A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on May 2, 2021 at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on John 15:1-8. You may play the audio of the sermon here.
A mostly unedited transcript of the sermon follows the jump.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from Gospel according to St. John, the 15th chapter:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
He is risen! He has risen, indeed. Alleluia! And because he's risen, you can abide in him and, because he's risen, he can and does abide in us. Now, what does that mean? In looking at all of these different things, all these different texts from today, I really want to preach on all of them, but I don't think that you'll give me the time to do that. So I had to choose the Gospel lesson and that's perfectly fine because everything else is supporting that gospel. It's a beautiful thing. Normally, after Easter, the Church’s tradition is to read her way through the book of Acts. And, often, it doesn’t always line up completely with what we find in our Gospel lesson, but we find today, it actually ties in very well. The Spirit speaking to Philip motivates him to go out into the desert and sit with this Ethiopian eunuch and teach him all about Jesus. And John picks this up in his epistle lesson, where he talks about abiding in Christ, because Christ is the love of God.
By the way, if anybody ever throws at you, and this is a common refrain from today, God is love, you should be prepared to respond to it. They’ll tell you God is love, therefore you've got to love anyone. You can't show any discrimination whatsoever towards anyone or the life choices that they make, because you say your God is love. And we can say that is true. God is love, but God is not this ephemeral love that's out there. God is love in that He sent his son Jesus Christ. By this, we know that God loved the world, that the son of God took on human flesh and came to die to save sinners, of whom I am the chief. That's what God is love means because God is love in the life, death, and now resurrection of Jesus Christ. That was very tempting to preach on, as well. But, let’s look at a different theme.
We know that Jesus can abide in us because Jesus is the son of God. He is God himself. And he has all power and authority. And because he's promised that he shall be with us to the very end of the age, we know that his word is truth. We might even say his word is gospel truth. And that truth tells us that he is with us. Now, the question is how, how? I got to tell you, I was teaching the third article of the creed to the school students this week. And it's so exciting to teach through that. It's wonderful to teach about the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus, because that's the heart and soul of Christianity. But if it's not for the third article of the creed, we have no life because the third article of the creed is all about what the Holy Spirit is doing in you and through you, what the Holy Spirit gives you through his church, the means by which you will be saved, the word, baptism, and the Lord's Supper. And through those means you find then the the joining of the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the dead, the life everlasting. Because you have these things from the Spirit, you may know that Christ abides in you.
And so when we ask, how is it that Christ can abide in us and we in Christ? we see very plainly, it is by the power of the Spirit. We're getting very close to the Ascension of our Lord; it's coming up in just a couple of weeks. And Jesus tells us that it is good, that he leaves us. And we ask, what? Wouldn't it be great, again, just to have Jesus bodily present with you all the time? And that day is coming when you will, but it's good that he leaves us for now, because now he sends us the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit guides us into all truth. The Holy Spirit gives us the foretaste of the feast to come. He creates in us a desire for what is coming next, something where we can look at this world, that's going to come after Jesus returns and we can know what it's like, never to have to deal with this world again.
I started a diet in the last week and I intend to be on it for quite a while because I need to lose a little bit of weight. I got a little paunch here, just a little one, and, you know, I got to tell you it's going pretty good, but I know what I'm missing. You know, I see what my kids are eating. I made them spaghetti this week, my mom's spaghetti. And when I make that, I can just look at it and thing, that’s my mom's spaghetti. Delicious. Or for dessert. The kids get these blast pops if they eat all their dinner and you think, oh, what I wouldn't give for a lick of that. Ava has little chocolate M&Ms in the cabinet that we were using for when she was potty training, and you look at that, you open the cabinet, cause you're supposed to go find fruit and veggies, and that's good, but you'd see the candy. And, you know, that's what you want.
It's kind of the same thing. By seeing what we have in baptism, by seeing what we have in the word preached to us and delivered to us, and seeing what we have in the Lord's Supper, this is this picture of what we can have. This is not the full extent of what Christ has for you. It is the picture of what is to come and soon you'll be able to indulge in what is to come. But it's fascinating because in these simple means, these shadows of what we will have in Christ, Christ comes to you through the word preached, Christ comes to you through the word delivered. Through baptism, Christ comes to you. Through the word put in his Supper, Christ comes to you. And if Christ is coming to you, He brings you into himself.
Have you ever heard of a Newtonian liquid? It’s where you mix cornstarch and water and it’s a liquid, you can pour it, but if you slap it, it’s a solid. It just encompasses whatever’s around it, brings it in, covers it and nothing can penetrate it. Christ is kind of like this Newtonian liquid. Think of it as if he touches you, he brings you into himself, he's wraps himself around you and he brings you into himself. Now you're still you, you're still exactly who God has intended you to be in him. But you are now in Christ and he pours into your crevices and he is now in you and we are together with him forever, never to be separated. Christ is, in this way, given to us through his word, through his sacraments. And he's given to us because the Spirit promises to work through his means.
Christ says in our gospel lesson that he is the vine and we are the branches. Now, I'm sure you don’t, but I argue with Calvinists online all the time. And they always say, because they hate the fact that we have a theology of the Lord's Supper like we do, they don’t like where we say the bread is Jesus's body and the wine is his blood. They look at the text of Scripture and they say, well, Jesus is holding the bread, and he says, this is his body. But he doesn't mean that ,because in other places, he says things like I am the door, or I am the vine. You're not saying that Jesus is literally a vine. Are you? And I would say to them, no, I'm not saying Jesus is a vine. I'm saying he is the vine. He is not just a vine. He is the vine. Jesus is not just a door. Jesus is the door. And, in this, we find when Jesus is the vine, we have life in him and his love forever.
If you've never really been to a vineyard before, you may not know exactly the picture is here, but you can imagine the vines coming up out of the ground, being wrapped around all of the different fences that in the vineyard. And from that vine, fruit comes forth on the branches, for the vine is that which sustains life. It so happens that vintners will put branches into those vines; they’ll cut a little and they'll put the branch in. And sure enough, if they’re tended rightly, that branch grows up, and out of that branch then is the fruit, wonderful grapes that make wonderful wine. And Jesus says for you then if you are the branch to his vine, if you abide in him and he in you, then you will demonstrate exactly what it is that Christ would have for you to do. And you will get, have what he intends for you to have.
So let's think about this for a moment. If Christ wants us to do things because we're in him, if he wants us to bear fruit, well, the scriptures talk very plainly about what this is. It is the good works that we are going to do. Now I would encourage you. Don't go out and seek these super good works that are out there. I wouldn't encourage some of saints to take off for Africa and go do some mission work. That may or may not be within your purview. It could be, but it may not be. You might be a little past your prime to do such a thing, right? But, you serve your wife, your husband. You serve your kids, your friends. You serve your neighbors. You serve your church family. In all the different ways that you seve, you are doing the good works that Christ would have for you. In doing all of these things. you find that you are producing good works, because if it were just you alone, these works would not be enough.
In fact, your works without Christ damn you. I know that's kind of weird, but when I became a father, this became something very real to me. When I had my kids, I realized that changing their diapers was a chore. I didn't like it. Does anyone like changing diapers? You never know what's going to happen. I mean, there's actually an entire industry built around this. Little cups that you can cover them with so you don't get anything on you. Baskets that you can put the diaper in that'll hold the smell in. All this kind of stuff. No one likes to change diapers. But when I became a father and I started having to do this, I realized that what I'm doing is necessary for my children. If I don't change them, they are going to sit in their filth. They are going to get infected. They will get sick and they will die. And so by me changing their diaper, I'm doing a good work. Now that's not a super good work. It's not like it makes me a mother Teresa or anything like that. But certainly as we look at it, that is what my neighbor, my son, my daughter, needed right then. And there was no question. That's what they needed. And I'm sure you've experienced the same. These works that we do that are sometimes just kind of miserable. Those are wonderful works. The works that you do, that you even enjoy, those are wonderful works. But without Christ, if you have not Christ, those works, as wonderful as they may be for a neighbor, serve to damn a person because the work is never done perfectly. It's never done with the right intention. And even if it were, it's still done with sin, infected hands and minds and mouths, and in this way, your works would serve to condemn you to hell.
But it is with Christ, when he abides in you and you and him, you bear much fruit. You bear the works that he intends for you to do. And I can tell you then if you're doing these works, you must have then no fear, because if you are in Christ, you are doing good works. And if you're doing the good works, they're kind of an evidence after the fact that you belong to Jesus. If you're doing them because you're a Christian, they’re evidence after the fact. We are never look to our faith and say, have I done enough good works? And if I haven't, then I must not have faith. That's not the point. The point is, as a Christian, you can look at your works and say, God is blessing me. And these good works even will serve as a crown for you in the resurrection which is to come; Jesus Christ will bless you for the good works that you will do.
We don't talk about it often in the church, but we should. The idea of different levels of heaven or levels of reward from Jesus, it's true. You will be rewarded according to your deeds when Jesus returns. It's not that you will be saved more than another person. Every person who is in Jesus will be saved, but by our good works, as we are stirred to good works toward her neighbor, Christ will reward them and all of earth and heaven will see that reward. And we will give glory to God for all of the rewards. I mean, I compare myself to my father all the time, and I will never match up to that man. I can never be like him. I try, but I will never be as kind. I will never be as loving. I will never be as knowledgeable. I will never save as many lives as he did. And when I get to the resurrection and Jesus Christ puts a crowd on him that's 80 miles high and he puts a crown on me that's 20 miles high, I will look at that and I will give glory to God that my father did these wonderful things. And I will not look at my 20 mile crown and say, well, I wish I had more, or I wish that he had less, but we will give glory to God because we all bear the fruit that goes into that wine. We will all bear the grapes that provide the sustenance of life, if you will.
And that's a wonderful blessing. The vine that bears 10 grapes is no better or worse than the vine that bears a hundred, for they're all part of the wine that God is making, putting all of together to serve our neighbors until the end of the world arrives. That's a blessing as we consider that we don't have to worry about are we good enough? Are we smart enough? And gosh darn it, do people like us? Jesus likes you because Jesus is love. And Jesus more than likes you; He loves you so, that even when you were a sinful enemy of God, he would come to give up his life for you, to be resurrected for you, and even to ascend on high for you so that you may know exactly what it is that is coming for you: a life that is better than now, a life that is filled with the glory of God, a life that is filled, even with your glory before Jesus. The Holy Spirit has bound you together with Christ forever.
The Holy Spirit has put him in you and he has put you in him. And he does this, again, by his word and his sacraments. We would be remiss if we ignore his word and sacraments, because this is the way that we know that Christ is in us. And then when we look at our good works, we can say, I do know that I do these works in the name of Christ and on his behalf. And because of that, he will look at me and say, well done, thou good and faithful servant.
We are his disciples, my friends, not because we can look at our works and say, Oh, how good am I? But we look at our works and we say, how good is Jesus. That's the difference between and us and the world. The world will preach to you its own morality. If you notice today in the world, it has a morality, all of its own. It has a morality that you must abide by and it's a shifting and changing morality. And if you don't match up, if you don't measure up, if you don't do exactly what they want in that moment and even anticipate what they will want in the next moment, then they will put you down. And the time is coming, my friends, when the persecution of Christianity throughout this world will be so intense that it will be hard for us to endure, but endure, we will. The world is going to teach according to its word and its its law, but its word is not the word of Christ. We will stand in the word of Christ and we will endure no matter what comes. And we can know that because we are in Christ and Christ is in us by his word and by his sacraments. As long as we are grounded in this, as long as we desire these things, then Christ indeed will show us that our works will stand. And so shall we stand, on the last day, when Christ returns from heaven, when he comes and makes everything new, he will come to your grave, He will bid you out of it, and greet you with a loving face and loving arms for he is the love of God personified. And you will see him in your own flesh and there you will live with him forever in his glory, even as he glorifies You. He is, in this way, the vine who gives you life, for you now live in his love. Let us hold fast to him this day for he is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! In the name of Jesus, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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