need anyone, even God. That is why some branches don’t remain in Him. Judge Robert Bork, who was nominated, but not confirmed for the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan, wrote a book a few years back called Slouching Towards Gomorrah. In it he suggests that the main threat to the American way of life was the rise of, what he called radical, unbridled individualism. I think that we see this around us. We are our own authority on almost everything.
We choose to be unfruitful branches when we try to do everything on our own power, to try to figure out life on our own— by definition, not remaining in Him. In fact, this is the main tension or struggle in our lives. After all, what is sin but deciding that we know better what will make us happy than God and his plans for us? We think that sin will be more satisfying than what God says. The unfruitful branch does not remain in Him. Be careful— remaining in Him, is not necessarily the same as remaining in the church. In fact, one of the huge problems in the church is that it is filled with those radical individualistic people that Bork described.
7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.
What do we wish for? What do we wish for as a church? To be comfortable, secure branches and fellowship with other branches like us? No it is about the fruit.
In his book, Don’t waste Your Life, John Piper says that the gospel isn’t just about finding forgiveness of sins so that we can be better spouses or parents, so that we have purpose and hope. He said that would miss the bigger point of it all. He said that would be like a batboy at Yankee stadium who thinks that the great point of the World Series is to hand the players a bat. Sure, it is a part of it, but it is a narrow view of the bigger picture. The point is not content and happy branches, but bearing fruit. That is what we should wish for, to be fruitful, not content and comfortable. We have to remain in Jesus to care about the things that He cares about.
Conclusion
Most of you are probably aware of the Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena California every New Years Day. Many companies and organizations spend countless thousands of dollars to make elaborate floats, made almost exclusively of flowers, plants, and other natural components. Several years ago there was a company that sponsored a beautiful float. After all the preparation, something happened on the parade route that caused the float to stop and stall the progress of the parade for several minutes. The problem? It ran out of gas. All of the money and human effort in the design, procuring supplies, building this huge float of living materials that prevented anyone from constructing the float too far in advance. The flowers would die. All of the timing, engineering, designing, and planning and half-way through the parade, they ran out of gas. The most amazing and ironic thing about this story is that the company that built and sponsored the stalled float was none other than Chevron.
~www.shepherdofthesierra.org
Their float and the parade were stalled because of a lack of petroleum, the very same product that they were known for. The only thing they are known for, the only thing that they produce.
This can happen to Christians and churches. We run out of gas because we don’t have the very thing that we are trying to bring to the world around us. At least in theory, the Christian church is about introducing Jesus, the savior, to a society that desperately needs Him. But the efforts are often stalled because Jesus is not the head of the body or the vine that gives life to the branches.
7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.
Applications
1. Remain in Him
This is easier said than done. It requires us to trust, to have faith in someone other than ourselves. We cannot remain in Him and remain in control on our own. There is not room for both. It is an either or situation. If we are to bear fruit, we have to relinquish control. This is true for us, individually and as a church. We cannot trust our own genius and creativity over what Almighty God can do through those who submit to His perfect leadership.
2. Focus on the fruit
This is an extension of the first one. Not only do we have to relinquish control and remain in Christ, we have to care for something other than ourselves. It is not important that we are satisfied and content branches, but that we bear fruit. We cannot look at the gospel how the myopic batboy looked at the World Series. Making a cool place for branches to hang out and find purpose is too small a goal. A goal worthy of our lives is that we glorify God by bearing fruit.
8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
It all starts with being connected to Christ. Without Him, our lives will never be fruitful. The good news is that you can tap into this source of life right now.
Church, we can never cause fruit to happen, but if we are connected to the vine, Jesus, we can bear fruit. But we have to care about fruit, surrender our rights and relinquish control, sold out to Christ. A group of people who did this would be almost unheard of in this culture. It would be a truly remarkable thing, and I believe it would be a church that God would use to do great things through.
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