THE VINE AND THE BRANCHES, PART VI.
If you keep my commandments, you shall abide, (dwell, remain) in my love.
Even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love, John 15:10.
Here we have one of these seeming paradoxes in the teachings of Jesus.
Jesus has been teaching about abiding, dwelling in him. How that the branch receives life from the vine, how that the branch is an integral part of the vine.
And now he adds a condition: I’ll love you if you keep my commandmends.
You see, he adds, I keep my Father’s commandmends and I abide, I remain in his love.
It’s really quite simple: Do as I do and there will be no problem.
But now we have touched on a very real problem: the keeping of those commandmends.
Rom. 7:18 says that there is nothing in us that comes even close to being able to do any good, let alone perfect obedience to ALL the commandments.
Jesus does not just raise the bar just beyond our reach, he raises the bar so high that the only sensible response from us would be: Lord! What you are asking is impossible for me to do!!
And that is exactly what our wonderful Lord is looking for by raising the bar so high: our admission of inability.
It is like he is saying: it is impossible for you and I want you to be absolutely convinced of that impossibility, that is why I raised the bar that high.
At the same time he is also assuring us that he is so willing and able to do for us what we are not able to do ourselves.
Because, he says, I am the end of the law for righteousness (and abiding) if you will believe me, (Rom.10:4).
For the same reason the Apostle Paul can exclaim in Phil.4:13, I can do all things through Christ who is my strength, ( my life, my ability).
Conversely, that means that on my own I am completely helpless.
Paul knows very well that “it is not I that live, but Christ that lives in me”.
We have no strength in and of ourselves, therefore we depend completely on the ability of Jesus to do for us any of the commands we find in the Scriptures.
That is the message of John 15:10.
Vs.11. These things have I spoken unto you that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy might be full (complete).
When we try to avoid evil and try to keep God’s commandments to the best of our ability, it is nothing but a drag and frustation.
When however, we know and are able to rest in Christ’s willingness and ability to do in us and for us that which we cannot do ourselves, then we experience the joy of the Lord.
Joy, a happiness, a pleasure that is not subject to pleasurable circumstances.
This joy, his joy, our joy is constant because he, our Lord is constant.
This entire sermonette about Jesus being the vine and us disciples being branches of that vine and our abiding in the vine and all that is but for one purpose.
And that is to teach us, even to convince us that only in him ( the vine) do we (the branches) live and move and have our being, Acts 17:28.
God’s children bring glory to his name by accepting that reality, by resting in his complete willingness and ability to do in us and for us everything that he desires to do.
Our part in all this is that we submit to him, that we verbally give him permission to remove anything in us that is not like him.
That we would live a submitted life, just like he lives a submitted life unto his Father.
That we would ask him to prune away our self-centredness, our self-dependency.
Even more that he would reveal to us just how much we are self-centred and self-sufficient.
Prune away our stubborn notion that our good works that we attempt to do for God will enhance his glory.
Joy, true joy is found only in the assurance of resting in the everlasting arms of God’s love and faithfulness.
Of allowing him to use our gifts when he desires to do so, rather than us always dreaming up new programs in an attempt to be more obedient more efficiently.
Our attempts at diligent service, greater obedience and battle against the world’s sins, all done for what we believe is the glory of God, will always lead to pride, frustration and bitterness.
The Preacher of the Old Testament calls these activities vanity, profitless, all the more because vanity implies pride.
There is no joy in that, because if we then would be honest with ourselves, we would recognize our own deficiency, no matter how successful the programs were in themselves.
For the joy of the Lord to become our true strength, we need to be his instruments of mercy in a needy world around us.
Instruments in his hands, like a violin in the hands of a master violinist, producing a world of music of the highest kind.
These things have I spoken to you, (so) that your joy might be full.
What did he say to us?
Well, let’s read it again, starting with verse one.
What does it say?
I am the Vine, you are the branches, you and I we are one, I am your LIFE, I am your all-sufficiency, for now and for all eternity.
Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord (the Vine, the Lord Jesus Christ) forever. (Ps. 23:6)
St.Thomas,Dec./’08. Simon VanderKooy.
