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Aug 07, 2011

Abiding In God's Presence

Passage: John 14:15-15:17

Series: God's Presence

Category: Christian Walk

Keywords: abiding, remaining, enjoying, gardening, john 15

Summary:

This is #4 in a series on The Presence of God. It looks at how to abide in, remain in, enjoy the presence of God and what that looks like.

Detail:

The Presence—How Do We Revel in It?

John 15:1-17

August 7, 2011

 

REVIEW:  Last time I taught here at Mosaic was about 4 weeks ago.  At that time we were in a series that was studying The Presence of God:  what it’s like when God reveals himself to people, what we can do to prepare ourselves for his presence and welcome Him when he shows up in evident ways. 

      Last week Jarrod Carter reminded us via Joshua 1 & Matthew 28 that God has promised his presence throughout history to his people in ways that are meant to give us courageous determination to do whatever it is that he asks, go wherever he wants us to and be whatever he longs for us to be.  It is the very presence of God with us at all times that should provide ample fuel for courageous faith and determination to keep moving forward.

 

One of the reasons, I think, that God’s people get together in what we commonly call “going to church” is so that we can share our experiences of God with others in ways that remind us He really is right here with us and he has been at work all week…or all month…long.  We sometimes call them “God-sightings” or “divine encounters” or some other term that says, “I think I caught a glimpse of God working this week.” 

 

As you reflect back over your week this morning, anything you want to share with others today in which you saw God at work this week? 

 

INTRO:  If you could choose one person whom you have already known personally in your lifetime to spend 3 days with just enjoying their presence in some peaceful, carefree paradise, who would it be?  (Married people, you can’t choose your spouse on this one.)  WHY?  

 

What is it that makes some people so enjoyable to just BE with?  (Get responses.)

When the Son of God walked this earth 2,000 years ago in the person of Jesus Christ, he was, for many people, the one person they would have said, “That’s the man I’d like to hang out with for 3 days just enjoying being with him.” 

      What’s funny is that it wasn’t usually the religious types (like you and me?) who felt that way about him; it was the sick people, sinful people, socially unimportant people.  It was people in need and people without much.  It was people who liked to eat and drink and laugh and talk about life.  It was widows and young men, laborers and housewives.

 

And when it came time for Jesus to die for the sins of the world and ascend to the Father, his disciples were distraught over the prospect of life without Him.  So he spends a considerable amount of time telling them that last night he shared with them before his crucifixion HOW it was they were to go on WITH him.  Yes, WITH him…even though they would be without him.  Over and over again in John 14 and 15 Jesus assures them that this is not the end of a great relationship but really just the beginning of an amazing relationship. 

 

I would like us to read several verses from John 14 and 15 this morning.  As we do, notice how frequently Jesus talks about “being in” the Father or “in” him…and how frequently he refers to the reverse as well:  Him being “in” us or the Holy Spirit being “in” us.  It’s that very important thing of God’s presence with us that Jarrod reminded us of last week.

 

And isn’t that what we are all really longing for when we talk about the presence of God…or a personal relationship with God—God with us in a way that we sense, feel, experience, know and are changed by? 

 

Read John 14:15-21, 23-31.

 

The image or metaphor that Jesus uses in chapter 15 of this new relationship he longs to have with us was something close at hand as they headed out of the Upper Room that night.  The disciples had just finished the Passover dinner and were going out to the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane.  They were probably walking among grape arbors when Jesus stopped and began to tell them about this new reality, this new thing called “abiding” in Christ. 

 

Read John 15:1-17

 

The elements of this metaphor are not difficult to follow.

  • Jesus is the main vine that endures year to year.  He is the conduit for carrying the nutrients to the branches that actually sprout the leaves and bear the fruit.
  • The branches are the followers of Jesus, his disciples through the ages who go through seasons, come and go, bud for a season, bear leaves and fruit, die and are replaced by other branches. 
  • The Father is the Master Gardner who does everything necessary to bring the branches to fruitfulness. 

Those are the only 3 players mentioned in this metaphor.  But I happen to think that the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus has just finished talking about as the one who will be “in” and “with” them, could easily be considered to be the sap or deliverer of all the life-giving nutrients necessary for fruitfulness. 

 

The tragedy of this passage is not what Jesus says but what translators have far too often done in turning it on its head.  

  • NIV—He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit….
  • NLT--He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit….
  • NKJV—Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away…..
  • ASV--Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh it away….
  • NASV--Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away….

 

Let me simply ask you, is this the God you know of in Jesus Christ?  If you’re not fruitful for a season…or even a lifetime… does he cut your life short?  Does he come along and snip you right off at the knees?  Does he cut you off from Christ? 

 

There is nothing in the Scriptures that would support that interpretation.  IF this was the only verse we had about how God the Father handles unfruitful or even rebellious children, we might have to say, “Yes, better be fruitful…and all the time…if you don’t want God to either cut your life short or throw you into hell.” 

 

But the really astounding thing is that the translators had a number of other options, one of which presents precisely the opposite idea as “to cut off” in this text.  Let me illustrate it for you.

 

Take the NIV translation, for example.  The Greek word behind the what you have as “cuts off” is the work airo.  It’s used 101 times in the NT.  Look at the number of times it is translated something else:

  1.  “Take”—15 times
  2. “Picked up”—9 times
  3. “Take away”—7 times
  4. “pick up,” “taken”—6 times
  5.  “get”, “took”—5 times
  6. “taken away,” “takes away,” “took away,”—4 times
  7. “carry,” “take up,” “takes”—3 times.
  8. “cuts off” is only used ONCE!  As are terms like “carried,” “hoisted aboard” and “put.” 

 

Just try putting “cuts off” or “takes away” in the following passages that use this exact same term:

  • Mt. 4:6—Jesus being tempted of Satan in the wilderness.  Satan quotes Ps. 91:11-12.  “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
   and they will lift you up in their hands,
   so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”   

How could you ever get “cuts you off” in a passage like that?

  • Mt. 11:29-- 28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus isn’t telling us to “cut off” the yoke!  He’s inviting us to “take [it up]”, put it on, no?
  • Footnotes:
  • Matthew 11:1 Greek in their towns
  • Matthew 11:5 The Greek word traditionally translated leprosy was used for various diseases affecting the skin.
  • Matthew 11:10 Mal. 3:1
  • Matthew 11:12 Or been forcefully advancing
  • Matthew 11:23 That is, the realm of the dead
  • This word is used of the disciples “taking up” basketfuls of bread and fish after the feeding of the 5,000 and the 3,000 (Mt. 14:20; 15:37; 17:24; Mark 6:43, 8:8, 19-20.
  • Mt. 16:24—“ Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  How much sense does it make to say “take away” your cross or “cut off” your cross in this passage? 

Hopefully you get the point. 

 

Then why on earth do they translate this verse in John 15:2 this way?  Answer:  I have no idea!  The president of the seminary I graduated from, Dr. Earl Radmaucher, was the first person I remember alerting me to this mistranslation.  Just listen to the difference a proper translation of this word makes in this passage.  Ask yourself if it doesn’t fit everything you know about God and everything else the Scriptures teach about him and his relationship to his children to translate it this way…a way in which even the NIV translates this word 7 times:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off [lifts up] 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.”

 

ILL:  I’m not the worlds leading authority on growing grapes.  But I have been nurturing one in our back yard for about 6 years.  And I do grow a pretty decent garden every summer.  And this I know:  when a branch is lying on the ground, not bearing fruit, stuck in the mud or just wandering around under a bunch of other branches, you don’t go in with a machete!  I go for the string.  I take that branch and I tie it UP where it can get some more sunlight, get washed off, not keep getting it’s blossoms knocked off by people walking on it or the rain soiling it in the mud. 

 

How many struggling followers of Jesus (at least in the English-speaking world) have agonized over a sense of fruitlessness and been driven to despair by this passage rather than driven to rest and security and hope by this very passage just because of a mis-translation???  One would be too many.  I’m afraid there have been millions!

 

Let me ask you a simple questions:  WHO does the most work when it comes to making a garden fruitful?  Is it the plants…OR the gardener?  If you get this one wrong, you’re definitely NOT a gardener.  J

      Do you know all the gardener has to DO to make plants fruitful?

  • Soil:  build it up, work on, continually fertilize it, turn it over, aerate it.
  • Planting:  rake, make rows, sow the seed, cover it, water it.
  • Growing:  weed the darn thing a million times a summer; fertilize, thin, tie up plants, thin suckers, water, cultivate, weed, water, more weeding, fight pests and bugs, did I say weeding yet….
  • Harvest:  plants don’t even pick themselves!  You do ALL that stuff to help them along and they just sit there and rot on the vine…or get old and tough…if you don’t pick them. 

The whole metaphor is designed to focus on ALL that both the Father and the Son do to make us fruitful.  What is our job?  All we can and should do is “remain” in the vine... “abide” in Christ… “remain in Him.”  God is doing ALL the heavy lifting here, not us. 

 

Paul picks up this metaphor in Romans 11 when he is talking about how Israel, the Jews, were “broken off” because of their persistent unbelief while we, faith-exercising believing Gentiles, were “grafted in” to the holy root of God’s family. 

Romans 11:17-20--

17 If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, 18 do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. 19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” 20 Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith.

 

Now, notice something else about how Jesus compares his relationship to the Father with our relationship with him.

  • John 14:10-11—“Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me….”
  • John 14:20—“On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”
  • John 15:4—“Remain in me, as I also 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.”
  • John 15:5—“If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
  • John 15:7—“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.”  (Notice how closely connected Christ’s word is to Him…inseparable, virtually identical.  He is the “living Word,” the Logos of John 1.
  • John 15:9—“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.  Now remain in my love…I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.”

 

Do you see what Jesus is saying?  “You’ve seen me live with my Father on earth here for years.  You’ve watch me “remain” and “abide” in Him.  Just have that same kind of relationship with Me that you’ve seen me have with the Father.” 

 

So the question now becomes, “What do we know Jesus did to abide in the Father while he walked this planet?”  We’ve read in just these two chapters of John a number of things already.  What are some of them?

  • He spoke what the Father told him, Jn. 14:10, 24.
  • He did miracles by his relationship with the Father, John 14:11.
  • He brought glory to the Father, 14:13.
  • He obeyed the Father, John 14:31.
  • He loved the Father, John 14:31

 

Aren’t these ALL things we can do in our relationship with Christ?  In fact, these are the very things we are called to do because of our relationship with Him.  This passage directly reinforces that for us as well as gives us a little more clarity about HOW precisely we are simply to “abide” or “remain” IN Christ as we move through life day by day.

  • 14:21; 15:10—OBEY his commands, thus demonstrating that we really do love Jesus.
  • 14:23—simply LOVE Christ.  Live in relationship with Him in the same way we would loving someone dearly in this life.
  • 15:3—let the WORD of God have its cleansing effect on our lives (i.e. conviction, confession, repentance).
  • 15:5—agree with Christ that apart from Him we can do none of the fruit bearing spiritual life (i.e., a spirit of dependence).
  • 15:7—cultivate hearts where the WORD of God is at home, abiding, living, influencing, rebuking, correcting, training.
  • 15:9—learn to “remain in [Christ’s] LOVE.”  Don’t move away from or out from under the love of Christ.  Sink our roots deep into the love of Christ. 
  • 15:12—learn to LOVE each other…PEOPLE…God’s image-bearers in this world.  Because if we can’t learn to love each other whom we can see, we cannot possibly love God whom we do not see (I Jn. 4:20).

 

Abiding in Christ is really all about an ongoing experience of the presence of Jesus Christ in our daily lives.  Sometimes that is an overwhelming presence.  Usually it is a quiet yet discernable presence when we know in our hearts that God has just spoken to us. 

  • It may be through something someone says to you in passing.
  • It may be as the Holy Spirit impresses something on your mind in prayer.
  • It may be as you are reading or meditating on the Word.
  • It may be as you are serving Christ by serving someone near you.
  • It may be in a song…or a time of Communion…a sunset…or while gazing at the stars.
  • It may be in suffering and pain…in some deep trial…in poverty or want. 

 

WHEN or WHERE do you experience the abiding presence of Christ?  What do you think we should do to abide in Christ…to experience Him more and more?  [Hear from people.]