God: Three for the Price of One
Focus Scripture: Deuteronomy 6: 4 and John 3: 11-17

Now I’m going to tell a joke that our ancestors in the Reformed Church would have recognized and much appreciated. Today we’d consider it intolerant and politically incorrect. It might even be “hate speech.” But I will tell it as an illustration about the Holy Trinity.

The Holy Trinity, (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit) decide to go on a vacation and visit earth. The Son proposes to go to San Francisco, but the Father finds that place too full of sin. So the Father proposes a visit to Jerusalem. “I can’t go on vacation there!” says the Son, “That’s where I got killed! Besides, it’s on my schedule for next week!”

A discussion breaks out, and the Holy Spirit walks out. “If y’all can’t come up with something when I come back, we’re not going anywhere!”

An hour later the Holy Spirit walks back into the room, and the Father and the Son excitedly say they want to go to Rome. “Rome?” says the Holy Spirit, “Great idea! I’ve never been there before!”

Now imagine, while parking at Wal-Mart you slightly scrape the side of a brand new Escalade. You are certain no one else is aware of what happened. The damage is minor and would be covered by the other driver’s insurance, which the driver of an expensive SUV surely has. Would you leave a note?

I read not long ago about a person who did just that, except people were watching. So he took out a piece of paper and he wrote on it, “A number of people around me think I’m leaving you a note that includes my name, address, and phone number. But I’m not. Fix it yourself.”

In our Reformed tradition, what you would do in that circumstance is a matter of who you are, who you are becoming, and your conscience. I would suggest that each, for a Christian, is a function of what we call the Holy Trinity.

We know that a Christian doesn’t say one thing and mean another. A Christian’s creed and conduct are supposed to correspond. After all, to walk in the truth means to apply that truth to your behavior. As Jesus said, “Let your “yes” mean “yes” and your “no” mean “no.” We are to speak the truth, live the truth, and celebrate the truth.

God is truth. And God’s truth claims every aspect of our lives, whether we want it to or not.

Let’s hear our Gospel Lesson for today:

‘Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you^* do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?

No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.^* And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.^*

‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

’Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." (John 3: 11-17, NRSV)

The Christian Church has taught that there is only one God – who is supreme over the universe. Everything that exists, everything that occurs is because of this One omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God.

BUT The Christian Church has taught that this One God is Three persons or has three personalities, that the One God is a Triune being or a Trinity or Tri-unity.

Yes it is a mystery. It goes beyond the limits of our understanding, but it is given to us by the facts of God’s word. I cannot and will not pretend to understand how this works. I cannot and will not prove anything.

John Wesley once said, “Bring me a worm that can comprehend a man, and then I will show you a man that can comprehend the Triune God.”

There is a great deal recorded in the scriptures that I don’t get. But why should I expect it to be otherwise. If I understood it all that would mean that I am as smart, and wise as the one who authored it.

Since the bible is an infinite revelation from God it does bring me beyond the limits of my intelligence. Isaiah 55: 8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

The idea of the trinity is discerned throughout the scriptures from the very beginning of Genesis to the final glorious end of Revelation.

Yet there are still some who reject the Trinity.

There was a Jewish man who was a very militant atheist. But he sent his son to Trinity Christian School in New York because, despite its denominational roots, it was a great school and didn’t push a creed on non-Christian students.

After a month, the boy came home and said casually, "By the way, Dad, I learned what Trinity means! It means 'The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.'"

The father could barely control his rage. He seized his son by the shoulders and declared, "I'm going to tell you something now and I want you never to forget it. Forget this Trinity business. There is only one God... and we don't believe in him!"

Our expression of the Trinity is “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit.”

Though it says a lot, it leaves much unexplained and can make us sound confused.

St. Augustine used the term “3 persons” in his writings, though he was unsatisfied with it. He used it, “in order to not remain silent.” The Trinity is the word, though not perfect, and it is better than not saying anything at all.

Saying that there are three persons in the Godhead leads to the idea that there are three gods who sometimes relate, but only in a loose association. But we do not worship three gods who work together as one. We worship only one God.

The one God who is consistently revealed through the scriptures as the One and the Only One.

Listen to the SHEMA from Deuteronomy 6 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Hear, O Israel: YaHWeH, our Elohim, YaHWeH is One.

He is One and he is indivisible. YaHWeH is the active and self-existent One.

YaHWeH says “I am that I am” or “I will be what I will be” or “I cause to be what I cause to be” He is the creator, preserver, and governor of the universe and everything that exists. There is no other god.” 

But this proclamation “Hear, O Israel: YaHWeH, our Elohim, YaHWeH is One.” does not completely exclude the plurality of the Oneness of God.

The word for God, “Elohim” (el-o-heem) is the plural form of the word for God, “El” and is used this way through the Old Testament to refer to God. This plural word for God is often used with singular forms of the verbs.

It points towards a plurality within Oneness. It is interesting that this form is used for the word for water (“mayim”) and heaven (“shamayim.”) The words are grammatically plural – but singular in thought and in meaning.

The word for “One” here is the Hebrew word for one that means the oneness of a group as in One cluster of many grapes. It comes from a root word meaning to unify or bring together. It is the same word used in Genesis when Adam and Eve are made one flesh. It is plurality in singularity, if that makes sense.

Within the New Testament, God the Father is affirmed as The One God, and Jesus Christ is affirmed as the One God, as is the Holy Spirit affirmed as the One God.

Yet the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father. “God is what happens between Jesus and his Father in their Spirit.” (Robert W. Jensen)”

What the Father is, the Son and Spirit are also. The Son, born of the Father, and the Spirit, proceeding from Him, share the divine nature with God, being “of one essence” with him.

God is three in one without any contradiction, without conflict or disagreement. God is three in one without any rift or division. Our joke at the beginning of this message, can’t happen!

We worship the Father as God. We worship Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, as God. And we worship the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Son of God, as God. We worship only One God.

God the Father, the Creator, has been revealed to us by His Son, Jesus. And Jesus has been revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has been revealed to us by the Son and by the Father.

 It is the secret of God’s most intimate life and being, into which, in his infinite love and generosity, he has shown to us; and it is therefore to be accepted with amazed and joyous gratitude. It is Holy Mystery yet makes perfect sense.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning, and is now, and evermore shall be. Amen.

“IN GOD WE TRUST”

ACTS 2: 1-21

I would like to start a saying in the church: Bethlehem means ......God With Us. Calvary means .......God For Us. But Pentecost ....means God In Us.

When Jesus, came to earth God dwellt on earth – when Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross He did it for us – and when God gives us the Holy Spirit God begins to be in us.

Let’s hear that story of the first Pentecost:

When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.

Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.

And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.

Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?

Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs-- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power."

All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning.

No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

`In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.

And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day.Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.' "

The disciples were moping around and trying to figure out what they were going to do now that Jesus really was gone. All of a sudden the Holy Spirit came upon them.  Scriptures say that there were tongues of fire above their heads. There was a wind blowing. 

With that wind and that fire the spirit came upon the disciples. All of a sudden they were speaking in different languages so that all who were gathered together heard the message of God’s love in their own language. 

Some of the other people who were on the outside looked at them and said “Those folks are all drunk.”  The disciples defended themselves, “You know, its ten o’clock in the morning.  We’re not drunk. This is something different.  This is the Holy Spirit.”

(Remember that God had done the reverse in Genesis 11 over the issue of the Tower of Babel? One can assume that the spirit of God was the culprit in that case, as well. Is there anything God can’t do?)

Well, all along those Jerusalem folks thought that Christians were a little bit strange. They believed odd things. They lived their lives in a different way. They didn’t worry about tomorrow.  They didn’t worry about where money was going to come from. They shared all their things in common. 

Those who were not believers said, “You’re nuts.”  “You’re crazy.” When Paul was converted and arrived in the community he says, “Don’t worry about what others say. Be fools for Christ because the foolishness of God is much greater than the wisdom of humans.”

Now, after two thousand years have gone by, we need to hear these words in ways that encourage us to stand up and declare our faith in Jesus. We have to be willing to take risks and pay the price of being a Christian. 

If we don't no one else seeming wants to either. We need to trust in God and the Holy Spirit to lead and protect us.

The foolishness of God is much greater than the wisdom of humans! In the Spirit of God we can trust. In the wisdom of humans we are dead!

We need to see how important it is to allow the Holy Spirit to be our faithful guide in life. Sadly we’ve taken the supernatural out of our faith. We’ve taken the word miraculous out of our prayers and expectations because we want to master it with our wisdom.

The reason why the world hates Christians is that our faith makes no sense to those that are blind to it. The thought of unmerited grace and love as a force that changes the universe are not things that make rational human sense.

Today people trust in science (not so settled sometimes as they think -- Global warming is a hoax, and scientific proof of the nature and cause of same-sex attraction is fairly elusive. Human logic and reasoning aren't going to cut it when we get to the last judgment.

The thought of having a Holy Spirit that talks and communes with believers is grounds for commitment to a mental institution or a pathway to powerful psycho-tropic drugs. “You Christians are just so crazy!”

An Amish boy and his father were visiting a shopping mall for the first time. They were amazed by almost everything they saw, but especially by two shiny, silver walls that could move apart and back together again. The boy asked his father, "What is this, Father?" The father responded, "Son, I have never seen anything like this in my life, I don't know what it is."
      
While the boy and his father were watching wide-eyed an old lady in a wheel chair rolled up to the moving walls and pressed a button. The walls opened and the lady rolled between them into a small room. The walls closed and the boy and his father watched small circles of lights w/numbers above the walls light up.

Then they continued to watch the circles light up in the reverse direction. The walls opened up again and a beautiful 24 year old woman stepped out. The father said to his son, "Go get your Mother."

Friends God’s spirit and His miracles occur within God’s will. We can’t manipulate or misuse them to our own ends. We can only trust them.

The Holy Spirit is a person of the Godhead – but the Holy Spirit is also a verb that inspires, leads, directs, and protects us. Jesus knew we needed Him, so He was sent. Trust Him in all things. Amen.

“A River Runs Through It”
John 17: 6-17

One Sunday a pastor told his congregation that the church needed some extra money and asked the people to prayerfully consider giving a little extra in the offering plate. He said that whoever gave the most would be able to pick out three hymns. 

After the offering plates were passed, the pastor glanced down and noticed that someone had placed a $10,000 check in the offering. He was so excited that he immediately shared his joy with his congregation and said he'd like to personally thank the person who placed the money in the plate. 

A lady all the way in the back shyly raised her hand. The pastor asked her to come to the front. Slowly she made her way to the pastor. He told her how wonderful it was that she gave so much and in thanksgiving asked her to pick out three hymns. 
  
Her eyes brightened as she looked over the congregation, pointed to the three most handsome men in the building, and said, "I'll take him and him and him!

There’s no information available that tells us what happens after that, but I bet it was interesting. Let’s read our Gospel lesson for today:

"I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.  Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.

I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.

And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.

I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.  They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.  As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.  And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

How many of you have heard a pastor preach or a teacher teach, who started out with a story or phrase that grabbed you right away? That happened to me in a systematic theology class at a seminary I attended in Orlando, Florida.

The professor came in, looked around at all of us and said: “Lot was a Christian. Remember, he followed Abraham.”

That rather intriguing comment was made in the context of looking at the Book of Genesis and reviewing what people believe regarding the promise of a Messiah, the promise first disclosed all the way back in Genesis 3:15, that people would follow the seed of the woman as opposed to the seed of the serpent.

God promised Eve that a Kinsman Redeemer would come who would resolve the issue of sin and overcome the actions of the devil and the serpent.

Now if we extend this promise from Eve to Jesus, then Abraham, the father of many nations, was a Christian as well. As was probably most of the Godly line of Seth, at least that portion of it detailed in Genesis 5 (remember that these people had many sons and daughters besides the men named).

In fact I guess you could say that even Adam and Eve, after sinning, and facing God, believed the promise of redemption given by God, making them the very first Christians following the logic of God’s promise.

The point being made was that there was a promise of a Messiah that runs through almost the entirety of Scripture, and that the Bible isn’t being viewed correctly if both the Old and New Testaments don’t center on our Lord Jesus Christ.

There is a kind of red thread woven into Scripture, and it proves to be unbreakable, it proves to be unbeatable, and it signifies our connection to God love and grace.

(Distribute the red yarn around the sanctuary).

Every person who follows the promise of the seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15 is woven deeply into the Biblical story through Christ, and we can do worse than to call them Christians, even though a purist would say their faith predates the knowledge any on earth would have had of the person of Jesus Christ.

Of course, Acts 11: 26 says “…And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.” And that is true; believers, the body of Christ, followers of Jesus Christ were first called Christians there. As such, all believers are woven into the red thread, because we believe in the promise of Messiah, for we have accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior.

We believe in the promise manifested in the person of Jesus. But there were many who believed God’s promise before Christ came to save us through His death, resurrection and ascension into heaven; these are woven into the red thread as well.

I called the thread unbreakable and unbeatable, just think of all that was done to attempt to stop fulfillment of the promise or to keep people from claiming it today. The yarn we use as a representation is frail and only a poor imitation of God’s perfect spinning wheel.

Think of the twists and turns of the lives of those God selected to be in the linage of the seed of the woman. Think of the triumphs and tragedies, think of their failings as humans but their nurture through faith in the steady but rock-solid promise.

Think of the crucial pivot of history in the earthly ministry of Jesus, how He obeyed the Father’s will, how He accepted that will in the Garden of Gethsemane and vanquished the enemy once and for all, although the final victory has been deferred. Think of the power and durable strength of the red thread at that moment in time. Think about what transpired after.

“Remember, Jesus was mocked, lied about, beaten, spat upon, scourged, stripped naked, and in fact, Jesus Himself was abandoned by all of His disciples except John when He was nailed to the cross.”

The world and we sinners put our Savior through hell on earth. But even what we put Him through could not snap the red thread, strengthened and tempered by the sinless and obedient nature of Christ on earth, and woven by the love and grace of God in heaven.

Nothing can break the red thread. We, as believers, as members of the body of Christ, are blessed to be called Christians.

Those who believed the promise before there was a church are deeply blessed as well.

I have no problem thinking of them as Christians, for they believed the promise before it was manifested in Christ’s sacrifice, and isn’t belief the bedrock to anchor one’s faith on?

The church building we see around us is part of that thread, each of you is part of that thread, and the people to come are as well. Our ancestors shed much blood and sweat equity building this church and maintaining it's witness and using the thread to bind them together.

The red thread began before eternity and runs into eternity. Our God is known from the past, the present, and the future.

 Our scriptures have a beginning and an end, and the story of us runs through its middle, and the red thread is a river of love that runs through it.

 We are woven into this thread in Christ. So take some of this thread to share with someone today, for all need to be woven into it as we are. Amen

FAMILY IS NOT OUT OF STYLE

JOHN 15: 9-17

Three sons, who were very successful, discussed the gifts they gave their elderly mother on Mother's day.The first said, "I built a big house for our mother."

The second said," I sent her a Mercedes."

The third said, "I've got you, both beat. You know how Mom enjoys the Bible, and you know she can't see very well. I sent her a parrot that can recite the entire Bible. It took 20 monks in a monastery 12 years to teach him. I had to pledge to contribute $100,000.00 a year for 10 years, but it was worth it. Mom just has to name the chapter and verse, and the parrot will recite it."

Soon thereafter, Mom mailed her first letters of thanks:She wrote the first son, "Michael, the house you built is too large. I live in only one room, but I have to clean the whole house."

She wrote the second son, "Marvin, I'm nearly blind so I can't drive. I stay home all the time, so I never use the Mercedes."

"Dearest Melvin," she wrote to her third son, "You were the only son to have the good sense to know what your mother likes. That chicken was delicious!"

This is the third in a loosely connected theme of humanity’s story from pathetic looser to triumphant saint; from useless to right hand discipleship. We go from domesticated sheep to friends of God.

It is a remarkable journey that takes us from the Garden of Eden, to languish in sin and temptation, to the sanctification of Christ’s atoning death and resurrection where God truly delivers on the promise made to His creation.

Mother’s day has a special role in that journey for it is in that promise to Eve that her seed would triumph over the evil temptation and snares of Satan that God shows us His plan for us.

His loving development of family; the ordination of marriage as one man and one woman, and the responsibilities and obligations inherent in this natural order of parenting and love is the first step on the journey to redemption. 

Of course none of us can forget that the family institution of relatives work so effectively in creating community of support and love for children. Grandmothers in particular are well known to be almost intolerable for strangers:

For two solid hours, the lady sitting next to a man on an airplane had told him about her grandchildren. She had even produced a plastic-foldout photo album of all nine of the children.

She finally realized that she had dominated the entire conversation on her grandchildren. "Oh, I've done all the talking, and I'm so sorry. I know you certainly have something to say. Please, tell me... what do you think of my grandchildren?" 

I can’t help but think God considers His creation in a similar fashion particularly if you remember the Book of Job. Hear what Jesus says about us (John 15: 9-17):

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 

I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 

You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 

You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

We move from sheep to friends, from friends to disciples. We become the target of God’s love and the reason for Jesus’sacrifice.

This passage tells us that Jesus’ death made the disciples a society of friends forever bound in Him, just as we are when we profess faith in Him as Messiah.

This becomes the Apostle John’s idea of church that has no institutional, formal, organizational, denominational boundaries.  The disciples become friends of Jesus first and then become friends of other disciples just as we become members of our families first and members of the communities around us as we are taught how to live in love, abiding in Christ and with each other, bearing fruit.

The truth of the outcome of Easter – the death and resurrection of Jesus creates and characterizes Christian Community.

God’s plan holds motherhood and the family an essential part of how we learn to reclaim our lives.

The traditional Family, with a father and mother of the opposite sex, will never go out of style, be outdated, be politically incorrect, intolerant, or abandoned no matter how much the deceptions of Satan try to destroy it.

I heard just this week about studies that have found that growing up in a traditional family, doing things such families do, even as simple as bedtime story telling give children tremendous advantages over kids who don’t have such backgrounds.

Social scientists are dismayed at these findings because it means that children without such experiences are being discriminated against by children who do because of the potential for a successful accumulation of wealth and stuff the disadvantaged kids miss.

Sadly, these studies are dangerous because solutions rarely mean improvement, but rather the removal of positive things to reach the lowest common denominator as a leveling playing field.  (Some advocate the government should take over child raising so that no child will ever receive any advantage!) Never, you say?

You may not realize how important the upcoming Supreme Court ruling on same sex marriage and civil rights will be to churches and pastors. If the court rules in favor it is possible that every pastor will have to perform same sex marriage or go to jail. It will change our laws from “freedom of religion to freedom of worship.”

When a country expects its lawyers to control and even set standards of morality the devil is in charge.

It follows our current trend to control and manipulate freedom of speech in ways that restrict so-called discriminatory and hateful actions that violate other’s civil rights.

Friends, we don’t have much time left to reclaim our heritage or speak truth.

But the greatest irony of our times is that the most vocal supporters of traditional family who are speaking out is an organization (International Children’s Rights Institute) of children who grew up in alternative family lifestyles.

The ICRI provided several dozen briefs and pleas to the Supreme Court regarding its upcoming ruling on same-sex marriage. They claim it is harmful and dangerous to children and they have lived it. Their testimony needs to be heard by all.

  

While we still can, let us celebrate family, motherhood, and remember FDR’s inaugural speech from 1941 when he called for the country to live up to what he said where the four freedoms:

Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from want, Freedom from fear.

Not bad things for a mother to want for her children. Let me close with an unknown author’s version of 1 Corinthians 13 from a mother’s perspective:

If I live in a house of spotless beauty with everything in its place, but have not love, I am a housekeeper–not a homemaker. 

If I have time for waxing, polishing, and decorative achievements, but have not love, my children learn cleanliness – not godliness. 

Love leaves the dust in search of a child’s laugh.

Love smiles at the tiny fingerprints on a newly cleaned window. 

Love wipes away the tears before it wipes up the spilled milk.

Love picks up the child before it picks up the toys. 

Love is present through the trials.

Love reprimands, reproves, and is responsive.

Love crawls with the baby, walks with the toddler, runs with the child, then stands aside to let the youth walk into adulthood. 

Love is the key that opens salvation’s message to a child’s heart. 

Before I became a mother I took glory in my house of perfection. Now I glory in God’s perfection of my child.

As a mother, there is much I must teach my child, but the greatest of all is love.

This is what I think God wants from al mothers. Amen.

“PRAYER, YES PRAYER!”

John 15: 1-8 NRSV

Last week Jesus said we were sheep, and this week Jesus says we are fruit. Sheep can get away with being failures but grapes have to grow well to be a fruit that is desired and considered valuable to its vine-grower.

So on the one hand we’re miserable wretches, unable to care for ourselves and on the other hand, valuable and prized by the Eternal All-knowing, All-powerful God?

Why can’t Jesus settle on the right metaphor and stick with it? Using multiple illustrations and metaphors confuse people and allow controversy and differing interpretations to flourish, and t sometimes allows people to choose theology.

Actually, Jesus was fulfilling His role as a Jewish teacher of righteousness by using examples, metaphors, and parables to draw us near to Himself and His Heavenly Father in ways that show us who they are, who we are, and what they expect.

And He’s telling us how we can change from being a failure into a success. And it has nothing at all to do with a prosperity gospel taught by Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Copeland, Oral Roberts, or even Joyce Meyer.

God never promised us a Cadillac, a 62 million dollar plane, or our best life right now!

I do believe that the whole story of the Bible is about God longing to have a personal friendship and relationship with human beings. But we develop friendship with God by spending time abiding in Jesus in prayer, abiding in the Word, and abiding in His love, and not by personal empowerment and self-actualization.

In our Gospel lesson for today from John 15: 1-8, the Greek word used for abide is “menõ” and means to remain, sojourn, tarry, not depart, to continue to be present, to continue to be, not to perish, to last, endure, to wait for, and await one’s coming.

We are to abide, that is remain in contact and accept God’s Will in our lives. Jesus said we are to abide in God’s Word, God’s Love, and in Him, Jesus, in prayer. I want you to focus on that third thing: the theology of practical prayer.

Three preachers sat discussing the best positions for prayer while a telephone repairman worked nearby. "Kneeling is definitely best," claimed one. "No," another contended. "I get the best results standing with my hands outstretched to Heaven." 
       
"You're both wrong," the third insisted. "The most effective prayer position is lying flat out, face down on the floor." 

The repairman could contain himself no longer. "Hey, fellas," he interrupted, "the best prayin' I ever did was hangin' upside down from a telephone pole.”

A lot of us do our best prayin’ only when we have too, and mostly as a superstitious behavior like throwing salt over our shoulder when we spill it.

Listen to our Gospel Lesson for today from John 15: 1-8:

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.

Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

R. T. Kendall once wrote: “I cannot imagine a greater motivation to pray than that God enjoys having me in His presence. He enjoys my company. He delights in listening to me… It is such a dazzling thought, that the same God who has countless billions of angels worshiping Him sixty seconds a minute, day and night, to whom the nations are but a drop in the bucket, and who knows all about every leaf on every tree in the world, also welcomes my company – because I am very important to Him.”

What if this notion of fruit is relationship with God and has nothing to do with mission trips, charity giving, or changing stranger’s flat tires?

God’s promises a personal relationship that remembers shoe-sizes, hat-sizes, ice cream flavors, colors, and even knows every childhood memory. God is always home for each of us. After all, He knew us while we were in our mother’s womb.

If of course, that is, we abide in Him. If we allow Him into our hearts and confess Him Lord and Savior and trust Him. If we don’t we’re just so much sour grapes.

It is a trust that can never be broken or betrayed: Hudson Taylor once said: "The branch of the vine does not worry, and toil, and rush here to seek for sunshine, and there to find rain. No; it rests in union and communion with the vine; and at the right time, and in the right way, is the right fruit found on it. Let us so abide in the Lord Jesus."

Abiding in prayer is like what a 4 year old once prayed in Sunday School, “And forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets!”

Let Him handle the trash removal in our lives – let Him have control over everything. (Abiding means surrendering control.)

Abiding in Christ means developing patience. A small boy was looking at the red ripe tomatoes growing in a farmer's garden. "I'll give you my two pennies for that tomato," said the boy to the farmer, pointing to a beautiful, large, ripe fruit hanging on the vine.

"No," said the farmer, "I get a dime for a tomato like that one." The small boy pointed to a smaller green one, "Will you take two pennies for that one?" "Yes," replied the farmer, "I'll give you that one for two cents."

"OK," said the small boy, sealing the deal by placing his coins in the farmer's hand, "I'll pick it up in about a week."

In Christ the good things are coming, they are paid for, but we must wait for them.

A man once remarked that when his children were small and being taught to pray, they had three kinds of prayer: "Please prayers," Thank you prayers," and "Sorry prayers." (Abiding in Christ means relationship appropriate prayers count).

We call such things in human relationships “maintenance” activity and is necessary because otherwise the relationship becomes boring, tedious, and one-sided.

A man took his small son with him to town one day to run some errands. When lunch time arrived, the two of them went to a familiar diner for a sandwich. The father sat down on one of the stools at the counter and lifted the boy up to the seat beside him. They ordered lunch, and when the waiter brought the food, the father said, "Son, we'll just have a silent prayer."

Dad got through praying first and waited for the boy to finish his prayer, but he sat with his head bowed for an unusually long time. When he finally looked up, his father asked him, "What were you praying about all that time?" With the innocence and honesty of a child, he replied, "How do I know? It was a silent prayer."

Sometimes abiding in Christ means just being silent and listening for/to Him.

If we abide in the Lord, and continue a daily existence with Him, He will know what our needs are, what our dangers are, what our wants are, and who we are concerned with or about.

It just like having a constant communication connection, abiding sustains the relationship.  It can never be hacked, turned off or blocked by anyone else. Amen.