Remain In His Love

[00:00:00] Let me just read for you. I just got a few short verses. Let me just read those for you and then we will. I'll pray and get into it, but these are from the eyewitness account of Jesus Life and Ministries, written by John. [00:00:17] Chapter 15, verses 1 to 4. [00:00:22] I am the true vine. [00:00:25] My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. [00:00:37] You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. [00:00:41] Remain in me as I also remain in you. [00:00:48] No branch can bear fruit by itself. [00:00:51] It must remain in the vine. [00:00:54] Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. Just for a little bonus, I'll go verse five, because I've left that off. [00:01:01] I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. [00:01:12] Let's pray. [00:01:17] Jesus, thank youk that yout are the true vine, and that through connection with youh, is where true life flows in abundance. And just pray that as we just unpack these words today, would you'd meet us where we're at. For some of us, these words are very familiar and could almost be like just spoken by memory. But for others, maybe this is the first time hearing these words. And so wherever we land, Jesus, may you meet us there. [00:01:52] May I decrease and you increase in this place. In your name we pray. [00:01:57] Amen. [00:01:59] Now, is there any How I Met yout Mother fans here today? [00:02:06] Yeah. How I Met yout Mother show that I've quite liked. In season six of How I Met yout Mother, there's an episode called Last Words. [00:02:15] And so Marshall Erickson, the one there with the brown jacket looking a little bit off to the side, his father passes away, and they've gone back to his hometown in St. Cloud, Minnesota, and are preparing the funeral. And it comes out that the theme of the funeral is going to be Last Words. And that comes out because his brothers and his mum have these incredibly powerful, personal, significant, meaningful last conversations or last memories with their dad. And Marshall is wrestling with the fact that the last words that his dad spoke to him were rent. Crocodile Dundee 3. It totally holds up. [00:03:07] He's heard the stories from his brothers, he's got his own story, and he's wrestling with this. He wants it to be far more significant than Crocodile Dundee 3. [00:03:19] But this development happens that in the midst of flying to Minnesota and everything, his phone has been out of battery. And so when he Puts it on the charger, a voicemail comes through, and the voicemail is from his dad. [00:03:33] And suddenly the stakes have been raised. Do you listen to this voicemail or not? [00:03:41] Like, surely it's got to be better than Crocodile Dundee 3. But what if it's not? There's all this stuff that plagues Marshall's imagination, and then in the end, he listens to it, and it ends up being a pocket dial, which in some case is, like, worse than something, and he absolutely loses it. So, like, masterful acting display from Jason Siegel, who plays Marshall Erickson, but he just really shows the depth of this grief and heartbreak and lament. And he rages at the God of the universe, of why did he take his dad too young? [00:04:21] Like, the pain and the injustice. And the whole time that he's doing that, he's holding up this seemingly endless pocket dial as further evidence of the injustice of this. And then in one blank moment, his dad's voice comes through the phone. [00:04:40] He realizes that he's been pocket dialing him, and he says, look, son, had an incredible time with you and Lily over the last few days. And then utters the last words that he will say to his son. [00:04:56] I love you. [00:04:58] It brings this emotional resonance and depth. And so, for those who don't know how I met your mother, it is a story narrated by future Ted Mosby, who was one of the characters, and he's explaining how he met his kid's mother to them. And the narrator comes in to close this episode, and he says these words, last words. [00:05:24] It's a lot of pressure, kids. [00:05:26] Really gets you thinking. [00:05:28] And I'll be honest, this sentiment has played in my mind ever since. [00:05:36] Kind of made the decision to finish the time here at Summerhill and head across to the All Saints Network, surfing out of St. John's this sense of there was always going to be this moment. [00:05:50] There would be a last service, a last sermon, a last communion, a last prayer that was always coming. [00:06:00] What do you even say at it? [00:06:02] Like, how do you even begin to synthesize 10, nearly 11 years of life together? [00:06:09] And I remember sitting in Kevin and Janine's lounge room as we were planning this, and I said something that in the week preceding, I just was like, really Like, I couldn't. But I don't know if you thought that, but I was like, there's three things I want to say. [00:06:25] That was kind of what I had, and I drove away. And I have always been a proponent of deliver one idea, speak one idea, and just make that as Clear as you can. And here I am on the brink of the most emotional church service that I'm going to walk into and going, you know what? There's a few things I want to have a crack at. [00:06:47] Like, in the words of the commentator from Dodgeball, hated reference. I know that's a bold strategy. Let's see if it pays off. [00:06:55] Like, I just remember, and I just didn't sit right as I tried. There was so many different threads. I'm like, okay, no, what. [00:07:02] What is the one thing. [00:07:05] How do I distill it to the one thing that doesn't synthesize? Too much pressure to synthesize. Nearly 11 years. What's the one thing that, as your pastor, that I have prayed for, that I have pleaded for, that I have hoped for, that I hope that as I finish up and you continue on, as Janine said, that you would hold to. [00:07:31] And that helped to crystallize some things. [00:07:34] And so just before we get into that, I just, I want to make a confession before you. [00:07:40] I know nothing at all about gardening and horticulture, like, at all. I think I've made this pretty clear over my time. I turned 42 this week. I have had my moments of going, I should get into the garden. I've had those moments because I've had lots of friends who they kind of hit and like, this switch got flicked and they just wanted to be in their gardens. And that switch never got flicked for me, let alone the switch that says I should get a chicken like that never has even landed in my thinking. [00:08:14] So every time I make an attempt to step and wander into the garden, I get overwhelmed by everything there is to do and I don't know how to do it. And I just, I just, I don't know anything about gardening. A classic example is just about a month ago, Imi has been talking to me for ages about when you have leftover water in a cup or in a drink bottle, pour it into a pot plant, don't just tip it down the sink, that's a waste. [00:08:39] And I, for a long time just kept tipping it down the sink because I'm obtuse. And then I went, no, I'm going to do this. So there was a plant next to our window that I started pouring this water in. And, you know, no matter what it was, whether it was a cup, whether it was a drink bottle, whatever it was, and I'm feeling better about myself, I'm more climate conscious now. There was so many good things about this until one day I poured in A drink bottle of water. And the water stopped sinking into the dirt like it looked like the dead marshes from Lord of the Rings. [00:09:17] I was like, looking at it, going, wait, how do I. What do I do here? [00:09:22] I know very little about gardening, but I looked at it, went, something's not right here. And when Immy came in and went, what have you done to the plant? It confirmed it. [00:09:33] And so it turns out this is a type of plant. And this is a direct quote from the little thing that goes into. [00:09:42] Thrives on neglect. [00:09:46] There it is. [00:09:47] Thrives on neglect, which I didn't think was a thing. [00:09:52] You water this plant once a month in the summer, once every three months in the winter. And here I am every day, just lovingly drowning this plant to death. The whole drink bottle, two, three days in a row. [00:10:09] I know nothing about gardening and horticulture, but there is one thing that I have learned that Reuben will. There's a little plant in our backyard that Reuben will go and rip these nice, beautiful pink flowers off. And he'll go and he'll show them to Immy. He always wants to give mummy a flower. It's lovely. And then this flower will sit on the bench and wilt and go brown and die. [00:10:36] And then I get to put it in the bin. [00:10:39] Imi gets the flowers from Reuben, and I just get to clean up. [00:10:43] That's the way that our relationship goes, the three of us. [00:10:48] Why? [00:10:49] Why does this flower that starts beautiful and vibrant by the end of the day start to wither and go brown? [00:11:02] Well, my hunch, as someone who knows nothing about gardening is that when you remove this flower from its life source, it withers and it dies. [00:11:15] It has to remain connected in order for it to continue to thrive and flourish. [00:11:23] And this, this is what Jesus says in the words that we just read out about us as people, as people made in his image. And these words are quite significant. They land in the last discourse, last teaching that Jesus is going to give. [00:11:45] And so the stuff that he wants to download, the stuff that is of imperative importance, this is what he's saying here. [00:11:55] And so for me, the words that I read, this became that. If I could pass one last thing on to you as I head from this place as your pastor, it is simply this. [00:12:10] Stay connected to the true life giving vine of Jesus, remain. We'll look at this word more a little later. [00:12:20] Abide. [00:12:22] Another way of translating it that I really like is make your home in his love. [00:12:33] As I mentioned, these words, they land in the last teaching that Jesus gives, and they find themselves. This section kicks off with Jesus washing his disciples feet which was just ground like absolutely earth shattering. Like I can't believe he's doing this. [00:12:51] This is not something that a Jewish rabbi would do. This is not even something a Jewish slave would do. You would get your non Jewish slaves to do this job because it was so demeaning. And yet Jesus, out of an act of sacrificial self giving love, washes his disciples feet. They're not okay with it, they're freaking out about the whole thing. And then he says I've set you an example as I have washed your feet, so you are to wash others feet. [00:13:24] He then shares with them that he is going to leave, that his life on earth is going to come to an end and that actually it's not the worst thing in the world for them. [00:13:40] Because another advocate is going to come, that he is going to prepare a place for them, a place in his Father's house. [00:13:50] So he says, trust in me, trust in God, trust also in me, have peace because of where I am going. Which let's be honest, I mean if Jesus, who is pretty good, if he's like yeah, I'm off, I'd have some questions about that. And yet Jesus seems to say it's actually better, better for you that I'm going to go. So I'm going to send another advocate, another one who will help point and lead people to God, who will guide you into all truth. These are where these words that we've just read come into play, where he says I am the true vine. [00:14:38] Which I always found that interesting terminology because that seems to indicate there are other vines that Jesus is the true vine. [00:14:49] So his call is remain in me, remain in the true vine. There are going to be a lot of vines that you can remain in. There are going to be a lot of vines that you can give your life to, but they won't give the life and the peace that I can give. [00:15:10] And then he says in this passage In John chapter 15, he uses this word remain. [00:15:17] Depending on the translation you're in like 10 or 11 times, I'd encourage you this week go read through this passage and just see the rhythm of the word remain again and again and again. [00:15:33] He's really wanting for people to understand this word. And this word means to abide, to be held, to remain present, to make one's home in. [00:15:51] And his call to his followers is embed your life in the love of God. Don't just make the love of God a holiday home. That when you get really overwhelmed and really busy that let's just shoot off to the love of God, get refreshed and back to the the grindstone. [00:16:08] Make your home, your abiding, your dwelling place in the love of God. [00:16:16] In a completely unrelated sermon that I was just listening to this week by a guy named Tyler Staten, he just offhandedly shot out this line. [00:16:25] I've come to believe that life to the full starts and ends with remaining in the love of God. [00:16:35] That at the end of the day, how do we experience the peace that transcends all understanding? [00:16:41] We remain in the love of God. [00:16:44] How do we hold to, as we're looking at Advent today, a sense of hope that is not determined on our current circumstances and the fact that we don't really know what's coming up while we remain in the love, the character of God, that this is where life and life to the full starts. [00:17:05] And so I think a key question is how do we do that? [00:17:09] Like what does that mean to remain in his love, to make our home in his love? [00:17:17] It comes in a way that you might not expect, as verse 10 says this, if you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my father's commands and remain in his love. [00:17:36] To remain in the love is to walk a life of trust and obedience to the God who calls us. [00:17:44] I don't know if anyone's seen this movie before. I watched it in one of my sleepless nights with Benji this week. Called it the the Way My Way. It's based on a true story. It's like 70 odd year old, just like Aussie guy, hard as nails that takes a holiday in Spain, sees this group of people walking the Camino de Santiago and just goes, that makes no sense at all. And it becomes a fascination. [00:18:12] And so he decides to go and walk the Camino and his wife is like, this is ridiculous, you're not fit. And he tries to do as much but his knees are basically just like, there's no cartilage there. He overdoes it on the first day even though his wife says promise me you'll stop here. And then when someone says you're going to stop there, geez, that's not much. He's like, well I'm going to do it and just ends up wrecking his knee for the rest of the trip. [00:18:38] And there's one section but he refuses to go home because he's Australian. He's going to do it like he came to do it, he's going to do it and so he comes to this place and he looks at the track and it's just nothing but road and highway along. It's like, that's gonna kill my knee. [00:18:55] And he's sitting at this little cafe, has absolutely no idea what the way forward is. And these two fellow Camino travelers come along, join his table and basically just ask what he's up to. And he tells them his predicament. And one of the guys says, actually last year I did the Camino, someone showed me a different way. It's not along the road, it's by the river. It's really beautiful. It actually takes less time, but it's just not too known. [00:19:24] And so he ends up walking it with this guy and he's blown away by, he gets to this place, his knee's doing all right, and then he's like, why did you tell me about it? And the guy's response, his name was Ivan. He said, I want let me show you a new and beautiful way that will be better for you. [00:19:44] Someone showed it to me and now I want to show you. And he was saying, let me show you a new and beautiful way that will be better for you. [00:19:53] And this is really what Jesus is saying here when he says, if you obey my commands, he's saying, will you follow this new beautiful way of life that I have for you? That's actually better than attaching your life to any one of those other vines. [00:20:09] Will you walk this new beautiful way of trust and faith and obedience and grace, and as you do this, you remain in my love. [00:20:24] He actually gives a really succinct description of what this command is. [00:20:30] Earlier on, chances are if you've spent a fair bit of time in church land, you may have heard these words. [00:20:38] But in the beginning of this, after Jesus washes his disciples feet, he says, this a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. [00:20:49] Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. [00:20:56] This is really what the heart of the command is. [00:21:00] Just as he has loved, we are to love others. [00:21:06] Just as Jesus self sacrificially prepared to wash the feet of his disciples, prepared to give his life away. [00:21:18] This is how he loves. This is the command that we are called to love as well. And actually doesn't stop there. It goes with a far reaching promise attached by this. All people will know that you are my disciples or followers or apprentices if you love one another. [00:21:40] That if we're able to love one another in this way, it does something and it leaks out to the point where other people experience and should go, what's going on there? [00:21:52] You spend time with that person. How does that make sense? Why did you go and volunteer your time at this place? [00:21:59] Why are you living the way and loving the way that you are? [00:22:04] Something about loving this way helps people to know that we are his followers. [00:22:14] One of the coffees that I had in the lead up to this time just wanted to catch up with people. [00:22:19] Someone at that coffee asked me this over the last 10 years at Summerhill. What's your biggest takeaway exactly? Janine? It was like, whoa, that's a really good, profound big question. [00:22:34] And I pondered on it for a little bit and the answer that I came up with was this. [00:22:41] That Summer Hill Baptist. I think we were our healthiest and most joyful when we knew and lived as though we didn't exist for ourselves. [00:22:49] That when we were doing stuff like the Christmas parade that Claire's video pointed to, like when we're living out that way, when we're mentoring in the local primary school, when we were doing the stuff that reaches out into the community, I think we were at our healthiest and most joyful as a church, which is interesting because abiding in Jesus seems to bring about a certain joy. [00:23:16] He goes on and he says this, he's like, I've told you this, I've told you all these things so that my joy may be in you. [00:23:26] There seems to be this pattern that abiding in Jesus produces and cultivates love. And then as we live out that love, a joy rises. [00:23:41] This strikes me, this is how life is best lived. [00:23:46] That the love of God is for us absolutely, but never exclusively for us. That we're actually called and created to be conduits, not merely containers. [00:23:58] We're not just to have the love of God poured into us and top up my cup. That's great. [00:24:04] It's actually we're to be something that helps create a flow, that as we receive, we're able to pass on the love of God. [00:24:15] And this is what Jesus says when in Jerusalem, in John chapter seven. He says this on the last day of the feast, the great day. This is the festival of tents. And what they would do is there'd be this water bearing festival ritual where they would go to the pool, the priest would go to the pool of Siloam every day of the festival, get a golden pitcher of water and pour it down the altar. And it was, they would do that every day. And it was this sense of we're waiting for God to Come and fully refresh us. [00:24:47] And Jesus says, on the last day when all this is happening, if anyone thirsts, let them come to me and drink this. Receiving the love of God, remaining in the love of God, whoever believes in me, as the Scriptures have said, out of their hearts will flow rivers of living water. [00:25:09] There is a receiving and then a flow that goes from us. [00:25:16] And that's what I hope for Summerhill Baptist moving forward, and that's what I'm praying for. Summerhill Baptist moving forward is that you would remain connected to the true vine of Jesus and make your home in his love moving forward. [00:25:37] And that as you do that, may his life and his presence and his goodness and his peace and his joy and his love overflow in you. So that flows out and through you. [00:25:51] And my prayer is, this happens long after I'm gone, that I'll get to hear the story. I'm still going to be in Launceston. It's not going to be hard to hear the stories, but that I want to hear the stories of what God's doing in the life of Summerhill Baptist Church. [00:26:08] For the ways that you keep showing up to the Christmas parade, that you keep showing up in the primary school, that you keep showing up in different ways to the local community in which you have been placed, that's my heart and my prayer for you as a church as we hit this crossroads. [00:26:30] And I thought it would be really good to close this time by taking communion together, because this really is the embodied practice of what does it look like to remain in God? [00:26:52] That this is the command that Jesus gave on his final night of what does it mean to remember me? [00:26:59] What does it mean to hold to my example? He gave us a meal, he gave us a practice that we can reflect on and that we can remember the depth of his grace, and that's on what we stand. [00:27:20] And so this is the response to the invitation to abide and remain. [00:27:27] And so I just want to ask a question. Does anyone remember what I first spoke on, on my very first Sunday here on March 29, 2015? [00:27:38] I think there's a sense that whenever a pastor, even if the pastor says, remember what I preached on last week? It's this moment, so let's just back away. Let's hope he doesn't make eye contact. We don't want a question. But it was this passage, Colossians chapter 1, starting at verse 15, because the sense of this was like, as Matt shared, this was my first church of being the pastor. I was filled with nerves and excitement and a whole lot of stuff. And this was the first time that this church had had a senior pastor whose name wasn't Michael Ritchie in a quarter of a century. And there seemed to be a lot on it. But the more that I prayed, the more this passage kept coming back. Because at the end of the day, it's not about me. [00:28:19] It's not even about you. [00:28:23] It's about the person of Jesus. [00:28:26] And I just thought it would be a pretty cool full circle moment to read those words again. Don't worry, I'm not going to preach another sermon on them just in case you're like, what's he doing? I just want to read them out. [00:28:42] Because this is the one whom the very verses immediately preceding these words are Paul speaking our he is the One who has delivered us from the domain of darkness and brought us or transferred us into the kingdom of His Beloved Son, in whom we have redemption or the purchase of freedom, the forgiveness of sins. [00:29:08] So let me read these words, and while I'm reading them, I'd just like to ask those who are going to be handing out communion if you'd like to come and get the gluten free bread and the cup ready for us. [00:29:23] If you'd like to follow along, feel free. It's from Paul's letter to the Church in Colossians, chapter 1, verses 15 to 23. [00:29:40] The Son Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authority. All things have been created through him, and for him he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. [00:30:10] And what's good news for us today? That he is the head of the body, the Church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Him. And this is what we remember when we come to Communion, verse 20 and through him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. [00:30:44] Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he's reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death, to present you wholly in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation. If you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel or the good news, this is the good news that you heard and has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, have become a servant. [00:31:21] This Son, who was the invisible, become visible. [00:31:26] This Son, who in him all things hold together through the death of his physical body, reconciled you, me, all of us, and all things to God through the shedding of his blood. And that's what we remember in communion. [00:31:45] We take the bread, remembering his body broken. We take the cup, remembering his bloodshed. And we know that what we stand on is not our own performance, is not our own skill. It's the grace of Jesus Christ.