Remaining in Christ Is Critical!

5th Sunday of Easter, 5/3/15
John 15:1-8


Remaining in Christ Is Critical!
I. Terminate the distractions.
II. Soak up his grace.
III. Produce fruits.


How many of you still keep in contact with your childhood friends? And by “contact” I don’t mean Facebook or email. I mean actually talking with them and visiting with them. The reality for most of us is that the communication with those friends ended long ago. When those friendships were alive and active, we couldn’t imagine life without them. Those friends were an important part of our daily lives. We experienced so much of life with them. They may have known you better than your parents did.

What happened? Life happened. You moved on. School or work took you to different points on the map. The phone conversations became farther and farther apart. Other people entered your life. Time was at a premium. The effort to maintain the friendship wasn’t worth it. Other friends took their place.

And that’s OK. Your life isn’t worse without them. In fact, it may be better. That’s just the way things are with relationships. They come and they go. And that’s OK.

But not when the other person is none other than Jesus Christ, your Savior from sin, the One who was crucified and now lives. When Jesus is no longer a part of your daily life, you’re in eternal danger.

That’s the point Jesus made in this portion of his word. He wanted his followers of every day and age in history to know how critical it is for him to be connected to you and you to him. Remaining in Christ is critical. Since it’s so critical, let’s see how to do that and what the results are when we do.

Part I.

Multitasking has become a way of life. It’s not uncommon to have several websites opened on the screen in front of you, sending and receiving text messages, getting interrupted by a phone call and your TV on all at the same time. We no longer stop to have a conversation on the phone; we keep right on doing what we were doing. In fact, we may even plan to do something and then make a phone call and begin doing what we planned in order to avoid “wasting” time. And we really can’t focus on either of the tasks we’re attempting to accomplish.

So, how’s your focus on the most important relationship in your life, the only relationship that is eternal, the one you have with Jesus? Is it distracted to say the least? If so, what are the distractions? One that quickly comes to mind is life itself. You’re so busy just trying to get done each day what needs to get done that it’s difficult to squeeze in much time at all for Jesus. And when you do leave him out of your life, there don’t seem to be any immediate repercussions. He doesn’t scream for your attention.

And then there’s the stuff that makes up your life, the material things. Sometimes those things are so large and so many that you can’t see Jesus who is standing there waiting patiently for you to spend time with him. Or, you convince yourself that you need more stuff and the pursuit of it squeezes Jesus out of your life. Or, maybe it’s not just stuff; it’s something you deem necessary, such as your employment. If you want to eat, you need to work.

And, just like what happens with childhood friendships, other people enter your life. Somehow they take the place of Jesus. They may even discourage you from spending time with Jesus. Slowly, Jesus fades into the background of your life and then, one day, he’s not there at all anymore.

I call each of those deadly distractions. Remaining in Christ is critical. So terminate the distractions.

Are you listening? Because you can’t afford to get this wrong. Listen to what happens when someone does get it wrong, “If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” Not a pretty picture. And it pains me to think of the number of people who had a saving relationship with Jesus but got distracted. They lost their focus. They set Jesus aside with the intention of getting back to him later, but they never did. I know some of those people. So do you. So what should we do so that we don’t face the same fate?

Before we answer what we should do, let’s be sure what not to do.

A famous preacher once said, “Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds.” We find that to be true in so many facets of life. If you don’t put anything into it, you can’t expect to get anything out.

A few seconds ago we asked ourselves the question, “What should we do to remain in Christ?” What not to do is to put in a tremendous amount of hard work. Here’s the Christian paradox: nothing you can do will cause you to remain in Christ. Here’s the good news: it’s all God’s doing.

So just let your Lord Jesus do his thing. He stated, “I am the vine; you are the branches.” What does the vine do for the branches? It supplies whatever the branches need to grow. Last Sunday our worship included Psalm 23 in which we heard, “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters.” The green pastures are his word—his gospel—his good news that free and full forgiveness is ours, that heaven is our home right now, that we are his beloved children by faith in him. These are our great blessings because Jesus won them for us. That’s what his holy life and his sacrificial death were all about. Those gospel truths feed our souls.

Part II.

Likewise, his Holy Supper. Jesus once told a Samaritan woman that he had living water. That water was the good news that he is the world’s Savior from sin. He gave his body and blood on the cross for us and now he gives us his very body and blood in the Lord’s Supper to strengthen and sustain our faith in him. Word and sacrament. We call those his means of grace.

Remaining in Christ is critical! As living branches of the living Vine, soak up his grace!

While most of us carefully watch how much we eat, we don’t concern ourselves with how much air we breathe. We take in as much as we can. I’ve been told, however, that when your ability to breathe is compromised, it’s a suffocating feeling.

So why do we think we can limit our exposure to God’s word and sacraments and still think our souls are just fine? I think what’s true for me is true for you: the last thing my sinful nature wants is a breath of truth from God’s word. That truth wars against who and what we are by nature. I don’t want to hear it. I sure don’t want to believe it. But then God’s law does its work. It cuts me to the heart and forces me to acknowledge what I know all too well—I’m as sinful as anyone else. I give in to my sinful nature every day. And then God’s gospel does its glorious work. It reminds me that Christ forgives me. It reminds me of who Christ made me at my baptism—a child of the triune God. I was reborn by the power of the risen Lord Jesus. And now he immerses me in his grace. Remaining in Christ is critical. Soak up his grace!

Part III.

Did you ever wake up one morning and say to yourself, “It’s a new day! Today I’m going to work hard at being mean and ugly”? Of course not. I don’t think any of us have. Instead, we set our sights on being the kind of people we want to be and our Lord Jesus wants us to be. In our text Jesus calls those fruits—fruits that we as branches produce by the power of Jesus.

But just what are they? I can’t think of a better listing of the fruits our God produces in us than the one God himself gives us in Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. After making an ugly list of the acts of the sinful nature, Paul writes, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Ga. 5:22). Those inner qualities are produced by the Holy Spirit who also works faith in our hearts.

Those qualities express themselves in acts of service to our loving Lord and our neighbor. Love for Jesus moves us to selfless deeds which reveal our devotion to our God. Love for Jesus moves us to serve our fellow human beings, and especially those who share our Christian faith. Love for Jesus turns people who are inwardly selfish into outwardly selfless.

When that happens—when we live our lives of faith producing the fruits our God is pleased with—then notice what happens. Jesus states, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you produce much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” Our fruits of faith are not to our glory, but to our heavenly Father’s. Why is that? Because when we show that we are God’s children by our attitudes, words and actions, then God’s plan for us has been fully realized. We’re not just believing the things God wants us to believe, we’re doing them. We’re revealing the tremendous change that our God has worked in us. He simply wants us to be his children by faith in Jesus and to live like it. When we produce the fruits of that Jesus speaks of, we’re doing just that.

Remaining in Christ is critical! Produce fruits!

Good farmers keep track of their production. So do good Christians. So, at the end of the day, what does your fruit-production analysis reveal? A little lean? Perhaps even some rotten fruit? At the very least, you didn’t produce the way you had hoped. No Christian does. But that doesn’t mean we cease all efforts. It means we go back to our Vine, our Savior, and find our comfort in his forgiveness and our strength in his resurrection power that is packed in each of us at our baptisms. There the triune God placed his name on us and there he attached us to Christ. That Savior lived for you, died for you and rose for you so that you could be his own forever and live each day with his power—the power to produce fruits all to the glory of God. Remain in Christ and watch those fruits abound! Amen.