Sermon for Easter 5B, May 3, 2015

Text: John 15:1-8

            Beloved in Christ, living a godly life is not optional. It is absolutely necessary. Or to put in terms that our Lord used, bearing fruit is not optional. If we believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, we will show it in the way that we think, talk, and act. Our thoughts, words, and deeds will be the fruit of a living faith. We will delight in His Word and call upon Him in prayer. We will strive to love God wholeheartedly and our neighbors as much as we love ourselves. We will gather with other Christians regularly in worship and support one another with our burdens. Our genuine trust that Christ is our Savior will show itself in the way that we live our lives.

            Where that is altogether missing, faith too is missing. The fruit of faith naturally follows wherever faith is present. People can talk all they want about their faith, but if there is no fruit of faith, they have no faith in God. You see, godly living and the whole fruit of faith follow faith as naturally as a tree produces fruit.

            Now when I talk about bearing fruit, I know that some people get their hackles up. They assume that we are talking about being perfect people, and they want to insist that there is no such thing as a Christian who is perfect. But there is a big difference between saying that Christians don’t always bear the fruit they should and saying that Christians don’t have to bear fruit at all. Of course, I acknowledge that we will not become perfect in our lifetime. In fact, our Lord indicates as much. He notes that we will be pruned again and again because He wants us to bear even more abundant fruit. That hardly sounds as if we had achieved perfection. But just because we will never become perfect in this life, it doesn’t follow that we don’t have to strive to grow in faith and in its fruit, godly living. If we think so, we’ll find ourselves judged and removed from the living vine, Jesus Christ.

            So, then, bearing fruit is not optional. How do we do it, though? After all, just because we want to do something doesn’t mean that it is going to happen. People envision doing all sorts of things—and many of their plans never come to fruition. So, just talking about bearing fruit doesn’t mean that we actually will do so. And Jesus Himself agreed with that assessment. In fact, He went further and said, “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” Whatever you do, whatever you plan and carry out, is nothing apart from Him.

            Now that sounds a bit of an overstatement to many. Can’t people do something good without Christ’s help? Aren’t there plenty of people who do good things and never believe in God, let alone in Christ? Here it is helpful to distinguish between what is good in human eyes and what is truly good in God’s eyes. There are plenty of things that are good in human eyes, but aren’t in God’s eyes. People are content with someone who doesn’t cause any trouble and occasionally does something nice for a neighbor. But God’s standard is higher: we are to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves. People are okay with someone holding a grudge, as long as they don’t do anything violent toward that person. But God doesn’t countenance our selfish rage. The world will pat us on the back because we aren’t criminals, but it never understands that we haven’t even come close to the standards that God has set for us.

            You see, the world sees people putting aside crass sins and adopting subtler sins. The world is content with that, but God isn’t. Three-year olds have learned that temper tantrums don’t work and begin trying flattery instead. We praise the children for improving, but they are still trying to manipulate others to get their way. So it is with all our moral reformations. What God really wants—what He counts as the only thing worthy of being called “good fruit”—is that we fear, love, and trust in Him above everything else. And we cannot do that by our own will power.

            The great news of the gospel is this: God does what we have been unable to do. We could never love God with even half our heart, but God loved us wholeheartedly and still does. It was no half-baked love, but a love that demanded the greatest sacrifice. Someone had to march into the very abyss of death and hell. Someone had to enter into the mess of the world that we had created by our sin. And that someone was none other than Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The Father and the Holy Spirit also delighted in this mission and they did everything they could to bless it and support it. But it was Jesus Christ, the Son, who undertook the mission for our sake.

            We could never give God the reverence and fear that He deserves. He is holy, and should be respected just for His holiness. He is our creator, and deserves honor for that. But we are too selfish to give Him that honor. But God dispenses honor. The Son honors His Father and is obedient to Him, even when the cost was great. The Father and the Holy Spirit honor the Son. And, marvel of marvels, the three Persons of the Trinity honor us by choosing to go to these great lengths for our redemption.

            In short, every virtue that a Christian should excel in is exhibited by God, and especially by the Son of God incarnate, our Lord Jesus Christ. If we are going to grow in godliness, it will not be enough for us to imitate Him. No, He must work in us. He must be the vine that sends His sap coursing through us His branches. For just as branches do not have life in themselves apart from the vine, so we too do not have life in ourselves apart from Christ.

            We receive two things from Him: forgiveness and new life. We are forgiven, first of all. Our guilt is no longer charged to us but has been given to Christ, who carried it all the way to the cross and dealt with it once and for all. Instead He credits His righteousness to us. This is not based on anything we have done. We are not forgiven because He has seen some progress in us. He doesn’t give us time off for good behavior. No. It is completely a gracious gift on His part—and at great cost to Him. It isn’t even given because He thinks we’ll turn out all right in the end and so He’ll give us an advance based on how He thinks we will perform. No, it is purely a gift. It is a gift He longs to give to all people, no matter how wicked they have been, for Christ died for all people, not just for those who will embrace the gift in the end.

            With this forgiveness of sins comes new life. Christ doesn’t forgive us because of what we have done, but He doesn’t want us to continue doing the same old things that have brought grief to ourselves and others. Christ loves us as we are, but He loves us too much to leave us as we are. By that I mean that we don’t have to become lovable people before He steps in and reaches out to us. He forgives us before we have even thought of Him. But He doesn’t want us to continue to live in ignorance of Him and in the miserable ways of sin. And so He gives us new life.

            Through His Word He makes us clean. He makes a new creation. He makes us a branch on His vine. Then the Christian life that follows consists of us drawing our strength from Him. A branch needs the sap that comes from the vine. The branch doesn’t produce the sap itself, but totally relies on the vine to do that. In the same way our power to live a godly life comes from Christ working in us. That is why we need to abide in Christ, and that comes about by abiding in His Word.

            In this new life, though, we will be trimmed back from time to time. We would like to think that once we become Christians, we get our act completely together and we don’t have any more difficult times in our lives. Our Lord points out that we will need to be trimmed back again and again. Healthy branches require sap, but they also require trimming back. If you let your tomato plants grow wildly, instead of culling branches here and there, you are not going to get as many tomatoes as you would like. Instead, the branches will keep growing longer without producing as much fruit. It is essential that branches be trimmed back so that they can focus on producing fruit. That is why God trims us back from time to time. Sometimes we are just growing wildly and instead need to focus on the most important things. And so He brings suffering into our lives to help us focus on Him and His kingdom. This is painful, but over time it helps us deepen and mature as Christians and produce more abundant fruit.

            This is what the Christian life looks like. It is not optional for us. May God “who began a good work in you…bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” In Jesus’ name. Amen.