X In the Name of Jesus X
John 15,1-9
Jubilate (3. Sunday after Easter) 038 weißRupert, Confessor in Mainz, 9th c.
Dympna, Virgin, Martyr in Gheel in Brabant, Netherlands 7th c.
15. May 2011
1. O Christ Jesus, You were raised from the dead and will never die again; death no longer has dominion over You. You abide with us and we abide with Your love, with Your victory, and with Your new resurrected life. O Lord, many times we behold our lives and doubt whether we truly have faith in You. In the hours of our uncertainty, work in us and do what only You can do: give us the faith which assures us of salvation that produces much fruit. Amen.
2. Our sermon text for this morning, dear brothers and sisters, is from the Gospel according to John. Jesus said, „I am the true Vine, and My Father is the Vinedresser. Every branch in Me that doesn’t bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it bears more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, as I abide in you. Just as the branch isn’t able to bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you bear fruit unless you abide in Me. I am the Vine, you are the branches. The one who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for without Me you aren’t able to do any thing. If anyone isn’t abiding in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up, and they gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you shall abide in Me, and My words shall abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, namely, that you are bearing much fruit, that is, you shall be My disciples.“ This is our text. 3. Our Lord Jesus Christ does what He says and says what He does. Here, in his 15. chapter, the Apostle John tells us that Jesus chops off fruitless vine branches. This is not something new and innovative to the New Testament Church. In the Old Testament Church, commonly called Israel, Yahweh broke off Jewish branches from Israel. The most drastic example of this can be seen when Yahweh delivered the Ten Tribes of Israel up to the Assyrian Empire. Shortly after King Solomon died, the nation of Israel split into two nations in 950 B.C.: the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin (and Levi) formed the southern nation of Judah, and the northern ten tribes became the nation of Israel. Yahweh promised that if Israel worshipped Yahweh alone, then He would bless the fledgling nation as He had blessed the House of David. The first King of Israel, Jeroboam (of Ephraim), immediately had competing temples built: one in Bethel and the other in Dan where golden calves of Baal were worshipped. Despite repeated attempts, Israel refused to heed the words of the prophets. They continued in their wicked way of worshipping idols, and so 230 years later Yahweh broke off the ten branches of Israel (721 B.C.) and dispersed them among the Gentile nations where they have become lost to history.
4. During Jesus’ ministry another massive breaking off of branches occurred. Those Jews who refused to receive and believe in Jesus as their promised Messiah were broken off. This especially happened in the years after Pentecost when thousands of Jews and many priests became Christians (Acts 6,7). The Book of Acts tells us that not only did many Jews become Christians, but also that many more Gentiles became Christians. The Apostle Paul explains that the unbelieving Jews were broken off the Vine and believing Gentiles were grafted on in their place (Romans 11,17-21).
5. The vine is the source of the branches. If you’ve ever had a grape vine growing in your yard, then you know that cutting off individual branches does not harm the vine; in fact, the vine will just sprout more branches elsewhere. In fact, if you are an enterprising gardener you can cut off some of the grape branches and graft onto the stump of those now severed branches a completely different grape branch that you obtained from somewhere else, and with tender-loving care that newly grafted grape branch will thrive on the vine and become just like the other original branches. This image magnificently describes Christ and His Christians. Jesus is the Vine, and we are the branches. Christ is the Source of our faith and works, and we are the recipients of that faith and good works. Any branch, however, separated from the vine quickly shrivels up and dies once it no longer receives the necessary nutrients. The same is true of Christ and His Christians.
6. The seriousness of this situation is that God the Father cuts off people from Christ. What gets a person removed from Christ is not sins, but lack of faith; and where there is no faith then there are no good works. Throughout the Holy Scriptures, what got individual chosen people removed from God’s holy nation of Israel was their utter absence of faith in Yahweh, and this absence of faith manifested itself in works of wickedness. The Apostle Paul applies it thusly, »Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue righteousness by faith, but as if righteousness was based on works« (Romans 9,30-32).
7. We who have faith in Christ must take care not to lose that precious faith. Many of Yahweh’s chosen people, Israel, took their chosen-ness for-granted. King Jeroboam and Israel were branches on the Vine of Christ, but Israel deliberately chose to forsake this life-giving Vine and instead worshipped Baal, the golden calf. Yahweh sent prophets to Israel, but the nation refused to hear the word of Yahweh. God was patient, but after centuries of Israel’s gross idolatry and faithlessness, Yahweh cut Israel off the Christ-Vine.
8. When the word of Yahweh is spoken to you, do not turn a deaf ear to its pleading. Yahweh spoke to Moses the commandment: »I am Yahweh your God. You shall have no other gods except Me« (Exodus 20,2-3). The Holy Scriptures exhort us fear, love, and trust in God above all things. There is no other God except the one revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and the God revealed in the Scriptures is the God who saves and ransoms all people by sending His only begotten Son as our Redeemer. Do not forsake this loving and gracious Savior. Worship only this Triune God. Believe in Christ crucified for your sins and risen from the grave for you. If you forsake this wonderful and long-suffering God, if you refuse to fear, love, and trust Him, then He will cut you off of Christ the Vine. »Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees!« (Matthew 3,10).
9. There is still time to repent of one’s faithlessness. When the unbelieving Jews were convicted by the apostles’ Pentecost sermon, Luke the Evangelist writes: »Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, „Brothers, what shall we do?“ And Peter said to them, „Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit„« (Acts 2,37-38).
10. »Faith comes by/from hearing the Word of Christ, so that everyone who calls upon the Name of the Lord will be saved« (Romans 10,17.13). Christians await a forgiving Father, not a condemning Judge. Such a gracious Father is received by faith. Those who do not believe will only experience a condemning Judge. Thus we see that faith in the crucified and risen Christ is a precious gift freely given to us by the Holy Spirit; therefore we should and must highly treasure this gift, allow it to be nurtured and watered by regularly hearing the preached law and gospel of God, by regularly receiving the Holy Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and by appropriating the Absolution that declares all sins forgiven as our very own forgiveness merited by Christ and freely given to us.
11. With all this said, nevertheless (dennoch) this certainty of salvation (Heilsgewißheit) is often ignored or severely downplayed by many Christian preachers and teachers who darken the gospel through specific conditions. They will say such things as: you cannot be certain if you are one of the elect and saved; you must fervently pray that you might be one of the elect; you must do good works so that you can alleviate your conscience that you are saved; they point those who hear the gospel to themselves, to their own capacity to believe, and to their own preparedness to better their lives; and other similar conditional statements. The Lutheran Church, however (dennoch), confesses and emphasizes in Apology IV,41[1]: this gospel promise does not have any condition („haec promissio non habet conditionem“) (Martens 25). You heard the life-giving gospel in your Baptism and from the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Spirit created faith in Christ Jesus and placed that faith in your heart and mind. You did not create your faith in Christ; you did not make a decision to accept Christ; you did not do any work to achieve faith. God the Holy Spirit did it all for you and freely gave you the gift of faith in Christ Jesus who Himself sacrificially gave Himself unto the cross to obtain your salvation without any permission or assistance on your part, and Jesus did this as the Christ sent by God the Father who loved you even while you were still a condemned sinner and sent His Son to rescue you from that sinful life. We have the certainty of salvation (Heilsgewißheit) and the certainty of forgiveness (Vergebunggewißheit) and the certainty of eternal life with God (ewigen Lebensgewißheit mit Gott) through and on account of Christ Jesus our Lord. He is the Vine. The Holy Spirit grafted us onto that Vine by giving us faith in Jesus. Our certainty is in Christ alone. Those who believe in Christ as their Savior cannot and will never ever be cut off from Christ the Vine, for faith is the certainty of salvation. We are united to Christ in this world and in the next to come. Jesus will not fail us.
12. Christ is the Vine, and we are the branches. The one who abides in Christ and Jesus in him, he bears much fruit. First, saving faith in Christ alone is created and sustained, then the good works of faith bloom forth. God does not need these works, but they are desperately needed by our neighbors. Just as the fruit of the vine is used to make wine for mankind’s enjoyment, so too the works born from Christian faith are meant to assist our neighbors who are burdened by the cares and worries of this world. Our works uplift our neighbors who are distraught and depressed by the world around them. The Holy Scriptures call these good works diakoni,a||, that is, „works of mercy“. Wherever our neighbor is in need, there our merciful actions are given out to lift our neighbor out of their dilemma. Amen.
13. Let us pray. O Heavenly Father, who preserves the lives of His holy ones, keep us safely in the bosom of Your Divine Providence, so that we daily rely upon Christ our Vine for all our earthly and spiritual needs. Amen.
One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you!
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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the New Testament Greek Manuscripts, John © 1995 by Reuben Joseph Swanson.
Martens, Gottfried. „Certainty of Salvation.“ LOGIA Vol. XIV, No. 2 (Eastertide 2005). Copyright © 2005 The Luther Academy. [1] BSLK 168; Kolb 126.
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