I Am the Vine

[00:00:00] Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah. Please be seated. [00:00:18] I want to call your attention to verse five of the hymn we just sang. Mighty victim from the sky. [00:00:25] That's kind of a cool way to say it. Think about it. Mighty victim from the sky. I don't think I've ever thought about those words. [00:00:34] He's come down from heaven, right? As the victim. But the next line. Hell's fierce powers beneath you lie. [00:00:43] Hell's fierce powers beneath you lie. [00:00:47] Brothers and sisters in Christ. [00:00:51] That could not be said of me. [00:00:55] That is not something that you sing about me. [00:00:58] Hell's fierce powers beneath you lie. You've conquered in the fight. You've brought us life and light. [00:01:06] Christ is a different sort of man than you and me. [00:01:11] He's the man from heaven. [00:01:15] We are not invulnerable to death. We aren't? I think I said that right. It's a confusing word. Invulnerable. We are vulnerable to death, right? He is not. [00:01:30] He died and was put in the ground like every human being before him and every human being after him, with just a couple exceptions. [00:01:38] And you know Enoch and Elijah, right? Who went straight up to heaven. Different, right? So Jesus, he was put in the ground like every other human being. And he rose from the dead, never to die again. [00:01:53] Jesus was. Was assaulted by the devil with temptation. [00:01:58] And he won. [00:02:00] He. He didn't give in. He won. He beat the devil, especially on the cross. Right there he goes up, up to the cross, carrying the cross, being made fun of, being tortured, tempted in every way as we are, but without sin. [00:02:19] And he did it. He won. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah. [00:02:28] None of those things could be said of me apart from Christ in Christ. Those things could be said of me. [00:02:35] That hell's fierce powers beneath us lie in Christ because he gives us his victory. [00:02:42] We're in him and he shares everything with us. Victory over Satan, victory over death. So that we have nothing to fear. [00:02:53] Not because we have those things of ourselves, but because Christ has those things and we have them in him. [00:03:03] There's just as much difference between Christ and us as there is between a vine and its branches. [00:03:11] Take the branch off the vine. Well, what good is it? Well, you could burn it. [00:03:18] Keep warm. [00:03:20] Otherwise it's just going to dry up. It can't get water by itself. It can't get nutrients by itself. It's certainly not going to bear fruit. [00:03:29] It's worthless. Apart from the vine. [00:03:32] Life is in the vine. [00:03:36] Now, that's why Christ came, because we needed a vine. [00:03:42] Christ came so that we would have life. Right? He came down from heaven for the life of the world to give his flesh for the life of the world. [00:03:52] The word became flesh to give us life. [00:03:59] Jesus compares. Well, he doesn't compare. [00:04:03] He says the seed is the word of God. [00:04:07] In the parable of the sower, the seed is the word of God. So you can think of Christ, the word of God, as a seed come down from heaven to become a vine in which we can be incorporated. [00:04:24] So the word became flesh. Well, it's like the word became a body. [00:04:32] It's like when something is fleshed out, it receives a body. We flesh out an idea, we're giving it body. So Christ, the seed, comes and becomes a human being, just like a seed becoming a plant. Now, let's go back to the garden of Eden for a moment. Okay? This is a garden. This is a place where things grow. And Adam and Eve are meant to listen to God's word, to receive God's word, which we can think of as a seed, and for his word to bear fruit in them, that they would be the embodiment of God's will, that they would be in the image of God, that they would embody God's word. [00:05:25] Well, the word became flesh. Who is God's word? Jesus. [00:05:30] That was the goal for Adam and Eve, that they would embody Christ, and they chose their own way. [00:05:38] They decided on independence. We can do this better ourselves. [00:05:46] Eve follows something that seems like a great thing, wisdom. [00:05:51] It's just that she's listening to the father of lies. [00:05:55] She seeks to find wisdom outside of the source of wisdom, through whom all things were made, in whom all things hold together. [00:06:04] She looks for wisdom outside and doesn't find it, does she? [00:06:09] Same thing could be said about life. She wants to really live like I want to really live. [00:06:15] And that means going out on, going it alone, and seizing that fruit that God doesn't want to give me, doing it myself. [00:06:25] It doesn't work out well, we need. [00:06:29] We need Christ like a branch needs a vine. [00:06:34] Another image is a coal in the fire. [00:06:39] There's a story told. I don't know. It's probably somewhere in Luther's table talk, like the writings that describe dinner conversations with Martin Luther. [00:06:51] I don't know where. I don't know if that's actually where it is or not, but professors have told me that Luther. Martin Luther one time was visiting somebody who hadn't been coming to church, and he walked in didn't say a word. But he walked over to the fire and he took the poker and he pulled a coal out of the fire and just watched it. [00:07:16] And of course, the coal died, so to speak. Right. It lost its warmth, it cooled down, and it was no longer part of the fire. It wasn't. Wasn't warmed by the fire, and it went out. [00:07:30] And that was. I mean, that was his message to this family who hadn't been going to church. It's like, okay, you want to not be connected? Well, then this is what happens in our culture. [00:07:49] We value pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. It's like you can do. You can do and be anything that you want, and we can think of that in an individualistic kind of way. [00:08:02] And sometimes it's just plain silly because we can. We know that we need other people. We know that we're stronger with lots of people than we are on our own or that, you know, the combined intelligence in this room can help me learn a lot more than. Than I can just going home and thinking about it. Right. Okay. Sometimes I'm just going to say this. This is a good time for me to say this is true, too, of theology or spiritual things, like looking online for an answer is kind of the, I'm going to do it my own way. It's like the cowboy, you know, nothing against cowboys. I just mean, like, you know, don't. Don't misunderstand that. [00:08:49] I just mean, like, the wild west of theology is the Internet. You know, it's like, okay, so, yeah, but you can find great things on the Internet in terms of, you know, answers to things that the Bible says. But anyway, anyway, we have such a heritage, a treasure of sermons and commentaries on scripture from christians for 2000 years since Christ. [00:09:26] It's like trying to go it alone and figure out what scripture means with a quick Internet search or something like that. That might be a. A good place to go if you just have a second and you don't have a resource in front of you. [00:09:42] But this just kind of fits with what we're talking about a little bit. The idea of being independent is valued today to the point where we want new things all the time. [00:09:57] We just want, like, give me something new. Give me something that's not canned. [00:10:04] Right. [00:10:06] But the truth is that we're. [00:10:10] Well, there's a vine in all cases, right? Live in the vine of your family and not separate, and you're going to be stronger. Live within the vine of a community or neighbors together, a city. That's what a city is. It's like, yeah, you could. You could be a homesteader. [00:10:33] But see, that's even really popular. The idea of that is like, whoa, I could live by myself in the middle of nowhere and make it. That's so cool. [00:10:43] No, there's a reason that people gather together in a city. It's because together we're able to do more, we're able to figure things out. We're able to solve problems together. [00:10:57] There's life in the city that. Anyway, I'm also not against homesteading, and it is pretty cool, all these examples I just mentioned, to say we're drawn to the idea of independence. [00:11:13] And I think this text from the gospel of John kind of reminds us, maybe especially today, we Americans, reminds us how foolish it is to try and go it alone, and especially, let's say, to try and circumvent Christ. Get around him, skip over. Skip over him and his word. [00:11:45] We don't want independence. [00:11:51] Abide in me, you could say, remain in me and I in you. [00:11:58] As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. [00:12:09] I am the vine, you are the branches. [00:12:13] Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. [00:12:21] Apart from me, you can do nothing. You can think about it this way. What kind of fruit are we talking about bearing? Spiritual fruit. Okay, spiritual fruit. [00:12:33] In scripture, it's pictured sort of vertically. There's heaven and there's earth, there's spiritual, and there's sort of fleshy. Right. Carnal. [00:12:48] There's the higher things and the lower things. Okay, so Christ comes down from heaven. [00:12:57] Well, he's the one that can bring heaven to earth, right? Your will be done on earth, as in heaven. Christ comes down to bring heaven to us. Right. To lift us up to heaven so that we're seated in the heavenly places with Christ. [00:13:12] And to try and just do it ourselves, like, to try and be spiritual. [00:13:19] Apart from the one that's come down from heaven, apart from the one who's been conceived by the Holy Spirit to try and go it alone, it doesn't work. [00:13:31] We need heaven to come down to us. We need God's word. God's word that spoke everything into existence, that continues to speak everything into existence and hold it all together, sustain it to sustain us. God's word, the source of life. This is what we need. [00:13:52] Luther says that the difference between. [00:13:56] Not just Luther, but I was just reading Luther, and he said this. Okay, every Christian said this in the history of the church that. Well, not. I don't. Never mind. Sorry, that was silly. [00:14:11] He says the difference between what's, like, fleshly or worldly and what's spiritual is the word of God. Like, that's what makes it spiritual, the word of God. And then you could kind of extend that and say, christ is the word in the flesh. Okay, so. Or the word is Christ. [00:14:30] Go either way there. Okay, so the difference is the word. This morning I heard Pastor Hesse say, this is the day that the Lord has made. You know, probably in response to good morning or something like that. Like, good morning. It's like you just add the word of the Lord, and it's like, oh, this isn't just like a good morning. And how am I doing? You know, doing. I guess I'm doing okay. Because why? You know, whatever my criteria is, this is the day that the Lord has made, and all of a sudden, combined with the day, and my idea of the day is God's word, and now it becomes spiritual. Like, I am a creature of God and he's made this day. [00:15:09] Let us rejoice and be glad in it. You know, there's my faithful response. So it's like, all of a sudden. All of a sudden, my thinking about the day has become spiritual. [00:15:20] And then if it's spiritual, it's gotta be in Christ, too. Like, why rejoice in it? If I've got all this going on? Why rejoice in it? Because of the news. Based on the news I got this last week, why should I rejoice? [00:15:36] But, well, because Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia. You know, he's hell's fierce powers. Beneath him lie. [00:15:51] Christ is risen. Is risen indeed. Alleluia. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Why not? Because, you know, I got a raise. Just kidding. [00:16:10] Not because things are going so well or something like that. Because Christ has risen, and, you know, he's risen indeed. Hallelujah. [00:16:19] Because there's nothing for us to fear in him. [00:16:23] Because he's given us power over death, over the devil. Those aren't things that you can see. They're things that come through the word, and they give us life and hope and joy as we trust them. We hear God's word, just like Adam and Eve were meant to do in the garden. We hear God's word, and our entire worldview is shaped, shaped by it. Like, what are we afraid of? What do we want? What's my purpose today? [00:16:53] What's my hope for the future? What am I headed toward? What am I working to build? All those things shaped by God's word. And God's word has come in the flesh. Jesus Christ. [00:17:04] So that kind of life and all the fruits of the spirit, they come to us insofar as we believe in Christ. Or to put it another way, insofar as we entrust ourselves to Christ. [00:17:18] Insofar as we live in him. He's the vine, we are the branches, and everything, our entire life, everything worth anything, everything that's going to survive the end of the world and be in the new creation, all of it is in Christ. Thanks be to God. In Jesus name, amen.